The Incorruptibles (20 page)

Beleth raised his hand and spoke a word very clearly. ‘Invado!’

And suddenly the pressure was gone. The room was different, yet it hadn’t changed at all. The
orbis argenta
still glowed but the viscous black had vanished, and the darkness in the room had reverted to the wholly ordinary darkness of the
Cornelian
at night.

Beleth stepped forward, out of his own circle, and glanced at Fisk. Fisk had his pistol drawn and was blinking rapidly.

‘The danger is, if not gone, relocated for the moment, Mr Fisk.’ He motioned to the six-gun. ‘You can put that away. Be thankful you showed enough restraint not to fire it.’

When Fisk spoke, his voice was raw. ‘Why’s that?’ he said.

Beleth sighed and shook his head. ‘Just be glad, Mr Fisk.’ He turned and knelt near the hand. It was no longer the grey of decaying flesh. It had turned glossy and obsidian, as though dipped in ink. It didn’t take an engineer to figure what the hand possessed.

‘Mr Fisk, I believe your new friend is waiting for you now. You must pick it up.’

‘That red man. He the one in the hand now?’

‘Yes.’

‘And when we find Isabelle, he’ll be released?’

‘Yes. That is his impetus to assist you. The promise of release. And help you he will. He will do anything to be freed.’

‘Once he’s unbound, he’ll be loosed?’

Beleth nodded gravely. ‘The
daemon
in the hand is a minor one—’

I laughed, and even I could hear the panic in my voice. ‘Nothing minor about that son of a whore …’ I stopped, looked at Livia.

She was still pale but she let a smile touch her lips and said, ‘Do not worry about my sensibilities, Shoestring. He’s an abomination.’

Beleth stared avidly at the hand. ‘Nice work there, I must say. The
daemonic
vestment is almost fully transmuted.’ He stood up, stepped away. ‘As I was saying, the
daemon
in the hand is a minor one. The red man is to Gooseberry as a candle flame is to an inferno.’

‘Ia help us,’ said Fisk. ‘You’re shitting me.’

‘I shit you not.’

Fisk walked to the centre of the
orbis argenta
. He looked from me to Livia to Beleth. Then he slowly reached down and picked up the hand.

For a moment pain and despair washed over his face. He gasped, and looked at the room as though he was seeing other things, other vistas than what stood before him. His body twisted as though from invisible blows. And then I saw a thing I’d seen many, many times before.

Fisk set his jaw.

It was a small thing. A nothing in the face of the infernal. But he gritted his teeth, locked his jaw, and straightened his shoulders. It might have been a terrible weight he bore, but – Ia damn it – he would bear it.

It made me smile. Fisk and me sure weren’t simple scouts no more. We’d experienced so much, so quickly – Livia loving Fisk, this cursed boat carrying the cursed engineer, Banty’s death, the warpath
vaettir
. He was a centurion now and I was – what was I? A torturer’s assistant? – an evil man?

Fisk caught my stare, nodded to me. And then, in utter seriousness, winked.

It was as though he said,
Shoe, I got this damned thing.

I looked at the blackened
daemon
hand he held.

I thought,
You sure do.

TWENTY-THREE

The morning that a lascar walked from the west to the east shore of the Big Rill both crew and passengers on the
Cornelian
felt a sinking despair, akin to the feeling of Hellfire.

Full winter had come, bringing with it the baying of wolves and the promise of stretchers.

The morning of our departure, lascars lowered the swing stages over the icy surface of the Big Rill. It had stopped snowing but the sky loured slate grey. Clouds raced across the face of the heavens, and the wind cut through the legionaries and lictors like a
daemon
-driven wheel-saw from a lumberyard. Men sank into their cloaks and jackets and huddled around braziers and in the lee of stacked johnboats, gripping carbines in numb fingers.

We had been long hours in preparation, the urge toward haste was fierce. Beleth and Samantha spent their time in his quarters, making the ship reek of brimstone and smelted silver and scorched holly. The stinks of an ammunitionist.

I spent my time tacking out the ponies while Fisk and Livia spent the daylight hours in discussion with Cornelius and Secundus. Fisk looked both wan and washed out, restless and antsy. As though he could never be comfortable – even though he bedded down with Livia each night. He wore the
daemon
hand around his neck on a silver chain – given him by Carnelia, strangely – and it became obvious to me that it had a weight that was only apparent to those of us who had been in Beleth’s chamber that night.

The night before our departure, Cornelius had feted us in the stateroom. Lupina served fresh bread and auroch swimming in thick ale-based gravy, honeyed cakes and many bottles of claret and glasses of whiskey.

But it was sombre, the dinner. Carnelia was subdued, and while Secundus scowled and looked askance at Fisk sitting so near and affectionately to Livia – either worried for her upcoming journey or disapproving of Livia and Fisk’s affection, I could not tell – he said nothing. Even Cornelius stayed sober. Skraeling, stroking his whiskers, offered to take up Hellfire and accompany us. Kliment told us of the river’s route, should we care to follow it wherever Fisk’s
daemon
hand led, and offered a pilot’s map of the Big Rill, all the way to Passasuego.

We all stood in the greatroom where Livia had removed Cornelius’ leg, smoking cigars and drinking last glasses of whiskey, discussing the final disposition of Agrippina when the senator made a last bid to keep his daughter on the
Cornelian.

‘I will have Secundus bring Metellus to trial for slandering your name. We can repair the damage done. Just stay with us.’

‘Yes, Livvie. Please stay.’ Carnelia, who seemed even more skittish and nervous recently, licked her lips and glanced at Fisk.

Cornelius also looked at Fisk, convinced he was the only reason his daughter was leaving.

Livia must have appropriated Gnaeus’ winter wear, because Fisk stood accoutred quite finely in new shirt, britches, leathers. But however finely he was dressed, the
daemon
hand hanging from the silver chain around his neck reminded us all that he was cursed.

Livia, who had ceased wearing the frills and flounces of Ruman society and taken up a wardrobe of thick leather riding skirts, knee boots, and wool vests over tunics, put her hand on the grip of the sawn-off shotgun strapped to her hip and shook her head sadly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I love you both, but there must be a Cornelian present. And we’ll be taking the
vaettir
.’

Beleth coughed. ‘I think not. I still have certain procedures I’d like to pursue regarding—’

‘No, Beleth.’ She made a chopping gesture with her hand. ‘You’ll have to slake your bloodlust in other ways. If there’s a chance the stretchers will trade Isabelle for the creature, we are going to take it.’ She turned to face him wholly, and her hand remained on the shotgun’s grip. ‘Samantha will be joining us as well.’

Beleth pushed his glasses back on his nose. ‘You can’t— Absolutely not! She is my apprentice!’ He paused, tugged at the bottom of his vest, and placed his hands in his pockets. ‘I apologize, Miss Livia, but Samantha must remain with me. I require her presence.’

Livia, face hard, shook her head. ‘No, Beleth. She
will
come with us and deal with the thing you put in the hand, when it is rejoined with Isabelle.’

‘She won’t be able to protect Fisk. He’s bound to this fate just as—’

‘Master,’ said Samantha, ‘there
are
things I can do to protect him.’ She stopped and then softly added, ‘As well you know.’

‘Mr Cornelius,’ Beleth said, his face flushed. ‘Samantha is my ward and apprentice.’ He pointed with his cigar at Livia. ‘I ask you to stop this nonsense.’

Cornelius looked from Livia to Beleth and then to Fisk. ‘Ah, then you would go in her place?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Cornelius.’

Maybe it was the tug of familial blood. Maybe it was the challenge inherent in the word “ridiculous”. Maybe it was a moment’s realization that he just plain didn’t like Beleth – found him a scurrilous and distasteful little shit of a man. Cornelius’ whiskers quivered, his mouth set in a hard line. He said, ‘Surely you wouldn’t put your own comfort and interests before the welfare of the Empire? Because were you to think of doing so, I might have to consider that as treason.’

Beleth laughed. ‘You can’t be serious. All we’re talking about is the welfare of a scout.’

‘A centurion,’ I said.

Cornelius said, ‘We’re talking about the welfare of an asset valuable to the Empire. There’s getting there, reclaiming Isabelle. And then there’s getting back with her alive.’

Beleth’s face went tight and angry. ‘I have always served you faithfully, Cornelius. To meet such treatment now—’ He set down his whiskey and dropped the cigar cherry down in the glass. It hissed as the liquor extinguished it. ‘To be stripped of my apprentice, one whom I’ve supported and guided over the years
at great expense
! Once we are near a settlement of any reasonable size, I will take my leave of you and search for another patron.’

Cornelius laughed. ‘You’ve never served anyone but yourself, Beleth. And you’ve done that amply.’ Cornelius poked Beleth in the stomach and then turned to Livia. ‘Feel free to shoot him, daughter.’

Livia said, ‘It is tempting.’

Beleth turned to leave. ‘I am serious, Cornelius. I have never been treated in this manner in my—’

‘Get used to it. Cimbri!’ He looked around until he found the tribune. ‘Escort Beleth to the vacant chambers at the end of this hall. Make sure he hasn’t a scrap of silver or sharp object on him. Then keep him there, under guard, until he learns his station.’

Cimbri nodded, and took Beleth’s arm roughly. ‘But how would I recognise that?’

Eyes rolling, Cornelius said, ‘I will alert you, Cimbri.’

Samantha cleared her throat. ‘Mr Cornelius, leaving my master unwarded for long periods might be unwise.’

‘Why is that, miss?’

‘He has enemies. Not all of whom are corporeal. Botched negotiations.’

The Senator laughed. ‘All the better.’

Beleth’s expression was blank, placid, if a little red. ‘Gooseberry will eat you all alive,’ he said calmly.

If he had seemed upset at Samantha’s reassignment and his treatment by Cornelius before, he showed no inkling of it now. There’s an old
dvergar
saying: “Fury gathers in stillness.” Two legionaries escorted him from the room.

That night I awoke to a great roar and the groaning of the ship’s hull. My water basin had overturned and as I went out into the hall I found Cimbri, Reeve, and Kliment looking about blearily in various states of undress, for was very early morn. I went back to my single shuttered window and unbolted it, getting a hard blast of cold air in my face. I stood and looked out upon the vista there. The moon shone bright and blue upon the snowy landscape. A webwork of cracks haloed the
Cornelian
, radiating out and away from the ship.

‘He’s banging at his walls again.’ The voice came from behind me, and I jumped. It was Kliment. He’d followed me back into my own room.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Oh, the old devil’s bound tight as a tick in our boat’s belly, he is. But he’s a feisty one, our Gooseberry. I’ve served on quite a few steamers and never seen a
daemon
as restless.’

‘You’ve seen him?’

‘’Course. I’m a pilot. Need to know every bit of my vessel. I take a peek at the bastard before every watch.’

‘What does he look like?’

Kliment tugged at his long johns, scratching his balls, and turned to leave.

‘Black fire,’ he said, going out into the hall. ‘Like a small column of black fire. Oily smoke and flames all tamped down into a little-bitty container. But when you close you eyes near him …’ He stopped at his door, yawned, shook his head. ‘He spans stars. And he ain’t pretty.’ He looked about with his lips puckered as though he wanted to spit in disgust, but there was no spittoon in sight. He swallowed. Then Kliment gave a little salute and said, ‘You’re lightin’ out of here in the mornin’, Mr Ilys. Get some rest.’ He disappeared into his room.

I wandered down the hall to check on Fisk and Livia. When I rapped on the door to their room, Livia greeted me in a nightgown. Her hair was wild, and she wore a worried expression.

‘Miss Livia, just wanted to check on you, make sure everything was all right.’

She tried to smile, but failed. ‘My thanks, but it is late and we have—’

‘That Shoe?’ came a voice from behind her.

She turned, looked back into the room. ‘Yes, he’s checking on us.’

‘Let him in.’

She did nothing for a long moment, and I couldn’t see her face. But eventually she pulled the door wide, exposing the room.

Fisk sat on the bed, reclining against a mound of pillows, shirtless and in breeches. The gun wound had been bandaged, but Fisk was white as bleached bone and thinner than I ever imagined possible, ribs standing out. His eyes were dark, circled in what almost looked like bruises.

Around his neck, the silver chain. The
daemon
hand hung on his chest like a black claw grasping at his heart.

‘He pulls me, Shoe. I can’t sleep.’

‘He?’

‘The Crimson Man.’

Livia moved toward him, sat down on the bed, and placed a damp cloth on his cheek.

‘Weren’t that bad a couple of days ago. He was there, you know, but only tugging lightly. And Ia bless Livia. My heart’s saviour. But tonight …’ He passed a hand over his eyes and exhaled, clearly exhausted. ‘Been a long week.’ He patted Livia on the leg and smiled weakly at me.

‘You think some cacique might help?’ I suggested.

He nodded. ‘Can’t hurt.’

I returned to my room, grabbed my flask of cacique. When I pushed back into the room, she was holding his face in her hands, kissing his closed eyelids.

‘Excuse me, ma’am.’

‘Oh … Shoe. Didn’t expect you to be quite so quick.’

Fisk’s eyes popped open. ‘Ah, thanks, pard.’ He took the flask and upended it into his mouth. He drank for a long while, until the flask was empty.

His arm dropped to his side, loose, ungainly. He closed his eyes.

‘Can’t he just take it off?’

Livia shook her head. ‘It would free …
him.
’

Ia-damn.

‘Know what I miss, Shoe?’ Fisk kept his eyes closed, but spoke in a voice half delirious, half pained.

‘What?’

‘Miss the sap of spring on the plain, green shoots everywhere. The fresh winds coming down from the heights. Wood smoke on the air, the scent of meat. Even you, telling your tales by the fire. Sage and sweetgrass and winterfat.’ He paused. ‘Horses champing and nickering, smell of dung. Sun on my skin, wind in my hair. Those are good things.’

Livia’s face collapsed, and she put her hand on Fisk’s chest. She wasn’t much for crying, that one. But she had a tough time hiding away the pain. Pain makes honest folk of us all.

‘I too miss the range. Drinking in New Damnation. Running scout on patrol. A simple life, that,’ I said, trying to follow his thoughts.

Fisk’s face clouded and he said, very low, ‘He pulls me, Shoe. I can’t rest while he’s with me.’

‘We’re leavin’ in the morning. We’ll find her.’

‘And then what? I think this is the end of us, Shoe. I want you to have this.’ He waved his hand at Livia, who went to his saddlebags and withdrew a large portfolio. She handed it to me.

Inside was a deed to a large farmstead, some hundred miles west of Fort Brust, on the edge of the Hardscrabble Territories on the banks of the Great Mammon River, signed by Lucullus and endorsed by numerous aediles from some office in the colony’s capital of Novorum.

In addition to the deed was a bank note for a half talent of gold.

‘Ia protect me, Fisk. This is a gift for a noble, not the likes of me.’

‘You’ve been a rock, pard. Never knew better.’

‘But—’

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I looked at Livia and tears stood welling in her eyes. She nodded, encouraging me to take it.

I dropped the portfolio on the table. ‘No.
Bullshit
. You’ve got this thing.
You’ve got it
. Never seen a tougher bastard than you, partner. We
will
get the girl, and Samantha
will
contain the Crimson Man. And then you can reclaim your land. You and Miss Livia will need somewhere to live.’

He laughed weakly. ‘You always was a good storyteller. Even when you were telling them to yourself.’ He rolled to his side. ‘He might let me sleep now. He knows we’re leaving in the morning. And he’s mighty happy about it.’

Livia stood up, followed me to the door.

When I stood outside, she tilted her head down and kissed me on the cheek and whispered, ‘You are a good friend, Shoe. You might not believe it, but what you said helped. You have my thanks.’

She shut the door, leaving me standing in my britches in the hall, breath coming in plumes.

My room was icy by the time I returned. I closed the window and latched it shut.

Falling asleep took a long time.

Needless to say, Beleth did not see us off. Reeve and Cimbri sat in watch over the man as he fulfilled his ammunitionist duties, and Samantha stepped in to make last inspections of the skeins of silver-threaded pipework and whatever arcane administrations the great
daemon
Gooseberry required, though she seemed very nervous to be doing so.