The three Kencyr retreated to the outside stair and mounted it gingerly. Everything tilted, as if only the black rock below prevented the entire structure from falling over. There was no outer guardrail. One felt as if at any minute one might tip off into space.
Guards sprawled at the third-story entrance, asleep. One of them might have been dead. Damson shrugged. Accidents happen.
Jame knocked on the door. It opened a crack, then slammed shut, but the lock failed to catch. They entered.
“Hello?”
No one answered.
Within, the floor was strewn with damask pillows and shards of porcelain vases jolted off high shelves. Murals covered the freshly cracked lower walls, depicting meadowlands and forests in jewel colors. Silken veils separated interior spaces. Some were ripped. All wavering in an errant breeze. Everything spoke of a comfortable, sheltered life, rudely disrupted. A woman crouched in the far corner, clutching a bright-eyed, five-year-old child.
“Crash!” he said, with evident glee, reminding Jame of the younger Byrne. “Do it again!”
“Lady Kalan?” Jame advanced slowly so as not to frighten the woman more. Glass crunched under her boots. The marbles of some board game rolled.
The seeker looked much as she remembered, if older, her blond hair tarnished to silver gray, and thinner, with flesh beginning to sag on the bone. She blinked at Jame in surprised recognition.
“Lordan? What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you. Why didn’t you come back?”
“Back?” Kalan rose, still shaken. For her, after all, it had happened more than a decade ago. She spread her hands.
“Behold my cage, the latest of many. Before, I lived in the palace, first with Laurintine to nurse after that terrible storm. Then, when she died, the old king demanded that I stay, marry one of his cousins, and start a new line of Langadine seekers.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You needn’t be. I loved my husband, but I bore him only sons, five in all. This is Lanek, the youngest, a late blessing.”
“Hello!” The boy waved.
“Hello,” Jame replied gravely.
She remembered how desperately Kalan had wanted a family. After losing her first in Kothifir, here, it seemed, she had found another. “Where is your husband?”
“Dead these eight months, killed on the same fatal hunt that claimed the old king’s life. Now Lainoscopes has built me this new prison. He wants me to remarry and try again for a daughter, but I am too old. Besides, two husbands are enough.”
“You already have an infant girl, left behind in Kothifir.”
Kalan wrung her hands. “I have thought about her every day, these past fifteen years. She was so ill when I left, and my first husband so recently dead. I always hoped that I would go back to her in the end, please the gods, to find her alive, still a baby, still waiting for me.”
“You can do that now, and rescue your Kencyr escort on the way.”
The seeker looked bewildered. “What, they didn’t return to Kothifir? I thought they would, after they had waited long enough. Surely their scouts could have led them there from the oasis.”
“From the oasis in the future, yes, but something did go wrong, as you and Laurintine foresaw. After the caravan left, the wind swept the rest of us back into the past too, although we arrived long after you did.”
“This is making my head ache,” Damson said to Brier. “Besides, aren’t we in a hurry?”
“Quiet.”
“Mother?” called a voice from outside. “What’s happened to your guards? Mother!”
A well-dressed boy rushed into the apartment. He had Kalan’s blond hair and a rangy build that probably reflected that of his late father. Jame guessed that he was in his early teens.
“My second oldest, Lathen,” said Kalan, confirming her suspicion.
“Who are these people?” the boy demanded. “Does Cousin Lainoscopes know that you have visitors?”
Kalan drew herself up with an effort. She looked terrified. “Dear, this is an old friend. She’s come to take me home.”
The boy paled. “What do you mean? This is your home!”
“You know that I came here from over the sea, from a future when Langadine no longer exists. A daughter waits for me there. Don’t you remember? I used to sing to you about her, your little half-sister. She’s still only a baby and she needs me. Now I am going back to her.”
The boy shook his head, distraught. “No, no, no. Those were only foolish stories, and you’re deluding yourself now. I told my brothers that the king was pushing you too hard, but no one listens to me, not the way they did to Father. You can’t leave! What about us?”
“Lanek will go with me. You and the rest are old enough to look after yourselves, unlike your sister. Please, dear . . .”
“The king won’t allow it. You’ll see.” His voice broke. “Let go of me!”
Brier had taken his arm. He twisted futilely in her iron grip, simultaneously terrified and outraged that she could overpower him so easily.
“You can come with us,” said Jame.
“Where? Into some fantasy of future days? This is my time. I belong here.”
“Yes. I suppose you do.”
At a nod from her, Brier released the boy and he darted out the door, bound, no doubt, to inform the king of their imminent escape.
“I don’t understand,” said Damson in Kens as they descended the outside stair, Jame supporting the seeker, Brier carrying a delighted Lanek. “If he finds any guards still awake—and he probably wilclass="underline" I couldn’t put them all to sleep—they’ll be after us. So why let him go?”
Jame sighed. “He was right: this is his time, even if it kills him. Brier could have knocked him unconscious, I suppose. That would have been more sensible. But it just didn’t seem fair. He’s terrified of losing his mother. Why take away his self-respect on top of everything else?”
“Why? To get us safely out of here. Ten, sometimes you think too much.”
They had reached the courtyard. A cluster of men advanced on them—guards, Jame thought; Damson was right—but then she saw that they were all clad in yellow and that they escorted an old man who held back, talking fast:
“. . . you see, it wasn’t as if I actually flew. Think more metaphysically. You know that my intellect far exceeds your own . . .”
“Yes, Master, of course, Master,” they soothed him.
The Tishooo spotted Jame. “You were there! You said that I fell!”
“So I did. So you will. But it won’t hurt you.”
He looked up at the tower, his head tipping further and further back. For only three stories, it was remarkably high, “the tallest in the city,” Byrne had proudly claimed.
“Don’t tell me what will or won’t hurt!”
“Just keep talking!” she called after him as he was hustled past. “Stall!”
They went as quickly as they could down through a city shaken awake by the latest tremor. Some dwellings had collapsed while others were on fire. Many had left their inhabitants huddled outside in the street in their nightgowns while their neighbors tried to comfort them, meanwhile keeping a wary eye on their own shaken houses. The night market was a kicked ant’s nest full of merchants scrambling to save their wares. Jame hoped that Ean had taken her seriously concerning the need for haste.
At the waterfront she found not only Ean and Byrne but her own command, moas and all, piled into a sturdy fishing boat.
“Get aboard!” Gorbel shouted from the prow.
There was no wind to speak of, so the oars were out and manned by the cadets. The former owner stood on the marble wharf, his pockets bulging with golden coins, some of which he fingered, as if unable to believe either his luck or the foolish extravagance of some people.