Cloudbound (25 page)

Another shadow rippled the clouds overhead. We plastered ourselves to the entrance wall, feeling the slick bone cool through the silk panels of our wings. Another shadow followed, this one distinctly wing-shaped, and dark.

Blackwings. “We're all going in. None of us stays exposed.”

A metal grate had been set into the bone, a few steps inside the cave entrance. It was latched.

With swift fingers, Aliati pulled a latch pin. The grate swung with a low squeal, and we stepped inside the artifex's hideout.

The space, lit golden by a single oil lamp, was cluttered with gear. Large bone and metal tanks toppled together, a silk cord binding a stack of skymouth hides, invisible except as defined by the boundary. Two small, filled husks were tied down at the back of the cave, still large enough to float a person each.

“What do you do there, Aliati?” A young man slowly stood up from his place by the fire. The deep circles beneath his eyes, and the grease and stubble on his face made him seem much older than when I'd seen him last, when I'd passed him on the Spire.

On the floor, by a small cook fire that coughed acrid smoke, lay a brass plate like the ones Doran had taken from us. Over the cook fire, a small pot with a goose bladder above it slowly filled with gas.

The artifex took something from his robe and began to chew on an edge of it. It was the color of heartbone, and smelled worse. When he swallowed, he closed his eyes.

Aliati snatched the rest away. “I thought you'd done with that,” Aliati whispered. “We need you to focus.”

All of us crowded into the small cave made the space warm and uncomfortable. Ceetcee shivered, despite the heat. She hated tight, walled spaces, more than most tower-born. I looped my pinky finger through hers. Beliak took her arm on her other side. She squeezed back and seemed to relax, enough to ask the artifex, “How long have you been below the clouds?” Worried notes in her question. She always thought of the person before the job.

The artifex—Djonn—coughed. “Since before Spirefall.”

He looked away, but Aliati poked him with a finger. “Tell them!”

Reluctantly, Djonn began again. “Doran had us working on experiments, and wanted us to keep quiet. Undercloud was the best place for keeping things quiet. Dix moved me from Grigrit's lowtower to the Spire after Spirefall. So…” He counted on his fingers. “Since before last Allsuns, at least.”

I shuddered, chilled by the thought of staying down here for a few days, much less that many moons. I pointed at the small pot on the stove, at the plate on the floor. “Do you know what you were making the gas for? What the plates are?”

The artifex scratched his head. Flicked his finger against his chest. Tap tap tap. A hard sound. He looked at the plate. “Dix found that after Spirefall, and Doran asked us if we could sort out how it worked. I was the one who figured it out.”

“That doesn't answer my question,” I said, frustrated.

Aliati put a hand on my wrist. “Give him time. He's been through a lot.”

That doesn't make it right.

Djonn met his friend's eyes and smiled softly. “We worked on the gas for moons, always below the clouds, using different supplies. Some mixtures we tried made poison. Some exploded. The gas took so many of us. Then I managed to distill enough gas from the heartbone to fill a small bladder. It floated. It worked.”

He was dodging, I was sure of it. “We know Doran ordered the lighter-than-air for the city. Who ordered it for the attack?”

“What attack?” Djonn said. He looked at our clothing and soot-stained wings. His eyes grew wide. “No, no. The gas helps people fly. Even if they're hurt. You can't attack with it.”

He knelt awkwardly by to the cookstove, and I could see he wore a brace of some sort beneath his robe. He clipped the small bladder above the pot between his finger and thumb and slid it off a coiled metal tube. Knotted the bag closed and tied it with a string. Aliati saw the metal coil and smiled. “That was a good find.”

Djonn attached another bladder to the tube and left it hanging limp. He took a container and poured more heartbone into the pot below the bag. The whole operation took moments.

Then the artifex attached to the first sack a wind-up toy. The kind parents gave to children in the tiers, attached to a tether. He wound the small wings at the toy's feet. When he let the toy go, it flew, bumping into the cave walls with a clicking noise.

“How did Dix pay you?”

He looked down. Hit his chest with his hand. It made a hard sound, of flesh meeting bone. “I am in some pain. The distillation process made a residue that lessened it. They let me keep that.”

Aliati shook her head and looked at the piece of residue in her hand with disgust. “They played on your pain.” Then she turned to me. “His spine's twisting. He can no longer fly. It's very painful now and could kill him later. That's why I couldn't leave him in the Spire, not when the blackwings were chasing Kirit. He'd have been at their mercy.”

“What did you see, Djonn?” Beliak asked. “Did anyone come talk to you?”

“Only the blackwings who took the gas away. Once, Dix.”

“Where did they take it?”

“I went up once, to where they stored it. In a spinner tower. Laria in the southeast. I saw them there.”

Time to see if Djonn's story matched Aliati's. “What's your connection to Aliati, here?”

Djonn smiled. “She's my friend. She brings me metal and things she finds sometimes.”

“Did she take you to the blackwings, ask you to help them?” Aliati stiffened by my side at the question.

But Djonn shook his head. “No. I worked with the Singers, before the Spire fell. I didn't know what else to do after, so I kept working. Then Dix found the plate. I work with the Singers now too.”

The cave went deeply quiet.

“No. You don't work with Singers,” said Aliati sharply.

Djonn shook his head. “No, I don't.”

Strange indeed. Aliati turned and tried to push us from the cave. “This was a mistake,” she said. “He's mad with the drug. He'll say anything.” But she looked truly afraid for Djonn. For herself.

I edged around her. Knelt next to Djonn at the cook fire. “There are no more Singers,” I said. “Not since last Allsuns. Only citizens. You are mistaken.”

How long had he been working in the clouds? Had he gone skytouched?

Djonn smiled, his eyes more relaxed now. “Dix let me meet the Singer, after Spirefall. He was very ill and couldn't talk, but she said he needed to move around and couldn't use the bridges, couldn't fly. Said he needed me to try to perfect the gas for him. Said I had to work in secret, like before. They gave me the brass page.” Djonn smiled. “And I did it. Better than anyone has.”

My throat closed in dismay. A Singer. If Singers were involved, Doran would continue with his punishment. The protesters would be in jeopardy too.

“Describe this Singer,” Kirit said. Her voice cracked.

“Gray wings,” Djonn said. I shook my head. Anyone could wear a pair of gray wings. We knew that now. “Tattoos, like some of yours.” His fingers traced shapes on his face. A knife. A spiral.

“A spiral. Like this?” Kirit held up her hand. Djonn bobbed his head.
Yes.

A low growl rumbled from Kirit's throat. “Only one person had marks like that. A very dead Singer.”

“What were his injuries?” I wasn't following Kirit's line of questioning. I knew some of the tattoos, but not specific ones. “What did this Singer look like?”

“He'd broken his back. His legs were dead. His arms too. He couldn't talk. Dix said he whispered to her. She could understand him. And she carried him, which was easier because he was very thin. Worse than me.” Djonn put a hand over his scalp, thinking. “He was bald, so I could see he had a big scar on his head, too.”

Realization bloomed on Kirit's face before I fully understood. She bolted for the door, knife drawn, but Beliak and Ciel caught her. Meanwhile, in the span of two breaths, I held Djonn by the robe. The cook fire guttered. I pushed Djonn backwards until his back was against the cave, bone brace against bone wall.

Aliati's own knife glinted as she held it up in the lamplight, near me. “Everyone, stop. Djonn has done nothing but tell us what he knows.”

Beliak moved behind Aliati, ready to stop her from striking anyone.

“Rumul,” Kirit said, coming to stand closer to Djonn, dragging Ciel with her. Ciel whimpered and pulled her fingers from Kirit's grip. Shook them in the air.

I held out my hand for Aliati's knife. Only when she'd given it to me did I release Djonn.

“When did you last see the Singer?” Ceetcee asked Djonn. Her voice was gentle.

“Before Aliati took me from the Spire. Dix came, carrying the Singer. Dix wanted the gas, my tools.” Djonn put a foot possessively on top of a metal case. “She couldn't take them. She grew so angry, she said she'd kill me one day, when I was no longer useful. Then she told me why Rumul still lived.”

Djonn looked outside, eyes searching the clouds for hunters, then back at us.

“What did she say?” Kirit asked, her voice tight.

He swallowed hard. “Dix said she kept him because—for better or for worse—he'd been the city's last true leader. That he was still useful. She said that the city was unlucky now because it lacked strong leaders. That it couldn't rise without them. With Rumul under her control, Dix said she'd become the leader the city needed.”

*   *   *

The circling hunters tightened their path, drawing close around us. They hadn't discovered the valley or the cave yet, thanks to the cloud cover, but each time their wing shadows appeared near the ridge wall, I knew they were closer.

As the sun set below the clouds, it tinted the towers and ridges around us red and orange.

Kirit hugged the entrance arch, leaning against the grate. “We need to talk to Dix.” The way she said it, it didn't sound like she planned to talk much at all.

“We will,” I said to her. I put my hand on her shoulder, but she flinched it away. “But we have to leave here first,” I said. “And we're taking Djonn with us.”

Aliati protested. “How can I know we'll be safe with you now?”

“You're not any safer here,” I said. “As for us, I could tell you secrets to gain your trust, or lies. But I won't. You'll be safe with me as long as you are honest with me.”

She nodded, thinking. “As good as you get with scavengers. Take the equipment you can carry. Take the tools.”

Outside, silk rustled in the wind. A pair of black wings dipped past the cave. Another pair followed.

I looked to Ceetcee and Beliak, Ciel and Kirit. “Move away from the entrance.” Mentally counting arrows, I wondered if the two blackwings had friends.

If not, we seven stood a chance.

But Aliati pushed aside the jumble of equipment, revealing a low tunnel through the bone. “There's another way out. Follow me.” She reached out a hand to Djonn and pulled him through the tunnel. They moved down the path, and the rest of us followed, until the tunnel opened out into a larger passage. Djonn straightened painfully and balanced his lopsided weight on Aliati's shoulder. They kept moving.

This wasn't a cave on the ridgeline. This was a tangle of passages. As we ran along the path, metal gleamed at intersections. The bone ridge's interior had been purposefully shaped into a shelter long ago. The spikes, and even a few rectangular plates were weather- and age-worn and looked very old. Ceetcee balked at the entrance, then took a deep breath and put her hand on Beliak's shoulder. She followed us in.

“You know your hiding places in the clouds well,” I said to our scavenger.

Aliati frowned but kept moving, her breath coming fast from the effort of helping Djonn. “People used to live down here. Remember? We're close to where several towers stopped growing. I'd heard rumors about this one, but no one ever comes here. Took a chance when I needed a place to hide Djonn. Found where the council fell when I came back to bring his supplies.”

A small hand dragged on my sleeve. “How much farther?” Ceetcee whispered, her voice tight. We seemed to be ascending deeper into the ridge, not out of it.

Aliati answered. “We're going back to the ghost tower, if we can make it to the other side of the ridge. Otherwise, there's one other hideaway that I've heard of. But it's far and dangerously low. Scavengers say it's—” She turned to look at me. “I want the city to know we helped you. That we aren't part of the attacks.”

“They'll know,” I promised. The path brightened and pools of cloud ran along the floor. A breeze brushed my cheeks. Aliati's strong arms lifted Djonn to her chest and crossed her wingstraps over his shoulders too. He tucked his legs around the backs of her knees, light as a child.

“Try to keep up,” she said. And then she dove into the darkness.

I lifted Ciel and flew her the same way; both of us on my wings was still faster than her fledge wings.

Kirit and Ciel both echoed, although Kirit stopped now and then and had to be snapped aware with a brusque “Kirit!” from Ceetcee. We moved quickly through the moonlit clouds, away from the ridgeline now below us.

Once, looking back, a glimmer of skymouth appeared outlined against the darkness. Once, I glimpsed black wings passing in the distance. I whistled to Aliati, and we sank lower in the clouds. No blackwings pursued us farther on our flight from the ridge.

We stopped once to get our bearings, at a low outcrop near the Spire's trunk. After Aliati confirmed we were going the right way, she and Ceetcee flew a circuit of the area to make sure we could approach our cave without being observed.

Several blue luminescent pulses at varying distances in the haze kept us company while we waited, until it became too light to see them. Now that we knew that they were littlemouths signaling, their presence comforted.