by Scott Jäeger
“He and Gorice had words, I don’t know what about. After that, Father wouldn’t let him in.” She sighed. “None of it makes any sense. Tell me truthfully, does my father have enemies?”
“Ha! Everyone calls him Grandfather. Who could be his enemy?” Who indeed? Partly to hide my own conjecture on the subject, I turned to practical matters. “Will you be able to make rent if Solomon’s not working? Your job in the bazaar can't bring much in.”
“Father has a majority share in a trade ship, the Peregrine. She’s out with a crew most of the year. Even now that he’s stopped working at the yard–”
“Hold that tongue!” Solomon said. He was standing in the alcove where he made his bed, the bead curtain draped about his shoulders. “Wag it too much and someone’s liable to give it a yank.”
“Solomon.” I stood up, suddenly uncomfortable. Having never known him to sleep later than dawn, I had assumed he was out. “I hear you and Gorice had a falling out.”
Inexplicably, I imagined he was about to attack me, and had to resist the instinct to touch the hilt of my knife. Instead he shifted deliberately from alcove to table to chair as if wanting a stick. Just as before, a full bottle and empty cup waited on him. He sat, hoisted the wine to check its contents, and replaced it without pouring. Then, like a weary sentry returning to his post, he settled into his chair.
“Got into a bit of a scrape last night,” I said, trying a more neutral topic, “not far from here, four criminals ambushing a lone man, a fighter. I took an arm from the leader and drove the rest off. The fighter survived, but I fear he may be poisoned.”
“A fighter or a beggar?” Solomon’s gaze was unfocused and cloudy, the usual spark of mischievous humour doused. “Never aid a beggar, Isaac. Let them get close to you and they will suck you dry.”
I glanced at Isobel where she stood behind him, one hand worrying the other, but she said nothing.
“Isobel tells me you’ve retired from the shipyard for good this time,” I said. “Ever think of taking a turn as captain of that trade ship of yours?”
“Who are you to insert yourself in my affairs?” Solomon snarled, suddenly animated. I took a step back as he lunged to his feet. “The Peregrine is my business, mine!”
“I ask after your welfare,” I answered him coldly, “mostly out of concern for Isobel.”
“Look to your own welfare. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be breaking your back moving boxes on the wharf.” He put a hand to his forehead and gasped for breath. “You think I don’t know what you want, you, a common seaman, snooping around my daughter? You're little more than a pirate.”
The old man’s comment hung in the air between us, and when he made no move to retract it I moved to the door, my hand comfortably close to my dagger. Isobel followed me to the street. We walked down the block from their window before stopping to speak.
“I’m so sorry, Isaac. He loves you like a son, he told me so himself before this temper took hold of him.
“I’m sure you are right, my dear, but there is no use arguing with him now.” I took her hands in mine. In her agitation, she had scratched one of them, drawing blood.
“This madness must pass,” she said. It was more plea than avowal.
“I must get back to the poisoned man. I don’t know what I can do except watch, but I must do that at least.”
Even by New England standards our courtship had been remarkably chaste, but on that inauspicious occasion we enjoyed our first passionate kiss, as fumbling and embarrassed as children.
"I'll come by with some broth when I can," she said.
I hid the depth of my disquiet until we had parted.
* * *
The next days saw the fallen man’s fever advance and recede without pattern or surcease, and watching over him was all the distraction I could ask from my other concerns. I washed his face, cleaned the wounds, and got water down him when I could. After getting a saucer-sized bruise on my ribs, I learned to stay away from his good arm, which would lash out unpredictably in the midst of his delusions. To pass the time, I told snippets of my uncle’s stories, then fairytales remembered from childhood, and lastly, fighting my own fatigue, nonsense yarns I spun on the spot.
Returning from an errand one afternoon, I saw that he slept peacefully. The wounded arm was flexible again and, aside from an ugly spray of dime-sized scars, apparently no worse off.
With that burden relieved, I noticed my knife, which I had been whetting earlier, had gone missing when I was out. It took but a few minutes to search my room, and less time to figure out who was responsible. Having established the dwarf wasn’t stupid enough to be waiting in his apartment, I belted on my cutlass and made for High Street. My neighbour was an inveterate gambler, and the joke of High Street was that it housed the broadest range of low enterprises in Zij.
I found the thief in the first house of chance I came to, sitting with five others at a scarred and unsteady table. The pearl-handled dagger sat like a queen atop the pot, mostly of copper and silver pieces, with a couple of rings thrown in. The dwarf affected not to see me until I rested my hand on the empty sheath at my belt.
“Ye should have taken my offer when I was flush,” he growled in a voice like a mill grinding corn. The hatchet was hooked on the table near his elbow. “That bauble is fair trade for the lump you gave me.”
“That fancy dagger is in the game,” said a one-eyed man, not looking up from his cards. “Come back when we're done and you can barter for it with the winner.” He paused, and I realized the hall had gone silent and watchful. "Or stay and get gutted.”
I leaned forward to place my hand on the knife. The odds looked foul, but they all sat while I stood, and I had my cutlass should any bluffs need answered. But I did not anticipate the man who crept up behind me. A single warped board underfoot betrayed his approach. He would nevertheless have had me, if the black man hadn't been quieter yet. He dispatched the backstabber with his staff, leaving a stiletto vibrating point down in the floor, and stood by my side, toothily grinning at the table of gamblers.
At sight of him, voices raised in protest were hushed, the scraping of chair legs stopped, and hands which had gripped weapons returned eagerly to their cards. I sheathed my knife, giving the mad dwarf one last look. His lips bled where he gnashed at his black beard, but said no more.
* * *
The fighting man’s name was Ajer Akiti, and after the scene in the gambling house, we fell without a word into fast friendship. I say without a word for though he was literate and his hearing was keen, he was completely mute. When I discovered he had crewing experience, I took my new friend to the captain of the Asphodel.
“What, this giant?” Harrog said in mock horror. “He’ll devour our stores the first day out of port, and we haven’t men to spare for cannibalism. Akiti, where have you been? And don’t tell me it’s working for Xavier.” The captain gave a brash laugh. “Sloan, the question isn’t whether we’ll take him on, it’s whether he’ll replace you, and one or two other idlers besides!”
Ajer grinned hugely and clapped Harrog in a bear hug. They tussled, Ajer making as if to throw the captain overboard. If he hadn’t been in a jesting mood, he easily could have. It was good news indeed to find Ajer Akiti so welcome aboard the Asphodel and, luck following fortune, a cargo of salt pork and tools meant we would ship for Hlanith with the early morning tide.
When Isobel called on me that evening, I was too cheerful to return to the subject of her father’s brooding. Pigheaded as he was, there was nothing I could do for Solomon, or so I told her. In truth I was full of my recent victories and new friendship. Pride had been rare in my past life, and just then I found it irresistible.
Everyone on the Asphodel seemed to know Ajer, by reputation if not by sight, and his system of signs and gestures served him well. His inability to speak was no impediment between us, for when two men are of the same mind there is little need for talk.
I sailed the Southern Sea on a ship full to overflowing with w
ork and song, salt water and sweat, among men who did not sip timidly at Life, but as the bard said, drank it to the lees. I will remember those days as the best of my existence, for they were the last without care.
* * *
Not until a month later, when the end of our voyage loomed on the horizon, did I reflect upon my behaviour towards Isobel, which now seemed callous and ugly. When next I saw her, between the market and the apartment, tracks of tears seemed to have worn lines into her pretty face.
“Isaac, he’s gone, he’s gone,” she cried nonsensically, clutching me as if she might in the next instant faint.
“Easy,” I said, hugging her close. “I can’t understand you.”
“It’s Solomon,” she said, sobbing. “My father has disappeared. You must find him, Isaac.”
“How long has he been gone?” I asked, cold dread congealing around me.
“Three days now. He had been home all day, had been for weeks, then left one evening without a goodbye, without money or anything else.”
“He said nothing? You have no idea where he might go?”
She shook her head mutely.
I quizzed her on Gorice and his other friends, but in the past month Solomon had become committed to his own isolation, his fey moods often keeping even Isobel away.
Starting without the merest clue, I decided first to visit the Shipwrights Guild. A taciturn bunch, and secretive by nature, they showed little surprise at the news of Solomon’s disappearance, and shared none of my urgency in finding him. After this disappointment, Ajer joined me in canvassing the docks, where my enquiries among the workers and sailors also proved fruitless. No one had seen Solomon, nor knew of any special business which might have taken him out of town. The disappearance of a respected man should have been an exciting topic, but everyone I spoke to was unusually reserved, and spent longer than I liked thinking on their answers.
Ajer suggested that a drinking binge, though out of character for him, might explain Solomon’s absence. We were almost at the Brass Coin when a hooded figure stepped deliberately into our path. His cloak hid his features, but did nothing to conceal a solid, deep-chested frame. I grabbed at my blade, but the end of Ajer's staff already rested on the man’s sternum.
“Show yourself,” I said. “I've no patience for cowled figures.”
“Put down your weapons, you fools.” He jerked back his hood in case the sound of his voice wasn’t enough. “It’s Gorice.”
“What are you doing skulking around in alleyways?” I said, sniffing loudly. “You don’t smell of drink, and you’re too big to make your living as a thief.”
“It’s lucky I stumbled on you two,” Gorice said, covering his face again. “You’ve been searching for Solomon.”
“What do you know about it?” I asked, then, tempering my tone, “Did you speak to him before he vanished?”
“I did not. He’s been in a terrible sulk for weeks, but Erik found something out. Come with me. The street is no place to discuss these matters.”
He guided us by back ways to his work place, a plank shack adjacent to a massive forge. Erik was sitting inside, tossing up and catching a bronze spearhead, along with Gorice’s apprentice Cal. Gorice nodded to the young man, and he moved behind a partition to begin sharpening a pile of farm implements. The grindstone’s racket would make discussion difficult and eavesdropping impossible. Erik began.
“I discovered what compels the crews that work the black galleys. They are all addicted to some sort of poisonous herb, a drug called wilt.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” I said, though my ears perked up at what sounded like news.
“I have,” Gorice said, “but I’ve also watched the sons of dogs for months. They traffic in everything under the sky, but never drink or drugs.”
“They do not sell it,” Erik replied, “but their underlings use it. You’ve seen the look of their guards and labourers, always restless, nervous with unspent energy. They are using wilt, and I’m certain it is being produced somewhere near Zij.”
“I don’t know, Erik,” I said. “I’ve never heard of a drug that would help an oarsman. It’s the most demanding sort of labour. Men will sometimes fall dead right at the sweeps.”
“Hear me out,” he said. “This wilt calls up hallucinations, but instead of leaving a man idle, drives him on. When he works, in his mind it will be for a great cause, or gold if that is what he most desires. When he fights, it is for his life or that of his mother or child. If he cares little for life or anyone else, he will be driven by someone who exists only in his fantasy. It is a drug made for slaves.”
“Isobel's father has been sick, half in a trance, for weeks," I said, considering, "but I wouldn’t call him energetic. You think wilt is to blame?”
“Solomon, use the drug of those yellow-eyed blackguards?” In answer to his own question, Gorice barked out, “Ha.”
“A week back,” Erik said softly, “I came upon Solomon crouched by the pit at the end of Eel Street. He was shivering all over and working two fingers in his mouth as though to pull a tooth.”
“Fingers in his mouth,” I said, not wishing for an answer.
“That’s how you take it,” Gorice said, tugging his lip. “You rub it on the inside of your cheek, under your tongue, or on your gums.”
Ajer shook his head glumly.
“Supposing Solomon did use this wilt,” I said, feigning exasperation to conceal my foreboding, “what has it to do with his disappearance?”
“He wanted the yellow-eyed merchants banned from port,” Erik said. “He thought he could prove a connection between them and these wilt dealers. Now he's been put aside someplace, I'm sure of it.”
“Kidnaped, you mean,” I said, just as Gorice was saying, “The merchants of Dylath-Leen won’t have had a direct hand in it. They never leave the docks, except by their infernal galleys.”
“There is a certain group which is not allowed in the city,” Erik said. “They call themselves coal burners, though I doubt that is their true profession. They appear sometimes outside the Groaning Gate, to trade.”
“I’ve heard of these men.” Gorice strode nervously about the room, pausing to check the door and window for spies. “And I have a mate among the coal burners. He mentioned a working camp out in the woods, not far east of town. And I’ve seen Solomon myself by the Groaning Gate, though it was long before he disappeared.”
“We’ve done all we could to find him in Zij,” I said. “This camp seems a sensible next step.”
Everyone agreed.
The Coal Burners’ Camp
The sky was a lead platter when we exited by the Groaning Gate, promising a tepid gloom but no rain. There were eight of us in total, including Gorice, his apprentice Cal, Ajer Akiti, Erik, and three others we knew from the Asphodel. The trail was well traveled and the walking easy, but there was little appetite for talk. A little over an hour later, Erik signaled us to hunker down behind a rocky outcrop.
“This is it,” he said. Men were shuffling back and forth in a polluted glade about thirty meters distant. The clearing was spotted with tents and lean-tos and there were several small fires going, but the shallow pits used to produce charcoal were all cold. The old forest had been cleared for a league around, while the younger trees near the camp had all been stripped of branches and bark almost to the crown. The trunks, instead of being harvested for charcoal, or any other purpose, had been left standing and dead.
“It has the look of a coal burning camp,” Gorice grunted, “but not enough smoke.”
What is the plan? Ajer signed.
“I will talk to whoever’s in charge,” I said. “Stay together and call out if you see anything unusual.”
“Remember,” Erik said, “no violence unless it comes from them first.”
We walked forward. The camp’s inhabitants were an unnerving bunch, uniformly squat and misshapen. Even at a distance I could see their limbs were mismatched, their features lopsided and irregular. A few carri
ed large tumours. So pervasive were the deformities, I wondered if they were all one inbred clan, and if their camp was a kind of leper colony. Here and there I noticed a two-handled implement with a shallow blade like a carpenter’s plane. This would explain how the trees had been stripped of their bark, if not why.
“What if their affliction is catching?” Cal asked, hanging behind.
“As long as you don’t go kissing any of them,” Gorice replied, “you should be all right.”
They showed no reaction to our trespass, except for one who quickly concealed an icon hanging round his neck. As he did so, I saw that his eyes and those of his fellows were filmed white with what looked like cataracts, though they did not appear to be blind.
Since no one greeted us, I walked up to the sole unmoving individual, the right side of whose face sagged like a wax effigy melting away. He waited like a rich trader by his wares, a pile of scrap wood and metal rods. My friends spread out behind me, studying the other deformed ones with obvious unease.
“We sell at the Groaning Gate.” His ruined face did not impede his speech, which was without intonation, as if he were reciting words in a foreign language. Everything he said was spoken this way.
“Is that so,” I said.
“We do not trade here. Wait for us at the Groaning Gate, at sundown.”
"What do you trade at the Groaning Gate?"
He looked at a point off to my right and tugged at his collar where a ring of old sores peeped out, but did not answer. I felt a prickling at the nape of my neck, and turning to study his fellows confirmed that they too worried at themselves in the same way.
"My friends and I are looking for someone,” I said, reminding myself that however irritating their mannerisms, we had not come to fight. “I am Isaac Sloan. Do you have a name?"
He gave me a quizzical look, then cast about the camp as if searching for something misplaced. Finally he answered, "Ash."
"Ash, I’m not here to trade for coal, or whatever it is you produce. I am looking for a man named Solomon. He is older and thin, with hair going grey from jet black. He wears the guild insignia of the Shipwrights on the breast of his shirt.”
