Authors: John Hornor Jacobs
‘Are they really as terrifying as the papers say?’ Wasler asked, like a child hearing of the great wyrms for the first time.
Fisk looked at me. ‘Shoe? I’m gonna go get cozy in the tent.’
I nodded. If there’s anything Fisk didn’t want hear it was tales spun to greenhorns about
vaettir
.
When he was gone, I said, ‘You mentioned something about strong drink?’ Wasler laughed and after a moment of digging in a satchel, handed me a flask.
‘Well,’ I said, taking a sip of some sort of burning liquid. Insects – mosquitos, moths, mayflies – swarmed the lanterns. The ship’s cats prowled about, looking for rats and other vermin. Even here, moored on the eastern shore of the Big Rill, the sound of coyotes yipping and screeching reached our ears. Wasler and Winfried looked at me with faces open and eager for tales of the shoal plains. These two could use a little local lore. Or colour. ‘Let me tell you about them stretchers.’
Later that night, after I’d eaten some dinner and fielded many questions and listened to statements of disbelief from the two Malfenians, I returned to our tent. Maskelyne’s watchful freemen had armed themselves with gigs, then lowered the lanterns close to the still surface of the river and waited, still as statues, as fat, smooth-bodied lickerfish rose to the surface to examine the lights. No exclamations as the gigs lanced out, hooking the thick, muscular fish with such force and surety that many only struggled weakly as the men hauled them aboard. Others, when the gig went slightly awry – enough to hook but not to stun – erupted in furious thrashing and splashing while the other freemen scrambled over to assist in the harvesting.
I entered the tent in the dark, my
dvergar
sight was keen even under a starless sky and this one was brilliant and sprayed with wavering pinpricks of light.
Fisk sat on his cot, holding the Quotidian in his hands, turning it over and over. He did not acknowledge me when I entered, nor did he say anything as I piled onto my bunk and closed my eyes.
I don’t know how long he sat there, pondering the infernal thing.
In the morning there was lamb stew; one of the sheep had expired in the night and before we woke, Maskelyne’s burly freemen had flayed and filleted the creature. The smell of the meat, mixed with the scents of coffee and chicory, perked up everyone – even the Lomaxes, who looked as if they had not slept well.
The pacemaker began drumming, the wind picked up, and the
Quiberon
moved upstream, against the current.
Fisk, unused to waiting or the wasting of time, busied himself in our tent in the maintenance of gear and guns, checking the integrity of wards, oiling the action on his carbine and disassembling his pistols and ammunition on a chamois cloth and inspecting all the warding very closely.
The Lomaxes beckoned me to join them at their tea. For folks in a rough foreign country, far away from their own home and carrying limited supplies, they were quite nicely accoutred both on their persons – dressed neatly in sombre woollen suits, tailored in similar style that highlighted neither Wasler’s masculine traits nor Winifred’s feminine ones – and their gear, which was well maintained and quite clever. Light-weight folding chairs and tables, a chest that doubled as another table with interesting access points on the side and back for when the top was in use, folding umbrellas and stands that they’d arranged outside their tent, and a miniature portable stove which really captured my attention.
As I joined them, Winfried pulled a teapot off the tiny stove and banked the flames. ‘Would you care for some tea, Mr Ilys?’ she asked, and gestured for me to sit, placed a curious metal device in a cup, and poured near-boiling water over it.
I wasn’t much of a tea drinker, honestly. Coffee, whiskey, water and some cacique in a pinch when my spirits were low, and that’s about it. But I didn’t want to offend so I took her up on the offer.
‘That is clever,’ I said indicating the small stove, holding my tea a tad nervously. The steaming liquid was in a small, delicate little porcelain cup and hard to keep level on the ever-shifting deck of a boat, even one plying the relatively calm waters of a river. I sipped the tea – it wasn’t too bad, really – and chucked my head at the device. ‘There’s no
daemon
in that, is there?’
Winfried laughed. ‘No, Mr Ilys, there’s no infernal presence here. Just an incredibly strong alcohol, under pressure. One of the Malfena college of engineers is a mountaineer as well.’
I was puzzled. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well,’ she said, slowly, in a slightly school-marmish voice. ‘On any mountaineering expedition, everything – every bit of gear – must be multifunctional.’ She indicated the stove with her hand. ‘This is a stove, but it is also a heater in cold weather. The alcohol inside it is fuel for the device, but also a cleansing agent and, while horrible to the taste, quite intoxicating.’ She smiled, showing teeth nearly as white and gleaming as Wasler’s. ‘
Daemons
are cheap, yes, but in many ways they are cumbersome and not very versatile.’
‘Cheap? I’ve only had a few dealings with engineers and the word “cheap” never entered my mind.’
She nodded. ‘Well, they are cheap if you consider the time a summoned
daemon
can last. Barring any unforeseen consequences, a
daemon
in, say, a steamship or mechanized baggage train can remain bound for hundreds of years.
Daemon
light fixtures will last millennia – we think, at least. So, if you amortized the initial cost of the engineer’s work over the life of the infernal object …’
I could see what she was getting at. ‘Ammunition is another matter.’
‘This is true. Hellfire pistols, with their Imp rounds, are a different proposition all together.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t believe on a reliance on any single technology. So, little things – like this stove – are important.’
‘I wouldn’t mind having one of those stoves myself. How pricey are they?’
‘I can send a letter at the next post we encounter. It might be a few months before Persa receives it and then months more before he can answer. Where shall I have him send his response?’
‘To the Postmaster General in New Damnation. He will hold it for me there.’
From one of the pockets in her jacket, she withdrew a charcoal pencil and small bound notebook and took that down. When she was finished, she smiled again.
Wasler, who had remained silent all this time, clapped his hands lightly, and said, ‘Are you ready for your portrait, Mr Ilys?’
‘I reckon so,’ I said.
Wasler made a great fuss about how he wanted me to sit and the comportment of my body for the portrait while Winfried busied herself setting up the infernographical device that would record my image. It wasn’t very large, the image-making machine – only slightly larger than the Quotidian – but the wooden contraption they had to mount it on was quite big. Like most of the Lomaxes’ gear it was a collapsible folding wooden artifice, which when fully deployed came to about eye level on a man and had a horizontally-aligned board suspended behind it.
It took Winfried quite a long time to set up the damned thing and, finally, she withdrew a portfolio and removed a thick piece of smooth, bleached-white parchment, very expensive if my rough eye were any judge, and fastened it to the board.
‘Mr Ilys,’ Wasler said, looking at me thoughtfully and rubbing his chin. ‘Do you have a saddle?’
‘Sure,’ I answered. ‘In my tent, since Bess is stabled below.’
‘I think it would be good to have it here, in frame.’
‘Why? We ain’t got no mount for it.’
‘For sociological detail,’ Wasler said.
‘I don’t even know what that means,’ I said.
‘Can you get it?’
‘Sure.’ I rose, went to our tent. When I entered and grabbed the saddle, Fisk looked at me with raised eyebrows.
‘For the portrait,’ I said.
The barest hint of a smile touched his mouth. ‘You’ll need to take up the girth quite a bit to get that saddle to stay on your back.’
‘You’re a cruel man, Fisk. I’ve always known that about you,’ I said, and left the tent.
After he had artfully placed my saddle at my feet, I had to endure more of Wasler’s fussy positioning and posing before he was satisfied.
‘Ah!’ He said, as if realizing something. ‘I know what’s missing.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Your pistol! Please hold it in your hand.’
I drew my pistol and sat there, the bore pointed skyward, as if I was going have a duel.
‘No, no. Hold it in your lap,’ Wasler said. ‘But casually!’
‘Like this?’ I held it in a way it was pointed off, toward the shore, so that if it discharged it would do no harm.
‘No!’ He came forward and positioned it himself so that it was pointing down, at the roof of the hold.
‘That could hurt someone,’ I said, not liking how this portraiture had developed.
‘Then we shall be quick. Winfried?’
She came forward with a small bowl and knife. ‘Your hand?’
It was the wounded one she sliced and bled into the bowl. Not too much blood. Quickly she returned to the device and unstoppered a larger bottle of ink and mixed the two together and then, with a tin funnel, poured the mixture into the device. Very much like the Quotidian.
‘You will need to shut your eyes, Mr Ilys,’ Wasler said. ‘It is important. So that the
daemonic
link can be established.’
‘
Daemonic link?’
I asked.
‘Now, Mr Ilys!’
I closed my eyes.
It was a bright morning, so the sunlight filtered through my eyelids, making everything seem bloodred and veined. Then the redness faded and there was, behind my eyelids, a churning smoke that seemed to envelop me even though I could feel the fresh wind of the Whites on my skin and ruffling my hair. It was disconcerting because the sensations of my body belied the dulled sensations of my closed eyes. A tenebrous smoke churned and breathed in vaporous exhalations and I was contained and surrounded by it and had a sense of its massive size. I was just a spark in the darkness. The smoke swelled and grew in some dynamo of combustion. I could easily imagine some rough beast, panting, slavering, watching me from its smoke-wreathed vantage. It crept forward on tremendous claws and readied itself for a leap. And then …
‘Good! Mr Ilys. Very good,’ Wasler said, breaking the moment. The tension was gone. I opened my eyes. There was a furious scratching coming from the board. Winfried watched it closely.
Once the infernographical device paused for a moment, Winfried said, ‘The proof is good! One take makes my day, Wasler!’
The reality of what they were saying sunk in. ‘You mean, if something went wrong, we’d have to do that again? The blood?’
‘Well,’ Wasler said, uncomfortable. ‘It would be entirely up to you. But I’m glad to say, it won’t be needed.’
The device scratched and shuddered on the board. Winfried watched it closely while Wasler went to make another cup of tea. When the device stopped moving, the Lomax woman unclasped the parchment from where it was affixed and then brought it to the makeshift table. She dusted it with salt, and held it face-up in the sun for a good long while so that the ink would dry. Once she was satisfied with it, she whipped out a pair of scissors and cut away a strip of the parchment from the edge and handed it to me.
‘Your proof, Mr Ilys,’ she said.
The scrap of paper held my image. Eyes closed, I sat uncomfortably holding a Hellfire pistol in my lap. Behind me, the White Mountains were shrouded in gauzy scratches and lines, indicating clouds. It was me, made from tiny detailed ink strokes. A strange sensation to look upon yourself and not have you peering back. My visage was disturbing, eyes closed, like a death mask.
‘This is absolutely incredible,’ I said.
‘It is a clever, clever device,’ Winfried said, smiling.
‘May I see the larger one?’ I asked.
Wasler shook his head. ‘Not until I tint it, if you please. Tonight I will carefully gouache the final image and it will need to dry, so that it will be ready in the morning.’
I was a little disappointed.
‘But the proof is all yours, Mr Ilys.’
Later I showed it to Fisk, after the Lomaxes had disassembled the infernographical device.
All he said was, ‘You blinked.’
3 Ides, Quintilius, 2638 ex Ruma Immortalis
That afternoon bad weather blew in over the mountains and we took to our tents to wait it out. A shelf of dark clouds rolled in like gravy poured on a blue plate and the light patters of falling droplets soon began deluging us in earnest. There was a quick scramble to get the Lomax gear inside their tents before it could get drenched. The wind picked up and made the dun-coloured fabric of our tents bluster and whip, but Maskelyne’s slaves had done a fine job in their assembly and we had no issues with the wind. But the temperature dropped and I pulled on my oilcoat and remained in the tent with Fisk, sitting upright, watching the foggy shore pass dreamlike beyond the slightly open slit of tent. I whittled a branch I plucked from the Big Rill. Softened by water, the wood curled away under my knife like seconds from a clepsydra. Fisk sat hunched, his shoulders tense at the opening of the tent, his breath coming in hurried puffs. He didn’t have to say it for me to know he was thinking upon a certain engineer. While spring was nearly finished and summer close at hand, we still travelled in the shadows of the White Mountains. It could get cold and even snow a long ways into summer.
‘Ia dammit, Shoe. Ia dammit all to Hell and Damnation,’ he said, softly.
I said nothing.
By afternoon, the sky cleared and the rain stopped, though it remained cool. Wasler came by our tent to apologize.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Ilys, but I won’t have the tint finished on your portrait until tomorrow. With the rain, I chose not to expose our rendering to the moist air. By tomorrow, I think, I’ll be able to complete it.’
‘That’s fine, Mr Lomax. It was your picture to begin with,’ I said.
‘Yes, but many people are very … shall we say … fixated on their own image. It becomes important to them beyond all measure,’ he said.
‘That ’cause of the
daemon
jiggery that goes into the likeness?’ I asked.
He looked at me closely. ‘There
is
something of that to it, Mr Ilys. You haven’t been feeling any overwhelming need to look upon it, have you?’
‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Got my proof in one of my satchels, I think. It’s interesting, but I ain’t had any trouble sleeping.’
‘That’s good,’ he responded and looked a tad relieved. ‘It’s just—’ He stopped, chewing his bottom lip.
‘It’s just what?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, and then smiled wanly. ‘Nothing.’
I placed my hand on my Hellfire and made my eyes go hard. ‘Mr Lomax, if it is nothing, then there’s nothing stopping you from telling me.’
A startled expression crossed his face. Fisk turned from where he’d been sitting, sharpening a longknife, and raised an eyebrow at Lomax.
‘It’s just that there’ve been a few—’ He stopped again. Swallowed. He clasped his hands in front of him, realized he was doing it, and then stuffed them in his pocket.
‘A few what?’
‘A few possessions,’ he said, nervously removing his hands from his pockets again. ‘That’s all.’ He turned to go.
‘What?’ I said. I may be small, but I’m not slow or weak. I snatched his elbow and turned him back, pulling him inside the tent. ‘What do you mean, “possessions”?’
‘Well, it’s complicated,’ Wasler said. ‘I should not have said anything since it is not even an issue here, Mr Ilys!’ He looked at us like that ended it but when we said nothing, he sighed and then gave a little nervous chuckle. ‘The
daemon
and the subject become linked – for just a moment – during the sanguine phase of image capture. Sometimes, when the person opens his or her eyes, it’s not them staring out of them any more.’
Fisk sat up. Alarmed. ‘You mean there’s folks toddling about out there with
daemons
inside of them?’
Both Fisk and I have a little experience with this. But in our case, the
daemon
– a real pesky sonofabitch – was bound in a severed hand. And even then, it was enough to almost destroy all of Hot Springs.
‘I daresay there are,’ Wasler said. He straightened his jacket. ‘But not by my – or Winifred’s – hands. Persa, the engineer who developed this technology – and also my brother – said that there were some unfortunate occurrences in the development of the device.’
Fisk whistled. ‘That’s not good. How did he figure it out?’
‘The possessed often had an undeniable compulsion to view its portrait. When it wasn’t killing or eating or, well, laughing.’
Fisk remained still. But I remember the mirth and hideous glee of the Crimson Man. They were a cheerful bunch, those devils that made it into our world.
‘I assure you,’ Wasler continued, ‘I have never had any such thing happen. And I assure you, it will
not
happen.’
‘Better make sure of that, mister,’ Fisk said.
‘And you might want to let folks know, up front, that they’re at risk,’ I said.
‘But they might not agree, then,’ Wasler said. ‘To the portraiture.’
‘That’s right. But at least you won’t get shot, afterwards,’ I said.
‘Surely you aren’t that angry—’
I chuckled. ‘I’m not, though it’s not my favourite news. But other folk of the territories?’ I placed a thumb at my crotch and drew it upwards. ‘They’ll split you from crotch to collar just as soon as look at you.’
He swallowed. ‘I will remember your advice,’ he said, and scurried back to his tent.
The next morning, we’d reached the wide, open shoal plains where foothills softened and levelled and the Big Rill widened and became shallower. Lomax beckoned me into their tent. Winfried was studiously maintaining their gear, the infernographical device on the table in front of her, while Wasler opened a leather portfolio and riffled through parchment until he came upon my portrait.
He’d painted in my eyes – artfully, no doubt – but they were slightly off. On the rest of the portrait, he’d applied a thin wash of colours, blue and pink in the sky, blue-grey for the snowless bits of the White Mountains, a burst of orange and gold for the blooming gambels on the shore. And browns for me. Taken wholly, it was quite a rendering.
‘I’m honoured, Mr Lomax. You and your sister will do well, I think, in this endeavour. For my part, I am glad to have seen it,’ I said, and gave a slight bow.
Wasler beamed and even on Winfred’s face a half-grin made an appearance.
From without, a bell clanged. Maskelyne’s bully-boys had gathered on the lower deck, where the captain stood.
‘Hark me, braws! We’re nigh on Bear Leg. Tend your animals and buck or see me if you’ll river on with us!’ Maskelyne bellowed, loud enough to rival any centurion’s holler. ‘We’ll see smoke by the sixth hour! That is all.’
Bear Leg hadn’t changed much since we’d left it three months before: still muddy but there were more wooden shacks and buildings than tents now. And there was a proper wharf – before there’d only been the
Cornelian
’s swing stages. The
Quiberon
muscled into position with the incessant beat of the snare-drum and the bleating of sheep. From below, I could hear Bess haw in anticipation.
As Fisk and I readied our gear and tack, I noticed Wasler and Winfried speaking together quite intently, as if arguing. Eventually, Winfried threw up her hands and re-entered the tent. Wasler cast his gaze about, found Fisk and I standing below, and trotted down to join us.
‘A word, if I may,’ Wasler said, a tad breathless. ‘I’ve discussed it with Winfried and we would ask a service of you.’
‘A service?’ Fisk asked.
‘I have been thinking,’ Wasler said.
Fisk, holding a translucent rolling paper flat in his palm and stuffing it with tabac from a pouch at his belt, said, out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Congratulations,’ before twisting the smoke and thumbing a match into flame. The scent of sulphur and brimstone filled the air.
Wasler blinked, glanced at me. Then continued on: ‘As you so aptly pointed out, Mr Ilys, the Hardscrabble Territories are dangerous. Yet it’s our job to document as much of it as we can. We, my sisterwife and I, would ask if we could continue to travel on with you?’
‘Not really a good idea, Mr Lomax,’ Fisk said, drawing on the smoke. ‘We travel light and fast.’
‘We have money. And you would be surprised at how compact Winfried and I can be.’
Fisk looked to me and shook his head. ‘No. We’ve got our own business to attend to. We can’t be weighed down with baggage.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Lomax. We’re for Hot Springs to the north and west of here. It’s rough travel and not for the likes of you two, if you pardon my directness.’
Wasler swallowed thickly. He nodded, unsmiling. ‘Well, thank you for considering it,’ he said and hastened off to find Winfried.
Maskelyne’s bully-boys began bustling sheep out of the hold onto the wharf and the livestock pens there with a great clatter and bleating, while stevedores cursed and strained, rolling casks and hefting sacks from the holds. Fisk and I bid our goodbyes to Maskelyne.
She clasped forearms with us in turn. ‘I’m damned happy that we had no tussles with stretchers, braws.’ She smiled mischievously. ‘But I’m Ia-damned sad I discounted yer money before the voyage.’
Fisk let a smile touch his face in return. ‘You’re young yet, and bits of you still wet.’
‘Ah!’ She exclaimed. ‘Not that kind of captain, Mr Fisk! Go on with you,’ she slapped his arm in a playful gesture more masculine that feminine, and shoed us off the deck. ‘There’s a break in the bucking, braws. We’ll moor here for the night and press upstream in the morning. If you change your mind, we’ll be here.’
We disembarked, leading Bess and Fisk’s black onto the rattling planks of the wharf and into the street. Fisk spurred his horse on, and I nudged Bess to keep up. We were half-way up the skirts of the Whites when Fisk stopped and looked on our backtrail.
‘I’ll be rolled in shit,’ he breathed.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Your strays, Shoe. Your Ia damned strays.’
The Lomaxes followed. They had two ponies, the sturdy Hardscrabble breed that was almost more mule than horse. And they were riding fast and not too far behind us, maybe an hour or so. Behind one of them was quite an interesting contraption drawn by a horse. It had the look of a two-wheeled jaunting car, yet narrower and taller, giving it the aspect of a miniature mortician’s hearse. Yet it wasn’t having a difficult time traversing the Whites, and their horses appeared – at least from this distance – to be quite fine.
‘They’re well accoutred,’ I said to Fisk.
‘If that contraption isn’t stolen or firewood in a fortnight, I’ll eat my hat,’ Fisk replied.
‘I think that’s why they wanted to tag along with us, pard.’
‘Let’s put them behind us then. Daylight is burning,’ he said, and spurred his horse on.
We rode hard for the rest of the day and hours into the night. Fisk rose before the sun on the following day, kicking my boot to rouse me, his jaw working and a fierce expression on his face. For a moment, I expected to see a desiccated black hand hanging there from a silver clasp, his expression was so intense. ‘Come on, Shoe. Come on. Up.’
Fisk set a gruelling pace. We were hours on the trail when he said, ‘Damnation,’ and peered back over his horse’s haunch.
‘What? Stretchers?’ I asked.
‘No, Ia dammit. There,’ he pointed.
In the valley below us, the Lomaxes and their odd, narrow wagon emerged from a copse of trees and crossed the stream through the same ford we used only hours before.
‘How in the Hell are they keeping pace?’ Fisk asked no one.
We waited a while, watching. ‘The strange wagon of theirs is quite fleet, pard,’ I said. ‘Surprising.’
‘And the woman has a firm hand on the reins. The man though—’
‘He’s staying mounted,’ I said.
‘Look at him.’ Fisk spat. Then, after a moment, gave a short humourless laugh. ‘He’ll be sitting funny for a fortnight.’ He turned his horse. ‘Let’s go. Beleth isn’t just sitting around, that’s for damn sure.’
As if to put our tails behind us, once and for all, we rode hard until the trail was almost black before us and the wind had kicked up, skirling down the flanks of the mountains. In the dark, I found wood for the fire and we had a late, cold supper. Our fire had burned low when I heard the rustling and whispered words off in the darkness.
‘Them Lomaxes,’ I said. ‘They’re out there, looking for us.’
Fisk, who had his head resting on his saddle and a cigarette in his mouth, stirred slightly. ‘Amazing they made it this far.’
‘And this quickly,’ I said. ‘They wouldn’t slow us down that much. Might as well take their money. With them stumbling around in the night, they might draw the stretchers to us.’
‘You’re lining up your arguments like a little cohort of soldiers, Shoe,’ he said, and spat out loose tabac. ‘We don’t need their money and never had any issue killing stretchers,’ he said. ‘But I’ve been thinking about that device of theirs.’
‘The Infernograph?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘What about it?’
‘Remember the last time we were in Hot Springs?’
‘You had a passenger around your neck and the town burned down around us. So yes, I remember.’
‘Well, maybe some of the citizens do, too.’ He was quiet for a long while. ‘Those Lomaxes. They stick out, don’t they?’
‘You could say that.’
‘We roll in with them, nobody’d be looking at us, would they? They can blather on about their
daemonic
portrait machine and all eyes would be on it and not us.’
‘I think you have the right of it.’
‘Go on and fetch them, Shoe. But you’ll do all the coddling.’
‘Right,’ I answered. ‘Don’t I always?’
‘Now, that ain’t fair, Shoe.’
‘But it’s true,’ I said, standing. I went to find the Lomaxes in the dark and lead them back to camp.
The Lomaxes travelled well. Their jaunting-hearse (as I began to think of it) was quite narrow and had clever, articulated joints where the axle was affixed to the body that absorbed any jars and shocks. It was drawn by a massive draught horse of inexhaustible stamina both the Lomaxes affectionately called Buquo. Where Winfried sat on top of the jaunting-hearse, reins in-hand, she seemed to be quite comfortable, though she had to dismount a couple of times as we passed through overhanging brush and bramblewrack.