From the Deep of the Dark (28 page)

‘Sharply done,’ whispered Dick in surprise.
I guess there’s a survivor in everyone, if you just prod ’em hard enough.

‘Too much blood in the water,’ moaned Morris.

At least the pool of blood underneath them belonged to the snorkel spiders, not their fellow prisoners. An angry rattling that sounded like the motor on the commandant’s boat filled the everglades. The commandant’s launch had turned around and was coming back to survey the damage to his operation, dozens of snorkel spiders in the water roaring counter challenges at the clattering engine.

‘Who has permitted this to happen?’ yelled On’esse, standing up at last, roused from his torpor under the shadow of the shade. ‘Why are you cowards not harvesting?’

From one of the guard platforms, a gill-neck called out in the commandant’s native tongue, indicating the snorkel bones hunting across the now empty waters.

On’esse dismissed the excuses with a stream of angry curses and pointed at Daunt, the sailor and Sadly on the raft. ‘You are standing on top of my harvest, you lazy fools! Spoiling today’s crop. Why are you not collecting fruit?’

‘There are bleeding monsters in the water!’ called the sailor.

On’esse strode to the front of his craft. ‘Am I blind? Am I unaware of this? Why do you think it is you pulling gillworts from this swamp and not I?’ He pushed the soldier on the tripod gun to one side, swivelled the weapon towards the convict labourer and triggered the gun. There was a shock of recoil through the commandant’s launch, the Jackelian sailor struck in his chest and thrown back off the harvesting raft. Three snorkel spiders thrashed against each other as they competed to claim the corpse. ‘Only those on the highest harvesting strap may stay in the trees. Everyone else, in the water, NOW! There are only seven beasts that I can see and half of those have been fed. We may lose a few of you untrained surface dwelling scum, and then everyone will work a double shift to make up for this debacle.’ He rocked the gun towards Daunt and Sadly. ‘You two first, climb off my precious fruit and down into the swamp with you.’

There was an almost approving rattle of mandibles from the snorkel spiders circling Sadly and Daunt’s raft.

As Charlotte sat inside the dome, she could almost see its structure extending. Each new clan of seanore that arrived at the tribal gathering brought their own plates cut from crab shells, adding them to the interlocking structure in new and innovative ways. The communal space had been transformed from the open hall of a single clan into a rambling warren of interconnected chambers, a few even filled with air and separated by transparent permeable membranes. It was hard to imagine that Charlotte was responsible for all of this, her recitations of ancient prophecies, her victory in the arena over Vane. Except it hadn’t been her triumph, it had been the spirit of Elizica of the Jackeni’s, the ancient queen’s thoughts and memories so intermingled with Charlotte’s own now it was hard to recall there had been a time when she had just been simple Charlotte Shades, Mistress of Mesmerism. Born to nobility, raised by a gypsy, and inclined to the removal of valuable objects that didn’t belong to her.

As the ancient monarch had grown in power, she was no longer content to seep through Charlotte’s blood and bones, whispering inside her mind. Now Elizica was appearing as a translucent blurred silhouette composed of shifting planes of light. Nobody else could see Charlotte’s ancient visitation, of course. The seanore coming into the hall walked right though the apparition, no more than a mirage.

Will you stop haunting me if I give away the Eye of Fate?

‘When you went to so much trouble to obtain it?’ said Elizica, her voice veined with mischief.

Charlotte guiltily remembered pilfering the gem from Madam Leeda. A burst of shame for stealing from the one person who had looked after her, indelibly mixed with the sadness of the first time she had used the amulet on her mother’s doorstep. That was the only time the Eye of Fate had failed her.

‘Its power is limited,’ said Elizica, speaking of the amulet. ‘You can make people believe in trivial things, you can make them see things that aren’t there. But you can no more make them love you than you can compel them to leap into a chasm and kill themselves, for that matter.’

I wasn’t thinking of hypnotising you into jumping into a chasm
, Charlotte lied.

‘It would make no difference if you did,’ said Elizica. ‘We leave our mark on the world as we pass through the years: in the lives of others, the action of our lives, in the reactions of the world. The children we have and the children we don’t. I’m just an echo, Charlotte, burnt into the Eye of Fate and the bones of the land. You can’t push an echo into a chasm.’

I bloody well can if I throw the Eye of Fate over the edge.

‘You cannot, girl-child. You have been using the Eye of Fate for too long. It’s bonded to you now, as you are to it. Do you remember how sick you were during your last days in Jackals and on board the u-boat? That wasn’t a reaction to being attacked in the pie shop; it was a reaction to the crystal activating. When the Eye of Fate shielded you from Cloake’s strike, it reset to its true purpose. As your body is locked to the crystal, the changes are mirrored in your flesh.’

No!

‘You should have listened to Madam Leeda,’ said Elizica. ‘She suspected the truth. Why do you think she kept the Eye of Fate locked away in the back of her caravan and removed the gem only when she had real cause to make use of it? She knew enough to use the amulet, rather than the other way around.’

I don’t want this.
Charlotte looked around the water-filled chamber. Jared Black and the old woman Maeva stood with other air-breathing nomads in one of the membrane-sealed annexes, arguing over some matter. The cavernous space of the dome filled with clan leaders and tribal wise-women, dozens of the underwater races represented. Charlotte sat on a bench of polished stone against the wall, the others like Vane and Tera keeping a respectful distance from her. Why? This was as much their fault as hers. Vane’s for letting himself be bested in the arena, Tera flapping around like fox-frightened poultry at the words of a prophecy the wise women were guardians for. What kind of fools were they? Charlotte could have stolen knowledge of the prophecy from one of them, couldn’t she? She could have used the Eye of Fate to do that easily enough. Now seanore tribes were flocking to the grand assembly. What a caper this could have been.
There we go, honey. Just swim over to the Advocacy and raid their crystal fields for me. That’s all the chosen one wants from you, a nice pile of boulder-sized diamonds. What do I need them for? Oh, I’ll think of something.
It wouldn’t be so wrong, would it?
The money helps, it always helps.

‘Not this time,’ said Elizica, intruding on her thoughts.

If you want to do something useful, go and possess the commodore and Vane and the others. Get them to stop tiptoeing around me as if I’m the angel of death.

‘For the seanore, I’m afraid that’s more or less exactly what you are. The herald of dark tidings is always to be feared. And as for the commodore, well, the last time he heard my words was through his daughter, and she gave her life saving the Kingdom. It cannot be easy for him to feel my presence again.’

His daughter died? I thought you said you couldn’t mesmerize someone into hurting themselves?

‘Her choice,’ said Elizica, with a mixture of pride and sorrow. ‘Not my enchantment.’

Charlotte sighed and looked up. She could see the
Purity Queen
anchored above through one of the net-covered gaps in the dome that allowed the sea water to circulate.
I’m not going to get myself killed for you. Don’t you think I will for a moment.

‘I am glad to hear it. A corpse isn’t going to be much use in helping me fulfil the prophecy of the shadowed sea.’

Charlotte glanced around the chamber. The gems that the seanore traded from the Advocacy were put to good use among the nomads, whittled by diamond drill-bits into intricate gemstone carvings of cephalopods and dolphins mounted on chains hanging around the nomads’ chests. There was nothing to match that level of artistry and craft back in Jackals, and each of the pieces would be worth a small fortune based on its uniqueness alone. This was Charlotte’s preferred class of pilferage – small, transportable and practically begging to be sliced off its chains during a chance collision in a crowd. She looked over again to where Maeva and the commodore were talking.
They seem to be arguing.

‘I can channel what they are saying to you, if it will help you understand the people you fight alongside.’

All right, then. Let me hear them.

‘You should have said something before you left,’ Maeva was complaining.

The commodore shrugged. ‘I couldn’t and that’s all of it.’

‘Why not? You never seemed to have a problem with speaking honey before you disappeared. You loved to hear yourself speak. It was a problem ever getting you to stop.’

‘I couldn’t, Maeva,’ said the commodore, ‘because if I had seen you one last time, I never could have left you. I wouldn’t have had the heart for it. And then you and all your people would have died trying to protect me.’

‘You were one of our clan. That’s what we do. Then. Now.’

‘Ah, not for me, never for me. I’ve enough on my conscience. That particular hold is full.’

‘You could have taken me with you. I would have left the seanore with you.’

‘For what, a life on the run, on the surface, away from your family and friends and everything you loved in the sea? I ended up in Cassarabia with other survivors of the royalist cause. Sucking up to the caliph there in return for the guns we needed to fight on. That’s no country for you. Heat like a furnace, sands that’ll sup the sweat from you with a vampire’s thirst, nothing but enemies and plotting and sorcery as evil as any you’re ever likely to see in this world. None of the countries and intrigues that followed after were any better. Just death and treachery and a cause that was lost long before I was even born. Taking you away from the oceans would have been dragging an angel down into hell.’

Maeva frowned. ‘It’s not a choice you should have got to make alone. I’m not some weak-willed surface-dwelling maiden. I am a warrior-born, free and unbound. It was
my
decision to make, not yours.’

‘I’m a pirate, remember? I stole it from you. And that was my decision.’

‘I thought I had made a seanore of you. Well, damn you for a pirate. Damn you for a
privateer
.’

Enough.
Charlotte felt guilty she had even agreed to the royal spectre’s suggestion.

The shape was beginning to fade away, the planes of light glowing translucent as they seeped into the water. ‘As you wish. We have more important matters to focus on than the life they lost together. We have more important things to worry about than the weight of your purse.’

More important things won’t put food on my plate when I get back home.
Charlotte didn’t need to sound the silent
if
in that train of thought.

‘I grow tired. I’ve slept for so long. I will return when you have need for me.’

Come back, I need you for this now.

‘For this jabbering mass? No, I have you for that.’ Elizica’s laughter faded into the chamber. ‘So many of the underwater races here, yet so much hot air beneath the waves.’

Underneath the shell plates, interior surfaces daubed with frescos of legends and battles and creatures of the sea, Tera stepped forward and raised her arms. The wise-woman’s voice carried loud in Charlotte’s helmet speakers. ‘It is time for the grand congress of the seanore to convene.’

Many floating in the water took their seats on the simple stone benches, as did the commodore and the air-breathing nomads behind the membrane. Those of the assembly without legs angled their bodies at neutral buoyancy, tails and fins holding them at anchor, waiting with expectant faces. One of the visiting nomads had stayed on his webbed feet, half his body armoured, the other half bare muscle with a gladiator’s physique. ‘Why are we here, Tera of the Clan Raldama? Why do you waste my time and all the chiefs of the water by bringing us here to a grand congress to stand before this—’ his hand jabbed towards Charlotte, ‘—surface dweller?’

Tera grew incensed. ‘You are here, Korda of the Clan Coudama, because your wise-woman reminded you of your obligations under the songs of the shadowed sea.’

‘Where is the prophecy
here
? I do not see it?’ The angry clan chief indicated the
Purity Queen
drifting outside the tribal hall. ‘Only a crew of surface-dwellers, the gas from the outcasts’ engines fouling the great forests.’

‘The signs and currents flow true,’ said Tera. ‘Are we not arrived at a time when the people of the water are at the throats of the surface dwellers? The time of madness is close, when demons shall emerge from the scars of the world and claim us all in the confusion.’

‘Demons from the deep of the dark,’ Korda sneered. ‘The only devils I see are these surface dwellers. Is this the time of the shadowed sea? I think not. The Advocacy is habitually in dispute with trespassing surface dwellers.’ The clan chief pointed at the commodore standing behind the membrane. ‘And that one is the worst of all. A u-boat privateer notorious for his avariciousness. Do you not know him? You sheltered the silver-beard once, and here he is back again, full of tricks and lies and false words.’

Vane joined the wise-woman in facing down the rival clan chief. ‘There are more than words at work here. This girl beat me in the ceremony of admittance and then sang words from the songs of prophecy.’

‘Pah!’ Korda’s contempt filtered through Charlotte’s helmet. ‘Words can be stolen as easily as crystals. You stupid weakling, you let the commodore’s fancy-piece best you in combat and now you seek to cover up your embarrassment by placing credence in ancient lore that Jared Black has pirated from us and whispered in her ear.’

Another clan leader stood up as Vane stepped forward, boiling to challenge his guest to combat. ‘The peace of the grand congress be upon you both. Let us hear what this girl has to say. Speak, surface dweller. Were you the bearer of the lion trident in ancient times?’