The other man said nothing.

  ‘A hundred million,’ Maskelyne said. ‘Conservatively. Void flies have been known to destroy cities, decimate populations, ruin whole countries. You know the Unmer make their arrows from them?’

  Mr Creedy touched his clockwork eye. Then he leaned forward and spoke in a threatening tone. ‘You wasted them on a dragon?’

  Maskelyne leaned back. ‘I wasted nothing, Mr Creedy. Void flies, by their very nature, cannot be studied in depth. But there are other mysteries that can. And that, for me, determines an object’s true worth.’ He paused to watch the infinity device on the desk as the marble rolled from one end of the tube to the other. ‘Do you have a family, Mr Creedy? Any children?’

  The jailer shook his head.

  ‘Then perhaps it is more difficult for you to understand,’ Maskelyne said. ‘As a father, I have a duty to preserve my son’s future. Now, I can only succeed if I fully understand the processes by which the Unmer have threatened that future. Wealth, power, everything else is simply insulation.’ He paused again to watch the marble roll back and forward in the revolving tube. ‘If I gave you a chest of gilders, what would you spend it on? Women? Whisky? Guns? A fine apartment with a view?’ He shook his head. ‘All insulation. None of it has any importance. None of it has any true worth.’

  Creedy lifted his kitbag and placed it on the table before them. ‘You’re telling me I’m not going to get paid?’

  Maskelyne sighed. ‘I’m trying to make you understand the real value of trove, Mr Creedy. Because if you don’t, then our business relationship is doomed to fail. Does it please you to learn that I have personally destroyed over ninety thousand ichusae? I would happily give you one-hundredth of the satisfaction and pride I feel when I destroy the next ninety thousand, if it were possible to do so.’

  Creedy’s jaw tightened.

  ‘Or that I have no intention of selling the chariot we salvaged two days ago?’

  The other man stared at the kitbag on the table for a long moment. Finally he said, ‘I want the girl back.’

  Maskelyne leaned back in his chair. ‘That is no longer possible. But let me make you an alternative offer.’

  The aperture in Creedy’s clockwork eye whirred as it narrowed.

  ‘You saw the beach of keys when you first arrived?’

  Creedy nodded.

  ‘Do you know where they come from?’

  Creedy said nothing.

  ‘The Drowned leave them there,’ Maskelyne explained. ‘They crawl ashore during the night, enduring considerable pain, and deposit the keys on that shore.’ The infinity device continued to make its revolutions. ‘Why?’ He shrugged. ‘The long-term Drowned do not communicate with us in any meaningful fashion. Brine alters the mind by some slow, subtle process. The sea consumes them, takes them over, until eventually they become limbo people, ghosts, repeating human actions that they do not appear to fully understand. Look there.’ He gestured towards the card players in the Mare Regis tank. ‘Those men turn cards all day long. In the beginning they played the game of Forentz, but as the months passed by, rules began to mean less and less to them. Now they simply turn the cards over, and then gather them up again. There is no longer any discernible purpose to their actions, no competition between them. They are simply parroting actions they remember but no longer understand. Three months of submersion irreversibly alters the mind, just as three hours is enough to permanently alter the body.’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘But I believe the Drowned gain some other form of intelligence, some deep instinctual feeling that the brine itself instils within them. I believe that they are looking for the key to some unique Unmer treasure, some locked container or tomb or room or vessel. Something they wish me to find and open.’

  Creedy looked at him blankly.

  Maskelyne indicated the infinity device on the desk. ‘Observe this machine,’ he said. ‘As the tube revolves, the marble falls from one end to the other.’ He waited until the marble had done just that. ‘Of course, gravity causes it to fall. But Unmer devices do not suffer from such constraints. They are not bound by our physical laws. Their very existence suggests that our universe is infinite, that anything that can happen, happens somewhere… or somewhen. If this little desktop machine is maintained indefinitely, then the marble should – one day – refuse to fall. And yet I don’t instinctively feel that that will happen. Something is missing from the device, something the Unmer discovered.’

  ‘Sorcery,’ Creedy said.

  ‘We call it sorcery,’ Maskelyne admitted. ‘But that’s just a word. You might as well describe it as an act of god. I prefer to think of it as the essence of infinity, a force that the Unmer utilized when they forged their treasures. They were able to unlock the gates of infinity and reach inside. Their treasures are of little worth to me in any real practical sense. I am more interested in what they represent, in the details of their manufacture, for therein lies the key to their mystery. Don’t you see? Solve that mystery and you save the world.’

  The big man was silent a moment. ‘What do you propose?’

  Maskelyne smiled. ‘I propose to set you up, Mr Creedy. I will outfit you with a ship of your own, a crew and a generous salary. You will also have a captain’s lay of any saleable trove you find – which is one-fifteenth – on the condition that you return any locked containers to me unopened. I need men such as yourself, sir: men with wits and ambition, training, an eye for treachery and a firm hand to quell it, and of course a certain moral flexibility. These are dangerous seas and turbulent times. Only the ruthless survive, Mr Creedy.’

  ‘A fifteenth lay?’

  ‘Of such trove as has no intellectual value to me.’

  ‘My own ship?’

  ‘You agree, then?’

  The jailer grinned. ‘Where do I sign?’

  Maskelyne rummaged in the desk drawer for some papers, then inclined his head towards a pen protruding from a brass holder in front of Creedy.

  ‘I always knew you were a fair man,’ Creedy said. He plucked the pen from its holder.

  There was a click.

  And the hidden trapdoor under Creedy’s chair opened.

  The jailer, chair and all, disappeared down a shaft in the floor. From below came the sound of an enormous splash, followed by a cry cut short. And then the pumps began to work. The floor of Maskelyne’s laboratory trembled. A gurgling, rushing sound came from the huge pipes below, and then behind the wall and, a moment later, Creedy’s writhing body dropped down into in the Mare Lux tank amidst a swarm of bubbles.

  He was gagging, clutching at his throat as he drowned.

  Maskelyne looked at the struggling figure behind the glass, then looked down at the empty pen holder and sighed. ‘They always take the pen with them.’

  The Guild man-o’-war Irillian Herald was gliding along the Glot Madera, her tall masts and yards rising above the buildings on either side. Briana Marks stood at the prow, as pale and slender as a dragon-bone figurehead. Her long coat tails flapped in the breeze as she stared out at the godforsaken dump that was Ethugra. A red sun burned low in the west, blurred by the haze of smoke that lingered over the city. The buildings themselves spread out before her in a filthy maze of yellow stone and chimneypots, eaves and gables aflame in the sunset, rooftops cluttered with cranes and piles of seabed rubble. Construction never stopped here. She could hear the sound of masons’ hammers coming from a dozen places in the city, like some irregular heartbeat.

  The ship’s old Unmer engines thrummed under Briana’s feet as she watched the greasy brown waters flow past the Herald’s red dragon-scale hull. The channel was full of dead rats, newspapers and milk cartons. Indeed, the whole city reeked of brine and death. She could smell occasional wafts of spoiled food on the breeze, the earthen scent of mortar and the ever-present metal stink of the sea. There were no birds, she noted. Not one bird in Ethugra.

  A whistle shrilled and the engines dropped to a low rumble. On the open deck below, Guild mariners began taking up their positions at the docking lines. Beyond the ship’s bow Briana could now see the pillars of a great gate, and a wide harbour beyond. The womb of the city. On a promenade at the far end of the harbour waited a welcome committee of Ethugran administrators – men in black cloaks and white wigs, standing grimly in the heat. Thankfully, the general populace had been banished from this reception.

  The engines dropped to an even lower tone as the great ship passed the gate and began to turn, lining her port side up with the deepwater berth at the promenade. Briana reached out towards the waiting men with her mind, and sensed… nothing at all. Not a spark of ability among the lot of them. She was alone here.

  And yet she was never truly alone. She could hear her Guild sisters chattering in the back of her mind, like the ever-present murmur of a city. Even after all of these years she had never grown used to it. In the palace at Awl the Haurstaf voices could feel like a nest of wasps trapped deep in her subconscious, but even here, two hundred leagues away, there was scarcely any respite. Try as she might, she couldn’t shut it out. The most powerful psychics could always reach their queen. Briana took a draught of poppy water from the tiny bottle in her coat pocket, but she feared it would not dull the sounds for long. She had become too dependent on the drug. It affected her less each time she took it.

  Ropes groaned as the Herald eased alongside the dock. The ship’s metal gangway clanged against the edge of the plaza. Briana pocketed her poppy water and went down to meet her hosts.

  The administrator who greeted her had a deformed spine and walked like a man forced to drag an invisible burden around with him. He moved by sliding one foot forward and then dragging his other foot along the ground after it. He had a prominent nose like a great knuckle of bone, and eyebrows like clods of wool under his white horsehair wig. He seemed so much older and mustier than the others, if such a thing was possible. ‘Sister Briana Marks,’ he said. ‘Such a pleasure – indeed, an honour – to welcome you to our proud city.’ He spoke infuriatingly slowly, crawling over his syllables in a singsong voice. ‘My name is Administrator Grech, and I am wholly at your service. If there is anything I can do for you, anything at all, it will be my… er… pleasure and honour.’

  Briana detested his manner at once. ‘I’ve no intention of staying in this ghastly place a moment longer than is absolutely necessary,’ she said. ‘I’m here to see a prisoner, one Thomas Granger – former colonel of the Gravediggers.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Grech muttered. ‘Oh dear.’

  Briana glared at him with impatience. Verbal exchanges could be so tedious.

  ‘We responded to your message immediately,’ he added. ‘But I fear your man-o’-war had already departed Losoto.’

  The other officials stood around in silence, waiting in the baking heat. Averley Plaza was so quiet Briana fancied she could hear the roar of distant fires within the sun.

  ‘Alas,’ Grech said. ‘Fate has been cruel to both of us. Had we known of your wishes earlier, we would have striven to accommodate them. Striven, Sister Marks, for you know that Ethugra has always been a loyal friend to the Haurstaf, and one must-’

  ‘Get to the point, you hideous little man.’

  ‘His execution is scheduled for three days hence.’

  ‘His trial, you mean?’

  ‘Trial, yes. As you say.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m well aware of that. The verdict means little enough to me. Colonel Granger has information I require. I’ll see him now.’

  Grech cringed. ‘Alas, alas. But we have had word from the Imperial Palace. When Emperor Hu learned that the leader of the Gravediggers had been captured, he decided in his great wisdom to sit in judgement on the case himself.’

  ‘Hu is coming here?’

  ‘He has cut short his stay at the summer palace and is sailing from Losoto as we speak. We are deeply honoured.’ Grech wrung his hands. ‘But, and forgive me if I say alas again, but he has ordered that no one be permitted to see the prisoner until the trial.’

  Briana looked at him coolly. ‘Did he know I was coming here?’

  Grech bowed so low he seemed to fold in on himself. ‘Assuredly not, your graciousness, but-’

  ‘Then obviously the orders don’t apply to me.’

  The administrator cringed. ‘His instructions were very clear. My life would be forfeit if I failed to carry them out.’

  ‘That’s fine with me. We’ll see the colonel after lunch.’

  Grech’s lips quivered. ‘I beg you to wait, madame. Two or three days more, and Hu will be here himself.’ He reached toward the sleeve of her dress then stopped himself and wrung his hands again. ‘Please accept my hospitality in the meantime. My wife’s mother is from Awl, she’ll cook for you herself.’

  ‘God, how awful.’

  He stood there with a pleading look in his eyes. Briana sighed. She would have had it out with Hu right now if the emperor kept a telepath on his ship. She looked at Grech again. ‘Your hospitality had better be exceptional.’

  ‘Everything I have is yours.’

  ‘You’d better hope that it’s enough.’

  ‘He looks at me strangely,’ Maskelyne said. ‘It’s almost as if there’s someone else in there.’

  The moment he said this, Jontney lowered his eyes and went back to his toys. Maskelyne found this all the more disconcerting. His son looked like a normal two-year-old, but his perception of his environment seemed altogether more mature. Maskelyne had the distinct impression that the little boy was very much aware of what his father had just said and had tried to disguise that knowledge. Jontney banged his toy dragon against the floor.

  Doctor Shaw frowned.

  ‘Those bruises are self-inflicted,’ Maskelyne said. ‘We found him twisting his arms through the bars of his cot, howling with pain.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘No, I mean, of course.’

  The doctor rummaged through his satchel, avoiding eye-contact with Maskelyne. He appeared to be looking for something, but then changed his mind. He reached down and pressed a hand against the boy’s forehead. ‘No fever.’

  Jontney bit his hand.

  Shaw cursed and jerked away, knocking his satchel over. Phials, bandages, clamps and pincers spilled out across the floor. ‘And no lack of vitality,’ he added, scooping everything back into the case.

  The playroom was evidence of that. Great mounds of toys of every shape and colour covered the floor: manatees and cloth jellyfish and boats carved from real wood, soldier dolls and brightly lacquered houses and wagons, clatter-clatters and sponge throws, pyramids, stack-rings, thrumwhistles, bricklets, woof-woofs, huckle-henrys, twistees, wibble-wobbles and a hundred other objects still known by the idiot names the Losotan shopkeepers had given them. The bastardized vernacular irked Maskelyne, but he bought the toys – mountains of them – for Jontney. He could not refuse his son anything.

  And dragons of course. Most of all Jontney loved his dragons.

  ‘I have a tincture we might try,’ Doctor Shaw said, although he looked as doubtful now as he did when he came in. Evidently he could see nothing wrong with the child. ‘To calm his riotous airs,’ he added with a nod.

  ‘What is in the tincture?’ Maskelyne inquired.

  The doctor waved his hand. ‘Oh, the usual. Kelp and leech-blend and such.’

  Maskelyne sighed. ‘Very well.’

  Doctor Shaw produced a spoon and a medicine bottle from his satchel. He filled the spoon with dark green liquid and, with surprising deftness, manhandled it into the child’s mouth. Jontney looked startled. He coughed, and his eyes welled with tears. Then he lifted his small fist. He was holding something shiny.

  In that awful moment, Maskelyne saw that it was a scalpel.

  Jontney plunged the blade into the doctor’s thigh.

  The doctor cried out and struck the child with the back of his hand. Jontney reddened and began to wail. Blood was streaming from the doctor’s leg, covering the rug, the toys. His face whitened with shock. He clamped his hands over the wound and exclaimed, ‘He cut me, he cut me.’

  Maskelyne just scooped his son up into his arms and carried him out, leaving the doctor fumbling in his satchel for bandages and alcohol.

  He found Lucille in the morning parlour. She glanced up at him and smiled, then she saw Jontney, and her smile withered. She stood up.

  ‘Take him,’ Maskelyne said.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He’s fine,’ Maskelyne replied. ‘Just frightened. I need to take care of the doctor.’ He dumped his son into Lucille’s arms.

  ‘He’s covered in blood.’

  ‘It’s not his blood!’

  ‘Ethan!’

  But he was already hurrying away. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he called, and slammed the door after him.

  On his way back to the playroom he stopped at the armoury.

  Racks and cabinets packed with Unmer weapons filled every wall. There were swords of blue and yellow poison-glass and burning-glass with wicked amber edges, seeing knives of the type used by Emperor Hu’s blind bodyguards, carbine weapons and hand-cannons for launching sorcerous or cursed missiles, devices that drank blood and whispered or screamed spells and Unmer war songs, jewelled dragon harnesses and mirrored armour, black stone armour and platinum runic plate, death vision helmets and torcs and rings of every conceivable warrior’s nightmare. Ten score objects sparkled in the gloom, treasures salvaged from drowned battlefields across the world. And every single piece of it exacted some horrible price from the wielder or wearer, what the Unmer would refer to as Balance.

  Maskelyne opened a mahogany box full of silver pins, each with a crystal head of a different colour. He shifted through them carefully, selected one and held it up. A faint blue light shone from the tiny translucent sphere. He listened to the crystal for a moment and shivered.

  Suitable payment.

  Doctor Shaw was still in the playroom. He had bound his thigh with bandages and was in the process of easing his breeches back on over his wound. He looked up nervously when Maskelyne entered. ‘A high-spirited lad,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I should have kept a more careful eye on my satchel.’