The Red Queen (114 page)

Without thought, I whispered, ‘Jakoby?’

There was a quiet intake of breath and then soft yellow light bloomed. I saw the tribeswoman standing over me then, her tight black braids capped and cuffed here and there in silver and gold, glinting. She was holding one of the circular lights and by its glow I could see her skin was wet, her clothes saturated. Water dripped and trickled from her braids, lying in puddles on the floor of the hold.

Somewhere I heard the sound of another explosion.

‘What is happening?’ I asked.

‘Dragon happened,’ Jakoby said, coming to unfasten the chain from my shackle, so that I was able to stand up.

‘She came riding into the infinity in a red gown on Gahltha, holding up a flaming torch. She looked magnificent and terrible and people scattered in terror thinking Gahltha was some sort of demon beast. He cleared the barricade in one fantastic leap and reared and pranced and whinnied until every eye was on them. Then he held himself still while she stood up on his back and shouted out to everyone watching to see her and hear her for she was the Red Queen come to claim her land, and then she coerced a dragon. Ye gods, the screams! And no wonder. You have never seen such a terrifying beast! The size of it! If it was real it would have taken half the city in one snap of its dreadful maw. People fainted and screamed and vomited and trampled over one another. Half of them were convinced it was the Entina escaped from its lair.’

‘But then how are you here?’

‘Ariel and the emissary and his people slipped away in all the fuss of Dragon’s appearance. They went to Palace Island and took the ship boats tethered there out to the
Secret
, because the Gadfians had taken all the ship boats. Then they left. There was no tide, and yet the ship moved out through the Talons as if it had created its own tide.’

My heart sank, for if the emissary had allied himself with Ariel, he had an entire flotilla of greatships ready to attack. The irony was that the only defence Redport would have was the
Black Ship
. ‘You swam to get aboard?’

‘As soon as I saw the emissary’s greatship heading out, I swam beneath the surface of the water so none would see my approach. That was Merret’s idea based on your Garth’s experiments. She had a sort of bladder full of air ready and I think she was not sorry that I insisted upon using it. I emerged close enough to the hull that no one aboard would see me and climbed the anchor rope.’ She frowned. ‘The thing is that no one is aboard, and from the look of it, the weapons have been disabled.’

‘Salamander and his crew must have rowed across to the
Secret
, but why would he leave his ship?’

‘Because it could not sail against the tide, maybe,’ Jakoby said, but she sounded dissatisfied.

‘But why leave me alive? And wouldn’t he just wait until the tide turned? No one would dare to board him. Salamander would never leave his ship . . .’

‘Salamander never leaves the
Black Ship
,’ Jakoby said, in a suddenly normal voice that sounded very loud. She seemed to rise taller and square her shoulders as she looked around slowly, her eyes narrowed, measuring. Almost to herself, she said, ‘He did not leave it though we are meant to think he did.’ She raised her voice. ‘Come out, Salamander! I know about the hidden place, for all Sadorian ships have them, just as Gadfian ships do. I know you are there
and I know who you are.
Come forth and face me.’

There was a long intense silence, and I was about to ask Jakoby to free my hands, which were still shackled behind my back, when there was a faint noise. Then the wall seemed to move and a section swung lightly and soundlessly aside to reveal a deep low chamber. Out if it, sword in hand, stepped the black-swathed Salamander.

‘He would have me leave my
Black Ship
, for the sake of his plan, but I never agreed to that,’ the slaver said in the hard, strange, whispering voice I remembered from the great sea caverns under Saithwold. ‘I care for nothing in the world but this ship. I will never leave it, now get off or I will slit your throat. Take her. I owe him that much.’

‘I came for my sister,’ Jakoby said.

I stared at her incredulously, then remembered her story of her tragically damaged sister, born so because their mother had insisted on immersing herself in tainted isis pools. Her sister had disappeared after fleeing the Earthtemple. Did Jakoby believe Salamander had her aboard? He had said already the ship was deserted. Why didn’t she just do what Salamander told her? But
why
would he let us go, and what had he meant by saying to take me because he owed it
to
him
? To Ariel?

There was something going on here that I did not understand. The air was thick with it.

Salamander moved, quick as a striking snake, and pressed the cold edge of his sword to my throat. ‘Leave, else this one will die.’

‘Let my sister go with me,’ Jakoby said.

Even in my terror and helplessness, in my fury at being prevented from defending myself by the demon band, I wondered that she would speak in such a gentle, pleading way to a despised slaver. Especially one whom she seemed to believe had her sister in thrall.

‘Your sister is dead,’ Salamander rasped. ‘Leave my ship now. I will throw this one over the side and you can fish her out. Or stay and she will die.’

‘You would have to kill me as well,’ said Jakoby gravely.

‘I will, have no fear of that,’ said the slaver, yet for the first time, it seemed to me that his voice wavered.

‘You could have killed me on the Clouded Sea, but you held your fire. I am sure the pale man did not thank you for that.’

‘I did not let you escape,’ said the slaver.

Instead of answering, Jakoby took up a pouch, loosened its strings and reached into it, then she held the light she carried over her outstretched palm and tilted it so that Salamander could see what she had. I recognised the tiny sandcat brooch I had found in the lavish feminine bedchamber on Norseland.

Was it that Salamander’s woman was
Jakoby’s sister
?

Salamander did not move, did not breath, but the edge of his knife had left my throat. ‘What do you want?’ he asked at last, his voice barely audible.

‘I want my sister back,’ Jakoby answered.

‘There is no going back,’ said the slaver.

‘The overguardian of the Earthtemple bade me end the life of the slaver Salamander. He cannot leave this ship. But my sister need not die,’ said Jakoby. ‘She can go back with me.’

‘There is nothing for her there,’ Salamander said implacably. ‘All she has had in this life is what I have given her.’

There was a shout overhead and the sound of boots on the deck. Then moments later, Merret and two men I did not recognise came thundering into the hold. They froze at the sight of Salamander facing Jakoby.

‘Take Elspeth out,’ Jakoby said. ‘I will deal with Salamander.’

Merret came forward warily and led me out.

‘Time to die,’ whispered Salamander and leaped towards me brandishing the sword. One of the men reacted instinctively, hurling a dagger. It struck hard and true, bedding itself deep in the slaver’s chest. He fell and was utterly still. Someone called out overhead and the men looked in puzzlement at one another then ran out. I bade Merret go and I would follow.

When we were alone, Jakoby came to kneel beside the dead slaver.

‘Your sister,’ I said.

‘My sister is here,’ Jakoby said hoarsely, lifting the black swathed head into her arms.

Pity filled me as well as a sick anger at the waste of it. Here was the murderer of Idris and so many others, the taker of a thousand lives and the foul slaver. The child whose mother had given it to a temple full of terrifying deformed strangers.

‘Go,’ said Jakoby thickly. ‘I will come . . . later.’

I met Merret coming down the hold steps to fetch me. ‘It’s Matthew, he had come to fetch you,’ she said apologetically, producing a key and freeing my hands. Her eyes shifted to the closed door behind me with puzzlement.

‘Matthew . . .’ I prompted. Then a burst of joy went through me. ‘
Matthew is alive?
How, when Ariel had him?’

‘He will tell you. But he says come. He wants to take you to Dragon – the Red Queen,’ Merret said, somewhat chaotically. Then she grinned. ‘She is asking for you.’

I went up the steps onto the deck rubbing my wrists and blinking at the brightness of the sky, only now seeing that the whole dark, fraught night had passed. The air was cool and sweet with the smell of salt and morning in it. When my eyes had adjusted to the light, I gazed over the milky water of the bay to Redport, half veiled in a gauze of light and sea mist, wondering at the strange and unexpected events of the night. I had thought I could hear explosions when I was in the hold, but the settlement seemed utterly tranquil and very beautiful – pink rather than red, and from this direction, the two towers had a golden sheen about their bulging heads.

I heard a shout and turned to see Matthew climbing up onto the far side of the deck. Then he was running towards me, limping slightly, barefoot and bare-chested with wild matted brown hair that hung past his shoulders and a dozen old scars.

I had seen him in dreams, but now as he embraced me and lifted me off my feet and swung me round, I saw that he was truly and in all ways a man grown.

‘Elspeth!’ he shouted joyously, and my heart felt as if it would crack open like an egg as I threw my arms about him and hugged him back and wept and laughed, and for a time neither of us could say a sensible word. Then, when the first mad joy of our reunion ran its course, we stepped apart and looked at one another properly.

‘I forgot how beautiful ye are,’ Matthew said, his highland accent unaffected by his years in the Red Land.

I looked down at the poor once-lovely gauzy cloak, ripped in a dozen places, the green dress under it shredded, and burst out laughing. ‘Beautiful?’

‘Well, ye’ve shrunk a bit though,’ he grinned. Then suddenly serious again he said gravely, ‘I am so glad to see ye, Elspeth. I have missed ye so terribly.’

I sobered too. ‘You were the first true friend I had in the world and it broke my heart when you were taken away.’

Matthew’s eyes dropped to the demon band and he deftly unhooked it. Fortunately it was not the sort that locked with a key. He dropped it with a curled lip and then he was pouring images into my mind as he spoke. ‘To begin with, all I thought about was gannin’ back to th’ Land. Then I came here an’ . . .’

‘You saw the Red Queen on the side of the Great Hall,’ I said, seeing it with him, feeling his wonder and astonishment. ‘I dreamed it.’

We were silent a moment then, for there was so much to tell that had happened in the years since we had seen one another. So much sorrow and beauty.

‘I dreamed of you here,’ I said.

‘I dreamed of
you
often, and then once when I was badly injured and near to death, the bird flew into my dreams and told me I must live and that you would come with the queen. Elspeth, it taught me so much and then one day it said you were coming and then it spoke no more. But I had so many strange dreams about your journey, then a few days ago, I dreamed you were here and that she – the queen – was in danger.’ His face darkened. ‘I dreamed sometimes of Ariel, too. I feared fer ye when they said he’d disappeared, for I thought he’d taken ye with him.’ He reached out and touched my cheek and I winced, for that was where Ariel had struck me. ‘One of the women that was to be given to the emissary said he knocked ye to th’ ground.’ His expression was bleak now. ‘It would have been better fer all of us if I had gone after him an’ killed him when he fled th’ Teknoguild caves after torturin’ ye all those years back.’ I saw Cameo in his mind for a moment, a pale, sweet ghost. ‘But ye thwarted him again an’ again in th’ Land and he dinna count on th’ Red Queen visionin’ of him gloatin’ over me an’ recognisin’ that I were in a tidal cell.’

His mind showed me the tidal cell and I felt a surge of terror at the realisation of how near he had come to being drowned by the incoming tide, even as I marvelled at the strength of his mind.

‘The queen knew exactly where I were an’ she knew the trick of the lock to free me,’ he said.

His face shone with reverence and for a moment I saw there the thin limping boy I had met at the maze gate at Obernewtyn year before, yearning for heroes. How strange that the greatest of his heroes was a slight girl he had once spurned.

‘How did he catch you?’ I asked, for there was much that was not yet clear.

‘I was a dolt,’ Matthew said bluntly. ‘I heard a rumour that there was a machine in the slave shed by the shore, an’ we had been huntin’ for it for moon upon moon without the slightest idea of where the machine was. I ought to have questioned it, but I were thinkin’ of th’ queen and worryin’ about her that I walked into it like a fool. Salamander’s people were waitin’ an’ they trussed me up and he questioned me.’ He paused bleakly. ‘I was determined nae to speak of ye or the queen, but th’ bastard kenned ye were both here. He knew so much. His questions were pointless. The point was pain . . .’

I opened my mouth to tell him the point was that his pain had summoned Dragon, leaving me in her place, easily taken, but I closed it again, thinking there were a number of thorny reasons it would be better not to speak of that.

‘I am glad you saved Dragon from the Ekoni . . .’

‘Maruman an’ I,’ Matthew said, smiling. ‘I dreamed of him, sometimes, too, but I could hardly believe it when I saw him. I dinna believe it, until Dragon said it was he, truly. An’ that Darga an’ Gahltha were here, too. Swallow told me of the computermachine that laid you an’ the queen to sleep. I kenned it but I dinna ken what I were seein’. He told me about Miryum, too. And withal, I think I have heard the smallest part of yer adventures. The queen told me of yer quest, but the bird told me of it, too. She said it would bring ye here and that ye would bring the queen wi’ ye because she were part of it.’

‘We will speak of that later,’ I said, feeling a residue of reluctance to speak of it openly, now that Ariel was near.

‘Yes, fer now the queen awaits ye,’ he said. ‘We can talk more on th’ way.’

Despite the limp he climbed lightly down a ladder into a waiting ship boat and I followed awkwardly after him, my shoulders and arms cramping from having been pinned back all night long. Once we were seated, Merret untethered us and Matthew shipped the oars and began to row us away from the ship in long fluid strokes.

‘What about Merret and Jakoby?’ I asked, as Merret lifted a hand in farewell before disappearing from sight.

‘They will stay aboard th’
Black Ship
wi’ a few Redlanders until th’ queen decides what to do about it,’ Matthew said. ‘There is some talk about tryin’ to fix its weapons so we can defend th’ bay against th’ emissary’s ships, but strangely th’ flotilla has nae made a move in our direction. Nor has th’
Secret
gone off to join them. It is anchored only a wee way from th’ Talons. It sickens me that Ariel got away yet again, an’ that once again he allies himself wi’ powerful and dangerous folk that mun do us harm. But Merret has Blyss up on yon cliffs keepin’ watch, an’ the Redlanders had some means in the ancient times to block the Talons that mun be repaired.’

I thought about Salamander, but I could not bring myself to speak of the strange scene in the hold. That was Jakoby’s tale, if ever she chose to tell it. Instead I asked him how he had known I was on the ship, for there had not been time enough for Jakoby to send word that I was there.

‘I kenned it because the queen visioned it,’ he said cheerfully.

‘She never used to have so many visions,’ I murmured. A thought struck me. ‘It is strange that Ariel saw so much, but he didn’t see you getting free or Dragon riding into the city on Gahltha and rousing up the Redlanders.’

‘Ariel’s nulls did th’ greatest part of his futuretellin’, and he did nae have access to them when they might have warned him. He kept a special chamber stocked with them in Salamander’s pen, an’ he took anyone with Misfit abilities that he could gie his hands on to make more nulls. Nae that anyone but we Misfits kenned it, an’ he seemed to delight in comin’ here wi’ one trailing dead-faced after him, that had once been one of us. But I dinna ken where he made them into nulls. Aboard the
Black Ship
mebbe, though Merret said there were nae any Zebkrahn machines aboard.’ He frowned. ‘The wonder is that he dinna see me all this time. I guess I was nae important enow, until I saved th’ queen. The thing that worries me now is that I have no doubt Ariel is coercin’ th’ emissary to bring back his whole fleet to attack Redport.’

I wondered if he was right. No matter what he had told the emissary, Ariel wanted Sentinel and he believed that he needed me to acquire it. Had he taken me prisoner at the masked ball, believing I knew where Sentinel was, only later realising his mistake? That might be why he had left me behind. If I was right, then the emissary might be lying offshore in the
Secret
, waiting for me to continue my quest before attacking the settlement, because Ariel would not want to risk me being killed in an attack. Was it possible they were simply waiting for me to leave Redport? I would warn Dragon and bid her resurrect the ancient defences of the bay as quickly as possible, and maybe Ana could be brought in to look at the weaponmachines, for her machine empathy might enable her to fix them.

‘What happened to the Quarry people being held outside Redport until they could be got aboard the emissary’s ships?’ I asked.

‘A large force of Redlanders an’ various halfbloods were mustered and marched north from th’ settlement led by Murrim. It were a deliberate show of strength intended to make the Ekoni think twice about attacking, but still it was something of a shock when the majority of them up an’ fled. One lot have barricaded themselves in the dome closest to Redport, an’ another lot crept around the settlement to enter from the south, and have joined the Chafiri who have barricaded themselves into their compounds with hostages. Merret an’ some o’ the other coercers will deal wi’ them, by an’ by, now that th’ block is gone. But the Redlanders reckon it is better to let them calm down and then try to parley so that no one is hurt.’

‘I supposed most of the hostages are Redlanders,’ I murmured. ‘What caused the block?
Was
it a machine?’ I asked.

‘That has always been my own belief, but the fact is we dinna ken,’ Matthew said. ‘We went outside the settlement so I could call Gahltha after Dragon rescued me, only suddenly the block was gone. So I farsought Gahltha an’ he came. We thought you would be there in th’ Great Hall, an’ Gahltha went mad when we found out Ariel had taken ye. I questioned some of th’ Ekoni we took captive, but they knew no more than that ye had been taken away. It was nae until Dragon visioned of ye that we kenned ye were on the
Black Ship
. The Ekoni that have been captured are penned up in th’ Infinity of Obedience or in shore pens near th’ curst Ekoni barracks, an’ as for the shackled slave army, it were unshackled an’ unceremoniously disbanded. Most have already moved into Redport to live wi’ friends or family in Slavetown, or they have taken up th’ offer of homes wi’ Redlanders. Some few chose to gan back to Quarry. When things settle down, th’ queen has said she will arrange greatships to return anyone to their homes if they want it, includin’ Gadfians.’ He frowned at this. ‘Fortunately that is like to take a good long while fer th’ only greatship we have is th’
Black Ship
an’ we will need that to defend the Talons if the emissary decided to attack.’

I noticed suddenly that he was rowing us towards Palace Island, rather than to the shore of the mainland. There was a man standing on the shore where I had seen dark birds diving for fish, and we were close enough for me to see that it was Daffyd. But he was not looking towards us. He was gazing out towards the Talons, and I guessed with a sickening heart that he was thinking of Gilaine. The thought of Gilaine aboard the
Secret
with Ariel chilled me. Matthew turned to see what had caught my attention and heaved a sigh. ‘Somehow even now, he has nae lost hope, fer he kens the
Secret
is just on th’ other side of th’ Talons an’ it is said the Shambalans are peaceable.’

‘Except for their emperor’s desire to possess an army to crush the land adjoining his,’ I said tartly, but at the same time, I thought of my dream of Gilaine, smiling at the white-faced emissary, his gentleness towards her, and prayed she would not be harmed.

We were a little distance from the shore when, without warning, Matthew laid down the oars and rolled out of the ship boat, but instead of sinking into the water, he seemed to land
on
it and then he straightened and walked along it, drawing the ship boat after him by its tether rope, until he reached the shore, whereupon he stepped into the water up to his knees. I leaped out and helped him haul it up onto the sand.

‘The third bridge,’ I said.

He grinned at me. ‘The tidal cells are part of it and are only visible and accessible from it.’

We walked up the shore and I squinted my eyes against the dazzling morning, trying to catch sight of the top of the round dark bulks of the mounds, but we were at sea level, and the whole settlement rose up between us and the domes.

‘What of Ana and Dameon?’ I asked, remembering my fear that Ariel had taken them captive. I was shamed that I had not thought of them sooner, but Matthew said with a grin that he had farsought Dameon and that Swallow was with him and Ana.