Shadow Road Page 3

  My father was standing there, staring at his berth, and at my question his jaw knotted up.

  "Why have you been acting so strange?" I tried. My voice quavered, fear and anger tightening my throat.

  He didn't answer.

  My tenuous hold on my emotions was beginning to break. "I'm not an idiot!" I choked out. "I can read a ship's manifest. We're not supposed to be in this cabin. I'm not even supposed to be on the Galvania. Why?" When he didn't do more than take a shaky breath, I nearly yelled, "Talk to me!"

  Slowly, he shook his head. "I can't." Then he turned to look at me. Really look at me, his warm brown eyes meeting mine fully for the first time in weeks. "I've wanted to. Many, many times, but it's too dangerous for too many people. Too much hangs in the balance. Please..." he said softly, crossing the few feet between us to crouch in front of me, his hands covering mine. "I know you must think I'm a madman, but I swear, I'm only trying to protect you."

  In that moment, he seemed so much like the man he used to be. Calm, quiet, reasonable. I hadn't truly appreciated just how much I missed him. It was like coming home after wandering alone in the rain, only to find that the rosy childhood impressions of your home are gone, and you can see the cracks in the foundation, the buckled walls, the crooked roof. Tears stung my eyes and I nodded, something crumbling apart in my chest as I went through the charade of giving in.

  A small, grim smile crossed his face, tugging his mustache awry. "That's my girl." Then he got to his feet. "Now. There's something I have to do. I'll be back late." He paused. "Please stay inside. And lock the door."

  I nodded again and brushed at the tears brimming behind my lashes.

  Still he hesitated. Then he sighed as if he was about to do something he would probably regret and reached into his jacket. "I didn't want it to come to this..."

  He withdrew a Dekker pistol from his inside pocket, palming the snub-nosed barrel before unloading the reel. Then he held it out to me, grip first. "There are a few things I can tell you. First, you need to stay in the cabin as much as possible. Second, if anyone other than me comes to the door, you are not to answer. Third..." he took my hand and wrapped my fingers around the pistol grip. "It goes primer, two hands, take aim, trigger." He guided my hands through the motions of flicking the primer lever back, placing my left palm under the butt of the pistol to support my grip, then taking aim at the wall across from us and pulling the trigger.

  Learning to fire a gun was not at all how I had imagined the day ending when I went for a walk that morning. It was unnerving, holding something that could kill another human in the blink of an eye, yet there I was, letting my father show me how to use the thing, if only to ease that intense frown marring his brow.

  He made sure I knew at least the basics of using a firearm at close distance, then left me there, the reloaded pistol on my pillow.

  ~~~

  Father was gone for several hours.

  Guilt gnawed at me. I wanted to trust him. I tried to tell myself I should. At the back of my mind, though, was the growing fear that I couldn't.

  I had never felt so alone. Or confused. Or worried, or lost, or... exhausted. In a way, it was a small relief to know Father had a reason for his behavior. Even if he only thought he had a reason, at least it was a reason, but that left a million other questions clattering around in my head. Why was he really hiding me? Were we in danger? Were we running, and if so, what from? Or who? Creditors? The authorities? Assassins? That last made me roll my eyes at my own morbid imagination, but sadly, after everything we had been through, it was almost more believable than the other two.

  After a while, I gave up waiting for Father to come back and began pacing up and down the little aisle between our berth boxes – two steps to the wall, turn, two steps to the door, turn.

  "Alright," I announced, (quietly, so no one could hear me in the next cabin over). "For the sake of the absurd, I'll follow that line of thought. Suppose someone is actually trying to kill Father, and this isn't just a fiction. What if the fire wasn't an accident? Or... what if it was retaliation for something?"

  I stopped pacing and stared at nothing, then wrinkled my nose. "Why? What reason could anyone possibly have to kill Father? Of all people."

  "None," I pointed out.

  "Exactly!"

  I sighed and steepled my fingers in front of my mouth for a moment, then turned and headed for the wall again. "So, the question then becomes... who does Father think we're running from?"

  I reached the wall and turned to face the door. As I did, my gaze fell on my father's luggage, stowed in the bulkhead above his bunk.

  It would be a simple matter to just... accidentally... give it a bit of a bump.

  "Oops! What a mess. I really should clean that up."

  ~~~

  Feeling both guilty and relieved at once, I refolded Father's extra cravat and buckled his bandbox shut again. Unless he was being hunted for his low-shelf cotton shirts, there wasn't anything in his clothing to worry about. Which I should have expected.

  Chewing my lip, I set my attention on my father's satchel. There wouldn't be anything in there, either. Probably.

  With a muffled groan, I dragged the satchel out of the luggage netting and plopped it down on his berth, then glanced at the door and hopped off the mattress box. There couldn't be much time left before he came back. I was already halfway done rummaging, though, and if it helped me understand what was going on... I undid the clasp on the front flap of the bag and flipped it up, then peered into the bottom of the main pocket.

  The usual items were in there. Pipe. Tobacco pouch. Money purse. Tea ball. The smaller pockets were empty. Of course that was all he would have in his satchel. That was all he had left.

  "What am I doing," I muttered, disgusted with myself. I was about to close the bag, when something brought me up short. I frowned. Squinted. Tilted my head. The lining on the front side of the main pocket was a little thicker than it should have been. It had to be my imagination. Didn't it? Slowly, hesitantly, I ran my fingers along the double-stitched edge. There was a slight bump beneath the fabric at one end. It gave a little, moving inward then rising again when my fingertip wasn't on it, as if it were spring-loaded. I bit my lip and pushed more firmly. The next instant I jumped when the lining popped apart, revealing a hidden compartment.

  My heart set off at a rapid canter. I was looking at the spine of a green business binder. In a hidden compartment.

  For several unsteady heartbeats I simply stood there, staring down at the satchel. Then I whispered a grim, "I'm so, so sorry, Papa," and pulled the binder out.

  ~~~

  Nothing. There was nothing there. Docking receipts and a few odds and ends Father must have fished out of the rubble of the shipyard office. None of the shipments on the manifests matched, and they weren't even from the same year. It was a strange thing to keep as a memento, but I doubted someone was trying to assassinate him over a handful of random papers. I sighed and put everything back in the binder, then closed it back up in the secret pocket again and returned the satchel to the cargo net.

  Instead of being relieved that there was nothing there, the weight on my shoulders had only gotten heavier. The only rational explanation I could come up with was that my father had indeed gone insane.

  The cabin had become a cage.

  When the key rattled in the lock and Father finally slipped in, I was sitting on my bed again, pretending to read. I didn't say anything. I didn't speak at all, actually. Not yet. I needed to find the right time to confront him, the right words, the right facts. Until then, I would have to bide my time.

  ~~~

  Posy: the colloquial term for a lyr, the second-smallest denomination of Altyran currency. Also known as roses or plunkers, after the wreath minted on one side, and the fact that they're made of tin and silver instead of all silver and make a much different noise in the hand than the gold marks, or silver semi-marks.

  5. Eye of the Storm

  9th of Uirra


  "That was the year Sir Gorran did an exhibition of his inventions at Glazdunne. It was a great honor, so they had this great event planned. The Dean himself was to give a speech." Father finished sorting his lot of cards, then reached out and placed a Raven Throne neatly in the middle of the top of his hard-side traveling box.

  I smiled. "Starting with a bang, are we?"

  "I had it, might as well open with it."

  I laid down a Foreign Dignitary in the Requests position to the left of the playing deck, which allowed me to collect two extra cards from the undealt pile. I pulled two Pauper cards and made a face. "Go on."

  "One of the inventions in Sir Gorran's exhibition was this incredible contraption that could be set up anywhere, and then used to lift a platform or scaffold into the air. It was supposed to be used in construction, but Kleisham took one look at the thing and came out with, 'What you wanna bet that could get up to the Administration building roof?'" Father put another high-bid card down: a Jester Eight. "As you can imagine, the temptation was too much to resist."

  I searched through my hand for the Jester Eight I already had, then slapped it down over the one in play and flipped them both over. "Take that."

  Father snorted lightly. He considered his cards, then put down a Foreign Dignitary card of his own. "So that's how our last Grand Prank started. I quizzed the exhibition demonstrator about the device, and he was only too happy to teach me how to make it go up and down, how to transport it and set it up. Kleish and I hid under a side-table in the display room till after the exhibition was over, and the doors were shut. Then we snuck out and just... rolled the elevation device out of the display room through the back door and kept right on going with it all the way down to the Administration building."

  I raised an eyebrow and laid down a Castle card opposite his Raven Throne. "No one noticed?"

  Father shook his head, a faint grin lurking about the corners of his mouth. "They were all listening to the Dean give his big speech." He covered my Castle card with a Queen, effectively cutting off my advance on his Raven Throne card. "Meanwhile, Robarri got fifty-eight of his cousin's sheep in the bin of a cargo hauler. When Kleish and I arrived with the machine, we loaded the entire cargo bin, sheep and everything, onto the elevation platform, and then I started pumping away at the treadle, and Kleish hopped in the bin with the sheep. And bless Sir Gorran, that elevation device worked exactly like it was supposed to. We got the bin up to the roof, Kleish opened the door, and all the sheep trotted right out, polite as you please. I let the air out of the elevation cylinders just like the nice demonstrator showed me, then Robarri drove off with the bin. Smooth as puffed-cream candy. Took all of half an hour, start to finish." He paused as I laid an Assassin's Mace over his Raven Throne. "You mean business, I see." He pursed his lips, and eyed the cards in his hand again, then took my Mace with a Mage Healer card, and turned them over.

  "Then what happened?" I prompted.

  "Well, Kleish and I rolled the device back to the Oratory center and set it up again in the display room... dusted it off a bit to make sure there wasn't any farmyard on it. We were in the stadium, applauding the Dean's speech when one of the Administration secretaries came running in, screaming that there were sheep running amok in the Administration attics. They must have gotten in through a window. To this day it remains a mystery." He laid a Prince down as a new high card bid, sat back on his bunk and looked at the timekeep.

  After three days spent cooped up in that cabin, I knew what that look meant.

  Father put his hands on his knees and gave me a thin smile. "Well, my dear, I need to go out for a spell," he said, getting to his feet. He reached for his hat and gloves, then gazed down at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Hold my spot?"

  I sat there, stiff and prim like the genteel lady I was taught to be and nodded. That was all. I didn't return his smile as he stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

  Then I bent, covered my face with my hands, and let all of my breath leave my body. Tension throbbed in my shoulders and my head ached. It had only been three days. How was I going to keep this up for two more weeks? Pretending everything was fine, smiling and laughing and playing cards all day, as if I just waited long enough maybe he'd start being normal again. It didn't seem to have done any good. Every morning and evening he still left without telling me why.

  I eyed the door, then heaved a sigh and found my waddingpage copy of Dunston's Arrabellina. Might as well escape reality.

  6. Leave It and Go

  9th of Uirra, Continued

  Hours went by. The time for an after-dinner mug of tea came and went, and still Father hadn't returned. I told myself not to worry. I repeated to myself that he had been late before, and that I should stay put. Going to look for him would only create other problems if he came back and found me gone. I got ready for bed, and curled up in my bunk, fully intending to read until he came back.

  I must have dozed off.

  The next thing I knew, I was lying in a heap on the floor, blinking in sleepy befuddlement as the Galvania's forward momentum came to a lurching halt.

  Everything was freakishly still.

  Then the sound of opening and slamming doors nearly drowned out the voice of the Deck Steward as he came down the hallway, shouting to be heard as passengers began spilling out of their cabins. "Please do not panic! Collect your family and what belongings you can carry and proceed to the exit indicated on your evacuation diagram! The crew will assist you in boarding a safety vessel! Please! Do not panic!"

  Shaken, I got to my feet.

  The floor was sloping ominously to port, making it difficult to move without falling again. I managed to grab my valise, open it, and stuff my dress into it. What else? Shoes. I would need shoes. I shoved my feet into my boots. Then I pulled on my cloak while trying to think of things my father might need.

  Already, another deck steward was screaming at people to "Leave it and go! Leave it and go!"

  I snatched my father's heavy oilskin coat off his bunk, put it on over my cloak, and slid his business satchel over my shoulder. Then I was out the door, joining the stream of humanity pouring down our hallway to the larger main corridor.

  Nearly a thousand frightened men, women, and children were trying to leave the lower holds through that main corridor, and it quickly grew into a full-contact press. I was swept along, helpless as a twig in a river, propelled from behind by a big, swearing, sweating man clad in nothing but a pair of pants and braces. His sobbing, hysterical wife was to my left, and there was an elderly woman to my right, hobbling along on arthritic feet.

  People were yelling, calling for loved ones, accusing others of shoving or cutting in line while we all jostled down that dingy green hallway, packing tighter and tighter the closer we got to the entrance to the stairs.

  I was still several yards from the stairwell when a loud concussion sounded somewhere in the forward hull, and the Galvania shuddered, the ironworks of her frame groaning and shrieking as if she were being torn apart. Then, without warning, the floor shifted beneath us again, rising to port and dipping to starboard.

  Everyone staggered to the right in our stretch of hallway. This time the ship's distress siren began wailing, its shrill, repetitive 'whoop' grating over already frayed nerves. The acrid stench of desperation and terror rose from a thousand frightened bodies, mingling with the overwhelming odor of sweat and unwashed human. People shouted louder, shoved harder. Like rats caught in a flooding sewer, the only thought on anyone's mind became the need to survive, to reach the outside of our floating tin can before the inside became a watery tomb.

  One young man began climbing up the girding, scaling it like a monkey, which prompted nearly a dozen others to try the same thing.

  Beside me, the fat man's wife started gibbering in Lodesian, reciting an incantation to her favorite saint.

  I scanned every face I could see, every broad-shouldered dark tweed jacket, every head of white hair, desperately
trying to hold down a growing storm-surge of panic when my eyes didn't find my father. Anywhere.

  It didn't make any difference. I was leaving whether I saw him or not. Trapped close between the fat man at my back and a tall woman in front of me, I could only squeeze along with them as they reached the entrance to the stairwell. Then we were fighting to join the press of people already on the stairs, one current merging with the other in a clash of arms and knees and fear.

  Around and around we went, spiraling up the outside of the main loading bay. One floor, then another, then another.

  I never did spot my father, not even after the fat man pushed me out from behind the tall woman in a furious attempt to get himself farther ahead. For a moment I had a good view of the stairwell in front of me, and wild, frantic hope flared in my chest, but... Nothing. The only white-haired man in sight was thin and stooped over.

  Then I was out of time. We turned the final corner and stepped up onto the last landing before the exit. Stewards shouted at us to form three lines, funneling us toward the lifeboat stations at the ship's railing. The massive, riveted opening of the main loading hatch yawned high above me, and then it was my turn. The ship tilted a fraction more, and I grabbed at the edge of the flange, the sharp metal cutting into my hand as I pulled myself out onto the deck, out into the biting rush of winter air and the sight of the promenade climbing at an unnatural angle into a moonstruck sky.

  A sailor grabbed at my arm with rough hands and pushed me toward the third station at the railing, his voice hoarse, shouting, "Move! Move!"

  I was about to obey when a tug on my father's coat brought me up short. I glanced down, thinking I must have gotten snagged on something. The little old woman with the arthritic feet was gripping the cuff of the sleeve, trying to keep herself from tottering over backwards.

  Blinded by my own fear, I hadn't bothered to take much notice of her. She was clearly terrified, but unlike me, she needed help. Aunt Sapphine would have made a beeline for her from the first. Asked if she had any family. Told her she wasn't alone.