Bane and Shadow

by Jon Skovron

  Since bringing up biomancers was the quickest way to kill the mood of any conversation, the other prisoners started to drift off, muttering to themselves and making little gestures they foolishly believed would ward off biomancery. Vaderton stayed where he was, sheltered from the raw, cold wind that never died. That was the hardest part about living on the Empty Cliffs. It wasn’t the chaos of criminals given free rein on the island, or the boredom, or the meager, tasteless food. It was the wind. You practically had to shout to be heard over it. It dried your skin and your eyes and your throat, unless it was raining. Then it just chilled you to the bone. There were no shelters on the island either. Just boulders and the occasional stunted shrub. There was grass, thankfully, which at least kept the dirt from flying up into your face. But that was it. Off in the distance, New Laven stretched out almost like a model replica or a map with topographical features on it. At times it seemed beautiful, and Vaderton would stare at it for hours. But at other times it seemed only there to remind him of the hopelessness of the Empty Cliffs.

  “Don’t worry about those gafs,” said Old Yammy as she hunkered down next to Vaderton. “They’ll know you speak true soon enough.”

  Vaderton gave her a wan smile. “You don’t need to humor me, Ms. Yammy.” He didn’t know why she was so kind to him. From the day he arrived, she’d stuck up for him. She was a slight woman, always wrapped up in a thick woolen scarf. She looked to be about his age, although everyone called her Old Yammy for some reason. She was one of the most respected people on the Empty Cliffs. Even the true criminals—murderers, rapists, and sadists—were careful to the point of outright courtesy in her presence. Vaderton had no idea why, but he was grateful for it. She was, he realized, probably the second female who had saved his life.

  “I’m not humoring you, Captain. I’m keeping your spirits up,” said Yammy. “There is a big difference.”

  “I don’t know why you bother, Ms. Yammy.”

  “Because, I have something you don’t yet.” She had a twinkle in her eye, as if daring him to ask further.

  “Oh? And what is that?”

  “Hope.” Then she laughed like it was a joke. In addition to being the kindest person on the Empty Cliffs, she was also quite possibly the strangest. There were rumors among the prisoners that she could perform a magic of sorts. She did nothing to discourage those rumors, and in fact frequently hinted that she could see into the future. After everything Vaderton had seen, he knew better than to dismiss such things out of hand.

  Still, her claims that someone would rescue them from this place strained his credulity to the limit. After all, there was nothing that could scale the sheer face of the Empty Cliffs, and there was only one other way on or off: the great iron lift in the center of the island. It traveled up and down a large hole drilled through the center of the island all the way to sea level. The lift was operated at the base, and heavily guarded at all times. It came up only once a day to deliver rations, and one night a week to claim someone for the biomancers. To access the lift at sea level, one needed to approach the island from the mainland in a small boat. The boat must be rowed, because the tunnel through the side of the cliff to the lift was too narrow for a mast. It was a long tunnel, well lit by some mysterious biomancery, with several soldiers armed with cannons at the other end. Should an unwelcome boat enter the tunnel, it would move so slowly that the people on board could be picked off by the soldiers at leisure and well before it was in danger of reaching the lift. They made a big show of pointing this setup out to every prisoner when they arrived, to illustrate just how little chance there was of rescue.

  “Even if someone did rescue us,” he said to Yammy, “and that would take nothing short of a miracle. Even then, what would I do? My naval career is over. Not that I would ever sail under such treacherous leadership again anyway. But what would I do instead? Who would I be, if not the captain of a ship?”

  She patted his raw, windburned hand with her gloved hand. “You’ll be a captain again, just under a different flag. I promise.”

  Time dragged on for Vaderton as days melted into one another. He lost count of just how many. Weeks, certainly. Months? Possibly. He found he cared about such things less and less. It was curious how a man who had lived his whole life by a pocket watch could let go of something so essential to who he was. Or thought he was. But if Vaderton was certain of anything at all these days, it was that a man might change any number of ways, given the right circumstances.

  Or the wrong ones.

  He stared down at the child who writhed on the ground. The boy had been on these cliffs when Vaderton arrived. He’d stood out in Vaderton’s memory because he’d lost both his legs from cannon fire during the riot at the Three Cups in Paradise Circle the year before. The word around the Cliffs had been that after he’d lost his legs, he’d taken to bomb making and tried to blow himself up, along with the Paradise Circle police station. He’d turned out to be a terrible bomb maker, and no one was injured, not even himself. But they threw him on the Empty Cliffs anyway.

  The week before this, Vaderton had watched the biomancers take him away. Now he was back. Vaderton had never seen someone come back before, but Biscuit Bill assured him they did return occasionally. And it was never pretty.

  The boy had legs now, but judging by the smell and the sagging, putrid flesh, they were the legs of a dead man.

  Sometimes Vaderton felt that his entire existence on the Empty Cliffs was merely a training exercise in letting go. Not just of time, or his pride, or hope. The entire person he had been now seemed like only a distant memory to him. Who had that man been? The one who imagined himself special because he had gained the favor of a biomancer. Chosen by a man of “true power.” He’d still been terrified of them, of course. But with that terror had come a strange sort of pride. He’d hardly thought about the costs at all.

  Now he could think of nothing else. He wanted to think of nothing else. He forced himself to stare down at the pain etched into the boy’s face. To listen to the harsh gasps of breath. To breathe in the smell of rot. To understand what the power of biomancers truly brought: cruelty and madness.

  What possible reason could they have to graft the legs of a corpse onto the boy? And then simply to leave him back here? The boy seemed to be able to move them, but they were far too rotted to support his weight. He could really only feel them slowly disintegrate, as he lost his second pair of legs.

  The boy’s first night back, he’d begged people to kill him. But they had all been too afraid. As if biomancery was a sickness the boy had brought back with him. When no one had offered to put him out of his misery, he had begun to drag himself to the edge of the cliff. Vaderton could only stand to watch for a little while before his fear was finally drowned out by the misery of watching someone suffer so terribly.

  “What’re you going to do, Vade?” Kismet Pete asked quietly.

  “What we should have done already,” Vaderton said grimly. He knelt down and picked the boy up. He weighed almost nothing.

  “Your soul goes to the hell for murderers,” said Pete anxiously. “Even if you kill them ’cause they want it. That’s what my old wrink used to say.”

  “I’m going to a worse hell than that already,” said Vaderton. The special hell for those who helped biomancers.

  He walked slowly toward the northern cliff. Others watched silently. No one stopped him. In fact, those in his direct path moved out of the way and bowed their heads respectfully as he walked past.

  Once he reached the edge, he held the boy up. “This what you want?”

  “Please…,” the boy whispered. “Can… can you throw me? So’s I don’t get dashed on the rocks? I just… I just want the sea.”

  Vaderton nodded. He widened his stance. He wasn’t sure how far out he could throw the boy. Whether it would be enough to avoid the rocks. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Kismet Pete, his hairless face serious.

  “Alright, if you’re going to do it, let�
��s do it proper, keen?”

  Vaderton nodded.

  They took the boy between them, and heaved him out into the open air.

  Perhaps he imagined it, but in the split second before the boy dropped, he thought he heard a sigh of relief.

  People treated Vaderton differently after the day he and Pete threw that boy off the cliff. Under other circumstances, such an act would have warranted hatred. But on the Empty Cliffs, among a group of criminals and murderers being preyed upon by government-sponsored sadists, such an act was both noble and kind. From that day, people began to listen to him. To respect him. Not with the loyalty he had commanded when he’d been the captain of a warship. But the man he had become wouldn’t have accepted such unquestioning obedience anyway. Now he appreciated the rough-handed courtesy and coarse friendliness they gave him.

  But more and more, Vaderton found there was one person in particular whose good opinion meant a great deal more to him than anyone else’s.

  “They think you’re a witch,” said Vaderton as he sat down next to Old Yammy on the lee side of her favorite boulder.

  “Do they?” She sounded more amused than concerned. “And what do you think?”

  “I think I’ve seen more strange things in this world than to ever dismiss something simply because it seems impossible.”

  “A very wise way to live.”

  They sat in silence for a little while. Not true silence of course, since the endless winds continued to howl. But a comfortable silence. They never ran out of things to say, but with all the time in the world to talk, there was little urgency in saying anything. It took Vaderton a while for the question in his mind to work its way to his lips.

  “Why do they call you Old Yammy?”

  “Because it’s my name.”

  “But you’re not old.”

  “Aren’t I?”

  He squinted at her, trying to see if she was being coy with him. “You don’t look old.”

  “How old would you say I look?” She had a mischievous look in her eye, and he began to suspect she was either teasing him or flirting with him. Possibly both.

  “That is an unfair question to ask a gentleman.”

  “All this time on the Empty Cliffs, that is the one thing you cling to?”

  “Absolutely,” said Vaderton. “My mother would spin in her grave if I did not give a lady the courtesy she deserves.”

  “I’m not a lady, and I’m not sure I deserve a great deal of courtesy.”

  “I hope you will forgive me if I disagree on both counts.”

  She smiled warmly at him then, and he thought perhaps he could live on these Empty Cliffs for a lifetime, as long as he had such a smile to look upon each day.

  “Would you believe me if I said we were the same age?” she asked.

  He considered it a moment. “Perhaps a bit younger than me.”

  She laughed, a light, yet earthy sound, like water over stones. “A very gallant, yet safe response.”

  He felt a blush rising to his cheeks, as though he had been chastised in some way. “I always seem to make the safe choice. The lawful choice, I suppose.”

  “It’s funny, then, that you ended up in a prison.”

  “It is.” He laughed suddenly. That crazy laughter had never completely left him, but since he’d accepted it as part of him, it didn’t dominate him as it once had. Instead it left as quickly and easily as it came. “You know, I always imagined that sailing was a way to seek things out. But it took being forced to stay in one place for a time to help me realize that sailing had become an escape.”

  “From yourself?” she suggested.

  “How does one escape from himself?”

  “You don’t,” said Yammy. “But it is difficult for a good man to acknowledge that he has made bad choices. So you run away instead.”

  “What bad choice do you think I’m running from?” he asked carefully. He hadn’t told anyone on the Empty Cliffs about his time serving the biomancer Fitmol Bet. But perhaps if Yammy truly had magical powers, she had divined it somehow.

  She smiled again, but this time it was tinged with sadness. “I want to show you something.” She stood up and brushed the dirt from her long cloak.

  Vaderton followed wordlessly as she led him across the rocky ground until they reached the southern cliff. It used to give him an uncomfortable squirming feeling to look out at the empty space. But lately he couldn’t help thinking about that quiet sigh of relief the boy with the dead legs had let out when they threw him over the edge.

  “Do you know that ship?” she asked.

  He looked out at the expanse of ocean below and the island of New Laven in the distance. Anchored off the coast was a trim little two-masted brig that he would never forget.

  “The Kraken Hunter,” he said. “But what is Dire Bane’s purpose in coming here?”

  “Why, to set us free, of course. That is always the purpose of the one who holds the title of Dire Bane.”

  “Why us?”

  “It may be that she feels indebted to me in some way. Or that she needs me. Probably both. At least, that is the reason she thinks she is coming here. But it is also because, while she doesn’t know it yet, she needs you as well.”

  “Me? I have a hard time believing that.”

  “She has a great conflict coming. One which even she cannot face alone. She will need capable captains who are loyal to her cause.”

  “And what cause is that?”

  “To free the empire from the grip of the biomancers and what they are about to bring down upon us all.”

  She put her hand on his arm. He could feel its warmth through his thin woolen sleeve, despite the hard, endless winds. “I know you, Brice Vaderton. Better than you realize. You yearn for a way to pay off the life debt you owe her. You also long to redeem yourself for your part in aiding the biomancers. And when I tell you what is coming, I think you will not just willingly swear allegiance to Dire Bane, but you will do it with a passion and sincerity you have not felt in years.”

  20

  The Kraken Hunter sat anchored off the coast of New Laven, bobbing gently up and down in the anxious seas. To the south was the rural fringe of the main island, dotted with tiny fishing villages. To the north rose the flat, sheer face of the Empty Cliffs. It was midday, and the sun shone down directly above, but its light was wan in the gray, cloudy skies and provided little warmth.

  Hope and her small crew sat in the Kraken Hunter’s mess, eating the food Broom had pushed on Hope that morning when they left Silverback. It was the sort of rich and filling meal that didn’t keep well on a ship, with rice, spring onions, squid, and shredded seaweed, so they relished the treat as they discussed plans for breaking into the Empty Cliffs based on Lymestria’s information.

  “There is an opening on the western side of the Cliffs at water level,” Hope told Brigga Lin. “A tunnel that leads to the center of the island. At the end of the tunnel is a small cave with a lift that takes you up through the inside of the Cliffs to the top.”

  “So we just sail in?” asked Brigga Lin.

  “The tunnel is too low for that,” said Hope. “We would need to get a small vessel, like a yawl or a jolly, to row through the tunnel. But apparently there are several imperial police stationed in the cave with cannons and rifles to guard the lift.”

  “Would I be able to see them?” asked Brigga Lin.

  “Probably not in enough time.” Alash was the only one not enjoying the meal. He looked pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes. His hands shook slightly as he sipped the medicinal concoction that Brigga Lin had brewed for his hangover. He winced at the flavor, then said, “The tunnel is well lit with some sort of phosphorescent fungus or moss, but the guard station is only minimally lit. The idea being that the time it took you to row through the tunnel would give them ample opportunity to shoot you, even if they weren’t very good shots.”

  “Where would we get a small craft like that anyway?” asked Finn.

 
“We could steal one from them little villages,” said Sadie.

  “Those poor people don’t need any more hardships,” said Hope. They reminded her far too much of her childhood village to even consider such a thing.

  “What if we traveled through the tunnel beneath the surface of the water?” asked Brigga Lin. “Then they wouldn’t see us coming.”

  “The tunnel is roughly a quarter of a mile long,” said Hope. “I don’t think any of us could hold our breath that long.”

  “What if we didn’t need to?” pressed Brigga Lin.

  “I have considered trying to devise some sort of long-range diving bell,” said Alash. “But it would take weeks to build a prototype and test before I would feel confident enough to let you use it.”

  “That is time we don’t have,” said Hope. “There have been rumors circulating that prisoners on the Empty Cliffs are being given over to the biomancers. We have no way of knowing when they might take Old Yammy.”

  “So we don’t even know if she’s still there,” said Sadie.

  “True,” admitted Hope. “But we must try. Not only for her sake, but for all those imprisoned and doomed to become material for the army of the dead being built at Dawn’s Light.”

  Finn’s eyes widened. “You mean to free them all?”

  “Of course,” said Hope. “We can’t just leave them there.”

  “What’ll we do with them all?” he asked.

  “I suppose we’ll drop them off on the coast nearby and they can do what they like,” said Hope.

  “Or we could invite them to join up,” said Sadie.

  “You mean go with us to Dawn’s Light?” asked Hope.