The Iron Ship

by K. M. McKinley

  Mansanio cringed as the countess advanced on him. With a sob, he turned and fled.

  Lucinia buried her face in her hands and wept.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Preparations for Departure

  “WINTER IS COMING to a close, the ship is almost finished and we still do not have our licence,” said Captain Heffi. He looked over a pile of papers at Trassan.

  “I thought I was the pessimistic one,” said Trassan.

  “They are taking an undue amount of time over it, I begin to worry.”

  “We will have it.”

  “You speak more from hope than conviction.”

  “Either way, we need a master of arms still. Do you not want to find one of your own people?”

  “Despite what some of them feel, my people make great sailors, and poor warriors. Bring one of your own, someone you can trust.”

  Trassan drummed his fingers on the desk. They fell into the rhythm of the shipyard outside; the nature of the noise had changed over the last weeks. “As it happens, I have made preliminary enquiries in that direction.”

  “Wise,” said Heffi.

  “What? Don’t be like that, Heffi. I second-guessed you. I thought the likelihood of you suggesting a Ishmalani armsman pretty remote. You can’t have it both ways, telling me that I should find one, but only happy that I have if you have allowed me to choose!”

  They were both tired and crotchety, having been at the crew manifest for several hours. Heffi grunted. Neither one way, or the other.

  “If you did have a man, he would have been first choice. Do you?”

  “No,” said Heffi.

  “Well then.”

  “Then who do you have in mind?”

  Trassan picked up a piece of paper and squinted at it distractedly.

  Heffi cleared his throat.

  “What? Oh. I asked my brother Guis. I thought he’d suggest his friend Qurion. He’s a good soldier, cocky sod, but handy in a fight.”

  “Thought?”

  “That’s the thing. He didn’t. He suggested this other fellow, First Lieutenant Bannord.”

  Trassan waved a crumpled message slip at Heffi as if that might prove something. Heffi declined to take it. “What about your other brother?”

  “Which one?”

  Heffi groaned. “For the sake of the One! The actual soldier!”

  “Rel? I’ve a lot of brothers. I did think of asking him who to recommend.”

  “Not asking him himself?”

  “Too risky. I don’t want to put all the Kressind eggs into one basket. That’s not good common-sense, dynastically speaking,” he said. Heffi couldn’t tell if he were being serious or not. “Besides, he’s at the Gates.”

  “Ouch.”

  “He was a very naughty boy.” Trassan sighed and looked out of the grimy windows. The Prince Alfra sat below, slab-sided. Inert. “I’m at that stage, Heffi.”

  The captain pushed himself back from the table and slumped in the chair. The metallic bang of something dropped rang through the great shed. Distant swearing followed it. But the shipyard was so quiet the sound of Issy snoring in her mansion was the loudest thing in the room. Heffi laced his fingers over his cloth of gold cummerbund, and asked Trassan what he clearly thought was the kind of question that would keep him for some time from more pressing business. “What stage?”

  Trassan fiddled with a pen, and addressed his words to it. “Halfway. The ship’s nearly finished, we’re talking about crew, but why is it at this point in an enterprise I always feel that the damn thing’s never going to get done?”

  “What do you see there?”

  “Little promise of the glorious tomorrows I hope to see. Just an awful lot of iron.”

  “Well I don’t. I don’t see that at all.”

  “What do you see then?”

  Heffi puffed out his cheeks. These talks were becoming tiresome. “I see a glorious ship, the finest the world has ever seen. I see fame for me and my family line. I see history in the making. And,” he said smiling faintly, “I see an awful lot of money. Have more faith in yourself.”

  “I do. I’m not my brother Guis. I know it’s going to get done. This is alchemy, of a sort. We stand here with our crucible waving our arms and shouting and very shortly we’ll know if we’ll be successful.”

  “You fear you will not be?”

  “I know I will. Still doesn’t change the feeling.” He sighed. “I wanted to ask Rel to come, I wish my brothers, at least one, were coming with us. But he’s too young. He’d fall into his old patterns around us; he’d lose his initiative. I can’t get the best out of him. He needs to find his own way in life. I was going to ask him his advice. But he’s too far away, he’s too young, he’s too inexperienced, and he’s on the personal vendetta list of one of the army’s rising heroes.”

  “By extension, you all are.”

  “I never had any quarrel with Alanrys. Guis and Rel though...”

  “You share a name. That is usually enough to guarantee you equal enmity from men like that.” Heffi leaned forward and took a peppermint cube from the bowl on the table. “Then what of this Bannord?”

  “I’ve had him checked out. Gold, palms, so forth. Here are his records.” Trassan pulled out a card folder from the bottom of a pile.

  Heffi smiled and nodded approvingly.

  “He’s infantry,” Trassan went on. “Father’s a minor old money, and by that I mean no money. He’s a third-rate title and fifteen acres coming his way and nothing else. He’s a career soldier, done several anti-piracy tours up north.”

  Heffi ummed approvingly. “Nautical experience is very necessary.”

  “And he’s been decorated twice for bravery. Killed an Ocerzerkiyan reaver captain himself, apparently. Otherwise it’s minor skirmishes in the Olberlands during the last troubles.”

  “This is better than no skirmishes. Since the treaty of the Hundred there’s not been a decent war. Our soldiers don’t do enough soldiering.”

  Trassan nodded. “I couldn’t agree more. Track him down, would you? He sounds useful.”

  “Always wise to stick close to those you know,” said Heffi.

  “A way of business that has done your kind no hurt.”

  “That’s right. No point denying it.”

  They went through the list further. There were dozens of names on it. Carpenters, welders, Tynmen, Tyn themselves of various bands, dog grooms, victuallers, mechanics, three archaeologists volunteered from Vand’s digs in Ostria, an alchemist and his assistant, a troupe of cooks, besides the endless names of sailors, stokers, glimmermen and all the others required to run a steamship of the Prince Alfra’s size.

  “For draymaster I have managed to secure the services of Antoninan of Maceriya.”

  “A good name, but a Maceriyan on board?”

  “Persin might be chasing our tails, but Antoninan’s no spy. His reputation goes ahead of him. He’s an honourable man in that way that only the stiffest Maceriyan can be. And how would he betray us? Barking secret messages?”

  “Don’t be facetious Heffi, this is serious.”

  “I am being serious. He has experience of the Sotherwinter, that bit on the mainland, at any rate. He’s attempted to find the Southwest route twice.”

  “With no luck.”

  “Obviously with no luck! He tells me he doubts it exists, and to go over the frozen sea is too dangerous. His dogs are big and strong, bred from southern stock of the sea peoples. He’s been tutored by the Sorskians and the Torosans. There is no one better for this job. He’s committed to bringing his best, and that includes Valatrice. He is keen for this, Trass, really, really keen. I got him at a very good price, if it helps.”

  “Valatrice, Valatrice, I know that name. Why do I know it?”

  “Valatrice!” said Heffi. “The Valatrice! The hero dog of the south! You know, isolated trading post, terrible sickness, the timely delivery of healing magisters. All that!”

  Trassan snapped his fingers. �
��I remember!”

  “Good. We’ll need a good set of teams to get us overland once we leave the ship. At best guess it is at least two hundred miles. And I have not got us a good set of teams, Trassan. I have found us the very best. Valatrice is the king of dogs.”

  “I’m still not sure about it.”

  Heffi licked his finger and turned a page over. “Ah well, I see. It doesn’t matter what you say, he is coming with us. I’m the captain, I have final say.”

  “I suppose you do.”

  “He is the best.”

  “Right.”

  “Say ‘thank you Heffi, you really are a marvel, finding me the finest dog handler and polar expert in all of Ruthnia’.”

  “Thank you, Heffi, you really can fuck off if you think I’m calling you a marvel. Now, magisters...”

  “Right. Tullian Ardovani. He’s agreed to come, finally, after making a show of not deciding. A solid reputation, too, once head of the Ember Faculty, blah blah, you know all that of course, seeing as he’s been working here for the last twelve months. His interest in the application of fire binding could be useful there.”

  “He has a little skill in meteoromancy, although he insists it is a hobby and nothing more,” added Trassan. “I’m glad he signed on. Still, I can’t help but wish for a good old fashioned wizard, you know? Fire and lightning from thin air, breath of the wind gathered in their lungs, all that. Magisters are all well and good, but they take so bloody long to do everything, and half of them like to argue mechanics with me. They’re a pain in the arse. Tullian’s all right, but there you are.”

  “A wizard you said?” said Heffi. “Well, well, we might have something here.”

  “Yes. Have you had any luck? What are you grinning about Heffi?”

  “Oh, it is a trifle, nothing more.”

  “Come on! Spit it out, you old dog.”

  Heffi slid a contract of employment face down across the desk with his fingertips. Trassan plucked it up and read the name at the bottom, a signature rendered in huge loops and whorls.

  He lowered the paper. “No! Really? Fuck me. You’ve outdone yourself this time.”

  “I have, haven’t I?” said the Ishmalan with a chuckle. “His ancestor might not have got rid of my god, but he did a fine number on the rest.”

  Trassan read the name again. “Well, well. Vols fucking Iapetus. Great-great-grandson of the goddriver himself. Ha! Perhaps things are looking up after all.”

  “Yes, well.” Heffi eyed the pile of paperwork meaningfully, his good cheer leaving him. “There’s a little more to be done yet, Trassan.”

  Trassan sighed. “Let’s get back to it, then.”

  TWIN WEIGHTS PRESSED hard on Vols Iapetus long before he got to the city. The weight of iron, and the weight of souls. By the time he was passing through the awkward patchwork of factories, mills and soot-stained fields that made up the ragged edges of Karsa City, hammers rang hard against the inside of his skull. The pain was made worse as the coach bounced hard on potholed roads. Not one of the ways through this nowhere land seemed to be in good repair. The villages grew drabber, bloated with poor quality housing and looming mills whose chimneys sent long banners of glimmer-tainted smoke into the sky.

  The scrubby spaces between villages grew briefer, the fields broken increasingly into factory workers’ allotments before disappearing altogether. Iapetus would not dare eat a vegetable grown there, raised as they were in the muck of industrial by-products.

  The road improved abruptly as they passed onto the new turnpike, but his headache worsened. The presences of so many minds, each working unknowingly upon the underlying fabric of the world, wore at him. He feared to lose a firm impression of who he was, and that led to more fear.

  Lucky then that his gifts were so erratic.

  As they came from the upper vales, richer houses began to line the road. His coach clattered over tram tracks set into the road. The rich smell of melting bitumen blew into his carriage at these better districts, as road teams covered sets in smooth tar and grit. It was the first sign he saw of Alfra’s modernisation programme. It would be far from the last.

  They came down off the higher lands, down into the drainage basin of the Lemio. Here the little streams and brooks of the highlands gathered together all of a sudden, and the river appeared as if from nowhere. The roads clung to the edges of stone spurs, the hills were low but their slopes steep nonetheless and crammed with houses built high. There should have been a view into the heart of Karsa from there, but the air was thick with smoke. The sky above was clear and the day was cold, so the fumes were trapped as a poisonous broil in the Lemio’s wide valley. The Twin was in the sky, pale grey in the sun.

  Unconsciously, Vols took a deep breath as his coach plunged into the fume. Thick as a fog bank, it engulfed him without preamble. From clean air to filthy in an eyeblink. The smell of burning flooded his coach. A smoky evening fell. He felt the passage of spent glimmer overhead, carried on currents in the air made clear to him by their cargo of magic. A throbbing troubled the rear of his head. Every time the rims of his coach wheels rang from tram lines, it was a hot spear to the heart, two-pronged and murderous.

  The coach climbed again, and with a parting billow the smokes opened.

  They mounted a steep incline, heading up and into the Spires and their warrens of strange mansions. Fantastical follies of carved stone and brick told of money. They were streaked with dirty rain marks thick with soot just the same.

  The carriage reached the highest point of the ridge. For a few seconds, Vols Iapetus looked into both the Lemio and Var valleys, the sprawling industrial heart of all Ruthnia and its one hundred fractious lands. Grey-brown fog boiled in the hollows of the rivers, flowing toward the sea. This he saw distantly, a glittering line on a flat horizon many leagues away. Between him and it lay the unconquerable marches of mud.

  Then down, into the catchment of the Var, and back into the diabolical smoke again.

  In the Varside centre huge buildings loomed that he did not remember from his last visit. Already confused by the smog, he lost his bearing completely. His dogs had been running for a half day, and their breath was phlegmy with effort and the filthy miasma. Vols had little extraordinary care for his dogs, but he wished the journey over so that they might rest and be away from foulness.

  Street sounds were muffled, noises that were close sounded far, those that were far sounded close, all switched about by the smog. Pervasive always was the drone of human endeavour. Picked apart, it could be broken into its constituents: traffic rumble and mill noise, the hum of multitudinous conversations. But loudest of all was the clashing of hammers, ringing against stone. By the decree of Prince Alfra, the city had acquired a new heartbeat, and it was hell upon Vols Iapetus’s nerves.

  He settled miserably into his seat. Once, his had been a luxurious coach, but its heyday was past. The velvet covering the interior was threadbare and peeling, bleached yellow where the sun shone upon it. On the side, in flaking gold leaf, were the letters ‘RI’. Those initials had meant something once. He remembered from his youth that, even then, people would have looked up in quiet awe as it passed, or shouted in anger, if brave enough. Whether they loved or loathed him, every person in Ruthnia had known Res Iapetus, the goddriver, he who banished the slavemasters of mankind from the mortal sphere forever.

  Now none spared it a second glance.

  The sorry vehicle was an apt metaphor for Vols Iapetus’s entire life. A shabby thing, clinging to the faded glory of an distant past. All he had was his name, and like the monogram upon the coach, it was a shabby, threadbare thing. He was thin and unimposing, myopic, and bald but for a tuft over each ear and one at the top centre of his head. What hair there was was coppery, as was the scruffy goatee he wore. In conversation he was halting, and too slow with his rejoinders to excel either in argument or in matches of wit. He often berated himself when, an hour or so after conversation, the perfect thing came to him to say. His appearance was one of
weakness, not power. The name gave him a taste of that, but only a taste.

  He sneezed. The return indrawing of breath brought a peppery, burning flavour to the back of his throat that made him cough and splutter.

  “Nearly there, goodmage!” cried out his coachman.

  Sure enough, not five more minutes passed before he found himself deposited by the side of stone docks a bare decade old, full of oily water. He climbed down from the coach with his battered carpet bag, and placed his top hat on his head. Vols’ footman jumped from the back of the coach and made himself busy taking down his master’s bags; a trunk Vols had thought looked suitably nautical when he had bought it, but now worried looked like a silly affectation, and two suitcases.

  “Sorry about the weather, master,” said the driver. “The smogs are bad and getting worse, but they are not found often on days other than these. Cold, and still. A bit of wind off the ocean will blast it all away.”

  “Thank you, Gerrymion,” said Vols. His voice was high, somewhat lispy thanks to his prominent incisors. While at school, he had encouraged his classmates to name him ‘Red Fox’. They chose ‘Red Rabbit’ instead. It had stuck.

  He tossed a purse up to his man. “Stay a night in the city if you wish before heading back, although I ask that you find somewhere of cleaner air for the sake of the poor hounds.”

  Gerrymion, whose face was wrapped twice about and tightly in a thick scarf, nodded in agreement. “Aye master.”

  “Now,” said Vols, to both the footman and the driver. “You all have your instructions. I will direct a sending to Goodwife Meb if I require collecting. Make sure she rests after taking it! I do worry for her. Tell her not to exert herself in my place. Any enchantments requested or that fail can wait, please do make that very clear to her. She tries to do too much.”

  “That I will, master,” said Gerrymion.

  “Where should I put your bags, master?” asked his footman.

  “Put them by the door.” Vols pointed to the entrance to the shipyard, big as a pair of castle gates. “Have some of Kressind’s men deal with it. Then get yourselves out of this fog.”