Secrets of the Fire Sea j-4

by Stephen Hunt

  Hannah thought she understood. 'Until the first time you saw a hungry urchin in the Lugus Vaults, until you saw an act of cruelty you knew you could stop, a war you could halt, a leader elected to the senate you didn't agree with.'

  'There would be no end to it,' agreed Jethro. 'Everything fixed to your will, more and more to be rectified, growing angrier and angrier with those that defied you. Until you started acting as a real god, and then you wouldn't be able to stop, not without abandoning your absolute grip on your perfect, burning world. The first two parts of the god-formula will have to be enough for us to preserve in case the Inquisition ever needs to develop a counter-weapon. The third part must be destroyed forever.'

  Hannah nodded. It had taken both her parents from her, Alice too. The god-formula deserved to be destroyed. Unless, whispered a nagging voice from somewhere deep within her, she could use it. Use it to bring Alice back, to right all that was wrong with Jago.

  'Alice's killer,' said Hannah, 'they want to be become more than just human. They would use the god-formula to gain ultimate knowledge and ultimate power.'

  'Just human,' sighed Jethro. 'And they would be wrong. Infinitely folded in on themselves and out into the universe, the ultimate paradox given living expression. But lacking the wisdom of an infinite lifetime. Just human with ultimate knowledge. What an angel of fire that would be, and what a hell they would make of Earth if they chose to stay here.'

  'But a truly good person might be able to control it?' asked Hannah, hopefully. 'Couldn't they change things for the better?'

  Jethro smiled grimly. 'It's a temptation, isn't it? Thousands of years ago, Bel Bessant thought she was pure enough to survive it and still be human enough to end the dark reign of terror the Chimecan Empire and their bloodthirsty gods were threatening Jago with. Thank the Circle she had a man who loved her enough to kill her. I doubt that the person who killed Alice has such a love in their life. No, the third part of the weapon must be destroyed, never used. The Inquisition was always sure to appoint its officers to the archbishop's seat on Jago, Hannah, but I suspect that they never knew the full details of the secret. Only that a terrible weapon existed here and that their incomplete portion of it had to be kept hidden by their brightest and their best. Alice was such a woman. The secret would have been passed from archbishop to archbishop, limiting the temptation of taking the godhead to a bare minimum. We know Alice's killer is seeking the god-formula and so now it must be extinguished forever. Do this for the church you're about to be sworn into, Hannah, and do it for me.'

  And she would do it for her father. Her dead father. It was going to be strange to be in one of the giant iron walking machines with the open sky above her head, rather than the roof of the turbine halls, Hannah mused. The trapper Tobias Raffold and his men moved with the same easy confidence in their RAM suits that the charge-master's staff had shown in theirs. The expedition was lucky to have secured Raffold's services, thanks to the significant financial backing of Ambassador Ortin and some truly magnificent humble-pie eating on the part of Commodore Black – the old u-boat captain muttering under his breath about the fact that his precious boat would be hauling animals across the seas for Raffold for the next decade to satisfy the trapper's bargain.

  Including herself, Nandi, the commodore and Ortin urs Ortin, there would be twenty members of the expedition to find the final resting places of her mother and William of Flamewall. Most of those men were lounging around behind the safety of Hermetica City's main gates, rolling dice on the rocky ground while their RAM suits received their final checks from the city's lodge of mechomancers. Bales of supplies and crates of victuals were being winched up and belted around the hulls of their machines by a crowd of merchants.

  The iron plating of the RAM suits had been painted with a geometric patchwork of purple, white and grey mottling to blend in with the territory outside. And if their camouflage failed its purpose, the right arm of each suit would be brought to bear – mounted with a magnetic catapult and circular ammunition drums of sharpened disks. There were other subtle differences between these suits and the ones used down in the turbine halls. The domes that covered the pilot's heads contained more glass for better visibility in the mist-shrouded wilds, but the suits had less armour plating since they were not being exposed to the electric fields that dominated life in the turbine halls. And these suits were bigger and taller, the better to cover rough terrain quickly.

  Chalph urs Chalph emerged from the gatehouse and Hannah waved to attract his attention as he glanced up at the Pericurian mercenaries patrolling the battlements above.

  'I'm glad to see you managed to get here in the end,' Hannah called.

  'One last chance to try to convince you not to go,' said Chalph. 'You've got everything you wanted – entry into the church, a chance to be free. Why do you need to go on this fool expedition?'

  'You know why,' said Hannah. 'My mother's out there.'

  Chalph shook his large furred heard in irritation. 'She didn't come back. Just like your ancient phantom, William of Flamewall. Neither of them ever returned.'

  'I will,' Hannah promised. 'You'll see.'

  'I might not be around to see.'

  'What do you mean?' Hannah demanded.

  Chalph's lips cracked into a ferocious smile, flashing his ursine fangs. 'The house's boat from Pericur has just docked and I got the news straight from its first officer. They've couriered the baroness an order from the archduchess herself. Our house's trading licence for Jago has been cancelled. We're going home, Hannah Conquest! A few weeks to settle our commercial affairs and the next boat that comes here will be to take us all off.'

  So much change, so quickly. The happiness that Hannah felt for her friend was tempered by the knowledge that things would never be the same for him – or her – again.

  'Then you've got what you wanted, too.'

  'Don't look so glum,' said Chalph. 'Even the archduchess and her new conservative-packed council can't deny the House of Ush a new trading licence somewhere. Most of our people here speak your furless tongue better than we do our own. We'll end up with the trading caravans down south, doing business overland with the settlers in Concorzia. You could find yourself a parsonage down that way after your training…'

  Leave Jago? Well, it wouldn't be the same without Chalph or Alice, with herself in the seminary of the rational orders. And when all the visitors like Jethro, Nandi and the commodore had gone home, what would be left? Dour old Father Blackwater and the resentment of every member of the Guild of Valvemen she happened across? Perhaps a new start had its attractions after all. And there wasn't much of a seminary programme on Jago any more. She might well find herself assigned to a cathedral in the Kingdom of Jackals, or to one of the fledgling orders in Concorzia, whether she wanted to stay on Jago or not.

  'I still have to go out there,' said Hannah. 'I have to know!'

  Chalph didn't look as if he understood, but then ursines had large litters and only female cubs were truly prized by the mother – the father was uninvolved beyond his initial contribution. It was the house that mattered in Pericurian society, not the parents.

  'I don't want to leave this damn island without knowing whether you're even dead or alive,' said Chalph.

  'But you'll leave anyway,' said Hannah. 'You won't have any choice and soon enough you won't have much to complain about. Not the smell of the canals or the taste of dome-grown food or being called a dirty wet-snout by the Jagonese.'

  'That'll be a thing to see,' agreed Chalph. 'Real forests, with a real sky above filled with stars you can actually glimpse at night. Cities raised from Pericurian oak and streets teeming with hundreds of thousands of ursine. And you could see them too…'

  'I will, one day.'

  Just then, the man engaged to make sure she lived long enough to keep that promise stepped out of the gatehouse behind Chalph. Tobias Raffold's bulldog face was set in its habitual frown as he strode up to Ortin urs Ortin and the commodore.

  'We
can't wait for the last of the supplies,' said the trapper. 'We have to bleeding leave now.'

  'I'm sure the expedition's letters of credit are good for the required provisions, dear boy,' said Ortin urs Ortin, tipping out his monocle to clean it.

  'You just worry about my bleeding payment,' warned the trapper. 'First Senator Silvermain is trying to get my hunting concession revoked, but he needs a sitting of the senate to do it. He's putting one together as we speak.'

  'We're not just paying you for your skills, lad,' said the commodore. 'It's your connections we need. I thought you and the lord of this dark place were meant to be firm shipmates.'

  'He's heard about your expedition and the paranoid old bugger thinks that it's a foreign plot to scout out where his new cities are going to be built, a conspiracy between Jackals and Pericur to nip his plans in the bud, the rest of the world being jealous of the island's greatness'n all. I don't think he wants me to lead you outside the city.'

  'I say,' coughed the ambassador, 'you're not convinced by that lunacy, I trust?'

  'It don't matter to me, matey. It's lunacy to go as deep into the island's interior as you're set on, and frankly, I don't give a tinker's cuss if you're going out there to toss bombs down into his empty city caverns or you're looking to find the lost tomb of some bleeding heathen Pericurian deity. You're paying me enough to be able to get off Jago and never worry about coming back again. I was in Quatershift before the revolution, working in the forests for their king, and that country had the same bad stink in the air as this, right before the nobles started getting tossed into the mincer.'

  'Old Blacky can see that you're nobody's fool, Tobias Raffold. You can smell the way the wind's turning out here. Once this little jaunt's done, I'll be only too happy to cast off from Jago with you and never set foot on these black shores again.'

  A flurry of activity followed the trapper's warning, the mechomancers making final checks to the suits being shooed away lest the expedition fold before it had even departed. Chalph helped Hannah raise her supplies up to the loading platform behind her RAM suit, pulleys squealing as sacks flew upwards. Hannah slipped the harness belts over her suit as though she had been born a trapper.

  Hannah thought they had beaten the senate leader's mad whim to cancel their journey when the captain of the Pericurian mercenaries, Stom urs Stom, came jogging out of the gatehouse towards them, a line of her soldiers following, each ursine weighed down by a turret gun, with its massive ammunition drum and brass tank of compressed air.

  'There's no bleeding way there's been a full and legal sitting of the senate yet!' the trapper growled at Stom urs Stom.

  'There has not,' said the captain, 'but you would be well advised to consider who your master is on Jago.'

  'The difference between you and me, matey, is that I get to hunt for more than one person.'

  'First Senator Silvermain considers the contract between you and he to be of an exclusive nature.'

  'He can consider what he likes,' spat the trapper, placing himself squarely between the officer and her massive troops. 'I've brought in abs for him and for the guild and for anyone else with the coin to pay me. Now, unless you're carrying a legal revocation of my fully paid-up hunting concession, you can sod off back to guarding the ramparts.'

  'He's got balls,' hissed Chalph to Hannah. 'I've never seen a Pericurian talk to her like that, let alone one of your people.'

  Hannah shushed him – she wanted to hear this. They crept closer, near enough to see the shine on the massive Pericurian's black leather armour. The outcome of this standoff might decide whether Hannah would find her mother or not.

  Ambassador Ortin came over to attempt to mediate. 'Now see here, Stom urs Stom, you know there's as much chance that I'm going venturing into the wild to drop grenades down some empty cavern the First Senator thinks will be his new city, as there is of the archduchess selecting me to be one of her new husbands.'

  'What I believe is not of relevance here, ambassador,' said Stom. She produced a wax-sealed envelope addressed to Ortin urs Ortin. 'You will acknowledge receipt of your express instructions from the First Senator. If you venture anywhere near the plains you and your staff will be immediately expelled from Jago, and the stained senate will request a new diplomatic mission be dispatched to the capital from Pericur.'

  'Please assure your master I am ever his servant,' said Ortin. 'I have no intention of leaving the island in disgrace. We won't be heading anywhere close to the plains or the coast – quite the opposite, in fact. We are heading deep into the interior on a purely archaeological mission.'

  Stom glanced doubtfully at the archaeologist, Nandi standing alongside her RAM suit. 'If that is the case, ambassador, then I would say that your mission has a very slim chance of returning.'

  Her warning delivered, the captain and her troops turned and left, the slow stamping of their march echoing around the gate yard. Hannah realized she had been holding her breath. She was going after her mother after all, as long as they could depart in the next few minutes while Tobias Raffold still had his papers to operate on Jago.

  'There was something strange about that,' said Chalph.

  Hannah glanced across and mistook her friend's narrowed eyes for worry over her own chances of coming back. 'She was just trying to intimidate us into not leaving.'

  'No, it was the letter, I think-' Chalph shook his head. 'I'm tired. I've been up since dawn checking the boat's manifest. But it's the last trading boat I'm ever going to have to wake up for on Jago.'

  Hannah hugged her friend, his fur soft and silken against the skin of her arms. 'I hope that Pericur is everything you thought it would be.'

  'You just stay alive,' chided Chalph. 'Stay away from Vardan Flail and his people. What is it that your godless priests say to each other in your cathedral?'

  'May serenity find you,' mouthed Hannah, her eyes moistening.

  Yes. And it would only find her when she knew what had really happened to her mother, somewhere out there. In the cold dark heart of Jago.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Perhaps naively, Hannah had assumed that climbing the capital's air vents with Chalph to watch the u-boats from Jago's black cliffs had made her into something of an expert on conditions above ground. Her first few days in the company of the trapper Tobias Raffold soon expunged any superiority she'd felt over the vast majority of Jagonese who were only too glad never to leave the regulated comfort of their vaults.

  As the expedition pushed towards the interior, they left behind the heat of the Fire Sea, and Hannah came to realize that it was no accident that almost all of Jago's cities had been cast like a necklace around the coastline, attracted to the warmth of the magma. Or how much of the tinted light on the surface came from the vast undulating currents of molten rock, painting the Horn of Jago crimson even when the steam storms had obliterated the milky sun behind the clouds.

  Ironically, the worst of the danger seemed to have been awaiting the expedition immediately beyond the battlements – where hordes of animals appeared drawn to the wall's electric field like moths to a lantern's flame. The trappers had exited the city with their magnetic catapult arms pointed upwards, and a few chattering bursts of razor-edged disks into the air had quickly marked their rights to the territory, sending the creatures lurking in the mists scampering back towards the dark, stunted pine forests. The beasts were intelligent enough to know the difference between Jagonese in RAM suits and the exiles that were thrown out on foot.

  The expedition followed the iron girders of the great eastern aqueduct through the forests and up into the low foothills. Bright yellow lights embedded behind protective metal mesh lined the aqueduct's high ridges, making it easy to follow despite the murkiness of the daylight.

  One of the controls inside Hannah's suit was a set of temperature adjusters and she became engaged in a continual battle to keep the heater at its optimum level. Too cold and she would feel the tips of her toes growing numb from frostbite; too warm, and the tra
nsparent dome on top of the suit would mist up with condensation. The trappers leading them had either cracked the balance through long experience out here, or they were men of iron, impervious to the chill. Hannah could tell from the clear crystal on top which of the RAM suits held a trapper and which – misted up like her own – held Nandi, the commodore and the Pericurian ambassador.

  Halfway along the aqueduct they had come across the rusting shell of an abandoned RAM suit – a more primitive model, larger and less streamlined than theirs – possibly hundreds of years old. Tobias Raffold had pointed to the top of the aqueduct and explained how ursks would climb the structure, block the water's flow, and then wait for a group of maintenance workers to come out from the city before trying to smash their viewing domes with rocks. In this case they had obviously succeeded, cracking the suit like an egg. The aqueduct maintenance workers still passed down the tales – an object lesson in never underestimating the animal cunning of the creatures of the interior. The trapper didn't say what had happened to the unlucky city worker and Hannah was content not to know the person's grisly fate – remembering the hot, foetid breath of the ursk that had broken into Tom Putt Park, she could imagine well enough.

  Shortly after the expedition had reached the wolds, the aqueduct ended in a large sealed concrete pumping station and Hannah felt a twinge of unease that they were leaving behind the last visible sign of the race of man's presence on the island. It was only an ugly iron construction, but she had become used to the aqueduct's yellow lights leading the way through the mists. Now it really did feel as if they were entering the unknown. Had her mother followed the same route all those years ago? Had she felt the same twinge of fear when she looked back and saw that last yellow dot of civilization dwindling to nothing?