Free Secrets of the Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt

wearing Jackelian clothes – looking for all the world as if he might be a country squire out for a day’s hunting with his hounds. All he lacked was a birding rifle and beagles to complete the picture.
    ‘Ah now,’ waved the commodore as the carts halted in front of the Purity Queen and the bear-like figure on the back jumped down, landing on a fine pair of knee-length riding boots. The Pericurian moved through the crowd of stevedores coming over to haul the crates down to the u-boat’s hold, and walked towards the commodore. ‘I received your baggage yesterday, so I thought you might be arriving in a grand old fashion this morning, Ambassador Ortin, rather than helping keep your cargo safe.’
    The ursine creature blinked in surprise and adjusted a monocle resting in front of his left eye. ‘Technically speaking, dear boy, I am not presently an ambassador, as I no longer hold the position here in the Kingdom and haven’t yet been sworn in on Jago. A point the new incumbent at the Jackelian embassy was only too keen to underline by ensuring my airship berth to Spumehead was cancelled and replaced by a cheap narrowboat ticket.’
    ‘Well, however you’ve arrived Mister Ortin urs Ortin, you’re here now right enough and I’ll make good on my contract to deliver you to your new posting. Just as soon as the transaction-engine parts your arse was so kindly keeping warm are loaded on board my boat.’
    The commodore barked a flurry of orders at the stevedores shouldering the cargo towards his u-boat, and then with a nod to the professor, Jethro and Boxiron, he led the Pericurian diplomat across to his vessel.
    Professor Harsh leant in close to speak quietly to Jethro. ‘I won’t ask what you’ll be doing on Jago, but I would be grateful if you kept an eye out for Nandi on the island.’
    ‘In addition to the eyes of the good commodore?’
    ‘I trust Jared Black,’ said the professor. ‘That is, I trust him well enough to guard my spine when sabres are drawn and pistols are pulled, but the commodore has an unhealthy knack for getting into mischief and you’re not the only ones trying to arrange a discreet passage to Jago.’
    ‘Your young assistant’s work, good professor, it isn’t the sort of archaeology that involves jewelled artefacts and murderous dispute over precisely who has the rights to secure them?’
    ‘Nandi will simply be trawling Jago’s records in their transaction-engine vaults,’ said the professor. ‘But a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.’
    ‘So it can,’ agreed Jethro.
    After the academic had extracted a promise of safe-keeping for her assistant and was walking away, the transaction-engine drum in the centre of Boxiron’s chest began to rumble as it turned – usually a sign that the steamman was drawing down extra processing power for his ruminations.
    ‘What are you thinking?’ asked Jethro.
    ‘Much the same as you, I expect,’ answered the steamman.
    ‘Yes,’ Jethro hummed thoughtfully.
    That the good professor knew their business on Jago must be an investigation, and if she was asking for the help of Jethro Daunt and Boxiron, it was only because she suspectedher assistant’s dealings was likely to put her in even more danger than consorting with the pair of them.
    Bob his soul, but not all the truth of the academic’s business on Jago had been told here.

CHAPTER FOUR
    H annah was about to go into the archbishop’s chancellery when a monk stopped her with a message. ‘Your friend Chalph is waiting for you outside on the north bridge.’
    ‘Thank you, father. Could you tell him I’ll be finished here in a little while?’
    He nodded and departed as she entered the office. It was still strange seeing someone else sitting behind Alice’s desk, even if Father Blackwater – the head of the testing rooms – was only acting as their senior priest until another archbishop was appointed. A fiercely clever man who hid his true thoughts behind the odd veiled