The Sea Watch

Twenty-Nine

The previous lord of the Hot Stations had not kept an audience chamber, had not used a throne, had dressed plainly and been little more than a tavern-keeper to the Benthic trains passing through. The previous lord had not received emissaries from Deep Seep and Hermatyre, bringing him word from their Edmirs as if he was an equal – at least as long as those Edmirs wanted something from him. Mandir contemplated this satisfactory state of affairs as he lounged on his high seat. Claeon had many faults, but the speed of his spies was not one of them, so his representative newly here in the Stations was very obviously sniffing after a certain pair of disappeared captives.

By his order, she came in unarmed and unescorted. They had met before, just the once, a few years ago, but she had not been in this position of responsibility then, merely a pretty adornment belonging to the retinue of Claeon’s then-majordomo. Mandir looted his memory and reckoned recalling that the man she then followed had eventually been torn apart by crabs… or had he been the one dropped into the stinging coils of a sea-anenome? Mandir had no wish to visit Hermatyre, but it did sound as though the entertainment there was second to none. Claeon was mad, but his madness gave him a distinct sense of style.

‘Haelyn, I believe,’ he named her, leaning down from his seat. She was as he remembered her, and he remembered her quite clearly. Sepia-kinden were one of the Kerebroi family’s minor branches, but so very comely. She now stood in the centre of his audience chamber, hands folded demurely before her, and clad in a long drape of white that had been arranged to hide and suggest in carefully calculated proportions. Her skin fluttered blue and gold and red, as though she was nervous, but her eyes remained steady.

‘Mandir, master of the Hot Stations,’ she began, ‘I bring you greetings from your fellow sea-lord, the Edmir Claeon of Hermatyre.’

‘How’s the old fellow doing?’ Mandir leered. ‘Fatter in body and looser in mind? Don’t answer that. Perhaps he’s doing better after all. His choice of majordomo has certainly improved. How long now since you took that office, Haelyn?’

‘Long enough.’

‘And what can our poor Hot Stations do for your majestic master?’

She squared her shoulders, tilted her head back. ‘He is glad to note that you have recaptured certain renegades, and looks forward to their return to him, to face justice.’

‘Renegades from Hermatyre?’ Mandir put on a great show of surprise. ‘Whatever next? Why would anyone wish to flee a colony governed by a man as fair-minded as Claeon?’

She did not rise to that. ‘Certain unusual renegades… you know full well I am talking of the land-kinden, Mandir.’

‘Land-kinden? Are there such things as land-kinden? Aren’t they all ten feet tall and able to kill with a single look?’

Haelyn sighed, folding her arms. ‘Shall we dispense now with the formal denials?’

‘Consider them spoken. I’m keeping the landsmen, however. Your master can holler and huff as much as he wants. He forgets that we are the coming power now, here in this stretch of the waters.’

‘Hermatyre custom feeds your industry here. You are wholly dependent on the trade of others,’ she pointed out.

‘Hermatyre custom won’t stop because Claeon passes an edict. That’ll just bring him one step closer to being pulled from his throne and torn apart by his own subjects – may the day be soon,’ Mandir replied flatly. ‘I never liked him, even before the old Edmir’s death. We’d all be better had the boy lived. I say this even though Hermatyre exiles currently throng my streets and do my bidding. Claeon’s about mad enough to do something very foolish, so don’t think I can’t turn away Rosander’s Thousand Spines if they end up marching in my direction. You can tell him that as well.’

She bit her lip. ‘You’re not leaving me much to say to him, that will not have me executed.’

‘So don’t go back, then,’ Mandir suggested. ‘We don’t get so many Sepia-kinden here. Take on with me. I liked you when I met you that time before. I like you more, seeing you again. Do you dance?’

‘Dance?’ she spat.

‘Sepia-kinden dance? Skin-dancing? Been years since I saw that. Like I say, we don’t get many of your kinden, and they don’t last here long.’

‘Because you kill them?’ she suggested bitterly.

He looked at her stonily, letting seconds of silence pass. ‘Because life is hard here, and your people are not suited for the heat and the graft. I’m not Claeon. I’m trying to keep a very artificial little world together here, and be as tough as I must, confiscating landsmen included, but I’m not Claeon. I know well what his pastimes are, his hooks and lashes. I like women and good drink, and fine things, but stripping the skin off my subjects has never appealed to me, nor would they stand for it.’

She still glared at him, stubbornly. ‘And yet my kinden do not last here, and still you ask me to stay. What sense is there in that?’

‘You’ll live longer here than at Claeon’s side, nevertheless. That’s all the sense you need.’

‘I don’t dance.’

‘Shame. The offer’s still open.’

‘You’re serious?’ Haelyn frowned at him, incredulous. ‘Mandir, you say Claeon’s mad? Where would you be, to steal his emissaries? What do you think he might do to retaliate, if he is so very rash?’

Mandir sat back in his seat, plucked at a fold of his long cloak and examined it minutely. ‘I don’t fear him, for if he sent a pack of Kerebroi here, he’d find half of them would switch sides as soon as they arrived, glad to be out of his shadow. As for Rosander, well, Rosander knows well what toys we have here. He has a few of them himself, and he knows we have many more. If Claeon were to send him here, I’d wager that would be the end of their friendship – which friendship I hear is tottering anyway. So, I keep the landsmen and, if you’ll agree to it, I’ll keep you too, and keep you well.’

‘And would taking to your bed be a condition of that offer?’ she sneered. ‘I regret that Smallclaw Onychoi have never been to my taste.’

Mandir cocked his head to one side. ‘You should review your fancies, Haelyn. When I was a boy, we Smallclaw were always last to the table, even here. The Kerebroi ruled, the Greatclaw were strong and led the trains, the Pelagists had no time for us. We just tagged along with whoever would have us, and made things and fastened armour and tried not to get anyone angry at us. But this is now, and I rule here, and my kinden are coming into their own. We run the Hot Stations, and we’re the leading edge of all that’s new under the sea. Being half the size of you doesn’t mean we have to look up to you any more.’ He gestured expansively around at the audience chamber, the guards, the displays of arms. ‘But, no, it’s no condition. Come to us here and you’ll be safe from Claeon, no questions asked. Because I like you. And because I’m not Claeon. The landsmen, you know, they keep what they call slaves in their homes: people who are property, who work until they die, and who live and die according to some owner’s word, without even a chance to complain.’ He paused to watch her reaction. ‘That’s the land, Haelyn, not death glaring in every eye, but not a paradise either, and more fool the Littoralists for preaching otherwise. But, you know what, Claeon would fit right in. Claeon would make a good landsman, whereas I’m proud to say I wouldn’t. Now, you’d better go and work out what you can say to your lord and master that will keep your skin intact, or else work out that you’re better off staying here with us. Take your time, either way.’

She nodded, retreated a few steps, and said, ‘Thank you,’ and then she left.

Within the regularly reconstructed confines of the Hot Stations, the inhabitants occupied space where they found it, and then used it for their own purposes until someone – formerly someone stronger, but these days more likely someone carrying Mandir’s writ – took it from them. This chamber, for example, a space like a crumpled dome, contained mostly ranks of sleeping spaces for those who had no special trade, no gift, no contribution to earn them more from their hosts. Here slept the drifters and the refugees, the itinerant Pelagists, the fugitives hopeful of a better life beyond the reach of Edmir or Nauarch. Each life was delineated by a little pile of possessions and a sleeping mat on the uneven floor.

Towards one end of the chamber, the end that linked most conveniently with the main business of the Stations, some larger patches of ground had been claimed. There was a tented space that had a ragbag of used goods for sale or barter, and there was an eating house which served the host of luckless residents with broth, and would buy from them anything they had hunted or gathered. Moreover, the owner was a decent enough brewer, and his personal brand of accreated rotgut had done its share in ensuring that many of the downtrodden rose no higher.

It was also a good place for people to meet unobserved, as it was packed with jostling strangers who asked no questions. There were three conspirators meeting here even now, sitting on a tattered blanket in one corner.

Nemoctes looked the most out of place here for, even without his armour, the Kerebroi Pelagist was a big man, and the shabby cloak did little to disguise him. Still, such was the bustle of the hungry and the inebriated, plenty of them also tall and broad Onychoi, that the crowd had swallowed him up without a trace. Cloaks were common here. since most of the temporary residents might be venturing into colder waters soon enough, and many had good reason to keep their identities hidden. Any spies of Mandir, or anyone else, would have their work cut out for them.

Wys sat beside him, just one Smallclaw amongst many. She was less sure about the company’s third, a slender Kerebroi man: all the cowl and cloak in the world could not quite hide how well-groomed and ornamented he was.

‘His name is Diamedes,’ Nemoctes explained in a low voice. ‘He’s Heiracles’s man here. I have met him before.’

‘If he’s Heiracles’s man, where’s his master?’ Wys asked.

‘The Stations have grown an uncertain place to walk,’ Diamedes explained. ‘Mandir’s seizing of the landsmen has made a lot of people anxious. The little shrimp has not been so bold before, for all his boasting.’ Wys bristled at the insult to her kinden, but Diamedes went blithely on, ‘Whatever the Man’s shortfalls, this is his place. If he should choose to imprison my master and sell him to Claeon, what would stop him?’

Wys continued to look disgruntled. ‘Doesn’t look like we’re going to get far today, then.’

‘Wait,’ Nemoctes advised her. ‘Diamedes informs me that there is one more expected, who will certainly make this meeting worthwhile.’

‘Well’ – Wys’s sour expression whipped away, revealing her grin underneath – ‘I’ll see your one more, and put in one of my own that will knock him out of the water. You think you’re very clever, don’t you, you Kerebroi? Well we “little shrimps” can get things done too, and with half the fuss.’

‘No doubt,’ said Nemoctes drily.

She glowered at him. ‘Don’t ever get angry, do you?’

‘Try living as a Pelagist for a year and a day, Wys. It’s calming,’ he told her, with a faint smile.

‘Boring, more like.’ Wys broke off as Fel pushed through the crowd towards them, a small, cloaked figure following in his wake. With a nod he pushed his charge down beside his employer and then stepped back, heading for the door.

‘How did it go?’ Wys asked the newcomer, leaning close.

‘I reckon your Phylles is still leading them all over,’ came the reply, ‘with that Smallclaw she hired.’

‘Cast off your hood, you’re among friends,’ Wys chuckled. ‘Diamedes, I present to you Laszlo Landsman.’

Seeing the bald, stooping figure that the cast-back hood revealed, the other two frowned, looking for the catch. At last Nemoctes raised his eyebrows, impressed. ‘It is, isn’t it?’ he admitted. ‘Quite a transformation.’

‘And don’t I wish I didn’t have to go through it,’ Laszlo grunted. ‘You try shaving your head twice a day – it’s no fun, believe me. How are we doing? You worked out how you’re going to get us out, yet?’

‘How did that thing get out?’ Diamedes demanded. He was staring at Laszlo with undisguised horror. ‘It truly is a landsman?’

‘Voice down,’ Wys advised. ‘And, yes, he is. He got out because his chief has talked the Man into it – and he got here because he’s a tricky lad with some very unusual Art, and he’s good at dodging his minders. Right now, my people are leading Mandir’s lot on a grand old chase, so we’re short on time. Where’s your fifth, Dio?’

Diamedes stood up in a smooth motion, to scan the crowd. A moment later he nodded down at them. ‘She’s here. She’s coming to us.’

‘Seriously, though, plans,’ put in Laszlo. ‘Master Maker’s under a lot of pressure right now.’

A woman embraced Diamedes, and they held each other close for a moment before dropping down to rejoin the group. The display of affection lasted no longer than it took for them to sit: a moment’s misdirection to confuse any watchers.

‘Who’s this now?’ Wys demanded. ‘I don’t know her.’

Diamedes named the conspirators for his newly arrived colleague, and added blithely, ‘Each one for a different reason, but you can trust them.’

‘As much as I can trust you?’ the acid comment emerged from within the woman’s hood.

‘I know your secrets already,’ Diamedes told her archly, ‘so if I wanted to betray you, you’d be dead.’

‘Such is the basis of Hermatyre trust: those who have not betrayed you yet,’ she said, as if it was a proverb. She tugged a little at her cowl, revealing a face that was pleasant at first, and then briefly radiant with shadows of colour. Her eyes remained hard and suspicious. ‘Haelyn,’ she said. ‘My name.’

‘Wait, wait… wait one breath here,’ Wys was saying quickly. ‘Now I heard a Sepia of that name was-’

‘The Edmir’s majordomo?’ Haelyn asked her. ‘You heard correctly.’

‘You’re the Edmir’s?’ Laszlo asked her, wide-eyed.

She looked to Diamedes to explain, and the Kerebroi man remarked, ‘She was always my master’s agent within Claeon’s household. For years she managed to dance from post to post, to stay useful without incurring Claeon’s wrath, which is no small feat. Unfortunately she has now mis-stepped, or perhaps simply time has caught up with her. Claeon has named her majordomo, a position with a lifespan recently measured in moons.’

‘It happened one day that I found myself become the most senior of Claeon’s domestic staff – the only one of them not fled or dead or far too inexperienced,’ Haelyn said bitterly.

‘Claeon has sent you here after the land-kinden?’ Nemoctes guessed.

‘None other,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve had an audience with Mandir. He was… well, pleasant, actually, but unhelpful, and of course Claeon didn’t expect him to just hand the landsmen over. Claeon now wants them dead. His plans have progressed, so I’m not here alone.’

The others exchanged glances. ‘Claeon’s sent killers, now,’ Wys considered, very low. ‘I guess we could have expected that.’

‘Two Krakind men, both keen to advance themselves in Claeon’s service, for reasons that from my point of view are incomprehensible,’ Haelyn told them. ‘Menes and Theomen, their names. If you have someone follow me, I’ll take you to them, so you can mark their faces.’

‘Are they good?’ Wys asked her.

‘They’ve been cutting throats in Hermatyre for years, I understand. They’ve silenced a few mouths for Claeon before, but the Edmir mistrusts supremely skilled assassins. They tend to lead shorter lives than a competent major-domo. So these two are passable.’

‘We could leak word to Mandir,’ Nemoctes suggested thoughtfully.

‘And get me killed as well, most likely,’ Haelyn argued. ‘I’m telling you this so you take action for yourselves, not get the Man involved.’ She shook her head. ‘Why did it even get this complicated? What does Mandir really want with you, little man?’

Laszlo folded his arms. ‘Looks like little men like me run this place, lady,’ he told her boldly. ‘And your man Mandir knows which way the wind’s blowing, anyway.’ He realized that the expression had left them all quite blank. ‘He knows the value of a good land artificer, so he’s been kidnapping people from wrecks and ships and the like, putting them to work. You see, I know you lot think we’re all savage nasties who eat babies, but your Man here, he knows that we’re actually very good at, say, putting a gear train together, or drawing up a set of plans. You know.’ He pointed to Wys. ‘You heard Master Maker talking to Spillage. We know engines, and Mandir knows that we know.’

Nemoctes was looking grave. ‘I… had not known. Mandir’s kept this secret a long time. I’d not have brought you here if-’

‘Oh, sure, sure,’ Laszlo waved a hand to absolve him. ‘Not saying you meant this to happen, old man, but look: Master Maker’s being forced to work on something he really doesn’t want to, just so’s I can get out here to speak to you. So you lot better know how to spring him. So what’s the plan?’ They exchanged looks again, and Laszlo scowled. ‘No plan? Seriously?’

‘Mandir controls this place. He builds it as he wants. If they weren’t actually letting you walk out, you’d still be in,’ Diamedes told him sharply. ‘Mandir’s Onychoi are armed with… new weapons. They are very dangerous and I have seen them used. We have no forces to call on, and the last thing any sane man would do is to storm the Hot Stations.’

‘So we are waiting,’ Nemoctes put in forcefully, overriding the other man’s gloom. ‘Well-armed they may be, but they are no army. Mandir has limited warriors to call on, and life in the Hot Stations has always been tenuous. We await a moment when their attention is elsewhere. My Pelagists have told me there may be an opportunity soon.’ This was obviously news to all the rest of them, but he just shook his head. ‘I’ll say no more now. I do not know how you’d take it, if you knew, but meanwhile we wait. And we watch Claeon’s killers, too. It would be best if they do not even trouble Mandir’s guards with their intentions. We don’t want Mandir any warier than he already is.’

‘Leave that to me,’ Wys announced. ‘I’ll put Fel and Phylles on to them. Any trouble and they’ll end up in the broth.’

‘What a pleasant thought,’ Diamedes said. The local broth was a Stations speciality, made with the bitter, boiling water issuing from the vents the place was built around. It was clearly not to the Kerebroi’s taste.

‘Our time is up,’ Nemoctes decided. ‘I will have one of my people pass word, if our distraction is to happen. For now, Haelyn, return to your people, and Wys, follow her up. And landsman, back to your minders before they lock you up again.’

When Laszlo returned, Stenwold was bending morosely over some half-sketched plans, whilst Tseitus had a clockwork unravelled on the table and was moving the cogs about like game pieces. The two artificers looked up to see the small man ushered in by Mandir’s guards. It had become clear by halfway through their first meeting that there was no actual love lost between the Beetle and the Ant. Despite all logic, Tseitus still resented being left to rot beneath the sea, and he had further made no secret of his contempt for Stenwold’s admittedly rusty mechanical skills. On the other hand, Tseitus had never even heard of a snapbow, which invention had reached Collegium after his entombment beneath the waters.

Still, the two of them had one shared interest, which was escaping, and it appeared that the Fly-kinden would be the key to that if anyone would. They waited until the Onychoi had retreated, allowing Laszlo time to uncloak and scratch miserably at his stubbling head, but they were both anxious to hear any news he had to offer.

‘I hope you appreciate what I’m doing for you,’ was all he said at first. ‘This itches like a bastard.’

‘A small sacrifice,’ snapped Tseitus. ‘What is their plan?’

Laszlo shot him a level glance and addressed himself to Stenwold. ‘Well, we had a talk – Wys and Nemoctes and Heiracles’s people and I – and the most of them couldn’t find their arse with both hands if there was a crab hanging off it, to be honest, Mar’Maker. Heiracles and his lot, I wouldn’t trust ’em with a bent pin. Nemoctes has something up his sleeve that he thinks we won’t like, which in itself ’s something I don’t like. He seems honest enough, but his people have no clout here, and so he’s waiting for something to happen. I think he expects that Mandir’s people will all go peer out of the windows at the same time long enough for us to simply walk out. I’ve seen the Man’s operation from inside, and it isn’t tight, but it’s definitely tighter than that. But he obviously believes something’s coming. So Wys and I have made our own plans, and sod the rest of them.’

‘Plans,’ Stenwold said, hoping that the Fly knew what he was talking about. ‘What plans?’

‘It’s all about the Gastroi. You know them?’

‘Peasants,’ said Tseitus contemptuously.

Stenwold frowned. He had seen them; big, lumbering men and women, heavy-footed, grey-skinned, doing menial work and heavy labour that the Onychoi obviously wouldn’t touch. They seemed unlikely rescuers.

‘The Ant’s half right,’ Laszlo said. ‘Peasants – farmers, a lot of them, or herders and gatherers. From Hermatyre, too, a fair few. Loads of them live on all those little farms and stations scattered near the colony, Wys tells me. Only Claeon has ’em strung up regularly for a pastime. Just peasants, like our man says, and that’s certainly what Claeon thinks. A lot of them have been turned off their farms or just run away – run here. And they don’t like Claeon one bit, but they’re loyal to Hermatyre otherwise. They want to see Hermatyre in good hands again.’

‘And…?’ Stenwold watched him narrowly, seeing Laszlo squirm a little. Here it comes.

‘Wys and I, we kind of said that if we could get free, we’d be off to find this Aradocles.’

‘Who everyone thinks is dead,’ Stenwold pointed out. ‘Who may well be dead, for that matter.’

‘But we are off to do that, aren’t we? I mean, that was your plan, wasn’t it?’ Laszlo pressed.

‘That was my excuse for talking them into putting us ashore,’ Stenwold allowed. ‘But as for actually finding him…’

‘Oh, well, I told them that, anyway, and so did Wys,’ Laszlo said, a little awkwardly. ‘They’re… loyal, you see. They hate Claeon because he’s a nasty-minded critter, but they want the boy back, and they don’t believe he’s dead.’

‘Where is this getting us?’ Tseitus demanded. ‘So you’ve swayed the rabble? Does that mean they fight? Will they cast down Mandir? No.’

‘No,’ Laszlo agreed, ‘but they’ve got all kinds of Art, these Gastroi. I’ve watched them work. They’ve got this thing they do with their hands, so that they can just carve into stone or metal, or what have you, and cut it like it’s clay. All these pieces that the Hot Stations are made of, they’re Gastroi-cut. And that means that when Wys tips them the word, when Nemoctes’s moment comes, we’re not waiting around for the rescue party. We’re going out the back way, and stuff the lot of them. Then Wys will get us out, and we’re not anyone’s prisoners any more.’

‘And you trust Wys, do you?’ Stenwold asked. ‘Only, our record with these sea-kinden is poor, to say the least.’

‘Oh, she’s my kind of sea-kinden,’ Laszlo assured him.

Tseitus snorted and ostentatiously went back to playing with his cogs. Stenwold sighed and put his head in his hands.

‘Hold together, Mar’Maker,’ Laszlo told him. ‘I’ve got myself out of worse than this.’

That made the Beetle lift his head. ‘Really?’

‘No, but I’m always after improving my record. It’ll happen.’

‘Let’s hope so. I won’t be able to stall Mandir for long. He’s an artificer himself. Whatever I give him must be fit for the purpose, or he’ll know.’

‘You look like you’re losing sleep over it, if I can say so, Mar’Maker.’

Stenwold smiled without humour. ‘Oh, sleep I have. Dreams, I have. I think the dreams wear me down more than the waking.’ He shook his head. ‘I think she did something to me,’ he added, almost in a whisper.

When Laszlo frowned at him, though, he just waved the thought away.