by Stephen Hunt
‘I don’t get out that much,’ said Cornelius, ‘and I had my fill of utopias in Quatérshift. I found utopia wanting.’
‘Something about you told me that you would be a philosopher,’ said Quest. ‘Quatérshift is broken because their Commonshare runs contrary to human nature. It expects people to be noble, to put others before themselves – all for the community, nothing for the self – and it is then psychotically disappointed when its citizens fail to live up to that impossible ideal. We are selfish monkeys capering around in clothes and you cannot take a corrupt autocracy, murder its wolves and expect the sheep to run everything without other predators emerging to seize control of the flock. Certainly not when the fools in their First Committee think that issuing a piece of parchment in triplicate stating that the people are to be fed is the same as actually feeding them.’
‘Are we still talking about Quatérshift?’ asked Cornelius.
‘Of course,’ smiled Quest.
‘If you can’t change the state …’
Quest shrugged. ‘Then you must change the people, or at least, what the people believe in.’
Smashing glass above them interrupted the mill owner’s musings. A dark figure dropped down through the hole in the ceiling and kicked off a line of steam pipes, setting the valves hissing as heated water spread across the mosaic floor. An assassin swinging down on a drop cord with a gun in his hand! Cornelius shoved Quest out of the way and ducked, the pistol shot missing both of them. The intruder arced through the spot where Cornelius had been standing, Quest recovering his balance and seizing the attacker, the two of them swinging up towards the conservatory roof.
Cornelius was rolling over, bringing his artificial arm up to shoot a string of gas globes at the attacker – then he saw the gas mask on the assassin’s face, protecting him from the house’s defences as well as Cornelius’s arm. But their host was proving surprisingly resilient for a mere merchant. Quest had seized a girder with one arm and converted the assassin’s momentum with all the skill of a trapeze artist, bringing the pair of them into a support strut, letting the intruder take the brunt of the impact. Both of them began tumbling down towards the ground, the intruder falling with the dead weight of a sack of cannon balls, Quest turning gracefully in the air, angling his body for a bent-knee landing.
They crashed into the display of carnivorous plants, a lashing frenzy of spines and razor fronds, the assassin trying to disengage from the man-eaters long enough to spring to safety, Abraham Quest pin-wheeling through the attacking vegetation as a raucous clamour sounded across the roof. Bells! The manor house’s bells were ringing – the old fortress’s towers had sentries, then, and they weren’t asleep on the job. A rush of Catosian guards emerged out of a doorway behind Cornelius, soldiers armed with crossbows. Cornelius lowered his weaponized arm as the heads on the crossbows detonated, steel nets weighted with copper spheres wrapping themselves around the intruder as he tried to dodge away. A shower of sparks danced around the attacker’s chest, timers on the spheres in the netting jolting their victim with bursts of wild energy – the power electric.
More soldiers poured into the arboretum, armed with long poles tipped with pincers, their hands safe inside insulated gloves to protect them from the wild force being expended around the intruder. They were taking no chances. Soon a ring of cherry-uniformed guards had the assassin pinned to the floor with their immobilizing poles, the assassin still struggling forlornly between each burst of energy. Cornelius stood almost forgotten on the sidelines, none of the soldiers noticing the fingertip barrels of his artificial arm sealing shut.
Quest brushed away the spined leaves that had embedded themselves along his velvet jacket’s arm. He hadn’t even worked up a sweat. ‘That was fast work. Well done, ladies. You have upheld the honour of the free company as capably as always.’
‘You said downstairs you hadn’t had an attempted poisoning or assassination attempt for months,’ said Cornelius.
‘Yes, foolish me, tempting fate. I was long overdue,’ Quest noted.
‘What are you going to do with him?’
‘What I normally do when I find trespassers on my land,’ said Quest. ‘Hand them over to the constabulary. Ham Yard can ascertain which of my competitors paid for his services.’
‘You know why I’m here! You didn’t find us all, you jigger,’ yelled the assassin, his words muffled by the gas mask before he was shocked into unconsciousness by the Catosian soldiers’ weapons. One of the Catosians pulled his mask off, revealing a thin face with round spectacles. An unlikely looking assassin: always the best kind.
‘Ah,’ said Quest. ‘Mister Zaker Browne, which I think we can now take is not his real name.’ He turned to Cornelius. ‘One of my clerks from my counting house in Middlesteel. That explains how he got into Whittington Manor with such ease.’ ‘Somebody must want you out of the picture very badly indeed to go to the trouble of infiltrating your staff,’ said Cornelius. ‘Toppers very rarely play the long game. They prefer the direct approach.’
‘My enemies are learning subtlety at last. Well, as always Ham Yard will have a tediously long list of suspects to interview. I must apologize to you,’ said Quest. ‘Normally my guests have a much more pleasant experience at Whittington.’
‘Not at all,’ said Cornelius.
Not at all. He knew a lot more than when he had come to this grand house on the edge of the capital. But he still didn’t know why. And that, unfortunately, was just about the most puzzling piece of the jigsaw to be missing.
Watching the lifting room door close on their master and his guest, the Catosian soldiers lifted up the unconscious prisoner. One of them pulled out a knife to cut the assassin’s throat, but their officer stayed her hand. ‘Did you not see the master’s hand signal before he departed? We need to secure him with the others. We are to keep him alive, at least for now.’
‘This one will make for a very dangerous hostage.’
‘Nothing of value can be won without danger,’ said the officer. She looked at the pale face of the assassin. ‘Cleverer than the others, to avoid detection among us for so long.’
‘He would be less clever dead,’ said the soldier, pushing her knife back into her belt.
‘You have your orders! Obey them.’
It was not the place of a free company fighter to voice such doubts, so the officer kept her peace. But inside she agreed with every word of her soldier’s sentiments. Some hostages were far better off dead.
CHAPTER TEN
Amelia could tell her arms were shackled even as she was waking up. She could barely remember where she was through the waves of nausea; but the line of trussed-up Catosian free company soldiers lying comatose in the low-roofed chamber brought it all back to her. The Sprite of the Lake. And it wasn’t just the mercenaries bundled down here – there was Billy Snow, his grizzled old head lying sprawled unconscious on one of the Catosians, while at the far end she could just see Gabriel McCabe and an armoured set of foot claws that had to belong to T’ricola.
‘Breathe deep, lass,’ said a voice. ‘You took a bad lungful of the vapours out on the deck.’
‘Commodore? Jared, are you here?’ Amelia tried to peer down the dimly lit chamber, but then she realized the voice was coming from behind her.
‘Where else would I be, professor? Captain of my own boat and now master of nothing more than this old storage hold.’ The commodore wriggled into the corner of her vision, his legs tied and arms bound like Amelia’s. ‘What do you remember?’ ‘I was outside on the deck and reality was breaking down. People were changing into things, becoming monsters, even parts of the boat were coming alive.’
‘It was no more than your mind breaking down, lass. We sailed into a wall of river mist – but it turned out to be something more potent, a defensive wall of gas laid out to snare anyone foolish enough to come visiting.’
‘A Daggish weapon?’ said Amelia. ‘But that makes no sense. They have living creatures in their cooperative, animals
that would be affected by the gas. And where are the sailors, where are Bull’s people?’
‘Who do you think led us into the trap? Ah, they played me for a fool, so they did. Us on the surface venting the stale air out of our corridors. Bull and his cronies in suits, scraping off barnacles below our hull, knowing they would have all the time in the world to seize the boat when we ran into that wicked wall of vapours. Snug in their wet suits while the rest of us were out of our gourds.’
‘Whose wall of vapours, Jared? Whose, if not the Daggish empire’s?’
‘Bull was in here gloating an hour ago, but he did not say, although I have a terrible idea who it may belong to. Something that would not be affected by any amount of madness-inducing vapours. Our mutual friend Coppertracks used to hint at an evil that dwelled in Liongeli, when he dared, when he was off his guard … something so fearful he would never say much more.’
‘That gas didn’t come out of one of your old steamer’s ghost stories,’ said Amelia. Circle, her head was throbbing now. ‘It was real enough.’
Like most steammen, Coppertracks had never been given to exaggeration. A thought occurred to her. ‘Where’s Ironflanks?’ ‘Off flying with the tree monkeys,’ laughed a voice.
It was Bull Kammerlan, three of his sailors behind him, now armed with the Catosians’ carbines.
‘We’ve kept him on the sauce, as much Quicksilver as he can snort into his boiler, bless him.’
‘You filthy jigger,’ spat Amelia. ‘You were the traitor! Poisoning the old steamer and wrecking the Sprite.’
‘Me?’ Bull smiled. ‘Well, I spiked your scout, there’s no denying that. We could hardly have Ironflanks warning you that the channel we were taking had a nasty surprise halfway up it, could we? But am I your traitor? No. I’m not that. It wasn’t me behind the games on the Sprite. I’d not want to damage the old girl, would I, dimples? She’s my boat now, and the old gang are back in business, I should say.’
‘Don’t do this, Bull,’ pleaded the commodore. ‘You have a pardon waiting for you. You and the lads can be free, as legal as the powder on a magistrate’s wig back in Jackals.’
‘Free!’ Bull roared. ‘Free! Free to pay taxes on my beer to the rabble that turned our families off our land and stole everything we owned? Free to bend my knee to their law and kiss their populist arses once a five-year at the ballot? You’ve forgotten what we once were, old man, hiding your real name and pretending that the cause is dead.’
‘It is dead, Bull – you, me, a few others scattered to the winds, we’re all that’s left of the royalist fleet now. We need to survive, you and I – why do you think it was old Blacky that sprung you out of Bonegate?’
‘I intend to do more than survive,’ said Bull, ‘I intend to live! If Quest was going to pay you for a few antiques scraped off the bottom of Lake Ataa Naa Nyongmo, then he’ll pay us too, I fancy. What with his money and the coins we’ll raise from selling these killer Catosian princesses on the block down Cassarabia way, I reckon we’ll have enough loot to kick off the cause again in a grand old style. Guns and boats and a whole ocean’s worth of Jackelian shipping to plunder. They’ll curse my name in the House of Guardians for a thousand years after I have made them bleed, after I cut off their precious trade and shake the pennies from their dirty, thieving pockets.’
‘Bull, I’m begging you …’
‘And don’t think I don’t like the sound of you doing it.’ The u-boat man turned to his sailors. ‘Just remove the people I talked about, boys. You’ll get your chance to “survive” now, commodore, that’s the least I owe you for giving me the Sprite and setting us back on the water and back in the game.’
The guards pulled up Amelia and the commodore. At the opposite end of the chamber they picked up the unconscious forms of the other expedition officers – Billy Snow, Gabriel McCabe, Veryann, T’ricola – carrying their limp forms out like sacks of coal.
‘What are you going to do to us?’ Amelia demanded.
‘You ever fight a snake, dimples? Best way to stop it quick is to cut off the head, leave the rest of it wriggling on the dirt. Especially you, commodore. I know there are secret passages on this boat, pieces of equipment hidden away in chambers with private activation codes – secrets handed down from generation to generation by the captains. I leave you tied up in my brig, I’m as like to wake up to find my cabin flooded and the pilot room locked on me. No, I think we’ll be sailing with our own officers in charge of things from now on.’
Hauled at gunpoint to the deck, Amelia saw that one of the shore boats had been taken out, Ironflanks’ passed-out form already inside it, twitching in the bright, clear sunlight. Sailors carried the unconscious bodies of the other officers down the ladder, tossing them next to the steamman.
‘Marooning us, are you?’ the commodore said.
‘More of a chance than you gave me when I was exiled from the fleet,’ replied Bull. ‘There’s pistols in the boat, water and victuals. We’ll toss some charges on the shore upriver for your guns. There’s a couple of holes in the shore boat, but if you’re quick at rowing, it’ll stay afloat long enough to get you out of the river and into the rainforest.’
‘Nobody has ever come this far up the southeast fork on foot and survived,’ said Amelia.
‘Not true,’ said Bull, pointing at the drugged steamman. ‘He has. Of course, he didn’t return to Rapalaw Junction with anyone else!’
That drew a laugh from the ring of grinning sailors.
‘Besides, what do you care?’ He shoved Amelia back. ‘You’re staying here. I just brought you topside so you could say goodbye to this old dog …’
‘No, Bull!’ shouted the commodore, but he was kicked to the deck then pushed down the ladder towards the other officers.
‘I don’t know too much about fishing antiquities off lake beds,’ said Bull, ‘so you’re going to help make me rich, dimples. And if we don’t get that far and have to turn back, well, I’m sure there’s someone in Cassarabia who likes to buy them in large for their harem.’
There was a ripple of unease through the crew. One of the stripe-shirted sailors stepped forward. ‘She’s got the hex on her, this one. Leave her, Bull. Leave her here with Blacky and his friends.’
Bull’s hand wavered over his pistol holster. ‘We’ve just got rid of one skipper – any of you think you can do the same to me?’
‘We’re not challenging you, captain,’ said the sailor, ‘but she’s trouble, this one. I can feel it. You’ve seen what happens around her. She draws death to her like wasps to sweet cider. If we carry her along with us, this’ll become a voyage of damned souls.’
Bull turned to his men. ‘How damned are we, then? Freed from the tanks at Bonegate, treading the decks of our own war boat again? A full cargo of flaxen-haired moxies trussed up in our holds – treasure before us, and the fool that drummed us out of the royal fleet quaking on his fat feet at the thought of being stranded out in the jungle. If that’s bad luck, I’ll take a barrelful of it any day. And unless any of you jacks became experts in ancient civilizations while you were treading water back in Middlesteel, we still need the Guardian girl’s knowledge to make us wealthy.’
They seemed mollified and Bull cut the line holding the shore boat. It began to drift back as the Sprite’s engines pulled the u-boat away against the current.
‘You’d break your mother’s heart if she was alive to see this,’ called the commodore as the flow of the Shedarkshe seized the small craft and carried it away.
‘She hated you as much as I did, even before you court-martialled me,’ laughed Bull. ‘Say hello to the sleekclaws and tree spiders for me, uncle.’
‘A seadrinker’s curse on you and for paying back my mercy like this,’ shouted the commodore. ‘But not on your head, Amelia. When Bull’s dogs are struggling in the water, cursing the day they stole the Sprite, the river dolphins will come for you and carry you to safety.’
‘Not unless they’ve developed a taste for this Liongel
i soup,’ roared Bull. ‘You take care, uncle, try not to poison the pot of the first tribe of craynarbians you come across with your fraud’s swagger and your landsman’s belly. I’ll take care of your boat and your women for you while you’re off exploring.’
‘Jared, I’m sorry!’ Amelia turned aghast to the new master of the Sprite. ‘He’s your own family and you’re doing this to him?’
‘It was only our bloodline that kept the fleet-in-exile going,’ said Bull. ‘Leastways, it was until his dim-witted courtier’s ways brought your RAN aerostats calling over the free isles.’
‘You’re not going to make it without him and the other officers.’
‘You think?’ Bull gave a final mocking wave to the drifting shore craft. ‘Well, we’ll be doing a lot better than your friends will when they wake up and find out where we’ve marooned them.’
Rifle muzzles shoved Amelia back as she tried to grab Bull. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Blacky can ask your friend Ironflanks. He knows,’ said Bull, amused. ‘That wall of gas is about to become the least of their problems. Your fate has taken a turn for the worse too, girl. Take her below and keep her out of my sight.’
Ironflanks was the last of them to emerge from the effects of his sedation and the uneasiest with it, all four of his arms shaking as the effect of days of quicksilver abuse wore off.
