The three make to get up, but “the Loafer” stretches a hand over the table and declares, “You may remain here. The young Gabriela is perfectly safe in Ronin’s company. This little harbor doesn’t attract many ships from the West, and I would like to hear some news first-hand from the ports of Old Europe.”
Kenneth sits back down with a large smile, and Alina follows suit. “Gladly! No one tells stories better than a sailor.”
While Gabriela leaves the room, new drinks are served and the Englishman starts lavishing them with gossip, adventurous maneuvers, trading and old military yarns, interrupted only by the bursts of laughter and amused comments from the others at the table.
Several minutes pass and Alina doesn’t dare drink anymore from the many shot glasses which are pushed in front of her, save for the odd sip on the occasion of the toasts which, every so often, disrupted the narrative. Her head weighs down on her as if it were filled with water and her legs have become so light that it seems they might fly away at any moment.
Darkness slowly descends around the bar, and the candlelight blurs the faces of the Russian criminals even further.
After the umpteenth toast, Alina notices that Kenneth is beginning to trip over his words and, every so often, he stops to smile between one sentence and the next, with red cheeks and pupils like pinheads.
“Friends,” Assan says, during one of these pauses. “I would like to show you my humble blacksmith’s shop. It’s right behind here, but this way we can also clear our heads and take a few steps in the fresh air.”
“Excellent idea,” Alina answers, she can’t wait to shake off this dizzy feeling. What’s more, she absolutely needs to pull Kenneth away from this distillery; she’s afraid he’s about to lose his self-control.
The Englishman mumbles something, but he rises to his feet, his head swaying pathetically. Alina gets up in turn, to support him, but she feels like she’s on the command bridge of the Needle during a storm. Her head is spinning like a merry-go-round and her knees dancing off rhythm.
“Ha, ha,” the Russian laughs. “In Novograd we have the best vutka in the whole Union! Come.”
Staggering, they exit the bar, accompanied by Assan and his retinue of four or five men. Farang flanks Kenneth, at the head of the group, who continues to recount the reversals of sailing life and even hints at some story with loose Muscovite women which Alina is unable to follow well, except through the two men’s pleased expressions.
“The Loafer,” on the other hand, plants himself by her side and begins to chat. “The tradition of wrought iron has given life to my family for four generations. My grandfather was so skilled with metal that a Chinese Mandarin sent for him. This way.” He indicates an alley, illuminated by small shop lanterns, which the other two have already entered.
“See,” he halts after a few steps, in front of a workshop. “This is good handiwork, but they’re baubles compared to what’s produced at my forge.”
Another turn and more shops where Assan lingers to highlight the virtues and defects of the products of that particular manufacturer. Alina tries to keep an eye on Kenneth and his new friend, but they continue their excited conversation, while Assan drones on with explanations which hammer painfully into her throbbing head.
Finally they start walking again and the old man begins to mumble. “Cerriwden, Cerriwden,” as if he is wracking his brain.
Kenneth takes a right, at the end of the alley, and Alina tries to pick up the pace. But around the corner the street ends in front of a lowered shutter, guarded by two goons with menacing faces.
Alina quickly jumps, to turn back, but Assan and his henchmen block the whole street. One of them has unsheathed a foot-long knife.
Assan grabs the barrel of her blunderbuss and points it toward the ground, surprising her reflexes slowed down by the alcohol. A man walks up to her back and presses a point between her shoulder blades—a pistol probably or maybe just a finger, the way children play. Alina isn’t in a position to check; it’s too late for everything now. The old criminal pulls the weapon out of her hand and says softly; “It finally came back to me, this name. The Cerriwdens are witches!”
He stares at her with his porcine eyes, grinning from ear to ear. “And so you too must be a witch. Just what I needed!”
***
The Captain said it fell to her. Of course she objected that bringing the Needle to Gothland, with an infiltrator on board and one of her sister’s on the verge of a self-destructive crisis, wasn’t an easy task, but the Captain had already decided.
Silla folds her military boots into the bag she will carry on board the Mala Avis. For introducing herself to Guarischi’s crew, she chose her black leather cape and a violet lace dress which only comes down to her knees. On her feet she sports a pair of low shoes leaving her ankles bare. She stuffs the reinforced boots and the sailing clothes in her baggage, together with the majority of her weapons. She wants to present herself as an innocent demoiselle who could cause no harm.
Having them underestimate her was the best way to end up on the right end of the knife, the first lesson from her instructor at saboteurs’ camp during the war.
It certainly isn’t the first time she’s had to climb aboard a stranger’s airship, even if in the army there was always some familiar face whom she met on leave or with whom she landed, shoulder to shoulder, behind enemy lines. However being unknown by everyone has some advantages, which makes playing the little virgin more interesting, especially on a ship populated for the most part by men.
The witch closes the brass clasps. The Captain had begged her. When she tried to object, Kasia Santuini of the Mandragora had begged her. “My niece is everything to me,” she said. “Bring her back to me, I beg you. You’re the only one I trust.”
It wasn’t a common phrase from the Captain, who usually kept herself fairly buttoned up with the crew. For goodness’ sake, there was a time when they were Kasia and Silla, two young novices who went from brawling in a port bar to bullying a gullible farmer, spending their free time studying new love potions, to drive men’s desire past all limits, during the Sabbath orgy.
But that was more than thirty years ago now. Jolanta Santuini led their clan then, and Kasia was the pilot’s assistant. Silla’s clan, the Blue Mountains, was ancient, very well-respected and likewise ruined. When the Santuinis, one of the clans whose word carried the most weight at the Council, had launched the Needle, entrusting it to the young Captain Kasia, it seemed natural for her to ask to join her crew. Her clan would never be able to invest in a private airship and she, always fascinated by Kasia’s tales of the distant ports of Old Europe, couldn’t wait to set sail across the Channel. So long ago… before the war and many other events.
Silla lifts the bag onto her back. From the deck below she hears unfamiliar footsteps and the Captain making herself hoarse with a series of insults, which was much more common on the Needle.
She adjusts her dark blonde curls in front of the mirror, making them tumble over the cape, black like an assassin’s conscience. The dress lends her an almost ethereal air, accentuated by the milk-white skin of her arms and legs clearly visible. The only weapon she carries is a military knife with a standard four-inch blade, concealed on her back by the folds of her hood. The mirror reflects an icy stare at her like the light of a distant star; the turmoil she feels in her spirit is well hidden.
She takes the stairs to the lower level bumping into a masked demon, mounted on two high heels and wrapped in a pale leather greatcoat.
“Ouch,” Silla grumbles.
“Hey! Are you all like this on board this wreck?”
“Silence!” Kasia shouts. “If you open that damned mouth again, without being spoken to, I’ll strap you up outside the hull.”
“You all move like your legs have been tied together,” Franziska mutters, smoothing out her coat.
“Riger!” Kasia calls out.
“Here I am, Captain.” The old witch arrives out of breath from the comman
d deck and drops her foot out of place on the last step, collapsing to the floor, on her knees. A silvery laugh erupts from the German woman, and Silla watches the tips of Kasia’s ears turn red.
“Riger,” the Captain mumbles, “accompany our guest into the sick bay and wait for me there. Don’t let her out of your sight.” The Captain didn’t add that the blonde is undoubtedly armed, but Riger isn’t a rookie. Nevertheless, the Baron’s delegate seems dangerous. Silla stops a moment to watch her. She walks like a cat, stepping only on the tips of her toes and discreetly looking around her, letting her gaze rest however on escape routes and objects that could be used as weapons. Military training, without a doubt. She could have been sent to commandeer the Needle: A lone person, if well-trained, can be as deadly as an army.
“Captain,” she says, acting on instinct. “I think it’s better if we say farewell here and you accompany your guest, together with Riger.”
Kasia is about to answer back, but then she reads her look correctly. She comes close and crushes her lips into Silla’s ear. “Thank you, sister. I am in your debt.”
“I’ll bring her back to you, have no fear,” Silla whispers. “But you be careful, she’s very dangerous, I think she wants to take over the airship.”
The Captain pulls away from their embrace, staring at her eye to eye. “Don’t worry, I know,” she says. “I’ll expect you in Gothland, for the Sabbath.”
“We’ll both be there, Alina and I.”
A brief snort from their guest, behind Kasia’s shoulders, makes the Captain’s eyes roll up toward the heavens. Silla can’t hold back a smile. She bids Riger farewell with a nod and starts to walk across the gangway.
The airship with the Swiss flag awaits her two piers further up, while the wind, heavy with rain, lashes against her face. The comet, destroyer of worlds, which lives in her heart, executes a quick rotation, making her start, before quieting down again.
SILLA
PART ONE: BURNING DAYLIGHT
Silla passes the pipe cleaner a third time through the sawed-off shaft of her assault arquebus. The weapons must be cleaned before breaking the night’s fast; every day can bring peace or war. And today, in Warsaw, the dawn doesn’t promise tranquility.
With a sharp click, Silla snaps the gun barrel shut and puts it back at the bottom of the chest, lined up meticulously with the others. She buttons up her black corset and slips on a pair of leather pants, a dark shirt, and a cowhide sailor’s jacket reddish-purple in color.
A soft knock at the door interrupts her preparations. She lets the blonde curls fall to her shoulders and cracks open the portal.
“Master Bernardo?” she addresses the lively little man with Tyrolean lederhosen and hands in perpetual motion. He is also the second officer of the Mala Avis.
“My lady, the Captain is waiting on you in his cabin for breakfast.”
“I’m putting on my boots,” Silla answers with a smile, pointing at her bare feet, “then I’ll be right there.”
***
“Come in, come in.” Leonardo waves his hand, inviting the woman to enter. “Please, Silla, sit down. There’s coffee, bread and honey. And this delicious smoked ham from Italy.”
“Thank you, Captain.” She sits on the chair’s edge.
“As you must have seen out the portholes, last night we arrived in Warsaw. I have a couple of contacts here, usually they’re very well informed about the movements of merchant airships. I hope to visit them both this morning. If the East Wind has passed by these parts they’re sure to know something.”
“I’m ready,” Silla answers.
“Look, my dear.” Leonardo pours a generous splash of steaming coffee. “Perhaps it’s better if I go alone. Not everyone loves your… kind.”
“You’re not obligated to announce to everyone that I’m a witch,” Silla observes, turning the cup’s handle to the left.
“My name is already the subject of enough gossip. It’s better I go alone, believe me. One doesn’t need an extraordinary imagination to guess what you are.”
Kasia, her Captain, had said, “Make sure Leo asks the right questions.” Silla is not used to winning easily, but to sit idly waiting for the outcome of the Swiss man’s diplomatic visits is too heavy a defeat to suffer.
“I ask your leave to go down to the docks.”
“You’re not a prisoner, nor part of this crew.” Leonardo slowly shovels three spoons of sugar, watching her deliberately. “If you wish to disembark, feel free. May I ask, however, where you plan on going?”
“A walk around the docks. A few discreet questions. Perhaps I’ll meet some English sailor.”
“Return before it gets dark. I only need to bring one witch back to Kasia.”
“Captain,” Silla answers through her teeth, making to get up.
“Sit down,” Leonardo beams his widest smile at her, “and keep me company during breakfast. I was joking: we’ll find Alina, you’ll see. We’re on the same team, remember?”
***
A few hours later, Silla stares at the chipped cup holding the morning’s third coffee, drunk in as many taverns. There are no Englishmen in Warsaw, save for a crew of conscripts too young to feel any kindred spirit with survivors of the war like her.
She needs to change tactics. Unfortunately witches are disliked by most people in this region, even more so than in the Palatinate. Nevertheless, Silla knows well the legend of Baba Paulka, a very old sorceress who lives outside the Rule in a cabin at the city’s fringes. A hazardous excursion, beyond the gates, in the middle of a countryside infested with hybrids. However, the legend tells that this sorceress has a very special gift, like a magical sense of smell, able to find any person at a distance of hundreds, even thousands of miles.
Silla must hire a guide. She flips through the thin stack of bills Kasia entrusted to her before she left on her mission. To dig up someone willing to descend beyond the gates for that paltry sum seems a hopeless endeavor; she will have to go to the Bottom where the destitute abound.
Next to the inn’s door, a man sitting in melted snow stretches out a hand black with filth. Two stumps fill his trouser legs and his only shelter from the cold is a Palatine army jacket, so threadbare Silla can see wide patches of skin in the most worn parts.
An enemy who, perhaps, mowed down her comrades by the dozens with a machine gun, while they leapt from English airships into hostile territory. She can no longer discern any danger in the outcast’s watery eyes and it’s only a matter of luck that it isn’t her reaching out her hand, sitting on the ground, while the wretch sips tepid beer at the café’s bar.
Silla removes a fifty-piece bill from her pocket and crumples it in the veteran’s hand before making her way through the flurries of snow toward the stairs to the lower levels.
The Bottom is crowded with carts overloaded with grimy merchandise, hawkers of thin sickly animals, idlers, onlookers, and street performers covered in rags. Silla lowers the hood over her eyes and buttons up her black cape in order to conceal the hand resting on the butt of her revolver.
She’s never been to Warsaw, but the lower levels look pretty similar everywhere: some trade and a semblance of legality close to the main stairways, one or two dives where one can have a drink without risk of being killed, unless it’s by the horrible food. Beyond that, there are just muddy alleys that disappear among the shanties winding toward the outer gates. Entering those streets without a guide is too bold an adventure, even for a witch armed to the teeth. Silla lingers next to a cart selling steamed pierogis, local dumplings stuffed with mushrooms and white sauce.
“Pierogis! Last two portions! Nice and hot!” shouts the vendor, drying his ruddy hands on a filthy apron.
Silla watches him furtively, quickly catching his attention.
“My lady, how may I be of service? Would you care for a serving?”
“I’m not hungry, but I could offer you a beer at the tavern. You seem like a good man, and I’m in need of information.”
&nbs
p; “In that case,” interjects a graying man, dressed in a long purple coat, “you’re asking the wrong person.”
She examines the newcomer. He has an open face with Greek features and an unusually dark complexion for someone originally from these parts. Two thick eyebrows frame his little eyes, black and motionless, lending them an air at once elegant and dangerous.
The overcoat is tattered, but it seems to be of excellent quality just like his boots, embellished with silver buckles. Likely the fruit of burglaries in some warehouses on the upper terrace. He has a slender build, and with his straight back he’s the type of man who might attract a second glance—even on the more genteel levels. Even from a witch.
“I was looking for someone,” Silla challenges him, crossing her arms, “that I can trust, but I’m not sure you satisfy my expectations.”
“Madam, I am ready to satisfy expectations of all types, no matter how bizarre they might be. Isn’t that right, Temlus?”
The food seller quickly nods explaining, “You couldn’t be luckier. Ahsto is a gentleman and down here he can open any door.”
“Even the one to the mortuary?” Silla quips.
“What pleasures arouse your cravings?” the gypsy asks. “An insatiable and discreet lover? Or better yet two? Virgins maybe. Or would you like to taste the whip of the gambling table? No, you’re searching for something else, someone who can take the life of a dandy on the upper levels who offended you and needs to pay.”
The scoundrel moves a step toward her and presents his gloved hand, but Silla doesn’t accept the invitation.
“I pay that type of debt myself, sir. No, I’m looking for someone who can accompany me outside the wall.”
“Ah-ha. With the dregs that mill around here, just making it to those iron bars with your beautiful cape still on your back and your pants properly laced up would be a tall order. But tell me, why would you want to go beyond the gates? Brutish hybrids, Igor the Mad’s gang, predators of every type. What exactly are you looking for? If you want to die, I can satisfy you right here and now,” he offers with a smile.
The Codex of the Witch: Fantasy Novel Page 21