Stone, scraping tea into the steaming clay pot, didn’t look up at him. “I didn’t.”
“We came on that trader ship,” Moon said. Every ship of any size in the harbor had been a trader ship, and he didn’t intend to be more specific. His travels had given him a lot of experience with how to appear to be willing to answer questions without actually answering them.
Enad nodded, his gaze flicking curiously from Moon to Stone and back. “The one from Bekenadu?” He didn’t wait for an answer, turning to the two women. “Times are hard for traders, too.”
Rith, the second gray groundling, regarded Moon skeptically. She looked older, and the blue-tinged gray of her skin was marked with creases, the scales at the base of her forehead crest turning white. “You’re traders?”
“No. When they stopped here, the traders upped the passage price.” Moon shrugged, leaving them to fill in the rest. Obviously traders would sleep on their ships, or pay for shelter near the harbor, and wouldn’t need to live in abandoned houses.
The skepticism faded and Rith nodded understanding. “There’s not much work here, except at the harbor.”
“Or the towers,” the younger one, Theri, said. Her mouth twisted. “But they’re particular about their servants.”
Stone caught her eye, and said, deadpan, “We’re not pretty enough?” His lips twitched in a smile.
She smiled back, laughing. “Too big, too…” She made a vague gesture.
“They like their servants to look helpless,” Rith added, rueful and bitter. “You look… not helpless.”
Enad nodded confirmation. He thumped himself in the chest. “Me, too.”
“All of them?” Moon asked. He hadn’t seriously considered taking work as a servant to get into Ardan’s tower, but it was a thought.
“All I’ve ever heard of,” Rith said. “Better to get work in the harbor.”
Enad began to elaborate on this, listing the various cargo factors he had worked for and how much coin they paid and what bastards they were. Moon considered how to turn the conversation back to the towers, then decided there was one question newcomers couldn’t fail to ask. When Enad stopped talking, Moon put in, “Who builds a city on a monster?”
All three sighed, and the two women exchanged weary looks. “Everyone asks that,” Theri explained.
Rith took up the story, cutting off Enad’s attempt to tell it. “Long ago, before we were all born, the leviathan slept in a cove, not far off the shore of Emriat-terrene. Great magisters held it with their magic and built this city on its back—no one knows why,” she put in to forestall the obvious question. “To show their power, maybe. They carried all the building stone and metal over on barges from the mines in Emriatterrene. They say the mountains were stripped to the bone before they were done. But the turns went by and the rulers of Emriat-terrene were overthrown, rose again, were overthrown, and the magisters lost their skill, or much of it. The leviathan woke and swam away, taking the city with it.”
Moon exchanged a look with Stone, who lifted a brow and shrugged. He was right; it wasn’t the oddest thing either of them had heard.
Rith continued, “The magisters found ways to keep the city together. They gave the traders spelled direction-finders, so they could still find the city when the leviathan moves. They made a warning bell that tolls when the leviathan grows restless so the fishers know to come back to port and to lift their boats from the water, and the traders know to cast off.”
Moon read the resignation in her expression. “It doesn’t sound like a good life.” It sounded as if the magisters controlled everything, and unlike most other cities, you couldn’t simply walk away.
Enad looked bleak. “It’s all right.”
Rith said, “Many of those who have the coin to buy passage leave.” She grimaced, dispirited. “The traders know how much they can charge now, and few can afford it.”
Theri leaned her head on Rith’s shoulder. “It would be easier if the leviathan went back to sleep for good, or went closer to the western shore.”
“The western shore?” Moon asked.
“That’s where most of the traders come from.” Enad admitted, “If all of them could find us, and not just the ones the magisters give the trade-right to, it would be easier to leave. Or stay, if more people came back to live here.”
Stone dipped a cup out of the pot and handed it to Rith. “What about the eastern shore, where the forests are?”