‘I couldn’t, Maeva,’ said the commodore, ‘because if I had seen you one last time, I never could have left you. I wouldn’t have had the heart for it. And then you and all your people would have died trying to protect me.’
‘You were one of our clan. That’s what we do. Then. Now.’
‘Ah, not for me, never for me. I’ve enough on my conscience. That particular hold is full.’
‘You could have taken me with you. I would have left the seanore with you.’
‘For what, a life on the run, on the surface, away from your family and friends and everything you loved in the sea? I ended up in Cassarabia with other survivors of the royalist cause. Sucking up to the caliph there in return for the guns we needed to fight on. That’s no country for you. Heat like a furnace, sands that’ll sup the sweat from you with a vampire’s thirst, nothing but enemies and plotting and sorcery as evil as any you’re ever likely to see in this world. None of the countries and intrigues that followed after were any better. Just death and treachery and a cause that was lost long before I was even born. Taking you away from the oceans would have been dragging an angel down into hell.’
Maeva frowned. ‘It’s not a choice you should have got to make alone. I’m not some weak-willed surface- dwelling maiden. I am a warrior-born, free and unbound. It was my decision to make, not yours.’
‘I’m a pirate, remember? I stole it from you. And that was my decision.’
‘I thought I had made a seanore of you. Well, damn you for a pirate. Damn you for a privateer.’
Enough. Charlotte felt guilty she had even agreed to the royal spectre’s suggestion.
The shape was beginning to fade away, the planes of light glowing translucent as they seeped into the water. ‘As you wish. We have more important matters to focus on than the life they lost together. We have more important things to worry about than the weight of your purse.’
More important things won’t put food on my plate when I get back home. Charlotte didn’t need to sound the silent if in that train of thought.
‘I grow tired. I’ve slept for so long. I will return when you have need for me.’
Come back, I need you for this now.
‘For this jabbering mass? No, I have you for that.’ Elizica’s laughter faded into the chamber. ‘So many of the underwater races here, yet so much hot air beneath the waves.’
Underneath the shell plates, interior surfaces daubed with frescos of legends and battles and creatures of the sea, Tera stepped forward and raised her arms. The wise-woman’s voice carried loud in Charlotte’s helmet speakers. ‘It is time for the grand congress of the seanore to convene.’
Many floating in the water took their seats on the simple stone benches, as did the commodore and the air- breathing nomads behind the membrane. Those of the assembly without legs angled their bodies at neutral buoyancy, tails and fins holding them at anchor, waiting with expectant faces. One of the visiting nomads had stayed on his webbed feet, half his body armoured, the other half bare muscle with a gladiator’s physique. ‘Why are we here, Tera of the Clan Raldama? Why do you waste my time and all the chiefs of the water by bringing us here to a grand congress to stand before this-’ his hand jabbed towards Charlotte, ‘-surface dweller?’
Tera grew incensed. ‘You are here, Korda of the Clan Coudama, because your wise-woman reminded you of your obligations under the songs of the shadowed sea.’
‘Where is the prophecy here? I do not see it?’ The angry clan chief indicated the Purity Queen drifting outside the tribal hall. ‘Only a crew of surface-dwellers, the gas from the outcasts’ engines fouling the great forests.’
‘The signs and currents flow true,’ said Tera. ‘Are we not arrived at a time when the people of the water are at the throats of the surface dwellers? The time of madness is close, when demons shall emerge from the scars of the world and claim us all in the confusion.’
‘Demons from the deep of the dark,’ Korda sneered. ‘The only devils I see are these surface dwellers. Is this the time of the shadowed sea? I think not. The Advocacy is habitually in dispute with trespassing surface dwellers.’ The clan chief pointed at the commodore standing behind the membrane. ‘And that one is the worst of all. A u-boat privateer notorious for his avariciousness. Do you not know him? You sheltered the silver-beard once, and here he is back again, full of tricks and lies and false words.’
Vane joined the wise-woman in facing down the rival clan chief. ‘There are more than words at work here. This girl beat me in the ceremony of admittance and then sang words from the songs of prophecy.’
‘Pah!’ Korda’s contempt filtered through Charlotte’s helmet. ‘Words can be stolen as easily as crystals. You stupid weakling, you let the commodore’s fancy-piece best you in combat and now you seek to cover up your embarrassment by placing credence in ancient lore that Jared Black has pirated from us and whispered in her ear.’
Another clan leader stood up as Vane stepped forward, boiling to challenge his guest to combat. ‘The peace of the grand congress be upon you both. Let us hear what this girl has to say. Speak, surface dweller. Were you the bearer of the lion trident in ancient times?’
Charlotte looked at them all uncertainly. Now would be time for you to speak through me. Nothing, empty silence within her, the Eye of Fate as inert as a useless piece of coal.
Korda’s sarcastic laughter filled the water. ‘For this I have dragged hundreds of the Clan Coudama’s finest warriors away from our territory, away from the hunt and the gathering. And what are we fed with here? The confidence tricks of surface dwellers.’
‘The one who gave you your prophecy has spoken through me,’ said Charlotte, ‘although by the Circle, I wish it was otherwise.’
‘On your wishes, we can at least agree,’ said Korda. ‘Speak now, then, surface-dweller. Sing the secrets songs of the prophecy. Let the grand congress echo with your wisdom.’
‘I am not a dancing monkey to caper to your whims, honey. I only know what I’ve seen and heard to bring me here,’ said Charlotte. ‘There are royalist rebels from my nation scheming with the Advocacy alongside highly placed officials inside the Kingdom, and the whole filthy conspiracy is swirling like a whirlpool around the twisted monsters appearing in my dreams.’
‘Bad dreams have carried you here? Not just you, surface dweller girl, your foolishness has called thousands of seanores to stand in this congress.’
‘I think the monsters in my dreams are the chasm-demons of your prophecy.’
‘You think — ’
The commodore’s voice interrupted the clan leader’s outburst. ‘You want proof, lad, then here it is!’ Charlotte turned. The commodore was clutching King Jude’s sceptre, unfurling the staff from a stretch of canvas where he had concealed it. ‘This is what the dark-hearts chasing us are really after.’
‘And she shall return with a staff of gold and a crystal from outside the world,’ pronounced Tera.
‘A bauble made to order by you, Jared Black,’ accused Korda.
Commodore Black pointed at the wise-woman. ‘Tera only told me of your prophecy yesterday. I knew blessed little of until then, though I recognized the description of the sceptre well enough when I heard it.’
‘Am I a fool? You’ve ordered that gaudy rod manufactured to lend credence to your schemes. I don’t know what you are here for, but I do know it will cost seanore blood spilled in the water if we listen to you. Let the squabbling surface dwelling factions and the Advocacy murder and war and plot against each other, but let it not involve us.’ He struck his way out of the waters, turning his back on Charlotte. There were murmurs of agreement echoing throughout the clan leaders’ assembly hall, many rising from the stone seats and ready to begin following the Clan Coudama out of the grand congress.
The nomads’ outrush was interrupted by a company of rotor-spear wielding sentries urgently pushing against the surge of leaving leaders. ‘They are coming!’
Vane shouted down the crowd to hear his warriors. ‘Who is coming?’
‘Darkships, we have seen darkships approaching over the forest.’
‘How many?’ asked Vane.
‘Two.’
‘You fools!’ Tera yelled across the clan leaders. ‘You wanted proof of the songs of prophecy, here it is. Did the old silver-beard manufacture the darkships, too?’
Before the words had sunk into Charlotte, there was a rush of panicked nomads speeding for the exits out onto the seabed, a flurry of hidden weapons — forbidden at the congress — emerging in nomad hands.
Elizica’s disembodied words whispered in Charlotte’s ears. ‘I think you will be glad I rested, girl-child.’
What are darkships?
‘What the prophecy was intended to warn against, girl-child. Demon chariots, the chasm’s seed.’
