The Serpent Sea

Chapter Nine

Once the metal ship had been secured again, the excitement died down and everyone wandered back to their ships or the dock buildings. Moon lingered, just in case the ship’s owner belatedly appeared, but finally gave in.

He took the first stair upward, where it wound up among platforms braced atop the knobs and swellings in the monster’s side. As the stairs curved inward, he saw someone standing on the platform above, under the vapor-light, waiting for him. It was Stone, radiating impatience.

“Well?” Stone asked, as Moon reached the platform.

“It didn’t work like we thought.”

“I noticed.”

Moon ignored that in the interest of not spending the rest of the night fighting. “I heard the other crews talking. They think the ship belongs to somebody called Magnate Ardan. He lives up there.” He jerked his head up toward the tower, the gold top barely visible from this angle.

Stone turned to look. Then he hissed out a breath and started up the stairs. “That’s going to be a problem.”

Following him, Moon agreed. They had a whole tower to search now, and it would probably be occupied by a large number of groundlings.

And they didn’t know for certain that the seed was there, just that this Ardan now owned the ship, so he must know what had happened to the crew.

The steps twisted up through a heavily shadowed, unlit walkway. Stone kept walking, but Moon shifted and scaled the nearest wall, then climbed up to the rust-streaked metal roof of the house that overhung the walkway.

He had a better view from here. Above the crowded buildings overlooking the dock, the walkways turned to narrow caverns, winding their way past the feet of other towers, far smaller than those toward the center of the city. It was well past the middle of the night, and many of the lights had gone out. He didn’t see much movement on the walkways and bridges in this area, either.

He could understand why groundlings might be reluctant to venture out into the night. The mist had sunk into the low spots of the city, the walkways and lower platforms, so heavy it obscured everything but the brightest lights. Unless these people had a Raksuran-like sense of direction, they could easily become lost in their own city. He sprang up from the roof, spreading his wings to catch the strong wind, and turned toward the city’s central ridge and Ardan’s tower.

It loomed out of the misty dark, a tall octagonal structure with a domed roof of green-tinged copper topped by a slender gold spire. But there were no open terraces and balconies like the other big towers. He flew closer, slipping sideways in to make a wide circle around it. There were windows, narrow arches set deeply back into the heavily carved façade, but they all seemed to be covered by metal shutters. That’s not helpful. He had hoped to at least get a glimpse of the inhabitants—

He slammed into something and the stunning blow sent him spinning away. Dazed, he plunged down, falling toward the rooftops. He struggled to extend his wings, then managed to roll out of the dizzying tumble and caught the air just in time to break his fall.

Moon glided down, then dropped onto a slanted rooftop. He hooked his claws in the slate shingles as he folded his wings and pulled them in protectively. The skin under his scales tingled, as if he had fallen into something acidic. He shook his spines out with an angry rattle, but he wasn’t sure who he was more mad at, himself or the damn groundlings.

Still shaken, he crept to the edge of the roof, climbed down to a lower rooftop, and finally down a wall to a walkway cloaked in mist. There, he shifted to groundling. The sudden change in sensation made him stumble; the tingling was worse, like being bitten all over by firebugs. And he had a headache.

Snarling under his breath, he found his way through the narrow caverns of the walkways. The damp air seemed to congeal on his skin, weighing his clothes down. He crossed a bridge over a mist-wreathed chasm and came out onto the open plaza at the base of the tower.

Two bridges led off from the plaza and several stairways wound up and away from it amid the smaller buildings clustered around. Vapor-lights hung from arches and eaves over some of the ground-floor doorways. The doors were all sealed, except for one. It was off the second landing of a stairway, and was lit and open; piping music came from it, and an occasional muffled voice.

From this angle, the tower itself looked even more like a blocky, windowless fortress. The entrance was large but sealed with heavy ironbound doors and there was a big vapor-light mounted on each side.

The plaza wasn’t uninhabited. Moon immediately sensed movement down several of the byways. And Stone, still in groundling form, was just across the way, sitting back against the wall, near a bundle of rags. Swearing silently, Moon crossed over to him.

“So they don’t want visitors,” Stone said, apparently having decided to be unperturbed by this development.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking.” Moon leaned on the wall and eased down to sit. The paving was gritty and smelled of mold. The shock of running into the tower’s barrier had left him feeling every moment of all the days of long flights, tension, and little rest. “Who’s that?”

The bundle of rags was peering around Stone, staring at Moon. Its eyes were big, dark, and slightly mad. It smelled like a groundling; based on the size, Moon was guessing one of the gray ones with the waterling scales and crest.

“This is Dari.” Stone jerked his head to indicate his new groundling friend. “They threw him out of that wine bar up there.”

“Halloo,” Dari said, or something similar. Moon realized that Dari wasn’t mad, but just very, very intoxicated.

A group of blue groundlings tumbled out of the wine bar’s doorway, the vapor-light gleaming off their pearly skullcaps. They careened down the steps, talking loudly. Moon leaned his aching head back against the wall. “The crewmen were speaking Kedaic. They used a word I thought meant ‘magnate,’ but maybe it means ‘magister.’” That would explain how the thieves had found the colony tree, why they had been so bent on getting the seed. If Ardan was a powerful groundling shaman, he could have wanted the seed for magic, used his powers to locate it, and sent the thieves after it. Moon just hoped Ardan hadn’t noticed that something had flown into his damn magical barrier.

Stone said, dryly, “That would agree with Dari, who says a powerful magic-worker lives in that tower, and that everyone’s afraid of him.” Dari nodded emphatically.

Stone added, “I checked. That barrier goes all the way down to the pavement in front of the doors.”

The drunken groundlings staggered across the plaza. Two spotted Moon and Stone, and broke off to rush aggressively toward them. Dari yelped and cowered.

When they were less than ten paces away, Stone growled, a low reverberation that Moon felt through the paving. The two groundlings stumbled to an abrupt halt and peered uncertainly. Groundling eyes often weren’t as good in the dark as Raksuran, and they probably couldn’t see much except three shapes sitting against the wall. They hesitated, wavering, then retreated, throwing uneasy looks back. They rejoined the rest of the group, which was making its way loudly and erratically across the plaza.

Dari made a noise of relief, pulled a pottery jug out of his rags, and drank deeply.

Stone waited until the groundlings had wandered out of sight, before he said, “He’s had our seed most of a turn, depending on how long it took his thieves to get back through the forest. We need to get in there.”

“But not tonight.” Moon had had enough for now. They needed to rest, get more information about Ardan, then think of a way to get past the protective barrier. “Dari, show us where the nearest abandoned house is.”

There were several not far away, a crowded huddle of houses around a dark octagonal tower. Dari pointed it out for them, then wandered off back toward the wine bar.

They made their way down a little alley that wove between the other buildings. It opened occasionally into small courtyards, barely thirty paces across. Moon could hear people sleeping in some of the houses, but others sounded empty. The odor of mold was worse here, almost as bad as the musky stench of the monster. The rock everything was built from seemed too strong to crumble, but the perpetual damp caused mold and mushroom-like plants to grow on it.

They came to the tower’s base, and there was no mistaking the fact that it was abandoned; the entrance archway was bricked up.

Moon glanced around, making sure the houses overlooking this plaza had either blocked windows or blank walls. Then he shifted and jumped up onto the side of the tower.

The openings below the third floor had all been blocked up, the seams filled with layers of dirt and mold. He climbed up to the first open window. Stone flowed past him and disappeared into an opening on an upper floor. Moon slipped inside, scenting nothing but rot.

The room was large and high-ceilinged, the floor strewn with broken furniture mixed with shrouds of disintegrating fabric and rotted trash. It was too dark to make out the carving on the pillars and the walls. Moon explored, finding that the layout was fairly simple, with big rooms on each floor around a central staircase. Prowling around each level to make certain nothing else was living here, he kept stepping on odd indentations in the floor. They were small and round, and there were a lot of them. He wasn’t sure what they were for, except to trip the unwary, until he found the rusted broken remnants of a metal clip in one. Huh, he thought, flicking the metal with a claw. They must be for anchoring down furniture, and anything else that might fall over when the leviathan moved.

There was also a big ceramic cistern on the fifth floor, filled by a pipe that ran out through the wall, and probably up to funnels on the roof. He opened the lid and sniffed cautiously. The water smelt stale, but not like anything had died in it.

Climbing up the stairwell, Moon wondered if the city wasn’t as populated as it had looked at first. If the empty walkways and sporadic lights weren’t a sign that the inhabitants were asleep, but a sign that many of them had long since left. The harbor had seemed well occupied by ships, if not crowded, but then with no room for crops or herds, the city must get all its food by trade and fishing.

He found Stone on the top floor, in a big room with two walls open to the wind and the night. Columns in the shape of groundling women supported the roof on that side, and a terrace with a high balustrade extended all the way around the tower. The weather had washed any debris down the stairs or back into the corners, so the cracked tile floor was almost clean.

Stone was in groundling form, sitting on the floor, digging through his old battered pack. Moon shifted to groundling too, and sat next to him, smothering a yawn. Stone pulled out a redfruit and offered it to him. Moon shook his head. He was a little queasy from his encounter with the barrier and he didn’t think a sweet redfruit would help.

Tomorrow they would have to find food, as well as a way into the Magister’s tower. They had some loose gems, sunstones from an old consort’s bracelet of Stone’s, brought along for him to wear at Emerald Twilight. Stone had refused to wear it, and apparently wasn’t at all reluctant to use it for trade.

Moon looked out into the dark sky, streaked with drifts of mist. How do we get into that tower? he wanted to ask. Instead he said, “If we can’t get the seed back, where do we go?”

Stone contemplated the redfruit, then put it back in his pack. “We look for another colony.”

“I know that.” Moon scrubbed a hand through his hair, and told himself not to try to pick a fight with Stone. Exhaustion and impatience and growing despair weren’t a good combination for this conversation. “Blossom said if we took another deserted colony, we could be attacked by other courts.”

“Blossom’s right.” Stone pulled out his blanket. “They can accuse us of stealing territory and attack us for it, drive us out of the Reaches.”

It sounded so wearily familiar to Moon. “Would they do that?”

“Yes. Emerald Twilight knows our situation. And if they know it, all the courts in the Reaches will know before the next turn. Some of them would be sure to decide that they don’t want a vagabond Fell-cursed half-dead court wandering around taking territory that doesn’t belong to it.”

“So they’d treat us all like solitaries.”

“Yes.” Stone straightened the blanket, and moved around to lie down on it, grimacing as he settled himself on the hard tile. “The colony tree isn’t just a place to live, it’s our heritage, our bloodline, our right to take our place among the other courts.” He patted the blanket. “Go to sleep.”

Moon lay down next to Stone, twinges of pain in his back and shoulders making the process more difficult than usual. Even when he was settled comfortably, his thoughts chased in circles and it seemed a long time before he could sleep.

He woke just before dawn. He was lying on his stomach, and Stone was using his back and shoulder as a pillow. Stone was heavy but also very warm, a contrast to the damp cool of the morning. Moon just lay there for a moment; sleep had helped cure the exhaustion but not the impatience or the despair.

Reluctantly, Moon nudged Stone over and climbed to his feet to stretch. In the daylight he could see the walls were covered with splotches of peeling paint worn away by the weather, old murals too faded to make out. He went to the big window and leaned against the side, yawning, looking out into clouds of white mist, much heavier now than it had been last night.

They would have to go through the city today, which meant talking to strange groundlings. He remembered he was still wearing his consort’s gifts, the belt and knife, and the gold wristband. They weren’t obvious, and the wristband was normally hidden by his shirtsleeve, but it didn’t pay to take the chance. Groundlings who had been to the colony tree to steal might recognize the Arbora’s designs. He took both off and tucked them into a handy chink in the wall.

He went out onto the terrace and stepped up onto the low balustrade. His toes hanging out over the precipitous drop, he looked out over the city again. The mist hung like a heavy blanket over the smaller houses around the tower, obscuring any view of the alleys, the walkways. Sound was muffled, but there wasn’t much to hear: some distant clanking and banging from the direction of the port, the call of a food peddler. Any signs of movement or life were buried under the fog.

Moon decided to take a chance. He shifted and jumped off the balustrade, hard flaps taking him up until he could catch the wind.

He flew out past the edge of the mist, which clung to the edges of the giant island-monster but faded away over the open sea. He took a long circuit around the shoreline, just to see if anything had changed. No ships had put out yet, but he did see three shapes swimming toward the harbor: water travelers, plodding steadily over the waves. He didn’t want to go any closer, but he was pretty certain Nobent wasn’t one of them. If Nobent was foolish enough to head back here, it was going to take him a lot longer than a day to make the journey.

Moon turned away and headed for the opposite coast from the harbor. Once there, he went towards the long reef formed by the tail and dipped down to fly low over the water. He eyed the waves cautiously; he hadn’t forgotten the large size of the predators, though he hoped the close proximity of the monster would keep them away. Perhaps it would attract some variety of suckerfish, the larger the better.

He found several, big gray ones about four paces long. They swam close to the surface near the tail, clustering in an area where, judging by the flotsam caught in the waves, the islanders must dump their garbage. He caught one, snatching it out of the water, and flew back to the tower with it.

When he dumped it onto the terrace, Stone sat up with a grunt of surprise. Moon told him, “That’s yours,” and flew back to get one for himself. The sky was lightening as the sun rose and, fog or not, flying over the city would soon be too chancy.

By the time he got back with the second fish, Stone was gone. So was the first fish. Stone must have shifted to eat it because there was literally nothing left but a wet spot on the floor and a few stray scales. Moon ate his fish, leaving the bones, the scales, and sharp tail fins behind. He didn’t have Stone’s digestion.

He went down to the fifth floor and used water from the cistern to wash the guts off his claws, then stopped to listen. He could hear distant voices, including Stone’s. He would, Moon thought, half wry and half bitter. Moon had always approached new groundlings cautiously, spending a few days observing them if possible before venturing to draw near. Stone apparently just sauntered into their camps and sat down. Shaking his head, Moon climbed out the window.

At the base of the tower, he shifted to groundling and followed the voices through the maze of alleys. Stone was in a little court, sitting on the paving with three groundlings. One had brought a metal brazier and from the smell, it was burning a fuel made from fish oil, unless that odor was coming from the clay pot set atop it. Two of the groundlings were the short fishy-gray variety, the third was larger with orange-tinted gold coloring, though his hair and beard had streaks of gray. All three wore gray and brown clothing, ragged and worn.

As Moon stepped into the court, the groundlings looked up, startled. Stone obviously hadn’t told them he had brought a friend.

Ignoring the stares, Moon went to sit next to Stone. Stone nodded to the gold man, then to the gray groundlings, who were both female. “That’s Enad, and Theri, and Rith. This is Moon.”

Enad lifted his brows at Stone, saying, “Where did you say you were from?” He spoke Kedaic also, with a thick accent.

Stone, scraping tea into the steaming clay pot, didn’t look up at him. “I didn’t.”

“We came on that trader ship,” Moon said. Every ship of any size in the harbor had been a trader ship, and he didn’t intend to be more specific. His travels had given him a lot of experience with how to appear to be willing to answer questions without actually answering them.

Enad nodded, his gaze flicking curiously from Moon to Stone and back. “The one from Bekenadu?” He didn’t wait for an answer, turning to the two women. “Times are hard for traders, too.”

Rith, the second gray groundling, regarded Moon skeptically. She looked older, and the blue-tinged gray of her skin was marked with creases, the scales at the base of her forehead crest turning white. “You’re traders?”

“No. When they stopped here, the traders upped the passage price.” Moon shrugged, leaving them to fill in the rest. Obviously traders would sleep on their ships, or pay for shelter near the harbor, and wouldn’t need to live in abandoned houses.

The skepticism faded and Rith nodded understanding. “There’s not much work here, except at the harbor.”

“Or the towers,” the younger one, Theri, said. Her mouth twisted. “But they’re particular about their servants.”

Stone caught her eye, and said, deadpan, “We’re not pretty enough?” His lips twitched in a smile.

She smiled back, laughing. “Too big, too…” She made a vague gesture.

“They like their servants to look helpless,” Rith added, rueful and bitter. “You look… not helpless.”

Enad nodded confirmation. He thumped himself in the chest. “Me, too.”

“All of them?” Moon asked. He hadn’t seriously considered taking work as a servant to get into Ardan’s tower, but it was a thought.

“All I’ve ever heard of,” Rith said. “Better to get work in the harbor.”

Enad began to elaborate on this, listing the various cargo factors he had worked for and how much coin they paid and what bastards they were. Moon considered how to turn the conversation back to the towers, then decided there was one question newcomers couldn’t fail to ask. When Enad stopped talking, Moon put in, “Who builds a city on a monster?”

All three sighed, and the two women exchanged weary looks. “Everyone asks that,” Theri explained.

Rith took up the story, cutting off Enad’s attempt to tell it. “Long ago, before we were all born, the leviathan slept in a cove, not far off the shore of Emriat-terrene. Great magisters held it with their magic and built this city on its back—no one knows why,” she put in to forestall the obvious question. “To show their power, maybe. They carried all the building stone and metal over on barges from the mines in Emriatterrene. They say the mountains were stripped to the bone before they were done. But the turns went by and the rulers of Emriat-terrene were overthrown, rose again, were overthrown, and the magisters lost their skill, or much of it. The leviathan woke and swam away, taking the city with it.”

Moon exchanged a look with Stone, who lifted a brow and shrugged. He was right; it wasn’t the oddest thing either of them had heard.

Rith continued, “The magisters found ways to keep the city together. They gave the traders spelled direction-finders, so they could still find the city when the leviathan moves. They made a warning bell that tolls when the leviathan grows restless so the fishers know to come back to port and to lift their boats from the water, and the traders know to cast off.”

Moon read the resignation in her expression. “It doesn’t sound like a good life.” It sounded as if the magisters controlled everything, and unlike most other cities, you couldn’t simply walk away.

Enad looked bleak. “It’s all right.”

Rith said, “Many of those who have the coin to buy passage leave.” She grimaced, dispirited. “The traders know how much they can charge now, and few can afford it.”

Theri leaned her head on Rith’s shoulder. “It would be easier if the leviathan went back to sleep for good, or went closer to the western shore.”

“The western shore?” Moon asked.

“That’s where most of the traders come from.” Enad admitted, “If all of them could find us, and not just the ones the magisters give the trade-right to, it would be easier to leave. Or stay, if more people came back to live here.”

Stone dipped a cup out of the pot and handed it to Rith. “What about the eastern shore, where the forests are?”

Theri laughed. “Everyone knows monsters live there.”

After the tea was finished, the groundlings went on their way, and Moon and Stone walked toward Ardan’s tower. Moon hoped it was open during the day, and that they could at least get a look at who went in and out of it.

If the doors never opened at all, he wasn’t sure what they were going to do.

The walkway they were on, a narrow passage winding between the tall gray walls, was empty at the moment. They had passed a few groundlings earlier, all hauling two-wheeled carts, heading toward the harbor, and Moon had heard a few others on the bridges and balconies they had passed under.

“You didn’t ask them about Ardan,” Stone said.

He didn’t sound as if he was arguing the point, just curious. He had been letting Moon take the lead in finding things out, something which Moon had noticed and appreciated. Of course, if they failed, it would be mostly Moon’s fault. “I didn’t want them to get suspicious. If we just got here, we shouldn’t know who Ardan is yet.” Also, Enad was a talker, and Moon could too readily imagine him repeating the conversation to anyone who would listen. If Ardan was aware that something had tested his barriers last night, he might well be listening, and willing to pay for information. “I might ask them about the metal ship, later. It’s different enough from the others in port that people must notice it.”

Stone snorted in amusement, and Moon said, defensively, “What?”

“You talking to groundlings. That’s a change.”

Moon set his jaw, annoyed. “We are not flying up to them in the middle of nowhere. These people have no reason not to think we’re groundlings. There’s a difference.”

They reached the plaza at the base of Ardan’s tower. It wasn’t much more occupied than it had been last night. A few people were crossing the paving, but all seemed to be heading for the walkways or stairs, just passing through. The tower itself was still tightly shut.

The second story wine bar on the east side of the plaza was still open, or at least the door stood open and the music still played. Groundling places that sold liquors or drugs usually only opened in the evening, but maybe living on a restless leviathan required constant access to intoxicants. Moon started toward it. “Maybe we can talk to somebody in there.”

“If they’re all like Dari, that might not be so helpful,” Stone said, but followed him anyway.

The stairway climbed over another house’s roof, and the gray tile steps had a few recent stains that stunk of vomit and some kind of sweet liquor. Words were painted on the wall in several different languages, one of them Kedaic, advertising wine and smoke.

Moon stepped into the doorway. The place was bigger than it looked on the outside, winding back away in a series of oddly shaped rooms. Cushioned benches were built into the walls, groundlings sprawled on them, most asleep or barely stirring. The whole interior was filled with drifts of variously colored fog. The cloyingly sweet odor made Moon sneeze. Groundling drugs and alcohol had never worked on him, and he didn’t expect this would, either. He moved further in and Stone trailed after him.

As the main room curved away from the doorway, it widened out to a space where there was a small platform. Around it sat three fishy-gray groundlings, two playing stringed instruments and one a set of wooden pipes. On the platform, a golden-skinned groundling woman, dressed only in wispy scarves, moved to the music, though she looked half asleep. Dancing was another groundling thing that left Moon cold. The quick movements were often distracting and made him twitchy with the urge to hunt, and the slow movements were just boring. It was more fun to watch grasseaters graze.

Nearby stood an elaborate metal stand with a glass globe of blue water. The stands were scattered all over the room, fastened to bases built into the floor, and seemed to be the sources of the mist. Moon stepped closer and saw a little creature inside, a tiny amphibian with big eyes and feathery fins, gazing brightly back at him. That’s new, he thought, and looked around again at the semi-conscious groundlings. Whatever the fog was, all the patrons looked too far gone to be of any use. Dari was coherent compared to these people. That was a scary thought.

A woman stepped out of the fog and moved toward him, watching him inquiringly. “You want to buy some smoke?” she asked. She was tall and slender, her skin a smooth matte black, and she had a shock of short white hair. White brows outlined her dark eyes, and she had gold paint dotted on her forehead, nose, and chin. She was wrapped in a silky blue robe that covered her completely, but she was much more attractive to look at than the sleepy dancer. It took Moon a moment to remember to answer her question. “Uh, no, not smoke.” She seemed more amused than anything else, so Moon added, “We were looking for a place that sold food.” Not true, but it was a good excuse for wandering in here.

“Not here.” She nodded toward the door. “You’ll need to go back toward the harbor. There’s a market on the main walkway.”

“Sorry.” Moon turned to go.

She walked with him. “It’s all right. I don’t often get to speak to people who aren’t sodden with drink or smoke.” Stone, who had been wandering the shadowy areas, came back to Moon’s side. She looked him up and down and lifted a brow. “That’s your father?”

“Grandfather,” Stone corrected, and looked her up and down in return. It was as close to true as it was safe to get; most groundlings didn’t live to be Stone’s age.

Her mouth quirked in a smile. “Interesting family.”

She seemed to be finding them odd but not dangerous, which was the best they could probably hope for. It also meant they could ask questions without looking any stranger than they already did. As she led them out, Moon asked, “We’re looking for work. Does that tower hire laborers?”

“You don’t want to work there. It’s a strange place. It belongs to a magister. You stay away from them.” She stopped just outside, but leaned in the doorway and didn’t seem in a hurry for them to go. “They like their own way. Anybody like that is dangerous.”

She was right enough about that. “What does he do in his tower that’s so strange?”

“He collects things.” Her brow furrowed, and she tried to explain, “Trinkets and art. Things from far places. Some of it makes your flesh crawl. You can see for yourself. The tower will open at midday.”

“Open?” Stone asked.

“For anyone to go into the lower floors, to show off his collection and offer him new things. He does it every day. Likes to frighten people, probably.” She pushed away from the door, turning to go back inside. “You go see for yourself—just don’t ask for work there.”

“We will,” Moon said to her retreating back. “Thank you.”

It was still early, so they went to the market the woman had spoken of. Moon couldn’t count on being able to fly out to fish for remoras every day, and they needed to stay as well fed as possible. Moon traded one of their small sunstones for a couple of pots of cooked fish and clams, and a small pile of the marked metal bits that served as the local coinage. They sat down on the steps at the edge of a little plaza to split the food, watching the people in the market pass by.

It was busy, with stalls set up under the eaves of the buildings on each side of the walkway. Besides food, the stalls sold metalwork, pottery, a local cloth made of dyed fishskin as soft as the finest leather, and trade goods like silks and scented oils. Moon had looked at the roots and fruit, but they were all small, old, and far more expensive than the fish. But then they all had to come in on the traders’ ships.

The groundlings browsing the stalls were all better dressed than Rith, Enad, and Theri, but not in a much better frame of mind. Talk was muted, and people picked over the goods in a desultory way.

“Not very lively,” Stone commented. He hadn’t balked at the idea of eating cooked fish, but then Stone was odd for a Raksura. Though Moon did have to remind him not to gnaw on the clam shells in public.

“They can’t afford the roots.” Moon scraped up the last of the sauce. The stall holder had promised them four more bits for bringing the pots back. “Like Rith said, most of them probably want to leave.” They were speaking Raksuran, and Moon kept an eye out for anyone showing undue interest, but everyone seemed wrapped up in his or her own concerns.

“There’s something funny about all this.” Moon lifted a brow, and Stone added, “Besides the fact that they built their city on a leviathan, even if it was sleeping at the time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Stone spit out a piece of clamshell. “Maybe I’ll know when I see Ardan.”

“Planning on having a long conversation with him?” Moon asked. They couldn’t afford revenge; the only thing Moon was planning on was getting the seed and getting out.

“A pointed conversation,” Stone said, and smiled.