Part 8 (2/2)

Ianthe looked up from the water. 'A sea-bottle.'

The two men exchanged a glance. The empire paid three thousand gilders for each ichusae removed from the ocean, but they were worth even more on the black market. Certain warlords had been known to use them as weapons.

This last treasure seemed determined to elude them. After a dozen attempts with the hooked line, Granger still hadn't snagged the thing. He couldn't see anything in the dark water but his own hideous face, the grey, paper-creased cheeks, the goggles like cavities in his skull. He abandoned the hooked line in favour of a claw, a tool more suitable for grabbing smooth objects. By manipulating two cords he could open and close the tool's jaws like a pincer. It was tricky, but on his second try, he thought that the line became a little heavier.

Gently, he began to draw the line in. It snagged on something. He pulled harder.

Something underwater wrenched it back.

Granger reacted instinctively, dropping the line. Two yards of it whizzed across the bow wale, then came to a rest.

Creedy stood up. 'Dragon?'

'In Ethugra Ethugra?' Granger replied. There wasn't s.p.a.ce between these buildings to harbour such a monster. Whatever had taken the line was more likely to be much smaller: an Eellen, a Lux shark or thresher-fish, perhaps even one of the Drowned. 'What do you see, Ianthe?'

The girl did not reply.

'Ianthe?'

'A Drowned boy,' she replied. 'He's playing with you.'

Creedy lifted his boat hook. He walked over to the side of the boat and picked up the loose line in his other hand. 'Little s.h.i.+t,' he said, wrapping the rope around his gloved fist. 'I'm going to make you breathe air.' He gave the line a sudden, powerful, yank.

It didn't budge.

Creedy let the line go slack. 'b.a.s.t.a.r.d's snagged it on something.'

The line snapped taut, almost pulling Creedy into the ca.n.a.l. His unusually quick reactions saved him. With his feet planted square under the port strake, he dropped to a crouch, allowing the weight of the vessel itself to resist the force. The launch skimmed sideways across the pool, pus.h.i.+ng a wave of black seawater before it, before thumping into the prison facade. Brine sloshed over the gunwales, over the tarpaulin, over Ianthe.

She cried out.

'Hu-shan,' Granger hissed the old Imperial curse. 'Are you burned?'

Ianthe was flapping water from her whaleskin cloak.

'Did it touch your skin?'

'No.'

Creedy got to his feet, cursing, the line still wrapped around his fist. He untangled himself and then spun the line around one of the steel oarlocks on that side of the boat. Then he turned to Ianthe. 'Drowned f.u.c.king boy?' he snarled. 'What was it? Shark? Rock-caster? Eellen?' When she didn't answer he raised the boat hook as if to strike her.

'Sergeant,' Granger said quietly.

Creedy halted, and lowered the weapon.

'We're going back,' Granger said. 'It's getting lighter, and we have enough trove for now.' He looked at the pile of artefacts heaped next to the wheel console: the engine, the pendant, the tangled wire, the dragon harness and the spheres. A thousand gilders' worth of unfathomable rubbish. Even with Creedy's half deducted, it was enough to feed his captives for several months. Or a down payment on a new boat. Or a down payment on a new boat. That had been his original plan, after all, and he shouldn't forget it. That had been his original plan, after all, and he shouldn't forget it.

Creedy took the treasure away with him to find a buyer. Before he left, Granger offered to let him have the Unmer doll too. 'No sense in keeping it here,' he pointed out. But Creedy was strangely reluctant to accept.

'Sell it later if you need to,' he said. 'I'm tired, I'm going home.' He didn't want to come up to Granger's jail, and he didn't want to wait at the jetty.

Granger returned Ianthe to her cell.

Hana looked up sleepily. 'How did it go?'

'She did well,' Granger said.

'She always does.'

Granger just nodded. He went back upstairs and opened the box in which he kept the doll. But the doll was missing. He wasn't particularly surprised. He stood there for a long moment, wondering why he didn't feel angrier at Creedy.

The sun was up by the time he went to bed, and the garret was already becoming uncomfortably hot. As he lay in his bunk, he thought about the treasure hunt. Granger himself had stared into those lightless ca.n.a.ls and seen nothing at all. How had Ianthe done it? Uncanny vision did not explain how she'd known about Duka, the drawer and the four hundred gilders. No matter how many different possibilities went through his head, he couldn't figure out the answer. His gut told him that his captives were lying.

She can't read minds.

If that was so, then why did Hana want to keep her daughter from the Haurstaf?

The Haurstaf will murder her.

Granger frowned. If Ianthe was was psychic, the Guild would embrace her. And psychic, the Guild would embrace her. And if if she truly possessed nothing more than heightened physical senses, she posed no threat to them. They might or might not use her, but they had no reason to harm her. she truly possessed nothing more than heightened physical senses, she posed no threat to them. They might or might not use her, but they had no reason to harm her.

He stared at the ceiling, watching sunlight ripple across the joists. At this hour of the morning the mists would have burned off Halcine Ca.n.a.l, and the water would be s.h.i.+ning like a vein of gold.

Perhaps he was approaching this from the wrong direction?

What if she was completely normal not psychic or special in any way? Granger's own grandmother Ianthe's great-grandmother had come from Awl without a glimmer of the telepathic ability so entrenched in her race. There had been nothing there for Ianthe to inherit. Could an ordinary fifteen-year-old girl have found a way to beat the Haurstaf at their own game? What if her strange powers were not merely a quirk of nature, that one-in-a-million mutation that appeared in the blood of western women, but rather the result of something that could be attained by anyone anyone? Something sorcerous?

An Unmer artefact.

Granger sat upright in his cot. That made a lot of sense. Suppose Ianthe had had unearthed some rare treasure a pendant, ring or pin that granted her these inhuman abilities? The Haurstaf would certainly not flinch from murder to keep it a secret. Emperor Hu could use such an object to challenge the Guild of Psychics and break their monopoly of power. The Haurstaf's very existence would be threatened. If such an object existed, it would be worth more to the empire than a fleet of battles.h.i.+ps. unearthed some rare treasure a pendant, ring or pin that granted her these inhuman abilities? The Haurstaf would certainly not flinch from murder to keep it a secret. Emperor Hu could use such an object to challenge the Guild of Psychics and break their monopoly of power. The Haurstaf's very existence would be threatened. If such an object existed, it would be worth more to the empire than a fleet of battles.h.i.+ps.

A magic pendant, ring or pin?

Was Ianthe hiding it somewhere on her body even now?

He jumped out of bed, threw on his galoshes and stormed downstairs.

Ianthe was already asleep, curled up on her pallet, but Hana lifted her head, looked up at him and smiled. That smile disarmed him now, as it had all those years ago. She became the same young woman he'd known in Weaverbrook, and for an awful moment he didn't know if he could do what he'd come down here to do. But then he understood the purpose behind her smile. She was tricking him, making a fool of a brine-rotten old jailer. His anger stirred again.

'Wake her,' he said.

Hana frowned.

'I said, wake her.'

For a moment Hana looked uncertain, but then she shook her daughter awake.

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