approach across LakeLarnaig.”
“Woman?” Mina said. “What
The demon chuckled. “She is no thaumaturge, Mina.”
Another jolt sent blood sloshing against the slave pen wall. Mina slipped, but one of Basilis’s roots writhed across the floor and curled softly around her wrist, dragging her back towards the tree. Even Hasp was gripping the demon’s roots. But the Northmen were still fearful of the apparition and would not approach it. They fell and hit the wall hard, cracking their scales. While these unfortunate soldiers tried in vain to stop their lives pouring out, Mina clung to her demonic master.
“Now reach out for the splinter,” Basilis said. “Show these poor frightened gods what a Penny Devil and his guardian can do.”
“I need your help to see it clearly.”
“Very well.”
Mina envisioned herself in the Forest of Eyes-the first of her master’s three aspects to survive his expulsion from Heaven. A scrawl of black trees surrounded her, as dense and tangled as a thicket of thorns. The twisted boles and branches glistened as countless eyes within the bark turned towards the thaumaturge.
Mina strolled up to the nearest tree and peered into one of its eyes. She frowned and then looked into another, and another, while millions more stared down at her.
“Help me, Basilis,” she cried.
But the eyes just mutely blinked.
Harper’s knees struck the deck as the steamship hit the surface of LakeLarnaig with a boom. The hull pitched violently and a shower of icy water drenched the hurricane deck, soaking her and everyone else. Edith Bainbridge screamed and stumbled backwards, but Jones and Ersimmin, who had both somehow remained upright, caught her between them. The other passengers had fallen into an un-seemly jumble of silk frills, fans, and hankies.
Carrick remained to one side of the group, still cowering, with both of his arms wrapped around a wooden life preserver. The deck righted itself, groaning, then rolled over in the opposite direction. Water rushed up the hull below, and subsided in a sucking wave of froth as the steamship rocked to a gentle halt.
“I will sue, I will sue, I will sue.” Edith’s hair hung in a limp black net across her face, framing dark tears of eyeliner beneath her shock-wide eyes.
“Calm yourself,” Jones said. “It’s not over yet. Listen!”
Harper tilted her head. An odd humming, crackling noise was beginning to build; it seemed to thrum along the ship’s iron banisters and reverberate through the bulkheads. She checked her Locator.
“A door opening?” Jones ventured.
Harper studied the device, trying to make sense of what she was reading. The silver needle shifted and bounced between ideographs, resisting her attempts to isolate a source of this burgeoning spiritual energy. “It is the same thing as before,” she said. “This energy isn’t coming from Hell or Earth. There are portals opening and closing
“Is that
She clenched her teeth. “It’s as if something is searching the ship.” Her gaze traveled the length of the deck where green and black flames flickered and diminished, lingering around the iron nails in the planks. The cold fire leapt from the deck and licked the metal balustrades and fixtures, burning nothing but exuding an ancient and earthy odor.
“It smells like a
The passengers were backing away from these weird fires, covering their noses against the stench, as the
Harper raced to the side of the ship. “It’s going for the arconite.”
Jones’s whiskers twitched. “Sabotage?”
“What else?”
“Please lower that device,” said a voice from behind.
The engineer turned to see Isaac Pilby standing inside the door to the saloon. He had unsheathed his sword and now held it out: a white weapon with a polyhedral crystal pommel set in a nest of silver. With a twitch of the blade he indicated that he meant the engineer to stop what she was doing. Harper complied.
“We’ll wait here a few moments,” Pilby continued.
Harper noticed that the tip of the little man’s blade was covered in fresh blood. “What have you done?”
Pilby gave her an apologetic smile. “There were too many staff aboard this vessel for my comfort. Doubtless many of them were agents of King Menoa.”
“Who the hell are you?” Harper asked.
“Look at the colour of my blade,” he said. “This weapon, unlike so many of the others present here, is not an affectation. I make no concessions to fashion. And my name is not Pilby.”
The sound of crackling came from the waters below as the arconite lifted its arm above the level of the deck. The bones of its hand and wrist were now wreathed in green and black flames.
The lepidopterist glanced up at the automaton, then back at Harper. “I am the First of Cohl’s Shades,” he said. “I am the White Sword.”
“Damn mercenary!” Jones exclaimed. “How much is Rys paying you to sabotage this mission?”
The White Sword shrugged. “Stay on your knees.”
“There are a hundred of these arrogant bastards out there,” Jones explained to Harper. “Cohl’s mercenaries fight with weapons coloured in shades between black and white. The Black Sword and his counterpart, the White Sword, are the most skilled warriors in each one of the two disciplines of Kiril and Yen, while those in between kill one another for better weapons and thus better ranks.”
“I see you’ve watched Adelere’s play,” the White Sword remarked.
“I watched Edgar Lovich play you onstage!”
“Badly, I fear.”
“And you killed him because of that?”
“Alas, someone beat me to it.”
“What do you want?” Jones said.
“Just let the thaumaturgy work without interference.”
The flames had now risen to the arconite’s shoulder, and the great bone giant stood wreathed in green and black fire. In this unnatural light, Pilby’s face seemed much harder than it had previously looked. His laconic smile evinced an utter lack of fear, a confidence in his own abilities that exceeded arrogance. “Many entities, mortal and immortal, sought to prevent the release of this arconite into the world,” he said. “That has failed, so now they must try to control it.”
“And which of them do you serve?” Jones said. “Rys, I suppose?”
Pilby gave a nod.
Ersimmin the pianist had been watching all of this from a few yards further back along the passenger deck. “Preposterous,” he called, walking over. “Your weapon isn’t even white. Ivory, I’d guess. Compare the shade to my own.” He drew his sword.
Pilby’s eyes flicked to the other man’s blade, then back to meet the pianist’s gaze. “Yours is a fake,” he said.
“No,” Ersimmin said, “it isn’t.” He lunged at the smaller man.
Steel clashed.
Pilby foiled one attack, then a second, but the third thrust took him in the neck.
The self-proclaimed First of Cohl’s Shades gurgled once, then crumpled to the deck, his lifeblood pouring out between the fingers now clamped over his throat.
Ersimmin picked up the fallen sword and compared it to his own, examining both weapons closely. Finally he nodded to himself. “His blade is darker. Old Pilby was labouring under a misapprehension.” He slipped a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiped his own sword clean of the other man’s blood. “This business can get confusing, what with so many weapons of a similar luster in circulation. One can never really be sure one has achieved true mastery.”
