Skyes fall, p.4
Skye's Fall, page 4
Jaime and Cary were out on deck after supper one evening when the cabin boy emerged from Sandover’s cabin with a tray. The mage barely seemed to eat and tonight was no different, a thin film glazing the surface of the murky stew.
“He didn’t touch it, did he?” Cary asked, pausing as he went to take the bowl from Leody.
“He wouldn’t even let me put it down. It’s all yours, Mr. Robb.”
“We’ll share it,” Jaime said as Cary passed it to him.
“I’m not hungry,” he grunted.
“You’re twice my size.”
“Only because you’re skin and bones.”
“Something no amount of feeding has ever changed.”
“That’ll be the work,” he said as Jaime took the spoon from him. “Burns you up. Me, I got fuel to spare. Anything else to report?” he asked Leody who stood fidgeting with the empty tray.
“That he’s still writing that letter.”
“Or a new one,” Jaime said. It seemed the mage did nothing else, his enchanted pen producing endless ink with no sign of an inkwell.
“If so, where are they?” Cary said. “I’ve searched that room. There’s not a board loose. So where’s he sticking them?”
“Out the porthole?” Jaime offered, hunting through the gravy for the last bits of onion.
“Maybe he eats them,” Leody said with a wild grin.
“That’d explain why he walks around like he’s got a cork up his arse,” Cary replied. Leody giggled, his tongue pushing at the gap in his front teeth.
“What do you reckon he’s up to?” Cary asked Jaime as the lad skipped away, relieved of his duty.
“I haven’t a clue. I know nothing of magic.”
Cary snorted. “That’s a crock.”
“If you mean I’m lying, I swear I don’t know how I’m able to do what it is I do. I’m still not wholly convinced I’m doing anything. When Adrian worked magic I could see it happening. A shimmering, like heat rising from the pavement.”
Cary frowned, his eyes all but disappearing beneath his bulky brow. “I don’t need to see it to feel it. You saved our lives.”
“And for what purpose?” Gazing out over the sea again, Cary didn’t reply. By Captain Warner’s estimations they’d make landfall in Boston in a day or two, but the ship was a charter and Jaime knew nothing of what awaited them once they disembarked.
“Has he really never told you where we’re going?” he asked without much optimism.
“Dunno why you think he would have,” Cary grunted. “He barely credits me with speech.”
“Yet he fears you.”
“Does he?
“He acts as though he does.”
“He fears his master. I’m just the enforcer.”
“Whatever you are, keep at it.”
Jutting out his chin, his beard bristling, Cary didn’t reply. Despite their closeness over the final days at sea, he had resumed his attitude of near hostility now that Jaime was no longer in immediate danger. Jaime had put the matter from his mind as best he could. A pity, for he’d liked thinking of the man as a friend.
They landed at Boston on the eve of the fourth day, as Jaime had predicted. Or guessed, he wasn’t sure which, for he’d said it without thinking that day before the storm. After provisioning the ship they tacked up the coast to Halifax, where Captain Warner was well glad to be rid of his irritating cargo. Not even the cabin boy wished to sign on to the rest of Sandover’s mysterious venture, though he was made a handsome offer of not only money but two suits of new clothes and nothing heavier to carry than a valise. Despite the horrors of the crossing, it was with surprising reluctance that Jaime bid the crew farewell. Not so surprising given that Cary was now the only thing standing between him and Sandover.
They boarded a cargo steamer, the acrid coal smoke pluming from its stacks damping Jaime’s acute sense of smell. Yet as they beat up the vast Gulf of St Lawrence he could feel the change, the mineral sharpness of a great river emptying itself into the briny sea, making his skin tingle with something like anticipation.
Sandover had booked a cabin (though not one for Jaime or Cary) and remained out of sight for the first few days. He emerged not the skeletal wretch he’d been by the end of the ocean crossing but his well-groomed self, the salt and other worse stains vanished from his mauve silk suit, his gilded hair lustrous, his sun-wrecked skin once more pale as the moon. Only his eyes showed the lingering damage, wheeling and darting about like flies over a battleground as he sashayed towards Jaime and Cary where they stood at the starboard rail. Far across the silvery gulf lay a dark smear of land, the first they’d seen since passing Cape Breton.
“Why aren’t you guarding the goods?” Sandover croaked, for his magic had left his voice unhealed.
“I couldn’t breathe in the hold,” Jaime replied. Belowdecks, the thrum and knock of the engines and the stink of grease and coal that stained their churning wake overcame his every sense and left him gasping.
“What is it we’re guarding anyway?” Robb asked.
“And why should I tell you?” Sandover sneered.
“So I can decide if I give a damn.”
Sandover drew up, his eyes bulging. “You dare defy me?” he rasped. “With all that’s at stake?”
“I’ll take those odds,” Robb replied in the same flat tone. “You’re not my master, you greasy fop. You and me answer to the same man and if he finds out you’re playing silly beggars with his asset, he’ll boil you alive.”
Sandover tossed his golden curls, his lace cuff flopping as he gestured airily. “The duke and I have an alliance.”
“Until you stop serving his purposes.”
“Enough!” He drew back his hand as if he would strike Robb, who remained unmoved. His face pinched, Sandover lowered his hand. “You will do as you’re told, Mr. Robb.”
“Or what?”
A flat sheen passed over Sandover’s pale eyes as he raised his right hand again. Rather than lash out, he closed his fingers, making a claw. A crushing pain took hold of Jaime’s chest, as though Sandover was gripping his lungs and wringing the breath from them. Black oblivion crowded his vision, his heart labouring against the inescapable weight. Just as suddenly the pressure eased, and he roused to find he had fallen to his knees. Robb stood over him, fists clenched, ruin in his eyes.
“Don’t tempt me, you ratbag,” he growled at Sandover, who had retreated several paces. “If you expect me to see this through, you leave him the hell alone.”
“You can’t threaten me,” Sandover retorted, sneering down his powdered nose. “I hold all the power, Robb. Something you and your beloved would do well to remember.” He turned on his satin heel and pranced away, his silk coat swishing.
“Beloved?” Jaime repeated as Cary helped him to his feet. “Does he suspect we’re, well…”
“Heaven help the man who does something out of the goodness of his heart,” Cary muttered. Before Jaime could ask for clarity he stomped off in the opposite direction, towards the hatch that led to the hold. Rather than be left alone, Jaime followed.
At last the gulf began to narrow, until both banks showed as low shadows to port and starboard. They were passing more and more vessels, creeping barges like theirs, sailing ships of every size, fishing vessels bedecked with nets and heavy lines on thick poles. Another few days brought them to the city of Quebec, a French settlement on the rocky northern bank. Though Jaime had hoped they’d go ashore so he might lose himself in a crowd, he changed his mind on hearing that the port was rotten with typhus due to an epidemic sweeping through the Irish refugees crowding the primitive barracks.
He spent the next several days on a circuit between the hold and the deck, both only tolerable for so long. Belowdecks with Cary he fought nausea, while above it was fear, a fear so strong it felt much the same, a sickening sense that dreadful things were creeping up on him, if not Sandover then something even worse. Cary was indifferent to him, answering in monotone grunts when he answered at all, until Jaime would give up seeking his company and curl up on the heap of canvas he was using as a bed. Each time he woke from a fitful sleep, Cary would be in the same pose, sitting cross-legged atop the smaller of Sandover’s crates, his hands loose on his thighs, his face as stony as the riverbanks that rose higher and higher the further they travelled, their summits cloaked in impenetrable forests of evergreens.
Meanwhile Sandover stalked the barge like an overdressed ghost, appearing at the door to the hold without warning to do nothing but stare, or pacing the deck muttering hoarsely to himself. Jaime avoided him as best he could, until he himself felt a spectre, an unreal presence barely noticed by the ordinary world. At least he got served when he lined up with the crew at mealtimes, his face one among many.
He woke one day from a fitful sleep to a new sensation. A subtle warmth whispering across his skin, he unfolded himself slowly from his cramped position on the musty pile of canvas then crept out of the hold. The high banks of the river had fallen away and they traversed a vast plane of freshwater, a lake unlike any Jaime had known. Cary was at the prow, and turned as Jaime approached.
“They say there’s bigger ones to come” he grumbled, pointing his chin at the slate-blue water that surrounded them in all directions.
“Bigger lakes than this?” Jaime’s toes curled in his boots, as if trying to root him to the deck.
“Some of the deepest on earth.”
“Why are we here?”
“You’re guess is as good as mine, waterman.”
PORT OF CALL
Their first major port of call was the capital Kingston, a charming small city with a number of fine stone buildings. The British garrison of Fort Henry stood on a point overlooking the mouth of the river and the naval dockyards. All of which Cary was forced to surmise from the barge’s hold, for Sandover had confined him and Jaime to the vessel rather than risk letting them escape.
“That’s their capital, is it?” he said, stepping back from the porthole. “Not much to it.”
“What about your country?” Jaime asked, hopping up to sit on a nearby crate. “Is it anything like this?”
“No. But it’s no easier on you white fellas. Probably harder.”
“They say it never rains there.”
“They?”
“I’ve read some popular accounts of the Australian colony. It sounds like a dangerous place.”
“It’s the colonists who make it dangerous.”
“You don’t mean to tell me it’s unpleasant to live under British Rule. My, but they’re so nice to everyone.”
They put in at a few more towns along the northern shore of the massive lake, more than once unloading the goods into a fishing boat moored alongside as not every harbour was navigable for the long, heavy barge. As the hold emptied Jaime felt less hemmed in and they spent more of their time here. It was the one place they were sure not to see Sandover, who stalked the deck day and night, speaking to no one but himself.
They had left the port of Oshawa that morning. It was a warmer day than they’d yet had, and the hold was stifling. Cary was on deck, dozing on a stack of crates near the prow, when the captain approached. A long-limbed man with thin lips and sagging, sand-hued skin, he reminded Cary sharply of a frilled lizard, as if he might rear up and run at you if alarmed, flapping his neck and hissing.
“Don’t mind me, Mr. Robb,” he said as Cary made to get up. “Just marking the cargo for our next port of call.”
Some distance ahead along the green shore, a veil of smoke hung above a greyish smear. Pinned between two rivers, its harbour protected by a largish island, the city clung to the shoreline. Factory stacks rose from the skyline to the west and east, the land rising behind it heavily forested and dotted here and there with clustered buildings that suggested villages.
With the help of a tugboat and much shouting back and forth the barge moored at one of the wooden piers extending from the busy dockyards. Cary stayed where he was, watching the crew offload the cargo down the slanting gangplank. He got to his feet when he saw Sandover leave his cabin and join the captain, who stood near the wheelhouse hatch.
“And when will we arrive at Toronto?” Sandover asked tiredly.
“We just did,” replied the captain with a wobble of his chin.
“Mon Dieu,” Sandover murmured, his cheeks paling as he gaze mournfully at the bustling dockyard. He startled as a crewman appeared behind him, a coiled rope in his arms.
“Sorry, Mr. Sandover, but could you please step aside?” the captain said. Sandover gave the crewman a simpering smile as he passed. He startled again as another fellow came from the other direction bearing a long-handled gaff.
“Sorry, sir, just need to get by you there.”
Tossing his head, Sandover stomped a silken heel. “I shall be in my cabin packing my personal belongings. You may inform me when my cargo is unloaded.”
“I’ve sent the cabin boy to help you,” the captain said as Sandover started for his cabin. “He ought to be in there right now.”
Sandover wheeled about, colour draining from his cheeks. “You let him—oh mon Dieu!” Sputtering in French, Sandover bolted for the cabin. Before he reached it the door was flung open and the cabin boy, a gangly lad whose face was more freckle than not, came reeling out, wheezing and batting at the noxious cloud that followed him. As he fell to his knees, clutching his throat, Sandover hissed a bitter word. The livid cloud coalesced into a shining droplet then winked out of being.
The cabin boy’s face was a violent purple, his eyes wheeling as he thrashed back and forth. Sandover made a plucking motion towards him in the air and said another strange word. With a great gulp of air the boy lurched forward then collapsed on the deck where he lay gasping.
“Let this teach you to ask permission before handling a man’s possessions,” Sandover said, stepping over his quaking form. He entered the cabin and slammed the door.
Briefly, very briefly, Cary pondered the outcome of setting the ship on fire and making sure Sandover stayed on it. Many lives endangered, much damage done, and possibly no outcome aside from enraging a madman who could flatten the dockyard with a wave of his hand. Swallowing his useless anger, he joined Jaime where he lingered near the top of the gangway, gazing out over the hurly burly of the dockyard.
“Don’t even think about it,” Cary said under his breath as Jaime tensed.
“Think about what?”
“Running off.”
Still looking elsewhere, Jaime leaned closer and spoke from the side of his mouth. “This is our best chance. He’s out of sight, and no one here knows us from Adam.”
“I can’t.”
Jaime turned and glared up at him. “What does Sandover have over you?”
“Never you mind.”
“It’s standing between us and freedom.”
“Let’s find out first what he wants you for.”
Jaime’s taut expression softened and he leaned against Cary to speak in a whisper. “We’ll never have this chance again. Come away with me, now. Please, Cary, I can’t—” With a gasp he broke off and stepped back a few paces as Sandover emerged from his cabin.
“I’m sorry,” Cary murmured.
“I don’t need your apologies. I need your help.” Before Cary replied Jaime turned and stomped down the gangplank.
“Well?” Sandover called across the deck. “Get after him.”
His mouth clamped shut to keep from telling Sandover off mightily, his insides churning with guilt, Cary followed Jaime ashore. The timber-sided warehouses in the busy little port were all very new save for one old hall weathered silver by the years. The ground was a silty stew of mud and gravel and horse-dung that emitted a lively fragrance in the noonday sun. Wooden plank footpaths lined the unpaved street beyond, ridged with deep ruts from the wheels of countless wagons.
“This must be a nightmare when it rains,” Jaime said, as a man crossing the street caught his toe in a rut and went sprawling. Sandover had caught up to them and now stopped at the corner to consult a small leather-bound book, his coat of embroidered sea-green silk and tricorn hat with matching plume attracting the curious eye of every passer-by.
“Will you tell us where we’re going?” Jaime asked as Sandover slapped the book closed.
“To speak with someone who will explain our purpose, my dear Mr. Skye.” Sandover gave one of his obnoxious bows then started westward, the planks ringing hollowly under his heeled slippers.
“Does it worry you that he’s being polite?” said Jaime as they followed.
STRIKE & ECKHART
Having only been amalgamated as a city in the prior decade, Toronto had neither a public omnibus nor hackneys to be hired, and to Sandover’s irritation they were obliged to travel the whole distance on foot. They ended in an industrial district just east of the lunatic asylum. Here he led them through a warren of workshops and manufactories to a squat brick building tucked between a carpet-maker and a reeking smithy. A soot-tarnished sign over the broad swinging doors read Strike & Eckhart, Electrical Manufactory. A man in a stained suit of heavy canvas emerged from the left-hand door which stood open. He raised his dark-lensed glasses to reveal a startling patch of pale skin blazing across the upper right of his otherwise deeply brown face.
“Can I help you?” he asked in a softly twanging accent.
“Is your master about?” Sandover said, sounding bored.
The man looked him up and down with a flick of his eyes then glanced at the others. “What is it you want?” he said in a harder tone.
“I told you. Now go and fetch him, boy.”
Yanking off his heavy leather gloves, the man laughed deep in his chest, though he wasn’t smiling. “You must be new around here. You better tell me what you want before I get sick of asking.”
“Hello!” Another face poked around the door, this one pink and topped with a wave of sandy blond hair. He was wearing a similar pair of dark glasses which he removed as he approached, grinning broadly. “May I help you?”
