Elgarth saw his opportunity. “I’ve noticed that myself. In fact I have wondered…” He paused, his face at once hesitant and sorrowful. “It’s just that I can’t help wondering what kind of boy Maximillian must be, to take up with the likes of Silo. I know he’s very young, but even so I would have expected him to show better judgment in his choice of friends.”
“I have thought as much myself,” said Mrs. Morgan grimly, “but he will be in our hands before the day is out, and I mean to give him a very serious talking-to.”
—
Maximillian was blissfully unaware of the threat that lay in store for him, but Silo, standing beside him at the rail of the Sea Pig, was watching the rapid progress of the fleet with growing alarm. Black Tom was unrolling a chart, and then he rummaged in a sea chest to produce a fistful of rusty navigational instruments.
“Let’s see now—we’ve an easterly blowing, and taking into account the run of the tide…” He did some sums, scowled, crossed them out, did them again, and again, then said, “I can’t see them catching up with us for at least an hour.” He frowned darkly at the chart. “Bit of a problem, that.”
To Silo this seemed an understatement of epic proportions. The Division had sentenced him to ten years merely for warning the villagers of Baldock, and when he thought of the long list of crimes on his wanted poster, his blood ran cold within him. If he fell into their hands for a second time, he doubted he’d ever see the light of day again.
But Black Tom was deep in thought. He creased his bristling monobrow, and slowly, very slowly, a look of dim comprehension dawned in his bloodshot eyes. Then, inexplicably, he began to shake with laughter.
“Huur-ugh! Huur-ugh! We’re not done yet, though—they think they’ll catch us, but they’ll not! We’ll stop the creeping cowards! We’ll sail the Sea of Souls, and they’ll not dare to follow, for in all the Kingdom Isles there’s no man bold enough to cross that accursed sea but I!”
It seemed he was right, for his crew stopped dead in their tracks.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” he bellowed at them. “Ready about!”
The crew looked at him with stricken faces, and then at each other, and then at the white sails of the Government fleet, creeping ever closer across the Gutfleet Sound.
“NOW!”
Black Tom swung the wheel, and with extreme reluctance the sailors crept to their posts, muttering darkly as they did so. The very Sea Pig herself seemed unwilling, heeling about with an ominous creaking of timbers. And her reluctance seemed justified, for the sea that spread before them looked perilous indeed. It was studded with roofs and chimneys, and foaming white waters marked the site of other obstacles, all the more deadly for being submerged beneath the waves. On the horizon still greater hazards loomed, for there, silhouetted against a brooding sky, the tall towers of the Ancients stood in wait, and maybe too the unquiet spirits of those who had once dwelt there. Children and crew alike turned to their captain for words of courage and comfort, but he was staring astern, watching the enemy fleet with blazing eyes.
Still the Unbeatable held the line, the white water surging beneath her prow. She was close enough now for Silo to see rows of gleaming bald heads lining the bows as the collectors tracked their quarry, and the sunlight glittering on their weapons. But something was wrong. Suddenly her momentum was checked, and her sails shivered and slackened as she lost the wind. She was turning, she and all the others who followed in her wake. There was confusion in the Government’s fleet. Shouted commands and shrill cries were borne faintly across the water, and then, with a great grinding of timbers, the Unstoppable collided with the Unavoidable.
“Huurgh! Huurgh! Huuur-ugh!” Black Tom heaved with laughter. “Cowards!” he roared. “Baldy, baldy Bucket Heads! Run back to your mummies, you sniveling slap heads, and may you die unloved in embarrassing circumstances!”
Then he turned to his crew, his eyes alight with triumph. “Well, we’ve rid ourselves of those vermin! Now for the Sea of Souls!”
The Sea Pig crept forth, and as she did so the clouds darkened overhead and a sweeping squall of rain engulfed her.
“Is it safe, Silo?” asked Maximillian in a small voice.
“How would I know? You’re the one who has a dozen seeings a day.” Silo was a little acerbic, but the sudden and unexpected turn of events had unnerved him. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the ghosts of the Ancient dead—not exactly—but sailing over a submerged and uncharted city with Black Tom at the helm seemed like a breathtakingly reckless undertaking.
Ruby was evidently thinking along the same lines. “Won’t we run aground?” she said.
“I’ve a chart,” said Black Tom proudly. He rummaged in his sea chest. “Here!”
The chart was drawn on a sheet of parchment, tattered and brittle now with age, and titled Tourist Map of Sentral Lundun. Below was a tangled web of inky lines; a positive rat’s nest of winding streets.
“ ’Tis a copy of a copy of a copy,” said Black Tom proudly. Silo had suspected as much, for some of the spellings seemed rather strange.
“This is before it flooded!” said Ruby. “There’s nothing here but roads.”
“But there’s a river,” said Silo, tracing its serpentine path with his forefinger.
“That’s right!” cried Black Tom. “And we’ll follow its course! That way we can be sure of deep water beneath our keel.”
“How do we know where it is, though?” said Orlando.
“I’m not entirely sure,” said Black Tom as he scanned the turbulent waters ahead, “but seems like our best bet is to steer for that big gap between the chimney pots.”
“What if it’s a goatball stadium or something?” said Orlando. “And won’t there be bridges over the river?”
“No!” A powerful stench assailed their nostrils. Old Elijah had emerged from the bowels of the ship and was watching them with feverish eyes. “No bridges! All was destroyed, way back at the time of the Great Catastrophe.”
Seeing he had their attention, he drew himself up to his full height, then pointed a trembling hand to the heavens. “Hard times, they were then—a time of terror and a time of reckoning! The specter of plague stalked the land, sweeping through the Southern Shires and dealing death to all it touched! And here in this city, folk resolved to destroy the bridges lest those from the south crossed over, for they feared that they might carry disease among them, and so doom all alike to a long, lingering, and loathsome death.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Ruby.
“I’m an old, old man,” said Old Elijah. “I’ve seen and heard much, and there’s many a strange thing I’ve learned in my long years on this Earth.”
It was a pity that the habit of bathing was not among them, but otherwise they were impressed by his words, for it seemed that he was right about the bridges and Orlando was wrong about the goatball stadium. Black Tom maintained his course between the chimneys, and a broad stretch of open water lay before them. Strange currents and riptides rippled its murky surface and all stood with bated breath, expecting at any moment to run aground on some unseen obstacle lurking beneath the dark waters, but their course ran unchecked. Black Tom had found the old river and the Sea Pig sailed on beneath the weeping skies, across the Sea of Souls, and into the heart of the drowned city of the Ancients.
—
It was a horrible journey. Old Elijah’s tales of the restless dead obviously held credence among seafarers, for the crew went about their work like sleepwalkers, anxiously scanning the buildings that marked the river’s edge: rank upon rank of blocks and towers and terraces all going to ruin, washed by the waves for centuries past. As they progressed, the vast extent of the city was revealed to them, and Silo could not help imagining it as it had been in the days of its glory with its streets and buildings bustling with human life, loud with the hubbub of trade and traffic. But now the only sound was that of the wind sighing in the rigging and the mournful cry of the gulls, and his thoughts turned
inexorably to what lay beneath the waters: to silent streets where forests of rippling seaweed grew, to barnacle-encrusted houses where eels twined through the banisters, and shoals of fish flitted through endless empty rooms—and to the relentless tides stirring the bones of the ancient dead.
And then the lookout called from the crow’s nest. “It’s the fleet! They’re following!”
The children ran to the stern and stared back down the rain-swept river—and there, sure enough, were the dim silhouettes of the Government’s fleet, distant yet remorseless as they tracked their prey through the great watery wasteland that was Sentral Lundun.
“Damnation!” snarled Black Tom. “Who’d of thought it? Seamen fear this place worse than catching crab pox in a cyclone. What’s got into the fools?”
The answer was a simple one. It was true that seamen feared the Sea of Souls, but the Bucket Heads were landsmen and the admiral, perhaps wisely, feared the wrath of Mrs. Morgan more than that of the undead. After the first flurry of panic among his crews he had ordered them, and in no uncertain terms, to put the fleet back on course, and to ensure that his commands were obeyed he had ordered the collectors to back him up with force. The reluctant seamen who had been press-ganged at Parris Port were sailing at swordpoint, but even so they were sailing considerably faster than the Sea Pig.
Black Tom tugged at his beard and ruminated. “She’s a touch slow, is the Sea Pig—could be they’ll catch up.”
Old Elijah chose this moment to share his thoughts with them: “Be thankful for it, for it be a mercy! Better by far to die at the point of a sword than to face the heartless hordes of the undead! For though long centuries have passed since they met their frightful fates they envy the living yet, and all those who fall into their rotting, skeletal hands—Ow!”
Black Tom had rapped him smartly on the head. “We’ve the chart, though,” he said. “Best we take to the streets and lose them among the buildings. What’s up ahead?”
Ruby consulted the chart. “There’s something called the Bank of England.”
“Don’t like the sound of that,” said Black Tom. “Could be a sand bank or a mud bank, but either way it’s a menace. This street here will do as well as any.” He swung the wheel to port. “Going about!” he bellowed to his crew. “Sort those sails, and sharpish.” He peered at the chart. “Now where the hell are we?”
The Sea Pig was drifting down a street so narrow that her yardarms almost touched the buildings on either side. The wind died in her sails and they hung lifeless, for the tall façades shielded her from even a breath of breeze.
“Looks like we’ll have to tow her a step of the way,” said Black Tom. “Lower the ship’s boat! Man the oars!”
The boat was duly lowered. Drusilla jumped in with a thud that made it tremble from stem to stern, but none of the crew seemed in a rush to join her.
“Cowards!” roared Black Tom. “Are you afraid to follow where a little girl leads?”
Drusilla was hardly little, but Black Tom carried his point. A dozen unwilling crew members clambered in beside her and unshipped the oars. The towrope grew taut as they bent their backs to their task, and the Sea Pig glided deeper into the maze of streets. Black Tom watched the dripping buildings slip by on either hand.
“Reckon they’re flooded up to the third story or so,” he said. “That should give us a couple of fathoms beneath us.”
He squinted over Ruby’s shoulder at the chart. “Looks like we’re coming up to Whitefriars Street. If we hang a right at the top, we’ll be headed down Fleet Street. It runs due east, so we can pick up the wind and get her sailing again.”
For Silo that moment couldn’t come too soon. He found the Ancient capital deeply oppressive. He longed to regain the safety of the open sea and leave this vast and rotting metropolis far behind him, for it was impossible to sail amid its ruins without thinking of the countless thousands who had died here, and he found his imagination dwelling unpleasantly on the manner of their deaths. The rows of shattered windows seemed to stare down on him as they passed, and once the main yard scraped along a length of crumbling cornice, dislodging it and sending it plunging into the dark waters below. Its wash sent the waves slopping and sloshing through the dark interiors with a greedy, sucking sound. Great streamers of seaweed blossomed from the windows, and staring in, Silo saw a seemingly endless procession of dark rooms and doorways and corridors, scoured for centuries by the restless waves. The stench of damp and decay hung heavy in the air.
The atmosphere of the place seemed somehow charged and expectant, and he felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck as he fell prey to a sudden, horrible conviction that they were being watched. Unseen eyes were upon them—but in what heads those eyes were set was a thought too terrifying to contemplate.
Maximillian, huddled at his side, seemed to share his fears. “I saw something nasty in one of those buildings,” he whispered.
“What?” said Silo, fighting back a note of panic in his voice.
“I’m not sure, but it was big. And it had tentacles.”
“Probably just a giant squid.”
Silo spoke with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. And then he heard, or thought he heard, the distant rattle of chains. He froze where he stood, his ears straining to hear above the creak and drip of the oars, and then he caught, very faint and far away, the sound of laughter drifting through the deserted streets. It was a sound that made his flesh crawl, for it seemed impossible that any living thing within all this great drowned necropolis could find cause for mirth. Then Growler began to howl, and a moment later Old Elijah joined him: “ ’Tis the Ancients! The Ancients are stirring! I feel their dark presence all about us, and hear the joyless laughter of the undead!”
“Thing on the rooftops!” cried the lookout in a trembling voice.
“A thing?” roared Black Tom. “What manner of thing?”
“Not sure—I only saw it out of the corner of my eye.”
“Well, it can go to hell!” growled Black Tom. “This must be Fleet Street.”
They were gliding into more open waters, and once again the wind sighed in the rigging. The exhausted rowers shipped their oars and scrambled back on board at record speed as Black Tom brought the Sea Pig about. The water creamed under her bows as her sails filled, and a moment later they were sailing down the center of the thoroughfare that the Ancients had known as Fleet Street.
This was much better, thought Silo. For one thing the street was wider, and before it had flooded it had evidently run downhill, for the line of buildings on either side dipped downward. Soon they were sailing on the level of their upper stories, and with a broad sweep of sky above him his feeling of dread lifted a little. He scanned the rotting roofscape of turrets and chimneys and spires but could see no one stirring there, living or dead. A crossroads lay ahead of them, or what had been a crossroads once, but now it was a broad channel of choppy gray water. In the time of the Ancients it must have lain in a valley, for beyond it the roofs began to rise up again, the dripping buildings poking higher and higher out of the water until they terminated in a cluster of spires and an enormous dome.
Ruby was navigating. “We’re coming up to Ludgate Circus—Farringdon Street’s to the left, Bridge Street to the right, and Ludgate Hill is straight ahead.”
Black Tom considered. “I wonder, should we go down Farringdon Street or straight ahead?”
His question was answered with startling suddenness. As the Sea Pig sailed out into the wide waters of Ludgate Circus a great commotion broke out to their right: the sound of raucous cheering and the sudden, deafening clash of swords on shields. It was the fleet. They had abandoned the course of the old river and were advancing up Bridge Street at terrifying speed. Crews of collectors manned the ships’ boats, rowing furiously and with a machinelike precision, and behind them glided the seven great ships of the fleet: towering, remorseless, and with the sign of the bloodred hand streaming from their mastheads. No sooner had they sighted their quarry
than the drums began to beat out—bam-BAM, bam-BAM, bam-BAM—menacing and insistent, and crowds of whooping collectors lined the decks. It seemed that they scented victory, for they urged the rowers on with roars of encouragement and brandished a terrifying array of weaponry. Insults and bloodthirsty cries came flying across the rapidly diminishing stretch of water that lay between them and the Sea Pig while Black Tom stood thunderstruck at the helm, absently pawing at his beard.
“Hell! Who’d have thought it?” he finally said. “Best we go straight ahead, then. You said it was marked as Ludgate Hill, so we’re in with a chance still. The Sea Pig draws less water than the Government’s ships and we’ll be heading into shallow water at the top of the hill. Could be their fleet will run aground.”
Silo hoped upon hope that he was right, for the foremost of the ships, the Unbeatable, was alarmingly close behind. The collectors jeered as the Sea Pig steered across their bows and into the uncertain safety of Ludgate Hill and fired off a volley of arrows. They splashed harmlessly into the water, but soon it would be a different story, for already the Unbeatable was turning into the wind. Her sails were filling again, and they all knew that she sailed a great deal faster than the Sea Pig.
“Children and animals to the forepeak!” cried Black Tom.
The children and Growler obeyed, and once he had reached the bows Silo stared resolutely ahead, willing the Sea Pig forward. She was doing her best, but even so the buildings on either side seemed to drift by at a funereal pace, rising higher and higher above the water as the seabed rose beneath them. The cries of their pursuers rang loud in his ears, together with the whiz and thunk of arrows. For they were within range now, and although most buried themselves harmlessly in the Sea Pig’s stern, some were fired higher and to better effect: holes were beginning to appear in the straining canvas of their sails. Silo fixed his eyes on the huge building that stood at the top of Ludgate Hill, watching as it drew slowly nearer. And then it was looming over them: gargantuan in size and impossibly grand, with twin towers of pale stone and a massive, soaring dome between. A row of columns, thicker than the trunks of the mightiest trees, rose from the waves. They supported a balcony, from which sprang yet another row of columns that supported a vast portico. At the very apex stood a gigantic statue of a stern bearded man, glaring out from his lofty eminence. The scale of the place was so breathtaking that for a moment the children forgot their danger and gazed up at it in simple wonderment.
Silo and the Rebel Raiders Page 18
