But old Isiq, making secret love to a mage? That was unthinkable. Pazel had witnessed the admiral’s shock at everything that had happened to Thasha. No, Isiq was no insider, with a hand in these intrigues. He was just another tool.
Pazel smiled back at her, to hide the blackness of his thoughts. Even a tool could father a girl on his concubine, and then feel shame, and invent a lie about his wife’s miraculous pregnancy. She really might be the child of Syrarys. Aya Rin, don’t let that be true.
Thasha returned her gaze to the sky. “What do you three want to do when this is over?” she whispered. “I mean, when it’s all over, and we’re back in the North, safe and sound?”
She wasn’t fooling herself; Pazel could tell she knew just how unlikely it was that they’d ever face such a choice. No one answered at first. Then Marila said, “I want to go to school. And then, when I know something, I want to start one. A school for deaf people. Half the sponge-divers in Tholjassa lose their hearing sooner or later.”
Neeps turned over and planted an awkward kiss on her cheek.
“You can’t come,” Marila told him.
“What do you want to do, Neeps?” Pazel asked quickly, before they could start to argue.
Neeps shook his head. “Get away from the blary ocean, that’s what. I know we islanders are supposed to love it, and sometimes I do. But credek, enough is enough. I’ve been at sea since I was nine. I’m tired of imagining all the ways I could drown.”
After a brief pause, he added, “I’ve never been atop a mountain in my life. Not one. And I’ve never touched snow. I want to pick up a handful, and learn what that feels like. Maybe it’s foolish, but I dream about these things.”
Thasha touched Pazel’s leg. “Your turn.”
Pazel hesitated. Why was it such an unsettling question? Thasha was not even looking at him, and yet he felt as though she had backed him into a corner. He tried to picture the two of them, married, settled in the Orch’dury or her mansion in Etherhorde. Thirty years from now. Fifty. He recalled the vision he’d had at Bramian, he and Thasha joining some forest tribe, retreating from the world into the heart of that giant island. What was he thinking? What did fantasies, or love for that matter, have to do with saving this world from a beast like Arunis? He touched the shell that Klyst had placed beneath his skin at the collarbone. It used to burn him when Klyst was jealous; now it was just an ordinary shell. The thought left him briefly desolate.
“Well?” said Neeps.
Pazel groped for a truthful answer. He thought, I don’t want to want anything. I couldn’t stand it, if Ormael was dead, or dying, or two hundred years older. To go there, dreaming of something that will never come back…
“I can’t seem to decide,” he said, pathetically.
Suddenly there was a great commotion from the others. Pazel thought for a moment that they’d been eavesdropping, and were leaping up to vent their disgust at his indecision. But then he saw something that made him forget all that: Ibjen and Prince Olik, walking across the roof toward them, both smiling broadly. And emerging last from the trapdoor that none of them had seen beneath the leaf-litter, Hercol. He was smiling broadly.
“Eight lizards, basking in the sun,” he said. “Come down before you burn.”
“So that is how things stand,” said the prince, stalking almost at a run down the corridor. “He has the Stone, and we must get it back before that ship arrives-and more important, before he manages to do something hideous, irreparable.”
The humans were bunched around him, keeping pace. “How do we know he hasn’t mastered the Stone already, Sire?” asked Neeps.
“By the fact that we yet breathe, Mr. Undrabust,” said the prince.
He reached the end of the corridor. Without stopping, he leaned into a pair of big double-doors, spreading them wide, and charged into the main entrance hall of the Conservatory. His personal servants and guards were waiting there, along with most of the birdwatchers, who seemed caught between relief and disappointment at the sight of the departing humans. One tried to hand a sheet of parchment to Mr. Druffle.
“A simple questionnaire, it will take just a minute-”
“It’ll take less than that,” snarled Druffle, crushing the sheet in his fist.
They passed through the outer doors and found themselves in dazzling sunshine. They were on the portico, facing the marble stairs and wide gardens that fronted the Conservatory. Thasha gave a cry of joy: Jorl and Suzyt were waiting there, untethered. They leaped on her, ecstatic and squealing. “They are clever dogs,” said the prince. “You have trained them almost to dlomic standards, and that is high praise.”
“How did you get them to obey you?” said Thasha, hugging both mastiffs at once.
“They did nothing of the kind,” laughed the prince. “But they listened to Felthrup, right enough. And he convinced them I was a friend. Hurry, now, let’s be gone from here.”
“Yes!” shouted Dr. Rain, shuffling quickly down the stairs. “Out, out, out!”
“The doctor disapproves of our facility,” said Olik, “but in fact you were lucky to have been locked up here. There are not many flat-roofed buildings in the Middle City, although there are plenty of flat heads. One or the other kept your would-be executioners from seeking you in the most obvious of hiding places.”
“How did you get rid of them?” asked Uskins, who was having a lucid moment.
“I left that to Vadu,” said the prince. “He was rather startled to find me alive, and rather terrified to imagine how many people might already have learned what he put me through last night. Suffice it to say that our relations are off to a fresh start.”
Beyond the gardens that fronted the Conservatory waited three fine, gilded coaches. Their teams were not made up of horses but dogs: twelve massive, square-shouldered dogs apiece, waiting silently but with eager eyes. There were no drivers that Pazel could see. But a crowd of onlookers had appeared, held at a distance by well-armed Masalym soldiers.
“Prince Olik! Prince Olik!” cried the onlookers. “What happened at the shipyard? Was it really the nuhzat?”
“It was,” said the prince. “I saw the man’s darkened eyes. But you must trust your grandfathers when they tell you that the nuhzat is not madness. At its worst it is a trance, at its best transcendence. If it comes back to us as a people we must call ourselves blessed.”
“Your cousin the Emperor-will he think us blessed?” shouted an old woman.
The prince smiled ruefully. “No, he will not.”
The mob grumbled as Olik ushered the humans into the coaches. “I can give you honesty, my people, as I always have-or I can give you words to make you smile. Sometimes one cannot do both. Step lively, Dr. Chadfallow, in you go. Jorl and Suzyt can run alongside the pack.”
“They have names,” said someone.
“Of course they do,” said Pazel. “Don’t you name your dogs?”
His reply caused an uneasy stir-and Pazel realized suddenly that the speaker had not been referring to the dogs. A tall dlomic man pointed at them between the soldiers. “What are they really, prince?” he cried. “Demons sent to punish us? Tol-chenni cured by magecraft?”
“Don’t you know?” said Olik, swinging into the coach. “They’re our albino brothers, of course. From the Magnificent Court of the Lilac.” He closed the door with a bang.
Each coach had seating for six. Pazel was squeezed in between Thasha and the prince, facing Ibjen, Hercol and Chadfallow. “Home!” shouted one of the prince’s aides. The dogs yipped and whined; the carriage jerked once, then started to roll. Thasha called to Jorl and Suzyt, who fell in beside them, barking. The open space around the Conservatory gave way to narrow streets. Brightly painted homes, shops, taverns closed them in.