She hefted one of the cases and ducked under the strap, then started walking. After a dozen steps she turned and looked back.
The other two were eyeing each other distrustfully. Then Diverus, as though taking a cue from her, offered his lighter bag of instruments to Soter and shouldered the second undaya case. “You can’t imagine what this place was like,” Soter said to him as though he hadn’t described it. “It was so magical.”
Diverus traded a look with Leodora that said he was pretty certain magic was still afoot.
The far side did prove to be in better shape. Whatever tumult Soter had been describing, its effects hadn’t blanketed the whole span. Some of the slender houses near the opposite square still maintained their surface coats, which were hard like stone, shiny and carved, like sculptures, with all manner of swirls and motifs. In one lane Leodora wetted a finger and wiped it across a bright green wall before sticking it in her mouth. “Sweet,” she said around her finger. “It really is sugar.”
“No one in the world knows how they do it, either,” Soter told her. “They’ve a guild, sworn to secrecy. Can’t even catch them working if you try.”
More people were gathered in this square, too, the span now awake for the day. They milled about shops and stalls. It was exactly like a market day on Ningle, if not as busy.
Soter inquired at the shops about some places and names, and was given directions and information. “Yes,” said one purveyor, “that old theater is still standing. No performances there anymore. The owner died, oh, years, long time back. Probably can find you a place to lodge, though. They got lots of room.”
Soter strode into the lead, along a seaward lane so narrow that they had to go single-file with their luggage and press up against the buildings if someone needed to pass by, which happened every few minutes. He regaled them all the while, in love, it seemed, with his own voice. “Oh, yes, we played there for months. People were coming from half a dozen spans away to see, not thinkin’ or maybe they just didn’t care, that we would be moving on to theirs eventually. ’Course in the end we didn’t, we got on a ship and sailed off to Remorva.” He stopped talking. A look of puzzlement pinched his face as if he couldn’t decide quite how he had drifted into that part of the story. In a more subdued manner he added, “I guess they were right to journey all that way for Bardsham, after all, ’cause they wouldn’t see his like again in a generation—not before now, in fact.” He turned about and shook a finger at Leodora and Diverus. “They’d better let us play here or they won’t know what they’re missing.” He bumped into someone coming the other way. Apologies were made, and thereafter he focused on the direction he was walking. “Better let us play,” he muttered to no one.
Carrying a load that was lighter than usual, Soter didn’t notice that he was inadvertently putting more and more distance between himself and the other two. Approaching the dragon beam of Colemaigne, he thrust a finger at it and called back, “Look at it. That thing hasn’t seen a visitation in your lifetime…What am I saying? In my lifetime, which is much more considerable. Of course, used to be nobody much minded, since the span had everything.” More quietly, he added, “My gods, it’s lost its edge, hasn’t it? Gone quiet. You see this, you bloody coral ghost, you see what happened here? This is our doing, sure as I’m walking here again. We sucked the life out of Colemaigne, and the gods of Edgeworld forgive us. I ought to know what happened here.”
He pressed against the buildings to let a woman in a dark purple wrap scuttle past, saying “Begging your pardon” as she did. She kept her head down and gave barely a sign that she’d heard him. “Not very sociable, are you,” he muttered to her back, but if she heard that she didn’t respond.
Passing the opening, he gazed out along the curve of the dragon beam.
It did look as ragged as if it had been gouged out of the sky. The sides were crumbling, and it was so thin across the middle, it was a wonder the weight of the Dragon Bowl at the end hadn’t caused the whole thing to snap off and plunge into