Chapter 20 Bilgetown #2
“Always, Dev. And don’t get shot.”
Fahr turned to me, eyes dancing.
“Grab your coat.”
“Me?” My heart leaped into my throat. Yes. No. Yes. “Why?”
“You are our secret of the chimeric,” he said. “I promised I’d share.”
Suns, I loved this game.
I raced down the ladders to the galley, fairly leaping them without steps.
I ditched the oily and donned my waistcoat, boots, and neckerchief.
Wrapped my waist in the sash that now gleamed with one strand of gold.
I hoped I looked like a proper seamage, but my coat was in tatters.
It didn’t matter. I grabbed a peacoat instead and swung around to find Kit standing immediately behind me, a bolt of blue in her hands.
“From the captain,” she said, and she handed it to me.
It was a naval coat, perfectly tailored, with golden stitching and silver buttons. I held my breath as I slipped it on, smoothed the fabric on my arms and sides.
“I guessed size,” said Kit. “But am never wrong.”
“Kit, it’s beautiful,” I breathed. “Thank you…”
“Thank captain,” she said. “He commissioned it when you come aboard. Said you would need it one day.”
“But I didn’t earn it,” I said. “You have to earn your threads in the Navy.”
“Not earn,” she said. “Gift.”
No one had ever given me a gift before. Not ever. I didn’t know what to say. I had no words.
“Go,” she said, needing none.
I spun around and bolted from the berth.
I was an ensign in the King’s Navy and chimeric chaser for a ship that sailed under two flags. The captain of this notorious ship had given me a remarkable gift. I was going to Bilgetown. I was the secret of the chimeric. I had no idea what any of that meant.
Fahr and Buck were waiting for me at the longboat, and we were joined by seamages Cable and Dion.
They carried a large oaken chest between them like precious cargo, and I could almost feel the sizzle as chimeric worked to escape the oak and the locks.
I remembered Thanavar instructing the gunner to fix special monks for the laced cannonballs, as normal ones wouldn’t hold.
As I studied this trunk, I just knew it couldn’t contain chimeric for any length of time.
Forge. Maybe that was the plan from the start.
We set out all oars across the choppy waters to Bilgetown, and the closer we rowed, the larger it loomed—a concoction of dark towers and wooden prows.
It was closed off to the sea by a great, rusty, cobbled gate, and on either side, two bodies swung by the neck, dancing the hempen jig like flags run up.
As we neared, the Bilgegate swung open, and immediately, the air stank of oil and shite.
I threw one last look over my shoulder at the Touchstone as darkness closed us in along with the gate.
Sister. I am coming.
Like a nightmare, Bilgetown began to take shape.
Ropes and rigging held the behemoth together, built into patchwork shanties by post, beam, nail, and peg.
It looked utterly unstable, as some layers tipped one way while some tilted another.
Lanterns swung as streetlamps from every bowsprit, and bridges swung as gangways over alleys of dark waves and rotting wood.
These canals were the veins of the city, its blood waters oily and black.
It was then that I realized that the fog was not fog but smoke, and it hung over the waterways like a wraith.
“Have you ever killed a man?” asked Fahr in a quiet voice.
“A bit late to be asking,” I said. “Assuming that’s what you’re a-wanting me to do.”
“Not want, Blue,” said Fahr. “Never want. But they won’t let us leave because they want the Touchstone and the chimeric. We’ll need to be creative.”
“Good thing you know how to lie, then,” I said.
He sat back, satisfied with my response.
The canal was perhaps three boats wide and flanked by walkways built from rotting wood.
A sliver of orange sky could be seen between the catwalks high overhead, and rain broke through in patches to the canals below.
Rope bridges swung between piled hulls, and damp laundry hung from rig and mast. I saw faces in doorways and in port windows as Bilgefolk stopped to stare, but they disappeared as we floated by.
There was a splash next to the prow as a woman emptied a chamber pot, and the contents swirled alongside several fish heads before it all sank in the inky waters. Fog the gap and the extra tot. Here, I could have used a whole bottle to steady my nerve.
As we made our way through the labyrinth of stacked ships and canals, I saw a child sitting under a barnacled bowsprit, watching us with large, round eyes.
Her hair was matted, her clothes tattered, and she clutched a rag-wrapped doll in her arms. Except the doll wasn’t a doll, but a piece of gnarled driftwood with knots that resembled a face.
My heart twisted in my ribs. She was me, little, hopeless, wayward, lost, and I ached to see her alone in this bleak, broken barge-city, with only a stick for comfort.
We left her behind, no more than a ghost under the shadow of the sprit.
Gong-gong-chunk-chunk, gong-gong-chunk.
That strange mechanical sound was louder now, and I sat forward when I saw what lay ahead. I turned to Fahr.
“What the hels is that?”
“A steam mill, I think,” he said, but he, too, was sitting forward. “I’ve never seen one like this before.”
Along the side of the dock was a shanty with thick smoke billowing out of a stack in its roof. Next to it, a huge, iron paddled wheel churned up the canal waters, and I had to blink the sting from my eyes as we rowed by.
“What makes the steam?” I asked. “There’s not much on this craft that can be burned.”
“Captive ships,” said Buck from the oar. “Take what ye need, burn the rest.”
She ate ships foolish enough to trade with her. I swallowed heavy. Kit was right. Wood was more valuable than anything on the sea.
With all the smoke that Bilgetown produced, I realized that there were likely dozens and dozens of paddled wheels scattered throughout Bilgetown, and that it was these wheels that allowed the town to move.
Not sail, not oar, certainly not whales, and I had to admit it was brilliant.
I stared at the shanty and its gonging, chunking wheel until my neck ached from the twist. With a deep breath, I turned back to the fore.
On a walkway beneath the prow, a man swung a lantern, so we docked the longboat next to the side. Fahr and I climbed out with the ropes, and the seamages grabbed the chest. For his part, Buck stood his ground.
“I’ll stay,” he said, patting the side of the longboat. “This ain’t grist for no mill.”
We followed the lantern man through a narrow doorway and up a set of winding steps. The candlelight that greeted us hurt my eyes.
“Welcome, ye of the infamous Ship of Spells,” said a wiry man sitting at a table. “I be Yoric de Sous, magistrate of Bilgetown. This here’s Ten Polley, the commandeer and me trusted mate.”
Yoric de Sous was a study in contrasts. No shirt but a woolen cap over a thick woven headscarf, no teeth but two gold earrings, and watery ale in an ivory chalice.
The man named Ten Polley was a bruiser of a swab, wearing a wildcat-skin vest and oxhide breeches.
A white skull was painted on his tattooed face, and claws hung from a chain around his wide neck.
“Devanhan Fahr, First Mate of the Touchstone,” said Fahr. “Seamages Norrick Cable and Filop Dion, Ensign Bluemage Honor Renn.”
“And where’s Thanavar?” asked de Sous.
“You said he wasn’t welcome in Bilgetown anymore.”
“He ain’t,” said de Sous. “Just got a man saying he saw a sea ghost on the Nil’hellyn deck and thought maybe it were him.”
“Have you welcomed another skiff from the Touchstone, Mr. de Sous?”
“We have not, Mr. Fahr. We have not.”
Polley leaned forward, eyes on the chest.
“Where’s the chimeric?”
“Where’s Tarry Forks?” asked Fahr.
De Sous grinned and tapped his chest with a long fingernail.
“His heart gave out,” he said.
“Didn’t much like the shiv we put in it,” said Polley.
“Sit,” said de Sous. “Bilgetown is a city well in the black. We share with all those we do business.”
And he pushed a corked bottle into the center of the table.
Fahr slid a chair and sat but did not motion for me or the seamages. I folded my hands behind my back.
“Aw, c’mon, mate,” said de Sous. “Let the lady sit.”
Polley grinned, patted his knee.
I lifted my chin. Swabs, I knew. Swabs, I could handle.
“She looks Navy,” said de Sous. “Navy ain’t welcome here.”
“Navy welcome here,” said Polley, running his hand along his thigh. “We teach her the Bilge way.”
“You wouldn’t like our Blue,” said Fahr. “She’s from the Spits.”
“Cold bitches,” said de Sous, eyeing me up and down. “Keep ’er, then. You want news?”
“We want the Cloudgate.”
There was silence for a long moment.
“Why you want the Cloudgate, now? You plannin’ on heading to Nethersea? Might welcome that.”
Fahr shook his head. “Too many Rhi’Ahr cruisers are coming in through the breaches. So, it’s time to restore the Dreadwall from the source.”
It was de Sous’s turn to shake his head. “Ten year, he’s been at it.”
“Aye, that’s about right,” said Fahr.
De Sous leaned back, swirled the contents of his cup.
Polley patted his knee again.
“She sits, I talk.”
“Not our Blue,” said Fahr.
“No sit, no talk.”
“No talk, no chimeric,” said Fahr.
“We take what we want.”
Three men stepped in from the shadows, steel gleaming in the candlelight. But it wasn’t steel—it was flint and iron. None but the king’s fusiliers had flints. It was illegal, but then again, this was Bilgetown.
“You take it, Bilgetown sinks,” said Fahr, and he put a boot on the wooden chest. “You think Thanavar would let something this valuable leave the ship without a spell?”
De Sous grunted.
“That why you brought the mage?”
“Why else?”
Fahr was very good at lying. He’d make a great king.
Polley sat forward.