Fata Morgana

by Thomas J. Radford

  “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all bad memories. Not your fault.”

  “It does get better,” Kaspar said.

  “Yeah?” Violet said. “When does the falling stop?”

  “When someone catches you.”

  Violet made a face at him. “Sick of being rescued. Don’t wanna be the one being rescued no more.”

  “Sounds like a good start,” he assured her.

  “Happened to you, right?”

  “Getting rescued?”

  “No, falling into the black.”

  Kaspar nodded, not saying anything.

  “Tell me.”

  “And in return you’ll tell me all your secrets, Kitsune girl?”

  “No.”

  “That hardly seems fair.”

  “Life isn’t,” she told him. “Not on the High or in the Free.”

  “Fair call,” Kaspar nodded. “All right, there was a ship. I fell off it. Crew barely got it turned around before I froze to death out there.”

  “You lose anything?” Violet asked him. “To the cold, I mean. Extremities or . . .”

  Kaspar met her gaze without flinching. “Nothing important.”

  The contest held for a moment, then Violet’s resolve broke. So did her face and she started laughing. Kaspar smiled ruefully, maybe the closest he got to laughing.

  He’s the serious type, this one. Surprised he even knows how.

  “I’ll get us some cards,” Kaspar said, wiping at his eyes. There were tears. “Good way to pass the time. Can already tell you’ve the face for it.”

  Chapter 7

  “THAT IS THE one.” Quill pointed.

  “Why that one?” Nel asked, tugging her hood lower on her face.

  “Because we have a chance of stealing it,” Quill said. “And with so few of you to act as crew, we require a ship of modest size.”

  The ship Quill had chosen was a sloop. Almost more brig-like though, with two masts rigged for squares and headsails. Small enough to be manageable but she’d be fast. Looked to be a shallow draught too. Wouldn’t be much stow for provisions or cargo. Nel would never have looked at this kind of ship with her former life in mind. But that was just that, a lifetime ago.

  “We managed the Tantamount with less,” she said.

  Quill shrugged. “We were not attempting to chase down an Alliance warship at the time.”

  “Ten gunner,” Sharpe commented from behind folded arms. “Not much to be going after the Morgana with. Even worse if we have to worry about big blighty.”

  Nel winced. “Could we not refer to the dreadnought as big blighty?”

  “Why not?”

  “Disrespectful.”

  “One assumes we will not be trying to outshoot your former prison ship,” Quill interrupted, to Nel’s relief. “Though it would not be the first time we attempted such lunacy.”

  “Second thoughts, Quill?” Nel asked. Second thoughts─given how quickly you took us here makes me wonder if you haven’t been eyeing her up already. New career for you, Loveland Quill, pirate. Liberator of unsuspecting ships. Bane of trader captains across the Free Lanes.

  That was uncharitable, she chided herself. Quill had been working the docks. Would have seen all the ships coming and going.

  Seen them and wanted one for himself.

  Quill declined to reply, changing the subject again. “Even for a ship that size, the two of you will not be enough. Not for a voyage of any length, not should we require any sort of manoeuvring to finally be rid of this place. We will need more hands.”

  “Gonna be getting more hands,” Nel said. “Get hands, get ship, leave port. In that order.”

  Quill shrugged, unwilling to argue the point.

  “Nothing to say?”

  “Much, but I will wait until after we leave. I assume we plan never to return here, Vaughn. Vice is lax with its laws but I do not believe we will be welcome if word of this gets around.”

  “Only in trouble if we get caught, Quill.”

  “There a plan for staying out of all this trouble?” Sharpe asked. “Other than dreams and fancy?”

  “There’s a plan,” Nel said. “Comes with some risks.”

  “Risks for who?”

  “Wouldn’t risk anyone I liked, Sharpe.”

  Quill laughed.

  “That’s . . . not very comforting,” Sharpe told her.

  “Funny you should think that.”

  “So who does it involve?”

  “Draugr,” Nel told him.

  “You mean Stoker and the rest,” Sharpe said.

  “Aye, former Alliance midshipman Stoker. That’s who I meant.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “But Draugr do.”

  “Is this supposed to be making any sense to me?”

  “Could do, if I explained it some more.”

  “Ah,” Sharpe nodded. Waited. Expectantly.

  Nel let him. “Not so much fun to be on the other side, is it?”

  Sharpe grimaced. “Fair play, Chanel.”

  Nel growled at him.

  “Skipper,” he corrected himself. “Soon as we get you a ship.”

  “Tell it to the marines,” she grinned.

  Sharpe stared at her hard. Nel took immense satisfaction in that.

  “Marines take orders even better than Draugr,” she said. “Sailors take a bit more yelling but they’ll move with the mob. Simple creatures, really. Gonna make that work for us.”

  “Tell it to the marines,” Sharpe repeated.

  “Exactly. Ship we’re chasing is full of marines, shellbacks at that. Need to start thinking that way.”

  “Something else we might tell the marines,” Quill ventured. There was reluctance in his voice.

  “Got a story for us?” Nel asked. She hugged her arms to herself. Because it was cold. Not because they were shaking. Drying out . . .

  “We do yet possess one . . .” Quill considered, “friend on this world.”

  “Friend of ours or a friend of yours?” Sharpe asked pointedly. “Wouldn’t be more drinking buddies now would they?”

  “They would not. Nor would they consider you a friend. And given our endeavour . . .”

  “Speak your mind, Quill,” Nel sighed.

  “Jack,” Quill said shortly.

  “Hells.”

  Korrigan Jack.

  The Kelpie was right. She hadn’t considered Jack. Nor had she caught sight of her former crewman since they’d made landfall in a cracked bubble.

  “You been keeping tabs on him, Quill?” she asked.

  Of course he has, wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.

  “I believe I can find him, yes.”

  “Do that,” Nel said.

  “Jack’s still around?” Sharpe asked, annoyed. Really doesn’t like not being the one in the know.

  “For now,” Quill said vaguely.

  “Something you ain’t saying,” Nel said. “Out with it.”

  “Jack is a somewhat blunt instrument,” Quill told her. “Who nonetheless has his uses. When properly applied.”

  Generous of you, Loveland. Times must be even more desperate than I thought for you to be keeping Jack in mind. Didn’t think you ever forgave him for the rats.

  “And you can get him to sign on? Don’t need to ask him?” Sharpe said.

  “He’s crew, so yeah, Sharpe, I trust him. More than I trusted you.”

  “And what you just said? About not wanting to risk anyone?”

  “Anyone I like,” Nel shrugged, which earned her a sibilant laugh from Quill. Might even have been approving. “So Jack comes along. Wouldn’t feel right otherwise.”

  Besides, what might the lad get up to if we did leave him here?

  “Looks like these fellows made port recently.” Nel inclined her head at the ship they’d settled on. “Good for us in that the crew probably scattered to every grimy drinking hole on the cheap side of Vice.”

  “You know them all then?” Quill asked.

&nb
sp; “Stow it, Loveland. Won’t be setting sail without us, is what I mean. Bad part is they might be low on provisions.”

  “We’ll manage,” Sharpe said. “Just the three mouths to feed.”

  “Four,” Quill corrected him.

  “Four, right.”

  “It’s going to be tight,” Nel said. “That trade ship moves for Castle tomorrow morn. Means we have to go in tonight and take this ship straight after. Else things get messy. Lots of attention messy. We don’t want that, especially not in Vice.”

  “Indeed not,” Quill agreed.

  “This plan of yours,” Sharpe said. “Planning on sharing it yet?”

  “With you? Not even a little. Quill, think you can track down Jack by tonight?”

  “Track down? Yes, I know where he can be found.”

  “Good. Grab him last though, don’t want him knifing no one when we go back into the stalls. That would be bad.”

  “That . . . would be best,” Quill said.

  “Best laid plans,” Sharpe muttered.

  “Exactly,” Nel said. “This is our last night on Vice. Don’t nobody get themselves knifed. That’s not part of the plan.”

  “WHAT YOU DOING?”

  Kaspar ignored her, her and the card game he had been neglecting to join. His attention was focused on the papers he held. Half a dozen loose leaves that had been bound in twine.

  “Best be leaving him to it, Miss Violet,” Gravel advised her. “Ensign don’t like to be disturbed when he’s reading his love notes. At full attention he is.”

  At this Kaspar did look up, his face descending into its habitual scowl lines. “Shut up.”

  “Changed much have they, sir? Those squiggly lines there, since you read them the other day? And the day before that and the week before—”

  “Fine,” Kaspar rewrapped his letters and pulled his chair over to join them. “What are we playing?”

  Gravel smiled and dealt him in.

  “Who are they from?” Violet asked. “These love letters?”

  “They’re not—” Kaspar caught himself. “They’re about things back home. Folks and events. Only one to gets new out here.”

  “Ain’t news when you’ve read them so much you’ve rubbed the ink off,” Gravel said. “And how is our Mikel? Still stationed out at Saddle?”

  “Who’s Mikel?” Violet asked.

  “That would be Mikel, Miss Violet,” Gravel told her, pointing at the letters. “Marine lad, stationed back in the High. Writes to me and Kaspar. To Kaspar anyways, but sometimes the ensign will read to me. And beautiful letters he writes too, our Mikel. Like flowers they are, at least they look as much to me. Don’t make any other kind of sense.”

  “Who’s Mikel?” Violet asked again. She gave Kaspar a look. He was still ignoring her.

  “Manliest of men, Miss Violet. A marine he is, as I said, with the muscles and the marching. And also the letters and—”

  “Brandon,” Kaspar slapped his letters down. “Are we playing or not?”

  “We are.” Violet played a high card, beaming. “If you can beat that.”

  Kaspar did. Unnecessarily, in Violet’s mind. Turned out he had cards to spare as he won the next two hands as well.

  She hated losing. Hated. So she changed tactics. “So what’s in the letters?”

  Kaspar flushed. “Nothing.”

  “That’s a lot of time you spent reading nothing.”

  “It’s hard. For me.”

  Gravel laughed.

  “It’s not funny, Brandon,” Kaspar glared.

  “Certainly is, sir. Least you can read, however it might make you feel.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Violet pushed him on the shoulder. “Stop talking circles. Tell me about Mikel.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I asked, that’s why. You rather I asked Gravel? Gravel, what does—”

  “I don’t . . . read well,” Kaspar gestured, waving his hand in front of his face.

  “Read better than me, sir,” Gravel studied the cards. He carefully played his next.

  “Letters don’t stay still for me when I read,” Kaspar said, his skin flushed. “They move, like the ship. Worse when the ship moves too. It takes me longer than it should to make sense of words. Even when I’ve read them and know what they say.”

  “That why you read them again and again?” Violet asked.

  Kaspar shrugged. “I work at it. Sometimes it’s easier.”

  Gravel grinned at him. “I think you just like to—”

  “I saw you play that double card there, Landsman,” Kaspar interrupted. “Think you should be taking that turn and skipping a round.”

  Violet laughed, nudging Gravel. “And you thought he weren’t paying attention.”

  Gravel’s discomfort was covered by the ringing of a bell. Three tolls, the change of a watch. Kaspar gathered up the cards, looking up and waiting until Gravel returned all the cards he’d been holding. Kaspar stowed the cards and his letters in a satchel, making sure it was secure before hanging it from one of the hooks in Violet’s cabin.

  “No more games,” he said. “We actually have work to do. And that includes you, Miss Violet.”

  “It does?”

  “Assuming you know how to walk the black?”

  Violet gave him a long, slow grin.

  THE FATA MORGANA was unlike any ship Violet had ever been on. In all honesty that hadn’t been many, and only the Tantamount had she spent any considerable time under sail. The Morgana didn’t have sails, nor even timbers, for the most part.

  Being different came with its own set of problems, something Violet could relate to. A rueful thought. The Morgana was a misfit, one of a kind, but the kind that was celebrated as a step forward.

  Not an outsider reviled. Progress. Celebrated and admired for being different.

  The skin of the ship was metal, both copper and iron. Metal sheets warped and wrapped around cold hammered ribs. And it was filthy.

  Gravel was across from her, feet planted to the outside of the deck, gripping his safety rope with both hands. There were two more sailors further down from him, more focused on their jobs, that of scraping the corrosion from the outer hull.

  Violet was looking up. Or maybe it was down, the difference still confused her. Above was the stars, calling to her, pulling at her senses. The stars held all her attention. Out here it was quiet, the noise that filled the insides of the ship was muffled, out here she could breathe.

  Violet leaned back, tilting her head until all she saw was black and mist and stars. The rope was rough and tangible between her hands, the coarse fibres rubbing against the scars on her hand. Literally her anchor.

  Violet sighed, breathing in cold air. Tightened her grip on the rope. Still there. And she had a job to do.

  At her feet was the gritty black rust that plagued the ship and needed to be scraped off.

  “I thought it was supposed to be red,” she called out to Gravel.

  “What?” Gravel answered, confused.

  “The rust.” She rolled her head over to him, meeting nervous eyes. He clearly didn’t like being out here, despite the rope.

  Silly boy, the ether’s holding his feet to the deck, to the hull, one plane, two, a dozen, he’s not going anywhere. The rope isn’t even necessary.

  She checked. The rope was still there. However unnecessary.

  “The rust, the corrosion,” she said. “Isn’t it red? Or green sometimes. This is just black.”

  Gravel made a face at her, smushing his features up. “It is, it’s just the light you’re standing in. It looks red from here and the sooner it’s gone the sooner I won’t have to stand here.”

  Violet looked down. The rust was definitely black, black and gritty against a grey hull. Everything was shades of grey and silver.

  It was like being below deck, in the Lanes, rooms lit by glowstones only. The notion brought to mind dreams, things half-remembered and hazy, abse
nt colour and sound. Violet thought of the last time she’d void walked, trying to patch the hull of another ship, before a rush of water almost swept her away.

  Violet leaned back, arching her back and neck until all she could see was black and mist, the shroud pierced by tiny pinpricks of starlight. She felt the memory of cold on her arms, enough to make the hair bristle, but it was only a phantom feeling. She really didn’t feel the cold anymore. But being outside again, looking up at the black, that felt right to her.

  As long as your feet stay planted to the ship.

  Sound carried out here, no bustle of the interior to muffle it and no noise from outside the envelope to muddy the background. She could feel vibrations through the hull though, a constant buzz from the workings of the ship. And something else. A pattern, almost.

  Shrill whistling interrupted her thoughts, bosun’s whistling, the piping short and sharp.

  “Change of plans.” Gravel grabbed for her hand, pulling her along. He held onto his rope, stepping vertically as they were reeled in.

  “What? Let go, I can do it myself.” Violet tried to pull away. Gravel held on, probably for the best as letting go would have thrown her back.

  “Ray sighting,” Gravel told her, looking over his shoulder. “Means back inside. If we change course now we might avoid them but we don’t want to be out there when the ship turns. Planes get all messy and these ropes are long enough to float you outside the short spaces of the envelope.”

  Not again, not again.

  Violet shook her head, pushing down on the idea of the black. Of falling. Her moment of tranquillity was gone, the only sound and pattern she could make out now was booted feet running along the metal skin.

  The ray’s song grew louder. It had to be a big one. Not from the rising sound but from the shadow that passed over the ship, something big enough to put itself between the ship and the nearest star. Light arced out in response, the ship’s weapons firing on the ray. But they couldn’t have much of an angle on the creature unless . . .

  The ship tilted right under her feet. Violet stumbled, fell, and then the ship wasn’t there anymore. She grabbed frantically at her tether rope, her mind spiralling as she felt herself start to drift.

  No, no, no, no!

  Something inside her head was screaming, she felt the cold lapping at her heels. Could she be that close to the edge of the envelope already?