He sat in a corner of the tavern, furiously scribbling calculations, pen scratching over paper. He’d consulted what tomes of daemonism he had on the Ketty Jay, but they’d offered him nothing. He’d spoken with the daemonists he knew in Thesk, one of whom was an old friend from Galmury who had been responsible for getting him into the Art in the first place. Only one had heard of any daemonist who’d attempted something similar to what Crake was trying: an obscure fellow named Parkwright, who’d published some articles in secret daemonist broadsheets and then went mysteriously silent. Needless to say, those broadsheets wouldn’t be easy to get hold of, if it were possible at all.
The problem was that there was so little call for daemonism outside the sanctum. Daemons, when summoned, were capable of escaping a daemonist’s protective measures, with terrible consequences – Crake had ample experience of that – but they never lasted long outside of the resonator fields that pinned them to human reality. Their frequency was naturally out of phase with the world that people saw and felt and heard, and they returned to that state unless thralled to an object or, in the case of the Manes and the Imperators, to a body.
The fact was, it was extraordinarily difficult to find unthralled daemons outside of the sanctum. Attempting to experiment on them turned an already dangerous pastime into something approaching a suicide attempt. Apart from this Parkwright fellow – who presumably perished during his research – nobody had really tried.
All of which made Crake’s task a very tall order indeed. And with no less than the Cap’n’s life at stake, the pressure was immense.
Their best chance rested in retrieving the relic and putting it back where it came from. If they could break the curse, the Cap’n would be spared the third, fatal visit on the full moon. But to even begin to do that, first they had to find it. The Cap’n and the rest of the crew were shaking down every low-life and whispermonger in the city, but time was against them.
Crake had his own part to play tonight. It was one he felt deeply conflicted about. But he said he’d do it, for the Cap’n. For his friend.
Lost in his formulae, he didn’t see her come in. Didn’t see the barman point him out. Didn’t see her approach. It was only when she spoke that he jerked out of his state of intense concentration.
‘Grayther Crake,’ said Samandra Bree. ‘As I live and breathe.’ his state="0"›
The sight of her gave him a warm flush of pleasure. She was dressed as she usually was, in a weatherbeaten duster, loose trousers and scuffed boots. Black hair spilled in waves from beneath a tricorn hat, framing an appealing and mischievous face that probably shouldn’t have belonged to someone who’d shot as many people as she had.
‘Samandra Bree! What a surprise!’ He was only half faking; he’d been so tied up in his work, he’d almost forgotten the reason he was here in the first place. It had been a while since he’d been so absorbed in the Art.
‘Is it?’ she asked wryly. She plonked herself down in a chair opposite him with a jingle of buckles and guns, and took a mouthful of grog from the mug in her hand. ‘I wondered how long it’d take you to track me down. Gotta say, I wasn’t sure you would.’
Crake gaped for a moment. He hadn’t expected to have his bluff called quite so quickly. He’d hoped to fence a little before it became blindingly obvious that he fancied the arse off her.
‘I’d have come sooner, but I understand you’ve been occupied of late,’ he said, after what seemed like an eternity of embarrassment, but which was probably only a second or two.
‘Oh yeah, the Awakeners,’ she sighed. She hoisted her feet up on the table. ‘Kickin’ up a fuss all over.’
Crake stared at her boots with appalled delight. She was so fascinatingly vulgar!
She motioned to the small sheaf of notes on the table in front of him. ‘You daemonists got brave now the Awakeners have been run out of the cities.’
He was slow to catch her meaning. ‘Oh this? Anyone who doesn’t know who I am will just think it’s mathematics. Anyone who does…’ He tidied them away. ‘Well, it’s not as if anyone ever needed evidence to hang daemonists, is it?’
‘Reckon more people know of you than you think. You lot got quite a reputation since Sakkan. From the stories, you wouldn’t even know the Century Knights were there at all, saving your sorry hides. How’s the hand, by the way?’
‘It healed up fine, thank you,’ he said, showing her. ‘You can barely see the tooth-marks any more.’
‘Guess you proved you don’t turn Mane by getting bit,’ she said with a wink.
‘I’ve always said a man should be willing to risk life and limb for science.’
‘Is that what you always said? Don’t recall you sayin’ it to me.’
‘That’s because our acquaintance has been far too short.’
‘That is a shame. I’m always on the move.’
‘So am I.’
‘Yet here you are.’
‘So are you.’
She raised her mug, as if to acknowledge the point, and took another swallow. He sat back in his chair, relaxing a little. The nervousness he felt at the thought of meeting her was fading quickly. Her confidence was infectious.
He motioned to the room. ‘They say you come here almost every evening when you’re at home in Thesk.’
‘They?’
‘The Press.’
‘The Press,’ she said, in a tone that somehow managed to combine fondness and disgust.
‘Why here in particular?’
‘Good as any other,’ she said. ‘They know me. They keep the reporters out.’ She shrugged. ‘S’pose there’s better places around, but what can I say? I found it, I liked it, I stayed.’ A smile touched the edge of her mouth. ‘Guess I ain’t very adventurous.’
‘Lucky for me. It was easy to find you.’
‘Believe it or not, sometimes I like to be found,’ she said, tipping back her tricorn hat. ‘Most of the time it’s just me and Colden. Never in the same place for more than a day or two. Colden’s a sweetheart, but he ain’t the world’s greatest conversationalist. Tends to make his points with an autocannon, you know?’
‘I understand,’ said Crake. ‘Civilised conversation is in pretty short supply aboard the Ketty Jay too.’
‘Now, I didn’t say civilised,’ she grinned. ‘Sometimes, Grayther Crake, I think you get me mixed up with a lady.’
‘You looked like a lady at Aberham Race’s little soiree,’ he said.
‘Well, I scrub up good for a Draki girl,’ she said. ‘Can’t do much about the accent, though. I’m always gonna sound like a scuffer.’ She rolled the word round her mouth and released it with a smile. A derogatory term for the simple peasant folk who lived in the poisoned deserts of dust and volcanic ash that made up Vardia’s least pleasant duchy.
‘I like your accent,’ he said, without thinking. Then, quickly, to cover up the clumsy compliment: ‘Our engineer has a Draki accent too. Thicker than yours, though, from up near the border with the Andusian Highlands.’
‘The Murthian? Where’d he pick that up?’
‘I’ve often wondered that myself. I don’t know a great deal about him. Nobody does, really.’
She raised her mug in a toast. ‘Well, here’s to findin’ out about people,’ she said. She drained the mug, raised it in the air and whistled to the barman. ‘Hey, Adrek! Bring a bottle and another mug, huh? I got distinguished company!’
They talked for hours. About politics, daemons, Awakeners and the Samarlan threat. They talked about Thace and Kurg and legendary Peleshar, the Vanishing Isle. They talked about what would happen to New Vardia and Jagos, the distant frontier colonies on the far side of the planet, if the Great Storm Belt kicked up again as the Aviator’s Guild feared it would. They talked about the Archduchess’s pregnancy and the prospect of a new heir (Crake was careful not to mention how he’d unwittingly had a hand in the demise of the last one). But mostly, they talked about themselves.
She told him about growing up on the blasted flats near the Samarlan border, of an elder brother she’d competed with at everything and who’d died of a scorpion sting. She talked about her father, a militiaman, who brought her up tough and hoped that one day she’d follow him into the profession. So she was enrolled in a militia training school, but she wasn’t there a year before the scouts picked her for the Knight’s Academy. One of the youngest entrants ever, she said with some pride, and one of the youngest to graduate from the Duke’s Guard to a full Knight.