The Court of the Air

by Stephen Hunt

  A tearing noise sounded and in the air above Parliament Square a fissure appeared, colours she had never seen before leaking out of the rip.

  ‘Xam-ku,’ shouted Tzlayloc. ‘Xam-ku!’

  Black tendrils snaked out of the fissure, snowflakes turning to steam as they touched the arms waving and flexing in the air, moving like the legs of a spider emerging from its hunting hole. Two of the tendrils reached down to Tzlayloc, stroking him gently as he moaned in pleasure. His body was changing, swelling and rippling as the darkness from the fissure slithered its way into his form, leaving Tzlayloc trembling – and not from the cold of the strange winter that had frozen Middlesteel. Around the head of the First Committee his locust priests had fallen to their knees and were chanting in a language she did not recognize.

  Tzlayloc’s eyes leaked black fire as his gaze swept Parliament Square, a clicking laughter like the rattle of a mandible filling the emptiness of the cold air. Damson Davenport did not know what product of mechomancy they had traded her beating heart for inside her metal-flesher frame, but whatever it was, she realized the organ could still curl in terror.

  Commodore Black climbed from the makeshift raft and pushed it through the reeds and the freezing water the remaining foot to the bank of the Gambleflowers. Clutching the debating stick that had made such an excellent punting pole, Guardian Tinfold stepped onto dry land. Smoke from the burning tavern boat chased after them as their makeshift ferry finally sank into the brown waters of the river.

  A line of knights from the encamped steammen army had ridden over to meet these new refugees. ‘Dear mammal, your circulation will freeze with the temperature of the river.’

  Commodore Black looked up from the snowy bank. ‘Coppertracks! Blessed Circle, you escaped Tock House.’

  ‘Quite clearly,’ said the steamman. War mu-bodies surrounded the slipthinker, giant fighting mechanisms slaved to his consciousness, twice the size of Sharparms, with fiercely glowing vision plates. ‘Could you not have found a more river-worthy craft to flee the environs of Middlesteel?’

  ‘Flee! We’ve come for you, you daft old steamer. Poor old Blacky’s been dragged along the length of the Gambleflowers while those devils from the Third Brigade used us as a floating target for their cannons and their rifles. Do you not recognize Guardian Tinfold?’

  The mu-bodies around Coppertracks bowed to the poli tician. ‘Guardian Tinfold, I heard rumours you had perished when the Quatérshiftian forces sealed off Steamside and lay siege to our people inside the steammen quarter.’

  ‘I was in Workbarrows on business. Fortunately our party fighters have been able to move around using the sewers,’ said Tinfold. ‘I come bearing the writ of parliament – where is King Steam?’

  ‘We shall take you to him.’

  The knights made way for one of the Free State’s gun-boxes to walk up to the riverbank, both iron feet ploughing through the snow. It dipped down like a war elephant and the commodore and Tinfold climbed up next to its mortar mouth. Clutching the bombard they moved out across the steammen army’s encampment, Coppertracks and a column of steammen knights at their head. Instead of the tents of a campaigning Jackelian army, the people of the metal had brought iron rods that connected together to make hexagonal skeletons sealed with panels of gutta-percha. It was as if the white meadows of the east bank had been transformed into a bed of coral.

  It was not just the orders militant that had marched down from the mountain kingdom; the boiler trails of ten thousand steammen rose through the falling snow. Steammen who had never served in a fighting regiment had the barrels of pressure repeaters fixed to their arms, pipes coiled back to their boilers, drums rattling with steel balls while they used every precious minute to practise battle manoeuvres under the supervision of their new officers.

  Tinfold and the submariner were taken to the centre of the camp where colourful streamers on a field of lances crackled like burning logs with the energy of the wind. There, sixty feet tall, stood King Steam’s war body – a thing of functional terror, two claw-like legs bearing a spherical mass of cannons, gun barrels and spiked impaling apparatus. The frame drew closer to the gun-box and the Commodore saw that caged inside it was a small, golden, child-like steamman, twisting and turning the bulk of the machine with control levers.

  ‘King Steam,’ called Tinfold, his ancient voicebox straining to carry above the sound of the wind. ‘I bear the writ of the House of Guardians of the Kingdom of Jackals. I represent the will of the emergency government of all parties, the army of resistance, the party of the Levellers, and the people of the electorship of Workbarrows. Do you recognize my writ?’

  ‘I DO.’ King Steam’s voice boomed across the entire riverbank, shaking the organs inside Commodore Black’s chest. Loud enough to issue orders to the very mountains they had left behind.

  ‘Then I invoke the treaty of 980, as signed by the Lord First Guardian Isambard Kirkhill and yourself on the Fulven Fields and duly ratified by the House of Guardians. The parliament of Jackals calls upon the force of arms of the Steammen Free State and grants you the dispensation of the House to cross the waters of the Gambleflowers and enter the environs of the royal capital of Jackals.’

  King Steam’s war machine pistoned closer to the gun-box so the monarch could speak from his golden pilot body. ‘You have prospered in this land, Tinfold. You are a true citizen of Jackals, but the Steamo Loas could not be prouder of your achievements if Steelbhalah-Waldo himself had been elected to the Guardianship of Workbarrows.’

  ‘I have often reflected that the spirit of freedom is like a Loa itself, Your Majesty. It rides many within this land.’

  ‘Then let us ride with it,’ said King Steam. He swivelled to address his officers and the orders militant, to command the whole army. ‘TO WAR. TO WAR! WE MARCH ON MIDDLESTEEL.’

  In the House of Guardians the members of the First Committee looked on with horror as Tzlayloc picked up the messenger – an equalized revolutionary – and propelled him through the stained-glass window of the gallery, the herald’s components smashed apart in the courtyard outside.

  ‘Machines,’ said Tzlayloc. ‘Filthy machines.’

  At first the committee members thought he must be talking of the equalized messenger, but then they realized he was referring to the news the messenger had brought – the army of the Steammen Free State was advancing. Tzlayloc felt like ripping apart the round table and scattering the maps of Middlesteel and her environs. He had never been stronger, but things were crumbling around him, the ungrateful wretches of Middlesteel joining the counter-revolutionary uprising. Half the city fighting, and now the people of the metal had finally found the guts to interfere in Jackals’ affairs. The crafty king of the steammen was rushing to rescue his corrupt allies now their snouts had been pulled from the feeding trough and made into bacon. Had he not fed the people? Had he not fed their masters into the Gideon’s Collars raised in their name?

  Judging Tzlayloc’s fury had subsided, one of the locust priests approached the chairman, almost close enough to touch the black nimbus that now leaked from the leader’s body. Tzlayloc’s heart lifted. It was the ex-transaction engine man from Greenhall. He always brought good news. The leader was oblivious to the fact that after dealing with the petty mandarins of Greenhall, the priest was well versed in the art of timing good tidings. Husbanding them and squirrelling them away for the right moment to offer them up like tribute.

  Tzlayloc nodded as the priest whispered to him, then he raised his head and made that awful clicking laugh. Soon the revolution would feed, feed so well and so long that the Hexmachina would never bind their cause with its web of polluted machine sorcery. Tzlayloc gave his orders to the priest, waiting as the loyal fellow hurried off to return with Marshal Arinze and his retinue, joined a minute later by Captain Flare. The Special Guardsman looked haggard. How ironic that someone so powerful could be so soft. The Wildcaotyl in Tzlayloc sensed the discomfort the captain felt passing the square outside. He had fou
ght on a battlefield; he knew the butcher’s bill that war demanded. And the revolution demanded that this last war be fought and won at any cost. The enemy should suffer. It was the way of things.

  ‘The armies of the Free State march on us from the east,’ said Tzlayloc. ‘What news from our brothers in Quatérshift, compatriot marshal?’

  ‘Our compatriot worldsingers have almost translated the hex on the cursewall,’ said Arinze. ‘The worldsingers have promised to have the wall lowered within the week. Our compatriots found a labourer in one of the camps who had worked on it, and he was able to provide insight into—’

  ‘We do not have a week!’ interrupted Tzlayloc. ‘We will have steammen knights on the outskirts of Middlesteel within four hours.’

  ‘The First Brigade has almost finished arriving through the atmospheric. We can hold the capital until the cursewall is lowered. Compatriot Tzlayloc, we have twenty divisions on the other side of the border. Enough troopers to seize every town, village and city in Jackals.’

  ‘And if the cursewall takes longer to fall?’

  ‘We have miners digging tunnels deep enough to pass underneath the cursewall. Jackelian sappers are not opposing them now. The dregs in the border forts have already fled, there is not a redcoat or frontier company left on the border. The upland regiments are still in the field but they dare not march on us in strength for fear they will return to their crofts and find the caliph’s soldiers bedded down in their clansman’s halls. Compatriot Flare and his guardsmen have forces enough to secure the south.’

  ‘The Special Guard may earn their city by the feymist later,’ said Tzlayloc. ‘First they will assist us in breaking the forces of King Steam.’

  ‘Breaking?’ The marshal looked at Tzlayloc with incredulity. ‘We are dug in, we hold Middlesteel. Let the enemy storm our fortifications and bleed oil on them.’

  Tzlayloc stabbed a finger on the map. ‘We shall march out and break them here.’

  Marshal Arinze looked at where the Chairman of the First Committee was pointing. ‘Rivermarsh? There’s nothing there but hills, bogs and farmland. Please, Compatriot Tzlayloc. With two brigades I can hold the capital until Midwinter. But you do not fight the armies of Mechancia on open ground. Their knights are better than cavalry, faster, stronger, more heavily armoured; their gun-boxes outclass my light cannon. I could not guarantee victory with a dozen brigades behind me.’

  Tzlayloc reached out and seized the marshal’s face, applying enough pressure to his skull to make him drop to his knees. ‘You have the gods of revolution behind you! The Wildcaotyl are strong and grow stronger with each enemy of the people that is fed to the cause. What does the malevolent life metal have? Loas as thin as the foul smoke they expel from their stacks. That is why Jackals fell so easily to the revolution – because she had forgotten her faith. Do not make me doubt your faith in our communityist principles again, little man.’

  Marshal Arinze scrambled back as Tzlayloc released him. Like all natural bullies the officer recognized a superior predator. ‘It shall be as you say, compatriot chairman.’

  Tzlayloc turned to Flare. ‘What of you, compatriot captain? Do you have any counsel to offer on the order of battle?’

  Flare stared grimly at the Commonshare worldsingers that were helping Marshal Arinze to his feet. ‘We will go to the uplands. We will go to Rivermarsh. You tell us where to go and we will obey. We will march there. We will fight at the other end.’

  ‘An admirable attitude, Compatriot Flare. The First Brigade will fall back to Gallowhill and Spouthall. The Third Brigade and the Special Guard will march out immediately with our equalized companies of the revolutionary army and meet the Free State’s invaders at Rivermarsh.’

  Captain Flare could not let his air of melancholy detachment override his military judgement. The chairman’s plan was madness. ‘You are ceding more than two thirds of Middlesteel to the parties’ militia. Even if we beat off King Steam’s forces, we will be coming back to a city largely occupied by the enemy. The Third Brigade will not have the advantage of surprise, of appearing at night in the heart of the capital. We’ll see a terrible cost in the surgeon’s tent for every street we take back.’

  ‘Do not worry about the mill masters’ private armies of thugs,’ said Tzlayloc. ‘They will reap their reward for opposing the people.’

  A terrible feeling struck Flare. Tzlayloc’s order of battle made no sense at all, except in one circumstance. But surely even the Chairman of the First Committee of the newly proclaimed Commonshare of Jackals was not capable of that?

  ‘Prince Alpheus,’ said Flare. ‘Are you leaving him in the city?’

  ‘Compatriot Alpheus is serving the revolution in so many ways,’ said Tzlayloc. ‘Your attention to duty does you credit compatriot captain, but protecting the people from the monarchy is no longer the Guard’s responsibility. What is it that the mob used to shout outside the palace on stoning day? No republic with a king? If it makes you feel better we shall take the cross with us and the King’s pain will give succour to the revolutionary hearts and spur them to great acts of valour against the people of the metal.’

  Tzlayloc’s fingers pawed the maps on the table, his fingers leaving dark trails across the neighbouring nations. ‘Yes compatriot captain. You may leave the vermin in the royal breeding house to the care of the Gideon’s Collar. Our energies will be focused outward, not inward. Victory after victory for the people, the standard of equality planted across every state in the world.’

  Tears of dark energy struck the oak floor of the House of Guardians, burning like acid by his feet. Every society an ordered nest, its equalized citizens working together, indistinguishable as brothers and sisters. Perfect and content in their endless toil. It would be glorious.

  In front of Oliver the last remaining cursewall of cell eight-zero-nine shrieked like a dying swine on the abattoir table, the energy of the sorcerers twisted and distorted around his fey body, wrapped and folded in ways that could never have been conceived by the worldsingers who invoked it. Inside, the Whisperer lay propped up against the wall, surrounded by the dirt of his own excrement and the bones of vermin.

  ‘Oliver,’ hissed the Whisperer. ‘Your perfect body, it’s covered in blood.’

  ‘I had to stop a while and negotiate your release upstairs.’ Oliver turned his nose away at the smell.

  ‘They stopped taking the bucket away when they stopped bringing me the slop,’ said the Whisperer. ‘How did you get to Hawklam?’

  ‘Get here? By horse.’

  ‘Good, because I could jigging eat one.’

  Outside, the inhabitants of the other cells howled in rage and frustration. Oliver pulled the Whisperer to his feet and gave him one of the dead jailer’s rifles to use as a crutch.

  ‘I could break their hexes,’ said Oliver, looking at the line of cells.

  ‘You still planning to lead us to the Promised Land, Oliver? Into the feymist for the Lady of the Lights’ private menagerie?’

  Oliver shook his head. ‘She’s gone, Nathaniel. The thing that has replaced her, it is – well, it is not as pleasant.’

  ‘I told you the time would come when you’d need my help, boy. Glad to see you’ve come around to my way of thinking. You can leave the ones on this floor locked up. Anyone capable of thinking straight has already been taken away by the Special Guard for their land of the free fey. The ones this far down are wild and dangerous.’

  ‘And you are not?’

  ‘You tell me, Oliver. You just waded through the blood of a hundred jailers to get to me.’

  ‘They killed themselves by their choices,’ said Oliver. ‘And I wanted to see why they buried you this deep.’

  The Whisperer laughed. ‘You’re going hunting, aren’t you? You crazy bastard. You’re going hunting gods.’

  ‘That was your plan, was it not?’

  ‘I just never thought you would agree. The way things have fallen apart in Jackals in the last few weeks, I might have settled for
the Lady of the Lights’ troll bridge and the feymist.’

  As the Whisperer left the cell his deformed appearance seemed to swell in the air of the asylum corridor, growing stronger as the sorcerous fields that cut him off from the earth’s power, the bones of the earth, were left behind. ‘Now that’s better. They’ll never catch me again, Oliver. I’m not the boy my father sold down the river for the price of a jinn bottle. I have grown in ways they could never imagine.’

  Oliver stepped through the ripples in the air, the cell walls flexing and twisting as the Whisperer drew the power of the leylines into his abnormal form. ‘You have your freedom, Nathaniel. Now let’s make sure you have a world left to enjoy it in.’

  ‘We’ll settle it in the east, boy,’ hissed the Whisperer. ‘Last night I walked the dreams of a thousand steammen. The army of Mechancia is in the field. It was the life metal that cast down the dark gods last time around and there are some extraordinarily ancient scores waiting to be settled.’

  Oliver recalled the people of the mountain cities, images from his journey and of Steamswipe blurring with shadow memories of other journeys through the Free State – some as an enemy, hunted down, others as a friend – standing on the deck of an aerostat, the peaks of the mountains lancing out of the clouds.

  ‘Are you well?’ asked the Whisperer.

  ‘My head is so full, sometimes it’s difficult to think.’

  ‘That’s how I first learnt to walk dreams, the nightmares of half the county leaking into my sleep. You have to learn how to use it.’

  ‘I’ll try, Nathaniel.’

  The two of them retraced Oliver’s passage through the dark and dirty asylum corridors, Oliver’s existence sensed by the inhuman beings behind the cursewalls, some pure living fury battering the walls of their cell with their minds, others dark brooding presences, waiting silent and cold like spiders for something to blunder into their web. He could almost see why the order of worldsingers insisted the fey be torced or imprisoned. Some of these feybreed were more like a force of nature, the human part of their minds eaten away by the mist, left in a body half-evolved for the strangeness of a life beyond the feymist curtain; barely conscious of the violence of their existence here in Jackals. Then Oliver remembered that the order had tried to have him committed here; had wanted to pick his mind and body apart, to crack him open like the leftover carcass of a Circleday meal at Seventy Star Hall. His sympathy for the order’s endeavours disappeared.