Across the rest of that seemingly endless, miserably hot summer of the seventy-seventh Year of Perelandro, he clung to that realization like a talisman.
INTERSECT (I)
FUEL
IN THE NO-TIME no-space of thought, conspiracy could have no witnesses. The old man’s mind reached out across one hundred and twenty miles of air and water. Child’s play for the wearer of four rings. His counterpart answered immediately.
It’s done, then?
The Camorri have accepted her terms. As I told you they would.
We never doubted. It’s not as though she wants for persuasiveness.
We’re moving now.
Is Lamora that ill?
The Archedama put this off too long. A genuine mistake.
And not her first. If Lamora dies?
Your exemplar would crush Tannen alone. He’s formidable, but he already carries a weight of mourning.
Could you not… assist Lamora to an early exit?
I told you I won’t go that far. Not right under her eyes! My life still means something to me.
Of course, brother. It was an unworthy suggestion. Forgive me.
Besides, she didn’t choose Lamora just to boil your blood. There’s something about him you don’t understand yet.
Why are you dropping hints instead of information?
I can’t risk letting this loose. Not this. Be assured, this is deeper than the five-year game, and Patience means for you to know it all soon enough.
Now THAT worries me.
It shouldn’t. Just play the game. If we manage to save Lamora, your exemplar will have a busy six weeks.
Our reception is already prepared.
Good. Look after yourself, then. We’ll be in Karthain tomorrow, whatever happens.
From start to finish, the conversation spanned three heartbeats.
CHAPTER THREE
BLOOD AND BREATH AND WATER
1
THE SKY ABOVE the harbor of Lashain was capped with writhing clouds the color of coal slime, sealing off any speck of light from stars or moons. Jean remained at Locke’s side as Patience’s attendants carried his cot down from the carriage and through the soft spattering rain, toward the docks and a dozen anchored ships whose yards creaked and swayed in the wind.
While there were Lashani guards and functionaries of various sorts milling about, none of them seemed to want anything to do with the business of the procession around Locke. They carried him to the edge of a stone pier, where a longboat waited with a red lamp hung at its bow.
Patience’s attendants set the cot down across the middle of several rowing benches, then took up oars. Jean sat at Locke’s feet, while Patience settled alone at the bow. Beyond her Jean could see low black waves like shudders in the water. To Jean, who had grown accustomed to the smell of salt water and its residues, there seemed something strangely lacking in the fresher odors of the Amathel.
Their destination was a brig floating a few hundred yards out, at the northern mouth of the harbor. Its stern lanterns cast a silvery light across the name painted above its great cabin windows, Sky-Reacher. From what Jean could see of her she looked like a newer vessel. As they came under her lee Jean saw men and women rigging a crane with a sling at the ship’s waist.
“Ahhh,” said Locke weakly. “The indignity. Patience, can’t you just float me up there or something?”
“I could bend my will to a lot of mundane tricks.” She glanced back without smiling. “I think you’d rather have me rested for what’s going to happen.”
The crane’s harness was a simple loop of reinforced leather, with a few strands of rope hanging loose. Using these, Jean lashed Locke into the harness, then waved to the people above. Hanging like a puppet, Locke rose out of the boat, knocked against the side of the brig once or twice, and was hauled safely into the ship’s waist by several pairs of hands.
Jean pulled himself up the boarding net and arrived on deck as Locke was being untied. Jean nudged Patience’s people aside, pulled Locke out of the harness himself, and held him up while the harness went back down for Patience. Jean took a moment to examine the Sky-Reacher.
His first impressions from the water were reinforced. She was a young ship, sweet-smelling and tautly rigged. But he saw very few people on deck—just four, all working the crane. Also, it was an unnaturally silent vessel. The noises of wind and water and wood were all there, but the human elements, the scuttling and coughing and murmuring and snoring belowdecks, were missing.
“Thank you,” said Patience as the harness brought her up to the deck. She stepped lightly out of the leather loop and patted Locke on the shoulder. “Easy part’s done. We’ll be down to business soon.”
Her attendants came up the side, unpacked the folding cot once more, and helped Jean settle Locke into it.
“Make for open water,” said Patience. “Take our guests to the great cabin.”
“The boat, Archedama?” The speaker was a stout gray-bearded man wearing an oilcloak with the hood down, evidently content to let the rain slide off his bald head. His right eye socket was a disquieting mass of scar tissue and shadowed hollow.
“Leave it,” said Patience. “I’ve cut things rather fine.”
“Far be it from me to remind the Archedama that I suggested as much last night, and the night—”
“Yes, Coldmarrow,” said Patience, “far be it from you.”
“Your most voluntary abject, madam.” The man turned, cleared his throat, and bellowed, “Put us out! North-northeast, keep her steady!”
“North-northeast, keep her steady, aye,” said a bored-sounding woman who detached herself from the group breaking down the crane.
“Are we going to take on more crew?” said Jean.
“What ever for?” said Patience.
“Well, it’s just … the wind’s out of the north-northeast. You’re going to be tacking like mad to make headway, and as near as I can see, you’ve only got seven or eight people to work the ship. That’s barely enough to mind her in harbor—”
“Tacking,” said the man called Coldmarrow, “what a quaint notion. Help us get your friend into the stern cabin, Camorri.”
Jean did so. Sky-Reacher’saft compartment wasn’t flush with the main deck; Locke had to be carried down a narrow passage with treacherous steps. Whatever the ship had been constructed for, it wasn’t the easy movement of invalids.
The cabin was about the same size as the one Locke and Jean had possessed on the Red Messenger, but far less cluttered—no weapons hung on the bulkheads, no charts or clothes were strewn about, no cushions or hammocks. A table formed from planks laid over sea-chests was in the center of the room, lit by soft yellow lanterns. The shutters were thrown tight over the stern windows. Most strikingly, the place had a deeply unlived-in smell, an aroma of cinnamon and cedar oils and other things people threw into wardrobes to drive out staleness.
While Jean helped Locke onto the table, Coldmarrow somehow produced a blanket of thin gray wool and handed it over. Jean wiped the rain from Locke’s face, then covered him up.
“Better,” whispered Locke, “moderately, mildly, wretchedly better. And … what the—”
A small dark shape detached itself from the shadows in a corner of the cabin, padded forward, and leapt up onto Locke’s chest.
“Gods, Jean, I’m hallucinating,” said Locke. “I’m actually hallucinating.”