The Larion Senators
Page 54
‘No, but the ketch answers Gilmour’s question.’
‘How’s that?’ Brexan, noticing the officer now, moved into the crowd gathering to watch the great ship take shape in the rising sun. She slouched under her cloak, trying to become invisible.
‘What’s with her?’ Ford whispered, then turned to the officer and said, ‘Good morning, Captain. Impressive sight, isn’t she?’
The Malakasian, a young man, looked around the wharf, then whispered, ‘You lot interested in a bit of fennaroot?’
‘Root?’ Captain Ford said, surprised. ‘Thank you, Captain, but no. We don’t get paid until our captain signs the manifest; so for now, fennaroot is a bit out of our price range. We were looking for a decent place to get some breakfast, however.’
Thadrake frowned. ‘Can’t help, I’m afraid,’ he said curtly, and moved off without giving them another glance.
Garec watched him go. ‘Well, he seemed nice, didn’t he? You can come back now, Brexan.’
‘You all right?’ the captain asked her.
‘I know him,’ Brexan whispered. ‘He was the officer leading the searches in Orindale. I don’t know what he’s doing up here.’
‘Who cares?’ Garec grimaced. ‘He’s a sour one, anyway. I hope his wife beats him up for wearing her underclothes!’
Captain Ford laughed for the first time all morning. ‘So are we planning to just stand here all day or can we get some food now?’
‘You were telling us how that little ship there—’
‘The ketch.’
‘Whatever,’ Brexan said, ‘the ketch, then: so how does that answer Gilmour’s question?’
‘We may actually be too late.’
‘How’s that?’ Garec asked. ‘That crane’s only just rolling in, so they can’t have offloaded the table yet.’
‘Right, but we’re at about low tide, and I’m surprised the captain of that beast dared to bring her in here at all.’
Gilmour said, ‘I’m quite sure Mark is making all the decisions aboard that ship, Captain Ford.’
‘All right, so that makes sense, then. With the tide about to turn, he’ll probably move that table onto that little twin-master and ride the incoming water halfway to Welstar Palace.’
‘What?’ Garec blanched. ‘So we need to move now! I have to find a place to make a shot, someplace out of sight from the frontage—’
‘No,’ Gilmour cut him off, ‘we’re all right. They’re not going to move it yet.’ He had taken a few steps towards the pier and was staring into the frigate’s rigging, where sailors moved to and fro, as confident aloft as they were on the ground.
‘How do you know?’ Brexan asked.
‘Because Mark knows I’m here.’
‘Oh rutters – what do we do? He could be opening the table right now. We’ve got to get out of here, get back to the Morning Star—’ Captain Ford was ready to run; the others looked willing to join him.
‘No,’ Gilmour said again, ‘we have some time.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he’s looking for Steven.’
‘So … what then?’ Garec said.
Gilmour broke from his trance. Grinning, he said, ‘Garec, I think you promised the good captain some breakfast.’
Captain Ford, suddenly pale, muttered, ‘I’m not sure I’m hungry, thanks.’
‘He’s here,’ Redrick whispered. ‘I can smell him, Blackford. I can smell his stench from across the city, but how they survived the tanbak, I haven’t a clue.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Blackford replied, unwilling to say anything else, in case it might cost him his life.
‘He’s over there somewhere, on the wharf, probably watching us right now … okay, this is fucking odd: I can’t get a whiff—’ Redrick squinted as the sun crested the rooftops, blinding him. ‘Ah, no matter. He’ll show himself. It’s just a matter of time, and he’ll come. He has to.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Blackford repeated, ‘and in the meantime, sir, is there anything I can do?’
Redrick hesitated, as if considering his options, then said, ‘Yes, Captain Blackford, I would like the cargo in my cabin prepared for transfer right away. A river-runner will be coming alongside in a few moments. Make certain they lash themselves amidships. When they’re prepared, and the crane is secure, lash on to the crate; then find me. Do not move it without me, Blackford. I want to be ready to sail with the incoming tide. That gives both of us about half an aven. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The weary officer shook with equal parts fear and cold and exhaustion.
‘Until then, I’m going to do a bit of hunting.’ Redrick paused to shout orders to the men preparing the block-and-tackle to transfer the spell table for its journey upriver. Blackford stood on the quarterdeck long enough to see Redrick meander down the gangplank. Then, literally quaking, he summoned what remained of his courage and hurried towards the main cabin. ‘I’ve got to find that stone,’ he whispered to the gods of the Northern Forest. ‘Please, please let it be in there.’
‘Which one is he?’ Brexan asked, sipping a welcome mug of hot tecan.
‘It’s impossible to say.’ Gilmour peered through the tavern windows. They had got lucky and found a café open early for the dock workers. ‘The whole pier is reverberating with Larion magic, and that means the table is still there, somewhere on that ship. But right now I can’t pinpoint Mark, other than to know for certain that he’s here, very close now.’
‘That’s not terribly comforting,’ Garec said. ‘What if he opens the table?’
‘He won’t.’ Gilmour seemed more confident now that he’d had a moment to think. ‘He’ll be too afraid to open it until he knows exactly where Steven is – that’s Nerak’s fear, a Twinmoon later, and still echoing like a fart in a canyon.’
‘Nice.’ Brexan frowned.
‘But true,’ Gilmour said. ‘Mark didn’t know anything about magic, but Nerak did, and Nerak died terrified of Steven Taylor. Thank the gods the creature inhabiting Mark Jenkins had a taste of that insecurity, or we’d all be dead already.’
‘Why the fear?’
‘He knows we’re here, but he can’t find Steven,’ Gilmour explained. ‘If he can’t find Steven, he risks Steven crashing down on him the moment he opens the table.’
Captain Ford dipped a crust of bread into his goblet. ‘So what will he do?’
Gilmour shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Wait? Search?’
‘Bury the whole city under an avalanche of fire?’ Garec added.
‘Perhaps,’ Gilmour conceded, then dug about in his robes for a pipe.
‘Gods, I wish you could feel this,’ Alen said.
‘What’s that? Magic? No thanks.’ Hannah tore off a piece of warm bread and wrapped it about a sausage.
‘It’s everywhere.’ Alen appeared to have developed a nervous tic. He ignored his breakfast and checked the wharf. ‘It’s like Sandcliff used to be, energy all over the place; I can feel it on my skin like summer wind.’
‘Whose energy is it?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s enormous, more powerful than me or Fantus, or even Milla.’
‘Could it be another shipment of bark? That’s an awfully big ship. If even one of the holds was full, it might resonate—’
‘No,’ Alen interrupted, rubbing his arms against the chill. ‘This is like …’
‘Alen?’ Hannah spoke with her mouth full. ‘You all right?’
‘I wish I had contacted Fantus again.’
‘So what should we do?’
‘We should wait. It won’t be long.’
*
Redrick slipped behind the workers nailing wooden braces into the wharf. The block-and-tackle crane towered overhead as they lashed it to the braces and let out a length of heavy rope, then they hefted crude stone counterweights from a trolley, two men to each stone. They stacked them on each corner and checked the stability, tugging hard on the main line – then waved to the sailors waiting near the quarterdeck.
Perhaps a bit closer, Redrick thought, and slunk along the road, back towards the deep-water pier. He kept the seeking spell alive, searching the crowds, the side streets, the buildings.
Then Gilmour was there, stepping from a dockside tavern.
But no Steven.
‘They’re about finished securing that crane.’ Garec was sweating. ‘We should go.’
‘Another moment, please; have another drink.’ Gilmour didn’t look at him, but stared across the Bellan’s decks, watching and feeling for signs of Mark. It was a daunting task, locating anything in the mystical fog.
‘Why didn’t the table give off this kind of power when we found it in Meyers’ Vale?’ Garec asked. ‘I don’t remember you being this overwhelmed by it down there.’
‘Because this is more than the table,’ Gilmour said, ‘this is me, Mark, the table, and … someone else.’
‘Kantu?’ Brexan asked.
‘Maybe.’
‘Who else could it be?’ Garec swilled the last of his tecan.
Gilmour whispered, almost to himself, ‘That little girl, Milla.’
Before the others could respond, Gilmour was bustling towards the door. He tossed a few copper Mareks to the barman and forced a smile. ‘Lovely breakfast, my friend. What’s on for midday?’
‘Fish stew.’ The Malakasian was drying tankards with a cloth. He caught the Mareks and stashed them in his apron.
‘Shrimp, booacore and jemma?’
‘Of course. With potatoes, pepperweed and leeks.’
‘Nice and spicy; excellent,’ Gilmour said. ‘We’ll be back.’
The barman shrugged, unimpressed. ‘Whatever.’
The others hurried after him; Brexan cried, ‘Wait, Gilmour.’
‘Did that fellow just say booacore and jemma?’ Alen craned his head to see over the bar. ‘Delicious. I could do without the leeks, though. They always give me gas.’
Hannah stood. ‘I don’t know about booacore,’ she said, ‘but that woman just called that short guy “Gilmour”.’
‘What? Where?’ Alen leapt to his feet.
‘There, going out the alley door, that woman. She just called that little stout one “Gilmour”. I heard her from here.’
Alen moved towards the window. ‘No, it can’t be. He’s too …’
‘Young?’ Hannah laughed. ‘Call me crazy, but have you looked in a mirror recently? You look pretty good for a man three hundred years old.’
Alen was only half listening. He brushed his fingers over the goosebumps that had risen on his forearm.
‘What is it?’ Hannah asked. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost.
‘You can’t feel it,’ he said, ‘but the air in here just changed, as if it was sucked out into the street.’
‘So what does that mean?’
He looked out of the window and peered down the alley. ‘It means you’re absolutely right: that’s my old friend, Fantus.’
Jacrys finished the wine, tilting the goblet far enough to catch the last drops on his tongue. He let it slip from his fingers and it shattered on the floor.
‘Rotten vintage,’ he wheezed, ‘but if that’s the last thing I taste, I suppose it’s better than nothing.’ He propped himself on a pillow and looked over the wharf. ‘Though it would have been nice to have one more Falkan—’
Jacrys’ voice faltered; his skin tingled with pins and needles. When he finally remembered to breathe, the noisy rasp that filled the room with the wet sound of death unexpectedly unnerved him.
But I’m not dying. Not yet.
Through sheer force of will he rose from the cot – his deathbed – and drew Thadrake’s knife from the block of cheese, then staggered towards the stairs.
It’s not her, you dumb rutter. Get back into bed. You can’t get down there; you’ll die in the stairwell.
But Jacrys ignored his own advice. It was her, just below his window, emerging from the tavern beneath his own room. She had probably been enjoying breakfast with her friends. The one with the roll of sailcloth looked like the bowman, Garec Haile, still alive despite taking an arrow in the lungs that night in Orindale.
Get back into bed, he told himself sternly, you’re hallucinating. This is it; this is the end – of course you’d see her at the end. And Garec’s dead; you know that, you killed him yourself.
At the top of the stairs, the former spy, white, wide-eyed with pain and looking like a man possessed, clenched his teeth over the blade and braced his hands against the narrow walls. Blood soaked his tunic in a scarlet bib as he sucked in tortured breaths through his teeth. His lungs felt heavy, like waterlogged bags of sand in his chest. He took a step, then another. Pain lanced through his hips; his leg muscles twitched. Another step.
I’m coming for you, Brexan. I’ll be down in just a moment.
Redrick sneaked into a doorway. ‘It’s him, the short one, sonofabitch,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve gotta get back to the table. I never should have boxed the damned thing up. I should have known, should have felt them coming, worthless frigging tan-bak. Shit!’
He peeked from his hiding place. Gilmour was still there, searching the crowds, hustling back and forth along the wharf, obviously panicked about something. His little partisan friends scurried after him.
‘What are you looking for, Gilmour?’ he asked. ‘What do you think you know? And where is Steven?’ Redrick watched another moment then stepped onto the road. The table wouldn’t help him; Blackford probably had the crate so tangled in crane lines, it would take all day to reach it. ‘All right, fine. Better this way, with the surprise element, than from the Bellan. He expects me up there.’
Blackford spun around. Someone’s coming! He took an interminable moment to search the captain’s cabin for a hiding place, then gave up – it was no use, the creature haunting Redrick Shen would find him in a heartbeat. He had to lie, and make it look convincing. The crate was his only option.
He moved quickly behind the wooden box and pretended to check the top and sides, as if ensuring the box wouldn’t fall open during transfer. Make it look good. You’ve got to make this look good.
There was a soft knock at the cabin door. Blackford snapped to and shouted, ‘Who is it?’
‘Captain Blackford, sir, it’s Kem. The crane’s ready, sir. I have the lines here.’
Blackford exhaled quietly in relief and bade him enter; Kem came in, followed by three sailors, each dragging a length of hawser.
Kem looked the box over for a few moments, then announced, ‘We’ll have to turn it on its side, sir,’ he said.
Blackford’s heart thudded. ‘That’s fine,’ he said. He considered slipping over the rail, disappearing into the Pellia streets and making for home – he could be there in less than a Moon.
‘How’d he— uh, she— Well, you know, how’d it get it in here in the first place?’ Kem asked, brushing a callused palm over the rough slats of the packing crate.
Remembering himself, Blackford shook his head.’ That’s not your concern. Just get it onto the deck and wait there for me.’
Run, fool. Redrick’s gone. You’ll be home in less than a Moon.
‘Yes sir,’ Kem said smartly, then turned on the others and shouted, ‘Right you lot, let’s get this motherless whore turned over.’
Blackford ignored them and was pushing past the crate, making for the companionway, when he saw the chest of drawers. It was fashioned from some ebony-coloured wood from southern Rona, and tucked discreetly away in a recessed area beneath the berth.
That’s it, Blackford thought, a leap of excitement ma
king his heart beat faster. Unless he has it with him, that’s where it’ll be.
Kem and the sailors worked behind him, quickly and efficiently, desperate to avoid damaging the stone table – given the probable punishment for damaging it, Blackford could understand why. However, he wasn’t about to search the chest until he had the cabin to himself. The sailors wanted to see Redrick – the monster possessing him – leave the Bellan, for ever, but Blackford knew scared men would say anything to save their own lives. If they caught him searching the captain’s cabin, they’d squeal on him in a heartbeat.
Despite the cold, the men were sweating.
‘Kem, go and fetch another two men to help you,’ Caption Blackford ordered. ‘You three, get above decks and have that dough-headed horsecock of a crane operator slacken the hawsers. Now!’
‘But sir,’ Kem began, ‘we’ve got—’
‘Now!’ Blackford shouted again.
‘Yes, sir,’ they said in unison. At least they had shared accountability should the table fall and crack.
The moment the cabin was empty, Blackford knelt to rifle through the chest. It didn’t take long. The stone, a hand-sized lump of grey rock wrapped in a bit of cloth was nestled at the back of the top drawer. He pocketed it, carefully closed the drawer and hurried above decks.
Home in less than a Moon, he thought, but not without this rock. He crossed the main deck and made his way towards the gangplank. Kem, two additional sailors in tow, spotted him and called, ‘Should we carry on with the crate, Captain?’
Without slowing, Blackford nodded and said, ‘Yes, please— I mean, yes, at once! I’m off to fetch Redrick. We’ll be back in a moment.’
Home in less than a Moon. Blackford reached the pier, turned along the wharf and didn’t look back, even after the explosions echoed across the harbour.
‘Gilmour, what are you doing?’ Brexan asked.
‘Milla, the girl I told you about, the one with Kantu?’ He searched the crowd, looking for children. ‘I think she’s here somewhere. I can feel her.’