Free Mariah Mundi and the Ship of Fools by G.P. Taylor Page A

out of the way.
    Mariah stopped momentarily and looked back. Charity saw his glazed eyes that looked like burnished steel.
    ‘It’s all right, Topher, I’m coming to you … I must say goodbye to Captain Charity …’ Mariah spoke as if he could see both worlds.
    ‘He’s not real, Mariah. It’s an hallucination,’ Charity shouted. He was scared to get too close for fear that Mariah would leap into the sea.
    ‘Topher came for me – in the cabin,’ Mariah said. ‘He’s not dead – he didn’t drown.’
    ‘Look at me … look at me,’ Charity said desperately. ‘I have something for you to take with you, something for Topher.’ He held out his fob watch towards Mariah. ‘Take it … you’ll need this.’
    Mariah stopped and looked. He could only see Charity as an apparition. It was as if his soul had crossed the Styx and now dwelt beyond death, looking back at life. The dangling watch spun on its chain, shimmering in the light from the skyship that hovered above them. Mariah looked back on a ghostly world. He could see the outlines of the people as they gathered near him on the deck. Below, the bubbling jade water looked warm and inviting. He could see Topher at the end of the gantry – so real, so alive, an old friend waiting for him. Charity began to fade until he was just a dim outline of the man.
    ‘You have to take it,’ Charity insisted as Mariah teetered inches from death. ‘Topher wants you to have it.’
    ‘I can’t see you, Jack – where are you?’ Mariah asked.
    ‘I’m here, Mariah, just a few feet away. I will give you the watch,’ Charity said as he edged closer.
    For a moment Charity looked up. There on the balcony of Deck 13 was the Marquis DeFeaux and his daughter Biba. He could see them clearly in the light of the Bicameralist . The Marquis looked as if he were Caesar staring down at a gladiator about to die.
    ‘Just one step and you will have the watch. Reach out, Mariah, it is just here,’ Charity said as he reached out his hand.
    Mariah stumbled a pace towards him and then stopped as if a voice were calling him back.
    ‘Listen to me, Mariah,’ Charity shouted. ‘Just a few more inches …’
    Mariah wasn’t listening. Whatever had taken his soul called him on. Without a word, he stumbled forwards, clutched the wire rail of the gangway – and then fell back. Charity dived towards him and gripped him by the sleeve of his jacket. Mariah fell from the gantry. Charity held fast as the lad dangled above the sea.
    ‘Take my hand, Mariah. Don’t let go!’ Charity shouted as he felt the gangplank slip from its mooring and dangle from the small crane over the water. The passengers began to scream in fear as both Mariah and Charity were suspended over the sea. The gantry swayed back and forth as Charity pulled Mariah to him.
    ‘Let me go!’ Mariah shouted angrily. ‘I want to follow Topher.’
    ‘It’s an illusion, a phantasm – he isn’t real,’ Charity urged as he managed to grip Mariah by the hand.
    Within a minute Charity had pulled Mariah back on to the gangway. A sailor on the ship had powered the steam crane and let down the gantry to the lower deck away from the onlookers. Captain Tharakan and Ellerby were waiting.
    ‘Is he dead?’ asked Tharakan as Mariah was dragged from the gangway to the safety of the deck.
    ‘Very much alive,’ Charity replied as he saw specks of purple powder in the lines on Mariah’s hand. ‘But from the look of him, I would say that someone has drugged him with Lyzerjid .’
    ‘Who should do such a thing?’ Tharakan asked. ‘An assassin in your room and now this …’
    ‘Someone wants him dead, and I do not know the reason why,’ Charity replied. A steward helped him get Mariah to his feet. ‘We shall take him to his room. Captain Tharakan, can you provide a guard for the night?’
    Tharakan nodded to Ellerby, who disappeared into the shadow of a doorway only to appear moments later with three of his men armed with