Whispers on the Wind: The City of Clouds

Part 5: Into the City

I felt ashamed of my reticence and over the next few days attempted to rekindle my friendship with Derla. It was not entirely altruistic—I wished more than anything to journey out into the mysterious city.

Derla’s manner gradually eased. She was weary, that was apparent. Hirk had taken a turn for the worse after I had visited him, and it did not take a sage to ascertain that Derla bore the burden of guilt. Yet I knew what an indolent poison remorse can be, and I resolved to try and lighten her load.

“Is it uncommon for humans to visit this cloud city of yours?” I asked, as Derla set my food before me one morning. I noticed that she had trimmed the feathers around her eyes, and applied a faint violet dye around her beak.

“It is rare, but not unheard of. We host mainly Eerian knights, on their beautiful griffons, and Air-mages who come to converse with our Storm-singers.”

“They are your sorcerers?”

“Yes, although they are few in number now. They focus their attentions on the maintenance of our city and its place in the skies. The matter of war is firmly in the talons of our Rangers, like Hirk-mate.”

“Is Hirk recovering?”

“He runs a fever still. You must excuse me, Seryn. I have to go into the city and buy some herbs for the salves.”

I took the opportunity. “If I am not to be such a rare sight, perhaps I may accompany you?”

“I’m... not certain...I...”

“I am hardly a prisoner here, am I?” I said. It was wrong to persist, I knew, but I was desperate to see the city.

“No, of course not. It’s just Hirk-mate...”

“He wouldn’t mind, I’m certain. I’m sure that he’d do the same were he not unwell.”

Derla nodded, and I got a sense of excitement from her. “As you say. It’d be my pleasure. Are you agreeable to leaving your sword?”

It was such an unusual question that it took me by surprise. In all truth it had been one of the first weeks in the last year that I had not through about my sword and how close to my hands it was.

“I’m certain I’ll have little recourse to using it,” I said. The idea of leaving it behind did feel strange, as if I were leaving home without my tunic or boots.

“I’ll protect you.” Derla’s cooing laughter was invigorating. “It is said my singing could slay a horde of giants.”

I chuckled as I held onto her chest. With a leap we were airborne. Derla’s wings unfurled like a beautiful canopy, catching the breeze as it whipped around the edge of the building. Her grip was tight and warm, and I found myself as lost in the comfort of her embrace as I did the wondrous site ahead of me.

The winds were complex within the canyons of the city, but Derla navigated them with little effort. Dozens of Netreptans of all sizes and colours flew past, most regarding me with polite curiosity.

The city soared around us, its lofty towers pushing towards the roof of the world like bulbous fingers. I had never seen a place on so many levels. Shorvorians construct their buildings low and flat, only the jitūns being permitted to have residences beyond a second storey. And for my own part, I spent my childhood in tents and pavilions, nose clogged with the smell of polished metal and leather.

We passed a quartet of Netreptans warbling a melody that echoed off the rounded walls behind them. Below us a market bustled, spread over five platforms that jutted from the side of a pale blue building. Two Rangers perched on a slender pole that protruded into the air a hundred feet above the street below. Derla swooped lower, and I could see a gap between the buildings where a vast carpet of fungi lay. Scores of Netreptans were picking the huge mushrooms, and herding huge insects into narrow pens where they teemed and skittered.