The Blunt Reaper

"Is it gone?" she finally whispered.

"No," the ferryman said.

Mara looked at him.

The old man kept both hands upon the pole. "We’re gone. There’s a difference."

Rook settled back against his coffin, though the scythe remained ready. "Stop asking questions you don’t want answered."

"I wanted that one answered."

"Then your survival instincts remain questionable."

"At least I have some."

"You almost alerted an Abomination while it was close enough to bite the boat in half."

"I didn’t know it was an Abomination."

"It was a naked woman swimming alone through a sea filled with monsters and empty corpses."

"That description only becomes suspicious after you mention the monsters and empty corpses."

Rook stared at her.

Mara lowered her voice further. "I thought she might have needed help."

"She is the reason people need help."

The ferryman lifted the pole from the water. Red droplets ran down its length before falling from the end. He waited for a broad shadow to pass beneath the boat, then carefully lowered the pole again.

"Quiet," he warned.

Mara obeyed this time.

The boat continued through the Red Tide for what felt like hours. Without any stars, shore or visible horizon, distance became impossible to judge. The sea shifted beneath them in slow, unnatural movements, carrying the vessel over broad swells that never became waves. Occasionally, the lantern revealed something far below. A curved back. A pale cluster of limbs. A mouth large enough to resemble a pit opening in the depths.

None rose to meet them.

The fresh repelling powder remained in oily circles around the boat. The patches had begun thinning, but the smell clung to the wood and mixed with the cold scent of old blood rising from the water.

Only when the ferryman unwrapped the cloth from the metal end of his pole did Rook return the scythe to the coffin.

Mara noticed. "Are we beyond its territory?"

"Far enough," the ferryman said.

"How far is far enough?"

"Farther than it wants to follow."

"That doesn’t sound precise."

"Precise measurements are for places that remain where you left them."

Mara looked toward Rook for a more useful answer. He closed the coffin compartment and secured the latch.

She waited.

Rook ignored her.

The silence between them became less dangerous and considerably more irritating.

Mara drew her coat tighter around herself and shifted against the side of the boat. Her thoughts returned to the Eighty-Sixth Bastion, the Fourth Rank, and the memory fragment hidden inside her coat. The sphere pressed against her ribs whenever the boat moved. Even through several layers of fabric, she imagined she could feel the memories turning within it.

The Bastion was already far behind them. Voss had been left alive, the Last Watch remained in control of the ruins, and the answer that had drawn Rook there in the first place had never been obtained.

She looked at him. "You never made Voss tell us."

Rook glanced across the boat. "Tell us what?"

"Where Yama’s Gate was last seen."

"He didn’t know."

"He said he did."

"He wanted me to believe he did."

Mara frowned. "That sounds convenient."

"It usually is when Voss is involved."

"You entered the Eighty-Sixth because of him. You fought half the people inside it, got poisoned, nearly had your head cut off by a Fourth Rank and then left without forcing the answer from him."

Rook rested both arms across the coffin.

"I spoke to Voss before you joined us," he said. "He knew what I was looking for."

"And?"

"He gave me names. Captains who had investigated sightings. Officers who had claimed to see the Gate. Expeditions that disappeared in the grass fields, people from other nearby bastions."

"That sounds like he knew quite a lot."

"Voss always knows quite a lot."

Rook looked over the side of the boat. Their wake spread across the bruised water and disappeared into the fog.

"That’s how he hides what he doesn’t want you to notice," he continued. "Ask Voss one question and he answers with ten pieces of information. By the time you’ve followed half of them, you’ve forgotten which part he avoided."

Mara thought back to the man standing among the ruins, smiling while others fought and died around him. "So everything he told you was useless?"

"Most of it was probably true."

"That makes no sense."

"Lies can be tested. Truth wastes more of your time."

The ferryman released a quiet grunt that might have been agreement.

Rook continued, "He told me everywhere the answer might be, except he never mentioned one place, the one we’re heading to."

Mara looked toward the darkness ahead. There was still no visible land, but several faint blue points had appeared within the fog. At first, she mistook them for reflections upon the water. Then one rose and fell independently of the sea.

"There?" she asked.

Rook followed her gaze. "The Last Anchorage."

"And because Voss never mentioned it, you think the answer is there?"

"Voss doesn’t ignore useless information. He explains why it’s useless until you believe him. If he refuses to mention something at all, it means he doesn’t want you thinking about it."

Mara watched the distant lights slowly separate from one another. "That’s what we’re following? Something he didn’t say?"

"It’s more trustworthy than most things he does say."

The ferryman adjusted their course toward the lights.

Mara turned to him. "What is the Last Anchorage?"

"An island."

"I gathered that."

"Good. Saves time."

"What is on it?"

"A place for boats."

"That would explain the anchorage."

"You’re learning quickly."

Mara stared at the back of the old man’s head, then looked at Rook. "Is everyone who has spent centuries in the Underworld like this?"

"No," Rook said. "Some are unpleasant."

The ferryman glanced back at him. "The Anchorage keeps records of crossings. Who left, where they intended to go, which current they followed and whether they returned. Your answer could be there"

Mara stared into the deep darkness, the lights surrounding the land began to glow slightly more bright.