The Gold Thief

by Justin Fisher

  “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up, Jonny. Barba is either going to come for the book, or there’s going to be a war – or both! And either way I can’t bear the thought of my mum and dad with him and that … machine. Wouldn’t this be easier if Lucy was actually helping us? Isn’t that what we’re missing?”

  The sin-eater was drinking a cup of peppermint tea and, unlike Ned, was neither tired nor defeated, but unnervingly calm.

  “Don’t worry about Barba, the book is inked on to my skin now and there’s no simple way to un-ink it. As for Lucy, until you’re both ready, gettin’ you two together is about the worst thing that could happen. The Darkening King thrives on suffering and hate. They literally power him the same way your emotions power your ring. What I can’t do the figurin’ of is whether it’s your lack of control that’s drawing him to you and the girl, or whether he’s actually causing it. I know this: with that much chaos from both of your rings, you might as well roll out the red carpet and welcome him in with open arms.”

  “Welcome him in where?”

  “Your heads and hearts, child, that’s what he wants.”

  Fear, ice-cold and bright, took hold of Ned. A voice in a half-remembered dream had been enough to fill him with terror, but now he knew who the speaker actually was, and if Jonny was right, what he wanted.

  “He – he wants me and Lucy?”

  “I can’t be sure, but I think he wants the use of your rings. If he gets inside you, under your skins, he’ll have it and more.”

  Ned missed his mum and dad. Terry Armstrong’s doughy-eyed kindness, his mum’s fierce strength, and even her terrible cooking – but now more than ever he missed their guidance. Because here and now, without it, he was quite sure that he’d never see either of them again.

  “I wish Mum and Dad were here.”

  “You can be sure they wish the same thing, child.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Master your gift. The feelings that govern it – anger, hate, love – they’re all the same thing, the spirit that lies within; in simple terms: your will. Power without limits is just noise, it will draw the Darkening King towards you and it will stop you at every turn from using your Engine accurately. What do you think would have happened just now if it was you instead of my silverware you were trying to teleport?”

  Ned looked at the broken metal by his feet.

  “I’d be a nasty mess on your floor?”

  “Now you’re gettin’ it. This time, when you draw from that fire in your belly – control it.’

  Not for the first time, Ned felt a pang of guilt. He had thought terrible things about the sin-eater, and the man was trying to help him. Despite his easy front, Ned had seen the fear in his eyes when he’d woken him in the night and there was no doubt that the mere act of reading the Librarian’s book had hurt him dearly.

  “Jonny, I, erm …”

  “Yes, child?” And the wider and more open a smile the sin-eater gave him, the harder Ned found it to talk.

  “I, um, the thing is, I sort of owe you an apology.”

  “An apology? Whatever for?”

  “Before, when I first met you I thought you were …”

  “Cursed, wicked? Dear child, if everyone who thought that about me came here and said sorry, I’d never get to leave this little box of charms I call home, now would I? Rest your heart, Ned, the sin-eater’s way is unsettlin’ for most. What concerns me more is what’s unsettlin’ you and your friend. But together, Ned, together we’ll beat it.”

  Ned studied the man’s face. Whatever he’d claimed to have inked away from the Book of Aatol, somewhere under his easy smile Jonny Magik was suffering, and yet despite it all he still wanted to help. Maybe that was the real “Magik” behind the man’s name?

  “Right then,” smiled Ned. “Number thirty-eight.”

  Jonny Magik placed a teapot on the desk in front of him.

  “We’ve run out o’ cutlery and I’m particularly fond of this teapot, so do your best. In your own time, child.”

  Ned focused his thoughts on the metal. He saw its curves, its worn edges, and slowly, very slowly began to work them in his mind.

  “That’s it, child,” said Jonny softly.

  Ned pushed himself further. “Control,” he breathed, the same mantra his dad had told him time and again. The Engine at his finger thrummed with energy, both hot and wild, and the teapot lifted into the air. It shook, it rattled, till its atoms boiled and flowed, coming apart, then together again, and all within the grasp of Ned’s ring.

  “Find the fire, Ned, control it,” urged Jonny.

  And this was the point Ned always got to, the moment before the leap. He thought of his parents, how much he wanted them back, he thought of Carrion, who’d taken them, Barbarossa who had made it so, and the cruel lifeless eyes of the Central Intelligence. But it was the drawing of the “fire” that always opened the door. A surge in his heart became a surge in his ring and the voice made itself heard.

  “YeSsS.”

  It urged, no longer in a whisper but clear and loud as if somewhere in the room.

  “MORrE,” it asked and Ned responded.

  His mouth ran dry and sweat flowed from the pores of his skin, the hairs on his arms and neck prickling with fear. The air around them crackled and the teapot disappeared.

  “YEs,” the voice taunted and to Ned’s horror he realised it was his voice and the Darkening King now speaking as one.

  “YeSs, yEs, YEsSs.”

  “NO!” he screamed, and this time with his voice alone.

  For the thirty-eighth time the room filled with the noise of hissing atoms. There was a flash of colour and motion and the air shimmered where the teapot should have rematerialised.

  Crack!

  A handle spun into view, flying into a shelf violently before bouncing off again and hitting the sin-eater squarely in the face.

  “Argh!”

  Wood yawned as the atoms of the spout appeared in the shelf’s timber, fusing in an ugly mess of broken splinters and smouldering metal.

  The rest of the teapot slammed into the wall with a second resounding crack!, and shattered.

  Then, beside Ned, the truth-stones moved like rockets, shooting straight through the roof of the sin-eater’s trailer and out into the sky.

  Moonlight shone down through the holes in the roof and Ned stared up at them in horror.

  “Still not quite there then,” said Jonny Magik, rubbing his face.

  Control

  orry, Jonny,” said Ned, tears springing to his eyes. “About your pot and … your face and … everything.”

  “No problem, child,” said the sin-eater. “OK, are you ready for attempt number thirty-nine …?”

  But then, all of a sudden, the magician started to quiver.

  “Jonny?!” yelled Ned.

  The sin-eater fell to the floor in a convulsing heap. Ned saw lines of ink stream across the man’s neck and his eyes drew wide.

  “Jonny, are you OK?! I’m so sorry!”

  But just as suddenly as they had started, the tremors stopped and the sin-eater began to calm.

  “It’s not your fault, Ned, I’m a sin-eater, remember? I take on whatever ails you, and you are ailing fit to break.”

  And it was in that moment that Ned truly understood the horror of the man’s curse. Outside, George’s fists started pummelling on the trailer door.

  “Ned?! Ned, what was that noise? Are you all right in there?”

  Jonny Magik lay flat on his back. This time he was both tired and defeated, and etched on his face in clear black ink were the very real lines of fear.

  “Don’t worry, George,” he managed. “It’s all under control.”

  But, Ned wondered, as he looked down at the kindly sin-eater, how many more would get hurt before it actually was?

  Anger in the Big Top

  ed had been told to report to the big top. The sin-eater had run out of tableware and his “indigestion” had bec
ome unmanageable. The mere act of reading the Book of Aatol had somehow damaged him, and he’d been ordered by Benissimo to focus solely on Lucy. Either way, Ned was beginning to wonder if he’d ever master his powers in time. Whiskers, whose blurred sense of loyalty had come unstuck, had been dividing his time equally between Ned and Lucy. They’d been asked to keep a distance from each other till Jonny had cracked their problem, and the little mouse felt torn between both of them in their time of need.

  Today, Whiskers was Ned’s, evident in that his furred sidekick was curled in a ball on his pillow.

  “Right then, Whiskers. Jonny wants us to try something new. Fancy coming along?”

  There was a reluctant flash of only one eye, which meant half a yes, and the two of them headed for the big top.

  Outside, Julius, Nero and Caligula were low to the ground and snarling, gums bared at the imposing slab of iron by Ned’s door. The machine was for once active. As soon as the Guardian sensed his presence, it fell to one knee, head lowered towards Ned and arm extended with an open palm. Its movement was strange and mechanical, though the sentiment was clear – an act of fealty. The gesture had obviously gone over his mouse’s head, however, who responded by leaking oil all over Ned’s shoulder.

  The three emperors were just as wary and showered the Guardian with a mixture of peanuts and clods of dirt.

  Sprayed as it was by the troupe’s resident mischief-makers, Ned felt almost sorry for it. It didn’t react because it wasn’t programmed to, but in that moment it looked like its namesake – a noble guardian, stoic and unshakeable. Ned certainly hoped so. If Barba managed to find them, the troupe would need its iron arms to hold back whatever was sent.

  In the big top, Ned saw the jovial and rather ancient figure of Grandpa Tortellini. The half-satyr had set up an enlarged boxing ring, at the centre of which sat George and a reluctant-looking Scraggs.

  “Mr Nedolino! We gotta sometin’-a special for you today,” he started, as ever with all the enthusiasm of a crazed billy-goat.

  “Morning, old chum, did you sleep well?” asked George, who was chewing on an inordinate number of breakfast bananas.

  “Fine, thanks, George. What’s going on?”

  Grandpa Tortellini sat him down on a bale of hay and explained.

  “Nedolino, the magik, he say you have a little trouble with the feelings, yes?”

  “Little trouble” was an understatement, but the half-satyr was right.

  “Yes, Grandpa, something like that.”

  “Now you gonna see sometin’-a real good!” The old man spun on his heel and turned to the two less-than-enthusiastic combatants. He was so excited that he kept pawing at the curled horns at his head before finally clapping his hands together and roaring “Round one!” at the top of his lungs.

  George remained completely still. His legs were crossed and he flicked a lazy eye to Scraggs whilst chewing on one of his “nanas”. To some it might look like an uneven contest. Even sitting down, George towered over the cook, but those who knew Scraggs and the people he was from might not be so sure. Tuskans, besides having imposing tusks, are born fighters. Their bones are famously strong and their skulls unnaturally thick.

  “Could you remind me why we’re doing this, my Neapolitan friend – I mean, what’s it all about?”

  At which point Scraggs gave the ape a full charge and promptly bounced off George’s shoulder.

  “Mr Magik, he tinks it will help de boy-a.”

  “Well, if Mr Magik says it’s OK,” rumbled George pleasantly.

  Ned’s dear protector had now clearly accepted the sin-eater, at least enough to stay in the ring. Undeterred by his wall of a shoulder, the Tuskan cook redoubled his efforts, taking a wooden rolling-pin from his belt and cracking it over George’s head. The pin shattered and George pulled another banana from his bunch.

  “Ned, dear chap, it’s not that I don’t want to help, and you and Lucy seem quite taken by the man, but—”

  CRACK!

  This time Scraggs had wrapped a metal chair round the gorilla’s back, with about as much impact as a sheet of tin foil might have if being used to flatten a brick.

  “Surely violence isn’t the key to learning about control?” continued the ape, who was now peeling his banana with more delicacy than his giant fingers should allow.

  Ned was too taken by the vision of Scraggs to give George an answer. The cook’s shirt-sleeves were rolled up, his filthy apron skewed behind him and he was red-faced, sweating and fast running out of implements with which to hit Ned’s friend. Grandpa Tortellini was watching intently and chuckled in Ned’s ear.

  “The Tuskanos, they-a never give up-a. Watch.”

  Scraggs’s red face was due to frustration as much as exertion and the now-furious cook resorted to an assault of a different kind.

  “Oi, monkey!”

  A thickly furred eyebrow rose up George’s forehead.

  “My dear fellow, I think you will find that I’m an ape.”

  George had stopped peeling his snack. Sensing that he was getting to him, Scraggs pushed even further.

  “A big ape, and an ugly one!”

  Which, coming from a creature with the snout of a pig and the tusks of a boar, was really quite absurd.

  “Now we-a getting somewhere, Nedolino,” said Grandpa Tortellini, who was squirming on the spot with excitement.

  “Steady on, old chum,” warned George, placing his nana carefully on the floor.

  “Your mama was an orang-utan and your daddy was a rock!” barked Scraggs.

  Insulting a creature’s parents when said creature did not know their origin was not the smartest of ideas.

  “ROAR!” bellowed George, his fur bristling wildly and his back hunched to strike. Scraggs the cook’s mouth fell open with regret, as he waited for the inevitable pummelling. Now off the canvas and up to his full height, George snapped his mighty arm out ferociously and WHAM! – the Tuskan was sent into orbit, punching a clear cook-shaped hole through the big top’s canopy. A second later and there was a distant crash, followed by the shriek of two dancing girls as he landed in their trailer.

  A highly regretful George was promptly excused so that Grandpa Tortellini could explain his lesson.

  “So, Mr Nedolino? What you learn-a?”

  Ned wasn’t sure that he’d learnt anything.

  “Err, don’t be rude about George’s mum and dad? I kind of knew that one, Grandpa.”

  “So did the porky pig. But he was angry – frustrato. So he didn’t think things-a through. And what about our hairy amico?”

  “George?”

  “Yes-a, Giorgio.”

  “He’s as strong as he looks?”

  “You think Scraggs-a gonna make him his banana pancakes this-a week?”

  “Err, probably not.”

  “So the ape-a win the fight, but did he really win?”

  And Ned finally realised what the goat-horned trainer was trying to tell him.

  “I guess they both lost then?”

  “For why?” grinned Grandpa Tortellini.

  “They gave in to their feelings.”

  “Very good, Mr Nedolino, very good.”

  Whispers from the Iron City

  utside, meanwhile, something very ungood was happening.

  An intruder had found his way into the encampment. He was no larger than the Tinker, because, like their resident boffin, the stranger was a minutian. More troubling was the severity of his wounds – he was so badly hurt that it was impossible for him to respond to any questions about where he had come from, and what he wanted.

  He was immediately taken to Lucy so that she could work her gifts as a Medic and, after more than three hours of her tireless efforts, she came out of the infirmary, looking exhausted.

  “You can talk to him now,” she told Benissimo.

  “Thank you,” he said, with a grave expression. “Tinks, come with me. Might help to break the ice.”

  Tinks nodded, and followed Bene into the
infirmary.

  As Lucy passed Ned, her silent and troubled face told him that the prognosis was not good. Amplification Engines, no matter how powerful, had their limits, and the rolling tear on her cheek was a clear sign that Lucy had found hers. He wanted to console her, to be her friend when she so clearly needed one, but when he tried to speak, she shook her head and returned to her trailer.

  Ned was debating whether to go after her, when Bene stuck his head out of the infirmary.

  “In here, Ned. Quick as you like.”

  Ned entered the infirmary. Inside, the Ringmaster and the Tinker were sitting by the minutian’s bedside. If ever a member of the troupe had been distraught, it was the ashen-faced Tinker at the sight of his fellow citizen. He was clearly having trouble holding back his emotions and his face was a picture of misery.

  “Ned, this brave soul is Bertram Wrenchgood. He has risked his life to find us, and in particular to find you.”

  Ned looked at the figure on the bed.

  Bertram was a good deal younger than the Tinker. He was bruised and battered, his breathing heavy, and he looked as though he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in weeks.

  “Go on, Bertram, tell him what you just told us.”

  “A few days ago there was terrible trouble. Abdul-Baari, sir, he came to the city, but what he found there – well, it killed him, killed all of them. The Central Intelligence has completely taken over.”

  At that, Tinks sniffed and wiped away a tear. “My city’s been turned, turned something rotten!” he said. “And my family are there!”

  Benissimo softened and he stooped down to the Tinker’s level.

  “It is grave news, Tinks, but there’s nothing to say your family isn’t safe. Fear not, I will do everything I can, the whole troupe will do everything it can to save them.”

  “Thank you, boss, thank you a thousand times.”

  Then Bene turned back to the newcomer. “Tell Ned about what the Central Intelligence is up to.”

  “Y-yes,” said Bertram. “It’s built itself an army, with a fleet of airships to match. Terrible machines they are and – oh, there’s more. If that wasn’t enough, it’s taken the Twelve’s tickers too.”