And they said no more. I reached out with my hands, but they were gone. All was silent. And dark.
At first, all I could hear was my own heartbeat. Then the sounds of the city, the passage of robed Singers above and below me, the bones all around me, began to whisper.
With the blindfold tight around my eyes, I was caught within a wall of darkness. My own enclosure. I felt panic stir.
To quiet the noise, I tried standing still where Ciel had left me. I tilted my head back and clicked, my tongue soft against my palate. I experimented with different speeds. The alcove’s dimensions were small, though not as small as the pocket where I was first held in the Spire. And this room’s exit was an obvious arch. No echoes at all. But I refused to walk out yet, into the jumble of the Spire, and towards the edge of the Gyre. I needed to practice, a lot. And fast.
I explored the alcove with my hands and with the echoes I could make. I tried using the rod and humming. I sensed that the ceiling was low.
A different set of echoes, lower and less sharp, told me something about what was arranged along the far wall. I slid my foot forward and skirted the vent to reach the sleeping pad and the necessaries. Then I curled into a ball and slept.
When I woke, it was dark. My hands went to my face, and I realized it would always be dark until the blindfold was taken away. I lay still and listened, trying to breathe slowly, so that I could hear other things besides my heart pounding.
The rhythm of the Spire had slowed. I heard robes sliding down the bone ladders and across the floors. I heard whispers from passing Singers, but not many. Then I heard a snap of silk and battens, the sound of someone leaping into the Gyre nearby. This was glorious: the sharp sounds wings made against wind, the song a body made when it cut through the air.
I sat up. Others had learned to hear. I could too. I touched my tongue to the roof of my mouth again. It felt fuzzy, like I’d been doing this too much. I clicked my tongue fast, and I found the shape of the space I occupied. When I knew that, I could walk it.
I thunked my shins hard against a bone bench. My own yelp was the loudest sound I’d heard in hours.
Giving up seemed so easy. I had to find my wings by touch.
Still, I pulled them over my shoulders without removing the blindfold. I heard the drag of the straps across my robe. The city whispered blandishments from the walls. A class let out two tiers above me, and I heard the almost-whispers of the youngest novices as if they were much closer.
Focus. I needed to focus.
I shuffled back to the center of the room and made a slow turn. My echoes bounced off the bench differently than the wall. My sleeping mat muffled sound, while the alcove’s archway pulled it out into the passage beyond.
I practiced until I could sense the room. My stomach growled, then gave up. My mouth felt thick with thirst. I echoed my way across the room to a hook, where something sounded solid and soft at the same time. I reached out and touched a lukewarm bladder of water. Carefully, I lifted it from its hook. I drank and laughed at what I’d done, coughing as my first success went down my windpipe, rather than my throat.
When I thought I was ready, I stepped out of the alcove.
Sounds washed over me from everywhere. People moved past, close and far, and their sounds battered at my senses. Behind the blindfold, I could perceive shapes rushing at me and away, but the noise was confusing. I stepped back into the alcove and lay down. I could not do this. Moc and Ciel couldn’t do this yet, and they’d been practicing for longer than I.
“You can do it,” a voice said, from close by.
I sat up. Sellis’s voice.
“I did it. You can do it. Let me give you some hints.”
She told me how to hold my head straight, how to avoid being distracted by a sound, turning, and losing my way. She told me about the path around this tier, how far away the dining alcove was, and the shapes I might encounter.
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because Rumul won’t let me night fly without you.” She said it simply, with regret, so I knew she told the truth. “Even if you don’t make it, they won’t start a night flight without partnered pairs, and no one else is training now. So you need to learn fast.”
“Singers fly blindfolded?”
A pause. “Absolutely not. But when you do fly in the dark, you can use your ears to help navigate. Once you learn to hear, you can see where most people in the city can’t. It’s an augmentation, not a replacement, Kirit.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but when I reached out to touch her shoulder, I grasped air. I sounded the room and discovered she’d already gone. Echoes surrounded me instead.
When the Singers began The Rise that night, the sound bloomed in my mind. I started to cover my ears, but then I opened my mouth and sang instead. Singing with them lessened the discordant sounds that I felt through my bones.
My rough voice matched the deep group voice word for word.
Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow I’d make my way blind around the Spire. I would not fall.
And then the Singers would let me fly the city again.
* * *
The Spire’s morning noises woke me. In darkness, I heard whispered orders, the shuffling of feet. Pulleys rattled, and buckets clattered. A whipperling launched from a nearby tier and flutter-screeched away.
I touched my blindfold, then dropped my hand to the mat where I’d put my father’s lenses. Ran my fingers over the age-pitted metal, the cool glass.
When I stepped from the alcove this time, I could echo and build an image of the simple room I’d left behind: an empty water bladder hung from a wall, a neatly folded sleeping mat, and, atop the mat, a pair of lenses.
The passage beyond my room felt vast and featureless to my ears. I echoed until I could hear the difference between the ledge and the drop beside the ledge. I unfurled my wings, just in case. My fingers tempted the edge of the blindfold. Stopped. If Wik had lookouts nearby watching me, even Moc or Ciel, they would know. They would tell.
I slid one foot forward across the bone floor, then the next. My tongue touched the roof of my mouth, light and fast. Turning my head from side to side let me sweep the space before me. I made my way across the passage in spurts, avoiding alcoves and bone spurs, to stand with both hands pressed against the outer wall of the Spire.
Thud. My heart pounded. My ears boomed. My hands felt the echoes of the city. I’d made it.
I spun quickly, reversing direction — I hoped — and echoed again. A large shape blocked the open space. It moved before I could sense more than breadth and height. Not Moc or Ciel, that was certain.
“Who is there?”
No answer. I hadn’t thought there would be.
With a deep breath, I turned to the wall and felt my way along the carved surface until I reached the ladder. I echoed up and sensed the way was clear for several tiers. When I stepped onto the rungs, I thought of Elna, climbing near-blind up Densira. How knowledge like this could have made her way easier. Safer.
What Nat wouldn’t have given to know this. The thought didn’t make me sad this time. Instead, I felt a rush of strength. In this, I was stronger than anyone in the towers. I knew now why Singers stood so quiet, so confident.
Distracted, I missed a rung with my foot and grabbed hard with both hands to keep from tumbling. Below me, I heard nothing. No intake of breath, no faint grunt as arms and legs braced to catch my fall. I echoed over my shoulder, and the ladder was clear of climbers. I was on my own.
For the rest of my blind climb, I moved carefully, staying focused. I would think of the towers later, when I had time. When I was safe.
The novice dining alcove was four tiers up from my alcove. I counted the tiers as I passed them, hearing the sounds of footfalls and robes change tone and clarity as I climbed. Where Sellis slept, few seemed to be about. The entire tier sounded empty as I paused to rest on the ladder. An echo-sweep across the passageway caught someone in the act of climbing over the ledge of the Gyre, using the pulley ropes.