Iron Angel

by Alan Campbell

  Dusk was barely upon them, but the roiling smoke clouds overhead brought darkness early to Deepgate. Rachel hesitated at the temple exit. The sky fumed black and crimson, and she could see yellow and green chemical fires burning in the east, sending torrents of silver sparks up from the Scythe. The sound of explosions rumbled over the city. Red mist veiled the ruins of Bridgeview and Lilley, and shadows moved silently among the chains.

  The consciousness inside Dill tried to move the young angel’s wings, and let out a gasp of agony. “My flesh is bruised and raw,” he complained. “My wings…Your ignorant assassins have damaged me.” The Spine chain-and-burr cuffs had bitten deeply into the muscles and tendons behind his shoulders.

  “They’re not your wings,” Rachel muttered as she stared at the burning city. Deepgate teemed with ghosts from the abyss, countless thousands of them. Shades capered among the twisted metal and rubble like wisps of living darkness. She half heard sighs and shouts and cruel laughter: intangible voices hiding among the crack and rumble of stone, the creaking chains, and the roaring fires. Would that she had a real priest with her now. A holy man might keep Iril’s shades at bay, protect them against the madness of the abyss. These phantasms would cajole and torment them.

  And worse?

  If she believed the priests’ tales, then yes—much worse. The Church of Ulcis had gone to great lengths to protect Deepgate against Iril’s influence. Yet here it was in the streets before her, undiluted and dangerous.

  She could turn around and go back into the temple, a crumbling hive full of Spine assassins who might well have discovered her escape by now, or she could set off into that uncertainty stretching before her.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  8

  TO ASK A GOD ONE QUESTION

  GULLIVER FANK, PROPRIETOR and pot boss of the Canny Crab in Red Menace Street, seemed decidedly reluctant to admit Anchor and Caulker into his establishment.

  “You have no tables?” the cutthroat asked again. “None at all? Looks quiet enough inside.”

  Fank stood and fidgeted in the doorway of his shop. A rangy old man with a loose neck and spotted hands, he worried a wooden ladle with a cloth while he spoke. “Alas, no,” he said. “Fully reserved this morning, sirs. It’s the fog, I suppose.”

  Caulker raised an eyebrow. “The fog?”

  Fank shrugged. He seemed determined to avoid looking at John Anchor, or at the massive rope which struck skywards from the big man’s harness. “The fog always brings more customers. You know how it is…the sailors don’t sail, civilian airships stay grounded. Everyone’s stuck in town, so our business picks up.”

  “Well they ain’t stuck in your place,” Caulker persisted, peering over the other man’s shoulder at the empty tables and chairs. He was enjoying this. That bastard Fank had thrown him out on his arse on more than one occasion and banned him the last time. All for pilfering a copper double tip from one of his tables. “We could take a seat and move if anybody turns up,” he said amiably.

  Fank failed to suppress a wince. “I really am most terribly sorry, sirs. It is simply not possible.”

  Anchor stood behind the cutthroat with his huge arms folded across his harness and a wide grin on his face. His eyes gleamed with mischief. “Always this same problem for me,” he boomed. “Never can find a table in good broth shops. It is my colour, yes? You don’t like the dark skin?”

  “Gods, no,” Fank said quickly. “It’s not that at all.” He rubbed briskly at his ladle, still avoiding the other man’s eye. “We have a…uh, policy regarding patrons bringing rope inside the shop.”

  “Ah!” Anchor cried.

  “Rope?” Caulker asked. “Since when did you have a policy about rope?”

  “Since this morning,” Fank admitted.

  The giant smacked his hands together. “No matter,” he said. “Bring a table outside. We will sit in the lane. Two bowls of chowder, hot beans and bread, crab salad, cold fishbeers.”

  Fank glanced up into the heavens, then seemed to shrink. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Chowder, beans, bread, and…yes, of course.”

  Once the cutthroat and his guest had installed themselves at the hastily positioned table and had taken their first sips of fishbeer, Anchor said, “Now, my friend. You are telling me the scarred angel did not ever arrive in this town?”

  “People would have noticed,” Caulker said evenly. “Not much goes on in Sandport without the whole town finding out about it. When any decent-looking woman turns up, they post a notice on the board outside the Mudlark. And you’re talking about an angel here, a witch who drinks the blood of innocents at darkmoon. Trust me, tongues would wag.

  “But she can’t be far away. The Spine caught Carnival’s two friends in Olirind Meer’s Tavern not long ago, the same pair who originally left Deepgate with her. A temple warship destroyed half the building with a gas bomb to get to them.”

  “These friends…Where are they now?”

  “The Spine took them back to Deepgate for tempering. They’ll be locked in a temple torture cell by now.”

  “Deepgate?” Anchor beamed. “I had planned to make visit there also. There is a small thing I must do there for Cospinol. We go to the chained city and speak to Carnival’s two friends. Maybe they know where she is hiding.”

  Caulker hesitated. He didn’t want to march into Deepgate if he could help it, not with all those poison fires burning out of control and the Spine rounding everybody up for tempering—not to mention all those ghosts which had taken to haunting the place at night. It would be better if he could kill Anchor somewhere in the Deadsands. There were many dangers in that desolate wasteland, places where an unwary traveler might find himself in serious trouble. One such location sprang to mind.

  “It might already be too late to speak to her friends,” he said truthfully. “We don’t know what the Spine have done to them. I reckon Carnival is holed up in the Deadsands somewhere, out of sight but still near to her prey.” More likely the angel had flown hundreds of leagues away by now, but he wasn’t going to suggest this to Anchor, not when the big man had on him a pouch of soul-infused jewels.

  “The Deadsands? This is the desert between here and Deepgate?”

  Caulker nodded.

  “Good. We walk to Deepgate through the desert, all the time looking for Carnival. Killing two boars with one stone, yes?”

  “Birds,” Caulker corrected. “Two birds with one stone.”

  Anchor gave him a puzzled look. “Not in the Riot Coast. Tell me, Jack, you know these Deadsands well?”

  “As well as any other man.” This at least was true: Jack Caulker had spent enough time robbing merchants in his youth to know all the old bandit trails and boltholes well enough. He wasn’t overly fond of the sand itself, but could find his way between the occasional water springs if need be. “Why are you hunting her, anyway?” He glanced up into the fog and then lowered his voice. “What does your god want with her?”

  The big man beamed. “No need to whisper, friend. Cospinol hears everything I hear. But he never listens, so it is no problem. My master wants this angel because she drank his brother, Ulcis.”

  Caulker sputtered into his beer. “Drank him?”

  “Yes, drank. Like a cheese.”

  The cutthroat frowned. He was about to ask Anchor to expound, but then thought better of it.

  The other man gave a roar of laugher, then slammed his tankard down on the table. “She slaughtered half his army, then drank him. What a feat! No wonder Cospinol seeks her. Her blood contains many souls.”

  The massive rope on Anchor’s back thrummed. The giant paused, his ear cocked towards the sound, and then leaned close to Caulker and whispered, “He says I speak too much.”

  “He’s listening to us now?”

  “Yes, you want to ask him a question? He will answer one question for you. Cospinol knows many things: the tides, the stars, why the moon circles the earth. He understands the hearts of men and why his mother, the goddess Ayen,
closed the gates of Heaven. And he knows what the Mesmerists are planning. Sometimes he even knows things that have not yet even happened, but mostly he’s wrong about those.”

  “Um…” Caulker blinked. What question to ask of a god? He might not get a chance like this ever again. “Well…” he said, thinking hard. “Well, I suppose…” He rattled his fingers on the table. “All right, then, how and when will I die?”

  The rope trembled again. Caulker thought he heard distant shrieks and manic laughter from high up in the fog; he sank deeper into his chair. The question had been the first thing to come into his mind, but now he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know the answer.

  Anchor listened for a moment, then laughed heartily. “Cospinol doesn’t know the answer to this. Now he’s angry. He says you asked the wrong question.”

  Caulker felt somewhat relieved. “Can I ask him something else?”

  “No.” The big man bent forward again. “Listen, friend Jack. You want to live a long time, yes?” He waited until the other man acknowledged him. “Good. I understand such a desire. Me, I have lived longer than any man on this world—longer even than this scarred angel I hunt. It is my reward for collecting souls for Cospinol—” He jerked a thumb upwards. “But these days there are so many bad men. The world is rotten like an orange. Most up there are blackhearts, scoundrels, and thieves. Wicked wicked souls.” He shook his head, and his tone became serious. “Cospinol knows I won’t eat bad souls, so he feeds me only the good ones. Gives me more strength to pull his ship, you understand?”

  Caulker nodded.

  “But if I am to eat any souls, I must then kill good men.” He gave a deep and weary sigh. “And I do not like to do this. I do not like it at all. I want to be free of this harness…this skyship. Is very heavy now. I want go back to the Riot Coast, make a farm, and marry a woman.” At this, his eyes became a little distant, and he smiled sadly. “So this one I hunt…this Carnival. Very strong angel; the blood of a god in her veins. Enough souls to let Cospinol leave the Rotsward and walk free under Ayen’s sun.”

  “And if Cospinol is freed, then you are, too?”

  “This is the truth.” Anchor extended his big black hand. “So we make deal? You lead me through this desert to Deepgate. Help me find me the one called Carnival, and I forget the soul you owe me. We become good friends. Agreed?”

  What choice did the cutthroat have? He was indebted to a man who’d killed six Spine Adepts with his bare hands, and then brought a building down on top of them all. Caulker would have to lure Anchor into a trap before he could steal his treasure. Yet even that prospect was beginning to lose its allure. If this floating god, Cospinol, really heard and saw everything, he might not look favorably upon the murder of his servant—not to mention his only means of locomotion.

  Caulker shook Anchor’s hand.

  Gulliver Fank appeared and cleared away the bowls, stacking them against his chest, while still studiously keeping his eyes averted from the giant’s rope. “Can I get you anything else, sirs?” he muttered. “No? I imagine you’ll be keen to get on your way. May I say what a pleasure it has been to have you both here?”

  “How much is the price for this meal?” Anchor asked.

  “Two doubles, sir.”

  “I have no coin,” Anchor said. “You accept salt, yes? Good Riot Coast salt.” He scraped back his stool and rose, flexing his huge shoulders, then began to drag down his rope from the sky. “It is up here somewhere.”

  “No!” the broth shop boss squawked. He waved his free hand frantically while clutching the tower of bowls with his other. “I mean…please accept the meal for free, on the house, no charge. Really, it’s the least I can do!”

  Anchor grinned. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “Everywhere I find the same generosity! He is a good man this one, Jack Caulker. Without men like this I would go hungry for sure.” His huge chest heaved with laughter. “Now I must make piss. Where is the privy?”

  “Broken, sir,” Fank said. “The drain is blocked.”

  The giant’s brow furrowed. “Same problem everywhere.” He swept an arm to indicate the world at large. “Bad plumbing, always bad plumbing. Same on Cog Island and the Merian ports, Coreollis and Oxos. All the drains blocked. One day I find a plumbing man and ask him why this happens.”

  Caulker couldn’t decide if the giant was serious or not.

  The broth shop proprietor brightened a little. “You could try the facilities at the Cockle Scunny,” he said, pointing down the lane and nodding eagerly. “That place on the corner. I know the gentleman who runs it quite well, and he’s just had his pipes overhauled. I’m sure he won’t mind if you make use of them.”

  “So be it,” Anchor said, turning to Caulker. “Come, my friend, we go now.” He slapped his hands together and flashed his broad smile. “I make piss, and then we go to kill an angel.”

  9

  ICARATES

  SILISTER TRENCH, THE soul in possession of Dill’s body, remained surly and irritable during their trek from the temple, flapping his injured wings occasionally and moaning about the incessant pain in his shoulders. Rachel ignored him. She had other things to worry about. It was dark, they were in the Warrens, and the entire district was seething with the dead. Phantasms crawled through the shadows of derelict tenements all around them, half-seen figures in queer dark raiment. The air felt damp and had a vague red tinge to it, as though a fog of blood had settled upon the city. Faint voices drifted from the empty shells of buildings like the last bounce of an echo, but Rachel could not hear their words clearly. Sometimes she thought she heard growling, and occasionally sobbing.

  A canopy of smoke blanketed the sky, its underbelly lit by colourful fires from the industrial districts. Angry red, yellow, and black streaks fumed and tumbled between the towering silhouettes of tenement blocks. Now and then a concussion rang out, shaking ash from the chains on which the buildings were suspended. The air reeked of sulphur and fuel, and other bitter chemicals Rachel couldn’t identify. She tried not to breathe in deeply, but her lungs soon began to sting.

  They trudged up Lye Street, where the crumpled remains of Barraby’s watchtower stood silent and shuttered at the top of the hill, stark against the turbulent sky; then they turned left onto the narrow lanes around Farrow Wynd, scaling a heap of rubble and shattered barrels blocking Candlemaker Row. To the north, blue and green lights flashed across the heavens, followed by an upwards rush of dazzling silver stars, and moments later Rachel heard the boom and crackle of another poison cache exploding.

  “What is this infernal labyrinth?” Trench said.

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Why should I remember?” he snapped. “I’ve never been here before.”

  “It’s the Workers’ Warrens,” she explained, but his ignorance didn’t surprise her. Devon had taken souls for his elixir from all over the city. If this displaced soul had come from a noble family, he would scarcely have ever ventured down here. She watched him scowling up at the heavens, where the sky still churned with ash and smoke and tiny smouldering particles. Black shapes flitted through the widespread destruction around them.

  Something odd then occurred to Rachel.

  Were the ghosts actually keeping their distance from them?

  Deepgate’s priests had long regarded phantasms as dangerous, there having been too many stories of citizens who had been possessed or driven to madness by such spectres. Yet these spectres seemed content to leave Rachel and Trench alone. She spied them constantly out of the corner of her eye, and heard their strange whispered chatter, but they had so far not ventured close.

  Why?

  Eventually the pair reached a granite and iron-link bridge, which spanned a gap of thirty yards between Ivygarths in the north and Summergarden to the south. Flint pendulum houses surrounded them at all heights, all hanging cradled within a confusion of metal ropes below two massive foundation chains. A hard white deposit crusted everything; it creaked beneath their boots and formed pale cl
umps on the chains themselves. Rachel could almost imagine she was wandering through a winter forest. To the east of the bridge, a vast section of the city had fallen entirely from its foundation chains and sloped away into the red haze, suspended now only by the thinnest lacework of iron and cracked sapperbane. This, she knew, was the Taptack Acres, a district of Summergarden where tenements had been heaped one upon the other to house factory workers. On the opposite side, the nearest pendulum house hung directly from one of the links that still supported the bulk of this quarter. It was a dwelling of a style common among the industrial elite: in each case a vulgar mass of flint which tapered towards the top like a teardrop. Thin steel-link bridges connected the master’s and the servants’ doors to a network of intervening walkways which disappeared off into the gloom.

  Trench was by now walking several yards ahead of her, his cassock starkly black against the pale surroundings. Still grumbling and cursing to himself, he remained heedless of his surroundings—until a crossbow bolt thudded into the ground just two inches from his feet, and stopped him in his tracks.

  They were there among the pendulum houses: twenty or more assassins that Rachel could see, and only the gods knew how many more she couldn’t yet spot. The crossbow, that weapon of choice for Spine, was naturally much in evidence.

  How did they manage to get ahead of us?

  Rachel cursed herself for not pushing on faster. The route they had been forced to take through the city had been tortuous, unfamiliar to her, yet the Spine themselves would be well acquainted with the extent of Deepgate’s destruction. Now this exposed bridge made a perfect place for an ambush. If she tried to run, they would shoot her down before she covered two yards, and there was no chance of close combat here, either. Resistance would only lead to their slaughter, but that may have been what the Spine intended all along.

  A voice called down, “You have reached a place of redemption, Rachel Hael. Your journey ends here.”

  She spotted her interlocutor as one of four Spine perched on the roof of the nearest pendulum house, sighting his weapon at her. Rachel braced herself, her muscles still weary from the strain she had put them under during the fight earlier in the temple. She doubted she’d be able to focus a second time quite so soon. And this time, anyway, the Spine would know what to expect. Nevertheless, she had little choice, and mentally she prepared herself.