Farlander

CHAPTER FIVE

In Flight The cabin stank of mould and dampness and vomit. Nothing moved in the room, yet the gentle motion of the skyship could be detected through the occasional creak of timbers, a rattle of the lantern hanging from the ceiling, a minute sense of lift or fall in the depths of the stomach. In his bunk, Nico lay wretched and pale-faced.

Almost as soon as the ship had lifted off from Bar-Khos and climbed into the cloudy sky, Nico had goggled at the unnatural sight of land diminishing far below him, and he had clutched at the rail with a sensation of lightness in his head, and a loose churning in his belly. For three days now he had lain in his bunk awash with fearful tension and nausea, leaning over occasionally to retch into a wooden bucket on the floor. It was now painful for him to speak, for his throat was burned raw from the bile. He ate little, consuming only what water or soup he could hold down long enough to digest. Every moment, awake or in restless sleep, he was aware of the thousands of feet of empty air gaping beneath him, and the constant tensions on the ropes and struts by which the hull dangled from the flimsy, gas-filled envelope overhead. Every sudden shout from a crewman on deck, every thump of feet or twist of motion within the ship, heralded for Nico impending disaster. It was a misery like he had never known before.

Most of the time he spent alone. Ash shared the cramped cabin, but the old farlander did not seem to appreciate Nico's prolonged bouts of retching; he would become impatient with it eventually, and set aside the little book of poetry he always seemed to be reading, and stomp out on to the deck, muttering under his breath. It was Berl the ship's boy, therefore, who tended to Nico and brought him food and water.

'You must eat,' the boy insisted as he held out a bowl of broth. 'There's nothing left of you but skin and bones.' But Nico grimaced, and pushed the bowl away.

Berl tutted at his stubbornness. 'Water, then,' he told him. 'You must drink some water, no matter if you hold it down or not.'

Nico shook his head.

'I'll have to fetch your master if you don't.'

Nico finally consented to take a mouthful of water, if only to placate the boy. He asked what time of day it was.

'Late afternoon. Not that you'd know the difference in here, with the shutters closed all of the time. You need some fresh air, it stinks in this place. No wonder your master stays up on deck more often than not.'

'I don't like the view,' Nico told him, and he thought back to his first morning on the ship when he had flung open the shutters, only to reel away from the sight that greeted him.

He groaned, a palm clasped against his ailing stomach. 'I think there's something truly wrong with me.'

Berl grinned. 'My first time out I was sick for a whole week. It's common. Some gain their wings faster than others.'

'Wings?'

'Yes. Don't worry, another few days and you should be fine.'

'It feels like I'm dying.'

The boy hefted the skin of water towards Nico's lips again.

Berl looked to be no more than fourteen, though he exuded a confidence of one older than that. As Nico wiped his mouth dry he studied the younger boy. There were scars, small ones, on his narrow face, concentrated around his brows and especially about his eyes, which themselves seemed hard like long-healed wounds.

'I used to work beneath the Shield,' Berl explained, noticing Nico's interest.

Ah, thought Nico. He had once been told by his father how boys were sometimes used in the tunnels beneath the walls of Bar-Khos, in spaces too small for men but large enough for boys and attack-dogs alike. He now said as much to Berl, how his father had been a Special himself, trying to make a connection with him perhaps. The boy simply nodded, and set the skinful of water on the floor next to the bucket.

'That's enough for now,' he said. 'But you need to keep drinking it, you hear?'

'I will,' Nico replied. 'Tell me, where are we?'

'Over Salina. We made its eastern coast this morning.'

'I thought we would already be heading for Cheem.'

'As soon as we find a favourable wind. The captain likes to conserve our whitepowder whenever he can. As soon as we do, we'll strike north through the blockade. Don't worry, the Mannians have as few airships as we, and the Falcon here is a fast ship. The crossing should be swift.'

He stood, saying, 'Come on deck later, if you're feeling up to it. The fresh air will help.' And then he walked with an easy gait across a floor that was sloping visibly upwards, the ship itself climbing. Nico could hear the hull drive tubes being fired, burning their precious fuel.

Before Berl left, he turned at the doorway, one hand gripped on the frame. 'Are you really training to be Rshun?' he asked.

'I think that is supposed to be a secret,' replied Nico. The boy nodded and stuck out his lower lip, while considering it. Then he closed the flimsy door behind him.

Nico lay back and closed his eyes. It helped him with the sickness a little if he did not look at the sloping cabin.

Already his life in Bar-Khos seemed an awful long way away.

*

The next morning he felt better. It was as though his body had exhausted itself of its traumas, and had decided to relax in spite of his many anxieties. Nico sighed with relief and rolled free from the sweat-soaked bunk.

The cabin was located at the rear of the skyship. A ledge ran beneath the shuttered window at the back of the room, supporting a sink, and beside it, in the corner, was a lid concealing the privy. Taking a deep breath he fumbled with the shutter until it opened. He blinked at a clear blue sky, a few white clouds sailing past at eye level. A faint breeze brushed his face, fully waking him. Despite himself, he was drawn to peer over the sill. Far below lay a green and tan landscape – an island by the look of its curving coastline – with roads threading to and fro between a few hazy towns before converging on a sprawling, walled cityport. The sparkle of rivers running down from forested hills to a variety of lakes and then on to the sea was dizzying to look at. Nico gripped the window frame, and commanded himself to remain calm.

He tossed the contents of the bucket down the privy, just to clear the room of its stench, then stripped off his filthy garments. Ash had bought him a bag of travelling gear before they had departed, and from it he now took out a bar of soap and scrubbed himself from head to toe, soaking the wooden floor in his exertions. Then he dug out a new covestick, removed it from its waxed paper wrapping, and brushed his teeth long and hard.

As he was donning the clean change of clothes – a soft cotton undershirt, tunic and pants of tough canvas, boots of leather, a belt with a hardwood clasp – he realized how desperately he was in need of food.

Walking in short, careful steps, Nico left the cabin and followed the corridor, and the smell of chee, to reach a large, low-ceilinged common room. Crewmen sat in groups around the tables scattered around the room, muttering quietly as they broke their fasts for the morning, the dim air already filled with pipe-smoke. A few watched him darkly as he walked to the far end where the galley hatch lay open and where the cook, a skinny bald man with the swirls of a moustache tattooed to his face, served out warm mugs of chee and platters of cheese and biscuits. Berl was working in the galley, too, busy feeding wood into the fire that burned within a brick hearth. The boy nodded Nico a greeting, though he did not pause in his work. Nico contented himself by piling food on to a platter. The cook set a cup of chee in front of him before returning to his kitchen work, which seemed to consist of banging pans, flinging sodden clothes about, sweating and cursing to himself. Nico sat at an empty table and ate cautiously, testing his stomach. He gazed at the cannon sitting by the gun ports along both sides of this warm communal area and tried to ignore the occasional hooded glance cast his way. He wondered if the rest of the crew were always this friendly.

When he was finished, he thanked the cook and climbed the stairs that led to the upper deck. He took each step slowly, his hands sliding up the rails with each upward push of his legs. Near the top he paused, collecting himself.

He rose on to the weather deck of the ship, and for a moment he pretended he was standing on any normal sea-going vessel, afloat on fathoms of water rather than drifting on air. For the Falcon's decks looked no different than those of any ship he had seen in the harbour: a high quarterdeck rose behind his back, a foredeck to the front. A group of crewmen sat nearby talking while braiding together lengths of rope. Another group on the far side of the deck played a game of bones; they were arguing amongst each other, while one man firmly held back another who seemed ready to pick a fight. In all, the crew seemed youthful to Nico: few of them being out of their twenties. They were notably thin, all sporting beards and wild hair.

It was strangely quiet save for the snapping of canvas, and he looked up to see the great gas-bag of white silk rippling in the wind, sheathed in a fine netting of rope and wooden struts. Its bulk cast a great shadow across the entire length of the deck. From the nose of the envelope an assortment of sails stretched taut between tiq spars; two great vanes of the same material projected like wings from its flanks. Men were up there, miraculously clambering over the lattice of rigging that confined the silk curvature. Their feet were bare, and their dirty pink soles skated along ropes that seemed too frayed to warrant such easy confidence. Madmen, thought Nico. Bloody lunatics.

At this great height, the air was cold. The breeze bit through his clothing and he felt the prickle of goosebumps rising on his flesh. For a moment he thought of returning to the cabin to fetch his travel cloak, but then he spotted Ash sitting cross-legged on the raised fore-deck of the airship. The man seemed deep in meditation, and was wearing his usual black robe.

Nico found that he could negotiate the deck so long as he did not look over the rail, and therefore simply maintained the pretence of being aboard a normal ship at sea. Keeping his eyes fixed on the decking, he reached the steps to the foredeck and climbed up to join the old man.

Ash's eyes seemed to be closed, though a glint of pupil could be seen between his lashes, his half-lidded gaze focused on a point that could be near or far away. The old man sat like stone: not even his chest rose and fell with his breathing.

'How are you?' Ash inquired, without moving.

Nico folded his arms for warmth. 'Better,' he replied. 'Thank you for your concern, old man.'

A dry chuckle. 'I am not here to mother you, boy.' And Ash finally opened his eyes wide, looked up at him, held out a hand.

Nico stared at it for a moment, the fingernails bright against the pinkly black skin around them. Then he clasped it, rough as bark, and helped the old man to his feet.

'If you are walking, then you are well,' declared Ash. 'So it is time we began your training. Lesson one: you are my apprentice. Therefore you will call me master, or Master Ash, never old man.'

Nico felt the blood rush to his face. He did not like the other's tone. 'As you say.'

'Do not try me, boy. I will strike you down where you stand if you show me insolence.'

He sounded like Nico's father sometimes had after becoming a Special, or like one of the idiots his mother had taken in. 'Then strike me,' said Nico. 'That would be a lesson I already know well.'

Nothing changed in Ash's expression, but from the corner of his eye Nico could see the old man's right hand clenching into a fist, and he tensed.

Instead of hitting him though, Ash exhaled deeply and said, 'Come, let us sit together.'

He knelt again on the decking, this time facing Nico. After a moment's hesitation Nico followed his example.

'Take a deep breath,' Ash instructed. 'Good. And another one.'

Nico did so, and felt the anger draining away.

'Now,' began Ash. 'You are Mercian. Your people follow the Dao, or what they sometimes call Fate. You must know, then, the ways of the Great Fool.'

The question was an unexpected one. 'Of course,' Nico replied with some caution. The old man merely nodded: it was clearly a prompt for more. 'I have been to temples a few times, and listened to them reciting his words. And on every Foolsday my mother used to make me sit beside her during her invocations.'

Ash's eyebrows pinched together, as if unimpressed. 'And tell me, do you know where the Great Fool was born?'

'I was told he was born on one of the moons, and fell to Ers on a burning rock.'

The old man shook his head. 'He was born in my homeland, Honshu, six hundred and forty-nine years ago. That is the birthplace of Daoism. The Great Fool never set foot away from Honshu, despite all your legends to the contrary. It was his Great Disciple who brought the Way to the Miders, and it was because of her and her own disciples that it spread in its various forms across the southern lands, including your own. Now, tell me, do you meditate?'

'Like the monks?'

'Yes, like the monks.'

Nico shook his head.

'Hoh. Then you know nothing but religion, as I expected. In my order we are also Daoists, but we follow the teachings of the Great Fool without all this nonsense that has grown up around his words. If you are to follow his way, as you should do if you are to become a true Rshun, then you must forget all those things and focus on only one thing. You must learn how to be still.'

Nico nodded slowly. 'I see.'

'No, you do not, but you will begin to. Now, do as I tell you. Place your left hand in your right. Yes, like that. Now straighten your back. More so, you are still slouching. Good. Keep your eyes partly open. Choose a point in front of you and stay focused on it. Breathe. Relax.'

Nico breathed, perplexed. He could not see how this had anything to do with the business of Rshun.

'Observe the air as it enters your nostrils, moves through you, exits. Breathe deeply, into your belly. Yes, just so.'

'Now what?' Already his knees were beginning to ache.

'Simply sit. Allow your thoughts to settle. Let your mind become empty.'

'What is the point of all this?'

A slight rush of air from Ash's nostrils, but still a steady gaze.

'A mind that is forever busy is sick. A mind that is still flows with the Dao. When you flow with the Dao, you act in accordance with all things. This is what the Great Fool teaches us.'

Nico tried to do as the old man instructed. It was like trying to juggle three things at once: watch the movement of his breathing; keep his back erect; stay focused on a chip of wood on the rail in front of him. But he kept forgetting to pay attention to one or the other, and frustration began to build in him. Time stretched out till he was unable to tell if he had been sitting there for moments or hours.

It seemed that the more he tried to be still, the more his mind wanted to chatter to itself. His face itched, his straightened spine ached, and his knees throbbed with pain. It could easily have been a form of torture, and after a while he purposely set his mind to other things: where the ship was heading, and what was being served for dinner, anything that might take him away from his discomforts.

It felt like several hours had passed when a bell rang out to signal the end of the hour.

Ash rose with a soft rustle of his robe. This time it was the old man who helped Nico to his feet.

'How do you feel?'

He chose not to say the first thing that came to mind. 'Calm,' he lied, nodding. 'Very still.'

The old farlander's eyes lit up with humour.

*

Later that day the ship descended several hundred feet in the hope of finding a more favourable wind, and indeed she found herself in a stream of fast air bearing north-west. On the raised quarterdeck at the rear of the ship, his oiled black hair flapping over to one side of his head, the captain barked orders for the tailsculls to be trimmed and the mainsculls to be let out, his deep voice sending men scurrying into the rigging even before he was finished. Captain Trench was a tall man of perhaps thirty years of age, clean-shaven and gaunt in the extreme. His bony white hands rested in the pockets of a grey-blue navy overcoat of no visible rank; an affectation of sorts, or perhaps an indication of some earlier naval career, since his command now was of nothing more than a merchant vessel – though admittedly a rather remarkable one. His one good eye peered upwards at the envelope of gas keeping them aloft, which rippled ceaselessly along its windward side; while, on his shoulder, his pet kerido chattered in his ear as though in conversation, and shifted a leg for balance as he did the same beneath it. Like a fish, the Falcon turned, squirming, into the flow, her deck pitching over as she slewed around, still shedding height.

Nico gripped the rail with whitening fingers. He listened anxiously to the creaks of the wooden struts over his head that connected the envelope to the hull. The great curved mainsculls on either side of the envelope had caught the wind full now; next to the wheel, a crewman studying a spinning instrument called out the speed as the ship surged ahead.

They were leaving the Free Ports at last.

That evening they dined with the captain in his stately cabin beneath the quarterdeck, a low slab of a room that spanned the entire breadth of the ship. Windows lined the wall space, thick watery panes of glass divided into diamonds by crisscrossings of lead, some panes coloured in translucent green or yellow. Beyond them, the horizon merged with clouds lit by a falling ball of sun.

The meal was a wholesome affair of rice soup, roasted potatoes, green vegetables, smoked game of some kind, and wine. The courses were served on bone-white crockery ceramics, fine and expensive-looking stuff. Each piece was decorated with the central motif of a falcon in flight. A gift to the captain, Nico assumed.

There was little talk as they each fell upon the steaming food. Ash and the captain both ate with the concentration of men intent on savouring what they still could in life while the going was fair. Dalas, the captain's second-in-command – a big, dreadlocked Corician wearing an open leather jerkin with a curved hunting-horn slung from his neck – was a mute apparently from birth. Even the captain's pet kerido, excitable at first around the two guests present for dinner, now sat quietly on the table before his master's plate, softly clacking its beak and drooling in an attentive way as the man ate. The animal reminded Nico of Boon, back home in the cottage, when Nico had sat eating whatever half-heartedly prepared meal his mother had cooked for them, and surreptitiously passing morsels beneath the table. He had never seen a kerido before though had heard of them, from street performances of The Tales of the Fish recounting stories of merchants venturing to the forest-oasis in the shallow desert, and meeting with madness and death. The Tales always portrayed the kerido as a vicious creature despite its small size. With one of the creatures sitting before him now, Nico could imagine why. The colours of its tough hide invoked images of lush vegetation draped in shadow, and furtive movement, and the sudden pounces of a predator. He had not realized it was possible to make a pet of one.

Red wine had been produced from a locked cabinet fixed to the floor, and Ash and Dalas and the captain were now well into their second bottle, while Nico still sipped from his first glass. He suspected the pair of them were already a little drunk.

'It's good to see you on your feet at last,' Captain Trench observed quietly, as he used his handkerchief as a napkin to dab at his pale lips, and favoured Nico with a glance from his blind white eye, as though he could see more clearly with it. Even in the soft sunset hues that filled the cabin, his skin had a pallied complexion, like the slick greyness of rain.

Ash grunted at the remark, and Nico glanced towards the old man, but the farlander refused to return his gaze.

'A tricky business, adjusting to big sky,' Trench continued in his soft, clipped accent suggestive of a wealthy education. 'Worse than being at sea, most will inform you. Well, it's no shame on you, the reaction. Believe me, I am hardly any better myself when I make it back to land. It takes me – what – a full day in bed with a galloping whore before I feel steady again.' And he flashed Nico a good-natured smile, with a cock of an eyebrow, before looking quickly away again as though shy at having said too much.

Nico forced a smile in return, for it was hard not to like this man. Indeed, this evening he was gaining a sense that it was important to Trench to be liked by those sharing his company; which was surprising, remembering him earlier that day, as he screamed at one of his crew for fouling the rigging, his words flying incoherently with so much spittle that Nico had wondered if he wasn't in some way unhinged. Dalas had eventually stepped in to pull Trench into his cabin, out of sight of the crew, though not out of earshot.

Now, at dinner, the captain seemed calm. His smiles came easily and his sound red-rimmed eye held something of an apology in it: clearly whatever demons plagued him, they were restrained just now by this softer nature, which also seemed his truer nature, so that Nico felt reassured in his presence, despite his earlier loss of control.

From across the table, Dalas observed Nico coolly while he shovelled food into his mouth with a fork. The big Corician lifted his free hand and made a gesture in sign language, almost too fast to follow: a balled fist tilting from side to side, a waving motion, a flat chop, a palm soaring.

'Pay no heed to him,' advised Trench, dismissing the other man with a wave.

But Nico continued to stare at the Corician's hand, which now rested on the tablecloth, the forefinger rubbing restlessly against the end of its thumb. 'Why?' he inquired. 'What did he say?'

Trench raised his bunched handkerchief to his mouth, and murmured from behind it. 'He says, my young friend, that he doubts you have ever even sailed before, let alone flown.'

The Corician had stopped eating, his right cheek stuffed with food, as he awaited Nico's response.

'He would be right, then,' Nico admitted.

'Yes, but you may not have noticed how he said it. That gesture just now, with a loose wrist, it meant he intended it to be insulting.' Trench shook his head at Dalas reproachfully, and Dalas frowned back. 'Dalas was born on a ship. All his life, he has lived on one type of deck or another. He is often this dismissive with people who have never been to sea. He reckons, somehow, that their priorities are all wrong.'

Nico offered an awkward smile to them both. 'Once, when I was ten, and swimming in the sea, I found a log and used it for a boat.'

Trench withdrew the handkerchief from his mouth by a fraction.

'A log, you say?'

'A big one.'

Trench choked back a laugh, which in turn became a cough that he stifled with his handkerchief. Even Dalas's expression softened, enough at least to swallow his food.

'You are hardly drinking,' the captain observed, as he caught his breath. 'Berl, fill him up, if you please.'

Berl, standing by the table in attendance, dutifully stepped forward. He added more wine to Nico's glass, though it hardly needed topping up.

Nico studied the glass before him.

'I see you haven't acquired a true thirst for it yet,' Trench observed over the rim of his own goblet. 'You will, believe me. In lives such as ours it happens all too easily. Look at your master, there. When last he was aboard this ship, I had to keep all the stores under lock and key, his thirst was so limitless.'

'Nonsense,' said Ash, and downed the rest of his wine before holding out the empty glass for a refill.

Nico sat back in his chair, hoping to let their conversation drift by him. He picked up the glass, if only to have something to do with his hands. Everywhere around him, wood creaked to its own disjointed rhythms. It reminded him of the forested foothills back home, of standing alone deep amongst the pines as they swayed and groaned in the midday breeze. He tried another sip of the wine. Its aftertaste was a sweet one, not like the cheap, bitter stuff his mother sometimes drank. He could take to this, he thought, if ever he had the money to afford it.

An image of his father came to mind. His father raging drunk, breath hissing through his nostrils, tongue trying to push its way out through the obstruction of his lower lip. Nico found himself setting down the glass once more.

Trench leaned back in his chair, tilting it on to its two rear legs. His sigh only deepened the impression of weariness that hung about him.

'I have taken you from your land-leave,' Ash said by way of an apology.

'And the rest of the crew, too,' Trench muttered, then straightened his chair again, smiling with thin lips as his hooded eye surveyed the table without focus. 'They are somewhat displeased with their captain just now, and I can hardly blame them. We only just made it back from our last run. You saw the poor condition we were in, and that was after a full week of repairs. Now, they have to run the blockade again, with hardly more than a week on land for respite. It's hard on them – hard on us all.' And he dabbed his face again with his handkerchief.

Ash wiped his lips of wine. 'It is a short journey this time, at least.'

'Yes,' admitted the captain. 'Though with little profit in it, save for some cloth we might shift in return for grain, which will keep my investors happy at least. And of course in wiping my debt to you. I take it we are even?'

'You owed me nothing to begin with.'

'You hear that?' snapped Trench suddenly to the kerido, who aborted its reaching towards the scraps on his plate with a scaly claw, and instead looked up. 'He mocks his hold over me, even now.' Absently, the captain picked up a half-eaten sweetroot, and the creature opened its beak as he offered the morsel towards it.

'Just promise me one thing,' Trench said to Ash, and then he paused as Nico shifted back from the table in alarm. Trench looked down at the creature perched between them. From its open beak it was brandishing its tongue at him, a long and stiff and hollow thing like a child's rattle, making a noise clearly intended to sound threatening. Trench tossed the morsel into the creature's mouth to shut it up, then continued.

'When next some old saltdog comes at my back in a taverna,' he said to Ash, 'do me the kindness of letting him have me. Friendship is one thing, but I'd rather a pierced liver than ever be in your debt again.'

Ash inclined his head in consent.

Nico watched the creature as it ate, both its claws holding the root as it tore off strips with quick jerks of its beak. He found himself holding his cutlery before him as though in defence.

A brilliant glow had permeated the cabin. The sun was now setting, throwing the last of its light through the stained-glass windows at the back of the room, printing diamonds of colour against the beams of wood not far above their heads, against the plank walls, the long desk with charts splayed out across its surface and kept flat with rounded stones. Nico peered over at the charts. He was close enough to discern a few oblique details: landmasses lost in symbols, notations, curving sweeps of arrows. Maps of the air, they seemed, as much as of the land surface.

That thought caused his eye to range beyond the desk. Through the lower portion of the rear windows was visible a sea made to look flat and featureless by height.

'If you don't mind me asking,' he ventured, dragging his gaze from the watery abyss, 'how long will the crossing take us?'

For a moment a shadow passed over the captain's features. Captain Trench sat forward and, with his goblet, gestured to Nico. Wine slopped out of the glass, and Berl frowned as red stains blotted the clean linen. 'It depends,' he said, in a voice more sober than before. 'Some time tonight we approach the imperial sea blockade. Maybe the wind will hold true. Maybe they don't have anything in the air here.'

'In the air?' Nico blurted. 'You mean, Mannian skyships?'

'There is always the chance, this far out.'

Again Nico glanced at Ash, but the old man was feigning interest in the bottom of his glass.

Trench registered his discomfort. 'It's unlikely, mind,' he said. 'Mostly their birds-o'-war are over in the east, preying on the Zanzahar run. That's where the main action is to be found, not here. Believe me, I know. Zanzahar's all we have left for foreign trade, so most long-traders are committed to it, the Falcon included. When the sea-fleets can't get through, or they take heavy losses, the longtraders pick up the slack. We've been flying the Zanzahar run close to four years now.' He paused to upend his goblet, draining it of the last drop. 'You have heard the stories, I'm sure.'

Indeed, Nico had heard the stories. How the Mannian skyships waited in packs like wolves along the route, ready to pounce on any longtraders that passed by. How every year the number of longtraders grew smaller and smaller. Trench hardly needed to explain as much, for it could be heard in the grim tone of his voice, a tone that had even caused the kerido to stop momentarily in its nibbling, to stare up at him.

Nico stared too. Trench no longer seemed to be present there in his chair; he was lost instead in the spots of wine on the tablecloth. For a moment, as the sun cast its final rays about him, Trench looked up, startled, as though returning from a great distance, and slowly inclined his head towards the dying light. In silhouette his nose was prominently hooked, a hint of some old Alhazii ancestry in his blood perhaps – though here, in this cabin, he was merely a ghost of the Alhazii desert, more a sick-looking Khosian, holding together his command with a sometimes trembling left hand and a slightly sturdier right, which seemed always to clutch a white, sweat-stained handkerchief of lace-bordered cotton within its fist.

Nico stabbed a potato from his plate and stuffed it into his mouth. It was cold, and his stomach was feeling queasy again, but he ate anyway. He did not like this talk. At least in Bar-Khos, the city walls still stood as a symbol of protection and life carried on. Here there was nothing but sky and, by the sounds of it, an absolute reliance on wind and good luck. It did not sound promising at all.

And, after this, what? Cheem, that notorious island of reavers and Beggar Kings where, according to Ash, they would travel into the mountainous interior to find the hidden Rshun order, and where he would train to become an assassin. The more he thought of all that was to come, the more uneasy Nico became. It had all seemed easier when he had lived in Bar-Khos, simply struggling each day to survive. At least he'd had Boon by his side.

A shout, coming from outside.

Trench and Dalas looked to one another. The shout came again. The kerido clutched the remains of the sweetroot in its beak and clambered on to the captain's shoulder. Dalas rose and, even with his back bent, the Corician's scalp brushed against the roof beams. He stomped out.

'A little earlier than I was expecting,' Trench murmured, dabbing his lips one last time. His chair scraped back as he pushed himself to his feet. 'Excuse me, please.'

He took his goblet with him, Berl and the wine bottle trailing behind.

In the sudden silence, Nico and Ash were alone.

'A ship,' Ash explained at his side.

'Mannians?' Nico asked. His voice was subdued.

'Let us go and see.'

*

In the cool twilight, Nico could not make out anything at first. He stood close to Ash and peered in the direction that everyone else, including the kerido, was looking. He could see nothing but dull water beneath a faltering sky.

Then he spotted it. To the east on the surface of the sea – a white sail.

'Can we make their colours?' the captain asked Dalas. The Corician's waist-length dreadlocks writhed as he shook his head in the negative.

'We're too far out for it to be anything but an imperial – if not a merchanter, then a picket.' Trench seemed to be talking to himself at first, but, as he scratched his pale face, he glanced up at Dalas. The big man folded his tattooed arms and shrugged.

They had gathered on the quarterdeck, next to the wheel, the highest level on of the ship. Nico shivered, his eyes watering from the constant scrub of the wind. Captain Trench took a sup from his goblet, smacked his lips. With his other hand, still holding the handkerchief, he caressed the smooth wood of the rail as though he was cleaning it of dust. He had built this vessel, Ash had said earlier, from a wreck that had been sold to him as salvage. It had taken his entire family fortune, and more, to convert it.

Trench paced four steps towards the stern rail, four steps back, scuffing the deck with his boots as he stopped.

'The colours,' he bellowed across to the lookout by the foredeck rail, one hand cupping his mouth. 'Can you see the colours yet?'

'Still too far, Captain,' the lookout shouted back.

Trench tugged at his chin. He stared up at the envelope over their heads, the dying light painting it with intense luminosity. At this time of day, to a sharp set of eyes looking in their direction, it would stand out clearly for laqs.

'Have they seen us, that's the question we should be asking,' Trench muttered as he watched the far sail.

For an instant, on the distant ship, it seemed as though the sun was rising again. A blinding yellow brilliance rose into the sky, to hang there for some moments in the gathering darkness. Beneath it the sea reflected the Sun's light as a trembling, fiery disk. From the Mannian ship, a stark shadow fell long across the water.

Trench tossed the last of his wine into his mouth and flipped the empty goblet towards Berl. 'Well, that settles it,' he declared.

The flare descended slowly, the sea dimming in a shrinking circle as it fell. It landed in the water, burning up even as it sank: a strange, ghostly descent into the depths. Nico rubbed his eyes to clear away the after-images, then he opened them in time to see another flare climbing skywards on the eastern horizon. Meaning another ship was out there, still too distant to see.

'A formation must be nearby,' said Trench. 'If they have any birds in the area, we'll have the righteous bastards down on us before dawn.'

Nico shifted uneasily.

'Be calm,' Ash cautioned him, at his side. The old Rshun stood motionless, hands buried in his sleeves, observing the fading flare.

'Orders, Captain?' asked the man at the wheel, an old ragged-ear sailor.

'Fire the tubes, Stones, and turn us west. Set us back on course when it's gone full dark.'

'Aye, Captain.'

Trench tilted his head back to take in the few evening stars appearing 'Dalas, make sure the blackout is well enforced tonight, with inspections every quarter-watch. Anyone found breaking it is to be thrown into the bilge.'

Trench turned his back to the sky, his teeth shining in the dimness.

'Thirsty work,' he said to Ash. 'Care to finish that bottle?'

*

Nico wasn't inclined to return to the cold remnants of his dinner. He returned instead to his cabin, alone and fretful. For a long time he tried to sleep. The bunk seemed harder tonight. Through the decking immediately overhead, voices murmured: Trench and Ash talking, still drinking. Try as he might, he could not calm his mind. He kept thinking of the future – tomorrow and the day after that, the weeks, the months, the years ahead. Sleep was to be a sanctuary denied him.

After some hours Ash stumbled into the blackness of the room, reeking of wine. He grunted as he collapsed over his bunk. Nico watched his vague outline as he rolled on to his back.

Through the gloom he saw the old man grip a hand to his forehead. Ash was breathing deeply, as though that helped in some way. He fumbled in the inside pockets of his robe. At last he located the pouch that he always seemed to carry with him, and lifted one of the dulce leaves it contained to his mouth.

The old man chewed, breathing noisily through his nostrils.

'Master Ash,' Nico whispered towards his dark form.

For a moment he thought the farlander had not heard him. But then Ash made a clicking noise with his tongue, and said, 'What?'

A dozen questions formed in Nico's mind. They had talked only briefly about the Rshun order, of what he would be doing there, of the seals and how they worked. There was so much more that he desired to know.

Instead, he simply said, 'I just wondered if you were all right, that's all.'

There was no reply.

'It's just, I've noticed you using those dulce leaves a lot.'

When it came, the Rshun's voice was stiff and restrained. 'Headaches, that is all.'

Nico nodded, as though the gesture could be seen in the dark. 'One of my grandfathers was the same,' he said. 'Not that he really was my grandfather. I just called him that. He died defending the Shield. I remember he took the leaves, too. When I asked him about it, he said it was because of his eyes. Because they were starting to fail him, and all the squinting made his head hurt.'

The bunk creaked, indicating that the old man had turned his back to him.

'My eyes work fine,' he muttered. 'Go to sleep now, boy.'

Nico sighed, rolled on to his back to stare up into blackness. He knew that sleep was still far away.

Somewhere over his head, in the captain's cabin, a pair of boots paced back and forth throughout the night.