A galley was sliding out of the Arsenal gate, between the brightly lit towers-one of the swift little patrol vessels called “gulls,” for the winglike sweep of their oars. A gull carried twenty oars on a side, rowed by eighty paid men; on its deck it carried forty swordsmen, forty archers, and a pair of the heavy bolt-throwers called scorpia. It had no provisions for cargo and only one mast with a simple, furled sail. It was meant to do just one thing-close with any ship that threatened the city of Camorr and kill every man aboard, if its warnings were not heeded.
Smaller boats were putting out from the northern edge of the South Needle; harbor pilots and crews of yellowjackets, with red and white lanterns blazing at their prows.
On the opposite side of the long breakwater, the gull was just getting up to speed; the rows of graceful oars dipped and cut white froth in the black sea. A trail of rippling wake grew behind the galley; a drumbeat could be heard echoing across the water, along with the shouts of orders.
“Close, close,” muttered the watch-sergeant. “Going to be close. That poor bastard don’t sail well; might have to get a stone across the bows before she slows up.”
A few small dark shapes could be seen moving against the pale billow of the plague ship’s sails; too few, it seemed, to work them properly. Yet as the vessel slid into Old Harbor, it began to show signs of slowing down. Its topsails were drawn up, albeit in a laggardly and lubberly fashion. The remaining sails were braced so as to spill the ship’s wind. They slackened, and with the creak of rope pulleys and the muted shouts of orders, they too began to draw up toward the yards.
“Oh, she’s got fine lines,” mused the watch-sergeant. “Fine lines.”
“That’s not a galleon,” said the younger watchman.
“Looks like one of those flush-deckers they were supposed to be building up in Emberlain; frigate-fashion, I think they call it.”
The plague ship wasn’t black from the darkness alone; it was lacquered black, and ornamented from bow to stern with witchwood filigree. There were no weapons to be seen.
“Crazy northerners. Even their ships have to be black. But she does look damn fine; fast, I’ll bet. What a heap of shit to fall into; now she’ll be stuck at quarantine for weeks. Poor bastards’ll be lucky to live.”
The gull rounded the point of the South Needle, oars biting hard into the water. By the galley’s running lamps, the two watchmen could see that the scorpia were loaded and fully manned; that the archers stood on their raised platforms with longbows in hand, fidgeting nervously.
A few minutes later the gull pulled abreast with the black ship, which had drifted in to a point about four hundred yards offshore. An officer strode out onto the gull’s long bow spar, and put a speaking trumpet to his mouth.
“What vessel?”
“Satisfaction; Emberlain,” came a return shout.
“Last port of call?”
“Jerem!”
“Ain’t that pretty,” muttered the watch-sergeant. “Poor bastards might have anything.”
“What is your cargo?” asked the officer on the gull.
“Ship’s provisions only; we were to take cargo in Ashmere.”
“Complement?”
“Sixty-eight; twenty now dead.”
“You fly the plague lights in real need, then?”
“Yes, for the love of the gods. We don’t know what it is… The men are burning with fever. The captain is dead and the physiker died yesterday! We beg assistance.”
“You may have a plague anchorage,” shouted the Camorri officer. “You must not approach our shore closer than one hundred and fifty yards, or you will be sunk. Any boats put out will be sunk or burned. Any man who attempts to swim to shore will be shot down-assuming he makes it past the sharks.”
“Please, send us a physiker. Send us alchemists, for the love of the gods!”
“You may not throw corpses overboard,” continued the officer. “You must keep them on board. Any packages or objects somehow conveyed to shore from your vessel will be burnt without examination. Any attempt to make such conveyance will be grounds for burning or sinking. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but please, is there nothing else you can do?”
“You may have priests on shore, and you may have freshwater and charitable provisions sent forth by rope from the dockside-these ropes to be sent out by boat from shore, and to be cut after use if necessary.”
“And nothing else?”
“You may not approach our shore, on pain of attack, but you may turn and leave at will. May Aza Guilla and Iono aid you in your time of need; I pray mercy for you, and wish you a swift deliverance in the name of Duke Nicovante of Camorr.”
A few minutes later the sleek black ship settled into its plague anchorage with furled sails, yellow lights gleaming above the black water of the Old Harbor, and there it rocked, gently, as the city slept in silver mists.
INTERLUDE
The Lady of the Long Silence
1
Jean Tannen entered the service of the Death Goddess about half a year after Locke returned from his sojourn in the priesthood of Nara, with the usual instructions to learn what he could and then return home in five or six months. He used the assumed name Tavrin Callas, and he traveled south from Camorr for more than a week to reach the great temple of Aza Guilla known as Revelation House.
Unlike the other eleven (or twelve) orders of Therin clergy, the servants of Aza Guilla began their initiation in only one place. The coastal highlands that rose south of Talisham ended at vast, straight white cliffs that fell three or four hundred feet to the crashing waves of the Iron Sea. Revelation House was carved from one of these cliffs, facing out to sea, on a scale that recalled the work of the Eldren but was accomplished-gradually and painstakingly, in an ongoing process-solely with human arts.
Picture a number of deep rectangular galleries, dug straight back into the cliff, connected solely by exterior means. To get anywhere in Revelation House, one had to venture outside, onto the walkways, stairs, and carved stone ladders, regardless of the weather or the time of day. Safety rails were unknown to Revelation House; initiates and teachers alike scuttled along in light or darkness, in rain or bright clear skies, with no barrier between themselves and a plunge to the sea save their own confidence and good fortune.
Twelve tall excised columns to the west of Revelation House held brass bells at the top; these open-faced rock tubes, about six feet deep and seventy feet high, had slender hand- and footholds carved into their rear walls. At dawn and dusk, initiates were expected to climb them and ensure that each bell was rung twelve times, once for each god in the pantheon. The carillon was always somewhat ragged; when Jean thought he could get away with it, he rang his own bell thirteen times.
Three initiates plunged to their deaths attempting to perform this ritual before Jean had passed his first month at the temple. This number struck him as surprisingly low, given how many of the devotional duties of Aza Guilla’s new servants (not to mention the architecture of their home) were clearly designed to encourage premature meetings with the Death Goddess.
“We are concerned here with death considered in two aspects: Death the Transition and Death Everlasting,” said one of their lecturers, an elderly priestess with three braided silver collars at the neck of her black robe. “Death Everlasting is the realm of the Lady Most Kind; it is a mystery not intended for penetration or comprehension from our side of the Lady’s shroud. Death the Transition, therefore, is the sole means by which we may achieve a greater understanding of her dark majesty.