Thirty-One
‘Do you suppose the Spider fleet has reached Collegium yet?’ Stenwold asked. The paper swam before his eyes, covered with a scrawl of lines and angles. He was trying to anatomize the snapbow in such a way as to baffle Mandir’s engineers without betraying his word, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that they were better artificers than he gave them credit for. The leathery, unpleasant parchment and the awkward excuse for a reservoir pen that Tseitus had been able to construct did not help matters. Though sleep weighed heavily on him, he was reluctant to give in to it. He had been waking each morning with a pounding head and a sense of loss and despair, as though, wherever his dreams took him, it was a place that would not easily let him go.
‘Depends,’ Laszlo said philosophically, picking at his nails with the point of a knife that he had somehow got hold of. ‘If it’s a fleet, then yes, but whether it’ll do any good’s another question. What I heard, though, was “armada”, and that means something different, over Spiderlands way. That means more than one of their great houses pitching in, and in my experience that sort of thing can take a long time to get organized. If it’s an armada proper, if they’re serious about this sea-war business, then it’s still in harbour like as not, while four overseers and fifty mercenary skippers are arguing about money.’
‘I suppose I should take hope from that,’ Stenwold said weakly. He looked up as Laszlo padded over. The Fly’s expression showed concern.
‘We are getting out, Mar’Maker. No doubts. Soon, too, if Wys and Nemmo can be believed. Any day now, they say. Something’s coming. Last I went out, everyone seemed tense, but nobody was talking about it. There’s trouble, Mar’Maker, and where there’s trouble, there’s opportunity.’
‘The watchword of the Tidenfree, I suppose?’ Stenwold mustered a smile.
‘And of the Bloodfly before her,’ Laszlo agreed. ‘And the other half of that is, if you can’t find trouble, make it.’
‘Does Tseitus know that you have such plans?’
Laszlo screwed his face up. ‘Not as such, not quite. Not even sure what way that one will jump. I’ll tell him when it happens. He can nail his colours then. Until then, well… I don’t want our sour-faced Ant deciding he prefers it here.’
‘Seems hardly likely.’
Laszlo shrugged. ‘Who can know what an Ant’s thinking, save for another Ant?’ He swiped the sheet of paper that Stenwold was working on and frowned at it.
‘You have a criticism of my draughtsmanship?’ Stenwold asked him archly.
‘Is that what you call it? You’ll not show this to Mandir, will you?’
‘And why not?’
‘He might wonder whether your real talents lie elsewhere.’ Laszlo reversed the sheet, showing the fruits of Stenwold’s labour back to their creator. The tangle of shakily drawn technical plans had trailed off, and instead the pen lines had taken on a woman’s likeness. It was rough work, for Stenwold was no artist, but perhaps he had picked up more from his lost friend Nero than he knew. Certainly Stenwold recognized the woman’s face.
‘I have no recollection of drawing that,’ he said hollowly.
‘You know,’ Laszlo observed, obviously picking his way around a delicate subject, ‘Mandir would get a woman in here for you, if you wanted one. He’s the soul of generosity sometimes, I’ve heard.’
‘No!’ Stenwold said, after a moment of gaping. ‘Absolutely not.’ The thought of some fearful Onychoi or Gastroi maid being shoved into his chamber was too much. Besides, my traitor hand has shown to where my mind drifts, and Mandir cannot bring her here – and woe betide him if he tried it.
Laszlo’s next shrug eloquently asserted that there were worse bedfellows than sea-kinden, and Stenwold wondered if it was Wys he had lain with, but guessed not. Whenever Laszlo spoke of the submersible captain, the impression left was that their only partnership involved business.
The Fly shook his head. ‘Go and sleep, Mar’Maker. You look like one of those big Onychoi lads punched you in both eyes.’
To sleep, to dream. Stenwold shook himself in despair. I have no rest, not anymore. Still, he dragged himself off to the pallet the sea-kinden had brought for him, which had the same unpleasant texture as their paper, only hoping that he was tired enough to escape whatever waited for him.
He woke because Laszlo was shaking him. He had no idea how much time had passed, as the Stations experienced neither day or night. His mind was still awhirl with images: coiling hair, luminescent limbs.
‘What…?’ he got out.
‘Up, Mar’Maker, up!’ Laszlo urged him. ‘It’s time!’
‘Hm?’ Stenwold blinked, and then let out a strangled cry and leapt to his feet. ‘Time for…?’
‘The Stations are under attack,’ the Fly told him gravely.
Stenwold stared. ‘Attack by Claeon?’
‘Just get yourself dressed and ready to run.’
‘Or… Nemoctes is attacking?’
‘Oh, it’s not him. They’d not be scared of him. But they’re scared now, all right. Every able sea-kinden has a weapon to hand and is waiting to beat them off. Just get dressed!’
Then Laszlo was gone, flitting out of the room in a blur of wings. Stenwold stumbled into his clothing, the same torn and grimy canvas and leathers he had met Teornis in, with a cloak and tunic of clammy material drawn over that. No boots. He sometimes missed footwear almost as much as sun and air.
Thus ready, he waited, but Laszlo did not wing his way back. There was a great deal of commotion from somewhere, shouting of orders, panic and confusion. An attack? What has Nemoctes done? Or is it Claeon? Surely not just for me, not all of this.
He was interrupted by a scratching sound from behind him, coming from the wall itself. Turning, he saw something move there, a dot at first, and then a line began grinding a curved path as though some invisible hand was drawing there. He stared for a long time, unable to understand what he was seeing, until at last the line arced back to meet itself, and a circular section of the wall was simply lifted away.
Beyond, there were three figures crowding close, looming into the sudden gap like bad dreams. Broad, stocky, heavy-set types, two men and a woman, with dull, flat faces and grey skin. It took a moment for Stenwold to place them, to recall where he had heard them mentioned: the Gastroi, Laszlo told me.
‘Come,’ one of them said in a low rumble, ‘quickly.’
‘But Laszlo, my friend, I need to wait…’
‘Quickly,’ the Gastroi man repeated. The other two glanced about anxiously, whether looking out for Mandir’s people or for some sign of the attackers, he could not tell.
Stenwold bared his teeth. Laszlo had made arrangements with Wys, after all. He would be able to make his own way out, with ease. Stenwold darted for the hole, then turned back to grab at the table that he had been working at, feeling the all too familiar contours of the original weapon that he had been slaving to duplicate. Then he was out after the Gastroi, as they lumbered away. Away where? he wondered. But for now away would have to suffice.
Wherever he had been freed into, it was deserted now. The sound of the fighting was not close, but noticeably closer the longer Stenwold listened. His escorts led him at a shambling pace through a brief passage between two rooms, and then to yet another chamber, this time lined with damp pallets. Another circular hole had been bored in the sheet metal of the wall, its rounded edge so neat it might have been machined. Beyond it was a lot of water.
When the first Gastroi stepped out, Stenwold realized that the murk was only ankle-deep, but the very sight of it transfixed him. There’s been a breach. A breach soon sealed, obviously, but surely this water came from without. How much of a rupture would the Stations need to suffer before they flooded entirely?