The half-orc shook his head. “They don’t usually come to Malleon’s Gate. Anyone here tonight must be wringing the rind-”
“They’d still need a place to pick up passengers.” Singe grabbed Natrac and turned him around to face another wallowing vessel as it lifted clear of the buildings around them. “There! Where’s that one coming from?”
Natrac squinted. “Reaver’s Square.” He thrust out his tusks and started down a sidestreet at a trot, moving against the current of people heading for the lift. Singe stayed right behind him with Ashi and Dandra following.
Reaver’s Square was an unprepossessing expanse of stone utterly empty of buildings or any features at all. There were hardly even any people left in the square, as if the last of the large skycoaches had taken them all with it. Those people who were in the square seemed to be on their way to someplace else, likely a lift. That all of them rushed right past the last skycoach still hovering in the square, ignoring the piping calls in Goblin that Singe presumed were invitations to hire the coach, didn’t put any confidence into his heart. They didn’t have much choice, though. From across the square, the coach looked right enough, if some what smaller and distinctly less well maintained than the one he and Ashi had taken to Deathsgate. Even on closer approach there didn’t seem to be anything materially wrong with it.
Then he saw the source of the piping voice-and the source of the piping voice, a goblin standing on a bench in the stern of the coach, saw him. Dark eyes in an orange-red face lit up. “Masters and mistresses! You must be lost. Hire Rhazala’s skycoach, and you’ll be in the sky before the show starts!”
There wasn’t a chance, Singe was certain, that the coach belonged to her. At least not legally. If she sat down on the bench, he suspected that her short legs wouldn’t reach the floor. If she climbed out of the coach, he doubted that she would be able to climb back in. She looked like a child standing on the driver’s seat of a conventional carriage. In fact, he couldn’t be certain that she wasn’t a child. Her impish face and the oversized robes that swathed her small body gave the impression that if she was an adult, it was only by a matter of days. He glanced at Dandra.
She lifted her hands and shrugged. The canny little goblin-Rhazala, presumably-must have caught either their indecision or their desperation because her voice became wheedling. “No other coaches left,” she said. “Don’t want to wait for a lift, do you? So slow. So many stops on the way up. The Thronehold show will be over before you see it.” Her eyes narrowed. “Or maybe the show isn’t what matters to you. Wherever you’re going, I can get you there, quick quick.”
Singe grimaced. She might not have gotten the details right, but she had the basics of their situation pegged. He stepped up to the coach. “You can fly this thing, can’t you?” he asked.
Rhazala put on an offended look. “For years I’ve flown it! Won races! My regular passengers took tickets on a party yacht to watch the show or I wouldn’t be down here now-”
“It’s stolen,” he said bluntly. “You don’t have regular passengers. I don’t care. Just tell me if you can fly it.”
She dropped her protestations. “I flew it here, didn’t it?”
That, at least, had the ring of truth. “We need to go to Overlook, fast as you can. How much?”
Rhazala’s eyes darted among them. “A gold galifar apiece,” she said. His eyebrows rose. She shrugged. “Wait for a lift.”
“Twelve moons, you are a thief.”
He found the coins, though, and dropped them into her small hand. They vanished into her robe. “In in!” she cried. “Faster you’re aboard, faster you’re in Overlook!”
The coach rocked as first Singe, then Ashi and Natrac, climbed over the edge and sat. Only Dandra barely disturbed it, vaulting lightly over the side and settling down next to Singe. “I don’t feel good about this,” she said.
“You’d feel less good waiting, wouldn’t you?”
“Hold on!” said Rhazala. Singe heard her robes rustle-then the skycoach shot upward with an abruptness that took his breath away. His hands clamped onto the coach’s side as the vessel angled up and out of the square, nearly clipping the roof of one of the buildings lining it. In only moments, they were above Malleon’s Gate and still climbing, heading for a gap between the great towers.
And straight toward one of the lumbering, banner-draped skycoaches they had seen earlier. “Rhazala!” Singe shouted. The goblin’s reply was muffled and their coach didn’t change course. Singe twisted around.
In order to reach the rudder-like rod that steered the coach, Rhazala had to sit backward on the bench. The only way she could have seen where they were going was to turn and look over her shoulder. Unfortunately, the wind of their passage had blown the folds of her robe over her face. She couldn’t see anything, and her attempts to claw the fabric away were utterly unsuccessful. Singe freed one hand, reached back, and snatched the billowing robe clear of Rhazala’s face. The goblin’s dark eyes went wide as she saw what was ahead of them. She pulled on the steering rod, and their coach pitched up at an angle that brought a shout from Natrac, a laugh from Ashi, and frightened screams from the goblins crowding the other coach as they passed overhead.
A moment later they emerged into the canyon between the towers, already almost at the height of the middle city. The coach slowed and dropped back to a more normal pitch, assuming a slightly less frantic pace of ascent. Rhazala grinned at Singe. “Quick quick!” she said brightly.
Her orange skin, however, had paled to a kind of faded gold color, and her fingers were tight around the steering rod. Singe let go of the fabric of her robe and turned around to face the front of the coach and to look at the others. Ashi was flushed. Natrac was pale. Dandra was staring up at the sky overhead.
“Singe, look,” she said, and he turned his face to the sky as well.
Full night had fallen. Stars speckled the darkness along with the half-turned faces of the orange moon Olarune and the silver-gray moon Eyre, giving the night a pale glow against which the towers of Sharn stood out in silhouette. Stars and moons were far from the only things in the sky, however. The night was filled with skycoaches lit by lanterns and airships lit by the fire or moonglow of their elemental rings. Some of the vessels flitted about, but many just floated in place as those aboard awaited the beginning of the Thronehold spectacle. As their coach rose higher and the heights of the city came into view, even more lights appeared. Every tower in Sharn, every bridge, every open courtyard shone with torches and lanterns.
“Rhazala, do you know when the spectacle is supposed to start?” Singe called over his shoulder.
“When the crescent of Aryth rises,” said the goblin. “Soon. Now close your mouth-I’m flying!” She turned the coach in a ragged arc and they began flying among the towers.
Dandra’s hand sought out his. “Do you think we’ll make it in time?”
“If we didn’t spend too long in the sewers, and if we’re right about Dah’mir using Thronehold as a cover for the raid,” Singe told her. “If I were him, I’d wait until the spectacle had actually started before I made my move.” He gave Dandra’s hand a squeeze. “We’ll make it. We’ll stop him.”
The coach jerked and swerved suddenly as Rhazala tried to slow down at the same time she steered around a tower. Singe had to let go of Dandra’s hand to brace himself. Even Ashi yelped this time. “Sorry!” Rhazala called.
“I hope you weren’t planning on going into the skycoach business permanently!” said Singe, glancing back at her.
“Only for tonight.” Rhazala’s face was intense and possibly a little bit frightened. “Not so sure about the rest of tonight. This is Overlook now. Where are you going?”
From the stress in her words, he guessed that she was hoping he’d tell her to set down at the first opportunity. He didn’t give her that satisfaction. “Fan Adar, the kalashtar neighborhood. Do you know it?”