From the Deep of the Dark (23 page)

‘Keep the voice line attached, lass, unless there’s an emergency and we have to break away from each other.’

‘What qualifies as an emergency?’

‘If it happens, you’ll know it.’

After Charlotte had been given the thumbs up by the crewmen checking her suit, the commodore removed a cigar box-sized metal device from the racks and clipped it onto the front of her suit, pulling a rubber cable out from the device and connecting it to her helmet. She noticed that the commodore had a similar arrangement on his own diving suit. ‘The voice line allows us to speak direct-like to each other without anyone earwigging in on our conversation. This box, though, will allow you to hear what the seanore are saying in the water and project your voice back out. When you talk, hold your hand over your heart, so people know it’s your voice coming over the phones. You forget to do that, the seanore will think you’re lying or trying to hide something. It shows your hand is away from your knife and the trigger of a shock-spear.’

‘Seanores can speak our language?’

‘Those from the race of man among the nomads can; the others, when it suits. Anything you hear that sounds like words, the nomads call babble-tongue. If you hear singing over your box, that’s what they call far-voice. Sounds produced by pushing an air stream in different directions within their respiratory track. I can understand much of it, but I sound like a blessed whistling kettle when I try to speak it. If you hear far-voice, they’re calling to each other over a grand old distance.’

He handed Charlotte a slightly shorter version of his own shock-spear while the crewmen poked and probed her diving suit to check she was airtight and shipshape. The weapon had a half moon curl of a trigger, enough space for even her gloved hand to slip around it. ‘I’ve never used one of these before.’

‘Act as if you have and you won’t have to. That rebreather pack of yours is seanore, handed down the generations. Remember this, treat it as if it’s the most valuable thing you own, and that the only way someone should get you out of it is to cut your corpse off it.’

Charlotte nodded, ignoring the twinge of guilt stabbing at her. The life he was describing sounded uncomfortably similar to gypsy society. Proud and independent and distrustful of outsiders, wild and free. And one she had already forsaken for the comforts of the capital. The Eye of Fate throbbed between her breasts, reminding her that it had prior owners.
Not my first theft. Not my last.

Following Commodore Black’s lead, Charlotte slipped into the airlock pool in the middle of the floor. Once inside, she watched the iron door closing over her head, before a similar one opened by her feet. The commodore checked the buoyancy adjuster on her belt and they exited together, accompanied by a fizzing along the sides of their rebreather packs. Whatever alchemy the device’s innards was working, separating oxygen from the surrounding water, it seemed to activate on contact with the ocean.

If the slope of rock the
Purity Queen
was drifting over was a hill, the plain below them lay covered by an underwater forest, fronds of red, orange and green kelp climbing as high as twenty feet amidst clumps of hydrophyic plants attached to flotation sacs, coral reefs snaking through it all like veins. Only shoals of orange fish darting above the wavering forest indicated that the vista was submerged, not a scene from the valleys of home. The two of them swam over the forest, slanting rays of light from the surface illuminating the brass of their tanks. To Charlotte, connected to the commodore by the umbilical-like cord of the voice line, this felt like flying, moving solely through the gentle motion of the rubber flippers on her feet. Curious fish wheeled in to watch her before vanishing as her hand reached out towards them. The water was warm too. A reminder that the magma of the Fire Sea wasn’t so far off to the north. Before long, the slope where the double-hulled catamaran-shaped silhouette of the
Purity Queen
was floating disappeared out of sight, and only the submerged forest was left stretching out in all directions.

It almost seemed a sacrilege to break the spell of the place by speaking, but Charlotte, spooked by the alien immensity of the scenery, felt a need to fill the silence. ‘How do you know the seanore are close?’

‘Look down there, lass …’

She followed the thrust of his diving glove. Rising out of the kelp arched a dome composed of white bones lashed together by seaweed chord.

‘It’s the remains of a whale hunted down by a clan.’

‘Was that the site of their camp?’

‘The seanore leave them behind as a frame for coral to settle around; keeps the forests fresh and growing. Nothing is wasted down here. What can’t be used is returned.’

Similar to the care Madam Leeda used to take removing all signs of their presence in the woods before moving her gypsy caravan on. Or had that been self-preservation to make sure she and Charlotte weren’t followed? There was no mistaking the seanore camp when the two of them came across it, visible in the distance as a series of shadows swaying above the kelp heads. As they swam closer, Charlotte saw the shapes were a series of spherical nets anchored to the forest by lines of kelp rope, nets teeming with large silvery fish and minded by dolphins circling the catch as though they were shepherds’ dogs. Beneath the nets the forest had been felled, the seabed anchoring a varied collection of structures that could best be described as air-filled tents, canvas bubbles tied together by ropes and webbing. In their lee were other structures set into the seabed. Not air-filled, but canvas stretched over frameworks that might have been made of bamboo-like material harvested from the underwater forest. Moving around the assorted structures were hundreds of swimmers, and from their shapes, Charlotte could see that the commodore’s description of the sea nomads as a society as multiracial as Jackals’ own was no exaggeration. As well as human-shaped figures weighed down by helmets and rebreathers, there were figures that had to be related to gill-necks, although a lot less ferocious-looking than their images from the lewd works of popular fiction suggested. Swimming through their midst were some of the other races that the commodore had described back on board the
Purity Queen
. Sea lion-shaped creatures beating their way through the camp with a powerful mermaid-like tail and arms that seemed too thin to be holding the objects they carried. Heavy, clumsy things that resembled six-legged salamanders, their arms webbed with wing-like skins and working on repairing the fish nets with a surprising level of dexterity. Other beasts that might have been goblinized gill-necks, pointed snout, large eyes, hooked teeth and an oversized proboscis that covered the smooth hairless skin of their lips.

The pair didn’t have to signal the nomad camp, their presence was noticed almost immediately, the tame fish-keeping dolphins arrowing in towards the two intruders. Followed by sudden flurries of activity inside the camp as they realized the intruders might be scouts from an approaching rival clan.

‘Stay still now,’ the commodore whispered to Charlotte, the hushed tones unnecessary since they were still connected by the voice line. Charlotte noticed that the commodore was already covering his heart with his right hand when he talked. ‘Keep your hands away from your shock-spear when they approach.’

The dolphins approached, making loops around Charlotte, the speed of their movement pushing her down towards the kelp forest – her chest-mounted speaker box supplying a series of rapid clicking noises from the creatures. Others were approaching from the camp, seanore armed with shock-spears that looked identical to the weapons the commodore and Charlotte carried slung across their backs.

Charlotte’s sound box picked up their voices passed up to her helmet. ‘Pah, it is not the Clan Coudama, they are surface dwellers.’

‘U-boat traders from the world above.’

‘We do not trade. What belongs to the sea stays in the sea.’

‘We are not from the Clan Coudama,’ spoke the commodore, ‘or any other clan. Nor do we come as traders. If you have not the eyes to recognize Jared Black then take me to Poerava.’

‘Poerava no longer rules the Clan Raldama,’ came the voice of one of the seanore.

‘Is that so? Then we’ll settle for whoever sits as chief of the clan.’

A song-like wailing came over the sound box and the commodore answered with a similar burst of sound.

‘There are children who speak with a better accent,’ said the gill-neck. ‘You who claim to be seanore and issue commands as though you issue edicts.’

‘I speak with my heart, clansman. Now, you just see before you an old white beard and a young girl. If your new chief scares easy enough to be shy of us, then just be saying it and we’ll be on our way.’

‘It’s obvious you haven’t been around the Clan Raldama for a long time, white-haired surface dweller. Come in – but let us see if you thank me for the invite later.’

Seanore hung in the water around them as Charlotte and the commodore made their way into a clearing inside the kelp forest. She noted that some of the tethered buildings had air inside, swelled out, as though the nomads had decided to stake a series of balloons in their midst. The buildings constructed on the seabed, though, were obviously for the nomads’ gills-bearing members – white whalebone frames stretched over with elasticized fabric and shielded with interlocking shells laid over the framework. The shells were a rainbow, mottled and ringed with dancing colours. As Charlotte looked closer, she saw they’d belonged to crustaceans, repurposed for the camp and hung as shields on the surface of the collapsible constructions.

A group of nomads emerged from one of these larger buildings – two gill-necks and one human swimmer in a suit similar to Charlotte and the commodore’s, except that the newcomer had a mohican-like wedge of spiny bush attached to the back of her helmet’s brass skull. A female face was visible under the clear crystal of the helmet. The first of the gill-necks was a large male, green-scaled-shoulders as broad as a weightlifter’s, his mail-like tunic clinging to an expansive, muscled chest. The other gill-neck was a female, her face hidden by a golden mask, a forehead covered by swirls of curling tentacles moulded into the metal for hair.

‘
Them
. Well, this is starting out grand,’ Charlotte heard the commodore whisper over the voice line. So, he recognized the clan’s new leaders.

‘I wondered if it was you,’ said the old female, ‘when they said a surface dweller was asking for Poerava.’

‘Poerava passed seasons ago,’ said the large male gill-neck. ‘I lead the clan now.’

‘And a tale in the telling that must be, Vane. You were a wild young buck in my day, always sailing close to being banished by Poerava.’

‘She was old and tired even back then. Too confused to see what a liar and a dark-heart you were.’

‘Who is this Vane?’ whispered Charlotte over the voice line. ‘He sounds like he hates you.’

‘As he should,’ replied the commodore. ‘His father died out hunting with me. We were cut off and became prey ourselves when a pack of tiger crabs turned up.’

‘Do not whisper to each other like thieves,’ Vane’s voice boomed over the speakers. ‘You have come here to speak to the clan leader, you shall speak to me.’

‘Hear him out,’ urged the female gill-neck. ‘He was of the clan once.’

‘Thank you, Tera,’ said the commodore. ‘As surprised as I am to see Vane with the chieftain’s trident, it surprises me not a jot to find you as the clan’s wise-woman.’

‘Wise enough to remember my predecessor’s warnings about your honeyed tongue, Jared silver-beard.’

‘I could’ve told you that,’ said the human woman.

‘Wasn’t it you who said to me that our life underneath the waves was never fêted to be, Maeva? Too much air in my veins, you said.’

‘Saying goodbye might have been an expected courtesy,’ said Maeva. There was a resigned tone in the old woman’s voice, as if she’d expected no better. ‘It was I that fished you out of the broken hull of your ravaged u-boat. I that ministered you back to life. Did I not deserve better?’

‘Always better than me, lass,’ said the commodore.

‘You owe her a life debt,’ said Vane, the muscled arms of the leader bunching in anger. ‘You owe my family one, also. How many others among the Clan Raldama?’

‘I had trouble following in my wake,’ said the commodore. ‘I had to flee to Cassarabia. One of the wicked surface traders who’d come among us recognized me as a royalist rebel. If I had stayed, I would have an ocean full of life debts, and a corpse is only good for paying back carrion.’

The wise-woman, Tera, danced from side to side in the water. ‘Do you not have trouble following you now, Jared silver-beard? I can scent it on you like blood leaking from your pores, calling every shark and tiger crab in the territory to us.’

‘It’s brewing up a storm, Tera. But I fear it’s coming your way whether you heed my warnings or not.’

‘Enough!’ cried Vane, jabbing out with the clan leader’s trident. ‘Go now, back to your iron vessel, full of surface air and surface dwelling scum. I smell the gas from its engines fouling our forest’s waters.’

The commodore shook his head. ‘I claim the right of admittance to the clan as one who was once seanore, and protection for me and the girl.’

Maeva’s voice spat over the speaker. ‘Take your old carcass and your fancy piece’s back to the surface. Your time among us ended long ago.’

‘I claim the right of admittance,’ insisted the commodore. He pointed at Tera. ‘Is that within clan law?’

‘It is.’

‘Then I shall take my life debt from you,’ said Vane. ‘Your claim is accepted.’

‘What does he mean?’ Charlotte asked.

‘A duel, lass,’ the commodore said over the voice line. Then he switched to the public speaker. ‘Name your champion.’

‘I will not fight with a champion,’ laughed Vane. ‘And neither will you two. You shall
both
fight, you and your young surface dweller here.’

‘This is between you and me, Vane. Leave the lass out of it.’

‘Two seek admittance to the clan, two shall fight!’

‘Just my old bones for the clan, then, Vane. Charlotte, make your way back to the
Purity Queen
.’