Pale Lights - Book 2: Chapter 2

Song had found Captain Alejandra Krac’s cabin a haven of elegance and learning.

Lined with heavy rows of books and two hung maps – one of the Trebian Sea, the other of Radamant’s Reefs – it boasted simple but pristine furniture and a few personal trinkets. Song had always appreciated that so many in the Watch disdained luxury, like Tianxi officials.

“I must confess Coyol’s works have ever been a chore to me,” Captain Krac noted as she slid the borrowed volume back into the right spot. “His histories of the unification of Izcalli are the most reliable, certainly, but those eschatological tirades grow tiresome.”

The captain was a tall and thick-set woman, with round cheeks and serious gray eyes. She was missing half the fingers on her left hand, bearing intricate wooden prosthetics in their stead, and was nimble enough in their use it was hardly noticeable. Maryam was not nearly so skilled yet.

“I find them worth suffering for the lack of Toxtle partisanship,” Song replied.

The House of Toxtle were the first Aztlan kings to unify most of what was now the Kingdom Izcalli into a single realm, putting an end to the bloody era their scholars called the ‘Rule of Jaguars’. To shore up their delicate position the Toxtle had undertaken a remarkably sophisticated effort to create a cult around themselves, including arranging for historians to present their rise to power as inevitable and ordained by the gods. It was nigh impossible to find a contemporary work not dripping with praises for the mighty, peerlessly righteous House of Toxtle.

Coyol, the third son of a conquered king, had been rather skeptical of this alleged fatefulness and too well connected for the Toxtle to suppress his works.

“Besides,” Song continued, “has there ever been an Izcalli work that did not holler about the coming end of days?”

Captain Krac did not smile, for she was not that kind of woman, but her stern face was faintly touched by rue.

“I suppose if they keep at it long enough they’re bound to be correct eventually,” the captain said. “I would offer you another pick from my shelves, but I fear you would not be able to finish it.”

Song immediately straightened to attention.

“We are soon to arrive, then?”

“It is my navigator’s estimation we will reach Tolomontera by midmorning tomorrow,” Captain Krac confirmed. “We have made good time.”

A hint of pride in the older woman’s voice, not underserved. Even if they had been lucky with the winds the Fair Vistas has recently lost a third of its crew to the Gloam. To exceed expectations in such a situation spoke to a tightly run ship.

“I would suggest you prepare your company for arrival,” the captain said, and it was not a suggestion.

It was a dismissal, and Song took the hint from the very busy woman who had extended her the courtesy of this conversation. She nodded, thanked Captain Krac and retired to the guest quarters. Abrascal had been plotting in a corner with that ever-grinning cook last she saw, which hopefully would keep him and the goddess following him like a playful cat busy for a while still. If she recalled correctly, which she did, Angharad should currently be charming the ship’s fighting contingent.

Effortlessly and in complete ignorance of what she was doing by being so friendly and polite while wiping the floor with everyone in spars.

She even had a way even with the old sea dogs, those that sneered at anyone spending more than a month a year on land. As for the young men, well, Song suspected the Pereduri would be leaving a broken heart or two behind when they departed tomorrow. Mind you the Tianxi found it difficult to muster sympathy for any boy fool enough to genuinely believe Angharad’s eyes kept flicking to the muscled arms of that Aztlan watchwoman because she was ‘curious about the tattoos’.

Song put a spring to her step, lips still twitching at the utterly transparent excuse the noblewoman had gotten out when teased about her lingering eye.

With the other two members of her cabal occupied, she was now freed to have an overdue conversation with the third. It was to Maryam’s door that her steps took her, for she knew it the signifier’s habit to retire to her cabin for time alone an hour before dinner. Song was early for that, but with Abrascal in the wind she suspected the pale-skinned woman would have retired ahead of the usual.

Song could not blame her. Watchmen were better learned that most in matters of Gloam and Glare, but Maryam was still stared at by much of the crew even after over a week at sea. Open distrust from strangers wearied the soul, no matter how unearned. Two sharp knocks against the door earned only silence, at least until there was the sound of movement behind the door and Maryam called out asking who it was.

“Song,” she replied. “I require a moment from you.”

The Tianxi waited a little longer before the other woman cracked open the door, dark hair disheveled and looking somewhat grumpy. Song cocked an eyebrow but said nothing. Though Maryam insisted she meditated before dinner, it often looked like she’d just woken from a nap when she was interrupted. The pale-skinned woman flicked a glance back and forth across the hallway – more out of habit than distrust, Song suspected – and only then opened the door all the way.

“Come in,” Maryamsaid. “Mind the candles.”

The Triglau moved out of the way and Song entered as bid. All their cabins were the same, the Tianxi had seen when they were assigned, save for Abrascal’s which was in a corner and so slightly more cramped. All held a bed, a trunk, a small table with a stool and a worn dresser. Only Maryam had propped up the table and stool in a corner, laid her blanket on the ground and placed candles in a loose circle around it. Perhaps she trulyhad been meditating, Song mused.

“Will this take long?” Maryam asked. “I can’t afford to burn my way through my allotment.”

“It should not,” Song replied.

Her gaze swept around for a place to sit until she heeded Maryam’s invitation to sit on the edge of the bed. The other woman stayed standing, leaning back against her dresser. She was, Song only now noticed, barefoot. Silver eyes flicked over the candles, noticing the faint pale hue to their light – Glare-touched, all of them. Interesting. She knew little of signifying, as the Akelarre Guild was tight-fisted with its secrets, but she did know it was an art of the Gloam and not the Glare. Why use such candles, then?

“We will be arriving early tomorrow,” she said.

Maryam grunted in approval.

“Good, I could do with sleeping in a proper Meadow,” she said. “I couldn’t let down my guard an inch on the Dominion, it’s been exhausting.”

The Akelarre Guild was allowed to hold private land on most Watch grounds, Song had learned, in part so that they could build these ‘Meadows’. Their purpose was obscure, save that Navigators rested in them regularly and seemed to count themselves better off for it.

“I imagine the Navigators will have a chapterhouse at the port,” she replied. “Though it is what follows after our arrival I come to speak to you about.”

A pause.

“There has been bickering.”

Maryam cocked an eyebrow.

“There has,” she said. “You should bury the hatchet with Tristan. He’s really quite sweet, you know.”

Song carefully kept her thoughts off her face. Sweet? The man was grenade with a lit fuse. Not once since the scales were ripped from her eyes had Song ever known a god to manifest as often and as clearly as that golden-haired goddess did around Tristan Abrascal. He must be either a madman or halfway to being a Saint, though eerily enough he showed none of the usual signs of incipient sainthood.

Song’s subtle inquiries with some of the Sacromontans during the trials had yielded no recognition for a goddess in the guise of a golden-haired woman in a red dress, which was even more worrying. The easiest way for a god to thrive without being known and willfully worshipped was to have been born of an event so catastrophically momentous it burned in the minds of thousands still.

Which meant Tristan Abrascal likely was a madman riding a calamity god, and though Song would not shy from using him she also had every intention of holding him at arm’s length until he inevitably got himself and quite a few other people killed.

“That is not what I meant,” Song said.

Maryam thinly smiled.

“I know exactly what you meant, Song,” she replied. “That was a warning to keep walking. Best you heed it.”

The Tianxi’s jaw tightened. Maryam was usually an agreeable woman.

“I understand your issues with Angharad’s background, but-”

“No,” Maryam harshly said. “You don’t. You think you do, and I won’t deny the gods dealt your family a hard hand, but you have no fucking understanding of this at all and I will get very angry with you if you ever again pretend otherwise.”

Song’s lips thinned, but she held her tongue. You are stone shaped by the chisel of life, she recited. Will it be your hand wielding the tool, or theirs? If she gave her anger to others, she relinquished the chisel – and that was unacceptable. Maryam’s words were no way to talk to a superior officer, but strictly speaking Song was not that until their cabal was registered.

Moreover, her earlier dealings with the other woman had been along the lines of a partnership without rank involved. It would take time for the adjustment and Uncle Zhuge had warned her that as a rule hierarchy tended to be played loose within cabals.

“We have fights enough waiting for us,” Song finally said. “Can you, at least, cease provoking her?”

Maryam’s face closed down like a house come winter, and she knew immediately she had made a mistake.

“So you’ve decided to change ships now that you no longer need me,” Maryam stiffly said. “Fine. Best I knew it now, I suppose..”

Song stiffened at the accusation.

“I have done no such thing,” she said.

“Have you had this talk with Tredegar?” the Triglau smiled.

There was no joy in it.

“I intended to-”

“That’s a no,” Maryam cut through. “Allow me to be clear, Song: she gets no apology from me for the discomfort of being reminded her people treat mine like chattel. And Stripe candidate or not, you are in no position to make me.”

Song met her eyes, for anger was a personal matter but not so a challenge to authority. If that stone cracked there would be no mending it – and Song would not be captain of their cabal in name only. She kept her voice clear, calm, free of anger. Hand on the chisel.

“A direct order from a captain,” she said, “is not refused without consequence.”

“There’s no ink on paper yet, Song,” Maryam replied. “And even when there is, we both know that there can be transfers to other cabals – without or without your captain’s permission. If I don’t stick around, do you think Tristan will?”

Even one departure might be the death knell of a cabal as small as theirs, Song thought, but two would be for certain. A cabal must count four students or be dissolved, and while perhaps one departure could be replaced in time two would cause questions to be asked. If Song stuck with Angharad they would no doubt find another cabal willing to take the both of them in, but that could not be. She needed it to be her name on the reports – Captain Song Ren – or there was no point to any of this.

It was not a threat without teeth but going belly up now would be the end of her captaincy before it even began. No one obeyed an officer they’d bent. Song measured her words, matched anger to need and found the right stride. She could not slip, not even a moment.

“You would peddle a murderous street rat with a rampant god and a Triglau signifier who can only use Autarchic Signs,” Song evenly. “Do you think it would take me more than half an hour’s work to make it so that not a cabal on Tolomontera would be willing to touch either of you even with plague gloves on?”

“I can do more than that,” Maryam hissed.

“Not well,” Song bluntly replied. “Now, let me be clear, I do not want to do this. There is no gain to be had. But if you set out to do me harm, Maryam, I will answer by throwing a torch at every single bridge you’ve so much as glanced at.”

She sneered back, but the Tianxi knew it a front. Maryam had reasons to want to attend Scholomance just as urgent as Song’s own. Now she had laid out the consequences, made it clear that an attack would be met with worse. She must now make it clear there were no chains, that she was not cornering Maryam either. A house with a lock that only one man may open is called a prison, Master Shijian had written.

“If you truly want to part ways, I will not keep you. I only require that we proceed in a civilized manner,” Song continued. “We will arrange a trade with a cabal suiting you and settle the matter without harm to either party.”

Now to address the accusation. She leaned forward, face intent.

“I came to speak to you on matters of bickering first because I have known you to be level-headed and because your provocations are purposeful,” Song continued. “Angharad Tredegar gives offense by accident, Maryam. It does not excuse her, and she is not excused, but it does mean it shall take more than a single polite conversation to begin curtailing the issue.”

She met Maryam’s blue eyes.

“Do we now understand each other, Maryam Khaimov?”

The two matched gazes for a long moment before the Triglau looked away.

“I grew angry too quickly,” Maryam finally said.

“And I approached the matter poorly,” Song acknowledged.

She had underestimated the delicacy of the matter, thinking of the other woman’s level-headedness as an absolute instead of a choice. She had broken zunyan, if only by accident. Maryam passed a hand through her long dark locks, letting out a sigh. The other woman looked tired, Song decided. There had always been rings around her eyes, but they seemed darker now.

“I’ll try to refrain from pulling at her tail too much,” Maryam said. “But if she so much as-”

“I would not expect you to answer an insult with silence,” she cut in. “Nor will I ask.”

Maryam let out a noise that might have passed for agreement and the silver-eyed woman decided it would have to do. She rose from the bed, then hesitated a moment. No, it could wait. She nodded at Maryam, but the Triglau frowned at her.

“Your hand,” she said, extending hers.

“I was not going to ask,” Song stiffly said.

She was not so thick-skinned as to request a favor after an argument.

“I’m still angry with you,” Maryam bluntly said, “but not enough to risk your health. Your hand, Song.”

The Tianxi cleared her throat, somewhat embarrassed, and gave it. Maryam’s fingers clasped her own and the signifier closed her eyes. A moment passed then Song felt a faint ripple go up her arm – like a shiver, hair-raising and swiftly gone. Maryam let out a long breath, opening her eyes and releasing Song’s hand.

“The concentration is nearing dangerous again,” Maryam said. “Did you purge at all while on the Dominion?”

Song’s lips thinned.

“Twice,” she said. “Once during the Trial of Lines and again after we reached Three Pines.”

“You might be at a high tide, then,” Maryam said.

The Tianxi smothered a grimaced. That or the curses were gathering quicker.

“Purge tonight,” Maryam advised. “The salt in sea water should make you harder to reach but there’s still a risk.”

Song nodded and gave her thanks. A look at the candles told her that their conversation had lasted longer than anticipated and perhaps to Maryam’s material detriment. Song barely used her own candles, given her eyes, so it should be a fitting apology to gift the other woman most of her allotment after dinner. The Tianxi took her leave, briskly heading for her own rooms. There should be time enough for a purge before dinner, though she would look tired afterwards. Still, better to do it early than late. She tended to get nightmares if she did it too close to falling asleep.

Locking the door behind her, Song took from her bag a green pouch and a wooden bowl. First she untied the strings on the silken pouch, carefully spilling some of the salt to trace a circle on the floor. She would have to buy more soon, she was nearly out. She would make a note in her ledger. Then came the bowl, a simple wooden piece whose insides were blackened as if sprayed with acid. Song filled the bowl with her water jug, then stepped inside the salt circle and sat down cross-legged.

The bowl she set down at her side, and after taking a long breath dipped the fingers of her left hand in the water. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. In and out, letting her senses trail off until there was nothing but her breath and the dark.

And, after an eternity, there was the smell.

Like offal, like rot and hate and shame made into a stick of incense. Song forced herself to ignore it, to focus on the steadiness of her breathing. It was only when her fingers were touching the dried bottom of the bowl that she opened her eyes again. There was not a drop of water left in the bowl, and fresh black scarring from the curses she had purged from her body.

When she had been a girl the purge was only needed once every few years, but nowadays it was twice a month. It was getting worse with every season, for an endless sea of hatred and misery was being poured into the Gloam by every Tianxi who’d lost to the Dimming.

By all those lips the name Ren was snarled as a curse, until it had become exactly that.

Song slumped, suddenly exhausted, and allowed herself a moment of bitterness at the unfairness of it all. She had not even been born. But only a moment, and then she put herself back together piece by piece. Like putting on formal dress, layer by layer until she was armored against the world. Song was not her brothers: she would not let the weight of duty break her back as it had theirs.

Song Ren would wield the chisel and she would win.

—

Come early morning on the morrow they were all sent to their rooms by First Mate Javier, who instructed them to stay inside until told otherwise. Song and Maryam, better learned on the subject of Scholomance than the other two, guessed why without difficulty.

“We are soon to reach the Ring of Storms, then?” Maryam asked.

The tall, exceedingly mustachioed – all Lierganen seemed convinced that nailing an entire ferret above their upper lip was somehow distinguished – officer nodded.

“We have the clouds in sight,” the first mate said. “Any moment now we’ll be hitting the storm front.”

“Ring of Storms,” Abrascal repeated, eyebrows raised. “Now there’s an ominous name. Might I ask what it is?”

“A ring of storms,” First Mate Javier drawled back. “There is one encircling Tolomontera, which must be crossed to reach our destination. There’s no need to worry – it is barely a mile wide, we have sailed through worse – but obviously we can’t have you underfoot during a storm.”

“Of course,” Tristan Abrascal smiled, nodding low.

Song’s eyes shortly dipped to the golden-haired woman standing by his side, whispering in his ear something that made the man’s jaw tighten ever so slightly. The Tianxi wrenched her gaze away immediately, though, for twice now the goddess had almost caught her looking and she would rather keep the details of her contract hidden. As usual, Abrascal was a headache.

Song breathed out, tightened her grip around the chisel. That was not impartial. The deity’s presence was, however, taxing in how it forced her to pretend blindness. It was one reason she avoided Abrascal, and why he sometimes irked her more than he strictly deserved to. If at least she could hear the goddess Song might have a notion of what manner of entity she was dealing with, but for now she could only try to sketch out the deity’s machinations through her mortal hand’s deeds.

“May I request being told when we’ve passed the Ring?” Song asked. “I would not want to miss the sights.”

“It’ll be your first time, won’t it?” the first mate mused. “Fair enough, the works are certainly worth a look. I’ll see about sending you a man.”

She duly thanked the officer before he took his leave and they retired to their cabins as ordered.

Song had been disposed to wait patiently but found herself restless. She could have gotten ahead in her correspondence, but writing in a storm would only lead to spilled ink and unintelligible characters. She had already folded her clothes twice and checking on her pack one more time held little appeal. If she’d had a book she could have made use of the time, but as things stood it felt like she was throwing away hours.

Pacing back and forth did not help.

Eventually she sat on the bed she would have remade regardless and made to practice Feng’s List. As one of the first scholar-diplomats the Republics sent to Malan, An Feng had written several of the definitive texts on learning Umoya. Feng’s List was a highly respected speaking exercise, a series of words that helped the speaker learn Umoya’s three tones and six accents.

“Muthi,” Song carefully enunciated, burying herself into the exercise.

It kept her mind from drifting until the ship began rocking from the storm. Her voice weakened as her hands tightened against the sheets. What this what it would feel like, to be a head of cabbage in a cart tumbling downhill? Utterly powerless, at the mercy of a pile of wooden planks held together by nails that, right now, felt all too small. She forced herself to continue Feng’s List, and when she finished it to start again. And then again, until the storm passed.

She was not certain how long it took, save that however short a span it might have been it had still taken all too long. Yet fairer weather prevailed, and as the rocking calmed there was a quiet knock at her door. The first mate had sent a sailor, as promised, and Song felt so relieved to be allowed out that she had to force herself to wait and remake the bed instead. Hand on the chisel.

She climbed to the bridge once she was better composed, finding it wet and smelling of salt but filled with cheerful crew. The crossing must have gone well. The forecastle was nearly deserted, so Song took the stairs up and found a spot out of the way to lean against the railing. The Tianxi stayed there in silence, savoring the gentle stir of the wind against her hair. The earlier nerves bled out drop by drop, leaving her sagging against the wood until she remembered she was still out in the open.

She recognized Angharad by the sound of her steps, which were oddly cadenced. Not sharp like a soldier’s or with a sailor’s lurching swagger but something closer to a fencer’s gait, light and ever ready to spring into movement. Angharad made a noise upon catching sight of her, then came to join her at the railing. The tall Pereduri’s elbows came down, coat sweeping back as she put her weight on the wood. Nodding a greeting – which Song returned – the other woman smiled and cast a curious look ahead. The Tianxi cocked a questioning eyebrow.

“You had me curious,” Angharad said.

A look at the horizon, then she snorted.

“Still do, in fact. It will be hours yet before we reach Tolomontera, what is it that you would look for on the horizon?”

“We’ve left behind the last clouds of the Ring of Storms,” Song said. “Soon we should catch our first glimpse of the Grand Orrery.”

Angharad rocked along with the rocking of the galleon without even noticing, the Tianxi noted. She envied her that comfort: though not prone to seasickness, Song would never be at ease standing on a rickety hunk of wood surrounded by angry water as far as the eye could see. She found it difficult to understand how seafarers could be so fond of a life where no amount of skill or valor would make a whit of difference if the day’s luck decided you were to capsize and drown.

“I have never heard of this Grand Orrery,” Angharad said. “An Antediluvian wonder?”

Song nodded.

“Some say it is the very reason for the existence of the Ring of Storms, that it tames wind and weather the rest of the way to Tolomontera by pushing out all the wildness onto the Ring,” she said. “I do not know if this is true, but it was described to me as a wonder like no other.”

The Pereduri cocked an eyebrow.

“Is an orrery not some sort of mechanical map mimicking the movement of the stars?” she said. “Something not so dissimilar was built on the ceiling above the Trial of Ruins, you might recall. I struggle to believe another such device would be all that exceptional.”

Song smiled.

“You will not struggle long,” she said, and a glance at the horizon saw her smile widen. “There, we see the first of it.”

The Tianxi pointed at a distant silver light near the line of the horizon, Angharad marking the sight with a skeptical look.

“It seems to me you point a star, Song,” she said.

“I do not,” she replied. “Look closer.”

The noblewoman did, frowning but trying to understand what she might have missed. It was Angharad Tredegar’s willingness to learn that had settled the matter of who she should recruit. The mirror-dancer would not entertain the thought that nobility was fundamentally unjust – she did not know the principle of zunyan, that partiality in dignity was a violation of the Circle – but that inflexibility did not extend to her actions. Angharad admitted her faults and tried to mend them, a rare thing regardless of birth or what land one hailed from.

The troubles with Isabel Ruesta had almost made Song reconsider her choice, for she would not yoke herself to someone whose every principle bent for a pretty face, but there had admittedly been… extenuating circumstances. Besides, the past was now buried.

Unlike Isabel, who’d had to do with being tossed onto a campfire.

“It moves too quickly,” Angharad suddenly said. “Stars are too far for us to easily grasp their movements, but this one’s can be caught by the naked eye.”

“It is not a star,” Song agreed. “It is a light large as a manse being moved by machinery. I expect within a quarter-hour we’ll be seeing the first ring.”

They stayed together on the deck, small lengths of conversation split by lengths of comfortable silence, as more and more lights joined that first silver pinprick – which grew larger and larger as the ship approached. The sailor in the crow’s nest shouted something that sounded like ‘first ring’in mangled Antigua, her warning before they got their first real glimpse of the Grand Orrery.

Churning white waters came first, and then they saw that from the depths of the Trebian Sea rose a massive circle of gold angled to the side.

There were two of them, in truth, with a slight space between. Each was broad as a man was long and slowly turning. It was a sight surreal, seeming more a monster than a machine for all that Song the truth was otherwise.

“Sleeping God,” Angharad murmured, sound awed. “How large is that ring?”

“The diameter should be at least four hundred miles long,” Song said. “There are several more, all of them orbiting a device at the heart of Tolomontera.”

As the ship sailed closer false stars bloomed one after another, gargantuan golden rings moving the great orbs of colored light – blue, silver, green and gold and a dozen colors more – according to some eldritch purpose. Like jewels set in a crown the lights were shepherded by rings of differing sizes and angles and make. Some were delicate, eerily delicate like steel wire the size of tower, others like thick bands of gold. It was half an hour more of staring in wonder as the crew busied themselves around them before the pair saw their first light up close.

The colors were trapped inside magnificently intricate globes of gold and brass, as finely wrought as lace and varied in shape. Some looked almost like spinning tops, others like spheres tightly trapped in bands of brass and one was but an intricate hollow ring. None were smaller than a great mansion, and all cast their light towards the heart of the device. In the distance lay a massive tower of gears, broad at the base and thinning at the middle only to bloom into an impossibly complex flower of machinery at the summit. Colors flicked inside panes of glass, like storms caught in bottles.

The heart of the Grand Orrery, the lights of Scholomance.

“A wonder like no other,” Angharad murmured. “You spoke true enough, Song.”

“Tolomontera is not so great a sight, I fear,” Song replied. “But keep some of that awe tucked away, as I expect Scholomance will be just as astonishing a sight.”

She patted the other woman’s shoulder and retired, leaving Angharad to stare at the horizon. Soon enough they would be in sight of their destination, and before they did the Tianxi intended on checking her pack one last time. Song would not be caught unprepared by what was to come.

—

The man’s hair was permanently scruffy, so there was no bed hair to use in telling if he’d truly napped through the storm or if his clothes were habitually rumpled.

“One of these days,” Tristan Abrascal said, “you’re going to have to tell me where you’re getting all these maps.”

“Doubtful,” Song replied without missing a beat.

Were she a more poetic soul, Song might have mused over any uniform being put on Abrascal’s stringy body somehow turning messy as a reflection of his soul’s mutinous streak. As it was, instead she fantasized about him being put through a laundry wringer so the rolling pins might iron out every wrinkle and at least some of the terrible ideas waiting behind those gray eyes.

Ambushed by the man on her way back from her cabin, the Tianxi had been presented with an unfortunately reasonable request which had led her right back in it – and now to be pressing down the edges of a slip of paper against the top of her dresser.

Far from offended, Abrascal’s face creased in amusement at her dismissal. It was discomforting how untroubled he seemed by everything, and how closely that matched the Fangzi Yongtu’s description of a man with rules but no principles. You will know them thus: they neither exalt nor condemn, wandering the land without knowledge of the righteous and unrighteous. Like animals they will feed on benefits and flee calamity, heeding no dignity but their own.

Father would have called him a shady bastard instead, which was somewhat less of a mouthful.

Song followed Abrascal gaze as he stared down at the sketched map of Tolomontera – little more than sketched lines – and wondered what it was he was looking for. Seen from above, the island of looked like a fat-heeled boot inclined slightly upwards.

Its southern shoreline ran from the northwest to the southeast in a diagonal cut, all stony beaches and grassy lowlands leading up into increasingly steep hills and finally plateaus – the Ariadnis Tablelands – that were a maze of deep ravines and caverns. Near the collar of the ‘boot’ tall mountains rose, swallowing up about a third of Tolomontera, and atop these squatted the massive silhouette of the Grand Orrery’s heart. It was in that great clockwork spire’s shadow, due south, that lay the hulking shape of Scholomance.

The ancient school fed straight into Port Allazei, which covered most of the boot’s heel and where the Fair Vistas was headed.

“Unless there are farms on the plateaus, that island can’t feed itself,” Abrascal finally noted. “And that port is much too large to still be inhabited.”

“The Watch keeps a presence on the island, but it is otherwise abandoned,” Song acknowledged.

“So we’re looking at an empty ruin of a port city,” Abrascal grunted. “That could into either a blessing or a curse, depending on how we play things.”

Why, Song silently deplored, must it be only this one that showed interest in planning ahead? She would have preferred the quality in another.

“Once we have registered, our priority should be securing provisions and lodgings,” she acknowledged.

Then Abrascal could find out who was trying to sell him, Maryam could get that sleep she seemed in dire need of and Angharad could be sat down for a conversation about how her family’s exploits at sea had likely been funded by slave trade gold and that meant she must watch her words around someone whose kin might well have been sold to fund Tredegar glories.

Then she could begin seeing to her own affairs, which were ever too many.

“Food and a hiding place, huh,” Abrascal grinned. “Why, Mistress Ren, we’ll make a rat out of you yet.”

Ugh. And to think Maryam genuinely found him charming. There was no accounting for taste.

“We may not have much time before classes begin,” Song told him, ignoring the grin. “If so, we will split off to get everything done in time.”

The dark-haired rat leaned forward, rubbing his chin.

“Am I getting Tredegar or Maryam?” he asked.

She would grant that the man was not slow on the uptake. Only a fool would have thought it a sound notion to partner those two if they were to split into pairs.

“You would be comfortable working with Angharad?” she asked.

Though strangely enough he looked aggrieved, Abrascal nodded. Good. She had expected those two to be at odds, but they were cordial enough. That Maryam would be half her trouble was a thoroughly unpleasant surprise.

“I will likely put the two of you on provisions,” Song said. “We’ll see after we dock.”

Between she and Maryam they should be able to sniff out anything too dangerous while choosing a place to stay. Meanwhile Abrascal would ensure that Angharad was not robbed on prices and she would ensure he didn’t get robbed period. The street rat nodded, brow creasing in thought. They were finished with the map, so she tucked it away and politely stated they were done with her rooms.

Soon they would be in sight of Tolomontera, and though Maryam was napping Angharad would be on the deck waiting for them. Abrascal did not object and they headed up together. She found Angharad on the forecastle earlier and the three settled there – the Sacromontan asked about the Pereduri’s experience at sea, as surprised as Song when Angharad revealed it was precious little.

Though she had, apparently, been trained to duel on a ship’s deck in the bay just beyond her family manor.

“The trick is to move with the waves,” she explained. “The footing must be looser than usual.”

Song did not quite have the heart to explain that her advice would be largely useless to anyone who had not spent most of their life refining the art of war. Abrascal was nodding regularly with a fixed smile on his face, for example. And though Song herself had begun the standard training of Jigong militia at the age of ten – and insisted on being taught the sword as well as the spear, against tradition for women – she would admit to being somewhat lost as well.

She had preferred firearms even before her contract ensured she would be a deadly shot.

Silver eyes scanned the distance and there she found what she was looking for. She might not see perfectly in the dark, but she saw at least as well as any darkling – the horizon was not the stretch of black for her it would be to the others.

“Straight ahead,” Song said, drawing Angharad out of some complicated hand movement. “We arrive.”

Her belly clenched in anticipation, for it was on these approaching grounds that her life’s work was to begin, but when she first glimpsed Tolomontera she found there was no room left for nerves. A hundred times Song must have surveyed the worn sketch of a map she’d obtained from Uncle Zhuge, but it did not prepare her for the true sight of it in the slightest.

It was, she thought, as a drunken scholar’s description of the likeness of an island. Rising above the waves Port Allazei with its long, thin stone jetties looked like some city of the dead – vines, grass and trees had returned to reign when men left. The lights of false stars swept in intricate cycles of colored night and day, slices of silver and green claiming swaths of ruin while behind the lichyard city waited the hungry silhouette of Scholomance.

Its great dome loomed tall, surrounded by a cluster of lesser ones and towers enough for a dozen cities – all laced with tall arched bridges and connected by strange, winding rooftops. Hardly a light was lit within the ancient palace, but it hardly mattered for squatting above on tall mountains the Grand Orrery unfolded like the open arms of some sky-swallowing god. Lights flickered and roiled, clouds drifting lazily below as its gears turned and turned without respite.

Song trusted her own eyes, they were of all the world the only thing she would never doubt, but even staring at Tolomontera she could not quite bring herself to believe the island was real. Not until the galleon docked, nestled gently against the stone jetty, and her hand found the chisel again.

There was work to do.