Deeplight

by FrancesHardinge

  Vyne led the way up a flight of wooden stairs to another door, which she unlocked. Hark followed her into the study.

  The room was half the size of the hall downstairs, and far more chaotic. Hark had helped tidy it only three days before, but already it was back to its usual anarchy. By the rosy light from the round window in the ceiling, he could see every trestle table groaning under sprawled heaps of papers, vials, flasks, varnish bottles, and translucent eyes in jars. It always seemed funny that the shrewd, self-possessed doctor should be so incurably messy.

  On the wall hung a rectangle of embossed leather with important-looking ribbons and seals attached to it. Hark still couldn’t read its lettering properly, but he knew it was Vyne’s university diploma. She wasn’t a medical doctor. Her doctorate was in ‘practical theophysics’. In practice, this meant she was a recognized expert in the study of godware and its uses.

  That was why she had attended the Appraisal on Lady’s Crave three months before. She had been there to bid for pieces of the Hidden Lady, and had bought Hark on impulse. Hark felt a lurking, irrational gratitude to the Lady for this, as if she had personally set out to save him.

  ‘So.’ Vyne moved a few books off her chair so that she could sit down, and dipped her pen ready to make notes. ‘What has my pet weasel found out this time?’

  Hark dropped down on to a stool, and gave his report. He repeated rumours and overheard conversations, and finally Quest’s story of the Hidden Lady, as faithfully as he could. She seemed gratified when he mentioned gods breathing the fear in the Undersea, but unsurprised.

  ‘Ha, I knew that was not just a metaphor!’ The doctor looked over her notes, fiddling with her pen. ‘Anything else you remember at all? Any impressions you got, while he was talking?’

  The Lady was beautiful, Hark answered, but only in his own head. Quest had not said that she was, nor had he spoken of her with any softness, only a trance-like quietness. In his heart, however, Hark was sure that she had been. She would not have been pretty in the way that girls or women could be. She would not even have had the beauty of moonlight on water, or the steely blue leap of winged fish, or the red berries on the cliff thorns. These things were fair. They filled your heart and made you glow. They were honey and spice.

  There was another kind of beauty, however, and everyone on the Myriad knew it. A twisted beauty that turned your stomach even while it turned your head. ‘Frecht’ was the old word, a harsh word ragged with superstitious awe. It was an ugliness and otherness that could only be holy, a breach of the rules that echoed those that no rules could bind. The ancient, sacred buildings aspired to that sublime distortion. ‘Frecht’ transcended beauty and carried you into a realm of awe and terror. It demanded your slavish devotion. Nobody used the word any more, for it dripped with the memory of the gods. However, sometimes people said ‘beautiful’ and meant ‘frecht’.

  ‘I don’t remember anything else,’ Hark said, knowing that the Hidden Lady would be appearing in his dreams for nights to come, sometimes with empty eye sockets, sometimes with fingers that snaked like her hair.

  ‘The priest who told you this . . . Quest . . .’ Vyne frowned and checked her records in a blue leather book. ‘He’s been getting weaker, hasn’t he?’

  ‘He’s still sick at the moment,’ said Hark, feeling uncomfortable. Vyne had made the old man’s illness sound like an unstoppable decline. Hark didn’t want to think of it that way.

  ‘Damn!’ muttered Vyne. ‘Why is it always the useful ones that fade away? Speaking of which, have you made any progress with Pale Soul?’

  ‘There hasn’t been a chance!’ Hark protested, though he had known the question was coming.

  ‘You’re supposed to make chances!’ insisted Vyne. ‘Why else would I need a slippery, baby-faced little crook like you? You’re supposed to win those priests’ trust and get their secrets out of them!’

  ‘I found out that the Sanctuary archive survived!’ Hark pointed out defensively.

  For a long time, it had been believed that the great archive at Sanctuary, containing centuries of priestly records, had been destroyed after the Cataclysm. However, Hark had overheard Moonmaid interrogating Pale Soul one evening, demanding to know where the archive had been hidden, so that she could destroy it and keep its secrets safe. Hark had of course reported this to Vyne and had been in her good graces ever since. However, he could only milk this triumph for so long.

  ‘That was a month ago.’ Vyne stood up and raked her fingers through her hair. ‘There’s no use in knowing about the archive if we never actually find it. You need to wheedle the truth out of Pale Soul!’

  ‘It’s not that easy! He’s always frightened . . . confused . . . If you say the wrong thing, he gets in a state . . .’ Hark didn’t quite want to admit that he felt uncomfortable pressing Pale Soul for information. The wan old man sometimes seemed as frail as a soap bubble.

  ‘Well, I can’t ask him, can I?’ Vyne countered bitterly.

  In theory, the governor of Lady’s Crave had put Dr Vyne in charge of both the museum and Sanctuary. In practice, she mostly left the day-to-day running of Sanctuary to Kly.

  ‘It’s the most frustrating situation!’ This was an old refrain. ‘Here I am, told to look after thirty fascinating living relics, but forbidden from asking them questions! The priests’ knowledge is irreplaceable. They are still holding secrets, which might change our entire understanding of godware and the gods! But no, we have to “respect their privacy”, and “leave them in peace in their twilight years” . . .’ She let out a long, exasperated breath.

  Technically, Vyne wasn’t supposed to send in anybody else to interrogate the priests either, hence the need for secrecy. Hark had been bought as a spy.

  ‘The governor’s an idiot,’ he told her supportively. He found the doctor easier to handle when she was out of sorts. At least he could read her then. When she was calm and self-possessed, he often felt as though she were laying verbal traps for him, and watching with amused detachment to see whether he fell into them.

  ‘And the priests keep irresponsibly dying!’ muttered Vyne. ‘A couple more every year – usually the old ones with the most valuable knowledge! You can’t tell which will keel over next, either. Even the healthy-looking ones suddenly have a bad fall, or a cold that turns into a fever, or go to bed as normal but don’t wake up. That’s why every day matters, Hark. You must find out where that archive is before Pale Soul dies just to spite me!’

  ‘I will!’ Hark promised. ‘I’m working on him! You need to trust me!’

  Vyne snorted.

  ‘I’m certainly not desperate enough to do that,’ she remarked. Her gaze was amused and dispassionate again. ‘What have you been up to, anyway?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Hark squirmed as he tried to work out whether Vyne’s words were a veiled accusation.

  ‘It’s a simple question. I want to know whether my pet weasel is keeping his nose clean.’

  ‘It’s clean,’ Hark said quickly.

  Vyne sat very still and continued looking at Hark, not quite smiling. When she was like this, Hark couldn’t read her at all.

  ‘Do you remember the golden rule?’ she asked him.

  ‘I can lie to anybody else as much as I like, as long as I don’t get caught . . . but I can’t ever lie to you.’ Of course Hark remembered the rule. It burned in his mind whenever he was in danger of getting too comfortable with the doctor. ‘If I do . . . you’ll sell me to the galleys to rot.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. Only her mouth moved. She barely blinked. She was waiting. Hark caved.

  ‘I do keep my nose clean,’ he reiterated, ‘but . . . other folks don’t, and I turn a blind eye sometimes.’

  ‘Go on.’ Vyne raised her eyebrows. Hark winced, feeling like a rat.

  ‘There’s a Sanctuary attendant who’s supposed to throw out the priests’ bathwater,’ he admitted. ‘Some of it’s Undersea water – good quality – so he bottles it up on the quiet and s
ells it as lamp oil. I don’t help him, but I . . . don’t tell anyone.’

  There were other rackets going on in Sanctuary, of course. One attendant was smuggling out medicine, another was chipping away carvings from the corridors and selling them to tourists. Hark was a silent accessory in those endeavours too.

  ‘It’s useful, knowing people’s secrets,’ he said defensively. ‘It means they have to look out for me.’

  ‘So you turn a blind eye to other people’s dirty noses,’ said Vyne. ‘That’s all? You’re not making use of your old contacts?’

  ‘No!’ Hark insisted quickly. Vyne’s second golden rule was that he shouldn’t resume contact with his friends back on Lady’s Crave.

  During his first month in Sanctuary, Hark had been fiercely homesick and desperate to see familiar faces. He had found excuses to hang around the harbour, just in case anyone he knew came looking for him. Nobody ever had, and eventually he had realized that this was probably for the best.

  If he had met his friends, there would have been jibes and inquisitive tugs at the sleeves of his yellow robes, as they tried to assess how far he’d sold out. He would have wanted to persuade them that he was unchanged, a secret rebel disguised as an obedient repentant. Then he’d have been asked to prove it by downing a drink, ‘borrowing’ something from the museum, or revealing how to get into Sanctuary . . .

  ‘No,’ he repeated. ‘I’m not stupid.’

  ‘Everyone’s stupid,’ said Vyne. ‘Everyone’s weak.’

  ‘Are you going to tell Kly about the bathwater?’ Hark asked.

  ‘No.’ Vyne idly picked up her notes and began scanning them again. ‘Why would I do that?’ All the tension in the room had vanished as if it had never been there. ‘Just keep me informed, and don’t get caught.’

  Hark suspected that he had skirted around another pit trap. What would have happened if he had pretended total innocence? Would the doctor have believed him?

  Dr Vyne liked him, he was fairly sure of that. She liked his cheek, his curiosity, and even his dishonesty. She approved of the progress he was making with his reading lessons, and sometimes explained godware theories to him, on a whim. He wasn’t just her latest tool, he was a project that she found interesting. Would she really toss him away if he disappointed her?

  Yes, said his instincts. She might.

  Hark didn’t think Dr Vyne was somebody who gave more than one warning. She had told him as much when she explained her rules to him on the day they met.

  No exceptions. No excuses. No second chances.

  Yes, she liked him. But if he ever disappointed her or broke her rules, even once, he suspected she would sell him to his doom without a moment’s hesitation.

  CHAPTER 7

  Early the next morning, Hark was sent out to forage for the Sanctuary kitchen. This meant getting up even earlier than usual and scouring the cliffs and beaches, but he rather enjoyed these errands. It got him out of Sanctuary and made him feel less trapped.

  He scalded his tongue gobbling his soup, tucked his little plaited loaf into his pocket, and before the sun could rise, was outside in the wind, under the pale gold sky. It was good to leave behind his yellow robes, and to stride rather than shuffle. He heaved cold salt air into his lungs, and his ever buoyant spirits climbed skywards.

  It still felt strange to wander the beaches unhindered. As he plundered the barnacles from the rock pools, and the lush, flaccid green sea lettuce at the waterline, he half expected to hear yells and feel the sting of slingshots. On Lady’s Crave, every decent beach was claimed by a scavenger gang, and most of them took a very dim view of ‘intruders’ trying to forage or scavenge there. Repeat offenders sometimes left with fewer fingers.

  On Nest, nearly all the beaches were unclaimed. Only one beach had a permanent guardian. Hark scrambled down to it anyway, not to forage but to chat. When Hark’s feet crunched on the shingle, a shabbily dressed middle-aged man burst out of his shack, then relaxed and lowered his boat hook.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Old Dunlin was fiercely protective of ‘his’ beach, but Hark had long since won him over. The scavenger was usually glad of a chance to talk to someone.

  The pair sat outside Dunlin’s shack and shared Hark’s breakfast loaf. Perched on a stack of whetstones, Hark looked around and noticed big pails of live crabs in water, and heaps of salted fish drying on stone slabs.

  ‘How did you catch all those?’ he exclaimed admiringly.

  ‘Didn’t you see the storm two nights ago?’ Dunlin grinned. ‘The Embrace was dark and frisky, so the sea went mad, and all the crabs and flying fish just flung themselves on to the beach to get away from it. Like they were all rushing to get into my cooking pot.’ The scavenger chuckled. ‘The sea was wild enough, I thought I might even get some decent salvage washed up here, but . . .’ He gave a wry grimace and shook his head.

  ‘No luck?’ asked Hark sympathetically.

  ‘It’s the usual story.’ Dunlin nodded towards a series of dark points marring the sea in the distance. ‘The Entreaty Barrier catches most of the good stuff.’

  Looking out to sea, Hark could see an irregular row of dark specks nestling near the horizon. He knew this was the Entreaty Barrier’s zigzag line of dark towers jutting out of the water. They perched on rocks and underwater pinnacles, some barely a hundred feet apart, some as much as quarter of a mile from the next. The great net of chains strung between them was invisible beneath the waves.

  ‘Ah, well,’ Dunlin said philosophically, ‘if it didn’t, I reckon there would be more gangs wanting to claim these shores. As it is . . . I got my own beach.’

  ‘Peace and quiet,’ said Hark.

  ‘Yes – except when the doctor lady visits.’ Dunlin nodded towards the top of the beach, where a weathered, padlocked door was set into the cliff-face. It was apparently the entrance to an old mine that Vyne occasionally used for unspecified experiments. ‘Wish she wouldn’t – it scares the fish away for miles.’

  ‘Any news from the other islands?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Dunlin shook his head. ‘You’re the first person I’ve talked to in three days.’

  Hark felt a sting of disappointment, and was suddenly, bitterly homesick. Living on Lady’s Crave, he had always felt that he were part of a flow. Boats, goods, people, news – they flowed in and through and out of the island all the time. That was the way the Myriad was. Everywhere was on the way to everywhere else. Living without news made him feel marooned.

  ‘Look at those clouds blowing in.’ Dunlin frowned. ‘More rain coming.’

  Hark barely heard, his eyes once again fixed on the sails of distant ships. Clippers, cutters, sloops, luggers. White sails, yellow, crimson.

  Within sight, across the shining water, life was going on without him.

  Hark scrambled inland again through the thick, bristling undergrowth. His steps startled crickets and blue-grey moths.

  A striped squirrel darted right across Hark’s path, and he laughed aloud. Once there had been no squirrels in the Myriad, but the cocky little vermin had managed to stow away in foreign ships, gnawing through their supplies. These days you found them on most islands in the Myriad, breeding as fast as rats. The Myriddens forgave their presence because they were impudent, acrobatic, and delicious in stew.

  Hark always felt a sense of solidarity with them as fellow vermin. The sight of one cheered him up immediately.

  ‘Yeah, I shouldn’t be here either,’ he told it. ‘But they let us on a boat, and here we are.’

  Here I am. Alive and well, in spite of everything. I’ve talked myself into something good here. Why am I moping?

  An army of clouds had boiled in from the north while he walked. Now the sky was a jaded, stormy grey, and the air had a damp, cold glisten that promised rain. Hark knew he should seek shelter soon too, but for the moment, striding north into the wind made him feel free and full of life.

  He would walk as far as the old cairn. Last time, he had noticed a little knot of samphire s
prouting between its stones. By now the plant might be well-grown enough to pluck sprigs from without killing it. The cairn was so close now, its grey rocks embroidered with livid white lichen.

  ‘Hark!’

  Hark froze, his foot on one of the lower stones of the cairn. Suddenly he could feel the chill.

  A face emerged from the cairn’s shallow inner cavity. A familiar face, blueish with cold.

  ‘Jelt!’

  Jelt always came back. Even when you thought he’d died, or been arrested, or forgotten you, he always, always came back. When he did, that changed everything. Whatever you had been doing while he was away came to an end. Hark had missed his friend bitterly, but now he realized that he wasn’t ready for Jelt’s return after all. Hark was suddenly gripped by a strange sense of loss.

  ‘Jelt,’ he blurted out, ‘what are you doing here?’

  ‘Good to see you too, Hark,’ said Jelt with a sour smile. ‘“Hey, Jelt, you’re alive! How have you been?” . . .’

  ‘It is good to see you!’ Hark insisted hurriedly. He glanced nervously around, but there didn’t seem to be anybody within sight. ‘I knew you must have got away! I couldn’t find out what happened that night, but you weren’t for sale at the Appraisal, so—’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ interrupted Jelt. ‘I’ve been waiting around on this island for two days.’ He made it sound as though Hark had failed an appointment.

  ‘I’m stuck in Sanctuary most of the time! I only come out when they send me on errands . . .’ Hark stopped himself and took a breath. Jelt did this – he pushed you on to the back foot. You ended up apologizing, explaining and defending yourself, instead of pushing back.

  ‘All right, I’m here now,’ Hark said instead. ‘And I’m glad you came. I . . . can’t stay long, though. If anyone sees me talking to you, I’m in deep trouble.’ All at once, the prospect of three years in Sanctuary didn’t seem like a trap. It was a future full of chances, precious and fragile.