by Stephen Hunt
He handed Charlotte a slightly shorter version of his own shock-spear while the crewmen poked and probed her diving suit to check she was airtight and shipshape. The weapon had a half moon curl of a trigger, enough space for even her gloved hand to slip around it. ‘I’ve never used one of these before.’
‘Act as if you have and you won’t have to. That rebreather pack of yours is seanore, handed down the generations. Remember this, treat it as if it’s the most valuable thing you own, and that the only way someone should get you out of it is to cut your corpse off it.’
Charlotte nodded, ignoring the twinge of guilt stabbing at her. The life he was describing sounded uncomfortably similar to gypsy society. Proud and independent and distrustful of outsiders, wild and free. And one she had already forsaken for the comforts of the capital. The Eye of Fate throbbed between her breasts, reminding her that it had prior owners. Not my first theft. Not my last.
Following Commodore Black’s lead, Charlotte slipped into the airlock pool in the middle of the floor. Once inside, she watched the iron door closing over her head, before a similar one opened by her feet. The commodore checked the buoyancy adjuster on her belt and they exited together, accompanied by a fizzing along the sides of their rebreather packs. Whatever alchemy the device’s innards was working, separating oxygen from the surrounding water, it seemed to activate on contact with the ocean.
If the slope of rock the Purity Queen was drifting over was a hill, the plain below them lay covered by an underwater forest, fronds of red, orange and green kelp climbing as high as twenty feet amidst clumps of hydrophyic plants attached to flotation sacs, coral reefs snaking through it all like veins. Only shoals of orange fish darting above the wavering forest indicated that the vista was submerged, not a scene from the valleys of home. The two of them swam over the forest, slanting rays of light from the surface illuminating the brass of their tanks. To Charlotte, connected to the commodore by the umbilical-like cord of the voice line, this felt like flying, moving solely through the gentle motion of the rubber flippers on her feet. Curious fish wheeled in to watch her before vanishing as her hand reached out towards them. The water was warm too. A reminder that the magma of the Fire Sea wasn’t so far off to the north. Before long, the slope where the double-hulled catamaran-shaped silhouette of the Purity Queen was floating disappeared out of sight, and only the submerged forest was left stretching out in all directions.
It almost seemed a sacrilege to break the spell of the place by speaking, but Charlotte, spooked by the alien immensity of the scenery, felt a need to fill the silence. ‘How do you know the seanore are close?’
‘Look down there, lass…’
She followed the thrust of his diving glove. Rising out of the kelp arched a dome composed of white bones lashed together by seaweed chord.
‘It’s the remains of a whale hunted down by a clan.’
‘Was that the site of their camp?’
‘The seanore leave them behind as a frame for coral to settle around; keeps the forests fresh and growing. Nothing is wasted down here. What can’t be used is returned.’
Similar to the care Madam Leeda used to take removing all signs of their presence in the woods before moving her gypsy caravan on. Or had that been self-preservation to make sure she and Charlotte weren’t followed? There was no mistaking the seanore camp when the two of them came across it, visible in the distance as a series of shadows swaying above the kelp heads. As they swam closer, Charlotte saw the shapes were a series of spherical nets anchored to the forest by lines of kelp rope, nets teeming with large silvery fish and minded by dolphins circling the catch as though they were shepherds’ dogs. Beneath the nets the forest had been felled, the seabed anchoring a varied collection of structures that could best be described as air-filled tents, canvas bubbles tied together by ropes and webbing. In their lee were other structures set into the seabed. Not air-filled, but canvas stretched over frameworks that might have been made of bamboo-like material harvested from the underwater forest. Moving around the assorted structures were hundreds of swimmers, and from their shapes, Charlotte could see that the commodore’s description of the sea nomads as a society as multiracial as Jackals’ own was no exaggeration. As well as human-shaped figures weighed down by helmets and rebreathers, there were figures that had to be related to gill-necks, although a lot less ferocious-looking than their images from the lewd works of popular fiction suggested. Swimming through their midst were some of the other races that the commodore had described back on board the Purity Queen. Sea lion-shaped creatures beating their way through the camp with a powerful mermaid-like tail and arms that seemed too thin to be holding the objects they carried. Heavy, clumsy things that resembled six-legged salamanders, their arms webbed with wing-like skins and working on repairing the fish nets with a surprising level of dexterity. Other beasts that might have been goblinized gill-necks, pointed snout, large eyes, hooked teeth and an oversized proboscis that covered the smooth hairless skin of their lips.
The pair didn’t have to signal the nomad camp, their presence was noticed almost immediately, the tame fish-keeping dolphins arrowing in towards the two intruders. Followed by sudden flurries of activity inside the camp as they realized the intruders might be scouts from an approaching rival clan.
‘Stay still now,’ the commodore whispered to Charlotte, the hushed tones unnecessary since they were still connected by the voice line. Charlotte noticed that the commodore was already covering his heart with his right hand when he talked. ‘Keep your hands away from your shock-spear when they approach.’
The dolphins approached, making loops around Charlotte, the speed of their movement pushing her down towards the kelp forest — her chest-mounted speaker box supplying a series of rapid clicking noises from the creatures. Others were approaching from the camp, seanore armed with shock-spears that looked identical to the weapons the commodore and Charlotte carried slung across their backs.
Charlotte’s sound box picked up their voices passed up to her helmet. ‘Pah, it is not the Clan Coudama, they are surface dwellers.’
‘U-boat traders from the world above.’
‘We do not trade. What belongs to the sea stays in the sea.’
‘We are not from the Clan Coudama,’ spoke the commodore, ‘or any other clan. Nor do we come as traders. If you have not the eyes to recognize Jared Black then take me to Poerava.’
‘Poerava no longer rules the Clan Raldama,’ came the voice of one of the seanore.
‘Is that so? Then we’ll settle for whoever sits as chief of the clan.’
A song-like wailing came over the sound box and the commodore answered with a similar burst of sound.
‘There are children who speak with a better accent,’ said the gill-neck. ‘You who claim to be seanore and issue commands as though you issue edicts.’
‘I speak with my heart, clansman. Now, you just see before you an old white beard and a young girl. If your new chief scares easy enough to be shy of us, then just be saying it and we’ll be on our way.’
‘It’s obvious you haven’t been around the Clan Raldama for a long time, white-haired surface dweller. Come in — but let us see if you thank me for the invite later.’
Seanore hung in the water around them as Charlotte and the commodore made their way into a clearing inside the kelp forest. She noted that some of the tethered buildings had air inside, swelled out, as though the nomads had decided to stake a series of balloons in their midst. The buildings constructed on the seabed, though, were obviously for the nomads’ gills-bearing members — white whalebone frames stretched over with elasticized fabric and shielded with interlocking shells laid over the framework. The shells were a rainbow, mottled and ringed with dancing colours. As Charlotte looked closer, she saw they’d belonged to crustaceans, repurposed for the camp and hung as shields on the surface of the collapsible constructions.
A group of nomads emerged from one of these larger buildings — two gill-necks and one human
swimmer in a suit similar to Charlotte and the commodore’s, except that the newcomer had a mohican-like wedge of spiny bush attached to the back of her helmet’s brass skull. A female face was visible under the clear crystal of the helmet. The first of the gill-necks was a large male, green-scaled-shoulders as broad as a weightlifter’s, his mail-like tunic clinging to an expansive, muscled chest. The other gill-neck was a female, her face hidden by a golden mask, a forehead covered by swirls of curling tentacles moulded into the metal for hair.
‘ Them. Well, this is starting out grand,’ Charlotte heard the commodore whisper over the voice line. So, he recognized the clan’s new leaders.
‘I wondered if it was you,’ said the old female, ‘when they said a surface dweller was asking for Poerava.’
‘Poerava passed seasons ago,’ said the large male gill-neck. ‘I lead the clan now.’
‘And a tale in the telling that must be, Vane. You were a wild young buck in my day, always sailing close to being banished by Poerava.’
‘She was old and tired even back then. Too confused to see what a liar and a dark-heart you were.’
‘Who is this Vane?’ whispered Charlotte over the voice line. ‘He sounds like he hates you.’
‘As he should,’ replied the commodore. ‘His father died out hunting with me. We were cut off and became prey ourselves when a pack of tiger crabs turned up.’
‘Do not whisper to each other like thieves,’ Vane’s voice boomed over the speakers. ‘You have come here to speak to the clan leader, you shall speak to me.’
‘Hear him out,’ urged the female gill-neck. ‘He was of the clan once.’
‘Thank you, Tera,’ said the commodore. ‘As surprised as I am to see Vane with the chieftain’s trident, it surprises me not a jot to find you as the clan’s wise-woman.’
‘Wise enough to remember my predecessor’s warnings about your honeyed tongue, Jared silver-beard.’
‘I could’ve told you that,’ said the human woman.
‘Wasn’t it you who said to me that our life underneath the waves was never feted to be, Maeva? Too much air in my veins, you said.’
‘Saying goodbye might have been an expected courtesy,’ said Maeva. There was a resigned tone in the old woman’s voice, as if she’d expected no better. ‘It was I that fished you out of the broken hull of your ravaged u-boat. I that ministered you back to life. Did I not deserve better?’
‘Always better than me, lass,’ said the commodore.
‘You owe her a life debt,’ said Vane, the muscled arms of the leader bunching in anger. ‘You owe my family one, also. How many others among the Clan Raldama?’
‘I had trouble following in my wake,’ said the commodore. ‘I had to flee to Cassarabia. One of the wicked surface traders who’d come among us recognized me as a royalist rebel. If I had stayed, I would have an ocean full of life debts, and a corpse is only good for paying back carrion.’
The wise-woman, Tera, danced from side to side in the water. ‘Do you not have trouble following you now, Jared silver-beard? I can scent it on you like blood leaking from your pores, calling every shark and tiger crab in the territory to us.’
‘It’s brewing up a storm, Tera. But I fear it’s coming your way whether you heed my warnings or not.’
‘Enough!’ cried Vane, jabbing out with the clan leader’s trident. ‘Go now, back to your iron vessel, full of surface air and surface dwelling scum. I smell the gas from its engines fouling our forest’s waters.’
The commodore shook his head. ‘I claim the right of admittance to the clan as one who was once seanore, and protection for me and the girl.’
Maeva’s voice spat over the speaker. ‘Take your old carcass and your fancy piece’s back to the surface. Your time among us ended long ago.’
‘I claim the right of admittance,’ insisted the commodore. He pointed at Tera. ‘Is that within clan law?’
‘It is.’
‘Then I shall take my life debt from you,’ said Vane. ‘Your claim is accepted.’
‘What does he mean?’ Charlotte asked.
‘A duel, lass,’ the commodore said over the voice line. Then he switched to the public speaker. ‘Name your champion.’
‘I will not fight with a champion,’ laughed Vane. ‘And neither will you two. You shall both fight, you and your young surface dweller here.’
‘This is between you and me, Vane. Leave the lass out of it.’
‘Two seek admittance to the clan, two shall fight!’
‘Just my old bones for the clan, then, Vane. Charlotte, make your way back to the Purity Queen.’
At the clan leader’s gesture, the seanores’ shock spears lowered, a circle of bristling violence being thrust towards the pair. ‘The claim’s validity has been accepted, you vile dark-heart. Both must fight, both must win.’
‘Do I look like a seanore warrior to you?’ protested Charlotte.
‘No,’ said Vane. ‘You look like bait for the hunt. But then, death always did follow the silver-beard like a shadow. Today it shall be yours.’
Jethro Daunt groaned as the vision returned to his head, the sound of scraping ground bumping below him. He was lying on a makeshift stretcher, a thick sheet of canvas lashed between two iron pipes, the litter being dragged by Boxiron. They were part of a trudging line, prisoners from the convoy by the damp, bedraggled appearance of the sailors — fleet sea arm as well as merchant seamen. In front of the steamman was Barnabas Sadly, limping along on his cane and the State Protection Board agent, Dick Tull. The latter had his leg in a temporary splint and was hobbling too, a pair of invalids among many. The Jackelians carried a resigned air of defeat with them as palpable baggage. But carried, where? Hearing him moan, Boxiron turned around and Daunt noted the addition of a new metal device over the steamman’s chest, hiding his rotating transaction-engine drum. It lent the steamman the bizarre appearance of a metal cleavage, all he needed was a dress and he could’ve been performing in a panto as an old widow.
‘Have you been repairing yourself in the field, old steamer?’
‘This further foul violation of my architecture,’ said Boxiron, tapping the device’s front plate with one of his hands and nearly spilling Daunt out of his stretcher, ‘is our captors’ idea of a leash for my race. It is an inhibitor for my boiler heart. I hardly have the strength to pull you along, let alone make a break for freedom.’
Daunt lifted up his arm and the steamman bent down to help put him up. ‘No need, I can stand, I think.’ He let the sudden sensation of dizziness pass, his nose filling with the lush, rich scent of wherever they had ended up. The line was marching along a well-worn track, grasses as high as a man’s knee off the path. Ten feet further on either side stood thick rain forests dripping after a recent rainfall, steaming mist rising among the clammy, tropical heat of the place. Eschewing the path for the grass, a gill-neck came along, his golden mask hooked up on either side by two rubber pipes feeding into a tank-like backpack. A diving suit in reverse. But why? Wouldn’t we be more secure as prisoners if we were held in cells in one of their cities under the waves, at a depth where any attempt to escape would mean drowning?
‘If you no longer wish your metal servant to drag your useless carcass along the ground, surface dweller, then march.’ He thumped Daunt in the ribs with the butt of his weapon. Urged on by the guard, Daunt stumbled alongside Boxiron, the steamman supporting him with an iron arm, the stretcher left abandoned in the grass.
‘Where are we?’
‘An island, Jethro softbody. We were on an Advocacy transport submarine for a couple of days after we were taken prisoner. That places us in the heart of the gill-neck kingdom.’
‘An area of the atlas left disappointingly vague by the Advocacy’s refusal to allow foreign surface craft to traverse their territory, old steamer.’
‘It is called Ko’marn, Mister Daunt,’ called Sadly hobbling in front of the steamman. ‘One of the gill-necks said I was welcome to the place when he pushed me off
their u-boat’s gangway.’
‘Perhaps that’s their word for hell,’ Daunt mused. ‘Offered by way of irony. After all, by the lights of their thinking, only the cursed and misbegotten snub the sea for dry land.’
‘I’m wagering it ain’t their word for hotel, amateur,’ snarled Dick Tull, pulling his injured leg along. ‘I’ve never seen a prisoner of war camp that I wanted to stay in.’
Daunt bit his tongue. He had a feeling there was more to this place than a camp for holding captured surface dwellers. ‘What a pity. I was hoping we might get to see one of our captors’ legendary crystal cities. If I recall correctly from the commodore’s anecdotes, the gill-neck capital is called Lishtiken, and the few who have visited it speak of it as one of the wonders of the ocean.’
Daunt gazed at the gill-neck guards walking either side of the line of shuffling captives. The Advocacy soldiers were dripping from the heat as much as any among their prisoners of war. Their body language positively cried out with discomfort and displeasure at this duty. He noted the way their heads moved, jerking around. They were close enough to the race of man for him to be able to read them, and they betrayed their dislike for this realm with every gesture. How must the island appear to them? The claustrophobia of only being able to move in limited dimensions. No up, no down. The restrictiveness of this environment combined with the almost infinite expanse of the sky, sight-lines stretching to the horizon, rather than the restricted visibility underwater. They don’t like this, he realized. Bob my soul, but they don’t like this at all. This is a hardship posting for them. Short duration and frequent rotations of duty to stop them developing, what shall we call it, land sickness, perhaps? He murmured thoughtfully to himself. ‘There once was a gill-neck from the sea, which on the land he had to be. When he took in the air he was sick, and he could only last out of water a bit, so home he swam in time for tea.’
Daunt patted his pockets and sighed in appreciation as he discovered his aniseed balls were still in his pocket. ‘They didn’t take them?’