Cloudbound

by Fran Wilde

  “But why didn’t these piles attract a bone eater?” Wik wondered. “Why did they leave the other plates?”

  “Maybe it did attract a bone eater, or worse.” I thought of the skymouth husk in the other room. The teeth we’d reclaimed, that Kirit was turning into knives. Perhaps it had chased the attackers away.

  Ceetcee still fumed at Hiroli. “Take her kavik before you start mulling history. She shouldn’t send a message until we all agree to do it. Even knowing what we do now.”

  Hiroli looked meaningfully at the bones, frowning. She held the kavik tightly.

  “Ceetcee’s right,” I said, and held out my hand.

  Slowly, Hiroli passed the bird to me. I gave it to Ceetcee, who tucked the wriggling thing under her arm with a glare.

  We had no cloth to cover the bones with, and we couldn’t lower them into the clouds. They were part of the city now. Looking up to the clouds for Remembrances seemed wrong here.

  “How do you mourn the past?” I wondered.

  Wik knelt at the entrance to the space. “By remembering it.” He drew a pattern in the dust. The sign for Allmoons. “Mercy on your wings, citizens.”

  We backed away from the room. I planned on never returning. Leaving those particular ghosts at peace.

  Walking up to us, Kirit coughed. “Beliak is finally asleep,” she said. She stared at the bones and reached out to Wik, unable to tear her gaze away. “Mercy on their wings.”

  I’d turned to lead her and all of us back into the main cave, but Aliati whistled “follow.” She’d ducked through an opening, and beyond it, the passage broadened and grew light enough to see by without the littlemouths’ help. As we traced her path, the light grew brighter still. We stood at another cave mouth, one that opened onto a sky meadow.

  Oh. Green with vegetation and flooded with mist, the meadow filled in the space between the tower, the ridge walls beside it, and two more towers in the distance. Outcroppings stretched between them, joining into walls. It was beautiful. Behind me, the others crowded the cave mouth, exclaiming.

  The storm had passed for now, and the meadow’s greens sparkled with moisture.

  Moc lowered himself down the tower’s side.

  “Don’t—” I said, thinking of another valley, where the vegetation had been thin in places, and easy to fall through. Too late. Moc’s feet crushed the plants growing above the moss near the tower; he waded through a mass of nettles, yelping now and then while gathering more stems for food on the way. The meadow remained firm beneath his feet. He focused on a stand of tall branches that curled into spirals: Ferns. Giant ones.

  Moc stopped and looked back at us. Pulled a bone hook from his belt. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Ciel, come down here. I can see the whole meadow, and the towers.”

  He sounded like the old Moc again, like he’d shaken loose the last webs from Laria.

  Drawing out my last tether, I knotted the line to a wing grip on the wall. The tower gate had once been carved with murals, but age and weather had worn those away. I climbed down the wall and landed close to Moc. My feet crunched fern leaves. The uneven surface rolled and compressed like the guano and loam mix Beliak used in balcony planters uptower, though richer and lumpier. I stumbled more than once.

  Nettles scraped my legs where my robes were torn, burning my skin. The pain barely registered. I was walking between towers. Not flying, not crossing a bridge—I could turn in any direction and keep walking. It was like flying for the first time. Moc’s face showed similar glee. “We don’t even have to use wings!” He’d been without a wingset for so long. Now he didn’t need any.

  At least for now. We would have to return soon and decide what to do. How to confront the city.

  Beside me, Aliati, Doran, and Ceetcee climbed down into the meadow to pick the ferns and lichen. Ceetcee held out corners of her robe to make a bowl. The wet tearing of roots sounded like fabric ripping. “You sure this is solid?”

  Aliati held up a batten, caked with at least a hand span of dirt. “We won’t hurt it picking a few leaves. Just watch where you step.”

  From the corner of my eye, I caught movement by the cave entrance. Kirit had fallen to her knees.

  For me, for Moc, this meadow held wonder. For Kirit, it must contain echoes of another valley, the memory of councilors falling from the clouds. Her mother. For a moment, I smelled the awful scent of the fallen again. She’d lost almost everyone. I still had family, even here. For now.

  I started towards Kirit. She’d been lost beneath the clouds, and the council had fallen to the ground where she’d stood. We were no longer rivals in the Gyre, and we weren’t wing-siblings either. We’d both changed and made mistakes and survived.

  But I’d want her fighting by my side, or at my wingtip, no matter what. As I would fight at hers.

  Though I moved fast, Wik got to her first and waved me away. Wordlessly, he helped Kirit back inside the cave.

  Moc, meanwhile, had moved forward, towards the far towers. Chief explorer. Ciel followed, but yelped when she snagged on a nettle. It didn’t stop her for long. Careful where she put her feet, she spun in a slow circle, taking in the dirt beneath her feet, the towers around her, rising dark and gray up into the clouds.

  * * *

  “Three towers, together!” Moc pointed. “Which ones are they, do you think?”

  “We shouldn’t take too long here,” I said. “See if there are more plates, more weapons, then head back.”

  The boy made a face. “Djonn’s gone to sit with Beliak so Wik could stay with Kirit. Everyone’s fine,” Moc said. “Please?” Ciel echoed him. They sounded like children again.

  I couldn’t say no.

  But when we reached the base of the next nearest tower, we faced a wall of solid bone. The core had grown out and over the tiers. “Nothing,” I said, preparing to turn around.

  Moc clambered up a bonefall and prepared to leap to another pile of bone closer to the next tower’s edge. I was about to argue him back down when footsteps crunched the ferns nearby. Ceetcee approached.

  “Moc! Careful. We can’t patch you up as easily down here.” She turned to me. “Aliati’s making poultices for Beliak. She hopes it will help him, as well as Doran and the others who are injured.” With Ceetcee distracted by talking to me, Ciel had joined her brother on the bonefall. Ceetcee frowned but didn’t scold again. “Doran’s trying to talk her into scavenging the metal in the cave, but she’s resolute. Says this is a scavenger sanctum. She won’t touch it.”

  “That’s good news.” We needed someone else to keep an eye on Doran—someone who wasn’t Wik—who could understand Doran’s interest in salvaging while still disagreeing with him. “How are you feeling?” I watched Aliati and Doran climb the wall back to the cave mouth, pulling themselves hand over hand by the tether.

  “Better,” she said. And she looked it. “Food helped.”

  “We’d had food with us the whole time, in Hiroli’s pockets.” We just hadn’t known it. “Hiroli knew.”

  “She did. And she’s scared. I’m trying to forgive her for the bird. She wants to go back up as much as the rest of us. Which is why Aliati and I’ve been thinking about where we are, in relation to the city—Careful!” The last was shouted as Moc climbed closer to the next tower and Ciel followed him. Bones clattered as they scrambled and leapt between piles.

  “We’re undercloud,” I said, turning in a circle. It seemed all there was left to us. The twins had reached a safe spot on the bonefall.

  But Ceetcee pulled a silk square from her pocket. “I borrowed this from Aliati.” The Justice game. She walked towards the tower and spread the game board on a broad block of fallen bone.

  With the city above spread once more before us, Ceetcee put her finger next to Bissel. “The ghost tower is here. We flew south and west from Laria to the ledge. Then turned this way, I think,” her finger traced a pattern. “So that tower”—she pointed behind me, back towards the littlemouth cave—“is probably Varu, unless it st
ops before it reaches the clouds. The next one, where Moc and Ciel are, might be Naza. Or something close by. Those are good, stable towers.” Bridge artifexes knew the towers nearest where they worked, but were fascinated by all of them. And Ceetcee was a good bridge artifex. “If we need to shelter down here for a long time, this is a good place to do it.”

  She glanced back towards the cave, then returned her attention to the map. I could guess her thoughts: If Beliak recovers.

  During the cold, quiet night, each of us had probably thought about staying below. I certainly had. It wasn’t a pleasant idea. When could we return to the city? The question was more pressing for Ceetcee. Every day below the clouds meant she drew closer to the days she’d be too gravid to fly. I hadn’t thought past staying alive each moment and keeping everyone else alive too. But she had. Returning meant risk. Staying, too.

  Chagrin shook me that I hadn’t thought it through. “So once we know where we are, we can try to fly close to a friendly tower, like Densira or Mondarath, and send Maalik up?”

  She nodded, glad I’d seen where she was going. “He could take a message to the northwest towers.” It was a good idea. Practical, no-nonsense. That was Ceetcee, even in the clouds.

  At the third tower’s wall, Moc studied a mottled indentation carefully. He gestured to Ciel, and she pressed her fingers along the marks.

  “If the towers are Naza and Varu, we’ve traveled far vertically, but barely moved across the city.” Maalik would have a long way to climb, and then fly.

  At the tower wall, Ciel let out a surprised cry. Water spilled down bone somewhere nearby. Rain again? I didn’t see any dark clouds on the horizon. Then came the sound of bone grinding against bone.

  “A windgate!” Ciel said.

  A panel in the tower wall slid open as a hidden cache of water released. The tower rumbled and shook like the whole thing was about to come down. “Get back!” I shouted, forgetting the map. I ran to pull the twins from the bonefall and wound up holding Moc by the armpits. Only one tower in the city above had windgates still, and it was cracked and dying. Was this the Spire?

  “Let me go!” Moc squirmed, all elbows and knees, ignoring the risk, and I dropped him on the lichen. “We were only looking! See! It’s shaped like the entrance to our cave, but much deeper.”

  Ciel pointed and I looked back at the entrance to our own shelter. Even from here, I could see mottling around the opening. Carvings I’d thought were decorative. “But our gate must have been stuck open for a long time,” she said.

  The opening gate before us revealed a cave similar to that of our own shelter as well. I relaxed a little. The twins climbed back up on the bonefall.

  “What do you see?” Ceetcee called, catching up with us. Her breath came heavy. “It’s so overgrown here. So green.”

  My hunter blues stuck out against the shades of green, gray, and ocher, but the bottom of Ceetcee’s fern-stained yellow robes had begun to blend in with the towers. All around us, the bone was draped with green patina, rimes of moss and lichen layered over generations. Moss darkened ridges where bone core overgrowth had folded itself into lumps and bulges. The air was thick with green here too, and we could breathe so much easier. But the rich smells were overwhelming. Ceetcee held her nose, but kept going.

  We climbed the bonefall as the twins crawled into the cave. “I see wingsets,” Ciel said. “And weapons. All along the tunnel.” Her voice receded as she followed Moc. I scrambled after them.

  “I’ll get the others,” Ceetcee said. Then she paused, one foot on the bonefall. “Unless you don’t want everyone to know?”

  “Maybe for now.” Secrets tended to break groups apart. We’d learned that from the Singers, from the council. But Hiroli had been keeping secrets too. Ceetcee remained by the windgate.

  This tunnel was longer than our entire cave, and filled with spiderwebs. As Moc had said, several shallow alcoves lined the path. Moc stood in one, examining a stash of bone arrows and spears.

  “Good find,” I whispered, beckoning him back.

  “Look!” Ciel pulled us to another alcove and pointed at a broken double slab of bone held tight by a large bone screw atop it. “What’s this?”

  I shook my head. No idea. “That’s a loom, though.” The bone loom, bigger than any we had in the city, was cracked and pushed on its side up against the wall. “These were made here,” I said. “Too big to carry up.” But with what tools?

  The wingsets Ciel found were in decent shape. The silk had rotted away, but the wingframes were intact, and very basic. No controls. No fine-tuned batten structure. Only simple geometries. Ciel pulled one away and peered behind it. Coughed. “More bones.” She backed from the alcove, pushing me into Moc, who’d come running from behind, trying to catch up.

  “Nat, a codex!” he held a rectangle made of something soft and thick, not bone. It crumbled in his hands. Not silk either. The rotting rectangle was folded into the basic shape of a codex, but held nothing inside. “There are lots of them,” Moc added. He’d found more bone piles in the tunnel as well. But these bones hid nothing but dust. No injuries. No hints about who they’d been or why they’d died.

  I shook my head. “It makes no sense. They were living down here. Making things. And then they were gone, and everything’s piled in this tunnel.” I toyed with the screw on the double slab of bone, the break in the slabs too straight to be accidental. Ciel pried the slabs apart to reveal a bit of brass plate pressed into thick dust.

  She stared at it, understanding dawning. “Djonn figured out the lighter-than-air process by doing the reverse of the plate drawings,” she said. Her eyes lit up. “He thought it was a code.” She grew more excited. “He wasn’t backwards. The plate was. Watch. He’ll love this.”

  Everyone in the tunnel looked up from what they were exploring. The littlemouths’ light wavered at the sound of Moc’s voice. “Why does that matter?”

  Instead of explaining, Ciel took a small bone jar of blacking from her satchel and smeared the plate with it. She scooped the piece of brass from the slab, wiped most of the blacking off, and flipped one side of her robe upside down so that the paler, cleaner side showed. Mashing the plate onto her robe, she pressed down hard. When she lifted the plate, all I saw was a mess on Ceetcee’s robe. Then I noticed that the small imprint looked almost readable. At least the symbols were flipped a familiar direction.

  Moc understood first. “They could share guides for building things without memorizing songs or lugging carvings around. Sometimes the best way to fight is to teach.”

  “Maybe once that was true, but something happened.” I gestured to the broken slab. In the dim tunnel, the walls seemed to crawl with shadows.

  “Ugh, spiders,” Moc said.

  It was damp in the tunnel, but spiders should have scattered when we opened the gate.

  Ciel hummed until the littlemouth on my shoulder glowed again. There weren’t any bugs. The walls of this tunnel were also covered with carvings. Angles, like Aliati had made on the map to trace the fledges’ flight paths. A picture of a scope. A perfect circle.

  “People might have lived here for generations,” I said, looking at the interplay of carvings, but thinking of what Ciel said. Most of the symbols were unreadable, but a few, if reversed, almost looked familiar. One resembled the tower sigil for “tradition,” upside down.

  “It’s like someone tried to start a city below,” Ciel whispered. “I like it here.”

  “Was Corwin’s Thieves before or after The Rise?” I asked, still studying the carvings: men and women weaving, holding up sheets with more symbols on them. Though she was still young, Ciel had learned Singer ballads for many years, while all I’d had was a few moons’ study with Tobiat.

  “Much later, I think.”

  “So maybe,” I mused, sensing Moc’s impatience, “some people didn’t rise with the Singers. Maybe some stayed here and didn’t fight tower against tower. Maybe they kept artifexing.…”

  Moc picked up my trai
n of thought. “Maybe there were differences over how to live.” He put aside several arrows and pushed a bow away from the wall. His finger traced the carvings to the cave mouth, ending at a place where several figures were dug out with deep hatch marks.

  I drew a calming breath. We’d seen similar in the littlemouth cave. The reversed symbols. The interwoven marks. The erasures. Perhaps once there had been a difference in how to live. Perhaps not everyone had agreed. Tower versus tower war, in this perfect cloudbound meadow? I hoped not.

  But one thing was clear. We were one people once, not Spire and Tower. We understood many things. Then we came apart.

  “Let’s keep going,” Ciel said. “Coming, Ceetcee?” she shouted down the tunnel.

  Ceetcee hesitated at the windgate. “You go ahead if you must. If there’s a collapse, someone will need to go for help.” She kept her voice light, but I knew she was uncomfortable.

  Her caution gave me pause, but the twins were already running ahead.

  “Slow down. There could be bone eaters or worse.” If they got hurt on my watch, I couldn’t forgive myself. Ciel paused, eyes wide. The littlemouth’s glow stayed with us as Moc moved farther away. “Moc!” Darkness closed around him, and silence.

  That fledge never listened. Ciel and I chased after him.

  The tunnel ended in a black gap that echoed empty and wide. I smelled old bone, dust, and dampness now. We’d walked deeper into this tower than we had in the previous one, and the gap would have alarmed Ceetcee.

  But when we emerged from the tunnel, I knew a bone void wasn’t the danger. This tower was dying, without a doubt, but it wasn’t from natural causes.

  I had a better guess where we were now. And it was neither Naza, nor Varu.

  Ciel and I stepped into the dim light; Moc stared up in gape-jawed amazement.

  We stood on a narrow ledge that ran nearly the tower’s full circumference. After the ledge, there was nothing but dust-filled air, lit by the littlemouths on our shoulders. Above us, for as far as we could see, black-shadowed galleries rose until they disappeared.