There was a snort from Phylles, who had come back down to hear the lesson. She obviously had other ideas about the predilections of the Krakind.
‘Hold on,’ Laszlo said, holding a hand up just like a schoolboy. ‘Krakind, you said, as in “kraken”?’
‘What’s kraken?’ Stenwold asked him.
‘Well, Mar’Maker, that beast that hauled our arses down here would be a kraken to most mariners, and no mistake. You hear stories, you know? Like how they’re supposed to be really smart, rescue drowning sailors and all that… Guess that’s a load of rot, then.’ He raised his eyebrows at Paladrya. ‘So you’re one of them, are you? Octopus-kinden?’
She nodded. ‘As is Claeon, as is Aradocles, and their royal line which has governed Hermatyre for eleven generations.’
‘Go on, though,’ Stenwold prompted. ‘The Seven Families?’
‘Next is the Onychoi, the people of the claw,’ she told them. ‘Some live within the colonies, but most are Benthists, travelling the ocean floor. Many live in the Hot Stations now, I’m told. You have met Rosander, and Wys, and Fel here. They are all Onychoi of one kind or another.’
That’s a lot of variety to fit in just one kinden, Stenwold thought, contrasting Wys and Rosander. Or, no, they’re not kinden, but several kinden all within the one family: crabs and shrimp and whatever Fel happens to take after, I suppose, but they’re all kin. I suppose that means they’re the closest kin to us, as well, of all the sea-kinden.
‘Next come the Archetoi, who build the colonies and allow us to live within them,’ Paladrya went on, her voice acquiring a sing-song pattern, a rhyme for children. ‘They are the Builders, and worthy of honour, and none who relies on the colonies should offend them or stand in their way, for we survive by their grace. After the two great families and the Builders, there are also the lesser kinden,’ Here Paladrya threw a very pointed look at Phylles. The dark-skinned woman scowled but said nothing, as Paladrya went on, ‘There are four of them, and usually the Polypoi are counted first of these.’
‘You leave me out of this,’ Phylles said gruffly. ‘I don’t want any part of your stupid Obligist hierarchies.’
‘The Polypoi are lonely and self-reliant,’ Paladrya went on, and then Phylles broke in with, ‘Loners. Loners, not lonely. We do just fine on our own.’
‘Perhaps you can set the record straight after we’re done,’ Stenwold suggested, which drew her frown on to him.
‘No skin off my nose whether you get a proper education,’ she told him, and made a great show of stomping off again.
Paladrya took a deep breath. ‘Well, the Polypoi live beside the colonies, mostly, in outlying farms and homesteads, or just on their own like hermits. Or sometimes there are Onychoi hermits, and the Polypoi live near them. We claim that they are lonely, or why else would they stay just outside, rather than simply going on their own ways?’
There was a sound of derision from elsewhere in the vessel, but Stenwold gestured for Paladrya to continue.
‘Then there are the Medusoi, who constantly travel the oceans, and have little to do with the colonies at all. They are the greatest of the Pelagists, meaning those who swim freely, although there are Kerebroi and Onychoi who also feel no ties to a colony or train. The Medusoi are strange and dangerous. Sixth of the Seven Families are the Gastroi, the lowly. The Gastroi live mostly outside the colonies, but they keep the farms and herds that feed us. They are quiet and uncomplaining and dutiful, and in turn we must protect them from the dangers of the sea. They are also skilled at accreating, and at working the shells and stones that the sea leaves us with.’
She appeared to have finished there, so Stenwold indicated on his fingers that even land-kinden could count to seven. She had become something brighter for a brief moment, given the chance to teach, but now she retreated into herself again.
‘The Seventh family is… different. Those I have told you about, they are part of our society, even peripherally. Even the Medusoi recognize where they fit in and, although they are dangerous if crossed, they will not seek out danger. The Echinoi are different, however. The Echinoi have no laws. We do not even know if they have language. They are… something other than human, it is said. Some claim they resided within the sea long before the other families came, and resent us for our intrusion. Certainly they, of us all, have no need of air. How their children manage, we cannot guess. The Echinoi are the spine-kinden, and they roam the vastness of the seabed. When their bands find victims – a farm, a train, even a whole colony – they attack without mercy. They are the enemies of us all. Hope that you never see them, land-kinden. They would not care who or what you were. They would feast on your bones.’
‘Lovely,’ Laszlo muttered darkly. ‘Just when you thought you were surrounded by thoroughly unpleasant people, there’s worse.’
Fel had remained blank throughout Paladrya’s lecture but, at that, he smiled, showing neat, predatory-looking teeth.
Twenty-Two
‘How does it go?’ Stenwold asked. He had left Paladrya asleep, and Laszlo picking over the vessel’s cargo nets, while he clambered and slithered until he could get within sight of what he took to be the engine room. It was tucked into the innermost coiling of the vessel’s shell, and Wys’s engineer seemed barely able to fit there. It was the first time Stenwold had seen one of the big Onychoi unarmoured, and the man still looked very broad at the shoulders. He was probably a full foot taller than Rosander, too, and would have given a Mole Cricket-kinden a fair run in a wrestling match. One careless backhand would have sent Stenwold himself rattling all the way back along to the vessel’s entrance hatch, and probably worse, too, because there was a great serrated claw curving from the back of each hand. The spiked gauntlets of Rosander’s banner-men had obviously sheathed Art-grown weapons like these. The man’s name was Lej, Stenwold recalled, or possibly Spillage.
‘Go?’ The engineer turned to him questioningly. That face was frightening at first, tucked between those bunched shoulders, with a ridged and hairless skull and a heavy jaw. Lej possessed the mildest blue childlike eyes that Stenwold had ever seen, though, which somewhat took the edge off his grim visage. ‘Oh, heap big magic, Lowlander,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
Stenwold raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, I see you’ve got a spring-wound clockwork behind you, that’s feeding tension into two separate engines for some reason. What I can’t work out is what the engines are doing to make the submersible move like this.’ If any vessel he knew were to make progress in this lurching series of thrusts, he would have sent it back to the dockyard for repairs.
Lej was staring at him, jaw actually dropping. ‘You’re Able?’ he said.
‘Apt, yes. There’s a lot you don’t know about the land. Almost everything, for a start. The same’s true of what I know of the sea.’
The Onychoi was now grinning, showing teeth like yellowed pegs. ‘Oh, landsman, there’s precious few who’d know this was even an engine. Oh, I’m impressed. I really am impressed. Do you have these gear-trains, then, where you’re from?’
‘Clockwork? Certainly. They’re… new, then?’
‘This barque was fitted out just two years back,’ Lej told him. ‘But they’ve been making these engines for… what, six, eight years? The first ones were rubbish, though, between you and me. Swimming was better. It’s only in the last few years they sorted out the strain ratios, and the like. I hear some of the designs coming from the Hot Stations these days are slick, real slick.’ Here was an engineer talking about engines, and Stenwold had a moment of utter dislocation. I could be in the College workshops right now. I can almost hear Totho in this sea-kinden’s voice.
‘So what happened to start it off?’ he asked. They can’t have gone from Inapt to Apt in just eight years. It must have been there long before, waiting for a trigger, something…