Authors: Adrian Tchaikovsky
‘Chief ?’ the apparition said.
‘Get us moving,’ Wys told him shortly, and he instantly withdrew into the upper reaches of the vessel.
‘What will you do with us?’ Paladrya asked. She had her arms wrapped about herself in the very picture of dripping misery.
Wys grinned unpleasantly. ‘With these two land-lads, I’ll be handing them over, and I’ve not the faintest clue why someone wants them, save that they’ll do better for being out of Claeon’s raspy little hands. For you, woman, I’d guess a traitor’s death, and why not?’
Paladrya dropped to her knees and then fell over on to her side, and Stenwold thought that she had somehow willed her own death in preference to execution. She was still breathing, though, and her eyes were wide open. When he knelt beside her she only shook her head, saying, ‘I’m sorry.’
Phylles put a hand on his shoulder, to haul him off, but Laszlo stepped in between them, wings flickering momentarily, and she backed off, obviously unsure about land-kinden Art.
‘Leave her alone. What’s she done to you?’ the Fly demanded.
‘She gave Hermatyre to Claeon,’ Phylles spat.
‘Oh, and you’re all such concerned citizens, are you?’ Laszlo, half her size, stood with hands on hips defiantly.
Wys snorted in amusement. ‘He’s got you there.’
Phylles glared at her, and then at Laszlo. ‘Well, she’s a murderess,’ she declared, although without much conviction. Stenwold guessed he had witnessed only a fraction of the blood on her hands.
‘I didn’t,’ Paladrya said, so quiet only Stenwold heard.
Laszlo, meanwhile, was obviously spoiling for a fight. ‘And you’re a charitable institution now, are you? And all those guards you and him chucked around, they’re all sitting up again with headaches, are they?’
‘We
rescued
you!’ Phylles yelled at him indignantly.
‘No, you didn’t.’ Laszlo folded his arms, chin jutting pugnaciously. ‘You’re going to sell us to someone else, right? If this is a proper rescue, take us to Collegium docks, please.’
‘She said she didn’t kill anyone,’ Stenwold said loudly, because what little patience Phylles possessed was obviously being eroded by the moment. The woman glared at him, and he saw something move in her hands, as though she held some twisting creature there. A moment later she had stomped off along the upward curve of the deck.
‘The Traitress can say what she likes, but she killed the real Edmir,’ Wys said, not unsympathetically. ‘I’m no Obligist. The little sprat was probably an obnoxious turd and deserved it, but a death’s a death.’
‘Aradocles,’ Stenwold pronounced slowly. Under his arm, Paladrya nodded weakly. Stenwold felt slow-witted, continually numbed and baffled by his surroundings, to not have perceived the link. ‘This Aradocles was the Edmir?’
‘Would have been, surely, after his father died,’ Wys replied, frowning.
‘His
father
?’ It took a moment for Stenwold to catch up.
Hereditary titles
. He understood that the Commonweal managed things in the same way, and of course there was the Imperial family of the Wasp-kinden, but really . . . government by bloodline? Neither the Wasps nor the decaying Dragonfly state encouraged him to place any faith in it.
Abruptly the giant shell containing them shuddered and lurched, and Stenwold knew they were under way. He looked to the window ahead, cut into the shell’s rear face, and saw the seabed beneath them recede.
We’re going backwards
, he thought, and felt the same intermittent surges of motion that had confused him in Chenni’s smaller vessel.
Wys wore a strange expression. ‘Spit me, but you really are land-people?’ She glanced from him to Laszlo.
‘That we are,’ Stenwold confirmed.
‘This must all be complete babble to you, then?’ she observed.
Stenwold laughed at that, although Paladrya flinched as he did so. ‘Oh, you could say that. But this Aradocles of yours isn’t dead, not the way
she
tells it. That’s the story the Edmir’s put out, is it?’
Wys’s smile grew cynical. ‘Sounds like some things are the same, land or sea, but I believe he’s dead, anyway. He disappeared: great big hunt on for, oh, two years or so – where was the missing heir? Then word came out there’d been some dirty business in the palace. One of the lad’s own staff, his tutor, had done for him. They had her killed, they said, and Claeon went from being regent to Edmir. Big ceremony, not that any of us got invited. But it was
her
.’ She jabbed a finger at Paladrya. ‘They led her through the streets with a chain about her neck. I was there for that. I remember her face.’
‘She swears she took him onto the land,’ Stenwold stated.
‘Hah, well, good as dying, that, isn’t it . . . ?’ He saw the new thoughts crowding into Wys’s mind even as she said it. ‘So Claeon’s swiping land-kinden, is he?’
Stenwold mutely gestured at himself and Laszlo. The small woman looked thoughtful. ‘We’ve taken on more than we thought, here,’ she muttered. ‘For a start, I didn’t believe you were really landsmen. I’d thought that was just a Littoralist story. Spit me, what are we involved in here?’
‘Oh you think
you’ve
got problems?’ Laszlo remarked, and she chuckled at that, looking him up and down.
‘We should shave you, boy,’ she told him. ‘Could make a Smallclaw of you yet. Spit me, I’m minded to hand your big friend and the Traitress over and hold on to you. A man who can hang in mid-air like that would be worth his keep.’ The eye she turned on him was so cheerfully acquisitive that Laszlo could find no ready reply.
‘Where are we going?’ Stenwold asked. ‘Now we’ve got the threats of execution out of the way, can you tell us?’ In his arms, Paladrya struggled to sit up, still shaking slightly. Now he saw her in the stronger light of the ship’s interior, she was clearly a woman ill used, and ill used for some time. There were marks on her pale skin that even her Art could not hide, and she was gaunt and hollow-eyed.
‘Just a place, some farm my paymaster’s commandeered. Owners are sympathizers, probably. This is political. It’s more important for you to know who you’re going to get handed over to, than where the deal’s done. I’d guess they’re some of the old Edmir’s party – Claeon’s brother’s lot. After all, it’s only because of the Thousand Spine mob that they didn’t wind Claeon’s guts out on a spear, whether Aradocles was dead or not.’
Thousand Spine . . . That’s . . .
Stenwold fought for the correct words.
That’s Rosander’s train, his warband or whatever. That means Claeon took over, and he used Rosander as muscle, yes. So now I’ve got Obligists who live in the city – the colony – and I have Benthists who don’t, only some Benthists, like Rosander, do because they’re invited, and the Obligists are split into rival camps anyway . . .
He clenched his fists in frustration, because he was trying to understand the result of millennia of divergent history, and he
had
to get it right. His life would depend on it.
‘Wys,’ he addressed her, and she nodded. ‘Wys, your people are . . . where do you fit in?’
‘Freeloaders, landsman. And we don’t fit in. We don’t take to the open seas, and we don’t live in the colonies, we just take our opportunities. Me, Phylles, Fel and that useless bastard Lej up in the engines, we’re Wys’s Hunters.’
‘Mercenaries,’ Stenwold agreed, and when she looked blank he added, ‘For money? You understand money, here?’ He suddenly thought of the wealth of precious metal he had seen, but Wys was nodding.
‘Of course we have
money
– what do you think we are?
Mercenaries
. . .’ It was clear the word was new to her. ‘Oh, I like that.’
‘There can’t be many like you,’ Stenwold said.
Particularly if you don’t even have a word for what you are.
‘Money’s only good at a colony,’ Wys agreed, ‘and there’s not so many things an Obligist needs to hire someone from outside for. We’re a select group.’
And I’ll wager you’re bandits whenever the money dries up
, Stenwold reflected. ‘Are we free to wander on your ship?’
‘Our barque?’ Wys’s gesture took in the limited coil of the living space. ‘Don’t get in Lej’s way, don’t annoy Phylles, and Fel will be watching you. Aside from that, you’ve a little while till we arrive. We’re fighting against current to get there. I’d advise sleep, but it’s your call.’ With that pronouncement, she did something quick and complicated with one of the nets on the wall, and turned it into a hammock. She bundled herself into it fully clothed, or at least without removing her brief tunic, and was apparently asleep in an instant.
Stenwold and Laszlo exchanged glances. ‘We’re getting somewhere, slowly,’ the Beetle murmured.
‘In understanding these madwigs, maybe.’ Laszlo shrugged. ‘No closer to getting back to the light and air, though, Ma’rMaker.’
Stenwold nodded. In truth he was trying not to think about that. It was hard to retain any composure when his mind was playing host to the yawning chasm that lay between him and home.
I think if I saw some black-and-yellow down here, I’d embrace it. But, no, Teornis was right. Even the Empire can’t reach us down here.
And if the sea-kinden reach upwards?
He had no idea of their capabilities, though they had enough aptitude to make these submersibles, however the ships worked. They produced the light and, somehow, the air . . .
‘The air . . . ?’ He frowned. ‘Paladrya . . .’
She was watching him fearfully, as though bracing herself for a blow. She had not, he guessed, found much to trust or like in people since her incarceration.
And she had been Claeon’s lover, she said. And she’d betrayed him for this Aradocles, and then Claeon found out, and locked her up, and worse . . .
And where in the bloody world has this Aradocles
been
, if she pitched him landwards years ago?
The obvious answer loomed, but he fought it down.
If this heir is dead, that’s no use to me. But if he can be found . . .
It was the bait for his hook, in order to catch some chance of getting back home. Surely they would want their precious heir returned to them? But first he had to understand them, lest he put a foot wrong, and this abyssal world then swallow him for good.
‘Paladrya, tell me about the air,’ he said gently.
‘I don’t understand.’ It was clear in her expression.
‘You people can breathe underwater. Why haven’t I just drowned? Why keep those caul things?’
A flicker of something like humour crossed her face, which must have been a rare visitor of late. ‘You mustn’t take offence,’ she said, ‘but the cauls are for children. It is the earliest Art any of us learn, but not before the age of six, perhaps, or seven . . . so we have the cauls. The Benthists developed them, they claim. They need them more, when they’re travelling.’
Stenwold let the subject of the Benthists go by for the moment. ‘But the air,’ he pressed her. ‘Air goes stale, even my people know that. How are you . . . are you making air? You have machinery of some kind?’
It can’t be an Apt solution, unless they’ve been Apt for, what, thousands of years, long enough to be forgotten by the rest of us, all ties with the land severed.
‘We accreate it, of course,’ she said, voice tailing off by the end of the sentence when the word made no impact on him. ‘Accreation,’ she enunciated, as though to a fool or small child. ‘We extract it from the water.’
‘There’s no air in water,’ Laszlo jeered, ‘Or else you wouldn’t drown.’
She gave the Fly a level stare. ‘There is indeed air to breathe in the water, if you possess the Art to free it. It’s the simplest form of accreation.’
Stenwold and Laszlo exchanged looks. ‘What else can you . . . accreate?’ the Beetle enquired slowly.
‘There are many things in the water,’ she told him, ‘if you can but draw them out. The limn-lights, for example, are simple work.’ A twitch of her hand took in the pale globes illuminating the inside of the submersible. ‘But most of what we need, we make – we accreate. Shell, bronze, gold, membrane, stone, all of it can be formed by someone with the skill and Art for it. Some things the sea makes for us, like the shell that this barque is made from, but almost everything else is made by accreation.’
‘So you just, what, conjure all your raw materials out of the water?’ Stenwold asked incredulously.
‘Raw materials?’ she asked, frowning again.
‘Ask him this question,’ broke in a new voice. Phylles had come back, and Stenwold guessed that the curved nature of the ship meant that no conversation could be private. The purple-skinned woman crouched on her haunches, still trying to look angry but obviously intrigued. ‘How do you people ever craft things on land, land-kinden, if you don’t accreate from the sea?’
‘We . . . make things,’ Stenwold said unhelpfully. ‘Someone mines the raw materials – the metal ore say – from underground, and then it gets smelted into the metal, and maybe cast in a mould, or else a smith beats it into a shape and finishes it off, or perhaps a machinist cuts the metal into the right shape, if it’s precision work . . .’ He broke off, for she had drawn a knife out. Only later he would remember that she needed no knives to fight with. She laid the blade before him, and he saw it was four inches of razor-sharp bronze with a hilt fashioned of some pearly shell.