He was dragging at her in the same moment, and the fire leaping up in their faces, running under the slats that floored the hidey the same as the well. It was inferno, instant and complete: searing heat and glare in their faces, men screaming and herself with a fistful of Mondragon's sweater as she scrambled for the stairs, him grabbing at hers, and it was both of them on the stairs at once, trying to climb to the deck with a sheet of flame at left and hellish glare off brick and doorways at right.
She grabbed her cap and dived, still with a fistful of sweater; and he came with her all in one wild wobble for balance, all legs and change of center. She fell sideways, water solid as a floor when she hit, and the breath near left her. She kicked, clothing weighted with water, hunting the surface with Mondragon's sweater still in one fist. She felt him kick and let him go as of a sudden something huge and rough brushed her shoulder—God, the barge, the propeller—O God—She heard the thumping getting nearer and kicked in cold panic, ran into Mondragon or someone and broke the surface with the glare of fire everywhere, with fire running and burning on the water, and the giant black shape of the barge a moving wall as it slewed about and ground against a brick wall. She saw other splashes of hell-lit water, other dark heads bobbing, fighting for their lives. Doors opened. Alarm bells pealed and boomed.
Fire! Fire on the canal!
She trod water and cast about wildly, saw Mondragon's pale face close at hand. He shouted something against the roar of the fire, waved toward the bank, and waved again.
She discovered herself clutching the damned cap, thought of letting go and then in profoundest bewilderment simply slapped it on her head, water and all, and struck out swimming. Clothing dragged at her, had her breathing in great gasps, scissor kicking and dogpaddling and any other stroke that gave her room to breathe. It was Mars over there. It was Mars' narrow rim, and crowds appeared suddenly everywhere, black figures pouring out onto bridges, onto walkways, desperate cries and shrieks drowning in the roar of the fire.
The bank loomed up, closer and closer, a blank wall there, where Mars had sunk: window-arches and former doors were bricked, the old ground-floor filled, the merest rim of the old walk left as a tilted slab a boat had to remember the breadth of when it skirted that isle. Mondragon pulled ahead of her with hard strokes, hit that sloping shelf and floundered ashore with a firelit splash of water as he staggered to his feet, turned and caught his balance. He had lost the black scarf: his pale hair was plastered down around his face. Somehow he had kept the rapier; it swung at his side, its guard winking as he got down on one knee on the submerged and tilted edge and leaned out with his hand outheld to her.
She mustered a last few hard kicks, calm and sane, and reached up to his grasp, reached up a second hand when he grabbed after it, and he rose up and backstepped, pulled her out with her scrambling after footing and near taking them both in before he caught his balance and held on to her—"God," she said, and choked and just leaned on him breathing and with her clothes weighing half as much as herself.
"Come on." He faced her about, got her into motion, his hand on her elbow. She went, splashing along with him, trying to flail her arms for balance, but his grip tightened about her left arm and he pulled her faster, she gasped and spat water that ran down from her hair and her cap, and nigh tore her knees keeping her balance on the outside of the ledge where his hold put her. Her feet went: the ledge just quit; and she went hi up to her waist before he hauled her up again and she scrabbled to solid stone, gasping and feeling a stitch in a rib.
Then they reached clear ground, staggered round the corner and full into a crowd of locals trying to get a floating-boom across the side canal, to stop the fire that might come drifting that way on the water. The crowd yelled, vague angry shouts, curses at two wet fugitives who might have some responsibility in the calamity—"That your boat?" one yelled, dropping his part of the makeshift boom to grab at Mondragon. "That your boat out there?"
"No!" Mondragon yelled back, his voice deep and furious. "We were on a poleboat, the damned barge nearly killed us!"
It was quick, it was credible, Mondragon's hightown accent, the outraged uptown passenger who would have nothing conceivable to do with a barge—it confused the man, who let Mondragon tear past, dragging her with him; and now Altair tried to run in earnest, past other arriving crowds. Two wet people now were far enough away from the immediate calamity they might be soaked firefighters, and they had the advantage of moving fast, before questions could get organized. Altair gasped for air and squished along in Sodden, weak-kneed jolts.
A vaster pealing added itself to the night - the great bell of the Signeury ringing in alarm: Help, fire, catastrophe, turn out, turn out!
Mondragon reached Mars' north stair at the landing, laid his hand to the rail and headed up, hauling her along. She gasped like a fish and stumbled on the steps, caught herself with her left hand as Mondragon hauled on her sore right arm.
Then it was a gentle jog, thumping across the boards of Mars' north bridge over to Wex, and onto that balcony, on which a scattered few shopkeepers ran toward the fire with hand-pumps and fending-poles. On the higher bridges crowds gathered, peering out toward the site of the fire which glowed like an unnatural sun in the city. The great Signeury bell tolled its alarm. People passed them on the balcony, distraught: "What is it?" one cried, catching at Altair's arm.
"Barge," she gasped over her shoulder, and Mondragon pulled her on and on, around the corner of Wex to the Splice, where a bridge led over to Porfirio.
Sedate walk then. Two drenched fugitives walking, one holding the other, down the boards, ignoring stares. Mondragon turned off at Porfirio Stair, where it led down to the landing; and it was down and down the steps till they were on canalside again, black water lapping at the stone walk. It was a quiet place, a warehouse on this side of Porfirio, its iron gates shut. Mondragon stopped and let her go and leaned against the corner of the door-inset, and she leaned her back against the iron door itself and held her aching side and just breathed for a moment. Mondragon's face shone pale in the starlight, fair hair starting to dry and curl.
"Where we going?" Altair asked.
"I don't know," he said.
"Don't know!" She yanked her sodden cap off and slapped it against her leg. "Damn, then why you been pulling me?"
He looked all blank for a moment, even offended, then gestured wildly at the bridges above them. "What do you want?" he asked, voice cracking. "Stand gawking in the crowd, dripping wet? Go back to Gallandry? They'll have ambush laid at every bridge."
"Then ask someone who knows the town, dammit! Come on."
He stood fast. "Where do you have in mind?"
She jerked her head in general toward her own territory, toward the Grand. The heavy bell of the Signeury dinned calamity into the night and jarred along her nerves. She sorted and discarded a dozen possible refugees in an eyeblink. "We got to walk there. Damn, we go up to a boat wet as we are, we got questions, and questions we don't need. Got to be somewheres we can walk. Moghi's. Moghi or Liberty'd do 'er for—Lord!" She plunged her hand into her right pocket. Against all expectation her fingers met two metal rounds she had not remembered putting there. Instinct had done it, unthought. Her knees went to water. She took her hand out carefully without bringing the coins to light. "I got 'em, I got 'em, oh, Lord, I got 'em." she began to shake all over. "Come on." She grabbed at his arm. "Come on, dammit! We waiting on your friends?"