CHAPTER SIX
Drekki hung to the railings atop the rear endrin, not far from where Otherek busied himself with his instruments in the observation cupola. It was worth keeping sampling up, Otherek always said, because you never knew when you might hit a good vein of aether by chance.
Dwindling Hysh was dim so high in the thin airs of the Fifth. It didn’t so much set as gutter like a spent candle when evening came, leaving the sky a sumptuous blue edging into purple. Snow-dappled metalithic isles turned their stately waltz above the ship, the ores shot through the rock glinting in the last rays of the Realm of Light. Go a couple of dozen miles higher, it was said, and that blue sky turned gold, where the raw, magical insanity of Realm’s Edge began. Few arkanauts had tried to fare those heights, fewer had survived. Drekki felt a fierce desire to try.
‘One impossible thing at a time,’ he told himself. ‘Dead Air first, the Eye later, Realm’s Edge, maybe one day.’ The constellations were coming out. The coils of godbeasts shimmered into view, a pale preview of their night-time splendour. High Azyr shone in competition with Hysh as the latter diminished further, further.
‘My,’ said Otherek. ‘You can feel the nip getting bolder!’ He shivered in his armoured suit, and a noisy gush of steam burst from his aetherpack.
‘It’ll get colder yet,’ said Drekki.
The air sprouted icy teeth[37] that gnawed at exposed skin. Otherek wore his helm most of the time, cold or not, because of the esoteric equipment built into his rig. Drekki still only wore a padded leather cap to keep his head warm. His face was well insulated by his beard, but his scalp caught the chill most terribly.
‘Such are the perils of baldness,’ he added, pulling the cap down tighter. ‘Seen anything interesting today?’
‘Nothing to report so far. Sky’s as dead as Shyish, and empty of aether.’
‘No signs are good signs, I suppose.’
‘Aye,’ said Otherek. He stopped what he was doing for a moment. ‘This is a dangerous route, Drekki. We’ve been lucky so far.’
‘There’s no denying that.’ Drekki paused. ‘You’re not having misgivings, are you?’
‘No. I’d follow you anywhere, and the gold at the end is a good prospect.’
‘We’ll make it through, I’m sure.’
‘This isn’t all about your father, is it?’ said Otherek.
Drekki smoothed down his beard. ‘There’s a little of that in my head right now. If there’s a chance I can find out what happened to my family, then I’ve got to take it. It could be that there’s a clue in the Dead Air, but the gold’s the thing.’
‘I understand. I’d want to find my father too, if he went missing.’
Drekki chortled. ‘Oh, you misunderstand, Otherek. If I find him, I’m going to give him a wallop.’
Otherek grunted. ‘You and your family.’
‘We’re a rough-and-ready bunch,’ Drekki said. He slapped the khemist on the shoulder. ‘Don’t be concerned. My father is a mystery for another day. Keep a watch out, master aether-khemist.’
‘As always, captain.’
Drekki clambered down off the endrin, then down the metal shrouds to the deck.
Hrunki was sitting in a folding chair, reading a book while she kept half an eye on the beardling, who was swabbing the deck in front of her. His arkanaut suit hardly fit, even with Bokko’s adjustments, hanging off him like the baggy skin of a rhinox.
‘He’s a skinny little thing, isn’t he?’ Drekki said, nudging Hrunki.
She looked up from her book. ‘That he is. His shoulders have yet to come in. But though he’s scrawny, he’s working hard, I’ll give him that.’
Uzki nodded eagerly. ‘I am, captain sir, learning I am. Isn’t that right, Hrunki?’
‘That’s Gunner Trekkisdottr to you! Only my shipmates get to call me Hrunki, you beardless wonder! Keep up your mopping,’ she roared, though with a smile.
‘Don’t get too used to all this sitting about, Hrunki. Once he can work unsupervised, you’ll be back to your duties.’
‘Right you are, captain.’ She leaned back into the canvas sling of the chair. ‘But that ain’t going to happen today, or tomorrow, so pardon me for enjoying me rest.’
Drekki went on. Gord was sat by the door to the cabins under the poop deck, checking the tally books for the rations. He’d become paranoid after Uzki’s thievery. Gord could barely count, most of the time, except when it came to food, whereupon he evidenced a surprising numeracy. Locklann had found that out; Velunti, their erstwhile purser, would never have let Gord near the food.
Urdi was running tension checks on the deck rails. Adrimm was whistling loudly as he sharpened a pile of skyhooks. Evrokk was in the pilot’s station on the poop. Drekki watched them approvingly. Even Bokko had left Khenna’s side. Now he was puttering alongside the Aelsling in his one-duardin endrinrig, a powered exoskeleton under a small globular aether dirigible. He had a large bottle of blue paint locked to his midriff, and a spray gun in his hand, touching up the ship’s colour. It needed doing, but Drekki was pretty sure Bokko was flying off solo to avoid being teased. By now, everyone knew he held an aetherlamp for the kvinn.
Drekki nodded with satisfaction. What a well-run ship.
Klong!
The noise came from the forward endrin. At first, Drekki thought some endrineering catastrophe had occurred, which would serve him right for relaxing, but then something blurred past on fast-beating fins. Then another something. Then another.
Klong! Klong! Klong-klong-klong!
All of a sudden, the air was full of fish – a huge shoal of colpies, streaming directly at them, so big it walled the sky from side to side and up and down with shivery, silvery bodies. They rattled off the forward endrin like hail. One dropped to Drekki’s feet, stunned, mouth gaping, its massive, bulging eyes giving it a look of comical surprise. It lay there a moment, then its long, transparent fin-wings clattered back into life, the bones clicking manically on the metal, and it wriggle-jumped back into the air and shot off.
‘Fresh fish!’ Gord shouted happily. He rushed off for a net, though he had no need, for colpies were banging off him and falling dead to the metal, their gold-green bodies flashing like treasures in the sun. The rest of the crew stopped what they were doing, batting the fish from their faces as they raced for cover. Bokko rolled about under the storm of fish, paint spraying down his front, until Urdi and Adrimm caught hold of his tether line and hauled him back in. Colpies were sizeable airfish, the biggest nearly fifty grunti in length. Their lower jaws were longer than the upper, and rimmed with razor teeth as clear as glass for catching skarofkrill.[38] Getting a smack in the face off one of those moving at speed could knock a duardin cold.
‘Colpie shoal, big one! Safeties on!’ Drekki shouted. All across the deck, the crew uncoiled their safety lines and clipped them into place.
Drekki went up to the poop, to the pilot’s station, trying to find a little shelter from the rain of fish hammering into his ship. He was going to have bruises, that was for sure.
‘Steady as she goes, Arkanaut Evrokk,’ he said loudly. The noise of the fish was a raucous drumming. There were so many fish in the air it was impossible to see, and they were impossible to avoid. They came in wriggling, rattling waves, crowding visibility down to nothing, slamming into the ship’s forward endrin with a persistent clatter.
There was something huge and dark just visible through the shoal, chasing the fish, stirring them into the storming, flurried panic that was sending them blindly into the Aelsling.
‘I’m going to take us down,’ said Evrokk. ‘I’ll get us out of this school before they foul up the airscrews.’
‘Whaleens ahead,’ Otherek shouted from above. ‘Coming in over the top. Seventy raadfathoms!’
Drekki peered into the storm of panicked fish. He saw it himself, a huge beast, four times longer than the Aelsling, massive flukes stroking the air as it herded its prey before it. Although they weren’t aggressive to airships, there was always the risk of collision in a feeding frenzy like this.
‘Take evasive action, it’s coming right at us!’ Drekki yelled.
A mournful bellow shook the air. Evrokk adjusted the trim valves.
‘Grungni’s chin hairs, Evrokk, you’re cutting it fine, stuff the measured descent, just dive!’
‘Aye aye, captain!’
Evrokk threw levers, his feet pushed on the pedals that controlled altitude. The attitude planes swivelled, the aethershine in the endrin-ports dimmed as the mechanisms within decreased their lofting power, and the ship’s prow swung violently downwards.
The colpfish scattered in every direction as a second whaleen burst through the midst of the shoal, cutting directly in front of the Aelsling’s prow, its mandibles spread wide and fine, netlike whaleen mesh scooping hundreds of colpies up into its mouth. It was much younger and smaller than the other, but hitting it would do neither ship nor whaleen any good.
‘Kruntzi-brog!’[39] Drekki yelled.
Evrokk pushed on the wheel, sending the ship near vertical. The Aelsling dropped like a rock. The duardin yelled, with terror in Uzki’s case, and delight in Umherth’s. The whaleen seemed as surprised to see the duardin as they were to see it. It rolled over to avoid hitting the ship. If its massive jaws hadn’t snapped shut at that precise instant, the prow would have been stuck in its gullet, no mistake, but the whaleen had no desire to eat the ship, and they passed each other at touching distance, grey hide skimming dangerously close to metal hull. Drekki got a fleeting impression of a long jaw mottled with whaleen-barnacles, and a white-rimmed eye rolling in a flat wall of a face. Ship skimmed beast, the whaleen’s buoyancy sacs inflating its throat, mighty flukes pounding at the air, breath venting from the nostrils on the upper side of its face as it swam by.
Wailing songs filled the sky. The Aelsling burst through the far side of the colp shoal into the midst of half a dozen aerial behemoths.
‘Brother gods,’ said Evrokk. ’There’s a whole pod out there, filling their guts.’
The whaleens flew by. They kept their distance, and they sang to each other warning their kin away from the ship.
Drekki huffed out a breath of relief.
‘We’re clear! Bring her level now, if you please, Evrokk.’
‘Gladly, captain,’ said Evrokk. He pulled back on the wheel, pushed down on the pedals, and the ship returned to the horizontal. A few strings of colpies thrummed past. Now they were clear of the fish, the crew could see a large metalith in the sky up ahead.
‘That was close,’ said Drekki. ‘If that little one had been full grown, it’d have swallowed us.’
‘Not on purpose, captain,’ said Evrokk, who was fond of whaleens.
‘Swallowed purposefully or not is still swallowed,’ said Drekki. He yanked the chain for the aether-horn. ‘Crew, sound off!’
The crew called out their rank, names, and ‘here’. Drekki watched Hrunki prod the dazed Uzki to do the same.
‘The beardling seems scared, captain,’ Evrokk said.
‘Were you any better your first whaleen sighting? He looks just fine to me. Keep us on a steady course,’ said Drekki. Just the same, he went down onto the midships where Uzki and Hrunki were unclipping their safety lines. ‘You all right, young one?’
Uzki nodded. Up close he actually didn’t seem fazed at all, more excited. ‘The kind of sights I was born to see, captain,’ he said. His eyes glinted with joy, and Drekki was reminded of his first whaleen sighting, many years ago. ‘Were they whaleens?’
‘Aye, that they were,’ said Drekki. ‘Hunting.’
A few hundred raadfathoms topside, colpfish were still swimming back and forth in evasion patterns. The whaleens were driving the colpies into a bait ball then diving in and out, mandibles wide, scooping them up by the ton.
‘They mean us no harm. They’re one of the few things you’ll find in the sky that don’t,’ he said. ‘I see them as good luck. But that doesn’t stop them from crashing into us every so often, so best be careful if you find yourself at the wheel and there are whaleens about. Sound your horn. Ring the bell, let them know you’re sharing air.’
There was a loud screech.
‘That one of the whaleens, captain?’ Uzki asked.
‘Hmm, no,’ Drekki said. He scanned the clouds, but saw nothing. ‘Trouble with whaleens on the hunt is that things hunt them too.’ He grabbed a line and leaned back over the side so he could shout along the ship to the cockpit. ‘Evrokk! Take it steady. We’re nearly there. We don’t want to cause any kind of incident.’
‘Aye, captain.’
There was another shriek. A young whaleen let out a terrified wail. Tail pumping, it swam downward fast, trying to outpace a dark, bat-winged creature behind. It was too slow. The whaleen was hit, and crying piteously, it curled away, losing altitude fast. A curtain of blood rained across the deck, followed by a severed fin that hit the deck so hard the ship shook. The whaleen fell past them, something swift and savage chasing it down through the air so quickly they couldn’t see it properly.
‘What kind of things?’ said Uzki, swallowing heavily.
‘Things like drakken,[40] mostly,’ said Drekki. He was searching the skies beneath them, but the whaleen and its pursuer had vanished into the cold, white clouds. He didn’t share his unease with the beardling, but he was glad the encounter was over.
Ramarius lived on a metalith of ice and rock in a shape reminiscent of a fang. It jutted high, with a serrated ice-peak pricking the sky, and split, toothlike roots of stone at the bottom. The rock was lined with brassy veins of chalcopyrite. Otherek noted that down, though Ramarius would be unlikely to let anyone extract the copper from it. Four thin waterfalls drained from caverns in the bottom. The whole thing looked tremendously unstable, as though it would tip over with the first high wind, but Drekki’s arkanauts flung out their gangplank and Adrimm and Bokko marched onto the ice with nary a care. Their heavy boots crunched on the snow as they fired iron mooring spikes into the ground. Aether-pistons bashed them right through snow, ice and stone. When four were set up, they clipped lines of steel wire to the hoops at the top, ratcheted the tension, and pulled the Aelsling into the side with a soft bump.
‘That’s right, that’s right,’ said Drekki. He had a small chest that he carried carefully in front of himself. ‘Otherek, you’re to come. And Kedren. Gord, Umherth – you too, I need my scariest crew, and bring the bigger guns.’
Umherth cackled. He enjoyed getting out his volley gun.
‘Captain,’ Urdi said. ‘I’d like to offer to come. Ramarius and I have always had an understanding, he likes my stories and–’
‘Even he’s not going to like the story I could tell him about Bastion,’ said Drekki sternly. ‘You’re still paying off your debt of trust, Duntsson, you’re staying here.’
Urdi bowed his head, disappointed. ‘Aye, captain,’ he said, and trudged away.
‘Is Ramarius not peaceful, captain?’ Uzki asked. ‘I thought he was your friend?’
Umherth laughed all the louder, shook his head at the beardling and meaningfully slammed an aether magazine into his gun.
‘You never know with Ramarius,’ Drekki said. ‘I’m not going to lie, this is going to be delicate. The rest of you, get his gifts out of the hold and have them piled up. You know what he’s like. If you let him think, we’ll be here all day – or worse – as he tries to run rings around us with that silver tongue of his. When he comes down here, I want him to see all the lovely treasure laid out for him. Greed’s the best way to his heart, and the best way past his head.’
‘If he comes down, you mean,’ muttered Adrimm.
‘Ah, Adrimm, thanks for reminding me you were there. You can bring samples of the gifts. It will make it more of a when than an if, if he can see them.’
Adrimm looked aghast. ‘What, all of the gifts? Even the fish guts?’
‘All of them, even the fish guts – just make sure you put those in some sort of sealed jar. I don’t want to be smelling that all the way. They’re so potent they make me light-headed.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ Adrimm moaned. ‘You don’t have to carry it.’
‘That’s because I’m the captain!’ Drekki barked. ‘Now, hop to it. Uzki, would you like to come?’ he asked the beardling, then answered for him. ‘Of course you would, lad!’
‘Do I get a gun?’ Uzki asked hopefully.
‘Pffft!’ said Drekki. ‘Certainly not.’
‘No guns for beardling arkanauts,’ Hrunki teased.
‘I’m not a beardling!’
‘Last thing we need is you taking a fright and shooting Ramarius. He wouldn’t like that at all. It would cause problems. Come on then!’ Drekki called.
The away party stumped down the gangplank. Uzki carried a light skyhook, Otherek his esoteric khemist’s kit. Kedren had his blunderbuss resting on his shoulder. Primitive blackpowder, but the crew knew better than to mock the runesmith’s special ammunition. Gord took his daggerfist and handcannon. Umherth, of course, toted his aethermatic volley gun. It was part of the ship’s armoury, and therefore technically the property of Barak-Thrund, and therefore ultimately Barak-Mhornar’s, but he used it so much and guarded it so carefully he had come to regard it as his own. Adrimm came last with a jingling sack over one shoulder, and a jar of fish guts held out as far ahead of himself as his arm would stretch.
Trokwi launched himself off Drekki’s shoulder, flew up a score or so of raadfathoms, did a wide circle of their mooring spot, then landed again.
‘Poot!’ he whistled confidently.
‘All clear,’ said Drekki. ‘Let’s go. And remember! Be quiet. Ramarius will probably know we’re here already, but if he doesn’t, well… You all know he doesn’t like surprises much.’
‘Where’s his palace?’ said Uzki, who was expecting a tower or castle or some other impressive lordly domicile.
‘Palace? Ramarius don’t live in no palace!’ Umherth said.
The arkanauts laughed. Uzki coloured.
‘No, he doesn’t. He lives in there,’ said Drekki, grabbing the lad and pointing him towards a cave of blue ice that led into the mountain. Past the entrance it was completely dark. There were strange tracks on the compacted snow at the front, scores in the ice and smears of blood. Bones lay in heaps either side. ‘Pretty, ain’t it?’
The cave was cold enough to make a duardin shiver. A long tunnel wormed its way at a steep angle up inside the mountain. Someone, or something, had bored it right the way through the most ancient of ice, and the walls were an amazingly vibrant shade of blue, clear and pure, where they weren’t scratched opaque by the passage of something heavy. A draught blew down from the top, sharp with the smell of arctic outdoors and coming snow, and that made the temperature all the colder.
Uzki hesitated by three huge gouges carved in the ice.
‘In case you’re wondering,’ Umherth said into Uzki’s ear, ‘those are claw marks.’
Drekki put a comforting hand on his shoulder and gave him a little push. ‘Up we go. Ramarius doesn’t bite. Generally speaking.’
Uzki gave an audible gulp. ’What kind of man is he?’
‘Funny you should ask,’ said Drekki. ‘You’ll see. Are you scared?’
Uzki set his jaw, but he nodded. ‘A little.’
‘That’s honest, lad. It’s good to admit it, to yourself and to me. Being brave isn’t about not feeling fear, it’s about dealing with it. Don’t pay any attention to your fright. You wanted experience early, and you’re getting it. Adventure is what you wanted, but adventures are dangerous, no matter how much fun they are. The trick is not minding being scared. That’s what my father always used to say.’ He winked. ‘Then adventures are always fun!’
‘Until you wind up dead. Like Dunzik Albo.’
‘Thank you for that, Adrimm,’ sighed Drekki.
‘He died in a fire,’ said Adrimm. ‘Or Brok Barunki. That was giant spiders, before we got caught by scuttlers that time. Then there was Gunterr, got by regular grots…’ he went on.
The further they crunched up the tunnel, the wider it got. They came to a big hollow gouged out of the ice, almost a cave in itself. It was full of chunks of dead animals, some of them very large, all preserved by natural refrigeration. Whaleen, bears, great elk, and huge aerial fish. Dark runnels of blood were frozen to the floor.
Uzki slowed, and stopped.
‘It’s only a larder, see,’ said Adrimm. ‘He likes his meat, does Ramarius!’
‘I’d like a larder like that,’ said Gord. ‘There’s all sorts in there.’ He cast longing glances at the heaped carcasses.
‘Leave it,’ said Drekki. ‘Don’t give him an excuse to kill us.’
The others gave grim chuckles. Drekki checked Uzki from the corner of his eye. The boy was bearing up well.
The draught turned into a wind, and carried with it a strange scent that was both sour and dry, but not unpleasant. An animal smell. Though it remained freezing, brief blasts of intense heat were mixed in with the icy air. The sound of running water reached their ears.
The tunnel levelled off into a large cavern. Not a dark cavern, but a huge space walled with fluted ice, through which Hysh’s beams lensed in dazzling sprays of light. Groups of icicles hung in natural chandeliers from the ceiling, breaking the sunshine into rainbows. Tall cracks in the far wall let in the air and more light, this hard white from the razor-edged curves of snow on the edges. Towering spires of ice stalactites blocked their view to the centre, but there was the sense of a presence there. Of something very large and primal. Mostly, this came from the loud, heavy breathing that filled every cranny of the cave.
Drekki cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Ramarius! It’s me, Drekki! I’m coming in.’
Drekki’s voice echoed round the chamber. Only the sound of the water replied.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Adrimm. ‘What if he’s gone feral?’
‘He won’t have.’
‘Right. You know, the stories you’ve told me about him don’t necessarily tally with that.’
‘I’ve met him,’ said Umherth.
‘Well, could he have gone feral?’
‘I’d say probably,’ said Umherth.
Gord chuckled.
‘It’ll be fine. I’m Drekki Flynt, remember?’ Drekki adjusted his belt. ‘Right, lads, we’re going in.’
He set off, then stopped and pointed at Umherth.
‘Umherth, no sudden movements.’
‘What?’ said Umherth, shrugging with wounded innocence.
‘You know,’ said Drekki. ‘Twitchy, you are. Come on.’
They went inside. The cavern had the shape of a natural bowl, and down among the ice formations the light was dim and blue. The strange smell got stronger, and the heat came more often than the cold, and the breathing got louder and louder.
Uzki tripped, looked down, and gasped.
Half a corpse was embedded in the ice, a frozen hand reaching up to snag unwary feet.
‘Huh,’ said Umherth. ‘A human. Ramarius don’t have much time for them. Get on, beardling.’ He knocked Uzki with the butt of his gun.
There were more bodies ahead, and bones, many shattered to flinders. Charred skeletons emerged from odd creases in the ice. Every horror made Uzki jump, and not only him. By the time they’d made their way through, they were all on edge.
Drekki stopped behind a spear of ice flecked with bones and skulls. He adjusted his outfit, and put on a huge smile.
‘Here we go.’
They stepped out into the middle of the cavern.
Right at the very centre, upon a pile of tangled bones and gold rather like a bird’s nest but a thousand times bigger, was a dragon. From it came the odd smell, and the heat, so intense that it melted the ice into rivulets of water that ran down the cavern sides and into gurgling holes in the floor. The dragon’s head lay on its forepaws as if it were a cat keeping watch by the fire, one talon draped over the half-eaten body of a young whaleen. It was looking right at them with yellow eyes, each the size of an ogor’s head. The kind of look that suggested it was deciding whether or not to eat them.
‘Ah! Ramarius is a dragon!’ said Uzki, though his voice trembled through his bravado.
‘Sharp, this one, isn’t he?’ said Adrimm.
‘It is not a dragon. He is a very special dragon. Let me introduce you,’ said Drekki. He cleared his throat theatrically. ‘Uzki, this is Ramarius, kin of Dracothion, Thirteenth Lord of the Icy Reaches, a prince among his people, and often my good friend.’ He said the last with extra emphasis. ‘Ramarius, this is Uzki Frenek.’ He looked the boy up and down, searching for a suitable epithet. ‘Beardling,’ he decided.