Gravedigger 01 - Sea Of Ghosts (46 page)

Ianthe slipped under the surface of the pool again. Her nose filled with water. She kicked and flailed her arms madly, trying desperately to reach air. Her heavy Haurstaf robes seemed to drag her down. For an instant her face broke free and she sucked in a breath before the waters closed around her once more. She felt something solid smack against her head and grabbed it. Suddenly she felt herself being pulled along.

Aria was using a branch to drag Ianthe through the water. Ianthe held on fiercely. She reached the edge of the pool and clung on to the rock, breathless and shaking.

Constance laughed.

Ianthe tried to pull herself out of the water.

Constance crouched over her. ‘You can’t get out here,’ she said. ‘This is our area. Go around the other side of the pool.’

‘Leave me alone,’ Ianthe said. She struggled to climb up, but the blonde girl held her firmly down.

‘You need to learn your place,’ Constance snarled, forcing Ianthe back down into the cold water. The scar across her broken nose looked livid and angry. ‘Peasants don’t belong in the Guild. You’re not fit to clean the drains.’ She wheeled around and flashed her teeth at Aria. ‘Give me that stick.’

Aria hesitated.

Constance struggled with Ianthe as she tried to stop her from climbing out. But Ianthe, in her desperation, managed to force her way up past the smaller girl. Constance broke away, snatched the branch from Aria, then swung it round hard.

It struck Ianthe a stinging blow across the cheek. Dripping wet, she turned and fled towards the rocky steps, where Constance’s companion, Regina, waited.

‘Stop her,’ Constance yelled.

Regina moved to block Ianthe’s way, and Ianthe tried to push past.

‘Grab her.’

Regina seized the hood of Ianthe’s robe.

Ianthe lost her footing on the wet rock. Suddenly the glade whirled around her. She fell backwards and struck her head on something hard. A moment of darkness and confusion passed, and then she heard someone breathing heavily close to her ear, grunting, gasping.

‘Leave her alone.’

‘In the water.’

Fists grabbed Ianthe’s robes. Someone pinned her arms down. Regina loomed over her, her hair dishevelled, her face flushed. Constance wore a savage grin on her face. They began dragging her back towards the pool. Terror gripped Ianthe’s heart, and she kicked and punched and screamed, ‘No!’

Something strange happened. Ianthe sensed Constance’s perceptions, as she always had, and yet in that instant of fear and struggle she caught a rare glimpse of the mind behind them. It was as if the world had
flipped
abruptly. Instead of simply peering out through the other girl’s eyes, she found herself engulfed by the whirlwind of Constance’s emotions.
Hatred, desire, envy
. Ianthe’s own consciousness lashed out instinctively . . .

Her cry seemed to hang there in the silence of the glade. And then Ianthe became aware of the thumping of her own heart, the frantic sound of her own breathing. Shakily, she sat up.

Constance was lying a few feet away, unmoving, a trickle of blood coming from the corner of her left eye. Regina lay curled up on the ground beside her, with her face clamped behind her hands. She was wailing softly like a young child. Aria sat on the ground behind them, gazing at the two stricken girls with wide, fearful eyes.

‘What did you do?’ she said.

Ianthe got to her feet and ran.

‘
You
do not summon
me
, Mr Maskelyne.’

Maskelyne looked up to see Briana Marks standing at the open doorway of his suite. ‘Did I summon you?’ he said, feigning confusion. ‘Honestly, I can’t now remember why.’

She shook her head, but failed to entirely hide her smile. ‘Are you comfortable here?’

The suite occupied two floors of one of the palace towers and boasted fine views across the mountains and valley from its garden terrace. Elegant dragon-bone furniture rested on moss-deep carpets. Crystal chandeliers hung from silk-draped ceilings. Maskelyne had counted seven couches, twelve armchairs and no fewer than twenty-two mirrors bouncing light from window to wall. His bed was big enough to accommodate ten people. ‘Comfortable enough,’ he said, ‘although the bed feels cold at night.’

‘Your wife will remain in Port Awl until your case is decided,’ Briana said. ‘And that won’t happen until we determine Ianthe’s worth to the Guild.’

Maskelyne grunted. ‘You intend to hold me here until you decide whether or not Ianthe has talent? What difference does it really make? She’s unharmed. Is this justice, or are you simply waiting to see if you can lawfully acquire leverage?’

‘There are worse places to be.’ Briana strolled over towards the glass doors leading to the terrace. ‘That’s one of my favourite views,’ she said. ‘You can see the Culche Pass from here, Mian Morre and the Folded Wings. Don’t you think the four mountains opposite look like a dragon’s spine?’

‘I find the view somewhat spoiled by the acres of burned forest, razor-wire and concrete bunkers surrounding the palace,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘Do you know that a cockerel crows every morning in one of the camps? The sound is always followed by a single shot, and then silence. I can’t help but wonder if it’s one, trained, bird, or if there’s a supply of them.’

Briana closed her eyes for a moment. ‘A supply,’ she said.

‘Did you just ask your associates?’

‘All three thousand of them,’ Briana replied. ‘The great benefit of telepathy is that one is able to obtain information whenever one wishes. A psychic is never surprised.’ She reached the glass doors, opened them and stepped out onto the terrace. There she stopped dead. ‘Where did you get all this stuff?’

Maskelyne joined her. A small collection of Unmer trove lay spread across the flagstones, most of it located amongst potted plants and flower troughs, although he had set out many of the more useful pieces for disassembly on the stone breakfast table. ‘After so many months at sea,’ he said, ‘I find it refreshing to work outdoors.’

‘
Work?
Where did this trove
come
from?’

‘The palace storerooms.’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘The Unmer won’t miss objects you’ve already confiscated. Most of it is simply junk, but there are a few pieces that may prove vital to my research.’

Briana simply stared at him.

‘The Unmer are able to manipulate Space and Time,’ Maskelyne explained. ‘To transfer energies across vast gulfs. I have been trying to determine how they accomplish this.’

‘You were supposed to remain locked in this suite,’ Briana said.

Maskelyne waved his hand irritably. ‘Yes, yes. My point is this: What we perceive as
sorcery
is merely a method of juggling entropy. The Unmer transmit energy and matter from one place to another, most likely from one
universe
to another, through some sort of aspacial conduit. The Unmer’s strength lies in their ability to plunder what I have chosen to call
cosmic remnants.
’

‘How did you get past the guards?’

Maskelyne sighed. ‘You’re not listening. Our present universe is merely the latest configuration of energy and matter formed within a never-ending cycle of cosmic inflation. Like the ripples formed beneath a dripping tap – as the outer circles fade they are replaced by new ones. If my—’

‘Did you
bribe
someone to bring all this equipment here?’

‘If my theory is correct, then . . .’ He paused and frowned at her. ‘Of course I bribed someone. When dealing with the Haurstaf, it is practically immoral
not
to bribe someone.’ He smiled thinly. ‘If my theory is correct, it means that certain aspects of Unmer sorcery are not only detrimental to our universe, but completely impossible without assistance from beyond our universe.’

She just looked at him.

‘Imagine a bathtub full of water,’ he said.

She continued to stare at him.

‘Now imagine there are two plugs in the bath, one at either end,’ he went on. ‘When we pull out both plugs, the water begins to drain through both openings at once. If the holes represent vast clusters of matter and the water represents the space between those clusters, then the flow of water represents the force of gravity.’ He glanced around the terrace, looking for something he could draw a diagram with, but there was nothing to hand. ‘In this analogy, the bathwater would flow out, leaving no
space
between the holes, no cosmos. But what is space? Is it tangible, like matter? Or does it merely represent a sea in which the
potential
for material interactions exists? What if, as the bath drained, the volume of water it contained did not diminish? What if the area of space between the holes actually
stretches
? If the holes remain unchanged, the distance between them must increase.’ He nodded. ‘So the universe expands.’

‘I really wish I hadn’t come here,’ Briana said.

Maskelyne walked over to the terrace balustrade and sat down. ‘Have you ever wondered
how
the Unmer came to possess the ability to remove matter, to turn flesh and stone into vacuum? This talent requires no device, no sorcerous ring or pendant.’ He shook his head. ‘It is
inherent
, and therefore like nothing else we have ever seen.’

‘It’s just a gift,’ Briana said. ‘Like telepathy.’

Maskelyne threw his hands up. ‘It is nothing like telepathy,’ he said. ‘Telepathy does not add or subtract anything from the universe. Look.’ He walked over to the table and picked up a partially disassembled gem lantern from among the clutter of machine parts and tools. ‘These burn for, say, a thousand years,’ he said. ‘Do you have any idea how much energy that requires? It’s enough to blow a battleship to pieces, and it has to come from
somewhere
.’ Next he untied a burlap sack from the leg of the table and opened it. Three small concrete spheres floated up out of the bag and rose gently towards the sky. Maskelyne scooped them back into the bag before they drifted too high. ‘Air stones,’ he said, ‘or chariot ballast, or whatever name you want to give them. The repulsive force comes from
somewhere
.’ Next he snatched up a stoppered ichusae. ‘You recognize this, of course?’ He set the bottle down again when he saw fear light Briana’s eyes. ‘Ichusae introduce poisonous matter to our world, matter brought from
somewhere
else. You see? Most of what the Unmer create
sucks
matter or energy from somewhere and dumps it into our world.’

‘Void flies—’ Briana began.

‘Void flies are not
created
,’ Maskelyne cried. ‘Void flies are creatures which possess the same
inherent
ability the Unmer do. And that’s the key. Where did they suddenly appear from? What becomes of the matter they remove from our universe? Where does it go? There’s a balance in all of this. A trade.’

Briana frowned.

Maskelyne’s gaze travelled across the objects on the table. ‘The universe expands in all directions,’ he muttered. ‘Elemental particles of matter cool and cease to fluctuate. But space cannot exist between identical particles. As variance decreases, more and more particles must find themselves occupying the same point in the universe, regardless of how far apart they are. Vast swathes of the cosmos begin to gather in one place, a single, tiny place that exists almost everywhere at the same time. Unimaginable pressure builds, and builds, and builds, until eventually . . .’ He looked at her expectantly.

She shrugged.

Maskelyne felt deflated. ‘I can see you’re not taking this seriously,’ he said.

‘You weren’t brought here to study the cosmos at our expense, Mr Maskelyne.’

‘At your expense?’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Miss Marks, if my theory is correct, then it is very likely that there are still scraps of former universes adrift out there.’ He jabbed a finger at the sky. ‘Frozen, dying and
utterly
alien to anything we could imagine. If the Unmer have communicated with the inhabitants of one of these cosmic remnants and, indeed, have actively been
shifting matter
back and forth between here and there, then we need to consider any consequences that the subsequent enslavement of their race might have had.’

She sighed. ‘Go on.’

‘Our world is drowning,’ he said. ‘Whatever deal the Unmer made with the far side of the cosmos has evidently turned sour.’ He sighed. ‘I’m no merchant, but I know that when one party fails to adhere to a trade agreement, the other party gets angry.’

CHAPTER 16

Violent juddering woke Granger. He sat up abruptly, momentarily disorientated, then remembered where he was. Green light filtered through the windows of the deadship cabin, bathing the shelves of trove and Unmer experiments in a queer underwater luminance. Granger got up, wincing as his dry flesh cracked, and took a moment to work the numbness out of his arms and legs. It was freezing in here. His breath misted in the air before him. He wrapped a blanket around himself and shuffled over to the window.

Green ice floated upon a green sea. Outside the window stretched a frozen expanse of the Mare Verdant, the brine littered with broken slabs of ice and great nebulous snow-dusted masses with facets as deep and dark as bottle glass. From the bow of the ironclad came a dull pounding sound as the ship smashed its way through more of the ice field. Granger took out a fur-lined jacket from the captain’s dressing room and forced his heavy joints into it as he stomped up the steps that led above deck.