Stephen Hunt - From the Deep of the Dark

‘The Advocacy is not used to this,’ said the commodore in a coughing chortle of mischief. ‘They’ve had mastery of the mortal deeps for so long they’ve forgotten what it’s like to have their noses tweaked. I have the feeling they don’t much care for it.’

‘Lishtiken has never been attacked,’ said Maeva. ‘Not in my memory. The Temple of Judgements is over there. If we meet anyone who questions our presence, tell them we’re with your sister’s people. You can still pretend to be a royalist can’t you, Jared?’

‘I’ve spent most my life pretending not to be one; the reverse won’t be any harder.’

Charlotte slipped into her old familiar routine. Just another theft from the rich and powerful. Something she needed to do. Not to alleviate her poverty this time; an extra layer to the blanket of wealth she used to keep the desolation at bay, all her fears of being abandoned with no one willing to help her. Her commission was stealing one of the enemy’s darkships. A way to transport her into the monsters’ lair. She could hardly enjoy her life if every iota of her blood was sucked out to satisfy some horde of fish-scaled monsters, could she? The sea-bishops had immense power. They were greedy beyond avarice, and like so many back home, they had tried to use Charlotte, then discard her. Arrogant. Selfish. Calculating. They were overdue for a fall and who better to humble them than Charlotte Shades, Mistress of Mesmerism?

The raiding party kept to the lower levels of the city, as Maeva led them through the shadows of the gem-like towers, a maze of pipes and gantries, exotically coloured seaweed clinging to any stretch of seabed not built over. At one point, the nomad woman led them on a diversion to skirt an access station for the transport tubes sending gill-necks to far-off sectors of the city. The way ahead was thronged with locals trying to get into the heavily overcrowded transport system; to travel home and check their families were safe from the raiders. Squadrons of armed and armoured gill-necks manoeuvred past, soldiers riding something Charlotte hadn’t seen before. Massive squid-like creatures, rubbery flesh saddled with a single rider above stabilising fins; flashes of sinuous skin and quivering tentacles as the squadron propelled past.

‘Monitors, lass,’ said the commodore, keeping low on the seabed next to Charlotte as he watched them flash down the gap between the towers. ‘Same as our Kingdom constabulary.’

‘They are stabled at the Temple of Judgements,’ said Maeva, sounding pleased. ‘Fewer of them for us to bluff our way past.’

Shaped like a crown rising majestically out of the surrounding buildings, the Temple of Judgements reached up as grand as any palace. Charlotte ran her eyes over the fortress-sized structure as she squeezed out of a narrow passage. Dozen of crystalline towers climbed out of a central wheel structure, points on its coronet circled by spirals of pearl-white bubble-buildings, each wreath set among a helix of winding arches.

‘Can you still feel the darkships inside there?’ asked the commodore. There was a tone to the old u-boat man’s voice that made Charlotte suspect he would have been relieved if she said no.

Charlotte pointed to the side of the Temple of Judgements, near the seabed where the red crystal wall sloped dotted with tunnel entrances. ‘They are inside those passages.’

‘U-boat pens,’ said Maeva. ‘They’ll be mostly empty by now. Anything with torpedo tubes will be out chasing our warriors.’

‘They won’t have sent the darkships, not yet,’ said Charlotte. That wasn’t the sea-bishop way. They might send their forces to tip the balance, but why risk their precious lives when they commanded so many expendable cattle to exhaust first? ‘I can sense at least two vessels inside.’

Elizica was worryingly silent on the matter. Yes, because I’m doing such a good job by myself.

Charlotte gazed up at the waters above the city. Was it her imagination, or were the flashes of fighting at the margins of the capital growing less frequent now? Savages against the well-defended heart of the Advocacy’s hegemony, how long had she expected the nomads’ war party to be able to mount a diversion? Charlotte singled out an entrance down which she sensed the darkships lurking and they quickly crossed the open plaza to the temple.

Inside the tunnel entrance, the water was dark and still. They only took a minute to swim along the smooth crystal surfaces. As the light inside the submersible pen began to brighten the water, Charlotte realized the sloping tunnel floor was clear of liquid before them. ‘There’s air ahead of us.’

‘Always better to do repairs on your blessed boat out of the sea when you can,’ said the commodore. ‘Welding is welding.’

‘The oxygen will be enough to keep the casually inclined away from their pens,’ said Maeva. ‘Our ride is topside?’

‘Let’s see.’

Breaking the surface of the tunnel alongside her two companions, Charlotte found herself in an oblong chamber, a crystalline ramp with multiple launch rails running across its floor. A couple of open-to-water gill-neck craft hung from gantries above, and at the back of the pen, a pair of black oily-hulled darkships skulked. Two massive malevolent stingrays — they appeared to be steaming in the air, as if their presence was enough to make the very substance of the world crawl. Arches at the rear of the chamber led deeper into the Temple of Judgement, sealed with glass doors — but of crew, engineers and temple staff there was no sign. The three of them walked cautiously up the incline, pushing the visors of their diving helmets up into their helms. Disconnecting the voice line that tethered the three of them together, they pulled out shock spears and crept up alongside the launch rails, dripping water down onto the hangar floor.

‘Why do I feel like a mouse, lass?’ whispered the commodore. ‘Creeping up on a piece of cheese dangling from a bait clasp?’

Charlotte craned her neck, looking for any signs of movement in the dock. ‘That’s the point of the assault. Any sea-bishops masquerading as Advocacy commanders inside the temple will be overwhelmed by officials pestering them for orders on how to defend the city.’

Charlotte approached the alien black mass of the ships. It was as if the substance that formed them was alive, throbbing with dark intent.

‘How many can one of these evil boats carry?’ asked the commodore.

‘Two pilots. Up to ten passengers,’ said Charlotte. At least, that’s how Elizica remembers it. ‘Enough to hold the three of us.’

The commodore appeared as though he’d been hoping for a smaller capacity — perhaps one less than his number. ‘Two craft to choose from, but we need to name them for luck. The one on the left we’ll call the Revenue Man’s Soul — for it’s a fact well known that they have none — and the one on the right should be the Witch of Jackals, for it’s her dark magic we must rely on to survive diving to thirty-six thousand feet. Which one of the terrible pair are we to seize?’

‘I’ll take a witch over the office of tax,’ said Charlotte. She approached the craft on the right and touched the crystal under her diving suit. A circular port irised open in the darkship’s hull and a ramp extruded like a lolling tongue. One foot on the ramp and Charlotte was punched backward by a weight wrapping her with a murderous constriction, then she was falling down to the dock. She managed a single surprised croak before a blaze of agony burned across every nerve she possessed. As Charlotte tumbled, she saw Maeva weaving around, her shock-spear blazing erratic bolts of energy towards the craft behind them, loosing bolts even as her body jerked and lurched, spouting blood off her diving suit in a hail of rifle balls; falling, shooting, falling, shooting. Charlotte hit the chamber’s floor as a dead weight, exhaling and gagging, the strangling netting repaying her every movement with sparking pain. Laid out across the hanger, Charlotte’s eyes twisted up, the one thing she could still move without being lashed by the cruel embrace of the capture net. A lock had opened in the craft behind them, spilling sailors with guns — Jackelians by the look of them, the ancient royalist arms of the Kingdom sitting on their Jack Tar hats.