The Bosun closes the rolling doors and heads away to his duties, leaving us alone with the birds.
‘She took Binary’s fleet,’ says March.
‘I know that much,’ says Delaware. ‘And more. Y'see, I saw they were flyin' messages from ship to ship using winged type nightmares, so I fished one of them right outta the sky. Waited 'til he was overhead and roped him down. Tell you what, he put up a hell of a fight. We struggled for a while. But I persevered, and when that damn nightmare wasn't flyin' no more, I went through his pack and read all about June’s plan to go to Solomon’s Eye. Ran a chill down my spine, that did. What in hell’s name does she think she’s doing? Who does she think she is? There’s places out here that’re off limits. We all know that.’ He glances at me. ‘They were goin' on about the map-man too. How he’d managed to get to Babel and find March. How the two of you were flying out after June with the Metronome. I’ll tell you this much – that made my heart lift. At least someone’s trying to stop June from whatever it is she thinks she’s doing.’
March looks troubled at this news. ‘She knows we’re coming, then.’
‘Yup,’ says Delaware, ‘but there’s more. She left the Smog behind to slow you down or maybe stop you. And she knows you managed to capture it instead. They must have had a radio on board, broadcasting everything that was happening. That whole fight pissed her right off, apparently. So she’s decided to make a stand. She’s decided to let you catch up, and then she’s just gonna wreck you, straight up. She’ll be just ahead, now. Somewhere between here and the edge of Solomon’s Storm, I’d wager.’
The blood has drained from March’s face. ‘Ah, hell,’ he says.
Glancing at both of us, the scarred man nods at the boy soldier. ‘Why don’t you go on up, tell your captain to expect a fight soon. I’ll have Will here show me around. I’ll help, if I can. Don’t you worry about that. We can’t let June get to Solomon’s Eye.’
Running a hand through his hair, March nods, looking dazed. He rushes away, leaving me alone with Marcus Delaware. But instead of waiting to be led anywhere, the scarred man remains exactly where he is, leant up against a cage filled with birds, looking me up and down. It is difficult to meet his gaze; his eyes are set into rivers of skin so warped that his face might be no more than a horrible mask.
‘Why do you have so many birds?’ he asks.
‘No idea.’
‘Hm,’ he says. ‘All right.’ Then, ‘How is he? March, I mean. He looks tired.’
‘The fight with the Smog drained him. He told me he’s going to wake up soon.’
Delaware nods, and a quiet falls between us. I am not sure how to fill it. But then, ‘You’re getting younger?’ he asks.
‘Yes! I mean… yes, I am. But how did you know?’
‘The nightmares were talking about it. They were talking all about you. Apparently they’ve been after you for a long time now. You’ve had June hunting the doors for a change – normally she just haunts Babel, makes a big noise about nightmares having rights too. But what I need to know is: did March teach you the ageing trick, or are you doing it by yourself?’
I frown. ‘Well… March didn’t teach me anything. But I’m not trying to be younger. It’s just sort of… happening, I suppose.’ I raise my hands and turn them over, admiring the ruddy flesh – the lack of blue veins – the heart for Lily, inscribed into my wrist.
‘Good,’ says the scarred man. ‘Keep it that way. And keep your tattoos. Between you and me, if March is all we have against June, then we don’t have much of a chance. He’s so young – way too young – and the old March passed away long before this March was ready for the role. The problem is…’ Delaware rolls up his sleeves, producing even more scars, valleys through his flesh. ‘You and me, we wear our wounds. I wear my scars, you wear your tattoos, and we don’t forget who we are. But this March… he doesn’t get it, yet. He reckons that covering up his wounds makes him stronger, when the opposite is true. It’s making him weaker.’
‘I think I know what you mean.’
‘Do you?’
‘He made a joke about it, when I went to find him. And the way his arm won’t stop bleeding… He lost it, didn’t he? Amputation, infection, I don’t know the details, but he lost his arm. That’s why he’s dreaming the same dream every night. He’s remembering the last time he had it. And that’s why it takes so much out of him to conjure bits of his dream. And that’s why…’ I do not finish my sentence, but I do not need to. Delaware nods.
‘So it’s up to you and me,’ he says. ‘If March is all the hope we have, then we’ve gotta keep him asleep. We’ve gotta help him out as best we can. We’ve gotta face that fleet of nightmares – and June – and maybe between the three of us, we can cobble together one competent Sleepwalker.’ Then, he smiles a toothy smile, revealing crooked teeth. ‘I reckon you and I are gonna be good friends, Will.’
And despite the terrible odds against us, I smile in return. Maybe there is some hope for us, after all.
Rooks
The birdcages are being taken away.
From what I can gather, they are being relocated to a different hold at the stern of the ship, though for what reason I have not been able to discern. Fairly soon, there is only an empty dark space and me, sat with a pink finch with its own little cage, singing its lonely song as I listen. I have promised to take this bird through to the stern hold when I am done here.
The large rolling doors have been partly opened to air out the place. We seem to be finally leaving the heat of the swamp behind us. I sit with my legs dangling out over the drop, and I have opted to leave my harness unworn. A single errant gust of wind, or push from behind, or moment of imbalance, and I will fall. But I do not.
I am content to watch as the sky begins to blush, lines of red infusing the brilliant blue. But there are deep black bruises too, left in the wake of the other skyship flying alongside us, because the Smog has caught up. In our worry about what awaits us ahead, we have decided that we would be better with a second ship – a warship – to face June and her fleet.
The Smog is a big black and dull silver bulk, droning through the reddening sky and belching the choking effluence of its engines in its wake. We appear to be keeping mostly behind the larger vessel, as if we are using it as a shield against the darkening of the day.
We soar out over the last sparsely placed trees of the swamp, and are once more at the mercy of the open sea. Here the waters are gentle, and they reflect the red sky, turned to washing eddies of black and crimson that shudder. The first stars begin to wink into visibility overhead, and they too are mirrored in the waters, doubling their brilliance.
Despite the rumbling of the Smog, and despite the ticking of the Metronome, the scene seems tranquil and calm, like the quiet before a storm. Beside me, the finch twitters her songs. I have given Reid the last song she needs, and I feel useless.
When Samantha left home at last, I felt similarly. It was an early red dawn, like this, and the two of us loaded her cheap battered car with all the things she would need for university, and no matter how many times I offered to drive her through to Glasgow, she told me that she wanted to do it herself. To go off on her own adventure. Too much like her father, I suppose. I was proud, though. I was never any good in school, beyond music – too busy reading novels instead of textbooks, and too busy rushing off on my motorbike instead of doing homework – and I attribute the fact that Sammy managed to get onto a good course entirely to Lily’s influence.
So, she left, and I became useless. The house was too empty, and so was I.
It took me less than a month to return to sea. I spent most of the next few years bouncing around the Mediterranean, shifting cargo from port to port.
In an upmarket bar in Rome, I ran into my soldier friend with his great bristling moustache for the second time. Only, he had one fewer eye than the last time we met. In truth I was surprised to find Valentine still about his business. He looked worn, much aged since I last
saw him, but still beaming his ridiculous grin, as if he was in on a joke that nobody else knew about. Later that night, I asked him why he was still involved in the military. Did he need the money?
‘No, no,’ he told me. ‘It’s not about money. The money doesn’t matter. There’s always money. The only currency I give a damn about is time. The older I get, the more I do and see, and the more I realise I don’t have much of the stuff left. It goes by so quickly, these days. And before you know it, you’re an old man, your time is running by so fast that it’s sprinting and you can’t even do the things you love any more. So, this is me spending my time doing the things I love.’ He grinned, then. ‘Bossing people about and causing all manner of jolly trouble!’
There are islands out in the sea below me.
They are rocky outcroppings hardly large enough for a man to stand, but tall and twisted and pockmarked with black hollows. Shapes are moving among the islands in the half-dark: black, winged shapes, which flap and dive in tight arcs. By those that get close enough for me to see, I am able to ascertain that these birds are varieties of corvid. In the darkening of the day, the rooks fly and play, whisking themselves around as if to show their skill in flight.
I catch sight of something unexpected among the islands. There is a road between the rookeries, suspended among them, and using the rocky islands as supports. It is crumbling, and in places fallen through altogether, but the road seems to be made of some kind of ancient blackened stone, leading both back in the direction from which we have come and off into the direction in which we are headed. There are no particular decorations on it and its design is of no recognisable era; it is only very old.
We have come to the ruins of the black road at last. I do not find it reassuring.
There is the glint of something flashing ahead of us, like a star in the dark. I lean out as far as I dare in order to see, my face against the cool winds. And it is in that precarious position that I catch my first glimpse of Solomon’s Storm.
The storm is still only a black line on the far horizon. But that black line is a tremendous shape – a dark so black that it feels as if we have come to the edge of the world – the edge of a chapter. That flash I caught before at the edge of my vision seems to have been the flashing of distant lightning.
I open the door to the finch’s cage, and it darts quickly out, flying on rose coloured wings. In moments, we have left it behind. I watch as it flies away, in the opposite direction to the one we are travelling in. I drop its cage out over the edge and stand, to go and help keep a lookout for June.
*
Between the red sky and the red sea, June’s fleet waits.
There is the guttering of flames from engines. Some of the skyships hang in the sky beneath enormous balloons, while others hover beneath propellers or rotors, and more still seem to be suspended by arcane and less readily discerned methods. A twinkling of lights from portholes and decks and windows define their silhouettes.
March lowers his binoculars.
‘What are they waiting for?’
The rest of us stand behind him at the forecastle – everything bleached red by the sky.
‘They’re waiting for you,’ says Delaware, without looking up. He is checking and rechecking March’s side-arm, taking it apart and putting it together again between his ragged fingers.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why do you think she stole a fleet in the first place?’ Delaware rolls an icy silver bullet around in his palm, before carefully loading it. ‘She’s scared of you, March.’ Apparently satisfied by his work, the scarred man glances up at last, frowning at the Sleepwalker. ‘You know they call you the “Lord of War", right? Nightmares, I mean. Where you go, cannons fire and people get shot. That’s what they think of you. That’s what June thinks of you. Hell, that’s what I think of you.’
Reid’s weathered face is a black web of shadows and song notes.
‘Forty-two,’ she says. ‘We are two against forty-two, and my ship is not armed.’
With his back to the fleet in the distance, March observes us all.
‘We have to stop June,’ he says.
‘What would you have us do?’ growls the Captain. ‘Throw ourselves upon their cannons? ’Twould be a quicker awakening. I promised you passage for the musician’s map, and that much I have delivered. Your map is spent, Sleepwalker. You have no more to bargain with. I aim to make for the storm, and you are welcome to disembark. Use the Smog if you wish to fight, but I’ll not risk the Metronome. The storm will be hard enough without flying through that fleet.’
A warm breeze curls the edges of my coat.
‘He’s right,’ I say, but my voice sounds too quiet, so I try again. ‘He’s right, though. We need to wake June. If we don’t, then she’s just going to follow you through the storm and wreck your ship anyway.’ I glance about at the deck behind us, where the crew are setting up a number of lengthy metal pylons. Perhaps something to help deal with the storm.
‘Madness,’ says the Captain. ‘Madness, it is.’
‘It’s not…’ March fumbles around with his good arm until he finds his compass. ‘Look. All we need to do is wake June. And all I need to be able to do that is to work out where she is. So it’s simple enough. We force her hand by making her have to deal with the Smog first, because if she doesn’t, then it’ll tear a hole right through her fleet. And while she’s busy doing that, we use my compass to work out which ship she’s on, fly across, and wake her up.
‘Easy,’ he says, trying his very best to look confident in his plan. ‘It’ll be easy.’
Scowling, Reid looks to Callister for his opinion.
The watch-smith shrugs. ‘Could work,’ he says.
The Captain abruptly stomps away, returning to her wheel and bellowing orders. I glimpse a pair of crewmen dragging chains up from below towards her, for some purpose. Then, I return my gaze to March, who is watching all the needles turn on his compass with a small frown. ‘It’ll work,’ he says, possibly for his own benefit. ‘I’m sure it will.’
*
With the use of flag signals, we direct the Smog.
The atmosphere up on deck is tense. I have clipped myself onto a railing at the edge so I can see the deck of our pollution-spewing, nightmare-infested ally. Shifting shapes crowd the metal deck, and at their centre is the bulbous form of Slint in his diving suit, directing them. The Smog banks with orders received, and surges towards the waiting fleet.
Delaware joins me, pistol in hand. He has his own harness.
We both observe March on the forecastle. ‘Do you think we’ll get through this?’ I ask. ‘Do you think he can do it?’ I am very nervous – a dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach that this may be it; this may be when I am awoken from my incredible dream. The fact that March is still not wearing a harness does nothing to settle my nerves. I am unable to decide if it speaks for his confidence or foolishness.
‘If anyone can win a war,’ says Delaware, ‘then it’s him.’
There is a tremendous noise as the Smog sounds its great horn, like a foghorn amplified a hundred times. I feel it tremble through the wood of the deck. When it has finished resounding, this time, it is answered. The fleet ahead of us sound their own horns – whining sirens, and the clanging of what must be enormous bells. And with this clamour, they too surge forward.
I unclasp my harness and rush up to join March above the Metronome’s figurehead.
The ticking of the clockwork skyship quickens, and the crew stumble as we lurch into motion. We soar behind the Smog like a flighty finch behind a buzzard, and the fleet drawing swiftly closer to us is like a parliament of sinister black crows – a flock ready to devour us.
I hear the voice of Reid, audible over all the noise, and see that she has been chained down behind her wheel; there are great links pinning her in place.
‘All hands, brace!’
The deck tilts just as I fasten myself to the forecastle. March grips hold of it with one white
-knuckled hand, and he looks so weary – as if he has already been beaten. ‘We can still turn back!’ I tell him. ‘We could turn away, go around the fleet, find a different way to stop June!’ But when he glances over at me, his features ghastly white, I can see the resolution in his face. We are going forward with his plan, even if it costs us all our dreams.
There is a hellish grumbling and cracking as the Smog opens fire. The black effluence of a hundred cannons streaks out before it, utterly consuming the first skyship it hits and damaging the next two. Pieces of ships rain from the sky, along with the rag-doll figures of nightmares where they are flung from their broken vessels. The might of the Smog is terrifying to behold.
‘Where is she?’ March is staring wide-eyed at the face of his compass.
We bank hard to starboard as a slender battleship streaks through the sky beneath us, cannons roaring as it flanks the Smog. I just about catch sight of the enormous flagship returning fire – overwhelming everything with its absurd battery assault, and I cling on as the Metronome threads itself a clever route through a sky filled with hulls – black against the red – forcing them to either hold their fire or risk shooting each other.
Gasping to keep my breath as it is whisked from me, I turn and see that the Smog is actually winning. Nothing seems to be able to get close. Pieces of skyships fall everywhere, turned to splinters by its relentless firing solution.
‘Come on, come on!’ March taps at his compass.
The Metronome narrowly avoids being crushed between two jagged hulls by coming about, and suddenly the Smog comes into full view before us.
We all witness June making her move, and it seems to happen in horrible slow motion – as if she has stretched time so that we can fully behold her wrath. Even as the impact of a cannonball slamming into the side of the Metronome jars us, there is no taking our eyes from the terrible view.
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