It is far too quiet here. I miss the Metronome’s tick.
I spot something familiar nearby. Sticking out of a pile of broken television sets and heavy cables is Thyme’s sword. It is still wrapped in its leathers, and its silver hilt glints in the light, and for all the world it looks like a symbol of something – a crucifix, perhaps.
I scramble across and pull Thyme’s sword free. It is heavier than I thought it would be, but I suppose that I have spent too long watching films where heroes heft their weapons as if they are made of cardboard. Turning the leather of its scabbard over, I wonder about Thyme – awake now, in all probability – and I wonder about the lies he told me. I wonder whether this blade really would burn were I to draw it.
‘Have faith,’ he said, time after time.
Slint catches up at last and stops behind me. Waiting for my next move. He seems uncomfortable in direct sunlight – smaller, diminished somehow, as if he is just a man in a suit after all – and he observes me with his black porthole shaded beneath a gauntlet.
‘I found a sword,’ I tell him, as if he might actually offer me an answer. I glance across at the wreck of the Metronome again, which is still and quiet, and feel a sharp pang of regret. Then I pull my coat aside and loop the sword’s leather scabbard through my belt. There, the sword does not feel as if it is going to cause me to keel over.
‘Come on then,’ I say to Slint, and continue towards the jungle.
*
To the rear of the Metronome’s wreck, I come to a long tongue of earth, inviting me into the throat of the jungle. Only, there is a worrying set of heavy drag marks along it. Three parallel furrows begin at the edge of the sand, leading from the skyship’s wreck into the dark of the jungle ahead.
Slint looms behind me, and I glance up at him. ‘What do you think?’ I ask, but of course he gives no answer.
I draw March’s compass. There are four needles – one for me, and one for Slint, and two pointing ahead of us. Two more dreamers, somewhere else on the island. One must be for June, but the other is anonymous. ‘It could be a survivor,’ I say, still unsure. But I suppose that we should check it out, just in case.
It is noisy and busy between the trees, with the croaking of reptiles, the buzzing of insects and the calling of more mysterious creatures from further away. But I am glad to find that we are left alone by the island’s wildlife. I put this down to the presence of Slint, who stomps nearly silently from shadow to shadow behind me. Back in shade he is regaining some of his dark majesty.
Before too long a figure emerges ahead of us, walking with a limp.
Heavy-looking chains are bound around the crescent-moon remains of the Metronome’s wheel, with its star-pointed spokes causing the strange furrows in the earth. The chains are the means by which it is being dragged, over the shoulder of a wild and almost unrecognisable figure. This figure is so muddied and bloodied that it could be a corpse come to life, and its limp is being caused by its left leg, which is bound tightly around the shin using two copper levers and the shredded remains of a red coat. The figure steps into a pillar of sunshine beaming down through the canopy, and is revealed all at once.
‘Captain?’ My voice feels too loud.
She turns, her grey hair become a crazed thatch-work around her worn features.
‘Manderlay?’ she says, and she drops her chains. The wheel falls flat with a thud.
I am too startled to respond when she throws an arm around my shoulder and embraces me. ‘You look well,’ she says. Then, taking a limping step back, she turns serious. ‘You’re armed? I’ll not have swords and guns and all manner of foolishness aboard my ship. Have you no respect? Throw it overboard, so that we might be free of it!’
My hand hovers over Thyme’s sword.
‘Captain…’ I say, uncertain. ‘We’re not on board the Metronome any more.’
At this point, Slint arrives. I watch him slide from the shadows. In the sun, it looks as if he is stood beneath a shower of light, with the cascading brightness bouncing from his dented helmet.
Far from being daunted by Slint, the Captain glares at him as well. ‘Neither of you are in any state to serve,’ she says. ‘I’ll have the Bosun find you some fresh clothes, and Callister bring up something to polish that helm. I may not have the respect of my peers, but I’ll have the respect of my damn crew!’
‘Captain…’ I try again. ‘The Metronome is gone. I’m sorry.’
This time, Reid seems to pause before reprimanding me. She glares into my face as if I am Solomon’s Storm, needing to be conquered. But then, she looks around at the jungle, at the trees and the canopy, at the wheel of the ship fallen behind her. With one bloodied hand, she reaches up to her leathery face and traces the lines of the black tattoo there.
‘This is my island?’ she asks, tentatively.
‘We made it,’ I tell her, with a cautious smile. ‘You brought us all the way here.’
The Captain nods. ‘Then we must go and find my crew.’
‘They’re awake… They all awoke when the Metronome crashed.’
‘No. Not them. My crew of old. The crew of the Sparrowhawk. I told my captain that I would return here, and so I have. They will be waiting for me somewhere. Murdock, and the rest. They will be waiting.’ Captain Reid leans down and makes to grab at the chains, her eyes glassy. ‘They have waited long enough.’ Before I can respond, she begins to drag her broken wheel through the jungle again.
‘Captain!’ I cry.
She stops. ‘What is it?’
‘Your wheel…’
I consider telling Reid the truth. That she is mad. That her old crew are almost certainly gone from this island, because they were just figments from her childhood. That she is dragging the broken wheel of her broken clockwork skyship behind her, and that she should help me instead; she should help me deal with the very real and terrifying problem of June.
Only I do not think that my words would have any effect. Reid’s madness is what brought us here: facing the storms and the skyships in between, for the sake of her lost crew. I do not think that I could stop her if I tried. But… there might be another way.
‘Why not give your wheel to Slint so that he can carry it?’
The Captain stares. Then she nods. ‘Yes,’ she says, as if I have spoken perfect sense. ‘Why not let the nightmare haul our cargo?’
Between the three of us, we manage to wrap the wheel’s chains around the shoulders of Slint’s diving suit, so that it is strapped to his back. Its spokes strike up around his shoulders, as if he is a grey cloud and the wheel is the sun beaming behind him.
‘And if I can make another suggestion,’ I say, feeling as if I am gaining momentum as I search around for a lengthy branch she can use as a crutch. ‘Perhaps it might be worth us heading upwards, to higher ground, so that we can see more of the island. That way we have a better chance of spotting your crew.’ I find a thick branch that seems to be about the right length, and work the wood to snap it. ‘What do you think?’
When I glance across at the Captain, I see that her stern features are arranged into something that might actually resemble a smile. ‘I say that you are a man of sound mind, Manderlay. Higher ground, it is. Lead away!’ She thumps me hard across my shoulder. ‘And perhaps we shall have you play a tune for Murdock when we find him. For he is a man known to appreciate a good song!’
*
Through the jungle we three tread, through tough thickets and murky, swampy patches of mud where claw-marks grate the ground. The air is thick around us but the native wildlife continues to avoid our advance. Slint is our vanguard, the dark diver pushing the undergrowth away with his heavy gauntlets. He barely seems to feel the wheel strapped to his back.
I watch June’s needle twitch on March’s compass. We are slowly gaining on her.
Almost all at once, we come to a wall: a sheer rocky face blocking our path up to the slopes of the island’s central peak. Nearby, the slivering shimmer of a waterfall is visible. W
e head towards it, hoping for some means of ascent.
From different heights gush pearlescent streams, turned into faceted droplets and sprays by the depths they fall, brilliant rainbows above each one. Trees perilously grip gaps in the rock face, glinting in their eternal dampness. And at their base is a row of ragged openings that give way to complete darkness.
The first cave yawns before us. Potentially a way up.
‘Slint…’ I say. ‘Maybe you could scout? See if there’s a way through?’
The nightmare diver unchains the Metronome’s wheel and sets it down beside Reid, perched upon a rock to rest. Then, without hesitation, he plunges into the darkness beneath the falls. It is an eerie sight to behold – how the shadows welcome him – and realisation grips me. Slint’s suit is not meant to protect him from water, or from the darkness he inhabits. Slint’s suit protects him from the light.
I shiver beneath the warm sun.
Reid rests with her hand upon her wheel, eyes unfocused. Her damp hair clings to her shoulders, but I am glad to see that some of the blood and grime smearing her is being washed away by the falls. There is a dry, flat rock beside her, and I place my violin case upon it. I take another look at March’s compass.
The bright Sleepwalker, June, is ahead of us again, but I would wager that we are close to catching up. I feel nervous at that thought, because I have no idea what we are going to do when we meet her. Try to wake her if she cannot be reasoned with, I suppose. Whatever it takes. I glance down at the sword at my side and sigh. I have never tried to use a sword before, but it is the only weapon we have.
‘Captain,’ I say, and she frowns at me as if I am a stranger. ‘This might be a funny question… but what do you have against weapons?’
For a moment, I am not certain that she has heard me. But then she speaks, measuring her words. ‘Before the Metronome, I spent an age captaining for the Wordhoard. She was a fine vessel – as sleek and quick as a barracuda across the waves. We set our station between Castra and the Golden Gate, and there we darted from ship to ship and fought and plundered, night after night, until our holds were full.
‘Grand times, they were. I was glorious, then. But understand: I was no pirate of doors. We took only books, and maps, and scrolls. Words were our plunder and we had our fill. We became traders of information, so bloated with books we were as sharp as knives. But for all that…
‘I learned little of what I actually sought. Scraps of information about Solomon’s Eye, and nothing more. No maps or charts or accounts. And beyond that, I learned that there was little in awakening for me either. That asleep and dreaming, I was mighty and brilliant – a legend, perhaps – and awake, I was nothing and nobody.
‘But beyond all else, I realised how easy it is to wake, to be forced back to banality. A single strike is enough to fright a sleeping mind to awakening.
‘There is no greater target than an armed dreamer. Point a gun, and it is almost inevitable that a gun will be pointed back at you. It is far more prudent to run – to dream on and see greater sights. And it was in this manner that my crew and I gave up our piracy, and dreamed longer for it. We forged the faster Metronome, speeding through the skies too quick to wake.’
I think that I understand Reid a bit better, now. While I am unfamiliar with the sword at my side, it is guns that make me truly uncomfortable.
In the years I spent travelling, I had many guns pointed at me, but the worst instance was in Philadelphia. I had a scattering of days off in Philadelphia a few decades ago, and I decided to wander the city a while, to take in the atmosphere of it. What I found was a bright but troubled metropolis, equal shades shining lamps and deep pools of dark. It was in one of those pools of dark that a man came towards me with a pistol.
I looked down the barrel of his gun, and I was terrified.
I gave him my wallet, and it was enough to send him on his way. But the encounter made me introspective, made me respect the weapon. I did not feel worthy of it, and that unworthiness stemmed from just how easy it would have been for me to die then and there. My life snatched away in an instant, as easily as waking from a dream. I never wanted the responsibility of possessing something so easily devastating.
Running my hands across the case of my violin brings me comfort. I unlatch it and open it wide, hoping that my instrument has been spared the worst. Thankfully, it has. By some miracle, my violin is whole and dry. I give silent thanks to whoever it was who designed the case.
‘What happened to the Wordhoard?’ I ask Reid.
She blinks, remembering. ‘When I found Callister, we took the Wordhoard apart. She became the basis for a far greater vessel. You’ll still see parts of her in the Metronome, if you look close enough. I never imagined I’d fly. None of us did. But we soar. Oh, how we soar…’
Removing my instrument from its alcove, I tune it. The tuning does not take long, and it helps to calm my nerves. It helps me to forget about June for a moment.
‘And what about the books you stole?’
Reid’s leathery features crinkle into a proud smile.
‘I have them all, still. Hidden away. The greatest library in all of dreaming, or so they say.’
I idly pluck at my violin, glancing at the dark caves and wondering how much longer it will take for Slint to return. Reid is staring glassy-eyed at the falls once more. I read the notes etched into her weathered features – that strange little song – and I mouth them, and as I do, I pluck them. I play the song tattooed into Captain Reid’s face, and smile to hear it, because it is a pretty little dancing tune. A simple, pretty melody.
The island answers.
A great, all-encompassing sound fills the air, and the trees around us swish to its rhythm. The noise is tremendous and woodwind, as if someone is playing an awesome wooden flute from somewhere above. The silver prison, perhaps. The song hums through the rocks beneath my feet, and vibrates the droplets of the waterfall, causing it to dance. It is the same song, the song I just played. Reid’s song.
The song lasts for as long as it lasts. Then silence, a fresh pause in the air, like a question mark, until I hear the waterfall as it finally comes back into the world, rushing and gushing and retaining its overpowering grip on local sound. I turn on the spot, violin at my side, laughing at what has just occurred. I know that it was wonderful, remarkable, brilliant, and that I do not understand it.
When I look at Reid, she is weeping, and I do not know if it is in joy or sorrow.
*
We emerge from the caves and into the light.
Ahead of us is the bare face of all that remains of the mountain, and never have I seen such an enormous sun. The top of the mountain is cut off in one great line where the basin of the volcano begins, and it is upon that line the sun sits, as if it is resting within its crater.
Before that overwhelming light, Slint is humbled. The only reminder of his true nature is his shadow, vast behind him. It is warm enough up here that I do not need my coat, so I offer it across to him, and he accepts it wordlessly, pulling it across his helmet and forming a sort of tent around his porthole window.
Reid is glaring back at the view behind us. From here, the island looks like it flounders heavily in the sea, as if it is a sunken wreck. In the far distance the horizon is a ring of deep black, where the storm writhes eternally around its hidden eye. ‘I can see no ships from here,’ she remarks, leaning heavily against her crutch.
‘A little further,’ I tell her, and she frowns at me, perhaps sensing my deception.
We toil on, and not far ahead we come to the ragged edge of a broken road. It is wide, dusty and ancient, made completely out of black stone. It is the end of the black road, leading to the top of the mountain. The antithesis of the yellow-brick road.
I glance at March’s compass. June’s needle is steady – it looks as if she is waiting for us ahead. She will have certainly seen us on her own compass. I conceal March’s compass as best I can in a pocket, just like the first time I met June. I
t would not do to lose the young Sleepwalker’s device again.
We come to a set of ruins, built into a rocky plateau near the walled rim. They look bleached and flattened by the power of the burning celestial giant in the sky. We walk the plateau, the black line of the road leading us beyond those time-worn ruins and up to the wall that surrounds the volcano’s rim.
Finally, we find ourselves before a tremendous open archway. While gargantuan in size, perhaps five times the height of a man, it is half sunken into the ground and rests at an angle, so that its peak is off-kilter. It is a compass needle pointing in the wrong direction.
Waiting for us beneath the arch is June.
‘You shouldn’t have come, William,’ she says. She has something at hand which might be a pebble, manipulating it as she watches us. Her whole form shimmers as she stands, her back to the awesome sun.
‘I had to,’ I tell her. ‘I have to stop you.’
June scowls at me, and then turns to Reid. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she says. ‘Really. I have a lot of respect for you, Captain. I’ve heard all the stories.’ June smiles. ‘I’m glad I have the opportunity to apologise to you, in fact. I don’t like having to wreck ships. I had to wake March, though – he left me no choice. I had to destroy the Metronome – and wake everybody on board – just to make sure he couldn’t follow me any more. I am sorry for your loss, truly, and I hope to make it up to you. When this is over, I’ll take you back to Babel.’
Reid’s face is a complex network of shadows. She leans against her crutch and regards June steadily, but gives no reply.
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