Paul Kearney - The Mark of Ran

Despite his claims, Rol knew that Artimion was not done choosing sides yet. The black man’s face was smiling, but something about it spoke of hidden decisions. Deliberately, he sipped at the wine in his cup. Miriam had set down her musket but had her long fingers about the hilt of a throwing knife at her waist. Rol smiled. If there was one thing he knew well, it was the way of a throwing knife.

And if Canker wanted news of him, then it was because Rowen had bade him seek it.

“Fair enough. But what, then, is my place in the game?” Rol asked equably. “If you will not give me up for this king’s ransom, then you must have something else in mind for me.”

Artimion looked at him quizzically. “I suppose I do. I am offering you the chance to stay here and be a captain. You will help these people around you-you will safeguard Ganesh Ka as I have done these twenty years. Cortishane, you are welcome here.” He smiled again, with no whit of warmth in the gesture. “Is that so hard to understand?”

Of course it was. Who gave away anything without asking something in return-especially someone in power? But Rol nodded nonetheless.

“Excellent. I accept.”

Twenty

I am living in a tower once more, Rol thought. It must be my fate.

There was room and to spare in the city for all, and Rol had chosen his living quarters quite deliberately. They were close to the harbor tunnel but high enough up one of Ganesh Ka’s strange towers to ensure that few would ever feel the need to walk past his door.

Not that he had a door. Grand though the apartments might be in a skeletal, resonating way, they were wholly bare. A flap of deerhide closed his rooms off from the dark passage beyond, whilst a bolster stuffed with heather was his bed. On the mantel of the vast hearth a clay lamp burned smokily, flapping shadows about the naked stone of the walls. There were no other furnishings as yet. Creed had a room one level down but Gallico lived somewhere close to the wharves of the underground waterfront.

“There’s a communal firewood pile near the foot of the next tower,” Creed said, entering with an armload of faggots. “But we can only light fires at night lest the smoke be seen by the Bionese cruisers. It’s coming on to summer anyway.” He dumped his load by the cavernous fireplace and looked about him. “I still think somewhere lower down by Gallico’s rooms would have been better. This place echoes like some lofty tomb.”

“It’s too busy down there, like struggling through a goddamned bazaar,” Rol said irritably, hauling off his boots one by one.

“Anyone would think you were avoiding the common herd, Cortishane,” Creed said, eyes dancing.

“I do my best, but they follow me with piles of firewood.”

“Ah, but we all help out one another here, don’t you know? Some are hunters, others are choppers of wood and haulers of water, whilst at the top of the tree are the mariners, who bring in the little luxuries that make life worth living.”

“Is it what you thought it would be, Elias?”

Creed picked at the bark on a beech log. “I suppose not. But it’s better than Keutta.”

“It seems to me that our friend Artimion’s word is the law about here, and what’s more, he begins to fancy himself a power in the world. He’s mistaken there.”

“How do you know?”

“If I know anything, then-then this rebel queen is only using him as a means to distract her enemies. And how big a distraction can it be? A few lightly gunned privateers who cannot even hope to take on men-of-war in their own backyard. No, Artimion is setting these people up for a fall, Elias.”

Creed stared at him, frowning. “Perhaps he thinks to bargain.”

“I believe he does.”

“With what?”

Rol smiled dourly. “My precious hide. The rebels want it, Artimion has it.”

“You think he would do that?”

“Never trust anyone who has responsibilities beyond his own skin. Anything can be rationalized when it is for the general weal.”

“He said he’d find you a ship.”

“My grandfather once promised me a pony. I believed him, but I was a child then.”

Creed threw his hands up. “So what do we do?”

“ We? Elias, we have come to your journey’s end. I don’t claim any loyalty from you or anyone else.”

“You have it nonetheless.”

“And if I don’t want it?”

Creed’s reply was cut short by a clatter in the passageway, and then ducking in through the doorway and throwing aside the flap came Gallico.

“By God, you hide yourself well, Cortishane. Are you allergic to company?” The halftroll had a large seabag of weathered canvas in his arms. He dumped it on the floor and flexed his scarred arms.

“What’s this?”

“Shipmates must stick together. I’m moving house, taking the rooms opposite Elias.”

Rol stood up. “What is this, a conspiracy? Damn it all, Gallico, if I wanted neighbors I’d have taken a cubbyhole alongside that carnival downstairs. And since when have we been shipmates?”

“I speak metaphorically. I, like you, am without a ship for the moment, and I pick my captains carefully.” He lowered his voice. “Artimion is a good man, but he has many concerns above the heads of the likes of us. I would feel better if Elias and I messed below-that way anyone coming to see you must first get past us.”

Rol held the halftroll’s gaze steadily. “Very well, then. It seems I am to be burdened with the pair of you. We’ll get settled in later.” He bent and began pulling on his boots once more. “Gallico, take us to this much-lauded harbor of yours. I want to see what floats there.”

“Precious little at the moment.”

“Nonetheless. Somehow or other, I intend to find us a ship.”

The stone of the sea cliffs had been hollowed out into nothing less than a warren, though one constructed on a vast scale. A series of ramps led down a gentle incline into the gutrock, the roadway as smooth as a dinner table. They passed a stream of people coming and going, some pushing handcarts laden with timber, others rolling empty casks downhill with a rattling thunder that jabbed at the temples. Rol saw a gang of sweating, cursing men easing a light culverin on its carriage down the slope, and Gallico stepped in to give them a hand as it threatened to slip free of its tackle.

The tunnels opened out into an incredible space, a cavern so large it had its own air currents. Light came in from a series of sea gates, enormous arches cut out of the stone on the far side, each tall enough to admit a fully rigged ship. Long moles of stone extended out into the waters within the place, and tied up at these were half a dozen vessels of various rigs. These moles and the wharves they ran out from were piled high with all manner of cargoes, and crammed with men and women loading and off-loading, provisioning, hauling on dockside cranes, heaving sacks and barrels and generally creating a picture of chaotic industry.

Behind the wharves there were dry docks with spring-loaded doors of stone that seemingly still worked. Around these were clustered scores of shantylike huts of wood and hide warmed by a series of high bonfires. There was a heavy smell of smoke, and Rol saw women manhandling long poles upon which fillets of ablaroni hung brown and brittle. Others were stretching deerskins on wooden frames and scraping them clean and yet more were sewing nets and gutting fish. A layer of rubbish covered the perfect stonework of the place. Fish bones, scraps of rope and wood, discarded lengths of rawhide. The whole place was nothing less than a manufactory for the convenience of ships.

“What’s moored at the moment, Gallico?” Rol asked. “With your head up there you can see better than I.”