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.