Sea Of Ghosts

CHAPTER 11
THE DEADSHIP

16th Hu-Rain, 1457

25 degrees 17 minutes north

5 degrees 37 minutes west

Scythe Island is forty leagues SSW of our current position, but feels more distant yet. Have made good progress across the Candlelight Straits. Expect to reach the fringes of the Mare Regis by noon tomorrow. No dragon sightings. Chronograph stopped three times by dead airs. Have opted to use Sanderson Device in interim. Mellor feels there might be an Unmer deadship nearby. The men are uneasy about this.

The girl remains an enigma. How is she able to perceive what lies in the depths of the ocean? I cannot imagine any scientific answer. Her ability seems more akin to the Haurstaf’s own metaphysical powers. Indeed, Ianthe may herald a new bloom in mankind’s evolutionary tree: a unique flower indeed – and, if so, then needful of pollination. More careful observation is required.

Word from Carl before we sailed – the Unmer chariot is in excellent condition, but the power source has, alas, suffered from the inevitable rot. Brine has eroded almost all of her whisperglass. Close to ten thousand ichusae recovered, which I am told is a record for a single haul in marine salvage. It seems to me that every one represents another lungful of air for Jontney. I maintain high hopes for our current expedition. Our hold is already one-tenth full, and all this from the Star Crab Bromera alone! Notable among our treasures is a fine suit of clamshell mail and six metal pyramids that, if separated, unerringly find their way back to each other at night. No physical obstacle or locked container is able to prevent this mysterious reunion. Because the pyramids display evidence of electrical fluids, Mellor, as always, has claimed this as proof of the Vitalist argument. I was too weary to argue with him. Boy assigned to watch the artefacts has died of unknown causes, and so the pyramids continue to keep their secret for now.

Sea mist encroaching from the south. Have ordered the usual precautions. The sun is burning a dark, dark red, although it is not yet noon. Its evil light seems to hang amidst the vapours like some dismal gas lamp.

Ethan Maskelyne, aboard the Mistress

Jontney was screaming. Maskelyne dropped his logbook and rose from the writing desk. He stepped out of the cabin into the adjoining corridor and almost collided with his wife, who was hurrying past.

‘What is it?’ he said.

‘I don’t know!’ She looked dishevelled, her hair and frock all in disarray.

‘You were supposed to be watching him!’

‘I had to use the commode!’

The pair of them rushed to the end of the corridor and opened the door to the map room.

Jontney sat on the floor beside the map table, red-faced and bawling. Beside him, ice vapour rose from the open hatch to Maskelyne’s void fly repository. The child had evidently been rummaging in there, for white deposits of crespic salts lay scattered across the floor around him.

Maskelyne ran over and scooped up his son. ‘Gods in hell,’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you eaten any?’ He forced his fingers into the little boy’s mouth and peered inside. ‘Have you eaten any?’ Jontney’s howling became all the more insistent. Maskelyne turned to Lucille and cried, ‘Hot water! Fetch me hot water now!’

His wife just stood there, her face drained.

‘Hot water!’ Maskelyne demanded. ‘The galley, go to the galley.’ He studied the child again. ‘Gods, he’s got the stuff all over his mouth.’ He began wiping away the toxic powder from the boy’s lips and gums.

Lucille hurried away.

‘Hush now, baby,’ Maskelyne said to his child. He hugged him close to his chest and smoothed the boy’s hair. ‘Hush, hush, it’s going to be fine.’ He gazed down at the open hatch and noticed a scalpel lying among the salt nearby. Someone had used it to carve away at the floorboards around both hinges of the hatch. Where had he seen that tiny blade before? After a moment, he realized.

Doctor Shaw.

Could Jontney have picked it up? Possibly. But surely the child could not have used it to free the hatch?

Lucille returned with pot of steaming water. Maskelyne handed the child over to her and tested the water with the back of his hand. Too hot. Cursing, he carried the pot over to the bar, where he emptied a half a quart of wine into it. When the liquid was just cool enough to swallow safely, he forced the boy to drink.

Jontney coughed and sputtered and wailed. He snorted watered wine out of his nose. But Maskelyne managed to get a fair amount of it down his throat. ‘Now shake him,’ he said to Lucille. ‘Make him sick it up again.’

Lucille complied, and soon the child had brought back up the solution.

‘Again.’ Maskelyne lifted the pot to the boy’s lips.

Lucille looked terrified. ‘Is he going to be all right?’

‘Crespic salts react with acid to produce an endothermic reaction,’ Maskelyne said. ‘If he’s swallowed any, it could have frozen his stomach. We need to wash it out, warm him up. Now, there, make him bring it up again.’

The child was sick a second time, spattering wine across the rugs and the map table.

Maskelyne studied him intently. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘He seems

… fine. I think we’ve been lucky.’

Lucille cradled the little boy and tried to soothe him. She spoke softly, but with venom in her voice: ‘How could you let this happen?’

‘Me?’ Maskelyne regarded her with amazement. ‘You were supposed to be watching him.’

‘That hatch should have been locked!’ she retorted. ‘What if he’d got to the void flies?’

‘It was locked. Evidently someone got it open for him. Where did you say you were?’

She looked at the floor. ‘I’ve not been feeling well. The sea air

…’

Maskelyne looked at her for a long moment. And then he sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you.’ He took her and the child in his arms. ‘Gods, Lucille, I’ve never been so frightened.’

She began to sob. ‘What’s happening, Ethan? Is someone trying to hurt us?’

Maskelyne didn’t say anything, but he had his own suspicions.

Granger hit the brine and plunged under it, and for an instant the world became a haze of brown and gold: sunlight rippling across the rooftops of the old Unmer dwellings down below; the Excelsior’s anchor chain; a shoal of marionette fish hanging in the deep like harvest festival baubles. His ears resounded with gloop and clang of sudden pressure change.

And then the pain hit him.

His whole body burned. He felt as if his corneas were shrinking, his salted flesh crackling over an open flame. He ignored it and swam on towards the stern of the emperor’s ship. Samarol bullets streaked by him, leaving short trails of bubbles before their own velocity tore them to shreds.

After a dozen strokes he realized that he was going into shock. A sense of panic and confusion overcame him. He fought against it, desperate to keep his muscles moving, desperate to reach that anchor chain now twenty paces ahead. Now fifteen. Ten.

Every nerve in his body cried out to him to stop. Strange thoughts whirled through his consciousness: The seawater was roasting him alive. He was swimming through the sun and it was not composed of fire but of molten glass. And now he could see that the glass formed the medium through which all thoughts and dreams passed. A lens at the heart of the universe; it was the source and destination of all things. The eye of Creation. He realized that he could die here in peace, and that all would be well. The pain was leaving him now. All he had to do was accept the brine’s embrace.

Yet some internal spark would not let him give up. He saw a vision of Ianthe, her face blurred by the waters, her black hair aflame, and it spurred him on. And suddenly the pain returned with horrific vigour, as if the lapse had been nothing but a sorcerous whisper, a Siren’s call, and the Mare Lux had chosen to bare her teeth once more. He swam and swam through the gnawing brine and, as he crashed onwards through the limits of his own endurance, he bared his own teeth and grinned madly at the agony of it all.

He reached the anchor chain and pulled himself up, fist over fist, until he broke the surface of the waters and drew in a great shuddering breath.

The Excelsior’s copper-clad hull loomed over him, her port lifeboat snug against the bulwark, while higher still her yards cut across the Ethugran sky like lines of cirrus cloud. Hand over fist he pulled himself up the chain, teeth set, muscles screaming, his eyes burning like hot coals in his skull.

He reached the capstan hatch and slipped inside the ship.

Granger found himself in a dim corridor above the gun deck. A line of interior doors each bore Hu’s Imperial crest: the dragon slain by a heavenly bolt of light. These looked like guest quarters. The bulk of Hu’s crew had been ashore to watch the trial, and there was nobody about. But he could not rest here. The brine on his skin felt like fire. It was changing him with every breath he took, steaming from his hands and forearms. If he was to survive he must first purge himself with fresh water. He opened the nearest door.

It was a small, cabin with a neat bunk, a gem lantern and a washbasin. Granger turned on the taps and bent over the washbasin. There was barely a trickle of water. He scooped the water into his eyes and face several times, until the stinging sensation faded. Then he blinked and looked down at his torso. His blood had already begun to crystallize in his wounds. He fought the urge to wash it away immediately lest he reopen those wounds. Instead, he washed the naked skin around them as best he could.

He didn’t want to take too much time over this. The emperor’s men might arrive any moment.

He located the anchor in the winch room three decks below the forecastle. It was too heavy to be raised by one man alone, so Granger lifted the brake and then turned the huge steel spool in the opposite direction, lowering the chain further into the sea. As the spool unwound, the weight of the chain itself began to drag the whole pulley mechanism around on its own. He kicked it to give it impetus, forcing the heavy line to unwind faster and faster. Finally it jarred to a halt. The end of the chain remained connected to the spool by a securing pin as thick as his thumb. Granger tried to kick it out, but it was welded in place and would not budge. He left it alone. The torque of the ship’s engines should be more than enough to shear it when the time came.

His skin started to burn again.

Granger left the winch room and headed aft in the direction of the wheelhouse. He followed a companionway under the gun deck, passing sail rooms, storerooms and a gunnery workshop. All were empty. The corridor opened into the crew quarters, a low chamber packed with rows of triple bunks. The pain in his flesh was starting to become intolerable again. He could feel his limbs begin to stiffen. When he spotted the door to the wash room, he hesitated, then ducked inside.

It was as large as four of the guest cabins back to back, but windowless and sour-smelling. A metalled floor sloped to a gutter channel along one end. The wooden walls were rotten and warped. An enormous barrel to which a ladle pan had been connected by a length of cord stood against the back wall under a dripping tap. Granger ran over and vaulted into the barrel itself.

Cold water immersed him. He submerged his head and then stood up again and washed his face, neck, torso, groin and finally his arms and legs. He shook his eyes clear of water, and then repeated the whole process. Even in this dim light he could see his skin had already been damaged by the Mare Lux seawater. Grey, leathery patches of sharkskin covered his arms like cracked paving, leaving raw red flesh between. Crystals had already formed over most of his wounds. They had staunched the flow of blood, but itched terribly and felt painful to the touch.

He climbed out of the barrel and stood there in the dark for a long moment, contemplating his disfigured flesh. He’d been too late to save himself completely, and the chances were good he might die yet. The flesh would either heal or harden further, restricting his movement. He sat down on the floor, trembling with exhaustion and fear, and felt something prod him in the side. It was the Unmer seeing knife, still tucked into the band of his breeches. He took it out and turned it over, but his sharkskin fingers could hardly feel it at all.

Sea mist rolled in from the south, blotting the sun until the skies around the Mistress turned from ochre to orange to a deep and angry red. Maskelyne ordered his sharpest lookout to the bow and ordered his engineers to set the dredger’s engines to one-quarter speed. He climbed the ladder to the wheelhouse and took control of the vessel himself. Yet even from this high vantage point he could see little in the fiery gloom but the dim pink glow of the lookout’s gem lantern and the red-brown slush of seawater coursing past to port and stern. The thin iron skeletons of the deck cranes drifted in and out of mist, while the Mistress’s bathysphere squatted in its cradle in the centre of the deck like an enormous brass egg.

They were in the Border Waters, the confluence of the Mare Lux and Mare Regis. It was an area of unpredictable weather and vicious currents. Ships were apt to drift leagues away from their assumed positions. He’d heard rumours of reefs, too, shoals of copper sharks and wisp lights, and even great deepwater erokin samal capable of claiming entire crews with their searching tentacles. But the stories that troubled him the most were those of wandering deadships.

He pulled a cord and blew the ship’s foghorn. A deep, low blast reverberated through the mist. He did not expect to find another ship out here, but the sound reassured him nevertheless. It filled the sepulchral air with a sense of life.

He hadn’t heard Lucille come in but turned at the sound of her voice.

‘He’s asleep,’ she said. ‘At least he was until a second ago.’ She inclined her head towards the foghorn cord. She was dressed, like him, in deepwater gear. In her bulky whaleskins she looked pitifully small and fragile. She removed her goggles and took a moment to unwrap the silk scarf from her face. ‘I asked one of Mellor’s boys to watch over Jontney.’

‘That scarf’s not really necessary,’ he said. ‘These mists don’t do much damage.’

‘It’s the word “much” that concerns me in that sentence, Ethan.’

He smiled. ‘Mist blisters heal. I’d still love you, even if you looked liked a sea monster.’

‘And you’d love me no less if I didn’t.’ She stared ahead into the mist. ‘Where are you taking us?’

‘Losotans called it the Whispering Valley,’ he said. ‘Before the flood, I mean. Lots of old Unmer settlements down there.’

‘So lots of treasure?’

‘That’s the idea.’

She shook her head. ‘It’s as thick as soup out there. Do you think Ianthe would be able to see through this?’

He said nothing, but kept his gaze on the crimson fog.

She nuzzled against him. ‘This reminds me of Hattering.’

‘The mists?’

‘Well, apart from the mists,’ she replied. ‘And the boat. We were both dressed in whaleskins. I thought you looked quite dashing.’

He smiled ‘Dashing? In whaleskins?’

‘What was the name of that friend you were with? The naval officer?’

‘William Temping.’

She nodded slowly. ‘That’s him. Whatever became of him?’

Maskelyne sniffed. ‘I cut his throat.’

He felt her tense, just slightly. And then she moved away. ‘I’d better go check on Jontney,’ she said.

‘He was a terrible fraud,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Did you know he even cheated on his wife? Some woman he kept in Losoto, apparently.’

‘Was that why you killed him?’

‘No.’ He was silent for a heartbeat, thinking, but he couldn’t recall. Finally he said, ‘I must have had a good reason.’

She looked at him for a long while, then shrugged. ‘I’m sure you did what you thought you had to do, Ethan.’

A bell began to ring on the deck below. Maskelyne peered out through the window and saw the bow lookout’s gem lantern swinging madly in the mist. He reached for the engine throttle but then changed his mind. One of his crew was rushing across the deck from the lookout’s position, but he couldn’t yet make out who it was.

‘What is it?’ Lucille asked.

Maskelyne opened the wheelhouse door and looked out. The crewman on the deck shouted up to him, ‘Deadship, Captain.’

‘Bearing?’

‘Straight for us. Like she knows.’

Maskelyne closed the door again and spun the wheel hard to starboard. And now through the red fog he could make out the dim black shape of a ship. She was a huge, ancient ironclad, bereft of masts, yards or sails. Upon her midships deck stood a solitary tower – a latticework of metal struts supporting a rusted toroid. She was one of the old electrical ships that had once carried whale oil across the Northern Wastes. An icebreaker? Maskelyne looked more closely at the prow and saw that it had been massively reinforced. He hissed through his teeth. The Mistress was now turning to starboard, while the Unmer vessel maintained its course. The two ships would pass within yards of each other.

Eight of the crew had gathered on the port side, while one of the officers – probably Mellor – was handing out carbine rifles to them.

The deadship drew closer. There did not appear to be any crewman aboard. Her hull and sterncastle had been forged from iron, but now Maskelyne could see that she had been damaged by intense fire. Yard-long sections of the bulwark had been scorched black and warped out of shape. Cables slumped around her tower like worn shrouds. He counted the remains of six guns mounted along her port side, strange metal weapons, each with a conical arrangement of circular plates fixed to the end of its barrel. They looked charred, melted, inoperable. An iron figurehead in the likeness of an Unmer maiden remained upon her prow, now stripped of paint and partially reduced to slag. The corruption gave her a ghoulish grin. Dragonfire did this, Maskelyne thought. Dragonfire.

Every crewman had his rifle trained on the Unmer ship, following her as she slid by mere yards from the Mistress. Under the steady thump of the dredger’s engines Maskelyne fancied he could hear the groan of the old ironclad’s buckled hull and the rush of seawater caught between their two keels, and then something else – a faint, high-pitched humming sound, almost at the limits of his hearing, seemed to emanate from that tower.

A heartbeat later, the Unmer ship had passed by. Maskelyne watched her dissolve into the fog.

He let out a long breath.

‘Is it true what they say about deadships?’ Lucille asked.

‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’

‘Mellor thinks the dead crews still steer them.’

Maskelyne frowned. ‘Something steers them, but it isn’t ghosts. Their engines draw electrical fluid from the air.’ He rubbed his eyes and then rested both his hands on the wheel again. ‘I don’t know… the energy is probably transmitted from somewhere, a station or a bunker, somewhere the Haurstaf and their allies didn’t penetrate.’

‘You think there could still be a free Unmer community out there?’

‘It’s possible.’

She shivered. ‘I’m going to check on Jontney.’

She left Maskelyne alone in the wheelhouse. For a long while he peered into the gloom, watchful for anything unusual. The rumble of the Mistress’s engines failed to calm his nerves as much as it usually did. An Unmer ironclad, still sailing these waters after god only knew how many hundreds of years? The souls of her sorcerous crew burned into her very metal at the Battle of Awl? He couldn’t accept that. The Unmer captains were long dead. The Brutalists and operators were long dead. The ship was still receiving its power from a distant station, which meant it might also be possible to steer it from afar. A free Unmer community? Maskelyne knew of only one Unmer warrior still at large. He tried to remember the line from the old children’s rhyme he’d learned at school.

And to the storm Conquillas brought,

A dragon clad in armour wrought,

By Hessimar of Anderlaine.

There was more, but the rest wouldn’t come to him. Those great serpents, led by Argusto Conquillas, had allied with the Haurstaf and risen up against their Unmer masters. Conquillas had decimated the Unmer fleet at Awl and thus betrayed his own kind for the love of a Haurstaf witch.

The lookout’s bell rang out again.

A sense of dread crept up Maskelyne’s spine, for through that red and turbulent air beyond the window he spied the dim hulk of the deadship bearing down on them once more. There could be no mistaking that hideous rusted tower, that weird droning sound. Evidently it had come about in the fog. He spun the Mistress’s wheel full lock to starboard, then flung open the wheel-house door and called down to the foredeck. ‘Get Ianthe up here, I need her sight.’

The deadship drew nearer, and for a heartbeat Maskelyne thought he could see a group of figures standing motionless upon her fog-shrouded deck. But then the vision faded, and the ship appeared deserted once more. Nothing but burned iron, a mess of cable. The mists were playing tricks on his eyes.

The two vessels were on a collision course. Maskelyne gunned the Mistress’s engines and attempted to take her past the Unmer ship once again. It would be close. Down on the foredeck his crew rushed forward to the bow, training their rifles on the approaching threat.

Sixty yards now.

The Mistress began to turn to starboard. The Unmer ironclad maintained her course.

Thirty yards.

Ahead, the great dark vessel loomed large. Now Maskelyne could see her figurehead with its melted grin. It seemed to know it was going to collide with them.

The deadship struck the Mistress a glancing blow on her port side. Even from up here in the wheelhouse Maskelyne felt the force of the impact. Abruptly his vessel lurched to one side. He heard the other ship’s hull boom, and then a hideous groaning and scraping sound as the icebreaker’s reinforced prow scraped along the Mistress’s side. That blow would have crushed a lesser ship, but Maskelyne’s dredger was a tough old girl. Engines thumping, she thundered on, pushing the schooner aside.

Slowly, the two ships separated. The Unmer vessel drifted off into the fog.

Maskelyne’s heart was thumping. He cut power to the engines, then opened the wheelhouse door and called down. ‘What damage?’

The crew were picking themselves up from the deck. One by one they began to peer down over the port side, sweeping gem lanterns back and forth across the hull. Mellor sent a man running towards the midships hatch, presumably to check for internal damage.

‘There’s no obvious breach, Captain,’ Mellor called back. ‘But she’s taken a hell of a pounding. I’ve sent Broomhouse to check the bulkheads from fore to aft.’

At that moment the midships companionway hatch opened, and another crewman appeared with Ianthe. He led the girl by the arm to the wheelhouse ladder and bade her climb. She looked nervous and shaken and had been hurriedly wrapped in an old whaleskin cloak.

Maskelyne took her hand and helped her into the wheel-house. ‘We’ve been hit by another vessel,’ he said. ‘An Unmer deadship.’

She said nothing.

‘It’s still out there somewhere,’ Maskelyne said. ‘I need you to watch out for it.’

‘There’s no one aboard it,’ she replied.

It struck him as an odd thing to say. ‘I’m not one to pander to superstitions myself,’ he said. ‘But that vessel has already come straight at us twice. Someone has to be steering it.’ He thought about the figures he’d glimpsed momentarily upon the deadship’s deck, but chose not to mention them.

Ianthe merely shrugged.

The door swung open, and Mellor’s head appeared at knee level. He was clinging to the ladder outside. ‘Four of the engine room bulkheads have been buckled, Captain, but it’s not too grim. Our hull is intact, engine sound, and we’re still tight as a drum. Repair crews are working on it now.’

‘Tell them to go easy,’ Maskelyne ordered. ‘I don’t want them putting the bulkheads under any more stress. We’ll refit back in dry dock at Scythe. No cross-braces. Have them raise props from the motor housings only and weld the plates in the meantime.’

‘Aye, Captain.’ Mellor reached up and shut the door.

Maskelyne gently increased power to the engines and spun the wheel to port again, keeping an eye on the ship’s compass as he brought the Mistress back on her original course. Red-brown fumes drifted over the foredeck and the dim figures of his crew. Through the starboard window he could see the dun lantern of the sun, almost directly to the south. It was almost noon, although it felt like dusk. Like the seas are burning. With any luck they would be out of the border waters and into the Mare Regis proper by mid afternoon.

For a long while Maskelyne kept his gaze on the mists ahead. Neither he nor Ianthe spoke. The lookout’s lantern on the prow burned like a solitary star. The old dredger rocked gently back and forth as she ploughed on through the poisonous waters, her engines maintaining a steady rhythm. Maskelyne could sense the uneasiness of his crew in the way they moved about the deck and in the fashion in which they clutched their rifles. He noted how each man kept himself apart from his companions. The fog drew denser and bloodier until it coiled around the cranes like dragon’s breath. Maskelyne had the impression that they were moving into some strange borderland that was not a part of this world.

The lookout’s lantern began to swing for the third time.

‘Where is it?’ he asked Ianthe.

She was clearly terrified. ‘I don’t know.’

‘The lookout can see it,’ he growled.

She pointed straight ahead. ‘There!’

And then Maskelyne spotted it. The deadship reared suddenly out of the thick fog like a cliff. It was almost upon them. Maskelyne cursed and spun the wheel hard to port. He wrenched the engine throttle into reverse. But he already knew that it was too late. The Unmer ironclad was going to crash straight into their starboard side, and there was no way Maskelyne could avoid it.

Granger crept along the crew deck companionway until he found a hatch leading down to the gun deck. He listened, and, hearing nothing, slipped down.

A low space ran the width of the ship, divided here and there by mast-collars and monstrous steel-reinforced ribs of dragon-bone. The firing hatches on either side were open, and the emperor’s ranks of bronze cannons gleamed dully in their tackles and breech ropes. The guns were antiques, Imperial Ferredales, forged in Valcinder at least three centuries ago – extraordinarily old and rare, and yet crafted with such skill and precision that their power and range could match many modern shell weapons. Granger almost choked to see that the lanyards now connected to retrofitted flintlock mechanisms in each breech. Each gun must have been worth three million gilders before Hu had ordered them vandalized in this way. Rams, swab buckets and powder rods lay upon the floor beside each gun, while stacks of various missiles – sacks of grapeshot, chain shot and troughs of heavy iron balls – filled the central space between the opposing bulwarks. The powder would be held in the deck below, accessed via a series of smaller hatches he could see in the floor. There was not a crewman in sight.

Granger’s skin itched and burned, but the pain had diminished somewhat. His eyes still felt hot and raw. He paced the gun deck, marvelling at the size of these reinforced dragon-bone arches. Sixty mature serpents had been slaughtered to construct this ship, among them Garamae the Betrayer, who was said to have devoured Lord Marquetta’s baby son during the armistice in 1403. He crouched down and pulled up one of the powder hatches and sniffed. A sulphurous odour filled his nostrils. A faint green glow illuminated an iron floor.

Granger walked over to one of the port gun hatches and peered out. He could see the bone corral upon the dockside, the emperor’s podium, and the Administration Buildings rising up beyond. Most of the crowd had spread along the water’s edge and were staring into the brine, along with many of the emperor’s crewmen. Hu himself stood by the harbour steps beside his launch, guarded by his Samarol bodyguards. He appeared to be having an animated discussion with Administrator Grech and Briana Marks.

Granger padded back to the powder hatch and dropped down. He found himself in a small iron cell. Parchment cartridges of powder stood in neat stacks against the walls. Shelves held boxes of flints, coils of cambric fuse, shredded sailcloth and sealed jars of phosphorous that gave off a dim green luminance. He grabbed an armload of cartridges, then stuffed a handful of flints into his pocket along with a few yards of fuse and climbed back up to the gun deck.

One of the forward hatches offered him the best angle of fire. He sighted along the cannon’s barrel, and, satisfied, winched the heavy gun carriage back on its wheels using the rear tackle. He swabbed the barrel interior, then shoved the powder cartridge down inside it, followed by a cloth wad. Then he picked up a ram and tamped the powder home. From the centre of the deck he took one of the grapeshot sacks and rammed that down the barrel after the charge. Lastly, he forced in another wad of cloth to keep the shot in place, and then heaved the gun carriage back up against the bulwark by alternating between each of the side tackles.

Granger took a moment to catch his breath. His arms ached from the exertion. His own sweat stung his altered skin like vinegar poured into a wound. He felt sore all over, irritable, impatient. His every instinct screamed at him to get away now. Find the bridge, fight your way in if need be – lock the doors, gun the ship’s engines and get out of here. He could turn the Excelsior back into the Glot Madera, run as far as he could before the skeleton crew broke the door down, use a powder bomb to bluff his way out, or just blow himself to hell and take as many of them down with him as he could. But his need for revenge wouldn’t let him leave yet. He took hold of the lanyard behind the gun’s breech and peered out of the hatch again, letting his gaze roam over the milling crowd of jailers, administrators and soldiers. He couldn’t see the emperor anywhere.

A sudden roar came from the launch’s engines. Had Hu already boarded his pilot vessel? Granger couldn’t see him on the deck. He must already be inside. Granger cursed and rubbed madly at his burning eyes. The launch was too low in the water. The grapeshot wouldn’t hit it from this angle. The cannon’s barrel was aimed firmly at the crowd.

But then he spotted the emperor emerging from amidst the group of administrators at the top of the steps. He was still within range.

Granger stepped back from the cannon and pulled the lanyard.

An enormous concussion sounded. The gun carriage slammed backwards against its breech rope. Grapeshot burst out of the barrel, scattering in the air, and tore through the dockside crowds. Through drifting smoke Granger saw dozens of men and women drop, their flesh torn open by the tiny missiles. He glimpsed bloody clothes, scores of wounds. Someone screamed.

Emperor Hu remained standing exactly where he was, clutching his face. And then his bodyguards closed around him and bustled him roughly down the steps towards the waiting launch.

Granger had missed his target.

He cursed again. Then he snatched up the remaining powder cartridges, and ran with them to the nearest ladder. He climbed up and hurried through the crew quarters, his heart thumping wildly. Near the rear of the ship he found a stairwell that looked likely to take him up to the bridge. But as he started to climb, he came face to face with another man who had been rushing in the opposite direction.

The insignia on the man’s white uniform marked him as the first officer. When he saw Granger he halted abruptly and his eyes widened with alarm. ‘You…’ he began. But he couldn’t find the words to finish his sentence. Granger, with his scorched flesh and howling red eyes, must have made a terrifying spectacle.

The officer suddenly reached for the pistol at his belt.

Granger kicked the man’s legs out from under him.

He fell back heavily onto the stairs. He fumbled for his pistol again.

Granger snatched the seeing knife from the band of his breeches and plunged it upwards into the other man’s neck. He pinned the officer’s arms with his knees, holding the dying man down while he choked and gurgled on his own lifeblood. It was over in a moment.

Granger wiped the seeing knife clean on the officer’s uniform and carried on up the stairwell.

He reached the top of the stairwell without further incident, clutched the powder cartridges close to his chest, and flung open the door to the bridge. It was empty. Three outward-sloping glass windows composed of innumerable tiny panes offered views to port and starboard, and ahead across the Excelsior’s foredeck to the Haurstaf warship berthed further out from the quayside. A sweeping control bank of lacquered wood and gold piping curved around the silver and bone ship’s wheel. The rear wall had been exquisitely carved with dragon motifs, hunting scenes and Imperial seals. An enormous steel harpoon hung there like a trophy, over a brass plaque that read: Garamae’s Thorn. No fewer than ten gem lanterns adorned the ceiling, all shining in hues of pink, gold, orange and green. Not a man in sight. Granger could scarcely believe his luck. Evidently Hu had deemed it unnecessary to keep even a skeleton crew in charge of his own yacht’s bridge.

He closed the door behind him. Through the port window he spied the emperor’s launch scudding across the harbour towards the ship’s boarding ladder. There was no time to spare. He scanned the engine gauges and controls. Boiler pressure, good. Water level, good. Engine oil. Fuel oil. Feed cocks. Decomp. Hydraulics. Pressure valves. Primer shunts. Everything was in order. A separate bank under the forward window contained an array of meteorological and navigational instruments – barometers, chronographs, compasses and the like – but he ignored those for now. Likewise the comspool. He had to hope the engine room crew had been lax enough to keep the main whale-oil feed line open, or he’d be running on reserve.

He primed the engine and opened the oil feed cocks, then pumped the decompression lever until the gauge levelled. Then he pressed down firmly on the first of the three copper shunts.

Far below he heard the engine grumble into life.

‘Let’s see what you can do,’ he muttered.

Granger opened half the air shunts, spun the wheel hard to starboard and twisted open the main-line feed-through cock. Steam hissed behind the control panel. Hydraulic power valves snapped open. The great ship gave a slight tremble and then began to slide forward.

A hail of rifle shots burst through the port window, showering Granger with shards of glass. He grinned maniacally and then pumped the main-line primer and opened the rest of the air shunts. The bridge juddered heavily in response.

The ship began to pick up speed.

Granger watched the bow of the Haurstaf man-o’-war slide by as he took the Excelsior out into the harbour. Ahead, he could now see the gates of the Glot Madera heave into view. A fishing boat and two canal ferries made sudden course changes to move out of his way.

From the control deck came a steady clacking sound, as the ship’s comspool began disgorging a message it had printed onto a thin strip of paper. Evidently there were crewmen aboard somewhere. They would probably be down in the engine room, which meant they might not yet be aware that the emperor was not aboard. Granger tore the tape loose and read it.

ER – NO/REC – ORDERS/TO – OPEN MAINFEED – AI

Awaiting instructions. The ER glyph meant the message had indeed come from the engine room. Granger clicked open the pressure cap, turned the destination-wheel round to its ER setting, and then dialled and punched in a reply using five of the seventy-three commands available on the command wheel.

BR – CONFIRM – REQ/OPEN MAINFEED – EJH/DANGER – REQ/ALL HASTE

He depressed the release valve and heard a series of phuts as his reply disappeared into the ship’s warren of steam messaging pipes. A comspool in the engine room would begin typing it out almost at once. The Excelsior meanwhile was now building up speed as she passed through the gates of the Glot Madera. The great Ethugran Administration Buildings loomed to port and starboard. Granger locked down the wheel and hurried over the port window.

Unable to match the yacht’s pace, the emperor’s launch had turned around and was heading back to the dockside. Hu himself was now standing on the smaller boat’s deck, shouting and waving his hands up at his crewmen and soldiers on dry land. As Granger watched, the emperor’s men began to commandeer vessels all along the quayside. They were coming after him.

The comspool on the control deck began its rhythmic clacking again. The briny smell of octopus ink came from its innards as tiny metal elements rattled away behind the printing wheel. It sounded out of sorts. Granger checked the device’s oil reservoir, and then adjusted the steam inlet valve and feeder gearing. The tape began to spool out more smoothly.

ER – CONFIRM – REQ/VERIFY – FLAG/YELLOW – AI

He cursed. Someone in the ER crew wanted a verification code, and Granger didn’t know the correct response. There were nine flag glyphs around the command wheel he could choose from. But which one? If he lucked upon the correct response, the engine room crew would open the main fuel feed line. If not, they’d shut down the engines immediately, thereby foiling his escape. Granger peered ahead along the Glot Madera. The deep-water channel ran straight for a thousand yards or so, before curving gently to the south-west. The Excelsior would reach the corner in two or three minutes. An eight-to-one chance of choosing the correct coded reply? It wasn’t good enough. He couldn’t allow the crew to stop him here. He dialled in a different response.

BR – NO CONFIRM/TAPE FOUL – REQ/REPEAT LAST MESSAGE

With the wheel still locked in place and the Excelsior firmly fixed on her current heading, Granger picked up the last of his powder cartridges and left the bridge. He had minutes to reach the engine room and then get back to the wheel. And less time yet to murder the crew.

The deadship struck them on the starboard side with enough force to send Maskelyne staggering sideways. He lost his grip on the wheel. A terrible metal groaning reverberated through the Mistress’s bulkheads as the ironclad’s reinforced prow crushed a deep trench in the dredging ship’s hull. The Mistress lurched sickeningly, her deck cranes tilting closer to the roiling red-brown waters as the crew hung on for their lives. The bathysphere clanked against its mountings, then broke free and smashed against the port bulwark.

Ianthe cried out in alarm.

The grinding and moaning of stressed metals continued for a tortuously long time, before finally subsiding. Maskelyne gazed down at the wreckage in disbelief and horror. The bow of the Unmer ship remained embedded in one side of his own vessel. That heavy iron prow had crumpled the Mistress’s hull like paper. Had it holed them? He couldn’t see how it could possibly not have holed them.

He flung open the wheelhouse door and called down. ‘Mellor! Have someone fetch my family. Round up everyone but the repair teams. I want them top deck, now. And I want a time-frame here.’

‘Aye, Captain.’ The first officer relayed Maskelyne’s orders to several crewmen, who took off at a run.

‘Are we going to sink?’ Ianthe asked.

‘Very likely,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘Come with me.’ Without looking back to see if she was following, he climbed down the wheelhouse ladder and hurried along the deck to the point of impact.

Most of the crew from the lower decks had already appeared, and their gem lanterns moved about in the gloom around Maskelyne as they began to assemble into ranks. Someone was taking a head count, calling out names. The deadship’s figurehead leaned over the starboard bulwark amidst a mess of twisted metal, and it seemed to Maskelyne that that maiden’s grimace evinced a hint of cruel satisfaction. He could smell burned iron, rust and ash, and the bitter salts of the ocean, but something else…

Fuel oil. The dredger’s whale-oil tanks had been ruptured.

Maskelyne leaned over the side and peered down at his stricken hull. The ship’s skin had been crumpled almost to the waterline and ruptured in at least four places. Clear fluid was seeping from the fore rents, leaving the surrounding brine with a nacreous sheen.

Mellor arrived at his side. ‘We’re pumping out all the ballast tanks,’ he said. ‘Those that haven’t been damaged, anyway. Two midships pumps were shorn from their outlets, and we can’t get to the fore ones. Abernathy will try to keep us afloat a while longer, but he’s not confident. Secondary repair crew can’t get access to the engine room. Flooding sounds like it’s above the hatches.’

‘What about the men already in there?’ Maskelyne asked.

‘Not a sound from them, Captain.’

‘Cut down through the crew quarters.’

‘That’ll shorten the time we have, sir.’

‘Do it.’

‘Aye, sir.’ He turned to go.

Maskelyne stopped him. ‘Where are my wife and son, Mr Mellor?’

His question was answered by a different voice. ‘Ethan!’ Lucille was with Ianthe, and now ran over, carrying Jontney in one arm and Maskelyne’s blunderbuss in the other. She had already fitted a frozen void-fly cartridge to the stock. She gazed up in wonder and horror at the dark hulk of the Unmer ship, before evidently remembering the gun.

‘I thought you could use this,’ she said, handing the weapon to him.

He took the gun and examined the mechanism. ‘Where did you learn how to load it?’

‘It’s not that difficult, Ethan.’

He arched his eyebrows. ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Then he reached over and fussed with Jontney’s hair. The boy looked up at him and smiled – the sort of open, trouble-free smile that Maskelyne hadn’t seen in the child for a long time. ‘Keep him safe,’ he said to his wife. ‘Mellor will look after you both. Do whatever he says.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to board that ship,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘It looks like it’s our only way out of here.’

Granger tried the engine-room hatch, but found it to be locked from the inside. He placed the powder cartridges on the floor against the hatch and took out his knife, flint and fuse. But he stopped. The metal hatch opened towards him, its rim resting against the metal bulkhead. He wasn’t sure the explosives he’d brought were enough for the job. He stood there for a moment longer, while his mind ran through the naval ballistic tables for this thickness and grade of steel as it compared it to the sort of brisance he could expect from high-grade cannon-powder. It couldn’t be done without shaping the charge, and he had no time for that.

He hammered his fist upon the hatch.

After a moment, a voice came from the other side. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Who am I speaking to?’ Granger demanded.

‘Able Seaman Fletcher, sir.’

‘Don’t open this hatch to anyone, Able Seaman,’ Granger said. ‘That’s an order. Not to me, not to anyone. And do not under any circumstances take orders from the bridge. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir. What’s going on?’

‘Revolutionary militia have taken control of the Excelsior. They’re holding the first officer hostage on the bridge.’

‘Revolutionaries?’ Granger then heard a second voice behind the hatch, conversing with Fletcher, but he couldn’t make out what was said between them. Fletcher said, ‘We can shut the engines down from here, sir.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Granger replied. ‘Let them burn through the reserves. That’ll give us some time to get the emperor’s Samarol aboard. Do you have pistols with you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Swords?’

‘No, sir.’

‘How the hell do you expect to protect the engines without arms?’ Granger yelled. ‘You can have my own pistol for the time being. Open up a minute.’

He heard the locking lever clunk back, and the hatch opened.

Granger – still clutching his knife in one fist – stepped through.

Maskelyne climbed across a boarding plank onto the Unmer dead-ship, closely followed by two of his most stolid crewmen. Kitchener was an old soldier who had watched Maskelyne’s back during the Poppy Wars – a good man to have at your side whenever swords were drawn. Roberts was younger, but sharp and quick-witted and less superstitious than most. A good head on his shoulders. The rest of the crew held back to make whatever repairs they could, and to try to cut down to the men trapped in the Mistress’s flooded engine room. Many of them had baulked at the very idea of setting foot aboard the Unmer vessel. Maskelyne did not take this to be a good sign.

Bloody vapours drifted through tangled cables. A layer of ash covered the warped iron deck, filling the air with an odour like that of an old, damp fire-pit. Booming sounds came from the metal under their boots as the three men approached the ship’s huge electrical tower.

‘You hear that?’ Roberts asked.

‘Hear what?’ Kitchener said.

‘That whine.’ He pointed up at the toroid atop the tower. ‘It’s coming from that thing.’

‘It’s still receiving power from somewhere,’ Maskelyne said.

The men fell silent. Maskelyne placed his hand against the tower’s lattice of struts, and felt a slight vibration. His skin tingled as the invisible electrical fluid passed into him, and it seemed to him that the whining sound intensified. He could feel it in his teeth. He withdrew his hand quickly. Tiny pink aether flames danced across his fingertips for a moment and then disappeared. Still operational after three hundred years? Where is the power coming from?

He walked over to examine one of the queer guns bolted to the deck. The cone of circular plates over its barrel prevented any type of shot from passing through the weapon. Perhaps it had also once utilized electrical fluids? It seemed unlikely that he could repair the device, for it looked utterly destroyed. Its metal surfaces had been heated to the point where they had actually flowed downwards, leaving tallow-like trails of iron. Maskelyne leaned closer and smelled burned copper. Nothing salvageable.

The three men made their way across groaning deck towards the sterncastle.

‘Look at this,’ Kitchener said. He indicated an area of deck where a black scorch mark formed the shape of a sprawled human body. It looked as if the corpse had been removed, leaving a perfect shadow behind.

‘There’s more over here,’ Roberts said. ‘Four, five of them.’

Maskelyne gazed down at the twisted shapes. ‘The remains of the crew,’ he said. ‘They were sorcerers, all of them.’ And not as much as a fragment of their bone left behind. Dragonfire had consumed them utterly. Maskelyne bent down to examine the shadow more closely – and abruptly recoiled. For an instant he’d felt searing heat, and it had seemed that he himself was lying there amidst the smoke and flames, with the stink of burning flesh in his nostrils and the cries of the dying all around. Burned alive. They were burned alive almost three hundred years ago. The sensation left him shaking, and it took a moment to clear the echoes of that terrible screaming from his head. Had the ship itself absorbed the essence of the men who’d died here? All Unmer creations contained a spark of the infinite. Was it possible that the crew had somehow contrived to find refuge there?

‘Let’s not linger,’ he said.

They found the door to the captain’s quarters in the sterncastle.

There was little evidence of fire damage inside. A short wood-panelled corridor opened into a small, sour-smelling wash room on the left. It contained a beaten copper sink and a wooden commode, a stack of rotten books on the floor. Roberts gagged and turned away at the stink, but Maskelyne pushed past him and picked up one of the books. It was a volume on surgical sorcery written in Unmer and packed with illustrations of opened human cadavers beside wire-wound rods and spheres. He translated the title as Venal Tissues of Man.

To the right an open doorway led to a larger dressing room wherein the remains of the captain’s clothes still hung in musty wardrobes. The garments were covered in tiny spiders. Webs cocooned them completely, and yet not one strand of silk reached beyond the wardrobe itself. On the dressing table lay a copper egg and a small flute carved from a human finger. Maskelyne picked up the egg, but sensed nothing unusual about it.

At the end of the corridor a third door gave them access to the captain’s cabin.

Here Maskelyne stopped and stared in astonishment. Every corner of the cabin was filled with Unmer treasure. An entire rack of brightly lacquered swords, surgical swords, knives, daggers and stilettos hung upon the wall beside the bed, their steel blades agleam. A glass cabinet held chronographs, sextants, anemometers, compasses and astrolabes, all exquisitely wrought from a strange green alloy. There were shelves upon shelves of scientific instruments and small, boxed machines whose purpose could only be guessed at. An open chest at the foot of the bed contained a glittering hoard of gold coins. Maskelyne retrieved a coin with the intention of examining it, but it made him feel suddenly nauseous, and he dropped it back among the others. His skin prickled for a moment afterwards, and his hand began to tremble uncontrollably.

‘Captain?’ Roberts said.

Maskelyne ignore him. His attention had already turned to a wide workbench under the stern windows, where a shining gem lantern stood amidst what appeared to be a number of optical and magnetic experiments.

Kitchener whistled through his teeth. ‘Never seen the like,’ he said.

‘Fair bit of money here, Captain.’ Roberts added.

Maskelyne turned his blunderbuss over and pressed two fingers against the glass void-fly phial. It still felt ice cold. He leaned the weapon against the table and then let his gaze travel across the room. Several of the experiments looked familiar. A sealed bell jar contained a tiny copper vane, like a miniature version of the anemometers in the cabinet. Each of the vane’s four thin, square fins had been painted black on one side and polished on the other. They were turning slowly, even in the sealed environment within the jar. Beside this mechanism a brilliant white gem lantern illuminated a diffraction box, wherein the rays of light passed through a pair of closely spaced vertical slits in the centre of the container and made patterns of interference across a rear screen. In addition to these finds he noted a large array of kaleidoscopes, reflecting telescopes, boxes of magnets, wires and prisms, and even a pair of Unmer spectacles. Runic inscriptions covered the silver frames, the decorations whirling around a tiny wheel fixed to one side of the rightmost lens. A triangle had been impressed into the wheel, within which was etched several digits, almost too small to see. Maskelyne picked up the spectacles and squinted at them. The number in the triangle was 1.618.

The golden ratio.

‘Looks like our captain was an amateur opticist,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Spectacles like this were once worn by archivists, but I’ve not seen a pair quite so fine before.’

‘Nothing amateur about anything the Unmer do,’ Kitchener growled. ‘And nothing normal about it either. There’s a reason this ship came after us. Mark my words, sir. There’s an evil will behind this. Someone wanted us aboard this vessel.’

Maskelyne examined the table. ‘The captain was studying the properties of light,’ he remarked. ‘The diffraction box illustrates that light exhibits the properties of waves, while this vane suggests that it is actually composed of particles. And yet if light travels in a straight line through a vacuum, can a single ray still be a wave?’ He found himself musing about each speck of starlight oscillating at a particular frequency. Had our brains developed to interpret those frequencies? How did light particles interact? There had be some association between them – perhaps analogous to the association that existed between the fragments of mankind? Looking at the experiments, Maskelyne suddenly felt that he was on the verge of finding something important, a key to the mystery behind all Unmer artefacts.

He picked up the spectacles and studied them closely. They were more intricate than any he’d seen before. The lenses were not solid, but actually composed of a number of incredibly thin optical elements sandwiched together. When he turned the tiny wheel fixed to the frame, these inner circles of glass rotated around each other, but not in any commonsensical alignment. He could perceive nothing strange or magical about the set-up.

He put the spectacles on.

The cabin looked normal.

He turned the wheel beside his right eye and heard the almost imperceptible murmur of the glass discs revolving inside the lenses. This sound was followed by a sudden crackling buzz. The legs of the silver frame felt warm against his head.

And something odd happened. The cabin now appeared to be much darker than before, and yet everything around him was awash with a low, flickering silver luminance, as if each object – the bed, the cabinets, the artefacts – possessed a strange and intermittent aura. The workbench experiments shuddered in the dim light. He watched ghostlike wisps of light tremble across the diffraction box, the kaleidoscopes and the telescopes. It looked like some sort of interference pattern. No doubt the artefact was broken, and had been brought here to be repaired. The spectral radiance, however, did not extend beyond the cabin, for the mists beyond the window now appeared as black as night. White dots shifted in the gloom outside – like stars. Kitchener and Roberts emitted no discernible luminance at all. ..

Indeed, both crewmen were now missing from the scene entirely.

Maskelyne removed the spectacles. Kitchener and Roberts reappeared, standing there regarding him as if nothing had happened. He put the spectacles back on. The two men simply vanished before his eyes, leaving the surroundings intact, but stammering in that darkly uncertain light. Suddenly he thought he detected movement at the corner of his vision, and turned abruptly. But there was nothing there, just the cabin walls and the door.

Had that door just closed?

Remarkable. Was he witnessing some previously hidden property inherent in the objects themselves? The very essence of sorcery? Could that explain both the consistency of the cabin and the sudden disappearance of his two crewmen? The ship was sorcerous, but his comrades were not? Was it possible that these spectacles could perceive one and not the other? Maskelyne could not imagine another solution. He wondered if he could tune the spectacles to eliminate the interference and produce a clearer picture.

He turned the wheel back to its original position.

This time a searing white light blinded him, as if a magnesium powder flash had been set off directly in front of his eyes. Images crashed into his retina: the cabin, a ship, the sky, cabin, ship, sky, all accompanied by a terrible stuttering roar. Maskelyne tore the spectacles from his face, overcome with agony, and pinched his eyes.

‘Captain?’ Kitchener said.

After-images remained burned into Maskelyne’s retinas. He’d glimpsed something he recognized… But what was it? Now he couldn’t see a thing. ‘I’m blinded,’ he cried, and realized that he couldn’t even hear his own words. The roaring sound still drummed in his ears. Yet even as he spoke, he realized that this sensory storm was already beginning to fade. Slowly, his vision began to return to normal. He heard himself breathing once more.

‘Some water,’ Kitchener said to Roberts. ‘Fetch clean water.’

‘No,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘I’m all right. I can see again. I can hear.’ He set down the strange spectacles and then took a deep breath. His nerves felt utterly shredded. He was shaking. What was it he’d glimpsed during that terrible glare? A face? The more he thought about it, the more he felt sure that was it. A hideous iron visage, scorched and blackened by fire. ‘Blame my own foolishness,’ he said at last. ‘I should have known better than to make assumptions. You are quite right, Kitchener. Normalcy is not a quality one should ever associate with the Unmer.’ He shook his head clear of the last vestiges of the vision. ‘Start bringing the crew over now. Leave the trove, but bring the gas welders and grab as much water, food, rope, tools and sailcloth as you can carry.’

‘Sailcloth, captain?’ Kitchener inquired.

‘I want to put a spinnaker up on that tower,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘If there is a will at work here, we ought to give ourselves the opportunity to thwart it.’

Ianthe retreated into the darkness of her own mind. She found that she was breathing rapidly. What had happened? She’d been looking out at the cabin through Maskelyne’s eyes. She saw the optical experiments and watched her host pick up the spectacles. She had looked out of his eyes in awe at the change in luminance when Maskelyne had first turned the wheel and then gasped at the abrupt disappearance of the two crewmen. And then…

Suddenly Ianthe had no longer been able to perceive the cabin at all. She had been standing right here, on the deck of Maske-lyne’s dredger, gazing up at the figurehead upon the Unmer ship. She had been looking at the scene through her own eyes.

When the Excelsior began to shudder violently, Granger knew he’d been away from the wheel too long. He vaulted up the final few steps and burst into the bridge to see the westernmost edge of the Glot Madera looming large to port. One side of the emperor’s dragon-hunter was scraping along the prison facades, gouging deep scars into the stonework.

He swung the wheel hard to starboard and reversed the engine throttle, hoping to turn out the Excelsior’s bow, but the yacht’s momentum continued to carry her along on her destructive path. Rubble crumbled and pattered across the deck. Metal groaned and shrieked as the ship’s port bulwark crumpled. Granger cursed and slammed the throttle forward again. He didn’t have time to worry about the hull.

The ship turned slowly. With a final screech of metal, she broke away from the bank and began steaming out into the centre of the canal. Golden sunlight reflected off the ship’s copper-plated hull, illuminating the prison facades on either side of the channel as if by the radiance of some great golden lantern. Ahead of him, Granger could see the seaward opening of the Glot Madera with nothing beyond but the distant shimmering horizon.