Infernal Machines Page 12

  I thought back to Hot Springs, when Croesus’ men tried to hang Fisk, who wore the hand around his neck. That town ended in flames, and the fire that burned through Fisk nearly consumed him. Fisk had caused the bully-boys of Hot Springs’ guns to fail – all the imps and daemonic presences within its awareness had been in its command. How would it play out if he who wore the daemon hand had an army at his back? He could neuter any force that came against him.

  There was a sound, the nicker of a horse, a cough. Praeverta appeared by a tree, and bedraggled dvergar followed after her. She cocked an eyebrow at me, squatting so near Beleth, conversing. She came nearer. I moved to replace the engineer’s gag and he laughed.

  ‘No,’ Praeverta said. ‘Stay your hand, dimidius. I would speak to the man.’

  ‘He’s got nothing to say but lies and mockery, Matve,’ I said.

  ‘No, Mister Ilys! I would talk to her. Hello, grandmother,’ he said. ‘My bindings are tight and I’ve not yet had supper.’

  Praeverta looked at two of her companions – Drugan, and the one they called the Wee Garrotte (nicknames seemed a pastime with this group) – in response they rummaged about in their gunnysacks and produced some hard tack and jerked auroch, then tossed it into Beleth’s lap.

  He sat there with this strange look upon his face. He was withered, yes, since I first knew him, and the weight loss seemed to have changed his once stolid and unremarkable looks into something more sinister. The glee, and wicked amusement, at everything we did was grating. Fisk had shortened the man a hand but he would not cease his mockery.

  ‘Grandmother, you seem interested in me. What would you like to know?’ Beleth asked.

  ‘Can you make guns? Can you fill rounds with Hellfire?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course. We learn this as apprentices.’ He smiled. ‘And I can teach you how. Have you tinkers? Have you metalsmiths and engravers? It has been my experience that the tinker dvergar—’

  Praeverta’s face clouded. ‘Do not speak that way about us. We are not tinkers. Or diggers. We are dvergar.’ She had no problem calling me dimidius, but in this case, I agreed with her.

  False consternation washed over Beleth. ‘Pardon me, grandmother. And did I not hear you say that you are vaettir? I imagine you’ll not want me to call you stretchers either, and it wouldn’t fit anyway, because nothing about you seems stretched.’

  ‘Except my patience,’ Praeverta said. ‘I have what I need to know.’ She looked at me. ‘Feed him and gag him when you’re done.’

  ‘And I thought we had come to an understanding!’ Beleth said, the mirth apparent in his voice. ‘We are fast friends, are we not, granny?’

  Praeverta shifted her rucksack and moved away, toward where her company built a fire.

  ‘Mister Ilys, please be so kind as to place the food in my mouth,’ Beleth said, voice pitching toward saccharine.

  I picked up the jerked auroch, took a bite, and replaced the gag.

  FOURTEEN

  They Called Us The Bloodless

  THE TYPHON THRUMMED, but all else was hushed. Even Fiscelion had fallen silent.

  Carnelia burst into the command, wild-eyed. ‘Have we gone underwater? Are we sinking?’ she asked. ‘The gun whipped about and faced the stern. I thought we were done for.’

  A spray of water came from above, where the peering device met the command centre’s ceiling. ‘No, not yet.’ His voice seemed worried. ‘She’s been banged up,’ Ysmay said, pulling his gaze from the Miraculous and glancing about, noting the various leaks. ‘And it’s possible we’ve lost the aft swivel, since it wasn’t shrouded and secure at descent. But yes, the Typhon is a new kind of ship, I dare say. She is submersible.’

  The implications of that began sinking in, figuratively and literally. Above the thrumming of the daemon-driven screws there was a susurration, the hiss of water slipping across the hull at great speed. Inside, the sprays of water hissed from rivets and seams loosened from the shelling.

  Tenebrae laughed. ‘I would not have believed it if you told me one of the old gods had come and rescued us from our pursuers’ guns.’

  ‘Believe it,’ Ysmay said. ‘Though we cannot stay down long. Maybe an hour, at most. It has to do with the air.’ He shrugged. ‘We will suffocate, even breathing this air, unless we surface and open the hatches.’

  ‘But even an hour! That is prodigal,’ I said. ‘How deep are we?’

  ‘The top of this device broaches the surface,’ Ysmay replied, patting the cylinder of the peering mechanism. ‘So twenty feet. Enough so that very little of our vessel is visible. I dare say our pursuers think us scuttled and sinking, thrice-damned.’

  We remained silent for a while, until Carnelia said, ‘I saw portholes! I want to see!’

  Ysmay said, ‘They are forward. Beyond the front deck gun, in the captain’s and first lieutenant’s quarters.’

  ‘Can you see anything?’ Carnelia asked.

  ‘A benthic view, to be sure. At this speed, you will not see much. But at slower speeds and nearer to shore—’

  ‘You said the Typhon is a littoral, Mister Ysmay,’ I said. ‘Will she withstand open sea?’

  ‘I do not think my response will matter much, Madame,’ he replied. ‘With all respect. For you will take her where you want her to go, will you not?’

  ‘Not if you tell me it is a sure death if we do,’ I said. ‘I would not kill us all.’

  He paused. I watched the thoughts turning like engineer’s gears behind his eyes, millstones grinding. ‘We will most likely die,’ he said.

  I blinked. ‘You are unsure. Keep this course and we’ll surface within the hour. Where is our pursuit? Can you see?’

  He swivelled about, turning the device toward the aft. ‘They have slowed. Most likely looking for debris where we “sank”.’

  I chewed my lip. ‘Continue as we are. Carnelia, Tenebrae, find out what amount of food stores we have. Mister Ysmay, is there anything else we’ll need for a long journey?’

  ‘Fresh water, for the engine, for us. The lascars had not yet refilled the water tanks at Rezzo, though I think there are rations aboard.’ He looked infinitely weary for a moment, and rubbed his face with an unsteady hand. ‘The Typhon has only a complement of nine, including lascars and officers, and so there will not be much food since she is, as you mentioned, a littoral, and not meant for long journeys without port. I designed her with a mind to patrolling the shores and bays around Rume.’

  ‘Yet she is able to submerge,’ I said.

  ‘Obviously,’ he responded, a touch of irritation creeping into his voice. ‘But—’

  ‘Should we be at open sea, and in a storm, could we not submerge, or at least prepare to? Would that not make us unsinkable?’

  ‘It is not that, Madame. There are certain stressors on a ship, especially in high swells, that never come into play in coastal hugging vessels. I do not know if the Typhon will withstand them, should she be in the thick. That nature of engineering does not fall within her purpose.’

  ‘I am repurposing her, Mister Ysmay,’ I said. I patted his arm, and he shied away from my touch, a look of horror coming over him. Still bloody, flaking brown, that hand. What could I do? I was a murderess, and his response was understandable. ‘Take heart that at the end of this journey, you will be released to do what you will, and in the interim, you’ll know the strength of your craft, and your design.’

  He turned back to the navigation of the Typhon.

  Lupina appeared again in the command room, absent Fiscelion. ‘I think he likes the sound,’ she said. ‘Once we went below, he gurgled and fell asleep on my breast. He’s forward, now.’

  ‘I need to check on him,’ I said. And, playing tag, I handed her my sawn-off; no words needed to be spoken there. She found a spot, out of the way, and watched Ysmay at his navigation, the weapon held loosely in her strong, capable hands. Ia bless the fortune that sent Lupina to me.

  I went forward, through the rounded doorways, and into the swivel cha
mber where Carnelia had been stationed only moments before. The gunnery controls faced the stern of the ship. A goodly amount of water – salty and cold – showered from the seam of the greased runners where the gun turned. Some of it fell upon the shells, some onto the grated floor to fall below into whatever sluiceway might be there.

  Tenebrae stood at the far door. ‘That is not good,’ he said, looking toward the roof of the chamber, from where the water emanated. ‘We need to resurface and deal with it soon. I have been watching it for a few moments and the flow has not increased.’ He gestured, and turned. ‘We have that, at least. Things aren’t becoming worse, every moment. Your son is this way.’

  Stepping through, I followed Tenebrae. We came to a brace of four doors, two on each side, and the end of the short hall. Through the first door on the right, a small chamber with a single bunk, a small desk, chest, and shelf full of books and rolled parchment – navigational maps, I assumed. On the bed, Fiscelion slumbered in a sprawl of blankets. On his back, he slept with pure abandon, legs at different angles, chubby arms open wide. Hands grasping at unseen things in his private dreamworld. Thankfully, the bunk had a rail around which Lupina had bundled clothes and a blanket in a makeshift wall to keep him from falling onto the floor. Above the desk, a porthole. Beyond it, blue-green sea and thousands of bubbles, whipping by. I could see no discernible features out in the benthic dark, no fish, no seaweed, no bladderwrack – nothing but dim water. The murmur of sea slipping by, louder now. And the hint of speed. Once, when I was a girl, I swam out into the Salonica surf, Mother watching from the shore, slaves clustered about, and dived as deep as I could. Father had put Mother aside by then, and I didn’t know where I belonged. Dispossessed. In the green deep, lungs expanding, I opened my eyes and they burned. I stretched for the surface to find the burliest slaves racing into the foam to get me. The flash of perception there, below, was cool and dim.

  ‘It might offer a view, were we not going full-bore for open sea,’ Tenebrae said, hushed, trying not to wake the baby.

  I gestured for him to follow me into the hall. ‘What of food,’ I asked, changing the subject. ‘Did you find any?’

  ‘Some. Dry goods. Casks of salt-pork. Beans. Potatoes. A crate of limes. Rum. Wine for the officers. Standard fare. I’ll show you.’ He gestured to the door facing the captain’s room – now shared by Fiscelion, Lupina and me. ‘This seems to be the engineer’s berth. Full of strange things. And here,’ he said, gesturing to the right, most forward door, ‘is the mess.’

  ‘And the last?’ I asked.

  ‘Lascar bunks,’ he said. ‘Just four, so I think they’d alternate use, which seems like a horror to civilians, but I can tell you, having trained with them as a praetorian, by the time you hit the mattress you’re so tired, you couldn’t care who had just vacated it. Or that it’s still warm.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ I said, lying. ‘The quantity of the food?’

  ‘Look for yourself,’ Tenebrae said, pushing open the door.

  I entered. There are many things in my life to that moment that had prepared me for our situation – the company of military men – almost all of my male counterparts, to a man; the society of commanders and those of high rank; the wealth required to have a lifelong familiarity with Hellfire; passing comfort with the machinery surrounding infernal combustion. Those are just a few. But none of it prepared me for such a simple task as taking inventory of food supplies.

  The mess was a larger chamber than the captain’s berth, and there was a table that could fit five men – two on each side and one on the end – with still enough room for the cook to prepare food and to serve. On the far wall, many swaying pots, skillets, framed above a stove and oven crafted of steel, it seemed, and built into the very fabric of the Typhon itself, with many runnels of tubing and pipes running away from it and disappearing into the ceiling and the wall in what looked like watertight fixtures.

  ‘There’s the larder,’ Tenebrae said, pointing. It was close in the mess, and as I moved to the opening of the pantry I banged my head against one of the pots hanging there and caught it before it clattered to the floor. The floors were painted in some thick naval tint – sea green – and did not have grates and a mysterious subflooring feet, or an armspan, below. But, having seen the piping running away from the stove, I had an idea, now, why other parts of the ship had the grate flooring.

  I stood there, head throbbing where the cast iron skillet had almost brained me. For a moment, the metal walls pressed in, everything too close for thought. The Typhon, the cocoon of sea. I felt as if I couldn’t get a breath of air. I was covered in blood, I was absent of remorse. What had I become?

  It’s the small meaningless moments that can kill you.

  I looked in the larder. There were boxes and cans and crates and casks, full of all the things Tenebrae had mentioned. Dried herbs hung in bundles from the ceiling. It was fragrant and earthy, this room under the sea.

  ‘I have no idea what I’m looking at, here. This seems like enough food for a cohort. I have no way to judge, since I’ve never cooked one thing in my life. But Lupina will know,’ I said.

  Tenebrae murmured assent. ‘All right. I trust you’ll give her your instructions, since she looks like she wants to chop my feet off every time I look at her.’

  ‘She does, probably,’ I said. Turning, I gestured aft. ‘We should check the engineer’s quarters and then engineering itself, but not without Ysmay.’

  ‘And that means surfacing,’ Tenebrae said.

  I nodded.

  We returned to the command centre but not before peeking in on Fiscelion, to make sure he still slept. Ysmay stood at the navigation controls, still peering into the steering device, and Lupina watched him, the sawn-off held loosely in her hands. Ysmay’s body was taut as a drumhead, his shoulders hitched high. He jerked about when we entered, wild-eyed. The enormity of the situation had begun to sink in and he was becoming agitated. But I had no time for hysteria or histrionics.

  ‘Mister Ysmay, what is our status?’

  ‘We are out of sight of the shore, Madame, and heading toward open sea. As ordered,’ he said. His tone was of nervous deference.

  ‘And the pursuing ship?’ I asked.

  ‘Far behind. I cannot spot her,’ he said.

  ‘Then let us come to the surface and slow our speed so that we can take stock of the damage. And speak,’ I said. I turned to Tenebrae and murmured in his ear, ‘If there’s rum, let’s make sure Ysmay has a belly full before we rest. I would have him genial and sodden rather than tense and brooding, if that makes any sense,’ I said.

  ‘It does,’ he said, turning away. ‘I will take care of that, sir.’ He stopped. ‘Pardon me. I meant ma’am.’ He turned back and looked at me closely. ‘How would you like us to address you?’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘“The hand that slays the captain takes the tiller; at the helm of every ship there steers a killer”,’ Tenebrae said. Not in the singsong voice of someone reciting Bless’ best known lines, but in utter seriousness.

  ‘Our Heavenly War is too fanciful for my tastes. And if that line was true, every navarch would be a mutineer.’ I shook my head. ‘But I take your point. You can simply call me Livia.’ Like it or not, I had assumed command and Tenebrae was not going to gainsay that.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, bowing his head.

  ‘I am glad you are here, Shadow,’ said I, using his nickname, something I rarely did. I had no explanation for that particular reticence; it was something that Secundus and Carnelia – both students of Sun Huáng – had called him and there was a part of their relationship that was opaque to those outside it. It wasn’t exclusive, per se, but like the language of lovers, inward looking.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘I am too. You’ll need me in the coming days. And, I think, we’ll all need you. You are a natural.’

  ‘A natural what?’ I said.

  ‘Leader.’ He withdrew a small silver flask from his l
eggings, raised it, and shook it. ‘I will get the rum.’

  He disappeared. The ship shifted and the thrumming decreased. I had, for a moment, almost forgotten it. It had been what? Two hours since I had killed Albinus and Regulus? Already I’d grown accustomed to the shiver and hum of the Typhon.

  I took my sawn-off from Lupina and bid her look after Fiscelion. She seemed relieved to do so. I have no doubt that Lupina would spit a man on a knife if he made even the most veiled threats against her own, but she might not like it and would rather be cooking, and dandling babes. But what about me? I will kill for Fiscelion. At times it seems that Lupina is his real mother and I’m just some crazed harridan dragging him around the world, half-drowned, bathed in blood. I hope he never knows what I’ve done for him, or what I’ve done to him.

  I turned back to Ysmay. ‘Sir, show me what you just did, so that in the future I will know.’

  Ysmay looked alarmed. And then resigned. He began explaining the navigation mechanism in detail, as we surfaced. Tenebrae gave me a meaningful look and patted his hip when he returned.

  Once I felt I had a solid grasp of it, I said, ‘Will the Typhon be at risk if we leave the navigation for a moment and you show us engineering?’

  Ysmay paused and despite himself, his eyes brightened. ‘No, she’ll keep going in the direction we point her. It’s rather clever, if I say so myself – I designed the navigation so that – through counterweights and springs – the rudder will keep a direction and adjust if it is blown off course. When you lock in a course here—’ he tapped the edge of the compass, where there was a small warded contraption, ‘—the daemon there has a sympathetic bond with another imp, there, in the console, and they work, always, to be together. So the ship will correct course without—’

  ‘Human intervention,’ I said. ‘That is very clever, Mister Ysmay. Indeed, this ship is fantastically inventive. You are to be commended. Set it to keep course, please, at a speed that isn’t outrageous. I would see what I can of the daemon that spurs this ship on.’