memories.’
‘What possible modification to our hallowed architecture would be important enough for Monoshaft to pass into the Hall of Ancestors for?’
‘Let’s just say you’ll be able to see more clearly,’ coughed Dick. Clearly enough to see the monsters walking among us. ‘And after you do, the head of the State Protection Board has petitioned King Steam for every steamman living inside the Kingdom to go out into the streets on a bit of a hunt. You see,’ said Dick, leaning in close, ‘and this is the nub of the thing. There are treasonists everywhere.’
Charlotte, Sadly and the commodore moved down the darkship’s corridor as fast as they dared. To anyone who caught sight of the three of them, hopefully all they would notice was a sea-bishop, the commodore in a purloined royalist sailor’s uniform and their prisoner — Sadly — being taken to an interrogation room to have his mind probed. Hopefully, that is, as long as Charlotte’s control over the Eye of Fate stayed strong.
It didn’t come easy to Charlotte. She was using the amulet constantly now, as a sea-bishop would. It was intensely painful keeping up the appearance of a sea-bishop, pushing the mesmeric field out. Her head was aching from it, throbbing with the mother of all headaches. Charlotte’s usual acts of mesmerism were restricted to ten- minute turns of a stage, and more often than not, one-to-one acts of suggestion. She had a new-found respect for the sea-bishops’ abilities. To be able to walk undetected among the race of man’s teeming masses unnoticed for months at a time without letting the illusion slip. No wonder they needed skull cases as tall as a stovepipe hat to hold such powerful brains.
‘Don’t worry, girl-child,’ said Elizica, her smooth voice slipping through Charlotte’s mind as though a memory. ‘This is what the Eye of Fate was meant for. Not relieving noble-born dupes of their wallets, not tricking local dignitaries into stabling gypsy caravans on their land.’
Charlotte rubbed the smarting skin under her breasts, scratching the remains of the artificial skin she’d torn to reveal the real Eye of Fate’s hiding place. The Court of the Air was expert at creating such nooks for their agents.
I would like to see Gemma Dark’s face when she realizes that the crystal she ripped from my neck belongs to a dead prison camp commandant.
‘I would not,’ whispered Elizica. ‘This cursed vessel’s halls are filled with enemies. Once Gemma Dark understands you mesmerized her and compelled her sentries to open the door and surrender their weapons and uniforms, your ability to mimic a sea-bishop’s form will count for little.
The commodore shuffled along, a hand on the pommel of his purloined sabre to stop its length tripping his legs. ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful for saving my old bones from what my sister had in store for me, but… answers, lass. You promised you would tell me the truth back in the cell, a promise cut short by Gemma’s arrival. How did you know to be wearing another crystal and have the Eye of Fate hidden away under the Court’s cunning prosthetics?’
‘You have the canny eye of Jethro Daunt to thank for that,’ said Charlotte. ‘He spotted that Sadly had been replaced by a sea-bishop when he was escaping from the Advocacy prison camp.’
Sadly looked confused. ‘But the sea-bishops realized Daunt could smell their kind out, they taunted me for days with how cleverly they had replaced me. They thought their infiltrator could supply Daunt with all the missing signs that gave them away?’
‘Oh, but they did,’ said Charlotte. ‘He was quite impressed how fast the sea-bishops learned to fool a priest’s senses. Your doppelganger planted Daunt’s mind with every cue and tell a churchman needs to read a person like a book. It was a perfect impersonation.’
‘Then how did…?’
Charlotte brushed Sadly’s bad leg with her fingers as he limped forward. ‘Your doppelganger’s footprints on the beach as he was limping out towards the Court’s rescue submarine. A pair of boots walking normally left them, without the irregularity of the limp Daunt was observing.’
Sadly grunted in understanding.
‘All those legends about vampires and mirrors, there’s some substance to the myths,’ said Charlotte. She brushed the Eye of Fate. ‘This can work a lot of mischief inside a mark’s mind, but you constantly have to be a master of the small details, like remembering to project your false body in the reflections you leave on surfaces. Easy to forget.’
‘Ah, that sly churchman,’ wheezed the commodore. ‘But Jethro Daunt didn’t think to tell poor old Blacky about his wicked little discovery.’
‘Only myself and the head of the Court, Lord Trabb,’ said Charlotte. ‘We had to let the sea-bishops think they had infiltrated us, so the fake Sadly could return and betray what he believed were our plans. It was the only way to get us inside the seed-city. Daunt realized from the outset that simply trying to repeat Elizica’s original feat centuries ago would fail. The sea-bishops would never permit us to steal a darkship again and reach their home. Misdirection was the key. And what better way to infiltrate a stronghold than to have your enemy carry you inside their walls?’
‘Then you knowingly sent that wretch Dick Tull walking into the enemy’s hands with a devil by his side. Maeva, all her seanore warriors, you let them all sacrifice themselves for this, lass.’
‘And all of the Court’s staff and thousands of Nuyokians back on the Isla Furia. There’s enough blood our hands for everybody. I’m sorry about what happened to Maeva, Jared, truly, but we’re all dead anyway if we don’t stop the sea-bishops. Better we have a fighting chance…’
‘That’s the Court’s way,’ said Sadly, almost approvingly. ‘Whatever it takes, whatever the cost.’
The commodore rubbed his bandaged shoulder. ‘That, it may be. But it’s poor old Blacky and his friends that must do the bleeding for your dirty schemes. This is a fool’s chance. You heard what Gemma said when she had us on the darkship sinking down to this black pit of hell. The shield device you would have us steal to freeze these demons in a trap of time is under heavy guard. Will the trickery of your clever gem pass a sentry’s close inspection by an army of sea-bishops? Will you pretend to be Walsingham and have him order the demons to pass out what they have no doubt been ordered to secure with their very lives?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. It might work. Misdirection is the key, remember.’
Sadly pointed down the corridor to a side passage. ‘That’s the way to the airlock where the darkships are docked.’
‘How can you be telling that, Sadly?’ moaned the commodore. ‘All these dark, dripping corridors — all alike, we might as well be passing through a leviathan’s veins.’
‘I have a very good memory, Mister Black,’ said Sadly. ‘That’s my training and I was working very hard to memorize the way to get out of here when they hauled me down to the feeding pens.’
‘The city hasn’t changed much since Elizica was last here,’ said Charlotte. ‘But we’re not leaving. Our path lies that way.’
‘Ah, why not,’ whined the commodore. ‘I’m a dead man walking anyway. At least I’ll be going down with a sabre in my blessed hand.’
‘Withdraw!’ Daunt’s shouts sounded hollow through his gas mask. Never was a weapon so pointlessly deployed as this war gas, yellow blankets of blistering poison drifting over the volcano’s slopes with both sides protected by their helmets. Both factions only inconvenienced by the foul fog. How Daunt longed to rip the cloying device off, to take a breath of real air. ‘Why are they not withdrawing?’
The Notifier standing next to Daunt stared down at the ring of trenches below, the thud of gas rifles growing frantic as the gill-necks’ massed ranks marched forward, advancing under the hazardous cover of a rolling barrage from their own artillery. The red chainmail across the woman’s chest made her appear as if she had been wading through blood all day. Perhaps she had. ‘The first trench has not had their votes tallied yet. To retreat is a serious matter, Court man.’
Morris snorted in rude amusement on the firing step of the trench. Daunt bit his tongue. Above them was the next trench ring, higher, its tighter circumference designed to accommodate the diminished number of fighters that would be falling back from Daunt’s present position. Higher still, another trench circuit still being dug by the Court’s mining force, working as they laboured under the fierce fire. The occasional miner malfunctioning from enemy shelling would come lurching down the incline, oblivious to the battle and ploughing into the advancing gill-neck formations where it would be battered into deactivation. The survivors could only fall back, regroup and concentrate their fire, however, if they actually followed Daunt’s orders rather than constantly putting them to the ballot.
‘Bob my soul, but dying down there is a serious matter,’ said Daunt. ‘Falling back to a prepared position is a
