Emilie & the Hollow World - By Martha Wells Page 0,53
would still be fighting the nomads even if none of us had found our way down to this world. She's considerably more cunning and more determined than she looks, believe me.” With a laugh, he added, “Those were her men who attacked the Sovereign during the last eclipse, not the nomads. Didn't you think the arrival of Yesa and her warship was excessively fortuitous?”
Miss Marlende said, startled, “She didn't-” After a moment, sounding more thoughtful, she said, “Of course, I see.”
Emilie shook her head, but it did make sense. She remembered what Miss Marlende had said about the size and age of the city, as a relic of a disintegrating empire, and what the rulers of such a place must be like. Miss Marlende must have remembered it too. Sounding less certain, she said, “Why is she so determined to fight the nomads, then?”
“Because they are the future,” Lord Ivers said, as if he was giving a lecture. “If what she and the others have told me is true, the Sealands have been changing for generations. The weather has grown warmer, and it's affecting the water depth, the way the fish run, how the plants grow, the way the islands form. These shallow seas can no longer sustain cities this size, the way they could in the Empire's golden age. Now the fishers and gleaners and growers have to go further and further afield to bring in enough food for the rest of the population.” Lord Ivers' voice warmed with his enthusiasm for the subject, and Emilie leaned on the stone banister, listening intently. The footsteps she could hear sounded as if they were made by more than two people, so Lord Ivers must have one or more of his men with him. “The nomads' ancestors saw the writing on the wall a long time ago, and changed their way of living and their way of governing themselves. They left the cities, broke up into smaller groups, and now travel to different fishing and farming grounds throughout the year, giving the sea and the land time to replenish itself. They've succeeded marvelously. So marvelously, the outlying farmers and fishers of this city, the greatest and possibly last outpost of the old Empire, often desert their posts to join them.”
Ah, Emilie thought. The merpeople aren't being stolen away. They're deserting to the other side. No wonder the Queen was angry.
Miss Marlende must have come to the same conclusion. In a different tone, she said, “I see.”
“Of course you do. There's nothing I could do to stop this,” Lord Ivers concluded. “There's no place for the Queen or her nobles or their way of life in this new style of living. If the Queen was a forward thinker, she would form her people into their own tribes of nomads and send them off to look for new fishing grounds. She isn't, and she won't. She's determined to preserve her control over this dying city for the rest of her generation.”
“But you're using her for your own purposes-” Miss Marlende protested loudly. Then Emilie realized her voice wasn't getting louder, it was getting closer - Lord Ivers and Miss Marlende were coming up the stairs to this floor.
Oh, hell. Emilie bolted up the stairs, trying to keep her steps quiet. She reached the upper floor, where the stairwell foyer had two arched doorways opening into corridors, one to the left and one to the right. The room Emilie and Rani had been locked into should be on the right, facing out into the court. And Emilie didn't think it would be unguarded. Mindful that Lord Ivers would be here in a moment, she stepped silently to the righthand archway and took a cautious peek.
The hall was lined with doorways, all with heavy metal doors, and midway down it there was a man in a blue uniform, sitting on a camp stool. The door nearest him had a big padlock through the metal handles. Emilie drew back, thinking: damn, I was afraid of that. She had no idea how she was going to get Rani out of there.
Movement and voices moving up the stairs made her dart across the foyer and through the archway on the left. Fortunately, that corridor was empty, leading out to a long room of open galleries. She crouched behind a pillar, trying to make herself small, and hoped they went the other way.
She heard them reach the landing and turn down the righthand corridor. There was a scrape and