Updraft (23 page)

“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.

I sat down at this table, next to the second figure, hoping I'd got it right. I smelled pungent spices.

Fingers tugged at the knots of my blindfold. When it dropped, the daylight in the room made me blink until my eyes watered.

“You did it,” Sellis said. “First try.” She smiled guardedly. I thought I saw a jealous twinge, but then she brightened. “You understand now,” she said.

“With your help,” I said. I meant it too.

Wik pushed a bowl of potatoes and peppers towards me. “With enough practice, we'll make you a Singer yet, Kirit Spire.”

“What's next?” Breakfast's spices prickled my tongue, and I blew out to cool my mouth. All around me, the sounds of the meal and the room added to what I could see. I wanted to learn more, to know everything now.

“Rest,” Wik said. “With no moon tonight, we must rest today.” I couldn't imagine why. Not when there was so much to hear.

By the time I returned to my tier, closing my eyes now and then to see if echoing still worked, I was ready to curl up without unfolding my mat. Exhaustion and giddy success netted me and pulled me into sleep.

 

15

LIFT

Sellis woke me in the dark.

Many Singers were already awake, readying themselves to fly.

In the towers, night was for sleeping. For storing up energy for the next day.

But Singers flew the night. Now that I was learning how they did it, I sensed the power of the skill, the advantages. Nightwings. Like the children's song, but better. They might see the invisible and travel through the city unobserved.

Sellis took me to the top of the Spire, where Wik waited for us. I breathed the fresh air. I wanted to throw myself to it; it felt so different from the trapped stuff that cycled through the Spire.

No moon. The stars were dim. I could not guess how long until sunrise. But I could see the nearest towers. The few lights within. The city slept, though we did not.

“Can you hear?” Wik growled in my ear. He pressed the metal prong to my temple again. “Echo. You will hear.”

Suddenly, I could hear too much. I could hear Wik's breath and Sellis's teeth chattering. I tried echoing faster. Sellis and Wik joined me. Faintly, I could hear something beyond them, in the distance, resonating.

I pictured the city before me, the outlines of the towers I knew from my studies. I imagined what could be out there that I could hear but not see.

The forms sounded faint, but very large. They surrounded the Spire.

Oh.

The sounds that my ears strained to hear were the true shapes of the city.

I drew a breath and whispered, “I can hear.”

“You will get better at it,” Wik said, almost too loud. I realized he wasn't shouting.

My heart leapt. If I could hear the city, I could fly it. Even if I could not see it.

More citizens could learn this, too. If we could hear what we could not see, the towers could help seek out skymouth nests and free the city from their terror.

Sellis must have interpreted the excited look in my eyes. She shook her head.

“The city entrusts us with this knowledge, Kirit. This is not for the towers.”

“Why not?”

“Tradition. Since the Rise.”

“Singers say ‘tradition' when they don't want to explain.”

“It's more than that.” Wik shook his head, struggling for patience. “It's about our history. About how people work. Traditions hold the city together, like the bridges do the towers. Once, we had no traditions. Only fear and loss.”

There had been no traditions in the clouds. Where skymouths and worse roamed free. Where towers had gone to war, attacking each other in fear and desperation. I'd studied. I had sung The real Rise. The Singers' traditions had lifted the city from that darkness.

Now I shivered, chilled.

Sellis, impatient with old history, pulled the conversation back to the night's lesson. “Echoing is a matter of learning to listen even more,” she said. “You can hear in directions, see in sounds.”

“But it takes practice,” said Wik. “Do not assume that you can hear everything straightaway.”

But I was surely much better at this than they thought. Perhaps it was like my voice, the shouts I could make that no one else on this blessed Spire could. At least sometimes. When I was lucky. But maybe I could hear differently too.

Then Wik took the prong away, Sellis fell silent, and the city went dark. I could no longer hear the towers spread around me like a flower. No. I was silenced and grounded again. Wik had cut off a newly grown limb. I wanted it back.

I reached for the prong.

Wik tucked it away in his upper robe. “You must learn to make your own echoes out here, as you did inside.”

Sellis took my hand and pulled me to the edge of the tower. She nudged me to sit, with my feet hanging over. I balked. I was unwinged, having left my training pair in my alcove.

“We will fly tonight,” she said. Her voice sounded more hesitant than I'd ever heard it.

“How many Singers are night fliers?” I asked.

“Most. Everyone has to train to do it, but some don't like it. Many think this one step closer to falling.”

“But this lets you see! And hunt skymouths! It's an honor to keep the city safe.”

Sellis winced. “This is a charge, not an honor. And you will notice your hearing gets more sensitive for all things. There is a tradeoff. You will be marred.”

I looked at my hand and its silver mark. “How?”

“You will hear too much. All the time. Singing will be painful, but you must continue to do it. You will overhear what you shouldn't. You will find crowds abhorrent. It sets you apart.”

I already was set apart.

Being separate from the rest of the city was not unusual for Singers. I realized Sellis's cautions held a note of pride. Her concerns were Spire concerns: traditions, skills, Rumul. How much power she had and could gain. How high on the tower you lived didn't matter here. Influence within the Spire and marks did.

Wik had many marks. Rumul had many more. Sellis and I each had just the one, on our hands. Plus the pathways the echoes had begun carving in our brains—those were marks too.

“When do we begin?” I whispered.

“Now,” Wik said. He pulled me to my feet and covered my eyes with a silk scarf. Blind. I stood atop the Spire, blind.

“Wait!” I couldn't see where the edge of the tower was, though I felt the solid bone beneath my soft footwraps. The air whistled around me, but I froze in place, afraid to step the wrong way. Nets or no, I did not want to fall.

Wik took my hand and guided me a few steps backwards. Then he let go and spun me around.