Updraft (20 page)

As suddenly as it began, the sound moved up and out past the top of the Spire and faded away.

When they could stand again, the Singers whispered to one another in worried tones.

A bone horn sounded atop the Spire, and I heard distant klaxons sound in the city.

“Moc,” I whispered, “what just happened?”

Already on his way to the ladders, Moc spun on his soft foot wraps. “We've got to get up top to watch!”

I must have looked confused, because he grabbed my arm and began to pull. “This is a big one. The Singers will tell the Magisters and the city leaders what the city wants at Conclave. It's going to be crowded up there.”

All the air went from my lungs. Conclave. Elna had said that when the Singers took Naton, it was for a Conclave. It had been a long time since the last roar of this magnitude. Usually there were only rumbles and rumors of rumbles.

I could still feel lingering vibrations in my bones. Neither rumble nor rumor: the city had made a sound as if the world was ending.

From down the passage, someone yelled Moc's name, and my slight companion skittered off again.

I was left alone in a swirl of activity. Everyone knew where they needed to be. Except for Kirit Spire. Conclave hadn't been covered in the novitiates' class. Sellis and Wik hadn't instructed me on where to go, what to do. Once again, I did not belong. I was the sole still body in a whirl of motion.

Tower children were schooled in a version of what happened when the city roared. That information was all I had to guide me now. Singers had recorded the codex of sounds the city had made over generations, ever since we rose through the clouds. When the city roared, the Singers weighed a new chip, from a piece of tower knocked loose by the sound. The bigger the roar, the bigger the piece. If none had been disturbed, they cut one from the lowest tier themselves, sized carefully to chronicle the sound for the future. They bound these in the codex.

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.

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.