Page 36 of City of Stone and Silence

“Probably more like a hundred,” Shiara says. “I don’t have the exact dates, but I remember a little about the period. That was a dangerous time for the Emperor. He’d just lost a war against the Jyashtani, and the nobles were restless.”

History has never been an interest of mine, so I focus on the matter at hand. “How can Catoria have gotten to the Harbor a hundred rotting years ago?” Something awful occurs to me. “Blessed’s balls. Is she even rotting human?” If corpses could walk, then maybe—

“I thought so,” Meroe mutters. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Some kind of sense, anyway—”

“Please enlighten us if you have any idea what’s going on,” I snap, then take a deep breath. “Sorry.”

Meroe’s shaky smile is reassuring. “Okay. I don’t know how any of this is possible, but I’m just thinking aloud. If nobody’s lying, and there aren’t multiple ships, then somehow time has gone rotten.”

Shiara raises one eyebrow. “That would explain things.”

“Gone rotten how?” I say.

“What if it runs differently under the dome? One year passes in here, and twenty years pass outside. So for Catoria Soliton comes by every year, but outside—”

“And they think it’s normal,” I say, struggling to stay ahead of her, “because they only spent a year on the ship before it came here.”

“Five years for them, a hundred years for us,” Shiara says. “Soliton came and went four times, gathering sacrifices all the while. But none of those groups had an Eddica user so none of them could find the Garden. They must have all died at the Rot.”

“I’ve never heard of any Well that could affect time,” Meroe says, thoughtfully. “But the city is powered by Eddica energy, the same as Soliton, and obviously we don’t know half of what that can do. So I can’t—Isoka? Is something wrong?”

I’m already turning away, fighting a rush of acid from my stomach. Meroe calls after me, but her voice is dull through the roaring in my ears. Before I realize it, I’m running back toward the chamber where we’d left Catoria.

One of her men is on guard in the doorway, but she gestures him aside when I arrive. He gives me a suspicious look, but steps back, and Catoria herself gets up from her blanket to greet me.

“Lady Isoka,” she says. Apparently I rate a “lady,” somehow, which would have made me laugh under other circumstances. “Have you considered my offer? I hope our gifts—”

“Soliton,” I growl, and she stops, taken aback.

“Yes?”

“How long does it stay?” I almost can’t force myself to ask the question. “When it arrives, every year, how long before it leaves again?”

“It varies,” Catoria says, nonplussed. “A week, at least.”

My panic recedes a fraction. I have a little more time. But—

If Meroe and Shiara are right, and time runs differently in the Harbor, then the window I thought I had to rescue Tori is rapidly closing. One day inside equals twenty outside. In one week, five months will pass—even with Soliton’s speed, I would be hard-pressed to make it back to Kahnzoka in time after that. Two weeks, and Tori might be suffering Kuon Naga’s imaginative torments before I even make it out of the harbor.

I’d known the sand was hissing away in the hourglass. I hadn’t realized there was a hole in the rotting thing.

“Has anyone tried getting back on board?” I ask Catoria. “What about the other ships?”

She shakes her head. “A few of the Minders tried to board Soliton, the first time it returned. The angels kept them off, though they didn’t harm anyone. And the other ships are wrecks. We explore them sometimes, to look for old treasures, but there’s nothing else aboard but crabs.” She cocks her head. “You want to go back, don’t you?”

I nod, breathing raggedly.

“Silvoa thought it was possible,” she says, voice turning hard. “But she was wrong. Soliton has stranded us here, Lady Isoka, and it means for us to stay. I suggest you come to terms with that.”

I fight the urge to say something nasty, and turn away.

Later, I assemble the Council.

With the sun setting, Catoria and her entourage have departed. Meroe saw her off with appropriate diplomacy, promising an answer to her generous offer at a later time. Catoria, in turn, promises to deliver more food. Harak has also departed, apparently unafraid of traveling alone back to his order by twilight. I wonder what his Well is.

The four of us come together in the room where we interviewed Catoria, sitting on the same blanket. They’re sitting, anyway. I’m too anxious for that, pacing back and forth while Meroe repeats what Catoria told us for Zarun’s benefit, along with our later speculations.

“That fits with Harak’s story, more or less,” he says, when she’s finished. “At least until the end. To hear Harak tell it, Gragant and Silvoa told Catoria what they were doing, and Catoria refused to allow any of her people to support them. He says that Gragant only escaped because Silvoa sacrificed herself, and Catoria turned on him afterward.”