Farewell to the Liar

by D. K. Fields

  Now comes the drilling.

  Even we have to look away at first, but it does little to stop the sound. Lanthan stands on a pedestal, high above Berklum’s exposed back, and rotates the handle of her drill as she presses her weight down. A slow grinding, churning of bone that rumbles like a landslide. And the squeal of the suction bellows does little to help. This cacophony, once heard, cannot be unheard.

  Old and skinny he may be, but Berklum’s bones appear solid enough. Lanthan is sweating, her arms slick with the effort, by the time she pulls the drill away and slides a thick pin through metal and bone alike.

  The first base part is in place. She and Acti sit long enough for a drink of water and half an apple each, before they begin work on the second.

  This is how a Rustan modifies their body.

  This is how a bonesmith plies their trade.

  It’s nothing mystical or romantic. It’s a lot of hard work and mess, and it’s no surprise the rest of the Union leaves them to it.

  *

  He feels heavier. It’s a simple, foolish first thought, but what else is there in those first moments? Berklum is still lying face down on a table, and it’s as if someone is sitting across his shoulders. Sitting, not just because of the weight but because it’s not moving and it’s a constant. He can breathe and he can open his eyes, but his mouth and tongue are slower in coming to.

  He can see his daughter, and the girl with rainbow wings. Unun is sitting forwards on a low bench, kneading her hands. This is what she does when she’s somewhere she doesn’t want to be. She hasn’t noticed your eyes are open, Berklum, because she’s looking away to the forge.

  But Newsands sees you. She’s on the high shelf and is as unreadable, in her old − young way, as ever.

  ‘You’re almost ready,’ she says.

  You’d laugh if you could. Is our bitter chuckle enough, do you think?

  ‘You’ve been strong. You’ll need to be stronger still.’ And just like that, just as you blink, she’s at the table.

  ‘Palla?’ Unun says. She hurries to kneel by your head. ‘Are you awake?’

  He manages to mumble. Manages a smile when she strokes his face.

  ‘Oh, Palla, why didn’t you just ask?’ she says.

  It’s hard to hear the compassion, the love, in her voice, isn’t it? But he doesn’t shy from the pain. He knows he deserves it.

  Unun tells him a story, and some of it is true. She tells him of coming home to find the mess he left in her room. The slow, crushing understanding of what was gone. And would you believe, she’s apologising now. She is saying how sorry she is. She won’t say why or what for. She is crying now as she cried then, as she replaced the stone above the shelf. She dragged the chest of drawers across the room and put the drawers back in the right order. She straightened the one rug in the room. In the mirror, she washed her face as best she could to hide the tears. She did this all before Nibalt came home and asked how her day had been, before he asked whether you were still locked up in the workshop. She didn’t even need to check; she’d felt it as soon as she came home that day from the market. The house felt empty, as if the bonds that had been keeping it together had shattered in a way that could never be undone.

  Still, she forced herself to listen and laugh and eat the meal Nibalt cooked. And when he fell asleep that night, she snuck out to look for you.

  How did she find you? Were there so many places to look, really? You have no friends, no other family, no vices to indulge. But that was a challenge in its own way – where does a man go when he has nowhere to go? She wandered the spire, hopeless, until she came to the ropebox to the ridge. Then she knew.

  She knew where, but she had plenty of time on the crossing to wonder why. A modification, perhaps, but you hadn’t talked of wanting any more for as long as you lived. Did Lanthan have more work for you – but then why take the money? Were you trying to buy part of her business? Did she have something you wanted? Did you owe her money? Was something wrong with the fingers you made for her?

  There were other, even less probable, ideas that occurred to Unun. But when she walked in and saw you on the table, she realised she’d been right with the first improbable thought.

  You were covered, as you are now, and she respected that. She didn’t even ask Lanthan, she knew better.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me, Palla,’ she says. ‘It’s your body. But I want to know, why didn’t you ask for the money?’

  Berklum tries to work his mouth. He tries to form the shapes, make the words, explain his actions. For so many reasons, he can’t, but he tries.

  ‘You…’ he manages, just a whisper, ‘wouldn’t believe.’

  She can’t look at you. Not like this, not right now, and not after what you’ve done. And there’s no blaming her, is there? The money is only the start of it. The money is only a symbol we use, we who tell stories of our lives, to focus those feelings that have been there all the while. Love and hope – quick, hide them in purses above the high shelf, so one day they can turn to betrayal and despair. She can’t look at you because she doesn’t trust herself anymore. She doesn’t trust her own feelings. That’s the extent of what you’ve done, Berklum.

  There’s nothing to say, even if you could say it.

  Something takes his hand. He can’t see and can’t move his head to look. But his arm slowly swings out and up. It’s the girl, Newsands, and she has Unun’s hand too. She has both of your hands in hers. And she brings you together.

  A small but wondrous gesture. That’s all we have left in our story.

  *

  In the days that follow, Berklum recovers in some ways more than others. His body heals as well as any Rustan, thanks largely to Lanthan’s ministrations. Through an unspoken agreement, he lives in her workshop for these days. She makes sure the lockport – that’s what they come to call them eventually – are secure and in working order. After the initial base was inserted, she worked tirelessly to craft the inner workings. Together, in the hours that Berklum can manage, they test those workings so that when he rolls a shoulder or stretches his back in a particular way his wings will respond.

  For her part, Unun is just as busy. She has the workshop keys now, and she wastes no time making it her own. She uses what money she has left to clear some of her palla’s debts and re-start the business. Work is slow to start with – and not ‘good work’, as Berklum would say. But word soon starts to spread that the spire’s best bonesmith isn’t a misery of an old man, but a young woman who listens, who understands, who wants to help. It’s not long before she has more work than she can manage, and she starts to think, perhaps one day, of an apprentice.

  So the days tumble into weeks in this manner. Which is much the same manner as they always do. It is only us storytellers who mark the time. The rest of you live it.

  Finally, Berklum is ready. His lockports are finished and his shoulders fully healed. With the help of Lanthan, Acti and Newsands he has made his wings. He wears them in the workshop for hours at a time, so as to be used to the weight and shape of them. The membranes, made of slip-dog hide this time, are stitched by Acti – who, to the surprise of his meiter, has a gift with the needle. She decides he will stitch up all her recipients from that day on. He is most careful with the holes at the end of each wing. That is, once he understands why Berklum wants holes in his wings. That conversation takes most of an afternoon, and Berklum threatening to bring a dead tatterwing into the workshop, before the boy is convinced.

  Which brings us here, to this now familiar ledge in the upper spire. Above us are the roosts of countless tatterwings. Below us, Rustan life, and lower still, the Wit’s Blood and volcanic rock of the Tear. And out there? Hot air and dark clouds.

  This is what Berklum sees, with his feet on the edge.

  But he also sees Rustans in those clouds. Rustans flying back and forth between the spire and the ridge. And not just here, but between the cone and the sisters, the stack and the ring, and all across the Rustin
g Mountains. The air full of Rustan-made wings that harness the heat of their home. Wings made of hide that sail the mountains. That’s what they’ll be called, Berklum: hidesails.

  ‘Our gift to them,’ Newsands says. ‘Every Rustan who knows the pain of losing the freedom they knew in childhood, they will have a different kind of freedom to look forward to.’

  He can picture it all now but knows he won’t live to see it. The future isn’t his. But he’s helped to shape it.

  He steps off the ledge.

  *

  He flies. He flies far, and then he falls.

  *

  Unun straightens from the tabletop where her last recipient of the day is trying not to fidget. His discomfort is understandable – he broke two ribs some time ago, and they won’t heal properly, which makes lying flat difficult. Unun won’t keep him there long. She only needs to consider where she might make her initial incisions and take one or two measurements.

  ‘It would be helpful if you didn’t wash yourself tonight,’ she says.

  The man grins. ‘I think I can manage that. But you might have to tell my wife.’

  She helps him to sit. His breathing is somewhat laboured – his chest is tight, and he’s doing his best to hide it. That’s not because of Unun, it’s just a habit he’s acquired.

  ‘First thing tomorrow,’ she says.

  ‘I won’t know myself when this is all fixed up.’

  How true. What is it your palla used to say, Unun?

  ‘My palla used to say our modifications change us so our body is new to us again.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ he says, easing an arm into his shirt.

  ‘Tomorrow, then.’

  He leaves the workshop, and as the door is closing there’s a rush of air. It circles the room, making the candles splutter – Unun has more candles lit now than her palla would use in a year. The sudden breeze stops her. It smells strange: dry, so very dry. A picture comes to her, from where she couldn’t say: a picture of sand. Sand as far as any field glasses could see. And somewhere among the rolling dunes is a man. It appears he has fallen, with his heavy cloak surrounding him. Perhaps he’s a Wayward man, they wear cloaks. But no. The closer she looks the more the seed of an idea starts to grow. An unbelievable idea. She smiles, bittersweet, and hopes that wherever her palla went, he’s happy with how he got there. But she misses him. Every day.

  The door clanks shut. She blinks, and she’s back in her workshop. The candles settle once more. As she turns back to the forge, to tend the orange embers there, she glances at the high shelf. And for a moment, she sees a flash of it. So brief, but unmistakable in all the Rusting Mountains.

  A rainbow.

  *

  All things are new once. All things have a first sighting, a first use, a first telling.

  But we all forget, don’t we?

  Can you imagine a time when riding a horse was a far away dream? Or a time when fire only occurred beyond our control, like the wind and the rain?

  Maybe you’re disappointed that Berklum didn’t soar through the Rusting Mountains to return a hero, lauded as the greatest bonesmith there ever was. But those ancient people who first sat on a horse, they fell. Time and time again they fell. Who knows how many were badly hurt, or worse, before we mastered the act of riding? And how many were burnt before we tamed fire?

  Berklum was one such person. A man who fell, who was burnt, who flew from the mountains.

  We Rustans tell the stories, year after year, of hidesails and how it feels to fly.

  This was a story without Rustans in the sky. Because we take flight for granted.

  Because we forget all things are new once.

  Thirteen

  The Rustan storyteller bowed, and the applause began immediately. That hadn’t happened at the other stories so far in this election. For the Caskers, the Seeders, the Perlish and the Torn, the applause had come slowly, if at all, almost as if those listening were coming out of a deep sleep. But here in the Water Gardens, as the Rustan ’teller told the end of their realm’s story, it seemed everyone had been hanging on their final word.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got some competition,’ Cora said to Ruth.

  Her sister smiled. ‘Of the best kind. The Rustans share our aims. But it’s the Wayward story that will give the news of the Tear to the Union, that will ask them to make their choice.’

  ‘The choice that lot makes is the first hurdle,’ Cora said, nodding towards the masked voters now swaying back to the garbing pavilion. There they could finally remove their hot, heavy black robes, and the coloured masks of the Audience. And do the thing they were brought here for: choose between the black stone and the white.

  Cora doubted their backs could be aching as much as hers did from sitting on the fountain’s edge. As she stretched, she thought of the old man in the Rustans’ story, Berklum, him saying so often that spine work was dangerous. That hadn’t stopped him getting his own spine modified in the end though. The first lockport. The story of how the Rustans got their wings.

  ‘Adaptation in the face of grief,’ Cora muttered to herself. ‘The story was about finding a new way to be in your home.’

  ‘And showing how that brings freedom, not restriction,’ Ruth said. ‘That’s a message the Union needs to hear.’

  ‘It’s not without risk though,’ Cora said. ‘The old man flying off to Audience knows where. Lost in the desert beyond the Tear.’

  ‘But look what he gave the people of the Rusting Mountains in return.’

  Cora rolled her shoulders and felt an alarming series of clicks. ‘You ever seen them fly?’

  ‘Many times, but only when I’ve been in the Mountains, where the air currents are right for the hidesails. It’s amazing to see. You should go, Cora, once this is all over, before…’

  ‘Before the Tear swallows the Rusting Mountains?’

  Cora was thinking of Serus. They could go together. Once all this is over. She’d been so focused on the Wayward story, keeping Ruth safe until the moment she spoke its first words, but there was a whole world of after. A world of Wit’s blood.

  There was a noise behind them – a kind of clap, then a shunt. Cora spun round.

  But the noise was just the fountain starting up again. Water spurted from the mouths of the bronze kenna birds, and the air around Cora and Ruth was once again cool with spray.

  The Audience were out of sight now, but no one else would be able to leave until the voting chests had been secured and were on their way. Harassed purple tunics were now explaining this to those in the public gallery trying to get out of their seats.

  ‘We should slip away now,’ Ruth said, ‘while everyone’s distracted.’

  ‘Better to wait. Safer in a crowd.’ Cora reached for her bindle tin. ‘Want one?’

  ‘Well, if we’re not going anywhere for a while…’

  Cora handed a rolled smoke to Ruth.

  ‘This hat itches like it’s lice-ridden,’ Ruth said, rubbing at her forehead which, Cora had to admit, did look pretty red. ‘It’s the stuff it’s made from. So coarse. I don’t know how the Seeders put up with them.’

  ‘Glad to hear you haven’t been forced to use Lowlanders.’

  ‘I’ll call them that when their Chambers stops trying to kill me.’

  ‘Speaking of which…’

  Lowlander Chambers Morton came into view. She was a short woman, easy to miss in the crush of people milling around the Commission box. Her grey hair was cut into a jaunty crop, which was no doubt expensive.

  ‘When I confronted her at the Assembly building,’ Cora said, ‘after I got back from the Tear, she said she’d known our parents, that she’d been to the house.’

  Ruth drew deeply on her bindle. ‘Don’t you remember her?’

  ‘I’ve tried but…’

  ‘Morton was always first to arrive at the parties and last to leave. Until I found her on Father’s lap. They were in the salon. Mother had gone to bed. It was late. I’d gone down to get a dr
ink, probably woken by their ridiculous attempts to keep quiet.’

  Cora stared at her older sister. ‘You never told me this.’

  ‘Why burden you with it?’

  It was on the tip of Cora’s tongue to remind Ruth how much she’d burdened her twelve-year-old sister with when she’d fled Fenest, selling the story of the Gorderheim embezzlement to the pennysheets on the way. But she didn’t. What would be the point now?

  ‘What were Father and Morton… doing?’ Cora asked.

  ‘Not much, thanks to me disrupting them. But I was old enough to know what they were about to do, and to understand that it wouldn’t have been the first time. Something about their ease with each other, even when I was standing in front of them. Morton didn’t come to parties after that, and not long after, she became Chambers anyway. She told Mother she was too busy. A helpful excuse – once someone puts on the brown robe and the manacles, they haven’t got time to drink Greynal in ordinary salons with ordinary people.’

  ‘But embezzlement isn’t off the cards,’ Cora said. ‘Morton said she was the one who made the stolen money disappear. Used it to buy land in the Lowlands.’

  Ruth dropped her bindle in the fountain. ‘I know, but that’s one silver lining of the Tear widening: Morton’s land in the far south has gone, and the Gorderheim theft with it. Do you ever go back to the old house? Just to look at it, I mean. I know it was sold.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Good,’ Ruth said. ‘Looking back does no one any favours.’

  Cora suspected her sister’s words were chosen for another reason: Chief Inspector Sillian was now in view, chatting with Lowlander Chambers Morton. Morton’s brown robes, the mark of the Chambers, were a sharp contrast against Sillian’s deep blue jacket pressed and brushed to perfection. The two women were deep in conversation. What might that be about? Cora wondered idly. The number of cutpurse attacks since the election started? How the Assembly – in the last few days of being controlled by the Perlish – needed to consider extra police funding to sort out the leaks at the Bernswick station? Or perhaps Morton and Sillian were talking about a former detective and her ability to enter a tool sharpener’s shop, then disappear.