Suddenly Ianthe had no longer been able to perceive the cabin at all. She had been standing right here, on the deck of Maske-lyne’s dredger, gazing up at the figurehead upon the Unmer ship. She had been looking at the scene through her own eyes.
When the Excelsior began to shudder violently, Granger knew he’d been away from the wheel too long. He vaulted up the final few steps and burst into the bridge to see the westernmost edge of the Glot Madera looming large to port. One side of the emperor’s dragon-hunter was scraping along the prison facades, gouging deep scars into the stonework.
He swung the wheel hard to starboard and reversed the engine throttle, hoping to turn out the Excelsior’s bow, but the yacht’s momentum continued to carry her along on her destructive path. Rubble crumbled and pattered across the deck. Metal groaned and shrieked as the ship’s port bulwark crumpled. Granger cursed and slammed the throttle forward again. He didn’t have time to worry about the hull.
The ship turned slowly. With a final screech of metal, she broke away from the bank and began steaming out into the centre of the canal. Golden sunlight reflected off the ship’s copper-plated hull, illuminating the prison facades on either side of the channel as if by the radiance of some great golden lantern. Ahead of him, Granger could see the seaward opening of the Glot Madera with nothing beyond but the distant shimmering horizon.
CHAPTER 12
A VOICE FROM THE ASHES
18th Hu-Rain, 1457
24 degrees 16 minutes north
5 degrees 43 minutes west
Aboard the deadship for two days now. Fog lifted yesterday morning, and yet its bitter gloom remains in the hearts of all aboard. This ironclad vessel seems determined to confound our attempts to return to Scythe Island. Her engines sputter to a halt whenever we deviate from a narrow range between 342° and 354°, as though the supply of electrical fluid to the tower is suddenly quenched. We are being interfered with from afar.
But by whom? And where are they trying to take us?
Heading west nor’-west would bring us into the Haurstaf-controlled waters around Awl and the Irillian Islands, leaving us at the mercy of the Guild. The northern fringes of the empire lie due east of here, from where we could easily secure passage to Losoto. This margin between 342° and 354° leads nowhere but the frozen wastes of Pertica, where we would surely perish among the poisonous ice fields. In an attempt to regain some control, we have raised a makeshift spinnaker on the ship’s tower, yet it can barely hold enough wind to maintain our current position against these southerlies. It is as if nature herself is conspiring against us. Abernathy removed the engine housing, but we have been unable to understand its workings. Amidst the myriad cables and glass lozenges he discovered a woman’s pelvis.
These events and others have led the crew to believe that this is a haunted vessel. But how can that be? Can any consciousness survive death? If an answer to this question exists, then it must surely lie in Unmer lore, being so interwoven with infinity itself. An object viewed outside of Time must encompass every one of its states of being, from the nothingness before creation to the nothingness afterwards. And yet what if that object – a ship, for example – encompasses the essence of something that is larger than the physical universe, larger even than Time itself?
Is infinity woven into the fabric of this miserable ship?
Might it not then continue to act as a vessel for its dead crew?
Whatever the cause or the crucible turns out to be, there seems little doubt that a malign will is at work here. The chronographs and compasses we salvaged from the Mistress refuse to work here, and yet many of the Unmer trove artefacts we carried over have suddenly sprung to life, each glowing, chattering, or screeching as its dormant electrical fluids are reanimated. Most of the fresh produce we managed – in our great haste – to bring aboard has already rotted. It is as if the deadship’s own corruption has flowed from its pores. Lucille suggested I delay the rot by freezing the stores in crespic salts, but I required every ounce of those chemicals to keep my last phial of void flies from thawing.
Everyone aboard has been troubled by nightmares.
I myself am haunted by visions of the Mistress’s demise. Her loss has affected me deeply. She remained afloat for nearly two hours before the sea finally swallowed her. We stood upon the ironclad’s deck and watched her disappear into the red-green brine. Mellor’s second repair team had by then succeeded in cutting through into the engine room – but, alas, we could do nothing for the men trapped in that flooded compartment. The seawater had altered them beyond all hope of recovery.
Lucille has nightmares in which our son is dying, although these are undoubtedly caused by her fears over his persistently strange behaviour. Last night she awoke to discover that Jontney was missing from his cot, although our cabin door had been bolted. After a frantic search we found him crawling across the top deck towards the open sea. Lucille has now sworn to remain awake until we are safely home, but her exhaustion is evident.
The men avoid my gaze and say little to each other. Morale is fading, with anger swelling to fill the spaces. It is only a matter of time before violence breaks out. I must find a way to channel it before then. I fear someone will have to be sacrificed to save the others.
Objects have gone missing from my cabin, including two cans of water, a gem lantern, some coins and the Unmer spectacles. We have a thief aboard, a thief who seems intent on endangering the life of my son. Who here has the motive to do such a thing?
Someone knocked on the door. Maskelyne set down his pen and got up from the workbench. He opened the door to find Kitchener standing in the passageway. The sailor was standing over an open crate.
‘We found these in a hidden compartment under the hold,’ he said. ‘We were about to throw them overboard, but I thought I’d better check with you first.’
Maskelyne looked down at the open box. It was almost completely full of dust, but he could see the edges of artefacts partially buried in there: heavy iron rings, wrapped with wires. He brushed away the dust and picked one up. The windings felt hot to the touch. A foul, burned metal odour came from them. ‘How many are there altogether?’ he asked.
‘Twelve in each crate,’ Kitchener said. ‘And we pulled five crates out of the compartment. We stored our supplies down there first, but they rotted so fast you wouldn’t believe. I had a few of the men start carrying what was left up into one of the bow cabins, while Roberts and me went looking for the source of the problem. We found the compartment quickly enough.’ He hesitated. ‘It wasn’t just the rot, you see? The supplies had been moving about too.’
‘Moving?’
‘Our own boxes wouldn’t stay in one place. We’d leave them alone for an hour, and come back to find that they’d slid right across the floor, like somebody had been moving them when nobody was looking. The men… well, you know how things go, sir. Talk of hearing whispers when no one was around, that sort of thing.’
Maskelyne touched his dust-smeared fingers to his tongue. ‘Tastes like…’
‘Bone marrow,’ Kitchener said.
‘It’s an amplifier,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Unmer Brutalists used the consumption of human tissue to increase their energy.’ He turned the ring over in his hand. It looked quite dead now. What else, he wondered, could it amplify? ‘The effects you witnessed are just residual, amplification of decay, inertia, voices.’
‘Then they go overboard, sir?’
‘All of them.’
The crewman looked relieved.
‘Except this one,’ Maskelyne added. ‘I’ll keep it for study.’ He placed the device on his desk. ‘Is there anything else?’
Kitchener hesitated. ‘It’s the wheel console, sir,’ he said. ‘Ab-ernathy got the inner sleeve open.’ He rubbed his eyes and then took a deep breath. ‘It’s full of bones. We think maybe five or six infants.’