Accompanying the men were four figures, hooded and cloaked. They halted when a gigantic captain raised a hand before them. The captain walked slowly around them, stopping before a dark-skinned woman.

"Where to?"

"Mercadia. Our passage has already been paid." She brought out a piece of paper.

The captain took it, scowled at it, turned it around several times, and spat to one side on the slippery cobbles. "To Mercadia? Very well. But I have no cabin space left. You'll have to ride in steerage."

"Steerage!" a blonde-haired woman said indignantly. "But this paper guarantees us-"

The captain crumpled the paper, tossing it away. "That's what I think of that," he growled. "You paid only for passage to Rishada and Mercadia. You'll travel in the style available, and I tell you you'll journey to Rishada in steerage and no other way. Understand?"

A man with the tawny skin of a Cho-Arrim said, "Look me in the eye and tell me that."

The captain permitted himself a small chuckle. "All right." He stared intently into the man's eyes.

A quiet chant began on the Cho-Arrim's lips.

The captain pulled away, frightened. "What did you do?"

"Where did you say we were riding?"

Blinking in confusion, the captain said, "You can have my quarters. I was planning on sleeping with the crew."

With a sly smile, the Cho-Arrim man nodded. "That's what I had thought. Now, can you show us to our quarters?"

The captain nodded, at a loss for words. He led the four hooded figures along the quay and to one of the ships that bobbed in its moorings beneath a star-filled sky.

Chapter 16

Atop the great engine block of Weatherlight perched the Power Matrix. It seemed a huge, crystalline squid clinging to a vast whale of silver and ivory, glass and wire. The two artifacts were clearly kin, clearly fashioned by the same hand in some ancient time. Their polished brass panels, their networks of wire, their elegantly turned support structures, their enormous arrays of crystal-all of it showed the same genius for artifice. Matrix and engine were of a piece, fashioned for each other.

But the crystals of both were utterly dark. "Where is the power?" roared Volrath. His voice echoed through the long, narrow engine room. He lurked back in the darkness amid the ribs of the hull. Teams of Mercadian artificers meanwhile swarmed the inert bulk, lifting their examination lanterns for a better look. Volrath hissed. "This is supposed to be a Power Matrix! Where is the power?"

The chief artificer cringed beneath the verbal assault. She was one of twelve workers holding the Matrix in position. Her fingers struggled to find a grip along the lateral crystals. They were slick with the gore of the former chief artificer. Volrath had been unimpressed with the man's results and had forced his successor to drag the corpse to the deck and fling it overboard. Now, the new chief artificer's life depended on the same faulty piece of equipment.

"Forgive me, Master Volrath," she ventured quietly. "But might I make an observation?"

From the darkness behind came the growled response. "It is your job to make this machine run, not to make observations."

If she was going to die anyway, she might as well die speaking the truth so that her successor might be spared. "There are crystals missing-five large and irregular crystals." With a bloodstained finger, she pointed. "Here, here, here… do you see where the conduits converge on empty spaces? Crystals must be inserted here before the Matrix will function. And not just any crystals-these are irregular, one of a kind. Once they are in place, the Matrix will fuse with the main body of the engine, and-"

She could speak no more. It is hard to speak when a cutlass is lodged in one's lungs. There was a red fountain, and the chief artificer slumped brokenly on the machine she was unable to fix. In her last glimpse of the world, she saw the eyes of her assistant-the next chief artificer. Horror, despair, and sadness mixed on his features, with something else-gratitude. The woman slid, dead, to the floor of the engine room.

"Well, haul her out of here," Volrath growled. "And clean this place. I want it to be sparkling by the time I return with these… these crystals she spoke of."

The new chief artificer lifted his dead mentor and carried her toward the hatch. The other workers gaped at the horrible sight.

"Clean this place!" Volrath ordered. "How can you fix anything when there's so much blood in here?"

A freak thunderstorm rose from the evening seas beside Rishada. It formed misty hills and then massive mountains and then anvil-headed continents. At their heights, lightning argued like gods.

Fitful, hot winds crowded beneath the clouds. Ships shook in their moorings. Lines and stays moaned in dread. Rishadans packed up the last of their market goods and fastened shutters and rushed for the safety of cellars.

The storm was not intent on them, though. A tan wind came off the plains and tried to shove the storm back out to sea, but it was not intent on Saprazzo either. Like a huge black wolf, the front only gathered on its haunches and leaped over the wind, out onto the vast plains. High in the sky it went, bounding, sending down cyclones like clawed legs and hurling itself forward-toward Mercadia.

Like a wolf, it ran toward the city… Or like a vast, running river, leaping its starry banks.

It had been centuries since such a storm hit Mercadia. The dusty plains ate away most moisture before it could arrive, but this storm had a predatory instinct. It fell upon the city, blackening the already deep night. It flung down its drops in a trillion pounding fists. The few folk left in the streets ran as though from murdering brigands. Some even barred their doors, as though the rain might ram them open. White ghosts of mist danced through the streets. At their feet, water sank into every dry crevice and joined and mingled to wash away ancient dust. Soon, torrents followed the recursive roads, some streams spiraling endlessly back upon themselves, growing deeper and faster as liquid sought escape. Yellow and brown serpents of water ruled the street. They coiled and slithered, fusing into a vast and multi-limbed creature that gripped the whole city.

The tower at the center of the city was held tightest of all. Cyclones descended from the black heart of the storm to coil about the tower. Sand grit mixed with rain, scouring stone walls and bedeviling guards.

The storm was crudest to them. They had to stay out in it, at their posts. At first, they had thought their thick yellow riding cloaks would be proof against the drops, but fabric that kept out dust only greedily soaked up rain. Soon each cloak dragged like a fully loaded pack on the backs of the guards. Scarves protected faces from the slapping fingers of water but also channeled the stuff down necks and across spines and shoulder blades. Eyes squinted, near blind. Ears strained to pick orders from the shouting air. Mouths streamed. Throats shouted. Every patch of exposed flesh was pounded to numbness.

The guards outside Gerrard's tower prison were no exception. Indeed, the storm converged with a particular vengeance on that spot. They couldn't see farther than ten feet up or down the stairway. The guards in the corner towers were driven away from their windows.

All the while, Gerrard, Tahngarth, and Karn were warm and dry within.

"Who's the prisoners here?" shouted one guard to his comrade. Though the man stood just opposite him beside the triple doors to the cell, there was no hope of hearing. "I said, who's the prisoners here… them, or us?"

The other man only shook his head, mouth clamped grimly shut.