The Iron Wyrm Affair

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Mikal’s hand flicked. Three pennies chimed on the cobbled street, almost lost in a drift of cinders. The Shield stepped back, almost mincingly, and the bridgekeeper cursed.

  “Watch your tongue,” Miss Bannon snapped, and her fingers clamped on Clare’s arm with surprising strength. “This way.”

  “There are quite a few of them.” Mikal, hushed and low.

  “Oh, I should think so. She’s expecting me.”

  They plunged into the Wark, Clare’s senses quivering-alert, and he almost wished he had chosen to remain in Mayefair.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Steelstruck Teeth

  The jackals gathered the instant they stepped off the Bridge, and Emma didn’t bother hailing one of the footcabs. Mikal was tense, his footsteps following hers and the scent of his readiness gunpowder-sharp, a different crimson than the low foundry glow. To Sight, the Wark was full of sharp-edged runic shapes trembling on the edge of the visible, an alien charter language wearing at the warp and weft of Londinium’s ancient sorcery. The cinders whispered in toothless, burning voices, and she wished she had brought a veil. Sparks lifted lazily into the fog, the Wark still resonating from Tideturn like a giant bell shivering long after its vibration voice has dropped below the audible.

  The taste of sorcery here was metallic, and there was so much interference it was almost a relief to feel Clare’s arm solid and real under her hand. Mikal could not anchor her – he would be far more occupied if any of the jackal flashboys took it into their heads to make trouble for the trespassers.

  What a time to wish for more Shields. The thought was there and gone in a flash; she had other matters to attend to.

  The cinderfall changed direction, flakes of ash spinning though there was no wind. Londinium’s fog kept creeping, sliding its fingers into the cracks, and was forced back by the intelligence in the Wark’s red glow.

  A sharp right, staying well away from the dark, toothless-gaping alleys; she set their course and decided to approach the Blackwerks from the north. It made sense, and the less time she spent in the Wark with a mentath at her sleeve, the better.

  He was already looking decidedly green. She supposed she should have mentioned that the sorcery within the Wark’s confines, not only illogical but alien, might discommode him.

  Scuttling things moved in the shadows, clinking sharp edges dragged over cobbles and through filth. Whispers, gleams of eyes from the towering roofs. A small foundry opened on their right; glowing metal poured from one giant cauldron to another, sparks flying as the workers inside became cutpaper shadows. Tiny, paired gleams peering through grates and clustering in the alleys told her the rats were out in force, their sleek sides heaving and their naked tails leaving opalescent slug-sheens behind.

  She had to prod Clare. He was slowing down, craning his head to take everything in. He would be straining to make sense of the cinderfall’s eddies and flows, the light not behaving as it should, the little slithering scrapes in the darkness.

  “Merely observe,” she whispered, as if he was a Shield trainee and she was responsible for teaching him to Glove. “Do not analyse.”

  He gave her a wide-eyed look that qualified as shocked.

  It would likely not fool the Black Lady. They turned with Park Street’s sharp bend, and it was not her imagination – the gaslamps were dimming. The cinderfall was a curtain, sweeping closer. The tiny paired gleams slid free of the alleymouths, drawing closer as the cinders smoothed over their wet-gleaming flanks.

  Oh, for Heaven’s sake. She breathed a most impolite term, glanced at Mikal, and snapped her free hand out, fingers twisting as a half-measure of chant pulled its way free of her lips, sliding bloody and whole into the thick darkness.

  Clear silver light flamed. A sorcerous circle smoked into being around them, familiar charter symbols flashing and twisting through the cinderfall, and the rats scattered. They were Altered too, clockworks spinning in their hindquarters, grease splashing from the gears and their little diamond claws skritching against the cobbles.

  “Enough!” she snapped, and the gaslamps flared back into guttering light. Londinium’s fog writhed, its tendrils thickening. “I am not to be trifled with, Mehitabel!”

  All motion ceased for a moment, the cinders arrested in their slow whirling motion and sparkling in mid-air. The light faded, a witchball popping into being and hovering behind Emma, dimming slightly as her attention turned from it. And as she expected, when the world hitched forward and time began again, there was a flashboy just at the edge of her sphere of normalcy, his top hat cocked and his moth-eaten purple velvet jacket carefully brushed. His right hand was a marvel of Alteration, black metal that looked almost exactly like the appendage he had been born with, and the metallic patterns etched on his ageless-young face were familiar.

  He was high in Mehitabel’s favour, and would probably continue to be so for a long while yet. At least while his reflexes were good and his cruelty pleased her.

  “Ladyname.” He grinned, his teeth steel chips. That right hand flexed with a dry, oily sound, and Mikal stepped forward. Just one step, but it was enough. The flashboy gave him a brief glance, then addressed Emma again. “Ye use Ladyname. Billybong o’ye, laddle.”

  “She knows my name as well,” Emma replied crisply. “I am on business, Dodgerboy. Bound for the Blackwerks, and I do not appreciate this nonsense.”

  “Guide ye, and for no fiddle e’en.” The flashboy turned, the nails pounded into his boot heels striking a single crimson spark from a garbage-slick cobble. “Ladyname be specting.”

  She permitted herself a single, unamused chuckle. “Well, I would hardly dare call upon her otherwise. Lead on, Dodgerboy, and mind yourself. I suspect the Lady would hate to lose you.”

  “Oh, aye. ’M flash-quick. Pop yer farthings a’ three paces, leave cammie rag for the wisps.” He waved his un-Altered hand, a flash of grimy pale skin.

  Emma squeezed Clare’s arm again. The witchball brightened. “He means he could pick your pockets clean at three paces and leave your handkerchief for lesser thieves. It is most likely no boast, so Mikal will cut off his fingers – all of them – should he approach us. Let us be along, I have other business to transact tonight.”

  The flashboy glanced once at Clare. “Deefer, that ’un?”

  She tapped her foot, the gesture losing something under her skirts but still, she hoped, expressing her displeasure. “He is not deaf, or dumb, not that it is your business. Do we move along, or do I set your hair on fire and visit your mistress while in a bad mood?”

  He gave no reply, just showed his steel-struck teeth again. For a moment Emma imagined those teeth meeting in flesh, blood squirting free and griming the bright metal, and quelled a shudder.

  She had seen Mehitabel’s flashboys feeding, once.

  But Dodgerboy set off, and once Mikal nodded, his jaw set in a grim line, she propelled Clare along with the simple expedient of pulling on his arm, and they walked further into the Wark, followed by a bobbing silver globe of witchlight.

  Two steps later, she noticed Mikal had disappeared.

  Good.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Not You, Too

  The Blackwerks rose, spines of black metal corkscrewed with heat and stress. Clare’s skull felt tight, confining. There was simply too much illogic here. The cinders, for one thing – there was no way the fires of the Wark could produce this much matter. Yet it had to come from somewhere. And the rats – something so small should not be Altered. Their eyes glowed viciously, and they scuttled with quick, oily movements.

  The young Altered boy walked ahead of them, whistling, hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Every once in a while he performed a curious little hop-skip, but to no rhythm Clare could discern. Miss Bannon’s tension communicated itself through her grip on his arm. If this was a promenade, it was one through a Hellish underworld where every angle was subtly skewed.

  As soon as the thought arrived, the squeezing of his skull ceased. He began
seeking to catalogue the precise measurement in degrees of every angle, calculating the inconsistencies and attempting to apply a theory to them. It was difficult mental work, and he was faintly aware of sweat springing up on his brow, but the relief of having a task was immense.

  A pair of huge spiny gates, their tops tortured by unimaginable heat, stood ajar. Ash piled high on either side, drifting against a gap-toothed brick wall. A painted tin sign proclaimed Blackwerks, and the Altered boy minced through the gates, turning and giving a deep bow. “Enter, w’ships, Ladyname be bless’d. Step right inna the Werks.” Two stamps of his left foot, his boot heel ringing against cracked cobbles, and he danced back into an orange glow.

  The cavern of the Werks rose, its entire front open and exhaling a burning draught. Machinery twisted inside, cauldrons tipping and pouring substances he did not care to think too deeply on. Wheels ticked, their toothed edges meshing with others, huge soot-blackened chains shivering, clashing, or stretched taut. The cinderfall intensified here, Clare was glad of his hat. Somehow the falling matter avoided Miss Bannon, and the witchlight behind them made everything in the circle of its glow keep to its proper proportions. He wondered what effort it cost Miss Bannon to keep that sphere of normalcy steady, and decided not to ask.

  A slim figure resolved out of the heatglare, gliding forward.

  What is this?

  It was a woman. Or perhaps it had been once. Long swaying black bombazine skirts, stiff with ash, smooth black metal skin, an explosion of ash-grey horsehair held back with jet-dangling pins. Its arms were marvels of Alteration, metal bones and hands of fine delicate clockwork opening and closing as it – she rolled forward. The face was also blank metal and clockwork, the nose merely sinus caverns; the eyes were hen’s-egg rubies lit from within by feral intelligence.

  Miss Bannon squeezed his arm again, warningly. Clare stared.

  The thing’s mouth – or the aperture serving it as a mouth – moved. “Prima.” The voice held a rush and crackle of flame, and the skirts shuddered as whatever contraption was underneath them encountered an irregularity in the flooring.

  That dress was fashionable a decade ago. He caught sight of a reading-glass dangling from a thin metal chain, hiding in the skirts. Does this thing read? How long ago was it human? Does it have any flesh left?

  “Mehitabel.” Miss Bannon nodded, once. “I have come for what I left.”

  A rasp-clanking screech rose from the thing’s chest. It took Clare a moment to recognise that rusted, painful sound for what it was.

  Laughter.

  The hideous noise cut off sharply, and the boy who had led them here stepped back nervously, like an unAltered horse scenting the metal and blood of the pens. The thing called Mehitabel turned its head, servomotors in the neck ratcheting with dry terrible grace. The wretched imitation of a human movement made Clare’s dinner writhe.

  Perhaps my digestion is not as sound as it could be, he noted, and found himself clutching at Miss Bannon’s hand on his arm. Patting slightly, as if she were startled and he meant to soothe. His throat was tight.

  Emotion. Cease this.

  But his feelings did not listen.

  “Oh, Mehitabel.” Miss Bannon sounded, of all things, saddened. “Not you too.”

  “You do not know your enemies, sorceressss.” Rust showered from the thing’s elbow joints as it lifted its arms. Its mouth widened, a spark of glowing-coal red dilating far back in its throat. Miss Bannon stepped forward, disengaging herself from Clare with a practised twist of her hand, and the witchlight intensified behind them, casting a frail screen of clear silver light against the venomous crimson of the Werks. Machinery shuddered and crashed as Mehitabel’s body jerked, and Miss Bannon yelled an anatomical term Clare had never thought a lady would be conversant with.

  The crashing ceased. Mehitabel’s metal body froze, in stasis.

  “I may not know my enemies,” Miss Bannon said softly, her hands held out in a curious contorted gesture, fingers interlaced. “But I am Prime, little wyrm, and you are only here on sufferance.”

  The metal thing shuddered. There was a flicker of motion, and Clare’s blurted warning was lost in a draught of scalding air. Mikal was suddenly there, smacking aside Dodgerboy’s hand with contemptuous ease, the slender gleam of a knife flying in a high arc to vanish into the ash outside. The Shield made another swift motion, almost as an afterthought, and the Altered boy flew backwards, vanishing into a haze of red light and confused, whirling cinders.

  “Sufferance?” A low, thick burping chuckle rode the rush of hot stinking air out of the Werks. The voice was terrible, a dry-scaled monstrous thing approximating human words over the groaning of metal and crackling of flame, the sibilants laden with toxic dust. “Oh, I think not, monkeychild. You are in my home now.”

  The witchlight blazed, sharp silver brilliance. “Mikal.” Miss Bannon’s voice cut through the thing’s laughter. “Take him. And run.”

  The descant scorched her throat, her focus splitting as the great twisting metal thing fought her hold. Her left hand cramped, burning as she held the rope of intent, the force clamped over Mehitabel’s simulacrum fraying at the edges. She had to choose – the trueform or the metal echo, layers of the physical and ætheric vibrating as sorcery spread in rayed patterns, the Wark quivering as she forced its sorcery to her will.

  I will pay for this later. A Greater Word rose within the fabric of the chant, weaving itself between the syllables. It settled on the metal form, which buckled and curled like paper in a fire.

  A massive wrecked scream rose from Mehitabel’s unseen trueform. That must sting.

  But it freed Emma to bring her focus back to a single object, white-hot sorcerous force running through her veins. The Blackwerks seethed with running feet, shouts. Mehitabel’s flashboys and the antlike workers who crawled through the heat-shimmering cavern began to appear, flickering unsteadily through the cinderfall.

  Emma’s hands shot out, sorcery crackling between them. She squeezed, smoke rising from her rings and the scorched material of her gloves, and Mehitabel shrieked again. The flashboys froze, workers dropping where they stood. The chant died away now that Emma had her grip.

  “I can crush flesh just as easily,” she called, the words slicing through snap-crackling flame and shuddering metallic clanking. The simulacrum’s face continued melting, runnels of liquid iron sliding down, its unfashionable dress a torch. “Even your flesh. Where is it, Me-hi-ta-beh-ru-la gu’rush Me-hi-lwa?” The foreign syllables punctured tortured air; Emma’s throat scorched and her eyes watering as she accented each in its proper place.

  Hours of study and careful tortuous work had suddenly returned its investment. Mehitabel had obviously never guessed that Emma might uncover her truename, much less use it.

  A wyrm would never forget, let alone forgive such a thing.

  The Blackwerks… stopped.

  Sparks and cinders hung in mid-air. The burning simulacrum was a painting, flames caught in mid-twist, its face terribly ruined.

  A huge, narrow head, triple-crowned and triple-tongued, rose from a crucible of molten metal, snaking forward on a flexible, black-scaled neck. The eyes were jewels of flame, matching the now-cracked rubies of the simulacrum, and leathery wings spread through the cinderfall, their bladed edges cutting through individual flecks and sparks held in stasis.

  The tongues flickered, smoke wreathing the wyrm’s long body in curiously lethargic veils. Mehitabel held the Werks out of Time’s slipstream, her wings ruffling as they combed slumbering air. The heat was immense, awesome, the cup of metal holding the lower half of her body bubbling with thick tearing sounds. She turned her head sideways, one ruby eye glinting, but Emma leaned back, fingers burning, the thin fine leash of her will cutting across the dragon’s snout.

  They are the children of Time, her teacher had intoned long ago. They are of the Powers, and their elders sleep. We should be glad of that slumber, for if those wyrms awakened they would shake this isle – a
nd plenty more – from their backs, and the Age of Flame would return.

  Mehitabel’s head jerked back and she glared, one clawed forelimb sinking into the edge of the crucible and digging in with another tortured sound. The tongues flickered. “You are dead.”

  “Not yet, wyrm.” Emma set her boots more firmly. “Where is it?”

  “It isss not here.” Heat lapped Mehitabel’s sides, her flexible ribs heaving bellows-like.

  “Where is it?” Emma’s hands clenched, pressure enfolding the wyrm. She bore down. The sensation was different from the crunch-crushing of metal – slippery and armoured, giving resiliently and struggling to escape. The dragon could make another simulacrum, but its trueform was also vulnerable – especially to an angry sorceress who knew its name.

  That was also what it meant to be Prime – to pronounce a name of such power without your tongue scorching and your eyes melting in hot runnels down your cheeks. Some were of the opinion that only a Prime’s overweening pride shielded him from such agony. Others said it was the size of the ætheric charge Primes were able to carry. None had solved the riddle, and Emma’s own research was inconclusive at best.

  Had Mikal taken the mentath away? She hoped so. This much concentrated sorcery was dangerous, and what she was about to do with it doubly so. And they had a chance to escape Mehitabel’s flashboys and the other dangers of the Wark now, while she held the wyrm captive.

  The dragon hissed, lowering its head. Its teeth were slashes of obsidian, each one with a thin line of crimson at its glassy heart. “One came and relieved me of the burden. Shake in terror, little monkey—”

  Emma’s fists jerked. Mehitabel howled, a gush of rancid oily-hot breath pushing Emma’s hair back, wringing scalding tears free to paint her cheeks, snapping her skirts. When the wyrm was done making noise, Emma released the pressure. But only slightly, her concentration narrowing to a single white-hot point.