Chapter Fourteen

ONWARDS & UPWARDS

It broke a small piece of my apparently withered heart to sell Chum. Though he was a fine beast who had followed me without question, there was no taking him aboard a balloon. I spent far too long saying goodbye to him and finding a worthy and friendly buyer. I needed the shells after all, and a fine beast like him fetched sixty-five.

The wagon? Not so much. A pittance for its worn wheels and stink of rotten melon.

‘Thirty? It’s worth more than that for the firewood alone,’ I lied, to who I imagined was the hairiest wagon maker alive. I had no idea about the price of bloody firewood, but it was worth a shot.

‘Thirty-five.’

‘Fifty.’

‘You must be joking, you little wretch,’ the man spat. I can’t tell you the amounts of crumbs and splinters that hid in his beard. ‘Take your mangy drake and your shit and I’ll give you thirty shells right now.’

‘You said thirty-five!’

‘Yeah, well that was before you pissed me off with the firewood stuff. Take it or leave. Don’t make me call for a prosecutor.’

‘Fine,’ I snapped, ‘but if you did, they’d be putting the shackles on you for thievery.’

With a rattle, the pouch of shells hit me in the face, but I had to smile: it was the most shells I had ever held in my hands. To the grumble of the wagon-maker, I saw to my belongings. The sun set faster when dirty great mountains cut off a third of the sky, and I struggled to find the tiny cracks in the boards that marked where the stash was. Tasparil squawked as he clambered onto my shoulder. A spark or two from his jaws lit the wagon up enough that I pried it open. The green blightpowder had the faintest glow to it that I had never noticed under candle or firelight. I hid it under my shirt quick as I could move, formed a makeshift sack out of another shirt, and for some reason I hadn’t yet figured, I took the book of tales with me also.

The next port of call, pardon the pun, was finding a balloon. My stomach rumbled with every passing stall that steamed or hissed with roasting meats and vegetables, but I was intent on putting the north behind me as fast as possible. Looking back, part of me wishes I had slowed down and paid more attention. Perhaps then I would have noticed the hobbling bard stalking me.

‘Two hundred and twenty,’ spat the bald cleric squatting in a sweaty-looking booth. I was too busy staring up at a droning Venerance cruiser above me.

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘Two hundred and twenty shells,’ the man repeated in a sardonic drone. His dusty cleric’s uniform had a smear of something yellow on it. ‘Cheapest I’ve got unless you’re secretly a barrel of blightpowder or crate of vegetables. Or you could wait a week for a balloon that’ll cost you a hundred.'

Voldo was right about one thing: the prices were utterly ridiculous.

‘How about ninety-five?’ I offered. ‘And a fine book of tales.’

The cleric sighed. ‘Move along for the people that do have the shells. You and your lizard are holding up the line. And no point trying to go it about yourself. We handle all the tickets. There’ll be no smuggling or stowing away here in Shrewn.’

According to the grumbling of the queue behind me, the worker was not alone in his thoughts. Tasparil grumbled right back at them.

‘Don’t you mind them. We still have the bard,’ I whispered, shuffling from the queue and keeping my rudimentary shawl over my face. I leaned against a wall on the corner of a bustling square filled with cloth merchants and watched the aircraft come and go. The air was heavy with the heartbeat of the larger engines. Small craft buzzed and droned like insects around busy platforms. The balloons pulled by flocks of crows or multicoloured drakes battled for space, making a noisy racket. Beams of blightlamp lit the northernmost rib of Shrewn a sickly yellow.

Two rickety barges with a patchwork shell of wood sped through the lower struts. So low, one was almost level with some of the houses that clung to the enormous rib. When it looked as if they would crash into a pylon, they slid into the dock to a roar of circular engines. Another skiff came to buzz about them, tending to what looked like scorch-marks.

‘Pirates,’ said a woman as she dumped an armful of clothes into a vat and began drowning them. ‘They attack shipments whenever the Venerance aren’t looking. Mercenary ships like these two fight ’em off, protect the cruisers and such. They’ll be here for a few hours until the early hours and be on their way.’

‘How’d you know I was wondering?’ I asked her. I couldn’t help looking for weapons hidden in her dress.

‘People from Shrewn don’t look up. People who ain’t from Shrewn do. Spend all day watching all the ships’n’such. Live ’ere long enough and you get right bored of ’em,’ she explained. ‘You leavin’ or stayin’?

‘Hopefully leaving.’

‘Not got the shells?’

‘Not yet,’ I replied. ‘I will tonight.’

‘I know you ain’t goin’ to be doing something stupid now, are you?’

‘I’ve been doing stupid things for the past week and they’ve got me all the way here. Seems a shame to stop now.’

‘Your heart burns bright, lass. You keep that with you.’

There was something about the smile on the woman’s face that I really needed to see, yet didn’t know it. It was a reminder that not everybody was a piece of shit. I pinched a shell from my pouch and handed it to the woman. ‘For your kindness.’

‘Oh,’ the woman said, shaking her head. She folded my hand around the shell instead and pointed me onwards. ‘You keep it, lass. You need it more than I do. You’ve got much more to do yet, Dwellin.’

So tired was I that it took me several moments and several steps to realise she had used my name.

‘Wait, how do you know who I am?’ I blurted as I whirled around, but the washer-woman was gone. The clothes lingered in the vat, and some draped over the edge as if they had crawled to safety. I looked around, but there was no sign of her.

I rubbed my exhausted eyes and looked again, but she had vanished. I didn’t like the unease she had put in my stomach, nor how I was forced to worry if I was going mad.

‘Pshh,’ I hissed at the bustle around me. I looked up at the two mercenary aircraft again and watched figures tall as grains swinging down beneath the ships’ bellies. A faint but incessant hammering could be heard. A deliciously devilish idea was beginning to form.

I felt the weight of the pouch of shells in my pocket. Ninety-five shells, all for me, and as I looked around at all the traders and buyers storming about, I realised I wanted to be one of them. I had never bartered with a merchant. Whenever I stood at a market stall in Canarva, I was shooed away as a thief.

Sometimes, reader, you just have to treat yourself.

Shrewn’s markets paid no attention to the setting sun. The bartering continued under blightlamp and candle. Trade was conducted in loud shouting every time a ship thundered overhead, something my good friend Tasparil did not like.

The first item on my mind was rope, and a huge length of it. Don’t ask me why. Patience, dear reader. The trader gave me the same look as I wager you’re wearing now, all bemused why an urchin wanted a load of rope. I bought the cheap stuff and left her bemused.

I sold my rags for another few shells and swapped them for a red shirt with half-cut sleeves, cloth belt, and black trews. A haggard old cobbler laughed at Biggith’s old raggedy boots and charged me a chunk for a new pair. All told, my spree left me with sixty shells to my name. I don’t know what it is about money, but Watcher can it go fast.

It took patrolling the rows of smiths for almost an hour until I found what I was looking for. A cleaver, black in the handle, silver in the blade, longer than my forearm and wide. A waved pattern ran through the steel. She’d already been sharpened to a parchment edge. You might be wondering why I didn’t go for a good old-fashioned straight sword or an ordinary dagger, but I would rather have an ear cut off instead of being known as old-fashioned or ordinary.

A white-feathered Esfer bladesmith lounged behind the stall, looking wholly uninterested in hawking his wares.

‘How much for this cleaver, good sir?’ I asked, copying what I’d heard other traders say.

‘Theventy-five,’ muttered the smith, not moving an inch from his perch.

‘I can do forty,’ I said.

‘Go bother thomebody elthe, hatchling. It’th prime Ethferir thteel. Lighter and thtronger, not that you eathtern folk apprethiate it.’

‘Forty-five.’

‘No.’

‘Fifty.’

The blade smith taunted me by pretending to think. ‘No. Thcabbard’th worth half that alone. Fine thalamander leather that ith.’

‘Then I’ll trade these blades as well,’ I said, taking out my cleaver and dagger. Solid steel from north and south.’

With a sigh, the smith came to poke at my blades. ‘Well, the dagger ith iron, but the cleaver ith tholid and well-made at leatht.’ He spent much time thinking about it, sighing and rubbing his feathered brow. ‘Oh, fine. Fifty-five and we have a deal. Nobody hath even looked at it in a month.’

I shook his huge and calloused claw of a hand and picked up my new cleaver. The metal oil and leather smelled better than baked bread. Just like that, I was poor again. It was worth it. That is why I say shells can buy you happiness, if happiness is new blades made by generous smiths. I was at last getting the hang of this bartering thing.

Feeling like the ash of Canarva and the mud of Witchfell was finally cleared from my skin, I found a smile on my face as I headed back towards the northern rib. Tasparil curled around my neck like a scarf. There were still two hours until midnight, but I had some work to do.

Into the tangle of mudbrick and wooden houses, I delved, and weaved between workers snatching quick meals out of sight of bosses, or gangs of children playing in the muck and with spare pieces of machinery. The whole town smelled like blight-engine and grease. And roast meat, too, but I ignored that for now.

Beneath the curve of the rib and under the belly of the mercenary ships, I found a quiet street and some hunched cottages with half their windows lit. I waited until nobody was watching before taking out my blightpowder. I had but a pinch of blue left, and all of the green powder. I tapped a small pinch into a scrap of the book’s parchment and hid it in my pocket. I hoped it would be enough.

The rest I gambled with, digging a small hole in the middle of the street with my bare hands. I wrapped the vials in a cloth bundle and buried it in the hole. Checking I wasn’t being watched one more time, I put my rope about me and began to climb the thatch rooftops. It was harder than you think. I was used to slate and stone. The thatch stung my hands.

It took an hour to reach the rib and the struts of walkways and docking platforms. Tasparil hopped from one perch to the next as if he mocked me. I climbed the water pipes and scaffolding with white knuckles, keeping out of sight and away from clerics where I could. Prosecutors roamed the levels in their chalk-white armour. When I was high enough, I ducked out onto an empty lower platform, where I could stare up at the battered hull of the fighting ship. It was a stubby vessel, lined with portholes and walkways with long guns strapped to the railings. One last worker was still dangling from a rope and hacking at arrows that protruded from the aircraft’s sides.

‘Oi, you!’

Inwardly groaning, I found an officious rat of a man staring down at me from a hatch above. He wielded a sheaf of parchments pinned to a board.

‘What do you think you are doing?’

‘Erm… that!’ I called back and jabbed my finger at the worker.

‘Then bloody get to it! Nobody stands about and gawps in my docks!’

‘How long have I got until those ships leave?’

‘Watcher’s breath!’ the man exclaimed as he checked his board. ‘Two bells. Three hours from now, and I don’t want any complaints from Captain Terrible like last time, you hear? Jobs half done take twice as much work!’

It was the first time hearing that mantra and I couldn’t have loathed it more. I imagined the man spewed it at least five times a day.

‘Did you say Captain… Terrible?’

‘Get on with it!’ he yelled again, and I ran back into the busy stairwell that coiled around the giant rib.

Pretending I knew exactly what I was doing, I sauntered down the platform with my new boots thudding satisfyingly on the boards. None of the sparse crew or workers saw me. They were all too busy trading a smoking pipe while guarding the ship’s door and nattering. It took all my nerve to climb down to the underside of the walkway. Though the aircraft’s rust-red outer engines had fallen still, the blightpowder still burned deep within to make sure it stayed aloft. The ship swayed in the night breezes, squeaking against its ropes and fenders. The name painted across its lower hull read: The Dawnstriker.

With Shrewn sparkling below me like a carpet full of cinders, I shuffled on until I found something sturdy and close enough to fasten the rope to: a loop of hull right on the backside of the ship. Completely out of sight of any porthole or walkway.

I had to lean far out to hook my knot around it, and no sooner had I pulled it tight did the Dawnstriker sway from the platform and pull me with it. I was left dangling with my hands around the rope, the rest knotted around my body, and my legs slowly peeling from the walkway. It took waiting for another gust of wind for me to trade handholds. I clutched the woodwork, breathing a shuddering sigh of relief.

I was in the middle of tying another knot when the walkway thudded with approaching boots. Two voices joined them.

‘Oi, you hear about Canarva?’

‘The fire? Course I did. Whole of Beléga has by now.’

‘No, not the bloody fire. I’m bored of hearing about the fire. I mean the chosen one they found. Everybody’s talking about the death of a few barons, but they found somebody for that prophecy of Canarva’s after all. The reverent of Bashkar announced it the day after to lift spirits and whatnot.’

‘Who was it?’

‘Some kid. Some mute gutter whelp. Would you believe it? That’s who was in that shinin’ Venerance cruiser that passed day before last.’

‘Gutter whelp? Lucky bastard. Well then! There’s hope for us yet, eh?’ came the answering cackle.

‘Sure. If only Shrewn had a seer or two.’

‘Don’t forget to do the usual sweep for stowaways. Had two little sneakers last week.’

I glowered at the shadows passing above me. I was apparently old news, and my brother the talk of Shrewn.

Before I climbed back up, I made sure to dangle the rope below. In the dark, between the patches of blightlamp and candle-glow, the rope was barely noticed.

My escape back down the docks and rooftops was quicker than the climb, and by the time I had snared the end of the rope and buried a wide loop of it in the mud between the same cottages as before, my stomach rumbled fiercely. But nowhere near as fiercely as the outrage in my chest.

*

With the last five shells to my name, I bought a tiny bottle of sharp rum and some roast and nondescript meat in a bun almost as old as I was. I had to smother it in gravy to coax some flavour out of it.

I loitered at the smoking stall, breathing in the char as if I stood in a Canarva street. The portly vendor had tried talking to me, but I was not interested. I instead stared at a pair of children, several years younger than I was. They were playing a game that involved a ball and waiting for gaps in the passersby to bounce it against a wall. They were brother and sister from what I could tell. He shielded her from the gruffer and more impatient pedestrians, and I saw the same fire in the boy’s eyes as I had once seen in Aberan’s. I cursed the ghost of him that was haunting me that evening and gulped down another mouthful.

‘Excuse me, but this is foul,’ said a woman wearing a rainbow of silks. She was waving a similar concoction of meat and bread at the vendor, who couldn’t have looked less bothered if I’d paid him.

‘You get what you pay for in Shrewn,’ he said through a yawn.

‘I want to speak to your owner.’

The man laughed. ‘Lady, I am the owner.’

‘Then I suggest you learn to cook! What do you call this, damn it?’

‘I suggest you understand you paid three shells for food and got exactly what that buys you. Don’t blame him for your bad judgment,’ I butted in.

The woman looked me up and down before noticing the blade on my belt. ‘You should stay in the north where you belong. Ashlander filth.’

That I was. I bid her a cheery farewell, despite the fact she was the kind of person that deserved to have their luggage shat in.

‘Another?’ offered the vendor. He wore a conspiratorial smile.

‘Gods no,’ I said as I stuffed what was left in my mouth, washed it down with rum, and left him frowning.

I walked purposefully between the children’s game. I caught their ball in one hand, making them stare up at me and fall silent.

‘You watch out, little sister,’ I said to the girl. ‘He’ll promise you safekeeping and a better future and drop you the moment it suits him. It’ll break your heart and turn the pieces cold.’

They had no idea what I babbled on about. I hurled the ball down an adjoining street and went on my way. I had an appointment with a bard.

I found Voldo Do Berria exactly where he said he’d be: in front of the cleric’s desks on the Ashland side of the north rib. He was crouched upon an upthrust of stone that split the street in two. He noticed me just as twelve bells rang out.

Voldo was staring up at the two moons, absently tuning his lyre. ‘If it isn’t little madam midnight,’ he said. ‘And here was I believing you’d fled without me.’

‘Fortunately for you, I keep my word.’

Voldo slid down the smooth stone with surprising agility. ‘And look at you. All cleaned up.’

‘Amazing what a fresh outfit can do for you.’

Voldo cut the shit. ‘You have it?’

I took the bundle of parchment from my pocket and slapped it into his quivering palm. I almost lost a finger he grasped it so quickly.

Voldo led me to the mouth of an alley and away from Venerance attention. He almost spilled the packet in his fever to get it open.

‘Only five-star glows like that,’ he whispered. ‘Never seen the like. Whomever you associate yourself with, little madam, they’re the right people.’

Without further explanation or ado, Voldo inhaled the pinch of dust and pressed himself against the grimy wall, eyes closed and grinning like a fool.

‘And your end of the deal?’ I said,

Voldo clenched his fingers as if he kneaded a curtain of dough. ‘Yes,’ he said. His eyes had a shiver to them, not quite focusing on me. ‘Yes indeed. Come this way.’

I’d seen people slump into a drooling heap after breathing blightpowder, but Voldo looked as if he’d awoken from a year-long slumber and had a mountain of stored energy to use up. He practically bounced along the gravel. I hung close to him, not letting him out of my reach. I’d advise doing the same with anybody who owes you shells, my good reader.

Voldo had forgotten I was there. He laid out a flat cap upon the road and once again shuffled to the top of his rock. Sitting tall, he strummed his lyre experimentally, turning several heads. Even those mulling about outside a rotund worker’s tavern.

‘Attend to me, dear gentlefolk of Shrewn!’ Voldo proclaimed. ‘And witness the best in the land.’

I watched a thin thread of a crowd begin to form. I hovered near the cap, playing the role of his attendant. I even smiled for the onlookers.

Voldo started slowly, ponderously, as if trying out the lyre for the first time. My head turned, my eyes narrow. He was a fraud. He had tricked me into believing him. He had wasted my time and chances.

No to all of the above.

Voldo Do Berria attacked his lyre as if he were trying to shred his fingers upon the strings. After letting a haunting chord ring out long and loud, he hunched over the instrument and began to pick out notes at a furious rhythm. It wasn’t just the speed that brought people flocking, but the intricacy. The melody. He even hammered a beat out of the lyre’s body inexplicably between the notes. When his voice joined the lyre, its crystal tone reached across the rooftops, summoning even more to crowd around the bard.

I’ll admit: in that moment, I almost forgot we were enemies and highly likely to stab each other once this was all over. It was the first clink of shells that wrenched my attention away. Another chased it. And another. Within mere minutes, a pile of shells had gathered. I tried to keep my eyes firmly on it, but Voldo kept dragging me back to him.

Voldo took the crowd higher before taking it low, and pouring out a ballad as soulful as a Venerance hymn. I saw one woman weeping. The crescendo led to another ballad, the kind that was full of power, before Voldo entranced us all with how fast his fingertips could move over the strings. His fingers moved like spiders set aflame, never resting despite the sweat that dripped from the bard’s brow and the blood I saw painting the lyre’s varnish.

By the time one bell sounded, it felt as if I awoke from a dream. Voldo at last let his voice and lyre fall still, and hung his head. The crowd showered us with shells and more. I’m talking fruits, vegetables, even somebody’s underwear. Most intriguingly, I saw a man in a bard-like outfit smashing a lute on the steps of a tavern as if in protest.

I had gathered up the contents of the cap several times, making sure nobody snatched it up and cheated us of our hard work. It felt far heavier than the pouch I’d made earlier.

Voldo had to be helped from the rock and slid into a heap. I almost left him there right there and then, but he seized my arm and stood tall.

‘You believe me now?’ he said, voice hoarse and fingers shaking.

‘That I do,’ I said. I couldn’t lie to him about that. ‘Best I’ve ever seen.’

Voldo made a show of fanning himself. ‘I might not be any kind of alchemage, but when I take the powder, my hands move faster than I can comprehend. They play for me,’ he said. ‘I merely hold on.’

We made our way from the crowd and into a gap between two buildings, where we counted our winnings as if they were stolen. I made Voldo roll up his sleeves as he counted, still acting exhausted. It took far too long for my liking. I had a schedule to keep.

Though we spent the whole time wondering who would try to stab the other first, we finished at last. Five hundred was the final count, more than enough for two tickets. And yet, just as I was expecting, Voldo had a problem.

After we had both taken our individual piles, out came the bard’s dagger again, wiggling absentmindedly. I put my hand on my new cleaver’s hilt.

Voldo’s voice kept its singsong quality, but there was no joy in his voice. No cheer. ‘I’ve had a change of heart, you see. I’ve decided to let you keep your half of the shells. Go buy your ticket, but you’re giving me the rest of the blightpowder that I saw you take out of your wagon earlier. I saw the glow with my own two eyes, that I did! You should be more careful who’s watching. Disagree, complain, and we’ll have that knife fight you talked about. I guarantee I’ll win. Don’t know if you’ve ever killed a man before, little madam, but I’ve had the displeasure several times. I’ll add another to my list if I have to.’

‘Hard times and all that,’ I answered feistily.

‘Precisely.’

’I don’t have it on me.’

‘Little liar.’

‘All I have is this book,’ I said, showing him the tales Biggith had kept. ‘I buried the rest of the blightpowder. Elsewhere in Shrewn. Leave me be and I’ll tell you where it is.’

‘Ha! Nice try. Take me to it,’ Voldo hissed. ‘Now.’

‘How’s walking that precipice going, bard? You look ravenous for that powder.’

The black dagger came to wiggle in my face, as if Voldo signed his name in midair. He slashed at the hand that reached for my cleaver. Blood dripped in the street.

‘You do what I say before I change my mind and take the shells instead,’ warned the bard.

‘Gah,’ I sighed as if Voldo had beaten me. ‘I suppose you leave me with no choice.’

‘And no tricks, girl.’

The road to my hiding place was blissfully short, even though the bard filled every moment with prattle about how I needed to learn how the world worked, and all kinds of justification for what might just have amounted to child murder. We would have to see, won’t we, reader?

With a drizzle of rain starting to patter on our heads, Voldo and I reached the street. The cottages were dark. Not a candle glowed. Only the shafts of light from the aircraft above washed across our little corner of town.

‘Where is it?’

‘About five steps from where you’re standing. Where that white pebble is.’

Voldo kept his dagger trained on me as he scuffed with his wooden leg, uncovering the bundle I’d buried. ‘Remember I said no tricks, girl. And not a peep out of that drake.’

I looked around at the empty stretch of dirt and the bare rooftops. Only the spindle-thin wisps of smoke from dead fireplaces. ‘Do you see any tricks, Voldo?’

All the bard saw was the faint shine of five-star blight powder wrapped in cloth. He seized it tightly in both hands, just as the bells of Shrewn began to toll the hour.

One bell.

Two bells.

‘What are you smiling at, you petulant brat?’ Voldo snapped at me. I had yet to see him so agitated.

‘If you ever get to finish your song of Canarva, you should know I was the one who started that fire. The Blaze of Canarva, as you call it? That was all me. I started it with a vial of blightpowder and I watched with a smile as Baron Wrekham fell into the flames. All for petty revenge, so they tell me. Remember that, if you live. Ask the prosecutors about the girl with dark hair and purple eyes.’

The more I talked, the more Voldo’s sneer melted. He did not hear the particular gunning of the blight-powered engines above us, the kind that spun into a frenzy as two motley aircraft began to cast off from the dock.

Voldo followed my gaze, bereft of understanding. The noise perfectly disguised the ring of rope sliding inwards from where I’d buried it, too. I quietly stepped over it as the noose began to gather speed.

‘What did you say about villains and their immorality? Cruelty?’ I said with a smirk. ‘Here’s a little inspiration for you.’

‘You little bitch…’ Voldo saw the events unfolding, but it was far too late for him to do anything but hurl a dagger at me. I couldn’t tell you if it hit me. I was enraptured for a second time that night, and this time by my noose snapping tight around Voldo’s waist.

Whomever this Captain Terrible was, they put the engines into a bellowing frenzy as the mercenary ships tore from the port.

With a winded yelp, Voldo was hauled aloft at a violent speed. So fast, in fact, the bard practically folded in half. Spilling the blightpowder and a chunk of his shells into the mud, he was dragged into the night sky. Voldo wailed pitifully, all melody and timbre forgotten. Just the screeching of a man dangling from a speeding aircraft.

‘Oof!’ I bit my lip as I watched Voldo narrowly miss a chimney. Tasparil squawked approvingly as she flapped in a circle. I had no idea if the bard would live, and though part of me wished to hear the

I put my hands on my hips in a moment of pride and immediately felt a jolt of pain instead. It turned out Voldo’s dagger had sliced me just above the hip, and the wound was bleeding aggressively. Hard to tell through my red shirt, luckily, but it was a parting shot that would leave a scar if it didn’t kill me. I clapped a hand to my side and clenched my teeth.

‘Farewell to you too, Voldo Do Berria,’ I said in a singsong voice as I strode into the gathering rain, picking up the vial and scattered shells as I went. I endured the pain in my side with every stretch, and it was most worth it.

I had started the day a pauper. I ended it feeling like a baron. Not only free, but rich. Now all I had to do was see a cleric about a balloon.