A Web of Air

by Philip Reeve

  She wished she still had hold of Godshawk’s memories. That way, she might have been able to understand what the Scriven super-brain and sometime king of London had been doing in Mayda fifty years ago, posing for his portrait with a Maydan shipwright. As it was, she could only make a guess, based on the tale she’d heard at supper the other night; the stranger from the north who had befriended Daniel Thursday. What did you give him for the ship he built you, Grandfather? Was it you who taught him those Navier-Stokes equations? Helped him become Mayda’s finest shipwright?

  Her eyes switched their focus, some instinct in her sensing movement long before her conscious brain. When Godshawk posed for that portrait all those years ago he had chosen to wear a dark, plum-coloured tunic. That dark portion of the picture with the glass over it made a passable mirror, and reflected in it, just above his breast pocket, she saw her own long face with its echoes of his, and the candlelight reflecting in her eyes and also in the eyes of someone else who was creeping into the room behind her.

  She spun round, ready to run, but there was nowhere to run to. The man, who must have entered the house silently while she was searching it, barred the doorway. She thought at first that he was Vishniak, then that he must be one of Flynn’s men who had followed her up here, but he was a stranger: a big man wearing a sleeveless leather tunic. A tattooed octopus on his bicep seemed to flex its tentacles as he strode quickly towards her and put an arm around her neck. There was a knife in his other hand, which he lifted up for her to see. Light from her dropped torch rolled down its blade like liquid. “Come,” he said, and she went numbly without trying to argue, tripping over her own feet in her hurry to keep up while he walked her out of the house with his thick arm still locked round her throat.

  There was another man on the veranda. Another sleeveless tunic, another octopus tattoo. Who were they? They didn’t speak, but marched back down the stairs with Fever between them. At the bottom, in the shadow of the trees, a third man waited, pacing to and fro with a lantern. When they drew near she saw with immense relief that he was Jago Belkin, and realized that these other two must be his servants. If she had had any gods she would have thanked them. She could not guess what had brought Fat Jago there, but she was glad to see his round, amiable face.

  “Thursday’s cleared out,” said one of the men. “There was just the girl.”

  Fat Jago looked at Fever. She thought he would tell the man to let her go but all he said was, “You know where he is?”

  Fever shook her head. The man holding her said, “Don’t reckon she does, Fat Jago. She was calling his name like she was looking for him.”

  Fat Jago sighed. He handed the lantern to one of the men. Rain had beaded on the red diamond of make-up on the top of his head. “You’re a difficult young woman, Miss Crumb,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you not to come here again? Didn’t I tell you it was dangerous? Yet you were here this afternoon and now you’re back again—”

  “Arlo’s gone!” said Fever, trying to twist herself free of the man’s arm. “Vishniak’s here! He killed Midas Flynn! You’ve got to—”

  Fat Jago slapped her suddenly across the face, so hard that her head jerked sideways and she bit her tongue. She was so shocked that for a moment she couldn’t breathe. She tasted blood, thought, He’s not here to help at all. He’s here for something else. She could guess what it was. Like Midas Flynn, the fat man was after Arlo’s aëroplane…

  “So Flynn’s dead?” he said. “Well, Flynn was a loser. I didn’t care if Flynn was poking about. You’re different. Thursday talked to you. Don’t deny it. I’ve had my own people watching this place. Who are you working for? The Londoner, is it? Dr Teal? He set you to win Thursday’s trust, did he?”

  “I’m not working for anyone,” said Fever. Her voice sounded tiny and trembly. She was very afraid that Fat Jago would hit her again. She said, “Please listen, there is a man called Vishniak. Midas Flynn said that he’s killing everyone who tries to fly, and then he killed Flynn too and I came here to warn Arlo!”

  “Or to kill him yourself and steal his secrets,” said the fat man. “I’ve heard tales about this Vishniak. You know what I think? I don’t believe there’s any such person. Vishniak doesn’t exist. He’s nothing but a bogey man; a scare story. But you’re real enough, and so’s your boss, that Engineer.”

  “Dr Teal’s only here to study the funiculars,” said Fever, wishing there was something she could say that would turn him back into the friendly, jovial Jago she had known before. “And I don’t work for him anyway; I work at Master Persimmon’s theatre.”

  “But the theatre’s gone, and you’re still here, and so is Dr Teal.” Fat Jago grinned. “So London wants the Thursday machine as well. And I’d thought they were too busy sticking wheels on their city! Where is Thursday?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He considered her. “No, I don’t believe you. But I’ll find him.” His eyes went up and down her. “It’s a pity. Thirza had taken a fancy to you; she was looking forward to you coming for lunch tomorrow. Now I’ll have to tell her you can’t make it after all.”

  The man holding Fever moved his knife. It splashed reflections of the lantern into her eyes. “What are we going to do with her, Fat Jago?” he asked.

  Fat Jago held up a hand, shook his head. His eyes lingered thoughtfully on Fever for a moment. “Nothing crude,” he decided. “Something theatrical. Something to show her London masters what happens to people who pick a fight with Fat Jago Belkin.”

  16

  MOBILE HOME

  o they took her a little way back up the steps and one man tied her tightly across one of the rails while his comrade hurried on up to the house. The rain was heavy now. Jago Belkin held an umbrella over his bald head while he watched his men tug the knots tight on Fever’s wrists and ankles and gag her with a grimy handkerchief. Fever thought about his adorable wife, and wondered if she knew that he got up to this sort of thing. Probably not, she decided. Probably he kept this life quite separate from the other one, the one where he enjoyed the theatre and invited actors out to dinner.

  “Well, Miss Crumb,” he said, when she was securely bound. “You’ll appreciate that I can’t hang around here to watch the show. I’m a busy man and you’ve already taken up too much of my time as it is. But don’t worry; I’ll leave Murtinho and Splint here to keep an eye on you.”

  He gave her a friendly little wave and went away. Soon afterwards, Fever felt the rails start to vibrate, and she knew that the man who had gone up the steps had operated the house’s controls and that it was beginning its descent.

  She started to struggle then, although reason told her that it was useless. The cords on her wrists and ankles were tied so tight that they were cutting into her flesh. She gave a few sobbing screams, but they were muffled by the gag. The man who had set the house moving came running back down the steps to join his friend and they sat down side by side and took swigs from a flask which they passed between them while they watched her. They kept chuckling, and after a while she realized that they were enjoying her struggles, so she stopped and lay still. If she turned her head she could see the greasy cable moving down in the shadowy gully between the rails. If she turned it the other way she could see the house coming down at her.

  “She’s fainted, Splint,” said one of the men.

  “No, she’s just resting,” said the other. “She’ll wriggle hard enough when that house goes over her.”

  They were mocking her. They had to shout to make themselves heard, because by that time the counterweight was trundling past, wheels grating and squealing against its own set of rails as the weight of the descending house dragged it up the cliff. Fever did a quick calculation and worked out that she had five minutes left before the wheels of the house rolled over her. Except they wouldn’t roll over her; they would roll through her, shearing her slowly in half.

  When she realized that, she started to struggle again, and this time she couldn’t stop herself.
r />   “There you go, Murtinho. What did I tell you?”

  There was a scuffling sound and a shrill, small voice close by her ear said, “Snacksie?”

  Twisting her head round, she got a faceful of an angel’s fishy breath. It was perching on the rail beside her, peering at her with its head on one side.

  “Snacksies?” said the angel again, ever hopeful.

  “Help me,” said Fever, through the gag. “Fetch help!”

  “Snacksies!” said the angel once more. Then one of the men on the steps threw a stone and a curse at it and it spread its wings and heaved itself clumsily into the air. “Snacksies!” Fever heard it call, and a white splash of excrement broke on the rocks a few yards away. She listened to the wingbeats till they faded, wondering if it had understood her, if it was flying to find help. Maybe the patrons of some mid-levels taverna were listening to its garbled story even now and going, “What’s that, boy? Someone’s in trouble? Up on the cliff?”

  The rails were shuddering steadily now, and she could hear the mumble of metal on metal, the squeak of individual bearings in the house’s undercarriage as it came closer. I’m going to die, she thought, but she couldn’t seem to make it mean anything, she couldn’t really believe that in a few minutes more she would be nothing. That was why people believed in gods and afterlives, she supposed, because it was so hard to imagine yourself just gone. But she was an Engineer; she wasn’t going to seek comfort in fairy tales and make-believe, not even now. This here and now was all there was, so she had to use every last instant of it. She braced herself and strained against the cords and against the pain of the cords and screamed as loudly as she could behind the gag.

  “She’s screaming again,” said one of the men on the steps.

  “I like it when they do that. It’s satisfying. Gives you the feeling of a job well done.”

  Twisting her head around, Fever looked down the gleaming rails towards Casas Elevado, hoping to see some passer-by who might have heard her muffled shout. There was nobody. She looked upwards instead, but the other funiculars were perched peacefully at the tops of their tracks, and if any of the householders wondered why the Thursday house was trundling downhill in the middle of the night they did not bother coming out to investigate.

  She was just readying herself to shout again when she saw a movement high above her, up where Arlo Thursday’s garden petered out into scrub-oak and scree and the steep blackness of the crags. Metal was glinting as something pushed through the bushes there. A man, she thought at first, but then she wasn’t sure.

  It emerged from the scrub and came crabwise down the steep slope past the descending house, moving quickly, with a weird hopping motion. Crook-legged. Headless. Shiny as a gun.

  Her eyes must have widened in surprise. “What’s she looking at?” asked the man named Murtinho.

  The other turned to see. He jumped up, pulling out his knife. “Mãe Abaixo!” Fever heard him mutter, as the thing came hopping into the pool of light cast by the lantern.

  And she still couldn’t tell what it was.

  It was man-high and crab-shape and it had two legs, but the legs bent the wrong way, jagging up to sharp elbows above its moon-shiny shell, then down to the flat, clawed feet which gripped the edge of the stairway. It looked as if someone had pulled six legs off a vast spider and given it armour in exchange. It had no face, but as it swung its gleaming body towards her she saw a battery of small lamps at the front glint like eyes and she felt sure that it had seen her.

  “Mãe Abaixo!” said the man with the knife again. His voice rose suddenly to a scream. “Aranha!”

  There was a sudden flickering of winter light beneath the thing’s body and a rapid stuttering noise, like someone ripping a page out of a spiral-bound notebook. The knife came out of the man’s hand. He somersaulted backwards and went tumbling downhill, a smell of lavender bursting over Fever as he slid past her through the shrubs. The lantern went out with a chink of smashed glass. “Splint?” said the second man. He started to stand up too and then stopped. Caught in a second fluttering of light and sound, he folded like a pocket knife and toppled into the gully between the rails.

  The thing lost interest in him. It turned towards the house, which was about twenty feet away. The light flared under its body again, but this time Fever couldn’t hear the ripping sound because it was drowned out by an immense rattling, as if hailstones were hammering against the metal wall of the tank under the veranda. The metal seemed to jolt and shimmer. It made a deep, unhappy, gonging noise, and suddenly the whole front of the tank gave way and a whiteness burst from it that Fever did not quite realize was water until it crashed coldly over her and rushed around and past her, and went churning and gurgling away down the gully between the rails.

  She gasped and spluttered, drenched, half drowned. Above her the funicular was starting to slow. The tank is empty, she thought. It’s no heavier than the counterweight now. The drag of the counterweight will stop it… And sure enough the house was shuddering, slipping, grumbling to a stop, so near to her that the light spilling down through the veranda planking from the kitchen windows striped her face.

  She looked at the steps again. The thing which had stood there was gone. It was the Aranha, she thought, and knew she must have imagined it, because the Aranha was only a demon in the story Belkin’s wife had told at supper. But something had stopped the house coming down on her, and in the silence, as the last of the water trickled and dripped out of the ruined tank, she thought she could hear a faint sound fading among the moonlit shrubs.

  Tick, tick, tick, tick.

  There seemed to be a pause then; a break in the night’s momentum. Maybe she passed out for a few seconds. She had a dream or a memory, very clear, of Fern and Ruan giggling at some silly joke on the taverna terrace the night before last. Only the night before last! Then she woke, regretting it, wishing she could stay unconscious. The rain had stopped. Through gaps in the scudding clouds she could see stars; Orion’s belt, and one of the Minor Moons, which some people claimed were really Ancient satellites. Her wrists hurt. Someone was plucking at the wet cords which bound them.

  “Keep still,” she heard a voice say.

  A blade shone in the light from the house windows. She wondered if this was another of Fat Jago’s servants, but then he leaned over her, sawing at the cords, and she saw the freckles on his upside-down face and his long hair hanging down.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” he said.

  “Arlo! I wanted to warn you! Lothar Vishniak is here, in Mayda! He killed Midas Flynn! I thought he was coming for you too…”

  Arlo grinned, dragging her away from the rails, and although Fever generally didn’t like having anyone touch her it felt pleasant to have his arms about her; like being a child again, lifted up after a tumble by some grown-up who was going to make everything better.

  “Do you think I didn’t know that Vishniak’s in town? I knew as soon as you brought me that glider. It’s one of the ones I sent to Saraband. Vishniak must have brought it with him from Thelona.”

  “Then it was Vishniak who was up on the cliffs that night? Throwing the glider so I’d see it? Why?”

  Arlo shrugged. Fever realized that she was pressed against him, enjoying the sea-grey smell of his damp clothes. She moved away and started smoothing her hair, trying to reclaim some of her dignity. “I thought Fat Jago would help me,” she said shakily, trying to excuse the stupid predicament in which he had found her.

  “Fat Jago?” Arlo laughed, which made her feel worse. “That’s a good one! Don’t you know who he is?”

  “No. Who?”

  “He’s part of the Oktopous Cartel. They’re a society of businessmen based in Matapan on the Middle Sea, and he looks after their interests here in Mayda. You can guess what sort of businesses they’re in. Slaving. Mercenaries. Smuggling. Making profit out of other people’s misery. I don’t know how Fat Jago found out about my machine but he wrote a few months back asking me to work for t
hem. I refused, but it looks as if he didn’t take my ‘no’ for an answer…”

  Every time he said “Fat Jago” Fever shivered, remembering the way the rails had trembled under her as the house came downhill. She said, “Then they’ll come back, won’t they? What will you do?”

  “I’m moving out,” said Arlo, watching her. “I know a place where I can finish the machine. It’s already loaded aboard my boat. I was about to set sail when Weasel came and told me what was happening here. I couldn’t just leave you to be squashed, could I?”

  “The Aranha…”

  “I sent it. It works for me. An old servant of my grandfather’s.” He stood up, and reached down to help Fever to her feet. “Come on.”

  “Come on where? Where are we going?”

  “You’ll have to come with me. When Fat Jago Belkin finds out you’re still alive he’ll want to kill you all over again. The Oktopous Cartel doesn’t forgive or forget.”

  “I must find Dr Teal…” said Fever.

  “You can’t, Fever.” Arlo seized her by her thin wrists as she started to turn away. He held her, staring into her face. “Be rational! Don’t you understand? You can’t go back into the city. You must vanish, or you’ll endanger us both.”

  “But the children, and my friends…”

  “We’ll get word to them when they return, I promise. But you can’t stay in Mayda. Come with me. You can help me. Isn’t that what you wanted? Fever, I’ll teach you to fly…”

  17

  THE RAGGED ISLES

  oat, she thought dreamily, as the bed she lay on lifted her up and down, up and gently down. I’m on a boat.

  She opened her eyes. She was in a cabin even smaller than her quarters on the Lyceum, and the reflections of sunlight came through a small porthole and patterned the low roof with ripply ribbons of light. The bed went up and down, up and gently down.

  After Arlo freed her from the rails he had not led her down the garden to Casas Elevado as she’d expected, but up, towards the screes and crags at the top of the crater wall. It seemed the Thursday house had a back exit. A narrow fissure breached the crags, screened by trees, all but invisible. The path which wound through it opened on to empty cliff side on the crater’s steep south-western face. There the Aranha had been waiting for them, motionless and moon-silvery, and Fever tried to tell herself it was a dream while Arlo helped her down the cliff paths and the Aranha walked behind, hopping along on its big, clawed feet, its shell all spiny like a deep-sea urchin, the joints of its legs whizzing and creaking and squeaking, the gravel of the path scrunching as it set its feet down, the sea booming in the rocky coves below. Not a demon, she thought. A machine…