“So far,” Moon said around a yawn. He crossed the cabin and sank down onto an empty bench, and shifted. He winced; his shoulders ached, his back ached, everything ached. The wind had dried his scales, so at least there was no water to transfer to his clothes. But the salt made his skin itch. “Did you see the flower door? The forerunners must have made that whole passage for the builders.”
Delin still seemed distracted. “Yes, they were obviously allies. It is perhaps not as unexpected as we supposed.”
Moon nodded toward the papers. “What are you reading?”
Delin patted the papers. “Vendoin had some translations I wish to look at.” He pushed to his feet. “She is still in the steering cabin?”
Moon nodded, and lay down on his side. Delin said, “I will take it back to her room, then.”
Moon yawned again. “Did she figure out what the inscription on the wall said, the one up on the arch where we first came into the city?”
Delin paused in the doorway. “It said, ‘If eyes fall on this, and no one is here to greet you, then we have failed. Yet you exist, so our failure is not complete.’”
Delin slipped out while Moon was still trying to understand that. He fell asleep, wondering why Delin had chosen a time when everyone else was bracing for a Fell attack to read Vendoin’s translation.
Sleeping heavily, Moon was only vaguely aware of it when the sunsailer’s motivator thrummed into life. Not long after that, Jade climbed onto the bench and curled up with him.
He woke knowing that it was well past dawn. He sat up carefully and disentangled himself from Jade. Merit and Bramble were gone, but Chime, Root, and Briar occupied the other benches.
Moon managed not to wake anyone as he slipped out of the cabin, though he was still off-balance and bleary. He went down the passage toward the bow, found his way through a crew area filled with sleeping bodies, and then out the door onto the deck. Stone was out there, leaning on the railing, but it was the view that caught Moon’s attention first.
The water was a deep dark blue, and the sky above it a limitless horizon. The boat crested gentle swells and was moving southeast, its motivator fighting the current to keep them from being pushed farther out into the ocean. He moved to the railing and leaned beside Stone. The wind had changed and it was absolutely devoid of anything but water and salt. It made Moon realize just how much the scattered islands had added an undercurrent of sand and greenery and other scents to the sea winds. They had never been far from land or a reef or one of the shallow zones. Here, there was nothing.
Then motion caught Moon’s eye several hundred paces off the starboard stern. Water fountained briefly, then a great shape rose up. Sunlight glanced off bright silver scales and a delicate multi-colored array of feelers concealing the top of the creature’s head. There were three of the crab-like waterlings from the city clamped in its long jaw. It sank back below the surface before the ripples from its appearance reached the boat to gently rock it. Moon wanted to make a noise but his throat had temporarily closed up.
Stone said, “Some of the waterlings followed us from the city, but that keeps happening.” He added, “Rorra says we’re still on the fringe.”
Moon reminded himself they had traveled over water this deep before, water also filled with menace, in the freshwater sea, but somehow it wasn’t the same. Even if it was vast, the freshwater sea was surrounded by land, and fed by rivers, and somehow that made a difference. He fought his flight instinct down and managed to say, “Did you sleep?”
Stone rolled his shoulders and stood up straight, still propping himself up on the railing. “Out here. The Fell missed us completely. Getting out of there unnoticed was what that underwater tunnel was meant for.”
Moon tried to remember that last harbor basin and what had been in it, if there had been any more clues they hadn’t had time to notice. “The Kishan were right; there was a door in the outer wall of the city, like the one we came in through. So the tunnel was added after the city was built.” Maybe at the same time the top of the escarpment had been sealed off. “And the foundation builders knew the forerunners, and they were friendly enough for the forerunners to build that for them.”
Stone turned and leaned his back against the railing, to look up at the steering cabin. Moon was still a little too edgy to turn his back on the deeps yet. “Delin and Callumkal and the others have been discussing that. They don’t know what it means, but they’ve been discussing it.”
Speaking of the city and what they had found there . . . “We need to drop the . . . thing soon.” Moon glanced around the deck. There were still Kishan at the weapons’ posts and on watch for the Fell. “Is it deep enough?” If they were lucky, maybe one of the giant oceanlings would eat it.
“I don’t know.” Stone jerked his chin toward the cabin. “Rorra’s up now.”
Moon turned. Rorra was on the deck above, gazing out toward the ocean. She had a map case tucked under her arm. “I’ll go talk to her.”
Moon shifted and leapt to the railing. Swinging over it, he shifted back to groundling. Rorra rubbed her eyes and said, “I’m glad I’m used to that now.” She still looked tired, though her face was less gray and her eyes not so sunken. She had clearly slept in her clothes, and her hair was unraveling from her braids.
“Are we in the ocean or still on the fringe?” Moon asked.
“We’re still in the fringe.” Rorra opened the map case and propped it against the railing to unfold light wooden pieces. “We’re here.” She pointed to a spot some distance from the escarpment and traced it along the big wavy path that marked the transition between the sea and the ocean. “We’ll be moving in this zone until we get to this point.” She tapped the map. “It would be safer to stay in the fringe, but to do that we’d have to turn back landward. If we keep our heading and cut across this section of the deeps, we can reach the sea again much more quickly, and we’ll be moving away from the escarpment and hopefully the Fell the entire time.”
Moon nodded. “When will we get to the deeps?”
“Probably around sunset, and we’ll make the crossing during the night, hopefully reaching the sea again by morning.” She began to fold up the map, a grim set to her expression. “I hope the deeps aren’t as dangerous as the rumors say. Ocean-going ships should be much bigger than this one.”
It sounded perfect. By the middle of the night they would be well into the deeps, and too far out for the Fell to reach. Someone could easily stroll out on deck and drop the object over the side. As long as nothing appeared to eat the boat, this would be easy. “You should get some more sleep.”
“I don’t—” Rorra yawned, wide enough that Moon could see the characteristic sealing fangs in her side teeth. “Probably.” She frowned down at the lower deck. “Why is Stone staring at us?”
Moon leaned on the railing, and decided since they were lying-by-avoidance to Rorra about the object, he might as well tell the truth about this. “I don’t know. We think he likes you, though.”
Rorra stared at him, astonished but oddly not appalled. Then she got her frown back into place. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” Moon shrugged, a little. “He’s always liked groundlings. But he’s just so old, he doesn’t usually get that interested in people we meet.”
Rorra’s frown was now confused. “How old is he?”
“Older than all of us put together. But not as old as the escarpment.” He pushed away from the railing. “I’ll let Jade know what we’re doing.”
Moon met with Jade in the cabin they had been sleeping in. Stone had come in from the deck, and Chime, Balm, and Delin sat around on the benches, with Merit and Bramble on the floor. It was a little crowded, but the cabin on the upper deck with the stove was also used by Callumkal and the others, and taking it for a private conference would be a lot more noticeable.