I am kept busy primarily by aiding the crew in any way they see fit – by carrying tools, adjusting valves, or simply mopping the deck. But from time to time Captain Reid will summon me, and I will be asked to supply the next song in the sequence that leads to Solomon’s Eye. This I provide with pleasure, and I find that the songs get easier to remember as I go along.
‘Don’t you want to write them down?’ I ask Reid, of the songs.
She shakes her head. ‘I shall recall them,’ she says, and I am fascinated by the way she uses them to guide our way. Reid stands tall behind her pointed-star wheel, steering with her eyes closed, and though it seems as if she is flying blind, I believe that she is listening for the route.
‘How do you do it?’ I ask. ‘Could you teach me?’
‘Perhaps.’ She opens her eyes and glances at me. ‘You are a fine musician, and you might make a fine navigator. But few ever hear the songs on the wind.’
I return to the crew, staying quiet – trying to hear anything beyond the ticking of the Metronome and the work of her crew, but I hear nothing.
Of the fleet, there is no sign until we come to a tremendous set of mountains.
The sea sweeps away ahead, but off to one side a jagged array of impossibly sharp peaks erupt from the waters, like a set of giant knives. Their tips are shrouded by clouds and snow. I am at the forecastle when the cry for contact with an enemy vessel is made, and at first I am unable to see what all the fuss is about.
I hear an argument erupt behind me, and I turn to see Reid and March involved in a heated exchange up on the Metronome’s aftercastle.
‘We need to go after that ship!’ March is gesturing at the distant mountains.
‘Our route takes us around, Sleepwalker,’ replies the Captain, sternly.
‘Our purpose here,’ says March, ‘is to stop June. And she might be on board.’
‘Our purpose,’ growls the Captain, ‘is to recover my lost crew.’
They glare at one another. Everyone on deck has ceased their exertions and is watching the argument unfold. There is a long, tense moment, before March glances about the lower decks and fixes his gaze upon me. Then, he says, ‘You need the map, Reid. Go after that ship, or you won’t get any more of it.’ Reid’s fearsome eyes lock on to me as well. I am pinned into place by both their gazes.
I quickly attempt to spot the enemy skyship again. At first, I am unable to discern anything out of place, until I turn my eyes to the deepest patch of dark among the clouds that smother the mountains’ peaks. Some of those clouds are an inky black effluence, as if a hundred filthy chimneys are leaking all at once, and squatting at the centre of the swirling dark pollution is an enormous black shape, a hollowed-out circle of sky. I remember what March called it, that horrible bulbous skyship – the Smog – and even from here, it is a wretched sight.
Hoping that I am making the right choice, I turn back.
‘I’m sorry, Captain, but March is right. We need to stop June before she can get to Solomon’s Eye, and she might be on that ship.’
*
The crew are rushing about to ready themselves for action. We have a small while still until we catch up with the Smog, so I have borrowed a pair of scissors from March in order to ready myself – to get rid of my troublesome beard, which keeps getting caught on the buttons of my coat – and try to at least be of some help.
One of the crew has kindly filled a basin with water for me, and I am able to see a distorted version of myself in there. It is an unusual experience to see myself looking so young, not because I am so unfamiliar with youth, but because of how easy it is for me to fall back into the skin I left behind decades ago. I glance up, and the face in the mirror is me in my early fifties.
I cut away my beard. There are still lines of silver through it, but it is almost black.
Behind me, the crew are quickly pulling on tougher leathers, and rigging themselves up with harnesses so that they can tie themselves to the ship.
My beard falls away, and my face emerges at last. Then, water dripping from my roughly stubbled chin, I observe myself in the mirror. I can see the crew behind me, and Callister, who is leaning up against a wooden wall and watching me, idly tweaking the edge of his moustache as he does. I wonder how long he has been there for.
‘Better?’ he asks.
I turn to him, running a rough cloth across my face to dry it.
‘Much better.’
He squints at me then, as if observing a piece of clockwork and looking for places in which to improve its efficiency. ‘You need a new coat,’ he tells me. I glance down at what I am wearing. It is a dreadfully cheap but warm thing, awkwardly put together and ill-fitting across my now stronger frame. I pull it off, and lay it down, and see all the tattoos across my arms – snake, heart, coil of rope – defined again.
Callister opens a locker further along, and draws a new coat from the interior. It is lengthy, and has an enormous stiff collar, and reminds me of the Russian military. ‘Try this,’ he tells me, and throws it across. ‘Might take a bit of getting used to, but it’s the kind of thing you’re gonna need. Pull the collar up if you want to be able to breathe when we get up to speed.’
The coat is a snug fit. I am a slender man, but it falls well across my shoulders. I see myself in the mirror above the basin, and almost laugh. I now look as if I am a member of the Metronome’s crew. Callister is busy making his own preparations, pulling on a heavy-looking harness.
‘Thank you, Callister.’
Callister shoulders the rest of his harness, and nods. ‘Help keep my bird in the sky and you’ll owe me nothing. I’ll keep an eye on the Captain, and you keep an eye on your Sleepwalker, and together we might stand a chance of getting through this.’
An alarm bell begins to sound again from above. We both glance upwards.
Callister strides across to me and claps a hand upon my shoulder. ‘Good luck out there, Manderlay. I’ll see you on the other side. You can help me staple my bird back together when we’re done.’ Then he dashes away through one of the cabin’s doors. I am left alone. I turn and see myself in the mirror once again – a younger man, ready for this adventure. I take a deep breath, and try to disguise my nerves, but there is no ridding myself of them. I turn my collar up instead.
‘Good luck,’ I say, to nobody but myself.
*
The Metronome’s tick is frantic.
Up on deck, flurries of snow whip at my skin. The crew rushing to and fro are already coated in a layer of frost. I can just about make out the jagged peaks of mountains as they emerge suddenly from the clouds, before vanishing again in the next instant as we weave a tight route around them, and it feels as if we are racing between deadly sharp icebergs in the sky.
The deck is slippery, and I have to haul myself across using handrails. The snow clears for a brief moment and I catch sight of Reid behind her wheel, her coat billowing, her fierce eyes in shadow as she steers us deeper into the mountains.
‘There,’ says March, pointing, when I reach him.
The Sleepwalker's fiery hair looks as if it has been extinguished. I follow the direction of his attentions, and see trails of black smoke through the white and grey. Almost at once, the Metronome meets the black, and a hideous stench hits me: burning tar, and petroleum, and all the worst pollution there is to sense. Where the black hits the deck, it leaves a greasy trail.
March hands me his harness. ‘You’re going to need this.’
‘Don’t you need it?’ My voice is muffled behind my collar.
‘I’ll be fine. Remember: we’re all screwed without you.’
The alarm bell sounds again, and I see that it is the Bosun, swinging an enormous hand-bell up on the aftercastle. Only, this time, he is answered by the almighty foghorn of the Smog. The deck seems to tremble beneath my feet as it bellows, sounding like the inversion of one of heaven’s mighty trumpets – a hellish drone. They know we are coming.
I shoulder March’s harness, and clip
myself to the ship’s railings as an eerie quiet descends upon the deck. All aboard pause to watch as the terrible nightmare diver ascends into view from below deck, his porthole swinging slowly about, as if the void itself is surveying the light. As soon as he has passed by, all industry resumes, but with furtive glances to the forecastle where Slint stands like a horrible glistening statue.
‘What’s the plan?’ I ask March, as he checks his rifle.
He shrugs. ‘I improvise.’
Somewhere in the smog-streaked clouds ahead of us, a black shape becomes apparent. Bristling with chimneys belching effluence, the Smog looms in the sky, utterly dwarfing the Metronome. Where we dart nimbly around the mountain peaks, the Smog simply smashes through them, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
‘All hands!’ the voice of the Captain cries. ‘Brace!’
I see Reid haul upon a lever. There is a great thump beneath my feet, and the deck of the Metronome tilts, taking me by surprise. Before now, I have only seen her adjust our height while keeping us level. But now, the Captain’s pointed wheel has a third axis; a means by which she might make her skyship dance intricately through the sky. I am quick enough to take a tight grip of my railing as she pulls back on it and we soar upwards, the Metronome’s tick becoming a quick-step rhythm. I am blinded by the snow.
Suddenly, there is blue sky, and the sun.
For a moment we hang there, free of the mountains and free of the clouds. The Metronome’s tick is so slow that it feels as if time is about to stop.
Tick.
I see March grit his teeth, and flick his rifle's safety off.
Tick.
I see Slint grab hold of the forecastle railing with both gauntlets.
Tick.
Below us is swirling darkness, and we fall towards it.
If I cry out, then my voice is lost on the wind. There is no more time for sound. Only a vertigo so powerful that it is like being on a roller-coaster plunging for miles instead of yards. I am gripped by the overwhelming fear that we will smash against the clouds, but instead we pass through. There is no time for me to see the Smog, only catch the blurred edge of it as we dive beneath – a hundred cannons belching brightly in the dark.
None of their payloads hit. We are too fast. The Metronome soars.
There is a wall of black effluence beneath the Smog. I am showered in choking pollution before we rise again on the other side, dodging more cannon fire and mountain-tops.
I see March, rifle raised as we come alongside their metallic glinting decks.
So many nightmares. Hundreds glare up at us.
I am thrown back as something collides with the side of the Metronome, and in one dazed moment I see not one soldier before me, but three. There is March, raining a silvery trail of bullets down upon the Smog, but there are also two more soldiers beside him, conjured from nowhere, with the dust of the desert whirling around them. Only, I know where they have come from. I have glimpsed them before, back in March’s dream.
Hauling myself back to my feet, I see the crew rushing around me. Something else slams into the Metronome, and we dip momentarily before she is righted.
‘Harpoons!’ someone yells.
Glancing over the side I can see a set of three harpoons embedded into the side of our skyship, thick chains joining them to the Smog. Below, a group of nightmares are operating winches, attempting to bring us closer. We are pinned into place.
I see someone approaching through the snow, carrying a set of cutters.
Without a second thought, I vault the railing, and lower myself as far as I am able to see if I can get to them, but the harpoons are just out of reach. The crewman with the cutters yells something down at me, but I do not hear him. I hurriedly try to work out a way to reach those chains without unclasping my harness, but I can see no alternative. My only hope is that those three harpoons, grouped so closely together, are secure enough to support me.
I reach up and set myself free.
There is a gut-wrenching moment before I land on the harpoons. Thankfully, they are embedded so deeply that I am able to use them as a sort of ledge. Gripping hold of the slippery cold metal, I reach up. ‘The cutters!’ I cry. ‘Hand me the cutters!’
The Metronome shudders as she is hit by another cannonball. I see pieces of her falling away, but I just about manage to keep a grip, and grasp the end of the cutters.
The first chain falls away easily, snipped in two, and the Metronome bucks.
I am thrown forward, but stop myself from falling by wedging my boot against a barbed hook set into the side of a harpoon.
The second chain puts up more of a fight, and I have to duck as it breaks – the pattering of gunfire from below pinging from the harpoons, and from the copper parts of the skyship ticking behind me. Only one more chain remains. The Metronome pulls hard against it, longing to break free and soar away. I brace myself as best I can. I haul the cutters into place, and press hard.
The chain snaps.
The Metronome is jarred backwards with a greater force than I had been expecting, and I am thrown forward. The cutters slip from my hands, the harpoons slip from beneath my feet and I am falling. No more Metronome, no more Smog – only empty air and the jagged-knife peaks beneath me.
I reach out, panicking, trying to grab hold of anything.
My hands hit a chain – the chain I just cut – and I grasp hold with all my might as it swings down and around, still attached to the Smog. My hands are numb, and I am screaming as the chain swings past chimneys and cannons, clanging as it meets the side of the ghastly slick metal skyship.
Just about managing to keep my grip, the chain rises quickly – still being hauled in by its winch. Before I meet the uneven shell of the Smog, I swing myself out, so that my feet clang against a surface, and I run vertically up her flank.
With all the force of the winch, I almost fly onto the upper deck. Rolling to a halt, I gasp for breath, and catch a fleeting glimpse of the Metronome above, free of chains holding her down and weaving back and forth.
There are nightmares around me.
I see them advance, holding on to weapons or bracing claws – hideous demonic shapes shuddering in the cold. Trying to grab hold of the chain again, hoping that I might somehow use it as a weapon, I find that my arms are now completely numb. I have no strength left in me to fight.
Something lands on the deck beside me. The metal surface shakes.
Rising from its point of impact is a humanoid shape, but larger, bulbous. Slint has arrived. He seems twice the height of every other nightmare here. I see the uncertainty in the warped faces of the nightmares who had been advancing on me, and then an emotion I have never seen in a nightmare before: fear.
Slint slowly lumbers forward.
The nightmares around him trip over each other, dropping their weapons in their desire to be as far away from Slint as possible.
I catch my breath – feeling the bruises blossoming everywhere across myself already – and pull myself up to my feet again, just as Slint reaches a sort of small hatch in the deck. There are no other nightmares around him any more. They have all run away.
I am unable to draw my eyes from the bizarre sight that follows, as Slint tears the door off the small hatch – no bigger than a chute – and kneels before it. With his helmet turned away from me, I am unable to see precisely what he is doing, but I am given the impression that he has opened the small porthole window in it. Then, he presses that open window against the open hatch.
Like a fly wriggling free of its maggoty skin, Slint empties.
His metal helm rolls free and his rubbery suit flops. Whatever was inside that suit is gone, somewhere into the bowels of the ship. A wave of nausea hits me, and I hold on to my stomach, trying not to throw up.
Glancing around, I can see that the upper deck of the Smog has mostly emptied. Only a few nightmares remain, up in a cabin on its jutting metal aftercastle, where there is an array of alien-looking controls. I quickly grab hold o
f the nearest weapon I can find – an enormous wrench – and advance upon the cabin.
The rest of the Smog has fallen eerily quiet, punctuated only by the occasional scream, quickly cut off. There is no more cannon-fire, either. Whatever it is that Slint is doing below deck, free of his suit, is obviously having some great effect.
Keeping my head low, I am glad to see that the trio of nightmares still steering the ship do not notice my approach. Then, just as I reach the doorway, I spot the Metronome as she comes alongside the Smog. She looks wounded – ragged holes torn in her sides – but still noble and flighty. As soon as she is close enough, I see March jump across, joined by his two conjured soldiers.
It is strange how the dust of his desert dream gusts warmly around him.
Gripping hold of the handle to the cabin door, I bide my time, waiting for them to get near enough. The instant I see March nod at me, I swing it wide, revealing the cabin interior. All three soldiers open fire at once, and a hail of bullets shiver into the cabin. The fight is over in an instant, and March lowers his rifle. The two other soldiers from his dream vanish in a whirl of dust.
Rushing into the control cabin, March pulls the door closed behind himself, and the howling of the winds between the mountains is snuffed. He is grinning, but he looks tired – his eyes are bloodshot, and when he reaches for the controls he fumbles, taking a few attempts to slow the Smog down. ‘Jesus, Will,’ he says. ‘Jesus holy Christ.’
‘Is it over?’ I ask him, leaning back and trying to slow my thundering heart.
‘It’s over. If June was here, we would know it by now.’ The Smog’s rumbling engines begin to soften. We are in control.
It is then I notice that March is wounded, a dark stain against his ice-covered fatigues, damp and still spreading. ‘March,’ I say, because he does not seem to have noticed his bleeding arm. When he glances over at me he seems confused, mumbling something I do not hear. ‘Your arm,’ I say. ‘Look at your arm.’
Metronome Page 12