by Stephen Hunt
‘Yes,’ said the inspector. ‘I’ve seen the reports from my crushers on the gaslight shift — terrified out of their wits by what they think they’ve seen. Companies of worldsingers and Special Guardsmen herding unmentionable things through the rookeries and the alleys.’
‘Nothing to get to Dock Street,’ said Hoggstone.
‘The news sheets will catch wind of your excursions soon enough if it keeps on,’ said the inspector. ‘Am I to presume your acceptance of my invite down here means your friends haven’t run down any useful information?’
‘You would think they were hunting ghosts,’ Hoggstone snarled. ‘The man you’ve got. He was a printer?’
‘Yes. A small Hoax Square operation — bill stickers for the tonics, supposedly. We raided him on a tip-off he had a sideline in relish, which he did. Crates of real-box smut, enough pictures to keep the Greenhall censorship committee in sitting for weeks. It was probably one of his girls that blew on him — artistic differences and the like.’
Hoggstone held onto the rail at the side of the wall as he walked down the stairwell. ‘But you went back to his print house after the blood machine results?’
‘Too right, First Guardian. We raided it at night, ripped the place apart just as quietly as we could. That’s when we found the other stuff. I have a watch on the place now, to see if anyone else turns up there.’
‘You’ll be lucky if they do,’ said Hoggstone.
‘Could be a waste of time, but stranger things have happened. I dare say the politicals have got the place under observation now too.’
The stairwell finally ended — a single iron door waiting for them. Inspector Reason rapped on the metal and a grill pulled back, then the door swung inward. A grasper in a black police uniform saluted them. ‘You’ve never been down here before, First Guardian?’
Hoggstone shook his head.
‘One door in, one door out. Both manned. Plenty of people have done a bunk from Bonegate after we’ve passed them to the doomsman for sentencing, but nobody has broken out of the yard’s cells. Some right old rascals have had the chance too — the Lions Field strangler, Vaughan the highwayman, even science pirates like Newton and Krook.’
In front of them a second constable unbolted the last door revealing a long corridor, cells on both sides with glass doors. Ignoring the other inmates Reason led Hoggstone to a cell at the end — the only cell with an iron door and rubber seals like the cabin on a submariner’s boat.
‘Turn the noise off,’ Reason called to one of the guards. ‘And pull the bolts on this one.’
Three cracks echoed off the enclosed space and Reason spun the door wheel. Inside, a figure stood upright, blindfolded and chained to a metal frame.
‘The political police would be able to get information out of him a lot quicker,’ said Hoggstone.
‘Slow but steady, First Guardian,’ said the inspector. ‘You know the yard doesn’t approve of their methods. Matey here has got all his fingernails intact, and I don’t need some backstreet sorcerer to rip his mind apart either. Besides, if you are strong you can train against the politicals’ methods, and if you are weak you’ll just say whatever they want to hear in the end. When the yard wants the truth, we just leave them alone with the noise — a day, a week, a month, the noise gets them all in the end.’
Hoggstone glanced around the cell, bare except for the reflecting plates that helped the noise move around the chamber. The sound of devils dancing.
Inspector Reason pulled the blindfold off the prisoner. His wide eyes moved slowly around the room, taking in Hoggstone and the policeman. His gaze was wild, splintered, as if his reality had been fractured and there were other things in the room only he could see. Things he had to move aside to make room for the two visitors.
‘What name are you using today? Garrett or Tait?’
The prisoner mumbled something.
‘It must be hard choosing,’ said Inspector Reason. ‘You’ve been living as Garrett for fourteen years. But your blood records show you to be Tait. Now Garrett was not very respectable, was he? Maybe on the surface he was, but all those boxes of smut you were peddling. That’s good for a couple of years in the clink in itself. So tell the gentleman here what your name is.’
‘Tait,’ said the prisoner. ‘It’s Tait.’
‘But Mister Tait is a combination man,’ said the inspector. ‘From the coal fields. How did you end up as someone else?’
‘Identity. I took Garrett’s name. He was dead in the famine — nobody knew.’
‘Well now that’s a problem,’ said Reason. ‘Because Tait is still wanted for organizing the mine labour in the Carlist uprising. Garrett gets two years in Bonegate, but Tait — well, he’s going to get the rope, isn’t he?’
‘Tait, I’m Tait.’
‘Good,’ said the inspector. ‘To tell you the truth, Tait, I don’t really care about your relish, and as for what you did in the old days? Well, if I were to arrest everyone who stuffed a fuse in a jinn bottle during the uprising, I’d have the lords of commerce lining up outside Ham Yard to complain about the labour shortage. What worries me is the hidden basement under your print room. All those fresh copies of Community and the Commons boxed up and ready to distribute. Do you find much of a market for that rubbish these days?’
‘Please, let me sleep. I just want to sleep.’
‘Then tell me what I want to know, man,’ said Hoggstone. ‘So we can move you to a cell with a bed. Tell me about the troubles on the street. Were you and your friends at the docks when things got ugly down on the Gambleflowers?’
‘Not us,’ said the prisoner. ‘It’s not us.’
‘But the rabble rousers call themselves Carlists, man.’
‘Not the sort to join my chapter,’ said the prisoner. ‘Different.’
‘How?’ Hoggstone demanded.
‘They want things. Things from their members. Crazy stuff. Crazy like a hex. People start believing it.’
‘I often find the most powerful ideas are like enchantments,’ said Hoggstone. ‘Who are the organizers, where does their committee meet?’
‘Vicious,’ said the prisoner. ‘They’re killing us off. Killing their own.’
‘He doesn’t know who they are himself,’ said Inspector Reason. ‘The noise would have winkled it out of him if he did.’
‘Something this well organized doesn’t just spring up from thin air,’ said Hoggstone. ‘Tait, you might not be familiar with the new Carlist movement, but one of your people must know where this latest brand of revolutionary poison is coming from.’
Tait moaned in pain.
‘Tell him the name, Tait,’ said Inspector Reason. ‘Tell the gentleman the name you blew for me. Tell him exactly who your relish money was going to. Who you’re funding and printing for.’
Tait shook his head.
‘Damn your eyes, man, I need that name,’ said Hoggstone.
‘You lasted three days alone with the noise, before,’ said the policeman. ‘I’ve seen a real hard man last five, maybe seven days before they broke. You want to find out if you’re a hard man, Tait?’
‘Carl. Ben Carl.’ The prisoner said the name like a prayer. ‘He knows about the new revolutionaries.’
Hoggstone bit his lip. ‘Middlesteel’s prodigal son? Circle, I thought he was dead for sure! Where has he been hiding all these years?’
‘Worth the trip?’ said Reason to the First Guardian.
Tait was crying, stung by the shame of how easily betrayal came. ‘I only saw him the once, at a meeting. He’s scared too. They’re hunting for him now as well, the new ones. He’s too important to leave in peace.’
The First Guardian turned to Inspector Reason. ‘Do you believe the fellow?’
‘Three days in here, I do.’
‘Keep his works under watch,’ said Hoggstone. ‘Day and night. The devil take Benjamin Carl. I never thought I’d need an audience with that bloody troublesome philosopher. He must be in his dotage now … and stil
l up to his old mischief too.’
Reason gestured towards the prisoner. ‘The magistrates? He’ll be given the scaffold for sure.’
‘I just see a tired old fool who has traded printing one type of dirty book for another. Charge Garrett, not Tait. Do it quietly and put him through my district. I’ll see he only gets the boat.’
‘Sleep,’ Tait moaned.
The inspector checked his pocket watch. ‘You’ll stop seeing the visions by this evening — then you’ll sleep for days.’
‘The first days of a fairer nation,’ said Hoggstone, quoting the opening dedication of Community and the Commons.
The inspector called for his warders to come in and unchain the restraining frame.
‘Ben Carl,’ said Hoggstone, rolling the name around his mouth. ‘Benjamin Carl. Old man, I thought you were dead.’
‘I got everything on the list you gave me,’ said Awn’bar.
‘Nice one,’ said Binchy, taking the wicker basket of food from the craynarbian boy. He reached into his pocket and took out a thruppence coin. ‘How was Jerps on the Park?’
‘Big queue, same as always.’ The adolescent mottling on the boy’s armoured skull glowed in the sunlight of the corridor. ‘The jellied eels looked fresh, so I got you a cup’s worth of those too.’
Binchy smiled. ‘Good lad. That’s my supper sorted then.’
‘My matriarch said to ask after Damson B,’ said the boy.
‘You say thanks to your mam, tell her we’re both winning the race.’
‘The race?’
‘The race of man,’ laughed Binchy.
‘You haven’t got time to show me the cards again, have you?’ asked the boy.
He was good too. At an age when most of the Shell Town youngsters were running through the rookeries tossing mud balls at anyone who took offence at their larks, the boy could sniff out a recursive loop in a line of Simple and read the tattoo of a punch card like a born engine man.
Binchy checked the time on the grandfather clock in his hall. ‘Best you get back to your clan, Binchy must be about it. There’s always tomorrow.’
‘Circleday then,’ said the craynarbian boy, sounding disappointed.
They both turned as the tapping of a cane sounded down the tower’s corridor. Nobody who lived on his floor as far as Binchy could tell.
‘Mister Binchy?’ said the dapper old man as he came up to them.
Binchy put the basket of food down on the hall floor. ‘You have me at an advantage, sir?’
‘Professor Vineis. My office wrote to you, I believe.’
‘The alienist? I only got your letter yesterday.’ He looked at the boy. ‘On your way then, Awn’bar. Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow,’ said the craynarbian, running down the corridor.
The professor rested on his cane. ‘They are a fine people, the craynarbians, are they not? I have heard about your wife’s unfortunate condition, Mister Binchy, and would like to talk to you about her if I may.’
‘Best you come in, then,’ said Binchy. ‘You’re not on the Royal Institute’s list? I’ve consulted with most of them — useless buggers. Engine sickness is beyond their field of expertise. If it struck down guardians and counting-house masters I’d say they’d find it within their field of expertise fast enough.’
‘I have been consulting in the city-states for the last few years,’ said the professor, taking off his cape.
‘Thought your accent had a touch of the exotic to it.’ Binchy took the cape and hung it on a hook on the back of the door. ‘How did you find me? It’s been a while since information sickness appeared in any of the journals I subscribe to.’
‘A curious turn of events,’ said Count Vauxtion. ‘Culminating in a message and a broken mirror.’
Binchy scowled in incomprehension. ‘A broken mirror? That’s bad luck.’
‘Indeed it is,’ said Count Vauxtion. ‘For someone. Now, Mister Binchy, shall we begin our consultation…’
Chapter Seventeen
Oliver looked at the makeshift bandage being wound around Steamswipe’s war hammer, then checked outside the stone barn again to make sure they had not been seen ducking inside. The steamman knight looked at the sacking covering up his arm and the panniers loaded on his back with a notable lack of enthusiasm. ‘Disguising my status in this way is not honourable — and a single layer of cloth is not an effective ruse.’
Harry continued winding the sacking around the metal limb. ‘Would that be your status as a reinstated knight steamman, or your status as a disgraced warrior sentenced to deactivation?’
‘Little softbody,’ rumbled the knight, ‘if I was not under code oath to protect your life, I would break your bones with that which you so clumsily seek to conceal.’
‘It is necessary,’ said a strange voice.
Oliver looked to where the knight’s sacred weapon, Lord Wireburn, lay on a bale of hay. Something about the weapon’s voicebox made him uneasy; the sound of all the souls it had dispatched from the world caught within its piercing artificial timbre. Luckily for the Jackelian the weapon spoke rarely.
Steamswipe did not reply to his weapon but it was clear he was willing to defer to the holy relic — without its intervention in the chamber of arms the knight would have been returned back to his eternal dreamless sleep.
‘Too bleeding right it’s necessary,’ said Harry. ‘Since I’m the only one in this party who’s been to Shadowclock before, let me clue you in on what we’ll be facing. Shadowclock is a sealed city — its walls date from the civil war. There are four gates, all manned by redcoats and watched day and night. Inside the city is the entrance to the mines — outside are the largest, best-protected aerostat fields in the kingdom. Anyone coming in or out by road and waterway is searched for contraband.’
‘Celgas?’ said Oliver.
‘Bang on,’ said Harry. ‘The House of Guardians is paranoid when it comes to the gas mines. As it should be, given they think they’re the only source of the gas in the world.’
‘But they are,’ said Oliver.
Harry tapped the side of his nose. ‘Actually, you would be surprised where celgas turns up, old stick. But I digress; the important thing is if you control Shadowclock, you control the navy. And when you control the navy, you control the continent. Everyone knows that, and someone in the city is playing silly buggers. Your uncle was on to something, something that involved that place, and everyone who has had a sniff of it so far has ended up dead.’
‘We’re still alive, Harry.’
‘Not for want of trying, Oliver. If it weren’t for this old steamer’s kin, those Cassarabian slave hunters back at the border would be chewing our bones. A sad end for a fellow of my talents.’
‘Some would say fitting,’ said Steamswipe.
‘No doubt some would,’ said Harry. ‘But seeing as how your ancestors seem to have volunteered your services to this merry outing, how about you devote some of your superior steamman intellect to working out how we are going to get into that city without being rumbled by the army, city constabulary and navy.’
‘Haven’t you got any of your people in the city, Harry? Wolftakers, or whistlers?’
‘None that I can trust,’ said Harry. ‘Those two sand cats and my old friend Jamie weren’t waiting for us because they were taking a picnic on the moors, lad. My network has been compromised. Even if the whistlers in Shadowclock haven’t been turned directly, people who want to see you and me disappear will have briefed them. Too risky by far.’
‘We can breach their walls at night,’ said Steamswipe. ‘Stealth will serve us well.’
Harry looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, you see as well at night as we do in the day, don’t you? It may yet come to that, but if there’s no one I can trust in Shadowclock, I can think of at least one that I can’t.’
‘That is the level of your strategic thinking?’ asked Steamswipe.
Harry finished concealing the knight’s war arm. ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies
closer. I think it’s time to send a message to the Circle and pray for assistance.’
‘A friend you can’t trust, Harry?’
‘The bonds of friendship dwindle with age, Oliver. But a little blackmail lasts forever.’
Oliver looked at the coal dust on his clothes. The caravan of traders they had joined to sneak out of the Steammen Free State might have gone their own way, but the dust from the dirty mules still clung to his breeches. If he had gone home to Seventy Star Hall looking like this his uncle would have set Damson Griggs on him with a scrubbing brush.
‘Your secret police, the cloud-hidden, they will be watching for us?’ asked Steamswipe.
‘Perhaps,’ said Harry. ‘But they have to sight us before they can follow us. The Court of the Air might have been compromised, but not everyone up there is bent — I doubt if there’s a watch on Shadowclock. Whoever is behind this is killing people who poke their noses into the celgas mines. They’re not going to want to draw attention to the city with a full-scale quarter and sweep of the area running day and night for us.’
‘Conceal me in the panniers,’ said Lord Wireburn. Oliver realized the holy weapon was speaking to him. It took all his strength to heft the thing off the straw and into one of the bags on the side of the steamman. When Steamswipe lifted the weapon it appeared as light as the boatman’s gun that Mother Loade had given him.
‘You are a strange excuse for a squire,’ said Steamswipe.
‘You don’t look much like old Rustpivot back at Hundred Locks either,’ said Oliver. ‘Panniers or no. Harry, what about the county constabulary here — are they going to be looking for us?’
‘Lightshire is a long way from here, Oliver. Our details will be in the town garrison for certain, but you aren’t going to find Ham Yard blood machines at the toll cottages this far south. We’ll travel by day from now on, like the respectable Jackelians we are. There’s a full moon tonight; too many villages and farms around here for us to be sneaking around — I don’t want some farmer taking pot shots at us for poaching or sheep rustling.’