For a girl who grew up on the docks, I haven’t spent very much time in boats. My gaze was always landward, to the walled wards of Kahnzoka rising tier after tier on the hill. The sailors who flooded in and out of the harborside taverns and restaurants were a crude lot, and they’d only interested me when I could relieve them of their coin.
Now, as I leave Kahnzoka probably for good, I find myself regretting not spending more time out on the water. The city, my city, which had always reminded me of nothing so much as a bloated animal corpse teeming with ants, has a certain beauty to it from the harbor at night. Lights march up the slope of the great hill, marking the ward walls in a regular grid, while smaller lamps are scattered between them like earthbound stars. Along the docks, the lanterns twinkle as they’re eclipsed by the forest of masts.
There are six Immortals in the boat with me, four rowing and two keeping watch. It’s just possible I could escape. I can swim, and the harbor is calm. I could probably surprise the guards, kill one of them, jump overboard, and hope they can’t find me in the dark. But then I’d be racing them to shore, betting that I can pull myself out of the harbor and get to the Second Ward to grab Tori before word gets back to Naga. No chance.
Naga’s “take control of the ship” scheme is obviously crazy. But he’s given me a year. All I need to do is find a way off Soliton before then and return to Kahnzoka without him finding out about it. Then I’ll extract Tori and disappear. I have contacts, money salted away, favors owing. I can beat him.
Assuming I can get off the ship. Assuming I survive the first few hours on the ship, that it isn’t some monster out of legend that devours its sacrifices whole.
Even in summer, it’s cold out on the water. I shiver and wish this were over with.
The farther out we go, the more the fog closes in. The lights of the city are a vague blur behind us now, and the stars overhead are invisible. Even the steady splash of the oars is muffled, like we were wrapped in an enormous blanket. There’s no longer any sense of movement, as though time has been suspended. I wonder if this is what oblivion is like, the non-life that waits for the wicked after they die. Just endless nothing, alone in the darkness forever.
I’m not alone, though. The head Immortal, a slim woman under the black armor and chain-link mask, sits ahead of me and concentrates. It would be hard to see in daylight, but there are lines of power around her head, faint streams of yellow energy circling her in constant, liquid motion. Yellow is Sahzim power, the Well of Perception. She mutters to the other guard, at the tiller, directing our course with her enhanced senses. I wonder what she sees.
It takes me a moment to realize we’ve reached our destination. There are no lights, no shouted greetings. Just a dark wall rising out of the water in front of us, as though we’ve come to the edge of the world. The oarsmen turn our little boat, bringing it side-on to the barrier, which extends upward and in both directions as far as the lantern’s light reaches.
The head Immortal reaches out and slams her fist against the wall. It makes a hollow, metallic sound, like a gong. I wonder if Naga was lying to me all along, because this can’t be a ship. It’s too big, too dark, and it sounds like it’s made out of metal. You can’t make a ship out of metal; metal’s heavy. It would sink, right?
The term “ghost ship,” which I’d used so blithely a few hours ago, comes back to me. I shiver again.
For a while, there’s silence. Then a demonic screech echoes down through the fog, like some enormous bird of prey. It’s followed by a rattle of chains. I picture an army of the damned, bound and fettered with spectral steel, descending—
There are no ghosts, I tell myself. Dead is dead.
What finally lurches into view is a cage, lowered on a rusty iron chain. It comes down a bit astern of us, stopping a few feet above the water. The oarsmen push our little boat up beside it, and I can see that the door is open. It’s big enough for three or four people to sit in, though not tall enough for them to stand. Thick, rusty iron bars are spaced only a few inches apart.
“Get in,” the head Immortal says to me. Her voice is harsh, flat. It’s the first she’s spoken.
Last chance for a daring escape. But all six of them are looking at me now. I get to my feet, unsteady on the shifting deck, and take hold of the bars of the cage. It sways under my weight. I lift myself in, carefully, the cage rocking and squeaking on its chain. The head Immortal shuts the door and throws an iron bolt, then slams her hand against the vertical wall again with a boom. A moment later, the screech is repeated, and the cage begins to rise.
My heart starts to race, and I wonder if I’ve made a horrible mistake. Maybe I should have taken that last chance, however thin it might be.
I wait, sitting in the center of the cage, trying not to move, since every shift of my weight sets it swinging. The boat below me grows smaller, its lantern a single speck of light, and then it disappears into the fog. Total darkness envelops me, but I can hear the rattling of the chain, and feel the lurch in my stomach that means I’m still moving upward.
Finally, there’s a hint of light. It’s a gray, rotten light, not torchlight or a lantern. I can see a sharp edge, the top of the endless wall of darkness. Along the edge of the wall are figures, enormous things made of pale rock. The Jyashtani build statues to their heathen gods, humans with the heads of animals, but these are more like creatures out of some horrible nightmare. The closest one has a roughly equine body, with six legs all of different sizes and shapes. One wing emerges from its back, twisted and misshapen, and the head sitting on its thick neck looks almost human, but distended by an enormous bird’s beak. The one beside it looks like a snake with human arms and legs emerging from its body at random.
And running over all of them is a gray light, a faint miasma that surrounds them completely. It shifts and swirls like part of the fog. It has to be magical energy, but it looks like nothing I’ve ever seen. The cage keeps rising, passing above the twisted creatures, and looking down I can see a line of them stretching off into the dark.
There’s a sound, too. A susurrus of voices, down at the edge of hearing, mostly covered by the rattle and screech of the rusty chain. When it stops, though, just for a moment, I can hear them.
—“kill me kill her kill me kill her—”
—“around and around, push push push, one more time—”
—“make it stop; oh please make it stop—”
—“skin left on the bones—”
—“my baby you can’t have her; she’s mine to eat—”
“Blessed One.” I haven’t had much use for prayer in my life. But now I squeeze my eyes shut and beg. “Blessed One and all the heavenly hosts.”
Another screech, thankfully banishing the voices. The cage swings sideways, and I open my eyes in time to see the edge pass underneath me. I’m over a flat surface, now, what I can only assume is the deck of the ship, though it looks like more metal. At the edge of my vision, the gray lights swirl, and something moves. Something big. My heart hammers.
Then there’s darkness below me again. An opening in the deck, ragged edged, like a wound. The cage descends with another screech, the hideous statues passing out of sight. There are walls all around me, now, and I realize I’m being lowered into a pit.
* * *
The bottom of the pit is lit by actual lanterns, their wan glow welcome after the weird gray half-light. I can see dim shapes around the edges, crouching in the shadows. The cage comes to a halt about a foot above the deck, swinging slowly back and forth and spinning on its chain. I look around and guess there are a half-dozen people, but none of them seem to want to get close.
“Someone let the lakath out!” a voice shouts, from above me. It’s a man’s voice with a heavy accent I can’t place. As the cage spins, I see one shape detach itself from the wall and come toward me. A young woman, about my age, with very dark skin and tightly braided hair. Her eyes are wide with fear, but she comes forward with slow, deliberate steps, and grabs the cage to stop its spinning. She struggles for a moment with the rusty bolt, then gets it free, and the cage door swings open with a squeal. The woman takes several quick steps back, with the air of someone who has just unleashed a wild beast.
I edge out of the cage and take a deep breath as soon as I’m standing on solid ground. My stomach lurches a little before settling down. It’s hard to believe that I’m on a ship—the metal deck under my feet feels steady as bedrock. I wonder, again, if Naga has played some kind of trick on me.