Brier nudged her bird up level with the three lordan. “I can’t see the trail anymore,” she said.
Jame peered down. The moas’ progress had stirred up the bottom somewhat, and further distortion made the salt plates dance. Were they broken, or simply smaller than they had been before? At what point would the lambas have started to swim, pulling their barges behind them?
All the birds had stopped and were honking uneasily to each other. The riders sat, surrounded by a seemingly infinite, trackless expanse. The sun was going down.
“Now what?” Timmon asked.
“Forward,” said Gorbel, and kicked his moas into reluctant motion.
“I don’t think these birds can swim,” Jame said, but she followed the Caineron, her ten-command trailing after her.
The sun dipped below the clouds and set them on fire. Orange, red, and yellow ribbons streamed across the sky, perfectly mirrored in the waters below. It was like wading through the heart of a silent inferno. Then the sun’s fiery disk sank into its own reflection, going, going, gone. Color died out of the sky and stars winked between sable clouds. It was hours yet before the moon would rise, if it ever did.
They splashed on into the deepening night, drawn by Gorbel’s will. Water edged up to the moas’ breasts.
“He’s going to drown all of us,” Timmon said to Jame in an undertone.
“Maybe. Turn around, if you choose.”
Timmon rose in the saddle to look back the way they had come, past the following cadets. Nothing remained to mark their passage, and clouds were beginning to extinguish whatever stars might have guided them.
“Huh,” he said.
They continued. The water rose until they were sitting in it as much as in the saddle, and yet it crept higher.
“Look,” said Quill, pointing ahead.
A faint light shone there, perhaps a star near the now invisible horizon. Soon, however, it twinned, one above and one below. More dim lights came out as they advanced, a cluster low in the sky, reflecting off the water.
The moas were mostly underwater now, their small heads rising on serpentine necks. A new determination animated them, a straining forward as if toward the scent of land.
Jame slipped out of the stirrups and rose to swim beside her bird’s head. The others did too, except for Brier and Damson. Jame cursed herself for forgetting that neither cadet could swim. Mint supported the five-commander while Dar grabbed Damson. The lights loomed over them now, above and below, faintly defining high walls and candlelit windows.
Gorbel sank. Timmon and Jame dove, seized his arms, and pulled him up. Trinity, when had the man grown so heavy?
They were coming in between high marble wharfs topped with torches. Jame’s moa found its footing and surged upward. A moment later her feet also hit a flight of marble stairs rising out of the water. The birds lurched up them, their riders staggering beside them.
Timmon and Jame dragged Gorbel to the summit and dropped him.
“Well,” he gasped, rolling over, leaking water from every fold. “Here . . . we are.”
XI
Night in a Lost City
The nearest building showed lights at every window and echoed like a seashell with voices. After Tai-tastigon, Jame knew the sight, sound, and smell of an inn, wherever its location. The cordial commotion within stopped as she opened the door and stepped inside, followed by her dripping retinue. A tubby, bald man, clearly the host, approached them, drying his hands on his apron, and asked a question in a language that none of them knew.
“We seek shelter,” said Jame in Kothifiran Rendish. “For myself, my friends, and our mounts.”
The man brightened. “Ah! Our kin from over the sea. At last! Welcome!”
The weary, bedraggled moas were led around to the stable where the local horses could be heard protesting at their alien smell. Meanwhile, their riders were given quarters, towels, and food—a fish stew, crusty bread, and coarse, red wine—while their clothes dried before the fire. The relief, after hours of uncertainty, was profound, and perhaps premature.
“How are we going to pay for all of this?” Jame asked, dipping her bread into the stew broth. Both were delicious, although something in the stew ate most of the bread before she could.
Timmon looked blank, as if he had never been asked to account for anything in his life, which was probably true.
Gorbel, however, opened his jacket and unhitched a heavy belt. Unfolded, it spilled a cascade of thick, golden arax onto the table.
“No wonder you sank,” said Timmon, enlightened.
The Caineron gave the snort that, for him, passed as a laugh. “This may yet turn into a trade mission, or into headlong flight. Either way, should I have come with empty hands?”
A knock sounded on the door. Gorbel scooped the coins out of sight as Jame bade their host enter.
“The company would be glad to hear your story,” said the man, beaming. No wonder he was pleased: from the growing noise below, their arrival had greatly increased the inn’s business for the night.
Jame stopped Gorbel from snarling a refusal. They had already argued about letting their presence be known in the city. While it carried some risks, Jame had pointed out that the alternative was that the twelve of them skulk in the shadows all night, wet, hungry and, worse, unable to learn anything useful, nor was the next day apt to produce anything better. The sea front was the place most likely to supply someone who spoke their own language or at least that of Kothifir, and so it had proved.
“I’ll go down,” she now said. “The rest of you, get some rest.”
“I’m going too,” said Gorbel with a stubborn set to his jaw. What, did he think she would conclude some bargain behind his back?
“And me,” Timmon chimed in, running fingers through his drying hair. Some of the tavern maids had been pretty.
Brier and Damson both rose, looking stubborn.
“Oh, all right,” said Jame.
The five descended into the common room, a whitewashed rectangle with a geometric frieze around the top in shades of blue and green. Substantial tables were centered under many-candled chandeliers, and fireplaces flanked either end of the chamber, unlit on this mild night. The room was full of dark-skinned, bright-eyed customers whose glances darted back and forth among the three lordan as they came down.
The host escorted them to a central table, which its occupants quickly surrendered. “If it please you, lady and lords, from where do you come?”
“Kothifir,” said Gorbel.
“Ahh . . . !” breathed his audience, recognizing the name at least.
“It has been a long time since anyone came by that route,” the host said.
The lordan exchanged uneasy glances. “How long?” asked Jame.
“Some fifteen years,” the host replied, turning to his customers for confirmation. “Is that not so? Yes. The last caravan arrived in a terrible storm. Our sea is changeable: these days sometimes fresh, sometimes salt; sometimes calm and shallow like tonight, sometimes as high as mountains and as deep. That night, it raged. Bodies were cast on the shore for days, men and beasts alike, also much treasure. Most drowned, except for the seekers and a few others who swam to safety.”
Oh Ean, oh Byrne, thought Jame, briefly closing her eyes. What will I tell Gaudaric?
“One of the survivors has a stall in the night market,” said a man wearing a blue, fish-stained tunic, speaking passable Rendish. “He sells armor.”
The door was flung open. An old man stood dramatically on the threshold. His robe, dyed saffron with a deep hem embroidered with copper thread, swirled around him in a wind unfelt by those within. His white hair and beard flailed upward serpentlike in shaggy braids threaded with gold. He looked vaguely familiar.