THE TRUE WET unpleasantness of the voyage did not make itself known until the ship left the harbour.
This vessel did not cut the waves, or glide over the beauty and spume, exalting in its fizz and spray. It was swamped by the sea, as if it would be drowned at any moment. And the sea was choppy and unmagic, a wet surface that lurched them about in a rising up and slapping down of the boat.
The faint nausea stayed with Visander, for whom it became part of the backdrop of this mission, travelling towards the Dark King. Here. He’s here. His stomach felt like the ocean, rising and falling.
Would Sarcean know him? Would he know, as Visander killed him? That thought brought its own sick excitement that mingled with the nausea. To look into Sarcean’s eyes as he drove the blade in – for that, he would endure these humans on their human vessel. He would endure anything. Lifting the skirts of his dress, he stepped out onto the deck.
Phillip was horrified. ‘You can’t wear that to dinner!’
Visander looked down at himself. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s not a dinner dress.’
‘My dress,’ said Visander through gritted teeth, ‘isn’t—’
But Phillip took him by the arm and dragged him back towards the cabin with more emphatic force than he’d shown since Visander had known him. ‘You may be a dead man from a defunct world, but you are my wife, and you can’t appear at dinner without dressing!’
Phillip threw open the chest that contained Visander’s clothing, and pulled out the white silk gown with the high waist and narrow silhouette, pink rosebuds embroidered on the hem. Phillip pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘It’s three seasons old, at least,’ said Phillip, in a pained voice. ‘What sort of provincial backwater did you buy it in?’
‘The Little Dover Dress Shop.’ Visander bit out each word, fuming that he knew the answer.
‘It still has an empire waist,’ said Phillip, a kind of agony on his face. ‘You know, here we have fashion, we don’t just go about wearing robes for ten thousand years.’
‘I care nothing for your human fashions, worm,’ spat Visander.
‘You know I can’t understand you when you speak that language.’ Phillip spread the gown out on the bed, frowning. ‘Well, at least the captain won’t notice, he’s worn the same waistcoat for fifteen years.’
When Phillip left, Visander put on the gown, a series of short, annoyed motions. The stays pressed into his skin, and the dress’s short sleeves and low rectangular neckline chilled him in the cold sea air. He looked down at himself, feeling irritation.
He strode out of his quarters, ignoring the seamen who stopped in their duties, staring at him. The thin dress was a poor match for the wind and spray on the deck, but at least they were not in rough seas.
Entering the captain’s dining cabin, he found Elizabeth and Phillip already seated. Captain Maxwell was also present, along with two of the ship’s officers. The cabin itself was a narrow, domed room of dark lacquered wood, with tall paned windows and a long table, lavishly set.
It was Visander’s first time socialising with humans, and he approached with some trepidation, noticing that there were eight chairs but only six party members, which implied two guests yet to arrive. The room would be crowded. He didn’t like spending time in small wooden rooms with the doors closed. Already he wanted to go back outside.
‘Lady Crenshaw, you are truly a beauty without equal,’ said Captain Maxwell. ‘You light up my humble cabin.’
‘You are most kind,’ said Visander.
Elizabeth gave him an encouraging nod for his use of this phrase, and Captain Maxwell seemed delighted all over again. Taking a seat opposite Phillip put him next to the Captain’s chair, and he saw Captain Maxwell beaming over at him.
‘We were surprised to see you arriving at the docks on your own, Lady Crenshaw,’ said Maxwell. ‘What happened to your escort from London?’
‘I killed them,’ said Visander.
There was a short, spectacular silence, into which one of the officers laughed uncertainly.
‘Is that some sort of new expression?’ said Maxwell.
‘No, I killed—’
‘Ah, here come our other passengers!’ said Phillip, quickly.
Visander looked up, and everything stopped.
Devon stood in the doorway with his hand on the arm of a Lion.
Visander rose up hard, his chair screeching against the wood of the ship’s flooring. Reaching for his sword, he realised to his horror that he didn’t have one. Even the parasol was back in his cabin, he thought absurdly.
‘Take your hands off him, Lion.’
The Lion looked back at him quizzically, not understanding.
‘Your wife is very accomplished,’ Maxwell remarked to Phillip. ‘What language is that?’
‘Latin,’ said Phillip. ‘Or French.’
‘I can never tell the difference,’ said Maxwell.
‘Yes, that’s just what I said!’ Phillip looked vindicated.
The Lion was a boy of about nineteen, with auburn hair and a handsome face scattered with freckles. He wore the same clothes as Phillip, the jacket with its cinched waist and high collar. Beside him Devon was a slender, pale boy, his white face and white hair part hidden by the cap on his head. Visander felt the wrongness of it drive into him, Lion and unicorn.
‘How could you,’ said Visander to Devon. ‘How could you so betray your kind?’
‘I like him,’ said Devon, stepping in closer to the Lion, the familiarity implying – that they were—
‘You wouldn’t,’ said Visander. ‘Not with a Lion.’
Phillip said determinedly, ‘Mr Ballard, may I introduce my wife, Lady Crenshaw. Katherine, this is Mr Tom Ballard.’
‘Lady Crenshaw,’ said Tom.
He couldn’t fight a Lion, not in this body and without a weapon. He couldn’t say, Take your hands off Indeviel. He couldn’t say, I will cut you down as your kind cut down mine. He would be killed, and his queen would be killed.
Everyone was staring at him. He wasn’t behaving as he should. He was aware of that, even as anger burned in his veins. He was in a human body. This was a social gathering. He was supposed to sit down and become an acquaintance to this Lion.
He felt the long slow awfulness of seconds passing, with everyone’s eyes on him.
‘I hope your family is in good health,’ he forced out.
‘My mother and father are in excellent health, thank you.’ Tom’s eyes clouded a little. ‘I hope, that is – I hope we will soon hear news of my sister.’
A mother, a father and a sister. Four Lions. Visander made himself sit, unable to take his own eyes off Devon, who sat beside the Lion as though they sat often together. Men in livery brought in the dinner.
To his horror, they lifted silver trays to reveal cooked meat, carving it up right in front of Indeviel. He felt sick. Grotesque slices of flesh: certain Indeviel would object, he watched as Indeviel instead served it onto his plate. When Indeviel lifted a fork and put the flesh into his mouth, it was too much. Visander stood up and thrust himself out, dizzy with nausea.
A stumbling push outside, everything too tight, constricted, his breathing difficult. He had to get out but there was nowhere to go, the ship its own kind of confinement. He hit the ship’s railing, felt its constant rocking motion. In a sudden rush he vomited, retching up the repast of bread and fruits they had eaten at luncheon.
Indeviel and a Lion … He remembered the first time he’d encountered Indeviel, a flash of quicksilver, barely glimpsed through the trees. He remembered riding him, the pure exhilaration of racing over fields faster than any other creature alive. And then as the war commenced, the proud battle unicorn, with neck arched and mane and tail flying, horn a strident spear on his forehead.
He remembered years later, the pale bodies of slain unicorns, torn apart by lion claws, rotting slowly on the field. Indeviel had sworn vengeance against the Lions then. Had he forgotten that too, along with everything he was? Had this world ruined him forever?
Wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand, Visander became aware that Phillip had followed him out – was standing at the railing beside him.
‘One’s first time at sea is always difficult,’ Phillip said. ‘When my father first started to drag me about with him, I’d get sick all the time.’ An odd smile. ‘Or perhaps it was just me. Simon never got seasick.’
‘I’m not seasick,’ said Visander.
‘No, of course not,’ said Phillip.
‘Your world makes me sick. The way it’s so full of ugliness. Of rot. You eat the flesh of a sheep. It’s repulsive.’
‘It’s all very well caring about a sheep when you killed six of my men,’ said Phillip.
‘This isn’t my first time at sea.’ Visander was breathing a little shallowly, from the exertion of retching. ‘I’m not a young girl on her first voyage, whatever I look like.’
‘Atlantic? Pacific?’
‘The Veredun,’ said Visander.
He looked out at the night expanse of black water. This did not feel like the Veredun, or like any sea he had known. Above them the stars were a white spray like foam, but beyond the swinging lamps of the ship there was very little light.
‘What was it like?’ said Phillip.
‘What was what like?’
‘The old world.’
He wanted to say that it was wondrous, a world of shining towers, great forests, marvellous creatures.
But all he could bring to mind was the stench of death, the dark shadows in the sky, the Final Flame guttering, the only light left.
‘Gone,’ said Visander.
‘Well, obviously.’
Visander didn’t try to explain, didn’t say that it was gone long before he had left it, destroyed by a man who would break the world rather than allow someone else to rule it.
But something must have shown on his face, because when he looked up, Phillip was watching him.
‘You knew him. You knew the Dark King.’
‘Yes. I knew him.’ Brief. Cut off.
‘What was he like?’
That magnetic presence that drew every eye in the room. The mind that planned for every outcome. The charisma that brought allies of unwavering loyalty to his side. And the sadistic force of absolute dominion.
Visander set his teeth.
‘The Dark King sent his general to destroy the kingdom of Garayan. He ordered it razed to the ground, no inhabitant left alive, no trace of it remaining. When his general returned with a single stone that was all that was left of those once-great lands, what do you think the Dark King did?’
‘Displayed the trophy?’ said Phillip, uneasily.
‘He flayed his general alive for not pulverising that last stone to dust,’ said Visander. ‘You humans crave power, but you don’t understand the cost. You do not know the man you are trying to bring back.’
Phillip shook his head. ‘I’m not trying to bring back anything. That’s my father’s dream. Not mine.’
‘Then why do you do this? Why aid the Dark King’s return?’
‘I’m his descendant,’ said Phillip.
Said in Phillip’s affable, easy voice, he didn’t comprehend it right away. As the words started to penetrate, he was stumbling back and away, staring at Phillip across the deck planking.
Nauseated and horrified, Visander looked at Phillip anew. Dark hair, pale skin. Handsome, for a human. Aside from his colouring, there was no obvious resemblance. He wasn’t looking at Sarcean. Phillip looked human; Phillip was human. At least insofar as Visander could tell. But the Lightbringer had seemed human too, and the light she had summoned …
Or was there a resemblance in that colouring, in those dark eyes? Watered down, he thought, as though he was looking at Sarcean’s features diluted over the centuries.
His gorge turned over as he realised that he had been conjoined against his will to Sarcean’s descendant. Worse that it had happened in this body descended from his Queen, which so greatly resembled her. It was a revolting travesty, the Queen’s descendants married into Sarcean’s line.
Had Sarcean planned this? Was he playing out one of Sarcean’s twisted amusements? Sarcean would laugh at it, that beautiful, terrible laugh that made Visander’s blood boil.
Devon knew. Devon had sat across from him at that table, knowing. He understood suddenly that there was some terrible larger scope to Devon’s plans. Visander stared at Phillip’s human face, feeling sickened and entrapped.
‘That’s why my father wants to bring him back,’ Phillip was saying. ‘We’re the Dark King’s heirs, and when the Dark King returns, we’ll rule alongside him.’
Visander let out a humourless laugh, a high, girlish sound, and found once he started that he couldn’t stop. His laugh spilled out like blood from a cut that hurt, an endless flow that couldn’t heal.
‘Why do you laugh?’
‘Rule alongside him?’ said Visander. ‘The Dark King does not like competitors. I promise you. When he returns, he will kill your whole family.’