They poled the boat from one pool to the next, having to coax her keel through the narrow channels that linked them. The flooded road was shoaled by the mudbrick walls that had collapsed into it, then softened into shapeless mounds. In places they had to lower themselves over her bows and struggle to find a footing in the slime as they pushed and dragged her hull through the sucking mud.
Once, Carnelian wandered away into what had once been a courtyard. The place stank of mildew and sodden plaster. The walls defining the chambers that opened into the court were now vague, crumbling boundaries. Here and there a patch of stucco still showed a snatch of ochre, of blue, of yellow that spoke of a room in which people had lived. Mostly everything was blotchy with mould or succumbing to a creeping dingy green scum. The angled, swollen, charred stumps of immense beams seemed bones ruptured for their marrow. Peering round at the blackened shells, he saw how conflagration had brought floors and walls down. The tumbled ruins seemed the remains of half-burnt, half-eaten corpses.
Slowly they dragged the bone boat along the road. Most of the alleyways branching off on either side were choked with fallen debris. Those that gleamed with water were too narrow for the boat. Carnelian grew morose, feeling the rot of the place invading him. All around them, torn and exposed, were homes where once families had eaten their meals, loved, slept. Where humble treasures had cheered busy lives. What fire had not consumed was sodden and as mouldy as old bread. The spaces seemed haunted by voices and laughter and the roar of the multitude that had once poured down this thoroughfare. The relentless decay drew even these imagined vestiges out of him until nothing was left but ruin and a silence that pressed in on them. For they were clearly the only living things in that dead city. He could not deny the growing, uneasy realization that they had not seen the slightest scrap of any of the millions that had once inhabited this termite mound, nor yet of the sartlar hordes. Away from the gory boat, there was not even the slightest odour of a corpse.
Then, just as they came within sight of the burnt stump of a watch-tower, brightness ahead showed where there must be a wide gap in the buildings. As their ragged prow slipped into the light they saw, to the right, a flight of submerged steps that had once led down to the lake. The water above them formed a channel easily wide and deep enough to accommodate the boat. They scrambled back onto her deck and her oars propelled her between collapsed towers out into open water turned to liquid gold by the late afternoon sun. Across the water they saw the gilded tumbled tenements that flanked another of the raised roads running off towards the west. The flood stretched as far as the horizon. If it had not been so still, Carnelian might have imagined they had reached the sea.
They rowed west for a while so that they could look down the ruin-clustered flank of the Great South Road. At last Carnelian called out for them to halt. As the oars backwatered, he peered south. He nodded, certain that the tiny spike he could see there must be what was left of watch-tower sun-three. He pointed and asked the nearest kharon. The man confirmed that there was a thread running from that tower away to the southern horizon. There the road surface rose from the flood. Carnelian gave the order to turn about. They must return to the Canyon as fast as they could if they were to have any hope of guiding the flotilla back and so reach that road before night fell.
When Carnelian’s boat slid out from behind the gatehouses of the southern gate, he saw the rest of the flotilla coming towards him out from the Canyon mouth. A figure standing in the prow of the lead boat waved and he waved back, certain it was Fern. When close enough, Fern called out that all the boats had made it through unscathed and that they had picked up the children Carnelian had disembarked. Carnelian passed this news to his steersman and, soon, his boat was turning back towards the ruined city.
The sun was low, the flooded lake copper when Carnelian’s boat cut into it again. Down the flank of the long island they rowed, Carnelian turning to watch with satisfaction as one boat after another emerged into open water. When they reached the end of the island, he saw the road emerge, running south across the flood, but so little raised above its surface that the wake of the boat washed right over the road to lap against the leftway wall.
By the time they were passing the stump of watch-tower sun-three, the road had risen above the water by perhaps half Carnelian’s height. He urged the steersman on until the road was standing higher than the bows. At his signal the boat began to slow, angling slightly towards the road. The port oars were shipped as they closed. Her hull struck the stone, scraping along it as he and the kharon reached up to the lip of the road to try to bring her more gently against it. Scrambling up, Carnelian was stunned for a moment by the vast expanse of limestone whose paleness showed here and there through the filth. As the kharon in the boat cast ropes up, Carnelian walked over to the ditch that ran between the road and the leftway wall. There he found a basket that he loaded with rubbish and dollops of mud. He handed this to a kharon who appeared at his shoulder. He himself salvaged a wheel with a broken hub and rolled it back towards the boat. With these and other salvage they made her fast.
As other boats drew up along the improvised quay, more were approaching from the north. He frowned. It would be dark before they got them all anchored. He gazed back towards the watch-tower, tiny in the distance. He wondered if anything survived there with which they could make some light. He doubted it. The realization came to him that, now he had safely brought the children out from Osrakum, he must follow his guiding dreams to their bleak conclusion. He looked towards the sun. Its gory gaze from the horizon made the world seem drowned in blood.
In the afterglow he strolled north along the road, watching the shadow boats disgorge a flood of chattering children. There were cries of frustration, shouting, but also laughter as everyone managed as best they could in the near darkness. He halted and peered down the road. It was impossible to see if all the boats were there. Soon it would be impossible to see anything. Then it would be time for him to leave.
He lay on his back looking up at the stars. Their frost seemed to be chilling the air. He wrapped his cloak more tightly round him and snuggled closer to Fern. In the dark they had all fumbled some morsels out from their packs. Water had been drawn from the flood lake and bowls of it passed from hand to hand so that everyone got a sip. It had been his decision to set no guards. He had argued that there was little they could do if they were attacked, but he had other reasons. Then, finding what comfort they could, they had huddled together and lain down to sleep. He had even dozed a bit himself. He had wanted to make sure everyone was asleep before he left.
Awake now, he found doubt was gnawing at his certainty. In this darkness, at the edge of a frightened multitude, it was a lot harder to believe in the truth of dreams. Reality seemed as cold and solid as the stone beneath his back. Here they were with no possibility of defending themselves, exposed to who knew what horrors.
Fern’s warm body called to him, but Carnelian feared to touch him lest he should wake him. He knew he must go before his courage failed. He listened. At first all he could hear was the lapping of the waves; the small sounds rising from the sleeping children. Then he managed to focus in on Fern’s breathing. Carefully, he rolled away, all the time listening to that breathing. Hearing no change in its rhythm, he pushed himself up onto his knees, then stood. Nothing indicated Fern or anyone else had noticed. He gazed at the black road ahead of him. He knew there was no one there. He had made sure of that. One step. Two. Another and another and another. He imagined it would get easier, but it did not. He was leaving behind all that was left of what he loved. His heart felt as if the night was drawing the life from it. He concentrated on feeling the edges of the paving stones with his feet.