It was cavernous. The ceilings were high and trimmed out in dark oak. The windows were glass-but stained glass, artfully designed to bathe the entire vast casino deck in a soothing mix of greens and blues.
Four enormous hanging lights, things of crystal and sparkles that must have been forged with a deep and potent sorcery, glittered and shone in the colored daylight. Whether oil or gas or candle, they weren’t lit, but I could imagine that when they were the whole room would take on the same silver glow cast by a bright full moon.
The floor was a dark crimson carpet. Gaming tables and devices, covered by clean white sheets, awaited the eager rush of gamblers and vampires and criminals that was soon to come.
There was a stage at the far end of the place, hidden by blood-red curtains emblazoned with Avalante’s roses-and-lances crest.
Twin staircases, one port and one starboard, graced the aft end of the casino deck. Each swooped up into the dark, and we followed the wide carpeted treads up to the staterooms.
Our room was designated 111 by the shiny brass plate upon the door. Like all the other doors on the hall, ours was flanked by a pair of grinning silver gargoyles who held small but brilliant magelamps in each gnarly little hand. Our door was solid and thick and I judged a half dozen Ogres couldn’t have knocked it down, especially after, once we were inside, Darla or I lowered the ornate but decidedly functional bar across the back.
I sat upon our vast expanse of new feather bed and watched as Darla fussed with this or made oohing and ahing noises over that.
The first thing I noticed about being on the Queen was the motion. Or rather, the lack thereof. I’d been expecting to feel some slight pitch and roll because even tied at her private and heavily guarded dock, she was floating on the lazy, muddy waters of the Brown River.
But try as I might, I couldn’t feel even the smallest hint of motion.
“I believe Evis mentioned something about sorcerous motion control,” said Darla, plopping down suddenly beside me.
I hadn’t said a word.
“You were holding your breath.” She lay back, stretching and yawning. “I’m exhausted. Let’s take a nap.”
“You go ahead. I’m not sleepy.”
“Liar.” She sat up and put her chin on her fists. “What are you going to do, sneak around? Evis said he’d be back later to give us the grand tour.”
“A good finder never sneaks, my dear. We amble. We stroll. We peruse, and we do it all out in the open because we have every right to be right wherever we are.”
“So you are going to sneak. I’m coming with you.”
“What about your nap?”
She grinned and rolled off the bed. “Time for that later. I’m learning how to be a finder. I assume you’re going to bathe and shave?”
I kicked off my shoes. “Can’t impress the crew like this.”
“I’ll find something scandalous, then.”
I bathed and shaved and bled from my gut wound until we managed to get a fresh dressing wrapped around it. Even though I had to keep my torso out of the water, the hot bath and the rich man’s soap felt good.
One thing about Darla-she can make herself presentable, as she calls it, in a hurry. I’d managed to put a decent knot in my necktie and find one of my shoes when she emerged from the bedroom, dressed and ready to face the world.
I whistled. She’d opted for a long black dress that covered everything from ankle to throat. It wasn’t tight enough to stop traffic, but it wasn’t so loose you couldn’t tell her gender. She’d buttoned the slit on the side all the way down, but even so I caught a glimpse of silk-covered leg through it when she walked.
A tiny black pillbox hat trimmed with black lace completed the look. She winked at me from beneath the lace and grinned.
“I was aiming for distracting without being obvious,” she said.
I stood there with one shoe on and made noises with my mouth.
“Come on,” she said, laughing. “Let’s go see the things Evis wouldn’t want us to see.”
I finished dressing and we set out to explore.
The first thing I realized was exploring the Queen would require days-not hours-of steadfast, determined poking about.
I’d listened to Evis as he bragged about her, but admittedly I was distracted by more pressing matters involving Lowland Sweet cigars and refills of beer. Darla, on the other hand, could recite the wonders of the Queen with considerable precision.
“She is four hundred and sixteen feet long and ninety-seven feet wide,” said Darla in a near-perfect imitation of Evis. We made our way down the darkened grand staircase that led down to the casino deck. “She has one hundred twenty-one crew, and will carry four hundred twenty-five passengers, including one over-priced finder.”
“Evis should hire you as a purser.”
“He should. What’s a purser? Do they blow the steam whistles?”
“Probably.”
We rounded the gentle sweep of the final curve, and the darkness gave way to the blues and greens and golds of the daylight streaming through the stained-glass windows.
A pair of wary-eyed Avalante day folk hurried toward us. Neither wore a sword, but from the tell-tale bulges beneath their jackets I knew they didn’t need to.
“I’ll have a beer,” I said as soon as they were in earshot. “The lady will have a glass of red wine. Is that suitable, Lady Markhat? Red wine?”
“Oh certainly,” said Darla, with much batting of her eyes. “Now, what are your names, gentlemen? Mr. Prestley said we’d be met, but he didn’t say by whom.”
I grinned and hoped the shadows hid most of it.
“Trokes, ma’am,” said the taller of the two.
“Meyer,” proclaimed the other after a glance at his partner and a frown at me.
“You’re Captain Markhat?”
“Indeed I am. This is Mrs. Markhat, although you can call her the Duchess if you want. She’s never been one to insist on the strictest rules of propriety. Isn’t that right, dear?”
“Quite right.” She aimed a smile at Trokes.
“We weren’t told-” began Meyer.
Trokes cut him off. “We knew you were coming aboard, Captain, Mrs. Markhat,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see you out and about until after supper. A beer, was it? And a glass of red wine?”
“If you’d be so kind.”
“You heard the Captain, Meyer,” said Trokes. “Have the wine steward pick out something nice.”
Meyer glared but turned and stomped away.
“Nice boat you’ve got here,” I said. I nodded toward the empty gambling hall and the sheet-covered gambling tables that waited like sleeping ghosts in the dark. “She going to be ready to get underway on schedule?”
The man’s chest expanded with sudden injured pride.
“Oh yes sir! We’ll be underway in a week, no doubt about it. They’ll get the pistons sorted out. Put in new reach rods yesterday. That will put things right. No doubt about it.”
“Ah yes, well, of course, the pistons.” I made a dismissive gesture as I spoke, as though the matter of the pistons was old news. “I’ve heard all about that. No. It’s the other matter that concerns me.”
Darla nodded, her smile gone, her eyes grave. “Yes. Deeply troubling, that.”
Trokes leaned in and spoke in a whisper. “Well, sir, Lady, I don’t mind telling you I think it’s so much nonsense, and that’s a fact. Nothing to it at all. Accidents happen, that kind of thing. Lesson to be learned, I say.”
“Oh, I quite agree,” I said, pulling a cigar from my jacket pocket and clipping off the end like a Lord of the Realm. “Bunch of superstitious nonsense. I’m glad we see eye-to-eye.”
“Oh, we do, Captain! People just shouldn’t get in a hurry. You get in a hurry, you step where you shouldn’t, or you fall down a shaft. That’s all there is to it. A curse? Bah.”
“Bah, indeed.” I produced a match and, with flourish appropriate to a man of my station, I lit my cigar. “Educated men have no cause to embrace such backward beliefs.”