1
For days after it rains, water drips through the bowels of Soliton, running down cool metal walls and through ragged, rusty gaps. It beads on the surface of the pale shelf mushrooms, catching stray sunlight to gleam like a handful of diamonds, and gathers in muddy pools where algae blooms in a short-lived riot of color. The steady plink plink plink infiltrates its way into silent moments, the kind of sound you’re certain is going to drive you mad but eventually just fades into the background.
I crouch at the junction of two corridors, my breathing as quiet as I can make it, and the dripping grows louder in my ears, like a parade’s worth of kettledrums. The blueshell’s footsteps are silent—soft, springy balls at the ends of its legs absorbing any noise—but segments of its chitinous armor brush against each other with a sound like shuffling paper. I hear it come closer, then stop. It know I’m here. This close, it can hear the heart pounding in my chest.
Time to get loud, then.
I spring to my feet, slapping the wall with one hand to produce a hollow bong. The blueshell comes forward, edging around the corner, eight feet of sky-colored crab with a mass of sharp-edged tentacles for a face. It reaches for me with a foreleg tipped with a big knobbly claw, but I’m already gone, boots ringing against the metal deck as I run down the corridor.
The blueshell gives chase, moving fast and quiet. I turn another corner, out into a wide corridor, and it comes with me, tendrils writhing. This one is hungry, and it thinks it has the scent of easy prey.
Sometimes it’s easy to be wrong about who’s hunting who.
Halfway down the corridor, I turn on my heel, skidding to a stop on the slimy metal. My armor comes up, green Melos energy crackling across me, and my blades ignite—glowing, spitting chunks of pure sorcery, springing from the backs of my wrists like extensions of my arms. A drop of water falls from the ceiling and splashes across them, evaporating with a steamy hiss.
The crab pulls up short as well. Whether it knows what the sight of those blades means, or whether it’s just hesitating at something unfamiliar, I have no idea. Whatever the reason, its hunger quickly overcomes its caution, and it reaches for me with a claw. I duck under the limb, slashing across it with a blade, but energy screeches and leaves only a black scorch mark on the crab’s blue armor. I dance in closer, near the tentacled maw, and it reaches for me. No armor here, and my flashing blades leave several tendrils severed and smoking, twitching on the deck. The crab recoils, backing away.
I first made my name on Soliton killing a blueshell single-handedly, but I’m not such a glutton for pain that I’m eager to repeat the experience. Any rotting time, people.
As though in answer, a figure steps from a doorway behind the crab, outlined in an aura of pale blue light. Lines of Tartak force reach out, expertly grabbing two of the blueshell’s back legs just as it takes a step, lifting its sticky pads from the floor. The magic grabs the limbs and yanks backward, and the crab stumbles.
Shadows flicker, peeling away from the walls and swirling into a tall, lean shape. Jack usually fights with a spear, but for this she carries a short, heavy blade, with enough weight to crack crabshell. She lines up a two-handed swing with one of the pinioned legs and nails the joint expertly, crushing the thin armor and taking the leg off. It crashes to the deck, still twitching, and Jack spins to sever the other. The blueshell reaches for her with a claw, but she’s already gone, vanished with a swirl of shadows and a mocking laugh.
Zarun releases his hold on the broken legs and steps forward, his own Melos armor glowing around him. The crab turns awkwardly, shifting on its remaining limbs, would-be prey forgotten in its effort to get at its tormentors. It tries to reach Zarun with its claws, but he grabs and holds them with Tartak force. It shoves closer, lashing him with its tentacles, their sharpened tips drawing bright green flares from his armor. I know, from painful experience, that each of those flares is matched by a bloom of heat across his skin, slowly increasing from mild to unbearable, but Zarun doesn’t show any strain.
And he’s got the crab’s attention, which is all I need. I shift the flow of Melos power, letting one blade fade away while the other shortens and narrows into a thin, brutal spike. Energy collects in my fist, growing hotter by the moment. When I can barely stand it, I sprint forward, darting past the blueshell’s ruined back legs and slipping underneath it. The armor is thick here, but it still has seams, and I drive the spike in between two plates. It breaks through with a crunch, and I release the energy I’ve gathered, a wave of coruscating fire that rips through the creature’s vulnerable innards. I have to jump back as it collapses, twitching wildly.
Chalk up another one. This is getting almost too easy.
* * *
I let my armor fade away, and shake out my hand. Wisps of steam are still rising from between my fingers.
“You’re getting better at that,” Zarun says, hopping over the crab’s outstretched claws. “I still can’t get the hang of it.”
He’s in his hunting gear, ragged trousers and an open vest that shows off a well-muscled torso, his dark hair long enough that it’s starting to curl, skin Jyashtani-copper and eyes a startling blue. For all that he’s toothsome, as the late and unlamented Butcher might have put it, these days I find I can look at him and appreciate without being tempted. I have everything I need waiting for me, back in the Garden.
“Maybe too good,” I say, shaking my hand again. My skin feels tender and raw, though without the muscle-ache of full powerburn. “I think I cooked myself a little.”
“A little “burn is better than not killing the thing first try,” Zarun says. “Nothing like a mortally wounded blueshell thrashing around to ruin your day.”
“Don’t remind me,” I mutter.
“Brave companions! I see we are victorious once again!”
Shadows shiver and part to reveal Jack, who bows like a conjurer at the end of a trick. She’s half a head taller than me, skinny as a pole, dressed in flowing, colorful silk. Her head is half-shaved, with the remaining hair dyed a brilliant purple. Her features make her look Imperial, but her accent careers wildly across the known world and beyond.
“Another triumph to add to our legend,” she goes on. “Another mighty deed in a life replete with mighty deeds. Truly, no heroes have ever been so valorous as we three, pitting ourselves alone against the monsters of the Deeps, with no thought for our own safety—”
“We’re only out here because you kept saying you were bored,” Zarun says.
“And because you said you were tired of fruit and bread,” I remind him.
“True.” Zarun looks at the blueshell and licks his lips. “That’s going to be some good eating.”
“We have to get it home first,” I say.
“Clever Jack will scout the way!” Jack says immediately, shadows rushing around her like dark water. Her voice fades gradually as she vanishes. “It would be terrible to be ambushed, after all. Many are the perils that haunt the dark places of Soliton.…”
Zarun and I exchange a look, and roll our eyes.
* * *
In truth, it’s mostly Zarun who carries the dead blueshell, lifting it with his Tartak Well while I assist whenever there’s a tricky doorway. It doesn’t take long to get back to the Garden, the cylindrical hideout near the front of the ship where we’d first taken shelter from the Vile Rot. The great folding door at its base is closed, and I concentrate, reaching out through my Eddica Well into the fabric of the ship. After a moment, the door obediently slides open.
I’m getting better at that, too. I feel a burst of triumph, which is a little ridiculous for what is, after all, only a door. Having spent so long bashing my head against Soliton’s obstinate, inscrutable system, it still feels like a revelation when I can make it do anything like what I intend. In theory, the authority I was granted at the Harbor gives me complete control over the ship. In practice, things are … more difficult.
Hagan is better at it than I am. Of course, being dead, he has a lot more time to practice.
Jack is waiting for us, bouncing idly from one foot to another, animated as always by a manic energy that never seems to take a breath. As Zarun hauls the dead crab over the threshold and lays it out on the grassy meadow that occupies the first layer of the Garden, Jack follows close behind, practically drooling.
“Good eating, indeed,” she says. “And none too soon, for Clever Jack has a hunger. And a thirst, come to think of it, if there’s any wine left in that jug. But mostly a hunger.”
“Let’s get it properly butchered first,” Zarun says, igniting his own Melos blades. “Otherwise half of it will go bad before we get the chance to cook it.”
I ignite my blades as well, ignoring a twinge in my singed hand. “Show me where to cut.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Zarun says. “Go upstairs and tend to your princess.”
“Yes, go!” Jack says. “You, at least, should enjoy the voyage.”
“But—”
“And by that,” Jack interrupts, “I mean engage in the lustful press of flesh against warm, yielding flesh, skin against skin, tongue against—”
“Jack,” Zarun says.
“Apologies.” Jack bows, panting, her purple hair flopping forward. “Every mile Soliton puts between Lovelorn Jack and dearest Thora is like a thorn in her heart, and every day that passes adds to her … frustration.”
“I’m sorry,” I mutter.
“Don’t put that on Isoka,” Zarun says. “You volunteered for this, same as I did. Now go and fetch the pick and the shell-spreader.”
“Useful Jack will retrieve the tools of slaughter!” Jack says, bounding off toward the stairs.
Zarun shook his head. “Don’t mind her.”
“I try not to,” I say. “But I can help with this, if you need me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zarun said, stretching. “It keeps me busy, at least.”
Keeping busy, I reflect as I ascend to the Garden’s upper floors, really has been the biggest problem we’ve encountered so far. We spent the passage through the straits near the Vile Rot sealed up tight inside the Garden, and since then it’s been a steady run northward, the temperature slowly rising as we parallel the coast of the Southern Kingdoms and make for Imperial shores. With control of the angels, crab attacks aren’t a worry, and the Garden provides more than enough food now that the four of us are the only ones aboard.
Even my worry about Tori has receded a little. Not much, of course, but at least we’re headed in the right direction at the best speed I can manage. When we arrive at Kahnzoka—another two days, according to Meroe’s charts—I’ll start to worry again. Until then, all I can do is wait, while mighty Soliton sweeps the miles under its keel.
Tori will be fine. She has to be. It’s months, yet, until Kuon Naga’s deadline.
And Kuon Naga would never lie to you? a traitor part of my mind whispers.
Meroe and I share a chamber in the highest part of the Garden. It’s not large, but it feels positively luxurious compared to the voyage to the Harbor, when hundreds of us were crammed into these rooms. It’s furnished haphazardly, out of the superstitious offerings of goods that have accumulated over decades all across Soliton. Our bed is a nest of cushions and thick carpets, our fire-pit is a brazen shield carved with a lion’s head, and we eat off gold and silver plate that would be at home in the Imperial palace. When she’s not looking through her telescope or plotting our course on her maps, Meroe makes herself clothes from scavenged fabric, strange hybrids of Imperial kizen and Jyashtani dresses that would draw attention on the street of any city in the world. She always looks beautiful, of course.
When I arrive, she’s busy sketching something, sitting at a small desk we’d made from the remnants of a heavy sea chest, carefully husbanding a stub of a pencil from her small, precious stock. Her brow has a single, adorable furrow of concentration, and her tongue pokes ever so slightly out of the corner of her mouth. Back in Kahnzoka, I’m going to buy her a crate of pencils, and inks in every color she can imagine, and a bigger telescope and—
Copyright © 2020 by Django Wexler
