Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [0]
SEA OF GHOSTS
BOOK ONE OF THE
GRAVEDIGGER CHRONICLES
TOR
‘Let my skill with a bow be judged when the stars flare and die, for I have shot arrows at all of them’
Argusto Conquillas, The Art of Hunting, 8/4/900
‘Ballistic weapons can be used effectively against a sorcerer, provided they are not aimed directly at the sorcerer’
Colonel Thomas Granger, Treatise on the Use of Imperial Ordnance against Entropic Trickery, 12/HA/1420
This book is dedicated to
William Campbell
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
PROLOGUE
A TAPESTRY OF SEX
The shopkeeper stood seven feet tall and wore a fantastic turban, a twist of ice-cream silk laced with pearls. He ran his hand along the bookcase until he found the volume he was looking for and extracted it with the deft flourish of a carnival magician. ‘This is the book you want,’ he said. ‘A Tapestry of Sex explores the art of seduction; it was penned by the greatest lover who ever lived.’ He paused in affected wonder. ‘Herein lie the secrets of Lord Herian Goodman – the methods by which he won the hearts of every man, woman and cauldron abomination he desired. Take it, read it, allow yourself to be seduced by it.’
Ida pressed the pages to her lips and breathed in odours of perspiration and exotic perfume. She could still hear the hubbub of commerce in the cavernous gloom around her, but the noise seemed suddenly distant. As her eye followed the neat printed words, her heart began to race. She had to buy this book.
The Trove Market had grown into a network of enormous brick vaults and sinuous passages that reached underneath the Imperial city of Losoto, its cluttered aisles defining tributaries through which endless streams of tourists flowed. They wandered through vast arched spaces, gaping at shelves ablaze with gold and silver trinkets, at glass orchids and jewelled clocks and alabaster birdcages, at endless stacks of boiled-black dragon bones. Painted saints and figureheads smiled back at them with eyes of candle-flame and lips like glazed cherries. Tiny brass machines chuckled and chirruped meaningless words, pulsing colourful lights to no apparent purpose. Old swords waited in cabinets for new owners. There were boxes of feathers and jars of colourful dust, bottles of jellyfish wine and cloaks woven from the hair of dead princesses. Manatee skulls lay next to miniature tombstones. Sharkskin men and women writhed and danced in tanks of brine, their grey limbs sliding fluidly behind the curved glass walls, their hair like green pennants. A million customers might pass through Losoto’s underground market, plucking at the banks of treasure, and yet the stock never diminished. It could not be eroded. Every artefact in the empire found its way here eventually, to lie in wait for a spark of desire.
Ida clutched her book as fiercely as a mother holds a long-lost child. ‘Goodman was an Unmer Lord?’ she asked the shopkeeper.
‘Lord, libertine and a formidable sorcerer to boot. He lived in a house up there, less than a hundred yards from here.’ He jabbed a finger up at the vaulted brick ceiling, beyond which the streets of Losoto would be basking in the sunshine.
‘Then this book is magical?’
The shopkeeper smiled broadly, displaying the diamonds set in his teeth. ‘Who can say? The Unmer invested so many of their creations with magic. You must read it all to discover its value. Passion, sexual ecstasy, horror and peril. Anything is possible between the covers of such a book.’
She nodded urgently.
‘But there’s more,’ he added. ‘Now that you possess a map of seduction, you must acquire a compass and a sextant, so to speak, to facilitate your success.’ He steered her towards a dark cabinet stuffed with bulbous phials that gleamed like squid. ‘These Unmer potions have been dredged from the beds of sixteen seas. Look here.’ He picked up a green