Black & Mist

by Thomas J. Radford

  The sooner we are quit of this place the better, Quill thought. The captain would see the sense of it, he need only convince Vaughn. Or if need be, drag the fool woman kicking and screaming back to the ship.

  He wished she would kick and scream. She had been different since the painted one’s death. The mad one. Quill rather missed Piper. He had seen less of the feral rat when the bald man had been alive.

  At least the rodent was back aboard the ship, Quill conceded, casting a wistful look back towards the dock. That way was filled with people, the mindless hordes that filled this planet. If not for Vaughn and the girl, he would have gladly have stayed aboard the ship. To say nothing of the Korrigan accompanying them.

  “What?” Jack belched at him, a noxious cloud emerging from the sailor’s mouth. At least Quill resolutely chose to believe the stench was from that orifice. The alternative was even less palatable.

  “We are close, yes?” Quill said, watching the girl scurrying ahead of them. She moved swiftly through the crowd, a leaf in the wind, with as much sense of direction. Could she not keep still? How was he supposed to watch her when she didn’t know herself what she was doing?

  Quill sighed. Jack plodded ahead of him, upwind, sadly. The Korrigan seemed to have a destination in mind and the crowds did part for him. If not, he parted them anyway. It was a redeeming feature, if a slight one. With luck both Korrigan and Kitsune would arrive at the same destination. The former was much easier to track.

  Quill turned his attention to the crowd. It was a considerable task. Quill would not have wasted many supplications on it, but there was yet a chance they would encounter Vaughn on their brief journey. There would be a brief scene, outrage on her part, then they could all return to the ship together. An efficient ending. Quill was an admirer of efficiency.

  “What?” Jack repeated again, this time with genuine annoyance in his tone. Quill ignored him, having stopped in the middle of the street. The cow-eyed traffic continued to move around him. Some pulled away in alarm at the charged air around him, others reacted with more open hostility.

  He took a step towards what he’d seen, towards a side street. Dimly he heard Jack make a sound of disgust and move away. He paid the Korrigan no heed. Was he right? Had he seen what he’d seen?

  There were few Kelpies in this arm of the Lanes. It was far from home and the weather was interminable. Scale rot from damp quarters could take those who knew no better. Not many would choose the life Quill had taken upon himself. But then there were few like him left, those unable to return home. The old ways were not looked upon kindly.

  It was something he had in common with the girl, an inability to go home. An unpleasant thought, one Quill pushed out of his mind. The new ways, a sycophantic cult that had taken root in recent generations, was to blame for his exile. His and those like him, though it had been an age since Quill could remember crossing paths with another who shared his views. No matter though. Crossing paths with one who did not share his view could be just as gratifying.

  He was sure of it now as he trailed the other Kelpie. The one he had glimpsed was familiar to him. It was not just the infuriating swagger, the ritual beads that spoke of investiture in the heretical new gods. Quill remembered this one stepping aboard the Tantamount.

  It was difficult for Quill to tell most individuals from one another, a concession he was willing to admit that the Tantamount’s irregular roster aided him in. A Kitsune, a Korrigan, a scarecrow for a captain, a fat one for a cook. And a bug. The tattoos and markings most of the crew were partial to made it simpler, as good as brandings on livestock. But with one of own his people Quill had no such difficulty, much. Scutes or bony plates, the patterning of scales, such obvious differences. Quill shook his head at the minute discrepancies many humanoid races used to tell one another apart. Madness.

  He recalled this one coming aboard, a boarding in fact. Accompanied by others of their kind and Quill’s own ill-advised confrontation with them. He regretted it now, needless and stupid. However justifiable one’s cause, there was little sense in begetting a losing battle.

  This time will be different though, he told himself as he trailed the heretic Kelpie. There was none other that he could see, this one was alone. How very foolish. But perhaps there was little choice in the matter. After all, the Kelpie crew who had boarded the Tantamount had sailed the Killing Loneliness, a privateer in service to the Alliance at the time. Most of whom had likely perished with their ship, a memory that brought a smile to Quill’s maw. Never before had he witnessed such total destruction of another vessel. Had it been any other crew he would even have pitied them.

  He continued to follow the other Kelpie through the twisting alleyways of Vice’s trade quarter, keeping well back in the milling crowds. With a clear focus they no longer recoiled from Quill as he kept the outward effects of his thaumatics tightly controlled. Quill was unsure of his own intentions as yet, only that the one he was following was important. Too coincidental, the discovery of the signaller aboard the Tantamount and the sightings the girl had reported. And now a survivor from their own misfortunate entanglement with the Alliance. But perhaps he could put an end to that.

  Their trek took them south of the trade quarter to the Rises, where the ground began to slope upward into rolling hills. Not the vast mountains found underneath the flat world but a more forgiving gradient, the kind wealthy factions and families liked to build upon to survey their vista. Only on Vice, the Rises served a different purpose, a way-station.

  Not a destination or even a point, more a ferry terminal. The tightly packed alleys and corridors that made up most of urban Vice gave way to a more open expanse, and if one looked up, the reason was obvious.

  Sky moorings, piers, buoys, and even small docks filled the skyline. Vice was an unnatural world, flat and almost disc-shaped, but that world had been pushed further beyond the natural boundaries by the mining of ether. Tethered to the earth by massive chains and cables at the edge of the planet’s own envelope, the floating marina provided a secondary port for all manner of vessels. For those that did not require the facilities of an actual port, who had no need to shift large amounts of cargo to or from their ships, the sky loft was a cost-saving measure. For some ships, whose sheer size or design prevented them entering into the waterborne areas, it was a necessity.

  “Damn them all to the black,” Quill uttered when he saw it. He knew now where the other Kelpie was going. Even at the great height it was docked at, the Mangonel Falling stood out against all the other ships. Massive and garish with its Alliance colours, pennons, and brightwork, a blunt statement of authority.

  Seeing it answered several questions. He should have guessed, sooner, before the answer beat him over the head like this. The Alliance survivors from Rim were here. Almost certainly for them. To believe otherwise was to stretch the possibility of coincidence.

  Inconceivable.

  Quill cast a last, regretful look at his almost-target, then froze. His quarry had continued their journey to one of the ferry craft, one manned by Alliance sailors in crisp white uniforms. Uniforms that were as yet unaware of him.

  Quill began to curse, then abandoned the effort as wasteful. Not as clever nor as subtle as he had thought himself. He turned to go and found his way blocked. But not by white-clad sailors. By three more of his own kind, the middle one he most certainly did recognise.

  “How predictable.” Vaughn’s former captain shook her head with a sigh.

  “You,” Quill’s eyes narrowed at her.

  “Me,” Heathen said. She gestured to her two subordinates. “Restrain him.”

  QUILL HAD NO intention of being restrained. As the two lackeys reached for him, he relaxed his own restraint, letting the power he normally used to propel the Tantamount bleed through his being. The moment one reached out to touch him that power rushed into them. The Kelpie jerked their hand back in pain, cursing. The other was wearing leather gloves, gloves that Quill then felt as his head was snapped back. H
e fell to the ground hard.

  More blows fell, with tails thrown in. Quill curled into a ball, shielding his head. And lashed out with his own tail, taking one of his assailants down. He grabbed for the other’s legs and pulled hard, bringing them down on top of himself. Then it was a mess of limbs and teeth as they both fought to climb back to their feet. Only Quill did so, panting but grinning at the twitching body kicking up dust. There were good reasons not to pick fights with thaumatics. One did not wrestle lightning.

  “Amusing,” a voice interrupted his gloating.

  Quill wiped at his mouth with the back of one hand. It came away with a smear of blood. He could both smell and taste it in his mouth too, overpowering both senses. Heathen appeared unmoved by the failed attempt at capture but neither did she make any move to approach him. The scuffle had gone unremarked upon by anyone else, the Vice community sense of deliberate disinterest hard at work.

  “You don’t have much time,” Heathen said. “Neither are you helping yourself.”

  “I need no advice from the likes of you,” Quill retorted. He gestured and a nearby barrel flew through the air towards Heathen. She barely lifted her hand and that same barrel disintegrated into a storm of splinters. The cloud ended abruptly against an invisible wall, turning back on itself before settling to the ground.

  Damn her.

  Heathen had no need to fear his abilities, he realised. She was by far the more powerful thaumatic, likely capable of collapsing any of the nearby buildings onto him if she was of a mind. Her powers outstripped his by a measure not worth thinking about, he’d seen so first-hand.

  “Be still, fool.” She advanced a step now, angry. “You are wasting your efforts.”

  We will see, Quill thought. He reached out, casting his net wider and grabbing whatever he could see. Carts, barrels. Doors ripped off their hinges, windowed shutters and large rocks, any inanimate object he could grasp within two dozen feet he took and hurled at her. The suddenness and the complexity of the effort staggered and dropped him to his knees; the shockwave that shook the square knocked him onto his back.

  When he lifted his head, he saw Heathen bearing down on him. The air around her was alive with electricity, bolts thicker than his wrist wreathed her body in blue. He saw them fade away, a massive effort he could read on her face as that maelstrom was quickly tempered.

  Powerful and controlled. He was beyond outmatched.

  He heard groans from nearby. Her two underlings thrown about as he was. Sitting up revealed wisps of smoke drifting upwards, scorch marks blackening the ground in the radius around Heathen. A crack in a wall, falling timbers. If not for that control she might have levelled the area.

  “They are done waiting,” she said to him, standing just a few feet away. “They are coming for Vaughn, for your ship, for the girl.”

  “What girl?” Quill growled at her, forcing himself back to his feet. The ground underneath felt unsteady, shifting and swaying. The whole world was moving in fact.

  “The girl was the last thing she saw. The Guild does not forget, outcast. That much you should understand. And the Guild does not forgive.”

  Quill frowned. The Guild?

  Scarlett?

  Now he took a step towards Heathen, causing the woman to actually halt her own advance on him. He raised a hand towards her, was almost surprised to see it crackle blue and white.

  “Stand down, outcast,” Heathen warned.

  “No.” Quill took another step towards her. He could feel the air starting to thicken around them as she raised her own power, partially relaxing that iron control. He forged onward, one hand thrust ahead of himself, cutting through the knotted currents she was raising.

  “This is not about you, you misguided idiot,” Heathen raised her voice. “Do not test me!”

  “You will not have them,” Quill said, hearing his own voice climb higher and higher. “You will not have my ship,” he took another step forward. “You will not have my skipper.”

  Only a few feet from Heathen now. Another step and she would be close enough. There was something in her eyes. Anger? Disbelief?

  He reached out for her. “And you will never come near the girl!”

  Inches to go, what would have been the end of it, a dark hand reached out and closed around his arm. He couldn’t move, didn’t understand. Then he was hoisted off his feet, held dangling in the air by something immeasurably strong and unyielding. All that energy, all the righteous anger, boiled away, absorbed into the cold hand holding him.

  Quill found himself face to face with eyes that burned red, set into a black canvas.

  No . . .

  “You fool,” Heathen whispered in a tone he didn’t understand.

  The obsidian golem hurled Quill away like a child. He barely felt the impact, too stunned by its appearance. When his body came to a stop he was staring skyward.

  Up at sky moorings. Where the Mangonel Falling and others floated above them.

  Quill managed to raise his head. He could see the golem striding towards him on legs the size of tree trunks. Its shadow was already touching him. Quill dropped his head against the ground, staring back at the sky.

  You will not have them.

  Quill reached for them, distant as they were, pulling, pulling them down towards them. It was further than he had ever tried to draw something from. But he could feel the ether in the hulls and keels of those ships, that which floated the moorings. It was a delicate balance that kept them between tethered and falling. He seized on one of the chains, the nearest to him, tethered to a merchantman’s buoy. He pulled, drawing it down towards himself. Towards all of them.

  “What are you doing?” Heathen demanded, alarm filling her voice for the first time. That sound spurred him on. A few moments more and there would be no stopping it. The ship would fall. On all of them. If he did this, he would not survive it. The thought hurt, not at the thought of dying, but of the pain from laughing. He could feel the tremor in the ground as the golem took another step towards him. Not much time now.

  The memory of a dying crew mate came to him. A life given for the ship and all the souls aboard her. A promise asked. A promise given.

  I promised.

  A promise was sacred.

  Then someone took a hold of his power, directly grabbing the currents he had latched to the tether chain. He had never felt the like before. He saw Heathen almost incandescent with her own power as she grappled with the invisible forces, forces that he had thrown everything into, built up beyond anything he had a right to expect and now had nowhere to go. Heathen found a new direction for them, straight into the ground between the two of them.

  The golem was between Heathen and the shockwave that resulted. Quill had no such shield and was thrown again. He retained enough of his wits and some faint reserves to soften an impact that would otherwise have shattered his spine. He found himself in the alleyway leading to the ferry station. Above him, the tethered ship tilted on the brink. It might yet come down upon the Rises. He could feel the stirrings again, Heathen acting to prevent just that. Somehow he found his feet.

  They were coming.

  THE WOMAN ROLLED her shoulders, letting out a shallow breath as the scalping artist applied damp strips of seaweed to her back. A little something to help close the wounds but the salt present in the plant would also make them scar. Nel could see patterns up and down the woman’s forearms, shiny pink and white raised scar tissue. Not her first time. From the expression on her face she might even enjoy it.

  “Do you recognise me, Vaughn?” she asked, waving the man off, leaving them alone, the three of them. “Do you know who I am?”

  Nel shrugged. “Can’t say as I do. Memory like a guppy, never was good with faces.”

  “Chanel Vaughn,” the woman spoke her name. “I remember your name, remember it well. How does it feel to have such a prestigious name, sailor? Does it bear down on you? Do your shoulders tremble under the weight?”

  “It’s the Free Lanes. Nob
ody gives a damn what you call yourself.”

  A smile, like it was the right thing to say. “My name,” the mouth behind the smile said, “is Aristeia Quinn.”

  “Funny. Heard you earned yourself another name. Right scary one, at that.”

  The smile vanished. “As first mate aboard the Fata Morgana, I sail under Arlin Raines, Guildsman, the Seven-Tailed Fox. Do you recognise that name?”

  Nel ground her teeth together, could feel her heel digging into the dirt beneath her. Too many names, too much information, too many pieces falling into place. And that damned grinning Luscan.

  Never going to complain about Kelpies again. Something tells me I’ve a new crux.

  “Let me be blunt here, Chanel,” Aristeia Quinn said. “Skipper to skipper. You bore me. Your pathetic ship and your insipid crew bore me. People have an interest in you; we followed you, we watched you. You might be the death of us all. Why you chose a life on the coattails of civilisation, in these backwater Lanes . . .”

  “How long?” Nel asked, looking from one to the other. The mocking smiles of predators. How in the hells had she walked right into this?

  “Port Border,” Mors answered her. “Someone brought you to our attention. Been helping us ever since. And you never noticed.”

  Damned Luscans . . . who? Who is the damned traitor on my ship? By the end of the day a neck is going to be wrung, black help me.

  Assuming she lived through the next few minutes.

  “For all the good that did us.” Aristeia pulled her shirt up over her shoulders, a light cotton affair, one already damp with salt and blood. “Follow you, was our orders. Watch, observe, wait. For nothing. If we hadn’t learned you were bound for Vice, the crew might have mutinied. An ice run. I can’t think of anything more boring or mundane but at least you gave us a port worth stepping ashore in.”