Fran Wilde - Updraft

More sabotage from below? “Who shouldn’t hear of this?”

The twins looked at me as if I was cloudtouched. Many Singers had witnessed the fall. Except the council.

“Sellis has already gone to tell Rumul everything.”

Moc grumbled as Ciel watched us. “At least Rumul will play it down. Aunt Viridi would not.”

Ciel shook her head emphatically. “Please don’t tell her. I was clumsy, that’s all. Singers aren’t clumsy. Not in the Gyre.” Her voice did not quaver. She was determined to sound as tough as any Singer. As tough as Wik.

Realization dawned. Aunt Viridi, the older Singer with the silver-streaked hair who had attended my wingtest. A councilwoman. Wik’s mother. The twins and Wik were family.

And yet their larger family, the Spire family, had returned to daily tasks, as if nothing had happened. As if, with everything decided, order and balance had been restored.

I squeezed Ciel’s hand tighter. Saw Moc’s eyes narrow. “What is it?”

“I am not sure yet,” Moc said. He lifted a torn scrap of Ciel’s robe from where it had caught on the ledge. Balled it up in his fist. “But I will find out.”

“We,” I said. “We will find out.”

In the emptied gallery, I got to my knees, then my feet. Ciel clung to my hand.

“Who has charge of the vents? The windbeaters?”

When she didn’t answer, I looked for Moc. He was already disappearing down a ladder. I chased him. I heard Wik call out behind me, but I did not stop. Ciel ran with me, but halted at the landing.

“You’ll be fine,” I said.

She stared down the ladder. Wik appeared behind her, put a hand on her shoulder and dipped his head to me. She let him lift her up and rested her head on his shoulder. Safe.

If I lingered, I would lose track of Moc entirely. I turned and hurried down the ladder.

I caught up to Moc on the next level. Grabbed his robe and held him by it. “Tell me now — what is happening?”

He pawed the air with his fists. “I am trying to find out!” His voice cracked. “Someone is sabotaging the Spire — your wings, the vents! Other things too. It is not over. It is not decided. ”

He swung so hard that I dropped him to the floor. He got to his feet and began descending the next ladder.

“Why is no one else asking questions?”

“They don’t see everything Ciel and I do. Some don’t trust us because our aunt is on the council. So they don’t listen to us either.”

I heard truth in his voice. Followed him down into the depths of the Spire. Someone had sabotaged my wings. Someone had tried to hurt Ciel. If I found out why, I might gain better leverage with Rumul. Perhaps I would then have gossip for my father.

We reached the lowest levels, where the windbeaters lived. Bolts of dove-colored silk lined the halls, and silk spiders’ nests clung to corners and to the ceiling. I spotted a loom in an alcove. The walls were covered in carvings. Some bone spurs had been carved so deeply and intricately, they resembled lace and lattice more than walls.

Ahead of me, Moc stepped into the shadows, out of the dimming light.

“They keep busy down here.”

“They make a bunch of things. Wings, nets. The plinths for wingtests. Trade them for goods from the other towers,” he whispered.

Two aged windbeaters leaned out over the Gyre, large wings spread on the floor behind them. They did not turn as we passed.

“What are they doing?” I looked back. One windbeater’s eyes were white, like the skyblind. He was tethered to the floor with bone cleats and long sinew ropes.

“Listening to the wind. Learning to shape it.” Moc didn’t spare them a glance. “Even the injured can do that, if they’re good enough. And if they still have use of their arms and shoulders.”

Moc kept walking until he reached an alcove carved into the thickening outer wall. Strange carvings surrounded the room like pipes. Long stretches of hollowed-out bone rose to the ceiling. Some had pulley ropes run through them, or hinged lids. They looked like a group of rainspouts.

A bent form was working the pipes — a man, judging by the breadth of his shoulders, though his robes hung strangely. He moved as if each gesture brought pain.

The pipe covers snapped open and clicked shut, sounding like Laws chips. The alcove smelled like old bone mixed with fresh air. The man’s fingers stilled. He seemed to be waiting for something.

I heard a soft clicking. Like echoing.

“Civik Spire,” Moc said. The figure did not move. Moc cleared his voice and prepared to shout, before shaking his head instead and touching the figure’s sleeve. The man spun halfway towards him. Singer marks scarred the skin around his ruined eyes. The left side of his face had been flattened: a broken cheekbone. Something sharp had taken his right eye.

Sound came sudden to my lips. “Oh.”

The figure turned to me fully now, as if he could hear me easier than he could hear Moc.

A rasp, like a gate opening. “Skymouth speaker.” He said it slowly, as if he rarely spoke. “I’d wondered when they’d find a new one.” His laugh was bitter and ended in a cough.

“You almost killed her last night, you broken old man,” Moc said, though his voice was softer now. He turned to me, murmured, “Civik’s deaf in the left ear. Once you get his attention, it’s all right.”

I looked at them both, suddenly aware of how much Moc knew about the tower’s comings and goings. He hadn’t spotted the resemblance between me and the ruined man before me, though. This was one thing he did not know.

But I knew. I saw it in Civik’s hands, his long fingers, so similar to my own. I recognized the rasp in Civik’s voice as a worn echo of my terrible singing voice.

Civik knew me only by the tones behind my voice. Knew me as a skymouth shouter. But I knew him for much more.

I held my tongue, for now.

Civik pushed on the walls and grabbed handholds to move away from the pipes. I heard bone grind against bone. Civik’s robe shifted with the motion. For a moment, I saw that his body was bound with spidersilk to a bone pedestal. Where Civik’s legs should have been, his under-robes ended in a knot. Carved bone rollers at the pedestal’s base allowed him to move.

I gasped again.

“Young person who has arrived with the impertinent Moc,” Civik rasped, “is shocked at my appearance. It hasn’t been that long, has it, since my last battle?”

“Twelve years, Civik,” Moc said. He gestured uselessly to me. “But this novice arrived a few months ago. And you almost killed her with faulty nightwing straps. And just now, you nearly killed Ciel, too, with your backdraft.”

I bit my tongue so that Civik would not realize anything more about me, and let Moc rage on.

“Could you get something right, Civik? You didn’t distract the council from deciding against Terrin. You didn’t even stall them. You’re dangerous. I should find a new windbeater to bribe.”

Civik grumbled. “I am trying, young Moc.”

“What is going on?” I said.

They both answered at once.

Civik said, “Moc owes me tools and gossip.” While Moc said, “Civik’s useless — I won’t give you any more gossip, Civik, until you help us.”

“You were trying to help Terrin by sabotaging the Nightwings?” I asked.

The windbeater shrugged. “Terrin’s argument was his. He flew too early. We could have postponed it. We had our own goals.”

“But you weren’t supposed to target novices,” Moc said quickly. “Wik was out there.”

Civik waved a hand. “If the night fliers have a setback, that delays Rumul. Long enough for Terrin to seek more support. And many other things.”