Siege of Rage and Ruin Page 2

  Point is, what I have with Meroe is different. Obviously. But neither she nor I have a lot of experience with being with someone, in the most literal sense of the phrase, and what with the constant threat of being eaten by crabs or torn apart by Prime’s walking corpses we hadn’t gotten much chance to practice. Ever since we came back from the Deeps, the crew has been looking to us for leadership. We’d figured out that we liked kissing and everything that came after, but that was about as far as it went.

  But the last few weeks, since we’d left the Harbor, had been … different. It’s just her, me, Zarun, and Jack—and Hagan, if dead people count—alone in all the vastness of Soliton. The others have their own ways of amusing themselves—Jack scavenges for interesting tidbits, like a magpie, and Zarun reads the books he finds among the sacrifices—which has left Meroe and me mostly on our own. No one to lead, no one to take care of, just … living. Just for a while.

  It’s weird. But … in a good way. Waking up in the same bed. Eating the same meals. Falling asleep together, and knowing tomorrow will be more of the same.

  Until it’s not. And that time is getting closer, which is probably why I can’t sleep.

  * * *

  For my practice sessions, I picked one of the angels that’s not quite so distressing to look at—no screaming baby faces or ranks of grasping hands. This one is tall, six-legged, and vaguely leonine, with a complex pattern of blocky protrusions surrounding its single crystalline eye. That eye, the heart of the angel’s connection to Soliton, glows a brilliant blue, throwing snaky shadows as the huge thing paces around the control room with its complicated interlocking conduits.

  “See?” Hagan says. “You can manage.”

  I grit my teeth and bite back a sarcastic rejoinder. I hate being patronized, but after everything that’s happened between us, Hagan of all people has earned a little restraint. He hangs in the air beside me, outlined in pale gray Eddica light that would be invisible to anyone without a connection to the Well of Spirits. I can see gray threads linking his form to the conduits throughout the room, and more threads running back up to the angel. All of Soliton is a single system, a complex construct of Eddica energy. Hagan doesn’t control it, precisely; it’s more like he inhabits it—or haunts it, I suppose—and he’s learned to twist the threads to his own ends.

  That’s what he tells me, anyway. Honestly I don’t understand half of what he and Silvoa talked about. Which is something of a problem, actually, since as far as anyone knows I’m the only living Eddica adept—the last Eddicant—which puts the fate of Soliton and the Harbor in my hands. Since I overrode the system at the Harbor and it acknowledged me as the highest authority, I theoretically have the power to make Soliton and its angels do whatever I want. Getting the ship to sail in a particular direction turned out to be easy enough, but controlling the angels is not.

  “I’ve always been able to do it when I’m concentrating,” I tell Hagan, trying not to lose my focus on the angel. It keeps walking around in circles, six legs moving smoothly, and I wonder if I am finally getting it. “It’s setting the rotting things up so they keep doing what they’re supposed to be doing that’s the problem.”

  Hagan shakes his head, brushing back his long hair. His appearance has changed, become more stylized, as though he no longer bothers to re-create every detail of his living self. He’s more like a sketch of what he was in life, a few bold lines roughing in a face, clothes vague and indistinct. I wonder if he’ll eventually give up on a human form entirely, and what will happen to him when he does.

  “I told you,” he says, “it’s all about patterns. You impress the pattern of what you want the angel to do into its mind, like it was a wax tablet you were sketching on with a stylus.”

  Patterns. I try to think a pattern at the angel, a simple circle. Keep walking round and round. I feel it respond, and slowly withdraw my control. For a moment, it seems to work, and the thing keeps moving at a steady pace. Then it shifts, one foot coming down awkwardly on the uneven floor. With the next step, it topples over, legs churning mindlessly in place as it lies on its side.

  Hagan snorts a laugh, ignoring the death glare I shoot at him. I suppose it’s hard to intimidate a ghost.

  “You’re pushing too hard,” he says. “The angels aren’t blank slates. They know how to walk already. You just have to tell them where you want them to go.”

  “You just told me to imagine a blank slate!” I protest.

  “I didn’t mean—” Hagan looks up. “Never mind. We’ll try again later.”

  He disappears, vanishing like a candle flame in a sudden wind. I turn and find Meroe standing in the doorway, watching the fallen angel trying to walk.

  “It looks a little bit like a clockwork soldier,” Meroe says. “Do you have those in Kahnzoka? Where you wind the key and it marches around.”

  “I’ve seen one,” I say, uncomfortably. There was a time when I’d aspired to be nothing more than a soldier like that, carrying out orders as the boss of the Sixteenth Ward and never thinking about anything but the next job and Tori’s safety. I won’t say I miss that life, but it was … easier.

  “Something wrong?” Meroe says, coming into the room.

  “Just a bad memory.”

  “Sorry I brought it up,” she says, then cocks her head. “Actually, one of my brothers took our clockwork soldier apart until it was just a pair of legs that walked on their own, and he used it to scare my little sister half to death. They’re creepy things when you think about it.”

  “I suppose they are.” I reach out to the angel, and it stills. “So what are you doing up?”

  “I woke in the middle of the night and found my partner missing,” Meroe says. “What’s your excuse?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  It’s hard to say more than that, but mercifully I don’t have to. Meroe comes over to me and puts her arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. For a moment we stand in silence, here in the room where I fought the Scholar, where I nearly died and saved Soliton’s crew. The bloodstains are gone. I wonder if one of the angels cleaned them.

  “She’ll be all right,” Meroe says.

  “You don’t know that,” I say, very quietly. “You can’t.”

  “I know she’s related to you,” Meroe says. “That means she can take care of herself.”

  “I didn’t teach her to take care of herself,” I say. “I never wanted her to take care of herself. I wanted her to grow up and be happy and not have to worry.”

  “We’ll get there,” Meroe says, a whisper in my ear.

  “We’ll get there,” I repeat. And then what?

  * * *

  And then what? It’s the central question, really.

  Kuon Naga sent me to capture Soliton and bring it back for service in the navy of the Blessed Empire, in anticipation of another war against Jyashtan. He gave me a year, with my sister as hostage. I learned, later, that I wasn’t the first agent he’d smuggled aboard the legendary ghost ship. How much he knows about Soliton, if any of his previous spies smuggled any information off, I have no idea.

  Unlike any of his other agents, unlike anyone since the time of the ancients, I succeeded. Soliton goes where I want it to. Whether Naga can do anything with it is his problem—I’ve fulfilled my side of the bargain. I ought to be able to sail into Kahnzoka harbor, take Tori, and go.

  Except—

  Go rotting where? Back to my life in the Sixteenth Ward? It’s hard to imagine, now. And hard to believe that Kuon Naga would let us live for long. The head of the Immortals, the Emperor’s guards and secret police, didn’t get to where he is by leaving loose ends. And even if I could return to the streets, would Meroe come with me? Would I want her to? How would she look at me if I spent my days cutting down small-time crooks who hadn’t paid their protection money?

  Options, options. We could leave Kahnzoka. Take Tori, take the money I’ve salted away, and go. Rot, we don’t even need my savings—there’s enough gold on Soliton f
or a hundred fortunes, no one is going to miss a bit. But that still leaves the question of where wide open. And there’s Jack to consider. Her partner, Thora, is back at the Harbor, and Soliton is her only way back. I doubt Kuon Naga will give her a ride for the asking.

  If I could make the angels do what I want—if I had the kind of control I ought to have—then I would hold all the cards. There are hundreds of angels aboard Soliton, maybe thousands. They’re absurdly strong and nearly indestructible. No army in the world, not even the Invincible Legions, could stand against them. But I get a headache trying to control two angels at once, let alone thousands. And even if I could, Naga would have Tori as a hostage. If he hurts her, I’ll tear him apart piece by bloody piece, but that would be small comfort.

  What’s left, then? Hope. Hope that Naga always figured this was a long-shot bet. He’ll have people watching Tori, but if he hasn’t actually put her under lock and key, the four of us can probably get to her and get away before he knows we’re here. If we can get back to Soliton, we’re safe; the entire Imperial Navy can’t stop the ghost ship from going exactly where it wants to.

  Therefore—

  * * *

  —I’m building a boat.

  Or the angels are building a boat under Hagan’s control. I’m supervising, Zarun is complaining, and Jack has gotten bored and wandered off.

  “It still doesn’t look like much,” Zarun says. “The wood is all cracked and splintered. Are you sure this’ll float?”

  “It’ll float,” Hagan says. “I’m caulking it with sap from bluegill mushrooms.”

  “Hagan says he’s caulking it with mushroom sap,” I relay to Zarun, who looks uncomfortable at the mention of Hagan’s name, but pretends not to be.

  “Was Hagan particularly familiar with boats?” he says. “When he was alive, I mean.”

  “Not really,” I say, and glance at Hagan. He shrugs.

  “Soliton has memories,” he says. “Embedded in the system. People have done this before.”

  “Has it ever worked?” I send this via Eddica, so Zarun won’t hear.

  “The boat worked fine,” he says. “Until they tried to leave and the angels wrecked it.”

  “Right.” I sigh and raise my voice again. “Besides, the only other thing we have to use is scraps from the hull, and if anyone spots us in a rotting metal rowboat, there are going to be some serious questions.” I still haven’t quite gotten used to the idea that anything made of metal could float.

  “If anyone gets a good look at any of this, there are going to be some questions,” Zarun says.

  He’s right. What wood there is on Soliton comes from sacrifices, so the boat is being assembled from bits of furniture, chests, and other detritus. I don’t doubt that it’ll float, but it doesn’t look like any another rowboat I’ve seen. Beside it is a small pile of sacks full of easily portable treasure—gold and silver, mostly, and a few gems and pearls. I don’t know what we’re going to find in Kahnzoka, but having full purses certainly won’t hurt.

  That night, according to Meroe’s instruments, Soliton slips silently past Kahnzoka. We’re well out to sea, too far to catch sight of the city, but I trust Meroe’s skill, and that means it’s time to put the plan into action. Following my instructions, the ghost ship executes a slow turn to starboard, running east under cover of darkness until the humped shapes of the Dragonback hills start blotting out the stars.

  If we’re going to steal Tori out from under Kuon Naga’s nose, we need to make sure he doesn’t know we’re coming, which means keeping Soliton out of sight. The headlands that define the sweep of Kahnzoka’s bay both have Imperial watchposts on them. It’s hard to get past them in a blacked-out skiff, let alone a metal leviathan the size of a small mountain. The smugglers I know from my days as ward boss preferred to land on the coast north of the city, across the Dragonbacks. It means a couple of days on the road to get to the landward gate, but the chance to blend in to the endless civilian traffic makes it a safer bet. I remember directions to a couple of their favorite spots, or at least I’ve convinced myself that I do.

  So, with the coast only a dark line in the distance, the same swinging pulley that first lifted me onto Soliton in an iron cage lowers our makeshift boat over the side, with Zarun, Jack, Meroe, and me aboard, plus a king’s ransom in assorted gold and jewels. On a cord under my shirt, smooth against my skin, I carry a segment of the ship’s conduit, charged with Eddica power. As the Scholar and I had discovered, cut fragments retained their connection to the system for quite some time, so until the energy decays I’ll be able to use it to contact Soliton and Hagan.

  I hope, anyway. There’s a lot of hope involved in this endeavor.

  Amazingly, the first part of the plan goes off without a hitch. We take turns pulling on oars carved from an oak tabletop, driving the furniture-boat through a mild surf as the stars wheel slowly above us. Soliton turns away, a rapidly diminishing shadow—I told Hagan to take the ship farther out to sea, to make sure it isn’t spotted by some sharp-eyed lookout. After an hour, back and shoulders burning furiously, I hear the crash of waves, and Jack shouts excited directions to keep us aimed at a broad inlet lined with pebbled beaches. It’s a calm night, and before long I can roll out of the boat and wade through waist-deep water, dragging our little craft in the rest of the way.

  I pause for a moment, feet in the surf, as the others start unloading. Kahnzoka. I look out at the moonlight-dappled water and test my feelings. Back to the Empire. Back to my home.

  It still doesn’t feel real. The beach could be any beach. Maybe it’s because of the way I left the city, trussed in a cage.

  But Tori’s here. She’s close. After so many miles, I’m almost there. Almost.

  It feels strange to abandon the boat, after spending so much effort putting it together, but it’s served its purpose. We take up our packs full of treasure—more strain on my already screaming shoulders—and hike across the beach and up the low ridge beyond. That takes us to the coast road, a long, rutted dirt track that runs across the point and up to the farming and fishing villages of Kahnzoka’s hinterland. We stop in a copse of trees and wait for the sun to rise. If my memory serves, there’s a small town a few miles farther along, and in the morning we can hike in like any other group of travelers, on our way to the city to sell our wares.

  So far, so good. Right?

  * * *

  The town is called Redtree, on account of having an enormous red tree in the square. Country folk are nothing if not rotting imaginative.

  I had worried a little that the appearance of our party might attract some comment. In Kahnzoka itself, foreigners are a common sight, and almost any combination of costume and features would probably pass without notice. Out in the country, the fact that we are two Imperials, a Jyashtani, and a southerner in a weird combination of silks and scraps could have been more notable.

  As it turns out, though, I needn’t have worried. Redtree is packed far beyond the town’s modest capacity for visitors. There are carts everywhere, pulled by horses, mules, donkeys, oxen, or sweating porters, all of them making as much noise as they’re capable of. Men and women with wheelbarrows make their way along the slow-moving mass of traffic, selling food, drink, and fodder at outrageous prices.

  “I have to admit,” Zarun says, “I always thought you Imperials were boasting when you called your capital the greatest city in the world. But even at Horimae you don’t get stuck in traffic before you get to the walls.”

  “This is … not normal.” I look over the lines of arguing carters and frown. Most of the loads are food, which is common enough, but there are other things, too, barrels and crates with a suspiciously uniform look. “Something’s happening.”

  “Thirsty Jack suggests a drink,” Jack says, pointing to the town’s only tavern, creatively called The Redtree Tavern. And perhaps a wagging tongue will clarify matters.”

  I glance at Meroe, who gives a little nod. The next step in the plan involves hiring a wag
on to take us to the city, and the tavern is as good a place as any to start looking. I clear my throat.

  “Okay,” I tell them. “Remember we’re trying to avoid notice, though. Let me do the talking.” I glare at Jack until she meets my gaze. “Understood?”

  “Clever Jack will attempt to conceal her natural brilliance, lest we attract undue attention,” Jack says. “But a true diamond can never be hidden for long.”

  Zarun snorts, but says nothing. I lead the way to the tavern.

  * * *

  The place is surprisingly crowded for mid-morning. In fact, judging by the spills and vomit on the floor, I doubt they got the chance to close last night. I edge my way around the worst of it and claim a corner table still sticky with wine. I send Zarun to get us drinks and settle in for some eavesdropping.

  Most of the tables in the tavern are occupied with chattering traders, and the conversations revolve around goods and prices. I hear some numbers which make me raise an eyebrow—if people in Kahnzoka are paying that much for grain and salt fish, then something must be seriously wrong. Storms, maybe, or a failed harvest?

  “If this is what you Imperials call wine,” Zarun says when he returns, “I can see why you’re always trying to steal from us. A Jyashtani dog wouldn’t deign to piss in this stuff.”

  “Charming,” I mutter, as he passes wooden mugs across the table. “Now sit down and be quiet.”

  “It does have a certain … piquancy,” Meroe says, wrinkling her nose at her cup. Jack drains half of hers in a single swallow.

  “We’re not exactly in the Imperial Palace here,” I say, feeling a need to defend my hometown. “And even a backcountry tavern isn’t going to waste the good stuff on this lot.” I push my chair back. “Stay here. I’m going to see if I can get us a ride.”