Lotus Blue

by Sparks,Cat

  The beast did not flinch as a section of its outer crust was chipped away.

  “Not its skin,” said Lucius, as if she’d asked him a question.

  She knew all about the sand barnacle encrustations but she kept quiet.

  A second figure then raised their lance and jabbed it through the newly chiselled wound.

  “Gotta aim real close,” Lucius continued to narrate. “That jacking port’s about as big as a fighting fist.”

  The lance was barely in before the creature tipped, its great wheels spinning in the air. Star gasped, expecting all the figures—the four that she could see that had climbed up on top of the beast—to go tumbling down the sides. But the tankerjacks had secured themselves to the creature’s skin with hammers, straps and spikes. They’d known what to expect.

  Around her, murmuring began, along with the clink of dice and bones and coin, but she didn’t take her eyes off the action.

  “What are they doing?”

  Lucius leaned in closer till she could feel his warm breath on her ear. “Harvesting the blood,” he said. “Draining it into canter flasks.”

  Flasks! Now she saw that all the tankerjacks carried them, along with knives and lances, strung across their bodies. Elaborately decorated, no two looked alike.

  Tankerblood. She had heard of it, of course. Fashioned by the hands of old. Clever hands, like the ones who built the shiny silver towers. It was the same blood that kept Angels flying and fortress cities powered up and strong. A single drop was worth a brick of gold.

  “Cut him in!” yelled one of Quarrel’s men. Not Grellan this time, but Goja. The little guy with the goggles who Star had not been able to bring herself to trust.

  “Cut him in,” yelled another man and then they were all yelling it.

  The Dogwatch was passing beyond the range of the tanker sands. She could barely make out the figures balanced on the creature’s back. They were even further along when the towline snapped and the tanker pulled free.

  The creature swerved sharply.

  “In his flurry!” shouted Grellan, using the glass now, shading its lens from sunlight with his fingers.

  Lucius shook his head, taking his hands off the rail, then stood up, forcing those behind to step back and give him room. “Tanker’s not dead. It’s not even clipped. It’s playing with them is all.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  But she knew the answer to that. He could be sure because he was Lucius, and tankerjacking was what he knew by heart.

  A second towline was fired but the mechabeast was having none of it. Its song intensified, a sound like grating metal scraped across bleak stone. It slammed on its breaks and shuddered, flinging the riders high into the air. And then, in an instant, it was gone, tearing off across the sands like lightning.

  The Dogwatch had now travelled to a point almost entirely out of range. Through glass, Star glimpsed downed figures on the sand wriggling like roaches on their backs.

  The crew were fired up, eyes shining with excitement. Rogue tankers didn’t travel far from others of their kind. Ropes and lances were primed and ready. All they needed was for Quarrel to give the word. For the Dogwatch to swing about and join the hunt. But Quarrel, back on deck by now, was barking orders of a different kind, demanding the ship stay on the Black and keep up its trajectory straight ahead.

  “You bloody idiot, we’re going the wrong way,” shouted Grellan, forgetting that he took his life into his hands by insulting a Templar mere inches from his face.

  But the ship sailed on, its captain wilfully oblivious to the mounting anger of his crew. He didn’t even bother to turn and face them at the sound of blades being drawn from their sheaths.

  = Thirty-three =

  When the Razael unexpectedly set sail, Tully Grieve had stood there stupidly on the open deck, gawking with his mouth agape at the familiar landscape rushing past, blurring at the edges. A man in a fancy embroidered officer’s jacket had bellowed into his face, and Grieve had expected to be slapped in chains or turfed right over the rail. It was only when that hadn’t happened that realization dawned: Two days of sewing scraps of cloth in that stinking Heel back alley had paid off better than Grieve ever could have hoped. Even up close, he’d passed as crew, faceless amongst many other hired hands. So long as he scrambled, ducked, and hurried, so long as he behaved like everyone else, no one would realize he was a stowaway. Nobody would pay him second mind.

  Tully Grieve learned quickly. Watched and copied. Wrapped his hands in strips of rag to avoid the rough burn of the ropes. Kept an ear out for the advice of the handful of experienced sand sailors on board, ducked the random swinging of the boom. Made himself as unnoteworthy as possible, moving, hoisting, shouting, swearing, and trying his best to blend in with the rest of them.

  How quickly he became accustomed to the sickening crunch of giant castors splintering over wreckage. The remains, he presumed, of smaller vessels. Unlucky sailors, victims of the Black, the tankers—and, most likely, each other’s sharpened blades.

  As days passed and the wind picked up to batter the ship from every angle, Grieve learned even faster. Important things, such as the fact that the Razael was not shipshape. Not provisioned properly, never intended to push out from Fallow Heel.

  The air that scoured the Black was bracing; sharp and fierce. Murmured utterances of the crew revealed dismay and agitation. These were mostly domestic servants, some debt-bonded rather than employed—one with a slave cuff welded to his ankle. All with the good sense to steer clear of the foreigners who had taken command of the ship, with their old-tech weaponry and unreadable expressions.

  This far out upon the Black was the last place on Earth Grieve ever expected to be.

  Just his bad fortune to get caught up in someone else’s story. Bad fortune that had dogged him all his life.

  He peered over the railing at the frightening Black below, and considered jumping, but he’d likely break a leg. And besides, even if he didn’t, where would he go? Once he’d come to terms with his predicament, his mood lifted, billowing alongside those canvas sails. He would simply have to do what he always did—make the best of the hand he had been dealt.

  He found a spot safe from underfoot and spent some time watching smaller craft veer away from the Razael’s dangerous castors, like half-starved sand skinks skittering across the sand.

  Now and then larger shapes in the distance caught his eye. Shapes that moved too quickly to get a proper fix on.

  The sky had turned a bitter hue, more green than blue, and getting greener the further the ship sailed from port. Grieve had never seen a sky that colour, not even back as an itinerant boneshell harvester travelling with his family—back when he’d still had one.

  He kept one eye on the foreigners conferring on the foredeck. The three in charge were neat and clean, but their offsiders were an unruly collection of half-drunk misfits. All flab and indulgences from living the big town life. Men who preferred to gamble than dirty their hands. Grieve knew the type—and how best to dodge their scrutiny.

  A group of men he identified as dockhands stood smoking on the aft deck, half-obscured by a wall of fat round barrels lashed. Grieve took a risk and joined them, jamming a beadie between his lips as he bummed a light.

  The men, each one sporting a stained and non-too-well-maintained red jacket were discussing the sky and the light and the heat and the fact that they’d never before been forced so far from home.

  “So where dya reckon they hail from then?” said Grieve nodding in the direction of the foredeck and the foreigners.

  “Not from Heel,” said the hefty one to a chorus of agreement, “nor anywhere in spittin’ distance of the Sand Road.”

  Grieve nodded sympathetically, then tuned out while the men complained about not knowing where the Raza
el was headed, nor whether or not they’d be put to hunting tankers and how, if so, they were ill-equipped for such.

  When he tuned back in again, two men were staring at him hard, perhaps suspicious of his sudden silence. “Thought I saw a pod before,” said Grieve in haste, nodding across the bow in the direction of the Black’s outermost fringe.

  “A’coarse you did. Rich pickings and all—not that tankers’ll be doing us any good. Ship ain’t kitted out for harvest. Ship ain’t kitted out at all.”

  “Hold’s full of sacks and barrels,” Grieve said, wishing instantly that he’d kept his observations to himself.

  “This ain’t no tankerjacking jaunt,” said another man who’d stepped up to join them, pale skinned with a gingery beard. “There’s not a man or woman on board who can throw a lance at close quarters. Or operate that monstrosity.” He pointed with his bearded chin at the deck-mounted harpoon. “That shiny-pretty needle’s just for show.”

  They all turned to the harpoon gun at the tail end of the deck, a fearsome weapon, highly polished, its tip sheathed to prevent unfortunate incidents.

  “At the rate we’re travelling, we’ll soon be off the Black,” added a scar-faced kid.

  The other men nodded in grim agreement, each making a sign. Heelers, Grieve noted, were even fonder of their spits and wards than Sand Road folks. Eating, drinking, smoking, or belching, they always offered up some small sign or other, desperate to stay on the right side of gods Grieve had never even heard of. Not that he didn’t have wards of his own. Practical wards to keep the serpents in their nests, sandskates from catching you unawares, the vultures from pecking at your eyeballs while you slept. He knew charms for seeking true direction. Blessing stones for never being left behind . . .

  Grieve conjured a ward sign from his memory of a home no longer standing. He longed to ask what the men feared existed beyond the Black, but was not stupid enough to draw further attention to himself.

  Two of the foreigners in their skin-tight suits were still conferring on the foredeck, talking their private talk, the others keeping a wary distance from them. They had pistols, shiny and new, and other weaponry that would likely prove as dangerous.

  Grieve kept one eye on their leader—the man with the dark, curled hair and golden earring. A man who moved as though the whole world was watching every step, as though he owned the land and sea and sky—and what he did not own, he was going to steal.

  Eventually the smoking men relaxed a little and talk turned to other matters. Snippets of information traded along with slugs of bitter liquor from battered old hip flasks.

  The hefty man shared a story with the scar-faced lad, a tale Grieve had heard before from an old hemp trader he used to drink with. How Angels created the Obsidian Sea. How in its place once stood a forest of towers, each one swarming with thousands upon thousands of debt-bonded workers. Towers hundreds of storeys high, scraping the hem of the clouds. When the Ruin came down, the Angels combined their firepower to blast the towers into molten soup. The soup then hardened into the Obsidian Sea.

  Perhaps it was true what he’d heard others on board say. That the Razael must be in search of a fallen Angel, Angelfall having sent the whole port reeling, a prize more valuable than all the gems in Amberglasse.

  A truth that tallied with a theory he’d been working on since the first one fell. What else could the damn things be but sky bound tankers, or something similar? Everyone had seen Angel lights zipping and weaving above the Dead Red skies. High up, yet sometimes close enough to glimpse the fire they spat at one another in short, sharp bursts.

  Grieve did not believe in those hundred storey towers, but Angels he could see and therefore trust. Even more, he trusted in the desperate greed that would send an unprepped crew like this sorry excuse for one hurrying across the Black. Had he lived, Grieve’s own father would have led the charge, would have crawled on hands and knees to reach such a prize.

  Late afternoon slid rapidly through dusk and into darkness. It wasn’t safe to stop the ship, nor was it safe to travel through the night. The compromise was to trim the sails and edge along on battery power, with great curved mirror-arc lamps throwing silvery glare across the prow and sides. Back in Heel, the lamps had been in regular use, illuminating the docks during festivals and late night blessings of the fleet. But the sun-and algae-powered batteries were apparently untried. Untested—and for all anybody really knew, unused before this day.

  Hired guns stood watch on deck in case of trouble. Trouble that was never far away. Grieve learned that many of the crew remained stubbornly loyal to Master Mohandas, the rich owner of the ship. That Mohandas was a fair man, even to the debt-bonded. That they didn’t like or trust what had come to pass. That some of them thought the folks from Heel should not be following commands of foreigners, not even men carrying ancient relic-tech, garbed in flame and blade resistant skinsuits.

  The moon was bright, casting a fair light of its own. Behind it, a glittering spread of stars. Small fires winked, scattered across the blackened landscape. They were not safe here. Not any of them.

  According to his fellow crewmen, the Razael had crossed into the realm of deadly mecha beasts and magic. Undead sorcerers roamed the Black, fighting battles only they could see.

  Grieve believed in sorcerers, or, rather, the painted tricksters and charlatans he knew such men and women to be. He’d watched such dandies swallow swords, spit flame, charm serpents, walk barefoot across burning coals. He had tasted their potions and seen through their lies.

  But he hadn’t come on deck for tales of supernatural creatures. Grieve had come to sniff out information, knowing he knew something that the rest of the crew apparently did not. That Master Mohandas had not sanctioned this peculiar operation. That the big, rich man was tied to a chair, just as much an unwilling voyager as the rest of them.

  Grieve had been intending to mind his own business. To ride it out and see where the Razael would take him. But the foreign men were getting rougher with the captive father and his pretty daughter. There was more to this story than there appeared to be. The ship was not in search of fallen Angels, tankers or any bounty he had heard of—and before too long they were going to hurt the girl in an effort to make the rich man cooperate.

  Grieve lingered portside out of the way of rushing feet, reminding himself that pretty girls were easy enough to come by. He knew better than to stick his neck out—especially in such an uncertain situation.

  But instead of ducking back down the companionway, close on the heels of two boys carrying gunny sacks, Grieve took out the last of the crumpled beadies from his pocket. He sauntered back to the aft deck, with its round barrels and smoking, idling men and as he bummed himself another light, he let slip some of the things he’d seen belowdeck. Words he regretted just as soon as they’d left his lips. He knew so well the folly of sticking out his neck for others, not something he was keen to do for any man. But for her . . . Maybe that was different. Two days he’d been spying through that crack in the wall. Two days waiting to see what would become of the rich man and his pretty daughter.

  = Thirty-four =

  Mohandas, well-known dealer in antiquities, sat firmly bound to a wooden chair he was too big for, his thighs jammed uncomfortably together. “I do not know what you want of me,” he said wearily, tugging at his bonds. “You have my ship and you have me. And. . .” he added uneasily, “my daughter. Everything else that I possess is back in Fallow Heel. Warehouses, silos, stables, stock. . . Everything.”

  Kian, who had been pacing up and down with his arms behind his back, stopped suddenly and turned to face Mohandas.

  Mohandas struggled, causing the chair’s legs to wobble.

  Kian stared into the big man’s eyes with great intensity. “It is not every day I find myself coming face-to-face with a living legend.”

  Mohandas stoppe
d struggling.

  “Leave him alone,” spat Allegra, slamming her heel against the wall behind, tugging at the ropes that fastened her wrists securely to a light fitting. “My father is a merchant—as any idiot can plainly see—his wealth lies in the goods he trades, few of which are stowed aboard this ship. Whatever you want, you will not get it unless you return us to Fallow Heel. Because that is where his property lies. Any idiot—”

  “His property, to be sure,” said Kian, “as you point out repeatedly, any idiot would realize. Master Mohandas is the richest man in all of Fallow Heel, as anyone I ask is sure to tell me. But that’s not the name I’m interested in today.”

  “The name? What name? Just tell us what you want and be done with it,” snapped Allegra. “Whatever it is, just take it and let us be.”

  Kian resumed his pacing. “My cousin here, Tallis, told me a fascinating story before I’d even set foot upon this ship. Tallis is good with people, a skill I’ve always struggled with myself.” He paused to clear his throat. “Tallis smiles a lot. People like him. People tell him things—especially rumours. Especially when they’ve had a drink or two.”

  Allegra groaned and slammed her heel into the wall, again and again and again.

  “Be quiet, child,” said Mohandas, his gaze fully focused upon Kian. “We are all here civilized men. I’m sure that in time we can come to an—”

  “Arrangement? Is that what you were going to say?” said Kian.

  Mohandas fell silent and observed his three captors. He waited to hear what Kian was going to say next.

  Kian cleared his throat. “Back home in Axa, Tallis was always overly fond of stories, the best ones having long been travellers’ tales. A jumble of history and mythology, tales revealing how lives were lived in the years before the cities melted. Before we dug in underground for safety. Tallis particularly relishes such tales of bravery and adventure, of travel, exploration and discovery. Isn’t that right?”