The Destiny of the Dead (The Song of the Tears Book 3) (42 page)

He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and could hear the
precious air gurgling out through the spear hole. How long would it last? He
could not guess, but at least that told him where the prow was – behind
him. Nish swam the other way, sweeping his hands out from side to side, and
shortly came up against the mechanism. The exit hole had to be to his left and
it didn’t take long to find it. He felt through the hole and touched the
seabed!

It was completely blocked by hard sand. In his dazed state
he had not taken in that the air-sled was upside down. Panic exploded; he was
trapped and, as soon as the last of the air was gone, he was going to drown.

Nish fought for self-control and tried to think, but in the
darkness and the strange environment his thoughts were unusually sluggish. The
air-sled was already half full of water so he didn’t have long. He took another
breath and probed through the hole. Could he dig enough sand away to get out?

That would depend on what the seabed was. If it was all flat
sand he was doomed, for he’d never move enough to reach any of the sides and
get out from underneath. But if the deck was partly resting on rocks there
could be a gap at one side or one end.

He wouldn’t know until he tried. Nish began to claw away the
sand with his hooked fingers but it proved slow work, since the sand to either
side kept slumping into the hollow. He needed a better, faster digging tool.

Crawling through the water to the broken mechanism, he
kicked it with the heel of one boot until it fell apart. After sorting through
the pieces, he settled on a clamshell-shaped metal cover. He could dig five
times as fast with it.

He attacked the sand, lifting it inside the hull and
dropping it to the side so not a grain would fall back in. The sides of the
hole kept slumping, but in a few minutes he had excavated a hollow down to the
length of his arm, and rather wider than the exit hole. Putting his head and
shoulders down, he felt around.

Solid sand lay to his left, but ahead and on the right he
felt a depression in the seabed, though there was no way of telling how far it
went. He pulled himself down to his hips and felt again. The way ahead was
blocked but the depression continued to the right. He was almost out of air, so
Nish went backwards into the air-sled and squatted there, catching his breath.

The water level was much higher now, up to his neck, and the
air was still gurgling out as rapidly as before. It would be gone in a few
minutes. And what if he went through and there was no way out, or he became
stuck?

Nish could feel the panic rising again, his claustrophobia
returning. It was much harder to fight this time, for the thought of being
trapped and waiting to drown made him want to shriek and batter his fists
against the deck. He took another breath, and another, now having to tilt his
head back to do so.

All right, he thought, here goes. Don’t do anything in haste
– that will only make the panic worse. Taking the deepest breath he could
draw, he grabbed his scoop and went through the hole and out along the seabed
depression under the deck, concentrating on moving quickly but steadily. He
wove to the right, trying to slip through the water like an eel.

Beside him he felt rock; ahead the depression continued. He
swam along it confidently but it ended,
everywhere
,
and panic exploded in his mind. The urge to scream and thrash was almost irresistible,
but he knew that would be the end of him.

He went backwards, found that the seabed depression
continued further to his right, on the other side of the rock the deck was
resting on, and moved that way. His chest felt tight now, and he was a little
short of breath, but he had to keep going. Left, left, right, then straight
ahead, and he felt sure he had to be near the edge.

He touched the deck overhead to check, and encountered the
ridge along its side. Only half a span to go, but now the way was blocked by a
curving ridge of sand that must have been thrown up when the side of the
air-sled hit the bottom.

He attacked it steadily, carving the face away and sliding
the sand to his left. His chest was heaving now; he had only a few seconds’
worth of air. Nish kept on steadily, knowing it was his only option, and broke
through. Carving another layer away to be sure he could get out, he let the
scoop fall.

The passage proved a tight squeeze, and the pressure on his
chest made the urge to breathe desperate, but he forced himself to keep going
and felt his legs come free. He had to breathe; had to; and there wasn’t time
to swim to the surface, but if he could just reach the stream of air issuing
from the spear hole …

Nish breathed out as he dragged himself across the hull,
seeing red flashes before his eyes, and clamped his mouth over the ragged hole,
heedless of the sharp metal edges cutting his lips.

He drank down the warm air, gasping it and feeling it
bringing life back to his numb limbs. In, out, in, out, he breathed, then
looked up to the surface. He couldn’t see anything. It might be two spans up,
or twenty.

However deep it is, he thought, I’m going to make it.
Nothing
is going to stop me now. He swam
up slowly, trickling air out of his nostrils, and in under a minute his head
broke the surface.

‘Hoy!’ he yelled to the people standing on the platform.
‘Where’s that bloody rope you were going to send down?’

Flangers tossed it to him and they hauled him out, and he
embraced them one by one, even Flydd. The militia gave him a quiet but
heartfelt cheer.

‘Back from the dead,’ said Aimee, ‘and we’re going to follow
you all the way to victory.’

 
TWENTY-NINE

‘I know Roros well,’ said Flydd after they’d collected
their packs and weapons, plus what little food they’d saved, and climbed the
first hill. Higher hills blocked their view to north and south, and inland.

‘The coast forms a series of rocky ridges and little coves
here,’ he went on, ‘rising up to steep, barren hills, and there’s an abandoned
watch-tower on the highest. That’ll be it there, see, where the cliffs rise
straight up from the sea. A league beyond it, across the river, is Roros.’

‘Not tonight,’ groaned Nish, whose every bone and joint
ached. ‘I feel as though I’ve been set upon and beaten.’ He stumbled and nearly
fell.

Flydd put an arm around him. ‘We can’t get there tonight,
and they wouldn’t let us in the gates if we did. Besides, after our brilliant
performance in Taranta we’re not going to turn up looking like drowned rats.
We’ll sleep in the watch-tower, if you can make it that far.’

‘Has someone got my gear?’ Nish mumbled, feeling close to
collapse.

‘I’m carrying your pack,’ said Flangers, ‘and the staff, but
I lost your sabre. Sorry.’

Nish could not have cared less. ‘It was Vivimord’s, anyway.’

‘It was a beautiful blade,’ said Flydd, ‘though designed for
dark purposes. I’m glad it’s gone. I always had an uneasy feeling about it.’

‘It did everything I asked of it,’ said Nish. ‘And
sometimes, when I was fighting with it, it seemed to go to the target of its
own accord.’

‘A handy thing in a melee – unless it starts choosing
its own targets.’

Nish squirmed away from that thought. ‘I was always in
control of it.’ Except for the time he’d saved Huwld’s life, he realised.

‘I dare say. Anyway, it’s not the right weapon for the
Deliverer … or whatever you plan to call yourself.’

‘Vivimord gave me that title. I won’t be using it again.’

‘What are you going to call yourself, in this campaign to
bring down the God-Emperor?’

‘Nish,’ said Nish. ‘I’ve been Nish to my friends half my
life. It’s a fine, ordinary name and suits me perfectly.’

‘Emperor Nish,’ said Flydd sourly. ‘It doesn’t have an
imperial ring to it.’

‘Since I don’t plan to be emperor, it doesn’t matter!’

‘Quite!’ snapped Flydd. ‘As for the blade, I’ll get you a
better one in Roros. They make fine weapons here.’

‘I wouldn’t mind my serpent staff. I’m not sure I can stay
on my feet without a prop.’

Flangers handed it to him and they made their slow way to
the watch-tower. Flangers eased the plank door open, checked that its three
levels were unoccupied by man or beast, and they went inside and barred the
door. Nish had no idea what they did after that. He staggered up the stairs to
the open lookout platform at the top, where the warm air was so humid and soupy
that the only bedding needed was a coat for a pillow, and collapsed.

When he woke late the following morning, the hot sun
was burning his bruised face and Flydd was gone.

‘He went to Roros at dawn, in disguise,’ said Clech as Nish
stumbled down the steps. The fisherman was sitting on the floor with his
splinted legs stretched out in front of him, before a small blaze burning in an
open fireplace. ‘Hungry?’

Nish could have gnawed off his right arm. ‘What have we
got?’

‘Fried ham and seagull eggs.’

The last remnants of the purloined Taranta ham sat on the
stone floor beside him, below a sling bulging with little eggs hanging from a
rusty hook. Clech sliced ham as neatly as if he were filleting a fish and
tossed it into a pan. Scooping out a handful of seagull eggs he crushed them in
his fist and strained the eggs from the shell through his grubby fingers into
the pan.

‘Did Flydd say when he’d be back?’ said Nish, sitting down.
He was so sore that every movement took an effort.

‘Nope.’

After breakfast he went outside and tried to work out a plan
to attack the empire, but Nish could not see how he was going to raise an army
without being captured or assassinated. He had to have an army; but he could
not raise one; but he had to have one. The dismal thoughts went back and forth,
without hope of resolution.

He was sitting in the shade of the tower, looking over the
cliffs at the sea and wistfully remembering those placid and mostly carefree
times on the cliff tops of Gendrigore, when Flydd rode up the track from the
south on a large black horse. Nish remained where he was, fanning himself with
a banana leaf. The midday heat of Crandor was almost unbearable and at the cliff
tops there was a slightly cooler breeze.

‘Any luck?’ he called as Flydd was tethering the horse to a
bush.

‘Ah, there you are. Luck with what?’

‘Whoever you went to Roros to see. How do you know people
there, anyhow?’

‘That’s a silly question, Nish, after all the time you’ve
known me. The scrutators had to know the most important, influential, clever
and talented people in the world, in every field, and when we went out in the
world we didn’t carry written records. We were taught to remember everything.’

‘I thought you lost most of your old memories in renewal?’

‘It turns out they weren’t lost at all – I’d just
forgotten how to find them – and they’re slowly coming back. Ten years
ago I knew a thousand names and faces in Roros, and on the way here I’ve
remembered half of them. Of course, many have died, and some are in the
God-Emperor’s work camps and prisons, but it’s surprising how many are still
around. I met half a dozen this morning – contacts who make it their
business to know what’s going on – and they’ve given me much to think
about.’

He looked Nish up and down. ‘You look like a rat-gnawed
corpse.’

‘Thanks! I don’t feel too hot, actually.’ Nish flapped his
banana leaf and wiped the sweat off his throbbing brow.

‘You’ve got fresh purple bruises over last week’s yellow
ones, and your head is like a melon.’

‘Enough compliments – I can’t afford for it to swell
any further,’ Nish said drily. ‘I’m going to lie down in the shade. I’m not
designed for this climate.’

‘Good idea. Get some more sleep. We’re going out tonight and
we won’t be back till late.’

‘Going where?’

‘I’ll tell you when we’re nearly there.’

It was after ten when they left, and everyone was
asleep apart from Flangers and the guards. Flydd mounted the horse and helped
Nish up in front of him, onto the horn of a saddle as hard as stone, then
flicked the reins and the horse began to pick its way down the gritty track.

‘Shouldn’t we be disguised in some way?’ said Nish after a
while.

‘What for?’

‘Wisp-watchers.’

‘Already taken care of.’

Flydd did not say how. He wasn’t in a talkative mood and
neither was Nish, who endured the jolts in pain-filled silence. They turned
onto a paved highway and followed it over a river on a bridge of many arches,
before taking a muddy cart road that led towards the shore.

There were fields on the left, freshly harvested, and an
infestation of shanties and shacks to the right, like a series of boils growing
out from the high wall of the city.

Turning in at a minor gate in the wall, Flydd said in Nish’s
ear, ‘The guards have been bribed. Pull your hood down and keep out of the
light. Say nothing.’

He rapped on the gate with the butt of his knife. The gate
was opened and a pair of watchmen, one thin as a bean, the other a stocky
wrestling type, stared at him.

‘Who comes?’ said the wrestler.

Flydd said something incomprehensible and held out what
appeared to be a signed and sealed safe conduct, on vellum. The wrestler took
it and held it close, squinting at it in the lantern light. Flydd tapped his
serpent staff on the cobbles, whereupon one of the wrestler’s eyes rolled to the
left, the other to the right. He swayed and passed the vellum up to the
beanpole.

He did not even look at it before saying in a shrill voice,
‘That seems to be in order,’ and handing it back.

Something slipped from Flydd’s hand to the beanpole’s in the
exchange, he waved them through and the gate banged behind them. They rode up a
muddy road between houses that leaned out above them on either side, before
following a winding path through a hundred unmarked alleys and mean streets
until Nish marvelled that Flydd could find his way at all. Eventually he turned
up a winding thoroughfare to a series of mansions on a flat-topped hill
standing above the coast.