by Martha Wells
The room was large and high-ceilinged, the floor strewn with broken furniture mixed with shrouds of disintegrating fabric and rotted trash. It was too dark to make out the carving on the pillars and the walls. Moon explored, finding that the layout was fairly simple, with big rooms on each floor around a central staircase. Prowling around each level to make certain nothing else was living here, he kept stepping on odd indentations in the floor. They were small and round, and there were a lot of them. He wasn’t sure what they were for, except to trip the unwary, until he found the rusted broken remnants of a metal clip in one. Huh, he thought, flicking the metal with a claw. They must be for anchoring down furniture, and anything else that might fall over when the leviathan moved.
There was also a big ceramic cistern on the fifth floor, filled by a pipe that ran out through the wall, and probably up to funnels on the roof. He opened the lid and sniffed cautiously. The water smelt stale, but not like anything had died in it.
Climbing up the stairwell, Moon wondered if the city wasn’t as populated as it had looked at first. If the empty walkways and sporadic lights weren’t a sign that the inhabitants were asleep, but a sign that many of them had long since left. The harbor had seemed well occupied by ships, if not crowded, but then with no room for crops or herds, the city must get all its food by trade and fishing.
He found Stone on the top floor, in a big room with two walls open to the wind and the night. Columns in the shape of groundling women supported the roof on that side, and a terrace with a high balustrade extended all the way around the tower. The weather had washed any debris down the stairs or back into the corners, so the cracked tile floor was almost clean.
Stone was in groundling form, sitting on the floor, digging through his old battered pack. Moon shifted to groundling too, and sat next to him, smothering a yawn. Stone pulled out a redfruit and offered it to him. Moon shook his head. He was a little queasy from his encounter with the barrier and he didn’t think a sweet redfruit would help.
Tomorrow they would have to find food, as well as a way into the Magister’s tower. They had some loose gems, sunstones from an old consort’s bracelet of Stone’s, brought along for him to wear at Emerald Twilight. Stone had refused to wear it, and apparently wasn’t at all reluctant to use it for trade.
Moon looked out into the dark sky, streaked with drifts of mist. How do we get into that tower? he wanted to ask. Instead he said, “If we can’t get the seed back, where do we go?”
Stone contemplated the redfruit, then put it back in his pack. “We look for another colony.”
“I know that.” Moon scrubbed a hand through his hair, and told himself not to try to pick a fight with Stone. Exhaustion and impatience and growing despair weren’t a good combination for this conversation. “Blossom said if we took another deserted colony, we could be attacked by other courts.”
“Blossom’s right.” Stone pulled out his blanket. “They can accuse us of stealing territory and attack us for it, drive us out of the Reaches.”
It sounded so wearily familiar to Moon. “Would they do that?”
“Yes. Emerald Twilight knows our situation. And if they know it, all the courts in the Reaches will know before the next turn. Some of them would be sure to decide that they don’t want a vagabond Fell-cursed half-dead court wandering around taking territory that doesn’t belong to it.”
“So they’d treat us all like solitaries.”
“Yes.” Stone straightened the blanket, and moved around to lie down on it, grimacing as he settled himself on the hard tile. “The colony tree isn’t just a place to live, it’s our heritage, our bloodline, our right to take our place among the other courts.” He patted the blanket. “Go to sleep.”
Moon lay down next to Stone, twinges of pain in his back and shoulders making the process more difficult than usual. Even when he was settled comfortably, his thoughts chased in circles and it seemed a long time before he could sleep.
He woke just before dawn. He was lying on his stomach, and Stone was using his back and shoulder as a pillow. Stone was heavy but also very warm, a contrast to the damp cool of the morning. Moon just lay there for a moment; sleep had helped cure the exhaustion but not the impatience or the despair.
Reluctantly, Moon nudged Stone over and climbed to his feet to stretch. In the daylight he could see the walls were covered with splotches of peeling paint worn away by the weather, old murals too faded to make out. He went to the big window and leaned against the side, yawning, looking out into clouds of white mist, much heavier now than it had been last night.
They would have to go through the city today, which meant talking to strange groundlings. He remembered he was still wearing his consort’s gifts, the belt and knife, and the gold wristband. They weren’t obvious, and the wristband was normally hidden by his shirtsleeve, but it didn’t pay to take the chance. Groundlings who had been to the colony tree to steal might recognize the Arbora’s designs. He took both off and tucked them into a handy chink in the wall.
He went out onto the terrace and stepped up onto the low balustrade. His toes hanging out over the precipitous drop, he looked out over the city again. The mist hung like a heavy blanket over the smaller houses around the tower, obscuring any view of the alleys, the walkways. Sound was muffled, but there wasn’t much to hear: some distant clanking and banging from the direction of the port, the call of a food peddler. Any signs of movement or life were buried under the fog.
Moon decided to take a chance. He shifted and jumped off the balustrade, hard flaps taking him up until he could catch the wind.
He flew out past the edge of the mist, which clung to the edges of the giant island-monster but faded away over the open sea. He took a long circuit around the shoreline, just to see if anything had changed. No ships had put out yet, but he did see three shapes swimming toward the harbor: water travelers, plodding steadily over the waves. He didn’t want to go any closer, but he was pretty certain Nobent wasn’t one of them. If Nobent was foolish enough to head back here, it was going to take him a lot longer than a day to make the journey.
Moon turned away and headed for the opposite coast from the harbor. Once there, he went towards the long reef formed by the tail and dipped down to fly low over the water. He eyed the waves cautiously; he hadn’t forgotten the large size of the predators, though he hoped the close proximity of the monster would keep them away. Perhaps it would attract some variety of suckerfish, the larger the better.
He found several, big gray ones about four paces long. They swam close to the surface near the tail, clustering in an area where, judging by the flotsam caught in the waves, the islanders must dump their garbage. He caught one, snatching it out of the water, and flew back to the tower with it.
When he dumped it onto the terrace, Stone sat up with a grunt of surprise. Moon told him, “That’s yours,” and flew back to get one for himself. The sky was lightening as the sun rose and, fog or not, flying over the city would soon be too chancy.
By the time he got back with the second fish, Stone was gone. So was the first fish. Stone must have shifted to eat it because there was literally nothing left but a wet spot on the floor and a few stray scales. Moon ate his fish, leaving the bones, the scales, and sharp tail fins behind. He didn’t have Stone’s digestion.
He went down to the fifth floor and used water from the cistern to wash the guts off his claws, then stopped to listen. He could hear distant voices, including Stone’s. He would, Moon thought, half wry and half bitter. Moon had always approached new groundlings cautiously, spending a few days observing them if possible before venturing to draw near. Stone apparently just sauntered into their camps and sat down. Shaking his head, Moon climbed out the window.
At the base of the tower, he shifted to groundling and followed the voices through the maze of alleys. Stone was in a little court, sitting on the paving with three groundlings. One had brought a metal brazier and from the smell, it was burning a fuel made from fish oil, unless that odo
r was coming from the clay pot set atop it. Two of the groundlings were the short fishy-gray variety, the third was larger with orange-tinted gold coloring, though his hair and beard had streaks of gray. All three wore gray and brown clothing, ragged and worn.
As Moon stepped into the court, the groundlings looked up, startled. Stone obviously hadn’t told them he had brought a friend.
Ignoring the stares, Moon went to sit next to Stone. Stone nodded to the gold man, then to the gray groundlings, who were both female. “That’s Enad, and Theri, and Rith. This is Moon.”
Enad lifted his brows at Stone, saying, “Where did you say you were from?” He spoke Kedaic also, with a thick accent.
Stone, scraping tea into the steaming clay pot, didn’t look up at him. “I didn’t.”
“We came on that trader ship,” Moon said. Every ship of any size in the harbor had been a trader ship, and he didn’t intend to be more specific. His travels had given him a lot of experience with how to appear to be willing to answer questions without actually answering them.
Enad nodded, his gaze flicking curiously from Moon to Stone and back. “The one from Bekenadu?” He didn’t wait for an answer, turning to the two women. “Times are hard for traders, too.”
Rith, the second gray groundling, regarded Moon skeptically. She looked older, and the blue-tinged gray of her skin was marked with creases, the scales at the base of her forehead crest turning white. “You’re traders?”
“No. When they stopped here, the traders upped the passage price.” Moon shrugged, leaving them to fill in the rest. Obviously traders would sleep on their ships, or pay for shelter near the harbor, and wouldn’t need to live in abandoned houses.
The skepticism faded and Rith nodded understanding. “There’s not much work here, except at the harbor.”
“Or the towers,” the younger one, Theri, said. Her mouth twisted. “But they’re particular about their servants.”
Stone caught her eye, and said, deadpan, “We’re not pretty enough?” His lips twitched in a smile.
She smiled back, laughing. “Too big, too…” She made a vague gesture.
“They like their servants to look helpless,” Rith added, rueful and bitter. “You look… not helpless.”
Enad nodded confirmation. He thumped himself in the chest. “Me, too.”
“All of them?” Moon asked. He hadn’t seriously considered taking work as a servant to get into Ardan’s tower, but it was a thought.
“All I’ve ever heard of,” Rith said. “Better to get work in the harbor.”
Enad began to elaborate on this, listing the various cargo factors he had worked for and how much coin they paid and what bastards they were. Moon considered how to turn the conversation back to the towers, then decided there was one question newcomers couldn’t fail to ask. When Enad stopped talking, Moon put in, “Who builds a city on a monster?”
All three sighed, and the two women exchanged weary looks. “Everyone asks that,” Theri explained.
Rith took up the story, cutting off Enad’s attempt to tell it. “Long ago, before we were all born, the leviathan slept in a cove, not far off the shore of Emriat-terrene. Great magisters held it with their magic and built this city on its back—no one knows why,” she put in to forestall the obvious question. “To show their power, maybe. They carried all the building stone and metal over on barges from the mines in Emriatterrene. They say the mountains were stripped to the bone before they were done. But the turns went by and the rulers of Emriat-terrene were overthrown, rose again, were overthrown, and the magisters lost their skill, or much of it. The leviathan woke and swam away, taking the city with it.”
Moon exchanged a look with Stone, who lifted a brow and shrugged. He was right; it wasn’t the oddest thing either of them had heard.
Rith continued, “The magisters found ways to keep the city together. They gave the traders spelled direction-finders, so they could still find the city when the leviathan moves. They made a warning bell that tolls when the leviathan grows restless so the fishers know to come back to port and to lift their boats from the water, and the traders know to cast off.”
Moon read the resignation in her expression. “It doesn’t sound like a good life.” It sounded as if the magisters controlled everything, and unlike most other cities, you couldn’t simply walk away.
Enad looked bleak. “It’s all right.”
Rith said, “Many of those who have the coin to buy passage leave.” She grimaced, dispirited. “The traders know how much they can charge now, and few can afford it.”
Theri leaned her head on Rith’s shoulder. “It would be easier if the leviathan went back to sleep for good, or went closer to the western shore.”
“The western shore?” Moon asked.
“That’s where most of the traders come from.” Enad admitted, “If all of them could find us, and not just the ones the magisters give the trade-right to, it would be easier to leave. Or stay, if more people came back to live here.”
Stone dipped a cup out of the pot and handed it to Rith. “What about the eastern shore, where the forests are?”
Theri laughed. “Everyone knows monsters live there.”
After the tea was finished, the groundlings went on their way, and Moon and Stone walked toward Ardan’s tower. Moon hoped it was open during the day, and that they could at least get a look at who went in and out of it.
If the doors never opened at all, he wasn’t sure what they were going to do.
The walkway they were on, a narrow passage winding between the tall gray walls, was empty at the moment. They had passed a few groundlings earlier, all hauling two-wheeled carts, heading toward the harbor, and Moon had heard a few others on the bridges and balconies they had passed under.
“You didn’t ask them about Ardan,” Stone said.
He didn’t sound as if he was arguing the point, just curious. He had been letting Moon take the lead in finding things out, something which Moon had noticed and appreciated. Of course, if they failed, it would be mostly Moon’s fault. “I didn’t want them to get suspicious. If we just got here, we shouldn’t know who Ardan is yet.” Also, Enad was a talker, and Moon could too readily imagine him repeating the conversation to anyone who would listen. If Ardan was aware that something had tested his barriers last night, he might well be listening, and willing to pay for information. “I might ask them about the metal ship, later. It’s different enough from the others in port that people must notice it.”
Stone snorted in amusement, and Moon said, defensively, “What?”
“You talking to groundlings. That’s a change.”
Moon set his jaw, annoyed. “We are not flying up to them in the middle of nowhere. These people have no reason not to think we’re groundlings. There’s a difference.”
They reached the plaza at the base of Ardan’s tower. It wasn’t much more occupied than it had been last night. A few people were crossing the paving, but all seemed to be heading for the walkways or stairs, just passing through. The tower itself was still tightly shut.
The second story wine bar on the east side of the plaza was still open, or at least the door stood open and the music still played. Groundling places that sold liquors or drugs usually only opened in the evening, but maybe living on a restless leviathan required constant access to intoxicants. Moon started toward it. “Maybe we can talk to somebody in there.”
“If they’re all like Dari, that might not be so helpful,” Stone said, but followed him anyway.
The stairway climbed over another house’s roof, and the gray tile steps had a few recent stains that stunk of vomit and some kind of sweet liquor. Words were painted on the wall in several different languages, one of them Kedaic, advertising wine and smoke.
Moon stepped into the doorway. The place was bigger than it looked on the outside, winding back away in a series of oddly shaped rooms. Cushioned benches were built into the walls, groundlings sprawled on them, most asleep or barely s
tirring. The whole interior was filled with drifts of variously colored fog. The cloyingly sweet odor made Moon sneeze. Groundling drugs and alcohol had never worked on him, and he didn’t expect this would, either. He moved further in and Stone trailed after him.
As the main room curved away from the doorway, it widened out to a space where there was a small platform. Around it sat three fishy-gray groundlings, two playing stringed instruments and one a set of wooden pipes. On the platform, a golden-skinned groundling woman, dressed only in wispy scarves, moved to the music, though she looked half asleep. Dancing was another groundling thing that left Moon cold. The quick movements were often distracting and made him twitchy with the urge to hunt, and the slow movements were just boring. It was more fun to watch grasseaters graze.
Nearby stood an elaborate metal stand with a glass globe of blue water. The stands were scattered all over the room, fastened to bases built into the floor, and seemed to be the sources of the mist. Moon stepped closer and saw a little creature inside, a tiny amphibian with big eyes and feathery fins, gazing brightly back at him. That’s new, he thought, and looked around again at the semi-conscious groundlings. Whatever the fog was, all the patrons looked too far gone to be of any use. Dari was coherent compared to these people. That was a scary thought.
A woman stepped out of the fog and moved toward him, watching him inquiringly. “You want to buy some smoke?” she asked. She was tall and slender, her skin a smooth matte black, and she had a shock of short white hair. White brows outlined her dark eyes, and she had gold paint dotted on her forehead, nose, and chin. She was wrapped in a silky blue robe that covered her completely, but she was much more attractive to look at than the sleepy dancer. It took Moon a moment to remember to answer her question. “Uh, no, not smoke.” She seemed more amused than anything else, so Moon added, “We were looking for a place that sold food.” Not true, but it was a good excuse for wandering in here.
“Not here.” She nodded toward the door. “You’ll need to go back toward the harbor. There’s a market on the main walkway.”