Chapter 295 Weather

Risa asked to go.

Not at the map table. Not on the red glass, when Okafor read the list. Before that. In our kitchen, at night, after the girls were asleep. Dory in her bed in the small room, and Ash in the crooked cradle beside ours, tipping very slightly to the left whenever she moved.

Risa sat at the end of the table with her hands round a cup and didn't drink it. Sera was at the stove. Luna was writing. I was mending a hinge on Garnet's drawing board, by hand, because some things I still liked to do slowly.

"The wheel's world," said Risa.

Luna looked up.

"Plains," said Risa. "Wind. The copper queen says it never stops. Her young roll on it. Herds of them, miles wide." She turned the cup round in her hands. "That's weather."

"Yes," said Luna.

"I took three relays on Avalon," said Risa, "and Okafor called it weather. In her terms to the Overseer. They didn't name the ground, so we took three relays and called it weather." She looked at the cup. "I haven't been on one. Not the Kethri world. Not the dome. I've been here. With Dory. And then with Dory and Ash." She looked up. "I'd like to go on this one."

Nobody said anything for a moment.

"Dory," said Sera, from the stove. Not a question.

"Dory has three mothers," said Risa. "And a grandmother she likes better than any of us. And two aunts. And a queen at the garden wall." Her mouth did the small sharp Friese thing. "She'll be fine. She'll check on me the whole way. Through the thread. She'll be insufferable."

Sera turned round.

She looked at Risa for a long time. Then she came across the kitchen and sat down beside her, and took the cup out of her hands, and drank half of it, and gave it back.

"Then go," said Sera. "And come back."

"Yes," said Risa. Not I will. Luna had taught all of us that.

Okafor put her on the list without arguing.

"Friese," she said, on the red glass, the morning we went. "Risa. Weather."

Risa nodded once.

"Friese," said Okafor. "Sigmund. Also weather. Try not to compete."

Sigmund opened his mouth.

"That was not a question," said Okafor.

Sigmund shut it. Jessa, beside him, put her hand over her face.

The rest of the list was short. Keir, flying. Aster. Gareth. The youngest queen to carry, and Sesh. Juno. The General, because Okafor said she'd never go anywhere again without a wall she could put up in a minute. Genny, to sing through the doors. Me.

And the copper queen.

She'd asked. Through Genny, in the shape she had, which was mostly wind and rolling and a very strong feeling of going. She was the wheel of fine copper wire, the size of a cart wheel, so light the breeze across the green had rolled her before she found her balance. She wanted to go home. And she wanted to be the first thing her young saw when the collars came off.

"Can she fit on the ship?" said Okafor.

The copper queen rolled up the ramp of the Open Hand, very fast, all on her own, and went round the squad deck twice before she found a corner she liked, and stopped there, humming.

"Apparently," said Okafor.

Dory said goodbye at the foot of the ramp.

She was on Mother's hip. She'd been very quiet all morning, which Dory never was. When Risa came to her, she looked at her for a long time with her silver turned all the way out.

Then she reached out with both hands and took Risa's face. The way Maura did. The way Maura had held Anja's face, and Voss's, and mine.

"Come back," said Dory.

"Yes," said Risa.

Dory considered this. Then she let go, and put her thumb in her mouth, and turned to Mother.

"Mama's going to make weather," she said.

"I know, love," said Mother.

"I'm going to watch," said Dory.

The crossing took an hour.

Fifty-eight minutes, Aster said. The youngest queen sang toward the copper queen's world, and every queen on Avalon sang under her, and this time the copper queen sang too. In the corner of the squad deck, humming. Toward home.

Aster said it made a difference. Two minutes, she said. Maybe three.

When the dark opened, there was the plain.

I've never seen anything like it.

Not on Avalon. Not on Earth. Not in the forest of the Kethri, or the sky over the moon. A plain so wide and so flat that the horizon was a perfectly straight line all the way round, like the edge of a plate. No hills. No trees. No water you could see. Just a great pale gold-brown flatness under a huge pale sky.

And wind.

It came through the hull. You could hear it. Not loud. Steady. Never stopping. Never even pausing. Moving across the plain from one side of the world to the other, the way water moves in a river.

"It never stops," said Aster. Very quietly. "The copper queen says. Not ever. It has been blowing like this since before there was anything to blow on."

Risa had gone to the window.

She stood there with her hand flat on the glass, looking out at the plain, and her face was doing something I'd seen it do only once before. The night on our porch when the storm first came out of her, when I finished her silver, a long time ago. When she'd stood on the edge of the canyon and felt the whole sky at once for the first time.

"Oh," she said. Very softly. "Oh."

"What?"

"It's all charge," said Risa. "All of it. The whole sky. The wind rubs it up off the plain and carries it round and round and it never goes anywhere. Never comes down." She closed her eyes. "There's never been a storm here, Lucas. Not once. It's been building since before there was anything to build on. And nobody's ever let it out."

Then we saw the ring.

It was a long way off. On the straight line of the horizon. A row of small grey teeth, sticking up out of the plain.

Towers.

Keir brought the Open Hand closer, low, with the light-benders holding the light round us, and they got bigger. Grey. Sorn grey. Tall and narrow, very old, pitted by the wind the way the old Hand over the Kethri forest had been pitted. Standing in a great ring on the plain, miles across, every one a mile from the next.

Relays.

The same as the ones on Avalon, a long time ago, before we knew what the voice was. Grey towers with handlers inside them, pushing the voice out across the ground. Only these were bigger. Much bigger. And there were a great many more of them.

"Sixty," said Aster. "This unit has counted sixty towers. And in each one, one handler."

"What are they for?" said Okafor.

Nobody answered. Then we came over the ring.

And saw what was inside it.

The young were rolling.

Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Wheels of fine copper wire, smaller than their queen, some no bigger than a plate, some as big as a table, rolling across the plain inside the ring of towers. All in the same direction. Round and round. In a great slow circle miles wide.

Round and round.

And under them, the plain was gone.

Not gold-brown any more. Grey. Dust. Fine grey dust, so deep the young sank into it as they rolled, ground down to nothing by the passing of tens of thousands of wire wheels, round and round, for longer than any of us had been alive.

"They grind it," said Juno. She had her eyes shut. She was very white. "That's what the voice tells them. Roll. Don't stop. Grind it." She swallowed. "There used to be grass. The copper queen says. Wherever she rolled, the grass grew. And her young rolled with her, and the grass grew behind them. That's what they were for. That's what the silver made them for."

"Then why—"

"The Sorn needed dust," said Juno. "For something. Somewhere else. The copper queen doesn't know what. The voice just says roll. Grind. Make dust." Her voice went very small. "And they've been doing it so long they've ground the whole middle of the world to nothing."

In the corner of the squad deck, the copper queen had gone very still.

Okafor stood at the window and looked at it for a long time.

"Right," she said.

Everyone waited.

"Sixty towers," said Okafor. "Sixty handlers. One each. A mile apart. Tens of thousands of young in collars inside the ring, rolling." She turned round. "Dask. How many collars can you open at once?"

"As many as I can see."

"And the towers?"

"The same. If I can see them."

"You can't see sixty towers a mile apart round a ring miles wide," said Okafor. "Not all at once. Not from one place." She looked at the window. "And the moment you open the first, the other fifty-nine will know."

"Yes."

"What will they do?"

Juno answered. With her eyes shut.

"Push," she said. "All of them. As hard as they can. Into the collars." A pause. "The young won't roll in a circle any more. They'll roll at whatever the handlers point them at."

"Which will be us."

"Yes."

Okafor looked out at the tens of thousands of copper wheels, rolling round and round in the grey dust.

"How fast do they go?" she said.

"As fast as the wind," said Juno.

Risa stood up.

She'd been sitting in the squad seats beside Sigmund, very still, with her hands in her lap, listening. Now she stood up. And went to the window. And put her hand flat on the glass again.

"Then we take the wind," she said.

Everyone looked at her.

"It never stops," said Risa. "It's been blowing the same way since before there was anything to blow on. The young roll with it. The handlers point them, but the wind's what moves them." She turned round. "So we take the wind away. Or turn it. Or—" She stopped. Something was happening to her face. "Or let it out. All that charge. Everything the wind's been carrying round and round for longer than anything's been alive. Let it come down."

"On the young?" said the General. Very quietly. "They're made of wire, Friese."

"I know they're made of wire," said Risa. "That's why it can't come down on them." She looked at Sigmund. "It has to come down on the towers."

Sigmund stared at her.

"Sixty towers," he said. "A mile apart. Round a ring miles wide."

"Yes."

"At once."

"Yes," said Risa. "Or the other fifty-nine will know."

"Risa, I can't—"

"Not you," said Risa. "Us." She held out her hand. "Remember? When we were small. In Father's house. You threw a spark across the dinner table and I threw it back and the whole house went dark."

Sigmund didn't say anything.

"He sent us both to bed," said Risa. "He said Frieses don't play with weather." The small sharp smile. "Let's play with weather, Siggy."

Okafor looked at them both for a long time.

Then she looked at me.

"Dask," she said. "When the towers go, the voice stops. All sixty, all at once. Then the collars. All of them. Every one you can see."

"Yes, ma'am."

"General. Something in front of us. In case the young are still rolling when the voice stops. Wire wheels at the speed of the wind won't stop just because nobody's pushing them."

The General nodded.

"Genny. The lullaby. Through the collars. Make them pull less. Start now. Don't stop till they're off."

Genny closed her eyes.

"Juno, the queens. Keir, keep us steady." Okafor looked at the copper queen in the corner. "And you, ma'am. When it's done. Be the first thing they see."

The copper queen hummed. Very loud.

"Friese," said Okafor. "Both of you."

"Ma'am," said Risa and Sigmund. Together.

"Make weather."

They went out on top.

Onto the roof of the Open Hand. Aster's door, on the inside, at the top of a short ladder behind the squad deck. Out into the wind.

I went with them, as far as the door. I couldn't help it.

The wind hit them like a wall. It hit me too, standing in the doorway, so hard I had to hold on. Steady, never stopping, pushing from one side of the world to the other. Risa's hair went straight back. Sigmund's coat went straight back. They stood on the grey roof of the Open Hand, a hundred feet over a plain so flat the horizon was a ruler, and held each other's hands.

And looked up.

I've seen Risa make storms.

On the canyon rim. Over the relays on Avalon, a long time ago. Over the ring at the knuckle, when the handlers came out. She'd made fences of lightning and walls of rain and once, over the canyon, a sky so black it was night at noon.

I'd never seen her do this.

She didn't make anything.

That was the thing. She didn't make a storm. She didn't pull clouds together, or call the lightning, or push the wind. There was nothing to make. It was all already there. Everything the wind had been carrying round and round for longer than anything had been alive. Every spark of charge it had rubbed up off the plain and never once let fall. Building. And building. And building.

She just asked it to come down.

The sky went white.

Not dark. White. All of it. From horizon to horizon, the whole pale sky of the plains world lit up from inside, like the inside of a lamp, like the inside of Sigmund's fence. Every cloud. Every breath of air. All of it glowing at once.

And Sigmund aimed.

He stood beside his sister on the roof of the Open Hand with his hand in hers and his other hand held out, flat, the way he'd held it out on the ash at the launch site when the Senate came with their papers. And I felt him do it. Through the hello. Through the silver. He was looking. At sixty towers, a mile apart, round a ring miles wide. Not with his eyes. With the lightning.

He found every one.

And Risa let go.

It came down.

Sixty bolts. All at once. Out of a white sky onto sixty grey towers in a ring miles wide, at the exact same instant, so that the sound of it, when it reached us a moment later, was one sound. Not sixty. One. Like the whole world clapping its hands.

Every tower lit up.

White. Then blue. Then a colour I didn't have a name for. All the grey of them, pitted and worn and old, filled with lightning from the top to the bottom, so full that it ran down them into the plain and spread out across the grey dust in long branching lines like the lines on Sera's arms.

And the voice stopped.

Sixty handlers. Sixty towers. All at once.

Gone.

And the young kept rolling.

Okafor had been right. Tens of thousands of wire wheels at the speed of the wind don't stop just because nobody's pushing them. They kept rolling. Round and round. Only now the voice wasn't pointing them in a circle any more.

Now they just went wherever the wind went.

Which was toward us.

"General," said Okafor.

The General was already out of the door. Down the ramp. Onto the dust. With his coat buttoned to the neck and his hands bare and the frost pouring off them.

He built a wall.

Not of ice. There wasn't enough water. Not here, on a plain so dry it had been ground to dust. He built it of cold. Just cold. A wall of air so cold it was solid, so cold it went white, so cold it glittered. Right across the path of the wind. A mile long. Then two. Then more. Faster than I'd ever seen him build anything.

And the wind hit it.

And stopped.

Not stopped. Turned. Hit the wall of cold and went up it, the way the wind went up the Nivi mountain, and over the top. Up into the white sky. And the young, rolling with it, hit the cold where the wind turned, and slowed. And slowed. And rolled up against the foot of the General's wall in a great drift of copper wire, tens of thousands, piled against each other like leaves against a fence.

Still.

"Dask," said Okafor.

I went up.

Out of the door, past Risa and Sigmund on the roof, still holding hands, the sky still white over them. Up into the wind. High enough to see the whole ring. Sixty towers, still glowing, a mile apart round a circle miles wide. And inside them, and piled against the General's wall, and scattered everywhere across the grey dust where the wind had thrown them, tens of thousands of wire wheels.

With collars.

I looked.

Every one.

And I asked the grey to forget.

It came away from them like the Kethri collars had. Like a flock of grey birds off a field. Only many more. So many the air over the plain went grey with them for a moment. Tens of thousands of collars, opening at once, rising off tens of thousands of copper wheels, hanging in the white air.

And Genny, in the squad seats, with her eyes closed, still singing the lullaby, said: "Oh."

"What?"

"They're not pulling," said Genny. "The pieces. In the collars. They stopped pulling as soon as the towers went." She opened her eyes. "They didn't want to. They never wanted to. The voice made them. And now there isn't any voice." She swallowed. "They're just—waiting. They're waiting to see what happens."

The copper queen went down the ramp.

All on her own. Very fast. Rolling. Off the end of the ramp onto the grey dust, and across it, toward the drift of her young piled against the General's wall. Faster and faster. In the wind, which wasn't the Sorn's wind now. Just wind.

And behind her, where she rolled, the dust went green.

I saw it from above.

A line of green. Thin. Bright. Running across the grey dust behind the copper queen like a thread pulled through cloth. Grass. Coming up out of ground that had been ground to nothing for longer than any of us had been alive. Wherever she rolled.

She reached the drift of her young.

And sang.

And they heard her.

One rolled out of the drift. Small. No bigger than a plate. Wobbling. It went toward her. Slowly. As if it had forgotten how to roll in any direction but round.

Then another.

Then a hundred. Then a thousand. Then all of them. Rolling out of the drift against the General's wall. Toward their queen. And then, when they reached her, with her. Not round. Not in a circle. Out. Across the plain. In every direction the wind went.

And behind every one of them, the dust went green.

Risa came in off the roof at dusk.

She'd stayed up there all afternoon, with Sigmund. Watching. The white had gone out of the sky slowly, all through the afternoon, as the last of the charge the wind had been carrying since before there was anything to carry came down, gently, harmlessly, onto the empty plain far from anything. Not lightning any more. Just light. A soft glow, falling.

The first rain the plains world had ever had came after it.

Not much. A little. Out of a sky that had never once let anything fall. Onto a plain that was turning green in long thin lines, everywhere the wind went, as tens of thousands of copper wheels rolled across it with their queen.

Risa stood at the bottom of the ladder with her hair wild and her face wet and didn't say anything.

Then she sat down on the deck. Right there. And put her face in her hands. And laughed until she cried.

Sigmund sat down beside her.

"Father," he said, after a while, "would have hated that."

"I know," said Risa.

"Frieses don't play with weather."

"I know," said Risa. And laughed harder.

Dory was waiting on the red glass when we came home.

On Mother's hip. With Ash beside her in Sera's arms. And Luna. And the whole of Scarecrow, and the city north of the Hands, out on their crooked porches.

She didn't run to Risa. She didn't need to.

She just held out both hands. And Risa came down the ramp, and took them.

"I watched," said Dory. Very seriously. "Through the thread. Mama. I watched you make weather."

"I know you did," said Risa. "I felt you. The whole time."

Dory considered this.

"It was loud," she said.

"It was."

"Do it again," said Dory.

Okafor took out her slate on the ramp.

She'd written 1 on it, coming home from the Kethri world. She didn't rub it out.

She wrote 2 underneath.

Then she looked at it for a long time.

"Six more on the map," she said. "And the ninth." She tucked the slate under her arm. "And however many there are past that."

"How many is that?" said Garnet. She'd come up behind us with her drawing board.

Okafor looked down at her.

"More than this world has stones," she said. "The Overseer says."

Garnet thought about that.

"Then you'll need a bigger slate," she said.

The second ship went down on the plain that week.

Keir had brought the grey back from the Kethri world. All of it. The old Hand, the one that had hung over the forest since before Sesh hatched, with its pitted fingers and its crack that was never mended and its long grey beards of moss. I'd folded it small, on the forest floor, with the old queen's blessing, between the roots of the biggest tree, where she lay listening. Folded it and folded it until it fitted in the bottom deck of the Open Hand, and we'd carried it home.

Now I unfolded it again. On the plain. Beside the Open Hand, in the shadow of the first queen's Hand. And asked it to remember being carried. And forget being made to be.

It was older than the first queen's grey. Harder to ask. It had been a cage so long it had almost forgotten it had ever been anything else.

But it remembered.

The heavy queen came to watch.

The small grey one, no bigger than a kitchen table, from the world where everything weighed ten times what it should. The one who'd lifted one stubby foot on the green and then walked round and round it, faster and faster, as if she couldn't believe how easy it was.

She came across the plain on her own, slowly, and stood at the edge of the keel. And looked at it. And then at the round room I was growing at the heart of it, with the perch at one end, and the window, and the door with the plate on the inside.

She didn't fit on a perch.

She stood there for a long time. Then she sang. To Genny, who was beside me. Very low. Very slow. Like a stone being rolled.

Genny listened.

Then she laughed. Out loud. Which Genny almost never did.

"She says," said Genny, "she'd like the room bigger. And the perch lower. And stronger. Much stronger." She wiped her eyes. "She says she's carried more weight than anyone on Avalon, every day of her life, and she'd like, just once, to carry something she chose."

So I made the room bigger.

And the perch lower. Much lower. Stone, not grey. From the old grey-black rock at the bottom of the canyon, the rock Genny said had held the weight of everything above it for a very long time. A low wide shelf of it, at the heart of the second ship. Strong enough for a queen from a world where everything weighed ten times what it should.

And the door, on the inside. Aster made it herself. With a plate low down, at the height of a heavy queen's stubby foot.

The heavy queen walked into the room on the first morning it was finished. Very slowly. And looked round it. And then sat down on the low stone shelf.

It held.

She hummed. Very low. Very satisfied.

Garnet named it.

She'd said she would, and she did. She came out onto the plain with her pot of gold paint and her brush and painted the letters on the point of the second ship, very carefully, with her tongue between her teeth. The same curling letters she'd used for Thorne's sign, and the Open Hand.

STEADY

Rory came out of the city to look at it. He stood at the bottom of the ramp with his grandson on his shoulders, very big, very still, and read it twice.

"That's my word," he said.

"I know," said Garnet. "It's what you say to things. To the furnace. And Sera. And Liam. And the baby." She put her brush down. "It always works."

Rory didn't say anything for a long time.

Then he put his big hand on Garnet's head. Very gently.

"Steady," he said.

Garnet grinned.

Days 1080–1109. Weather.

Risa at the kitchen table at night with a cup she didn't drink: the wheel's world is plains and wind; that's weather. I took three relays on Avalon and Okafor called it weather; I've never been on one; I've been here with Dory and then Ash. I'd like to go. Sera: Dory. Dory has three mothers, a grandmother she likes better than any of us, two aunts and a queen; she'll check on me the whole way and be insufferable. Sera drank half her cup and gave it back: then go, and come back. Yes.

Okafor's list: Friese, Risa, weather; Friese, Sigmund, also weather, try not to compete; not a question. Keir, Aster, Gareth, the youngest and Sesh, Juno, the General because she won't go anywhere again without a wall she can put up in a minute, Genny, me. And the copper queen, who wants to be the first thing her young see; she rolled up the ramp and round the deck twice and stopped in a corner humming. Apparently. Dory took Risa's face in both hands like Maura: come back. Yes. Mama's going to make weather. I'm going to watch.

Fifty-eight minutes; the copper queen sang toward home too and Aster says it saved two or three. A plain so flat the horizon is a ruler all round, and a wind through the hull that has never once stopped since before there was anything to blow on. Risa, hand on the window: oh. It's all charge; the wind rubs it off the plain and carries it round and it never comes down; there's never been a storm here; nobody's ever let it out.

On the horizon, grey teeth: relays, like Avalon's long ago, bigger and many more. Aster: sixty towers a mile apart round a ring miles wide, one handler each. Inside, tens of thousands of copper wheels rolling one way round and round in grey dust so deep they sink in. Juno: roll, don't stop, grind it; there was grass, wherever the queen rolled it grew; the Sorn needed dust for something somewhere; they've ground the middle of the world to nothing. The copper queen went very still.

Okafor: I can open what I can see, but not sixty towers round a ring from one place, and the moment the first goes the rest know. Juno: they'll push everything into the collars and roll the young at whatever they point at, us, as fast as the wind. Risa: then we take the wind. Or let it out; everything it's carried longer than anything's been alive, down. Not on wire young; on the towers. Sigmund: sixty, a mile apart, at once? Not you. Us. Father's house, a spark across the dinner table, I threw it back and the house went dark; Frieses don't play with weather. Let's play with weather, Siggy. Okafor: Dask, collars when the towers go; General, something in front of us; Genny, the lullaby now; you, ma'am, be the first thing they see. Friese, both of you. Make weather.

On the roof in a wind like a wall, hands held. She didn't make anything. It was all there already. She asked it to come down. The whole sky went white from inside like a lamp. Sigmund aimed with his flat hand, as at the launch site, and found every tower with the lightning. Risa let go. Sixty bolts at the same instant, one sound like the whole world clapping. Every tower white, then blue, then a colour I have no name for, lightning running into the dust in branches like Sera's arms. The voice stopped. All sixty.

The young kept rolling, with the wind, toward us. The General on the dust with no water to freeze built a wall of cold, air so cold it went white and solid, a mile, two, more, faster than he's ever built. The wind went up it like up the Nivi mountain and the young slowed and piled against its foot like leaves on a fence. I went up high enough to see the whole ring and asked every collar to forget; the air went grey with them. Genny: they're not pulling; they stopped when the towers went; they never wanted to; they're waiting to see what happens.

The copper queen rolled down the ramp alone across the dust toward the drift, and behind her the dust went green, a thin line like a thread through cloth. She sang. One plate-sized young wobbled out as if it had forgotten any direction but round; then a hundred, a thousand, all, out across the plain wherever the wind went, and green behind every one.

Risa came in off the roof at dusk. The white went out of the sky all afternoon, the last charge falling soft and harmless far off, then the first rain the plains world has ever had, onto a plain turning green in long lines. She sat on the deck and laughed till she cried. Sigmund: Father would have hated that. Frieses don't play with weather. I know. Home, Dory held out both hands and Risa took them: I watched you make weather through the thread. I felt you the whole time. It was loud. Do it again.

Okafor wrote 2 under the 1. Six more on the map and the ninth, and however many past that. Garnet: how many? More than this world has stones. Then you'll need a bigger slate.

The old Kethri-world Hand, folded small on the forest floor with the old queen's blessing and carried home, unfolded beside the Open Hand. Older, harder to ask; a cage so long it nearly forgot it was ever anything else. But it remembered. The heavy queen stood at the keel, too heavy for a perch, and sang low to Genny like a stone rolling, and Genny laughed out loud: bigger room, lower perch, much stronger; she's carried more weight than anyone on Avalon every day of her life and would like once to carry something she chose. A low wide shelf of grey-black rock from the canyon bottom; Aster's door with a plate at the height of a stubby foot. She sat. It held. She hummed, very satisfied. Garnet in gold on the point: STEADY. Rory with his grandson on his shoulders read it twice: that's my word. It's what you say to things, and it always works. His hand on her head: steady. She grinned.