The Hanging Mountains

by Sean Williams

  Silently, feeling the wound in his chest still tingling from the proximity of the wraith, he hoped the same for all of them.

  “Humanity's ability to channel and concentrate the

  Change is unparalleled in nature. The only force

  capable of such explosive and sweeping energies

  is fire, and that is mindless and unfocused.

  Conversely, while other minds do exist in the Change,

  they don't use it as we do. Humanity therefore stands

  at a critical nexus between two worlds—a unique

  and sometimes very dangerous position.”

  MASTER WARDEN RISA ATILDE: NOTES TOWARD A UNIFIED CURRICULUM

  Skender was beginning to feel dizzy. For an hour, he and Chu had been circling the barge, keeping always at a safe distance. Thus far they had avoided any overeager archers while watching people—arguing, gesticulating, pacing back and forth, putting things on the table then taking them off again—but he could no more tell what they were saying than he could have read a book held at that distance.

  “Looks like the Eminent Delfine is joining her mother at last.” He squinted. “And the Panic soldiers who came with the Guardian are going to stand with Oriel. I think that means our job is done.”

  “I hope so.” Chu sounded tired, and Skender could understand why. Flying was exhausting, even if it had lately been round and round in circles. “If we're going to land, we'll need to signal Rosevear or Highson and get them to talk to the Guardian. She can signal to her people in Milang and tell them not to stick us full of arrows.”

  “That just leaves the question of where to put down.”

  “At the bottom of the mountain, where the slope isn't quite so dramatic. There's bound to be a clear patch somewhere.”

  In the forest? Skender wanted to ask, but didn't. The only clear patch he knew of was the knoll, half a day's march away. “Sounds like a fine idea to me. Got that mirror handy?”

  This time he didn't need the starlight it had stored. He was able to reflect the hazy glare of the sun instead. It took him a moment to attract the attention of one of the wardens, but when he did a reply came soon enough.

  Fragmented words flashed in rapid code between the barge and the wing. Their plan was quickly approved. The archers of Milang would be told to let the wing land where it chose, provided it posed no threat to the public.

  “Yeah, right,” said Chu with a snort. “One bad landing and suddenly you're a health hazard.”

  “You've had more than just the one,” he said. “I can think of at least three—and they're only the ones I know about.”

  “Picky, picky.” She tugged the port wingtip down, freeing it from the endless circle. It dropped into fresh air with a sound like a sigh.

  The blowing of signal horns accompanied them as they approached the forest city and began to descend. Although they had permission to occupy its airspace, Chu took pains not to alarm anyone—or to stay in range for too long, just in case the order wasn't immediately understood.

  Landing first, Skender told himself, beginning to look forward to taking a break from their lookout duties, then the long climb back up the hill. That, he wasn't looking forward to. A bath and a change of clothes at the end of it would be very welcome, though. And then, when things quietened down…I don't hate you, she had said. That could mean anything.

  The thought trailed off as a hint of smoke hit his nostrils. It made his stomach rumble for breakfast, and that put all other considerations aside.

  “I want eggs,” he said. “I don't care what kind of eggs they are. Bantam, pigeon, turkey—anything. And I've seen pigs in the forest, so there must be bacon too.”

  “Thinking with your stomach, eh? That makes a nice change.”

  “I'm just saying.”

  “And I'm just saying…”

  They were halfway down the city's southern flank when he realised that the smell of smoke was growing stronger.

  “That's some feast,” he said, starting to wonder. “There,” he said, pointing down at a dark column rising out of the mist below. “Does that look odd to you?”

  “Odd,” she agreed, “and hot. Hang on.”

  She put the nose down and headed for the column at speed. Their ride grew turbulent as they flew through dense layers of fog. Skender might have learned to recognise some recurring cloud shapes and the atmospheric currents that caused them, but the lower the wing went, the less familiar the clouds became. What Chu saw through her licence she wasn't revealing just yet.

  She levelled out as they approached the top of the column of hot air he had spotted. Distantly he heard the sound of horns blowing—not the calm transmission of orders from above, but a rapid staccato signalling alarm from below.

  “There's definitely a fire down there,” Chu said, swinging them around the billowing smoke. Strong, erratic gusts shook the wing from side to side. Particles of ash got in Skender's eyes and nose, making him cough.

  “We should take a closer look,” he said, although his lungs disagreed. “We'll see it better from above—better than those down there, anyway. We might be able to help.”

  “All right,” she said, “but be warned. It's going to get bumpy.”

  She was true to her word. The closer they flew to the source of the smoke, the rougher the wind became. Great gouts of hot air spewed up from the fire, which appeared to be confined to a vertical strip at the very base of the city. The flames themselves were mostly invisible behind roiling black smoke, but every now and again he glimpsed flashes of orange and yellow licking at branches and leaping from tree to tree, bright and furious.

  “You'd think the fog would put it out,” he said, his mouth tasting of ashes.

  “Not once the wood catches. Full of resins and oils, this lot. Could burn for weeks if it really gets going.” She peered over his left shoulder. “There are people fighting it. Look.”

  He made out figures scurrying through the trees, shovelling dirt or carrying water to the fringes of the blaze.

  “There's not much we can do here,” he said. She made a noise of agreement. “Seen anywhere flat to land?”

  “No, but—” She froze, then groaned. “Over there. More smoke.”

  She let go briefly to point. On the edge of visibility he made out another column of smoke further around the city's base, not as large as the first but billowing strongly.

  “What are the odds of two fires in one day?” he asked.

  “Don't even ask.” She caught a thermal from the fire below and urged the wing towards the second outbreak. Tongues of fire leapt through the treetops, visible even from a distance. And beyond it, further around the base of the city, a third fire was just getting going.

  “Deliberately lit,” said Skender, only beginning to think through the ramifications of their discovery. He and Chu had seen torches in the Versegi Chasm just hours before. That would have been a perfect way to get a fire started without being seen.

  “But who would do this?” he asked. “Not the Panic. They wouldn't be so stupid.”

  “Didn't Lidia Delfine mention people living in the Chasm? Perhaps it's them.”

  “Why would they? They might not even exist.” As Chu took the wing along a tight figure eight, uncertain where to fly next, he felt a chill sweep through him despite the warm, ash-heavy air. It would take time for word of the fires to reach the citadel. By then it might be too late to put them out and half the city could be ablaze. The higher it went, the harder it would be for people to escape. He pictured a panicked throng gathering in the Guardian's open-air citadel, with nowhere to run as the fires closed in.

  “Over there,” he said, pointing along the base of the city at three spiralling trails of cloud. “Those contrails. Can you see them through the licence?”

  He felt her nod. “Cold. You don't think—?”

  “I do think, but we need to be sure.”

  “Uh, right, but are you sure that's what you want to do? I've seen these things, and they're blo
ody fast.”

  “I know. I've seen them too. We'll just have to be faster.” A fluttering sensation in his chest greeted that bold announcement. “There isn't time to argue about it. Let's go!”

  Chu, perhaps startled by his uncharacteristic decisiveness, stopped arguing and set the wing on a course chasing the source of the contrails.

  The Swarm. Skender had no doubt they were behind the fires, but he needed something better than instinct to send the information to the others through the Change. He needed proof, even if it came in the form of an image of a mouthful of teeth closing about his face.

  Shilly noticed the flurry of horn-blowing and bell-ringing at the same time as the others around her. Minister Sousoura, who had taken the knife away as the meeting on the barge dragged on without incident, brought the blade back against her ribs.

  “What's going on?” Sousoura asked her.

  “How should I know? I don't understand that racket.”

  “Danger,” the minister said, listening with one ear cocked for cadences in the rhythmic, atonal calls. “Fire. The city is aflame—and the bridges across the Chasm are cut!”

  A ripple of shock and dismay spread through the group of conspirators gathered on the widow's walk. Some of them were guards, and there were at least two other ministers. The rest seemed to be high-ranking citizens who had decided to take the law into their own hands. None had behaved with open aggression to their three captives. Beyond a poke with the tip of a blade and a whispered warning or two, they might have been enjoying a pleasant outing in the misty daylight. Conversation turned around who amongst the Guardian's closest advisers had insulted whom and what would change when Lidia Delfine took the Guardianship. Someone looking from a distance would never have known the truth.

  Minister Sousoura was no daydreamer. She had gathered those lackeys around her to use as a camouflage. She was the one Shilly was most concerned about.

  “Tell me what you've done,” the minister hissed in her ear. “Tell me what new treachery you have planned.”

  Shilly raised her hands in protest. “No treachery, I swear. You know better than anyone I've been right here the whole time, and I've had no chance to talk to anyone. If something's going on, I'm not a part of it.”

  Sousoura wasn't so easily appeased. “It was all prearranged,” she said, a calculating look in her eyes. “That flyer of yours—I saw it slipping through the clouds. It could set fires while everyone's attention was on the Guardian. Is that what this is? You distract us with promises of peace while you and your Panic allies raze the city to the ground?”

  “It doesn't matter what I say. You're not going to believe me.” Shilly caught Jao's eye. The Panic female was the oddest note in the conspirator's grand pretence of normality, and the one most likely to attract unwelcome attention. Thus far, she had kept a determinedly low profile, leaning against the wooden wall and watching the meeting on the barge like the crowd surrounding her.

  Jao shook her head, saying without words that the Panic had nothing to do with the fire. Shilly believed her.

  The minister was thinking while the crowd buzzed restlessly with the news. Shock and alarm were very much the order of the moment, but no one as yet had suggested taking concrete steps.

  “Shouldn't we evacuate or something?” Shilly asked, earning herself another poke.

  “We're not so easily defeated,” the minister said, as though Shilly had suggested a full-scale retreat. “Fires don't frighten us. We're staying right here—so you'd better hope your plan fails, otherwise you'll burn along with us.”

  Shilly glanced over the wall at a pall of black rising from the base of the city and hoped that, whoever's plan it actually was, someone was doing something about it.

  Kail felt Skender's fear a split second before the channel between them truly opened. Every mage and warden on the barge looked up at the same moment, smelling the smoke and feeling their hair singe. Heat blasted their faces. Burning leaves whipped up at them. Powerful waves of hot wind tugged the balloons above them, wrenching them from side to side and making them barely controllable. On the heels of all this, an icy-cold presence came snapping at them.

  Then the channel slammed shut and Kail staggered forward, clutching his chest. “Skender!”

  “That stupid boy.” Kelloman looked as drawn as Kail felt. “Guardian—you must do something. The fire—”

  “We know about the fire,” the Guardian said, crossing the barge to meet his gaze, forcing him to focus. “What about Skender? What has he seen?”

  “The Swarm,” said Marmion. “The Swarm is lighting the fires under the direction of Upuaut. They wouldn't have thought of it themselves.”

  The box to one side of the table caught Kail's attention. Could the Swarm and Upuaut have put such a plan in motion after Marmion had exposed Giltine to the sun, or had this been prepared long in advance? Either way—

  “We have to stop them,” he said.

  Oriel shouted orders instructing the barge to return to the Panic city.

  “No!” exclaimed the Guardian. “I'll not watch in safety while my city burns. We'll take the balloon I came here in.”

  “And I will pilot it,” said Griel, picking up the iron crown and tossing it into Oriel's hands. The black-bearded Panic male nearly dropped it, such was his surprise.

  “Quickly, now,” said Griel, herding the others towards the balloon. The Panic soldier Griel had called Ramal followed them, a suspicious look on her face. Already the barge had begun to move, rocking underfoot like Os, the Alcaide's boneship, on the high seas. “Don't forget that accursed thing.” Griel pointed at the box. Rosevear and Highson lugged it across the gangplank and into the relatively smaller craft.

  “Where to, Guardian?” Griel asked once he was behind the controls.

  “Down,” she said.

  Seneschal Schuet sat firmly at her side, one arm cast protectively around the back of her seat. “Caroi, is this wise?”

  “I don't know, but let's deal with the threat first and argue later. Lidia, I can drop you off on the way, if you like.”

  “Don't even think about it.” The Eminent Delfine stood on a seat as the balloon lost altitude, looking overboard with one hand holding onto a guide rope. “Where you go, I go too.”

  “And I,” said Heuve, drawing his blade.

  “Put that away,” warned Griel, waving. “Cut the wrong stay and you'll send us all plunging to our deaths. There are better weapons to use against these creatures.”

  Attention shifted to the four wardens and one Stone Mage seated at the rear of the gondola.

  Kelloman cleared his throat. “I'll need contact with solid rock if I'm to do what I did last time.”

  “And I can hold just one, maybe two,” said Marmion, a haunted look in his eyes. He kept his injured arm protectively close to his stomach, as though afraid he might bump it.

  “Is that all?” Seneschal Schuet asked.

  “It may be enough,” said Marmion. “We don't know how many there are, and they may run as soon as we confront them, rather than risk losing another of their own.”

  The balloon rocked beneath them as hot air rose from above. Already the air had turned dark and bitter with ash. Kail thought Marmion's opinion optimistic, but he said nothing. It depended entirely on what Upuaut wanted. If arson was its only intention, the Swarm might run and finish the job later. If Upuaut was tired of playing, however…

  A shadow fell over them as a dark cloud passed between the balloon and the sky. The gondola lurched violently beneath them. For a second, Kail feared that the Swarm had found them already, but it was just a powerful updraught. He remembered something an old boundary rider had once told him: storms make their own weather. He had seen several wildfires burning their way across the plains, whipping up winds and creating clouds out of nothing. If the balloon came too close to the flames, he thought, the Swarm might be the least of their worries.

  He felt a touch on his shoulder as they descended. Rosevear had leaned ove
r to make a connection with him, and through that connection came details of the charms Marmion had used to capture the wraith three days earlier. The information was complex, and the link between the four wardens tainted by conflicting emotions carried along with the information. Kail could feel Rosevear's nervousness, Highson's self-blame, and Marmion's doubt. Kail had to concentrate to hold the charm in his mind, fighting complex emotions of his own.

  He sensed Kelloman reaching out for Skender and finding nothing.

  “There!” cried Lidia Delfine, pointing through a gap in the rising smoke to a complex tangle of trails, ducking and weaving across the forest canopy. Also visible were sheets of flame rising from a nearby firefront. Surges of chimerical energy heralded the burning of trees rich with the Change. Great mushrooms of smoke rose from each such site. Ripples of uncontrolled potential spread in waves through the forest.

  Griel pushed the balloon's twin engines to the limit and let gravity pull them downwards. Kail hung on tight as the gondola tilted beneath him and their speed increased. Turbulence increased as well, rattling him from side to side. His teeth bared in a rictus of pain.

  The gap in the clouds closed around them. The world turned black. The twins had once talked about the “heaven and hell” of their old world. Was this hell, he wondered, this world of smoke and pain and darkness?

  Then the balloon burst out of the underside of the clouds, trailing black streamers behind it. Kail blinked sooty grit from his eyes and saw that they were much closer to the ground. A tangle of contrails hung directly ahead, already dispersing in the face of turbulent winds rising from the fire nearby. There was no sign of the Swarm themselves.

  “Where are they?” The Guardian's voice was barely audible over the rattling and shaking of the balloon. To Kail their flight felt as rough as a fast buggy ride over a rutted old road. “Where are they?”

  Something cold and black shot out of the nearest cloud. Kail barely had time to acknowledge it before it cut directly across their path, screaming with high-pitched rage. The Change flared as Highson and Marmion tried to snare it. Lines of force rippled through the balloon, throwing people from side to side in their seats. With a shriek, the wraith changed course and darted away.