The Cipher

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  She stepped into the vast maple and marble entry, the sounds of the wind dying as the doors swung closed. Footmen stood ready inside, taking Lucy’s dripping cloak and offering her a towel. She took it, her lips thinning as the burn of majick closed around her like a cloak of nails and nettles. Her scalp prickled and her mouth tasted like polished metal.

  The footmen watched her, curious at her immobility. She forced herself to walk deeper inside. It wasn’t easy. The harbor terminal was thick with majick, far more than most places in Sylmont. That was one of the reasons she avoided coming here as much as possible. The biting pain did not fade, but every step Lucy took was firmer as she adjusted to it. The hurt was all too familiar and nothing she could not handle once the initial shock had passed.

  A footman trailed after her at a discreet distance, wiping up the watery trail she left on the parquet floor. Marble pillars marched along the walls and rose like a scattered forest throughout the entry in support of the ornately plastered ceiling. Lucy shifted the strap of her satchel on her shoulder, dabbing at her dripping forehead with the towel.

  Halfway across the room she paused, her attention snagging on the dramatic sculpture set up on a pedestal shaped like a thirty-two-rayed compass. A larger image of the compass was inlaid into the floor. The sculpture depicted the sea god Braken carved in ebony. His fluid, muscular body lay prostrate at the silvery feet of the Moonsinger, Meris. Black waves washed over her feet—like pleading hands, like shackles. She stretched her hand down to her lover, but her eyes were turned upward toward the featureless figure of Hurn, the Hunter, carved in translucent green windstone. Meris’s face was a study of longing and pain and violent passion. It was without a doubt the most moving rendition of the terrible triangle Lucy had ever seen. She never passed by it without stopping, caught by the threat of impending tragedy in the piece.

  Thunder boomed again. Lucy eyed Braken’s prone form with foreboding. The sea god’s love for Meris was furious and vengeful, not to mention desperate. The Moonsinger could not seem to choose between him and the mysterious Hurn. Their jealous arguments turned into vicious storms that scoured the world and churned the black waters of the Inland Sea.

  That sort of passion was entirely alien to Lucy, though she liked men plenty, and had had her share of lovers. But she never got so attached that she lost her mind. Turning away, Lucy briskly walked away toward the sweep of green jasper stairs on the opposite side of the room. But she’d hardly gone two steps when the thunder clapped again. She froze in place as the pillars bracing the roof vibrated, making a guttural grating noise. Her gaze lifted uneasily to the ceiling as dust filtered through the air. Silence fell like a shroud.

  Then between one breath and the next, a skin-chilling siren ripped apart the stillness. The sound galvanized Lucy. She gathered the length of her dripping surcoat and pelted up the stairs, taking two at a time. Clerks and servants joined her on the steps, their faces set and pale. They flowed upward to the harbormaster’s office—in reality a gallery that took up the entire length of the third floor. The seaward wall was constructed entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows. On the interior wall stretched an enormous map of the harbor. All the docks were carefully delineated—red, pink, and orange for government docks, green for private, and blue for foreign ownership. Pinned into the occupied slips were various bits of paper with the ship’s name, owner, and status. These corresponded with files held in the banks of cabinets filling the vaults on the second floor. Spiraling brass ladders led down into the vaults at intervals along the gallery. Desks and tables crowded the rest of the space and an army of clerks bustled about, shuffling papers, scratching with pens, and making adjustments to the map. Or they would have been, if they weren’t all clustered at the windows, staring out at the harbor.

  Lucy pushed through the crowd, looking for Hammond Wexler, the recently appointed harbormaster and yet another Rampling—a third or fourth cousin. The siren continued to wail, its majickally enhanced tones echoing across the harbor and through the streets of Sylmont. It drowned the buzz of voices and the pounding thud of Lucy’s heart.

  She found her gray-haired cousin bent over a spyglass atop a tripod just inside the window. He wore a closely fitted dark blue uniform with parallel rows of gold buttons rising up over his chest and circling around his shoulders. Gold piping trimmed his back-turned sleeves and ran down his pants legs. He wore a pocket watch and chain across his slender waist and a collar of office around his neck. Like Lucy, his royal pendant was hidden beneath his clothing. As she approached, he straightened, his craggy face bleak.

  “Braken’s eyes,” he grated.

  She didn’t bother with any niceties. “What’s happened?”

  His gaze flicked to her and then back to the rain-streaked windows. There was little enough to be seen. Though the morning had begun to brighten, the pounding rain and gray mist obscured the southern headland across the harbor. Merstone Island could no longer be seen at all.

  “Knucklebones. A weir’s grown up in the channel. We’re corked tight as a wine bottle. Wind is blowing straight at us. Well above forty-five knots. Ships will rip out their keels on the weir before they even know it’s there.” He paused, the muscles of his jaw flexing. “You’re just in time, cousin. You’re senior customer on-site. Better open the sheds. Take whatever you need from the terminal. I suggest you hurry.”

  He spun about and strode away, not waiting for her reply.

  Lucy pressed her palm against the cold glass of the window, feeling heavy and frozen, helpless. Ships were coming. This close to Chance, there could be dozens just out of sight beyond the curve of the horizon.

  “Sweet Meris, please don’t let Jordan be on one.”

  Chapter 2

  Despite the urgency of the siren and Wexler’s orders, Lucy paused to look into the spyglass. She adjusted the eyepiece, twisting a small dial along the side. She caught her breath and recoiled as the knucklebone reeds reared up, seeming only a handbreadth away from her face.

  “It is a spyglass, after all,” she muttered, bending to look again.

  The white stalks pricked from the water, their stems articulated like skeletal fingers. Some were short, like wheat stubble. Others stretched up twenty feet or higher. They seemed fluid and soft as seaweed as they fluttered and waved beneath the might of the gale. But Lucy knew better; they were sharp-edged and harder than iron. When ships ran up onto a weir, the reeds did not break; they did not give at all. They appeared and vanished wherever they pleased without rhyme or reason, making them nearly impossible to avoid and causing more wrecks than anything else on the Inland Sea.

  Lucy slowly swung the spyglass from side to side. The weir ran along the edge of the tide wards, blocking the entire mouth of the harbor. They filled Merstone Strait to the shores of the majicars’ island on the north side and marched down out of sight behind the southern headland. It was a disaster.

  Lucy straightened blindly, then spun about with sudden purpose. She had work to do.

  The crowd of clerks pressing against the window was silent and tense. Lucy’s gaze swept the room with sharp calculation. At last she lit on a clerk bending over a large book, rapidly making inscriptions. His shirtsleeves were rolled up over his elbows and ink stains blotted his fingers. Pinned to his collar was a master clerk’s brooch. Beside it was a silver pin shaped like a compass rose set on an obsidian disk and struck through by an anchor, the latter indicating he was the harbormaster’s personal assistant.

  Lucy strode across the room, stopping beside him. His hair stood on end like he’d been running his fingers through it, and the corners of his mouth were drawn down in deep grooves.

  “I need to borrow some of your people,” she said, not waiting for him to acknowledge her. “A dozen senior clerks, no one junior. I want your most trustworthy. I’ll need carriages to take us to the salvage sheds. Customs will reimburse the costs.”

  He straightened, staring down at his hands clenched around his pen. When he spoke, his voice was
strained. “I shall arrange it. Is there anything else you require?”

  “Hot food. We’ll have everything else we need. How soon can you get it done?”

  “No more than half a glass. If you like, I’ll have someone escort you downstairs. You’ll want to eat.”

  Lucy hesitated.

  “There’s nothing you can do for now.”

  He was right. It would be wise to get something in her stomach. Once the salvage began, she’d have precious little time to eat. And she certainly didn’t want to wait at the window and watch helplessly.

  “Very well.”

  She followed a young apprentice to a small salon. The warning siren continued to sing its eerie song, the sound muting only slightly as they descended into the building. Her guide yanked the bellpull and ordered tea from the flustered servant who answered the summons.

  “It will be here in a moment, miss,” the apprentice said, twisting her fingers together. The girl mumbled through lips that refused to open. Accustomed to registering details, Lucy glimpsed pinkish teeth and a tongue the color of garnets. There was also a black burn mark on her right index finger that was not hidden by the ink stains. She smoked bloodweed, an addictive stimulant that many apprentices leaned on to complete their work. However, its side effects were both embarrassing and debilitating with long-term use—like wetting oneself, for instance. Lucy sniffed. The girl did not stink. Nor did she struggle with door handles. But the irony was that if she kept it up, she’d no longer be able to do the work for which she’d started taking the drug in the first place. Lucy gave a mental shrug. No one began taking bloodweed without knowing the cost. And the girl had a right to be stupid. Everybody did.

  The subject of Lucy’s inspection hovered near the door in jittery silence until Lucy couldn’t stand it any longer and dismissed her. The girl rushed out, no doubt to return to the vulture watch at the great gallery windows.

  Lucy’s tea arrived, served with cold pork sandwiches, sliced pears, an assortment of hard cheeses, and a plate of nut cookies. She could hardly swallow, but knew she had to. The next hours would be frenzied, with little opportunity to eat or sleep. This close to Chance, each day promised two or three dozen ships. Even though some would see the warning beacons and veer away, too many would run up on the weir. The potential devastation was enough to make Lucy’s throat hurt. She picked at her food, counting each time she chewed and swallowed. She hardly noticed when she burned her tongue on the steaming tea.

  When the warning siren changed to an emergency signal, she leaped to her feet, nearly overturning the table. It pulsed in short, hard blasts, blaring like a donkey’s bray.

  She was out of time. With or without the clerks and carriages, she had to open the salvage shed.

  “No! That isn’t Trilby and Sons—that’s Daily and Tripp. Check the box markings and go slower if you have to. If they are loose goods or you can’t read the markings, put them in E section and we’ll figure it out later.”

  The journeyman clerk nodded, his mouth pinching. Lucy watched him wiggle the barrel back up onto the cart and go in search of the proper cargo stall.

  “Check his sheets. Sloppiness is a crime in customs. Make sure the salvagers are logged and the cargo lots tagged solidly. The only reason we get salvage volunteers and don’t lose goods to theft is because the reward is worth more than sitting around watching or stealing,” she said to the woman trailing her. Rebecca Rae was a master clerk. She towered above Lucy, with a narrow, beaklike nose and a sharp chin. Her skin was pale, like grass hidden all summer beneath a rock. She was extraordinarily competent, and Lucy made a mental note to recommend Rebecca Rae for customs work.

  Leaving the clerk to follow her orders, Lucy continued along the aisle, inspecting the flurry of activity with a gimlet eye. Much of the wrecked tramper’s cargo had washed through the weir and had been collected and deposited. Processing it was slow and the harbormaster’s inexperienced clerks made a lot of mistakes. The salvage was becoming chaotic as goods were piled up haphazardly and sloppily documented and recorded. She hoped her own people arrived soon.

  She stopped short when the ship-in-trouble siren began its pulsing roar once again. Not again. Her lips tightened. Not the Firewind! Mother Moon, not Jordan’s ship. She jerked about as Rebecca Rae joined her again.

  “Damn. That’s another one coming. I’ll have to open another shed and pray to Chayos the gods come to their senses soon.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll take half the crew and get started. You’ll have to stay here until one of our majicars shows up. Regulations require that every open shed have a customs inspector on-site—there’s too much danger of smuggling and theft otherwise. So I want you to stay and keep an eye on things. Don’t leave until it is sealed. Got it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Lucy nodded. Good woman. No blathering on with stupid questions. Yes, when this was over, she’d hire Rebecca Rae for her own team.

  She’d nearly forgotten about the gale. It was blowing as hard and wet as earlier in the morning. Waves crashed against the tide wall, geysering high into the air. The rain pecked and the wind roared. She’d not put on her cloak and by the time she’d struggled to the second shed, she was drenched through. She grasped the lock in one hand, groping for her seal with the other. A powerful gust shoved at her. She staggered, clinging to the door handle for balance.

  She jumped when strong hands closed around her waist, a short, muscular body bolstering hers from behind.

  “Better tie an anchor to your ankle or you’ll be kiting off to the Root.” Hig’s voice was welcome.

  “It’s about time you got here. Help me get this open,” she shouted.

  Hig bulled her forward, bracing her as she unlocked the door. Dozens of other customs clerks clustered around them, helping to block the wind. When the lock was sprung, Hig and Gridley shoved the doors open. Lucy took a towel from the shelf inside the door, wiping her face as she rapidly fired off orders.

  “Peep and Lester, stoke the furnace. Did you bring a majicar?”

  “Brithe, at your service, ma’am.”

  His voice was cool and almost brusque. Lucy glanced up at him assessingly. Her eyes fell on his illidre—a focus for majick made of sylveth. It hung on a chain of gold, silver, and copper woven together like a serpent; the clasp was a snake’s head biting its tail. The illidre was a smaller snake coiled around the chain. It was dark blue with oranges and reds glinting from within as they caught the light. Facets suggested scales and enhanced the fiery glitter. Lucy eyed it distastefully. It wasn’t a cipher; it didn’t radiate majick. For the moment. But as soon as he worked his first spell—it was like being attacked by hordes of wasps. She shuddered, her lip curling involuntarily.

  “Something wrong?” the lanky majicar demanded.

  Lucy tore her gaze from the illidre. Brithe was probably close to thirty-five years old. He was skinny with straw blond hair, a narrow chin, and fish-belly pale skin. His mouth was wide and compressed; his eyes a milky gray. It was an arrogant face with little in it to like. At the moment, he looked distinctly infuriated. She swore silently at herself. Majicars hated their service terms and more often than not had to be bullied into doing the duty they were legally bound to do. What was she doing antagonizing him during a salvage?

  “Yes,” she said, reaching out to give Brithe a perfunctory shake of the hand, seeing the flash of humor in his eyes at her bluntness. “I’d appreciate it if you’d overlook my rudeness. I’m usually better behaved,” she said.

  Brithe examined her a long moment before nodding. “Today you’re entitled, I think. As I said, I am at your service.”

  “Thank you. And well met, sir. I’ll ask you to accompany Hig next door. Seal the shed as soon as you can. We’ll work on sorting and inspecting its contents later. Hig, send the rest of the crew over here. Master clerk Rebecca Rae is sweeping up. She’s good.”

  Hig leered, rubbing his square, callused hands together. “Is she, now?”<
br />
  Her senior customs clerk was shorter than Lucy by four inches, and Rebecca Rae was taller than her by equally as much.

  Not that Hig would be put off by the difference. Lucy rolled her eyes.

  “Do try to remember we are in the middle of an emergency. And since I’d like to recruit Rebecca Rae to our team, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t entirely put her off the prospect.”

  “I’ll be a pussycat,” he promised solemnly.

  Lucy knew better. “One of these days I am going to hire a majicar to rot off your favorite bits so I won’t have to worry about you tomcatting anymore.”

  He grinned and gave a little salute. “And deprive the women of Sylmont of my affections? You’d have a riot. Now, if you don’t mind, sweet Rebecca Rae is waiting for me.” He turned to leave and then paused, frowning, his voice dropping low. “Was it wise, leaving the shed without certified customs supervision?”

  “There wasn’t any choice. Besides, Rebecca Rae is a bonded master clerk and has been solid all night. Given the circumstances, it was the only thing to do.” Except that it was entirely against policy and she could be suspended and fined for it. Lucy gave a little shrug. It was done. She waved Hig and Brithe away, concentrating on the business at hand.

  The day passed in a frenzy of activity. Four more ships cracked up on the knucklebones before night fell. Salvagers hauled in recovered cargo from the destroyed vessels. Some of it had survived inside casks and crates. Far more were loose goods hauled in tumbled jumbles inside duffels and makeshift sacks of sailcloth and net.

  Customs teams continued to arrive throughout the day. The first wreck had been a three-masted schooner; the next were deep-bellied four-masted clippers carrying twice the freight. The salvage piled up quickly. Even with so many customs teams, it was difficult to log the goods, much less keep them organized. Shed after shed was filled and sealed.