Part 9 (2/2)

Creedy scooped the eels onto a plate and sat down. He didn't offer Granger any. 'I've been thinking,' he said, 'about what we talked about before about deepwater salvage.'

'There's nothing more to discuss. We don't have the resources.'

'Not now,' Creedy admitted. 'But a few more hauls like last night, and we could start attracting some real investment. There are people in Ethugra with deep enough pockets. We'd make a hundred thousand in the first year.'

Granger shook his head. 'You're talking about going up against Maskelyne.' He didn't want to tell Creedy his real concerns about expanding the operation. Deepwater salvage wasn't something you could go into quietly. You needed a large ocean-cla.s.s vessel, cranes, power winches, deep-sea nets and a good-sized crew to keep everything running. It would be difficult to hide an operation like that. People would notice, and talk. He couldn't risk exposing Ianthe to that level of attention. Her talents were far too valuable to put on display.

His deaf-blind daughter. He thought about her walking down the wharf, stopping whenever he looked away. She had not been able to see the ground in front of her, except when he looked in her direction. He tried to imagine her growing up in Evensraum, unable to hear the wind in the trees unless someone else was there to hear it too. What kind of life was that for a child? The implications of all this were too intricate for him to unravel at once. He needed to think them through. He thought about her walking down the wharf, stopping whenever he looked away. She had not been able to see the ground in front of her, except when he looked in her direction. He tried to imagine her growing up in Evensraum, unable to hear the wind in the trees unless someone else was there to hear it too. What kind of life was that for a child? The implications of all this were too intricate for him to unravel at once. He needed to think them through.

'We don't need to compete compete with him,' Creedy said. 'He has all the deepwater gear we'd need.' with him,' Creedy said. 'He has all the deepwater gear we'd need.'

Granger looked up. 'A partners.h.i.+p partners.h.i.+p?'

The other man shrugged. 'Maskelyne's a businessman.'

'He's a criminal,' Granger said, 'and a murderer.'

Creedy chewed his food slowly.

Granger picked up the money from the crate. With these gilders and the four hundred from yesterday, he could pay off his debts at the boatyard and maybe convince Maddigan to order in some new planking for his boat's hull. Once the old girl was fixed up, he could trade her in against a storm-sealed deepwater cruiser, hopefully a tug or even an ex-naval vessel. About thirty or forty thousand would buy him something st.u.r.dy enough to cross the open ocean.

He poured two mugs of tea, then joined Creedy. 'Somebody stole that Unmer doll.'

Creedy sc.r.a.ped eel jelly from his plate and spooned it into his mouth. 'Lot of thieves about.'

'So it seems.'

'It's no big deal,' Creedy said. 'Now we have the girl.'

'a.s.suming she agrees to keep working with us.'

Creedy grunted. 'She doesn't have s.h.i.+t to say about that.' He finished his meal and stood up. 'Are we going, or what?' doesn't have s.h.i.+t to say about that.' He finished his meal and stood up. 'Are we going, or what?'

The two men took Creedy's launch back to the basin behind the Bower family prison in Francialle, leaving Ianthe behind. Creedy switched off the engine and stared into the brine with open hostility, as though he expected resistance from whatever lay below, and was fully prepared to counter it with force. They began to dredge the gloomy waters with a claw.

But again the bottle eluded them.

Shadows gathered in the basin and the ca.n.a.l beyond as evening approached. The sky between the buildings turned golden with the setting sun. Creedy grew irritable and then angry. His clockwork eye ticked and whirred as though struggling to focus. In his long whaleskin gloves, cloak and goggles he looked like some infernal golem. He hauled in the rope for the hundredth time, examined at the empty claw and then smashed it down on the deck. 'She's messing with us,' he said. 'There's nothing down there. You said yourself the Unmer only dumped ichusae in deep water.'

'Francialle used to be full of Unmer forges,' Granger replied. 'Conceivably, they could have made thousands of ichusae here. Changed ordinary gla.s.s phials and copper stoppers into something else.'

'How did they get all the brine inside them?'

'I don't think they did.'

A voice from above called down: 'You changed your mind about the map yet?'

Granger looked up to see an old man peering down at them from one of the barred windows above. His face was gaunt, his cheeks hollow from malnutrition, lending emphasis to his wildly protruding eyes. He gripped the bars of his cell with skeletal hands.

'Shut your d.a.m.n mouth,' Creedy replied.

'I told you there was no trove down there,' the old man said. 'Maskelyne's men cleaned it all out years ago. You want to be looking near the Glot Madera, but I ain't telling you where unless you buy my map.'

Creedy must have returned to this spot sometime after dawn, Granger realized. No doubt he had tried to look for the bottle on his own. This bothered him less than he would have expected. It wasn't against the law.

'Madman,' Creedy muttered.

'The original map was drawn by the Unmer,' the old man retorted. 'I saw it in a collection in Maggog, copied it exact from memory.'

Creedy s.n.a.t.c.hed up his baling tin, scooped it full of brine and then hurled it up at the barred window. The old man yelped and disappeared as seawater splashed across the prison facade. Some of the brine must have splashed him, for he began to howl in pain.

'Sun's almost down,' Creedy said. 'We'd best go get the girl.'

'Not tonight,' Granger said.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean exactly that, Sergeant,' Granger replied in a tone that implied the conversation was over.

Creedy looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. 'Whatever you say, Tom.'

They returned in silence. As Granger alighted on his wharf, Creedy looked up at him with malice in his eye. 'Tomorrow night, then?'

'Maybe. I'll send you a message.'

The sergeant spat into the ca.n.a.l, then gunned his launch away, spewing muddy foam in his wake.

Granger looked at his own boat. She was a common skiff, sixteen feet long from bow to stern, and built here in Ethugra three decades ago from sea-forest wood. Most of her hull spars and seats had been replaced by dragon-bones, but her hull was entirely original, and thus rotting. He ought to make some temporary repairs while he was still wearing his brine gear, and while it was still light enough to see what he was doing. Carefully, he climbed aboard, easing his whaleskin boots into the partially flooded bilge. The old wooden planks creaked under his boots. From the bow storage compartment he took out his foot-pump, tools, storm lantern and an open tin of resin. The resin had hardened, leaving the brush jammed upright like a handle, so he placed the lantern on the wharf, lit it and balanced the tin on the lantern's metal hood. While the resin was warming, he pumped water out of the bilge. Ideally, he should have raised her out of the water, but he didn't need a perfect repair. Just enough to get her to the boatyard.

He spent an hour applying the sticky resin into the caulking between the hull planks. It was fully dark when the job was finally done, and his oil lantern glowed like a lonely beacon among the glooming prison buildings. A cloud of moths flitted around the flame, while scores more drifted past like grey confetti on the black water.

Granger spied another light moving down there in the depths. He snuffed his own lantern.

Several fathoms down, the Drowned man Granger had seen earlier emerged from a submerged doorway under Dan Cutter's jail. He was heading south, hurrying across the uneven ca.n.a.l bed, swinging his gem-lantern to and fro as if searching for something amidst the rubble. The child who had accompanied him previously was nowhere to be seen.

A sense of unease crept over Granger, although he couldn't say why. He suddenly felt very cold. As he turned to go back inside, he happened to glance up. The sky was moonless and clear, crammed with stars that sparkled like fragments of mica. He spotted the constellations of Ulcis Proxa and Iril, and part of Ayen's Wheel glimmering low in the north. A tiny cl.u.s.ter of lights was travelling across the sky there. It stopped abruptly, then altered course, moving off in a westerly direction. Granger paused to watch it go. He'd not seen Ortho's Chariot for five or six years, and as he stood there he couldn't help but wonder what it might be. The last Unmer airbarque, travelling forever beyond the reach of the Haurstaf and Emperor Hu's raging indignation? The occupants must surely be dead by now. Or was it just a star that had lost its way?

He went back inside.

He'd been gone longer than he intended to, and his prisoners would be hungry. He went downstairs to check on them.

Ianthe watched him moodily from under her hair. Hana looked drawn and weary. 'Inny tells me it's a beautiful night,' she said. 'You saw Ortho's Chariot?'

Granger nodded. 'It's supposed to be a bad omen.'

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