Page 85 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

“Metal rope?” I ask.

“Look closer.” He sounds oddly eager. It makes me want to leave this place and not come back, but I bend down instead, squinting.

Movement, inside the thing. Tiny sparks of gray light, streaming in both directions, a twisting flow that follows the spiral of the fibers. And I realize what the rope reminds me of—Shiara’s necklace, the night of the Council meeting, only much larger.

My face must have given something away, because the Scholar is smiling in quiet satisfaction. He touches his glasses again, and his hand is shaking very slightly.

“You can see it, can’t you?”

“See—” I look from the rope to him and back. “What is this thing?”

“It’s a piece of the ship, from one of the support pylons.” He takes a step forward, cane tapping. “You can see it. I could tell the night of the Council meeting. I suggested Shiara wear that necklace; it’s another fragment, a weak one, but—” He shakes his head in wonder. “And if you could see that then you’re stronger than I am, much stronger. Finally. Finally.”

“Slow down.” I take a half step back, and make a conscious effort not to summon my armor. “You can see those lights, then?”

“You were a gang enforcer, back in Kahnzoka. They’re already telling stories about you. And you’re a Melos adept. You killed people, didn’t you?”

“I—” My head is spinning, trying to follow him. “So what if I did? Here on Soliton you—”

“I don’t care about the morality. Leave that to the gods.” The Scholar’s glasses reflect the lanterns burning around the room, tiny bits of light shining in his eyes. “Afterward, you dreamed about them, didn’t you?”

My throat seizes up for a moment. My mind goes to Hagan, and I swallow hard. “How could you know that?”

“I dreamed of the first person I killed,” he says. “She was nothing to me, a street rat who tried to knife me in an alley. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but she came at me, and…” He waves his hand, as though to dispel the memory. “I thought she was haunting me.”

“No such thing as haunting,” I say, automatically. “Dead is dead.”

“Not entirely.” He takes a deep breath, calms a little. “You—we—can touch a Well no one else can. The Lost Well, the Well of Spirits. Eddica.”

18

Eddica. The first Well, the Well of Spirits. Lost, according to some; a myth, according to the Blessed One.

A month ago I would have said the priests had the right of it. Now …

“No one can access Eddica,” I say. “There hasn’t been even an Eddica-touched in the history of the Empire.”

“I suspect your illustrious rulers are lying to you about that, as about so many things.” The Scholar shrugs. “Eddica is real enough. But rare, now, and so subtle that even those who have it usually don’t know it’s there. Only on Soliton does it become obvious.”

“Why here?”

“Because that is Eddica energy!” He raps the table again. “The whole ship runs on it. You’ve seen it, in the pylons, the towers.” He lowers his voice. “You’ve felt it from the angels.”

“I’ve seen something.” I’m sure as rot not going to tell him about Hagan. “This is a strange rotting place, but that doesn’t make it spirit energy.”

“Did you dream of Ahdron, after you killed him?”

I shake my head, frowning.

“If you die here, you go into the ship. Children can’t be born here, because the spirits can’t reach them. The whole ship is like a giant cage for souls.”

“That’s…” I take another step away from him. “No wonder the others won’t listen to you. You’re off your head.”

There’s a pause. He takes a moment and visibly restrains himself, straightening up. His cane taps the deck, twice.

Because that’s what anyone would say, isn’t it? Anyone who hadn’t been guided out of the Deeps by what looked very much like the ghost of her best friend.

Could he be right? Rot, rot, rot. I need time to think.