“I suspect he would have been plainer if he had had more time at the end,” said Cailloux, examining the locked casket which the chemist had produced. “You do have to admit, the government has no interest in making the process easy for a living man. Things are far easier on the Spanish side of the border.”
“A living man can accomplish anything he wants to, provided he’s willing to do what it takes,” said Saya scornfully. “I have no patience for weak men, no matter how rich they may be.”
All Ismael said was, “M. Cailloux, do you suppose that key that was too large for the watch might have been meant for this box?”
“Excellent idea! You left so suddenly that night, I had no chance to return it to your keeping,” said Cailloux, extracting it from an inner pocket. “It was my intention to return it to you when I saw you today, but I was distracted by our adventure. Please…you try.”
Ismael held his breath as he fitted the key into the lock. There was a brief hesitation where it didn’t quite seem to fit. Then, with a snap, the mechanism was released, and the lid opened.
Inside were a series of papers, neatly folded, tied with red ribbon, heavy with wax seals. Ismael passed them to Cailloux. Slaves were kept illiterate, on pain of death; there were no such restrictions on free men of color.
“Your father’s regrets and request for your forgiveness,” said Cailloux, leafing through the pages slowly through the waning golden light that filtered through the window. “I’ll read it to you more thoroughly when we are in private. A request to the colonial authorities to begin the legal process for your manumission upon his death. I presume he did not trust to leave such valuable documents where his loving family could find them. And a request for you to travel to Marseilles and seek employment with a certain shipping company there, with whom he has standing arrangements. A banker’s draft for your passage and to start a new life.”
Ismael’s eyes were round and his hands trembled a little as he accepted the stack of precious papers.
Twilight had come and gone and the streets were deserted by the time the chemist had shooed them outside so he could lock up his shop and take his dinner. There was an odd lantern here or there, breaking up the darkness with its inadequate illumination. They traveled slowly enough so as not to stumble, but quickly enough to try and get back to the workshop. Cap-Français was not safe after sunset.
A shadow detached itself from the deeper shadows of a building and stood in front of them to block their progress. There was a glint of silver from a silver-topped walking stick, and a scraping noise, and then a longer, thinner, deadlier gleam.
“All you had to do was carry M. l’Horloger’s tools home for him,” said a familiar, sneering voice. “And yet here you are, disregarding your duties yet again.”
“There is no need for violence,” said Cailloux sharply, stepping forward to shield Ismael and Saya from Isaac’s threatening blade. “Put your swordstick away.”
“I don’t think so,” said Isaac. “I’ve been following you all evening. What mischief are you up to?”
“You reek of rum,” said Saya, striking her parasol against the pavement. “Go home.”
“You only want me to go back so you can send me off to lay the rails tomorrow,” said Ismael, stepping forward from Cailloux’s protecting shadow. “But I shall not. I shall respect my…our…father’s wishes. I shall go to France as a free man. You took our father’s watch from me, but you shall take nothing else. I bid you adieu, my brother.”
He held his gaze steadily for several moments, then stepped around the threatening point of his swordstick to pass by. Isaac stared after him, open-mouthed, for several moments, as Cailloux and Saya hurried after him. Then, he seemed to realize what was happening.
“That’s what you think!” Isaac cried, lunging forward to attack the group from behind.
Cailloux reached out to shove Ismael aside. There was a flash of orange and ring of steel as Saya spun around with a parry and counterthrust, all in one fluid motion.
Isaac stumbled backwards at the unexpected interference.
“I have no patience for weak men,” said Saya, pressing a button on her parasol. Hidden gears began to grind. “There is no honor in attacking an unarmed youth, man, and lady from behind.” Metal slid against metal. The shaft of her parasol telescoped into something longer, spearlike. The ruffled orange silk fell away. A wicked blade latched into place to form a glaive. “I take it you don’t know who you threaten?”
Isaac shook his head mutely, the point of his swordstick trembling.
Saya smiled. Her teeth shone like pearls in the darkness. “Few living men do.”
“Madame Saya,” said Ismael, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Please don’t.”
“Not in cold blood,” said Cailloux.
“But he will cause trouble for you both if he goes free,” objected Saya. Her voice was petulant, but the tip of the weapon hovered confidently, inches away from his ruffled jabot. “You’ve worked hard for your reputation, M. l’Mécanicien.”
“You have an imagination,” said Cailloux. “Surely you can be more creative than mere death.”
“Perhaps,” said Saya, considering. Then she seemed to come to a decision. “You will have no need for such fine clothes where we’re going. If you would do me the favor of disrobing – ah! That wouldn’t be the infamous skull watch that I have been hearing about all evening? If you would kindly drop it to the side, there…yes. Now, gentlemen, if you would please excuse me. I have some business back at the waterfront – no, you have quite enough to occupy yourselves this evening. M. l’Mécanicien, I apologize that I will have to visit you another evening about that…clock.”
“It will be ready for you at your convenience,” said Cailloux, with an elegant little bow.
FURY
Zig Zag Claybourne
Vingree Ramsee spoke seven languages, had sailed more of the world than most knew existed, and had created weapons and tools so much more useful than the springbow pointed at her face that she almost felt sorry for this man’s eventual trip to the hell of his upstart religion.
“You’re the seventh man to threaten me today,” she said to the addled, violent man sitting across a filthy wooden table from her. The cleanest thing on him was the ornate cross around his neck.
“You must be out of favor with your god,” said The Dead Man. Vingree thought it was a foolish name to choose for one’s self, but men of his nature were often very, very foolish.
“You don’t see any of them standing,” said Vingree. She laced her fingers atop the table and leaned forward, making him more afraid than he was. “I do not give others what is not theirs to own,” she said. “My alchemist is mine.” And, she thought, his potion is late. She had counted the moments as he had instructed her. The little flash bag affixed with the special rubber was supposed to have gone off sixty breaths after she’d quickly placed it upon seeing the gaunt, bleached pirate enter the meal tent. He had spotted her and made straight for her table. He was not alone. Nor was she.
She distracted The Dead Man by speaking, looking directly into his eyes. She worked a needle-thin throwing lance up her wrist and into her palms, another sleight the alchemist had taught her.
The Dead Man’s men were distracted by the uncovered legs and bosoms of Astarte and Tanit standing off beside their captain. Both women had curved swords slung at their hips and straight swords strapped to their backs. Both were so dark of skin that it was said that to see the flash of their blades was the last good light one saw in the current world.
Three against three. It was not an even fight.
Vingree leaned back. She had caught the slight jasmine whiff the flash bag gave off as warning. Dead Man caught it too, but, as the scent was designed to do, he was more confused as to its source than wary.
The three women steeled themselves. The flash went off in a loud sizzling flare directly under the table where The Dead Man sat. Vingree threw her body to the side without leaving her c
hair. The small arrow whizzed the space by her ear like an angry insect. A lance lodged in the pirate’s cheek immediately before two long blades flashed in the candle light. There was much cursing, then screaming, then silence.
When it was over Vingree retrieved The Dead Man’s bow. There was a large spring in it; made of a metal the Alchemist said was particularly useful to him. The Dead Man had had the metal plated in gold. His calling piece. Even his teeth had been plated in gold. Always gold for fools. “Vital I have it, Vingree,” the alchemist had said. Everything was vital to him. She did not like using her treasures as bait for his trinkets, but she did like very much the way his trinkets worked with her own.
####
“Dead was a fool,” said Bilo the alchemist, his voice as deep as his skin was dark, coal like his sisters’ who were likely somewhere sharpening blades and trading jokes at his expense. Vingree was soil, rich and alive. “One less fool is not a bad thing.” Such a sepulchral voice should not have come from a gaunt, severe body. It was a voice the soil beside him loved to hear in the night.
She brought her leg over his and rubbed an ache in her foot against his shin. She kissed his shoulder. She loved the taste of cooled sweat. “All are fools,” she said. “Has a day gone by that you haven’t called someone ‘fool’?”
“Not,” he said, raising enough to find her nipple. Cool ocean air filtered in through the dark of the opened port. He gently kissed her skin. “Since my last suckling.”
“All of an hour ago.”
“You negate my awful childhood.”
“Your sisters affirm daily that you were your awful childhood.”
“Fools,” he said. Vingree felt the smile in his voice. “Are you tiring of hunting things?” he asked. “This metal, with the threads coated in the iron shavings and wound around a proper tube, will propel an object without direct contact. Reaction motion.”
“And if big enough it can propel us,” she said. “Kiss me again.”
He did.
“Again.”
He did.
“Now stop talking. The night won’t last forever. We must bathe in it. It would be foolish not to, yes?”
“This is why you are daazeet of this ship.”
“I am daazeet of this ship,” she said, moving him into position, “because there is no one better than me.”
He considered himself fortunate enough now to know the enduring value of silence.
####
Bilo watched his sisters on deck. Their ship, unnamed, for names were too important to waste, had been crewed by men and women the world over. The tall blonde warriors who complained of heat and thirst always; those from the hidden island who claimed to have studied under Sakanouye No Tamuramaro, the warrior from Bilo’s home shore responsible for the Samurai code; the women with the long straight hair from the far far land whose language Vingree had not learned but who had, instead, taught the ship a new sign language; none of them, fine sailors as they had to be to sail with Vingree Ramsee, came near the machine-like efficiency of his sisters. This thought made Bilo smile. He had seen the crude clockwork dolls in Italia that moved limbs or other such childishness. It was only a matter of time before he perfected a clockwork human to replace the more repetitious work demanded on an able ship.
He scanned the horizon. No sign of another ship. Pursuit did not concern him, only the possibility of sudden blockade. There wasn’t a vessel with sails enough to pose a threat to Vingree’s ship when it deployed its most protected secret. Water was the world, and the ship from Asante currently ruled that world despite the Inquisition’s pretense otherwise. There were four papal ships always on the prowl for them, evil ships with gray, scarred hides and always full of bile at being four steps behind Vingree Ramsee of the Ocean.
Bilo admired the sheen of sweat on his sisters’ backs. Sweat was work. It was life. Except in cold lands, his sisters preferred the mode of dress from home. They often laughed at the starched and ruffled and overly-laced peoples who used clothing as a shield against ephemeral things. Bodies were as common as grass, sky, and dirt. If clothing was not a tool it was useless.
He carried a tureen of water to them. “Astarte, rest before you become as ugly as me.”
Astarte took the water gladly and drank deeply before passing it to her sister. Bilo, who was constantly scurrying, sliding, or crawling to repair, research, or enhance was dressed in his usual alchemical attire: a dirty, patchwork vest and outwardly-rough breeches but secretly inward silk. Two bands of fabric were wound one over the other at his waist and fastened with a system of tiny needles in resin he had devised from studying burrs. Most of their equipment and clothing had squares of these bristly resins strategically placed. They were strong, quickly unfastened and refastened, and kept the hands free at opportune times.
He pulled a notebook affixed in such a way from the small of his back. It was waterproof, sealed, and had a cache for several of his injection styluses. He depressed the syringe on one. A dot of squid’s ink appeared at the tip. He opened the book and began writing, maintaining perfect and constant pressure on the cylinder to keep the ink flowing as needed.
Tanit nodded at the book. “He’s planning to kill us again,” she said.
“What are you writing now?” said Astarte.
“The workings of your back muscles. I see how we can increase the efficiency of the sails. There’s no reason we cannot fly on water,” he said.
“We already have our scoop wheel,” said Tanit. “Next, he’ll want to take us underwater.”
“It would be a good way to avoid the papal fleet,” Astarte admitted. “I am not sure, though, we need to be the test subjects.”
“Where do we go next?” said Tanit.
“We need to put into port,” said their brother, “so I can build.”
####
There were men born hating. It did not matter what. Hatred was their lens by which all was seen, felt, and understood. For these souls, hatred was clarity in spite of clearer waters. Hatred was dank bits that nourished in spite of food.
Inquisitor Boniface swirled a gilded spoon inside a bowl of thick, gray muck. Bits of his bread dotted the table and it was intolerable that one of his slaves had not yet rushed to brush them away, although the slave’s hand was already swooping under the old man’s arm with a quickly flicking towel.
The mongrel ship had not been spotted for nearly a month. No one, not pirate or cleric, reported sight of the woman warrior, her crew, or – and even his Grace, the King, freely admitted this – her genius. It was said his inventions had changed the world seven times over already. None of those were in the service of Boniface’s betters, and that, the Most High Inquisitor knew, would not do.
Boniface was known as Hell among his lessers, and this pleased him. Hell was all-encompassing, hell was eternal, and hell was very, very vigilant.
Boniface would put into port soon. His mission was not only to patrol for the heretics but also to collect tribute and penance along the way. There was a small coastal town directly ahead, full of acolytes, full of boys, full of girls. Boniface pushed his bowl away.
Hell was a place of hungers.
####
“These coils and this rod on either side of our wheel,” said Bilo, “will make us untouchable.”
Vingree had seen how his small prototype had zipped when he tested it. “We are already the fastest ship in the world. Why do we need so much more speed?”
“Because those idiots will eventually catch up to our wheel,” he said. “This will also generate the power to focus our light through a new lens array,” he said, about to pull a notebook from his back.
Vingree stayed his hand. “How powerful?”
“Hot enough to feel as though burning skin.”
“I love how you play on their superstitions.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and ducked under the long cylinder hoisted beside her dry-docked ship. “Can you make the ship fly?” she teased.
“Not this one…but I do hav
e a design,” he said.
“If you reach for that book again I will cut you.”
Too late. He held his notebook and waved it at her. “This out-values royal gold,” he said.
“As do you. I’m glad of this break. I’m tired of using you as bait to procure the treasures of others.”
“Only from the fools who advertise their treasures and mean to do the world harm with them,” said Bilo. “We will not allow our world to be dried and plundered.”
“No, Bilo,” agreed Vingree, and ended with even more finality, “I won’t.”
“Daazeet!” shouted Astarte. She only used Vingree’s official title when there was trouble. “A new slaver, trying to pass. Heading toward the Land, not away.”
Vingree looked at Bilo. “Do you need me?”
“No.”
Vingree headed for one of their interceptor boats. They were light and fast but their hulls were strategically plated with armor and their prows sharp as stingers. She shouted names as she ran: crew who would make this a quick, victorious trip. Astarte kept pace with her, feeding her information gleaned from their long range scope. The two interceptors were usually moored to the sides of their main ship, giving the appearance of formidable pontoons. They bobbed in the water of the makeshift grotto Vingree and crew had created a year ago, never staying in one long enough to be found or create a pattern.
Slavers received no mercy. One more ship not reaching the shores of her home land was one less damnation for the planet to atone. The merfolk would be well-fed tonight. The last living sight that ship would see would be the Most Daazeet Vingree Ramsee sending ship and crew to be shamed before their ancestors.
She captained one boat, Astarte the other. When they had made sufficient headway they furled sails and dropped swift, silent wheels into the water. The ships surged ahead.
####
He glared at his brother inquisitors.
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