land the moment he parted from Paladrya, had been the universal thought that nobody had voiced. Still, I will be on land and free, and that is surely the greater reward of any bargain I could strike with them. I owe the people of the sea precious little. I have my own worries, after all. I wonder what has gone awry in Collegium, that needed my hand to steady it. And on that thought: ‘You have kept this from the Vekken, I would guess. They would not understand.’
There was no immediate answer, so he craned round to catch her expression. The interior of the Tseitan boasted only one dim lantern, but it was easy to pick out the amusement on her pale face.
‘Tell me,’ he prompted.
‘We come here with the Vekken’s blessing,’ she told him.
Stenwold spluttered over that, and from beside him, Maxel Gainer piped up, ‘It’s true, Master Maker. There’s been all kinds of deals being made concerning your disappearance. They’ve set up Master Tseitus as a hero, and your man, Master Drillen, has done up some treaty or other over the Tseitan, so we’re allowed to build more, and they had her and one of the Vekken ambassadors signing something, and then the two of them came to me, with that Fly girl in tow, and said we had to go hunt for you.’
‘“That Fly girl” was the start of all of this,’ Despard said acidly. ‘Without me you’d none of you be here, and don’t you forget it.’
‘You see, Master Maker, you made your point effectively, to us, and also to Vek. Collegium is rich in ways that we are not, and anyone who turned down such riches would lose place to those that did not. If either Vek or Tsen turned its back on Collegiate trade, then the other would triumph, sooner or later. It’s easy to see how Sarn was won over, those years ago. I think that, could we ensure it, either of us would rather have your city sink beneath the sea for ever, but as the best of Vek has failed to destroy you, and as we have no ready means to do it, the only remaining choice is to accept your crooked bargain. So, Collegium is rich, but it’s easy to see that the only way that either of our cities get a fair bargain from your people is through you, Maker. We trust you, whereas your fellows would swindle and cheat us. It was a very strange day when I looked into the face of a man of Vek and needed no Art to know that he and I were thinking the same thoughts.’
Stenwold sat back, unexpectedly sobered by the cold logic of it. ‘Perhaps, in time, your people shall see this as less of a poisoned chalice, Mistress Kratia,’ he murmured. ‘The Sarnesh, at least, have voiced no regrets.’
‘Because your people have tamed them like pets,’ she replied, contemptuously.
Stenwold shrugged, feeling too weary with the whole business to answer. At least we have them, for now, and Vek also. Two years’ hard diplomacy have borne fruit at long last. Strange how the solution to the Vekken problem turned out to involve more Ants, not fewer.
‘Master Maker,’ said Gainer from beside him. ‘More friends of yours?’
‘Hmm?’ Stenwold peered ahead. The darkness of the waters seemed near-total to him, now, and he saw only the lights of Wys’s barque ahead.
‘Another craft just passed between us and them, or something did,’ Gainer informed him.
‘Probably Nemoctes,’ Stenwold decided. ‘He’s supposed to be somewhere about…’
Even as he said it, a shape flashed across their view, pale against the black. It was slim and streamlined, with streamers of tentacles billowing behind it, and there was a brief glimpse of a slender rider couching a lance, leaning forward right above the beast’s huge round eye.
It was gone at once, leaving Stenwold with a moment of confusion: Heiracles or Claeon? ‘Get closer to Wys,’ he ordered. His instincts said trouble, sure enough. He could only hope that Wys knew better what was going on.
The dark water was suddenly full of movement. The Dart-kinden riders came sleeting from the abyss all around them, slicing into momentary sight as the lamplight of the Tseitan’s ports caught them, before wheeling and vanishing in close formation. He spotted them again, as shadows against the glare of the other submersible, saw them break aside every which way without striking, flurrying back into the dark. It was an attack, beyond question, but one that some trick contrived by Wys had turned aside.
‘They’ve found us,’ Stenwold said, feeling a cold hand clench inside him. So close, so close. Surely they cannot drag me back now. He felt bitterly the lack of any way of speaking to Wys. Right now, the Pelagists’ Far- speech Art would have been invaluable.
The riders were soon back. One made a run straight towards the Tseitan’s nose, but turned aside at the very last minute, close enough, as she hauled her beast off, that they could see her narrow, wide-eyed face clearly. Stenwold guessed that the alien nature of the Collegium submersible must be giving them pause, but such hesitation would last only so long. They were getting close to Wys’s barque now, Gainer steering the Tseitan until they could even distinguish figures within the ornate window set in the vessel’s bows. The small figure of Wys was signalling to them, pointing at something, making urgent, exaggerated gestures.
Something pale and shapeless passed in a flurry beyond the far side of Wys’s submersible, lit momentarily by the vessel’s limn-lights. Stenwold had a brief glimpse of the bar-shaped pupil of a great mottled eye, an eye he had seen before.
‘Arkeuthys,’ he murmured. The agent of his capture had returned to prevent his escape.
Then the Tseitan jerked and shuddered, resounding under the crack of an impact. ‘Are we shot?’ Despard demanded, eyes wide.
Gainer was wrestling with the controls, trying to keep the vehicle on a level course. A moment later there was a second knock, throwing them to one side, and Stenwold understood: the Dart-kinden were lancing towards them, making swift dives and then breaking their spears against the Tseitan’s shell.
‘Gainer, what’s the hull made of?’ he demanded.
Their pilot bared his teeth. ‘Magnaferrite over pumice-steel,’ he snarled out, all of which material was after Sten-wold’s day, as far as artificing went.
‘That’s strong? They’re sticking spears into us.’
‘Spears?’ Gainer let out a strained laugh. ‘Let them jab at the body all they want, just please let them steer clear of the legs.’
The thought sent a chill through Stenwold. Damage a few of the Tseitan’s six paddles and the ship would become helpless prey for Arkeuthys, or it would drift and sink, becoming nothing but an elaborate tomb.
‘Gain height,’ he suggested. ‘They may not like the sun.’
‘It’s nighttime,’ Despard interrupted, and Stenwold blinked in genuine surprise. It had been a long time since he had needed to know.
Another impact came, sounding from right beside the portholes and sending them lurching downwards for a moment, before Gainer could correct them. ‘No worries about the glass,’ the artificer said, without having to be asked. ‘Thick enough that a snapbow couldn’t break it, and I know that ’cos I tested it with one.’
They had a mad, wheeling view of Wys’s barque, almost on its side but making steady progress, dancing through the water with its pumps rippling in a blur. The Dart-kinden cavalry were pale streamered arrows dashing past it, always breaking away just before striking, their mounts bucking angrily.
Their world, their view, was suddenly blotted from sight. The coiled ridges of a shell surged in front of them, and Gainer cried out and hauled at the sticks to steer them away. They were nearly upside down as they wheeled past the monster’s head, itself almost the size of their vessel, with a squid trapped and thrashing within the beast’s net of slender arms. Then the giant creature had coursed away, slipping backwards and downwards through the water, and dragging its prey with it.
‘What… what was that?’ Despard squeaked.
‘Nemoctes,’ Stenwold told her, ‘and be glad he’s ours.’ And let’s hope he’s already put the call out to any other Pelagists in the area, because we need all the help we can get.
Another dart flashed past their ports, its rider yanking it around even as it passed, too close for a spear charge.
‘Pull away!’ Stenwold said automatically, but Gainer pulled the wrong way, and something heavy and soft impacted with them: the rider’s mount itself.
Abruptly they were diving, dragged initially by the creature’s weight, then by its own efforts as it tugged at them. There was a hideous screeching, scratching sound from all about them, like nails on glass, as the creature’s tentacles took hold. Two or three unrolled across the viewports, their undersides lined not with suckers but with barbed hooks, like little claws, that scratched white lines down the glass as they writhed for purchase. Somewhere around the middle of the ship, above them, came a hollow boom, and then the sound of something strong and
