Despard ascended, clutching a rope ladder, which burden her wings just sufficed to take to the top of the wall. There she secured it and let it down with a flourish. It had been agreed that Gainer would shortly take the Tseitan back to its College docks, but for now, Stenwold did not want every scholar and Master to hear of his return, if for nothing else than to avoid the interminable round of questions that his reappearance would spark off. Gainer would therefore keep quiet while, in the meantime, Stenwold would slip into his own city. That was the plan.
Stenwold ascended the rope ladder with more ease than he had descended it all that time ago, when stepping on to the deck of Isseleema’s Floating Game. Kratia followed him up, with more ease still. As he hauled himself over the top of the wall he saw that the sky was fast greying into twilight: not a glorious red butcher’s sunset, not a fiery evening to send comfort to herdsmen and sailors, not a sunset to put Moths and Mantis-kinden to prophesying death and loss. The dusk was pale, almost colourless, the sun on the very point of shrugging its way behind the horizon, almost nonchalantly and without an ounce of showmanship. Stenwold felt something catch in his throat, and tears sprang to his eyes. He fell to his knees on the wall’s hard stonework, for it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
There was a soggy-sounding scuffle and Laszlo landed beside him, streaming wet but grinning like a madman. Stenwold looked up at him: the one person who had shared his ordeal.
‘Mar’Maker,’ Laszlo nodded, agreeing.
‘You’re a credit to your family,’ Stenwold told him.
The rope ladder was still jerking and tugging, so Stenwold turned to put an arm down to aid Wys, who was scaling it awkwardly, one rung at a time, her eyes focused fiercely on her hands. She took his help gladly when she was high enough, collapsing beside him with ragged breaths.
‘You… you are mad people,’ she said indistinctly. ‘Why’s it so pissing cold?’
Of course, she was wearing just a shift and, of her crew, only Phylles was remotely respectably dressed. ‘Despard,’ Stenwold decided, ‘we’ll need clothes for our guests.’ He looked down at his own feet, calloused and bare. ‘And try for some sandals at least, or we’ll all be lame before we reach my house. And tell Tomasso everything you can. Between you and Laszlo here, I owe your crew more than I can count.’
She nodded, looking suitably pleased, and set off into the air in an instant. Wys watched her go with wide eyes.
‘Land,’ she said. ‘This is land, then.’ Her gaze shifted from the seaward horizon, turning inland to the shadowed roofs of Collegium. ‘I’m not ready for this.’
‘In my own city, we receive ambassadors from Grande Atoll, sometimes,’ Kratia observed. ‘They do not die, of being on land, though they must make certain adjustments. You will not die of it either.’
Wys sat up, nodding. ‘Nobody will believe me, that I have seen this,’ she said, with a slight smile.
Fel hauled himself up over the edge and crouched there, the spikes on his hands flexing and twitching. Wys reached out and squeezed his arm. He had come wearing his mail, as he had donned it to fight the Echinoi, and his expression was strangely familiar to Stenwold. Only later that night did the connection come to him, for Fel’s face was not so unlike a Mantis-kinden’s features, and Stenwold had seen that look before, that war between fear and determination, when Tisamon had faced something he reckoned as magic. It spoke of a superstitious awe and terror.
‘I must pass on the news of our success to our coalition,’ Kratia announced. For a moment Stenwold was thrown, thinking that surely she could speak such words to her sisters even from here, but then he understood: Of course, she must tell the Vekken.
‘Tell them I shall recompense them, and yourself, in any way I can, beyond the trade with Collegium. I pay my debts.’
‘We know it,’ she told him. ‘Do not think we shall not call upon you for this marker. There are storms coming, Master Maker, and you are a valuable man to be a creditor of.’ She nodded him a curt salute and turned on her heel, striding away down the wall’s length, towards the city.
Phylles joined them at last, having scaled the wall with her own Art rather than trust the vagaries of the ladder. She clung to the stones, staring up at the sky’s vault, at the slowly darkening west. Her hair twitched and flurried.
‘Welcome to my world,’ Stenwold told the sea-kinden gently. Beneath them, the domed hump of their submersible was descending, and he guessed that, its last passenger having now disembarked, Lej was following some final instruction from Wys. What could they have told him? How long would he wait?
‘You’re truly after bringing back the heir?’ Wys asked him, seeming to have recovered the bulk of her composure. No doubt the fact of Laszlo staying close by her was some comfort. Fel remained standing spear-shaft straight, tense as a wire, eyeing the great built bulk of Collegium, and Phylles seemed to be waiting for the heavens to fall on them.
‘Oh yes,’ Stenwold said. ‘As you just heard, I’m known for the strength of my word.’
‘Only,’ she grinned weakly, ‘I reckon few would blame you if you decided to shaft us a bit. Not exactly open arms, your welcome down there.’
Stenwold shrugged. ‘I’m used to mixed receptions. Before Arkeuthys took me, I had no idea your people even existed. Now I leave two kinds of people down below: enemies, and not-enemies. I would rather know that I had friends.’ He knelt to put a hand out to the very last of the sea-kinden, who had been labouring her way up the ladder. Paladrya accepted his grasp thankfully, and he helped her carefully to the wall’s summit, where she sagged weakly against him.
They all started as Despard alighted again, preceded by a bulging sack. She quickly distributed tunics and cloaks and sandals at random, leaving it to them to sort out what best fitted who. Paladrya held a cape up, a strange expression on her face.
‘I remember wrapping him in a cloak, after we took him from the sea… I took what care of him I could, but how could it have been enough? If he is dead…’
‘We can only search,’ Stenwold told her. He had taken to Paladrya since their first meeting, prisoners in Claeon’s cells. Perhaps it was because, out of all the sea-kinden, her thoughts seemed also for others, not just for herself.
‘Come, I’ll take you to my house. We can make our plans there,’ he told them, sea-kinden and Fly-kinden both. ‘Despard, is Tomasso… ?’
‘At the Tidenfree, in harbour. Send word to him if you need him, he says.’ She gave him a wry look. ‘He’ll want the whole story, so don’t call him up before you’ve at least had a night’s sleep.’
‘Meeting me at your own home, Master Broiler? Either you grow less cautious or more assured of Imperial triumph,’ Honory Bellowern remarked drily. When word had come from the Empire’s chief agent in Collegium, Helmess had cordially invited him to call, rather than go through all the cloak-and-dagger of their usual meetings. Let him interpret that how he will, Broiler considered.
In truth, upstairs were Teornis and Elytrya and a handful of those murderous Dragonfly-kinden the Spider commanded. For all his protestations that they were on the same side, Teornis had suggested, pleasantly, that Helmess might not want to leave his house alone just yet.
‘What do you want, Master Bellowern?’ the Collegiate Assembler asked. They had better keep very quiet, up above. The last thing he needed was for the Empire to get involved in that particular piece of business.
‘Orders from Capitas,’ Bellowern replied briskly. ‘Your moment of greatness arrives. This business with the Spider-kinden is priceless. As soon as their ships arrive, word will go by the fastest means to order the troops to march on Myna.’
‘I don’t see how that involves me, unless you’ve made me your messenger boy now,’ Helmess grumbled.