Child of a Hidden Sea

by A. M. Dellamonica

  “If you like,” Parrish said, untroubled. “Temperance is considered an essential component of the Cessation.”

  “A deterrent,” Bram said. “Anyone gets combative, they can still be sunk. Anytime, any place.”

  “Precisely.”

  “So the Fleet’s not all one big happy family?”

  “As with your homeland,” Parrish said, his diction clipped, “There is a certain amount of factionalism and squabbling.”

  Oh, that’s kind of sweet! He gets all formal when he’s on the defensive. Sophie shook that thought away. He wasn’t sweet. He was aggravating. “You sink a ship by saying its name, and you ensorcel someone by writing their name. Names mean a lot here.”

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  She added this to her long mental list of questions about magic, things to learn about the culture. Right on the list under OMG, why do you have slaves, what kind of people are you?

  She wrenched herself back on task. “So the pirates want to take Temperance out?”

  “They’ve tried before. The last time they failed was some years ago. Gale was involved.” He unfurled another of the pages he was holding, looked for a bare surface to lay it on, and ran up against Bram’s mounds of open books, the scattered pages of his homegrown Fleetspeak-Anglay dictionary and a long series of notes that looked mathematical. Finally he held the page up against a wall so they could see it.

  The page was a tight little grid of information about ships: names, nations, specifications, cargo. “There is an Isle of Gold ship here in port. Barabash.”

  Sophie set the protocol book aside. “Why don’t we go see if any of her crew’s in the market?”

  “That sounds suboptimal,” Bram objected.

  “Pardon?” Parrish said.

  “Don’t mind him—he talks like a computer when he’s tired.”

  “I meant dangerous,” Bram said.

  “The mercato’s safe enough,” Parrish said. “We can take the guard the Conto offered us.”

  “I’m supposed to investigate Gale’s murder, Bram. I can’t do it all here from the penthouse suite. There’s no Internet, in case you haven’t noticed. I can’t just hit a search engine and type in ‘mezmer-making homicidal jerks currently on Erinth.’”

  “Has anyone mentioned, Sofe, you’re not a cop?”

  “Come on, we’re basically talking about going out and chatting up a couple of sailors. I’m good at that—”

  “They’re not sailors, they’re pirates.”

  “Ex-pirates,” she said. “From what the book said, they’re semi-legit.”

  Bram looked at Parrish, probably wanting more reassurance that it’d be safe for her to leave the heavily guarded palace.

  Like it’s up to him! “Stay if you want,” she said. “I’m going.”

  “Sofe…”

  “It can’t be any riskier than cave diving.”

  She could see Bram rolling that around in his head, hating the simple truth of it: Her entire family had been forced, years ago, to come to grips with the fact that she did risky things all the time. “Fine, go, you’re right. I’m gonna keep on with…” He waved a hand at the books, meaning the twin quest to learn to speak Fleet and figure out where they were.

  “Wasn’t asking your permission,” she said, barely managing to keep her voice light.

  The guards more or less appeared, trailing behind her, as she made her way down to the palazzo gates, Parrish at her side.

  “I don’t see what geography has to do with the problem at hand,” Parrish said.

  “What?”

  “Your brother. The atlases and sea charts.”

  “Bram’s taken over wondering about the continental … irregularities, between here and home. Anyway, he’s not on the hook to solve Gale’s murder—I am.”

  “Were it my sister ‘on the hook,’ I would feel compelled to help.”

  “Him hoovering up every shiny bit of knowledge that comes our way will help, sooner or later. Besides, he’s not gonna be much use until he’s learned more of the language. Listen, Parrish, we’re neither of us any good at denying our intellectual curiosity.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “Our parents are very big on the idea that if you have a question, you should go find the answer. I’m getting that that’s uncool here, but—”

  For just a moment she could see the pain of loss on his face. All he said was: “Gale was like that, too.”

  “Anyway, I’m glad Bram’s not stuck looking into sordid, monster-making assassins.”

  His answering nod seemed halfhearted. She remembered that he’d offered to buy her off with a grand tour of the island, tried to convince her to go off touristing while he chased Gale’s killers.

  The memory made her feel self-conscious. Was she whining? “Of course,” she went on, “everything here is interesting.”

  She was trying to be gracious after the fact, but the statement was true enough. Their route had taken them down to the market, a round piazza encircled by wooden stalls where vendors were hawking bread and meat, cloth and glass. Little kids worked the crowds, trying to interest passersby in the products being sold by, she assumed, their elder relations. Others sat in the shadow of the carts, working lessons on slates while watching, apparently, for shoplifters.

  A fair number of people seemed to recognize Parrish, and more than one handed him a black ribbon as he passed.

  A young sailor—she thought it might have been one of the other pallbearers, from yesterday—approached. He was a little taller than Parrish, and Nightjar’s uniform fit him so precisely it must have been tailored. His expression was warm and he seemed to know everyone in the market. He had bloodshot eyes and his own handful of black ribbons. “You look terrible, Garland. Haven’t you slept?”

  “Antonio Capodoccio, this is Kir Hansa,” Parrish said gravely. “Our employer.”

  “Only temporarily. And call me Sophie,” she corrected.

  “Tonio is Nightjar’s first mate.”

  He bowed. “I am at your service, Kir Sophie.”

  “I’m so sorry about Gale,” Sophie said.

  “Grazie, Kir.”

  Grazie, she thought. That was Italian. “You a hometown boy, Tonio—you’re from here?”

  “Yes.” He pointed up the hill, at one of the black buildings. “My family lives near the Cortile Beata.”

  “Beata … is that a religious reference?” Erinth didn’t seem to have much in the way of churches, just the volcano and its guardian statue.

  “It means Court of the Beautified,” Parrish translated, absently. “It’s the cosmetic inscription quarter.”

  Is that where your looks came from? she wondered, but did not ask. It didn’t matter, and it wasn’t any of her business. It was way off point. Even so, her mind niggled at it: He was bossy, but didn’t seem vain. But he had to be vain to have had his face made for him, didn’t he?

  Is there any point in thinking about Captain Tasty? Come on, Sofe, explore the mercato. The men dropped a few paces behind her as she fell into observation mode, once again shooting video from her hip. The gabble of voices, most speaking languages she didn’t know, formed a wall of white noise: Her thoughts clarified as she looked around.

  Court of the Beautified, she thought. All these conspicuously beautiful people here. And many of them seemed sick; they had coughs and canes, or moved as if they hurt. She saw one such beauty, raven-haired, with glossy skin and bright flashing eyes, scolding a man twice her age. He was nodding and bearing it, as if she was his employer or, no, maybe …

  His mom, she guessed. The cosmetic magic makes them seem younger than they are, but it doesn’t make them young. She could be his grandmother.

  It seemed a testable theory: closing her eyes, she primed her ears for sounds like Ma, Mamma, Nonna.

  She was listening to the gabble of the market so intently she didn’t notice, for a second, when someone spoke to her.

  “… Kir Feliachild’s heir?”

 
; Sophie opened her eyes. One of the men who had attacked Gale, back in San Francisco—the one she’d filmed yesterday on the funeral procession, was standing beside her.

  Okay, she thought, as her heart went into overdrive. It’s all perfectly okay. Parrish and Tonio were steps away, the Conto’s guards were discreetly browsing nearby and she could see the man’s hands. You just told Bram you do risky things all the time.

  Yeah, Sofe, his voice seemed to reply. You understand those risks. Drowning, hypoxia, hypothermia, falling—

  The concept was the same. Clear your mind, focus on what’s happening now, think before you act. Diving mode. She turned slightly, putting the corner of the merchant booth—a table laden with shells, corals and sponges—between herself and the stranger.

  “Who are you?”

  “I have the honor to be called John Coine,” he said. “And you, Kir?”

  “Sophie Hansa. What do you want?” she said.

  “The same thing we wanted from your aunt,” he said. “Yacoura Tempranza.”

  “The heart of Temperance?” She tipped her camera up—her hand was sweating—but if he saw her do it, or cared, he didn’t react. Why would he? He didn’t know what it was.

  “That’s right, the lost heart.”

  “Kir Coine,” she said, since that seemed to be the catch-all polite address here. “I can probably get you arrested right here and now for attacking Gale.”

  “You can prove I sent mezmers after Kir Feliachild?”

  “I saw you attack her at home, remember?” she said.

  “Ah, so you’re the unarmed, screaming fury who set on us in the outlands.” He looked her up and down, assessing.

  I was screaming?

  “That’s pretty much an admission of guilt right there.” Could it be this easy? All she needed now was a cop.

  He seemed amused. “You might make a go of an accusation, I suppose.”

  “More of a go than you’ll make out of bullying me for something I don’t have.”

  “I’m sure if you exert yourself, you’ll discover how your aunt mislaid the heart, all those years ago. You have the same bright eyes as she.”

  “My shiny eyes aside, what makes you think I’d share anything I learned?”

  His lips were a dead pink-gray, like earthworms, and when he smiled there was nothing of warmth in the expression. “Kir Feliachild was a dry, determined rope of a woman, knotted tight around the Fleet Compact and with nothing else to care for. Your grip’s not as tight, is it?”

  She felt an absurd sting of hurt—even this creep of a pirate thought she was some kind of powderpuff, a pushover. “What does that even mean? I’m not rope?”

  “Sponge, rather.” He picked one off the cart, contemplating it. “You can always wring something out of a sponge, if you squeeze.”

  “You couldn’t squeeze me for the way to the bathroom if you had to puke,” she said. “I’m not helping you with anything. I can’t even believe I’m sitting here chatting with you about—look, you and your stupid games and intrigues, I don’t care. You’re a murderer.”

  She began to move, thinking to summon Parrish and the guards, even as she kept one eye on the man and her camera between them.

  “Opal,” Coine said. “Your middle name is Opal, is it not?”

  “So?” But her flesh crawled, just a bit. They need the whole name to scrip you. Does that mean they can magic me up any which way they want?

  “I expect whoever created those mezmers used slaves, or convicts,” he said, affecting carelessness. “But perhaps not.”

  “What you did to those people was sick.” Saying it brought back the memory of the blade, of herself slicing through the monster’s shackle-scarred wrist.

  “My people believe room remains in this supposedly tame world for wilder things. For blood debts and vengeance,” the man said.

  “And grenades?”

  “I admit nothing, but you should consider: Perhaps those mezmers angered whoever inscribed them. There’s a fate to be feared, wouldn’t you agree?”

  She glared at him. “Where did you get my name?”

  “The sea offers up many forms of bounty.”

  Lais Dariach knew my middle name, she thought. And some of the people from the salvage ship, the Estrel. Captain Dracy. They saw the shell.

  “If you’ve hurt someone else—”

  He interrupted: “As you’re from the outlands, girl, perhaps you haven’t realized how many terrible intentions I might lay upon you. Do you want to find out?”

  He tore the sponge in half, threw the vendor a coin, and sauntered away into the crowd. Sophie pushed after him, keeping him in sight, tracking him with the camera. He seemed unaware of her pursuit, or indifferent to it. She caught a shot of him at edge of the market, and then …

  That guy! Coine was moving toward his partner in crime, the guy whose face she’d smashed with the camera case, all those days ago in Beatrice’s San Francisco neighborhood. His nose still bore the remains of a bruise.

  Coine’s eyes met those of the other man, and he shook his head slightly. They veered from each other, taking different directions into the crowd.

  Interesting, she thought, zooming in on the second man. They don’t want me to see them together.

  “Sophie?” Parrish, suddenly, was right beside her.

  “What’s wrong with you? Didn’t you see me chatting with the pirate? And look, his friend there? The one slipping off into the crowd? The two of them are the pirates, Goldens, whatever you call them, who stabbed Gale in San Francisco.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Oh! I am going to start pulling your hair every time you ask me that. Look at his nose—I did that.”

  “The gentleman slinking off toward the docks?” Tonio said. “He’s not from Isle of Gold.”

  “No?” Parrish asked, surprised.

  “No, Kirs. He’s with the Ualtar Diplomatic Mission.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “What’s Ualtar?” Sophie said. Parrish, at the same moment, asked Tonio, “Are you sure?”

  “Of course.” Tonio chose to answer his captain. “He was trailing the Low Priest of the Embassy like a kicked dog just yesterday, both of them wearing that put-upon look they get in free nations, when they have to carry their own possessions and wipe their own asses. I remember the bruise on his face. Your work, Kir Hansa? Good for you!”

  “Call me Sophie,” she said. “I hit him with a shockproof, waterproof camera case.”

  He broke out a dazzling smile. “I wish I’d seen that. Sophie.”

  Tonio hadn’t struck her as the bloodthirsty type. She was about to ask about Ualtar again when shouts rose around a beribboned ring at the heart of the mercato.

  “Speaking of fisticuffs…” Parrish turned.

  “Is it Verena?” Tonio said, shading his eyes against the sun.

  Was it? Sophie squinted into the whirl of activity. “Holy—she’s fighting?”

  Parrish, to her surprise, brightened. It was the first time he’d looked anything but miserable or offended since Gale died. “Come on.”

  They pushed closer, sidestepping through an increasingly dense crowd of onlookers.

  As soon as they arrived it became apparent the … fight?… duel?… was a friendly one. Verena’s teeth were set in a fierce half-smile. The sword she was wielding—against a wiry, unarmed man who had spellscrip lettering branded into both of his arms—was made of wood.

  “The usual wager?” Tonio said, and Parrish shook his hand. Neither man looked away from the ring.

  Sophie steadied her back against a heavy-looking light sconce, centering the ring in the video camera’s frame.

  She was just in time: The whippy guy brought his hands together and suddenly he was covered in a flowing coat of sparks.

  The mezmers who killed Gale had been a mishmash of bestial traits in scabby, thistle-barbed armor. Dirty, Sophie thought, remembering the slime, grit and unclean gunk in their eyes. They’d seemed foul, wrong. This
man had no such aura. He was an ordinary-looking fellow, clad in fiery motes that emerged from those spellscrip brands on his arms. Crackled and popping, the motes launched themselves at Verena, who parried them with the wooden sword. One got past her guard and she dodged, stomping it as it hit the mat. Another she simply blew out.

  She wheeled past the corner of the ring, snatching up a dripping rag hung on its corner post.

  “They’re old rivals,” Parrish explained. “Many nations run a dueling league—for sport, primarily, though the best of them sometimes go to the law. It’s something of a practice for visiting fighters to spar with the local champion. Verena’s been trying to defeat Incindio since she was thirteen.”

  “Unsuccessfully,” Tonio put in.

  “It’s only a matter of time,” Parrish said.

  “You say,” Tonio said, “but tonight you’re buying my wine, Garland.”

  “Hands off my purse; she hasn’t lost yet.”

  Verena feinted with her toy sword and then brought the rag around with a slap; there was a hiss of steam and the sparks along the duelist’s right forearm and hand were snuffed out. The crowd roared its approval as the rag burst into flame.

  Shaking the burning shreds aside, Incindio tucked the right arm behind his back and continued circling.

  “Point for Verena,” said Parrish.

  “She has been practicing,” Tonio conceded.

  “She’s grown a little, too. Longer reach.”

  “What is she now, seventeen?”

  She wanted to duel me, Sophie thought uneasily. There was no chance she’d last more than seconds in a ring like this. Would I get to pick the weapon? Shockproof camera cases at fifty paces?

  Dueling, slaves. Stormwrack’s landscapes were so vibrant, she thought. She could lose herself in them, just sink into finding and filming the flora and fauna forever. But there was something about the people … Would one call them uncivilized?

  The judgment sat uncomfortably; it was culture shock and ethnocentrism, she knew, that sense that always came to a traveler at some point, the idea that home was better. There was plenty wrong in the good old U.S. of A., she reminded herself, lots of violence, plenty of people making bad money for hard work. Shootouts and meth labs and all the modern ills. A couple people with swords and magical sparks could only hurt each other; contrast that with someone letting loose with a machine gun in a crowd.