65. Now Plan
NOW: PLAN
We were a moon away from Skow. Nearly two seasons had passed since we had left Sheridan.
We had left the low country and traversed through the lower reaches of Eccleston mining territory and its allied settlements and towns, along long stretches of the public dust road, some parallel with the Oberlong, some not.
It had been arduous, dull, and hot at first. A crispness in the morning and evening air told us autumn was over and winter began.
And though we were in the south of the continent and rarely saw anything but a frosty dusting during our winter seasons, something about the sun’s setting seemed more hurried.
The nights felt darker and longer. When the dust road kissed the river, our baths were more chilled.
It was relieving to a sweaty body but ominous in the mind.
Skow was close and so was our seemingly impossible, unplanned rescue of Adelaide. Tessa and Jade had put their heads together at dinner one night to concoct a scheme to involve the scouts, ignoring any offerings from me and Ilsit.
“Don’t expect a ready yes. It’s a lot to ask of newly made friends,” Ilsit warned.
“I say approach Evangeline, not Keir,” I added.
“Why not?” Jade asked, a sudden coolness in her.
“I only meant,” I rushed on, “he would of course want to assist us, but men have a tendency to be dismissive of women’s concerns. And I don’t want you to have to manipulate your new sweetheart.”
Avery never dismissed us, Fox challenged me.
“He was one of a kind, I’m sorry,” I said. “Be realistic.”
“Don’t listen to Robbie.” Tessa waved me away. “Her brain has gone to rot because all her blood is in her groin all night every night.”
I glanced at Ilsit while they laughed. Only she knew why I really spent nights with Reed.
“I’m not above taking advantage of his infatuation so as to save another woman,” Jade said, giving me a pointed look.
“And if you think otherwise of me, well, Robbie, I am hurt. Yes, I like him. Yes, it is more than a dalliance between us, but Adelaide is your family and you are mine. So family comes first.”
I held up both of my hands in surrender.
“Besides, it is not manipulation. He would do anything I asked of him,” she finished.
“Then it’s settled,” Tessa said, slapping her knee. “You tell Keir of our business on this trip, of the code in her letter, of the need. Then we’ll let him help come up with a plan. And afterwards, we’ll go to Eccleston.”
“It’s fairly simple,” Ilsit huffed around her pipe. “We get in. We get Adelaide. We get out. In. Adelaide. Out.”
“It’s not called the City of the Tower for nothing, my dear,” Tessa scolded.
“It’s a veritable fortress. It’s walled off from the rest of the damned world.
The wall runs along the lower half of Perpatane for days and days, with great turrets along the length of it, even past the city limits of Skow.
The Tower of Skow sits right near the entrance they call the Gates of Sound.
Once you pass through the Gates of Sound, they say you can walk right up to the Tower of Skow.
And you can see the watchtower before you ever even see the wall in the distance.
It is that tall. It has been the pride of every king of Perpatane.
Even though it is not in the capital, in Apollon. ”
“Why do they call it the Gates of Sound?” asked Ilsit.
“Thousands and thousands of winters past, before they had written language, as they tell it,” Tessa began, “there was an ocean in the south and an ocean in the north.”
“Not possible,” I scoffed. “The only known sea is the Tintarian sea. No one knows what is above the Hintercliff mountains or what is below the marshlands of Tintar on one side of the world. And on the other, no one knows what is above or below or to the west of Perpatane. It’s all wasteland, unclaimed and unexplored.
There are no oceans above or below any country. ”
“You interrupt a lot tonight,” Jade said to me, but her manner was kind again.
“Anyway,” Tessa went on, “there are depressions that do suggest it. But the deepest of these leftover dried-up ocean beds is the sound that connected the two oceans. It’s like a long grave for a giant.
Skow sits lower in the earth, almost as if on the drop-off of the dip of the sound.
The entrance at the Gates of Sound is the lowest in the wall.
And also,” she said, almost as an afterthought, “there is that whole ‘tongue of soundness’ in the scriptures of Rodwin. Sometimes they call the tower the Tower of Soundness too.”
I could not help but say, “When a tyrant builds a tower that tall, it seems as if they’re asking for it to be toppled.”
“So—o.” Ilsit dragged the word out. She removed her pipe from her mouth and said, “Entirely walled-off city. Run by religious madmen who hate women like us. Sits lower in the earth than anywhere bloody else in the world, which will make our escape an actual uphill battle. Oh and we’ve no idea where in the city Adelaide even is. Delightful!”
“What if once we get in, we can’t get out?” Jade asked.
“That’s what I just said!” Ilsit cried.