Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

The Insect had gone; no way was I going to follow it into the drain. In the confined space it would rip my throat out before I could even see it. I waited, on guard, feeling my pulse pounding in my neck. It quickly returned to normal but my temples hurt. I coughed a mouthful of frothy spit into the gray water and watched it flow into the sea.

Insects are at home underground and are not disadvantaged by the dark. When culling them in the Paperlands, the least popular operation is the task of channeling river water into their tunnels in order to collapse the deep, honeycombed structures. Fires are also lit on platforms at the tunnel mouths to draw air out and suffocate them, but Insects between the sizes of men and carthorses still burst forth to attack at full speed. I hated natural caves let alone Insect burrows and slimy sewers. If I went in there I would never come out. With terrible images playing in my mind, I loped back to the Stormy Petrel, past the merchant’s bloated, half-eaten body with its ripped-open smock and Danio, headless, lying in a congealed red spray.

Lightning looked down from the Petrel’s highest deck, the back of the stern castle, an arrow at string, and wearing only trousers. Fulmer clutched the rope rail beside him. Mist’s face peered out of an open window in the array directly beneath his feet.

The surviving sailors on the Melowne clung to her rigging. Wrenn was a tiny figure down at the waterline, steadily climbing a ladder of metal brackets up the rounded hull. His short hair was flattened; water dripped from his bedraggled wings. His feathers were completely tattered, split and peeled back to the shaft. His arse crack and leg hairs showed through his soaked white shorts.

“What happened?” Lightning shouted at me. He leaned over so far that I thought the arrows would slip out of the quiver on his back. “Was that our Insect? Where’s Serein? Damn him, damn you! What were you bloody doing, perforating it?”

Mist yelled, “Did it just get those three Trisians? How many of mine?”

Fulmer gabbled, “Serein woke me up. I saw it massacre the sailors on the orlop. Master Mariner, I’m sorry. Serein said he would hold it off and took his rapier but it’s no good against shell.”

Mist turned away abruptly and hurried out of view. A moment later she strode onto the main deck, staring around at the devastation on the quay. The wounded teenager had stopped crawling; I hoped he was just unconscious, rather than slain. The traders’ goods were abandoned. The quayside was deserted by the living, but three or four faces crowded every open window and behind the bronze palings of all the waterfront houses, watching us with shock and outright terror.

“You didn’t kill it!” Lightning raved.

I retied my sarong. “I should have caught it, but it plunged down a drain. I wounded it and so did Serein, with his rapier. Stupid town swords. Fucking constables’ swords. The idiot didn’t have the right gear. It carried his rapier away! You-We must get archers to the tunnel as soon as possible. I need to know if it’s trapped, so you can shoot it.”

“And if it’s escaped to the town?” Fulmer whispered.

Mist shouted, “Captain, to your ship! Why were all the grids open? I’ll want to know! We can’t discuss this outside,” she added sotto voce to me. “Jant, speak to the Capharnai. Don’t let them carry off their dead without an explanation. As soon as you can, meet us in the Melowne ’s hold.”

Typically, I had the most difficult job. While I waited on the corniche to be confronted by furious islanders, the other Eszai disappeared into the hold, and from their exclamations I learned that it was also strewn with carnage. I was very aware how alien I looked, wearing a sheet and with my long wings uncovered.

On the Melowne ’s main deck the dismembered remains of six or seven men lay scattered, their limbs snipped at the joints and bodies gutted. The quartermaster’s body drooped through the hatchway. Following Mist’s orders, the sailors carried them to the land and lined them up by the anchor ready for burial because in a few hours’ time the morning heat would be appalling.

Step by step, a group of Capharnai merchants approached me, finding courage in numbers. I spread my hands down in the peace gesture and they seemed to understand. The first one, with an expression of awe and distrust, opened his arms like wings. I explained why I was the only man ever to fly, and told them it was nothing to be superstitious about. I repeated apologies as best I could and instructed them to wait in their homes and keep their children inside. Over the hiss of indrawn breath I continued-they should wait for word from the Senate that the Insect was dead. I asked them to bring down one or two goats for me to tether outside the sewer entrance and tempt the Insect out, but I suspected it was too replete for the trick to work.

I found myself talking over the wails and reproaches of families who had come to claim the Trisian merchant, the fainting teenager and Danio. I repeated that it was an accident and I clasped my hands and knelt, begging them to treat us kindly. When they saw that I couldn’t meet their eyes, they understood my sincerity but they were chary. News spread up the town, causing a commotion and banging on doors, until it reached the Amarot and a deliberative silence descended.

Frightened, I retreated to the Melowne ’s hold. “I did my best,” I said.

“We believe you,” said Lightning. “This disaster makes us all feel inadequate; it’s far from the work we’re accustomed to. Please attend to Serein and we’ll consider what to do.”

Lightning had found a young Trisian man lying halfway down the ship, his lower face torn off. He returned to inspecting the victim. Behind us the buckled door of the empty Insect cage creaked as Mist opened and shut it again and again.

Wrenn sat on a packing case that now held cardamom seeds instead of arrows. I cleaned his grazes. I slapped on some comfrey ointment and tied gauze around his shoulder. His crenated wings slipped open like damp fans; his adrenaline high was fading. His shorts stuck to his stocky thighs and blood had dried on his bicep; he was peeling it off in tiny flakes. Grim determination was vicious in his face. “Is this mine?” he said muzzily. “It’s all right. I don’t think it’s mine.”

I said, “Yes, it is, but your scratches are superficial. Keep them clean and go easy for a few days. We can succumb to infection and serious disease as readily as mortals. In fact I can tell you quite a few examples of Eszai who’ve died from dusty wounds.”

“No, thanks.”

“Unfortunately it won’t heal any faster, but the Circle will catch you and stop you being killed outright by little lesions and contusions.”

“Hey-what an advantage for fencing.”

I looked at him sternly. “The only Eszai who survive centuries are those who know they’re not indestructible. Zascai are relying on you not to get cut up.”

Wrenn lowered his gaze. “I know; I was just keeping it at bay.”

“No one can slay Insects with a rapier,” I admonished. “How many years has the Castle spent trying to develop the perfect weapon and now you try to use a dueling foil ?”

Wrenn winced. “I managed it once in the amphitheater. My rapier was all I had to hand-Mist’s sold every single broadsword on the ship and I gave mine to Danio. But you didn’t do any better with your skier’s axe. Ouch! Jant, have a care! I know I need experience. It was the biggest, toughest fucking Insect I’ve ever faced. And I failed; I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t catch it,” I said.

Mist slammed the cage door. “Jant, you showed the whole town that you can fly. We agreed to keep it a secret.”