Above The Clouds

He tightened the straps of his pack, tucked his scarf beneath his collar, and stepped onto the first stair.

It held.

The stone - or cloud, or whatever it was - felt firm beneath his boot, but cold pressed through the sole at once. Jack placed his weight carefully and climbed. The second step appeared only when he reached for it. Then the third. Each one formed from a curl of vapor and hardened beneath him, glowing faintly at the edges.

Behind him, the ridge shrank into the gray morning.

The cloudbank rose around his knees, then his waist. It was not empty mist. Shapes moved inside it: towering folds, sudden hollows, ridges that rolled and broke apart. The clouds made a sound like distant surf, though there was no sea for miles.

Jack gripped the rail that had appeared along one side of the staircase. It was smooth and warm, braided from pale light.

“Where do you lead?” he asked.

The stairway answered with a crack of thunder.

Jack flinched. The cloudbank surged upward, folding over the steps ahead. The golden marks vanished beneath a wall of white.

He stopped.

A second later, the cloud rolled back. The staircase had changed. What had been a straight climb now curved sharply to the left, its upper steps suspended over a hollow in the clouds. The rail bent with it, shining like a thread pulled through cloth.

Jack looked over his shoulder. The lower steps were disappearing too.

The cloudbank shifted again, and the mountain ridge was gone.

His stomach tightened. He was no longer climbing from one safe place to another. He was standing inside a moving landscape that could erase the way home.

“Keep moving,” he told himself.

He climbed faster.

The wind grew fierce above the cloud tops. It shoved at his back, then struck from the side, forcing him against the rail. The staircase trembled under his feet. Every step appeared a breath before he needed it, but sometimes the next one formed too far away.

Jack reached for a gap and missed.

His boot slid into open cloud.

He dropped to one knee, fingers closing around the rail. The stair beneath him dissolved with a soft, brittle hiss. Cold rushed around his leg. Below, the clouds opened into a vast hollow, and far beneath that hollow, tiny lights marked the mountain villages.

Jack pulled himself up, scraping his palm against the glowing rail.

“Not like that,” he gasped.

The wind answered by lifting him from the steps.

His pack jerked hard against his shoulders. One boot left the staircase. Then the other.

Jack clung to the rail with both hands. The cloudbank spun around him, white and silver, and the stairway twisted away beneath his swinging legs. The roar became a thousand voices whispering at once.

He could let go and fall toward the mountain.

Or he could climb.

The thought came quietly, almost lost beneath the storm.

Jack hooked one elbow over the rail and dragged himself forward. His scraped palm burned. He found a step with his knee, then another. The wind tore at his coat, but he crawled until both feet were planted again.

A golden mark flared beneath his hand.

The storm stopped.

Not faded. Not weakened. Stopped.

Jack raised his head.

The clouds had opened into a wide circular passage. Beyond it, a pale blue sky curved upward, deeper and clearer than any sky he had ever seen. The staircase climbed through the center of the opening, its steps now broad enough for two people.

Above the passage, something moved.

At first Jack thought it was another cloud. Then sunlight flashed along a tall spire.

He stood.

A city floated beyond the storm.

It hung in the open sky on enormous terraces of white stone, each terrace joined to the next by bridges thin as ribbons. Towers rose from the terraces, slender and shining, with roofs shaped like wings. Golden windows burned in the morning light. Great bells - or perhaps chimes - swayed between the towers, their silver notes drifting down through the clouds.

Jack forgot the wind.

Figures crossed one of the high bridges. They wore pale robes that streamed behind them, and from their shoulders spread wide, luminous wings.

Angels.

The word formed in Jack’s mind before he could speak it.

The city stood above everything: above the mountain, above the storm, above the last floating scraps of cloud. Sunlight poured around it as if the whole sky had been made to reveal that one hidden place.

Jack took a step upward.

The clouds slammed together behind him.

A wall of white thunder rolled across the staircase. The passage narrowed. The city blurred.

“No!” Jack shouted.

He ran.

The steps flashed into existence beneath his boots. He climbed through the narrowing opening while the cloudbank twisted around him. The wind struck from above now, driving him backward. Jack lowered his head and pushed forward, one hand on the rail, one reaching for the next step.

The city disappeared.

Only the staircase remained, curving through the storm.

Jack’s breath came in sharp bursts. He could still see the image in his mind: the winged figures, the shining towers, the bridges suspended over the blue world. He had not imagined it. The warmth of the golden rail pressed into his palm like proof.

Another stair formed.

Jack climbed onto it.

The cloud beneath his left foot buckled. He lurched sideways, and his pack caught on a jagged curl of vapor. The strap tore with a loud snap. His blanket and food pouch tumbled into the whiteness below.

Jack grabbed for them, but they vanished before he could move.

He stared into the cloud.

“That was my food,” he said.

The storm gave no apology.

A narrow landing appeared above him, barely wider than a doorstep. At its center rested a flat piece of silver-white material, folded like a sheet of paper. Lines glimmered across it, forming paths, circles, and tiny marks shaped like stars.

Jack climbed toward it.

The wind rose behind him.

He reached the landing just as the staircase buckled. The rail snapped free from the steps and whipped past his shoulder. Jack threw himself forward, landing on the silver sheet.

Light burst beneath his hands.

The lines on the sheet moved.

They flowed like streams, joining into a map of the cloudbank. One route curved upward through the storm toward the city. Another ended at a symbol shaped like an open gate. A third line circled back toward the mountain, then faded.

Jack lifted the sheet.

It was warm, almost alive. The glowing lines shifted beneath its surface, redrawing themselves whenever the clouds moved.

“A map,” he murmured.

The landing tilted.

Jack shoved the map into his coat and pressed himself flat. The cloudbank rose around the landing, swallowing the edges. Somewhere below, the broken staircase groaned.

He looked back.

The path behind him had thinned to a chain of fading steps. Beyond it, the cloudbank churned in a vast white wall. The mountain was nowhere to be seen.

Jack crawled toward the upper edge of the landing. Through a slit in the clouds, the city appeared again.

This time, he saw more.

A ring of bridges encircled the outer terraces. Tall gates stood at the nearest entrance, made of gold and pale blue glass. Figures gathered there, their wings shining in the sun. One lifted an arm, and a beam of light traveled along the bridge toward the storm.

Toward Jack.

The beam struck the clouds below the landing.

The whole staircase shuddered.

Jack slid toward the edge. He caught the silver sheet as it skittered away, then seized a raised seam in the landing with his other hand. The wind screamed across the open sky. The city’s gates grew larger as the landing rose, carried by a current he could not control.

“Wait!” Jack shouted, though he did not know whether he was calling to the city or the storm.

The landing shot upward.

Clouds tore apart beneath him. The last stair vanished into the white, leaving Jack alone on the small platform with the map clutched against his chest. The city came rushing closer, its towers bright enough to hurt his eyes.

For one breath, he saw the outer gate clearly.

An angel stood upon it, wings spread against the sky.

Then the cloudbank folded shut behind Jack.

The staircase was gone.

He turned, searching for a step, a rail, anything that might lead back. There was only open air and the endless white storm below. The landing drifted onward, carrying him toward the city.

Jack looked down at the mountain’s hidden world, now sealed beneath the clouds. His scraped hand trembled around the map.

He had found the place the light had promised.

But the way home had disappeared.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters and about 9,205 words in the full book.