Íde

The Gundog Walking leaves Ildathach with much the same grace that it did the first time. The hold is lighter, for one- no exotic cargo to trade this time. Just supplies, food animals, and the artefacts we built in the Violet Manor. We settle into the simple routines that we held on the previous voyages: sleeping, eating, watching the horizon. This second time, I find that my sense of wonder at the vastness of the sea has waned. There’s a bloodless feeling to this voyage, like an ember has burned out. Even Captain Holofernes doesn’t seem to register my presence.

A portion of this sombre atmosphere is at least in part my fault. The sadness from leaving my family again clings to me like stale cigarillo smoke. My last night before the voyage, a day after I’d seen Sean and his friends, I’d spent the entire day with my family. I’d woken up, chased the hangover away with a coffee and a finger of whisky, and went to my mother’s flat to make lunch.

My brothers had been less impressed, this time, by my destination. Brixa Thalaam was one thing: a foreign, impossible land they’d heard about in school. But Inskoet, this little rock in the north sea that nobody has ever heard of, barely four days’ sail from Ildathach or five from Crowmere- it seemed less exciting. They annihilated the food I’d made for them, and I saw in them briefly something Sean-like. We’d talked and talked until my mother came home, just as the sun was setting. I was helping Ailín with his sums when she’d walked in, exhausted.

She lit up at the sight of me, and we chatted over coffee long after we’d sent my brothers, complaining, to sleep. I’d made a little light sigil, a simple thing, to help illustrate a mathematics lesson to Ailín. It faltered and died before we stopped talking, and I hadn’t left until well past midnight. Even now, I can smell the kitchen-scent in my hair- rags and sage and cardamom. Hours before I left their flat, I had already felt the swelling realisation that I’d have to say goodbye to my family. They hadn’t wanted me to leave, either.

Now, back on the ocean, that lachrymose washes gently around me like, and I perch at the stern of the Gundog Walking and stare at Ildathach until it retreats under the horizon.

We’re staying belowdecks again, but have been moved to a different cabin due to some quirk of the passenger and cargo manifest. Our new quarters are just as cramped as they were on the first voyage, though now we are sporadically interrupted by a clanging, clunking noise. The first time this happened, Sean had gone to investigate, though he had not returned for hours. The second, he was sharpening a knife in the cabin and had looked up with a start. “Bilge pumps!” He’d said, obviously just remembering to inform us. Sean offered no further explanation, and went back to sniffing his runny nose and sharpening his already razor-edged knife.

There’s a bit of a stranger smell, something like salt and sulphur, as we sail further north. The sea near the Wraithwild was lusher, bluer, warmer. Here, I feel the cold in the evening of the second day, and the sailors have brought hardier coats to wear on deck. The temperature drops intensely as we crawl further and further away from Yvreathe, towards the Torment. Frigid gusts sweep across the deck of the ship by the end of the second day, and a swarm of something small and hungry, the only flying things for what must be at least a hundred miles, follows us for a few hours.

Sailors keep an eye on them, and the horizon, and the depths of the darkening sea. I ask them what to look for, how I can help. Mostly their warnings are unhelpful, old superstitions of accidentally summoning a danger by naming it. One of the mates is kind enough to tell me, in low tones, to watch for any particularly curious packs of seals. Being followed by seals is expected, but if they take too close an interest in us, they’re probably being led by a selkie. A bad omen, he explained, to get that kind of attention. I’ve seen a nightmarish woodcut of one of those creatures: the bored eyes, human eyes, peering out of a blunt doglike face. The artist had captured something unnerving in that uncaring predator’s stare. Dark and dead.

I keep a lookout for seals, and see nothing but choppy waters and the occasional floating patch of noble rot.

It's four days to Inskoet, and on the third morning one of the sailors proposes an idea to alleviate the boredom. I’m approached in the galley during breakfast, after finishing a rigid ship’s biscuit and half a palmful of salted pork. Sean and Iseult are dining with the captain, so I am alone when the sailor approaches me.

“Are we taken?” I look up. The sailor is dressed in the coarse cloth of a rigger, though he’s switched his bare feet for boots as the Gundog Walking has ploughed into colder northern waters. His face is earnest, and his skin is tattoo-free enough that he could not have been at sea for long. I’ve seen him, scaling the masts of the ship, swapping filthy stories with the other crew just as I enter earshot. I squint, and try to recall his name. “Sailor… Óengus?”

He looks surprised. “Got it in one. You’re Íde, right?”

I nod, though honestly it’d be more professional of him to use my professional title- Sigilist. Technically, of course, I haven’t yet graduated from Saint Listless’. But they don’t know that. I mop up the remnants of my meal with a stone-solid piece of biscuit, and do my best to look as respectable as possible.

“I’ve got a, uh, proposition. And I think you can help.” He eyes me, warily. I raise my eyebrows, immediately interested. Sailors are, as a rule, outrageously superstitious. The sea is full of hidden portents, especially for the men and women who live on the waves. A misaligned star, a sudden unexpected change in the air, a pattern in the noble rot- I wonder what sort of problem Óengus is facing, and how he thinks I can help. Maybe he wants a reading, or a tattoo consultation. Or something personal, something to be charmed.

“It’s about Sir Whelan.”

Oh.

He presses on. “We’ve been thinking. He’s a big shot in Ildathach, right? Fought in the Aergan? Well, some of us think it’d be great to pass the time with a friendly competition. On the deck, before dinner. Really get the excitement going, you know? Must be boring for the three of you, cooped up all day.”

The ship lolls, gently, and I watch the galley’s lighting sigil sway gently in its cage. I frown and steeple my fingers in what I hope is a thoughtful gesture. “What kind of a competition?”

He holds up his tar-stained hands, innocent. “Nothing uncouth! Or dangerous! Just a friendly exhibition between him and some of the crew. Maybe he can teach us something about that,” and here his hands slice through the air, and he adopts the muscle-straining pose of an Ildathach warrior. “Fighting style.”

“I’ll, uh, I’ll talk to him? Why don’t you ask him yourself though?”

He adopts a pained look. “It’s a bit different coming from us, y’know? Kind of… threatening! Don’t really want that. Just tell him we’ll set something up on the deck, an hour before the second dog watch. Could be fun!”

Óengus slaps both of his thighs, and starts to rise. “Right! Well, you tell Sir Whelan, and we’ll have a go at it this evening. Sure as a Saint will die,” he blasphemes. “Thanks Íde!”

No title, again. I watch Óengus’ retreating back as he climbs the stair-ladder at the end of the galley, returning to the deck of the ship. Then, dutifully, I drop the tiny pewter plate back near the cook’s table and go to find Sean.

*

His face drops when I ask him. That, I did not expect. “When did he ask you?”

In the pre-noon sun, with the light at his back, he doesn’t look much like an Ildathach warrior. Swaddled beneath a scratchy black peacoat, his hands in his pockets, Sean looks, well, normal. He’s leaning on the taffrail near the stern of the ship, out of the way of the general bustle of the deck. The furrows on his forehead deepen, and he folds his arms before continuing.

“Actually- it doesn’t really matter. But also now the problem is these lot,” he grins winningly at someone behind me, and I turn to see a pair of sailors, ropes in hand, saunter by. His face drops back into seriousness as soon as they’re out of earshot. “Saw that you asked me. So now it’s a bit awkward.”

I’m confused as to what the problem actually is. He just shakes his head slowly.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not actually a problem. The sailors want a go at the fighter, I’m more than happy to give them a shot. But, in the future, just-“

“Just what?” I tilt my head, but don’t say anything else. The aloofness is getting irritating.

He sighs and shrugs, non-committal. “Never mind. It’s not your fault. I know you didn’t mean it.”

I could scream. I actually contemplate it, this time, cutting this condescension. I fold my arms and mirror his pose. “Sean could you not treat me like a child for just one second?”

He regards me for a moment, then frowns. “Alright, let me flatten this out for you, then. There’s two things you have to ask yourself. Why do they even want to fight at all? And why didn’t they ask me directly? Could be a few things. Maybe they’re bored. Maybe one of them lost a bet. Maybe, and here’s what I think, maybe enough of them see the chance to inflate their egos by picking a fight with a soldier who is out of his element.”

He fixes me with a hard stare, and continues in a patient deadpan.

“Beyond that, why would I say yes? I can only lose, right? Exhibition doesn’t always mean some nice little demonstration. We’re going to have a few rounds on the deck, maybe with more than a few people. And that means I’m going to have to fight. More than once, until they tire me out and one of them gets lucky. And maybe, just maybe, I don’t actually want to fight anyone today. Or most days, to make that perfectly clear.

“Beyond that, why ask you? Why not just approach me face-to-face? Well, maybe the crew had to draw straws and whoever it was was too cowardly to ask me. Or maybe they hoped you’d ask me in public, on the deck, where other people could see. Because that shifts it from a friendly chat to something else. Now we have to think about me, as a gentleman, and the implication that this conversation has on my social standing.”

I don’t know what to say, and his expression thaws. A pit opens in my stomach.

“Look,” he holds up his hand, and for a moment I think he’s going to place it on my shoulder. He does not. “I know you didn’t mean it with any ill intent. And I know you don’t want anything bad to happen. So don’t worry about it. I’m being honest with you, it’s not a big deal. I’m not Iseult. I get it. Besides which,” a grin sweeps across his face, ending the conversation, “maybe I’m not going to lose.”

*

Exhibition, as I am rapidly learning, is a euphemism.

Sean’s first opponent is a wiry Ysian man with a flattened nose, and is gushing blood from his face and from a cut on his swelling lip. His bare chest is heaving. His torso is absolutely drenched in streaks of sweat and blood, rivulets which run over the burst of tattoos at his ribcage. They’re both barefoot, though unlike his opponent Sean is dressed in a pair of smart blue breeches and a sleeveless shirt. I am extremely uncomfortable.

The sailor’s throat is thrumming with his heartbeat, snake-coil veins bulging under the ruddy skin of his neck and temples. The Sean I know is gone, replaced by this dead-eyed ghoul. I wonder if this is the Sean that Iseult met first, in the Aergan, and if the man I know is some lesser twin of the hateful creature before me. He meets his opponent, and eclipses him totally.

By far the worst part is the noise. They’re wearing gloves, thin things made of mangy leather. Sean is clenching a piece of moulded tree sap, an import from the Far Coast, between his teeth. His opponent is trying to do the same with a small rolled rag, which has by now turned almost scarlet. His sucking breaths leave his jaw wide open, so the rag has started to unfurl in his mouth.

The sailor’s hands are low, and Sean lashes down from above, slamming his fist into an exposed temple. He repeats the same punch, then the same again, and the sailor paws at Sean’s fists in an attempt to defend himself. Even as the Gundog Walking rolls in the gentle sea, Sean balances himself to always be in front of his retreating opponent, always crashing against him. When the sailor’s arms glue high to his forehead, warding against the blows, Sean kicks him on the inside of his leg. Stumbling, the sailor shuffles his leg, and earns a piston-kick to the chest. For a moment, the sailor rolls backwards and recovers in a sort of heaving crouch, and the two seem content in that heartbeat to simply stare at each other. He lashes out with a punch, aimed squarely at Sean’s nose.

I can hear the thud of the sailor’s ribs compressing from the edge of the crowd. The crew was previously boisterous, though their merriment has diminished in the forty seconds or so that this fight has lasted. I have no idea how Sean is doing it, or what he is doing, but in the first few exchanges the skill difference between the two became clear. Now he has slowed from the onslaught he initially delivered, and is no longer raining down blows at a thundering pace. He is methodical and precise and awful. His expression is completely blank, cheeks marred only by a wide smear of the sailor’s blood from when his opponent tried to pull him into a sort of lumbering wrestle.

When the sailor ducks under one of Sean’s punches, when he cannons his fist upwards with a shout, I realise that his exhaustion might have been a ruse. I can see the corded muscles in the sailor’s feet, in his shoulders, and I watch in horror as the punch rips up at Sean’s chin. Sean is simply not there. He has faded out of reach of the sailor, leaned his body in some minor way so that the punch doesn’t land, could never have landed. With the same even expression he’s been wearing the whole fight, Sean wraps a hand around the sailor’s head, twists ever so slightly to rest one knee on the planking, and firmly seizes his opponent’s ankle.

The sailor yelps and flips over as Sean rips him off his feet, ramming hard into the deck. He fights wretchedly for air, failing breaths shallowly and spasmodically sawing from his blood-spattered lips. Sean kneels over him, and I imagine for one horrible second that he is about to begin mutilating the defenceless man. Instead, he wraps a thick hand around the sailor’s head to keep it from hammering against the tarred wood of the deck, then rolls him over onto his side. A moment later he pries the bloody rag out of the sailor’s mouth, saying something long and rhythmic. The crowd has stopped baying, now, and watch silently as the sailor’s breathing normalises.

Sean stands up, looks at the assorted crowd. He has the wide, open arms of a Saint. He is calm, soaked in blood and spit.

The handful of sailors who had fancied themselves his potential opponents, four other stripped-down members of the crew, match his gaze but not his cruelty. Hate boils off of his voice when he speaks, in an unfamiliar, furious baritone.

“Anyone else?”

The deck is quiet. The loblolly boy shoves his way through the press, and starts attending the battered sailor. No doubt the ship’s doctor will arrive shortly. Perhaps he already made his way belowdecks, to prepare the little surgery near the bow of the Gundog Walking.

Nobody responds. Sean shrugs, then pushes his way through the crowd. Several sailors rush to their bleeding friend, and most hastily make space for Sean, so he exits through an empty channel of murmuring crew members. He heads aft, and I follow. I have no idea where Iseult is. I didn’t see her in the audience.

None of the crew join us.

He pauses, alone, at the barrels of saltwater that are always present on the rear decks. They’re usually here, sloshing brine onto the deck, until occasionally they are cast on ropes behind the ship to be refilled by the ocean and hauled back aboard. Sean strips, shamelessly, and I look away quickly as he peels back first his shirt, then his breeches. Presumably, he washes himself, for when he speaks again he’s redressed himself in the same clothes that he was just wearing. Salt water pools on the deck around his feet, mixing with bloody pink foam.

“What did you think?”

His voice has yet to recover its friendly tone, which makes the sentence much worse. He studies me with the same unblinking stare that he was wearing when he brutalised the sailor. I scramble to say something clever, but in the moment I can think of nothing, and have no desire to say anything to this ghoul. Sean offers me a thin smile. I want my friend back.

“That’s how I’m going to get out of fighting the rest of them, by the way.”

“What is?”

He waves, aimlessly, back towards the dispersing crowd. None of them have followed us. Plenty are looking at us, though.

“What I did back there. Taking his heart. It’s something that I tell the people we train, but it’s something you have to really practice to understand. You don’t beat someone by just hitting them. It’s about this,” a finger to his temple, “and this,” and now to his heart. I notice, for the first time, that there’s a mark on his cheekbone, a steadily reddening welt that he must’ve picked up during the fight. I don’t even remember seeing his opponent land a punch.

The smile breaks on his face, and I see the old Sean start to re-emerge from the cracks. “That guy was never the threat. It was her, Mate Morvyn.” She had been watching with the other combatants, all of her piercings removed. “She was the ringleader. She wanted to use me to show off to the crew. Was going to wear me out with the other four, get me tired, then step in with me. That actually might have worked. So instead of playing her game, I brutalised her friend. Made her think that if she stepped in with me, I would break all of the bones in her face.”

“And would you?”

He barks out a genuine, short laugh. “Saints, no! Well, actually, maybe. I’m tired, Íde. That man was tough,” he massages the knuckles on his left hand, wincing. “And they use such rubbish gloves! One more fight like that and I’d be the one sucking wind on the floor.

“It’s,” here he pauses and stares at the sea. I look as well, but see nothing. He continues, more slowly. “It’s not enough, just to fight. Most of the time it’s better not to. When you get good at it, you want to solve all your problems by hitting them, which isn’t normally a good idea. My dad told me that, ten years ago, but I didn’t really understand that until recently. Not even after the war.”

I ponder this, and he splashes his face with a handful of brackish saltwater.

He looks at me strangely, and his eyes track slowly back to the horizon. “I was never clever enough to take him that seriously. But then, maybe that’s the point, that we can never learn any of the important lessons, unless they happen to us. Hopefully you’ll be smarter than I am. Maybe his advice wasn’t meant for a younger me. Maybe he knew it’d take this long for me to figure it out.” He grins softly, the warm parts of his personality returning. “But seriously, Íde. That’s the fight. The one you win in the heart. That’s the one that matters.”

Dead-faced Sean is gone. The man before me is my friend again, dripping saltwater onto the deck. He’s sniffles, and submerges his entire head in the saltwater barrel. When he emerges, his rubs his face vigorously with his hands. “I think in about half an hour I’m going to have an unimaginable headache, so you might need to help me belowdecks in a bit.”

“I didn’t even see you get hit!”

He nods, winks. “Like I said. Take the heart. That’s the point.”

*

If there are any side-effects of the aborted fight event, I can’t see any. The crew carries on like nothing happened, and even go out of their way to congratulate Sean when they see him. Of the battered sailor, there is no sign. As expected, Sean is jovial in his victory, and spends a great deal of time congratulating his opponent and pointing to the small bruise he’s acquired on his face, or the way his knuckles alternate between angry blacks and purples. He doesn’t actually retreat belowdecks, and if he’s feeling any aftereffect from the fight he’s concealing it perfectly.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

When the whooping call goes out that another ship has been sighted, a tangible anxiety rankles the crew. I’m on deck, watching small islands of noble rot drift across the empty sea, when I hear the sailor hanging on the rigging above. Further down the Gundog Walking, Mate Morvyn pulls out an Al Khazraj spyglass and focuses the cylinder on the bobbing shape on the stone-grey horizon. Half a minute later, Captain Holofernes strolls forward, coats billowing, and wraps her hands around the splintered railing.

I don’t precisely recognise the pattern that is scrawled across her eyepatch, but its potency is undeniable. Fire-charmed, obviously, but in a configuration or a combination of configurations that I’m not familiar with. Half of the sigil is related somehow to magnetic fields. The other are a combination of burning and refining charms, presumably to warp the air in front of her and offer a sight far more potent than her baseline eyes can. It’s inlaid in some matte material, not gold, not ivory, not incarnagris. Something lifeless, something that reflects the callous brutality of the ocean. The charm that’s inlaid on that patch must’ve cost hundreds of spirals.

She squints at the ship-shaped smudge. We wait for a few breaths, before she barks out her order.

“Village Idiot. Ildathach ship. Fit a signalling tile.”

One of the sailors sighs in relief and scurries away to retrieve the charm. I watch him pry the top off of a wooden box bolted to the mainmast, retrieving a charm that I recognise, because I wrote half a dozen of the things for the sailors during my down time. Nobody seems to notice his frowning uncertainty, save me.

I pace towards him as he moves a grease pencil to the tile’s edge, about a third of the way up. I pick up my pace.

“Wait, wait.”

The deckhand looks up, but doesn’t stop, and flips the tile over so he’s not staring directly into it. The pencil is less than an inch away from activating the sigil.

“Wait!”

He’s about to make the mark. I’m actually jogging, now, trying not to draw attention to his mistake while also making sure he doesn’t erase several hours of careful sigilwork. The bird tattooed at his temples flexes as he grins at me, gap-toothed.

“Can I help you, Íde?”

I take a moment to compose myself, trying to harness some of Iseult’s cool disdain when I gesture towards the tool in his hands. Just like Óengus, he didn’t use my title. “This is one of the new designs. You don’t complete it like that. Or, you can, but it won’t work nearly as well. Here.”

He gives up the slate easily, and I flip it over to reveal its intricate geometries. Lighting charms are some of the most understood knotwork in Yvreathe, true, but I’d be damned if I’d waste my apprenticeship at Saint Listless’ and inscribe something basic that any hedge-hexer could make.

“Look, for one thing you’re holding it upside down. For two, there’s a delay rune here,” I pluck the grease pencil from his hand and trace the air above the cluster of knots that I’ve engraved on the right side of the sigil. “And for three, you finish it like this.”

I draw the pencil vertically down the tile, linking three circles from rim to rim before repeating the action, at half scale, with another group of knots to the right. I hand it back to him.

“You’ve got about a minute and a half to mount that before it engages. It’s also going to be brighter than the ones you’ve been working with. Should burn a little hotter and longer as well.”

He raises his eyebrows, then tilts his chin upwards in what I can only assume is a gesture of thanks. He scales the mast squirrel-quick. As I return to the taffrail, I notice that Captain Holofernes is staring at me, curiously. I absolutely do not meet her eye.

The Village Idiot, which I can now see is a much larger ship that dwarfs the Gundog Walking, is sailing in the same direction as us. She’s sidling slowly closer, by nature of our common destination, and is illuminated by her own knotwork lighting. Rapid semaphore flashes from the signalling platform mounted on her mast flicker across the empty sea. We send back our own responses- Captain Holofernes barks brief messages to a sailor, who then shouts them up the Gundog Walking’s mast to our own signaller. Quiet strobes dart over miles of ocean, glinting off of slate-grey waves. At some point in the conversation, half the deck laughs at some joke from the Village Idiot. The signalling ends, for whatever reason, and we sail leisurely onwards, pacing our horizon-lodged cousin towards Inskoet.

This ritual repeats with two, three then four other vessels as we draw closer to our destination. The density of ships is remarkable. On the first voyage, we spent two weeks at sea and never saw more than one ship at a time. Now, we’ve built up a small squadron- the Village Idiot is by far the largest, for the remaining ships are yachts and smaller craft, ferrying dignitaries up to Inskoet. I am asleep when the island finally becomes close enough to spot, and by dawn it is it plainly visible, this strange little mountain that emerges from the waters a few dozen miles shy of the Torment.

Inskoet is fog-shrouded, but savagely beautiful. Like most islands in northern waters, it is mostly formed from wild black stone, which fractures into razored configurations around its little coast. Complex arches and fissures erupt delicately from its frothing shoreline. The island proper, is much more solid- an immense black block that rises seemingly vertically out of the water, with few climbable slopes apparent. The harbour we are pointed at, marked not by warded buoys but by anchored ships, is situated at the bottom of one such trail. Life scrapes by on the blasted beaches, but becomes denser and more verdant higher up the cliffs. Great clouds of oilbirds and seagulls wheel about Inskoet, present in huge numbers and apparently bereft of natural predators. A verdant crown of grass and shrubs splits the dark island from the bruised sky. The vibrancy of the greenery is startling amidst the greys and the blacks.

Even this far out, the changes that have been wrought on its geography are noticeable. Squat smokestacks puncture Inskoet’s barren surface, thrusting skywards from little workshops and bunkhouses. I’d never even heard of the island before Mister Tumble had mentioned it, and after searching through the library at Saint Listless’ all I really discovered was that it was previously a useless, guano-sodden rock near the wobbling edge of the Torment. Now a harbour big enough for six ships has been blasted or constructed into the stone. There must be scores of men and women there! I crane my neck looking for the cannon, the moon-killer, but cannot see it.

The Gundog Walking grumbles underfoot as it drifts into a loose formation with the other ships slowly gliding towards the port. Rumbling footsteps from the anxious crew bang and roll over her empty, cavernous hold. Half an hour of quiet jostling later, a sailor calls out.

"Captain! Yacht approaching! Looks serious."

He's not joking. There’s a black craft cutting towards us, from Inskoet, growing larger by the second. She's quick. She's not slowing down. Her own mast is crowned, insanely, with a halo of fire, a blossoming ring that looks like it belongs on an airship. There, on the deck- is that?

It is. I'd recognise those broad shoulders and that frantic waving anywhere. Mister Tumble has come to greet us.

*

We sail to the dock, and the water around the Gundog Walking has that same low sparkling that it did the day we cast the fishing net on the way back from Brixa Thalaam. Mister Tumble’s vessel, a slick little yacht called the Feist and Calico, cuts through the sea before us. It is presumably powered by that insane, tempered halo, which Iseult concurs looks exactly like an airship ring. The handful of crew on his boat are wearing hats, though Mister Tumble is not, and his hair is clearly being pulled skyward by the tug of that engine. There’s something beautiful about the way the sun and the waves crash brutally against the shore. I mention this to Iseult, as we wait for the ship to be secured to its berth.

“The sea looks like the day they hauled that giant skate from the ocean, when we were coming back to Ildathach. Do you remember?”

She looks at me strangely. “No.”

Oh. Well.

The gun looms at the top of this exact hill. It’s smaller than I expected, but is still intimidatingly large and easily the tallest structure on the island. A cathedral’s spire, cast in steel, spiked at an angle into the rock of Inskoet. Feeder lines, pistons, steel braces, and a score of other contrivances twist around its bulk, then snake off into distant bunkers or chemical containers. There’s a compartment, almost near the open barrel, which must be for Iseult’s strangely-charmed targeting apparatus. Down the shaft, near the very bottom and the breech, should be a similar hollow for us to slot the glyphs we manufactured. A pair of railway tracks stretch for yards behind the iron hillock of its base, capped by tremendous metal breakers. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Our harbour is ringed entirely in a layer of sand so dark that I initially thought that, for whatever inscrutable engineering reason, Colt & Tumble had painted it black. It is dotted here and there with pebbles and fist-sized rocks, which share that same midnight lustre. The overall effect creates a strange trick of the eyes, as dark-clad men and women seem to merge with the landscape, highlighted only by the flashes of their hands and faces. A handful of rugged plants carve out bleak and hardy lives on the black beach. Mister Tumble, who welcomes us onto shore after first departing from his own vessel, seems completely unfazed by the terrain. He’s dressed in gentleman’s attire, and does not care at all about the mess of mud and dirt that cakes his shoes and the lower quarter of his trousers. I took Iseult’s advice back in Ildathach and brought calf-high travelling boots, and am glad to have done so. Even Sean has shucked his dress shoes, and is dressed at a halfway point between a ranger and a coffee-shop socialite. He’s stopped sniffing, and has chosen to now blow his nose into an actual kerchief.

The handful of other people on this street have taken similar practical precautions against the island muck, and Mister Tumble’s desire to continue to dress as an Ildathach gentleman makes him a unique figure amidst the more pragmatic men and women of Inskoet. He takes the time to shake hands and greet every person who is even remotely near him, and summons a handful from across the street simply by shouting their names and gesturing affably. After rapidly directing his aide to lead Captain Holofernes and her crew to their accommodations, he’d neatly cleaved us from the mass of sailors and marched us up the hill, towards the cannon.

Theoretically, at the very least Professor O’Tierney from the Violet Manor should also be on Inskoet, though perhaps she has not arrived yet. Neither Iseult nor I have been asked to help with the firing sequence, and it’s unlikely that the Wine Party will be able to activate the cannon without one of the three of us. I hope she’s here. It would be good to see her and the alchemists.

Mister Tumble waves us forward after enthusiastically greeting the last group of passers-by. "Come! Come! Miss Colt awaits! She is very excited to meet you. And I'm very excited to pay you!" He laughs at this remark, slapping Sean hard on the back. His other hand remains in his coat, sheltered from the occasional brisk breeze. Iseult rolls her eyes, when she knows Mister Tumble isn’t looking.

He leads us uphill to a single-story cabin, a utilitarian collection of reinforced fungalboard planking that looks significantly older than the rest of the building we’ve seen along the way. I’m out of breath by the time we make it to the front door. The black hill is steep. Years of salted breeze have stripped large swathes of the cabin’s paint, and it creaks and bows under our weight as we make our way up the short steps and onto the raised veranda.

We’re ushered through a simple, unlocked door. Sean cracks a quiet joke to Mister Tumble, and is rewarded with a hearty guffaw and a tremendous, spine-shaking back slap. The corridor is narrow and claustrophobic, with no lanterns or lighting wards. My surprise, and its accompanying little bout of anxiety, are tempered by how relaxed Sean and Iseult seem to be.

Actually, now that I know her better and really understand what to look for, I notice that Iseult’s shoulders are tensed, her hands gently curled.

Where is he taking us?

We make our way to the very end of the dark, damp hall, and our host opens a squeaky, unguarded door. Once again- no lock. No staff. He beams at me, ushers us through with a flourish, and I’m greeted by an improbable sight.

Thus far the building has been constructed with the thoughtful pragmatism of a surveyor’s post. Its walls are thick, and its windows small, and it could easily be used as a bunker instead of an office. This room, then, is dislocated. White floorboards, visible only at the fringes of an immense Al Khazraj rug, sweep across the entire hall-like expanse. The far wall, which must be two thirds of the width of the entire building, has been plastered floor to ceiling with paintings. Landscapes from across the continent, from Yvreathe to Khazraj. A splash of more exotic colorations, Far Coast vistas. Many of the canvases are taller than I am.

It’s mesmerising. No maps, no portraits, just waves and cliffs and trees and meadows. Occasionally, a view of the sea: fleets of ships with beautiful, startling sails, glistening under gorgeous skies. Even Iseult seems impressed.

Placed at the centre of this immense wall of paintings is a wooden desk. Placed at the centre of this desk is a woman.

She doesn't move when we enter; her hand hovers over an open notebook, delicately tracing the air above the page. An aide, dressed all in black, is standing at a corner of the desk. He is stooped over what might be a pair of topographical maps, each held down by a separate hand. A single orchid in a slim black vase marks a halfway point between them. He looks up as we enter, and regards us coldly. As soon as Mister Tumble sweeps into the room, he bends down and speaks into the woman’s ear.

Although I’ve been told that Wynne Colt possesses a peculiar gravity in certain social circles within Yvreathe, I’d personally never heard of her before becoming involved with Colt & Tumble. Her hair is cropped at chin-level, brown-black and just barely touching a dark-patterned ribbon fastened around her neck. She’s wearing a simple white blouse, her left shirt-sleeve and hand smudged by hours of penwork. Behind her, affixed to various hooks, are the remainder of her outfit: a jacket, benthic blue and chased in gold, a cerise length of cloth to be affixed at her waist, and a fashionable, shortened cavalry sabre.

She reaches the bottom of the page and taps the paper in satisfaction. She still hasn't looked up yet. This doesn’t prevent her from speaking to us. Or, rather, at us.

“The only delay for the entire Inskoet Gun construction has been from a Crowmere vessel, the Hitherto Charming, which apparently lost a small portion of her cargo when it struck a submarine rotberg. It was carrying nonessential supplies, the loss of which put us approximately a week behind schedule.” From behind me, I hear a snort of disgust from Mister Tumble. Miss Colt continues:

"Things are, therefore, proceeding quite well. This particular endeavour has been in motion for some months. You've been invited to assist us at the end of a rather interesting time for us at Colt & Tumble. Admittedly, and I must say this is in contrast to my own professional philosophies, you've been integrated more intimately with our workings than a normal contractor would be. Still, you have succeeded in the tasks we’ve employed you for, and for that I am grateful. Your reward."

Her scrivener sweeps forward and withdraws a key the size of a thumbnail from inside of his coat pocket. He walks smartly to a steel safe and extracts a heavy black envelope. Catlike, he pads to our side of the room before handing it to Iseult. She accepts it, respectfully, and says nothing.

Wait. That's it?

Even Mister Tumble is uncharacteristically quiet. Miss Colt glances up at us for the first time and raises an eyebrow. Her look is a combination of bored and dreamlike, and her gaze wanders, rather than flicks, between us.

"Yes?"

Questions foam up, unbidden. I clench my jaw to tamp to them down. Where to start? What’s the point? Why a huge cannon? Why don’t we have this kind of weapon in Ildathach? Why not use airships? Why here, so far north of the continent? What was the debt she acquired with Ābreen il Kutrib, doing whatever it is she did in the Wraithwild?

I am appalled by my own inability to speak. In the end, it is Iseult who saves me, when she clears her throat. Sean reaches sideways, almost delicately, and touches a fingertip to her sleeve. Iseult shrugs him off, irked.

“What is this really about?” She asks.

Blessed relief.

Miss Colt sighs. Iseult has her full attention now, and her black-clad assistant quietly rolls his charts into a pair of matching leather cases. The boredom leeches from Miss Colt’s face, and her expression sharpens as she regards Iseult with a steadily increasing interest.

Her scrutiny reminds me of Captain Holofernes’, without the impression of rancour. She makes a sort of mirror with Iseult, and I realise with a start the similarities between both women- not in physical appearance, but perhaps in force of personality.

"I must admit, I do try not to humour contractors. Not as a matter of offence, of course. It’s just always fully explaining myself to everyone would occupy a surprisingly large portion of my time. But it has been rather a long day. If you’ll suffer me to answer your question with a question of my own, I think I can illuminate things a bit further for you.” She speaks with that sort of portentous Ildathach elegance, the smooth idiolect that Sean employs when he’s not talking to us.

“Please, indulge me," her eyes narrow, "what do you think is the greatest threat to Ildathach? The city, her ouncelands, her territories. All of it."

That takes me by surprise. Sean speaks first, rummaging to regain some semblance of control of the conversation. His answer comes out confidently.

“Al Khazraj.”

She gives him a stare that’s splashed, very lightly, with pity. Her eyes lock with mine, and I do my best to try to blend into the floor. Now she flicks her gaze back to Iseult, who says nothing. Faced with a wrong answer and two abstentions, she sighs and continues talking.

"The Far Coast," Miss Colt says, and here her face shifts. Lamplight, clean and stark, darkens the shadows on her face.

"Cabochon. Have you ever been?” She pauses, looking for a reaction. “No, I thought not. It’s not really our city, you understand. The Tecuani, they let us keep it, partly for their amusement but mostly for the livestock we sell to them. There are few prey animals left for them to eat, you see, save turkeys and crocodiles. But the city could be taken away at a moment. I have been meeting with the cats and their slaves for the last two decades. No matter what you hear from the Ildathach gentry,” her eyes travel to regard both Sean and Mister Tumble, “they are not afraid of us.

“When the War Hosts gathered in the Aergan and marched against us, we defeated them. I know that you” her hand drifts up, and bounces between Iseult and Sean, “are aware of why- not the individuals, or the technology, or whatever else is in vogue these days to extoll the Chaplain or the aristocracy. Rather, the organisation. The ability to place those men and women where they needed to be, and to give them everything they need to fulfil their duty. It’s a lesson that our city learned after centuries of conflict with Ys and Crowmere and Caronek and the Khazraj states. It’s a lesson that we’ll have to employ again, when war visits this continent, in the coming decades. Human wars are understandable. A vile science. But we do have some practice.

“The Tecuani,” she spits the word like an insult. “They broke us. First they slaughtered us in Cabochon, when we thought they were just unusually clever animals. Then they summoned the Calamity on Ildathach, forced us to sign their slapdash, idiot treaty as an afterthought, and let us keep our city in the jungle for their own merriment. We thought we could kill them with swords and knotwork, and they slaughtered us. The worst part is, if they were human, they would have crushed us so completely that Ildathach would be theirs to take. Tecuani banners would fly over the Chaplain’s Office. Their slave gangs would clog our streets. But they couldn’t be bothered. We were defeated and humiliated by an enemy that is so carefree it doesn’t even realise how easily it could’ve ground us to dust. Or, worse, perhaps they did understand, and they decided not to, on a whim.

“There’s something in the dirt of the Far Coast that doesn’t exist here. We see glimmers of something similar at the Shorn Peak, where the world bends beyond our knowledge of science or magic. The Far Coast is home to natural laws so far beyond our understanding of sigilwork that we have no shred of protection against them. The Tecuani know this, they utilise these aberrations, but we are just as ignorant as we were when we first met them. You understand this, yes? The Calamity happened not because of some great effort from their part, not because of some titanic wartime project. They did it on impulse, because they know things and have tools that we cannot comprehend. We hashed out a peace not because of the threat of our military, but because of the brevity of the attention span of a mob of animals we barely understand.

“Every citizen of Ildathach has an obligation to our people. That is what this is about. We built a gun the size of a Saint’s spire. Fed it gorgeous new explosives. Crowned it in magic. Why? Despite what you may have been told, we could have designed new balloons. Calculated wind, transit vectors, floated explosives to the new moon. It’s theoretically possible. But what's the point? Does using old technologies teach us at all about the hidden laws of the world? Do you know what kind of advances we've made here? Metal that takes that kind of blast, sigils that can tune ammunition to hunt specific parts of the stone. The Wine Party modified that barrel in a way that, as far as their experiments suggest, burns magnetism as an accelerant!

"This is our duty. Advance or die. I will not wait while Ildathach’s preening politics limps us to impotence, until those vile cats have a change of heart and disappear us beneath another Calamity. The Dunaidh Family has forgotten its obligations to its people, so we shall fulfil those tasks for them. We can’t defeat the cats with magic, not yet. But I am doing what I know, in any way I can, and I pray that it will be enough for when Tecuani eyes refocus on Ildathach."

The monologue ends. My compatriots are stilled. Sean, ashen-faced, says nothing. Iseult is smiling.

"Oh," Miss Colt’s head tilts up, and her eyes fixate on the ceiling. "Also, our daguerreotypes very strongly suggest that the quantity of material in the moon is sufficient to entirely crash the commodities market of Ildathach and Crowmere combined. Not our intention, you understand. But, after we kill and strip that moon, we'll be very, very rich."

She turns her head to ask her aide something quietly, and gets a single sentence reply. Her hand snakes down under the desk, withdraws a worn green leather ledger. She cracks it open and peers down at the pages. "Second round safety tests show no signs of failure, as of eight hours ago. Installing your equipment should realistically take only twelve hours of actual labour, which means we'll be concluded with safety checks and cleared to fire in, oh, six days?"

I jump, almost out of my boots, as the silence behind me erupts in a loud exclamation. Mister Tumble is here, has been here the whole time. I’d almost forgotten. He’s never been quiet for longer than a minute or two.

"Preposterous! Ridiculous! Absolutely not! We launch tomorrow!"

One stomping footstep and he is beside me, furious energy shivering from his frame. You don’t notice his bulk until it becomes potentially threatening. His breakneck posture is diminished by his pocketed hands, like he’s consciously trying to control his anger.

Nobody says anything. Nobody speaks. Mister Tumble and Miss Colt don't look away from each other. The black-clad assistant's aloofness has dissipated, and he almost imperceptibly shifts his weight to his back foot. My palms start sweating.

She speaks first. Doesn't blink, doesn't break her stare. "I suppose that we will be suited for a launch in two days’ time, after this equipment has been installed and the second round of safety checks has been completed. You can imagine we are all," the next word comes out with a certain deliberateness, "thrilled, to see the gun in action."

Poor assistant. The only thing moving in the room are his eyes, flicking between the two of them like a metronome.

*

Compared to the cramped room in the Gundog Walking, the lodgings we’ve been given on Inskoet are palatial. There’s a lot of real estate available on a mostly uninhabited island, when you’re not hemmed in by bilge pumps and tarred planking. For all its bulk, Colt & Tumble’s harbours, bunkhouses, and the moon-killing gun itself cover scarcely a fifth of the surface of Inskoet.

During the walk to the cabin, Mister Tumble spent an unbroken five minutes apologising for the state of the lodgings. His thunderclap rage dissipated as soon as he stepped out of Miss Colt’s building. When describing our quarters, he painted a fairly dismal picture of a packed workhouse cabin, or a shared room the size of an under-stairs wardrobe. I didn’t mind particularly, of course, and said as much as we tromped through the muddy road. My room in the Lugrough Club is scarcely larger than the cabin that we stayed in on the ship, and I shared a room with my mother for my entire life until I received the scholarship from Saint Listless’.

We’ve actually been allocated a chateau with three private bedrooms, each larger than the cabin we shared on the ship. Mister Tumble’s dire warnings of the size and quality of our lodgings were so vivid and remorseful that I thought he lead us up to this massive building as a joke. After he unlocked the front door tossed the keys to Sean, he had again apologised, head bowed.

The space is massive, and immaculate. There aren’t even any moths.

Sean assures Mister Tumble that the lodgings are absolutely terrific, and I notice his eyebrow twitch just slightly when Iseult says that she could do with some food from the manager’s rations. After Mister Tumble departed, in a storm of promises about the bounty of food he (or a trusted confidant) would return with, Sean had watched his retreating frame and turned, flabbergasted, to Iseult.

She just shrugged. “I just wanted to see if that would work.”

It even smells clean, which is no small feat for a log cabin built on a hill on a remote island. Sean shakes his head, bemused, then gestures out the window, past the heavy wooden shutters.

“Aren’t you worried he’s going to poison the food?” he asks, half-grinning.

“You can’t possibly trust him,” Iseult snarls back, mirthless.

“Fine, Saints, fine. Probably wouldn’t have the time, anyway.”

“I’m not convinced he sleeps.”

She says it like she’s shutting a book. Sean looks pained, then shrugs. That genial armour returns.

“You know that this place,” he twirls a finger to indicate all of Inskoet, “originally used to be just a solid mass of birds and guano?”

I did not. I say this.

“It’s true. Ten, twenty years ago. One of the first things Colt & Tumble ever did as a company. This would be back in the day, when Wynne Colt’s dad was running everything. Scraped together enough money for a little trip up north on a hare-brained search for an island of gold near the Torment. An island, sadly, that doesn’t exist. Basically bankrupted the entire clan. They sighted Inskoet, moored here, and realised that the island was effectively just a solid mountain of faeces.”

Uncharacteristically, Iseult laughs. “Sounds disgusting. Can’t imagine any Ildathach nobility wading through waist-deep bird shit.”

“I’ve seen the drawings. Try three stories of bird shit. Turns out he found the place right when some alchemist in Crowmere realised that certain types of guano could be chemically treated, cheaply, into almost perfect fertiliser. Wynne Colt’s dad expected to sail back to Ildathach in disgrace. A decade later, after they’d scraped the entire island clean… well there’s a reason why Colt & Tumble had enough money to get into mining. And now here we are. They donated the land to Ildathach, after looting it. Very magnanimous. But nobody really cares what happens, this far away from the continent and the major sea lanes.”

I glance again out of the window, at the rich greenery that swells around us and the iron-grey sea beyond. I try to imagine it all under a glacier of bird droppings, and shudder at the thought. Iseult, apparently arrives at the same conclusion, and makes an expression like she’s just smelled something foul.

“So if you don’t think he’s planning something dangerous, surely you have to admit that that business was abnormal.”

There’s no reason for her to elaborate on that point further. We all saw the way that Mister Tumble rose against Miss Colt. I felt the wrath ringing off of him when she suggested a delay in the timeline. Sean closes his eyes and leans back, his chair creaking as his weight shifts.

“I don’t disagree. I’m not convinced he’s doing something inherently evil. I just think he’s… strange. Obsessed. I cannot imagine him performing something devilish, for no reason.”

Iseult scowls. “Then you are a fool.”

His eyes are still closed, and he frowns. There’s a moment as if he’s about to say something, but he thinks better of it. Iseult, hackles still raised, focuses instead on me. “And you, Íde?”

I pretend to make a show of considering it, and look down at the traceries of black scars on my hands. In truth, I’ve been thinking about it nonstop ever since I felt the crackle in the Colt & Tumble office. It takes me longer than I expected to figure out how to articulate my response.

“I don’t think I have enough information,” I see Iseult start to swell in anger, so finish as quickly as possible. “I certainly believe Mister Tumble is acting strangely.” She deflates, ever so slightly.

“But also, I’m not sure what else to do. The contract is over. They have the equipment, built to the specifications they requested. We’ve been paid. But it’s not like we can leave, because no boats will be leaving before the hunting day. If we trust them or not, they’re going to hunt the moon. And unless we put forth the payment to charter a boat back to Ildathach, and find a captain here who is willing to miss the show we’re going to be here when they do it. Plus, Sean mentioned that the guest list seemed exceptionally notable. I don’t think even Colt & Tumble could get away with doing anything outrageously dangerous, with so many people watching.”

Iseult, miraculously, is actually considering my words. No retort. No barbs. No insults or counter-arguments or any of that, nothing. Sean’s eyes are open, and he’s staring blankly at the ceiling. He speaks dreamily, like he’s remembering something.

“Wynne Colt is an interesting woman. She enjoys both art and explosives. Has a bit of a thing for moments of glory, I suppose.”

“That’s quite poignant,” says Iseult, respectfully.

“Ah, well. To be honest I stole that from a friend of mine. Drustan Tilian, who I believe you both know.”

I can actually hear Iseult roll her eyes. “Drustan Tilian is a cretinous, vacuous rake. He is a staph infection of a person.”

“Yes, and you just called him remarkably poignant. He still asks about you, by the way.”

We sit in a good-natured silence until a thunderous pounding at the front door jolts us out of our seats. Evin Tumble, returning. He has in his possession a large basket of victuals that he passes reverently to Iseult. He politely and comprehensively declines our invitation to dine together (Sean and I’s invitation, at least). When he marches briskly back out of the front door of the lodgings, I watch him from a shuttered window. He does not abandon his blistering pace until he disappears, some hundred yard further uphill, behind some other building.

When I turn to report this to Sean, he is already in the process of wolfing down a slab of smoked fish he has unwrapped from the hamper. He’s already eating something else while he’s already eating, and has extracted a boiled north sea crab from the depths of this remarkable basket, and alternates between breaking its steaming remnants into edible chunks and devouring forkfuls of fish. I join him, for there is something about his zest for food which fully draws the attention of my stomach and ignites my own hunger.

Iseult plucks an apple from the basket, then slowly and methodically eats the entire thing- core included.

In the evening we retire to our private rooms. Before saying goodnight, Iseult makes a quip about not having to listen to me talk in my sleep anymore. It takes me hours to fall asleep, after hearing that.