He commanded his rubbery legs to obey and half-dragged himself up the ladder with a mind toward having a word or three with the boatswain—if the man was any good at his job, he’d hear every rumor and muttering aboard ship—but he had to divert into the ship’s hold to avoid being plowed under by a bounding gang of sailors en route to the turvy sails. Their simian acrobatics made him dizzy, so he slumped down on a crate—one of Isabelle’s two meager trunks, actually—and covered his eyes to make the world stop spinning.
When he opened them again, he saw his face staring back at him, gray and pasty, from the surface of a full-length mirror. The cloth that had been tied over its face had been pushed to the side, bunched up in the ropes that held it in place. He grabbed the edge to pull it back into place so he wouldn’t have to look at himself, but it had been jammed between the rope and the frame with force and would not be casually dislodged.
Grumbling, he leaned in to make a better go of straightening the cloth. Who was down here undressing the cargo in the first place? Not the Aragothic sailors, that was certain. They were very cautious about mirrors and the constant threat of sorcerous meddling they represented.
At last, Jean-Claude’s conscious awareness caught up with what his back brain was trying to tell him. This mirror had no scores or cracks. He did not recognize its frame. And the cover had been pushed aside …
Jean-Claude’s legs arrived at the frightful conclusion an instant before his brain. He bolted into the ladder well. The mirror had been planted in Isabelle’s luggage and a Glasswalker had come through it, and there was only one possible reason for that: Príncipe Julio’s last bride had been assassinated, and now a killer had come for Isabelle.
Jean-Claude launched himself up the ladder, scattering a troop of off-duty marines crowding his path. “Make way. Make way!” He erupted onto the main deck and dashed to the quarterdeck, but Isabelle was gone. Jean-Claude’s heart rattled as if kicked by a frantic rabbit, but he kept a tight hold on its scruff.
He seized a young crewman by the shirt. “¿Dónde está la princesa?”
The young man pointed down. Jean-Claude dropped through the nearest hatch, but that led to a gun deck. She wasn’t in the hold. She couldn’t just vanish! The sound of female voices caught his ear. He followed the sound through a narrow doorway into the keel run, a cramped tunnel of a room that extended most of the length of the ship. The already tight space was very nearly filled by the cylindrical steel-clad shaft of the aetherkeel. Flickers of sickly light, like green lightning, flashed behind glassed-in portholes in the barrel of the beast, and the whole thing throbbed from one end to the other with a buzz like a swarm of locusts trying to find a way out.
Captain Santiago, Keel Master Ordo, Vincent, Isabelle, and two of her ladies, Valérie and Darcy, were crammed into the wedge of space alongside the aetherkeel. Jean-Claude’s heart started beating again at the sight of her.
Santiago curled his mustaches, smiling beatifically, while his keel master held forth on the device itself. “… without it, the ship could do nothing but float helplessly downwind. We would have nothing to push against; we could not tack into the wind.”
“I see.” Isabelle raised her voice to be heard over the machine’s insectlike razz. “It’s very impressive. I … uh. Would it be possible…” Judging by Isabelle’s pasted-on smile, she was having trouble with her tongue again. No time for that now.
“Mon capitaine!” Jean-Claude shouldered past the ladies. “Forgive my intrusion, Highness. Captain Santiago, you have an intruder on board.”
“Intruder?” the captain asked. “A stowaway, you mean?”
“I mean an intruder. There is a mirror in the hold with its cover torn away from the inside. There is, or was, an uninvited Glasswalker somewhere aboard this ship.”
Isabelle frowned. “All of my mirrors are scored, which is a crime in Aragoth, so I didn’t bring them.”
Captain Santiago scowled. “The ship will be searched.” He bobbed his head at Isabelle as he shouldered by. “Highness, excuse me.”
Isabelle turned to Jean-Claude. “Did you smash the mirror?”
Jean-Claude stiffened, mortified by this oversight. “I didn’t think of it.”
Vincent said, “Highness, we must get you to a launch.”
As much as Jean-Claude hated to admit it, that was a good idea—get her off the ship.
“Come!” Vincent said. He took Isabelle by the arm. The whole flock scurried out of the keel run and down the stairs. They bunched up on the lower gun deck, where two crewmen flung open trapdoors to reveal the launch cradled under the ship.
A dreadful bell rang somewhere above. Ordo’s head snapped up. “¡Fuego!” He charged from the room, toppling handmaids like so many squealing ninepins.
Fire! It was a skyship’s deadliest enemy.
“Load up!” Jean-Claude bellowed.
“Marie!” Isabelle cried, looking around frantically for the bloodhollow.
“I’ll find her,” Jean-Claude said. “Go!” Jean-Claude seized Vincent by his bejeweled collar. “Get her off the ship! Make sure she stays there!”
“I don’t take orders—” Vincent shouted, but Jean-Claude had already scrambled to the ladder well. From the hatch above came a blast of white heat and the crackle of flames.
Sailors screamed. Over the roar of the fire, Santiago bellowed, “¡A su vez a estribor! ¡Salto! ¡Salto!”
The ship shuddered and groaned, like a beast in pain, and began to roll, nosing down. Flaming splinters rained through the hatch. Jean-Claude climbed—floated—through the hatch above, just in time to see an unfamiliar figure dart into the hold where the mirror was. The Glasswalker, trying to escape!
Jean-Claude caromed off a wall, just managed to hook the doorframe, and swung himself into the hold. Thin smoke filled the space and alchemical lanterns bobbed crazily at the ends of their chains.
Gravity came back redoubled. Jean-Claude slammed into the sloping deck and slid down it along the cramped corridor between the stacks of Isabelle’s luggage. There was the mirror with its flapping cover and a dim figure stepping slowly into it, as if pressing through a doorway filled with mud.
“Halt!” Jean-Claude pushed himself to his feet and rushed the figure, drawing his main gauche as he went.
The saboteur’s head turned. He had a lean face and a high-bridged nose. A long red scar ran down the right side of his face, leaping from brow to cheek. His eyes, orbs of pure silver, flashed in alarm. His mustache and goatee were ragged, his teeth white, and he was dressed in a monkish habit singed down one side. He slithered into the mirror, his face and torso sinking into its silvery surface. Only his right arm remained in the real world, gripping the frame for leverage, and the silver of the mirror flowed toward his hand like oil up a wick.
Mon dieu! Jean-Claude grabbed the trailing hand and jabbed his main gauche through the espejismo’s wrist. The man behind the mirror thrashed, his mouth open in a silent scream.
Jean-Claude hauled on the arm and snarled, “Come back here.” The Glasswalker inched toward Jean-Claude—it was like trying to haul an ox out of a mud pit—but the silvery sheen continued to creep up the saboteur’s arm.
The ship tilted backward and all the stowage groaned against the ropes.
A plume of smoke, a jet of fire, and a deafening bang erupted behind Jean-Claude. Hot sparks sizzled into his cheek, and the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces. The espejismo’s hand dissolved into a silvery mist, and Jean-Claude stumbled backward into a tightly lashed stack of crates.
Vincent stepped through the cloud of gun smoke, slowly lowering his pistol.
“Breaker’s hell,” Jean-Claude shouted so he could hear himself over the ringing in his ears. “You idiot. I told you to guard Isabelle!”
“I don’t take orders from you!” Vincent replied, shouting just as loudly. “My men have her on the launch, and I knew you would be no match for a sorcerer.”
Jean-Claude gestured to the shattered mirror. “I had h
im in hand. We needed to question him! And you shot him.”
“He was slipping away. He would have dissolved from your grasp or dragged you in with him.”
The ship lurched. Jean-Claude’s weight went from normal to double as the ship began to rise, crushing him to the deck.
* * *
Isabelle’s heart had stopped hammering, but her face was still cold and damp when she returned from the launch to the Santa Anna. The main deck resembled a forest in the fog. Shards of shattered glass and blackened splinters covered the deck. The crew swarmed hither and thither, scuttling shadows amongst singed ropes and scorched sails. Thanks to Captain Santiago’s inspired dive through a rain cloud, the fire had been extinguished, but how badly had the ship been damaged?
Jean-Claude appeared out of the smoke and she rushed to him, throwing both arms around him in a hug. “Saints be praised!” Then she pushed off. “Did you find Marie?”
“Not yet,” Jean-Claude said. “I ran into the Glasswalker; nearly captured him too, but Vincent cleverly stopped me.”
“You had no chance,” Vincent said, appearing beside him, red-faced with anger.
“Stop,” Isabelle said. “Both of you. Please.”
To her amazement, both of them went quiet.
Someone had tried to kill her, and they’d been willing to burn down the whole ship to do it. She had known there would be an attempt … or attempts, but the actual experience left a cold knot in her breast that evinced no sign of thawing. It brought her back to the day on the docks all those years ago when the Iconates had tried to kill her, but those were only madmen, deranged by grief. This was more like what Father did in the Pit of Stains, cruel and calculating.
Could she live with such threats lurking always at her back? Did she have a choice? Jean-Claude had proved an able watchdog today, her very own hellhound as always, but le roi would soon recall him to l’Empire Céleste, and then who would protect her? Vincent had the comte’s interests at heart more than hers. As far as she could tell, Príncipe Julio considered her just one of any number n of potential brides, fully interchangeable, and where was the protection Kantelvar had promised?
For that matter, where was Kantelvar? And Marie? Both Jean-Claude and Vincent were at her side, but she’d seen no sign of her friend or the artifex. Before the fire, she’d sent Marie to fetch some wine, but Marie didn’t do well when she encountered something unexpected. She’d keep trying to carry out her orders no matter how stupid they were in her new context.
Isabelle found the captain, still covered in soot and smelling of smoke, on the quarterdeck bellowing orders to his crew. He whirled and regarded her with a look that reminded her horribly of a powder keg with a lit fuse. “Princesa. I am pleased you are safe, but now is not a good time for you to be on deck. Return to the cabin, por favor.”
His glare cowed Isabelle into silence and retreat, but Jean-Claude stepped forward. “Have you seen Artifex Kantelvar or Marie?”
“I don’t give a damn where the tinker-man or the bloodhollow is.” Santiago turned his back on them and resumed shouting at the crew. The four escort ships had formed up with the Santa Anna, and one of them was beginning the delicate negotiation of drawing alongside to offer aid.
Isabelle left the captain to work out his rage on other people and descended to the main deck. To Jean-Claude and Vincent, she asked, “Has the rest of the ship been searched for additional sabotage?”
Vincent said, “I have my men doing it now.”
“But would they recognize it if they saw it?” Jean-Claude asked.
Vincent glowered at him, but Isabelle said, “It’s a fair question. Your men aren’t sailors.” Coldhearted killers, yes. Aeronauts, no.
“I will press some sailors into service.” Vincent tipped his hat to her and shoved off.
“You two need to learn to cooperate,” Isabelle said.
Jean-Claude shrugged. “I like him just the way he is. He inspires me. Besides, the more your enemies are worried about getting around him, the less they will be worried about getting around me.”
Isabelle frowned; she disliked social friction as much as Jean-Claude reveled in it, but that was not her primary concern at the moment. She had to find Marie. Had she run afoul of the saboteur? Please let her be safe.
She returned to her cabin. Jean-Claude stepped forward to open the door for her. A pain-filled groan came from within. She pushed quickly inside, fearing she would find someone dying. The room was a mess. The door to the chart room had been blown off the hinges, and everything that wasn’t covered in soot was waterlogged from flying through the rain cloud. The door and a sky chest that had pulled loose from its moorings had slid into one corner, pinning Kantelvar there.
Jean-Claude hauled the crate and the door off him and helped him to his feet. His saffron robes were scorched and sodden, and what little exposed flesh he had was grayer than normal and goose pimpled.
“Are you injured?” Isabelle asked.
“What happened?” Jean-Claude added.
Kantelvar retrieved his staff and leaned heavily on it. His voice wheezed like a depressurized pipe organ. “I was attacked. I suffered a bruised forehead and injured pride. Both will recover. Was … did you capture him?”
“No,” Jean-Claude said. “He was a Glasswalker. I caught him trying to leave through a mirror in the hold. I had him by the arm, but Vincent bravely shot the mirror.”
“What happens when a mirror is destroyed while an espejismo is passing through it?” Isabelle asked. The Aragothic artifex ought to know how Glasswalker sorcery worked.
Kantelvar asked, “Was he in the mirror when it was shot?”
“Three-quarters of the way through,” Jean-Claude said. “All but his arm.”
Kantelvar swayed on his feet and his voice whined like an overtaxed axle. “It is very likely … he is most likely dead or lost between mirrors. Unless he has a strong anchor on the other side, he may not find his way out again, which is worse than dying, or so I am made to understand.” He slumped down on a sky chest. Bruised pride indeed.
Isabelle said, “We can’t assume he’s dead. At worst, he is lost for how long?”
“It … depends on how organized his mind is.”
“I left him with a dagger wound through his arm,” Jean-Claude said helpfully.
“In that case, probably not very organized,” Kantelvar allowed. “Assuming he is not dead, could you recognize him if you saw him again?”
“With that scar on his face he’d be hard to miss,” Jean-Claude said. “Didn’t you get a look at him?”
“Yes,” Kantelvar said. “But there might have been more than one intruder.”
“What exactly happened?” Isabelle asked.
“I went into the chart room to check our progress in the orrery, but someone had opened a valve in the simulacrasphere. The room was frigid, and there was frost on the walls. I rushed over to close the valve, but I heard someone behind me. I turned and saw his fist coming down. That is the last thing I remember.” Kantelvar rubbed at his temple. “He must have ignited the aether, trying to burn the ship out from under us … that is, from under you, Highness.”
Isabelle said, “A ship catching fire and falling into the Gloom doesn’t leave any evidence that can point back to anyone, but thanks to a whole lot of very quick thinking, it didn’t work, and now we know what the assassin looks like.”
“Oh, better than that,” Kantelvar said, “I know who he is … or was. He calls himself Thornscar: a nom de guerre, I’m sure. He’s an anarchist, but he’ll work for anyone who he thinks will help bring down the rightful king. I imagine he was the one who murdered Lady Sonya. I wouldn’t count him dead until I saw the body. Perhaps not even then. Stubborn.”
“I’ve never heard of him before,” said Jean-Claude.
“He’s a local problem,” Kantelvar said. “His complaint is against Aragoth’s royalty, and he is extremely persistent and unpredictable. If he lives, he will try again, unless I stop him.” H
e lurched up and stumped to the exit.
“Where are you going?” Isabelle asked.
“I must go … I will take one of the escort ships and precede you to San Augustus. If he’s not dead, he’s wounded. It’s an opportunity. I need to find him before he recovers.”
Isabelle only just refrained from putting a hand on his shoulder. She almost asked if he was fit to travel, but they were already traveling, and he would be moving from a damaged ship to an undamaged one, a move Isabelle herself would consider once an assessment of the injury to the Santa Anna was complete.
“You’ll be breaking up the fleet,” Jean-Claude pointed out. “The next attack may be more direct.”
Kantelvar said, “If he was going to meet us in the deep sky, first he’d have to know where we are.”
“He found us before,” Jean-Claude pointed out.
“He found the mirror,” Kantelvar said. “Distances and directions in the Argentwash, the space between mirrors, are not analogous to those in the mundane world. And even if our enemy knew where we were, he would have to have a fleet capable of reliably confronting the royal navy’s most elite squadron. Anything they don’t outgun they can outrun.”
“Be careful,” Isabelle said. “You still have a promise to keep to me.”
Kantelvar bowed to her. “Of course, Highness. Builder keep you.”
“Until the Savior comes,” Isabelle replied.
After Kantelvar shuffled off to harangue the captain into giving him a launch, Isabelle dragooned her ladies and Jean-Claude to look for Marie. They found her belowdecks in the kitchen store, tangled in netting. Isabelle’s heart was in her throat as she ordered Marie cut loose. Like a fish caught in a net, she would have kept squirming, trying to complete her last directive, until she died of exhaustion.
Isabelle took her back to her cabin and kicked everyone else out while she did an inventory of Marie’s wounds. She had a dozen ligature marks from being tangled in the net and bruises from being bounced around. Those would have to be carefully monitored. She would not have Marie developing abscesses or gangrene, not when she was so close to being saved.
An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors--A Novel Page 11
