Half Discovered Wings (22 page)

After almost a minute of passing it by, Gabel could make out
the name on its front bow, which was still free of rust but covered
with lichen. It read:
Madame
Chaste.
There was a picture of a haloed
figure, carved into the keel at the very front of the vessel, her
holy figurehead.

A moment of mourning silenced the crew of the
Tractatus
as they left
the collapsed giant to rest. It quickly became just another murky
shadow in the swirling fog.

Gabel joined Caeles on the bridge, where he was carefully
watching the captain steer the vessel. A sensor told them they had
just passed over a large coral bank, the same one on which
Madame Chaste
now
perched.

It was a clear
warning to them all.

They had
entered the graveyard of the Lual.

~

When
nighttime came, Gabel and the rest of the passengers had seen
enough rotting hulks to satisfy their curiosity. After each one,
Gabel knelt in prayer, saying that it was what Rowan would have
done, though each time he would stand afterwards and shake his head
as if to rebuke himself. Caeles had seen him washing his hands in
the mornings and at night, and often found him whispering quietly
to himself whilst looking out from the bow.

Night began to set in. Walking from the bridge around to the
cabins, Caeles was almost knocked in the face by an opening door.
Gabel stepped out. With a mumbled apology the hunter walked away,
leaving Caeles standing by the closed door of the
shrine.

‘
I thought you didn’t believe in Irenia,’ he said as he
followed Gabel into the berth. Rowan lay on the bed, her hair still
in the pleats.

‘
I never said that.’

‘
You did once. I heard you talking to the magus: you said you
could never make up your mind if you did or not.’

‘
So perhaps now I have.’

Caeles watched
the man, bending over Rowan and adjusting her position slightly so
that she rested more neatly on the fold-out bed. Caeles remembered
Gabel’s defence of Rowan’s insistence to rest on the Sabbaths,
before Caeles convinced him it was doing her more harm than
good.

Maybe now he wants to pray
.
For her
.
He’s got nothing else to do
…

Caeles nodded to himself and left the cabin, walking around
to his own. The magus was there, resting with his wrinkled eyelids
closed, and hands clasped together.
He
always looks so old
, Caeles
thought,
until he moves. Then it’s like
he’s a young man again.

The eyelids
rose as he entered. ‘Has the night set in?’

‘
Yeah. No stars, as usual. I’ve never missed them
before.’

‘
Don’t let it worry you,’ the magus said. ‘They’re still
there.’

~

At nightfall it was usual for the bosun to take over the
control of the boat, leaving the captain to sleep until morning.
Halfway through the night, the mate would then take the bosun’s
place, letting him rest, and the pattern would continue.

The chief
began to fall to sleep reasonably fast after a long day on the
bridge. His mind dwelt on intangible subjects to help him drift
off: thoughts, desires, dreams.

Everybody dreamed, and soon enough the chief began to dream
himself.

The chief’s full name was Timothy Yarde. Although the mate
Lanark worked on the waters of the Lual as a career, the chief
worked for profit. The sailor’s life was a dangerous one in those
risky times, and the captain gave him wages that were more than the
average person made in such a run-down world. There was also a fair
chance of plundering some dilapidated vessel when it ran ashore –
and he regretted leaving behind so much loot aboard the decrepit
ships that they were passing in the graveyard. In addition, he got
paid for the odd delivery job he might acquire on the side that the
captain didn’t know about.

Timothy Yarde aspired for riches. In the crews’ berth he had
a small sack of thin nickel coins that amounted to a fair bit in
post-Conflict currency, and a jar full of coppers would be ready
for exchange the next time they stopped in one of Lual’s
neighbouring districts.

When Timothy finally fell asleep, he dreamt of walking along
the bed of the great lake. It was as if the water were air; he met
no resistance as he walked, and had no trouble breathing, but there
were bubbles and fish swimming before his eyes, and crustaceans
around his feet.

There were
hills and mountains there, and he traversed them, in awe at the new
world all around him.

A stairway
carved into the reef beckoned him. Walking fearlessly up and up,
then breaking the surface, he arrived in what looked like a bowl
ten metres each way cut into the coral. The clear waters lapped at
its edge, and the skies, though misty, seemed brighter than
usual.

Standing in
the centre he heard voices singing quietly, in whispers. Stars
began to pierce the blanket of fog and shine down at him, one at a
time, in tune to the singing. One gleaming star seemed to fall, but
when it dropped to the ground by his feet he bent and realised that
it was a silver coin, winking at him. It was thick and heavy – of
high value.

More stars
gleamed in the sky but were not offered like the last. He held the
one he had and called to them, but they only swam placidly in the
sky above him, then, one by one, blinked out of existence.

The coin in
his hand tickled him, and he looked down to see it shine.

The heavenly
singing voices came closer, and he felt fingertips stroke his neck.
Unafraid, yet unable to bring himself to turn and look, the voices
by his ear made promises and suggestions.

~

The next day brought them closer to the centre of the Lual,
nearer to the locus of the dreaded graveyard. More dead ships,
crumpled against banks of living coral, guided them toward the
centre of the lake until they were so tightly packed that it became
difficult to navigate between them.

The names of the deceased called out to them from
once-polished plaques or engravings in the sides of the
vessels:
Mitten; Ushio; Liberation
Faction; Gold Band; Étoiles de Mer
.

The fog became constant, never lifting except for a few
seconds at a time, when, if the winds were right, a mass of
upturned ships could be seen, every few hundred feet. The captain
had never once been through the graveyard, repeating over and over
that it was too dangerous, has claimed too many vessels. He
mentioned how he was pleased to see that all the ships they passed
were much larger than the
Tractatus
.

‘
Why is that important?’ Gabel asked.

‘
Because bigger ships carry themselves further under water. A
small vessel might sail right over the same banks of coral that
took these great ships.’

The sensors beeped constantly. Each half-submersed vessel
that came within range constituted a proximity warning to the
sensor, and simultaneously it scanned the reefs beneath them,
warning the captain if they were too close to any particularly high
bank. Everyone did his best to ignore its constant
intonation.

Caeles received permission to try to disable the useless,
energy-consuming lights that illuminated the bridge. The captain
had Lanark watch him constantly, but Caeles noticed how sometimes
the mate wasn’t paying attention, letting his gaze drift to some
place away from where they were, or closing his eyes for long
periods of time as his breath quickened. After Caeles asked him if
he was ill, the man shook his head and replied that he felt as if
he hadn’t slept that night. From underneath the overhanging bridge
controls, Caeles mumbled a weak expression of condolence and went
back to work.

~

In the
twilight obscurity, dark clouds swarmed overhead, blown over from
the rainforests further west, bringing the night-time early. The
winds turned the clouds to interlocking paisley swirls. As they
dissipated they let their remaining cargo spill in one short
downpour.

The rain had
been falling for fifteen or so minutes before the vessel suddenly
let out a screeching roar, and shuddered to a halt.

Raindrops pounded the motionless deck. From inside the cabins
it sounded like an army of creatures knocking in staccato rhythm on
the walls, calling them out.

From the berth
underneath the bridge they heard the captain swear violently and
storm out onto the deck, drowning out the rain with his thunderous
footsteps and vulgar language. He looked over the side. Caeles and
Gabel moved out to see what the matter was, leaving the magus and
Rowan below deck.

‘
What’s the problem?’ Caeles asked.

‘
We’ve hit a bank,’ the captain said. ‘
Damn and shit!
Get back down there
and check for leakages.’

As Caeles went
down into the lower berth through the bridge, Gabel stood at the
bow. The water was moving in waves now, crested with white where
the water hit the side of the vessel and turned to spray. He could
see no damage.

The two crewmen entered the bridge from outside, having
lashed rigging together on the back deck. The captain muttered in
an expletive-rich rage, hands gesticulating this way and that,
mainly to the lake under his feet.

‘—
the suit and see how bad it is, will you?’ Gabel heard the
captain order, as he went to check below decks.

Gabel cast a glance toward Rowan when he arrived at the
bottom of the stairs. She was sound asleep, not disturbed in the
slightest by the sounds of torture the boat had just issued. He
rejoined Caeles.

‘
Does it look as if there’s a lot of damage?’

‘
None that I can see.’

‘
No
water on the inside. I guess that’s good.’

Just then Lanark came down and said, ‘Chief’s going over the
side to see what the damage is. Any leaks down here?’

‘
No.’

‘
Anyone injured?’

‘
How is he going over the side?’ Caeles asked.

‘
We’ve got a diver’s bell. He can go under the surface and
check if the boat’s hurt.’

A few minutes
later they stood outside the door to the bridge, rain gradually
darkening their clothes as they watched Timothy climb into the
bell.

The bell was
basically a suit, and it covered the entire body with airtight
rubber. Held together with lashes of leather and steel couplings,
it seemed a snug fit from the inside, but large and bulky from
without. The helmet, a shiny stainless steel egg that fit perfectly
with the seal around the neck, had a thick glass visor built-in.
Tubing linked helmet to surface, supplying air. It could not,
however, withstand high water-pressure; the chief couldn’t go much
lower than a few metres, which was luckily all he needed.

They slung a ladder over the side, and Timothy tentatively
made his way down, careful not to snag the air tube. His feet
descended rung by rusted rung, encased in the heavy boots, until
they went below the surface and began to feel cool. By the time the
chief was chest-deep, the freezing water made him gasp inside the
helmet.

‘
Almighty,’ he whispered, pausing for a second before
continuing. From inside the suit he had limited vision and only
partial hearing (the communication system was also electric, and
had fallen into disrepair with no-one skilled enough to mend it),
which brought him to a state of claustrophobia that he had only
twice felt before: once when he had been trapped for four hours in
the head when some repair rigging had fallen against the door, and
again the first time he had used the diving bell.

That first time the vessel had been all right, with only
minor scratches that needn’t have been worried about. This time
however, the chief wasn’t holding his breath.

~

‘
This is what happens when we rush through the reefs instead of
around,’ the captain growled angrily. ‘Your girl had better be
worth it.’

‘
Quiet!’ said Gabel. ‘He’s stopped descending.’

~

The bosun held
onto the bottom of the chain ladder with a gloved hand and let
himself hang for a moment in the shifting waters. There should have
been a reef bank to stand on when he reached the bottom, but there
was nothing. A few yards back there was a small rise about ten
metres under the surface, but that—

He whirled around in the water, sending bubbles rushing past
his faceplate. He could’ve sworn something had swum quickly behind
him, brushing past the back of the bell as he clutched to the
ladder.

‘
Damn,’ he whispered hoarsely. He turned back to the bank,
which was too deep to have caught the boat, unless the waves had
risen then fallen sharply, dropping her a few more feet.

…
othy Ya
…

He spun again,
causing another spiral of bubbles to cascade up the outside of his
visor. Had someone said his name just then?

It was the darkness, and the claustrophobia … Up above, the
light rain disturbed the otherwise clear surface. Tiny dots and
ripples appeared randomly over his head and disappeared just as
quickly. Maybe the weather was affecting the underwater currents
that were rushing past the broken comm. plates by his
ears…?