“He knows I’m out here?”
“Didn’t say you, he didn’t. Civilian transporter with Border Guard passengers. Steam barge, they said, and I figured it could be you. Could’ve been a thousand others too, I guess, just had a feeling. So what’s the take? Where these guards, what you transporting them for?”
“None of your business,” Marquos grunts, “What’s the message?”
“Free it, no need to get like that,” Tan puffs, genuinely offended. “Simple as Retical says he can’t head out to meet you, so meet him right on in Thesteran. Things are getting crazy out there, though, Marq, I wouldn’t go if I were you.”
“Crazy how?”
“Kand rebels, blowing the fuck out of everything. They’ve been on the move, fighting in the streets. Fires, explosions, all that guts to it. Big fires, man, it’s something to see alright. Retical’s got his hands full.”
“Damn,” Marquos mutters. He turns back towards the light of the fallen bike and walks towards the boat. Seeing the pilot’s movements, Tan follows suit, at a distance. The messenger asks “You got some words for me?”
“No,” Marquos replies simply.
“You gonna offer your old friend a drink then? Bit of a relax before I hit it?”
“I can’t, Tan,” the pilot waves a hand for him to leave and climbs back onto the Hypnagogia. “Got no drink to offer.”
“Well hell I’ve got a bit we could split, just-”
“No,” Marquos cuts in shortly. The pilot pauses, turning back to Tan as the messenger hauls the bike upright. “If you get a chance, do something else for me though. A few messages, actually.”
“Score, hand them over.”
“Verbal. Tell Teri I’m sorry I didn’t stay with her. Tell my brothers and my parents that I love them. And Nicole. You know where to find them all, don’t you?”
“Is that it?” Tan scoffs, “That’s nothing. Why you got so sentimental?”
“Just do it. What do you want for it?”
“Messages like that ain’t real fare,” Tan laughs. “That I can do for free, as and when I’m passing. Now you take care of yourself, Marq. Don’t lose it. We all have our days, right? Just keep being the you I know. Right?”
“Got it. Thanks, Tan.”
“Don’t think on it!” Tan waves a hand, opening up his bike engine with a huge gust of steam. The bike hurtles forwards as he spins it around on the grass, the great spotlight casting a beam of light that swathes across the whole horizon of hills and trees before pointing back up the canal. Tan roars away as quickly as he came, and Marquos turns to the cabin. He looks at his clenched fists and shakes his head at himself. He shudders at the thought, but knows he has to go down there.
7
Hart arrives in the morning to find Marquos sitting on the deck, slumped against the tiller from exhaustion. She climbs silently aboard, not expecting his presence, and stands over him with a frown. He doesn’t wake as she slips past him; he only stirs when she returns a few minutes later and shakes him into consciousness.
“What the fuck happened?” Hart demands. Startled, Marquos slams back into the wall and raises his hands defensively.
“What? How did you get here? What the-”
“What happened?” Hart asks.
“A lot,” the pilot says, “We were on a floating castle, they captured Copin, he went insane!” Marquos clambers to his feet, “You’ve seen the mess haven’t you?”
Hart looks back down the stairs. She eyes him warily and says “Why did you have guards on board?”
The pilot continues to tell her about Outpost 4, Commander Nomes and their charge to take Copin west. He tells her about the Kand’s outrageous escape attempt and Qait’s departure.
“I went down there and cleaned up a bit,” Marquos finishes, “Washed the floor at least. I couldn’t wake Copin again, and didn’t know what to do about the bodies. The one, the second one with the neck,” Marquos points to his own neck, “I think I did that. He ran onto me, but caught himself badly. I don’t know what to do… I had to sleep out here, I…I don’t know.”
“Copin’s in no condition to move,” Hart grumbles, thinking to herself. She jumps off the boat and hurries to the front, surveying the damage, then rushes back to the deck and jumps back on. She pushes past Marquos and picks up the long hooked pole.
“What are you doing?” the pilot asks, but she does not answer, hurrying back to shore. He follows her and sees her crouch near the stern. She shoves the pole down under the boat and starts probing around. Marquos repeats his question but she ignores him again. She jams the pole about hard until it catches on something, then she wrenches it back. It lifts out of the water with a large bag hanging from the hook. Marquos stares with surprise as she draws the bag to the shore, “What the hell is that?”
“Thank your stars it’s still here,” Hart says, hurriedly unravelling the bag and looking in. She snatches it up again, sealing it, and turns to Marquos “After taking it out to sea, out to the fucking Border Guard, you’re lucky it’s still attached.”
“How?” Marquos gapes, “When?”
“Come on, let’s get moving,” Hart curtly replies, swinging the bag up onto the boat. She clambers into the cabin with it. By the time Marquos makes it down after her, she is already dragging Jenz through the galley. She yells “Grab his legs!”
Marquos hurries down and does as he’s told. Together they struggle out of the boat and heave the guard’s body up over the wall, throwing it onto the bank. As they move, Marquos cannot take his eyes from the bloody wound gouged out of Jenz’s neck. The guard is dowsed so heavily in blood that his skin appears a shiny red. It’s repulsive and compelling at the same time. As they move Molicz’s body, Marquos wants to ask if Hart’s sure the guard is dead, but as soon as he helps lift him he knows the truth. The guard is already cold, and his head flops loosely from the neck, like its attached by rubber. This time Marquos cannot look, staring at the walls around him as they carry the body away. Hart moves decisively, though, giving the pilot no time to fret. The next step is to drag the bodies away from the boat, into a small group of trees.
To move the boat, Marquos stokes the fire and engages the engine in reverse, before he and Hart put all their weight into shoving it off the bank. It slips back down into the water with snapping wood, but the damage seems to be on the canal’s side rather than the Hypnagogia’s, which has only suffered superficially. With the engine already running, Marquos sets the boat into motion, heading back down the stream, whilst Hart heads into the cabin to see what can be done for Copin. She returns after a short period away, tossing a collection of new shirts soaked through with blood down into the canal. She sits next to Marquos, looking out at the hills with an irritated expression. The pair do not talk for a few minutes as the Hypnagogia continues its steadfast journey.
“What’s in the bag?” the pilot finally breaks the silence. Hart meets his eyes and gives him an up-yours look before turning back to the hills. Marquos huffs, typical.
“Copin’s alright, in case you wondered,” Hart speaks with enmity, “I gave him some food. We’d do well to get him some glus, at the very least.”
“Yeah.”
“Were you hoping he’d just die in there?”
The pair meet eyes again, and Marquos gives a stern look back. He answers tersely, “I wasn’t hoping for anything. I saw a man bite another man’s neck out in the middle of my home, and I didn’t especially want to relive that. I didn’t have to take him on this boat, you know, I could’ve left him for the bandits. I could’ve left him to Commander Nomes.”
“He was rescuing you from them.”
“It wasn’t necessary!” Marquos says. “He’s psychotic.”
“Of course he is,” Hart scoffs as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Didn’t he ever tell you his theories about only madmen going into the North? Why do you think I haven’t been interfering when you’ve got into trouble?” Hart shakes her head, clearly disappointed by
the truth about Copin. “He’s one of the most vicious and fearless men we have. No one else would be as mad to come up with this plan.”
“Plan? What plan?” To Marquos’ knowledge their mission failed when they started the return journey from the North; now comes the idea of there being more to this venture than he realised. The bag secreted under his boat. Hart hesitates before answering.
“Qait told you about Rosenbault, didn’t he?” she asks.
“How do you know?”
“Because you let him on your boat, and I know you’re stubborn about those things. And because you made so little fuss when we came back empty-handed. You didn’t want us to find anything out there.”
“Qait told me a lot. He told me he killed Rosenbault, two seasons ago, and hid what he’d been researching on. He had a pretty good reason.”
“Yeah,” Hart nods, “We know. We know all about it. The man that defected to us told us everything about what Rosenbault had been working on. We went out there to find those weapons.”
“That bag…” Marquos gapes with realisation. The Kand sighs, going on “They built a box under the boat, when they remodelled it for you. It’s easy to open and close with a pole. I guess the guards never looked down there, but I’m surprised you didn’t notice the change in drag. Qait did a good job of hiding that bunker, but not good enough. It took me a while, but I found the entrance. We moved the rocks out of the way and got down there, and chose the smallest of the most recent bombs he had constructed. We would’ve taken more, but Qait was still out there, we didn’t want to give the game away. If he’d thought we’d made it into that bunker, he’d have abandoned us and roused the nearest Guard contingent. He didn’t want to let the Guard know about us in case they found out about the bombs, but he’d have done it if he thought we succeeded. It’s risky to take chances with a man like Qait. If you try and kill him and fail, he can slip away and never be found, and bring a world of trouble down upon your head.”
“You know, then, what Rosenbault believed about the world?”
“He thought there was no hope. He wanted weapons to ease the pain, that’s all.”
“It’s not that simple. Qait said-”
“What does it matter?” Hart snaps. “The man’s dead and all he left behind were tools to kill more people. What does it matter what he thought?”
“It matters,” Marquos keeps his voice calm, trying to sound reasonable, “Because he had a few theories about what’s keeping all of us alive.”
“Marq, the reason I’m telling you all this now,” Hart ignores the point, “Is that we’re going back to Thesteran, and we’re going to take that bag into the Construction Frame. Then we’re going to set it off. That was Copin’s plan. If we destroy half of Thesteran in the process, then more power to us.”
“No,” Marquos starts shaking his head, “No you can’t do that.”
“We are going to do it. It’s the only way we can fight an enemy as powerful as the Border Guard. Without the Construction Frame, their weapons will actually diminish when we defeat them in battle. The war will be winnable.”
“No it won’t,” the pilot replies forcibly, “Because if you destroy our tools of manufacture now, this world will freeze. We need all the people we can get, every life you take is killing us as a whole.”
“Rubbish. Rosenbault was insane, Marq. There’s no reason to believe any of it. Does the world feel cold around you here? We’re far from any of the manufacturing centres. Out at sea, when you were on Outpost 4, you were way beyond the reaches of our civilisation, and you did not freeze. We have more important things to worry about. Don’t you see what they’ve done to this world already? They stole everything you own, for Dendra’s sake.”
“Even without what Rosenbault said, it’s wrong. The Construction Frame is more than a tool for-”
“You’re not going to convince me. Even if you could it doesn’t matter, this is Highness Elzia’s wish, and if we don’t do it she will find other means.”
“Then I’ll convince her,” Marquos says, “We can’t do it.”
Hart looks him up and down. She says “Either way, you’ll take us to Thesteran.”
He looks back at her, hesitates, but concedes, “I’m in it now.”
“Good. We can’t go along the North canals, Retical will be looking for us, so we can head back via Chapel Way and regroup with the Kands.”
“That’s what we’ll do,” the pilot says definitely, purposefully neglecting to tell her of Tan’s visit in the night. Hart gives him a fake smile of approval and looks away again. Finally satisfied that he is not in immediate danger, Marquos relaxes. He slumps and looks at the tracker beside him, acknowledging for the first time that she has somehow made it from Yerth back to his boat, and looks thoroughly exhausted. Her eyes are dark and down-turned, her skin filthy.
“Are you hurt at all?” he asks. She shakes her head, and he says “How did you get back to me?”
“Saw you leaving Yerth, towards the sea, knew you’d have to come back through the Bungo trading post so I headed straight there. I got in late last night and you’d already gone through, so made my way up the canal. Didn’t expect to catch up to you.”
“You should get some sleep.”
“I can’t,” Hart replies glumly. “I’ve been on the hunt for so long, it’ll take a while to unwind before I can actually sleep.”
“At least lie down.”
“I’m not going back down there for a while. He bit a man’s neck out, Marq.” Hart speaks without any real emotion, not conveying accusation or disgust, leaving the pilot to guess as to whether she feels equally horrified by Copin’s actions, or if she is merely disgusted by the scene. He does not want to press for details. They sit in silence for a few moments more, before the Kand asks “They took your flute, along with everything else?”
“Yeah.”
“Shame.”
“Yeah.”
The pair slip back into silence.
8
Marquos and Hart travel together with barely a word exchanged, taking it in turns to open lock gates and stoke the furnace. As night descends, the single lantern is not enough to guide the boat forward and they settle into the cabin. Copin stirs for dinner, his spirits quickly returning. He jokes about their lucky escape from the guards and commends Marquos on being so tough, and the pilot barely responds. When the Kand begins poking fun at him for feeling awkward after the intensity of the past few days, Marquos mumbles back that he is just tired, and wants to focus on getting them back to Thesteran. Inside, he is willing a speedy journey, telling himself that when they get to Thesteran this will all be over and he can start a process of forgetting everything that has happened. Copin accepts his explanation and continues happily talking to himself. He begins to tell them a story of his escape from a force of Road Guards near Nexter, not too long ago, against incredible odds. Marquos realises now that every brutal word Copin says is probably true. The way he turns the gory details into morbid jokes, like the time he slipped in a pool of blood and cut his arm on a thorn, the worst injury of a fight with two veteran guards, is not the good-natured humour of a man trying his hardest to cope with the horrors of war. Copin is genuinely amused by it all. The violence is nothing more than a backdrop to a world of absurd entertainment. Marquos only half-listens to the tales, spending more time watching Hart. He feels some affinity with her now, understanding that she is quiet for a reason. She does not want to share this man’s experiences. He wonders if she is so isolated from all her comrades.
Barely rested, and aware that they cannot move easily in the dark, Marquos insists on continuing their journey. He tells the Kands he is eager to get to the next trading post, the last one on the waterways before they reach the Meth Fields. Truthfully he does not care about where they are going, he just doesn’t want to stay in the cabin with Copin. And the bomb. No one has mentioned the bomb, and he wants to keep it that way. It just sits there, in the slack canvas bag, with the looming presence of
a festering disease, waiting to corrupt. Marquos tells both the Kands to get more rest, but when he returns to the deck he can hear Copin still talking below. By the time he has unmoored the Hypnagogia and set back out on the water, Hart comes outside to join him. She looks more tired than Marquos feels, and says nothing, a shared look saying all that is needed.
Kail’s Shroud descends on the canals in the middle of the night, making a difficult job seem near impossible, and Marquos slows down but does not stop. He is determined to continue, unafraid as he recalls what he achieved in Yerth. When they reach the trading post, it is dead to the world, abandoned in sleep. Marquos is too tired to think, merely continues through the shanty-town. Hart jumps overboard and disappears into the fog for a short while, before returning with two gas lanterns. She does not explain where they came from, just lights them and puts them in position to help light their way. She has also obtained a small piece of wood, which she takes a knife to and starts whittling. Marquos concentrates on finding their way through the shroud, ignoring her. Eventually, yawning and stretching, Hart gives the pilot a short pat on the shoulder and disappears into the cabin. Marquos keeps going for an hour or so more, until he begins swaying at the tiller. When he pulls the Hypnagogia aside and ties the new mooring ropes to trees, he realises how weak and tired he has become, the simple action taking him twice as long as usual. He takes down the lanterns and slips back into the cabin, where he finds Hart wrapped in blankets on the floor. The door into the bedroom is closed, but he can hear Copin snoring. There is barely space for Marquos to step around Hart, putting the lanterns away and giving the furnace fire one last stoke. In his exhaustion, it seems perfectly natural to squeeze down onto the floor next to Hart. She barely stirs from her slumber, but instinctively lifts her blanket over Marquos, and he cuddles up to her, almost instantly falling asleep.
Hart wakes first in the morning, trying to move and finding her way blocked. She pushes back, frowning and slowly slips Marquos’ arm down from across her. She twists on the floor and takes a moment to inspect the man sleeping next to her. He has an innocent look of unconscious vulnerability, and eases her mood. He stirs and sees that her face has softened, and can’t help but smile back. It spurs Hart into movement, jarring her from her semi-conscious state, and she scrambles to her feet, giving him a little prod and muttering “Ass, there’s plenty of room to share with Copin.”
Wixon's Day Page 27
