The Search for Harry Tranker

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Three: Conspiracies and Secret Orders

The Search for Harry Tranker

* * *

Try as he might, Abram couldn’t find any information on the ship that had taken Harry Tranker south. The captain of a ship that made the run between capitals several times per local year, a tough-looking woman of middle years, told him that if the private eye had gone south it hadn’t been from this port.

To his query as to where else he might have embarked, she pulled a short pipe from her mouth, spat something brown between his boots and strode away, laughing. Belatedly, the Hermetist noted she wasn’t wearing a collar.

Nija Hermit had summoned a ship for his use in pursuing Harry. It turned out to be a submersible, something that surprised him as he hadn’t thought one of the few the Order had would be at the disposal of such a small Hermetist outpost. Something about that tickled his suspicions. He back-burnered it for the moment.

Abram hadn’t been trained on one but was sufficiently skilled as a navigator that the Hermetist who was piloting the craft was able to get him up to speed in a few minutes.

* * *

The trip down took almost a week. That was longer than expected, given the speed at which the craft could move.

The culprit was the Alph. While exceedingly broad and deep in most places the river was also home to a dizzying variety of life, some of it larger than the boat and most of that quite aggressive. The Hermetist learned to scan ahead and give the larger beasts a wide berth after he narrowly avoided being swallowed by one. It wouldn’t have been especially dangerous, but Abram hated the thought of killing something that was just hungry. Besides, he didn’t want to get fish guts all over his shiny submersible. Frequent sandbars made much of the passage an obstacle course, to boot.

Each night, he camped on the west side of the river, marvelling at the pastel white foliage, and covering his ears at the sunset cacophony of the native wildlife. Despite several serious attempts, Abram was never able to spot a single one of the noisy critters.

As the sixth sunset turned the sky orange, Abram passed through the enormous stone water gate and entered Kusini City, the capital of the South.

The Hermetist piloted the craft slowly along a tributary of the Alph to the building that housed the government in this hemisphere.

Kusini City defied his expectations. Though he knew it was more technically developed than anything in the North, the architecture spoke of a Neolithic phase that this race had never actually gone through. Indeed, one had to look closely to see the evidence of modernity: electric lights and signs, antennae.

The sky deepened to red as he pulled up to the senate building, an imposing truncated pyramid peppered with deep openings along its sloping faces. He warped into a free mooring; one of several that fronted the building. The evening breeze carried something floral to his nose as Abram climbed out of the craft. The odour was a more refined version of that of the raw jungle growth he’d slept under each night on his way.

A dozen steps up from the stone dock, and he was crossing the wide, cultivated plaza.

What Abram at first mistook for an orchard filled the space between the water and the pronaos. It was an elaborate garden of trees and large shrubs, broad leaves in many shapes were a million shades of nearly white pastel colours. The path to the portico was a maze of stone winding between and around depressed black earth plots.

The smell was overpowering.

Past it, the Hermetist came upon the entrance to the structure itself. Eight spiralling, fluted columns of white stone were red lit by the slanting sun. Deep shadows almost hid the burly, barely clad guards that stood between each one. As he approached them, one stepped forward to block his progress.

He was tall, with the Asiatic features that characterized the males on Hyborea. Besides the elaborate gold collar, he wore only sandals and a loincloth. The pike he held looked business like, as did the large semiautomatic pistol slung from his hip. “State your business.”

Not overly friendly, but not hostile, either. He knew he faced a Hermetist, after all. “I need to speak to someone in authority about a missing person.”

“Name?”

“Abram Hermit.”

“One moment.” He raised his hand to his face and Abram caught a glimpse of a mic embedded in his wrist. He spoke too low for the Hermetists to hear, in a language which Abram could just make out as the principle one spoken on Hyborea. He tried not to eavesdrop, but caught enough to know he’d be allowed in.

After the brief exchange, the guard lowered his hand and gestured for Abram to proceed inside.

Two sets of large stone double doors deeply carved, were open. Within there was light, though it took a moment to appreciate this as his eyes adjusted from the brightness without.

Flickering golden light it was, from a hidden source. The foyer was cavernous; the walls and ceiling were dressed and polished green marble streaked with gold. Pillars of black, mica-flecked stone, like columns of midnight sky, added to the sense of scale. The walls were lined with wide stripes of brightly coloured bas relief of figures and text. Though he was fluent in the language, as well as more than thirty others, the highly stylized calligraphy made reading it difficult.

The room was empty.

Abram had just turned to get a closer look at the carved murals when the sound of hard-soled footwear echoing in the space stopped him.

Rounding a pillar on the far side of the hall was a woman. Her hair bound in a colourful scarf, she wore something resembling a toga in white, as well as white knee length boots. Her bared arms were decorated with delicately wrought red-gold jewelry from shoulder to wrist which as she approached, he noticed were affixed by piercings through her skin. Some of it looked like flames, some serpents—no, dragons. A peppering of pointed dots were perhaps stars. The effect was beautiful.

She smiled a greeting while she was still twenty yards away.

“Abram Hermit.” She extended both arms, palms up. Echoes took a few seconds to die.

The Hermetist extended his palms down. As she moved into his space, he gripped her arms at the elbow, and she did the same. The gold was as warm as her skin, and as smooth. They bowed slightly to one another.

“I am Akilah, of the Council of Kusini.” Her grip lingered. Cream coloured, gold-flecked eyes in that dark, dark face. Thick plum-coloured lips smiled, and her eyes joined in. “What brings a Hermetist down from frozen Kasaskini, besides the climate?” A deep-throated, pleasant chuckle.

Abram, sporting a grin he couldn’t stop, joined in the mirth. He serioused up as well as he could. “I’m searching for a comrade who may have come here in the last few days.”

Her expression sobered, though her good nature remained evident. She let go of his arms. “You have had no word from this friend?”

“None. Those in the North could tell me no more than that he was headed here. I’ve not been able to determine what ship he travelled on, nor if he went this far.”

A frown creased her brow. One unpainted trim-nailed finger crossed both pursed lips. “A male, you say. That could be trouble. I’ll have to look into this. If you would please come with me?”

Together, they went back the way she had come.

The elevator was an elaborate thing of glass and white brass. After rising eight storeys, the two exited into a wide corridor that ended at a hall running along an outside sloping wall.

The city of stone began to glow with internal light as the last of the sunlight departed and night enveloped buildings intertwined with native growth.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Abram said.

“I’ve never been able to resist the urge to linger along this hall.”

Abram turned to find her smiling. “I can see why.” He smiled in return.

They stood for a moment, then continued to her office.

It was a corner suite. The slanted windows along two adjacent sides gave the impression they were on a balcony overlooking the beautiful city below. Hyborea had no moon, and the stars seemed all the brighter for it. Few worlds of Abram’s acquaintance had such a bounty of stellar fire.

After they were seated, Abram said, “I got the impression up north that unescorted males do not usually make the trip south. Is there a law against it?” Abram asked.

She offered him coffee; Abram declined. “By treaty, it is illegal for a free native male to travel south. There is no law forbidding offworlders, but—” here she skewered the Hermetist with her gaze—”there is no protection for them, if they do.” She began typing on a console, a heavy brass device that included a screen.

“There have been incidents?”

“Disappearances, mostly. Only two were confirmed murders. But none in the last century.”

“So, it’s been safe, lately.”

Akilah shook her head. “No offworld male has attempted it since.”

“Until now.”

She nodded.

‘What have you gotten yourself into, Harry?’ Abram thought.

“There’s no record of his having taken accommodations in the city.” A pause with more typing. “He hasn’t made any purchases, either.”

“That would have been recorded?”

“Almost certainly. We try to keep a close eye on commerce.”

“He might have been waylaid on the journey south.”

“Yes, that is so. There’s really no way of determining that, short of a body or a spontaneous confession.”

“Assuming he made it to the city, what would be the most likely reason he wouldn’t have rented a room or spent any money?”

“Would he have had a reason to remain hidden?”

“Doubtful.”

“That leaves abduction.” Her brow furrowed. “Let me check something.” Again, the typing. She stared at the screen for a few seconds, muttering under her breath. Finally, she sat back and sighed. “If your friend made it to the city and isn’t hiding for some reason, he’s likely been abducted by rebels.”

“There are rebels? Against what?” Abram had no data on any conflict on this world, something he intended to remedy as soon as he was back at work.

“It’s not an armed conflict, by any means. Certain women were unsatisfied with the truce and subsequent treaty. They live mostly to the south of the city in small groups. We have some contact with them; even trade, though—”she shrugged—“we do not have any real control over their actions. If Mr. Tranker lives, he’s likely with one of them.”

Abram felt his heart sinking. “How many groups are there?”

“Only two of any size. The largest is a day’s journey south by water. It has a permanent settlement that’s quite sophisticated. If your friend is with one of the smaller groups, they could help find him. If they have him, though, they’ll not likely tell you.”

“Will I be in any danger?”

“Difficult to say. As a Hermetist, you will have at least some protection, even though you are male. There is a risk, though. As I said, they are a law unto themselves.”

Abram left, giving profuse thanks for the minister’s help, while privately contemplating sneaking into the city in the south rather than using more formal channels. Damn that Tranker. In the soup, again.

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, September 2026

© Gideon Jagged
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