Deeplight

  She scratched the back of her neck, frowning intently.

  Does anyone know you’re here? she asked. Will anyone come if you don’t return?

  Only Quest knew where Hark was, and Hark sincerely hoped that the old man wouldn’t try to storm the League’s village by himself.

  One old man knows, he signed, but he’s sick. I don’t think he’s coming. We’re alone.

  Just us, then. Selphin scowled, then looked up at Hark, fiercely expectant.

  That glance seemed to jolt something in his head. He had been so devastated by the thought of the looming apocalypse, and his part in it, that he’d lost track of one very important fact. It hadn’t happened yet.

  It was true, Hark and Selphin were alone. Nobody was coming to rescue them, or stop the gods rising again. They were the only people who knew about Vyne’s creation. If they didn’t do anything to prevent this calamity, nobody would.

  They were trapped, they were helpless, the odds against them were impossible. And yet . . .

  You’ll do it if you have to, Jelt was always telling Hark, with his customary smirk. The memory drove a barb of anger and hurt into Hark’s heart. He’d hated the way that Jelt forced him into situations where he had to perform miracles on demand. But the truth was, he usually had managed to achieve them.

  Jelt had always been bitter medicine, and now he was poison. However, he was still forcing Hark to become bigger, bolder, smarter and tougher than he thought he could be.

  I’ll do it because I have to, thought Hark. Somehow I’ll stop the gods rising.

  Can we get out of this shack? Hark signed.

  Yes, Selphin answered. There’s a secret door. I just stay in here because I love it.

  Hark rolled his eyes and made an entreating gesture. Selphin relented.

  There’s a heavy bar on the door, she explained. I tried to get wood splinters through the door crack to lever it up, but they snapped. I made some holes in the walls. They’re good for spying, but I couldn’t loosen the planks. When they bring me my food now, there’s always three of them, because I bit someone’s nose.

  Hark turned out his own pockets and belt pouch, to see whether he had anything useful to contribute. His captors had searched him, but they’d stopped when they found the heart. Hark found that he still had his bandages, handkerchief, comb, some string, a piece of chalk and other oddments. Among them he saw a silvery gleam. He still had his tuning fork.

  He picked it up and tentatively tried inserting the handle into the door crack to see whether he could use it to lift the bar. However, the crack was too narrow. The chalk and the comb didn’t fit into the gap either.

  Prise nails out, signed Selphin, eyes narrowed.

  Hark tried using the fork to lever out one of the nails that held the wall-planks in place, but it soon became clear that the metal was too supple. If he kept going he would bend the tines irrevocably, without shifting a single nail.

  Stab the guards in the eye with it, then, Selphin suggested.

  You’re feral, signed Hark, but he felt his spirits rise a little. Captivity and interrogation didn’t seem to have crushed the smuggler girl’s nerve. You’ve been spying on them?

  Selphin nodded. She beckoned and showed him a small crack between the planks in the wall next to the door. He could see that she had picked splinters away from the edges of the planks to make the crevice wider, and for the first time he noticed her broken fingernails. When he peered through, it gave him a view of the warehouse, a few other buildings, and the hill behind. Another similar crack on the seaward side offered a squint of the jetty, the rugged little fishing boat, and the black withersteel armour of the Abysmal Child.

  What have you seen? he asked. If they wanted to escape, they needed as much information as possible.

  There are sixteen men in the camp, she told him, and sometimes the woman who bought you. The boat brings supplies. The big submarine has been here all the time. There are two lookouts up on rocks above village, and one on the jetty.

  Do they light lanterns at night? he asked.

  No big lanterns, came the answer. Some of the guards carry scare-lamps.

  If the camp wasn’t lit at night, it might make it easier for Hark and Selphin to sneak away. On the other hand, it meant that soon the shack would be dark, and it would become harder for the two of them to sign to each other.

  When they bring us breakfast or come to question us, signed Selphin, we stab them with your fork, and we run to the warehouse. Then we smash your relic before they can stop us.

  It didn’t sound like a tactic that would save the world, but it was oddly heartening to have any plan at all. He hoped that they could come up with something better before morning.

  Can we smash it? asked Selphin as an afterthought.

  I hope so, answered Hark.

  What is it? Where does it come from? continued Selphin.

  It’s the heart of the Hidden Lady, Hark explained. It still felt unchivalrous sharing such a secret.

  How do you know? asked Selphin, brow furrowed.

  My old priest friend told me, explained Hark.

  How does he know? persisted Selphin.

  This was an excellent question. How had Quest been able to recognize the heart? He had only ever seen the Lady when she was alive, hadn’t he? Her torso had never been recovered. How could anybody know what her heart looked like?

  I don’t know, Hark signed back. Evidently Hark had not plumbed the full depths of Quest’s secrets, even now. He was starting to wonder whether he understood anybody at all.

  As the darkness settled in the shack, Selphin spread her blanket over the floor and curled up on one side of it. She didn’t explicitly invite Hark to share it, but left enough room for him.

  He lay down on the other end of the blanket, staring up at the dark roof of the shack, and tried to come up with a plan. Exhaustion had other ideas, however. His thoughts lost their shape and their way, like wanderers in fog, and sleep drew him into a kindly numbness.

  Hark was woken hours later by a nudge in the small of his back. He started, confused in the darkness by the sound of the sea, the chill, and the absence of the dormitory smells. He was cold, stiff and hungry, but couldn’t remember why. Then memory drenched him like cold water.

  A faint glimmer of moonlight seeped in through the cracks in the walls, and under the door. He could see Selphin standing over him, the faint light catching the edge of her cheek and putting twin stars in her eyes. She pointed urgently to the nearest spyhole in the wall.

  He staggered groggily to his feet and put his eye to the hole.

  The village lay before him in utter stillness, save for the dimming and blooming of the moonlight as clouds sailed across the sky. All the windows in the village were dark, except those of the warehouse, which still glowed with a purple light. He could see nothing unexpected, so he turned back to Selphin, shook his head and shrugged. Her hands moved, but it was too dark to make out her signs, so he shook his head again.

  Selphin reached out and took hold of his hands. He felt her turning them, arranging the fingers, and then slowly moving them. Her hands were smaller than his and a little cool, with calluses on the palms and fingertips. After a few seconds he realized that she was slowly guiding his hands through signs.

  Nearest building, she signed with his hands, then released them.

  Hark looked through the crack again, this time staring towards the building opposite the shack. Now that he knew where to look, he could see a figure-shaped patch of darkness pressed against the shadowy wall.

  After a while it stirred, and flitted swiftly to another building, where it held itself against a different wall. Then it moved to the next building. It was a little too tall to be human, and its outline was slightly wrong.

  The Jelt-thing had been stalking him down the hill, just as he feared. Now it was flattening itself against building after building. He could only guess that it was trying to detect the sustaining pulse of the god-heart.

 
The dark shape turned, and he could just about see its head twitching this way and that. Then it began loping towards the shack.

  Hark took hold of Selphin’s hands and quickly moved them through one hurried sign.

  It’s coming!

  Both of them froze. Hark could hear something outside the shack, a very faint, dry rustling that made him think of dead insect wings and the wind-blown husks of crab shells. Selphin’s gaze flicked to one wall, and he guessed that she had noticed some faint tremor in the planks that his eyes were not sharp enough to catch.

  Hark imagined the Jelt-thing pressed against the other side of the wall, alert for any noise or vibration. It must be mere inches away, and Hark was suddenly terrified that it would sense him, recognize him, smell him . . .

  Eventually the stealthy noises receded, but it was a long time before Hark and Selphin dared move, and even longer before Hark could get back to sleep.

  When Hark was woken a second time, it was considerably less gently. A sudden kick in the ribs made him curl defensively, covering his face. Someone grabbed his shoulder and shook it. He peered out between his fingers.

  The spectral pre-dawn light was seeping into the dark of the shack. Selphin was bending over him, her hair tousled, her eyes still puffy with sleep.

  They’re taking the god away! she signed urgently.

  Hark scrambled to his feet and pressed his own eye to the crack in the wall.

  The big doors of the warehouse were open. Very slowly, with reverent care, ten men were carrying Vyne’s nightmare out into the early morning light. Poles had been slotted through the wooden platform to make it portable.

  The inert god didn’t look any less chilling in the stark, grey light. It lay there in state, its glass and steel glinting. Sailcloth slings now supported its great claws. A large oilskin was draped over the pale flesh and metal piping of its innards.

  The whole convoy looked like a weird funeral procession. The ‘bearers’ all seemed to be dockyard scum, with knife-cut tattoos. A few better-dressed men stood around like mourners, two of them skinny and scholarly, the others rich enough for crisp uniforms, none of them quite the same.

  Thankfully, the god was still playing its part as corpse. Vyne did not seem to have brought her makeshift deity fully to life yet.

  Hark pulled back from the spyhole.

  Are they taking it on to the boat? he signed.

  Selphin shook her head.

  They’re getting the submarine ready, she replied. I saw them carrying air-bottles, god-glue, breather boxes and supplies. They’re loading it up for a trip.

  Hark tingled with frustration and panic. He stared around at the heavy wooden walls of their shack prison, as if he could glare them into smithereens. If such methods worked, however, he reckoned Selphin would have broken free days ago.

  Instead, he slammed both his fists against the door. Next to him, Selphin jumped, presumably feeling the shockwave through the wood.

  ‘Let me out!’ he shouted in desperation. ‘I’ll tell you about the relic! I’ll tell you anything you want to know!’ He readied the tuning fork, holding it so that it was flush against his forearm and hidden under his sleeve. If this bluff made them open the shed door for a moment, just a moment . . .

  Nobody answered. No footsteps approached. The door did not open.

  He glued his eye to the crack again. The Leaguers carrying the god were paying no attention to his cries. They were probably too far away to make out the words. A couple of the better-dressed men were closer to the shack, and casting glances his way.

  ‘I’ll tell you where I found the relic! There’s more godware there!’

  The two men whispered avidly. Then one of them shrugged and shook his head, turning back to the god-parade. They could make Hark tell all he knew in the fullness of time. They knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

  All the Leaguers shared the same expression of rapt calm. Something immense was happening, and they were a part of it. Hark could almost feel their doubts and disappointments dropping away from them, leaving something pure and certain. They were immense now, bigger than everyone who had ever made them feel small.

  The procession was just moving out of sight when Hark was startled by the sound of raised voices from the direction of the harbour. Selphin, who was peering through the crack on the seaward side, gave a little intake of breath. She turned to Hark and signed frantically.

  Something happened! People are running around on the jetty!

  Through the tiny spyholes, they could just see a small group of men gathered around a brown bundle of something lying on the jetty. One of them was the captain. He seemed to be giving orders, and the little huddle soon dispersed. Something had happened, but it was no longer happening. The loading of the sub continued with even more haste than before.

  The grey light was ripening to pale gold, the sea colour warming to a pleasant blue. Selphin frowned suddenly.

  Your hands are shining, she signed. She grabbed his wrist and pulled his right hand into the shaft of light from the hole in the wall.

  The little beads of god-glass winked from the long scar. Hark had forgotten about them. He turned his hand this way and that, counting the beads. How much god-glass was in them altogether?

  I have a plan for getting out of this shack, he signed. He didn’t like it much, though. He wasn’t sure it would work, and he was completely sure it would hurt.

  While Selphin kept watch, Hark tried to get the bits of god-glass out of his hand. He first tried letting the tuning fork ring next to his knuckles, in the hope that he could squeeze out the beads of glass as they softened, but this just made them squirm deeper under the scar tissue.

  He had no choice but to dig the beads out of his knuckles, and no time to do it gently. The sharpest thing he had was the tines of the tuning fork. He kept his hand curled in a fist to keep the skin taut and make the little blobs of glass bulge, but it was still hard to force the metal edge into his own flesh. Tears of pain kept welling in his eyes. He had to blink them out in order to see straight.

  Occasionally, Selphin would turn around to sign a bulletin to him, with increasing urgency.

  They’re checking ballast, inspecting oars.

  They’re lowering the god into the rear hatch!

  Everyone’s getting into the submarine now. I think they’re all leaving! Hurry up!

  Hark’s knuckles were a mess, but he had twelve little beads of god-glass laid out on Selphin’s wooden plate. He struck the tuning fork against a wall and heard its tingling whine settle into a high, pure note. When he rested the tip of its handle on the floor next to the plate, the note became louder.

  The little spheres of glass softened and spread slightly, like wax beads starting to melt in the sun. By pressing them with the back of his fingernail, Hark was able to squash them.

  Over and over he struck the tuning fork, then nudged and rubbed at the softened god-glass. At last it was spread thin, a lumpy, glossy smear like a snail trail. Using a corner of his sleeve to grip it, Hark carefully lifted it off the plate, a slender, mottled, ragged blade of glass.

  They’re closing the hatch! signed Selphin. Quickly!

  Hands shaking, Hark slid the blade of glass into the crack between door and jamb. Its unevenness rasped against the wood, but he managed to force it in. Then he slid it upwards until he felt the weight of the bar resisting it.

  ‘They’ve cast off!’ Selphin whispered aloud, the noise startling after their silent exchanges. ‘They’re rowing away!’

  Hark forced the blade upwards and felt the bar lift. He pushed at the door, and it creaked open a few precious inches.

  A quick peer through the opening. No guards waiting outside. Hark slipped out through the door, Selphin a step behind him. No sign of musket-wielding Leaguers outside the warehouse, or on the jetty, or up on the lookout points . . .

  Hark and Selphin hurried round the edge of the shack, and stared out at the sea, where the Abysmal Child’s long, jet-black shape was leav
ing the harbour. There was a hiss and hush of ponderous valves closing or opening, and a throaty sound of water gushing through pipes. Nose first, the great submarine was dipping beneath the waves at its leisure, the froth of the surf closing over its long, coal-black back.

  What had Hark expected to do, once he’d escaped the shack? Leap into the water and grapple the Abysmal Child? Punch a hole in its hull, perhaps?

  Hark stood there, watching the waves resume their dance and pretend that they had not just welcomed the doom of mankind into their secretive embrace. He might have stood there longer if Selphin had not suddenly grabbed his arm.

  He looked round, and discovered that not all the Leaguers had left on the submarine. There was one still there, standing on the jetty. He had probably just leaped down from the boat. He was quite young, with a sailor’s tan, and good-natured creases in his cheeks. He was the kind you might see in any bar, happy to arm-wrestle, but dazzled-looking if girls talked to him. You could make them laugh, that sort.

  Hark’s untamed mind still wanted to understand this man, to find a way to win him over. He almost couldn’t comprehend that the Leaguer was levelling his musket at the pair of them, and tensing to fire.

  The shot, when it came, was a disappointing rap, like a cane hitting a desk.

  Hark flinched, but there was no pain. Instead he saw the young man jerk, twitching his head to a quizzical angle, and then very slowly fall over. His musket hit the jetty with a crack, and Hark realized that it wasn’t smoking. The shot had come from somewhere else.

  Looking past the fallen man, Hark noticed again the brown, cloth-covered object sprawled at the far end of the jetty. It wasn’t a bundle at all; it was a figure. It had pushed itself up on to one elbow, and now it collapsed to the boards once more. A tiny curl of smoke wisped from the pistol in its hand.

  Hark sprinted down the jetty, past the fallen Leaguer, towards the sprawled, brown-clad figure at the end. As he drew closer he could see it more clearly. The small, ornate pistol drooped from one hand. The other hand clutched at the figure’s side, where a great, damp blot of darkness was spreading, spilling redness over its fingers.