by Anthony Ryan
“Lucky we’re not wanting for Green,” a grey-faced doctor told Lizanne as he examined Morva. She and Clay had been obliged to remove a recently expired Varestian pirate in order to provide an empty bed. “Plenty of drakes piled up outside. The harvesters are working flat out to refine it.” The doctor lifted the lid of Morva’s right eye, grunting in satisfaction. “She’s still with us,” he said. “And her pulse is strong.” His expression grew more severe as he turned his gaze to Morva’s burn-covered legs. “As for these . . .”
“Use any amount of Green necessary,” Lizanne instructed.
Seeing the implacable glint in her eye, he nodded. “It’ll repair much of the tissue damage, but the scars . . .”
“A Lokaras is always proud of their scars.”
Lizanne turned to find a bedraggled Alzar Lokaras striding towards them, his gaze dark as he surveyed his adopted niece. “Especially when earned in battle,” he added in a more subdued tone. He jerked his head at the doctor, sending the man scurrying to fetch the product. “So,” Alzar said, Lizanne seeing how his hand hovered near Morva’s. “It appears we have a victory, Miss Blood.”
“Won with her help,” Lizanne said. “Your niece had a hand in killing the White. Is that sufficient to finally win your approval, Captain?”
She was expecting anger but he barely shrugged. “I didn’t adopt her, you know,” he said softly. “Not truly. I met to trade with some Dalcian reavers. She escaped from the cage they had her in and stowed away on my ship. They came after us, thinking I’d stolen her. Reavers are not easily dissuaded from battle, so we fought. I lost crew that day, including my son.” Lizanne saw him extend a finger to tap the back of Morva’s hand. “When it was over I wanted to throw her to the King of the Deep, but I couldn’t. She was just a little girl who took a chance at freedom. So I took her back to the High Wall, but I never let her call me father. Only ever uncle.”
Lizanne moved to Morva’s side, smoothing back the hair from her head. “She’s my best pupil,” she murmured, for some reason finding the unwelcome face of Madame Bondersil coming to mind. At least I didn’t try to kill her, she thought, pushing the image away.
“I have to go,” she told Alzar. “Will you stay with her?”
“My ship burned and sank,” he replied. “For the moment it seems I have nowhere else to be.”
* * *
• • •
Arberus had his arm in a sling, the shoulder having been broken by a tail strike from one of the few Greens to make it over the wall at the height of the battle. He appeared even more aged than Clay, face sagging with fatigue as he cast his gaze over the mass of bodies below the Redoubt. They were thickest around the gates, piled up in a great ring around the crater, a legacy of the rocket fired by the Free Protectorate cruiser now moored off shore along with a flotilla of six frigates. As a result of all the damage and destruction wrought on the Varestian ships this small fleet now constituted the dominant maritime force on the globe.
The bodies were a mix of Spoiled and Greens, though not every drake had perished. The Greens left alive after the battle had fled into the hills to the west, followed by the few surviving Reds. However, Lizanne doubted that a population of drakes would continue for very long on Varestian territory. As they flew towards the Redoubt the Firefly passed over numerous sickly drakes stumbling about the plain, both Reds and Greens. Some had already slumped into lifeless immobility and Clay opined that it had only been the White’s will that had sustained them so far from their birthplace.
“We’re still counting,” Arberus said, gaze still preoccupied by the bodies. “It could be over a hundred thousand people died here, ours and theirs.”
Lizanne glanced back at the Firefly, waiting in the courtyard with Clay and Tekela on board. She was keen to be gone but required certain assurances first, and had little time to indulge his morbid reverie.
“General Arberus,” she said, voice clipped and formal. It was enough to make him blink and turn towards her, a cautious frown on his brow.
“Back to business, is it?” he asked.
“The Spoiled,” she said. “I need to know their terms will be respected.”
So far the Varestians hadn’t ventured closer than a mile to the hill where the Spoiled congregated. The fact that the Spoiled had kept their weapons and posted a cordon of cannon around their camp might have had a good deal to do with it.
“There are few in my command with the appetite for another battle,” Arberus replied. “However, that may well change as the days pass. It’s a rare heart that can resist the lure of vengeance, and this army has a great deal to avenge.”
“Evacuate the Redoubt,” Lizanne told him. “Hand it over to the Spoiled. At least then they’ll have a strong position to defend if the Varestians turn on them. In the meantime I’ll set about meeting the rest of their terms.”
“You really think that’s possible? After all this?”
“The corporate world may have fallen, but I suspect there are still bargains to be struck in the one that has replaced it.”
* * *
• • •
A day later the Firefly rendezvoused with the Superior, resting at anchor some fifty miles south-east of Blaska Sound. Tekela skilfully steered the craft through a stiff cross-wind to set her down on the aft deck. Clay, still stooping a little but otherwise much recovered, was immediately embraced by his cousin and uncle as he stepped down from the gondola.
“How’s Skaggs?” he asked them.
“He’ll live,” Braddon Torcreek assured him. “And got himself quite a scar to boast about for years to come.”
“Sorry about Preacher, Uncle,” Clay said. “Mad as a Blue-addled rat he may have been, but I reckon I’ll still miss him.”
“At least he ain’t around to be proven wrong,” Braddon replied with a sombre shrug. “All the Seven Penitents were s’posed to perish in the Travail.”
“An impressive machine, miss.” Lizanne turned to find herself confronted with a tall man she knew instantly but hadn’t actually met. Hilemore’s gaze roamed over the Firefly in evident fascination, his military mind no doubt imagining all manner of practical uses for such a contraption.
“We had others that were more so,” she said, extending her hand. “You, I assume, are Captain Hilemore.”
“And you are Miss Lethridge.”
He gave a formal nod of his head as they shook hands. “I’m glad to see you recovered,” she said. “I had heard you were wounded.”
“Just a bump on the head. The blast from that newfangled rocket gave us a pretty hard smack. I got off lightly compared to my helmsman: broken jaw. Still, at least it’s shut him up for a while.”
“Thank you for doing this. I know you’re risking much in undertaking this mission.”
He gave a thin smile before replying, “Yesterday I received a signal from Captain Trumane to report aboard the Free Protectorate flagship as of this morning. I very much doubt he intended to offer warm congratulations and a captaincy in his new command.”
“Doesn’t that make you a mutineer? An outlaw perhaps?”
“Then little has changed. In any case, as far as I can ascertain, the laws that previously bound us no longer have meaning. Which would make me a private individual free to sail wherever I wish. Luckily, the bulk of my crew seems to share my sentiments, for the time being at least.”
“Where will you go when this mission is complete?”
“My . . . co-captain and I will retrieve her daughter from Stockcombe. After that . . .” Hilemore’s smile broadened. “I’ve a yen to do some exploring. My grandfather left a long shadow, one I’ve spent my life trying to match. But he was always more an explorer than a fighter. Perhaps that’s the legacy I should be honouring from now on. Besides”—Hilemore’s gaze darkened somewhat—“in a world that now has weapons like that rocket and your marvellous aerostat, the
military path no longer has much appeal to me.”
“Without the Protectorate how will you live? A ship needs supplies, repairs from time to time.”
“There are many ports in this world, all now bursting with stockpiled goods. There are always opportunities for an honest captain to turn a profit.”
Lizanne turned as Tinkerer’s lanky form emerged from the Firefly. He stood surveying the ship and its scorched decks and damaged fittings, his usually bland features betraying a certain trepidation.
“I’ve never been on a boat,” he explained, catching Lizanne’s eye.
“This is a ship, sir,” Hilemore pointed out in polite but emphatic tones.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to become accustomed to your passenger’s manners, Captain,” Lizanne said. “Give him a cabin to himself, keep him supplied with pen, ink and paper and you’ll find him mostly tolerable.”
She went to Tinkerer, hesitating a moment before embracing him. His thin frame remained stiff and unresponsive except for the soft pat to her shoulder. “Are you sure about this?” she asked, drawing back. “Life in the new Mandinorian Republic might not be so bad.”
“A prison is a prison, no matter how comfortable,” he told her. “The memories the Artisan left me are more interesting in any case. There is a great deal still to find and study. Also, weapons are boring. They only do one thing.”
* * *
• • •
Lizanne went forward, finding Clay on the fore-deck with a young woman she recognised from the trance. “You have it?” she asked after Clay made the introductions. Kriz looked him at him before replying. When he nodded she reached for a chain about her neck, detaching a small vial and handing it to Lizanne.
“The formula,” Kriz added, giving Lizanne a strip of paper bearing a number of symbols. “I have tried to mirror the chemical notations used in this age,” she went on. “Although a plasmologist should conduct a thorough analysis before attempting to recreate it. The crystals?”
Lizanne consigned both items to her pocket then inclined her head towards the stern. “Unloaded and awaiting your inspection. A fair trade, wouldn’t you say?”
“Actually,” Kriz said, moving away, “I believe I’m doing your world the greatest service by taking them where they won’t be found.”
Lizanne watched her leave before turning to Clay. “Trance with me when you arrive,” she said. “I should also like to be updated as to your progress, if you’re so minded.”
“Happy to. Might take awhile to find all of Miss Ethelynne’s note-books. I’m thinking she had a lot of hidey-holes scattered about the Interior. We’ll take a look at the Enclave first, make sure there are no more infant Whites scuttling about.”
He met her gaze, his expression growing more serious. “You really think they’ll agree to this deal of yours? I know everything’s changed and all, but you’re asking them to give up the very thing that made the old world what it was.”
“With this,” Lizanne said, patting the pocket containing Kriz’s vial and formula, “I suspect I could ask for all the tea in Dalcia and there would be a long list of those willing to fight each other to give it to me.”
She paused, unsure of what to say next. They had shared so much in the trance that words now seemed inadequate, clumsy even. “Good-bye, Mr. Torcreek,” she said finally. “It has been . . . a very great honour.”
“I doubt that,” he said. “But thanks for saying it, anyways. And for saving my life, o’course. Occurs to me I hadn’t said so before.”
They didn’t embrace, or even shake hands in farewell. It seemed strangely formal, even meaningless. Their minds would be joined for however many years they had left. Between them there would never truly be a good-bye.
Lizanne turned towards the stern at the sound of the Firefly’s engine revving up. She gave him a final smile and went aft, greeting Braddon Torcreek along the way. “If you’re ready, Captain.”
He nodded and pulled his daughter into a crushing embrace. Loriabeth blinked tears as he released her, saying, “Tell Ma I’ll come see her soon.”
“Come with me and I won’t have to,” Braddon said.
Loriabeth glanced at the Corvantine Marine lieutenant standing close by and lowered her head. “Sorry, Pa. I think it’s time I found my own contracts.”
Hilemore’s hulking second in command barked out an order as Lizanne moved to board the Firefly, a line of sailors snapping to attention on the aft deck in response. The captain saluted as she climbed into the gondola, Braddon Torcreek following her after a moment’s hesitation. She closed the hatch and Tekela angled the engine to take them up.
“Back to the Mount,” Lizanne told Tekela. “I suspect Captain Trumane has already arrived.”
Lizanne turned her gaze to the starboard port-hole and watched Superior shrink beneath them, Hilemore maintaining his salute until she could no longer make out his form. Soon the ship had become just a speck on a very big ocean, fading from view as they flew away.
EPILOGUE
TO: MADAME LEWELLA TYTHENCROFT
PREMIER ELECT, NORTH MANDINORIAN REPUBLIC
SANORAH
FROM: LIZANNE LETHRIDGE
CO-DIRECTOR, MOUNT WORKS MANUFACTURING COMPANY
BLASKA SOUND
VARESTIA
Date: 5th Lebellum, 1601
Subject: Proposals Regarding Future Relations between the Mount Works Manufacturing Company and the North Mandinorian Republic.
Dear Madame Premier,
May I be so bold as to open this missive by offering my most sincere congratulations on your recent election. As you will no doubt be aware news takes much longer to travel in these interesting times so please forgive my tardiness in not writing sooner, but word of your appointment only reached us in the last few days.
I assume that by now you will have been fulsomely briefed by Commodore Trumane on the outcome of his visit to our facility at the close of recent hostilities. I write in furtherance of the discussion begun during that meeting in the hope that its somewhat rancorous conclusion might be overturned and a more amicable basis for future co-operation established.
Before I set out what I believe to be a sound basis for future negotiations, I should first like to address the situation regarding the large number of individuals currently residing on the Varestian Peninsular commonly referred to as Spoiled. I confess to harbouring a distinct dislike for this particular term but since an alternative eludes us I shall employ it for the sake of brevity. As you will be aware the Spoiled currently occupy a fortified position on the peninsular and so far remain unmolested by their Varestian neighbours. However, as time progresses I hear ever more voices raised in objection to their continued presence and consider it only a matter of time until some form of violent confrontation becomes inevitable. Furthermore, the Spoiled themselves have no desire to remain in their current location. As stated in their original terms of surrender, it is their wish to be transported to the Arradsian continent. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the vast majority of Varestian captains refuse to entertain the prospect of having any Spoiled aboard their ships. Many are also highly disinclined to sail to Arradsian waters despite assurances that the danger of attack by Blues has now passed.
Another salient issue relates to an aspect I feel certain Commodore Trumane included at the forefront of his report to you regarding a particular substance currently in my possession. I feel certain, Madame Premier, that a personage of your insight will require little explanation as to the importance of this substance. I also feel sure that the newly installed First Citizen of the Corvantine Republic will also require similarly minimal explanation, should I feel minded to bring it to her attention. This would be a simple matter to arrange since I count General Arberus, Commander-in-Chief of the Corvantine People’s Freedom Army, as a personal friend.
As to the nature of the
substance itself, our own plasmologists have confirmed its efficacy as a synthetic substitute for the Blue variety of draconic plasma—please see the enclosed report which details their findings in full, apart from several sections which have been redacted for reasons of corporate security. You will note from the report summary that our plasmologists believe, subject to sufficient resources being made available, the knowledge gained from their analysis will in time enable production of synthetic versions of the other varieties of product (excepting White, of course, the chemical basis of which eludes our keenest plasmological minds).
Turning to the matter at hand, I am prepared to surrender both the substance and the formula required for its production to the North Mandinorian Republic subject to the agreement of the following contractual obligations:
1. The Arradsian continent will remain free of colonisation for perpetuity and there will be no further attempts to harvest drakes or breed them for harvesting purposes.
2. The North Mandinorian Republic will provide sufficient shipping to transport the Spoiled to Arradsia as soon as can be arranged.
Please note that these conditions are non-negotiable and my offer is subject to expiry within three months of the date of this letter.
Finally, returning to the subject of Commodore Trumane’s visit, I regret I was unable to assist the commodore in his principal mission. However, I am not in a position to keep track of all my former employees. Also, I have no information regarding the true identity of the individual Commodore Trumane was so keen to meet, we only knew him as Tinkerer. It is my hope to one day resume his acquaintance, but where or when that might come to pass is impossible to say at this juncture. Neither, contrary to Commodore Trumane’s oddly strenuous protestations, do I possess any knowledge regarding the whereabouts of the former Corvantine Imperial Navy ship Superior, nor its captain, nor any of its crew.