Pinion (38 page)

“What if you do not know of their location? As with this Boaz?”

“I know places he has been,” Paolina said slowly, still thinking in terms of the correspondent geography of the two worlds. What
was
the Silent World? Perhaps a template for this world. “I could visit them, just as if I had walked or come by ship, and seek information in the usual manner. We have both been to Mogadishu, though that was a burning nest of violence on my last, brief visit. We have been to the Armory of Westmost Repose, the Brass city of Ophir, and Dr. Ottweill’s work camp.”

“That would be an ordinary search, using your powers of translocation to avoid the difficulties of travel in between.”

Paolina took up a stick and began drawing in the mud of the beach a line map of the portions of the Wall she had traveled. “I wonder about finding the person directly. I expect that having walked in the Silent World together, I could locate you. I have seen your
wa
, and know your form in that other place. You were far more present there than the landscape was.”

“Now you are closer to it,” the sorceress told her. “We have powers of seeking and calling. But just as you need to have visited a place in the Shadow World to be able to return there through the Silent World, so you must to know a person that well. How well do you know this Boaz? Have you met his
wa
? What is his seeming in the Silent World?”

“We traveled for many weeks. We had, well, adventures together. Of the sort that pull two people closer.” With a flood of guilt, she recalled their mutual betrayals on the cliffs below Ophir, when he had subdued her to carry her down the long stairs, and she in turn had simply
stopped
him with the original stemwinder. “I do not suppose he has a
wa
, for he is not human such as you are or I.” Paolina wondered briefly if Gashansunu
was
human. “Likewise I have no notion of his seeming in the Silent World. However . . .”

She tugged the stemwinder free from its pouch, caressed it lovingly in her hand.

“I have,” she continued, “touched him with my gleam. This means I have taken his measure. I believe that may be my equivalent to what you call ‘knowing his seeming.’ ”

“This I cannot tell you,” Gashansunu said. “Your way of reaching the Silent World is so different from my own.”

“Not so different. You have been able to show me much I did not understand about the stepping through. The Silent World was invisible to me until you opened my eyes.”

Thus the power of metaphor
, she thought.
I may not be able to purge myself of this woman’s perception
. Paolina was almost certain that Gashansunu’s narrative of the Silent World and the Shadow World only modeled the underlying reality, rather than explaining it.

“Would you try this theory first?” Gashansunu asked. “Set your device to know me, if you have not already done so. Give me an hour’s time to walk away from you, my direction and destination unknown. Then see if you can step through to me.”

Paolina looked about at the long shadows of evening. She had hoped to go onward this same day, but Gashansunu had the right of it. She
should
practice her theory here where no one was around and the object of her search would be close by. Far fewer things might go wrong, and some might go well.

“Let us wait until morning, and good light,” she told the sorceress. “If I am successful, we will make the attempt to reach Boaz.”

“Fair enough.”

Together they watched the last of the day steal off into history, while the wine-dark night overtook the world.

They steamed into the muddy waters of the Gulf of Aden on a gloomy morning. Low clouds over damp, thick air made heavy all of the banners now strung from
Five Lucky Winds
. The submarine lacked the gay enthusiasm she’d shown returning to home port in Tainan, or even the hopeful energy of their call at Singapore.

Hsu, the pilot, pointed out a vessel ahead. “British warship,” Leung said in Chinese. He called down through the speaking tube for quarter speed. She could hear the tension in his voice.

As they approached the warship, the only sound was water breaking over their bow to rush alongside the hull. The world acquired an intensity, an edge to the light and noise and ocean scent and the whiff of Leung’s perspiration and the nervousness of Hsu at the little wheel that served as helm up here.

The warship had definitely sighted them. A long blast on an air horn echoed over the water, reminding her suddenly of the great foghorns at the harbor in New Haven. The British vessel picked up speed, a wave breaking before the curved white prow. Turrets spun on the deck, bringing huge cannon to bear.

“He is already too close to use his largest guns.” Captain Leung still spoke in Chinese, presumably for the benefit of the pilot. “We are almost certainly sailing toward a parley rather than a sinking, for he would have fired by now.”

“One could always sink us after a discussion,” she replied in English.

“You are a fountain of good cheer.”

The two vessels closed their distance quickly enough. A loud hailer crackled, audible even across an intervening half mile of water. “Stand to for boarding!”

“All stop,” Leung called down. “Bring us to a halt and drop the sea anchor.”

Five Lucky Winds
shuddered as if she wished to pitch nose forward and hide beneath the safety of the waves—which would be no safety to speak of in this narrow, shallow body of water.

“Mask,” the captain said, “I believe this next moment belongs to you.”

The warship loomed close, Maxim guns tracking from small stations along her midline, though her crew did not seem to be dashing to battle stations. She put a boat over the side, four men climbing down into it. It was a steam-powered launch, considerably larger than that now carried by
Five Lucky Winds
.

“I should go down to meet them,” Childress said.

“No,” Leung advised. “Make them come to you. You can descend to converse, but you will have more power if you are first seen above them.”

This was no different from a librarian’s podium, of course. People forced to look up were always at a disadvantage.

“I am torn between politeness and the ways of power.”

Out of sight of the approaching British, he squeezed her hand. “You are not Miss Childress in this hour; you are the Mask Childress. Live your name.”

“I am the Mask,” she repeated, echoing his words. Once more she called upon the ghost of Poinsard.

Soon enough, three men were saluted by al-Wazir in proper Royal Navy fashion. “Welcome aboard, sirs,” he bellowed.

“My good fellow, are you all madmen?” asked one of the officers. Hardly an auspicious preamble to negotiations, but by no stretch a declaration of violence either.

“No sir, Leftenant Commander,” al-Wazir said, still shouting. “But we sail at the direction of a woman, and it’s her you’d be speaking to.”

The lieutenant commander glanced up at the conning tower. “A woman?”

“You would be well advised to take him at his word, sir,” Childress
called down. “I am a Mask of the
avebianco
on a critical diplomatic mission in this time of strife.”

“Madam,” the British officer said, enunciating his words with care. “I have never heard such a lot of balderdash in my life. Kindly present yourself on deck and provide an explanation.”

Childress nodded to Leung, then took the ladder down to the deck hatch. At each rung she let some of the Mask Poinsard flow back into her, so that by the time she stepped out into the sunlight to meet the lieutenant commander, the offense of her dignity was a palpable thing.

More of the doctor’s work gang escorted him back up the tunnel. As they walked along the tracks, the grinding roar of the borer resumed. Ottweill’s words about the Queen were much on his mind. The doctor had
seen
Her Imperial Majesty in that horrid tank of blood and fluid. He possessed some insight concerning her fate—who had done this to her, and why. All Kitchens had to go on was a dim instinct that one or possibly both of the societies were involved. That, and the Queen’s request to him.

Remake what has been undone.
Break my throne.
Help me finish dying
.

Why not
Undo what had been made?
he wondered. What precisely had been undone?

Then the little gang of roughnecks were at the gate.

“Them sailors is still out there,” said one, vaguely familiar to Kitchens. Had they met at the quarry site back in Kent where the borer was tested? “We got another party on the stockade fence. Orders. You tells ’em you’re coming through, lest they shoot you.”

Kitchens was surprised to find any of dusk remaining outside. He’d somehow thought this the middle of the night. Being deep within the Wall had surely shadowed his thoughts overmuch.

A small airship, presumably
Erinyes
, was visible above the stockade wall, tethered low to the ground. People moved about on her deck. The group on the stockade watched him pass through the ruins of their camp without attempting to stop him. He knew how badly those men had wanted to be within their bolthole. Kitchens avoided the ruin of the gate, instead climbing the ladder. The ropes were still tied there.

“You going back to the sailors?” asked a blond man with a seamed face, clutching a rifle close as any lover.

“Surely if I am to find aid for your expedition, I will not do so from behind these walls.”

“I’d get over and to your friends before full dark, then. A man shouldn’t be alone in these jungles.”

“Your advice is my command.” The clerk nodded, grabbed the rope, and climbed down the outside of the stockade.

He stumbled across the field of fire, around bits of snapped bone, shattered Brass and the debris of repeated battle. Blood curdled in long, narrow puddles covered with flies. This was indeed not a place to be stranded.

Sailors crowded around the lines mooring
Erinyes
. Kitchens pushed through to find Harrow.

“What transpires?” he asked the chief.

“McCurdy took John Brass up with him to relieve Lieutenant Ostrander of command,” the petty officer replied. “Bad business no matter which direction you slice the loaf.”

Kitchens was amazed. “They want to give the ship to that Boaz?”

“I think McCurdy wanted someone who wouldn’t hang for this to play the hard part. That Brass has some attachment to the men of
Erinyes
that I don’t fathom.”

“I must go for aid,” Kitchens said. “Much here should be reported to London. If McCurdy can get me to Cotonou, I can send support back here while taking a larger airship back to England.”

Harrow leaned close, almost intimate, as he whispered in Kitchens’ ear. “We won’t lift more than two-thirds of these men, and not even that many if Ostrander vented too much hydrogen. With the tunnel and the camp barred to us, there will be a hell of a fight over privilege.”

The rope chair dropped over the side from above, swinging down into the gloom of evening.

“Let me up, Chief. I’ll do what I can to take care of everyone, but I must report, above all else.”

As well as find a way to aid the Queen.

One of the sailors pushed to Harrow’s side. “Bugger it, Chief, they’s asking for you up there.”

“Send Mr. Kitchens first,” Harrow said loudly. “He can speak for me. I plan to be the last man off the ground, when they’re ready to take us all home.”

The chair spun as it rose.
Chair
was too kind a word. This was barely a sling, as if he were a carcass being brought up for the galley. He kept his gorge in place even as rough hands drew him over the rail.

“You’re not Harrow,” someone said, then McCurdy pushed forward. A very frightened midshipman hung close off one shoulder.

“Where’s John Brass?” Kitchens asked.

“Belowdecks with the lieutenant, sir.” The bosun tried to look back at the midshipman, but the young man stepped away from his glance. “Someone has to sit on the poor bugger, and he won’t likely scratch out that Boaz’ eyes.”

“We must lay in a course for Cotonou.”

“I still got four men on the ground,” McCurdy said quietly. “Harrow’s boys number forty more, at least.”

Kitchens glanced back at the ropes. “Are you going to be able to take them all aboard?”

“Could.” The deck around them was very quiet. “We wouldn’t make much altitude, and we’d be slow. That’s four tons more than we’d normally carry, just body weight, plus the food and water we’d have to bring up, and the gas cells are down almost thirty percent thanks to some fancy piloting. A storm comes, Chinee raiders find us, more of them winged savages attack, we’re dead men.”

Kitchens retained his sense of ruthless duty. He had to get back to the Queen, to report on Ottweill’s fate, and to answer her note. “Better to put almost everyone over the side and run for Cotonou with a minimal crew. More men on the ground will increase their chance of survival. More men up here will slow us down.”

A muttering arose among the gathered crew, someone’s voice quite clearly complaining, “I ain’t going down—” until shushed by his fellows.