The Iron Ship (66 page)

“Yes, goodman?” said Guis.

“Nothing, goodfellow,” said the stallholder, and took Guis’ money.

Guis wandered the streets aimlessly, strolling first down the Grand Parade and then into those new boulevards on the north side of the Var that lead from it. They walked most of the morning in this manner, Guis simply thankful at being out of doors after so long cooped up. He thought of Trassan, and Aarin, who had apparently gone with him for reasons of his own. There wasn’t a paper in Karsa that had not run with the
Prince Alfra’s
sailing. Thankfully, the fuss was dying down, and the endlessly debated subject of the High Legate’s failing mind returned to the front pages. When the ship was mentioned, talk was of the expedition’s likelihood of success; whether Trassan was a hero or risked provoking war with the Drowned King, if he would disappear forever or return with wonders that would enrich the nation.

Guis had no doubt his brother would come back. Trassan rarely set himself a goal he did not think he could achieve.

He followed the Lemio until it was swallowed by the docks, then onto the bank of the shipway as far as the top of the cataracts a half mile from the locks, where the overspill from the network of water in the city sluiced out to the sea, one nominally the Lemio, the other the Var. The river hissed down twenty-seven stepped weirs in the direction of Lockside where the water not stolen by the factories, houses, lock mechanisms, canals or funiculars ran down the spillway to spread its dirty load upon the mud of the foreshore. He found a patch of sunshine and stopped a while to watch the gleaners on the topmost weir fish detritus from the stream with long poles. The river sparkled, making of it an agreeable scene, and leaving Guis with a hankering to paint.

“A fine day,” he said. He looked about. “Time for lunch, I think. Not here. Too expensive.” He headed off into what Prince Alfra’s improvements had left of the Lemio stew. Grand buildings of shining white stone gave out suddenly to brick tenements and uneven cobbled streets. He turned south, and headed toward a chop house he knew that way, cutting through a stinking alleyway. Overflowing waste tuns stood in a line either side of the back door of a tenement. A windowless wall rose up on the other side, so faceless and tall its bricks seemed to go on forever.

It was here that he was accosted.

A man stepped into his path. Guis’s hand went straight for his smallsword.

“Get out of my way,” he said. “Don’t even think about laying a hand on me. I am armed, prepared, and well-instructed in the arts of defence.”

The man cast his hood back, revealing a filthy face. Rattails of greasy hair tickled the underside of a chin half-heartedly colonised by a beard.

“Those are belligerent words for a playwright.”

Guis leaned forward in surprise. “Mansanio?”

Mansanio sneered at him. “You remember do you?”

“What are you doing here? What on Earth happened to you?”

“You happened to me, you filthy Kressind bastard.”

“How dare you address—”

“Save your protests. I am done with taking orders from the likes of you,
goodfellow
.”

“You left the countess’s service?”

There was a feverish look in Mansanio’s eye. “Thanks to you.”

“How is that my business? What did I do?”

“Only what every other bastard has ever done. Fucked the woman I love, played with her heart and crushed it, while I had to watch. I go to comfort her and this is my reward!” He held up his arms, revealing tattered finery beneath a filthy cloak. “But I will not take it, no, goodfellow. No longer will I bend my knee to worthless scum like you.”

He gave a curt nod over Guis’s shoulder.

Guis had his sword halfway out of his sheath when a blackjack slugged him behind the ear. He staggered into the rubbish barrels, upsetting a swarm of early spring flies.

“Hold him!” snarled Mansanio. Two ruffians clamped hard, unforgiving hands about his biceps and yanked his arms behind his back. His sword was withdrawn and cast down the alley.

“You won’t get away with this.”

“Like your father will care. I listened intently to what you had to say to poor Lucinella, before you broke her heart and turned her against me.”

Guis kicked. His heels slipped on the filth coating the cobbles, and he nearly dragged the men holding him down.

“He’s a lively one!” said one.

“Keep a hold of him!” Mansanio snarled. He strode over and kicked Guis hard in the ribs, once, then twice. Mansanio reached behind Guis’s neck.

Guis’ blood ran cold as he realised what Mansanio intended.

“Leave him be!”

“Where are you, little fiend?” muttered Mansanio. He scrabbled at the back of Guis’s neck, then drew back with a curse as Tyn sank needle-like teeth into the webbing of flesh between his thumb and forefinger. “Bastard!” he said, and grabbed at the chain about Guis’s neck. Tyn sprang from Guis’s shoulder, but his jump was cut short. Tyn’s leg was tangled and he screamed as Mansanio yanked at the chain, breaking his ankle. Another ferocious tug parted the links. Mansanio had the struggling Tyn in his hands. Tyn squirmed, but Mansanio had a firm hold, and would not relent.

“What has he done to you? Your quarrel is with me! Set him free if you do anything at all.”

“Nothing,” said Mansanio. “He has done nothing at all.”

“Master!” squealed Tyn.

A savage expression descended over Mansanio’s face, and he squeezed. Tyn’s eyes bulged, little hands clutched at Mansanio’s thumb helplessly. There was a wet crack. His head lolled.

“That it?” asked one of Mansanio’s thugs.

“Yes, that’s it.” He cast the corpse of Tyn into a barrel and wiped a thin smear of blood from his hands on his dirty cloak. “No one’s getting murdered. Not in the normal sense, anyway.” He gave a nasty smile. “Enjoy the day while it lasts, Kressind.”

Guis’s arms were released. He started to get back up, but a heavy blow sent him sprawling. A kick to his solar plexus had him writhing on the floor, his breath driven from him.

Laughter echoed up from the end of the alley.

He gulped until he could breathe again.

“Tyn!” he said. “Tyn.”

G
UIS BLUNDERED ONTO
the shipway walk clutching the broken corpse. The world tilted under his feet. He span dizzily on the spot, searching the crowd for help. The street grew remote, as if he observed from some place half out of kilter with the mortal world. Every face he saw held the trace of a sneer. Every smile hid a rebuke meant. His breath came short and did not refresh his organs. His throat tightened, his chest was constricted. He fumbled hopelessly at the buttons of his costume, and could not open them.

He stumbled to his knees. Blood rushed in his ears. He retched, bringing nothing up but despair. People recoiled from the bloodied Tyn in his hand. Someone helped him up.

“What happened to you? Have you been attacked? Someone call the watch!” The man’s voice came from far away.

“Help me...” Saying it brought the realisation that no one could. He shoved the stranger aside and dove into a sidestreet. A hue and cry set up behind him, dogs were barking. The bell of a watch wagon rang from nearby.

He looked about. Every shadow held peril. He moaned in terror as a formless hand groped from a drain. Panicked, he ran deep into the stew.

The cries diminished. He looked about, hunted. There was nobody there. Soot-specked washing hung from lines overhead. A boy in a flat cap passed across the mouth of the street, sparing him a single, dismissive glance. Tyn still held ahead of him, Guis set off again.

Something grabbed at his foot, sending him sprawling. Tyn’s body flew from his hand and skidded across the cobbles.

He rolled over onto his back. The sky was a thin blue line trapped by the street, far overhead. The colour leached from it. Sound deadened. Darkness crowded in on him from all sides. He scrabbled backwards on his elbows, bloodying them. He tried so hard not to think of the Darkling. But the harder he tried, the more it intruded into his thoughts, until it dominated them utterly.

The street darkened, a patch of it taking on utmost blackness. The Darkling stepped through, and it was shadow no more.

It wore his face, it wore his clothes. It was like him in every respect, save that his eyes were the purest black, and held no reflection. Matt orbs that swallowed all light. It smiled horribly, lips stretched far further than they should.

The Darkling reached out a hand toward Guis with taloned fingers.

Guis screamed, shut his eyes and pressed himself back into the stone. The Darkling’s fingers extended impossibly, growing long and attenuate, until the digits touched upon his face. Fore and middle finger slipped into his eyesockets, the three others caressing his cheeks. A chill so severe that it exceeded all pain speared through his body.

Guis’s scream grew higher and reedier, passing beyond the register of human hearing as his body passed beyond the register of human sight. The Guis on the floor flattened, thinned, and vanished as mist will beneath a strong sun.

The Darkling shut his black eyes, and breathed deep of the air of the world. His face was alight with pleasure.

“There he is! That’s him!”

Footsteps clattered up behind him. A hand gently touched his back.

“Is there anything wrong, goodfellow? What happened to you?”

The Darkling opened his eyes, and the blackness of them vanished. He smiled oddly. “Why, constable,” he said. “There is nothing wrong. Nothing wrong at all. Thank you for your concern.”

“I am going to have to make a report, goodfellow.”

“There is no need.”

“What’s that?” the constable pointed his nightstick at the dead Tyn.

The darkling shrugged. “I have no idea. A Tyn is it? I understand some people keep them as pets.” He gave a heartless chuckle. “The very idea.”

“There were screams...”

“I heard nothing.” The Darkling looked down the street, then back at the watchman. “Now, if you do not mind, I have things I need to be doing.”

“Wait! Goodfellow! What is your name?”

The Darkling stared at the man until he stepped back.

“My name is Guis Kressind, the playwright,” it said. “Perhaps you have seen my plays?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

At the Final Isle

T
HE
P
RINCE
A
LFRA
rode the waves at anchor, three miles out from the Final Isle. The tide was at a middling height, and the island’s extensive platform of wave-cut rock was exposed. The pavement ended in a steep slope, not quite a cliff, but an exposed reef edge, sharp with shells and cruel stone. At the bottom the sea surged fitfully, foaming circles that spread angrily upon the deeps.

One clear stretch led from the reef, smooth as a scar. Along this water road an eight-oared long boat of wood, now swift, now slow on the currents.

The
Prince Alfra
’s whistle blew, and a rope ladder was flung over the side, a sailor hurrying down it before the bottom had finished banging against the hull. Aarin waited at its top, Pasquanty with him, Mother Moude’s chest on the deck between them. The deacon’s seasickness ailed him yet, and his face was pale and green.

Trassan stood with his brother, watching the boat coming toward them. It cleared the deep sound, coming into the ocean swell that hid and revealed it. With each appearance coming closer, black-robed Guiders of Aarin’s order bent at the oars. A rowing drum broke through the rushing of the surf on the rock. Once free, it became louder, stroke by stroke.

“I don’t know what to say, Aarin,” said Trassan. “Somehow, it was easier to say goodbye to everyone in Karsa.”

“You were busy, they were many. This is a more intimate business.”

The brothers grinned, and clasped one another in a tight embrace.

“Stay well, brother.”

“And you, Trassan.”

The rowing boat was coming along side. A painter was flung to the man at the bottom of the ladder, who scampered up to the deck and secured the rope to a bollard. Aarin swung one leg over the edge, and mounted the ladder. Hanging from the railing of the boat, he addressed his brother. “I wish you all the world’s luck in your venture. I am afraid that you may need it.”

“Maybe. If I’m lucky, the Drowned King will be the worst I have to face.”

“If only that could be true. Be careful.”

“When I’m done I’ll stop by and pick you up,” said Trassan. “I’ll be sure to tell you all about it.”

“I hope to be away some time before that, brother.”

Trassan’s smile faded into seriousness. “Goodbye, Guider Kressind.”

“Goodbye, engineer.”

The chest was lowered carefully overboard. Once it had been stowed on the long boat, Aarin descended the ladder toward the steel grey sea. At the bottom hands grasped his legs and guided them into the boat. Pasquanty followed, his desire to feel dry land beneath him bettering his terror of the water.

T
HE LEADER OF
the rowers spoke, a quiet voice from the depths of his cowl. No hint of his face showed in the shadows. “Guider Kressind.”

“I am he,” said Aarin. “And my deacon, Pasquanty.”

The hooded man sat motionless a moment, then spoke for the second and final time. “To shore then.” The rowers grasped their oars and heaved against the surging swell, sending the boat skimming quickly over the water. Aarin turned from the
Prince Alfra
to watch the jagged slopes of the Final Isle grow over them.

The boat came to a slender jetty of blocks cut from the sharp black stone of the Island, one of five set at different levels in the rock. The boat bumped the stone, one of the rowers sprang ashore and secured the painter. Aarin and Pasquanty disembarked, Aarin overseeing the unloading of Mother Moude. They were shown to the base of a steep, switchback stair cut into the rock at the end of the jetty. The steps were clogged with weed and hollowed by the sea, in whose cups and cavities shore creatures waited for the tide.

At the summit, the wide, level plain of eroded stone awaited them, holed as floatstone, more rockpool than rock. A single path of cut stone went dead straight to shingled shores and a solitary mount of bright grass; that small piece of the Final Isle that remained permanently above the waves. A grim, windowless building crowned it.