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.