The Iron Ship (49 page)

Zhinsky stood tall. His posture radiated suspicion. “Brother?”

“He is a Guider, a speaker for the Dead.”

Zhinsky looked puzzled.

“A death priest, a ghost talker.”

Zhinsky passed his hand over his brow and spat. “So, not all spoiled merchant boys.”

“I keep telling you, my father is an industrialist.”

“He makes things, he sells them. Is the same,” Zhinsky sniffed, and sheathed his sabre.

“Are you going to help me up then?” He reached out with his right hand. His left was as numb as if he had held it in iced water.

Zhinsky extended his hand hesitantly. Rel grinned.

“See. Not mocking me now.”

“I get over it.”

“What was that? I have never seen the like,” said Deamaathani.

“Parade of the Dead. Lost souls. I said to you, very bad. Zhinsky said this.”

“Bad how?” said Rel.

The major shrugged as if it were a small thing. “They touch you, you follow them forever. Become part of the parade.”

“Procession,” breathed Rel, unconsciously correcting his superior. He was going to thank Aarin profusely when they returned home.

“Procession, parade. What is the difference?”

Rel frowned. “What?”

“Never mind. You tell me later. And I think the word is company. Yes. The Company of the Dead.”

“Interesting,” said the warlock. “You have a talent for magic in your family?”

“Not really,” lied Rel. “Just Aarin.”

“We go to safer places,” said Zhinsky. He put his fingers between his lips and whistled. His dracon’s head jerked around. Shortly Aramaz materialised from the hazy air. It ran straight for the men and circled them croaking, head feathers twitching. More shapes were coming from the haze.

“See, Aramaz happy to see you.” Zhinsky scratched between its flaring nostrils. Rel winced.

“You have to teach me how to do that without losing my hand.”

“I cannot,” said Zhinsky, “because you are not a Khusiak. Report in! Everyone! Here, now.”

The others joined them one by one. Wiatra was not among them.

“Major! Captain!” called the Correndian Merreas. “Trooper Wiatra...” he rode up. His eyes were wide with fear behind his scarf. Dramion appeared, leading Wiatra’s mount. “Back there...” Merreas was terrified, unable to speak clearly.

Zhinsky cursed, and remounted his dracon. Rel got onto Aramaz, and followed the major for a hundred yards. Zhinsky stopped, and Rel saw a desiccated corpse, ancient seeming, kneeling in the grass with his arms held upwards to ward something from his face.

It was wearing Wiatra’s clothes. Zhinsky clucked his tongue at his dracon and rode away from it without a word. The others rode past it; Merreas cast fearful glances at it.

“What of him?” shouted Rel, lingering by Wiatra. “Should we not report it? Send for the fort Guider?”

Zorolotsev pulled up his dracon and rode back to Rel. He spat onto the ground. “It is too late for his soul captain, “ he said. “He walks with the company now.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Guider Triesko

“T
HREE DAYS, MASTER
, I hope it is worth the trip,” said Pasquanty. He shivered in the fog.

Aarin frowned at him. “Shut up.” He lifted the knocker upon the gate of the monastery and slammed it down twice. The knocker was recognisable as an effigy of the Dead God only through its posture, the crucifixion common to his depiction. The iron had been worn smooth by innumerable hands; arms and legs were indistinguishable from the cross. Hollows hinted at eyes and a mouth around the nub of a nose. The hinge around the pin had become thin as a reed. The plate had long gone, and the feet of the god slammed directly into a dent in the old wood. The wood of the door was grey, eroded into a miniature mountain range of ridges and troughs, the spaces between the planks wide as the gaps between an old man’s teeth.

Pasquanty looked uneasily behind him. Between the twins he could see nothing but fog choking the valley. A train whistle howled somewhere within it, impossible to locate.

“This place is too quiet. Dead.”

“It is winter,” said Aarin. The landscape around the monastery was softened by centuries of tender husbandry, but in the fog they could have been at the ends of the earth.

“It’s too old.”

Aarin raised his eyebrow at him. “It is not as old as the Black Isle.”

“It feels older. Geriatric.”

“The monastery has been in constant use since the days of the Maceriyan Empire. And it is home to venerable members of our order. I do believe you are letting your preconceptions bother you, Pasquanty. This is a peaceful place. A reward. In summer it is very pleasant.”

“The fog, the hills, soft as old bread. I don’t like it. It’s like death in life. It reminds me of the... the...” he searched. “The Hethikan afterlife.”

“A particularly miserable interpretation of the hereafter.”

“I don’t know, I think it’s probably spot on.”

“You really have the wrong vocation, Pasquanty.”

The twins shuffled behind them and moaned.

“We need to get fresh servants,” said Pasquanty. “These two are rotting. They stink.”

“They’ll last the winter out.”

“You don’t have to lead them.”

“A privilege of seniority, Pasquanty. Now stop whining.”

Aarin hammered on the gate again. It was cold out in the mist, a damp chill that quickens sickness.

“Yes! Yes! We are coming!” said a testy voice muffled by the gates.

The gates creaked back. Two unliving like the twins pulled them wide, shackled to chains attached to the door. The links were as diminished by age as everything else.

A Guider in the sombre black of the contemplative orders looked them up and down. His face was saggy with the weight of years. His hair was white, but his eyebrows remained startling back, giving him the appearance of a disgruntled badger.

“Guider Aarin, isn’t it? I recognise the eye.” He drew around his own eye with a finger.

“I wrote ahead.”

“Yes, yes, we were expecting you.” He beckoned them in. “Well do come in, let’s not stand about all day.”

“Thank you...?”

“Brother Yostion. I am the gatemaster here. The deacon is unavailable, so I’ll take you right through. I hope you’re not intending to stay here, as we’re full.”

“We have lodgings in Abledon, down below.”

That mollified Yostion a little, and he became less gruff. “Good, good. I can offer you something to eat if you wish.”

“Feed my deacon if you would. I would like to speak with Guider Triesko as soon as possible.”

“It’s for the best, I think. He takes a nap most afternoons and is due it shortly. He’s in the garden at the moment.”

“In this weather?” said Pasquanty.

Yostion gave him a black look. “The young. No backbone. No wonder the order is falling apart.”

“Wait here, Pasquanty. You can go and get some food. We’ll be heading back down to Abledon immediately after I’ve spoken with Triesko. I’ll be spending a lot of time here later in my life, if I’m lucky. I don’t want to preempt myself.”

“Yes, Master Aarin.” Pasquanty bowed.

“You know the way?” asked Yostion.

“I do.”

“I’ll stable your unliving for you, and feed this wretch.”

Pasquanty scowled.

“I need to take this box from my bearers,” said Aarin.

Yostion moved aside. Aarin retrieved the small chest carried by the twins. They snuffled and blinked, perturbed by the removal of their burden.

“Now then young man, this way,” said Yostion to Pasquanty. “And you, Guider Kressind, do not overstay your visit with Triesko. He tires easily.”

“I will not be long.”

F
OG LAY AS
heavily over the monastery as over the landscape outside, thick and cloying as a soaked blanket. Old Guiders and their carers passed as indistinct shapes.

Upon a stone bench beneath a naked tree, Aarin found Triesko swaddled in a coat and fur.

“The triple moon of Longdark approaches, and an old pupil returns! It is a portentous time that you come to me, Aarin Kressind. Woe betide those who seek to trouble those waiting peacefully for death,” said Triesko pompously. He continued to stare into the mist at a vista Aarin could not see. Aarin sat down next to him. He put the chest down and sighed with relief; the chest was heavier than it looked and its iron bindings were cold against his bare skin.

“Really? I brought you some brandy.” He opened the latches on the chest.

Triesko looked at him from the corner of his eye and smiled broadly. His sanctimonious manner vanished. “Well that puts a different complexion on things. How are you, my boy?”

Aarin made an indifferent face. “Not bad, master.”

“And how is your acolyte?”

“He whines half the time, and when he is not whining, he is terrified.”

“They are all like that.”

“I was not.”

“You were more than you remember. Stick by him, he’ll see the job done.”

“I hope so. The order is not what it was.” The shabby fabric of the monastery was enough of a reminder of that. “How are you keeping?”

“The same. I’m old, half-blind, cold, and painfully aware that I will never know the love of a woman again. Other than that, things go pleasantly enough.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

“I am glad that you are glad. At my age, one is gladdened by the most anodyne of things.” He glanced at the chest. “Are you going to open that brandy or not? That may make me a little gladder yet.”

Aarin bent to the chest. “There’s a few other things in here. A new scarf, a padded jerkin, some of that sausage you used to eat so much of.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re right to thank me. I’ve never been able to stand the smell.”

Triesko chuckled. Aarin took out a bottle and uncorked it with his teeth. There were two small silver cups in the chest. Triesko shook out a gloved hand from under his blanket and took the cup Aarin offered. Aarin poured brandy into Triesko’s, then into his own.

“Your health, Guider Aarin.”

“And yours, master.”

They drank and gasped appreciatively in unison.

“A good drop.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

“Maybe. And what is the least I can do for you?” said Triesko.

“What makes you think I want something?”

“Three days travel from Karsa? Your next visit isn’t due until after the winter. Don’t be evasive.”

Aarin shrugged. “I think I might have overstepped the line.”

“You have been consulting with Mother Moude?”

Aarin nodded guiltily. “That and more.”

“Of course.” Triesko took a nip of brandy.

“You are not surprised?”

“Yes. Why are you surprised by my lack of surprise. You have Mother Moude.”

Aarin feared that Triesko might finally have lost his wits to age. “Do you understand what I am saying, I have been using her.”

“Everyone who is given Mother Moude uses her! Which is well enough, as only those who are capable of using her are given her. Did you not wonder why she was made yours to guard? It is forbidden, of course, but expected. It is the way of our order.”

“I came expecting censure.”

Triesko shrugged. “You’ll get none from me. You are part of a guardianship, Aarin. Alert minds, trustworthy, given a task they cannot betray because they are not taken into the confidence of what that task is.”

“An inner order?” said Aarin.

“No! Nothing so grand. There is no secret inner circle or any of that hierarchical claptrap. Promising young men are chosen, and allowed a certain discretion, that is all. Like I was.”

“You used Mother Moude?”

“I did. Many times. And, like you, more besides.”

“But it is black necromancy! Forbidden.”

“It is.”

“I never expected it of you.”

“That’s why I was chosen.” Triesko rasped out a chuckle. It took a lot from him, he leaned forward onto his knees, his breath rattling in his phlegmy lungs. “Aarin, this is the order of death! The world’s last priesthood. All of us are engaged in necromancy. I chose you to succeed me because you are one of the few who will use what is given to you properly. Or so I thought. Do not disappoint me, my boy. I want to die thinking I’ve done one thing right.”

“What I have been doing pushes the boundaries of the acceptable.”

“By whose terms? The terms of this age? Older times had different terms. The dead answer to those as readily as they do to the rule of the present. It doesn’t matter to them. You have overstepped the bounds, Aarin, but you have been allowed to do so.”

“There were gods then.”

“It is hard to know when you have broken the unwritten rule, Aarin. It is also easy to circumvent. For both those reasons it remains unwritten. We need a little leeway in our work.”

“I will not be censured then?”

“I did not say that. If your dabbling became public the Lord Guiders would be forced to act. You’d find yourself ghosting dead sailors mid-battle on the Ocerzerkiyan main without a doubt. But they’ll turn a blind eye, Aarin, because you’re not a fool, and you are acting from genuine concerns.” Triesko paused. “You are acting from genuine concerns?”

“Yes, I believe I am.”

“That you are not sure is a good sign.” Triesko gripped his knee with a hand gnarled by arthritis. “And what have you uncovered. What is troubling you my boy?”

“The passage of the dead. It is changing. I can feel it. The way the dead go, something is different. Fewer dead need ghosting, but the ones that do... They are more reluctant, more alive, if that makes any sense. I remember my first, they were mumbling shades who faded with peace. Lately they have been unsatisfied. More... vocal.”

“It has been noticed by others.”

“I cannot understand why. I have consulted with the libraries in Macer Lesser. Guider Kalisthenes of Hethika has passed away, I found. I had been hoping to ask him. There is nothing in the works of our order that suggests this is at all normal.”

“No. There would not be.”

“Why not? Why is it changing?”

Triesko sighed. “Aarin, not every question has an answer. The world is a very different place to what it was when I was a boy, and would be all but unrecognisable to my great-grandfather.”