Far Called Trilogy 01 - In Dark Service (55 page)

Jacob cast an eye around the thin, miserable gads crowding the dungeon around them. ‘Somehow, I don’t think surviving addiction to prison rations will be a problem here.’

‘Indeed, he is a miserly host,’ said Sariel, casting an eye around the humid chamber. ‘Leaving us to bake in his oven without even supplying the dough to knead to make bread.’

‘This city’s ruler knows us somehow,’ said Khow from the floor. ‘My numbers indicate a reversion, the inverse of an analytic function.’

‘If you say so, friend. We’ll be finding out soon enough, I reckon,’ said Jacob.

Sariel began thumping the flagstones with his walking staff, as though he might summon his missing breakfast. Instead, the door – steel-plated wood as thick as a man’s forearm – unlocked, drew open, and a team of gad slaves dragged in a heavy oak barrel. Four well-armed soldiers watched the slaves prise up the barrel lid, revealing a tub of brackish-looking water, then departed with the slaves while the prisoners lined up to use a wooden spoon to slop out rations of drink. Jacob and the others joined the line. He was impressed by the gads’ discipline. There was no fighting or brawling over the precious liquid, despite the fact they would need a lot more than what was inside here to stay alive in the dungeon’s oppressive heat. In fact, looking at how fast the liquid disappeared, there was a chance it would be empty by the time Jacob reached the barrel. It wouldn’t be the same inside a Weyland cell, that much he knew. A figure among the queuing gads caught Jacob’s eye. It was the way he tried to stay out of sight of the visitors that roused Jacob’s suspicious hackles. Jacob looked closer. Something strange about the prisoner’s striped yellow and brown and green skin, too; different from the other prisoners. He strode towards the gad. Confirming his suspicions, the locals began clustering more tightly around their friend, blocking Jacob’s view.

‘Your skin paint,’ noted Jacob, ‘is running in the heat.’

The other gads tried to shoo the interloper away, protesting that none of them knew what he was talking about.

‘What is this?’ said Sheplar, coming up behind Jacob.

‘That one,’ said Jacob, pointing to the gad sheltering behind his kin, ‘isn’t what he seems.’

Sheplar followed the line of Jacob’s finger. ‘Why… the patterning on his skin is running?’

‘Yes, that happens when it’s been painted on.’

‘A spy!’ hissed Sheplar. ‘A dirty informer.’

Jacob held the aviator back as he tried to push his way through the crowd. ‘I don’t think so. Leastways, not a spy for the grand duke, not with so many genuine gads eager to cover for him. I would say he’s a half-breed. Perhaps a scout for the tribes beyond the walls.’

‘This is not so,’ called one of the gads hiding their comrade.

‘Let’s shout for the grand duke’s guards, then,’ said Jacob. ‘If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about.’

The figure the natives sheltered reluctantly stepped forward. He was a tall male. His skin similar to his comrades, apart from where an indistinct mottling had been revealed around his neck, still running with sweat. Somewhere between common pattern and gad. He was a half-breed.

‘You have your freedom, then,’ said the gad. ‘If you reveal my presence, the grand duke’s soldiers will surely reward you with your liberty.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Jacob. ‘I’ve yet to meet the man, but from what I’ve seen of his state, he doesn’t strike me as the grateful type. You’re taking a risk, coming into the royal city.’

‘I heard that a baby had been born to a servant. We snatch them, whenever we can. Before the city law is applied.’

‘I reckon you were one of them, once.’

‘Your guess is a good one,’ said the gad. ‘I am called Zanasi by the people in the city.’

‘The trickster,’ said Sariel. ‘Zanasi is the Gaddish god who became King of All Stories after proving to the Land Mother that he could change his shape into a hippo, a jaguar and a hornet.’

‘You know our history well, old one,’ said the gad.

Sariel shrugged modestly. ‘I bested the real Zanasi once in a poet’s duel. By rights, the title of King of All Stories belongs to me. But he wept so much afterwards, I couldn’t bear to strip him of it.’

Zanasi grinned at the vagrant’s cheek. ‘That is wise. For when he is in the shape of a hornet, he stings mightily.’

‘Yes. I am far too kindly for my own good.’

‘All I can change into is a gad or a Hangel,’ said Zanasi, ‘depending on which dye I apply to my face.’

‘You might have wanted to pick the latter for your morning’s work,’ said Jacob. He introduced himself and the others in Northhaven’s expedition to the scout.

‘A city man carrying a gad babe?’ said Zanasi, staring quizzically at the strange group of foreigners after Jacob finished his introductions. ‘Not a common sight. And nobody looks twice at a gad servant.’

‘A common problem,’ said Khow. ‘To a manling, all gasks look alike. They can barely distinguish male from female.’

‘There is a little truth in that,’ said Zanasi. ‘It was bad luck for me there were so many soldiers out early. The Hangels are normally asleep in their barracks at such a premature hour.’

‘We are to blame for their early patrols,’ said Jacob.

‘I have heard tell of you. You are the party which climbed the servants’ stairs up to the city yesterday. But I do not think the grand duke has imprisoned you for that.’

‘We’re just simple travellers,’ said Jacob. ‘But I don’t think the head man wants us to get to where we’re going.’

‘And why would that be?’

‘The why, I’m still working on. The who, that I reckon I know.’

‘The grand duke rarely executes travellers,’ explained Zanasi. ‘He may be mad, but he is not a fool by any means. His revenues come from refuelling the aircraft which attempt the savannah crossing. He would not put his commerce at risk without good reason.’

Sheplar’s ears pricked up at this. ‘Attempt? The traders do not always make it?’

‘They do not. The wreckage of planes that ran out of fuel litters the plains. It is said that the founders of Hangel were originally the crew of a mighty carrier which crashed on the plateau after they rode the wrong trade winds.’

‘In our case, I don’t think our status as foreigners is going to provide much protection,’ said Jacob.
Quite the opposite. I reckon it’s why we’re here
.

‘Where do you travel to?’

Jacob pulled out the map from the library and carefully unfolded it. He’d borrowed it with permission, planning to use the chart to book passage in the right direction with the air merchants. There wasn’t much chance the mistress of the codex was going to see it returned any time soon, now. Jacob tapped the imperium’s territory. ‘This is the end of our journey.’

‘The Far-away Heart,’ said Zanasi. ‘A source of great wealth.’

Jacob nodded. If you squinted, the outline of the empire’s massive territory did appear a little like a sketch of a heart.

‘You seek treasure?’

‘I seek my son,’ said Jacob. ‘Slavers took him, but he’s all the treasure I have. Everything else I’ve already given away to reach my boy.’

Zanasi looked at them oddly. ‘It is strange. It is as though I have heard your story before. It seems familiar to me, somehow.’

‘Déjà vu?’ said Jacob.

‘Perhaps you carry the blood of a diviner within your veins?’ suggested Sariel.

‘I am no shaman,’ said Zanasi. ‘That I can promise you. I have none of their blood.’

Nor did Jacob. But his bad feeling about their future grew a great deal more tangible as the sound of marching boots approached outside. A clacking noise sounded as the vault-like door unlocked, and soldiers appeared, rudely ushering the dungeon’s prisoners outside, gads and visitors alike. With little light in the corridor, the torches the soldiers carried nearly blinded Jacob. He could hardly see to put one foot in front of another. Zanasi stumbled by Jacob’s side along the dark corridor.

‘Do you know what we can expect?’ whispered Jacob.

‘I fear we are to be the grand duke’s breakfast entertainment,’ said the gad. ‘He always digests his meal better after he has murdered a few of my people.’

They were shoved out of the tunnel and onto the sandy dirt of a bright open space. Any hopes that the expedition’s members were to be released faded as Jacob’s vision returned. They stood on the floor of a pit that resembled a bull-fighting stadium, the gads being shepherded behind a wooden stockade, leaving Jacob and his party in the open. There weren’t many seats in this arena. It seemed it wasn’t intended for the general public. If you discounted the soldiers corralling the gad prisoners, the sole spectators sat behind a raised balcony covered from the sun by a white canvas shade. Taking no chances, the viewers were protected behind a canopy of armoured glass. In the centre sat a stoutish, late-middle-aged man with a shock of red hair, presumably the grand duke from the elevated position of his throne. He wore a purple tunic with a yellow wisp of a neck cloth buttoned up to the throat. He might have been handsome once but he had run badly to seed, the ravages of age and obesity beggaring his appearance. An eager gaggle of courtiers bobbed up and down behind the nobleman’s seat, not quite able to see the proceedings as well as their master. Dogs leapt up around the throne, trying for a view of the proceedings as well. The grand duke cooed at them, stroking their heads affectionately. The man sitting to the ruler’s left needed no introduction. It was Major Alock, his hard, stony face looked straight at Jacob and he still wore the uniform of a Weyland officer, his spine as rigid as any block of granite.

Jacob, Sheplar, Sariel and Khow were shoved in front of the raised platform.

A voice yelled from one of the soldiers behind them. ‘Kneel for Grand Duke Pavlorda, most noble issue of the House of Bragin.’

The soldiers behind Jacob didn’t wait; they shoved him down to his knees.

‘Are these the dogs?’ demanded the grand duke, fair writhing in the chair as he spoke.

‘They are, Your Highness,’ confirmed Alock.

Jacob stared up in hatred at the traitor who should have been helping him. ‘You’re a long way from home, Major. I didn’t know the league kept embassies this far out.’

‘You’ve come a long way yourself, for a man who’s only travelling towards a grave.’

‘Got a way to go yet, before that.’

Alock shook his head, allowing a wry grin to crack his dark demeanour. ‘Well, you must have mumbled a Bible full of prayers to get this far. How the hell did you escape my men back in the forest?’

‘I convinced them that stealing is a mortal sin. And that betraying your king is the civil kind.’

‘Only one out of two,’ said Alock. ‘I’m here on official business.’

‘You’re meant to be helping us, manling!’ protested Khow. ‘That is your duty.’

‘You’d be surprised where my duty takes me.’

‘Like the Burn? Your men told me that you were a mercenary general on the other side of the ocean. Bad Justus. Ring any bells?’ asked Jacob.

‘Fully pardoned,’ said the major. ‘For any indiscretions, on both sides of the ocean.’

‘This isn’t about stealing our money, is it?’ said Jacob. ‘You’re meant to stop us getting to the Vandian empire.’

‘You see, that’s what worries me about you,’ snarled the major. ‘First you know the right direction to travel. Now, you actually seem to know where you’re going.’

‘So, this fool understands too much for his own good,’ said the grand duke twisting in his chair as though he itched from the heat. ‘But that is only a problem while he is alive. It is time to feed my beauties.’

‘What’s your game, Major?’ called Jacob. ‘Is King Marcus worried that the might of the imperium might be directed in Weyland’s direction if I reach their empire and start killing the right people?’

Alock sighed. ‘You really don’t know how deep you’re in it, do you? The king has been
allowing
the skels to raid the country for slaves. Paid a lot better than I am for giving the skels carte blanche. Or did you think it was an accident that every military unit which could have intervened was stationed somewhere else during the Northhaven raid?’

‘You are a liar!’ called Sheplar. ‘Rodal would never cooperate in such a dishonourable arrangement.’

‘Some of the league states know what’s going on, some don’t.’ He tapped the side of the grand duke’s chair when he said
know
and Jacob suddenly understood where the little city state was getting the money to fund its expansionary war against the tribes. Major Alock leaned forward on the viewing gallery above the arena. ‘Your country is even more backward than ours, pilot; and if it’s happy to stay like that, so be it. The raids don’t amount to much. The king only cares that he’s sent enough steel and iron to modernise the nation. That’s the thing about people… we can always breed more of them. But the metals that Vandia’s supplying us with, they’re a lot harder to come by.’

Jacob felt the anger boiling inside him. ‘He’ll be looking for another throne when the assembly finds out.’

‘Maybe, maybe not. There are many politicians in the mechanicalist faction who are only too happy to be given what they need to produce modern mills. But you can see the king’s dilemma: he needs to keep his little arrangement quiet. Where the people hear rumours about the raids, he needs our peasants thinking they’re just a few random slaver attacks. Nothing they can do about it, just one of those haphazard evils that fate throws their way. This should be
easy
. The empire gets the manpower it needs without any retribution missions, without facing a pitched battle every time a skel carrier’s spotted in the air. The king gets a modern state. But you, pastor, you’re making it hard. You should be out west searching for your son in the Burn slave markets. Instead you’re heading south, and far too well informed for your own good.’

‘So, Benner Landor’s hostage money was just a bonus for you and your men?’

The major shrugged. ‘A man’s got to eat.’

‘So do my beauties,’ said the grand duke, his voice growing impatient. ‘It is time! Yes, yes!’

‘Feed them in one at a time,’ cautioned Alock. He stared emotionlessly down at the prisoners. ‘Any time you fools want to tell me how you discovered where the Northhaven slaves went, you can go back to the dungeons and rot for the rest of your lives, rather than satisfying the appetite of the grand duke’s pets.’