Metronome

by Oliver Langmead

  The Smog… blooms.

  Wooden supports grow branches and leaves, as if life is returning to them. Where there are the slightest stains, fungus sprouts. Where there was a gigantic metal skyship, there is suddenly a malicious living forest, with vines crushing its hull and trees tearing at its guns and crew. The Smog explodes outwards with greenery. There is a horrible groaning as its engines start to fail.

  The fleet direct themselves away as the Smog drops from the sky.

  When it hits the red waves, it smashes them apart, making them silver, and for a brief moment there is an island in the sea beneath us. Then it sinks. I lean out as far as I am able, and witness those few nightmares still on deck as they struggle with the vines and branches, and the last thing I see of the Smog is its acting captain, Slint, with his gauntlets grabbing at the sky as if he might find something there to hold on to, before he too is pulled beneath the waves.

  Suddenly, we are very alone.

  March is staring at his compass with horror.

  ‘I can’t find her,’ he says. ‘I don’t know where she is.’

  The remainder of the fleet turn their attentions on us.

  ‘Hold fast!’ calls Reid. The ticking of the Metronome’s engine reaches a panicked apex – tickticktickticktick – as we desperately avoid gunfire. Innumerable blurred hulls form about, trying to pen us in. I am panicking. I do not know what to do. The only thing keeping us from being wrecked is Reid’s artful flying, and there is no telling for how long she will be able to keep it up. I duck as we narrowly avoid the base of a long metal hull.

  Winged nightmares sweep down upon us, and the only thing keeping them at bay is Delaware. He fires off rounds from March’s pistol, and when that is empty, he throws it aside and draws his knives – one steel, one flashing ice-silver. He throws his steel knife into the wing of one nightmare, runs up a flight of stone steps suddenly conjured from his dream, leaps high and plunges his silver knife into the head of another, before rolling back down onto deck. The stone steps vanish instantly.

  ‘March!’ I cry, as more winged nightmares approach.

  There is a wild moment of horror as I see a group of vessels forming a solid blockade ahead of us. There is no way past. I know – I know – we will crash into them. Only Reid does not seem to share my sentiment.

  The world turns. The hull of the Metronome splinters and grates. I see a mess of cogs sprinkle around me. My feet are lifted from the deck, and I am jarred backwards as we fly straight up. Then, before we slam into the enemy skyship above us, Reid spins her wheel, and corkscrews us around in an absurd manoeuvre. The Metronome soars upside down.

  I see March drop beside me, and I reach out desperately, grabbing for him.

  Snatching at the air, our hands meet. With all my strength, I keep hold of him. We both watch as the compass is jarred from his grip, spinning and falling like a wishing-well coin into the red sea far beneath us.

  The Metronome spins around, and we both slam back into the deck.

  Reid is calling out, crying out for Callister to do something – anything – to give her more power. I can hear Delaware conjuring more stone – anything to slow down the nightmares attacking the ship. Blood leaks from March’s sleeve, dripping down his fingers as he hauls himself to his feet. With his good arm, he pulls me up.

  ‘You have to…’ he says to me, coughing and spluttering. ‘You and Delaware. You have to stop her, if I fail.’

  March turns to face the fleet now crowding around us. The Metronome rocks again and again as errant shells and cannonballs hit us. The dust of his desert dream whirls around him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I cry out to him.

  ‘I’ll see you in another dream, Will!’

  March raises his hands, as if he is about to conduct an orchestra. In one fluid motion he clenches his fists.

  The first skyship blocking our path explodes – white-hot shards spinning. The one beside it is peppered with white lights as it too is torn apart. I have no time to grab hold of anything any more. The Metronome shudders horribly as we narrowly avoid the destruction raining down around us. I can hear March screaming, and his injured arm is crumbling as if it is made of sand.

  There is another screaming. The screaming of jet engines.

  Thin, flighty shapes surround us. I catch a glimpse of a glinting pilot’s helmet. I see the smoke as rockets are discharged from beneath their wings. I witness the impossible reflection on their wings – the reflection of a desert sun.

  The next skyship blocking our path blooms into white-hot fire.

  The Metronome soars, faster and faster through all the destruction.

  I feel the heat across my back from the haloes of fire we pass through.

  Then, all at once, we are free. There are no more skyships blocking our path. There is only a great stormy wall ahead of us – lightning licking the sea at its edges. And though there is still a steady thundering of explosions from behind us as March’s conjured jets continue their assault, there is a greater rumbling ahead – Solomon’s mighty storm.

  March falls to his knees, and the dust of his desert dream vanishes. His jets cease to be.

  ‘March!’ I grab him before he collapses onto his side, but his eyes are wide and unseeing. There is blood streaming from the young Sleepwalker’s nose. His entire arm is gone. There is only the pouring of blood from his sleeve.

  ‘All dead,’ he says, coughing red. ‘No survivors.’

  He wakes. The weight of him becomes insubstantial as he turns to a whirling, fading nothingness that drifts from my arms. I am left alone on the forecastle of the Metronome, with nothing but the storm ahead.

  *

  The stern hold is all noise.

  I rush from cage to cage and unfasten doors. Out pour the terrified forms of endless colourful birds. Most fly around the wide room, colliding with others and calling out, while some simply locate new perches and trill about their new-found freedom. There are birds sitting on both of my shoulders, another on my head, and every time I lift one of my arms a new bird settles down on the vacant space.

  Beneath it all is the frantic tick of the Metronome as we race to meet Solomon’s Storm.

  Callister looks as if he has aged a decade. His sleeves are rolled back, and his hands and arms are so covered in oil and long cuts that it looks as if he is bleeding black. With an enormous metal wrench, he is hauling hard on one of the bolts keeping the stern doors closed.

  The constant flow of colourful profanity from his end of the hold appears to be spurring him on to greater speeds. ‘Bloody set of infernal bastard bolts!’ he roars. ‘Got all the cages open?’

  I reach one of the last towers of cages, and by now the hold is so full of free birds that it is difficult to see the walls. ‘Nearly! Open the doors! I think there’s enough now!’

  ‘What do you think I’m bloody well trying to do?’

  I attempt to wade through hundreds of flapping bodies towards Callister. I catch a glimpse of the red sky behind us through a porthole, and in that sky I believe that I can see one of the skyships still in pursuit.

  A handful are still following us. And maybe one of them has June on board.

  Callister roars at me, just as I reach the doors, ‘Find something to hold on to!’ Then, with one last great heave, there is a metallic clunk from his bolt. I grab hold of a protruding pipe beside the doors just as they swing open. The sudden massive gust of air through the hold washes away the sound of all the birds, and even the ticking engine, and I see Callister as he too grabs hold of a pipe.

  The birds fly out in one flowing mass of wings.

  They are a massive rainbow blanket of feathers, streaming out behind us. I count three skyships in pursuit, but none of them is quick enough to avoid the birds. I hear Callister laughing over the winds.

  The birds fly at brilliant speeds, so glad to be free, and where they collide with the skyships chasing us, there are small explosions of feathers and colour – they are awoken. I see flames b
urst in the turbine engines of one, where feathers and the whirling dust of awakening have impacted its machinery, and I see a second thrown wildly off course by the sudden barrage of birds, swinging about and crashing into the third, nearby. I find myself laughing as well, caught in the same joy as Callister as the last skyships from the once-huge fleet falter.

  The birds have done their job.

  Those three remaining ships begin to fail and turn about. They limp away, appearing to have had enough, fire leaking from their engines. Behind them, the sky still burns with the last wrecks from the damage done by March. Further back still is the red sky itself, with its thousand glittering stars.

  ‘That must be it!’ I cry, my words unheard. ‘There’s no ships left! We must have woken June! We’ve done it!’

  We speed beyond the battle, so quick above the sea that there are no waves, just an endless silvery red sheen.

  Only, the red is now being stifled by black. The dark is getting darker. We are passing beyond the rookeries, beyond the fleet and beyond the wild dreams. We are entering Solomon’s Storm at last. We abruptly hit the edge of the great black clouds and continue beyond.

  Reid is not reducing our speed. If anything we seem to be accelerating.

  We hurtle into Solomon’s Storm as if we have been shot from a cannon into it, and all light, all sight, is lost. We are swallowed up by the dark, speeding into darker chasms of chaos beyond, where wait deeper dangers than a mere fleet of skyships: the wrath of the sky itself.

  Part Three

  The First Dream

  Solomon's Storm

  Lightning licks the hull.

  When it touches the rods bristling out on deck, the charge courses below, directed by long rivers of copper wire. Electrical lamps have been strung up along the Metronome’s corridors, and they glow white hot every time the ship is struck.

  There is another flash from outside, gifting me a glimpse of the boiling clouds and lashing rains, and then the inside of the ship is lit up, bulbs burning like stars captured in glass. Slowly, they fade. Between flashes is a darkness so complete it feels overwhelming, a promise that the light is never coming back.

  Hunched silhouettes dart from doorway to doorway, and I am among them. Every time the ship is struck, we cower as the hull shudders. Yet, the lightning is not the worst. The worst part of the storm is the terrible winds. From what little I know of storms, they are composed of streams of wind like waves, rushing upwards and downwards, and from what I know of hurricanes, they are one tremendous wheel of wind, predictable in its speed and strength. Solomon’s Storm – the stuff of nightmares – is neither. At one moment, winds push us forward so quickly that the rains become long streaks across portholes, and at the next an almighty gust slams into our side, rocking us.

  I find Delaware sharpening his knives between stacks of broken cogs and coils. He is watching the porthole at the edge of the cabin with wide eyes, unblinking as the sky unburdens itself of lightning again and again. ‘How’s the ship?’ calls the scarred man, over the roar of the storm.

  ‘We’re down to half hands. A skeleton crew. And the lower decks are off limits. Too many holes in the hull. But we’re flying! Reid’s still out there, chained to her wheel. And if anybody can get us through, then it’s her. What she did to get us through that fleet…’

  Delaware attempts a smile, but it comes out looking grim. ‘I saw. You should help them, if you can. They need you now. You’re the brightest dreamer left on board, by my reckoning. You’re like a candle against the dark. They’ll believe in you, and it’ll give you strength, if you let them.’ Another flash of lightning makes the ship shudder, and we both wince. ‘Go on,’ he says.

  I quickly head away, following the string of electrical lights slowly dulling down to darkness. Beyond the corridor, beyond the hull and beyond the tips of those spires out on deck, the storm attempts to digest us within its tremendous black belly.

  I stop and listen as we hurtle through a lull, and it is then that I hear the song of the storm for the first time: the last song from my album, Solomon’s Eye. It is an amalgamation of the roaring and whistling winds, the rumbling of thunder where clouds collide, the electrical crackling of lightning and the waterfall hissing of the rains, and even the groaning hull of the Metronome herself. For a few moments I do not notice the rocking of the ship; I am rooted to the spot, and in awe of what I am hearing. The song of Solomon’s Storm is more than the sum of its parts. It is a majestic and terrible symphony, sung by the sky itself in all its rage.

  *

  Another brilliant flash of the white lights, and I glimpse someone unexpected, the edge of his white tabard at the end of a corridor. Another sighting of Thyme. I rush after him in the dark that follows.

  Through a door which should be closed – slamming in the winds – I see him descend into the gloom of the lower decks, where there are no white lights and all crew have been forbidden to go. I pause at the edge, unsure how the beams of wood barring this door have been broken. They look torn as if by great force. The storm, perhaps.

  I see Thyme vanish into the deep black, and try to call after him. ‘It’s too dangerous down there! Come back!’ But my voice is drowned out by thunder.

  I cautiously make my way down the steps. A flash of lightning reveals the jagged holes in the hull all around – entire cabins ripped clear of the ship – and I take care navigating the corridor, eyes wide to welcome in any light.

  The winds howling through the ship whirl my coat around me. Debris skitters along the ground, and I am unsteady as the ship is buffeted about. The storm rages on.

  I come to the place I saw the old knight go. I no longer need to wait for the next flash of lightning; at the base of a rudimentary set of steps, descending between all manner of cogs and coils in motion, is a pool of flickering white light, as if the heart of the Metronome is aglow.

  As I draw closer, I hear a loud hissing like the release of steam. And when I navigate my way across a set of unmoving pistons and get close enough, I am able to see the silhouette of someone sat beyond, haloed by the flickering white lights. I duck beneath a pipe.

  There are screens everywhere in here, and arranged around them are speakers. Every single one of them is playing empty static. The screens flash and fade just like the white lights above, and there are screens on every wall, and even attached to the ceiling.

  Sitting cross-legged at the centre of his chaotic grotto is the last liar with a multitude of shifting shadows cast across his lap. His head is bowed, as if in prayer. Thyme has removed his chain mail, which sits in a heap up against the corner of the room, and wears only a set of heavily scarred leathers beneath his stained white tabard. The rest of him is exactly as I remember it, as if he is a knight made to wait centuries for his calling to come about, as if he is overgrown and old beyond his own age.

  He is a stowaway.

  I glance around, and locate his sword at the very back of his grotto, where it hangs on the wall between the screens. Still wrapped up in its scabbard, his sword seems to be taking pride of place in the room, as if I have entered a bizarre cathedral.

  When Thyme looks up, I see the static reflecting in his eyes. ‘Manderlay the Bard,’ he says, and I cannot read the expression upon his wizened face.

  Now that I know what he was doing with all the equipment I saw him carrying back at the Golden Gate, it raises even more questions than it answers. I begin with, ‘Thyme? What are you doing here? What is all this?’

  ‘Sit thyself down,’ he commands, and I do not know if it is something in the manner of his speech or the shadows across his face, but I find myself obeying. The ship shudders around us, yet in this place, I have come to a moment of calm among the chaos, as if Thyme has constructed a temple of peace.

  ‘Tell me,’ says Thyme, ‘art thou a man of Christ?’

  I find myself considering his bizarre question, even now, even here.

  I have never been religious. Even as a young boy, the various churches I was ta
ken to did not feel significant. The problem was that my father could never settle on a denomination. While he was certain of God’s identity, he was never quite sure about His exact message, and as such, during my childhood I was baptised by three different churches, and tasted the flesh and blood of Jesus in two different forms.

  None of it felt special. ‘From time to time,’ I say.

  ‘As all men are,’ says Thyme. He draws one of his hands up so that it points at me, or perhaps even through me, pinning me to the spot. ‘I’ll tell thee a lie, then, in the fashion of thy occasional faith. I’ll burden thee with a new thought or three, as I must, for what is to come next. Listen well, Manderlay, for this is a lie that is not often told, and rarer in this way; it is a lie favoured by the oldest liars, and remembered only by the mad and departed. It is a lie older than thee, older than me and older still than the ancient storm we cross. It is a version of the first lie ever told.’

  Thyme draws both of his hands together, as if he might capture the light of the static screens between them. ‘On the seventh day,’ he says, ‘God rested. He saw before Him His garden, and all the light and life He had made, and saw that it was good. He saw the setting of His new sun, and the rise of His new moon, and saw that they were good. He saw the stars come alive, lighting up like candles might, and saw that they were good. And when He saw all of this, He became lulled by His creation, as if Eden and all the constellations in His new sky were a child’s mobile, spinning around in His thoughts. And it was thus that, on the seventh day, God rested, and on the seventh day, God fell asleep, and at the end of the seventh day, God dreamed the first dream.

  ‘There is little known of the first dream. From time to time, a glimmer of it can be gleaned from the glitter of the oldest forgotten rocks. Dig down to the depths below the oldest mountains in dreaming and thou mightest glimpse a colour never before seen, or hear a sound not meant for mortal ears. There are wonders yet hidden from mortal dreamers that might reveal more of that first dream, when God Himself slept, and let His wildest thoughts come alive and shape the very foundations of dreaming. But while there is little known of that first dream, even in the brightest and wildest lies I know, there is one tale told of God’s most terrible creation, born of that dream. For it was written that God did not only dream of colours beyond imagination. It was written that God dreamed… of darker things.