by J M Sanford
26: THE SECRET STAIRCASE
Bessie's classmates all agreed that the rooftops of a Flying City made a marvellous playground once you'd conquered your fear of heights, and she'd always heard that the Flying Cities were very much alike in their layout. Apart from the colour of the stone, Ilgrevnia certainly resembled Iletia, and yet here, Bessie was lost. She'd surveyed the roofscape and moved on without commenting on their latest detour – she was fairly certain Amelia knew they were lost, and they couldn't afford to waste a minute. Clambering up into one of the abandoned gardens, Bessie could get a better view and confirm that the walkway along the top of the Wall was within easy reach. They'd be out and free with time to spare. She dropped back down again, hurried along the narrow passageway and jumped over a short gap between two rooftops. It didn't matter where they reached the top of the Wall, so long as they had a free, uninterrupted fall directly down to the ground. The catsfoot charms, virtually fool proof, would take care of the rest. Of course, Bessie had seen the missing chunk of City on her way in and considered it on her way out, but the footing would be treacherous there and she much preferred to tear a catsfoot charm and jump, rather than fall unexpectedly and have to fumble with a fluttery little spellpaper while the ground rushed up at her.
“Bessie!”
Bessie halted with a sudden pang of guilt – Amelia had fallen behind, and she hadn't even noticed… “Over here,” she called out, loud as she dared. “Hurry up!” In her head she impatiently counted off the seconds. Amelia came into view, but then stopped before a gap in the rooftops where once there had been a little bridge. The boards had long since rotted away, but it wasn't that far: Bessie had made the jump easily enough with her own short legs. “What are you waiting for?” said Bessie. “Come on!”
“I can't! It's too far!” Amelia teetered on the edge, as if willing to try the jump despite her protestations.
“You need a run up to it,” Bessie warned. “You'll never make it from a standing start.”
“Let me have one of the catsfoot charms now, just in case.”
Bessie shook her head. “You don't need it yet.” More truthfully, she was afraid Amelia might panic and waste the now-precious charm on some trifling fall that would only give her a few bumps and bruises. Some of the timbers here were as rotten as the roof of the Antwin Academy’s ballroom, but Bessie had done her best to steer a course between them, safe on structures sturdy enough to hold both of them. “Come on, Amelia: you can do it. You don't need to be an Antwin girl or a witch to manage a little jump like that. Hitch up your skirts and take a good run at it.”
Amelia dropped a light spell down into the man-made gulley between the buildings, to reveal leafy bushes forming a river of greenery at the bottom of it. Bessie bit her tongue: the light would make them an easy target should a pair of golems come strolling along the Walltop walk, but she couldn't really blame Amelia for not wanting to jump in half-light. “You know, I used to be just as scared of heights,” said Bessie. She didn't like to admit to it, not when she'd hardly mastered her own fear, but Amelia could use some solidarity.
“Oh? How did you overcome it?”
For little first year Bessie, it had been a plain choice: either overcome her fear of heights, or fail a class. She'd tried every tip and trick that anyone would share with her, until at the eleventh hour, the thought of failure had been so unbearable that she almost would've been glad to break her neck. She doubted saying so would help Amelia much, though. Bessie had had months to battle her own fear of heights – Amelia would have less than an hour before she must jump off into the clouds, trusting in a cheap paper charm to save her from a messy death. “There are worse things than falling,” said Bessie, although she didn't quite believe it herself. “Etiquette lessons.” She grimaced. “Pronunciation drills. Walking around with a book on your head while the Etiquette Mistress hovers, looking for the first excuse to whack you in the shins with her walking stick.” Movement flickered across the periphery of Bessie's vision: a bird flying low or a griffin flying high? It was gone before she could turn her head. She looked again into the leafy space between the buildings, where the light spell trembled, shadows flickering. “It won't be a hard fall even if you do stuff it up. I promise.”
Taking a deep breath, Amelia bunched her skirts up in her fists, and as she did so something golden flashed amongst her petticoats in the soft glow of the light spell. Bessie's heart clenched – it looked like the White Queen did have the crown with her after all! She'd suspected as much… But it was no time to make any accusations: Amelia backed up as far as she could, then ran determinedly down the tunnel, leapt the dark leafy gulley… and landed about as cleanly as could be expected on the other side.
“There,” said Bessie, calm as she could, her mind racing at the implications of the presence of the crown on Amelia's person, “I told you you could do it. We'll make an Antwin girl of you yet.”
“I'd rather be a witch,” said Amelia, primly. She was shivering with fear, although any second year at the Antwin Academy would have laughed at such a trifling jump. Bessie forced a companionable smile onto her face. Considering the route ahead of them, they couldn't afford to go through such a performance at every mildly challenging jump. Neither of them would want to climb the last leg of the journey up to the Walltop…
In its finest days, even a City as small as Ilgrevnia would have had an army of maidservants, dockworkers, rat catchers and sweepers to support its merchants, mages and noblemen, and if Ilgrevnia had been anything like Iletia, then not all stairways up to the Walltop would be original or officially sanctioned structures. Bessie was sure she still had time to find one of these before the clock struck seven, but the rain was falling faster – not just drizzle now, but big fat splashes – and in the wet and the dark of a rainstorm the danger really would be great. Amelia's progress slowed as the boards creaked and shifted beneath her feet. What could take her mind off all these crumbling roofs and long drops? Bessie had an idea: Amelia liked fairy tales, didn't she? “This reminds me of Grandad Castle,” said Bessie, as they threaded their way through the raised beds of the rooftop gardens. “One of his stories was that he escaped the fall of… some Flying City or other. I don't think he ever said which one, though the way he tells it, it wasn't really a fall, so much as a sinking.”
“What's the difference?”
“Water,” said Bessie simply. “Mind that gap.” She didn't need to look round to know that Amelia was following in her own clumsy way.
“Well don't stop there! What happened?”
Bessie sighed theatrically. “It didn't really happen, Amelia. All of Grandad Castle's stories start the same way: 'of course, when I was a boy, horses talked…', 'of course, when I was a boy, they hadn't invented thunder and lightning…'” She risked looking back then, to see that she had Amelia hooked. “When I was a boy, all the land was a great big sea,” she said, with a roll of her eyes.
In those days, the Cities didn't fly; they sailed. You won't see the masts nowadays, that's true, but when you look at some of the street names, you'll know I'm telling the truth: Bilge Street; Tiller Road; Gang Way; Mermaids' Walk…
“I never did find any of those streets,” said Bessie. “I looked all over for them, too. I must have walked for days, and wasted hours in the library.”
Back in the old days, the Sea ran things. She chose where the Cities could go, and where they should go. She dictated the trade lines, and took tribute from each of the Cities. The Sea was kinder back then: she helped in steering the Cities away from jagged rocks and reefs, and into warm waters where the fishing was good. In return, the people of the Cities sent the Sea golden trinkets and carved statues, heaving them into the waves each New Year, and teaching new songs to the merfolk.
Still, there's no pleasing some people, and it happened that a talented but headstrong young Undermage – that's the next rank down from an Archmage, I think – didn't like the way the Sea ran things. He thought the Sea was greedy, and he wasn't
shy about saying so. Why should the people of the Cities send so many tributes to the Sea, who didn't do much of anything, but was only there? What did the merfolk have to offer besides music? People warned him to keep his mouth shut, and took to stopping up their ears whenever he spoke such blasphemy. Very few people would listen to him at all by the time he came up with a plan…
“You've seen a Flying City from above, haven't you?” Bessie asked her companion. “They have magic built right into the shape of the streets.” The mass of curving, twisting streets like a nest of snakes, all centred on the Keystone Square, forming enormous sigils that helped to float and balance the countless tons of rock. “Not just the streets you can see, either, but the ones underground. Grandad Castle said that a man who changed the sigils was a man who controlled the City. It doesn't work like that,” she said, exasperated at the very thought of Grandad Castle and his stories. She was certain that fooling around with the sigil streets would only send the City crashing to the ground – that's why the houses of the poor and uneducated were forced to the edges of the City, where unauthorised changes to the architecture didn't matter…
Bessie shook it off. Not important. Not far along the Wall's perimeter, she could clearly see their way out. Hard to see from a distance unless you knew what you were looking for, but she'd recognised the structure from ones just like it in other Cities: a narrow archway that bored some way into the bulk of the Wall; above that, three windows one above the other; above them, a hole large enough for a man to climb out; and at the top of it all, an iron ladder up onto the Walltop. And it looked like they could reach it easily enough…
Bessie stopped. She couldn’t be sure, above the ceaseless hard patter of rain on stone, but she thought she'd heard somebody or something else moving about, not so far away. Even halfway up the Wall, hawthorn and brambles grew, and small birds hopped about in the branches, picking at insects and berries. They vanished in flurries when Bessie and Amelia came too close, settling again out of reach, so at least where the birds fed happily, they'd be safe.
“You stopped,” Amelia complained.
Bessie was about to protest that she'd only stopped to consider the best way to the ladder, when she realised Amelia was referring to Grandad Castle’s story.
“Well, what was this Undermage's plan?” Amelia asked.
The young Undermage wasn't the only man dissatisfied with the Sea. My own father thought he saw a better future in this Undermage, and with our family to swell the numbers, they soon had enough people to carry out his plan. They went down into the basements of the City, men armed with hammers and chisels, sledgehammers and bricks, set to change the very shape of the City, beneath its surface; to carve new rules into the roots of the Keystone. And I – being only a little lad – carried the drawings the Undermage had told us we must stick to most strictly.
As the men worked in secret, word came of water rising in the lower levels. At first it was only enough to wet their boots, but as it rose higher, the men complained to the Undermage that their work was sinking the City. The Undermage refused to listen to such concerns, ordering them to either continue their work, or die for their lack of faith in him. Men drowned at their work, but still the Undermage refused to listen. By the time the last survivors of the plot threw down their tools, it was too late. The Sea had learned of their plan, and was furious. The water began to swirl, faster and faster around the City, and the City began to sink into the centre of a whirlpool, the sky darkening above them. Women screamed, setting babes in arms wailing, and the Undermage finally saw what he'd done. He wept, begging the Sea not to punish innocent children for what he'd done, and the Sea – being a capricious madam like all bodies of water – granted him that one last request, because of the saltwater sacrifice of his honest tears, but no more.
When I woke, I found myself lying in wet sand, the ruins of my home City all around. At the heart of the destruction was an enormous hole, a hundred yards across and miles deep, where the Sea had run away to. The node had died, and the ruins of the City lie in the desert to this very day. The other Cities, the ones who hadn't betrayed the Sea, still sail on ghostly currents invisible to the eye – the last gift of the spirit of the Sea that went.
Don't believe me? Think of this tale next time you hear the crash of waves coming from the trees, or the wind stirs and you feel the currents of forgotten seas on your skin. Remember this next time there's a stormy night and the ghosts of the deepwater monsters come howling over the rooftops and down the streets.
“That's preposterous,” said Amelia, who was attempting to pull her hair free of an especially grabby bramble. “How come I've never heard of these ruins in the desert? Or this great big hole in the ground?” She winced as the last golden strands snapped, freeing her from the trap. “And what happened to the mermaids? I lived by the sea all my life and I never saw a mermaid.”
Bessie shrugged. “All the magic of the node burned out for good, so no Flying City can ever go there again, and the world's big enough for more mysteries than a few disappeared mermaids.” She paused. “Of course, Grandad Castle was a thief and a wretched liar, so you must remember to take his stories with a grain of salt.” She glanced back, and saw a look of horror on Amelia's face: it had finally dawned on her that the forbidden stairway, with its precarious iron ladder leaking trails of dark red rust down the side of the Wall, must be their means of escape. “And now you owe me two stories,” said Bessie, approaching the secret staircase and pretending not to be afraid of that ladder: steep, rusted, and exposed to the wind… “So get thinking of a story you can tell me next. It had better be a good one, otherwise I –” She froze. “Look!” she whispered. “No, don't panic, I don't think he's seen us yet.”
There, amongst the rooftops, was a figure moving stealthily through the rain – not one of the golems but their Commander. Bessie had forgotten what a good climber he was… but she hadn't forgotten her vow to teach him a lesson about underestimating young ladies. She had her knife in her hand in a flash.
“Bessie!” Amelia hissed, “We don't have time!” She grabbed Bessie by the blazer, pulling her into the shadowed well of the bottom of the forbidden staircase. Reluctantly, Bessie began to climb, and soon the cold wind was dragging at her hair and clothes as she climbed up onto the unprotected top section of the ladder. She ascended swift and quiet as she could, but Amelia had no training in climbing, and her heavy boots set the iron rungs clanging in her hurry. Never mind: soon it wouldn't matter. Bessie clambered over the top of the wall, onto the paved walkway, praying the rain hadn't got into her pockets and disintegrated her paper catsfoot charms… but a bigger obstacle stood between her and safety: a griffin, huge and ghostly pale in the waning light, stood on the walkway no more than a few feet away. It leapt, wings spread, and snatched Bessie up in its great talons. She kicked and shouted as the white griffin bore her aloft, but griffins had been meant to tackle bigger prey than a skinny fourteen-year-old girl. Meanwhile, Amelia had hauled herself up onto the walkway, and cowered there like a frightened rabbit, as if waiting obediently to be the white griffin's second victim. But Amelia was tougher than she'd been just a few months ago, and she overcame the shock faster than Bessie would ever have imagined. Crouching low against the fierce wind that swept across the Walltop walk, Amelia darted down the walkway after the rising griffin, green sparks dancing about her clenched fists, and her eyes grew fierce with concentration as she sought an opportunity to strike the griffin without harming Bessie.
“Amelia, get away!” Bessie shouted. “No point in letting them catch both of us!” Besides, the white griffin might have caught her, but it wouldn't keep her: for a deer or a catfish there might be no escape, no matter how the griffin's prey kicked or thrashed, but Bessie had a knife, and she slashed fiercely at the talons holding her. Screeching, the white griffin let go, and Bessie fell, into the clouds.
27: WHITE QUEEN ALONE
Infuriated by the loss of its prey, the white griffin shrieked and circled,
its great white wings fighting the fierce winds. Peering over the edge, Amelia saw a brief bright flash in the shadow of the City, and could have sworn she heard a faint meow. Her heart thumped painfully against her ribs as she clung tight to the parapet. The catsfoot charm… and Bessie had taken the other one with her!
Further down the wall, the Commander stood on the parapet, leaning out over the pewter depths. “Never mind,” he said, and grinned horribly at Amelia. “I suspect it's you who's got the crown squirrelled away somewhere anyway.” He stood there quite fearlessly with his back to open sky and racing clouds – it would be so easy to conjure up a strong gust of wind and send him into the same abyss that had swallowed Bessie… But then he jumped down onto the path, and the opportunity was gone. Forgetting revenge, Amelia blinked out of sight, dodging the Commander and sprinting for the place where they'd climbed up onto the walkway. She clambered back over the inner side of the Wall, with her head swimming at the hazy sight of the City spread out so far below, and climbed down the iron ladder. Here she dropped her invisibility spell before it could drain too much of her power – surely he could guess easily enough that she'd disappeared back the way she'd come, but after that… even Amelia didn't know where she was going to go. She'd been relying on the second catsfoot charm to escape the doomed City, and she'd fled the windy Walltop walkway out of fear of succumbing to the same fate as Bessie, with nothing to save her from the fall. She still wore some of the White Queen's armour, but couldn't be sure it would save her from such a long fall, and didn't dare try and find out. Nor had she had much chance to improve her levitation. Her plans had hinged on staying with Bessie, and Bessie was gone. The clock ticked on regardless of Amelia's ruined plans. She couldn't even be sure which way they'd come: every rooftop of Ilgrevnia spread out before her, faded in the haze of rain. There was the needle figure of the Keystone; there, the place where an enormous chunk of the Wall had fallen away; and there, almost beyond view, the bulk of the main gates. But what good did it do her to know that? Her breathing became rapid and shallow – she was about to be captured again, and this time there would be no ally to help her escape. She would die along with Prince Archalthus and the others when the clock struck seven and Ilgrevnia fell from the skies…
