Iron Jackal (16 page)

‘Miss Vode,’ Frey murmured. ‘Why do I feel suddenly threatened?’

Ashua stopped moving, and the crew followed suit. ‘Nobody draw guns,’ she reminded them.

‘Pinn, that means you,’ Frey added.

Pinn mumbled something obscene and took his hand away from his revolver.

The untouchables surrounded them, though they kept a careful distance. One man stepped forward. He was probably in his forties, but he was so weatherworn that he looked ancient. He spoke slowly to Frey in the moist, hissing Samarlan tongue.

Frey looked helplessly at Ashua, who replied in his place. She and the elderly Samarlan conversed for a time. The elderly man despatched one of the others, who went running down the corridor. Jez tried to follow what was going on by interpreting gestures and expressions, but Samarlans were not an easy people to read.

‘What’s the deal?’ Frey asked, during a break in the conversation.

‘They don’t want to let us through,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, though. I’ve got contacts.’

‘Down here?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Your average Sammie orDak thinks so little of the untouchables that they’re practically invisible. If they do notice them, it’s just to kick them out of the way. They could plot against the God-Emperor himself with an untouchable in the room and it wouldn’t matter, because no Sammie or Dak would ever speak to them to find out what they knew. But foreigners like me, we don’t care about caste systems and all that crap. These fellers, they see and hear everything.’ She grinned. ‘How do you think I knew about that shipment?’

‘This lot?’ Frey was surprised.

‘Invisible people make pretty good spies,’ said Ashua. ‘Ah, here’s my man now.’

There was a commotion up the corridor, and another untouchable arrived. This one was taller than most, and dressed in a patchwork assortment of thin fabrics. He had a small bald head; the white acid-pattern on his black face gave it the appearance of a skull. He moved quickly and furtively, and there was a slyness about him. He looked healthier than most of his fellows.

The newcomer exchanged a few irritable words with the elderly man, gesturing at Ashua. Ashua spoke to them briefly, then turned to Frey. ‘Show them your hand,’ she said.

Frey did as he was told, and displayed the black corruption on his palm to the crowd. They gasped and shrank back from him.

‘Speaking as a doctor,’ said Malvery, ‘I ain’t encouraged by that reaction.’

‘It got ’em out the way, didn’t it?’ Pinn said.

Ashua indicated the untouchable who had just arrived. ‘Everyone, this is . . . well, you probably couldn’t pronounce his name, but in Vardic it comes out as Slinkhound.’

Slinkhound grinned, showing crooked teeth.

‘That is one rubbish name,’ Pinn opined.

‘Yeah, it loses something in the translation,’ Ashua said. ‘They’ve all got names like that. They get them when they become untouchable. Too much shame attached to their old name, and so on.’ She waved in the air. ‘Blah, blah, I’m sure none of you give a shit anyway. Let’s get on with this, shall we?’

‘What about the Dak who was following us?’ Jez asked. ‘Will they let him through?’

‘A Dak on his own? He’d be lucky if he got out alive. We’ll take a different way out; he’ll never find us.’

Slinkhound beckoned them on impatiently. They followed him down a dark corridor and around several corners before the passage suddenly widened out into a gaping hole in the rock. Daubed around the edge were crude symbols in Samarlan script.

‘What does that say?’ Jez asked Ashua.

‘It says “Welcome to the Underneath”,’ she replied.

‘I thought we were already
in
the Underneath.’

‘Nah,’ said Ashua, as they passed through the hole. ‘That was just one of many routes to get here.’ She threw out her arms. ‘
This
is the Underneath.’

The crew stumbled to a stop. Jez’s eyes widened as she looked out and up.

‘Bugger me,’ said Malvery, quietly.

Ashua shook her head with a smile. ‘Tourists.’

Eleven

The Underneath – Narcissism – A Sorcerer – Crake Reconsiders – Frey’s Last Night

I
t was an underground town, built of wood and rope, spanning the cavern like a twisted web. The terrain was extremely uneven, plunging and bulging and thrusting up great stalagmites, but the town had conformed as best it could. Huts and shacks crowded into every available niche. Buildings piled up against the walls, the lower ones supporting the ones above. Rope bridges crisscrossed in the air, reaching across terrible drops, linking perch to perch. The cavern roof was lost in a haze of petrol fumes from generators that powered the weak and yellowed floodlights which bathed the town in a queasy glow.

Crake stared. He was amazed that a place as tumbledown and precarious as this had survived long enough to grow to such a size. It was cool and dim, so torches and lamps and oil-drum fires burned everywhere, despite the inflammable nature of the place. The town planners deserved hanging as well. Assuming anyone
had
planned this place, which he doubted. It must have grown like a mould.

He tutted to himself.
Don’t be a snob
,
Grayther
. But he couldn’t help it. He was an orderly man, and the chaos of Samarla in general – and this place in particular – offended his sensibilities.

Slinkhound led them down a slope and through a cluster of dwellings. There was activity all around them, though nothing like the free-for-all on the streets above. They passed a stall, little more than a table by the side of the trail, trading in scavenged junk and rags. The owner was haggling with a customer, and ended up swapping a dried strip of unidentifiable meat for some bits of fabric. Men nearby were helping a fellow untouchable put together a clumsy shack. Others sat around a fire, passing round a dirty bottle, smoking and talking.

Crake looked about uneasily at the people of the Underneath, and received suspicious gazes in return. The poverty of this place intimidated him. Especially since these people didn’t seem broken and weary like those above, but defiant and possibly hostile. Crake had been brought up an aristocrat, and he’d never been entirely at ease around poor people, who were prone to rough jokes or explosive and bewildering violence.

Nevertheless, he was excited. They were going to see a sorcerer. A real, live Samarlan sorcerer. Crake had only read about them in books. They were the daemonists of the South, who practised the Art without the use of devices and machines. Crake wasn’t sure how much of it was superstition and quackery, but the scientist in him was eager to see one at work.

Beyond the cluster of dwellings, they came to a sagging hut which stood on its own. Slinkhound spoke to Ashua and then went inside, pushing through the curtain that hung over the doorway. Ashua turned to the crew and said:

‘Now we wait.’

Frey was eyeing the hut uncertainly. ‘Are you sure about this? I mean, wouldn’t I be better seeing a doctor?’

‘A doctor would tell you to chop that bugger off,’ Malvery slurred drunkenly. ‘Might as well see what this feller can do.’

‘There’s another reason I brought you here,’ said Ashua. ‘I didn’t want to tell you before, ’cause it sounds . . . well, unlikely. But that thing on your hand? I’ve heard of it before.’

‘You have?’ Frey asked eagerly.

‘The black spot. Means you’re marked for death. The Sammies say ancient sorcerers used it to deter thieves or something.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean, it’s just a legend. People say all kinds of shit, especially here.’

But Frey had latched on to the idea. ‘You reckon it’s some kind of curse?’

Ashua looked embarrassed. ‘Sounds stupid when you say it like that, right?’

Frey seemed to brighten. ‘So it means I won’t lose this hand?’

‘I’d say it means you’ll die horribly instead.’

Frey thought about that, then grinned and gave a little laugh of relief. ‘I was worried there for a minute,’ he said, looking fondly at his hand.

‘Cap’n?’ Jez asked with concern in her voice. ‘You did hear the bit about dying horribly, didn’t you?’

Frey was aware that everyone was looking at him, and became defensive. ‘Look, I’d rather be dead than maimed, alright?’

Ashua thumbed at Frey. ‘Narcissist,’ she said to the crew in general.

‘Old news,’ Crake replied.

‘She keeps calling me that!’ Frey complained. ‘What does it
mean
?’

‘It just means you’re exceptionally brave,’ Crake lied smoothly.

‘Oh,’ said Frey. He puffed up a little and glanced at Ashua. ‘Thanks.’

Crake gave Ashua a hard look. She rolled her eyes but kept her mouth shut. One day the Cap’n was going to catch on to Crake’s habit of mocking his limited vocabulary, but it wouldn’t be today.

Slinkhound emerged from the hut and beckoned Frey and Ashua inside. He waved at the rest of the crew, as if to say:
not you
. Crake was alarmed. He wasn’t coming all this way only to stand outside.

‘Cap’n! Let me come too! I have to see!’ It came out sounding rather more desperate than he intended.

Frey looked at Ashua, who said a few words to Slinkhound, who tutted and waved him in.

‘
Let me come too
,’ Pinn mimicked sourly in a baby voice. ‘Why does
he
get to go? Kiss-arse.’

‘Excuse me?’ Crake said as he passed. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak Moron.’

It was a cheap rejoinder, but it pleased him nonetheless. He went through the musty curtain and into the hut, leaving Malvery struggling to prevent Pinn drawing his pistol.

The interior of the hut was squalid and cluttered with macabre totems. Skulls and jars of pickled animal foetuses made for a sinister motif, and the air stank of smoke and incense. There was no furniture beyond the mats on the rough plank floor, and a bed of mouldy straw in the corner.

Sitting cross-legged in the centre of the room was the sorcerer. He was an untouchable like the rest of them. His skin was a deep black and his face marked in white but, unlike the people outside, he was obese. Long grey hair, matted into dreadlocks, hung over his face and spilled onto his belly. His filthy beard tangled with the mass of beads and totems hanging around his neck. He wore an animal-skin waistcoat, hanging open to allow his gut to protrude, and a loincloth tied up like a nappy. Despite his size, his leathery skin hung off him in folds, and his face was a maze of fleshy chasms. He was slouched forward and appeared to be asleep, or comatose, or dead.

Crake was less than impressed. He’d been expecting someone fiercely intense, a wild-eyed savage of some kind. Instead he’d found a giant bearded raisin.

Slinkhound motioned for Frey to sit down in front of the sorcerer. Frey did so, though he didn’t look keen. Crake wasn’t surprised. He could smell the sour-milk reek of the bloated man even over the incense.

The sorcerer stirred, raised his head, and opened his eyes. The sight gave Crake a little fright. They were so bloodshot that they appeared entirely red.

The sorcerer’s lips moved, and a small black twig emerged. He rolled it from one side of his mouth to the other, studying Frey with a flat glare. Then it disappeared back into his mouth, and he began to chew it with a horrible crunching sound.

Ah
, thought Crake.
Hookroot bark
.

The sorcerers of Samarla had other ways than science to draw daemons from the aether, so it was said. They used secret techniques and rituals, the details jealously guarded. That, and vast quantities of highly potent and dangerous narcotics, like raw hookroot bark.

No wonder the sorcerer looked a mess. He was loaded.

Crake’s skepticism deepened. He was beginning to think he was a fool for taking this seriously. Perhaps all the lurid reports from Samarla were just rot after all. He couldn’t see how this enormous ruin of a man could possibly command the same kind of power that a Vardic daemonist did, with their careful formulae and advanced machinery.

Eventually the sorcerer spoke. His voice was a shock, so hoarse and deep and croaky that it only barely passed as human. The foreign syllables wheezed and crackled and rumbled from his chest.

‘Hold out your hand,’ Ashua said. ‘The manky one.’

‘It’s not bloody
manky
, it’s
cursed
,’ Frey protested, but he held it out towards the sorcerer anyway.

The sorcerer enfolded Frey’s hand in his own huge, rubbery paws. Frey, who didn’t like holding hands with men at the best of times, was trying not to squirm away.

The sorcerer closed his eyes, and there was silence until Crake’s stomach growled noisily. He reddened and gave Ashua an apologetic look. He’d eaten nothing all day, being busy in his sanctum.

Then the sorcerer shuddered. Frey tensed and tried to pull away, but the sorcerer clamped his hand tight. For a moment, they were frozen like that.

‘Er,’ said Frey.

The sorcerer’s head tipped back, his dreadlocks sliding from his shoulders. He began to tremble. His chewing became frantic. A strange humming noise was coming from his nose, getting higher and louder.