In Dark Service

by Stephen Hunt

  ‘What the hell was that?’ demanded Jacob.

  ‘I took Lord Carnehan’s stories from him,’ said Sariel, turning. ‘He doesn’t need them anymore.’ He grinned wickedly at Jacob. It was like staring into the eyes of one of the gargoyles clinging to the side of a cathedral. ‘You might say that I stole them.’

  Jacob drew his pistol. ‘If I didn’t need you to open the stone circle, I’d damn well kill you right here!’

  He looked to the side as he felt Carter’s hand tug on his sleeve. His son was standing up! ‘You’re not my father, are you… why are you carrying a gun?’

  ‘Your son has come to no harm, Your Grace,’ said Sariel. ‘Lord Carnehan’s stories were stored in the correct order, not fragmented and reconstituted from echoes as mine were. You might say that his sickness was my cure, while the converse is also true. Besides, what better use for a librarian, than the transmission of knowledge? You are lucky, my lord. You would not have survived the paths you walked without my blessing back in Northhaven.’

  ‘Two,’ said Jacob, looking in astonishment at his son. ‘I’m carrying two guns, Carter. Because we’ve travelled through hell to reach you and it took more than a sermon a week to reach Vandia.’

  The doctor was by Carter’s side, feeling his skull and forehead. ‘His swelling has gone? And the fever has broken? It can’t be possible!’

  Carter groaned and nearly dropped to the floor, his fall halted by Willow running forward and leaning against his weight. ‘But his ribs are still broken.’

  Carter touched his swollen purple face. ‘My mind’s clear. For the first time since the volcano. Sweet mercy, thank you, Sariel. I’d forgotten what it feels like not to have an irate swarm of visions buzzing inside my brain.’

  Jacob looked suspiciously at Sariel. God wasn’t to be thanked here, he suspected. Maybe the opposite. What had the gads called Sariel? Jok the trickster, Jok the fallen angel? For the first time since Jacob had begun this long journey to recover his son, he felt real cold fear stabbing deep inside. Not fear like before of dying before he ever reached his child, but dread of something unknown and incomprehensible. Now he understood why he’d sensed the gads’ shamanic council considering the stone circle as a means of eliminating the expedition, rather than of sending them on their way. Was this how evil passed through the world? Not as the horn-headed stealers of biblical legend, but under the guise of confused, avuncular mischief, so easy to underestimate, so simple to ignore? Jacob gazed back in time and saw events of the journey with different eyes. Finding the stone circle, still hot and burnt, when the train out of Weyland halted for that odd missing rail. Sariel’s well-timed entry onto the express. Jacob’s pistols mysteriously turning up in his tent during Wiggins’ torture and Jacob’s knots retied so he could slip them. The theft of their money box before the bard conveniently bumped into the expedition at the aerial port. It was all Sariel.

  ‘You will never forget, Lord Carnehan,’ announced Sariel. ‘You will always carry a shadow of what has passed through you. It will linger like a stain on the soul. You are hardly much of a storyteller, not compared to the prince of players.’ He brushed his leather coat, slyly satisfied with himself. ‘And if you are happy to forget, I am more than happy to remember.’

  ‘What the hell are you?’ said Jacob.

  ‘I should say that remains to be seen,’ said Sariel. ‘There are many stories, and the prince of players features in so many of them. I have so many names. But I can promise you one thing—’ he looked around craftily at the group in the fever room ‘—those who ripped my wings off and burnt my body at the stake will be given cause to wish I had stayed burnt and lost!’

  ‘I saw the stones,’ said Owen, amazed. He walked up to Sariel and touched his leather cloak, covered in stories, captured over the years like souls. ‘I saw them.’

  ‘An ancient way of travelling,’ said Sariel. ‘Though not without dangers these days. For some, of course, there will be additional dangers of returning home. Such as the regrets of an uncle discovering a nephew with a stronger claim to the throne is quite not as dead as he believed. You would be better off riding the eruption to distant provinces as you had originally planned, Owen Hawkins. There are few kind fates awaiting you in Weyland. Too many of the industrial lords owe their wealth to your uncle’s scheming.’

  ‘How—?’

  Jacob looked on in amazement, memories of an avalanche claiming the royal family unfurling as though they were his own, the shadows of a palace and a privileged life in the heart of the capital hovering close behind. All ripped away and lost along with his family, before ending up inside the sky mines.

  ‘I would know you even without the tales I removed from Lord Carnehan’s mind. I passed through the court when you were five, and you have not changed so greatly since then. At least on the outside. There is little of that spoilt arrogance about you, now. Maybe you could find it in your heart to thank your uncle for his scheming ways? That would be a more interesting ending to your tale.’

  ‘Maybe after I have buried him,’ said Owen.

  ‘Now that’s more like the boy I recall,’ smiled Sariel.

  Khow yelped at the other end of the bed, shaking his abacus box. Wisps of grey smoke rose from the device’s back.

  ‘Stories possess a weight beyond mere numbers,’ Sariel told the gask. ‘I would advise against factoring me into your equations, again. Recurring loops are not good for little thinking machines.’ He bumped his staff on the floor and the smoking stopped. ‘Now, shall we put all those transporters idling in the hangar to good use? Those who wish to go up can go up, and those who wish to go down can go… sideways.’

  ‘You’ve remembered how to use the stones properly?’ said Jacob.

  ‘Perhaps more importantly,’ smiled Sariel, ‘I have remembered why they were used.’

  ‘You can take us home? All of us?’ asked Owen, looking overwhelmed by the shock of the sudden explosion and all that he had seen inside his mind.

  ‘I can take you back to Weyland,’ said Sariel. ‘But I can’t take you home.’ He looked at Jacob, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. ‘It’s not there anymore. You understand that, don’t you? You’ve walked this path once before.’

  ‘And I survived before, too,’ said Jacob.

  ‘Think before you ask to return. The Vandians will contact the king and every agent they have inside the league nations. You’ll be a hunted man for the rest of your life. You and everyone else. King Marcus won’t suffer tales of his subjects stolen as slaves by a distant empire. Not when everyone believes they were random raids by the skels. It’s a very large world. I could take you to some harmless land where even the radio signals passed between the holds won’t catch you up for a thousand years. Nobody to care who you are or were.’

  ‘Just return us to the kingdom,’ snarled Jacob. ‘Vandia is far-called enough for me.’

  ‘Well, you’ve returned me. So I shall return you. That’s only fair.’ Sariel leant in close, whispering low enough that only Jacob could hear, ‘And you haven’t watched the king and his allies die yet, have you, for murdering your wife? That would be a fine sight to see, wouldn’t it?’

  Jacob recoiled. It was as though the bard could reach inside his head and pick out his thoughts. Sariel swept grandly out of the fever room, Owen, the two gasks and the doctor behind him. Jacob helped Willow carry Carter out, his son limping, still weak and sweating. Not dead. Not yet. Jacob’s prayers had been answered. But he dearly wished the answer hadn’t come from the bizarre bard in their company.

  ‘You and Willow could take Sariel up on his offer,’ said Jacob. ‘Go somewhere so far from home they’ll never find you.’

  ‘Weyland is my home, as much as it yours,’ said Willow. ‘And my father deserves to know that Duncan and I survived.’

  Maybe Benner Landor had paid for that much. But Jacob suspected her homecoming wouldn’t be anything like she hoped.

  ‘Anywhere that’s not the sky mines,’ coughed Carter.
It seemed colder in the passage outside the fever room. Slaves rushed along the corridors, stripping everything they could carry and hauling it towards the station’s hangars. ‘Anywhere Willow goes, I’ll travel there, too. But I’d like to see Northhaven again. I’ve seen more than enough of the rest of Pellas for a lifetime.’ He gripped his father’s shoulder tight. ‘Thank you for coming for me.’

  ‘Carter, you only thank someone when they had a choice. And you never need to say it to family. I taught you that much.’

  Jacob’s son stared at the two pistols belted under his duster. ‘You taught me a lot of things.’

  ‘You may have to learn a few new rules, and forget a lot of the old ones, if you’re set on returning to Weyland.’

  ‘We had to fight here,’ said Carter, the pain and horror leaking through his voice. ‘They forced us. Slave against slave to stake the best rocks inside the sky mines for the house.’

  ‘Choosing who you fight is the privilege of kings and emperors,’ said Jacob. His eyes narrowed. But it was only enjoyed by the live ones. ‘For everyone else, it’s just someone charging at you with a sword or a bayonet and the decision you have to make in that second.’

  ‘I hated it.’

  ‘Then you’ve already learnt your most important lesson. It’s when you start to revel in the fight that you know it’s time to quit,’ said Jacob. It sounded as though Carter wouldn’t be picking any more duels when he reached Northhaven. His son had travelled a long way to learn that lesson. He was a man now.

  ‘Going back is the right thing to do, isn’t it?’ said Willow. ‘Or this will just go on. Others from home forced to come out here, instead of us.’ She didn’t sound sure about it. But then, Willow was no fool.

  ‘The right thing, maybe,’ said Jacob. ‘But not the easy one.’

  Carter tried not to wince as he had to limp down a set of stairs towards the station’s hangars, the pressure on his cracked rib as he walked. ‘I saw so much blood.’

  Jacob knew Carter wasn’t talking about the sky mines, but what he had glimpsed in their sudden strange pooling of memories. Sariel was right about one thing. King Marcus and his allies would be hunting the survivors, even before he heard the rumours that a rival to the throne had arrived in Weyland. So much blood. There’ll be more.

  SIXTEEN

  EMPTY STATIONS

  Duncan saw Paetro swing back into the compartment, staggering as the massive ship pitched to the side. Duncan waved at him, still clinging to his seat’s acceleration arm, even now that their vessel had slowed to normal cruising speed. To either side the house’s soldiers grumbled and groused about the wisdom of this mission. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Our guardsmen have just returned. The mining station is empty, completely abandoned – not even a skeleton crew, as best they can tell.’

  ‘As best they can tell?’

  ‘They didn’t search every passage and chamber. Supply ship’s been on the station, all right. There are snares and tripwires everywhere, rigged to mining charges and some of the house’s explosives destined for our forts.’

  ‘Where’ve the slaves gone?’

  ‘Half the house’s transporters are in the air, riding for altitude, even though it’s suicidally early to be trying for a new claim. We’re brewing up to a full eruption outside now.’

  ‘I noticed,’ said Duncan, the shaking of the deck under his feet growing stronger. ‘What about the stolen supply ship?’ And more to the point, Willow… as well as Paetro’s daughter?

  Paetro shrugged, confused. ‘A scout helo’s spotted our ship on the ground, alongside the miners’ remaining transporters.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make sense? They don’t need to recover seismic ground spikes to see what’s coming – they’re in the middle of it, they’ll die down there?’

  ‘We’ll die down there!’ said Paetro. ‘Apolleon has lost his bloody mind, lad. The man’s obsessed. He’s ordered the ship to head towards the volcano when we should be docking here to ride out the worst of the eruption. Apolleon’s convinced the outlaw he’s hunting is somewhere down there. In search of a lava bath, maybe. Princess Helrena has ordered us to take the young Highness to the landing bay and buckle up inside a troop transporter. Bail before we’re hit, if we need to. The mistress would be within her rights to relieve Apolleon of his command and turn us about. But we’d have a fight on our hands with the hoodsmen on board, and that’d be nothing next to surviving the political hit.’

  Better that, than the kind of hit Old Smoky might deliver, Duncan mused. ‘What about Willow and—?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He sounded weary. ‘Hesia’s flown across the dead zone for the house. She knows how dangerous it is here. If she’s got any sense she’ll be blasting away at top speed along with your sister.’

  And how much sense did Willow possess? Or Jacob Carnehan, and, by now, that fool Carter too? He groaned. Duncan, Cassandra and Helrena were meant to be safe on board one of the most powerful warships in the imperium. And they would be, too, if the lunatic in command wasn’t planning to fly them over a stratovolcano heading for full rupture. ‘What’s going on here, Paetro?’

  The bodyguard shrugged. ‘Make me a colonel of the secret police and I’ll do my best to find out for you.’ He turned to the troops in the chamber and shouted at them. ‘Oxygen masks and heat suits, my braves. Rifles and full armour. Down to the launch bay and get ready to earn your salary. You’ll do a man’s work today!’ Paetro did his best to ignore the groans of disgust and a few unruly shouts back. ‘Aye, that’s right, I’m serious. Have you ever known me not to be? Move, move, move!’ He turned to Duncan. ‘Our job’s the same as it ever was. Keeping the young Highness safe.’

  Duncan left the compartment and headed away to the bridge, trying to walk the ship’s deck as she listed at a twenty degree angle, the engines’ roar outside the hull deafening as she attempted to correct her flight amidst the maelstrom.

  Carter crouched down close to the ground, trying to shield Willow from the worst of the scorching ash rain. The standing circle lay directly behind them, the plain in front of the stratovolcano littered with grounded transporters and the stolen Vandian supply ship. Many miners hunkered down as best they could while Sariel worked to achieve what he had promised them – opening a portal to Northhaven. A few slaves unloaded crates of weapons and guns from the hijacked ship. Right now, Carter wished he had followed the transporter crews who had stuck with his original plan. Fleeing for the rocks and riding the trade winds to freedom. It was mostly the foreign slaves with homes close to the empire’s borders following his scheme. The majority of those who had stayed were Weyland born and bred. Too late to try and take off now. The air thick with debris. Any transporter hovering for more than a couple of seconds choked on the dust and came sliding back to the ground. They were grounded, and the only way out was a mysterious gate he had glimpsed in his mind for a few seconds. The portal has to be true, doesn’t it? Not part of my madness. Outside of commandeering a Vandian warship, it’s the only way my father and the expedition reached the sky mines this fast.

  ‘I can hear something?’ said Willow, her voice muffled by a survival suit.

  ‘Same sound we heard on the skel carrier,’ said Carter. ‘There’s a Vandian ship in the clouds.’ He didn’t add that the fact they could hear it over the volcano’s violent upsurge meant it was going to be one hell of a large vessel.

  ‘Course there’s a ship. Wherever you can find Carter Carnehan, you’ll find trouble skimming fast behind.’

  Carter glanced behind him. It was Anna Kurtain. ‘So this is how you’re aiming to keep me safe, Northhaven? Ducking rocks and dodging lava, waiting for the full blow to land on top of us?’

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ said Carter.

  ‘I can tell. You know, your father isn’t much like you described him back on the station.’

  Carter had to agree with her. His father looked the same, talked the same and walked the same. On the surface everythi
ng that counted should have been constant – whereas, in reality, nothing that mattered was. It was as though his father’s blood had turned to flint in his veins. Turning him stony, hard and hazardously sharp.

  Anna laughed. ‘Don’t get me wrong, he’s your father all right. Arriving here with a crazy-arse story about magical shortcuts home and a ship with enough guns, grenades and ammo to start his own private war against the empire. Who could he be but a Carnehan?’

  Carter shrugged. Now all that came when he heard his surname was his mother’s face. ‘It’s how the rescue party reached us. I’ve seen it. Owen, too.’

  ‘Why do you think I’m here? I’ve followed Owen through hell most of my life,’ said Anna. ‘We all have. He kept the miners together and as many of us alive as any person could hope to. Even when the old rock was blown to pieces. Even after we lost his brothers. A couple more hours down here doesn’t make any difference to me. This is all I ever wanted, Northhaven. A chance to make a difference and choose how to do it away from there—’ She pointed up towards the black rolling clouds. ‘You’ve given us that. So as far as the promise you made my brother goes, this is as good as it gets. The rest will have to sort itself out on its own. I just thought you should hear that.’ She stared across the desolate plain towards Owen, the man walking among the sheltering slaves. Reassuring them, pointing back to the standing stones and talking of the portal. Carter recognised that look on her face. He wondered if the prince-turned-slave knew how Anna felt about him; if Anna didn’t tell Owen soon, she might not get another chance. The dead zone seemed hungrier than usual for Weyland bones.