The Iron Ship

by K. M. McKinley

  “Stand ready!” shouted Bannord.

  “Heffi!” called Trassan. “Get us out of here.”

  The Drowned King surveyed the ship. “Time marches on. The art of the living increases. Your ship is mighty, your weapons grow deadlier. But our armies are legion.”

  “You cannot stop me,” said Trassan. “Let us pass.”

  “Wrong. We will not allow it.”

  The king drew back his arm, and swung it at the deck. The gestalt limb smashed through rigging and shattered spars. Sailors screamed as they were hit by falling wreckage.

  “He cannot hurt the hull,” said Trassan.

  “I do not think that is his intention,” said Aarin.

  Like a fishing boat’s net opening, the arm split, sending corpses skidding all across the deck.

  “Holy mother fucking hordes of lost gods!” said Bannord. “Open fire!”

  His men wasted no time, the sailors were only slightly behind. Guns banged and glimmer bullets hissed in the fog.

  “Brother!” cried Aarin. The king aimed a second fist at the prow. The arm broke over the railings. Dead men rained into the sea at either side, but well over a dozen sprawled about the foredeck, knocking Trassan and Iapetus to the planking. The dead haltingly got to their feet, teeth gnashing. Rusty swords and knives were plucked from belts by decayed fingers.

  One of the Drowned King’s subjects rose over Trassan. Aarin unflinchingly clapped his hand to the thing’s head, whispering words only meant to be spoken at the ghosting. A feeble shade warbled its way upwards, and the corpse collapsed.

  “I can’t do that for all of them!” shouted Aarin over the report of gunfire.

  “What do I do?” yelled Trassan.

  “Put father’s fencing lessons to practice! Draw your bloody sword, you fool!”

  Trassan snapped out of his shock and did as Aarin said.

  Battle raged all across the ship. Ladders of corpses hung over the side of the boat, allowing those dead in the water to clamber upwards. With a booming hoot of the whistle, the engines engaged, paddlewheels slicing soft bodies into soup. The ship leapt forward, but they were already close to being overrun. The Drowned King laughed at their attempts to flee and toppled forward, his great head and shoulders bursting apart amidships, reinforcing the rotting boarding party as the ship pulled away.

  Ardovani’s weapon made a deafening noise. A wide beam of golden energy burst from the end of the gun, scything down a half dozen of the unliving. Bannord hacked the head from a drowned sailor wrestling with Iapetus and hauled the slime-covered mage to his feet.

  Trassan hacked and shoved at the unliving. Together with Bannord and Aarin’s efforts, they created a small circle in the unliving. Weapons rang, guns fired, sailors and marines cursed and swore, but the dead were eerily silent.

  “Do something!” screamed Trassan at Iapetus.

  “I... I... can’t,” said the mage.

  Aarin grabbed another dead man, laying him to rest with a hurried whisper. “Now is not the time for a crisis of confidence!”

  “I...”

  Ardovani let off another shot with his weapon, cooking rotting meat. He shouldered it and grabbed Iapetus.

  “You don’t have to do it.” Ardovani glanced at Aarin.

  “I... I suppose not,” said Iapetus.

  “Help the Guider! Now then!” said Ardovani. “Keep them back from the mage!”

  The circle pressed smaller and smaller. Bannord’s gun barked one last time and he threw it down, pulling out his sword. He swore as he cleaved at the dead, the steel sticking. With a boot to the chest of his opponent, he tugged it free.

  “It is like hacking at clay!”

  Trassan stabbed again and again at a dead man, but his sabre had little effect until he shoved the corpse back and gained space to split its skull.

  Iapetus stood totally still, his eyes closed.

  “What the hells is he doing?” he shouted.

  “Working!” called Ardovani. He fired again, but the gun was wrestled from his arms. Trassan looked down in horror; the sundered limbs of the dead were flopping across the deck, scrabbling for his feet.

  All of a sudden, Aarin’s voice became deafeningly loud. His whispered guiding amplified a hundredfold, cutting through battle and fog alike. A silver ring of magical energy emanated from him, boiling the fog off in burst of multi-coloured steam. Where it struck the dead, they dropped instantly to the deck.

  With a terrific howl, the trapped spirits of two hundred drowned men went skyward. Trassan felt his own soul lift, desperate to be free. A dark sky roared into being over him, alive with green lightning and seething faces. With energy born of terrible panic, he fought to keep hold of his flesh, and the vision vanished. Not all the living were so lucky, their ghosts racing into the afterlife with the Drowned King’s slaves.

  The bodies fell as one, leaving the crew reeling. They clutched at their chests and heads, some weeping at the glimpse of the afterlife each and every one had experienced.

  Trassan leaned against the foremast, bile in his mouth. He spat. Aarin had collapsed on the deck. Ardovani attended to him. Bannord was gathering his men, checking their wounds. Sailors stood in disbelief. Ishmalani knelt in the mulch of flesh and blood, kissed the icons about their necks, and pressed their heads to the deck in thanks heedless of the filth.

  The Prince Alfra steamed ahead at full speed, exhaust from the stacks sending the chill mist awhirl. The fog ahead thinned. The sun appeared, wan but growing brighter.

  A furious cry pierced the fogbank, but the ship was swifter than the king’s wrath, and presently the sounds of more natural seas returned.

  Vols Iapetus sat on the deck, his suit besmirched with unspeakable filth.

  “I didn’t know I had it in me,” he said, and fainted dead away.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  The Darkling Triumphant

  IT HAD BEEN a long winter, and Guis was glad it was over. He arrived back in Karsa two weeks after his brother had departed. He could have been there, he supposed, but had made his excuses, unwilling to face a difficult farewell, his mother, or anything else to do with his family.

  For many days the sky had been clean and blue, free for a time of pollution from the foundries, and his mood had improved. The sunlight had a lucid quality lacking at other times of the year. Bright and clear, it sparkled upon windows and water droplets, fragmented into discreet rainbows. After so long in the dark, Guis’s eyes were refreshed. He saw the sunshine as a newborn might, or a prisoner long kept from the day; as a glorious thing, notable in itself. Soon enough he would come to forget its miraculousness, the light of the sun would diminish in glory to mere illumination. At best it would warm him, at worst it would irritate eyes tired by late nights and endless penwork. But for now it brought prickles of joy to his face. He rolled up his sleeves to feel it more, disdainful of the disapproving expressions of others. With great disregard for convention he hooked his finger into his coat collar and swung it over his shoulder.

  “Let the others sweat and suffer, eh Tyn?”

  “Yes master,” said Tyn grouchily. Its long nose quivered as it sniffed the air. Their reflections warped and danced alongside them as they walked along a row of grand shop windows.

  “You can’t fool me, Tyn,” said Guis. “This weather raises your spirits as much as it does mine.”

  “I think of the forest, and I lament, master,” it said.

  “Yes, well. Let’s enjoy the rising sap and budding leaves here, eh? Let me buy you something. There’s a seller there with apples.

  “Last year’s,” sniffed Tyn. “Wrinkly.” But he did not spurn his when Guis bought one for each of them. The stallholder looked at Tyn warily.

  “Yes, goodman?” said Guis.

  “Nothing, goodfellow,” said the stallholder, and took Guis’ money.

  Guis wandered the streets aimlessly, strolling first down the Grand Parade and then into those new boulevards on the north side of the Var that lead from it. Th
ey walked most of the morning in this manner, Guis simply thankful at being out of doors after so long cooped up. He thought of Trassan, and Aarin, who had apparently gone with him for reasons of his own. There wasn’t a paper in Karsa that had not run with the Prince Alfra’s sailing. Thankfully, the fuss was dying down, and the endlessly debated subject of the High Legate’s failing mind returned to the front pages. When the ship was mentioned, talk was of the expedition’s likelihood of success; whether Trassan was a hero or risked provoking war with the Drowned King, if he would disappear forever or return with wonders that would enrich the nation.

  Guis had no doubt his brother would come back. Trassan rarely set himself a goal he did not think he could achieve.

  He followed the Lemio until it was swallowed by the docks, then onto the bank of the shipway as far as the top of the cataracts a half mile from the locks, where the overspill from the network of water in the city sluiced out to the sea, one nominally the Lemio, the other the Var. The river hissed down twenty-seven stepped weirs in the direction of Lockside where the water not stolen by the factories, houses, lock mechanisms, canals or funiculars ran down the spillway to spread its dirty load upon the mud of the foreshore. He found a patch of sunshine and stopped a while to watch the gleaners on the topmost weir fish detritus from the stream with long poles. The river sparkled, making of it an agreeable scene, and leaving Guis with a hankering to paint.

  “A fine day,” he said. He looked about. “Time for lunch, I think. Not here. Too expensive.” He headed off into what Prince Alfra’s improvements had left of the Lemio stew. Grand buildings of shining white stone gave out suddenly to brick tenements and uneven cobbled streets. He turned south, and headed toward a chop house he knew that way, cutting through a stinking alleyway. Overflowing waste tuns stood in a line either side of the back door of a tenement. A windowless wall rose up on the other side, so faceless and tall its bricks seemed to go on forever.

  It was here that he was accosted.

  A man stepped into his path. Guis’s hand went straight for his smallsword.

  “Get out of my way,” he said. “Don’t even think about laying a hand on me. I am armed, prepared, and well-instructed in the arts of defence.”

  The man cast his hood back, revealing a filthy face. Rattails of greasy hair tickled the underside of a chin half-heartedly colonised by a beard.

  “Those are belligerent words for a playwright.”

  Guis leaned forward in surprise. “Mansanio?”

  Mansanio sneered at him. “You remember do you?”

  “What are you doing here? What on Earth happened to you?”

  “You happened to me, you filthy Kressind bastard.”

  “How dare you address—”

  “Save your protests. I am done with taking orders from the likes of you, goodfellow.”

  “You left the countess’s service?”

  There was a feverish look in Mansanio’s eye. “Thanks to you.”

  “How is that my business? What did I do?”

  “Only what every other bastard has ever done. Fucked the woman I love, played with her heart and crushed it, while I had to watch. I go to comfort her and this is my reward!” He held up his arms, revealing tattered finery beneath a filthy cloak. “But I will not take it, no, goodfellow. No longer will I bend my knee to worthless scum like you.”

  He gave a curt nod over Guis’s shoulder.

  Guis had his sword halfway out of his sheath when a blackjack slugged him behind the ear. He staggered into the rubbish barrels, upsetting a swarm of early spring flies.

  “Hold him!” snarled Mansanio. Two ruffians clamped hard, unforgiving hands about his biceps and yanked his arms behind his back. His sword was withdrawn and cast down the alley.

  “You won’t get away with this.”

  “Like your father will care. I listened intently to what you had to say to poor Lucinella, before you broke her heart and turned her against me.”

  Guis kicked. His heels slipped on the filth coating the cobbles, and he nearly dragged the men holding him down.

  “He’s a lively one!” said one.

  “Keep a hold of him!” Mansanio snarled. He strode over and kicked Guis hard in the ribs, once, then twice. Mansanio reached behind Guis’s neck.

  Guis’ blood ran cold as he realised what Mansanio intended.

  “Leave him be!”

  “Where are you, little fiend?” muttered Mansanio. He scrabbled at the back of Guis’s neck, then drew back with a curse as Tyn sank needle-like teeth into the webbing of flesh between his thumb and forefinger. “Bastard!” he said, and grabbed at the chain about Guis’s neck. Tyn sprang from Guis’s shoulder, but his jump was cut short. Tyn’s leg was tangled and he screamed as Mansanio yanked at the chain, breaking his ankle. Another ferocious tug parted the links. Mansanio had the struggling Tyn in his hands. Tyn squirmed, but Mansanio had a firm hold, and would not relent.

  “What has he done to you? Your quarrel is with me! Set him free if you do anything at all.”

  “Nothing,” said Mansanio. “He has done nothing at all.”

  “Master!” squealed Tyn.

  A savage expression descended over Mansanio’s face, and he squeezed. Tyn’s eyes bulged, little hands clutched at Mansanio’s thumb helplessly. There was a wet crack. His head lolled.

  “That it?” asked one of Mansanio’s thugs.

  “Yes, that’s it.” He cast the corpse of Tyn into a barrel and wiped a thin smear of blood from his hands on his dirty cloak. “No one’s getting murdered. Not in the normal sense, anyway.” He gave a nasty smile. “Enjoy the day while it lasts, Kressind.”

  Guis’s arms were released. He started to get back up, but a heavy blow sent him sprawling. A kick to his solar plexus had him writhing on the floor, his breath driven from him.

  Laughter echoed up from the end of the alley.

  He gulped until he could breathe again.

  “Tyn!” he said. “Tyn.”

  GUIS BLUNDERED ONTO the shipway walk clutching the broken corpse. The world tilted under his feet. He span dizzily on the spot, searching the crowd for help. The street grew remote, as if he observed from some place half out of kilter with the mortal world. Every face he saw held the trace of a sneer. Every smile hid a rebuke meant. His breath came short and did not refresh his organs. His throat tightened, his chest was constricted. He fumbled hopelessly at the buttons of his costume, and could not open them.

  He stumbled to his knees. Blood rushed in his ears. He retched, bringing nothing up but despair. People recoiled from the bloodied Tyn in his hand. Someone helped him up.

  “What happened to you? Have you been attacked? Someone call the watch!” The man’s voice came from far away.

  “Help me...” Saying it brought the realisation that no one could. He shoved the stranger aside and dove into a sidestreet. A hue and cry set up behind him, dogs were barking. The bell of a watch wagon rang from nearby.

  He looked about. Every shadow held peril. He moaned in terror as a formless hand groped from a drain. Panicked, he ran deep into the stew.

  The cries diminished. He looked about, hunted. There was nobody there. Soot-specked washing hung from lines overhead. A boy in a flat cap passed across the mouth of the street, sparing him a single, dismissive glance. Tyn still held ahead of him, Guis set off again.

  Something grabbed at his foot, sending him sprawling. Tyn’s body flew from his hand and skidded across the cobbles.

  He rolled over onto his back. The sky was a thin blue line trapped by the street, far overhead. The colour leached from it. Sound deadened. Darkness crowded in on him from all sides. He scrabbled backwards on his elbows, bloodying them. He tried so hard not to think of the Darkling. But the harder he tried, the more it intruded into his thoughts, until it dominated them utterly.

  The street darkened, a patch of it taking on utmost blackness. The Darkling stepped through, and it was shadow no more.

  It wore his face, it wore his clothes. It was
like him in every respect, save that his eyes were the purest black, and held no reflection. Matt orbs that swallowed all light. It smiled horribly, lips stretched far further than they should.

  The Darkling reached out a hand toward Guis with taloned fingers.

  Guis screamed, shut his eyes and pressed himself back into the stone. The Darkling’s fingers extended impossibly, growing long and attenuate, until the digits touched upon his face. Fore and middle finger slipped into his eyesockets, the three others caressing his cheeks. A chill so severe that it exceeded all pain speared through his body.

  Guis’s scream grew higher and reedier, passing beyond the register of human hearing as his body passed beyond the register of human sight. The Guis on the floor flattened, thinned, and vanished as mist will beneath a strong sun.

  The Darkling shut his black eyes, and breathed deep of the air of the world. His face was alight with pleasure.

  “There he is! That’s him!”

  Footsteps clattered up behind him. A hand gently touched his back.

  “Is there anything wrong, goodfellow? What happened to you?”

  The Darkling opened his eyes, and the blackness of them vanished. He smiled oddly. “Why, constable,” he said. “There is nothing wrong. Nothing wrong at all. Thank you for your concern.”

  “I am going to have to make a report, goodfellow.”

  “There is no need.”

  “What’s that?” the constable pointed his nightstick at the dead Tyn.

  The darkling shrugged. “I have no idea. A Tyn is it? I understand some people keep them as pets.” He gave a heartless chuckle. “The very idea.”

  “There were screams...”

  “I heard nothing.” The Darkling looked down the street, then back at the watchman. “Now, if you do not mind, I have things I need to be doing.”

  “Wait! Goodfellow! What is your name?”

  The Darkling stared at the man until he stepped back.

  “My name is Guis Kressind, the playwright,” it said. “Perhaps you have seen my plays?”