On the evening of the fifth of September, which was the day after Sallina decided she wanted to be a sailor, the Reliant dropped anchor one kilometer outside Cloghlogan harbor.
"We can't take her in now," the Captain said, "It's getting dark and the channels are narrow. We'll wait until morning."
Garibaldi and Sallina stood on the fore deck watching the sun go down. It was setting behind huge, jagged mountains that came right down to the shore. There were a few clouds up above, and these glowed pink underneath.
"How beautiful," Sallina said.
Garibaldi leaned on a crutch with one arm, but his other arm was around Sallina's waist. Sallina leaned forward and stared into the shadows at the base of the mountains. "I can see the waves crashing on the rocks, but I can't see any sign of the city."
Cloghlogan is on the west coast of the Satian Sea, where the Trukulent Mountains push out into the sea. The harbor itself, and the entrance to the dwarves' underground city, are in a deep cleft of the mountains, with cliffs rising on all sides. The shadows cast by these cliffs in the setting sun were too dark for Sallina and Garibaldi to see into.
Garibaldi pointed up at the sky. "What's that?"
Sallina looked up. She saw a cloud that looked like a line, going from north to south, high above the mountains in front of the sun. The cloud moved as she watched, going south. The front end of the cloud was sharp, and the other end was blurred.
"I don't know," Sallina said, "I've seen those a couple of times before."
"Have you?" Garibaldi said. "I have never seen one. It's some kind of cloud, isn't it?"
"I guess so," Sallina said, "It's glowing pink underneath like the other clouds."
Sharpy was leaning on the ship's rail nearby.
"It's a dragon-cloud," he said.
Sallina looked at Sharpy and smiled. "Oh really?"
Sharpy nodded and stared at the cloud. "Made by a dragon flying high up in the sky."
Sallina laughed. "I like that. A dragon cloud. How romantic." She put her arm around Garibaldi and leaned against him.
"I'm not kidding," Sharpy said.
Pops called out from the aft stairs. "Miss Sallina, the Captain's calling for you. He's waiting for you in his cabin!"
Sallina looked aft. "Really?"
Pops had already disappeared. He did not like to leave his kitchen right before supper-time. Sallina wondered why the Captain had sent Pops up at all.
"Coming!" she said. She kissed Garibaldi's cheek. "I'll go see what he wants."
Garibaldi nodded.
Sallina jumped down the steps from the fore deck to the main deck, and turned to the little door under the fore deck that opened onto the top of the fore stairs. She walked down these and into the common room. That was the room where Sallina and Baat had been tried in front of Harry the Quartermaster. But there was no trial going on now. A lantern hung from the ceiling. Four men were playing cards. Two men lay on cushions reading. Two others were smoking tobacco from a water-pipe and talking. The common room's round windows were open, and the sea breeze flowed through the room, taking the tobacco smoke with it.
Sallina walked through the common room and along the length of the dormitory. This was where the sailors slept. Each sailor had his own hammock, and an area on the floor marked out that was his to use. Each area was three paces long and two paces wide. Most of the sailors were here. They were talking, resting, or reading. Most of the sailors could read, and they were forever trading books, talking about books, and going to book shops when they went ashore.
Jasper looked up as Sallina went by. He held a shiny crystal in one hand. Above him was an oil lamp. In front of him was a tray with many rocks in it.
"Hello Jasper!" she said.
Sallina was cheerful because she enjoyed being able to walk through the common room and the dormitory whenever she liked. That morning the Captain had accepted her and Garibaldi as members of the crew for one week, so they could see how they liked it. They were still sleeping in their cabin, but they were going to be treated like one of the crew.
Of course, being one of the crew meant that they had to obey the Captain's orders, but Sallina trusted the Captain, so she was willing to obey him for a week and see if she liked it.
She passed through the door at the end of the dormitory and entered the ship's corridor. The cabin she shared with Garibaldi was on the left. The infirmary was on the right. The next door on her left was the toilets. There was a short flight of stairs that led down to what the sailors called the hold. Sallina could go down into the hold too, if she wanted. The hold was where the ship's cargo was stored. Sallina had been down there in the morning. There were hundreds of bags of a strange white powder called gypsum that the Captain had bought in Independence Island. He said the powder was used for making statues and walls.
Sallina walked past the stairs to the hold. On her right was the kitchen. The kitchen door was open and the smell of roasting meat was wafted out with hot air and the clattering of pots and pans. Just past the door to the kitchen was the base of the rear mast, which came down through the deck and passed through the floor into the hold.
After the kitchen door was the end of the corridor. On the left was the base of the staircase that led up to the main deck. If she wanted to go up these stairs, she would have to turn around and walk up them in the other direction. But she did not want to go up the stairs. She wanted to go to the Captain's cabin. The door to the Captain's cabin was at the end of the corridor, facing her.
Sallina knocked on the Captain's door.
"Enter!" he said, from inside.
She opened the door and stood on the threshold. "You wanted to see me Captain!"
The Captain smiled. The red light of the setting sun shone through the starboard window. A lantern hung from the ceiling above him. He had some papers in front of him on the table, but there was no glass of wine. He pointed to a chair on the other side of the table. "Close the door and sit down."
"Yes sir!" Sallina said.
She closed the door and sat down.
"Tomorrow morning we will enter Cloghlogan harbor," the Captain said. "The town around the harbor is called Cloghloganport. But Dan's wife does not live in Cloghloganport. She lives in Cloghlogan itself, the city beneath the mountain."
Sallina nodded. "In the city beneath the mountain, Captain sir!"
The Captain looked out the starboard window at the clouds. He frowned and looked at Sallina. "Very funny, dear girl, but I'm worried about Dan, so please be yourself."
Sallina put her elbows on the table. "Okay. But I like talking like a sailor."
"I know," the Captain said, "Everyone does. Half the time I think you're all making fun of me."
Sallina reached out and put her hand upon the Captain's. "No, Captain, we're not making fun of you. We're enjoying our work."
"I see," the Captain said. Sallina took her hand off his.
The Captain picked up a piece of paper with a name and address written on it. "Dan's wife's name is Margaret MacLockanlock."
Sallina laughed.
"What's funny?" the Captain said.
"Her name is MacLockanlock?"
"Yes, Margaret MacLockanlock."
"And she's a locksmith?"
"I think she's a watchmaker."
Sallina smiled at the Captain. "It's still a funny name."
"Be that as it may, my dear new sailor, you will go into the dwarf city tomorrow and find her."
"Me?" Sallina said.
"Operor vos narro Latin?" the Captain said. He was speaking in Latin. As I have said before, Sallina studied Latin in school. She understood him. He meant, "Do you speak Latin?"
"Aliquantulus frenum," she said, which meant, "A little bit."
"That's good enough," the Captain said. He looked down at the piece of paper. "Margaret lives at Number Six Cinnabar Street, Cloghlogan." He looked up. "I have no idea where that is. I've been in the city several times, but I don't know my way around."
"You want me to go in there on my own and find her?"
"You may take two of the crew with you. Not Garibaldi, because he's injured, and not Sharpy, because he speaks Latin also, and I will need him here."
"Why not send Sharpy and leave me here?"
The Captain leaned forward a little, holding the paper between his hands. "I want you on my crew because you're smart. You can learn new languages, I'm sure of it. You've a good head for numbers. I can send you places and have you speak for the ship." He smiled at her. "That's my hope, anyway. So, I want to try you out. I'm ordering you to go into the city and find Margaret MacLockanlock. Give her a letter from me." He picked up a letter, sealed with red wax on the back, and handed it to her.
"Tell her Dan is here and wants to see her."
Sallina looked at the wax seal. The seal was of the letters H and T. "Okay, I'll do it. I'll take Baat and Otis."The Captain nodded. "Good choices."
"I choose Baat because he can fight, and Otis because he is wise."
"You won't need to fight," the Captain said, "But I see your point."
The Captain handed Sallina the piece of paper with Margaret's address. She took it and sat back in her chair.
"You're not drinking wine, Captain."
The Captain frowned. "No. Why do you ask?"
"I think you drink too much. It's not good for the safety of our ship. Now that I'm a sailor, I have the right to say such things to you, isn't that correct?"
The Captain nodded. "Yes, you do."
"I have been wanting to say it for some time, but I never did because we were your guests. It's not good for your health to drink a bottle of wine at every meal."
The Captain held up his hand. "I only have a glass with breakfast."
"With lunch and supper, then," Sallina said.
"You are not the first person to tell me I drink too much."
"And did you listen to the others?"
He frowned. "I stopped drinking today." He looked up at Sallina. "But it's because I'm worried."
"You stop drinking when you're worried?"
"Yes. I drink because I'm sad, not because I'm worried."
"What are you worried about?"
The Captain took a deep breath. "I'm worried about Dan." He shook his head. "No, I'm not worried about him, I'm worried about us. I'm so used to having Dan on the ship to take care of us that it's frightening to have him be sick. Now he's going to leave the ship, I think, and go into the city to one of their hospitals. I don't know if we'll get him back, and without him, we don't have our doctor and we don't have our..."
"Assassin," Sallina said.
"Quite," the Captain said. "Our protector, in fact."
Sallina looked at her hands. The ship rocked on the waves. The light of the setting sun faded, leaving only a faint, red glow. The lantern swung slowly upon its chain. Sallina clasped her hands together. She looked up.
"Your wife would not want you to be sad. You know that, don't you?"
The Captain nodded.
"We have Baat now, and he's good with a stick. I've seen him in action. And on the Endeavor, we have Yohiromaki, and even Dan is impressed with Yohiromaki's fighting. So with the two of them, we'll be safe."
The Captain stared at the table, but said nothing. After a while, he cleared his throat. "I hear what you say, Sailor Sallina, and thank you for your advice. Now you are dismissed."
Sallina stood up. "Yes sir!"
She turned and left.
The Cloghlogan lighthouse stood upon the rocks beside the harbor. At night, it flashed every twenty seconds. Sharpy said the light shone out all the time in a beam that turned around the lighthouse and pointed far out over the water. When the beam moved across the ship, they saw the light, and so the light appeared to flash.
"Where is the Endeavor, do you think?" Sallina said.
"She should be here tomorrow," Sharpy said.
"But she's a faster ship than the Reliant, isn't she? Why didn't she get here first?"
"She's faster in fair weather, but our captain knows how to handle a ship in a storm better than her captain. We always pull ahead in a storm."
The next morning, the sun rose in the east and shone brightly upon the rocky slopes of the Trukulent Mountains. The Reliant sailed between two great cliffs into a wide expanse of calm water. There were a dozen ships tied up to stone docks. Tall, stone buildings with slate roofs crowded about the shore. There were taverns and shops. There were long warehouses for storing cargo brought by ships and other cargo waiting to be taken away by ships. The expanse of calm water was Cloghlogan Harbor. The town beside the harbor was Cloghloganport.
Two rowboats came out from Cloghloganport and towed the Reliant to an empty dock. Garibaldi and Sallina stood once more upon the fore deck and stared at the streets of the town. They took turns to look through Sharpy's telescope. Garibaldi's leg was hurting less. He rested his crutch against the ship's rail and held the telescope with both hands. He looked past the buildings and into the narrow space between the cliffs beyond the town.
The cliffs were so high that Garibaldi could hardly believe they were real. The two cliffs met about a kilometer from the harbor. Where they met there was a wall of gray rock that rose up so high that he doubted he would be able to see anyone standing at the top, even with the telescope. He could see no way to get into the narrow space between the cliffs other than by going through the town to the opening between them.
At the base of the wall where the cliffs met, he saw water sparkling in the morning sun.
"I think there is some kind of waterfall back there," he said. He handed the telescope to Sallina.
"There are fountains," she said. "Huge fountains."
The Reliant bumped against the dock. Sailors jumped off the ship and tied her to the dock with thick ropes. Sallina handed the telescope to Garibaldi. "I'd better get going."
Garibaldi pointed at the end of the dock. "Look, bales of cloth."
A small, two-wheeled cart was going by, pulled by one man. In the card were bolts of colored cloth.
"Bolts of cloth," Sallina said, "It's bales of cotton, but bolts of cloth."
Garibaldi frowned. He did not like it when Sallina corrected his speech. It made him feel foolish. But he supposed he had better learn how to use the right words if he was going to spend time with someone as clever as she was. He stared at the cliffs looming above the town. There were a few trees here and there, holding on to the cliffs. There were a few trees growing between the houses, too. But almost everything he could see was made of stone, except for the sky. He shook his head. His father would be amazed by these mountains.
He wished he could talk to his father about Sallina.
"What's the matter?" Sallina said.
"I miss my father."
Sallina nodded and put her arm around him. "I'll sell my furs here if I can, and we'll be able to go home."
Garibaldi nodded. "Why not take some with you, just in case?"
"In case of what?"
"In case you walk past a fur-seller or a coat-maker or something. You could show him some of your furs."
Sallina laughed.
Garibaldi moved a step away from her. "What's so stupid about that?"
Sallina looked at him. She stopped smiling. "Nothing."
Garibaldi frowned. She reached out and touched his arm. "I'll go and get some furs and bring them in my pack. It's a good idea." She stepped towards him and kissed him on the cheek. "I'll be right back."
Sallina went down the aft steps to their cabin. She put four mink pelts and a rabbit pelt in her backpack. She picked up a wolf pelt, but it was too large. She put it down again. She picked up a small piece of mink fur that had fallen off one of the other pelts. It was soft and smooth. She liked to feel it between her fingers. She put it in her pocket.
Next to the piece of fur in her pocket was a small crumpled piece of paper. Over the past few weeks, this piece of paper had been soaked in water many times. But each time she had spread it out and let it dry, folded it up and put it back in her pocket. It was the shopping list her mother had given her on the day she and Garibaldi had found the gold. Sallina wondered what happened to the big wicker-work shopping basket she had left behind in the forest. Had her mother found it? Did someone else find it and give it to her? Did her mother still use the shopping basket, and if she did, did she cry thinking about her daughter when she carried it?
Sallina put her pack on her back and left the cabin. She had to sell her furs so they could go home.
When she came to the toilet door, she stopped. Better to pee before she left the ship. You never knew how hard it would be to find a clean toilet when you were in a strange city. She put the sign on the door and went inside. While she was in there, she heard the Captain calling her.
"Sallina! Where are you Sallina! Time to go!"
When she ran up on deck a minute later, Baat and Otis were waiting by the gang-plank that led down to the dock. The Captain was on the aft deck talking to a very short, broad man with a beard and a large nose. His beard was twisted into two points. He wore a black leather jacket and baggy wool trousers. On his head was a metal cap that shone in the morning sun. In his hands he held a small board with papers on it.
Otis saw her staring at the short man.
"He's a dwarf," Otis said.
Garibaldi came down the steps from the fore deck as fast as he could on his injured leg. He held his crutch in one hand and Sharpy's telescope in the other. His brow was furrowed.
"Sallina!" he said.
Oh dear, Sallina thought, he's worried about me going into the dwarf city without him.
She met him at the ship's rail. Garibaldi leaned close to her and said, "I just saw Lawrence Matthews on the next dock. He was staring at our ship."
In case you don't remember, Lawrence Matthews was one of the three ruffians who had attacked Sallina and Garibaldi when they first found the gold. He was the tall one, the son of the richest man in town.
Sallina held Garibaldi's arm tightly with one hand. She looked at the dock next to theirs, and then at Garibaldi. "Are you sure?"
Garibaldi nodded. "I'm sure."
"Did he see you?"
"I don't know."
Sallina watched the street that ran along the water front. She could not see Lawrence. "Where did he go?"
"He walked off down the street." Garibaldi pointed left along the docks. "I lost sight of him among the people."
Sallina bit her lip. "What does it mean, him being here?"
"He's Jameson Matthews's son," Garibaldi said, "He's probably here with one of Jameson's ships. My mother is friends with Mrs. Matthews's sister, Lawrence's aunt, and she says Jameson is forever talking about his ships, and all the stuff they carry back and forth across the sea. One of these ships must be Jameson's and he's sent his son here with it. Maybe Jameson is here himself."
"Maybe the Duke's here too," Sallina said.
The Captain hollered from the aft deck. "Sailor Sallina, on your way!"
"Aye aye, Captain!" Sallina said. She let go of Garibaldi's arm.
"No," Garibaldi said, "The Duke won't be here. Don't worry. There's nothing the Duke can do to you here. We're not on the Duke's land. The Duke has no power here."
Sallina nodded. "I have to go. I will have Baat with me. I'll be okay."
"Yes," Garibaldi said, "You'll be fine."
And so it was that Sallina left the Reliant with Baat and Otis, and started off towards the City of the Dwarves. In her pack she had her furs and two letters for Margaret MacLockanlock. One was from the Captain. The other was from Dan. Also in her pack was the sheet of paper with Margaret's address written on it. Otis did not appear to be carrying anything, although she could hear some coins jangling in his pockets. Baat carried his sword at his belt.
Baat smiled as they walked up the dock and onto the streets of Cloghloganport.
"I not see real dwarf before," he said.
"Nor me," Sallina said.
"You look frightened," Otis said to Sallina.
Sallina looked at him. "I am. But not of the dwarves."
Sallina expected Otis to ask her what she was really frightened of, but he didn't.
Two dwarves stood beside the road, talking to one another. Baat slowed down to look at them. But Sallina stared straight ahead. Lawrence Matthews was here. She had never liked Lawrence Matthews, but he was a smart boy, even if he was insecure and selfish. Garibaldi had hit Lawrence pretty hard a couple of times, and a boy like Lawrence Matthews doesn't forget being made a fool of in a fight, especially in front of Sallina. Lawrence used to follow her around in school. He used to pick flowers for her and give her insects in cages made of straw. He knew she liked insects. But most of the insects had legs missing or were dead. Lawrence could not put them in the little cages without hurting them.
Did Lawrence know that she and Garibaldi were on the Reliant? The Duke's soldiers in Godiva might have figured out that she and Garibaldi had stowed away. Maybe someone saw her and Garibaldi climb into the crate of silk, but had not said anything about it until later. Maybe their letters home had arrived, and their parents had told everyone about the Reliant. She hit her hip with one hand in frustration. She should not have given the name of the ship in her letter.
Because she was thinking about Lawrence, Sallina hardly noticed the shops, houses, taverns, and squares of Cloghloganport. Baat and Otis followed close behind her. Baat pointed at things and asked Otis questions. Otis answered some of them, but made jokes in answer to others. Baat laughed at the jokes. Sallina looked back at him. He was in a good mood.
What could Lawrence do to her and Garibaldi here in Cloghlogan? Nothing. Garibaldi was right. The Duke had no power here, and nor did Lawrence.
The town ended suddenly with an iron gate in a stone wall. The gate was open. Two dwarves stood upon either side of it. They stared straight ahead. They wore chain armor and rested double-bladed battle-axes on the ground in front of them. The sun shone in their faces. They both had beards. Sallina stopped in front of them. They stood as high as her shoulder. She could not see their eyes because they were wearing glasses with dark lenses. Their large noses stuck out from between the circles of black glass.
Baat smiled at the dwarves. He pointed at their battle-axes. "It is like my father's axe."
The dwarves did not move or answer.
A sapien man (that is, a man who was not a dwarf) with a leather bag in one hand walked out of the town. He looked at Sallina as he went by and he nodded to the dwarves. He walked through the open iron gate and up the path beyond.
The dwarves did nothing.
"Come on," Sallina said. She walked through the gate. Baat and Otis followed her.
On the other side of the wall was an open space five hundred paces long and two hundred paces wide. The cliffs towered up on all sides except for where Sallina, Baat, and Otis had just passed through the iron gate. The space was like a long triangle. Sallina stood at the base of the triangle, and the cliffs made the other two sides. At the bottom of the cliffs at the far end was a huge stone door. Sallina felt sure this door was the entrance to the dwarf city beneath the mountain. It was the door to Cloghlogan.
The door was closed.
Coming down from the door was a wide flight of stone steps. At the base of the steps was a fountain. A second flight of steps led down from this fountain to a second fountain, and a third flight of steps led down to a third fountain. Sallina, Baat, and Otis stood on a level with the third fountain.
Sallina stopped and stared. The middle fountain was the largest. It was a sculpture of tubes and blocks and many-sided shapes like jewels. It was made of stone and crystal and metal, and set in a pool fifty paces wide. What made Sallina stop and stare was the water spraying from the center of this fountain. The water shot into the air as high as the main mast of the Reliant and fell in a crashing cascade into the pool.
"How do they do this?" Baat said, pointing at the water high in the air and sparkling in the sun. "Is it magic?"
Otis smiled. "Some say it is. I don't know."
Baat looked at Sallina. "May we walk this way?" He pointed to the steps.
There were two ways to get to the door of the dwarf city. One way was to walk past the fountains and climb the stairs. That was the way Baat wanted to take. The other was to follow a wide, smooth road that ran along the base of the cliff on the left. This road was in shadow, but Sallina could see the man with the leather bag walking quickly along it. He must be going to the city, she thought, and he is taking the quickest way. He does not want to go past the fountains. He might get wet.
Sallina did not mind getting wet.
"Sure," she said.
She stepped out onto the marble paving that surrounded the lowest fountain. She walked past it and up the steps to the second fountain. She thought she would have time to look at the lowest fountain on her way back. For now, she was more interested in the big one. She stopped beside it.
She had never seen or heard anything like this fountain in her whole life. She stared at the water flying high in the air, and falling down to land in the pool. The water spraying up from the fountain made a roaring noise, and the water falling down into the pool made a steady roar of its own. There was hardly any wind here, between the towering cliffs, but when a slight breeze blew, water would fall on either side of the pool. The black stone on either side of the fountain was slippery with water.
As the three of them stood watching the fountain, the shadow of the cliff behind them moved out across the black paving stones. Sallina looked towards the sea. It sparkled in the morning sun. But the sun had moved to the south as it climbed in the sky, and now it was hidden behind the cliff. She looked up at the water shooting into the air. Half of it was sparkling in the sun. The other half was in shadow.
"Well well," a voice said behind her. The voice had the accent of her home town, "If it isn't dear little run-away Sallina."
Four men had come upon them unseen from the path beneath the cliff. Sallina had not heard them beneath the sound of the fountain. Three of the men were large and muscular. They wore sailor's trousers and shoes. The fourth was Lawrence Matthews. The three sailors stood side by side with their arms folded. They stood between Sallina and the dwarf city.
Lawrence stepped in front of the sailors and looked down at Sallina. He was taller than she remembered. Had he grown? No, he was wearing boots with high heels.
"Who's this?" Otis said to her.
"He's what I was afraid of," Sallina whispered.
Otis nodded. Baat stood close to Sallina, his arms on his hips.
"What do you want, Lawrence?" Sallina said.
"I see you've made some new friends," Lawrence said. "I like them. One is small and young, the other is small and old." He pointed back at the three large sailors. "I've made some new friends too." He smiled. "Only mine are large and tough."
"I'm getting bored of listening to you," Sallina said. "What do you want?"
Otis chuckled.
"I want a word with you," Lawrence said, "Alone."
Sallina raised one eyebrow. What did he want to say to her that he could not say in front of his sailors? Perhaps he wanted her to give him some of the gold so that he would not tell the Duke he had seen her. She wasn't going to give him any of the gold. She needed it all to get back home. And she did not like the thought of being alone with Lawrence, either.
"No," Sallina said. "Get out of our way."
Instead of moving out of the way, Lawrence stepped towards her. He scowled and pointed a finger at her face, "You'd better think twice about..."
Baat drew his sword, stepped between Lawrence and Sallina, and put the point of his blade to Lawrence's neck.
"Go back," Baat said.
The sailors behind Lawrence stepped forward. One had a truncheon in his hand. Sallina did not see where the truncheon came from. He must have been hiding it under his folded arms. He struck down at Baat's sword with his truncheon, trying to knock it away from Lawrence's neck.
The truncheon swept through the air, but it did not touch Baat's sword. The sword flicked out of the way, around the sailor's arm, and back to Lawrence's neck as soon as the truncheon had passed by.
The sailor dropped the truncheon on the stones. He cried out and pressed his wrist with his hand. Blood seeped between his fingers. He stepped backwards and slipped on the black paving stones. Another sailors caught him as he fell. The third sailor held a truncheon in his hand. He looked from Lawrence to Baat.
Lawrence clenched his fists. He stared down the length of Baat's sword at the face of the Son of Sukh, with its dark, smooth skin and strange, narrow eyes.
Otis spat. "I'd get out of the way, if I were you, young feller."
Lawrence stepped back. "Come on," he said to his sailors. "We'll go get the police."
The sailor whom Baat had cut was sobbing and holding his arm. His friend helped him walk back towards the road. The third sailor shrugged and followed them. When he reached the road, Lawrence turned and shouted above the noise of the fountain. "You and that woodcutter! You'll both face justice! You'll be sorry!"
Sallina bit her lip.
Otis put a hand on her back. "Come on, girl, let's be going."
"What happened there?" Sallina said. "How did Baat cut the man's arm?"
"With his sword Miss," Otis said. He pushed Sallina gently with his hand.
Sallina started walking. She walked up the steps to the top fountain. She tried not to look back over her shoulder. She did not know what Lawrence was doing back there on the road with his three sailors. All she could hear behind her was the roar of the middle fountain. She wanted to know what Lawrence was doing, but she did not want Lawrence to think that she was worried. She wanted him to be the one that was worrying, not her.
But she was worried.
The top fountain was made of green pipes that sprayed water in all directions. She stopped to look at it. The pipes twisted around one another and sprayed water into buckets that turned wheels. The wheels pulled chains that lifted up balls and dropped them onto chimes and cymbals. A cool mist settled on her face. The sound of the chimes and cymbals joined the roaring of the fountain below.
Otis watched the fountain with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. Baat had his back to the fountain, watching the road behind them. Sallina turned from the fountain and looked towards the sea, where the sun blazed upon the water. Without turning her head towards the road, she tried to find Lawrence and the three sailors in the shadows, but she could not see them. The shadow of the cliff was dark, and the sun shining off the sea was bright.
"Where did they go?" she said.
"Go back gate and back into town," Baat said.
Sallina nodded.
She stared at the fountain. A shiny silver-colored ball floated high up on a jet of water. The jet lasted for a little while and stopped suddenly. The ball dropped into a hole in the top of the fountain. It made a loud clang. The jet turned on again, shooting the silver ball high in the air and letting it fall once more into the hole.
The ball clanged ten times.
"It's a clock," Sallina said. "It chimed ten times to say it's ten o'clock in the morning."
Otis and Sallina stood watching the balls and chains and wheels of the fountain. Time passed. Baat looked from the two of them to the road with his hands upon his hips.
A bright white stone popped out of a hole in the side of the fountain. A jet of water threw it in the air and it landed in the top of a pipe made of clear glass. The white stone shone brightly. It was a luminous stone like the ones Nerboculus had showed her. The tube was filled with water and its sides were carved with many facets like a gem. The luminous stone sank down through the water in the pipe. It dropped in some places. It rolled along in other places. Is bright light made rainbows in the crystal of the pipe. In one place, the stone stopped and turned. The crystal seemed to gather up all the stone's light and shine it into Sallina's eyes one color at a time: red, orange, green, blue and violet.
The luminous stone disappeared into the base of the fountain. She wondered how long she would have to wait to see the stone again. Was this fountain some kind of dwarf magic that made you forget what you were doing? She shook her head. No, it's just a machine driven by water, and maybe a little magic, whatever that was. What was the fountain supposed to make her feel? Did the dwarves think it was beautiful? Was it supposed to impress her with how clever they were? Or was it just supposed to be something interesting to look at?
She heard voices behind her. A party of twenty sapiens was walking up the steps from the large fountain. On their heads they had hats with high crests in the shape of animals and beads hanging down at the back. Around their waists they wore short, thick skirts, and on their chests they wore open shirts. There were five or six children among them. The children rushed across the paving stones to the edge of the fountain pool and pointed at the wheels and balls.
"Miss," Otis said, "We have a job to do."
"Who are these people?" Sallina said.
"They are from Sax," Otis said. "Tourists."
He placed his hand upon Sallina's back. She moved away from the tourists and began to ascend the final flight of stairs up to the door of the city.
"What is a tourist?"
"You don't know what a tourist is?"
"Otis!"
Otis stopped on the step beside Sallina. "What, Miss?"
"Do you think I would ask you what a tourist was if I already knew what a tourist was?"
Baat stood on the step below. He shook his head and held his hands up. "No argue. Sallina, not be scared." He put a hand on the hilt of his sword. "You are safe with me."
Sallina put a hand over her eyes. Okay, she thought, Baat likes to think that people are safe with him. And the fact is, Baat has protected me several times. So, I'll let him be proud of himself. As to Otis, he's a crafty old devil and I never know what he's up to, except that he's loyal to the Captain. I'll ask Sharpy what a tourist is later.
She put her hand down. "Very good, sailors. We're going into the city to get Dan's wife."
Otis nodded. "That's the spirit, girl."
They walked up the steps. Behind them, the tourists were standing beside the fountain. A cymbal clashed. The tourists shouted and laughed.