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Exodus II

And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws.

—Exodus 18:20

 

Shipyear 6266

The peregrine falcon wheeled overhead as Atyen watched, choosing its moment. It had missed its last attack, and the ground doves it had been hunting were hiding in the shade under the bushes, cooing in excitement. When it stooped the doves had scattered to shelter, and now they were peering about trying to decide if it was safe to come out again. They knew the falcon was up there, watching, but they didn't know where it was. The hunter soared patiently, and Atyen held his breath. Soon. Very soon. The doves were in a bigger hurry than the predator. There was food to be found, mates to be won, young to be cared for, and they couldn't wait all day. As Atyen watched a few of the braver ones came out, to gain for a minute or two an advantage over their less venturesome relatives. More followed them, and then more, and soon the entire flock was back in the tall wheat, searching out the ripe fallen grains, and squabbling over the best patches of turf. Atyen took his eyes off the falcon to watch a pair of doves carrying straw to the eaves of a nearby thresh mill to add to their nest. The mill wheel turned slowly in the sluggish canal current, and occasionally he could hear the millers doing whatever it was that millers did, but people didn't interest Atyen. He looked back to the peregrine as it circled. He had come to know its movements, its style, and he knew it was getting ready to stoop again.

Any moment now. Atyen exhaled slowly, as though breathing normally would somehow disrupt the unfolding drama, breathed in again, and once more held his breath. The paired doves fluttered back into the wheat, and then one came out again with more straw, followed shortly by the second. The peregrine stooped, rolling over into a vertical dive, falling so fast it was nothing but a blur against the clouds, streaking down like a bolt from an aftward storm. It spiraled as it came, and unconsciously Atyen moved his hands as though they were wings, as though he could adjust the bird's course as it came in for the kill. The peregrine pulled out of its dive and into level flight and the second dove never knew what hit it, the hunter's strike knocked it sideways and it fell. The falcon pulled up hard, trading speed for height, pivoted on a wing, and came around again, catching the injured dove before it hit the ground. Victorious, it flew off, flapping heavily with its burden, climbing up and away towards the foredome, while the doves once more vanished into cover with a massed whir of wings. Atyen breathed out again, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, as though it were his triumph and not the peregrine's. He closed his eyes to relive the moment, imagining himself up so high with the freedom to look down the world, to circle and spin in the free air, to choose his moment to swoop down and pull up. He pictured the predator's movements, each twist of its wings, and the way its flight feathers spread to ride the air currents.

The tail is the key. The falcon balanced itself in midair with its tail, steered with it, used it to control its lethal attack dive. He opened his eyes again, and opened the bound worksheaf that served as his journal to a half completed sketch of a soaring falcon. He opened his ink jar and dipped in his pen, concentrating on the image he had in his mind's eye. Picturing did not come naturally to him, and so he planned carefully what he would draw. The tail movements that controlled the bird's flight were so tiny and subtle when the bird was soaring that he could barely distinguish them, despite hours of watching. They were larger when it was stooping, but then so quick that he could barely catch them, or be quite sure of what he'd seen when he did. What he wanted to show in his image was not any single maneuver, but an amalgam of all that he learned about how the bird flew. How it soars! He looked up at the busy ground doves, once again peering out from shelter. They were easier subjects, easier to find and easier to follow with their larger numbers and slower flight. Their tail and wings were much easier to track, and indeed his journal was full of illustrations of doves flying, flapping, landing and launching themselves. They couldn't soar though, and more than anything Atyen wanted to soar. Unconciously he looked up to the suntube, to see if he could spot the hunter again, but it was gone. Where it had gone to was an ongoing mystery. They lived high, high up on the forewall, up in the mists in a place always hidden from human eyes. They only came down to the midfields to hunt, and he'd never seen one land.

Atyen returned his attention to his journal, and carefully lined in the falcon's tail, showing it canted to one side, as it was just before a stoop. He took his time at it, and when he was finished he inked in the distinctive banded bars that marked its feathers. Such detail was not strictly necessary to understand how the falcon flew, but it made him feel closer to them, closer to the clouds. He shifted his position, only because he had been sitting in one place so long that his legs had gone to sleep. His toes tingled as blood rushed back into his lower limbs, and he held his rendering at arm's length, considering it critically. He bit his lower lip unconsciously. It's accurate, but . . . he had captured every detail with anatomical precision, but somehow his drawing lacked the inherent grace and power the falcons displayed. It was still missing something. There's something I don't understand yet. A dove fluttered overhead and he watched it as it dipped a wing to circle, and braked to a halt with a flutter of wings. It was a male, and it had chosen a female to try to impress with its mating display, bobbing its head and pirouetting to show its splayed tail feathers. The female, uninterested, turned away.

A shadow drifted overhead, and he looked up to see fleecy clouds spiraling their way foreward around the suntube. Aftward the spirals billowed larger, harbingers of a storm. It occurred to him that he was hungry, and he hadn't been paying attention to the bells. It was probably well past the evening meal. He gathered his journal, his ink and his pen into his belt-bag, and headed foreward himself, following the line of the mill canal. As he passed the mill he could see the millers had set dove-nets, but they hadn't set them well and they were empty. Further up the canal a troop of small girls were netting carp from the bank and hanging their catch from a willow pole, and the sight of the fresh fish stirred Atyen's hunger. A bridge crossed the canal where it joined the Silver River and he went over it, not stopping as he usually did to watch the ripples as the water met the pilings. From there his path took him up the trading road, so ancient it was worn a good meter below its sidehills, past the edge of the cultivated fields and into dewy meadows beneath the foredome's permanent overcast. The forewall mists were high, and ahead the spire of the manuscript tower rose against the bulk of the forewall. He passed the low, grassy embankment that enclosed the outer courtyard, past the hammered steel plaque at the entrance to the main gallery that carried the Inquisition's watchwords. From Knowledge to Truth to Justice.

He went inside, nodding to the sentinels on duty. Hunger growled in his stomach, but before he could let himself eat he had to see his wings, and so he went to the studio rather than the meal hall. To one side there was a workshelf that was his space. It held his carefully inked plans, detailing every line of his dream. Kites of the various configurations hung on the walls above it, some small, some large enough to lift him, each aimed at solving a different piece of the puzzle of flight. The shelf held a model of his design an arm span wide, exact in every detail, and in front of it, taking up more room than Solender's other aspirants would prefer, stood the wings themselves, resting gently on their forming jigs. They were were beautiful and nearly complete, four meters across and carefully shaped to match the wing form of a soaring falcon. The frame was lightweight bamboo, weatherproofed with flax oil, cross braced and covered in strong flax linen, and waxed to give it a better surface for the wind. There were straps to hold them to his shoulders and his waist, and strong cords with hand loops so he could twist the wing tips down to maneuver, the way he had seen the falcons do it. They were built to fold neatly for carriage, so he could carry them up to the forewall ledge, and the joints locked with clever sleeves of his own design. Because he couldn't fold them in flight he wouldn't be able to stoop, at least at first. But one day . . . To fly at all was a bold and risky undertaking, to do it by slow stages was only prudent. He walked around them, critically taking in every joint and tie. They were not his first set, but his fourth. Some of his first crude attempts had shown themselves unable to support his weight, others were simply unstable in flight. These wings were built with double triangles between forward and trailing edges, the triangles themselves crisscrossed with bracing lines. The bracing lines were the key to strength, pre-stressing the rigid bamboo skeleton to resist the twisting and bending forces of flight. The wing tips were canted upwards, with controllable slots along the outer trailing edge that approximated the peregrines' flight feathers. The result was strong and light. He had tested the concept in a half a dozen kites, and it worked beautifully.

Hunger growled in his stomach, but he walked around his creation, running a hand over the finely crafted structure. He closed his eyes and imagined them on his back as he soared like a peregrine, looking down on the world below as he swooped and stooped with total freedom. He checked the joints again, this time physically testing each one for any loose play. There was none, and he smiled quietly to himself. Almost reverently he picked them up, unlocked the joints and folded them, being careful not to tangle the control lines that ran to the flight slots. As he did he realized that it was time. The wings have been ready for a week, but every day he had found a reason not to fly them. No longer. The evening meal could wait. He felt a rush of adrenaline at his decision, a mixture of anticipation and fear, and he swallowed hard as he finished the folding. Folded he could carry them like a backbag, and he shrugged his shoulders into the harness straps, knotted the cross strap into position, and went out. Am I ready, that's the question. There was only one way to answer that. It would be wise to tell someone what he was about to do, just in case something went badly wrong. The logical choice would be one of his fellow aspirants, but he went past the side corridor that led to their rooms and back to the main gallery, up the deeply worn and dimly lit flights of awkwardly large steel stairs that led to the top of the Inquisitory. From there another set of stairs led higher still. These were easier to climb. The railings and stringers were still steel, but the original stairs had long since worn away and been replaced by wooden ones. They were old and well-worn themselves, but smaller and easier to climb.

The wooden stairs led to the forewall ledge, a narrow shelf covered in climbing vines that ran all the way around the forewall, a hundred meters up from the ground. A cool mist hung in the air, and a few hundred meters away the outlet for the Silver River gushed silt-heavy water into the flood pool below. Part of the stream was captured in an elevated wooden spillway that angled its way back to the upper floors of the Inquisitory to provide its inhabitants with running water. The rush of falling water filled the air, and Atyen paused over the outlet to watch the falling torrent. The steel of the forewall was densely overgrown with vines, kiwi and grape among them. The constant mist and rain kept them well nourished, and some of the base trunks were as thick as his thigh. The vertical green carpet climbed a hundred meters from the ground to the ledge, spilled over it, and then climbed again to the next ledge above. The vines were rooted in a thick layer of pale soil, mostly bird droppings mixed with leaf hummus, lushly covered with grasses and low shrubs. And suddenly all these details seem important. He knew his sudden preoccupation with the sights and sounds around him came from that part of his brain that very much didn't want to do what he was about to do. Flocks of sparrows nested in the vines to feast on the fruit. They'd make good prey for peregrines . . . Except the falcons preferred to hunt further aftward, out of the mist and cloud of the forelands. On the other side of the river a family of wallpickers clung to the forewall's vines, gathering their bounty for sale in Charisy's markets. The parents were catching the birds with fine-woven nets and steady patience, while the children scampered up and down with preternatural agility, picking the ripened fruit and collecting it in the woven baskets they carried on their backs.

Atyen breathed in and out. The family didn't seem to be paying any attention to him. And that's just fine. They would be there to help if he fell, but unlike any of his fellow inquisitors it wouldn't matter if they witnessed his folly. Not for the first time he noticed the downdraft that carried the mists down the forewall. It wasn't large, but it was steady, and it would carry him down perhaps faster than he wanted to go. If I jumped here the water would break my fall. He took a deep breath and walked further, leaving the river outlet and its cushioning splash pool behind him. He didn't want to land in the water with his wings strapped to his back; he wouldn't be able to swim with them on. Instead he chose a position where the ground below was saturated and marshy, soft enough to keep him from injury if he didn't fly the way he wanted to, firm enough that he could stand up after he landed. At least I hope it's soft enough. He looked past the marshy section to the meadow beyond it. That was where he wanted to land, so long as he didn't wind up in the middle of a blackberry thorn. He took his wings off his back and extended them, tying down the joints, testing the knots. When they were set he strapped them back on his shoulders, buckled the tail straps to his ankles, put his arms through the outer loop supports and grabbed the control lines in each hand. He looked over to where the wallpickers were still at work, but they seemed to be paying him no heed.

And the wall was still waiting. He moved to stand on the edge and looked over. It was a long, long way down and sudden vertigo overcame him. He closed his eyes and tried to jump that way, but his legs wouldn't obey him. He opened them again, took a deep breath and held it, and then stepped back from the edge. I can do this. I can do this. He felt sweat trickling from his armpits, and he wondered if the falcons were ever afraid of heights. The height was dizzying, and he found himself wishing for a reason to turn back. It was one thing to imagine flying, something else entirely to throw himself bodily into the air.

"Atyen!"

Startled, Atyen looked up to see a gray beard, a double-red cross-sash. Ek Solender, Atyen's doctrinor and the world's Chief Inquisitor, was watching him.

"Flying without me?" he asked.

"Well no," Atyen paused. "And yes. Trying to anyway."

"I didn't see you in the meal hall." Solender frowned. "You need to have someone with you when you try this, in case something goes wrong." He was breathing hard, and red in the face. Solender was a portly man, and the climb to the ledge had winded him.

Atyen looked down, feeling abashed. "I know, Chief Inquisitor. I thought it might be easier alone." He stepped back from the edge. "It wasn't."

"Well, I'd watch you myself, but I'm hungry. Take those off and let's go down to eat. I've got a job for you to do before you kill yourself."

Atyen considered protesting, but didn't. Instead he shrugged himself out of the shoulder straps, at once relieved that the moment of truth had been postponed and angry at himself for not going all the way with his dream. "I saw a falcon catch a dove today," he said because he didn't want to talk about his crisis of courage. "I think I learned some more about how they use their tails."

"You think, or you know?" Solender watched him as he refolded the wings.

"I think. Only the falcon can know for sure why it's doing what it's doing."

"A good observation. We'll make an inquisitor out of you yet." Solender turned for the stairs and Atyen fell into step beside him.

"What's the job you have for me?"

"How long since you ate?"

"I brought my noon meal with me, and ate in the field." They walked in silence for a while. "You still haven't told me the job."

"Some background first." Solender pursed his lips. "The old texts tell us that the builders designed our world for a voyage, this much we can be sure of. It's supposed to take ten thousand years, more or less, and we're fairly certain we're over half way there. What we don't know is if they were gods or simply people with godlike powers."

"That seems more a question for a clergy than an inquisitor."

"So you'd think, but it's important. The church says the builder was Noah, and our world is his Ark, built at God's command. If that's true we have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if the builders were ordinary people with extraordinary science, then we may have a problem."

"What problem?"

They came to the meal hall and found it empty of customers. "The first Inquisition fell when the suntube went out. Could it happen again?"

The cooks had gone to bed, and the cleaners were busy washing and sweeping. Solender stopped one of them just as he was about to empty out the last of a steel soup tureen into the slop bucket. The cleaner poured bowls for them both, and they went to one of the long wooden tables to sit and eat it.

"I don't know," Atyen said when they were settled.

"Some say it was our ship changing course, some say it was God's punishment on the world for abandoning him. Did the builders plan it? The truth is nobody knows what happened, or why. Nobody knows if it could happen again. Do you know the mouse experiment?"

"I don't."

"It was my doctrinor's masterwork, simple really. He put two mice in a pen, gave them all the food and water they could eat and left them alone. Soon enough two mice became ten mice, and ten became five hundred. He wanted to see if they would grow smaller generation by generation if they were crowded."

"Why would that matter?"

The Chief Inquisitor laughed. "Look around you, Atyen." The older man swung an arm to take in the meal hall, and by extension the whole structure of the Inquisitory. "Look how big the doorways are, the halls and the rooms. This building is ancient, and built for people much larger than we are."

"And did the mice get smaller?"

"We never found out. They went crazy, some fought all the time, others just stopped eating. The mothers ate their young, or ignored them and let them starve. They all died."

"Why?"

"Like your falcon, only the mice know for sure. We tried the experiment three times and the same thing happened each time."

Atyen wrinkled his brow and thought. "Mice don't like to be crowded, that makes sense. What I don't understand is why they all died. Once enough of them had died to bring the population down, why didn't the rest just carry on normally?"

"That's an interesting question." Solender paused to have some more soup. "In fact, that's the key question. I think it was because they didn't know what normal was any longer. The mice who died off had all been born into a very overcrowded world. They learned how to live in that world, and when the overcrowding went away they still didn't know to mate and raise young normally."

"And you're concerned that can happen to us?"

"Charisy is overcrowded already."

Atyen nodded. "Most of the world isn't city. People could move out, if they wanted to."

"Yes, to a point, but there's more to it than that. People in the city need to eat, so we can't just move them onto farmland. It takes a lot of land to grow that much food."

"I never really thought about it." Atyen took a spoonful of soup while he considered the point. "It's obvious when you look at it. That's why we don't have big trees anymore."

Solender gave him a look. "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"Look at the beams here." Atyen pointed at the thick timbers that held up the ceiling, heavy and well blackened with age. "They're half a meter on a side and twenty long. I've never seen a tree that big, not a quarter that big. It must take a long time for a tree to get to that size. We're using all our land to grow food, so we don't have any to grow trees with anymore, at least none so large."

The Chief Inquisitor nodded slowly. "You know Atyen, when you came into apprenticeship I told your mother you were too young. Even though you'd done so well in your tests, I thought you were too young." He paused, contemplating the huge roof timbers. "But I've been studying this problem for years now, and eating in this hall every day since I came here, and I never noticed that. This is important, and we're going to have to do this research." He pushed away his meal and got up. "I need you to go to the shorefields for me."

"What about my wings?"

"Take them back to the studio, you can leave after breakfast tomorrow."

"What about flying?"

"That's going to have to wait for a while." Atyen gave his doctrinor a look that must have said more than he meant it to. "Not forever, don't worry," Solender added, then paused, and Atyen could tell he was considering how much to tell him. "The shorefields are poor, and crowded. That's a dangerous combination. I need to know what's happening there. We may be running out of time faster than I thought."

"But the builders must have anticipated this. The world must be able to adapt, somehow."

Solender shook his head. "Maybe, maybe not. We don't know anything about the builders, really. Did they anticipate that we'd grow smaller over the generations? There's too much we don't know. And even if the builders have got a plan, their aims aren't the same as ours. I imagine they've tried to make sure our descendents will still be alive when we reach the end of the journey. They might not care as much that our particular generation lives in a world of culture, law, peace, and plenty." He paused, looking up at the huge roof beams made from now-vanished trees. "What's going to happen when we get as crowded as those mice? I've had the tithecounters go through their records. There's more people alive today than there have ever been. When today's children have children of their own . . ." Solender shrugged. "Maybe we're going to follow the mice." He leaned forward. "I need you to find out, Atyen."

"But I'm . . ."

"Trying to fly. I know. There's more to being an inquisitor than your masterwork. I've been lenient with you, but you need broader experience, and I need someone who can go to the shorefields."

Atyen started to protest and then stopped himself. "As you wish."

"As you wish," Solender laughed. "That's what aspirants say when they don't want to do something and can't say no."

Atyen didn't know what to say and so remained silent.

Solender's expression grew serious. "Trust me, Atyen, this is important. Maybe the most important thing you'll ever do." He took an ornately carved wooden ball from his sash pocket. "For you."

"A message ball?"

"With your name, and my symbol."

Atyen turned the small artifact over in his hands. "I'm honored. It isn't that I don't want to," Atyen hesitated, choosing his words carefully. "It's just, for something so important . . . I mean, I'm only an aspirant . . . surely the Inquisition in Tidings can . . ."

"I can't send an inquisitor, and I can't ask one. There's two sides to this. One is the reality of what's happening, or what might be happening. The other is how that reality will be perceived. I have rivals, as you know, and if I'm right about this . . . let's just say I need to have proof before I can act."

"You're Chief Inquisitor, how can you have rivals?"

Solender laughed. "Of all my aspirants, Atyen, you're the only one who could ask that question and mean it." He held up a hand before Atyen could respond. "You think the Inquisitory is all about the laws of man and nature. Well, it is, and one of the immutable laws of man is that ambition knows no limits. The higher you rise, the more ambitious the people surrounding you are." He stood up. "Now let's talk about what you need to look for."

 

Jens Madane looked up at the burning line of the suntube overhead and heaved the last carp off his net-raft and into the catchbox. He wiped sweat from his eyes and looked back to where Sarabee was talking to the monger. Tokens changed hands, and the monger's crew started emptying yesterday's catch from the smokeshed into their goat-cart to take to the market in Tidings. My part is over. From the water to the shed was his responsibility, after that someone else could deal with the fish. He let his eye climb the arch of the world, taking in the blue curve of the ocean and the patchwork fields that stretched up and around and over until they were lost in the glare of the suntube. In every field people were at work, tilling, sowing, planting, irrigating, reaping, and the ocean was dotted with fishing rafts. He looked over to Sarabee as she gathered up the children. Her belly was as round as a gourd, heavy with their fourth child. He was proud of her, but worried too. She'd already had to stop working the raft, and once she delivered there would be another mouth to feed. His father had raised four children himself, and Jens had never gone hungry growing up, but the carp were bigger back then—or at least so it seemed.

"Jens!" The fisher turned to see a familiar figure make its way down the shore to the dock, leading a snuffling sow on a leash.

"Atyen! By Noah, how long has it been?" He ran up the dock to greet his friend. "How's the Inquisitory?"

"It's good, which only means I'm not back because they failed me."

"What brings you here?"

"My feet, and the knowledge it has been too long since I've seen you." Atyen tugged the sow along, his leather sandals slapping against the moist earth, his backbag on his shoulders. "You'd think you were a farmer, you've grown such a fine crop, Jens." Atyen winked at Sarabee as the little girls clustered themselves around their mother.

Sarabee blushed. "You're too good with your words, Atyen."

"Not good enough my dear, or you wouldn't have married Jens." He knelt down and waved to Liese, the eldest, who regarded him with solemn, ten year old eyes. "My favorite butterfly, when I saw you last you were pulling my hair. Don't tell me you're shy now." Liese smiled shyly and said nothing. Atyen knelt down. "And how are you, daffodil?" Acelle, three years younger, giggled and hid behind her mother's legs, and her younger sibling copied her. Atyen gave Sarabee a hug, then offered his hand to Jens as he came up. The fisher shook it warmly and then clapped him on the back. "How have you been?"

"I've worked less for more reward, if that's what you're asking."

"Well, here's more reward for less work." Atyen tossed the sow's leash to Sarabee. "Here my dear, a gift for your unborn. Grow him strong for your husband."

"Atyen!" She caught the lead. "This is too generous . . ."

The inquisitor waved. "It's nothing. I've been pulling that leash all the way from the forewall, and she brings new meaning to the phrase pig-headed. Trust me, this is a good excuse to get rid of her."

"You were always smoother than shipsteel." Sarabee smiled her radiant smile, wrapped the leash around her wrist and shooed the children in the direction of the house. "I'll leave you two to talk. I've got to feed these three."

The two men watched her go in silence, then Atyen spoke. "She's a fine woman, Jens."

Jens pursed his lips, thinking carefully before he answered. "She would have married you, if you'd wanted her."

For a moment the scholar looked away from the farmer. "No. No she wouldn't have." He looked back. "And it's better for us all that I didn't ask her."

"What brings you here?" Jens changed the subject before it could become awkward.

"The question I asked. How have you been?"

"When the inquisitors come to ask that I begin to worry."

"I'm just an aspirant."

"Does that mean I shouldn't worry?"

Atyen nodded. Jens had always been a perceptive man. "Let's sit on the shore and talk awhile."

They walked over the shore road and up onto an uncultivated hillock where two fields met, and lay back in the long grass that grew there, looking up at the ocean. Fishing platforms dotted the inshore water, connected to the docks by a maze of boardwalks. After a while Atyen spoke. "Remember when we took your father's line-raft?"

"And sailed it to the aftwall and back." Jens laughed at the memory. "He was less than pleased. You were always getting me in trouble."

The aspirant picked up a random stick and threw it at the vast silver disk that marked the end of the world. It splashed a few meters from shore. "It's farther than it looks. It still seems close enough to touch."

"And yet hours to sail." Jens rubbed his back reflexively. "I thought we'd never get back."

"But we touched the aftwall. Few enough people do that, even fishers."

"It's no big deal to us. Fishers can do it any time, so we don't bother."

"You and I bothered."

"You're a farmer's son, and I only went because you convinced me."

"You always did blame me for everything."

"That's because everything was your fault."

Atyen laughed. "Fair enough, I suppose." He leaned back and looked up. "Ever wonder what's up there?"

"Up where?"

"At the suntube."

Jens shrugged. "God, I suppose. Heaven. That's what the Bible says."

"Does it?"

"That's what the priests say it says. Noah made wings of falcon feathers to fly to Heaven, but he was burned and fell."

Atyen pursed his lips. "It also says our world is his Ark, sent on a voyage to Heaven because God was unhappy with Earth and flooded it. If we're going to Heaven it can't be right up there. Both stories can't be true."

"You sound like Liese."

"Liese?"

"She's always asking strange questions. 'Dedka, if the wind always goes aftward, what makes the clouds go foreward?' "

Atyen laughed. "It's a good question. What did you tell her?"

"I told her she'd be an aspirant to the Inquisitory one day, and you'd be her doctrinor."

"A good answer, but nobody knows why the clouds go against the wind."

Jens shrugged. "If I were clever enough to be a priest I wouldn't be a fisher. All I know is the world can't be on a voyage to anywhere, because the world is everywhere, and if you took all the falcon feathers in it you couldn't make a man fly. As for the clouds, I'll leave them to you." He laughed. "And my ten year old."

"Maybe God pushes the clouds."

Jens looked at his friend askance. "I thought inquisitors didn't believe in God."

"Some do, to different degrees."

"And you?"

Atyen shook his head. "I did when I was little. Not anymore."

"What do you believe now?"

"That the builders built the world. People, not gods."

"Then why even have a god?"

"God is there to understand everything we don't." He smiled. "Like clouds."

"That's an answer? I should have you talking to Liese."

"Every time we learn something new, there's less for God to explain. I believe we can understand everything, if we think about it hard enough. So when we do," Atyen shrugged, "no god."

Jens laughed. "If I could think that hard, I'd be an inquisitor too." He paused, watching the waves. "So why don't you tell me why you've come. It's too long a walk from the forewall for casual visits, and I can't imagine you gave us a pig for nothing."

"How's the fishing?"

Jens shrugged. "As good as ever, not as good as I'd wish. It's harder to outwit carp than you might think."

"Are you making your full tithing?"

Jens looked at his friend askance, on the edge of being offended. "Don't tell me they've made you a tithecounter."

Atyen snorted. "I wouldn't let them if they tried."

"Why ask then?"

"It's important to know, and you're the only one who'll give me an honest answer."

The fisher thought about that for a while. "There's little enough love for inquisitors here in the shorefields, and tithing is the reason."

"I left my cross-sash at the Inquisitory on purpose, Jens. I'm asking as a friend."

"I'd wondered why you weren't wearing one."

"You thought perhaps I'd failed?"

"Not for a second, I knew there'd be another reason."

"It's because I didn't want a piece of cloth to come between us. I'm your friend, Jens, first and last. I need you to know that."

"I know you are. I've missed you, Atyen." Jens fell silent, considering. "And yes. I'm making my full tithing . . ." He paused, letting the silence drag out. "For now."

"For now?"

The fisher shrugged. "You saw Sarabee. Three children, all growing and a fourth on the way. We're just getting by as it is."

Atyen nodded. "And soon the choice will be feed your children or make your tithing."

Jens spread his hands wordlessly, helplessly. "What would you have me do?" His voice held an edge of bitterness.

"I told you I'm not here as an inquisitor. Feed your family. If the tithecounters find out it won't be from me."

"Do you remember Celese?"

"Sarabee's older sister? She was lovely."

"All the Fougere girls were," Jens smiled as he thought of his wife, then his expression darkened. "Celese married a farmer from Tidings, one of the Berkers. Two months ago they came for him, went into his barn and took all he had, and him with it. He got twelve years servitude, and Celese with five at home. Her youngest is two."

"Everyone has to tithe. If there were no penalty for holding back . . ." Atyen spread his arms wide. "Nobody would do it and our world would collapse."

"Inquisitors don't tithe, nor sentinels."

"Not in food or goods. We tithe in time, in hours given to study, to the law, to governance. That's worth something."

"Daydreaming all day, while I haul fish." Jens looked up at the suntube beseechingly. "May God's blessings fall upon me that I have to pay so."

The scholar shook his head. "Your labor feeds your family. My labor replaces mine."

"And yet you have wealth enough to gift a pig." Jens's voice held an edge.

"No, I have influence enough to gain a pig to aid my studies. I have concern enough to gift it to you."

Jens looked away, suddenly abashed. "I . . . we appreciate it, Atyen, we do, excuse my words. I'm worried with the new baby coming, that's all, and to a fisher your world looks easy. You did work hard for your position. I never understood . . ."

"Why I gave up on having my own family? Sometimes I don't either." Atyen looked away.

Jens bit his lip. Sarabee was the reason, but neither of us can say that. "You would have done well to fish, or farm. You were always the smartest of us."

"Maybe not. Look who has Sarabee and three children by her. And congratulations on the next one, by the way." Atyen paused. "I know what I have to do with my life, and this is it. I have four brothers, and my father's farm wasn't big enough to split five ways."

Jens stopped himself before he said something he might later regret. It had not always been he who'd held fate's relative favor, and neither he nor Atyen were responsible for the circumstances they'd been born to.

"Will you dine with us tonight?" he asked instead.

"How is it with Celese?" The scholar evaded the question.

Jens shrugged. "She's trying to work their land alone. Sarabee is giving them what we can spare."

"She's generous."

"She thinks I don't know. I can't bear to tell her not to. But soon enough it will be us . . ." Jens looked again to the aftwall, months of stress crystalizing into the moment, clamping down on his throat to cut off further words. "Celese should remarry. Her land is good, and she can still bear."

"Hardly fair to her husband."

"Newl." Jens shrugged. "No, but hunger isn't fair."

"And your other neighbors, are they tithing in full?" The fisher looked at Atyen sharply and the scholar raised his hands. "As a friend, Jens. I won't name names, never, but it's important to know."

"Why?"

Atyen paused. "Because the world has too many people."

Jens raised his eyebrows, concern in his face. "Are you sure?"

"You know this yourself, it doesn't take an inquisitor to see it."

"Sure, times are tight here in the shorefields, but . . ."

"It's tight everywhere, the shorefields, the midfields, the forefields, for the fishers and the millers and smiths, even in the Inquisitory." Atyen smirked. "You have no idea how hard I had to fight to get you that pig." He held up a hand before Jens could thank him again. "Are your neighbors tithing?"

"This goes no further?"

"On my father's pyre."

Jens still hesitated, despite the reassurance. But I can trust Atyen. "No, no they aren't. There's some who have an agreement, they arrange to share catches back and forth, so it seems there's less when the tithecounter comes, and hold the tokens back."

"And the rest of you turn a blind eye to this?"

"We all know it might be us next."

Atyen nodded. "Then it's worse than we knew. How do they know when the tithecounter is coming?"

Jens snorted. "It isn't that long since you left the shorefields. Gossip runs faster than a man can sprint." He looked out at the ocean again. A fisher family was clamming from one of the platforms, the children lithe as eels as they dove down to find the clams. "How bad is it, Atyen?"

"We don't know. I'll tell you one thing, families will have to get smaller."

"What do you mean?" Jens looked at his friend, not quite understanding, not wanting to understand.

Atyen shrugged. "Not all of this generation's children will live to grow up."

"What will you do? What will the inquisitors do?" There was a trace of fear in Jens's voice now.

Atyen pursed his lips. "Fix it, if we can. First we have to understand what's happening. That's what I'm here for."

"What can I do?"

"I need you to keep watch for me."

"Why me?"

"Because you're smart and reliable, and I can trust you as I can trust no one else."

"I'm just one man. The inquisitors must have other ways of finding these things out."

"How many from the shorefields pass the tests? This is a job for a full inquisitor, not an aspirant, but here I am. They sent me here because I'm from here, and I can move here in ways they can't. But I can't be here all the time, and you are."

"They must be desperate."

"My doctrinor is. How do you think I got the pig?"

"I wondered . . ." The fisher paused. "Yes, I'll keep watch for you. What am I watching for?"

"We don't know, exactly. Food shortages, mothers abandoning children, anything strange that might warn the system is breaking down."

"If I see anything, how do I reach you?"

Atyen took a fist-sized wooden ball from his backbag and passed it over. "Come to the Inquisitory, show this to the sentinels, or send Sarabee with it. If neither of you can come, you can put a message in this and send a messenger to the gates, it will get to me."

The ball was a puzzle, and Jens watched as Atyen showed him how to open it; a push, two twists, another push, and it came apart along a zigzagging joint concealed in the geometric patterns worked into its surface.

"I will." Jens examined the ball, assured himself he could work the puzzle. It had the shield and blade of the Inquisitory sculpted into its surface, folded into a more ornate sigil that he didn't recognize, and Atyen's full name scribed around its equator. They sat in silence for a while, and then the conversation turned to lighter things, memories of childhood, Jens's adventures in childrearing and Atyen's in the strange mix of arcane and mundane that was the world of an inquisitor. They walked together to Jens's small home, and Atyen put his head in long enough to say goodbye to Sarabee.

"Take care of yourself, Atyen," she said.

"Take care of those children!"

Sarabee was nursing the baby, and Jens saw how Atyen carefully didn't look at the curve of her breast. Suckling women didn't usually conceive, but Sarabee . . . The joke used to be she was so fertile she'd get pregnant if you masturbated thinking about her, and certainly enough of the shorefield's boys had tried to prove the theory. I was lucky to win her.

She blew Atyen a kiss and waved, and Jens led his friend back out. They walked in companionable silence to the shore road that led to the Tidings main road that helixed up the curve of the world to connect to the trading road, which in turn would take him home to the Inquisitory.

They came to the junction, and embraced. "We were best friends, you and I." There was regret in Jens's voice.

"We're still best friends."

"Yes, but I'm a fisher, and you're an inquisitor. You'll be Chief Inquisitor one day."

Atyen laughed. "I appreciate your confidence. And we'll still be friends even if I'm Chief Inquisitor."

Jens sighed. "Yes, I know. But friends should spend time together, and our paths have forked so far apart. I'm sorry you couldn't stay for the evening meal."

"I'll come again when I can, and stay longer."

"I hope you will." They shook hands and embraced, and parted. Jens watched his friend walking down the path until he disappeared in the distance. He had missed Atyen more than he knew, in the years since they'd finished school. It would be good to see more of him. He turned back and hiked back down the shore. He would watch, as his friend had asked, but he would also prepare. Atyen's request was also a gift, in that it gave him a warning. There might not be much he could do with it, given that he and Sarabee were already struggling, but he would do what he could. At a minimum it was time to start building up their food stores, perhaps trading fish for grain and hiding some of their surplus from the tithe collector. Outside the house he stopped and hefted the wooden ball, contemplating it. He opened the ball's catch, examined the tiny hidden space within as though it held the secret of the future. A man with family had to think for the future, there was no way around that. Times are hard, but they aren't yet bad. With Noah's blessing that's the way they would stay, despite what Atyen had said. His gut tightened as he contemplated the alternatives. But worry won't feed children. He took a deep breath to calm himself, then pushed the door open to help his wife with their new pig.

 

Atyen's mind was on his wings for most of the long hike back to the Inquisitory. In truth he had welcomed the delay Solender had imposed, despite his eagerness to feel the wind beneath his wings. How can I be sure they're going to work? The truth was he couldn't. His kites and models could only take him so far, and sooner or later he'd have to take that leap of faith. Every step forewards brought that moment closer, and Atyen was less comfortable with it than he would have liked. It was one thing to lie in a warm field and dream of soaring like a falcon, it was another entirely to stand on a windy ledge with a flimsy set of experimental wings strapped to your back and contemplate the fall. His teeth worried his lower lip as he considered what he was about to undertake, but when he finally got back to Solender's studio he found a thick pile of tithesheets waiting for him on his workshelf. There was also a note. Solender wanted him to go over the sheets to track food production and population changes. Implicit in the request was the requirement that Atyen finish the research before he went back to working on his wings. Reprieved.

The cost of reprieve was tedious hours of drudgework. Atyen sifted through the stack, noting with dismay that the records went back more than a thousand years. He settled down to work resignedly. The tithesheets were endless pages of numbers concerning the production of grain and chickens and barrels of fish, the births and deaths in different families, the building of houses and shops, the sale of steel from the steel-falls, and every other piece of minutia the tithecounters could imagine to record. In theory his job should have been simple, but the record keeping hadn't been standardized and so he was forced to make estimates and interpolate the numbers to derive some kind of coherent picture of the way population and economy interacted over time.

He opened a fresh worksheaf, not wanting to sully his journal with anything unrelated to flying, and sighed as he pored over a well-faded report in the archaic phrasing of some long-dead tithecounter, who thirteen hundred years previously had made measure of the farms and planted tares in Bountiful parish. There was little need, he thought, to go back so far, but the Chief Inquisitor was obsessed with thoroughness. Resignedly he pulled another stack of sheets onto his lap, noted the figures from the first page on his worksheaf in his careful hand, then turned the page to read more. The anonymous tithecounter had not bothered to provide anything so convenient as an overall total. The holdings of each farm in the parish were listed individually, together with a confirmation that the appropriate tithes had been paid, but the long dead functionary had left it to Atyen to add them up. Or at least, I haven't found an overall total. The ancient documents were often missing sheets, which didn't help.

Sometimes not just pages but entire references were missing, and he went up to the manuscript tower to find them. The tower rose over the Inquisitory's main gallery, and it was as old as the rest of the ancient structure. Its outer surface was deeply pitted, but inside the walls were still smooth, worn shiny and rounded in places where people might come in contact with them, still angular and matte-finished elsewhere. Atyen had always loved it, for the hush that filled its spaces and for the limitless knowledge locked up in its endless documents, the accumulated labor of countless generations of inquisitors. The reading room was on the very top floor of the tower, an almost sacred place in the inquisitor traditions, a place of concentration and of knowledge, with waxed flax sheets stretched over the huge window openings to provide light while keeping out the mists, and heavy wooden tables where eager aspirants could pore over their work. He paid little heed to his surroundings, concentrating on getting through the sheets as quickly as possible. The sooner he finished, the sooner he could get back to work on his wings. He was going over a long-faded farm census of Bountiful parish when something strange caught his eye. He called over a scriptkeeper.

"I don't know this word," he said, "What's a cattle?"

"A what?"

"A cattle." Atyen pronounced the unfamiliar word carefully. "I've found a farm here that has sixty pigs, three hundred chickens, and ten cattle, whatever they are."

"I'm not sure." The scriptkeeper frowned and came to look over his shoulder. "Show me."

Atyen pointed to the entry, and the scriptkeeper examined it with a quizzical expression. "It's not an error," she said. "Maybe a joke of some kind?"

"From a tithecounter? In an official document?" Atyen pursed his lips. "Unlikely. We'll have to find out what he meant."

"Perhaps it's just a variety of sheep, they don't seem to list many of them."

"Maybe. I'll ask around."

Atyen went on with his work, and the keeper came back a bell later. "I'm sorry," she said. "Nobody's ever heard of a cattle."

Atyen's heart sank, because he knew Solender would want to know what it was. His doctrinor had always taught him that the most important discoveries were hidden in the most trivial observations. He had been trained to look for anomalies that anyone else would dismiss as insignificant, and this was certainly one. He would have to find out for sure what cattle were, which in turn meant more time in the reading room and less time working on the riddles of flight. He sighed. Still, there was no point in trying to avoid the question. For every hundred who took the Inquisitory tests, six where accepted as aspirants and two of those won the coveted double-red cross-sash. He had been lucky to pass his tests as young as he was, and luckier still to be have the Chief Inquisitor himself as doctrinor. Most of the time he was free to follow his heart in his learning, so long as he kept what he did well documented. It is an honor to be allowed to live life to learn. Solender had told him that on his first day, and over and over again ever since. You have to show that you're worthy of the privilege.

Atyen idly chewed a thumbnail as he considered his next move. The major question was where to look for the information. If a cattle really was just a long-vanished name for some variety of sheep then he would have to find a document that recorded the transition, with more clarity than the tithesheet in front of him. If it was something else then he need to find out what. But what else could it be, really? The best place to start would be in the tithesheets from the years immediately before the one he'd been looking at. In that case the inconsistent formats of the various tithecounters would be an advantage, because one of them might have recorded details that another had neglected. There was another advantage in that, which was that he already knew where to look for the relevant manuscripts.

He pushed away the sheets in front of him, got up and went down the spiralling staircase that wound around the inner wall of the tower. The tithesheets were mostly stored on musty shelves in the seldom visited back rooms of the second floor. I hope. It was the job of the scriptkeepers to organize the reams of information in their care, but every new generation of custodians had a different idea of how that organization should be done. Atyen crossed his fingers and went into the dim and musty stacks. Once he had found the right stack of documents it didn't take him long to discover that cattle were increasingly common as he went back in time. The entry he'd first found had only ten, but the previous year there had been sixteen in Bountiful, on three farms, and the year before that there were nearly a hundred on over a dozen farms. He skipped back a few years, and found a parish overflowing with cattle, every farm had at least a few, most had dozens. They were occasionally listed in three varieties, bull, cows and calves. He resolved that mystery when he found a listing for bull calves and cow calves, which implied that bulls and cows were the primary varieties of cattle, with calves being some some special subvariety. However by then he'd uncovered a deeper mystery, which was something called a horse. Horses stopped appearing in the records altogether the same year cattle got scarce, but before that there were at least four subdivisions, mares, stallions, geldings and foals. Later he found two more, short-horses and work-horses. When they were listed simply as horses they usually appeared beside cattle, but when the subdivisions were used they were listed separately. So they aren't just a type of cattle. That only deepened the mystery, and since the tithesheets assumed the reader would know what a horse was, in all its many variations, there was no way to gain anything more from them.

He stroked his chin, considering the page in front of him. It detailed the extensive horse holdings of the Innhop farm of the shipyear 5211. And the deepest mystery is, where did they all go? Like cattle, horses had to be farm animals, if only because they were consistently listed with pigs, ducks, goats and chickens, but how could another whole category of farm animal simply vanish? The tithesheets couldn't tell him that, and so he waded into the depths of the manuscript room, scanning through the shelves to find something, anything that would resolve the problem. If they were important enough to tithe they were important enough to study. Somewhere, sometime, some aspirant had to have done a masterwork on them, the only problem was to find it. Even deciding where to start was difficult, since the work could have been on any of a dozen sub-topics concerning animals of which he knew nothing. He spent bells searching through long forgotten indexes for a promising title, and then when he went to find the manuscript that it referred to, he usually found that the filing scheme they had been built around had long since been changed. When he did find something that might prove useful he was then faced with the task of deciphering it. The tithesheets hadn't been too hard to work with. The language in them was simple and they were mostly written using the tithecounters' preferred blood ink, which didn't fade much. By contrast the aspirants commonly used charcoal ink for their manuscripts, which faded steadily over the centuries. Even when they were legible the archaic grammar and word usage frequently strained his understanding. Usually he had to painstakingly decipher first the letters, working from no more than the scratches the author's pen had left on the paper. Only then could he work on understanding the words. And inevitably once he'd worked out enough to learn what the manuscript was about, it was about something other than horses or cattle. As the days began to slip past his progress differed from zero only in the pitifully small pile of documents he'd confirmed as useless. After a while he began to think that there had never really been horses or cattle, except in the spiteful imaginations of a generation of tithecounters, who generated fictions intended specifically to confound their descendants with a fruitless search for animals that never existed.

And then, at the start of his third week of research, he found a treasure. It was a copyscript of a study done by an inquisitor named Nafel. It was in blood ink, which made both text and illustrations easy to read, and it was titled simply The Anatomy of the Horse. Nafel had meticulously recorded the mechanics of an animal that resembled a hornless goat as much as anything else, although with heavier musculature and a larger, longer head. He turned the ancient pages carefully, puzzling out Nafel's words as the ancient scholar described the articulation of the hind limbs, the ligaments of the back and neck, the heart and lungs and digestive system, with carefully drawn illustrations of the animal's body parts. The middle of the manuscript had doubled pages, designed to fold out to provide a larger surface for a larger image, and when he reached them he opened them cautiously, fearful of tearing the fragile paper. What he saw made him freeze.

It was a triple illustration of the beast itself, shown from in front, from behind and from the side, done in exquisite detail and with every important feature of its body labelled. However the striking part was beside the main drawing, a human figure drawn to scale. Horses, in Atyen's imagination, were about the size of the goat. Now he realized, they were huge. The horse towered over the man beside it, and if he was of average height the animal had to be a good two meters tall. Incredible. Solender has to see this. He looked at the picture for a long time, amazed at what where his investigation had led him. Finally he refolded the center pages, closed the volume and reverently carried it up to the top floor. The disappearance of an animal so significant was a major finding. His doctrinor couldn't help but be pleased. At the same time he felt a sense of foreboding. If horses could vanish from the world then maybe Solender was right, and perhaps people could vanish too.

 

"Harder," urged the midwife, and Sarabee groaned as the contraction hit her womb. She bore down as hard as she could, grimacing against the pain. Her belly was tense, her pretty features puffy with effort and streaked with sweat in the effort of her labor.

"Harder," the midwife repeated. "A few more good ones and you'll be done." The curtains were drawn in the modest bedroom, suntubelight filtering through them to dapple the wall.

"You'd think this would get easier . . ." Sarabee panted. She would have said more, but the next contraction hit and cut her words off with another agonized groan and she bore down again. Experience told her that the harder she pushed the sooner she would be done. And I'll have my baby. It was the thought she used to focus herself, to hang onto as her body wracked itself. My beautiful new baby. The contraction passed and she breathed deep to get ready for the next one. Jens was there, his hands on her shoulders, but she was barely aware of his presence. Her entire awareness was concentrated on her belly, as her uterus strained to deliver her fourth child.

"Harder still this time!" the midwife repeated. "The head is coming down. You're almost there." Even before the woman had finished another contraction hit, and again Sarabee bore down, dizzy now with the effort and only wanting the birthing to be over. "Harder!" The child was big, bigger than any of the others had been. A boy for sure, Jens will be pleased. She had known in her heart it would be a boy for months now. This pregnancy had simply felt different, but she hadn't told Jens that, even as he had carefully hidden his desire for a male heir. Instead she just left him to wonder at the secret smile that came to her lips, whenever her baby kicked and reminded her that yes, this time it would be a boy. For some things it was better to wait.

"The baby's crowning. One more." As if on cue another contraction came, and Sarabee bore down for all she was worth, grunting with the effort. She felt the baby move, felt herself stretch agonizingly wide, and then, all in a rush, it was done, the baby was out, and she fell back against the pillows, exhausted. A faint cry came from the end of the bed, and the midwife was holding up her newborn, beautiful and glistening and seemingly far too tiny to have been the cause of ten bells worth of anguished labor.

"It's a boy," the midwife said. "It's a perfect little boy," and all of a sudden Jens was kissing her.

"It's a boy, my love. A boy." The midwife was cleaning the mucus and uterine fluid from the child, and Sarabee closed her eyes, breathing deep. There was another contraction, this one almost gentle compared to the ones that had been wracking her body for most of the day. That will be the afterbirth. She sighed, suspended somewhere between exhaustion and contentment. The birthing was done, and everything else would wait. Someone put the child on her chest, wrapped in a fresh swaddling cloth. Instinctively she pulled the tiny body up between her breasts. It's too soon to feed him. She knew from experience that newborns needed sleep right after being born, but this time she was wrong. He nuzzled at her breast, rooting for the nipple, found it and began suckling, his tiny mouth working hard for his first meal. Sarabee smiled to herself, her eyes still closed.

"Jerl," she heard Jens telling the midwife. "We're calling him Jerl." The name sounded warm in Sarabee's ears, comforting. It had been her father's name, and since before Liese had been born they'd planned to call their first boy Jerl. He'd be so proud now. It was sad that her father hadn't lived to see his first grandson born, but her boy was on her breast, and in him she felt his presence, in a way she hadn't since he'd died. The baby finished suckling, having had just a taste of pre-milk, but he felt strong as he moved inside his wrap. Sarabee smiled and drifted off to contented sleep.

The next days were filled with the bustle of visitation, as neighbors and relations came by to see the newborn. In fisher tradition Sarabee's sisters and aunts looked after the food and the child care, while her mother arranged the entertaining, giving Sarabee the time to focus exclusively on Jerl. Jens looked on with quiet pride, accepting the congratulations offered with a smile. It wasn't that anyone thought less of a man who couldn't produce a son, but everyone knew the importance of having at least one. Even Sarabee's mother deferred to him now, giving him the deeper respect she had somehow always managed to withhold even as she had meticulously observed the bare formalities due a husband. He's such a good man. She'd had her pick of the shorefields boys before she married, but in the end it had come down to Jens and Atyen. Atyen had been the more interesting choice, with his quick wit and shy charm, but he had also been committed to his dream of inquisitorship, his time devoted to his studies and not to her. Then too, Jens had his father's raft, and he was loyal, hard working and reliable. When he'd asked her to marry him she hadn't hesitated to say yes, and she'd never once had cause to regret that choice. Though I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Atyen had asked me first. It was an idle thought. Atyen had not asked, and life with Jens was too good to upset with dreams of what might have been.

Visitation was three days by tradition, and by the end of it Sarabee was exhausted, and relieved to have some time alone with just her baby and her husband. Celese stayed to help clean up, while Jens took the baby down to the shore for his first dive. That too was tradition, and he had done the same with all the girls. It would only be a brief dunk, to bring the child good catches for the rest of his life. And Jens needs his time with the baby too. Still, Sarabee felt something close to panic as she watched her husband walk down to the shore with her newborn. Celese gently pulled her inside and closed the door, and Sarabee bit her lower lip and tried to focus on getting her house returned to normal after the visit. She smiled to see how Liese had taken charge of her younger sisters, ordering them about in her ten-year-old voice as though it were she and not Sarabee who was their mother. She kissed all three of them, from youngest to oldest and tried to keep her eyes from straying to the door.

It seemed to take forever for Jens to return, though it couldn't have been more than a bell. When he did it was all she could do to hold herself back from just grabbing her newborn to her breast to prove to herself that he was all right. But Jens wouldn't let anything happen.

"He swam like a fish." Her husband was beaming with pride in his new son.

Jerl's hair was fine and downy, plastered wet against his head, and Sarabee took him back, proud and relieved at the same time. Celese helped put the girls to bed, and then went back to her own children, leaving Sarabee and Jens with Jerl. She went to sleep in her husband's arms with her baby curled against her, tired but happy.

Jerl woke her twice to suckle, and Sarabee stroked his small head, marveling at his perfection in the dim light that filtered through the sleep-shutters. She woke again on her own, to find Jens gone and Liese asleep where he had been. Jerl's tiny body was curled up in the crook of her arm. Both children were in fresh clothes, which mean that Jens had changed the baby before he left. He let me sleep, he's such a good man.

Liese yawned and her eyes opened. "I'm hungry, Mamsha," she said.

"We'll get you . . ." Sarabee paused to think. Normally her internal clock could tell her the time to within half a bell, but now it was completely unset. Jens had left the sleep-cloths down. Did her daughter want breakfast or lunch? I didn't even hear him leave . . . "We'll get you some food soon," she said.

"I'm hungry now," persisted the little girl.

"Well, soon will be now before you know it," Sarabee smiled, and tweaked her daughter's nose. "My little button shrew. Sometimes I think you'll starve if I don't feed you every bell."

Liese giggled. "I'm too big to be a button shrew now."

"Maybe so. How do you like your new brother?"

The little girl pursed her lips, considering the question seriously. "I like him," she decided, and moved up to put a kiss very deliberately on the baby's forehead. "His name is Jerl."

"Yes it is." Sarabee picked up her son in one arm and her daughter in the other. "Let's go and find you something to eat."

There was no one in the kitchen, which meant the younger girls were with Celese. There was fresh yeasted bread, and a basket of fresh apples, which Celese must have brought with her when she came for the children. Sarabee sliced off a piece of the bread and cut a slice of pungent goat-cheese to go with it for Liese, added half of an apple to her daughter's plate, and ate the other half herself even though she didn't feel hungry. I have to get my strength back, Jens needs my help. By then the baby was stirring and hungry, and she settled down at the kitchen table to feed him. Just as she was about to start there was a knock on the door. She got up and answered it with the baby on her hip, expecting Celese but finding a trio of young men.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"We're hungry," said the closest. He was rangy, his skin taut over muscle and bone. "Do you have any work we could do for a meal?"

Sarabee shook her head. "I don't but my husband might. He's down by the dock."

The youth was looking past her into the house. "That's a lot of apples you have there. Do you think we could have one each before we start?" She hesitated. Something subtle had shifted in the atmosphere, an aura of danger she couldn't quite put her finger on. But the best thing to do is act normally.

Sarabee smiled and hoped it was convincing. "Of course, just a moment."

She turned to get the apples, and in that moment her premonition of danger was realized. All three of them followed her into the house, and the leader reached past her into the apple basket with a grubby hand to pick out a fruit. "Good apples," he said, looking at her with a hunger that had nothing to do with his stomach, standing close enough to make her uncomfortable. Sarabee resisted the urge to step backwards, and he took a bite of the apple, not taking his eyes off her.

"I'd like you to leave now," she said, keeping her gaze steady on his. Showing fear would only embolden them. The other two were helping themselves to the bread and cheese, and for a moment the leader looked uncertain, and then all of a sudden he moved, snatching Jerl from her hip and backing away.

"Jerl!" Sarabee leapt to grab him back, but the youth passed him to one of the others, and grabbed her, his hands hard as shipsteel.

"Jerl!" She brought a knee up to catch him in the groin, but he managed to evade the strike, twisting her arm up painfully behind her back.

"Gently now, sister, gently." He spun her around and held her from behind so she couldn't try the move again, forcing her up against the kitchen table. "Nothing's going to happen to your baby, just as long as you cooperate." She could feel his erection hard against her, and realized with a kind of distant shock that she was about to be raped. Time seemed to slow down, and as if from a long distance she heard her assailant still talking. "You be nice to us, and we're going to be very nice to you."

Sarabee had been afraid when she'd first sensed the menace in the leader's expression, more afraid when they'd followed her into the house, but now that the threat had become reality a strange calm came over her. I can't get pregnant, I just gave birth. That suddenly became vitally important. What else happened to her was irrelevant, so long as Jerl was safe and she didn't wind up carrying a bastard for Jens. And Liese, where's Liese? Her little girl was gone, whether she'd hidden or run away didn't matter, she was safer where she was. I won't call for her. No need to risk two children.

"I'll be nice," she heard her voice saying, again as though from a great distance. "Promise you won't hurt him."

"Oh, we promise," the leader said, in a voice that promised nothing. He put a hand on her milk-filled breast and squeezed, hard enough to hurt. She winced reflexively, but the pain didn't really register, her mind was entirely focused on the situation, seeing, assessing, planning. The other two were still eating bread and cheese, wolfing it down. They really are hungry. That fact was important, it meant they probably had come to the door looking only for food, if not for work. They were young, hungry, frustrated and angry. Raping her was a spur of the moment thing, an opportunity that had presented itself and that they'd taken, possibly not even realizing what they were doing until they were already doing it. Which means they aren't planning to kill me, not yet. They might later decide to, in order to keep her from accusing them, but they hadn't planned that far ahead. Which means the longer I can keep them busy the safer I'll be. Her eye fell on the knife she'd cut the bread with, just out of reach on the table. The leader was still pawing at her, pulling her top-blouse down and muttering obscenities in her ear, but his words didn't matter. The one holding Jerl looked sullen, relegated to babysitting duty while the leader enjoyed his new toy. He would be the tag-along, eager to be a member of the group, resentful because he was given so little power within it. The other one was watching the show with an appreciative leer as he chewed and swallowed, secure in the knowledge that his loyalty would be rewarded when his own turn came. His eyes were cruel, and he was enjoying the hurt and humiliation the leader was inflicting on her. She avoided meeting his gaze, knowing instinctively that offering any challenge would only encourage him to be rougher when he got the chance.

"That's better, sister. Just relax and enjoy it." The leader slid his hand to her thighs.

Sarabee looked away from the knife so as not to give away her thoughts. I can move there, let him think I'm cooperating. It would take just one quick motion to grab the knife, slide it into his belly, up between his ribs to reach for his heart. One quick motion with every last kilo of strength behind it, and in her mind she rehearsed the action. She'd never killed a man before, but she knew how to do it. Just like gutting a fish. She would have to deal with the second one then, the cruel one, but she'd be holding the knife at that point, and his cruelty would be a front for his cowardice—that was why he wasn't the leader himself. He would run. The third one, the one holding Jerl, lacked the yats to actually hurt the baby unless the leader told him to do it, and he would run when the other did.

"Let me turn around, I'll make it good for you," she said, keeping her voice low.

"Look, the sow likes it." The leader's voice held an edge of triumph. He relaxed his grip and Sarabee turned around, at the same time bringing the knife within reach. She looked up and gave him a gaze halfway between arousal and submission, pressing her now naked breasts against his chest. She was rewarded when he moved his hands to her waist, to her hips, to pull her groin into his. That left her own hands free, and she put them on his chest, caressing it.

"You're so strong," she said. "Take me slowly, it's better when it's slow."

He gasped then, and his face softened slightly. He's probably never had a woman who really wanted him. She had power now, and if she used it carefully she would gain more. She moved her right hand down to his belly, marking the place where she would drive the knife home, and flicked her eyes to the other two. They had both stopped eating, their eyes fixed on the scene in front of them with naked lust. The one holding Jerl was the key. It wasn't enough that he would run when she killed the leader, because he would probably drop the baby when he did. She didn't want to take that risk. But sooner or later he'll put the baby down, and then . . . Her assailant's expression relaxed more as he gave in to the pleasure of her body against his, and she slid her left hand to his groin, massaging him through his clothes. She had him where she needed him now, and she knew what she had to do to keep him there. It was only a matter of time before he'd be dead. It was a simple fact, and it raised no emotion in her. He had chosen his course of action, and that had dictated hers.

There was a small cry. Jerl had woken up and was hungry. The leader stiffened, looked behind him with annoyance. "Shut that up," he barked to the tag-along. Sarabee tensed, ready to beg for her baby's life if she had to, but the tagalong wasn't the type to give violence to a crying infant. He looked uncertain for a moment, then took her newborn into the bedroom. He's going to put him on the bed, come back and close the door. Sarabee moved her left hand back up to where her right hand was, to free her right to grab the knife. She again rehearsed the motion that would cut her attacker open, visualizing where the knife was, how the handle was angled on the table behind her. When she heard the bedroom door close, she would move.

The leader moaned with desire. "Don't stop, sister," he said, and put a hand over hers to push it back down to his groin. Jerl's cries had started Sarabee's milk flowing, and she felt it first leaking, then streaming from her nipples, but her assailant either didn't notice or didn't care. She fought to keep herself calm, her ears tuned to the creak of the bedroom floor, to the clack that would tell her the tag-along had closed the bedroom door, that Jerl was safe and that she could move. He's probably tucking him in. The tag-along didn't belong with the other two, he was out of his depth, doing things he wouldn't do himself just to be accepted . . . 

A door opened and closed, not the bedroom door, but the front door. Suddenly Jens was in the room, his eyes wide in shock. The leader reacted instantly, shoving Sarabee to the floor and spinning to meet the threat. Her head smacked hard against one of the kitchen stools on the way down, flashing her vision white with pain, and she sprawled in a heap against the far wall.

"You're the husband." The leader grabbed up a forged steel frying pan from the table. "Pretty wife, but you picked the wrong time to come home." The cruel one turned to close ranks with the leader, and the tag-along came out of the bedroom where Jerl was still crying. Sarabee's eyes flew to where the knife was, but the cruel one was between her and the table now, even though his attention was fixed on Jens. She watched as her husband sized up the situation, his gaze moving from one youth to the next. Jerl was still crying in the bedroom and she suppressed the urge to run to get him and instead searched for another weapon. There was nothing she could get to without going through the cruel one first. But still I can serve my son better here. She wasn't going to leave Jens to face them three-to-one.

"Not scared, husband?" The leader advanced on Jens with the frying pan upraised. "You should be."

Jens stood his ground, his face hard, his large hands clenched into fists. "You're tough in a group. Any of you have the yats to fight me alone?"

"I'll do it," said the cruel one, too quickly. The leader stopped, and put up a hand to restrain his deputy. Sarabee bit her lip, watching the tableau play out.

"Why should I fight you?" the leader asked, his lips twisted into a smirk. "I think I've got the advantage right now."

"Because if you don't you're a coward, that's all." Jens kept his eyes locked on the leader. "Three of you against a woman and a baby. Three of you against one of me. I think I see a pattern."

Sarabee turned over, slowly, not getting up, not presenting herself as a threat, but positioning herself to jump when the time came. Jens was smart. Even the two of them would probably lose against the three, and the leader could have ordered the others to fight Jens for him. Now her husband had made it a point of manhood. If the leader didn't face Jens alone he'd lose status in the group and the cruel one would take over.

"You think I can't take you alone, old man?" The leader spat and took a step forward, raising the frying pan to strike.

"With a weapon you can. Dare to try it barehanded?"

"Clean fight?"

"Clean fight."

"You're on." The leader held the frying pan out to the cruel one, who took it, a hard smile on his face. No matter what happened, he couldn't lose. If the leader beat Jens, he'd still get his time with Sarabee, but if Jens started winning he'd step in and finish the fight with his weapon, and get Sarabee and the leadership as well.

The leader cocked a fist and advanced on Jens, and Jens pivoted on his forward foot and drove his heel into the youth's groin. The youth went down with a grunt, writhing in pain, his hands clutched to what was probably a crushed testicle. Jens advanced over him and drove a dock boot into his face. Sarabee heard bone crunch, and the fallen man screamed, his nose smashed flat and now streaming blood. The cruel one stood in shock for a single, infinitely extended second. He hadn't expected his leader to lose at all, let alone so quickly, but he saw his opportunity, and stepped forward with the steel pan. Jens fell back to give himself room to fight, but as soon as the cruel one was out of the way Sarabee launched herself for the table. The thug caught her motion in the corner of his eye, and started to turn to stop her, aiming the pan at her head, but he was already committed to his advance on her husband. His awkward swing missed, and then she had the knife. She turned, brought it up and brought it down, but it wasn't the well rehearsed gutting stroke she'd envisioned. The blade bit into his chest, slicing muscle but skidding off bone, and then he brought the pan around again. He was aiming for her knife hand, but he caught her left wrist instead, almost knocking her sideways, and overbalancing himself in the process. They both went down in a heap and she stabbed at him again, but he'd brought his hands up to fend her off. The blade sliced into his forearm and blood gouted where she'd opened an artery. The pan fell to the floor, and she was on top of him, raising the knife again. Panic had replaced the brutality in his face, his eyes were wide, almost pleading with her not to kill him, but the fear she had repressed to save her son came back as rage, and she drove the knife down again, this time catching him right below the ribs. She had her full weight behind the blow, and she felt it dig into his belly, sink down until it caught in his spine. He gasped, his face a sudden mask of pain, his hands flying to the wound while she hauled the knife and raised it again. She was about to drive it into his chest, but hands caught her from behind, and Jens was pulling her up.

"Leave him," her husband said. "Leave him. Are you hurt?"

"Yes . . ." Suddenly she was trembling and his arms were around her. "Jens, I . . ."

"We haven't got time. Where's Jerl?" The youth she'd stabbed was doubled up on his side gasping, his eyes vacant, blood pooling underneath him. The leader was still on the floor, one hand clasped to his groin, the other to his nose, groaning in pain. The tag-along had vanished. Out the back door . . . For some reason it seemed important to understand where he'd gone.

"Where's Jerl?" Jens asked again, his voice tight.

She shook herself. "In the bedroom."

Jens nodded, his own face taut with unexpressed emotion. "Take him to Celese, get her to send her oldest for the sentinels."

"How did you know to come?"

"Liese ran to me, crying. She's still at the dock, take her too."

Sarabee nodded, swallowing hard. Brave Liese. She'd have to talk to her later, tell her she'd done the right thing. She gave her husband one final hug, putting everything she had into it. "I love you. I'll be back when I've got the children safe."

Jens hugged her back hard, let her go and went to take a length of hogline from the cupboard by the door. "I'll be here with this one." He knelt to lash the leader's arms behind his back with the line. "Be fast."

Sarabee turned to go, suppressing the urge look at the motionless body on the floor. I couldn't have killed him, not really. She went to the bedroom and picked up Jerl and then went out the back door, pulling up her top-blouse as she went. Outside it was bright and clear, an absolutely normal day with nothing to hint at the violence that had just gone on inside her home. She saw with sudden shock that Jerl's swaddling cloth was stained with blood, and for a single horrified instant she thought he was hurt, but then she realized she was soaked with the cruel one's blood, and some of that had gotten on her baby. At the dock Liese was peaking around a corner of the smokeshed, looking scared, and Sarabee went to her with deliberate calm, so her daughter would know the danger had passed. She took Liese's small hand in hers, and tried to stop her own hand from shaking. But the danger hasn't passed. The shorefields were known to be rough-and-tumble, but . . . Nothing like this. Something had changed in her world, changed for the worse, and in her gut she knew it had changed permanently.

 

Solender was very pleased by the discovery of the horse document, and released Atyen to his own devices while he delved deeper into the question of vanished farm animals. Freed from the confines of the manuscript tower, Atyen returned his concentration to the problem of flight. It should have been a simple matter of carrying his wings back up to the forewall ledge, strapping them on and taking the leap of faith. As he discovered, it wasn't. He spent a day going over them in detail, verifying every joint and tie. He went to sleep that night determined to fly the next day, but in the morning found himself strangely reluctance to commit himself to the jump. Instead he took his journal and his ink pots to the mill to watch the peregrines, but the clouds spiraled up from the aftwall, and he saw none. He tried to content himself with watching the doves, but found himself strangely restless. As the bells rolled past he went from one side of the field to the other, opened his journal and got out his pens and ink, but made neither notes nor sketches. The doves and their fluttering were irritating rather than captivating, and the skies stayed empty of peregrines. A pair of ducks distracted him briefly as they took off from the canal and winged their way aftward, but after they had vanished in the distance his eyes went foreward, to the forewall and the thin line of the forewall ledge, visible only as a thickening in the green vines that covered the wall's lower reaches. There was a second green line a hundred meters above the first, though there was no way to get to the second ledge short of climbing the vertical steel surface, and a third line higher still. They're calling me. Atyen looked away. Above the third ledge the gray steel merged into the gray cloud mists, and somewhere above that was the secret home of the peregrines. And I'm here, sketching doves.

He pressed his lips together, because he wasn't even sketching doves. He knew the source of his restlessness, and it was nothing more than the conflict between the desire to realize his dream and the primal fear that gripped him when he looked over the edge. Beneath the secret relief he had felt when Solender had stopped him was an even deeper secret shame that he had hesitated and backed down at the critical moment. He bit his lip, hard, not wanting to confront what he had discovered about himself. You're taking the easy way again, Atyen. It was a broader truth than he was comfortable with, applying to more than an understandable reluctance to jump off a cliff. His whole life had been one of choosing the easy choice over the one he really wanted. The Inquisitory over the farm, the Inquisitory over Sarabee. He hadn't wanted to offend his brothers, and so gave up his claim on his father's land. He hadn't wanted to lose Jens as a friend, and so gave up on the woman he loved. Everyone had been so impressed with his intelligence, with his single-minded determination to beat the odds and earn the double-red cross-sash. He was applauded for his dedication, and his sacrifice. And it wasn't that he hadn't enjoyed the challenge, nor found satisfaction in his studies and his research. But it wasn't what I would have chosen.

And there was a deeper truth, as well as a broader one. He told everyone else he wanted the Inquisitory, he told himself that he chose it because it was easier. But really, I was afraid. Afraid to fight his brothers for the farm, afraid to fight Jens for Sarabee, afraid . . . afraid of everything. He looked up at the ledges again, clenching his jaw, his throat tight with emotion. For the first time in his life he was faced with something he wanted with nothing but his own fears to keep him from attaining it. If he did not fly, it would not be because flight was impossible, it would not be because Solender opposed it. If he did not fly it was because at the final moment his courage failed him. It was a truth he would have to admit to no one but himself, but it was a truth he would have to live with until he died. He would be a fraud, a shell of a man, and even if he made it to the Law Council, even if he became Chief Inquisitor, the forewall would look down on him every day and remind him that he was a coward.

Coward, he said under his breath, and the word was bitter in his mouth. The manuscript tower seemed to mock him. He could be in it now, safe at a table perusing dusty manuscripts. If he hadn't chosen a flight for his masterwork, he wouldn't now be facing the reality of a hundred meter plunge. Why did I choose it? That answer wasn't comforting either. Because I thought it wasn't possible. He had wanted something original, wanted more praise for his brilliant creativity, wanted to shock his doctrinor and the other aspirants with the audacity of his thought. At the same time, if he attempted the impossible, no one could fault him for failure. He had kept the belief that it could never happen carefully hidden, even from himself. Especially from myself. And now he had to either make the jump, or admit his cowardice. He put his head in his hands and began to weep quietly. I can't do it, I just can't. He could go away perhaps, find himself a place in thronging Charisy, take work as a laborer, even beg if he had to. No one would know where he had come from, or who he had been. He could just disappear.

It should've been a comforting thought, but it wasn't. The one person he couldn't hide from was himself. At least I'm smart enough to know that. He took a deep breath to steady himself, and at that moment it occurred to him that if he jumped from the ledge without wings he'd be killed on impact, and so relieved of his inner turmoil, free of the self-punishing thought-cycle he had fallen into. It seemed like the easy solution, but a slow smile crept into his face as he recognized the inherent illogic of embracing certain death to avoid merely risking it. The mind is a strange thing. He felt better at the understanding though his thoughts continued to churn, calling up scenarios of crippling injury that would be worse than death itself. The more he tried to imagine positive images the more tenaciously they gripped his consciousness. Lal. The friend of his older brother had been kicked in the head by a horse and reduced to idiocy. Minsa. The fisher-boy fell from a mast, landed badly, and lost the use of his legs because of it. Better to die than live like that. His early test drops had produced some spectacular wrecks. It was true a satchel of clay couldn't steer the way he hoped to, nor flare for landing the way even a dove could but . . . He clenched his teeth, trying to force the images away. It doesn't matter. He was going to have to jump, and he would deal with what happened after it happened.

He gathered his journal and backbag and made his way back to the Inquisitory, his mood made foul by his internal struggle. It was after the evening-meal bell by the time he got there. He'd wasted the entire day. Hunger growled in his stomach, and so he went to get a meal. He saw Solender in the meal hall but irrational anger rose in him at his doctrinor. He didn't want to have to explain himself, and so sat at a distant table. The meal was roasted tomato with savored lamb and it smelled good, but he ate mechanically and without even really tasting the food. When he finished he went back down to the studio to look at his wings once more, to try to recapture the eagerness they had once inspired in him. They were as they had been, but now they seemed full of foreboding rather than promise. Atyen reached out and ran a hand over the familiar fabric. It hadn't changed, only his feelings had. We create the world in our minds. It was late, and he was tired, but he took the time unlock the joints and fold them. They would be ready the next morning, and he would carry them out to the ledge, and this time he would jump.

He left for his room. Corl nodded to him as he went out, the other aspirants didn't even acknowledge him. It was nothing new. Since the time he arrived in the Inquisitory, Solender's other aspirants had either ridiculed his chosen masterwork as impossible or slighted him for being the favored student of their doctrinor. It was partly jealousy, he knew. Solender's aspirants were among the most ambitious, and most of them had spent a long time maneuvering themselves into the Chief Inquisitor's studio, while Solender had actually sought Atyen out. Another part of it was that Atyen put no effort into currying influence within the Inquisitory's power structure, an affront to those who valued status over everything. For his part, Atyen was content to be ignored. Interacting with his fellow aspirants took time away from his wings and his beloved peregrines.

Or so I tell myself. Perhaps his indifference was just another mask for fear, setting himself apart, rejecting people before they could reject him. But one issue at a time, Atyen. He laughed at himself as he went into his room. It was an austere space just big enough for his bed, a clothes-stand and a small table. He closed the shutters, lowered the sleep-cloth and lay down, but found himself just staring at the ceiling. The internal struggle between what he was and what he wanted to be returned with the knowledge that he had delayed his test for one more day. I haven't given up, but I need to sleep. I need to be rested to do this properly. He whispered the words to himself, an affirmation of his commitment, but that didn't stop the niggling voice in the back of his head. Coward, it whispered back, and defied him to prove it wrong.

Eventually he did manage to fall asleep, but his dreams were of an endless, panicked fall, watching the ground get closer and closer until he hit. He woke with a start, breathing hard, his heart pounding in the darkness, surprised to find himself alive. He suppressed the urge to check for broken bones and closed his eyes again, but what sleep he got was shallow and fitful. The breakfast bell found him already awake, staring at the ceiling.

He was hungry and poorly rested, but rather than going to the meal hall he went back to the studio to pick up his already folded wings. There was only one way to quell the doubts that had tortured him all night, and that was to jump. His body's demands could wait until after he flew, if he didn't kill himself in the attempt. If he did, it would hardly matter. He slipped the straps over his shoulders and went to the stairs. Solender's injunction that he shouldn't try to fly alone rang in his ears, but he was loath to have any witnesses to what had become a very personal experience. It was foolish, he knew, but he would fall or fly, live or die, on his own. And perhaps that's why I went alone the first time too.

The stairs were long enough to be tedious, and tiring as well with the extra weight of the folded wings. He paused when he reached the forewall ledge, turned and looked down at the bulk of the Inquisitory below him. There was mist in the air, but it was clear enough to see over the great steel building, past the manuscript tower. Charisy's buildings clustered in the middle distance, and beyond that the patchwork fields faded into the blue of the ocean and the gray of the aftwall behind it. The fear that had kept him awake closed in on his throat, and he resisted the urge to press his back against the vine covered wall behind him, to get as much distance between himself and the drop as he could. The fear had not been so visceral last time he'd climbed to the ledge. The last time I wasn't committed to jump. Not really. Last time, Solender's appearance had given him an easy out. Last time he had not come face-to-face with himself as a coward. Not this time.

Not this time. Atyen took a deep breath and walked down the ledge, past the river outfall, to the place he had been when Solender had stopped him. He shrugged the folded wings from his back, unfolded them, locked them open, and then put them back on. He had a bad moment when the steady downdraft caught the fabric and nearly pulled him over the edge, but he got them under control. He attached the tail straps to his ankles, took the control loops in each hand, and looked over the edge. It was still a long, long way to fall. His wings felt flimsy and inadequate, and he felt not like a peregrine about to stoop but a very fragile human being about to plummet to his death. He took a deep breath. I just have to jump.

And he had planned to jump on the word jump, but his legs wouldn't obey. He closed his eyes, but it didn't help any more than it had last time. He had to leap from the ledge, forward, out and down, as hard as he could. Less than full commitment to the motion would lead to disaster, as it had with his test models that had crashed and splintered before he had learned he had to throw them rather than drop them. Just do it. It was an easy thing to think, a much harder thing to do. Again Atyen gathered himself for the leap, again he couldn't bring herself to actually launch. He took another breath, and clenched his teeth and his resolve together, and looked down to where he wanted to land, five hundred meters distant and a hundred down. That was a mistake because it seemed absolutely impossible that he could travel so and his knees went weak when he thought about it. His body simply didn't want to make the jump. But I've worked for this for years, and I'm not taking these wings off and walking back down. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. He checked one last time to see that the control loops were still tight in his hands, looked to see that his ankles were still strapped in, took one more deep breath, and leapt.

There was a rush of wind, and the airflow yanked the tail up hard as he fell away, much faster than he had expected. Instinctively he brought his legs down to use the tail to slow down, but that pitched him even more steeply forward, until he was going straight down headfirst. Panicked, he raised his feet again, and he felt the wings take the sudden strain of his weight as he first leveled out and then pitched steeply up. The wind rush vanished and then he was falling backwards, twisting to the right. He pulled hard on the left-hand line, to go back the other way, but it seemed to have no effect. Suddenly panicked, he pulled harder. The world spun, and all at once he was heading straight down again with the ground rushing up with ferocious speed. He released the line, pushed his legs back and up and managed to turn his vertical dive into something flatter just before he hit, still spiraling to the right. The right wing hit the ground first and crumpled, and then pain spiked through his shoulder as the ground hit him hard in the face. He was vaguely aware he was tumbling sideways as bamboo snapped around him. Something hit his head and the world flashed white.

A long time later he became aware of someone talking to him, shaking him, shouting at him. He tried to answer, but his mouth wouldn't form words. A face floated in front of him, seemingly disembodied, and the voice came again. He tried to move and suddenly everything hurt, his shoulder, his face, his legs. He heard someone moaning, and then realized that it was him. The forewall loomed up behind the face in front of him, and the ledge he had jumped from was impossibly high up. He was on his back, and when he tried to move again, more carefully this time, his legs wouldn't work. That made him fear paralysis, but then he realized he was simply wrapped up in the wreckage of his wings. And I flew.

"What happened?" The face over him belonged to a man he didn't recognize.

Atyen laughed, which made everything hurt more. "Did you see me fly?" He felt giddy despite the pain, or perhaps because of it.

"I saw you fall," The man started cutting away the torn fabric with his belt knife. There was a wall-picker's basket on his back. "Like a rock." He looked towards Atyen's feet and addressed someone he couldn't see. "Help me get him untangled."

"I stooped! Like a falcon." Atyen heard his own voice, full of excitement that overrode the pain. "I stooped and I flew, all the way down." He felt someone cutting away the fabric wrapped around his legs as the first man tried to free his arm of the arm supports.

"Call it what you want, you're lucky to be alive." The wallpickers finished cutting Atyen free. "Can you stand up?"

The man offered a hand and Atyen took it, got his feet beneath him and stood, shakily. There was a sharp pain in his calf and when he looked down he saw it impaled on a length of fractured bamboo frame, his blood soaking red into the cream colored fabric still attached to it. A slab of torn muscle hung loose. The second wallpicker was a woman, perhaps the first one's wife, and she knelt to examine it.

"You've really managed to hurt yourself, haven't you?" She gently pulled the splintered frame section from the wound, then tore a section from the ripped fabric of the wings and used it to staunch the bleeding.

Atyen winced at her touch, looking down on the wreckage. "My wings are ruined."

The man smirked. "Just be glad you're not ruined."

"I think your ankle is broken." She bound it with the torn fabric as well, and then stood up. "Don't worry, I've seen worse. Here, let us help you."

The man put Atyen's good arm around his neck and even that hurt, but he didn't care. "The tail was wrong, I can see that now. I always knew that was what most important part. We'll fix it though. . . ."

"We'll get you fixed first. Let's get you to the surgeons." They moved off. Pain shot through Atyen's ankle with every step, and in ten paces it had made him so dizzy he nearly blacked out again. He took a deep breath and stopped talking, concentrating on each step. His head was spinning with the pain, but what he felt more than anything was the exultation of success. He had taken the leap and truly flown. He had proved it possible. More important, I proved myself. He had survived, and when his body had healed he would do it again, farther, faster, better. He became aware of wetness on his face and wiped it away with his good arm. His hand came away solid red with blood. There was a dull, throbbing ache in his nose that he hadn't noticed before, and he reached up to touch it gingerly. Pain flared sharp and bright.

He drew a few looks from the sentinels as they came around into the grass courtyard of the Inquisitory but was beyond caring. The surgeon's hall was in an auxiliary building, built out from the main gallery, which was fortunate because it meant he wouldn't have to climb stairs. The wallpickers took him in. There was a brief conversation with the surgeon, and then he was helped onto an examination cot that was far more comfortable than it looked. A surgeon looked him over.

"He cracked his skull when he landed," the first wallpicker told the surgeon. "He was babbling."

The surgeon ran a hand over his ribs, held his eyelids open and looked carefully into each eye. "Did you lose consciousness?" he asked Atyen, and Atyen had to think hard to remember. Speaking seemed too much of an effort, and so he just nodded.

"How long?"

Atyen found the question strange. How can I know how long when I was unconscious? "I don't know," he managed to answer.

"Not long," put in the wallpicker. "He jumped from the forewall ledge, just spinward of the river outfall. We came running right away."

"He jumped from the forewall ledge?" the surgeon asked, disbelieving.

"I flew," said Atyen, in a voice that sounded distant in his own ears. His hurts seemed trivial compared to the knowledge of what he had accomplished.

"You've broken your nose," the surgeon said. "Hang on, this is going to hurt." Without waiting for him to answer, he took Atyen's nose and wrenched it sideways, hard. Atyen screamed with a sudden agony that came and went almost before he could register it. Fresh blood gouted from his nose, streaming down to soak his shirt.

"Tilt your head back, and pinch here." The surgeon showed him how.

"And drink this." A second surgeon, this one a woman, handed Atyen a mug of thick tea. It was awkward trying to drink with his head tilted back, but he managed to swallow small sips. The tea had a bitter taste, but by the time he had finished it the pain was fading. Atyen felt suddenly sleepy, and he closed his eyes, feeling his body relax.

"He jumped from . . ." The rest of the surgeon's words were too fuzzy to understand, and Atyen let himself drift away, feeling a pleasant languor coming over him. The wallpickers and the surgeon were still talking, and he caught the phrase "bleeding inside." He might be dying, he realized, which meant that if he went to sleep now he would never wake up. There was something sad in understanding that, and he wished the woman would take his hand and hold it, give him one last comfort as he passed. She was still talking to the first surgeon and the wallpickers though, and Atyen couldn't keep himself awake any longer. But I flew, like a peregrine, I really flew. If he died now, he would die complete, and he drifted off into the darkness remembering the rush of air beneath his wings.

He woke up much later, blearily aware of a dull pain in his calf and another in his ankle. They throbbed painfully, and he fell back asleep flushed and feverish. Much later he awoke to a sharper pain, to find the female surgeon examining his injury.

"That hurts," he complained, not fully awake.

"You've got an infection." She pursed her lips. "A bad one." A surgeon's errander brought in a steaming steel pot, and the surgeon took a small steel funnel with a long but narrow neck from a shelf of obscure equipment above Atyen's bed. She dropped it into the boiling pot, then scooped some more water from it into a clay jug. She took jars from the shelf, one at a time, and stirred their contents into the jug, though the only ingredient Danil recognized was honey. He was tempted to ask her for some but pain had quashed his hunger, and he didn't think he'd be able to keep it down.

"What's your name?" he asked. There was a pungent, rotten smell in the room, and he realized belatedly that it was coming from his leg.

"Bellile," she answered. She finished her concoction and stood up. "Wait here while I get some help." She went out of the lean-to and was back a few moments later with two more erranders.

"Lie right back," she said, easing him backwards onto the straw-bed. When he was down she gave him a rag. "This will hurt. Bite this, and try not to move. It's easier if you relax." She motioned to the erranders. "Hold him."

The men knelt by Atyen's bedside, one leaning forward so his weight came onto his hips, the other extending his leg and leaning it on that so his calf and the wound were exposed for her to work on. Bellile tested the temperature of her mixture with a finger, then took a pair of wooden tongs from her rack and used them to fish the funnel out of the boiling water. She held it up while it steamed, and when it was cool enough to touch she put it to Atyen's wound. The pain was sudden and excruciating, and Atyen bit down hard, thrashing his head from side to side, and trying to overcome the instinct to yank his leg away. He was only partially successful in that, but the erranders did the rest of the job. It's easier if you relax. He did his best to relax, to lie limply and accept the burning throb as only a sensation.

Unbidden, an image of Sarabee came into his mind and he tried to focus on her face, on her smile, purely as a distraction from the pain. She would be proud of me. Proud. It lessened the hurt, to a degree, but he kept his eyes closed as Bellile poured her concoction into his wound. The flow of warm fluid stung, but it didn't hurt the way the insertion of the funnel had. He could feel the water running out of the wound on the other side. It felt as though he were bleeding, and he had to remind himself that he was not. She worked on the wound for quite some time, pushing the funnel deeper, pouring her medicine into it, and then repeating the process, and the experience alternated periods of greater and lesser pain. Finally the funnel came out, and the men let go of his shoulders. He could feel her dressing his wound again, with bandages made sticky with medicinal honey, but he didn't open his eyes to look.

"It's best to rest now," she told him when she was finished. It was unnecessary advice. A vast lethargy overcame him, and he was asleep in heartbeats.

When he awoke he had no idea how much time had passed, but his body told him it had been a long time. He felt feverish and hazy. But I flew, I really flew. Could it be it was only a dream? The pain in his leg was proof that it wasn't. There was a tremendous sense of liberation in that. There were some dried apples in a bowl on the shelf above him, and he managed to reach one, but when he tried to eat it he found he had little appetite. Bellile came in and changed the dressing on his wound, and beneath it in the flesh was hot and swollen. He slept fitfully that night, and when she came to see him after breakfast there was yellow fluid oozing out through the fabric. She looked concerned, and he kept his eyes on her face as she carefully unwrapped the bandage, wincing when the bandage stuck to his flesh. Her expression grew serious as she did, and the rank odor of infection hit his nose like a physical blow. He didn't want to look, but he couldn't help it. His calf was an angry red, swollen to twice its normal size and hot to the touch. The wound itself was an ugly mess, green and yellow pus mixed with the red of semi-clotted blood. Bellile squeezed gently and Atyen gasped as pain shot up his leg. Gouts of pus flowed out and dripped to the ground.

Atyen looked back to the surgeon, trying to read her eyes. "Am I going to lose it?" The euphoria of his success was fading, and a vision of the crippled fisher boy came to him. Will that be me?

She put her lips together, then moved her hands down to his forearm, and into his hand. "Your toes are still warm, that's a good sign. For the rest, it's too early to tell."

The treatment was the same as they had given him the day before, the boiling of the funnel, the preparation of the honey concoction, the rag to bite on and the erranders to hold him down against the pain. It hurt worse than it had the first time, hurt so badly he saw stars and his ears rang, and he thought he would bite right through the rag. It was what he had to endure if he wanted to keep his leg, and so he bit hard and squeezed his eyes shut, and held himself as still as possible so Bellile could work. At some point he must have passed out, and he dreamed he was flying again, soaring high above the clouds to find the place the falcons lived. All of a sudden his wings were gone and he was falling, watching the ground rush up to kill him. He woke in a cold sweat, to find himself trembling and feverish. The swelling now extended from his calf all the way to his foot, and his toes tingled. He tried to sit up and found the effort made him dizzy. When he lay down again he found himself unable to sleep, though too feverish to think clearly. Eventually he lapsed into a semi-waking delirium. All sense of time vanished, though at some point he was vaguely aware of Solender by his bedside, saying things Atyen couldn't understand. Chiding me, no doubt. Later he went through the cleaning process again, but though the pain was intense he felt strangely disconnected from it, as though he were merely watching the procedure happening to someone else. Some time after that an errander brought him soup, but he couldn't bring himself to swallow more than a couple of spoonfuls. By then the swelling had spread to his toes. They were numb now, and cold when he touched them with his other hand. Bellile examined him again and shook her head.

"It's going to have to come off. I'm sorry."

Atyen looked at her, not wanting to understand what he'd heard. "Not my leg. You can't."

"You'll die if I don't."

Bellile's expression was serious, and Atyen felt cold despair seep into his heart. "I'll be useless, what will I do?"

She smiled at him gently. "You're young and strong. You'll adapt."

He shook his head. "There must be something you can do. You can clean it again, I don't care how much it hurts."

"The honey wash is helping in the wound, but the contagion is moving beyond it, and the swelling is cutting off your circulation."

Atyen looked up at her, still not wanting to accept what she was saying. "There must be something," he repeated.

She looked at him for a long moment, considering. Finally she spoke. "I can try leeches."

"Leeches?"

"To keep blood moving through your leg. It's worked before." She paused. "It's failed before too."

"The worst that can happen is it won't work and I'll lose my leg, right?"

Bellile shook her head. "The worst that can happen is you'll die. Once the infection is in your blood, it spreads. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. With you it's slow, so far. That can change."

"I don't want to live without my leg, surgeon."

"I'll try. First I have to see if I can catch some leeches."

She went away and Atyen waited, exhausted. Eventually he slept and dreamed dreams too fragmented to even try to reconstruct. When he woke up she still wasn't there, but his foot felt funny. When he looked at it he recoiled in horror. There was a fat leech hanging from each toe, already noticeably distended. It took an effort to stop himself from reaching down to pull them off. He looked away and tried not to think about it, but even the thought of the bloodsuckers made him nauseous. Only a long time later did he realize that it was probably a good sign that his foot felt funny rather than numb. His lower leg was still swollen though, and the infected area was still spreading up past his knee. The next days passed in a blur. He was getting worse, he could tell, and once when he moved from fitful sleep to waking delirium he vaguely recalled a conversation where Bellile was again trying to convince him to let her amputate. He had to check to see if his leg was still there, though the throbbing pain should have told him at once. I'm not thinking clearly. The realization was distant, and he felt oddly unconcerned with the realization that he might well be dying. Sleep was his only respite, as shallow as it was.

He woke another time to find Bellile kneeling over him.

"Drink this," she told him, and held a cup to his lips. It was some kind of broth, and he sipped it.

"Am I going to keep my leg?"

She hesitated. "It's too late to amputate." Her pause, and her expressive face told him much more than her words.

"Am I going to live?"

"Drink this." She held the cup to his lips again to stave off more questions. Her eyes told him what her words held back.

He took a few more sips and fell back, exhausted by the effort. The feverish sleep returned, and he dreamed again of soaring, and of falling. At some point he became aware of the now-familiar stabbing pain in his leg and was blearily aware of bodies over him, holding him down. He tried to struggle and found he couldn't even do that. Eventually the pain faded to a distant numbness and the dreams returned. He awoke again, some timeless time later, to find himself drenched in sweat and chilled to the bone, shaking with cold and a deep down nausea that wrenched at his gut. He had lost all track of time, by bell or even the day. Sleeping and waking merged into a feverish blur and all he could do was wish for it to be over. Eventually he even stopped caring if he recovered or if he died, either would be a release from the nightmare he was now inhabiting.

Eventually his fever broke and he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. When he woke up he found Bellile bending over him, putting a cool cloth on his forehead.

"How are you feeling?"

Atyen tried to speak and found he couldn't. He swallowed hard and tried again, with better results. "I'm sore, and thirsty. Can I have some water?"

The surgeon nodded and went to a barrel in the corner of the room, and brought him back a mug full. He drank it down and gave it back for the surgeon to fill again. "How long have I been sleeping?"

"Three days. You had us worried for a while. Did you really jump off the forewall ledge?"

Atyen nodded, slowly and carefully so as not to worsen his headache. "Yes. I did." He considered explaining about his wings, but decided it would be too much effort. Let her think I'm crazy, she will anyway.

But whatever Bellile thought she kept to herself, as she deftly unwrapped the dressing on Atyen's calf. She manipulated it slowly, which made him wince. "Ouch."

"You're going to live," she told him. "And you're going to keep your leg."

"Are you sure?" he asked, surprised. He felt weak but clearheaded for the first time since the infection had taken hold.

"You'll walk with a limp, but you'll walk. Your fever is gone, the swelling is gone. I've taken off the leeches."

Atyen looked at his leg to see dark red scabs at regular intervals, where the bloodsuckers had been attached. The swelling in his calf had subsided, though it still throbbed painfully, and he didn't look too closely at the red mess where the injury was healing. "Thank you."

"It was a close thing." She untied his dressing to examine the wound. "It would have killed a lot of men. You have a strong heart." She moved up to look at Atyen's nose. "This is going to heal crooked, I'm afraid. Are you hungry?"

"Starving."

"I'll have some food brought in."

The surgeon finished her examination and went out, leaving Atyen to rest and run over his leap in his mind. Eventually an errander arrived with a rich broth of mutton and root vegetables. Atyen wolfed it down, suddenly realizing how hungry he was. The errander left and he slept again. That set the trend for the next days. He ate, slept, was examined, and all the while he fretted about the changes he wanted to make to his wings. On the first day he tried to get up and go back to Solender's studio, but his ankle was still broken and wouldn't take his weight. He considered crawling, but he wouldn't be able to work on his hands and knees and so abandoned the thought. Bellile had cut out almost half his calf muscle trying to halt the spread of infection, and it was all he could do to stand and support himself against the wall. His leg would give him trouble for the rest of his life . . . But I might not have had it at all. That evening meal he ate the first solid food he had since his fall, and Solender came to visit him.

"Look, I chose you because I thought you were smart. Now you're making me look foolish."

"I flew. I proved it could be done."

"You nearly killed yourself in the process. I've got a lot of years invested in teaching you to think. Good aspirants aren't so common that I can afford to lose one so easily."

"But—"

"But me no buts." Solender looked closer at Atyen's leg. "At least this will keep you on the ground, for a while." He took a thick sheaf of paper from his back bag. "Here, I brought you more tithesheets. You can make yourself useful while you heal."

Atyen sighed. "What do you need to know now?"

"I need to know why the horses died. They were work animals, not food animals, so they weren't all eaten."

"I wish I'd never heard of horses."

"Then we're even. I wish you'd never heard of peregrines."

"You could always forbid me from flying."

The Chief Inquisitor snorted. "I've already forbidden you from flying alone, but that didn't work. Will it work better if I forbid it outright? Burying you in tithesheets is the best I can do. I'm under no illusion that it'll stop you from throwing yourself off the forewall again, but at least I'll get some useful work out of you before you die."

"I won't die, I understand what went wrong."

"We all die, sooner or later. With you it's going to be sooner, if you don't learn that you shouldn't do dangerous things by yourself. What you think you understand is what's going to kill you." Solender dropped the tithesheets on Atyen's lap. "Consider this your penance."

Atyen started to protest, but found he had nothing to say. Solender was right, and the fact that he preferred to work on his own was little defense. He picked up the sheets. "I'll do my best," he said.

"You'd better."

Solender left, and Atyen reluctantly started working through the sheets. In two days Bellile declared him fit enough to leave, and with his calf still bandaged and walking with a staff, Atyen went back to Solender's studio. It was hard to see the wreckage of his wings, unceremoniously piled in a corner, with his blood still soaked into the torn fabric. He picked up the splintered mainspine, ran his fingers over the resin soaked sinew where the struts joined each other. None of his joints had failed in the crash, which meant they were stronger than the wood itself. He smiled to himself. This much was successful. Already he could see ways to improve his the design, a better tail was just the beginning. Soon! He turned away, looking at the mounted kites and the drawings in his corner of the workspace. His journal was in its place on his workshelf, and almost without thinking he sat down and opened it, dipped a pen in an ink jar, and sketched out a rough outline for the new tail. It was not what he should have been doing, and every time another aspirant came into the studio he found himself looking over his shoulder to see if it was Solender. I should be in the reading room. The work was so engrossing that it was hard even to stop for the length of time required to go to the tower, but he forced himself to. There was no need to annoy his doctrinor unnecessarily.

The stairs to the top of the tower were a challenge for his injured leg, and it occurred to him that it would be no more effort to climb to the forewall ledge that it was to go up the manuscript tower. I could get someone else to carry the wings. His injury wouldn't matter in the air, and bringing someone else would satisfy Solender's safety concerns, though if he crashed again he'd need help waiting on the ground, and not up on the forewall. He bit his lip, considering who he might ask for the favor. Corl, perhaps, or Alzin. Among the other aspirants in Solender's studio they were the ones most likely to be helpful, but even so the idea of asking for help made Atyen uncomfortable. And that's for the future. It was one thing to sneak sketches into his journal, but he knew Solender wouldn't let him build a new set of wings until he had made some significant progress on the question of horses. He finished his outline sketch of the new tail, and then, because he knew he'd be unable to concentrate on anything else until he had his ideas down, went over the mechanography of the wing slots. He could get more control by putting more flex into the outer trailing edge, without compromising the rigidity of the main structure.

When that was done he sighed and got down to the task at hand. Surprisingly he found it more engrossing than he might have thought. The mystery of what had become of the horses and cattles was compelling.

Since he couldn't fly, tracking down their story became Atyen's life. As he dug deeper into the archives he amassed a sizable pile of documentation to prove that they had existed. He'd discovered a great deal about cattle as well. Once they'd been used as meat beasts, like sheep and chickens, but on a much larger scale. Both horses and cattle also served as work animals, and horses in particular were far more powerful than goats. Solender went over his conclusions on the top floor of the manuscript tower, stroking his chin as he read.

"They're big," he said, when he came to the inked illustration in three views that had first impressed Atyen. "I didn't imagine they'd be so large."

"Perhaps even larger than they look, if people have grown smaller over time," Atyen said, recalling his conclusion about the stairs.

Solender nodded. "Perhaps. Why did they vanish?"

"Well, I've gone over the records." Atyen turned to his carefully annotated numbers. "There were more and more of them, at one point every farm in the world had dozens, and then all at once the numbers started dropping. In ten years they went from thousands to nothing. Once the last ones were gone . . ." He shrugged. "That was it."

"But why?"

"I don't know. Yet."

"Hmmph. How long did it take for the population to peak?"

Atyen ruffled through his pages, ran a finger down a column of numbers. "They were fairly stable for a long time, a hundred and twenty years before the crash is when they started increasing." He pursed his lips. "It's a pattern very close to your overpopulated mice, but over a much longer span of time."

Solender stroked his chin, thinking. "No, I don't think they're like the mice."

"Why not?"

"These are farm animals, not wild ones. If the population grew it's because people bred more of them. If the population fell it's because people bred less."

"Why would they breed fewer? They seem like such useful animals."

"I don't know." Solender paused again, thinking. "If there were as many of these things as they say there were, there must be bones somewhere."

Atyen's heart fell. "Finding them will take forever." And I'll never get to fly. . . . 

"Don't worry, my eager peregrine," Solender answered, reading his thoughts. "This is too big to leave in your hands. I'll have to convince the Law Council to help, and that's what's going to take forever. In the meantime, you can go flying again."

Atyen's heart leapt at his doctrinor's words, but Solender didn't let him off right away. First, he assigned him to look through the old property surveys the tithecounters mapped out to calculate their tithe calls. What he wanted him to find was a butcher's garbage pit in Charisy, one old enough to contain the bones of ancient horses and cattles. It was a clever idea and Atyen accepted the task uncomplainingly, both because he knew complaining would do him no good, and because he didn't expect it would be hard to find the site he was looking for. He did find it too, on a map fourteen hundred years old. What he hadn't expected to find was that Charisy itself was moving. On old maps the city was foreward of where it was now, and the older the maps the farther foreward it was. The motion was considerable, an average of two meters a year. It was a baffling finding. His first thought was that it was a social phenomenom, with people abandoning the poorer foreward districts and building on the aftward side of the city, but when he looked closer he saw that while the city's road network had grown, its core hadn't significantly changed in all that time. The only possible conclusion was that the roads themselves were moving along with the buildings, which in turn meant that the very ground had to be moving. And that's just crazy. Solender had drilled into him that in research an explanation that seemed too complex was probably wrong, and so he went up to the tithecounter's hall to find out how they were doing the measurements.

"It's simple enough," said the senior tithecounter, a tall, spare man with thinning grey hair and what looked to be permanent ink stains on his fingertips. "The surveyors can't be absolutely accurate, and we make allowances for that. Two meters on a kilometer section is an acceptable error."

"Yes, but it's two meters the same way each year," Atyen protested.

"The important thing is that the tithes come out properly," the tithecounter answered.

"But don't you see what this means? The ground can't be moving, you've got a systematic error in the way you do your surveys."

"Perhaps." The man looked at the maps Atyen had brought with him. His white and blue cross-sash was faded to the point that the colors were hard to distinguish in the dim light of the counter's hall. "I think these older ones are probably just badly done."

"Three kilometers badly done?"

"Perhaps. What we care about is how big a plot is, and what it's planted with. Whether it's located a little bit this way or that way is less important." The man's tone suggested that it was actually completely unimportant, and that Atyen was wasting his time. Technically Atyen's red-green cross-sash outranked his, but having an aspirant a third of his age question his methodology didn't sit well with him. "I can get you a surveyor to talk to if you like."

"I would," he said, and the tithecounter called over an errander, who took him to another part of the hall.

"The surveyors are usually out, there's only four of them," the errander told him, preparing him for dissappointment. There was a surveyor in though, bent over a workshelf, a woman in upper middle age, poring over a half-drawn map with a pair of dividers. She was happy, even eager, to show Atyen how her specialty worked. Her primary tool was what she called a measuring circle, a tripod with a wooden arm on top that moved around a scale disc inscribed with angles. The arm was equipped with small steel sighting tubes at either end, and it moved vertically against a second metal scale that measured its angle. A dangling weight was used to make sure it was level.

"You sight through the tubes to your reference point," the surveyor told him, and showed him the tables which converted angular measurements into linear distances. "Fore and aft we always use the point where the suntube intersects the foredome," "Spinward and antispinward is harder, because everything is referenced from the Inquisitory tower as a known fixed point, but most of the time you can't see it because of the mist, so we have to use intermediate points and triangulate."

"But the foredome curves inward a good kilometer. What do you do if you're foreward of its apex?"

"We work from known reference points, the same as we do for spinwise measurements. Fortunately we don't often have to, since no one farms that far foreward."

"And how accurate can you be?"

"It depends. Within five meters of where we think we should be is acceptable. Under a meter is good."

"What if the errors all come out the same way?"

"What do you mean?"

Atyen explained what he'd found and showed her the old survey maps. The surveyor looked surprised. "I'd have to see their data to know where they went wrong. It's hard to imagine a measurement error that big; it would be obvious you were out. It's probably a mistake in calculation."

"That large?"

"If they didn't check it."

"Every time, systematically?"

The surveyor shrugged. "What else could it be?"

Atyen nodded, and asked if he could borrow one of the instruments. The surveyor gave him one, and a brief demonstration on how to set it up, level it and take a sighting. She gave him a field map too, with all the most recent survey data on it. He thanked her and took it down and outside. The forewall mists were thick and chill, so he hiked aftward and out of them. His leg was still weak, and he was sore with the effort before he reached the forefields and a position where he could get a good angle on the suntube. He set up the measuring circle at the corner of a plowed field and the road, verifying on his survey map, levelled it and aimed the arm upwards to the foredome's apex.

The technique was trickier than it seemed. It was simple enough to take the sightings but when he sat down to do the calculations he found that no two measurements agreed. In two solid bells of experimentation he mostly learned that there was a great deal more skill involved in using the simple instrument than was readily apparent. After working through the math his errors in position were nowhere close to two meters, he was lucky to get within fifty. Frustrated, he sat down and unfurled the old maps of Charisy. Does it even matter? If the surveyors were wrong, they were wrong. If the horses were gone, they were gone. If people were taller in the past what possible impact could that have on the present? Solender was worried that an overcrowded humanity might vanish from the world as overcrowded mice vanished from a box, but was that a realistic possibility? Atyen lay down on his back and looked up at the patchwork of fields arching over the suntube. Not likely. People weren't mice. But in case they are, I have to waste time doing this. He let his imagination flow back to the exhilaration of his first flight, yearning to relive the experience. A gull flew overhead, and he sighed. He searched for a peregrine, but saw none.

* * * 

Jens was a fisher, used to the water and the docks and the market in Tidings. He had never been even as far as Charisy, and he found the bustling city with its looming buildings and crowded, narrow streets intimidating. Even before he reached the bridge that marked the edge of the city proper the trading road was jammed, handcarts and pedestrians competing for space on the rough-cobbled roads, and the surrouding fields were overflowing with the improvised shelters of those who had nowhere else to go. He avoided them as much as he could, turned onto a side street as soon as he was into the city. It was a longer route, but there were fewer people and Jens felt more comfortable out of the crowd. Charisy was most prosperous on the aftward side, less so on the foreward side, and the streets grew narrower and the houses smaller as he went. Beggars were common, many of them drunk, and groups of young toughs stood in doorways, sizing up passersby. He walked quickly through them, avoiding eye contact as he passed people on the road. Soon enough he was through the city, and he breathed out unconsciously as he again found his feet on the trading road going foreward. The suntube vanished behind the forewall overcast, and the looming steel of the Inquisitory was intimidating as he drew closer. It was ringed by a low, grass-covered mound, too regular to be accidental, although he couldn't see why anyone would go to the effort to build it. An array of strange machinery filled the grassy courtyard before the main structure, and he kept his distance from it. Sentinels seemed to be everywhere, and he'd seen far too many of them since the attack on Sarabee. Though the case was clearly one of self defense the entire process of inquisition had been nerve wracking.

But here I am . . . He took a deep breath, and walked through the huge door that was the main entrance to the steel structure. It led to an impressive antechamber, framed in heavy wooden beams. There was a workshelf there, behind it sat a sentinel, a middle-aged woman with the red and white cross-sash of a watchkeeper.

"Your business?" she asked, her face betraying her skepticism that a fisher could have any business at all in the Inquisitory.

"I'm here for Atyen Horun," he told her, trying to sound as if he came to the Inqisitory all the time. Two more sentinels, blade armed, stood by the inner door.

Her eyebrows went up. "Oh? And who is he?"

"An inquisitor," Jens hesitated, unsure of the protocols of address. "Or rather, he's an aspirant."

"An aspirant?" The sentinel's already low assessment of Jens fell visibly. "Is he expecting you?"

"No, but he said to come if—"

She cut him off with a gesture. "Your name?"

"Jens. Jens Madane." The other sentinels were looking on with interest now, and Jens felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. I shouldn't have come. A fisher had no place in the halls of power.

"A moment," the woman said, and consulted some papers on her workshelf. After a moment she shook her head. "You aren't listed."

"But . . ."

"I'm afraid the aspirants are very busy. You can apply for an audience at the Hall of Inquisition in your parish." The tone of her voice told Jens the matter was closed.

But I've come all this way. Something told Jens that pleading wouldn't work. "He gave me this," he said, taking Atyen's message ball from a pocket and showing it to the woman. He felt embarrassed as he did, expecting her to laugh at his pathetic attempt to establish some kind of authority for his visit with a little wooden trinket. But it's marked with the shield and blade, and it's all I've got.

The sentinel's eyes widened as she took it from him, widened more as she examined it. "Where did you get this?"

"I told you, Atyen gave it to me."

"This is the Chief Inquisitor's mark," she said. There was suspicion in her voice, but Jens could sense that something had changed in his favor.

"Atyen gave it to me," he answered with more confidence. "He said to show it if I ever needed to see him." Not quite true, but close enough.

"I see." The woman gave the message ball back reluctantly. "Come with me."

She led Jens past the other sentinels and into the next room. There were benches in the entry area, and she gestured to them. "Wait here." Her tone was brusque. She wanted Jens to know she respected the ball's authority, not his.

But that doesn't matter, I'm here. I'll see Atyen. Jens went over and sat while the watchkeeper called over an errander. The errander bustled off and Jens settled himself to watch the world as it came to the Inqisitory. Almost everyone who came through the door wore a cross-sash: erranders, waterkeepers, full and half inquisitors, even his own tithecounter. They all seemed busy, going past the sentinels with only a cursory nod and then disappearing into the depths of the Inqisitory. None paid him any attention, which was fine with Jens. Especially the tithecounter. His last hauls hadn't been all that he had hoped, but he had tithed on even less. He'd gotten away with it . . . And a man has to feed his family. Still, it hadn't been a comfortable feeling, especially while he was under inquisition over the attack. He took a deep breath to relax himself, and remind himself that Atyen had promised to keep any transgression secret. He waited through two bells at least, and then the watchkeeper called him over.

"Errander Rote will take you in," she said. "Aspirant Horun is in the manuscript tower." She indicated a short, plump man with a yellow errander's sash across his chest.

The man bowed slightly. "Come with me," he said.

Jens followed him down a corridor and back out of the gallery, down a path and into the looming bulk of the huge structure. Inside it was hushed, and he was led up a set of spiraling stairs, past quiet, curtained spaces and rooms full of shelved manuscripts. On the top floor were large windows covered in waxed flax, and tables with aspirants poring over manuscripts. Atyen looked up when Jens came in. A smile spread over his face, but he put a finger to his lips.

"We have to be quiet here," he whispered. "We'll talk downstairs." He picked up a staff from the floor and led Jens back down a flight. He was walking with a limp and used the staff to help himself with the stairs, something Jens had never seen before. On the floor below were a series of small rooms, set around the outside of the tower. Each was just large enough for a table and four chairs. Atyen ushered Jens into one of them and closed the door behind them.

"We can talk here without disturbing anyone." He embraced Jens. "My friend, I'm glad you came."

"What happened to your leg?"

Atyen laughed. "I tried to fly. How is Sarabee? You must have a newborn by now."

"Three months old, a boy." Despite his discomfort Jens couldn't help but smile as he thought of Jerl. "She's well, Atyen, very well, but we've had trouble."

"Trouble? Tell me."

Jens swallowed hard, and told his friend about the invasion of his home. "The inquisitors from Tidings are investigating," he finished. "I'm worried what might happen."

"What might happen?" Atyen registered surprise. "They try to rape your wife, a woman who'd just given birth. They try to kill you in your own home. They'll get fourteen years servitude if they're lucky. You have nothing to worry about."

"I worry anyway. One of them is the son of the reeve of Tidings."

"So? The reeve has no influence on an inquisition."

"That's the way it's supposed to be, but I'm not convinced, Atyen. The reeve has power, and Sarabee has been so upset, and . . ." He hesitated, reluctant to tell Atyen everything, even though that's exactly what he had come so far to do. ". . . and I don't want a tithe collector looking too closely."

Atyen nodded slowly, biting his lip, and Jens fretted while his friend thought.

"What can I do?" Atyen asked at last.

"Can you come?"

The scholar smiled. "I'll come, Jens. Of course I'll come."

Jens bit his lip, suddenly sorry he'd asked. "I'll understand if you don't, I didn't know . . ." He made a gesture.

"About my leg? You couldn't know, and it's mostly healed anyway. The surgeon says walking is the best thing I can do."

"I'm grateful, Atyen."

"I promised I'd visit more last time I came. It's about time I made good on that." Atyen paused. "I want to say though . . . there's nothing I can really do, to help I mean. Only the Chief Inquisitor can change a verdict."

"But he's your doctrinor . . ."

"Which only means I work for him. He doesn't take my counsel on law. Or on anything. I take his, or at least I'm supposed to."

Atyen laughed the way he did when he'd told a joke meant only for himself, and Jens nodded. "I'd still like you to come, Atyen. Sarabee is beside itself, she'd feel better you were there."

"And I will, of course. I'm still shocked."

"You asked me to watch for anything strange. This is it. Fights are common enough. Young men . . ." He shrugged. "Well, fights were common when we were young too, but to break into a man's home and . . . and . . ." Jens closed his mouth, unable to finish.

"And try to rape his wife in front of his children, his newborn. And one of them the son of the reeve." Atyen shook his head. "You're right, this isn't a good sign."

"There's been more. I mean, nothing like this, but Tidings is full of young men with not enough to do. They go around looking for work; when they don't find it sometimes they steal, sometimes they fight. Sometimes they kill each other. It's just what you said last time. I hadn't noticed before, but after you left I started thinking. Things are changing. People don't trust each other as much, people don't share the way they used to. This . . . incident . . . I never had to bar my door before, but now Sarabee can't sleep if I don't. To tell the truth, I can't either."

"Mice."

"What?" Jens looked at him, not understanding.

"Nothing. Or rather, nothing definite. It seems people don't react well to being overcrowded. You said those boys asked Sarabee for food when they came to your door."

"They did."

"I can't speak for the other two, but the reeve's son wasn't missing any meals, I'll guarantee that."

"So what were they doing? I mean, other than the obvious."

"I don't know, but I need to find out. Tell me about your tithing."

"There's little to tell. There's only so many carp, my family is growing." Jens shrugged. "I won't see my children go hungry. Would you ask me to?"

"You know I wouldn't. But tell me, why did you choose to have more children when you were already struggling?"

Jens hesitated, not sure he wanted to share the intimacies of his marriage even with Atyen. But he needs to know, and so I have to tell him. "Sarabee wanted them," he answered. "I wanted to stop at two."

"Do you know why she wanted more?"

Jens shrugged. "She likes children. Who am I to tell her she can't have them?"

"Did you talk about how many you could support?"

"We did . . . or at least I did, but . . . well, you may remember how determined she can be when she decides she's going to do something."

"Like a force of nature." Atyen nodded. "I remember."

"I don't want you to get the wrong idea. We didn't fight about it. I love her, I love our children, she wanted a boy and I did too. I wouldn't trade one of them away. It's just . . ."

"It's just that four is a lot," Jens finished for him.

"Four is a lot to feed. It isn't so large for a family anymore. I know some with eight."

"Eight?" Atyen registered surprise. "How can anyone manage . . ."

"I don't know, but they do."

Atyen nodded slowly. "I should have expected that. The population is going up, somebody's got to be having more children." A wry smile crossed his face. "And I thought I had too many brothers. At least you've only got one son."

"That's not so important for fishers. We don't have land to divide."

"Are you having more children?"

"No, we're done, Sarabee and I agreed on that. Do you think we could really run out of food?" Jens asked. "I mean, not just one family but all of us."

"I don't know." Atyen paused, thinking. "We keep producing more food on less land, but there's got to be a limit somewhere. It isn't going to happen next year. Maybe something will change and it won't happen ever, but it's our job to think about these things. When's the inquisition being held?"

"Next week. But if it's troublesome . . ."

"I already said I would come. In truth I think I need to. It's not the best timing, but friendship and duty are both calling, and it gives me an excuse to get out of here."

Jens nodded. "What did you do to your leg, Atyen, really?"

"I tried to fly."

Jens gave his friend a look, and Atyen laughed. "No joke. I'll show you my wings."

Jens laughed with him. "Even Noah couldn't fly."

"He flew, and he fell. So did I." Atyen smiled ruefully. "Fortunately, I didn't fall too hard."

"What, you just flapped your wings and . . . ?"

"They aren't flapping wings. No, I jumped off the forewall ledge."

Jens shook his head. "I can never decide if you're brilliant or just crazy."

"Neither can I." A strange smile came across Atyen's face. "But I flew, Jens. I really flew."

"And nearly crippled yourself. You need a good woman, Atyen, she'd keep you grounded." Jens laughed at his inadvertent pun. "Both ways."

"You know inquisitors can't marry."

Jens shook his head. "You work so hard, and for what? To live under a bunch of rules that make it impossible to enjoy what you've worked so hard for. I've never understood that."

"It keeps the Inquisition honest. People with no children have no reason to bias the law." Atyen laughed. "Or at least that's the theory."

"I mean, I've never understood why you chose it."

"I used to think I knew. Now I think I was fooling myself, but I'm here now. And I really did get to fly." Atyen smiled. "I have some things to do here, but I'll be down tomorrow, or the day after at the latest." He stood up and put a hand on Jens's shoulder. "Don't worry. The reeve has no influence. It's going to be fine."

"I hope so." Jens bit his lip, relieved that Atyen was coming and at the same time reminded of the source of his worry.

"It's going to be fine."

"Maybe this time." Jens shook his head. "What kind of world are my children going to grow up in?"

"A good one. The Chief Inquisitor is the smartest man I know, and he's taking this seriously." Atyen smiled encouragingly. "The world's been around a long time. It isn't going anywhere in a hurry."

Jens nodded, finding relief in the words. "You're right, it's just . . ." He hesitated, unsure if he should say what he was about to say. "It's different when you have a family."

"I'm sure it is," answered Atyen. "I'm glad you came, Jens. It's good to see you."

Jens stood up. "It's good to see you too." He embraced the scholar. "Thank you, Atyen."

 

The meeting chamber of the Chief Inquisitor was a space from another time, with its heavy, polished oak table and elaborately embroidered wall quilts. Ek Solender ran a hand over its surface, polished to a high sheen by the sleeves and parchments of generations of inquisitors, and contemplated the symbolism of the ancient surface. The table was round, its top made from jointed slabs quartersawn a meter and a half across. What problems had his predecessors faced as they sat around it? Unrest in the population, plagues of mice and plagues of grain-fail, the enforcement of law and the changing of it, the ambitions of the powerful and the failings of the weak, and certainly problems he couldn't dream of. At some point some long forgotten Chief Inquisitor had gathered counsel because the last cattle had died, and the last horse. Whatever solution they had come up with, they hadn't been able to resurrect the dead.

But the world had carried on, and if it hadn't arrived at Heaven, neither had it descended into Hell. The problems had been adapted to, if not solved. Perhaps it's only the human condition that solving one problem simply uncovers another. Solender took his place to wait for the arrival of the others. His chair was the same as all the others, there was no ornamentation to mark him as first among equals; it was considered unseemly for inquisitors to make much of their rank. Still, he sat at the head of the table, and nobody was in any doubt as to his position. There was a subtlety there, one Solender hadn't recognized until he had joined the law council himself and learned the delicate game of power. A rank symbol had to be large enough to be recognized and no larger, and by downplaying the importance of the symbol the Inquisition only magnified the stature of the man who held the position.

His senior inquisitors filtered in and took their places, an errander came in to pour tea. Solender waited until they were all assembled, and then held up his hand for silence.

"We face a problem," he said. The assembled senior inquisitors listened attentively. "It's very simple. We either find a way to deal with our population, or we preside over the end of the Second Inquisition, and perhaps of humanity. . . ."

"I object to those words," Inquisitor Vesene harrumphed. "We know humanity started with the builders, and for all we know they built more worlds than ours. It's overdramatic to claim we'll see the end of the human race."

Solender looked at him, annoyed at the interruption. Vesene was a man who'd gained his position through diligence rather than brilliance, and he was a man who was determined to be the next Chief Inquisitor. "Overdramatic? Forgive me my sin, inquisitor. I'll take comfort in knowing that when every single person between the aftwall and the forewall is dead, then perhaps some other people in some other place might yet live on. Will you feel better if I confine my remarks to the fall of the Inquisition?"

"Accuracy is important," Vesene said, somewhat defensively. "It's the heart of knowledge."

"I'll try to be more accurate then," Solender answered, then turned his attention back to the table. "The mathematics are simple. Every year we have more people and less food. What happens when we can't feed everyone? That's a question I don't want to answer. Which means the question we must answer is, how can we stop that from happening?"

"What's your evidence?" asked Inquisitor Cela Joss, looking up from her worksheaf.

"I've had one of my aspirants digging through the records. He's found quite a lot of interesting information. First thing, there are entire species of food animal that have vanished. Second thing, for a thousand years at least the population has been stable, until the last three generations. I suspect it's been stable far longer than that, but that's as far back as we've gone, so far."

"That's hardly evidence," said Joss, pressing her lips together.

"Look around you. There are more people alive today than there have ever been."

"And so what if there are?" put in Vesene.

"So what? We can only grow so much food on a tare, inquisitor. It was hunger that ended the First Inquisition. A great hunger. Look here." Solender slid his worksheaf down the smooth tabletop. "This is what my aspirant has found. That creature on the top is called a horse. They're huge beasts, as big as five men, maybe ten."

Vesene picked up the sheaf before Joss could, looked at the drawing, put it down. "What are you talking about? There's no such creature." His tones were dismissive.

"Not anymore. They were all eaten. So was that beast on the bottom. It was called a cattle, and they were once farmed by the thousands. Turn the page."

Vesene gave Solender a look, he didn't like being told what to do by the man he wanted to replace, but he had no reason to object, and so he did.

"The chart shows food production, and the census figures, and the number of horses and cattle," Solender went on. "The period straddles the time of the collapse of the First Inquisition."

"The First Inquisition fell when the suntube went out," Joss put in. She didn't add any fool knows that. Her tone said it for her.

Solender hadn't expected such immediate resistance to what he was presenting. But Vesene is ambitious and Joss is his leashed badger. They couldn't demonstrate their leadership by agreeing with what the Chief Inquisitor said. But if they want to look like fools, I can help them do that. He took a deep breath, sipped his tea to calm himself. "And what happened when the suntube went out?" he asked.

"People panicked. It started the lineage war."

"So say the histories, but that's not quite right. Look at the numbers. The suntube went out and the crops failed. People went hungry, their animals went hungry. The horses went first. They were for work, not meat, so they were starved to feed the cattle, but the cattle didn't last much longer. The orchards died, the seedstock got eaten, and suddenly there were more people than the land could support. They fought, and the fighting got in the way of farming. Maybe they ate each other. Half the population died in three years, and the Inquisition fell."

"And rose again," Vesene said. "It couldn't have been so bad, they were still keeping records. I see a lot of numbers. I don't see any proof." He passed the worksheaf down the table. Having touched it and found it wanting he had no further use for it. "For myself, I find the war explanation enough for the death rate."

"Then look closer," Solender rejoined. "Don't you see, starvation and war go hand-in-hand."

"I don't believe it. There are more people alive today than there were then, far more. We aren't starving. And unless you're predicting the suntube will go out again, I don't see what the problem is."

"People were larger then, and they shared the world with these huge animals. Maybe there were other factors as well. And our problem isn't the suntube, and it isn't the absolute numbers, it's the rate of growth. We're going to hit a limit. I don't know what it is, I do know we're closing in on it. Fast."

"With all respect," Vesene answered in a tone that carried no respect whatsoever. "I think you're exaggerating. But even if your conjecture has any weight, what are you proposing we do? Ban women from having children?"

"If necessary." Solender pursed his lips.

"If necessary?" Vesene was incredulous. "You've lost your mind. If anything can start a war, that will."

"You'd rather see mass starvation?"

"If I can interrupt . . ." Inquisitor Norlan Renn stood up. "I'm just a builder, I don't know much about crops and tithes, but this is a serious problem, if it's happening, and the solution will be equally serious, if it's necessary. I don't know if I'm convinced by your evidence, Chief Inquisitor, but with such a weighty issue I can't see how we can ignore it."

"What are you saying?" Vesene broke in before Solender could answer.

Renn turned to face him. "That we should study the problem and such prudent action as the results call for. We're inquisitors. We judge on facts, not emotions."

"Thank you, Renn," Solender said, relieved to have some support.

"Emotions, there's nothing here but emotion," Vesene said contemptuously. "I don't see a single fact, nothing but raw conjecture."

Solender sighed. "I think that common sense—"

"Common sense tells me that you've lost yours," Vesene snapped.

Solender stood up, his jaw clenching. "Inquisitor Vesene, I am the Chief Inquisitor, and if you are unwilling to accept what I am bringing before the council today, I expect you, at a minimum, to pay me and your fellows the respect of listening. I don't pretend to have all the answers, I don't pretend to even fully understand the problem, but I know it exists. As Inquisitor Renn says, we would be remiss in our duty if we ignored it."

"We'll be strung up on crosses if we try to stop people from having babies." Vesene pursed his lips. "Every sentinel in the world couldn't save us." He stood up as well. "You come in here with stories of mythical beasts, and you expect us to believe you? You come in here with wild tales of war? It's been twelve hundred years since the First Inquisition fell. Justice brings peace, we all know that. I can think of nothing less just than to deny people their children."

"Study the problem," Solender pointed at the worksheaf that Vesene had discarded. "You're an inquisitor, so inquire, and then tell me there's no danger. I have a bright young man from the shorefields who tells me that things are getting critical down there. The average size of a farmhold has fallen to a quarter tare, the smallest are barely an eighth."

"I've got enough inquiry to do on my own. Have one of your aspirants do it."

Solender took a deep breath, and forced himself to sit down and take some more tea before he spoke again. When he did his voice was level. "I've already done that. That's the work I just put in front of you, if you'd condescend to read it. It shows that we have a food crisis coming in our near future. That's why I'm sharing my concerns with you now."

"And yet no one is going hungry," Joss put in.

"I've got beggars in Charisy," said Torr Toorman, Inquisitor-in-Chief for the city. "I've got organized gangs stealing food in the market. The reeve has been pushing me to hand out grain."

"Even the towns do," put in the Inquisitor-in-Chief for Tidings. "I need grain or more sentinels." His colleague from Blessed nodded in assent.

"Some harvests are better than others, that's not news," said Joss. "That's why we have granaries."

"And we're going to be living on them soon." Solender gave her a look and turned back to Toorman. "What's your assessment?"

"The food gangs create shortages sometimes, but the sentinels will handle them. I don't think we need to start handouts yet."

"And tithes, Cela?"

"They've fallen, but you know that." Joss looked annoyed. She didn't want to have to admit a point that supported her ally's rival.

"You remember the corn blight," said Vesene. "This is creating a problem out of nothing. You're losing your focus, Ek Solender."

"Crop failure is not the same as not being able to grow enough crops." Solender bit his lip and stood up again. There was nothing to be gained by arguing. "Now, I did not come here to get entangled in a debate over whether or not this is happening. I came here so we can start working on solutions. If I'm wrong, it won't cost us anything but a little time. If I'm right, then we owe it to our people to have a plan in place before it's too late. I want proposals on how we can effectively deal with this." He turned to Joss. "Inquisitor, I'm putting you in charge of the effort. Everyone else, have your work in to Joss for next month's counsel." He gave the assembled inquisitors a brief nod, pick up the last of his tea and drained it. "I'll leave you to it."

He turned and left, as the room burst into babbling behind him. Vesene's voice rose over the others, though he couldn't hear what the man was saying. He's ambitious, and he's going to be trouble. He allowed himself a small smile. It had been a slap in Vesene's face to appoint Joss over him, and strategically clever to put the leashed badger in charge of getting results. The Inquisitory was supposed to be devoted to justice and knowledge, and inquisitors were carefully separated from worldly temptations in order to keep their efforts focused on those lofty goals, but it would take more than merely human laws to separate vanity and ambition from the human spirit. He found his heart pounding harder than it should have been from the encounter, and his face flushed as he climbed the steel stairs to his quarters. He was out of breath by the time he reached the top, his chest heaving with the effort of inhaling. His throat tightened and he coughed, inhaled again, and he still needed air. He fell to his knees, clutching at his chest with one hand, trying to hold himself up with the other. He heard someone yelling, but couldn't understand the words. He looked up and saw feet, legs, a person, and he realized he was lying on the ground, with no understanding of how he'd gotten there. He tried to ask for help but he couldn't make his lips move. There was a ringing in his ears, and his vision faded to black. He felt hands on him, turning him over, and then nothing.

 

On the day of Jens's inquiry, Atyen yawned and stretched and rose from his narrow bed. He went over to push the shutters open a notch, and blinked as the suntube light streamed into the small room. The room had once been his niece's, and a child's rabbit bow and a set of carved dolls still adorned the shelf by the window. He could have stayed at the Inquisition in Tidings Parish. He chose instead to stay with Boreas, his oldest brother. It was important to avoid any appearance of interfering with the process of the inquiry on this visit, and for the same reason he couldn't stay with Jens and Sarabee, as much as he would've liked to.

Not that it's a bad thing to spend time with family, but . . . Boreas was sixteen years older than Atyen, and they'd never been close. Boreas's children were grown, or nearly so and had their own lives. He and his wife were preoccupied with their oldest, who had just been married and was expecting her own first child. It wasn't that Atyen was unwelcome, but neither did he fit into the household particularly well. You choose your friends, but you're stuck with your relations. Not for the first time he wondered why his parents had decided on another child when they had barely the land to support the ones they had. Perhaps there had been a shortage of bloodberries, the year he had been born. Perhaps if there hadn't been, he never would have been conceived.

But there's no point in speculating over that. He dressed quickly, went into the kitchen and had a sparse breakfast of heavy olive bread and cheese, washing it down with clay-filtered water. Boreas and his wife were still asleep, and he was careful to close the door softly on his way out. It was a full bell's walk to the Hall of Inquisition in Tidings, and his leg still ached after the long hike from the forewall. As he walked he was struck by the number of small houses, really no more than shacks of bamboo and waxed flax, that had sprung up along the narrow dirt road. Fields were subdivided by makeshift fences, sometimes just by piled dirt. It was nothing like the misery outside of Charisy, but it reeked of temporary expedience translated into long-term desperation. Too many people, not enough land.

He eventually arrived at Tidings. The town had spilled over its boundaries, and a whole other ring of houses now surrounded it, though at least these were better built and better cared for. How it's changed since I've been gone! Young children were everywhere, laughing and running around in the hour before school like the dove flocks at the thresh mill. Groups of teenagers clustered here and there, avoiding adults in their quest to leave childhood. The adults paid him no attention, but there was an undercurrent of suspicion beneath their indifference. He passed into the more established part of town, where the buildings were respectable resined-brick and even timber. The people there were better dressed and the suspicion faded. As he came through the market with its cajoling vendors and bustling customers he felt he had finally come back to the world he had known, but the impression the outskirts had left lasted. Solender's mice, overcrowded and dysfunctional. It might be worth it to try the mouse experiment again, just to see how crowded the mice got before they went crazy. But people aren't mice, aren't mice, aren't mice.

The Tidings Inquisition was old, built of huge beams and weathered brick that had been re-resined so many times you could hardly distinguish the individual bricks. The blade-and-shield sigil of the Inquisitory was cut into the wall on either side of the entrance, its offer of protection and promise of justice inherent. Inside, the main hall was simply appointed, with wooden benches for the public facing three long tables for inquisitors for the accused, for the accuser, and for the judgment. The hall was empty, and he went to the back and through a door to the offices there. Two sentinels and an errander looked up when he came in, but none of the inquisitors were in. That was fine with Atyen. To call on them was an expected courtesy, but before he spoke with any of them he wanted to understand the details of the inquiry. He asked the errander for the documents, and the functionary rummaged around on his workshelf, finally producing a leather sheaf-fold embossed with the Inquisitory seal. Atyen took an empty workshelf and sat down to read.

The picture laid out in the docket was simple enough. There was a surgeon's report on the youth Sarabee had killed, which detailed only the extent of his wounds and the fact that he died of them without drawing further conclusion. Atyen was taken aback as he read. It's hard to imagine Sarabee killing a man like this. Jens hadn't gone into those details when he'd told his story. But the next document was Sarabee's narrative, as told to the inquisitor-of-fact, and it confirmed what the surgeon had found. The gang leader was the reeve's son, and his narrative claimed that he and his friends had gone to the house looking for work and had been attacked without warning by Jens. Unfortunately for his testimony the inquisitor-of-fact had asked the same questions of the third youth, the one who'd run away, and he'd told a tale that supported what Sarabee and Jens had said. The reeve of Tidings had put in a defense of his son but despite Jens's concerns it would have little impact on the outcome of the inquisition. The facts speak for themselves. The gang leader would be put in servitude, quite probably for the rest of his life. His acolyte might get away with less. Atyen put his hand to his chin as he read over the young men's statements. The inquisitor had pressed them on the motive behind the attack, but neither one had been able to provide one. Violence at random, violence for its own sake.

He didn't like that conclusion, so he went back to reread the gang leader's narrative. The boy's name was Mial. As he read he tried to find some clue that would hint at the root of the violence, but there was nothing. The inquisitor-of-fact had done a workmanlike job of getting the pertinent information, but had gone no deeper. Atyen pushed the papers away. He's the first son of the reeve. Mial could expect a good inheritance, and perhaps to follow in his father's footsteps as the community's leader. He had far more to lose than gain with his crime. So why would he do it? Even Mial didn't know. Solender's mice again. Overcrowded mice couldn't know the self-destructive nature of their behavior, but if somehow they could have, could they've been changed in order to stave off collapse? Atyen bit his lip. It's possible that a problem has no solution. It was a rule he'd learned in mathematics, but it applied to human society as well.

"Young Atyen, welcome back."

Atyen looked up to see the Tidings' inquisitor-in-chief come in. He was a broad-shouldered man with a bluff, direct manner, and Atyen remembered him from the time he had come to the town to write his first inquisitorial test. He'd been sixteen years old then, and the senior inquisitor had seemed all powerful, all-knowing, almost godlike in the way he casually wore the position that Atyen longed so much to achieve. The intervening years had grayed him and thickened his frame but otherwise he seemed unchanged.

"I'm surprised you remember me," said Atyen as he rose to greet the older man.

"I never forget a shorefields face." The inquisitor stepped back and looked Atyen over. "I hear you're aspirant to Solender himself. Well done."

"I've been lucky." Atyen collected the inquiry documents back into their docket. "I've come down to watch this inquiry." He hesitated, not sure how much he should say. "Jens Madane is an old friend."

"Well, let's talk about it."

Atyen went over the details of the docket with the senior inquisitor, still hoping for some insight into the underlying motivation for the attack, but the inquiry simply hadn't gone in that direction. Still, as they talked it became clear that the senior inquisitor had first-hand experience with the changes that were so troubling Solender. Nobody was going hungry, but people were working more for less. The attack on Sarabee was just one of a dozen acts of seemingly random violence that had cropped up over the past year: a fisher family beaten and their house burned, a cloth merchant killed in the sleeping hours by a trio of girls he caught trying to steal his wares only hours before.

"What do you think of it?" he asked the older man.

"I've been around a long time. All I can say is, some are born good, some are born bad. I used to try to save the bad ones, show them what was right." He shook his head. "I can't say that I saved many. Now . . ." The inquisitor looked away. ". . . now I just get the facts, the law and find the sentence." He laughed. "Which is the nature of the Inquisition, after all. It's the clergy's business to know what's in people's hearts."

"But this kind of thing didn't happen when I was growing up."

The old inquisitor laughed. "You forget fast, young man. I can remember when you and your friend were brought in here, all bruised and bloody nosed over some scrap. These boys just took it a little too far."

"But . . ." Atyen stopped. To him it was obvious that something important was changing. When he was growing up the fights had been between youths. They sorted out who stood where in the hierarchy of adolescent toughness, and they had stopped when the point was made. These new assaults were by the young against the old, and people got badly hurt or even died, for gains that seemed almost irrelevant. He was surprised that the senior inquisitor hadn't noticed the same pattern, and he felt some sadness in realizing that this man he'd so revered when he was younger stood revealed as—only a man. He was well suited to overseeing his rough-and-tumble bailiwick, but he was completely lacking in imagination. The reality was that the Chief Inquisitor didn't send his best and brightest to administer law in the farthest reaches of the shorefields.

An errander brought them a late breakfast, with thickened goat's milk and bread still warm from the baker's oven, and they paused to eat.

Atyen knew better than to ask what judgement the senior inquisitor was considering in the upcoming inquiry, and the conversation turned to other things. At the end of the meal the other man excused himself to go and start his preparations.

Atyen went to meet Jens and Sarabee. He hiked down to the water and turned along the shore road towards Jens's dock. The ocean was dotted with jaunty rafts, and the water's edge was crowded close with net-hangers and smokesheds. He passed a landed net-raft, and exchanged a nod with the fishers. They were busily splitting their catch, tossing the entrails into the bait-sluice and hanging the gutted fish on the drying rack. Gulls swirled overhead, calling and chattering as they squabbled over a floating fish-head, and the pervasive odor of dried carp filled the air. They might have been suspicious of his cross-sash, there was none of the overt hostility that there had been in the outskirts of Tidings. And yet . . . Jens had all but told him that there were fishers withholding their tithe. That only made sense if catches had fallen. There were a lot of rafts on the water. How many fish can there be in the ocean? There would be an answer in the tithesheets, or least an approximation of one. Atyen pushed the thought away. He had no desire to go back to the manuscript tower to dig through more dusty documents.

He walked slowly to favor his injured leg, and it took a bell before he came to Jens's dock. The net-raft wasn't there, and Atyen bit his lip. It wouldn't be good for his friend to be late for the inquiry. He turned up the foreword path to Jens's house and quickened his pace. When he arrived his friend wasn't there either, but Sarabee was.

"Atyen!" she called when she saw him. "I've been waiting."

"Where's Jens? The inquiry is today."

"He's taking the children over to Celese's. He'll meet us at the inquisition."

"The raft isn't there."

"We took it up to the sailsmith in Cove. It's been needing some work, and we can't fish today." Sarabee's voice held a buried tension, and Atyen squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.

"You'll be fishing tomorrow, don't worry."

"Did you talk to the inquisitor?"

"I've seen the docket, and you've got nothing to worry about."

"I hope so." Sarabee breathed in and out, looked down at the ground. "I'm worried, Atyen. What if we get servitude? Who's going to look after the children?"

"You won't get servitude."

Sarabee looked up, with a vulnerability in her eyes that Atyen had never seen before. For a moment he thought he should hug her, to give her the physical reassurance of his presence, but he wasn't sure if the gesture would be welcome. The moment passed. A faint peal sounded in the distance, and a louder peal answered it from the direction of Tidings, the mid-day bell. "Well," he said. "We should get going."

They walked in silence, Sarabee tense and Atyen feeling not much use. He wanted to tell her of his triumph at the forewall, of the success of his flight, but somehow it didn't seem to be the time. He groped for something supportive to say, but everything he came up with seemed empty. Sarabee had killed a man, and however justified it was, however clear the case for self defense was, the upcoming inquiry worried her. Atyen sensed there was little point in explaining the difference between the reeve, polled in by the people to manage the community, and the inquisitors, selected by the order to oversee the laws.

The Hall of Inquisition had been a church once upon a time, and though most of the trappings of religion were long gone from the echoing space there remained a towering ironwood cross on the far wall. It was actually part of the structure, an extension of the support beams that held the roof up, and a stark reminder that the inquisition had once scourged the body as well as the mind. Jens was there waiting, and Atyen looked away when Sarabee went to embrace him. Eight sentinels stood at the back of the room, ready to act on the inquisitor-in-chief's word. An older couple sat in the back, dressed in severe and simple clothing, but most of the long wooden benches were empty. The only people who cared about the inquiry were the protagonists. Atyen took a seat with Jens and Sarabee in the front right row, and watched as the other inquisitors busied themselves with their worksheaves, preparing to present their findings. There was a brief bustle at the door and four more sentinels came in, with the accused attackers between them. Behind him came their families, including the reeve with his own erranders in attendance. The young men didn't look as dangerous as Jens had described them, they looked callow in their youth, and frightened.

"You didn't tell me they were being held in circumscription," Atyen whispered to Jens.

"I didn't know. What does that mean?"

Atyen looked at his friend, but the question was serious. "It means the inquisitor-in-chief considers them a danger."

Sarabee breathed out slowly. "I'm just glad to see they're under guard." Jens took her hand.

The youths were seated in the front left row, and the reeve sat behind them, with his erranders beside him and his wife in the row behind that. The other boy's parents and some others who seemed to be siblings and friends took the rows behind that. Once they'd settled, the inquisitor-in-chief's senior aspirant stood up and called for attention. The room quieted, and the inquisitor-of-fact began his presentation, going over the chronology of the events as it had been presented to him by the concerned parties, as well as the surgeon's report and his own findings. When the stories had been told, the inquisitor-of-law and the inquisitor-unbounded made their own presentations. Each added depth and detail to the case, but none changed Atyen's basic understanding of what had happened, or gave him insight into the critical question of motive. It took the better part of two bells to get through the whole process, and then inquisitor-in-chief called on Jens to answer the charge that he had attacked the young men when they came to ask for work.

Jens flatly denied the accusation, his voice low and even. After he sat down it was Sarabee's turn, and she spoke with a restrained passion that carried the anger and fear the attack had left in her. When they were done the inquisitor-in-chief turned to the two youths. Atyen watched the reeve while the first boy spoke; he seemed angry, lips pressed tight together, with his eyes focused on the inquisitor-in-chief. The boy had little to say, and he answered the inquisitor-in-chief's penetrating questions with sullen monosyllables. The inquisitor-of-fact had already dismissed the youth's claim that Jens had attacked them unprovoked when they had only come to ask for food, and he offered no other explanation, keeping his eyes on the floor in front of him. Mial, the reeve's son, spoke second. He had been the leader in the attack, and he used his time to accuse Jens of killing his friend, to dismiss Sarabee as a spent woman, unworthy even of rape and to denounce the inquisitor-of-fact as both biased and incompetent. His eyes glinted hard as he spoke, and his words carried depth and conviction. If Atyen didn't already know the truth, he would have been inclined to believe the boy. There was a murmur in the crowd of supporters on the left-hand side of the hall, and hard looks were directed at Jens. They had believed Mial. But it doesn't matter what they believe, or what I believe, it matters what the inquisitor-in-chief believes. The formal process of inquiry was carefully structured to avoid bias as much as possible, but ultimately it came down to a decision about what to believe in the face of conflicting evidence. Atyen watched the inquisitor-in-chief intently, trying to divine what he might be thinking, but could draw no definite conclusion.

The young man finished speaking and sat down, and the inquisitor-in-chief stood up. "I find Sarabee and Jens Madane acted in self-defense against an unprovoked attack. The death of Jelfra Zaden came as a result of his participation in this attack, and no guilt attaches to them for it. Mial Broden and Frien Polis were willing participants in this attack, and threatened death to the persons of Jens and Jerl Madane, and both rape and death to the person of Sarabee Madane. In addition, guilt for the death of Jelfra Zaden attaches to them. For this I bind Mial Broden to life in servitude, with seven years restitution made to Jens and with seven years to Sarabee. For this I bind Jelfra Zaden to direct indenture to the Madanes for seven years, to be used as they see fit. This inquiry is closed."

There were gasps from the audience, and the reeve's face flushed red. "My son is not a criminal!"

"The inquiry is closed, reeve," said the inquisitor-in-chief. "I'm sorry."

"Father!" Mial's face turned white. "Do something!"

"Inquisitor, I insist . . ." the reeve sputtered, but an upraised hand cut him off.

"The inquiry is closed," repeated the older man. "Sentinels, take away the convicted."

"Inquisitor!" shouted the reeve, as guards took away his son and the other youth. Mial struggled and started to say something, but one of the sentinels twisted his arm up behind his back and the words came out as a squeak of pain.

"Reeve Broden." The inquisitor-in-chief's words held an edge of steel. "The inquiry is closed." Two broad-shouldered sentinels moved towards the dignitary, but he held up a hand to forestall them.

"You haven't heard the last of this," he said through clenched teeth, his eyes blazing. He turned on his heel and swept out of the room, and his entourage followed him out.

Sarabee was hugging Jens, tears of relief streaming down her face. Atyen felt awkward, as though he were intruding on something private, and stood up to give them space. The inquisitors were filing out into the inquisitor-in-chief's antechamber, the erranders and aspirants going back to their day-to-day work. In Charisy there were inquiries every day, but in Tidings there were only a few in a month. At the back of the room a woman burst into tears, and a man who might have been her husband led her out the back doors, his face tight and strained. Atyen hadn't noticed the couple before.

"The third boy," Sarabee whispered. She and Jens had stopped embracing and stood up themselves. "The one I killed. He was their son."

Atyen nodded slowly. The inquiry had seemed to drag, like every one of the inquiries he'd ever attended since he'd become an aspirant. Now that it was over, it seemed like too short a time, too small a venue to contain the intensity of the events that had poured out of it. And that's something new. He had always seen himself as an inquisitor into physical law—human law was too abstruse and subjective for his taste—but now he saw its importance.

"Thank you for coming, Atyen." Jens took his hand and shook it.

"I didn't really do anything."

"You were here, on our side. You saw the reeve. He would have tipped the balance if he could have."

"He has no power, and from what I saw of Tidings he won't be reeve for much longer."

Sarabee shuddered. "He's just like his son, he likes to be in charge, and he's cruel inside."

"He doesn't even have jurisdiction in the shorefields, but I'm glad I was here, and I'm glad you found it helpful."

"You have to come for a meal, Atyen. We haven't even thanked you for that pig yet."

Atyen smiled. "I'd be pleased to."

The three walked back to the shorefields, talking about the inquiry and then about other things. They stopped to collect the children from Celese, and Atyen was surprised how the young woman he'd remembered had aged. Sarabee gave him Jerl to hold while she corralled the girls, and he recognized the implicit honor in being allowed to hold her youngest. The boy looked up at him with big, curious eyes, and he found himself smiling, and surprisingly comfortable with the toddler. The small body was warm and soft, and as he walked and Jerl slowly fell asleep in his arms he found himself wondering if he had made the right decision in choosing the Inquisition for his life. But it's too late to regret that now. He had made his choice and now he had to live with it.

When they got home Jens put the boy to bed while Atyen played hide and seek with Liese and the younger girls. Sarabee cooked a fresh carp, served with boiled dry-corn and beans. The food was good and plentiful, and it was hard to worry about the world's problems with a full belly and good company. After dinner Sarabee closed the shutters and sent her daughters to sleep, and Atyen and Jens walked down to the shore to talk.

"It may be that this is a good thing," said Jens, as they sat down on the hillock overlooking his dock.

"How's that?"

"The inquisitor gave us each seven years restitution."

"The extra income will make a difference."

Atyen nodded. "I suppose it will."

"Do you know how much it is?"

Atyen shrugged. "Not in tokens. It's half for restitution to you, half to pay the Inquisitory for the system to make them do it. It's the usual."

"The usual?"

"The inquisitor-in-chief decided that they meant to kill you, so the law gives seven years restitution for that. He doubled it for Sarabee. I guess he decided the boy was dangerous, so he'll stay in the brickworks for life. You won't see him again."

"I suppose I knew that, more or less. I was too worried that he might decide we were murderers. How does the restitution come to us?"

"The tithecounters will take it off your tithing. If there's anything extra they'll bring you the steel."

Jens laughed. "Tithecounters bringing money. Now that's rich." He breathed out. "What about the other boy?"

"He got off light. If I were you I'd sell his indenture to someone in Charisy. You don't want him around."

"I'll do that." Jens took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "What a relief that it's all over."

Atyen nodded. The breeze had picked up, blowing out over the docks and rippling his hair. In the distance a raft without sails drifted towards the aftwall. "Somebody's fishing at this hour?"

"Some do. It's getting harder to get carp." Jens shaded his eyes with his hand to get a better look. "No, there's no one on it. It's broken loose." He peered harder. "Looks like Girn's. Not to worry, it'll wind up at the aftwall. I'll take him out there tomorrow." He paused. "Atyen?"

"Yes?"

"I've got another change for you. Carp are getting smaller. When I was a boy the big ones were as big as me. Now . . ." He shrugged. "I haven't seen one like that in years. I want my children to have a better life than I've had, but I'm starting to think that might not happen." Jens bit his lip. "Can I ask you another favor?"

"Of course."

"If anything happens. To me I mean, anything . . . bad." He paused. "Will you look after Sarabee, and the children?"

Atyen raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Jens, that's for your brother . . ."

"I know, but you and I are closer than brothers, and I'd rather it was you."

"I've got no land, and I'm not much of a fisher."

"You're an inquisitor."

"I am only an aspirant, and even an inquisitor would have to leave the Inquisitory to take on a family. They wouldn't let me stay."

"I know it's a lot to ask . . ."

Atyen raised a hand. "It's not too much to ask. It would be an honor. Of course I'll do it, if you want me to. I'm just not sure I'm the best choice."

"I am," Jens said.

Atyen looked at his friend. There was a calm surety in Jens's eyes. He felt proud to have earned such trust.

 

Inquisitor Byo Vesene hurried up the worn steel stairs to the Chief Inquisitor's quarters, concerned. He had carefully planned for Ek Solender's death, but he wasn't yet ready for it. The old man still had too much support, and his supporters were now automatically Vesene's rivals. It's fortunate the surgeon's errander found me first. Chief Inquisitors usually formally retired from the position with lots of notice, which gave the senior inquisitors plenty of time to perform the subtle dance of power that succession demanded. Alliances would quietly form, pacts would be made, expectations established, and when the actual day arrived the power structure would already have reoriented itself to the new realities. The transition would be made with scarcely a ripple visible to the outer world. Not this time. It was even possible that another group had killed Solender, that he wasn't the only one who knew the secret of foxglove extract. And if that's true, I may already be too late.

He was sweating when he got to the top tier of the Inquisitory, where the Chief Inquisitor's private rooms were. The antechamber was a simple space, decorated with blooming morning glory in pots set around the walls. Solender had done his masterwork on the medicinal properties of the plants, and they'd been his symbol ever since. Vesene smirked at the irony. He was the one who taught me about foxglove, all those years ago. There was an errander waiting, as there always was, ready to do whatever service the Chief Inquisitor might require.

"The Chief Inquisitor needs you at once," he said. The errander was a young man of slender stature, and Vesene spoke before he had a chance to say anything. "He's in the surgeon's hall, in a bad way."

"But I'm not supposed to leave—"

"He's dying, man! Hurry!"

The errander opened his mouth, closed it again, and then left. By the time he was at the door he was running. Vesene waited until the man was out of sight, and then went into the corridor where Solender's study and private rooms were. The heavy ironwood door to the study was closed and locked, and for a moment he cursed himself. Solender would have had the key on him. But it's a delay, no more. He drew a thin steel rod from his sash pocket, and slid it into the keyhole, probing for the fall-blocks. It was a skill he'd learned studying mechanography, and it had proved itself useful often enough. He looked furtively up and down the corridor, but there was no one there. And hopefully there won't be. Opportunity and crisis were opposite sides of the same token, and as long as he worked faster than any of his rivals, he would win the day. His teeth closed gently on his tongue as he probed at the lock, a half-subconscious way of focusing his attention. He found the first fall-block and levered it out of the way of the latch bar. He put tension on the latch slider to push the bar against the edge of the block and hold it in place, and went to work on the second block. He found it, gently pushed it up into its slot, and applied more pressure to the slider. There was a clack as the first fall-block came back down again.

Vesene cursed under his breath and moved the rod back to the first block, and carefully moved into position. Once he had it, he paused to visualize the locking mechanism. The second block could be a false one, designed not to stop the locking bar from moving but to dislodge the other blocks if someone tried what he was trying. Or the first block could be worn and loose. He probed for the second block again, moved it gently, keeping pressure on the latch slider, alert for any slight friction that would warn him that his movement was about to dislodge the first block. There was none, and he was rewarded with a slight tug on the latch lever to tell him that he'd properly set the second block. The third block was harder to reach, and he had to move slowly and carefully to get it properly positioned without disturbing either of the first two.

It seemed to take forever, but finally it clicked into place. The latch slid into position with an audible click, and the lock was open. Vesene went through the door, closed it behind him and breathed out in relief. There was no time to waste savoring his victory. His heart sank when he saw Solender's study. It was a mess—worksheaves stacked on worksheaves, shelves of old manuscripts piled without any semblance of order. He quickly rifled through the stack on Solender's workshelf. They were all related to population, land and food, Solender's current pet project. The old goat took it seriously. Unfortunately, they weren't what he was looking for. He moved to the shelves and found works of history and botany and anatomy, a manuscript on firing clay and another on steelsmithing. Still nothing. He was looking for anything that would illuminate Solender's position on his succession. The Chief Inquisitor had given no hint at his thoughts on a successor, but it was a safe bet that Byo Vesene was not among them. Did he write anything down? That's what matters. As soon as it was confirmed that Solender was dead the scriptkeepers would go through his documents, and anything he had recorded on the subject would become the definitive word on the selection of the next Chief Inquisitor. If someone else had killed Solender it could only be because they were fully prepared to take advantage of the situation. A written preference in Solender's own hand would be a key part of such a plan. There must be something . . . 

He found a stack of papers written in the deep red ink that was reserved for the Chief Inquisitor's formal judgments. He leafed through them, but they were concerned with some dispute over the allocation of steel from the twice-antispinward steel-fall. The next pile described a wooden flowmeter, part of the dead man's long ago masterwork. Vesene found his hands shaking as he searched. I only have so much time. In his head he knew it would be a bell at least before the errander got back from his fool's quest, but there were other forces at work. The fear of discovery was clenched tight in his belly, and no amount of rationalization would stop his hands from shaking.

What was that? He stopped to listen, had he only imagined a footstep in the corridor outside? The sound wasn't repeated, and he went back to his frantic search, heart pounding in his chest. In his hurry he knocked over a haphazard pile of documents, and cursed. Down on his hands and knees he scanned each one as he tried to reconstruct the pile. No one will notice, no one will notice . . . Vesene himself kept meticulous notes on every erstwhile rival, every potential ally, and he couldn't imagine the Chief Inquisitor doing anything less. He turned to the next shelf. There was a flowmeter there, a six-bladed wheel that spun a gear to turn a dial, on another shelf was a miniature canal gate, and sundry less identifiable trinkets. He looked past them, concentrated on the papers there, but they were just manuscripts, not personal notes. So ignore everything not scribed in red. Most of what he saw was in plain black, a little in the blue reserved for senior inquisitors, but there was almost nothing in red. Why is that? For a single horrified moment he thought that Solender might have had his worksheaf with him when he died. He stopped searching for a moment to think, brought up an image in his mind of the older man as he'd seen him in the surgeon's hall. He forced himself to concentrate, slowly going over everything he had seen. Did he have a worksheaf with him? Vesene had been too shocked at the suddenness of death, too taken with the sudden urgency to put his half formed plan into action to pay close attention. And what if someone's already taken it? Who knew how many people had contact with the Chief Inquisitor's body on its way to the surgeon's hall.

And ultimately it didn't matter. He rifled through more shelves, but found nothing of interest. There was another sound from the corridor, perhaps footsteps, perhaps . . . what? Instinctively he ducked down behind Solender's workshelf. Again he listened, petrified that he might be caught in his criminal trespass. Once more the sound was not repeated, and he began to doubt whether he'd really heard it at all. He wiped cold sweat from his forehead, and took a deep breath. This is taking too long. The room was a mass of manuscripts, and it was possible Solender had kept his notes elsewhere, perhaps in his sleeping room, perhaps in . . . 

I'm wasting time. Vesene felt a kind of panic taking over as he went to search the workshelf once more. Making sure his rivals would find nothing to use against him among Solender's notes was only one of many things he had to take care of if he wanted control of the Inquisitory for himself. There was nothing even close to what he was looking for, and then he saw, beneath another document, a page scribed in red, and not yet finished. He snatched it up, but the Chief Inquisitor's ink jar had been resting on it, and it tipped over. The heavy fluid spilled and spread like blood, staining the papers beneath it. He cursed, and cursed louder when he realized his hands were smeared red as well. If they catch me like this . . . If anyone came in now it would be obvious what he was trying to do, and his enemies would seize the chance to try him for Solender's murder and exonerate themselves. He grabbed a random manuscript and tried to wipe the ink off, but his effort only served to smudge the paper without cleaning his hands. He looked at the mess with growing horror. A spilled ink jar could be explained away as Solender's fault, but if he kept searching for the Chief Inquisitor's notes he'd get red ink everywhere, and that would raise suspicion. Again he cursed the old man for dying too soon.

He couldn't wipe his hands on his own cloak, and he looked around in desperation, for a towel, for some water, for anything to get rid of the telltale stain. There was nothing that would do the job, but his eye fell on the firebowl in the corner of the room. A kind of desperate inspiration spread through him. He went to it, but it was cold, empty even of ashes. He clenched his fists in angry frustration and was about to smack the bowl across the room to relieve it when he saw the fire piston hanging from its stand. He grabbed it, took it back to the workshelf, took the piston from its cylinder, and tore a small piece of paper from one of manuscripts. His hands were trembling so much that he dropped the paper twice as he tried to fit it into the end of the piston. Finally he managed, and positioned the piston back of the entrance to the cylinder, then pumped it with a single quick stroke. When he withdrew it the paper was a burning ember. He held it to the manuscript he'd torn it from, to be rewarded a second later with a small flicker of flame. The manuscript flared up, and he held it to the stack of paper on the workshelf until it was burning too. He took the flaming page to the wallshelves, and in seconds the documents there were a wall of fire. It was time to go. He ran out into the corridor, heedless now of who might see him, barely remembering to close the door behind him. He ran to the stairs and down them, and only when he got to the bottom did he pause to breathe, trembling in reaction and feeling a strange elation over what he just done. I'm brilliant, truly brilliant. Not only would the fire destroy any documents that might help his enemies, but the chaos would only help him seize power. People follow strong leaders in a crisis. Shouts rose above him, the fire had been discovered. He paid no heed, that was a problem for someone else now, and he had his own to solve.

He went to his own quarters, closed and locked the door behind him. There was a water bowl by the window, the water scented with chamomile. He had a lot more to do in the next bells, but first he had to get the ink off his hands. He rinsed them, and the water turned red, but the thick red fluid was soaked into his pores. He scrubbed harder, scratching at his skin with his fingernails, but that only forced the ink into his nail beds. He found himself breathing too fast, and it felt as though someone were watching him, recording each movement as evidence of his guilt. The exultation he had felt moments ago vanished.

I didn't kill Solender, I didn't . . . He had planned it, but someone else had done it. The foxglove extract was still on his workshelf where he had left it. It is, isn't it? The ink still stained his hands, and the water was now blood red itself. He couldn't put it down his own drain spout, even a trace of ink left there would be enough for his enemies to use. He'd have to empty it somewhere where no one could see, somewhere it couldn't be traced back to him, and then get rid of the bowl. Melt it down.

He scrubbed harder, tearing at his skin, and some of the water spilled on the floor quilt. I'll have to burn it, and my clothing. There was something in his sash pocket, and it seemed heavy, inexorably tugging down on his cross sash. He reached in and found the foxglove jar. And how did that get there? He hadn't put it there himself, and he resisted the urge to tear off the sash and throw it across the room. First I need my hands to be clean. When that was done he could take off his sash and get rid of the incriminating jar of foxglove powder, maybe hide it somewhere. After that he'd burn the floor quilt. What else do I need to look after? He'd touched the door latch to his quarters with his ink stained hands, both inside and out. He'd have to get to that before the ink dried, especially if he touched the wooden door frame as well. The ink would have soaked in by now, he'd have to scrape down into the wood to get rid of it. Better, tear out door and frame and burn them too. He laughed unsteadily. Fire solves so many problems. And the errander he'd sent to the surgeon's hall was a witness, he too would need to be silenced. So I need to save the foxglove, for a little while. He'd stopped washing while he thought, his hands immersed in the blood red water. He took them out. They were sore now with scouring, but still stained, a faint, diffuse redness that blended imperceptibly into the abraded skin. He looked at them despairingly. I have no time for this.

Inspiration dawned. He knelt and dried his hands on the floor quilt, because he had to burn it anyway, and then went to his shelves and found his formal gloves. People might wonder why he was wearing them, but they wouldn't see the stains on his hands. He slipped them on and, his guilt so concealed, went out to find Cela Joss. She wasn't in her quarters, and her errander told him she was in the reading room. He cursed and ran to the manuscript tower, up the top of the stairs, to the reading room, arriving soaked in sweat. The aspirants clustered around the tables looked up from their worksheaves, surprised in their silent study by his noisy appearance. Vesene ignored them. He couldn't see Joss.

"Cela," he called. Again the aspirants looked up, annoyed at his disregard for etiquette but too deferential to his rank to say anything. Again he ignored them. "Cela!"

Joss looked up from a workshelf by the far window, and came over. "What is it?" she asked.

He went to her table. "Solender is dead. Godstruck, the surgeons tell me. The Inquisitory is on fire."

"This is . . ." Joss paused, groping for words.

"It's an opportunity, if we can seize it. It's going to be chaos. We'll need sentinels to keep order. Our sentinels." He could hear shouts coming through the waxed flax window covers. The fire was spreading across the Inquisitory's top floors.

"I hadn't planned on this. I've got a dozen sentinels in my vaults, no more."

Vesene cursed. "Errander!" he shouted, heedless of the quiet. "Errander!" He went to one of the tables where an aspirant was looking up at the commotion. "I need this," he said. Without waiting for an answer he took the pen from the aspirant's hand and tore a page from his worksheaf. He dipped the pen in the aspirant's ink jar and scribed out a note. An errander came running as he finished, and Vesene pulled a message ball from a pocket, twisted it through its puzzle until it fell into two halves. "I need you to take this to the Inquisitor-in-Chief in Charisy," he told the errander.

"As you wish."

Vesene waved the page in the air to dry it, then folded it tightly and slid it into the message ball and reclosed it. "Go quickly," he told the errander. "It's urgent."

The errander nodded and left, hurrying, and Vesene turned back to Joss. "We have to act quickly, we have to put pressure on the senior inquisitors, make sure the right decisions are made. This will make sure it happens."

"What does the note say?"

"Torr Toorman owes me a favor, and I'm calling it in right now. We'll have five hundred of Charisy's best sentinels here, soon. To fight the fire, to keep order after it." He looked away. "You'll take charge of that, no one will question you. When I'm Chief Inquisitor, the order of Sentinels will be yours."

"The law council will object."

"Then your sentinels will discipline the law council." Joss looked away, her expression distant, then looked back. "What caused the fire?"

"God wants me to rule," Vesene held up a gloved hand, looking at the white fabric. "There's no other explanation."

 

Charisy was on edge when Atyen came through it. On a corner a man tiraded to a passersby about the greed of the merchants. In the market a gang of toughs beat a monger while the crowd ignored them. There wasn't a sentinel in sight, in fact there weren't any cross-sashes, and he took his own off when he realized it was drawing attention. Only when he got back on the trading road did he learn what was wrong. A cart-driver told him about the fire at the Inquisitory. Half the sentinels in the city had gone to the forewall to deal with it. The news was worrisome, and Atyen hiked foreward as fast as his injured leg would allow. He heard rumors on the way, but nothing he could confirm as a fact. The forewall mists were low, so though he could smell the smoke he couldn't see anything. It wasn't until he got there that he realized that the fire had long since burned itself out. The smoke was from funeral pyres. There were a dozen smoldering along the trading road, their residual heat fighting against the damp. The wooden top floors of the Inquisitory had burned down to the steel under-structure, and the fire must have been huge. Solender's studio was in the lower gallery, safe in steel, but even so he hurried, anxious despite himself to make sure his work hadn't been destroyed. As he drew closer the extent of the damage grew clearer. It must have been a ferocious fire. I'm amazed they found enough left to cremate.

There were hundreds of people gathered in the courtyard, and when he came up he could see another pyre in the center of the throng. It was big, and built not of straw but good oakwood, more usually reserved to make charcoal to forge steel. A ring of sentinels kept the onlookers at a distance. Someone important then.

"Whose pyre?" he asked one of the watchers, a stocky man with a timekeeper's sash.

"The Chief Inquisitor's."

"What? Solender?" I don't believe it.

"Solender," the man confirmed. "He died just before the fire. Probably a mercy, it would have killed him to see this." He gestured up at the ruins of the Inquisitory.

"Solender." Atyen's throat constricted. Solender. I should have been here. His doctrinor had done so much for him . . . 

"I think they're starting," the man said.

The ceremony began with the Bishop of Charisy reading a service, though Solender had not been a believer, and then Inquisitor Vesene made a speech. "Today is a day of many tragedies," he began. "We mourn those lost in the fire that has taken so much of the Inquisitory. We mourn those lost in the fighting in the shorefields. Most of all, we mourn a great leader." The new Chief Inquisitor raised his arms to the suntube, as if imploring distant Heaven for a boon. "But we will recover. We will recover and we will find a new leader, a greater leader . . ."

The words rolled over Atyen, but he wasn't really listening. The speech ended and the priest approached the pyre again, this time with his torch upheld. He said the death-prayer, whose words Atyen could never remember, and then lowered the torch to the tinder. Flame flared, grew brighter, climbed the piled logs to lick at the body on top, and Atyen turned away, unwilling to watch. Heat grew on his back, and the fire's crackle became a roar. Smoke drifted overhead, spiralling up to meld with the mist. His doctrinor was gone, with all his knowledge and wisdom and . . . Atyen fought back tears. . . . with all his compassion. For perhaps the first time he realized what Solender had meant to him. In his family he had been only the youngest son, another mouth to feed for his parents, a potential land-rival to his brothers. He had never felt part of them, never felt he belonged there. Perhaps that explained why he'd spent so much time with Jens growing up, and why he'd chosen the strictures of the Inquisition rather than apprenticing for a trade. The Inquisition had offered structure at a time when he had badly needed it, and Solender had become . . . What? A father figure? More than that. His doctrinor had become his whole family. And he wasn't that old. Fifty perhaps, surely no more than sixty, and he'd been so full of energy, of ideas, of life that it seemed impossible that he was gone.

The bishop mouthed some platitude about reuniting with the Chief Inquisitor when the world arrived at Heaven, but Atyen was already walking away. Ek Solender was gone, and words wouldn't bring him back. He walked without thinking, his mind clouded with emotion and his throat tight with grief. He went into the Inquisitory, climbed the steel stairs of the manuscript tower. It was strangely empty, hushed, as though it too was mourning the absence of a close friends. He went to the reading room, and opened one of the waxed cloth windows to look out on the courtyard below. The pyre was still burning, the bishop still speaking, though at this distance Atyen could no longer make out the words. He watched the smoke rise and bit his lower lip. It seemed fitting that he should watch from a distance. He didn't want to hear anyone's comforting words, he didn't want to comfort anyone. He didn't want . . . anything. After a time the ceremony ended, and the gathered crowd dispersed. A few of them drifted into the reading room, breaking the rule of silence with buzzing with speculation over what would occur now that Vesene had ascended to Chief Inquisitor. He ignored the chatter, and watched the pyre burn until it burned itself out, leaving only a blackened circle full of ash and charcoal. From ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The death-prayer's words came back. Solender was part of the world now, a part of every morsel of food, every swallow of water, every breath Atyen would take for the rest of his life. There was some comfort in that.

He went back to the studio after the ceremony and found sentinels on guard at the entrance, with blades ready and suspicious questions. They weren't Inquisitory sentinels, they were from Charisy. They let him through, eventually. Inside he saw Corl.

"What's happening?" he asked. "Why all the sentinels?"

"You haven't heard?" Corl's eyebrows went up in surprise. "They caught an errander. He started the fire on purpose."

"You're joking."

"Vesene saw him. There's a group of them, they've been planning to take over the Inquisition. They had to call in sentinels from Charisy." Corl's workspace was piled high with manuscript volumes, and he was busily piling them into heavy flax carry-bags. "He took poison when they caught him."

"The errander?"

"Who else?"

"Do you think he . . . maybe he killed Solender?"

Corl shrugged. "The surgeons said his heart failed. It happens sometimes they say, nobody knows why."

To Atyen that seemed inadequate, a failing of inquiry that such a fundamental question had no better answer, and he found himself annoyed at his colleague's apparent indifference to the death of their doctrinor. He's like the others, eager to be the Chief Inquisitor's aspirant for no reason but the status.

"Have you found a new doctrinor yet?" Corl asked. He was still packing volumes into bags.

"I hadn't thought of it."

"Best to hurry. It's no secret Vesene had little time for Solender."

"Why would that matter?"

"You really are an innocent, aren't you?" Corl laughed. "There aren't a lot of inquisitors who are going to make themselves unpopular with him by taking on one of Solender's aspirants. I've gotten old Stronka to take me on, but he doesn't care because he's going nowhere." He made a face. "I was going right to the top, and now I have to start all over. I'll tell you one thing. I didn't spend five years slaving here to fail my masterwork for no good reason. Stronka will do until I find better."

Atyen nodded, suddenly overcome with a great tiredness. He had meant to work on his new wing design, but instead he went out of the studio and back to his room. The future was uncertain, but he would worry about that tomorrow. He crawled into bed, exhausted, and slept without even closing the shutters. He woke up late the next day, not hungry enough to eat. Instead he went to back to the studio. The place was in chaos, with most of the other aspirants in the process of moving out, but his workspace was as he had left it, the wreckage that had been his wings was still piled in a corner, untouched since Solender had assigned him to study the tithesheets. He picked up the broken bamboo, ran a hand over the rust colored stains on the tangled cloth. My blood. They were beyond salvation . . . But I can build better now anyway. Solender's death had freed him to pursue his dream, but at the same time it had given him a strict time limit. The Chief Inquisitor had the most desirable studio in the Inquisitory, and Vesene would take it over as soon as he had his position secure.

He went to his workbench, where long bamboo poles were piled against the wall, and selected one. It was twice as thick as his thumb, with a good, mature wall. He inspected it carefully, looking for cracks and weak spots, but he'd chosen carefully when he bought it and he found nothing. It would become the mainspine of a new set of wings. He set it in the vice, and measured it for cutting, letting his hands take his mind away from his worries. He worked from the careful drawings in his journal, making modifications by instinct as he went. He needed to cant the wing tips up more, and that entailed a change in the bracing. The tail needed to be bigger, to add stability. The day passed in an eyeblink, and he worked until he was too tired to work anymore, then went to his room to sleep a deep and dreamless sleep.

He awoke even later the next day, and though he was famished he went back to his wings without pausing for food, hunger overridden by the desire to build. The place was already half empty, but there was no sign that Vesene had moved to fill the space with his own aspirants. No doubt the new Chief Inquisitor had his hands full dealing with the aftermath of fire and the rumors of errander conspiracy. Still the change was coming, Atyen could sense it. A steady stream of his erstwhile colleagues trickled in through the day as he worked, some sad, some angry, all collecting the last of their belongings and trudging off with them, some lucky few to begin again with new doctrinors as Corl had, most simply leaving the Inquisitory to return to whatever lives they had left out in the world. Atyen ignored them, focusing on his task with obsessive single-mindedness. He had no illusions that some other inquisitor would accept him as aspirant. His work was too out of the mainstream, even if he wasn't one of Solender's orphans. By the evening-meal bell he had the fabric cut and the frame completed. Aching hunger finally forced him to pause long enough to go for a meal. To his surprise the sentinels were gone from the studio entrance, which was a relief. Vesene must have a use for them elsewhere. He went to the meal hall and ate ravenously. Once he'd finished he took some cheesed bread tied in a cloth so he wouldn't have to stop again, and went right back to work. Securing the fabric to the frame meant laboriously stitching leather grommets into the heavy, waxed flax, and then lacing the fabric to the frame. He was spent by the time he'd finished, and there were sounds of life stirring in the corridors. He'd worked right through the sleeping hours. Not wanting to take the time to go back to his room, Atyen pulled a section of wing fabric over himself and lay down on the thin floor quilt that covered the steel floor. It was hardly comfortable, but he was asleep in seconds.

There was some commotion around the noon-meal bell, but nobody bothered him so he pulled his makeshift blanket tighter and managed to sleep through most of it. When he awoke the studio was quiet again, and now empty except for his corner. The last of the other aspirants departed, and the space echoed with their absence. Atyen ate the last of his bread and went back to work, testing joints, tightening fabric where it wasn't quite taut. He added a hanger and straps so he could carry his backbag with him, snugged up beneath the right wing, and another for his walking staff under the left. When he was done he folded them up, put them on his back, and went to the stairs that led to the forewall ledge. He'd forgotten how heavy they were and as he started up the effort made his damaged calf ache. He bit his lip against the pain and climbed onward, leaning hard on his staff. The stairs were busy with workers clearing away the wreckage from the top of the Inquisitory, but it was only when he got to the top himself that he realized his mistake. The frame and railings of the stairs that went from the top of the Inquisitory to the forewall ledge were steel, but the wooden steps had burned with the rest of the structure's upper floors. There was no way he could reach the ledge. He stood staring at the blackened steel for a long time. To his own surprise he wasn't angry, wasn't frustrated. The destroyed stairs were only an obstacle, and one he could overcome if he worked at it.

He went closer and examined the supports. The original steel steps had long since been worn away, but the stringers still showed the marks where they had been attached. The railings themselves were polished smooth and shiny on top by the eons of hands that had grasped them for support, mute witnesses to the wear that had forced the replacement of the original steps. He tried putting his feet on the stringers, using them for support while balancing himself with the railing. He couldn't support his injured leg with his staff that way, so he slid it in between the folds of his wings. Carefully he made his way up to the space where the first landing had been, and stood precariously, assessing his progress. His leg was sore, but the forewall ledge beckoned, and there was no reason he couldn't make it the rest of the way. He carried on and soon was on the ledge. He paused to rest, satisfied in accomplishing the climb and overcoming the problem. But don't be too smug, Atyen. The real test is yet to come.

When he had recovered he walked down the ledge, past the river outfall to the place he had leapt from before. He looked out over the world, and thought about his last flight. It had been more of a controlled crash than anything, but this time would be better. If only I had more height. His thrown kite experiments had taught him that it was the first seconds of flight, when the wing was moving slowest that control was hardest. More height would give him more time, and more speed. That would give him more control, and more distance. He turned around to look up the sheer steel cliff above him. It loomed high, thickly covered in climbing vines. A hundred meters above there was a second ledge, this one visible only as a narrow line, a horizontal interruption in the vertical texture of the vast wall. He'd never paid much heed to it, his attention had always been focused outward, on the space he dreamed of flying through. But if I could get up there . . . 

It was something he'd never considered, but his success in climbing the burned-out stairs gave him fresh courage. The wallpickers do it. Why can't I? He turned to the wall and studied it. Beneath the thick thatching of ivy the steel was deeply textured, with sculpted vertical channels eroded by the constant drip of running water. The channels braided into a complex network, and the thick ivy vines wedged themselves into them, finding support on the knobby surface and nutrients in the trickling water. Some of the trunk vines were thicker than his thigh, and climbing them looked easy. At least the wallpickers make it look easy. He took a deep breath, and reflexively checked to see that his wings were still secure on his back. They were, and he put a hand on a thick vine, tested its strength. It held firm, and so he started climbing. Handhold, handhold, foothold, foothold. He used his good leg as much as possible, and tried to use his arms to reduce the strain on his injury. He lacked the effortless ease of the wallpickers, but he was making progress. He had only meant to do a short, experimental climb, to find out how hard it would be to go up the forewall with the extra twenty-five kilos of his wings folded on his back, but it wasn't as hard as he'd feared. As long as I pretend it doesn't hurt . . . 

Ten meters up he found a grape vine clinging to the thick ivy stems, its unripe fruit still hard and green, and ten meters above that a climbing kiwi had rooted itself in a crook filled with leaf litter. For a few meters the two fruits intertwined with the ivy, the thickness of the combined growth making it impossible to even see the steel beneath it, but then the kiwi gave up and the grape began to thin out. At thirty meters the grape was gone and the ivy was getting less substantial, and he began to have to use the forewall itself to climb. That was difficult. The water eroded channels ran mostly up and down, which meant he had to wedge his fists into the crevices to support himself. The wet steel was slippery, and it sucked the heat from his fingers until they were numb. At fifty meters he found another vine that was growing down from the ledge above, intertwining itself with the last tendrils of the ivy. The new vine thickened as the ivy thinned, and he gratefully grabbed its thick hanging loops. His bad leg was trembling with every new foothold now, so he wedged his feet into a loop of vine and rested for a while, looking out into the misty air. A swirling flock of sparrows fluttered past and were gone again.

The vine he was on had big, almond shaped leaves, but he didn't recognize it except to know that it wasn't ivy. Not that I'd recognize grape or kiwi if they weren't bearing fruit. The wallpickers would certainly know. He looked up at the vertical face he still had to conquer. The moisture on the vines had soaked him to his skin, and once he stopped moving he began to cool down. He looked down and shivered, not entirely due to the cold. Do I dare go higher? To ask the question was to answer it. He had come halfway, it would be no harder to go up than down now. His calf was burning, and his foot trembled when he put weight on it, but he reached up and took hold of the thick runners that snaked down from above. The vine had large purple flowers, and they had a rich, fragrant scent that overwhelmed his senses when he disturbed one. It was also less robust than the ivy he had just climbed. Do I trust it? If he wanted to fly he had to. He took a deep breath and climbed onward, using the vine when he could and the cold steel when he had to. Twenty meters up his foot slipped off a slippery steel knob, and the thin vine peeled off the wall. Adrenaline surged and he grabbed for a thicker strand, getting it just in time. For an endless moment he hung suspended, heart pounding, before his feet found purchase on the steel again. High above another vine dangled, beckoning him up. Forty meters to go, and his calf was on fire. Once he gained the second ledge there was no way he'd be able to climb down again. Going higher was an implicit commitment to use his wings.

Atyen clenched his teeth, reached up and grabbed another knob of slippery, water-smoothed steel. Again the heat was sucked from his fingers as he pulled himself up. Even his feet were cold inside the soaked leather of his soft-soled shoes, and wedging them into the crevices in the steel hurt more and more as he progressed. He came to a wall section covered in hemispherically sculpted blobs of mud and straw—swifts' nests. He tried to avoid them as he climbed, but inevitably he knocked some loose. It hurt to see the tiny white eggs falling free to shatter on the ground below. The swifts flew almost as beautifully as the peregrines—not quite so fast, but even more agile than the soaring predators. He kept climbing, and with ten meters to go found a vine thick enough to hold both his feet. He rested again, looking up to judge his final route. When he had his breath, he climbed on until he got a hand on the ledge. It didn't offer the handholds and footholds that the wall itself did, and so he had to scramble over the top by spreading his weight over a wide-spreading mat of vines and hoping he didn't pull the entire array free. Finally he got his legs over the top and for a long moment he lay there, panting. The mist layer overhead was noticeably closer now, it seemed he could almost reach out and touch it. I could climb to it, maybe. It would be a difficult climb, because the ivy rooted on the second ledge only went up fifteen or twenty meters. That meant he'd be using the cold, wet steel the rest of the way. Looking up he couldn't even see if there was a third ledge. Not even the wallpickers went higher than this, and he could see why.

Atyen stood up and looked out over the view, and it was both dramatic and daunting. Now he had two hundred meters of height to make his wings fly. If they wouldn't fly in that distance they wouldn't fly at all. And I didn't come here to climb down. He unstrapped his wings from his back, laid them carefully on the carpet of moss and ivy and unfolded them. Unlike his previous set, the two meter tail was rigidly fixed to the mainspine. He would be unable to stoop and dive the way a peregrine could, but his previous jump had shown him that he couldn't control a free tail well enough anyway. Gliding down like one of his test models wouldn't be quite the same as soaring and stooping, but it would be a first step. And much safer, I hope. He went to each joint and locked it, working carefully and methodically. Forgetting one would be fatal. When he was done he checked them all again, then lifted the assembled wings and secured the straps around his waist and hips. That done, he reached out to take the control lines and put his hands through the loops.

And once more there was nothing to do but jump. There's so much I can discover, if I can make this work. He looked over the edge. The ground was a frightening distance below, and his throbbing calf reminded him of the pain of his first bad landing. But I flew, I really flew. The memory of the wind beneath his wings was enough, and he leapt, launching himself out as hard as he could. There was an immediate rush of air and he pitched steeply down, diving headfirst for the ground. For a long, horrible moment it seemed that he was about to repeat his previous accident, but then he began to level off, and then all at once he was flying, even climbing. He began to roll to the right and pulled his left control line to compensate. The left wing dropped in response, and he wobbled back in that direction, still climbing. The rush of air fell silent, and then suddenly he was nose down and falling again. His descent was less steep this time, and he was ready when his speed picked up and he again leveled and began to climb as it increased. He had seen the same up-and-down behavior in test models. It happened because the wings weren't trimmed for the load properly, and he pulled in both his control lines as soon as he leveled out to deepen the wing curve. He heard the fabric flapping as the wings grabbed more air, and both his speed and descent rate stabilized. He lurched right again, slacked the right line to compensate, and then tightened it before he could slide away to the left. Keeping tension on both lines, a little less on the right than on the left, made the wobbles less violent.

And he was flying, really flying! The right wing dropped a bit. He caught it a little low, and left it there, biting his tongue in concentration as he tried to keep himself balanced. He was rewarded with a gentle turn to the right. When he had that mastered he tightened the left line and released the right to reverse the turn. Turning was tricky, because a low wing tended to fall away even more, which required him to slack the opposite line in order to compensate. He straightened himself out into more-or-less level flight, and already he was most of the way to the ground. He brought his legs forward in anticipation of landing, but that made him nose down again and he picked up speed. Startled, he pushed them back again, and leveled out. Paying attention to his legs made him forget about his control lines and as he slowly nosed up he dropped his left wing badly. He yanked the left line hard and got the wings level just in time to skid into a low thicket of blueberries. The spiny branches tore at his skin, and then he was stopped. It wasn't the most graceful landing, but he hadn't broken anything, and had only a few scratches for the effort. I did it, I really did it. The stillness and quiet came rushing in on him, and already the experience seemed unreal. He let go of the control lines and got to his feet, awkward with the cumbersome bulk of his wings still strapped on, to find a farmer staring at him in wide-eyed amazement. The suntube was bright overhead and he realized he'd flown right out of the forewall mists to the edge of the forefields, easily a kilometer and a half.

Atyen gave him a friendly wave and, somewhat uncertainly, the farmer waved back, then came over.

"How did you do that?" the man asked.

"I jumped, that's all," Atyen answered, as though it were that easy.

The farmer nodded slowly. "Just jumped. Well, that's something."

Atyen he looked up to the distant second ledge, amazed anew at the journey he'd taken. I flew. Slowly a broad smile crept across his face. I really flew. Still smiling, he looked up the curve of the world to the suntube. Something moving against the brilliant line. It was a peregrine circling slowly as it hunted for dinner.

"I'll be with you soon," Atyen whispered under his breath, as if a louder voice would scare the falcon away, would turn the reality of his accomplishment back into a dream. "I'll be with you soon."

 

Byo Vesene stood up and went to the back windows of his chamber. It had once been the reading room, the top level of the manuscript tower, but after the fire it had been necessary to find new quarters for himself. He pushed open the shutters to look across at the teams of workers rebuilding the Inquisitory's upper floors. The burnt out skeleton of the old structure had been entirely cleared away, though the underlying steel was still soot-black. The work teams were starting on a heavy bamboo scaffold to rebuild around it. Inquisitor Renn was overseeing the effort, and Vesene had ordered him to do the rebuilding in grand style, but . . . Irritated, he closed the shutters, paced to his workshelf, paced back. The room seemed too small. The fire that had consumed the top floors of the Inquisitory had destroyed most of the working records that ran the world, and the workspaces of those who did the running. The manuscript tower had been pressed into service to house the displaced functionaries, the spaces normally occupied by quietly laboring aspirants were instead full of the bustle of bureaucracy, and it made Vesene feel crowded. And I don't like to be crowded. He took off his gloves and took a new pair from the stack beneath his workshelf. Being crowded made him feel . . . unclean. He slid the new gloves on and, feeling better, pulled over the plans for the reconstruction work, frowning. He could already see he didn't have enough space.

There was a knock on the door and looked up. "Enter."

"Chief Inquisitor?"

Vesene saw the gray beard and the double-red cross-sash. "Solender!" he gasped in shock. "You're . . ."

"Solender?" Torr Toorman laughed. "I'm afraid not."

"No, no of course not." Vesene regained his composure, annoyed that Toorman had made him lose it. Fortunately, Charisy's Inquisitor-in-Chief didn't seem to have noticed. "What do you want?"

"I need my sentinels back."

"Hmmm. I'll consider it." Vesene leaned back in his chair.

"Consider it?" Torr's eyebrows went up. "I owed you a favor. I've paid it, and now I need them back. You think Charisy's streets haven't noticed the sleep-watch is gone?"

"Yes . . ." Vesene spoke slowly, enjoying the moment. "I'm afraid they're still needed here. The erranders are still plotting." He leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "They poisoned Solender, you know."

"Poisoned him? I thought it was natural. Godstruck, I heard."

"No, no, they poisoned him." Vesene couldn't help but run a hand over his sash-pocket, where the foxglove extract still nestled. "They want me next."

"I gave you five hundred sentinels, surely you don't need—"

"Yes, yes I do. I've made changes to the way the Inquisition runs, and there are those who resent that."

"Chief Inquisitor, I don't need to tell you things aren't good in Charisy. I'll have looters in two days and riots in three if I don't have my force back."

"Ah, but I've thought of that. I'll give you grain."

"Grain?"

"Feed your people, keep them happy. Work out how much you need, go to Cela Joss, tell her I approve it."

"You're going to just give away grain?"

"Why not? It's our job to look after our people." Vesene waved a hand expansively. "The granaries are full. You can have fifty sentinels, and all the grain you require. What else do your people need?"

"Housing, but . . ."

"Make an announcement. Tell them we're going to build houses. Nothing too fancy, but a roof for everyone."

"Are you sure we can do that? The cost will be immense."

"We're already having Renn rebuild the Inquisitory. A few houses for the people will be nothing next to that. Tell him I approve it." Vesene stood up, went back to the window, opened the shutters to look at the work in progress on the roof again, reclosed them. "Better yet, I'll tell him." He went back to the door, called down the stairs. "Get me Inquisitor Renn."

"At once," his head errander answered from below.

"There," said Vesene. "Will that do?"

"You're very generous," Torr Toorman said, though he seemed less pleased than he should have been. Charisy's Inquisitor-in-Chief took his leave, and Vesene closed the door and went back to his workshelf to wait for Renn. I shouldn't be calling downstairs for service, and I shouldn't be waiting for anything. There were going to have to be changes, large changes. He picked up his grooming pick and began cleaning his nails. The simple motions were soothing, and they helped him think. There would need to be houses in Charisy, but more important the plans for the new Inquisitory weren't right. I need something grander, much grander. He would stop the work here, order Renn to build him something in Charisy. A proper palace.

 

The frightening climb to the second forewall ledge became routine in time, and it gave Atyen opportunity to think. More and more his thoughts were occupied with his future. Most of Solender's other aspirants had curried influence since they'd arrived, with one eye on their masterworks and one on the ladder of power. Since Solender's death they'd used it to gain places with other inquisitors, but Vesene was smarter than they were. He'd used the aspirants to root out Solender's supporters, sending them out to administer law in the farthest parts of the world. Even Atyen knew what that meant. They would rise no higher, and the aspirants they took with them would be unlikely to ever finish their masterworks. So far he'd avoided their fate, perhaps just because he had kept going back to Solender's empty studio and called no further attention to himself. It had worked for over a year. But I still need a plan.

He worked his way up the now familiar lattice of vines. His muscles had adapted to the climb, though his injured leg still ached under the strain every time he went up the wall. He'd tamed the harder stretches by tying knots in loops of rope, then jamming the knots into the grooves in the textured wall. Properly placed they held like part of the steel. The only problem I haven't solved is the wet. Wool clothing held off the chill, but his hands were perpetually raw from rough use in damp conditions. When he came to the top he threw a leg over the ledge and pulled himself up, stood up and looked out over the world. Everything is so simple from here. It would be nice if the rest of his life were the same. Solender's studio had filled up with Vesene's aspirants, but they all assumed that Atyen was supposed to be there and said nothing. Vesene himself never came to mentor, and so Atyen was able to keep quietly working without disruption. It seemed strange to him that the news that he'd learned to fly had not made a bigger splash in the Inquisitory. But everyone is so worried about what Vesene is going to do. He'd had a few watchers come for his first few flights, but soon they'd drifted back to their own pursuits and left him to himself.

Which was fine with Atyen. He unfolded his wings and spread them out on the narrow ledge, carefully securing the joints and rigging the control lines. It wasn't hard to fly, once you knew how, and he spent every moment he could steal either refining his wings or leaping from the forewall ledge to test his new ideas. He gained stability by canting his wings upward, and more by sweeping them back. He learned to control his flight not only by twisting the wing tips with the control lines but by simply shifting his weight. He developed a technique of landing on the run, which saved him from the painful skidding his first efforts had involved. He learned how to turn without losing control, and how to shift backwards to brake for a smooth landing. He added length to his harness, which gave him more range to shift his weight back and forward, and added a bracing pole to the mainspine so he could shift more easily. The modifications had added some weight, and he had been afraid that would negatively impact performance, but in fact he could now fly farther and faster than he ever had before.

When he was ready he hoisted his wings onto his back, took his up the lines, and leapt. The now familiar rush of air filled Atyen's ears as he dove away from the ledge, smoothly correcting for the turbulence. The time of wobbly flight and frantic overcorrection was long gone. He had become a creature of the wind. Below him the wallpickers didn't even look up. They'd grown used to seeing a man fly. And perhaps one day they'll be flying too. As they were, his wings were little more than a toy, a way of proving that a man could fly, but if he could improve them to the point where he could soar to the shorefields all sorts of possibilities opened up. He had a vision of a huge set of wings, one that he would not wear but ride, and one that could carry more people as well. Hours of trekking would be replaced by a brief, comfortable flight. If he could expand them to the point where he could carry cargo, then one day they might replace goat-carts as the world's main trade carriers.

The muddy headwaters of the Silver River slipped underneath him, undulating its way aftward like a grass-snake. The noisy turbulence of the outfall pool gave way to gentle ripples, and then a surface as smooth and reflective as polished steel. The suntube blazed a golden line on its surface, leapfrogging across the river's loops, a beacon-line pointing due aft. He turned to follow it, slipping silently over the marshy ground. Far ahead he could see the buildings of Charisy, which seemed so close and yet were way beyond his flight range. He shifted his weight backwards slightly, and trimmed the control lines to minimize his rate of fall. He could stretch his glide, but nowhere near far enough to reach the city. And that's the next problem I'll have to solve.

The marsh turned into meadow, with sheep grazing the lush grass, and already he had lost half his height. He came out from beneath the forewall overcast and blinked as the full light of the suntube hit him. Below, the meadow had become cultivated fields, layer cropped beneath an olive tree canopy. He picked his touchdown point, a narrow field, fallowed now with turnip and clover. There were a few goats grazing in it, but none in his way. He put the field under his left wing, flew over it until it was behind him, then dropped the left wing and pivoted into a tight turn to reverse course. He came out heading into the steady breeze from the forewall. The headwind cut his forward progress in half, and he tightened up on the control lines to flex the wings and deepen their camber. The control slots fluttered and he slowed more, as his glide angle steepened until he seemed to be descending almost vertically. He set himself up for touchdown for the near edge of the field, held the line tension as the wind-rush faded, and dropped towards his goal with peregrine precision. The grass came up fast, and at the last moment he shifted his weight backwards, and leveled out, canting the wings higher to help him brake to a stop. His feet touched down and he ran, slowed, stopped. Beautiful!

He breathed out with the exhilaration of a beautiful landing, pulled the straps off and set his wings down. The upswept angle he'd added to improve their stability meant they couldn't sit flat on the ground. The right wing was canted up, and he sat down in its shade, unbuckled his backbag and fished out his journal to record the flight. He leafed through the pages to the last one, found an ink jar and began to write. It was his hundredth flight, a milestone, and it had been beautiful. He recorded the details, the distance, the subtle changes in control that his last modifications had brought, the improvement in his landing technique. When he was done he bit his lip. It had been a near-perfect . . . but . . . He looked back to the previous page and read over what he had recorded there. That flight had been near-perfect too, and the flight before that, and before that. He was flying, but he wasn't progressing. If flying was to become more than an amusing distraction, if his dream of a sky full of cargo carriers was to ever be more than a dream, he had to be able to do more than glide. He lay back in the soft grass, and looked up the curve of the world. In Bountiful a message mirror was twinkling, over Blessed the spiralling clouds were dumping twisting curtains of rain. And at the Inquisitory, Atyen Horun has mastered flight! He could turn on a wing tip, dive to skim the ground, pull up to the vertical and pivot in midair to swoop back the way he'd come, as close to a full peregrine stoop as a man could conceivably get. I just can't soar. The falcons rode air currents, working the sky the way a child worked a swing. They would dive, pull up, turn, and dive again, and get higher with each cycle, but when Atyen tried the same thing he never gained height above his start point. As he climbed and slowed the wing fabric would flutter as the airflow dropped to nothing, and he would have to release the control lines and nose down again or risk the stomach-turning drop that inevitably happened when he ran out of speed in a climb. It was beginning to seem that soaring like a peregrine was as far beyond his reach as the falcons themselves were. The steady downdraft at the forewall didn't help either, though once he was launched it became a tailwind that helped extend his glide.

Movement caught his eye, a shape high up by the suntube, a circling peregrine. There was a second one near it, facing aftward and trimmed into the wind so perfectly that it seemed to be simply hovering. The first one came around to join it, and they flew in loose formation. They were a mated pair, and they were hunting. Atyen watched in frustration. He had come so far, and yet he was still a creature of the ground, his wings giving only temporary liberation from its relentless pull. There must be a way. He reached over to pull his journal within reach, just in case the birds gave up a clue that he might record, then went back to watching the graceful predators fly. How do they stay up? Oblivious to Atyen's frustration, the peregrines continued their hunt, slowly descending. He watched as they came down, and then suddenly first one, then the other dropped a wing and dove to foreward, turned sharply aftward and pulled up, climbing each time. Even that was more effort than they often put in. Sometimes they would just circle for hours, now climbing, now diving, but never doing more than twitching a wing.

And that should be impossible. Birds weren't magic, not even peregrines. A wing was a simple mechanographic device, a variant on the inclined plane, changing the direction of a force. They turned a vertical drop into a shallow glide down an invisible slope of air, but just as a ball was constrained to roll down a slope there was no way he could hope to get higher than he was when he started. The kites he had started with could climb because the anchoring line allowed them to turn the horizontal wind into vertical motion, but peregrines weren't anchored, and a kite cut loose would fall as it drifted downwind, deprived of the force that kept it aloft.

It was the upward tug of a kite string that had convinced him that he too could fly, if only he could build a kite large enough. Overhead the peregrines were still circling in flat defiance of everything he knew about flight. How do you do that? Perhaps there were vertical air currents that the birds somehow sensed, perhaps . . . He started to sketch a diagram of their rhythmic climb-and-dive cycle, carefully inking the curving path. Always, always the turn and dive was to foreward and the pull-up and climb was to aftward. There had to be something important about that, but what it might be was a mystery as opaque as the aftwall. High overhead wispy clouds were spiraling up from the ocean, not enough to threaten rain, but . . . 

Ink spilled on the page as understanding blossomed. Of course! On the ground the wind blew always from foreword to aftward, but clouds moved the opposite way, drawing their majestic spirals around the suntube as they went. It's a cycle! Wind was just moving air, and if the steady breeze aftward weren't balanced by a higher wind in the other direction all the air would quickly pile up at the aftwall. The downdraft at the forewall was caused by the foreward-moving upper wind hitting the foredome and deflecting downwards until it hit the ground to become the aftward-moving lower wind. Which means there must be an updraft at the aftwall! With trembling hands Atyen tore the ink-stained sketch of the circling peregrines from his journal and threw it away. There was enough ink left in his jar to start a new sketch, a rough cylinder that outlined the extent of the world, with a simple line down the middle to signify the suntube. He drew in careful arrows to trace the wind circulation, aftward and up and foreward and down. As he sketched another understanding came to him. The water cycle. The constant mist at the forewall was water evaporated from the ocean by the suntube, carried up the length of the world by the upper winds, and condensed against the cold steel of the forewall. The wind cycle and the water cycle were meshed together like the gears of a waterclock.

That couldn't be all of the water cycle, the gushing outfalls at the river sources had to come from somewhere else, but as Atyen sketched he realized that there had to be some connection that drained water from the ocean and somehow pumped it to the outfalls. Otherwise the world would fill up with water. His hand trembled as he drew. What he was understanding went far beyond flight. He was touching on the fundamental nature of the world, and sensed some unifying concept just beyond his grasp. Concentrate, Atyen. Cycles . . . He looked sharply to the forewall, to the churning brown torrent that spilled from the Silver River's outfall. And the land cycle . . . Suddenly he understood the mystery of the survey errors that he had explored for Solender in what now seemed like another lifetime. The rivers washed silt to the ocean, and something, he couldn't imagine what, pumped muddy bottom-water back up to the outfalls. The mud settled in the marshy headwaters of the rivers, slowly building up over time until the inexorably building pressure forced the very ground to shift aftward. His hand trembled as he made notes. The wind cycle would go around in a day or two, but it had to take years for the outfalls to move the whole ocean. And the land cycle must take centuries, more than centuries. He realized he could work out its parameters with the old tithing surveys. How many more cycles are at work in the world?

The first thing was to understand the wind cycle. Already his drawing was revealing some of its secrets. He looked up to the spiraling clouds. The air would move fast close to the ground and to the suntube, faster still at the world's endwalls, slowest along an invisible line in the sky where the aftward and the foreward winds slipped past each other. What happens there? Would there be no wind at all? Or would there be roiling whirlpools of air, as there were when two river currents met? Near the aftwall and the foredome there had to be an overturn, where the moving air turned back on itself, and the air would whirlpool there. He drew carefully, filling in detail and texture. He sketched in the clouds. I'm still missing something. What he'd drawn would not produce the spiraling cloud patterns, and he bit his tongue as he pondered what might cause them. The in-bulging curve of the foredome was another question. It had to have some effect on the flow, but it was difficult to predict what it might be. His best guess was that it would shade the forewall from the full force of the downdraft.

But it's the aftwall that's most important. There was an updraft there, the complement of the forewall's downdraft, and if he was right about the shading effect of the foredome it would be even stronger. If it were strong enough it might even let him climb. If I can get into it. Overhead, the peregrines were still circling. Despite his excitement he forced himself to work slowly, sketching the details of the clouds as he saw them, and calling up memories of other clouds to incorporate into the drawing. Clouds always started over the shorefields, and as they rose they twisted spinward, always spinward, gradually at first and then until they had wrapped the suntube in strands of spiraling fleece. The strands grew fluffier as they stretched, until by the time they reached the forewall mists they had become a uniform shroud, with a texture that only hinted at the spiral structure that had formed it. They blend with it, but they aren't part of it. Clouds came and went, but the forewall mists were omnipresent. Sometimes clouds brought rain, but when they did it came in heavy drops and heavy downpours, where at the forewall the mist shaded into drizzle and back again as fog rose and fell.

He finished his drawing, packed his journal and his ink jars into his back bag, folded his wings and shouldered them and headed back to the Inquisitory. As he walked his mind raced over the possibilities. There were ledges on the aftwall, if the lines of green on its surface were any clue. If he could get up on them, he could ride the aftwall updraft as high as he dared. Noah flew to the suntube. He had never paid much attention to the Bible, but his diagram hinted that perhaps the story was true. Or at least possible. Moving his work to the shorefields would require support, and that meant he needed a doctrinor to sponsor him. Like it or not, he was going to have to test the uncertain waters of Inquisitory politics. And that might be more dangerous than jumping from the forewall. As he walked he considered who he might approach to help him. He started to make a mental list of possibilities, but soon became bogged down in speculation and gave up, unable to come to any conclusion. The truth was he didn't know any of the senior inquisitors. It had not seemed important when Solender was his doctrinor, and now he would have to make a decision with no real evidence to base it on. And perhaps there is no right answer.

But he had to do something. He made his way into the building and up to the level where the senior inquisitors lived, and by the time he arrived he had a solution to his problem, of sorts. He stopped at the watchkeeper's station to get directions to Inquisitor Renn's quarters. He knew Renn, if only vaguely, and that was a start. The functionary pointed, and Atyen went down the elaborately quilted hall to the indicated door. It was shut and so he knocked, tentatively at first, and then with more confidence when the first knock was overlooked.

"Come in," a voice said, muffled through the heavy door.

Atyen entered. "Excuse me, inquisitor." Renn was a spare man with a graying beard, and his outer office was half in chaos, with paper and manuscripts piled haphazardly over the workshelf and spilling onto the floor. Carefully inked drawings of buildings adorned the walls, models of bridges sat on the walls, a miniature of a two-beam crane took up most of his workshelf.

"Atyen, isn't it?" the inquisitor asked.

"Yes, inquisitor."

Renn pushed his chair back. "Come in, come in. Sit down. You were Solender's aspirant, weren't you? The one who's been jumping off the forewall?"

"I'm learning to fly."

The inquisitor nodded. His cross sash was faded and ink stained. "And now you want to present your masterwork."

"That too, I suppose," Atyen answered. In truth he hadn't considered that a possibility any longer, and it hadn't occurred to him that it mattered. As long as I get to fly, nothing else is important.

Renn gave Atyen a surprised look. "You suppose? What else would an aspirant with no doctrinor want from a senior inquisitor?"

"Just the support to keep learning."

"Don't you want to be an inquisitor yourself?"

"I do, I mean . . ." Atyen hesitated, unsure of what might be appropriate to say. "I didn't think it was possible. Anymore, I mean . . ."

Renn laughed without humor. "Our new Chief Inquisitor has not been kind to those who were close to Solender. Is that what you mean?"

"I know they've all been assigned away from the Inquisitory."

Renn nodded. "Exactly. Do you know what will happen if I take you on? Vesene will send us both to the smallest village he could find, me to serve out my time as inquisitor-of-fact for petty land disputes, and you to abandon any dream of a double-red cross-sash."

"I haven't come to ask you to take me on. Only to ask you who I should ask."

Renn's eyebrows went up. "I'm not of a quality to be your doctrinor, is that it?"

"No no, it's not that," Atyen protested. "I mean . . . I've seen what happened to Solender's other aspirants, and the doctrinors they've gone to. I wouldn't put you in that position, but I don't know who to ask. I've never really gotten to know any other inquisitors."

Renn leaned back, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Very clever. You don't know who might still be foolish enough to take on one of Solender's aspirants, but you think I do."

Atyen hung his head, feeling defeated. I didn't think I'd be so transparent. "I'm sorry to have bothered you, inquisitor," he said, and turned to go.

"Stop!" Atyen stopped and turned around. Renn waved him back into his seat. "I thought the last of Solender's studio were gone months ago. How have you managed to work without a doctrinor for so long?"

"I've been overlooked, I think."

"Overlooked." Renn put a hand to his chin and considered Atyen as if he were a new kind of insect. "Haven't you tried to find a new place before this?"

"No. I haven't needed one."

"How does that work?"

Atyen shrugged. "Nobody's asked me to leave. I have my room, my workspace, I eat in in the meal hall. I do my work and no one bothers me."

"So why do you need a doctrinor now?"

"I can glide, but I can't soar. To do that I need to go to the aftwall."

Renn laughed. "You know, I'm starting to think you don't want to be an inquisitor."

"As long as I can keep flying it doesn't matter."

"So tell me what's at the aftwall that so important."

Atyen explained briefly what he'd figured out about the wind cycle, and the updraft he predicted at the aftwall. Renn listened patiently, but as soon as he was done began to ask questions. Atyen found himself elaborating on the water and earth cycles as well, on the flight of peregrines, on the shape of wings and the vagaries of flight control. The senior inquisitor was sharp, and inexorably zeroed in on the weak spots in Atyen's analysis. He began to sweat as Renn challenged him on his assumption that water evaporated from the ocean by the suntube would carry air with it. He had no proof that it did, and without that his whole theory would collapse. After a while the questions stopped, and Renn was silent. Atyen bit his lower lip not daring to hope that the senior inquisitor might choose to take him on.

Eventually Renn spoke. "You're the one who did the population research for Solender, aren't you?"

"Yes, inquisitor."

"Did he ever mention our new Chief Inquisitor to you?"

"No. He never spoke of any senior inquisitors. He told me he had rivals once. I can see now he was talking about Vesene."

"I see." Renn looked away, lost in thought. "So what did you think?"

"About what?"

"About our situation, our population, our food supply, our future. All those things Solender was worried about."

Atyen opened his mouth to answer, and closed it again. Certainly Solender had been worried, and Atyen had made his doctrinor's concern his own. But this man won't be satisfied with such an unreasoned answer.

"I don't have enough understanding to give a firm conclusion, inquisitor," he said at length.

Renn nodded slowly. "What conclusion would you give, given what you know right now?"

Atyen bit his lip. "Somewhere there's a limit to how many people the world can feed. I don't know how close we might be to that. I think it's more important to understand why the population is growing so fast now when it's been stable for so long. Will it slow down? Will it stop and reverse itself? Can we influence it?"

The senior inquisitor pursed his lips. "Insightful." He picked up a tenth-meter tacklewheel from his workshelf and contemplated it. "Byo Vesene is giving grain to the hungry in Charisy, a noble gesture. He's rebuilding the Inquisitory there, rebuilding it grandly, and building houses too." Renn turned the tacklewheel over in his hands, studying it as if the answers he was looking for were written on its underside. "He plans to have full employment in the city. What do you think of that?"

"Those aren't bad things . . . People need food, jobs and houses. As for the Inquisitory, I never understood why we were up here in the mists."

Renn nodded. "I sense a reservation."

Atyen shrugged. "They don't address the underlying problem. The grain has to come from somewhere, so does the bamboo for the houses, the bricks for the Inquisitory."

"Hmmm." Renn considered the tacklewheel some more. Finally he put it down. "Well, young Atyen, I'm not going to recommend an inquisitor to you. I can't see any good coming out of it."

Atyen's heart sank. But at least I tried. "Thank you for your time, inquisitor." For the second time he got up to leave.

"Here, take this to the aftwall." Renn reached under his workshelf and pulled out a small satchel of ornately dyed cloth. "Learn to soar, and if the learning doesn't kill you, come back and see me in a year." He dropped the satchel in front of Atyen. It hit the workshelf with a weighty clunk.

Atyen picked it up and nearly dropped it; it was far too heavy for its size. He opened it, reached in and brought out a metal disc, the same size and shape as a two-token, but made of something he'd never seen before, like steel but with a smoother, brighter luster and much heavier. It was embossed with the same multi-pointed circle that all tokens carried, but on the reverse it was denominated with a five instead of a two. It was exactly round where most tokens were at least a little out of true, and the embossing was nothing short of perfect. He looked closer and found tiny letters scribed around the rim, but the words had no meaning. I-O-T-A  H-O-R-O-L-O-G-I-I.

"What are these?" he asked.

"Builder tokens."

Atyen looked at the heavy disc with new reverence. "I've never seen one. What are they made of?"

"Nobody knows. They can't be melted, at least not in any forge I've tested them in. They can't be scratched, and you can see that in thousands of years they've barely been worn. Builder artifacts were supposed to be my masterwork, but I learned almost nothing that wasn't already known." Renn shrugged. "I moved on." He chuckled and picked up the tacklewheel again. "But I kept collecting tokens, I have been for forty years now."

"Builder tokens." Atyen took another disc out of the bag. This one was slightly larger, octagonal rather than round, and with different embossing. On the reverse side was the number twenty, though it was far too small for a modern twenty-token. "Why are you giving them to me?"

"They're doing no one any good here. I'm making an investment. You're going to make sure it pays off for me."

"But . . ." Atyen swallowed. "These must be priceless, I can't . . ."

"Not priceless, just valuable. Never take less than ten times the face value for one."

"Face value?"

"The numbers are the face values—you'll find they don't correspond to their steel-weights, though the five-token is close. Don't let anyone talk you into trading them by weight."

Atyen turned the twenty token over in his hand, and considered that it was worth a solid two kilos of steel. "Does this mean you're taking me on as an aspirant?"

"This means I think you're too valuable to be wasted. Go away, come back in a year. Things will have changed by then, if we're lucky. Maybe we'll get you a double-red cross-sash after all."

"Thank you." Atyen didn't know what else to say. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, just don't kill yourself. We're going to need you. And Atyen?"

"Inquisitor?"

"Let's keep this just between us."

 

The catch-box was overflowing with flopping carp, their scales glinting in the suntube light. The early haul had been a good one. Sarabee gave Jens a kiss, and he winked at her and stepped back onto the net-raft to go out for another run. He pulled the sail up by its haul lines, the fabric flapped and billowed, then tightened as it filled with wind, and the small craft nosed its way into the gentle waves. Sarabee smiled as she watched him go. Jens is such a good man, a good provider. She kept watching as he deftly guided the raft through the maze of fishing platforms that clung to the shore. Jens was a deep water fisher, casting his nets a kilometer or two out into the ocean, where the carp lived deep and grew bigger. It took more skill than platform fishing, because you had to know how the fish moved, anticipate where they were going to be, and then be there before anyone else.

"Mind your brother," she told Healan. "Why don't you take him up to the smokeshed and show him how to gather grass."

"I will," her youngest daughter answered. "Come on, Jerl." She took his hand.

"String," Jerl gurgled happily. String was his new word, and his new favorite toy, and he toddled unsteadily after his sister.

"Don't go too far now," Sarabee called after them, then turned to her older girls. "Liese, Acelle, you can help me get these fish on the rack." Without waiting for an answer she grabbed one of the carp from the catch-box, slapped it on the cutting table and deftly gutted it. Proud to be allowed to help, and certain of her priority as the oldest, Liese took the split fish and hung it on the shaded drying rack where the wind could get at it. Soon the three of them had an efficient routine established. It took them the better part of an hour to work their way through the catch, by which time the girls were tired and ready for their noon meal. She sent Liese up to collect the younger children while she washed down the bloody table with buckets of water, then went up to the smokeshed herself. As she had expected they hadn't made much progress gathering grass. But at least it kept them busy. She opened the door to the low-roofed structure to check the progress of the fish smoking inside. They was coming along well, though the fire in the firebowl was getting a little low. She took a couple of handfuls of grass from the pile outside, mixing the older, dried blades with fresher, greener material that would smolder and smoke to preserve the fish and infuse it with its delicate flavor. The mongers gave her a premium for her product because it was so good, and her neighbors were always trying to find out what her secret was. But really it's the way Jens built the smokeshed to draw fresh air in and use it to swirl the smoke. His innovation cured the fish faster and more evenly, and that made all the difference.

"Sarabee," a voice called. "What do you have for me today?"

Sarabee looked up to see Pren, Cove's most successful monger. "A good batch, done by the evening bell. A hundred kilos at least."

"Mind if I take a look?" Pren was already climbing up the bank from the road. Behind him his son was bringing up a goat-cart piled high with cured carp sides.

"Of course not. Liese, take everyone up to the house. I'll be there shortly."

Her eleven-year-old herded the other children up the path, her young voice giving firm orders.

"Come see," Sarabee continued as Pren came up. She re-opened the smokeshed door and pulled out a side of fish. Expertly she sliced a hunk off for him.

He tasted it, considered it, nodded. "Very nice. Fifty tokens."

"Don't you want to wait till it's done?"

"I'll pay you now, and I'll send the boy back at evening meal."

"Seventy-five," said Sarabee.

"Sixty," he answered. "Only because I like you."

"Seventy," Sarabee countered. "You like your mother, but you'd sell her teeth in Charisy market if you could get a two-token for them."

"You malign me," Pren said, pretending to be offended. "My mother's teeth are worth more than that. I'll give you sixty-five, though I'll take a loss on the sale."

The offer was what Sarabee had expected, and she was about to agree when a new voice broke in. "I'll give you seventy." She and Pren looked up together and saw a tall, older woman coming up the boardwalk by the docks. Csay, who usually worked the spinward shore.

"Seventy-five," countered Pren, giving the interloper an unpleasant look.

"Eighty," said Csay, out of breath. She'd been running.

"Ninety, though it's twice what they're worth. I won't let such fine fish go to this old hag."

"A full kilo. Don't let this thief cheat you, Sarabee."

"A thief am I?" The banter of bargaining wasn't meant to be personal, but Sarabee could see a hint of anger creep into Pren's eyes. The comment had struck home. "I'll give you a kilo and ten, Sarabee, and as much again for your next catch."

"A kilo and a quarter then," Csay answered. "And the same for your next three catches." She took off her backbag and pulled out a shiny ingot, five kilograms of shipsteel.

"You haven't even seen the fish," protested Pren.

"I trust the Madanes." Csay held out the ingot. "What do you say, Sarabee?"

Sarabee looked from one monger to the other, trying to keep the amazement off her face. "Pren?"

"I can't match it, not today." Pren pressed his lips together. "I'll take what she doesn't of your next catches. Same price."

"A kilo and a quarter for what she doesn't take?"

Pren nodded. "Do we have a bargain?"

"We do," Sarabee answered slowly. What's happening here? Pren put out his hand and she shook it. "I'll be back tomorrow or the next day. Good catch, Sarabee." He went back down the bank to the road where his son was waiting with the goat cart.

Sarabee turned her attention back to Csay. She looked at the offered ingot, not quite believing in it. Slowly she reached out and took it from the monger. It felt heavy, very heavy, and the steel glowed with a soft luster.

"Thank you, Csay," she said.

"Don't thank me, you should see what good fish is bringing in Tidings, let alone in Charisy."

"How much?"

Csay laughed. "Enough that I'll make a nice profit. You're lucky I got here in time. You were going to take sixty-five?"

"A good enough price." Sarabee paused. "Or so I thought."

"You haven't heard then?"

"Heard what?"

"The tithe on grain just doubled. Yesterday, the inquisitors announced it, the lazy sooksas. Doubled! Today the market was full of farmers trying to unload what they had before the tithecounters took it. You could get fifty liters of wheat for nine tokens. Then the news started spreading and everyone was buying. By the noon meal it was twenty, by the time I left it was thirty."

"That's grain, not fish."

"When bread costs what meat does, people might as well buy meat. When everyone does that, pretty soon meat costs more again. Tomorrow cured fish is going to sell like wheat did today. The other mongers haven't figured that out yet, but I'm buying what I can while I can buy it."

"Oh yes? What would you offered me if Pren hadn't been here?"

Csay smiled. "Sixty-five, I'm no fool." She turned to go back to the boardwalk. "I'll send someone for the catch later."

Sarabee nodded and watched her go, then looked at the ingot, ran a hand over its smooth, unblemished surface. It wasn't smith-cast, it was an original shipsteel ingot, a rarity in the shorefields. People usually saved them when they could, so Csay must have meant what she said about buying all the fish she could get her hands on. And Pren . . . when has Pren ever lacked the steel to buy what he wanted? He must've spent all he had already, and certainly his cart had been overflowing. Not that I can complain about high prices. Who knew how long the good fortune might last? She checked the smokeshed fire one more time, then started walking up to the house. The unexpected windfall was just in time. Her ancient stewpot, handed down from her grandmother's grandmother, had finally worn out. She hadn't had the steel to get it recast, but the ingot would make a fine new one, with enough left over to pay the smith for the forging. The old pot would make a fine set of hooks for Jens's lines. . . . 

Liese had organized a snack for her sisters by the time she got home, and even Jerl was nibbling uncertainly on a piece of panbread. Sarabee's breasts were heavy, and she picked him up to nurse. He'd be weaned, soon enough, and then she and Jens would have to decide if they wanted another child. We could have one more . . . Sarabee had always imagined herself with a large family, but the reality was that even four was stretching them tight. But if fish prices stay so high . . . anything might be possible. Liese brought her a panbread stuffed with ewe's cheese and dried olives.

"Thank you, butterfly," she said, and kissed her daughter on top of her head. Liese giggled and ran off, and Sarabee watched her go proudly. Her oldest was such a delight, so helpful and mature. All her children were delights in their own way, but Liese had something special, a sly humor that spoke of maturity beyond her years. And it doesn't hurt that she's so beautiful. Acelle and Healan took after their father more, but Liese had Sarabee's own graceful features, and her longer, leaner proportions. She was going to break hearts when she grew up.

She finished her meal slowly as Jerl nursed. The market would be closing soon, but she still had time to get the ingot in to a smith, if she left right away. When Jerl was finished she rocked him till he fell asleep, picked up his carry-sling and slipped him into it, then collected her old and worn out pot. She called for Liese to gather the girls, and led all four children over to Celese's. Celese was full of news and gossip about the new tithe rate and the soaring price of grain, but Sarabee stayed to talk only as long as was polite. She told her sister she was on her way to get her pot fixed, but didn't mention the heavy ingot in her backbag. There's no need to make her jealous. Celese had given up trying to work her land and was renting it out, so she wouldn't be sharing in the market rise.

She left Jerl tucked in and the girls playing with Celese's boys and went up the road towards Tidings. There was the usual amount of traffic on the road, and that didn't worry her too much, but she kept a watchful eye on her surroundings as she came to the makeshift huts that marked the town's outskirts. Since the attack she felt nervous in open spaces, and uncomfortable alone in public. Ahead a group of youths seemed to take notice of her, and she tensed, but their attention was momentary and a few moments later she was past them without incident. Things just aren't good in the town. The merchants had put low walls around their stalls, to keep the urchins from stealing their wares. The sentinels were out in force and the street toughs had vanished from view, but they weren't gone, they just kept to the tangled back alleys, which had started to overflow with squatters living under makeshift canopies of discarded wood and cloth. The market was closing when she got there, the merchants putting away their wares and the customers heading for home. Every grain bin was empty, and even those who sold bread and fruit and vegetables had little work to do in closing up. Csay was right. The price of fish tomorrow would be high, and perhaps she'd come to regret having promised the monger three more catches at a kilo and a quarter each. But who can know tomorrow?

Sarabee made her way to the street of artisans. There were a dozen smiths there, including three who specialized in pots and utensils. She knew all of them by reputation but none of them in person, and so she went to all three to inspect their wares and prices, finally settling on the one in the midrange of both. The smiths were a broad-shouldered man and his talented wife and they did solid, quality work, but without the ornamental flare of the more expensive shop. She bargained with the wife, who haggled hard, but eventually she came away with what she was expecting, a fifteen liter stewpot for her five kilo ingot. She resisted the temptation to buy a new ladle to go with it. I've been lucky today, but that doesn't make us rich. As she was going out another woman came in, a miller to judge by the flour smeared on her clothes. She had a bag full of tokens, and she too wanted a new stewpot. Sarabee smiled to herself, she'd gotten in just in time. The price of smithwork was about to go up.

 

There was a lot of preparation to be done before Atyen could leave, but he threw himself into it. No longer was he hanging in limbo, existing in the margins of the Inquisitory's new order. He had a purpose, and he had a future. Jumping from the aftwall would be different, if only because he would be landing in the ocean. He spent some time designing a quick release buckle system, so he could separate from his wings and swim away as soon as he hit the water, and more time assuring himself that the resin used to secure his bindings wouldn't lose strength when it was immersed. He took a day to go to the market in Charisy, to trade some of his builder tokens for steel and buy what he would need.

The city was much calmer than it had been last time he was through. The toughs he saw were in grain-lines, the sentinels were back in the streets. Even so he was acutely aware of the small fortune in the small satchel in his backbag, and decided not to trade any builder tokens in the market. Instead he took them around to the various trust-houses, exchanging only two at each one. He could only trade a fraction of them that way, but he still wound up with a hefty weight of steel. He used it to get himself a goat cart and three pairs of goats, more resin, sinew, best quality bamboo poles and flax fabric and beeswax, dried fruit and meat and sundry tools and equipment. When he got back he left the goats and the loaded cart in charge of the stablemaster, and went back to the studio. He wasn't able to exactly duplicate the studio's toolset, and so he made one last set of modifications to his wings using his new acquisitions, in order to confirm that he could do everything he needed to do with what he had. The experiment proved that he couldn't do without a routing plane, so he would have to make another trip to the toolsmith to get one. He gathered his forming jigs, his collected journals and brought them to the cart, then returned for his clothing, a quilt, and the meager few possessions he had in his room. It was after the evening-meal bell before he was finished, but there was no point in staying in the Inquisitory. He stirred up the goats and headed back down, taking the trading road through Charisy one more time. Even in the sleeping hours the streets were busy with builders, throwing up the bamboo frames of Vesene's new housing projects. He made it to the shorefields before the breakfast bell and knocked on Jens's door. His friend answered his knock, bleary eyed.

"Atyen!" He exclaimed, blinking against the suntubelight. "What are you doing here?"

"I left the Inquisitory . . ."

Jens embraced him. "Come in, come in, you must be exhausted." His friend led him inside, it was only when he put down his blade Atyen noticed that he'd answered the door armed. "Just in case, after last time," Jens said, following his gaze. He closed the door and cracked a sleep shutter open.

"I'd like to stay for a while, if I could, and make some use of your raft."

"You're going to be a fisher?" Jens asked, incredulous.

Atyen shook his head, and explained what happened at the Inquisitory. "I need you to take me to the aftwall," he finished. "I'll trade you a goat cart and six goats, for as many trips as that will buy me, and straight steel for everything after that."

Jens laughed. "Once again, you're too generous, my friend. I'll get you to the aftwall. First let me find you somewhere to sleep."

There was no extra bed in the small house, but Jens piled a couple of floor quilts in the kitchen alcove by the firebowl. Together they unloaded Atyen's equipment into Jens's sailshed, then turned the goats into the small paddock. When he finally crawled into his makeshift bed he was exhausted.

The breakfast bell came all too soon, with the voices of the children and their mother. Sarabee was surprised to find him there, but welcomed him with a hug. Liese, grown a tenth-meter since last he'd seen her, looked after the younger ones while Sarabee cooked panbread. It was served steaming hot, slathered with peach honey, a rare luxury in the shorefields, and washed down with big mugs of thickened milk. After breakfast Atyen help Jens get the net-raft ready for the trip to the aftwall. He'd brought his wings, though he wasn't sure he'd get a chance to fly. The first thing he had to do was figure out how to get up to the aftwall ledge. They pushed off, and Jens raised the sail. He maneuvered them skillfully through the maze of platforms that crowded close to the shore, the net-raft's sharp nose cutting cleanly through the water. A lot of other rafts were putting out as well but some were coming in.

"They can't have filled their nets already," Atyen said.

Jens shook his head. "Those are liners, not netters, and they've been out the whole sleeping hours."

"Why would they do that?"

"Some think the fish are better when there's fewer rafts in the water. They work when we sleep, they sleep when we work." Jens shrugged. "I've done it, but it didn't make much difference to the catch. Mostly made it harder to catch the mongers, and I never saw the children or Sarabee."

"I see." Atyen fell silent, and then Jens asked him about his wings. He explained once more his theory about the wind cycle, and he couldn't tell if his friend thought he was brilliant or crazy. Not that it matters. I'm here, I'm doing it. He watched the graceful rafts sliding over the rippling ocean, and dangled a hand over the side, enjoying the coolness. Eventually the other rafts began to fall behind as they dropped their nets and began fishing. Ahead the aftwall seemed close enough to touch, but it still took them bells to reach it. He spent the time tying lengths of net line into knotted loops to use on the coming climb. As he worked his mind drifted back to the last time he and Jens had sailed to the wall. It had taken much, much longer than he had thought it would. Eventually they were the only boat for kilometers. The last bell he'd heard had been almost too faint to make out, and he was sure that it had taken three at least to get as far as they had come. Unlike the forewall, the aftwall had no permanent cloud layer, and the gray steel surface loomed vast as they drew closer. He could make out the thin lines that marked the ledges, but as they came closer he could see that climbing to them was going to be a problem. There were green patches where vegetation clung to the sheer face, but there was nothing like the thick, twining layers of vines that covered the forewall. And there certainly won't be any stairs.

The wind dropped as they got closer, which confirmed at least part of Atyen's theory of the wind cycle. All I want now is to feel an updraft. Instead the gentle breeze fell to almost nothing. Their progress dropped to a crawl, and Jens angled them so the sail could make maximum use of what wind there was. Atyen opened his journal to his carefully scaled drawing of the world and its cycles to see if he could understand what was happening. Perhaps it's just random variation. After some thought he saw a possible answer. There was an overturn where the wind reversed itself, an invisible point halfway to the suntube where the air would spin around itself like a whirlpool in a waterbowl, but the wind wouldn't turn a corner at right angles. That meant there would be overturns at the bases of the walls, and perhaps high up near the suntube as well. He chewed on his lip as he considered the problem. Or perhaps I'm wrong. There was too much he didn't know. As they grew closer he could see gulls and fisherbirds swinging and screaming around the vertical face, but their swooping maneuvers held no attraction for Atyen. He put his journal away without making any notes, and waited impatiently to arrive at the aftwall.

Finally they slid up to the gray steel wall, the raft side bumping gently against it with the lapping waves. "We're here," said Jens, dropping the sail. He looked up at the vast silver-grey surface, ran his hand over it. "Look at that, a fortune in steel just sitting there." He ran a hand over a projecting knob near the waterline. "A good axe-blow would get that off, what do you think?"

"It's been tried. You'd break your axe."

"Maybe a blade?"

Atyen shook his head. "Shaped steel is never as good as shipsteel, and the walls are harder even than shipsteel. Anyway, if you could get steel like that it wouldn't be worth so much."

"It would be if I was the only one who could get it." Jens laughed. "Of course the same would be true of carp. What now?"

"Now we'll see if I can climb it." Atyen looked up at the sheer face. It would definitely be a more challenging climb than the forewall. The aftwall carried the same vertical ripples as the forewall, and where the waves could reach the steel it was even more deeply eroded. There was no steady trickle from above though, and so a few meters up it got much smoother. None of the higher grooves were sharp-sided enough to take a knot and hold a loop. He stood up, balancing carefully against the gentle rocking of the net-raft, and experimentally grabbed a projecting knob of the surface, testing his weight on it. It's going to be difficult. There was no way he was going to be able to climb with his wings on his back, that was certain. I'll have to bring a light rope, pull up a heavier one. That would allow him to haul up whatever he needed, and if he could find a way to anchor it, it would also make climbing much easier the next time. And I should've thought of that before I got here. What was it Solender had taught him? Experience is what you don't have until just after you need it.

"Do you have a rope I could use?" he asked Jens, and explained what he was thinking.

The fisher looked up, eyeing the wall. "Not here, not that long. I do at home."

"Hmmm. Well, we're here now. Let's see if I can climb it at all before we go back." Atyen found a foothold, tested it and transferred his weight from the raft to the wall. He found a higher foothold, felt it out with his toes, and pulled himself up.

"Be careful," warned Jens, as Atyen moved past the first, easy, holds.

"I will be," Atyen said, but the reality was he had to climb or give up, and he wasn't going to give up. And the water will cushion my fall, if I do fall. He found a handhold just out of reach, and after a frustrating moment trying to get ahold of it, he start looking for something closer. There were none, but there was a smooth projection, not quite a handhold, but enough to brace against to give him the extra four centimeters of reach he needed. He braced, pushed, reached, and managed to grab the elusive knob of steel. His new position wasn't stable, and he had to scramble to get a better foothold before his grip failed. At least the aftwall was suntube-warm, unlike the water-chilled forewall. It made the climbing much more pleasant.

He climbed higher, handhold, handhold, foothold, foothold, and the first time he looked down he was ten meters up, higher than the net-raft's mast. The lack of good holds put more strain on his legs, and his injured calf ached already, but he felt good. I'm doing it. If he could keep it up for another ninety meters he'd be on the ledge. He bit his lip and climbed onwards. The next section of wall was easier than the first; some of the ripples were deep enough that vegetation had taken hold, and once he found a tiny birds' nest, long abandoned. He went up with relative ease for another ten meters, and then ran out of easy holds. There was an easier looking route off to his right, and he moved down, across, and up again to try it. There were still no good handholds, but there was a series of deeper vertical striations in the steel that he could wedge knots into. He did, and climbed on the loops until he couldn't place any more, then rested on the loops as he assessed the way higher. Up and to his left he saw what looked like a good route, and visualized how he'd tackle it, then started climbing again. His leg was burning from the strain now, but he ignored the pain and kept on.

He shouldn't have. The pain was a warning that he'd pushed the injury as far as he safely could. Had he been climbing the more deeply textured forewall he might've gotten away with it, but he wasn't. He'd gone a few more meters up his route and was reaching for a good handhold just out of reach, trying the same brace-push-reach technique he'd used at the bottom. He didn't quite make the reach, but most of his weight was supported on his injured leg, and when he came back down on it, it buckled beneath him. He slipped, clung for a heartbeat to the single handhold he still had, grabbed at the wall with his free hand, and then fell backwards. When he hit it seemed harder even than his near fatal landing after his first flight, and the pain flashed white in his vision. For an instant he thought he'd smacked the raft itself, but then the water closed over his head. The impact knocked the wind out of him and he had to fight the urge to inhale. He flailed around, disoriented, opened his eyes and swam towards the light, kicking hard, his lungs burning. It seemed to take forever to reach the surface, and his eyes were popping by the time he broke it. He gasped, sucked in water, coughed and went down. This time he had a breath and when he broke the surface again he made sure he was well above the waves before he took another one.

"Grab it," Jens was yelling, and Atyen became aware of a wooden net-float in front of him. He grabbed it and hung on, still coughing up water. The float was tied to a length of rope, and Jens pulled him over to the raft and pulled him in over the net-haul. "Are you all right?"

Atyen tried to answer and coughed up more water. Every bone in his body felt broken, even his teeth hurt, but nothing hurt more when he tried to move it, which was a good sign. "I'm . . . fine . . ." he finally managed to gasp.

"In Noah's name, I thought you were killed."

"I've . . . had worse . . ." Atyen managed to sit up, and felt himself over, just to confirm that nothing new was broken. He looked up at the place he fallen from. It seemed very high. "Water gets harder when you fall a long way."

Jens looked worried. "I'll get you back to shore."

Atyen looked up at the wall, his eyes following his path to the point where he'd slipped. Already the pain was starting to fade in his back and legs. He'd climbed nearly thirty meters, and he wanted more than anything to just get back on the wall and get back up. But I need rope next time. He'd learned that he could climb the aftwall, and he'd learned that it was dangerous. There was no point in trying again until he could make his success count towards his goal.

"I'm just glad you didn't drown." Jens was already raising the sail to take them back.

Atyen breathed in shakily. "Me too. We'll come back tomorrow."

Jens gave him a look. "Tomorrow? Are you out of your mind? Why would you do that again?"

Atyen shrugged. "Because I want to fly."

"You are out of your mind."

"Then it's a good thing I've got you to look after me." Atyen put a hand on Jens's shoulder, reawakening the pain in his punished muscles. "Thank you."

Jens's expression was unreadable, and they sailed in silence, each lost in his own thoughts. Atyen kept his eyes on the aftwall as it receded. I can do it, I know I can.

The voyage back took twice as long as the voyage out, because they had to work against the wind, and it was long into the sleeping hours before they were back to the dock. Sarabee and the children were asleep when they came in. Atyen hadn't broken any bones, but he'd pulled every muscle in his body and could barely sleep as a result. When Liese's young voice woke him at the breakfast bell he was so sore it was all he could do to stand up and hobble to the kitchen table. So I'm not going back to the aftwall today. Jens told Sarabee what had happened, and she insisted on putting him into their own bed when her husband went out to do the day's fishing. He protested, and tried to make himself useful, but every movement was painful and awkward and so he finally acquiesced to her ministrations. At the noon-meal bell he insisted on getting up to sit outside and work on his journal, sketching in the eroded steel of the aftwall and considering how he could climb better. He found no easy solution. The steel was the steel, and he could not cut handholds in it, nor attach anything to it. Without vines or enough places for climbing loops it was down to his own strength and skill, and that had already proved inadequate. He recalled an experiment he learned when he'd first studied in mechanography, where two pieces of steel rubbed together in a certain way would develop a force that made them cling tenaciously to each other or a third piece. But that force is nowhere near strong enough to climb with. It might be possible to find a way to increase that, but he wasn't inclined to engage in yet another side-exploration in pursuit of this goal. The wall was there. I'm just going to have to climb it. The one thing he could do was make sure he only had to succeed once. He had initially envisioned a simple rope, with a timber frame that he could haul up in sections to anchor it. But I can do better than that. He spent the rest of the day carefully planning a heavy frame with an overhanging beam that would support a carrier basket moving up and down on ropes run over tacklewheels, so he could easily haul things up and down, including himself.

They didn't return to the aftwall the next day either, or even on the third day. He felt well enough to move though, and he borrowed the goat cart he had just given Jens and took it into Tidings to buy some rope, some light bamboo and some heavy lumber, the routing plane he needed, two pairs of tacklewheels and a few other necessary sundries. The only lumber in the cutyard that met his needs had been salvaged from an old barn, and it was more much more expensive than he had thought it should be. The tacklewheel systems ran the rope top to bottom to top to bottom, which meant he needed three-hundred meters of rope for each carrier. There was nothing like that available in Tidings, so he had to go to the sailsmith in Cove and leave an order. While he was there he bought a couple of big double-geared winding drums, meant for hauling nets. They'd be easier and safer than simply hand-over-handing the ropes.

The hike to Cove and back saw him home after the evening-meal bell, but he still managed to buy a disused fisher's sailshed not far from Jens's dock. Like the lumber it was more expensive than he'd imagined, and it took a significant fraction of his token reserves to buy it. It had two rooms, one of which would serve as a small workshop, the other for a tiny living space. Jens and Sarabee had been generous in letting him stay, but they really didn't have the room with four children, and it was awkward sleeping on their kitchen floor. And Sarabee . . . She was bright, open, funny, generous, and as beautiful as she had always been. Living in close proximity to her aroused emotions in him that he didn't really want to deal with. She's the wife of my best friend.

He spent one more night with them, and then Sarabee gave him a sleeping quilt and a few domestic sundries to set up housekeeping, and he made a hammock out of some discarded sail cloth that he found in a corner. He set up his forming jigs on the workshop floor, and his tools on the workshelf. He was used to living by himself in austere circumstances, but for some reason he felt lonely in a way he hadn't since he'd first arrived at the Inquisitory. The windows had shutters but no sleep-cloth, and it was too bright inside for good sleeping. He threw his arm over his eyes to keep the light out, and eventually managed to fall asleep. When he did he dreamt he was falling again, and awoke with a start. It felt like he'd slept for only minutes, but the tolling of the breakfast bell from Tidings church told him he'd been asleep for hours. He got up, ate a handful of his dried fruit and got to work with the lumber he'd bought. Over the next week he built a pair of heavy frames to hold the tackle-wheels, one for the hundred-meter ledge and one for the two-hundred-meter ledge. He had designed them in sections so he could lift them in pieces and assemble them easily up on the wall. At the end of the fourth day the frames were finished, and he no longer felt lonely. I'm accustomed to working by myself, living by myself. It was only when he saw what Jens had that he felt what he lacked.

The sailsmith arrived with the winding drums and two heavy coils in a cart, and Atyen was amazed at their size and bulk, six hundred meters was a lot of rope. He picked one up experimentally, grunting with the effort. He had planned to bring one to the top of the aftwall and drop it over so he could haul up the frame components, but there was no way he'd be able to climb with such a weight on his back. The solution was straightforward, he sent the sailsmith back with an order for a hundred-and-twenty-meter length of light cord, strong enough to pull up the rope, which could then be used to pull up everything else. He spent the rest of the day working on the carriers, lightweight baskets of bamboo big enough to hold him and his wings, barely, each built around the drums. He added locking cleats to the ropeways for safety.

In another week the carriers were finished, and with the rope in hand he had all the components he needed. It made him impatient to get back to the aftwall, but he held himself back. The only way he would conquer the aftwall was through physical strength and climbing technique. His technique wasn't bad, he'd learned a lot on the forewall, but there was no question he could be stronger, and getting to the second ledge would take all the strength he could get. He didn't know how far he had to fall before cushioning water became hard enough to be fatal, but it couldn't be much more than the thirty meters he'd fallen so he couldn't afford another mistake. In a way I'm lucky I fell when I did. Very much higher and he might not have survived the experience. He cut a series of small blocks, nailed them to one wall of this workshop, and for the rest of the day he practiced climbing on them. When he was too tired to go on he set about making his small space a little more comfortable. He cut sleep-cloths from the leftover sail cloth, painted them over with some pitchfill he found in a corner and hung them. Light still filtered around the edges, but they made the room dark enough to sleep in. He cleaned up his small room, swept the floor, and arranged his few belongings on a shelf that had once held nets and floats. When he was done he climbed his blocks again, and then again.

That set the pattern for the next weeks. With his forming jigs set up he could work on his wings, but there was little he could do to improve them until he had test-flown the current configuration. He put the rest of his time into climbing practice and long walks to build his endurance. Once he even hiked all the way to the forewall, climbed to the second ledge and back down. He spent the sleeping hours in the Inquisitory, sleeping in one of the dark and disused inner corridors, and then hiked all the way back to the shorefields. His injured leg was screaming by the end of it, but his muscles were harder than he could remember them ever being, he felt stronger and fitter than he ever had, and the entire trip back he kept his eyes on the aftwall. I will climb, and I will fly. Occasionally Jens would bring up dinner in covered dishes to spend the evening and talk, other times Atyen would visit to share the evening meal with him and with Sarabee. The conversations would last far past the time they should have been in bed, and Atyen found himself thriving. He hadn't had friends since he'd left for the Inquisitory, only colleagues and doctrinors. He'd forgotten how much he missed that.

And then, when he was ready, he outlined his plan and asked Jens to take him back to the aftwall.

His friend hesitated. "I'm not sure I should, Atyen. I don't want to help you kill yourself."

"Jens is right," put in Sarabee. "It's so nice to have you back in the shorefields. Come and fish with us, we could use the help . . ." She hesitated. ". . . and I wouldn't have to worry about you."

Atyen opened his mouth to answer, and closed it. There's no way I can explain so they'll understand. "It's what I have to do," he said finally. "I've worked on this for years now, and I'm not giving up. I have to hire someone to take me to the aftwall, and I'd rather it was you. And I'd rather it was you there if something goes wrong again."

"Atyen . . ." Jens paused.

"You can't convince me not to do it, you can only help me, or not."

"Alright," Jens breathed out. "It's your life, and your pyre."

"Thank you." Atyen looked to Sarabee and saw in her face the protest that she wasn't allowing herself to voice. "Thank you both."

The conversation turned to other topics, and then Atyen helped Liese with her mathematics lessons while Jens and Sarabee finished their chores. Sarabee set up his quilts on the floor again, and he spent the night there. The next day he and Jens took the goat cart up to his converted shed, loaded the lifting frames and sections, the carrier baskets, the rope and the tackle wheels, and his folded wings and took them down to the dock. They transferred the cargo into Jens's raft and again they set sail for the aftwall. They chatted on the journey, mostly about the children, Liese's bright curiousity, Jerl's propensity to hike off by himself with toddler boldness, Acelle's rivalry with Healan in cloth doll-making. Atyen had never seen himself as a father, but he had enjoyed helping Liese with her work, and playing with the younger siblings. He remembered Jens's advice to find himself a wife and settle down. But how can I do that? Even if he left the Inquisition for good he had no way to support a family.

As they got closer to the aftwall Atyen moved ahead of the sail, searching out a section of wall with more green. More vegetation would mean deeper crevices and easier climbing, or least so he hoped. Jens steered them towards the point he'd selected, and when they came to the wall he could see he'd made the right choice. The surface was noticeably more textured. He again chose handholds and footholds and started climbing. Behind him Jens pushed the net-raft off, to anchor a little distance away. Atyen had been lucky not to hit it last time he fell, and there was no use in tempting fate any further than he had to. A coiled length of light cord hung from the back of his belt. It was easier this time, his efforts at conditioning and careful choice of route had paid off, and so had the practice he'd put into more difficult climbing. His leg began to pain him halfway up, but he was able to rest with one foot on a small projection until he felt able to continue. The denser vegetation seemed to have attracted the gulls and fisherbirds as well, and they swooped and called all around him, their combined cacophony seeming to drown out the world. He made it to the top without incident, clambered onto the ledge, and breathed a sigh of relief. The aftwall ledge was wider than the one on the forewall, a good five meters. It was thickly covered in grasses, with messy looking gull's nests everywhere, interspersed with blueberry bushes picked ragged by the birds. Some distance away a fair sized tree was growing, something he'd never seen on the forewall ledge.

He went to the tree, took the cord from the back of his belt and tied it to the trunk. When the cord was secured he went to the edge and tossed it over. Far below Jens had pushed the raft away from the wall and was looking up. He paddled the raft over to grab the cord, and while he did Atyen took a moment to inspect the tree. It was an oak and huge, bigger than any he'd ever seen. Other trees just as large stood at intervals around the ledge. It seemed incredible that no one had come to harvest them. But perhaps nobody can. The fishers who could sail to the aftwall were fully occupied hauling their living from the ocean. The wallpickers who had the skills to climb lived at the forewall, thirty kilometers kilometers distant, and specialized in gathering food, not lumber. The timber cutters who concerned themselves with bamboo and tree-wood lived in between. No single group had the skills necessary to harvest the inaccessible trove. He ran a hand over the rough bark, marveling at it, and looked down to where its roots gripped the ground. As on the forewall ledge the soil was a pale mixture of bird droppings and decaying leaves but it was thicker and heavier, perhaps due to the much less frequent rain. There were fisherbird nests in the branches, some easily within his reach, but the birds seemed totally unafraid of him. And why would they be? Nothing can eat them up here. The ledge, he realized, was a completely self-contained world-within-the-world, untouched by humans for centuries, millennia, perhaps not since the Builders. Maybe I'll find a horse up here. Even as Atyen thought it he laughed at himself. A tree could grow from a seed that a bird could carry to the ledge, not so a horse.

"Atyen, are you all right?" Jens's voice rose faintly from below.

Atyen went to the edge and leaned over. The net-raft seemed like a toy bobbing in the ocean below. "I am! Tie on the other rope."

"It's ready, haul away."

Atyen began pulling, and soon the light cord gave way to the heavy rope that Jens had tied on. He called down again to tell Jens to attach the first of the frame parts, and then looped the rope around the tree so he could use it as a makeshift tacklewheel. Even so it was a lot of work to haul the frame components up. He brought up the carrier last, and by the time he finished, his already tired arms were aching. Jens had put the tools he needed to assemble the frame in it: shaped wooden pegs, cast nails and his hammer. He'd designed the frame to be heavy and stable enough to support his weight by itself, but as he started to put it together he realized that he could have just used the oak to secure the upper tacklewheel and saved himself a great deal of effort. If I'd thought of it. On impulse, he lugged the frame components over to the tree. It didn't take long to get them assembled and nailed together, and when he was finished he cut a few meters of rope and lashed the frame to the tree's trunk as an extra safety measure. He threaded the rest of the rope through the tacklewheels, attached one to the carrier's winding drum and one to the frame, and he was done. It didn't take long to lower the carrier back down to the boat. Down below, Jens loaded the components for the second frame and carrier, and the second rope. Atyen hauled it up, unloaded it, and sent it back down so Jens could come up himself. While his friend slowly cranked himself up in the carrier, Atyen looked up to the second ledge. He was tired, but there was no point in stopping now.

"You're crazy, do you know that?" Jens said as he came over the top. "This is dangerous."

"It's what I have to do," Atyen answered.

Jens had brought a basket of dried carp, bread and fresh fruit with him, and they shared the meal in silence. The fisher was looking out over the ocean, and Atyen saw in his eyes the appreciation of the vista. And it is beautiful. The arching curve of the world encircled the brilliant line of the suntube, itself wreathed in spiraling clouds. The distant foredome looked like an eye, the forewall mists providing a narrow iris around a huge, black pupil, in which he could faintly see the ever-spinning stars. The view from the forewall was never this good.

"I'm going up again," he told Jens.

"Good luck."

Atyen untied the light cord from the oak, coiled it and attached it to the back of his belt again, checked his supply of climbing loops, found a good set of handholds and started climbing. This time he was slower, both due to the fatigue in his arms, and the soreness in his calf. The steel of the wall was even less deeply eroded than that below, and it gave fewer good handholds, and nowhere to wedge knots. Several times he had to go down and sideways to find a better route up. If he fell this time he'd hit the ledge below, and there would be no second chance. His arms were trembling in fatigue halfway up, and his fingertips were numb, but as he climbed higher he could feel a gentle updraft on his back. It was what he had come for, and it put steel in his determination to go on. The updraft strengthened steadily as he approached the top, and when he finally scrambled ungracefully onto the ledge he knew he'd come to the right place. The knowledge washed away the pain and fatigue, and he laughed, feeling the up-rushing air washing over his face, tugging him up towards the suntube.

Re-energized, he once more tossed the light cord over the edge to Jens, once more hauled up the heavy rope, and then the components for the tacklewheel frame. He rested before he assembled it, looking out towards the foredome again. He imagined the peregrines there, soaring and wheeling with effortless ease. I'm coming soon.

This time there was no convenient tree to tie the frame to, he would have to trust his calculations that it would be stable enough to hold his weight without sliding off the ledge. He was tempted to get Jens to send his wings up and test right away. But that wouldn't be smart.

He was far too tired to attempt a flight, so he swung himself into the bamboo carrier, and cranked his way down to the first ledge. Jens had taken the opportunity to have a nap while he worked, and Atyen woke him up. Together they got into the first carrier and lowered themselves to the water.

Sarabee had long since put the children to sleep and gone to bed herself by the time they got back. Atyen spent the night once more on the kitchen floor, to save the walk back to his shed. That proved to be a mistake when Liese stepped on him before the waking bell. She was up to start the oven for breakfast, although at least her early-morning eagerness gave Atyen time to get up and make himself presentable before Sarabee came into the kitchen.

"Are you really going to fly, Atyen?" Liese asked, opening the hearth door.

"Who told you that, butterfly?"

"Mamsha. She said that flying is very dangerous, but that you are very brilliant." Liese pronounced brilliant carefully, emphasizing each syllable in turn. "She said that if anyone could fly you could." She knelt by the hearth and swept the ashes from the evening meal's cooking into a wooden bucket.

"Did she?" Atyen felt himself fill with pride, and reminded himself to be modest. "Well, I am learning to fly, but it's really not that difficult. Anyone could do it if they worked at it. Here, let me help you with that." He took the bucket from her and finished sweeping out the hearth.

"Can I fly?" Liese, standing back to watch him work.

"Not yet, butterfly. Maybe when you're older." Atyen took tight-twisted straw fire-rolls from the stack beside the oven and arranged them in a neat pyramid.

"I like to watch the gulls, they're very graceful."

"They are. Where does your mother keep the fire-piston?"

Liese got him the utensil and he loaded it, pumped it, and got the fire going. Sarabee came in with the other children and began organizing breakfast, and soon the kitchen was full of the aroma of panbread and fried carp.

After the meal he and Jens went back to the raft and again sailed for the aftwall. Atyen had a momentary panic when he tried to pinpoint the spot on the wall they'd sailed for before and couldn't find it, but Jens was a skilled navigator and guided them unerringly back to the carrier.

"How do you do that?" Atyen asked.

"Every fisher has his marks," Jens answered, pointing out a series of notches on the mast. "The middle one is my home mark. When I'm sitting on the steering bench and it lines up with Cove, then I know home is straight ahead. Our spot on the aftwall puts the mouth of the Golden River just below the high notch."

Atyen nodded. The system was a simple but effective version of the measuring circle the surveyor had taught him to use. He had noticed the notches before, but it hadn't even occurred to him that they might have a purpose. How much more in the world has a purpose that I can't even guess? The ledges, for example. He was sure the Builders hadn't put them there so that one day he might jump from them. What purpose did they serve? Or were they simply artifacts left over from the creation of the world, like mold marks on poured steel, existing as evidence of the process with no function of their own?

They came at last to the hanging carrier, and Atyen clambered in with his folded wings. Cranking the carrier up on its rope was much less risky than climbing, but it was no faster and it seemed to be even more work. It seemed to take forever to get himself up to the first ledge, longer still to get to the second. When he finally arrived, he unfolded his wings, locked the joints, hoisted them back onto his back and went to the edge. He checked his control lines, verified his backbag was buckled in place. The updraft was strong in his face, and he took a deep breath and launched himself out and away from the aftwall. The upwelling airstream caught his wings and all at once he was flying. Soaring! He swooped down, pulled up, and was already higher than the ledge, and still climbing in the rising air. He pulled the right control line and banked around to see the net-raft. Jens was waving, shouting encouragement, though his words were too faint to make out. He banked right, banked left, headed for the distant eye of the foredome, and still he was going up, it was that easy. The raft was soon a tiny dot slipping behind him, and the world stretched out around him, laid out in a patchwork of brown and green fields.

It was exhilarating, liberating in a way that even his best forewall glide had never been. Turbulence buffeted him, but he confidently compensated with the control lines, shifting his weight forward to fly faster. Faster forward meant faster downwards, but even as the wind rushed in his ears he was still going up. He even felt lighter, and just for fun he pulled up almost vertically, dropped the left wing and fell away, pivoting to swoop down heading in the opposite direction. The maneuver left him giddy, and he laughed out loud, pulled up and did it again to the right. The pull-up-wing-drop was almost identical to a peregrine's stoop entry maneuver. All he would have to do was hold the dive as he spiraled down, down, to pull out at the last moment and skim the ground. Soon, but not yet. Height was distance, distance was freedom, and he wanted more. He straightened out, heading foreward again, to regain what he'd given away in the maneuvers, and to get some more space away from the aftwall.

The temperature dropped as he climbed higher, until it was cool enough to make him shiver, but he was beyond caring about physical discomfort. Once he thought he was high enough he tried the maneuver again, this time keeping his weight forward, extending the move into a nearly vertical dive. The wind built to a roar in his ears and his wings shook violently, until finally he pulled in both lines and shifted backwards to pull up and swoop again. The pull-out was so sudden that the straps cut hard into his shoulders and waist, and in an instant he was climbing vertically for the suntube. The wind rush faded to silence and for a moment he hung there, weightless and marveling at the incredible freedom he had won. Then all of a sudden he tumbled backwards as the world spun around him. Panic spiked, and he was falling, spinning out of control, and though he yanked hard on the control lines the spin only speeded up. Oh please Noah, let me live. All of a sudden the ocean wasn't far below, it was close, and coming up fast. He tried to shift backwards to slow down, but that didn't work either. In desperation he alternated pulling left and right, and all of a sudden the spin stopped, leaving him heading straight down, with his wings once more shaking from the strain of his speed. Ever so gently he pulled himself out of the dive, swooped up and then leveled out once more, shaking and giddy. The experience was terrifying and liberating at the same time, and the steady updraft was once more carrying him upwards.

He breathed deep to calm himself, and tried to understand what had just happened. Peregrines could stoop and pull out, turn in their own wingspan, even roll over on their backs, and he had never seen one plummet out of control the way he just had. But peregrines are born to fly. Atyen didn't have the same easy, instinctive control over his wings that they did. Flying was freedom, but not unlimited freedom. He couldn't fly too fast, or too slow, climb or dive too steeply. But I stooped, or close enough. He looked down and saw he'd made it halfway to the shorefields, easily twice as far as he'd ever flown before. He soared higher, riding the wind up towards the suntube. As he soared higher he felt strangely lighter, and his wings seemed to respond more sluggishly. Strange . . . The air had gotten decidedly brisk, but at the same time the suntube's heat grew more intense, radiating even through the wing fabric. Waxed flax burned easily, so he put a hand up to gauge its temperature. Hot, but not hot enough to burn. He could go higher but he'd have to be careful. He didn't want to wind up like Noah, falling from heaven with his wings on fire. He looked down and saw to his surprise that he was already halfway to the shorefields, and he sensed that his upward progress was slowing. He'd ridden the updraft into the foreward moving upper airstream, and it was pushing him with the clouds towards the foredome.

Mindful of the fabric temperature, he shifted his weight forward to fly faster and lose some of his height, but the rush of wind in his face was much gentler than he'd expected. He felt almost as though he was floating, though ahead and below the shore was getting noticeably closer, so his speed on the ground hadn't slowed. The rules are different up high. He kept his weight shifted forward until he sensed he wasn't going up any longer, then started slowly shifting it back to maintain what felt like level flight.

A billowing cloud spiraled ahead, and he turned to fly towards it. From a distance it looked like fresh fleece, solid enough to land on, but as he got closer it dissolved into diaphanous tendrils of mist. Just for fun he flew into it, but very quickly the mist closed in to envelope him in grey nothingness. He shifted forward, intending to fly out the bottom, and was reassured when the wind rush increased. It kept increasing though, and his weight built up again with alarming speed. He tried shifting back again, but nothing changed. He felt himself in a hard turn to the right and yanked on the left control line to straighten himself out. The move lurched him violently sideways, and the mainspine creaked under the strain. He yanked the other control line for lack of a better idea, and then he was tumbling, with no idea which way was up, and no clue what to do to right himself. He fell out of the bottom of the cloud going sideways and far too fast. Heart pounding, he managed to get himself leveled out, shifted back and soared up again. He was several hundred meters below the cloud by the time he'd regained control but to his surprise he found he had no trouble climbing back up underneath it; in fact, he had to shift hard forward to keep from climbing right back into it again. His speed built up slowly, and he set his course for the foredome again. Far below him he could see the shoreline, just slightly behind him now. He'd flown ten kilometers in half a bell. Amazing!

He flew out from under the cloud and shifting winds rocked him again. There had definitely been an updraft under it, because though he could fly fast and level beneath it once he was past its margin he began descending again, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. Below him was a sprawl of buildings that must have been Tidings, and ahead and spinward the larger sprawl that was Charisy. He'd come down as he flew, and he considered turning around to try and find the updraft beneath the cloud again, but decided to try and find home instead. He banked into a circle, scanning the ground for landmarks. The wind was still drifting him foreward, and so he had to adjust to circle, flying slower foreward and faster afterward to keep himself more-of-less stationary over the ground. It was hard to recognize anything with certainty, he was just too high. He smiled to himself. Too much height, what a problem to have. He'd come a long way from his first, hesitant jump from the forewall.

He was completely unprepared when the turbulence hit. It lifted one wing, dropped the other, and suddenly he was nose down and falling. He recovered as he had before, weight forward, pull against the spin until it stopped, and then ease out of the dive. I'm learning. The air was still rough, jostling him left and right, up and down, but he was able to compensate without getting turned over. The wind is full of surprises. An instant later there was a particularly violent gust, and then suddenly the wind in his face stopped and his wings, robbed of lift, stopped flying. He dropped again and started to tumble and this time recovered instinctively. Not graceful, but effective. He went back to his slow, circling descent and discovered another surprise though it took him a couple of turns to recognize. He was now drifting aftward as quickly as he had been going foreward before.

It was a puzzle, until he realized that he must have passed from the higher, foreward moving wind layer to the lower, aftward moving layer. He'd run out of airflow because of the direction change as he crossed the boundary. And the turbulence is where the two winds meet. He had predicted the swirling overturns where the wind cycle turned back on itself at the walls, but of course there would be a turbulent boundary where the two flows met and slid past each other along the whole length of the world. The drift was pushing him back out over the ocean, and he had to drop the nose and fly fast upwind to get back over land. He felt his weight coming back as he got lower, and his wings got more responsive again. Time to pick a place to land. He found Tidings again, followed the main road to the shore road, followed it antispinward what he judged to be a couple of kilometers. One of the docks there had to be Jens's, but he still couldn't tell which one. Never mind, just get down. He chose what looked like a pasture field, turned foreward into the wind, just as he had at the forewall, lined himself up, shifted back and put tension on both lines, and then he was down.

He unbuckled his wings and lay down in the long hay, looking up at the spiralling clouds. He had transcended the ground, truly soared! Wonderful! He looked forward to the foredome, taking its measure. Somewhere up there the peregrines nested. And sometime soon, I'll be there.

 

Byo Vesene was frustrated. Work on the grand new Inquisitory building in Charisy was going too slowly, and he was tired, tired, tired of the forewall mists, and all his inquisitors did was complain. Why am I persecuted so? He got up from his workshelf, went down the stairs of the manuscript tower. On the next level down his guards fell into step on either side of him, and erranders and tithecounters got out of his way as he descended. That at least was satisfying. They recognize my greatness. He went outside, where the gray steel of the Inquisitory faded indistinguishably into the gray fog in the distance, and walked along it. At the far end of the building there was a wooden extension to the steel structure, the receiving floor for the Inquisitory's grain vaults. Its entrance was guarded by a dozen more sentinels, but they stood back when they recognized him, and he went through. The space inside had large scales and weights, workshelves for tithecounters, bound volumes of tithesheets. The floor was dusted with spilled grain, and a rank of fifty-liter grain jars stood against the far wall, along with a small beam-crane to lift them onto the wood-decked cart that ran on steel-topped rails through a door in the steel wall and into the depths of the main Inquisitory. A couple of erranders were lounging by the workshelves, but there was no other activity. They jumped when they saw Vesene, trying to look busy, but he ignored them.

"Wait here," he told his sentinels, and followed the trolley tracks through the inner door without waiting for an answer.

The room they led to was vast and dimly lit, and heavy with the mingled scents of milled flour and dried fruits. The trolley rails branched to run between parallel lines of scaffolding that held stacked ranks of grain jars. The wealth of the Inquisition, my wealth. There was another beam-crane there, mounted on a pair of trolley trucks and much larger than the one on the receiving floor. It was used to lift the heavy jars into position, and it should have been in busy use.

Movement flickered in a distant corner. A cat, its fur a darker black against the dim shadows, hunting the mice that came to feast on the storage vault's spillage. It padded quietly along the wall, then leapt smoothly up to the second level of the scaffold and vanished behind the jars there. Vesene watched for it to reappear, but it didn't. Little friend, I wish my life was as simple as yours. He walked down the trolley track to see if he could catch a glimpse of the small creature.

"Perhaps Solender was right," a voice said behind him.

Vesene jerked and whirled around. "Never say that name!"

Cela Joss was standing in the doorway from the receiving floor, her body silhouetted by the light streaming in from outside. "He was concerned about how much food the world can produce." Joss held up a sheaf of papers. "I have an answer for your question. Our grain stocks are falling."

"Solender wasn't right." Vesene bit the words off sharply. "He had it easy, he had no rabble to contend with. He was lucky to die when he did."

"As you wish. The fact remains, our grain stocks are falling. They were going down before he died, and they're going down faster now. We can't feed all of Charisy forever."

"How did you know I was here?" Vesene asked suspiciously.

"I was already here, you walked past me. I've been taking inventory, as you instructed. May we talk about the grain reserves?"

Vesene allowed himself to show irritation. "Talk then."

Joss shrugged. "We're using more than we're getting." She looked at her papers, tilted to them to catch the light. "Last month we took in two hundred cubic meters of corn, one hundred of flax seed, thirty of olives . . ."

Vesene made a dismissive gesture. "Just give me the total."

"At the end of last month we were down four hundred cubic meters, over all crops."

Vesene nodded, looking at the endless ranks of grain jars. "And tithing?" he asked.

"Up slightly, since we doubled the tithes."

Vesene clenched a fist. "The farmers are still holding out. I want the tithe patrols doubled."

"We don't have the sentinels to do that."

"Walk with me," Vesene said. He went deeper into the vault, and Joss fell into step beside him. "Why is it you defy me, Cela?"

"Me?" Joss's voice carried her surprise. "I only—"

"I'm Chief Inquisitor now. Chief Inquisitor. My word is law." Three walls of the vault were the original steel, the fourth was heavy timber, built to subdivide a larger space.

"Of course . . ."

"I ordered that the tithes be increased. I ordered that months ago. Months! Why am I only hearing we lack sentinels now?"

"It's in hand, Chief Inquisitor. Only so many apply to be sentinels, only so many of those are suitable, and then it takes time to train them . . ."

Vesene found himself getting angry. "Time. Every month we have less grain you tell me." They came to a heavy steel door in the back of the huge vault. The remains of a complicated locking wheel were still mounted in its center, but the mechanism itself was long since worn out and the door was secured by a heavy timber bar held in place with a smithed-steel lock. Vesene took a large key from his cross sash-pocket, opened it and pushed the bar out of the way. Joss started to answer him, but he held up a hand to silence her. "I gave you the order of sentinels because I thought you could use them correctly."

"I can't create trained sentinels out of nothing."

"I don't want excuses, I want results. What's a sentinel but a farmer with a blade?"

"If you want armed farmers, there is no difference. If you want good sentinels, sentinels loyal to the law, then we need the right people, and they need the right training."

"I want sentinels loyal to me," Vesene snapped, and then a slow smile spread across his face. "Go to the brickworks. I want the smartest, strongest there. Give them blades and shields and cross-sashes. You'll have all the sentinels you need."

"They're already sentinels."

Vesene shook his head. Joss is useful, but she doesn't understand. "Not the sentinels, the bound servitors."

"Criminals? We can't—"

Vesene cut her off with a gesture. "They owe service to the Inquisition, let this be their service. As for loyalty, if they don't serve me well, they can go back into servitude and show loyalty to the bricks. The Inquisitors-in-Chief have been bothering me for more. This will quiet them."

"But . . ."

"You don't have to do it if you don't want to, Cela." Vesene shrugged, pretending indifference. "I'm sure I can find someone who will." He took a step forward, towering over her, letting his anger show. "I want this vault overflowing with grain, do you hear me? And I want it now."

Joss hesitated, took a step back. "I'll see it's done," she said, finally.

"Good." Vesene turned away from her, waited until he heard her footsteps retreating. Only then did he push open the door he'd unlocked and step through. It was almost totally dark in the room beyond, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they did he could see shiny ingots stacked in rectangular piles around the edge of the room, raw shipsteel ingots collected from the forewall steel-falls. There were tons and tons of them, thousands and millions of tokens worth, the centuries-accumulated wealth of the Second Inquisition, stored and guarded against the day it might be needed.

Stored and guarded against the day Byo Vesene would need it. I am at the crossroads of time, and all history has existed just to bring me here. Just looking at it made him feel powerful, in a way he never had before. The power of limitless riches. It was time to put his power into use.

 

The peregrine turned foreward and dived, pulled up and turned aftward and Atyen followed it, feeling the rush of wind build up in the dive, hearing the mainspine creak as the wind dropped away to nothing when he shifted his weight back to turn-and-climb. The rough air of the boundary layer rocked him, and then the breeze was back in his face as he crossed into the higher, foreward moving wind belt. The fresh wind carried him higher. His turns were wider than the circling predator's, his climbs and dives longer, but he kept level with it, and there was satisfaction in that. Overturn soaring, as he'd come to call the maneuver, worked the flow difference between the lower, aftward moving wind and the higher, foreward moving wind like a child pumping a swing. Done correctly he could stay up indefinitely, though it was the most difficult flight skill he'd attempted. A single misjudged turn and he'd be out of the boundary layer and stuck in the lower wind, drifted helplessly aftward until he could, if he was lucky, find the rising air column that hid beneath the spiral clouds and climb back up. But I've mastered the boundary now. The peregrine ignored him and his accomplishment, concentrating on the ground below. It was hunting. How it hunted was a mystery Atyen had yet to unravel. He couldn't even make out people from the height of the overturn, but the falcons could find a dove on the wing.

The bird swooped and circled again, and then all at once it rolled over and stooped, accelerating down so fast that Atyen could barely track it. In seconds it had vanished, and he transferred his eyes to the ground below. He had no hope of seeing the peregrine's target, but he'd learned to look for the most likely area. There! Most of the fields below were somewhere between brown and green, but one was a soft gold, a ripening crop and thus a likely place for a flock of doves to descend and feed. He crossed his fingers in silent prayer for the peregrine's safety. Dove-netting was becoming a popular way to put meat on the table, and despite the predator's incredible agility they couldn't always avoid the fine mesh in their high-speed attacks.

But I can't worry about it now. Whether the peregrine scored or missed or got caught in a net Atyen would never know, and he had indulged himself in a luxury to circle with it. He wanted to find their hidden nests, somewhere up on the foredome, but the wind-cycle became a downdraft there. He could never get higher than the boundary layer, a third of the way to the suntube, and every time he'd been swept down at the foredome, once right into the forewall mists. He frowned. That had been bad. He had learned to stay out of clouds; no matter how hard he tried he would almost instantly lose orientation and wind up out of control. He'd tried to keep himself perfectly level as he'd sunk into the mists, knowing just a few minutes would see him out, but even that hadn't worked. He fallen out of the bottom of the mist layer nearly upside down, with only a couple of hundred meters to right himself. It wasn't quite enough, and he'd landed hard, crumpled his right wing and had been lucky to avoid a trip back to the surgeon's.

Not what I need to be thinking about. What he needed was to spinward, a small, fluffy cloud just starting to expand. Perfect. It looked like he was higher than its base, but he knew that was an illusion caused by the curve of the world, and so didn't try to fly directly for it. He'd get drifted aftward in the lower wind and end up too low and too far aft to catch it. Instead he started stretching his circles spinward, still working the overturn, slowly gaining on the cloud. He caught a flicker from the corner of his eye off to his right, moving wings. Against probability he'd caught sight of the peregrine again, foreward and below, barely more than a dot against the darkness of the foredome, and he smiled at the sight. It was flapping heavily, which meant it was carrying prey back to its hidden nest. Good for you. He lost sight of it on his next turn, but with luck and a following wind he'd be seeing it again soon. He returned his attention to the cloud. As he approached it billowed higher and started to extend itself foreward. The updraft beneath it would be strong, and that was what Atyen needed. He concentrated on visualizing the interacting patterns of the airflow. Somewhere far below the suntube was warming a plowed field and the moist, heated air was rising, moving aftward with the lower wind and cooling with height.

He worked the overturn layer towards the cloud until a sudden lurch upwards told him he'd found the updraft beneath it, and he abandoned his climb-turn-dive-turn pattern for a simple circle. The updraft carried him higher, and a few turns brought him to the underside of the cloud. He straightened out and sped up to fly level beneath it, following it as it extended foreward and began to spiral up the curve of the world. It was a good cloud, and he had to put the nose down, flying faster to avoid being swept up inside it. Hopefully it's not too good. The strongest clouds brought rain, which came with sudden, violent downdrafts. Before long he'd reached the leading edge of the spiral. The updraft ended there, but he flew out and ahead of the cloud as far as he dared. He couldn't see the top of his own cloud, but there was another white spiral halfway anti-spinward, and he checked its billowing top. The cloud's sharp edges went wispy there, and they were swept back, just a bit, as if they were starting to spiral backwards. Atyen smiled.

It was confirmation, he hoped, of what he had long suspected and was now trying to prove, a third layer to the wind cycle, this one closest to the suntube and moving aftward. If his hunch was right the foreward moving layer was sandwiched between aftward moving layers, moving with them like intermeshed gears, and that meant there were two overturns at the foredome, one down and one up. If he could reach the upper one he could soar up and along the foredome as close to the suntube as he dared. And there, somewhere, the falcons live.

He turned to fly back into the cloud's updraft before he got too low to find it again. The trick would be getting to the upper overturn. Launching from the aftwall would take him only to the lower one. He would have to ride a cloud, not just foreward but up. The updraft jostled him as he flew into it, and he circled again to regain his height. Once he had it he trimmed the left control line to hold the turn, hooking the handloop to keep it in place. Flying carefully with just the right line, he took his left arm out of the supports and carefully reached into his backbag for a hunk of dried carp. It took five solid bells for a cloud to trail its spiral all the way to the forewall, and he'd learned the hard way to drink sparingly and eat only dense, nutritious foods on long flights.

And then there was nothing to do but circle and wait as the cloud carried him steadily foreward. It was cool, almost cold, but he was comfortable in a sheepskin jacket and heavy flax leggings. Charisy slid beneath him, and his cloud darkened enough that he feared it might rain, but it didn't. Ahead and below he could see the forewall mists, a horizontal wall of grey at the base of the looming foredome. It's time. He shifted his weight forward to build speed, flew to the front of the cloud, then shifted back, tightened both lines and swooped up, into the bottom of the cloud at its leading edge. If he did it right, he would skim back and forth in the narrow zone right at the cloud's front, inside its updraft, but able to see well enough to keep himself upright.

The cloud closed in on him as he climbed into it, but thinned again as he rose to its leading edge. He broke out into the light and felt the updraft change to a downdraft, and turned back into the cloud. The maneuver worked. The cloud rocked him with its turbulence, but every gust took him higher. He quickly fell into a steady figure-eight pattern, which let him enter the mist at a shallow angle and immediately turn out of it when he started to lose visibility. There was a strong euphoria that came with mastering nature like that, a feeling he had only vaguely imagined when he'd looked up at the soaring peregrines.

His wings got more sluggish as he got higher, and the wind slowed in his face, and he compensated with larger tugs on the lines, and shifted his weight forward to fly faster. It was a phenomena that had taken a while to understand. Control came from airflow over his wings, which came from forward speed, which came from the downward force of his weight. His weight came from the world's spin, and because there was less spin as he approached the suntube he had less weight. Too bad understanding doesn't lessen the gusts. As he climbed it became harder and harder to compensate for the cloud's turbulence, and soon he was being tossed around like a chase ball in a schoolyard.

But I'm climbing! The foredome was coming closer, and suddenly his world filled with water, big gentle drops that fell too slowly to really count as rain. But they still count as wet. They were cold too, and he was immediately soaked and shivering despite his warm clothing. He was high enough anyway, and he straightened out, shifted forward more to gain speed, and flew out into the clear air. The second he left the cloud the suntube's heat hit him like a fist, and he belatedly remembered how Noah had tried to fly to Heaven only to fall out of the sky on fire. Little streamers of steam wisped back from the fabric. He would be safe only until it dried, which didn't look like it would take long. The foredome loomed, huge and black and full of stars, not a kilometer away. He was higher than he'd ever been, well over halfway to the suntube. But am I high enough? The windrush built up in his ears, and a few minutes later he had to turn to avoid flying straight into the dome. He paralled it, heading anti-spinward, and came past one of the great, curved steel struts that spanned its diameter, an artifact he'd seen only as a distant thread before. There were patches of green and brown clinging to it, and he saw darting swifts. Even here life takes hold.

Up close the dome itself was streaked with droplets of water that joined into trickles snaking lazily downwards, but unlike the steel the surface was uneroded and devoid of anything living. On the other side of it were the stars, harder, sharper, clearer than he'd ever seen them before, and he stared at them, mesmerized. Several minutes later another strut came past, and he blinked, his star-focus broken. This strut carried the neat mud cones of swifts' nests, clinging to what seemed to be ladder rungs running up it. And peregrines can eat swifts. He felt a slow excitement swell in him at the thought, but he pushed it away. Fly first, Atyen. He put a hand up to check how hot the wing fabric was getting, but to his surprise it was only warm. That wasn't what he expected, so he squinted up against the suntube's brightness and saw to his surprise that it didn't actually burn all the way to the apex of the foredome, the first five hundred meters or so was a simple tube, cool and grey. As long as he stayed close to the foredome he'd be safe from its destroying heat. Or at least safer. He made a mental note to check the fabric temperature frequently.

Most importantly he seemed to be climbing—at least his wings were getting even more sluggish—and he shifted his weight even further forward to get enough speed to steer with. There remained the possibility that the peregrines nested down by the forewall, even down in the mists, but on seeing the swift's nests he didn't think so. They were soaring predators who hunted with keen eyes. They'd want clear air and as much height as they could get. He passed another strut, saw a few climbing vines that seemed rooted in nothing. A shape caught his eye, flying strangely. For a second he thought it might be a peregrine, but as he caught up with it he realized it was a gull. Its flight pattern was very strange though. It sailed along with its wings closed, floating through the air in defiance of common sense. While he watched, it flapped, once, twice, and closed its wings again, moving faster now and on a slightly changed trajectory. Some distance later he saw a dove, using the same flap-and-coast flight technique. He changed course and managed to catch up with it, and when he did he could see that it was subtly different from the doves he had known, with a longer, leaner body and a speckled pattern on its feathers. A second one joined it, perhaps its mate, and he followed them as they flew higher.

The updraft grew more pronounced as his weight fell away and soon he was not so much flying as drifting along in a river of air. Even with his weight shifted fully forward he could barely generate enough speed to maneuver. He checked the fabric temperature again and found it still cool, though no longer damp, and looked up at the suntube to see how close he was. His jaw dropped. There, at the apex of the foredome, at the spin-center of the world, was a mass of green, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of swarming birds. Never in his life had he seen a flock as big, not a tenth as big. Beneath the green he could make out the outlines of a structure, as big or bigger than the Inquisitory. The doves he was following were coasting leisurely towards it, and he just watched in stunned amazement as he came closer and closer. The updraft began to subside again, and he let go of the control lines, they weren't doing anything for him anyway, and got ready to grab on when the wind drifted him past.

It was easier said than done. He had no more control than a wind-lofted dandelion seed. The updraft fell further, until he was just drifting along. There was a platform of some sort extending from the bottom of a shaft that followed one of the foredome struts, some eighty meters below the central hub of the structure. He undid his waist belt and hung in the shoulder straps, bringing his legs up in front of him to get what weight he had left as far forward as possible. It gave him barely enough speed to bank for the platform, and he had the sudden realization that if he didn't manage to grab it he'd be drifted right past the structure and along the suntube's axis without enough weight to dive away. If that happened he'd be burned alive. Perhaps that's what happened to Noah. The story had to have come from somewhere. He managed the turn, got himself awkwardly lined up, but when he reached the platform his right wing hit the vine-covered steel first, and started him slowly tumbling. Disturbed doves fluttered around him. On the first tumble he grabbed a handful of leaves and pulled himself in so hard that he hit the platform and bounced off again, tearing the leaves away with him. On the next tumble he went over backwards without even a chance to grab on. The third tumble was his last chance before he slid past the platform and he managed to grab the vine layer. Something squished in his hands and he saw red, imagined blood, until he realized that the color wasn't quite right. Grapes!

At least he'd have something to eat while he figured out how to get back to the ground. The breeze had fallen to almost nothing, but he moved carefully just in case, undoing his shoulder straps with one hand and holding on with the other. When he had his wings off he tied them to a thick grape runner with one of the control lines, released his backbag and shrugged it on, and then carefully began to explore his new environment. He did have some weight. His wings had settled slowly to the platform deck, and his backbag tugged reassuringly down on his shoulders. At the same time he'd have to move gently or he'd launch himself right off the platform. Without wings to tug on, the breeze wouldn't be able to drift him into the suntube, but he would fall the longest possible fall in the world. And I don't want to spend that much time dying. The very thought gave him a strange vertigo, the way he'd felt when he'd first looked off the forewall ledge and felt the desire to fly. He resisted the urge and instead made a small, experimental push with just his toes. Just that much exertion launched him a good meter in the air, and it took several seconds for him to settle back to the platform again.

There was a building at the end of the platform, something like a warehouse with two sets of towering steel doors that seemed built to slide open in segments. He went to them, still moving carefully, as doves flocked in every direction to get out of his way. Walking was difficult, because the natural rhythm of his pace was completely mismatched to the long, slow rise and fall of his stride, and he had to move in with long, exaggerated sliding steps. The ground beneath the vines was spongy with moss that grew in a weird spiral pattern, and was everywhere dotted with bird droppings. Which explains where the soil comes from. The platform was bigger than it looked, and when he got close to the doors they towered high over his head. They were far too massive to shift on his own. And probably seized shut with age. After some exploration he found a smaller door inset in the bottom of one of the center segments, closed with a heavy latch and locking bar. He tried it, and to his surprise it moved easily. He had to rip up the overgrowing vines and dig up the ground to free the door, but once he did, it opened, and he stepped cautiously through. The space beyond was immense, at least a hundred meters square and twenty high, and lit from above by brilliant panels that shed a strange, cold light with a blue-white cast to it. The floor was covered thickly in vines, and they grew indiscriminately on every surface, even the ceiling spaces between the lighting panels, but though the floor was thick with dropping-enriched soil there didn't seem to be any birds. There were half a dozen large mounds, where it looked like something big had been buried by the encroaching vines.

There was also a door on the back wall and he went to it. Or at least it looked like a door. On closer inspection it had neither handle or hinge. There was a hand sized pad beside it, slightly raised above the steel. He tried to pull at it, in case it concealed a latch, and when it didn't move he almost instinctively pushed it. There was a soft click and then a sudden, powerful whir. The door slid open of its own accord, and Atyen jumped back in shock. He drifted helplessly backwards for meters before he finally touched down and bounced, very slowly, to the ground. By the time he'd picked himself up the door had slid shut again. He took a deep breath to calm himself, and then went cautiously back to it. He pressed the pad, and it obediently slid open. Light spilled out of the space beyond, and he went through it and on the other side found another world. He was in a corridor with walls angled to give it a hexagonal cross-section, and the air was cool and dry. The place felt uncomfortable, but in a familiar way, and it took him a moment to realize why. Everything is oversized. Like the Inquisitory, the structure was ancient, from a time when people grew larger than they did now. This is a Builder place, but it shows no wear. It had been lost at the core of the world, forgotten as the centuries slipped by, only hinted in the story of Noah, waiting for someone to rediscover it. Waiting for me.

The strange door slid shut behind him, and he had a moment of panic before he verified that there was another pad on his side of the door, and that it would also open it. Satisfied that he wasn't trapped, he went forward in long, gliding strides. The floor was grey and softly textured, like a floor quilt, but one that ran from one wall to the other without seam or interruption. More doors led deeper into the structure, and he chose one at random. Like the first it had an opening pad, and it was blazoned with a strange symbol in bright yellow, a hue so deep and rich it seemed to glow. He ran a hand over it and found it cool and smooth as the steel beneath it. He rubbed a finger over its edge, but there was no ridge to mark the transition from color to bare steel. The figure was not ink or dye, somehow the very fabric of the metal had been colored. All at once his perception inverted itself, and he realized that he wasn't looking at some alien glyph but simply the number eight, styled so simply he hadn't recognized it at first. Almost reverently he pressed the opening pad, but the space beyond was just another corridor, running perpendicular to the first. There were more doors, these plates beside them that carried words in a clean, simple script. Most of the letters were recognizable and the words seemed pronouncable, but they made no sense—L-O-G-I-S-T-I-C-S  D-I-R-E-C-T-O-R, E-C-O-S-Y-S-T-E-M-S, P-R-O-J-E-C-T  I-N-T-E-G-R-A-T-I-O-N.

He pressed the pad for the one labelled P-E-R-S-O-N-N-E-L, and saw a studio divided into small workspaces. Every workspace had a workshelf, made with lines so straight and clean they seemed somehow inhuman. There were chairs of strange design, made for people half again as tall as Atyen. The first workshelf held a few papers, printed in strange lettering, but when he tried to pick them up they crumbled into fragments. He found more papers at another workshelf, and this time tried to read them without touching. Most of the simple words were clear enough, but he knew only a couple of the larger ones. But the underlying language is the same. The conclusion was inescapable. The Builders had been giants, but they were human, and had they been able to speak he would have been able to understand them. In a third workspace he found a note, this one handwritten. It was just five words, and they seemed simple. He puzzled out the letters, formed them into words, and found to his astonishment that he was actually reading the ancient text. The message was simple. "Trude, back after breakfast. Ivo."

He read the note again, barely daring to breathe lest he destroy the fragile scrap. Trude, back after breakfast. Ivo. One day, countless ages ago two people had expected to meet. Were they friends? Lovers? Had Ivo ever returned? It was impossible to know. There were drawers beneath the workshelf and he slid one open. Inside were a few small pieces of something close to steel, silver wires twisted into a sort of double oval, tarnished discs the size of a fingernail with a short spike on one side. What purpose could they have served? It was impossible to know. They were all made with seemingly impossible precision. He picked up two of the double ovals to compare, and found them as identical as his eyes could discern. He was reminded of his builder tokens, made with a precision no present-day smith could hope to duplicate. Such power they had. He dropped one of the ovals and played with the other one, flexing it, then unbending it, testing its properties, then dropped it and watched it fall slowly back into the drawer. He closed it and move further into the studio. As he explored, it became obvious that the place had not been suddenly abandoned. Whoever they were, the ancients had not vanished all at once. They had moved out on purpose, taking most of whatever had occupied the space with them, though here and there oddly shaped knickknacks still adorned the abandoned workshelves. Were they functional, or merely decorative? He couldn't know. He picked up one of the widgets. It was made of some smooth and light material, closer to wood than anything else, but without any obvious grain and with a soft luster to its surface. It had a square base, with a pair of cups seamlessly attached to it. It might have been an elaborate ink-jar, though it lacked lids. Or it might be anything. He put the piece down again, careful to replace it exactly as he had found it. The place felt strange, as though the ghosts of Trude and Ivo were watching him, and he went out without touching anything else.

Back in the corridor he went from door to door in long, gliding strides. Behind F-A-B-R-I-C-A-T-I-O-N he found a huge hall of complex machines, boxes with jointed arms that looked like they should move, but with no tacklewheels or beltropes to move them. Behind M-O-B-I-L-I-T-Y he found emptiness, just marks on the floor where equipment had once been. Further down the corridor a shaft led straight up, with handholds tempting him higher. On the ground it was an impossible jump but here . . . He jumped and caught a handhold, floating higher with gentles pushes. Amazing.

The shaft was circular, and the walls were covered in white fabric pads. It went up eighty meters at least, with a slight curve away from perfectly vertical. Instinctively Atyen understood that it was following the curve of the foredome up to the exact center of the world. As he floated higher the gentle downward tug of his weight faded until it was imperceptible. As he came to the top of the shaft, weirdly, it felt as if he were falling headfirst into the space above. The end of the shaft was covered with a circular metal hatch. Like the doors, it had an opening pad, but when Atyen pressed it the hatch did not slide open, but divided itself into six sections and it vanished into the walls with a sharp hiss and a brief gust of wind. The gust caught him unprepared and pushed him a good five meters backwards. For a brief moment it felt like he was falling, and he grabbed for a handhold harder than he needed to.

The hatch had closed itself again by the time he'd got himself back up the shaft. This time he held on with one hand while he pressed the opening pad, but this time there was no gust. He pushed himself through and into the space above, and found himself floating in an echoing cylindrical chamber twenty meters around and fifty long. The walls seemed to be spinning and sudden vertigo seized him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. As he opened them again he realized the walls were spinning. More accurately, the far end of the cylinder was rotating, and the part he was in was not. The sensation made him queasy, and so he concentrated on the hatch behind him until he felt more stable. Once he had his stomach under control he was able to look up and take in the rest of the scene. At both ends the cylinder was closed with a huge circular door divided into six sections, like the hatch he had just come through. He was drifting, floating slowly through the space, and he found that though he could look around, he couldn't change direction. Feeling somewhat silly he tried flapping his arms like a bird, but the motion had no discernible effect on his trajectory. He had to wait until he drifted into the wall.

The wall had handholds recessed into it, and when he finally got to it he grabbed one while he contemplated his next move. There was what looked like an opening panel beside each of the huge end-doors. He pushed off with his toes, aiming for the panel in the rotating section. He realized his mistake as soon as he launched and the panel moved away from his intended landing point. He hadn't allowed for the rotation. He had to aim for where his destination would be when he landed, not for where it was when he pushed off. He passed into the rotating section, and when he got close to the wall he grabbed a handhold. Once he had himself stopped and stabilized he looked back to where he had been, and was nonplussed to find himself stationary, while the section he had just left was now rotating. It took him a moment to realize that the apparent motion was relative. The opening panel he'd been aiming for was almost directly above him. He pushed off again, heading straight up, but as he moved the panel started to drift away from his aimpoint. Once again there was nothing he could do to change his trajectory in mid flight, and when he landed the panel had moved nearly a quarter of the way around the cylinder. Timing the rotation was harder than it looked.

Rather than try again he went around the wall from handhold to handhold. Beside the opening panel an inset square glowed red, showing words he could almost read. N-O  E-X-T-E-R-N-A-L  P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E. He pressed the panel, and it clicked as the others had, but the door didn't open. Disappointed, he tried again, but still got no result. He turned to go back to the other huge door to try it, but before he could push off he noticed another small hatch, similar to the one he'd come through, at the other end of the chamber. He went to it, hand over hand, pushed its panel and was nearly sucked headfirst down the shaft behind it as air rushed past him. The air gust was over in a second, and he drifted up the shaft twice his own body length before he came to a second hatch. He opened that too, and in the space behind it he found the stars.

The room's roof was a transparent hemisphere, the same material as the foredome, but thinner and with no layer of mist or reflections from the suntube to mar the view. Every star glittered hard and bright in the ultimate blackness surrounding it, and there were far, far more of them than he would ever have imagined, scattered like sugar on a black robe. To his left was the vast curve of the foredome, and with shock Atyen realized that he was outside of the world, looking in through the dome's curve to the fields and rivers, roads and towns he had known his whole life. As he watched, the world rotated beneath him, and he realized that, for the first time in his life, the stars were not. All at once he understood the purpose behind the rotating cylinders he had just come through, designed to give passage between the rotating world and the strange new realm he had entered. Or is it that the world has always been stationary, and now I'm the one who's spinning? It was impossible to know which point of view was correct. He turned so his world was behind him, and within his field of view there were only stars. There was a stark beauty to the scene, and he felt his heart thudding in his chest. After a while he went back to watching the world turn, and it was a long time before he could tear himself away from that to even consider the room he was in.

The hatch he had come through was in the center of the floor, and the room was circular, ringed with an angled workshelf set with softly glowing squares, similar to the one by the huge door that had refused to open, but larger. He looked closer, and saw that they were covered in words and strange symbology. The one closest to him showed four circles connected by lines to a long rectangle. There were small numbers in each circle, and larger ones below the rectangle. With something close to awe he reached out a finger to touch the glowing digits, half afraid that they would burn him. What he felt was a surface as smooth and cool as steel, with nothing to betray the source of the glow beneath it. Gently he slid his hand across the surface, and his fingertips left faint smudges in the thin layer of dust that had collected on the surface.

The numbers changed as Atyen slid his finger over one of the circles and he yanked his hand back as though he'd been bitten. He looked at the changed writing in awestruck fascination, and realized he had no words to describe what he had seen. Hesitantly he extended his finger again, touched the circle, and again the numbers changed. Living paper, what else can I call it? It was only the vaguest of analogies, the strange surface shared no commonalities of paper at all, other than the fact that it could have words scribed on it at will. But whose will? He looked around, half expecting to see a godlike Builder watching him, but there was no one there. And what is this place then?

It occurred to him again that it might be Heaven as the Bible described it, up above the suntube, not somehow beyond it but simply foreward of it. The world was supposed to be voyaging to Heaven, but perhaps that was just a misunderstanding of the physical reality that traveling foreward was quite literally traveling towards this hidden place. It might even be that foreward and aftward were so identified because of their relative proximity to it. What other truths might be concealed in the Bible's words? Noah had flown to heaven on wings made of peregrine feathers. Now Atyen had done the same thing. But if this is heaven, where is everybody? The place had the air of long abandonment, which was not how he understood heaven was supposed to be. He would have to dig deeper into Noah's story, to tease out what was fact and what was only imagination.

He looked closer at the glowing symbols. At the top were the words F-U-E-L  S-T-A-T-U-S. The larger numbers beneath the rectangle measured something called C-H-4. There were 15517927 T-O-N-N-E-S of C-H-4, whatever that meant, and then all of a sudden Atyen realized that he knew what it meant, or at least part of it. T-O-N-N-E-S were tonnes, the same as tonnes of wheat or yams. The glowing panel was some kind of tithesheet. The smaller numbers in the circles also counted C-H-4 in tonnes, and on a hunch Atyen started adding them up. As he suspected, the numbers in the circles amounted to the total beneath the rectangle. As he watched, one of the numbers in the circles changed, from 3844571 to 3844570, and the number in the rectangle changed as well, to 15517926. Whatever CH4 was, there was less of it now. He touched the living paper again, and it obediently changed, now counting C-H-4  P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E in the circles, which each measured 209 A-T-M. Unlike the previous display there was no grand total beneath the rectangle. Fascinated, he tapped again. Obediently the living paper changed, this time to measure CH4 F-L-O-W, which was .5842 K-G-/-S in one circle and 0 in all the others.

"Flow," he whispered the word to himself. He was actually understanding what was in front of him, a development more magical than any other wonder of the day. CH4 was something stored somewhere in prodigious volume, and it was flowing somewhere else. Somehow the living paper was able to measure that, and rewrite itself to reflect that reality. He touched again, and was rewarded with a new diagram, this one much more complicated, with interconnected lines bearing small triangles of different colors. At the top were the words PUMP STATUS, and he shook with excitement to realize that he was both reading the ancient words and confirming his hypothesis at the same time. CH4 not only flowed, it was pumped, like water. And perhaps it is water. Certainly there was little else in the world that came in an abundance of fifteen million tonnes. There were more numbers at different points in the diagram, but none of them made any sense. Experimentation proved that touching the living paper at different symbols could cause different changes in the information it reported, though some just made LOCKED OUT flash in red over the whole diagram for a few seconds. He realized with frustration that he didn't know how to get back to any of the reports he had seen before, and moved to the next square of living paper. It reported DRIVE WALL TEMP, which was 4403 K and CORE FIELD STRENGTH which was 1227 T, and other parameters too cryptic to even guess at. Atyen scratched his head as he contemplated the words. He'd had a burst of initial optimism with PUMP STATUS and TONNES, but though he could read these new words, they made no sense strung together the way they were. It was going to take a long time to decipher the meaning of what he was looking at.

But that doesn't matter. Now I know what my life is for.

* * * 

"Two a token," said the monger as Sarabee looked over the onions. They were bruised and slightly shrivelled and far from the best onions she'd ever seen in Tidings market, but they were a good size, and they were what was on offer.

"Two?" She picked up the smallest, most bedraggled specimen she could find and held it up. "I wouldn't take these at six."

"Two a token, and a bargain at that." The monger gave her a big smile. "They'll make a good soup, fry nice with carp or mutton, and you won't find better here today."

Sarabee made a face and held out the injured onion like it was a dead mouse. "I'll say five a token, to save walking elsewhere. They aren't worth more."

"Three a token, only because I want to empty the box."

"Onions like these used to be twelve. Onions better than these used to be twelve."

"My wife used to be beautiful." The monger shrugged. "Not anymore. Three, if you want them."

"Look at the bruises! You can't be serious."

"Four, then."

"Four," Sarabee nodded. "I'll take twenty."

"And you'll have the best soup you've ever tasted," the monger promised, smiling as Sarabee counted out the steel disks and then counted the onions into her backbag. She left her bargaining onion on the table and took better ones. And at least they're big. Her bag was bulging when she was done, and she shouldered it and moved on. But four a token for onions, it's outrageous!

She looked over some other tables, considering what to get. Nothing was a bargain. At first she hadn't minded when the fish tithe was doubled to match the grain tithe. It only drove the carp price higher, and for a while she had so much steel she didn't know what to spend it on. The problem was the prices in Tidings market rose inexorably in the wake of the increases, until they had entirely consumed the extra profit. Worse, they ate away what they got from their restitution pay and from Atyen, and those amounts hadn't risen with the price of carp.

"Sarabee!" a familiar voice called.

She whirled around, found a face in the market crowd. "Newl!" She looked at her sister's husband in stunned amazement. "Newl! What are you doing here?"

"I'm on my way to see Celese." Her brother-by-marriage smiled, and embraced her as he came up, then held her at arm's length to look her up and down. "How are you?"

"I'm good. I'm very good now that you're here. But . . ."

"How did I get out of servitude?" Newl laughed. "I'm a sentinel now, if you can believe it."

Sarabee took a step back. "What? But that takes years."

"Not anymore." Newl was smiling broadly. "They offered a deal, take twice as many years of servitude, but do it as a sentinel." He laughed. "How could I not take that? A month's training and here I am."

"Where's your cross-sash?"

"In my backbag. Brand new. Noah, it's good to see you."

"Well, let's not stand here any longer," Sarabee enthused. "Celese will be joyous." She grabbed his hand and tugged him along, marketing forgotten. "And the children! Newl, I'm so happy!"

"How are you and Jens?"

"Good. Life continues, we fish, the children grow. But look at you, a sentinel!"

Newl smiled. "I was lucky."

"They must have chosen you."

"They've been doing it for a while." He frowned. "I'm supposed to take tithes. I'm not going to like that."

"Better that than making bricks. What are they paying you?"

He told her and she whistled. "That's ample. When do you start?"

"I'm supposed to go to the Inquisition Hall, but I'm going home first."

"Of course you are." Sarabee navigated them out of the market. "Celese wouldn't speak to me if I let you out of my sight."

She took him back to the Celese's farm, and watched with tears in her eyes as her sister ran into her husband's arms and wept. Celese's boys danced around yelling "Dadsha, dadsha!" except for the youngest who was too young to remember his father and cried.

Sarabee took the little one in her arms to comfort him, while Celese gasped and exclaimed and hugged her husband yet again, and then Newl had to take out his red and blue cross-sash and model it for them. It didn't quite fit, and of course he lacked a blade and shield and the other trappings of a sentinel, but she told him he looked dashing anyway. She let the children exhaust themselves hugging their father and telling him stories, and once they'd settled down somewhat she herded them all over to her house, to give the reunited couple some time alone. Jens was there, which surprised her.

"I thought you were out with Atyen."

Her husband looked serious. "I was, he's gone flying. A long flight. He said not to expect him for a day, maybe a week."

"I have news to make you smile," she said, but Jens only looked more somber when she told him about Newl.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Let's talk in the bedroom."

"Liese, you're in charge," Sarabee told her eldest, not that it needed saying.

"Yes, Mamsha."

She followed her husband into the bedroom, sat on the bed while he took a deep breath. "A tithecounter came today," he said.

"A tithecounter," Sarabee's blood ran cold. "He didn't find . . ."

Jens shook his head. "No, he wasn't here to search, thank Noah."

"Then what?"

"Our restitution has been stopped."

"Oh," Sarabee paused. "Well, we'll survive, we always have. Prices have gotten so high it hardly matters. Onions today were—"

"It's not the steel that worries me," Jens interrupted her. "They stopped it because Mial Broden was released from the brickworks. The tithecounter wouldn't say why, but hearing about Newl, I think they must have made him a sentinel too."

Sarabee's mouth fell open and she stared her husband, trying to absorb what she'd just heard. The man who tried to rape her, the man who'd threatened her baby was walking free. Not just free, but wearing a sentinel's cross-sash. She wanted to scream, wanted to hit Jens, to beat him until he said it wasn't true, wanted to get up and run and run until she found a place Mial Broden could never find her. She did none of those things, because she found she couldn't move a single muscle. Jens came over and put his arms around her. Onions today were four a token. Four a token . . . It was all she could think, and it wasn't such a bad thought, but then Jens wiped away her tears and she realized she was sobbing.

 

The glowing panels of the builder's command center painted their reflections on the transparent dome overhead, a gentle overlay to the star-frosted darkness. Atyen floated weightless in the middle of the dome, revolving slowly as he watched them. He could spend hours staring at the view, and frequently he did. He drifted until he reached the dome, put out a hand and pushed off. The push spun him gently, and the view shifted until he was looking into the world's cylinder through the foredome. It still seemed strange to be outside the world. He had taken to calling the hidden world at the apex of the foredome Heaven, partly because it was above the suntube, as heaven was supposed to be, partly because he'd flown there as Noah was claimed to have done, but mostly because of the feeling. Is this how God felt, looking down on his Creation?

His gentle trajectory brought him back down to the ranks of workshelves that ringed the room, and with an effort Atyen pulled his attention away from the dome. He pulled himself back to the living-paper panel he'd been using and buckled himself into the chair. His worksheaf was clipped to the shelf with the clips the Builders had put there for just that purpose. The panel showed a minor miracle, a moving three-dimensional map of the world. He touched, slid his finger, and it obediently rotated to the angle he wanted. Already it had taught him that the suntube had a complex internal structure, and that it burned CH4. He still didn't know exactly what CH4 was, but he did know it was stored in four dimpled spheres a kilometer across, that were attached to the outside of the world below the forewall. He could actually see them through the room's transparent dome, out beyond the edge of the world's cylinder, proof of the map's veracity. He'd discovered that the ocean was sixty meters deep next to the aftwall, and confirmed his theory it circulated water to the river outfalls through huge tubes deep under the soil. He'd learned that the shipsteel falls were no accident but a mechanism designed to ration ingots from storehouses hidden high up on the forewall. The storehouses themselves were connected to vertical ladder shafts that ran within the forewall itself, connecting down to a huge hidden space full of mysterious machinery at the forewall base, and up to the foredome's support struts. The ladder rungs he'd seen the swifts building nests in weren't an accident. It was possible, at least in theory, to climb the forewall all the way to Heaven. And they must have done it sometimes, for some reason, else why make it possible?

Atyen bit his lip, comparing what the panel showed with the charcoal-sketched copy in his worksheaf. He found charcoal messy to work with, but he'd learned the hard way that it was impossible to use a pen without weight. The ink would stick to the pen tip, and come out of the jar in a single, spherical blob. Any incautious movement of the pen would detach the ink blob, sending it wobbling through the air until it touched something, at which point it would collapse into an indelible mess. And this map isn't much better. He frowned at his effort, turned to a blank page for a fresh start, then went back to studying the panel, spinning the world-cylinder with a finger to see what a new perspective might show, scaling in to examine the maze of the Inquisitory. He had known its back passages only as unlit tunnels that led to dank and dangerous spaces long abandoned, but the living map showed it as a living, breathing world in its own right. He was sure there were useful secrets there, but it was frustrating work trying to tease them out. Once he'd managed to get it to show words that described what he was looking at, but then he'd touched something else, and he'd never been able to bring them up again.

Atyen grew tired of the world map, and touched the symbol that made it vanish. Another touch brought up another map, the one that traced the path of the world through the star-ocean. It held its secrets even closer than the world map, but even the little Atyen had learned from it was stunning. Its very existence confirmed the Inquisition's fragmentary understanding that the world really was on a journey from one star to another. Their destination was named Iota Horologii, the same nonsense name that was etched on his Builder tokens. That strongly suggested that the same people were responsible for both Heaven and the coins, and by extension the world as a whole, and that confirmed the story of the Builders. Builders indeed!

The star map had also taught him that, surprisingly, the world was moving backwards, with the aftwall towards Iota Horologii and the foredome facing back the way they'd come. The map claimed their speed was an astonishing twenty-seven-thousand kilometers in a second. At first he'd thought he'd misinterpreted something, first because such a velocity was preposterous on the face of it and second because he could see with his own eyes that the stars were so firmly fixed in their positions that they might as well have been painted on the outside of the dome. It was only as he'd come to understand the mind-boggling distances between them that he realized the number could easily be correct. If it was, the world wouldn't reach its destination for another five thousand years.

And who were these people to think on these scales? The entire Second Inquisition was only a thousand years old, both Inquisitions together weren't more than two, and whatever had come before them was so thoroughly lost in the mists of time it was more legend than fact. Yet the Builders had launched a project meant to last five times longer than even that vast gulf of time. The audacity required was staggering! Could they have been gods? It wasn't the first time he'd pondered that question, but he'd seen with his own eyes that all too human scribble, "Trude, back after breakfast. Ivo." Gods wouldn't leave notes like that. The Builders were incredibly powerful, but they were human.

Atyen played with the star map some more, trying to prise out deeper secrets. What he had not yet discovered was why it was important to move the world from one star to another, and to his eye there seemed little enough to choose between them. He had not discovered how the world was propelled, or exactly what they were travelling through, or if it was even possible to choose a different path. He touched symbols, changed the map, changed the numbers overlaid on it, but found no new information, nor any new understanding of what he'd already seen. He was tired and his mind started to wander. How long have I been doing this? The bells didn't reach to his isolated perch and it was too easy to lose track of time. Three days at least, maybe a week. Long enough to fill two worksheaves anyway. He stretched and looked back up at the stars. Heaven provided food from its vines and huge bird flocks, water from the ever-dripping condensate on the foredome. Cooking had been an issue at first. For some reason fire just didn't burn well in Heaven, the flames were pale and weak no matter what he tried to burn. Fortunately he'd discovered a room with a surface that produced heat in any amount, controlled with the touch of a finger. After that the only problem was that he wasn't a very good cook.

And you're getting nowhere, Atyen. He stabbed a symbol and dismissed the starmap. It's time to go back to the world. He'd always been comfortable on his own, but in Heaven it was too easy to forgo human contact for more blissful hours of stargazing. And that's not good for you in the long run. He grabbed his backbag from where it was floating, unclipped his worksheaf, retrieved his charcoal scriber from the end of its string, and unbuckled himself. A gentle push took him away from the workshelf, and he guided himself over to the room's central hatchway and down the access tube to the huge half-rotating room. He launched himself across it with practiced accuracy, and laughed in midair, thinking back to his first crude attempts at flying. Here I don't even need wings. He threaded the complex's corridors and shafts back to what he called the vine room, the one that opened onto the landing platform. It was his best source of fresh food, because the open door that had allowed the birds to colonize it was now choked with vines growing on the rich soil layer they'd left behind. The birds couldn't get in anymore, and so he had all the fruit to himself. He kept his wings there too, because then there was not the slightest risk they'd drift off the platform, and also just to keep them from getting covered in bird droppings.

Outside on the platform he unfolded them, locked and double-checked the joints, buckled his backbag in its place, strapped them on and went to the edge facing the aftwall. The key to a good flight down was getting a solid launch; if he didn't, it took forever for his minuscule weight to build up enough speed to maneuver against the updraft. He grabbed the lip of the platform with both hands, swung himself head down, got his feet under him and pushed off as hard as he could, cutting through the whirling doves like a falcon. He put his hands through the supports and grabbed the lines, shifted his weight full forward and pitched down until he was in a vertical dive.

And I'm flying! It was still a thrill. His speed built up imperceptibly at first and he seemed to hang in mid-air, but as his weight gradually increased he fell faster. He held the nose down, aiming just beyond the forewall mists, and left the control lines loose, leaving the slots closed to minimize drag. The wind became a steady breeze, and he pulled in a touch of left line to counteract the antispinward drift. There was a brief burble of turbulence as he fell through the upper overturn boundary, and he compensated with a couple of quick line tugs. He accelerated faster as his weight built up and the rush grew to a roar. He held the dive until he heard the mainspine start creaking, then pulled in both lines, flexing the trailing edges down and opening the slots. Still he kept the nose in its full-down stoop, relying on the added drag to keep himself from overspeeding. The lower overturn smacked him hard, yanking him against the straps and rocking him violently, but he was through it so fast that it was gone before he could even register it. Only then did he shift his weight back, gradually pulling out of his headlong descent. The maneuver put him solidly into the lowest, aftward moving wind layer, and with the wind behind him and the speed he'd gained in his dive the world slipped past with amazing speed. Between the raft ride to the aftwall, winching himself up to the second ledge, and the lazy, spiralling flight up the world with the clouds it took most of a day to make it to Heaven, but getting back on the ground took less than a bell.

He found Charisy, halfway up the curve of the world, which put Tidings almost exactly behind the suntube. He angled antispinward to fly over the city, picked up Tidings from there, and as he drew closer found the place where the helixing main road met the shore. It was easy to spot Jens's house from there, and he swooped low over it, banked around into wind, trimmed out level with the lines and came down in his usual pasture, just fifty meters from his own small shed. His bad leg nearly buckled on landing, and his wings felt like they weighed twice their twenty-five kilos. It was like that every time he came down; his body seemed to forget what weight was when he was in Heaven.

"Atyen! Atyen!" Liese and Acelle had watched him come over and came running up.

"Butterfly!" He smiled as he undid his flaps. "Daffodil!" He ruffled their hair. "Shouldn't you be in school?"

"Everyone knows it's a holiday," Acelle said.

"Those are so beautiful," Liese said, running her hand over the leading edge. "I want to try."

"You can try them on. You'll have to ask your mother to actually fly them."

"You say that every time. You know she won't let me." Liese heaved an overdramtic sigh, but brightened up the second it was done. "Help me put them on, Acelle."

"I want to wear them too," put in the younger girl as she tried to lift the trailing edge. Atyen winced, and held the wings up so Acelle's help wouldn't tear a slot, and Liese slipped the shoulder straps on.

"They're really heavy," she said as Atyen let her take the weight.

"They're supposed to carry you, not the other way around."

"My turn," put in Acelle.

Liese turned herself to face into wind and bent at the waist so the wings could grab air. "You can really feel them lifing."

"My turn," Acelle repeated, more insistent.

The older girl relinquished the wings reluctantly and Atyen held them again so her younger sister could have her turn, holding them up so she wouldn't have to carry the full weight.

"Where's your father?" he asked Liese.

"Down on the dock, working on the nets."

"You're the only inquisitor my father likes," Acelle said. "And my mother. They said."

"I'm just an aspirant, I'm studying to be an inquisitor." He released the locking joints. "You can help me fold these," he said, and showed the girls how to pack the fabric into a nice neat package.

"I guess you're supposed to carry them after all," Liese observed dryly, as he slipped his arms through the shoulder straps again, and then she ran to catch Acelle who'd run off ahead.

Atyen hung the folded wings on the wall and turned to look over his next project. His forming jigs were fully occupied with the skeleton of his next experiment. The new wings were cargo carriers, with twice the span of his old set, slots in both the main wings and the tail, and a cargo basket. Fully laden they'd be too heavy to carry on his back for the leap from the ledge, so he'd designed them to launch by sliding down a pair of rails. He ran a hand over the oiled bamboo skeleton and it came away dusty. He frowned. The wing fabric was folded neatly in a corner, waiting to be strung onto the frame, but since he'd found Heaven he'd done no work on them at all.

Because Heaven is more important. Atyen went into his small bedroom. His workshelf was covered with stacks of journals, the distilled product of all he'd done since he'd come to the aftwall. He picked up one of the first ones, leafed past drawings of falcons, his first, clumsy concepts for wings he could really fly, even an imaginative picture of a peregrine chick. I've even forgotten about finding a peregrine's nest. How long has it been? Long enough that Jerl had learned to talk and was taking an interest in rafts, long enough that Liese had given up on dolls. Inquisitor Renn had told him to come back in a year, but Renn couldn't have anticipated what Atyen would find at the foredome apex. This is too important to keep to myself. There was far more to do, more to learn in Heaven than one man ever could. It was time to bring his findings back to the Inquisitory, teach others to fly, transform his hard-won experience into knowledge that anyone could access.

Time to leave the aftwall, at least for now. It was a hard decision to make. Jens's family had become like his own. Closer than my own. He'd miss the long raft trips to the aftwall with his best friend, miss the children, miss Sarabee. But it has to be done. He went to a drawer, drew out a small bag, and headed down to the dock.

Jens was there as advertised, fixing nets.

"Atyen," he called. "When did you get back?"

"Just now." Atyen sat down, picked up a section of net to look for holes.

"What do you do up there? It's been a week!"

"I learn about Heaven."

Jens laughed. "You say that every time."

"Because you ask every time." Atyen paused trying to figure out how to explain it. "It's a whole other world, Jens. Some things so strange I don't believe them even when I'm looking at them. You can see stars by the thousand, float in the air. You should come."

"It terrifies me just watching you jump off that ledge, and carp don't catch themselves." Jens shook his head. "Thanks, but I'll float in the water, and see the stars from here."

Atyen nodded, and felt a slight sadness that his friend couldn't share in the wonder he'd experienced. "I'd like you to watch the shed for a while."

Jens nodded slowly, taking that in. "It's time, is it?"

Atyen nodded. "It is."

"It's been good having you Atyen. You're welcome anytime."

"I'll be back soon. I'm not done flying yet." Atyen hoped it was true. "Here, I want you to have this." He handed over the flax bag.

Jens took it, hefted it. "What's in it?"

"Builder tokens." Atyen briefly explained what they were. "My . . . a doctrinor gave them to me to pay for my work down here. I don't need them anymore, and you do."

"Atyen, this is . . ."

"Don't protest. You asked me once to look after your family. Well, now I am."

"Only if something happens to me!"

"Think of it as an advance payment."

Jens nodded in appreciation. "Thank you, Atyen. I'll save it for an emergency. Just in case."

"Good fishing."

"Safe journey."

They shook hands, and Atyen went up to the house to say goodbye to Sarabee. She wasn't there. Probably marketing. It was disappointing to miss the goodbye, but there was no sense in delaying. He started walking, looking wistfully up at the spiralling clouds. It had been a long time since he'd had to walk a long distance, and combined with his post-Heaven muscle fatigue his injured calf was sore in the first five hundred meters. He'd hoped to hike all the way to the Inquisitory, but he was spent before he reached Charisy. He found a traveller's house, put the cart in their stable and bought himself a surprisingly expensive meal of mutton and vegetables. For six months he'd either eaten with the Madanes or in Heaven, and prices had risen sharply since then. I have to get back in touch with the world.

He slept well, shared a pricey breakfast with a cart-vendor going to Bountiful parish, and left early. As he walked he went over what he'd need to do to get his masterwork finished, and he was half-surprised to find himself looking forward to his double-red cross-sash. Heaven is too important to keep to myself, and I'm going to need aspirants to help understand it. There were a trio of sentinels waiting at the intersection of the Tidings road and the trading road, but he paid them no heed as he considered how best to proceed. Getting people up there was going to be the difficulty. Could I teach them all to fly?

"Stop right there, fisher," the leader said. "Tithe-patrol."

Atyen looked up from his reverie, surprised. "I'm an aspirant."

"That so? Well, aspirant, let's just see what you've got in the cart." The voice was challenging, almost belligerent.

"I've got my cross-sash here somewhere . . ."

"I don't care. Let's see what's in the bag."

The sentinel took a step forward, so Atyen shrugged and handed over his backbag. The leader handed it to one of the others, who began rummaging through his things. Aspirants weren't subject to tithes, and he had nothing tithe-able anyway, but if they wanted to waste their time that was their affair. Still, something was wrong. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. Maybe the challenge . . . Aspirants technically outranked sentinels, though it was a foolish aspirant who pushed the issue. Still, sentinels were nothing if not mindful of protocol. They were trained to apply violence when necessary but they were uniformly polite when it wasn't. And they've got no reason to be rude to me. More than that, there was something about the way they carried themselves. One had worn his cross-sash off center, another's was wrinkled, and none of them had tucked away the draw-strings on the their backbags. And what does that mean? Probably nothing.

They quickly finished with his few belongings, and they seemed disappointed not to have found anything. One of them rifled through his worksheaves, tossing them to the ground once he'd proved there was no untithed grain hidden between the pages. Finally they finished, leaving Atyen to reorganize the mess they'd left in his bag. These are sentinels? They didn't even have a tithecounter with them. The encounter left him shaken, and he decided to detour around Charisy on the farming roads in the hope of avoiding more like it. The cart-vendor had complained loudly about the patrols on the trading road, but he had complained loudly about a lot else and Atyen hadn't given his stories much credit. But now I see what he meant. As an afterthought he put his cross-sash on, just in case.

It took him several bells to get to the forewall by the longer route, and the forewall mists were cool and pleasant when he reached them. He left the goats and cart with the stablemaster, and went up to find Inquisitor Renn. When he got to Renn's quarters he found them empty. The Inquisitory was still in disarray after the fire, and nobody seemed to know where he'd gone. Finally he went down to the entry and asked the watchkeeper.

"Renn's gone to Charisy," he was told. "He's building the new Inquisitory."

Atyen sighed, and went back to the stables to get the cart.

 

"I'm brilliant, aren't I? Simply brilliant!" Enthusiasm radiated from Byo Vesene's words.

Renn nodded slowly. They were on an inspection tour of the new Inquisitory, his personal project and the Chief Inquisitor's eager passion. It occupied space that had once been crafter's shops on the foreward side of Charisy's main market, with the wealthy merchant district behind it and the market square proper to its front. The main building was forty meters wide, and already the central tower was twenty meters high.

"Aren't I brilliant?" prompted Vesene, not satisfied with the nod.

"You are brilliant, Chief Inquisitor," Renn answered dutifully. He couldn't see Cela Joss behind him, but he could feel her hard gaze. It was Cela's job to make sure that when Chief Inquisitor Vesene needed agreement, people agreed. "Moving the Inquisitory here is a stroke of genius." He didn't look at the Chief Inquisitor, instead running a critical eye over the work in progress. Crews of bound criminals were busily hauling bricks up the bamboo scaffolding that wound around its sides under the watchful eyes of armed sentinels, most of whom had been prisoners themselves not long ago. The main building was halfway finished, and the foundations had been laid for the wings on either side.

"It's going to be twice as high as the Inquisitory Tower," Vesene enthused, pointing up. "Twice! And away from the cursed mist. Look here." He pointed to a raised dais at what would become the entrance to the tower. "My statue will go here. Triple life size, yes."

"Triple, Chief Inquisitor," Torr Toorman answered. Renn could hear the well veiled sarcasm in Toorman's voice, but if Vesene picked it up he ignored it.

"The people will see me every day in the market. They must know me. The people must love me."

"The people do love you, Chief Inquisitor," Joss put in reassuringly.

"They'll worship me before long. You'll see. They'll worship me like a god." Vesene's face darkened, and he pointed a group of laborers unloading a goat-cart full of bricks. "They're slacking, Renn. Slacking. Get on that. I want this done quickly." He turned away before Renn could answer and clapped his gloved hands. "Carriers!"

"Carriers," Joss echoed, and a group of eight erranders came forward, bearing a travel cart with the wheels replaced with long poles so they could carry it. Renn rolled his eyes at the Chief Inquisitor's latest vanity.

The carriers lowered the cart so Vesene could climb in, and picked it up again when he was ensconced. "Home," he ordered, and they left at the trot. His honor guard of sentinels fell into formation around him and the whole procession set off for the forewall.

Toorman moved to stand beside Renn. "He says the wheels jolt him too much."

Renn laughed. "His brain has been jolted too much."

"He really is brilliant you know."

Renn gave the Inquisitor-in-Chief of Charisy a look. "Don't tell me you've lost your mind too."

"I should be so blessed. But look, everyone's working, everyone's fed." He swept an arm at the bamboo framed, waxed flax walled apartments that had sprung up as second and third stories atop the city's older buildings. "Everyone's housed, and he didn't even have to buy farmland to do it. Nobody has to beg anymore, and everyone loves him, just like he says."

Renn snorted. "Everyone's eating because his tithe patrols are squeezing the farmers to keep the grain lines open. Everyone's working because he's draining the steel vaults to build this insane palace. Everyone's housed in these ridiculous firetraps with neither water nor sewers, and your city's going to burn to the ground the next time someone kicks over a firebowl, if they don't all die of the stench first. And everyone loves him because if anyone expresses any discontent they wind up either making bricks or hauling them." Renn gestured at the servitors laboring on the growing edifice.

"Like I said, he's brilliant."

"Were you always this cynical?"

"Only since Cela Joss starting serving foxglove to anyone who spoke their mind."

Renn nodded. "Walk with me," he invited, and turned towards main avenue that led antispinward from the market square. "Cela frightens me. I don't know why she backs him up. She's smarter than that."

"Thank Noah she is. She's the only one who can talk any sense into him at all."

"That's little comfort." Renn stroked his chin. "I wonder what her motive is?"

"She likes power, and he keeps giving her more."

"Why doesn't she just take it for herself? She doesn't need him, and we'd be better off."

"I don't know." Toorman paused. "We have to do something you know. We can't let this go on."

The shopfronts crowded close on the avenue, with vendors hawking all manner of wares. They stayed to the raised cobbling that ran beside it, ignoring the clamor. "What do you propose?" Renn asked.

"I don't know." Toorman spread his hands, palm up. "He's made all those thugs into sentinels, and turned them into his bodyguard."

"Cela did that."

"It was his idea. She objected at first, if you can believe it. So she told me anyway."

"Are they loyal to him?" Renn asked. He stopped by a quilt vendor selling pure fleece floorquilts. He needed one for his space in the new Inquisitory, and he ran a hand over the soft sheepskin, testing its texture, then laughed at himself. How effectively I distract myself with triviality.

"Loyal to Cela, I think." Toorman hadn't noticed Renn's brief moment of self-cynicism. "I can't believe I was glad to get my sentinels back from him." He looked up at the suntube as if imploring Noah for intervention. "What I wouldn't give for one of my own by his side right now."

"You couldn't have known." Renn waved away the vendor before he could start a sales pitch, and turned to keep walking.

Toorman snorted. "I can't believe I was stupid enough to send them to him in the first place." He shook his head sadly. "I owed him a favor."

"There was a fire, what else were you to do?"

"Perhaps." He laughed. "I thought I had street problems with half my sentinels gone. Now every beggar and thief in the world has moved here to eat free grain and live in free apartments."

"Don't remind me." Renn sighed. "If we used the brick in that palace to build real houses instead . . ."

They passed a dancehouse, and a revealingly clad young woman stood in the door, beckoning them in to enjoy the carnal delights on offer. "Just a few tokens," she called to them. "Anything you want you can have."

Toorman waved her away. They walked in silence for a while, came to the trading road and turned aftward. "Do you know he's selling women?"

"What?" Renn looked up sharply. "When did this start?"

"Just last week, in the auction hall. They're all farm wives, farm daughters. Officially it's indenture, but the sentinels are turning a blind eye to what really happens." He jerked his head back at the dancehouse. "I'm sure some of them are working in there right now."

"You're the Inquisitor-in-Chief! Can't you stop it?"

"I'm Inquisitor-in-Chief for Charisy. It all happens in the farm parishes, by the time they get here there's nothing I can do. They get squeezed for tithes, they dodge the tithes, get caught by the tithe-patrols and the whole family gets bound into servitude." Toorman shrugged. "Then the women get sent here. Their servitude is commuted to indenture, because our benevolent Chief Inquisitor is so lenient." He grimaced. "Then their indentures are auctioned off. It's all well within the law." They turned off the trading road and into Charisy's central park, pleasant paths through well groomed bushes, with the main church rising on its spinward side.

"But they're your sentinels . . ."

"Not my sentinels, Cela's." Toorman registered distate. "Thugs in cross-sashes. They're most of the buyers too, nobody else has the tokens." Toorman laughed. "Another piece of brilliance. He pays them hard steel to extract tithes and arrest farmers, then he feeds them the tithed food, sells them the farm women to get the steel back, uses it to pay for his palace and makes the farm men build it."

Renn shook his head. "That particular brilliance has Cela's sigil all over it. Vesene only cares about drowning himself in opulence. She's the one who has to find the steel to buy it."

"She has to keep the granaries full too, and this madness won't do that. How many farms has she destroyed, I wonder?"

"Too many. I'm worried. Solender was predicting we'd run out of food even before this."

"I'm not worried about food," Toorman said. "The farmers feed crops to animals to make meat. If they don't have any extra crops, they won't feed the animals." They came to the waterclock at the park's center, and he sat down on a bench to watch the water splash and the wheels spin. "So we'll all eat, we just won't eat meat." He tossed a stray stick into the pool at the clock's base. "I wonder if that's what happened to Solender's cattle and . . . what did he call the work beasts?"

"Horses."

"Horses." Toorman sighed. "You and I are just horses, did you know that? Laboring workbeasts. You're building that monstrosity to his glory, and I'm holding this city together so everyone can worship him while he wallows in it." His face showed disgust.

"Believe me, if I could get out of it with my life I'd be gone long ago. Have you talked to Charisy's reeve about this?"

Torr shook his head. "I wouldn't dare, the reeve loves him."

"Please tell me you're joking!"

"I wish I were, but the reeve is polled in. There's not a gram of his soul that isn't ruled by the people's will, and make no mistake the people do like Vesene. He gives out grain, the reeve worms himself the credit. When he builds houses, provides jobs, even when he sells women, the reeve worms himself the credit."

"Your reeve sounds like a worm himself."

"He is."

Renn had nothing to add to that, and so they sat watching the water. The flow was lower than it should have been. Charisy's new upper floor apartments were too high to draw directly from the conduit system, but their inhabitants took buckets from the public basins, and there were a lot of them. Yet another overstretched resource. How long before something snaps? "Shall we kill him?" he asked at last.

"We have to do something."

Renn looked at his fingernails, his expression far away. "We'd have to kill Cela too, and half the law council."

"They all have blood on their hands. Probably even Solender's."

"The law demands an inquisition."

"Are you serious?" Toorman's eyebrows went up. "You watched them make Stronka drink foxglove! And Born. And how many others have been suddenly godstruck?"

"Then they'll be convicted. Giving them an inquisition is for our benefit, not theirs. We'll show the people law means something again." Renn pursed his lips, thinking. "How many sentinels have you got, real sentinels, loyal to you over Cela?"

Toorman looked up, considering. "More than I had before. They're not happy with what Cela's done to the order."

"How many would we need to get through to him?"

"Not too many. His thugs have blades, but they aren't properly trained with them. The problem will be gaining control afterwards, that will take a lot more bodies. The poor won't like losing their grain lines and free houses, the rich won't like losing his steel. His thugs will fight and so will the law council. It could get ugly if we don't do it right."

Renn smiled. "Do we actually have a plan here?"

Toorman nodded. "The start of one. We'll have to be very careful, or we'll both end up with a mug of foxglove tea."

"Well, let's be careful then. Let's think on it, think on who we can bring in who we can trust absolutely. Can you meet here tomorrow? Say the noon bell?"

"Perfect."

Toorman offered his hand, and Renn shook it and stood up. "I'll see you then. I'm going to step into the church."

"What for?"

Renn laughed. "To pray. What else?"

"I didn't know you believed."

"I don't."

"Then why?"

"Just in case it helps." Renn smiled, feeling a great load lifted from his shoulders. One step starts the journey. He crossed the park to the church, and up the grand stairs. The heavy oak doors creaked open at his push. Inside it was cool and still, and he walked to the far end of the ranked ironwood benches, up past the well-worn dais and the ancient altar. At the very back was a small door, and he knocked. Footsteps sounded, and the door opened to the bishop of Charisy.

"Inquisitor Renn!" The bishop beckoned him in. "Welcome. What brings you here?"

"The sins I'm about to commit." Renn stepped through the door.

"You need forgiveness?"

"I need your help."

 

Sarabee was clearing the evening meal plates when there was a knock on the door. She went to answer it and it opened to Newl with his cross-sash on, with three men and a woman behind him.

"Newl, what . . . ?"

"I'm sorry, Sarabee." Newl's expression was sickly. "I'm sorry . . ."

One of the other men pushed past her brother-by-marriage. "Well, well, Sarabee. It's been a long time." The man who'd tried to rape her, Mial Broden, in a cross-sash.

She recognized him immediately. In her nightmares he terrified her, chased her, trapped her, laughed cruelly at her fear as he pawed at her body, but when she saw his face on her doorstep her instant reaction was blind rage. She screamed and leapt at him, knocking him over, her hands locking onto his throat. Her own fear was reflected in his face as he fell backwards and it only gave her strength. She would have snuffed out his life on the spot if the other two sentinels hadn't dragged her off him. They hauled her to one side, and all five came in. Acelle started crying, Healan ran into the bedroom to hide, Liese grabbed Jerl and hurried him into the kitchen.

Newl was wringing his hands together. "Sarabee, I'm so sorry."

"Newl, you get that motherless sooksa out of my house this instant," Sarabee raged, wrenching at the sentinels restraining her. "Get him out you yatsless little girl, get him out!"

"What's going on?" Jens strode in from the kitchen. He caught sight of Newl. "Newl, what's happening here?"

Newl started to answer, but one of the other men cut him off. "I'm tithecounter for the Tidings shorefields. This is a tithe patrol."

"A tithe patrol?" Jens looked the group over. "Well, we've got nothing to hide. What do you want to see?"

"What we're going to see . . ." Mial put in. ". . . is you and your pretty little wife in servitude." His voice was raw, and Sarabee's handprints were livid on his throat. He smiled a nasty smile at Sarabee. "And I'm going to enjoy that servitude quite a bit."

"Sooksa!" Sarabee spat the word, then spat at him.

"Enough!" The tithecounter raised his hand. "I see there's some history here. Inquisitor Broden, you wait outside." Mial was wiping Sarabee's spittle from his cross sash and didn't move. The tithecounter turned to face him, his voice hard. "Outside. Don't make me say it again."

Sullenly Mial went out.

"I'm so sorry," Newl repeated, still wringing his hands.

"I apologize for that," the tithecounter said. "There's no need for this to be personal."

Jens nodded, slowly. "As I said, we've got nothing to hide." He nodded to the other two sentinels. "You can let my wife go now."

"I don't apologize," Sarabee snapped. "And if that animal comes into my house again I'll gut him like I did his friend."

"He's not coming in, Sarabee." Jens said. "You two, let her go."

The sentinels did as Jens said, and Sarabee went to the opposite side of the room, keeping her eyes on the door.

"We'll make this as fast as possible," the tithecounter said. "This is just routine, your hauls have been low, so we have to check. Let's just go over the figures." He pulled out a worksheaf. "Can you confirm these sales?"

Sarabee came over. "I handle the selling," she said. She took the page and scanned it. "They look right."

"Very good." The tithecounter smiled a perfunctory smile. "And you've made no sales not recorded here?"

"You've got every monger from here to Cove listed."

"Then you won't mind if we look around?"

"Do you clean up after yourself?"

"This isn't meant to be hostile, please, we're just doing our jobs."

"Go ahead," Jens said, before Sarabee could say more. He gave her a look. Concern, love, caution. He was doing the right thing, and there was nothing to be gained by antagonizing the tithecounter. She took a deep breath and pressed her lips together.

The sentinels who'd held her did the looking, the tithecounter just watched. Newl just stood in the corner, still wringing his hands and looking miserable. He looked like he wanted to apologize again, but Sarabee shot him a look and he wilted. The sentinels were very thorough, the woman lifting the floor quilt and checking the floorboards, the man climbing up to check the rafters. They went through the kitchen shelves, opened the drawers, dipped into the rain barrel, went through Sarabee's backbag, and counted out the tokens there, checked the beds and the walls.

"It looks fine to me," the woman reported, finally.

"And me," her partner added.

"Very good. Do you own any other buildings?" asked the tithecounter.

"Just my sailshed and my smokeshed," Jens answered. "And my raft, if you want to go through that."

The tithecounter shook his head. "I think we've disturbed your privacy enough for today. I apologize again. I didn't know there were any . . ." He coughed. ". . . issues with sentinel Broden, or I wouldn't have brought him."

Jens took a deep breath. "I appreciate your courtesy," he said, and moved to let the tithe patrol out.

The door opened before he got there. It was Mial. He held up a small bag, turned it over, dumped it out. Builder tokens spilled out onto the floor. "In the smokeshed, under the firebowl," he said, and smiled his cruel smile. "I'm going to own you, Sarabee Madane." He grabbed her wrist and she swung her fist at his face, but he jerked out of the way, and then caught her other wrist as well, spinning her around so she couldn't kick at him. "I've got her," he called.

Jens crossed the room in a blur and drove his fist into Mial's face. The impact sounded like an axe hitting wood, and the youth staggered back with his nose broken flat over, blood streaming from it. Sarabee pivoted and drove her knee into his groin and he went down in a ball, and then Jens was on top of him, driving his fist down over and over, his face contorted in fury. The other two sentinels grabbed him and hauled him off, and then the tithecounter had Sarabee from behind.

"Don't make it worse," he said in her ear as she struggled and cursed. "Don't make it worse."

Mial rolled over, groaning, hands clutched to his groin, his face a mask of hate already distorted by the swelling. He staggered to his feet, grabbed his blade from his belt, and with a sudden lunge, drove it into Jens's belly. Sarabee screamed as her husband gasped in pain, and then with dying strength he tore his arms free of the inquisitors holding him back and his hands went to Mial's throat. The youth's eyes popped and he struggled to breathe, his own hands flying to Jens's in an attempt to pry them off. He wasn't strong enough, but Jens was gouting blood and weakening, and finally his muscles went slack and he slid forward onto the floor.

"No!" Sarabee screamed, and kicked back at the tithecounter until he let go. She flew to her husband's side. "No! No! No!" She sobbed the word over and over, putting her arms around him. Mial moved towards her but the tithecounter put up a hand and the other two sentinels stepped forward to keep him away.

"Oh Sarabee, I'm so sorry." Newl had his hands clasped to his breast, half bent over. "I'll get Celese, we'll look after the children. Don't worry about the children . . ."

She ignored him, sobbing over Jens's body. Time stood still, and she seemed to be watching herself from a long, long way away. It seemed to be hours before the sentinels helped her to her feet, before they led her outside to the goat-cart, but it couldn't have been because Newl was still cringing and apologizing and promising. She wanted to spit at him, but her body wouldn't respond, and she numbly followed them where they took her. At some point she was in Tidings, at another in the basement of the Inquisition Hall. At some point the female sentinel was undressing her, washing the blood away and at another the inquisitor-of-fact was asking her questions, though she couldn't remember what he'd asked or what she'd answered. She didn't even know if the washing came before or after the questions. The inquisitor's face did seem familiar, and a long time afterwards she realized that he was the same one who'd interviewed her after the rape attempt.

Once she heard Mial yelling in a room not far away, but they kept him away from her. At least a week passed between her arrest and her inquisition, but when Mial was called forward as a witness his face was still a bloody mass, barely recognizable as human. He couldn't visually identify her because both eyes were swollen shut, and when he spoke his speech was slurred, Jens had broken half his teeth. The realization raised the corner of her mouth a tiny fraction, the largest emotional reaction the whole process raised in her. The Inquisitor-in-Chief was the same man as before too, and he looked sad and tired as he bound her for five years servitude for tithe neglect. The law is the law. Sarabee was beyond caring.

The reeve was there too, and as they roped her wrists behind her back he shouted something about owning her. That didn't register either. Her only thoughts, when she had any thoughts, were for her children. Celese will look after them. She clung to that thought. Her sister was a good woman, and Sarabee had helped her when Newl was gone. She would stand by her family. Newl himself was irrelevant, he had removed himself from the world of men, from the world of humanity, when he'd allowed the tithe patrol to bring Mial to her door. She couldn't imagine Jens being so weak, or Atyen, or her father. No wonder I couldn't spit at him. He wasn't worth the spit.

They loaded her on a goat cart with a cage on the back and jolted their way foreward. She assumed they were going to Charisy, but they stopped at the bridge into the city and pulled into the courtyard of a small travelling house. A sentinel read a document at her, commuting her sentence from servitude to indenture, whatever that meant. Another woman was put in the cart at that point, her sentence commuted as well. At first Sarabee dared hope that that was a good thing, but then another woman came, and a fourth and a fifth. Only women, and none who can't bear children. It wasn't a positive sign, and the fear of rape began to grow in her again. They'd replaced her blood-soaked clothing with a robe at the Inquisition hall. It was a simple single-piece garment of plain flax, but it had a hood so she drew that up to hide her hair and hunched forward to de-accentuate her breasts. She kept her head down as well, avoiding eye contact and retreating as far into the fabric as she could. They waited there the from noon bell to noon bell without food or water. Several of the other women urinated in the cart and they all complained of thirst and hunger except Sarabee. Her body seemed to be totally shut down, and she was indifferent to the stench of stale urine and unwashed bodies and the heat of the suntube overhead. Finally another cart full of women joined them, another document was read, and the drivers stirred up the goats and they clattered over the bridge into the city. The sign on the travelling house read "Welcome," and for some reason that fact stuck in her mind.

Beyond the bridge was a wide road with tall, impressive houses, but their route soon took them through a bad part of the city, where cheap apartments of bamboo and waxed flax squatted on the roofs of rundown brick houses. There were men on the road, leaning out of windows, desire plain in their eyes, shouting obscene comments. Sarabee ignored them, keeping her eyes on the cart floor. There was raw sewage stinking in the street as well, something she'd never experienced in Tidings, but the smell didn't really register. It didn't take long to reach their destination, a large, low building of brick and timber. Both carts were unloaded and the women were herded into a large building of brick and timber, down a corridor and into a plain room that had been divided into a series of improvised cages with bamboo bars. Several men and a woman watched their arrival from the other side of the bars, and the prisoners were divided up among the various cells. Most of them held two or three women, but Sarabee wound up alone in hers. The cage door was closed and barred, and a sentinel stepped forward to explain that they'd be fed shortly and taken to be washed. He warned of the consequences of disobedience, smacking a heavy stick into his palm as he threatened them.

His words evidently disturbed the watching woman, dark hair and dark eyes with an inquisitor's double-red cross-sash.

"These are the Chief Inquisitor's property," she said severely. "Don't mark them."

* * * 

Wearily Atyen threaded his way through the throng of workers swarming around Charisy's new Inquisitory. The stables were unfinished, but he managed to talk the worker in charge there into letting him leave his goats and the cart there temporarily. It was an impressive structure even with the soaring tower incomplete and the wings mere foundations. The main building was nearly finished, and already some offices were in use. Hopefully including Renn's. He went up into the pillared entrance and found a fountain gushing in the grand, domed entrance hall. Wide staircases spiralled up either side of it to the spacious halls on either side. There was none of the makeshift, much modified and well worn atmosphere of the old Inquisitory. There were already carvings and statuary in ornate niches, and heavily embroidered quilts cushioning the walls. And it isn't damp. He'd forgotten how damp it was at the forewall, how a faint scent of mildew pervaded everything, how he'd always had to wear wool to keep the chill at bay.

Much improved. He chose the left hand stairway at random, which led him to the left hand hall, brightly lit with well placed skylights above. It was the right decision. An errander directed him to Renn's quarters, and he found the senior Inquisitor at his workshelf.

"Well, well, young Atyen," Renn said when he turned around at Atyen's knock. "I'm surprised to see you returned."

"I've found something. I thought you'd want to know about it as soon as possible." Atyen dropped a stack of worksheaves on Renn's workshelf.

"Hmmm." Renn pulled over the top sheaf, opened it, started reading. His eyes grew big, and he looked up. "What is this?"

Atyen sat down, and described what he'd found in Heaven.

"And you flew there? Really flew?"

"I did."

"This . . ." Renn paged through the sheaf, reading snippets at random. "This is incredible. This is the Builders, for certain." His voice rose in excitement. "Do you realize what you've got here?"

"I think so. I hope to present it as my masterwork. That and what I've learned of flying. If it's possible . . ."

"Oh, there's no doubt of that. I'll stand as your doctrinor. We'll have your double-red cross-sash on you very soon. First, we have to solve some problems."

"You meant that I'm Solender's—"

"No, no, not that. I only wish our Chief Inquisitor were still worried about Solender's people." Renn gave a sardonic half-smile. "We have far larger problems now."

"Like what?"

"Like this building, for starters. Vesene has dumped so much steel into the market to pay for it that oranges are going for five tokens apiece, if you can find oranges. That means everyone who isn't being paid Inquisition steel to put this thing up can't afford to eat. He solved that problem by expanding the grain lines, only now the grain stores are empty and I don't know what's going to happen next. He's killed half the law council . . ."

"Killed?"

"Murdered them, and bought the rest. Why do you think I'm building this monstrosity in the full knowledge it's ruining the Inquisition, except to save my own fragile neck? The sentinels have been debased completely. And every day he descends from his half-finished tower to accept the grateful praise of his people."

Voices rose outside, angry and growing louder. "Ah," Renn smiled. "Here come the worshippers now."

He stood and went to the window, and Atyen followed him. Outside, work on the palace had come to a halt, as the market square filled with an angry, chanting mob. A line of sentinels had formed across the front of the structure, and there was a small gap between them and the mob, a measure of respect given to the sentinel's blades. As they watched the mob grew larger and the chanting louder, and Atyen could hear snatches of words. "Grain . . . Bread . . . Vesene . . ." Soon there were thousands in the market square, and though the narrow corridor between the crowd and the sentinels remained, it was obvious the mob could overrun them in a heartbeat if things went badly.

"What's going to—" he started to ask, but all at once the crowd quieted.

"Vesene has taken the balcony," Renn explained.

"They don't sound very worshipful."

Renn laughed. "They don't like being hungry, but watch."

The tower balcony was above Atyen and to the left, so he couldn't see the Chief Inquisitor, or make out very well what he was saying. He heard snippets. "My people . . . your love . . . grain . . . farmers . . . come together . . . faith in your leader . . . faith in your god . . ."

"It's the usual speech," Renn explained. "He's blaming the farmers, he's been doing that for months. The people think he's wonderful, so they're willing to go along with that. They just need somewhere to put their anger. Today he's got no grain to give them, so he's giving them promises."

"But if he's got no grain . . ."

"Cela Joss's tithe patrols are out right now getting it. There'll be grain tomorrow, that's what matters." Renn smirked. "Maybe not a lot, maybe not even enough, but some. They've always managed so far, and they'll keep managing until they run out of farmers to squeeze."

"What then?"

"Then there'll be promises but no grain. That'll work for a little while, they're used to waiting for promises now. When the promises won't hold anymore, he'll give them steel; he's already brought it all here from the old Inquisitory." Renn turned away from the window. "And when the people figure out there's no food to buy and they can't eat steel, there's going to be a war."

Atyen looked at the older man, aghast. "A war?"

"What will the people do? Pull down their god because he lied to them? That won't fill their bellies, and people will go a long way to avoid admitting to themselves they've been made fools of. No, they already know it's the farmer's fault, those evil, selfish farmers denying free food to the upstanding people of Charisy. He's told them that so often they think they've figured it out for themselves. They'll just go out into the fields and take what they want, and kill whoever gets in their way. A third of the world lives in this city. When that many people start fighting, it's a war."

Atyen nodded slowly. "I saw some hints things were getting worse in the shorefields. I had no idea it was this bad."

"The shorefields don't matter, none of the farm parishes matter, none of the towns matter, only Charisy matters. What happens here will set the outcome for the rest of the world, for better or for worse."

"Solender saw this coming."

"A lot of us saw it coming. Our shame is we didn't stop it when it was easy." Outside the window the speech came to an end, and the crowd started chanting "Vesene! Vesene! Vesene!" Their anger changed to wild enthusiasm. "Look," Renn pointed. "He's done it again."

"I should have been here myself. I didn't know . . ."

"You didn't know," Renn turned away from the window and went back to his workshelf. "Vesene would have sent you off to some tiny village, just like the rest of Solender's aspirants. Or he'd have had Cela Joss kill you, if he had the slightest thought you were dangerous. You did the right thing in going, and you'd probably be better off if you'd stayed where you were."

"Well, I'm here now. There must be something you can do."

"I'd hoped you'd say that." Renn smiled. "In fact, we're already doing something, and there's something you can do too."

 

Aunt Celese closed the shutters and lowered the sleep-cloth. Liese Madane lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling and listening to the others as they said their goodnights. She, her siblings and their five cousins were crowded three to a bed in the children's room, but she was far from ready for sleep. Newl, she decided, was useless.

Beside her Jerl was already breathing deeply, and Acelle was too. There was some scuffling from the other side of the room, some low voices, a giggle as the other children settled. Normally she would have put on her stern voice and told them to be quiet, but she didn't. She was too busy being angry with Newl. Useless! When he'd come into the kitchen after the fight she'd asked him what was happening. He'd said nothing, just hurried her and her siblings over to Aunt Celese's house. Healan and Acelle had both been so frightened they were in tears, and he'd done nothing to comfort them, he hadn't even carried Jerl, Liese had to do that herself. When she'd later asked him again later, he'd said only that her parents were gone. Gone! What a word to use. It was Aunt Celese who'd had to tell her that her father was dead, that her mother was arrested.

He was there and he didn't do anything to stop it. Useless! The room grew quiet, and she could tell the other children were drifting off to sleep, but Liese's thoughts wouldn't still. Newl was a sentinel, so she'd asked him to bring her mother back. He'd given her some stupid words and done nothing, and since then he'd done nothing more but guzzle wine and sleep. Useless! The fear and frustration she'd been holding down for two days welled up in Liese's chest, but she forced it down to be angry at Newl some more. I just want my parents back! It wasn't fair that he did nothing, it wasn't right, and she knew she couldn't have her father again, but she wanted, needed, had to have her mother. She felt tears forming in her eyes and wiped them away angrily. She didn't want the other children to hear her crying. She didn't want to cry at all.

But she cried anyway. All she could do was suppress the sobs so they wouldn't wake Jerl or Acelle, and the tears rolled down her cheeks until the quilts were soaked. She hated crying. I'm the oldest, I have to be stronger. That thought didn't stop the tears either. She missed her mother, she missed her father, she missed her home. She reached over and pulled Jerl close to her, drawing comfort from him. He was too young to understand what was going on, so it was safe to share her secret weakness with him. Eventually she fell asleep.

The next day was the funeral for her father, and Celese put her in charge of keeping her sisters in order while the ceremony went on. She felt numb as the bishop went through the ritual, and felt no connection at all with the silent, flax-wrapped shape on top of the pyre. She didn't cry then, though her sisters did, Celese did, even Newl did, and she felt proud of herself for staying in control.

"Your father is with God now," her aunt Reane told her as the flames rose up, trying to be comforting, but the only thing Liese cared about was that he wasn't with her. It was hard not to cry then, and she squeezed her hands into fists, digging her nails hard into her palms until she felt the skin tearing. Her eyes filled, but she blinked back the tears, and got back to Celese's for the visitation. The hustle and bustle kept her distracted for a while, but gradually the flow of guests diminished until it was just the family left. Her aunt Reane had stayed as well, and all the cousins were sent out to play while the adults had a talk. They didn't tell her what it was about, but she knew they were deciding which children would go with Reane, and which would stay with Celese, and what would be done with the house and the dock and the rafts.

The last thing she felt like doing was playing, so she walked back to her house. The door was locked, but she knew how to get the bedroom shutters open from the outside and wriggle through. She picked up Jerl's favorite fleece rabbit, Healan's best cloth doll, and the painted clamshell lined with waxed flowers that Acelle had made and put above her bed. She had intended to bring something of her own as well, but as she looked over her things she couldn't bring herself to. It would be admitting that she wouldn't be coming back to her home, that things would never be the same again. And they will be. They have to be. Still, she wanted something to hold, to keep close her memories in the time in between. And something to remember Dadsha. She went to his shelves, looked over his things. Her eye fell on an ornately carved wooden sphere, the message ball Atyen had given him, and she slipped it into a pocket.

There was a noise at the front door and she jumped. A key turned in the lock. Instinctively she crouched down behind her parents' bed, heart pounding, making herself as small as possible. There were footsteps, voices, a man and a woman, and she listened, barely daring to breath. Please don't let them come in. Please don't let them come in. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but they spent a long time, walking back and forth, talking, sometimes moving things. She slowly slid herself backwards into the space between the bed and the waterbowl stand. If they did come in, they'd only see her if they came right around the bed.

Something hit her on the head and she nearly screamed. The waterbowl clattered to the floor. She'd knocked the stand over.

"What was that?" a voice asked. The bedroom door opened, a man with a cross-sash stood over her.

"What are you doing here, child?"

Liese's eyes darted to the window, but there was no way she could bolt for it over the bed without being caught. She slowly stood up, still clutching the rabbit, the shell and the doll. "It's my house, sir."

The man nodded. "I see. Well, come out from there. We aren't going to hurt you." The woman had come in and was standing behind him. "I'm Nade, Inquisitor-of-Fact in Tidings." He sat down on her parent's clothing chest. "This is my aspirant, Juna. Why don't you sit and talk to us?"

Slowly, suspiciously, Liese came around and sat on the bed.

"You just came back to get some things, is that it?"

Liese nodded silently.

"And who's looking after you?"

"My aunt, sir."

"You don't have to call me, sir."

Liese nodded, not sure what to say. An idea occurred to her. "Inquisitors are in charge of sentinels, aren't they?"

"Some are. Not all of us."

"Are you?"

"Of some sentinels."

"Can you get them to bring my mother back?"

The man's expression changed, and he looked away. After a long time he looked back. "No, I'm sorry. I wish I could, but I can't."

"Where did they take her?"

"I don't know."

"To Charisy," the woman named Juna said. Nade gave her a look and something passed between them that Liese couldn't fathom.

"Why did they come?" Liese's was no longer afraid, and her anger came flooding back. "Why did they take my Mamsha and Dadsha?"

"It's complicated . . ." Nade began.

"It's not fair!" Liese screamed, her fear suddenly turned to anger. "We didn't do anything. It's not fair!" Her tears came flooding back, this time loud and long, the sobs wracking her body. Nade sat beside her and put his arms around her, and even though she didn't like him it was comforting so she let it happen.

Eventually she stopped, exhausted, ashamed for showing weakness to strangers, and feeling lost and very small. "Come on," Juna said. "I'll take you home."

She took Liese out the back door, trying to keep her away from the place where the floor quilt was missing, where the a wide stretch of wood was stained dark. She knew it was her father's blood. They think I'm a child, that I wouldn't notice. She let them maintain their illusion. Mercifully Juna didn't want to talk to Aunt Celese, which saved Liese from a lecture, and just dropped Liese off at the end of the farm lane. Liese found Acelle and Healan in the barn playing tag with her cousins, and she called them aside and gave them their treasures in secret. There was no need for the adults to know where she'd been. Her cousins tried to involve her in the game, but she walked back to the house and slipped past her aunts and Newl, who were still in deep discussion, Celese with Jerl on her knee. Back in her cousin's room, back in the bed that was hers for now, she climbed under the quilts, and their enveloping warmth helped her feel a little better. She took the message ball from her pocket and looked at it. It was ornately carved and heavy for its size, made of a hard, dark wood. ATYEN HORUN was inscribed around its equator.

The message ball had always fascinated her. She knew it could be opened, but her father had never let her play with it, and scolded her the one time she'd snuck it down from the shelf and tried to figure it out herself. All she'd learned the first time was that it was divided into thirds, and the top and bottom thirds could be twisted a half turn against the middle. She tried that, twisting and pulling this way and that, but the ball remained stubbornly closed. Eventually she tired of it. The evening-meal bell sounded, and Aunt Celese came in to call her to eat, but she wasn't hungry and refused. Celese sat with her a minute, ran her fingers through her hair.

"I know it's hard, Liese. You just have to trust that everything will work out."

"Who are you sending with Aunt Reane?"

"Jerl and Healan. You and Acelle will stay here."

"Can't we keep Jerl instead?"

Celese shook her head slowly. "He's too young, and I've got too many to look after here as it is."

"I can look after him. I already do."

"It's been decided. Why don't you come down and eat?"

Liese shook her head, and after a moment Celese left her to carry on with the rest. It's been decided. Just like adults to make that kind of choice without even asking. Jerl is my responsibility now. They can't take that away from me. Only they had, and anger grew in her until she wanted to scream and break something. The message ball was there and she picked it up with the urge to throw it across the room. She fought it down with an effort, and instead squeezed it, hard enough to make her hand hurt.

Something moved, and she opened her hand, her anger gone in an instant. She'd pushed in a small section in the middle third of the ball, and a corresponding section on the opposite side had been pushed out. She twisted the segments experimentally, and found the top third twisted further than it had before. When she did that the protruding piece was locked out, and couldn't be pushed back in. After some more experimentation she found that allowed the bottom third to twist farther too. She was stuck there for a while, until she pushed the protruding piece again. It sank back flush with the surface, and the ball fell apart along a hidden zigzag around its middle, revealing a small hollow. There was a note folded tight inside.

Liese hadn't expected that, and she picked it up and carefully opened it. It was in her father's writing, and simple. Atyen, we need you, please come at once. Jens. She turned it over to see if there was anything on the other side, but there was nothing. With trembling fingers she folded it up along the original lines and tucked it back in the hollow. It took her a couple of tries to reverse the steps to close the ball, but when it was closed she pressed it over her heart. For just a moment she felt her father close.

And then she had an idea. Atyen. Her father had faced a problem, and he'd turned to Atyen. Atyen was an inquisitor, Atyen could fly. If anyone could get her mother back, it was Atyen. She didn't know where he was, but the message ball would find him. That's what it was for. She'd take it to the Hall of Inquisition in Tidings, and they'd send a mirror message to get him. A small smile crept across her lips. She wasn't going to let the adults ruin her life for her. She slipped out of bed, went to her backbag, rummaged past her clothing for her school worksheaf and charcoal scriber. With them she wrote a new note. Atyen, Dadsha has died and they took Mamsha. Please help me find her. Liese. She folded it tight, re-opened the ball and replaced her father's message with hers. After some thought she tucked the original note into her worksheaf and put it back in her backbag.

She slept eventually, and the next day ate as much breakfast as she could. Afterwards she made sure Jerl was settled with Aunt Celese, put a bag of dried apples in her backbag and set off for Tidings. She'd only been there a few times with her mother and hadn't really been paying attention to the route, but she was set on her plan and determined to see it through. It was surprisingly simple—she recognized the important landmarks—and before long she was in Tidings market. She asked a cart-vendor where the Hall of Inquisition was, got directions and went there. There was a sentinel at the entrance, and that gave her pause. It was the sentinels who had taken her parents from her. The courage that had carried her as far as the hall doors failed her, and she turned around and went back into the street.

You're being weak, she admonished herself. You've come all this way to do this. Just do it. Still she couldn't bring herself to, and she walked around the building to build her courage, down a little alley past a claywright, through the hall's back courtyard onto the side-street and then back around to the front door. It didn't help. But you have to do it or you're weak. She stood herself straight, tugged her hair for luck, and walked up the stairs and inside.

"Can I help you?" the sentinel asked.

"I have a message for Inquisitor Atyen Horun," she said, trying to sound as if she delivered messages for inquisitors all the time.

"Come in, I'll see if he's here." The sentinel led her into another room, gave her a chair to sit on. "What's your name?"

"Liese," she said, and the sentinel nodded and went away. She put her backbag under her chair to wait. He was back a few minutes later. "I'm sorry, there's no one here with that name."

"I know he's not here." She held up the message ball. "I brought this. You have to send him a mirror message."

The sentinel took the ball from her, looked at it, looked back at her. "Where did you get this?"

"From my father."

"I'll be right back." He took the ball and left her waiting again. This time he was gone long enough that Liese began to fidget, bored with waiting.

Eventually he returned. "Come with me please." She picked up her bag, and he led her down a corridor to another room, where a woman sat at a workshelf. For a moment she thought it was Juna, but when she looked up it wasn't. The message ball was on the shelf in two halves, her note unfolded beside it.

"Sit down," the woman said, and Liese sat down across from her. "Liese is it?"

"Yes."

"So Liese, where did you get this ball?"

"From my father."

"Does he know you have it?"

"He's dead. The note says so."

"I'm sorry to hear that." The woman pursed her lips, thinking. "Did you write it?"

"Yes." Liese scanned the woman's face, trying to read what was going through her mind. She knew enough to know when she was in trouble with adults, and things weren't going the way she had imagined they would.

"Liese." The woman leaned forward. "You have to understand, these balls are not toys. They're for important messages."

"This is a very important message." Liese made her voice emphatic. "I need Atyen to come."

"Yes . . ." The woman paused. "Liese, I'm very sorry your father is gone. I know it must be very upsetting, but this isn't the right thing to do . . ."

She said more, but Liese wasn't listening. She could see now there would be no mirror message, they weren't going to bring Atyen, and they were going to keep the message ball. And it's not fair, and I'm not going to let them. If she had to find Atyen herself she would. No adult was going to stop her, ever again. She had her backbag over one shoulder, and she slipped the other arm through the strap so it was properly on her back. The woman was saying something about responsibility, the sentinel had gone somewhere else, and Liese stood up, grabbed a ball-half with each hand, and bolted from the room. The woman yelled, more in surprise than anger, but she'd have to come around the workshelf, and that would slow her down. Liese sprinted down the corridor, grabbed the corner of the doorway to make the turn out the front door past the sentinel and jumped the stairs to the street in a single leap. She didn't look to see if they were chasing her, just dodged into the alley by the claywright. The alley continued past the hall's back courtyard and so she kept running, out into the next street, and then down it. She dodged into another alley, followed it into a square, and angled across it into another street, her feet pounding on the brick cobbling until finally she was too out of breath to run further. Only when she stopped did she look back. The street was full of adults, vendors, farmers driving goat-carts, marketers with bags full of their purchases. No one was chasing her, no one was paying her any attention at all. Thank Noah. She still had the halves of the message ball clutched in her hands, and she took a minute to reassemble it and put it back in her backbag. That done, she looked up and down the street to get her bearings. Nothing was familiar, and it slowly dawned on her that she was lost.

 

Sarabee's cage was big enough for her to lie down, barely, but the floor wasn't comfortable for sleeping. The clatter of carts on the cobbles went on without interruption through the sleeping hours. The smell of raw sewage wafting in from outside assaulted her nose, and the numb disconnection she'd experienced through the whole ordeal had gradually been replaced by a desperate desire to see her children. She reminded herself that Celese would take care of them, but that did nothing to banish the feeling. There was only one sentinel, a woman, watching them from the other side of the bamboo cage door, and halfway through the night Sarabee heard her snoring. She raised herself on an elbow, and saw the woman sound asleep on a folded quilt on the other side of the steel cage door.

It was her chance, and she quickly rose and tried the cage door. The locking bar was tight and secure, and so were the hinges, but there was play in the bars, so she looked to see if she could loosen them. They were set into a heavy wooden beam that was in turn pegged solidly to the floor, and though she tried, it was beyond her strength to unseat them. Think, Sarabee, think. The one conclusion she came to was that if she did get out she'd open the other cages as well. Fifty escaped women running through the streets of Charisy would not remain free for very long, but they deserved their chance, and the sheer numbers would give Sarabee a better opportunity. She tried the bars again, wrenching hard at them in frustration, but they wouldn't budge. She tried to loosen the pegs on the beam, but they were too tightly seated. Finally she had to admit that she couldn't get out. She sat, staring out through the bars, unable to sleep.

The breakfast bell came and went, and the other women began to wake up. Sarabee was hungry now, but no food came. A buzz of voices began, grew steadily louder. Somewhere close by a substantial crowd was gathering. They waited in glum silence for what seemed like quite a long time, and then a squat, balding man came and talked to the sentinel at some length. After a while two more sentinels came in. A cage was opened, the women inside brought out. One of the sentinels attached a braided rope collar with a short lead line to their necks.

"Line up against that wall," the balding man barked, pointing. The women shuffled into position. The newcomer looked them over appraisingly. "You, there." He pointed again. "Then you, then you."

Another cage was opened and the process repeated, and then another. Sarabee was the second-last, by accident or design she couldn't tell, and put second-last in line. The collar was rough on her neck, but she didn't care about that. Sooner or later her chance would come, and when it did she'd get away. Patience, Sarabee, focus on the children. The important thing was to get home to them, everything else was secondary. They were led in a line to a heavy door, urged through it into a narrow corridor, not even wide enough to turn around in, and she found herself pressed tight against the women to either side. The last woman was herded in behind her, and the heavy door was closed. The crowd noise was in front of them, and it kept getting louder as they waited.

"Do you know what's happening?" she asked the woman in front of her.

She shook her head. "I wish I did."

The narrow space quickly grew stifling. She tried to look forward to see what was ahead, but couldn't see past the press of bodies. Suddenly the crowd noise quieted, and a single voice replaced it. She recognized the tones of the balding man, but though she strained to listen she couldn't quite make out the words. A moment later a whisper came down the line from the woman at the front. They were being auctioned. A deep anger came over Sarabee, and unconsciously her hands balled into fists as she remembered the words of the female inquisitor from the previous day. I am no one's property! She reminded herself of her decision to be patient, to show no resistance until the time was right. She'd give herself a better chance if she wasn't marked as a problem beforehand. The line of women lurched forward, and as she grew closer to the front the words of the auctioneer grew more distinct, touting the youth and beauty of each woman, her strength and supposed domestic skills. Her anger grew, as she realized that the auctioneer had put them into order of increasing sexual attractiveness. He'll get better prices that way, that's all he cares about. It was cold comfort that she'd been put at the end of the line, assessed as one of the more desirable.

As the line grew shorter she could see ahead a large room, lit from above by skylights. A set of stairs led to a stage, and two female sentinels stood in a curtained area at the edge, stripping the clothing of the woman to be sold off before shoving her into the center. A man there tethered her by her neck rope to an overhead pole to be displayed. The auctioneer was shouting to the crowd, calling out the bids, and a pair of erranders to the side were recording the numbers, collecting kilos of steel from the winning bidders. The auction was fast-moving, and her turn came quickly. For a moment she considered retreating to the other end of the narrow corridor and making them come to drag her out. They'd have a difficult time of it in the confined space, and she'd make them pay. But they'll make me pay that much and more. She abandoned the idea. It would change nothing in the end, and it was still smarter to save her rebellion for when it would make a difference. The corridor ended in a curtained space below the stairs and separated from the main auction area. One of the female sentinels grabbed her neck rope and hauled her out of the corridor.

"Strip," the other ordered. There was a pile of discarded clothing on the floor, all of it dirty and torn. Reluctantly she did as they told her, and added her own garments to the pile. On the stage the woman ahead of her was being sold, and trying to cover her nakedness with one hand across her breasts and the other over her vulva. She had her head down, her long hair covering her face. She looked like a frightened girl, vulnerable and humiliated in front of her captors. Very soon it would be Sarabee in front of the crowd, and she wasn't looking forward to it. I can't prevent that but I'm not going to let them see I'm beaten. All too quickly the gavel came down on the sale, and Sarabee was led by her neck rope up onto the stage. She held her head high and kept her shoulders back, standing straight and proud. The crowd applauded and whistled as she was brought to the center, and some shouted obscene comments. There were hundreds of them she saw, almost all men, some dressed well, others not, a surprising number in sentinel's cross-sashes, but all of them openly desirous. She swallowed hard and focused her eyes on the back wall, trying to ignore the whistles and catcalls that were still coming up from the throng. She fought down the urge to cover herself. It won't change anything, and I won't let them think that they've shamed me.

The auctioneer held up his arms for silence. "The faster you're quiet, the faster we'll have her sold to some lucky buyer. Quiet please, so we can start the sale." The room calmed down, and he began. "Look how proud this one is, she's got spirit. What do I hear for an opening bid? Five hundred tokens is not too much for a woman this fine."

"Five hundred!" yelled a man in the front row. "She's a good one." Despite herself Sarabee looked at him, then quickly looked back to the far wall. He was balding and bearded, with coarse and dirty clothing to match his demeanor, a landless worker in all likelihood, presented for the first time with the opportunity for his own woman. In some sense it didn't matter who purchased her, the entire idea was wholly repugnant. At the same time she fervently hoped that this man didn't win the bidding.

"Five hundred ten!" yelled another man. This time Sarabee didn't look.

"Increments of fifty, and no less." The auctioneer waved a hand to dismiss the bid. "I have five hundred now, who'll give me five hundred fifty?"

"Five fifty!"

"Six hundred!" It was the first voice, and Sarabee's jaw clenched reflexively.

"Six hundred. Gentleman, gentlemen, please don't insult this fine creature. Fifty is the minimum increment, but look at her breasts, look at her thighs. It's rare a woman so beautiful comes on the stage. I'd buy her myself if I were allowed. Who'll give me seven hundred?"

"Eight hundred." It was a deeper voice, firm and not excited as the others had been. Sarabee didn't look at who it might be.

"Nine hundred." The bidding went on but Sarabee stopped paying attention to it, letting her mind drift back to her children. And I need to remember them. I need to remember that no matter how bad this is, I'm going to get back to them. She found herself thinking of Jens. Jens! It was impossible to think that she'd never be in his arms again.

"Fifteen hundred and fifty!" The auctioneer banged his gavel and Sarabee looked over to him, brought back to the present moment. "Sold!" She looked out at the crowd to see who had bought her, but the bidder was anonymous in the throng.

The auctioneer unhooked her neck rope and his assistant led her off the opposite side of the stage from the one she had entered on, and gave her to an errander. There was another small curtained area there, and the errander recorded her name and her price. Behind him bags of tokens and stacks of ingots were piled into wooden boxes, more steel than Sarabee had ever seen in one place in her life. As she waited several men came forward, all with identical smocks carrying a sigil in the shape of the letter "A" with an arrow on the crossbar, and each carrying a heavy box of steel ingots. The errander took off her neck rope, gave her a white flax robe tied at the waist with a crimson sash, and then counted out the steel from the boxes. When he'd confirmed the total he turned her over to an older woman with an ornately dyed overcloak.

"Your name?" the woman asked.

"Sarabee."

"I'm Nilsa. Come with me, Sarabee." Her new caretaker led her through a side door and into a fenced compound with two gates. Three enclosed travel carts were parked there, each with a nine-goat team, and all with the same A-shaped sigil that the men had worn. She was ushered into the first one, and Nilsa followed her. The interior of the cart was lavishly appointed, the roof pillars finely carved and the seats upholstered in fine leather.

The situation was not at all what she'd been expecting. "Where are we going?" Sarabee asked the other woman.

"To my home." A man with a sigiled smock climbed up to the cart's driver's seat.

"What do you want me for?"

"To cook, to clean, to please my husband." Nilsa smiled. "We treat our servitors well. You could have done a lot worse out of that auction."

"What do you mean, 'please your husband'?"

Nilsa laughed. "What do you think? How does a woman please a man?"

"Isn't that . . ." Sarabee looked at Nilsa, unsure of what to say. ". . . isn't that your . . . I mean, he's your husband to please."

"Of course he is. And I enjoy pleasing him. It doesn't have to be just with my body, it can be with yours too."

Sarabee felt her expression grow hard. "There's only one thing you need to know. I've already killed one man who tried to rape me. If your husband so much as touches me, I'll kill him too."

Nilsa's eyes widened. The driver stirred up the goats, the gates were swung open and then they were jolting their way through Charisy's crowded streets.

 

Atyen crossed the market square, his staff tapping on the cobbles, heading for Charisy's central park. He had on his new double-red cross-sash, and it changed the way people reacted to him. Some gave him a subtle deference, some a subtle hostility, but few who noticed it ignored it. It seems like cheating to wear it. Renn had given it to him the day after he arrived at the palace. There was no grueling presentation of his masterwork, no formal challenge of his discoveries. The senior inquisitor just handed it to him and had him put it on. It was a crashing anti-climax to years of work, but there were more important things to worry about. Scholarly formalism and ceremonial recognition had to wait. The cross-sash allowed Renn to give him an official position, and as soon as he had it on he was put in charge of the new observatory, which was to be built on top of the spinward wing of the palace. However, since neither palace wing was anywhere near complete this really amounted to being in charge of nothing at all.

He did get an office, an errander loyal to the revolt being planned, and a budget of more tokens than he'd ever seen in his life, at least on paper. He was excited when he first heard the figures, but price-growth had so badly eroded the value of steel that it didn't amount to as much as he thought. I remember Sarabee talking about the prices going up. It hadn't had as much impact in the shorefields, where people ate the fish they caught and the vegetables they grew, but in the city the situation was desperate and getting worse. He knew, because when he wasn't working on plans for the observatory, which was ninety percent of the time, he was working on plans to feed Charisy after Vesene had been deposed.

Atyen reached the park and crossed it, heading for the city's main church. He had no idea how Renn and his cabal planned to accomplish the overthrow. The organization was completely compartmentalized, because Cela Joss had spies everywhere in the palace. Anything hinting of disloyalty would result in an audience before Vesene, and quite likely a mugful of foxglove extract in front of the law council. Atyen had already witnessed one unfortunate put to death like that, and had no desire to be the next. The only members of the cabal he knew were Renn and the Bishop of Charisy. His supposed overseeing of the observatory gave him a perfectly legitimate excuse to go to the church. Officially it was to talk to the time-priests about their star observations, but that was just an excuse to give him the chance to talk to the bishop. The bishop would be using his influence to calm the crowd, and the church organization to help with rationing in the first few days.

The church was empty when he got there, and he went up the tightly winding stairs to the steeple with its tiny observation platform and its few simple instruments aimed up at the foredome. There was a time-priest there, looking over a sighting arm and methodically recording the revolutions of the stars. Every thirty revolutions he would pull a string, which would ring a small bell on the floor below to tell the bellringer to sound the hour on the big church bells. To Atyen it seemed a mind-numbingly dull task, but the time-priests did it day in, day out, and had for thousands of years. He was tempted to tell the man about the glories of the stars seen from Heaven, but he didn't. It would be cruel.

He exchanged greetings with the observer, who answered him without looking up, and continued up to the belfry, where the great steel bell hung. The bishop was waiting for him there. It was the safest place to talk.

"Atyen, what's the news?"

"None from me. Renn wants to know if you're ready."

"I have been for a week. I still am. Did he say when it would happen?"

Atyen shook his head. "No. I don't know what the holdup is."

"And you?"

"As ready as I can be. I've got lists of all our indentured farmers and where they're from. Did you get the certificates of manumission?"

"I have them here, safely hidden."

"Good. We can have the farmers working again two days afterwards. It's going to take longer to get food into the system of course. I've got a citywide rationing plan ready to go. People won't like it, but they won't starve while we get the farms reestablished. We're going to take fields out of flax and wheat, put them into corn, beans and squash. That's the best, fastest yield we can get."

"And supplies on hand?"

Atyen shrugged. "Hardly anything. You've seen the market. I don't know what to say, except we'll do our best."

The bishop shook his head. "That's bad. Why doesn't Renn move?"

"Do you even know it's Renn who's in charge?"

"No." The bishop laughed. "I suppose I don't."

"Vesene is hard to get close to, and too many of the law council are on his side, from fear or expedience. Renn will move when he can. He knows the urgency better than either of us."

"I hope so."

There were footsteps on the stairs below, and the bishop's errander appeared. "Excuse me, Bishop," she said. "There's a boy here to see the inquisitor."

It took Atyen a moment to realize that he was the inquisitor she was talking about.

"He said to give you this." The errander held out a message ball.

Atyen took it, went to open it, and saw his own named scribed around the equator. "Where did you get this?" he demanded, and then left without waiting for an answer, leaping down the stairs four at a time.

The boy was waiting for him at the bottom, perhaps twelve years old. He was dirty, bedraggled and with long hair tangled into an unruly mop. He looked frightened, but beneath the fear there was a determination. He had set himself a task and he was going to accomplish it, no matter what it took.

And he seemed somehow familiar. Recognition dawned. "Liese! What are you doing here? Why are you dressed like that?"

In response she embraced him. "Atyen!" She burst into tears, hugging him so hard he could barely breathe. "Atyen, Atyen!"

"What's wrong? Liese?" He held her until the worst of her crying had passed and took her in to the church proper. He sat on one of the pews, and sat her on his knee getting her story between sobs. He kept his expression calm as he listened, not wanting to upset her, but her words cut like a blade. Jens, gone. Sarabee bound into servitude. It didn't bear thinking about. The bishop came down at some point, sat a little distance away, not interfering but ready to help. A short while later his errander brought in some soup, and Liese paused in her story long enough to wolf it down. She hadn't eaten a proper meal in five days.

"Can she stay here?" Atyen asked the bishop. "I have to look into this."

"The church has always been a sanctuary. You do what you have to do, we'll get her a meal, some clothes and a bath. She'll be safe here."

"Where are you going, Atyen?" Liese asked. Her tears were dry now, and she seemed more herself.

"To get your mother."

"Do you know where she is?"

"Not yet, but I will soon." Atyen gave her one last hug. "Don't worry, butterfly, I'll get her back." He got up, got his staff and backbag and went out, heading back to the palace. When he arrived he went straight up to Renn's office and outlined the situation.

"She was bound into servitude in Tidings," he finished. "How can I find out where she is?"

"Tiding's Hall of Inquisition will have the records." Renn pursed his lips. "But you can't go there."

Atyen looked at the other man. "Oh yes I can. Just watch me."

"No. Atyen . . ." Renn paused. "I shouldn't be telling you this yet, but I will. We're moving on Vesene today. Everything is set, and we have a window at the evening meal. There'll . . . Well, you don't need the details. It's going to be chaos, and we're going to need you here."

Atyen looked away. "I can be to Tidings and back by the next breakfast bell. Do it then."

"We can't. You know that. This is our chance."

"My part doesn't start until afterwards anyway. You don't need me right away."

Renn shook his head slowly. "It's going to be chaos, Atyen. We are going to have to show that we're in control of the situation immediately, or things are going to get very bad, very quickly. The law council needs to see it, the public need to see it, and our own people need to see it.

"I'm just handing out paper! What importance is that?"

"It's not only paper." Renn stood up and went to the window, gesturing out at the worksite where hundreds of bound servitors were laboring on the scaffold-clad palace wings. "Look at them. Most of them are farmers. When we get rid of Vesene's thug-sentinels, they're going to pick up and go back to their farms, no matter what we do. If we give them those manumission certificates first they leave as our supporters. If not they leave as enemies of the Inquisition. If you organize their departure it gives you the time to make sure they know the crop plan. It means they're going to know who you are and trust you when you set up the rationing. With their support, we win the support of the farm parishes, and we have a chance to turn the world around. Without it this whole thing will fall apart. You're key to this, Atyen. We need you."

Atyen's jaw clenched. He's right, it's my part of the plan and I still can't abandon Sarabee. He didn't want to admit that out loud, and so pressed his lips together and said nothing.

"I'm sorry Atyen, you can't go to Tidings," Renn stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. "But she may be right here in the city. A lot of bound women are . . . coming here. There's an auction hall, down by the river. I hope it's not true, for your friend's sake, but check the auction hall records."

"Why do you hope it's not true?"

"Check the records. Just remember, we need you in place before the evening-meal bell. You know what to do. The recognition signal is a square of blue cloth, the word is 'Justice.' "

Atyen nodded slowly, his jaw set, and he left. He went to his office and got Sten, his errander. Sten had grown up in the city, and Atyen got him to lead him to the auction hall.

"What happens when bound women come here?" he asked as they walked out into the market square.

"To the auction hall? Usually the dancehouses buy them."

Atyen nodded, and walked faster, ignoring the cramping in his bad leg. The auction hall was on the other side of the city, and he was walking more on his staff than his feet by the time they arrived. At the hall he spoke to the overseer, who seemed disinclined to be helpful but was unwilling to say no to an inquisitor. They were taken to a room full of cabinets and left to sort through the worksheaves that listed the various auctions. Oh please Sarabee, please don't be here. Better she be in the brickworks, better she have to wait until Vesene was gone, than that they'd turned her into a dancehouse girl. It was Sten who found her name in the list, two bells later. Her indenture had been sold to one Nilsa Lorn. There was an address listed, and an amount.

"Not a dancehouse," said Sten. "That area is too wealthy."

Atyen nodded, not reassured. The list told him Sarabee was worth thrice her weight in solid steel. And they didn't pay that to have her wash quilts.

Once more Atyen followed Sten through the crowded streets, hobbling now on his injury. It was getting close to the evening-meal bell. But we have time, I'll make it back to the palace before then. As they walked, the streets got wider and the houses got larger, set back behind low walls, with awning shaded windows and manicured bushes by the walkways. Eventually they came to one with its own driveway and stables. Trees showing over the roof hinted at an enclosed courtyard; whoever lived in it had wealth and power. The gatepost was marked with a sigil in the shape of an "A" with an arrow for a crossbar, and Sarabee's name on the list at the auctionhouse had been marked with a similar sigil.

Violence would be a bad idea, but he still reflexively checked for his belt knife. They went up to the house, knocked. A man in a smock marked with the same arrowed A appeared.

"I'm looking for Nilsa Lorn," Atyen said.

The man gave a slight bow. "I'll see if she's available, Inquisitor." Before he could leave another man came up behind him, with greying hair and powerful shoulders.

"I'm Yen Lorn," he said. His manner expected deference. "May I help you?"

Atyen set his jaw. "Sarabee Madane is here. We've come to take her."

Lorn raised an eyebrow. "By what right?" He was not the kind of man to be intimidated by a double-red cross-sash.

"I don't need any right. She's a free woman, and she's coming with me."

Lorn looked Atyen up and down. "I don't recognize you, Inquisitor. What's your name?"

"Atyen Horun."

"Well, Atyen Horun, I don't think I'm going to give her to you. My wife paid a great deal of steel for her, and we're going to keep her." Lorn gave a brief nod. "Good day." He started to close the door.

Atyen stuck his foot out and blocked it, and Lorn looked up, annoyed. "Sten," Atyen said, not taking his eyes off the other man. "Get the sentinels. I want them here before the next bell."

"But . . ."

"Go. Wait for me in the palace." Sten left, running, and Atyen went on. "I have no quarrel with you, Yen Lorn, but if you don't produce Sarabee before the sentinels get here, you are going to find yourself in that auction house on the wrong side of the auction."

Lorn looked over his shoulder. "Perlin, bring the other servitors up." The man in the sigiled smock bowed and disappeared into the house, and Lorn returned his attention to Atyen. "I think you're bluffing, Inquisitor. You don't have the authority, and I don't think you have sentinels either."

"No? Well, we'll see what authority the tithecounters can get for me."

"I have friends on the law council, Inquisitor." Lorn's voice held a quiet threat. Behind him Perlin returned, with two other men in identical clothing.

"If you think the law council has the power to protect you . . ." Atyen laughed a short laugh. "Well, you haven't been paying attention, have you?" He pushed the door wider with his foot. "I work for Cela Joss."

Lorn's eyes widened slightly at Joss's name, and then grew calculating. Atyen could tell Lorn still thought he was bluffing, but the Chief Inquisitor's executioner was too dangerous to risk crossing, even for a man of his wealth and status. Perhaps especially for a man of his wealth and status. Lorn's face darkened and he glanced over his shoulder. "Perlin, bring Sarabee." He looked back to Atyen. "This will be in front of the law council, Inquisitor."

"I'm sure it will."

Lorn turned on his heel and left, and Atyen waited. A few minutes later Perlin returned with Sarabee, wearing an elegant cloak in shades of red, well fitted and elaborately embroidered.

"Atyen!" She ran to hug him, and Atyen turned around before she could. If Lorn sees we're close, he'll know it's personal. He'll know I'm not here for Cela Joss.

"Atyen?"

"Come with me," Atyen said, keeping his voice flat. He turned and left, hoping she would follow without question. She did, and he heard the door close behind him.

"Atyen, what . . . ?"

"Wait until we're down the street," he said, but as soon they were out of sight of the house he turned to embrace her.

"Liese came to me; she told me about Jens." Atyen looked down. "I'm sorry Sarabee, I wish . . ."

"Liese came here? How is she? Where is she?"

"She went through hell to get here but she's fine. She's waiting at the church. She's a brave and resourceful girl, Sarabee. You should be proud."

"And the other girls? My baby?"

"With Celese, last Liese knew." Atyen looked Sarabee over. "You look stunning in that cloak! They must have treated you well."

"They fed me, clothed me, housed me. They didn't . . . force themselves on me. For those things I'm grateful." Sarabee frowned. "They kept my door locked, didn't let me go to my children. For that I'll never forgive them." She turned to Atyen and embraced him again. "Thank you for coming, Atyen, I didn't dare to hope . . ."

In the distance the bells rang the hour before the evening meal. "Come on," Atyen said. "We have to hurry."

He had planned to take Sarabee to the church and collect the certificates of manumission before getting back to the palace in time for Renn's planned insurrection, but there wouldn't be time for that. I'll take her as far as the palace, give her directions, and send Sten for the certificates. He walked as fast as he could, his leg almost numb with pain. As they approached the market the streets grew more crowded, and Atyen realized there was another food protest gathering. The mood was ugly, it had been two days since there'd been any grain for the grain lines, and the market stalls were empty. Some of the protesters carried improvised clubs, a few were carrying blades. This is getting dangerous. He pulled Sarabee over to a side-alley, out of the main throng, and gave her directions to the church that took her around by smaller roads and away from the market square.

"Aren't you coming?" she asked.

"There's something I have to do here. The bishop will look after you. I'll be there in a few days."

"A few days? Atyen, what's going on?"

"I can't tell you. It's safer if you don't know." He saw the doubt in her eyes. "Trust me, Sarabee, I'll be there. Now Liese is waiting for you. Go."

She hugged him, kissed his cheek, and went, and Atyen went back into the surging crowd. As they approached the jammed market square the mob thickened and it became harder to make progress. Nobody was deferring to his cross-sash now. And maybe it's not a good thing to be recognized as an inquisitor here. He slipped it off and put it in his backbag. He inched forward in the square, fretting over the time, until finally he could see the palace entrance, but the sentinels had already deployed across the front of the building. There was no way he'd be able to get inside, and he cursed in frustration.

But Renn is counting on me. Vesene would be making a speech soon, and the palace laborers had already been herded into their pens to free more sentinels for guard duty. If I can get to the pens . . . The important thing was to get control of the farmers before they took advantage of the chaos in the wake of the takeover and left. If he told them they were getting certificates of manumission, they'd wait long enough for him to send Sten to the church to get them. He started working his way backwards, trying to get to a place where he could get around the side of the square, to the workers' pens where his job would be when the time came. Even that became more difficult, as more and more people poured into the square, packing it tight. The evening-meal bell rang before he was there, and desperation surged in him as he struggled against the jammed-in bodies. The crowd began chanting. "Grain! Grain! Grain! Grain!"

He made it to one of the buildings surrounding the market. The first floor was old timber and resined brick, the floors above new and built of bamboo and waxed flax. The crowd was thinner there and he made better progress. The chanting grew louder as he came around to the pens. A line of sentinels were there, both guarding the prisoners and keeping the crowd at a distance. The mob wasn't pressing as close to the sentinels as they were at the main entrance, and they were more relaxed. In the distance he heard the church bells were still tolling, but not in the evening-meal pattern. The chanting crowd quieted, not sure what was going on, and Atyen redoubled his pace, leaning hard on his staff to spare the strain on his leg. Ahead of him there was a shouted command, a flash of blades, a sudden scuffle, and suddenly half, three quarters of the sentinels at the prisoner pen were down. One of the ones still standing started barking orders, and the rest closed ranks, closing their line to compensate for the sudden reduction in their numbers. Atyen pushed his way through the last of the crowd, and found himself facing a fence of blades.

"Justice," he called. "Justice."

The blades fell away and he was brought through the line, stepping over cross-sashed bodies. The blood was running like water in the street, the order of sentinels had purged its ranks of Vesene's contagion. He took a deep breath to steel himself. The sharp edge of power isn't pretty. He went to the senior sentinel, a broad-shouldered warrior with a blue scarf hastily tied around his upper arm.

"You're our man?" the sentinel asked.

Atyen nodded. "I am. I need you to send someone into the palace. Second floor, spinward wing, the observatory office. An errander named Sten will be there. Tell him I need the documents from the church brought here. He'll know what to do."

"It's done." The sentinel waved over another of his group and repeated Atyen's instructions. The man he'd detailed ran off at a sprint.

We can still pull this off. The bells were still ringing as Atyen pulled his cross-sash from his backbag and put it on. He advanced to the servitor pen. It was a flimsy structure of bamboo poles, designed only to temporarily hold its occupants while under armed supervision. There were hundreds of prisoners, and the greatly reduced ranks of the sentinels couldn't hold it if they tried to run, even if they didn't have the crowd to worry about. So far the prisoners hadn't reacted to the situation, but that wouldn't last long.

"Farmers! Freemen!" he yelled through cupped hands. "Be calm! We are taking control of the Inquisitory, and you will be freed to go back to your farms. Papers declaring your freedom are coming. Be calm! Be patient! You'll be going home shortly."

Behind him someone yelled "Vesene!" The call spread, grew and soon the entire crowd was chanting "Vesene! Vesene!" Atyen raised his voice to repeat his message, but the wall of sound behind him made it impossible. And then suddenly the chant died away, and an expectant hush descended on the square. Up on the tower balcony a figure appeared. Atyen squinted. It was difficult to tell at the distance, but . . . 

Renn! He's done it! Renn had his arms up to still the crowd, and then as the silence grew and extended he lowered them. "People of Charisy," he said, and his voice echoed off the buildings at the back of the square. "I am sorry to have to tell you the Chief Inquisitor is dead. We are taking immediate steps—"

"Fire!" someone yelled. "Fire!" Atyen whirled, and saw flames licking up from one of the bamboo apartment structures he'd just passed by. It grew slowly, and he could see the red flickering through the waxed flax walls, and then suddenly the entire building exploded into flame. A wave of heat rolled over him, and the crowd turned as one and stampeded. Atyen found himself forced back against the flimsy bamboo fence of the servitor pen. Fortunately most of the crowd surge was away from him, and his portion of the market was empty in a few seconds. Others weren't so lucky, and screams rose across the square as people were trampled in the mob. The sentinel commander shouted orders, and his group ran with him to the dipping basin nearest the blazing building, grabbed buckets and formed a line to throw water on the burning building. Even before they got there upper floors of the next building were alight. Up in the tower balcony Renn was still speaking, shouting, imploring the crowd, but his words were lost in the screams. Another building burst into flames, and there was a splintering crash behind him. Atyen whirled around to see the palace laborers breaking out of their pen, though they were in no immediate danger from the flames.

"Stop!" he yelled. "Wait, you're safe here!"

And they were safe, at least for a while, surrounded by the bricks and dirt of the worksite, though the bamboo scaffolds might yet burn. Atyen had a momentary instinct to organize an orderly evacuation down the spinward wing of the palace, a route made awkward by the debris of construction but otherwise safe. Nobody listened to him, and the pen drained like a broken bucket, the prisoners joining the general exodus across the square. He was left standing by the broken fence. He called after them, helplessly, hopelessly, but he knew they weren't coming back. I've failed. The realization was bitter, but there was no time to dwell on it. At the first building the sentinels had given up on their bucket-line and retreated. The second-floor inferno was cooking the resin out of the first floor's bricks and dark rivulets were running down its sides. Overhead the leaping flames were whirling burning scraps of waxed flax upwards, to descend elsewhere and start more fires. The panicked crowd had managed to get only twenty or thirty meters away from the burning building before they became too packed to move, and those closest were screaming and pushing, pounding on the backs of those in front of them. The retreating sentinels still had cohesion and they dumped their buckets on themselves, then started grabbing people out of the crowd, directing them out of the square through an alley between two buildings where the fire wasn't yet in full blaze. A few ran for it, but most of the panicking mob refused to face the flames. They kept trying to push against the immobile throng in front of them, some even climbing up and over, stepping on heads and shoulders in their desperation to escape. Finally the sentinel commander gave up, and led his people out through the gap before it was too late.

And I should follow them. Atyen started in the direction of the gap, but by the time he reached it the alley had become a gauntlet of flame. Perhaps he could have sprinted through it, but his leg wouldn't let him run. He retreated back to the relative safety of the construction site, to follow the route he'd planned to take the workers out, down the length of the unfinished palace wing and past the flames. He started picking his way around piles of dirt and stacks of bricks, and then saw flame in front of him, at the far end of the palace. He couldn't tell where it came from, perhaps a flying scrap of waxed flax that managed to drift against the breeze to ignite a building further along. And it doesn't matter. The scaffolding at the far end of the palace was already burning, and he retreated again to his start point. The upper floors on the entire spinward side of the market were a single wall of flame now, and the streams of melted brick-resin pouring from the first floor walls were starting to smolder, swirling clouds of black, choking smoke into the square. The heat was intense even where Atyen was, and the people trapped at the back of the mob were screaming in pain as well as panic now. The only escape left was up and over the palace wall. He looked at his staff, reluctant to abandon it, but there was no choice. He dropped it, turned and clambered up the scaffolding behind him. His injured leg screamed, but he pulled himself up the way he'd climbed the forewall, hauling himself from level to level till he got to the unframed windows of the second level. By the time he got there his skin burned everywhere it was exposed to the inferno's radiated heat.

He clambered through. The floor had not yet been laid inside, so he had to balance on the floor joists, but the mass of the building shielded him from the blaze, a relief as cool and sweet as ocean water. He kept the wall between him and the worst of the blaze, and looked through the window at an angle to the chaos in the square. The crowd was still emptying from the market at the main avenues aftward and antispinward, but everywhere else it had become a living horror. In the smaller alleyways the jammed throng had gotten wedged in, trapped by the crush following them. Living walls two or three meters high had formed, with the trapped flailing madly as they tried to free themselves. Those behind weren't waiting, and were climbing over the top to jump down and flee on the other side. The center of the mob was packed too tightly to move, and burning scraps of waxed flax were drifting down. People screamed as their clothes caught fire, but they were pressed too close to raise their arms. Unable to beat out the flames, they burned where they stood. Those at the back, closest to the heart of the fire, had pushed inexorably forward in their fear, and now in their wake there were broken bodies, people who'd fallen and been crushed underfoot.

The wind was pushing the fire aftward, and as Atyen watched, it reached the aftward avenue, and seconds later crossed it. The leading edge of the exodus shrank back from the newly burning buildings, but the throng behind was still pushing forward, and people were pushed headlong into the fire. Along the palace wall a few others were climbing the scaffold to escape through the half-built structure as he was. At the main stairs the sentinels were gone, either fled or crushed, and the throng was forcing its way up the stairs. He felt a momentary urge to pick his way over the joists to the main building. His worksheaves were in the observatory office, the embodiment of months of painstaking work recording the secrets of the Builders. You have bigger things to worry about, Atyen. Smoke wisping through the window holes underlined the point. The fire in the scaffolding was spreading towards him. The bamboo joists were widely spaced, and springy, uncertain footing. If he missed a step he'd fall through to the floor below, which would be fatal if it disabled him so he couldn't flee. His injured leg throbbed, but it held, and he managed to gain the window on the other side, clamber through it and down the scaffolding there. There was no scaffolding at the main building, and people there were jumping from the second floor windows to the cobbles below, some to run away, some to hobble, some to lie where they fell. The first floor windows and even the back entrances were jammed with people wedged in the doorframes, forming solid walls of faces, shoulders, flailing arms. The ones on the bottom were already dead, the ones higher up were pleading with those behind them to back up. But they can't, not with that mob behind them. Atyen went to a door, grabbed a man's hand and tried to haul him free, but the man didn't budge. He tried another and another, but the pressure from behind was too great, and the suffering mass was stuck. There was nothing he could do. Reluctantly he turned away, to head towards the church. If there was anything to be done to forward the revolt, it would be done there. And Sarabee is there, and Liese. He wondered briefly what had happened to Renn.

The area behind the palace was even more expensive than the one he'd rescued Sarabee from, with large houses set back behind high walls. The calm seemed strange after the chaos of the market square, but the bulk of the palace hid the flames, and the wind carried the smoke aftward and away. The only hint of the unfolding disaster was the occasional escaper who ran past him as he limped along. He didn't know the area, so headed generally anti-spinward, hoping to skirt around the fire and the crowds. The houses grew smaller, more closely packed as he traveled, and a few times he could see red flames and smoke. The streets began to fill with people, some fleeing, some just watching the growing pall of smoke as it rose towards the suntube, moving aftwards in a gentle spiral as it did. Atyen ignored them, intent on his goal. He turned aftward, moving on side-streets, heading back towards the main avenue that led antispinward from the market, which would take him towards the church. As he approached it there were more and more people, and more and more of them were fleeing, faces blank and clothing singed, until finally it seemed he was swimming against a living river. He moved to the side, where the stream was less dense. The church steeple was closer now, just a few hundred meters away. The antispinward avenue was between him and his goal, and when he reached it he stopped.

If the side-streets were rivers, the main avenue was a flood, a vast rush of bodies, far more than he would have thought could even fit in the market square. Behind them he saw the reason. The fire had grown into a moving wall of flame, spreading inexorably towards him. As it reached each new building it spilled its inhabitants into the streets to flee as best they could. It was no place for a man who could only hobble. But I have to do it. He looked for an opening in the throng, found one, and stepped forward to be swept away. A man bumped him from behind and he tried to quicken his pace, hobbling, limping. His foot hit something and he stumbled, caught someone's arm to stop the fall. He'd stumbled over a body, crushed in the torrent. The man he'd grabbed gave him a look, shook off his hand, and vanished into the throng. Atyen kept moving. He'd planned to cross the avenue directly, or at least to angle his way over to the other side, to get back on the smaller streets on the other side and over to the church, but it was impossible. It was all he could do to keep up, to keep himself from being knocked over from behind and crushed underfoot. The steeple passed by and behind him, and still he could only move forward.

Finally they came to the trading road. The throng divided three ways there, aftward and foreward and straight along the avenue, and it thinned enough that Atyen could choose his route. He headed aftward until the road reached the central park, and then he broke free of the mob, turned back across the park towards the church. His blood ran cold. The fire had grown more as it fed on the close-packed housing in Charisy's center, transformed itself into a raging monster, flames shooting higher than the church steeple, spreading itself with whirling blazes of cinders. The wind was gusting, now aftward, now towards the center of the blaze as it sucked in air to stoke itself. Sarabee! Fear shot through Atyen and he started running, only to have his bad leg buckle. He fell, picked himself up and kept on. People were fleeing past him, all of them running now.

"This way!" a man shouted, pointing as though Atyen couldn't see for himself the wall of flame he was heading towards. Atyen ignored him, and the man ran off. The park wasn't large, but it seemed to take forever to cross it. The fire was across the street from the back of the church by the time he reached its front door, and at that distance it felt like he was standing in front of an open hearth forge.

Sarabee was there, waiting for him with Liese in hand. "Atyen, thank Noah, we were just about to go."

"You shouldn't have waited."

"Yes, I should have. Where's your staff?"

"I had to leave it."

She put her arm around him, and the three of them headed back across the park. Even with Sarabee's help Atyen couldn't move quickly, but nobody was running past them now. The green space was less flammable than the buildings around it, a refuge from the flames for at least a little while. To aftward the fire had advanced to come parallel to them and Sarabee started to head foreward.

Atyen stopped her. "No, the streets are all jammed there, we'll never get out."

"Look!" Liese shouted, pointing.

Ahead of them smoke was starting to rise. They were trapped.

"This way," Atyen said, and led them towards the center of the park. The waterclock there was no longer spinning—the fire had cut the spillways—but the pool at its base was still full. "In here."

They climbed over the side and into the cool water. The wind grew above them until it was howling, and the bushes around them started to smoke, then one after another burst into flame. It quickly grew too hot to look above the pool's rim, and after that they could see nothing but the showers of sparks that swirled overhead as the fire consumed the burning bushes. The water grew warm, and then hot, and the howl of the wind grew to an outlandish shriek. Atyen risked a look to see what was happening, but the heat seared him like he'd shoved his head in an oven, and he had to duck back. In that brief instant he saw the church transformed into a pillar of flame, rivers of fire running down its front, the very bricks burning. The world was reduced to a hell of red flames and black smoke. Sarabee clutched his hand and yelled something in his ear, but he couldn't hear her over the noise, so just squeezed her hand. Overhead the screaming wind was overtaken by a deeper roar as the firestorm took them into its heart. To Atyen it sounded like the devil laughing.

 

Inquisitor Norlan Renn stopped at the first travelling house foreward of Charisy, and turned to watch the city's pyre. A churning column of smoke boiled toward the suntube, lit a flickering red from below. Could it be treachery? It asked too much of coincidence that such a disaster had struck the moment he'd retaken control of the Inquisition. But who could hope to gain by this? Byo Vesene would have been crazy enough, vindictive enough, to destroy what he could not possess, but Renn had personally put the foxglove extract in Vesene's wine and watched the Chief Inquisitor die. It hadn't been Vesene? Cela Joss? The church bells had rung the start signal, which meant the watching time-priests had seen all the required mirror messages, including the code that meant Joss was dead. It might have been a trick. Joss was ruthless. She could have evaded Torr Toorman's sentinels, captured the one sent to kill her, beaten the code out of him and sent it as a deception. Or the plot could have been betrayed. One of his biggest worries had been that some of the old-guard sentinels might still be loyal to Cela, despite what she'd done to the order. But even if the signal was a deception, what end could she could have hoped to achieve with it? It made no sense.

There were other refugees coming out of the city, and Renn watched them pass, first a few, and then more and more. They brought up a more immediate question. Have I come far enough? He'd seen fires before, never one like this. All those apartments . . . Waxed flax and bamboo, they couldn't have been more flammable if he'd designed them to burn. He'd known their danger, and he hadn't favored cramming so many into so small a space, that had been Vesene's idea. But I had no idea it would be like this. The whole city would burn, from the ancient core to the dense-packed outskirts, and there was no particular reason for the fire to stop at the last house either, the crop fields could burn just as easily. He'd come five kilometers, crossed several wide irrigation canals, but he'd seen the fire jump streets just as wide. Foreward was safer than aftward, because the winds would carry the fire aftward but . . . Have I come far enough? He wanted to stay close to the city, to get back into it, take control of what he'd started, begin immediately rebuilding, managing problems, but as he watched, the pillar of smoke boiled higher, and the flickering on its bottom grew larger, more intense, until finally the dark cloud was suffused with its own infernal red glow. Soon I might not have a city to come back to.

A family came by, father, mother, six children. They were artisans to judge by their clothes, people who worked hard and managed to get food on the table even as it grew scarce and expensive. They hadn't been part of the mob in the square, but they were fleeing too. There would be a lot like them, transformed from productive members of the social order to helpless victims in need of food and shelter. Behind them there were more people, and then more, a flood of fleeing bodies. And I haven't come far enough, I need to be at the Inquisitory. The realization sent a chill down his spine. The danger wasn't the fire, the danger was the deluge of city dwellers the fire had pushed out of the city. Charisy held a third of the world's population. Nearly half a million people had just been turned out into the world with nothing more than the clothes they stood in. They had no food, no shelter, and many of them were already hungry. Around the curve of the world the signal mirrors were flashing steadily, and he focused on the one in Blessings. g-r-e-a-t-f-i-r-e-i-n-c-h-a-r-i-s-y, it blinked. s-e-n-d-f-o-o-d-s-u-r-g-e-o-n-s-s-e-n-t-i-n-a-l-s.

They aren't waiting, that's a relief. The Inquisitors-in-Chief could be relied on to act independently, and the towns and rural parishes weren't under the kind of pressure the great city had been. They would be able to spare resources. But will they be enough? Charisy's half million were already spreading out in all directions, hungry, frightened, some injured, and all desperate. Whether the outcome was merely vast tragedy or an unrecoverable disaster would depend on what happened over the next few bells. He needed a plan. The key will be to contain the human flood. Unchecked they'd be more destructive than a swarm of mice in a grain jar, and with the food reserves gone and the farms strained to the breaking point, that could trigger the collapse of the whole Inquisition. He needed a place to put half a million people that wouldn't disrupt the farmers any more than they already had been. The only place to do that was the burnt out remains of the city itself. We have to get them to go back. But no one would go back to Charisy unless they could get food, water and shelter there. More waxed flax? Much as he was loathe to use the flammable cloth, it was cheap, readily available and easy to work with. He'd send a mirror message to Bountiful, where it was manufactured and . . . 

And they're almost out. The apartment raising project had consumed thousands of square meters of the stuff, all of the production, and all that had been stockpiled, and most of it had just gone up in smoke. What then? Plain flax? Leaves and grass? Salvaged brick from the fire's devastation? There had to be something. The only place to manage that problem from was the Inquisitory, get the law council together and figure out what to do. But the Inquisitory has what? The grain reserves were exhausted, the steel reserves nearly so. The finely tuned gears of governance still hadn't recovered from the previous year's fire, and Vesene's insanity had murdered the best minds on the law council, leaving only fools and nodders. The Second Inquisition's capacity to manage an emergency on such a scale was limited. The sentinels would be effective, he hoped, but there was only one sentinel for every hundred people in the world, and they were in the midst of their own upheaval in support of the revolt. There was no effective action he could take. Slowly the realization crept up on him. We're finished.

He looked aftward again, to see the titanic pillar of flame blossoming over what had once been the greatest city in the world, and then stepped into the rush of the exodus once more, this time not as Norlan Renn, newly acceded Chief Inquisitor of the Second Inquisition but as just another refugee.

 

The firestorm raged for what seemed an eternity, and at first Atyen couldn't believe it was passing. It was though, and when the howling wind had dropped, he levered himself out of the waterclock's pool to find the world reduced to shades of black. The park was nothing but soot-streaked dirt. The grass had burned to its roots, the wind had scoured away the ashes, and in every direction the city of Charisy was gone. He traded a look with Sarabee, who looked as shocked as he did. Liese bent over to touch the ground, as if reassuring herself it was still there. Here and there a few blackened sticks still stood where buildings had been, but most were just mounds of debris. Atyen walked to where the church had been and found nothing but half a collapsed wall that was still radiating heat. In the surrounding rubble some of the bricks were intact, but many had been reduced to shards, burst by the incredible heat. He kicked one and found it clinked like fired pottery. And it might as well be. A larger chunk turned out to be steel, and it took him a moment to realize it had been the steeple bell, now melted into a blob. Around the edge of the city a few fires still burned, and to foreward some of the buildings looked intact. Everything else was a desolate blackness.

"We're lucky to be alive," Sarabee said.

"We are." Atyen repressed a shudder. The outside of the pool they'd sheltered in was streaked with soot and his fingers were wrinkled from immersion in the hot water. If the fire had gone on much longer they might well have been boiled alive.

"Come on," she said, "let's go home. I miss my children."

The hot water had eased the pain in Atyen's injured calf, and he was able to move without difficulty. They left the park, to find the fire had boiled the resin out of the trading road's cobbling bricks and burned it, leaving a uniform crust of congealed ash that crunched beneath their feet as they walked. Collapsed shells of buildings lined the road, and in places blackened shapes sprawled in clusters, so shrunken and distorted that it took Atyen a moment to realize they were bodies. He glanced down to Liese to see if she'd noticed them, but if she had she gave no sign. Smoke still curled from the smoldering wreckage, and the smell of it hung heavy in the air. They passed a building still burning, and just past it a woman, covered head to toe in soot, searching desperately through the burned out wreckage, calling over and over for someone named Moen.

Sarabee took his hand and squeezed it for reassurance. Atyen squeezed back and breathed deep. The woman was the only moving thing they saw in Charisy. They came eventually to the irrigation canal that marked the city's aftward edge. The bridge over it was goine, nothing left but its supports, and they were burned right down to the waterline. The field beyond had been filled with the flimsy, improvised shelters of those who hadn't yet been housed in one of Renn's apartments, now there was nothing but squares of dirt less burned than the rest. But at least they got away with their lives. It was more than a lot of those in the market square had managed, but the thought gave him pause. Wherever the people who'd lived there had gone, their circumstance had gone from desperate to critical. And the living may yet envy the dead. They swam the canal, hauled themselves out and walked on past the destroyed encampment, shoes squishing. The next field had been a high crop of corn, beans and squash, but now it was just burned stalks. It smelled vaguely appetizing, and Atyen realized he was hungry. He went into the field, picked a charcoal-black corn ear off the ground and stripped off the husk. The top kernels were burned and inedible, but the underside was still yellow and juicy. He took an experimental bite and found it not only edible but deliciously cooked. Liese was already trying a blackened squash gourd, and it too was cooked and ready to eat.

They stopped to eat, sitting by the roadside. Before they'd finished a figure approached coming back into the city on the road. As it got closer it became a well dressed man with a strange look on his face, somewhere between desperation and determination. He had fled the city and now was going back to see what he could salvage, and he appeared not to notice them as he passed. Atyen didn't have the heart to tell him there was nothing. And perhaps it wouldn't matter. They finished their impromptu picnic, and then went on with bellies full and their mood improved. More people passed going the other way, and then more. What do they think they're going back to? Atyen turned around, to see if they could see something he couldn't, but the devastation was the same. The triumph of hope over reality. He couldn't decide if it was inspiring or sad.

The cropland was burnt all the way to the next irrigation canal, but the fire hadn't jumped it and the trading road bridge was only scorched. On the other side the road ran through citrus groves. The fences around the trees had been broken down, and there were people under the trees, hundreds of them, even thousands. Some sat in family groups, others walked around, calling for lost loved ones, some just stood and stared out at the place where the city had been. Some had bags of possessions, a few had carts. A number were burned, and they lay on the ground moaning, being tended by friends or by strangers, Atyen couldn't tell which. The oranges weren't ripe, but a lot of people were eating them anyway. There was no sign of the farmer or the farmhands, but there was little they could have done to protect the crop anyway, there were just too many people. A noisy group of children was playing tag in the trees, laughing and squealing as if disaster hadn't just descended on them and all they knew. Reflexively Atyen looked down at Liese, holding her mother's hand, walking along. She looked far better than she had when she'd first appeared at the church. And why wouldn't she? She's found her mother, she's eaten, and the world's problems aren't hers.

The road got crowded after that point, some people moving farther aftward, some heading back into what was left of Charisy. Just before the intersection where the Tidings road split from the trading road someone had broken down the fence around a sheep pasture. The sheep had gotten into the road and were milling about in several small groups, baaing plaintively. A distraught farmer's child and an agitated herding dog were trying to drive them back through the fence, but the sheep were confused by the crowd and weren't cooperating. A hundred meters further a woman with a half-butchered sheep asked Atyen if he had a firepump while three small children watched from the ditch, looking hungry enough to eat the sheep raw if a fire couldn't be started soon. Atyen shook his head and went on. Around the corner they found a train of goat-carts with an escort of sentinels. The senior sentinel spotted him and waved him over.

"Inquisitor, what's the situation foreward?"

"It's not good. You saw the fire?"

"Everyone saw the fire. I've got a surgeon and ten carts full of food, quilts and supplies here. Where should I set up?"

"The people worst off are foreward two or three kilometers, in an orchard. There's some of them burned who could use your help, but what you've got won't go far."

"There's another group coming after me. Were you planning on going to Tidings?"

"Through Tidings."

"Not today. The Inquisitor-in-Chief closed it off."

"Closed it off? Why?"

"Because we've got thousands already, we just can't take anymore. We're going to help who we can out here."

Atyen nodded slowly. "Thanks for letting me know. And for coming out."

The sentinel nodded. "Good luck."

"Good luck."

The carts moved off. "Is it bad?" asked Liese.

The last sentinel waved, and Atyen waved back. "Is what bad?"

"That they've closed Tidings?" There was worry in her young eyes.

Atyen traded a look with Sarabee. There's no point in lying to her. "It's all bad, butterfly, a lot of people have lost everything. But we'll be fine, don't worry. We'll just have a little further to walk." He turned to Sarabee. "We'll go straight down the trading road to the shore road, and pass aftward of Tidings."

She nodded. "That makes sense."

They moved back to the trading road and continued straight aftward with the general flow. As they went the impact of the exodus began to show itself, here a field of wheat trampled flat by hundreds of people crossing it to get water from a canal, there a corn/bean/squash field stripped bare. Farmers and farmhands had started patrolling their fences, armed with hoes and scythes, watching the human torrent go by with suspicious eyes. At one field a pair of bodies were propped against a post, mute warning for potential crop thieves. It was a sobering sight, and it put Atyen in mind of Solender's mice. Overcrowding changes behavior. Evidently mass disaster changed it too, and not for the better. A little way up the world's curve smoke rose from a burning farmstead. Coincidence or hostility? He couldn't know.

With the loss of the master bell in Charisy's church nobody was ringing the hours, but by Atyen's estimate it took them three bells to reach the ocean from the time they started walking. They went out on someone's dock to get a drink, then turned spinward. Everywhere fishers were doing a brisk business selling carp from their sheds at exorbitant prices, but neither he nor Sarabee had any tokens, so they just kept on. As they came aftward of Tidings the crowd noticeably thickened, and after a kilometer it slowed and stopped.

"Evidently we weren't the only ones with this idea," he said to Sarabee.

"Evidently not."

People spilled off the road onto the shore, others got up into the shorefields to parallel the road. An angry farmer challenged a trespasser and a fight broke out, and while it was happening some other refugees just hopped the fence and carried on.

"What's going on?" Atyen asked a fisher hawking carp.

She shrugged. "Nobody knows."

"Should we wait?" Sarabee wondered.

Atyen shook his head. "I don't think it's a good idea to be in a crowd."

"You're right, let's go the other way. I know the sailsmiths in Cove. If we ask they'll raft us around and home."

They turned around and hiked back to the intersection with the trading road, hiked past it to Cove. There were fewer fugitives from the city in that direction, and many of them had gone to sleep along the road's sidehills and ditches. They reached Cove well into the sleeping hours, but the sailsmiths welcomed them in when Sarabee knocked, fed them carp stew, gave their own bed to Sarabee and Liese, and shared the floor with Atyen. They couldn't sail them back the next day, because they didn't want to leave their shop unattended with so many strangers and so much uncertainty, but they were willing to loan their line-raft, to be brought back soon. "You've come through so much, Sarabee, it's the least we can do."

The smoke had formed a bluish haze around the suntube and drifted downward. They were all sneezing, everything smelled of smoke and Atyen's eyes watered incessantly, but at least travelling by raft was easier than walking. They angled across the wind, heading spinward in easy back-and-forth legs, and aft of Tidings they pulled up at a fishing platform and asked for news.

"They've closed the shore road on both sides, and the sentinels are patrolling the fields," the fisher said. "Nothing's getting in to Tidings, and no one smart is leaving. We're lucky the Inquisitor-in-Chief thought to close the town, luckier he extended it all the way to the ocean. There's thousands who've fled Charisy, tens of thousands. They're everywhere, wrecking fields, stealing food. People have died and I'll bet a week's haul a lot more will before this is over. It's a disaster."

Atyen thanked the fisher and they sailed on. Sarabee put out a net, and soon they had a couple of dozen small carp swimming in its confines. At least we'll be able to eat. The air was heavy with smoke, and here and there around the curve of the world more fires were burning. More farmhouses? It was impossible to know. One thing was clear, with the world already barely able to feed the city's half-million, destroying crops and killing farmers was not going to solve any problems. Will the shorefields be safe?

It was hard to know the time exactly with no bells, but Atyen's stomach told him the noon meal had come and gone before they pulled into Sarabee's dock. The net-raft was still there, as it had been when Jens was killed and Sarabee had been taken by the sentinels, ropes coiled neatly, sails and nets folded. They tied up the sailsmiths' raft alongside it, leaving the netted carp in the water. Atyen looked from one to the other, and to his eye there was little distinction between the net-raft and the line-raft, just the net-haul at the aft of the one, the line-riggers on the other. There must be more to it.

It was a question for another time, and Atyen headed up the dock. There were a few refugees wandering up and down the shore road when they put into Sarabee's dock, but far fewer than the hordes on the other side of Tidings, there was no easy way to get there from Charisy with the Tidings road blocked off. It offered the hope that they were in time, but when they got to Sarabee's house the door stood open. Inside it had been ransacked, and everything of value was gone. Even the sailshed had been broken open, though the sails were still there. The horde had gotten there before them.

"Don't worry about it," Sarabee said. "They're only things, and things can be replaced. Let's go get the children."

They walked up to Celese's farm, knocked on the farmhouse door and went in, and Atyen found himself looking at a man he didn't know. The man's face was hostile, and Atyen's blood ran cold. This is not good. There were more people behind him, a dozen or so, men and women all related to judge by their looks.

Sarabee came in behind him, anger on her face. "Where's my sister?" she demanded. "Where are my children?"

The man's expression was hard. "This place was empty when we got here." He shrugged, but didn't even try to make the lie convincing.

Anger flashed in Sarabee's eyes. "You're lying!" she shouted, and slapped him across the face. "What did you do? What did you do with my babies?"

She raised her arm to hit him again but Atyen grabbed her before she could strike. "Let's go outside," he said.

She rounded on him, eyes blazing. "Don't you see? They . . ."

"I see very clearly." Atyen kept his voice level. The man Sarabee had hit was looking at her with barely restrained rage, and across the room the others had stood up. "They found the house empty. Celese isn't here. The children aren't here. Liese is waiting. Let's go outside."

Sarabee's face tightened and she yanked her arm from his grip, but she turned and walked back through the door.

Atyen smiled the best smile he could manage. "I'm sorry to have bothered you," he said, and followed her out.

Outside, Sarabee grabbed him. "Atyen! Those—"

"I know, Sarabee. I know. Let's get Liese safe first, and then we'll see what we can find."

They took the girl down to Atyen's shed. The door had been broken open there too, and his half-built cargo wings dumped off the forming jigs and onto the floor. His toolshelf had been ransacked and some of his tools were missing. In his small bedroom the quilts were gone, but his ink jars and pens were still on his workshelf. The sight reminded him that he'd lost all his journals. He clenched his jaw and said nothing. It's a small loss today. Atyen barred the shutters and Sarabee gave Liese strict instructions to bar the door after they'd gone and not open it for anyone until they were back. Then she and Atyen walked back up to the farm. They gave the farmhouse a wide berth, and began searching through the foreward fields. It was Atyen who found them, at the edge of the olive grove, Celese and Newl, Acelle, Healan and Jerl and their cousins, lying in the long clover, shaded by sprouting turnips. Their hands had been tied behind their backs, and something blunt had smashed in their skulls. His throat constricted and he looked at the farmhouse, just a hundred meters distant, then looked to Sarabee, still walking slowly through the pasture, looking for any trace of her family. I don't want to tell her this. I don't. His gaze fell on Acelle. She looked peaceful, as if she were only sleeping. Little innocent, you did nothing to deserve this, nothing. He took a long deep breath, held it, closed his eyes to process his own anger and then let it out slowly out before he called Sarabee over.

She didn't cry when she saw, she didn't say anything, just went to Jerl and picked him up, stroking his small face. She carried him as she went to her daughters, to her sister and her nephews, touching each one, adjusting their clothing, speaking words too soft for him to hear. She didn't cry while they gathered straw for the pyre, when they added branches cut from the olive trees with his belt knife, or when they laid the bodies out. Throughout it all Atyen kept a close watch on the farmhouse. The door opened a few times, and a figure stood and watched them, but that was all. And I understand that. The group had been desperate when they'd come to Celese's door, still in shock from the unfolding calamity. They hadn't planned to kill, but the situation had spiralled out of control and suddenly they had a houseful of prisoners they couldn't keep and couldn't let go. Two or three of the usurpers would have taken it on themselves to solve the problem. The rest might not even know for sure they'd murdered. The majority would defend the house as their territory, but they wouldn't go so far as to kill in cold blood. At least not yet.

It was well into the sleeping hours before they'd finished, although with no bells sounding there was no way to know for sure. Atyen went to get Liese, and had to knock several times on the shutters to wake her up to open the door. He had a momentary panic when he thought his firepump had been stolen, but he found it under a forming jig after a brief search. He also found a keg of the flax oil that he used to protect the wing frames from the elements and brought it as well, in case the fire needed hastening. Liese did cry when she saw the bodies, and Sarabee held her daughter and said comforting words, but it was only when Atyen started the fire that she cried herself. Her sobs then were long and deep, and he held mother and daughter close as the flames rose high. The fire had needed no hastening.

"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust," he said, wishing he remembered more of the bishop's words at Solender's pyre, and wishing he had a bishop there to say them.

It took a long time before the fire died down to a steady crackle, and by then Sarabee's tears subsided. She once more said some words too soft for him to hear, and let him go, let Liese go. Liese went to follow her, but Atyen held her back, and Sarabee stood watching the flames by herself. After a long, long time she picked up a burning brand and the keg of flax oil, watched the flames for another long moment, and then with sudden decision turned towards the house that had been her sister's.

"Sarabee!" Atyen called. "Don't do it."

She turned. "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. I know another line from the Bible. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." She turned again, marched straight for the house. Atyen watched, a hand on Liese's shoulder, as she emptied the flax oil over the doorstep and set it ablaze with the firebrand. Then she took it to the back and tossed it into the dried clover stacked there for the animals. The clover caught, and flames roared up. Sarabee came back and turned to watch the fire, her expression impassive. The blaze had a firm hold before they heard the first scream. Liese winced and looked away, but her mother just watched, a look of grim satisfaction on her face. There were more screams, and then a figure burst through a blazing window to run across the field, burning all the way. Finally it fell and lay still.

Eventually there were no more screams. All around the world there were more plumes of smoke, including a big one from the direction of Tidings. Atyen gave up counting at fifty. The world is falling apart.

"Come on," said Sarabee. "Let's go."

He headed back to the Madane's, but Sarabee's hand on his arm stopped him. "No, I don't want to sleep there. I don't want to remember. Not tonight."

They went instead to Atyen's shed. He was dizzy with hunger by the time he got there, they all were, but the thought of going to the dock, getting some of their carp, cleaning them, setting a fire and cooking was too much. They slept crowded together in his tiny shelf of a bed, Sarabee curled around Liese, and Atyen curled around Sarabee when she snuggled back against him. It was strange to have her there. She was a long-legged woman and he'd always seen her as tall, but in his arms she was tiny. But it feels right, very right.

It began to rain while they slept, and when they woke up it was torrenting.

"I've never seen rain like this," said Sarabee.

"It's because of all the smoke," Liese answered.

Atyen gave her a look. "Why do you say that?"

"What else can it be? What else has changed in the sky?"

"You know, you're probably right."

The rain brought refugees to the door, fortunately not aggressive ones, and Atyen directed them to Sarabee's old house.

"We can't stay here," he said. "The world is breaking down. People are already starving. The next people to come to the door might not be so restrained."

"Where can we go? It's going to be like this everywhere."

"We'll fly to Heaven. There are birds there for meat, water and every kind of vine. It'll be safe, for as long as we need it to be safe."

She looked at him askance. "Liese and I can't fly."

"I'll fly her with the cargo wings, and I'll teach you how to fly mine."

"Are you sure you can teach me?"

"I'm sure you can learn."

He found the first flaw in the plan when he opened the door to go and get the carp for breakfast. The rain was falling from a uniform overcast that stretched as far foreward as he could see. The smoke had changed the weather cycle, and without the spiralling fleece-clouds to ride to the upper overturn layer there way no way to fly to Heaven. But that's fine, because first we have to finish the cargo wings. He went to the raft while Sarabee improvised a firebowl and got it started, retrieved the carp and gutted them, brought them back to be cooked, then hiked up to where they'd held the pyre and dug up a handful of immature turnips. It was a basic meal, but rarely had Atyen tasted anything so good. They'd barely finished when another fugitive came to the door, attracted by the cooking smells. He was a young man, barely past adolescence, bedraggled, famished and dripping wet. It was hard to tell him there was no more food, and they let him come in to warm up. When he was somewhat recovered Atyen suggested he go up to the field to find some turnips.

"He'll be back," said Sarabee. "Where else will he go?"

"We can't take in every stray who comes along."

"If we can't fly until the rain stops, what do we do? This looks like it's going to go on forever."

Atyen put a hand to his chin, thinking. "We can live on the raft, get out in the ocean. Fish for food and wait it out."

"How will we cook?"

"We won't. We'll be eating raw fish, but we'll be eating. Make a tent out of the sails. We'll survive."

Sarabee took a deep breath. "Well, it'll be better than waiting here for the mob."

They loaded the net-raft with Atyen's wings, and the cargo wing skeleton and its wing fabric. All the tools that were left went in a box, and all the spare wing fabric in another one, and they brought the extra bamboo as well. The young man came back from the clover field with his coat full of turnips, and they gave him the shed in exchange for half the turnips, and set off with Atyen in Sarabee's raft, Sarabee and Liese in the sailsmiths'. It was thoroughly miserable travelling, soaked to the skin, and constantly having to bail out the raft. But better here than on the shore with the horde hungry enough to kill. They eventually made it to Cove, returned the sailsmiths' raft and gifted them with half the turnips and a netful of carp in thanks. They learned there that the situation was growing much worse. A mob had broken through the sentinel lines and ransacked Tidings, burned half of it. There were hundreds dead, maybe thousands. The mirror messages were the same from everywhere, before the rain shut them down.

"What will you do?" Sarabee asked them.

"We'll fish," said the husband. "And we'll pray."

"We're in a good spot," added his wife. "The world isn't ending, just changing."

Atyen nodded. It was a good approach to take. Possibly the only approach. He hauled up the sails and Sarabee steered them out again until they were well offshore, where they dropped the anchor. The sails draped over the sailpoles made an adequate tent, the only problem was they were all totally soaked before they got under it, and the rain came in the raft's uncovered fore and aft to collect in the bottom, so they had to bail constantly. Life devolved in an unending, unchanging wretchedness, huddled together under the sails to conserve body heat, constantly soaked, and constantly getting more soaked when they had to go out in the rain to bail, to haul nets or gut the fish they caught. Without shuttered windows and sleep-cloths it was too bright to sleep properly, and so time dragged by in a semi-waking misery. By the third day their skin was red and sore anywhere it made contact with anything, white and wrinkled everywhere else. By the fourth they were speaking in only the monosyllables necessary to make the raft function. By the fifth the skin was sloughing from their fingers. The chill of constant immersion had penetrated to Atyen's core, and he was shivering so badly he could barely hold the knife to divide the carp. On the sixth day he couldn't tell if the rain was slackening, or if his numbed brain was just generating a desperate illusion. If it even is the sixth day. Without the bells Atyen had lost all track of time. It could have been the sixteenth, for all he knew.

On the seventh day, if it was the seventh day, the rain did slack, and the suntube made a show through the clouds.

"A . . . Atyen?" Liese was shivering so hard she could barely speak. She was hollow cheeked, her skin corpse-white, her sodden, greasy hair plastered round her face. "Th-thank-you for s-saving my mother." She smiled, and was suddenly so radiant the warmth was almost physical.

Atyen's voice caught in his throat, and he took a moment to get his own shivering under some kind of control. "You're welcome."

The clouds lifted more, and they hauled up the sail and the anchor. Atyen picked their course by Jens's navigation marks up on the mast, and Sarabee steered it. After what seemed a long time, they came to the aftwall and the carrier dangling from its ropes. By then the suntube was all the way out and they were mostly dried out and feeling much better. Then it was just a matter of work, cranking themselves and all their gear up to the second ledge. Most of it was straightforward, but the mainspine of the cargo wings wasn't built to fold, and it took a lot of awkward maneuvering to get them balanced on the carrier at the bottom and unloaded at the top.

They found some dead branches in a tree that were dry enough to build a fire. Atyen cut a strip of waxed flax from the extra wing fabric to use as tinder, and they enjoyed a warm cooked meal for the first time in a week.

"If I never see carp and turnips again it'll be too soon," Atyen said as he wolfed down his portion. "But this is really good."

The next step was to get the cargo wings ready for launch. Threading the wing fabric on was straightforward, but the cargo wings needed a launch ramp, and that was more complicated. After some thought he sacrificed the mast from the raft and laboriously sawed it in half with his belt knife. It was just long enough to make two six meter rails. He used the extra bamboo they'd brought to make support trestles to hold them in position. In between times he went over the basics of flight with Sarabee, explaining how climbing and diving interacted with speed, how to shift weight, and how to use the control lines to steer and trade momentum for lift, how to recover from the terrifying tumbles that happened when one wing stopped flying and the other didn't. He had her strap the wings on and stand at the edge of the ledge, feeling the wind tugging at them, tempting her to fly, and also getting her used to the fear of falling that had so paralyzed his early attempts. It took a solid week, as measured by waking and sleeping, to get the slide rails ready.

And in that time he realized that there was no need to undertake the risky flight to Heaven. "We can stay right here, we've got birds, fruit, fish and water. Trees to build shelter, bushes for fuel. We even have the raft, so we can check on how the world is doing."

"No," Sarabee said, surprising him. "I want to fly, and I want to see Heaven for myself."

He was about to dissuade her when he remembered his own early, frustrated yearnings as he'd watched the circling peregrines. I've shown her the wind. I can't deny it to her now. "Then we'll do it," he said. Beside them Liese breathed out in relief. She'd been a rapt pupil at the flight lessons, even though she wouldn't be flying herself. She wanted to see the world from above, and visit Heaven too.

Like mother like daughter. They spent one last day checking over both sets of wings, verifying every joint, every binding, and then went over all the flight techniques one last time, including how to maneuver to make the critical contact with Heaven's landing platform. There would be no second chances. Columns of smoke were still popping up around the world. The Second Inquisition was falling, and if they didn't make their goal they'd land right in the middle of the chaos.

And then it was time. They levered the cargo wings up on their slide rails. Liese climbed into the cargo basket, curled up tight with all their tools, and Atyen made sure Sarabee had her wings properly strapped on and the control lines taut. "Remember, leap out as hard as you can, dive for speed, when you feel the wings start to fly shift backwards, balance left and right with the control lines, level out stable and just let the updraft carry you."

She nodded tensely, and Atyen's own fears came back to him once again. It's easy to dream of flight, hard to jump off the ledge. He went back to the cargo carrier, put on the straps, tested the lines. "Ready back there?" he asked Liese.

"Ready!" Her voice was excited.

"Go!" he shouted to Sarabee. They had agreed that she would jump first, to avoid the possibility that he would start and she would freeze at the last second. She didn't, though; she bent at the knees and leapt. Panic shot through Atyen as she vanished over the edge, as though he had just watched her leap to certain death, but a few seconds later he saw her, wobbling slightly but climbing. He took up the slack in the lines and shouted "Release!"

Behind him Liese yanked the rope that held them up on the slide rails. There was a brief lurch, and then they were sliding, over the slope and pitching down steeply. The wings caught the air, the fabric tightened, and they were flying. He shifted back, but the cargo carrier was twice as heavy as what he was used to and it barely responded. He shifted back further, then as far as he physically could, and they slowly, slowly began to pull out. He tugged a line to counteract a slight roll, held it, and then finally they were level. He craned his neck up to spot Sarabee, already far above them. "Circle!" he called, "Slowly!"

She did, demonstrating far more control on her first flight than he had on his twentieth. Of course, she didn't have to figure it out from zero. She was still climbing away, and he began to fear that he'd gone down too low, that he'd fallen out of the updraft and would slowly descend until they hit the ocean. He turned, gently because steep turns cost lift, and was able to verify that they were gaining on the second ledge.

Above them Sarabee put her nose down into a gentle dive, pulled up and turned, and then dived more steeply until she was back down on their level.

"Atyen!" she called. "This is wonderful."

"It is wonderful," Liese enthused from the basket behind him. "That was so exciting."

Exciting, as long as we make it. Atyen didn't share the thought, there was no need to worry her. They continued climbing, with Sarabee practicing the basic techniques, and Atyen adapting what he knew to the clumsy cargo carrier. They gained steadily until they were as high as they could go in the lower wind cycle. Atyen waited until a fleecy spiral cloud started to grow and extend directly in front of them, using the time to have her practice tumble recoveries and the figure-eight pattern needed to climb at the leading edge of the cloud without losing orientation in the mist. When he judged the cloud was ready he called to her, and they both shifted forward and headed for it. If he judged it right they'd fly right under its updraft and she wouldn't have to work the tricky overturn boundary.

He judged it right, and just as they crossed over the shoreline the updraft hit, and they circled, climbing upward. "Sarabee, put a bit more tension on both lines," he called. She did, and the added drag slowed her ascent to the point he could keep up. He slid up beside her until their wingtips were nearly touching and they circled in synchrony, the way peregrines sometimes did. Flying is beautiful, flying together is heaven. Sarabee gained confidence with every turn, and she'd mastered the basics with remarkable speed. They climbed to the cloud's underside and flew back and forth as it grew foreward, drawing its gentle spiral around the suntube as it did. They passed over the black scar that had been Charisy, but from altitude it was just a color, with nothing to show the living horror the city had become just a month ago. There were still a few fires here and there around the world, but the most notable change was the absence of twinkling message mirrors. The Second Inquisition has fallen. It was hard to think that the organization he'd given his life to had vanished, and perhaps with the softened view from the clouds he could have convinced himself that it hadn't. But they trained me to reason, and the evidence is right there. The important thing now was to get to safety. And to keep my promise to Jens.

"How are you doing?" he called back to Liese.

"It's still wonderful," she called back.

He smiled, and looked over to see Sarabee circling easily. The front of the cloud was approaching the foredome. It was time. "Figure eights," he called to her. "Follow me."

She turned, dove, fell in behind him, and he headed out to the front of the cloud, climbed up and into it. He was cautious at first, keeping so far forward that visibility was never in question, but there was barely enough lift to keep his heavy cargo carrier up. Gradually he worked deeper into the cloud, and he began to climb. "Stay forward," he shouted. "I need more updraft than you."

He'd made the decision out of concern, he didn't want her to get caught too deep, where the fleecy mist became a dense white shroud, where you couldn't tell up from down and the dangerous tumble became inevitable. It was a mistake, because as soon as they took different routes he lost sight of her, and he realized that if she tumbled he'd never know it.

"Sarabee!" he shouted.

"Atyen!" she answered, very faint, and it was impossible to tell the direction her voice came from.

"Sarabee!" This time he heard no answer, and he began to fret, and to look for her, trying to keep his figure eights methodical, trying frantically to spot her. She could be above, or below or . . . All at once she was in front, heading straight for him, and he dived on instinct, felt the rush of her passage right overhead. He banked around hard but she was already gone and he was left alone in the misty edge of the cloud. He completed the circle, a dangerous move that turned him into the advancing whiteness, and for three panicked seconds he lost sight of the ground. It came back before the tumble, but his heart was pounding hard in his chest. Never again, he resolved. I've already learned that lesson.

He went back to figure eights, gained height, and finally they met, up at the top of the cloud, with the suntube scorching their wing fabric and the foredome looming in front of them. "Foreward," he called, and they dived to meet the topmost wind cycle, and the updraft that would carry them to Heaven. They reached the dome, turned antispinward and let the updraft loft them higher. The carrier was sluggish as they lost weight, far more so than the single wings had been, and he had to work hard to steer. As the foredome's struts came past he could see the green cylinder that was Heaven getting closer overhead, with its landing platform below it, and its perpetual halo of birds. He'd been worried about Sarabee's ability to hit the platform, but soon he was concerned for his own. Even with all his weight full forward the wings lost their bite and he was drifting.

He looked back over his shoulder. "Liese, come here."

"I am here."

"No, here, right up front with me."

"I'll fall!"

"No, you won't, you're very light here. Hang on tight, only move one hand at a time."

She did as he asked, moved hand over hand until she was next to him. The nose dropped, and wings bit, and he tugged the lines, banked them over, and made it to the platform with the gentlest of touchdowns. He unstrapped immediately, looked around in case he had to grab Sarabee, but she guided herself in and touched down as if she'd been doing it all her life.

"Incredible," she breathed, unstrapping her wings to settle gently behind her.

Liese went to her mother. "Tiny steps," he reminded her. "You can jump right off."

"Tiny steps," the girl answered, and took her mother's hand.

"Amazing, Atyen." Sarabee laughed. "It really is Heaven. I'm not sure I really believed it before."

"It gets better inside. Real miracles."

"What's outside is enough for me right now." Sarabee came to stand beside him, moving carefully. He put his arm around her and they looked out at the spreading world below. Eventually he turned to her and, very gently, kissed her. Very gently, she kissed him back.

 

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