“Trap or not, we still have to get in there,” Stone said.
“Esom said he could get past the tower barrier without Ardan knowing,” Moon said. “If he wasn’t lying.”
“We’ll find out.” Jade turned to Chime. “Bring him here.”
“It’s an untested theory,” Esom said, though at least he kept his voice low as he sloshed through the water up the terrace steps.
“Then we’ll test it,” Chime told him as he climbed down a column from the roof.
Balm and River waited here now too. Drift was on watch, posted on a rooftop above the flooded street, and Vine on the roof of the terrace.
“Finally,” Jade muttered, and pushed to her feet. It hadn’t really been that long. Moon and Stone had spent the time exploring the terrace, carefully not speaking to each other. Moon had found wilting scraps of a plant that smelled like the vegetation that had grown all over the Kek town on the coast, more evidence for the idea that the water travelers traded here.
River hadn’t been in favor of the plan. “You’re trusting a groundling thief,” he had said. “That’s almost as bad as trusting the solitary.”
Jade just ignored his objections, and Moon didn’t have an argument either. The only basis they had for trusting Esom was that he would be a fool to betray them to Ardan.
Then Floret climbed down the wall, followed by Flower. Jade hissed, startled and angry. “What are you doing here? Who’s watching the solitary?”
“Root and Song and the groundling woman,” Floret said, her flattened spines conveying guilt and chagrin.
“The groundling woman?” Jade repeated incredulously. “Are you—”
“I made her bring me,” Flower interrupted, sounding brisk. She shifted to groundling and shook out her dress. “It smells foul here. Where’s this barrier you’re all babbling about?”
Silence fell. Moon scratched under the frills behind his ear and kept his mouth shut. After a moment, Jade said through gritted teeth, “Floret, get back to the tower.”
Floret fled.
Jade made an effort to drop her ruffled spines. She said, “You should be resting. You’ve been ill since we reached the coast, whether you’ll admit it or not.”
“I can rest later.” Flower crossed the terrace to the threshold of the doorway, and Stone shone the light on it for her. She nodded and glanced at Chime thoughtfully. “Something’s there, all right. It smells of groundling magic.”
Chime shrugged uneasily. “I don’t know. Maybe it was just a good guess.”
Stone snorted, but didn’t otherwise comment.
Esom edged forward and frowned at the barrier. Moon switched to Kedaic, asking him, “Can you see it?”
“No, but I can feel it.” He held out a hand, carefully not reaching past the doorway. “It’s similar to the barrier around Ardan’s tower.”
“Can you get us past it?” Jade said, her voice tight with impatience.
“I can try.” Esom looked around at them all, his expression grim. “I was never able to get outside Ardan’s tower to try with that barrier. Tampering with this one could alert Ardan.”
River hissed angrily, as if they hadn’t all thought of that earlier. “If it does—”
“If it does,” Moon cut him off, and finished to Esom, “Then you’ll know, for when you go back to his tower to get your friends.”
Esom glanced nervously at River, but said, “That’s a good point.” He stepped forward, hands out, and eased across the threshold, right up to the line of debris that marked the barrier. He crouched down and slid his hands along the pavement.
Moon stepped to the side to see his face. Esom’s eyes were shut in concentration, and sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cool air. Flower cocked her head, as if listening to something the rest of them couldn’t hear. Chime watched intently, obviously straining his senses to feel what Esom and Flower felt.
Esom turned his head, and said in a hoarse whisper, “Be ready. I won’t be able to keep it open very long.”
Jade turned to the others. “Vine and Drift will stay here on watch. The rest of you will come with us.”
Vine, hanging upside down from the edge of the terrace roof, said worriedly, “Be careful.”
Moon happened to look at Balm in time to see an expression of relief cross her face. She had been afraid Jade would leave her behind.
Then Esom slowly eased to his feet and held his arms out as if lifting an invisible curtain. As Esom stood, Moon felt a breath of cooler air, tinged with decay and incense and mold. It was a draft that had been held back by the barrier, now flowing from the doorway. It was more confirmation that Esom was performing as promised.
Esom stepped in, pushed the barrier above his head. He gasped, “Now!”
Moon lunged forward, halted at the threshold as Jade beat him there and slipped past Esom. He followed her, Chime and Flower behind him. River and Balm ducked past Esom, then Stone. Esom stumbled suddenly, staggered forward as if something heavy had fallen on him. Breathing hard, he moved further down the ramp, away from the barrier. “I think… I think it’s all right. Hopefully Ardan didn’t sense that.”
Jade said, “You didn’t have to come in here. You could have waited outside with Vine.”
Esom leaned against the wall, still catching his breath. He made a helpless gesture. “I meant to, but it got a little much for me. It was easier to go forward than back.”
“You can say that about a lot of things,” Flower said in an aside to Chime.
“Then you’d better come with us,” Jade told Esom. She took the lightrock away from Stone and started down the ramp.
Moon had somehow assumed Stone was staying behind. Unable to stop himself from sounding accusing, he said, “Why did you come? This place is too small for you to shift.”
Even in the dark, he could tell Stone was giving him that look. “That’s none of your business.”
“It’s my business if you collapse the ceiling on us.”
“Both of you, quiet,” Jade snapped.
Chapter Fourteen
The ramp curved down into darkness, the stale air heavy with the scent of old and new decay. The light caught carvings rimed with mold: processions carrying biers, faces twisted in pain and grief.
In the dark it was it hard to tell, but they all looked like the blue-pearl groundlings. Maybe they lived here first, Moon thought, and the others all came later. Maybe it was their crazy idea to tame a leviathan. He suspected many of their descendants had cause to regret it.
They were some distance below street level when their light fell on an opening in the wall that looked as if it had been roughly chiseled out. It stank of edilvine that was gradually fermenting into something else, and as Jade stepped inside they saw bundles of the vine, stuffed into vats filled with dark liquid. Esom made a gagging noise, clapped a hand over his mouth and nose, and retreated back to the corridor.
“That’s the drug,” Stone said, and stepped past him. “It smells like that wine bar.”
The stink of it was intense, but it wasn’t having any ill effect on Moon or the other Raksura.
“That’s not what we want.” Jade turned away, hissing in frustration.
Moon glanced at Chime just in time to see him flinch, as if something had suddenly poked him. “Are you all right?” Moon asked, as they followed Jade down the ramp.
“Yes.” Chime kept his voice low. “It’s that… thing I told you about. It’s worse here.”
Chime meant he was sensing the leviathan again. Unlike Chime’s flash of insight about the barrier over the door, Moon didn’t see how an awareness of the leviathan could help them. It wasn’t like they didn’t know the creature was here. Though maybe Chime would be able to give them warning if it was about to move again.