Sea Of Ghosts

CHAPTER 6
THE OLEA

Dear Margaret,

Last night I dreamed I escaped this cell. I was heading across open water in a strong steel boat, with the sun rising before me and the whole sea shimmering like copper. And then I woke and found myself trapped in this damn cell again. The same four walls every day, the same lousy food. And now there’s a dead man in the next cell. He died during the night, and Mr Swinekicker has just left him there. What kind of life is this? What kind of man leaves a corpse to rot?

Love,

Alfred

Granger let Creedy stew for three more days. He set up the washbasin for his two captives, running a tube down from the purifier on his roof, and he improved the floor in their cell as best he could. He used his own boat to travel to Averley Market, but it leaked so badly he dared not risk the long trip out to the boatyards yet. He bought food, wine and resin, and spent a whole afternoon patching up the hull. It grew hot and humid, and the grey skies pinned the air down over the city as thoroughly as the roof of a bread oven. On the third night he dragged Duka’s body out of the cell and dumped it in one of the narrow nameless canals behind his prison. And then he flagged down Ned and paid him to deliver a message to Creedy.

The sergeant arrived that same evening, with two bottles of beer and a broad grin on his grizzled jaw, as if the two of them had never argued. ‘Enjoying the family life, Colonel?’

Granger sat down and pulled on his galoshes.

Creedy’s grin widened. ‘It was only a matter of time.’

For the next four nights they dredged Ethugra’s canals for trove. Creedy grunted with approval at each new treasure they discovered, before packing them carefully away in his huge canvas satchel. Ianthe’s abrasiveness waned as she relaxed into the task and let the fresh air start to relieve the stress of confinement. She seemed happy to be in the two men’s company. Clearly she enjoyed the work.

For Creedy’s benefit she kept up the pretence of staring into the black waters, as though she was able to perceive details in that murk with her useless eyes. Whenever they found trove, Granger knew that there must be Drowned nearby, that Ianthe had spotted the treasure only because they themselves had seen it. He imagined multitudes of them moving about down there while the surface world remained oblivious. It was like the way the empire viewed the liberated territories: one did not observe the under-classes unless one was obliged to. In Granger’s experience such an attitude was inherently dangerous. When the under-classes occupied the foundations of a society, it was all too easy for them to undermine it.

Creedy and the girl showed genuine interest in the objects they retrieved. But Granger couldn’t shake his dark mood or bring himself to enthuse about their finds. Relatively common items made up the bulk of their discoveries: bright shards of pottery, rusted clasps and hinges, parts of old Unmer sailing vessels. Few were worth more than a handful of gilders. But every so often they found something rarer.

In Malver Basin they pulled up a trepanned skull. After they had emptied it of brine something could be heard rattling around inside, and when Granger listened closely he could swear he heard the sound of flutes coming from the unknown object. It was tuneless and ethereal, and he sensed it served no good purpose. But they would sell it to one of Creedy’s buyers, and it would end up god knows where, and the responsibility for returning it to the world would remain on Granger’s shoulders. He needed the money.

From a tar-black sink on the outskirts of Francialle they retrieved a phial of blood-red crystals, which Creedy tried to open.

‘Best leave it be, Sergeant,’ Granger said.

Creedy held the phial close to his eye lens. ‘They could be rubies,’ he muttered.

‘Maybe,’ Granger replied. ‘Maybe not. Let the buyer take the risk.’

This was their problem. Neither of them really knew what most of this stuff did, or, for that matter, what it was truly worth. There were a few Unmer experts in Ethugra, but no one they could trust. What looked like treasure to them them might be worthless in the marketplace, while what appeared to be common might actually be priceless. They were at the mercy of their own ignorance.

But late on the fourth night, Ianthe led them to a discovery that Creedy recognized at once.

On a hunch Creedy had steered the launch deep into the Helt, where the canals formed a precise grid and the massive iron-stitched prison blocks rose sheer above them for more than ten storeys. Finds were sparse here, but Creedy insisted they keep searching. They must have traversed the same intersection four times before Ianthe raised her hand for them to stop.

‘An amphora,’ she said.

It was heavy. If Granger had known beforehand just how much effort would be required to pull it up, he might just have left it on the seabed. And when he saw its dreary bulk resting in the hull, he almost pitched it back in to save himself the trouble of carrying it further.

Creedy stopped him. ‘I know what that is,’ he said excitedly. ‘Hell’s balls, man, I know what that is.’

Granger peered down at the object. It was a clay amphora sealed by a wax stopper. He’d seen hundreds of them for sale in Losoto. ‘Wine,’ he said. ‘Or whale oil. Either way, it’s not worth much more than twenty gilders.’

Creedy shook his head. ‘It’s an olea,’ he said. ‘These markings on the front show a record of its battles.’

Granger frowned at the indecipherable writing scrawled across the container. ‘A fish?’

‘Jellyfish,’ Creedy said. ‘The Unmer used to breed them for sport.’

‘That’s an old amphora,’ Granger said.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ the other man replied. ‘Olea are sorcerous.’

‘It’s still alive?’

He nodded. ‘And seriously pissed off. Imagine how you’d feel being cooped up in a jar for two hundred years.’ He grinned, and his eye-lens glittered in the lantern light. ‘Might get eight hundred for it at market, but a collector would pay more. Up to four thousand for a good specimen.’

Granger stared at the amphora. With his half share, he’d manage a down payment on a deepwater vessel. It was more than he’d dared hope for in such a short space of time. He could be out of Ethugra by the end of the year. ‘Do you know any collectors with that kind of money?’ he asked.

The sergeant was silent for a moment. Then he shrugged. ‘The only one in Ethugra who collects them,’ he said, ‘is Ethan Maskelyne.’

A hollow feeling crept into Granger’s gut. Ethan Maskelyne. Maskelyne the Metaphysicist, Maskelyne the Unappointed, the Wizard of Scythe Island – Ethugra’s unofficial boss had more sobriquets than the tides. He was an amateur scientist, and an avid collector of Unmer esoterica. But to Granger, the title of Maskelyne the Extortionist seemed most fitting. His Hookmen supposedly protected the city from the Drowned, but they took in payment nine out of every hundred gilders earned by the land-living. Once in a while they’d drag a few sharkskin men or women up from the depths and chain them out in Averley Plaza to die in the sun.

‘Eight hundred in the market?’ Granger said.

Creedy looked up. ‘But five times that from Maskelyne himself.’

Granger didn’t like it. Maskelyne would want to know exactly where the olea had come from. Were there any more? How did two jailers come to be in the trove business in the first place? What else had they found? Granger did not want to be scrutinized by a man like Maskelyne. But something else bothered him even more. Finding this treasure had been too… convenient. Creedy had wanted to bring Maskelyne in as a partner and now he had a perfect excuse to approach him. And why had Creedy been so insistent that they come here at all? Granger peered down at the amphora again. It remained as unremarkable as any he’d seen, covered with scratches that might be some ancient Unmer script, or not. Anyone might have scrawled them. A fighting jellyfish? Or a jar of vinegar?

‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ll sell it through the market.’

‘Aye, sir,’ Creedy said evenly, although the darkness in his expression said otherwise.

Towards dawn, Granger sat with Ianthe and Hana on the roof of his jail, eating thrice-boiled fish baked in sugar and cinnamon that Hana had prepared while they’d been away. A small oil lantern rested on the brine purifier nearby. Ianthe was telling her mother about the amphora.

‘What did it perceive?’ Hana asked.

Ianthe snorted. ‘I don’t know! Jellyfish don’t have any eyes or ears, do they?’

‘You saw nothing inside?’ Granger asked.

‘I don’t see at all,’ Ianthe said.

Granger noted that her tone had become less cynical and hostile. She was beginning to accept her situation, and that troubled him more than he cared to admit. She didn’t belong here, nor anywhere with him. He couldn’t take them with him.

He sighed and rubbed his temples. Once he bought his new boat, he might as well return them to Evensraum. Or even Lions-port, at the edge of the empire. They’d probably be safer there.

‘Can you see what Creedy’s doing?’ he asked.

Ianthe’s spoon halted halfway to her mouth. She appeared to smile slightly, although it was so brief it may have been Granger’s imagination. And then her blank eyes gazed at the ground for a moment. ‘He must be sleeping,’ she said, then went back to her meal.

‘How do you know? How can you find him?’

She spoke with her mouth full. ‘It’s like flying through darkness. You can see little islands of light everywhere, but the islands are really someone’s perception, and you can drift down inside them if you concentrate.’ She swallowed her food and took another bite. ‘Then the darkness goes away and you hear and see exactly what they do. But when there’s nobody about, it’s just black, empty of anything. I can see this roof because you and Mother do. And I can see a room in that building,’ she pointed to Cuttle’s jail, ‘because somebody is moving about over there. But the area between is just dead space, like your friend Creedy’s house.’

‘You know where he lives.’

She shrugged. ‘Only because I sat in his head and watched him go there.’

‘But if he’s somewhere else? Could you still find him?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But I’d have to look inside all the different lights, and that would take all night. How do I know where he is?’

Granger thought about this. Ianthe could follow someone, spy on them, by putting herself inside that person’s mind. But once out of their head, it was difficult for her to relocate them amongst the millions of other people – unless she knew exactly where to look. ‘Can you tell who is who?’ he asked. ‘When you move into these islands in the darkness, these perceptions, do you know whose eyes you are looking through?’

Ianthe finished her meal and set down the bowl. ‘Not at first,’ she admitted. ‘You can see your own arms and legs, but you can’t see your own face, can you? Sometimes the only way I can know for sure is to look at the person through someone else’s eyes, unless they happen to look in a mirror, I suppose. Women look in mirrors a lot… so does Emperor Hu. I don’t think Creedy owns a mirror, though.’

‘You shouldn’t be spying on the emperor,’ Granger said.

She gave him a sarcastic smile. ‘Only on your friends?’

Granger grunted. He got up and strolled to the edge of the roof. His garret sloped darkly behind him, and down in the canal the brine was as black as sin. No green and gold lights. He couldn’t see his own boat. There was only the constant slap of water in the darkness and the sour metal stench of the sea. The great shadowy masses of the surrounding jails loomed over him, now silhouetted against the lightening sky. Steam rose from the funnels of Dan Cuttle’s place. He was probably boiling up a vat of bones. He searched the skies for Ortho’s Chariot but couldn’t spot it. Scores of stars still sparkled ahead of the coming sunrise. The day looked like it would be another fine one. Granger felt the time was right.

He turned to the girls. ‘Wait here.’

He went back into his garret and took out the large paper parcel he’d hidden under his cot, then carried it back up to the roof and gave it to Hana.

‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘Just something I picked up.’

Hana unwrapped the parcel. It contained two ankle-length satin frocks, each adorned with all sorts of fancy lace frills. One was mostly peach-coloured, with silvery sparkles across the front, while the other boasted pink and yellow stripes and puffy arms. Hana held up the peach dress and blinked at it. ‘You bought these for us?’

‘The other one’s for Ianthe. It’s got ruffles.’

Ianthe’s face remained expressionless. ‘Ruffles,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it?’

Hana appeared to suppress a smile. She moved more of the crumpled paper aside. ‘And what’s this? Undergarments?’ She lifted out a pair of the knee-length white pantaloons Mrs Pursewearer had sold Granger and held them out at arm’s length. ‘These look… well made.’

‘I’m told they’re good quality,’ Granger said.

Ianthe gave a little squawk, then covered her mouth with her hand.

Hana looked up at him with bright eyes. She gave him a huge smile, then stood up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I don’t know what to say. Thank you. Thank you from both of us.’

Granger looked at his feet. He nodded awkwardly. ‘Your old clothes were pretty rotten,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want you both getting fleas.’

Creedy was shaking him. ‘Colonel, I found a buyer.’

Granger blinked and raised his hands against harsh sunlight. ‘What time is it?’

‘Afternoon.’

‘What day?’

‘I dunno. Today.’

‘Gods, man, do you never go to bed?’

‘Not when there’s money to be made,’ Creedy replied. ‘I found us a buyer for the olea. A collector, here in Ethugra.’

Granger sat up in his cot and stretched his neck. The roof of his garret wavered with copper-coloured reflections. He remembered putting Ianthe and Hana in their cell, but not much after that. He must have been exhausted. ‘The jellyfish? I thought Maskelyne was the only collector in Ethugra.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Creedy replied. ‘But then I started asking around, sly like, so nobody-’

‘How much did you get for it?’

Creedy frowned. ‘I said I’ve found us a buyer. I didn’t say I’d sold the bloody thing. He wants to meet you.’

‘Me?’

‘The brains of the operation.’

Granger got up. ‘What do I know about jellyfish?’

‘About as much as me,’ Creedy said. ‘But you’re prettier than me, and the buyer’s some titled Evensraum merchant. All airs and graces. Wipes his arse with squares of silk. I don’t know if I could speak to him without murdering him.’

Granger frowned. What was an Evensraumer was doing in Ethugra? Unless…

‘He’s a prisoner?’

Creedy nodded. ‘A rich prisoner. Holed up in one of the Imperial jails on Averley. Special privileges and all that. The bastard used to own more land than Hu. He’s got gilders coming out of his pores.’

Granger knew the type. Wealth bought luxury and status even in Ethugran prisons, even if it couldn’t always purchase freedom. There were captives in this city who ate better than their jailers did. They were always pre-assigned to Imperial jails, thus avoiding the allocation system used for regular inmates. Emperor Hu made a good profit from such prisons, although it was rumoured that Maskelyne’s men actually ran them.

Maskelyne again, Granger thought miserably. Why does it always come back to him?

‘What is it?’ Creedy said.

‘Nothing.’ Granger sighed. Maybe he was just being paranoid. ‘When can I meet him?’

‘Whenever you like. He ain’t going anywhere.’

‘Now?’

The other man shrugged. ‘The olea’s in the boat. I’ll drop you off there.’

Shortly afterwards he found himself hunched beside Creedy in his launch as it thundered along. He’d left fresh water and soap for Hana and Ianthe. Creedy gunned the engines without regard for other canal traffic, pushing them quickly through Francialle and into Averley Plaza. They discussed money. How much should Granger ask for the olea? Creedy waved his arms and talked about thousands, but Granger wasn’t convinced. If he got more than eight hundred, he’d be happy. The sun was still above the rooftops when they reached the marketplace embankment, bathing the Imperial jails and administration buildings in soft, golden light. Creedy wrenched the tiller to port and cut the engines, expertly berthing the metal vessel between a fishing barque and a clutch of coracles. Once he’d tied up, he dug out a bulky whaleskin parcel from a hidden compartment under the port strakes and beckoned Granger up the stone steps to the embankment.

The market had finished hours ago. Only a few beer sellers stayed open, serving those stallholders who had remained after their morning’s work. Groups of Asakchi and Valcinder merchants lounged against the stony figures of the Drowned, drinking and talking, while a group of children raced around the empty stalls, shrieking with delight at some game. Creedy led Granger to one of the many huge brass doors lining the westernmost facade and then banged on it repeatedly. A great booming sound echoed within.

‘Ask for Truan,’ Creedy said, handing Granger the wrapped amphora. ‘I’ll be yonder, drinking my share on credit.’ He gave a short salute and then wandered off towards the beer sellers.

The amphora felt as heavy as a boulder. Granger was about to put it down, when the door opened and a hard-faced little man peered out and blinked. ‘I’m the jailer,’ he said. ‘You the guy with the thing?’ He glanced at Granger’s parcel, then waved him in without waiting for an answer and swung the door shut behind them both.

They were standing in a grand stone hallway. A sweeping staircase rose to a second-floor gallery. Down here on the ground level, two arched doorways led to administration offices on either side, wherein Granger could see scribes working at their desks amidst stacks of paper. One of the seated young men glanced up from his quill and frowned through his spectacles, before returning his attention to his ledger. The building contained a weighty silence that seemed several degrees more substantial than the air itself.

Given the solemn majesty of his surroundings, the jailer who had admitted Granger could not have looked more out of place. He was as small and tough as a street dog, with a naval haircut and a brawler’s skewed nose. He wore a perpetual scowl, giving his face the same creased, weather-worn appearance as his salt-stained leather tunic and his sailcloth breeches. Ink crosses and sigils tattooed across the back of his hands suggested he’d spent some time in a less imposing prison than this one, albeit on the other side of the bars.

One of Maskelyne’s men? Granger’s unease deepened.

The jailer stared at the parcel in Granger’s arms for a moment, then beckoned him to follow up the staircase. On the right side of the upper gallery he unlocked a stout iron-banded door, which looked a hundred years older than the stonework around it. Granger realized that it must originally have been fitted to a series of identical doors in the flooded levels below, only to be moved up floor by floor as the building grew higher to escape the rising seawater. Imperial builders often followed this pattern, constructing identical floor plans one above the other in order to strip out and reuse every possible fixture and fitting before filling the drowned levels with rubble.

The man waved Granger through. ‘Truan’s wing,’ he said.

His wing?

Granger stepped through the door and into a large, opulent lounge in which velvet chairs, sofas and polished hardwood tables had been artfully arranged on Valcinder rugs. Carved bone chandeliers depended from the high ceilings, while the tall windows on his left overlooked one of Ethugra’s grander canals and the facade of another Imperial jail on the opposite bank. Latticeworks of iron covered those windows, yet even these were ornate and painted white. As surprising as all this was to Granger, his attention was nevertheless grabbed by the opposite, innermost wall of the room. He’d never seen anything like it before.

A score of alcoves lined this wall, each sealed by a massive plate of glass and filled with a different type of brine. Granger recognized the tea-coloured water of the Mare Lux, the dark red Mare Regis brine and that painful green ichor that composed so much of the seas around Valcinder. But there were other colours too – the blues and purples and the soft golds of those weird and distant oceans that he had only heard mentioned in tales.

Within all of these alcoves were oleas.

Each species had been segregated from the others. There were wondrous, ghostly things with tendrils like wisps of fog, and fat brown jellies that looked like pickled brains. In one alcove, schools of tiny quick-moving motes gave off a queer electric luminance, while in the next hung an enormous bloated crimson shape among whose folds Granger thought he could discern an eye. He had an odd sensation that it was watching him.

‘Marvellous, aren’t they?’

Truan, for it must have been he, had entered the chamber through another door. He was a tall, lean man with a long, cadaverous face. He wore a padded gold tunic embroidered with steel wire in the latest Losotan fashion, and white hose that only served to exaggerate his skeletal appearance. Brine spots stippled the backs of his hands. His green eyes regarded Granger with vigour and intelligence. He dismissed Granger’s companion with a wave and waited until the man had closed the door behind him.

‘Would that I could have them fight each other,’ he said, indicating the creatures in the flooded alcoves. ‘But olea are far too valuable to waste in sport. That hexen midurai is one of only three known specimens in existence.’ He pointed at the large crimson jelly. ‘From its size, I estimate it to be over sixteen hundred years old. And these,’ he waved a hand at several unremarkable ochre lumps floating in a tank of yellow brine, ‘are hexen parasitae from the Sea of Dragons. They way they breed is as remarkable as it is hideous. Even the Drowned avoid them.’

‘You know why I’m here,’ Granger said.

The Evensraumer nodded, then gestured for his guest to sit on one of the sofas. ‘Would you care for some wine, Mr Swinekicker?’

Granger looked at the sofa with distaste. He shook his head.

‘Tea, then? I don’t often get the chance to converse with outsiders.’

‘No.’

Truan smiled. ‘I can see from your expression that you disapprove of my lifestyle.’

‘You’re supposed to be a prisoner here.’

Truan’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am a prisoner here, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s true that my wealth affords me certain luxuries and allows me to pursue my interests, but walls are walls. I will remain here until the emperor decrees otherwise, while you are free to leave the city whenever you choose.’

Granger thought about his waterlogged boat, but said nothing. He set his parcel down on a nearby table and began to unwrap it. He was surprised to find that his heart was racing.

Truan hovered nearby, eyeing the amphora with interest as it was revealed. Finally he strolled over, leaned across the table and squinted at the markings etched into the clay. He turned the jar a little to one side, frowning. ‘Is this a joke, sir?’ he said.

Granger felt his heart grow cold. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s a wine amphora.’

A sudden awful realization gripped Granger as he stared down at the lump of pottery they’d dredged up. Creedy. Creedy had decided which canals to search. Creedy had identified the find. Creedy had found the buyer. And Creedy had brought him here, away from his home. Anger coiled inside him. He was about to turn and leave when his pragmatic side urged him to stop. Might the Evensraumer not simply be lying to lower the price? He swallowed his rage. ‘If it’s of no value,’ he said, ‘I’ll take it elsewhere.’

Truan continued to study the object. ‘Unmer wine is of some value,’ he said, ‘provided it has not been exposed to the air. I suppose I could offer you twenty gilders. But not a coin more. Frankly, I’d be doing you a favour.’

‘Forget it.’ Granger picked up the amphora.

‘Thirty, then,’ Truan said. ‘That’s five more than the market price.’

Granger began walking towards the door.

‘Thirty-five,’ Truan called after him. ‘My final offer.’

Granger reached the door, and turned the handle. It was locked. He hammered his fist against the iron barred wood.

‘Very well,’ Truan said. ‘My jailers charge me exorbitant commission on anything I order. I’ll give you fifty for the wine if you don’t tell a soul. You are robbing me blind, after all, and I won’t have my other suppliers hear of it.’

Granger turned to look at the other man. Fifty? For a jug of wine? Truan seemed unusually keen to get his hands on such a worthless artefact. And yet his instincts continued to gnaw at him. Something is wrong here. The amphora, the buyer, it was all too convenient for Creedy. And there was something else, something about Truan that bothered him. This man was no trader, that much was clear. He had raised his price three times before Granger had even reached the door. After all, they had both been captive in that room. Granger wasn’t going anywhere until the jailer came to release him, and Truan would have been well aware of that. Not even the poorest Losotan merchant, much less one as rich and successful as Truan purported to be, would have made such a mistake. But if he wasn’t who he said he was, then who was he?

Granger had his suspicions. ‘Perhaps I’ll have that tea after all,’ he said.

Truan smiled again and waved Granger back to the sofa. Then he strolled across the room and pulled a bell chord. Chimes sounded in the hall outside. Granger took a seat and waited with the sealed amphora in his arms. A fortune or a pittance waited within.

‘Which part of Evensraum are you from?’ Granger asked.

‘Deslorn,’ Truan replied.

‘A shame what happened there. The typhoid, I mean.’

‘I believe it was cholera,’ Truan said. ‘We left the place long before the city filled with refugees. One of the benefits of being in shipping is that one owns ships.’

Air bubbled up through one of the jellyfish tanks. The pale blue creatures inside shivered.

‘I had family in Weaverbrook,’ Granger said.

Truan raised his eyebrows. ‘I had no idea you hailed from that part of the world, Mr Swinekicker.’

A key clicked in the lock. The jailer came in carrying a tray of tea.

‘Haven’t been back to see them in a while,’ Granger said.

‘I can sympathize,’ Truan said. ‘Nothing is more important than family.’

The jailer set the tea down on the table. ‘Anything else, sir?’

‘That will be all,’ Truan replied.

Granger looked at the jailer’s tattoos. ‘This can’t be easy for you,’ he said. ‘A man with a history like yours, running around like a boot boy after his master?’

The jailer glanced at Truan and back at Granger, and in that moment Granger finally understood Truan’s real identity.

He grabbed the amphora and leaped to his feet, barging past the jailer and knocking him off his feet. He raced down the stairs and was halfway towards the front door before he heard angry shouts and footfalls coming from behind. Evidently the jailer had recovered enough to come after him. Granger ran on, his chest cramping at the sudden exertion. His scarred lungs were not used to such exercise. The air seemed full of acid, but he ignored it. The bitter taste in his throat was worse. Creedy had lied to him, tricked him into coming here.

Ethan Maskelyne’s accent had been good, but it hadn’t been perfect. Granger had spent enough time in Evensraum to know the difference. But he hadn’t been sure of his suspicions until the jailer had confirmed them. An Ethugran jailer might be paid enough to treat an Evensraum captive as his master, but he would never believe it to be true. Granger’s comment should have humiliated and angered the man. And yet the only emotion in the jailer’s eyes had been fear. Fear of what Maskelyne would do to him.

He reached the front doors and burst through them. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a blizzard of paper whirling around the scribes’ desks. Maskelyne’s man had already reached the bottom of the steps and showed no sign of slowing down. Granger plunged out into the sunlight of Averley Plaza.

The beer drinkers lounged about in groups. A few turned to glance his way as he came storming out of the Imperial jail with the heavy amphora still clutched in his arms. Children shrieked happily as they played about the empty market stalls. The Drowned observed it all with their dead stone eyes, their faces frozen in eternal grimaces of agony. But Creedy was nowhere to be seen, and his launch was no longer moored at the dock.

Bastard.

Creedy had managed to get him away from Hana and Ianthe.

Granger stood in the centre of the plaza, wheezing. He needed a boat, any boat, to take him home.

Someone seized his arm.

Snarling, the Imperial jailer looked more like a street dog than ever before. His face was flushed, his eyes narrowed. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he said through his teeth. ‘Nobody runs out on my boss.’

Granger smashed the amphora across his head.

The jailer dropped to the ground, his head and shoulders drenched in oil.

Granger hardly gave him a second a glance. He was already running along the dockside, looking for a boat.

There were few to choose from, and no passenger ferry boats at all. Almost all of the market traders had already gone home, and none of their customers remained. A score of unguarded whaleskin coracles bobbed against the steps, but they would be too slow. Two fishermen sat repairing their nets on the wharf side above an old closed-deck barque, but their deepwater hull was too wide to negotiate Ethugra’s narrower channels. Such a vessel would be forced to head out of the Glot Madera and circle around almost a quarter of the city before heading back in through Halcine Canal. Granger passed three more barques before he finally came upon a suitable craft.

She was a Valcinder sloop – a true canal boat, as sleek, quick and narrow as any in Ethugra. Her captain lay snoozing on the open deck, with his boots propped on the gunwale and a Losotan newspaper draped over his head. He woke with a start when Granger jumped down beside him.

‘What? Who the hell-’ He was young and dark, dressed up in one of those smart black uniforms they sold in the Losotan markets – all braid and buttons.

Granger took him for a hire captain or a smuggler. No one else bothered to look so neat. ‘Take me to Halcine Canal,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay.’ He began unravelling the bow line.

The Losotan blinked. ‘I’m waiting for a fare.’

‘You got a fare,’ Granger replied.

‘Not you! I’m supposed to take an Imperial administrator to Chandel.’

Granger threw the bow line at him and kicked off from the wharf. ‘I’m in a hurry,’ he said, ‘and I’m taking this boat to Hal-cine Canal, with or without you at the helm. You’d better choose quickly’ – he inclined his head towards the retreating dock – ‘because you’re running out of time to jump.’

‘You’re not stealing this boat!’

‘Then I’m a paying passenger. Less trouble for both of us.’

The Losotan glanced between Granger and rapidly increasing gulf between his boat and dry land. Then he shook his head and climbed back to the helm. ‘We’ve got to do this fast,’ he said, ‘or I’m going to lose a whole bunch of gilders.’

Granger grunted. ‘Fast suits me just fine.’

Even before they reached his jail, Granger knew he was too late. The flap giving access to his rooms had been torn off and now lay floating on the oily surface of the canal. He leaped onto his wharf, leaving the Losotan hire captain to tie up, and ran up the steps to his garret.

The place was a mess. His cot, furniture and clothes lay strewn across the floor. Even the kitchen cupboards had been torn off the walls and smashed.

But they didn’t have enough time.

They had been looking… for what? Trove? His savings? It didn’t matter. A quick glance was enough to tell him that this had been a rush job. They had started to search the place but had been interrupted. A few floorboards lay ripped up, but the rest were untouched. Piles of tools and junk remained undisturbed where they’d always lain.

Granger didn’t dare to let himself hope. He ran downstairs to the cells.

Their cell door had been forced open, torn partially off its hinges. A feeling of dread gripped him as he waded along the corridor towards it.

He expected their cell to be empty. Every bone in his body told him that he’d find his prisoners missing. And so he wasn’t prepared for what he did find when he heaved the broken door aside and staggered through.

They had taken Ianthe, of course.

But not Hana.

She was lying on her back in the shallow brine, wearing the fancy dress he’d bought for her, a faint wheezing sound coming from her mouth. Almost her entire body had been submerged. Grey blisters covered her arms and legs, and patches of sharkskin had already begun to creep across her face. Her eyes stared at the ceiling from underneath an inch of seawater. Evidently she had swallowed some of it, for her breathing sounded painfully thin and ragged. And yet even now she was still trying to stay alive, forcing her mouth above the waterline to suck in air that her ruined lungs could barely absorb.

Granger approached, careful not to make waves in the brine around her, and squatted down beside her. He was still wearing his whaleskin gloves, and he reached one hand underneath her head to support it and his other hand under her chin. Her eyes moved under the water. She saw him and took a sharp intake of breath.

‘Don’t try to speak,’ he said. ‘Try not to make any sudden movements. Most of your body has already changed, and you need to keep the sharkskin wet. If I lift you out, it’s only going to hurt you even more.’

She took a gulp of air, but didn’t move.

‘Was it Creedy?’ he asked.

She tried to nod, but he held her chin firmly.

‘Don’t nod,’ he said. ‘Can you move your hands? Make a fist for me.’

Under the water, her hand moved away from her side. She clenched it.

‘How many others were with him?’

She held out two fingers.

‘Two other men? Make a fist for yes.’

She clenched her hand again and then relaxed it.

‘Did you recognize them?’

Her hand didn’t move.

‘Do you know where they took her?’

A look of distress came into her eyes, she tried to shake her head, but Granger restrained her. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You need to keep still.’ She was neither one thing nor the other. Part human, part Drowned. In this condition her lungs wouldn’t last much longer. He could hardly hear her breaths now.

‘You can’t survive like this,’ he said gently. ‘Your lungs have been contaminated. They’re failing. Soon you won’t be able to breathe air. If you keep your mouth above water, you’ll die.’ He kept his gaze fixed firmly on hers. ‘I’m going to push you under.’

She panicked and struggled against him.

He held her firmly. ‘You’ll feel like you’re dying,’ he said. ‘But you won’t. The toxic shock will knock you unconscious, but there’s a decent chance you’ll wake up again. You’ll go on living.’ He could see the terror in her eyes. They both knew she might never regain consciousness – not everyone did – but Granger had no other option. ‘I’ll find Ianthe,’ he said. ‘And I’ll kill the men who took her.’

Her hand shot out of the water and gripped his glove. Her throat bobbed and she let out a gurgling, choking sound. She was trying to speak. ‘Hhhhhh… guuuuuh.’

‘You don’t have to say anything.’

‘Maaaaahhh… Awwwwd.’ She tried to lift her face up out of the brine, but he stopped her again. ‘Maaasss.’

‘Maskelyne? They mentioned Maskelyne?’

She nodded.

‘You let me worry about him,’ he said. ‘Ianthe’s in no danger. They want her to find trove.’

She relaxed her grip on his glove. For a long moment she just looked up at him from under the water. Finally she nodded.

Granger pushed her head under and held her there until she stopped moving.

Back upstairs, Granger peeled off the heavy whaleskin gloves and laid them on the top stair banister. If Hana was going to wake from her toxic shock, she’d do so some time within the next few hours. He’d need to carry her body to the opposite cell then lower her through the hole in the floorboards into deeper brine. But he’d wait until she was aware of what was happening. He didn’t want her to wake up alone.

Creedy would have taken Ianthe straight to Maskelyne, which meant she must have arrived at his island keep by now. A direct assault on Maskelyne’s fortress would be impossible without the assistance of the Imperial Navy, and Granger wasn’t in a position to arrange that. Stealth might get him to the fortress walls, but he would be unlikely to find a way inside. He’d have to wait until Maskelyne took Ianthe out onto the open seas to dredge for trove and then attack Maskelyne’s ship directly. He’d need a deepwater vessel, a crew and weapons.

And Granger had none of them.

He heard a boat’s engine thrumming in the canal outside. Something about it disturbed him. In the six years he’d lived in Ethugra, he’d grown accustomed to such noises: the post boat, his neighbours’ vessels, the passenger taxis. He didn’t recognize the sound of this one.

Quickly he ran to the window and peered out.

She was an old iron straight-sided coastal barge of the sort that used to bring whale oil into the city from the depots and shell keeps out by the Ethugran Reef. A fat bow wave surged before her as she sped along Halcine Canal. Granger spat a curse when he saw the crew waiting aboard.

Hookmen.

Six of them stood on the barge’s deck, wrapped in bulky whalers’ oilskins. Half of them clutched harpoons, flensing poles or head-spades, but the rest carried knives. The helmsman wore a brine mask and goggles, but the rest were naked-faced, scarred and bearded – hard men from the former gutting stations along Dunvale Point. They were looking Granger’s way.

He grabbed his whaleskin gloves and pulled them on. Then he ran downstairs and waded along the corridor to Hana’s cell.

She was as he’d left her – lying unconscious in the shallow brine.

Granger scooped her into his arms. As he half-dragged, half-carried her out to the corridor, he could hear through the open cell window the barge cut her engines, followed by the sound of boots pounding across his wooden jetty.

In the opposite cell, he pulled her over to the hole in the floorboards. His chest was tight with agony again, and his breaths seemed to whistle in his throat. Now he could hear raised voices coming from upstairs.

‘I’m sorry, Hana.’ he whispered into her ear. And then he eased her body down through the hole.

Most of the air had already gone from her lungs, and so she slipped away into the brine and crumpled gently onto the floor of the flooded room below. A cloud of sediment rose around her, muddying the tea-coloured waters.

Granger dragged one of the broken pallets across the opening to hide it, and turned as the first of Maskelyne’s Hookmen came through the door.

From their appearance they might have been Drowned men themselves. Their leader stood half a foot shorter than Granger, but he was far stouter and more heavily muscled. Sharkskin covered most of his naked forearms like a skin of cracked cement. He had daubed the wounded flesh with some greasy white tincture. Five gutting knives with wooden handles and blades of varying curvature and length hung from loops on the front his padded oilskin. He grinned, displaying wide brown teeth, as the others filled the doorway behind him.

‘Hello, Tom,’ he said. ‘How are you doing, Tom?’

Granger scowled at him. ‘I know you?’

‘Don’t think so, but I know you.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I don’t like that tone of voice, Tom,’ the other man replied. ‘Why are you taking that tone of voice with me?’ He stepped forward, pushing out his chest as though challenging Granger to reach for one the knives hanging there. ‘I mean, you’re a fucking Drowned lover, aren’t you, Tom? You shouldn’t be speaking to me like that.’

Granger had seen his type in a hundred bars and back alleys. He had no patience with this fool.

‘Get out of my house,’ he said.

The Hookman grinned. ‘That’s not nice, Tom. We’re only doing a job here.’ He looked down at the pallet covering the hole. ‘I mean, you sound like someone who wants their face shoved in the fucking brine. Why would you want that, Tom?’

There were four others blocking the doorway behind, but they couldn’t all push through the door at once. Since he wasn’t getting out of here without a fight, Granger thought it best to have the fight on his own terms. No sense in waiting.

He slugged the Hookman in the face.

Granger’s blow was as hard as any he’d ever given. The Hookman grunted in surprise, but he didn’t go down. The bastard had a neck like a girder. Granger brought his other fist up in an uppercut, striking the other man under the chin. He heard the blow connect. It should have broken the Hookman’s jawbone.

But it didn’t.

The shorter man came at him in a rage, pummelling his stony fists under Granger’s ribs.

Granger didn’t want to allow him any space to let the others in, so he drew in his elbows and suffered the punches. They felt like hammer blows. He brought his elbow up into the other man’s armpit to halt one angle of attack, while trying to force him back towards the door.

But the Hookman was too strong for him. He shoved back, one fist continuing to pound Granger’s ribs, the other arm trying to reach over Granger’s elbow, scrabbling to grab his hair. With his free left hand Granger fish-hooked the man’s cheek, jerking that fat snarling face to one side. He grunted and heaved, but couldn’t find the strength to break the other man’s neck. The pair wrestled in the shallow brine, the Hookman’s teeth gnashing Granger’s fingers, dribbling spit down his wrist. Behind him, the others were pushing forward, trying to get past their leader.

Granger’s right hand was pinned against his opponent’s chest. He reached around until he felt the handle of one of the Hook-man’s knives. He grabbed the weapon and yanked at it, but it wouldn’t budge. Instead he forced the handle down, trying to turn the blade upwards into the other man’s guts.

Out of nowhere, something cracked against his skull.

The room reeled. He tasted blood.

He wrenched the knife handle down, heard a grunt.

Another blow struck his ear.

Specks of white light flashed at the edges of his vision.

A third blow sent him staggering back against the wall.

‘Fucker cut me.’

The lead Hookman stood ankle deep in brine, clutching a wound in his side. From the small amount of blood evident, Granger could tell that the knife hadn’t gone in very deep. Beside the wounded man, another, taller, fellow gripped a long pole with a curved iron tip. This, then, had to be the weapon that had struck Granger. The pole-wielder stepped aside to let a third, bearded, man into the cell.

‘He’s going to take a swim, Bartle,’ said the beard.

‘Not now,’ said the leader. ‘I want him to see what’s coming.’

Granger’s head still smarted from the blow, and his chest had now begun to ache. He doubted he could get past all three of them without a weapon. He managed a grim smile. It occurred to him that he’d now blown his chance for diplomacy.

The Hookmen’s leader – Bartle, he’d been called – used his boot to slide the pallet away from the hole the in floor. He peered down into the brine, and grinned. ‘Sleeping like a lamb,’ he said to the beard. ‘Go get the nets.’ Then he looked up at Granger. ‘Harbouring the Drowned’s worth twenty years, if you’ve got the cash to pay Maskelyne’s fees. How you stacked for cash, Tom?’