Echo City.

The Heretic Land.

BY TIM LEBBON.

PART ONE.

RISE.

Chapter 1.

betrayals.

After six days at sea, following a storm that almost swamped the ship, a waterspout that toyed with them for half a day, and an attack by sea scorps that left three crewmen swelling until their skin split and bones ruptured, it was the food that almost killed Bon Ugane.

'I mean it,' the woman said. He'd noticed her before, emerging from the second hold with other prisoners and walking the deck during exercise periods. He could hardly not notice her. But they had not spoken until now. 'Don't eat it. I've cooked flatfish all my life, and that one is diseased. The colour of the flesh, the texture ...' She shrugged.

'There'll be nothing else from them today,' Bon said. His stomach was rumbling, and he'd already lost weight from hunger and sea sickness.

'So go hungry.'

He looked down at the meagre meal their guards had presented him with, watched and listened to the other prisoners chomping down on their fish, lifted it close to his nose to take a sniff, then tipped it over the railing.

'Here,' the woman said. She held out her plate to him. She'd already eaten most of the good meat. 'Go on.'

Bon scooped up the thin fins in one hand and stared at them. The woman paused in her chewing, offended. Bon smiled and ate, nodding his thanks as the stringy, spiky fins came apart in his mouth.

They'd been allowed up out of the holds to eat today. The sea rolled as waves clashed from two directions, colliding with thunderous impacts, flinging spray skyward to be caught by the easterly wind and blown stinging across the ship's deck. Wave tops rolled white, and flying fish drifted through the spray as they hunted unsuspecting prey. The sky was a deep, threatening grey, and far to the west the clouds had burst, rain falling in silent sheets. They'd only seen one spineback today, and rumour had it the last reported sighting of a deep pirate was a hundred miles east of here. This was as calm and safe as the Forsaken Sea ever was, and the crew's good cheer had filtered across to the usually gruff, hard guards.

The dozen guards leaned against the railing or strolled the deck in pairs, casual, chatting, weapons sheathed. They were recruited from the Steppe clans that lived across Alderia's central regions, where the Harcra.s.syan Mountains and Chasm Cliffs ravaged the landscape and effectively divided the continent in two. The tallest, strongest people on Alderia a with stocky limbs for negotiating slopes, and vicious teeth for catching prey whilst clinging to rock faces a through the years those generations that left their challenging hunting heritage behind had naturally found their way into the military. Most worked for regional armies or the prison ships, and those few that excelled might even find their way into the Spike, the Ald's own expansive personal defence force. Bon had always found an irony in Alderia's ruling elite requiring their own guard, when they professed to encourage freedom and peace for all.

'What's your name?' he asked after he'd managed to swallow the remains of the fins.

'Name?' the woman asked. 'Oh, so we're straight onto the formalities. Name, where am I from, what did I do that put me on this ship? Life f.u.c.king story. But I left all that behind. We're all heading for a new life.'

Perhaps she saw Bon's face drop a little, because her rant faded almost as soon as it had begun.

'My life's been this s.h.i.t for years,' he said. He smiled, not to show that he was joking, but that he could live with it.

The woman smiled back. 'Lucky you. Head start.'

'And I know where you're from,' Bon said.

'Is it so obvious?' She held up one splayed hand, the thin webs between her long fingers almost transparent.

'I thought your sort might just jump overboard and escape.'

She looked at him for some time, expressionless, eyes never leaving his face. He glanced away first, and when he looked back she was still staring.

'My sort?' she asked at last.

'Amphys,' Bon said.

'Well, at least you use the polite name. Most just call us floaters.' She glanced around at the other prisoners sat across the deck a one woman had tried standing when they'd first been brought up, and had been kicked back down by a guard a and she and Bon shared a silent moment. It was strange. He had not felt truly comfortable in a woman's presence since his wife's death, and now he was sitting with this amphy stranger and feeling more settled than he had since they'd left Alderia's coast on their journey north towards banishment. Maybe it was her straightforward manner, her easy way of talking. Or perhaps it was the hint of exoticism that all amphys held for him, and had done ever since his parents had first welcomed an amphy friend into their home thirty years before. Many people hated them because they were different, or more graceful than most, or often simply because hating came easy to some.

'Lechmy Borle,' she said, holding out her hand palm up. 'Leki to my friends. Haven't got many of those on board, that's for sure.'

'Bon Ugane,' Bon said. He pressed his hand to hers, and they pushed against each other. It was a formal greeting, but their smiles diluted some of the formality.

'I can't just jump and swim,' Leki said. 'A distant cousin of mine was arrested and deported seven years ago. He jumped ship a day out and was never seen again.'

'Maybe he swam along the coast, made a new life for himself?'

'He's dead. The bone sharks got him, or some other wildlife. Or the deep pirates. They come that far south, sometimes, if pickings are thin to the north. Or more likely he drowned.'

'Drowned?'

'We're good swimmers,' Leki said. 'I can hold my breath for a lot longer than you. But we're not f.u.c.king fish.'

Bon chuckled. It felt good, and he thought it was simply because he was talking to someone like a person for the first time in days. Other prisoners had engaged him in conversation, but it was always light, and rarely developed into anything more than cautious plat.i.tudes. The disgraced Fade priest in his hold seemed immune to anyone's efforts to enter into conversation. Bon wondered what the priest had done to deserve this, and how he had offended Alderia's official Fade religion. But when Bon had approached, he had not even lifted his eyes. The guards spoke sometimes. But even those who were more fair and reasonable would not grow familiar with the prisoners, because they knew what was to become of them.

'They say it's two more days to Skythe,' Bon said.

'And the worst of the storms are always closer to the Duntang Archipelago.'

'Great. I think I've already vomited everything that's not tied down.'

Leki laughed silently. He watched her as she glanced away, eyeing her up and down. The amphys had always fascinated him, and it went way beyond their webbed hands and feet, and their wider chests that contained the larger lungs. It was the less obvious differences that he found more compelling. They were all blue-eyed, a trait unique to them. They were usually taller than the northern Alderians, and though their limbs were streamlined, they were much stronger. They wore clothing only out of water, and they were always loose and flowing, their natural grace matching the swish of cloth. Their favoured material was sea-spider silk, shimmering with a rainbow of colours from the natural oils. Waterproof, strong and light, their clothing was one of the amphys' main exports from Alderia's three southern states.

Leki was dressed in a dirty, shapeless jacket and trousers, with a heavy belt and clumsily st.i.tched leather boots. She'd probably lost her own clothes the moment she was arrested.

Bon was intrigued, but he had no wish to be pushy. If her story came naturally, he would be interested to hear. If not, it made little difference. He was simply grateful that she had spoken to him at all. It almost made him believe he had a future.

'They'll be putting put us back in the holds soon,' Bon said. 'Maybe we should try-'

'Spineback,' Leki said softly.

'Where?'

'About three miles to port.'

'Must be big if you can see it that far out.' He stretched up to see past Leki, out over the port railings and across the angry grey ocean. He spied nothing, and feared she was teasing. He didn't know her.

Then one of the three lookouts up in the skynests sounded his horn twice, and the deck erupted into chaos. Crewmen dashed back and forth, and the guards started urging the prisoners back towards the two ladders leading down into the holds.

'It is a big one,' Leki said as she and Bon stood together. 'But don't worry.'

As they were parted and shoved towards different ladders, Bon turned to look past his fellow prisoners and their animated guards. He spotted the shimmer of weak sunlight on a spineback's slick skin, and seeing the upright spikes along its back from this distance meant they must be taller than a man. The huge beast was cutting through the waves towards them, and occasionally it reared up, revealing a wide head and heavily toothed mouth. How can she tell me not to worry? he thought.

'Get a shift on!' a guard growled, and Bon obeyed. The fear was palpable a prisoners hurried, guards shouted, and the activity across and above the ship's deck was frantic. Harpoon guns were uncovered, and heavy, gla.s.s-tipped harpoons were loaded, the guns' steam mechanisms pumped and primed. Sails billowed, booms swung, rigging creaked and whipped as the ship turned to face the threat, offering a narrower target for the spineback to tear through. The crew started singing a strange song in their own seafaring language, a b.a.s.t.a.r.disation of Alderian blended with the ancient languages found written in western coastal caves. The song beseeched Venthia, the Fade G.o.d of water, to help them. Bon did not believe in Alderia's Fade religion and its seven deities, and yet he found great irony in this a the crew prayed to a G.o.d which even devout Faders contended had vanished from the Forsaken Sea at the time of the Skythian War six centuries before. Sending criminals across such G.o.dless waters was the Ald's favourite way of getting rid of them.

Silent, resigned, Bon caught one last glimpse of Leki as she was ushered down into the second hold. She was not looking his way. That gave him a surprising stab of loss, and his heart was in confusion. On the ship until now, he had given no thought to his fate. Life for him was over.

The hold grating slammed shut, locking them inside. Excited, frightened chatter filled the shadows. The roar of the approaching giant sent shockwaves through the sea and against the prison ship's hull. The Fade priest sat silent and motionless. And as he waited for the end, all Bon could think was, I want to see her again.

Bon's hold was not completely dark. Many of the prisoners had brought candles, and the fifteen other deportees down there with him listened to the chaos with flickering flames reflected in their wide, frightened eyes.

Crewmen shouted, waves thudded into the ship as they swung booms and changed direction, harpoons hissed and whistled as they were fired, and three times something immense struck the vessel, impacts knocking Bon and the others down, wood creaking and metal bracings shrieking. The attack did not last for long, but Bon was far more afraid than he had expected. He was thinking of Leki in the neighbouring hold, and when after the second impact someone shouted that they'd been breached, he heard water hissing in and the cries of those drowning, and Bon dashed across to the separating wall. Banging on the wood, he shouted her name. Screamed it. It was only as an old man grabbed his arm to quieten him, and he pressed his ear to the wall, that he realised the hull had not been compromised at all.

Later, a guard opened the hatch and threw down several bags.

'What happened?' someone asked. 'Did they kill the spineback?'

'Kill it?' the guard scoffed. He slammed the hatch, laughing, and the prisoners went about sharing out the food.

As Bon ate he looked around at the others. Before today he'd had little interest in them. But the closer they drew to the huge island of Skythe a a hundred miles from east to west, and its northern limits unknown a the more he began to wonder. Some would be political dissidents like him, banished by Alderia's rulers, the Ald, for questioning their word and the tenets of their rule. Others could be religious exiles sent away for being too vocal in their own beliefs; some fringe religions were allowed, but if they actively challenged belief in the Fade they had gone too far. Perhaps there were murderers, rapists, or terrorists. He would not ask, and few people seemed willing to betray their crimes. They might all be cla.s.sed as criminals by the Ald, but in many cases that would be all they had in common.

In one corner he saw several people praying to the seven Fade G.o.ds, changing position, prayers and tone for each deity. Bon felt what he always felt when confronted with such a scene a a faintly painful nostalgia for his childhood years when his parents had made him pray, and a vague sense of disgust. He knew things that, if proven, would expose the Fade for the lie it was. Many people knew. His crime was in believing them.

He glanced again at the Fade priest, hunkered beneath dark robes and staring down at the deck between his knees. The man was quite young, handsome, but his face was etched with bitterness. One side of it was bruised, his lips split and scabbed. He rested his hands on his bent knees, and the finger on his right hand that should have borne a priest's Fade ring was missing. The stump was roughly bandaged. The wound was recent.

Bon crawled across closer to the priest. Even as he moved he berated himself, because he had no wish to become involved with anyone down here. Except Leki, he thought.

'f.u.c.k off,' the priest said. Bon paused and sat back against a heavy timber brace.

'Not a typical greeting from a priest,' Bon said. He sighed and leaned his head back against the bracing. He could feel the impact of sea against hull transmitted through his skull, and each shiver or thud brought Skythe close.

'I used to believe,' Bon said, softly, quietly. The priest did not respond, and Bon felt that he was talking to himself. 'It's traditional. You're brought up that way, and my parents never gave me any cause to doubt. Seven G.o.ds of the Fade, each of them watching over us, demanding prayer and fealty in return for wellbeing ... it sounds so attractive. So comforting. I had no reason not to believe.' He snorted. 'How stupid. I'm so glad I saw the light.'

'And in that light, darkness,' the priest said. His voice was gravelly, older than his years.

'No,' Bon said. 'Enlightenment.'

'The Fade provides,' the priest said, intoning a familiar prayer. 'From before time, the Fade has watched the world for us, and now watches over us. All hail the seven G.o.ds.' He lifted his hand and kissed the s.p.a.ce between fingers where the missing digit had once resided, his eyes closed and his face almost serene.

'But you're here,' Bon said.

'You think because I'm a priest I must have been banished for betraying my faith. Which means you're as much a fool as anyone else on this d.a.m.ned vessel.'

'Then why are you-?'

'Every moment, I pray to the Fade to send a deep pirate to take us down and consume us all,' the priest said.

'You must have done something terrible,' Bon whispered, staring at the man's mutilated hand.

'f.u.c.k off,' the priest said again. 'Take your heathen heart away from me.'

Bon wanted to protest, and argue, and tell the priest what a fool he must be for still believing in a religion that had done nothing to save him. But the priest closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, praying and finding comfort. Alone, Bon crawled away and sat in the shadows. He had only his own company for the rest of that night, and as usual he found it wanting.

They were not let out for another exercise session that evening. They could hear some pained crying from far away, and Bon guessed that some of the crew or guards had been injured in the spineback attack. It was said that the creatures were infected with poisonous, fist-sized parasites, which were known to infect some of those vessels they came into contact with. As darkness fell outside, occasional shouts, running footsteps, and the sound of crossbows firing seemed to bear out that tale.

Bon bedded down. All but one candle was blown out, and in the darkness he heard the sound of a couple rutting, and someone else muttering insane words as the Forsaken Sea rocked them into sleep.

The silent priest was comforted by his G.o.ds.

Bon was already leaning on the starboard railing and silently observing the damage to the ship when Leki's hold was opened the following morning. Crew members worked to fix several shattered lengths of the port railing, and two of the smallest sailors were being lowered down against the ship's hull to effect repairs. There was hammering and shouting, but none of the singing of the previous afternoon. There were now six lookouts in the skynests, and two extra harpoons had been rigged alongside the four already there.

The ship's sails were full, and the rolling sea seemed for once to be accommodating their direction. North was grey and obscured by mist, and somewhere beyond that mist lay the forbidding island of Skythe.

The guards unbolted the second hold, and Leki was the fifth person out. She squinted against the dazzling light, looking around the ship until she saw Bon. Then she smiled.

At me, Bon thought as she walked slowly towards him. The prisoners already knew that sudden movements were ill-advised. Escape was impossible, and the guards might appear relaxed, but they were always ready for an attack.

'I'm famished,' he said.

'Good. A woman in my hold has been stinking the place out all night. Bad flatfish. She might survive, but ...' Leki shrugged. It set her hair moving, and Bon found that he liked that. She rubbed her eyes and yawned, stretched, pulling her clothing tight across her wide shoulders.

'I've heard about spinebacks, but never thought I'd see one. Never thought we'd be attacked by one.'

'The Forsaken Sea is full of monsters,' Leki said. 'They made it that way.' She leaned on the railing beside Bon looking out, and he turned so that they faced the same way.

'You mean the Skythians?' he asked softly. 'Do you really believe they corrupted their own sea?'

'Don't you?' Leki glanced sidelong at him, smiling. This was heretical talk.

'It's what we're told,' he said, uncertain how much he could trust her. It could be that, like the priest, she was a devout Fader, sent here for crimes completely different from his. Discussing his beliefs less than a day after meeting her might not be the best start to a friendship. Wearing his own beliefs on his sleeve, blasphemous and seditious as they were, might get him killed. And though there was a time when he would not have minded that, it was, ironically, since boarding this ship and meeting this woman that his mind had begun to change.

'Whoever did it, it was a long time ago,' she said, dismissing questions of G.o.ds and beliefs, tradition and society, with one wave of her webbed hand. 'There are whirlpools that have lasted for centuries, mists that melt flesh from bone, flying fish with two mouths and no brains. The bone sharks are just that a sharks made of bone and cartilage a and they shouldn't live and swim, but do. Knowing who did all that wouldn't change the fact that this sea is corrupted. And Venthia hasn't made it her home for centuries.' She shrugged, smiled at him, then turned and walked across the deck towards where a breakfast of bread and smoked fish was being handed out.

She believes in Venthia? Bon wondered. But not only was he unsure, he also didn't think it mattered. Many of his best friends had been devout, believing in things he found bemusing. While he had kept his own frowned-upon beliefs quiet, some of them had sensed his doubts, but their friendships had mostly remained. Mostly.

He followed her and they ate breakfast together. Though sentenced by their homeland to a life of banishment upon a dying island, for that short time they were content in each other's company. The constant rolling sea had settled in Bon's guts, and he was sure it would take many days of sh.o.r.e time for it to settle. But he was no longer throwing up everything he ate. He was already adapting to life beyond Alderia.

Bon and Leki found a spot by the railing where they sat and talked as other prisoners were allowed to stroll around the deck. They exercised their minds while others exercised their limbs and bodies, and when the time came for them to be locked up again, the guards did not seem to notice that they descended into the same hold.

There they sat, talking quietly in the subdued lighting, their voices a murmur against the constant pounding of waves against the hull, other prisoners' talk and sometimes shouts, and the footsteps of their guards overhead. Destined to deportation, locked away, Bon thought it was some time since he had felt so free. He told Leki about his beautiful wife falling from a tower to her death, and how her pa.s.sing had seemed to darken his skies and blur his horizons. He told her about his son, Venden, and the boy's fascination with Skythe a its history, the old war, and what had become of that once-proud island state afterwards a and how Bon's own studies of Skythe had become an obsession following Venden's death.

'He was taken and murdered,' Bon said.