Clockwork Phoenix 4

by Mike Allen

  The Saltukkuri with the soldiers had chips of red jewel in the centres of their brows, seemingly embedded there. Among them stood a Rhuinishwoman in red robes and cloaks, a similar, larger jewel upon her own forehead.

  Her expression was thunderous. Up on top of the lift gate, there was scuffling between the workers and soldiers, the soldiers beating at the workers with the butts of their weapons.

  Chiufi sprang up as their father barked orders. Aghor wore a lopsided smirk as he set his sons to work bringing the barge in to shore. Glancing up at the fracas on the lift gate, he called out to the woman magician, “It seems that folk still fear the old ways more than your new tricks, Hound.”

  “Simple folk are most easily fooled by simple tricks,” the magician woman replied. “We will search your boat, Aghor.”

  Soldiers reached out with hooked poles to catch the barge’s rails.

  “Ah yes, your master’s lost doll,” said Aghor. “If Lord Tibuir plays with his dolls as he plays with his page boys then I can understand why the thing ran away. But you will not find it on my barge.”

  Tibuir’s Hound stepped aboard.

  “Where are you headed, Bargeman?”

  “Verdencastre,” said Aghor. “Then Nouvebourg.”

  The Hound arched an eyebrow. “Indeed?”

  Soldiers and Saltukkuri swarmed after her, surrounding Aghor, Geneic and Sorgui. There was a deal of grunting and growling between the Saltukkuri and Behra’s half-brothers. She shuffled back into her hut. The movement caught the red-robed magician’s eye. Behra stared up at her. The Hound’s skin was very pale and smooth, her hair and eyes very dark. Her face was handsome and unyielding, like the statues of warrior queens that Behra had seen once, in the southern provinces.

  Disgust curled the Hound’s lip. “The old ways, is it? What you practice is an abomination, Aghor. Yours was never the true path of our people.” She raised her voice, “Search everywhere!”

  Dogs were brought aboard. Soldiers clattered belowdecks, the hatches of the cargo holds and coalbunker were flung open. Behra’s fingers knotted in her blankets as she watched the soldiers poke their halberd blades into the bunker.

  “There, too,” snapped Tibuir’s Hound.

  Rough fingers caught Behra’s arm. A soldier dragged her out of her hut and pulled her blankets out after for the dogs to sniff. The animals were in a frenzy of excitement.

  “Father!” Chiufi cried.

  He was by the far rail of the barge, pointing urgently over the side.

  “Father, I saw it! It jumped over!”

  Aghor stared at him, the first time in her life Behra had ever seen him dumbfounded.

  The soldier holding her joined the rush to that side of the barge, dragging her with him. Her chain yanked at her ankle as she reached its farthest extent. On the water, ripples spread in an expanding circle.

  “Get some men to the far bank!” the Hound shouted. Standing close to Behra, she said, “It seems you had a stowaway, Bargeman.”

  “So it would appear.” Aghor’s face was purple, set in a furious scowl. “Where was it, boy? Where did it spring from?”

  Chiufi cowered. “I didn’t see, father.”

  Aghor cuffed him across the top of the head.

  The Hound sneered. “Perhaps your old ways are not so puissant as you think.”

  Aghor’s face darkened further, filling with shadow. The tiny bodies of Behra’s sisters danced on his belt. Behra could feel the power suck into him from all around. He would need to bleed her deeply to regain his strength after this. Learn, she told herself, and tried what she felt him doing. She found that she could, and suddenly was, siphoning energy from the air, the water lapping around the barge, even the planks beneath her feet.

  She turned her thoughts on the man holding her.

  Invisible flame seared up the bones of her arm. The soldier grunted and let go. He stared down at Behra in surprise.

  Aghor spoke, magic making his words slam like clashing stones. “You no longer have reason to hold us, Hound.”

  The Hound regarded him coolly, but her face had become even paler. Her men drew back. There were muffled yelps from among the Saltukkuri. A pulse ticked in the Hound’s throat.

  “As you say,” she grated. She turned on her heel, shouting, “Clear the barge! Search the canal!”

  Behra looked at the red welt on her forearm in the shape of the soldier’s fingers. She felt the rough energies dissipate from her father’s body, back into the air and water. They still throbbed in her, filling her with feverish heat. Aghor snapped a curt order to Geneic and Sorgui, who flinched in unison. They left off posturing at the departing Saltukkuri and picked up bargepoles to clumsily push the boat away from shore.

  Aghor looked down at his youngest son. Chiufi tensed visibly as his father raised his hand again. But Aghor stroked the place where he had struck before.

  “Did well, boy.”

  Behra noticed the tremor in his fingers as he lowered his arm.

  * * *

  The next morning she lay in her blankets, still weak and exhausted, while Chiufi fed her gruel with vegetables and salted meat, a worried frown on his face the whole time. Palinday watched in silence, his coal-smeared face solemn. Behra’s father had taken a lot of blood, all the strength she had gained from copying his spell and more, but she didn’t care.

  He hadn’t known. She had worked magic and he hadn’t known.

  The river was heavy with traffic, ocean-going ships sharing the water with steam barges and the pleasure yachts of the idle rich. Behra gazed up at sailors climbing about the rigging of a sailing ship, high above, its sails lit gold by the lowering sun.

  Aghor had left Palinday in the coalbunker most of the night. Behra had heard the doll’s tapping and his frustrated shouts in the dark. Finally released, Palinday had emerged black from head to foot, spitting angry. “There was no justification for holding me in there so long!”

  Aghor had looked down at him mildly. “Tibuir’s Hound will not be fooled for long. You cannot be scryed you say, little golem, but it is harder to hide an entire barge. She will have eyes on us.” He turned away. “Be thankful I did not hold you in there all the way to your Lord Emieldraeu.”

  Palinday had washed his face and hands as best he could, but his fine clothes were spoiled.

  Behra heard her father shout. The bowl clattered down beside her as Chiufi sprang to obey. She felt the barge tilt as Aghor turned hard on the wheel. Buildings loomed on either side, casting the barge in sudden shadow. She felt the thump of the engine drop away, twisted her neck to see Chiufi jump ashore, rope in hand. They had pulled in to a narrow warehouse canal.

  Palinday was on his feet. “Why are we stopped? This is not Ardonailles.”

  Aghor glanced his way, shrugging a long coat over his shoulders. “I have business here. You will not be delayed for long, little golem.”

  He hopped lightly over the rail and they watched him stride away between the warehouses. Chiufi came back aboard and slunk over to sit with Behra and Palinday.

  “Would your lord really protect us?” he said, softly.

  Palinday looked at him. “Yes.”

  “Then we will run with you when we reach Ardonailles,” said Behra. Chiufi’s face was drawn, tense.

  Palinday shook his head. “My mission must not be endangered.”

  “But you said…”

  “I will return for you,” Palinday said.

  Behra blinked rapidly, her eyes suddenly hot. “We will be gone.”

  “Then I will find you,” said the doll.

  “Swear it,” said Behra, between clenched teeth.

  Palinday looked from her to Chiufi. “By my maker’s honour, I swear it.”

  Chiufi nodded, but Behra saw from his face that the courage he had screwed together had crumbled once more.

  Behra reached out and gave his hand a squeeze.

  * * *

  A crowd gathered as the night deepened. Rhuinish folk, although they were
in Ornomagne proper now. They waited quietly, squatting on the wharf or leaning against the warehouse walls. Most of them had brought gifts, ranging from baskets of vegetables to bolts of cloth. Sorgui and Geneic squatted side by side at the rail, their red-eyed gazes alert.

  Palinday observed the assemblage nervously. “Who are they?”

  “Folk seeking spells or charms from father,” said Chiufi stiffly, after a moment. “They always gather, wherever we dock.”

  The doll’s porcelain brow creased a fraction. “How do they know?”

  Chiufi shrugged.

  “They always do,” said Behra.

  “I dislike this,” Palinday grumbled. “Where is he?”

  It was a while before Aghor returned. He marched through the crowd without acknowledgement, yelling for Chiufi to fire up the engine and cast off. The supplicants watched in silence as the barge was pushed away from the wharf and backed slowly out of the canal.

  * * *

  “Ardonailles,” Palinday announced.

  Behra looked around the side of her hut. The lights of the great port city, trading hub of the Ornomagnen Empire, sprawled along either side of the river and across the many islands of its delta. Staircases of canal locks ascended the long slope of the north bank between the close-packed streets. The river itself had broadened and slowed as it neared the sea, more than a mile wide now, its surface rippling with reflected light and shadow.

  Geneic squatted close by, near the starboard running lantern with an anvil between his knees, hammering a twisted grapple hook back into its proper shape. Chiufi was at the wheel, angling the barge across the flow of traffic towards the south shore. Sorgui crouched idly near the coal bunker, his shovel across his knees, watching the river traffic.

  They passed a brightly lit fortress island, iron-sided Ornomagnen warships drawn up alongside, powered by steam and sails and bristling with double and triple decks of guns.

  “There!” Palinday called out, pointing to a canal mouth in the southern bank.

  Chiufi steered the barge into a district of run-down terraces and tenement blocks. There were no locks here, the city’s southern suburbs sprawling across a flat plain. There was little traffic about on the dimly lit streets, although it was still early. Geneic stopped hammering.

  “Girl, hand.” She hadn’t noticed her father’s reappearance on deck. He stood over her, holding his scrying bowl.

  Behra held out her arm.

  Palinday watched Aghor pull out his knife. “What scrying is there to do,” he said, “when we are at our destination?”

  Behra winced as the point of the blade penetrated. The mummified, half-formed faces of her sisters gaped up at her with sightless eyes.

  “You think the Hound would dare pursue me into the heart of Ornomagne?” Palinday persisted.

  Aghor spared him a glance as he stood. “Don’t you?”

  Palinday flicked the brim of his hat with his fingers and stuck it on his head. He noticed Behra’s gaze on him. “Tibuir’s Hound does not know for sure that I am aboard,” he said. “And we are far afield of where she thinks us to be headed. There are many waterways to hunt.” He drummed his fingers, tinkling hollowly, against his knees. “She would be reckless to try anything so far from her lord’s domain. And she fears your father, besides.”

  Behra was drifting as he spoke, her body heating as the burning coal landed in the bowl of her blood. She murmured along with her father’s incantation. The words had an unfamiliar texture in her mind. It was no spell she had ever heard before. “Addrakkur naskkur sakkul urukh thoth nakkur thoth…”

  Palinday looked at her, his jewelled eyes glinting. “That isn’t Old Rhuinish.” His mouth moved with Behra’s. “And it isn’t a scrying spell.” He started to stand, then suddenly clutched at his head. “My wards…”

  Geneic’s hammer smashed into his chest. Behra screamed. Shattered bits of the doll bounced across the deck, flying free of his clothes, some skittering under the rail to splash into the water.

  “The head! Find the head!” bellowed Aghor.

  Geneic lifted Behra and dumped her out of her hut, so he could rummage in her blankets. She looked down into her lap. Palinday blinked up at her, his neck sheered off cleanly just below his jaw.

  “Hide me.”

  Behra clapped her hands over the doll’s face an instant before her father barged past. She looked around for Chiufi, found his shocked gaze already on her as he hurried up from the wheelhouse. He grabbed a running lantern off its hook and made a show of joining the hunt. Behra saw him pick up something, not breaking stride, and keep moving over to the rail to stoop again.

  “Father,” Chiufi straightened, holding up his prize to the light. Palinday’s hat. “It was under the rail.”

  A range of expressions crossed Aghor’s face as he stared at the hat. Slowly, he pushed himself upright. “You wouldn’t lie to your father, would you, boy?”

  Chiufi’s jaw trembled.

  He had closed the engine throttle, Behra realised, before he left the wheelhouse. Undirected and barely making headway, the barge was slowly turning across the canal.

  Aghor began to swear, his fists clenched so tight they shook. Behra’s aborted sisters silently cursed along with him. The shadows deepened in the hollows of his face and spread. Sickly light leaked between his curled fingers. Beside him, Sorgui and Geneic cringed, their red eyes slitted almost shut.

  “Having some difficulty, Bargeman?” a woman’s voice called out.

  Tibuir’s Hound sat on horseback at the edge of the canal.

  “None that’s any business of yours, Hound,” Behra’s father grated, his voice heavy with magic.

  Hooves and boots clattered on stone, riders and foot soldiers appearing on both banks. Red Saltukkuri eyes glowed, the squat, hunched figures of demimen scattered among the Rhuinish troops. Crossbows were levelled.

  Crossbows, thought Behra. Not muskets. Silent.

  A horse whickered, a crossbow string creaked in the descending quiet. Behra heard a low growl from Sorgui by the wheelhouse.

  The red stone on the Hound’s brow caught the light of a streetlamp. “You seem to have gone astray from your destination,” she drawled. “It is a curious coincidence that your failure of navigation has brought you here.” She leaned forward in her saddle, her eyes wide. “Did you know, Aghor the Bargeman, that the King’s Spymaster maintains a house in this part of Ardonailles?”

  Behra’s hands shook on top of Palinday’s sculpted face. She heard him gasp, felt his lips move against her palm as he mouthed curses. Her father and the Hound glared at each other.

  The sound of more tramping boots cut through the standoff. “Stand down!” a new voice cried. “Stand down in the name of the King!”

  Bright-liveried Ornomagnen troops marched along both sides of the canal. Behra gasped. Brass, four-legged battle golems marched with them, their mantis arms upraised.

  “Silbuim meneich!” spat Behra’s father, and all hell broke loose.

  Along both banks, Rhuinish crossbows suddenly caught on fire. The archers dropped them with shouts of surprise. Bolts flew in all directions as the bows bounced on the ground. Some thunked into the wooden deck of the barge. Soldiers and horses screamed as they were struck. The Ornomagnen troops discharged their muskets. Ornomagnen and Rhuinishmen both charged. Saltukkuri leapt onto the barge.

  Sorgui and Geneic surged to their feet, laying about with the tools to hand, bigger by far than their full-blood brethren and with all of a demiman’s strength. Chiufi smashed his lamp into the face of a Saltukkuri warrior who landed beside him. Flaming oil sprayed over the shrieking demiman.

  Tibuir’s Hound gave a shout. Aghor grunted as if struck and fell to one knee. Behra felt a squeezing pressure in her chest.

  “Telais ac ulh,” she mouthed her father’s snarled counter spell. “Telais maliel ap naghai.”

  The Hound cried out, scrambling clear as her horse collapsed under her. She landed awkwardly, both hands stretched out like
claws. Behra could feel the spells clash in the air between them, probing for weaknesses in the other’s defences. Her skin stung as if scalded.

  A demiman’s fallen axe lay within reach.

  Now, Behra thought. Her fingers closed on the axe. “Chiufi!”

  He ran over to her and she thrust the axe into his hands. His eyes were huge, the whites showing all around.

  “What’s happening?” demanded Palinday, as soon as his face was uncovered.

  “We’re going now,” said Behra, holding her brother’s gaze.

  Chiufi swallowed and nodded, fumbled about for her ankle chain and smashed the axe down onto it.

  Behra mouthed spells, drawing power into herself. Chiufi’s breathed plumed in the suddenly cold air. He struck the chain again. This time the links parted.

  Chiufi stood, hauling Behra up with him. She clutched Palinday’s head to her chest and led Chiufi towards the back of the barge. Sorgui flung a broken demiman into a crowd of his fellows near the wheelhouse. The barge had continued to slew across the canal. Its stern bumped against the stone wall of the bank. Chiufi pushed Behra up ahead of him and leapt after.

  She stood, marvelling at the feel of cold stone under her bare feet, so different from the smooth planking of the barge’s deck. There was a roar from the boat. Their father had noticed her absence. His rage thrummed along the thread of power that bound them.

  Behra lashed out, unthinking. “Telais ac ulh.” In her terror, she forgot the rest of the spell. But Aghor gave a shout of surprise. It rose to an outraged bellow as the Hound took advantage of his distraction.

  Chiufi grabbed Behra’s wrist and they fled.

  They raced down darkened streets, past frightened faces peeping from windows and doorways. Behra struggled to keep up with her brother. Her lungs and legs burned, unused to such exertion. Her feet were quickly bruised. She soon began to flag.

  Chiufi slowed and stopped at a crossroads. He fumbled Palinday’s head from Behra’s grasp and held it up. The world spun around her. She felt faint.