She Who Has No Name (The Legacy Trilogy) (16 page)

Gallivan cocked his head slightly to the side, scanning the ship for signs of life.  ‘Plenty of rats and lice, but no other people below decks.  Nothing else of note that I can detect.  Still, send your men down to look around.  There may be clues as to what has happened here.’

Samuel could feel this was true, but there was also something else.  Somewhere, deep inside the ship, he could feel that something was present
,
something heavy with magic, but somehow hidden
from
his senses.  He knew he should make some mention of it, but Gallivan and the others did not seem to feel it.  He thought it could be his own paranoia, for it was not so much magic he could sense—more like something...missing.

‘Then the Empress is not here,’ Riggadardian said
,
with disappointment.  He recovered his composure and sent his men scrambling away to look into every nook and cranny on board the vessel.  He approached the sorry group that had come crawling from beneath the decks.  They looked as if they had barely survived some recent and harrowing calamity.

‘Who are you?’ he asked firmly.  ‘Where are you from?’

None of them responded.  They continued staring down at the deck, a mixed cluster of men and women, dressed in tattered rags.  Their hair was matted and their skin was filthy.  Riggadardian’s men eyed the group warily and stood no closer to them than need be.

‘Open your mouths!’ one of the soldiers bellowed, gesturing with his sword from afar, but the people remained quiet and motionless.

‘Grand Master Gallivan,’ the captain implored over his shoulder and the magician stepped up beside him.  The two of them faced the emaciated survivors.  ‘What on earth can you make of this?’

‘It seems evident that this ship is not within Turian or Garten capabilities.  I have never seen or heard of anything remotely like it.  I surmise that this ship and these people are not from Amandia and must be from some distant land we have not yet explored.  And
,
from appearances, I’d say they’ve come a long way and are within days of perishing.  This ship seems beyond navigation, wouldn’t you say?’

Riggadardian nodded with sureness.  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it, but, with no sails and no capacity for oars or any other method of propulsion that I can see, it could have been floating around for any amount of time
,
 
a
lthough, it seems incredible that they somehow entered the harbour without being caught upon the rocks.  There seems to be more than just luck involved.  It would take m
any
more than these few survivors to manage a vessel of this size.  I can only guess the crew have all perished.’

‘I agree.  Normally I would suggest magic has been at work here, but none of this lot is capable.  Let me have a closer look at them.’

Gallivan stepped towards the nearest survivor and held out his open palms to her.  Gently, he put his hand to her chin and raised her face so he could look into her eyes.  The woman was young, still in her late teens, and she made no effort to resist.  In the light, it became evident her skin was not entirely filthy, but was deeply tanned and her eyes were angled, in the manner of the Western Isles.

‘Give them food and water immediately, Captain,’ Gallivan instructed.  ‘I’d guess there’s none left aboard this ship, judging from the state they’re in.  We can find a method to communicate with them later.  Wherever they are from, it seems quite certain they are not involved with the loss of the Empress.  Such a task is well beyond them in this condition.  Keep guards on them while we search the rest of the ship, but I feel they are of little threat to us.  Send word back to the palace.  The search must continue elsewhere.’

Riggadardian agreed and called for rations and water to be brought over from one of the Turian vessels.  The cluster of survivors remained still, but they occasionally glanced up to follow the movements around them. 

‘Grand Master Gallivan,’ Samuel beckoned, while the others were investigating the curiosities of the ship, ‘I feel there is something else on this ship.’

‘Oh?’ the raven-haired magician responded with interest.  ‘I feel nothing out of the ordinary.  What do you sense?’

‘I don’t know.  There’s something here, below us.  It’s there, but not there.  It’s difficult to describe.’

‘Perhaps something deliberately hidden?’ Gallivan mused.  ‘I feel nothing, but I trust your senses, Lord Samuel.  Take some guards and see what you can find.’

The Erics had climbed up onto one of the great deckhouses and were peering about, so Samuel started tentatively into the doorway from where the survivors had emerged, peeking into the strangely designed interior.  Soldiers were moving about hurriedly and had already gone in before him, but he still felt as if he was entering into a beast’s lair.  As he stepped over the high threshold and into the ship, he could not help but notice one of the male survivors tracking him subtly with his narrow eyes.

The cavernous ship was filled with narrow passages and rooms and it immediately became apparent that searching its entirety would take considerable time.  He peered into some of the rooms
and saw
scraps of furniture here and there, but otherwise the insides of vessel had been gutted.  It seemed as if portions of the walls had at one time been stuck with papers or decorations, but even these had been stripped away, leaving behind only scraps of paper backing.  Small windows in the outermost walls let in sufficient light but
,
as he progressed further into the ship, its passageways further darkened.

He fiddled with the ancient relic in his pocket, wishing that it was reliable enough to cast some light unto the scene.  Instead, he was forced to ask one of Riggadardian’s men for a lantern and he held it out nervously before him, wishing its radiance could banish away the shadows and his feeling of dread. 

He squeezed past the soldiers as he met them, twisting round curling stairways and delving deeper into the ship until even the busy footsteps above him sounded far and muffled, and there was only the gurgling of water against the hull of the ship to keep him company.  He thought about turning around and summoning some of Riggadardian’s men to accompany him, but his magician’s curiosity now had the better of him, and he continued on; drawn down deeper into the bowels of the plundered vessel by the strange feeling in his stomach that there was something here, waiting to be discovered.

Turning one corner, Samuel found himself in a long corridor that must have run along the centre of the ship.  It was a strange passage, for it had no doors or branches along its length, and was marked only at the end by a single
,
closed door.  There were no portholes to grant him light and he judged that he must be well beneath the water level, somewhere between the cargo holds and ballast spaces at the very bottom of the craft.  Any further down and he guessed he would be stepping over the giant curved ribs that gave such vessels their strength—assuming, of course, that this ship had been built similarly to the Imperial designs he was familiar with. 

Unlike those Imperial ships, however, this vessel barely moved with the waves that harassed it outside
,
splashing and bubbling far above.  It sat in the water as steady as a rock, perhaps due to some fact of its design, or perhaps merely because of its massive size.  Despite this, he felt unsteady and had to reach out to the wall for support.  At first, he thought it was just his eyes playing tricks on him, but then he realised there was something wrong with the ship or his senses.  The passageway seemed to be pulsing and the sensation grew by the moment
,
contorting and twisting like a swallowing gullet, as if trying to draw him down towards the far door. 

He tried to shake the vision from his eyes, but it would not be banished.  Samuel could only hold up his lantern and take leaden steps along the passage.  The thought of turning and fleeing threatened to overwhelm him, but somehow he kept on going; one step at a time along the churning corridor until
,
finally, he found himself standing just before the door at its end, sweating and trembling. 

The air seemed to be humming like wasps around his ears and he felt, as he slowly reached his quivering hand out towards the latch
,
that at any moment the portal would burst open and devour him.  Somehow, despite the fact his magician’s senses told him nothing was there, he was convinced that sitting on the other side of the door was something terrible and massive, like a lurking creature from one of his nightmares, guarding its precious hoard.  The desire to scream and run away almost overcame him, but he dared not turn his back to the door lest something should creep out after him.  He could not remember experiencing such fear in his life and it had him shaking and trembling
,
as if with a fever
,
and the lantern was rattling wildly in his hand—he had to keep his fist clutched as tight as he could to keep it from leaping free.  His blood was roaring in his ears and his heart sounded like a booming drum.

Then, as his finger finally met the icy brass latch, the strangeness ceased and all was again still and quiet.  The tension and dread that had saturated the air fell away and Samuel found himself looking all around with bewilderment.  There he was, standing at the end of a perfectly normal passage, although cold and wet with sweat.  He felt foolish, hardly able to imagine what had caused his fear, for there was no hint as to anything that could have
elicited
such feelings.  Still, he looked behind him, hoping someone else would appear at the end of the corridor to lend him their company.

After a few moments
of
listening intently for footsteps, Samuel realised no one else was coming, and so he resolutely returned his attention to the door.  He lifted the latch—for it seemed the door had been sealed from the outside—and pushed the portal all the way in
.
I
t issuing a great creaking groan as it swung in on its great forged hinges.

The room within was filled with a darkness that his lantern seemed hesitant to penetrate.  He stepped in, holding his light source forth and peering into the void.  He waved his hand to and fro, trying to burn away the dark, but his eyes were taking their good time to make out the details within.  The sour smell of mould and mildew crawled its way up into his nostrils as he blinked and peered into the darkness. 

He almost jumped out of his skin when he saw that there was something squatting directly in front of him, only three arms’ lengths away, as if it had been waiting for him to arrive.  It was a great bulking thing and
,
if Samuel had not been frozen to the spot
,
he would have dropped his lantern and run back out the door as fast as he could.  It took a moment before he could gather himself, for the thing did not leap or roar or do any of the things his primitive fears had first assumed it might do.  In fact, it took him quite a while to realise that he was actually looking at something more like a mound of furs—an inanimate bundle—rather than some beast crouched on its haunches. 

He had almost dismissed the pile altogether, when something glinted in the light and again he took a sudden breath.  There, amongst the dark fur and shadow of the heap, were two eyes looking back at him.  Bravely, he raised his lantern towards it and the light fell upon a patch amongst the fur that had been painted and coloured with swirling patterns of brown and red.  Indeed, almost
hidden amongst the patterns was a set of eyes and the thing started blinking at the brightness of his lamp.

A hole opened below the eyes and Samuel realised the thing was now gape-mouthed, giving
it
a look of surprise to match his own.  Astonishingly, as he looked closer at the mound and began to come to terms with what he was beholding, he realised it was some kind of person that faced him
, a person
sitting in an enormous chair and draped in layers of
reeking
furs and cloths.  The occupant of the chair was blinking and moving its head
,
as if examining him in return, but it was difficult to believe that this was a human he was observing.  Unlike every other living thing he had ever seen, this one had absolutely no aura of life around it.  He barely knew what to think of it.  No matter how much he concentrated his magician’s
sight
upon the thing, there was no energy at all to suggest that this was, in fact, a living entity of any description.