Suddenly he seized the captain’s forearm. No longer frail, or feigning frailty. Rose was clearly startled by his strength. Only Thasha, and Rose himself, knew that Olik’s hand was covering the scar of the Red Wolf.
“It is no easy task, shedding the skin,” he said. “Let us all remember that in days to come.”
And with that Prince Olik Ipandracon Tastandru Bali Adro ran across the forecastle, leaped with cat-like grace onto the rail, caught his balance-and dived, seventy feet straight down into the foam.
The Chathrand beat to quarters. Rose sent full gun crews to their stations. For the second time in a week, sailors and Turachs readied themselves for an assault.
Yet this time the frenzy had an air of make-believe. The ship was clearly trapped. The column of water had already lifted them a hundred feet and was still rising, fast. One above another the huge stone sluice-gates proclaimed their helplessness. There would be no fighting their way to freedom.
The small craft fled into the tunnels. Standing on the quarterdeck, mouth agape, Mr. Fiffengurt spotted Prince Olik across the basin, treading water, until the shaft filled enough to allow him to reach one of the staircases carved in its side. Then Olik clambered up the stairs and into another open tunnel, where more dlomu met him with bows. At the Chathrand’s stern, Mr. Alyash jumped at the sound of another splash, found a pair of sandals at his feet. Ibjen too had abandoned ship.
Huge bubbles burst as the tunnels filled. The Chathrand turned in a gentle, helpless circle. Somehow the moiling water never moved her anywhere near the fury of the falls themselves.
They rose as smoothly as any cargo pallet from the hold of a ship. But this time the ship itself was the cargo, and the pallet was water, a column of water, growing fast to nine hundred feet. Imagine the destruction, Thasha thought with a shudder, if the gates were all opened at once…
It took the better part of an hour to reach the top of the cliffs: an hour during which the men stood like statues, looking upward, saying very little. The sky above them was darkening. A few torches appeared along the rim of the shaft.
The final gate boomed into place. All at once cries of amazement were heard from the crow’s nest, then from the topgallant men, and the archers on the fighting top. And then the water ceased to rise. The topdeck remained some thirty feet below the basin’s upper rim.
“What’s happening?” said Fiffengurt. “The falls are still pouring in. Why are we holding still?”
“Since it is still flowing in,” said Hercol, “we may assume that it is also flowing out.”
“In equal volume,” said Rose. “Our hosts have opened some other gate. They’re keeping us where we are.”
“Which is where, Captain?” asked Neeps. “Blast it, I want to see.”
“Undrabust! Stand down!” boomed Hercol. But the swordsman was no officer, and the officers said not a word. Neeps and Marila leaped onto the foremast shrouds. Thasha was right behind them, climbing with a will. And suddenly she realized that scores of sailors were doing the same. On the other masts they were climbing too, as many men and boys as the lines could support. The wind brought smells of woodsmoke and algae and dry stone streets. The climbers all reached viewing-height at roughly the same time. And held their collective breath.
A vast city surrounded them. It was surely thrice the size of Etherhorde, greatest city of the North. Over rolling hills it spread, a city of stone houses, thatched roofs, dark and still in the gathering night. Narrow, sharp-roofed towers and oblong domes cast shadows over the lower structures. They had risen inside the city’s massive, many-turreted wall.
But all that was at a distance. Thasha saw now that the flooded shaft did not truly end where she had supposed: it broadened into a wide basin, like a wineglass atop its stem. There was as yet no water in this upper basin, though it was clearly designed to be filled.
Projecting into the basin was a long bridge, supported by stone arches and ending in a round, railed platform overlooking the shaft where the Chathrand floated. Even now, dark figures were running out along this walkway, some bearing torches, their silver eyes glinting in the firelight. They were shouting to one another in high excitement. A great number of dogs loped at their feet.
“There is a shipyard!” cried someone. And there it was: indeed the whole eastern rim of the basin was a dark jumble of ships-ships in dry dock, raised on stilts; ships floating in a sealed-off lock, from which their spars poked out like the limbs of winter trees. Ships wrecked and abandoned in a dry, deserted square.
Thasha looked at the mighty river. Above the falls it rippled down a series of low cascades, like a giant staircase, each step flanked by statues in white stone-animals, horses, dlomu, men-that towered over the modest homes. Away to the south the cliffs rose again. There was another mighty waterfall, and above it more roofs and towers looking down on the city.
“Night has come,” said Bolutu, who was clinging close beside Neeps. “Why is the city dark? There should be lamps in the windows-countless lamps, not these scattered few. I don’t understand.”
The dlomu reached the platform at the walkway’s end. They leaned out over the rails, looking down at the ship, mighty and helpless below. They were pointing, shouting, grasping at one another in shock. There was just enough light for them to know the crew was human.
“Thashiziq!”
Ibjen’s voice. Thasha saw him, waving excitedly from a platform. The other dlomu left a little space about him, looking askance. As though in greeting one of them he had become almost a stranger himself.
She waved. Ibjen was chattering, explaining; his countrymen did not appear to be paying attention.
“Pazel should be here,” said Neeps. “He should be with us right now, seeing this.”
“Yes,” said Thasha with feeling, turning to him. But the distance in Neeps’ eyes told her that his words had been meant for Marila alone.
“Are they talking?” someone shouted from above. “Listen! Listen to them talk!”
Then Bolutu laughed. “Of course they’re talking, brothers! There’s not a tol-chenni on this ship! Hail! I am Bolutu of Istolym, and it is long-terribly long-since I walked among my people! I want black beer! I want candied fern and river clams! How long before you bring us ashore?”
His question was met with silence. The dlomu on the walkway shuffled, as though all were hoping someone else would speak. Then Ibjen startled everyone by slipping under the rail. Deaf to the shouts of his countrymen, he scrambled out onto the cornice of the last stone pillar. It was as close as one could get to the ship. In a somewhat lower voice he called to them again.
“His Lordship the Issar of Masalym must decide how to welcome you. Don’t fear, though. We are a kindly city, and won’t leave you long in distress.”
“Just so long as you don’t leave us to sink in this blary well,” said Marila.
“Ibjen,” called Neeps, “where’s Prince Olik, and why in the Nine Pits did he jump overboard?”
“His Majesty has gone to the Upper City,” said Ibjen, “to the Palace of the Issar. I am sure he will speak well of you-generally well.”
“Why did you abandon us?” shouted the mizzen-man, Mr. Lapwing, somewhat crossly.
“I was never your prisoner, sir,” shot back the youth, “and Olik bade me come ashore with him. As you know, I gave him my promise.”
“Your worthless promise,” shouted Alyash.
“People of Masalym,” said Bolutu, raising his voice, “why are your houses unlit?”
“Because we’re all out here staring at you,” ventured someone, and the dlomu on the walkway laughed. Thasha felt a prickling of her skin: that was a forced and nervous laugh. A laugh like a curtain drawn over a corpse.
“Ibjen,” she shouted, obeying a sudden impulse, “we’re running out of food.”
The crowds above grew quiet, thoughtful. “I’ve told them, Thashiziq,” said Ibjen. Then all at once he gave her a sly look. “There’s a saying among us, that even after a hundred wealthy generations, the dlomu would never forget the feeling of hunger. Barren land and empty sea: from out this womb came I and thee. In my father’s village they still teach us those rhymes. We’re old-fashioned out there, you know.”