Within the Water

by Kelly Fallows

  ‘Get me Minister Devonport,’ Fahlen instructed his clerk through the comm. line to the outer office.

  ‘Yes, Minister… did you want to see him now?’ The clerk hazarded to ask for clarification.

  ‘Of course, now you fool!’ Fahlen thundered back.

  ‘Yes sir, right away sir,’ the clerk squeaked.

  Some short while later a knock on the door intruded into Minister Fahlen’s rather circular thoughts.

  ‘Enter.’

  ‘Minister Fahlen,’ a hesitant voice greeted him.

  Fahlen looked up to see the portly figure of his fellow minister standing halfway through his doorway. Fahlen let him stand there in the no man’s land between the two offices for a moment longer than propriety dictated he should. He wanted to set the tone of this meeting. A fact that Devonport’s sweaty, dishevelled demeanour suggested he was acutely aware of.

  ‘Do come in, Devonport.’ Fahlen graciously invited after the long pause. ‘Carrington and I missed you at the Jigs Day celebrations today.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Devonport floundered at the cordial greeting and opening remarks, having expected to have his head bitten clean off before he made it two steps into the inner office. ‘I was in the process of… well, my investigations…’

  ‘Indeed.’ Fahlen allowed a shark-like smile to stretch across his face. ‘Well now, that is… unfortunate.’

  ‘Er, Minister?’

  ‘You see, I may have intimated to the chancellor that the investigation was well in hand and that you would be reporting your findings to him in the very near future,’ Fahlen kindly explained to the stammering man standing before him.

  ‘But, Fahlen, what can I tell him?’ Devonport practically begged, eyes growing wide at what seemed to be his impending doom.

  ‘You must have discovered something,’ Fahlen prompted.

  Devonport merely shook his head miserably before slumping into the guest’s (or more like victim’s) chair opposite Fahlen. ‘Not a thing,’ he bemoaned into his hands.

  ‘Surely something must have come up on Benjamin Daniels,’ Fahlen suggested lightly, causing Devonport’s head to snap up at the mention of the name. ‘Ah, so you are aware of him then.’

  ‘That… that… that was Daniels?’ Devonport stammered. ‘But he’s dead!’

  ‘By your own report, he was very lively for a dead man,’ Fahlen commented dryly.

  ‘Yes, but he died years ago on the Serr…’ Devonport stopped, horror dawning on his face as he realised what he’d revealed in his panic.

  ‘On the what, Minister?’ Fahlen prompted leaning forward; moving in like a shark sensing blood in the water.

  ‘I… ah… that is…’ Devonport floundered.

  ‘I cannot help you if you do not tell me what you know,’ Fahlen told him in a reasonable tone, designed to encourage him to open up, and Devonport, being the kind of weak man that is ill-suited to the cut-throat nature of politics, missed the truly subtle omission of the fact that Fahlen hadn’t promised to help him at all; not to mention the deadly glint in his eyes.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, Fahlen,’ Devonport said nodding along to his own words. So desperate for aid was he that he ignored the warning signs and instead focused on the empty words of the shark in front of him. Secrets started spilling from his lips about the once illustrious career of a young, up-and-coming, idealist naval officer, who was used and discarded by the Republic, and eventually tried for treason aboard the original Serronous, which was later said to have sunk with all hands. Sunk with all hands after the executions had taken place.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘You know our escort is still with us,’ Duncan commented as they powered through the passageways, glancing across at the group of possible pickpockets who were keeping pace with them one tunnel over.

  ‘And they’re not the only ones,’ Blue’s voice crackled over the comm.

  ‘Who else is wanting to join the party?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Let’s just say you’re generating plenty of interest.’

  ‘Well that’s charming, Blue, but some specifics would be nice.’

  ‘It’s hard to pin it down, Captain. Every time you pass a tavern or brothel, you get a couple of tagalongs.’

  ‘Bloody hell. We must have an army following us!’ Ash exclaimed glancing over his shoulder, trying to see this mass of followers.

  ‘Not exactly; the previous lot go into the tavern after the new ones come out, so it’s not the same group.’

  ‘Clever,’ Duncan stated, ‘no familiar faces to keep track of.’

  ‘Without eyes in the sky we wouldn’t know,’ Ben agreed without slowing his pace; now he knew for certain that they were being followed, he wasn’t going to sit around and make it easy on them.

  ‘But we’ve passed through several different wards,’ Sophie piped up. ‘Surely all the lords can’t be following us,’ she added, referring to the owners of the territories by their self-proclaimed “wardlords” title.

  ‘Worse than that, Soph, all of them would have to be communicating with each other and passing along the information, and that really is bad news.’

  ‘You mean this whole place isn’t bad news?’ Ash asked sarcastically.

  ‘You need to look on the bright side more often, Ash; if they’re not all in cahoots with each other, we can play them off against one another.’

  ‘Whereas if they are all friendly, that makes us even more outnumbered,’ Duncan helpfully finished Ben’s explanation.

  ‘Zhe, what do you make of it all?’ Ben asked their expert watcher.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have an explanation, Captain.’ Zhe’s voice came timidly over the comm. after a moment’s pause.

  ‘Best guess then,’ Ben prompted.

  ‘Well… I think they’re all together, not from separate wards, I mean,’ She ventured to say.

  ‘Any particular reason, darling?’

  ‘They don’t look too confident.’

  ‘Maybe they’re scared of us,’ Ash commented, strutting slightly, ‘we did make a hell of an entrance back there, you know.’

  ‘Go on, Zhe.’ Ben ignored Ash in favour of a less-biased opinion.

  ‘It’s more like they don’t seem confident of their surroundings and are watching for other enemies; they keep checking the shadows and seem to need to get their bearings after every couple of passages,’ she explained.

  ‘What do you reckon, Dunc?’ Ben looked expectantly at his first mate, knowing he would produce the viable, rational options open to them.

  ‘Zhe’s argument sounds pretty logical. So, a fight here, now, with the current ones following us wouldn’t bring a ton of reinforcements down on our heads immediately. Chances are the ones following us are the spies, so maybe not so good at fighting.’

  ‘So we fight.’ Ash jumped in.

  ‘While a fight probably wouldn’t bring reinforcements, it would bring more Abanitians. Just whose side they’d take, I wouldn’t like to guess. And we still have our pickpocket friends too – who knows who they would bring to the fight, if anyone.’

  ‘So, we stay the course and hope they’re just on a fact-finding mission?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Either they’re hostile or not; they’ve shown no signs of hostility, so I’m going with not at the moment. And either they’re with Kristoff, and we’ll have to face them here or when we get there, or they’re not with Kristoff and we may get some assistance in the fight from Kristoff. I’d say we don’t have much choice here, Ben.’

  ‘All variables we can’t control.’ Ben nodded.

  ‘How long to Kristoff’s ward?’

  ‘Ten minutes… probably,’ Duncan hazarded.

  ‘Then we keep going, but keep alert,’ Ben decided.

  ‘Hmph, as if we hadn’t been alert before,’ Ash muttered.

  ***


  ‘Do you reckon that’s going to work?’ Simon asked, switching the comm. to mute, not wanting to let the boarding party hear his doubts, which his tone conveyed in abundance.

  An uncomfortable silence followed his question. Each privately acknowledged that the situation was dire, at best.

  ‘It’s probably got more chance of success than starting a fight in the tunnels,’ Blue replied, after it became apparent that both Simon and Zhe were looking to him for an answer.

  Zhe turned her worried eyes back to the screens and watched as another change over occurred in the following party. In truth, it was the number of men this wardlord seemed to possess across all the wards that worried her the most. Such a presence across all Abantos meant being outnumbered with nowhere to run. She only hoped that she was right, and they were as unwelcome in these territories as her captain and his crew.

  Simon’s thoughts closely mirrored hers, only he had the added speculations of which of his friends he would have to watch die in his arms as he couldn’t save them from their injuries. It was something that had happened to him, albeit rarely, but those were the memories that haunted him – the look in their eyes as they realised he couldn’t save them. He prayed, with a fervour he hadn’t known since he was a boy, that this grisly fate would not befall the crew that had become his second family.

  If Captain Daniels only knew the morbid thoughts of his crew, he perhaps would have taken more time to reassure them. Benjamin Daniels possessed that uncanny ability to convince anybody of anything, if given enough time; rumour had it that he convinced the devil himself to let him go and returned from the fires of hell to plague the Republic. At least, such was the tale that made its way around the lower echelons of society. But he was blissfully unaware of the current predictions of his demise and so continued with his present course.

  ***

  ‘Well, we’ve made it,’ Duncan commented as they crossed into Ward Thirty-three – the start of Kristoff’s known, undisputed territory.

  ‘I’d say we’re about half way,’ Ben murmured as he glanced around. The pickpockets had disappeared from view, although that was not to say that they had disappeared completely; like many in their craft, they possessed that essential ability of being able to blend in and disappear at will.

  ‘How’s our following posse doing?’ Ben asked Blue.

  ‘They’ve fallen by the wayside, Captain.’

  ‘It was almost as if, once they were certain of where you were heading, they turned back,’ Zhe reported.

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘How so?’ Simon asked, feeling at a distinct disadvantage in this whole escapade, but whether it showed his ignorance or not he knew asking questions was the only way to broaden his understanding. Unfortunately for him, the captain was prevented from responding, and perhaps even from explaining his train of thought, as an old woman hobbled over to the group where they had come to rest at the side of one of the squares that could often be found at the larger junctions of several passageways.

  ‘Help for an old woman, sirs?’ she croaked as she walked closer, head tucked right down and left shoulder in the air, giving her the appearance of a hunchback. Her appearance wasn’t the only strange thing about her; the fact that she had chosen to approach them at all went against the general behaviour of everyone else they had seen. The rest of Abantos had all fallen into two categories: either they pretended they hadn’t seen them and ignored the group completely, or they scurried past, casting furtive glances at them.

  It was perhaps this uncharacteristic behaviour that had Ash reach immediately for a weapon, but Ben shook his head.

  ‘Nothing here for you, old mother – just a bunch of desperadoes,’ he told her gently, holding out a hand to steady her as she seemed to tip to one side.

  She immediately grasped his hand with both of hers. ‘Not even for your fortune, sir?’ she asked again as she pulled his hand closer to her face.

  ‘No, thank you,’ he politely declined, but when he tried to pull his hand back he found she possessed a greater strength than her appearance would suggest.

  ‘No sir?’ she asked almost playfully as she glanced up at him with swirling deep-blue eyes before returning to the palm she held in her right hand, stroking it languidly with her left. ‘But surely a man such as you would want to know his fortune, after all the tricks she has played on you already in your life?’ she pronounced with a sly smile.

  With the heavy feeling of knowing he was being played Ben nodded his consent. ‘But…’ he warned her, ‘I still have nothing for you as you should know.’

  She gave what looked to be a slight nod before peering deeply at his hand; she said nothing for a few tense moments before she started a soft chant:

  ‘Pitter, patter Fate’s fool

  Pitter, patter fate

  Pitter, patter Fate’s fool

  Pitter, patter fool.

  ‘Will you risk it, sir?

  Will you, will you hear?

  Or will you turn away in fear?

  ‘We are all Fate’s fool

  But just which of us are

  Man’s fool too?

  ‘Pitter, patter Fate’s fool

  Pitter, patter fate

  Pitter, patter Fate’s fool

  Pitter, patter fool.

  ‘Fortune is fickle and Fate cruel, but you… Captain… will go far with Fortune as your protector and Fate your guide. You are no man’s fool.’ She looked up suddenly into Ben’s eyes. ‘You are Hope’s fool,’ she told him with such sincerity and almost sadness, which struck such a chord within him, that Ben found himself unable to tear himself away from her. She held his gaze before melting back into herself, almost shrivelling away, releasing his hand.

  ‘And what does that mean?’ Ben asked her as she turned away.

  ‘Hope is your mistress, and she is the best and the worst of mistresses. Beware of succeeding in the impossible, Captain.’ This was all she would say before she walked away from them. Duncan made as if to go after her, but Ben shook his head. Though what she had said had undoubtedly shaken him and he would like to know more, he knew she would not give more.

  ‘Leave it, Dunc… we’ve got bigger things to worry about,’ he told his first mate, although that didn’t stop him from massaging his hand and looking in her direction for several minutes more, trying to get her words out of his head. Most likely senseless words at that, he told himself.

  ‘So, what now? Cos I have to tell you that I’m not a fan of this standing around in plain sight,’ Ash grumbled, after it became apparent that someone was going to have to bring the captain back to reality and their present mess.

  This was the first time they’d even changed pace, let alone stopped, since the tavern debacle, and they’d been standing unguarded in the same place for far too long to Ash’s way of thinking. He glanced around the square, wondering from where the attack would come. He noted, almost as an afterthought, that while the square hadn’t been busy when they’d arrived it was near deserted now. Not that it lessened the feeling of eyes watching them from every corner.

  ‘Now we wait,’ Ben declared as he leaned back against the side of the passage. He gauged that they were reasonably deep inside Kristoff’s borders, so someone was going to notice them.

  ‘What the hell happened to scoping out the situation and how well this non-friend sister of hers is set up?’ Ash demanded.

  ‘Plans change, Ash. We made too much noise coming in to sneak around gathering information now. We’re going to have to go on what Drew told us and hope the sisterly connection holds up,’ Ben explained.

  ‘So we’re just going to wait for them to come and take us?’ Ash demanded loudly.

  ‘Well, I thought holding up a sign that said take me to your leader was taking things a bit far, Ash.’

  Ash’s eyes grew almost comically round when he realised his capt
ain was being serious.

  ‘You’re just gonna… we’re just…’ he spluttered, unable to put into words the sheer idiocy of a plan that would lead to them being captured by a wardlord without so much as a single punch thrown.

  ‘Yup, we’re just going to,’ Ben agreed with a carefree grin.

  Ben’s quip pulled Ash out of his spluttering. ‘You do realise where we are, don’t you?’ Ash demanded, but he blustered on without waiting for a reply. ‘You’ve marched us right into the middle of Abantos! Right in the middle with no back up and no plan of escape, and for what? For a bunch of disks we could’ve been rid of with a nice little profit instead of being hunted, instead of being here!’ he thundered.

  ‘Now, Ash, let’s be accurate here: I’ve marched us into the middle of Abantos with no back up because of the mere possibility of what’s on those disks,’ Ben corrected.

  Sophie just stood back with Duncan and watched Ash erupt again. She couldn’t tell whether Ben had been trying to calm him down with his statement or rile him up, but it certainly had the latter effect. She, however, had more pressing matters on her mind and tuned out the rest of Ash’s rant; they were always pretty much the same anyway: the plan was stupid, the Cap was stupid, he was never following him again, etc. The funny thing was that Ash was still here to make the same rant, again. Sophie’s mind was more on the fact that it was on her recommendation that they were here, along with her faith that her sister would help them. A faith that was based purely on a rumour and the deep-seated hope that Mel regretted what happened back then as much as she did.

  ‘Of all the idiot…’ Ash was still mid-rant when Kristoff’s people descended on the group and stopped him mid-sentence. Duncan wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not.