“I can give you some compensation for your efforts,” Elzia shuffles, delving into her blanket, and pulls out a bag of chips. Marquos regards her oddly for a moment, then takes the money from her and looks at it.
“What if I say no?” he asks, looking back into her eyes.
She shrugs.
“I’m yet to meet a person who actually wants to visit the North. If that’s your choice, then you can wait here until my men return with your girl.”
“You’d still have them save her?”
“Of course. We wouldn’t leave her to the Mine Guard.”
“Okay,” Marquos starts to nod, “Then I’d rather wait for her to be returned here before I go into the North. I need to know she’s safe.”
“You’re welcome to wait,” Elzia says carefully, “But if you’re going to help us it has to be now. The Border Guard will be descending on us in full force, and us on them. Within a few days, I will not be able to sacrifice the men to go with you, and your journey to the North will be wasted.”
Marquos regards her suspiciously. He asks, “What are you planning?”
“Better you not be involved in that,” Elzia says.
“You want me to trust you?”
“The details won’t aid you. There’s a retaliation on the cards, that is all. One that could be aided by your swift journey to find Rosenbault. The information you bring back could easily sway the fighting in our favour,” Elzia pauses, then says “Goreth told me everything about your time in the Mines. You know the nature of the Guards, not just the Mine Guard, all of them. You know something must be done. If we can rout them here, we can start to change the tide and even reform the Mines. We can save all the children, together. Please...don’t think of us as Kands. It’s us against them.”
Marquos takes a deep breath, considering it carefully. He speaks his thoughts, “There’s little in the North that I can bring back...that will make up for the things I’ve already done. The Mine Guard, and now the Border Guard, they won’t stop, will they?” He doesn’t look to Elzia, already aware of the answer. He finally acquiesces, “If you can guarantee Red’s safety, then I’ll do it. There’s just one problem. If I show up on the waterways now, the Border Guard aren’t going to be happy. How far do you think I’ll get?”
“That’s what we’re best at,” Elzia smiles, “We’ll paint your boat and cut your hair. When we’re done, no one will know who you are.” The high leader lifts a hand to touch Marquos’ hair, and he sits motionless as she picks through knots and makes a mock grimace, “You could definitely do with a change.”
“It’s been a tough few days.”
Elzia gives him another smile and jumps to her feet. She holds out her hand to Marquos, saying “Do we have an agreement then?”
He takes her hand and she pulls him to his feet with surprising strength. He steadies himself and looks at her warily before responding, “You have to promise me though. You have to promise it.”
“The girl will be safe, I promise.”
4
Marquos returns to the Hypnagogia, painted black with the outside machinery panelled behind wood. The discretion brings a look of greater elegance, a civilised quality the boat had never aspired to before. Marquos, too, is washed clean and hair sheen to neat fuzz. They dyed it a lighter shade and he chiselled the stubble from around his jaw with a knife. He wears tailored clothes of fine dark cloth, taken from the Kands’ stores, including a long warm jacket and scarf. Goreth joins him at the boat, to say his farewells.
“Isn’t it nice to put a purpose towards a blind leap into the unknown?” Goreth smiles, “And I guarantee you’ll be thankful to have Copin and Hart along with you, when you see what a world it is up there in the Deadland.”
Goreth offers little else, clearly distracted by organising his men, and slips away with hints that he is soon to return to war. Lian shuffles out of hiding, greeting Marquos with a whisper, “I wish you luck, Marquos.”
“And I you,” Marquos replies, “Good to see you haven’t been eaten, then.”
“Don’t joke about that.”
“No, I’d be scared too if I were you,” Marquos can’t help but smile, “Your Highness seems like a very dangerous little lady.”
“They wouldn’t like to hear you talk of her like that.”
“Well, they won’t. Tell me something seriously, though, Lian…she says they went after that gyrocopter, and her men will bring Red back safely. Am I an idiot to believe her?”
Lian considers the point for a moment, then answers carefully, “It would bring great shame to all of us for you to rescue Goreth and myself, only to have a girl lose her freedom. Whatever I can fault these people for, I cannot believe they would let Red go without a fight.”
“Good.”
“That doesn’t mean you can trust them, though,” Lian bites his lip, “Just remember that. I know she probably made a joke of my fears, just like you have, but I have my reasons.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Marquos dismisses him.
*
Marquos wakes huddled against the tiller, wrapped in a number of blankets, and stirs with a shiver at the morning air. He rises to see the sunlight fading through the clouds in a faint haze, and sullenly looks down the hill towards the plains below. Or so he would like to; there is nothing to be seen, as Kail’s Shroud hangs upon the landscape, all vision fading into one indistinct blur mere metres from the boat.
The pilot had made it halfway up the rocky hills of Chapel Way before tiredness forced him to stop. It has been a lonely journey, moving slowly for the continued effects of the past few days trials and the added drag of the Hypnagogia. With the Kand’s repairs, he seems to have taken on extra weight, though they gave some compensation by oiling and tweaking his mechanics. He is not due to pick up his Kandish passengers until he is some way north of the Meth Fields. Their reasons are their own, but he is somewhat glad of the solitude, a familiar feeling that he has not felt since starting at the Mines. He retrieves his flute and begins playing his familiar tune, the notes hauntingly bouncing off the rocks and clouds with an eerie echo. He plays and plays, trying to recall Red’s little face, holding back the thought that she might still be in danger.
It was his return from the Eastern Tracts that last left him alone on the boat. He had been heading back west, along a canal that followed an old railroad. The railroad was a proud transport system that had run across the whole of Afta, once, alleged to be leftover from the Gracian Kingdom. Crumbling platforms and metal tracts, where they had been left intact, lay deep in overgrown weeds along the side of the canals. There was little else to see; hills and rocks of different sizes covered Afta, with varying degrees of vegetation, but under overcast days it all looked the same as Estalia. Marquos was ignorant of the history of the lands he passed through; all he saw were decaying ruins that he assumed the Border Guard had left behind when they travelled through Afta and found it too vast to colonise. On his way back to Estalia, however, the pilot picked up a fellow Estalian wishing to cross the sea, a man who continued to explore the Gracian Kingdom and offered Marquos what he knew of its mysterious history.
Thinking of those legends, Elzia’s words rung clear in Marquos’ mind, that perhaps the world had been a better place before. Maybe there really was a war that had torn them all apart, or some answer to where the darkness had come from. Maybe the Gracians did exist, at some point, and maybe Rosenbault could explain what happened to them. Maybe the Border Guard didn’t want him to. If every generation had stories of the Gracians from ten generations before their own, though, who was to say how far back it went, and where the stories started, or what was true.
Dusk falls as he creeps into sight of the industrious towers of the Fields, flanked by massive refinery buildings. The green fog gives the Meth Fields an otherworldly hue, a civilisation doomed to the wastes of some ill-conceived experiment. The city remains lighter than most, throughout the night, for the slightly luminous nature of the gasses that cloud it,
and the occasional flaring of the tips of the towers, burning day and night. Marquos floats into the city with the same conflicted awe that it always inspires. Down past the factories and the towers, the canal slips into a vast tract of make-shift buildings that have been cemented into an expansive urban centre. The canal is lit frequently by lanterns hanging from the sides of homes and public houses that flank the waterway, and people wander the streets to the side of the canal. Marquos watches them as he passes by, but none of them show any interest in him. Entering the city, he is stopped only once, by a member of the Water Guard who stands out on a pier as the canal widens. The guard asks a rehearsed line of questioning about Marquos’ purpose in the Meth Fields, and Marquos gives a rehearsed line of answers that he has given many times before. He comes to trade, to visit friends and to move on. The guard welcomes him to the city. There is no sign of the Border Guard patrols; they must know now that the Kands are closer to Thesteran.
Marquos steers the Hypnagogia into the wider tract of canal and begins to navigate his way through boats that have been moored there. The transport in the Meth Fields is as industrial as the city itself, with little more than ugly cargo ships and workmen’s transits moored at the side of the canal. Casual visitors do not come here. Marquos finds a spot on a crowded jetty and pulls his boat to a stop, tying it off and locking the door to the cabin. He jumps off the boat and starts making his way through the bustling population, his mind on one location.
5
Teri opens the door to man in finer dress and cleanliness than he has ever blessed her with before, but her focus is immediately drawn to the face, and any affection or joy at Marquos’ return is sidelined by her blunt question, “What the fuck did you do, pick a fight with a wall?”
“So good to see you, too,” Marquos grins sheepishly back at her. He has two clear cuts on his face, one above his right eye and the other just below his lip, and the skin all around the left of his face is colourfully bruised. He has done all he could to clear up the wounds, looking into the mirror on his boat, but all he could do turned out to be very little. He whips a hand out from behind his back and holds up a small bouquet of ugly flowers he has torn from the riverbank. Teri gives him a sardonic look and takes the flowers, holding them at arm’s length.
“Charming,” she murmurs, and places them aside. She leans against the doorframe and looks the pilot up and down. Teri is a striking girl, tall and strongly built with a full feminine figure and bright white hair, trimmed short in a messy splay. Her home is one of many strung together amidst the countless identical streets; cramped terraces partially reconstructed from brickwork laid there many decades ago. Her door is a piece of corrugated metal, chained in place, and the interior of the home is in a state of constant disrepair. She steps aside and raises an arm for Marquos to enter. He immediately kisses her on the lips. She shares the kiss for a moment, but places a hand on his chest and lightly pushes him back, says, “Come on, in here.”
Marquos walks into her living area as she rattles the door shut. The dark room is lit by a small candle in the centre, its two wicker arm chairs frayed and worn. He walks to one and sits down as Teri pulls a bottle out from under the sink. She plonks herself onto the other seat and takes a swig before handing the drink to him. All the while her eyes watch him carefully, her mind ticking.
“I’ve had a rough few days,” Marquos tells her, gulping down the glus. “Tough few moons, in fact.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed it,” Teri replies, “Funny, though, because I’ve had a bad time of it myself.”
Marquos pauses. He shifts forward in the seat to hand the bottle back and sighs, “I’m sorry. I should’ve sent some message to say I was coming. I’m three days later than I thought I’d be anyway, though. Maybe more.”
“That’s good. If you’d been here three days ago my boyfriend would’ve given you worse than you got from whoever did get you.”
“Your boyfriend?” Marquos raises his eyebrows with a pang of surprise.
“Ex, actually,” Teri rolls her eyes, “We had a messy break-up, too. He worked in the galley with me, so I asked for a transfer and have been left lugging coal around. That’s my foreseeable future.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Marquos replies.
“No you’re not. If you thought I was still with that bastard you’d be out of here in shot, moping away back to your boat.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your work,” the pilot says sincerely. “But let me treat you. I’ve been doing alright, as far as supporting myself goes. We can go out to one of the eateries, what do you say?”
“Not going to happen. I need my rest, I’ve got another long day tomorrow. Wait till tomorrow evening and we can set the town on fire, though,” Teri’s eyes light up a little, “You can come with me to the Pike when everyone’s out and we can watch Raiph squirm with jealousy.”
Marquos leans back, “I’d love for you to use me to get back at your boyfriend, but if we can’t do it tonight then it’ll have to wait a bit longer. I’ve got-”
“Fucking typical,” Teri throws a hand in the air, “I should’ve known. You just want to jump on me and leave? How many girls do you have on the go to keep doing that everywhere you go, Marquos? To make you think it’s alright?” Marquos doesn’t answer, looking away uncomfortably, and Teri huffs. She runs a hand over her face, moaning “What it must be like, to be able to move from one place to another in this miserable world, looking out for yourself and no one else.”
“I didn’t mean it to seem like that at all,” Marquos insists, “I’ve got caught up in something kind of serious. I’ve got a few responsibilities. I interrupted it all to come see you, though. And if you think it was just to…jump on you…then forget that. Let’s sit here and talk. Tell me what’s been happening with you. It’s been ages since we got a chance to catch up.”
“Now you’re just being tricky,” Teri says, “You don’t care.”
“Teri, you’re one of the few people out in this wilderness that I do care about. You ask me to knock this Raiph guy’s lights out and I’d do it in an instant. You don’t like your work, you can come away with me on my boat. Just go up and down the waterways, the two of us, we’d be happy. Then I could show you how much I care.”
Teri lets out a sudden laugh. She covers her mouth, but laughs again, then says “I’m so sorry. If you’re serious, that is. Are you?”
“Is it that stupid?” Marquos asks quietly, a little affronted. Teri sees that he meant it and her face drops, filled with sympathy, “Bless you. I’m not going to run away with you, Marquos. I’ve got a home here, and a life. It might not look like much, and it is a lot of hard work, but it’s my home. A place I can always come back to, with people I know. Don’t you miss that? Do you even have any kind of routine out there on that boat of yours? Regular meal times?”
Marquos shakes his head slowly, replying “What for?”
“A life without structure isn’t really a life, Marqy. Most people are out there building something out of themselves. Something they can use. What’re you doing?”
“Building it in experience instead of…physical things?”
“That’s great,” Teri winks. She takes another swig from her bottle, “Fancy ideas aren’t going to take care of you when you’re old, you know?”
“You never said anything like this before,” Marquos says, “I thought you liked to hear where I’d been. I thought you might like to share a bit of it.”
“Oh I do!” Teri slips off her chair down to her knee next to Marquos. She takes one of his hands in hers and rubs it, smiling as she looks into his eyes. She lowers her voice, “You’re fascinating, Marquos, and you’re great fun when you’re around. Fun doesn’t guarantee a future though. I’m not going to wait for you to change your nature and settle somewhere. I love you, Marq, but you’re not what I need.”
“I need you though,” Marquos replies weakly. He finds himself staring at her, unable to focus. Her words are not what he wanted to
hear. Not what he expected. Another candidate for companionship on the waterways, lost to the sensibilities of civilisation.
“Like you need a post to tie your boat to,” Teri slips up towards him, her eyes running over him carefully. “That’s fine. I’ll still be here for you. You can’t take the post with you though, can you?”
“But I-” Marquos goes to talk, but she places a finger on his lips, interrupting “It’s not what you’re here for, is it? Where’s this talk come from?”
He looks into her eyes, recognising her hungry look as the finger rests there against him, and he lightly shrugs, forces a smile, lets the subject drop. She sinks onto him and lays her lips onto his. They kiss briefly before she retreats. She pauses, inches from his face, and he looks longingly to her mouth. He does not try to speak again, languishing in her warm breath. Without warning, he pulls her onto him, hard, and she wraps her arms around him. Their hands move with hungry desperation, hers caressing his face as his drag her legs apart over him. He spins her off the chair, down to the hard floor, and as one they clumsily roll through the mess of her home. He kisses her all over, holding her close, tasting the dirty sweat of her day’s work in the factories. He fumbles his hands down to undo her trousers, pull down her pants, frantically moving like a teenager enjoying the scent of a woman for the first time. It’s been too long, but his instincts take care of the rest.
6
Marquos lies on a bed as solid as wood, Teri halfway sprawled across him with her head rested against his shoulder, the pair naked and exhausted. Teri has no curtains to cover her window, but the airborne filth of the city has turned the pane dark, letting only a vague glimmer of green light in from a street lantern below. They have laid together for some minutes, idling stroking each other’s bodies as they catch their breath. It took two rapturous sessions of sex for Marquos to control himself in anything resembling a romantic manner, and another two before he was completely drained. The whole while, Marquos hid the pain of his injuries being touched, forcing himself on with angry determination that he would enjoy this. Teri contained herself better, but inside she felt no less animalistic than Marquos, releasing the passion she’d built up in anger against Raiph.
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