The Way of the Sky Ch. 1 (Updated)

Chapter I - Beneath the Wind

Ten thousand feet of empty air separated the toes of Lizbeth Valera's boots and the distant earth's surface below. She rocked back on heels supported by the smooth marble platform known as the Plunge, a platform sat atop a small, floating island that abruptly ended beneath the arches of her feet. She stood on both land and sky, poised between two worlds, a soft breeze sighing through her hair. Murderers, rapists, and the scum of the realm often found themselves standing on the same precipice, their limbs tied and secured as they were shoved from the Plunge out into the blue sky beyond. The last seconds of their lives were spent screaming as they plummeted through the air until they slammed into the earth with an atrocious force that ensured their remains were rarely recovered.

How would it feel, she wondered, were this the last sight you ever glimpsed?

She closed her eyes and sought to balance on the precipice's edge. A sudden gust buffeted her from behind, tipped her forward, and she fell.

A pair of feathered white wings bright as bleached bone unfurled from her back. A quick flick of her wings, each taller than she, returned her to the platform with ease. If she died today, it sure as the skies wouldn't come from slipping off a ledge.

She straightened a fistful of ruffled feathers and glanced behind her to find the other Ertai on the platform were paying her antics no mind. A quartermaster poured over a lone bag of rations, quill scratching notes into their ledger, while a pair of steady-handed soldiers sharpened and oiled a set of wicked daggers. A dozen armed guards had formed a perimeter and were scanning the skies with wary gazes. No trouble was expected--they'd chosen the Plunge as their departure point due to its position at the center of a cluster of floating islands that obscured it from view. That didn't stop the guards from clenching their sword hilts; a mistake today could breed disaster.

She shivered at the sudden whispers that stroked against her ears like frost-encrusted fingers. They came from no living form, their unintelligible words impossible to comprehend--and yet the rage, confusion, and sorrow within their depths was clear as the midday sun. Back stiff and jaw set, she peered beyond the Plunge's edge at the whispers' source; a monolithic maelstrom loomed before her.

The winds of the Skywall drifted without end beneath the evening sun. Though it proved thick enough to hide the lands beneath its surface, the smoky dome appeared no denser than a cloud. The gargantuan barrier could be spied from a hundred miles distant, and to the untrained eye, swirled with the easy rhythm of slumber.

Lizbeth let out a snort.

"Sleeping my ass."

It was sleeping, all right, until you touched it.

The merest contact with the Skywall transformed the barrier into a savage tempest. To enter the Skywall was to toss yourself headfirst into a hurricane. The Skywall wouldn't kill you; Reis, the goddess of the sky, had seen to that herself when she raised it with the magic of the Essence, the very force that sustained her being. It was a shield, not a death trap, an impassable partition designed to keep both humans and their descendants, the winged Ertai race, from passing through. But snap bones, rend your feathers, tear at your skin and eyes for hours until it spat you out? That fate was certain. A howling gale dwelled beneath the Skywall's harmless surface like the jaws of a shark beneath still seas.

Lizbeth's skin grew chill.

And we're the fools who are about to go swimming.

She trotted to the nearby quartermaster's side and leaned close with a murmur.

"The time?"

The quartermaster reached into her robe pocket and pulled forth a box of gears and iron known as a 'clock.' Lizbeth stared at the thing with a sense of muted awe; exports from the distant artificer city of Goug were rare sights indeed. She longed to pop the clock open and see how the blasted thing worked. Only the knowledge that it cost six months of her pay stayed her unskilled hands from prying it open.

"Ten minutes 'til eight," the quartermaster remarked.

Ten minutes until we embark on a journey to save the skies from war.

The thought sent Lizbeth pacing across the platform's edge, her nerves steady as a storm-tossed leaf. She ran a hand tanned by the wind and sun through her messy bronze hair and forced herself to breathe deep. Seeking a distraction, she approached the only two Ertai on the Plunge insane enough to accompany her through the Skywall and to the lands that waited beyond. She spoke to the angular, aging woman of the pair, who stared at the Skywall, distinctly unimpressed.

"Do your bounties ever try to escape through the Skywall, Vasheer?"

Vasheer Rudamu scoffed and took a long drag on her pipe before replying in a voice that was a mix of smoke and gravel.

"Every wind-damned year. They all limp back wishing they hadn't. It chews up any fool stupid enough to test its might and spits them back out with barely the strength to fly."

Vasheer turned to the massive, mohawked man standing beside her.

"Kon, you're a fool. Ever been dumb enough to try?"

Kon Golont chuckled and crossed a pair of golden arms thicker than Lizbeth's thighs. His wings, well-groomed and kept free of dirt, dwarfed her own. Though Lizbeth wasn't short by female standards, next to Kon she resembled a child. The imposing enforcer wore his lazy smile like another would a favorite shirt.

"A young, handsome man like me?" he quipped in a baritone voice. "I've pints to drink and women to tickle. Such acts are for the bored and old, Vasheer, those with little to live for and less to lose. Turns out that places you first in line. Go on now, we'll only miss you a bit."

The older woman puffed on her pipe, sending a plume of smoke the same hue as her hair billowing into the air.

"By the winds, you're an ass."

"True," he shrugged. "But most girls don't mind."

Lizbeth barked a laugh and rolled her eyes, nerves ebbing.

"Just most? Meaning the ones you have to pay?"

Vasheer guffawed as Kon turned to Lizbeth, indignant.

"Come on now, runt," he slapped her arm, "don't tell me you're taking her side."

"Your name is known by every brothel in the Rose Quarter, man. They give you a discounted rate. They likely know your trouser size, they've peeled them off so often."

"Hardly proof--"

"Just shut up and check your weapons, you whore."

Grumbling, Kon complied.

"And put out your pipe, Vasheer," she continued. "In fact, pass it to a guard. Tabac isn't native to the lands inside the Skywall. Your pipe will arouse suspicion."

Vasheer's eyes narrowed to slits. Lizbeth refused to blink.

Unlike Kon, who Lizbeth had shared a friendly drink with on several occasions over the years, Vasheer was barely an acquaintance with a checkered past and a penchant for questioning Lizbeth's orders. Vasheer had started serving the Magisters who ruled the Skybound Tribe, and by extension the skies, when Lizbeth barely reached the woman's knees. Twenty years on the job, compared to Lizbeth's paltry five, and yet the Magisters had placed Lizbeth in charge of the incursion into the Skywall. Had Vasheer not spent her youth making coin as a smuggler and serving time in a cell for her trouble, their roles would undoubtedly be reversed. Vasheer damn well knew it, and the knowledge strengthened her will to resist Lizbeth's commands. Lizbeth often wondered why Vasheer had volunteered to join her in infiltrating the Skywall in the first place.

Lizbeth's eyes started to hurt.

Come on now, woman.

Vasheer relented with a grumble and tossed her pipe to the nearest guard.

"Isn't native?" she asked, sour.

"Page twelve in my notes," Lizbeth replied. "Did you read them?"

Vasheer averted her gaze.

"The optional notes? I read 'em, all right. Well, most. About half. Must've dropped page twelve in the bath."

Lizbeth barely suppressed a snort.

Another reason I'm in charge.

Lizbeth turned to Kon. Of the thirty pages of notes she'd gathered that described the lands, laws, and traditions waiting within the confines of the Skywall, she would be pleased if Kon had managed to read a paragraph.

"Reis knows I shouldn't bother to ask," she started, "but did you read--"

He raised his eyebrows and gave her a flat look.

"I read the mission briefing. I'm certain we'll be fine."

"Best hope we don't end up in shackles," she muttered, "or I'll make you read every sunshied word."

She blinked, then bit her tongue.

Sunshied isn't a word used beneath the Skywall. Page seventeen, remember? Gods, I won't even be able to swear in peace.

Their conversation lulled as the sun continued to fall. Inevitably, their gazes turned to the Skywall. The whispers of its winds found their ears.

"They say you listen too long," Vasheer murmured, tone muted, "the Skywall's whispers will drive you insane."

"I don't plan for us to dwell near the damn thing long enough to find out," Lizbeth replied.

Easy for her to say, but what of the Windbound Tribe trapped beneath the Skywall's surface? Did their sanity hold strong?

Reis help us, we're about to find out.

She reflexively grasped the fist-sized pouch tightly secured to her hip and checked that its straps were in place for the seventeenth time that day. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the quiet hum of the crystalline caestall emanating through the pouch's leather. The tiny, floating crystal was their only defense against the Skywall's imminent wrath.

Kon glanced at the pouch, then her.

"You sure the caestall is strong enough to get us through?" he asked. "The Skywall may not kill us, but I'd rather not test it."

"I'm not certain, no," she admitted. "A test would have drained some of its power. But Icarse was certain, and that's good enough for me. It should activate as soon as we enter the Skywall."

Kon paused a hair too long before he nodded and turned away. Lizbeth swallowed the lump in her throat. Skies alive, if only Icarse was there to assure them himself...

For the love of Reis, where are you, brother?

Icarse had sailed into the Skywall's depths two years prior for his fourth visit to the lands confined within the churning dome--and hadn't been heard from since.

Her stubborn self-assurance that her brother was unharmed had quickly waned once the explosions had started. First came reports of streaks of light glimpsed through the Skywall's base, where it burrowed into the earth miles below. The streaks, each brighter than the last, had lasted a fortnight. Strange, for certain, but no reason to worry. Reis had raised the Skywall after the Ertai civil war using magics no mortal could match. The traitorous Windbound would spend eternity trapped within the Skywall for their war crimes.

Surely they lacked the means to breach the work of a god?

Yet breach it they did.

It was only for a second, little more than a breath, but it was real as a dying man's dread. A beam of opaque light pierced the Skywall from within, then vanished. The Skywall's wound closed, and all was still. The thought made Lizbeth shudder. After three hundred years, the impossible had come to pass; the Windbound were slowly breaking free.

"I'll die before I let that happen," she swore under her breath.

She glanced above her head at the stretches of floating land known as the Ertan Islands, the colossal bergs of stone and soil set against the backdrop of the vast, eternal sky. Sat atop the largest island of them all floated Telaria, affectionately dubbed by its inhabitants the Rainbow City. Telaria had served as the bastion of Ertai civilization from the moment Reis had gifted Lizbeth's human ancestors wings and blessed them with the Essence, thus creating the Ertai race. To the histories, Telaria was a city of legend--to Lizbeth and the Skybound, it was home. She watched the last rays of sun dance off its multicolored walls, watched its crystalline towers shine. If the Windbound escaped their prison and returned war to the skies, those crystalline towers and multicolored walls would find themselves under siege.

Kon bobbed up beside her and followed her gaze.

"She's a sight in the evenings, is she not?"

Lizbeth nodded with a last, long look.

"And may she be for eons to come."

The sun completed its descent beneath the horizon. Telaria dimmed as dusk painted the sky.

"Eighth hour past noon," the quartermaster remarked.

The Plunge fell still.

Lizbeth offered a silent prayer to the skies.

"Teran Ro," she announced, "form up."

Kon and Vasheer retrieved their equipment, then assembled by her side. The soldiers guarding the platform's perimeter formed an escort around Lizbeth's trio, and together they leapt from the Plunge. Wings spread wide, their ranks glided toward the Skywall, the maelstrom slowly looming larger.

"Teran Ro?" Vasheer grumbled. "As in 'those bound for the earth?' Stupid name, you ask me."

Lizbeth raised her eyebrows. She'd chosen the name.

"Have you come up with something better?"

"Well, no."

"Right then, Teran Ro it is."

Lizbeth ignored Vasheer's stare and continued.

"Here's the plan, one last time. Our target is Gargealean, the Windbound capital. It sits on the largest floating island beneath the Skywall, smack in the center of the realm. Our contact is a man named Windsom. We'll meet him in the Markets district atop the Trinity Towers at the stroke of midnight. If he's--"

"-- not there, we'll continue on toward the Surface," Vasheer finished for her.

"Remember," Lizbeth continued, "tonight is the Hammersfall festival. It's the ten-year anniversary of Orn the Betrayer's defeat at the hands of some blasted Windbound hero known as the Slayer. The district will be swarming with drunken guards all night. For the love of lightning, don't get in a fight."

"'The Slayer,'" Kon mused. "You best be one hell of a warrior to earn that title."

"Let's not meet him and find out."

They nodded.

Lizbeth's thoughts raced to find some missed, critical instruction, but nothing came to mind. She willed her nerves to calm as their flight drew to a halt. The Skywall towered before them.

"Link up," she ordered. "And hold on for dear life. If you release me, the Skywall will take you."

Kon tied one of Lizbeth and Vasheer's hands together using a leather cord. He then floated low between them and wrapped his arms around each of their inside legs. Were they to fly in horizontal formation, Kon's wings would batter their own.

As she ordered them forward, their escort parted and snapped to attention. Their captain saluted as they passed.

"Good luck, Teran Ro," he said, voice strained. "May Reis guide you safely home."

"Thank you," Lizbeth nodded. "She will."

The other guards looked as if they were attending a funeral; two of them were praying loud enough for Lizbeth to hear. As the three companions left the guards behind, Lizbeth spoke softly.

"A drunken enforcer. A bounty hunter with a criminal past. A girl living off her family name. I've heard it all, and so have you. Our own ranks think we'll fail."

Kon and Vasheer tensed. The Skywall loomed just ahead.

"Well they're wrong, damn wrong. It's time we prove it."

Kon cracked his knuckles.

"Blasted right, runt."

Vasheer nodded.

"We're with you, girl."

"Heads up and wings ready," Lizbeth commanded. "Teran Ro, move in!"

They plunged into the Skywall. The lazy winds transformed into chaos.

The Skywall thundered against them like an avalanche, the world a churning sea of violent gray. Claws of wind tore at her eyes, her clothes, her arms, shrieking as if her presence within the Skywall's domain was an afront to Reis herself. The Skywall battered them about like a capsized ship trapped in the grasp of a typhoon. The wind spun them about like a top, then flipped them head over heels. Her stomach tied into knots; bile rose into her throat. Inch by inch she felt the others slip away. The storm was tearing their ranks apart.

"Hold!" she roared. "Hold! Don't let go!"

Her caestall awoke with a thrum.

A presence as cool as morning mist washed over them, the screaming winds falling away. The tempest retreated like shadows before a flame, and all around them the Skywall grew calm.

Vasheer stared, mouth agape.

"It--it actually worked!"

Kon whooped and punched the air.

"Godsdamn, it's good to be alive!"

Lizbeth let out a shout, then forged ahead.

"Now the real work begins."
It was time to foil the Windbound's plans of escape. It was time to save her brother.