The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [44]
He lost himself in concentration. It had been a while since he’d had a puzzle like this to work on. It was good to bury himself in the Art. With no possibility of a proper sanctum aboard the Ketty Jay, he’d been using crude, portable equipment this past year, working in a corner of the cargo hold. It limited him to small, simple effects, like the earcuff communicators, which were comfortably within the range of his skill. But thralling a daemon was one thing; subduing someone else’s was a different matter.
Finally he was satisfied that he’d accounted for all the elements of the complex, dissonant chord emanating from the door. The chord was like a cage, binding the daemon there. It was a weak entity, this one. Barely more than a spark of otherworldly life, set to a single task.
He scanned the settings on the oscilloscope, then sat back on his heels. “Well, if it isn’t daemonism, I don’t know what it is,” he said. Now that he had the readings, silence was no longer necessary.
“What do you mean?” asked Hodd.
“I mean, it’s no kind of special technology or anything else. It’s straightforward, thralling-a-daemon-to-a-door daemonism.”
“You mean the Manes have daemonists?”
“Just telling you what’s here.”
“Can you break it?” Grist asked eagerly.
“I should think so,” said Crake.
He set to work again, this time on the resonator. He turned the first dial, tuning in to the frequency he wanted. The damping rod hummed as it sent out frequencies of its own, interfering with those that bound the daemon. Crake saw one of the gauges on the oscilloscope drop to zero. One frequency neutralized. He sought out the next. He had the readings from the oscilloscope, so homing in on them was easy. With each frequency he matched, the damping rod hummed louder. He could feel the vibration in his back teeth, his stomach, his bowels. The brainless daemon thralled to the door was fighting to escape back to the aether. It made him want to be sick again.
The last gauge on the oscilloscope dropped. The chord that chained the daemon was countered. Crake felt his skin prickle, then there was a sensation of lifting in his body, as if there had been a pressure on him these past few minutes that had suddenly been released. The paranoia dissipated. All was normal.
The daemon was gone.
He made a cursory scan for frequencies with his oscilloscope, then reached over and unclipped his equipment from the battery.
“It’s done,” he said.
“You’re a damned marvel, Mr. Crake,” said Grist, stepping past eagerly. He reached for the handle of the door, hesitated, then grabbed it. When nothing happened, he chuckled. “A damned marvel.” He pushed the door open.
“Hey, we should see what’s happened to Silo and Jez,” Frey said, but Grist ignored him and went on through, with Crattle and Hodd close on his heels. Frey shrugged and followed them. “Suppose they can take care of themselves.”
Crake trailed along behind, with one last look at his equipment. He didn’t like leaving it lying around like that, but he didn’t want to be left here on his own.
Beyond the door was a short corridor ending in a small room. Grist was already at the other end, his lantern illuminating the way. Crake followed his captain in.
It was not what he’d expected. The room was entirely unimpressive. Simple, square, and featureless. In the center was a thin pedestal, a meter high, and on top of that was a metal sphere about the size of a grapefruit. There were no other exits.
Frey looked around disdainfully. “I’m not seeing any of this vast wealth you spoke of, Captain Grist.”
Grist was studying the sphere. “Mr. Crake, do you know what this is?”
Crake looked closer. It was made of black metal and appeared smooth. Silver lines ran across its surface in curves and circles. The pattern had no symmetry, and there was never a straight line. It gave him a headache just to look at it.
But there was something more. At this distance, it was impossible not to notice. His finely honed daemonist