It began to rain, softly at first, and then harder. Water lanced down from the darkness, pulverizing the black brine and turning the reflections from Granger’s lantern into millions of flashing gilders. All around the old Ethugran prisons bore the onslaught. Water drummed their roofs and gargled down through gutter pipes. Drip after drip fell from the eaves and spattered bridges and stone pontoons, exploded against window ledges and doorsteps, trickled down through cracks and into the sodden heart of the old Unmer district. Rain beat the tarpaulin and crept down Granger’s neck and across his back. The air filled with the scent of wet earth, as though each droplet had carried with it the fabric of another land. Granger inhaled it deeply.
Creedy manoeuvred them through a sodden labyrinth of deep defiles, grunting softly as he pushed at the walls with his boat hook. Ianthe hung over the side, wrapped in silence under her cloak. Granger held up the lamp and swung it around him, revealing the massive walls that pinned them in on every side, the barred windows half submerged in brine, their ironwork scuffed by innumerable boat hooks. Occasionally they heard sobbing from the cells around them, but those noises were indistinct, drowned by the constant percussion of the rain.
Finally, Ianthe said, ‘Here.’
Creedy brought the boat to a stop.
‘Something metal,’ she replied. ‘Six fathoms down. Two yards that way.’ She pointed near the bow.
‘Trove?’ Granger peered into the water. He could see nothing but the reflection from his own lantern dancing in that blackness.
Ianthe turned away from the gunwale and sat down fiercely, jerking the cloak over her head like a cowl. ‘What do you think?’
Granger pulled on his gloves, mask and goggles. He picked up a dredging line – a long rope with a cluster of hooks at the end – and tossed it into the canal. The rope slid out through his fingers as the barbed anchor dropped into the depths. Four fathoms, five, six. Finally it settled on the bottom, and Granger pulled it towards him. He felt the hooks bump and scrape across the seabed, but they snagged nothing. He dragged the line in again, and repeated the process.
The rain came down.
On the third throw, Granger felt the line bite. He gave it a tug. Something heavy freed itself from the bottom. A noticeable weight. Carefully, he drew it up towards him.
It was a small clockwork machine about the size of a naval concussion shell – an engine, perhaps, or part of one. The device was roughly cuboid, fashioned from a peculiar green-blue alloy, and much heavier than it looked. Through several holes in the outer casing, Granger could see some complex mechanism inside: gears, tightly wound metal coils and bulbs of red glass. Four short, rubber-sheathed wires dangled from metal stubs welded to one of the object’s facets. Brine sluiced out as he turned it over.
‘What is it?’ Creedy asked.
Granger didn’t know.
‘Definitely Unmer.’ Creedy held out his hands. ‘Let’s have a look.’
The queer device made Granger feel uncomfortable, although he couldn’t say precisely why. Its weight seemed to change as he turned it over, and he thought he detected a faint hum coming from the glass bulbs, a resonance that he felt in his teeth. Did it retain a trace of Unmer sorcery? He emptied it of seawater and then passed it over to Creedy. Then he turned to Ianthe, who remained wrapped in the shadows of her cloak. ‘How did you know it was there?’ he asked.
She shrugged.
‘You can’t see anything in that murk.’
‘You can’t,’ she retorted.
Creedy adjusted the lens in his eye socket and examined the object. ‘I can get you a buyer for this,’ he said. ‘The metal itself might be worth a couple of hundred. If it does anything weird once it’s dried out, you can double that figure.’ He put it down. ‘Not exactly a gem lantern, but not a bad start.’
They searched the canals for hours. It rained constantly. Ianthe peered into the black water in silence. But was she actually using those vacant eyes to hunt for treasure, or was she using the mind behind them? Granger didn’t know. She couldn’t steer them; she could only gaze into that bitter void and hope to detect the glimmer of metal amidst the silt and rubble. Yet to Granger’s sight the canal water was as impenetrable as the grave. It frightened him because he did not know what they might discover. Not all Unmer artefacts were harmless.
On the outskirts of Francialle they pulled up a star-shaped pendant fastened to a long flat, razor-sharp chain. It would have cut into the skin of anyone who wore it, and yet Creedy insisted it had value. Handling it in his tough gloves, Granger felt the same uneasiness as before. It seemed to resist the movements of his hand, as though attracted or repulsed by some minute and invisible geography of the air. These queer sensations began to turn his stomach, so he flipped the thing to Creedy, who played with it and laughed. After that, the finds came more quickly. In Cannonade Canal they found a pair of metal goggles that allowed the wearer to see the waters as a virulent blue glow awash with threads of silver. By twisting the lenses one could change the colours of the illusion to yellow, black and green. Interesting, Granger conceded, but ultimately pointless. Shortly afterwards they dragged up a tangle of golden fibres that left him with a ringing sensation in his ears, although he heard no actual noise at all.
The canals continued to reveal their secrets: an old Unmer dragon harness brimming with needles; three hot glass spheres connected by wooden rods; a paint tin.
They threw the tin back, and moved on.
The rain stopped at dawn. The fresh smell of metal crept into the air with the first morning light. Overhead the sky began to fill with the subtle shades of yellow and purple. Tea-coloured vapour rose from the canals and hung between buildings in a soft ethereal scum. Only the brine itself stayed dark. Granger wanted to head back, but Creedy kept insisting they stay. ‘One more find and then we’ll go. Just one.’
In the heart of Francialle they manoeuvred the launch into a small square basin tucked in behind a massive prison block belonging to the Bower family, where Ianthe told them to stop again.
Granger rubbed his eyes. ‘What is it?’
Ianthe looked up from the water. ‘A sea-bottle.’
The two men exchanged a glance. The empire paid three thousand gilders for each ichusae removed from the ocean, but they were worth even more on the black market. Certain warlords had been known to use them as weapons.
This last treasure seemed determined to elude them. After a dozen attempts with the hooked line, Granger still hadn’t snagged the thing. He couldn’t see anything in the dark water but his own hideous face, the grey, paper-creased cheeks, the goggles like cavities in his skull. He abandoned the hooked line in favour of a claw, a tool more suitable for grabbing smooth objects. By manipulating two cords he could open and close the tool’s jaws like a pincer. It was tricky, but on his second try, he thought that the line became a little heavier.
Gently, he began to draw the line in. It snagged on something. He pulled harder.
Something underwater wrenched it back.
Granger reacted instinctively, dropping the line. Two yards of it whizzed across the bow wale, then came to a rest.
Creedy stood up. ‘Dragon?’
‘In Ethugra?’ Granger replied. There wasn’t space between these buildings to harbour such a monster. Whatever had taken the line was more likely to be much smaller: an Eellen, a Lux shark or thresher-fish, perhaps even one of the Drowned. ‘What do you see, Ianthe?’
The girl did not reply.
‘Ianthe?’
‘A Drowned boy,’ she replied. ‘He’s playing with you.’
Creedy lifted his boat hook. He walked over to the side of the boat and picked up the loose line in his other hand. ‘Little shit,’ he said, wrapping the rope around his gloved fist. ‘I’m going to make you breathe air.’ He gave the line a sudden, powerful, yank.