by Martha Wells
A gunshot went off and glass shattered at the far end of the promenade. Emilie jerked back with a muffled yelp. Her throat went dry from fear. If she had stepped into a play, she wished she could step back out of it. She bolted back through the hatch and down the corridor.
It didn't go straight through to the port side, but turned into a confusing maze of service cabins and smaller lounges. Emilie had forgotten how absurdly wide this strange ship was, and blundered into a smoking room and a small pantry before finally tripping over the rim of a hatchway out into another larger corridor.
Before she ran ten steps down it, three men in black livery shot out of an intersecting passage and slammed past her, heading starboard. She gasped and flattened herself against the wall. One threw her a confused glance but they clearly didn't have time to stop and question stray girls, whether there were supposed to be any aboard the ship or not. In the light of the crystal sconces, she clearly looked a lot less like a scout for robbers than she had to the watchman on the dark pier. Those must be crewmen, she thought. The bluecoats are the robbers. That was handy to know.
Figuring she had truly used up every bit of her small store of luck by now, Emilie ran faster.
As she reached a passage that ran parallel to the outer port side, the deck shuddered beneath her and she heard the muffled grumble of the engines. They're casting off? she wondered, heading for the nearest hatch. A quick look through the small porthole told her the deck just in front of the hatch was empty, and that this side of the ship was facing the pier. The hatch was closed and locked and she had to wrench the bolts back before she could yank the heavy door open.
Emilie stepped out into a cool breeze, and heard fighting and shouting from the other side of the ship. The vessel wasn't moving yet, but the throb of the engines was growing louder. There were a few deck lamps lit, but there was no one out here to see her.
The ship was anchored some distance from the pier; Emilie would have to swim for it again. She went to the railing and realized she couldn't jump from here: the deck below was wider than this one. Also, she was much higher up now. She hurried along to an outside stairway, tucked into a sheltered nook in the side. She made her steps quiet, but she was only halfway down when someone stepped out of a hatch on the lower deck.
Emilie froze. It was a man in a greatcoat that was far too heavy for the cool night. He stepped to the railing, stretched to look down, then turned away from Emilie and started away down the deck. She just had time to take a breath in relief when a bluecoat slammed out of the hatch just behind him and swung a cudgel.
“Look out!” Emilie shouted in reflex. The man whipped around and ducked, lightning quick, and the cudgel missed completely. Before the bluecoat could recover, the man seized the cudgel, wrenched it away with a quick twist, and delivered two stunning blows to the bluecoat's chest and head.
Another bluecoat stepped out of the hatch, and Emilie surged forward. She had no idea what she was going to do, just that she had to do something. Then she tripped over a water bucket abandoned at the bottom of the stairs, seized it, and flung it at the bluecoat.
The bluecoat cursed and ducked, giving the man time to whirl around and hit him with the cudgel too. As the bluecoat collapsed, the man caught sight of Emilie and froze for an instant, staring at her. He was standing under a lamp, and the light fell on his face. Emilie yelled in pure shocked reflex.
He wasn't human. The matte black fur, the glitter of reptilian scales, were only an impression, but she clearly saw the gold split-pupil eyes and the pointed teeth.
Another hatch opened further down the deck and half a dozen bluecoats spilled out, brawling with just as many black-liveried sailors. They spread across the deck, shouting and fighting.
Emilie turned to run, but the deck heaved suddenly, rolled under her feet, and knocked her flat. Emilie struggled to her knees, trying to stand. It had to be the engines, an explosion in the boilers. The deck shook again and kept shaking, as if something huge had grabbed the ship's hull from below. The dock lights started to recede, as the ship moved out of the slip and into the harbor. Gunshots sounded nearby, and Emilie looked up to see two sailors with rifles stood on the deck above, aiming down at the bluecoats.
The strange man - creature - man shouted at her, “Stay down!”
That sounded like very good advice, despite the source. Emilie scrambled under the stairs and huddled back against the wall.
The deck shuddered continuously, the water churning below. She heard splashes, saw two bluecoats tumble over the rail. They were losing the fight, or fleeing the potential explosion, or both. The gunshots stopped and the ship's horn blew frantically. You have to get off this ship before it gets any further from shore, Emilie told herself, her heart pounding in her ears.
She crawled forward and peered around the stairway. Several sailors and bluecoats still struggled at the far end of the deck. She saw the strange not-human man toss another bluecoat overboard, then a door crashed open somewhere on the deck above. She looked up to see Lord Engal stood at the rail above her. He shouted, “Get off; jump, you bastards, if you don't want to go with us!” He fired a pistol into the air, emphasizing the order.
That seemed to convince the few remaining bluecoats that retreat was a good idea. Three went over the rail. Two others paused to drag a fallen comrade upright and toss him over, then they jumped after him.
The roar of the engines reached a deafening pitch, and Emilie had to follow them, before the ship broke apart. She pushed to her feet, staggered as the deck rolled violently, then flung herself at the rail.
“No!” someone shouted, and grabbed the back of her jacket, jerking her to a halt. “Too late!”
Barely three steps in front of her a glimmering gold wall sprang up along the rail and arched to form a dome over the ship. “What's that?” Emilie demanded. She looked up, realized it was the not-human man who had grabbed her. She tried to pull away, and he let her go.
He looked toward Lord Engal, who was still on the deck above them, and seemed to be studying the gold barrier with an air of great satisfaction. The man said, “The way home.”
“Whose home?” Emilie tried to ask, but the roar of the engines blotted out the words. The deck shook and water rushed up all around them, the brown churning water of the harbor, kept out by the gold wall. No, the water wasn't rushing up - the ship was sinking, sinking fast, as if something was dragging it below the surface.
As Emilie stared upward in baffled horror, the water covered the dome of light overhead as the ship sunk faster and faster, and the brownish water gave way to deep blue.
CHAPTER TWO
“I don't understand,” Emilie said, too shocked to do anything but stare upward. She thought it was a remarkable understatement considering the circumstances.
The ship was enclosed in a bubble of gold light, traveling underwater. The view was murky, the only illumination coming from the lamps along the deck. But she saw shapes fleeing the ship's lights, a small school of multi-colored umbrella-fish, their jelly-like bodies and drifting tentacles remarkably graceful. Feeling a cold shiver in her midsection, she realized she couldn't see the surface. The air smelled salty, and tinged with seaweed.
Emilie had seen magic before. Mr. Herinbogel, her friend Porcia's father, was a retired sorcerer and occasionally helped the local physician with healing spells. And there had been the occasional traveling conjurer shows at the local fairs. But those had all been very small magics, not like this. This was like something out of a grand gothic novel.
Beside her, the man said, “It's called an aether current. It's carrying us under your sea, to a crack that leads through the bottom of the world.” He looked down at her and added, somewhat unnecessarily, “It's magic.”
“My sea,” Emilie repeated, seizing on that detail. “It's not my sea.”
“It's not mine, either.” He cocked his head at her. “I'm Kenar.”
The Kenar whose word Barshion didn't trust. Kenar who was something-not-hu
man. “I'm Emilie.” It seemed beyond rude to say what are you? even though it was one of the questions she badly wanted to ask. As if they were meeting in her uncle's parlor, she said instead: “Where are you from?”
He seemed to hear the original question anyway. He said, “I'm Cirathi, from the coast of Oragal.”
“I haven't heard of that place. But...” The water was growing even darker. Bubbles streamed by and she realized they were still moving forward, rapidly, away from the harbor. Emilie saw the silvery flicker of a large tail fleeing their lights. The fish was swimming up... No, it was the ship that was still sinking, falling down through the water. “This is all very odd, so maybe that isn't a surprise.”
A ship's officer turned to look down the deck, spotted Kenar, and shouted, “You, back to quarters!”
Kenar's hands knotted on the rail, and he ignored the command. Emilie stepped behind him, using his bulk to block her from view, hoping the officer would be too distracted to notice her. It was a little late at this point to be thrown off the boat. She hoped.
The officer strode down the deck and stopped a pace away. He said, “You heard me. Go inside.”
Kenar's head tilted to regard him, and with a frustrated edge in his voice, he said, “You could use force, Belden.”
The officer's expression tightened, but he didn't give way. He said, “We have to make certain none of the pirates stayed aboard. That will be easier without passengers on the decks and in the corridors.”
Kenar was still for a long moment, then stepped away from the railing. This left Emilie in full view of the officer, who stared at her oddly, startled, then motioned for her to follow Kenar.
Emilie had no idea why the man wasn't raising the alarm that a stowaway was aboard this strange ship, but decided to stay with Kenar, if possible. He seemed disposed to be kind to her; human or not, he might be her only ally in this strange situation.
Two sailors conducted them through the hatch and forward down a passage, where another sailor stood guard at a door. He opened it and they were ushered into a large lounge cabin, paneled with thin strips of fine dark wood. The door was closed firmly behind them.
The lounge was as luxurious as the rest of the ship, with upholstered couches built into the walls, lamps with milky ceramic sconces. Then Emilie saw the large crystal port looking out onto the deck.
She stepped up to it, caught again by the impossible wall of water just beyond the deck rail. It was very dark now, but the ship's lights reflected off a school of small copper-colored fish, vanishing into shadow as the ship sped past. Emilie had never been afraid of water, but she was beginning to fear it now. If it rushed in on the ship, how long would it take for her and the others to swim to the surface? It had to be far longer than she could hold her breath.
Knowing that if she kept thinking about it the sense of pressure would just get worse, she deliberately turned away and looked around the cabin. Dr. Barshion sat on a couch against the far wall, and from his expression he was almost as sour about being confined here as Kenar. And there was a woman standing beside a drinks cabinet, wearing a tweed jacket and a divided skirt. She was Northern Menaen like Barshion, tall and slender, with her blond hair confined in a bun. She turned to Kenar furiously and demanded, “How did those men get on board?”
He folded his arms, but didn't seem to think her fury was directed at him. “They were on the launch. Hickran and his men must have been attacked while they were picking up the last supplies.”
The light here allowed Emilie to see his face better. His straight nose and high cheekbones belonged to a handsome man, though they were coated with tiny black scales instead of skin. His brows were feathery fur, and his hair was dark and plush, almost a mane, that didn't quite conceal the extra folds of reptilian skin at the back of his neck. The greatcoat, the dark brown shirt, trousers, and boots he was wearing concealed most of the rest of him, but his hands had scaly skin too, with mats of dark fur across the back. That, combined with the gold eyes and the pointed teeth, should have made the whole effect horrific. Maybe the shock of the pirate attack and the steamship plunging underwater in a protective bubble of spells had softened the impact, but... He doesn't look monstrous, Emilie thought. He looks like this is how he's supposed to look. And there was something about his voice that was reassuring.
Barshion frowned at Kenar and asked, “How did you get out of your cabin?”
Kenar lifted one shoulder in a shrug. He said, “Someone left the door unlocked.”
“He fought the pirates and threw some of them off the boat,” Emilie said. She wasn't certain why she was defending him, except that apparently someone had to.
Possibly it was ill considered. The others turned to stare at her in blank surprise. The woman said, “Who are you?”
“I'm Emilie.” Emilie had no intention of giving her last name, even if she was on a magic underwater steamship. After everything else, she didn't want news of her exploits getting back to her family, not until she was safe in Silk Harbor. She prompted politely, “And you are...?”
The woman blinked, compelled by courtesy to reply, “Oh, sorry. I'm Vale Marlende.”
Marlende. She must be related to the Dr. Marlende that Lord Engal had spoken of rescuing. “I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Marlende.” Emilie took a deep breath and plunged in, feeling it was better to admit the worst and get it over with. Not that it had ever worked out that way at home. “I'm here because I'm a stowaway. But I didn't mean to stowaway on this ship. I was aiming for the Merry Bell. I'm going to Silk Harbor to live with my cousin at her school for girls and I didn't have the money for the passage ticket.”
“A stowaway?” Barshion said, astonished. He regarded Kenar with suspicion. “What was she doing with you?”
Kenar was looking at Emilie, his scaled brow quirked in surprise. “I found her on deck. I thought she was one of Engal's daughters.”
Barshion said, “Even Engal wouldn't be mad enough to bring his daughters on this voyage.”
Hah, Emilie thought. Lord Engal was Southern Menaen too; she thought the resemblance ended there, but no one would have been looking closely at her during a pirate attack. It explained the crew's reaction to her, surprised but not alarmed. It was too bad she hadn't known that while there had still been a chance to get off this ship.
“You swam over from the dock, I suppose, which explains why your clothes are wet.” Miss Marlende frowned at her. “Couldn't your cousin have wired you funds for your trip?” she asked.
Emilie set her jaw, sensing an implication that she had somehow failed to think of this sensible alternative. It stung more, since she hadn't thought of it. But she hadn't known she didn't have enough money until she had gotten to the ticket office, and it would have been too late by then to wire and get a reply. And if she had waited a day, Uncle Yeric might have had time to track her down. .
She had no intention of explaining that. Before she could think of a reply, Barshion cleared his throat. “We can discuss that later, Miss Marlende.” He looked at Emilie, stern and skeptical. “You really expect us to believe that your arrival, at the same time as the ship is attacked, was a coincidence?”
“It was a coincidence for me,” Emilie told him, exasperated. Again, she was being accused of things she hadn't done and being questioned like a criminal. Maybe it's me, she thought. Maybe her face and manner were guilty and suspicious, and she had never noticed before. Whatever it was, she was damn well sick of it. She planted her hands on her hips. “I'm a sixteen year old girl from the country, of a good family. Do I really look like someone who would be scouting for pirates or dock-robbers or whoever those men were?”
“She has a point,” Miss Marlende said to Barshion.
Emilie seized the opportunity to change the subject. She asked Kenar, “Are we really going down through a crack in the bottom of the world under the sea? Is that where you're from?”
Kenar nodded to Miss Marlende. “You explain it better.”
&nbs
p; Miss Marlende turned to her. “He's from the world inside ours, the inner world. My father, Dr. Marlende, is a philosophical sorcerer, an expert in aetheric currents.” She eyed Emilie a little uncertainly. “Your family don’t take any of the journals of the various Philosophical societies, do they?”
Miss Marlende didn't seem to think she was capable of understanding the explanation. Emilie would be more angry about that, if she wasn't so afraid that it was true. She had done a great deal of reading, but not of Philosophical Society journals. But there was one thing that she did understand. “I've read about aether-navigators, and how they work,” she said. There were aetheric currents in the water and the air. They were what sorcerers used to make magic, and were invisible and intangible to ordinary people. Though there were always rumors that they could make people or animals ill, or that if a house was built in or near one it would suffer hauntings. But recently, philosophical sorcerers had invented a way for ocean-going ships to navigate by known aetheric currents, as an alternative to compasses and celestial navigation. The novel Lord Rohiro of the Far Seas had explained it in great detail - in between sea battles and pirates and the wooing of foreign princesses.
Miss Marlende seemed relieved. “Oh, then this won't seem quite so odd. Well, not entirely, anyway.” She continued, “My father had been fascinated with the theories that there was another world inside the earth, that the center of the earth was hollow and that it was a nexus of aetheric currents. He began experimenting with aetheric currents in the sea, and below it, as a possible way to contact that world. It all turned out to be far more complicated than the original theory implied, but eventually my father developed an engine that could travel within the aetheric currents, powered by them, and he built a ship to test it on.”
Caught up, Emilie said in a rush, “And he took the ship on an expedition to the Hollow World, and something happened and he and the crew were trapped, and Kenar came to tell you where he was and get help.” Miss Marlende blinked in surprise, Barshion frowned, and Kenar lifted a brow. Emilie winced at herself. She had to remember, she couldn't trust these people, and they really had no reason to trust her. Pretend you're at home, and you have to watch every word you say, she told herself. But at the moment, there was nothing she could do but explain, “When I was hiding on board, I overheard Dr. Barshion and Lord Engal talking about that part. But the rest was new.”