by Tom Toner
“Pauncefoot,” he said, taking a full Firmamental Ducat from his purse and handing it over.
The Melius took the Ducat without looking at it, the coin disappearing into his massive clenched palm. “Shall we?”
They walked together from the platform, the remaining passengers stopping to gasp and stare. The Melius, more than nine feet tall, paid them no heed, his elephantine head instead upturned again to study the layers of carved tenements. The sun had broken through the mists almost entirely now, circling the hazed curve of Pruth-Zalnir’s mottled parent planet—a kingless partition world now owned by the Pifoon in all but name—with a dimly beautiful rainbow.
“You are living here, for the moment?” Pauncefoot asked, sweeping his tasselled turquoise cape over one shoulder.
Ghaldezuel hesitated. The Melius, delivering commands from the Firmament, would surely know everything pertinent. “I was posted here to relieve the knight Fiernel, as I’m sure you know.”
Pauncefoot ignored some scrawny Ringum children who had begun running behind, trying to jump and catch his colossal shadow. “Ah, yes, recently knighted. My congratulations.”
Ghaldezuel dipped his head in thanks, glancing ahead along the narrow street. More children sat or lay indolently in doorways, watching with large blue and green eyes the passing of the Melius. Over their heads, damp coloured cloth hung swaying, dripping to darken the cobbles and rusted iron sheeting that made up the thoroughfare. From a side alley came a lunatic laugh. Pauncefoot glanced at the source of the sound as they passed: a mad and naked Lacaille woman shackled to a rusted pole, the sweetish stink of her excrement wafting out at them.
As if in response to the smell, the Melius took a pipe from a pocket beneath his cloak, sliding its silver lid and thumbing the striker. It caught, and he blew a breath of bluish smoke like fog into the street. Ghaldezuel waved it carefully from his face. The children running behind burst into fits of giggles, jumping and sprinting through the blue cloud.
“We are nearby?” Pauncefoot asked, his jagged teeth clamped around the pipe stem.
“Just up here. ” Ghaldezuel pointed to another street leading off at a right anglefurther ahead. Here the cobbles were less crumbled and worn, the mortar between them still bright. Some towers and cupolas rose from the buildings, their cracks plastered over in places, and balconies with wrought-iron railings leaned into the dark streets. The Firmamental Melius nodded, registering his appreciation of the finer surroundings and cleaner smells as Ghaldezuel directed him to the raised doorway.
“You have Bult in your employ.”It was not a question.
Ghaldezuel glanced through the bolted window at the distorted view of the street beyond, the sunlight slanting in thick bars across the balconies. The Bult were devils here on Pruth-Zalnir, their names never to be mentioned for fear that they might come calling. “Some.”
Pauncefoot was sitting heavily on the bed, his legs drawn up in a pall of pipe smoke. He gestured impatiently. “Contactable at short notice?”
“Well.” Ghaldezuel pulled his gaze from the street, where catcalling children still waited for a glimpse of the monster on the second floor. “They’re Bult, not Pifoon. They come when it pleases them.”
“But they’d come for you.”
Ghaldezuel toyed with his bare fingers. “It’s dangerous for them this close to the Firmament edge, now the Vulgar have them in their sights and are harrying them out into the Whoop. The rewards must be greater.”
The Melius rummaged through an inner pocket and slapped a thick, sealed envelope on the table. Ghaldezuel knew from the look of it that there would be Lacaille exchange cheques and foreign currency inside. Knights received all orders like this. He reached and took it but did not break the embossed plastic seal.
“This peace with the Vulgar cannot continue,” Pauncefoot said, indicating the envelope in Ghaldezuel’s hand. “We know you want this, too. You and your Bult will see to it for us.”
Ghaldezuel placed the envelope back on the table thoughtfully, looking into his visitor’s eyes. They were great bloodshot balls, their tropical colour muted through the film of smoke.
“The Light-Trap,” he said. “Andolp’s Light-Trap. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Pauncefoot appeared genuinely surprised, as if word of the miraculous machine hadn’t spread beyond Vulgar borders.
Ghaldezuel shook his head. “I knew some fool would try, sooner or later. Those fortresses on Drolgins are impregnable. What makes you think my Bult could succeed?”
“So you have heard the rumours,” the Melius said, tamping spices into the bowl of his pipe from a tiny jewelled pot that hung among the charms. “That is good. Our agents inside Nilmuth are doing their jobs.”
“Rumours, yes. But only rumours. A way to capture and preserve one’s soul, they say.” Ghaldezuel waved away some more smoke from the relit pipe. “But it’s nothing. A trick, some toy that Andolp charges the naive to see.” He stared at the Melius, head cocked. “Surely the Firmament is not taken in by this?”
Pauncefoot reached and tapped the envelope, his nail clacking on the seal. “There are handsome rewards for the fool that tries. You have this day to think on it.”
Ghaldezuel exhaled, putting a fist to his mouth and turning back to the window. Outside, perched on one of the ledge spikes, a scrawny carrion bird peered listlessly for mice in the square. The twinkling of a distant Voidship, high in the pale blue, caught its attention as it did Ghaldezuel’s. He watched the shape travel slowly across the sky until it disappeared behind the sunbathed dome of a building set higher up the mountainside, a thin trail of brown exhaust like a skidmark the only evidence of its passage.
He turned his gaze back to the hulking Melius. “To gain entry into Nilmuth I would need a particular type of antique Voidship. But I suppose you know this already.”
Pauncefoot smiled, exposing the rows of stained cleaver-teeth that had been clenched around his pipe. “A Jurlumticular lance-hull.”
Ghaldezuel stared at the teeth. “The very same. It does not trouble you that the Prism who manufactured these are extinct?”
The giant took another drag of the spice, his eyes closing. “Not in the slightest.”
“And my new employer?”
“Just another reprisal mission, as per usual. Lacaille naval command takes a seventy percent share in all bounty wrested from the enemy.”
Ghaldezuel dropped his shoulders wearily, not bothering to swipe at the smoke any more. “And the Amaranthine? They oversee this?”
Pauncefoot grinned and tapped the pipe stem against his great teeth, clattering it back and forth like a stick against railings, but did not speak.
Ghaldezuel watched from the window as the Melius made his way back to the station through the narrow streets. Gawkers and beggars followed the massive creature at a respectful distance, tailing out like the wake of a ship behind Pauncefoot’s sweeping turquoise robes, the followers themselves attracting an even stranger ecosystem of pets and smaller animals, come to nibble and skitter among the many feet pattering along the street. The Atholcualan Star would not depart for another hour, Pauncefoot having stated his intention of taking advantage of the train’s famous dining car rather than eating in the city. Ghaldezuel thought that just as well, even though Melius were reputed never to sicken. Of more concern to the stationmaster would be the creature’s prodigious appetite; the giants devoured ten or more courses in one sitting, and they might run out of food before they reached Zuo.
Ghaldezuel toyed with the envelope as he stared through the warped glass, the lingering sweet smoke still hanging in the room. The Firmamental Melius, he understood, did not consider themselves Prism at all, but rather some subspecies of Amaranthine favoured by the Firmament above all others. Ghaldezuel knew they were the same filthy stock as all the rest, simply grown huge in body and self-importance. He hated their weakness, their susceptibility, vowing to himself that he wouldn’t end up like Pauncefoot, seduced by gilded pipes and fin
e clothes. He slid his knife through the plastic seal, turning to the table as he upended the envelope.
Three more Firmamental Ducats slipped free, ringing cleanly as they hit the wooden surface and rolled. He swept them aside, glancing once more at the window, and pulled out the wad of linen papers within, beginning at the first page.
So. A Lacaille Nomad, no less, the Pride of the Sprittno. To be collected from Port Halstrom, where they bled from their mouths. His eyes moved down the leading paragraph, widening slightly. A number, in Lacaille Truppins: more than generous—excessive, wasteful. He turned the page, absently pulling out a chair and sitting. Three Colossus battleships, the Zlanort, the Yustafan and the Grand-Tile, would be at his command once he left this place, along with the combined might of eleven vacuum legions. Ghaldezuel shuffled through the remaining documents and spread them on the table. All were earmarked with a Lacaille naval stamp and another unknown signature. He squinted at it, trying to make it out, realising the letters were scrawled in Unified, the speech of the Amaranthine.
Ink drawings—vague and crude—littered the early pages. He studied them carefully as his skull ached, beginning to grow exasperated. They showed a machine, but built as if poured or moulded—a cast of some kind. His faith in the cold pragmatism of the Immortals ebbed further as he flicked through to the end. They really did want this ridiculous object in Nilmuth—would stop at little to have it, apparently. He gave up, sliding the papers across the table and pressing his fingers to his eyes.
The room fell silent but for the warble of fanwings outside. Even the city’s thousands of bells sounded muted. He stirred, listening, finally collecting his cloak from the back of the chair and throwing it over his shoulders.
At the doorway, Ghaldezuel surveyed the bare chamber, taking in the chipped plaster walls, once painted a jolly blue and now faded almost to nothing. He returned to the table, gathering the Ducats and locking them in the strongbox, stuffing the naval documents and envelope into the pouch of his buttoned breeches. His eyes settled on the bed in the corner, where Pauncefoot had squatted. The iron frame had bowed in the middle, the single blanket rumpled into the impression of the Melius’s ample rear. Almost as an afterthought, he went to the window, propped it open a crack to let out the smoke and left by the front stair.
At the corner, he stopped beneath the shade of a ratty, denuded lemon tree to observe the market stalls through the midday crowd. Under bright awnings, Ringum ladies prepared skewers of roasting meat, flinging them to the highest bidder in a seething mass of raised white hands. One pasty, clawed fist held a linen note, three fingers raised, and was expertly tossed three skewers while the crowd looked on and yelled. The ignorance of tourists. That one would be followed home. Ghaldezuel disliked haggling at the meat auctions, understand-ing—though hardly caring—that there wasn’t enough for everyone to buy. Behind the stalls, a corpulent yellow birthing sow suckled her young, grumbling and snorting as she tried to sleep. The mottled piglets travelled barely two feet from vulva to griddle in their short, uncomplicated lives, a chastity of existence that Ghaldezuel found he could almost envy. Returning to their mother’s belly in the form of thrown slops lent yet more elegance to the process, he thought, generations birthed from—and returning to—the same stock of rations.
He walked a little distance to the stew pots, pushing through some Vulgar travellers who had stopped to count their money in a tight huddle. Ghaldezuel looked behind to watch an emaciated pickpocket worm his arm into their stuffed bags while they conferred and then slip away, hobbling back past the paper-clad ticket sellers and into a shaded street overhung with coloured cloth. Other travellers were taking deepslides, their expensive optilockets secured by chains to the linings of their waistcoats. He looked at their wide-eyed, ugly faces, sweating and baking in the sun that now blazed down into the street, thinking again of the woman he had seen in her blue dress while he waited on the platform. The thieves of Atholcualan grew fractious and aroused in such heat; she wouldn’t last long without protection.
Ghaldezuel went and bought a lidded cup of stew, waving away the chance to bargain with a hundredth of a tin Truppin, and walked back along the crowded street to the square. He checked his clock, taking the long route around to his door, and let himself in.
They were efficient creatures, fast in their work. He leaned against the busted lock in the inner doorway to watch them trying to wrench open the strongbox. Two bandy-legged crossbreeds and a Lacaille— the ringmaster—with another three keeping watch (or so the raiders thought) from the balconies. One Ringum was engaged in upturning Ghaldezuel’s chest of drawers, its thin, bluish hands rummaging through the heaps of fine clothes that spilled out. The other looked on, eating what appeared to be a baked tart, while their Lacaille companion worked at the box.
This particular band had shown an interest in him not long after his arrival in the city, taking note of Ghaldezuel’s various comings and goings during his three weeks as knight-resident. He hadn’t made it difficult for them; all knights new to Atholcualan were met by the Sigour himself and given a mounted tour of the districts, with a banquet at the fortress and a delivery of fruits from Zuo arriving on the Star. Some thieves acted only as spotters, following wealthy individuals for weeks at a time to learn their most intimate movements and then passing the information on for a fee. The robbers ransacking his room now had paid for the privilege but hadn’t thought to check with their competitors. As such, Ghaldezuel knew the names, abilities and even transient residences of all those working his chamber, as well as all those he could trust to burgle them in turn. But now he was leaving, and it was time to settle.
Taking the long way home across the rooftops, he’d snapped two of the spotters’ necks, shooting the third at a distance with a suppressed pistol. Now he strode swiftly forward, tripping the tart-eater and twisting its head on its shoulders. The Ringum fell without a word, glazed eyes staring at the ceiling, the thump of its body striking the wooden floor disguised by the clanging of the Lacaille still trying to gain entry to the safe. Ghaldezuel dumped his pistol on the table—any holes in the walls would lose him his room deposit—and grabbed the back of the leader’s hair, slamming the Lacaille’s forehead down onto the corner edge of the safe and bloodying the metal in a violent spurt, releasing the latch at last. The strongbox’s door swung open.
He turned to observe the final Ringum (a tattooed, one-eyed half-Zelio that the spies called Magwitch) rise. Its good eye flicked to the remains of its leader, now crumpled beside the open safe, and back to Ghaldezuel. It had come too far to leave with nothing, that much was clear from its hesitation; Atholcualan gangs never took in lowly Ringum who had lost their masters.
Magwitch moved forward and grasped the back of the chair nearest the bed, hurling and smashing it to pieces against the wall. Ghaldezuel watched it scrabble in the debris and lift the sharpest piece to brandish with a hiss, optimism lighting its hideous features. In turn, he reached calmly beneath the bowed bed frame, shaking his head, and pulled free a sabre longer than his arm. He unsheathed it, smiling at the dismayed look on the Ringum’s long-nosed face, and twirled the blade tiredly, pointing it arm-outstretched in the Op-Zlan starter pose. He was rusty, he supposed; the Ringum might offer some sport.
Magwitch hissed again, feeling behind for the wall. Ghaldezuel advanced, flicking the blade lazily back and forth. The Ringum snarled, noticing the partially open window. It tossed the wooden plank at Ghaldezuel and hurled itself through, ripping the latch from the frame and scattering shards of thin glass.
Ghaldezuel threw the blade onto the bed with a huff of disappointment, going to the remains of the window and gazing down into the street. Magwitch had survived the drop and was already hobbling away down the alley, one leg twisted. He thought of taking aim from the window, knowing he could drop the Ringum before it got too far, but turned instead and went to sit on the bed. He counted from his purse, pouring out ten Truppins; the thieves might have used the window as he’d hoped,
sparing the doorframe.
At his feet, the clothes—tainted now from enquiring, dirty fingers—lay stirred and creased. He shovelled them into his arms and went to his cupboard, pulling down a dark leather travel case and stuffing the clothing into it, followed by the remaining contents of the strongbox. He slid the sheathed sabre carefully into the case’s padded side, securing it with brass clasps. As he packed, his mind turned back to the Vulgar lady at the station for the briefest of moments, meeting her eye from along the station platform. He sighed again, running a hand through his hair and remembering the rings, taking them from the safe and checking that it was now completely empty before sliding them one by one onto his fingers. Crescents of blood had caked beneath the nails of his right hand. He picked mindlessly at the stains and looked about the room, realising with some resignation that he’d need to hire a cleaner after all.
An hour later he was on the road. The path to Praztatl was in places nearly vertical, a rock slope chiselled between the shards of the mountain and studded with rusting iron handrails. Where it became flatter, the surface had once been laid with crumbling brown brick, the remaining chunks now serving only to hobble and trip all those who used the passage up to the Mines of Mendellion.
Ghaldezuel swore, gripping the iron hoop before him as a clammy foot ground its sole into his knuckles. The climbers here were three abreast, a chattering network of travellers amid silent mine slaves, rock-breakers and furnace crews. Where the road became totally impassable—a sheer wall of polished stone five hundred feet above— Ghaldezuel could see a rope line. Visitors bottlenecked while they waited at the bottom, snatching drinks from flasks that they sometimes accidentally dropped to clatter and smash among the climbers below. People fell regularly, it was said, tumbling to dash upon the lower slopes and cupolas of Atholcualan beneath. So far, Ghaldezuel hadn’t witnessed any accidents, though he wished the Ringum who was treading on his hand with each step—something partly Wulm, by the look of it—a quick and ugly demise. The Ringum looked down at him dispassionately as it gripped the next handhold, its long white ears blown flat in the mountain wind.