Of Dawn and Darkness (The Elder Empire: Sea Book 2) (30 page)

A broken half of a bottle and a scrap of coat told him that some homeless Capital citizens had used this tactic before to steal a good night’s sleep. It was to his good fortune that none of them had tried it tonight. At least, not on his side of the box.

A glimpse of motion, the sound of furtive shuffling, and the sight of a ragged shadow made him convinced that someone was rummaging through something on the other side. He didn’t begrudge this mysterious person their space, though he did wonder how they avoided being spotted. The patrols always came from that side, so the guards had to see this figure every time they opened their quicklamp. But they never said a word, simply walking away.

Kanatalia was more generous to squatters than he would have expected.

It was well after midnight before the rear door opened. By this time, Calder was more irritated at the work habits of alchemists than anything else. Who worked past midnight? Why couldn’t they leave promptly at sunset, like everyone else? They could have been considerate enough to spare him over six hours of waiting in the ice-cold dark as the winter wind froze his coat to his body.

Alchemists. Always thinking of themselves.

But he pasted a big smile on his face as the opening exit almost crushed him against the brick wall. The man walking out of the workshop wore thick gloves, a leather apron that hung down past his knees, and a pair of goggles currently pushed up onto his forehead. The skin around his eyes was a shade paler than elsewhere, showing where the goggles usually rested.

The man had a shock of pure black hair, but lines at the corners of his eyes showed that he was at least twenty years older than Calder. He was carrying a sealed glass cylinder in both gloved hands, and something that looked like a six-legged cat floated within, suspended in a bluish fluid. He moved as though he were hauling something heavy, but he stopped when he saw Calder.

“Charity is three days away. If you have a medical issue, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’m not that kind of alchemist.”

Calder pointedly adjusted his hat. He’d worn the three-cornered hat and his dark blue coat because he thought it made him look more like a Navigator. Each of his coat buttons had the Navigator crest on them. What more did he have to do?

“I’m not looking for charity, sir, but if you’re feeling charitable you could spare a moment to hear me out.”

The alchemist grunted as he pushed past Calder toward the metal box. “Give me a second. If I keep holding this thing, it might come back to life.”

He did something to the side of the box, Calder couldn’t see what, and the entire metal top lifted straight off. It was supported at each corner by a metal pole, which together raised the top panel of the box a few feet up. The smell of burning blood and soap grew stronger as the alchemist shoved his glass cylinder inside. The sound of shattering glass followed him, as well as something that sounded suspiciously like the yowl of a cat.

The alchemist turned back to Calder as the box slowly hissed shut behind him. “Now then, what can I help you with?” His tone made it sound more like, “Go die in a hole.”

There was no sense in antagonizing someone while asking for a favor, so Calder did his best to radiate pleasant contentment. “My name is Captain Calder Marten, of the Guild of Navigators.” He extended a hand.

The alchemist actually leaned over and inspected the hand, sniffing at Calder’s palm, before pulling his own glove off and shaking. Calder had known dogs that were more discreet.

“Lampson,” the alchemist said. That was all.

“An honor to meet you, Mr. Lampson. Now, I apologize for approaching you in this manner, but I was looking to purchase some alchemicals, and I was wondering if you might help me.”

Lampson squinted at him. “The chapter house will sell to you, if you’re a Navigator. Guild members get thirty percent off the street price.”

Calder knew about the discount, which the honorable Guild of Alchemists was only inclined to offer because they originally marked each of their potions up eighty percent. “Thank you for your recommendation, but I’ve already been to the chapter house. I’m afraid they weren’t able to satisfy my specific needs.”

The alchemist glanced him up and down once. “As I said, I’m not the sort of medical alchemist you’re looking for. I deal primarily in organ processing and storage, so unless you’d care to make a donation...”

“I like all my organs where they are, though I appreciate the offer. It’s less of a service that I’d like to purchase from you, and more a selection of your stock. You see, I have a wall in my home that I would like to demolish.”

Lampson’s mouth opened in a silent ‘ah.’ “There’s a crew of workmen I can recommend, if you’ll give me a few moments to retrieve their information. They’re highly rated by the Guild in their use of munitions.”

Calder clapped the man on the shoulder and chuckled, as though he’d made a joke. “No, no, that won’t be necessary. I’d not want to trouble them.”

“Navigators. Can’t say I’m surprised. What are you looking for?”

“What do you sell to the army?”

Lampson passed a hand over his face. “Look. Listen. I...look. If this wall is in the Capital...”

“It’s a continent away.”

“...if it’s in the Capital, this will get back to me. The Guild understands if we do some business on our own initiative, as long as the workshop gets its fair cut, but if this draws the Imperial Guard down on me, I’ll paint them a picture of you if I have to. I’ll even give them your alias, if that will help them somehow.”

An alias. That would have been a good idea. He’d been trying to add a sense of credibility by giving his name, in case Lampson checked with the Navigator’s Guild, but in hindsight that was stupid. The alchemist wouldn’t be bothered to check his name, and an alias could save him trouble down the road. It was amazing how quickly you forgot the basics.

“It’s
not
in the Capital,” Calder assured him. “I’m setting sail for Vandenyas before the sun rises, if all goes right.” It was probably too late, but he’d decided to start throwing a few lies into the mix. Better now than never.

“Well, either way, I’m going to need to spread the marks around if we want to get this done. And as I don’t see a valise packed with paper anywhere, you should make a visit to the bank. While you’re doing that, I can take inventory and see what we have, but I’ll warn you now, it would be better if you had a real alchemist along. On your own, you’re more likely to blow your ship to splinters than to demolish your...wall.”

If Calder had an alchemist aboard, as many Navigators did, then he wouldn’t be begging in an alley behind a workshop. But at the moment, there was a more pressing issue in play. “That’s a reasonable concern, and I thank you for it. But on the matter of payment, I was thinking of something less formal.”

The alchemist’s eyebrows climbed so high that they vanished into his messy black hair. “You want me to give you a barrel of Othaghor’s Fire on faith and favors?”

It wasn’t as unreasonable as he was making it sound, Calder was sure. Favors were a common currency between the different Guilds, and typically considered a denomination higher than goldmarks. No amount of money would call the Blackwatch to your side when you wanted them; only a direct investigation followed by an official Guild action could do that. But if a Watchman owed you a favor, then you had someone to tell you if that shadow tapping your window is a rogue tree branch or a soul-eating minion of Urg’naut.

And among the Guilds, favors from the Navigators were prime quality. Navigators were required for any business on, in, or through the Aion Sea, so space on a Navigator’s vessel—at least, on the vessel of any Navigator not currently shackled by an Imperial debt—was worth an appropriate pile of gold. If Calder owed Lampson a favor, the alchemist could exchange it for rare Kameira corpses from Aion islands, for a free delivery to Izyria, or even for passage to virtually any coastal city in the Empire. It was practically a priceless coin, and one that Calder didn’t spend lightly. If he’d had any silvermarks to spare, he would have begun by negotiating a price.

But Andel kept a miser’s grip on the purse-strings, and anything that trickled to Calder was soaked up by the normal expense of a Navigator mission or by his endless debt.

It was a good deal for Lampson, which was why Calder didn’t entirely expect the man’s suddenly slumped shoulders or his dejected sigh. “I might have known. Well, I’m not your man, Captain. Try the next one of my colleagues who takes a visit to the dump.”

Calder glanced around, half-expecting to see some reason for the man’s sudden refusal. Maybe an Imperial Guard watching from the end of the alley, or the Kanatalia Guild Head on a sudden inspection. “I’m sure you’re aware, the service of a Navigator can be very valuable.”

“Sure, yes. But there’s two problems with that. First, you’re too young to be a Navigator Captain.”

Calder reached beneath his coat and into his jacket to withdraw his Guild crest, but Lampson held up a hand to stop him. “I don’t doubt you’re a member of the Guild, because you wouldn’t come this far without some kind of proof, but there’s no way in the Emperor’s good name that they’ve given you your own ship. So what good is your favor to me? That’s one problem, and the
second
is that you’re a Navigator.”

He spread his hands helplessly. “I’ve heard too many stories to trust Navigators in the bright light of day. And here you are in Urg’naut’s shadow, lurking in an alley to ambush me. I don’t think your captain knows anything about this, and I think once he does, you’ll already have a ship full of munitions for free.”

Despite his every effort, Calder had misplaced his business smile. “I’d be happy to draft up a contract, if you’d like.”

“I’m sure, but who would we get to enforce such a contract? This isn’t exactly a Guild-approved transaction. They’ll let me go my way as long as they don’t get involved, but if I have to have a Guild representative to witness a contract, they’ll want to know everything’s fair. All the more so if we hire a Witness. And if we don’t go that far, well, who’s going to defend my rights if you decide to drop anchor on the back end of Vandenyas?”

Calder did his best to salvage the situation, but it was clear that this ship had sunk. That was one prospect down, and Lampson would likely tell the guards to check more carefully behind the workshop tomorrow. But there were other workshops in the Capital, and he wasn’t willing to give up yet.

He’d crawl through freezing alleys every night, if it meant keeping his promise to Urzaia Woodsman.

Lampson finally escaped his grasp, slamming and bolting the door behind him as he returned to the workshop. Which left Calder standing in the wind next to a box of alchemical garbage.

Five years in a Guild, and look how glamorous his life had become.

Metallic thunder rolled out, like someone drumming on a steel can. At first he thought it was coming from inside the workshop, but he still reacted to the noise by glancing around the alley.

So he saw a dark, ragged shape clambering over the giant metal box toward him. It was a shadow surrounded by enough torn edges to completely obscure its shape, so in the split second he saw it, Calder jumped like he’d seen an Elderspawn wildcat.

His body was shocked into motion with a lightning bolt of panic, and he scrambled to pull his cutlass from its sheath. He had it in his hand, his training keeping the tip steady even though his hand
felt
like it was shaking, even as he cursed his own instincts. He should have gone for his gun. Why hadn’t he? Basic sword training from his father, advanced instruction from his mother, solo dueling drills on the deck of
The Testament,
and it all added up to him relying on a length of mundane metal instead of the miracle of modern weapons technology he kept inside his coat.

Since Dalton Foster had joined his crew, the man had done a complete upgrade on the ship’s small armory. If Calder ever decided to sell his sidearm, he could somewhat accurately bill it as a ‘Dalton Foster original,’ which he estimated would increase the value by at least a hundred goldmarks. But here, when he might actually need the carefully crafted weapon of a master gunsmith, he’d drawn his sword instead.

All this self-recrimination flitted through his mind in the beat of a hummingbird’s wing, while the creature of hazy darkness came to perch on the edge of the alchemists’ dump.

Tilting its head, it spoke.

“Um...hello,” it said.

She
said. Judging by the voice alone, she sounded like a little girl.

A younger Calder would have immediately sheathed his sword for fear of scaring her, but he’d spent the past five years sailing the Aion Sea and most of the preceding two in the Blackwatch. He had enough experience with Elders to know that they could imitate human voices better than human shapes.

“Hello,” he said, cautiously. Whether it was an Elderspawn monstrosity in that shadow or a girl in a stiff and ragged cloak, a greeting couldn’t hurt.

“I’m not...” she kept speaking, but her voice dropped too low for him to hear it. “...okay?” she finished.

Calder peered closer into the shadows. Now that he was paying attention, he could read the darkness to some degree—the storm of chaos around her head was just hair, frizzy and wild as though it had never been combed. The shroud on her body meant she was wrapped in clothes too big for her, and her face...as he looked, he could see that her pale skin had been smudged with grime.

So one of the residents of this street had come to sleep here after all. He felt a surge of guilt, and finally sheathed his sword. It was pitiful enough that a little girl should have to spend the night in an alley behind an alchemical workshop; he didn’t have to threaten her as well.

And if she was an Elderspawn who had perfected her disguise to this degree, then as the great strategist Loreli had once said,
“Sometimes one is simply beaten.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said, holding his hands out to demonstrate that he’d left his weapon behind. Very slowly, he rummaged around in his coat pockets. He hadn’t taken a billfold with him, having not expected a cash transaction tonight, but he should have
something
. He came up a few seconds later with four crumpled marks, six copper bits, and a tired silvermark. He presented them to her in both palms, as though offering seed to a sparrow. “I’m afraid this is all I have on me.” A sudden idea struck him, and he added, “Though if you need a place to stay tonight, I have a ship in the harbor. We’re anchored through morning.”