Dreamlands (7 page)

Boarding
the Asphodel that morning, my comrades looked as drained as I, though they were
exhausted from debauchery rather than fruitless midnight quarrels.  My
shipmates would jibe me about my pensiveness throughout that tour, as my
thoughts circled constantly back to Solomon and Voxhaus.  This preoccupation
almost cost me a hand while wrangling cargo in Jalob, but otherwise the time passed
swiftly in routine.

The
night of my return to Zij, after soaking the worst of the tar out of my seams
at the public baths and making a short-lived call at the Iron Street apartment,
I found myself back in the Brass Coin, where I reflected on the nature of alcohol. 
It was a sensible drug.  You took your pleasure, and if you took too much, you
paid a toll and were done with it.  With opium the price was borrowed at
interest, and when the reckoning came, it was always too dear.

Superior
though rum may be, my cares made poor companions and I drank with little enthusiasm. 
Earlier, receiving no answer at my friends’ apartment, I had entered to find Solomon
alone, and the curtains drawn.  Before him sat an empty cup and an open, but
untouched, bottle of wine.  Intending to wait Isobel’s return, I told the story
of a storm off the coast of Zur that threatened to pluck any untethered soul
straight from the deck and into oblivion.  He sat unreplying, his weird malaise
compounding my own unease until I decided Isobel could wait until the next day,
and made my exit.  Drifting towards sleep on my bench in the Brass Coin, I
pictured a fine layer of dust settling over Solomon’s corpse.  When I shook
myself awake, the last lamp in the empty drinking hall had burned to the wick.

With
six weeks on the Asphodel at my back, the street pitched and yawed beneath me
, and
I swaggered with a drunk I did not feel.  The yellow half-moon and scattered
stars did little to illuminate the crumbling and charmless storehouses along my
route, nor the staring black holes that in daytime served as windows.

I
jolted as the noise of a breaking bottle punctured the night, along with the unmistakable
sounds of a brawl.  I rushed in that direction, thirsting for distraction and
careless of whatever trouble attended it.  An almost impassably narrow alley
led me to the yard of a disused warehouse, where a man with gleaming black skin
took on four squat ruffians with an iron-shod
bō
.  Plainly a
fighter, he was giving three of his enemies, armed with short, square-tipped
swords, all they could want.  The fourth, though, brandishing a grey club the
breadth of a man’s thigh, was about to flank him.

I drew
my knife and cutlass on the run, and called out, already too late.  The fourth
assailant closed, and I saw that his club was in reality a grotesque appendage protruding
from his sleeve.  In profile, it looked like a massive slug, and its underside was
carpeted in needlelike spines.  Where it caressed the black man’s bare arm, dozens
of little pricks detached, quivering in his flesh.  He collapsed instantly.

I
brought my sword down on that gruesome limb, and it offered no more resistance
than a stick of butter, slapping to the dirt with a sizzling sound.  Its owner turned
to me briefly, though in the poor light I could make out nothing of whatever
gazed from the recesses of his hood, before fleeing in an awkward shuffle, as
if I had lightened him by a leg rather than an arm.  The other three stopped
like a clockwork with a broken spring, swords raised but suddenly impotent.  Their
faces I could see plainly, and though they looked deranged with bloodlust or
fear, they were human enough.  The four of us posed in this idiotic tableau for
several seconds, until without a word they scattered into the night.

Once
I had cleaned the ichor from my cutlass, I sheathed my weapons and knelt by the
victim.  The black man looked longer still, stretched out on the ground, like a
gangly child fallen asleep in the broken cobble and ragweed.  His face
contorted in pain, and after rolling onto his back he lay unmoving, his skin
already turning a sickly grey.  I plucked the spines from his skin with a scrap
of cloth.  They were not barbed and came easily, but the punctures bubbled, and
when I squeezed his bicep the blood was viscous with poison.

I
was able to carry the man myself as far as the Asphodel, where I enlisted Erik’s
help.  Lurching down the street with our burden, I was nonplussed to see a boy
loitering in the entrance of my hostel, tugging at a prostitute’s skirts.  As
we reached the door, I recognized the smaller of the two as the dwarf who
lodged in the same building.  I did not know much about him, save that he
harboured a special envy for my pearl-handled dagger.  The girl wandered off to
ply her trade elsewhere, and he grumbled,

“Your
friend’s having a rough night.”

“He
may have gone a little too far, but morning will see him right.”  I assessed
the steep stair before us, and thinking to put an end to the conversation
asked, “Care to lend us a hand?”

He
did not.

Even
with Erik’s assistance, shifting the black man to my third floor room was a
feat of both strength and logistics, but at last we laid him out on my cot,
propping his dangling feet on the chair.  The dwarf followed, standing in the
door to watch us.

“Ye
know there’s no guests allowed up here,” he said, rolling his eyes at the figure
on the bed, which by that time looked more like a corpse than someone needing a
flop.

I
leaned forward to listen at the slack mouth.  He still breathed, but shallowly,
in fits and starts. 

“Probably
owed the wrong people money,” Erik suggested, pretending to study the black
man’s staff while watching my neighbour, who was muttering into his beard.

“No,”
I replied.  “I don’t think that was it.”

“Given
any thought to selling us that pretty knife, have ye?” the dwarf asked.

I ignored
him.  I was more concerned about the nature of the barbs I had plucked from the
fighter’s arm than the reason for the attack, but my mind was flitting about
like a hummingbird, and I couldn’t settle on a course of action.

“I’ve
got coin right now.”  Black-beard’s pouch vouchsafed him with a musical
jingle.  “Had a good run in the gambling house.”

“I’ve
told you a dozen times I’ve no interest in selling it,” I said, marching
towards him.  “Now get out, or you’ll get a closer look at my dagger than you’d
like.”

Rather
than retreat to the hall, the dwarf stepped inside the door, and we engaged in
a slow and awkward tussle.  I planted my hand on his chest, but may as well
have been pushing a brick tower, while the oaf clumsily shoved his money pouch
between us.  When I felt him pawing at my sheath, I rocked back and boxed him
one on the ear.  At this the dwarf shifted to a fighting stance, and began to
call out a sailor’s encyclopaedia of curses, and fondled the wickedly sharp hand
axe at his belt.

We
were an instant from coming to blows when the screech of the bō’s iron tip
on the floor cut his tirade short.  Erik straightened from where he leaned casually
on the fallen man’s staff and smiled.  The dwarf eyed him murderously but, as
he wasn’t ready to tangle with us both, satisfied himself with kicking the rope-hinged
door on his way out.  It swayed drunkenly behind him.

“He
doesn’t look the forgiving sort,” Erik observed.

“I’ve
enough problems right now without him skulking around.”

“Keep
a watch here," Erik said, shaking his head at the whole situation.  "I’ll
see if I can scout out a healer.”

It
was daylight when he returned with a ginger-smelling poultice.  This concoction
made the worst of the swelling fade, and the fighter’s coma changed to agitated
tossing and turning.  When we were able to fetch the local sawbones to wash and
dress the puncture wounds, he declared the raging fever to be a positive sign. 
I was instructed to give the patient water whenever feasible, but could do little
else but wait for the poison to run its course.

After
a few hours of sporadic sleep, I left the black man and returned to Iron Street,
bounding up the steps like a boy when Isobel’s raven head bobbed into view
above.  When I kissed her, I saw by the rings under her eyes she hadn’t slept any
better than I.  Without any greeting, she drew me inside.  The curtains were again
drawn tight against the world, and a wool blanket added besides.  The gloom made
the apartment small and mean.

“It’s
my father,” she said hesitantly.  “He hasn’t been well.”

“I
called on him yesterday,” I said, sitting in my accustomed chair.  “I could see
something wasn’t right.”

Isobel
pressed her lips tight.

“Well?”
I said, irritated.  I had been expecting to boast of my heroic deed in the
warehouse district, but her cold welcome had put me off.

“He
stopped working,” she said, pacing as much as one could in the little space.  “He
doesn’t visit his cronies in the shipyard anymore, and he won’t tell me why. 
He broods about the house, and when he speaks at all it is to grouse about
those cursed sea traders from the north.”

“The
merchants again,” I said.  “Has he been talking to Gorice?”

“He
and Gorice had words, I don’t know what about.  After that, Father wouldn’t let
him in.”  She sighed.  “None of it makes any sense.  Tell me truthfully, does my
father have enemies?”

“Ha! 
Everyone calls him
Grandfather
.  Who could be his enemy?”  Who indeed? 
Partly to hide my own conjecture on the subject, I turned to practical
matters.  “Will you be able to make rent if Solomon’s not working?  Your job in
the bazaar can't bring much in.”

“Father
has a majority share in a trade ship, the Peregrine.  She’s out with a crew
most of the year.  Even now that he’s stopped working at the yard–”

“Hold
that tongue!” Solomon said.  He was standing in the alcove where he made his
bed, the bead curtain draped about his shoulders.  “Wag it too much and
someone’s liable to give it a yank.”

“Solomon.” 
I stood up, suddenly uncomfortable.  Having never known him to sleep later than
dawn, I had assumed he was out.  “I hear you and Gorice had a falling out.”

Inexplicably,
I imagined he was about to attack me, and had to resist the instinct to touch
the hilt of my knife.  Instead he shifted deliberately from alcove to table to
chair as if wanting a stick.  Just as before, a full bottle and empty cup
waited on him.  He sat, hoisted the wine to check its contents, and replaced it
without pouring.  Then, like a weary sentry returning to his post, he settled
into his chair.

“Got
into a bit of a scrape last night,” I said, trying a more neutral topic, “not
far from here, four criminals ambushing a lone man, a fighter.  I took an arm
from the leader and drove the rest off.  The fighter survived, but I fear he
may be poisoned.”

“A
fighter or a beggar?”  Solomon’s gaze was unfocused and cloudy, the usual spark
of mischievous humour doused.  “Never aid a beggar, Isaac.  Let them get close
to you and they will suck you dry.”

I
glanced at Isobel where she stood behind him, one hand worrying the other, but she
said nothing.

“Isobel
tells me you’ve retired from the shipyard for good this time,” I said.  “Ever
think of taking a turn as captain of that trade ship of yours?”

“Who
are you to insert yourself in my affairs?” Solomon snarled, suddenly animated. 
I took a step back as he lunged to his feet.  “The Peregrine is my business,
mine!” 

“I
ask after your welfare,” I answered him coldly, “mostly out of concern for
Isobel.”

“Look
to your own welfare.  If it weren’t for me, you’d still be breaking your back
moving boxes on the wharf.”  He put a hand to his forehead and gasped for
breath.  “You think I don’t know what you want, you, a common seaman, snooping
around my daughter?  You're little more than a pirate.”

The
old man’s comment hung in the air between us, and when he made no move to
retract it I moved to the door, my hand comfortably close to my dagger.  Isobel
followed me to the street.  We walked down the block from their window before
stopping to speak.

“I’m
so sorry, Isaac.  He loves you like a son, he told me so himself before this temper
took hold of him.

“I’m
sure you are right, my dear, but there is no use arguing with him now.”  I took
her hands in mine.  In her agitation, she had scratched one of them, drawing
blood.  

“This
madness must pass,” she said.  It was more plea than avowal.

“I
must get back to the poisoned man.  I don’t know what I can do except watch,
but I must do that at least.”

Even
by New England standards our courtship had been remarkably chaste, but on that
inauspicious occasion we enjoyed our first passionate kiss, as fumbling and
embarrassed as children.

"I'll
come by with some broth when I can," she said.

I hid
the depth of my disquiet until we had parted. 

* * *

The
next days saw the fallen man’s fever advance and recede without pattern or surcease,
and watching over him was all the distraction I could ask from my other
concerns.  I washed his face, cleaned the wounds, and got water down him when I
could.  After getting a saucer-sized bruise on my ribs, I learned to stay away
from his good arm, which would lash out unpredictably in the midst of his
delusions.  To pass the time, I told snippets of my uncle’s stories, then
fairytales remembered from childhood, and lastly, fighting my own fatigue, nonsense
yarns I spun on the spot.