Fran Wilde - Updraft

Then they balanced the roar through Conclave.

Once, Florian, our Magister at Densira, had told us how the city had roared twice in his own childhood. He’d turned sallow as he described the second Conclave, the desperation of the adults around him.

“Weren’t you grateful for the Lawsbreakers, Florian?” Sidra had asked. Sidra’s father had lectured us about Lawsbreakers a few days before. We’d learned that even those who defied the tower had their purpose in the city.

Florian had coughed. “We were grateful. Their duty meant that the city was appeased and didn’t roar again for many years.” But his face was still sallow, still drawn. He’d lost someone; he was still afraid.

I remembered now that he’d toyed with a thin bone marker at his wrist: a Lawsbreak of his own, though a small one.

When he’d gathered himself, Florian explained what came after a roar, doing his job as our Magister. He spoke of how those who lived at the margins, those who broke Laws, would be called into service to the city. That the Singers would come, weigh their crimes by the bone chips they carried, and take the ones they needed away.

As I remembered, I felt as shaken as Florian had been. I’d broken Laws. I broke Bethalial and Trespass. Worse. I still wore those markers on my wrist. I was sure no one had forgotten.

If the need was great, would they come for me too?

No, I thought, they needed me in other ways. They’d said so. Still, I couldn’t help the fear rising in my gut. Elna said Naton hadn’t been given Lawsmarkers at first. She’d said that until the Singer handed them to her once Naton was gone, she’d had no knowledge of his crimes.

If the need was great enough. That had been an enormous roar. I looked around, desperate for ways to make myself useful. No one said a word to me. They moved around me as if I was in the way.

That was the last thing I wanted to be. I did not want one of the Singers who disagreed with my training to find a reason to add to the appeasement.

The novitiates’ tier emptied. The birds scattered by the noise had not returned.

A tug at my sleeve. Ciel stood close.

“I’ll show you where to watch.”

I could have said no. I could have hunkered down in the shadows and waited for Conclave to end. But I choose to follow Ciel to the Spire’s apex and watch, like a Singer.

* * *

Atop the Spire, the city’s councilors gathered. The craft and trade representatives arrived as Ciel dragged me up the last rope ladder, for there were no risers carved into the top of the Spire. You had to fly up, or scramble.

Ciel tucked herself behind a spur of bone near the ledge, her wings unfurled for safety. I tried not to cling to her hand: I had not been wearing my wings when the roar began. The wind whipped the robes of the assembled, and those on the ledges below, looking up through the Spire, watching.

Two Singers rode a gust of wind up and out of the Spire, carrying something between them. Metal gleamed in the sunlight. Those watching whispered; a brief sound, louder than the wind.

“The scales.” Ciel pointed at the gleam. I leaned to get a better look. The Singers flew a small circuit of the Spire’s ledge and landed carefully. They anchored the base of what they carried to the ledge: a brass plate, very old, wrapped with spidersilk, tied to nearby bone cleats. Magister Florian hadn’t said the scales were so big. Or made of metal.

A spike of bone stuck up from the plate, bound there by a metal hasp. From where I crouched, it was hard to see the mechanism. A metal basket wobbled on each side of the spike. The baskets teetered and swung until the councilors, crafters, traders, and Singers gathered around to shield the scales from the wind.

A Singer drew a bone chip from a carry sack the size of a baby. Bigger. He raised it high, so that everyone might see, then placed it in the basket closest to the edge of the tower. The scale dipped. City representatives muttered among themselves. They turned to the horizons of the city.

I looked too. At first, all I saw was sky. The wide-open blue made my heart leap. The sky was a drink of cold water. The warm sun, a balm. I had missed both so.

Then I saw them.

All around the Spire, gray-winged Singers approached, bearing nets.

The two Singers who’d carried the scale stood. One was Rumul. The other was the woman with hair as brass-colored as Ciel’s.

The arriving Singers dropped their nets on the ledge but did not untie them. Inside, I saw hands and feet, a curled back. No wings. I could hear someone weeping. The bodies were robed in white. Many lay still.

The net closest to us wriggled as its occupant turned, dark curls falling away from a face. I sucked in my breath. Those looked like Nat’s curls. Nat, alive?

Not Nat. Please no, I whispered to the city.

Brown eyes peered from the net, sun-spotted olive skin below the dark curls. Not Nat. Someone older. My relief was short-lived. That was someone’s Nat, I knew.

Beyond the Spire, a man circled wildly, shouting as he flew near two Singers carrying a net with an older woman in it. I couldn’t hear what he said from where I stood, but amazingly, Ciel heard. “He wants to challenge for his wife,” the girl whispered, wide-eyed.

I looked across the gap, past the couple, and saw the edges of the nearby towers rippling with what looked like motes of dust from here: belongings being thrown from nearby towers. Citizens were jettisoning anything that might skirt the limits of Singer patience if another appeasement was required.

My fear for Nat transformed. Rumul’s threat against my mother seized my throat. Surely she wouldn’t be one of the citizens caught up so? Not after I had signed myself over?

Ezarit’s voice whispered in my mind. You gave them what they wanted. What do you hold in trade now? I shook my head to clear the sound. Rumul wouldn’t. They needed me. Wik had said so. I held myself in trade still.

And if I was not good enough to be a Singer? What then?

If I was still at risk, so was Ezarit.

The Singers approached, carrying fistfuls of bone chips towards the scales. They surrounded the brass baskets, one Singer for each of the towers. The ledge filled precariously with people.

“What are they doing?” I turned to Ciel, but she’d disappeared. I watched alone as more Singers appeared from every direction, their flying nets filled with men and women. All were dressed in white, most clinging to the nets disinterestedly.

Drugged, of course.

“Where have you been?” Sellis whispered to me as she hurried past, Wik close on her heels. “We searched for you. Come with us!” She grabbed my robe and pulled me from my hiding place. “Rumul’s orders.”

She didn’t let go of my robes when I began to scramble after her. I picked up my pace, lest she drag me right over the edge.

The Spire’s silence grew heavier as more Singers landed, none making a sound. We reached the gathering around the scales in time to watch them place the first of the chips in the empty bin.

“Wirra,” said the Singer as he placed a chip. Bone hit metal. A high sound, a sour sound. The only sound.

The scale barely moved. Another Singer came forward, and another, adding chips from each tower to the basket until it began to drop against the weight of the bone chunk on the other side. More Singers stood by, their hands cradling the chips of the Lawsbreakers. Waiting to see whether those crimes against the city would be added to the weight.

The Singers worked silently, and the citizens who stood with them kept silent too. The man shouting for his wife had been bound and struggled beside her now.

Standing close to the Singers, I heard soft clicks and whispers. Now and then one crouched, putting an ear to the ledge. Something they heard caused them to hurry, gesture more Singers to action. Almost all the nets had been stripped of their Lawsmarkers now.