Then they went ashore, and his pleasant mood stayed behind.
They were ambushed almost as soon as their feet hit dry land. Not because of anything he’d done, but because of his companions: three Guild Heads would certainly make a stir in the Capital. Cheska and Teach were swallowed up by a crowd of citizens pleading, demanding, or explaining one thing or another. Calder couldn’t understand what they were so excited about, but he took the opportunity to gather his crew. “A forgotten man is invisible,” as Loreli once put it. With the people focused on the Guild Heads, he brought Andel, Foster, and even Petal together and started uphill toward the Imperial Palace. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want to lose track of the crew.
He’d only taken a few steps when he noticed the one Guild Head who wasn’t surrounded by a flock of petitioners. Bliss stood in the middle of the pack, frowning at a brown leaf she pinched between two fingers. People avoided her as though someone had traced an invisible ten-foot barrier around her.
Calder broke that barrier as if he hadn’t noticed, though his crew stayed back with the crowd. Cowards or sages, he wasn’t sure which.
“I’m needed urgently at the palace,” Bliss said, in a voice that was anything but urgent. “But I need the Imperial Guard to admit me, which requires Jarelys Teach. And Teach is being distracted. Should I remove the distractions, so that she can focus on the greater good?” Her black coat wriggled, and she slid a hand closer to the buttons.
He spoke as quickly as he could, hoping to stop her from reaching inside. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary, Guild Head. I’m sure she’ll be along in a moment. Ah, people seem excited, don’t they? What do you think has them so agitated?” With each word, he kept his eyes on her hand.
When her attention returned to the autumn leaf, he let out a breath of relief.
“We’ve lost control of the Imperial Palace,” she said. “These people don’t know it, because the Imperial Guards will have locked it all down, but they know the gates to the palace are locked. The last time that happened was the first night of the Long Mourning, when Elderspawn rose all over the world. I was very busy.”
“We all were,” Calder said dryly. So that was what drove them to ambush the first Guild Heads they saw? Worries born of bad memories? They were right to worry, if tonight was going to be anything like that night five years ago. He wasn’t in the Capital on the day of the Emperor’s death, but he’d lived through the aftermath. And he’d seen the results of a global Elder uprising.
And with the typical logic of frightened people, these good Capital citizens were stopping the few who could actually protect them. General Teach was wading grimly through the sea of men and women, constantly asking people to stand aside, and Cheska drifted along in her wake. Her grip on her cutlass was tight, as though she wished she could draw and cut her way through.
“Join the General, Bliss,” Calder said. “Andel, Foster, and I will walk ahead of you and try to keep the streets clear. Don’t hurt anyone, please.”
Bliss treated him to the same suspicious scrutiny she had given the leaf, but just when he was planning on retracting his suggestion and throwing himself on her mercy, she nodded. “Very well. We should walk quickly.”
With that, she moved over to Jarelys Teach. For two or three seconds, the crowd didn’t recognize that Bliss wasn’t one of them, but each person who finally noticed the girl in the long black coat staggered backward. In less than a minute, a space had cleared around Teach. The General placed a hand on Bliss’ shoulder in thanks, and then ordered the crew of The Eternal to fall in behind her. The noise hadn’t lessened—the people were shouting louder now, hungry for a reasonable explanation—but at least they had some space.
Calder muttered orders to Foster and Andel. Foster immediately agreed, drawing his pistol and ordering people away from Teach. He managed to clear his way up the street a little faster, and the speed of their tiny procession increased.
Andel didn’t obey immediately. He adjusted his sleeves as he walked beside Calder, buying time to talk. At last, he said, “You’re focusing on the wrong details.”
Not a joke. Not a complaint. Not even a criticism, really, though it could be taken as one. Andel was serious.
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen how desperate they are?”
The faces around them proved Andel right. The people around him weren’t just pushy or demanding, they were terrified. They begged as though they were starving and only the Guild Heads had bread. But the street hadn’t been this chaotic when he’d seen it from the ship; only the sight of Cheska and Teach, people who might have answers, had incited this kind of panic.
It didn’t mean that they weren’t afraid before, but that they’d pushed the fear down. There was nothing they could do about it, so they’d tried to live their lives as normal. Only, at the slightest hint of something they could do to save themselves, they snatched at it like wild dogs fighting over a scrap of meat.
“They didn’t get this way because the Imperial Palace shut its doors,” Calder said aloud.
“These people have seen something. If we don’t know what it is, we risk running straight into it.”
Andel joined Foster after that, moving people aside physically when necessary, but Calder fell back. This crowd didn’t care about him; they only even noticed him when he blocked the way to Teach or Cheska.
He let himself drown in the mob.
It would have been a simple matter to open himself to their Intent, but Reading a situation rather than an object was risky. For one thing, the impression was more fleeting, and he often came up with nothing of use. For another, if the Intent of a crowd was focused enough, they could sweep him along with them. Instead of understanding the mob, he might join it.
Besides, his head was already lightly pounding from the previous days’ exertions. He’d hardly had a chance to recover from the fight on the Gray Island before The Eternal was ripped to shreds, and since then he’d been Reading constantly: to communicate with the Lyathatan, to hold The Testament together, to rig up the net that dragged half a ship back home. He’d kept himself within his limits, but he was approaching them nonetheless. If he wanted to be of any use to anyone in the next few days, he needed to keep himself from Reader’s burn now.
So he had to try more mundane methods of investigation.
Calder spoke to a shouting man beside him. “The Guild Heads came in on my ship,” he yelled into the man’s ear. “I’m with the Guild Heads.”
Several people turned to him eagerly, babbling their questions one at a time. He held up a hand. “We’ve been at sea. What’s happened here?”
Explanations came one on top of the other.
“The Luminians, they won’t heal my son—”
“…doors of the palace shut! The last time they did that was when the Emperor died, may his soul fly free.”
“…Greenwardens closed up their chapter house. I had an appointment, and now they’re telling me you Imperialists drove them out of town!”
“…Magisters gathering together. They’ve sensed something coming, they know the end is here.”
“…men in black, jumping from rooftop to rooftop.”
“…these Independents want to tear the Empire down! You’ll put them in their place for us, I know you will.”
To each person, Calder responded as neutrally as he could, but the crowd wouldn’t have let him leave if Cheska hadn’t reached in and hauled him out by the elbow.
“Learn anything useful?” she asked him.