'If I were you, Edeard advised mildly, 'I'd come down while you still have stairs to come down on.
The gates sent out another agonized rasping. The sturdy hinge bolts driven over eighteen inches into the substance of the walls were being rejected. The process which always pushed out human fixings over time was speeding up. From inside the mansion a whole series of squeals and brassy groans could be heard as every door was forced out of its frame. Pictures fell off the walls as the hanging spikes popped out. Shelves in the pantries and storerooms crashed to the floor, spilling their contents.
Bise turned and ran for the stairwell.
Water drained from the bathing pools on every floor in the mansion. The orange lighting segments dimmed to extinction. Crystal windows popped like soap bubbles. Doors fell, crashing down. Then the solid walls started to crawl as they slowly lost cohesion, transforming into a vertical tide of liquid dust.
The family Diroal and all their servants rushed for the stairs. Ge-chimps and monkeys and terrestrial cats raced past them, adding to the bedlam in the darkened stairwells. Bise had barely got halfway down to the sixth floor when the roof finally dissolved. Sunlight shone down into the exposed top floor rooms, revealing the carpets and wobbling furniture being slowly engulfed by a cascade of dust. He moaned in terror and ran faster. Under his pounding feet, he could feel the surface of the curving awkward stairs start to become slippery.
One by one, the three gates in the outside wall slowly warped out of alignment as their fastenings finally came free. They pivoted with an unhurried grace, and toppled down into the square. Nobody was left on the battlements to see their final moment. They were surging down the stairs in a desperate bid to reach the courtyard and safety.
In total it took over thirty minutes for the entire building to melt away, for it was a gigantic edifice and not even the city could reabsorb its mass any quicker. During that time, the constable teams Edeard asked for arrived in the square and formed a circle five men deep around the vanishing mansion.
Captain Ronark was among them. He saluted the Waterwalker, as did the sergeants. They listened to his simple orders before organizing their men as he wanted.
At the end, when the last stubs of the wall washed away, the area where the mansion had stood was reduced to a small lake of dust. It turned solid as rock. Piled up on it was a mound of smashed furniture, and clothes and curtains and carpets and linen, books and bottles of wine, broken crockery, bent cutlery — all the glittery detritus that any incredibly wealthy family would accumulate over two millennia. Ranged around that were the survivors; sullen and resentful, but most of all fearful of the Waterwalker and his power. They glowered as Edeard addressed them, but none dared to interrupt or argue.
'If you are a Diroal or one of those I named, you will hand over your weapons to the constables, he told them. 'And you will walk from here to the North Gate. The constables will escort you, and safeguard your passage. You may take with you whatever you can carry, and no more. Everyone else is free to go.
Captain Ronark headed the motley procession, square-shouldered and glowing with pride, taking them down Jankal Lane.
'I'll join you in a moment, Edeard told him, and walked over the square to Burfol Street. The regiment was still floating gently between the buildings. Several dozen had managed to cling to the vines, where they hung trembling. No matter how hard they clutched the fronds, their stomachs still insisted they were falling. The air was filled with little globules of tacky fluid. Edeard wrinkled his nose as he approached. The smell was truly awful.
His third hand drew Captain Larose to the front of the falling zone the city had created for him.
'I don't have orders for you, because I am not the Mayor, Edeard said as he looked up at the miserable man in his appallingly stained uniform. 'However, I would like to suggest that the regiment help the victims of this day. Do you find that suggestion sensible, Captain?
'Yes, the captain whispered.
'Thank you. My pardon for any discomfort. Please, all of you, engage your safety catches; nobody wants an accident now.
The regiment sank slowly down to the ground.
Edeard joined the line of constables on escort duty. The ones he fell in with were from Fiacre station; they welcomed him with muted smiles, trying not to appear too triumphal, but their thoughts were so bright it was hard to disguise. His farsight showed him Kristabel arriving in Mid Pool. She was on a family gondola, with Acena, their old doctor. Behind her was a procession of thirty gondolas, each with a couple of doctors, and several novices.
'The militia will be with you in a while, Edeard told her. 'They'll help you aid the victims. Try and ignore the smell.
'I'm not sure I want their help, she replied tartly.
'No recriminations, my love. We all have to live together after this.
'Yes. Of course.
'Can you talk to your father for me? I'd like a ship loaded with food and blankets to sail north this afternoon. It can anchor just offshore and supply the exiles with enough to get them through the next few days. We can't just fling them out with nothing. There are children going with them.
'There are times, Edeard, when it's really hard to live up to your standards of decency, but there isn't a day goes by when I don't thank the Lady you have those standards. I'll talk to Daddy right away.
As Edeard and the banished made their way across Sampalok, small groups of constables guided other people to join them: the men who had exclusion warrants issued against them. Sometimes their wives and children were with them, sometimes they came alone. As they walked onwards Edeard felt the continued intangible pressure of farsight pressing down on the morose column of unfortunates. He could feel the unconscious question brewing within the city's residents: what next? It was a question he was a little vague on himself.
'I need some advice, sir, he said to Finitan.
'I think all of us are redundant now, aren't we? the Grand Master replied.
'That's the thing, I can't be seen as some kind of emperor standing outside the Council. All of us have to work within the framework of the law, otherwise it becomes an irrelevance, and people can't live without the order it brings. That's what today was about, restoring order. We can't lose now. People have died.
'I know. Even until the last minute, I thought Owain would pull back. If you are willing to accept the constraints of the law then it should be possible to start afresh. Not that it will be easy. However, once people have time to reflect, and with some encouragement, they should be able to see that you were acting for the best. We just have to have a strategy that can take us up to the election. That is when you and I both will face the ultimate judgement.
'I know that. I have some ideas.
'Very well, my boy, let's hear them.
Kanseen, Dinlay and Macsen were on the Cloud Canal bridge, sitting together on one of its twisty pillars. They'd spread their jackets on the next pillar to dry in the bright sunlight. Kanseen's wet hair clung to her scalp like a bad beret. Her knuckles were grazed and muddy. Dinlay was trying to clean the one intact lens left in his glasses. Not that it mattered much, one eye was so badly swollen he could barely see through it. His lip was split, and still dribbling blood. He'd taken his boots off, so that his left ankle could be bound in a thick bandage. Macsen's nose was broken. Two small wads of tissue were jammed up each nostril, scarlet with blood. His jacket was missing, and his shirt under the drosilk waistcoat was ripped, revealing a lot of scratches and bruises on his arms.