Poison Read online

  Poison digested this without showing anything on her face. She had been mistaken in her perspective. It was not that Shieldtown was higher than the marshes; it was that the marshes were lower than Shieldtown. Shieldtown was the same height as the rest of the land. And that meant that her entire life she had been living in one vast, immense pit.

  “Does anyone know why it happened?” Poison asked. Bram looked across at her with a questioning murmur. “Why the land fell like that?”

  Bram turned his eyes back to the plodding grint that was hauling them ever closer to the outbuildings of Shieldtown. “There’s legends and stories. There always are. I don’t pay much attention to them.”

  Poison felt vaguely disappointed, but the feeling lasted only a moment, for by that time they were near enough to the base of the wall for a guard to come striding over to them. He was wearing a half-head helmet which left only his mouth and chin visible, and his uniform was a scuffed assemblage of metal greaves, hide and leather. It was not exactly the shining armour that Poison had envisaged a guard wearing.

  “State your business,” he said.

  “Bram of Oilskin, wraith-catcher,” Bram announced. “And this is Poison, my daughter.”

  Poison did not so much as twitch an eyebrow at the lie. The guard looked up at her with calculated suspicion. She met his scrutiny with her disconcerting violet gaze.

  “Poison,” he said, deadpan. “That’s an unusual name to give your child. You must love her very much.”

  “She’s a treasure,” Bram agreed, blithely ignoring the sarcasm.

  The guard gave a long-suffering sigh and went to the back of the cart, pulling open the tarpaulin and looking inside. He picked up one of the metal jars within and held it to his ear. Then, apparently satisfied, he tossed it back in with the others.

  “You can go,” he said, dismissing them rudely as he walked away. Bram snapped the reins and the grint squawked before ambling into motion again. They went a few dozen feet in silence, until they were out of earshot of the guard.

  “She’s a treasure,” Poison mimicked, and Bram burst out laughing.

  The interior of the wheelhouse was a noisy roar of machinery, hot and dark. They had to queue for a short while behind other carts, waiting while the lifts were loaded up each time one arrived. When it was their turn, Poison watched as their ride clunked down from above. She was glad of the darkness, for it concealed her trepidation. The lift seemed such a fragile thing, merely a cradle of metal with a flat floor and a few pitifully inadequate railings running all around it. Bram urged the reluctant grint on to it as a team of sweat-streaked attendants held it steady. Two more carts, both pulled by horses, were crammed on to the same lift as Bram and Poison dismounted. For some reason, it seemed safer to be standing on the metal floor than sitting atop a cart. Poison felt a slight nausea as the gates of the lift were clanged shut, and then there was a great lurch as the mighty cogs in the wheelhouse bit together, and they were carried upward.

  For the first few moments, they were surrounded by the darkness and the din of the wheelhouse; and then suddenly all noises ceased as they rose through the roof and out into the sunlight and open air. Poison saw the buildings dropping away beneath her at a terrifying rate, the trees that had previously seemed so high bowing forward as perspective made them tiny, and for the first time in her life she was above the canopy of the Black Marshes, and her breath was stolen anew.

  It was vast. Every moment of her life, every beat of her heart had been played out beneath that awesome, never-ending eternity of green, an undulating blanket of dank marsh-trees cut through by sludgy rivers that she did not even know existed. The flat plane of the marshes seemed to tilt downwards as she rose higher, exposing more and more of its back, disappearing into a swampy haze in the distance. She could not even see to the other side, where Bram had told her the shield wall rose as high as this one. It was swallowed by the curve of the horizon.

  “I feel so small,” she said aloud.

  “We are small, girl,” Bram said, leaning on the railing of the lift, apparently heedless of the inconceivable drop below.

  Poison shuffled warily to the edge of the lift and looked down. “I wish you’d stop calling me girl,” she said, more to distract herself from the strange terror she felt than because it bothered her.

  Bram grunted. “Better than Poison,” he said. “What possessed you to come up with a name like that?”

  “What do you care?” she replied. “You were happy enough to tell it to that guard.”

  Bram frowned. “Just couldn’t think of anything better on short notice, that’s all. Didn’t want him getting suspicious. If I’d have said you were from the marsh. . . Well, not many folks come from the marsh, they don’t like to leave their villages. And if you were anything other than my daughter . . . and us travelling together. . . Hmm. . .” He blushed beetroot behind his white moustache, and tugged his hat rim down a little more. “Don’t like awkward questions.”

  Poison had been looking over the edge at the ground below; she was surprised to find that the initial fear had died, and she was not in the least bit scared, though they still clanked and clattered and swayed higher and higher and the world fell further and further away. She glanced at Bram and gave him a quick smile. “I think I’m enjoying this,” she said.

  “Ha!” he barked. “I can tell you weren’t made for the swamp. Never met a marsh-dweller who wouldn’t have fair soiled themselves if they ever got up this near the sky.” He blushed again, suddenly. “Pardon my language.”

  Poison looked at him in frank surprise. “Why Bram, I do believe there’s a gentleman hiding behind that moustache!”

  Bram went a deeper shade of red and then excused himself and made a great show of seeing to the grint.

  Poison did the best she could to hide her amazement at Shieldtown and its inhabitants, but she suspected she was not particularly successful. Bram seemed to be greatly pleased with himself, casting sneaky glances at her and then chuckling into his collar when she scowled at him. They rode their cart down the main thoroughfare, jostling with traffic. Poison had never seen so many people, nor heard such a noise as they made when they were all together, gabbling and shouting amid the bray of horses and the growl and squawk of grints. She was accustomed to the drab fashions of the marsh-folk, where fabrics were made from the rough resources they had to hand and bright colours attracted flies and wasps and other, more deadly creatures. Here there were no such restrictions, and the outfits that she saw were dazzlingly gaudy. Billowing dresses with puffed sleeves; open-throated shirts with pleated hems; tall hats and soft leather shoes: far from impressive, she thought they looked ridiculous.

  She was much more awed by the town itself. Metal, a rare and frankly half-useless commodity in the marshes, was all around her. Great towering spires of iron jutted out towards the sky. Domes of tarnished bronze were surrounded by steaming pistons that pumped up and down, making them seem like the dancing legs of a bloated metallic spider. Streets seemed to crowd in haphazardly, houses overlapping each other as if parts of the town had melted and flowed like wax into other sections before rehardening. There were nothing like the uniform huts of the marsh here: the dwellings were each and all different, some rounded and lumpy like a heap of mudballs in a pile, some rigid and tall and triangular, some flat and low and unassuming. Signs outside the shops on the thoroughfare fizzed and blinked with a strange energy, flashing bright and then dim even in the daylight.

  “Is it what you expected?” Bram asked.

  “I didn’t know what to expect,” Poison replied. “Not this, though.”

  “Do you know where you’re going?” he asked. “Want me to take you anywhere?”

  “I need to find a man called Lamprey.”

  “Ah,” Bram said. Then, surprisingly, he asked: “And what do you need to find him for?”

  Poison gave him a strange look.
“We’ve been in the same cart together for a week now, and that’s the first time you’ve ever asked me why I was going to Shieldtown.”

  Bram shrugged his massive shoulders. “Not my business.”

  “That’s right, it’s not,” Poison said.

  They were silent for a short time, Bram nudging the grint through the sluggish flow of the traffic.

  “Do you think you might know where he is?” Poison asked at length.

  “Maybe,” Bram said. “I thought it wasn’t my business.”

  “It’s not,” Poison replied. “I can find him on my own.”

  “I’m sure you can. You don’t need me.” Bram nodded as if at his own wisdom and shook the reins idly.

  More silence passed.

  “So you do know where he is?” Poison prompted.

  “I never said that,” he replied.

  “But if you did, you’d tell me?” she queried.

  “If you asked,” he replied.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Well where is he?”

  “How should I know? I’ve never heard of him.”

  Poison gritted her teeth and swallowed down a retort. Bram gave her a sidelong glance and pulled his hat brim down over his bushy eyebrows.

  “I’ll do you a deal,” he said.

  Poison studiously looked the other way, pretending that she didn’t care. “What kind of deal?”

  “I’ll help you find him. You give me two silver sovereigns when we do.”

  “What kind of deal is that?” she snapped, amazed at his audacity. “I can find him on my own.”

  “You could,” he agreed. “But you don’t know this town, you don’t know these people, you don’t know their ways. Now maybe you’d do fine; you’re tough, and you’ve got a quick head on you. But likely you’d end up face down in an alley, and for a lot less than the silver sovereign you offered me, or the other coins I hear jangling in your pack.”

  “You stay off them!” she hissed.

  “How much is a meal at a bar in Shieldtown?” he fired at her.

  The question put her off-guard. She took a wild stab, guessing it would be expensive compared to the marsh. “Three copper marks,” she declared.

  “Ha! You’d be dead before you got your money out! Copper marks aren’t even currency here.”

  “Then I won’t buy food in a bar,” Poison declared.

  “It doesn’t matter. This city can spot a stranger, and strangers are easy pickings. Especially rich ones. You have no idea how much a silver sovereign is worth, do you?”

  “More than your company for a week,” she replied acerbically.

  “Well, you owe me that one already,” he pointed out, unfazed. “But I know this city, and I can help you find this man you’re looking for. But it’ll cost you another sovereign.”

  “Don’t you have wraiths to catch?” she snapped.

  “Soulswatch Eve is the end of the season,” he replied steadily. “That’s why I’m up here. Can’t catch marshwraiths if you’re not in the marsh.”

  Poison glared at him. She hated being put in this position. She knew he was right, and yet to agree to his deal would be to cave in. She was not a person accustomed to relying on anyone. Perversely, the only reason she even considered his offer of help was because she knew with certainty that he was swindling her. If a silver sovereign was too much for a week-long cart ride, it was far, far too much for a bit of simple assistance.

  “All right,” she replied, glowering sullenly out at the traffic-choked street. “Two silver sovereigns. When we find Lamprey.”

  “There, I knew you’d see sense,” Bram said with uncharacteristic cheeriness. “You’re tough, but you’re not stupid.”

  *

  By the end of the day, Poison could not help feeling a little relief that she had agreed to Bram’s deal. She was exhausted and bewildered by the sights and sounds of the day, and by the effort of maintaining an uninterested manner in the face of it all. She had to admit to herself, he had been right: when she was with him, she could at least pretend that she was not a complete stranger to the city, but without him she would have been lost.

  They went first to an enormous indoor market, which was bigger than Gull and crammed with all manner of stalls, booths and stands. The constant cry of hawkers and the gabble of store-tenders and customers echoed off the low, tarnished dome of the roof and came back as reflected nonsense. It was dim beneath the dome, for the only light came from outside where the sun glared in around the edges, forcing its way through the short brass columns that held the dome up. Hot wafts of cooking meat brushed past them, and shadowy faces lunged out of the gloom with sickly grins to catch their attention and show them some wares. Bram led the grint on foot through the byways of the market, and Poison sat on the back of the cart as he had asked her to do. “They’ll snatch the jars from under the tarp unless someone keeps watch,” he told her, and she decided to oblige him.

  Bram led them to a stall laden with exotic lamps, curling tubes of glass fashioned in all shapes and designs, each one lit by the soft, gently fluctuating light of a marshwraith. Poison watched the little balls of light as they roamed around their prisons, sometimes chasing each other about – often there was more than one in a lamp – and sometimes lying still at the bottom. Use of coloured glass, combined with the marshwraiths’ own tints, created different moods in the lamps. Some were restful, casting dappled blues and greens, while others were fiery red and purple. They were beautiful things, works of art, but somehow Poison could not help but feel a touch of sadness that such wondrous things as the marshwraiths were trapped inside for the entertainment of the rich. She wondered if the folk of Gull ever considered for a moment what they were condemning these strange creatures to, when they set their eager traps on Soulswatch Eve.

  She watched over the cart, listening with half an ear while Bram and the short, wizened storekeeper haggled. Bram showed him some of the wraiths he had in his cart. The metal jars were cleverly designed so that the lid could pop up with a twist, allowing a small space to see inside but not enough so that the wraith could squeeze out. By the end, Bram had sold five jars, and he seemed grudgingly satisfied with the price. He then climbed back aboard the cart and urged the grint onwards.

  Much of the day was spent this way. There were six more places to visit in different parts of the town, which Bram explained were wholesalers, who would buy the wraiths from him and sell them in other parts of the Realm. There was not enough demand for such a luxury as wraith-lamps in Shieldtown to support more than one store. Poison was content to wait until he was done, drinking in the sights and sounds all around her, observing everything with her disconcerting gaze.

  It was late evening when Bram returned to the cart with a girl of about Poison’s age in tow. Poison appraised her cynically. She looked waifish and tired, dressed in tough, battered travel-clothes, her dark-blonde hair straggly. Probably she would have been pretty, if she had not looked so worn; and her eyes had a strangely haunted, distant cast to them.

  “Here’s a thing,” he announced. “Until I found you I’d hardly met one marsh-dweller who’d step outside of their home town, and now I’ve found the only person misguided enough to want to go there. And to Gull, no less.”

  “You’re going to Gull?” Poison asked the girl.

  “One of my wholesalers was arranging a ride there for her,” Bram explained. “When I mentioned you, he pointed her out. Thought you two might want to meet, in case you had . . . umm . . . second thoughts. About leaving.”

  Poison was faintly touched by his unexpected consideration. The girl was watching her incuriously.

  “Why are you heading there?” Poison asked.

  “That’s my business,” the girl replied bluntly, casting an irate glance at Bram. She was obviously not pleased to be dragged over here.

/>   Poison considered for a moment, and was surprised to find that she was not in the least tempted to take up Bram’s suggestion. Turning back would be worse than never having set off at all. But there was one thing. . .

  “Could you take a message for me?” she asked.

  “Who’s it for?”

  “Hew and Snapdragon.”

  The girl watched her coolly. She had terrifically dark eyes.

  “What’s the message?”

  “Tell them. . .” Poison began, and then suddenly realized that she had no idea what she wanted to say, no words that would make them understand. They had never understood her up until now; she was as alien to them as to the rest of the village. What message could she really give them that would ease their burden? It was only at that moment that she comprehended how vast the chasm yawned between her and her parents.

  “Why don’t I just tell them you’re sorry?” the girl said levelly.

  Poison was surprised. She opened her mouth to ask how she knew, and then shut it again.

  “It’s written all over you,” the stranger said.

  Poison felt faintly abashed that this girl had seen through her so easily. Usually her emotions were impenetrable even to people who knew her well.

  “That would be best,” she said. “Thank you.”

  The girl nodded and then, without a goodbye, she turned away and drifted back towards the wholesalers, where she was waiting for her ride to Gull.

  Bram scratched the back of his neck as he watched her go. “She was a strange one,” he commented.

  Poison squinted in the evening sun, her eyes on the departing traveller. “I forgot to tell her my name,” she said absently.