The Blood Debt: Books of the Cataclysm Two

by Sean Williams

  The first stop after breakfast was a small storage facility near the base of the Wall. Skender was acutely conscious of the fact that the Divide was just a stone's throw away as he followed Chu down steep staircases and along circuitous lanes, angling further and further downhill. The memory of sky retreated until barely a glimmer of natural light filtered down through the layers of awnings, overhangs, and walkways.

  Laure, he was beginning to realise, was a city that had been built over, over and over, since the Cataclysm. Once the Wall went up and protected the land inside it from the depredations of the Divide, reconstruction had been vigorous and long-lasting as people moved from the tilted buildings of the Old City and created the New. Bridges and ramps overlapped streets, which in turn wound around stairwells and buried accessways. The air was thick and heavy down there, drenched in many different scents, perfumed and pungent both. They were headed for the very bottom.

  “I know it doesn't look like much, but it is secure,” Chu said as they came to a series of small, locked metal doors, none of them matching, at a dead end that looked like it was a home for stray cats. The ancient cobbles were buried under years of accumulated grime and rubbish.

  Chu pulled a key from a pocket and used it to open the third door along. Inside was her wing, neatly folded and collapsed like a moth in a cocoon. She told him where to grip, and together they lifted it up. It was as large as a person, yet surprisingly light. One person could have lifted it easily, but two definitely made the task easier.

  He carried the rear end as they retraced their steps through the city. The light grew brighter, and the wing seemed to come to life. Faint traceries of colour appeared on the thin fabric, shifting and blending like oil on water. Its many struts and control surfaces were a translucent amber colour and flexed smoothly under his fingers. What he had assumed at first to be wood and canvas turned out to be something very different indeed. It looked organic rather than human-made, as if its many pieces had assembled naturally. But as well as its beauty, he saw where it had been damaged. The skin had torn away from the struts in several places; the central, largest strut was kinked in the middle, like a hunchback. Instead of a newborn butterfly waiting to inflate its wings and take to the sky, it seemed more like an injured bird, huddling around itself for protection.

  “Where are we taking it?” he asked Chu.

  “The armoury.”

  “Is it far?” Although lightweight for its size, the folded wing was growing heavier with every step.

  “Remember that tower we looked at yesterday? The one you reckon you'll drop like a stone from?”

  Skender rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

  “The armoury is on ground level.”

  “Why is it called the armoury? Do you carry weapons when you fly?”

  “Why would you? When you're above someone, all you really need is a rock and a good eye. And you're usually too busy flying to fight anyone. We've just always called it the armoury. It's where we go to be kitted out for mining.”

  “Will I have to wear a suit like yours?”

  “Don't you like the look of it?”

  “I didn't say that.” On her it looked good, but the thought of wrapping all that tight leather around himself made him sweat in advance.

  She laughed. “You only have to wear it if you want to; otherwise, we can tie your robes to your legs so they won't tangle. That's sure to impress the girls.”

  “You know that's the least of my concerns.”

  “I doubt it. You are sixteen, after all.”

  “So are you.”

  “No argument there. I'm wearing the leather, aren't I?”

  He shifted his grip uncomfortably. “Tell me how you damaged your wing.”

  “Ah. Well, it was a dare. Someone said I couldn't steal an egg from the nests at the top of Observatory Tower, and obviously I had to prove him wrong.”

  “Obviously. What was his name?” he asked, wondering if this was the same “some people” she had been complaining about the previous night.

  “Kazzo Niclais. Do you know how high Observatory Tower is?”

  “Not exactly. I've seen it, though.” There was no way he could miss it. The tower speared upward from the centre of the New City and stood at least twice as high as any of the other buildings. It was circular, externally featureless, and tapered slightly as it rose. Just below the top was a fat sphere, like a fish egg impaled on a pin, which he assumed contained the instruments that earned the tower its name. What the yadachi did with them he didn't know; bent the weather to their collective will, or tried to, he assumed. “Bird's nest up there?”

  “Safest place for hundreds of kilometres,” she said. “Safer than the mountains. The only predators are each other. The eggs are supposed to be particularly potent, medicinally, masculinely speaking—if you know what I mean.”

  “I get the idea.”

  “Even the broken shells that fall naturally from the nests fetch a fair price on the black market. So there were sufficient incentives to give it a go.”

  “You don't have to justify yourself to me.”

  She glanced at him, sharply, perhaps wondering if he was mocking her. He wasn't. “We're a competitive bunch, miners. There's hardly anyone over twenty, for a start, and there are a lot of boys, because they're stronger and have a natural advantage. That's a bad mix. When you're a girl trying to make her way, you have to take these things seriously because everyone else does—even if it's completely stupid. Even if it means trying to capture a stationary target at speed in high winds, when the slightest mistake would mean falling a horribly long way to your death.”

  “Sounds worse than the Divide.”

  “Exactly. At least there we don't have eagles pecking at us for trying to steal their eggs.” She shrugged. “Anyway, that was the problem. I got the winds right; I managed the ascent perfectly, spiralling from updraft to updraft until I was level with the nests; I dodged the worst of the turbulence around the big ball and found a nest with eggs in it that I could reach okay. I even got my fingers on one of them—a big blue egg with brown spots, as wide across as my palm. It was so warm against my skin; I can still feel it.

  “And that's when it happened. This giant bird attacks me from above—the one direction I can't see. Puts holes all along my dorsal stabilisers and sends me crashing into the tower. Next thing I know, my wing is almost useless and I'm falling. Not a good position to be in.”

  “I can imagine.” And he could, all too well. It wasn't the sort of thing he wanted to think about prior to his first attempt.

  “Luckily, the safety charms caught in time, giving me a measure of control. I crash-landed through the roof of a water tower. Hurt like buggery and tore the wing up a little more, but at least I wasn't dead.”

  “And the egg?” he asked.

  “I must've let it go when the bird attacked, so I had nothing to show for my efforts except a bunch of scratches and broken wings—and then a maintenance bill for the water tower, fines for polluting a city reservoir, repair costs on the wing, and a licence renewal final notice. It really wasn't my week.”

  “What about Kazzo?”

  “If you listen carefully,” she said sourly, “you can still hear him laughing.”

  Skender felt for her, knowing the power of peer group pressure. He had seen and been involved in many foolish pranks at his father's school. One boy had been lucky to escape with his life after a similar stunt went wrong: slipping down a barren cliff face while searching for a rare type of beetle supposedly imbued with supernatural powers. In his case the goad had been unrequited love, not prestige, but the effect was the same. People pushed themselves to the limit for no good reason, and in the process either got themselves killed or learned a lesson about their limitations that would stop them getting killed the next time.

  Skender had a perfectly good reason for going out on his particular limb, but he still didn't feel happy about it.

  “So we go to the armoury and get the wing fixed,” he sa
id. “Then what? You're not seriously suggesting we fly across the Divide together, are you?”

  “Well, that's the obvious plan. I'll admit I'm having trouble thinking of another one. How about you?”

  “I'll let you know if I do.”

  “Don't take offence, but I'm not holding out much hope of that.”

  “I won't,” he said. “Neither am I.”

  The Magister continued to be as good as her word. The armoury had received the authorisation to proceed with whatever repairs Chu required, at the city's expense. The quartermaster—a hairless giant of a man with bulging muscles and elaborate tattoos—instructed them to bring the broken wing into his workshop. Skender brought up the rear as they wound their way past steaming vats, glowing forges, straining bellows, and heat-blackened anvils. It looked more like a smithy than the sort of place where fine workmanship could be performed. But Skender was to be surprised on many points. Not only was the quartermaster astonishingly skilful at the most delicate of tasks—his blunt fingers cradling instruments that looked as though they might snap at the slightest touch—but he did so with a sure and certain knowledge of the Change.

  The first thing the quartermaster did when they reached his workshop was lay the wing on a broad table and stretch it out to its full extent. It unfurled with a soft sigh. Five metres across and three long at its deepest point, tapering to slender points at either trailing edge, it didn't look strong enough to hold a person, but the harness of soft leather straps and clasps was clearly designed to do so.

  The quartermaster then ran his hand along a line of tuning forks hanging from the wall, ranging from the minuscule to one as large as his forearm. Making a selection from the smaller end, he tapped it against the table and placed its base on the nose of the wing. Two slightly different notes sang softly through the workshop, crystalline in their dissonance.

  “A little flat,” observed Chu.

  “Not good,” said the quartermaster, wrinkling his broad face as he concentrated on the fading tones. His words were clipped and to the point. “Structural damage. You've been careless.”

  “I know,” she admitted. There was no attempt to bluster her way out of the situation. “It's a mistake I won't make again.”

  The quartermaster nodded. “I can fix her.”

  “Thank the Goddess. How long?”

  “Five hours. I will need your help.”

  “You've got it.” Chu glanced at Skender. “My friend here is Skender Van Haasteren. He's a Stone Mage, if that's of any use.”

  “I'm not—”

  She shushed him as the quartermaster's surprisingly small eyes studied his face. He felt as though he was being appraised by a walking mountain.

  “Van Haasteren, eh?” The quartermaster nodded. “It doesn't matter. Stone and air don't mix.”

  “That's what I think,” he said, “but no one else seems to agree.”

  “He'll be the pilot,” said Chu, clearly unhappy at having to admit such a thing. “I'm just going for the ride.”

  “He'd better stay, then.” The blunt head nodded. “Watch. Learn. Don't interfere.” The quartermaster turned back to Chu. “Wash your hands and we'll begin.”

  She did as she was told without question. Skender took a seat on an empty bench, from where he watched the quartermaster's dexterous fingers move over the wing's injuries, testing the wounds and determining the best means of repairing them. Skender couldn't tell what was going on half the time. The quartermaster employed a unique mix of drawn and sung charms: the former were applied with a series of bizarre-looking tools; the latter he hummed as he worked. The gently exotic melodies tugged at Skender's concentration and made his thoughts drift. Rhythms drifted in and out of synchrony with his heartbeat. He felt dizzy, then sleepy, then anxious and on edge.

  He was on the fringe of powerful yet subtle Change-working—which did not involve, he was relieved to note, bloodletting of any kind. Before his eyes the torn fabric healed, the damaged struts straightened. Chu took off her jacket and attended the quartermaster's every wish as morning became noon, and noon became afternoon. She never complained of hunger or fatigue while being ordered to hold down firmly here, to prise apart there. She was obedient in complete defiance of her character—or so it seemed to Skender. Only as he watched for some time did he realise that her behaviour was in fact perfectly consistent with her love of flying. This was the means by which she would get back into the air. She wasn't going to make it any harder for herself than it had to be.

  Her smooth hands moved from place to place with the grace of birds. She brushed her hair back behind her ears and wiped sweat from her eyes. She was as lithe as an acrobat and as wiry as a camel trainer. He had never met anyone like her before. The Goddess only knew what she thought of him, but he was trying not to worry about that. It was too distracting.

  Time passed and Skender's eyes drifted closed. He dreamed that he was being sewn into a giant seagull costume with translucent, dragonfly wings. But his arms were tied to his sides so he couldn't reach the controls, and when he tried to explain the problem he found that he couldn't open his mouth. The bird suit became a coffin, a stone sarcophagus with a tight-fitting lid. The lid swung shut as his mother and father tipped it over the cliff. Then he was falling and falling and he didn't know when he was going to hit the ground…

  He was woken by the crash. The pain came an instant later. He had slumped off the bench and toppled to the floor.

  “Ow!” He sat up, rubbing his head.

  “When you're done catching up on your z's,” said Chu, “I need a hand here.”

  He clambered gracelessly to his feet. His eyes were as thick and heavy as his thoughts.

  “How long was I—?”

  “Irrelevant. Come hold this.” She waved him closer and placed his hands under the left wing. He cradled it as gently as he could while she peered along the leading edge.

  “You snore,” she observed in an aside.

  “I do not.”

  “Are you calling me a liar? And stop wobbling. I'm trying to make sure it's straight.”

  Skender's face felt as red as an overripe apple. “Where's the quartermaster?”

  “He went to get some straps to finish the harness.”

  “You mean…” He cast his eye along the wing. All the rents were mended; all the struts curved just right. “So fast.”

  “The Magister isn't paying him for his time. She's paying him for his knowledge—and that's substantial. What he can do in a day would take anyone else weeks to accomplish.” She shrugged. “Luckily for us, the major charms hadn't dissipated yet and the bulk of the structure was sound. If I'd left her too much longer, she would've needed a complete refit.”

  Chu ran a loving hand along the smooth top of the wing. It gleamed under her fingertips. “It's good to see her whole again.”

  The quartermaster returned and attached a second harness to the first. Even repaired, the wing didn't seem strong enough to support one person, let alone two people in tandem. But the quartermaster insisted.

  “Two at least, Change willing.” He washed his giant hands in a bucket of water and splashed the grime from his face. Droplets trickled into his eyes unheeded. They stared at Skender with something like regret. “You will fly. It's up to you for how long.”

  “You told me to watch,” Skender told him. “Watch and learn. Was there anything I missed that's particularly important?”

  “It's all important,” the quartermaster said, folding up the wing so they could carry it again, “but the most important is to know what it takes to undo mistakes. Crash her again and even I might not be able to fix her. She'll be ugly junk, fit for nothing. So take care, young Stone Mage. Listen to your friend, and to your heart. And fly well.”

  It was a surprisingly long speech for someone who had barely spoken a dozen words in sequence before now. His rough sincerity moved Skender sufficiently that, for once, he didn't object to the persistence of Chu's shameless exaggeration of his rank.

>   “I'll try,” he said.

  “We'll bloody well do better than that,” Chu said. “Come on. Don't wait for him to give us the bill. Let's get out of here and up into the sky.”

  The quartermaster turned to the next wing awaiting repair. He didn't watch them work their way to the door. Only at the last moment did Skender briefly glance around and notice that the quartermaster's left leg terminated in a wooden prosthetic.

  When he raised the matter with Chu as they were lugging the wing up the long, winding staircase to the launching platforms, she nodded grimly.

  “I don't know exactly what happened,” she said, “but he lost it in the accident that ruined his wing. He's been grounded ever since.”

  “Couldn't he just fix the wing, or build a new one?”

  “He could've yes, but there wasn't much point. Not without his leg.”

  “Why not? Wouldn't it make more sense to fly when you're crippled, not less?” He pictured the quartermaster soaring through the clouds, unencumbered by one less of his heavy, muscled limbs.

  “It doesn't work like that,” she said again. “You'll see.”

  “Not by crashing and losing a leg, I hope.”

  “No. Here's hoping, anyway.”

  It seemed to take them hours to reach the top. The stairs were steep and they took turns at being fore or aft to preserve their backs. Rest stops came with increasing frequency. Only as they neared the end of the stairwell did Chu explain that there was another way to get there, one involving counterweights and pulleys that took no more energy than crossing a room.

  “So why are we bothering with all this? Why nearly kill ourselves when it's not necessary?”

  “I think it's necessary. Consider it an initiation. You need to be acutely aware of how high you are before you take off. Otherwise you might get careless. I want you nice and primed before I put my life in your hands.”