Orphans of the Tide

by Struan Murray

‘Ow, this Inquisitor is hurting my arm!’ Anna yelled at the top of her voice, squirming in the Inquisitor’s grip and kicking the workshop door. ‘Do all Inquisitors stink like you?’

  Ellie took a long, slow breath, then heaved the door aside.

  The workshop lay in semi-darkness, just a glimmer of moonlight to show the way. They walked inside, and there was a metal crunch and a loud curse as an Inquisitor stepped on one of the oyster-catchers. Ellie picked up an oil lamp and a box of matches from a shelf beside the door, secretly pocketing a bundle of fireworks that was sitting next to them.

  ‘Where is the Vessel?’ said Castion, as Ellie lit the lamp.

  ‘He isn’t the Vessel.’

  ‘Ellie.’

  Castion knelt down before her, taking her hand gently in both of his. ‘You’re my best friend’s daughter,’ he said. His eyes were red round the edges. He looked old and tired.

  ‘I’ll be executed,’ she said.

  ‘I will . . . try to see what I can do for you, Ellie. Given your position, your age. Your importance to the City. I will plead your case.’

  ‘She’ll hang,’ said the red-haired Inquisitor. ‘Or worse.’

  ‘Silence!’ Castion roared, and the man took a step backwards.

  Ellie and Castion stared at one another a long while, the workshop quiet save for the mumbled ravings of Hargrath, who’d sat down on the floor. Castion was trembling. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes from her.

  ‘Ellie, there’s no way to protect him any more. You must help yourself now.’

  ‘No,’ Ellie whispered. ‘He’s done nothing wrong.’

  She took a deep breath. A sense of strange serenity came over her, like she was about to dive into the ocean from a great height. Once she let go, everyone else would be safe.

  ‘I’m the Vessel,’ she said.

  There were no gasps, no surprise. Only silence.

  Castion straightened up with a creak of leather. ‘Ellie, lying won’t save him. He has to die.’

  ‘I asked the Enemy to save Seth,’ she said. ‘On the night of his execution. It brought him to the workshop. When Hargrath chased me into Celestina’s Hope, the Enemy threw him into the sea.’

  Ellie’s voice echoed round the workshop. It seemed like someone else’s to her. Anna was shaking her head.

  ‘I’ve been the Vessel for three years,’ Ellie said.

  Castion was still. ‘That is a very serious lie to tell.’

  ‘I’m not lying.’

  ‘Miss Lancaster –’

  Heat surged into Ellie’s chest and she lunged forward. Pain stabbed at her forehead.

  ‘I’M NOT LYING!’

  Castion stumbled back, bracing himself against a workbench. The Inquisitors gasped and the guardsmen cried out in horror, pointing their crossbows at Ellie. Anna tried to rush to Ellie’s side but was wrenched back by an Inquisitor.

  ‘What?’ said Ellie. ‘What happened?’

  Anna’s voice shook. ‘Your face,’ she said. ‘There was something . . .’

  But she didn’t seem able to say what she’d seen in Ellie’s face.

  Hargrath let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. ‘It’s her,’ he said. ‘She is the Vessel.’

  Castion watched Ellie, his eyes wide. He went to put his hand to his mouth, then thought better of it. He closed his eyes, as if willing himself to wake up from a nightmare.

  ‘No,’ he said quietly, touching one of his silver rings. ‘Please, no.’

  Then he opened his eyes, and motioned for the Inquisitors to step away from Ellie.

  ‘Inform the High Inquisitor that the Vessel has been found,’ he said. ‘Inform him that she was deemed too close to the manifestation. Tell him . . . she was executed at her home.’

  ‘NO!’

  Anna fought free of the Inquisitor’s grasp but a guardsman scooped her up immediately, fumbling to hold her as she twisted madly in his arms. In the moment of distraction, Ellie retrieved a penknife and the oyster pearl from her pockets, storing both up her sleeve.

  ‘You can’t!’ Anna cried, struggling desperately. ‘No, no! Ellie!’

  ‘You will understand in time, Miss Stonewall,’ Castion said, his voice hollow.

  Anna kept squirming. ‘Ellie! Ellie, run!’

  ‘It’s all right, Anna,’ Ellie said softly. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘No,’ Anna groaned, reaching out for her.

  Castion took a step towards Ellie. One of the Inquisitors handed him a sword, still sheathed. Tears rolled down Castion’s cheeks.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ellie,’ he said, struggling even to speak. ‘I cannot let that thing win again.’

  He took a long, deep breath, then reached for the hilt of the sword. When he spoke again, his voice did not tremble.

  ‘In the name of the Twenty-Six Saints and Their Most Holy Inquisition, I pronounce you Vessel, corrupt and diabolical host to the Great Enemy of Humankind. I . . . I sentence you to die.’

  He drew the sword from its scabbard.

  ‘Please,’ Anna whispered. ‘Please.’

  He held it out to one side, holding it horizontally. The blade glittered in the lamplight.

  And for a moment, less than a heartbeat, Ellie wondered about letting the sword meet her neck.

  But the Enemy would only return, to plague another poor soul.

  She looked at Anna. Their eyes met, and Ellie saw the pain on Anna’s face. She couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t. There was a way to stop the Enemy. Her pulse flickered in her fingertips. Blood roared in her eardrums. Her mind spun at a dizzying pace. She pictured the chapel where she’d first found Seth. The cracked gargoyle in one corner. She pictured the underwater boat. And, as Castion’s knuckles whitened round the hilt of the sword, a plan flashed in her mind.

  ‘No,’ said Ellie.

  She threw herself to one side and the Inquisitors unsheathed their swords. Another second and she’d be dead.

  With a furious shout, Anna shook off her guardsman and leapt in front of Castion. Ellie let the pearl drop from her sleeve into her hand and threw it at a metal plate on the ceiling.

  There was a hiss, a crack, and four thunderous explosions. Thick curtains of smoke spewed from metal pipes in the ceiling, and the room was consumed by a smothering blackness.

  The men coughed, and the light of the oil lamp was swallowed by smoke. Ellie grabbed Anna’s hand, then raced for a rope at the side of the room, cutting it with her penknife.

  The traps in the floorboards were sprung. The planks fell inwards, dropping the men into the tangle of wire underneath with a chorus of shrieks. Ellie rushed for the door, dragging Anna behind.

  ‘FIND HER!’ came Hargrath’s shrill cry, amid more shouts of panic and the clattering of metal.

  Ellie slid the front door open –

  And then they were out on the street.

  The Enemy

  A bitter wind was howling. Silver light dappled the rooftops and smoke poured from the doorway of the workshop.

  ‘Run!’ Ellie cried, and she and Anna hurtled along Orphanage Street. Ellie’s heart was beating so hard she could feel it in her eyeballs. She glanced at Anna and saw she was clutching something in her free hand. Hargrath’s dart-gun.

  ‘His pocket was unbuttoned,’ Anna said breathlessly. ‘I thought we might need it. Ellie, what do we do?’

  Ellie grimaced, thinking through her plan again and again. ‘I need you to find Seth, and get one of Finn’s drawings from the orphanage,’ she said.

  Anna nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And then I need you to bring it to the chapel where we first found Seth. That’s where I’ll be . . . hopefully.’

  Ellie heard the thud of heavy boots from back along the street. ‘And one more thing. Send Fry and Ibnet to find the underwater boat. The Enemy fixed it so it works now. Tell them to sail it west to St Corrigan’s Observatory as quickly as possible, then to get well away.’

  ‘But . . . I can’t leave you.’ Anna had fresh tears on her
cheeks.

  ‘I’ll find you,’ Ellie said. ‘In my other workshop, okay? Now go! And try to avoid the Inquisitors!’

  ‘Ellie –’

  ‘Go!’ Ellie cried, as they came to the end of the street. Anna wiped her eyes and, after a second’s pause, she turned and raced off in the other direction.

  ‘Ellie!’ she heard Castion bark, far behind her. ‘Ellie, stop!’

  Ellie willed herself to keep going. Her body felt like it was made from paper, and would crumple and tear in the wind. She flung herself round a corner and collided with a cold alley wall.

  Nellie, come on, said Finn’s voice in her mind. Give up. Then you won’t have to suffer any more.

  Ellie pushed herself from the wall. ‘No,’ she spat. ‘You’re not winning this.’

  Nellie, please! Finn begged. You’ve done so well. I’m so proud of you. But you can’t carry on fighting any more. Give me a body of my own! I can make sure they don’t hurt Seth or Anna.

  Ellie clenched her teeth. ‘All you’ve ever done when you get a physical form of your own is hurt people.’

  Her body seemed to have lost any means of warming itself. The wind bit at her arms and face, filling her lungs with the icy cold. The crisp, salty smell of the sea grew stronger with every step she took north.

  A low bellow rang out above, like a great beast roused from sleep.

  The bell of the Inquisitorial Keep had begun to toll.

  They’re coming for us now, Nellie, said Finn’s voice. He sounded like he was crying.

  ‘Get out of my head,’ Ellie growled.

  But we’re one now, don’t you see? Ellie and Finn, bound by love. Isn’t this what you always wanted?

  Ellie flung herself down a broad market street, which still stank of fish. Half-picked carcasses lay scattered across the cobbles, abandoned by the seagulls. Ahead, bleary-eyed city folk crept from their homes, drawn by the sound of the bell. Ellie hurtled down slippery steps into a tight alleyway, collapsing behind a crate. The sound of her own breathing exploded in her ears.

  Give up, Nellie . . .

  Ellie pointed up towards the top of the City, where the great bell rang. ‘This is you,’ she whispered. ‘You are the cause of all the pain in this city.’

  She heard shouts nearby.

  ‘It’s that girl, Hannah Lancaster’s daughter!’

  The clamour grew louder as others took up the cry. Then, a name, screamed out to the sky, trilling amid the clanging of the bell.

  ‘Eleanor Lancaster!’

  ‘Eleanor Lancaster is the Vessel!’

  She heard the sound of boots on cobbles. She got to her feet, her body almost toppling forward with every step, her legs frozen to numb, brittle stumps.

  ‘ELLIE!’ came a distant shout. Castion.

  Nellie, this is my game we’re playing, not yours, said Finn. I’ve been playing it for centuries, and I’ve gotten very good at it.

  Ellie turned into another alley and stopped dead. Three people were huddled together outside a small tenement house, their breath rising in the night air. A mother and father, clutching their son between them. They stared up at the sky, as if for some sign that they were safe again.

  The boy saw her first.

  Ellie recognized him – it was the same boy she’d spoken to on the Angelus Waterfront, the day the whale had appeared on the rooftop. He clutched a little model of St Celestina around his neck. He screamed.

  ‘It’s her! It’s the Enemy!’

  His wails pierced Ellie’s head. The mother retreated towards the door, scooping up her son. The father spread his arms.

  ‘Get away!’ he cried, waving his hands, his voice breaking. He turned to his wife. ‘Inside, both of you!’

  ‘Out of my way!’ Ellie shouted, baring her teeth and advancing on them. The man cried out in terror. He reached down and picked up a loose cobblestone the size of a fist.

  ‘Get away!’ he cried. He threw the stone and Ellie turned aside, wincing as it scraped her shoulder.

  ‘Kill her!’ cried the little boy. ‘You’ve got to kill her!’

  Ellie turned, and saw two Inquisitors behind her, filling the width of the alley.

  ‘She’s here! SHE’S HERE!’

  Nellie, please! Finn cried. They’ll kill you! You’ve got to ask me to stop them!

  Ellie hobbled on, pulling a lighter and a firework from her pockets, lighting the fuse.

  Watch out! Finn shouted.

  One of the Inquisitors had caught up with her, throwing out a leg to trip her. Ellie stumbled, fell. Her knees scraped stone. Pain exploded in her shoulder.

  She heard the Inquisitor’s heavy breathing and forced herself to her feet. He was barely more than a boy, his eyes wide with horror. He raised his sword and Ellie threw the firework right at him.

  She shielded her eyes with her coat as blazing purple lights cartwheeled in all directions, bouncing from the walls and covering the Inquisitor in a cloud of red smoke. Ellie staggered back down the alley, but crumpled to her knees. She had done something to her right leg when she fell. Putting weight on it made her want to be sick.

  More heavy footsteps were gaining on her. She pulled out another firework, but before she could light it an Inquisitor reached out with the tip of his sword and whipped it from her grasp.

  A dark shape crossed the street behind him.

  There was a heavy thunk and the Inquisitor was enveloped in a net that pulled him to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Seth leapt over the thrashing body, tossing aside Ellie’s net-cannon.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, taking her hand. His face was smudged with smoke from the workshop, but his blue eyes blazed. They started down the alley, only Ellie found it too painful and had to stop.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I hurt my leg.’

  ‘Come on,’ Seth said, putting his arm round her. She leaned on him as they ran. It still hurt, but not quite so badly.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Seth asked.

  ‘Back to where we first met. I have a plan. And it involves you.’

  The sea looked unsettled below the light of the moon. Ellie saw the sea wall, nestled beneath a row of abandoned, overhanging buildings. And there, near-drowned by the rising tide, was the Chapel of St Bartholomew, its roof still sagging from the imprint of the whale, the four gargoyles sitting at each corner. Just as Ellie remembered, one whale-shaped gargoyle was bent at an angle, its base cracked from where the actual whale had pressed against it.

  They hurried down the steps, pausing to pick up a length of thick, discarded rope, which Ellie hung round her shoulder. They stopped on the sea wall.

  ‘I need a boat,’ Ellie said, looking down at the sea. She remembered there being three the day she’d rescued Seth from the whale, but now there were just three mooring ropes. She cursed.

  ‘They’ll follow us here, Ellie,’ said Seth.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m counting on it.’

  ‘Ellie, what’s –’

  Ellie fell to her knees, as a new and terrible pain stabbed at her ribcage from the inside. She screamed.

  ‘Ellie!’ Seth cried, holding her close. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  Something was inside her. Her chest was expanding out of rhythm with her breathing, like something was trying to break out of her. Her body crunched and scraped as she moved her muscles.

  ‘I can feel it,’ she said. ‘I’m so cold.’

  Seth gripped her more tightly, rubbing her arm with his hand.

  Ellie shook her head. ‘The cold’s inside me. It’s the Enemy. It’s almost ready.’

  Seth helped her to her feet. ‘Come on, what’s your plan?’

  ‘I need something that floats.’

  He looked around. ‘What about that?’

  Ellie glanced at where he was pointing – a ruined house, with a rotten door attached by a single rusty hinge. She nodded, and Seth ripped it free with a sharp breath.

  The shouting in the streets grew nearer.

>   ‘Let’s get this to the chapel,’ said Ellie. They carried the door to the edge of the sea wall. Seth dropped down on to the chapel roof, and Ellie eased the door after him, then lowered herself down too. She hobbled over to the far corner of the chapel roof, inspecting the whale-shaped gargoyle.

  ‘Ellie, there are people coming,’ said Seth, his voice low. ‘Castion, and the Inquisitors. Tie yourself to something – when he gets close I’ll hit them with a wave.’

  ‘No,’ said Ellie firmly. ‘It’s all part of the plan.’

  She dug her penknife into the crumbled base of the whale-gargoyle, using it like a lever. The stone creaked. She pocketed her knife, tied one end of the rope into a loop, then slung it round the gargoyle.

  ‘Ellie, why not use this one?’ said Seth, pointing to an eagle at the other corner. ‘It looks much sturdier.’

  Ellie shook her head. ‘I don’t want it to be sturdy. I need it to fall into the sea, and pull me down with it.’

  Seth’s eyes went wide in horror. ‘What? Why?’

  Ellie risked a look up at the City above. ‘I need the Inquisitors to see me drown.’

  Seth gripped her hand tightly. ‘Ellie, you can’t.’

  ‘I’m not actually going to drown,’ said Ellie. ‘You’re going to rescue me. You’re going to move the sea, and me with it. Just like you did with that shark.’

  Seth stared at her, his lips going pale. ‘What if I lose control?’

  ‘You can do it, Seth, I know you can,’ she said. She shrugged off her coat and laid it in his hands. ‘There’s a ruined observatory a little way east of here,’ she said. ‘If you could try and get me close to it that would be great. Once you’ve done that, you have to get away from the Inquisitors. They may still hunt you, even though they know you’re not the Vessel. Head to my second workshop. I’ll find you there.’

  ‘But what about the Enemy?’

  Ellie’s chest squirmed again. She pressed it with her hand. ‘I think I know how to beat it now. I need to take away its power. I need to separate it from my brother.’

  ‘ELLIE!’

  She turned. Castion was on the sea wall now, striding towards her with ten or more Inquisitors, and Hargrath staggering behind. Ellie slid the door to the edge of the roof, juddering it across the tiles. Fingers trembling, she tied the other end of the rope to the door handle. With a groan of effort she heaved the door into the water, where it bobbed like a raft.