“Everyone who saw my face in Morsvale is now dead, save for the smuggler and I doubt he’ll be returning there for a very long time.”
“Not everyone.”
Lizanne found herself gritting her teeth to forestall an unwise reply. She knew this meeting was a milestone in both her career and her relationship with her most cherished mentor, the future of which greatly dependent on what she said next. “I gave assurances to secure the assistance of local resources,” she said, keeping her voice as even and uncoloured by emotion as possible. “A tactic employed in many covert operations. I will attest to the correctness of my actions should the Board require a fuller enquiry. Also, I believe Major Arberus may have more to say about our overriding mission, being so familiar with the Interior and the studies of Burgrave Artonin.”
“And the girl? Is she, perhaps, also an expert in her father’s work?”
Lizanne’s hands were clasped together behind her back and she found herself flexing her fingers over the buttons on the Spider. Captain Flaxknot had generously provided a half-vial of Green as a restorative and she still had a third of it left. “Miss Artonin,” she said, meeting Madame’s gaze and speaking in a deliberately soft tone, “remains under my protection.”
Madame straightened, blinking in either surprise or disappointment. “You were always such a cold child,” she said. “So distant from the other girls. When you went off to join Exceptional Initiatives, I must confess to a certain trepidation as to what I might have unleashed upon the world.”
She returned her gaze to the solargraph, lifting her hands from it with a visible effort. “Take this to Mr. Tollermine. The papers will be copied and distributed to my coterie of experts. Your next trance with Mr. Torcreek is tomorrow, I believe?”
Lizanne waited a moment before replying, searching Madame’s bearing for some sign of continuing threat, then slowly removed her finger from the Spider. “Yes, Madame.”
“Convey to him whatever Mr. Tollermine is able to discern. He’s been busy crafting various deadly devices with which to greet our Corvantine visitors, but that must be set aside now. You will ensure he doesn’t allow himself any distractions.”
“I will, Madame. Major Arberus and Miss Artonin?”
“Keep them with you. I can’t spare anyone to guard them in any case.”
“There is the other issue I raised . . .”
“A Red this far north is certainly unusual.” Madame’s tone held a certain weary note as she turned to her window, arms crossed as she gazed out at the harbour. It was full of merchant vessels unable to sail now the Corvantines held the Strait. The sailors had either volunteered to assist in the city’s defence or were hiding themselves belowdecks to wait out the coming storm. “But, as ever, I find our human enemies a more potent threat.”
“Mr. Torcreek’s last trance communication indicated unusual activity in the Interior, breeds of drake hunting beyond their usual habitats and the Spoiled even more aggressive than usual. I can’t but wonder if it isn’t somehow connected.”
“This continent is dying,” Madame said, her tone absent any particular alarm. “Or rather, the drakes are dying. We have hunted them to the point where their eventual extinction is now inevitable and we are witnessing their death throes. We should consider ourselves privileged, for future generations will come to think of the drakes as the legends of a less-civilised age. Unless, of course, we find the White.”
The White, Lizanne thought. Her every thought circles back to it. The answer to all our ills. “I should make haste to Jermayah’s,” she said, moving to the desk and returning the solargraph to her pack. Madame didn’t turn, merely nodding as Lizanne went to the door, though she did have a few parting words.
“Should the girl or the major prove to have been unworthy of your trust, I assume you retain sufficient stomach to handle the matter in the appropriate manner.”
CHAPTER 26
Clay
The sergeant who greeted Clay’s uncle at the base of the tower was unshaven and hollow-cheeked, pale features concealed beneath a mask of mingled soot and blood, his uniform stained, ripped and charred in numerous places. Nevertheless, he still managed to deliver a respectful, straight-backed salute, the bandage on his hand leaking blood as he did so.
“Since when d’you salute civilians?” Braddon asked him.
“Since they saved my life, sir.” He stepped forward to extend his uninjured hand to Braddon. “Eadsell, Sergeant . . .”
“. . . Seventeenth Light Infantry,” Braddon finished, briefly clasping the man’s hand. “We found your colours back at the fort. I’m bound to say, Sergeant, it don’t seem too dutiful to me. Abandoning your post like that.”
Clay saw Eadsell stiffen a little and cast a hard look back at the tower. “My duty is to follow orders,” he said. “However mad and driven by greed they might be.”
There were only seven soldiers left, all exhausted to the point of near collapse and none without at least one bandaged wound or burn. They stood or sat slumped about the tower’s uppermost tier, regarding the Longrifles with either glassy-eyed exhaustion or sagging relief. An eighth figure rose from a huddled position on the floor as they climbed up the narrow stairwell, a portly, middle-aged fellow in bedraggled civilian clothes and possessed of a certain wild-eyed animation.
“How many in the main body?” he demanded of Braddon, apparently feeling no need to offer a greeting.
“Main body?” Braddon asked.
“The reinforcements,” the man said, his tone rich in petulant insistence. “You are but a vanguard, I assume.”
“No, sir. It’s just us.” Braddon angled his head, looking the man up and down in scrutiny. “And who might you be?”
“This is Dr. Erric Firpike,” Sergeant Eadsell said when the man stiffened into an aggrieved silence. “Contracted Archaeologist to the Consolidated Research Company.” The sergeant’s tone said much for his opinion of the doctor.
“Really?” Braddon said, turning an enquiring eye to Scriberson. “Then I guess you two must be acquainted.”
Clay watched as the young astronomer regarded Firpike with a stern aspect that spoke of recognition mingled with palpable dislike. For his part, Firpike exhibited a distinctly odd agitation at the sight of an apparent colleague. “By reputation only,” Scriberson said in a quiet voice before turning to the sergeant. “What has this man told you?”
“He came down the Falls a few days before all communication ceased with Fallsguard,” the sergeant replied. “Bearing a joint contract between the Ironship Interior Exploration Division and Consolidated Research. He had Protectorate orders compelling our assistance in his mission.”
“Which was?” Braddon asked.
The sergeant gestured at their surroundings, his voice taking on a distinctly bitter note. “This place. A lost city rich in wondrous treasures.”
“Might I see these orders?” Braddon enquired, extending a hand to Firpike. The man looked as if he might object but a glance at the rest of the company soon cured him of any hesitation. “Well, ain’t that pretty,” Braddon said after looking over the sheaf of papers Firpike produced from the folds of his jacket. “Got the company crests just right. See, Skaggs?”
The harvester took the papers and gave a grunt of amused appreciation. “Expensive work. Pity about the signature.”
“Are you saying they’re forged?” the sergeant said, his gaze now fixed on Firpike’s rapidly paling face. The other soldiers began to stir at this, coming to their feet and stepping closer, each one with a rifle in hand. From their expressions, Clay deduced their fondness for the doctor matched that of their sergeant.
“Those orders are signed, stamped and duly witnessed,” Firpike stuttered, taking an involuntary step back before forcing himself to remain still. He had nowhere to run in any case. “I met personally with . . .”
“Mr. Jonnas Greymount,” Brad
don noted, retrieving the papers from Skaggerhill. “Head of Ironship Interior Explorations, signed some six weeks ago, I see. Mr. Greymount was well-known to me. Can’t pretend to being his friend as such, but I did respect him enough to attend his funeral a year and a half ago. Since then, Interior Explorations has been in the hands of Madame Bondersil.” He held up the papers. “Can’t see her name here anywhere.”
“You piece of filth!” Sergeant Eadsell lunged for the doctor, grabbing him and forcing him to the tower’s parapet. “Seventy men dead!” Eadsell grated as his men closed in, a couple raising rifles with fixed bayonets. “All on the promise of lies!”
“I . . . I didn’t force anyone to come,” Firpike protested, voicing a panicky yelp as Eadsell forced him back farther, his head dangling over the parapet. The drop was about fifty feet onto hard stone and, even if he survived it, he had to know there would be no hand lifted to help him. “Your captain could have provided just a small escort . . .”
“You knew, you bastard!” Eadsell shouted, spittle flying as Firpike jerked in his grip. “You knew once that greedy fool heard the word ‘treasure’ he’d do anything to get it.” An angry growl rose from the soldiers, a couple crouching to take hold of Firpike’s legs.
Clay turned to his uncle, speaking quietly, “They keep talking about treasure. And Scribes here had no notion this place existed.”
“We didn’t come for trinkets,” Braddon said.
“Knowledge, Uncle. Knowledge is a treasure.”
He saw Braddon think it over, waiting until the soldiers had begun to tip the doctor over the edge before barking out, “Stop that!”
They took some persuading, but Braddon’s air of authority, not to mention the guns of his Contractors, was enough to compel Firpike’s release. They left him on all fours on the floor, retching with fear.
“Young man,” Braddon said to Scriberson. “Why don’t you tell us what you know about this fella?”
—
The tower had a pit in the centre of its topmost floor with a gap in the ceiling above. It made for a fine fire-place which Clay guessed must have been its original purpose. When night came they huddled round the blaze to hear the astronomer’s story, Foxbine and Preacher posted on the parapet to keep watch on the ruins. Firpike sat a little apart from them, unbound despite Sergeant Eadsell’s protests. “He runs off, he’ll be dead within the hour,” Skaggerhill said. The archaeologist had said nothing since his rescue from the soldiers’ vengeance, sitting with his knees drawn up and face set in a mask of self-pity.
“There’s a figure from history,” Scriberson said. “The man who wrote the account that brought me here, in fact. We don’t know his name, but he has become known as the Mad Artisan in most scholarly circles.”
Clay watched his uncle shrug. “Never been one for history. What’s it gotta do with the charlatan here?”
“Dr., or rather, former Dr. Firpike was one of the most accomplished non-Corvantine authorities on the Artisan. Veteran of several expeditions to the Arradsian Interior and author of three books describing the Artisan’s various wanderings. His principal achievement, however, was the discovery of a design for a mechanical compass, one which worked perfectly when reconstructed.”
“Mechanical compass?” Loriabeth asked with a frown.
“A device that will always point true north without benefit of magnetism. It’s all due to the arrangement and dimension of various cogs. The story goes that the Artisan got lost in the Interior and, lacking a traditional compass, navigated his way home by constructing the device. Though there are those who claim he simply found it, along with most of the other novelties ascribed to him. The invention itself has been lost but Mr. Firpike was able to unearth a design, said to be the work of the Artisan’s own hand. It was the subject of his last book and saw him awarded an honorary doctorate and elevated to the position of Chief Archaeologist to the Consolidated Research Company.”
Braddon spared a glance at Firpike’s huddled form. “Guess it didn’t take.”
“No,” Scriberson said, voice rich in sour judgement. “Other researches into Artisan lore, including some of my own, revealed no corresponding mentions of this device. Unusual given the Artisan’s almost manic love of repeatedly describing his own achievements. However, a journey through the company’s most ancient archives did uncover a Dalcian instrument of remarkably similar design, one that predated the colonisation of Arradsia by at least two centuries.”
Loriabeth gave a wicked chuckle, turning to slap Firpike on the back. “You sly old dog, Doc.”
“Doctor no longer,” Scriberson said, clearly peeved at her appreciation for the charlatan’s ploy. “He was, of course, duly stripped of his doctorate and his contract cancelled. Legal moves were also instituted to recover the lucrative research grants paid to him, whereupon he disappeared, along with the money. In the unlikely event I ever heard of him again, I must confess I expected it to involve a lurid demise in a gambling den or whore-house.”
Clay saw Firpike stir a little, head raised as he muttered a toneless retort. “I was duped by unscrupulous rogues.”
“Rogues who shared your handwriting and could never be found,” Scriberson replied. “How very curious.”
“Alright, Doc,” Braddon said, giving Firpike an insistent nudge. “Time to spill it. What brings you here? And have a care not to give voice to any lies. I got a keen ear for ’em and right now my company is your only ticket back to civilisation.”
Firpike hesitated a long while before shifting himself to face them, his fearful misery still etched into his face, though the prospect of survival did appear to have returned some animation to his voice. “Not all my . . . acquisitions were sourced from forgers,” he began, drawing a disgusted snort from Scriberson, though he ploughed on with only a faint tic of irritation. “The Artisan collected many stories from others who roamed the Interior; Contractors, headhunters and the like, though they were all called hunters in those days. A fragment of one of his collections turned up in a Mandinorian antiquary emporium, though the owner had little idea of its true worth. It related a conversation with a hunter, a fellow seemingly almost as unhinged as the Artisan himself. His company had been engaged in hunting aquatic Greens on Krystaline Lake but had contrived to snare an overly large and aggressive specimen which overturned their boats and left them stranded on the shore, minus several unfortunates who became a meal for their erstwhile prey. Weeks of wandering the jungle saw them beset by Spoiled and Greens alike, until a lone survivor happened upon a city.” Firpike paused to raise his arms in a weak, almost dismissive gesture at their surroundings. When he spoke again his voice had taken on a bitter tone, the tone Clay recognised from gamblers who threw everything into the pot on a sure-fire hand only to see it vanish to a better one. “A city rich in all manner of treasure, there for the taking.”
“So,” Braddon said, “you thought a little jaunt out here would restore your fortunes.” He glanced at the grim-faced soldiers on the other side of the fire. “And got these poor bastards to come along as insurance.”
Firpike gave a small shrug. “Their commanding officer was a . . . pragmatic man.”
“Now a dead one,” Clay pointed out, deciding he didn’t much like Mr. Firpike. It was plain in the faintly self-satisfied cadence of his voice and the aggrieved victimhood in his face: a man who cared nothing for the lives lost in pursuit of his dream of regained eminence. “So where is it?” he asked. “This great treasure.”
“For obvious reasons,” Firpike replied in a tone that did nothing to improve Clay’s opinion of him, “a fulsome investigation of the ruins has not yet been possible.”
“More’s to the point,” Braddon said. “What exactly is it? There’s all kinds of treasure.”
“The Artisan’s account was vague in regards to that,” Firpike said. “However, if his other writings are anything to go by, it will certainly be worth fi
nding.” He paused, neck constricting as he swallowed and gathered some fortitude for his next words. “However, I can assure you it won’t be found without my assistance. I have memorised the Artisan’s account and no copies will be found on my person. Your assistance in fulfilling my mission will, of course, entail a substantial reward . . .”
He trailed off as the Contractors all broke into laughter, save for Preacher, who kept his gaze on the ruins. Seemingly, Firpike’s tale held no interest for him. Clay had also noted that he hadn’t said a single word since his outburst on the lake-shore.
“I’ll make you a counter-offer, Doc,” Braddon said to Firpike, now sunk into guarded sullenness by their amusement. “We’ll tarry a day to search for this wondrous prize of yours, and if we find it we let these here soldiers decide who gets what. Seems the fairest outcome, all things considered.”
—
The vastness of the city became clear during their initial survey the next morning. Braddon forbade any division in their strength and they moved as a crowd, sweeping first north then south to find the edge of the ruins. It soon became clear that the buildings they had encountered so far were but a small part of a much larger whole, most of it so overgrown as to be near invisible amidst the thick jungle. However, now they could recognise the various forms of the city’s architecture, the vine-encrusted towers and houses became obvious landmarks amongst the trees.
“Must go on for miles and miles,” Skaggerhill said. “We’d have to hack our way into every building.”
“How did this get missed for so long?” Clay wondered. “I mean Contractors have hunted here before, right?”
“Not so often as elsewhere. The lake’s always been a tricky place to get to. Besides, those that do make it here ain’t looking for no lost city, especially when it’s damn near claimed by the jungle. Another year or two and this place would’ve been hidden for good.”