by Fran Wilde
“City save us,” said Wik.
“The city can’t save us,” I said, changing my grip on the bow. “We have to save ourselves.”
Fire shot through my arm as I readied my arrow but I hesitated. This was an unfamiliar bow, and I was injured. What if I couldn’t hold it? I could harm Ciel. I could hit the city. But Kirit and Wik had no shot. I did.
Hiroli smiled, her face utterly calm, and terrifying.
We cannot lead out of fear, Ezarit had said. And I was afraid. So very afraid.
But not acting was worse. I felt the breeze against my cheek, blowing towards Hiroli. Saw the meager wind’s arc and how it flowed. Even if I could not ride that breeze, I knew it. I understood it.
I drew hard and let the arrow fly. It pinned Hiroli’s hand against the city’s lip.
The city roared, lifting her off her feet, trying to shake her loose.
Ciel bit Hiroli’s other hand. When Hiroli shrieked and let her go, Ciel dropped to the ground and ran across the bonefall, towards us. She stumbled, then kept running. Wik scooped her up and began to climb over the city’s leg, away from the mouth, the eye.
Below us, the city’s jaw opened slowly and the thick, gray tongue emerged. The stench bowled us back, and we scrambled unsuccessfully to climb the beast’s shoulder again.
Hiroli writhed, trying to free her hand. She shouted for us to help.
We retreated to safety, then looked back.
The gray tongue had wrapped Hiroli and smothered her screams. She disappeared into the city’s mouth and the jaws ground closed.
“Hurry, before the city decides it’s still hungry.” I started forward, and the others followed me around the immense claws and across the hot, red ground. We stopped when we were far enough from its head to avoid its tongue.
“Did she mean what she said?” Ciel asked, her breath rasping. “Is the city dying? Moc’s up there. And everybody.”
We looked back across the ground at the enormous shoulder ridges, at the towers and spires rising from its spine, too heavy. Towers that our ancestors had grown higher in order to rise, to be safe. Towers that were now crowded with our family, our friends, our people.
But the city chewed and shifted, sated for now. Its eye followed us.
“She meant it,” I said. “But it might take a long time to die, especially if it has food.”
The towers’ shadow grew long against the red dirt as the sun came below the clouds again, drenching us with sweat. We felt the city’s regular breathing and its heartbeat through our feet We could hear it chew.
I remembered the rolling quake from our first night on the ground. If the city died, it could roll again. And that time, the weight on its back could pull it right over. The towers might come crashing down.
The image left me breathless.
We would not let that happen. Stopping the process felt impossible, but we’d already done the impossible. We’d fallen through the clouds and lived.
“I don’t think a whipperling note could get people to understand. We have to find another way to tell them.” I looked up then, into the gray expanse of cloud, missing the dome of stars, the bats that flew the night. I missed the familiar and the beautiful. The blue sky, filled with birds, the bone white towers, ferns and lichen in the meadow. The glow of littlemouths in the cave. Ceetcee’s smile. Beliak’s laugh. Elna’s songs.
Kirit closed her eyes. “Who will believe us, in enough time to make a difference? How will we convince them to leave on the word of Lawsbreakers?” she said.
I thought of everyone above whom we’d left. Whom we couldn’t reach. “The northwest will believe us. They know us. And they can help.”
The moon rose, brightening the horizon to dark blues, rippled with silver. “But they won’t believe us if we don’t return,” Wik said. “We have to go back up before we can change things.”
I sank to a sitting position, looking at the steep bone wall, thinking of something Ceetcee had told me long ago. “Things are already changing. The towers rose up. The blackwings are in disarray. Dix and Hiroli are no longer a threat to the city. We have the plates, and we rescued the artifex. We did that.”
“The city needs much more from us,” Wik said.
“They’ll know. We’ll find a way to make them believe.” Ciel sounded hopeful. “Moc’s up there. He’ll be mad if he doesn’t get to see this.” She hummed “Nest of Thieves,” but stopped partway through. “We’re going to need more songs.”
New songs, a new way of living.
“We go back up?” Wik asked. He put a hand on Kirit’s shoulder. She nodded.
The city believed the clouds were dangerous, that fallen meant lost. But we’d fallen from the clouds. And we’d lived.
Our new horizon balanced ground and sky, cloud and bone.
Between the unreachable clouds and the immovable earth, stars shone against the darkness. They were as beautiful below as they had always been above.
“We’ll lead the city to safety.” I stood with my companions, beside the bone wall, below the clouds. Above us, the people we loved waited, caught between the soaring city we could no longer see and the dying city below. “We’ll rise once more.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my first readers: Chris Gerwel, E. C. Myers, Lauren Teffeau, Kelly Lagor, Nicole Feldringer, Laura Anne Gilman, Jaime Lee Moyer, Sara Mueller, Sarah Pinsker, A. C. Wise, A. T. Greenblatt, and Siobhan Carroll, who encourage me whether I run short or long. To Stephanie Feldman and Siobhan for the brainstorming road trip. We should do that again.
To Natalie, Bear, Celia, Jodi, Arkady, Alex, Ilana, Oz, Jim, Ann, Nanita, T, Amy, and Sylvie, for balance. To Jennifer, Wendy, Sara, Nancy, Dan, Jeff, Claudia, Jack, and Mike in Fells Point, for community. To Charlotte and Terry, Becky, and Mark; Shveta, Jack Hart; Aliette, Chris, Eric, Blair; Stacey, Dan, Juliette, and Lydia; and Melissa, Josh, and Noa, for friendship. To Susan, Beth, Raq, Nanita, and the rest of my family, for being here.
To my wonderful editor, Miriam Weinberg, and to Russ Galen, with thanks.
To Jason Tuell and Nicole Feldringer for nattering with me about clouds. To Dominick D’Aunno for the altitude discussions. All mistakes are my own doing.
To everyone at Tor who touched this book, including cover artist Tommy Arnold, creative director Irene Gallo, copy editor Ana Deboo, production editor Lauren Hougen, everyone in PR and marketing, including Alexis, Diana, and especially Patty and Ksenia, and to the folks who work the presses, too, for making these dreams real.
As always, to a place near Worton, Maryland, for teaching me how to fly.
And to you, reading this book: may the wind always take you where you want to go.
TOR BOOKS BY FRAN WILDE
Updraft
Cloudbound
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FRAN WILDE is an author and technology consultant. Her first novel, Updraft, was published in 2015. Her short stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Nature, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Wilde also blogs about food and genre at Cooking the Books (franwilde.wordpress.com/cooking-the-books) and for the popular social-parenting website GeekMom. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Part One: Disappeared
1. Codex
2. Bone Eater
3. Heart of the City
4. Singers’ Rise
5. Balance, Gravity, Justice
6. A Hole in the Wind
7. Escape
8. Bissel
/> 9. Skytouched
10. The Council
11. Wingfight
12. Sunfall
Part Two: Stolen
13. Ash and Mist
14. Remembrance
15. Heartbone
16. Lighter-Than-Air
Part Three: Found
17. Ghost Tower
18. Council Fall
19. The Artifex
20. Proof
21. Treason
22. War
23. Rumul
Part Four: Hidden
24. Blackwings
25. Nest of Thieves
26. Cloudbound
27. Littlemouths
28. The Towers
29. Promise
30. Surrender
31. Balance
32. Gravity
Part Five: Bound
33. Bone Forest
34. Justice
35. Horizon
Acknowledgments
Tor Books by Fran Wilde
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CLOUDBOUND
Copyright © 2016 by Fran Wilde
All rights reserved.
Edited by Miriam Weinberg
Cover art by Tommy Arnold
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7785-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-5821-3 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466858213
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
First Edition: September 2016
