9
This deck of the ship—whichever deck it was, Sancia had no idea, or even if the idea of decks was applicable on a vessel of this size—was almost completely dark. She assumed this was just ordinary naval protocol, but then Gregor whispered, “Why are the lights off?”
“Sh-Should they be on?” stammered Sancia.
“All interior lights should be on at night except for those in the quarters. Otherwise it’s a dangerous tripping hazard—among many other things.”
Sancia had to pause at the idea of Gregor worrying about tripping hazards at a time like this. Then she flexed her scrived sight, and recoiled at the amount of information pouring in through her eyes: being inside the galleon was like being inside a giant sea beast, only she could see all its bones and veins and muscles around her, all at once.
She’d initially worried this would be like the Mountain of the Candianos—the giant dome in the center of their campo in Tevanne, which had been scrived to act as a single massive intelligence. But the galleon was instead thousands and thousands of components that all had to work together just right for the ship to function: the hull believed it was preternaturally strong but light and could repel waters, the locking mechanisms on all the hatches believed they were just awaiting their specific keys, the lamps and lanterns all awaited signals to alight…
But something was missing.
“What do you see?” whispered Gregor.
“Lots of things,” she said back. “But…no people.”
“What?” he said, surprised. “Wait. Can you see people?”
“No,” she said. “But I’d be able to see any scrived rigs on their person bobbing along as they walk or move. And it’s hard to see among all the components…but I don’t see that anywhere close to us. Maybe the crew’s all up on the main deck, or…hell, I don’t know my ships, somewhere goddamn else. But it…it looks like we’re very alone here.”
She could barely make out his face, staring at her incredulously in the dark. “Is this a trap?” he asked.
“How could it be? Why would they assume Valeria would know, or tell us?” She looked around. “And I don’t see any logic or sigil strings suggesting it is…”
“And you don’t see…well…him? Crasedes? Or the artifact?”
She shook her head. “I see shit-all.”
For a moment they just sat there in the dark, unsure what to say or do.
“Step one is weaponizing the ship against itself,” said Gregor. “Is that still possible?”
Then she looked up into the ceiling. “I see shrieker catapults. And no one’s watching them. So—yes. Definitely.”
Together she and Gregor wound their way up through the decks of the galleon. Though the ship was gigantic, it was clear the Dandolos had maximized the use of space: every hallway was tiny, cramped, and suffocating—especially in near-darkness. She and Gregor crept on and on, the lights of their scrived lanterns dancing over the wooden walls as they listened for any sound. They encountered no one, nor any obstacle, really. The whole ship seemed queerly abandoned.
“There should be someone here, right?” she whispered.
“Galleons typically have over three hundred crew members,” he said softly. “This deck should be full of people.”
She felt her skin crawl. Something’s wrong. None of this is as it should be.
“We should be approaching the upper catapult decks now,” whispered Gregor.
“Good.”
“There should be thirty-five shrieker catapults apiece. What are you planning to do?”
“I don’t know what the hell is going on,” said Sancia, “but if something goes wrong, I want as many weapons on my side as possible.”
Finally they came to the catapult bays. The long, thin contraptions of wood and iron were empty of ammunition, but sat pointing out at the closed artillery ports.
“Can shriekers penetrate a galleon’s hull?” asked Sancia.
Gregor shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Okay. Then…let’s turn them all around,” said Sancia, “so they point in, not out. You do that while I work on the catapults.”
None of the catapults were loaded with shriekers, which meant she had the unenviable task of taking the long spears of scrived metal and placing them in the catapult pockets. Doing so activated the shriekers’ acceleration strings: the instant she’d slotted them into the pockets, they began vibrating and pulsing with a dreadful energy.
She placed her hand on one catapult and listened to its arguments.
<…await the breaking of the bond, the severing of metals, and then you shall be high, high up, high in the sky, high in space, and you shall have fallen, fallen, fallen, you shall have fallen for two hundred miles, falling through the air…>
She listened carefully to its acceleration commands. It worked like many scrived projectiles: they would be convinced that they had not been fired forward but were instead falling down, plummeting down a straight line for miles and miles, attaining impossible speeds.
She released it. That’s easy enough to work with, she thought. Now for the dangerous bit…
She took out her imprinter espringal, pointed it at one metal spear, and fired. The slug hit the tip of the shrieker and stuck—but otherwise, nothing happened.
She let out a breath, relieved. Shriekers were one of the deadliest and least predictable scrived weapons Tevanne had ever invented. She’d never imagined she’d ever want to tinker with one—let alone thirty-five of them.
She stuck slugs of metal to about half the shriekers. Then she said, “Gregor—give me your imprinter.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
“Giving us an advantage. Trust me.”
He did so. She took his imprinter and walked along the rest of the catapults, applying his slugs to them as well. When she was finished she stood back, surveying her work. “It’s done.”
“And…what have you done?”
“The shriekers activate their velocity strings when the spears are broken from this metal release here,” she said, pointing into the workings of the catapult.
Gregor flinched. “Please do not touch it, then…”
“But we’ve applied one half of an anchoring string to all the spears,” she said. “Like we stuck our boat to the galleon—you do one half, then the other, and the two bits get pulled together.”