Black & Mist

by Thomas J. Radford

“What do you mean?” Nel asked. “Seen what?”

  “Been in the fog, ain’t he?”

  “What do you know about it, Hounds?”

  “Vintage. I was there. Whole place was struck down by the fog.”

  “Whole place was struck down,” Nel said. “But not by the fog.”

  Hounds nodded. “So you do know it.”

  “I was there. Ain’t called Vintage no more. Not after.”

  “Aye, it ain’t, and so was I. There, I mean.”

  “Really,” Nel growled.

  “Did my service, that was part of it. Must be, what, five years now? Since.”

  Nel shrugged, not wanting to speak. Not trusting.

  “Captain’s a good man.” So much for not speaking.

  “Don’t doubt it,” Hounds said. “What happened out there was wrong, Vaughn. I saw what happened.”

  “I was on her,” Nel muttered darkly, hating the words. “Second mate. Women who did for Vintage . . . she were my captain.”

  Was. Was my captain.

  “Ah,” Hounds said. “Thought that might be. And the captain? Our captain, I mean.”

  “Born and raised on Vintage.”

  “Now that’s a sorrow, truly.”

  “You can’t catch what he’s got, Hounds,” Nel warned her sharply. “And I hear any talk otherwise—”

  “I know you can’t,” Hounds interrupted her. “Said I was there, didn’t I? Fog and mist, same thing ain’t they? All around us out here but not meant to be down in the dirt. Does weird things to a person. Hells, brass and braids figuring that much out was the only good thing to come of that day.”

  “Come too late.”

  “Always does, don’t it. Braids don’t keep time.”

  Nel stared at her, suspicious. Couldn’t forget what happened at Vintage, not with the captain around to remind her. A living reminder to her.

  “Fog ain’t like mist,” she said to Hounds. “It’s something else.”

  “What then? And from where?”

  “Don’t know. But mist, been out in it. Myself. Mist didn’t do nothing to my captain.”

  “Wasn’t always your captain though, was he? When’d you sign on with him?” Hounds asked.

  “After,” Nel said.

  “Was he already starting to show? Back then?”

  “Got a rule on the Tantamount, Hounds,” Nel said. “Past don’t matter. Don’t care about who you were before you stepped on here. So don’t ask.”

  “Captain is the captain,” Hounds nodded agreeably. “I get that, I do, Vaughn. Got no problem on my end. Only Denzel and I have had our run of bad captains. Just wanting you to know I ain’t pulling with my eyes shut.”

  “I like you, Hounds,” Nel said. “So far. Much as I like anyone. Don’t make me regret hiring you.”

  “So long as the captain is the captain and you’re the skipper we’re square rigged, you and I, Vaughn,” Hounds said. “And to be fair, if I’m getting paid I don’t care much beyond that.”

  Nel reached over and flipped the sand timer. “Call the bells, Hounds. Your watch is over. Go get your drink.”

  “Aye, aye, Skipper.” Hounds saluted as she took her leave.

  It was an Alliance salute, one the marines favoured. Odd how it hadn’t bothered her until now.

  ONE OF THE more innocuous changes to the Tantamount since they’d passed through Port Border had been to her armament. Gone were the cast iron and smooth bore cannons, pitiful though they had seemed the last time they’d been pressed into action. The weapons had been pawned at their previous stop, most likely due to be melted down for scrap and slag according to Jack, replaced instead by the even less intimidating wand batteries.

  Violet did not care for them. They were made from bronze and mounted on a pedestal that twisted and swivelled, though the bracket locked at just under a half circle to ensure it couldn’t be pointed directly back at the ship. Both “cannon” and mounting required a great deal of polish and grease, the cannon so it wouldn’t corrode and the mounting so it wouldn’t lock up. Polish and grease were two mutually exclusive conditions, or so Violet had become convinced since it was her job to maintain the armament. And in the cold and ice creeping aboard the ship they required double the maintenance.

  For now, she sat perched on the ship’s railing, legs hooked under her for balance, wiping in vain at grease-stained hands with an already grease-stained rag while the captain talked. He was trying to justify the transition. In part, just to himself. In part, so he didn’t have to be out on the ice.

  “Compressed thaumatics, my dear, way of the future. Nothing like archaic powder. Alchemical contraptions, confounded things. Never liked them, far too noisy. Outdated.

  “See this here?” The captain pointed to a series of ridges and a metal circle at the firing end. “Three point sighting system. Marvellous. Could put a broadside through a porthole with this. So I was told. Must test it. Fires faster too, like all thaumatics. Oversized wands really. Wand weaponry. Must be a name for it, can’t recall it for the life of me. Smaller, faster, less likely to send a cannonball through the galley. Gabbi never did forget that. Terrible tragedy. Waste of good soup. But there’s always a cost. A price. A downside. No more cannonballs now.”

  He tossed a smooth, rounded crystal in Violet’s direction. The condensed thaumatic crystal that powered the new cannon. Like an upscaled version of what was locked in the armoury or what the skipper kept in her cabin. Violet caught it, despite her greased hands.

  “They get hot,” the captain explained, gesturing with his hands. “Volatile, explosive. Boom!” He jerked his hands apart sharply.

  Violet looked at the shard of crystal in her hand. It was barely warm. “Boom?” she expressed her dubiousness.

  “Boom,” the captain nodded. “A very big boom, my dear girl. Very big indeed. One must be careful, very much so.”

  “So isn’t this dangerous to have aboard? Couldn’t it go . . . boom?”

  “It could, it might, it has, it will. But no more so than black powder. There are always risks, always, nature of the job, part of the fun. But thaumatic crystals take up less space than powder kegs and shot. A barrel here is a coin there, another successful trip, another hot meal. A girl needs to eat, Violet. We all need to eat.”

  “And one barrel makes a difference . . .” Violet shook her head, biting off her next words. Yes, it did. She knew it did. She’d seen the ledgers with all their squiggly lines and numbers. The skipper had explained it. They were running close to the red, as it were. Red was bad. They were broke. It all mattered. It all counted, or would count if there were anything to count at the end of it. There needed to be counting, as the captain would say.

  Violet shook her head. The inside of it was starting to sound like the captain. The thought made her smile ruefully. It could be worse. They had work now.

  “Violet,” the captain called to her. Violet’s eyes came up to find him looking at her. “What are you doing in my cabin?”

  “This isn’t your cabin, Captain,” she said.

  “It isn’t?” The captain did a slow spin, taking in the open deck of the Tantamount. The confusion in his bearing made Violet drop her head, unable to watch.

  Captain gets confused.

  “Ah, well, I must have come to see you then.” Horatio focused back on her. He smiled inexplicably, as if pleased with this outcome. “Violet, yes?”

  “Captain?” Violet frowned, confused.

  “Careful with that, my dear, volatile, you know.”

  “Aye, sir. Steady as she goes.”

  “Capital. I’ve been thinking, Violet.” The captain twirled his finger towards the sky for emphasis.

  “Sir?”

  “About you, Violet. And your place aboard this ship.”

  “Captain?” Violet felt the first trace of alarm.

  The captain began to pace in front of her. “We’ve lost people in my time as Captain. Not just recently, it’s been a long run. A lot of people, Violet. A lot of
good people. Some not so good and some who I wish had gone sooner. But none I wished ill.”

  Violet’s hand went to her shoulder. The new tattoo felt hot and itchy under its wrapping.

  “It bothers me, Violet.” The captain stopped his pacing, hands clasped behind his back, facing her. His head came up, eyes distant and glassy. “It bothers me greatly to lose people. The idea that people, my people, people under my protection would be hurt. Have been hurt, lost . . . gone.

  “I like,” the captain started his pacing again, “to tell myself that I am not a captain who would . . . leave people behind. Not one who would give up on his someone. That is the kind of captain I want to be. That is the kind of man I want to be remembered as. But then . . . have you met the crew? Inordinately unrestrained bunch. Despicable even, some of them. Miserable, miserly.” The captain plucked his hat off, letting his hair waft freely in the faint breeze while he held it to his chest. He smiled as he spoke. “Loyal, generous even. Perhaps to a fault? Is generosity a fault? Nel would say so. Says so all the time in fact.”

  “Captain?” Violet chanced an interruption, swallowing the lump in her throat. It felt intrusive to listen. Like she ought to leave.

  “I adore my crew, Violet,” Horatio’s voice was quiet. “Like the family I left behind. My daughter . . . daughters. The idea of . . . losing them, there are no words, Violet. Sometimes I forget. And then . . . I remember. It is like losing them all over again. I would not wish it upon anyone. I would do anything, anything, to prevent it from happening again.”

  Horatio smiled. That sad smile, when all of him was there. Memories.

  “I walked into the fire for them, so Nel tells me. Yet . . . it wasn’t enough, was it? Fire on the Tantamount, now that truly does scare me. Hopefully it never comes to that. Not again . . . because I like to think . . . I tell myself . . . would I truly?”

  “I think you would, Captain,” Violet told him, whisper quiet.

  “That’s very kind of you to say, Violet, but the truth of it is I have Nel to do those sorts of things. The heroics. They don’t go so well if I have to do them. Not the heroic type, myself. Nel is, was born to it. A parent would be proud.”

  “She gets it from you,” Violet told him.

  “Well,” the captain puffed out his chest at the praise, settling his hat back on his head, “one would like to think so. I hired the woman, surely I can take some credit for that.”

  “Never did hear that story, Captain,” Violet said. “About how the skipper came to be the skipper. Nor how Quill got to be here. Don’t neither of them like to tell it.”

  The captain looked amused. “And what do we tell people about how you came to be here, my dear?”

  “Mostly lies, Captain. Truth don’t make for the best story.”

  “Except when it does, of course. I see you side-tracking me here.”

  “Just don’t wanna spit and polish no more, Captain.” Violet held up her grimy hands as proof.

  “You do seem to have worn them down.” The captain leaned in to inspect. “Rather filthy, in fact, what a shame. I had a present for you.”

  “A present?” Violet perked up.

  “Yes, but you have grease on your hands. It wouldn’t go well,” the captain fussed.

  “They’re clean!” Violet insisted, holding one hand up as evidence.

  “Which is more than one can say for your breeches, young lady,” the captain said.

  “It’s good for them.” Violet slapped her thigh, surreptitiously wiping another smear off her good hand. “Stops them tearing, keeps the ice off.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Everybody knows that, Captain.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You making fun of me, Captain?”

  “Never!” The captain reached into his coat, buffing the present on his sleeve before holding it out. Held careful in such a way that Violet couldn’t make out what it was. No matter which way she twisted and turned.

  “When you first came aboard, my dear, I believe you had little more to your name than the clothes on your back.” He looked at her critically. “And since then you have added a good layer of tar. And a tail.”

  Violet grinned, swatting the air behind her with the twin appendages.

  “Yes, one cannot forget the tail. Very awkward if one does. But it seems to me that a girl should have more possessions than the bare necessities. Not much, mind you—frugality and minimalism are traits to be admired aboard a ship. But it occurs to me that I have too many possessions, whereas you have none. This seems a great imbalance to me. I believe I should do something about it.”

  “What is that?” Violet leaned from side to side, still trying to see.

  “It,” the captain said through a wide grin, “is timeless. It is magical, a masterful contraption of exquisiteness. An encapsulation of our lives. This, my dearest Violet, is what we are.”

  The captain opened his hands, holding his prize out on flat palms.

  It was a water globe, a miniature scene encased within a glass sphere. A tiny model ship, complete with sails and rigging. And it wasn’t water that the ship floated on, Violet realised. The medium was mist, black and wispy. There was no base to the sphere, it rolled on the palms of the captain’s hands but the ship stayed upright, barely listing. It must have ether set into the tiny hull, just like the Tantamount.

  “Hold it,” the captain winked, passing over the sphere.

  Violet held it, not like the captain had but between the fingers of both hands, staring at the ship intently. No matter which way she turned the globe, the vessel stayed upright. In addition to the ether in the ship and the mist contained inside, she realised there were tiny flakes, mere shavings of ether floating in the mist. And what she’d first taken to be dust or impurities in the glass was still more of the substance in the sphere itself. The ship inside was suspended between all the swirling currents this created.

  “This,” Horatio touched his finger to the globe, tracing a line up from the bow of the model ship, “now this once belonged to my daughter. A precocious girl, much like yourself. She’d stare at it for hours, trying to get the ship out, I believe. Whenever she held it, the mist would turn into a storm, tossing the ship to and fro. I never did know why that happened, but it was only when she held it. Never worked for me, no matter how much I shook it.”

  The captain smiled, lost in the memory for a moment. He sighed. “She . . . well, she outgrew it, I suppose. Left it behind one day, as children do. But I still carry it around. Helps me remember . . . things. Who I am, who I used to be. And it’s pretty to look at and better that than sitting on some dusty shelf somewhere or buried at the bottom of a chest.”

  “So,” Violet considered what the captain was saying, “can I keep it?”

  “You,” he said, “may borrow it.” The captain twirled his finger theatrically. “And one day you may give it back to me. Or you may give it to someone else. Perhaps that will be the way of it. But for now, Violet, yes, you may keep it. As a token gesture of what you mean to me, my dear. And how very much we all hope you stay with us.”

  Violet threw her arms around the captain, hugging him tight.

  “Ah, yes, well then,” the captain grinned sheepishly. He seemed a bit embarrassed by her affection. “Perhaps you can remind me where my cabin is now. Damnably cold out here, isn’t it?”

  NIGHT WASN’T PROPER night when you had snow. Damned stuff caught the sun and stored it, then went on to add the moon and stars at night until it practically glowed when it ought to be dark. Made sleeping impossible. At least that was the theory the foreman of the Glassy Run had concocted. With a lot of time to himself and only Draugr for company, he had more time than he liked for thinking.

  Thinking wasn’t an honest working man’s pastime. It was for scholars and bearded types, philosophers who went around battling each other from across town squares in booming proclamations about the whats and whys of the worlds.

  That he’d come to c
onsider what was and what wasn’t an acceptable definition of night said he’d been out on the ice for far too long. Night was meant to be when the sun went down and things got dark, only when the sun went down on the Glassy Run it didn’t get dark. Maddening.

  This would be his last winter on the Run, the foreman resolved. Some other fool could take over for the next cutting season. The cutting was the worst part. Much of it was done at night, particularly on still nights like tonight, when the ice was thickest. His team of Draugr, brilliant conversationalists one and all, had been scraping the snow off the surface of the run. Several were waiting nearby, harnessed to the plough, a pair of parallel blades fixed to a harness for more uniform blocks. All the harnessed Draugr were wearing cork shoes, a necessity for when they would soon have to drag the heavy cutter across the ice.

  Lonely, miserable work, the foreman thought again. But that last ship had cleared out the storehouses and they needed refilling. It didn’t feel like it at present but a cold winter was a good thing. A warm winter could waste an entire year of trade.

  “Enough slacking,” the foreman called. “Start the cutting.”

  Nothing happened. The Draugr who’d been doing the scraping stood motionless on the other side of the river, clutching their brooms. The foreman cursed and reached for the whistle around his neck with numb fingers. Of course nothing was happening. Draugr wouldn’t do squat without being told to squat the right way.

  He blew on the whistle, harder than he ought with lips so chapped from the frost they felt like to bleed. His last season for sure, one way or the next. Yet still there was no response from the cutters.

  “What’s wrong with you miserable layabouts?”

  The foreman turned around, still treading carefully despite his spiked shoes.

  There was a golem on the ice, if that was what it was. The foreman couldn’t think of what else it might be, couldn’t think of anything else that hulking, animated rock creature could be. All the golems he’d ever laid eyes on had been steam powered, noisy and billowing contraptions full of gears and cogs. This thing was sleek, silent, menacing. And he backed away from it as fast as he could, terrified the ice might crack under its weight at any moment. There were good reasons they used Draugr instead of golems or anything near as heavy on the ice.