by Kate Diamond
Ney left the cart and ran after the Wind, racing past bewildered stallholders and astonished fairgoers. Seres reached the inner ring with a deafening crack of splintering wood and breaking glass. Miris arrived too many moments later to find the lamp-seller’s stall reduced to tinder and Terthe and nir assistant cowering in the wreckage as around them Stars burst one by one from cracked or shattered lamps and arched towards the heavens, blinding-bright even in the daylight sky.
Seres twisted over the remains, howling and kicking up dust. The stalls on either side were untouched, not a single glittering petal or iron nail out of place, to the relief and shock of the merchants.
The crowd was staring. Even the musicians had fallen silent, the dancers halting in their routines and lowering their masks.
“This merchant,” Miris announced, impressed at the steadiness that anger lent nir voice, “has been selling captured Star spirits under the guise of Flameforged lamps.”
Muttering from the crowd. Displeased muttering.
“Stars…” Belest repeated, horror dawning in his eyes.
Terthe glared, sputtered, “This is absurd, you have no right to-!”
Miris turned and strode away. This was no longer nir affair. The clans that lived on the mountains honored Stars and would not allow them to be abused on their land. Ney could trust they would detain those responsible. Seres gave one last ferocious gust, sending bits of wood skittering across the ground and making someone yelp, and followed, still stormy, but no longer making the glyphs on Miris’s arms burn with the force of it.
Thankfully, the crates and basket were where they had left them, and Miris began loading the Dragonfly, shuddering at the thought of someone who would enslave spirits. Who would capture Stars and bottle them and sell them for light. It was unspeakable.
The last thing ney expected to see, when ney came out on deck after lashing the last crate in place, was the lamp-seller’s assistant standing on the bare stone of the dock waiting for nem.
“What-”
“I didn’t know,” he blurted, and as Miris stepped closer ney could see he was shaking slightly. “I didn’t know. Ney said… ney said it was crystals, and Flames…”
“I don’t care,” Miris said. “And you might be lying.”
Seres, coiled around the mast and raising frost on the surface, rumbled like a faraway storm. Belest flinched.
“Take me with you. Please. I can’t stay here. Terthe will find me, and then Kela…” Belest trailed off, and Miris remembered the lamp-seller’s stern face and sharp words, and nir resolve faded a little. Or tightened into a different form.
“Why should I?” ney asked, eyes narrowed, but the skepticism had left nir voice. Still. Miris was not fond of the idea of a stranger joining nem. Most fliers did not take passengers except in dire circumstances. But perhaps this was one such situation.
“I think I know where Terthe got the Stars. I want to free them.” Silence stretched thin, broke. “Please. I won’t bother you. I just want to fix this.”
“Fine,” Miris said, against nir better judgement. “You may come.”
Belest stared for a moment, eyes wide as if he couldn’t comprehend what he’d heard, and then nodded. He stuttered a thanks, and then, “I- what should I do?”
“Stay out of the way, and tell me what I need to know.”
“I promise,” Belest said, then swallowed and continued. “Terthe never let me work with the lamps themselves. But I handled the supplies. The crystals - ney said they were crystals - they came from a trader from the north. We met her at Dawning Crest.”
“Right. That’s where we’ll go.” Dawning Crest was at least a week away, even by cloudship, and in nearly the opposite direction to Miris’s planned route, but ney knew well that fortunes could change as quickly as the wind.
Miris leapt up to the deck and gestured impatiently for Belest to follow. Seres sparked disapproval on nir arms, but ney could hardly leave the boy here. Ney rubbed the glyph for calming, hoping ney was making the right decision, as Belest scrambled aboard.
Seres swept them away from Summertooth at a pace that Miris heartily approved of. It seemed all three of them wanted only to be away from that place.
The Flamesmith’s Assistant
Terthe had been selling captured Stars. Spirits of light, locked behind glass and used by those who knew no better… and likely by those who did. And Belest had helped nem. And now he sat on the deck of a cloudship, splinters of wood still clinging to his shirt, astonished that the Wind that had demolished the market stall with such precise rage did not simply sweep him up and dash him against the cliffs below. It would be deserved, for the horror he’d assisted.
So many things made sense now. The secretive meetings with merchants, how Terthe avoided other Flame-bonded smiths and glassworkers, how ney had never let Belest watch the creation of lamps from any closer than he needed to be to add fuel to the fire and operate the bellows. It ought to have been comforting, that he had had no way of knowing what his master’s work entailed. But it only made him feel even more a coward. Why hadn’t he thought to wonder at the strangeness, question the secrecy? To ask why Terthe’s methods seemed so different from all Belest had heard of Flamesmiths? But he had been far too worried about his own position to risk angering Terthe. As if that had done him any good in the end.
Kela was right. He was worthless on his own. He shouldn’t have left her, and he shouldn’t have ever joined Terthe. But Terthe had been the only one of the precious few travellers who troubled themselves to come to Silverpeak and weren’t in his wife’s pocket who would take on a Houseless thief and carry him far away from the northern mountains. The demotion from a noble’s husband to a merchant’s beleaguered assistant had meant little, when the alternative had been remaining under Kela’s tongue and Kela’s fist.
He didn’t dare look at the Windsworn flier who had rescued him, so he watched over the edge of the cloudship instead. The ground far below fell away at an astonishing pace, or so it seemed to one accustomed to carriages and caravans. The rough edges of mountains melted into rich forests marked here and there with patches that were blue-grey lakes. Damp wisps of clouds hanging above them dissipated as the cloudship passed, sometimes drifting into new patterns behind them and sometimes vanishing altogether as the Wind swept through them.
He had seen cloudships at a distance before, and in paintings, but none had come to Silverpeak in the years he’d resided there. He had certainly never expected to fly on one. This close, he could appreciate the construction of the ship, study its details, see how every piece was turned to a purpose yet still beautiful. Cargo boxes with sides subtly curved to fit against the hull. Flourishes on the rail that doubled as places to lash ropes. The shimmery sail, painted with a symbol that he could only assume identified the ship, or perhaps the Wind.
Miris did not even look at him. Instead ney stood at the front of the ship, gazing out into the sky. Belest didn’t know how much time had passed when ney finally sighed and turned around, stepped forward and laid nir hand against the strange symbols carved into the cloudship’s mast, and then at last cast Belest an unreadable glance.
“Are you hungry?”
It took Belest a moment to find his voice, so surprised was he that Miris had spoken. “A little,” he said. More than a little - his morning meal had been a rushed thing several hours ago, composed of a stale rice ball and boiled egg eaten quickly between hauling boxes and unpacking supplies at Terthe’s demand.
Miris stepped towards him.
“Move,” ney ordered, and Belest scrambled out of the way. Miris unlatched a hatch behind him and climbed through into the interior of the ship, leaving Belest alone on deck. Now, he thought, the Wind would surely destroy him, but even with Miris out of sight the spirit took as little notice of him as if he’d been just another box.
Miris reemerged not long after, and pressed a cup of water and a meat pie into his hands. Belest opened his mouth to thank nem, but Miris had alread
y turned away again. Uncertain, but certainly not about to refuse this unexpected generosity, he ate the pie down to the last flaky crumbs, careful not to spill them on the deck, then finished the cup and set it aside, all the while wishing Miris would say something and hoping ney wouldn’t.
Ney stayed silent, and Belest, whether from cowardice or an unwillingness to interrupt the quiet, had nothing to say.
They flew on, up a river still churning with snowmelt even this late in the season, over a village of thatched roofs where weather-kites in the riverside style drifted over streets busy with carts and horses, past fields of crops laid out against one another like squares on a quilt.
Ahead, clouds sat stacked like snowdrifts, so much larger and craggier and more solid-seeming than they looked from the ground. They came closer, and for a moment Belest thought they would sail right into them. But then the indistinct form of the Wind overhead surged forward, sending the clouds rolling away to either side, and within moments they had risen above them. Surely the air should be thin at this height? But it wasn’t, and whether that was due to the Wind’s action or something else entirely, Belest didn’t know.
Below them clouds piled upon themselves in an alien landscape of white mounds and cliffs and impossible mountains, and before them the sky stretched out empty to the horizon.
◆◆◆
Up above the clouds, in that world only Winds and their fliers ever saw, Miris’s head felt clearer, the world distant. Satisfied that they would at least reach Haven’s Ford by sunset, ney allowed nemself to relax at last. Ney bit into a piece of fruit - something dense and sweet, bought from an old mountain-trader woman who’d barely looked up from her woodcarving as Miris passed - and watched Seres circle and weave around the sail.
Stars. How had Terthe done it? How many had bought the lamps before today? And how many people out there were selling them even now? If there were merchants trading the spirits, that meant this went far beyond one cruel Flamesmith who’d carried nir wares to Summertooth. But that trail was all they had to follow. Ney was also beginning to question the wisdom of announcing to the fair what Terthe had been doing. Even ney could admit the lamps had been beautiful, at least until ney knew what they were. If people who knew little of spirits and did not respect them as beings in their own right knew this was possible, would they seek out such objects? Perhaps it would be better to keep the knowledge secret, stamp out the trade before the world learned such a thing was possible.
Belest, true to his word, kept well out of the way, perched on the edge of a crate by the Dragonfly’s rail, staying quiet enough that Miris began despite nemself to feel somewhat guilty for how unkindly ney had spoken to him. From all ney could gather, the man truly hadn’t known what the lamp-seller was doing. And instead of running from the scene, as ney assumed Terthe had done - if the others at the market had not apprehended nem, that was - he had approached Miris, asking to help. That was worth something. The damaged Naming bead… that did not inspire trust. But, Miris reasoned, that could be the product of any number of circumstances. At the very least, it was not stained by the dark ink that marked a criminal.
Well. Miris had given up nir own family name to become a flier; ney hardly had the right to ask after anyone else’s. If it was important, ney would learn. Still, part of nem wondered why ney had agreed to this. There were all too many reasons that taking on Belest could prove to be far more trouble than it was worth. He might still be loyal to whoever had captured the Stars, his repentance merely an act to lead nem astray now that the trade had been discovered. He might be in earnest, but too much of a coward to be of help. There was no way to know, and dwelling on dark possibilities would help nothing. All Miris could do now was keep a close eye on nir guest.
Usually, on long flights like these, Miris would clean, or work on ledgers, or take out pen and ink and sit on the deck to sketch. Ney was far from a master artist, but a set of inks gifted to nem by a Stonevalley merchant several years ago had proved too tempting to ignore, and even if ney could no longer carry nir family’s name, there was no prohibition against sending nir parents and sibs drawings of the myriad places ney traveled. Right now, with a near-stranger on nir ship, Miris did not want to draw. But the logs needed doing no matter what, and so ney pulled the thick books from their waterproof leather pouches and a pen from the box ney had painted with spirals and waves, and set to work writing in the day’s bartering and travel. When everything had been meticulously recorded, ney set the ledgers aside and simply sat watching the clouds pass and the sun slide slowly towards the western horizon.
“It’s incredible,” Belest said, the first time he’d spoken in hours. “Flying, I mean.”
Miris smiled. “It is.”
He brightened a little at that. Likely because it was the first thing that Miris had said to him without grumbling or snapping. Miris found ney liked the expression better than the uncomfortable tension that was all ney had seen before now.
“How did you become a flier?” he asked, slowly, as if he feared it was a foolish question.
“You have to be chosen,” Miris replied, turning with affection clear in nir face to where Seres drifted alongside them. “I flew as an apprentice for years, and even then it wasn’t certain Seres would accept me.” But the spirit had, and Pira deb-Seres had retired confident that her cloudship was in good hands. Miris remembered the day with gratitude and pride - nir success after so long spent learning and hoping.
The glance Belest gave Seres was flavored with rather more fear than awe, which Miris thought wholly sensible. The Wind was still not entirely pleased with Belest’s presence, and while the cloudship contract forbade a spirit from doing harm to mortals, Miris rather suspected that Belest was not aware of that fact.
“You’ve never heard the songs about Kinit fin-Linra?” ney asked, surprised. “The man who learned how to speak to the Winds?” His story was legendary, and while the songs were highly embellished, there was at least a grain of truth in them.
Belest shook his head. “The musicians at- the musicians I’ve seen preferred the northern style.” That was, songs with a greater focus on complex, overlapping rhythms than words, usually played by trios, that rarely failed to start an audience dancing, at least in those places where such celebration was not frowned upon as being too raucous and common.
“You should hear it someday.” The ballad-songs were Miris’s favorite, stories spiraling out from their origin, voices and flutes flowing along subtle rhythms like a cloudship on the winds.
“I… I hope to,” Belest said, watching Seres again.
Miris nodded, and then raised nir eyes to mark the angle of the sun through the Dragonfly’s sail. Sunset was fast approaching; it was time to find a place to land. Ney stood, asked Seres to descend. Belest did not recognize the glyph, and he cast nem a puzzled expression when they began to descend.
“We’ll stay in Haven’s Ford for the night, and set off early tomorrow,” ney told him.
Miris might have missed Belest’s flinch, if ney had not been looking at him. But the alarm in his face… there was no avoiding that.
“We-” He hesitated. “We can’t keep flying?”
Ney shook nir head. “Not at night. It’s against the contract.” Anyone who knew anything about cloudships knew that. As long as the sun was up, fliers could direct the Winds. They could not command, of course, but the spirits would deign to be guided. After dark, they were under no obligation to their mortal partners. “If there’s nowhere suitable to land, we fly until dark and stay airborne overnight…”
“And we can’t?” There was something like fear in his eyes, and Miris could not fathom why.
“Because I only have one set of blankets,” ney told him, with irritation creeping into nir voice, “and we’re not sharing.” Ney turned away, shutting out his discomfort, and Belest fell silent as Seres brought them down through a gap in the clouds. Beneath them, the twisting path of the River Kerden stretched dark and glittering in the fading l
ight. The towers of Northford sat at a bend in the river, windows bright with candlelight, the governor’s crest flapping on the banner that flew from the highest point.
The quiet did not last long. “I can sleep on the floor,” Belest said, sounding even more desperate now. “It’ll be less trouble for you…”
“We’re landing here,” Miris said, firm and final. What was the reason for this protest? What was he so determined to avoid? Gentler: “It’ll be fine. Fliers are allowed to ask hospitality of any household that can take them.” As long as they also carried messages for any household when asked. It was what they earned, and the price they paid, for no longer being beholden to the family of their birth as all others were.
“Then…” Belest swallowed. “Anywhere but Haven’s Ford. Please.”
Miris had not thought ney would be moved, but something in his expression, in his voice, swayed nem. Ney sighed, cursing nemself.
“Fine. We can find an inn in Northford.”
Belest let all his breath out in a relieved sigh. “Thank you,” he said, quiet, without looking up. He shrank back into his seat on the out-of-the way crate, and watched the ground.
Miris touched the mast again, directed Seres onward. Ney received a flicker of confusion in return, but the Wind did as asked. The spirits cared nothing for human wealth or status. While Miris would prefer to spend the night with people ney knew in comfortable surroundings, it did not matter to Seres who their hosts were, so long as they respected a flier and Wind.
“Why?” ney had to ask. “Tiran nib-Anset is a good person.” Ney had met the governor of Haven’s Ford several times before, and trusted nem and nir family fully. Honest, dedicated people, ney and nir wives and their son governed the riverside towns justly and well. They treated fliers - any guests, in fact - like beloved cousins, always asking for tales of Miris’s travel, and never crowding Seres or the Dragonfly with curious hands.
Without looking at nem, Belest replied, nearly inaudible, “Ney knows Kela. Ney’ll recognize me, and tell her I’m here…”
