The Cipher

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Lucy swallowed, shudders racking her. The nest of burrowing insects within rioted and felt like they were digging out of her skin. She rocked forward and back, wanting to scream.

  “It is quite startling, isn’t it?” Edgar said, putting the stopper back on the bottle. “How fast it works. You wouldn’t know it was ever a rat. Imagine what it might do to a man.”

  Ignoring the creature in the basin, he stepped close to Daniel, Pilot Idron’s lover. He ran his fingers over the young man’s face, cupping his chin in one hand.

  “What do you think, Pilot? How much do you value your young friend?”

  Idron swore. “You flogging goat-cracker! May dogs gnaw your wick off and the pox turn your insides to mush! I’ll see you cursed! You’ll wish you were dead.”

  “I think not,” Edgar said, his voice cutting. “Calm yourself before I have no choice but to take offense. Now, your pretty Daniel will be perfectly safe if only you agree to my terms.”

  Idron’s florid face worked. Finally he managed to speak. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to pilot the Bramble ship to Bokal-Dur and back. Secretly, of course.”

  “To Bokal-Dur? But why?”

  The Pilot’s consternation matched Lucy’s.

  “The Bramble ship cargo is quite valuable in the Empire.”

  Slaves? Lucy gasped, unable to breathe. Marten rubbed her back, holding her hand tight against his chest.

  “I need your decision, Pilot Idron. Do you want to see what sylveth makes of your lover?”

  Edgar gestured at the creature inside the basin and Lucy realized that the black covering on the basin, floors, and walls was all designed to contain sylveth spawn and even sylveth itself. The entire room was devoted to just this spectacle. How many times had it been performed for the benefit of others? Her stomach clenched. Keros was more right than she’d ever imagined. Edgar Thorpe was a dangerous, sadistic man.

  “Or do you want to go home with your secret and your lover intact? From time to time I will ask you to aid me. I am a generous man. The compensation for your efforts will be quite handsome, I assure you. But I require your answer now.”

  The silence frayed before the Pilot muttered, “I will.”

  “Very good. You may release him,” Edgar directed the two footmen holding Daniel.

  The young man wavered in place for a moment, then scrambled up the stairs into Idron’s arms, sobbing loudly. The two lovers climbed up the steps and disappeared out the door. Now Edgar turned his attention to Marten. When he spoke, his voice brimmed with satisfaction.

  “And now you, my brother. Have you learned your lesson? You agreed to helm this ship, and now you know what you’ll face if you cross me. Do I have your word, such as it is, that you will stand the helm to Bokal-Dur?”

  “Suck bilge,” was Marten’s angry reply.

  “Watch your manners, Marten. Remember you wear the collar and I own your chain.”

  “I’d rather drink that bottle you’ve got there.”

  “Oh, no. This isn’t for you. You are far too valuable to waste.”

  “You already murdered Jordan. I don’t have anyone else you can hold over me.”

  “No? What about your man Baskin? Or”—Edgar walked over to the wall, stretching out his hand to point at Lucy’s and Marten’s interlocked fingers—“her.”

  Lucy felt Marten’s recoil. He clutched his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close against his chest. As if he could protect her. As if he hadn’t betrayed her and put her in this mess. Fury roared volcanically up inside her and she shoved out of his grip, leaping to her feet. She felt the Koreion surging inside her. The cipher flamed, engulfing her hand and forearm in a gauntlet of fire. She pointed her hand at Edgar and pushed out the way she had with the ice. The flames leaped in a roaring plume, surrounding Edgar from head to foot in a burning veil. Lucy didn’t move, pouring the flames over him like water.

  Then something struck her from behind. She fell forward over the lip of the wall. Hands gripped her legs, flinging them into the air. She somersaulted and struck the stage, landing on her back, her head bouncing off the fabric-swathed stone floor. Pain fractured her head and jaw. She heard a cracking sound and the air exploded out of her lungs. She fought for breath, curling into a ball. Searing agony shredded her left arm. Her wits scattered. She keened, helpless to do anything else under the weight of such pain. Majick cascaded into her like an avalanche of glass. She pushed out, unfocused, uncaring where it went or what it might do. She just wanted to be rid of it.

  Suddenly hands gripped her. She kicked, pain from the touch screwing through her. They lifted her and again she was dropped. She landed on a curved surface. Something sharp bit deeply into her thigh and stomach. Seconds later a heavy cloth dropped over her like a shroud. Majick roiled inside her. The Koreion thrashed, crazed. Agony flayed her. More sharp pain. Lucy became viscerally aware of the rat creature. Two of its legs were caught beneath her. The other two slashed at her. She heard chittering and then short, serrated teeth tore at her sleeve and skin. Lucy screamed and screamed. The corners of her mouth tore with the force.

  She pushed away the majick again. It burst out in a single second of blissful respite. Then just as quickly it rebounded, crashing back into her with all the force of a tidal wave. The sound was deafening. Her mind shattered. Razor-edged nothingness swallowed her.

  Chapter 28

  Footmen held Marten back as Sharpel drove a boot into Lucy’s back. She sprawled against the rail and Sharpel grabbed her feet and flung her the rest of the way over. She thumped onto the stage. The flames wreathing her arm roared to the ceiling in a fiery geyser. Lucy made a high whining shriek like ice breaking in the spring. The two black-clad footmen tossed her into the basin on top of the sylveth spawn. It chittered loudly, its free claws raking Lucy’s thigh and stomach, flaying open her flesh. Lucy cried out inarticulately, her legs and arms thrashing.

  Sharpel ran down the stairs, snatching up the long stretch of protective fabric and tossing it over the basin. Beneath the blanket Lucy bucked and convulsed. Her agonized screams ripped the air, raising the hairs on Marten’s scalp. He fought the hands restraining him, shouting her name. One of his guards grabbed his collar and yanked. Marten choked and gasped. Then there was a powerful boom! The basin rocked wildly back and forth and the chairs surrounding the stage jumped and rattled. Acrid blue-black smoke billowed out of the basin, filling the room with an impenetrable fog.

  For a moment all was still. Then Edgar moaned weakly. Others began to cough.

  “Open the doors and clear this smoke! Watch out for the sylveth,” shouted Sharpel.

  The footmen restraining Marten shoved him back down into his chair. He strained to see Lucy, but could glimpse only shadowy movement on the stage.

  At last the smoke began to thin. On the floor, Sharpel was kneeling next to Edgar, who lay crumpled in a heap. The two black-clad footmen hovered nearby, while the other two waved their coats to move the smoke out. There was no movement inside the basin.

  “Call for a healer,” Sharpel ordered, and one of the footmen dashed away. “Go find something to carry your master on. He’s sorely wounded.”

  Marten couldn’t help the burst of satisfaction he felt. The news that a sixteen-year-old Edgar had murdered his mother had not been dulled by the beating Marten had given him. Not to mention Edgar’s threatening to pour raw sylveth on Lucy.

  “Let him die,” he called out. “He’s got what he deserves.”

  The chilling look Sharpel turned on Marten was devoid of emotion. His eyes were like bottomless holes. The set of his face and body had altered. Ruthless command radiated from him as if by a word he could raze the entire city without a second’s thought. A force of nature. Of gods and demons. Marten was reminded of the black waterspouts that formed out of nowhere on the Inland Sea. They were predators, hunting ships like cats after mice.

  Marten couldn’t help the gooseflesh that pimpled his arms when Sharpel said, “Come here.
”

  He edged out into the aisle and down onto the stage, his guards trailing close behind. He stopped inches away from the other man, staring down at him.

  “Your brother was of a mind to offer you your freedom in exchange for a future helming his ships to the Empire. Edgar is a sharp businessman, one of the best. But I think he’s a bit blind when it comes to you. You’re a mad dog. He believes he can control you, but I think you’ll slip your chain. And since he’s incapacitated at the moment, I am going to do him the favor of making sure you don’t bite him.” He looked past Marten to the waiting footmen. “Take him.”

  Marten jerked away from the hands that gripped his arms. “What about Lucy?”

  Sharpel looked inside the basin. Lucy lay beneath a thin layer of fine ash. Baked blood crusted on the wounds on her stomach, thighs, and arms. Her hair was burnt away, leaving only tufts. Her skin was a patchwork of red and black. And there was plenty of it to see. Her clothes had been burned away, as had the majick-deadening blanket covering her. Marten’s heart clutched. She was so still. Suddenly he was yanked away by his collar.

  “What are you going to do to her?” he choked out past the metal crushing his throat.

  Sharpel reached for another of the black fabric shrouds and flung it over her. “Dead or alive, she’s going to the Bramble. You, on the other hand, are going to fetch a pretty profit in the Empire. It won’t be terribly difficult finding another captain to helm the Bramble ship.”

  Marten spent the next three days climbing the walls in his room, alone with Baskin. No one came to bring them food or drink; no one answered their pounding and shouts. The slop jar overflowed and the room reeked of piss and shit. They drank the wash water, rationing it out. Marten brooded. Was Lucy alive? If she had lived through that explosion, had she survived the last days without food, water, and care? Damn, he’d like to see Edgar keelhauled.

  On the third day, the door opened. Six footmen stood outside.

  “Out,” one ordered.

  In the hallway, the two prisoners were pushed against a wall while manacles were fastened on their wrists and ankles. Then the footmen formed a box around Marten and Baskin and marched them up out of the bagnio. Waiting under the portico was a pair of mules hitched to a flatbed cart with an iron rail down the middle. The footmen prodded the two men aboard, fastening them down to the rail. Two of them climbed up on the wagon box and the driver cracked the whip.

  It was nearly dusk. The sky was sooty gray. Though the fire in Salford Terrace had been put out, the wind continued to spin the ash into the sky. The air held a sharp chill and Marten’s breath plumed whitely. He braced his legs wide as the cart picked up speed on the rough cobbles. Baskin swore an unending litany.

  The cart rolled onto Ashford Avenue and out to the Maida Vale. They crossed the river and wound down to the Tideswell Platform where the Firedance was moored. Throngs of onlookers mocked and jeered; the platform was nearly impassable. Hornets pushed aside the unruly spectators, making room. Marten saw some men he knew and quickly looked away.

  He and Baskin were quickly unloaded and dragged up the gangplank and turned over to the mate and three hulking midshipmen. The mate was a tall, cadaverous man. His head was shaved and there was a green knotted-rope tattoo running down one side of his neck and up around his ear. Baskin was taken below, while Marten was hauled to the captain’s cabin. He drew deep cleansing breaths of the briny air. Despite his shackles, he felt more free than he had in sennights. The rise and fall of the deck, the hypnotic shifting of the waves, and the salty taste of the air—it felt like home.

  The mate knocked at the door. Without waiting for a reply, he pushed it open, looking over his shoulder at Marten. “Keep a civil tongue in yer head and if ye get any ideas, I’ll cut yer throat.” He pantomimed the action, motioning for the midshipmen to wait.

  The captain was sitting at his desk. Marten knew him: Owen Creasely. He was a fair captain, losing only two ships in the last fourteen years. His eyes were tight; his mouth was a thin flat line. Whom had Sharpel threatened to get Creasely to take the helm? A shudder quaked through Marten. He could not blame Creasely for taking the job.

  “Thorpe. Word is, you helped that Trenton girl murder Truehelm and now you got a berth on the Bramble ship. That so?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’ve been convicted with her. Lord Chancellor Truehelm made the decree this morning. They say he’d have liked to see you flogged to death, but he’ll settle for the Bramble.”

  “And my brother and his minions are sending me to the Jutras instead.”

  Creasely gave a jerky nod, biting white dents into his lower lip. “We’ll stop at the Bramble to drop the girl.” His lip curled. “I put her in the mate’s cabin, all crated up proper in a knacker box. Don’t know if she’s alive or not. But if she is, it’s for you to keep watch on her. Sharpel says you’ve dibbled her. That’s enough for me. You be responsible for her. Feed her if you want, let her rot if not. She does anything to endanger this ship or the crew, I’ll toss you both overboard. Understand?”

  Marten nodded. “Aye, aye, Cap’n.” His pulse pounded. Was she alive?

  “Keep to the cabin. Truehelm had a lot of friends, some of them in this crew. And the Trenton bitch—there are a lot of good people in the hold on their way to a life of slavery under the Jutras whips because of her. I won’t speak to how the crew cuts their jib. They’re not mine. If they want you, I’ll have to let ’em have you to save the ship. Now go. Stay out of my way.”

  Marten began to turn and then stopped. “Did you hear about my brother?”

  “He’s got some sort of sickness. Majicar healers couldn’t do much for him. Whispers say he’s dying.”

  “Good.”

  The mate took him back out on deck, letting Marten into his cabin. “Askin’ me, ye deserve t’be down in the bilge hole. But Cap’n says he wants her close t’hand case he needs t’toss her quick in the briny.”

  He shoved Marten inside and slammed the door, turning the lock.

  Inside was dark. Marten unlatched the deadlight covering the window and flung it open. A dim glow illuminated the gloom, revealing the knacker box in the middle of the room. The deck was scraped where the box had been unceremoniously shoved inside. Swiftly Marten attacked the lid. It came off easily.

  Lucy lay in an awkward heap beneath a black cloth. He pulled it away, tossing it in the corner. His eyes ran over her. Her skin was gray beneath her burns, and the sylveth spawn had cut and gouged her deeply in places. But she was breathing, if shallowly. Marten smothered a shout of relief. “Thank the gods,” he whispered.

  Carefully he slipped his arms under her, lifting her free. The mate had a rope bunk covered by a thin straw pallet with a tattered wool blanket. He laid Lucy down on it and fetched water from a bucket inside the door. He soaked a corner of his shirt, dabbing her face gently. She moaned and twisted, her mouth opening. He drib-bled a few drops between her lips, and then a few more. She swallowed jerkily.

  An hour later, she still hadn’t woken, but he’d managed to give her half a dipper of water. She’d begun to shiver and he covered her with the blanket, lying down to lend her the warmth of his body. He hardly noticed when the ship cast off to a brassy fanfare and shouts of the gathered crowd. By dusk they cleared the harbor mouth and ran through the Pale. Marten was glad Lucy was asleep. Sailors got used to the effect of crossing the Pale—the blast was like a blow to the mind. Some people fainted and didn’t wake for hours. Given Lucy’s condition, Marten didn’t know if she would have survived the crossing if she had been awake. But unconscious, she seemed to take no ill effect.

  The seas were choppy and the Firedance rose and fell in short, swooping lunges. Marten held Lucy so that she didn’t roll from the bed. He had no idea how to treat her burns. He washed the dried blood from the cuts and gouges as best he could, stopping when she moaned and thrashed in pain. She had a fever, shivering and sweating alternately. He dressed her in his shirt to help keep her war
m, but there was little more he could do.

  When food was brought, he chewed it to a pulp and stirred it into the water, spooning the cold broth into her mouth. The food was of a better quality than he expected, a kindness of Creasely’s perhaps, both of them all too aware that they’d been poorly used by Edgar and Sharpel. Or maybe it was that they were both captains, lending them a special kinship. Whatever the reason, Marten was grateful.

  On the open sea, the air quickly turned cold. A thin rime of ice crusted the deck and rails, sheathing the ropes. Marten fastened the deadlight, but the cold permeated the cabin. He finally requested another blanket from the mate when he brought food. The duty seemed far below his station, but either the crew refused to chance Lucy’s wrath, or Creasely had made him responsible for their care. At Marten’s petition, the mate stared at him incredulously and then stalked wordlessly away. But when he returned for the empty dishes, he brought with him the requested blanket and a coarse shirt. He handed them to Marten.

  “Cap’n’s compliments.” His cheek bulged with a wad of tobacco. He squinted up at the sky and then turned back to Marten. “Seems the gods want t’be rid of ye quick as can be. Making best speed. Be at th’ Bramble in less than a sennight.” He smiled, revealing brown-stained teeth. “Try as not t’freeze afore then. Crew’d like t’hear the bitch’s screams when we toss her overboard.”