Secrets of the Fire Sea. Stephen Hunt

that Jago is a dark isle where only those who would be cursed abide. You walk down the streets of Hermetica City after we have docked and tell me that you don’t feel cursed just being there, and then ask yourself why their land is locked away behind the Fire Sea.’

      Ortin urs Ortin raised his glass in salute towards the commodore. ‘May I always be reminded of the scriptures’ truth by my Jackelian friends without any gods at all.’

      Jethro winced. Without any gods at all. If only the Pericurian ambassador knew the truth of that.

      ‘There are other books than your people’s scriptures that must be considered,’ said Nandi kindly, her voice coming alive with the passion of her quest. ‘Jago is not just the oldest democracy in the world; their transaction-engine archives are the oldest in the world, too. When the rest of the continent was burning encyclopaedias to stay warm, Jagonese traders were preserving what knowledge they could find, keeping the Circlist enlightenment alive during the depths of the long age of ice.’

      ‘Their transaction engines may be ancient, lass,’ said the commodore, ‘but they’re dangerous. They don’t run things on steam out there. The Jagonese will poison your lovely head with their knowledge.’

      ‘I am aware of the dangers, but I’ll take precautions,’ said Nandi. ‘New knowledge is never acquired easily. The island has historical records stretching back unbroken for two millennia that have never been properly mined.’

      ‘Aye, and now our boats can bypass the Fire Sea to get to the colonies it’s all they have to sell,’ spat the commodore. ‘That and safe passage to a fat fool like Blacky who’s still generous enough to come a-calling to their bleak isle.’

      Jethro didn’t comment that the commodore seemed only too willing to pass the cost onto his passengers.

      ‘Saint Vine’s college must consider your research worth funding, Nandi softbody,’ said Boxiron. ‘If it wasn’t for the college’s share of this voyage’s cost, I suspect Jethro softbody and I would be heading to Jago via Pericur by way of a colony boat.’

      ‘I won’t argue with you on that,’ said Nandi. ‘But I don’t think my research can take all the credit. When my sponsor at the college, Professor Harsh, was my age, she studied under a Doctor George Conquest. He later travelled to Jago with his wife to pursue a similar vein of research to mine, but his boat sank in the Fire Sea as he returned back home to the Kingdom. All his work was lost.’

      ‘And the good professor wants his work finished,’ said Jethro.

      ‘I believe it would be fitting,’ said Nandi. ‘And now the professor is sitting on the High Table and she has the authority to spend the money to ensure it happens.’

      ‘It’s a wicked shame,’ said the commodore, ‘for a beautiful lass like yourself to be locked away in dusty archives studying the shadows of what has passed. What use is that to us, Nandi? Forget Jago, lass, stay on my boat and I’ll show you all the mortal wonders of the oceans. There are wild, beautiful islands deep inside the Fire Sea untouched by the footsteps of the race of man; there are the seabed cities of the gill-necks carved from coral and shaped in living pearl. And if you’ve still got a taste for archaeology after you’ve seen all that, I’ll show you some of the broken, flooded towers that lie collapsed along the sides of the Boltiana Trench. You can put on a diving suit and run your hand along marble statues that haven’t been seen by anything apart from sharks for a hundred thousand years.’

      Her dark skin seemed to blush, and Jethro wondered whether it was the attraction of the offer or the glow from the magma outside the porthole that was lighting her burnished features.

      ‘Thank you,’ said Nandi, ‘but there is important work awaiting me on Jago. The Circlist church was kept alive on Jago when the Chimecan Empire were raising idols to their dark gods across the continent – without Jago there would be no rationalist enlightenment in the Kingdom today. We’d likely be dancing around maypoles on the solstice, wearing the masks of animals and our old gods like—’ Nandi paused to recall a name.

      ‘Like Badger-headed Joseph,’ said Jethro.

      ‘Exactly. You’ve studied prehistory, Mister Daunt?’

      Jethro rubbed at his temples, which ached as if trapped in a vice. ‘I used to be a parson, before I found a more accommodating line of work. But I can still disprove the existence of every god and goddess of every religion on the continent – current or historical. Some things you never forget.’

      At the head of the table, the commodore narrowed his eyes; he obviously disapproved of Jethro Daunt’s old career. ‘There’s five types of gentlemen I don’t normally carry on the Purity Queen, sir. That’s members of the House of Guardians, lawyers, spies, officers of Ham Yard, and last but not least, church crows – of any denomination. But seeing as you’ve taken up a new business now and come well-recommended by a fine lady like Amelia Harsh, I shall make an exception in your case.’

      ‘Thank you, good captain,’ said Jethro. ‘I fear neither myself nor Boxiron would be comfortable swimming through the boils or trying to scramble over the flows of magma.’

      But it wasn’t the steaming waters of the sea that Jethro Daunt felt he was drowning in. It was the swirling currents of his thoughts. His case. The demands of the Inquisition. The visitations from gods he was trying to deny. And now tales of the history of Circlism on the island and the concerns of a long-dead university doctor and a venerable professor worried for the life of her student.

      Jago, all the answers lay on Jago, smouldering lonely and dark amidst the angry solitude of the Fire Sea.

      Hannah glanced behind her as she ducked down the corridor leading to Tom Putt Park. She could have sworn one of the police militia had been following her through the vaults below. But it looked as though Hannah had lost the militiawoman in the maze of surface corridors that led to the constellation of greenhouses huddled around the foot of the Horn of Jago. She was clearly in class hours and the last thing she needed was to be dragged back to the cathedral just for heeding the urgent-sounding message that Chalph urs Chalph had left her.

      Yes, heeding a friend’s note – that sounded so much better than truancy. She found Chalph by the statues of the apple singers, the overgrown path to their clearing now trampled clear by the repair crew that had sealed the greenhouse, not to mention all the sightseers who had come to see the ursk corpse before the dead beast had been dragged away for incineration. It was strange, but the presence of the Jagonese in Tom Putt Park seemed more of a violation of her private space than the attack by the monsters that had scaled the city’s wall. The wild beauty of the park had been hers and Chalph’s alone, and now half of Hermetica City must have pressed through to gawp at the spot where she and Chalph had nearly met their deaths.

      Chalph, when she laid eyes on him, had a hemp sack thrown over his shoulder and had been crouching down behind the statues as if he was one of them.

      ‘It’s me!’ called Hannah. ‘Didn’t you smell me coming?’

      ‘I have caught a flu,’ said Chalph, coming out of hiding. ‘I’ve been outside in the cold, pretending to be part of a free company detail escorting the Guild of Valvemen.’

      ‘You’ve what?’ Hannah was astonished at her friend’s audacity. ‘In the name of the Circle, why?’

      ‘In the name of your godless faith, this.’ Chalph held up his sack and pulled out some battered iron components. ‘The guild’s people were checking the machinery charging the battlements when they found it.’ He showed her an iron box with holes in the side where a line of cables hung out like baby elephant trunks. Each rubber cable had been severed halfway down its length, the insulation sawn through to reveal the thick copper wiring underneath. ‘The section of the battlements the ursks came over had been shorted deliberately. Someone wanted the wall’s charge to fail.’

      Hannah examined the box with her hands, feeling the cold metal, not believing what she was hearing. ‘But who would want to do that?’

      ‘I can tell