Black & Mist

by Thomas J. Radford

  “Unless you want to admit that you crawled out from some sinkhole on Warren, hmm?” Nel asked.

  “No,” a shake of the head. Not much of a response.

  “One day we are going to talk about where you’re from, Vi.” Nel poked her in the ribs with the toe of her boot. Violet swatted the boot away.

  “One day,” she agreed. “When I’m older.”

  “How many tails older?” Nel asked.

  Violet held up one hand. “This many.”

  “So a while then.”

  Violet shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “How do those tails of your work anyway, lass? Seems to me we never discussed that either.”

  “They’re tails, Skipper. For swatting flies and keeping warm. How else are they supposed to work?”

  “Most folk don’t have more than one tail. Look at Quill. Just the one tail, sensible-like.”

  Violet looked upward to where Quill was hiding out. “Sensible- like.”

  “Don’t be sassy, Vi,” Nel said.

  “What can I tell you, Skipper? We get older, we get more tails.”

  “Figured some of you were just born with more.”

  “That makes no sense, Skipper.”

  “Makes sense to me. How many tails does a girl need?”

  “It’s not about need.” Violet frowned, the kind of expression that said like it was a stupid question. “Just like folk don’t need to grow beards or go grey or have their milk teeth fall out.”

  “Not sure that’s quite right there, lass.”

  “I dunno then, Skipper. Happens as we get older, that’s all.”

  “So how many years before you get your next duster?”

  “Duster?” Violet sounded offended.

  “Be good for it,” Nel said. “Clear the cobwebs out of the hold.”

  “Ain’t no cobwebs in the hold, Skipper. Spiders all froze to death.”

  “How many years, Vi?”

  Violet gave a long-suffering groan. “It ain’t like that, Skipper. Some get ‘em fast, some not so fast.”

  “So there might be some little Kitsune your age wandering out here with nine tails?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if someone had nine tails they wouldn’t be my age, would they? They’d be back home being all elderly and imparting wisdom.”

  Nel considered this. More tails means you’re older, all elder-like, but being older didn’t mean you had more tails. Made sense. Some.

  “Way I see it,” she said. “Tails are like tree rings to your lot. Fox-folk, I mean.”

  Violet looked pained. “You making fun of me, Skipper?”

  “Would I do that?”

  “Yeah, I think you would. Tree rings? Fox-folk?”

  “I’ll tell when I’m messing with you, lass,” Nel winked. “Wouldn’t want you to suffer needlessly. Wouldn’t be right.”

  Violet was about to reply when the girl caught her first sight of Vice.

  “Oh, now that ain’t right!” she said, standing up and peering through the mists that were starting to shred away. “That’s not . . . how is that even possible?”

  “Hey!” Nel called and reached out futilely. She missed her grasp by a wide margin as Violet hopped the railing, darting out to the very point of the bowsprit, holding on only lightly with her one good hand to a stay. If the girl fell there was nothing below her. She was well out to the edge of the envelope, no chance of sticking to the hull.

  “Skipper,” Violet turned back, still pointing at Vice. “How? Just how?”

  “Violet, get back here now,” Nel snapped. “If you go fall off the ship, I am not gonna be the one to jump off and get you.”

  “You jumped off for Sharpe,” Violet called, her head still on a swivel between Nel and Vice. “Twice.”

  “Second time was for Stoker,” Nel said.

  “You thought it was Sharpe.”

  “Thought no such thing. Back. Now.”

  “Fine.” Violet rolled her eyes, walking the wooden tightrope bar back to the forecastle, arms held out and swaying for balance. Nel didn’t settle until the girl was back on the right side of the railing.

  “You’re gonna turn me grey, girl,” Nel chastised her.

  “Skipper!” Violet was doing her agitated dance again. The way she got with something new. Something remarkable.

  And Nel had to concede that Vice was remarkable. In many ways it was the closest thing to the mythical and primordial flat world, though a better way to describe it would be a floating mountain.

  A continental-sized mountain, certainly, but it was no spherical world. Even Cauldron was more of a regular shape than Vice. Water tumbled off much of the circumference, the edge of the world, in great shimmering curtains, probably the largest natural waterfall in the Lanes. Rivers, lakes, and seas; all led to the edge, creating a curtain of falling water around half the world. Ships had been lost trying to ride that curtain down, a death-defying pastime that had been going on since before ships sailed the ether’s foam.

  Some of that water travelled inward, sucked under the curve of the flat world to travel back through subterranean rivers until it emerged topside from geysers or springs. But much of it evaporated, diffused inside Vice’s massive envelope, creating the mist, real waterborne mist that then mingled with the more etheric miasma, which shrouded the underside of Vice. A mist that would climb and drift back across the over-world in dense rain showers, beginning the whole self-contained cycle again. It was through that haze that the underside itself could be seen, vast inverted mountains, in effect gargantuan stalagmites. The under-mountains were said to be home to shoals of lusca and rays. Nel had heard rumours of spiders that nested underneath Vice which spun webs large enough to trap entire ships, but she’d never seen anything to make her believe such.

  Most people came to Vice not for its secrets but rather for its openness. Law wasn’t so much non-existent on Vice as selectively and loosely enforced. Short of theft and murder, there were few things that were considered crime on Vice. Sins and virtues were intermarried, often mistaken and traded for one another. Everything was available on Vice, and not always for a price. Sometimes it just required knowing who to ask.

  Even the architecture was something to behold. Impossibly high towers that reached skyward. Buildings that were more patterned curves than straight lines. Structures that would be impossible on most worlds, unable to support themselves let alone be inhabited. The core of Vice, the centre of the world, was said to be one of almost pure ether. Such a concentration prevented the world from being shaped as others were. The people of Vice had grown rich off of mining and exporting the element. Wealth and the fantastical nature of Vice itself made it a den of curiosity. The rest had evolved from there, creating the impossible spectacle that had enthralled Violet.

  And leaving Nel with the challenge of trying to explain it all to her.

  “A wizard did it.”

  Sometimes the simplest explanations were the best.

  “Skipper,” a sailor called from behind them. “Captain’s cabin, says it’s urgent.”

  And sometimes she’d rather not have one.

  “WHAT’S THIS ALL about?” Nel asked again. Urgent, he’d said. Been waiting half a bell already. And not a word as to why. “Should be out making ready for landfall, Captain.”

  “Quill requested the three of us meet. The crew will manage without us this once,” Horatio said, barely looking up as he jotted notes in his ledger. Horatio’s book was different to the ones Nel and Quill kept. Quill kept the official records of their course and heading, ports of call and destination. No erasures were permitted in the navigator’s logs because if the ship were to be charged with criminal activity they might be seized as evidence. In practice, most navigators became lax about keeping their books updated. Quill, of course, was fastidious.

  Nel’s record keeping was more important to the crew, since at the end of a run if affected their pay. She kept the records of cargo as it w
as loaded and delivered. A right pain but the captain had long since delegated it to her. There were other records that were meant to be kept, supplies and records of payment. Bills of lading. The all-important rum diary. Gabbi managed the galley with a minimum of paperwork, something Nel envied. The crew did care about when and where they were paid but thought little about the bureaucracy behind it. That came with its own set of headaches.

  It was entirely possible, Nel realised, that all the minutes and details she thought the Tantamount had managed to ignore were in fact recorded in the captain’s log. Not that it would do anyone any good. Having chanced to look over the captain’s shoulder once or twice she knew it was written in a cipher. While she might be able to guess what the code word to that cipher was—in fact she was fairly certain she did know—the laborious process of unravelling Horatio’s scrawling script did not appeal to her at all.

  “You were drinking again.”

  Snapped out of her reverie. Damnit.

  “Been on the six water. Captain.” It was hard not to feel bitter when she spoke. The crew looked to her at muster. You didn’t get put on six water for no good reason. It was reserved as a punishment for sailors. That and giving up her key sent a message to the crew. The wrong one as far as she was concerned.

  “I could smell it on your breath, Nel. The night Violet fell.”

  The captain didn’t say anything else. But then he didn’t have to.

  For once Quill saved her. The Kelpie barged in unceremoniously, a signaller bundled under one arm, himself wrapped up just as tight. He dropped the device atop the captain’s desk.

  “This,” Quill said.

  “Aw, hells,” Nel rolled her eyes. “Did we break another of the damned things?”

  “No,” Quill said while the captain reached out to examine the device. “Though I have resisted the urge to smash this one since I found it.”

  “You picking a fight with the ship now too, Loveland?” Nel shook her head. “Run out of real folk to annoy?”

  “This isn’t ours.” Horatio turned something over in his hand. “These colours are wrong.”

  “Filters,” Quill told him. “Crudely made, but sufficient.”

  “Sufficient?” Nel took it from the captain. A glass lens, crude as black iron and even more fragile. The edges were rough, fractured and sharp to the touch. She handled it gingerly, not trusting her near-frostbitten fingers to know they were cut. “For what?”

  And then she saw. Damn, but I’m slow today.

  “Alliance. These are Alliance signalling colours. Quill, where in the hells did you find this?”

  “In the crow’s nest,” Quill said. “I cannot say how long it has been like this, other than it was not so before we returned to the Free Lanes.”

  “Damnit!” Nel threw herself into a chair, biting down on her fist. The signaller lay on Horatio’s desk. Taunting her with its implications.

  “Who aboard the ship would know Alliance signals?” Horatio asked.

  “Not sure if it matters who would know,” Nel sighed. “Everyone aboard knows how to work a trader’s flash, not hard to learn a few more codes. Some of them are almost the same once you swap out the colours.”

  “You found it like this?” Horatio asked.

  Quill nodded in confirmation.

  “Careless,” Nel muttered. “We should smash it so they can’t send anymore messages. The filters at least.”

  “Indeed,” Horatio agreed. “We should, but we won’t. It would be more useful to find out who is sending messages.”

  Nel scowled, as did Quill. She was surprised the signaller had made it to the meeting intact in the Kelpie’s arms.

  “You want me to put it back,” he concluded.

  “Precisely as you found it,” Horatio said. He leaned back, folding his hands in his lap. “Do either of you have any suggestions as to who the operator might be?”

  “I do not suspect the two of you,” Quill allowed grudgingly.

  “Your faith moves me,” Nel told him.

  “I am not as generous where the rest of the crew stands,” Quill continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “It could be any one of them.”

  “What if it’s all of them, Loveland?” Nel drawled.

  “Unlikely.”

  Unlikely. So he’s not unreasonable, just cynically paranoid.

  “What were you really doing in the nest anyway, Loveland?”

  Quill opened his mouth, a barbed comment about to fly off his forked tongue. Yet he said nothing.

  “Quill?” Nel folded her arms stubbornly. She wasn’t about to let him get off this one.

  “It occurs to me that the girl’s fall may not be entirely due to her own ineptitude.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning she has had two near accidents since we left Port Border. It cannot have escaped your notice who was present both times.”

  “Meaning what? Mantid is out to get her? I was watching her on the ropes, Quill. She fell, he caught her.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps nothing, Kelpie.”

  “And yet it is in our new friend’s hideaway spot that I found this.” He pointed at his evidence.

  “Because that’s where the signaller is, damnit. Stupid, careless of whoever left it there, but at least the nest signaller makes sense.”

  “I am sure we can eliminate many of our long-standing friends from suspicion,” Horatio suggested. “That much at least we know.”

  Quill pointed at the signaller again, with its Alliance colours. “Our recent . . . troubles with their kind may have swayed the loyalty of some. Coin and fear would do the rest.”

  “You suspect Gabbi?” Nel asked him pointedly, offering up his favourite gripe. “How about Vi? Maybe she signed up to earn her citizenship. It could be her.”

  “Indeed it could.” Quill rolled his shoulders in a shrug, either not detecting or ignoring her sarcasm. “The girl is on frequent watch in the nest and has considerable access to the signaller. The cook I do not suspect because the ratlines would break under her bulk if she tried to climb them. A more likely suspect amongst our old hands is the Korrigan. He would sell out the entire ship if offered enough coin.”

  Would he? Maybe, well, Quill’s got a point, it’s Jack we’re talking about. But would he?

  “You’re not wrong, Quill,” Nel conceded. “About Jack. Maybe.”

  “So you would suspect the Korrigan over the Mantid? How interesting.”

  “Ain’t interested in what you find interesting, Quill.”

  “It seems to me we are missing something,” Horatio said. “If we have a signaller, to who are they signalling?”

  “Alliance, obviously,” Nel said.

  “Ah, yes, but where are they? We’ve seen no other ships for days. Certainly it would be difficult for our errant sailor to signal one without us also catching sight of the receiver.”

  “Violet did mention she saw something, from when she fell.”

  “A metal ship, without lights or sails,” Quill reminded them both.

  Horatio smiled, a dreamy look coming over him. “A metal ship. How remarkable. How simply marvellous.”

  “The product of a deluded mind,” Quill dismissed it.

  “Then tell me why you went up to the nest, Quill?” Nel jabbed.

  Quill snapped his jaw, again biting off his own words.

  “It seems it would be best if we kept this matter between the three of us,” Horatio decided. “Nel, is there anyone who comes to mind? Anyone you suspect?”

  “No,” Nel said truthfully, giving Quill one last glower. The Kelpie was . . . being himself. And it grated more than usual. “No one we’ve taken on has given me cause to think they might be on another payroll. There’s Hounds and her crew, the obvious suspects, but I haven’t seen anything that stands out, despite what Quill might wish.”

  “You are too trusting,” Quill told her.

  “I trust you, Loveland,” Nel replied. “Far as I can throw you.”


  Quill snorted. “That . . . is never happening again.”

  “It does seem to come back to that,” Horatio said, almost to himself. “Grange and Rim. Our finest hour, the . . . Tantamount’s . . . finest hour.”

  Nel and Quill exchanged a look. Their squabble was set aside for the moment. Quill reached for the signaller, pulling it to his chest with one arm and draping his ever-present blanket over. “I will return this device before our turncoat becomes concerned at its absence. You will find me on the bridge for the next bell if words are required.”

  “You do that. See if you can do something about that damned breach while you’re at it. We’re bleeding coin as it is.” Nel waved a hand, Quill already forgotten as he shut the door quietly behind him. “Captain?”

  Horatio turned to her, distant. “Yes, Nel?”

  “Tell me about the Tantamount,” she said. “Tell me again, why you chose that name.”

  Horatio smiled. “A good name, Tantamount. As good as what came before. As good as anything else. A good name.”

  “Tell me the story, Captain.”

  “LOOKING FOR SOMETHING, Vaughn?”

  There it was, that churn in her stomach whenever she heard her last name mentioned. Vaughn was her mother, her father, the family name. It was what marines saluted and sailors in colours called you. A name, where it stops and I begin, Chanel, my father’s angry little girl.

  Hells, am I making up for Piper not being here? Where’d all the damned poetry come from? Black take me.

  “The competition,” Nel said to Hounds, still surveying the other ships making port at Vice. “Seeing if anyone I know is making runs.”

  “You know a lot of people?” The woman put her back to the docks, leaning over the railings with one hand on a line. “How often do you run into folks you do know in this life?”

  “Less than I could and more often than I’d like,” Nel said.

  “There are a lot of lanes out there,” Hounds said. “You sail the High and Free enough you’re bound to make some friends. Useful that, having friends. I know that much, if not a lot else.”