And before I could say a word, he clapped the battered trumpet to his
lips and launched into a tune I recognized. ‘
I gaped a moment in wonder and fear, and then, forgetting everything, I began to run along that bright path. All around those gloomy walls the tune echoed, beat upon those blind windows –
The Last Trump should sound like that, maybe.
I bounded along that silent stream of dawn light like a child splashing through puddles. Then I remembered I hadn’t said goodbye to the old man, if man he was, and turned to wave. But his back was turned to me already, shuffling along towards Decatur or wherever, still playing, his card tucked tightly under his arm. I waved, anyway; I guessed he had more ways than one to see. And then from the docks I heard the shrill whistle of a steam-tug, and my heart missed a beat. Amid the forest of masts something was stirring, sliding past them, out into the stream; tall masts, not smokestacks. I ran like mad for the river.
No way could I have reached it in time, but I ran anyway. They might still be in hailing range – or I might get another boat to follow them …
I found my feet slipping on dawn-slick cobbles as I reached the wharf, steadied myself on the wall at the corner and felt the paint on the warped clapboard crackle and peel under my hand. The Core had lost its hold, and I was back. But I felt no exaltation, only amazement. For the shape that slid away down the gold-tracked waters, like a shadow of night slinking off before the dawn, had three tall masts, not two, and its high transom loomed level with the capitals of the smokestacks. I gaped up and down the dock, guessed at my way and began to run again.
The guess was right. It was no more than twenty minutes later I bounded up the springy gangplank and collapsed wheezing onto the deck, newly smooth and smelling richly of tar and linseed and sappy wood. From the quarterdeck came a stampede, Jyp and the others practically tumbling down the companionway, with old Stryge wavering excitedly after them. A man and a woman of the deck watch more or less scooped me up and sat me on the hold grating, but I had hardly enough breath to speak.
‘They – here –’
‘Aye, aye, ’tis known!’ said Mall soothingly. ‘Spare your words till the wind’s back i’ your sail. You’re not hurt otherwise? A mercy, better far than we’d feared.’
‘That’s so, shipmate,’ remarked Jyp, shaking his head with laconic
relief. ‘Glad to have you back live and whole, never more so. Moment we
missed you we sic’d old Stryge on your tail – and when he ups and says
you’ve been drawn off by a sending, lured back into the Core – and into
a trap – well … He said he’d sent out a call on your behalf, and that
was the best he could do.’ He spat over the rail at the dockside. ‘Hell,
we maybe should’ve guessed there might be trouble. One of the old slave
trade centres, here – it’s still lousy with
‘From the
‘That’s what I was trying to tell you,’ I croaked. ‘It’s been docked here, too, all the time – about a mile downriver on the far bank – I saw it pulling out, not long back –’
Pierce seized my shoulder. ‘You’re sure, lad – I mean, Master?’
‘Yes, I’m sure – damn it, I was sent to see it –’
The Stryge thrust his granite face unpleasantly close to mine. ‘Sent? By whom? How?’
‘A – an old black man, a busker – a street musician,
