Chapter 12: Battle on the Docklands (part 1 of 3)

  Lucy Tao limped along the bulwarks, inspecting the boat that would take her family away from Thameside. It was a creaky old thing, its worn surface and missing panels apparent even in the moonlight. For the extortionate fees the ferrymen charged, she would have liked to see a well-maintained vessel. Yet she knew that a better use of the money would be to shore up the competence of the freelance adventurers who would safeguard their voyage. A group of them now milled about on the deck, smoking and chatting idly.

  Presently, an intense spasm of pain shot through her left leg, nearly bringing her to her knees. She winced audibly while grabbing onto the bulwark to steady herself, then waited for the spasm to pass. The pain was becoming more frequent and severe in recent months, but this attack had been the worst one she could remember. She was thankful that Aster and the children were already safely below deck and couldn't see her weakened state.

  "You alright?"

  Lucy turned to the voice and spied one of the adventurers strolling toward her. He was a tall greying man clad in leather armour who cut nearly as imposing a figure as the blacksmith who had been oddly helpful to her family. The others on the boat seemed to look to this man as a leader, which made it doubly troubling that he was also the heaviest smoker among them. As he approached, the trailing smoke and the smell of burning cloves wafted toward her, and she was forced to suppress a gag.

  "Lady, you don't look too well. Are you hurt?"

  The ferryman's casual concern called to mind a similar conversation Lucy had years and years ago, though a much younger and sincerer man had asked the question on that occasion. She let out a chuckle, knowing full well that it was a rather eccentric response. Then she added through gritted teeth. "I'm fine. I have a leg that acts up now and then, but it will pass."

  Only Lucy wasn't sure herself if that were true. The boundary between flesh and prosthesis had long faded into a mess of fibrotic scars; yet after all these years, she still thought of the Barong Apparatus nestled within her body to be an entity separate to herself. She had made peace with it long ago by deeming theirs to be a symbiotic relationship, and for several eventful and productive decades, the Apparatus along with the prosthesis had served her well in exchange for providing a host within which to stay alive.

  But the decades wore on and the leg was finally starting to show its age. She first noticed it while traversing the mountains of Teutonia—the slight lag in movement as if the flow of her Igneous input through the Apparatus had hit a snag. Then the pain came back, that intangible burning that had so tormented her in the months leading up to her receiving the prosthesis. At first, its effects were gentle and sparse enough that she could pretend she had imagined it. But as if in retaliation to her disregard, it gradually became more frequent and insistent until it started to flare up with regularity during her last few days in Thameside.

  She thought she had a credible theory as to why that might be. It had been three nights ago now that she first laid eyes on the man who called himself Art Carmichael. Standing over the crowd, he had looked to be a pale sickly thing, unnaturally thin with large and impossibly dark eyes. The moment she saw him, her left leg had seized up. It had taken a concerted effort and a heaping dose of Induction to calm the jangling muscles. It seemed the Maladous part of her had recognized something in Carmichael that most others had likely perceived without knowing. And tonight, as she stepped off the carriage and approached the peculiar meeting between Aoife and the racketeer, the burning in her leg had started up again in earnest.

  The ferryman stood by and watched as Lucy struggled to stand back up. When the pain did not feel close to abating, she resigned herself to Inducting lightly and sucked in a mouthful of tobacco-tinged air. Coughing slightly, she nevertheless felt the heated air fill her lungs, then the sensation in her leg numbed somewhat. She thought it prudent to keep the action as inconspicuous as possible, but she could feel the fellow adventurer's knowing eyes on her. As she gained enough strength and composure to straighten up, the man also brought his pipe up to his mouth and asked between puffs. "So how did the lot of yous get mixed up with old Johnny Rockford anyway? Or was it the other way around? Don't mind me saying, but yous seem like odd company for a former EIC man to be keeping."

  Lucy studied her companion for a moment. There was no malice in his voice, implied or hidden, and he now seemed more interested in rekindling the end of his pipe than in her answers. Besides, he had been the one to vouch for her family and facilitate their embarkation upon hearing the Rockford name mentioned. She decided there was no real need to play coy.

  "I don't really know myself," she said truthfully. "My great-nieces are friendly with him so you're probably better off asking them about it. I will say he seems awfully invested in helping our family. It's almost like he feels he owes us something, but I honestly can't say why."

  The ferryman considered this for a moment, letting his pipe dangle at the corner of his mouth. "I think I have a few guesses as to why. But if you ask me, old Johnny oughta remind himself sometimes that there's a whole heap of us who feel indebted to him too," with that he started puffing away again, and Lucy turned her head to avoid the smoke. She hoped for the adventurer's and her family's sakes that he wasn't Ignis-attuned. The man continued. "This thing he's helping yous with, is that what's delaying him and uh, one of your nieces or whatever?"

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  "My great-niece," Lucy coughed out a reply. "And yes, I suppose you could say that. Speaking of, I meant to ask for your permission to step off the boat momentarily. I wanted to get the rest of the family settled in and make sure everything's in order here first, but I really ought to go look for my great-niece."

  She saw the unoccupied side of the man's mouth curl into an amused smirk. "And? Is everything here in order to your liking, ma'am?"

  She felt a flash of embarrassment but quickly swallowed it and looked back at the ferryman with keen steady eyes. "I do think the boat could use some repairs but I suppose you've got a decent number of escorts on board. And you yourself seem experienced enough, though I wish you didn't smoke so much. Buddha knows what it's doing to your lungs, and the stench is just putrid."

  For a moment, the puffing stopped and the man's eyes widened. Then his eyes crinkled along with the rest of his face as he broke out in a hearty laugh. As the ferryman's laughter resounded in the night air, Lucy couldn't help but smirk herself. She had missed this, the good-natured ribbing among comrades-in-arms; that had often been the best part of her job. Along with the reminiscence, she intuited an assurance that she could entrust her family's safe passage to this adventurer and his team.

  Just then, she became aware of a commotion on the deck. The cabin door was ajar, revealing the torchlight from within, and a child's voice seemed to be engaged in frantic congress with the other adventurers. Before long, she identified Aster and Niall, the oldest Griffin boy, rushing toward her.

  "Great-aunt Lucy, something's happened to Clodagh. We can't find her anywhere. She's gone!"

  The boy's normally messy hair was even more dishevelled than usual. Lucy felt a rush of sympathy for her young great-nephew; so much had been thrust upon him in short order and he had held up remarkably well. But he needed to hold on just a while longer. "Slow down, my dear. Tell me what happened. I thought Clodagh went into the cabin with all of you."

  "That's what I thought! I saw her when we were getting on the boat, but she's not here anymore, I swear! Do you think she fell in the water? Should we—"

  "Calm, Niall," Lucy reached over and placed a hand on each of the boy's shoulders. She thought about tapping into her Induction once again, but upon seeing his flustered yet resolute eyes stare back at her, she knew there was no need. "I will find your sisters, both of them, and bring them back. You sit tight and help look after the little ones, okay? We're counting on you."

  Niall nodded firmly, causing a mop of hair to fall in front of one eye.

  "Good boy," Lucy squeezed his shoulders and turned her gaze on Aster—or Asha now, she had to remind herself. The boy's mother wore a slight frown but otherwise had remained calm. She looked back with her dark, earnest eyes—so much like Rui's—and the two of them exchanged a silent nod of understanding. In the whole family, Asha had shown the most dramatic change since their inauspicious first meeting. Lucy said a quick prayer to herself, one that hoped for many years to come of taking pleasure and courage from the resilient love that held the Griffins together.

  "Well," she finally turned back to the smoking adventurer, who had removed his pipe and now looked back at her with the sincerest interest he had shown all night. "It seems I need to be collecting two great-nieces. So do I have your permission? And also, I'd appreciate if you could wait for us to return."

  The ferryman barked out another laugh, shorter but just as merry. "I reckon you'll go after them no matter what I say, permission be damned. And don't worry, this boat doesn't leave without me and I won't leave without Johnny Rockford's friends. I owe the bastard that much at least."

  The man was right about Lucy not needing his permission, but she was mildly surprised by the addendum about John Rockford. Whoever he had been in his former life had been influential enough to lay down a path for her family on this strange night. And whatever higher purpose or inner demons drove him now, he was still putting up a fight for her great-niece, right this moment. She'd have to thank the blacksmith again—if she were to have the chance.

  As she was about to turn to leave, Lucy noticed the ferryman rummaging for something in his belt pack. He then held something out to her, which she accepted without hesitation. It was a pile of tiny cylindrical objects, coarse to the touch with a grainy texture. She didn't recognize them by sight, but sensed a familiar heat radiating from each of the cylinders, and comprehension dawned.

  "Gunpowder pellets," the ferryman announced with a self-satisfied grin. "My little contribution to your cause. Something tells me you might know how to put them to use."

  "So you are Ignis-attuned," Lucy blurted before she could catch herself. "How do you even stand sucking in that poison?"

  As if in answer, the man took a long drag from the pipe before contentedly sighing out a cloud of smoke. "Never you mind how I do my job. You've got your own quest to focus on, lady doc."

  Lucy gave an exasperated shake of the head before departing. As she escaped the nauseating cloud and breathed in fresh night air, her thoughts turned to Clodagh's whereabouts. If she knew her great-niece—and she thought she did, despite their short time together—she had a good guess where Clodagh was headed. She could already see that there was much of their grandfather in the Griffin children, perhaps too much for her liking in this instance.

  So Lucy retraced the path the carriages had taken from the bend in the River Thames. With every step she took, her longtime partner in symbiosis rang out in distress, as if it were well aware to whom—or to what—she led them.