Halcyon (The Complete Trilogy)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “Probably not. And the next time I need an airship captured I will have to send more capable persons.” Chaou peered up, her hand still resting lightly on the major’s. “I’m sure the maneuver would be quite spectacular if attempted, but no airship could ever hope to land on a moving boat. At most, they could try to lower someone down with a rope, or lift you away with one, but that would mean flying very low and very close to this large pointy boat and all these trees for several minutes. No, I don’t think your comrades will risk that.”

  Syfax glanced once at the small woman and then focused on the airship. What is Kenan up to? The airship continued to grow in size and detail, and attracted the excited waves and shouts of several children standing near the stern of the ferry, but as the minutes passed the Halcyon made no sign of descending or even angling toward the ship. It passed overhead half a mile to the north and proceeded east, the drone of its propellers fading as it cruised over a low ridge on its way to…where? Are they going to Nahiz or straight on to Khemisset?

  “You see?” Chaou leaned against the rail, a gentle smile curling the corners of her mouth. “They must be going ahead to Nahiz to intercept us. It’s a small town, with no real means for us to blend into a crowd, so to speak. Especially if they’re standing on the pier, watching us disembark.”

  “Yeah, well, unless you plan to hijack the ferry, it looks like your little adventure’s almost over, lady.” Syfax studied the older woman, wondering if she might actually try to hijack the ferry. The longer he looked at the grim-faced ambassador, the less ridiculous it sounded.

  Chaou gestured to the people in the cabin. “And inconvenience all these hard-working women and men? Families and business travelers? I wouldn’t dream of it. No, the ferry will reach Nahiz on schedule. I shall simply have to arrange some other means of transportation before we arrive, that’s all.”

  “Sure you will.”

  “I’ll just have to make do with whatever is at hand.” Chaou turned slightly to study the little crane mechanism holding the ferry’s lifeboat just a few yards away.

  Now she’s really getting squirrelly. Time to wrap this up. Syfax whipped his hand free of her grip and lunged at the bulge of his revolver in the ambassador’s coat pocket. His fingers fumbled against the hard edges of the grip, and then a brilliant spidery arc of light struck his arm. He pulled back, whipping his stunned hand to beat the feeling back into it.

  “I’m running out of patience, major!” The little woman’s eyes flashed with rage, her lips trembled as she extended the two fingers tipped in copper. “You’re not special, you’re not clever, and you’re not going to trick me or even overpower me.”

  Syfax beat his tingling hand against the metal rail and the feeling began to return. “Seriously, lady? I have bowel movements scarier than you. You really think you’ll make it past the marshals, and the police, and the Royal Guards? Oh, don’t look so surprised. I’ve heard all of your speeches before, from other killers and delusional psychopaths. You’re not the first person who wanted to kill the queen.”

  Chaou blinked and swallowed.

  “All that blather about foreign people and money and machines? You think I haven’t heard that before?” Syfax grimaced. “You’ll be caught, and probably killed. By now, half the country knows you’re missing and half of them probably suspect you caused the mess in Tingis. Dozens dead. Train blown to hell. Airship blown to hell. People don’t like being scared, you know. They’ll crawl through sewers to rip your head off just so they can all sleep better at night, knowing they got their precious justice. You’re living on borrowed time, ambassador. And your little toy can’t hurt what you can’t touch.” He rolled his hand into a heavy fist and smashed it into Chaou’s forearm, grabbed her wrist, and twisted her arm up behind her back nearly to her neck. She gasped and squealed.

  Syfax tightened his grip and felt the ambassador weakening, losing her balance. When Chaou’s legs buckled, both of them stumbled forward and Syfax bumped Chaou’s hand against the railing. Instantly, a dozen sharp wails filled the air and Syfax shoved the ambassador away to scan for the source of the cries. It was the elderly couples. All of the little old men and women, the barefoot couples, who had been walking nearby had fallen to the deck, shuddering and wailing, their limbs flopping and twitching.

  And then it was over and dozens of horrified and baffled onlookers were bending over the shaken couples, babbling and pointing, passing bottles of water and blankets among them.

  “Back away, major.” Chaou stood panting, one hand massaging her neck while the other hovered over the metal railing. “I hated every instant of that, and I hate you for making me do it!” She screamed through a raw throat.

  “Get away from the rail!” Syfax pointed at the woman’s hand. “Don’t touch it. You could kill them!”

  “You’re the one killing them, major.” Chaou began edging backward, closer to the lifeboat. “Don’t come near me. Don’t do anything. As soon as I’m gone, you can take care of those poor old grannies. That would be best. But if you do anything, anything at all to stop me, I will shoot you.” She touched the bulge of the gun in her pocket.

  Syfax raised his empty hands and watched the woman in black glance nervously at the little crane holding the lifeboat. She shook her head and banged her palm on the railing, making Syfax wince. “No,” she said.” You, over the side. Now. Into the water.”

  The major cocked an eyebrow, then shrugged. He stepped to the railing and glanced down. Twenty feet into dark churning waters thick with algae and oil stains. Above them, the slick walls of the canal rose ten sheer feet above the water, and it was more miles than he could guess until the next landing or lock. Crap.

  “By the time you find someone to fish you out, everything will be over,” Chaou said. “You’ll be working for a very different crown, and nothing you report will matter to anyone.”

  His instinct was to make a smarmy retort about how her plan would fail, how stupid it was to leave him alive. Then again, maybe she’s planning to shoot me after I fall in the canal so she won’t have to deal with my body. Glaring at Chaou’s smug smile, he grabbed the railing, hurled himself over, and plunged boots first into the cold black slime of the Zemmour Canal. His last dry thought was, I think she was reaching for the gun.

  When his head broke the surface, he felt the trickles of thick pond scum sliding down his scalp and neck. He tried not to think about the other things that might be thriving in the filthy, sluggish waters of the canal. Syfax reach across the oil-stained surface and began swimming, dragging himself up the canal toward the huge paddle wheel churning away to the east. His long red coat quickly swelled and clawed at the water like a sea anchor, and his boots became concrete blocks on his feet keeping his legs down beneath him. Unwilling to shed the weight, he fought across the canal to the sheer stone wall and jammed his fingers into the cracks between the blocks. But the cracks were only a hair deep, clotted and mortared with slick mossy gunk that denied him any hope of climbing out. The major pulled his broad knife from his boot and stabbed at the wall here and there, looking for a few spare inches of purchase. He worked his way left and right, and finally began lurching up out of the water to jab at the higher cracks that were drier and a bit deeper. Each time Syfax fell harder and deeper back into the canal. The stench of rotting wood and bird droppings and spent engine oil burned his nostrils and eyes.

  He kicked about and found a sludgy bit of footing somewhere down in the dark at the wall’s edge. Planting his feet deep in the muck, he leapt up one more time. When he jammed his knife into the wall, it slid in to the hilt and stuck fast between two stones, holding the man up with only his legs dangling in the water. Syfax wiggled his naked toes in the cold water and rolled his eyes. “Damn it. I liked those boots.”

  After several minutes of swearing and scrambling, he levered himself up on his knife handle and leapt for the top of the wall. He caught it on the second try and hauled himself up onto the warm dry grass. As he lay there, he tugged o
ff his belt and then rolled back over to start fishing his knife out of the wall. It took several minutes and the knife nearly fell back into the canal at the last moment, but he caught the blade between two fingers and pulled it up. Well, that’s better than nothing.

  He shrugged off his soaking, stinking coat and squeezed out as much of the canal as he could. Then he slung the coat over his shoulder on the hook of his finger and started walking. He’d only taken a few barefoot steps before he stopped short and looked across the canal at the outline of Port Chellah, far in the distance. Port Chellah, full of horses and trains. Port Chellah, on the other side of the canal.

  “Aw, damn it!”

  Across the water, a wide dirt road ran parallel to the canal and to his right Syfax spotted two young boys coming toward him. “Hey! Hey, kids!”

  The boys stopped and waved. “What?”

  “How do I get across?”

  The boys looked at each other and shrugged. One of them pointed back toward the ocean and yelled, “Train bridge!”

  To the west, the entrance to the canal at the mouth of the Bou Regreg River looked to be at least five miles back, judging by the hair-thin line of the Atlanteen Ocean beyond it. There was a faint arch across the canal back there that might have been the bridge.

  An hour to run back there, another hour into town to get a horse, and then over sixty miles on winding roads from Port Chellah to Nahiz. The ferry probably only has forty miles to go.

  But how far to the first lock?

  Squinting into the east told him nothing except that the paddle wheeler was rounding a slight bend and bearing a bit to the south, judging by the trail of steam and smoke drifting above the canal. How fast do those things go?

  He didn’t imagine he could outrun the ferry, especially barefoot. But if the lock is slow enough, then maybe…

  Syfax balled up his coat around his belt and slung the whole bundle over his shoulder, and he took off running along the canal using the top of the stone wall as a path. The blocks were warm and smooth, with only the occasional pebble or rusty fish hook to make him swear and stumble. From time to time he would glance at the murky water below and glare.

  Twenty years ago you could wade straight across the river in the summer. And now, this.

  Chapter 19. Taziri

  A steady westerly wind sped the Halcyon on its way and Taziri landed in a grassy field just outside Nahiz a little more than an hour after leaving Port Chellah. Kenan had lingered by the windows, staring down at the murky lane of the canal and the rustling tree tops, peering intently at the ferry as they passed over it. If he had seen anything, he did not mention it. The rest of the flight had been quiet.

  Taziri shut down the engines and helped Ghanima lash the airship to a pair of old oak trees at the edge of the field. Kenan hovered in the open hatchway as Evander stumbled out onto the grass, groaning as he stretched his back.

  “I guess I need to stay here and watch Hamuy,” Kenan said.

  “I guess.” Taziri glanced up the road at the little village around the ferry landing. “It’ll be another few hours before the ship gets here. Is there anything we can do now?”

  “Probably not.” He shrugged. “Sort of a hurry-up-and-wait situation. Happens all the time in police work. You can go get something to eat or get some rest.”

  Taziri trudged over to him, her hands in her pockets. “Look, marshal, I realize we’re dealing with some very dangerous people, and I’m happy to help out, but I’m a pilot and I have my own responsibilities back home. I’d like to wrap this up as soon as possible. It’s been a long night and a long morning, and I’ve had enough excitement for this year. So is there anything you can do to help get me out of here?”

  Kenan shook his head. “Nope. The major is on the ferry with the ambassador. The ferry is slow. We wait.” His face tensed slightly and he nodded toward the village. “Go get some lunch.”

  For a minute, she wondered if she had the authority to throw him and his prisoner off her airship and just leave them. I need to deal with that doctor in Arafez. And Isoke needs me. Yuba and Menna need me. These Redcoats are just using me for a free ride and wasting my time. “Come on, Ghanima, let’s go get some food.”

  The village of Nahiz had once overlooked the banks of the Bou Regreg River from a hillside several hundred yards away, but after the engineers and masons and dredges had done their work, the village found itself poised on the very edge of the Zemmour Canal. The fishermen had adapted readily enough, finding the stone lip of the canal walls more comfortable seating than the rocks along the old shore and installing makeshift ladders to help unfortunate or clumsy souls back up out of the water. A shaky rope bridge had been suspended between two wooden towers across the canal in the village itself, while a broad stone and iron bridge arched above the canal just south of town. The new landing and ticket office brought a steady flow of workers and peddlers through the village, some heading west for the wealth and promise of the big city, others fleeing east back to their family homes, their reasons and stories rarely offered to strangers.

  As they entered Nahiz, Taziri strolled past the landing and confirmed that the ferry wasn’t expected for at least another two hours, and then they wandered up past the waiting horses and stage coaches to the long stone inn across the hillside where the smell of freshly brewed tea and crushed mint spilled out of the open windows. The innkeeper had a tajine simmering, and so they passed a quiet hour savoring lamb stewed with apricots, raisins, and honey dusted with turmeric, ginger, and saffron. They spoke little, and only to compliment the food or praise the bright clear skies above the dark canal.

  Afterward, they sat outside with their tea and watched the hustle and bustle of Nahiz on a warm spring afternoon. At first, the stillness of the empty streets was disquieting. Then a single fisherman trudged up the road past them. A few minutes later the same man trudged back down past them to the canal.

  “Is your hand all right?”

  Taziri glanced down, unaware that she had been rubbing her numb fingers. Her wrist had felt shaky during lunch just trying to hold a glass. She slipped her hand into her pocket and said, “I’m sure it’s fine. I think something fell on my arm in the fire.”

  Ghanima nodded. “You seem really eager to get home. Family?”

  “My husband and daughter. You?”

  “Just my sister. My twin, actually,” Ghanima said. “I’m a little worried. I don’t know what she knows yet about the Crake. I don’t want her to worry about me if someone reports the wreck.”

  Taziri nodded. “As soon as we get to a town with a telegraph office, we’ll let the brass know where we are and what’s going on.”

  “Okay.”

  The small talk droned on for the next two hours as the sun inched lower in the sky and the fishermen sauntered up and down the lane in ones and twos, sometimes with a few perch, trout, or eels on a string. Finally, a soft toot in the distance announced the arrival of the ferry and the two pilots shuffled down to the landing to wait. When the steamer pulled in and the gangway was dragged into place, the passengers streamed off with bags and children in tow. A considerable crowd began to form along the canal-side road, but after resituating their belongings and waiting for their companions, the travelers quickly dispersed either into the village or down to the main road and the stone bridge.

  Taziri and Ghanima studied every face and figure that passed them, and when the flow of passengers thinned out and finally stopped, they caught the attention of one of the deckhands to ask if there was anyone else left. The young man shrugged and invited them to look around, so they stepped aboard and made a quick circuit of the outer deck and the inner cabin and even tugged at the locked storage bins, but ultimately they were shooed off as the crew got ready to close up for an hour so the boiler could be refilled and the deckhands could get a quick meal.

  “Were we wrong?” Ghanima asked. “Maybe those men at the pier lied. Maybe the major and the ambassador never got on the ferry at all.”

&nb
sp; “Maybe. Or maybe they got off somewhere else.” Taziri jogged after the last deckhand. “Excuse me! I just wanted to ask a quick question. Did you notice a large man in a red coat with an older woman in a gold jacket?”

  The boatman raised a tired eyebrow. “A what? I don’t know.”

  “They were supposed to take the ferry in from Port Chellah to meet us here,” Taziri said, forcing a pleasant smile. “But they weren’t on board. Maybe they got off at one of the locks?”

  The boatman sighed and appeared to actually give the matter a moment’s thought. “Maybe. I don’t remember a guy in a red coat, but I think an old lady got off at the second lock. I didn’t notice what she was wearing.”

  “Oh hey.” A second deckhand, farther up the street, turned to call down to them. “I know who you mean. Yeah, I saw her get off. Second lock, just like he said. Silver hair, right? Black and gold jacket, green dress. I helped her off the gangway.”

  “Oh really?” Taziri forced herself to keep smiling. “That’s funny. Did she mention where she was going?”

  “Nah, but there’s only the one path over the ridge from there, up to the highway to Khemisset. It’s a long walk, unless she managed to catch the two-thirty stage coach from Chellah to Khem.” The deckhand shrugged. “Course, if she was going to do that, why the hell did she get on the ferry in the first place?”

  The two men joined their comrades in the inn, leaving Taziri and Ghanima to exchange confused looks.

  “Now what?” Ghanima asked.