Page 23 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

“Just thought you might have forgotten,” Haia says, grinning. “It’s been a while.”

The Coward arms himself with a spear, but none of the rest of us do. We each take a lantern, and Ahdron lights them with a theatrical puff of Myrkai fire. The two guards undo the bars and open the door, which lets a cold wind and a strong smell of salt water into the corridor. The flames dance and flicker.

“Good luck,” Haia says. I get the sense she doesn’t mean it.

Ahdron strides forward, through the door and into the darkness, and the rest of us follow. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. By the sound, I can tell we’re in a much larger space, almost as though I’m back under the open sky. I blink and make out a metal bridge, wide enough for two carts to pass each other, lined by a railing. It stretches on farther than I can see, and to either side is only darkness.

No. Not quite darkness. There are lights there, made tiny by distance, green and blue sparks like colorful stars. They hang in place or move slowly, as though swept by invisible tides.

“What is this place?” Meroe says. “This cannot be a ship.”

“Soliton is the largest ship ever to float,” Berun says, looking miserable. “It’s bigger than some cities. That way”—he points to the door behind us—“is the Stern, where the crew lives. This”—he waves at the darkness—“is the Center. There are other bridges, ladders, stairways, hundreds of them. This is where we come to hunt.” He huddles in on himself. “Where the crabs are.”

Meroe steps to the railing and looks over the side. “What’s down at the bottom?”

“The Deeps,” Berun says. “No one goes down there and comes back alive.”

“If there’s a Stern, is there a Bow?” Meroe’s face is animated in the lantern’s half-light. “How does the Captain steer?”

“None of that rot makes any difference to you,” Ahdron says. “Keep up.”

“We should try to stay quiet,” Berun says, as we start walking.

“Crabs can hear your footsteps half the ship away,” Ahdron says contemptuously. “If they’re around, whispering isn’t going to hide you.”

“Crabs aren’t the only things out here,” Berun says. But he doesn’t argue further, only winces a little every time Ahdron’s boots ring too loudly off the metal deck.

The bridge slopes down a little, and the surface is uneven, parts of it sagging or twisted. The railings are intermittent. In the darkness below us, colored lights move, fade out, and bloom again. We cross a circular landing, where several bridges meet and a spiral stairway descends dizzyingly out of sight. Most of the steps are broken in the middle, the rust-edged remnants clinging to the frame like a mouthful of shattered teeth. I think I can hear water rushing, far below us. Ahdron leads us across the landing and onto another bridge, where a crude arrow has been scraped into the rust.

I pause by a support pillar. There’s a noise, down at the very edge of hearing, like someone talking in another room. And I swear I can see something moving, running along the metal surface in intricate, shifting patterns. Gray light. I blink, and look at Meroe, but she doesn’t seem to notice. The others are already past, and I hurry to catch up, fighting a chill.

At the second landing, we turn left, as Haia instructed. Soon I can hear the patter of falling water, and we reach a spot where the bridge changes shape, splitting into four curving sections connected by long, arched buttresses. A little ways on, part of one section has broken free, leaning drunkenly against its neighbor. The paths divide and divide again, creating a labyrinth of interconnected bridges, like a hedge maze with bottomless pits instead of hedges.

Water falls from above us, not a steady rain but a constant spatter, drops splashing off the walkways or missing them and falling into oblivion. I hold out my hand for a few moments, and a heavy drop splashes into it, while another lands in my hair. I sniff my hand—freshwater.

“Don’t try to drink it,” Berun says. We all have canteens, though we didn’t pack any food.

“Here,” Ahdron says from up ahead. “This is what we came for.”

He raises his lantern, and a hundred tiny gleams of light move with it. The curving paths are covered in weird fungal growths, huge shelf-like things veined with purple, sprigs of what looks like bright red grass, dangling tendrils that remind me of jellyfish tipped with electric blue. The dominant type seems to be a mushroom of a more normal toadstool shape, whose caps are plated unevenly with what looks like polished silver. They reflect the glow of the lanterns like stars.

“Silvercaps,” Ahdron says. “They’re good to eat. Here.” He digs into a pouch and extracts several wadded bags. “Take the ones that are about as big as your hand. Just grab them right under the cap and snap them off the stalk. Try not to touch anything else. I don’t know if anything really nasty grows here, but I wouldn’t take chances.”

The Coward takes a bag with bad grace, and the Moron accepts one with no sign of understanding. I exchange a glance with Meroe.

“That’s it?” I say. “We’re gathering mushrooms?”

Ahdron’s face is thunderous. “We’re doing the job we’ve been assigned to do, fresh meat. Be glad it’s such an easy one.”

Meroe and I take our bags and follow him inside the moist garden. The fungus is thickest on the edges of the path, so we walk in single file, staying clear of protruding growths. In places they tower overhead, tall spires of pale white flesh and sprays of leafy nodules.

“It’s practically a forest,” Meroe says.

“I’ve never been in a forest, so I wouldn’t know.”

“What?” Meroe turns to me. “You’ve never seen a forest?”

“We don’t have them inside the walls of Kahnzoka. Until they brought me here, I’d never been outside the city.”