Fran Wilde - Updraft

Sellis pulled me forward.

By now, more than a hundred Singers had gathered atop the Spire. More soared around it. The councilors and the craft and trade representatives, plus the citizens in the nets made over two hundred souls standing on the Spire. The wind whipped robes. The captives shivered in the cold air.

“Densira.”

I saw a ragged robe and recognized the face of the woman who had charged at Nat and me in the lowtower.

But no Ezarit. I despised my own relief.

Rumul sang the verses allowed during Silence. This part of Conclave I understood.

You have each broken Laws.

Your crimes weigh on the city.

You have heard it roar.

You and your towers

have brought the city to anger.

As he sang, he turned to me. His eyes bored a hole through me, and I froze. How close I’d come to sharing the fate of the cloudbound. For that was what they were. What I could have been.

Rumul’s companion sang then. The Singer with the silver streak in her hair. Her voice was a contralto, a contrast to Rumul’s deep tones. “ With your sacrifice, the city will be once more at peace. ”

My breath caught as I counted the number of Lawsmarks balancing the scales. The men and women bound atop the Spire. With the size of the roar, the scales didn’t sit even until almost all of their chips had been added: thirty out of thirty-five. I’d known the process of Conclave from Magister Florian, if not the reality. Not since the city rose through the clouds had so many been thrown down at once.

A Singer with a hand on the Spire’s roof whistled. His face contorted with worry. The woman sped up her song, rushing the words. Everyone atop the tower leaned forward, urging her to greater speed. Finally, she finished. “ We do what is best for the city, though it causes us pain, ” she sang. And she walked to where the first cloudbound was held, unfurling her wings as she reached the edge. She freed a thin man from the net, clasped him by the shoulders, and fell with him into the sky. A moment passed, and we saw them gliding out towards the edge of the city.

The man’s feet kicked in the air, but he made no sound. Nothing from him, no shriek, or cry. He was carried away in silence.

Rumul nodded. “He goes well.” The head Singer looked to the other cloudbound. More Lawsbreakers had been prodded to their feet and stripped of their nets. Many shivered, their eyes on the horizon. Others stared at us. I forced myself to look back, though I wanted to scream.

Nat, oh, Nat. Your father. This happened to him.

Sellis searched my face, saw my miserable expression, but did not scold me or yank at my arm.

Thirty. So many. Even one was too many. Too much of a weight to bear. I took a step forward. Sellis gripped my wrist and held me in place. Did not let go.

Rumul looked to the gathered Singers and held out his hands. One at a time, Singers in dark gray robes stepped behind one of the cloudbound, set their wings, and flew to the city’s edges, where they would let go of their burdens. One at a time, the cloudbound were taken away, all silent save the second to last, a young man who pleaded for his life. “My father,” he said, “has money and goods. All you could need. It has saved us before, why not now?”

“Not enough muzz,” someone whispered behind me.

“Or he’s bargained for his life before,” I whispered back, before I locked my mouth against the Silence.

Sellis glared at me and twisted my littlest finger until I wanted to shriek against the pain. “Silence.”

This cloudbound man looked familiar too. He’d been at the wingfight, among the traders. He kept begging, even as the Singers frowned and drew closer. They bound his mouth with silk, so he wouldn’t disturb the city further in his fall. They lifted him away, to the south.

Some towers gave more than others. Mondarath for debauchery. Wirra for fighting. Many more from the southlands for debts and trespasses. But no one I knew among them. Not Ezarit, not Elna. I wiped my leaking eyes with a corner of my sleeve. Small mercies.

Singers returned and took their posts around the rim of the Spire, ready to go out again to the towers if the city was not appeased. They stood still as carvings, resolute. Wrapped in their duty, though their eyes glistened with tears and wind.

With a shock, I realized that they hated what they did. And yet they did it. Wik stood among them, eyes red.

They waited.

We waited with them.

We stood until night fell, until the gray shapes outlined against the lingering dusk blocked out the stars in the sky.

The crafters and councilors waited. I saw Councilman Vant standing near a ladder, but he did not see me. He scratched his nose and blinked in the cold wind.

Sellis’s stomach growled.

This was another part of Conclave I had not known. We marked the emptiness left by the cloudbound with the pain in our stomachs.

Around the Spire, the towers kept silent too.

By dawn, the Singers who had pressed hands and ears to the Spire throughout the night stood. The city’s rumbles had ceased.

By noon, we were weak from standing in the wind and our stomach pangs had turned to birds’ claws, scraping against our ribs. Moc and Ciel were ashen shadows of themselves. They leaned against the woman who’d sung the Conclave.

Someone passed around a water sack. We each took a single sip. The water tasted sour.

By evening, the city had not roared again. A Singer ascended from below. “The Enclosed are satisfied. The city is appeased.”

Rumul and his companion sang the final notes of Conclave wordlessly, marking the passing of the cloudbound, the release of their trespasses from their towers.

As he sang, we looked up to mark their passage, rather than down, to mark their fall.

Then Sellis nudged me with her elbow and jerked her chin towards the ladder. Other Singers had already begun the climb. We were allowed to descend.

* * *

Sellis moved quickly down the rope ladder, then to the carved steps of the lower tiers. She was eager for food and bed. I ducked into an alcove, still shivering from the fast and the cold of Conclave, and with more than that.

Rumul entered the alcove at last and saw me waiting for him.

“You are out of place, Kirit.”

Always, Rumul. And yet? “I have questions.” I spoke softly, with respect. Tried to still my shaking from the cold, from the ritual.

“You should ask Sellis. Or Wik, when his duties allow.”

“I would ask you.” Slowly, Kirit. I had watched Wik avoid challenging Rumul’s authority. Now I tried to do the same. Sellis and Wik had not prepared me for Conclave. There was more I needed to know now, rather than soon.

A novitiate brought a shallow basin of rainwater and handed it to Rumul. The young man waited while Rumul dipped his fingers and rubbed at his face. Then the Singer dismissed him with a wave.

I was allowed to stay.

Rumul raised his eyebrows and made a reeling gesture with his hand. I saw his challenge tattoo, faded now, but still visible. A symbol I’d recently learned to carve. A knife.

“Who gives the Singers the right to murder people?” The words had come faster than I’d intended.

He sighed. “How do you not number yourself among the murderers today, Kirit?” His voice was not smooth, not sweet. It was tired and rough.

“What?”

“You attended the Conclave. I saw you.”

I waited, not understanding. I’d thrown no one down.

“Did you try to stop it? Did you offer yourself in place of the old man from Viit?”

I had not. My first thought had been to stay as far from the edge as possible.

Rumul continued. “We’re all guilty of wanting to stay alive. To do so, we must at times appease the city. The city would destroy us all without it.”