Dark the Night Descending (The Paderborn Chronicles Book 1)

by Jennifer Bresnick

  “It will take them weeks to realize something is wrong. If Faidal went to all the trouble of bringing us here, I don’t think he’ll be waiting that long to do whatever it is he wants to do to us.”

  “To you,” Megrithe reminded him. “I have nothing to do with this.”

  “You know about the counterfeit,” Arran said. “That puts you in line for some trouble, too.”

  “They wouldn’t dare. If any harm came to an inspector, the Guild would cut off the neneckt, and King Malveisin would be forced to follow suit. There would be no more trade. There wouldn’t see another penny from the whole continent.”

  “They don’t seem all that concerned with obeying the Guild’s rules, now do they?” he said, trying to find a comfortable spot to rest his head that wasn’t made of knobby stone. “Maybe if you didn’t prevent poor people from having red iron in the first place, the neneckt wouldn’t be making so much money off of faking it.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Megrithe said, drawing herself up. “That is not what we do.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “There’s only so much of it. We can’t do anything about the fact that it’s rare.”

  “So it’s all right that a duke can build his mansion from iron plates an inch thick, while the peasants don’t have so much as a fleck?”

  “Everything that is in limited supply is expensive,” she argued. “We do the people a service by ensuring that the iron that’s out there is genuine so they don’t spend their hard earned money on something that won’t even protect them. That’s important. Our job is to make sure that criminals can’t profit. People like you –”

  “People like me what?” Arran said sharply, sitting up and suddenly angry. “People who try to make an honest living and get caught up in your witch hunting? We are the problem? You ran me off my ship and out of my home. God only knows what you did to my innocent mother. You’re the one who drove me into this. I’d still be in Paderborn minding my own business if you hadn’t gotten the wrong idea to begin with.”

  “I didn’t do anything to your mother. I talked to her for an hour before leaving, and she was perfectly well. I promise.”

  “Fine,” he said, slightly mollified. “But that doesn’t excuse the rest of it.”

  “Why didn’t you look in the boxes before you took them on board?”

  “Because I was getting paid to carry them, not to inspect them.”

  “Ah,” she cried, pointing her finger at him in triumph. “You see? You are exactly part of the problem. You think you’re innocent because you didn’t want to know. But that’s not an excuse. Would you be innocent of murder if you closed your eyes while you stabbed someone?”

  “That’s not what –”

  “I should have you strung up by your thumbs as an example of what willful ignorance will get you,” she continued, ignoring him. “That will show captains to look at what goes on their ships before setting sail.”

  “All right, maybe that was not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. But it was a thousand pounds,” he countered. “And I trusted the person I thought was sending it to me. Roydin Ballard is not a smuggler. Even Godefroy knows that. And even you must admit that I couldn’t know Faidal behind it all.”

  “Perhaps,” she acknowledged.

  “I thought you weren’t going to prosecute me, anyway.”

  “I said I wasn’t going to torture you,” she countered. “That’s not the same thing.”

  “I suppose getting you out of here won’t change your mind, then?”

  “You put me in here. You’d have to do a hell of a lot more than just get me out in order to impress me.”

  “But you can be impressed?” he asked hopefully.

  “I can possibly be persuaded to put in a good word for you at your trial,” she replied, relenting just a little. “But you would have to deliver Faidal and the false ironworks.”

  “I would have to single-handedly outsmart the sovereign king of the sea and all his servants in order to get you to say something nice about me?”

  “More or less.”

  “Well. It’s a good thing my neck isn’t already on the line or anything, because that might just contribute some pressure.”

  “And I have your ship’s master in prison in Paderborn,” she added, a little sheepishly.

  “Durville? You put Durville in prison?”

  “He was being uncooperative.”

  “He didn’t know anything about it!”

  “It was supposed to be motivation for you to tell the truth. I guess it worked.”

  “And you’re the one lecturing me about morals,” he muttered.

  “I am doing my job, Mister Swinn. There’s a difference.”

  “Can you please not call me that? Everyone who calls me that wants to see my throat slit.”

  “As you wish, Mister Swinn,” she said primly, and he groaned.

  “Let’s just stop talking,” he suggested. “It’s getting dark. Someone ought to be bringing us something to eat, right? Maybe we can get some information.”

  Megrithe settled back into her place with her arms crossed and didn’t say anything else, leaving Arran to contemplate his misery in peace.

  Escaping from the underwater labyrinth of Tiaraku’s stronghold was a dubious proposition. Aside from the fact that an unaccompanied human in Emyer-Ekvori was immediately suspicious, he also didn’t know if the potion that was allowing him to breathe would wear off at some point. Even if he succeeded in escaping the cell, he would drown instantly if the drink needed to be renewed and he didn’t have access to the mixture. Drowning was every sailor’s secret fear, and he was not exempt from it. He had seen too many bloated corpses to hold onto any illusion that it was peaceful, dignified, or painless, and he would prefer to avoid it if possible.

  He had told his mother, once, what to do if he didn’t return from a journey. He hoped she would remember. There was a draft on the funds he kept with Lanning with her name on it, hidden in his old room at her house. It was enough to keep her in clover for the rest of her life, as long as she was careful. She could use that, at least, to ease her mourning, assuming she chose to indulge in such a thing.

  His gloomy thoughts lasted for the rest of the evening, uninterrupted by the bringing of food to eat or water he could drink. Megrithe was quiet, lost in her own thoughts as she stared at her hands, neatly folded in her lap.

  Her ideology might infuriate him, but he did feel sorry for her. She had stepped into a bigger battle than she had bargained for. If she felt even a little bit as lost, confused, and hopeless as he did, then she was to be pitied.

  The idea of being pitiful himself didn’t sit very well with him, and eventually he stood up to explore his surroundings a little bit more before the light completely faded. There wasn’t really a door to the pen, he decided after feeling the rock thoroughly in every place that might seem like a join. He walked around and around, Megrithe’s eyes following him without a word, examining every cranny and crumble, but soon the falling night put an end to his activities, and he felt the instinctive need to hunker down and make himself as small as possible.

  Were there Siheldi to worry about? They might not enjoy the taste of neneckt, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t hunt for the humans that lived on the island. The sea was no impediment to them – he knew that well enough. As the sun slipped away and the sparkle left the water, dragging a blanket of soggy gloom over the sea, the only thing he could do was wedge himself in the corner and try not to fall asleep.

  It was an unsuccessful experiment. Whatever drug had been coursing through his veins had left him unable to resist the pull of slumber, and at dawn he found himself curled up tightly in a hollow under the ledge where the stone met the sand.

  Peeking under his elbow, he could see that Megrithe had made herself a similar bed, taking off the jacket she wore over her dress to drape around her shoulders like a blanket. He wasn’t sure why that should be any warmer for her than keeping the garment on as int
ended, but as she was still asleep with a troubled look on her face, he wasn’t about to ask her.

  Instead, he turned over to lie on his back and stare up at the water as the sun rose. It was still astonishing to him that he could be privy to the scene at all, but on top of the vague terror that the sight brought, there was a great deal of beauty.

  He had witnessed dawn on the cold, featureless plain of the sea thousands of times, and each variation held its own allure. There was no magic about the rays of the sun reaching their fingers into the crests of the waves, lifting and tucking the fabric of his livelihood into pleasing, golden shapes. There was nothing more real, he had always thought, than the lifting of the heart when the darkness ended and the cruel demons of the night retreated under the raw power of the elemental light.

  The dawn had always brought him hope, but while the chance to experience the sunrise from under the sparkling depths was fascinating, this dawn brought him nothing but the deep, certain fear that neither he nor Megrithe would live to see the next.

  Arran sat up and tried to smooth his hair down to make himself feel presentable, but the water kept lifting it up. The sound of his muttering about it woke Megrithe, and she sat bolt upright with a little cry, as if she, too, hadn’t planned to fall asleep at all.

  “All right?” he asked when she had looked around and relaxed a little bit, remembering where she was.

  “I suppose.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” he said after a while.

  “Do I have to answer it?”

  “No, not really.”

  “All right, then.”

  “What happened to your hair?” he asked. His attempt at grooming made him realize that no woman would chop off her locks in such a severe and haphazard style unless forced to it. He didn’t expect her to blush so furiously at the question, though.

  “Someone tried to kill me,” she said quietly, a fierceness in her voice still coming through. “They did not succeed.”

  “Clearly. Why would anyone want to harm such a noble and upright person as a Guild inspector?”

  “I haven’t quite figured that out yet,” she said after glaring at him. She explained the explosion at the Guild house. “But as soon as I get back to Paderborn, someone will be paying hell for it, I assure you. Unless that someone is already here.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “I didn’t mean you.”

  “You think Faidal was behind it? But we were already on our way to Ravenaught. There couldn’t possibly have been time to rig something so elaborate. At least, I don’t think there was.”

  “This is the biggest case I have had in months,” she said. “If it wasn’t Faidal who tried to stop me, then who was it?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s clear he isn’t working alone. Whoever is behind this wanted me here, not in a Guild cell. You were likely getting too close to capturing me.”

  “Then I shall add a charge of obstructing my investigation when I find out who is responsible for this mess.”

  “I’m sure that will strike fear and terror into their hearts and prompt an instant surrender,” he said, and she gave him an arch look.

  “It made you run, didn’t it?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, changing the subject. “I’m getting hungry.”

  “Are you going to offer me a sand cake, or will you ring for the butler?”

  “For the hangman, more like it,” he replied. “I’m beginning to think the sooner this is over with, the better off we’ll both be.”

  “Nonsense. I don’t want to hear any more talk like that,” she said with a great deal more feeling than he might have expected. “I can’t imagine that this is the first time you’ve gotten yourself into trouble. Haven’t you always managed to find your way out again?”

  Arran couldn’t tell if his dour sarcasm was just annoying to her, or if she really wanted him to feel better about his certain death. Either way, upsetting her wouldn’t do much to secure her good opinion – although at this point, he doubted that a basket of gold bars and her weight in red roses would have much of an effect, either.

  “That’s true,” he said, not wanting to pursue the issue. “But I’m still hungry.”

  When food was finally brought to them, it did little to appease his dark humor. There was some sort of thick, warmish slop inside lidded containers, which they had to suck up with clay straws. It was tasteless and dull, and the only interesting thing about it was how it appeared from thin air.

  The neneckt was invisible under the water, unable or unwilling to hold the appearance of flesh in the security of its home, and it neither spoke nor announced itself as it entered their prison from above. The tray of food simply floated over them for a moment before it settled gently in the sand, a slight puff of dust the only indication that the jailer had left again.

  “I think I’d rather be hungry,” Arran said when he had taken as much of the meal as he could handle. He expected a rebuke from Megrithe, but she just smiled a little instead.

  “It’s not very appealing,” she acknowledged, poking at the mixture with the end of her straw. “But maybe it will help my head.”

  The solid mass of grain sitting in his stomach did help to clear the last of the drugs from his thoughts, which gave him the chance to think about his escape more rationally. He might not be able to jump or swim, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t climb.

  “Stay here,” he said to Megrithe, who just raised an eyebrow as he tried to find a solid grip on the stone. “I’m going to give this a try.”

  “I will try not to wander off,” she replied.

  The rock was easy enough to conquer, with its outcrops and crevices that made good holds for his fingers and toes. The water made him feel lighter, which helped him move quickly, and in only a few moments, he was nearing the top of the pen.

  But he couldn’t get any farther. As he reached up to put his hand on the top of the ledge, his wrist bent backward at a painful angle as he encountered a completely unexpected obstacle: some sort of shield that would not allow him to cross, no matter how hard he pushed, or how far he leaned out over the open space towards the middle of the cell, tracing along the barrier to see if it had an end.

  “What is it?” Megrithe called up to him.

  “Glass, maybe?” he said, rapping on the surface with his knuckles and producing a muted pinging sound.

  “Just a little extra precaution,” said Faidal’s voice, suddenly beside his ear with absolutely no indication that he had joined them. He felt a push on his shoulder, overbalancing him as he was reaching away from the wall. He had barely been holding on with one hand in the first place, and he didn’t have time for more than a breath before he was tumbling face first towards the ground.

  The fall was curiously slow and leisurely, but the impact no less painful than it would have been had he jumped from a yardarm onto the deck of his ship. The sand helped soften his landing a little, but he still gasped in pain as his ribs compressed around his insides, knocking the wind out of him.

  Megrithe ran to Arran’s side, dusting him off and helping him sit up as he got his breath back.

  “It was a good try,” Faidal said. “But you will remain in our custody for the time being.”

  “Why?” Arran asked, trying to feel if he had broken anything and not sure where he should address his voice. “What do you want with us?”

  “Why don’t you come with me and find out?” Faidal said, appearing as a vague shimmer in the water, just solid enough to see the outline of his form. “Both of you.”

  Faidal grabbed his arm in one hand and Megrithe’s in the other, and an instant later he was propelling them upwards over the stone walls as if they were being hauled up by a rope. Arran flinched as they reached the top, expecting to run into the barrier again, but nothing impeded them as they flew like birds through the bubbling water.

  Megrithe let out a little noise o
f surprise as a strange vista opened up before them over the rim of the holding pen. The sheer rock of the underside of Niheba loomed not a hundred yards from their position, its pockmarked face scooped out with caves and tunnels that ran deep into the solid stone. Above them, the shimmering thunder of roiling waves and hissing foam hitting the rocky shore echoed throughout the underland.

  At first glance, the seabed that stretched away from the island looked like nothing but a jumble of rocks, spreading out in all directions and covered over with a thick, brilliant layer of corals of every shape and description.

  Shadowed forests of ropey bull kelp rose from sand to surface, waving at a leisurely pace in the current as they filtered the light to flutter softly onto enormous schools of fish attracted to the shelter of the leaves, flashing in and out of the shade like a shower of silver coins.

  Closer to the ocean’s floor were endless, ever-changing patches of color: damselfish and angel fish, triggerfish and brilliant yellow tang; snapping shrimps and starfish and balls of traveling prickles rolling across the sand; bright blue sea cucumbers that waved sinuous orange crests above their wormlike bodies; eels and silver jacks and painted burglar fish striped black and purple, all feeding and fighting for space in the tightly packed throng of life.

  It was exquisitely beautiful. Arran had seen such landscapes before, at the edges of uninhabited islands with sugar white beaches sweeping down into crystal wavelets, but he had never been in the middle of it, and the experience was wholly, uniquely astonishing.

  More curious still was the fact that under every mound and boulder, in every channel and sandy expanse, was a small signpost that seemed to softly glow under its own power. The words were illegible to him, written in a foreign script, but he imagined that they signaled the entrances to homes and shops and places of business, illuminated by the same substance that sometimes floated in the wakes of ships on moonless nights, leaving an eerie trail of starlight behind the vessel as it cut through the waves.

  He didn’t have much time to admire the view, however. Faidal led them quickly over the neneckt metropolis, and swooped towards the island cliff. Arran braced himself as they dived at rapid speed towards what looked like nothing more than a pinhole until he realized that they were much farther away than he thought. Niheba was huge, after all, and as they fell under the shadow of the bluff, the tunnel’s entrance widened and he felt smaller and smaller as they sped towards the passage.