The Iron Ship (63 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

The Ship Sets Sail

O
N THE
23
RD
of Little, the
Prince Alfra
departed the docks of Karsa City, and set a course southwest.

A small crowd came out to see the ship cast off amid the pelting rain. A Major Tide had taken the sea almost as far as the Bottomhouse Quay, and from there muted cheers and the music of a soaked band competed with the drumming of the raindrops.

Greasy brown water heaved with a queasy swell, troubling the iron ship not at all, but sending those vessels attendant upon it bobbing up and down. Under an awning by the dockside sundry Kressinds and investors marked the occasion with the opening of sparkling Correadan wine. Trassan looked up to them. Arkadian Vand gave him a nod. Veridy by his side wept daintily into a handkerchief. His mother and father were absent, as was Guis, but Garten was present in his official capacity as Admiralty representative. Cassonaepia and Arvell were among the family party. He was extremely relieved that Ilona was nowhere to be seen. There was, of course, no way he could have fulfilled his promise to her. Guilty at his relief, he nevertheless preferred a little guilt to confronting the effects of his own cowardice.

“So your great adventure begins,” said Aarin to his brother. Rain dripped from the peak of his hood.

The whistles of the
Prince Alfra
let out a long, sorrowful blast.

“You are welcome to come with me all the way, brother,” said Trassan.

“Only as far as the Final Isle.”

Trassan nodded distractedly. The wheels of the ship excited the water, pulling it from the wharf. Glimmer steam whipped around the vessel. When the prow pointed seawards, Captain Heffi had the screw engage and the ship accelerated, rapidly outpacing those few vessels that chose to trail it. Within twenty minutes the last of them had been left behind. The Lockside, the Slot, and all of Karsa City were reduced to a collection of grey blocks on the shore. Half an hour after that, the rain hid the whole great metropolis. Only the cliffs remained visible, a black band that shrank above their wake.

To the southwest they went, passing the small space of open sea by Karsa City and into the teeming isles and islets of Karsa. Over five thousand, so it was reckoned, from the very smallest to islands the size of counties. In the towns and villages of these places, people gathered to watch the marvel of the age steam by. Not all were aware of the iron ship’s existence. More than one fishing smack made out of the
Prince Alfra
’s way as if pursued by the very largest of anguillons.

The tides were high for days, and they were able to take the most direct routes. The further south they went, the meaner the towns became, the rockier the islands, the poorer the people, until dry land shattered into a loose groupings of skerries and sea rocks. Atop some of these were the towers and hamlets of foreshoremen, those who made their living from the mudflats when the tide was at its lowest. All were fortified and hung with iron wards and silver charms. It was not unknown for the Drowned King’s men to come this far inland.

The towers became rarer. They passed the last on the 29th, a ruin scorched by recent fires. The run of Major Tides was done by then; the ruin stood on a black mountain whose summit was fringed with terrestrial grasses, the bulk of it was sea-stained stone dotted with hardy, semi-aquatic flora. The ship steamed through a canyon fringed with seaweed whose deeper parts the sea never relinquished. All eyes were on the dripping cliff tops around the ship. But they saw no sign of men nor of other threat.

The canyon widened. The sea proper opened before them, the true ocean. The seabed there was forever drowned. No tide of any magnitude would reveal it. Turbulence in the water betrayed the presence of anguillons, these abyssal giants come to the edge of the land to feed. One raised its head, and stared with cold eyes the size of cartwheels at the ship, gills pulsing behind its monstrous jaw. No matter how mighty, no anguillon could do aught against the
Prince Alfra
. The eel slipped back under the water into its own kingdom.

Fairer weather took hold; cloudy, dismal, but with no rain or wind. The ship performed beyond expectations. Free of the risk of rocks and shoals, they increased speed, cleaving the waters swiftly and left the isles behind them, all bar the last.

These things were remarked upon favourably, if with little celebration. The minds of all aboard were fixed on the future; to three days away, perhaps four, when the
Prince Alfra
would dare the Drowning Sea and its dread king.

Aarin, troubled by the errand he was tasked with and not wishing to be under the feet of others, took to spending his time at the ship’s prow. He made his way there in the mornings, and stayed there most of the day. Ahead and to all sides was nothing but the dark blue sea, wrinkled with waves capped with lines of blown spume. The ship was too large to be affected as much as a floatstone ship by the swell, but the roll of it as it plunged up and down each wave had been too much for Pasquanty. Discovering himself to be a poor sailor, he passed the day moaning in his bunk.

One day, when Karsa’s last islets were a memory forgotten somewhere over the horizon, Vols Iapetus joined him.

“I have seen you here every day,” he said. “I trust I am not intruding, Guider.”

Aarin endeavoured to be polite, but not welcoming, because he desired no company. “Not at all,” he said. Vols’ costume was not one Aarin associated with a true mage. He wore an expensively tailored, if threadbare, morning suit, grey gloves, a silk bicorn. He carried a cane, not a staff.

“Might I?” said Iapetus. He pointed his cane at the shelter Aarin stood beneath, a waxed tarpaulin suspended from the ship’s rigging.

Aarin’s nod was barely perceptible in his hood. Iapetus was grateful, and came to stand next to him.

“A good idea,” he said, looking up at the tarpaulin, “what with the weather we’ve been having.”

“A gift from the sailors.”

“That’s kind.”

“They are disturbed by my presence, I am a reminder of death. It is ill fortune to bring a Guider on a ship. All who die at sea that do not belong to the One God of the Ishmalani belong to the Drowned King. That is the treaty. This keeps me out of their way and out of their thoughts.”

“Ah,” said Iapetus awkwardly. He blinked owlishly at the stinging spray. “Do you place us at risk, Guider?”

“I have an errand at the Final Isle. My order has a monastery there. I have the appropriate credentials.” He let the amulet given him by Guider Triesko flash in his hand momentarily. “If there is a risk, it is from my brother’s audacity.”

“He is audacious, isn’t he?” said the mage. He had a peculiarly high voice, a slight build. Aarin had imagined the seed of Res Iapetus to grow mightier trees. “How do you find all this?” Vols tapped the deck lightly with his cane.

“My brother has built a fine ship, quite a marvel. I had not expected it to be so large.”

“Indeed not, but I was more interested in how you found the presence of so much iron. It took me a few weeks to learn how to bear it. You joined us the day we set sail, and have had no time to acclimatise yourself. You Guiders are mageborn also. Does it not make you ill?”

“I see, goodmage.” He took his hands from his sleeves. Clearly, he was not going to be rid of Iapetus easily. “I have enough sensitivity to perform my function as a Guider. My brother though—not Trassan, he has the talent of an iron bar, but Guis—he is true mageborn.” He tapped the rim of his eye socket below the white of his blind eye.

“An accident? I am sorry,” said Vols. “It takes us time to find our feet. Tragedy dogs our childhoods.” His brow creased. “But I do not recall a Kressind among my colleagues. There are few of us now, we know each other’s business to a tedious degree. I suppose he became a magister?”

“No. He is a playwright.”

“An unusual choice for a mageborn.”

“He never did find his feet, that is why. His mind is damaged, a problem of the nerves. He is prone to fits of anxiety.”

Understanding crossed Vols’ face. “Obsessive?”

“Yes.”

“A bad character trait in a mage. Or a good one.”

“He does not see it as so.”

“All we mages who remain are close to insane. The division between convincing oneself that something is entirely the case when it isn’t, and exerting enough will upon the stuff of creation around you so that reality itself is convinced to change to your desired vision is razor sharp. It cuts, and requires a keen sense of balance. To fall to the wrong side at any time leads to insanity on the one hand, or disaster on the other.” He raised a hand and waggled it. “Lunacy and destruction are never far from the acts of the mage. To be truly great one has to be utterly sure of who one is, where one is, to make the cloak of reality ripple to one’s design.”

“That sounds the antithesis of madness.”

“On the contrary. To appreciate the riddle of existence, and maintain one’s identity in the face of it requires an arrogance tantamount to lunacy. One has to be mad, from a certain point of view.”

Aarin examined the small man carefully. “You do not seem terribly mad yourself, Goodmage Iapetus.”

“That is why I am not among the great,” said the mage apologetically. “I have the name and the legacy it grants, but little talent of my own. I am much too sane.”

“I am sure it outstrips mine a thousandfold.”

“I do not mean false modesty,” Vols replied. “Nor to belittle your ability. But when one has the Goddriver as an ancestor, one has little hope of living up to the name.”

“Very true. What is your purpose here then?”

“I am not entirely useless. And I need the money.”

Vols’ words could have been the complaints of one who believes themselves short-changed by life, but he spoke with such frankness that Aarin found himself warming to him.

“Do you like it out here, on the ocean?” said Aarin.

“I love all wild places. All mages do. My own home is very remote. In cities magic of the will doesn’t work so well, there is too much iron, there are too many people. From the least aware dullard to the greatest mage, all of us exert our will upon the world to a degree. Mages have to fight a torrent of desires; it ever was a swim upstream, and grows worse the more the population grows. Never tell Ardovani, but our days are done. This is the age of the magister. Stable magic bound to devices, without active will of its own, or employed through precise ritual. That is the future. We mages are a relic. In the remote wildernesses of Stonscire I can pretend it is as it always has been.”

“Arkadian Vand believes magic has been tamed.”

“Oh, oh!” said Iapetus cheerily. “I never said that. No no no! Magic has lost too much of its mystique, I believe. The effects of cities has led to a certain sureness... People are careless in cities. Away in the villages, in the mountains, in the fields and woods where man’s will is not always paramount, people are more careful in what they say and do. Many old traditions die, but they were practiced for a reason. People see ghostings, they see the new glimmer devices, they believe magic to be something inert and useful, like a lump of coal—aside from a certain grubbiness, unthreatening until the fire within is kindled. They forget the wildness of magic. It and the beings it succours are treated with a dangerous lack of seriousness.”

Aarin thought on his own concerns, the change in the ghosts. But for all his talk on the matter, Vols Iapetus made no mention of this. His opinions were those of a man who mourns the past, not of one who fears for the future.

“It is the same for the Guiders,” Aarin said carefully. “In the city, people begin to forget the need for guidance to the beyond. And so our income falls, our college is half empty. The Dead God’s quarter lessens in ability. In the countryside they remember, but even there...”

“This age brings much benefit to us all,” said Vols. “But not everything it discards is worthless. Man is attempting to sidestep the riddle of life through rationality. The beginning of this was the banishment of the gods. For if one can master the gods, no task seems too great. You see, my great-grandfather brought about the beginning of the end for his own kind. The grand irony I believe is that the world cannot be mastered. Life is its own answer, it does not need solving, man is not necessary to it. I fear a correction may be overdue.”

Aarin tucked his chin deeper into his hood, chilled by the foreboding that Iapetus was right.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

In Pursuit of the Modalmen

R
EL LEANED ON
the pommel of his saddle. Aramaz stepped from foot to foot and let out a long croak.

“Hush now,” said Rel.

Wreckage was strewn all over the desert. Canvas from wrecked tents cracked in the wind. Lines and cables thrummed and moaned. No human voice was heard. The camp’s exact location was discernible only by the thickening density of shattered wood and iron. At the very centre the pioneer engine, a stout machine plated with silver, lay on its side. Bodies lay tangled with the wrecks of their homes, pale but otherwise untouched by death’s decay.

“I don’t see enough bodies, sir.” Dramion sniffed harshly, a ripping snort, and hawked up a gobbet of phlegm.

Veremond coughed in polite disapproval at Dramion’s manners. Merreas rode round the perimeter, dracon strutting. Their mounts were tense, eager to feed. Their heads strayed constantly in the direction of the carrion, necessitating constant correction from their riders.

Zorolotsev had dismounted, and led his dracon on a long rein as he walked on foot by the wrecked rail tracks, intent on the ground.

“Five days ago?” said Rel.

“An educated guess, captain,” said Veremond. “The last messenger came in to the supply station three days before that. Another was due four days ago.”

“Deamaathani, can you wave your hands a bit and get me a more accurate answer?”

“Please, Rel, don’t be so facile about my art.”