Page 103 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

“I have … a plan. To save us. To save everyone. I needed the eye—ah!”

I lower the blade a fraction. “Why not tell me from the start?”

“Would you have believed me?” He’s breathing hard. “You needed to see this. Now you understand.”

“A little, at any rate.” With a sigh, I dismiss the blade and let my hand drop. The Scholar heaves a sigh of relief. “You said the Council knows. And the Council offered the bounty for the dredwurm’s eye. So why did you need me to get it for you?”

“The rest of them don’t understand what the eyes are. There are all sorts of legends about them, but the one the officers believe is that the dredwurm’s eye will let you command an angel.”

“Will it?”

“Possibly. The eye is a focus for Eddica power. If you or I used it, we might be able to take over an angel, but the possibilities go so much deeper than that. We could change the course of Soliton itself.”

“You told the Council,” I guess, “and they don’t believe you.”

“Of course they don’t. Even if they did, they wouldn’t risk it. The last two eyes that have fallen into their hands they’ve destroyed.”

“Why?”

“The Council works because the clades are in balance,” he says bitterly. “What do you think would happen if one of the officers had an angel on his side?”

“All right.” My anger has faded a little. “So you needed someone to get to the eye who wouldn’t just hand it over to the Council, and I’m the perfect idiot who volunteered.”

“You’re the Deepwalker,” he says. “I hoped you would be strong enough. But it’s more than that. If I’m going to make this work, I need your help.” He steps closer, his fear apparently forgotten. “You can touch Eddica more deeply than I can. You have a better chance of being able to use the eye.”

“To turn the ship away from the Rot.”

He nods. “We’re still sailing east. We don’t have much time.”

“And what is that going to take, apart from the eye?”

“The … mechanism that controls the ship is buried deep,” he says. “We can’t reach it from here. But there is a place where it can be accessed. I’ve tried to … map the currents, you might say, the flows of energy. Beyond the Center, close to the Bow, there’s—”

“The Garden.” My voice is a whisper.

“What?” The Scholar steps closer again. “How do you—”

“That’s the place, isn’t it?”

“I … think so.” His speech is getting faster as he gets excited. “Some of the old books talk about it. Mahjir mentioned looking for it in his journal. It’s supposed to be full of food, water, everything people need. But sealed, against the crabs and the Rot.”

“Sealed? So it would protect us, even if we couldn’t change course?”

He shrugs. “Legends scribbled by dead men. Who knows? But no one has ever been able to find it. Or at least if they have, they haven’t written down how.”

I think of Hagan, his urgent warning.

“I may be able to get us there,” I say, slowly. “But I need to talk to someone first.”

“Then we should go,” the Scholar says. “Now! I will prepare a team for the journey, and you will do … whatever you need to do. The sooner we leave, the better chance we’ll have.”

“That won’t be necessary,” a deep voice says from the outer room. The Scholar turns, and swears in Jyashtani. Karakoa is standing in front of the stairs, arms crossed. Zarun lounges beside him, one eyebrow delicately arched. “You’ll be coming with us, Deepwalker.”

21

“Don’t,” the Scholar hisses to me, “do anything—”

He cuts off, but I get the drift. Stupid. Violent. Such as killing these two and making a run for it.