Prologue
A three-masted square-rigger with iridescent green sails
that shone by day or night, the Flying Mantis was a fast and
lucky ship. She sailed the Border Sea of the House, which
meant she could also sail any ocean, sea, lake, river or
other navigable stretch of liquid on any of the millions of
worlds of the Secondary Realms.
On this voyage, the Flying Mantis was cleaving through
the deep blue waters of the Border Sea, heading for Port
Wednesday. Her holds were stuffed with goods bought
beyond the House and illnesses salvaged from the Border
Seas grasping waters. There were valuables under her
hatches: tea and wine and coffee and spices, treats for the Denizens of the House. But her strongroom held the real
treasure: coughs and sniffles and ugly rashes and strange
stuttering diseases, all fixed into pills, snuff or whalebone
charms.
With such rich cargo, the crew was nervous and the
lookouts red-eyed and anxious. The Border Sea was no
longer safe, not since the unfortunate transformation of
Lady Wednesday several thousand years before and the
consequent flooding of the Seas old shore. Wednesdays
Noon and Dusk had been missing ever since, along with
many of Wednesdays other servants, who used to police
the Border Sea.
Now the waters swarmed with unlicensed salvagers
and traders, some of whom would happily turn to a bit of
casual piracy. To make matters worse, there were full-time
pirates around as well. Human ones, who had somehow
got through the Line of Storms and into the Border Sea
from some earthly ocean.
These pirates were still mortal (unlike the Denizens)
but they had managed to learn some House sorcery and
were foolish enough to dabble in the use of Nothing. This
made them dangerous, and if they had the numbers, their
human ferocity and reckless use of Nothing-fuelled magic
would usually defeat their more cautious Denizen foes.
The Flying Mantis had lookouts in the fighting tops of
each of its three masts, one in the forepeak, and several on the quarterdeck. It was their task to watch for pirates,
strange weather and the worst of all things the
emergence of Drowned Wednesday, as Lady Wednesday
was now known.
Most of the ships that now sailed the Border Sea had
incompetent lookouts and inferior crews. After the Deluge,
when the Border Sea swept over nine-tenths of
Wednesdays shore-based wharves, warehouses, counting
rooms and offices, more than a thousand of the higher
rooms had been rapidly converted into ships. All these
ships were crewed by former stevedores, clerks, rackers,
counters, tally-hands, sweepers and managers. Though
theyd had several thousand years of practice, these
Denizens were still poor sailors.
But not the crew of the Flying Mantis. She was one of
Wednesdays original forty-nine ships, commissioned and
built to the Architects design. Her crew members were
nautical Denizens, themselves made expressly to sail the
Border Sea and beyond. Her Captain was none other than
Heraclius Swell, 15,287th in precedence within the House.
So when the mizzentop lookout shouted, Something
big
err
not that big
closing off the port bow
underwater! both Captain and crew reacted as well-trained
professionals of long experience.
All hands! roared the mate who had the watch. Beat
to quarters!
His cry was taken up by the lookouts and the sailors on
deck, followed only seconds later by the sharp rattle of a
drum as the ships boy abandoned his boot polish and the
Captains boots to take up his sticks.
Denizens burst out from below decks. Some leapt to the
rigging to climb aloft, ready to work the sails. Some stood
by the armoury to receive their crossbows and cutlasses.
Others raced to load and run out the guns, though the
Flying Mantis only had eight working cannons of its usual
complement of sixteen. Guns and gunpowder that worked
in the House were very hard to come by, and always
contained dangerous specks of Nothing. Since the toppling
of Grim Tuesday fourteen months before, powder was in
very short supply. Some said it was no longer being made,
and some said it was being stockpiled for war by the
mysterious Lord Arthur, who now ruled both the Lower
House and the Far Reaches.
Captain Swell climbed on to the quarterdeck as the
cannons rumbled out on the main deck, their red wooden
wheels squealing in complaint. He was a very tall Denizen,
even in stockinged feet, who always wore the full dress
coat of an admiral from a small country on a small world
in a remote corner of the Secondary Realms. It was
turquoise blue, nipped in very tightly at the waist, and had
enormous quantities of gold braid on the shoulders and
cuffs. Consequently Captain Swell shone even more brightly than the green sails of his ship.
What occurs, Mister Pannikin? Swell asked his First
Mate, a Denizen as tall as he was, but considerably less
handsome. At some time Pannikin had lost all his hair and
one ear to a Nothing-laced explosion, and his bare skull
was ridged with scars. He sometimes wore a purple
woollen cap, but the crew claimed that made him look
even worse.
Mysterious submersible approaching the port bow,
reported Pannikin, handing his spyglass to the Captain.
About forty feet long by my reckoning, and coursing very
fast. Maybe fifty knots.
I see, said the Captain, who had clapped the telescope
to his eye. I think it must be
yes. Milady has sent us a
messenger. Stand the men down, Mister Pannikin, and
prepare a side-party to welcome our illustrious visitor. Oh,
and tell Albert to bring me my boots.
Mister Pannikin roared orders as Captain Swell
refocused his telescope on the shape in the water. Through
the powerful lens, he could clearly see a dull golden cigarshape
surging under the water towards the ship. For a
second it was unclear what propelled it so quickly. Then its
huge yellow-gold wings suddenly exploded ahead and
pushed back, sending the creature rocketing forward, the
water behind it exploding into froth.
Shell broach any moment, muttered one of the crewmen to his mate at the wheel behind the Captain.
Mark my words.
He was right. The creatures wings broke the surface
and gathered air instead of water. With a great flexing leap
and a swirl of sea, the monster catapulted itself up higher
than the Flying Mantiss maintop. Shedding water like rain,
it circled the ship, slowly descending towards the
quarterdeck.
At first it looked like a golden winged shark, all sleek
motion and a fearsome, toothy maw. But as it circled, it
shrank. Its cigar-shaped body bulged and changed, and the
golden sheen ebbed away before other advancing colours.
It became roughly human-shaped, though still with golden
wings.
Then, as its wings stopped flapping and it stepped the
final foot down to the deck, it assumed the shape of a very
beautiful woman, though even the ships boy knew she
was really a Denizen of high rank. She wore a riding habit
of peach velvet with ruby buttons, and sharkskin riding
boots complete with gilt spurs. Her straw-coloured hair
was restrained by a hairnet of silver wire, and she tapped
her thigh nervously with a riding crop made from the
elongated tail of an albino alligator.
Captain Swell.
Wednesdays Dawn, replied the Captain, bending his
head as he pushed one stockinged foot forward. Albert, arriving a little too late, slid along the deck and hastily
tried to put the proffered foot into the boot he held.
Not now! hissed Pannikin, dragging the lad back by
the scruff of his neck.
The Captain and Wednesdays Dawn ignored the boy
and the First Mate. They turned together to the rail and
looked out at the ocean, continuing to talk while hardly
looking at each other.
I trust you have had a profitable voyage to date,
Captain?
Well enough, Miss Dawn. May I inquire as to the
happy chance that has led you to grace my vessel with your
presence?