Chapter I -
Beneath the Wind
Ten thousand feet of
empty air separated the toes of Lizbeth Valera's boots and the
distant earth's surface below. She rocked back on heels supported
by the smooth marble platform known as the Plunge, a platform sat
atop a small, floating island that abruptly ended beneath the arches
of her feet. She stood on both land and sky, poised between two
worlds, a soft breeze sighing through her hair. Murderers, rapists,
and the scum of the realm often found themselves standing on the same
precipice, their limbs tied and secured as they were shoved from the
Plunge out into the blue sky beyond. The last seconds of their lives
were spent screaming as they plummeted through the air until they
slammed into the earth with an atrocious force that ensured their
remains were rarely recovered.
How does it feel,
she wondered, for
this view to be the last sight you ever glimpse?
She closed her eyes
and sought to balance on the precipice's edge. A sudden gust
buffeted her from behind, tipped her forward, and she fell.
A pair of feathered
white wings bright as bleached bone unfurled from her back. A quick
flick of her wings, each taller than she, returned her to the
platform with ease. If she died today, it sure as the skies wouldn't
come from slipping off a ledge.
She straightened a
fistful of ruffled feathers and glanced behind her to find the other
Ertai on the platform were paying her antics no mind. A quartermaster
poured over a lone bag of rations, quill scratching notes into their
ledger, while a pair of steady-handed soldiers sharpened and oiled a
set of wicked daggers. A dozen armed guards had formed a perimeter
and were scanning the skies with wary gazes. No trouble was
expected--they'd chosen the Plunge as their departure point due to
its position at the center of a cluster of floating islands that
obscured it from view. That didn't stop the guards from clenching
their sword hilts; a mistake today could breed disaster.
Five hooded figures
stood at the platform's rear, heads together as they spoke in
huddled whispers. Those whispers could speak new laws into existence.
Those whispers controlled the fate of the sky.
"Or they did
before today," Lizbeth muttered to herself.
The currents of fate
had changed course.
A new set of
whispers stroked against her ears like frost-encrusted fingers. They
came from no living form, their unintelligible words impossible to
comprehend--and yet the rage, confusion, and sorrow within their
depths was clear as the midday sun. Back stiff and jaw set, she
peered over the Plunge's edge at the whispers' source; a
monolithic maelstrom loomed before her.
The winds of the
Skywall drifted without end beneath the evening sun. Though it proved
thick enough to hide the lands beneath its surface, the smoky dome
appeared no denser than a cloud. The gargantuan barrier could be
spied from a hundred miles distant, and to the untrained eye, swirled
with the easy rhythm of slumber.
Lizbeth let out a
snort.
"Sleeping my ass."
It was sleeping, all
right, until you touched it.
The merest contact
with the Skywall transformed the barrier into a savage tempest. To
enter the Skywall was to toss yourself headfirst into a hurricane.
The Skywall wouldn't kill you; Reis, the goddess of the sky, had
seen to that herself when she raised it with the magic of Essence,
the very force that sustained her being. It was a shield, not a death
trap, an impassable partition designed to keep both humans and their
descendants, the winged Ertai race, from passing through. But snap
bones, rend your feathers, tear at your skin and eyes for hours until
it spat you out? That fate was certain. A howling gale dwelled
beneath the Skywall's harmless surface like the jaws of a shark
beneath still seas.
Lizbeth's skin
grew chill.
And we're the
fools who are about to go swimming.
She shoved the
thought from her head and ran a hand tanned by the wind and sun
through her messy bronze hair, then flexed her wings. A pair of
platform occupants stepped to her side, her comrades for the mission
ahead.
She turned to the
angular, aging woman to her left, who stared at the Skywall,
distinctly unimpressed.
"Do your bounties
ever try to escape through the Skywall, Vasheer?" Lizbeth asked.
Vasheer Rudamu
scoffed and took a long drag on her pipe before replying in a voice
that was a mix of smoke and gravel.
"Every wind-damned
year. They all limp back wishing they hadn't.
It chews up
any fool stupid enough to test its might and spits them back out with
barely the strength to fly."
Vasheer turned to
the massive, mohawked man floating beside her.
"Kon, you're a
fool. Ever been dumb enough to try?"
Kon Golont chuckled
and crossed a pair of golden arms thicker than Lizbeth's thighs.
His wings, well-groomed and kept free of dirt, dwarfed her own.
Though Lizbeth wasn't short by female standards, next to Kon she
resembled a child. The imposing enforcer wore his lazy smile like
another would a favorite shirt.
"A young, handsome
man like me?" he quipped in a baritone voice. "I've pints to
drink and women to tickle. Such acts are for the bored and old,
Vasheer, those with little to live for and less to lose. Turns out
that places you first in line. Go on now, we'll only miss you a
bit."
The older woman
puffed on her pipe, sending a plume of smoke the same hue as her hair
billowing into the air.
"By the winds,
you're an ass."
"True," he
shrugged. "But most girls don't mind."
Lizbeth barked a
laugh and rolled her eyes.
"Just most?
Meaning the ones you have to pay?"
Vasheer guffawed as
Kon turned to Lizbeth, indignant.
"Come on now,
runt," he slapped her arm, "don't tell me you're taking her
side."
"You've a poster
up in the Rose Quarter, man. They give you a discounted rate. They
likely know your trouser size, they've peeled them off so often."
"Hardly proof--"
"Just shut up and
check your weapons, you whore."
Grumbling, Kon
complied.
"And put out the
pipe, Vasheer," she continued. "In fact, pass it to a guard.
Tabac isn't native to the lands inside the Skywall. Your pipe will
get us arrested."
Vasheer's eyes
narrowed. Lizbeth refused to blink.
Vasheer had started
serving the Magisters who ruled the Skybound Tribe, and by extension
the skies, when Lizbeth barely reached the woman's knees. Twenty
years on the job, compared to Lizbeth's paltry five, and yet
Lizbeth was the one giving orders. Had Vasheer not spent her youth
making coin as a smuggler and serving time in a cell for her trouble,
their roles would undoubtedly be reversed. Vasheer damn well knew it,
and the knowledge strengthened her will to resist Lizbeth's
commands.
Lizbeth's eyes
started to hurt.
Come on now,
woman.
Vasheer relented
with a grumble and passed the pipe to a guard.
"Isn't native?"
she asked, sour.
"Page twelve in my
notes," Lizbeth replied. "Did you read them?"
Vasheer averted her
gaze.
"The optional
notes? I read 'em, all right. Well, most. About half. Must've
dropped page twelve in the bath."
Lizbeth barely
suppressed a snort.
Another reason
I'm in charge.
Lizbeth turned to
Kon. Of the thirty pages of notes she'd gathered that described the
lands, laws, and traditions waiting within the confines of the
Skywall, she would be pleased if Kon had managed to read a paragraph.
"Reis knows I
shouldn't bother to ask," she started, "but did you read--"
He raised his
eyebrows and gave her a flat look.
"I read the
mission briefing. I'm certain we'll be fine."
"Best hope we
don't end up in shackles," she muttered, "or I'll make you
read every sunshied word."
She blinked, then
bit her tongue.
Sunshied isn't a
word used beneath the Skywall. Page seventeen, remember? Gods, I
won't even be able to swear in peace.
She glanced at Kon's
hands and saw they both remained bare.
"Stop stalling,
Kon, strap on your graf."
Kon sighed and
pulled on what appeared to be an unremarkable fingerless
glove--unremarkable until one spied the translucent chunk of pitch
embedded in the fabric. When the glove was worn properly, the pitch
rested on the back of one's hand. Kon strapped the graf onto his
skillet-sized hand with a grunt, closed his eyes, and raised his arm.
The ashen chunk of earth in the graf's center flared to life;
through it, Kon seized the Essence. Burnt orange lines formed a mace
in the air, its handle clutched in Kon's grasp. Had Lizbeth
possessed the ability to wield the Shade of Grom, one of the four
unique flows of the Essence that allowed the wielder to consolidate
the air into corporeal form, she would have seen the Shade's orange
aura surround Kon with a glow. It was typical for an Ertai to
identify themselves by the color of their Shade, thus Kon often
referred to himself as an 'Orange'--an unfortunately comical
slang term for a man with the strength to casually kick a door from
its hinges.
Kon gave the mace a
swing, then eyed the glowing chunk of earth in his graf with disgust.
He spat its name like a curse.
"Nethum. Where did
the bastards inside the Skywall dig this up from, the unholy depths
themselves? It's like I'm pulling the Essence through a thin,
filthy pipe. Why the hells are we using these grafs, again?"
"The moment we
enter the Skywall, our direct connection to the Essence will be
severed, meaning we can't call the wind at will," Lizbeth
replied. "We'll need a conduit to seize our Shades once inside,
and nethum is the best conduit we can find, however shit an option it
might be."
Kon grunted in
reluctant understanding. The mace in his hand grew in size as he drew
deeper on the Essence, making the nethum in his graf glow brighter.
"Careful,"
Lizbeth warned. "Pull too much and the nethum will explode."
"How can I tell?"
"The nethum's
light will be blinding and it'll burn like the hells through the
graf."
"And if it
explodes?"
"It'll knock you
on your ass and you'll go blind for a bit."
Kon shrugged,
looking thoughtful.
"Fair enough."
The mace
disappeared.
Lizbeth eyed her own
graf with healthy disgust.
She'd sized the
Essence through it a dozen times over, and each time shivers coursed
down her spine. Essence tasted all wrong when channeled through
nethum. Rather than dance about her fingers like a warm, soothing
wind, it ran through her grasp like silk covered in mud. Few Skybound
knew much about nethum, save that it was mined from deep within the
earth. As nethum allowed them to seize the Essence beneath the
Skywall, the muddled discomfort it caused was a shallow price to
pay--on paper at least. Lizbeth couldn't put her finger on it, but
at the nethum's core, she sensed something was...wrong.
The Essence of
Reis was never meant to be used like this. The gift of the Goddess
deserves better.
The trio's
conversation lulled as the sun continued to fall. Inevitably, their
gazes turned to the Skywall. The whispers of its winds found their
ears.
"They
say you listen too long," Vasheer murmured, tone muted, "the
Skywall's whispers will drive you insane."
"I don't plan
for us to dwell near the damn thing long enough to find out,"
Lizbeth replied.
Easy for her to say,
but what of the Windbound Tribe trapped beneath the Skywall's
surface? Did their sanity hold strong?
She felt a tinge of
pity at the thought.
The Windbound
are children of Reis, same as us. They are Ertai, just as we are,
whether we like it or not. Ertai forbidden from flying through the
true, blue sky or grasping the Essence unaided. Ertai cursed to live
beneath wan light filtered through eternal clouds.
A harsh voice spoke
up in her mind.
The
bastards tried to blast our floating islands from the sky. They
slaughtered us in the thousands.
Whatever ounce of
pity she held for the Windbound evaporated on the breeze.
She appraised their
ranks a final time to ensure their appearance wouldn't rouse undue
suspicion. The loose, brown breeches and short-sleeved,
forest-colored tunics that cascaded to their knees were drab and
unworthy of remark. Eyebrows might be raised at their sturdy,
battle-ready boots, but Lizbeth felt they were worth the risk. A
fight would likely come their way whether they willed it or no, and
they couldn't brawl in slippers now could they? Each of them wore a
leather cuirass beneath their garments, while their belts were
adorned with hidden blades. The only pack they carried, aside from
the inventoried bag of rations now slung over Kon's shoulder, was a
fist-sized pouch tightly secured to Lizbeth's hip. If Lizbeth
closed her eyes, she could feel the quiet hum of the crystalline
caestall emanating through the pouch's leather. The tiny, floating
crystal was their only defense against the Skywall's imminent
wrath.
Kon glanced at the
pouch, then her.
"You sure the
caestall is strong enough to get us through?" he asked. "The
Skywall may not kill us, but I'd rather not test it."
Lizbeth reflexively
grasped the pouch, checking that its straps were in place for the
seventeenth time that day.
"I'm not
certain, no," she admitted. "A test would have drained some of
its power. But Icarse was certain, and that's good enough for me.
It should activate as soon as we enter the Skywall."
Kon paused a hair
too long before he nodded and turned away. Lizbeth swallowed the lump
in her throat. Skies alive, if only Icarse was there to assure them
himself...
For the love of
Reis, where are you, brother?
Icarse had sailed
into the Skywall's depths two years prior for a routine visit to
the lands confined within the churning dome--and hadn't been heard
from since.
He's fine,
she'd told herself endlessly, he's
just treating with the wingless humans trapped on the earth's
surface beneath the Skywall. Ic has traveled inside the Skywall
before, he's survived the floating islands of the Windbound there,
he well knows what waits ahead. Perhaps he's rallying allies to our
cause. He's fine, of course he's blasted fine.
Her constant
self-assurance had quickly waned once the explosions had started.
First came reports of streaks of light glimpsed through the Skywall's
base, where it burrowed into the earth miles below. The streaks, each
brighter than the last, had lasted a fortnight. Strange, for certain,
but no reason to worry. Reis had raised the Skywall after the Ertai
civil war using magics no mortal could match. The traitorous
Windbound would spend eternity trapped within the Skywall for their
war crimes.
Surely they lacked
the means to breach the work of a god?
Yet breach it they
did.
It was only for a
second, little more than a breath, but it was real as a dying man's
dread. A beam of opaque light pierced the Skywall from within, then
vanished. The Skywall's wound closed, and all was still. The
thought made Lizbeth shudder. After three hundred years, the
impossible had come to pass; the Windbound were slowly breaking free.
"I'll die before
I let that happen," she swore under her breath.
She glanced above
her head at the stretches of floating land known as the Ertan
Islands, the colossal bergs of stone and soil set against the
backdrop of the vast, eternal sky. Sat atop the largest island of
them all floated Telaria, affectionately dubbed by its inhabitants
the Rainbow City. Telaria had served as the bastion of Ertai
civilization from the moment Reis had gifted Lizbeth's human
ancestors wings and blessed them with the Essence, thus creating the
Ertai race. To the histories, Telaria was a city of legend--to
Lizbeth and the Skybound, it was home. She watched the sun dance off
its multicolored walls, watched its crystalline towers shine. If the
Windbound escaped their prison and returned war to the skies, those
crystalline towers and multicolored walls would find themselves under
siege.
Kon bobbed up beside
her and followed her gaze.
"She's a sight
in the evenings, is she not?"
Lizbeth nodded with
a last, long look.
"And may she be
for eons to come."
Dusk set in and the
city faded. A guard bobbed forward, a palm-sized box of gears and
iron known as a 'clock' in hand. Lizbeth stared at the thing with
a sense of muted awe; Vasheer eyed it with clear distrust. Exports
from the underground, artificer city of Goug were rare sights indeed.
The artificers were happy to sell their wares, but only to those who
did business within Goug's tunnels, a city that was an ocean away.
Lizbeth longed to pop the clock open and see how the blasted thing
worked. Only the knowledge that it cost six months of her pay stayed
her unskilled hands from prying it open.
"Eighth hour past
noon," the clock-toting guard remarked.
The Plunge fell
still. The five hooded figures at the platform's rear fixed their
gazes upon Lizbeth. Any Skybound citizen old enough to fly would
recognize the faces that now peered at her--she was staring at the
Magisters. It was the first time in a century all five elected rulers
of the Skybound had been absent from Telaria at once.
At the center of
their ranks stood Markus Valera, the chosen Speaker of their number,
and her uncle. He peered at her with hazel eyes that resembled her
own, eyes calm as untroubled skies. His clenched jaw and balled fists
betrayed him. He'd already lost a nephew to the Skywall's depths;
he feared he would soon lose his niece.
Despite the worry
that plagued him, his voice was resolute as he stepped forward and
spoke.
"May the winds
guide you to triumph, then may they guide you safely home. Fly with
Reis, Teran Ro. We are with you."
Lizbeth nodded, lump
forming in her throat, then tore her gaze away. All that needed to be
said between family had been spoken hours before they stepped foot
onto the Plunge. The time for tearful farewells was over.
"Teran Ro," she
announced, "form up."
Kon and Vasheer
floated to her side. Half the soldiers guarding the platform's
perimeter formed an escort around Lizbeth's trio, and together they
leapt from the Plunge. Wings spread wide, their ranks glided toward
the Skywall, the maelstrom slowly looming larger.
"Teran Ro?"
Vasheer whispered once they had left the Plunge behind. "As in
'those bound for the earth?' Stupid name, you ask me."
Lizbeth raised her
eyebrows. She'd chosen the name.
"Have you come up
with something better?"
"Well, no."
"Right then, Teran
Ro it is."
Lizbeth ignored
Vasheer's stare and continued.
"Here's the
plan, one last time--"
Vasheer and Kon
groaned.
"-- whether you
like it or not," she snapped. "Our target is Gargealean, the
Windbound capital. It sits on the largest floating island beneath the
Skywall, smack in the center of the realm. Our contact is a man named
Windsom. We'll meet him in the Markets district atop the Trinity
Towers at the stroke of midnight. If he's--"
"-- not there,
we'll continue on toward the Surface," Vasheer finished for her.
"Remember,"
Lizbeth continued, "tonight is the Hammersfall festival. It's the
ten-year anniversary of Orn the Betrayer's defeat at the hands of
some blasted Windbound hero known as the Slayer. The district will be
swarming with drunken guards all night. For the love of lightning,
don't get in a fight."
"'The Slayer,'"
Kon mused. "You best be one hell of a warrior to earn that title."
"Let's not meet
him and find out."
They nodded.
Lizbeth's thoughts
raced to find some missed, critical instruction, but nothing came to
mind. She willed her nerves to calm as their flight drew to a halt.
The Skywall towered before them.
"Link up," she
ordered. "And hold on for dear life. If you release me, the Skywall
will take you."
Kon tied one of
Lizbeth and Vasheer's hands together using a leather cord. He then
floated low between them and wrapped his arms around each of their
inside legs. Were they to fly in horizontal formation, Kon's wings
would batter their own.
As she ordered them
forward, their escort parted and snapped to attention. Their captain
saluted as they passed.
"Good luck, Teran
Ro," he said, voice strained. "May Reis guide you safely home."
"Thank you,"
Lizbeth nodded. "She will."
The other guards
looked as if they were attending a funeral; two of them were praying
loud enough for Lizbeth to hear. As the three companions left the
guards behind, Lizbeth spoke softly.
"A drunken
enforcer. A bounty hunter with a criminal past. A girl living off her
family name. I've heard it all, and so have you. Our own ranks
think we'll fail."
Kon and Vasheer
tensed. The Skywall loomed just ahead.
"Well they're
wrong, damn wrong. It's time we prove it."
Kon popped his neck.
"Blasted right,
runt."
Vasheer nodded.
"We're with you,
girl."
"Heads up and
wings ready," Lizbeth commanded. "Teran Ro,
move
in!"
They plunged into
the Skywall. The lazy winds transformed into chaos.
The Skywall
thundered against them like an avalanche, the world a churning sea of
violent gray. Claws of wind tore at her eyes, her clothes, her arms,
shrieking as she fought against the storm. Inch by inch she felt the
others slip away. The wind was tearing their ranks apart.
"Hold!" she
roared. "Hold! Don't let go!"
Her caestall awoke
with a thrum.
A presence as cool
as morning mist washed over them, the screaming winds falling away.
The tempest retreated like shadows before a flame, and all around
them the Skywall grew calm.
Vasheer stared,
mouth agape.
"It--it actually
worked!"
Kon whooped and
punched the air.
"Godsdamn, it's
good to be alive!"
Lizbeth let out a
shout, then forged ahead.
"Now the real work
begins." It was time to foil the Windbound's plans. It was
time to save her brother.
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