Tangyre laughed and guided them over to what appeared to be the shortest line. “My captain is in fine form today.”
It was warm, stiflingly warm, and Raed shifted from foot to foot, holding in an exasperated sigh. The people ahead of them moved at a snail’s pace, and all he could think was that every second wasted, Fraine traveled father away.
Eventually the line dwindled until only two men stood between them and the sweating paper shuffler. That was when the bells began to ring. Not the polite bells that stood on the table to summon a Customhouse manager—no, the great bells at the end of the pier. Everyone was suddenly on their feet, and the orderly room dissolved into scattering people. The clerks were folding up their books and disappearing behind sturdy office doors.
“Is it for us, do you think my P—” Tangyre caught herself in time. “—my captain?”
“Our reception would be guards, not ringing bells, I think.” Raed muttered. “Come on, let’s see what’s going on.”
They joined the general rush outside toward the piers. Harbor officials and wharf>
“Sister,” the first sobbed, rocking the comatose other, “let me have him.”
This only made her tighten her grip on the thing she held. It looked more like the leavings from a butcher’s shop than anything human. The Young Pretender’s stomach turned. Flayed fingers peeked from the bundle. It had once been a person.
A whisper passed through the crowd, then a ripple of indrawn breath.
“She took them! She took them!” The woman soaked in blood began to scream. “They’re all dead . . . all dead!” She waved her hands back toward the small ship, tethered there with all the other vessels of trade. Now beyond words, she began to wail like an animal caught in a trap, thrashing around in her sister’s arms, her mouth stretched in a painful circle.
Raed and the rest of the crowd flinched as she went on and on. It took a while for words to become apparent. “Hatipai! Hatipai!”
He recognized it—as a young boy he had been forced to commit to memory the names of the little gods. So that explained it—she had to be mad. He watched as horrified as the rest of the gathered crowd, as she rocked the bundle of stripped flesh.
A couple of brave souls, wharf workers by their stature and dress, boarded the ship. When they emerged pale-faced, staggering and retching, Raed knew it had to be awful; tough port workers were not known for their sensitive dispositions. “Fetch the sheriff,” one groaned. “It’s a bloodbath in there!”
“Not the sheriff—the Deacons!” another bellowed. “Get the Deacons!”
Then the crowd’s mood changed to panic. Raed, however, was thinking of the last bloodbath he’d seen on a boat: an Imperial warship scattered with bodies. One glance told him that Tangyre was thinking the very same thing.
“It is not the Rossin,” Captain Greene whispered under her breath. “The woman went mad and killed her own family.”
It made sense, yet something in the haunted woman’s eyes told Raed she had seen too much. They were taking her away, though none of the workers could get her to relinquish her gruesome burden. Her sister looked down at her soiled apron and hands in blank dismay—as if she didn’t know if she should head to a laundry or slump down on the pier.
Raed stepped forward, took her under the arm and guided her out of the way. People were in such a rush to follow after the deluded woman or crowd as close as possible to the scene of the crime that she was in danger of being trampled.
She appeared ready to tumble, so Raed sat her on a large crate and handed her his kerchief. For an instant she looked at the neat piece of silk.
“This is too fine to get blood on it,” she whispered.
“Nonsense.” Raed felt badly enough about what he was going to ask her that the loss of one of his few remaining fineries was trivial. “I am sorry to ask this, ma’am. But . . . was your sister well before this? Did she and her amily fight often?”
She looked up at him, her face twisting while her fingers still squeezed the kerchief. “No, never! Joi’s a good woman. She loved Yorse and the boys. They loved one another so much . . . ” That was when weeping once again overcame her.
Tangyre took him by the elbow and pulled him away. “We must get back to the Customhouse.” She leaned in and whispered, “Especially with Deacons coming.”
Raed nodded, allowing himself to be guided away from the sobbing woman. Though it had ebbed away as far as it could, he could feel the supernatural tide from the Otherside now rushing back. Whatever respite he’d enjoyed these past months was over—and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time—but there was no chance he would turn back. Fraine still had to be found. He could only hope the Rossin would remain somnolent and agreeable.
SEVEN
Fallen Dreams
In the dark of the third night of their voyage, Merrick woke. The Imperial Dirigible was silent around him—at least as silent as anything made of wood and silk could be. The tiny creaks were like that of a ship, but without the comforting slap of the ocean against the sides. It served as a constant reminder that they were flying hundreds of miles above solid ground.
He lay looking up at the beams for a moment. Only a few feet away, Sorcha slept, emitting a slight rumble that he wouldn’t have dared called a snore. Usually a Deacon would have been afforded the comfort of a cabin, but the Chiomese delegation took priority, and he and Sorcha were far more comfortable bedded in the empty hold reserved for horses. They would have both loved to bring the Breed horses with them. Melochi and Shedryi would at least have been comfort on nights like this.
“Better we be mistaken for an honest beast than for a diplomat,” had been Sorcha’s comment as she’d unfurled her bedroll.
In three or four more days they would reach Orinthal. It should have been exciting to Merrick, since a journey into the heart of Chioma had been his boyhood dream, yet he could not shake the feeling of impending doom.
That Sorcha, Raed and he had been manipulated into nearly causing the destruction of Vermillion still rankled. A Sensitive was supposed to See clearly, if not all, then at least what was happening to him.
Merrick glanced to his right. Sorcha was lying curled on her side, her long red hair almost hiding her face. Despite her being the elder, it was his responsibility to look after her.
So he slipped out from under his regulation blanket, his Strop clasped in one hand. Here on the swaying deck of the dirigible, Merrick was able to let out a breath. The ship was running under a hunter’s moon, overripe and ominous—if one believed in such things. His mother had remained a believer in the small gods, and those superstitions implanted at her knee had been hard to shake. A hunter’s moon had been called that as it gave nighttime stalkers the best light to see by. After the Break it was found to be the most preferred time for geists to appear.
Sailing up here they were safe from geist activity—it was thought. As Merrick peered over the edge at the landscape sliding below them, he wondered what the folk down there were experiencing, but he had not ventured out into the chill night air merely to think dark thoughts.
Locating apace that was small and out of the way on the efficient deck was hard, but eventually he found a box tucked behind the main cabins that was part of the overflow from the delegation. Sitting himself cross-legged on it, Merrick took out the Strop.
The long, thick piece of leather was tooled with the Seven Runes of Sight, and its making had been his final achievement before becoming a Deacon. Under his fingers the runes were slightly warm.
Merrick slipped the Strop over his eyes, tied it into a knot at the back, closed his eyes and opened his Center. It was the calm place that all Deacons had: their seat of power, where all things passed away and only knowledge mattered. At least that was how it was experienced by Sensitives.