Samos cracked open an eyelid.
A man in a faded green windbuster hat and checked shirt stood at half-crouch waving his hands as if egging on a horse at a race. He mock-whispered to the men. “You lot do know this is supposed to be a deep dark secret?”
The circle of men roared.
“Get away with you, Lonnie!” said one.
“No. It’s true! They don’t want you to know the buggerizing Immolator what started it got away or that the Sungese escaped on that ship that was on berth twenty, or...or that the buggerizing Needle Master’s still on the loose somewhere!”
It stirred them up and several men spoke at once.
“Fifteen died, you know. Fifteen! Including that Needle Master’s daughter. Terrible.”
“I heard eighteen.”
“Hang on! The Immolator’s planning on marrying one of us and I heard he’s a decent sort! Just got some bad ideas running round in his head.” This last was from a Haplander with swarthy skin and greased black hair. He sat cross-legged next to another man similar enough to be his brother. The second man grunted agreement.
A sober voice cut through the arguing. “Yeah, but does anyone know what’s it all about? Why the hush?”
“I heard the Sungese almost stole the Immolator recipe,” said another.
The sober speaker replied. “Me too. The helio messages say the Sungese ship disappeared somewhere to the west and never reached the navy blockade.”
The first speaker, the checked-shirt man, straightened. “Hell’s kitchen, Kink, what don’t you know?”
Kink, a man with wild black hair, spat in a neat arc over the edge of the dock into the sea where it slapped against pilings, yards below.
“Nothin’ important,” he said wryly. “My sister sleeps with the man who transcribes the heliograph signals.” That drew another ripple of laughter from the crowd. “Latest bit of tasty news – berth five’s got a sleek little two-master crewing to go north after the Sungese an’ berth nineteen and three are going south.”
“Two’ve already gone north! I reckon south is a better bet!”
“North? There’s only sea monsters and Haplanders up there and they’re both as ugly as the other!” The discussion deteriorated into a jovial slurring match between the largely Burgla’le men of the Imperium and a few Haplanders.
While they occupied themselves, Samos rolled to his feet and ambled unsteadily away.
How many had died? He hadn’t stopped to count that night. His memory presented a figure to him: ten. Ten dead. He’d known his own priority and that was saving Pela. Once sure she was breathing, he’d scurried through the fighting like some large rat and taken her upstairs away from danger. With enforcers coming, he’d had to run for it – the clatter of the whistles on their lanyards was a telltale sound to his sensitive ears.
The daughter of the clinic’s owner had died. The little tragedy disturbed him. He’d not met her...but, a child had died? With hands in pockets he strolled on, scarcely noticing his surroundings.
The night came back to him...details he’d made himself not remember. The man – Drager? As Drager had fled the fighting, he’d come close to the table where Samos had lain, reaching toward a manacle, tugging...until that girl arrived. Heloise was her name, the others had yelled it at her. Though young, she’d been in charge of the debt collectors. Drager had been aiming to free him, either that or he was checking to make sure he was secure? No, ridiculous, why would he do that? He’d meant to free him. And he’d argued when Kengshee decided to kill them.
He felt guilty about what had happened to Drager. Just what he needed – more guilt. Hells, he couldn’t fix the whole world. The girl, Heloise, she was the one who’d actually freed him. A pretty thing, he realized in hindsight. What a cauldron of death she’d brought her team into. But if she’d not been there, he would have died, along with Pela.
Stuff Amora. The goddess had been conspicuously absent; it was humans he owed his life to. Maybe one day he could pay her back? He shook his head. Dreaming, all dreaming and fantasies. This was now and he needed to come to terms with the present.
Half an hour later, he found the neat little brigantine in berth five, and the frigates at nineteen and three. He listened to what talk he could hear, and even taking account of his paltry landlubber knowledge, he knew the ships were far beyond the stage of finding crews. They were preparing to sail early the next day. He could wait the two days and hope for another ship, or he could risk it and sneak aboard one of these. But he needed a plan. They were searching every load that went aboard and all three ships had marched on a complement of soldiers. How could he hide aboard one of them? And which one should he pick?
He sat amid stacked bales of wool and sourly eyed the puckered bright pink bumps on his arms and legs. He may as well wear a sign saying, Immolator.
No one seemed to know if the Sungese had gone north or south or somehow vanished among the scattered, stepping-stone islands that ran in mid-ocean between here and Sungea. Somehow they’d avoided the entire navy blockade. Unlikely, impossible perhaps, yet true.
It seemed a gamble but his new-born intellect had sifted wheat from chaff before. Whatever facts he had would have to be enough.
He closed his eyes and concentrated: the clothes on the Sungese, the stores they’d acquired, the seasonal winds, location of land, configuration of the blockade, the data buried in the gossip. Words and facts rattled round in his head like beads in a bowl, fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing. He opened his eyes.
North, he decided. North it was. The ship at berth five was smaller than ideal. Less crew, more likely he’d be seen as foreign. If he was wrong, there was nothing to be done about it. And still he had no plan for getting aboard without being noticed. He needed to see the ship again.
By that evening he was as ready as he could be. They were checking and searching every crate, box and container down to a size Mr. Kengshee would have trouble squeezing into. The crew was already hired. Soldiers and sailors swarmed over the upper decks and rigging.
Samos ate the last morsel of dried fruit, swigged down a swallow of the watery wine he’d purloined from a sailor and took a last look at the tools he’d arranged on his makeshift crate table. An awl, netting and a satchel of iron pegs and a leather mallet.
He closed his eyes and ran through the plan in his mind. Strength and determination were his allies. Swim to the ship in the darkness, drill holes in the hull timbers, screw in the pegs, fasten the netting and rig himself a cradle at sea level. He could survive like that for a day perhaps then climb up the night after and find a hiding place. Pick a spot they were unlikely to check. It might work, with luck, and low seas and...hells...it was another gamble.
Yes. He closed his eyes – just for a moment, couldn’t let sleep overtake him. Not now. Without the bearings of the hut for his eyes to reference, his body swayed and swirled. He should open his eyes again...he should. Sleep was not some...thing he should do.
And yet, the world faded and was gone.
C H A P T E R N I N E
Bio-energeer – healer who uses magience to gather data from people and animals.
Some can tell how a person or animal died.
*****
The feeling was familiar: a belly that churned and ached, and a surety that something big had trodden on his head, stuffed his eye sockets with wool then sent him spinning in a circle. A hangover. What fool inn had he been to last night?
None.
His eyes snapped open. He was in a room that surged back and forth, back and forth. Slowly the blurriness went away and the movement slowed to a stately sway – that of a ship on the ocean.
A woman rested long, shapely legs on a table before him. He followed the curve of her legs and her blood-red leggings up to her equally curvaceous body – which a cream satin shirt did little to conceal – and farther upward. Short black hair sculpted around full cheekbones and a pixie-like face. Lips that would be acceptable on a sir
en. Eyes...eyes that were tired and sunken and yet alluring. She coughed and spat into a handkerchief, spotting it with blood.
“You’re awake?”
This time he truly looked into her eyes. Something about them bothered him. Within, a curl of black flickered and vanished.
His hands were tied behind him to the chair he sat on. With rope. He struggled to keep a knowing smile from showing. Rope! There was a rope about his neck as well. Both he could snap in a second.
“How–”
“Did you get here, my dear Samos? Yes, I know who you are. I’m trained to notice things. Oddities. You wore long sleeves and a hood in summer weather. That was enough for me, though others might think you a drunken sot. Your path around the dockyards was erratic, yet thorough, and you were too interested in the ships that were leaving to chase the so-called Sungese traitors.” She pursed her lips. “After that it was easy. I had the wine in your hut laced with a potent sedative.
“Teo is behind you,” she added. “We both know your bonds are breakable by an Immolator. I put them there to give you time to think. Wouldn’t want you to kill your family before you have time to think.” She coughed into the handkerchief again.
Family? Samos frowned. “Who are you?” he croaked around a throat full of phlegm.
“Perhaps that was too much for you to take in. You’ve woken up quicker than I expected, even for an Immolator.” She lunged to her feet and grabbed something red and floppy. “Here. Does this ring bells?” She placed the thing – a wig, Samos realized – on her head and posed there, hand on hip and head, eyebrows raised.
Tatiana Ironheart, Imperial Investigator.
“Understand?” she asked. “You’re in a spot of bother.” She flung aside the wig and perched her backside on the cupboard behind her.
Above the curve of the timber cupboards, that swept around forming the edges of the room, were stippled-glass windows divided into sections. A squarish container sat to his left on top of the cupboards. On its blue and white surface was a raised design where miniscule white bears roamed about on chunks of ice. Was this some sort of trinketton torture device? What device would come about from the animus of ice bears?
This would be the stern of the ship. The captain’s cabin? If he escaped, where would he go? He’d have to kill the whole crew. And Teo was also a partial Immolator. His breath was close enough to feel the warmth. It was distinctive – faster than a normal man.
“I have a knife,” said Teo in a voice as deep and cool as a bank of snow. Those few words said a lot. As in: You would be silly to try anything. I’m as fast as you, behind you, and I’m armed.
Samos made himself relax. “What do you mean kill my family?” He looked into Tatiana’s gorgeous eyes.
“You may not be aware that your betrayal of the Imperium has polarized people. Haplanders are not exactly favorites right now. Your...fiancée, Pela, would stand a good chance of being attacked –” She nonchalantly flipped her wrist. “– perhaps killed or injured, if I had not taken it upon myself to relocate her and some of the Haplanders to a safer location.”
He frowned. “You’ve imprisoned them?”
“No!” Tatiana chuckled. “No. I wasn’t using a euphemism. They are safe and well and comfortable, but I have a business deal for you. Accept and they will remain safe. Refuse and I will have to return them to the city.”
“A business deal?”
“Mmm.” She jabbed a finger at him. “You convince me that you can stay loyal to the Imperium – ignoring past indiscretions, of course – and I’ll let you loose to come along on our mission to retrieve the Immolator recipe. Those are, alas, orders from the Imperator. If we succeed, you may get a full pardon.”
She sat on the cupboard, tapping her heels against the timber and leaning forward, as if eagerly awaiting his reply. A hint of cleavage showed at her open shirt. She looked more like a busty, sexually provocative pirate than an Imperial Investigator.
Samos found his mind blank. He shook his head. “What –”
“Let me see.” She narrowed her eyes. “What’s confusing you. Everything? Yes? Do you remember a game of chathurangum? And a favor that was promised?”
His voice squeaked. “That was the Imperator? Oh my gods. The hypnosis.” It had worked thoroughly. He’d not suspected. “But...not to be ungrateful...this is –”
“An extraordinary favor. I agree.” She grimaced. “Which is why I’ll happily have you executed if you fail this test, or if you trip up at any time in the near future. Here’s what I know from...” She vaguely waved her hand. “...from various interrogations. You decided to sell out the Immolator secret in return for having your needles pulled after you became an Immolator. Some sort of trink memory worm was used. The enforcers found, squashed under a body, one segment of the worm.”
“You did? Then Drager didn’t swallow any of it?”
“Perhaps. Can’t be certain.” She hopped off the cupboard and flipped back the lid of the strange, ice-like container. Fog swirled out. Icicles scattered to the floor. Upon retrieving a bottle of brandy and a small glass, she knocked the lid of the icebox shut with the back of her hand. “I’d offer you some but I can see you’re all tied up.”
From behind Samos came a groan.
“Teo, that was a good joke.” Tatiana poured a tot of brandy into the glass and sipped. “Ahh. They tell me it’s good for my heart.” She splayed her hand over where her heart would be – providing it hadn’t been relocated.
In the few seconds he had to reprise her facts, he saw there were gaps in her logic.
“The little trinketton sucker misbehaves sometimes.” Tatiana leaned back. “Continuing the saga. After needling, you got smarter. Evidence: the way you can now beat grandmasters at chathurangum. You changed your mind about betraying the Imperium but you find your girlfriend –”
Samos frowned.
“Sorry, wife-to-be. You found out she’d been taken hostage. You planned to rescue her but came unstuck. Here’s the bad bit. The so-called Sungese got the recipe after all and you ran away. Subsequently...” She took a gulp of brandy. “I have no idea if you are loyal, or not. Despite our glorious, if elderly, Imperator’s assertions as to that very state of affairs. Correct?”
Blinking was all Samos managed.
Why had she been told about that game? Was she that close to the Imperator?
Her smile stiffened. “Convince me of your loyalty. I promise you the alternative is not attractive.”
The rope about his neck tightened. “You want me to somehow prove that I won’t do something traitorous in the future?” She raised her eyebrows. Silence lengthened.
There was a catch and this was it.
“You’re not going to do it, are you? Follow the Imperator’s instructions? Not if you can avoid it?”
Again, silence.
“I can only point to things I didn’t do in the past. I did not hand the worm to the Sungese, or help them fend off the debt collectors or even escape in the ship with them. And I could have taken Pela and tried to leave the country but I didn’t.”
“Hmph! Because you wouldn’t have gotten far.” She sipped, her lips gently touching the glass edge.
There was condensation on the tumbler glass. The brandy was that cold. He could almost taste it running over his tongue. He tore his gaze away. “Um. Yes. But still I didn’t. And lastly the only logical reason I could have for being here at the docks is to follow them and try to recover the secret.”
“Or perhaps you’ve changed your mind again and have decided to join them?”
He clenched and unclenched his fists, noting the giveaway blue glow in a tiny peephole in the door. “That leaves me with one last argument.”
“Oh?” She licked her lips and he couldn’t help noticing the tip of her tongue as it swept out and back in, leaving her lips glistening. “Now what would that be?”
His mouth hung open for a second. She was challenging him? Anticipating? Did she somehow guess what he meant to do
? “Very well. Forgive me if this goes wrong.”
“Forgive you? For what?”
The angles were close. An inch the wrong way... Ah, well. Life was a risk. He closed his eyes and at one and the same time slewed sideways, punching the bottom of the chair and snapping it out backward to form a shield against the gheist bullet that would soon be caroming toward him from the peephole in the door. The blue iridescence of the ectoplasm had reflected on the peephole glass. The rope ripped from his hands, the chair back thumped into Teo, who was standing too far to the left because he knew of the likely ballistic path of the gheist shell – a vital mistake. Samos tilted his head as Teo’s knife sliced the finest sliver from the side of his ear. The rope cut his neck but then snapped lower down.
With a soft bloop and a blue flare a gheist shell exploded behind him.
Next phase. Spin and slam Teo’s feet out from under him, catch the falling knife, shove the edge of the chair-back into the floor inches from Teo’s neck. A warning there – he could have killed. Milliseconds left. With Teo alive he had to take her out quicker. Launch off the right foot at Tatiana who’d slipped to the floor and slid the brandy glass along the timber top to free her hand. Brandy spilled in a long spray. Grab her wrist, tumble over the top...and land behind her, his back sliding and thumping into the window, with her hand painfully twisted back. And Teo’s knife at her eye.
“Stop!” she yelled.
Teo skidded to a halt.
Impressive. The man was as jumpy as a, well, as a reptile on legs and his fine-plaited blond hair swung out and round his head like a stirred-up nest of baby snakes. He glared at Samos. A bronze-handled knife was held in each hand – both pointed at the floor but that was deceptive. A flick of the wrists and those knives would be airborne. He wore Immolator garb – gray tunic with silver edges and black hose – though the bandolier of knives slung across his chest was hardly standard.
Like all Immolators, the definition of each of his muscles was deep enough to look carved by a sculptor in stone.
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