Escapement (63 page)

Metal meant she was no longer on the airship.
No, the submarine.
She’d fought with the captain. A panic overwhelmed Paolina as she cast about for the gleam, but it was under her covers with her. She must have slept with it wrapped in her hands.

Holding the thing calmed her. She rose and pulled on her damp, tattered dress. There was nothing else to wear. When she opened the hatch a sailor stationed there turned and smiled at her, then called out.

That old woman—Childless?—appeared from down the corridor. “Good day, young lady.”

Paolina couldn’t decide whether to be appalled or pleased that there was an Englishwoman aboard a Chinese vessel. It made no sense to her at all, yet here
she
was. “How is Chief al-Wazir?”

“Your great lummox of a Scotsman? He has a dreadful fever, but seems in no danger of passing away. He has twice asked for you.”

“Where is he?”

“The forward torpedo room. With you in my cabin, it’s the only place on
Five Lucky Winds
to put him.”

“I would like to see the chief.”

“Not before Captain Leung says so, dear. Besides, we are coming to a shore. There will be distractions.”

Her heart leapt. “
A Muralha
?”

“No, no. I am afraid only a small harbor along the southwest coast of
Sumatra. We lost most of our fresh water in the storm. The captain would prefer to take on further supply. Once that is sorted, we are perhaps a day’s sail from the Wall.”

“Oh.” There was only delay, disappointment, more kinds of trouble ahead. That was all she could see, ever and again.

“Do not despair,” the old woman said kindly. She picked up a bowl and pair of the Chinese sticks. “Here, you should eat. It will improve your mood.”

They breakfasted on cold rice with some slippery, naked beans in brownish sauce. To her surprise, Paolina did feel a bit better. A sailor stepped in and whispered to Childress, who nodded and murmured her thanks.

“We can go see your angry giant now, Miss Barthes. Then if you’d like to come up into the tower, we might look upon the shore of Sumatra.”

“How is Chief al-Wazir?”

“I can assure you he’s well cared for.” Childress rose. “Come with me.”

They headed for a hatch at the end of the short passageway. A sailor swung it open at their approach and waved them in.

The room beyond was very narrow, lined with long cylinders and two round hatches at the front. A set of winches was stowed above, and the cleared space on the floor where the cylinders—torpedoes?—could be handled was currently occupied by one Threadgill Angus al-Wazir.

He in turn was surrounded by half a dozen sailors in their blue pajamas. They seemed to be fascinated by the towering redheaded man. It had been somewhat the same aboard
Heaven’s Deer
, though with far more anger and weapons. Al-Wazir and the airship had met fighting, after all. Still, he’d exerted a certain strange attraction to the Chinese.

“Lassie,” al-Wazir mumbled. His voice was thick as mud.

“Chief,” she answered.

“They’re feeding me crap, lassie. Stewed crap what tastes like the worst of last winter’s oats.”

He sounded so pathetic, so small. It made her want to cry.

“We’re safe,” she lied. “Safe for now in this place.”

“They’ll not take ye to Phu Ket?”

“No, Chief, not to Phu Ket.” She took his remaining hand in hers. “We’re going to the Wall, soon as we bring on supplies.”

“Aye, the Wall.” He looked at her with some strain of desperation in his eyes.
Is he drugged?
These sailors had risked all to save her and al-Wazir. Surely they would not trouble to kill him now.

“We’re safe.” She squeezed his hand.

“Come above, girl,” the old woman told her. “Come above.”

Paolina stumbled back to the door.

“Lassie,” he said as she was about to step out.

“Yes?” She stared back, still wondering how truly ill he was.

“You brought this ship from far away. Could you send us to the Bight of Benin? Or all the way to Lanarkshire?”

“Perhaps I could.”

She climbed the ladder with tears stinging her eyes. It was very different when the storm and threat of tons of water were not hanging over her head. Still damp and stinking of the sea, but at the top there was sunlight and the scent of shore—green and deep, soil crossed with perfume and old fruit. Birds circled overhead.

Five Lucky Winds
was anchored a quarter mile offshore. A launch pulled from the beach with oars flashing. A small group of men were on land with a pile of barrels next to a stream. Some were in blue pajamas; others were dark-skinned with pale brown skirts. Sailors and locals. Fuzzy wuzzies, al-Wazir would call them.

People, Paolina would call them.

The land was beautiful, lined with a dense jungle that put her in mind of the western African shore. The color here was brighter, more emerald, and the scent was different. Mountains rose behind, with clouds wreathing the peaks. She turned the other way and tilted her head back to face the rising immensity of
a Muralha
. The Wall was so close, she thought she could have reached out to touch it.

Why did they need to take on supplies for such a brief trip?

The launch tied up. Shouting men wrestled the heavy barrels aboard. The water was no lie, that was certain—there was too much effort in those to be anything else here so far from oil or wine. Paolina heard a long conversation in Chinese at the base of the ladder as she stood quietly with Childress and another sailor in the tower. “There’s peace up here,” she finally said, talking over the discussion below.

“Yes.” Childress touched her arm. “It’s why I asked to bring you up. You went from airship to storm-tossed sea to these iron decks. You needed a measure of peace.”

“I am sorry if I have been rude.”

“You have faced great pressures, young lady. And you carry a strange burden in your hands and in your heart.”

A burden which threatens the very order of the world,
Paolina thought. “Yes. Even if I destroyed this one, I could make another. This is the second. The people who want it . . . me . . . know this.”

“The Wall is endless. Lose yourself upon the face of it. No one will find you, especially if you carry the gleam for your protection.”

“Why . . . why do your White Birds not seek to grasp this?”

Childress look a long, slow breath. “Perhaps some among the
avebianco
do. But I am the Mask here, and for me it is enough to let the world turn as God intended it, without attempting to remake Creation wholesale.”

“You work to preserve balance and order in the world.”

“Yes. At least the best of us do.”

That explains Lachance
, Paolina thought. And the purser aboard of
Star of Gambia
. That there might yet be good people in the world, some of them men, seemed a distant surprise. Still welcome, though.

Footsteps echoed up the ladder. Paolina and Childress edged back from the open hole in the floor of the tower’s top. It would be crowded with four up here.

Leung came up.

“Captain,” said Childress, with a smile and nod.

“Captain,” Paolina added grudgingly.

“Mask,” he replied. “Good day. You as well, Miss Barthes.” He glanced toward shore. “I have news of serious import.”

“What sort of news?” Paolina asked, a new stab of fear in her heart. She was so close. It was almost as if she could
swim
to the Wall.

“Last night, during the Wall storm at about the time you, ah . . . translocated . . .
Five Lucky Winds
, there was an earthquake in the Strait of Malacca. Somewhere near our prior position.”

“
They
know that?”

Childress touched her arm. “Hush, girl. The Chinese have wireless stations in many places.”

“Whatever you did with that gleam. It killed many to move us.” His eyes narrowed as he stared hard at her. “This device is dangerous.”

“I
know
that,” she almost shouted. “Dangerous to everyone, most of all me. It makes of me a weapon. I will not be so used!”

“No one will use you,” said Childress.

“We killed people to move you a hundred miles. Al-Wazir wants to go to Scotland aboard your vessel. How many would die for us to leap ten thousand miles?”

Captain Leung gave her a long, steady stare. “I pray we never find out.”

“No.” Paolina nodded. “You are right. I will not do such a thing, even though he asks it.”

“You and the Mask Childress owe me an answer soon,” Leung reminded them.

Paolina glanced between the pair. “About what?”

Childress tightened her grip on Paolina’s arm. “We have not spoken yet.”

“I go back to my crew.” Leung nodded at them both. “I suggest you consider the costs we incur here, simply with every minute we do nothing while such power is loose in the world.”

“We are,” said Childress.

“What do you think I am running from?” Paolina asked.

Leung did not answer, but climbed down quickly to rejoin his launch before it pulled for shore once more.

Paolina turned to Childress. “Of what are we speaking?”

Childress met her gaze, the old woman’s brown eyes glittering. “How to put you ashore with surety that the danger will not again walk the Northern Earth.”

“Indeed.” Paolina stared at the glinting water. The sea here was so clear, she could see the submarine’s hull and the pale sand below it. Fish moved across the bottom, flickering in shoals, larger ones stalking in predatory solitude. The jungle beyond was quiet. Birds continued to circle overhead.

If she could fly away with them, she would, but the gleam’s powers didn’t seem to extend to transformation.

“I . . . I thought to learn from the wizards when I left
a Muralha
. The English were to be my guides. So I believed. Instead I have found myself both too strong and too foolish for them. I wanted a purpose, to meet the future with full knowledge.”

“No one but God has full knowledge,” Childress told her. “That is more than any person can expect, child.”

“No, no one can. But I have already learned too much on my own. Surely there are greater philosophers in Europe or China? If so, I do not know where to find them. All have betrayed me.”

“The world stands against you because you hold power over it in your hands. Your mechanism is too great. It is as if the hand of God had come among us once more. We cannot live in the direct presence of the Divine, not when the world can be unmade and remade at the stroke of one person’s will. This is the power too many have pursued of late. The danger is that they might succeed through you.”

Paolina stared at Childress a moment. “You do not serve China or England, do you?”

“I am a Mask. I serve the
avebianco,
and through the
avebianco,
the interests of humanity in the world.”

“I know nothing of Masks,” Paolina said. “All I know are people who find power within service, greed within sacrifice, and see me as the key to more of what they desire.”

“You do not need to know of Masks. You merely need to know of your own heart.”

“My heart is silent,” Paolina said, miserable.

The Mask Childress seemed sincere. Still, she’d had enough of the British, the Chinese, their machinations. She owed nothing to anyone in Northern Earth. Only to keep herself separate from whatever poisonous intrigue they took up among themselves. The world was never so simple, even when it seemed little more than a giant version of Praia Nova with the pettiness and power of the
fidalgos
writ large across the hemisphere.

“You go to the Wall, but how? The captain’s question is an excellent one. How shall we put you ashore in safety? Should it be enough to cast the thing into the sea?”

“I . . . I would still know how to make another.”

“You cannot undo that knowledge,” Childress said sadly.

“Perhaps,” Paolina told her. “Perhaps.” An idea stirred in the back of her mind.

When he finally woke with a clear head, his lungs ached. Fiercely. He was also surrounded by Chinese sailors. This seemed like a problem.

Al-Wazir sat up on his hands. The cascade of blinding red pain reminded him he was missing one. An even bigger problem.

He fell back to the deck, swallowing curses and renewing a headache he’d managed to forget. Two of the sailors helped him up again, bracing his elbows and chattering at him in Chinese. Someone else stroked his hair. The compartment smelled strongly of machine oil and the Chinese as well as salt-logged al-Wazir.

“Air,” he said, gasping. “Might I have fresh air?”

They led him stumbling down a passageway to a ladder. Pistols appeared in a few fists.
These men are not fools,
he thought. In his current state, al-Wazir couldn’t take over a rowboat. Still, he was easily twice their size, and not fit at all for this little vessel.