Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [111]
The Excelsior was an Imperial vessel, after all.
He took the yacht alongside the private quay and disengaged her engines. Without any crew present to fix the bow and stern lines, he’d have to do the work himself.
Securing the ship took longer than he’d hoped. He pitched out the fenders along the port side, then threw one of the heavy bow lines across a quayside cleat and used the forward steam winch to draw it tighter, but he was forced to return to the bridge and use the engines to counter stern drift. When everything was finally fast, he lowered the gangway and stepped onto the quayside.
The sun beat down on him from a clear blue sky. There was nobody about, no sign of life in the fortress up there on the cliffs, no sounds but the rush of waves on the beach and the distant banging from the shipyards. Granger walked up the quay.
When he drew near the beach, he stopped in surprise. This slender crescent that stretched away on both sides of the quay wasn’t composed of sand or gravel as he’d expected, but rather of countless keys: iron keys, rusted keys, but mostly of keys that glinted in the sun like silver, forcing him to squint against the glare.
What were they doing here?
The question troubled him, although he couldn’t say exactly why.
There must have been a thousand steps leading up the cliff to Maskelyne’s fortress. By the time Granger reached the top, he was panting and dizzy with the heat. His dry grey skin felt as hot and dusty to the touch as the stones around the path. He paused for a minute and gazed out at the view. The Mare Lux stretched as far as he could see, the waves shining like chamfered copper. Ethugra crouched against the horizon in a watery haze, a single island of prison blocks rising from the curve of the earth. Four or five ships were approaching from that direction, but they wouldn’t reach Scythe Island for several hours. Granger noted that the Haurstaf man-o’-war was not among them. He scanned the seas to the north and noticed a flash of white sail. Could that be her? Had Briana Marks abandoned her search for Ianthe? Or had she received some other intelligence?
Granger turned and surveyed the castle above him.
It had been constructed from blocks of amethyst quarried from the island’s spine. Light bled through translucent purple edges and angles, so that the whole structure seemed to radiate an internal glow, like a jellyfish. Two fluted pillars flanked an open doorway leading into the cool, plum-coloured interior of a barbican. Scalloped machicolations overhung the outer walls, but these were bereft of arrow loops and must surely have been designed for decoration. Private Banks would have been able to tell Granger more; it was the sort of place the young soldier had once enthused over. He looked up inside the barbican for murder holes, but saw none. The place appeared to be deserted.
Granger strolled inside.
The barbican inner door was closed, but there was a bell pull. Granger yanked the cord and heard a faint chime.
He waited.
A short while later, the door swung open to reveal a tidy courtyard walled and flagged with the same red-blue quartz. The air had a calm, floral quality. A stuffy little grey-haired man wearing servant’s brocade stood there, blinking. He took one look at Granger and immediately tried to close the door again.
Granger booted it open, knocking the servant to the ground. ‘Where’s Maskelyne?’ he demanded.
The man stared up at him in horror. ‘What are you?’
‘Where is your master?’
‘Gone,’ he replied. ‘At sea.’
‘Where’s the girl?’
The man blinked.