Fran Wilde - Updraft

I practiced until I could sense the room. My stomach growled, then gave up. My mouth felt thick with thirst. I echoed my way across the room to a hook, where something sounded solid and soft at the same time. I reached out and touched a lukewarm bladder of water. Carefully, I lifted it from its hook. I drank and laughed at what I’d done, coughing as my first success went down my windpipe, rather than my throat.

When I thought I was ready, I stepped out of the alcove.

Sounds washed over me from everywhere. People moved past, close and far, and their sounds battered at my senses. Behind the blindfold, I could perceive shapes rushing at me and away, but the noise was confusing. I stepped back into the alcove and lay down. I could not do this. Moc and Ciel couldn’t do this yet, and they’d been practicing for longer than I.

“You can do it,” a voice said, from close by.

I sat up. Sellis’s voice.

“I did it. You can do it. Let me give you some hints.”

She told me how to hold my head straight, how to avoid being distracted by a sound, turning, and losing my way. She told me about the path around this tier, how far away the dining alcove was, and the shapes I might encounter.

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because Rumul won’t let me night fly without you.” She said it simply, with regret, so I knew she told the truth. “Even if you don’t make it, they won’t start a night flight without partnered pairs, and no one else is training now. So you need to learn fast.”

“Singers fly blindfolded?”

A pause. “Absolutely not. But when you do fly in the dark, you can use your ears to help navigate. Once you learn to hear, you can see where most people in the city can’t. It’s an augmentation, not a replacement, Kirit.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but when I reached out to touch her shoulder, I grasped air. I sounded the room and discovered she’d already gone. Echoes surrounded me instead.

When the Singers began The Rise that night, the sound bloomed in my mind. I started to cover my ears, but then I opened my mouth and sang instead. Singing with them lessened the discordant sounds that I felt through my bones.

My rough voice matched the deep group voice word for word.

Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow I’d make my way blind around the Spire. I would not fall.

And then the Singers would let me fly the city again.

* * *

The Spire’s morning noises woke me. In darkness, I heard whispered orders, the shuffling of feet. Pulleys rattled, and buckets clattered. A whipperling launched from a nearby tier and flutter-screeched away.

I touched my blindfold, then dropped my hand to the mat where I’d put my father’s lenses. Ran my fingers over the age-pitted metal, the cool glass.

When I stepped from the alcove this time, I could echo and build an image of the simple room I’d left behind: an empty water bladder hung from a wall, a neatly folded sleeping mat, and, atop the mat, a pair of lenses.

The passage beyond my room felt vast and featureless to my ears. I echoed until I could hear the difference between the ledge and the drop beside the ledge. I unfurled my wings, just in case. My fingers tempted the edge of the blindfold. Stopped. If Wik had lookouts nearby watching me, even Moc or Ciel, they would know. They would tell.

I slid one foot forward across the bone floor, then the next. My tongue touched the roof of my mouth, light and fast. Turning my head from side to side let me sweep the space before me. I made my way across the passage in spurts, avoiding alcoves and bone spurs, to stand with both hands pressed against the outer wall of the Spire.

Thud. My heart pounded. My ears boomed. My hands felt the echoes of the city. I’d made it.

I spun quickly, reversing direction — I hoped — and echoed again. A large shape blocked the open space. It moved before I could sense more than breadth and height. Not Moc or Ciel, that was certain.

“Who is there?”

No answer. I hadn’t thought there would be.

With a deep breath, I turned to the wall and felt my way along the carved surface until I reached the ladder. I echoed up and sensed the way was clear for several tiers. When I stepped onto the rungs, I thought of Elna, climbing near-blind up Densira. How knowledge like this could have made her way easier. Safer.

What Nat wouldn’t have given to know this. The thought didn’t make me sad this time. Instead, I felt a rush of strength. In this, I was stronger than anyone in the towers. I knew now why Singers stood so quiet, so confident.

Distracted, I missed a rung with my foot and grabbed hard with both hands to keep from tumbling. Below me, I heard nothing. No intake of breath, no faint grunt as arms and legs braced to catch my fall. I echoed over my shoulder, and the ladder was clear of climbers. I was on my own.

For the rest of my blind climb, I moved carefully, staying focused. I would think of the towers later, when I had time. When I was safe.

The novice dining alcove was four tiers up from my alcove. I counted the tiers as I passed them, hearing the sounds of footfalls and robes change tone and clarity as I climbed. Where Sellis slept, few seemed to be about. The entire tier sounded empty as I paused to rest on the ladder. An echo-sweep across the passageway caught someone in the act of climbing over the ledge of the Gyre, using the pulley ropes.

As the person straightened, I heard wings being furled. Battens clacked together, and silk rustled and folded. My echoes bounced off broad shoulders again.

“I can see you, Wik.” I would not fail in his presence again. “Even with the blindfold on.”

He chuckled. “You are quite good at this. Not everyone is. Sellis couldn’t sound her way out of her alcove without help for a year.”

“And Ciel and Moc?” I stepped onto the tier.

“Their ears are as sharp as yours, but they’re distractible.” His voice was closer now. I could hear him breathing. “Your focus is good.”

I didn’t need to echo to know where he was now. My fingers stretched out and tapped his lower arm. I traced the muscle down to the veins on his hand with my fingertips. He froze. I kept my hand on his arm. Tightened my grip, trapping him there.

“Why did you have me failed at wingtest, Wik?”

He stayed silent for a moment. His lips parted, audibly, as if he’d pressed them together before deciding to speak. “The council felt you would be more motivated to consider our offer. And Macal showed you too much with that dive.”

The young Magister. I couldn’t remember his face very well. It seemed so long ago. But the dive. I remembered that dive. I smiled. “A Singer’s dive.”

Wik’s robes rustled. He pulled his hand away. “Macal is talented, but unpredictable, and young. My brother doesn’t hold with all the traditions.”

“Your brother?”

“Yes,” Wik said. “And a good Magister. He cares about the towers very much. He is trying to convince our mother and the council that he could serve the city better as a teacher.”

As I absorbed this, Wik touched my shoulder. I startled.

“You need to keep going, Kirit. You’re almost there.” He stepped around me and clambered up the ladder. “See if you can smell your way to breakfast,” he whispered.

I stood still for another moment, the floor cool beneath my feet. Then I climbed after him, sightless, but not blind.

The noise of the dining alcove on the next tier sounded like a storm: conversations built and lulled. Pairs and clusters of novices passed me, hushing each other when they spotted my blindfold.

Embarrassed, I lowered my outstretched hands and tried to echo as unobtrusively as possible. The moment I did that, my sense of surrounding space began to fade. I stumbled and stopped. Then, taking a deep breath, I tilted my head back and echoed the way that worked best for me. I heard shapes that must have been tables and benches. A jumble of motions around me could have been novices, seated, standing, and walking. I found a table shape near the entrance of the dining alcove where two figures were seated: one broad and larger than most novice shapes, the other slim and sitting ramrod straight.