Deeplight

by Frances Hardinge

  Have you come to collect me? he signed. He had seen her using sign language the night before. Remembering the way she had watched him during the Appraisal, he was fairly sure that she could lip-read, too, but signs seemed better given the dim light.

  The sub will be here soon, she answered. But I wanted to talk to you first. She continued staring at him with her large dark eyes, making him feel self-conscious.

  Hark noticed some oddities. The girl’s brown hair was long enough to tie back in a knot, a style more often worn by those whose diving days were done. Folks who spent time underwater usually had their hair hacked short or shaven. Stray hairs sometimes got caught in the edges of masks and helmets, breaking the seal and letting water leak in. If you free-dived, long hair would swirl around your face and get in your eyes.

  Hark was self-conscious about his own hair’s three months of growth, since it made him feel fleeced and landlocked, like a continenter. This girl, however, had made the length of her hair obvious. Her oddly mature hairstyle made her look young-old and a bit otherworldly.

  What did you do to Coram? she demanded.

  He’s alive, isn’t he? asked Hark.

  He’s got jellyfish bits coming out of his scar, the girl commented darkly.

  That won’t harm him, Hark insisted, hoping it was true.

  It better not, she replied. Nobody hurts my crew. Remember that.

  That appeared to be the end of the conversation.

  At dawn, Hark saw the pitch-varnished back of a submarine emerged from the water. It was a timber-and-leather ten-footer lightly built for shallow depths, its four oars drooping slack in their leather collars. A small stealth “skimmer” like this was no good for deep dives, but handy enough if you wanted to cruise just below the surface and dodge the eyes of the customs men.

  The hatch of the stubby turret opened, and Coram put out his head. He looked flushed and sweaty, but a lot less deathly than the night before.

  “Climb over the rocks and get in!” he shouted. “Leave the basket on the beach. Selphin there will do your foraging for you. We’ll have you back here in two hours.”

  There was little room in the dark, confined belly of the sub, and only two seats for the rowers, so Hark had to squeeze himself under the map table. He tried not to bump against the nearby rack of round copper bottles. These contained compressed air, and nudging their tops loose prematurely could result in them flying around with bruising force. Such bottles had also been known to explode when punctured.

  Coram pulled down the hatch, cutting out the daylight from above. Now there was only light from the portholes and the two murky, purple scare-lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The air smelled of pitch, sweat, hot breath, and the low-grade god-glue used to waterproof the leather.

  “Where are we going?” asked Hark.

  “Wildman’s Hammer,” answered Coram. “Not far.” His square, stolid face was hard to read. He seemed neither friendly nor unfriendly.

  Well, did I expect him to be grateful? We healed him, but we stabbed him first.

  “Ready?” asked Coram’s crewmate. He was already seated at one set of oars, his face red with perspiration, his hair limp. The oar-handles extended out through the walls of the cabin, via leather collars dripping with pitch.

  Coram creaked his way across the wooden flooring and turned a handle to revolve a long timber that stretched across the sub. The long pigskin bladders fastened to it bulged as seawater from outside the sub flooded into them. The skimmer began to descend.

  The crash of the waves grew more indistinct. The leather walls bulged gently inward and became taut as the water pressure increased.

  Coram took his seat at the oars, and both smugglers began rowing hard. They had been doing so for several minutes when the relic hidden in Hark’s bag sent a pulse through the sub. The two smugglers flinched and swore.

  “What was that?” Coram stared at Hark.

  “It’s only a blast of healing power!” Hark yelled from under the table. “It won’t do any harm! I can’t control it, though, unless my friend’s helping.”

  After some muttering, the two smugglers continued rowing. They watched the great compass above the map table and kept up a whispered song to keep track of strokes. However, sometimes Hark noticed Coram looking at him, as though trying to bring him into focus.

  They had been traveling for only a quarter of an hour when Coram manned the scope and began calling directions to his crewmate. Then the long timber was revolved again to empty the pig bladders and raise the sub. The turret hatch was opened, letting in daylight and sweet air.

  When Hark put his head up through the hatch, he found that the sub had settled in a very small, sheltered inlet, next to a couple of rowing boats and a larger submersible. A cloud of gannets wheeled about the low red cliffs and quiet red beach.

  Beyond a narrow corridor of sea, he recognized the eastern shoreline of Nest. He realized he must be on a little isle he had seen from the hilltops, crescent-shaped and barely a hundred feet across. Apparently this was Wildman’s Hammer.

  On the shore, Rigg and Jelt stood waiting. Jelt looked ill and gray-faced, but at least he was alive. To Hark’s surprise, Jelt was also rather better dressed than before, in decent boots and a coat without patches.

  Hark was hauled out of the sub, and after a slithery scramble down a gangplank, he found himself hobbling up the slick rocks.

  “Come on, brats, your patients are waiting!” said Rigg, nodding toward a huddle of figures at the far end of the beach. She seemed to be in rather a good mood. “There’s only four of them today, but we’ll see more when word gets out about this.” She reached out and tweaked at Coram’s right ear. “Mind you, next time don’t do any extra healing without our say-so. I’ll let it go this time, but no more surprises.”

  The upper curl of Coram’s ear was flawless, apart from two very faint, pale streaks. Hark began to understand. Coram’s ear had been clipped in two places, and now it wasn’t.

  “Who are the patients?” Hark peered at the distant figures.

  “The one with the bandaged arm is one of Skeeler’s boys—they’re spice-runners based on Drymouth. We’re doing some jobs with Skeeler, so we said we’d stop his man dying.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” asked Hark, alarmed.

  “Nasty accident,” Rigg said, deadpan, “involving somebody else’s sword. Now the wound’s poisoning his blood. The fever’s already taken hold.”

  Once again, Hark and Jelt had to save a dying patient. Hark didn’t fancy their prospects if they failed.

  “The one with the walking stick is a fixer who got his leg crushed years ago in a rockslide,” Rigg continued. “He’s willing to pay well to get his knee untwisted. The other two are crew of mine. They’re not injured, but their ears are triple-clipped. If either of them get seen in the wrong place, they’ll be hanged. Get rid of those notches, and you take that noose from around their necks.”

  “Healing those four clears the debt, does it?” Hark asked, but without much hope.

  “You’re a very funny lad,” said Rigg, without a hint of mirth. “You two stole a godware bathysphere from us. It was worth a fortune. When you boys have earned us a fortune in return, then you’ll start getting your cut of the fees.”

  “Don’t worry, Hark,” said Jelt. “It’s all sorted out. Rigg and me shook on it. We’ll clear the debt in a year, you’ll see.”

  A year. Jelt wanted Hark to keep sneaking away to heal strangers for a year. How could he manage that without Vyne finding out? He was clever, but he wasn’t invisible.

  “You boys ready?” asked Rigg.

  “We need some time alone in our healing cave first,” said Jelt, with his usual blunt confidence.

  “Yeah—to let our spirits flow together,” Hark agreed quickly.

  “You can have five minutes.”

  Jelt led Hark away down a gap between two huge crags. It formed a natural corridor, with high rocky walls on either side and the sky above. At the
end, Jelt tugged aside a sackcloth curtain and beckoned Hark into a small cave.

  “Tell me you brought it!” whispered Jelt, once they were concealed by the curtain. Hark nodded, and Jelt’s face went slack with relief. “Give it to me!”

  Hark took the relic out of his cloth bag and passed it to Jelt. As it changed hands, a throb went through the air, and Jelt physically twitched and let out a long breath, as though he were lowering himself into water on a hot day.

  “Jelt,” whispered Hark, “I think I know what this is.” He peeped quickly through the curtain to make sure nobody was nearby. “It’s the heart of a god. And . . . it’s alive.”

  Jelt gaped at him for a few seconds, then snorted with laughter.

  “I’m serious!”

  “I know! That’s why it’s so funny. It’s not a god’s heart, Hark! Look at it! It’s too small!”

  “Maybe it was a little god!” Hark felt stupid, but even Jelt’s mockery couldn’t shatter his certainty.

  “It’s ali-i-ive!” Jelt waggled the relic in Hark’s face. “Hark, it’s a godware machine, that’s all.” He tapped a fingernail against its surface. “Dead bone.”

  Nonetheless, Jelt continued staring at the relic and turning it over in his hands. He had always been hardheaded when it came to godware, teasing Hark for his dreamy-eyed love of the gods’ legends. It was unusual to see him hypnotized by anything but the promise of wealth.

  “It does make a better story if it’s the heart of a god, though, doesn’t it?” Jelt murmured. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

  Chapter 17

  The first patient to pull aside the curtain was the man with the bandaged arm. He gave a little yelp of shock at discovering Hark standing stock-still two feet from him, sallowly illuminated by the solitary whale-oil lamp. The man’s jowly face wobbled nervously as he stared at Hark’s ominous mask of gray rags.

  Despite himself, Hark felt a rush of excitement. He wasn’t some runty little chancer right now; he was a mysterious being with arcane powers. Hark was only wearing the mask to avoid being recognized, since he couldn’t risk rumors reaching Dr. Vyne. Now he saw the visitor hypnotized by the gray, shapeless shell of a face, barely noticing the human eyes behind it.

  Everybody in the Myriad knew in their gut that true power could only come from something twisted. If Hark and Jelt were soothing or friendly, nobody would believe in their healing for a moment. The two of them needed to be frightening. Uncanny. Frecht, like the old gods.

  Hark carefully pulled back the stranger’s bandages, trying not to wince at the sight of the dark, oozing mess underneath.

  “Was this hurt taken in the darkness or the light?” he asked, in a soft, sibilant whisper. He suspected his ordinary voice would sound too young to impress.

  “What does that matter?” asked the patient in confusion.

  “Night air is more poisonous.” Hark was sure he’d heard that somewhere.

  “Draw closer,” Jelt demanded coldly, from the shadows at the back of the cave. Arrogance and menace came naturally to him.

  As the patient approached unwillingly, a pulse issued from the god-heart hidden under Jelt’s tunic. The patient flinched and cried out.

  “We’re making your bones talk to us,” Hark whispered, the rags of his mask tickling the man’s ear.

  “And your blood,” said Jelt.

  “There’s too much night in your blood,” said Hark. “If we don’t work fast, you’ll die. Stay as still as you can. We need to put moon into you, to flush you out.”

  “If it hurts, don’t scream,” said Jelt.

  In the stranger’s frightened eyes, hope slowly dawned. The promises of peril reassured him.

  Now and then, the hidden god-heart beat. Hark watched each change with nauseated fascination. The edges of the wound bulged with pearly blisters. The blisters spread like pale, molten wax, which then inched inward over the raw flesh. By the time the wound finally closed, the patient was looking less feverish.

  The man turned over his arm, looking uncertainly at the faint, pearly sheen of the new skin. Then he frowned, opened his hand and stared at it.

  “What . . .?” he asked, holding out his hand toward Hark. Scattered across the palm and fingers were five small, yellowish discs, looking at first glance like calluses. As the translucent ovals flexed slightly, Hark realized that they were suckers, like those found on octopus tentacles.

  Oh, scud o’ the winds, he thought.

  “You’ll find out in the future why you have been given these,” he hissed, trying to hide his disquiet.

  “For now,” said Jelt, “it’ll be a reminder of the day your life was saved.”

  “Storms!” Hark muttered, once the patient had tottered away. He had wondered what the god-heart considered a problem to be fixed. Apparently “Not enough squid-suckers” was on the list.

  “What are you upset about?” asked Jelt. “That went fine, didn’t it? The rest will be even easier.”

  To Hark’s frustrated relief, Jelt was right.

  The straightening of the maimed leg went well but was painful to watch. Each pulse from the relic caused unnerving bulges and shifts under the skin of the knee. By the end the leg was straight, and the fixer could walk without his cane. Whatever subtle engine of bone now lay beneath the flesh looked and behaved a lot like a knee.

  The clipped ears healed smoothly, with only faint traces of scar tissue. Hark could only hope that no exciting side effects would be discovered later.

  “That was a good morning’s work,” said Rigg, as she walked Hark back to the sub. “Very good.” Despite her words, she sounded preoccupied. Hark and Jelt waited while she chewed at the inside of her cheek, as if the words she wanted to spit out were sour-tasting. “Tell me, do you only patch up bodies?”

  “We can’t fix holes in a sub, or mend clothing, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Hark. As far as he knew, this was true.

  “I’m not talking about things!” Rigg said impatiently. “I mean what’s inside people’s heads. Sometimes people’s heads go a bit wrong. Not a lot wrong, just a bit. Can you fix that?”

  “So it’s a crazy person?” Jelt asked with his usual bluntness. “One of yours, is it?”

  “I didn’t say crazy!” Rigg glared at him. “And don’t you say it either!” She let out her breath through her teeth. “It’s my daughter Selphin. She’s a good girl, good crew apart from this—one of my best lookouts. I just want to sort her out!”

  Hark recognized the name at once. Coram had called the freckled girl on the beach Selphin.

  “She never had a problem when she was little,” Rigg continued. “Bold as anyone, swam like a fish. She and the other kids used to take turns diving with a suit and hose, the others working the pumps. I let ’em borrow the equipment, get ’em used to it. She was the youngest of them but always the bravest. One day when she was down in the suit—three fathoms—there was a run-in with the local scavengers. They cut her hose.”

  Hark winced and swore under his breath. He could imagine it all too clearly—being nearly twenty feet down in the dim greenness, in a diving suit too heavy for a quick ascent, then feeling the terrible hiss of air leaving the helmet. The valve would stop water running into the helmet from the hose, but the next intake of breath would strain the lungs, heaving in only thin, stale air. Any hole in a hose was bad, but “surface sucks” pulled out the air much faster. The change was too brutal, too sudden, and he’d seen the way divers’ bodies could suffer as a result.

  “What happened?” Hark asked.

  “They had a rope on her, so they pulled her up fast. She had the helmet-squeeze pretty badly. Bleeding from the ears, eyes red as berries, wheezing for a while. Most of that sorted itself out. Her eyes are fine, her lungs got better. The holes in her eardrums won’t heal, but that’s not the problem. Some of my best crew got their ears sea-kissed when they were kids, and they’re all the better for it.” Sea-kissed deafness was like a dueling scar or ship tattoo, proof of boldness a
nd belonging.

  “Then what do you want us to heal?”

  “She’s not a coward,” insisted Rigg. “And she’s not crazy. But since that day . . . she’s been afraid of the sea.”

  Hark stared at the smuggler. It was like being told that somebody was afraid of the sky, or thoughts, or the color brown. How could you live like that?

  “What?” Jelt looked incredulously. “What do you mean, afraid of the sea?”

  “Won’t go underwater,” explained Rigg. “Won’t even go out in a boat unless she has to. She’ll wade but won’t swim. I thought she’d grow out of it, but she’s fourteen now. Fourteen! She should be real crew now, maybe learning a bit of leadership! How can she do that if I can’t get her in a sub? I can’t have a daughter of mine afraid of the sea. Something went wrong in her head that day. Maybe that hose sucked out some of her sense. I need you to fix it. Fix her. Sort her out.”

  Hark hesitated, choosing his words carefully.

  “We haven’t been healers for long,” he said, “and we’re still learning how it works. We haven’t done any brain-wound healing before—”

  “But we can try,” Jelt interrupted, keenly watching Rigg’s face. “What’s it worth to you?”

  “You fix Selphin,” said Rigg slowly, “and you’ll have paid back your debt for the bathysphere. You can start getting your cut from our partnership.”

  “Then we’ll do it,” said Jelt, and held out his hand to shake Rigg’s.

  No! screamed Hark silently. Jelt, don’t make another promise we can’t keep!

  But he saw the mischievous triumph in Jelt’s eye and realized that Jelt had been expecting his response. Stop making a fuss, said the look. You’ll manage it if you have to. And now you have to.

  Chapter 18

  Back in the dark little sub, Hark watched ghostly outlines of jellyfish billow past the portholes and tried to think. Rigg would never release him from healer duties until she considered his debt paid. If he played along, however, it was only a matter of time until Dr. Vyne found out.