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Back The Scar Save as PDF
Chapters (65)
  1. Prologue
  2. Part One: Channels
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Interlude I: Elsewhere
  9. Interlude II: Bellis Coldwine
  10. Part Two: Salt
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Interlude III: Elsewhere
  21. Part Three: The Compass Factory
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. Chapter Sixteen
  24. Chapter Seventeen
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Interlude IV: Elsewhere
  29. Part Four: Blood
  30. Chapter Twenty-One
  31. Chapter Twenty-Two
  32. Chapter Twenty-Three
  33. Chapter Twenty-Four
  34. Chapter Twenty-Five
  35. Chapter Twenty-Six
  36. Interlude V: Tanner Sack
  37. Interlude VI: Elsewhere
  38. Part Five: Storms
  39. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  40. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  41. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  42. Chapter Thirty
  43. Chapter Thirty-One
  44. Chapter Thirty-Two
  45. Interlude VII: Basilisk Channel
  46. Interlude VIII: Elsewhere
  47. Part Six: Morning Walker
  48. Chapter Thirty-Three
  49. Chapter Thirty-Four
  50. Chapter Thirty-Five
  51. Chapter Thirty-Six
  52. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  53. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  54. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  55. Chapter Forty
  56. Interlude IX: The Brucolac
  57. Part Seven: The Lookout
  58. Chapter Forty-One
  59. Chapter Forty-Two
  60. Chapter Forty-Three
  61. Chapter Forty-Four
  62. Chapter Forty-Five
  63. Chapter Forty-Six
  64. Chapter Forty-Seven
  65. Coda: Tanner Sack

I said nothing-I had said nothing for many minutes-but Doul’s monologue had come to an end, and he waited for me to respond.

"Were you not there, then?" I asked finally.

"I came later," he said.

"Press-ganged?" I said, astonished, but he shook his head again.

"I came of my own will," he said. "I sought Armada out, a little more than ten years ago."

"Why," I said slowly, "are you telling me this?"

He shrugged a very little. "It’s important," he said. "It’s important you understand. I saw you-you’re afraid of the scars. You should know what it is that you see. Who rules us, their motivation and passion. Drive. Intensity. It is the scars," he said, "that give Garwater its strength."

He nodded and left me then, abruptly. I waited for several minutes, but he did not reappear.

I am deeply perturbed. I do not understand what happened, why he spoke to me. Was he sent by the Lover? Did she instruct him to tell me her history, or was he operating on his own agenda?

Does he believe everything he told me?

The scars give Garwater its strength,he tells me, and I am left wondering if he is blind to another possibility. Has he not noticed, I wonder? Is it coincidence that the three most powerful people in Garwater, hence in Armada and hence on the seas, are outlanders? That they were not born within Armada’s confines? That they grew to cognition and agency unconstrained by the limits of what is, what remains, and cannot but be a mess of old boats, a little town-even if the most extraordinary one in the history of Bas-Lag-and that they can therefore see a world beyond its petty robberies and claustrophobic pride?

They are not beholden to Armada’s dynamics. What are their priorities?

I want to know the Lovers’ names.

Except when he fights (I remember that, and it terrifies me), Uther Doul’s face is almost motionless. It is compelling and a little tragic, and it is nigh impossible to tell what he thinks or believes. Whatever he says to me, I have seen the Lover’s scars, and they are ugly and unpleasant. And the fact that they bespeak some sordid ritual, some game for the emotionally arrested to play, does not change that.

They are ugly and unpleasant.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Thirty-six hours after the aerostat had risen over Armada and headed away to the southwest, land began to appear beneath them.

Bellis had slept little. She was not tired, however, and rose before five on the second morning to watch the dawn from the stateroom.

When she entered, there were others already awake and watching: several of the crewmen, Tintinnabulum and his companions, and Uther Doul. Her heart sank a little at the sight of him. She found his manner-even more reserved and measured than her own-troubling, and she did not understand his interest in her.