Gravedigger 01 - Sea Of Ghosts

by Alan Campbell

  The Samarol lifted their weapons.

  Granger glanced at his fallen comrades one last time. And then he ran, away from the emperor and his Samarol. And as the bodyguards’ fingers closed on the triggers of their rifles, Granger reached the harbour’s edge and dived headlong into the brine.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 11

  THE DEADSHIP

  16th Hu-Rain, 1457

  25 degrees 17 minutes north

  5 degrees 37 minutes west

  Scythe Island is forty leagues SSW of our current position, but feels more distant yet. Have made good progress across the Candlelight Straits. Expect to reach the fringes of the Mare Regis by noon tomorrow. No dragon sightings. Chronograph stopped three times by dead airs. Have opted to use Sanderson Device in interim. Mellor feels there might be an Unmer deadship nearby. The men are uneasy about this.

  The girl remains an enigma. How is she able to perceive what lies in the depths of the ocean? I cannot imagine any scientific answer. Her ability seems more akin to the Haurstaf’s own metaphysical powers. Indeed, Ianthe may herald a new bloom in mankind’s evolutionary tree: a unique flower indeed – and, if so, then needful of pollination. More careful observation is required.

  Word from Carl before we sailed – the Unmer chariot is in excellent condition, but the power source has, alas, suffered from the inevitable rot. Brine has eroded almost all of her whisperglass. Close to ten thousand ichusae recovered, which I am told is a record for a single haul in marine salvage. It seems to me that every one represents another lungful of air for Jontney. I maintain high hopes for our current expedition. Our hold is already one-tenth full, and all this from the Star Crab Bromera alone! Notable among our treasures is a fine suit of clamshell mail and six metal pyramids that, if separated, unerringly find their way back to each other at night. No physical obstacle or locked container is able to prevent this mysterious reunion. Because the pyramids display evidence of electrical fluids, Mellor, as always, has claimed this as proof of the Vitalist argument. I was too weary to argue with him. Boy assigned to watch the artefacts has died of unknown causes, and so the pyramids continue to keep their secret for now.

  Sea mist encroaching from the south. Have ordered the usual precautions. The sun is burning a dark, dark red, although it is not yet noon. Its evil light seems to hang amidst the vapours like some dismal gas lamp.

  Ethan Maskelyne, aboard the Mistress

  Jontney was screaming. Maskelyne dropped his logbook and rose from the writing desk. He stepped out of the cabin into the adjoining corridor and almost collided with his wife, who was hurrying past.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know!’ She looked dishevelled, her hair and frock all in disarray.

  ‘You were supposed to be watching him!’

  ‘I had to use the commode!’

  The pair of them rushed to the end of the corridor and opened the door to the map room.

  Jontney sat on the floor beside the map table, red-faced and bawling. Beside him, ice vapour rose from the open hatch to Maskelyne’s void fly repository. The child had evidently been rummaging in there, for white deposits of crespic salts lay scattered across the floor around him.

  Maskelyne ran over and scooped up his son. ‘Gods in hell,’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you eaten any?’ He forced his fingers into the little boy’s mouth and peered inside. ‘Have you eaten any?’ Jontney’s howling became all the more insistent. Maskelyne turned to Lucille and cried, ‘Hot water! Fetch me hot water now!’

  His wife just stood there, her face drained.

  ‘Hot water!’ Maskelyne demanded. ‘The galley, go to the galley.’ He studied the child again. ‘Gods, he’s got the stuff all over his mouth.’ He began wiping away the toxic powder from the boy’s lips and gums.

  Lucille hurried away.

  ‘Hush now, baby,’ Maskelyne said to his child. He hugged him close to his chest and smoothed the boy’s hair. ‘Hush, hush, it’s going to be fine.’ He gazed down at the open hatch and noticed a scalpel lying among the salt nearby. Someone had used it to carve away at the floorboards around both hinges of the hatch. Where had he seen that tiny blade before? After a moment, he realized.

  Doctor Shaw.

  Could Jontney have picked it up? Possibly. But surely the child could not have used it to free the hatch?

  Lucille returned with pot of steaming water. Maskelyne handed the child over to her and tested the water with the back of his hand. Too hot. Cursing, he carried the pot over to the bar, where he emptied a half a quart of wine into it. When the liquid was just cool enough to swallow safely, he forced the boy to drink.

  Jontney coughed and sputtered and wailed. He snorted watered wine out of his nose. But Maskelyne managed to get a fair amount of it down his throat. ‘Now shake him,’ he said to Lucille. ‘Make him sick it up again.’

  Lucille complied, and soon the child had brought back up the solution.

  ‘Again.’ Maskelyne lifted the pot to the boy’s lips.

  Lucille looked terrified. ‘Is he going to be all right?’

  ‘Crespic salts react with acid to produce an endothermic reaction,’ Maskelyne said. ‘If he’s swallowed any, it could have frozen his stomach. We need to wash it out, warm him up. Now, there, make him bring it up again.’

  The child was sick a second time, spattering wine across the rugs and the map table.

  Maskelyne studied him intently. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘He seems . . . fine. I think we’ve been lucky.’

  Lucille cradled the little boy and tried to soothe him. She spoke softly, but with venom in her voice: ‘How could you let this happen?’

  ‘Me?’ Maskelyne regarded her with amazement. ‘You were supposed to be watching him.’

  ‘That hatch should have been locked!’ she retorted. ‘What if he’d got to the void flies?’

  ‘It was locked. Evidently someone got it open for him. Where did you say you were?’

  She looked at the floor. ‘I’ve not been feeling well. The sea air . . .’

  Maskelyne looked at her for a long moment. And then he sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you.’ He took her and the child in his arms. ‘Gods, Lucille, I’ve never been so frightened.’

  She began to sob. ‘What’s happening, Ethan? Is someone trying to hurt us?’

  Maskelyne didn’t say anything, but he had his own suspicions.

  Granger hit the brine and plunged under it, and for an instant the world became a haze of brown and gold: sunlight rippling across the rooftops of the old Unmer dwellings down below; the Excelsior’s anchor chain; a shoal of marionette fish hanging in the deep like harvest festival baubles. His ears resounded with gloop and clang of sudden pressure change.

  And then the pain hit him.

  His whole body burned. He felt as if his corneas were shrinking, his salted flesh crackling over an open flame. He ignored it and swam on towards the stern of the emperor’s ship. Samarol bullets streaked by him, leaving short trails of bubbles before their own velocity tore them to shreds.

  After a dozen strokes he realized that he was going into shock. A sense of panic and confusion overcame him. He fought against it, desperate to keep his muscles moving, desperate to reach that anchor chain now twenty paces ahead. Now fifteen. Ten.

  Every nerve in his body cried out to him to stop. Strange thoughts whirled through his consciousness: The seawater was roasting him alive. He was swimming through the sun and it was not composed of fire but of molten glass. And now he could see that the glass formed the medium through which all thoughts and dreams passed. A lens at the heart of th
e universe; it was the source and destination of all things. The eye of Creation. He realized that he could die here in peace, and that all would be well. The pain was leaving him now. All he had to do was accept the brine’s embrace.

  Yet some internal spark would not let him give up. He saw a vision of Ianthe, her face blurred by the waters, her black hair aflame, and it spurred him on. And suddenly the pain returned with horrific vigour, as if the lapse had been nothing but a sorcerous whisper, a Siren’s call, and the Mare Lux had chosen to bare her teeth once more. He swam and swam through the gnawing brine and, as he crashed onwards through the limits of his own endurance, he bared his own teeth and grinned madly at the agony of it all.

  He reached the anchor chain and pulled himself up, fist over fist, until he broke the surface of the waters and drew in a great shuddering breath.

  The Excelsior’s copper-clad hull loomed over him, her port lifeboat snug against the bulwark, while higher still her yards cut across the Ethugran sky like lines of cirrus cloud. Hand over fist he pulled himself up the chain, teeth set, muscles screaming, his eyes burning like hot coals in his skull.

  He reached the capstan hatch and slipped inside the ship.

  Granger found himself in a dim corridor above the gun deck. A line of interior doors each bore Hu’s Imperial crest: the dragon slain by a heavenly bolt of light. These looked like guest quarters. The bulk of Hu’s crew had been ashore to watch the trial, and there was nobody about. But he could not rest here. The brine on his skin felt like fire. It was changing him with every breath he took, steaming from his hands and forearms. If he was to survive he must first purge himself with fresh water. He opened the nearest door.

  It was a small, cabin with a neat bunk, a gem lantern and a washbasin. Granger turned on the taps and bent over the washbasin. There was barely a trickle of water. He scooped the water into his eyes and face several times, until the stinging sensation faded. Then he blinked and looked down at his torso. His blood had already begun to crystallize in his wounds. He fought the urge to wash it away immediately lest he reopen those wounds. Instead, he washed the naked skin around them as best he could.

  He didn’t want to take too much time over this. The emperor’s men might arrive any moment.

  He located the anchor in the winch room three decks below the forecastle. It was too heavy to be raised by one man alone, so Granger lifted the brake and then turned the huge steel spool in the opposite direction, lowering the chain further into the sea. As the spool unwound, the weight of the chain itself began to drag the whole pulley mechanism around on its own. He kicked it to give it impetus, forcing the heavy line to unwind faster and faster. Finally it jarred to a halt. The end of the chain remained connected to the spool by a securing pin as thick as his thumb. Granger tried to kick it out, but it was welded in place and would not budge. He left it alone. The torque of the ship’s engines should be more than enough to shear it when the time came.

  His skin started to burn again.

  Granger left the winch room and headed aft in the direction of the wheelhouse. He followed a companionway under the gun deck, passing sail rooms, storerooms and a gunnery workshop. All were empty. The corridor opened into the crew quarters, a low chamber packed with rows of triple bunks. The pain in his flesh was starting to become intolerable again. He could feel his limbs begin to stiffen. When he spotted the door to the wash room, he hesitated, then ducked inside.

  It was as large as four of the guest cabins back to back, but windowless and sour-smelling. A metalled floor sloped to a gutter channel along one end. The wooden walls were rotten and warped. An enormous barrel to which a ladle pan had been connected by a length of cord stood against the back wall under a dripping tap. Granger ran over and vaulted into the barrel itself.

  Cold water immersed him. He submerged his head and then stood up again and washed his face, neck, torso, groin and finally his arms and legs. He shook his eyes clear of water, and then repeated the whole process. Even in this dim light he could see his skin had already been damaged by the Mare Lux seawater. Grey, leathery patches of sharkskin covered his arms like cracked paving, leaving raw red flesh between. Crystals had already formed over most of his wounds. They had staunched the flow of blood, but itched terribly and felt painful to the touch.

  He climbed out of the barrel and stood there in the dark for a long moment, contemplating his disfigured flesh. He’d been too late to save himself completely, and the chances were good he might die yet. The flesh would either heal or harden further, restricting his movement. He sat down on the floor, trembling with exhaustion and fear, and felt something prod him in the side. It was the Unmer seeing knife, still tucked into the band of his breeches. He took it out and turned it over, but his sharkskin fingers could hardly feel it at all.

  Sea mist rolled in from the south, blotting the sun until the skies around the Mistress turned from ochre to orange to a deep and angry red. Maskelyne ordered his sharpest lookout to the bow and ordered his engineers to set the dredger’s engines to one-quarter speed. He climbed the ladder to the wheelhouse and took control of the vessel himself. Yet even from this high vantage point he could see little in the fiery gloom but the dim pink glow of the lookout’s gem lantern and the red-brown slush of seawater coursing past to port and stern. The thin iron skeletons of the deck cranes drifted in and out of mist, while the Mistress’s bathysphere squatted in its cradle in the centre of the deck like an enormous brass egg.

  They were in the Border Waters, the confluence of the Mare Lux and Mare Regis. It was an area of unpredictable weather and vicious currents. Ships were apt to drift leagues away from their assumed positions. He’d heard rumours of reefs, too, shoals of copper sharks and wisp lights, and even great deepwater erokin samal capable of claiming entire crews with their searching tentacles. But the stories that troubled him the most were those of wandering deadships.

  He pulled a cord and blew the ship’s foghorn. A deep, low blast reverberated through the mist. He did not expect to find another ship out here, but the sound reassured him nevertheless. It filled the sepulchral air with a sense of life.

  He hadn’t heard Lucille come in but turned at the sound of her voice.

  ‘He’s asleep,’ she said. ‘At least he was until a second ago.’ She inclined her head towards the foghorn cord. She was dressed, like him, in deepwater gear. In her bulky whaleskins she looked pitifully small and fragile. She removed her goggles and took a moment to unwrap the silk scarf from her face. ‘I asked one of Mellor’s boys to watch over Jontney.’

  ‘That scarf’s not really necessary,’ he said. ‘These mists don’t do much damage.’

  ‘It’s the word “much†that concerns me in that sentence, Ethan.’

  He smiled. ‘Mist blisters heal. I’d still love you, even if you looked liked a sea monster.’

  ‘And you’d love me no less if I didn’t.’ She stared ahead into the mist. ‘Where are you taking us?’

  ‘Losotans called it the Whispering Valley,’ he said. ‘Before the flood, I mean. Lots of old Unmer settlements down there.’

  ‘So lots of treasure?’

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s as thick as soup out there. Do you think Ianthe would be able to see through this?’

  He said nothing, but kept his gaze on the crimson fog.

  She nuzzled against him. ‘This reminds me of Hattering.’

  ‘The mists?’

  ‘Well, apart from the mists,’ she replied. ‘And the boat. We were both dressed in whaleskins. I thought you looked quite dashing.’

  He smiled ‘Dashing? In whaleskins?’

  ‘What was the name of that friend you were with? The naval officer?â€
™

  ‘William Temping.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘That’s him. Whatever became of him?’

  Maskelyne sniffed. ‘I cut his throat.’

  He felt her tense, just slightly. And then she moved away. ‘I’d better go check on Jontney,’ she said.

  ‘He was a terrible fraud,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Did you know he even cheated on his wife? Some woman he kept in Losoto, apparently.’

  ‘Was that why you killed him?’

  ‘No.’ He was silent for a heartbeat, thinking, but he couldn’t recall. Finally he said, ‘I must have had a good reason.’

  She looked at him for a long while, then shrugged. ‘I’m sure you did what you thought you had to do, Ethan.’

  A bell began to ring on the deck below. Maskelyne peered out through the window and saw the bow lookout’s gem lantern swinging madly in the mist. He reached for the engine throttle but then changed his mind. One of his crew was rushing across the deck from the lookout’s position, but he couldn’t yet make out who it was.

  ‘What is it?’ Lucille asked.

  Maskelyne opened the wheelhouse door and looked out. The crewman on the deck shouted up to him, ‘Deadship, Captain.’

  ‘Bearing?’

  ‘Straight for us. Like she knows.’

  Maskelyne closed the door again and spun the wheel hard to starboard. And now through the red fog he could make out the dim black shape of a ship. She was a huge, ancient ironclad, bereft of masts, yards or sails. Upon her midships deck stood a solitary tower – a latticework of metal struts supporting a rusted toroid. She was one of the old electrical ships that had once carried whale oil across the Northern Wastes. An icebreaker? Maskelyne looked more closely at the prow and saw that it had been massively reinforced. He hissed through his teeth. The Mistress was now turning to starboard, while the Unmer vessel maintained its course. The two ships would pass within yards of each other.