Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [1]
‘What is it?’
‘Clarity.’
‘How much do they cost? I don’t know—’
‘And here is stamina.’ This bottle was sunflower-yellow, the next one pink. He scooped them into his arms like glazed fruit sweets. ‘And lucid dreams and lightness of step – ah, here is an enigma. This tincture allows one to see colours hidden in other people’s shadows and thus perceive hidden intentions. These three are the bottled auras of young boys sacrificed at Unmer altars; their ghosts will be lingering nearby. How long do you plan to stay?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Will you be in Losoto a week from now?’
She shook her head. ‘My ship leaves tomorrow.’
The shopkeeper threw up his hands with mock regret. Suddenly he seemed taller and wilder, an enormous blue-lipped djinn at the centre of the universe. Lanterns suspended from the ceiling whirled around his head like flaming bolas. His eyes blazed. ‘But you’ll miss the rarest treasure of them all. My agent in Valcinder is sending me a jealous knife. They dragged it up from sixty fathoms down. A man died to procure it, and I am told it is superb.’
Her head spun. ‘Is it an Unmer artefact? What does it do?’
‘What does it do? The jealous knife allows two lovers to exchange tactile sensation. Prick each partner’s finger and thereafter each will experience the other’s pleasure or pain. Thus a lonely wife might please her husband across great gulfs of separation, or a brave man endure the pain of childbirth in his woman’s stead.’
‘But why is it called—’
He made a dismissive gesture. ‘The effect is everlasting. Relationships are not.’
Perhaps Ida could remain a few days and return home on a later boat? She had spent so much money already on this trip, but she absolutely had to have that knife. And possibly an aura or two, an Unmer sonnet, a dragon’s eye, or a few vials of passion drained from a corpse. Leave the gold to the magpies; she would indulge her taste for Unmer sorcery. Yes. She simply must stay. She was about to say as much when she heard a great commotion from another part of the market. A woman screamed.
The shopkeeper stared past her, over the tops of the nearest shelves. And then he turned and walked briskly away down the aisle.
‘Mr Sa’mael?’ Ida called after him. ‘Mr Sa’mael?’
Other people were shoving past her now, quickly. Ida sensed a swell of panic building under the vaulted ceiling. She heard another scream, and what sounded like an explosion. Glass smashed. Suddenly the crowd surged, and someone knocked her to the floor. Ida cried out and cowered under her book as boots thudded past her head.
Silence followed.
Ida wobbled to her feet and swept back the tangled mess of her hair. Dirty footprints bruised her dress. Her arms and legs smarted. The aisles all around were clogged with wreckage from fallen shelves. It looked as if a tsunami had swept through here. The crowds had fled, but the marketplace was not deserted.
Ten yards away a little girl stood at the junction of four aisles, cradling a metal doll in her arms. She wore a red frock composed of many layers and frills that flared out around her boots like the petals of a rose. Her hair and skin were as white as bone dust, and her huge dark eyes brimmed with tears.
‘Oh, you poor tyke.’ Ida moved towards the child.
From behind came the calm sound of a man’s voice: ‘Ma’am.’
Ida turned.
Five Imperial soldiers perched upon the tops of the shelves above her. They had climbed up among the boxes of treasure, three on one side of the aisle, two on the opposite bank. As motley a group as Ida had ever seen, they wore tattered black uniforms adorned with old clasps, buckles and pins. They wore whaleskin boots and gloves and carried swords, gutting knives and hand-cannons fashioned from dragon-bone and silver – these latter clearly salvaged from the seabed, for the stocks still bore the scars of barnacles. The man who had spoken crouched over a leather satchel, gripping the stub of