The City of Night Neverending

by Steven Lochran

  Qorza’s smile widened into a grin as she gave a small and courteous bow. ‘Until tomorrow then, Josiah,’ she said, pulling her satchel onto her shoulder and following the captain. As Joss watched her go, a lifetime’s worth of questions cascaded through his head, all of them so tantalisingly close to being answered. And with them came also a sliver of hope, tiny but undeniable, that their journey would lead them to Edgar.

  The hull echoed with the sounds of despair. Men, women and children all wept and shook with misery. And to his shame, Edgar was one of the loudest of them all. His face ached where he’d been struck, his lip was swollen and he could taste blood. Through the pain he shed bitter tears. His nose was running and his chin wobbling, just like a frightened little boy who’d lost his mother. He felt disgusted with himself, but the emotion would not be held back.

  He still couldn’t quite understand how it had all happened. One moment he’d been running for the inn, its front door in sight, the next he’d been snatched up and carried away. The more he’d tried to resist, the angrier the pyrates had grown. Eventually, one of them had used the pommel of his machete to subdue him, smashing him so hard that he’d seen sparkly pterosaurs fluttering in the air before him. Everything had gone black after that. And then he’d woken up here, in chains. It was enough to make anyone get a little watery.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ someone gently asked him.

  Edgar looked to see a slender woman opposite him, her face lined with age and concern.

  ‘I’m sorry, I – yes, I’m – no, I mean …’

  ‘Shush now,’ she said, her manacles rattling as she placed a comforting hand on his knee. ‘Take a moment. Breathe. Everything is OK.’

  ‘But it’s not!’ Edgar replied, the words bursting from him. ‘We’re somewhere only the Sleeping King can say! Held captive by monsters who want to do with us what only the Sleeping King can know!’

  ‘Don’t you see, though,’ the woman said, ‘if they wanted us dead, we would be by now. Which can only mean we’re being held for ransom. All we need to do is keep calm and wait for rescue.’

  She said it with such certainty that Edgar believed her. Or at least he knew how much he wanted to believe her.

  ‘Wait for rescue …’ He tried to ignore the doubt that was not only flickering in the woman’s eyes, but clutching at his own heart as well. ‘Right.’

  The woman drew closer to him, inspected his lip. ‘My name is Lilia, by the way. I’m a physician.’ Edgar flinched at her touch as she ran her fingers lightly across the swelling, then he relaxed into it. ‘And the good news is that I don’t think you’ll be needing stitches.’

  ‘I’m Edgar.’

  ‘Pleasure to meet you,’ she said, gripping his one gloved hand, ‘despite the circumstances.’ She surprised him again with a warm smile, before a sudden clang from the front of the ship made them both jolt.

  ‘Keep quiet back there, lest I rip you from ear to rear!’ bellowed one of the pyrates, smashing his fist against the cabin wall. ‘We’ve a ways to our destination and I won’t be tolerating any racket!’

  The hostages cowered and fell into a tortured silence. Edgar could only offer Lilia a look of gratitude by way of thanks. She nodded, then settled back against the wall and closed her eyes as if in meditation. With nothing else to do, Edgar tried to follow her example. Pressing his back against the cold steel hull, he scrunched up his face and concentrated on the same few words, over and over again.

  Keep calm. Wait for rescue. Keep calm. Wait for rescue.

  If only such a thing seemed possible.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A RUMBLING STORM

  THE sun was only just creeping up into the sky as the Behemoth set sail with Joss and his brethren aboard. Their arrival at the dock had not been without its challenges. First there was Joss’s protracted farewell with Azof at the stables, with the raptor somehow sensing what was happening.

  ‘Shush now, you silly creature,’ Joss told him as he smoothed down the thunder lizard’s feathers. ‘I’ll be back before you know it, and they’ll take good care of you here in the meantime.’

  Still the raptor chittered nervously, nuzzling his snout into his master’s ear. It was enough to make Joss wish that he’d pushed Drake harder to fashion that thermal cloak. He wiped a tear from his eye. Ordinarily he might have baulked at such a show of sentimentality in front of the others, but Drake had been too busy saddling up Pietro to take any notice, while Hero proved just as syrupy in comforting Callie.

  Their farewells said and their stable fees paid up, their next complication came as they reached the docks with Pietro in tow. Captain Gyver was standing at the ship’s gangplank with a clipboard in hand. Upon seeing the massive tundra bear, her face told a tale that was short and sharp, with a dark and violent ending.

  ‘Nobody mentioned anything about any animals.’

  ‘He’s clean, tidy and well behaved. And he’s made this voyage before without incident,’ Drake quickly replied.

  ‘We’ll pay extra,’ Hero added.

  Captain Gyver eyed them with suspicion, but nevertheless relented. ‘Get him into the hold, quick as you can. I won’t have my crew tending to him. He’s your responsibility – understood?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Drake said, wasting no time in guiding Pietro up the gangplank and onto the ship. As they led the bear across the deck and down into the cargo hold, Joss kept an eye open for Qorza. There was no sign of her.

  They found Pietro’s accommodation alongside their own – three hammocks strung up in a dank corner. Deciding it was best to stay out of the way, Joss and his brethren settled in among the stacks of barrels to play a game of castes, using a crate for a table. Hero plucked the deck of cards she’d bought at the festival from her jacket pocket, shuffled them, then dealt.

  ‘Normal thunderfolk rules,’ she announced as she threw everyone their hand of six cards, one at a time. ‘One swap each and points as printed. Dealer shifts with each hand. We have no coin to wager so we’ll be playing for bragging rights instead.’

  Picking up his cards, Joss examined his hand. Castes was played with a deck that included three suits: red, blue and gold. Each suit consisted of one King, two Messengers, four Attendants, six Paladeros, eight Wardens and ten Servants. The Kings were worth ten points, the Messengers eight points, and so on down the line until all that was left were the Servants with one point each.

  Joss had only Servants.

  ‘So,’ Drake said as he sifted through his cards, ‘here we are.’

  ‘Mm,’ Hero grunted.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, finding a ship willing to sail under these conditions. But you did it,’ Drake said to Joss, getting to the point. ‘Edgar must mean a lot to you.’

  Joss tossed the card he wanted to exchange into the centre of the makeshift table.

  ‘Friends are as rare as kings,’ he said as Hero dealt the replacement cards. ‘Which makes them very valuable. And I always believed that you fight for what you value.’

  Drake glanced up from his cards and smiled ever so slightly, touched by what he’d heard or perhaps pleased with the hand he held. That left Joss to examine the new card that had landed in front of him. A Warden. He frowned. Perhaps he could still bluff his way through. He tried to concentrate.

  What am I even doing here? he asked himself as Hero went on to win the round and Drake gathered the cards to deal the next one. Somewhere out in the world, Edgar and all the people taken from Crescent Cove were in mortal peril. But even more immediately, somewhere on this ship was a woman who held answers to questions that had haunted Joss his entire life. His mind reverberated with everything he wanted to ask her, everything he wanted to know. And between those two earth-shattering concerns, here he was playing cards.

  And losing.

  ‘Attention, Prentice Sarif!’ Hero blurted in his ear, imitating a loudspeaker. ‘It’s your turn to deal.’

  ‘Oh.’ Joss collected the deck, tapping it on the crate to ma
ke sure the cards were flush. He tapped and tapped, until the deck was a perfect brick between his fingertips. And then he tapped again.

  ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, Joss, but is there somewhere else you’d prefer to be?’ asked Drake, his eyes shifting from the cards to Joss’s face.

  ‘Actually.’ Joss set the deck down. ‘There is something –’

  ‘Go,’ Hero said. She picked up the cards to shuffle them and then start dealing them between Drake and herself. ‘We can look after ourselves.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Joss asked.

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t gone already, to be honest,’ Drake replied, smiling at him. Even Hero managed a smirk as Joss hopped up and rushed for the stairs.

  Emerging onto the ship’s deck, he saw the crew hard at work, but still no sign of Qorza. ‘Excuse me.’ Joss addressed the sailor who looked the least busy. He was an older man, with leathery skin and shock white hair, his chest as round as a rum barrel. ‘Can you tell me where I could find Miss Qorza?’

  ‘Miss Qorza?’ the sailor repeated, then snorted with laughter. ‘Alonso! Did you hear that! This wee spurt is looking for Miss Qorza!’

  A second sailor dropped from the overhead rigging to join the first. ‘Miss Qorza, don’t you please! Will wonders never cease, Bernard!’

  The two sailors slapped each other on the back as they enjoyed a good laugh at Joss’s expense. Joss glowered but held his tongue. This was too short a journey to go about making enemies.

  ‘I’m sorry, lad. We don’t mean to test you none. It’s just been a leviathan’s age since anyone exchanged customs of the like around here,’ said Bernard, the first sailor, as he wiped a tear from his eye. ‘You’ll find Qorza’s quarters at the aft of the ship, right by the captain’s.’

  ‘And the aft of the ship would be …’

  Bernard stifled a chuckle and gestured to the rear deck. ‘That way, lad, that way.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Joss said, his face burning bright red. He hadn’t gone more than ten steps before he heard the two sailors burst out in another round of laughter. He turned to see them bowing and curtseying as they called each other Mister Bernard and Mister Alonso.

  Joss was relieved to disappear back inside the ship. The interiors at this end couldn’t be more different from the hold. Instead of iron struts, the walls were panelled with rich oak that had been shellacked to a blinding sheen. The passageway led to a pair of ornate doors, which featured a pair of curved, brass tentacles as their handles.

  Beside that, tucked away like an old broom cupboard, was a small room from which a warm light emanated. Approaching the open door, Joss saw a tiny cabin overstuffed with leather tomes, bottled herbs and countless toolkits and, at a table in the centre, a woman with a shaved head and her back to the door.

  ‘I was wondering how long it would take you to come find me,’ Qorza said as she filled out a large journal, the scratching of her pen sounding like a raptor with a nasty itch.

  ‘I thought maybe you’d search me out yourself,’ Joss replied, lingering in the passageway.

  ‘It can be hard, grappling with questions you’ve wanted answered your whole life. I didn’t wish to rush you,’ Qorza replied, still focused on her work. ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘My father. You said his name was Naveer …’ Joss began, poking at the tentacle doorhandles of the cabin beside Qorza’s. ‘What was my mother’s name?’

  Qorza stopped writing. She put down the pen. Her chair creaked as she turned around. ‘You mean you don’t know?’

  Joss bit his lips together and shook his head.

  ‘Isra,’ Qorza said, eyes sparkling beneath her cabin light. ‘Isra and Naveer Sarif. And they were fine people. Perhaps the finest I’ve ever known.’

  ‘How did you know them?’

  ‘Your father trained me. I was a deckhand aboard his vessel, the Seeker. He must have seen some potential in me as he took me under his wing and showed me his ways.’

  ‘His vessel?’ Joss said, seizing on what might prove something he’d always believed. ‘So he was a captain then?’

  ‘No, no,’ Qorza chortled. ‘Though to be fair, the crew respected him so much that he may as well have been. Even old Captain Melchior would more than likely have admitted to that. No, he was like me. He was the ship’s ethereon.’

  ‘Ethereon?’ Joss repeated uncertainly.

  Qorza’s face fell in what looked to be shock. But, perhaps not wanting to embarrass Joss, she simply explained: ‘Much like a wizard, though specialising in the repelling of spirits and the removal of hexes. You may have seen the runes engraved on the ship’s hull. I put those there, just as your father showed me how to when he did the same for the Seeker.’

  ‘Why would a ship need a wizard?’ Joss drifted closer to Qorza’s cabin.

  ‘The ocean is a treacherous place. I’m right in thinking that you’ve spent some time in Thunder Realm, yes?’

  ‘All my life. Ever since …’ Joss faltered. ‘Ever since that day.’

  Qorza nodded solemnly. ‘Well, much as Thunder Realm is riddled with ancient spriggan bindings, so too is the Silver Sea snared with hexcraft. To say nothing of the wraiths and wisps and sirens and changelings that haunt its waters, looking to ensorcel unsuspecting seafarers. It’s an ethereon’s duty to safeguard their ship and keep it from falling prey to such influences. And your father was one of the finest ethereons on the Silver Sea.’

  ‘I never knew …’ Joss said, venturing all the way into the cabin until he was standing by Qorza’s side. ‘I mean, I always knew he was a sailor. A captain, I thought. I remember sailing with him once when I was very young. And I remember the strange instruments he kept at home, gold and glass objects that he polished every day. I took them to be navigational tools or something like that.’

  ‘The devices of an ethereon,’ Qorza said, and reached for a nearby bag. Unbuttoned, it fell open to reveal an array of gleaming tools, each of them searingly familiar. Joss gaped as he grazed the tools with his fingertips.

  ‘Is this aurum?’

  ‘You have a keen eye,’ Qorza told him, sounding both impressed and delighted. ‘Not many people can distinguish aurum from regular gold.’

  ‘Neither could I when I first saw it,’ he replied, and reached for his sword-belt. Unsheathing the Champion’s Blade, he presented it to Qorza for inspection. ‘But others have shown enough interest that I quickly learned.’

  ‘What a remarkable weapon!’ Qorza said. ‘May I?’

  Joss nodded, offering it to her.

  ‘How tremendous!’ she breathed as she took the sword in hand. ‘I’ve heard of the weapons that paladeros offer as prizes in their ceremonial competitions, but I never realised their true significance …’

  As Qorza examined the blade, Joss cast a curious eye over her cabin. There was no bed to be seen, which left him wondering where she laid her head at night. But of more interest were the various items she’d collected. Among the wands and the bottles of blessed water, there were also needles, scalpels and what looked to be a filtered muzzle for the applying of anaesthetic.

  ‘What are all these for?’ he asked.

  Qorza looked up from the Champion’s Blade to see what Joss was enquiring about. ‘An ethereon’s role is multifaceted,’ she explained. ‘Once, a ship would have employed both an ethereon and a physician. But that was a long time ago. Now an ethereon must be as adept at setting bones and sewing wounds as they are at exorcisms and incantations. It’s demanding work, but rewarding.’

  Qorza handed back the sword. ‘I imagine you have a thousand more questions and no idea where to start,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid I have a number of duties which I must attend to right now. If you’re curious to see exactly what an ethereon does, I’ll be performing a warding ritual on the main deck tonight. You’d be most welcome to observe.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Joss replied as he slipped the Champion’s Blade back into its scabbard. ‘Thank you.’

 
Qorza beamed happily at him. ‘Then I’ll see you after dinner,’ she said. ‘Though before you go, I have a question of my own.’

  ‘Yes?’ Joss said, unsure of what someone so knowledgeable could possibly have to ask him.

  ‘Your friend and the other missing townsfolk – are you really planning to rescue them? Or were you just spinning a story that you thought the captain wanted to hear?’

  Joss didn’t have to consider his answer. ‘I’ve bent the truth a time or two. But I’ve never believed in filling people’s ears with false promises because I hoped they’d like the sound of them,’ he said, and Qorza’s eyes shimmered even brighter.

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘I hope then that you find them.’

  ‘So do I.’

  They bade each other farewell, and Qorza turned her attention back to her papers. As he left her cabin, Joss felt the first rumblings of a storm in the pit of his stomach. Their conversation had brought with it a profound sense of shame.

  To someone who’d known his parents as well as Qorza had, it must have seemed that their own son couldn’t care less about them, given how little he knew of the lives they’d led. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. And if Qorza had any doubts, then tonight would be his chance to dispel them, even as the storm clouds lingered inside him, twitching with thunder and threatening a downpour.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A CURIOUS AND UNSETTLING SIGHT

  THE morning crawled. Joss lost count of how many rounds of castes they played, and when they finally tired of that they swapped to a game of whipcrack. By then it was well past midday, Pietro was snoring in the corner, and Drake suggested having lunch up on deck.

  ‘You go ahead without me,’ Joss said. ‘I think I’ll take a nap instead.’

  ‘A nap?’ Hero repeated, totally confused by the idea. After all, naps weren’t exactly favoured in Thunder Realm. There was always far too much work to be done.