Part 14 (2/2)

Hana didn't die until late afternoon that day. The Hookmen continued to soak her blistered grey flesh with brine, using a funnel to pour it down her throat, but they could not prolong her torture any longer. Two of the men began to argue, each loudly apportioning blame on the other for the woman's demise. Clearly Maskelyne had not intended for her to depart so quickly. After all their attempts to revive her failed, they began the Positioning before her corpse dried out.

Three men erected a dragon-bone tripod over her body. Ropes and splints were laid out nearby. Using the stoutest length of rope they hoisted her to a standing position. They bound her arms and legs in splints and then arranged them in their chosen posture. They raised her head and lashed her hair to the small of her back to keep her chin high. A man wearing whaleskin gloves opened her eyes, then jammed his thumb between her lips and prised them apart. His companion shoved something small in her mouth and laughed uproariously, but his colleague removed it quickly. Granger couldn't see what it was.

When they'd finished with the corpse, it was standing, facing Granger's cell window with its arms upraised in a pleading gesture.

Granger sat on the edge of the bed and closed his eyes. Ianthe would have been taken to Maskelyne's deepwater salvage headquarters on Scythe Island, to be a.s.signed to one of his vessels. As long as she found trove for him, she'd be safe enough. Safe, but never free of him. And it would only be a matter of time before Maskelyne discovered the true extent of her talents.

Granger picked up one of his galoshes and reached his arm down inside it. The letter he'd once intended to send to the Haurstaf was still there, tucked into a flap in the whaleskin.

He looked at it for a long time. The date he'd chosen for the appointment was still three days hence. Using a strip of fish gut, he scrawled another message across the bottom of the letter, watching as the grease burned his words into the paper.

He strode over to the cell window and peered out. Down below, Averley Plaza teemed with people. Shouts, laughs and cat-calls filled the air. The market traders had already set up their stalls for the day ahead, their canopies s.h.i.+ning in the sunlight. Foul-smelling clouds lingered above the fishmongers' braziers. Ca.n.a.l boats ferried jailers' wives to and from the docks, where fishermen, crabbers and dredgers unloaded their wares. Piles of reclaimed stone and wood steamed on the wharf side as they dried, while half a hundred vessels ploughed the amber waters of the harbour.

Granger folded the letter into a tight wad and threw it. It arced across the harbour waters, and landed on the wharf side four storeys below.

He watched, waiting for someone to pick it up.

An old woman and her daughter pa.s.sed by. The young girl glanced at it but didn't stop. Shortly afterwards, a young man, barely older than a boy, stopped, and picked up the letter. He was dressed like a deckhand. He opened it up and read it. Then he looked about. n.o.body else had noticed.

Granger watched silently from his high window as the deckhand shoved the letter into his pocket and wandered off. When he reached the wharf, he called out to an older fisherman sitting on the dockside. His father? This man rubbed his hands on his breaches before accepting the letter. He was too far away to see his expression clearly, but he took a long time reading it. Some discussion pa.s.sed between the two. The young man pointed back towards the wall of the jail where he'd found the letter. The older man shrugged, then shoved the paper into his own pocket.

And then he did nothing.

Granger cursed under his breath. Couldn't they see how valuable the letter was? The Haurstaf would gladly pay to receive news of one of their own, an undiscovered talent rotting in an Ethugran prison.

But the fisherman just sat there, watching the boats in the harbour.

Granger's fate, his daughter's fate h.e.l.l, perhaps even the future of the empire now lay in the hands of a stranger.

CHAPTER 8.

IANTHE.

Ianthe found herself inside a hollow metal ball. Aqueous yellow light danced across curves of pitted steel, across thick gloves resting on the knees of whaleskin breeches. Not her gloves; the hands inside them belonged to the sailor whose perceptions she had borrowed. She could not move this body, merely occupy it. From all around came a deep and regular hissing and rus.h.i.+ng sound, like the breathing of some strange consumptive monster. Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . Tiny portholes on all sides looked out into golden brine as thick as honey and illuminated by gem lanterns. Tiny portholes on all sides looked out into golden brine as thick as honey and illuminated by gem lanterns.

She was inside a man, and the man was inside a metal vessel, and the vessel was being lowered down through the sea.

The submariner peered through a porthole. Golden motes drifted past, like flecks of hay. Some form of sea life, perhaps? Ianthe could see nothing in the gloom beyond the lantern light.

Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . .

The sound seemed to come from overhead. There must be a pipe up there, an air supply. Frustratingly, her host did not look up to verify this. He had no interest in that particular aspect of the machine, Ianthe could sense. She could also sense his fear. He didn't want to be down here.

Now through the brine she discerned vague shapes and pools of darkness. The machine was nearing the sea floor. Her host reached up and rang a bell three times. Ianthe smelled his perspiration. He looked through one window after another. A grid of ancient, tumble-down walls criss-crossed the ground the footprints of roofless dwellings now buried under silt. This place, then, had once been a city. Now fish glided through doorways and windows. A hacker crab ambled backwards along a soft grey street, its claws raised as a warning to the rapidly descending craft.

They were dropping fast.

The submariner must have been aware of this too, for he rang the bell another three times.

Then he looked down, and Ianthe realized that the floor of this craft was not solid. A circle of brine waited under the submariner's seat. Grapples, hooked rods and coils of cables filled the floor s.p.a.ce around the hole. Evidently this craft was intended to retrieve trove.

The mechanical breathing continued Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . Haa . . . Shuuu . . . Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . Haa . . . Shuuu . . . and now the submariner's own breaths sounded laboured. He rubbed sweat from his eyes, then slid off his seat and crouched over the hole. and now the submariner's own breaths sounded laboured. He rubbed sweat from his eyes, then slid off his seat and crouched over the hole.

How did this man's handlers expect him to find treasure in such a crude manner? He could see nothing but a yard of seabed through that open portal, and not much more beyond those thick gla.s.s windows.

A bell rang overhead.

The craft slowed until it was barely a fathom above the sea bed then stopped.

The submariner looked up to where a huge bra.s.s helmet hung under a fat spool of rubber piping fixed to the ceiling. He manoeuvred himself up past the seat, until he was almost standing upright in the confined s.p.a.ce. Then he pushed his head inside the helmet.

Now Ianthe found herself looking out through the edge of an even smaller window, this one in the helmet itself. Haaaa . . . Shuu . . . Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . Haaaa . . . Shuu . . . Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . The rasp and suck of air grew loud in her ears. She realized that the breathing pipe had been in the helmet all along. Sweat trickled down her neck his neck. The rasp and suck of air grew loud in her ears. She realized that the breathing pipe had been in the helmet all along. Sweat trickled down her neck his neck. His neck. His neck. He gave a grunt, then wrenched the helmet round so that its tiny window lined up with his face. Ianthe heard four clamps, one after the other, snap into place. He gave a grunt, then wrenched the helmet round so that its tiny window lined up with his face. Ianthe heard four clamps, one after the other, snap into place.

He crouched down over the hole again. His heart was racing, his lungs straining in his chest. He picked up a spade. Then he lowered himself down into the brine.

Ianthe felt icy cold water close around her host's knees, then his waist, and then he was gliding down through that toxic murk. His boots sank into grey silt, raising clouds as fine as pollen. She could see even less than before now. Gem lanterns glimmered on the exterior of the diving craft, but they were centuries old, and their radiance had long since lost its vigour. The man unhitched one of them and held it out.

A few yards ahead of him lay the ragged outline of a low wall. An anchor chain rose up beyond this, the links rimed with brine crystals. The submariner began to walk towards the chain, inclining his head in his direction of travel to keep the heavy helmet balanced as he dragged his feet through the sucking earth. That short walk seemed to take an age, but finally he reached his goal. He ran a gloved hand along the rough surface of the wall, disturbing a cloud of silt. Then he regarded the chain and looked up.

He was barely six fathoms down, yet the brown weight of the seawater above made it appear much deeper. Dusk glimmered on the surface of the waters like a peat fire. The anchor chain terminated at a buoy, close to which lay the silhouette of a s.h.i.+p's hull.

The submariner found a gap in the wall and stepped through into the street Ianthe had seen from the diving craft. She spotted the trail of the hacker crab she'd noticed earlier, but the creature itself was nowhere in sight. Something dark wriggled at the edge of her vision.

The man's heart quickened. He swung round.

An eel darted away into the gloom.

'Give me grace.'

His voice startled Ianthe. She had a.s.sumed he'd be unable to speak down here. But there was air here, of course a frighteningly small pocket, certainly, but air nonetheless. Her host's heart slowed, and he resumed his trek.

'Sixteen gilders a dive,' he muttered. 'b.a.s.t.a.r.d wouldn't buy a night in 'thugra.'

She was used to hearing people speak to themselves, but this man's voice sounded odd down here, huge and metallic. Yet it was strangely comforting, like a light in an immense void. You wouldn't want a night in Ethugra You wouldn't want a night in Ethugra, she thought.

His eyes filled with perspiration, and he blinked. 'Still better than here,' he said.

Ianthe smiled inwardly. Wasn't it funny how people sometimes seemed to respond to her thoughts? She tried again. What are you looking for down here? What are you looking for down here?

This time he didn't give any indication that he'd heard her.

He trudged on down the street.

But then something horrible happened.

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