“And I’ll do the same.”
“I know, you’ve already done it,” Alina smiles at him. “You pulled me out of that hell.”
He gets ready to come closer but Alina rebuffs him. “Hey! Condition number one, remember? We need to rest now so as to be sharp in Novograd.”
“Well then I’ll go back below deck.”
“No,” Alina holds back his hand. “stay here. We can sleep next to each other, if you want.”
“I definitely want.” His eyes sparkle blue.
“Let’s sleep though,” the young woman admonishes him.
“Of course. Can I hug you a little?”
“Um… yes. Mind your hands though.” With a smile Alina rolls on her side and she enjoys the touch of his arms around her shoulders. With a meow, Perfidio calls for their attention from the entryway. Alina beckons him and he settles right next to her belly, immediately starting to purr. She hasn’t felt so happy and protected since left the Needle.
***
The buzz of the intercom interrupts a deep, dreamless sleep.
“Alina?” Gabriela’s voice, with a tinny, distorted tone.
“Mpf… yes?”
“Report for duty, on the bridge!”
“On my way.”
The cat leaps down from the bed, peeved, and an indistinct murmur comes from the young German, who rests next to her. She easily climbs over him, slides her feet into her boots and, after a soft caress of his forehead, she makes her way to the command deck. Gabriela waits for her seated beside the wheel, head between her hands.
“I’m dead tired,” she begins. “I’m about to fall on my face from exhaustion.”
“Go rest, I can maintain our course.”
“We were snagged by a Russian recon vessel. Fortunately, my aunt kept a password in her ship’s log which they accepted. They’ll escort us to Novograd, so we can enter without any problems.”
“The passengers?” Alina asks, her hands trying to tame her hair tousled from sleep.
“All’s quiet. Allport is shut in the cargo hold, and there he shall remain. The centenarians are in their cabin. A little while ago I spoke to them over the intercom to update them on our course and also to find out what they’re up to. Only she spoke, whispering as if she didn’t want to wake her partner.”
“It’s unfathomable, their relationship,” Alina remarks.
“In my opinion,” Gabriela lets loose a long yawn, “they’re having sex. I don’t know how, but that strange witch must have found a way to trick her demon.”
“The mechanical doll. Creepy, isn’t it? But why are they so important?”
“I think it’s because someone is interested once again in the way we witches prolong our life; the carrot-eaters gave us away.”
Alina put together the information Guild Poe had given her aunt, before they were separated in Den Haag.
At the head of the army of American hybrids, there is a warlock in command. A unique being, a genetic anomaly, given that magic sprouts randomly in only a few women out of every thousand born, and it couldn’t occur again in the next few centuries. Perhaps thanks to this peculiarity alone, the man has the power to control that horde. If he had only his life as a common mortal at his disposal he could accomplish very little, at least on a global scale. A witch, instructed by her sisters, takes at least twenty years of study to completely develop her art, starting in adolescence.
The warlock, probably self-taught, must necessarily have already reached middle age. Guild Poe spoke of decades spent raking together the hybrids on American soil. And this unique man nursing a desire for hegemony, so it seems, urgently needs to get his hands on the process for life extension. Indeed, his strategy’s only weakness is the time factor because the lands are teeming with magic hybrids and, with the ability to control them, constructing an invincible army is only a matter of time.
“What are you thinking?” Gabriela interrupts the flow of her thoughts.
“I’d like to know more about the subject of prolonged youth. I read a grimoire on the topic, but I remember precious little.”
“I know as much as you do. In two years, you too will start to take your potion. The old witch who prepares it, in the potions house in Gothland, every time we need to guzzle down that concoction she cackles, ‘Just let the demon be the one to age, he’ll become stronger and you’ll stay young and beautiful.’ Always the same old story. Have you seen it too, in Gothland, what happens when the demon perishes?”
“Once, with old Giraldar who was our neighbor, she began to grow old almost in front of our eyes, every day she woke up with a new wrinkle and another ache. In a year she was gone.”
“Don’t ask me,” Gabriela huffs, “the magical mechanics behind the process. There are witches who’ve spent their lives studying it and it seems clear that, to some extent, it can be produced, even in people not gifted with magical powers, but only of the female sex.”
“This I didn’t know.”
“Experimental studies, little more than academics’ gossip. Anyway,” Gabriela rises to her feet, “enough of this chatter. I have new orders for you, girl.”
Alina tightens her jaw. “Tell me.”
“In the captain’s chest there’s a letter, sealed. It’s for my great aunt, Leavandra Cerriwden. If I should fall, you will take the airship back to Gothland and deliver the letter to her.”
“Did you mistake me for a pirate? In that eventuality, of course I would bring the airship back to the homeland; what did you think, that I’d sell it off piecemeal? There are some rules that don’t need reminding, between one witch and another, right?”
Gabriela shrugs. “These are difficult times. Look,” she indicates a trace on the graydar, “that’s the airship we’re to follow, the Khrasny Chrony or something like that. I’ll put you in contact with them now.”
After a few tries and much static, Gabriela manages to make the other captain understand that they are ready to follow him and that her first officer, Alina Santuini, will handle the navigation.
Cerriwden takes off and drags her feet toward yearned for slumber.
First officer of an airship at sixteen and a half. On the Needle the first officer, Silla of the Blue Mountains, is a witch with over two hundred dockings under her belt, a war fought on the front line and so many deals, brawls, and benders in ports that another lifetime wouldn’t suffice to tell them all. The thought of Silla, the cold fierce Silla, who nevertheless protects her like a niece and constantly covers for her errors at the controls, causes her a sharp pain. She needs to reconnect with her sisters, her place is on the Needle—not amid the Cerriwdens’ shady dealings.
She grabs the intercom and presses the communications switch for the crew’s quarters. “Hansi!”
After a few seconds. “Yes, Captain?”
“It’s Alina. Gabriela is heading down to rest.”
“Oh, I should get out of here then, otherwise I’ll get caught up in a row.”
“Nothing compared to what I’d do to you if you were to share a bed with that Cerriwden!”
***
Alina crosses the small step separating her from the docks of Novograd with a jump. She’s selected, from the wardrobe of one of the fallen witches, a long pigskin overcoat and a little black tricorn, to shield herself from the rain mixed with snow. She shoulders a loaded blunderbuss, illegal in European ports, but not in old Russia. Kenneth Allport walks by her side and in front of her is the Wind’s young captain.
This is the formation Gabriela chose to attempt an excursion in the pirate port. Obviously she preferred to get Kenneth off the airship in her absence, while the reason she too was chosen remains allusive. To cover her back? Or because she doesn’t trust her enough to leave her in command? Or simply to separate her from Hansi and keep them both in her clutches?
Gabriela is no doubt aware something is starting between them, and it seems she intends to use the situation to her advantage. Don’t let your affections weaken you, Kasia loved to repeat
. But she herself, at least from what Alina recalls, had always been rather tempered in her application of this directive.
What’s more, she’s brought all those capable of navigating to the ground with her, forcing those staying on board to remain loyal.
The port of Novograd presents itself as a faded parody of the major French ports. The taverns and warehouses are painted in pastel hues, but here they are irreparably consumed by wear and lack of maintenance. The throng of cutthroats who eye their descent sets the Russian landing apart from any other civilian port that Alina has seen, until now.
“If it’s like this here,” Kenneth says, “what’s at the Bottom? A slave market?”
“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Gabriela answers. “Eyes open. We need to find a man named Tibbets.”
“If he’s a gentleman, that fop jabbering and smoking in front of the bar is bound to know him,” Kenneth says.
“I would start the search at some merchants’ stalls,” Alina suggests. “Squeezing into some dive and asking questions straight off the ship doesn’t seem a wise strategy to me.”
“We don’t have time, dammit. My aunt might only have a few hours.”
“Well then,” Kenneth says, “no more hesitating. They’ve yet to open a bar that can intimidate an English sailor. Walk in behind me and back me up.”
He fixes his hair, straightens his shoulders and, with the most arrogant expression in the world, walks down the street toward one of the smoke-filled caves spread out in from of them on the Walkway.
Two men, wrapped in worn greatcoats glistening from the rain, look them over from head to toe, as soon as they appear in the doorway. One of them spits a bullet of tobacco not far from the sailor’s feet and questions him in Russian, a grumble of words indistinguishable to Alina’s ears.
Kenneth ignores him and crosses the bar’s threshold. The tramp starts hurling insults, his voice growing steadily louder. Alina nervously grips the butt of her blunderbuss, but she forces herself to keep the barrel down.
The man starts shouting in their ears, but Kenneth seems intent on examining the place’s interior.
Amid the smoke, they make out the wooden bar encircled by a rod of oxidized brass.
The tables seem to all be occupied and the conversation underway between the patrons are broken up by their entrance, as if they’d cast a spell of silence. Kenneth turns to have a last furtive look at the man by the door and then walks across the room, toward the bar. Alina and Gabriela have no choice but to stay close behind.
As they wind through the tables, a few words are aimed at them, but Alina, although she forces herself to scan the room with her gaze, is unable to make out either their meaning, or who uttered them.
“Witches,” she hears distinctly, right as Kenneth leans an elbow against the bar.
A large man with a long gray moustache and a vest so dirty it seems like camouflage, gives a slight nod of his chin in Kenneth’s direction, continuing to clean a cup with a rag that’s dirtier than his clothing.
“Vutka,” Kenneth says, raising three fingers in front of him.
The two witches, shorter in stature than the Englishman, huddle closer to him, trying to watch their backs. Kenneth meanwhile seems focused on the barman’s hands, heedless of the curious crowd behind them.
“Kenneth,” Gabriela whispers, “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to ignore all those people who addressed us. Did you understand what the man at the door said? I didn’t!”
“Don’t worry, if he wanted to threaten us he would have pulled a knife. How many bars have you been in in your life, Gabri?”
“Well, in Frank Fort…”
“Not on the docks. The ones at the Bottom.”
Their host serves three small glasses brimming with clear liquid.
“This,” Kenneth continues, “is a hangout for criminals. The guy at the door was just a nuisance. Whoever runs the place is silently watching us from the tables at either side of the room. If you want to do business with scoundrels you just need to hope they’re interested. And so the best strategy is to wait for them to come to you.”
As if conducted by an invisible hand, the conversations and chatter slowly begin to grow in intensity until they’ve quickly resumed their normal volume.
“See?” Kenneth remarks again, with poorly-concealed satisfaction. “All we need to do is drink and wait. Cheers!”
Alina, with a shaky hand, brings the drink to her lips. In her life she’s only tasted a few sips of German beer from the cup of Silla or her aunt. She wisely decides to just have a sip and already the first draught scratches her trachea like liquid fire.
Kenneth on the other hand swigs it in one shot, draining the glass.
“Someone’s coming toward us. Let me do the talking,” the Englishman whispers.
“I’m the Captain,” Gabriela retorts and opens her eyes wide with anger.
Alina interjects, “Gabri, no one questions that. But let’s try following Kenneth’s lead.”
A man insinuates himself between her and the Englishman, begging their pardon with a gold-toothed smile. He brings with him an atrocious smell of sweat and cabbage stew, as well as a sailor’s boiled wool sweater.
“Good day, stranger,” he stammers in almost-unintelligible English. “Welcome to Novograd.”
“Greetings to you. I am Kenneth Allport, an officer of the East Wind. We’ve just arrived.”
“Some friends,” the Russian points toward the darkest corner of the bar, with a hand covered in greenish tattoos, “would like to meet you and have a drink in your company.”
“We gladly accept. Girls?” Kenneth places his forearms around the two women who follow him in disbelief, not knowing what else to do.
Their guide walks ahead of them smiling, with a display of indifference toward the other customers.
“After this,” Gabriela says softly, “you should explain to me one day how you know the rules of the criminal world so well.”
“I’m the eldest of four sons,” the Englishman answers. “I enlisted in the navy to support my family, while my father sojourned in the homeland’s prisons. But my old man taught me a few things before leaving us to our fate.”
Meanwhile the man leads them to a round table of green composite stone. Sitting on either side they see two individuals who seem to be the mirror image of each another, save for their size. Both have dark hair, with little black eyes, and impressive whiskers, but one is so bulky the chair struggles to hold him while the other is thin and jittery, with a body shaped as a knife. Enthroned between them is an older man with white hair, yellowed by smoke, gathered behind his head in a long ponytail. His face has Mongol features bearing two small, lively eyes and unusually full lips.
Their companion kneels down to whisper something in the old man’s ear, and he quickly exclaims, “Kenneth Allport! Welcome to our humble city. I am Assan ‘the Loafer’ and these are my dearest friends, the brothers Ronin and Farang Salurek. And what sweet names might these two gentle maidens carry?”
Alina is about to open her mouth, but Kenneth squeezes her elbow and says, “This is Gabriela and she is Alina, we landed with the airship that’s just moored at dock six.”
“Who is in command, of you three?”
Kenneth responds like lightning, before Gabriela can throw in a word. “The Captain is on board, together with the rest of the crew. She’s called Jillian Cerriwden.”
“Cerriwden, Cerriwden,” the man slides his tongue over his lips. “This name is not unfamiliar to me. But please, sit down.”
Three stools materialize behind them and shot glasses, filled with the national super-alcoholic drink, are placed on the small table.
“Long live the Queen.” Assan raises his goblet, quickly imitated by his two associates. Kenneth knocks it all back, while Alina merely wets her lips, and Gabriela mimes drinking.
“You don’t toast to the Queen?” asks “the Loafer” smiling.
“Long life,” Gabriela answers and drinks a
swig with Alina following suit in silence.
The drink numbs the tongue and hits her stomach as if she swallowed a burning ember.
“Well then,” the old master of the house continues, “what winds blew you to these parts?”
Kenneth assumes a pained expression. “Storm winds, unfortunately. We were approached two hundred miles from here, near Volgograd, by an airship without a flag. We repelled them and seriously damaged them, but sadly two members of our crew came out of it badly.”
Motioning with his eyes, Assan calls for more filled glasses, to replace the empties. The half-full jiggers offered up by Alina and Gabriela are dangerously left on the table, flanked by the second round.
“Let us toast to the souls of your wounded,” says “the Loafer,” “that they may stay firm and quickly find their way back to the world.”
Alina tries to bring her vision back in focus. She takes her half glass and drinks another little sip. The sounds that reach her ears are cloudy, and a pleasant warmth unravels from her belly toward her legs. The men empty their shots, while Gabriela holds her jigger still half full.
The old criminal looks at Cerriwden’s gesture full of disapproval, but Kenneth speaks to him before he can express his disappointment. “Noble Assan, we would like to try and save them and we’ve heard news a friend of ours, by the name of Tibbets, lives right here in Novograd.”
“Tibbets!” the man shouts and his henchmen both break into laughter. “But of course! I don’t think he’ll be able to help you, but I know him well. He’s a trustworthy man and respects the laws of friendly coexistence.”
“Can you take us to him?” Gabriela interjects, unable to conceal her anxiety any longer.
“Of course.” The man studies her for an instant. “You are in quite a hurry, young lady. Perhaps one of your relatives is seriously injured?”
“Yes. Sadly I’m desperate,” Gabriela answers, with such an angelic, sorrowful face that no one could ever guess her true nature.
“Ronin, dammit!” the old man exclaims. “Escort the girl to Tibbets, without delay.”
The more massive of the two Salurek brothers gets up, revealing his even more impressive stature and points to the exit with a hand of disproportionate size. “Please, let us go.”
The Codex of the Witch: Fantasy Novel Page 20
