“Just wait,” said Fred. “I think things are about to change.”
♦ ♦ ♦
“Why were we brought here?” Kipling wondered aloud as they followed the shipbuilder back to his tents in the shade of the great boat. “I thought we’d end up closer to the city itself.”
“Remember what Will told us,” Laura Glue reminded them. “Intuition plays a part in how the gate is guided. If we were brought to this place, it’s in part because this is where we needed to be.”
“Perhaps the giants have something to do with it,” said Madoc.
“You may be right in that,” said Deucalion. “The Corinthian Giants have prevented anyone from reaching the city who did not specifically have the Mandate of Heaven. It has been thus for generations.”
“ ‘Generations’ is certainly the word for it,” Quixote said, straining backward to look up at the huge ship.
“This wasn’t built overnight,” Madoc said with real admiration in his voice. “How long have you been working on this vessel, old one?”
“From the time I was warned about the cataclysm to come, and my wife and I fled my kingdom to come here, it has been one hundred and forty years,” Deucalion said as he gestured for his sons and their wives to serve water to his guests—first to the goats, then to the badgers, and then to the rest. “We began our family with the birth of my eldest son in the same year we began constructing the ship, a decade after our flight into the desert. And now we are nearly finished, just as my youngest son, Hap, is reaching manhood.
“But enough of family histories,” he said, turning to Uncas. “What is it that brings you to my tent?”
“Some friends of ours have gone missing,” Uncas said, “and we’ve come looking for them.”
“How come I can never explain our goals that simply?” Kipling whispered to Quixote.
“Poetic license,” the knight whispered back. “It’s a privilege, not a right.”
“I see,” said Deucalion. “And I take it from what you said earlier about expecting to find yourselves in the city that you hope to find them there?”
“We do,” said Uncas.
“You may be right, but without the Mandate of Heaven, you’ll never know,” Deucalion said. “Nothing living can get past the Corinthian Giants.”
In one fluid, graceful motion, Kipling rose to his feet. “I think that’s my cue. I’m going to go have a look around,” he said jovially. “I’ll see if I can’t get the lay of the land, so we can make a game plan for finding our friends.”
The shipbuilder started. “You want to go into the city?”
Kipling bowed. “That is where, it seems, all the action is. And I am a man of action.”
“We could all try to—,” Quixote began before Kipling cut him off with a gesture.
“Alone would be best,” he said. “Just reconnaissance, I promise. I’ll be back as soon as I can manage.”
“Is that wise?” Laura Glue asked.
“I’m head of the Espionage Squad, remember?” Kipling said, feigning hurt feelings. “I’m just going to go have a look around. And besides,” he added, glancing from Madoc’s wings to Laura Glue’s, “I’ll attract a lot less attention than the rest of you will.”
Deucalion sighed heavily. “Man of action you may be, but it is impossible. As I have told you, unless you have been given passage into the city by an emissary, the giants will permit no one living to cross the boundary.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem, then,” Kipling said with a wink as he exited the tent, “since I actually died some time ago.”
Deucalion looked at Fred and Uncas for an explanation, but the Caretaker merely shrugged, and the knight’s squire stifled a chuckle.
“It’s kind of hard to explain,” said Laura Glue, “but trust me, he’s alive enough to do what he must.”
This time it was the shipbuilder’s turn to smile. “As are we all, my child. God willing, as are we all.”
Part Three
The Summit
. . . Kipling . . . started the long trek to the distant city.
Chapter NINE
Messages
The Echthros watched, and waited.
It was in the house because of the Binding it wore, and so, when it was called upon, it was forced to serve the master who had fashioned it. But in between those summonings, it was still a creature of will, doing as it pleased. And it pleased the Echthros to be here, watching these little things play at the machinations of the world as if they were gods. No—as if they were the only gods; as if they were all the little gods there were.