by Anthony Ryan
She turned her gaze on the next drawing, finding it similarly accomplished, though the device now bore its modern title of “Thermoplasmic Locomotive Engine” and featured several additions and refinements to the original design. This one was dated 12/05/112 and its neighbour, an equally impressive depiction of the machine’s final incarnation, bore the date 26/07/112. Two days before the patent was issued, she recalled, her gaze fixing in turn on the same point on each drawing, the top right corner where a small monogram had been etched in the same unmistakable hand: DL.
“So, what do you think?”
She turned from the dresser finding Mr. Redsel sitting upright and fully awake. A dim glow filled the cabin as he reached for the oil-lamp fixed into the wall above the bed. He wore the fond expression of a man embarking on an intimate adventure, the face of the newly enraptured. So perfect, she thought again, not without a note of regret.
“I’m afraid, sir,” she said, lifting her bodice and extracting the single vial of product hidden amidst its lacework, “we have other matters to discuss.”
She detected a soft metallic snick and his hand emerged from the bed-sheets clutching a small revolver. She recognised the make as he trained it on her forehead: a Tulsome .21 six-chamber, known commonly as the gambler’s salt-shaker for the multiple cylinder barrel’s resemblance to a condiment holder and its widespread adoption by the professional card-playing fraternity. Small of calibre but unfailingly reliable and deadly when employed with expert aim.
Her reaction to the appearance of the pistol amounted to a slightly raised eyebrow whilst her thumb simultaneously removed the glass stopper from the vial as she raised it to her lips. It was her emergency vial, a blend from one of the more secret corners of the Ironship laboratory. Effective blending of different product types was an art beyond most harvesters, facilitated only by the most patient and exacting manipulation of product at the molecular level and the careful application of various synthetic binding agents. Such precision required the most powerful magnascopes, another invention for which the world owed a debt to her family.
“Don’t!” he warned, rising from the bed, both hands on the pistol now, the six barrels steady and a stern resolve to his voice and gaze. “I’ve no wish to . . .”
She drank the vial and he squeezed the trigger a split-second later, the revolver issuing the dry click of a hammer finding an empty chamber. He sprang from the bed after only the barest hesitation, reversing his grip on the revolver and drawing it back to aim a blow at her temple. The contents of the vial left a bitter and complex sting on her tongue before burning its way through her system in a familiar rush of sensation. Seventy percent Green, twenty percent Black and ten percent Red. She summoned the Green and her arm came up in a blur, hand catching his wrist an inch short of her temple, the grip tight but not enough to mark his flesh nor crush his bones. Any suspicious bruising might arouse questions later.
She summoned the Black as he drew his free arm back for a punch, a death-blow judging from the configuration of his knuckles. He shuddered as she unleashed the Black and froze him in place, jaw clenched as he made a vain effort to fight her grip, his tongue forming either curses or pleas behind clamped teeth. She pushed him back a few feet, still maintaining her grip, keeping him suspended above the bed. The Black was diminishing fast and she had only moments.
“Who is your contact in Carvenport?” she asked, loosening her grip just enough to free his mouth.
“You . . .” he choked, gulping breath, “. . . are making . . . a mistake.”
“On the contrary, sir,” she replied, going to the dresser and reaching for the small leather satchel concealed behind it. She undid the straps and revealed the row of four vials inside. “It was your mistake not to hide these with sufficient rigour. It took barely moments to discover them when I searched your cabin yesterday, and only a few moments more to find your salt-shaker.” She angled her head in critical examination, using the Black to turn his naked form about. No trace of the Sign. Not even on the soles of his feet.
“You’re not Cadre,” she said. “A hireling. The Corvantine Empire sent an unregistered Blood-blessed after me. The Emperor’s agents are not usually so injudicious. I must confess, sir, to a certain sense of personal insult. What is your usual prey, I wonder? Wealthy widows and empty-headed heiresses?”
“I was . . . not sent to . . . kill you.”
“Of that I have no doubt, Mr. Redsel. After our shared, and no doubt continued intimacy in Carvenport, you would have provided your employers with enough intelligence to justify your fee a dozen times over.”
His features betrayed a certain resignation then, and she felt a flicker of admiration for his evident resolve to beg no more. Instead he asked a question, “How . . . did I reveal . . . myself?”
“I liked you too much.” She forced the admiration down, tightening her grip once more. “Hireling or not, you and I share a profession and I have no great desire to see you suffer. So I will ask again and strongly advise you to answer: who is your contact in Carvenport?”
Much of his face was frozen now and only his lips could convey any emotion as they formed the reply around a snarl, “They were to . . . find me . . . I was given . . . no name.”
“Recognition code.”
“Truelove.”
Despite the circumstances she couldn’t contain a snort of amusement. “How very apposite.” She could feel the Black ebbing now, the fiery burn intensifying as it dwindled in her blood-stream. “Oh, and if it matters,” she said, nodding at the drawings. “They’re fake. My grandfather only ever used the Mandinorian Calendar. Besides which his hands were crippled by arthritis for the latter half of his life, something he concealed due to pride and vanity.”
His lips morphed into something that might have been a smile, or another snarl, just as she stopped his heart with the last of the Black. He jerked in mid air before collapsing onto the bed, finely honed body limp and void of life.
—
The First Mate came to her at breakfast, formal and respectful as he conveyed the sad news of Mr. Redsel’s passing. “How terrible!” she exclaimed, putting aside her toast and reaching for a restorative sip of tea. “A seizure of the heart, you say?”
“According to the ship’s doctor, miss. Unusual in a man of his age but, apparently, not unprecedented.” A crew member had seen them conversing at the prow and the First Mate was obliged to ask a few questions. As expected he proved a less-than-rigorous investigator; once she professed her ignorance of Mr. Redsel’s unfortunate and untimely passing no Syndicate employee of any intelligence would press a Shareholder for additional information.
After the officer had taken his leave she continued to breakfast, though her appetite was soon soured by an outbreak of hysterics at a near by table as news of Mr. Redsel’s demise spread. Mrs. Jackmore, a buxom woman of perhaps forty years’ age, convulsed in abject misery as her white-faced husband, a Regional Manager of notably more advanced years, looked on in frozen silence. Mrs. Jackmore’s maid eventually hustled her from the dining room, her cries continuing unabated. The other passengers strove to conceal embarrassment or amusement as Mr. Jackmore completed his meal, chomping his way through bacon, eggs and no less than two rounds of toast with stoic determination.
Couldn’t resist some additional practice, eh? she asked the spectre of Mr. Redsel as she rose from the table, leaving her breakfast unfinished. I did wonder if I’d have cause to rue my action. Now I believe it can safely be filed under Necessary Regrets.
She went to her cabin to retrieve the drawings then made her way to the prow once more. The tempo of the paddles had tripled now they were in the Strait proper, the Blood-blessed in the engine room no doubt having drunk and expended at least two full vials of Red to power the engines to maximum speed. This was her third trip through the Strait and each time she had been discomforted by the sight of the waters; the general absence o
f waves seemed strange so far from land and the constant swirl and eddy of the currents held a sense of the uncanny. It seemed to her a visual echo of whatever great force of nature had torn so great a channel through the Barrier Isles some two centuries before.
She held up the drawings for a final inspection. It seemed a shame, they being so well crafted. But Mr. Redsel may have left traces in his efforts to build an identity and, forgeries or not, the rumour of the drawings’ mere existence would invariably attract best-avoided attention. She could have left them in his cabin but that would have raised further questions regarding their remarkably coincidental presence on the same vessel carrying the granddaughter of their apparent author. She lit a match and held it to the corner of each drawing, letting the flame consume two-thirds of their mass before gifting them to the sea.
I didn’t tell you the forger’s gravest error, did I, Mr. Redsel? she asked, watching the blackened embers fall into the ship’s wake to be carried into the churning foam beneath the paddles. Although he could never have known it. You see it was my father who designed the great knicky-knack when he was barely fifteen years of age, only to see it stolen by my grandfather. My father is the author of this wondrous age, a man of singular genius and vision who can barely afford ink for his blueprints.
She allowed her thoughts to touch briefly on the last meeting with her father. It had been the day before she took ship in Feros and she found him in his workshop surrounded by various novelties, hands slick with grease and spectacles perched on his nose. It had ever been a source of wonder to her how his spectacles managed to stay on so precarious a perch; he moved with such restless energy it seemed impossible, and yet in all her years she had never once seen them come adrift. She was fond of the memory, regardless of the words that passed between them. You work for a pack of thieves, he had said, barely glancing up from his tinkering. They stole your birthright.
Really, Father? she had responded. I always thought Grandfather got there first.
Over the succeeding weeks she had become increasingly uncomfortable with the hurt she had seen cloud his face at that moment. It summoned another memory, the day of the Blood-lot when the harvester’s pipette left a small bead of product on her hand but, unlike the other children sniffling or bawling around her, produced no instant burn or blackened scab. She had never seen him sad before and wondered why he didn’t smile as she held up her hand, unmarked but for the patch of milk-white skin on her palm. Look Father, it didn’t hurt. Look, look!
Pushing the memory away she turned her attention to the sea once more. The Strait narrowed to the south and she could see the small green specks of the Barrier Isles cresting the horizon, meaning Carvenport now lay less than two days’ distant. Carvenport, she thought, a wry smile coming to her lips. Where I shall find Truelove.
CHAPTER 2
Clay
Cralmoor’s fist slammed into Clay’s side with enough force to make him stagger, grunting in frustration as the bigger man dodged his sluggish counter-jab and delivered a straight-line kick at his chest. Clay managed to block the kick with crossed forearms but the force of it sent him backpedaling into the crowd. For a few moments the world became a jostling fury of jeers, insults, booze-laden spit and more than a few punches. He had to fight his way clear, fists and elbows snapping aside the drunken faces before he made it back into the chalk-ringed circle where Cralmoor waited. The Islander stood with his hands on his hips, tattoo-covered chest barely swelling and bright wall of teeth revealed by a knowing grin. Street-scrapper don’t make a fighter, lad, the grin said. Swimming in deep waters now.
Clay kept his own answering grin from his lips, worried it might reveal a suspicious confidence, and launched into a series of well-practised moves. Tratter called it the Markeva Combination, a sequence of kicks and punches laid down by the ancient and most celebrated practitioner of the Dalcian martial arts. It had taken a month to learn the sequence, Clay sweating through the moves under Tratter’s expert and unforgiving eye until he pronounced him as ready as he would ever be. “Do it right, y’might actually come outta this with some credit,” the old trainer had said with an approving wink.
“I’m paying you to help me win this thing,” Clay had replied. The memory of the old man’s prolonged laughter came back to him now as Cralmoor blocked every blow with fluid ease and delivered a short jab to Clay’s right eye whereupon he blinked a few times before falling over. He was dimly aware of the bell sounding just before he hit the floor, and the feel of Derk’s arms clamped across his chest as he was dragged to the stool, bare heels scraping sand from the floor. He returned to full awareness when Derk emptied half the water-bucket over his head.
“I believe we have arrived at the appropriate moment,” Derk said, reaching into the bag holding their two canteens, one with a plain cap, the other marked with a scratched cross.
Clay shook his head, liquid flying from his shaved scalp. “One more round.”
“You don’t have another round in you.”
“Too soon,” Clay insisted, wincing as Derk pressed a cloth against the open cut below his eye. “Only the third bell. Keyvine’ll know. Shit, Keyvine’s mother would know.”
He saw Derk’s involuntary glance at the raised platform at the rear of the cavernous drinking den. It was Fight Night every Venasday in the Colonials Rest and its owner never missed a bout. Keyvine sat alone on the platform, a small lamp and a bottle of wine on the table at his side. A slim, unmoving silhouette lit only by the gleam of the silver drake’s head that topped the cane resting on his knees. Not a guard nor a weapon within arm’s reach, Clay thought, a long-gestated jealousy building inside. But still the King of Blades and Whores.
The jealousy proved useful, stoking his anger and muting his pain. He gulped water from the white-capped bottle and got to his feet a good few beats before the bell sounded. Fuck Markeva, he thought, raising his fists as Cralmoor strolled towards him. And fuck Tratter too.
There were rules to this game, no biting, gouging or ball-stomping, but otherwise the participants were free to inflict whatever carnage they could on one another without benefit of weapons. However, Clay had always had a facility for turning words into weapons and knew how deeply they could cut, or at least distract.
“I get a go on your wife when I win, right?” he asked Cralmoor in a conversational tone, dodging another jab at his eye by the barest inch. “Or is it your husband?”
“Got both,” the Islander replied in a cheerful tone, blocking a left hook and delivering another painful dig into Clay’s ribs. “Doubt you could take either.” He stepped outside the arc of Clay’s upper-cut and slapped the arm aside before lashing out with another kick, a round-house to the head, blocked more through luck than design. “No offence.”
“Right, I forgot,” Clay said in mock realisation, delivering another fruitless three-punch combination at Cralmoor’s head. “Your spirits make you stick your cock in anything with a pulse.” He grinned at the sudden darkness to the Islander’s expression. Mention of the spirits from a non-believing mouth was always certain to rile them up something fierce.
“Careful, boy,” Cralmoor warned, his stance becoming tighter, gaze more focused. “Been easy on you so far. Mr. Keyvine owes a debt to Braddon.”
Clay’s own temper began to quicken, an inevitable reaction to hearing mention of his uncle. “Yeah? The spirits make you bare your ass to him too . . . ?”
Cralmoor crouched and charged, too fast to dodge, driving his shoulder into Clay’s midriff as his arms reached around to vice him around the waist. Clay hammered at the bigger man’s head and back in the brief few seconds before he was lifted off his feet and borne to the floor. All the wind came out of him as the Islander’s crushing weight bore down, his forehead slamming once into Clay’s nose before he drew back, rearing up with fists raised to pummel, apparently oblivious to his mistake.
This was what Clay knew, not the ring or the long-p
ractised moves. This was now a gutter fight, and who knew the gutter better than he?
He twisted beneath the Islander, swinging his right leg around to hook Cralmoor under the left armpit, jerking with enough force to push him onto his side. Clay moved with a feral speed, scrambling atop Cralmoor and slapping an open hand against his ear, a blow he knew always worked well as a stunner. Cralmoor gave an involuntary shout, eyes bunching as he fought the sudden blast of pain in his ear, buying the two seconds needed for Clay to pin him, both knees on his shoulders. His punches rained down in a frenzy, leather-bound knuckles flaring with agony as the Islander’s head jerked under the impact, a cheek-bone giving way with a loud crack.
Clay left off when his arms started to ache, clamping a hand under Cralmoor’s chin and drawing back for a final blow. Who needs the other canteen . . .
Cralmoor’s kick slammed into the back of his head, birthing a sudden blaze of sparkling stars. By the time they faded he was on his back once more, the Islander’s knee pressing on his neck as he stared down with a grim and murderous glint in his eye. When the bell sounded he kept on, bearing down with greater force. He left off only when another sound cut through the din: a thin rhythmic tinkle of metal on glass.
Clay rasped air into his lungs as Cralmoor rose from him, turning to Keyvine’s shadowed platform. The King of Blades and Whores was tapping the silver drake’s head of his cane against his wine bottle with a steady but insistent cadence. Cralmoor took a deep breath and gave Clay a final glance, bloody and distorted face full of dire promise, before stalking back to his stool. The tapping ceased when he sat down.
