We don’t have to be this way.
We are more than this, folks.
I’m praying, Ruhum, praying till I weep for our new dawn to break.
Spring 65
In Ruhum, of course, the killing continued.
Their Conclave was free, the Azure threat excised, yet still the promised land eluded them. What other explanation could there be but more conspirators in the wings? Foreign sympathizers, harlots, and homosexuals – so much pollution remained!
A few of the deacons, worried over what they perceived as excess enthusiasm in their fellows, shifted to conciliatory tones.
Overnight, a mob of masked men dragged one such deacon from his bed and strung him from a streetlight for insufficient devotion.
The deacon’s flock found out with the morning, declared the criminals apostate, and burned down the church summarily declared as home of these heretics.
A new vocabulary flourished.
A woman of suspicious means, visited by strangers at odd hours? Apostate!
A man known to travel out of country, always returning with new trinkets? Heretic!
A rival shopkeeper that seemed to profit too well in hard time? Sympathizer!
Slowly, one at a time and usually too late, the masters of polite society began to notice that these words invoked a terrible spell: the self-ordained right to do whatever the speaker deemed necessary in the moment.
A hundred thousand people all reassured themselves before they went to bed: Well, I’m not a heretic. What does it have to do with me?
Meanwhile, even through the night, the man at the center of the gyre relished the energy before him. Fervent belief welled from the stones themselves! Here was the beginning of a fresh start!
Blackened ash drifted from the sky, and the praying crowd ignored the periodic shudders of the ground beneath their feet.
For the promised day approached.
Soon, they would be free.
***
The angel of Witness mounted the switchbacks to the witchmoot leisurely. Hands in his pockets, he savored the feel of a playful wind and the smell of Spring on the plains.
He remembered these empty plains on the day that Gabriel and he arrived. They had walked the new world after ten thousand years, marveled at its unspoiled lands, and dared to dream of escape from those old stains.
Reaching the first tents, he chose not to be seen as he passed among men and their trade. The witches were jealous of their secrets, meager though they be.
He knew the pattern of it: the initiate blindfolded and walked in circles; then the smoke-filled cavern, its braziers heavy with chemicals; and finally oaths sworn before one’s mentor in the dark.
Every clubhouse had its rituals, after all.
Outside the sleeping tents, Sebastian stopped to compose himself. He knew what Valkyrie had endured this last night, and he ached with the cruel necessity.
First the Archangel. Now Belle’s girl. Always does the burden fall to the youngest.
Tomorrow, he would walk to his tomb. A fate he deserved. Yet it was Valkyrie’s offer that would fuel the Work.
Angelic bindings fueled by mortal sacrifices.
As it had been with Eden’s last day.
“It will be some time before you wake,” he told the sky, dreaming of their old comrades. “I know it is Gabriel for whom you will seek when again you walk this world. All I might offer are my letters. My justifications, hollow though they might seem from the dog of Eden. If they displease you, burn them.”
Enough mourning. To his duty.
Sebastian brushed past Valkyrie’s minder, unseen, and set his hand to the tent. Raising the flap, he ducked into the darkness.
“I am sorry, Valkyrie, but we must be off.” Though the journey would be brief, she would require time with Alisandra to marshal her courage. Then…
The tent was empty.
Valkyrie was not there.
Valkyrie was not there!
Sebastian’s fingers trembled, almost daring to…
No! No, to indulge the hope of it would destroy him!
Instead, he split the air with an invocation in the first tongue. He flung the words in Time’s face, letting her gears groan, and watched the tent around him ripple backwards in time.
An empty bed, the new dawn already bright…
An empty bed, murky in first light…
An empty bed, darkened in the witching hour…
A–
Be released, Witness
This is no longer your story
And the last thing he saw was a peregrine falcon’s feather and a flash of blinding Light.
His words caught in his throat, a strangled sound, and he collapsed to the furs.
Laughing.
Laughing until he sobbed.
Clutching the furs, tears flooding down his cheeks.
Blinded and freed.
“Thank you,” he wheezed. “Thank you!”
Twice now saved by undeserved mercy, the angel of Witness wiped his face and rose.
The world blissfully dark to his eyes.
Sebastian brushed a bit of fuzz from his suit; straightened his tie; exhaled one last time.
Better to give back the breath.
Better to leave no trace he had ever been.
Turning, the Witness ducked under the tent flap and out of all knowledge.
***
Valkyrie awoke in a bed of feathers nestled among the tall grass. She snapped to full consciousness in a blink, her mind sharp as the weavework of Light, and surged to her feet.
She felt the truth in her bones: time was short.
Spinning, she spotted a high warehouse. This was just outside Tura’s airfields!
Though she did not understand this spell, she accepted it with a grin. “When this is over, I’m going to buy you all the ice cream we can eat, Rie, and you can savor every bite!”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
She jumped from the feather bed, leaving it to the Spring wind, and raced across the uneven prairie grasses until her feet hit the heavy concrete of the airstrip. From there, she spotted a lucky figure indeed: the Inventor Tura himself, inspecting the skyships despite the early hour.
“Hey!” she shouted, racing forward. “Tura!”
He turned, tugging at his braid in puzzlement. “Valkyrie? Weren’t you due for the witchmoot?”
“I didn’t much care for what they had to say!” Skidding to a stop, she blew out a heavy breath. “Now’s not the time for details. I need one of your airplanes!”
“Airplane? Yes, you had mentioned it before. After consideration, I must protest. What a hideous name,” Tura mused. Then, teasing with a smile, he added, “Of course, should you wish to borrow a skyship, as you can see, my girl, I have many.”
“One that flies!”
“Ah, now that is the trick. If you are looking for a leisurely glide across a soccer field, I might offer a dozen. To soar above the trees for three minutes, two. One might ask: where does flight begin and a lucky glide end? The real question, my dear, is–”
“Another time!” She interrupted. She called a brick wall out of the faerie fire to mute Tura. Pressed for time, her conjuring popped into existence with a sudden rush of air!
Breaking into a fresh jog, Valkyrie ducked between the many strange wings and swooped bodies of the skyship prototypes.
Behind her, Tura poked the faerie fire wall…
Which will fly? Rie wouldn’t have dropped me here for a dead end! I know it!
His finger came to a stop on the glowing bricks.
She’s done her part. I’ve exhausted her to get this far. Now it’s my turn.
Skyships long and narrow like bullets; skyships rotund like that one failed attempt in Lumia. What had that guy’s name been? Alva?
Tura stepped around the floating brick wall and trailed after her. Recognizing the mad spark in her eyes, he let her fondle his prized possessions.
She ran her hands over the wings, testing joints and probing in half-remembered demonic memory.
Not this one. So brittle.
No, not this one. It is trying to be a bird. Why would you put in so many joints? Wood weighs a thousand times a feather; you can’t play the same game.
In her head, scattered bits of Mirielle memory mingled with something that rose from within her own soul.
The press of the wind along my wingtips; the stretch of my pinions defying gravity’s call…
Experience and theory blending until she stopped at the last prototype, its wooden wings straight and humped.
“This one.”
“Why so?” asked Tura curiously.
“Because it wants to fly too.”
The Inventor broke into a grin. “As do we all! Then fly we shall!”
“To the Bones, Tura. To Ali.”
He stared at her strangely, glimpsing far more than his laid-back smile revealed.
Finally, Tura laughed. “Then let me fetch a crew! For today we shall make history!”
Let’s not tell my wife until after!
***
An hour later, Valkyrie and Tura mounted the slim skyship and waved for the Inventor’s assistants.
“We are off to the horizon!” the Inventor announced like an afternoon stroll. “Pray look forward to our return!”
One assistant snapped a photograph as they took their seats. Another slipped on their helmets for them. A third poured in a stinking kerosene blend into the fuel tank. The last tested the prop blade for stability.
As they waited, Valkyrie chewed on a question of her own. “Tura…”
“Yes? How might I aid your nerves?”
“Why–” No, he’ll just evade the question. “What did you and Oliver talk about?”
Affixing his goggles, Tura laughed. “Everything, lass. Everything. No secrets among friends!”
“…I see. And this plane – when it flies – can reach the Bones?”
To which the Inventor replied, “Have a little faith, Valkyrie!”
Then the propeller roared to life, and Valkyrie could barely hear her own thoughts. She yanked her helmet down further, letting the earmuffs dampen the worst of the noise, and shuddered against such a noisy form of flight.
Nothing like the whispering wind of the open sky…
Waving one last time, Tura slammed the accelerator. The jerk nearly knocked out the girl’s teeth, and she gripped the rim of her seat white-knuckle as they surged forward down the concrete.
You can fly! she prayed, gripping tight.
Willing the skyship to embrace the sky. Imagining, beneath the roar, that she heard it creak in obedience.
As if she could hear anything!
Then the skyship reached its top speed, bobbing like a cork on rickety wheels! Once; twice, wheels slipping free a moment; and three times, rising…
Flying!
“Yes!” she squeaked, pumping her fists.
Tura raised the nosecone towards the web of Light, ground slipping away.
Leaning forward, she shouted into his ear, “Stay below the web!”
“The web?” he asked.
“Below the clouds! Just trust me!”
Gripping the skyship once more, she let her faerie fire bleed along its edges. Like a desert hawk’s feathers – bright like the sky on the bottom and dark like the ground on the top – she Willed them to fade from the gaze of burning Light.
Just another bird on the wing.
The web of Light pulsed on, busy with itself, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Then she settled back for several hours of rattling and jostling.
She meant to take the time to prepare herself. To muster her arguments and arrive sharp as a tack for Ali. Instead, the guttural noise of the engine and the ceaseless vibration lulled her mind into a strange, surreal dream. There, the plains passed, the hills melted away, and the mountains rose.
They threaded a sequence of passes, winding above the Dragon. The river beneath slowly grew stronger with Spring melts, and the cross winds among the peaks threatened to swat them from the sky.
Tura, cursing, wrestled the controls like a madman.
Valkyrie prayed, gripping tighter. Have a little faith!
Her faerie fire a weavework of its own, coaxing the little plane faster and farther.
As they crested the last pass, Tura glanced with worry at the fuel gauge.
“Are we alright?!” she shouted into his ear. She glanced at the display panel, but she didn’t know how to read any of the dials. Most were pointing at red.
“Have a little faith!” he laughed in response. His gloves hid the white knuckles of his hands.
“Okay! Not much further now!” I think.
Emerging from the mountains, the clouds cleared to reveal the web of Light above fully woven. Golden color swept the sky from horizon to horizon, blotting out sun and moon.
Like a cocoon, she wondered. What form of butterfly will it birth?
Or is this an egg never meant to release its quarry from its grip?
To the west, she spied the Plateau’s jagged sands. From this height she marked the great ripples of its impact – like waves frozen in the stone – and she wondered at the terrible wars of the old covenant.
But Tura turned east as the engine sputtered.
We’re not giving up this close! she prayed, coaxing more.
Under her touch, the engine caught its footing and rode the fumes a little further.
They flew higher, following the slope of the land from the Dragon towards the high spires and silver-grey clouds of the Bones. Even on a Spring day, the clouds rolled low, mingling with the rocks, to form a wall of grey where the world seemed to end.
From within the distant clouds, she caught a flash of something brilliant and arching and splintered like a tree of Light…
A tree that split and split and split into ten thousand tendrils rising into the sky.
“Angelic beacon,” she muttered. Leaning forward, she shouted into Tura’s ear, “That’s the goal!”
“Of course it is!” the Inventor laughed.
The wind grew hard, nipping at them with vicious eddies. It drew the clouds of reeking salt close, swallowing them in murk…
“Lower! We can follow the caravan road!” Valkyrie pointed below them.
Tura obediently dipped lower, following the recently expanded road in its serpentine wiggles between towering mesa. Their engine hacked against fumes and salt several more times, and it slowly dawned on Valkyrie that they were not flying low so much as settling into an improvised glide.
“There wouldn’t happen to be a particularly large, straight, and smooth Main Street in the vicinity, would there?” the Inventor shouted back.
Oh, hells.
“You didn’t know how we were going to land?!” Valkyrie sputtered.
“How would I?” The Inventor glanced back, teeth bared. “I’ve never been to the Bones!”
A man that took a skyship up with no idea how it would come down.
He’s as mad as Oliver!
Then again…maybe so was she!
They fell below the Bones’ meager cloud line, revealing two massive plateaus on either side and the termination of the caravan road straight ahead. It fed into a squalid, muddy town propped above up by wooden stilts.
“Here it comes!” he called, slamming on the brakes.
The town had a Main Street, technically…
One full of people.
“We can’t land there!” she shouted.
“Gravity is no longer giving us an option!”
Don’t look at me!
According to my instruments, we ran out of fuel an hour ago!
“Look under your seat!” Tura urged. “The white bag with the cord!”
Leap free and live!
“And what about you?!”
Instead, she heard the Chorus.
The Inventor of Flight
Claimed his beloved sky
The price was high
And yet he willingly paid
“Kiss my arse!” Valkyrie screamed to the wind. “Suicide missions are lame as hell!”
She released her faerie fire on the plane.
The wood lurched; the wings groaned; their glide turned into a rapid descent.
Instead, she flung it down before them. She imagined a landing strip of heavy wooden posts and thick crossbeams, a road above the road like the fancier parts of the Waves trolley.
Her faerie fire rippled across the town, and such a landing pad burst into view.
“There!”
Tura laughed as they careened downwards.
God above, why are men all such maniacs?!
Then again, if she was such a superior sex, why was she here too?!
They came in fast.
Very fast!
With one last thought, she filled both seats with feathers soft as down and thick as pillows before they brained themselves on the dash.
Then they hit the runway. The forward wheels shattered on impact, the wings snapped off on the first bounce, and Valkyrie slammed blind into the back of Tura’s seat.
Even surrounded by the softest, thickest cushions she could dream, the impact drove the wind from her gut.
Grinding against the faerie fire, the plane slid to a belated stop. The smell of scorched wood filled the air, and Valkyrie spit out feathers.
Tearing free of his padding first, Tura shouted for all to hear, “Ha! Alva, you wine-swilling twat, behold! What do you think of this ‘dark-skinned heathen’ now? Today, I seize the crown of the skies!”
“Ow…” Valkyrie groaned.
Faintly embarrassed, Tura turned to help with the padding. “Ah, excuse me…old grudges should stay in the sea with their owners.”
I still won though
Leveraging his height, Tura pried Valkyrie free of the wreckage and set her down on the planks.
After hours in that tiny seat, her legs ached like fire, and she wobbled on numb toes. The faerie fire planks beneath her feet hummed at her touch, only worsening the prickles.
Did we really cross half a continent in that little old thing?
Glancing down, she frowned at her makeshift landing pad. In her panic, she had fed it well, but faerie fire was too ephemeral to…
As she thought, the boards rattled.
“Oh, hells. Faerie fire doesn’t last forever!” she warned, making a leap for the safety of mud.
“What?!”
Despite protesting, Tura leaped after.
The landing strip behind them faded back into dream. They fell more than leaped fifteen feet into sucking mud, and the ruined chassis smashed into the muck behind them.
They had arrived.