‘You’re Golem?’ she asked.
‘They are insentient so, essentially, neither truly alive nor truly subject to Death,’ the sail replied.
Erlin gazed at the Golem sail, then realized it was staring down at the other two sails as they dined. A Golem sail that was squeamish?
‘I said you’re Golem,’ Erlin suggested.
‘I’m Zephyr,’ the sail replied, its gaze still fixed.
Erlin stood up, stretched her legs and rubbed her aching shoulders. ‘So, Zephyr, I’d have thought it would be easier for you to take me to Olian’s, or else drop me aboard some ship in that area. But it seems you’ve been taking me away from civilization.’
Zephyr turned its head towards her, then tossed a harness onto the stone beside her. ‘Put that on.’
‘Why?’
The sail gave a twisted shrug, as if in pain. ‘I can carry you as before, but you might find the journey uncomfortable. There is no risk to your life. Distance… is long.’
‘I don’t want to go on a long journey.’
The Golem sail gave that same distorted shrug and began to extend its wings.
‘Wait.’ Erlin stooped and took up the contrivance of plasmesh straps. It was something like a parachute harness but with a grip bar or handle at the back where the parachute should be. She started to don it, but slowly to give herself time.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Mortuary Island.’
‘Why there?’ Erlin asked, not wanting to reveal that she had no idea what or where this place was.
‘Because that is where the dead live and where we have been paid to take you.’
‘You’re kidnapping me?’
Again the shrug, this time with bowed head. ‘Relocating… you.’ The head came up again. ‘I saved your life. I beat your Death.’
‘I’m grateful for that. But now you are taking me somewhere I don’t want to go. That’s kidnapping.’
‘There is worse.’
One of the other sails hawked and coughed up a piece of whelk shell. ‘We could always take her back where we found her, if this gets too messy,’ it suggested.
‘Oh, I’ll come,’ Erlin said quickly. ‘I see I haven’t much choice in the matter.’ She finished doing up her straps.
‘Should we feed her?’ asked the third sail, nudging the remains of its dinner with a clawed toe.
‘Do you require food, Erlin Taser Three Indomial?’
Erlin eyed the chewed leftovers. ‘Not right now.’
‘Then we must go.’
The Golem sail launched itself, blasting shell fragments from the top of the atoll with the down-draught of its wings. Erlin turned, and it grabbed the handle at her back and pulled her into the sky.
‘How far to Mortuary Island?’ she shouted as the other two sails then launched with much noise and flurry.
‘It is in the Cable Sea, beyond the Norbic Atolls.’ Erlin swore, and realized that at some point she would need to eat whatever was offered her. That, she knew, was thousands of kilometres away.
Ambel gazed through his binoculars at the island, inspecting the damage, looking for any sign of Erlin—or maybe bits of Erlin. Judging by the mess he could see, she was probably dead, but he was not feeling that yet. Actually, accepting someone’s death was not a trait to which Old Captains could grow accustomed—most of their own fellows being so long-lived and indestructible.
‘Lower the boat,’ he instructed Peck, who as ever was hovering at the Captain’s shoulder.
He glanced round at the rest of the crew, but none of them would meet his gaze. Sprout and Pillow unstrapped the rowing boat from the side of the ship and began feeding rope into pulleys to lower it to the sea. Ambel returned to the outer wall of his cabin, and unhooked from it his blunderbuss and bags of powder and stones. He loaded the weapon, tearing off the end of a paper cartridge and feeding it down the barrel, next shoving in wadding and pouring in some stones, then more wadding. He primed it and pulled back the hammer.
‘Let’s see what we’ve got here before we get all morbid,’ he suggested.
He hung the ‘buss across his back by a strap and scrambled down the ladder. While Peck peered over the side at them, Anne and the juniors—Sprout, Sild and Pillow—followed Ambel down. They were also armed: Anne carried a powerful laser carbine she had found on Skinner’s Island—no longer needed by the Batian mercenaries who had gone there with Rebecca Frisk and run afoul of Hooper vengeance; Sprout carried a machete, and the other two lugged heavy clubs. Once they were all seated in the boat, Ambel took up the reinforced oars and began to row.
‘What do you think happened?’ Anne eventually asked.
Staring straight back at the Treader, Ambel replied, ‘Any number of things spring to mind, but by the look of the wreckage I would guess something from the deeps paid a visit. We’ll know soon enough.’
Soon they were into shallows and with a glimpse over the side Ambel noted a lack of whelks in the vicinity. He began to feel a heaviness in his chest; the signs were not good. Beaching the boat he gave a further two heaves on the oars to pull it up onto the sand, then climbed out.
‘We’ll stick together for the moment,’ he said, all practicality. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got here first.’
Eyeing the wreckage of Erlin’s home, the five advanced. They began to search under its deflated walls, to pick through broken equipment and furniture, and turn over anything large enough to conceal human remains.
‘Ambel,’ Anne called him over.
He came to stand next to her and gazed down at whelkish remains driven into the hard ground. He stooped and rubbed away some of the dirt, to reveal the shell pattern.
‘Very well,’ he said heavily. ‘You collect what’s salvageable and take it back to the ship. Me an’ these lads’ll take a look across the island. Tell Boris to bring the Treader round to the other side to pick us up.’
‘Is that such a good plan?’ Anne wondered. ‘Perhaps we should all leave right now.’
Ambel turned to her. ‘Erlin could be injured and holed up somewhere. I know the chances are remote, but I have to look.’ He glanced back at the waves. Maybe what had done this still lurked there below the surface, but that was a risk he was prepared to take. He still hoped to find some sign, some message… something.
‘Come on, lads, we’ll spread out and cover as much ground as we can.’ He turned and began trudging inland, bellowing, ‘Erlin! Are you here, woman!’
Taylor Bloc eyed the Kladites arrayed in neat ranks before him, unarmed. They all wore cloth or domino masks, grey envirosuits with incorporated breastplates, while skirted helmets hung at their belts. As they raised their hands before them and started chanting ‘Bloc! Bloc! Bloc!’ he strode out onto the ramp waving one hand in greeting. This small army of eighty reifications he had gathered from the remnants of the Cult of Anubis Arisen on Klader, and they had all sworn loyalty to him for his promise to lead them to resurrection. Out of choice they wore a uniform created by one of their number. It was sad, though fortunate for him, Bloc felt, that even amongst the unliving there were those who felt the need to be led.
A few Hoopers stood to one side, watching the show with bemused expressions. Of the rest of the crowd, the largest proportion consisted of unaligned reifications—merely passengers—but there were others here too.
Bloc spotted the mercenary he knew only as Shive—an employee of Lineworld Developments. The catadapt was tall, thickly muscled, boosted and, now grinning, his leonine visage exposing curved fangs. Bloc surveyed the gathering, easily picking out the rest of the mercenaries; they wore black crabskin armour and made no pretence at concealment. He repressed his anger; though he had always expected Lineworld Developments to try to take over, it was doubly insulting that they used Batian mercenaries. These were members of an entire culture of one continent, on an Out-Polity planet, revolving around that frowned-upon profession. They had also, in the employ of the Eight, spent seven hundred years trying to find and destroy Sable Keech himself.