by Eddie Han
The others around the table had already tuned out just as Dale’s interest piqued.
“What do you mean by that?” Dale asked.
Sebastian was taken aback. It had been so long since someone had listened to one of his diatribes.
“Well,” he hesitated, gathering his thoughts, “take the Ancile for example. Everyone thinks it was about national security, right? Consider who profited from it. Mining corporations who provided the resources to build it. And construction firms who secured the contracts. And the politicians who were bribed, in essence, to ensure its necessity. Did we really need it? Well, we never did before.”
“That’s because Duke Thalian was never on the throne before,” Dale offered.
“Everyone paints him like some warmonger. But he’s only reacting to the threat the Ancile poses. You can’t wave a sword at someone and then decry a defensive response. Call me a traitor if you want but our government is the real traitor. Our senators, the warmongers. Think about it. The mining corporations that sponsor them win on both ends of this conflict. Regardless of the outcome, they come out with the gold.”
“How’s that?”
“It takes resources for Bale to raise an army too. That means more iron and copper sales. You see? It’s all one giant, sinister plot right under our noses. Far more sinister than the threat of some foreign invasion. This is treason at the highest levels. A domestic conclave of the powerful elite whose corruption knows no end. Our government has betrayed its people.”
“Aren’t you just a wellspring of good cheer,” said Rudy. “So little faith that justice will prevail in the end.”
“Not in this world. Not unless there’s some higher power willing to intervene.”
“There is. It’s called God.”
Sebastian scoffed. “Don’t get me started on the Benesanti.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it, Sebastian?” asked Mosaic.
“Yeah,” Rudy added. “Do something instead of just going on about how utterly shit it is.”
“I am doing something.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’m raising awareness.”
Rudy laughed. Mosaic shook her head. Sebastian smiled at his own absurdity. But Dale was not amused. As a veteran, he was constantly curbing his disdain for civilians who tossed around their theoretical opinions on politics and war. And even more so for those who trivialized it with indifference.
He left the booth to order another drink. By his fourth, the entire party had arrived—members of the cast, friends of the members, artists and musicians, until even the bar’s quieter back was full of revelry. Then came the beautiful blonde Anika, who turned heads as she sashayed in on the arm of a tall, handsome young man that made Terry the host frown.
“Well, Mosey, aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“Dale, this is Anika. Anika, my cousin Dale.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” said the blonde, holding out her hand palm down for him to kiss.
“And you,” Dale replied, gently shaking it instead.
“Careful, Dale,” said Rudy. “The lass may bed you if you stare too long.”
To which Anika replied, “Oh, the whale and her tales. By the way, great show, Mosey. Rudy, you were flat.”
She lit up a smoke on the end of her long stem filter and introduced her companion, who had a firm handshake and whose name Dale had made no effort to remember.
As the night wore on, Dale quietly fixed himself full of bourbon while a battle to monopolize attention ensued between Anika and Rudy. Rudy with her humor and Anika with a desperate peddling of her beauty. When she found herself losing, she feigned boredom. Then she sought attention away from the table. Her eyes wandered as she tossed her hair and fired off rapid, random smirks all over the room. A woman in need.
As the room began to spin, Dale excused himself. He sought the relief of the cool night’s air. A group of young women dressed in short skirts and low bust lines shuffled their way in past him.
“Anika’s competition just got stiffer,” Dale mumbled to himself.
The evening was crisp. The night was quiet. Nothing spoke of an imminent invasion. No domestic conclave of the powerful elite. And no justice.
He moved into the alley beside the pub, hugged the wall and vomited. Mosaic came out after him and asked if he was okay.
“Fine, I’m fine,” he replied, lighting up a smoke to mask his breath. “You know something? You have some interesting friends, Mo.”
“Let’s get you home,” she said.
“No, no, you go back inside. I’ll walk it off.”
She looked at him skeptical.
“Really,” Dale insisted. “I’m fine, now. I got most of it out.”
“You sure?”
“Hey, just don’t stay out too late, okay?”
“Okay.”
He then thanked her for inviting him to the concert and for the great company. Before parting, they agreed that they should try to see each other more often.
Back at home, Dale lay in bed swirling in a haze. He stared at the white ceiling supported by dark alder beams wondering, if there was an earthquake, would the ceiling hold? He thought about how those were the same alder beams his father saw every night falling asleep. He closed his eyes and thought about his joyless father. He tried to define joy. Settled on likening it to the scent of something caught only on its way out, he rolled over and drifted off to the music from Mosaic’s concert still fresh in his memory.
Nearly two hours passed.
Dale was stirred awake by an incessant rapping on his door—the sound of brass against oak. It wasn’t a rushed knock, intended to alarm him; just steady and patient like a metronome. Unable to ignore it, he crawled out of bed and cursed over a throbbing head. When he opened the door, he saw a man holding a brass-handled cane. He was wearing a top hat and a black rose on his lapel.
“Good evening, Mister Sunday,” said Remy Guillaume. “It is time.”
CH 16
THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS
It was just past midnight. The sky was without a moon. The air was heavy and cold. And the city around them was especially dark.
“The lights are out,” Dale observed.
The street lamps were unlit. Every building, black. The only sources of light were, for a time, the limousine lamps that guided the horses. But even those were extinguished as they neared the breaker.
“Yes. We put the Spegen temporarily out of commission,” Remy replied. “Just until the transport arrives, of course.”
With control over the unions, it was no secret the Carousel Rogues had set themselves up to profit from the Spegen. Right at the onset of its operation, the Rogues siphoned a percentage from the payments. For the Rogues, shutting down the Steam Powered Electric Generator was a voluntary closing of a very lucrative spigot. They also risked a very public display of strength and the range of their reach in Carnaval City, a display the Rogues characteristically tried to avoid. The blackout revealed to Dale the importance of this transport to the Rogues and the Fat Fox.
Arturo Lucien was waiting in front of the breaker with two more stretch limousine coaches. They were guarded by a small entourage of Rogues. Dale passed them as he entered through the office and into the hangar. With no electric power, the gates had to be opened manually. He worked a mechanical crank that was connected to a pulley system. The chains rattled as the steel gates opened into the black bay. There were patches of thinning fog in the middle-distance like slow departing ghosts.
Meanwhile, Remy motioned one of the Rogues over. The Rogue carried in his arm a flare secured to a tripod. A bellow-like contraption was attached to it by a hose. He prepared it at the end of the dock, hidden deep below the hangar in the direct line of sight from the sea beyond. There was a burst of light as the flare ignited before it settled into a steady blue flame. Remy stood at the gates, eyes scanning the darkness.
Arturo walked up beside Dale, blowing into his hands.
“What happens now?”
“We wait. As soon as the transport passes the naval blockade, it’ll surface in the bay where the water is shallow. Then hopefully, it’ll spot the flare and cruise straight in before anyone notices.”
“So it’s an underwater vessel?”
“What did you expect?”
“You said this transport wasn’t going to be illegal.”
“Not all underwater vessels are illegal.”
“Oh, so these guys are marine surveyors? Just a couple of scientists, right?”
“No. They’re Submariners.”
“You mean ‘pirates’.”
“Look, nothing you’re doing is illegal, okay?”
Shaking his head, Dale lit up a smoke. He then followed Arturo down to the dock where Remy waited.
“Let me get this straight,” Dale said, walking behind Arturo. “I’m an accomplice in a smuggling operation conducted by pirates and the city’s most notorious criminal organization, but it’s not illegal?”
“Just relax, will you?”
Dale blew out a plume of smoke. “Don’t I look relaxed to you?”
“Yeah, but the way you’re making all this sound—it’s making me nervous.”
Remy checked his watch, looked up, and suddenly raised a hand. Everyone held their breath and peered with him into the darkness.
“There,” whispered Arturo, pointing into the void.
Remy tapped his cane against the docks and the Rogue underling immediately began working the tripod contraption. The flare signaled in bursts of rhythmic pulses.
It took him a moment before Dale noticed the large moving silhouette emerging out of the darkness. A mass, swiftly and silently gliding toward them. The steam engine had been shut off. Purely on momentum, the stealth vessel settled into the docking bay. Stenciled into the side of the matte black iron hull was its name in weathered gray paint: The Saint Viljoen.
Dale recognized it immediately. And something stirred within. He was a child again, marveling at a sea vessel in his father’s breaker. “That’s not a Submariner. That’s the Submariner.”
“Yep. He’s a good friend of mine,” Arturo replied, brimming with pride. “We did a lot of business together in the past when I was still a sea merchant. It’s all about making the right connections.”
The first to disembark was its captain, Leon Getty, a Submariner whose name was widely recognized among seafarers. He was one part charming gentlemen, two parts ruthless murderer. He climbed out of the hatch and swaggered down the docking ramp, his long navy coat hovering just above his ankles. Down his chest, holstered in two rows of three on either side of his suspenders, were percussion-pin pistols, and two more on his hips. His bronzed skin was weathered and leathery. His dark hair was pulled into a neatly folded back-knot. The tightly pulled hair and the large hoop earrings in both ears accentuated his narrow face. When he spoke, the deep voice came with a noticeable lisp.
“Traversed have I from shore to shore in the womb of the Amaranthian. But none have my eyes beset a friendlier face than this,” he said, clutching Arturo’s arm. He greeted him with a kiss, as it was customary among men of the sea. “It’s good to see you, old friend,” he added, with an affectionate gaze.
“You too, Leon.”
“He looks like shit,” came a sultry voice from behind the captain.
“And you, lovelier than ever, Cassiopeia,” Arturo replied.
Cassiopeia, “Siren of the Saint,” was rumored to be as fetching in form as she was dangerous. Dale had heard of her generous bosom, hips of an hourglass, and long striding legs that men would fall on their swords to part—embellishments of libidinous men who’d been at sea too long. Other than a plunging décolletage, chocolate brown curls, and a saber sheathed at her side, Dale thought Cassiopeia’s colorful language was more notable than anything in her appearance.
“Come here and let me greet you proper, you filthy brack swab.”
Arturo couldn’t help but blush when she kissed him on the cheek, giving hue to his otherwise pasty skin.
Leon gave Dale a nod. “So is this handsome fellow the face behind our darkly encounter?” he asked.
“No, this is my friend, Dale Sunday,” Arturo replied. “He owns the breaker.”
Cassiopeia looked at Remy. “And who’s the ass in the hat?” she asked.
“I am Remy Guillaume of the Carousel Rogues,” Remy replied, with a formal bow, top hat in hand. “Perhaps the lady can take greater care with her choice of words.”
“Perhaps I can take care to stick the heel of my boot in your throat, Mister Top Hat.”
“Hetep, Cassiopeia,” said Leon, in the pirate tongue. “You’ll forgive my first mate,” he added, stepping forward. “She is especially temperamental after a long journey.”
The Submariner’s eyes were fixed elsewhere. Dale followed his gaze over his shoulder and noticed that the entourage of Rogues had positioned themselves all throughout the hangar, overlooking the dock with their missile weapons trained on Leon.
“Your reputation precedes you, Captain Leon Getty,” said Remy. “We know who you are. We know to whom you answer. And at sea, you may be an unrivaled bunch. But I would like to remind you and your first mate that you are currently standing on land under the protection of the Carousel Rogues. We expect you to behave accordingly.”
Leon immediately raised a hand and silenced Cassiopeia before she could respond.
“We understand,” he replied. “And we have no intention of overstaying our welcome. We only need to complete this exchange and then we’ll be on our merry way.”
The Rogue who had been working the flare had put it out and was now standing beside Remy with a large leather suitcase in hand.
“As agreed,” said Remy, “we will give you your payment once we can verify that the passengers are indeed who they say they are.”
“And what fool would pretend to be when they are not?” said Leon. “Tread carefully, good rogue. These are no ordinary men.”
He clapped his hands twice. On cue, a fellow pirate waiting at the mouth of the Saint Viljoen’s cargo door opened it. A tall, broad-shouldered man emerged in a tieless black suit. His face was hidden behind a ghostly, expressionless mask made of porcelain. He descended down the docking ramp alone.
Remy bowed and introduced himself.
“Where is the Fat Fox?” asked the man in the ghost mask.
He had a slight Silven accent.
“We will take you to him, shortly,” Remy replied. “But first, I must confirm your identity. A mere formality, you understand.”
The Ghost curiously cocked his head.
“You wish me to remove my mask, Remy Guillaume of the Carousel Rogues?”
“No. You only need to answer a simple question.”
“Wouldn’t cutting your throat be confirmation enough?”
Before he finished speaking, a figure stood behind Remy, holding a blade to his throat. No one, not Remy, Dale, nor anyone else had noticed this dark figure disembark and sneak up behind Remy. It was as if he appeared out of thin air. All of the Rogues in the breaker shuffled alert at the threat. They aimed their weapons, but too late. The rest looked on, stunned and immobile.
Remy signaled his men to stand down with a raised hand. He moved slowly.
“Qi a santom rachnya fad espel?” he then asked.
Remy spoke to the Ghost in a dead language—a language with which only scholars of ancient languages were familiar.
The Ghost paused and studied him.
“Espel a santom nai,” he finally replied, rolling up his sleeve just enough to show Remy a tattoo on his left wrist. It was of a compass marked with ancient runes, framed in a machine cog.
“Mora a’unde espel si yakovz.”
The Darkness then released him, sheathed his blade, and stepped away. As he did, he moved unlike anything Dale had ever seen, like a figure from a feverish nightmare, deliberate and menacing.
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The Darkness wore a lean-fitting outfit of charcoal gray dappled with black, rendering him nearly indistinguishable against the backdrop of night. And over his head was a matching mottled balaclava with two separate holes cut out for his ink-black eyes. He wore thin gloves attached to bracers of matted black leather and boots fastened with wraps nearly up to his knees. Sheathed into a shoulder harness under the arms on either side were two throwing knives. And running horizontally across his hips just below the small of his back was the scabbard housing his blade. Nothing of him was uncovered.
The blade itself was similar in form to an Omeijian wakizashi, too long to be a dagger and too short to be a sword. But to the trained eye there was no mistaking it for anything other than a customized variant. It was simpler and more pragmatic in design, with a straight single-edge as opposed to the curve common to Omeijian blades. And there was no guard between the collars separating the blade from the handle. The bladed half measured slightly longer than the length of its wielder’s forearm, while the braided grip was nearly equal in length for two-handed leveraging.
Remy rubbed his throat where the Darkness had pressed his blade up against it. Then he signaled the Rogue standing beside him who handed the suitcase over to Leon. While the Submariners checked its contents, counting the bundles of banknotes, Remy looked at the Ghost and gestured toward the breaker exit.
“Please, if you will come with me.”
The Ghost and the Darkness followed Remy out and disappeared into one of the guild’s stretch coaches. Remy then returned with a satchel containing the rest of Dale’s pay.
