The view blurred in front of him as the platform climbed the inside wall of the tower. There were men standing right in front of him on the other side of the great glass wall with short cropped hair, plain white tunics and brands instead of feathers. Slaves on a little platform sat atop a silver egg suspended by silver chains, cleaning the glass with rags and buckets of water. Tsen looked up. High above floated a glasship. Beyond that, clouds were sweeping in from the north. Rain again? Ah, Khalishtor! But after so much time in the desert I suppose I shan't begrudge you a little of your favourite weather. He glanced up at the glasship again. Extravagant to use one for such vanity. Maybe he should speak about that to the t'varr who looked after this tower. One of his own staff? Had to be, but he was buggered if he could think of a name. ‘It would be best, first, to address our debts,’ he said, largely to himself since LaLa surely didn't care and Quai'Shu had slipped into his daydreams again. And then the glass-cleaning slaves were far below and the glass beneath his feet slid in effortless silence to a stop.
There were no doors to the Paths of Words, only gold-glass that opened like a flower to the touch of Tsen's black rod. He tensed. Never liked this bit. Whenever he reached the top he always remembered the wind first, the howling gusts that blew across the Paths. There were no guard rails, nothing at all to stop a man from falling. It was a test, Quai'Shu had said many years ago when he'd first brought his promising young t'varr here. Yes, and wasn't it just. Worst bloody weather in ten years. Howling great thunderstorm. Winds to snap anchor chains and pissing with rain. First thing that happened when you opened up the wall was lightning hit the Star of the Navigators and I almost fell off. Only those of courage may enter the Sea Council, you said. Only the ridiculously bloody stupid today, I thought, but I did it, even if you almost had to carry me. People still remember. We had the Great Sea Council to ourselves. Everyone else had far too much sense to be out in that weather. Today was calm, but this was a different Quai'Shu now, old and broken. Would it be such a bad thing if you fell? You wouldn't be the first. But if you do, then let it be because you've had enough, old man, not because of me, not even if LaLa wasn't here and the two of us were alone. A witless sea lord was burden enough for any house, never mind one so crippled with debt, but Quai'Shu was Tsen's lord and master, had been his mentor once though there might not have been much love over the years, and even without Meido's wager he wouldn't simply stand by and do nothing. They walked side by side, arms wrapped around each other through the wind over glass as clear as water and then hundreds of feet of emptiness, and it seemed nothing more than two men who were well past their prime, both uncertain and a little fearful, holding on to one another to share what courage they had. As you did for me in that storm. Although the glass is wider than it seems and there really isn't much danger of falling, not if your feet are sure, but it does things to a man's mind to look down, doesn't it? Straight through the air to the gardens and the trees and the contours of the water terraces so far below and you start to wonder, don't you, old man? What it would be like to fly, truly to fly.
The glass platform sank back towards the ground. Others would follow bringing the alchemist and the dragon-rider and the little dragon. He laughed. Yes. Little dragon — the hatchling was as large as a horse and its tail made it more than twice as long. It would be interesting to see how that could be coaxed along the Paths of Words and he almost wished he could stay to watch. But Quai'Shu was his concern now; for the next six months, nothing else mattered. There were other people whose purpose was to see to such things as slaves and monsters.
From tower to Crown, the glass bridge was five hundred bold paces long, give or take a handful. Quai'Shu took far more than that and they were slow ones too, but Tsen tolerated it. When they reached the globe of gleaming silver that was the heart of the Crown, he tapped his rod against its bright skin and the silver shimmered and flowed like liquid, opening before him. The globe of the Great Sea Council was another relic, a thing from a different time like the floating castle that had become his eyrie. The enchanters had found it and resurrected it long ago. Did they understand it? He didn't know. Could they have made it themselves, this thing of liquid silver? He thought not, but he'd never know because neither the enchanters nor the navigators would ever speak of such things, not to one who wasn't their own.
He stepped through into an open comforting space that glowed with its own light — another thing that made him think of his flying eyrie. It was a simple structure inside, one quicksilver globe inside the other. The Great Sea Council sat in the inner globe and from there they ruled the six known worlds. A series of spacious halls had been built between the two layers where the entourages of the sea lords might mingle and wait for their summons to the council itself. And, on the council's more exciting days, occasionally stab one another.
The inner skin flowed and opened before the touch of Quai'Shu’s rod. There were no guards here, no soldiers, no weapons. You either had a wand that would make the walls part for you or you didn't, and if you didn't then there simply wasn't a way in. Quai'Shu had one. So did Tsen, and Jima Hsian and Chrias Kwen. Probably not any of the others, not yet, but that would soon change. Chrias Kwen will see to one for Lady Elesxian, so I should probably do something for Meido myself.
Inside the inner sphere the black-cloaks gently manoeuvred Quai'Shu to his place among the thirteen thrones of the sea lords, arrayed in the shape of a horseshoe. Plain wooden benches were lined up behind each throne, simple and unadorned and desperately uncomfortable after not very long at all, but only sea lords sat in thrones. Four of them were already here, Quai'Shu the fifth, a sign of the importance of their twilight debate today. LaLa stood beside him — oh yes, and no pair of eyes missed that little statement, did they? — while the black-cloaks withdrew to the edge of the circle. Soft light shone from the walls, from the floor and from the roof, tinged with orange to reflect the setting sun outside. Tsen stretched his ears and listened to the whispering among the kwens and the t'varrs who served the other sea lords. Wagers, mostly, on who would attend and who would not. Across the horseshoe the throne for Lord Shonda of Vespinarr sat empty. Tsen touched a finger to his brow to salute the man who sat behind it, Vey Rin T'Varr. Rin smiled and returned a faint nod. More than half a lifetime ago he and Tsen had been friends together in the desert, chasing slaves. As far as it was possible for either of them, Tsen liked to think that old friendships still counted for something.
The walls parted and closed again as other t'varrs and kwens and hsians took their places, or now and then left and came back again minutes later, running petty errands for their restless masters. A hush rippled over them as three navigators entered, their braided hair almost touching the floor and as long as his own. Their cloaks of feathers were iridescent things, a deep blue but shimmering in every colour of the rainbow as they caught the light. Their robes were the same. The navigators had no thrones and stood in the centre, back to back and facing outward, meeting the eyes of the assembled lords, something that only a navigator was privileged to do. One of them held an hourglass. Tsen squinted at its sands. The speaking would begin when the sun fully sank into the sea.