The Scar - China Mieville [199]
Bellis had picked her way through rubbish where the feral monkeys bickered with cats and dogs, through the tumbling streets, and into what was indisputably Thee-And-Thine.
This was the most ill-kempt of Armada’s ridings. Its buildings were mostly wood, and many were moldering or salt- and water-stained. It was not that the area was poor—there were plenty of riches, in the gold and silver and jet visible through the windows of some houses, in the vivid silks and satins that were worn by some of its inhabitants, in the quality of goods available. But in a place where everything was for sale, certain goods—such as the right to maintain the architecture and the streets—were not attractive buys.
Slums and factories and shabby opulence bobbed sedately side by side. Finally, Bellis had passed the Salt Godling, Friedrich’s flagship, and had walked into the Yevgeny’s creaking, smelly innards, unclearly torchlit, to The Pashakan.
On her third visit, Silas was there. Bellis was angry at his surly surprise to see her.
“Will you listen to me?” she hissed at him. “I know where we’re going.”
He looked up, sharply, and caught her eye.
She laughed suddenly and unpleasantly. “Do you have déjà vu, Silas?” she said. “Jabber knows I do. Understand that I do not relish this relationship. I seem to find myself doing this with disturbing regularity: telling you that I know a secret, giving it to you to pass on, to make plans with, to do something with. I do not enjoy that. This is the last fucking time, you understand me?” She meant it, absolutely. No matter what might happen, she would not deal with Silas Fennec like this again. There was nothing, less than nothing, between them anymore.
“But whether I like it or not,” she went on, “I have little choice here. I need your help. The only way anything can be done about this is if . . . the word is spread, if more people know. And though no one listens to Bellis Coldwine, it seems that a growing minority are prepared to listen to the troublemaker Simon Fench.”
“Where are we going, Bellis?” Fennec asked.
She told him.
“I wondered why you were fraternizing with that fucking lunatic Doul. Does he know you know?” Fennec seemed stunned.
“I think so,” she said. “It’s hard to tell. It was as if . . . He obviously wasn’t supposed to tell me. But maybe he was so . . . caught up in it, he couldn’t resist. So instead of coming out with it, which would be disloyal, he told me just enough.
“All the time I’d thought he was accompanying the Lovers and Aum and the scientists into those secret meetings because he’s their bodyguard. But it wasn’t that—he’s an expert on this thing, on possibility mining. He knows everything about it, because of once researching that sword of his.
“This is what they’ve been working on. The Lovers want to get to the Scar; they want to tap possibilities, Silas.” Her voice remained cool, though she did not feel it. “Like the Ghosthead Empire, do you understand?”
“That’s why the avanc,” he breathed, and Bellis nodded.
“That’s why. It’s just a means to an end. The Lovers must have been . . . entranced when they saw his sword, when he first came to the city. They heard his stories of the Fractured Land, and the Scar—all the secrets he knows—and it was nothing but a dream, then. But then they think of Tintinnabulum and his crew, who could be enticed. This is the ultimate big game, after all.” She stared out of the little window at a sea that churned slowly by as the avanc progressed.
“And the Lovers already knew about the chains. Armada tried to capture an avanc before. That was a long time ago, and they don’t give a cuss for tradition. But when Doul came, it was different. Before he came, calling the avanc would’ve been . . . a stupid, grandiose, pointless gesture. But now? Everyone knows no ship can cross the Empty Ocean. But what fucking force in Bas-Lag could stop an avanc? All of a sudden, there’s a way to get to this Scar that Doul