The Hundred Falling Worlds
by David Barber
The hundred falling worlds of legend hang like mountains in the Airs, unkempt with forest, like islands plucked from seas, cliffed and trailing green, the least of them like castles, and anything less and smaller long since snatched away by the winds...
* * *
Arn fled the communal caves on Topmost when he heard children yelling that the Constables were coming. Their red wings had been spotted, and the boldest of the children asked if Arn was in trouble. “Strange Arn’s in trouble,” the little ones chorused, not sure what it meant.
When Arn first came to Topmost, he was called Arn The Stranger — Arn already being a common name — and later, Strange Arn when they knew him better. On bigger, more organised worlds there were officials with powers to grant or deny residence; on Topmost, idle bystanders just gathered round the novelty of a visitor.
“What you want here?” someone had called out.
Arn never stayed anywhere long. Some worlds he left in a hurry. He chose Topmost because it was the most backward and remote world, and no one would bother him while he made his plans.
“Any of you been off Topmost?” he countered.
He appealed to the suspicious faces around him. Even compared to Arn, these folk were ragged and scrawny. Elsewhere in the Hundred Worlds, Topmost was the subject of jokes about rock-crawlers, poverty, and incest.
“Well, I have,” he told them. “But I’ve never found another world that suited better.”
Perhaps he caught their mood and they shrugged acceptance. Or was it indifference? Being the last of the falling worlds, Topmost was gusted by turbulence, and it would be no loss if the Airs took a flyer like him.
There was a notion that Topmost was falling behind the other worlds; that generation by generation the gap was widening, and one day its folk would fall through the Bright alone. On Topmost it was considered bad luck to mention this.
As on all worlds, the communal caves on the dropward face were safely surrounded by trees, all combed the same way by the wind. Beyond this, the crops and vegetation eventually gave way to bare rock. And near the summit of Topmost, with only the Bright above, Arn found deep-dug caves, the rotted remains of rope netting, and edible fungi gone wild. Folk had tried to live here once. He shook his head at the thought of it.
He used one of these caves to hide the craft he was building to fly to the Speck.
* * *
It seems to the rock-bound that the worlds are floating, but they fall, they fall! Which can be proved by stepping off into the wind’s roar and seeing the solid ground recede beneath you. Flyers tuck wings in tight, streamlining to catch up again. This is how we move between the worlds, our children are warned: one misstep and the Airs will take them...
* * *
“How did the Worlds come to fall?” began the old man.
The stories of the Falling Worlds are taught to every child. The storyteller was always one of the elderly, trying to make themselves useful. This was on the world called Pebble, where Arn grew up.
“We know that one,” Young Arn called out. “Tell us the one about gravity.” That story always puzzled him. The youngsters started to complain, but Arn glared them into silence.
“Gravity,” the old man wheezed. “Well, gravity’s like the hair mothers braid for a tether, so the Airs don’t grab her littlest before they know what’s what. Now, who knows the biggest of the worlds?”
Arn fretted at lessons like this. What did it matter knowing which world was largest, or smallest, or led the rest dropwards into the Bright?
“Well, who knows the farthest of the worlds?”
This was a new question. This time no hands shot up. The old man looked from face to face.
“The farthest world is the Speck,” he announced.
Though they sometimes plunged through life-giving rain clouds and out into the Bright again, wisdom had it that the Hundred Falling Worlds were all the Bright contained, all that the uncertain lives of men might cling to.
Then the Speck grew from a test of eyesight to a stray world in a lifetime, and tales were told of its riches, its warm caves and food beasts eager to be eaten, but these were not the reasons young Arn would dream of flying there.
It was the first the children had heard of a new world and, as the old man explained, Arn’s eyes grew round.
* * *
The grizzled flyer was looking for an apprentice. His trade was lofting cargo between the worlds slung from an oversized chute. He had a bent leg, an old injury caused by unlucky winds and a stubborn load. The pain of it made him bad-tempered and his apprentices never stayed long. He looked Arn up and down and asked why he wanted to learn the trade.
“It would be a first step,” Arn said shyly, and confided his dream of flying to the Speck.
“Being a fool is the first step,” the flyer interrupted. “You speak nonsense. Isn’t life on the Hundred Worlds hard enough?” And he sent Arn packing.
After that, apprenticed elsewhere, Arn kept his mouth shut. He would never be the best flyer in the Airs, but he learned the tricks played by those cumbersome cargo chutes. When the day came to fly to the Speck, it would be with such a rig. He learned that others thought his idea fanciful and foolish, and he would have to manage his plan alone.
Soon he was thieving tools and rope, and cutting wood without licence, opportunities he spotted while helping deliver cargo. That he managed it without being caught was more luck than cunning and, in the end, the Constables came for him on Topmost because of the needlewoman.
“You want a chute how big?” the needlewoman asked.
Flyers wore wings tied to ankle and wrist; the chute he described could only be for cargo, and Arn was far too young to be master of that trade.
“And what have you to pay with?” she demanded.
Arn had explained his plan to other needlewomen, on other worlds. If each gifted a patch, just an offcut or two, then altogether they might make up a chute. He could go to the Speck and none would feel the loss.
The woman put aside her work. All this so he could go to the Speck? She spat into the wind. A notion of so little worth it could be thrown away. Still, she was wary of him, of the look on his face, and conceded that if needlewomen did pool offcuts then there might be more wings and chutes. Something of use at least.
Arn went away frustrated. How could folk not see the sense in what he said? But later, when the needlewoman found a chute missing, she knew whom to send the Constables after.
* * *
The children trailed after Strange Arn, hoping to see him fight the Constables, but he simply unfastened his wings and stepped out into the Airs. He watched their upturned faces dwindle as Topmost fell away. It seemed he was rising, but all flyers know it is they who slow while the Worlds continue to fall.
Around Topmost, the Airs could be wild, and Arn needed all his strength and skill to tumble into the netting at the cave’s mouth. Peering up, he glimpsed the red of Constables who were steering wide of the dangerous winds, letting Topmost fall below them before closing their wings and catching up.
Arn flung tools and food and water and anything to hand into his craft. Shading his eyes, he scanned the Airs and glimpsed figures already drifting downwards. He hastily laid out the chute and climbed aboard the basket, but the heavy material barely rippled in the wind. It was one reason cargo flyers needed an apprentice. If he helped the chute into the winds, it would be wrenched away without him; if he did not, they would stay together.
He was still sitting in his laden basket, weeping with frustration, when the first Constable landed not far away.
“You can’t stop me!” Arn cried, though it was obvious they could.
“Arn the Stranger, of Topmost, you are accused of theft from the People,” announced the Constable. “Also the lesser charge of squander.”
The punishment for such crimes was to be dropped into the Airs without wings. Just thrown away, the worst of ends.
The Constable’s hard gaze took in Arn’s tears, his makeshift craft and the foolishness of his plan. “And here is your guilt.”
But when he came closer, the Constable’s expression changed and grew cunning. “The Worlds are in trouble,” he confided. “Too many mouths, too little of what is needed.” He shrugged. “Perhaps there is an answer in this madness of yours.” Then his face hardened again. “If you ever come back, make sure you first speak to us about what you found.”
“Pity we were too late to stop him,” he announced, and signalled other Constables to stretch Arn’s chute into the wind.
“Wait!” cried Arn in surprise, as the wind jerked his craft upwards.
He wanted them to know he didn’t do this to bring back a mouthful for the hungry. He had no faith in the tales told about the Speck. In a way, he did not care what he might find; it was a release after being confined for so long; stretching after a lifetime’s narrowness. He thought to yell this down to them, but Topmost was already dwindling and soon he could cover it with his hand.
But he shouted all the same, the wind snatching his words away. Then he leaned out, craning his neck to catch sight of the Speck far above. How could anyone not want to explore like this? He capered and jigged and yelled until he became tangled up in all the haphazard clutter he had thrown aboard and lay panting.
Slowly the wild swings of his craft settled. Yes, things needed stowing, and he must ration out his supplies. Who knew what was waiting? This was just the beginning.
Below him the Hundred Worlds fell through the endless Bright.
Copyright © 2022 by David Barber
