flapping.
They plummeted, a brief struggle in the air, her shrieking, him roaring, until they finally righted themselves. She, the heavier in her iron skin. He, on top of her like a red anvil, hands wrapped about her face.
They hit the water in an eruption of red and white froth. Gariath, too, was plunged into blindness like his foe. But the battle was his, he knew, as she lay unmoving beneath him.
When the water settled and she lay beneath the water, skull neatly bisected like a rock, it was unnecessary to do more than rise, snort and stagger away.
‘Any happier now, Wisest?’ The grandfather was there, seated on the rocks jutting from the river. ‘Find a good reason to keep going?’
‘No thanks to you,’ Gariath snorted. ‘You didn’t tell me about them.’
‘Who?’
‘The creatures, the green things. They called me
‘You have not been called that before?’
‘Not by anything that looks like me.’
‘You said they were green, not red.’
‘Closer than pink,’ he growled. ‘Tell me, then, Grandfather, who are they?’
‘They are … lost, Wisest,’ Grandfather replied. ‘They will lead you to nothing.’
Gariath regarded the spirit for a moment. His eyes narrowed as he saw something in him.
And Gariath turned his back to the spirit, stalking down the river.
‘Where do you go, Wisest?’ Grandfather called after him.
‘To nothing,’ he replied.
Twenty-Three
‘If he asks for water, don’t give him any,’ the young man posing as a guard said, waving his key ring like a symbol of authority. ‘And I wouldn’t look at him directly, if I were you.’ He sneered. ‘It’s a mess.’
Bralston nodded briefly as the young man cracked open the reinforced door to the converted warehouse room that served as a prison. It opened into shadow, which Bralston stepped into.
The door swung shut behind him, the cramped quarters swallowing the echo. He turned on his heel and walked deeper, taking a moment to scratch the corner of his eye as he removed his hat. The room had likely been storage for the least important objects, possibly the least important members of society, if the smell was any suggestion. The walls were as tall and wide as two men, the only source of light a dim beam seeping in from a grated hole above. Dust swirled within it, flakes clawing over each other in a futile bid to escape.
Against the pervasive despair, the figure huddled pitifully against the wall was scarcely noticeable.
Bralston said nothing, at first, content only to observe. Taking the man in — at least, he had been
The Librarian could make out his features: scraggly beard that had once been kempt, a broad frame used to standing tall now railing against its owner’s determination to hunch, a single, gleaming eye cast down at the floor, heavy-lidded, unblinking.
‘I am here to speak with you,’ Bralston said, his voice painful in the silence.
The man said nothing in reply.
‘Your assistance is required.’
Bralston felt his ire rise at the man’s continued quiet.
‘Cooperation,’ he said, clenching his hand, ‘is compulsory.’
‘How long, sir, have you been seeking my company?’
The man spoke without flinching, without looking up. The voice had once been booming, he could tell. Something had hollowed it out with sharp fingers and left only a smothered whisper.
‘Approximately one week.’
A chuckle, black and once used to herald merry terrors. ‘I lament my lack of surprise. But would it surprise you that I was once a man whose presence was fleeting as gentle zephyrs?’ He leaned back, resting a hand on a massive knee. ‘I once was, despite the shrouded sorrow before you.’ He drummed curiously short, stubby fingers. ‘I once was.’
A closer glance revealed both the fact that the man’s fingers were, in fact, fleshy stumps, and that the hairy backs of his hands were twisted with tattoos. Consequently, any sympathy or desire to know what had happened to the man passed quickly.
Whatever cruelties had been visited upon this man by whomever was undoubtedly kindness compared to the blood he had shed, the lives he had defiled. Bralston felt his left eyelid twitch at the fate of the last Cragsman he had known.
‘Your … days of zephyr, as it were, are the object of concern,’ Bralston said curtly.
‘No gentleman would accuse another of lying,’ the Cragsman replied smoothly, ‘and whilst I am possessed of the most gracious inclination to benefit you the title of man most gentle, I can quite distinctly detect the odiferous reek of a lie dribbling out of your craw. Were I bold enough to declare, I would that you did not come all this way to discuss the seas I’ve plied and the women I’ve loved.’
That last word sent Bralston’s spine rigid, his fist tight.
‘I am concerned with the past month of your life,’ he said, ‘nothing more.’
‘Ah, now
His great head swung up, grey hair hanging limply at a thick jaw. His eye fixed itself upon the Librarian. Through the gloom, the yellow of his smile came out in golden crescents.
‘So I ask the man who has displayed tact towards my innards by not ripping them out through my most fortunate nose,’ Rashodd said. ‘Who sent you?’
Bralston considered carefully answering. Somehow, the words he spoke seemed tainted by the man’s presence the moment they left his mouth.
‘The Venarium.’
‘Sought by a circle of heathens, I am reduced to? From being pursued by the greatest navies of the seas? Perhaps such a degradation is fitting, having been laid low by that most meanest and crudest of callings.’
‘I digress, though,’ Rashodd continued. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’
‘I am on an extended search,’ Bralston replied. ‘The location of one party will lead to the other, I am certain.’
‘The ultimate goal being?’
Bralston studied him carefully, wary to divulge the answer. ‘Purple-skinned longfaces.’
‘Ah.’ Rashodd smiled. ‘
‘Your tone suggests knowledge.’
‘You may safely conclude imprisonment has done little to tarnish my talents and predilections towards the coy. My knowledge of the netherlings is from the second hand of a second hand.’
‘Nether … lings?’
