Sharpe put his wand away, one hand on the railing.
“That,” he spoke slowly, “went better than I expected.”
Nel nodded her head. “I expected something to go wrong. Right at the last minute.”
“So did I.”
They felt the ship start to shake under their feet. The Draugr had dropped the mainsail. A momentary vibration rattled the ship as Quill wrested the ship free of the water’s surface tension, sending them skyward.
“Industrious bodies, are they not,” Quill grimaced from the bridge. “You were right.”
“Hoped as much,” Nel said.
“You were not sure?”
“Was pretty sure.”
They all reached for handholds as the Poignard angled sharply upwards, its etheric plane not yet able to overcome the much more powerful pull of Vice. Nel watched the Draugr carefully but after a moment the creatures all froze in place, immobile and secure, waiting for the ship to level off.
The ship climbed higher and higher. Glancing back, Nel could still see the landscape at an unnatural angle to themselves and yet her sense of normal up and down began to reassert itself. A few minutes after, and the world appeared level, the Draugr took up their duties. It was eerie, watching them move, slowly and somewhat stiffly, but they did echo the real flesh and breathing sailors they were acting in place of.
Sharpe gazed at Nel sidelong. “It worry you?”
“What?”
“Look at them. Not doing a half bad job. Wouldn’t take a lot for them to replace an actual crew. Maybe all over.”
“Draugr ain’t never gonna replace good sailors, Sharpe. Even this lot. And they’re special. But we run into real trouble and we’ll all wish we had a few more warm bodies.”
“You didn’t want more.”
“Still don’t.”
“Put some weapons in their hands, wonder what sort of soldiers they’d make,” Sharpe mused.
Nel frowned. As far as she knew the concept had never been tried.
Far as I know though? If Sharpe here just thought of it then somebody else must have.
“Thought you were against Draugr.”
“Against . . . what happened out there. Not against what these are, how they can be used. There’s a difference.”
“Ever think that sorta thinking is how out there happened?”
Sharpe frowned, oddly contemplative. His repose was broken by a banging from belowdecks. Nel and Sharpe turned to each other. Atop the bridge, Quill’s posture straightened alarmingly. The ship dipped for a moment before he regained his poise.
“Vaughn!” the Kelpie yelled down at her.
“Aw, hells,” Nel ran a hand through her hair in frustration. “We forgot about the damned prisoner!”
Chapter 13
“ARE YOU STUPID?” The flat of Kaspar’s hand slammed into the wall, right next to her head. Violet turned her head from the close-up of that white-knuckled appendage to the face of its owner. Angry suited Kaspar, she thought. His face was all mottled with indignant rage, nearly a match to his copper-toned locks, maybe redder than usual through her glasses. It was like when Mors Coldstream had him all fired up, she thought. Only different. A different kind of angry.
“Are you?” he repeated. “Are you that hells damned stupid or do you just enjoy tempting fate? I’ve known guppies with more sense than you!”
“I don’t see what you’re so upset about,” Violet said. She made to walk away; Kaspar’s other arm blocked her. She was caught between the two of them.
“You were in the hold, you and Brandon.”
“He tell you that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Exactly, it doesn’t. So why are you so worked up?”
“I can’t protect you,” Kaspar spoke quietly, his voice still tightly controlled, “can’t protect either of you. Not if you carry on like this.”
“Nobody saw us,” Violet said. “Nobody has to find out. Nobody will find out. And besides . . . I don’t need you . . . to protect me.”
She smiled as she said the last part, reaching up to touch his cheek.
Kaspar glared at her, dropped his head closer. “Do you know who it was that found you out there? Me. I was the one who sighted you, floating out there, half frozen to death. I know what that feels like, remember? I know just how close you came to dying.”
“My hero,” Violet turned her head, grimacing. “Do you know why I was out there, Niko? Because I trusted someone to look out for me. To protect me. Ain’t gonna do that again. You don’t need to worry about protecting me because you can’t protect me. No one can.”
She put her hand to his chest and pushed him away. He caught her hand, not about to let it go either.
“And what about Brandon?” he demanded. “You happy to drag him down with you? If he’d been caught in the hold with you—”
“With your secret golem cargo?” Violet cut him off. “Is that what you’re worried about? I know what that thing is, Niko. Seen it before.”
“You should stay away from it. You both should.”
“You don’t think your thaumatic friend can take care of himself?”
Kaspar flinched, releasing her hand and taking half a step back.
“Yeah,” Violet stepped up to him. “I know, he showed me. Down in the hold.”
“He shouldn’t have.”
“Yeah? Why not?”
“Because he’s not registered,” Kaspar whispered harshly. “Nobody else knows about it, Violet! If they did . . .”
“They’d take him away,” Violet nodded. “Take him away to some training camp, turn him into a navigator or something.”
“You don’t get a choice, not if you have talent. Not in the Alliance, in the High Lanes. They need people like that. So much they take that choice away from you.”
“Yeah, they do. And that’s your big, bad secret, isn’t it, Niko? That’s what you’re keeping from the captain.”
“Violet,” Kaspar whispered, his voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “The captain can’t find out. Not Raines, nor Aristeia. No matter what else, they can’t know Brandon is thaumatic, do you understand?”
Violet frowned. “It’s a secret, I get it. You can trust me to keep it.”
What’s twisting his britches about it so much?
Thaumatics are everywhere, all types. Meant to be registered, sure, but not the end of all high water if you’re not.
So, why?
“And what about you, cabin girl,” Kaspar said then. “You think I don’t know your secret?”
“Mine?” Violet asked. “What the hells do you think you know about me?”
“You didn’t join the Tantamount at Port Border,” Kaspar told her. “And you’re no Guildsman. How many Kitsune cabin girls are there? You were with her from the start.”
“From the . . . no, how . . .” Violet put a hand up in protest. “Where did you hear that?”
Kaspar shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Violet. If people found out, if Aristeia or Mors even suspected . . . if any of them guessed any of this . . .”
You sound like Raines. Isn’t that interesting?
“Why are you protecting me?”
Kaspar stared at her, eyes bright, wide, still worked up. He didn’t answer.
She changed the angle of the question. “Why is Raines protecting me?”
He leaned in, lowering his voice. “I don’t know. But they can’t find out, none of it. They can’t know.”
They, they, they. Who are they?
Violet tilted her head to look Kaspar right in the eye. “So you keep my secrets and I’ll keep yours. Sounds fair.”
“You,” Kaspar whispered, “are going to get us all killed.”
“Don’t you trust me?” Violet asked.
Don’t you trust me?
“No.”
“And why is that?”
“You’re inconsistent,” Kaspar said. “You’re hot then you’re cold. Yes then a no. Sometimes I want to know you.
Other times I don’t think you give a damn about anyone, even yourself. So I don’t trust you.”
“Am I that hard to figure out?”
Kaspar didn’t answer. He did lower one arm, offering her a way out.
Violet took the opportunity. She leaned forward on her toes and planted her lips on his. Kaspar’s eyes widened, surprised, too much to respond in any way until after she pulled back.
One way to keep him quiet.
“Figure that out,” she told him.
TAP, TAP, TAP.
The tapping echoed through the ship. Violet couldn’t get it out of her head.
Tap, tap, tap.
She woke up to it, went to sleep to the sound of it. She dreamed it. It was driving her out of her mind.
Three bells into the twilight bell, the dog’s watch, or whatever it was called on the Morgana. She’d given up on lying there, asleep but not dreaming, awake but unaware. Swinging her legs over the side onto the cold metal floor. The cold had started to bother her of late, whenever she felt herself drift off into a place that wasn’t quite here, where she wasn’t herself. Right now the sting of cold metal made her flinch but cleared her head. It was dark, silver lit, but the world had that little flush of colour, tinges of red and orange that had been missing.
There is no colour though, not really. Only the black.
Her minders still slept, Gravel on his back on the floor, one arm thrown up over his head, breathing through his nose and snoring because of it. He hadn’t shaved in several days, the scraggly whiskers on his face almost endearing.
Kaspar always slept on his side, Violet had noticed. It was how he went to sleep and how he stayed until he woke. He’d fallen asleep during more than one late night card game, rolled onto one side or the other in the cocoon of his hammock or chair. Or tonight, in the corner of the too small cabin. His face was rarely restful, more fitful, like he was snatching at sleep itself. His arms wrapped around himself, hugging his shoulders and his legs pulled up towards his chest. Not quite curled up into a ball but he wasn’t far from it.
Ever defensive and protective, that one.
Neither of them stirred when she moved, despite Kaspar’s insisting that they all stay. He’d been cold and chilly to both of them until sleep had taken him. Avoided looking at her. But if either were awake they were watching through half-shut eyes and keeping quiet about it.
No one moved to stop Violet as she padded down the halls of the ship. Sometimes they would, barring access to parts of the ship or preventing her from going a certain way. Other times they let her do what she wanted. If there was a pattern to the way the crew handled her, she couldn’t make sense of it, other than Aristeia and Mors, who both resented her. Quinn and Coldstream. The first mate’s name reminded her uncomfortably of the former Kelpie navigator, too familiar, too close for comfort. She preferred the first mate’s given name and thankfully so did most of the crew. It was an otherwise ugly reminder of two people she preferred not to think about, a time she increasingly chose not to dwell on. Although the outright maliciousness of their hostility to her was new. So much more direct than what had previously been a mostly verbal conflict.
The tapping had taken her down a corridor, one on the underside of the bi-planar axis of the ship. It was hard to pinpoint the source, other than sometimes it was higher or lower.
Could the gravity plane be affecting the sound? Does gravity affect sound? If up and down are both the same thing, does the sound bounce when it crosses over?
As if on cue the world tilted with her next step. Colour gone, everything upside down. And she was falling again. She bit her fist to keep from crying out, focusing on the pain, grabbing for the wall with her other hand. Stumbling, trying to find her balance until everything made sense again, came right-side up. And then she was . . .
It was Raines’ workshop, but different. Things had been moved. Instead of a Draugr on the table it was one of the Mandragora. A small and shrivelled thing, cut open and splayed out. Violet covered her mouth with one hand, feeling her gorge rise, an unhappily forgotten meal of biscuits and broth trying to make itself known. She must have forgotten her glasses again because everything was grey, silver, out of focus. Could have sworn they were on her face. Raines was talking, pacing around the table. Not to her. His words were muffled, like that time Jack had ducked her in the water barrel and she couldn’t hear right after. He wasn’t even talking to her.
“Who knows? How could we know? Maybe we did know. Unlike these, these . . .”
“What have you named them?”
“Goras. Dolls, much like. Mandragora, these natives. So mindless yet still they persist. Simple instinct. I wonder what would happen to them outside of their environment. Or if their environment . . . no, that would be . . . no.”
Nothing made sense.
“These were taken from near your homeworld?”
“These? No, elsewhere. Far away. The centre. Yet not so different. We were wrong to think the Morgana was unique. There are . . . pockets. Eddies.”
There were more jars. Canisters filled with the coiling not-mist. Barrel sized but made of glass. Violet ran her hand along the surface, watching the strangely foreign miasma bunch and follow after her fingertips.
“It’s drawn to thaumatics. Ships can’t go there. Not as they are now.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“An obstacle. To be overcome.”
Violet turned away from the voices. She couldn’t place the other speaker. Sounded familiar, but wrong. She couldn’t explain why.
On the wall was a chart of stellar markings. Constellations and nebula. Oort clouds and rogue planets. And there . . .
“This is home,” Violet froze, her fingers touching the spot. It wasn’t on any charts, but she knew the way. They all knew the way.
“No,” she heard Raines, sharp, decisive. “Not anymore. No longer. No . . . there’s no point. The projections all say so. It travels along the cold lanes, finding its way. It will find its way there . . . home. And then there will be no home. Not even a memory.”
Raines laughed. “At least now we know why. Simple. So close, so far. Never knowing. The irony.”
“Where do your projections show? What will the next world be?”
“Not yours, you will be pleased to learn. Nor mine, not yet. Soon though. Or later, perhaps later, yes, but one day soon. But for now . . .”
Raines brushed past her. Violet started, not moving in time, but she barely felt his passing. Like he wasn’t . . .
“There.”
“And where is that?”
“They call it Vintage. So quaint. The fleet must be told. Steps taken.”
“Will they listen?”
“They will listen. They will scream, they will protest, but they will listen. And then they will move. And do what needs to be done.”
“Will you tell them this is your fault?”
“It is not.”
“In a way.”
“Obstacles are to be overcome.”
Violet turned, trying to identify the other speaker. There was no one there. Nor could she see Raines. He’d gone, vanished. She spun again, trying to find him. So fast she made herself dizzy and stumbled. Her stomach lurched, dropping out like she’d left the envelope. Falling. The black. Again.
No!
Violet grabbed for something, anything. Her hands found a surface that was solid, flat, but she couldn’t get a purchase. She lashed out at it, striking with her fists. Something jumped into her hand, solid, metal, cold. She felt the pain, squeezing her fingers around it. Something to focus on.
She opened her eyes. She was in Raines’ lab. How she didn’t know, last thing she remembered was being in her cabin. Asleep. Every intention of sleeping.
Raines wasn’t there. Three Mandragora were, staring at her. Until they grew bored and returned to their duties, whatever they were. She was forgotten.
She sucked in a breath, staring at the object that had brought her back. Raines’
canister. Metal and glass, brass chasing. Shiny.
Her face was reflected in the brass. Blurred, distorted. Almost unrecognisable.
Violet put the canister back.
How the hells do I get back without having to explain this?
Violet shrugged, both in her head and with her shoulders, moving for the door. Her footfalls sounded very loud to her. But there was no one else around.
And yet it wasn’t just her footfalls either, there was a second set, lighter and more furtive, keeping pace with her but staying further back and . . . high? For how long now?
Violet turned on her heel, her bare feet barely making a sound on the ridged floor, glaring up at the network of pipes and tubing that infested the upper corners of all the Morgana’s corridors.
“Get down here now,” she said impatiently.
Luminescent eyes stared back at her from the darkness, bobbing and weaving as they stalked closer. Gradually more of the furry body emerged from the shadows, hunkered low and on all fours in the cramped crawlspace. The loompa, her fellow survivor and refugee, stared back at her cautiously.
“It’s me, Bandit,” she reassured him. “Just me. You can come down now.”
He did come down, settling by her feet, staying low, rather than perching on her shoulder as she had come to expect. Had hoped for, if she was being honest.
Violet knelt down, holding out one hand, to which Bandit sniffed and batted at, again with the caution. Life aboard the metal ship was giving him a nervous disposition. Violet didn’t care much for it.
“Was that you?” she asked, her voice low so that a whisper wouldn’t carry. She was out of bed for that reason, the vagaries of how sound travelled. “Did you wake me up?”
Apparently not. Convinced it was her and her alone, the loompa took off, stopping at every turn and ladder to wait for her to catch up. The sound she’d been following had stopped, not enough to convince her it wasn’t Bandit making it all along but she had no other leads to follow.
Fata Morgana Page 14