by Stephen Hunt
Tzlayloc stabbed a finger at the red-robed figure that had spoken. ‘You are the guardians of the new order, the shepherds of equality – and this is the best counsel you can offer!’
‘It is a matter of probabilities,’ said one who had been an engine man at Greenhall. ‘A new descendant of Vindex with the talent to control the Hexmachina has emerged, or they might have been here all the time with their blood code unrecorded. Some of the distant parishes are tardy with their registrations.’
‘But the operators always come here,’ shrieked Tzlayloc. ‘Always! Drawn by the last of those infernal machines. Wake your transaction engine pet up; set it on the Greenhall records again. If there is a new operator you will find them. I need their blood and I need their pain.’
‘What of this one?’ said the locust priest, pointing at Molly. ‘We can drain her blood for the vat.’
Tzlayloc hit the locust priest in the face, knocking him to the ground. ‘Fool of a shepherd. Look at her; she is perfect – abandoned by the tyranny, a ward of the poorhouse, brave and beautiful. She has more fight in her than a dozen brilliant men. If there is another operator they will most likely be of the same ilk as the other catches of the Pitt Hill teams – burghers, councillors, silks and the indolent brood of the oppressors. Would you have us raise statues to some young martyred quality worth ten thousand guineas a year?’ He caressed Molly’s soaking red locks. ‘No, she is perfect. Throw her back in the cells, give her food and let her recover. We shall decide which operator feeds the vat and which gets the cross after we uncover the identity of the new talent.’
The locust priest Tzlayloc had admonished grovelled at the leader’s feet. ‘Let me lead a force into the tunnels to track down the Hexmachina, Compatriot Tzlayloc. Let me find the filthy device and destroy it for the cause.’
‘No,’ said the rebel king. ‘Perhaps I have been too hard on you, compatriot shepherd. You have read from the texts I recovered, but you have no idea of the cunning of the Hexmachina, how deep it swims now, whispering murmurs of affection to the molten dirt. It scampers through tunnels so deep the crystals that controlled the earthflow have long since melted there. You have no conception of the heat down below and there are other dangers besides lava surges. Just hearing the echoes of the Hexmachina muttering to itself would drive you mad. No mug-hunter, topper or soldier of the cause could hunt the ferocious thing.’
He placed a kindly hand on the kneeling priest’s head. ‘No. We shall have to bait our trap again. I cannot afford to waste the lives of those loyal to the cause.’ Tzlayloc drew out an obsidian dagger and sliced the priest’s throat. ‘Not when the guarantors of the revolution hunger for the souls of those too foolish to lead the people to freedom.’
With almost indecent eagerness the other locust priests fell upon their brother, holding him down while Tzlayloc carved the heart out of his chest. ‘Xam-ku, Toxicatl,’ he called. ‘Cruatolatl and Bruaxochima.’
As the crystals in the ceiling flared, black outlines of man-insects appeared fleetingly, the locust priests echoing the shouts of Tzlayloc in the excitement of the offering. The King of Grimhope pointed to the coals. ‘Fry the heart quickly. It loses its taste if it is left in the air too long.’
Two soldiers dragged the carcass of the lifeless locust priest down the steps of the ziggurat and along the wide subterranean boulevard. In the shadows of one of the buildings something watched and hissed to itself in two voices.
‘Another body. The old ones are stronger now.’
‘We can help, she said—’
‘—not yet time.’
‘We must time it right.’
‘So we must. Shhhh.’
It slunk back into the shadows, whispering to itself.
Molly woke up in the cell. It seemed inappropriate that after enduring so much pain for so long her body could now seem fresh, alive and unmarked. The commodore came over to her. ‘Ah, lass, I feared they might have driven you insane with their unholy tortures.’
‘Commodore; or should I call you Samson?’
‘Let that old name rest,’ said the commodore. ‘It has brought its line nothing but misery. In another world where Isambard Kirkhill never made his mischief I would have been proud to bear my noble title and partake of the luxuries that would have been mine. But in this world it’s better to be poor old Blacky, rather than an outlaw by a wicked accident of birth.’
She looked over at Nickleby who was asleep, sweating. He did not look well, clutching his bloody stump of an arm. There were two others in the cell. A large fierce-looking steamman and a boy with tattered clothing – perhaps a year older than her.
‘Who are they?’
‘Two bad turns, that’s for sure,’ said the commodore. ‘Our jailers swear he is feybreed and have posted Special Guards down the corridor to make sure he doesn’t escape. I think he’s been touched by the moonlight – but you should hear his blessed laugh. It’s like a demon cackling and he sits there and talks to himself sometimes.’ Black pointed to an open cell opposite their own; there was an ugly black gun-like thing and a rusty old knife sealed inside a crystal case, and a brace of more normal-looking pistols next door to it. The blade of the knife seemed to be writhing and twisting like a snake. ‘That dark gun is alive. Sometimes the boy and the steamman call out to it and you can just hear it answer back from under the glass. The boy’s friend is a vicious one for sure, not like our gentle old Coppertracks. Stay well clear of that hammer, lass, or he’ll split your pretty skull.’
Molly peered through the bars, trying to look down the walkway. She could not see anything. ‘Guardsmen. They should be smashing this bloody place up.’
‘They’re helping that devil of a revolutionary, Molly. No chance for us now, lass. Nickleby and me are to be measured up for metal suits in an hour. By tomorrow night we’ll both be fit for naught but mu-bodies for poor old Coppertracks. Clunking around these infernal caverns like metal ghosts, toiling like slaves for Tzlayloc and his mortal evil schemes.’
Molly hugged the submariner. ‘I’m sorry, commodore. This is my fault. You tried to help me and now you are both going to end up like Sainty and the rest of the Sun Gate workhouse.’
‘No tears for Blacky, now,’ said the commodore. ‘My stars have seen me cheating death since the day I was born on my ancient old boat. Better I perish down here than get thrown into the royal breeding house as a prize heifer expected to serve parliament’s cruel pleasure.’
Molly went over towards the four-legged steamman.
‘Leave him alone,’ said Oliver. ‘He’s in no mood to be a spectacle to a Middlesteel street urchin.’
‘Who are you?’ retorted Molly. ‘His mother? He’s in pain.’
‘Let me suffer,’ groaned Steamswipe. ‘I have failed the duty charged to me by King Steam for a second time. This fate is all I deserve.’
‘You are drawing too much power for your body-to-weight profile,’ said Molly, scooping up a handful of mud from the floor and shaping it over the rents in his stack. ‘And you are no good to King Steam lying here on the floor feeling sorry for yourself.’
Steamswipe breathed a sigh of relief, the red light behind his visor growing brighter. Molly popped a hatch in his belly armour and started to work on the steamman knight’s innards, her fingers pushing cogs back in place, adjusting boards and pulling out broken components.
‘You’re her,’ said Oliver. ‘You’re the plan of offence.’
‘Quiet,’ said Molly. ‘How can I work with you twittering on?’
Marching boots sounded down the corridor and Molly closed the hatch, hiding what she had been doing with her body.
Captain Flare appeared outside their cell, a boy by his side, the only one in the captain’s retinue not in a guardsman’s uniform. He looked familiar to Oliver, the subject of a hundred vicious caricatures by the penny sheets’ illustrators.
‘Dear Circle,’ said Molly. ‘Prince Alpheus!’
Oliver stood up. ‘Have you come to gloat? You co
uldn’t have taken me without half the guard at your back.’
‘Perhaps,’ said the captain. He held up a sheaf of papers. ‘I have your registration records, Oliver Brooks. The worldsingers did not know what you are and neither did Tzlayloc’s killers. You’re not a wolftaker; I have confirmation of that from the horse’s mouth. You seem to have wandered into all this by accident.’
‘When your friends murdered my family it was not an accident.’
‘It was the Court of the Air’s own people who did that. At least, the ones loyal to Tzlayloc.’
‘Why are you here, guardsman?’ said Molly. ‘You’re meant to be protecting us.’
‘I’m here to make an offer,’ said the captain. ‘As to the rest of it, I doubt you would understand, Damson Templar.’
‘I’m not interested,’ said Oliver.
‘You haven’t heard my offer yet,’ said Captain Flare.
‘They all sound the same after a while,’ said Oliver. ‘You’ve come to offer me the same thing that the worldsingers used to every week I was dragged into a police station to sign the county register.’
‘But with one significant difference.’ Flare tapped the torc around his neck. ‘The Commonshare’s worldsingers have removed the hex. The Special Guard are free – no more executions on the order’s whims, no more campaigns foisted upon us by the House of Guardians. We are free!’
‘Is that all?’ said Oliver. ‘You sold out cheap.’
‘Don’t be asinine, Oliver. We get our own grant of land. Judging by your choice of travelling companion you obviously came by the Steammen Free State. Why not the Feybreed Free State as well? We receive the southern uplands for our part in this. No one wants to live that near the feymist curtain anyway. We shall offer our children to it – we shall found a city of the fey. Free fey.’
‘I hope you are not planning to have families,’ said Oliver. ‘What we’ve got isn’t the winter fever. You can’t pass immun ity down a bloodline. The mist’s changes to your children’s bodies will kill eight out of ten you leave to the curtain.’
‘We shall learn, Oliver. We know nothing about the feymist – you are living proof of that. You spent your entire childhood inside the curtain. You can teach us how to survive.’
‘You’re a fool, captain,’ said Oliver. ‘Do you think your allies intend to allow the south of Jackals to become the fey-breeding capital of the world? They’ll use you to help smash the kingdom then show you the inside of a Gideon’s Collar the moment you are of no use to them.’
‘You could not defeat us,’ said Captain Flare. ‘And neither will they. We have fought for our freedom and we shall fight to keep it. Whomever we have to.’
‘Enjoy the illusion of it while you can, guardsman. I have seen inside the souls of those you call compatriot and they are rotten to the core.’
‘So much power and it’s all going to go to waste,’ said Flare. ‘The order should never have kept you at Hundred Locks. You should have been with us from the start. Now you are going to compound their error by dying down here. The wolftaker wants to bring in some of his associates to rip your mind to shreds, to see how many of his crooked friends you uncovered on the way to tracking us all down here. If you come with me as a Special Guardsman, Wildrake will have no choice but to content himself with your steamman attendant.’
‘If the price of my freedom is the subjugation of everyone else in Jackals, you can bloody keep it,’ said Oliver.
By the captain’s side the young prince stared at Commodore Black. ‘Why do you gawp at me so, old man?’
‘Ah, lad, we are related you and I. When Isambard Kirkhill rolled the rightful king off the throne, one of my great grandmothers many generations back was married to the King’s brother. In another world you would have been my nephew and I the Duke of Ferniethian.’
‘But it is this world I find myself in,’ said Prince Alpheus. ‘Shortly to gain the crown and lose my arms in the process.’
‘The House of Guardians’ wicked bargain for your pauper’s throne,’ said the commodore. ‘Dear lad, what in the Circle’s turn are you doing in this nest of monsters and villains?’
‘It is not only my jailers in the Special Guard who long to be free,’ said Prince Alpheus. ‘I do to boot – and so I shall be. Every notable in Jackals is swamping Middlesteel at this instant, waiting for the surgeon royal to raise my blood-spattered arms in Parliament Square like a flag up its pole. But my new compatriots are going to give the mob quite a different spectacle.’
‘Lad, they’re our people. Our fight is with parliament. Circle knows, I have suffered at their hands too, hunted down by the kingdom’s warships and aerostats, seen my brave friends, your family, slaughtered at the whim of turncoats and traitors. But our cause is to rule for the people, not over them. Otherwise we might as well take all the empty estates royal and turn them into mills stuffed with children earning a penny a day and run for election as Guardians.’
‘I wish you had met my father, Duke of Ferniethian,’ said Alpheus. ‘I think you would have become fast friends. Your cause is finished. The mob is an empty beast that would rather hurl jinn bottles at us every time a game of four-poles is rained off. They take guardsmen like Captain Flare here—’ the prince touched the captain’s arm ‘—the finest man I know, and put him on a leash that becomes a hangman’s rope if he pulls away too hard. There’s nothing and nobody in Jackals I have a care to rule for. When the war is over, I shall ask them for your life, duke. But that is all I shall do.’
The prince and the guardsman left the prisoners to their fate, their footsteps echoing down the passage. Commodore Black sat down and sobbed. ‘So that is our cause then. A fool of a boy raised in an empty marble cage who has forgotten his duty. And us to be turned into metal slaves or tortured until death becomes a blessed relief.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Oliver. ‘We’re not going to live that long. They think they’re riding a tiger, but the reality is that the tiger is riding them.’
‘My, but you’re a cheerful one,’ said Molly. She closed the panel on Steamswipe’s belly. ‘There you are old steamer. You’re running at a level where you can cope with your broken stack. You won’t be able to smash down fortress walls and lift aerostats any more, but I wouldn’t want to stand in front of your hammer all the same.’
‘Truly the Loas ride you, young softbody,’ said Steamswipe, raising his centaur-like body on his armoured legs slowly, testing the weight. ‘You heal our race as if you were tutored inside the hall of the architects.’
‘Molly,’ coughed Nickleby from the floor. ‘Commodore, for the love of the Circle will one of you get my pipe out from my pocket.’
Oliver was nearest, so he pulled the battered wooden pipe out and filled it with mumbleweed while the pensman’s friends checked his left arm, bandaged with green cloth torn from his jacket.
‘So you have your story now,’ said Commodore Black. ‘The mystery of the Pitt Hill slayings. But the devils won’t be letting you out to Dock Street to write it.’
The pensman held up his mangled left arm. ‘Well, I never was much good at writing with my right hand.’
Molly grimaced as she saw the bloody stump Tzlayloc had made of her friend’s limb.
Nickleby looked at Oliver and Steamswipe. ‘I thought I had dreamed you, thought I was going to wake up back at Tock House.’
Oliver flicked the flywheel on the side of the pipe and sparked the weed into life. ‘You know, ever since I left Hundred Locks I have been waking up every day feeling the same way.’
Nickleby lay back in relief as the smoke started to lift out of the pipe’s head.
‘If you are a son of the mist, northern boy, how about you turn your fey nature on these bars,’ said Molly. ‘Melt them or walk through them or something.’
Oliver glared at her. ‘I’m the shield, not the sword. That’s your job. There’s Special Guard by the door – and I know you can feel the other things out there – the ancient ones.’
&nbs
p; The commodore shook his head in despair. ‘Dear Circle, is it not enough that we are trapped down here without a mortal drop of jinn to warm our hearts, must we have terrible spirits to contend with too?’
‘Dear Circle is right,’ said Nickleby. ‘Jackals has had a millennium following the Circlelaw, a millennium prospering without the passion of gods to bend our knee to. Tzlayloc will return us to an age of Chimecan darkness.’
‘At least we are together,’ said the commodore. ‘Molly, it was your ancestor who crowned the first king of Jackals and until the civil war, it was my family that protected the realm from the return of monsters such as these. Our fates have led us here. We have done our mortal best and there is no shame in that.’
‘Someone is coming,’ said Oliver.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Molly.
‘I wasn’t using my ears.’
Flanked by two Special Guardsmen and diminutive in comparison, Count Vauxtion stood in front of the bars of the cell.
Molly spat at the bars. ‘I thought you would be spending your mug-hunting bounty by now, count.’
Count Vauxtion held up a sheaf of paper. ‘More work for the wicked. My benefactor has been very generous with his patronage. I dare say we will catch most of the splendidly distinguished names on this list when Middlesteel falls. Tzlayloc has his ancient atmospheric tunnel cleared now. The Third Brigade is arriving through it as we speak.’
Nickleby groaned. The Commonshare’s Third Brigade, their shock troops. As the revolution in Quatérshift had raged the communityists had emptied the jails and conscripted political prisoners, murderers, rapists, thieves. The Third Brigade was where the worst of the devils had ended up, their name synonymous with the greatest excesses of a brutal civil war. They were demons in uniform.
‘You’re a true topper, count,’ said Molly. ‘A real piece of work.’
‘I am truly sorry, my dear. It gives me no pleasure to do this.’ He indicated the lock on the cell and one of the Special Guardsmen pushed back his cloak to reach for the keys. ‘The locust priests request your company upstairs for another of their holy services. Say goodbye to your companions, Molly. The war criminal and the sailor will be among the legions of the equalized when you return … and there are some truth hexers who want to pick through the minds of the boy and the steamman.’ He smiled coldly at Oliver. ‘If Molly survives the priests’ blessings, she may want to wipe the drool away from what is left of you.’