“Because Ardan ordered them to,” Moon said impatiently. “He’s dead, and we can’t fight every groundling in this city. If they think we’re out to slaughter them, they’ll all band together against us.”
“And because I said so,” Jade added, and cuffed Drift in the head. She clearly wasn’t in any mood to put up with an argument. She nodded to Moon, and he and Vine pushed the panel out and lifted it away, letting in a spill of brighter light from the corridor. Moon was the first one out.
Moon took a deep breath of air only lightly tinged with the leviathan’s stench. After the underground and the mortuary, the polished floors and bright vapor-lights were a relief.
He led the way around and out from under the stairwell, to the main room. It seemed even bigger without the giant waterling, with the chains that had supported it hanging empty. The outer door was securely locked and barred, but there were no guards and no sound of movement anywhere. Most if not all of them must have gone with Ardan. Presumably the survivors would be looking for new jobs and wouldn’t be returning here.
“It feels empty,” Rift said, his voice hushed. “But the servants must still be here.”
Moon tasted the air. He caught only the scents of decay from the upper exhibit hall and the traces left behind of the giant waterling. “Somebody would have had to open the doors for Ardan and the others when they came back.”
Jade ordered, “Search the place, chase out any of Ardan’s people left behind, and find the prisoners.”
Leaving Jade and Chime behind to guard Flower and the seed, and Stone to watch the outside door, they all spread out to search the place floor by floor.
Moon followed the stairs up through the tower and opened every door he came to, breaking the locks if necessary. Vine flushed out the first frightened servant, and they quickly organized a system for chasing them out to the stairwell where Song or Root waited to make sure they ran all the way down and out the front door, where Stone made certain they left. They didn’t run into anyone who was armed; Ardan must have taken all his guards with him to the mortuary.
They were all hungry and drooping with exhaustion. The younger warriors were having difficulty keeping up, and Karsis had to tow Esom up the stairs. On the third floor above the exhibit halls they passed a foyer with a running fountain. Moon stepped into it just long enough to put his head under the spray and wash the last residue of the leviathan off his scales. It helped revive him a little. It had been a long time without sleep or real food, and he didn’t know how much longer he and the others could last.
They were in the upper levels of the tower, where the public rooms were, exploring a servants’ area near a second set of kitchens, when Balm stumbled on a heavily locked door that seemed to lead to a separate section of the level. They forced open the door to find a corridor with doors not unlike the guest quarters—except these doors had no open transoms to allow in light and air, and all had locks on the outside. “This could be it,” Esom breathed. He ran to the first door and pounded on it, shouting, “Negal? Orlis?”
Karsis took the other side of the corridor, pounding on each door. Midway down, someone inside shouted an incomprehensible answer and pounded back.
“It’s them!” Karsis fumbled at the lock as Esom ran to join her.
Balm glanced at Moon, got a nod, and went to help them. She broke the lock off the handle and ripped the door open.
Negal stepped out first, then stopped, astonished. He stared from Esom to Balm, Moon, and past them at Vine, who looked in from the foyer. Orlis and six other men crowded behind him. They were all a similar type of groundling, with dark hair and brown skin, dressed in worn clothes, with the thin, pinched look of people who had been away from the sun and fresh air for a long time. Smiling with relief, Negal said to Esom, “I take it the situation has changed drastically?”
Esom explained, “Ardan is dead, and we have an alliance with them, now.” He gestured vaguely toward Moon and the others. “Of course, most of the population of the island probably wants