by Stephen Hunt
Behind her, she heard the barks of more new arrivals to the museum. Orders to clear the way. The first of the Catosians’ shots exploded into Billy’s chest, barely slowing him down as he ran towards Amelia. He was running against the force of a storm, the crack of glass shells behind Amelia building to a crescendo. She could hear the soldiers shouting and yelling at each other, shocked at how little effect their rifle volley was having on the escaped prisoner. Still Billy Snow came, shuddering and jerking against the hail of fire. It was as if he was trying to prove the old maxim of the Jackelian redcoat regiments: the false boast that it took a man’s weight in lead to kill him. Amelia crouched, mesmerized, as the blood-covered shell that was Billy Snow finally collapsed in front of her.
‘Why Billy, why?’
‘Get back from him,’ shouted Veryann. ‘He may be feigning.’
Feigning, her right foot. The old sonar man had taken a man’s load of lead and there wasn’t enough of him left to crawl another inch.
‘Why, Billy?’ Amelia repeated.
‘Because — you can — never — find — Camlantis,’ coughed Billy. ‘You have — to — build — it.’
She ignored the warnings and bellows of the Catosians and knelt down to hold him. His hand reached up weakly, taking Amelia’s arm, kissing the skin where he had wounded her. Then the old man rested his head back and moved no more.
‘You damn fool,’ swore Veryann, poking Billy’s corpse with her boot, keeping a pistol trained between the blind eyes on his grizzled skull. ‘He came to kill you.’
‘He was one of them, wasn’t he? One of the people of Camlantis.’
‘He was a weapon, professor,’ said Veryann. ‘As much a sword as that living witch-blade of his. And I would hazard a guess that he and his rebels caused more deaths in this city than every battle-match fought by every free company in the Catosian League combined.’
Cold air from outside spilled into the hall as the museum’s glass doors opened. ‘We’ve found it!’ shouted an airship sailor. ‘Come quick, we’ve found it!’
‘What’s he talking about?’ demanded Amelia.
‘The reason Billy Snow wanted you dead. A challenge worthy of your talents at last,’ said Veryann. ‘Come. It is time we finished this.’
In the cold of the monitorarium, surveillant twenty-four pressed the pedal by her foot to rotate her seat away from her great cannon of a telescope, turning towards the monitor on the gantry. As if a personal appeal face-to-face would have more effect than the angry exchange of words they had just had over her speaking tube.
‘I’m telling you, there’s a new landmass above the Sepia Sea, well outside the location of any mapped or known floatquake atoll.’
‘And I’m telling you that I have logged it for the day watch to follow up,’ came the monitor’s answer over her phones. ‘We have sweep orders for three missing airships and half the counties of the uplands still left to examine.’
The surveillant swore under her breath. As if the missing airships would be heading south for Cassarabia. What need did Abraham Quest have for the caliph’s gold, when he had just thrown away a mountain of his own money by absconding with the property of the navy?
‘Orders are orders,’ said the monitor. ‘Leave the creative thinking to our analysts. Report and view, view and report. Save your amateur geography for someone who doesn’t need to have a sheaf of sweep reports filled in by daybreak.’
Surveillant twenty-four reluctantly placed her face back into her rubber viewing hood, the transaction engine clicking and filtering the view, turning down to the mountains and lochs of the south — searching for incongruities that might indicate camouflage nets large enough to cover an airship.
Which was a pity, because if she had increased the magnifi cation where her scope had previously been angled, she might have seen the lonely figure sitting on top of a Camlantean spire with a stolen helioscope, cursing every one of his unlucky stars and counting down how many hours of air remained in his mortal tank as he flashed his urgent message out.
A message loaded with pass phrases that would immediately have been recognized by any agent of the Court of the Air.
Amelia looked at the train of armoured vehicles drawn up outside the building, belching boiler smoke, trailing their own tanks of air to help feed their furnaces. It was more than the vehicles’ pollution of the city that offended Amelia’s sight; the single-storey building in front of her looked wrong too. It had been constructed along different lines to the rest of the city. Not open, but closed. No windows. No doors. A tomb, it reminded her of a tomb. And where normally her curiosity would cry for such as this to be levered open to disgorge its ancient secrets, her only instinct here was to run away, as far and as fast as possible.
‘What is this place?’ Amelia looked at Veryann and Quest.
‘This is your heritage,’ said Veryann.
Quest nodded. ‘The resting place of the Camlanteans’ greatest secrets.’
‘Isn’t there enough information for you in the city’s main spire?’ asked Amelia. ‘If we can find the mechanism for extracting it down to our crystal-books, the whole of Jackelian academia will be teaching nothing but ancient Camlantean for the next few centuries in their efforts to translate this place’s treasures.’
Quest tapped the walls of the tomb. ‘And this is where they stored the greatest of their learning. Mined to ensure it could never fall into the hands of the Black-oil Horde.’
‘Mined?’ Amelia looked at the brooding presence of the low-slung construct. ‘Are you mad? If the tomb is wired into their system of power and it is detonated, we could lose the entire damn city.’
Quest pressed on. ‘We’ve come so far, risked so much.’
‘You’re risking the lives of the expedition, the whole bloody city!’
‘Not with your blood,’ said Quest. ‘The dream of this place is in my soul, but it’s part of your inheritance, your very flesh. One last secret to unlock, Amelia. If you can’t succeed in getting in with the blessing of whatever sentinels the Camlanteans have left looking after the city, you have my word we won’t try to force our way in. We’ll content ourselves with the parts of the city that were left off the latch.’
Taking off her thick wool gloves, Amelia placed her palm on the wall, the tomb’s surface so cold it was almost an ache. She could feel the hidden lines of a portal, just awaiting the command to open. The building was as alive as the rest of the city, more so perhaps, deep wells of power buried within to keep this last store safe, no matter what carnage the Black-oil Horde committed. Warmth flowed out from her hand, her arms vibrating, as numb as if they had gone to sleep.
With the hiss of a murderous serpent, the security door rolled back, an outrush of warm air carried from the interior. The glow of the streets and surrounding spires disappeared, boulevard by boulevard, the tomb sucking up energy from the surrounding area, draining power into itself with a deep breath. There was a moment’s confusion as the expedition members activated their gas spikes, lighting the scene.
Amelia entered through the portal, two beams of light flickering down the length of her body, dying away as they reached her boots. ‘Keep back. I don’t think this is safe for you yet.’
Quest’s airship sailors and expedition members needed little urging.
A raised podium — a white circle — pulsed with light inside, beckoning her closer.
Quest watched from just outside the tomb. ‘Is that similar to the transportation devices you said you came across in Liongeli?’
‘No,’ said Amelia. ‘I think it is a keyhole. Unfortunately, I think I am the key.’
She made to step onto the circle, nearly there, when she doubled up in pain.
‹Don’t do it!›
‘What is it?’ cried Quest, seeing Amelia collapse in pain.
‘My mind, he’s inside my mind.’
‹Don’t do it.›
The cut on her arm. The last kiss. The blood bubbling up from his mouth.
‘Who’s inside your mind?’ demanded Quest.
‘Billy Snow!’
Her voice spoke, but not with her words. ‹Pairdan, Jackelian, I am Pairdan.›
‘Get out of me!’ Amelia yelled.
‹First, you leave this place.›
Amelia tried to step onto the circle in front of her, but her legs were frozen, contradictory orders raging across her body. The tomb growled in anger. It had sensed something wrong. Billy Snow was no part of its creators’ scheme. The civil war, the Circle-damned Camlantean civil war. Power was building up. Preparing to be released in a single murderous burst if this was an intrusion attempt by the enemy.
‘You’ll kill us all,’ cried Amelia.
‹Yes.›
She made one last effort, kicking and thrashing like a mad woman towards the circular platform. Her brain was burning, the headache to end all headaches. As she reached the platform the light pierced her, lifting her off her feet and rotating her around — giving her a crazy view of the other expedition members spinning outside the portal. She was washed with a sensation like water, cold water flowing across her every cell. Testing. Probing. The building made its judgment. Compatible. She fell to the floor, paralysed, whether by Billy Snow’s possession or as a result of being drained of every iota of energy by the tomb she was uncertain.
Behind her a second portal hissed open, a moving walkway down in the depths below beginning to run. Darkness was overwhelming her, the room starting to fade.
Quest knelt down beside her, talking to her, but not talking to her. ‘You realize, I trust, that it was the blood copy of you that tried to kill me last year that helped make all this possible, child of Pairdan?’
‹Damn you.› Amelia’s lips were moving, but not by her command.
‘We could hardly have combed the great engine rooms at Greenhall for a compatible blood-marker like Amelia’s unless we had a little Camlantean blood to begin with, could we?’
Then, came the blackness.
Amelia woke up, unsure of where she was, uncertain even who she was. She tried to move but her arms were manacled behind her back, the wound on her forearm burning with the restricted flow of her blood. Camlantis. She was still in Camlantis.
‘My arms — why are my arms tied?’
One of her assistants came around the corner, followed by two Catosian soldiers, their high-altitude jackets shrugged off in the warmth of the tomb. ‘My apologies, professor. Abraham Quest said you were possessed.’
Now she remembered. ‘I can’t feel anything inside me now. Untie me, kid.’
Veryann appeared behind her soldier. ‘I don’t think so. I warned you back in the museum not to touch Billy Snow. Now you have been betrayed by your Jackelian compassion.’
‘I’m fine! Take these damn manacles off me.’
Veryann shook her head. ‘Ingenious, don’t you think? Wounded. Dying. But you can still infect your enemy. Turn your enemy’s weapons against their own side using one of their bodies.’
‘Right now, I find it difficult to appreciate his cunning.’
Veryann pulled Amelia to her feet. ‘Then perhaps, instead, you can appreciate how little I presently trust your intentions.’
Amelia was shoved out into a corridor, its roof held up by glass columns. There were dark shapes swimming inside the columns, darting about a crimson liquid. Like heated wax in oil, the clouds changed shape, reaching out to touch the glass, then recoiling, the surface burning them. Their movement was slow, sinuous, almost sensual. Where had she seen such things before?
‘What are they?’
‘Prototypes,’ said Veryann.
‘For what?’
In answer the Catosian waved a hand in front of a triangle etched onto the wall and the enclosure vanished, revealing a hall filled with machines — the organic systems of the Camlanteans interspersed with the crude machinery of Jackelian engineering, leaking oil and steam across the clean surfaces. Quest’s retainers swarmed over their equipment, Robur at hand, along with someone else she recognized: Bull Kammerlan. The slaver was spitting invectives at the soldiers manhandling him. Next to him was another figure, also chained. The other prisoner’s features were hideous, melting and reforming between different faces — one of which she briefly recognized as Commodore Black’s. He was a shape switcher! What was this madhouse?
‘Quest,’ called Amelia. ‘You lying son of a bitch, there’s no crystal-books down here, no information store.’
The mill owner turned from his work and walked towards her, his arms open in supplication. ‘Professor, up at last. No storage for facts, perhaps, but storage of a different nature.’ He pointed to the face-changer. ‘Plenty of room for my friends, down here, as well. This is Cornelius Fortune. He pushed me out of the way of a bullet once, a reaction he must be regretting now.’ Hearing the mockery, Fortune tried to struggle free of his chains but he was too well secured. ‘Walk with me, Amelia, you are entitled to see all the wonders of the tomb you have opened up for us.’
Quest led Amelia — still followed by her escort — to a gantry rail and motioned for her to peer over. A chasm vanished into the darkness of the rock below, the space surrounded by level after level of crystal coffins honeycombed into the sides of the pit.
She looked up. ‘What is this place? There must be millions of coffins down there. We can’t be on Camlantis anymore, that pit is far deeper than the bedrock under the city in the air.’
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ said Quest. ‘The Camlanteans could do things with the fabric of our world; stretch it like the garters of a jinn-house serving girl. No, we’re still in the tomb you opened — it’s just bigger on the inside than the outside. I was hoping the passenger inside your mind might be able to tell us some more about the forces involved in achieving such a feat.’
‘I’m fine now, I told your soldiers.’
‹Warn her,› said her voice. Amelia groaned. The spectre of Billy Snow was still inside her, squatting within her mind like an unwanted toad in a garden.
‘That’s better,’ said Quest. ‘No need to be shy, Billy Snow, or may I address you as a child of Pairdan?’
Amelia cursed her forehead — the throbbing had started all over again. ‹Let her see your paradise.›
‘There are as many coffins down in that pit as there were once citizens in the city,’ said Quest. He indicated a storage area behind them, shelved with hundreds of crowns — the same style of crown that she had seen worn by the Daggish Emperor, the same style as the crown under Lake Ataa Naa Nyongmo. Except that these coronets didn’t contain an egg-like crystal-book: instead they were mounted with a circle of tiny gems joined by copper wires.
‘Enough crowns to make you King of Jackals, if you had a throne to go along with it,’ said Amelia. ‘What are you planning, you devious jigger? You knew that this place was down here …’
Quest picked a crown off the rack and slipped it over his mane of golden hair. ‘Can you tell the difference?’
‘It makes your ego look even bigger than it normally is.’
Quest smiled. ‘Perhaps, but when I wear this, it also hides my soul. The fire of my id is cloaked as if I did not exist, as if I was never born. Which is precisely what it was designed to do. The coffins down there perform much the same function, with the added benefit you can sleep in them and they will feed you and keep you alive. You could sleep for centuries down here, protected, hidden away from the world.’
Amelia shook her manacles in frustration. ‘You want to hide from the airships parliament will send after you? There are cheaper ways to buy them off than mounting an expedition like this.’
‘Now don’t be facetious. You and the uninvited passenger inside your head have woken up just in time for our tests, Amelia. After all these years, we need to make sure the Camlanteans’ measures to save the world are still fit for purpose.’
‹You’re not saving the world, you’re stoking the furnaces of hell, you fool.›
‘The majority of your people didn
’t think so, old man. There was no coffin for you and your blood-father’s followers down there, was there? You are Pairdan’s child all right, for all the artificial nature of your nativity. You and your rebels preferred entropy and the victory of the Black-oil Horde.’
‹We preferred history and the natural course of things.›
‘Then you’ve had your wish,’ said Quest. ‘For too many thousands of years you’ve had your own way. But I choose to shape our destiny, shape it to an improved pattern.’
He waved to one of his engineers and the wall at the end of the chamber became transparent, revealing a series of rooms, each separated from the others like cages in an underground zoo. In the first of the rooms was an old lady Amelia did not recognize until the uninvited passenger in her mind supplied her name. ‹Damson Beeton. An agent of the Court of the Air.›
A series of metal boxes lay in an adjacent cell — hex suit-like coffins, only the prisoners’ heads visible. More agents of the Court; the unfortunates who had been given the job of infiltrating the House of Quest. Inside the next cell, T’ricola paced about. Then there was an empty room, followed by a cell holding Ironflanks.
Amelia struggled desperately in the grip of her escort. ‘T’ricola, Ironflanks, what are you doing here? You should be safely back in Jackals!’
‘And your colleagues would be,’ said Quest, ‘if they hadn’t so foolishly decided to betray my trust. That’s something I have learnt from my Catosians, the value of total loyalty. There’s something comforting in their binary philosophy, don’t you think? You, them. Friend, enemy. Loyal, traitor.’ He turned to one of his engineers, pointing to the cell filled with hex-suited coffins. ‘Let’s start with that one.’ He tapped on the transparent partition holding Damson Beeton. ‘I told you I would find something useful to do with your friends from the Court of the Air, damson. They made very poor bookends.’
Quest’s staff moved about the controls on the Camlantean machinery. A slot appeared at the bottom of the agents’ cell, a black liquid starting to puddle out. The fluid fingered across the floor, moving under the coffins, then it began to bubble and froth, a dark mist forming above the floor. It spiralled upwards, higher, rearing above the heads of the trapped agents whose shouts were muffled by the viewing wall. The vapour swayed from face to face, having difficulty choosing with so many trapped in the room.