“That was quick,” Trumane observed with some satisfaction, raising his glass to peer at the southern horizon. “Beat them here by the barest margin. As I said, just luck.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” Talmant went on, a palpable quiver now creeping into his tone. “The enemy approaches from the north, and in numbers. Estimate of forty-plus vessels, all men-of-war and flying Corvantine colours.”
“Seer’s-teeth!”
Hilemore followed the captain as he rushed from the bridge, glass now trained on the north. Even without benefit of an optic Hilemore could see them already, smoke rising from small black lumps on the horizon, growing in number by the second.
“Fire flares!” the captain barked, Hilemore hurrying back inside to jerk the lever that launched their signal rockets. They streamed into the sky a second later, screaming then exploding in a thunderous cacophony. He then gave three successive heaves on the steam-whistle’s lanyard, the crew running to battle stations in response. He had a glimpse of Mr. Lemhill through the bridge window, hounding his crews to their guns, before Trumane ducked his head into the doorway, barking more orders.
“Reverse propulsion on the starboard wheel, bring us about. Ensign, signal the Mutual Advantage: Enemy approaching in large numbers from the north. Relay to flagship. Am engaging.”
One of the advantages offered by a paddle-driven ship was the ability to turn, as Hilemore’s grandfather had put it, on a copper scrip. Within two minutes the Viable had reversed course and was steaming north, Trumane ordering three vials into the engine. “They’re moving too fast,” he said, voice soft as he continued to observe the approaching enemy fleet. “Some don’t even have paddles. We face the future today, and it’s likely to kill us.”
Behind them the sea was filled with a discordant symphony of shrieking whistles and exploding rockets as the fleet reacted to the Viable’s signal. The Mutual Advantage wallowed as she came about, wheels turning the sea white and her crew scurrying to and fro with what seemed to Hilemore a singular lack of proper direction. Off to port the Contractual Obligation moved with much greater purpose, making her turn with almost as much alacrity as the Viable though her comparative lack of speed soon saw her falling behind.
“Waited until we entered the Strait,” the captain was saying. “They must have cleared it at least a day ahead of us then turned about.” He met Hilemore’s gaze, raising his voice. “It appears we have the misfortune not to be facing a foolish admiral today, Mr. Hilemore.”
Hilemore replied with a grim smile. “Indeed it does, sir.”
“Still.” Trumane rested an affectionate hand on the bulkhead. “At least they won’t be expecting us. See if we can’t throw a wrench in their works, eh?”
Hilemore’s reply was drowned out by the familiar, grating roar of something very large passing overhead. His gaze snapped to a tell-tale flash rising from one of the approaching ships as another shell was fired. He had time to watch the first plunge into the sea just to port of the Mutual Advantage’s bow, the resultant spout rising a good sixty feet into the air, before the second slammed into the supply ship’s stern. Lacking armour, the hit was instantly ruinous, the shell penetrating all the way to the lower decks before exploding, ripping her apart from bridge to rudder. Men and bits of men were visible amidst the falling debris. Within less than a minute she had foundered, the sea flooding into her shattered hull to claim her for the Deep. The bow swung high as she went down, Hilemore glimpsing a knot of men clinging to the forward anchor mounting before she slipped beneath the swell.
“This,” Captain Trumane observed, turning away and lifting the glass to his eye once more, “is going to be a very trying day.”
CHAPTER 22
Lizanne
It was five days before they were ready to move. The major’s wounds were so severe that, despite Lizanne expending two-thirds of their remaining Green in repeated doses, two days went by before he was able to walk, and even then only due to urgent necessity. The Morsvale constabulary had made numerous sweeps of the park but, thanks to either basic indolence or lack of imagination, had failed to search the oracular temple. Near the evening of their second day in hiding, however, it appeared they had decided, or more likely been ordered, to be more thorough. Fortunately, Lizanne had not been idle in the interim. A thorough inspection of the temple revealed a subterranean chamber complete with a marble font and bench, presumably reserved for the oracle’s private meditations. Her decision to enhance her search with a modicum of Green paid dividends when the unnatural perception detected a false wall in the chamber, behind which she discovered a cache of dusty scrolls. The Oracular Scriptures, she decided, thinking Tekela’s father would have made much of such a discovery. Hidden away from the fires of persecution.
The space was small but, once she had removed the scrolls, of sufficient dimensions to accommodate both her and her companions. They had huddled together in the dark as the constables searched the temple, forced into intimate entanglement by the confines. If the major felt any arousal at finding himself in such close proximity to two young women, it was well hidden behind a pale, sweat-covered mask of pain. He lay deepest in the space, pressed up against the far wall with arms braced and teeth gritted to guard against any gasps or grunts of discomfort. Lizanne assumed he knew she had the Whisper in hand beneath her skirt, ready to silence him should it become necessary. Tekela, by contrast, threatened no revealing sound or fidgeting, lying curled about Lizanne in relaxed quietude, like a kitten cuddling up to its mother.
It occurred to Lizanne that, had she followed her first impulse that night in Burgrave’s study, it would have been the first time she had taken an innocent life. There had been a few over the years less deserving of their fate than others, but none whose demise hadn’t improved the world in some small way. Tekela was certainly spiteful, selfish and spoiled, but also still curiously innocent in many ways. Lizanne had never had much truck with notions of ingrained female maternalism, but she had to admit that sparing the girl had engendered a protective instinct, or at least a desire not to see so much effort wasted.
The constables had stomped around for a good two hours, their progress through the temple marked by the crash of upturned pews or the thud of tumbled marble as they vented their boredom on the temple’s statuary. Booted feet had echoed in the chamber for only a short time, two searchers by Lizanne’s estimation, exchanging grunted profanity as they kicked the walls, either too ignorant or indifferent to catch the slight change in pitch as their boots found the false panel. After the boots had faded Lizanne insisted on a prolonged wait before they emerged.
“What did you do with the scrolls?” Arberus asked a short while later. It was evening and he sat with a blanket wrapped about him, shivering a little as they could not risk a fire.
“Ripped into the smallest pieces Tekela and I could manage,” she replied. “Then scattered about amongst the dust piles. Anyone seeing them might have wondered where they could have been stored.”
“Historical treasures, lost forever. Leonis would have wept.” She detected no real regret in his voice; if anything he seemed to find the scrolls’ fate amusing.
She glanced over at the staircase to the spire where Tekela kept watch with a revolver in hand. “He certainly was a scholarly man,” she agreed, keeping her voice low. She didn’t want the girl hearing any discussion of her father. “For a spy.”
“He was scholar and spy both,” Arberus replied. “Though he would have called himself an agent of change.”
“So which is it?” she enquired. “Corvantine Liberation Army? Republic First? Co-respondent Brotherhood?” She saw his gaze betray a slight flicker at that. “So, the most radical of the bunch.”
“I expect the notions of personal freedom and representative government would appear radical to a slave of the corporate world.”
“A slave receives no compensation for their labour, whereas I find myself fairly weal
thy despite my youth. Besides, the pursuit of profit can be quite liberating, whilst ideologues often find themselves enslaved by their dogma.”
“Tired corporatist rhetoric.” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “I had expected better of you. You are, I assume, operating far beyond your mission remit? If you weren’t, the girl and I would be dead by now. Unusual for a corporate operative to display such compassion.”
“I had an agreement with Miss Artonin. My employers and I take such things seriously.”
“What will become of her?”
“In her father’s absence it appears the role of guardian falls to me. She will be well provided for.” I am wealthy after all. “As for you”—she gave a reluctant smile—“I am compelled to arrange my own extraction, events having developed at such a pace. No doubt you and your associates have resources which will prove useful.”
“For all I know every Brotherhood agent in this city is dead or undergoing torture as we speak.”
“No, they are not. Burgrave Artonin engineered his own demise to prevent such an outcome, and Tekela tells me they hadn’t yet wrung any information from you. Impressive endurance, by the way.”
He looked away, face clouding at the resulting memory. “Your offer?” he asked after a moment.
“Residence in an Ironship holding of your choice, plus a reasonable financial settlement.”
“I don’t care to live in your world of greed and self-interest, nor do I give a damn about your money.”
“Your alternatives do not appear particularly appealing at this juncture.”
He thought for a moment longer, eyes meeting hers in steady determination. “The interests of the Brotherhood and your employers seem to coincide at the moment, war being imminent after all.”
“Your point?”
“Assisting us will assist you. Increased discord in the Emperor’s homeland will hardly help win his war. With sufficient arms, and funds, there is much we could achieve.”
“I can promise no such aid. However, I will guarantee a meeting with the appropriate Ironship officials. But, trust is only earned through reciprocation and you have information I need regarding the Burgrave’s scholarly pursuits. I believe you had occasion to explore the Interior together?”
He raised a knowing eyebrow. “Servants are such great resources, aren’t they? Did any of them live, by the way?”
“No.” She fell silent, holding his gaze in expectation.
“So,” he said, a fresh realisation creeping into his voice, “that’s your mission. The grand, endless quest for the enigma lurking somewhere in this continent. I had assumed you were sent to ascertain the Emperor’s intent in sending Morradin here.”
“A fruitful adjunct, as it transpired.”
He sighed the smallest laugh then shrugged. “Every summer for the past five years we would charter a boat and go off down-river in pursuit of his latest clue, rewarded, if we were lucky, with a ruin or two. Last year though . . .” He trailed off, his gaze becoming distant, brow furrowed in consideration of a troublesome memory.
“What?” she prompted.
“One of the Mad Artisan’s scrawlings told of a place, the Spearpoint Isle, he called it. Much of his description was gibberish, but one phrase kept repeating: ‘The Place of Offering to the Provider.’ Leonis believed it to be a translation of hieroglyphs found on the island, despite the fact that no scholar has ever succeeded in translating the inscriptions left by Arradsia’s ancient inhabitants.”
“You found it?”
“There’s an island in the middle of the Volkarin River, where it widens about two hundred miles south-west of Morsvale. It’s a narrow oval of jungle a few hundred yards long now, but Leonis thought it must once have been much larger, its mass eroded by the river’s current over the ages. The jungle was so thick we spent days hacking through it until we came to the rocky core of the island, a solid slab of granite overgrown with vines, but beneath them we could see carvings in the stone, pictograms and hieroglyphs, clearly ancient from the wear of them. It seemed as if every inch of the rock had been carved and etched over the course of what must have been a century or more. There didn’t seem to be anything else to find there, no artifacts, certainly no clue as to the possible existence of the great enigma, but then we climbed it.”
The creases on his brow deepened as he summoned uncomfortable memories. “The stone, it transpired, was hollow. A great circular opening had been hewn into its crest and continued down to such a depth the bottom was lost to the gloom. We dropped a torch in and it fell at least a hundred feet, revealing what could only be a pile of bones. After that there was no holding Leonis, he had to investigate and I had little choice but to follow.
“We had our bearers rig ropes to lower us down. It was an . . . unnerving experience I must say, like descending through a place of nothingness, a void that might swallow a man whole. It was something of a relief when my boots finally touched rock, but the relief didn’t last long. The bones we had seen from above were arranged into some kind of stack, or rather a sculpture. Skulls, arms and legs all fused together by means unknown, so many it stood taller than I am. At first I took the bones for human but soon realised they were Spoiled from the many deformities. There must have been thirty or more of them all twisted into that horrid monument, and they weren’t alone. We lit more torches, scattering them about and the full scale of the cavern was revealed, extending away on all sides, the walls unseen beyond the glow, and everywhere there were more of these hideous sculptures. They stood in rows extending from a central pit, a perfect circle carved into the rock about sixty feet in diameter, ten feet deep . . . and it was stained to the point of near blackness.
“Leonis told me a curious fact about blood. It seems that, over time and in sufficient quantities, it will stain rock, seeping into the pores of the stone so deeply that no amount of rain or wind will wash it away. And there was no rain or wind in that cavern. An ocean of blood had been spilled in that pit, and whatever spilled it had made play with its victims.”
“The Provider,” Lizanne said.
“Yes. A curious choice of translation, wouldn’t you say? But they didn’t name him the Mad Artisan for nothing.”
“Did you find anything else?”
“Only more bones. We counted over two hundred stacks before the dwindling torch-light forced us back. There were no artifacts that we saw, no revealing pictograms, just a place of wanton slaughter and mystifying art. Leonis made copious notes, of course, passing it on to his circle of scholars on return to Morsvale. There were a dozen of them, learned men and women like Diran, all duped into assisting the Brotherhood under the guise of scholarly curiosity.” His face tensed in a spasm of poorly controlled guilt and he pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders. “I dare say the Cadre is busy interrogating them all as we speak.”
“I assume the Burgrave intended to return to the island?”
“Yes, armed with the results of Diran’s labours. It was to be our most ambitious expedition to date. Who knows where it might have led us.”
Hopefully the same destination as Mr. Torcreek’s merry band, she thought. “It’s time we discussed extraction,” she said. “I find it hard to believe the Brotherhood didn’t have a contingency for a circumstance such as this.”
“There is someone we could approach. Someone with a ship, of sorts.”
“A member of the Brotherhood?”
He shook his head. “A vile, self-serving rogue whose one redeeming feature is a refusal to welch on a debt.” A faint grin played over his lips. “I think you and he will get on famously.”
—
Contact and sometimes collusion with the criminal element is one of the more distasteful tasks undertaken by a field operative, Lizanne recalled reading in a Division training manual. But will often become necessary in order to complete a given objective. Studies commissioned from the Cu
stomer Demographics Faculty of the Ironship University consistently demonstrate that the criminal element in any coastal city will invariably be concentrated in and around the port facilities.
Morsvale’s dock-side district wasn’t quite as irredeemable a slum as the Blinds, but it was close. The houses were mostly wood rather than stone and the streets narrow and winding. It was in many ways a mirror to the vast, unpoliced and poverty-wracked districts of Corvus and the other Corvantine cities she had seen, and equally noisy at all hours. Drunken revelry sounded from many a tavern, angry or inebriated voices blasted from open windows and here and there rose the shouts and running feet of fight or theft. Lizanne noted how Tekela stared about with wide eyes, arms crossed and one hand on the revolver beneath her jacket. She had come close to drawing it once already when an amorous drunk lurched out of an alley, slurring an enquiry over the price for the young one to Arberus. A vicious shove from the major had been enough to send him on his way, muttering curses as he staggered off.
A few other shadowy predators had dogged their progress for a while, but Arberus’s size seemed to be sufficient to keep them at bay. Eventually they came to a tavern where he paused. Unlike every other drinking den they had passed this one was quiet, the sign hanging above the door faded to unreadability and a dim glow visible through the dirt-covered window. Arberus turned to Lizanne, gaze intent and tone entirely serious. “Say nothing. He’ll only listen to me in any case, and his people don’t react well to opinionated women.”
With that he pushed the door open on squealing hinges and went inside. The reason for the tavern’s comparative quietude became obvious as Lizanne followed the major into an empty room. A single unoccupied table with four chairs was positioned near the door with a small lantern suspended above it. Beyond the table a bar could be made out amidst the shadowed interior. It was only when something large and bulky shifted in the shadows that Lizanne realised they weren’t completely alone. Arberus went to the bar as the bulky shape moved into the light, a hulking, shaven-headed man resting two meaty arms on the bar and staring at them in naked suspicion. Lizanne made note of his light bronze complexion and high cheekbones. Dalcian.