The Iron Ghost (45 page)

Frith shook his head slightly, and Wydrin found she recognised the look of impatience that creased his brow.

‘During my imprisonment I learned a great deal about the Edenier, and I now have a much greater mastery of the mages’ powers. As insane and murderous as Joah was, I do believe he genuinely wanted me to be able to make full use of the magic. I can do this.’

‘You can stay up here if you like, Dallen,’ said Wydrin, smirking slightly. ‘Reckless adventure isn’t for everyone.’

Dallen snorted, a most unprincely gesture. ‘Reckless adventure I can take,’ he said. ‘It’s cheerful suicide I’m more concerned about.’

‘Here, I’ll go first.’ Wydrin stood in front of Frith and met his grey eyes with her own. ‘It makes sense that our most skilful blade is the first into unknown territory anyway.’ And then, in a lower voice that only Frith could hear, she said, ‘Strangely enough, I trust you, princeling.’

He raised an eyebrow at that, a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

‘Stand at the very edge,’ he said. ‘Just there, that’s it.’ He put one hand on her waist, positioning her at the lip of the silvery hole. When he was happy with where she was, he raised both hands, an expression of deepest concentration on his face.

I trust him, oh yes,
thought Wydrin,
for some bloody reason I trust him. What Joah did to him nearly killed him, and he’s weaker than he was, and I could end up splattered all over the cobbles of some lost city.

The link between you is strong
. Mendrick’s voice was suddenly inside her head.
As much as you will both ignore it.

Mendrick? You can hear me down here?

Your voice is always . . . loud.

‘There,’ said Frith. ‘Can you feel that?’

Wydrin made to shake her head, but then a warm feeling seemed to sweep up from her toes, a faint sense of pressure against her skin. Once, when she had been very small, her mother had taken her to a lake that was so full of salt it was impossible to sink in it. They had paddled around, her mother uncharacteristically relaxed for once, and they had laughed at that feeling of buoyancy. This felt a little like that; a pressure beneath, keeping you afloat.

‘I can,’ she said, half laughing. ‘Bloody hell.’

‘Take a step back.’

Inwardly cursing her life choices, Wydrin did as he asked. Instead of stepping into nothing and plummeting to her death, she found herself floating over the surface of the silvery pool, her boots submerged in its strange light.

‘Good,’ said Frith. He was staring at her steadily, and if anything he looked brighter than he had for days.
The Edenier,
thought Wydrin,
it reinvigorates him
. ‘I’m going to lower you now.’

Slowly, so slowly, she descended down through the pool, closing her eyes as the band of light passed over her head, and then she was hanging above the city.

‘By the Graces,’ she gasped, ‘it’s beautiful.’

It was – a fabulous confection of white marble and olive-coloured brick, glass glinting like stars in flute-shaped towers – but it was difficult to concentrate on that when she could see nothing but empty air below her boots. Gradually she moved downwards, as smoothly as a ship under a steady wind. She risked a glance upwards and saw the circle above her as a shadow in a watery sky. There was Frith, his face rigid with concentration, and Sebastian, who looked like he was regretting their hurried breakfast. Above her and around them was a sky that was not a sky; it was, she realised, the sea – a shifting, swirling expanse of blue and black held back by some unknowable force. The will of a god, she thought, and then abruptly she was nearly on the ground. The sense of pressure holding her in the air vanished, and she dropped easily to land on her feet. She waved up to the others to let them know that she’d made it down safely, then looked around.

At ground level the lost city of Temerayne wasn’t quite as beautiful.

The fluted towers arose on all sides, their tops spreading wide like some strange species of pale lily, but down on street level the cobbles were thick with skeletons. Wherever she looked she saw grinning skulls and shattered ribcages, yellowed bone and piles of dust. Hundreds of men, women and children had died in the streets, their bodies lying under the sea-sky with no one to tend them. She saw skeletons clasped together, as though they’d died fighting or embracing, and ragged shapes hung from windows, finger bones clutching at nothing. The dead were numerous, ancient and utterly silent.

Wydrin looked back up at the enchanted ceiling. What must it have been like, she wondered, to have known that you were trapped down here, and would never see the real sky again?

Sebastian was making his slow way down now, his arms held out stiffly in front of him as if he could stop himself from falling with sheer willpower. When he got to the ground he just looked at Wydrin and shook his head.

‘And I thought the invisible bridge was bad.’

Dallen and Frith came down together, holding arms awkwardly. The prince had his eyes shut all the way down.

Once they were all back on the ground, Wydrin drew her dagger again. With no people and no wind, it was unnaturally quiet – even the sound of the sea was lost to them down here.

‘The silence, and that sky,’ said Sebastian. He drew his own sword, following Wydrin’s lead. ‘To die in such silence . . .’

‘I doubt it was very quiet, towards the end,’ said Wydrin, nodding at the skeletons. ‘People would have been desperate.’

‘Let us find the sword and get out of here,’ said Dallen. ‘This is a cursed place. We should not be here.’

‘The tomb was this way,’ said Frith, pointing down the street. ‘Let’s go.’

They walked quickly. Wydrin tried, at first, not to step on the skeletons, but there were so many, and the bones so old that they collapsed into powder at the slightest touch. The creeping sense of unease only increased the further they walked; the skin between her shoulder blades kept prickling as though they were being watched, and she looked up at the empty buildings frequently, expecting to see unfriendly faces peering back. She wasn’t normally so easily spooked – exploring abandoned old places was hardly a new occupation for the Copper Cat of Crosshaven – but the misery of the people who had died here seemed to hang over the empty city like a dark cloud, a psychic extension of the sea-sky above them.

‘Look.’ Sebastian nodded just ahead of them, and Wydrin could make out three sets of footprints. They were smudged here and there in the inconstant dust, but clear enough. ‘They lead down the street, and they don’t come back this way.’

‘At least we’re going in the right direction,’ said Dallen.

‘Of course we are,’ snapped Frith. ‘I’ve been here before.’ He sounded as angry as ever, but he looked haunted, his cheeks the colour of ash.

‘And what do you suppose that is?’

Sebastian was pointing up at the great dark dome that hung over the city. There was a shadow moving up there, directly above them. At first Wydrin took it to be the Narhl ship, but after a moment she realised it was much too large, and moving too quickly. It was long, thickening towards the middle and then thinning out again to a narrow tapering shape. As she watched, it was joined by another similar shadow, and they curled around each other in a slow dance.

‘Are they wyverns?’ she asked, holding Frostling a little tighter.

‘No,’ said Dallen. ‘Wrong shape. And that thing looks bigger than any sea-wyvern I’ve seen.’

‘Lots of monsters in the sea,’ said Wydrin uneasily. She was thinking of when she’d impersonated a Graceful Lady; she had barely thought anything of it at the time, but casually insulting the Graces seemed a lot more significant with the ocean hanging over her head. ‘Let’s keep moving.’

‘We have no food for Skalds here. None of your hot food vomit.’

Nuava bit her lip. The last thing she wanted to hear about at the moment was vomit. She had hoped that sitting quietly in the hold of the Narhl ship would quiet her stomach, but she could not get used to the lurching sensation of the wooden panels beneath her and everything smelled overpoweringly of salt.

‘That’s fine, thank you,’ she said, forcing a polite smile onto her face. ‘Anything you can spare is greatly appreciated.’

Ceriel frowned at her. Nuava rather got the impression that the woman would have been more impressed if she’d responded with an insult.

‘Here, then,’ Ceriel put a pouch down on the small table. ‘We call it Slake. Fish guts, fish eggs.’

‘That’s lovely, thank you.’

Ceriel gave her one more disapproving look before stalking back up the warped wooden steps. Nuava let out a shaky sigh of relief, and poked the bag hopefully. It had been hours since she’d eaten and she must have emptied out her stomach several times over, so perhaps she could manage a few Narhl delicacies. If nothing else, she was alone now and no one else would have to witness her indignity should her insides decide they weren’t quite done punishing her yet.

At that moment her eyes met the glowing green lamps of the werken’s eyes.

Not quite alone, after all.

‘Ah. Uh, yes. Um.’ She picked up the bag and glanced inside, immediately regretting it. ‘It’s food, that’s what I’ve got to remember. I need to eat, I need to keep my strength up.’

Gingerly she poked a finger into the bag and hooked out a trembling mass of pinkish flesh. The smell of fish was very strong, but then the entire ship smelt of fish, and she was starting to get used to that at least. Steeling herself, she stuffed it in her mouth and swallowed.

‘
Hurgh
. Mmm.’ She forced herself to chew. Ignoring the texture of it, she nodded her head briskly. ‘You know, it’s not so bad. Cold, obviously, but not awful.’ Methodically she worked her way through the rest of the pouch, and when she was done her stomach did feel a little more settled. They had left her a bone flask full of water, and she sipped at that carefully, willing herself not to be sick again. She’d already pulled all the muscles in her stomach.

‘That must have seemed very silly to you,’ she said. The werken did not move. ‘I mean, I don’t suppose you eat.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Not that we would know.’ Hesitantly, she stood up and took a few steps towards the werken. ‘There must be so much we don’t know about you. Because that’s what you are – a real living being, with . . . with a soul. You are the soul of the mountain, that’s what Prince Dallen said.’

Still the werken did not move. Having grown up in a city where the werkens were regarded as one step up from furniture, if that, she felt mildly foolish – as though she were talking to an old toy and an adult had caught her. It was cold and damp in the hold, and the unsettling motion of the boat now felt like a wave of constant dizziness. She took a deep breath, trying to control the instinctive reactions of her body. She was a scholar, after all, a crafter in training.

But what did that mean now?

‘Why did you never reach out to us? There’s been no attempt to make contact, no communication from you. It’s like you’ve just let us use you.’

Still the werken did not move. Perhaps it was all a lie after all, some elaborate joke being made at her expense, except that she didn’t truly believe that. The woman, Wydrin, was boisterous and undisciplined, but she was also earnest in her own way, and Nuava was quite sure that although the Copper Cat paved her life with falsehoods, she wasn’t lying about this.

‘I would like to speak to you,’ said Nuava, looking directly into the werken’s green eyes. ‘I really would. I have spent my whole life studying you, after all, and none of the werkens I was joined to . . . none of the werkens I have known ever spoke to me.’

There was a smattering of dry laughter from the doorway. Nuava turned to find that Ceriel had returned, and was leaning on the doorframe. Although she was smiling, there was a brittle glint in her eyes, like early spring ice.

‘Foolish Skald child. You may as well ask the sky to speak to you.’

Nuava cleared her throat. She was embarrassed, but at the same time she knew she was doing the right thing. She was doing, in short, what Bors would have done, if he’d suddenly discovered that the werkens were sentient.

‘If they are thinking, knowing creatures with souls, then do they not feel the need to reach out to other thinking, knowing beings?’ Nuava’s stomach grumbled and the taste of fish flooded her mouth. She tried not to grimace too openly. ‘If we have truly treated them so appallingly, then could they not have said no?’

Ceriel shook her head.

‘You are thinking of them as people in the same way we are. You are trying to understand them on your own terms.’ The tall woman held her hands up and dropped them, trying to find the right words. ‘You are a tiny fish, trying to understand the entire ocean. The ocean does not look alive to the fish, but it is full of life.’

Nuava crossed her arms over her chest. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

‘Perhaps not.’ Ceriel shrugged. ‘I lead the people of Turningspear, and I lead raids, and I captain the fishing boats. I do not spend my days talking of spirits. To the Narhl, it is different, you see. We know that the mountain spirits live, because they are a part of us.’

Nuava looked at the woman’s muscled arms, uncovered despite the cold. She could see the marbled pattern of her skin, dabbed here and there with lichen.

‘Because you are close to the land? Closer than us, anyway.’ Nuava nodded, glancing at Mendrick before turning back to Ceriel. ‘Can you imagine, then, what it is to not be part of the land? To have to work to understand it?’

Ceriel frowned. ‘I suppose I cannot.’

‘We have so much to learn still,’ Nuava pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. ‘Excuse me.’ She reached for the bone cup full of water, but Ceriel shook her head.

‘Here, child, drink this. It burns away the water sickness.’ She passed Nuava a long curved horn from her belt, stoppered with a wedge of wax. Nuava pulled the stopper free and took a gulp; the liquor inside tasted faintly medicinal to her, and it swiftly warmed her throat and belly. Almost instantly she felt better.

‘What was that?’ she asked, passing the horn back. She found she was smiling slightly. ‘It was really good.’