Gravedigger 01 - Sea Of Ghosts

by Alan Campbell

  This small, strange family sat on old munitions crates in Granger’s attic, eating by the light of an oil lamp. He’d opened his best bottle of wine, sweetened it with sugar to make it drinkable and dug out some blankets for Hana and Ianthe to use as cushions. The women were silent for once. Granger couldn’t stop himself from glancing over at them. Their clothes were ragged and filthy. He would have to see about getting them some new ones now that he had a bit of money. Mrs Pursewearer might sell him some. She’d know the sort of things they’d need. He’d have to buy planking for their cell, too, to raise the floor properly. Maybe he could stretch to a washbasin, run a hose down from the purifier. Watching Hana eat reminded him of the first night he’d met her at the farm in Evensraum. She been more curious about him than afraid. He suddenly realized he was staring, and she was looking at him.

  ‘How did you end up here?’ she said.

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘I never imagined you’d become a jailer.’

  ‘It’s only temporary, until I can get my boat fixed.’

  She took a sip of wine, and grimaced. ‘Where will you go?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘There’s no one up there, you know?’ Ianthe said suddenly.

  Granger turned to face her. ‘Where?’

  ‘Ortho’s Chariot. There’s no life aboard.’

  Granger grunted. ‘You can see that far away?’

  She nodded.

  He thought about that. ‘What’s the emperor doing now?’ he asked.

  The girl stared into space for a minute. ‘He’s in his palace. In bed with three of his slaves. Two of them are—’

  ‘All right,’ Granger interrupted. ‘You shouldn’t be watching things like that.’ He gathered up the empty bowls, stood up and started for the sink.

  ‘You asked me,’ Ianthe called after him.

  ‘I didn’t mean for you to spy on people,’ Granger replied gruffly. ‘Have you never heard of common decency?’ He put the crockery in the sink and began to clean up, scrubbing the dishes rigorously with steel wool.

  ‘Don’t you want to know what your friend Creedy is doing?’

  ‘No, I don’t!’ Granger set down the bowl he was cleaning and stared at the wall.

  Hana eased him aside and started to finish the dishes for him.

  ‘Why? What is he doing?’

  ‘He’s driving his boat across the open sea.’

  Nothing unusual about that, Granger thought. He’s probably just running the engine to flex the launch’s muscles, skirting the city to avoid the narrow canals. He wouldn’t necessarily be heading out of the city.

  ‘I know you don’t trust him,’ she said. ‘Don’t you even want to know where he’s going?’

  ‘No,’ Granger lied.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 6

  THE OLEA

  Dear Margaret,

  Last night I dreamed I escaped this cell. I was heading across open water in a strong steel boat, with the sun rising before me and the whole sea shimmering like copper. And then I woke and found myself trapped in this damn cell again. The same four walls every day, the same lousy food. And now there’s a dead man in the next cell. He died during the night, and Mr Swinekicker has just left him there. What kind of life is this? What kind of man leaves a corpse to rot?

  Love,

  Alfred

  Granger let Creedy stew for three more days. He set up the washbasin for his two captives, running a tube down from the purifier on his roof, and he improved the floor in their cell as best he could. He used his own boat to travel to Averley Market, but it leaked so badly he dared not risk the long trip out to the boatyards yet. He bought food, wine and resin, and spent a whole afternoon patching up the hull. It grew hot and humid, and the grey skies pinned the air down over the city as thoroughly as the roof of a bread oven. On the third night he dragged Duka’s body out of the cell and dumped it in one of the narrow nameless canals behind his prison. And then he flagged down Ned and paid him to deliver a message to Creedy.

  The sergeant arrived that same evening, with two bottles of beer and a broad grin on his grizzled jaw, as if the two of them had never argued. ‘Enjoying the family life, Colonel?’

  Granger sat down and pulled on his galoshes.

  Creedy’s grin widened. ‘It was only a matter of time.’

  For the next four nights they dredged Ethugra’s canals for trove. Creedy grunted with approval at each new treasure they discovered, before packing them carefully away in his huge canvas satchel. Ianthe’s abrasiveness waned as she relaxed into the task and let the fresh air start to relieve the stress of confinement. She seemed happy to be in the two men’s company. Clearly she enjoyed the work.

  For Creedy’s benefit she kept up the pretence of staring into the black waters, as though she was able to perceive details in that murk with her useless eyes. Whenever they found trove, Granger knew that there must be Drowned nearby, that Ianthe had spotted the treasure only because they themselves had seen it. He imagined multitudes of them moving about down there while the surface world remained oblivious. It was like the way the empire viewed the liberated territories: one did not observe the under-classes unless one was obliged to. In Granger’s experience such an attitude was inherently dangerous. When the under-classes occupied the foundations of a society, it was all too easy for them to undermine it.

  Creedy and the girl showed genuine interest in the objects they retrieved. But Granger couldn’t shake his dark mood or bring himself to enthuse about their finds. Relatively common items made up the bulk of their discoveries: bright shards of pottery, rusted clasps and hinges, parts of old Unmer sailing vessels. Few were worth more than a handful of gilders. But every so often they found something rarer.

  In Malver Basin they pulled up a trepanned skull. After they had emptied it of brine something could be heard rattling around inside, and when Granger listened closely he could swear he heard the sound of flutes coming from the unknown object. It was tuneless and ethereal, and he sensed it served no good purpose. But they would sell it to one of Creedy’s buyers, and it would end up god knows where, and the responsibility for returning it to the world would remain on Granger’s shoulders. He needed the money.

  From a tar-black sink on the outskirts of Francialle they retrieved a phial of blood-red crystals, which Creedy tried to open.

  ‘Best leave it be, Sergeant,’ Granger said.

  Creedy held the phial close to his eye lens. ‘They could be rubies,’ he muttered.

  ‘Maybe,’ Granger replied. ‘Maybe not. Let the buyer take the risk.’

  This was their problem. Neither of them really knew what most of this stuff did, or, for that matter, what it was truly worth. There were a few Unmer experts in Ethugra, but no one they could trust. What looked like treasure to them them might be worthless in the marketplace, while what appeared to be common might actually be priceless. They were at the mercy of their own ignorance.

  But late on the fourth night, Ianthe led them to a discovery that Creedy recognized at once.

  On a hunch Creedy had steered the launch deep into the Helt, where the canals formed a precise grid and the massive iron-stitched prison blocks rose sheer above them for more than ten storeys. Finds were sparse here, but Creedy insisted they keep searching. They must have traversed the same intersection four times before Ianthe raised her hand for them to stop.

  ‘An amphora,’ she said.

  It was heavy. If Granger had known beforehand just how much effort would be required to pull it up, he might just have left it on the seabed. And when he saw its dreary
bulk resting in the hull, he almost pitched it back in to save himself the trouble of carrying it further.

  Creedy stopped him. ‘I know what that is,’ he said excitedly. ‘Hell’s balls, man, I know what that is.’

  Granger peered down at the object. It was a clay amphora sealed by a wax stopper. He’d seen hundreds of them for sale in Losoto. ‘Wine,’ he said. ‘Or whale oil. Either way, it’s not worth much more than twenty gilders.’

  Creedy shook his head. ‘It’s an olea,’ he said. ‘These markings on the front show a record of its battles.’

  Granger frowned at the indecipherable writing scrawled across the container. ‘A fish?’

  ‘Jellyfish,’ Creedy said. ‘The Unmer used to breed them for sport.’

  ‘That’s an old amphora,’ Granger said.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ the other man replied. ‘Olea are sorcerous.’

  ‘It’s still alive?’

  He nodded. ‘And seriously pissed off. Imagine how you’d feel being cooped up in a jar for two hundred years.’ He grinned, and his eye-lens glittered in the lantern light. ‘Might get eight hundred for it at market, but a collector would pay more. Up to four thousand for a good specimen.’

  Granger stared at the amphora. With his half share, he’d manage a down payment on a deepwater vessel. It was more than he’d dared hope for in such a short space of time. He could be out of Ethugra by the end of the year. ‘Do you know any collectors with that kind of money?’ he asked.

  The sergeant was silent for a moment. Then he shrugged. ‘The only one in Ethugra who collects them,’ he said, ‘is Ethan Maskelyne.’

  A hollow feeling crept into Granger’s gut. Ethan Maskelyne. Maskelyne the Metaphysicist, Maskelyne the Unappointed, the Wizard of Scythe Island – Ethugra’s unofficial boss had more sobriquets than the tides. He was an amateur scientist, and an avid collector of Unmer esoterica. But to Granger, the title of Maskelyne the Extortionist seemed most fitting. His Hookmen supposedly protected the city from the Drowned, but they took in payment nine out of every hundred gilders earned by the land-living. Once in a while they’d drag a few sharkskin men or women up from the depths and chain them out in Averley Plaza to die in the sun.

  ‘Eight hundred in the market?’ Granger said.

  Creedy looked up. ‘But five times that from Maskelyne himself.’

  Granger didn’t like it. Maskelyne would want to know exactly where the olea had come from. Were there any more? How did two jailers come to be in the trove business in the first place? What else had they found? Granger did not want to be scrutinized by a man like Maskelyne. But something else bothered him even more. Finding this treasure had been too . . . convenient. Creedy had wanted to bring Maskelyne in as a partner and now he had a perfect excuse to approach him. And why had Creedy been so insistent that they come here at all? Granger peered down at the amphora again. It remained as unremarkable as any he’d seen, covered with scratches that might be some ancient Unmer script, or not. Anyone might have scrawled them. A fighting jellyfish? Or a jar of vinegar?

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ll sell it through the market.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Creedy said evenly, although the darkness in his expression said otherwise.

  Towards dawn, Granger sat with Ianthe and Hana on the roof of his jail, eating thrice-boiled fish baked in sugar and cinnamon that Hana had prepared while they’d been away. A small oil lantern rested on the brine purifier nearby. Ianthe was telling her mother about the amphora.

  ‘What did it perceive?’ Hana asked.

  Ianthe snorted. ‘I don’t know! Jellyfish don’t have any eyes or ears, do they?’

  ‘You saw nothing inside?’ Granger asked.

  ‘I don’t see at all,’ Ianthe said.

  Granger noted that her tone had become less cynical and hostile. She was beginning to accept her situation, and that troubled him more than he cared to admit. She didn’t belong here, nor anywhere with him. He couldn’t take them with him.

  He sighed and rubbed his temples. Once he bought his new boat, he might as well return them to Evensraum. Or even Lions-port, at the edge of the empire. They’d probably be safer there.

  ‘Can you see what Creedy’s doing?’ he asked.

  Ianthe’s spoon halted halfway to her mouth. She appeared to smile slightly, although it was so brief it may have been Granger’s imagination. And then her blank eyes gazed at the ground for a moment. ‘He must be sleeping,’ she said, then went back to her meal.

  ‘How do you know? How can you find him?’

  She spoke with her mouth full. ‘It’s like flying through darkness. You can see little islands of light everywhere, but the islands are really someone’s perception, and you can drift down inside them if you concentrate.’ She swallowed her food and took another bite. ‘Then the darkness goes away and you hear and see exactly what they do. But when there’s nobody about, it’s just black, empty of anything. I can see this roof because you and Mother do. And I can see a room in that building,’ she pointed to Cuttle’s jail, ‘because somebody is moving about over there. But the area between is just dead space, like your friend Creedy’s house.’

  ‘You know where he lives.’

  She shrugged. ‘Only because I sat in his head and watched him go there.’

  ‘But if he’s somewhere else? Could you still find him?’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But I’d have to look inside all the different lights, and that would take all night. How do I know where he is?’

  Granger thought about this. Ianthe could follow someone, spy on them, by putting herself inside that person’s mind. But once out of their head, it was difficult for her to relocate them amongst the millions of other people – unless she knew exactly where to look. ‘Can you tell who is who?’ he asked. ‘When you move into these islands in the darkness, these perceptions, do you know whose eyes you are looking through?’

  Ianthe finished her meal and set down the bowl. ‘Not at first,’ she admitted. ‘You can see your own arms and legs, but you can’t see your own face, can you? Sometimes the only way I can know for sure is to look at the person through someone else’s eyes, unless they happen to look in a mirror, I suppose. Women look in mirrors a lot . . . so does Emperor Hu. I don’t think Creedy owns a mirror, though.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be spying on the emperor,’ Granger said.

  She gave him a sarcastic smile. ‘Only on your friends?’

  Granger grunted. He got up and strolled to the edge of the roof. His garret sloped darkly behind him, and down in the canal the brine was as black as sin. No green and gold lights. He couldn’t see his own boat. There was only the constant slap of water in the darkness and the sour metal stench of the sea. The great shadowy masses of the surrounding jails loomed over him, now silhouetted against the lightening sky. Steam rose from the funnels of Dan Cuttle’s place. He was probably boiling up a vat of bones. He searched the skies for Ortho’s Chariot but couldn’t spot it. Scores of stars still sparkled ahead of the coming sunrise. The day looked like it would be another fine one. Granger felt the time was right.

  He turned to the girls. ‘Wait here.’

  He went back into his garret and took out the large paper parcel he’d hidden under his cot, then carried it back up to the roof and gave it to Hana.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

  ‘Just something I picked up.’

  Ha
na unwrapped the parcel. It contained two ankle-length satin frocks, each adorned with all sorts of fancy lace frills. One was mostly peach-coloured, with silvery sparkles across the front, while the other boasted pink and yellow stripes and puffy arms. Hana held up the peach dress and blinked at it. ‘You bought these for us?’

  ‘The other one’s for Ianthe. It’s got ruffles.’

  Ianthe’s face remained expressionless. ‘Ruffles,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it?’

  Hana appeared to suppress a smile. She moved more of the crumpled paper aside. ‘And what’s this? Undergarments?’ She lifted out a pair of the knee-length white pantaloons Mrs Pursewearer had sold Granger and held them out at arm’s length. ‘These look . . . well made.’

  ‘I’m told they’re good quality,’ Granger said.

  Ianthe gave a little squawk, then covered her mouth with her hand.

  Hana looked up at him with bright eyes. She gave him a huge smile, then stood up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I don’t know what to say. Thank you. Thank you from both of us.’

  Granger looked at his feet. He nodded awkwardly. ‘Your old clothes were pretty rotten,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want you both getting fleas.’

  Creedy was shaking him. ‘Colonel, I found a buyer.’

  Granger blinked and raised his hands against harsh sunlight. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Afternoon.’

  ‘What day?’

  ‘I dunno. Today.’