Deeplight

by Frances Hardinge

  “No.”

  There was a roar from above, a bruising gale of sound, with an angry, anguished human voice at its core. Hark gritted his teeth. He had said no to Jelt many times before, but somehow the “no” had never stuck. This was different. There was nowhere left to back down.

  Hark took a deep breath, then held the heart up over his head.

  “This is close enough!” he yelled over the roar. “You’re in its range. Stay there and wait till it pulses. That’ll keep you going for a bit.”

  Sure enough, after a few seconds, Hark felt the heart in his grip shift and clench. The pulse followed, like a jolt down his arm. It was as if the relic had sensed Jelt, his willingness, the clay of his flesh ready to mold and sculpt.

  The Jelt-thing on the roof grew quieter as the heart sent out pulse after silent pulse. It leaned its head in through the window, reaching down toward the heart, but made no attempt to writhe through. It was still a dark outline against the light, and Hark was glad he could not see its face.

  “You’ve damaged it,” it whispered at last, in tones that made Hark’s blood curdle. “You’ve burned it! I can smell it.”

  Again Hark had to bite his tongue for a few moments so that he wouldn’t start defending himself.

  “I’ll see you again tomorrow,” he said, his voice sounding thin and tremulous. “At the cairn. You can come near the heart again then. I’ll fix this, Jelt. I promise. But you need to go now, and stay away from me. If I see you when I’m not expecting to, I’ll smash the heart. I will, Jelt. I swear it.”

  “I kept you alive for years,” hissed the voice, “and now you want me dead. You do, don’t you? That’s why you dropped me in that bathysphere, isn’t it?”

  “That’s not true, and you know it!” exploded Hark, Jelt’s words twisting his heart like a damp cloth. He stopped himself and took a deep breath. “You’re not . . . yourself at the moment, Jelt. It’s not your fault. It’s the god-heart. It’s changing you.”

  “You’re the one who’s changed,” said the familiar-unfamiliar voice. “I don’t know you anymore. You’re not Hark. You’re nobody I know.”

  The shadowy head disappeared from the opening above, leaving an unbroken circle of sky once more. There was a rustle and a scrabble and rattle of something scrambling back up the slope. Silence followed.

  The god-heart gave out one last throb, then lost enthusiasm. It took longer for Hark’s own heartbeat to come under control. He silently thanked the keep’s designers for its thick stone walls and the solidity of its stone-flagged roof.

  Remembering the urgency of his quest, he looked around the study. Immediately his stomach dropped away. There was no sign of the piled scrolls or books bound in black leather. The archive was gone. There was no sign of Dr. Vyne’s gray moleskin notebook, either.

  Hark swore under his breath. He had known that the doctor was conducting her new research in the Leaguer base. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might take the archive and all her notes with her.

  Had she really taken everything? In desperation, he quickly flicked through the other notebooks and papers scattered on her desk. A few had pictures that jumped out at him. He grabbed them and tucked them into his hidden sling next to the god-heart.

  Hark peered up at the window. There were no sounds of movement above.

  I’ll have to take my chances sooner or later.

  Hark pushed Dr. Vyne’s desk under the circular window, balanced her chair on it, then used the top of the headrest as a boost. As he caught hold of the window rim, he heard a clatter of falling furniture beneath him. He heaved himself up until he could get an arm out through the hole, then wriggled his way out onto the sunlit roof.

  Jelt won’t have gone far, thought Hark. He’s probably watching me right now. But for now he’s keeping his distance, and that’s better than nothing. Hark didn’t want to think about their appointment at the cairn the next day, with no stone walls between them. He had needed to promise something, however, so that Jelt stayed away from Sanctuary.

  It was only after Hark had recovered his breath that he remembered the cut across the knuckles of his right hand. It had healed, leaving a slender crease-like scar. Gleaming beads of god-glass were embedded along its length.

  Chapter 31

  Hark hurried back up the path to Sanctuary. With every step, the god-heart felt more like a curse. Hark had planned to hide it in some deep crevice in the rocks before going back to Sanctuary. That was no longer an option, now that he knew Jelt was probably watching him.

  As he approached Sanctuary, Hark noticed that one of the first-floor shutters was slightly ajar. Staring up at it, he saw an indistinct face peering down at him. A pale hand emerged, palm out, gesturing to him to stop and stay where he was. The face pulled back, and the shutter closed.

  Hark tucked himself against the wall, out of the wind. Bolts rattled, the Sanctuary door opened, and Quest emerged into the chill daylight.

  “What are you doing here?” Hark exclaimed, his own concerns forgotten. “You shouldn’t be out in this wind!”

  Over his usual clothes, the old man had thrown some brown priestly robes, a blanket, and what looked like someone else’s coat. Nonetheless, his figure seemed so frail that the cruel gusts might pull it apart like thistledown. Hark realized that he had never seen the old priest in full daylight before. All the little creases, veins, and freckles were suddenly startlingly clear against Quest’s papery skin. The priest’s face, however, wore a look of quiet determination.

  “You cannot take that thing back into Sanctuary.” Quest held up a warning hand. “The attendants have calmed the chaos and are asking my hysterical brethren why they were running through the halls. Your name has been mentioned a lot. Mr. Kly apparently wants a word with you.”

  Hark covered his mouth with his hand. The last thing he needed right now was a long interrogation. Sooner or later the heart would pulse. If he was searched, the heart would be found and taken away from him.

  “But Kly said I had to hurry straight back!” he said in despair.

  “You can tell them later that you had no choice but to divert course. You saw one of your frail old charges wandering loose on the heights and had to pursue him.” Quest’s eye twinkled. “I shall be sure to tell them that you pulled me back from a cliff edge.”

  “How did you get out, anyway?” Hark could not help asking.

  “I have been notoriously docile for years,” Quest remarked blandly. “It never occurred to anyone that I might try. Now, do you have documents for me to read?”

  “I do . . . but let’s do this quickly, and then you need to go back in.”

  The two of them found a hiding place around a corner, away from the main entrance. Hark stood between Quest and the wind, very aware of the priest’s shaking hands and husky breathing.

  “The archive isn’t in the doctor’s study anymore, but I found these!” Hark pulled his stash of notebooks and papers out of his sling. “Look!” He opened the first notebook, leafed through it and spread it, with a pencil drawing visible.

  “I want to know what she says about Marks like that!” Hark said eagerly. “That long looping thing coming out from under the chin, with the light on the end . . . and the teeth . . . and all of the rest. What does she say?”

  Quest stared at the picture in silence for a few moments.

  “She is not writing about Marks here,” he said quietly. “This is a notebook on creatures of the deep and lightless sea. This sketch is of a creature she calls a dragonfish, a breed that we priests nicknamed ‘lantern wraiths’ when they swam around our bathyspheres.” He gave Hark a compassionate but piercing look. “Exactly how Marked is your friend?”

  Hark flushed and swallowed. Instead of answering he reached for another notebook and fumbled it open.

  “What about this one, then? This must be about Marks!” Hark pointed to a meticulous sketch of a hand with an extra finger and another of a leg with a strange seam running around it just below the knee.<
br />
  Quest started reading, and slowly a frown began to deepen in his brow.

  “It is about Marks,” he agreed. “The doctor is trying to understand why they happen the way they do, and whether they can be turned to good use. ‘When flesh is softened and biddable, it can be persuaded to return to old shapes or adopt new ones. It can even be taught to accept something alien as a part of itself.’ Ah—that is very interesting!”

  “Is it?” Hark was confused.

  “The doctor believes that a human body has an inborn idea of what shape it should be. When it encounters Undersea water or godware, however, it becomes confused about what its ‘true shape’ is. It becomes convinced that its actual shape is wrong and broken, so it tries to heal itself by making itself more like what it now thinks is its true shape. That results in Marks. Dr. Vyne sees this as an opportunity. If the body can be persuaded to change its notion of its ‘true shape,’ then perhaps it can be persuaded to accept replacement body parts from other people, or mechanical limbs, or even pieces of godware—”

  “I don’t want to add anything new to Jelt!” Hark said impatiently. “I want to put him back how he was!” He struggled to understand what Quest had just told him. “So . . . if somebody’s becoming Marked, it’s just because their body thinks it should be a different shape? And if you can tell it to go back to being its old shape, it will?”

  “That is her theory,” Quest said carefully.

  “Then how do we do it? How do we make him change back? Does the notebook say?”

  Quest shook his head.

  “I suspect this is just a portable notebook for jotting down ideas as they come to her. It looks as though her research into Marks is documented in full in a different book.”

  Hark’s mind fizzed with frustration. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the gray-covered volume must contain her complete research notes.

  Maybe I could still talk to her and beg her to cure Jelt, Hark thought desperately. She doesn’t trust me, but she likes me. His hopes rose, then sank again. She liked him, but she had made it clear from the first day that if he lied to her, broke her rules, or renewed contact with his old friends, there would be no forgiveness. He couldn’t explain Jelt’s plight without admitting his own crimes.

  “I think I know where it might be,” Hark admitted. “She’s been working in the north of the island, at the Vigilance League base. Most people don’t even know where she is.”

  “But you do,” Quest said quietly. Hark could sense the line of questions waiting patiently behind those three words.

  Even after their fight, Hark was afraid to lose his friendship with Quest. He didn’t want to admit that all these months he had had an ulterior motive for talking to the priest. But what was the alternative? Another lie. Another evasion. He was so very tired of lies.

  He took a deep breath and looked into Quest’s face. He saw the bitter lines carved by experience, the feathering of laugh creases like the veins on autumn leaves, and the sharp, wise, watchful eyes.

  “You already know, don’t you?” Hark said. “You knew I was spying for Dr. Vyne. You’ve always known.”

  The old priest gave him a very slight, gentle smile, with a touch of sadness that Hark found hard to look at.

  “I was never quite sure,” Quest said, “but it seemed likely. That was one of the reasons that I encouraged you to talk to me rather than the others. Even gentle interrogation would have caused some of them terrible distress. I could spare them that. I owed them that much.”

  Hark’s feelings were stung at the thought that the old man had just been talking to him to shield the other priests. Their friendship was such a fragile, papery thing, built upon deceit on both sides.

  “It wasn’t the way you think!” he blurted out on impulse. “It wasn’t all lies! I know you won’t believe me . . .”

  “I know,” said Quest, not unkindly. “Do you think I would leave my stories in the keeping of just anyone?”

  Hark hastily rubbed his stinging eyes with his sleeve, not quite ready to look at his friend. Their odd, misshapen camaraderie had taken another knock, but somehow it was still not dead.

  “If I get that book, will you read it for me?” asked Hark.

  “Are you really planning to steal it from the League base?” asked the old priest, looking aghast.

  “Vyne told me that if I had news that wouldn’t wait, I should come and find her at the Leaguers’ base.” Hark rummaged in his belt pouch and brought out the paper Vyne had given him. “If they catch me, I’ll give them this.”

  “The bearer of this letter is Hark, my servant,” Quest read out. “He can be counted upon to be discreet, so please try not to shoot him. Let me know of his arrival. Hark, I urge you not to do this. I will help you if I can, but I must tell you this now: with or without the doctor’s book, I do not believe that you can save your friend.”

  “Maybe I can’t!” blurted Hark, feeling exhausted. “Maybe I’m being stupid. But I have to try!”

  “Then at least leave the heart behind with me,” persisted Quest. “I give you my word of honor that it will remain unharmed.”

  Hark gave a hollow laugh. “As soon as I was out of sight, you’d decide the fate of the world mattered more than your word. Wouldn’t you?”

  Quest made no attempt to deny it. Instead, he gathered his warm clothes around himself a little more tightly.

  “In that case,” he said. “I will be coming with you.”

  “What?” Hark was horrified. “No! You need to go back inside!”

  “If I step into Sanctuary,” said Quest, “I will be apprehended and forcibly coddled. Worse, I will be watched. That will make it hard for me to help you. For now, I must remain at large.”

  Nothing Hark could say would persuade Quest to return to Sanctuary, and Hark had to admit that the priest had a point. However, Hark didn’t like the idea of dragging a sick man to the far end of the island, over windswept hills.

  “You’ll get ill,” said Hark with brutal honesty, “and you’ll slow me down. I’m more likely to get caught that way.”

  This argument carried some weight with Quest, and at last they struck a compromise. Quest would wait for Hark in Dunlin’s shack.

  When they reached the beach, Hark ventured ahead to make sure the shack was empty before leading Quest to its shelter.

  “I’ll be back soon.” Hark fidgeted uncomfortably. “And if I’m not . . . go back to Sanctuary and I’ll see you there.” He was unhappy about leaving Quest in the cold, damp shack. His daily routine at Sanctuary had trained him into new habits of mind. He could almost feel how the drafts would bite into Quest’s flesh and make his joints ache . . .

  “I will wait here until you return,” said Quest with steely firmness. “Fear for yourself, not me.”

  Chapter 32

  By the time Hark reached the hilltop with the cairn, the sun was dipping toward the horizon. Ahead of him, the green-brown scrubland descended smoothly all the way to the sea, broken only by occasional black crags and gorges worn by streams. In the distance, clustered along the shoreline, he could make out the gray roofs and dull red walls of the Vigilance League outpost.

  The wind was blowing from the north, and it brought him the faint clangs and clacks of metal striking metal. Somebody down there was making or mending something. Beyond the village, he could see a small boat moored in the bay, and alongside the quay lurked a slender shadow that might have been an unusually long submersible.

  If Hark walked down to the village openly and showed his piece of paper to the first person he met, he was less likely to be shot as a spy or a thief. However, he would have to explain his presence to Vyne and probably wouldn’t get a chance to steal her notebook. If he really wanted to raid her research notes, he had to creep down by stealth and steal them. It was a shaky, dangerous plan, but he couldn’t see another way.

  Hark remembered Vyne’s words when she had given him the piece of paper.

  Find one
of the sentries and give them this, so they know you’re working for me. Then they’ll fetch me from the warehouse.

  The warehouse. With luck, that was where she was conducting her research. He scanned the village, looking for anything that might be a warehouse. One building on the left-hand side of the camp did seem to be larger than the others, its walls glimmering a yellowish white.

  Hark slid into a deep, dry ditch and scrambled along its twisting route down the hill. The thistles and juniper bushes sprouting from its banks were man-high, offering decent cover. Sometimes he thought he heard a faint rustle farther up the gorge behind him. Whenever he looked back, he saw nothing. The back of his neck tingled, however, and he kept imagining Jelt quietly stalking him down the shallow ravine.

  Above him, the sun set and the sky dulled to a dark copper. The sound of gulls, the sea, and the metallic clanging grew louder, until Hark was fairly sure that he must be close to the Leaguer village. As silently as he could, Hark clambered out of the gorge and crawled quickly between two mottled crags.

  Peering through a crack, he had a narrow view of the outpost below him, much closer now.

  About twenty yards farther down the slope was the big white building, just as he had hoped. He was close enough now to see its dropping-spattered metal roof and peeling paint. It was one story high but about fifty feet long.

  To the right of the warehouse were a dozen other buildings, built of rough-baked bricks and roofed with scrub-thatch. They looked hasty and temporary, as did two wooden shacks down by the quay.

  In the growing dusk, he could make out a couple of figures moving between the shacks. Now and then they laughed or called out to someone farther away. There were also signs of motion on the farthest side of the village, around the bare walls of a half-finished building. The cracks and clangs seemed to come from that direction.

  A couple of men sat on the deck of the boat, but they looked like they were in conversation. Beyond them, Hark could see the long, dark, semi-submerged shape he had spotted from the hill. It was a submarine; he could see that now. Furthermore, there was something familiar about its dimensions, its three propellers, the line of its black withersteel fins . . .