She didn't want to go anywhere near a midnight burglar, a possible kidnapper, perhaps even worse. The thought of it made her skin crawl. But if she didn't, her only choice was to dart away, and leave Soro to his chances.
She couldn't do that. He'd saved her life. If the plunge at the dock hadn't killed her, the water would have. She couldn't swim. Moreover, although she'd been massively irritated by her first meeting with him, at the grove at New Verity, he had saved her then, as well. She didn't know about destiny, but she'd met few men who would throw themselves at danger to save her skin. That was special, besides any question of debt.
She narrowed her eyes, straightened her back, and took a deep breath. She had to keep Typhoon from going into his room. No matter what it took, even if it was dangerous or embarrassing, she would do it. She had to.
She took a faltering step towards the pair, tongue between her teeth, then she narrowed her eyes and made herself march. This galvanised her will, and made it feel easier to believe she could succeed. Moments later she realised that such a forceful approach would lend her a visible sense of purpose, and it would not match the character she intended to assume. Again she took up her shuffling, uncertain walk, but this time she exaggerated it, and added to it by darting nervous glances at Typhoon, and then looking at the floor. She hoped she gave off the right signals; she was going for the timid stalker.
She came close to them, near enough to taste their combined scent. Triolet wore a subtle French perfume, the essences of a dozen varieties of orchid combined so as to suggest a colourful field of flowers, tall, straight, and unconcerned with human affairs. Typhoon wore deodorant in which predominated the acid flavour of electrocuted melon. Beneath it, she caught a whiff of sweat, and something chemical, almost like creosote. Over their personal scents, she noticed they carried the smells of the restaurant. Her stomach growled as she tasted hints of French bread, steamed rice flavoured with saffron, grilled pork, smoked salmon, roast duck, heaps of dainty sugared pastries stuffed with marzipan and other delights.
For one moment she wished she’d never met Soro. Then she wouldn’t be trembling in this corridor, nervous and half-starved. Then the two closed in, and she had no more time for such thoughts.
“Oh!” she said in a loud voice, and she quivered with what she hoped looked like excitement. “Oh, Mr Strugg! Tigh Strugg! Typhoon Tigh Strugg!”
As she spoke his name, she was aware of how strange and silly she must sound. It felt like an incantation, as if she was conjuring some prince of the pit to make a visible appearance.
The two paused within arm’s length. Typhoon stared at her with wide eyes that seemed to start out of his half-starved face. If she hadn’t seen him eat in the restaurant, she’d have believed he lived on water and salt. Triolet regarded her with a neutral expression, except for the tension around her eyes.
A moment passed. “Yes?” said Typhoon.
Arima took a deep breath. This was going to be embarrassing. If she was lucky, no one would ever know. “Oh, Mr Strugg, I’ve been waiting and hoping for this, and I was beginning to believe I’d never get my chance, and here you are, and I’m so excited I could just burst!”
Typhoon glanced sideways at Triolet, who rolled her eyes. He looked down at Arima--he loomed over her like a great tree--and showed his long white teeth in something that was almost a smile. “Do you think you could be a little plainer?” he said. “I can see you’re a happy little girl, and that’s very nice, but I can’t understand what you’re getting at.”
She plastered a silly smile over her face, and spoke in a loud, squeaky voice that threatened to break in squeals, like an excited little girl. Oh, I’m sorry Mr Strugg, I didn’t think. I couldn’t think, I was so excited, am so excited”
“Yes yes,” he said.
Triolet cleared her throat. He glanced at her, and she spoke in a low voice. “Tigh…”
Arima saw the danger. She jumped and waved her hands. She thought she might be overdoing the crazed fan girl, but it was too late, and she could never compete with Triolet in the restraint department. “Mr Strugg, it’s an honour and a privilege to join you on this cruise, and this competition. You’re the reason I came.”
That dragged his attention back to her. “Oh?”
She plunged on. “Ever since I read about your heroic battle with the elements, your splendid triumph over storms and death, your survival, against the gronkiest odds, I knew I wanted to be like you. You’re a survivor and a hero, and I- I-”
“Go on.”
The words didn’t want to pass her lips. By a sheer act of will, she forced her face to take on an expression of wide eyed sincerity. “I want to be just like you.”
She gazed up at him, afraid he’d see through her act. If he got away now, she knew she couldn’t get him back. If he carried on and went into his room, he’d find Soro there, and he’d know she’d tried to trick him. If Soro was right about evil this man was mixed up in, she refused to image what he would do to her.
The effect was greater and more awful than she’d expected. He straightened his spine, thrust out what chest he had, and fingered his lapel. He cocked his head at a jaunty angle, and beamed down at her like a proud mayor on re-election. “I can’t blame you in the least,” he said. “I’ve often wish that more young people would see things the way you do, see clearly as you do, and follow the example I have tried to set.”
She gagged, but held her expression of earnest, nay, devout fascination. “Yes, go on.”
“I see my life as a model for others to follow,” he said, speaking as one who’d rehearsed this speech in front of the mirror six or seven times before breakfast. “I see my triumph, my singlehanded triumph, over nature, over isolation, over fear, over the mortality of flesh, as a living example of the heroism that today we know only from the dusty scrolls of ancient sagas.”
Arima gazed at him, horrified. Had she known what terror she would release, she would have found another way, any other way. She wondered if it was too late to grab a hammer and smash him in the skull. Or she could smash her own skull; it had to be better than listening to this torrent of inflamed pride.
She caught Triolet watching her from hooded eyes, and she had a surprising insight into the woman. Triolet hated her. She didn’t understand it at first, and then dawn broke. Triolet was too proud to fawn over Typhoon, but she still wanted him. By playing the utter sycophant, Arima had won him far more thoroughly than Triolet, for she, in spite of all her charms, was cold.
“…and that’s why young people such as yourself, especially young ladies such as yourself, and attractive you ladies I might add, need to have firm guidance from those of us who have achieved…”
She tuned him out, and hoped that he took her glazed look as sign of an enchanted trance. More than that, she prayed that the noise spewing from his mouth didn’t bug Soro, and bring him out of the stateroom. Time was pressing, and she knew Soro wouldn’t stay inside forever, and even if he didn’t pop out, Typhoon would, well he probably would tire of speaking, and then he’d go into his room.
She had to get them moving.
She watched for him to take a breath. He kept her waiting so long it became painful, like being stuck in a queue for the ladies’ room. At last he paused, and she put a hand on his arm. “Mr Strugg,” she said, letting her hand and voice tremble. “It would mean so much to me if you would- No, it’s too much to ask.” She looked down, but continued to hold his arm.
He put a bony finger on her cheek, and turned her face to look at him. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage from my example, and speak on.”
She fought the urge to vomit. “Mr Strugg, would you… Could you let me…?”
“Yes?”
“Could you have your picture taken with me?”
He laughed. “Is that all? Come, we can do this right here. Triolet, would you lend a hand?”
“Are you sure you need my hands?” said Triolet, in a peevish voice.
He frowne
d. “It’ll only take a second.”
Arima gasped. “Wait!”
They stared at her.
“Um, what I mean is, maybe… Your battle with the ocean, well, it’s such a great- I mean, this hallway… If we took a picture outside…”
“It’s dark,” said Triolet. “The sky is cloudy; there’s no moon. No sun, no moon, no light. No light, no picture. Honestly child, I don’t know how you got a place in this group, you don’t seem to understand the first thing about photography.”
Arima bristled, and for a moment she came close to lashing the arrogant woman with her tongue, although to have done so would have been to smash her chances of success.
Typhoon came to her aid. “Now really my good lady,” he said, turning to Triolet. “There’s absolutely no call for abuse. If the young lady wishes a picture outside, why should we not honour her request?”
“It’ll be a bad picture,” said Triolet through gritted teeth.
“But a good deed,” he said, the soul of smugness.
Arima was more grateful to him than she could express, and she didn’t have to feign the smile she wore as he took her arm and led her to the upper deck.
***
He woke in darkness, serpents coiled around his arms, digging their teeth into his flesh. He blinked and struggled, but the snakes held him fast on the ground, gouging into his skin, mocking his paltry strength. No light came to his eyes, no freedom to his arms and legs. He tasted coppery blood in his mouth, and an oily stink of smoke filled his nose, and made his eyes sting.
He drew a deep, shuddering breath, and one more, to clear his head. He felt heavy and dull, as if he'd spent all night drinking cheap whiskey and cheaper vodka. His lips felt dry and his stomach felt empty, and as he noticed that, a gnawing hunger grew within him. He twisted again, and the snakes bit deep into his skin, writhing against him with a soft clinking.
Clinking?
His head was beginning to work, the neurons deep in his brain were flashing their messages one to another, lighting up like the lights of a city in dusk.
Snakes don't clink. They may slither, they may coil, they may rustle through the undergrowth or even swish through water, but they do not clink.
As he woke to that fact, he grasped his true situation. He was chained.
Now he knew something vital; he was a prisoner, a captive of... He couldn't say. But a captive. Perhaps this was what had happened to his brother. Poor Sam had gone to sleep one night, and woken the next morning chained in darkness just like this.
He wanted to burst into tears. He wanted to collapse into a huddle of bones and skin, and wail. But he didn't cry. He couldn't afford to waste the water. He was as dry as five hundred year old vellum, and if he lost any more water, what few synapses had flickered to life might well flicker back out. He needed the water to stay conscious and semi functional. He needed to be functional to get the gronking smunk out of this dumbass bear trap and get Sam out too.
Maybe he was next door.
He ground his teeth together, sucked in a draught of air, and tested his chains. As he did, he reflected that he must have spent too much time with Arima. Her peculiar dialect was rubbing off on him, at least in the cursing department.
He twisted and turned, trying to get up into a sitting position. It took a lot of grunting, heaving effort, and he'd worked up a chilly sweat by the time he'd finished, but in this he succeeded: he sat. Through the struggle, he'd had several urges to shout or scream, to yell curses at whoever had chained him. The curses had not died; the urge to curse had not died. He'd choked them down with a conscious effort, for fear that his captor or captors would hear him, and come; that they would reveal the act of chaining him to be a prelude to something much, much worse.
Soro had a vivid imagination. He could picture 'much worse' without any effort. It took an effort not to picture it. Rusty hooks biting into flesh, jagged saws ripping into meat, nails hammered to crack, pierce and splinter living bone...
He ground his teeth, and tried to free his hands. He couldn't do it, but he tried anyway. When he failed, when his wrestling with the chain chewed and tore his skin, when he felt hot pain in the tears, and wet blood weep from them, then he paused, tensed himself against the agony, and shifted his efforts to an attempt to stand.
The sun burst. It ripped apart like a smashed egg, and spilled light like stellar yolk. He gasped, clenched shut his eyes, and strained his arms and shoulders in an involuntary attempt to shield his face.
"I think you've had enough exercise for today."
The man's voice had a sickly, oily quality, like the smoke he could still smell. It sounded too warm, too friendly. It sounded as cloying and nauseating as the stink of a pile of rotting fruit.
"You've run me around but good," the man said. "I'll admit it, you're an agile fellow. As agile as a monkey. In fact, I would bet a modest sum that you have more than a smidgen of monkey DNA. You certainly seem to be closer to the monkeys than to any human family."
He blinked, and strained to see through the glare. It was a real glare, and not just the effect of seeing light with eyes adjusted for darkness. Whoever he was, the speaker had aimed a battery of lamps smack at Soro's face, and he stood against them, a stark man-shaped shadow, eye-catching as a stage dominating performer, anonymous as atmospheric nitrogen.
But the voice...
"I know you," he said. He didn't add that he couldn't place the man, but he prodded his weary, anxious brain to name him.
"Know me?" The man laughed. "You've broken bread with me. You've stood beside me as a brother in the profession. When we first met, you were pathetically eager to be my friend."
He snarled. "Typhoon!"
The man laughed again. "You're really very slow, a very second rate fellow. Your brother worked it out a lot faster. Of course, he would, he's much the better man."
Sam! His gut twisted, and he let out a painful sob, so consumed by a rush of anguish he couldn't speak.
"Yes," Typhoon said. "He is, or should I say was, the better one. Better photographer, better brain, better brother. Shame he wouldn't play with us. Meant we had to turn to you...a most unsatisfying course."
He found his voice, and he had to work hard to keep it from turning into a wordless cry. "You took him. You did this. Give him back to me. Give him back!"
Typhoon chuckled, and waited until Soro shouted his voice to a dry whisper. "It's too late for that. And it's too late for you."
***
His mind recoiled from the horror of this prison. He had failed. All of his efforts, his brilliant plan, had come to naught. He'd believed he had caught Typhoon, out-tricked the trickster. Now he sat in chains, helpless before his murderous enemy. Murderous, yes, he'd discovered that, and much more the night he'd broken into Typhoon's stateroom on the New Dawn.
Thoughts of the past weeks tumbled through his mind, and he grabbed at them with relief. He couldn't stand the present. It wasn't just the chill fear that clawed at his vitals with talons of broken glass. It was the sense of utter, abject failure. He'd believed he had won. He'd even celebrated with Arima.
Thoughts of Arima rushed on him, and choked his throat with anguish, renewed terror, all dripping with thick dark oily shame. To imagine her sweet face, her laughing eyes, her full, succulent lips, contorted in fear as Typhoon or some hired fiend approached her, grunting with loathsome excitement as he watched her futile struggle, and heard her useless screams.
"No," he said. "No!"
But his words could not change the present. If only he could go back to the past, and warn himself. If only...
Typhoon roared with laughter. Soro knew his every thought and feeling, his every fear marked his face, and Typhoon approved of the picture.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and wished himself back, back to the past.
***
The cork burst from the bottle and rocketed out across the scrubby grass, to rebound off a tree some yards away. Foaming champagne jetted out of the chilled green
bottle, and splashed on the dusty ground under their feet, to fizz and boil under the glaring sun. Arima shrieked with laughter. He sloshed champagne into her glass, and then his own. The liquid whispered and sparkled, translucent gold in the sun.
They raised their glasses and clinked them together, and Arima called for a toast. He sniffed his drink, and relished the sweet tang of the champagne. "To victory," he said.
She hooded her eyes. "Unwise, young man, to claim that before you carry away the laurel." She poured a little of her champagne on the ground. "I offer a libation to the gods of this land. Forgive young Soro, and aid him as you did that other Man of Sorrow, ages past."
He raised one eyebrow. "I've never seen your religious side."
She waved a hand around her. "This crooked tree that shades us, and this stone that seats us. That white temple, gleaming in the sun, the house of Hephaestus, and rearing above us, the high rock, and on it, the house of Athena, who is mighty in war and reason. This place, Soro, doesn't it affect you?"
He gave her an indulgent grin. "You were born to be an oracle, and speak for the gods."
She sighed, and looked at the temple, nestled in trees a short walk away. The white marble columns had been restored, and the sides of the roof shone almost too bright to look at in the hard sunlight. "You can joke, but it doesn't take an oracle to tell you this plan is insane."
"My plan? It'll work. It's going to work."
She shook her head, staring at the temple. "After what you found... The pictures you took... I don't think we should be doing this ourselves. I think we need help."
"The police, you mean. No. I've already seen how much influence these people can wield." He remembered looking out of his window, and watching as a patrol car disgorged its men, to catch, cuff, and cart away the Gell Shield thugs. "We're fighting people on a level above the police."
"Fighting!"
He looked down at the dirt and dry soil, at the tiny brown ants that crawled over it, scratching out their existence. "I don't know... Wrangling?"
She laughed in spite of herself.
"Set it aside for a minute," he said. "As you told me, we're in this incredible, beautiful city, surrounded by relics from the dawn of our culture. Let's shoot some snonking photos."