Escapement (45 page)

Blanchard and his wife, whose name was Winona, approached her at the rail.

“M-m-my husband,” the wife began, stammering and blushing until her voice trailed off into an incoherent mumble.

Paolina looked over her shoulder at Blanchard. He blushed as well. “Perhaps your husband wishes to speak to me without impropriety?” It seemed the sort of thing that informed the literature of England.

“Yes.” Mrs. Blanchard subsided completely, stepping partway behind Mr. Blanchard as if for shelter.

“You have my attention, sir,” Paolina said into the awkward silence that followed.

“Ah, indeed.” He cleared his throat. “I have, ah, marked that you are perhaps a more complex young woman than a casual observer might be led to believe.”

At least Blanchard was approaching her with dignity and politeness, not the usual rough assumption of privilege that every man she’d met seemed to carry.
With the possible exception of Lachance,
she amended her thought. “It is my experience that most people are more complex than one might believe.”

“Indeed. You seem uncommonly observant. I have caught sight of you counting the braces that support the bridge. Something I myself have done, as a practice of my engineer’s curiosity. It is not the sort of thing I might expect of a female.”

“And you have approached me to discuss my unexpected hobbies?”

“No, no, miss. My apologies.” He glanced around, strangely wary. “Rather, this: I imagine you have observed there is nothing wrong with this vessel. Besides that, Tyre has no yards. It would be difficult to lay over there for repairs.

“Some other game is afoot. And when I look about me to see who might be the object of such a game, my eyes inevitably come to rest on you.”

Behind him, Winona Blanchard was staring at her with a thoughtful expression. Not at all the simpering twit the woman had seemed a moment before.

Paolina began to wonder which of the Blanchards had in fact thought to approach her. She resolved to speak to Blanchard
uxor
at an opportune quiet moment. The woman might be a friend, but she might just as well be an agent of the Silent Order. As Captain Sayeed had been.

Her own secrecy was already compromised simply by the fact of this conversation. Paolina glanced across the open water toward the several miles to shore. Too far to swim should she desire a rapid escape.

“I am sure I do not know what game might be afoot,” Paolina said. “I travel on an allowance from my father’s estate, to meet my uncle in Mogadishu. He will provide me with suitable sponsorship into society.”

Blanchard’s eyes narrowed. “A rather mean society they have in such a distant and forsaken city, I should think.”

“And a rather mean allowance it is that I have.” She spun a tale comprising her recent reading and her observations of the English character. “I could scarcely stay home and live till the money ran out, only to become a drab or worse, toiling in the kitchen of one of my former neighbors. I should not think my meager funds could provide a proper coming out into society, especially in the absence of the guiding hand of a thoughtful man for my protection.”

He considered that a moment. “And where would you have had this coming out?”

She wanted to dodge the question, desperately, but it was a most logical and simple one.
Where are you from?
Blanchard was well traveled. What answer could she make that he would not immediately see through?

“Strasbourg,” Paolina blurted.

“Ah.” Blanchard smiled.
“Nous sommes tous les fils de Charlemagne.”

“I must think on this slowing of our vessel, sir,” she said stiffly, avoiding the strange look in his eye. “I cannot be sure it is to do with me, but many things are possible.”

Paolina turned away from the rail, trying not to flee in her foolish panic. She had handled that very poorly.

Later, when Mrs. Blanchard rapped on the door of her stateroom, Paolina feigned sleep. She could not hide for more than a few hours, but she would have to emerge bearing a tale that was not quite so foolish.

No, I am not really from Strasbourg, but if I told you the truth, we would both be in peril.
That had the advantage of a certain species of veracity, but wouldn’t serve for other, more obvious reasons.

My father brought me there in his service for the railways.
A plausible explanation for her ignorance of the language, but it simply begged the original question all over again.

I was born and raised beyond the borders of the Empire, and all of this is strange to me.
True in both word and intent, but such an explanation would betray her to even more questions she could not answer honestly.

Instead she rested until her limbs began to tingle from inaction, while her imagination continued to fail her. Paolina finally rose and stepped outside to a Mediterranean sunset. All the colors of the fire’s paintbox bloomed off the starboard rail.

Which meant that the ship was steaming nearly due south rather than the south of east heading required to make Tyre.
Star of Gambia
had turned without any mention to the passengers. She also seemed to be making headway at full speed.

Paolina looked back toward the Anatolian shore. Could she swim that? Not now, not with miles of water between her and her destination.

Instead she scanned for fishing boats or other vessels, someone she could plausibly hope to be picked up by if she dropped over the rail. This evening the Mediterranean, one of the heaviest traveled seas in the world, was as quiet and empty as a teacup.

Where were they going and why?

As evening descended, Al-Wazir and Boaz marched up the road in company with the bright-armored men. At close range, their impersonation of the Brass was far more obvious. Even the weapons these soldiers bore were copies—fat-headed spears with metal collars in imitation of Ophir’s might.

Half a dozen Royal Marines would have pushed this formation to bloody hash,
he thought.

They were not exactly prisoners. It was something more akin traveling under escort. The squad had made no effort to relieve al-Wazir and Boaz of their possessions, most especially not the lightning spear. They kept a respectful distance, leading before and following behind, but not forcing any compliance to orders.

His greatest wish was for food and rest as they marched into the darkness of evening. A glow ahead promised at least settlement. If the current goodwill held up, al-Wazir could find what he wanted there.

Boaz was more of a worry. The metal man walked with a pace that was excruciatingly slow for him, limping and clattering. Al-Wazir would have offered to help, but he could not fathom what assistance would be useful.

“Are you capable of self-repair?” he asked quietly.

“It is not within my abilities to restore parts with severe torsional damage.” Boaz clanked onward a few steps. “My seal is possessed of great power, but some injuries even the Solomnic magics cannot touch. I am in need of the attentions of a smith of good training and steady hand.”

“Aye. I figure it would be like having some bugger reach inside me flesh to set a bone.”

The Brass gave a rattling snort. “An apt comparison, Chief.”

They approached the distant glow with rising hope, at least on al-Wazir’s part. These strange, silent men had fashioned elaborate armor in imitation of the Brass. Surely their smiths were capable with a hammer, and bore a steady hand.

There was nothing for it but to walk onward and trust to hope and Divine Providence.

_______

The road bent around a towering pillar of rock under brilliant starshine tinged with the sheen of brasslight. The original architects had carved a near-tunnel here, so that dank rock swept over al-Wazir’s head to obscure the glow before them. He could still see the miles of Africa scattered to his left. Here, deep within the continent, there were no fires nor lights to mark the night. He saw only the shadowed texture of trees and open grasslands. Even here, several miles up the Wall, a scent of distant redrock hills cut through the water-and-stone smell of the road.

Somewhere nearby a larger fall rushed. It was bigger and bolder than what had tumbled behind the gate house. He could see a glittering mist hanging in the open air. The sound had been rising for a while, a distant susurrus that grew to an urgent whisper, now building to wet thunder.

The little column passed the outer edge of the curve. Al-Wazir drifted to a stop. The waterfall was easily the largest he’d seen in his life. Their roadway broke off not far ahead—this had not been so great a cataract when Ophir had built this road, he realized—though a bridge of chains and ropes and wood extended out across the water to a rocky outcropping surrounded by ever more tumbling water.

Even in the dim light of night, Al-Wazir could see that knees and columns and shelves stretched through the middle of the fall. These vertical islands interrupted the cascade at irregular intervals. Some were not much larger than tree stumps; others could have hosted a cathedral. Each exposed rock supported a structure, but the buildings themselves were a mix of architectures that dazzled al-Wazir’s eye even by the starlight.

Some were little more than piles of stone, gnarled structures that might have grown up out of the rocks of the falls on some mystical night long ago. Others looked as if they’d been brought from distant parts of the Wall—blocky buildings oddly melded to a pair of close-set outcroppings; a graceful tower with a outward curve like half an arch; a crystal shell that hummed, audible even over the roar of the falls.

All were lit by fire, lamps, torches—the glow he had seen earlier, magnified by reflection among the mists. Shadows moved within and among them as people followed rope bridges or iron stairs or stone pathways that slipped behind the rushing waters. The city, grafted from the debris of half a dozen empires, thronged with life.

This was a place that admitted no mistakes. Slip once and you would end your life tumbling downward amid tons of water. No one could err twice.

Al-Wazir wondered what these people saw in Ophir that they felt the
need to imitate. This was a place of power and beauty almost beyond imagining.

A respectful hand gently tugged him into motion once more. The soldier’s face was averted. The chief followed his escorts onto the first of the bridges. Walking out over the falls, he realized that the air immediately above the water was much colder, with a sharp, chill mineral smell. He also saw these people had arranged a whole web or array of bridges, lines, and cables that spread back and forth across their waterborne city like the web of some mechanical spider of Dr. Ottweill’s deepest dreaming.

He hoped fervently not to have to cross one of those cables by hand. It smacked of the worst of
Bassett
’s landings, such as the vertical city where they had lost so much.

They crossed two more bridges, with short walks around rock walls and a narrow-porched building with windows the proportion of church tapers. Finally they came to a larger apron of stone. A metal hut sat there, with windows glowing. The soldiers marched within. Al-Wazir followed.

Inside was lit by electricks. It seemed little more than a small railway carriage, but lacking wheels or rails to run upon. After all had entered, the last slammed the door shut. The car swayed and creaked and made an alarming twanging noise for a moment before settling into a herky-jerky motion.
Funicular,
al-Wazir realized. This was a cable car to take them farther up the Wall, judging from the motion. He could not see outside from within the well-lit press of bodies. His stomach lurched at the thought of the maintenance in this place—how would they fight rust with the whole city soaked worse than a ship at sea?

He looked to Boaz. The Brass swayed slightly, upright but seemingly dazed. Whatever degree of motion and focus lent him illusion of life was fading once more.

The car finally clanged to a halt. They stepped out into a great hall lit by fitful electricks. A hole in the floor behind them had admitted the funicular car, while a gigantic iron wheel turned on a tower above to wind the cable in and out. An engine hissed and chugged nearby, lending motive force to the transport. The falls were more muted here. He wondered if they had gone into the face of the Wall itself.

Except for the machinery, this could almost have been one of the great cathedrals of Europe. Pillars supported a high vaulted ceiling. The floor was a pattern of stones and tiles with symbols painted or glazed into place. Between the pillars were niches with statuary of long, narrow-bodied fish leaping upward in endless pilgrimage.

There were carvings on the pillars, too. Al-Wazir quickly realized they were twisted, violent images, difficult to focus on in the wet shadows of
this place. Which might be for the best, given that some of them featured tentacles and worse.

Another misappropriated building? How did they do that?

More muddling of soldiers, then they swept across the great space to a doorway that lay in shadow. The escorts stood aside there. It was clear enough where the newcomers were to go next.

Boaz was utterly silent, though he still walked when al-Wazir did. Whatever might be done for the Brass man would be done here. They approached the doorway. It was fifteen feet high, with double doors each four feet across. The carvings on the door were both fascinating and repulsive—images of squids and snakes and men locked in bitter battle and passionate embrace at the same time. They almost squirmed. Not a cathedral at all, but a temple of a different race.