Moon started to get up. Jade caught his arm and gently stopped him. “Balm is with him.”
Moon settled back, reluctantly. Esom looked from Stone to Jade. “Is Chime all right?” he asked, concern evident in his voice. Chime’s name would have been the only word he could understand in the Raksuran exchange.
Karsis added, “If he’s injured, perhaps I could help?”
Jade shook her head. “He was close to Flower; she taught him, when he was a mentor.”
“Oh, I see. Of course,” Esom said, though it was clear he didn’t really understand, except that Chime had been Flower’s student. Esom sat back, but the moment seemed to ease the tension. Damison glanced around uncomfortably, then finally took a seat.
Negal leaned forward and clasped his hands on his knee. “As you proposed, the best way to escape this city is on our ship, the Klodifore. If we cooperate, we should be able to reach the harbor and secure it. As long as the city authorities don’t realize that we’re working together, they shouldn’t suspect that retrieving the ship is our goal.” He spread his hands. “Then we can take you east, all the way to the forest coast if need be, before we head back to our own home.”
Jade asked, “Can you launch the ship while the leviathan is still moving?”
Esom exchanged a look with Orlis. “It won’t be easy, but I’m certainly willing to try.”
“If I never see this creature again it will be too soon,” Orlis agreed. “I’ll risk anything to get off it.”
Then Root ducked into the doorway, so abruptly the groundlings flinched. He said, “A groundling banged on the outside door and said Magister Lethen wants to talk!”
Jade frowned and asked Moon, “Do you know who that is?”
“Yes.” He pushed himself upright. “He was outside the mortuary with the other magisters. I don’t think he and Ardan were friends.”
“They weren’t,” Negal said, frowning. “They were bitter rivals.”
Jade tapped her claws on the couch cushion, thinking. “How strong is his magic?”
“He certainly couldn’t seem to do anything about Ardan,” Negal told her. “I think he would have if he could.” He hesitated. “Will you speak to him?”
Jade nodded reluctantly. “We’d better. Just to stall him, if nothing else.” She told Negal, “You come to the hall and listen, but don’t let him see you.”
Out in the exhibit hall, Jade had Negal stand just out of sight to one side of the entrance passage, so he could listen to the conversation. Stone stood just out of sight to the other side, in case it wasn’t a conversation that Lethen had in mind. Vine, Floret, River, and Drift were also clinging to the wall above the passage. The others, with Negal’s crew, were poised to retreat into the underground if they had to.
Jade put her hand on the door bar and said, “Ready?”
“Probably,” Moon told her. If Lethen had magic like Ardan’s, all their preparations meant nothing. But if Lethen had magic like Ardan’s, Moon was betting he wouldn’t have had to use the firepowder to get into the mortuary.
Jade lifted the bar and pulled the door open.
Lethen stood just outside. He was as Moon remembered him from the evening in the tower: a richly-dressed, ruinously old blue-pearl man. His gaze went to Jade first. He stared at her with guarded curiosity. Then he looked at Moon and frowned, startled. “You. The trader.” His expression turned saturnine. “You’re one of them. Did Ardan know?”
There was no reason not to admit it now. “Yes.”
Lethen swore. “The fool.”
Jade said sharply, “He attacked us. He came to our colony while we were gone and stole from us.”
“I’m not disputing that.” Lethen folded his gnarled hands over the head of his cane. “He claimed to need artifacts of arcane power to keep the leviathan from sinking. Since we’re all still alive, I assume that wasn’t true.”
Moon didn’t see any reason not to admit that, too. “No. All he needed was the bridle.”
“Then I’m a fool as well, for I believed him.” Lethen eyed them a moment. “Do you know where this creature is taking us?”
“No.”
Lethen said, “I do. We’re headed northeast, toward Emriat-terrene.”
Jade flicked a look at Moon. He said, “It’s going home.” That was the place in the story Rith had told them, the home of the sorcerers who had originally built the city atop the leviathan.
“A logical assumption,” Lethen admitted. “It’s returning to its original position.” He added, “I’m a very old man. Unlike Ardan, I have all the wealth and temporal power I’m likely to ever need, and I have no wish to live on something that moves, either at someone’s direction or its own random whim.”
Moon said, “You want the bridle.”
Lethen inclined his head. “The question is, what do you want?”
Moon exchanged a look with Jade. She said, “We want the flying boat.”
Lethen frowned. “The what?”
“The metal ship in the harbor, the one that Ardan stole from the foreign explorers.” Jade hesitated. “It’s still there, isn’t it?”
“I believe so. The harbormaster was charged with lifting it out of the water with the fishing fleet. I assume he still did his job.” Lethen regarded her with open skepticism. “That’s all you want?”
“Yes,” Moon told him. “We’ll give you the bridle, if you let us leave, with the explorers, on that boat.”
Jade said, “That’s not all. In Ardan’s collection, there’s a wooden container, an urn—”
Lethen waved that away. “My dear, take anything from this tower that you want. You can strip the place down to the foundations if you like. I’ve spoken with Ardan’s wife. She makes no claim on his property.” His sharp gaze switched back to Moon. “She told me that you allowed her to leave with her children and personal servants. It was the reason I thought it might be possible to negotiate with you.”
“We don’t kill unless we’re provoked,” Jade said. It wasn’t quite a threat.
Lethen’s expression was sardonic. “I’ll keep that in mind. I don’t supposed you’d like to give me the bridle now.”
Hardly, Moon thought. “At the harbor, by the boat.”
“I’ll be waiting.” He gave them an ironic nod and turned away. They watched him hobble briskly across the square.
As they closed the door behind him, Jade said, “Do you think we can trust him?”
“No. But I think he wants the bridle, and he doesn’t care about us.”
Negal stepped into the passage. “I agree. And I think we should leave, now, before he changes his mind.”
Nobody wanted to argue with that.
Chapter Eighteen
Moon stepped into the room where Flower had died. The vaporlights were dimming, issuing only a little glowing mist, and the room was thick with shadows. Her body still lay on the bed, wrapped in silky sheets. It made an absurdly small bundle. He made himself look away, to the corner where Balm and Chime sat.
Chime huddled half in Balm’s lap, and she stroked his hair. Moon went to kneel beside them and put a hand on Chime’s back. “We have to leave. We’re going to the flying ship in the harbor.”
Balm lifted her brows. “Now? Isn’t it still daylight?”
“We have a deal with the magister who’s taking Ardan’s place.” At her expression, he added, “I know, but we’re hoping this one works out better.”
Chime took a sharp breath and sat up. He looked sick, exhausted. “What about her body? Do we have to leave her here? We should hide her, so they don’t—”
“No, we’re going to take her.” Jade had decided to take the queen’s funerary urn from Ardan’s collection for the purpose. It was big enough to hold a small Arbora body, once the current occupant was removed. Moon was going to let Stone handle that part.