Secrets of the Fire Sea j-4

by Stephen Hunt

  'Bel. Bessant.' Jethro's fingers tightened around Hannah's hand. 'How. Do. You. Fight. Gods?'

  Hannah stopped. She could see something moving down the corridor, a shadow, the blur of a rooting animal. Or a badger.

  She heard the words hiss from the shadows. 'Oh, he's a good one. A real doozy you're brewing up inside there. Your people will all be so glad to come back to us when they see him. You'll beg us. You'll pray to us!'

  Hannah was desperately pulling herself up the rungs in the wall towards Boxiron, when a diamond-blue figure composed of burning angled planes forming the silhouette of a man walked through the instrument house door as if its steel was as insubstantial as the steam off the sea. Each of its steps turned the stone of the passage into a puddle of hissing liquid magma. The heat on Hannah's back became intense, the nape of her neck burning as she pulled herself up onto the second gantry. Vivid panes of gem-coloured stained glass shook in their frames with the alien pressure of the creature below – a demigod fit for the dark, blasted heart of Jago. Lord of the ruins.

  The thing that had been Colonel Knipe looked down at Jethro as if noticing a slug crawling across the dirt. The pond of blood surrounding the ex-parson boiled and frothed on the stone as the demigod knelt down and ran a hand along the man's side. Jethro screamed and jerked in a wild fit as his body re-wove itself under that supernatural touch.

  The ripping storm around the silhouette modulated into speech. 'MY WORD.' It raised an arm and Jethro was spun up off the ground and slammed against the steel of the flare-house cannon. 'I NEED PRIESTS TO CARRY MY WORD.'

  'No,' groaned Jethro, jowls buffeted by the force emanating from the being that had been Colonel Knipe. 'I deny you.'

  There was an increase in the gale's intensity, the rippling skin of the universe moving in terrible amusement. 'DID I ASK IF IT PLEASE YOU?'

  Jethro's lips started moving in prayer, the words – provided by the colonel – torn unwilling from his lips. But his eyes were his own. Fixed on Hannah, who clutched the railings on the gantry opposite him, with pained urgency. 'My – lord – save – me – who gives – me – life – and – resurrection.'

  Hannah lurched towards Boxiron, noting the red dot flaring on the steamman's vision plate, one second a ruby pinprick, the next expanding to fill the whole vision plate with crimson. The steamman's weak, human-milled shell was looping in paralysis. Too weak to contain…Bel Bessant knew. She had got that much right. The only way to fight a god. Hannah's hand gripped the lever on the back of the steamman's spine-box and threw it up, all the way. Top gear. Hannah's eyes momentarily fell on the gear panel as the force of the unholy squall below carried her beyond the newly trembling steamman. She saw for the first time the words that had been scratched against the highest of the steamman's gear positions. Circle save you jiggers.

  Hannah was blown over the railings, landing on the lower gantry with a painful wallop. As the whirling energies carried her further down the gantry she could see Jethro Daunt slide across the cannon's barrelling in front of her, still pinned by the terrible demigod, but his lips and voice his own again. 'A god, so powerful. Truly, a god?'

  'YES.'

  'Then,' Jethro said, as the skull of the burning silhouette bent forwards towards him, 'it's time for you to go to hell!'

  Jago's new dark demigod was pulled back, dragged by the white tentacles of steam emerging from Boxiron's stacks, the steamman's body vibrating at such a speed that it blurred in and out of sight. The blue figure of fire raised its arms and waves of energy lashed out, only to be absorbed by the steam enveloping it, diluting and ultimately mingling with the demigod, becoming one with it. The flare-house was filled with a scream so primeval that it tore at Hannah's chest, an unholy ripping sound. Hannah was backing away but Jethro was actually crawling towards the agonized demigod. Tighter and tighter the thing that had been Colonel Knipe was compressed, its force becoming brighter and more radiant, shaking with the power of a sun fashioned into a spear of primordial energy.

  Jethro extended a finger to point at the teetering shaft of energy. 'Let there be us!'

  As if at his bidding, the streak became lightning and leapt upwards, blasting off the roof of the flare-house and raining debris down onto Hannah, Jethro and Boxiron. From the tip of the Horn of Jago a pillar of light stretched up towards the clouds and the stars beyond. Then there were just the three of them. And something else, the steam pouring out from Boxiron's stack forming into a ghostly shape. Alice Gray.

  'You look as beautiful as I remember,' said Jethro.

  Alice's voice echoed around them, disembodied. 'And you, Jethro, do not look as surprised as you should.'

  'I guessed when Hannah's atmospheric carriage was diverted by the machines. Saved from a bomb and taken to find Tomas Maggs' frozen corpse for good measure,' said Jethro. 'Only a valve-mind could arrange that. Vardan Flail didn't murder you, but he did cut your head off your dying body and then put you through the guild's death rites. He loved you well enough for that, to give you his people's machine immortality. And when Boxiron stopped slipping gears and was no longer trying to rip the arms off police militia and free company soldiers, I had my suspicions that he might have brought a hitchhiker back from the guild's transaction-engine vaults. Not all of you, of course. You left enough of your intelligence behind to make Vardan Flail think he still had you in his valves, enough to possess the control circuits of Hannah's suit in the turbine halls, trying to protect her from harm.'

  'Alice,' Hannah groaned. The archbishop hadn't just translated the final section of the god-formula as she was hiding inside Boxiron. She had added it to the first two parts. She had used it on herself.

  The archbishop's laughter came through fainter, the steam starting to disperse. 'If you can keep your head while people all around you are losing theirs…'

  'Alice!' Hannah pulled herself to her feet. 'What have you done?'

  'I incorporated the church's counter-weapon into the final section of the god-formula, child, I took it into myself, just as the colonel did. The archbishops of Jago have had over a thousand years to polish our counter-weapon into perfection. A sabotaged godhead. Expansion without end. Ascending into eternity. Nothing to cling onto. No fixity, no way to reverse the transfiguration.'

  'Alice, don't-'

  'It's all gone, child. I removed all traces of William and Bel from the guild's transaction-engine vaults, their work and their lives. Just a forgotten dream now. It's time for me to leave, too. Everything else, I leave for you.'

  '-go.'

  But the smoke was dissipating. Expansion without end.

  Alice had gone. Forever.

  Hannah brushed the tears from her eyes, and not just of mourning. Alice had known where to find Tomas Maggs' corpse, the dead skipper who had scuttled the boat taking Hannah's father home. And the archbishop could only have done that if she had been the one who killed the skipper. Trying to protect the Inquisition's secret, perhaps? Or had Alice known that the boat her father was taking was going to sink, and who else might be involved in the plot? Was Maggs' murder an act of revenge or merely tying up loose ends? How guilty had Alice Gray felt to ensure the cathedral raised a girl pressed into its care by two desperate, fleeing parents? Love and ruthlessness, remorse and compassion. How could you ever choose?

  'There are always things we shall never know,' said Jethro, realizing what Hannah was thinking. Perhaps remembering the woman he had loved? 'Notes rise and fall. But the song endures forever, as long as there are people who care to sing it.' He gently patted Hannah's tear-stained hand and looked up at Boxiron. 'Pray tell me that Alice took all three parts of the god-formula with her when she left your body, old steamer?'

  Boxiron nodded, his steamman knight's skull trembling with pent-up aggression. 'Jethro softbody, please, I am still running in top gear.'

  'Splendid.' He looked over at Hannah. 'Damson Conquest, if you would be so kind…'

  Hannah went to retrieve the steamman's warhammer. She dragged the hamme
r over towards the rungs on the wall. There was a shadow moving just out of the corner of her eye and she imagined a frantic howling from a distant, far-off place. Jethro helped her lift up the large hammer to Boxiron's outstretched iron fingers.

  'Something best forgotten?' asked Hannah.

  'Indeed.'

  Outside, the sound of the guns had stilled and the tinkling of shattering stained glass drifted down from the summit of the mountain.

  EPILOGUE

  Commodore Black was pacing the docks of Hermetica harbour, watching the stevedores haul the cage of ab-locks over to a crane that was making ready to lift it towards the Purity Queen's open cargo holds. Resisting the temptation to bark orders at the dockworkers, Jared Black noted the figure walking towards his u-boat from the buildings behind them. A nondescript fellow in a dark frock coat, wearing a tall stovepipe hat. Where had he seen him before? Ah, the grey little fellow from the Jackelian embassy who had warned him to stay out of trouble when the Purity Queen first docked. And hadn't he made a grand job out of that, this voyage?

  'A rather raucous cargo, captain,' said Mister Walsingham, stopping to listen to the howl of the ab-locks.

  'Bound for the Royal Jackelian Zoological Society, sir,' said the commodore.

  'By way of Pericur, I understand.'

  'You are very well informed, Mister Walsingham.'

  'Our people aren't going to be very popular in Pericur right now, captain. Are you sure you know your friends from your enemies? I foresee trouble.'

  'Their war was with the blessed Jagonese, not the Kingdom of Jackals. And I bear trading papers with the seal of the archduchess herself – that's still good for something.'

  'So it was,' said the man. 'And so you do.'

  Commodore Black watched his sailors taking on board the coffin containing Chalph urs Chalph's body.

  'That being the case, captain…' The man produced a wax-sealed pouch. 'Some papers for our embassy in the Pericurian capital. They'll pay you very well upon delivery.'

  'I dare say so,' said the commodore. 'The crown is always good for it.'

  The official sniffed in agreement. 'Did you have a good war, captain?'

  'There's no such thing, sir,' said the commodore, 'and anyone who tells you different is trying to get you to vote for them.'

  'Oh, I don't know. With everything considered, I would say matters have worked themselves out rather neatly.'

  'Is that all, Mister Walsingham?' asked the commodore, irritated.

  'For now,' said the man, sitting down on a crate. He glanced back up as he noticed the piqued look playing across the old u-boat man's face. 'Oh, I do apologize, pay me no heed. I'm rather hoping for a boat to come in.'

  'You're hoping against experience then, lad,' said the commodore. 'You had better ship out with us. There will be nothing coming in from the continent or the colonies, and any craft from Pericur will be met by a shell whistling down around their ears for the next decade.'

  'Well, as long as you are able to sit and wait a while patiently, you never can tell what's going to come along,' smiled the grey little official. 'Something bound for Cassarabia, perhaps?'

  Commodore Black snorted. 'And you think Pericur will be full of trouble? The caliph's wicked welcome would make the greeting of the archduchess look like a spot of mortal tea with your grandmother.

  Jared Black stopped. The cart with Ortin urs Ortin's coffin had arrived – along with Hannah, the ex-parson of Hundred Locks and his brutish old steamer. Thank Lord Tridentscale's beard, that was it then. They would soon be underway and he would be well shot of the wicked land of Jago forever. A quick trip over to Pericur, another journey down the coast to the colonies to drop off Hannah for her seminary training, and then home across the sea to the Kingdom, the blessed Kingdom of Jackals. Green fields and brown ales and a warm log fire burning in the hearth of his rooms at Tock House. Yes, that would be something to look forward to.

  The embassy official pointed to the ornate crest of a solitary tree on the side of the coffin. 'Repatriating the bodies of the enemy, captain?'

  'No, lad,' said the commodore. 'Just a friend.'

  Jared Black walked over to help with the ambassador's coffin and within ten minutes he had totally forgotten about the nondescript man.

  Everyone forgot about the man. He had that kind of face, those kinds of clothes.

  The Purity Queen was away with the tide and cutting through the steaming boils veining the Fire Sea by the time a Jackelian merchantman surfaced outside the coral line, heading for the island and its sole paying passenger.

  The passenger waiting ever so patiently.

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  'Next time,' called Boxiron, pushing open the doors to the massive ballroom, 'might we not restrict the scope of our detections to Jackelian soil?'

  Jethro checked behind him to make sure the loyal family retainer was running to safety with the escaped young nobleman through the god-emperor of Kikkosico's palace gardens.

  'Splendid advice, old steamer. Do remind me again if we live to accept another case.'

  They pushed through the crowd of brilliantly clothed courtiers – all the men resplendent in officers' uniforms, the women in long, flowing gowns – and Jethro jabbed a finger towards the peacock-uniformed boy being led up the red carpet before the god-emperor's throne. 'That is not the Don de Souza!' Jethro yelled. 'Good people, that is an impostor, and he carries an assassin's toxin-gun concealed in his cane!'

  The face of the Don's uncle contorted in a snarl, his mob of bodyguards drawing their sabres. Boxiron's gears crashed up to five and Jethro's hand snapped out to drag the lever down to three, stopping the steamman charging towards the pistols presently being drawn by the emperor's loyal guardsmen.

  Boxiron had returned to being as hasty as ever after he had shrugged off the god in the machine.

  Something of a pity, for surely Jethro never missed his gods. The Archbishop of New Alban moved out of the way of the grizzled master of the wagon train, nearly as wide as he was tall, the dust from the man's riding boots kicking up and joining the mantle of fine powdered dirt swirling around near seventy wagons and their idling line of horses. Many of the people about to depart the city were convicts, unwillingly transported to the colonies, ready to begin a backbreaking life of hard labour out on the farms for as long as their sentence of indentured service lasted. Their sad grimy faces reflected the knowledge of their fate and the archbishop's heart weighed heavy with sympathy for their predicament. Pick a pocket across the ocean, end up over here. Hardly an equitable exchange. Only one of the wagons' occupants directly concerned him, though.

  'Are you sure about this?'

  'I believe I am,' said the woman he was addressing without looking around, throwing her travel bags into the back of the wagon.

  The Archbishop of New Alban made a despondent face at the young woman as she mounted the wagon's rear-plate and turned to face him. 'I'm not sure if I'm entirely comfortable about this, Hannah. Your first vicarage is always test enough as it is, acclimatizing to the responsibilities of the position, the demands of the parishioners, getting to know the people; but the western counties! Dear Circle, that's usually considered a hardship posting. You will have to travel the entire length of the great forest, often without lancer escort, avoid bandits and highwaymen, the creatures of the woods, the aboriginals…and there's more trees out where you'll be staying than there are settlers.'

  'I'm used enough to empty streets,' Hannah said. 'It's the colony's crowds in the lanes outside the seminary I have more of a problem coping with.'

  'There's only a couple of garrisons all the way out there,' said the archbishop. 'If Pericurian mercenaries push south over the border looking for trouble, as like as not you're only going to have a handful of wild woodsmen and miners to stop your church being set on fire.'

  'I have learnt enough Pericurian to reason with them.'

  Maybe she could reason with the believers at that, but the archbishop had other concerns, o
nes that ran a little closer to home. 'New Alban isn't that much different from life in a Jackelian city, or the island society you grew up in for that matter, but the forests breed superstition like fallen leaves in autumn. I've seen experienced priests travel out there who have thrown up their hands in despair at what their people claim to see out in the trees, in the dark, deep woods.'

  'All the more reason to go where the need is greatest.'

  The archbishop sighed. 'Well, I can't stop you. Not with that peculiar letter of commendation from the League of the Rational Court lodged with the cathedral secretary. But seeing as you might have your choice of vacant parishes, I thought something across the ocean in the Kingdom would appeal. Even as a New Alban man, I can say that everyone should see Middlesteel at least once in their life. If only for perspective. Now there's a city. For all our achievements here in recent years, it makes New Alban look like a provincial backwater.'

  'Just a larger crowd and more noise.' Hannah smiled and reached down to take the archbishop's hand. 'I'll be safe, your grace. Sometimes, well, sometimes you just have to have a little faith.'

  The Archbishop of New Alban's hand fell away from Hannah's as the wagon train began to trundle forward, before rising in a final wave, and he stayed where he was until the last wagon had cleared the city gate.

  'I sometimes wonder what we ever have to teach you, anyway?' the archbishop muttered to himself as he grimaced in worry.

  Then he turned to walk back home. Among the other members of the ab-lock clan on Jago, the male was known as Cutter, for his skills at sharpening and shaping flints and cutting grooves in the bamboo shafts to hold their spearheads. His eyes were sharp too, and as he left the entrance to the cave system he was the first among the ab-locks to notice the glassy black surface of the ground cracking as heads of wheat pushed through.

  He didn't know that the seeds of the wheat he was noticing had blown in from one of the distant city's ruptured farm domes, now emptied of the last of humanity, and he certainly didn't realize that there was a new network of lichen filaments growing under Jago's dark soil, sapping the poisons, cleansing the burnt, barren ground.