Mothstorm

by Philip Reeve

  ‘Ssilissa!’ I gasped.

  Kicking off from the makeshift patch I had just made, I swam the whole length of the ship in one swallow-like swoop. Jack and the Tentacle Twins were already on their way to the wedding chamber to see what was amiss, and we arrived together at the door, which stood wide open. The Twins gave little trills of worry, flickering grey and lilac. Jack said, ‘Ssil?’

  She was gone. The emergency hatch in the outer hull stood open and I closed it sharply to stop the floating pots and vials which filled the air all flying out and being lost in space. But I could not help thinking as I did it that it would not much matter if they did fly out. For Ssil was gone, and without her what use were all her alchemical powders and potions to us? There was not one of us who could work the great alembic in whose heart the alchemical fires which powered the Sophronia were dying down to ruddy embers.

  ‘It was Miss Thsssss,’ I said, feeling very ashamed of myself for having let her escape. ‘I tried to warn you … ’

  ‘It ain’t your fault, Art,’ said Jack. ‘What we must do is find her.’

  We ran up on to the star deck, half hoping to see Ssil and her Snilthish captor a-swim in space behind us. But it was impossible to see anything much in the fug of gun smoke which enveloped us. All about us bits of broken moth drifted aimlessly, and now and then a living moth whirled by. Far off, beyond the smoke, a steady hammering of gun fire and the regular stabbing flash of cannons showed us where the battle still went on, but the Sophronia was drifting away from it.

  Yarg and Squidley gave shrill twitters of alarm and flashed indigo for danger. Their meaning was clear. The Sophronia had been caught in the gravitational tides of Jupiter and was being drawn slowly, helplessly towards the giant planet!

  ‘D—it!’ said Jack, striking his fist against the star-deck rail. ‘We shall never find her now. Why did Thsssss take her? I thought she had come around; I thought she liked Ssil. It was all a ruse, I suppose. Throw us off our guard and then grab poor Ssil and carry her off. She’s aboard a moth by now, or in the belly of one of those great ships … ’

  One of those great ships passed us as he spoke, cutting through the smoke above, battered and listing, its engines making a dismal moan. When it had passed we began to hear bursts of loud huzzah-ing coming from the shadowy ships which hung about in the smoke. ‘They’re going!’ a distant voice shouted. ‘We’ve won, lads! We’ve seen them off!’

  The Sophronia turned lazily about, drifting sideways out of the smoke-bank and into the lambent light of Jupiter. And the feeling of victory that had started to swell in my breast at the sound of those lusty British huzzahs seemed suddenly to turn to ash.

  The defeated remnants of the Snilth fleet were high above us, dwindling quickly as they fled towards the Mothstorm. But from the Mothstorm a fresh fleet, even larger than the first, was curving down towards us: a veritable horde of huge moths and still huger ships flapping across the flotsam-strewn and smoky aether. Very fast they came, and on the moths’ backs their armoured riders could be seen fitting bombs into their slings and beginning to whirl them about their heads, ready to hurl at the Sophronia as soon as they were in range!

  Behind us, as the smoke thinned, the crews of other ships saw this new threat too. Their cheering ceased and I heard yells of alarm and the shouted orders of the officers. Battered as we were, how could we hope to hold firm against another onslaught? I clung to the star-deck rail and watched, and knew that the battle was lost and the Sun was setting at last upon the British Empire!

  Or so I thought … But just then, the narrowing gap which separated us from these fresh moth-riders was filled by a bright rushing swirl of—what? Smoke, I thought at first, imagining that the Snilth’s bombs had struck us and I was seeing flame-lit vapour venting from our wedding chamber. But the ship did not tremble or shake or fly into pieces. And now, before my eyes, the vapour was curling over, falling away from the Sophronia towards the Snilth and clenching itself like a great smoky fist upon those dreadful moths!

  ‘It is a storm!’ cried Charity delightedly. ‘It is lots of storms! “O clouds unfold!”’

  Out of the haze of Jupiter’s stormy airs, great plumes of cloud were boiling up, for all the world like fists punching out into space. Wherever a Snilthish fish-ship or a concentration of their moths flew, one of these vaporous limbs reached out and seized them and dragged them back into the impossible pressures of the wind-race.

  ‘The storms!’ I shouted, opening the hatch to share the good news of our deliverance with those below. ‘The storms of Jupiter are coming to our aid!’

  ‘Good old Thunderhead!’ yelled Jack, and I gasped as I recognised the great storm himself: a pillar of cloud shot through with lightnings and swathed with lesser storms, towering into space. He reached out cyclonic limbs and seized the fleeing remnants of the new Snilth fleet in half a dozen vaporous hands.

  And was it only my imagining, or did that tower of cloud turn then towards the Sophronia? And did the top part of it seem to bow towards us? And did the thunder, booming through the gulfs of space, seem to rumble, ‘My regards to your mother, Shaper’s child!’ before, folding in upon itself, it went rushing back down into the wind-race, leaving the aether smeared and speckled with the dust of crushed moths?

  I cannot be sure. I think those things happened, but no one else aboard the Sophronia noticed them, for they were all too busy scrambling up through holes and hatches on to the star deck and gazing out across the battlefield from which our enemies had been so abruptly swept. A few wisps of cloud blew past us: remnants of some small storm which had strayed too far from Jupiter’s embrace and disintegrated in the wilds of space. The dust of dead moths drifted all about, filling the aether with undulating silvery veils through which shoals of icthyomorphs darted, nibbling at larger moth fragments.

  ‘Good old Thunderhead!’ I exclaimed, quite touched by the great storm’s heroic action.

  ‘And all those smaller storms too,’ said Colonel Quivering. ‘Friends of his, I suppose. Dashed brave. Deserve a medal, every single one of ’em. But where would you pin it on?’

  ‘Not for nothing did my people worship him in years gone by,’ said Mr Munkulus, pulling off his cap and bowing towards the mighty storm, which could be seen swirling once more in its customary place upon Jupiter’s flank, a little more ragged than before and speckled with dark blots, but still magnificent.

  ‘But all those poor Snilth,’ said Charity. ‘What will become of them?’

  ‘The armoured minxes will be squashed flat as old tin cans down in the pressure-deeps,’ said Mr Grindle with a heartless grin, ‘and serves ’em right!’

  ‘Not necessarily, Grindle,’ said Mr M., still gazing up thoughtfully at Thunderhead. ‘Thunderhead has his own ways and his own reasons. Maybe he’ll keep those poor misguided creatures safe down in the wind-race and let them stay there till they see the error of their ways.’

  ‘Who cares what happens to them!’ I said gaily. ‘It is over! We have won!’

  ‘Oh no we haven’t, Art,’ said Mr Munkulus. ‘We’ve won one battle, thanks to Thunderhead, and been granted a little more time, that’s all.’

  ‘And we’ve lost Ssil,’ said Jack. He was staring aloft, where the surviving ships from the Snilth’s first attack had shrunk to a cluster of speeding stars, bright against the speckled immensity of the Mothstorm. Somewhere in there, if she still lived at all, Ssilissa was a prisoner. Without her the Sophronia was powerless. And despite our victory, the Mothstorm was still approaching, and I did not believe that even Thunderhead could help us fight it!

  Chapter Sixteen

  Myrtle Tells More of Her Adventures in the Mothmaker’s Lair: of Curious Allies, Touching Reunions and a Desperate Flight.

  A Young Lady’s Adventures in Unknown Space (Continued Once Again).

  14

  For how long was I incarcerated within that filthy, Snilthy gaol? I cannot say; the turning of the silver sun bore no relation to the passage of earthly da
ys and nights. Indeed, in Mothstorm, day and night seemed to have no set duration, but to happen entirely at the whim of the Mothmaker. However, I believe I suffered there for at least a week, with only Ulla Burton for company and nothing to look forward to but the visits of the gentle Alsssor.

  And then, quite suddenly, my captivity came to an end in a way which I shall now set down for you.

  I woke one morning, in the usual silvery twilight of the cell, to find that I was being shaken. No well-brought-up young lady takes kindly to being roused in such a manner. ‘Really, Mrs Burton,’ I complained, before I had even opened my eyes. You may imagine my displeasure when I did open them and realised that the person doing the shaking was not Ulla, but Alsssor!

  ‘Unhand me!’ I cried, starting up at once and thinking that if my blue friend thought his recent kindness towards me gave him the right to go about shaking me, then he was very much mistaken!

  But Alsssor, instead of apologising, merely set a finger to his mouth to hush me and then stooped to waken Mrs Burton in the same familiar way!

  ‘You are to be moved,’ he whispered, when she too was conscious. ‘Come with me quickly.’

  We did as he said. In the narrow passageway outside the cell, two armoured she-Snilth were waiting, carrying those horrid bagpipe-weapons. One, I was almost sure, was Alsssor’s betrothed, Miss Ssoozzs. The other I did not know, and yet she seemed more kindly disposed towards me than many of the Snilth I had encountered. Was that a curtsey that she tried to bob, as Mrs Burton and I stepped out into the passage? Or was she simply adjusting her armour?

  There was no time to wonder, or even to curtsey back—alas, points of etiquette must so often be cast aside when one is having an Adventure. With great haste, and with many urgent signals for us to remain silent, Alsssor and his lady friends hurried us along the winding passageways beneath Mothstorm, until we passed out through a bony arch on to a sort of quay, from where we looked out again over the Mothmaker’s strange domain. Its walls of moths were whirling faster now than ever, and strange eddies flowed through the swarm, in the midst of which little pools of darkness would now and then appear. Since I am unused (thank Heavens!) to looking at a sky made out of insects, it took me a few moments to understand that those darknesses were holes through which I was catching glimpses of open space, before the moths around them adjusted their flight to close them off.

  It was foolish, I know, as those fleeting holes were very far away and whole worlds of Snilth hung between them and myself, but they gave me hope. For the first time since I entered Mothstorm I began to wonder if escape might be possible after all!

  Now Alsssor and his companions were hastening us across the quay to its edge, where a horrid moth, larger than many elephants, sat with its wings folded and its nasty feelers twitching and flicking. A ladder made of moth bones led up on to its furry back, and I realised that Alsssor intended me to climb it.

  ‘Oh no!’ I declared, stamping my foot. ‘I am most certainly not taking a ride aboard that horrid creature!’

  Alsssor looked meek, for he had been brought up to fear feminine anger. But Miss Ssoozzs said sharply, ‘Miss Mumby, do you not underssstand that we are your friendsss, and trying to sssave you from the Mothmaker?’

  ‘Don’t be such a stubborn little prig, Myrtle!’ Ulla admonished me (most unfairly!). And between them they coaxed me up on to the insect’s back, where its rider, a male, sat holding the long reins with which he would control its flight. We had barely time to settle ourselves and to take a firm grip upon the monster’s coarse red hair, before it flapped its wings and bore us away across the gulf. I looked back and watched the Mothmaker’s ugly house dwindling behind us, until my view of it was blotted out by one of her gimcrack wordlets.

  ‘The Mothmaker is busy with Her war,’ explained Alsssor then. ‘A great battle is raging, and She is watching and planning. She will not notice our essscape.’

  ‘I take it that you are not friends of the Mothmaker, then?’ asked Mrs Burton. ‘Is there a rebel movement in this universe of moths? How many are you?’

  ‘We are not many,’ said Ssoozzs, while her fiancé explained what had been said to the moth-mahout, who spoke no English. (Indeed, I was startled to hear Ssoozzs speak it—I was sure she had spoken only Snilth when she first came to my cell.) ‘We are few, and fearful,’ she confided, ‘and the Mothmaker is very sstrong. But Misss Mumby has brought hope to usss and made usss understand the way ahead.’

  ‘Miss Mumby has?’ said Ulla. And I am pleased to say that she looked a little vexed that it should be I and not her to whom these brave blue rebels looked for their example!

  ‘We women of Sssnilth are tired of having to fight and be fierce and trample the corpssses of Her enemiesss under our iron-shod heels,’ said Ssoozzs. ‘Thankss to Misss Mumby we can now imagine a better life.’

  ‘We want to wear pretty dressses, not thiss ugly armour!’ agreed the other she-Snilth, blushing a fetching shade of turquoise.

  ‘We want to be looked after for a change,’ said Ssooozzs. ‘We would like our menfolk to take care of us, to open doors for us and be bold and brave for our sakes … ’ And she shyly laid her head upon the shoulder of Alsssor, who put his arms about her in a most protective and gentlemanly manner!

  ‘Oh dear G-d!’ groaned Ulla Burton. (Though I cannot think why. Surely she should have been pleased to see that these Snilthish viragos had understood the error of their ways?)

  15

  We flew onward, and our Snilth companions fell quiet, looking up at a strange object which hung in the sky close by. A spiky, spiny star, the colour of dirty ivory, it dangled in orbit around the silver sun like some gigantic, unappealing Christmas-decoration. It was quite unlike the other little wordlets of the Snilth, since no one appeared to live upon it. ‘What is that?’ asked Mrs Burton bluntly.

  Alsssor would only hiss, as if the spiky planetoid was a thing of which he dared not speak. But his fiancée, turning pale grey with emotion, whispered, ‘It is made of bonesss. It is a world made from the boness of Queen Zssthss Hammertail and all those who joined her in her rebellion againsst the Mothmaker.’

  ‘But that was millennia ago!’ I cried, remembering the sorry tale Alsssor had told me about that doomed Snilth heroine and looking again at the thing, aghast at the sheer number of skeletons it must contain. ‘Why have they not crumbled into dust?’

  ‘The Mothmaker preserves them,’ said Ssoozzs, ‘as a reminder to usss all of what will happen to usss if we dare to disssobey her.’ And it was no wonder that she looked so solemn, for was she not disobeying that cruel tyrant even now, by flitting us away from Mothstorm? ‘All of Zssthss’s family and all her followerss were killed and lie in that world of boness.’

  ‘The Mothmaker seems to enjoy her little operatic flourishes,’ Ulla observed.

  I shuddered as the shadow of the bone-planet swept over us, and the moth yawed violently, forcing me to cling with great concentration to its fur while Alsssor exclaimed, ‘Here we are! Thisss is the prison-planetoid of Snil-ritha. Many friendss are waiting for you here.’

  16

  I had been so intent upon our conversation that I had not noticed how far our moth had borne us. It was fluttering towards the face of one of those moth-built planets, and in a few more moments it had fluttered right inside through a ragged opening in the world’s surface. I found myself looking at a most peculiar sort of town, in which all sorts of platforms and walkways were jumbled about on top of each other to make a great many floors of galleries. It was a little like looking into a doll’s house with its front taken off, except that most dolls’ houses are not made out of bits of moth and the dolls are not busy slaving away among vast heaps of blue-white moths’ eggs.

  I was tempted to faint at the sight of all those slimy spheres, some of which were wriggling, and others hatching to let out horrible blunt-headed maggots as large as hansom cabs. But I restrained myself, for many of the slaves who were busily pouring glutinous liquids over the eggs
and carrying the new hatchlings away on litters up the winding stairways to the surface, were my former companions from HMS Actaeon. And the Snilth who stood guard over them, upon seeing our moth approach, flung aside their whips and bagpipe-guns and came hastening to meet us at a landing quay, where several small fish-shaped ships were tethered. The moth found a perch between them, and I heard our welcoming committee hissing to one another, ‘It’sss her! She’sss come!’

  Could it be that they meant me? Was it possible that all these Snilth were would-be ladies, like Ssoozzs? I barely dared to hope it might be true. And yet, as the moth settled on the quay and our mahout lowered the boarding ladder, every one of those armoured she-devils sketched a clumsy curtsey!

  I went down the ladder, slapped the dust of the moth’s wings from my skirts as best I could, and stood before them. They surged forward to greet me with an eagerness that was almost alarming. And almost every one of them seemed to speak English!

  ‘Welcome, Misss Mumby!’ said one.

  ‘We’ve heard ssso much about you,’ said another, who was balancing a stack of books upon her spiny head, doubtless with a view to improving her posture.

  ‘Will you share with usss the ssecrets of embroidery?’ asked others.

  ‘And dressssmaking?’

  ‘And water-colouring?’

  ‘Will you teach usss to be as ladylike as you, Misss Mumby?’22

  I confess I felt a little overwhelmed. Surely, I thought, they ask too much of me! It would take someone far more accomplished than I to turn this gang of spiny sauria into ladies.

  And yet, whispered a little voice inside of me, perhaps this was the destiny for which GOD had carried me here? Perhaps, if I could bring civilisation and good manners to these savage children of the Mothmaker, then dear Mother’s fate might not have been in vain. So I said, ‘You are most kind, every one of you, and I shall teach you all that I can.’