wide black road.
The feeling of water around him, buoying him up, faded as he descended, and though their descent didn't seem to accelerate, he spared a thought for Chag. The little man made bigger ripples in Atla's Gift as he descended than Pevan had, sure sign that his emotions were riding higher. Below the road, the ground was covered in trees blossoming thickly white, but from a little bit of height, it could easily look as if they were clouds.
There was nothing he could do to help Chag, though, not right now. Atla tucked himself together, bracing to roll on landing. It wasn't technically necessary, but it gave the three of them a better chance of not landing on one another. No chance here for a gesture to warn them to stop copying him exactly.
Landing didn't feel like hitting the tarmac he was familiar with from old Vessit. The surface of this road was spongy, little eddies boiling off it as it absorbed his weight. He managed the roll neatly, rose to his feet and was surprised to find himself panting. A few steps carried him clear of Pevan's rise, and he turned to wave her to stop short.
She stepped aside and allowed Chag to join them. The thief's face was pallid, but it took nothing away from the glare he turned on Pevan. She grinned and patted him on the shoulder, then turned to Atla, head tilted attentively to one side.
He pointed ahead along the road. Not too far away, an arched gate faced in elegantly sculpted concrete spanned the tarmac, rising out of the forest below. A figure that almost looked human from this distance stood atop it, and Atla shuddered to think what the statue would look like as they got closer.
The sky above was black, painted with blue curlicues that could suck away the eye of the unwary. They ran perpendicular to the natural flow of every current he could feel. Somewhere up there, a pair of predatory Verlin circled each other, testing each other's fears. Atla ignored them; despite the visual openness of the sky, he could feel ribbed arches the size and density of whole Realms in the way. Plenty to keep the Verlin occupied in the unlikely event that they abandoned their feud.
His eyes protested as the arch began to loom overhead. To the monstrous presence gliding through his Gift, the shape atop was elegant, graceful and strong, a warrior's armour and a priest's faith. To human eyesight, though, it twisted through and back through itself like an obscene worm, knotted into a lumpen, upright shape that some part of him kept trying to recognise as a person.
From the way their emotions peaked through his Gift, Atla could tell that Pevan and Chag felt much the same. Pevan thrummed through the water, tightly contained and determined, but at least her discomfort was purely for the figure. Chag was walking down the dead centre of the road, fighting to keep his gaze locked on the tarmac. The crashing waves of his fear were as much for the drop either side of the route as for the gate.
As they passed under the arch, the world shifted. The trees rose up to meet them and the sky brightened. Petals filled the air, spiralling so that they flickered, white one side and vibrant pinks and blues the other. For a minute, it was lovely, but the red sky soon plunged down to the road surface, cutting a dead square line across the black. The end of the road, and the point from which they'd have to fly.
Atla swallowed, and the ripple that ran down his gullet spread out through his Gift despite his best efforts. He managed to hold his step more or less steady as he walked towards that terrible, final edge. Pevan's lessons about keeping a brave face seemed that much more important - and that much harder - now.
He stamped down a rush of regurgitated memory, the shock and fright of the quake, and focussed. Ahead, though he was beginning to be able to see over the edge, no ground was visible. The sky just reached all the way down. He stopped short, turned back to face the others.
The ledge held Pevan enraptured, a light in her eyes. Chag was looking anywhere but, hugging himself with hunched shoulders. He looked up to face Atla, lips working soundlessly. Atla raised his arms, made the flying gesture, and pointed his face at the trees so he could speak safely. "It's not, uh, it's not far down, um, but it's better to spiral than dive." The words wobbled as they emerged, a blue disc that should have flown true but broke up before it got very far.
Pevan glanced at him, then looked back to the drop. "You don't sound terribly happy about this. You alright?"
Though her pose made her seem indifferent, her voice and the red pellets it launched over the end of the road indicated kindness. It felt very strange to face away from her as he answered, "I've never... I'm not good with wings." He shuddered as his stumbling sentence circled his head.
The look she shot him could have been scornful, but it was softened by the way she gestured to include Chag. She managed to look at them both out of the corner of her eye while speaking. "Both of you need the practice. Just concentrate on your training and let it happen." Her words came out as a thick cloud of pastel green, which drifted a long way out over the precipice before they lost sight of it.
Then she walked right up to the edge, closed her eyes and spread her arms. Her sleeves and form rippled outwards, breaking up into evanescent shards as her wings spread. Scintillant flashes of green and blue washed across her dark plumage, and Atla felt them curl through his Gift as well. The Gatemaker threw her head back and laughed, puncturing the air with a salvo of flying triangles that left misty pink trails in its wake.
Atla and Chag exchanged a look. The little man sighed, swallowed, and walked unsteadily up to stand near Pevan's wing-tip. She hadn't folded her wings, and stood craning her neck to peer along them. Chag spread his arms, holding them well short of straight, his shoulders lifted almost to his ears.
His wings appeared with far less style. A flurry of movement ran up over his shoulders, down and round the outside of his elbows, and up to his wrists, leaving him cloaked in black, untidy feathers as ratty as his face. He peered over his shoulder and shot an expectant look at Atla.
It was hard to walk with the little man watching him. Atla could feel himself blushing by the disturbance twisting through his Gift. He swallowed, trying not to think of how they might look at him when he did manifest his wings. Bersh's opinion had not been kind.
At least Pevan's fit of mad laughter had faded. He could feel her urging him on, though, the pulse of her eagerness in his Gift almost as intense in its way as the fear Chag now held tightly under wraps. Carefully, Atla watched the space next to the thief, where the edge waited. The lack of ground below was daunting, but at least it didn't stare back.
He made himself go all the way up to the edge and look down. Far, far below, the Court was a black hexagon, intricately patterned inside its outline. Around it surged a sea of wildly mixing colours. Atla pushed his awareness down into the top of his neck, feeling the turbulence in his Gift. There were all sorts of creatures scurrying and wallowing in the muddy bed at the bottom, most of them too simple to be worth worrying about.
Still, he turned and gave his companions the sign for Many Wildren ahead.
Pevan nodded, waved her hand for him to take the lead. He swallowed and turned back to the ledge, but he could feel their eyes on his back. The crowd of Wildren below would almost certainly ignore him completely, but the sheer crowdedness of them made him feel like he stood at a pulpit, before the eyes of the world.
He closed his eyes, spread his arms, knowing that Pevan would see how much he was shaking. Why couldn't he just hold himself steady? He forced his elbows straight. The thought of the garish shades of his wings made him screw his eyes even tighter closed, his lips pulling open in something close to a silent snarl. His breath hissed unsteadily between his teeth.
"Come on, kiddo, did you never dream of flying?" Pevan's words left an arrow-head ripple through his Gift, an effortlessly-balanced mix of encouragement and friendly teasing.
At her words, the drop below seemed to call to him. He straightened his arms more forcefully, so that a shock ran through his elbows, and felt a wave of cold rush out from his heart to his fingertips, bringing feathers with it. His feathers, whether he liked them or not. At least
he wouldn't have to see them.
Pevan let out a long, slow whistle. He could feel it stirring the depths of his Gift. He furled his wings and opened his eyes a crack, trying not to think about the gold-and-orange streaks at the corner of his vision.
The Gatemaker was staring at him, jaw hanging open. He cringed, started to apologise, but she brought the back of her wing awkwardly up to cover her mouth, a clumsy attempt at warning him not to speak.
He swallowed, chastened, but something flickered in her eyes. She turned her head slightly, spoke out of the side of her mouth, but kept her gaze locked to his. "Firebird, huh? I like it. Let's fly."
With that, she bent her knees and sprang up, a single sweep of her wings lifting her into the crimson sky. She shouted, one long, incoherent string of vowels that flew ahead of her for a few seconds before dissipating. Atla followed, geysers surging through to the surface of his Gift, fighting the urge to join his voice to hers.
***
About the author
R. J. Davnall has been telling stories all his life, and thus probably shouldn’t be trusted to write his own bio. He holds a PhD in philosophy and teaches at Liverpool University, while living what his mother insists on calling a 'Bohemian lifestyle'. When not writing, he can
Did You Never Dream of Flying? Page 6
