The idea wasn’t appealing. It was a long and dangerous journey to the other side of the world, and once there, there was nowhere to hide. A few small settlements. A frontier lifestyle, lived without luxuries. If his pursuers tracked him to New Vardia, he’d be easily caught.
He ticked off options in his head. Samarla? They wouldn’t last two days, and Silo would never go. Thace? They’d be caught and deported if they tried to stay. Thacians were very defensive of their little utopia. Kurg? Populated by monsters.
Of the countries this side of the Great Storm Belt, only Yortland provided a haven, and it was a cold and bitter one, entirely too close to Vardia. They couldn’t hide there for ever. Not with the Century Knights and Trinica Dracken on their tail.
His eyes fell to the broadsheet spread out on the table. Bitterness curdled in his guts. The sanctimonious tone of the writer, exulting in Frey’s imminent downfall, enraged him. The memory of Crake’s snide dismissal made him grit his teeth. The picture of himself smiling out from the page inspired a deep and intolerable hatred. That they should use that picture. That one!
This was too much. He could take the vagaries of chance that robbed him at cards time and again. He could handle the knowledge that his best efforts at self-improvement were doomed to be thwarted by some indistinct, omnipotent force. He could live with the fact that he was captain of a crew who were only staying with him because they had nowhere else to go.
But to be so thoroughly stitched up, without any idea who was behind it or even what he’d done to deserve it? It was so tremendously, appallingly unfair that it made his blood boil.
‘I can’t run any more,’ he murmured.
‘What’d you say?’ asked Malvery.
He surged to his feet, knocking his flagon aside with the back of his hand, his voice rising to a shout. ‘I said I can’t run any more!’ He snatched up the broadsheet and flung it away, pointing after it. ‘There’s nowhere I can go that she won’t find me! She’ll never stop! Now I’m a man well accustomed to being shat on by fate, but everyone has their limits and I’ve bloody well reached mine!’
The others stared at him as if he was mad. But he wasn’t mad. Suddenly, he felt inspired, empowered, alive! Swept up in the excitement of a resolution, Frey thundered on.
‘I’m damned if I’m going to run halfway round the planet to get away from these people! I’m damned if I’m going to hang for a crime without even knowing what I’ve done! And I’m damned if I’m going to rot out the rest of my days in some icebound wasteland!’ He pounded his fist down on the table. ‘There is one person who might know who’s behind all this. That brass-eyed bastard who gave me the tip: Xandian Quail. We all know his kind never reveal their sources, but he made one big mistake. He left me nothing else to lose. So I’m gonna go back. I’m gonna head right back there even if the whole bloody country is looking for me and I’m gonna find out who did this! I’ll make them sorry they ever heard the name of Darian Frey!’ He thrust his fist in the air. ‘Who’s with me ?’
Malvery, Pinn and Harkins gaped at him. Silo watched him inscrutably. The bartender cleaned flagons. The only sound in the silence that followed was the squeak of cloth against pewter.
‘Oh, piss on you all,’ snapped Frey, then stormed off towards the door. ‘If you’re not on the Ketty Jay in half an hour I’ll leave you here to freeze.’
Eleven
On reflection, Crake had spent rather a lot of time in taverns lately. As a man who had once prized study and discipline it made him feel vaguely decadent. He was used to drawing rooms and social clubs, garden parties and soirees. During his university days he’d frequented fashionably seedy dives, but they were usually full of similarly educated folk eager for a taste of the low life. His drinking binges had always been disguised as evenings of intelligent debate. There was no threat of that with the crew of the Ketty Jay.
Nowadays, he simply drank to forget.
He sat at the bar, two mugs of the foul local grog before him. It was late afternoon in Marklin’s Reach, and a sharp winter sun cut low across the town. Dazzling beams shone through the dirty windows and into the gloomy, half-empty tavern. Slowly writhing smoke formed hypnotic patterns, unfurling in the light.
Crake checked his pocket watch and scanned the room. His new friend was late. He wondered if he’d overdone things last night by buying all the drinks. Maybe he’d laid on the flattery a bit thick. Tried too hard.
He thought they’d got on well, all things considered. He thought he’d done a good job bridging the vast gulf in intellect. Still, Crake was never sure with these simple types. He suspected they had a certain intuition. They sensed he wasn’t one of them.
But Rogin had seemed to take to him. He’d been happy to chat with anyone, as long as they were buying the drinks. At the end of the night, they agreed to meet up for a quick mug of grog the next day, before he went on duty. ‘It’ll help me ease into my shift, so to speak,’ he’d said. Crake had brayed enthusiastically and promised to have a drink waiting.
He scratched at his beard. He’d considered shaving it off, since the Century Knights would be looking for a blond-bearded man. But the others who were chasing him were looking for somebody clean-shaven, which was why he’d grown it in the first place. He feared the Shacklemore Agency just as much as the Century Knights, and so, all things being even, he decided the beard suited him and kept it. He thought it made him look pleasingly rugged.
He checked his pocket watch again. Where was that oaf? After all the effort he’d spent following the man home, tracking him to his local haunt and plying him with booze, Crake would be sorely annoyed if he got stood up now.
He was in a sombre mood. Memories of the past and doubts about the future flocked up to meet him. Was he doing the right thing, staying with the Ketty Jay? Wouldn’t he be better off cutting them loose, making his own way? After all, he didn’t exactly owe Frey a huge debt of loyalty after their run-in with Macarde.
But Frey had promised him they’d get to a big city as soon as it was safe. There, Crake could get the supplies he needed to practise his daemonism. He’d allowed himself to be placated by that. He could wait a little longer.
The need to practise the Art was nagging at him. After the accident, he’d imagined he’d never be tempted by it again. But he’d abandoned his studies out of fear, and that was a cowardly thing. Since university, his every spare moment had been secretly devoted to daemonism. It was the only thing that set him apart from the herd of over-educated, moneyed idiots that had surrounded him all his life. He thought himself better than that. He disdained them. He’d been brave enough to look into the unknown, to reach towards the arcane. He could do things that powerful men would marvel at. Shortly before they hanged him.
But no matter the dangers, he couldn’t give it up. To return to the grey unknowing, the humdrum day-to-day, was unimaginable. He’d tasted grief and despair and the highest terror, he’d made the most terrible mistakes and he bore a shame that no man should have to bear; but he’d stared into the fires of forbidden knowledge, and though he might look away for a moment, his gaze would always be drawn back.
You can start small. Start with the easy procedures. See how you go.
Besides, with only enough money to buy the most basic supplies—let alone pay for transport—he wasn’t in a good position to leave. At least on the Ketty Jay he was surrounded by people who asked no questions, people untrained in the aristocratic arts of vicious wit and backstabbing. He rather liked that about them, actually.