Eight bells at the Gate of Iron Sails

Turn 1 of 9

I take in the scene, and act on what matters most.

The eighth bell is still dying in the salt air when you step out onto the quarterdeck and see the full picture. Two harbour-wardens are on the quay with marked cord, measuring your mooring lines the way a bailiff measures a house he's about to lock. The clerk stands at the top of the gangplank with her writ held in both hands, as if she's apologising for the paper itself. Beyond her, the Gate of Iron Sails opens wide — eight levels of stone quay carved into the cliff face, each one jutting out over the void where the air-currents boil up from the canyon below. Ships sit at every level, their tethers creaking. Yours is the *Mourning Light*, a mid-weight freighter with a good hull and, you are beginning to understand, very bad finances.

"Eleven hundred marks," the clerk says again, because you haven't answered. "Or the ship, by the twelfth bell. I'm sorry, I know you've only been aboard four days." Her name is Anneke Sund — you've seen her at the Harbour Court's public ledger desk, and she has the look of someone who has delivered this news before and hated it every time. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

"The previous quartermaster — a man named Vesik — he ran up berth fees, fuel credit, and at least one customs bond that nobody flagged. The Court consolidated the debt this morning."

You turn the number over. Eleven hundred marks. Four hours. The *Mourning Light* is worth perhaps three thousand on a good market, but she's not on a good market — she's on a quay with wardens already measuring her lines. You have been quartermaster for exactly four days. You were promised a functioning ship with honest books. What you received was a cabin with a lock that had been forced and a ledger that starts on page three.

From below decks comes the sound of someone hammering metal, hard and deliberate, and then a voice that carries through the hatch without effort.

"Are they aboard? Tell me they're not aboard." That will be Grieve, the engineer, who you have met twice and who has already made it clear she considers harbour officials a species of parasite. The hammering continues. You can hear the wardens discussing knot specifications on the quay below, their voices carrying up with professional calm.

You look at Anneke. She looks back at you with something that isn't quite hope but isn't its opposite either. She glances toward the main hatch, then back.

"Captain Ferran is ashore," she says. "She left an hour ago, before the bell. I don't know where." The wardens finish measuring the starboard line and move to the port side, marking figures on a slate. The *Mourning Light* rocks gently in the updraft, and somewhere far below the canyon wind moans through the iron ribs of the Gate itself.