The Iron Ship

by K. M. McKinley

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  At the Final Isle

  THE PRINCE ALFRA rode the waves at anchor, three miles out from the Final Isle. The tide was at a middling height, and the island’s extensive platform of wave-cut rock was exposed. The pavement ended in a steep slope, not quite a cliff, but an exposed reef edge, sharp with shells and cruel stone. At the bottom the sea surged fitfully, foaming circles that spread angrily upon the deeps.

  One clear stretch led from the reef, smooth as a scar. Along this water road an eight-oared long boat of wood, now swift, now slow on the currents.

  The Prince Alfra’s whistle blew, and a rope ladder was flung over the side, a sailor hurrying down it before the bottom had finished banging against the hull. Aarin waited at its top, Pasquanty with him, Mother Moude’s chest on the deck between them. The deacon’s seasickness ailed him yet, and his face was pale and green.

  Trassan stood with his brother, watching the boat coming toward them. It cleared the deep sound, coming into the ocean swell that hid and revealed it. With each appearance coming closer, black-robed Guiders of Aarin’s order bent at the oars. A rowing drum broke through the rushing of the surf on the rock. Once free, it became louder, stroke by stroke.

  “I don’t know what to say, Aarin,” said Trassan. “Somehow, it was easier to say goodbye to everyone in Karsa.”

  “You were busy, they were many. This is a more intimate business.”

  The brothers grinned, and clasped one another in a tight embrace.

  “Stay well, brother.”

  “And you, Trassan.”

  The rowing boat was coming along side. A painter was flung to the man at the bottom of the ladder, who scampered up to the deck and secured the rope to a bollard. Aarin swung one leg over the edge, and mounted the ladder. Hanging from the railing of the boat, he addressed his brother. “I wish you all the world’s luck in your venture. I am afraid that you may need it.”

  “Maybe. If I’m lucky, the Drowned King will be the worst I have to face.”

  “If only that could be true. Be careful.”

  “When I’m done I’ll stop by and pick you up,” said Trassan. “I’ll be sure to tell you all about it.”

  “I hope to be away some time before that, brother.”

  Trassan’s smile faded into seriousness. “Goodbye, Guider Kressind.”

  “Goodbye, engineer.”

  The chest was lowered carefully overboard. Once it had been stowed on the long boat, Aarin descended the ladder toward the steel grey sea. At the bottom hands grasped his legs and guided them into the boat. Pasquanty followed, his desire to feel dry land beneath him bettering his terror of the water.

  THE LEADER OF the rowers spoke, a quiet voice from the depths of his cowl. No hint of his face showed in the shadows. “Guider Kressind.”

  “I am he,” said Aarin. “And my deacon, Pasquanty.”

  The hooded man sat motionless a moment, then spoke for the second and final time. “To shore then.” The rowers grasped their oars and heaved against the surging swell, sending the boat skimming quickly over the water. Aarin turned from the Prince Alfra to watch the jagged slopes of the Final Isle grow over them.

  The boat came to a slender jetty of blocks cut from the sharp black stone of the Island, one of five set at different levels in the rock. The boat bumped the stone, one of the rowers sprang ashore and secured the painter. Aarin and Pasquanty disembarked, Aarin overseeing the unloading of Mother Moude. They were shown to the base of a steep, switchback stair cut into the rock at the end of the jetty. The steps were clogged with weed and hollowed by the sea, in whose cups and cavities shore creatures waited for the tide.

  At the summit, the wide, level plain of eroded stone awaited them, holed as floatstone, more rockpool than rock. A single path of cut stone went dead straight to shingled shores and a solitary mount of bright grass; that small piece of the Final Isle that remained permanently above the waves. A grim, windowless building crowned it.

  Aarin turned back to take one last look at his brother’s engine. From the top of the steps the iron ship was toy-like, an improbable lump of metal floating on an endless sea whose vastness threatened to swallow it without trace.

  As if sensing Aarin’s eyes upon it, the Prince Alfra sounded its horn. From its deck a lonely figure waved, hand held high. Perhaps it was Trassan, but Aarin could not be sure. He waved in return. White steam huffed from the funnels, lit underneath as blue as the hidden skies. The ship’s paddlewheels turned once, twice, then quickly. With gathering speed, the iron ship turned to the south.

  Aarin did not stay to watch it sail away. His own task was at hand, upon the Final Isle.

  The cowled Guiders stepped aside, and he set his foot upon the path.

  “Come, Pasquanty,” he said.

  NOTES ON THE

  HUNDRED KINGDOMS

  THERE ARE NEITHER One Hundred Kingdoms in the continent of Ruthnia, nor are they all kingdoms. Instead, the collection of Principalities, Duchies, Counties, City States, one Queendom and a number of actual Kingdoms make a total of ninety-five. That is thirty-nine major states, the forty-nine minor territories of the Olberlands and the seven free cities and statelets of the so-called Herring States, which occupy the mainland coast of the Sea of Karsa.

  This territorial division is, it has to be noted, only one way of reckoning the numbers of the Hundred. Another is by the right or the custom of each country to send a representative to the Assembly of Nations in Perus. Farthia, for example, is one country divided into four semi-independent provinces, each of which has their own representative in the Grand House. Some states ordinarily send no representative, such as Kuzaki, which although nominally independent and having the right to do so, has such a tiny population it is administered mainly by Khushashia. Khushashia is sometimes divided into three separate entities by cartographers (near, north and Farside), and has in the past provided two representatives. To confuse matters, parts of Khushashia, such as northern Farside and The Black Sands, over which it claims suzerainty, lie outside the customarily agreed bounds of the Hundred. Whereas Maceriya, the most powerful of the Hundred, boasts three representatives, but could technically only be divided into two actual parts; the city of Perus, and the rest, the third representative being a holdover from its dim imperial past.

  The Morfaan, long absent from the Earth in any numbers, also have two representatives present at the assembly, and so the hidden kingdom of their remaining few people is sometimes reckoned among the Hundred.

  Many of the political entities in the Hundred are the fractured remnants of older empires. The Old Maceriyans ruled much of the west thousands of years past, and the people of Maceriya, Marceny, and Macer Lesser—as well as some other peoples—still self-identify as ‘Maceriyan’, even though their governments are often at loggerheads. Mohaci likewise dominated the southeast, although in much more recent times. There are provinces within both Mohaci and Maceriya that constantly lobby for their own independence, and they too are sometimes counted as individuals. Not only these imperial rumps states could be further broken down, but Toros is a federation of tribes, Suveren of principalities... And so it goes on.

  Therefore, numerous manners of subdivision of the Hundred are possible, and numbers of the Hundred Kingdoms (or Hundred Lands, as some prefer) can be calculated at anything between eighty-three and one hundred and fourteen.

  On the Geography of Ruthnia

  THE EARTH IS circled by two moons and shares a common orbital point with its sister planet, most commonly named ‘the Twin’ in the Hundred’s many tongues. The influence of these heavenly bodies upon the sea are responsible for the large variation in and complex nature of the tidal levels described in this book. The tidal range of the sea around Karsa’s islands can be in the order of hundreds of feet, making for a very broad swathe of littoral that does not belong fully to either the land or the ocean. The sea can retreat tens of miles in places, while the rivers of Ruthnia are subject to tidal flow for most of t
heir often considerable length. The Great River Olb is tidal all the way to Mohacs-Gravo, a distance of some one and a half thousand miles. In light of this, the map provided of the Hundred shows the water level at the highest or Great Tides. A map which showed the lowest tides would look considerably different. As those lands are in the main useless to the inhabitants of the Hundred, only areas that are always free of inundation are depicted.

  Additionally, the Earth is much troubled by seismic upheaval. The geography of Ruthnia tends to upland, its rivers follow major faultlines. Actual mountain ranges are found only along the northern coasts, southern peninsulas, and the east, where the Appins fence off the hundred from the Black Sands. However, much of the rest of the continent is dominated by high plateau or rugged hill country that can be traversed only with difficulty. Even the plains of Khushashia and Maceriya are many hundreds of feet above sea level, and these are cleft by the Great River Olb and its many tributaries.

  The extreme tidal nature of world’s oceans dictates that sea travel is also not undertaken lightly, much of the coast is not particularly navigable, and so many lands of the Hundred have, at different times in their past, undergone periods of isolation.

  The continent of Ruthnia occupies part of the southern hemisphere. North takes one towards the equator, south towards the pole.

  On the Languages and Peoples of Ruthnia

  THERE IS NO single common source of origin for the languages spoken within the Hundred, nor for the people that speak them. Since the sudden population of the continent in prehistory there has been much admixture of tongues, and the dominant languages of certain periods, most notably Maceriyan, have evolved into distinct language families of their own. These can exhibit marked differences to one another, having absorbed features from various original populations, but they share a common root nonetheless.

  The other tongues are startlingly diverse, and despite large numbers of loanwords, principally from Maceriyan (high and low), they remain very different. This diversity of speech within the Hundred has been largely preserved by the difficult geography of the continent.

  Six main languages are in wide use across the Hundred today:

  High Maceriyan – The language of the ancient Old Maceriyans, much influenced by the Morfaan. In this era it is primarily a language of learned discourse and high government, but is falling out of fashion.

  Low Maceriyan – The modern language of Maceriya and Macer Lesser is the lingua franca of the Hundred, and used across the length and breadth of the continent, excepting the southeast.

  Hethikan – The ancient language of the far north, another language of learning, also falling out of use.

  Khusiacki – The sheer size of Khushashia means that Khusiacki is spoken in many places. The languages around it form a rare continuum and are mostly mutually intelligible with one another.

  Mohacin – Used for over five hundred years as the administrative language of the Mohacin Imperium, it is this rather than Maceriyan that is used both as the lingua franca and language of learning in the southeast.

  Karsarin – Owing to the rapid industrialisation of Karsa a century ago, and the export of expertise and huge amount of trade this engendered, Karsarin is increasingly heard in the mercantile hubs of the Hundred and beyond.

  All languages have been rendered into English where spoken by individuals who can comprehend them. I have taken the liberty of altering the writing style slightly when Maceriyan is being spoken. Similarly, the retention of the likes of ‘Kressind/Kressinda’ is intended to indicate the highly inflected nature of Karsarin.

  Khusiacki is the most often heard language spoken by one person but not understood by another. For this I have chosen a modified Slavic, although the true language little resembles it.

  Similarly the names have been adapted. Zhinsky’s true name is not alone in being virtually impossible to transliterate into a Latin alphabet, and is similarly difficult to pronounce. Some names are close to the original, others have been invented for ease of rendition and to heighten regional contrasts that might not be obvious to speakers of English. You must therefore lay the blame for any inconsistency or error at my door, should you come across either.

  As ‘the Earth’ is what the inhabitants of Ruthnia call their homeworld, that is what I have chosen to call it. There are other, high-speech words for it, but as we do not wander around calling our Earth ‘Terra’ (and indeed, Terra is only ‘Earth’ in Latin), neither do they do the equivalent. No confusion is intended; this is not our world.

  On the Correct form of Address

  IN KARSA, ONE addresses those of a high social rank as “Goodfellow” or “Goodlady” and those of a lower to you as “Goodman” or “Goodwife” for married women and those over thirty, and “Goodmaid” for unmarried women under thirty. The addition of “Good” to a person’s occupation, ie “Goodmage”, “Goodengineer” is suitable when dealing with someone who is of equal or slightly higher status than oneself, but whose profession or standing demands a higher level of respect. “Goodlady” and “Goodfellow” should always be used when dealing with the nobility.

  Similar conventions exist across The Hundred, although the titles differ, and in some places there are numerous levels of degree and associated titles. For the sake of simplicity, I have stuck with the Karsan standard throughout.

  On Dragons and Draconics

  THERE ARE A number of varieties of what might be called ‘draconic’ creatures in Ruthnia, ie six-limbed, reptilian creatures, ranging from sparrow-sized up to an animal similar to our mythical dragon. In a few remote areas of the Hundred this clade of creatures dominates, in most they are increasingly rare. Only a few have been successfully domesticated by humanity and so prosper alongside them. Chief among these is the riding dragon or ‘dracon’, a medium, bipedal animal with a large fore pair of grasping limbs and a lesser middle pair. There are several sub-breeds of dracon, mainly distinguished by their size, colouring and the amount of feathers they bear.

  Too dangerous for day-to-day use, dracons are employed exclusively by the armed forces in more civilised realms, although in wilder places they are utilised as a common riding beast. As the dracon is the draconic creature most commonly encountered by people in the Hundred, in Karsarin and Maceriyan, the term ‘dracon’ has come to be applied to all draconics excepting dragonlings and the dragons themselves.

  Of course, the use of the word dracon in this English text is my conceit, intended to convey a sense of the beast in question.

  Of the Tyn

  WHO THE TYN are and where they come from are topics much speculated upon by the philosophs of the Hundred.

  There are many, many kinds of Tyn, but the most noticeable divide is between the Lesser and the Greater Tyn. Lesser Tyn vary widely in individual appearance but tend to be between ten centimetres and (rarely) a metre in height. The majority of the ‘Wild Tyn’, meaning those that are innately dangerous or are antagonistic to humanity, are of this sort. The Greater Tyn are larger, and though they lack humanity’s homogeneity, their numerous clans and tribal groupings are far more easily reconcilable as stemming from the same stock. The vast majority of Greater Tyn dwell in Karsa. There are scattered populations—rumoured and genuine—of Lesser Tyn throughout the Hundred. In Karsa only do either sort dwell side by side with humans, albeit in circumstances little better than slavery.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  THERE ARE AUTHORS who insist the only way to tell a truthful story is to mine one’s own life for incident, and ruthlessly. I have shied away from this practice, fearing, I think, to reveal too much of my inner self, and not wishing to embarrass those I know.

  For The Iron Ship, however, I decided to abandon this stand. Therefore, this story that you hold in your hands is the most personal I have written.

  I come from a large family very much like the Kressinds. The characters of the brothers are drawn to degree from those of my own siblings. All of them are talented, capable, and ambitious people. Some are closer
to their real-world counterparts than others, but these are not intended to be accurate portraits. I’ve borrowed characteristics, melted them down, and recast them as new people. No matter how talented a writer, it is virtually impossible to truthfully capture an entire person, with all their contradictions, flaws and qualities, on the page. Even if people stayed forever the same—and they don’t—so much of what we believe to be true about anybody, even ourselves, is also mutable, and always subjective.

  So don’t worry, boys, these people aren’t you. Even had I intended it, they couldn’t possibly be so.

  Primarily they are not the same because of their upbringing. Our father and mother are the opposites of the Kressinds. Our father is good-natured rather than bitter, our mother is strong rather than weak. Both offer us valuable guidance and support instead of pressure. Our father, like Gelbion Kressind, suffers a disabling illness. However, my own father’s reaction to his misfortune is utterly at odds with Kressind senior’s. Although his life has been much altered by his condition, our dad has borne his with a fortitude and good humour that I find deeply inspiring.

  It goes without saying that we all love you very much, mum and dad. But sometimes it should be said.

  What I have tried to capture accurately is the deep affection between my siblings and I. Part of my intention with this novel was to explore a family that was as close as mine, but who had been raised in very different circumstances. I’m glad to see that they stuck together.