Cloudbound

by Fran Wilde

  Wik frowned, as if he could still taste the drug. “People can share a Law or a song easily. But Dix wants to possess those brass plates, or at least what they represent. They’re trouble.” He looked about to say more, but winced instead and tried to find a more comfortable place to sit.

  The temperature in the cave dropped again. “You could say that about any metal,” I said.

  Aliati nodded agreement.

  “Perhaps.” Wik shrugged as if he didn’t really think so.

  Now that I was dry, I wrapped my arms around Ceetcee and Beliak, trying to shield them from the cold air. But my thoughts were far away, in the towers above the clouds, and Laria in particular. Even if we were safer now, not everyone was. We’d told the silkspinners about Rumul, and they’d confronted Dix. Friends from the northwest quadrant had sounded alarms and distracted her blackwings. Doran’s guards had started fights to draw them away into the night. We’d rescued our friends. But then we’d left those above defenseless against the retribution of Dix and her blackwings. And we’d left others we loved up there too. Macal, guiding the northwest. Those who had spoken against the Conclave.

  “Who’s with Elna?” Was she alone, after Doran had promised protection?

  “My daughter and her mother,” Doran replied. “Both good fighters, if it comes to it.”

  That didn’t ease my mind. Doran looked troubled too. “They’ll hold their own,” he said. “And Elna’s stronger than you give her credit for.”

  It wasn’t his right to tell me about my mother, but I held my tongue.

  The cave air grew thick with lost opportunities and broken chances. If Kirit had gone along with the plan. If Hiroli hadn’t been captured. Ciel. If Doran had been able to keep hold of the city while we’d been searching for answers. If I’d been faster.

  If Dix hadn’t found the brass plate among Rumul’s effects. I began to pace again.

  “Hiroli and Moc, you were at Laria for days,” Doran said. “You must know something more.” I remembered Dix leaning over Rumul’s body, interpreting his whispers, and shuddered.

  Moc looked bleak. “They promised me wings. I offered to help find Nat in trade for new wings, I think.” He put his head on his knees.

  “That was the drug, Moc,” Djonn said. “It makes you helpful. Compliant.” He looked down. “I know—it did the same to me.”

  Hiroli blinked. “I heard Dix talking, a couple times.” She smiled grimly. “They thought I was sleeping. She told visitors Kirit was colluding with rogue Singers now, that she’d infiltrated the Spire on purpose years ago.”

  I growled and began to pace the cave. “That’s ridiculous. Kirit was taken by the Spire. Used by them.” As my father had been. Between my fingers, the broken pieces of Naton’s drawings clicked together, useless, but comforting.

  Hiroli massaged the bridge of her nose, trying to remember. “Dix said the northwestern quadrant had planned insurrection a generation ago. That Ezarit had schemed with an artifex to gain power. Kirit had seen the plan through.”

  That could be only one artifex: She meant Naton and the holes he’d drilled in the Spire. “She’s saying Ezarit set that up, then sacrificed her daughter to the Spire? She’s cloudtouched.”

  Hiroli waved a hand back and forth as if pushing the idea away. “She’s convinced the southwest towers and some in the east. Everything that’s happened since? It’s proof Ezarit didn’t deserve to lead the city.”

  “Don’t speak that way of the dead, even if you’re just repeating,” Aliati said before the rest of us could. Hiroli bowed her head.

  Kirit kicked Wik’s robe away and stood, fist curled around a knife handle, looking ready to head back to Laria and fight again. “Dix is the one killing the Spire. She’s bringing on a collapse.”

  Wik growled. “Doran, you heard these rumors too.” He tugged at Kirit’s hand, trying to get her to sit back down.

  Doran shrugged, but began to walk the cave as well, limping on his injured foot. There was little space for the two of us. “I heard, but didn’t believe them.”

  Beliak began coughing and shivering harder. Ceetcee lifted the bandage. The wound had darkened and puckered. “Bone dust,” she whispered. “This is bad.”

  “Kirit survived an infection. Beliak will too.” He had to. But even Kirit blanched at the threat of a bone dust infection. She’d been sick for months, with all the medicine the city could provide. Down here, there was no medicine. But Ceetcee nodded, her eyes hopeful.

  Would others succumb to the fever as well? So far none had, but without food or warmth, we’d all sicken. The scratches I’d received at Laria throbbed, but my old wounds from Spirefall were painful too. The dust and deep clouds were affecting all of us. Kirit was right. We needed to go back.

  A loud boom rolled through the air, nearly overhead.

  Bright light illuminated the cave, throwing enormous shadows behind us. Our wings, propped fully spread against the cave walls to dry, glowed and rippled. Hiroli jumped again. “We need to find a safer place,” I finally said. Home. The city.

  Aliati looked at me and shook her head slowly. “We’re safer here than anywhere else. So few suspect this cave exists, and it’s too deep in the clouds to scavenge. I didn’t think about looking for it until Ciel’s song.”

  It struck me then. “This is the nest of thieves?”

  “I think so,” Aliati said. “Though it’s pretty small.”

  Doran snorted. “Dix’s guards won’t stop until they find us. We have her brass plates, her artifex … Kirit. And now Ciel too.”

  “Don’t,” Wik began. Ciel nestled closer to Ceetcee.

  “I’m not saying anything that we’re not all thinking.” Doran ignored Wik. “Ciel took something from Dix. So did Djonn. Dix will be looking to—”

  “Enough!” Wik shouted, reaching for a blade that didn’t exist. He grabbed a fistful of robe instead.

  I stepped between them, blocking Wik’s view of Doran. “No more of that. Not right now.” If this kept up, we wouldn’t make it through a single night without becoming our own enemies.

  Aliati made a calming gesture with her hands, smoothing the air. “I think they can try looking for us, but it will be like finding a skymouth in the open air.” Ciel nodded and relaxed. Doran toed the dust on the cave floor. But Wik looked out into the storm, as if blackwings might appear there any time.

  Kirit regarded Aliati. “Are you planning on living down here the rest of your life? Don’t you want to go back to the city? To help people fight? Dix could drain the city of heartbone to make more lighter-than-air. She could kill towers, enslave more fledges.”

  “You don’t know that,” Hiroli countered. “Besides, before, Dix was just doing what she’d been asked.” Hiroli jerked a thumb at Doran. “Following orders.”

  She wasn’t helping the situation. I frowned at her, but she didn’t notice.

  Doran sat down slowly. “Dix isn’t following my orders now,” he muttered. “She lied to me too. My needs momentarily matched hers. Then she wanted more power.”

  Momentarily. “Do you really think that she’s done with you? She’ll keep using you to gain favor in the city. She’ll try to rescue you, to save the council leader from the Lawsbreakers. Will you go along with that to survive?”

  I wanted to shake my former mentor until his teeth rattled. He’d taken advantage of the council’s situation to build his position—whether it was purely to speed the city’s healing or to speed his rise to power didn’t matter. He’d used Dix to build more advantage, and she’d played on his weaknesses, pretending to be loyal to him. She’d outplayed him. Now he was acting wounded. “You built a fire, and the wind changed. You got burned. Will you return to try again?”

  Doran looked at the floor. “I know. I shouldn’t have trusted her. I learned to trade by building nets of people. In politics, that’s like getting consensus before a vote. But building consensus means you rely on loyalty when the vote comes around. Dix used that. Used me. Can I tell you h
ow awful that feels?” He looked at me. “Nat, you of all people should understand.”

  The Singers had used me once, and Elna and Naton. I did understand.

  Ceetcee looked up from where she tended Beliak, then looked away, shaking her head. But Kirit spoke. “You’re singed, but you’re still playing the game, or hoping to.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Doran nodded anyway. Kirit spun her blade on the bone floor, thinking.

  Not for the first time, I worried Doran’s manipulations would eventually burn us too.

  * * *

  Stomachs growled. Our group shivered in silence. The cave wasn’t a large space, and each time elbows or knees connected or rainwater dripped in the wrong place, soaking a drying robe, tension bloomed. Like the clouds outside, the mood in the cave grew darker. When Aliati began picking the lichen from her robe and staring at the mess of ferns and moss left on the cave floor from our ascent, I prepared myself for more grumbling. Instead, she knelt by Djonn, propped against the wall, his eyes closed tight. She nudged his arm. “Does skymouth hide burn?” She stared at the sole sack of lighter-than-air we had remaining, suspended above Djonn’s sling chair.

  “Try this instead.” I hurried to find the dried hide at the back of the cave.

  She made a frame of bones from the cairn and placed the carcass on top. The flint sparked, and slowly the hide caught and smoked, but the fire was close enough to the cave mouth that it didn’t smother us.

  I peered outside, eyeing the smaller cave. With the rain easing, I could search it for more fuel, as well as food.

  Aliati’s small fire didn’t do much to warm the space, but it did cheer us. Ceetcee helped strip leaves from the lichen stems. It sounded like tiny wing rips, seam by seam, leaf by leaf. Aliati took Ceetcee’s water sack and held it outside in the slowing storm to fill, then put the stripped lichens inside and swung the sack over the fire on a bone batten from the wing.

  She caught me staring at her. “Thieving isn’t a scavenger’s only skill.” Her face broke into a grim smile as she swung the water sack, warming it above the fire. “We also start fires. Bring me your robe.”

  I hesitated, picturing my robe aflame, but when I obliged, she pulled more broken fern stems and green lichen from the hem, where they’d caught, damp. She added these to the sack with the lichen Kirit had pulled from her robe. We busied ourselves picking through the sparse vegetation we’d dragged in from outside.

  “Why not these?” Wik asked, pointing to the pile of yellow-colored lichen Aliati had set aside on the floor.

  She shook her head, dropping the greens in the sack. “Yellow’s poison. Good to know it’s out there, though.”

  Wik raised his eyebrows. “Indeed.”

  Outside, lightning flashed again, but farther away, while Aliati cooked. I remembered the same feeling of anticipation watching Elna bake apples or graincakes as a child. Finally, Aliati pulled the sack of rainwater and greens away from the fire to let it cool. My mouth watered, even at the bitter smell that came from inside. The others edged closer as well.

  She picked a bone shard from the pile by the cave mouth, rinsed it clean in the rain, and lifted green shoots from the water so they steamed in the air. After a few moments letting them cool, she held the trailing greens out to me.

  I took a piece eagerly and chewed. Coughed into my hand so no one would see the expression on my face as I kept chewing. “Good!” I finally said around the mouthful of greens. They were bitter to taste and tough, but all we had. They might have been good with goose, possibly. Or even something smaller, like dirgeon. They could have been good with anything. If we had anything, which we didn’t. My stomach growled.

  “We’ll get more food from outside soon, but this will help,” Aliati said, smiling at me. “I’m not a great cook. I don’t know many cooking songs.”

  Ceetcee eyed the greens cautiously, then nodded once. “We’ll have to make our own songs.”

  27

  LITTLEMOUTHS

  When the storm rolled away and only cold drizzle remained, Ciel took Moc and skidded down the slope outside the cave to hunt more greens for Aliati. We heard them squabbling down below, but couldn’t make out the words.

  I stepped outside and climbed the rough outcroppings to the smaller cave above, searching for more fuel, and maybe a dirgeon.

  The small cave was bigger than it looked from below, but so squat I had to crawl into it and couldn’t straighten up once inside. It reeked of guano, and I didn’t like the idea of getting a face full of the stuff. I reached forward with my bone hook. Felt dry weeds rustle. Tapped a hard shell.

  Eggs. I whooped loud enough to send small rodents scrambling and something larger flapping outside.

  Carefully, I drew the nest filled with three eggs into the dim cloudlight. Too small to belong to a bone eater, the eggs were still each as large as my hand, colored a speckled gray.

  “What did you find?” Moc shouted, looking up from below.

  “Food,” I grinned. I tucked the eggs in my robe and threw the empty nest down to the ledge.

  By the time I’d scrambled down the tower, the twins had climbed back up to the cave. Their gray robes were streaked with moss and sap, and they clutched fistfuls of lichen. They eyed the egg-shaped bulges in my robes with great interest as the bitter, beardy plants dangled through their fingers.

  Once they passed the lichen to Aliati, I gave them two of the eggs to shake, and demonstrated how to prepare them with the third.

  Kirit fed the nest to the fire. “What kind of bird lays giant gray eggs? A gryphon?” she asked, joking.

  “You always think it’s a gryphon,” I replied.

  Using three battens from Kirit’s wing, Djonn and Ceetcee built a tripod over the fire and suspended a small bone trivet beneath. I placed the eggs in the trivet, and we waited hungrily.

  When they were roasted, we cracked the eggs open and shared out the white and gold insides among everyone.

  “Delicious,” Ceetcee whispered.

  They even tasted good with the greens.

  Our bellies finally full, we curled up on the cave floor and against the walls, and slept.

  * * *

  The cawing woke me first, before the gryphon’s beak descended. I rolled away, barely awake, and the night-colored raptor speared only my robe. Ceetcee shrieked and batted at the wings.

  “Someone’s unhappy about the missing eggs,” Aliati said as she ducked into one of the alcoves with Moc and Ciel. The angry gryphon’s wingspan filled the cave with dark feathers, toppling the tripod over the now-cold fire with a clatter. Maalik woke from his roost by Beliak and flew at the gryphon, but was driven back. The larger bird screeched and chased me deeper into the cave.

  At the other side of the cave, Hiroli cowered, while Doran tried to shield Beliak. When the gryphon’s hooked beak started to jab at my arms, drawing blood, Ceetcee swung at it with a bone hook. The bird dodged it easily. Wik grabbed a batten and poked overhead, but that only enraged the gryphon. It chased me farther into the back of the cave, claws extended.

  Finally, Aliati managed to swat it with her satchel, stunning it. She and Wik pushed the gryphon out of the cave and over the edge.

  “Dinner.” Kirit was the first over the cave ledge, knife drawn. Aliati stopped just long enough to put her newly dry wings on and followed her.

  “Mighty hunter,” Ceetcee chuckled, holding out a hand to help me up.

  I laid my finger against her lips. “Shhh.”

  Wik, close behind us, peered at the cave wall.

  “Something’s here.” Wik pressed his fingers into a crack beside the metal pole. With a shuddering creak of bone moving across bone, part of the wall turned slowly on an invisible hinge.

  The alcove became a slim opening, revealing a narrow, dusty tunnel beyond. The space was so dark we couldn’t see the end of it, but I felt a cool breeze brush my cheek.

  “Be careful,” Ceetcee said. I squeezed her hand, wanting her not to be nervous about the ti
ght space, but she batted at my arm. “I’m not just saying that for me. Voids can weaken a tower, like on Lith. That one doesn’t look too bad, but you don’t want an old tunnel falling in on you because someone got ambitious.”

  I looked from her to the tunnel, then back. Wanting to see what was back there, but not wanting to leave her with more worries. She shook her head. “I’ll stay with Beliak. You go. Just be careful.”

  Both Wik and I could see metal lining the roof of the tunnel and a graceful curve of bone. It looked like a good bet that the central core was intact. “Keep the others out of here, at least until we know more?”

  My heart still pounded from being woken so suddenly, and perhaps a little at the thought of going through that narrow passage after Ceetcee’s warning. But we needed to make sure the passage was clear of threats. And, I admit, I wanted to explore, too.

  While I hesitated, Moc and Ciel ignored Ceetcee’s muted “wait” and squeezed between me and the crack in the alcove, their heads bumping my scraped elbows.

  I looked behind me. “No one else yet, all right?” Ceetcee nodded.

  I felt along the outer wall until I found the littlemouth from the day before and lifted it gently to my hand, where it clung. Wik hummed, and it lit up, illuminating the tunnel for a short distance.

  “A real thieves’ cave,” Moc said. “I can’t see anything.”

  “Try humming,” Ciel whispered to Moc.

  Moc still looked pale and drawn, but with his twin urging him on, he hummed in the dark passage. A soft glow appeared down the tunnel, then went out.

  “Do like me,” his sister said again, then she hummed louder. The end of the cave brightened as several littlemouths responded. The tunnel glowed blue, and we could see it wrapped around a corner. A few steps farther, metal sparkled in the dim light. Beyond that, the glow kept getting brighter. Ciel watched her brother, holding her breath to see if what he saw pleased him. “They can hear us, Moc.”