Sea mist encroaching from the south. Have ordered the usual precautions. The sun is burning a dark, dark red, although it is not yet noon. Its evil light seems to hang amidst the vapours like some dismal gas lamp.
Ethan Maskelyne, aboard the Mistress
Jontney was screaming. Maskelyne dropped his logbook and rose from the writing desk. He stepped out of the cabin into the adjoining corridor and almost collided with his wife, who was hurrying past.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘I don’t know!’ She looked dishevelled, her hair and frock all in disarray.
‘You were supposed to be watching him!’
‘I had to use the commode!’
The pair of them rushed to the end of the corridor and opened the door to the map room.
Jontney sat on the floor beside the map table, red-faced and bawling. Beside him, ice vapour rose from the open hatch to Maskelyne’s void fly repository. The child had evidently been rummaging in there, for white deposits of crespic salts lay scattered across the floor around him.
Maskelyne ran over and scooped up his son. ‘Gods in hell,’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you eaten any?’ He forced his fingers into the little boy’s mouth and peered inside. ‘Have you eaten any?’ Jontney’s howling became all the more insistent. Maskelyne turned to Lucille and cried, ‘Hot water! Fetch me hot water now!’
His wife just stood there, her face drained.
‘Hot water!’ Maskelyne demanded. ‘The galley, go to the galley.’ He studied the child again. ‘Gods, he’s got the stuff all over his mouth.’ He began wiping away the toxic powder from the boy’s lips and gums.
Lucille hurried away.
‘Hush now, baby,’ Maskelyne said to his child. He hugged him close to his chest and smoothed the boy’s hair. ‘Hush, hush, it’s going to be fine.’ He gazed down at the open hatch and noticed a scalpel lying among the salt nearby. Someone had used it to carve away at the floorboards around both hinges of the hatch. Where had he seen that tiny blade before? After a moment, he realized.
Doctor Shaw.
Could Jontney have picked it up? Possibly. But surely the child could not have used it to free the hatch?
Lucille returned with pot of steaming water. Maskelyne handed the child over to her and tested the water with the back of his hand. Too hot. Cursing, he carried the pot over to the bar, where he emptied a half a quart of wine into it. When the liquid was just cool enough to swallow safely, he forced the boy to drink.
Jontney coughed and sputtered and wailed. He snorted watered wine out of his nose. But Maskelyne managed to get a fair amount of it down his throat. ‘Now shake him,’ he said to Lucille. ‘Make him sick it up again.’
Lucille complied, and soon the child had brought back up the solution.
‘Again.’ Maskelyne lifted the pot to the boy’s lips.
Lucille looked terrified. ‘Is he going to be all right?’
‘Crespic salts react with acid to produce an endothermic reaction,’ Maskelyne said. ‘If he’s swallowed any, it could have frozen his stomach. We need to wash it out, warm him up. Now, there, make him bring it up again.’
The child was sick a second time, spattering wine across the rugs and the map table.
Maskelyne studied him intently. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘He seems
… fine. I think we’ve been lucky.’
Lucille cradled the little boy and tried to soothe him. She spoke softly, but with venom in her voice: ‘How could you let this happen?’
‘Me?’ Maskelyne regarded her with amazement. ‘You were supposed to be watching him.’
‘That hatch should have been locked!’ she retorted. ‘What if he’d got to the void flies?’
‘It was locked. Evidently someone got it open for him. Where did you say you were?’
She looked at the floor. ‘I’ve not been feeling well. The sea air
…’
Maskelyne looked at her for a long moment. And then he sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you.’ He took her and the child in his arms. ‘Gods, Lucille, I’ve never been so frightened.’
She began to sob. ‘What’s happening, Ethan? Is someone trying to hurt us?’
Maskelyne didn’t say anything, but he had his own suspicions.
Granger hit the brine and plunged under it, and for an instant the world became a haze of brown and gold: sunlight rippling across the rooftops of the old Unmer dwellings down below; the Excelsior’s anchor chain; a shoal of marionette fish hanging in the deep like harvest festival baubles. His ears resounded with gloop and clang of sudden pressure change.
And then the pain hit him.
His whole body burned. He felt as if his corneas were shrinking, his salted flesh crackling over an open flame. He ignored it and swam on towards the stern of the emperor’s ship. Samarol bullets streaked by him, leaving short trails of bubbles before their own velocity tore them to shreds.
After a dozen strokes he realized that he was going into shock. A sense of panic and confusion overcame him. He fought against it, desperate to keep his muscles moving, desperate to reach that anchor chain now twenty paces ahead. Now fifteen. Ten.
Every nerve in his body cried out to him to stop. Strange thoughts whirled through his consciousness: The seawater was roasting him alive. He was swimming through the sun and it was not composed of fire but of molten glass. And now he could see that the glass formed the medium through which all thoughts and dreams passed. A lens at the heart of the universe; it was the source and destination of all things. The eye of Creation. He realized that he could die here in peace, and that all would be well. The pain was leaving him now. All he had to do was accept the brine’s embrace.
Yet some internal spark would not let him give up. He saw a vision of Ianthe, her face blurred by the waters, her black hair aflame, and it spurred him on. And suddenly the pain returned with horrific vigour, as if the lapse had been nothing but a sorcerous whisper, a Siren’s call, and the Mare Lux had chosen to bare her teeth once more. He swam and swam through the gnawing brine and, as he crashed onwards through the limits of his own endurance, he bared his own teeth and grinned madly at the agony of it all.
He reached the anchor chain and pulled himself up, fist over fist, until he broke the surface of the waters and drew in a great shuddering breath.
The Excelsior’s copper-clad hull loomed over him, her port lifeboat snug against the bulwark, while higher still her yards cut across the Ethugran sky like lines of cirrus cloud. Hand over fist he pulled himself up the chain, teeth set, muscles screaming, his eyes burning like hot coals in his skull.
He reached the capstan hatch and slipped inside the ship.
Granger found himself in a dim corridor above the gun deck. A line of interior doors each bore Hu’s Imperial crest: the dragon slain by a heavenly bolt of light. These looked like guest quarters. The bulk of Hu’s crew had been ashore to watch the trial, and there was nobody about. But he could not rest here. The brine on his skin felt like fire. It was changing him with every breath he took, steaming from his hands and forearms. If he was to survive he must first purge himself with fresh water. He opened the nearest door.
It was a small, cabin with a neat bunk, a gem lantern and a washbasin. Granger turned on the taps and bent over the washbasin. There was barely a trickle of water. He scooped the water into his eyes and face several times, until the stinging sensation faded. Then he blinked and looked down at his torso. His blood had already begun to crystallize in his wounds. He fought the urge to wash it away immediately lest he reopen those wounds. Instead, he washed the naked skin around them as best he could.