The Accountant and the Under-Sea

[mouli]

The Undersea

The sea never changes and its works, for all the talk of men, are wrapped in mystery.
-Joseph Conrad, Typhoon​

---

The Roxelana was once the fastest vessel in the Undersea, her flanks slick with untershroom-oil, her engines greased by tales of daring derring-do and her captain a grizzled old sailor spitting fire and terror in the face of doom defied. The Roxelana was a legend in the Undersea, the bright red funnel and real-wood masthead flying the crescent flag above dimly glowing lamplights. Her sails would billow in a nonexistent wind, glowing faintly as if blessed by God. For the dark, dank Undersea and its landscape of stories both warped and true, the Roxelana was unique, a legend wrought in fungal-wood and long-lost fable.
All of this, of course, was.

The Old Captain, their name washed away by their ship and its mantle, is dying. There is a cold spear in their gut wrought of ancient curses lost to the minds of humanity yet remembered by the elder denizens of the Undersea. There are scorchmarks on the proud flanks of the Roxelana, sailors cursing in fluent Arabic as they pump the bilges free of water and worse. What was the fastest ship in the Undersea is now battered and bruised, her hidden compartments broken open with forbidden goods and tales spilled on decks wet with blood that is black as ink. The Corpulent Bosun raises her pale, pale head and sniffs once, a scent carried on the breeze piquing her interest.

There is the faint scent of diesel and hate, the scent of His Imperial Majesty's Revenue Service. It comes closer like a hunter on a trail, the hounds of the Castle of the Hawk seeking their prey.

---

"You see, Captain Swing, there is more than one way to bait a trap." Herr von Totland is a fussy, pale man, the heavy gold signet of an Imperial Envoy on his right hand marking him as the true commander of the revenue cutter. "Think of the cutter, of the ship, of the pursuit...as a canary." His thick, bouffant moustache twitches in satisfaction, dark hair moving without wind to ruffle it in the dark, dark Undersea. The light bobbing above the Envoy does not cast a shadow.
The quarterdeck, needless to say, is empty save for Captain Swing and his superior.

The captain runs a hand through gelled hair that reflects the light above, a mark of pride in the Undersea where every light is a target. "Does the Roxelana sing, then, Herr von Totland?"

"It did, once." The Envoy's eyes are distant as if remembering something from long ago, his face unlined and young. "It did. Until, of course, it did not." He smiles as if remembering a correct answer on a test, his words stilted and his smile glassy.

Captain Swing nods cautiously, eyeing the Envoy for a moment before turning back to the quarterdeck-rail and looking onto the revenue-cutter's decks. The decks are strewn with weapons and sailors, dark gray uniforms clinging damply to the smoothly moving, almost mechanical forms of the crew. A single lonely funnel in the center of the deck reaches for the sky with a double headed eagle blazoned on its surface in bright gold, belching black smoke that is swiftly lost amidst the endless darkness of the Undersea far beneath the Earth. There is no sun here, nothing save the faint green spiderwebbing of the Light-Shrooms far, far above on the Roof of the Sea. The revenue cutter's prow parts the waves like a knife, viciously efficient and sharp as a blade with the cannon at her prow ready to fire.
It does not look much like a bird, ventures the captain.

The Envoy just smiles again, looking briefly at his pocketwatch before snapping it shut and replacing it in his suit-pocket. "Metaphorically, Captain. We are metaphorically a canary. We are to provoke a response. It is an Englishism."

"Ah." The captain's distaste is palpable, rubbery lips twisting in aristocratic disdain. He fingers the ceremonial sabre at his belt for a moment before releasing it, as if rethinking his theatrical gestures before he makes them. "The Roxelana and indeed our ship may be the canaries, mein herr, but I'll be a Hungarian if there's a canary in the world above that can spit fire."

"Oh?"

The captain raises his arm lazily, wide and floppy sleeves rustling as if they hide something within. "That, mein herr, is no canary's song."

In the far, far distance, the red glow of a rocket-flare arcs upwards ever so gently. Beneath it is a package, something tied to the rocket's tail. Something no doubt valuable.

"That is fine." Herr von Totland's eyes are amused, his face expressionless and his fingers skittering for the eyeglass on his hip. He takes his time to examine the rocket, its flare guttering swiftly in the Undersea as the lights of the Roxelana are only now dimly appearing on the horizon. "That is perfectly fine, Captain. Tell the crew to prepare for battle. And then to wait. The message has been sent, and the package will be found. By someone." He smiles, teeth perfect and even. "We will wait."

In the distance, the flare winks out far too abruptly for it to have extinguished naturally. The imperial envoy simply smiles.

---

Three years of traveling for work at sea have not changed George Anderson's unease at sea very much, but they've managed to change the way he handles it. George had originally thought of the sea – even the familiar Channel with its narrow strip between Dover and Calais – as a gray, churning danger. Something to shelter from belowdecks while the Ro-Ro ferry ponderously sways from Calais to the English coast. Something, at times, to take seasickness pills for. It was damp and smelly, occasionally splashing the passengers on deck when the Channel was rough and threatening with every wave to haul some poor unfortunate overboard. Time, though, helps with quite a few things, this included.

The sea became a dangerous thing, but one that was perhaps tamed. A beast that heaved at the leash and every so often turned feral as gales ripped through the Channel and shut down ferry traffic, but not quite the force of nature that George used to shelter belowdecks from. Usually, the periodic ferry trips are a nuisance to George's suits, not something to be worried about.
Usually.

When the company says to go out to a rig in the North Sea for environmental compliance consults and when that consult is in the middle of a North Sea storm, the general calculus of things tends to change. Which is why George Anderson has a white-knuckled grip on a railing in the passenger's cabin of an oil company's ferryboat while the rain roars down on it and waves roil on ahead.

"How much longer?" George's irritated question draws a raised eyebrow from Mustapha Celebi, his supervisor. The Turk's fussily trimmed beard is somehow pristine despite the heaving of the ferry's deck as it crests the waves of the North Sea, "How much longer to the rigs?" George's hand reflexively brushes away a bit of dust, already having attempted earlier to ward off spray from a suit that's already a lost cause. Auditing oil rig safety is something that no consultant wants to do, but it's George Anderson that was handed the bad end of things.

Celebi shakes his head, saying something indistinct before repeating it louder, "I have no idea. The crew are saying an hour late, maybe one and a half. Bad sea states. But we'll make it, don't you worry." He smiles encouragingly as a crewman comes in and grabs a rail to steady themselves, "Not that rough. We'll make it to the rig in time."

George thinks they'd bloody well better, else the consultants will be suing the damned company. For all that consultancy is a decent living in the shambles that was graduation from uni, George doesn't much like risk of drowning. "We'll see, Mustapha. I'll note that you're biased here," George jerks his head at the oil company logos on the Turk's jacket, "You're not a neutral party. These are some of the worst seas I've seen."

Mustapha shrugs, "You're the boss here, I'm the guy the company sent to fetch you and get you inside safely. I've been on the rigs for years, George, there's nothing new here. We'll make it." He points at a white-topped wave in the distance, "See that? Typical sizes. We're on a decent sized ferry with an experienced captain, the sea state is bad but routine." The Turk's round, lined face gives away his age, the leather jacket with his oil firm's blazon and his carefully trimmed beard. Mustapha Celebi's blithe assertions seem to George to be as much to remind himself of the ferry's safety as much as to get George to stop whinging, despite the outward confidence. The Turk's eyes are wary, flicking from wave to wave as the boat heaves on.

"I want to call horseshit," says George shaking his head and too damned aware of the bubbling pit of anxiety in his gut, "But I'll take your word for it. Not much else I can do, and nothing else to do on the boat right now."

"You've checked our documentation then?"

"Already done." George waves a besuited arm at the cabinets in the rear of the cabin, "Not much to check. Environmental laws are thinner than they would be if the tree-huggers had their way, makes things easier."

Mustapha laughs, "Yes, yes." He turns to George and steadies himself as the ship lurches again, "So what do you say to a bit of food? I know the crew has sandwiches for us."

"Maybe later." George smiles a little wanly, angry at himself for showing the weakness that gets seared out of the successful members of his firm in the City, "Maybe later. Right now I'd prefer to get through this, food after that. Good to see you have your appetite, though."

"Mm." Celebi nods a little before taking advantage of the relative lull in the waves to head for the cabin door. "I'll check with the captain again, then," he says, grinning suddenly as he leaves, "Don't drown without letting us know, eh? Looks bad on the record."

"Of course." George's dry retort is lost in the roar of the wind again, and out of the corner of his eye the consultant sees something. There's a bright spark of light soaring up out of the waves. St. Elmo's Lightning? Perhaps, thinks George Anderson. But St. Elmo's Fire or ball lightning don't move like that. They don't have flame jetting from their rear.
It looks like a rocket. It's alien enough to have George blinking for a moment, completely wrong footed by it all. The rocket soaring up from the waves before dipping back towards the sea.

Towards the boat.

Towards George's window in the passenger cabin.

There's a flash. A roar. A splintering of glass.

And then George Anderson of the City of London, consultant three years into the firm, is somewhere else.

AN: This is in part inspired by the Fallen London series, by Neil Gaiman's novel 'Neverwhere', and the history of the Barbary Coast and the Adriatic (or at least, what I know of them).