He didn’t want to take too much time over this. The emperor’s men might arrive any moment.
He located the anchor in the winch room three decks below the forecastle. It was too heavy to be raised by one man alone, so Granger lifted the brake and then turned the huge steel spool in the opposite direction, lowering the chain further into the sea. As the spool unwound, the weight of the chain itself began to drag the whole pulley mechanism around on its own. He kicked it to give it impetus, forcing the heavy line to unwind faster and faster. Finally it jarred to a halt. The end of the chain remained connected to the spool by a securing pin as thick as his thumb. Granger tried to kick it out, but it was welded in place and would not budge. He left it alone. The torque of the ship’s engines should be more than enough to shear it when the time came.
His skin started to burn again.
Granger left the winch room and headed aft in the direction of the wheelhouse. He followed a companionway under the gun deck, passing sail rooms, storerooms and a gunnery workshop. All were empty. The corridor opened into the crew quarters, a low chamber packed with rows of triple bunks. The pain in his flesh was starting to become intolerable again. He could feel his limbs begin to stiffen. When he spotted the door to the wash room, he hesitated, then ducked inside.
It was as large as four of the guest cabins back to back, but windowless and sour-smelling. A metalled floor sloped to a gutter channel along one end. The wooden walls were rotten and warped. An enormous barrel to which a ladle pan had been connected by a length of cord stood against the back wall under a dripping tap. Granger ran over and vaulted into the barrel itself.
Cold water immersed him. He submerged his head and then stood up again and washed his face, neck, torso, groin and finally his arms and legs. He shook his eyes clear of water, and then repeated the whole process. Even in this dim light he could see his skin had already been damaged by the Mare Lux seawater. Grey, leathery patches of sharkskin covered his arms like cracked paving, leaving raw red flesh between. Crystals had already formed over most of his wounds. They had staunched the flow of blood, but itched terribly and felt painful to the touch.
He climbed out of the barrel and stood there in the dark for a long moment, contemplating his disfigured flesh. He’d been too late to save himself completely, and the chances were good he might die yet. The flesh would either heal or harden further, restricting his movement. He sat down on the floor, trembling with exhaustion and fear, and felt something prod him in the side. It was the Unmer seeing knife, still tucked into the band of his breeches. He took it out and turned it over, but his sharkskin fingers could hardly feel it at all.
Sea mist rolled in from the south, blotting the sun until the skies around the Mistress turned from ochre to orange to a deep and angry red. Maskelyne ordered his sharpest lookout to the bow and ordered his engineers to set the dredger’s engines to one-quarter speed. He climbed the ladder to the wheelhouse and took control of the vessel himself. Yet even from this high vantage point he could see little in the fiery gloom but the dim pink glow of the lookout’s gem lantern and the red-brown slush of seawater coursing past to port and stern. The thin iron skeletons of the deck cranes drifted in and out of mist, while the Mistress’s bathysphere squatted in its cradle in the centre of the deck like an enormous brass egg.
They were in the Border Waters, the confluence of the Mare Lux and Mare Regis. It was an area of unpredictable weather and vicious currents. Ships were apt to drift leagues away from their assumed positions. He’d heard rumours of reefs, too, shoals of copper sharks and wisp lights, and even great deepwater erokin samal capable of claiming entire crews with their searching tentacles. But the stories that troubled him the most were those of wandering deadships.
He pulled a cord and blew the ship’s foghorn. A deep, low blast reverberated through the mist. He did not expect to find another ship out here, but the sound reassured him nevertheless. It filled the sepulchral air with a sense of life.
He hadn’t heard Lucille come in but turned at the sound of her voice.
‘He’s asleep,’ she said. ‘At least he was until a second ago.’ She inclined her head towards the foghorn cord. She was dressed, like him, in deepwater gear. In her bulky whaleskins she looked pitifully small and fragile. She removed her goggles and took a moment to unwrap the silk scarf from her face. ‘I asked one of Mellor’s boys to watch over Jontney.’
‘That scarf’s not really necessary,’ he said. ‘These mists don’t do much damage.’
‘It’s the word “much” that concerns me in that sentence, Ethan.’
He smiled. ‘Mist blisters heal. I’d still love you, even if you looked liked a sea monster.’
‘And you’d love me no less if I didn’t.’ She stared ahead into the mist. ‘Where are you taking us?’
‘Losotans called it the Whispering Valley,’ he said. ‘Before the flood, I mean. Lots of old Unmer settlements down there.’
‘So lots of treasure?’
‘That’s the idea.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s as thick as soup out there. Do you think Ianthe would be able to see through this?’
He said nothing, but kept his gaze on the crimson fog.
She nuzzled against him. ‘This reminds me of Hattering.’
‘The mists?’
‘Well, apart from the mists,’ she replied. ‘And the boat. We were both dressed in whaleskins. I thought you looked quite dashing.’
He smiled ‘Dashing? In whaleskins?’
‘What was the name of that friend you were with? The naval officer?’
‘William Temping.’
She nodded slowly. ‘That’s him. Whatever became of him?’
Maskelyne sniffed. ‘I cut his throat.’
He felt her tense, just slightly. And then she moved away. ‘I’d better go check on Jontney,’ she said.
‘He was a terrible fraud,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Did you know he even cheated on his wife? Some woman he kept in Losoto, apparently.’
‘Was that why you killed him?’
‘No.’ He was silent for a heartbeat, thinking, but he couldn’t recall. Finally he said, ‘I must have had a good reason.’
She looked at him for a long while, then shrugged. ‘I’m sure you did what you thought you had to do, Ethan.’
A bell began to ring on the deck below. Maskelyne peered out through the window and saw the bow lookout’s gem lantern swinging madly in the mist. He reached for the engine throttle but then changed his mind. One of his crew was rushing across the deck from the lookout’s position, but he couldn’t yet make out who it was.
‘What is it?’ Lucille asked.
Maskelyne opened the wheelhouse door and looked out. The crewman on the deck shouted up to him, ‘Deadship, Captain.’
‘Bearing?’
‘Straight for us. Like she knows.’
Maskelyne closed the door again and spun the wheel hard to starboard. And now through the red fog he could make out the dim black shape of a ship. She was a huge, ancient ironclad, bereft of masts, yards or sails. Upon her midships deck stood a solitary tower – a latticework of metal struts supporting a rusted toroid. She was one of the old electrical ships that had once carried whale oil across the Northern Wastes. An icebreaker? Maskelyne looked more closely at the prow and saw that it had been massively reinforced. He hissed through his teeth. The Mistress was now turning to starboard, while the Unmer vessel maintained its course. The two ships would pass within yards of each other.
Eight of the crew had gathered on the port side, while one of the officers – probably Mellor – was handing out carbine rifles to them.