Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [117]
Maskelyne felt queasy and woolly-headed, as though the lenses had given him a hangover. Was he now writing things in his sleep? How on earth had Ianthe managed to wear them for so long?
He called for Kitchener to inquire about their progress and was told that the stocks had been built and bolted to the midships deck. Maskelyne instructed him to assemble the crew. He did not ask about his wife. He did not want to know where she was.
He went back to his journal.
My experiences with the lenses lead me to believe that Unmer sorcery is concerned with variance. If our universe is an expanding sea of variance, and if it does indeed conglomerate in places to form knots of ultra-compressed Space, thinning the remaining cosmos, then might our universe be only one of such spatial reactions? Should invariance not exist between separate universes, even if it is nothing more than a slender thread? Have the Unmer found one or more of these threads? Are they somehow able to manipulate them, to transfer energy and matter between them? Is there a network, a series of hidden tunnels that reach beyond our own universe?
One wonders if a map of such paths exists. Is this the object I have been looking for? Is this what the deranged Drowned wish me to find? A human man with knowledge of such pathways could wield the same terrifying powers as the Unmer, while remaining immune to the Haurstaf.
Compared to Unmer sorcery, the Haurstaf’s mental powers seem crude and simple. And yet they are devastatingly effective. If the Unmer are the wizards of a thousand wavelengths, the Haurstaf are the masters of one. That the latter should have so much power over the minds of the former cannot be a coincidence. The Unmer have disturbed the natural order of the cosmos, and the cosmos has reacted to restore equilibrium.
It occurs to me that the Unmer, so used to wandering the halls of infinity, perhaps perceive this tiny world with indifference. And yet, for Jontney’s sake, I cannot afford to do the same.
Ianthe had been secured in the stocks. The men stood around in silence. Maskelyne closed the sterncastle hatch behind him and walked over. Ianthe was staring absently at the deck, breathing heavily. He looked around for Lucille, but she was nowhere in sight.
‘Strip her,’ he said to Mellor.
The first officer nodded.
‘Wait.’
Maskelyne turned to see his wife, now pushing through the crowd of men. She was carrying Jontney in her arms.
‘I thought your son could learn something from this,’ she said.
Maskelyne just glared at her.
‘He ought to know what sort of man his father is.’
‘Take him inside,’ Maskelyne said.
Lucille didn’t move.
‘Take him inside!’
She stared at him defiantly. Jontney began to cry, his sobs the only human sound upon that deck.
Maskelyne was losing respect with every passing moment. He couldn’t allow himself to be humiliated like this, not now – when their very survival depended on it. Lucille was forcing him into a situation where he’d have to hurt her to protect her. Didn’t she realize how self-destructive her actions were? And then in a flash of inspiration he saw the truth. She wanted to push him. She wanted him to hurt her. Nothing else made sense. She was trying to help him. He was almost overwhelmed with a feeling of love for her.
‘Mellor,’ he said breathlessly, ‘Take my son inside.’
The first officer hesitated for a heartbeat, then stepped towards Lucille.
‘No,’ she said.
Mellor reached for the boy.
Jontney shrieked.
Lucille turned away, but Mellor already had a grip of the child’s jumper.
‘Don’t,’ she said.
She tried to get away. Mellor scuffled with her, trying to pull the child free from her arms. She struck out at him repeatedly with her free hand, scratching his face, but Mellor did not retaliate. Jontney