They found them the next morning, or rather, they were found.
Mav woke on the floor of the ruined hall because Ronald’s hand was on his arm, gripping it hard.
He opened his eyes. Someone was standing in the doorway.
It was tall, taller than any man that he had ever seen, and very thin. Its skin was gray, like old stone, and it had long white hair tied back with a cord. Two great wings of gray skin were folded against its back, like a bat’s, with thin bones running through them. It held a spear with a point of white bone.
Behind it, there were more of them. Some stood on the rocks outside. Others hung in the wind with their wings spread, holding perfectly still.
Mav didn’t move. He thought about his chances, but he didn’t like them. He was lying on the stone floor, with his harpoon two steps away and his army at home. The nearest of these people could put a spear through him before he reached it.
They didn’t seem to want to, though. The tall one tilted its head and studied him. Then it spoke.
"You fell from the sky," it said.
Its voice was strange. It was thin, high and hollow, like wind blowing across the top of a pipe. Still, the words were clear, and they were in the common tongue.
"Yes," Mav said. "Through a vortex. We didn’t mean to come here."
"Nobody means to." The winged man looked past him, at Ronald and Tamsin, who were both sitting very still. "You are Awakened. We saw your water shining in the dark from the far islands. You are not the first to fall, but the others did not live long. The serpents found them first." He lowered his spear a little. "Come with us. The Speaker will want to see you."
It didn’t sound like a request.
Mav looked at the spears and at the wings in the wind. He could call his army. He could probably kill some of them before they killed him. But these people had come to talk, and they were the first thing in this World that knew how it worked.
"All right," he said. "We’ll come."
-----
They flew.
The winged people carried them two to each person, with their long gray hands hooked under their arms. Mav hadn’t been carried by anyone since he was a small child. He hated it, but he hated the cloud below his feet even more. It was the only way to cross between the islands, though, so he held on and said nothing.
Tamsin had her eyes closed. Ronald had his wide open. He was staring at everything with his mouth slightly open, as if he were afraid to miss something.
On the way, Mav learned a little. The tall one was called Hessan, and he led the guard of the far islands. The winged people had lived here for 300 years. They had been the builders of the master who made this World. In that time, they had grown, and the oldest of them were now rank C.
’So they speak,’ Mav thought. ’The Genesis gave them words, because they’re Subjects. But whose Subjects are they now?’
He didn’t ask. In a strange place, he had learned, it was wiser to listen first.
Hessan talked easily. He told them about the serpents, which his people called the white-eyes, and about the rains that came once a year from below the cloud. He said that the master had built the hall on the forest island with his own hands, before he had many builders. He spoke of the master the way that people on Earth spoke of the Genesis, with something close to fear.
Halfway across, Hessan stopped talking in the middle of a word.
All around them, the winged people went still in the air. They spread their wings wide and held them there, gliding without a sound. Mav felt the hands under his arms grip tighter.
Below them, a long gray shape slid out of the cloud. It was a serpent, larger than the one that had taken the goat, rising slowly along the wind with its small white eyes turned up. It passed under them so close that Mav could see the scars on its back.
Nobody moved. Even Ronald held his breath.
The serpent turned its head once, as if it were listening. Then it sank back into the cloud, and the white closed over it.
Hessan let out a long breath. "They feel the beating of wings," he said quietly. "So we stop beating them. You learn that early here, or you don’t live long."
"What was he like?" Tamsin asked. Her eyes were still closed.
Hessan was quiet for a moment, with the wind tearing at his hair.
"I was born after he left," he said. "Only the oldest of us knew him. They say that he was kind, and that he was always alone."
Mav thought about that for the rest of the flight. He was used to being alone too. He had been alone at the bottom of his sea for 30 days, with nobody to ask what anything meant.
He wondered whether the master had ever had a Ronald or a Tamsin. It didn’t sound like it.
-----
The city came into view in the middle of the afternoon.
It stood on the largest island that Mav had seen, a great mountain of rock that floated above the cloud with waterfalls pouring off its sides. The city was cut into the mountain itself. Thousands of windows looked out from the cliffs, with towers of gray stone above them and bridges of rope swinging between them. Winged people were everywhere, flying from window to window and landing on ledges with their wings spread wide.
It was beautiful, and Mav hadn’t expected that. He had expected something hard and poor, like the thin people who carried him. Instead, there were gardens on the terraces. Lines of washing flapped between the windows, with chimes of hollow bone that rang in the wind. Children chased each other through the air, diving off ledges and catching themselves at the last moment, while their mothers shouted at them from the windows.
Ronald was still pale from the flight, but he laughed out loud when he saw it. "It’s like the district at home," he said. "Only everyone can fly."
Mav saw something else, though. Most of the people on the terraces were thin, much thinner than Hessan. Their gardens were small, and the children’s arms were like sticks. It was a city that didn’t have enough to eat.
Hessan’s people set them down on a wide terrace in front of a hall. A crowd had already gathered. Hundreds of gray faces turned toward them at once.
Most of them only looked curious. Some of the children pointed at Ronald, because he was so broad, and laughed in their strange, hollow voices. Nobody seemed afraid.
Mav took a step forward, and his shirt caught on the hook of a winged man’s hand. It had been torn on the cliffs, and now it tore all the way across his shoulder.
The scarf came loose with it.
He reached for it at once, but it was too late. For a moment, the coil of One was there for everyone to see. It lay around his neck and down across his chest, green and alive.
The crowd went quiet.
An old woman at the front of it pushed her way forward. She was smaller than the others. Her wings were thin and torn at the edges, with patches of white in the gray skin, and she moved slowly, as if every step hurt her. She stopped in front of Mav and looked at the green coil around his neck. She was trembling.
Then she knelt on the stone in front of him and bowed her head until it almost touched his feet.
"You came back," she said.