Ketty Jay 04 - The Ace of Skulls (11 page)

Frey recognised a man who was trying to start a fight. Malvery’s battle wasn’t with him, but with himself. And Frey wasn’t about to make anyone do anything they didn’t want to.

‘Fine,’ said Frey. ‘Stay. That goes for anyone else who doesn’t want to come. We’ll pick you up on the way back.’

‘Wait,
he
gets to stay?’ Pinn complained. ‘Alright then, I’m staying too.’

‘Scared of heights?’ Ashua asked sweetly.

Frey made a noise that indicated he didn’t much care whether Pinn came or not. ‘Anyone else?’

Ashua looked at the rope bridge and shrugged. ‘Looks pretty safe to me.’

‘Ain’t much of a thing,’ said Silo.

‘Between certain death and Pinn’s conversation, I know which one I’d choose,’ quipped Crake.

‘You’ve got sick in your beard,’ Pinn returned spitefully.

Jez took a running jump and cleared the chasm in a single bound. That shut them all up. Frey let his head sink into his hand.

‘Jez,’ he said. ‘You remember we had that talk about keeping your, er,
condition
under wraps?’ He waved a hand vaguely towards Pelaru, who was wearing a look of amazement on his face.

‘Sorry, Cap’n,’ she said, her eyes white discs in the dark. ‘Thought I’d save some time.’

Pelaru opened his mouth and closed it again.

‘Don’t ask,’ said Frey. ‘Let’s go.’

He left his lantern with Malvery and Pinn and walked over to the rope bridge. Not long ago he’d have let someone else take the risk of going first, but of late he’d developed a certain doggedness that surprised even himself. Anything that got between him and finding Trinica was an obstacle to be overcome, and the faster he got on with it, the better. He had a promise to keep, a purpose at last.

It was just a rope bridge, after all. With what he’d been through, it wasn’t that much of a challenge, surely?

The chasm wasn’t wide, but the black drop beneath his feet made it seem wider. He held on to the upper rope, which was taut, and tried the lower one with his feet. It was thick and as stable as he could hope for. Shuffling carefully side-foot, he made his way along it, hanging tight to the upper rope in case he slipped.

‘Don’t look down!’ Pinn called helpfully.

Frey, being a contrary sort, did exactly that. He regretted it immediately. The abyss sucked the courage out of him. He felt the heat drain from his body, his strength leaking away. Suddenly he was weak and frail and his position seemed terribly precarious. Until that moment, it had been possible to ignore how slim the margin for error was. Now he was reminded that one misstep would see him plunge into the chasm. And it was a long, long way down.

He tore his eyes away, doing his best to keep his face composed. The most important thing was not to look scared for the others. He knew they were watching him.

‘No problem!’ he said, with a forced cheeriness that sounded fake even to him.

His steps became miniscule, shifting his boots centimetres at a time. His hands clutched hard, and refused to let go, so that he had to drag them along the rope and burn his palms on the hemp. He felt very cold, and yet he was sweating.

Centimetre by centimetre.
Don’t look down
, he told himself, echoing Pinn. And then, just to be bloody-minded, he did so again. It was even worse the second time. He swallowed and faced forward.

‘Go on, Cap’n!’ said Pinn. ‘You’re almost halfway there!’

Frey felt his heart sink. Almost halfway. He’d thought he was nearly at the end. There was more of this torment to go. How did he get himself into these situations?

Slowly, with infinite concentration, he moved along the ropes. They were stout and stable, but even the small amount of give they had sent him into flutters of panic. As long as he kept his feet and hands connected to the rope, he’d be alright. As long as the rope didn’t break.

When he reached the other side, he was genuinely surprised. He stepped off the rope, moved a safe distance from the edge of the chasm. Suddenly, all his misgivings were forgotten, and his bravado reasserted itself. What had he been worried about, anyway? It was easy! If it had been half a metre off the ground instead of hanging over a bottomless pit, he’d have practically run across it! He’d never been in any danger of falling for a moment!

He grinned at Jez and then waved his hands over the chasm at the others. ‘Come on, fellers!’ he called. ‘Nothing to it!’

It took some time, but soon they were safely on the other side, with Crake looking more than a little relieved as he adjusted his pack. Frey looked back to Malvery and Pinn, hunkered down in a circle of light.

‘Shout if you see that bloody awful thing we heard earlier, eh?’ he called maliciously.

‘Right-o,’ said Malvery, not concerned in the least. ‘You too.’

‘Wait, I forgot about that!’ Pinn said. ‘Hey, Cap’n, wait a minute! I’m coming!’

‘You made your choice, Pinn!’ Frey said. ‘See you later.’ He led them off down a new fissure, with Pinn’s increasingly frantic protests echoing in his ears.

Pelaru was becoming visibly agitated now, hurrying them along when he could. He sensed they were getting closer, and his Thacian composure had all but deserted him. Shortly afterwards, a break in the fissure wall led them into a corridor of dank brick, evidently an underground passageway of some kind. It was partially collapsed, but a way had been cleared, and there were fresh bootprints in the dust.

‘Come on,’ said Pelaru. ‘Not far now. It’s not—’

‘Wait,’ said Crake, holding his hand up. He frowned.

‘What’s up?’ Frey asked.

Crake said nothing. Instead he took a lantern from Silo and began poking around the rubble. He picked up a brick and examined it closely.

‘Crake?’ Frey said again.

‘He’s right, Cap’n,’ said Jez. ‘Something’s wrong here. A feeling. Like . . .
crawling
on my skin.’

Crake held out the brick so Frey could see it. There were markings carved on one side. ‘There are other bricks around here, with more markings.’

‘What are they?’ Frey asked, bemused.

‘Well, from what I can make out, they look like wards. Daemonist wards.’

Frey felt a trickle of ice pass down his spine. He’d had enough of daemons to last several lifetimes. ‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning there was a wall here covered in wards,’ said Crake. He tossed the brick aside. ‘Powerful ones, too. I can still sense them, even now. Probably the wall came down with the quake.’

‘And whatever they were keeping out got in,’ said Ashua.

‘That, or the other way round,’ Silo added.

Pelaru looked pale. Frey thought of the howl they’d heard earlier. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘That’s just bloody marvellous. Crake?’

‘I’ve got some tricks in my pack, Cap’n,’ he said. ‘Can’t be sure they’ll—’

He was interrupted by a cry from Pelaru. The whispermonger pushed past them and up the corridor, disappearing beyond the range of the lantern light. Frey ran after him. A few metres on, he caught up, and found Pelaru staring at something on the ground.

There was a body there. The upper half of one, anyway. It was lying face-down across the corridor, having been roughly ripped in half.

Pelaru wore an expression of anguish on his face. ‘I . . .’ he began, but then his mouth dried up.

Frey walked up to the corpse. ‘Calm down, it’s not him,’ he said. ‘Look how withered he is. He’s been dead for ages. There’s not even any blood.’ He hooked his toe under the shoulder of the corpse and flipped it over.

Then it was Frey’s turn to yell.

The body flopped onto its back. The head lolled. An emaciated face, frozen in a yawn of sharp and crooked teeth. Glaring yellow eyes staring blindly.

Frey scrambled back behind Pelaru, almost crashing into Silo in his haste to retreat.

‘It’s a Mane!’ he said. ‘There are Manes down here!’

But Pelaru staggered forward and dropped to his knees by the body. He slid his arms around the grotesque thing on the ground and cradled its head to his shoulder like it was a baby.

‘Half-Mane,’ he whispered. ‘He was only a half-Mane.’

Eight

Osger’s Infection – The Flux Thrower – A Glamorous Life – The Broken Gibbet

‘T
hat’s Osger?’ Frey asked, barely suppressing his disbelief. ‘That’s who we’ve come to find?’

Pelaru didn’t reply. He rocked slowly back and forth, hugging his partner’s severed body to his own, trembling with the effort of keeping his emotions contained. Crake didn’t know whether to be appalled or touched by the bizarre lantern-lit tableau before him.

‘Well,’ said Ashua chirpily. ‘Mission accomplished, I suppose.’

Jez hissed at her, baring her teeth like an animal, making Ashua jump. ‘Not the time for jokes,’ she said, and suddenly she seemed terrifying. ‘Look at him!’

‘Your . . . partner was a half-Mane?’ Frey asked. And looking at the Thacian now, Crake realised now that Osger must have been more than just a business partner.

‘Yes. What of it?’ said Pelaru, without raising his head. ‘So is your navigator.’

Of course
, thought Crake.
He knew the signs. No wonder he was so interested in her
.

‘Did he always, er, look like that?’ Frey asked.

‘Of course not, you fool!’ Pelaru snapped. He seemed about to say something else, but he reined himself in, brought himself under control again. His eyes became sad. ‘This isn’t him,’ he said quietly. ‘This is his infection.’

He laid down the body on the ground. It was hard to look at, but not frightening. The daemon was gone. What remained was merely a lump of warped meat. Pelaru seemed to think so too, for when he stood up he didn’t look at it again.

‘Do we need to take him back, bury him or something?’ Ashua asked carefully. She was still a little cowed by Jez. It took a lot to intimidate her, but Jez could do it.

‘There’s no need,’ said Pelaru, suddenly cold. ‘But I ought to find the rest of him.’

He walked off up the corridor a little way. Jez almost went after him, then caught Frey’s look and didn’t.

‘What now, Cap’n?’ Silo asked.

‘What do you think?’

‘Reckon we can’t be far from that shrine. Ought to take a look while we’re here. Seem to remember loot was part of the deal, yuh?’ He fixed the captain with a steady gaze. ‘Can’t think of no other good reason why we’d be down here.’

‘Plus one for looting,’ said Ashua, raising her hand.

‘Whatever you want, Cap’n,’ said Jez distractedly.

‘Crake?’ Frey turned the daemonist.

Crake’s instinct was to get out of there as fast as they could. He ignored it. Marshalling all his bitterness, he said ‘I want to see what the Awakeners were up to in there.’

But that was only half the truth. For while the others hoped to avoid the thing that had torn Osger apart, Crake hoped to meet it.

Three months ago, he and Frey had faced down a powerful Azryx daemon known as the Iron Jackal. With the help of a Yort explorer called Ugrik and the daemon thralled to Frey’s cutlass, they’d trapped and destroyed it. Previous to that, Crake’s experience of daemonism had been confined to the sanctum, where he could deal with daemons in a controlled environment. In order to save Frey’s life, he’d been forced to take on the Iron Jackal in the field. And he’d won.

Inspired, he’d begun working on more techniques for field daemonism. Instead of lamenting the lack of a good sanctum on board the
Ketty Jay
, he’d embraced it. No longer would he be chained to cumbersome machines and elaborate lairs; no longer would he hide away in the dark as daemonists had for so many years. He’d conduct his research out in the open. His passion for the Art had returned, and he felt like a new man because of it.

But research was no good without testing. And for that, he needed daemons. Terrifying as it was, this was an opportunity not to be missed.

He took off his pack and readied it. Most of the space inside was taken up by a chemical battery. The rest was occupied by a modified resonator, into which he screwed a set of cylinders tipped with a pinecone arrangement of rods. Then he took a controller from the side pocket of the pack and connected it with wires to the resonator. The controller was large and inelegant, too big to easily hold in one hand. When he hefted the pack onto his shoulders again, the wires ran under his arm and into the pack, and the rods poked up higher than his head. It was clumsy, but it would do.

‘Ready,’ he said.

‘You look like ridiculous,’ Frey observed.

‘What is that thing you’ve been lugging around, anyway?’ Ashua asked, cocking an eyebrow.

‘This,’ he said proudly, ‘is a flux thrower.’

‘A
flux
thrower?’ Ashua said. ‘Isn’t flux, er, when you get sloppy diarrhoea?’

Crake reddened. ‘The
other
kind of flux. Sonic flux! You see, the frequencies change constantly and that causes—’

‘I’m just saying,’ Ashua went on, her voice curving with suppressed amusement. ‘Back in the slums, kids used to go down with the flux all the time. Something in the water.’

‘There’s more than one kind of flux! This will allow me to narrow down on a daemon’s primary frequencies and pull it out of phase with our senses, actually send it back to the aether, and—’

‘ ’Cause I want to be sure, you know? If that thing’s gonna be flinging diarrhoea around, I plan to stand well back.’

Frey was in quiet tears of laughter. Crake shut his mouth. He gave Ashua a glare that communicated the level of betrayal he felt. That she should turn her vicious wit on him. On him!

Pinn came puffing up the corridor. Evidently he’d decided he didn’t want to be left behind. Crake was disappointed to see that he hadn’t fallen into the chasm.

‘You’re all bastards,’ he told them sullenly.

‘Doc not coming?’ Silo asked.

‘Does it look like he is?’

‘What’s that on your back?’ Pinn asked Crake.

‘It’s my shit-thrower,’ Crake replied primly, before anyone else could get in first. Ashua and Frey fell about in hysterics. Pinn just looked puzzled.