Chapter 15. STRINGS

THE CLOSER THEY GOT TO SKYPOOT, THE BETTER THEY COULD see that it wasn't a sheer cliff at all. It was steep, but a slope nonetheless, with occasional deep ledges that were thick with orchards or farmland. Large reaches of the mountain were terraced for farming, while houses and buildings clotted and clumped in towns and villages and vast cities on the mountain's face. There were horizontal roads high up the mount, with carts that had been built on the mountain passing back and forth. There were hanging platforms that were constantly rising and lowering to carry passengers and cargos to towns hundreds of meters above or below. The whole face of the mountain as far and as high as they could see was a hive of activity.

Clouds hung only a few hundred meters above them when they came at last to the clean and seemingly bottomless lake that fronted the mountain like an apron many kilometers wide. Dozens of bustling harbors thrust wharves out into the water. River muttered his commands, and Sken worked the helm as they picked their way skillfully among the boats and jetties, finding an empty slip in the harbor River picked out for them.

To everyone's surprise, Will jumped ashore almost before an aging portboy had finished tying their line to the dock. Will elbowed the old man aside, then retied the line himself.

"Why did you do that?" demanded Angel as Will carefully stepped back into the boat. The portboy was muttering curses behind him.

"Because this is Freetown, and if you fall in with the jackals at the beginning you're lost."

"What do you know of it?" asked Ruin.

Will looked at him steadily for a moment, then turned to Reck. "I've been here before," he said.

Reck raised her eyebrows.

"I had a master once who brought me here as his bodyguard."

Patience saw that Will spoke with the same openness that she had seen a few mornings before, when they talked in the predawn darkness, lit only by the moon. It was the same in daylight. He did not lie. It was impossible not to believe that he believed what he said. Yet in all their journey, he had not given her or anyone else the slightest hint that he had ever been to Cranning before.

"You've been to Cranning?" asked Ruin.

"Why didn't you say so before?" demanded Angel.

Will considered a moment before he answered. "I didn't know you'd dock right here. This is the only part of Cranning I've visited." He smiled. "My master thought there were some secret whores in some of the houses higher in Freetown. Some whores who could do things that no one had ever imagined."

"Was he right?" asked Sken.

"He didn't have much imagination," said Will. "So he was easy to satisfy." He tossed a small coin to the old portboy, who was still wailing on the dock. The man caught it with a quick, snakelike strike of his hand and grinned. "Now he'll fetch us someone who has the money to buy our boat. Instead of pretending that he's willing to guard it for us."

From the back of the boat, they heard River's voice.

"I'm known here," he said. "I fetch a fair price."

"I daresay," said Patience. "But you didn't much care whether we got that price, or that old portboy's cronies."

"I can't spend it," River admitted freely. "What's money to me? But when they steal me, they put me back on the downstream voyage much faster."

Sken was furious. "I ought to break your jar."

"If I still had my body," River retorted, "I'd teach you what a woman ought to do to a man."

"You were never man enough for me," said Sken.

"You were never woman enough to know a real man when you saw one."

Their quarrel went on; the others paid no attention. In a matter of moments, the whole hierarchy of authority aboard the boat shifted. Sken and River, the autocrats of the voyage, were now mere background noise. The others simply transferred to Will the trust they had placed in Sken. The tyranny of knowledge.

Will did not embarrass himself with authority as Sken had done. Patience watched as he deftly took charge of their expedition. In all these many days and weeks of travel, he had never once asserted himself, except on that single morning with her, when no one else could see. But now he stepped easily and naturally into command. He did not have to order people about or raise his voice. He listened to questions, answered them, and made decisions in a quiet way that admitted of no discussion. She had seen many men who were accustomed to command; most of them wore their authority defiantly, as if someone had just accused them of being powerless. Will took his authority as if he didn't have it, and so the others obeyed him without resentment, without noticing they were subjecting themselves to him.

If he were my husband, would he expect me to obey him? Almost at once, she was ashamed of the thought.

For he was using his authority solely for the good of the group. That's why he was equally content to follow and to lead. For whether he gave the command or someone else did, if it was a good command it should be obeyed.

And so if he were her husband, if he ordered something that was right and good, she would do it, and have no doubt that if she ordered what was right and good, he would easily obey.

"You can't take your eyes off him," Angel whispered to her.

She had no desire to tell Angel why. "He's not the silent oaf we thought him to be."

"Don't trust him," said Angel. "He's a liar."

She could not believe that Angel would say such a thing. "How can you hear him and see him and think he says anything he doesn't believe?"

"All you're telling me," said Angel, "is that he's a very good liar."

She moved away from Angel to conceal how flustered she was. Of course Angel could be right. It hadn't occurred to her, and it should have, that Will's openness and honesty could be as much an illusion as her own.

After all, hadn't she schooled herself all her life to speak so she would be believed? Couldn't he have done the same?

Or had Angel sensed how much she was beginning to center herself on Will? Could he be jealous of the man's influence on her? But no. Angel had never acted out of jealousy in his life. She had trusted Angel from her earliest memories. If he doubted Will, it would be dangerous for her not to doubt him, too.

Yet she couldn't doubt him. In that one night, he had moved to the very center of the story she saw unfolding for herself. She couldn't thrust him into the background again. Whatever Angel thought of him. Will's abilities were real enough, he was proving that. And she did love him, she was sure of that-

The doubt was there, though. Now Angel stood on the dock, talking with Will, paying no more attention to Patience; but his words had been enough to put a doubt in Patience's mind. Her trust of Will was no longer complete, as it had been. And she resented Angel for it, though she knew she ought to thank him. Trust no one, Father had said. And she had forgotten it, with Will. But what a fool she had been, a religious fanatic like that, a Vigilant, and she had trusted him completely. Wait and see. That's what she would do. Wait and see.

Will sold the boat almost at once, and for a low price.

River was included in the price-and he cursed Will for valuing him so low. Will only laughed. "I sold you fast to get you on the river sooner," he said. "I thought that was all you cared for."

River clicked his tongue, and his monkey turned his jar around to face downstream, so River couldn't see his former owners anymore.

Speaking to Patience, Will had another explanation for the low price. "We're better off if they think we care nothing for money. They'll take us for rich visitors who have come to play. In Freetown there's no official government and no written law. But as long as they think we're here to spend money, our lives are absolutely safe.