Sea Of Ghosts Part 30

The captured Haurstaf warship wasn't there.

Granger threw open the door and stepped out onto the weather deck surrounding the wheelhouse. Icy gales buffeted his face. His skin p.r.i.c.kled with the electric presence of the approaching storm. He walked around the outside of the bridge, scanning the horizon in all directions. There. There. A sail moved across the sea to the south-west, heading directly across the wind. It could only be the A sail moved across the sea to the south-west, heading directly across the wind. It could only be the Irillian Herald Irillian Herald.

He was about to go back inside, when he noticed that the Excelsior Excelsior was sitting lower in the water. Realization that she'd been holed crept into his pores like the sea itself. was sitting lower in the water. Realization that she'd been holed crept into his pores like the sea itself.

He ran back inside and hurried down the main stairwell to the engine-room level. Seawater sloshed between the bulkheads at the bottom of the steps. Countless tiny holes peppered the hull, the interior bulkheads and even the stairwell itself. Granger cursed. He knew what had caused this.

He waded into the cold, dark brine, and pushed open the door to the engine room. The stink of whale oil filled the whole chamber. Void flies had pa.s.sed through scores of pipes, seawater pump housings and even the main block of the engine itself, causing fuel to leak from innumerable places. Thin shafts of light shone through the hull, while seawater continued to bubble up through a thousand perforations in the floor. He had no way to fix the pumps and seal all these leaks. Nothing he could do would prevent the Excelsior Excelsior from sinking. from sinking.

The Excelsior Excelsior had two lifeboats: sixteen-feet-long wood-built skiffs with seating for twenty men, four sets of oars and hooped rails to support a storm cover. Between them, they might have held a third of her original crew. Both had been damaged by void flies, so he chose the soundest of the two and began sealing the holes with marine gum. By the time he'd finished, the sea had begun to lap across the had two lifeboats: sixteen-feet-long wood-built skiffs with seating for twenty men, four sets of oars and hooped rails to support a storm cover. Between them, they might have held a third of her original crew. Both had been damaged by void flies, so he chose the soundest of the two and began sealing the holes with marine gum. By the time he'd finished, the sea had begun to lap across the Excelsior Excelsior's bow, leaving him minutes to load the smaller craft with supplies.

He grabbed some rope and a pile of bad-weather gear from a midships locker, then hurried back to the bridge for the old Valcinder compa.s.s, s.e.xtant, almanacs and his water flask. The emperor's yacht was sloping down towards the bow, which meant the galley would be underwater already. He had no time to search the cabins or stores for food.

Waves broke across the bowsprit. The ship listed, then righted herself with a terrible groan, and then started to slide under the frothing brine. Seawater came surging up the main deck and lifted the lifeboat's keel just as Granger climbed aboard. He cut her loose with his seeing knife and pushed off with an oar. A second wave took hold of the small wooden vessel at once, carrying her away from the stricken steam yacht and out into open sea.

The Excelsior Excelsior sank in seconds. Granger watched from the lifeboat as the steam yacht's wheelhouse tilted forward into the dark brown water. Two fathoms down, the portholes of the emperor's suite burned a deep yellow, then grew dim. The stern lifted momentarily, and the funnels behind the bridge seemed about to topple. And then the whole ship slid down into the depths with a final sucking rush. The waters crashed and foamed and seethed in its wake. A heartbeat later, there was no trace of her but an oily slick on the surface of the waters. sank in seconds. Granger watched from the lifeboat as the steam yacht's wheelhouse tilted forward into the dark brown water. Two fathoms down, the portholes of the emperor's suite burned a deep yellow, then grew dim. The stern lifted momentarily, and the funnels behind the bridge seemed about to topple. And then the whole ship slid down into the depths with a final sucking rush. The waters crashed and foamed and seethed in its wake. A heartbeat later, there was no trace of her but an oily slick on the surface of the waters.

Granger pulled his cloak more tightly around himself. Waves rose ten feet or more around the lifeboat, tossing the small vessel around like a cork. The wind blew steadily from the south-east, driving storm clouds and sheets of rain before it. It would be dark in less than an hour. He clambered over to the lifeboat's stern and checked the storage locker. He found the whaleskin tarpaulin for the hoop rails, a tank of fresh water, a gem lantern and a sealed bag containing an officer's pistol, powder and shot, a compa.s.s, a knife, spare flints and a signal mirror. None of it looked as if it had ever been used. There was no food.

He stowed the gear away carefully again and then slid two oars into their rowlocks and took a seat facing aft. Then he began to row after the Herald Herald.

The storm raged into the night. Rain battered the lifeboat like grapeshot. Lightning pulsed in the western skies. In those moments of clarity, the heaving seas around Granger's boat glittered like mounds of anthracite, ma.s.sive and terrifying. Darkness returned, with thunder in its lungs. Water blurred the lenses of his storm goggles and sloshed against his boots in the bilge. By the light of his gem lantern he hauled the whaleskin tarpaulin over the hooped frame and fastened it down, forming a damp, salty tent over the open hull.

Six hours at the oars had left his muscles beaten. Granger crawled into the bow and tried to sleep, with only the thin wooden skin of the hull separating his body from a mile of brine below. He lay there for a long time, listened to the rain on the tarpaulin, the creaking planks and the furious concussions of the thunder. He wondered if Ianthe was listening too.

'I couldn't stop them from doing what they did to your mother,' he said. 'But I'm not going to let that happen to you.' He felt suddenly foolish, talking to himself like this in the middle of the ocean. Was Ianthe even listening to him? 'I'll find you in Awl,' he said, 'even if I have to walk across the seabed to get there.'

He must have slept, for although it was still dark his joints had seized again, and the rain had stopped. The sea felt calmer. He got up and stretched, and lifted the shutter from the gem lantern. The storm canopy sagged over his head. A few inches of rain had collected there. He p.r.i.c.ked a hole in the oilcloth with his knife and raised his mouth to catch the water that trickled through. It was pure enough, so he slaked his thirst and topped up his flask.

Then he pulled back the tarpaulin and looked out.

The storm had moved on to the north, leaving the skies overhead clear. A thousand stars sparkled in the heavens among the pale pink and blue wisps of nebulae. The sea shone like dark gla.s.s. The lifeboat rocked gently back and forth in low swells. Granger stood up and scanned the horizons, but he could not spot any sails. His breath misted in the freezing air. He was the only one breathing it for leagues around.

He took his position from the stars. Awl would be almost a hundred leagues to the north-west. He was about to sit down when he spotted Ortho's Chariot racing overhead. The tiny light zigzagged erratically across the sky, then seemed to pause directly above him for an instant before shooting off again to the north.

An uneasy feeling crept into Granger's stomach. For an instant he thought he had sensed the presence of an unnatural force. It was like the time he'd almost fallen from the makeshift bridge in Losoto's Sunken Quarter. The cosmos had seemed to shift shift in some subtle way, although he couldn't say how or why he felt this. He returned to his seat, took up the oars and began to row. in some subtle way, although he couldn't say how or why he felt this. He returned to his seat, took up the oars and began to row.

Time pa.s.sed with nothing to mark it but the sound of the oars splashing through the water and the occasional grumble of thunder in the north. But then Granger heard a different sound, like the distant drone of a ship's horn. He set down the oars and listened. After a moment he heard it again a long, mournful bellow. It seemed nearer this time. He clambered over to the stern and took out the pistol, powder and shot from the storage locker. He loaded the pistol and tucked it into the belt of his breeches.

The sound resonated across the water again, louder now.

To starboard Granger spotted a faintly phosph.o.r.escent shape under the sea. As it drew nearer he saw that it was a whale, about three times the size of his boat, with an elongated body and a ma.s.sive blunt head. He aimed the pistol at it, but did not fire. The creature glided under the lifeboat's keel, about a fathom down, its black eye looking up at him.

A sudden splash off the bow made him wheel round.

A second whale had surfaced nearby. Its back arced out of the water as it blew out a jet of seawater. And then the great blade of its tail broke the surface and crashed down again, showering the lifeboat in brine.

The whales stayed with him for about an hour, until the sky began to lighten in the east. And then they dived down into that dark and fathomless brine. He heard them lowing for a while afterwards, but he didn't see them again.

At dawn he found himself surrounded by a school of tiny silver fish, flashing like needles in the bromine waters. He might have made a net from his own shirt to catch them, but he had no means to boil them without spoiling his fresh water. So he sat there and watched them sparkling all around his hull, as bright and poisonous as drops of quicksilver.

He rowed until midday, when he stopped to take noon sight under a blazing sun. But the rocking boat frustrated his efforts. He threw the s.e.xtant into the jumbled pile of his storm-weather gear, too tired and too irritable to persist. The wind had turned easterly and slackened off to a stiff breeze, which did little to cool him. He set his course by dead reckoning instead, a.s.suming he hadn't drifted too far since dark. But he couldn't be sure exactly where he was. A north-west course would bring him to Irillia eventually, if his water didn't run out first. He'd seen nothing of the Herald Herald all morning. all morning.

On the evening of the third day he spotted an erokin samal drifting three hundred yards to the south. The jellyfish had captured at least three sharks in its tendrils, turned their corpses into the bloated grey ma.s.ses of flesh that it used to catch the wind. Granger rowed his boat due north away from the creature until he could no longer see it. Even so, he did not sleep well that night, unsettled by the thought of tendrils reaching under the tarpaulin and into his boat.

The next morning he found himself enveloped in rust-coloured mist. He had travelled farther north than he'd intended, reaching the border waters where the Sea of Lights met the Sea of Kings. Here the oily red currents of the northern sea mingled with the brown waters of the southern one, whorling around the hull like spilled paint. Their interaction produced the haze of fumes through which the sun now glowered. Granger put his goggles and storm mask on and set his back to the oars again, now pushing due west. He did not wish to encounter any sea life here.

And then he thought he detected an unusual noise in the mist a high-pitched hum almost beyond his range of hearing. His eyes strained to see through the haze. Was that a shadow? He took his goggles off again. There was definitely something out there in the fog, something huge and dark. It could almost be the outline of a ship. Granger turned his boat around and began to row towards it.

CHAPTER 15.

THE FROG.

Before the flooding, Irillia, Evensraum and Pertica had been parts of the same great landma.s.s west of Anea. Now each remained as its own chain of islands, with Evensraum to the south and Pertica lying in the frozen north. While lower lands drowned, Irillia's mountainous backbone had remained defiant in the face of the rising seas. More than a hundred islands stretched across the Sea of Lights and the Emerald Sea, but the most magnificent of these, Ianthe decided, had to be Awl.

As the Herald Herald approached her berth she could see the remains of Port Awl's three former harbours down under the crystal-clear green brine. Each had been constructed above the other upon a sunken slope. Only the main commercial jetty had been built up from the original foundations. It looked long enough to berth twenty warships and sank for at least fifty fathoms at its deepest end. Incredibly, Ianthe could see scores of Drowned going about their business down there, a whole community living in the flooded streets below the town. approached her berth she could see the remains of Port Awl's three former harbours down under the crystal-clear green brine. Each had been constructed above the other upon a sunken slope. Only the main commercial jetty had been built up from the original foundations. It looked long enough to berth twenty warships and sank for at least fifty fathoms at its deepest end. Incredibly, Ianthe could see scores of Drowned going about their business down there, a whole community living in the flooded streets below the town.

'Personally,' Briana said, following the girl's gaze, 'they give me the shudders. But it annoys the emperor.' They were standing with Captain Howlish behind the port bulwark, while Guild mariners worked around them, preparing the damaged warship for dock. The broken rudder made progress slow. 'And annoying the emperor is one of life's little pleasures,' she added.

'We had Drowned off the coast in Evensraum,' Ianthe said, 'until Hu caught them all in nets. He tried using their corpses to fertilize the land, but it just poisoned everything. So he burned them instead.'

'What a lovely image,' Briana remarked.

Howlish grinned. 'Hu once offered the Guild a thousand hectares of Anean farmland for a single hectare in Awl,' he said to Ianthe. 'And the Guild refused him.'

Ianthe gazed at the island in wonder. Her new lenses made the scene seem all the more magical. Her heart felt full to bursting with the thrill of viewing all this beauty first-hand. The Irillian mountains rose up into the morning sky, crisp tiers of faintly blue and lavender rock with numerous white streams and waterfalls that fell thousands of feet into mist. Tails of green forest rooted the lower slopes to the foothills below, while the highest peaks wore paper hats of snow. Port Awl sprawled over a steep ridge above the water's edge, overlooking a rocky bay between two heavily wooded peninsulas. Stone buildings clung to the hillside, one above the other, in a pleasant jumble of yellow cubes. Six men-o'-war lay tied up at the main jetty, four with red dragon-scale hulls and two with green; their serpent figureheads glinted in the sunshine. Dock hands threw ropes across to the Herald Herald and began to winch the warship closer to the wharf. and began to winch the warship closer to the wharf.

'You grow flowers here!' Ianthe exclaimed. She had spotted flower sellers at the town end of the dock, their stalls bursting with every imaginable colour of bloom. 'We never had the land for it in Evensraum. Even after we had our own garden, we used every corner for growing food. You have to, or the servants talk.'

Briana frowned. 'Why not just beat the servants?'

Ianthe felt her face redden.

Moments later the gangplank came down with a clunk, and Ianthe followed the Haurstaf witch and the captain off the ship. Briana Marks looked especially pretty in her flowing white gown and ruby necklace; the weariness just evaporated from her as she stepped onto the stone wharf. 'Hand Maskelyne and his men over to the port constable,' Briana said to Howlish. 'He can do what he likes with the men, but I want Maskelyne brought to the palace.'

'What about his wife and child, ma'am?'

'Put them up at the Nuwega,' Briana replied. 'Guests of the Guild.'

The captain nodded.

'A cheap room.'

'Very good, ma'am.'

The rising sweep of Port Awl's main street reminded Ianthe of Port Va.s.sar in Evensraum. Here were the same bakers, grocers, fishmongers, weavers and oil sellers. Other shops sold books, gem lanterns, jewellery, paintings, pottery, medicines and even Unmer trove. The Hotel Nuwega occupied a position midway up the hill, its grand facades and clock tower overlooking the harbour. Ianthe counted six taverns, each with tables and benches outside, where people drank and smoked and chatted. A number of young women in Guild robes sat amidst the locals. As they pa.s.sed them by, Ianthe drew curious glances.

'They're wondering why you're wearing Unmer spectacles,' Briana said.

Ianthe lowered her head.

Briana sighed. 'You should really let me take a look at them,' she added. 'G.o.d knows what sort of damage they could be doing to your mind.'

'There's nothing sorcerous about them,' Ianthe said.

'Then why wear them?'

She shrugged. 'They help me see better.'

The Haurstaf witch looked at her strangely but said nothing more about it. They walked to the top of the hill and into a leafy plaza where Briana said the morning farmers' market was held. Birds chattered and hopped across the cobbles. On the northern edge of the square a low stone rampart offered views out across the interior of the island. Between the town ridge and the Irillian mountains lay a broad patchwork of green and yellow fields bisected by a looping river. A warm breeze coming up from the valley carried with it the scent of cut hay.

In the shade of a nearby tree stood four open carriages, their glossy black cabs resting on dragon-bone springs. Four men, evidently their drivers, played dice on a stone bench nearby. As soon as they saw Briana, one of them abandoned his game and hurried over.

'Guild Palace, ma'am?' He opened the door, unfolded a set of steps from the undercarriage and then waited until the two women had taken their seats. Then he grabbed the horses' reins and took his own position in the front of the carriage.

Tackle clinking, they set off at a leisurely clop, down the shady side of the ridge. Here Port Awl's houses overlooked the farmland to the north and the shining mountain peaks. The streets were cooler and rang with the sound of blacksmiths and gunsmiths at work. Ianthe peered through doorways to see coal-blackened muscles and forges and anvils, racks of carbine rifles and hand-cannons.

Late morning found the carriage clattering across a stone bridge over the River Irya, which Briana explained was merely an ancient word for water. Farmsteads dotted the landscape on either side of the waters. Sparrows darted among hedgerows of rosehip and s...o...b..rries. Sheep and cattle grazed in green pastures, raising their heads to watch the travellers pa.s.s.

'What breed are those?' Ianthe asked, pointing to a herd of black cows.

Briana snorted. 'How should I know? I'm not a farmer.'

Ianthe asked nothing more about her surroundings, but she continued to drink it all in: the fields of barley and whittle-gra.s.s, the furrowed black earth bursting with every type of produce, the quince, plum and apple orchards, the clumps of gnarled old oak and elm. In one field men and women in wide-brimmed straw hats loaded golden hayricks onto a cart. Fishermen sat on the banks of the Irya. Bees buzzed across meadow-flowers. This land was a hundred times richer than Evensraum. She wanted to get out of the carriage and take off her boots and splash through the rushing river, but that would not have been seemly.

They stopped to water the horses at a roadside tavern. Ianthe stretched her legs in the field behind the stables, returning to the carriage to find that Briana had bought a basket of bread, cheese, apples and a bottle of honey-coloured wine. They ate their lunch and drank wine from clay cups by the side of the road with the sun on their faces and the sound of birdsong in the surrounding hedgerows.

'Do you have other girls from Evensraum?' she asked the witch.

'We had a girl from Whiterock Bay,' Briana replied. 'A frightful peasant. That would have been back in thirty-nine.'

'Is she a Guild psychic now?'

'Didn't complete the training.'

'Why not?'

Briana shook her head. 'I don't recall.'

'So where is she now?'

Briana stuffed the remains of their lunch into the basket. 'Why do you ask so many pointless questions?' she said. 'Come on, I want to get there before dark. There are wolves in those hills, you know.'

'We had wolves in-'

'In Evensraum, yes. Really, Ianthe, you have to stop wittering on about that muddy little island.'

Ianthe hung her head. 'I'm sorry.'

Briana laid a hand on her shoulder. 'It's not your fault, dear. As the Haurstaf like to say: It takes time for the dirt to fall from one's boots.' She smiled. 'I only have to look back four or five generations to find parts of my family that came from relatively humble stock.'

'They were farmers, too?'

'Tax collectors.'

Late in the afternoon the road began to climb into the Irillian foothills. It wound its way up through forests of thousand-year-old oaks, their great boughs forming cathedral-like s.p.a.ces in the green gloom and their roots smothered by leafy hummocks. Mossy stones marked the trail, and here and there shafts of light picked out the tumbledown remains of cottages set back from the trail. Birds whistled and insects buzzed, and once Ianthe thought she heard the rustle of a larger animal moving through the undergrowth. A deer perhaps? She noticed that the carriage driver had a pistol on his lap, but the horses seemed calm enough, so she didn't mention it.

Shortly afterwards, they encountered their first checkpoint. Two soldiers in blue uniforms manned a barrier beside the road. A section of forest had been cut back, leaving a wide perimeter around a central concrete bunker. Spirals of razor-wire encircled the encampment. Smoke rose from one corner where six more men sat around an open fire. Each of them carried a carbine rifle slung over his shoulder. One of the two barrier guards raised a hand to stop the carriage but then waved them on when he spotted Briana.

'All quiet, Captain?' the witch asked.

'Nothing but birdsong, ma'am,' the man replied.

The military presence became more frequent after that. In places, acres of woodland had been burned to stubble to accommodate larger camps where hundreds of soldiers milled around gun emplacements and paced perimeters and trained in muddy meadows between the concrete buildings. Razor-wire enveloped everything. Great cannon batteries pointed at the skies. The sound of small-arms fire became more frequent.

Ianthe flinched as yet more gunfire crackled nearby. 'Are they training?' she asked.

'News of our arrival precedes us,' Briana said. 'Most of these units have telepaths attached.'

'They're Guild soldiers?'

'The finest war machine in the empire.'

'I thought the emperor's Samarol were the finest?'

Briana just snorted. 'I once saw one brought down by an unarmed man,' she said. 'How good can they be?'

At last, with the long light of evening sloping through the trees, they pa.s.sed through a final checkpoint in the gates of a ma.s.sive stone wall, where soldiers winched up an iron grate to allow the carriage to pa.s.s. Ahead of them lay the Guild Palace of Awl. The Irillian mountains framed tiers of dark, pyrite-veined towers that soared skywards, their windows ablaze in the last rays of sun. Flags of white and gold hung from a score of poles set into the barbican, while pots of meadow-flowers adorned the promenade before the walls. On all sides, paths and steps led off into the cool shade of the forest behind. Ianthe spied a gazebo down beside a brook, where a group of eight girls in white robes sat listening to an older woman. Other Haurstaf strolled among the trees, enjoying an evening that seemed infused with the aura of summer itself.

Four carts waited on the flagged promenade before the main palace gate, while their drivers reclined on a gra.s.sy bank nearby. Ianthe's own carriage drew up beside the others, whereupon their driver opened the door and folded down the steps.

'What do you think?' Briana asked.

Ianthe smiled, thankful that her lenses hid her tears.

The palace interior was cool and quiet, with grand halls and cascades of dark marble stairs and airy corridors leading in every direction. Guild psychics pa.s.sed by, their white robes whispering on the mirror-black floors. Briana led Ianthe along a corridor in one wing and pushed open a set of double doors.

They had reached an enormous library, where hundreds of girls sat at desks, reading books. The faintly musty scent of paper and old leather bindings lingered in the air. Heads turned to face Ianthe. A murmur pa.s.sed through the room. Someone giggled.

'Sister Ulla,' Briana said.

An old woman came over, her arms full of books. She was no larger than a child and wore her hair in a grey knuckle behind her head. Her face had the texture of a rotten log, and her restless little eyes looked like they had burrowed in there to escape predators. She glared at Ianthe with open hostility, then opened her mouth to speak.