Horizon

by Fran Wilde

  “Only a few days?” Memories of my months of recovery at Grigrit after the bone dust fever set in gave me chills.

  I couldn’t speak with them. But they seemed to understand my needs. They shared water and food, had healed my leg. Hope, maybe, for more. My mind’s map of our city, with each tower and what they traded, had to expand. I tucked the graincake the healer handed me into my robe. Maalik took a bite of it.

  “Wik? Do you know what they’re saying?” It was a dizzying change to everything we’d known. We weren’t alone.

  “Not yet. Just a few gestures.” He sounded frustrated. Understandable.

  As the healer chattered at us while changing my bandages, I tried to make sense of where I was. I rested in a stiff hammock, not on a mat. Luminous walls seemed to hold the room close. We were inside the bone, not on a tier.

  Long years of work had shaped this city’s bone ridge to form this room. The kind of work I’d seen in the midcloud. The walls’ light and dark patterns were beautifully carved. Some were newer, and some had soot stains that indicated long wear. More differences from our own city. This community wasn’t engaged in constant upward movement. It had a different focus.

  I reached for Wik. His hand grasped mine. “This place is so different.” Even in the ways its people treated strangers. In the towers an unexpected visitor would have been held and watched. Here, they nursed me back to health.

  “We’re different too.” Wik echoed my thoughts. “They’ve taken me for a walk along the city. Inside the towers. This is nothing like our city. It’s a bit of a drop outside. And—” He hesitated.

  What? I was woozy again, and fading. Where is my satchel?

  “Sleep. You’ll see.”

  Intensely frustrated, I fought sleep. But I lost again.

  * * *

  “You’ll never heal if you keep fighting.” My mother’s hand on my cheek. Her smell: chicory and spices. The click of glass beads in her hair as she bent over me. Her eyes, smiling. A memory? A fever dream? Even trapped within it, I knew it couldn’t last. I leaned into her touch anyway, felt her worry. She’d cared for me during the bone fever, after I broke my leg. She’d been at my side.

  Ezarit’s hand withdrew, and the dream brightened. I cried out in pain.

  Dappled light filtered through carved bone walls. Soft voices rose and fell, tugging me from sleep’s last grip. At a healer’s touch on my leg, I jumped, causing the hammock to swing.

  The healer murmured and gestured, hands up and out, an expulsion of breath from behind their mask. Calm?

  My heart beat too fast for calm. Where was Wik? My leg throbbed less, but I was missing pieces of myself. Wik, my satchel. My home. My mother.

  I rushed to sit up, and instead of making me lie back, the healer helped me. Supported my arm, my back. Cool hands pressed against my quilted silk robe. They hadn’t taken that from me, though the fabric was stained beyond recognition.

  The healer patted my shoulder. Smiled with their eyes again. I smiled back. The corners of my mouth ached when I did it, the muscles long unused.

  The healer gestured at a seat, one with bone wheels. Raised eyebrows in question. Wik appeared behind them. “Would you like to see the city?”

  “Where have you been?” I wanted to clasp his steadying hand again and to prod his shoulder, both. How could he leave me here unguarded?

  He grimaced. “You were safe. They wanted to try to talk with me. They have many questions about us, I think.” His brow wrinkled. “At least, I’d have questions if I were them. Difficult to tell what the people I’ve met want so far. Except for one thing. They want to see you.”

  Once again the healer gestured to the seat. Colored bone eater hide and a bone and brass frame looked like it would be comfortable.

  I didn’t want comfort. “I’ll walk.”

  Wik frowned, offered a hand to brace me as I slid off the hammock. His grip was firm. His eyes filled with worry. The healer stepped back. Followed us with the seat.

  “I’m fine.” My leg held my weight, though I wasn’t sure for how long. I’d do it anyway. They wanted to see me? They would see me standing.

  Besides, I wanted to see the city. I had questions too.

  We left the alcove and ducked under a carved bone ramp. Two more Varat citizens flanked us and kept pace.

  A maze of corridors split left and right, all shaped with metal partitions. “The city is a warren, from what I can tell,” Wik murmured. “Many connections through different tower bases, no real separations. Different distances to the front of the city.”

  “You’ve been exploring.” He’d left me unguarded while I slept. My satchel had disappeared.

  He looked chastened by my tone as much as my words. “As much as I could. Always with an escort. They’re very good about steering me away from the ramps, so I haven’t been off this tier yet.” He wasn’t carrying his pack either. Was it missing too?

  Our quilted silk robes looked dark and worn among the subtle patterns of our escorts. The healer’s shift had subtle metal threads woven through it that sparkled when they walked. Another’s tunic featured tiny spiral patterns in pale tones. Tattoos on their dark skin echoed their dress.

  Sounds of soft-shod feet walking the many corridors. Quiet conversations. No shouts. No songs that I could hear and begin to understand.

  Though our clothes had been laundered, my yellow robe was nearly black from wear; Wik’s black robe had turned gray. Our scarred feet looked shocking against the clean bone passage floors. In comparison, our companions’ tidy footwraps featured thick soles and elaborate knots.

  I caught our escort trying not to stare at us. I stared back anyway, until the walls and floor caught my attention again.

  The patterns cut and sanded into the bone walls created light ribbons on our path. The same mark, an ornate spiral, repeated on the path we followed, while others were winnowed away or were replaced with other designs. At one fork, we turned right, and the light-spiral disappeared from the floor. Our escort muttered something, and we stopped, turned back, and took the other fork.

  “A map,” Wik whispered. “Made of light.”

  He was right. As we walked, the marks grew brighter, the sanded bone walls thinner in places. Sconces in the walls flickered.

  I expected to emerge into a bright space filled with people like those who escorted us. Instead, our passage grew narrower, the intersections fewer. Finally, the only symbol on the path was the spiral. Our escort in the small-patterned shift pushed aside a heavy, woven curtain, and we stepped into darkness.

  The other escort spoke. Brief, assertive words. Three voices repeated them. Then the escorts stepped back, pushing Wik and me forward into the dark room.

  My eyes adjusted after days of being outdoors and in the dappled light of the healer’s alcove. Five figures stood at the front of the room. All were dressed like those who’d escorted us, shorn heads, dark eyes. Their skin, bone, bronze, and dark brown, was marked with small blue spirals on their cheeks or necks.

  I shivered. My own tattoos and scars looked silver in the half-light. Wik’s hair sparkled blue with groundmouth gore, and his Singer tattoos almost glowed against his skin.

  They spoke to us. Words that sounded like rain and wind.

  We, not knowing how to answer, remained quiet.

  One raised a hand and, from above, a light projected a new pattern on the floor, mottled with color.

  In my robe, Maalik’s beak poked at my skin. I put a hand to my chest, hoping to calm him. Took a deep breath. Whispered, “Shhhh,” so that only Maalik could hear. The whipperling quieted. Good bird.

  On the floor, light outlined a rough drawing of our city on its knees and Nimru collapsed against its side.

  One of the five spoke again. A higher-pitched voice this time. They pointed at the floor. Pointed at us. Then at the floor.

  “Yes,” Wik said. “Yes. That was our city.” He nodded his head, as we’d seen the healer do when voicing approval over my leg.


  “They could be asking if we killed it,” I whispered. “Killing a city could be a crime here.” We had to be careful. Beginnings were tenuous moments.

  Wik frowned, not glancing my way. Put a hand on my shoulder to calm me.

  Just as I’d done with Maalik. I was no bird.

  The tattooed speaker gestured again at the drawing and then at Wik. Raised their eyebrows and queried once more, with a sound at the end I recognized from the healer’s: serra. When Wik didn’t answer, they repeated the process. Wik swallowed. He put his hand on his own chest, then mimed hooking Nimru’s eye. Drove his hands together like two cities crashing. Laid one against the other, then pointed to the image on the floor. “I killed the city.”

  “Wik!” I grabbed his arm and pulled. Why would he act so stupidly? Why would he risk himself?

  He shook me off, whispering, “If it’s a crime, they’ll take one, not both of us. I will be the citykiller.”

  I couldn’t breathe. How to help him? How to keep him safe?

  They asked another question, the interrogative lift at the end so familiar, the words so different. This time, their gestures mimicked how Wik had said he killed the city. I could not speak. Could not disagree. Who would listen?

  Wik answered as best he could, repeating his gestures.

  They pointed to me, asked the same question. I opened my mouth, and Wik stepped forward, in front of me. Shook his head. Used the healer’s slashing gesture. No.

  No. I would not let him sacrifice himself for me. I grabbed his robe. Pulled. The escorts tugged me back, and I sat down hard on the seat the healer had brought.

  From that vantage, I watched as the five stepped forward. They each touched Wik on the shoulder or pressed their forehead to his. One gave Wik a brass bracelet from their own wrist, engraved with symbols we’d seen on the walls. Patted his shoulder and seemed to smile at him.

  The healer came forward and gestured at the strange blue glow in Wik’s hair. Made a motion, like a spiral, at Wik’s ear. Uttered very pleased-sounding words.

  One of the five spoke sharply to the healer, who stepped back, chastened.

  Killing a strange city was no crime here, it seemed. But speaking out of turn was.

  Wik’s face shone with surprise.

  “A good start,” he said, cautiously. He did not look at the healer.

  I hoped it was a good start, but I wasn’t yet certain.

  Behind us, the curtain swung and a cartwheel squealed. Another escort backed through the curtain, moving slowly, pulling a bone cage.

  The small cage was large enough for one person, perhaps two. Bone grown from the base had been split and trained into a lattice. Within the cage, draped in black, a figure crouched. I smelled muzz.

  The official who’d given Wik the bracelet gestured the cart forward, into the overhead light. The image of the dead cities overlaid the cage until the picture was removed from the light and all that remained was the light itself. A shimmer of silk revealed robes, a black hood. The captive moved slowly, like a drugged Conclave sacrifice. The hood slipped, revealing a face scarred almost beyond recognition in the dim, mottled light.

  Almost.

  “Kirit, that footsling we found.” Wik stared.

  I drew a breath that didn’t fill my lungs. A blackwing. Here. And not just any blackwing.

  For the first time in my life, I was glad I was sitting down.

  The officials gestured at the cage. Pointed at Wik’s black robe. Said a string of syllables that ended on an up note. A question?

  They pointed again at Wik’s robe, then at the captive’s.

  Did we know this person?

  Wik looked at me. Did we?

  What was the right answer?

  I shook my head. We couldn’t know the captive. Not if we hoped they’d take us in. I composed my face. “No. I don’t know them.” Made the “no” gesture my healer had made when I’d first wanted to get up. That Wik had made just a moment ago.

  Wik shook his head too. Then turned to the officials. “No. Never seen them before.” He repeated the gesture.

  Would they accept it? The captive looked like us, dressed like us. This wasn’t a good beginning at all.

  The five dismissed the cart and the person inside. As the escort wheeled the cart away, the captive began to chuckle.

  “You can’t kill anyone, can you, Kirit?” she whispered.

  I fought to my feet, prepared to speak, and fell back. The five officials walked past us and out, our audience over. On the way out, they put their hands on Wik’s shoulders again. Whatever they’d wanted to learn from us, they’d learned. They seemed pleased. They might remain so, until they discovered we’d lied.

  A terrible beginning.

  Because we did know the captive. We knew her well. We’d left her to die after our fall from the clouds. Now she was here.

  Dix.

  Fury and fear made me dizzy.

  Dix.

  Our fight to save the city, to find a new home would be much harder now. My failure had arrived here ahead of me.

  I had to speak to Wik alone. We had to get a message to our city. To tell them Dix was still alive.

  The healer and our escorts chatted at Wik as if he was a hero. Wik, shocked at Dix’s reappearance, stared at their attentions. They weren’t wrong, though. He was a hero. Just not for this city.

  By the time we reached the healer’s alcove, I’d begun to doze, not strong enough to fight sleep. At least, I thought over and over, Dix was a captive, while we were still free.

  16

  NAT, MIDCLOUD

  The artifex’s craft became real in the sky

  Lies.

  Above the clouds, I’d hunted them down. I’d shattered them, like my father had tried to do before me. Lies had cost our city much: time, people, knowledge. I could not stand them.

  I hated lying even more. But on my return to the cloudbound cave, I’d barely hesitated.

  Ciel glared at me. She hated lies too, even those of omission. “Nat, you could have told them about the wind. You had more than one chance.”

  Sitting around that fire, I’d said wings. I’d said silkspiders. I’d said bring them both. My only omission: the lack of wind. What awaited us on the ground became a secret monster, one I’d hidden. One that grew as plans became action. It devoured more lies until Ciel stared every time she saw me and hummed new lines of a song instead of talking to me.

  And at least five lines in her song were about falling or wind. Hints at what we’d promised not to say. She would drive me skytouched with her verses.

  “We chose silence,” I whispered to her in the littlemouth cave as she tended them and sang to them. “Stop turning your song into a weapon.”

  “We must tell them,” she said. She lifted a littlemouth to her shoulder and hummed. The creature glowed, growing brighter and dimmer to the rhythm of Ciel’s melody.

  “If we do, they won’t trust us anymore. They’ll think I’m holding other information back.” I worried at the net of lies, but didn’t give it up. Bound by my own words and omissions. I was beginning to understand how my father had felt while working on the Spire long ago. Trapped. Alone. Separate.

  “Macal already thinks you’re lying,” Ciel said.

  “He does?” I felt a curl of shame, like a bone shaving, settle in my stomach. Macal had seen me fail and fall before.

  She nodded and stopped humming. The littlemouth’s light faded. “Moc told me. And Moc knows you’re lying.”

  “You told him. Have you told him why?”

  Ciel stared me down. Inclined her chin. “Of course I have.”

  Of course she had. How could she not? “Ciel, if we tell people there’s not enough wind to fly, possibly ever again, they might not follow us. They’ll waste time trying to float the city or, worse, stay on the towers. Moc can’t say anything.” I couldn’t let that happen. There was no more time. “At least give me time to get my family down to the ground. I can’t fix anything unless I know t
hey’re all right.”

  Biting her lip, Ciel sighed. “The baby deserves a chance, a name. A home.”

  Hope bloomed. She understood. “Yes, yes, she does. Please, Ciel.”

  Ciel looked at me hard. “Moc won’t say anything until I tell him it’s all right. But one person absolutely needs to know. Otherwise his designs will fail.” She tilted her chin in the direction of the meadow.

  She was right. I’d planned to tell Djonn, but hadn’t been able to find him alone. I had to try harder.

  I escaped the discomfort of Ciel’s glare. Walked through the cave tunnels and emerged into the relative brightness of the meadow. Outside, Djonn was adjusting a lever on the climber. “Can you give me a moment?”

  He reluctantly pulled his attention from his work. We walked to the far end of the meadow where the box kite rested. I felt the others watching me as I took him aside, but no one followed us.

  Djonn said nothing, waiting me out. We’d fought together. He trusted me more than some here. I was about to shatter that. A sour taste rose in my mouth. It had to be done.

  “You need to factor in some wind details for your design,” I said, pretending like we were looking over the kites. “I’m hoping you’ll do it quietly, so no one panics or refuses to descend. Ciel can help.”

  Djonn’s forehead wrinkled. “Why would they refuse? What’s down there?”

  I spoke quickly, nearly choking on the words. “Not what is. It’s what’s not down there.” I met his gaze and didn’t flinch. “Wind.”

  The box kite’s frame and half-finished patchwork silk panels flapped in the breeze, mocking me. Djonn was silent, his neck and jaw as rigid as his back.

  Finally he said, “That changes my design substantially. You should have told me sooner.” Each word clipped with tension. He was very angry. He had every right to be.

  Once, it might have felt good to release the lie, but not now. Because the lie wasn’t gone. The full truth wasn’t known. I’d only wrapped another person in the same trap, a spider caught in a larger web.

  Worry seized me. “As I said, Ciel knows and can help you, but…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.