The Conservatory was built on a bluff over the river, near the cliff that divided one part of Masalym from the next. They were in the Middle City, but a stone’s throw from the window the land fell away into Lower Masalym, vast and largely abandoned. Oh, there were people-two thousand, she guessed, or maybe three. But the homes! There must have been fifty thousand or more. The Lower City by itself was the size of Etherhorde, and yet it was very nearly a ghost-town. Countless streets lay empty. Yesterday smoke had risen in the distance: a blaze had consumed three houses, unmolested by any fire brigade. The ruins were smoldering yet.
And there were stranger things: hulking buildings of iron and glass, and monstrous stone temples that looked as old as the surrounding peaks. But like the tower of Narybir these giant structures lay closed and dark.
By daylight she saw the dlomu scurrying about their lives, carting vegetables, mending windows and fences, gathering scrap wood into bundles. They met at street corners, talked briefly, anxiously, scanning the empty streets. A mother marched her child down a sunlit avenue, clearly afraid. A face appeared at an upper window, through moldering curtains, vanished again. Four times a day, a dlomu in a white robe climbed the steps of a half- ruined tower to strike a brass gong, and the lonely noise lingered in the air. His coal-black face, framed by the white hood, turned sometimes in her direction, thoughtfully. At dusk, animals crept from the abandoned homes: foxes, feral dogs, a shambling creature the size of a small bear but quilled like a porcupine.
There were also soldiers, of course, servants of the Issar. She could pick them out here and there. At the port, they surrounded the Chathrand: the Great Ship was plainly visible from her window. Along the road they had followed two nights before, a few troops came and went. And on the outer wall there were soldiers, milling, marching, tending the great cannon that pointed down into the Jaws of Masalym.
But for all the busy movement along the wall, the number of men there was not very large. There were far more guns than men to use them. By night, they lit lamps at sentry posts where no actual sentries stood guard. By day they appeared at pains to keep every man on duty out of the turrets and walking the battlements in plain sight. It’s a facade, she thought. They’re hiding behind those cannon, these cliffs. They’re mounting a guard around an empty shell.
All this was strange enough. But even stranger, beside the windswept emptiness below was the bustle and noise of this higher part of Masalym, this Middle City. Thasha could see only a few blocks of it, but the curve of the cliff told her that the Middle City was a fraction of the size of the Lower. And yet the Middle City was alive. Its streets were crowded, its shops abuzz by early morning and aglow half the night. There were musicians playing somewhere; there were dlomic men with water pipes seated on rugs outside doorways; there was a fruit market that appeared as if by magic at dawn and disappeared by noon; there were dlomic children walking to school in daisy chains.
“It’s two cities, isn’t it?”
Pazel had stepped into the chamber. She reached for his hand and drew him near.
“Three, probably,” she said. “There’s the Upper City, somewhere. But I don’t know if we’ll be going there after all.”
“Not if the Issar’s as afraid of madness as everyone else.”
“And not if Arunis is as tight with him as he seems,” she said.
They stood in silence a moment. A bird cried shrilly. They looked at each other and smiled. “Uskins wasn’t dreaming,” she said. “That’s an eagle, or some other bird of prey.”
“Look,” he said, “the crew’s out exercising again.”
He pointed to the Tournament Grounds, three miles away in the Lower City, at the end of the broad avenue that led to the port. Thasha could just see the pale humans in the courtyard of the pavilion, a huge and crumbling mansion that might once have been rather splendid.
“I wonder,” she said, “if any of those people are going home.”
“Well, we blary are,” said Neeps. He and Marila had stepped into the room.
Marila threw herself down on the straw-stuffed bed. “I said I wanted a nap. Tell me you’re not going to start babbling about plans again.”
“Not exactly,” said Neeps. He was looking strangely at Thasha. “I want to talk to you,” he said. “By yourself, maybe. If you don’t mind.”
His request turned heads. “By herself?” said Pazel, knitting his eyebrows. “What do you have to tell her that you can’t tell us?”
“It’s not like that, mate,” said Neeps, “it’s just something I need to… bring up.”
“Something about what happened to her in the wagon?” Pazel demanded.
“What do you know about that?” asked Neeps, startled. “You couldn’t understand her words; you were in the middle of your own fit. You were screaming and covering your ears.”
“I haven’t forgotten, believe it or not,” said Pazel. “But I could still see. I know she was in trouble. What did she say?”
“Was it something awful, Neeps?” asked Thasha, studying him. “Is that what you want to tell me?”
Neeps glanced at Marila. “What does awful mean, really? You heard her. Would you call that awful?” When Marila only rolled onto her stomach and sighed, he turned back helplessly to Thasha. “Maybe,” he said, “we could forget the whole thing?”
Thasha closed her eyes. “You sound like a perfect fool.”
“Half right,” said Marila. “He’s far from perfect. And he won’t quit until he gets his way. Go and listen to him. Then you can tell us yourself, if you want to.”
But Thasha shook her head firmly. “No more secrets,” she said. “Not from you three. Not ever.”
She looked at Pazel, hoping he understood. What she’d had to do with Fulbreech, what she’d had to do to him: that had been the last straw. She turned to Neeps and snatched his hand. “You come here, and listen. I was there the night you talked about your brother. The night you almost killed me. I was on the same mucking divan with the two of you.”
Marila blushed; Neeps looked mortified. Pazel felt himself ambushed by a smirk.
“You’ve seen Pazel go crazy with fits,” Thasha went on. “You saw me pretending to be Fulbreech’s little… whore. And you heard what Arunis said. It might be true, even though he said it to hurt me. Syrarys might really be my mother and… Sandor Ott-”
She could not bring the words out. Pazel stepped behind her and held her shoulders, and Thasha felt some measure of calm returning.
“We’ve shared all that,” she said, “and a lot more besides. So don’t tell me to start keeping secrets from you now. I don’t want any. I want friends who know who I am.”
All four youths were quiet. Suddenly Marila leaned forward and put her arms around Thasha’s waist, hugging her tightly. Thasha was speechless; but a moment later Marila released her with a mumbled apology, and quickly wiped her eyes.
Everyone looked at Neeps, waiting. The small boy sat down, ran his hands through his dusty hair, puffed out his cheeks.
“Right. Now don’t yell, anybody, unless you feel like sharing secrets with the rest of ’em out there. I don’t think your mother was Syrarys or Clorisuela. I think she was Erithusme, Thasha. I think they’re hiding the fact that you’re the daughter of a mage.”
Even with his warning, the other three struggled to contain themselves. “Where in the sweet Tree’s shade did you get that daft idea?” said Pazel.
“From Felthrup, that’s where. He helped you read the Polylex, Thasha-for weeks and weeks, when touching the book used to make you so ill.”
“He saved me a lot of pain,” said Thasha.
“He was also delirious,” said Marila.
“Only because he was afraid to close his eyes,” said Pazel. “Arunis was attacking him in his dreams.”
“I know all that.” Neeps waved a hand dismissively. “The point is, he talked a lot. To us, the dogs, the blary curtains. And you two must have read a lot about Erithusme.”
“We did, when we could find anything in that book.”
“One night,” Neeps continued, “I woke up late and heard him talking to you, Thasha. I think you must have been asleep, because you never answered. ‘If you inherit her power, will you be any different, dear one?’ he said. ‘Will her burden pass to you as well? To run with the Stone eternally, from land to land, hounded by evil, seeking a resting place that does not exist? Or will you grow into something mightier than the seed from which you came?’
