Andrea Höst - The Towers, the Moon

France, under the rule of the Court of the Moon, is a country ofcyclical change, where the true rulers arrive every night to competeamong themselves, and humans are backdrop, witnesses, inessential andyet inextricably intertwined.

It is the reign of the Gilded Tower, and fashions are daring.

Two Wings: Griff Tenning has suffered too much change in the pastyear, and wishes everything would quiet down for a while - or, betterstill, would go back to when his parents were alive. But, even so, itsuseful that his odd aunt can afford airship tickets to France. On such aquick trip, his hated travel sickness wont be enough to keep him from achance to stand beneath the impossible Towers of the Moon.

Forfeit: Forfeit is the newest game of the Court of the Moon, andone seemingly designed for humans to lose. But Arianne Seaforth iswilling to pay a great deal to help her oldest friend and she islearning to extract a price of her own.

Death and the Moon: Eluned Tenning can barely remember all the namesof the vast network of cousins making her sixteenth birthday party sooverwhelming. But she has no problems with would-be actor Milo, who isso calmly quiet and friendly. Shed never step on a stage herself, butshes happy to help him rehearse.

This book is in Australian English.

These short stories sit between The Pyramids of London and Tangleways inThe Trifold Age series. They contain mild spoilers for The Pyramids ofLondon.

Griff Tenning, kneeling on his seat, strained to see through to thewindows of the airships forward compartment, but there were heads, apotted palm, and a very round man in the way.

"How can these be the best seats for viewing?" he asked. "At the backand on the wrong side?"

"Which is better?" his aunt replied. "A long view at a distance, or ashorter view right up close?"

"Both. They wouldnt even notice if I went up front."

"They did the last two times," Griffs sister Ned said. "I think theymeant it about putting you up in one of the ballonet seats next timethey caught you."

The insistence of the airship staff that passengers keep to their ownparticular quarter of the main gondola, rather than crowd to the bestvantage points, was peculiar and unfair, but Griff had yet to find a wayaround it. Ever since hed turned thirteen, opening his eyes wide andasking as politely as possible was no longer consistently effective.Unfair.

Deciding not to risk being stowed up with the second class passengersinside the outer envelope of the airships ballonet, where there wouldbe no views at all, Griff turned to his own window. At least they werecoming over the city proper now, and there were streets, and rows ofhouses, all dressed up in tiny wrought iron balconies, too small to evenstep out on. Griff thrust his head out the window, and when Aunt Ariannequickly grasped the waistband of his shendy, he leaned further, drinkingin the courses of the roads, and all the different sorts of chimneys.Lutce, capital of France, spread out like a little map.

Airships were better than anything. You could see the citys bones fromup above, and all the little secret places usually blocked by highwalls. Best of all, Griff didnt really feel like they were moving, andso long as he didnt keep focused on any single object on the ground, hehardly felt sick at all.

"Were about to turn," a passing attendant said. "Youll see the SunPalace almost directly below us, and then the Towers."

Griff leaned further, then pulled back a little when Aunt Arianne gavehis waistband a warning tug. It was bad design that the airship didnthave a glass bottom. He wanted to see the palace from above mostparticularly, because photographs were not the same, andyes! There itwas.

France had a Sun Court and a Moon Court. The Moon Court the Cour deLune was properly in charge, of course, but since they could only comeout at night, the French had a human King as well. The yellow stonepalace curving along the shore of a dark artificial lake was meant torepresent a solar eclipse, to make sure the King never forgot exactlywhere he stood. This King. They changed kings a lot, in France.

The palace faade was a perfect curve, and there were exactly twohundred and twenty-two columns. Symmetry and repetition, not somethingthat would be interesting if it was everywhere, but

Stomach churning, Griff sat down. Aunt Arianne handed him a glass ofwater, and he took a hasty sip, then turned the whole of his attentionback to the window, and just in time. One of the worlds greatestwonders heeled into view.

"Its like a giant dandelion."

Typical Ned, with her head full of plants. "A snowflake," Griffcorrected. "If snowflakes formed as domes instead of flat."

Though he saw where Ned had got the idea of dandelions. There was acentral core, dimpled much like the round bit at the centre of a puff ofdandelion seeds. That was the Hall of Balance, filling the Island ofEmergence right in the middle of the River Seine. Out of it rose theTowers of the Moon. The central tower, the Tower of Balance, grewdirectly up: a single smooth column interrupted three times byhorizontal structures, smaller columns spreading out to forminterconnecting stars. The stars increased in size so that the largestwas at the top, like a faintly curving snowflake suspended on a pole.

Four other major towers grew to the same length as the central column,but projected out at precise forty-five degree angles north, south, eastand west. The stars of their three levels met and joined with eachother, and with the stars of the central column, to form three filigreedomes, each inside the other.

The whole thing was a deep black, though up close the black would havetones of muted, rainbow velvet. And that was just in the daytime. Atnight, when the Cour de Lune came, it would glow white and then reallywould look like a dandelion.

But more like a snowflake.

No human could build anything like the Towers of the Moon. The Towershad grown, expanding from the central core, and increased in size everyyear since the Court had taken France. The entire thing was hollow,filled with floors and walls and furniture, waiting for sunset when theCourt would arrive. Griff began calculating just how many square milesit covered, and how long, at the known rate of growth, it would bebefore it swallowed the Sun Palace for the third time in the Courtshistory and they would have to build another.

Enormous as it was, Griffs view of the Towers was irritatingly short,as the airship curved around to the north-west and began to drop towardthe ground. Griff continued to stare at the increasingly foreshortenedview, but sat back as he did so.

"Le Tour de l'quilibre" Ned was saying.

"La Tour," Griff put in quickly. "Towers are la, right, Aunt Arianne?"

"Thats right," Aunt Arianne said. "The one nearest us is La Tour deciel. East is La Tour de neige, west is La Tour Dore, and north La Tourde tambour."

"The Sky, the Snow, the Gilded, and the Drum," Griff said helpfully, andquickly moved out of reach when Ned leaned forward to tweak his nose."Im not showing off, Im explaining."

"Good that he can speak a bit of it," Griffs other sister, Eleri, said."Even if obnoxious about it."

Griff peeked at her out of the corner of his eye. A little while ago,Eleri had stopped being Eleri, and had become someone who spoke a lotless, and moped over a girl, and was different and strange. Griff didntknow how to make her go back to being Eleri.

"You two will be able to get by on your Latin," Aunt Arianne said."Tante Sabet is fluent most people who have to deal frequently withtravellers have some Latin, if grudgingly so, and the constant exchangeof rule in Aquitania gives Latin a particularly strong presence inFrance."