There is a disturbance in the current a few dozen feet out: the surface of the water is rippled where it ought to be smooth. She squints, and sees something down below….
Something white. Something wide and smooth and pale, just below the surface of the water. As the Hjemdal cruises by she spies the faint outline of an aperture in this white surface below the water—a long, thin gap, pointed at the top and flat at the bottom. As they near she sees molding lining the gap, and a shutter hanging off of one ancient, rusted hinge.
Then she understands: It’s a window.
“That…That was a building,” she says aloud, looking back. “There was…There was a building under the water back there.”
“Welcome to old Voortyashtan,” the captain says with false cheer, waving at the mouth of the Solda. “Though you can’t see much of it these days. It’s moved, y’see, about three hundred feet. Vertically, straight down.” He grins and laughs wickedly.
“It’s underwater?” she asks. “Wait…The wreckage that’s blocking the Solda is the city itself? How have I never heard of this?”
“Because someone would have to survive to tell you,” he says. “This here bay is practically a minefield, ma’am—hence why we won’t be going much farther—and once you make it ashore, and you’re among those wild Continentals, why…I’m not sure if your odds improve any.” He stops when he spies a small cutter making its way through the forest of cranes. “Ah, here’s your escort, ma’am. I’ve no doubt you and them’ll have plenty to chat about.”
***
The cutter zips across the bay, ripped back and forth by the howling winds. Mulaghesh shields her eyes from the gales as they draw close. The area’s not totally bereft of civilization, she sees: farther down the west coast stands a tall, beautiful lighthouse, its slow, revolving beam lancing out to dance over the waters. Beside it is a large, colorful wood-and-stone structure that feels very out of place amid dark, dreary Voortyashtan. Large banners festoon the stairs leading up to it, each embroidered with the letters “SDC.”
“They’re certainly setting up shop, aren’t they,” mutters Mulaghesh.
The cutter pulls up to a pier just east of the lighthouse, which is deserted except for one person, who stands at its end with a flick of glowing cigarette ash suspended in their shadow. Besides this, all she can spy is their thick, sealskin coat with its hood up, wrapped tight about their face.
Mulaghesh awkwardly descends the rope ladder to the pier, forced to compensate for her false hand. The figure at the end of the pier waves to her.
She remembers what Pitry said as the Hjemdal shipped out: We’ve secured you a source, who will contact you when you arrive.
She asked: Who is it?
The best possible resource, the chief technology officer of the whole of SDC. They should know absolutely everything about what’s going on in Voortyashtan. Though now that she thinks about it, Mulaghesh realizes he never actually told her the CTO’s name.
Mulaghesh walks down the pier, her bag slung across her shoulders. “Are you here for me?” she shouts to the figure.
The figure just waves again. As Mulaghesh comes closer she sees another SDC badge on their breast, though this is of a bright yellow color with a gear insignia below, suggesting something different.
“Thank you for meeting me here,” says Mulaghesh as she approaches. “But it won’t mean much if I drown to death in this rai—”
She stops as the figure pushes back their hood.
She expected to see some dour, red-faced, glowering Dreyling, a foreman or dockworker with an abundance of scars and burst blood vessels and a receding hairline. What she did not expect to see is an intimidatingly beautiful Dreyling woman in her mid-thirties, with high cheekbones, bright blond hair, and glacial blue eyes set behind a pair of austere spectacles. She’s tall, over six feet, which means she towers over Mulaghesh. The woman takes a massive drag from her cigarette, flicks it into the sea—it sizzles angrily, begrudging its abandonment—and smiles at Mulaghesh.
And Mulaghesh sees many things in that smile. She sees charm, wit, and a roiling sea of cleverness; she sees a sharp, diamond-hard attention, recording everything that’s witnessed; but what Mulaghesh sees most in that broad, white smile is an unshakable, concrete confidence that its owner is at any given moment the smartest person in the room.
The woman says, “Welcome, General, to the polis of Voortyashtan. I hope our crew treated you well?”
Mulaghesh stares into the woman’s face. There is something familiar about her that she can’t quite place….
In her mind, Mulaghesh removes one of the young woman’s eyes, adds a brutal latticework of scars, and replaces her charming smile with a look of implacable, lethal menace.
“By all the hells,” says Mulaghesh. “If you’re not the kin of Sigrud je Harkvaldsson, then I am a dead fucking dog.”
The charming smile evaporates. The young woman looks at Mulaghesh, astonished, but instantly recovers: she gives a delighted laugh, though her eyes can’t quite match it.
“You have a head for faces, General!” she says. “You are correct. I am Signe Harkvaldsson, chief technology officer of the Southern Dreyling Company. And you, of course, would be the famous general Turyin Mulaghesh.”
“If you say so. You know, I feel like someone could have told me it’d be Sigrud’s daughter I was meeting here. Why couldn’t they get me someone at the military base?”
“Because that’s where Sumitra Choudhry disappeared from,” says Signe coolly. “And I don’t particularly think your minister trusts everyone there right now.”
Mulaghesh glances over her shoulder. “Why don’t we find someplace else to discuss this?”
“Certainly. I’ve arranged for you to stay with us at the SDC construction headquarters, just outside of the city.” She points in the other direction, toward the SDC building beside the lighthouse. It’s about a thousand times more hospitable-looking than Voortyashtan.
“That works fine for me.”
“Excellent! Then please follow me. The train to the SDC headquarters is waiting for us.”
“You have a train just for your headquarters?”
“More for the work on the bay itself. We can’t ship resources to the river mouth—we’re here to specifically amend that situation. So we ship them to an easier spot, outside of the city, and use a train to bring them here.”
“All to build a harbor for the Continent,” says Mulaghesh. “Seems like it’d be easier to just make a new one somewhere else.”
“But this isn’t just a harbor, General. It’s a gateway to the Continent itself!” She points to the two peaks above the Solda River. “Past those gates—or what’s left of them—lies a water passage granting access to nearly the whole of the Continent! And no one’s been able to use it in decades! Yet soon, in a matter of months, we’ll be able to”—she opens the door to the train’s sole passenger car—“well, throw the gates back open.”
Mulaghesh glances back at the peaks. “You keep calling them gates. Why?”
Signe smiles. “That’s a very interesting question. Come aboard, and I’ll tell you.”