Hanna answered, "They are the final pieces that will complete repair and overhaul of Weatherlight. They will allow the engine and the Power Matrix to fuse. The ship will be faster, more powerful than ever."
"But, what are these bones, and where are they?" Gerrard asked.
Cho-Manno said, "We will explain all as we make our escape. There is no time to stand and talk. Gather your things. The storm cannot last much longer. Nor can Mercadian stupidity."
Gerrard glanced back at his cellmates.
Tahngarth eagerly pushed his way out the door and stood in the pounding rain. He howled into the heavens.
Karn meanwhile said simply, "Let us go, Gerrard. Weatherlight awaits me, and the Bones of Ramos await you."
From the Magistrate's Tower, Volrath watched the storm. His fingers dug into the stone windowsill where he stood. It was one of the subtler powers of a shapechanger, to make his flesh as thin and sharp and strong as razors, to insinuate his being into whatever fault might present itself and swell in those cracks to split them wider. Solid stones became sifting sand in his grip. His flesh could flow, and freeze, and destroy like water. It was how he ruled the rock of Mercadia. His grip had split the mountain to its core.
These rebels, though, were not rock. Ramosan, Cho-Arrim, Saprazzan, Rishadan-they were all folk with affinity for water. They brought this storm down upon Mercadia. They would grip it in a fist larger and more powerful than Volrath's. They would break the rock of Mercadia to shifting sand.
Why, though, did they bring this storm now? What did they seek?
Volrath saw. Through the shredding curtains of rain, he saw. Dark figures descended amid those cascades. They were human, though they had billowing cloaks above them that seemed the wings of bats. On the warm currents of the storm they rode, dropping where they would, where they could-rooftops, streets, gardens, awnings. Like the water that had borne them hence, they went to ground. Following channels invisible to the eye, they gathered and went below. One by one, each of the invaders escaped into gutters and rebel safe houses.
"Not safe for long," Volrath muttered to himself, flinging limestone sand out into the night. He would send a regiment of the guard around next morning on a house-to-house search. Invaders and anyone harboring them would be summarily executed, their property seized by the state. Whatever uprising they planned would be put down before it could even occur.
"I shall defend my interests viciously."
Something else moved in the stormy night. Another group of rebels streamed down a stairway and into the winding streets. Gerrard and his crew.
Volrath watched angrily. He had planned just such an escape- Takara had planned it to send Gerrard after the crystals he needed to repair Weatherlight Now, the ingrates were escaping on their own. Their plans were already discussed, and Takara had neither been consulted nor thanked. It mattered little.
Gerrard was doing just what Volrath had planned. Gerrard had always been his own worst enemy. His betrayals and his blunders led inevitably to ruin.
Smiling, Volrath released the crushed windowsill. He turned and took a step. In midstride, he transformed into a lithe, fire-haired woman.
"Gerrard will lead me straight to the crystals I need, and I will destroy him in the process."
Squee led his companions on a ridiculously jogging path. The pounding rain and lightning flashes made Mercadia's mad maze only madder still. Hanna, whose direction sense was the best of anyone's, was hopelessly confused. Squee insisted he knew where he was going, and his errant rout proved very quick. The company traversed the two-and-a-half miles from the Magistrate's Tower to the outer rim of the city in only half an hour.
"Dis here street is Dat-Dere-Street," Squee announced proudly.
Gerrard and his comrades arrived at the dumping station where Squee and Atalla had fooled the giants. In the pelting storm, there were no giants or wagons, only the yawning blackness of a nearly two-mile drop to the storm-lit plains below.
Reunited again for the rescue, the company would soon be sundered. Hanna, Squee, and Karn would remain behind to search for Weatherlight. Orim, Cho-Manno, and Lahaime would rendezvous with the Ramosans and begin to foment rebellion against the ruling Mercadians and their Kyren. Meanwhile, Gerrard, Sisay, Tahngarth, and five other crew members would take the maps and lore provided by Cho-Manno and set out in search of Ouramos, where lay the Bones of Ramos.
Parting was no easy thing, especially for the commander and the navigator.
"Listen," Hanna said, staring into Gerrard's eyes. "Don't just bring back Ramos's bones. Bring back your own, as well. And all in one piece."
His smile glinted with lightning. He stroked a sodden lock of hair back from her face. "Don't I always?" Glancing over the precipice, he said, "If I survive the next few minutes, I can survive anything." He lifted his arms. The cape of a ChoArrim skyscout draped, dripping, from wrists to ankles. "Orim, are you sure these things are safe?"
"Safe enough," Orim replied, sheltered in Cho-Manno's arms. "Just glide like a flying squirrel and let the Cho-Arrim wizards do the rest. Don't try anything fancy."
Gerrard gave a flap of the wings. "I'm not sure I'll even breathe on the way down."
Tahngarth stood nearby, snorting white plumes of irritation in the air. "I'm no squirrel." He stared down at his own cloak-two skyscout capes sewn together.
With a light laugh, a similarly winged Sisay recited, "Birdie, birdie in the sky, what just dropped down in my eye? I'm sure glad that cows don't fly!"
"I'm not a squirrel or a cow," Tahngarth growled. If anyone but his captain had made the remark, there would have been a brawl.
Cho-Manno said, "The storm is losing its force. You had better get going."
"Yes," Gerrard replied. Leaning forward, he kissed Hanna one last time. "I'll bring back my bones and Ramos's. Don't worry about me. You just find Weatherlight and get ready to put the stones in place."
"I will."
"And we'll make sure the revolution is ready," Orim pledged.
"Good," Gerrard said. He cast a glance toward Sisay, shrugged, and said, "Well, here goes."
Taking a deep breath and spreading his arms, Gerrard did a swan dive off the edge of Mount Mercadia.
The ridge of solid ground disappeared beneath him. He plunged toward the blackness beyond. Spreading arms and legs, he felt the skyscout cloak snap outward. Air filled the garment. Insistent cloth yanked on wrists and ankles. Gerrard's back hyperextended. Gritting his teeth, he brought arms and legs to full extension and entered a steady glide.
Rain pelted down. Winds roared up. The black plains swayed nauseatingly as they stretched away toward the hills.
A sharp crack came nearby. Gerrard glanced over to see Sisay hanging there on the wind, like a spider drifting down on a thread too gossamer to see. To the other side came a sound like a shot. It was followed by a long roar in concert with the winds. Tahngarth was taking the descent less well than his mates. Six other crew drifted downward in a tenuous flock.
Gerrard smiled grimly. The sooner they were on the ground, the better. He dipped his arms and banked toward the marketplace below. There, under cover of dark, they would "requisition" Jhovalls and supplies. Before daybreak, they would charge out of the city, on the way to Ouramos.
The other gliders followed. They crossed above the vast, putrid circle of the garbage wall. Beneath the sheltering edge of the inverted mountain, the rain ceased. Still, mists followed them-the conjurations of Cho-Manno's wizards. ChoManno had said he would take care of the flight, but Gerrard would have to take care of the landing.
Selecting a likely corral of Jhovalls, Gerrard soared down. What seemed at first to be only specks of white pepper slowly swelled upward to scraps of paper and then to large tents. Gerrard brought his team down among them, near the corral.