Stephen Hunt - From the Deep of the Dark

‘You shall be king!’ roared the creature.

‘I had a strange dream the last night I spent with the nomads of the sea,’ said the commodore. ‘I was on a station platform in the centre of town, waiting for a capsule with all the clackers and clerks to take me home, when I saw my father. He’s been dead for years, of course. Which is why I was so pleased to see him. We talked for hours about all the things we’d been doing, catching up, his life and mine. Ah, it was good to see him again, after all this time.’

‘What are you prattling about, animal?’ bellowed the sea-bishop. ‘Turn us around. Take us back through the portal!’

‘What am I talking about, you wobble-headed, blood-drinking, black-hearted bastard? It’s time for me to move along the Circle. But here’s the thing… you pack of jiggers are going first!’

Slamming his hand on the controls, the commodore sealed the portal behind him and killed the engines, their seed-city hurtling towards a hundred thousand identical cities closing in on them down a narrow thread of probability that shouldn’t exist. And then, in a searing noiseless explosion beyond even the power of the sun’s last gasp, it didn’t.

Lord Donaldson warmed his hands in the pockets of his overcoat as he waited for the door of the luxurious shopfront to be opened. His coat contained little rubber capillaries that circulated hot water from a heating stone secreted in its false lining, a fact for which he was grateful as the winter wind bit against his young six-foot frame.

‘Is this really necessary?’ he asked his manservant, Fisher.

‘Do you mean the procurement of a gem for your engagement ring, sir?’ said Fisher. ‘I rather think Lady Amanda will be expecting one.’

‘I mean all this,’ said his lordship, pointing to the transaction-engine drum turning in its armoured lock, processing their calling card with a rumble of suspicious clicks and clacks. No doubt cross-referencing their bona fides with the shop’s appointment book. ‘All this blasted security? Isn’t it more normal to go direct to a jeweller and leave the sourcing of one’s gem to the tradesman?’

‘Indeed, sir, indeed. Unfortunately, Lady Amanda has been very specific with her requirements. And this boutique doesn’t deal directly with jewellers. Those of quality who wish to buy must present themselves in person. It is something of an exclusive establishment.’

Their calling card accepted, the armoured portal began to vibrate as very large bolts began to slide back automatically.

‘I’m afraid the nature of the prices will serve to underline the nature of this exclusivity,’ explained the manservant. ‘And I should warn you, the proprietor is somewhat prickly. She threw out the Baroness Peery last week over some misunderstanding. A very slight matter indeed. I heard it from her chauffeur.’

‘How droll. I can see why Lady Amanda is attracted to such a place.’ Lord Donaldson sounded bored. But then, wasn’t this what having obscene amounts of family money was meant for? Smoothing out all such tiresome obstructions to his whims and humours?

Passing through the vaulted corridor, grilles and doors retracted, the pair entered a large airy sales room of polished black marble floors and solid oak display cases arranged so the glass tops caught the light from high above. Fisher nodded to staff dressed as footmen, standing sentry-still by a rectangle of Doric columns towards the room’s centre. Guards, obviously, but not dressed as such, lest the fairer sex be put into a faint by their intimidating presence. The contents of the row of cases did not shame the opulence of their surroundings — colours and shapes and cuts quite unlike anything to be glimpsed in the dozens of jewellers lining the fashionable street beyond.

‘This,’ Fisher announced, ‘is my Lord Donaldson.’

Lord Donaldson noticed a cloaked female figure emerging from behind one of the columns. ‘A rare collection, damson. We should start with your most precious gem first, so her ladyship may feel this afternoon’s work not better done with her presence, which would, I believe, be unlucky.’

‘If you place stock in such things,’ said the proprietor. ‘I am afraid my most precious gem was lost some time ago. But I am sure I have many here that will suit.’

Lord Donaldson peered in closer at the case. Some of the gems actually seemed to have been whittled as though they were ivory in a bored sailor’s hands. Tiny crabs the size of fingernails, formed as effortlessly as they had been poured from liquid diamond. ‘I must admit, I have never seen their like before. May I inquire as to their provenance?’

‘The seanore,’ said the proprietor. ‘The nomads of the underwater world.’

Lord Donaldson licked his lips appreciatively. ‘Incredible. I understood those devils would skin an air breather as soon as look at them?’

‘They do try, every now and then,’ said the proprietor, removing a tray of intricately shaped gems from under glass. ‘But a few of them hold me with a little more fondness than is usual between surface dwellers and the underwater clans. From what Mister Fisher has told me of your fiancee, something from this collection might suit?’

Lord Donaldson had to stop himself from wincing when Fisher discreetly slipped him the price list, with her ladyship’s preferences circled in appropriately red ink. Yes, he could see why Lady Amanda liked this place. His eyes settled on the establishment’s name engraved in gold leaf on the marble wall. One word, resonant of all the compressed exclusivity and mystique that surrounded this shop: Shades.

The female proprietor lightly brushed the velvet cushion holding the gems, then winked at him. ‘Don’t worry, your lordship, for a piece that will grace the hand of the fair lady who is to unite the third and fourth greatest families in the Kingdom, why, it’s a steal.’

Lord Donaldson sighed. To let his manservant lure him into this palace of licensed larceny… someone must have hypnotized him into coming along in person.

Jethro Daunt pushed his way through the dense bush as quietly as he could, disturbing the man-sized leaves far less than he was provoking the plagues of biting insects rising out of the dripping green foliage. There seemed a man’s weight of bugs waiting with every step the ex-parson took across the Concorzian colonies. Not that Boxiron was bothered. The black buzzing things could crawl across his shining steel chest without a twinge of visible discomfort from the steamman.

Climbing far faster — and stealthier — than Jethro could, Boxiron had already gained the rise. He was lying down examining the vista below with only the gentle clicking of his vision plate to indicate he was counting the spears and dart-guns ranged against the pair of them.

‘It would seem the aborigine you bribed is reliable,’ said Boxiron.

‘Quite so,’ said Jethro, unclipping the telescope from his belt and extending it out for a better look. If the informer had been untrustworthy, then their friends wouldn’t be in the clearing at the bottom of the hill, staked out against wooden posts. Daunt adjusted the telescope’s magnification. Yes, there was Molly, Coppertracks and Professor Harsh, all tied up along with the survivors among their guides. The aborigines — man-sized grasshopper things — were dancing around their prisoners, lashing their own bodies in acts of self-flagellation. Music was echoing out of the ruined city behind the Jackelians, eerie piercing notes that put Daunt in mind of sawing wood. The beat’s tempo was accelerating, no doubt quickening right up to the point when the piled wood under their friend’s feet would be torched and the feasting begin.

‘There are a lot of warriors down there, old steamer.’