The Iron Ship

by K. M. McKinley

  “Looks like he’s already getting fat,” said Trassan.

  “Says you! Garten, what did mother say? Katriona?”

  “Oh! I almost forgot,” said Garten. “Mother did write to the colonel to allow she and Katriona into the barracks.”

  “You mean Katriona asked?” said Rel.

  “Well, yes.”

  “And of course Alanrys said no. Well. And too much to ask that father come,” said Rel.

  “He is still angry with you,” said Aarin.

  “Furious,” corrected Trassan. “‘A disgrace! Wastrel! A shame on the family! Does he know how much this is costing me? I should have let them flog him!’” He mimicked their father’s voice, although he left out the man’s speech impediment. They never mocked that.

  Rel pulled a face. “He actually said that?”

  “He actually did,” said Trassan. “But he’s not as angry with you as he is with Guis, so you’re winning there.”

  “The station’s too hectic for mother’s nerves,” went on Garten, “and she wouldn’t allow Katriona to go unchaperoned so close to her wedding. Katriona gave me this letter to give to you.” He pressed a square of paper sealed with dark blue wax into Rel’s hand. Rel pulled it back through the bars. He cracked the seal and scanned it.

  “She’s prepared your bags. They’ll be waiting on the train. You should have everything you need, and most of what you want,” said Garten.

  “She’s too good to us,” said Rel sadly.

  “At least once you’re on the train you can change out of those rags,” said Trassan.

  “They’re not rags!” protested Rel. “This shirt was tailored by Karosian and Bwyn. Tyn stitching!” he said, tugging at it. “It is very fine.” He grimaced at it. It was stained all over, wide sweat patches under his arms and round his neck, grubby from being slept in for a week. “Was very fine.”

  “I’d throw it away,” said Garten.

  “I’d burn it,” said Trassan.

  “It does smell a little, brother,” said Aarin.

  “Listen to Aarin, he spends his time surrounded by corpses,” said Trassan. “If he says ‘a little’, it means ‘a lot’.”

  The door rattled open. Two others of the Karsan third Dragoons came in, grinning meanly. One carried a ring of polished keys. A brass fob depicting the regimental arms hung among them. The other guard brought a sack. “Captain Rel, your next duty awaits.”

  Rel stood up and sighed. “This is it boys, off to the fucking end of the world. And look, Alanrys has sent his two biggest lickspittles. Nice to see you, Plovion. Juresk, looking as hideous as ever I see.”

  The uglier of the two—and Rel was not wrong, in his brothers’ opinions—loured. The other answered. “Shut it, captain; while you’re in there and I’m out here you’ve no right to be speaking to us that way. Your rank is suspended.”

  Plovion unlocked the door to the cell and undid Rel’s manacles.

  “If it were down to me, I’d leave you here to rot,” grunted Juresk.

  “Good job it isn’t then.” Rel smirked as he rubbed at his wrists. “You’re only jealous you didn’t get to tumble Lady Anellia yourself. Best you’ve ever had charged you double, you’re so ugly. Isn’t that right, Plovion?”

  “How the hell should I know?” growled Plovion.

  “Sorry, I thought you did your mother’s accounting. My mistake.”

  The guards both tensed up. Trassan and Aarin stepped in front of their brother, smiling without warmth.

  “If you’re intent on a fight, boys, I’d happily make the time. Leaving two corpses behind me would be quite the exit, don’t you think?” goaded Rel.

  Aarin cleared his throat. He stared at Juresk and Plovion. The scars around his white eye were livid and menacing. His head shook the tiniest degree. That was enough. There were few men who would anger a Guider.

  “Just get yourself ready,” said Juresk nervously. He pushed a regimental jacket at Rel, then the sack. “Papers are in there. Be outside in two minutes or it’ll be the worse for you.”

  “Now why would I duck such a prime posting?” Rel said.

  “You are a disgrace, Kressind,” said Plovion. “Get your uniform on, then get out of here.”

  “Ah ah ah!” said Trassan. “We’re all Kressinds here. Insult one, insult us all.”

  “Begging your pardon, your reverence,” said Juresk nervously to Aarin.

  Plovion elbowed him, but said nothing to the brothers. He went away for a minute, and came back with Rel’s sabre, sheathed in its steel scabbard. Rel took it with a nod and hung it from the belt about his waist. The guards went away. “Two minutes!” reiterated Plovion, cleaving to this last scrap of power.

  Rel did up his buttons. Dirty though he was, he looked more of a gentleman in his jacket. “I can fight my own battles,” he said pettishly.

  “Evidently not,” said Aarin. “Not all, anyway. I have this for you.” He pulled his hand out from his sleeve, in it was a plain leather pouch, tied at the top with silver wire. Rel accepted it with suspicion.

  “There are bones in this?”

  “Yes!” snorted Aarin. “It is the magic of the dead, little brother.”

  Rel passed it from hand to hand and wiped his palms on his jacket. “What is it for?”

  “Protection,” said Aarin. “The Gates are regarded as a soft place for a soldier by some, but there are many perils out in the Black Sands. If you ever find yourself out that way, this is proof against some of them.”

  “How will I know when to use it?” said Rel. He fiddled with the wire.

  “You’ll know,” said Aarin. “And don’t ever open it!” he added quickly.

  “No fear there,” Rel said, and tied it to his belt.

  They walked to the foot of the steps. “Well,” said Rel. The barking of drays and clatter of wheels on cobbles sounded down the stairs. The light from the open door and windows at the top dimmed in sequence as a carriage drew up. “I think that’s me. Brothers, it’s been fun.” They embraced him one at a time.

  “You’ll be back,” said Garten.

  “You better be,” said Trassan.

  “Be well,” said Aarin. “And be careful.”

  Rel pulled back and smiled. “When have you ever known me not to be?”

  “Captain Kressind!” shouted a voice down the stairs.

  “I’m coming!” Rel bounded up the steps. He stopped at the top, silhouetted in the daylight, waved, and was gone.

  “He’s still like a big bloody puppy,” said Garten.

  “Aye, with a sword and a gun,” said Aarin.

  “Lost gods help us all,” said Trassan.

  Orders and proclamations and all that sort of military shouting that meant little to the others sounded outside. A bugle blew. The carriage drew off to the yipping of dogs.

  Trassan smacked his lips and grimaced at the taste he found. “I do believe I am sobering up, and my head is beginning to hurt.”

  “About time,” said Garten. “I hate to suffer alone. There was bacon promised.”

  “Indeed. Might I treat you goodfellows to breakfast?” said Trassan.

  They agreed that that would be pleasant, and together went in search of food.

  KARSA CITY STATION was a maelstrom of people. The noise was horrendous, with trains coming and going. The locomotives filled the high glass ceilings with clouds that stank of spent magic.

  The carriage dropped Rel by the main entrance. Two of his fellow officers accompanied him to make sure he definitely got on the train. These were better disposed to him than either Juresk or Plovion, and aided him in retrieving his things and finding a handler for them before placing him on the train and bidding him farewell.

  The whole exercise was conducted so quickly and under such stress that Rel did not remember to be sad until he had found his seat.

  There was Katriona’s wedding, Alanrys had made sure that he’d miss that. Rel had beaten the colonel in a fencing match, but it wasn’t that that brought his
wrath down on him. There was some grudge he bore his family. He wondered which of his uncles were responsible, or even if his father was. And he wished Guis had come to see him go. Katriona couldn’t, but Guis could, and he should have come. The six siblings would rarely gather again, whatever happened.

  His thoughts turned to his friends and his lovers as the waysayer’s whistle blew, answered by the long, mournful hoot of the locomotive. With a mighty huff the train jerked forward, jolting the couplings. Metal grumbled. Against its great protestation, the engine dragged the train forward. The crowd slid by, slower than a walk at first, quicker and quicker as the engine’s wheels bit and gained traction on the rails.

  He would never see Ellimia or Druva again, or any of the other girls. And although only Ellimia and Druva really meant anything to him individually, the collective loss of the rest hurt almost as bad.

  They pulled out into open air. Streamers of glimmer-tainted smoke spiralled past the window. Rain marked the glass with spots and streaks. He felt unspeakably low. The crowd madly waved to loved ones he could not see as the train pulled away. There was one figure who did not wave. He stood apart from the rest of the crowd, even though he was surrounded by them. Rel’s eyes went past him, but snapped back in recognition.

  He sat up happily. “Guis!” he shouted, and banged on the window. The other passengers tutted at this un-Karsan show of emotion. “Guis!”

  Rel’s eldest brother put two fingers to his temple and saluted sardonically. Rel waved back. Guis’s sinister companion blinked at him from behind a curtain of hair, eyes points of yellow light in the shade there.

  “Guis!”

  “Good luck,” Rel’s brother mouthed. Clouds of smoke and steam puffed past the window with increasing tempo. The groaning of the train lessened as the strain settled evenly. They picked up speed, and Guis was gone.

  Rel elbowed a scholarly looking gentleman next to him. “That was my brother!” he said cheerfully. The man tried to look like he was somewhere else. “The bastard came after all.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Second Wedding of Katriona Kressinda

  THE RAIN STOPPED the day before Katriona Kressinda was due to wed a second time, a brief interlude in the weather the more superstitious society watchers trumpeted as a good omen. But a wedding as extravagant as Demion Morthrock’s to Katriona Kressinda was not to be missed, rain or not. The old aristocracy dismissively referred to it as an industry wedding and sneered at its common excess. They came nonetheless, along with everyone else.

  Gelbion Kressind hired the Grand Hall of Karsa for the occasion. A tall confection of a building, stone white as sugar tracery and as intricately decorated. New buildings for new money, the old families said.

  The Kressinds were not the wealthiest merchant clan in Karsa, but today they were paying to look like it. A stream of carriages drawn by matched dray teams arrived at the grand staircase to disgorge passengers as elegant as the building. The great and good of the city had barely time to step out before their transports were whisked off to allow the next to arrive. Servants dressed in a fantastical livery reminiscent of the Old Maceriyans greeted them at the door with drinks and flattery. A nine foot confection of spun caramel dominated the Great Hall’s rotunda, depicting the angels and devils of long ago. Men and Tyn in fancy dress wordlessly formed tableau depicting great events in Karsan history including, tellingly, the founding of the Kressind Works. The tableaux broke apart and reformed elsewhere to great approval. Jugglers and acrobats and exotic, firebreathing Oczerks walked the party. A Torosan godling, sweating in his traditional furs, brought gleeful terror from the guests with his mock roars and posturing. In three ballrooms there were three different forms of dancing. The great and good of the Karsan industrial elite commented with equal approval on the glories of the building and the bride both. As the evening wore on and the wine flowed, the old aristocrats too gave grudging praise.

  The ceremony was short, though sumptuous. Everyone was eager to get on to the Mingling, the feast that followed, and the revelry after that.

  All the Kressinds were present, down to cousins of the least degree.

  Guis avoided his brothers for the time being, his apology to them not yet correctly formulated, and so he wandered through the throngs of guests, exchanging pleasantries with those that approached, evading the rest. He grew engrossed in a display of petty magics by a pair of Amarand witches in tight silks. They conjured bright lights from the air and birds from their hands. They wove visions of the heavens and hells over their heads. They made figures in the sugar sculptures dance and set the ears of dogs and antelopes upon unsuspecting worthies. All the while they climbed up over one another, twisting themselves sensuously through each other’s limbs. Their bodies and display enchanted Guis, until Tyn crawled up the collar of his coat.

  “Be away, good master! This is true magic, not slippery hands of charlatans. Not good for you.”

  “Of course it is true magic,” murmured Guis. “My father would pay for nothing less today.” There was more to it than that. A quickening in his own veins. His heart ached in sympathy, his mind burgeoned with possibilities sexual and magical. When a flamescape of distant Aranthiya disintegrated with a demonic laugh, leaving the witches perturbed, he knew it was time to leave.

  He tore his eyes from the display and moved away while the witches searched the crowd for the mageborn who had disrupted their art. Affecting boredom, he examined fruits arranged in yard high stacks on silver platters, and watched a troupe of acrobats build pyramids of their bodies. Their skills were entirely of the mundane kind, and he became bored in earnest.

  Greater Tyn, dressed in clothes to match the human servants’, moved among the crowd. Guis had never seen so many in one place, but of course the Morthrock clan were known for their Tyn. Half the height of a man, broad shouldered in the main, far larger than the creature that shared his life, but Tyn nevertheless. Their unlovely faces were made more grotesque by the finery and make-up they wore. Iron collars were at the throats of every one. They waddled around the party, offering drinks and dainties to the guests. Guis stopped one. It was impossible to tell if it were male or female, or indeed tell one individual from the next. They all looked alike. The Tyn looked at him oddly as he took a glass of wine. It could smell its own kind on him, he was sure. Guis’s creature seemed timid of its larger cousins and remained hidden from them. The Tyn nodded hesitantly, and moved on.

  A horn sang too close to him. He turned around in startlement and nearly spilled his wine down the front of his sister’s wedding dress.

  “Hello, brother. Doing your best to ruin my dress, I see.”

  Katriona embraced him, and he held his glass out awkwardly. He fought down vile, unwanted images of him lying with her, of gouging out her eyes. There was a tug in his hair as Tyn unknotted a braid. He relaxed, and carried on as if he had not seen such things in his mind. What else could he do?

  “Not you, not you. They are not your thoughts,” whispered Tyn in his ear. “Peace, good master, peace.”

  He took a deep breath, stood back, and smiled genuinely. Now he was grown, and Katriona had ceased to be an annoyance, Guis could see she was beautiful.

  “Sister, you look amazing.”

  She smiled, proud and bashful. “Thank you, brother.”

  “I mean it, unfashionably slender but athletic and delectable in a manner that, in realms other than ours, is regarded as the very acme of attractiveness.”

  “Now now, you’re spoiling it,” she said, still smiling.

  “No, really,” he joked, “you should put some weight on. Excess weight speaks of wealthy indolence. You’ll appear worryingly active to many men. They’ll wonder what they might do with you, if you are dashing about all over the place and getting in the way.”

  “I try my best.”

  “You do look fantastic. I mean so genuinely. As beautiful as the handmaids of the gods themselves.”

  She grinned, displaying even teeth. Katriona
had never suffered a blemish.

  “A fine party,” he waved his glass around.

  “A time to strike deals and reaffirm alliances,” she said. “You can thank father for all this. It is precious little to do with me. And anyway,” she added sharply, “you would know a lot more about it if you had been present for some of the planning of it.”

  “That’s why I wasn’t present,” he said. His sister raised her eyebrows. “Ah, ah, I’m teasing you, sis. I’ve been away in the north.”

  “Your play. It has been doing well?”

  “Reasonably well. I’m not rich, but I no longer fear that I will be on the street by winter. And it is warmer there. You heard it was playing?”

  “Some of my brothers still speak to me, even if you don’t,” she said. Her admonishment was undone by her pleasure at seeing him.

  “I am sorry,” he said, and meant it. “You do look beautiful.”

  She smoothed her dress down. “If you are going to turn your dubious charm on me, I should be flattered. You are forgiven then. But why are you all alone?”

  “Drinking quietly and trying to stay out of trouble. Obviously it wouldn’t do to get too close to father, but I bumped into Trassan and Garten before Rel left, and I am afraid I behaved like an arse.”

  “What happened?” said Katriona. “Oh Guis, I thought things were better with your nerves.”

  “They are, they are. Don’t worry. Tyn here does his job well. Why, I am almost sane. No, this was entirely down to me, I’m afraid. Trassan and Garten are up to something, Trassan wouldn’t tell me what, I got in a snit about it. The usual.”

  “Oh Guis.”

  “I know, I know, I was drunk. I am working my way up to apologising.” He paused, and asked sheepishly, “I don’t suppose you know what Trassan is up to?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” she said. “Not that they’d tell me, I’m just a girl.”

  “You know it’s not like that.”

  “Exactly, and so should you. You are too hard on yourself, and that makes you hard on the rest of us. Loving you is difficult, Guis, but it is worth it.” She took his arm. “It truly is. Arvane always spoke highly of you. A lot of people do, if only you would see it.”