Beneath Ceaseless Skies #187

by Rich Larson

  He wormed a deliberate finger into fresh scab and pulled it away slicked red. Then he smeared the godbone, dropped a pinch of the powder, and began his communion. The first inhalation rolled his eyes back in their sockets.

  “Up, bastard.” The barked words came distantly, through fog, accompanied by a rattling scrape as a gaoler keyed the cell open.

  “I’d rather not,” Crane felt his mouth say.

  “Doing that shit won’t make you any friends in here. The darkies don’t like converts.”

  “I have enough friends,” Crane said, with a toothy smile, “in other places.”

  The man snorted, but Crane could hear his feet shift nervously. The sharp-smelling vapor coiled through the room like a snake and hung there. It wasn’t until Crane had packed away his things and stood up, spine clacking, that the gaoler approached.

  “So why did Fletcher bring you here?” the man asked, palm flat on the handle of his club. “Who are you?”

  “I am nobody, dear gaoler,” Crane said. “I am a shade. In fact, if I so wished, I could disappear from your sight completely, ensconced in a cloak of living shadow.”

  “Not in the quarry, you won’t.” The gaoler pointed to the carved number on the wall. “You’re in an even cell. You hew today, fresh stripes or not. The sun is going to bake that blood black.”

  In answer, Crane pulled a piece of silver from the air. The coin crabwalked down his knuckles and into the gaoler’s waiting hand.

  “And that’s how you disappear, too, is it?” The man inspected the coin, then dropped it into his pocket with a clink. He shrugged. “Thirty’s an odd cell today. Never was good with maths.”

  “Nor I.” Crane made a wincing stretch. “I wonder if you might do me one other favor. Enlighten me as to the occupancy of cell thirteen.”

  “Never was good with grand words, either, bastard.”

  “Who’s in it, and will they give me trouble?”

  The gaoler scratched his coarse neck. “Think maybe there’s a darkie in there with him now, or maybe they put him one over, but cell thirteen’s been Durden’s for years—since before I shipped over, I think. As for trouble, well.” He chuckled. “Depends what you ask of him. Why?”

  “Perhaps he could be persuaded to take my place in the quarry. For the sake of numerical balance.”

  “Ha.” The gaoler shook his head. “That’s one of the things you don’t ask of him.”

  “I see. Well, in any case, you have my gratitude.” Crane patted his captor on the arm. “Would you like me to make a supplication on your behalf? I could butcher a bird, perhaps a gecko.”

  The gaoler jerked away. “I told you we don’t like converts here, bastard. Stick to silver.”

  “If you insist,” Crane replied to the man’s departing back. He walked the silver coin up and down his knuckles again, watching it flash in the sunlight.

  * * *

  Dawn found Gilchrist’s hand still welded to the tiller and his eyes shot through with pink. The sun was rising rust-colored over the island. Bird cries, too melodic for gulls, carried to the sloop on a sluggish breeze. The sound put a grimace on the cartographer’s lined face, and a minute later his eyes opened.

  “Where are we, gypsy?” he asked, after spitting up over the side.

  “The far side.” Gilchrist nodded towards a stony outcropping up ahead. “We’ll slide behind those rocks and anchor until dusk.”

  “Could drop it here,” the cartographer croaked. “They never come this far. Not that I rightly blame them.” He gave the island a baleful glance. “All manner of odd beasts in those woods.” He stretched, yawned. “But I made it through them, didn’t I? After the Coves, no wood seems dark. And I wasn’t ready to die.”

  “Are you ready now?” Gilchrist asked.

  The cartographer didn’t seem to hear. “Here in the sun, you can’t even imagine it. Dark like you think you’ve gone blind. That’s the Coves.”

  Gilchrist only half-listened as he threaded the sloop between the rocks, bringing them into cool shadow.

  “So I put my hand on the wall and I swam,” the cartographer was saying, demonstrating in the air. “Swam for hours. My legs were lead, but that angel was still with me, still telling me not to sink, not to fall asleep. I charted every curve and twist of it inside my skull, working off the map. I knew we’d gotten close.” He gave a bleary smile. “And then, when my damn legs were all but falling off, and my arms, too...”

  “Sunlight,” Gilchrist supplied.

  “Sunlight,” the cartographer agreed. “Like the face of God himself. So relieved, I was, I didn’t even give a damn the ship that picked me up was trading company. I fed them some crabshit about a fishing vessel, a sudden squall, but of course they didn’t believe a word of it. Look at me.” He raised his painted arms. “They knew I was lying, so they flogged me. You been flogged, gypsy?”

  Gilchrist glanced at him, nodded—once in Lensa, four times in Brask, and once in the brig of a ship returning from the New World.

  “Rubbed me with salt afterwards. Bastards.” The cartographer swallowed. “But I didn’t tell them a thing.”

  Gilchrist dropped anchor with a heavy splash. Loose line hissed its way over the side, then jerked to a stop. The sloop revolved a slow circle.

  “Then here,” the cartographer said. “This damn island. Purgatory. Cell thirteen. Three years in there, and I never spoke a word of the wreck. But I etched it. I etched the map. Every twist and turn of those damned Coves.” He looked over. “Wanted to remember. Wanted the both of us to remember. But in the end, you know, when I saw my chance, I had to leave the map behind. Had to take the opportunity when it came, didn’t I.”

  Something had changed in the story, some new wording Gilchrist hadn’t been able to catch half-aware. He massaged his hands, frowning, and then asked the same question he’d asked of Crane while the cartographer slept. “Why come back for it now?”

  “There was no use, before,” the old man said. “Before these underboats, these...”

  “Submersibles.”

  “Yeah, those. Coves are too deep to use divers.” The cartographer smothered his cough. “Knowing where it was, not being able to haul up the silver, what good is that?”

  Gilchrist considered for a moment before he spoke. “You aren’t going to see a piece of it. You’re dying.”

  The cartographer’s wrinkled face contorted, looking for a moment like laughter, another like pain, and then at last it smoothed out. “Don’t you have regrets, gypsy? Don’t you have stones that weigh in your belly?”

  Gilchrist didn’t reply, and a moment later the cartographer was swallowed up in another wracking cough.

  * * *

  Purgatory emptied its guts into the sweltering heat, a stream of indentured islanders and convicted criminals all herded by gaolers with bone clubs. Crane watched the tail end of the procession shuffle out of the block. He’d used more salve on his back, so as the iron doors ratcheted shut he gingerly resumed his shirt and made his way towards cell thirteen.

  Prisoners watched him pass through the stone hallway, looking up from carved dice or muttered conversations, but nobody accosted him. Crane knew that would come later. But, if nobody in the place had heard news of the Guild’s dissolution, it was possible the mark on his forearm would still stem most unpleasantness.

  He found there was only one man in cell thirteen, long and lean and canvassed in a threadbare shirt that might have once been cheery yellow. He was seated on his tick, working something between his hands, where Crane saw the glint of a shiv. Pale driftwood shavings curled at his feet, and the floor of the cell was littered with carvings.

  Crane rapped his knuckles on the open door. The man’s skin was deeply bronzed, but when he turned his eyes were flecked green, a color no islander was born with. His hair was cropped to sun-bleached stubble and his nose was well crooked. Even so, Crane was reminded of the sculptures that adorned Brask’s collapsing cathedrals.

  “I’ll do the game pi
eces when I feel like it,” Durden said, “so piss off.”

  “I’m not here for that.” Crane stepped inside, eyes raking the room. “My name is Mister Crane. In my former occupation I studied the properties of certain molds, and now the warden has seen fit to burden me with inspecting his walls for... spores. I was wondering if I might make a cursory inspection of your cell.”

  Durden returned to the chunk of wood between his hands. His shiv was an obsidian shard, and it fluttered like a bird’s wing as he whittled. “I haven’t seen you before,” he said. “And Fawkes didn’t say anything about fresh arrivals.”

  “Between you and I, the administrative policies of this prison are rather a mess.”

  Durden waved a brown arm. “Be quick about it, alright?”

  Crane needed no further invitation. His fingers tingled and the pain in his back was forgotten now that he was finally here, finally close. He had to force himself to move methodically as he neared the far wall. He charted a foot over from the sliver window and down to the floor. He’d doubted, in the darkest hours of the night. He’d doubted the whole thing. But the groove was exactly where the cartographer had described it.

  With a hint of a smile, Crane squatted, sending flares up his back, and worked his fingers into the crack. He traced through the dust, searching for the corner, glancing backward once to be sure Durden was still occupied. His fingers found only solid stone. His chest tightened.

  “How long have you been in Purgatory, Mister Durden?” he asked as he dug in with his fingernails, probing, hoping.

  Durden was inspecting his handiwork, turning it this way and that. A hunched figure was emerging from the wood, tusked and clawed. “If you’re done, get out.”

  Crane stood up, legs almost trembling. “This cell has been renumbered. What was it before?”

  “It’s always been thirteen.” Durden looked up at last, with measured contempt. “It’s been thirteen since I was. Now, piss off.”

  “Has it been rebuilt?” Crane’s voice was hollow. “Has any of the masonry been redone?”

  Durden ignored him, back to his whittling.

  Crane’s long fingers twitched at his sides. He took a steadying breath. “I recognize that carving, Mister Durden. You’ve captured the form well in miniature.”

  At that, Durden looked up. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s the very same gargoyle that lines the main canal in Brask.”

  Durden’s green eyes narrowed. “You know Brask?”

  “I know her canals as I know my veins. Which, in my particular case, is quite thoroughly.”

  Durden stared, and then his face softened all at once. He half-laughed. “Used to climb up on them,” he said. “To watch the docks. I remember those monsters better than anything else. Better than anyone I knew.”

  “There is a certain allure to companions who listen well and speak rarely.” Crane matched the man’s wistful expression. “But we are far, far from Brask, Mister Durden. In this particular locale, I would wager there are no others like us?”

  “There was a man a few years ago, but he took the bleeding sickness. Died. And there was one other, a long time ago.” Durden tossed the carved gargoyle from hand to hand. “I remember the rain in Brask. Hardly ever rains here.”

  “How long have you been in Purgatory?” Crane asked again, impatience needling through his voice.

  “Don’t keep track,” Durden said. “Doesn’t do you any good. God, I remember the rain.” He snatched another carving off the floor and held it up. “The one off the Corner of the Four Angels, is this what it looked like? Sometimes I think I’m making them up.”

  “You said the cell was thirteen when you were. But that must have been a slip of the tongue.”

  “It wasn’t.” Durden stared at the gargoyle in his palm with a ghost of a smile. “Been here most of my life. I don’t dream about Brask anymore. Or the sea. Don’t dream anything, really.”

  “I never dream,” Crane said. “Unless aided.” His arm throbbed.

  “Came here from a shipwreck,” Durden said, still to the gargoyle. “With one other sailor. He was from Brask, too, I think, unless I invented it. We were the only survivors. I don’t remember much about that. Only the fire and then the dark.”

  “Was this sailor rather heavily tattooed?” Crane asked hoarsely, trying to ignore the growing ache in his arm.

  “All sailors are,” Durden snorted. “But yeah. Yes. He had plenty. He was the inker.”

  Crane could not keep from scratching now. He gritted his teeth. “And when he escaped, did he leave anything in your possession? An etching? A stone or clay tablet?”

  Durden’s face sharpened again. He dropped his carving onto the tick. “Who said he escaped?”

  “Did he leave you anything?” Crane repeated, nails plucking furiously at the sunken vein, the sore spot where the needle went in.

  “He left me to rot.”

  “A map to the wreck,” Crane pressed. “A map to the Coves.”

  Durden’s nostrils flared. He was on his feet now. “Who are you?”

  “Your dear Mister Fletcher is taking me out of the prison tonight. Give me the map, and I’ll have you set free.” Crane stopped scratching, pulled his hand away. There were red slivers under his fingernails.

  “You’re a friend of Fletcher’s, are you?” Durden’s voice was soft. “Here to play games.”

  “I’m here for a map.”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Durden said, and then the obsidian shard slashed forward, conjured from his sleeve. Crane felt it split the air along his cheek as he twisted away, scrambled backward. Durden took his leg out from under him, and he smacked to the stone floor, the stripes on his back flaring all at once and making him gasp. Then the obsidian edge was pressed cool up under his jaw, and his assailant’s furious face was inches away.

  Crane took a rattling breath. “I feel that we’ve suffered a misunderstanding, Mister Durden.”

  “He’ll come down himself if I kill you.” Durden’s words were punctuated with pressure. Crane’s skin was ready to split. “And maybe I’ll get a chance at him. Maybe it’s worth it.”

  “Mister Fletcher is no friend to me. I’m loathe to name him even an acquaintance.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Look,” Crane said, gritting his teeth, “at my back.” He had only a moment to brace himself before Durden rolled him over and ripped his shirt off in one stark motion. The fabric came away trailing tendrils of sticky salve and congealing blood. Crane hissed.

  Durden straightened up, shard dropping to his side as he recognized Fletcher’s handiwork. His breathing began to subside.

  On the floor, Crane, forehead pushed against the stone, began to laugh. It was a raw, tired sound that filled up the gloom of the cell. “That duplicitous dog,” he groaned. “All those weeks of preparation. All for nothing. That tattooed trickster.”

  “So you’re not Fletcher’s friend.” Durden pointed the obsidian shard at him. “Who are you?”

  Crane exhaled. “My business associate and I are purveyors of certain substances that languish under the tyrannical policies of the trading companies. By nature, I am also an opportunist.” He sat up slowly, wincingly. “When apprised of a map leading to sunken silver, my imagination ignites and I become altogether too trusting.”

  “You knew about the escape. How did you know about the escape?”

  “Your erstwhile companion is alive, Mister Durden. For now.” Crane rotated one bony finger. “He and Mister Gilchrist are circling the island as we speak.”

  Durden buckled. He dropped back down onto the tick, raising a puff of dust. The shard rolled from slack fingers.

  “Gilchrist no doubt suspected an ulterior motive,” Crane muttered. “Always a soft spot for altruistic ventures. Why now, indeed.”

  Durden looked up. His sea-green eyes were wide, for a moment almost child-like. “So you’re here...”

  “To aid in your liberation. Yes,
so it would seem.” Crane stood slowly, checking the contents of his case. The last yellow vial was safe. He breathed more easily. “I can appreciate a skillful deception, though I generally prefer to be the deceiver. I applaud his audacity.” He looked around at the scattered carvings, remembered the dormitory he’d thought of as a cell in his youth. Hardly comparable. “Do you know how to fashion a loaded die, Mister Durden?”

  “What? Yeah. Yes.” Durden snorted, perplexed. “Of course.”

  “I’m in need of a new pair,” Crane said. “The last were jettisoned overboard after a particularly heated game of craps. Carve me the dice, and I’ll get you out of Purgatory and off of this island.”

  Durden peered at him suspiciously. “Maybe I do still dream.”

  “You’ll find my hand quite solid,” Crane said, holding it out. Slowly, slowly, Durden reached to shake. Crane watched his face as he made his addendum. “By whatever means we accomplish this escape, however, I’ll need to see Mister Fletcher.”

  Durden’s hand froze.

  “I sense a history.” Crane wriggled his fingers. “Am I right to guess that bribery is not an option?”

  “He used to wear the bracelet on the other wrist,” Durden said. “Now he’s got it hiding the scar. I slit it while he was sleeping. Stupid. If I could go back, I’d slice him ear...” He traced under his jawline with one fingernail. “...to ear.”

  Crane let his hand drop, raised a brow. “Is there a way to get him down here?”

  “He hardly ever does, not anymore. Calls them up instead.” Durden stared down at the glittering black shard beside him, then back up. “You’d have to kill somebody.”

  Crane smiled. “Are you familiar with a certain weed, purple in coloration, with spines of such length?” He demonstrated with his thumb. “You may know it as—

  “Hanged man’s tongue,” Durden finished. “Yeah. Every once in a while one of the islanders will take it. They find them all fat and bloodless in the morning. Better off there than here, I suppose they think.”