“Objection,” Master Cherix said. “Hearsay. I believe we were earlier indulged in a lengthy legal argument over verification. I resent the hypocrisy now being practiced by opposing counsel.”
“My lords, I lodged no motion. I am simply informing you of a sequence of events. It is for your lordships to weigh the particulars of the case and decide if the court’s time and expense are to be wasted on trivia that will not last the first hour of a trial.”
The senior judge motioned both lawyers to sit. He conferred briefly with his two fellow judges.
“Application for the dismissal of the warrant is approved. Waterwalker, you are free to go.” The gavel was banged to end the session.
The dome on the eastern side of the Parliament House was one of the highest. It had a gallery running around the outside with a bulbous white balustrade that came up only to the knee of a grown man. The squad stood back from the railing, looking out across the city to the Port district. It was late in the afternoon, with the sun already starting to dip behind the rest of the Parliament House domes behind them.
Edeard’s eyes were closed as he scoured the city with his farsight. He was focusing on Edsing and his family, who were trudging across the center of Pholas Park on their way to Sampalok. They carried a couple of small bundles, all they’d salvaged from the fire. Mirayse hadn’t stopped berating Edsing the whole way. Judging by his mental hue, Edsing was on the verge of striking her. “They’re moving,” Edeard informed the others. “I make that over sixty who are on their way to Sampalok.”
“Is that enough?” Kanseen asked.
“No,” Edeard said. “I want the majority in there. I’ll longtalk the others this evening, deliver the same warning. In two days’ time we’ll arrest the hundred.”
“I sensed Buate as we left the court,” Boyd said. “His shield was loose for a moment. He was very confused.”
Macsen grinned at the vast city before them. “Another legend of the Waterwalker safely established. You can be in many places at once.”
“About that,” Dinlay said. “Edsing lives in Padua.”
“Yes,” Edeard said, guessing what was coming.
“But Hallwith lives in Cobara, while Coyce is in Ilongo; the others are equally spread out. Yet you visited seven of them.”
Macsen was frowning now.
“We were only in the court for an hour and a half at best,” Dinlay said. “How did you get around to all of them in that time?”
“That running I do each morning—it keeps me in good shape. You should join me.”
“Nobody runs that fast.”
Edeard withdrew his farsight and smiled at the four inquisitive faces looking at him. “I’m the Waterwalker,” he told them mysteriously. His cloak flowed dramatically around him.
What was about to happen was no secret. The city’s gossipmongers had been busy the evening before reporting on how the constables in every district station were being called in and told to prepare. All of Makkathran knew this was the day.
Edeard sensed more people than he could number farsighting him as he walked out of the tenement that morning. He was taking a break from his running. It was going to be a long day.
“Be careful,” Kristabel had said as she kissed him good night after the party in Zelda the previous evening.
“I will be,” he assured her.
“No, Edeard,” she said, and placed her hand on his arm, gray-blue eyes beseeching him. “No lighthearted pledges. Please. Be careful. What you are proposing tomorrow is dangerous. This is the crucial point in your fight, and everyone in Makkathran knows it. So I’m asking you to be on your guard. Warpal and his people must know that Argian has confessed all to you. If they see an opening, they will strike like a fastfox.”
He took her hands. “I know. I make light of it because I don’t want you to worry. Now, remember what you promised me?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I will stay at home, on the top floor, and I will suffer the extra guards Homelt assigns.”
“No matter what.”
“No matter what,” she agreed.
As he closed the tenement gate behind him, Edeard checked the Culverit ziggurat with his farsight. Sure enough, Kristabel was there having breakfast on the hortus with Mirnatha and their father, all three of them anxiously casting their farsight toward Sampalok.
His squad was waiting for him on the street outside. He tried to remember that first morning they’d stumbled down into the Jeavons station’s small hall to be shouted at by Chae. A bunch of stupid semi-idealistic kids, none of them really knowing what they were letting themselves in for.
Now he could barely recognize those nervous eager youths in his friends. Macsen, who was dressed almost as smartly as Edeard, was still the most self-confident of the group. Boyd, whose height no longer made him appear gangly, was wearing his uniform with complete authority. If he told you to stop these days, you’d do it out of respect for the office he represented. Dinlay still couldn’t quite be considered well turned out despite the new uniforms he wore these days, but he’d gained self-reliance and a realistic understanding of human nature. But then, getting shot would do that for most people. And Kanseen smiled a whole lot more these days, as always the most solid and reliable of them all.
Edeard grinned at them, knowing he could depend on them no matter what—and guessing he’d probably have to before the day was out. “Let’s go.”
There was a gondola waiting for them on Arrival Canal. It took them down to High Pool and turned onto the Great Major Canal. Edeard deliberately didn’t look at the big ziggurat as they passed by; his attention was all on Sampalok up ahead.
Buate was already awake and up. After the fire at the House of Blue Petals he’d moved into an unclaimed building on Zulmal Street, halfway between the mansion of the Sampalok District Master and Mid Pool. It had five rooms with strange convex curving ceilings. Two rooms made up the ground floor, and the remainder were stacked one on top of the other, making the whole edifice resemble a bulbous chimney with the stairs spiraling up a narrow cylinder along one side. The triangular roof terrace was besieged by the shaggy vines that carpeted the entire outside. A carpenter had installed a front door for him, and a few pieces of furniture had been assembled downstairs. Clothes and other essentials were still in the boxes in which they’d been delivered. A lone ge-monkey performed domestic duties for him. Buate had tried to get the poor creature to climb the vines and prune them away from the windows, but with little success. It was something of a comedown from the luxury and service he was used to at the House of Blue Petals. Edeard suspected that was deliberate.
Boyd nudged him as they passed through Forest Pool. “Looks like everyone is up early today.”
Following Boyd’s mental directions, Edeard’s farsight observed Master Cherix walking over the central bridge between Golden Park and Anemone. It was the route the lawyer had to take every day to reach his guild offices in Parliament House now that he had been excluded from Jeavons.
“Even he can’t get a law revoked,” Edeard said. He’d consulted Master Solarin about the articles of arrest, and Solarin had assured him the twenty-two-day holding period remained legally applicable provided that they had a deposition of suspicion from the arresting constable. It was an aspect he’d emphasized repeatedly when he had met with the station captains the previous day to organize the arrests.
As he swept his farsight back from Anemone to Sampalok, he saw the constables making their way across Pholas Park and Tosella. There were hundreds of them marching in from every station in the city, divided into arrest teams and bridge reinforcement squads. Dozens of ge-dogs trotted alongside, while ge-eagles swarmed the clear sky overhead.
As they passed through Mid Pool, Edeard felt a familiar farsight focus on the gondola.
“Salrana?” They hadn’t spoken since that day in the caravan pens. His few attempts to longtalk her had been met by an icy mental shield.
Now her directed longtalk spoke to him
alone in the gondola. “Edeard, people are afraid. Many families have come to the church this morning. What you are doing is scaring them.”
“I know. But once today is over, their fear will be gone.”
“You can’t know that.”
Such doubt wasn’t like her. Salrana used to be the one cheering him on the whole time. “I can hope that, can’t I? Where are we without hope?”
“You are becoming a politican, Edeard.”
“I will be Mayor, and you will be Pythia,” he replied warmly.
“We are not children anymore. Your pride has pushed you into this ridiculous showdown.”
“It has not!” he told her irately. “You know full well we cannot live with the gangs casting such a blight over everyone’s lives. You see the suffering as much as I do, if not more. I am trying, Salrana. This might not be a perfect way for us to be rid of them, but it is something. The Lady will sympathize with that as much as she would despise me for standing by and doing nothing.”
“Don’t tell me what the Lady will think.” Her farsight abruptly withdrew.
Edeard turned to stare with exasperation in the direction of Ysidro. He refused to send his own farsight toward the Lady’s church in that district, where Salrana was assigned.
She’ll see, he told himself. After today, she’ll see I am right.
Their gondola pulled in at a mooring platform on the edge of Mid Pool. Edeard and the squad went up the wooden stairs to the broad concourse surrounding the pool. It was eerily deserted. The buildings that formed the far side were four or five stories high, all of them independent from one another, tall and narrow, as were most of the structures in the district, with irregular bulges on their sides. Windows protruded from them like insect eyes. More than anywhere in the city, Sampalok’s structures seemed based on some organic formation.
Edeard could see entire families lined up behind the bubbles of crystal, staring at them. Trepidation filled the air like a noxious fume.
“He’s this way,” Edeard said, and headed off toward the top of Zulmal Street. His farsight observed the constables gathering at every bridge into Sampalok, ready to prevent anyone from coming out into the city, especially rioters. There were almost no gondolas moving on the canals around the district.
He walked on for almost ten minutes along the twisty, litter-strewn street. The few people abroad gave him and the squad sullen glances before they hurried off down side alleys. A couple of them spit contemptuously. Edeard kept watching Bise’s mansion, a lofty stepped tower surrounded by a thick rectangular wall with only three gates. There were a lot of people inside, but none were coming out. The big iron-bound gates were all firmly closed. He wasn’t quite sure if any of the hundred were inside. If they were, getting them out would be the task from Honious. Probably not worth it.
Edeard directed his longtalk to a single figure skulking down one of the side alleys they passed. “Have you seen anything?”
“Eight of my people walk Sampalok today,” Argian replied. “They’re not using concealment, not yet. That would draw your attention to them.”
“Why are they here?”
“I spoke to Pitier. Of all of us, he holds views most similar to my own. He said they have been told to observe but to hold themselves ready.”
“I see. Thank you.”
Buate was sitting calmly on one of his two chairs when the squad arrived outside. Edeard knocked loudly on the door. His farsight examined the man closely as he came to the door, but he carried no pistol or blade.
“Waterwalker,” Buate said in a jaded voice. “Have you come to escort me to the financial court?”
“Nothing that pleasant. You are under arrest.”
“On what charge?”
“Suspicion of extortion. We intend to hold you while we gather corroborating evidence.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Very well.” He closed his eyes, and longtalked strongly. “This is it, my friends. Go forward!”
Edeard quietly asked the city to bring the remaining jamolar barrels up from the tunnel running under Zulmal Street. They slithered up quietly in the gaps between the swollen knobbly buildings, sitting unnoticed in the shade of the creepers and trees, displacing some of the rubbish cluttering the gutters.
The squad moved back out of the house, surrounding Buate. Doors were starting to open all along Zulmal Street. Men emerged, carrying long clubs or knives, hammers, pokers, and broken bottles. Edeard ignored them, concentrating on the five barrels that had emerged at the side of Buate’s house. His third hand detached the top of each one.
“You won’t make it ten yards,” Buate gloated.
On either side of the street, the men began to edge their way forward. They were giving Edeard and the squad nervous glances, but slowly and surely they kept moving. There was a great deal of longtalk slithering among them.
“Go on, go on” was the most common phrase. “Keep going. There’s hundreds of us.”
“Stand back,” Edeard instructed loudly. A rock came whirling out of the sky, thrown by someone at the rear of the swelling mob. Macsen’s third hand swatted it away easily.
Buate started to laugh. “Not quite the people’s champion you thought you were, eh, Waterwalker?”
Edeard’s third hand sucked the oil out of all five barrels, consolidating it into a giant globe. He sent it streaking forward. As it flew a couple of yards over his head, he held up a hand. A single thread of light crackled out from his extended index finger.
The oil ignited with a loud roar, spitting out fat globules of flame. Edeard guided it down to a yard above the street, then sent it racing on ahead of him. The men lining the route yelled in fear and dived aside. Great droplets of flaming oil splattered onto the street, hissing and fizzing.
“This way,” Edeard told a startled Buate politely. They began to walk back down Zulmal Street. The would-be mob was keeping its distance now, watching the fireball anxiously as Edeard began to draw it back. “I never got to thank your dear brother for this idea,” he said to Buate. “It was a good one.”
“It’s a long way to Parliament House,” Buate growled. “And we’re not there yet.” He was using his longtalk to issue a fast stream of instructions.
Edeard’s farsight showed him people taking to the streets all across Sampalok. He was ready for that. The constables had been instructed that on no account was anyone from the district to get across a bridge and spread this brand of disturbance into the rest of the city. From what he could perceive, the bridge reinforcement teams were holding well. None of the rapidly forming crowds were getting close to the end of a bridge. He picked out several of the hundred directing people, goading them onward. Stones and bottles were starting to be thrown and telekinetically guided onto the constables. Blade discs were skimming through the air.
The arrest teams weren’t faring as well as he’d hoped. The most able farsighted constables were assigned to tracking those on the list and guiding the teams toward them. They were having trouble pushing through the hostile crowds thronging the streets.
“The thing about fire, Waterwalker, is that you can never really control how it burns,” Buate said.
Edeard was very conscious of how quickly the fireball’s oil was being used up. The street behind them was now jammed with angry people yelling insults and abuse. More of the mob was starting to mill around in the alleys on the way back to Mid Pool. As soon as the squad passed, they came out to join the main press behind them.
“Edeard,” Boyd growled under his breath.
“You know that we can dodge anything they throw at us,” Edeard said with quiet reassurance to his friends. “Our only real concern is to get this bastard into a cell.”
“Once ignited, a flame will burn until there is no more fuel,” Buate said. His hand waved at the mob following them. “They don’t need ringleaders anymore. They’re burning on their hatred for you.”
The barrels secreted down the
alleys had been discovered. They were tipped over and smashed. Jamolar oil rippled down the street ahead of the squad. Edeard sent the fireball soaring high above the rooftops, then burst it apart in a vivid halo of flame. The mob below flinched.
Edeard just caught a flash of white light. The oil on the street burst into flame. People screamed and ran. A wall of flame raced toward the squad.
“Shit,” Edeard grunted. He asked the city to change the street, and the oil vanished, soaked away by the suddenly porous pavement. Puffs of smoke floated between the buildings, dissipating in the breeze.
Buate’s jaw dropped. “What—”
Edeard winked at him. “Keep going.”
The crowd along Zulmal Street kept a respectful distance as the squad walked the rest of the way to the Mid Pool concourse. There were over a hundred constables on the broad semicircle around the pool, with more behind the bridges over to Bellis and Pholas Park. Livid crowds were boiling around the entrance to each street that led into Sampalok.
Macsen and Boyd handed a sullen Buate over to one of the arrest teams, with instructions to take him to the cells underneath Parliament House.
“Now what?” Kanseen asked, looking at the jeering crowd blocking the end of Amtol Street.
“I don’t know,” Edeard said. He was longtalking with the senior sergeants at each of the bridges, checking up on the progress of the other arrest teams. “We’ve managed to nab eight of the hundred, including Buate. That’s not going to have the effect I wanted.” He gave the street mobs a worried glance. “I don’t want to send anyone in there again. That really will kick things off.”
“If we stand out here, we’ve lost,” Macsen said. “You’ll be admitting they’re in charge of Sampalok and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
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