The Scar Page 4

  Johannes shared his cabin with Gimgewry, the failed merchant, a man crippled with the understanding of his own inadequacy, who eyed Bellis with miserable lust. Johannes was never lascivious. He seemed to think always of other things before he had a chance to notice Bellis’ attractions.

  It was not that she was seeking to be approached—she would spurn him quickly if he did court her. But she was used to men trying to flirt with her—usually only for a short time, until they realized that her cool demeanor was not an act they could persuade her to drop. Tearfly’s company was frank and unsexual, and she found it disconcerting. She wondered briefly if he might be what her father had called an invert, but she saw no more sign that he was attracted to any of the men on board than he was to her. And then she felt vain for wondering.

  There was a glimmer of something like fear in him, she thought, when an insinuation hung between them. Perhaps, she thought, he’s no interest in such matters. Or perhaps he’s a coward.

  Shekel and Tanner traded stories.

  Shekel already knew many of Crawfoot’s Chronicles, but Tanner knew them all. And even those that Shekel had heard before Tanner knew variations of, and he narrated them all well. In turn Shekel told him about the officers and passengers. He was full of scorn for Gimgewry, whose frantic masturbation he had heard through the privy door. He found the vacantly avuncular Tearfly enormously dull, and he was nervous of Captain Myzovic, but blustered and told lies about him wandering the decks drunk.

  He lusted after Miss Cardomium. He liked Bellis Coldwine—’Cold ain’t the fucking word, though,” he said, “for Miss Black-and-blue.”

  Tanner listened to the descriptions and insinuations, laughing and tutting where appropriate. Shekel told him the rumors and fables that the sailors told each other—about the piasa and the she-corsairs, Marichonians and the scab pirates, the things that lived below the water.

  Behind Tanner stretched the long darkness of the hold.

  There was a constant scavenging fight for food and fuel. It wasn’t just leftover meat and bread: many prisoners were Remade with metal parts and steam engines. If their boilers went out, they were immobilized, so anything that might burn was hoarded. In the far corner of the chamber stood an old man, the pewter tripod on which he walked locked solid for days. His furnace was dead cold. He ate only when someone bothered to feed him, and no one expected him to live.

  Shekel was fascinated by the brutality of that little realm. He watched the old man with avid eyes. He saw the prisoners’ bruises. He glimpsed peculiar double silhouettes of men coupling in consent or rape.

  He had run a gang in Raven’s Gate, back in the city, and he was worried about what would happen to them now, without him. His first-ever theft, aged six, had netted him a shekel piece, and the nickname had stuck. He claimed that he could not remember any other name. He had taken this job on the ship when his gang’s activities, which included the occasional burglary, had attracted too much attention from the militia.

  “Another month and I’d have been in there with you, Tanner,” he said. “Ain’t a lot in it.”

  Tended by the ship’s thaumaturges and wyrdshipmen, the meteoromancing engine by Terpsichoria’s bowsprit displaced air in front of the ship. The ship’s sails bowed out to fill the vacuum; pressure billowed in from behind. They made good speed.

  The machine reminded Bellis of New Crobuzon’s cloudtowers. She thought of the huge engines jutting over the Tar Wedge roofscape, arcane and broken. She felt a hard longing for the streets and canals, for the size of the city.

  And for engines. Machines. In New Crobuzon they had surrounded her. Now there was only the little meteoromancer and the mess-hall construct. The steam engine below made the whole of Terpsichoria a mechanism, but it was invisible. Bellis wandered the ship like a rogue cog. She missed the utilitarian chaos she had been forced to leave.

  They were sailing a busy part of the sea. They passed other ships: in the two days after they left Qé Banssa, Bellis saw three. The first two were little elongated shapes at the horizon; the third was a squat caravel that came much closer. It was from Odraline, as the kites it flew from its sails announced. It pitched wildly in the choppy sea.

  Bellis could see the sailors aboard it. She watched them swing in the complex rigging and scramble the triangular sails.

  The Terpsichoria passed barren-looking islands: Cadann, Rin Lor, Eidolon Island. There were folktales concerning every one, and Johannes knew them all.

  Bellis spent hours watching the sea. The water so far east was much clearer than that near Iron Bay: she could see the smudges that were huge schools of fish. The off-duty sailors sat with their legs over the side, angling with crude rods, scrimshawing bones and narwhal tusks with knives and lampblack.

  Occasionally the curves of great predators like orca would breach in the distance. Once, as the sun went down, the Terpsichoria passed close to a little wooded knoll, a mile or two of forest that budded from the ocean. There was a clutch of smooth rocks off the shore, and Bellis’ heart skidded as one of the boulders reared and a massive swan’s neck uncoiled from the water. A blunt head twisted, and she watched the plesiauri paddle lazily out of the shallows and disappear.

  She became briefly fascinated with submarine carnivores. Johannes took her to his cabin and rummaged among his books. She saw several titles with his name on the spine: Sardula Anatomy; Predation in Iron Bay Rockpools; Theories of Megafauna. When he found the monograph he was looking for, he showed her sensational depictions of ancient, blunt-headed fish thirty feet long; of goblin sharks with ragged teeth and jutting foreheads; and others.

  On the evening of the second day out of Qé Banssa, Terpsichoria sighted the land that rimmed Salkrikaltor: a jagged grey coastline. It was past nine in the evening, but the sky, for once, was absolutely clear, and the moon and her daughters shone very bright.

  Despite herself, Bellis was awed by this mountainous landscape, all channeled through by wind. Deep inland, at the limits of her vision, she could see the darkness of forest clinging to the sides of gulleys. On the coast the trees were dead, salt-blasted husks.

  Johannes swore with excitement. “That’s Bartoll!” he said. “A hundred miles north there’s Cyrhussine Bridge, twenty-five damned miles long. I hoped we might see that, but I suppose it would have been asking for trouble.”

  The ship was bearing away from the island. It was cold, and Bellis flapped her thin coat impatiently.

  “I’m going inside,” she said, but Johannes ignored her.

  He was staring back the way they had come, at Bartoll’s disappearing shore.

  “What’s going on?” he murmured. Bellis turned back sharply. The frown was audible in his voice. “Where are we going?” Johannes gesticulated. “Look . . . we’re bearing away from Bartoll.” The island was now little more than an unclear fringe at the edge of the sea. “Salkrikaltor’s that way—east. We could be sailing over the cray within a couple of hours, but we’re heading south . . . We’re heading away from the commonwealth . . .”

  “Maybe they don’t like ships passing overhead,” Bellis said, but Johannes shook his head.

  “That’s the standard route,” he said. “East from Bartoll gets you to Salkrikaltor City. That’s how you get there. We’re heading somewhere else.” He drew a map in the air. “This is Bartoll and this is Gnomon Tor, and between them, in the sea . . . Salkrikaltor. Down here, where we’re heading now . . . there’s nothing. A line of spiky little islands. We’re taking a very long way around to Salkrikaltor City. I wonder why.”

  By the next morning, several other passengers had noticed the unusual route. Within hours, word spread among the cloistered little corridors. Captain Myzovic addressed them in the mess. There were almost forty passengers, and all were present. Even pale, pathetic Sister Meriope and others similarly afflicted.

  “There is nothing to be concerned about,” the captain assured them. He was clearly angry at being summoned. Bellis looked away from him, out of the windows.
Why am I here? she thought. I don’t care. I don’t care where we’re going or how we damn well get there. But she did not convince herself, and she stayed where she was.

  “But why have we deviated from the normal route, Captain?” someone asked.

  The captain exhaled angrily. “Right,” he said. “Listen. I am taking a detour around the Fins, the islands at the southern edge of Salkrikaltor. I am not obliged to explain this action to you. However . . .” He paused, to impress upon the passengers how privileged they were. “Under the circumstances . . . I must ask you all to observe a degree of restraint, as regards this information.

  “We will be circumnavigating the Fins before reaching Salkrikaltor City, so that we might pass some of New Crobuzon’s holdings. Certain maritime industries. Which are not public knowledge. Now, I could have you confined to cabins. But then you might see something from the portholes, and I’d rather not let loose the rumors that would result. So you are free to go above, to the poop-deck only. But. But I appeal to you as patriots and as good citizens to exercise discretion about what you see tonight. Am I clear?”

  To Bellis’ disgust, there was a slightly awed silence. He’s stupefying them with pomposity, she thought, and turned away with her contempt.

  The waves were broken by an occasional rock tusk, but nothing more dramatic. Most of the passengers had congregated at the back of the ship, and they gazed eagerly over the water.

  Bellis kept her eyes to the horizon, irritated that she was not alone.

  “Do you think we’ll know when we see whatever it is?” asked a clucking woman Bellis did not know, and whom she ignored.

  It grew dark and much colder, and some of the passengers retired below. The mountainous Fins dipped in and out of visibility at the horizon. Bellis sipped mulled wine for warmth. She became bored, and watched the sailors instead of the sea.

  And then, at around two in the morning, with only half the passengers left on deck, something appeared in the east.

  “Gods above,” Johannes whispered.

  For a long time it remained a forbidding, unreadable silhouette. And then, as they approached, Bellis saw that it was a huge black tower that reared from the sea. An oily light flared from its peak, a spew of dirty flame.

  They were almost upon it. A little over a mile away. Bellis gasped.

  It was a platform suspended above the sea. More than two hundred feet long on each side, it hung immensely, its concrete weight poised on three massive metal legs. Bellis could hear it pounding.

  Waves broke against its supports. It had a skyline as intricate and twisted as a city’s. Above the three leg-pillars was a cluster of seemingly random spires, and cranes moving like clawed hands; and over them all a huge minaret of girders soared and drooled fire. Thaumaturgic ripples distorted the space above the flame. In the shadows under the platform, a massive metal shaft plunged into the sea. Lights glimmered from its built-up levels.

  “What in the name of Jabber is that?” Bellis breathed.

  It was awesome and extraordinary. The passengers were gaping like fools.

  The mountains of the southernmost Fin were a shadow in the distance. Near the base of the platform were predatory shapes: ironclad ships patrolling. Lights flashed in a complex staccato from the deck of one of them, and there was a corresponding burst from the bridge of the Terpsichoria.

  From the deck of the fabulous structure, a klaxon sounded.

  They were passing away from it now. Bellis watched it dwindle, venting flame.

  Johannes remained still with astonishment.

  “I have no idea,” he said slowly. It took a moment for Bellis to realize he was answering her question. They kept their eyes on the enormous shape in the sea for as long as they could make it out at all.

  When it was gone they walked in silence toward the corridor. And then, as they reached the door into the cabins, someone behind them shouted.

  “Another!”

  It was true. Miles in the distance, a second colossal platform.

  Bigger than the first. It loomed on four legs of weatherbeaten concrete. This one was sparser. There was one fat, squat tower rising from each corner, and a colossal derrick at its edge. The structure growled like something alive.

  Again came a lightflash challenge from the thing’s defenders, and again the Terpsichoria responded.

  There was a wind, and the sky was cold as iron. In the shallows of that bleak sea the edifice roared as the Terpsichoria slipped by in darkness.

  Bellis and Johannes waited another hour, their hands numb, their breath coiling out of them in visible gusts, but nothing else appeared. All they could see was the water, and here and there the Fins, serrated and unlit.

  Chainday 5th Arora 1779. Aboard the Terpsichoria

  As soon as I entered the captain’s office this morning, it was clear that something had angered him. He was grinding his teeth, and his expression was murderous.

  “Miss Coldwine,” he said, “in a few hours we will be arriving at Salkrikaltor City. The other passengers and crew will be granted a few hours’ leave, but I’m afraid there’ll be no such luxury for you.”

  His tone was neutral and dangerous. His desk was cleared of paraphernalia. This disturbed me, and I cannot explain why. Usually he is surrounded by a bulwark of detritus. Without it there was no buffer between us.

  “I will be meeting with representatives of the Salkrikaltor Commonwealth, and you will translate. You have worked with trade delegations—you know the formula. You will translate into Salkrikaltor Cray for the representatives, and their translator will render their words into Ragamoll for me. You listen carefully to make sure of him, and he’ll be listening to you. That ensures honesty on both sides. But you are not a participant. Do I make myself entirely clear?” He labored the point like a teacher. “You will not hear anything that passes between us. You’re a conduit, and nothing more. You hear nothing.”

  I met the bastard’s eye.

  “Matters will be discussed of the highest security. On board a ship, Miss Coldwine, there are very few secrets. Mark me.” He leaned toward me. “If you mention what is discussed to anyone—to my officers, your puking nun, or your close friend Dr. Tearfly—I will hear of it.”

  I am sure I do not need to tell you that I was shocked.

  Thus far I have avoided confrontation with the captain, but his anger made him capricious. I will not appear weak to him. Months of bad feeling is a smaller price than to cower strategically whenever he comes close.

  Besides which I was enraged.

  I put frost in my voice.

  “Captain, we discussed these matters when you offered me this post. My record and references are clear. It is beneath you to question me now.” I was very grand. “I am not some press-ganged seventeen-year-old for you to intimidate, sir. I will do my job as contracted, and you will not impugn my professionalism.”

  I have no idea what had angered him, and I do not care. The gods can rot his bastard hide.

  And now I sit here with the “puking nun”—although in fact she seems a little better, and has even simpered about taking a service on Shunday—and finish this letter. We are approaching Salkrikaltor, where I will have my chance to seal it and leave it, to be picked up by any New Crobuzon ship passing. It will reach you, this long farewell, only a few weeks late. Which is not so very bad. I hope it finds you well.

  I hope that you miss me as I miss you. I do not know what I will do without this means to connect me with you. It will be a year or more before you hear from me again, before another ship steams or sails into the harbor at Nova Esperium, and think of me then! My hair long and braided with mud, no doubt, abjuring clothes, marked with sigils like some savage shaman! If I still remember how to write, I will write to you then, and tell you of my time, and ask what it is like in my city. And perhaps you will have written to me, and you will tell me that all is safe, and that I can come home.

  The passengers debated excitedly over what they had seen the previous night. B
ellis scorned them. The Terpsichoria passed through the Candlemaw Straits and into the calmer water of Salkrikaltor. First the lush island of Gnomon Tor loomed into view, and then, before five in the afternoon, Salkrikaltor City came over the horizon.

  The sun was very low and the light was thick. The shoreline of Gnomon Tor rose green and massive a few miles north. In a horizontal forest of lengthening shadows, the towers and rooftops of Salkrikaltor City broke the waves.

  They were rendered in concrete, in iron, rock and glass, and in sweeps of hardy cold-water coral. Columns spiraled with walkways, linked by spine-thin bridges. Intricate conical spires a hundred feet high, dark square keeps. A mass of contrary styles.

  The outlines of the skyline were a child’s exuberant sketch of a reef. Organic towers bulged like tubeworm casts. There were analogs of lace corals—high-rise dwellings that branched into scores of thin rooms—and squat many-windowed arenas like gargantuan barrel sponges. Frilled ribbons of architecture like fire coral.

  The towers of the submerged city rose a hundred feet above the waves, their shapes uninterrupted. Huge doorways gaped at sea level. Green scum marks marked the height of a tide that would cover them.

  There were newer buildings. Ovoid mansions carved from stone and ribbed with iron, suspended above the water on struts that jutted from the submerged roofscape. Floating platforms topped with terraces of square brick houses—like those of New Crobuzon—perched preposterously in the sea.

  There were thousands of cray, and a fair number of humans, on the walkways and bridges at water level, and way above. Scores of flat-bottomed barges and boats puttered between the towers.

  Oceangoing ships were docked at the town’s outskirts, tied up to pillars in the sea. Cogs and junks and clippers, and here and there a steamship. The Terpsichoria approached.

  “Look there,” someone said to Bellis, and pointed downward—the water was absolutely clear. Even in the waning light Bellis could see the wide streets of Salkrikaltor suburbs far below. They were outlined with cold-looking streetlights. The buildings stopped at least fifty feet from the surface, to ensure clearance for the ships that passed above them.