The Scar - China Mieville [269]
Tanner followed her example, his eyes widening. He and Bellis could trace the bodies above them. One was by the door; two ranged near the bed, sinking now into chairs; and the fourth, the big one, shuffled back and forth toward the far wall, locking his legs as the cactacae did in sleep or exhaustion, his weight driving down through the wood.
“So,” said Uther Doul, his voice astonishingly clear. “Tell us, Hedrigall.” He was hard. “Tell us why you ran. And how you ended back here again.”
“Oh, gods.” Hedrigall sounded drained and shattered. It was just barely his voice. Tanner shook his head in amazement.
“Gods, dear gods please don’t start that again.” Hedrigall sounded as if he would cry. “I don’t understand you. I’ve never run from Armada in my life. I never would. Who are you?” he screamed suddenly. “What are you? Am I in hell? I saw you die . . .”
“What’s happened to him?” whispered Tanner, appalled.
“You’re talking fucking dung, Hedrigall, you treacherous shit,” the Lover exclaimed. “Look at me, you dog. You were scared, weren’t you? Too frightened, so you patched up the Arrogance in secret and cut loose. Now, where did you go, and how did you get back here?”
“I’ve never betrayed Armada,” Hedrigall shouted, “and I never would. Croom, look at me . . . disputing with a dead man! How can you be here? Who are you? I saw all of you die.” He sounded quite mad with grief or shock.
“When, Hedrigall?” It was Doul’s voice, clipped and dangerous. “And where? Where did we die?”
Hedrigall whispered his answer, and something in his voice made Bellis shiver, though she had expected it. She nodded as she heard it.
“The Scar.”
When they had calmed him, Uther Doul and the Lovers conferred quietly, moving away from him.
“. . . mad . . .” said the Lover, not quite audible. “Either mad . . . strange . . .”
“We have to know.” Doul’s voice. “If he’s not mad he’s a dangerous liar.”
“It makes no sense,” said the Lover furiously. “Who is he lying to? Why?”
“Either he is a liar, or . . .” said the Lover.
Tanner and Bellis could not tell if she said more, quietly, or if her words petered out.
“How has this happened?”
“We’d been a month, more than a month in the Hidden Ocean.”
Many minutes had passed. Hedrigall had been silent for a long time while the Lovers debated what to do, whispering so low that Bellis and Tanner could not hear them. When suddenly he spoke, it was unbidden, and his voice was low and unchanging, as artless as if he were drugged.
The Lovers and Uther Doul waited.
Hedrigall spoke as if he knew it was expected of him.
He spoke for a long time, and he was not interrupted. He spoke with unnatural grace, with a trained fabler’s eloquence; but there was in his careful monotone a hesitance, and underlying that a trauma that was frightening to sense.
Hedrigall stumbled on his words, and paused suddenly, sporadically, and drew shaking breaths; but he spoke for a long time. His audience—those in the room with him and those below—were absolutely silent and attentive.
“We’d been more than a month in the Hidden Ocean.”
Chapter Forty-six
“We’d been more than a month in the Hidden Ocean, and the sea was in chaos. We couldn’t plot a course, we couldn’t keep north at the top of our compasses, we couldn’t navigate. Every day I’d stare out from the Arrogance, looking for sign of the Scar, the Fractured Land, anything at all. And there was nothing.
“You kept us moving.
“You insisted; you fired us up. You told us what we’d do when we reached the Scar. What powers it would give you, give us. You told us that we would all have power.
“I’ll not pretend there was no dissent. As we went on, people were more and more . . .