Clockwork Scoundrels 2: An Isle in Mist Page 7

  Yes, where were you, my Captain? When I was suffering, alone with my pain, where were you? You never fully accepted me as one of the crew. I was just a convenient freak, someone to watch the decks so you humans could soundly sleep. He wanted to rail at her, but it hardly seemed worth the bother, so he said nothing.

  “We’re leaving.”

  This time he did laugh, a dry sort of chuckle. “That’s it?”

  She shrugged. “Thought you should know. I don’t make a habit of leaving crew behind, but none of you are indentured.” She turned to go.

  “You’re not going to try talking me out of this?” He gestured with his guns.

  “Seems a waste, where I’m standing. But if a man means to make an end of it, he’ll do it sooner than later. So will you, I suppose.”

  “Ah.” He nodded in understanding. “I see. You don’t need me aboard, blowing up at the wrong time. Is that about it?”

  “Don’t put this on me. I said it’d be a waste if you went through with this, and I meant that. You’re a weird sort of… person. But you’re crew. We look after each other.”

  He wanted to believe her, but he didn’t. “Fare you well, Captain. Look after Jarvis, will you?”

  She nodded, turned, stopped. “Almost forgot. Thadon, the dwarf that got you mixed up in this mess?”

  Sil’s eyes burned. “What of him.”

  “Seems he’s still alive. Headed to a place called Evergreen.”

  “A cheap ploy, Captain.”

  Her face wrinkled in mock disbelief. Or was it? He was getting better at reading the intent on a person’s face, but hers was a hard one to decipher. “Huh?”

  “Fine, Captain, I’ll play. How did you come by such information?”

  “Flanagg. He’s back to seeing things. Being a Seer. I don’t hold much stock in such nonsense, but…” She shrugged. “He knows things he has no business knowing. Anyway, we mean to make for Evergreen and make an end of this Thadon. For Taul. For the girl. For you. Thought you should know.”

  She turned to leave, again. This had all the markings of a feint, a trick meant to get him onto the Misty Morning. But what if she wasn’t trying to trick him? What if Thadon was truly alive? Killing him wouldn’t bring Freda back, but he would take great pleasure in making him scream. Oh yes, he would.

  His hands snapped back into place, tucking away the pistols. For now. Captain Locke had been correct about one thing—he meant to end his suffering. And if this was a trick, he could still find that end.

  Captain Locke grinned winningly as he fell in beside her. “See? I knew you didn’t want to be left behind.”

  “No. I mean to see this path to its end.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The Way of Things

  Lanterns flickered, casting shifting shadows into the alley where a Captain Locke and her lurching counterpart hid. Taul moved with the stiffness of a corpse newly returned to life, but though the quick movements were surely hurting him, he kept quiet. The worst part had been climbing out the cabin’s window to facilitate their escape. She’d thought he might die halfway out.

  An elf and a giant strolled past without looking in their direction. Mel waited until the tremors quieted and then waved Taul to follow. Mist shrouded the ground, swirling at their passing.

  They would make for the river and there, under the cover of the bridge, load the empty leather bags strung across their backs with as many crystals as they could carry. Mel knew as a matter of course that the Stout always kept sixteen guards on patrol, distributed evenly into each of the four quadrants that made up Fosis. The bridge, at the very center, was passed on each sweep, but none of the patrols actually stepped onto it. They would have undisturbed access to the crystals underneath so long as they were quiet about it.

  They moved with as much stealth as could be managed, clinging to shadows, peering around corners. The village slept.

  Flanagg’s tower stood above the rest, an incriminating finger held up in the fashion of a man trying to buy time. Mel had tried to wait, really she had, but could wait no longer. Flanagg’s health was too uncertain, as was that of the crew down here on dirt. Most of the Stout seemed contrite, if distrustful, regarding the crew of the Misty Morning like a watchdog considers a snake in the grass: with passing, watchful interest, and hackles raised.

  Still, she couldn’t help but feel a stab of guilt from the sight of the Seer’s tower. Flanagg had been a decent sort, and she believed that he would have worked out some sort of deal favorable to both parties. Detrimental to his, even, because Sight or no Sight, it was obvious that Mel and her crew were doomed without the crystals, and Flanagg wasn’t the sort of man to let someone die if he could do something to right the account.

  She pushed such thoughts away, but the guilt lingered, heavy on her heart. She hoped he would understand.

  This quarter’s second pair of guards rounded a corner twenty feet up the path, turning in their direction. Mel backpedaled, bumping into Taul. He gave a breathless groan.

  The guards looked up sharply, their conversation dying unfinished, and reached for the cudgels dangling from their belts. Dwarves. She was having a hard time trusting dwarves just then.

  They ducked behind a cabin and raced alongside the building. The toe of Mel’s boot kicked over a wooden bucket sitting in the grass. The hollow thunk echoed, a thrown stone disturbing the still surface of the night.

  There was another sound now—rapid boots on stone.

  Taul weaved through the cabins and Mel blindly followed. Fosis wasn’t so big that she worried about getting lost, but it would complicate matters if they came out on the Fog end of town.

  The soft echo of the dwarves’ boots faded.

  His back against a cabin, Taul slid toward the ground and slumped there, chest heaving.

  Mel peeked through the press of cabins, trying to determine where they’d gotten to. She wet her lips. “Think they saw us?” She was trying to recall just then what the stories said about dwarves’ ability to see at night. They weren’t pleasant recollections.

  “No,” a voice answered from shadow. A voice that wasn’t Taul’s, but one that she nonetheless recognized. “But I do.”

  A shape separated from the shadows clinging to the opposite side of the narrow alley. The moon slid from behind cloud cover at that precise moment. There, bathed in silvery-white light, stood Flanagg the Far. He was still dressed in his nightclothes but the silly hat was in place. The walking staff swung smoothly as he crossed the gap. His eyes were clear and he was smiling.

  “How?” How was he here? How had he gotten there before them? The Stout couldn’t have raised an alarm so fast. How had he done it? And how was she to explain their own presence here? Better to put him on the defensive, keep him from wondering about that until she could think of something plausible. “Why are you here?”

  His eyes reflected moonlight. “My eyes See once again. The Seer has returned to Fosis.”

  “See what exactly? Taul couldn’t sleep. Thought some fresh air might set him right.”

  “Even in deception, you remain as charming as ever.”

  “Thanks?”

  Flanagg poked toward Taul with the bottom of his staff. “And you, scarcely fit to rise from bed, much less all this skulking about.”

  “I’m too tired to argue that point, is all.”

  “And now what am I to do with you? Hmm?” Flanagg looked at Mel, really looked, his jovial manner falling away. His eyes were pools of silvery water, drawing Mel down into the suffocating depths. She felt like he saw into her, saw through her. It was not a feeling Mel enjoyed, and with great effort, she shifted her eyes. The world snapped back into sharp focus; her head swam.

  “You certainly are determined to have Fairie Fire, whether I will it or not.”

  Mel shrugged. “I saw no other way.”

  “There is something to be admired in your diligence. Might you not have simply asked?”

  “Asked? I tried that, remember?”

 
Flanagg’s smile dimmed. “Yes. I recall that you did.”

  “You left me no choice. If half of what I’ve heard about Thadon and his crew is true, I don’t know who I can trust around here.”

  “Indeed?” Flanagg seemed greatly disturbed by this. “Even…?” His eyebrows shifted up into the shadows of his hat.

  She nodded. “Sorry.”

  “Trust doesn’t come easy for this one,” Taul said. “She means no offense, is all.” He pointedly ignored the look of dripping scorn Mel tossed his way.

  Flanagg’s grip tightened on his staff. “As it happens, the stories you’ve heard of the Sacred Flame are true. Or largely so as to make little difference in the exact details. Thadon hid things from me, and lulled my senses into a stupor. I couldn’t see nor could I See. Yet my mind was too addled to mark the absence of True Sight. I was lost, adrift. If not for your arrival, I would have remained aloof, a prisoner of my own mind.

  “Thadon murdered innocents whilst I drowsed, oblivious. And all in the name of appeasing the ever-loving Fog, as though it is a thing that can be pleased or reasoned with. And yet, his greatest treachery was masking the rot at the heart of Fosis. The Great Mother is dying. Her crop weakens. Now, the hour is long. Soon there will be no Fairie Fire to stand-off the dark.”

  The Misty Morning hovered far overhead, a dark, irregularly shaped cloud in the midnight sky. Mel was anxious to return to her, anxious to gather all her crew in one place again. Anxious to be away. But something needed to be said, first.

  “I’ll take you as far as Evergreen.”

  “And the others?”

  “Them that you trust are welcome. No weapons,” she quickly amended, thinking of the last passengers she’d booked.

  Flanagg the Far bowed, his long beard scrapping the ground.

  “Just keep them under control, okay?”

  “I believe I can manage that.” The knowing smile flirted with the corners of his mouth again.

  “See that you do. Would hate to have to throw someone overboard on account of misunderstandings.”

  “Indeed.”

  Mel waved him away, anxious to see that infernal smile gone. “We leave at mid-day. People can bring essentials only. And as much food as they can carry. I’m not running a charity ship”

  CHAPTER 12

  A Pocket in the Fog

  The Misty Morning angled toward the wall of Fog. Far below, a few dots of color lingered in Fosis, watching. Most of the villagers had passed Flanagg’s judgment and were now situated in make-shift quarters in the ship’s empty holds. Those below were friendly to Thadon’s cause, or servants of his horrific scheme.

  It seemed wrong, leaving any of the crystals behind to shelter such as those. But Flanagg had a more compassionate heart than she, and it was his village, so she kept her thoughts on the matter quiet. Mostly.

  Flanagg hadn’t left any crystals in reserve beyond the three-layered border itself. He seemed to think those left behind would set out overland, using the crystals to light their path through the Fog. Mel wasn’t sure if Flanagg knew this was the eventual outcome or merely suspected it, but she supposed it didn’t matter.

  They’d brought the Great Mother too, that she might die among friends. Mel had been less than pleased about that development. Seeing as how she still didn’t know its diet. If the creature had a taste for wood, this would be a short flight indeed.

  Mel sat at the controls, with Taul beside her.

  The deck was empty in preparation for their departure. Empty, save a small silver man.

  <>

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