‘Rumour has it your Imperators are all daemons,’ Frey replied. ‘Don’t believe everything you hear.’
A smile touched the side of Garin’s mouth. ‘You’re far from the first pirate to join our ranks,’ he said. ‘It’s regrettable, but in order to fight the Archduke’s persecution, we’ll take the measures we must.’ His smile faded. ‘But if a man allies himself with the faithless, he’d better be ready for betrayal. You won’t object if we search your aircraft? Just to see if you’re telling the truth about your daemonist.’
The thought of Awakeners crawling all over his beloved aircraft, poking through his possessions, made Frey want to punch that stupid moustache off Garin’s face. But he didn’t see that he had much choice in the matter, so he hid his feelings behind a broad smile. ‘Of course,’ he said, with admirable control. ‘Take a look around. Silo, why don’t you go upstairs and warn the crew that men with guns are going to be there shortly?’ He looked at Garin. ‘Don’t want an incident, do we?’
Silo did as he was told. Garin motioned to some of his men to follow the Murthian. ‘Keep the crew up there until I’m done with the Captain,’ he instructed them. He told the others to search the cargo hold.
‘What’s through there?’ he asked Frey. He was pointing towards the back, where crates and tarp separated off a section.
‘Crake’s old sanctum,’ Frey said. He saw no point in lying. He also saw no point in mentioning Bess.
Immediately, Garin strode off across the hold towards it. Wrong-footed, Frey stood there a moment, said ‘Er,’ and then hurried after him, frantically thinking of ways he could explain the golem away.
The Prognosticator pushed aside the tarpaulin curtain and stepped into the sanctum, with Frey at his shoulder. Frey’s heart sank a little at the sight of it. It didn’t look good, with that weird daemonic circle drawn on the floor and the chalkboards covered in formulae and all the books and equipment and stuff. The whole thing looked like a cross between a mad scientist’s laboratory and the domain of someone who should be in a padded cell.
‘Hi, Cap’n,’ said Ashua chirpily, straightening up from a bookcase with an armload of books. ‘I was just packing away Crake’s stuff, like you told me to. Who’s this?’
I could kiss you, you wonderful thing, Frey thought. ‘This is Prognosticator Garin. He just wants to make sure we don’t have any daemonists on board.’
Ashua smirked. ‘Not any more!’ she said.
‘He got sort of snippy about leaving,’ said Frey. ‘Some rubbish about money we owed him. So we kicked him about a bit, then threw him off.’
‘No honour among thieves, eh?’
‘We prefer to think of ourselves as wealth distribution experts.’
Garin studied the room sceptically. Frey glanced about and found Bess in a shadowy corner. She was standing entirely motionless. He narrowed his eyes and peered closer. Two little glimmers peered back at him from the darkness behind her face-grille. Frey looked away quickly as Garin turned to him. The Prognosticator gave him a penetrating glare.
‘I’m not at all sure that what you’re telling me is the truth, Captain Frey,’ he said. ‘But I’ve ways to find out. Follow me.’
He swept out of the sanctum. Frey pointed at Ashua on the way out. You, he mouthed, are amazing. Ashua did a little curtsey. Bess tried one too, creaking and squeaking as she did so.
‘What was that?’ Garin called from outside.
‘Just Ashua tidying up!’ Frey replied hastily, slipping through the tarp.
They walked back to the far end of the cargo hold, where the Acolyte had assembled a small brazier from pieces in his backpack and was in the process of lighting it. ‘Are we having a barbecue?’ Frey asked, mildly confused.
Garin ignored him. One of the Sentinels came down the stairs into the hold. ‘Can’t see any sign of him, Prognosticator,’ he said. ‘We’re looking through the engine room now, but there aren’t too many places to hide on a craft like this.’
‘I see,’ said Garin. On a piece of cloth, the acolyte laid out a brush, a small pot of ink, a pair of tongs, and a white oval stone the size of a hand. ‘Anything else?’
‘There’s an unconscious man in the infirmary.’
‘Abley,’ said Frey. ‘He took a bullet through the leg when we were fighting the Coalition in Korrene. It was a bad one. We had to put him out.’
Garin seemed to have lost interest. He picked up the brush and began painting something in black ink on the stone.
‘What’s in here?’ asked one of the Sentinels, rapping the butt of his rifle against the lashed-up pile of chests in the centre of the hold. Frey didn’t turn to look, but his heart sank a little. The relics. All the relics they’d stolen were in those chests.
He pretended to ignore the question. Garin hadn’t noticed. There was nothing quite so withering than when you spoke and no one listened.
The Sentinel didn’t repeat his question. He gave one of chests a cursory jiggle but found it closed tight. Eventually he wandered away, slightly embarrassed.
Frey let out his breath. He needed these people off his aircraft. What was Garin doing, anyway?
‘Hold this,’ said Garin, passing him the stone. ‘Careful. The ink’s wet.’
Frey held the flat stone in his hands. Written on the stone were two words. Darian Frey.
‘Say it aloud,’ Garin instructed him.
‘Er. . Darian Frey,’ he said. ‘That’s me.’
Garin took the stone back carefully and put it over the brazier. The Acolyte, a young carrot-headed boy, watched eagerly. Some of the other searchers began returning to the hold, having found no trace of Crake. They gathered round the brazier, fascinated.
‘What exactly are you doing?’ Frey asked, when he couldn’t stand it any more.
‘I am asking the Allsoul whether you are a deceiver, or whether you truly want to aid our cause.’
‘I truly want to aid it if you pay me,’ Frey corrected. ‘I presume your little barbecue can handle the difference?’
‘I’d not be so flippant if I were you. Your freedom, and likely your life, rests on this.’
One of the Sentinels primed his rifle. Frey suddenly wished he hadn’t allowed himself to be separated from his crew. If it came to it, perhaps Ashua and Bess could help him, but not before he got shot.
There was a quiet crack from the stone. The Acolyte picked up the tongs, but Garin signalled him to wait. There was another crack, and a pop. Garin motioned to the Acolyte, and the stone was taken off the brazier, turned upside down and laid onto a wadded cloth on the floor. The Acolyte picked up the cloth with the hot stone in its centre and presented it reverently to Garin. Garin began studying it intently.
Frey peered over his shoulder. The stone had been split by the heat. Crooked black lines spread across it, intersecting each other.
‘Are you getting something from that?’ Frey asked.
‘There are many ways to know the mind of the Allsoul. This is the way that chose me,’ Garin said.
‘The pattern means something?’
‘The pattern means everything,’ Garin said, frowning as he studied the lines. All eyes were on the Prognosticator now. Frey saw wonder and amazement on their faces.
You’re all being duped, you bloody idiots. It’s a carnival trick! he thought. But he wasn’t quite as sure as he pretended. The slim possibility that there might be something to this Awakener mumbo-jumbo had him nervous, and the Prognosticator certainly looked like he knew what he was doing. Soon he was as mesmerised as the rest of them, as he waited to learn his fate.
Finally, Garin folded the cloth over the stone and handed it back to the Acolyte. ‘The Allsoul has spoken,’ he said. The Awakeners repeated his words in a low mutter, their eyes cast down to the floor. Garin turned to Frey, and stared at him long and hard.