Shilly wondered how that fitted in with Chu's image of balloon cities in the forest. “Do you worship the trees, then,” she asked bluntly, “or just like them a lot?”
“Something in between. We protect them and they shelter us. We tend them and they provide for us.”
“How? By letting you build houses and fires out of them? Doesn't sound like much of a deal for the trees to me.”
The response came from Griel, not Schuet. Reaching down between his feet, he produced one of the brands the foresters had been carrying and tossed it to her. She caught it with both hands, too surprised to wonder whether it might still be hot. She had glimpsed such brands glowing red with heat earlier, as if recently pulled from a fire.
The brand was cool and surprisingly heavy. As long as her forearm and slightly thicker at one end, it looked at first as though it had been carved. Closer inspection revealed that the patterns were the work of boring insects, weaving and digging under the protection of the bark outer skin which had since been stripped away. She turned it over in her hands, feeling the faint but unmistakeable tingle of the Change.
“It's a reservoir,” she said, understanding now that the glow hadn't come from heat, but from the release of more subtle energies. Her walking stick had been imbued with such potential by Sal, although she wasn't about to admit that to anyone else lest it be taken from her.
The brand was almost empty, containing barely enough for the flicker of light that danced across the faces of those around her, making them momentarily brighter than the filtered light of dawn.
“Houses and reservoirs, then,” she said, amending her earlier pronouncement.
Schuet shook his head. “We didn't make that brand,” he said. “We grew it. The forest grew it.”
“Sure, and you chopped it off and filled it with the Change. The end result is the same.”
“We don't chop anything, Shilly. We encourage particular plants to tap into the forest's root system and draw out the potential we need. The wood is grown to be rich in the Change, and grown to be harvested, too, like seeds. It's a partner in the process.”
Before Shilly could ask for more details, Griel barked a command to his crew and reached for the brand. Shilly handed it over as the balloon began to sink. She could sense no change in the misty haze around her, but her stomach felt light and the stays holding the airsacs in place thrummed as though plucked.
“Are we landing?” she asked.
Griel shook his head, an ambiguous gesture that could have been a simple no or a warning to keep quiet. Shilly opted for the latter, telling herself to wait and see what happened next.
She wasn't kept waiting long. Dark shadows loomed out of the fog on either side—nebulous, elongated shapes that could have been towers or branches, or even the fingers of a giant hand—reaching up to enfold them.
In looking around to see better, she woke Sal again, who blinked blearily at the view. “Where are we?”
“Home,” Griel rumbled.
One hand tugged at a stay, adjusting the balloon's trim. The dark shapes grew slowly clearer, resolving into the trunks of giant trees, dozens of them stripped of their branches and covered with cascading vines. They reminded Shilly of the poles of a rotting jetty protruding from a dried-up sea. The balloon and its crew navigated between them with long-practised ease.
A larger shadow coalesced ahead of them—a shadow composed of many shadows, like that cast by the leaves of a tree. Shilly narrowed her eyes, trying to make out what lay behind the mist. The larger mass resembled an upside-down triangle, or a mountain turned on its head. The smaller components had no common size or shape. It was difficult to tell how far away these objects lay, and therefore how large they were. They could have been just off the balloon's forward bow in dense fog, or kilometres away in relatively clear air. Only the unmoving, stately trunks that glided slowly by suggested that the objects were neither small nor near.
A gust of cool wind rattled the gondola. Shilly clutched Sal's hand, reminded of the vast drop below them. Even though they must have risen far up the side of the mountain to be so deep in the clouds, she had seen no sign of solid ground.
When she looked ahead again, the shadow had resolved into a city of balloons—or rather, when she took it in properly, a city suspended by wires beneath hundreds of balloons untethered to the ground below. The structure as a whole was too large to absorb at once. Her gaze skated over its complexity during their approach. Teardrop shapes were most common among the balloons, but there were also spheres or fat ovals or discs made from gold and silver fabric. The structures beneath ranged from simple platforms to long cylinders with windows and curving walkways leading between them. Balloons swooped and glided around it, trailing white wakes. Light gleamed off occasional highlights of metal and glass, but wood and canvas predominated, dyed or painted every imaginable colour. Shilly estimated the city's size to be about half of Laure's—which made it all the more impressive for something hanging unsupported in the air.
A Panic soldier raised a compact curved horn to her lips and blew a loud call, rising in pitch as if questioning, which was immediately answered from the city. A yellow light began to flash on the underside of one of the larger structures, a bulbous quarter-moon canted slightly so its horns pointed downward. The balloon changed direction to head for the space between the horns. As it drew closer, Shilly made out several large hooks hanging from ropes. Another balloon—this one a complicated arrangement with five bladders of various sizes bundled up in netting like a bunch of grapes—had been snagged on the hooks and tugged upward into some sort of dock. Panic swarmed back and forth, carrying sacks and boxes deeper into the structure.
The balloon fell under the shadow of the city, and even the feeble light of dawn dropped away. Shilly felt a chill pass over her. She could sense Sal's mood beside her, and it was as wearily sombre as her own.
“What's that up there?” asked the forester called Mikia, pointing.
Shilly followed the direction indicated by Mikia's finger and saw a much larger shape nestled in the underside of the city's many structures. It resembled an oval brass vase tipped on its side, dozens of metres long, with a round opening at one end and a long spike at the other. A curved metal keel protruded at an odd angle, tapering to a stubby point and lending the structure a boatlike shape. What a boat was doing floating in the sky over a forest of fog, Shilly couldn't guess.
Griel stroked his gold-beaded chin and didn't answer Mikia's question. As they drew nearer, Shilly made out patches of corrosion in the metal hull. Whatever it was, age had taken its toll. A line of boltholes suggested that another keel, equal in size to the one she could see, had once graced the far side. Cannibalised, perhaps?
The balloon came level with the dangling hooks, distracting her from that particular mystery. Two members of the Panic crew reached out the starboard side and caught one, and swung it closer to attach it to the gondola. Two on the port side did the same. Shilly's stomach lurched as the hooks tugged the balloon upwards to where a spindly looking gantry awaited them, sticking out of the side of the half-moon structure like an insectile tongue.
“Stay where you are until I tell you to stand,” said Griel. “Then I want you to file off one at a time and wait until we've all disembarked. There's no point trying to escape—”
“Why would we?” said Schuet. “We've nowhere to run, and no way to fly.”
“Exactly.” Griel stood on strong legs and leapt to the gantry as it approached. The thought of the drop below them didn't seem to bother him—or any of the Panic, as they tied stays and carried stolen goods out of the gondola. The balloon creaked and swayed, and Shilly hung onto Sal with a sweaty grip.
Opposite her, Tom came awake with a slight start, and looked around him with wide eyes. “We've landed,” he said.
“No, just stopped.” Land was definitely the wrong word.
Griel came back to help them off the gondola, one after the other. Shilly refused to look down, even though she knew all she wou
ld see was clouds. That was worse, in a way, than seeing clear to the ground. She felt she might fall forever.
Mist-filled glass globes dangling from bulkheads above glowed with a pale light, illuminating the scene. Curved wooden walls awaited them, decorated with dots, parallel lines, and spirals that snaked in waves around corners, across ceilings, and along passageways. They might have been navigational markers or just ornamentation. Dock workers crowded around the gondola, ensuring it was safely secured. Everywhere Shilly looked she saw inhuman faces: big ears, shadowed eyes, mouths that stretched too wide when they opened. The air was full of harsh shrieks and cries. She forced herself to breathe evenly, calmly.
The Panic carried Kemp out of the gondola and rested him on a stretcher. He looked deathly pale and didn't seem to be breathing. Rosevear went to check on him, but was held carefully back. A dozen Panic in black-and-brown uniforms had hurried up to join them on the gantry and stood in two lines before Griel, waiting for orders.
“Anix, see to the cargo. I want it catalogued and assessed within the hour. Erged, call the Quorum to order; we'll be coming before them shortly.” The soldiers Griel addressed bowed briskly and hurried off. “Ramal, take this one to Vehofnehu and tell him to do what he can.” Griel indicated Kemp, then pointed at Rosevear, Tom, and Shilly in turn. “Take these three with you. I don't think they'll give you any trouble, but be careful anyway. I don't want them wandering about on their own.”
The Panic called Ramal—a burly female with bushy eyebrows set in a permanent glower and two short, metal-bound ponytails suspended from the back of her domed head—bowed crisply.
“Wait,” said Shilly, feeling an instinctive alarm at the thought of being separated from Sal again. “Where are you taking us? Why can't we all go?”
“Because the rest of you are needed here,” came the simple answer.
“Why? What is the Quorum? Who is this Vef—Vehofen—?”
“Vehofnehu.” Griel came to stand before her. He was only slightly taller than her, but seemed enormously broad. “He's many things; a healer is just one of them. You can trust him, just like you can trust me. I give you my word: if we have no reason to fear you, then you have no reason to fear us.”
Torn, Shilly looked at Sal for support. Should she fight or give in? Did she have any real choice? He seemed as uncertain as her.
“Go with Kemp,” Highson said to her. “Look after him. He'll want a familiar face by him when he wakes up.”
Can't Tom do that? she wanted to retort. He's known Kemp as long as I have.
All resistance left her when she realised how petty that would sound. Kemp did need her, and she and Sal had survived separation before. Griel hadn't hurt them yet. She could only hope that he—and the Quorum, whatever they were—would see that she and her companions were innocent bystanders in the Panic's squabble with the other foresters.
She kissed Sal's warm lips and hugged him, then went to stand with Tom and Rosevear, the bag slung over her shoulder. Beside the two young wardens, she felt very vulnerable.
Griel nodded his satisfaction. “Thank you for cooperating. If only all humans were so reasonable.”
“Not just humans,” said Schuet.
Griel snapped his long fingers and headed off along the gantry, drawing Sal, Highson, Seneschal Schuet, and Mikia—plus the two Panic bearing Mawson—in his wake.
Sal glanced over his shoulder at Shilly looking miserable, and wished there had been some way to avoid being separated. The sad fact was that they were severely outnumbered and a long way from help. It would be best to ride out what was coming in the hope that reason or compassion would ultimately prevail.
Still, the Change crackled through him like static electricity, wanting to earth itself in Griel's exposed back.
“Gently does it,” whispered Highson into his mind. “They know you have some talent, but they don't know how much. That knowledge could make all the difference, later.”
Sal nodded, seeing the sense in that. Although they had yet to meet any Panic with obvious sensitivity to the Change, he didn't doubt that they existed. What would they be like? he wondered. If Schuet and the foresters used wood as reservoirs, what did the Panic use?
The question distracted him only briefly. A more pressing issue—that of negotiating the ways of the floating city—soon demanded all his attention.
He had noticed the way the Panic crew used feet as well as hands to clamber over the balloon during the early stages of its journey through the mist, before he had fallen asleep. Their toes were shorter than their fingers but much more flexible than human toes, and the shoes they wore were open at the front, allowing them full mobility. He had thought the antics on the balloon a matter of expediency, but learned how wrong that assumption was on encountering his first ladder, inside the moon-shaped dock.
Griel waved two of his troop ahead of him with arms that seemed too long to be real. The soldiers scurried up the near-vertical incline with smooth grace, as easily as though walking. Schuet and Mikia went next, with considerably less ability. The ladder consisted of a series of cylindrical wooden rungs roughly half a metre apart, polished smooth by time and regular use. When it was Sal's turn, he concentrated on each rung as it passed, and didn't look down.
He clambered onto level ground at the top, feeling winded. Highson was flushed and breathing heavily behind him. The two Panic carrying Mawson didn't appear inconvenienced in the slightest.
Griel didn't give them a chance to rest. He wound his way through the dock and beyond, leading them up and down ladders and across bridges that swayed unnervingly beneath them. They passed Panic everywhere they went, following even more dangerous-looking routes up ropes and across gaps that made Sal ill just thinking about them. Wire cables reached upward from every flat surface, some just to the structure above, but others stretching right up out of sight to anchor points under balloons much higher. Because of its haphazard nature, the city possessed few vertical or horizontal surfaces. Sal constantly felt as though he might slip and fall if he stepped wrongly.
The deeper into the city's heart they went, the more Panic they saw. Even though it was the middle of the night, the city was alive with motion and life. He didn't know how many people lived there, but they were crammed in tight. Every vertical surface was studded with windows, pipes, drains, exhaust vents, and the like. Washing lines and mist globes hung suspended from every available anchor point. Voices called across the gaps between buildings, creating a constant backdrop that he doubted would ever ebb completely. Bigmouthed, big-eared faces stared back at him from windows, doorways, and in passing. With Panic moving in all directions around him he felt under intense scrutiny, and once again had to resist the urge to use the Change, albeit for hiding rather than fighting.
They obviously weren't the first humans to come to the city, but it was just as clearly not an everyday occurrence. Some of the Panic exposed their teeth in frightening sneers at Schuet and Mikia, recognising from their uniforms that they were captured enemies. Highson and Sal were obviously guilty by association. Mawson drew stares of open curiosity.
Sal didn't know how long he could stand it. The smile he maintained, trying to deflect hostility, was soon aching with strain. He tried to keep his eyes on the ladders and ramps he had to follow, in a vain attempt to move as easily as Griel.
“Where are you taking us?” pressed Highson. “Who are the Quorum? Why do we need to see them?”
Griel wouldn't answer, and soon they had no breath left for questions.
After an hour of climbing, they slowed. At the entrance to a bell-bottomed structure hanging from three giant golden balloons, a Panic female draped in flowing green fabrics anchored at shoulders, wrists, and ankles ran up to Griel. Although smaller and as slender as a rope compared to him, she stopped him in his tracks.
“Are you insane?” Her expression was furious. Beaded hair that hung to her waist rattled with every movement of her head. Brass rings on her fingers and toes gleamed in the misty
light. “Do you pursue this course because you're mad, or do you have a genuine desire to ruin us all?”
“Jao, listen—”
“No, you listen for once.” She poked at the stitching on Griel's massive chestplate hard enough to force him back a step. “While you've been hunting that accursed wraith of yours, Tzartak and Sensenya have been ousted, allowing Oriel to fill their seats with his goons. Still, the Heptarchs might have listened to reason from you, had you not turned up with these—these groundlings in tow.” The look she cast Schuet and the others was one of pure contempt. “What game are you playing? Do you have any conception of what might be at stake?”
Griel's spine was as stiff as a board, recoiling so far away from her that he was almost standing completely straight. “I'm trying to do what's right.”
“I know, fog take you.” In complete defiance of the anger and betrayal displayed by her expression, she stepped closer to kiss Griel on the lips. “Good luck, you mad fool. They're waiting for you.”
Griel ran a hand over Jao's beaded scalp with surprising tenderness, and nodded. He brushed by her and waved for the others to follow.
Sal ignored the hot stare of the Panic female as he had ignored other Panic during his journey with Griel. Two high, arched doors opened in the side of the structure ahead. Griel led them once more with an unhurried but distance-eating lope through the doors and along a grand corridor that followed a spiralling path into the interior of the structure.
“Who are the Heptarchs?” asked Highson, who had taken advantage of the brief respite to get his wind back.
Griel glanced at him, and to Sal's surprise relented: “The caretakers of the Panic. Our rulers.”
“I assume that's who we are going to meet.”
“No. The Quorum advise the Heptarchs on certain matters.”
“What matters?”
“I'll explain later. For now, know only that we must move quickly, before this opportunity is taken from us.” Griel's tone, more than his words, told Highson he should obey.
Sal reviewed what little they had learned in recent moments. Someone had been ousted from the Heptarchs, allowing someone else called Oriel to gain more influence over the Panic's ruling body. Without knowing who stood for what, it was impossible to tell whether that would be a good thing for the “groundlings” or not. Griel and Jao obviously thought it was a bad thing, though.
The Hanging Mountains Page 12
