The Mark of Ran

by Paul Kearney

  “All of these folk have tales like it to tell,” the halftroll went on relentlessly. “This is the continent of Bion we are on now, not the Seven Isles, or the Mamertines. Man took his first steps here, on Bion, and it’s said by some he will limp his last here also.”

  “In the wide world, when one thinks of Bion, it conjures up a picture of the old empire, of fabled armies and glorious battles,” Rol said. “I had no idea the Bionari were still like this.”

  “When they find the time,” Gallico grunted. He nudged Creed. “Hi, master convict, don’t be too free with the wine just yet. The night is young.”

  Creed wiped his lips. He had not uttered a word since entering the city. “Elias,” Rol said. “You’re all right?”

  Creed nodded, but his eyes were suspiciously bright. “I’ve not drunk Auxierran in over eleven years. I have found my way to the only place in the world where I am free of looking over my shoulder for the overseer’s whip. This night I will drink whatever I can hold.” But he did not sound like a man intent on celebrating; more like one trying to forget.

  Miriam came elbowing through the throng with her musket held over her head. Beside her was a black barrel-shaped man in salt-stained leather with the rolling walk of one lately come off the sea. The crowd made way for the pair, calling out ribald greetings. They halted in front of Rol.

  Miriam’s companion stared at him frankly. He had a face dark as wet rawhide, a wide nose and full, folded lips, but his eyes were an icy blue that seemed to take light from the fire and hold it writhing in the pupils. With a start, Rol realized that this man had the Blood in him. His eyes reminded him of Rowen’s—there was a cold implacability about them.

  “I am Artimion. Gallico, let us go elsewhere,” the man said, his gaze not unlocking Rol’s for a second. “There are things to say that cannot be said here.” One hand rested on a curved short-sword at his belt, the fingers thick as sausage.

  “Bring your friends.”

  Artimion had a room farther down inside the hollowed-out cliffs that butted onto the bay. It had a wide window, glassless, but otherwise perfect in the sculpted stonework of its construction. It might have been set in place just that morning. A fire burned in an equally wide hearth, logs hewn out of Ganesh’s illimitable forests. For furniture there was a table upon which olive oil lamps burned, and a series of three-legged stools. A sea-cloak unfurled upon a pile of heather and brush served as a bed and a cross-staff was propped up in one corner. The moon was high and white and cast a silver-speckled track across the bay beyond the window. Rol stared at it, at the almost unbroken barrier of the sea cliffs in their caldera. He could smell sea salt in the wind. It seemed like a breath from another world. Here, at least, he could feel the sea air on his face.

  “A fine view, fit for a prince,” he said.

  Artimion did not reply. He had set a series of clay mugs on the table and was pouring wine into them. Alongside stood a fine goblet of beautifully chased silver. This he gave to Gallico, though the thing looked far too fragile to be gripped in the halftroll’s vast taloned fist. Gallico lowered himself cross-legged on the floor but did not touch his wine. Creed sat staring owlishly into the fire and Miriam remained standing by the door, leaning on the muzzle of her musket. Rol moved away from the window. For some reason he felt as though there was danger in the room, and his hand dropped automatically to Fleam’s cold hilt.

  “Drink with me,” Artimion said, and held out two clay mugs brimming dark.

  They drank together, their eyes never leaving one another’s face. Rol knew that this man was the ruler of Ganesh Ka, as surely as Canker had ruled Ascari.

  “I knew Mathuw Creed,” Artimion said casually, not looking at Elias. “He was a wastrel, a whoremonger, and a liar. He cheated at dice, and stole other men’s women. He reveled in cheap finery and could not hold his drink.” As Elias raised his head, blood filling his face, Artimion smiled at him. “He was my friend. As his son, you are most welcome here. I drink to his memory.” And he did so. After a confused moment, Elias did likewise. The wine trickled incontinently over the black and gray of his brindled beard.

  “And now you,” Artimion said, his eyes sharpening their cold light. He smiled again, this time with no trace of humor. “You with the Blood staring out of your eyes. What in the world am I to make of you?”

  “Artimion—” Gallico began.

  “Hush, Gallico. I must make up my own mind here. I have no doubt this man is your friend, that he has behaved admirably, that he is a true companion. But he is here in our home with some cloud hanging over his head. I know it as sure as I stand here. Of the five of us in this room, three have the Blood in them, but in this fellow it runs perilously close to true. I can smell it.”

  Miriam blew casually over the muzzle of her musket, a hoarse mote of sound. Rol relaxed, hands hanging wide of his sides. He began to breathe deeply, listening to Fleam’s hungry voice. Automatically, his mind mapped out the position of everything in the room. There was almost a joy in it.

  “You have been trained,” Artimion said. “By whom, I wonder?”

  “I am a mariner,” Rol told him. “Like you.” Why this feeling of danger, the creeping closeness of the walls closing in on him—too many people around, the fire too bright? He began to sweat.

  Artimion nodded. He set down his wine. “Everyone who comes to Ganesh Ka has left something behind or is fleeing something—it is hard to tell one from the other at times. There is no shame in it. But you, Rol Cortishane, have brought with you that which you are trying to leave behind.”

  “And what might it be?”

  “The blood in your veins, for one. You are not to be blamed for that—many with the Old World in their flesh wish to ignore it, or even cut it out in some kind of exorcism or other. But the thing is, I have been talking to a man, a man with a feather in his hat, and he has offered me a huge amount of money—a ransom in ryals—if I will but bring him news of a young man named Rol with the Blood bright and strong in him, trailing a past as dark as his shadow. This man was named Canker, and he is the right hand of she who would set herself up as queen of all Bionar. I see that name is known to you and that you are the Rol he named.”

  Fleam slid out of her scabbard with the scrape of ice on wood. There was a light in her that gleamed pale and yet illuminated nothing. The blade hissed like a cat.

  The lock on Miriam’s musket snicked back with a well-oiled click in reply. The long barrel pointed now directly at Rol’s heart.

  Gallico stood up, the silver goblet clinking to one side. “What in the hell is this?” Creed sprang to his feet beside the halftroll and drew his cutlass, swaying. Artimion ignored them both.

  “How do you know Canker?” Rol asked, to gain time and because he was genuinely curious.

  “We were in the Guild of Thieves together at one time, upon Corso. Yes, I was a Featherman in my youth, before I found the sea.”

  “In our youth we all do things we regret later.”

  Artimion laughed, an odd, snapping sound. “By God’s breath, you are right there. And I am no longer a youth.” Now he deliberately took up his cup and drank deeply from it. “I am not a betrayer either. Put up your sword, Rol Cortishane. Drink with me again and fear nothing. You are safe here—from us at least.” He jerked his head. “Miriam, put down that damned contraption before somebody gets hurt.”

  Rol stood irresolute for a second—Fleam quivering and eager in his fist—and then he looked at Gallico and Creed, and sheathed the hungry edge of the sword. “I still do not understand,” he said, not touching the wine.

  “Mine enemy’s enemy is my friend, it is said. I have been making contacts with the rebels on this last trip, and Ran knows I was startled enough to find that my old cellmate Canker is now chamberlain to the woman who may well win Bionar for herself. I have made an alliance with them—why should I not? But the king’s forces have got wind of it, and now there are warships gathering on the shores of Ganesh.” Artimion’s face grew sober.
“I have backed the winning side, I am sure of that, but the winning side are up in the mountains and midlands of Bionar. The losers are out there in the Reach in their floating argosies, and are hungry for blood.”

  Despite his claims, Rol knew that Artimion was not done choosing sides yet. The black man’s face was smiling, but something about it spoke of hidden decisions. Deliberately, he sipped at the wine in his cup. Miriam had set down her musket but had her long fingers about the hilt of a throwing knife at her waist. Rol smiled. If there was one thing he knew well, it was the way of a throwing knife.

  And if Canker wanted news of him, then it was because Rowen had bade him seek it.

  “Fair enough. But what, then, is my place in the game?” Rol asked equably. “If you will not give me up for this king’s ransom, then you must have something else in mind for me.”

  Artimion looked at him quizzically. “I suppose I do. I am offering you the chance to stay here and be a captain. You will help these people around you—you will safeguard Ganesh Ka as I have done these twenty years. Cortishane, you are welcome here.” He smiled again, with no whit of warmth in the gesture. “Is that so hard to understand?”

  Of course it was. Who gave away anything without asking something in return—especially someone in power? But Rol nodded nonetheless.

  “Excellent. I accept.”

  Twenty

  THE REVENANT

  I AM LIVING IN A TOWER ONCE MORE, ROL THOUGHT. IT must be my fate.

  There was room and to spare in the city for all, and Rol had chosen his living quarters quite deliberately. They were close to the harbor tunnel but high enough up one of Ganesh Ka’s strange towers to ensure that few would ever feel the need to walk past his door.

  Not that he had a door. Grand though the apartments might be in a skeletal, resonating way, they were wholly bare. A flap of deerhide closed his rooms off from the dark passage beyond, whilst a bolster stuffed with heather was his bed. On the mantel of the vast hearth a clay lamp burned smokily, flapping shadows about the naked stone of the walls. There were no other furnishings as yet. Creed had a room one level down but Gallico lived somewhere close to the wharves of the underground waterfront.

  “There’s a communal firewood pile near the foot of the next tower,” Creed said, entering with an armload of faggots. “But we can only light fires at night lest the smoke be seen by the Bionese cruisers. It’s coming on to summer anyway.” He dumped his load by the cavernous fireplace and looked about him. “I still think somewhere lower down by Gallico’s rooms would have been better. This place echoes like some lofty tomb.”

  “It’s too busy down there, like struggling through a goddamned bazaar,” Rol said irritably, hauling off his boots one by one.

  “Anyone would think you were avoiding the common herd, Cortishane,” Creed said, eyes dancing.

  “I do my best, but they follow me with piles of firewood.”

  “Ah, but we all help out one another here, don’t you know? Some are hunters, others are choppers of wood and haulers of water, whilst at the top of the tree are the mariners, who bring in the little luxuries that make life worth living.”

  “Is it what you thought it would be, Elias?”

  Creed picked at the bark on a beech log. “I suppose not. But it’s better than Keutta.”

  “It seems to me that our friend Artimion’s word is the law about here, and what’s more, he begins to fancy himself a power in the world. He’s mistaken there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “If I know anything, then—then this rebel queen is only using him as a means to distract her enemies. And how big a distraction can it be? A few lightly gunned privateers who cannot even hope to take on men-of-war in their own backyard. No, Artimion is setting these people up for a fall, Elias.”

  Creed stared at him, frowning. “Perhaps he thinks to bargain.”

  “I believe he does.”

  “With what?”

  Rol smiled dourly. “My precious hide. The rebels want it, Artimion has it.”

  “You think he would do that?”

  “Never trust anyone who has responsibilities beyond his own skin. Anything can be rationalized when it is for the general weal.”

  “He said he’d find you a ship.”

  “My grandfather once promised me a pony. I believed him, but I was a child then.”

  Creed threw his hands up. “So what do we do?”

  “We? Elias, we have come to your journey’s end. I don’t claim any loyalty from you or anyone else.”

  “You have it nonetheless.”

  “And if I don’t want it?”

  Creed’s reply was cut short by a clatter in the passageway, and then ducking in through the doorway and throwing aside the flap came Gallico.

  “By God, you hide yourself well, Cortishane. Are you allergic to company?” The halftroll had a large seabag of weathered canvas in his arms. He dumped it on the floor and flexed his scarred arms.

  “What’s this?”

  “Shipmates must stick together. I’m moving house, taking the rooms opposite Elias.”

  Rol stood up. “What is this, a conspiracy? Damn it all, Gallico, if I wanted neighbors I’d have taken a cubbyhole alongside that carnival downstairs. And since when have we been shipmates?”

  “I speak metaphorically. I, like you, am without a ship for the moment, and I pick my captains carefully.” He lowered his voice. “Artimion is a good man, but he has many concerns above the heads of the likes of us. I would feel better if Elias and I messed below—that way anyone coming to see you must first get past us.”

  Rol held the halftroll’s gaze steadily. “Very well, then. It seems I am to be burdened with the pair of you. We’ll get settled in later.” He bent and began pulling on his boots once more. “Gallico, take us to this much-lauded harbor of yours. I want to see what floats there.”

  “Precious little at the moment.”

  “Nonetheless. Somehow or other, I intend to find us a ship.”

  The stone of the sea cliffs had been hollowed out into nothing less than a warren, though one constructed on a vast scale. A series of ramps led down a gentle incline into the gutrock, the roadway as smooth as a dinner table. They passed a stream of people coming and going, some pushing handcarts laden with timber, others rolling empty casks downhill with a rattling thunder that jabbed at the temples. Rol saw a gang of sweating, cursing men easing a light culverin on its carriage down the slope, and Gallico stepped in to give them a hand as it threatened to slip free of its tackle.

  The tunnels opened out into an incredible space, a cavern so large it had its own air currents. Light came in from a series of sea gates, enormous arches cut out of the stone on the far side, each tall enough to admit a fully rigged ship. Long moles of stone extended out into the waters within the place, and tied up at these were half a dozen vessels of various rigs. These moles and the wharves they ran out from were piled high with all manner of cargoes, and crammed with men and women loading and off-loading, provisioning, hauling on dockside cranes, heaving sacks and barrels and generally creating a picture of chaotic industry.

  Behind the wharves there were dry docks with spring-loaded doors of stone that seemingly still worked. Around these were clustered scores of shantylike huts of wood and hide warmed by a series of high bonfires. There was a heavy smell of smoke, and Rol saw women manhandling long poles upon which fillets of ablaroni hung brown and brittle. Others were stretching deerskins on wooden frames and scraping them clean and yet more were sewing nets and gutting fish. A layer of rubbish covered the perfect stonework of the place. Fish bones, scraps of rope and wood, discarded lengths of rawhide. The whole place was nothing less than a manufactory for the convenience of ships.

  “What’s moored at the moment, Gallico?” Rol asked. “With your head up there you can see better than I.”

  “A few fishing smacks, off-loading. Artimion’s Prosper, a brigantine, and then the Albatross and the Swallow, two big schooner-rigged pinnac
es.”

  “Are there many more at sea?”

  “I know that Jan Timian’s Osprey is still out, and Marveyus Gan’s Skua. A few more I can’t recall.”

  “You burn the ships you capture, do you not?”

  “Mostly, though if they’re handy craft we’ll board a prize crew and bring them in. The average merchantman is too slow for our liking, and draws too great a draft to make it up to the wharves. We never moor vessels outside the ship-cavern; it’s too risky.”

  “So much for the chances of a ship going begging. Let’s walk about, now we’re here. I’ve never seen so many so busy at one time.”

  They made slow progress through the crowds, for everyone knew Gallico and made it their business to wish him good day. The halftroll showed Rol and Creed the magazine, where the store of powder and shot was kept. Rol studied with interest a set of a dozen twelve-pounder sakers beautifully forged in long-barreled bronze, taken from the hold of a Bionese munitions ship. The magazine was guarded by a pair of Miriam’s musket-armed compatriots, the closest Ganesh Ka came to regular soldiers. They greeted Gallico brightly but reserved cold stares for Rol and Creed.

  “Unfriendly fellows,” Rol said as they left.

  “Miriam likes to pick the sober ones for her militia, and there’s a waiting list to get in.”

  “Where did the muskets come from?”

  “Same place as the sakers. Bionar has armed us nicely these last few years, though the city is low on good powder. We tried making our own, but it was poor-grained, unstable stuff. There are ancient lead mines in the hills, though, so we smelt our own shot.”

  They wandered their obstructed way toward the rear of the cavern and the dry docks. In one of these a mastless hulk floated in scum-thick water and rats skipped about her decks. Intrigued, Rol boarded her over a narrow gangplank for a closer look.

  “What is this?”

  “An old Bionese dispatch-ship. She was badly mauled in the taking, some five years ago now—though not so badly as she mauled three of our vessels—and she’s rotted here ever since. We cannibalize her for the wood; she’s built of Kassic teak, black timber that’s hard as iron and as difficult to work; but it lasts forever.”