He mentally told himself to wake at four bells of the middle watch, and slept until the deep of the night, rousing from another strange and unpleasant dream: great chains tangled around his wrists, dragging him through deep water. He took his bundle, slung over a shoulder by his belt, and stepped cautiously out into the hallway: the soft matting did not betray him as he walked, barefoot to keep the slap of the sandals from making any noise.
The walls were a faint luminescent grey, paler than their frames. He kept the very tips of his fingers lightly against the surface of the paper, guiding his steps through the dark. There was a yellow glow of lantern-light somewhere on his right—outside the house, he thought; within, all the rooms were dark. He came to Kaneko’s office, and the door slid soundlessly open on its track. He thought at first he had mistaken the room: the desk was gone, and the room entirely bare at first glance. Then Laurence saw the furniture had all been tidied away against the walls, and the writing-desk stood atop a low chest.
He carefully lifted down the desk, and opening the lid found the blade wrapped in a soft silk cloth, which he left behind. He put the sword inside his bundle of clothing, pulling out folds to conceal it from hilt to tip, and restored the chest and desk to their places. He was comforted to have the sword again, and yet distressed for being so: too much as though he could not trust himself, his own feelings, to be as they ought.
Slipping back into the hallway, he looked for a way out, and followed a breath of air to the entryway: a very indifferent sentry drowsed in a corner, and Laurence was past him and had a foot in the gardens when a great roaring came from above, a sound at once familiar and bone-rattling, though he had not heard it since the battle of the Nile: a dragon, overhead, and the lights of all the house flared at his back.
“Buggering mad, the lot of you,” Mr. Ness had said, rudely, but Temeraire had with some exasperation demanded a better suggestion of him and, failing to receive any, had nodded firmly.
“Then we shall at least try,” he said, “and if it does not work, then I suppose you must begin to take out all that ballast and throw it into the ocean, along with the cannon, until we can lift the ship; and while you do that, Iskierka will go to the shore to be safe, and the other dragons will stay with her and the egg, and I will go and find Laurence. You will stay with the egg?” he appealed, turning his head.
“Of course we will,” Maximus said stoutly, and Lily added, “All of us: except Nitidus will go with you, to carry messages back and forth,” an excellent notion. Temeraire was quite sure no-one would give any trouble to Iskierka and Lily and Maximus.
“Anyway,” Lily said, “perhaps it needn’t come to that, and I am quite ready to be off these rocks: let us go by all means and fetch some trees.”
But they were unable to leave immediately: “I want to come, too!” Kulingile called down, in protest. Certainly Temeraire could not stay, but Maximus stood on seniority and refused to stay behind, either, which bode fair to make a quarrel; and meanwhile Hammond began bleating of the necessity to avoid being seen. Well, Temeraire did not mean to go in blowing on trumpets, but after all, they did need to take away several large trees, and he supposed someone might notice: that would not be his fault.
“We had better come along, then, Hammond; and all your crews, also,” Churki said.
Hammond, taken aback, said, “Certainly not—a martial presence, nothing more undesirable—”
But Churki shook her head censoriously at him. “If there are dragons here, they will certainly assume we are here to take their people away if they do not see we have any of our own. And if there are men, they will want men to talk to: that is only the natural order of things, and all the more so if they are like these peculiar sailors you have here on this vessel, who are afraid of dragons.”
Hammond paused, doubtful; Temeraire could see the sense in what Churki said, but he did not mean to countenance the delay involved in getting all the crews aboard. He only had a scant few officers himself, but Lily and her formation-dragons had their full crews, and even the aviators could not easily go clambering aboard from the precarious surface which the ship presently offered.
“The captains shall come with us,” Temeraire said, “and Ferris shall come with me, which will make a sensible number of men, and not any sort of threatening number; and,” to Kulingile, “this time Maximus shall go, and if we cannot get the boat off, then next time, you shall: that is surely only fair. And,” he added, very handsomely in his opinion, “I will take the lines when we come back to give you a rest before we lever her off, even though it will not be my turn yet.”
“I do not need a rest,” Kulingile said disconsolately. “This is not very difficult: it is only tiresome, and I want something better to eat, which you are sure to get when you are on land.”