The Scarlet Star Trilogy

by Ben Galley

  Chapter XXI

  DELIVERANCE

  12th August, 1867

  Water is an invasive thing. Give it a gap, give it a crack in a seam, give it anything, and it will seep in uninvited. Give it a yelling mouth and nostrils gasping for air, and it will flood.

  Merion felt the brackish river water filling his mouth. He tasted the silt, crunching between his teeth as he thrashed and parried with the sucking currents. Every movement sent the fire of pain coursing through his shoulder, down his arm. In the cloying yet cacophonous underwater world, he could even hear the broken bones crunching in their sockets, gnawing at flesh. It was agony.

  Lurker!

  Half-dizzy from pain and blinded by silt and blood, he kicked out, aiming for something solid. He grabbed at the water and felt cloth. He seized it.

  The cloth fought back, weaker than he, but still vicious. A hand grabbed his shoulder and he roared bubbles. Another sought his throat. He kicked again, catching skin and bone. He heard the muffled gurgle of pain and kicked again. The hands did not let go. Dizali was not defeated. Even now, as they both sank together, staining the Thames red, he sought murder.

  Merion’s boot scuffed on the river-bed: a hundred years of junk and sewage. More bubbles breached his lips. It felt as though each of them were a measure of his life, floating away. The pain was beginning to cloud at the corners of his eyes. His head pounded with the weight of the water.

  The young Hark thrust himself from the mud and wrapped a hand around the dark shape wrestling him, digging fingers into anything soft he could find. Eyes, face, the gaps between the lord’s ribs. There was no finesse in their fight. No sweeping blows, no jab and feign, just merciless thrashing. He could almost hear Dizali’s venomous thoughts leaking into the water.

  If I die, you die with me, Hark.

  Merion felt something bump against his chest and brushed it away, thinking it another hand seeking his neck. Instead he found the vial with his fingers.

  He swivelled in the water, pushing Dizali beneath him. His lungs were beginning to chase their own bubbles, forcing themselves into his throat. As he held the lord with one hand, pressed against his face, he sought the vial.

  River water poured in alongside the kelpie blood, no matter how hard he clamped his teeth around the glass. He knew only to drink, and pray that the shade would not be soiled. Either that, or Dizali would have his last laugh; or choke, to be precise.

  Merion had no idea how many quarts of the Thames he had choked back, nor how long they had fought. All he knew was to push, and push hard against the coldness that now filled his belly. He felt nothing. No rush. No boiling. Just a roaring in his head. It sounded like the thunder of heavy engines.

  A tingle spread through him, doing nothing for the burn inside his lungs. Merion could feel the last gasps of air crowding behind his tongue. He began to convulse as his insides spasmed.

  And still Dizali’s hand refused to move, even though the silt now billowed around them, sucking them both down.

  Familiar words came to his mind, then: an apology, useless and half-uttered between the choking fingers of a Brother Seventh. I’m sorry, he had told himself. He shook his head, weighed down by water. He was not sorry now; only for those he had left on the riverbank. Even with another death looming, he had finished his work. He had felled Lord Dizali and dragged him to the lowest depths he could find. It had only taken drowning to finish it.

  The young Hark tilted his head towards the surface and the distant sunlight, and inhaled. The water was given its chance. It flooded in, strong and cold, filling his lungs to the brim in seconds.

  So be it.

  The cloudiness faded from his eyes. His lungs burst back into life, sucking down more of the cold water. He blinked and saw Dizali’s crumpled face through the smoked-glass of the water; no longer blurry. He choked a laugh even then. Even after death, his father had saved him.

  Merion let himself go limp, watching as Dizali took his turn to convulse. The bubbles exploded from his purple lips as he opened his eyes in panic, letting the boy loose. Merion took another lungful for good measure and pushed with his legs, forcing Dizali down to the river-bed. As he floated there, gliding on a carpet of silt, the boy watched the man’s death arrive in ragged slurps. Dizali had no shade to save him, just the awful realisation of failure escorting him to the darkness.

  Merion watched the body until it disappeared, until the blood-loss brought the shadows back to his eyes. He hung in the currents like flotsam, letting himself drift with the waters.

  He did not know how long he floated there in that world, drifting in and out of consciousness, listening as the throb of propellers come closer. It was serene, in a way, until pain shattered the tranquility.

  Strong hands hauled at his arms, and only then did he give in to the weakness.

  *

  13th August, 1867

  Silence can shock just as easily as a roar when first waking. It is the idea that eyes may be watching. Waiting for you to wake so you can see the knife plunge. The thought that something ill and evil has entered during slumbers. That silence can be more ominous than a clap, or crash, or a gunshot.

  Merion tore into wakefulness like an axe through a curtain. He wrenched himself up from the bed and immediately regretted it. Pain surged through him and he collapsed back down again, clutching his shoulder.

  ‘Rest easy, boy,’ said a gruff American voice, thick with tobacco smoke. Merion’s aching eyes snapped open to find a man beside his bed, busy rolling a cigarette, white-haired and nonchalant. His coat made him look like a doctor of some sort. The room swayed.

  ‘Where…’

  ‘Where are your friends?’ he coughed, hacking up something before spitting it out of a porthole. The day was bright. ‘Outside.’

  Merion felt a coldness claw at him, deep in his gut. ‘All of them?’

  The man shrugged, moving to the door. He looked peeved by something, as if his patients usually died, and Merion had bucked the trend. ‘Don’t know how many there were to start with,’ he said, before promptly leaving.

  Before the door could swing back in place, it was caught by a hand. Lilain stood in the doorway, silent. She stepped over the sill, one hand low and by her side. Merion stared at her past the hill of his toes under the yellow bed sheet.

  ‘I thought I had lost you. Again,’ she said, in a voice as small as her smile. Her eyes were red-raw at the edges.

  Merion began to shake his head, but the bruising in his throat told him to stop. ‘It seems death doesn’t want me, yet,’ he croaked. He chose the order of his questions carefully. The coldness was turning warm, souring like milk left out in the sun.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘You should know, Nephew. This was your doing. Forgot to tell me this part of the plan, didn’t you?’ Lilain tapped her toe on the floor. It sounded like metal. ‘Having Lincoln, in his own Black Rosa, come to restore order to the Empire. A fine touch. His men pulled you out.’

  The hands. Merion’s wiregram had done its work and so had the Red King. Just in time. ‘How long—’

  ‘Ten minutes. They had to take the ship almost to the bridge to grab you. Lincoln didn’t stop searching until he’d found you. He would have been here to see you, but he’s currently giving a speech to the Emerald House about freedom from tyranny and whatnot.’ She thumbed her nose. ‘Could have told me he was a rusher, Merion. That’s one secret a letter knows how to keep. You’ve been asleep for almost a day. It’s just after sunrise.’

  ‘Dizali?’

  ‘You were the last one to see him. You tell me. You can tell Lincoln yourself. He dearly wants to know.’

  Merion blinked slowly, savouring the after-image of a goggle-eyed lord being swallowed by the silt. ‘He’s dead. Drowned.’

  ‘Then good riddance.’

  ‘Rhin?’

  That made Lilain snort. She avoided her nephew’s eyes, staring at the iron ceiling instead. ‘Clever little beast, that one. Seems to have mad
e a pact with the Queen he saved, and got another off his back in the process.’

  Merion tried to raise his head, but it was too heavy. He still felt as though half a river was sloshing around inside him. Lilain put a hand on his leg to keep him still, but stayed at the foot of his bed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He saved Victorious from the noose. Made her promise to pay his debt before he cut her down. She was true to her word, for a royal. Sift has a new Hoard, and Rhin has a new life. He’s waiting outside, looking half-dead but happy enough. Explainin’ him to the sailors was tough, but they’re leaving him be. Rushers all, if I’m correct.’

  Merion had one other name before he could let himself say the last. He swallowed. ‘And Ca—’

  The name made Lilain hold up her hand and clench it into a fist. ‘That girl may have spared you, but she still took everything from us.’ Stifling a cough, she shook her head. The sourness spread to the back of his throat as she lifted her other hand. In it, she held a leather hat, bent at one corner. A dab of dark blood stained its peak. Merion choked on the sight of it as she laid it on his knees. The boy wanted to shrug it away, as if that would deny the truth.

  ‘He’s ready to see you when you are,’ she said, and then left.

  Merion stared at the hat for a long time before he allowed himself to touch it; to recognise it for what it was. It was heavy in his weak arms, so he resorted to thumbing away the blood, fighting back every emotion his heart and gut threw at him, until he could do nothing but throw the hat to the floor and curse it for its loneliness. Sobs wracked him until he could do nothing but sleep.

  *

  The carriage overtook him as he reached the open gates, guardless still as they were a week ago. Merion stood aside as it passed. The driver was whipping the horses hard, and their hooves sprayed dirt that spattered his cloak; but he did not care.

  Hands in pockets, the young Hark walked on. Far too many miles had passed under his feet that morning. He hadn’t even taken the rumbleground. He had forced himself to walk all the way in his new stumbling shamble; shoulder still bandaged with enough cloth to wrap up a tree, arm hanging heavy and lopsided. Above him, perched on the gate, a magpie cawed. Keeping watch from a distance as always, Jake had refused to come to anybody.

  He set a course for where the carriage had come to rest, obscuring the entrance to Slickharbour Spit. He heard the slamming of doors and saw the suspension lighten. Visitors, already.

  As he moved around the horses, his hand running across the spit-flecked manes, he saw her striding down the steps, looking scarred from this side and as pale as he felt. There was something missing from her gait, as if she had lost half her weight since Lilain had chased her down the riverbank, threatening to skin her alive.

  A familiar portly man was already bowing at the foot of the steps. ‘Lord Darbish,’ he heard her greet him in a hoarse voice. ‘Thank you for joining me on such short notice.’

  Merion had no time for her formalities. There was no break in his tired stride.

  Darbish had straightened; no easy feat. ‘Lady Serped. An honour. And let me be the first to congrat—’

  ‘No, allow me,’ Merion interrupted. They had not seen him approach. He couldn’t tell who was more startled, but he could see who was the most afraid. Calidae carried a colder glint to her eye than usual, but it was not a look of venom. Worry? Regret, perhaps? She almost stumbled on a step.

  She cleared her throat. ‘Tonmerion.’

  ‘Lord Hark! The man of the hour.’ For an ambassador, Darbish was useless at reading moods. As the lord strode forward, meaty hand extended, Merion gave him his most withering look. He was a lamprey after all. Darbish shrunk away, back to his carriage door.

  ‘Thought me dead, did you?’ the boy asked, his voice thick. Calidae had quickly recovered herself, and yet still her spark was dulled. He had never seen her like this. ‘I see no time is wasted on you. Even before the dead are buried, you are already trying to build on their corpses, it seems.’ Merion took a stand a yard below her, staring up with unblinking eyes, letting her see their redness.

  ‘It was an accident,’ she said. It almost sounded like an apology. That, he had not expected.

  ‘Shooting me, or shooting my friend?’

  Finally, she raised her chin. ‘Your friend L—’

  ‘John Hobble,’ Merion spat.

  ‘He was not part…’ she struggled. ‘He knocked me to the ground. My finger was already on the trigger. As we fell, I…’ For the first time in what Merion guessed was fourteen years, Calidae Serped was lost for words. He saw in her a remorse he had never expected, as though an iceberg had produced steam instead of meltwater.

  In all the paces it had taken to reach her, he had not decided what he wanted. An explanation? Revenge? Now he was here, a strange and new Calidae stood in front of him, and he was even more confused. He had expected malice, not compunction; an excuse to shoot her, not an excuse from her lips.

  ‘I am not going to kill you. That’s too quick for you. I would rather your actions haunt you forever, as that day will haunt me,’ he said, letting go of the pistol in his pocket and folding his hands behind his back. Her eyes flinched as he did so. She must have seen the murder at the edge of his eyes.

  Her voice was cold and clear. ‘In truth, I had changed my mind about you, Hark. Victorious… she told me something in the Crucible. I had decided to let you go. As much as it pains me to even give this thought utterance, you are to blame for this moment. Without these scars I would not be standing here on these steps. My parents may be dead, and so might your friend, but we are here, free of Dizali. My father once said you are defined by your enemies, not your friends, and it took an enemy such as you to make me understand that. We are two sides of the same rusted coin, and I damn you for that, Hark. And damn you for caring.’

  Merion saw then that his tact had worked, without any words. He kept his mouth shut.

  ‘Have you at all wondered? I could have shot you in the heart, but I chose the shoulder. The point where Dizali’s heart was. He was going to grab you, and it was either shoot through you to kill him, or let him.’ She raised a finger and let it hover an inch from his bandages for a moment, then it fell heavy. ‘I am truly sorry, for John Hobble. He saved us.’

  ‘Saved us all. And don’t you ever forget that.’ Merion felt the heat welling under his eyes, but he fought it back. ‘If gratitude is owed for what you did, for your change of heart, then it is given. Our pact is over, Calidae. If I see you ever again it will be far too soon.’

  With that, he turned away, finding a wide-eyed Darbish standing behind him, fidgeting with the brim of his top hat. A fresh sweat had broken out on his forehead. Behind him, blinking owlishly at the sunlight from the open door of the carriage, was a thin and frail-looking woman. She held lace to her nose to keep the stink of the salt-air at bay.

  ‘Good day,’ Merion told them all, before retracing his steps. There wasn’t a word spoken until he passed the snuffling horses once more.

  ‘Lady Avalin, if you’ll give me a moment,’ Lord Darbish excused himself, leaving his charge in the care of Calidae. Merion heard his heavy steps give chase.

  ‘Lord Hark, one moment please!’ Darbish wheezed. Merion slowed to let him catch up. He could use the distraction. The man brought him to a stop with a hand on his elbow.

  ‘We never got a chance to thank you. Lady Serped, of course, but not you. She informs me you were the mind behind the whole ploy.’

  Merion cast a glance over the reins, watching Calidae escort the woman into Slickharbour. Only once did she look back, face as blank as paper. ‘She does, does she?’

  Darbish fumbled inside his coat, producing a crumple of familiar paper. ‘This was you, was it not? “If you fear for your future, now is the time to take a stand against the true tyrant of this proud Empire. Tomorrow I ask you to take a stand in your parliament.” I received this the night before last. Never did catch the gentleman who brought it to my door. It was such
an early hour…’ His words trailed away. ‘It was you, was it not?’

  Merion’s eyes slid from the paper to the lord’s. He shook his head. ‘Tell me, Lord Darbish. Who is more important? The man who pens the letter, or the man who delivers it? It wasn’t me. It was somebody far more deserving of praise.’

  Darbish scratched his head at that and Merion left him to it, turning away for the gates.

  ‘Then thank you, Tonmerion Hark, for delivering us!’

  The words rang in his head until the clatter of the rumbleground train drowned them out.

  *

  The glass was raised to the sky. ‘To the lost.’

  ‘The lost.’

  ‘The lost.’

  ‘Lost.’

  Four wet slaps echoed across the deck as the liquor met the iron plates.

  Lincoln and his men had left them alone to the business of burial. They stood on the back of the Black Rosa where not so long ago, Merion had watched the lights of the Endless Land melt into the sea.

  Lilain, sore-eyed and silent, stood beside him. On the other side, Rhin. Behind them, Gunderton, with a few fresh wounds destined to scar at his neck and throat. (Hanister had put up quite the fight.)

  What a ragged group they made: bandaged, asymmetrical, short on words and bereft of tears. Whatever water Merion had stolen from the Thames he had made sure was returned.

  Together, he and Lilain stared down at Lurker’s body, laid out on a short table, painted with the sunset glow that bounced off the river. His scarred hands were interlocked over his barrel-chest, leather coat covering the bullet hole, eyes shut and face peaceful; as though he was in one of his drunken stupors, all whiskeyed out.

  Lilain choked on something as she stared, and with a hand on her back, Merion watched her place a kiss on Lurker’s cheek. He found solace in the furnace of the sky, furrowed with cloud. He felt Rhin pat him lightly on the leg, and it was all he could do to stay impassive.

  ‘Did you kill her?’ his aunt asked quietly.

  Merion shook his head at the deck.

  ‘We should let them take him,’ she whispered, abruptly looking away to the sailors who hovered on the starboard side. Strong men, strong enough to be gentle with a body. Lincoln had hand-picked them. The Red King himself stood as a silhouette against the dying sun, cane under arm and stovepipe hat, for once, in hand. He nodded briefly to Merion as he caught his eye.