Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

If it sounded like madness, so be it. If he had no idea where to start, then he'd find a place. Whatever it took, there had to be a way.

He'd had a long talk with Plome, after their brush with the daemon in his sanctum. The politician was frankly in awe of him by then. Plome was the kind of daemonist who dabbled but never dared too much. Crake represented the man he wished he could be, if only he had the courage. Seeing him master the monster in the echo chamber had made him something of a hero in Plome's eyes.

Crake took advantage of that. He explained his plan. And he secured Plome's promise that he could make use of the politician's sanctum to conduct his experiments in.

'Hang the risks!' Plome had said, flushed with the excitement of their recent encounter. 'I'd be honoured, Crake! Honoured!'

Crake and Frey stood together for a time, neither quite knowing how to end it. Finally, Crake spoke up.

'I need money.'

'Oh?' Frey replied neutrally.

'Plome's agreed to help me out, but it won't be enough. What I'm up to . . . it's expensive business.' He looked over at his captain. 'I believe I played some part in obtaining all that money from Grand Oracle Pomfrey at the Rake table.'

'I'd have won it from him anyway, fair and square,' Frey said stiffly.

'Possibly,' said Crake. 'Or maybe he'd have got up and left with his winnings, too drunk to play on. We'll never know.'

He hated himself for asking. No matter how valid his claim to those ducats, he still felt like a beggar.

'Alright,' Frey said, not without a little bitterness. 'I've already had to shell out for new windglass for the autocannon cupola, but you can take half of what's left. Rot knows, you've earned it in your time on my crew.' He jabbed Crake in the chest with his finger. 'Don't you breathe a word to the others though, or they'll be on me like vultures.'

'I won't,' said Crake.

'Hey, why don't you take the compass?' Frey suggested suddenly. He lifted his hand, to show the silver ring on his little finger. 'It's your device, after all. That way you can come find us, if you change your mind. Just follow the compass back to me.'

Crake smiled. He'd made the ring and compass almost as a joke. Two daemons thralled together, one always pointing toward the other. It was so absurdly simple in comparison to what he'd be attempting.

'And who'll track you down next time you go missing in a Rake den, or in some woman's bed?' he said. 'Better the others keep hold of that.'

Frey looked crestfallen. 'Alright,' he said. 'That's sensible, I suppose.'

'It's just . . . it's something I have to do. I don't know how long it'll take, but . . .'

'I know.'

'I'll leave word at all of your mail drops when I'm finished.'

'Do that'

Frey had closed up. Crake had hurt him.

'Thank you, Cap'n,' Crake said eventually, as if that would salve his feelings.

'Frey,' he said. 'It's just Frey, now.'

There was something terrible and final in that. Crake suddenly wanted to take it all back, to stay on the Ketty Jay with the people he cared about. He wanted to ask for their help, to have them share in his mission. But he couldn't. It would mean telling them what he'd done. Like Jez, he was going to hold on to his secret to the end.

They walked back down the path towards the docks. Despite the warmth of his furs, Crake felt as cold as he'd ever been in his life.

'Another day, another rat-hole,' said Frey with forced cheeriness, as he brought the Ketty Jay in over Hawk Point.

The settlement below had a blank, starved look to it. It was crushed into a mountain pass, deep in the Splinters, blanched by the hot spring sun. Carefully laid rows of buildings betrayed its orderly origins, but it had long since turned ramshackle. Brown strips of withered flowerbeds rotted on the main street. Slates had gone missing from the roofs. Though the town centre still had a ghost of its former pride, the outskirts had decayed into shanties.

Frey had never been here before, but he'd seen its like a hundred times. Another dying outpost, founded on high hopes and promises of freedom, only to end up violence-ridden and destitute. Honest traders came here to escape the cities and the crushing grip of the Guilds, but without Guild bribes the Ducal militia paid it no attention, and soon the criminals took over. Before long, the dreams of the first settlers had fallen into ruin, and they abandoned their failed town to try again elsewhere.

The Coalition Navy traditionally showed little interest in out-of-the-way, insignificant places like Hawk Point. Which made the presence of one of their frigates all the more unusual.

'What are they doing here?' Trinica muttered. She was standing at Frey's shoulder, one hand on the back of the pilot's seat. Jez sat at the navigator's station, behind him. Individually, they made Frey uneasy; together, it was all he could do not to jump whenever one of them spoke.

'Still a wanted woman, Trinica?' he asked.

'Of course. Quite a bounty on my head, last I heard. Though I think they have other matters to worry about right now.'

'You mean all that about the Sammies arming up in the south?'

'Amongst other things.'

'Like their mortal enemies, the Awakeners, trying to steal some terrible doomsday weapon that could possibly destroy vast swathes of Vardia?' Frey suggested.

Trinica ignored the jab. 'I'd be surprised if they knew about that at all.' She watched the frigate turning slowly in the air above the town. Its thrusters glowed, and moments later they heard a low roar that ratded the cockpit.

'Looks like they're heading off,' said Frey.

Trinica tutted. 'I hope they haven't disturbed my contact. He'll be far less agreeable if he's agitated. Not that he's usually very agreeable.'

'Are you sure this feller's any good?' Frey asked.

'The best. When I need information, he's the first one I go to.'

'Really? I know lots of whispermongers, and I never heard of Osric Smult.'

'You wouldn't have,' said Trinica, and left it at that. Frey felt his hackles rising at the slight edge of disdain in her voice.

Calm down , he thought. Don't let her know that she gets to you.

'Wind from the north, Cap'n,' said Jez from behind him. 'You'll get some heavy push on the way in.'

Frey made a grunt of acknowledgement. Jez had been subdued ever since she emerged from the infirmary. She went about her job quietly and with her head down, saying only the bare minimum to fulfil her duties. Frey, for his part, was fine with that. He didn't want to tackle the question of Jez right now. He had enough on his plate.

The problem was, he felt betrayed. A Mane, a damned Mane, here on his aircraft! He'd been hearing tales of those sky-ghouls since he was old enough to fly. He'd never have hired Jez if she'd told him about her condition in advance. Not that he'd have done differently in her shoes, but that was hardly the point.

The point was, she let him care about her. She didn't tell him, and she let him care about her, and then he found out. That was the betrayal.

Not only was she the best navigator he ever had, and utterly invaluable, but he liked her. She was a friend. She was, in fact, Frey's only female friend. For the rest, friendship was just an inconvenient on the way to sex. But he'd felt almost brotherly towards Jez.

Largely it was because she wasn't up to his standards as far as women went, but it was also because he respected her. There weren't many women Frey respected, but Jez was one of them.

He knew there was something off about her, of course he did. But he'd never thought . . . well, not this.