The Legion of Flame

“BLESSED DEMON” STRIKES AGAIN Death Stalks the Marsh-Wold Rogue Blood-Blessed Suspected “Protectorate Constabulary Incompetent” Claims Voter Agitator

Inhabitants of the Marsh-Wold Holdings were yesterday thrown into a fresh state of terror by the advent of another grisly discovery amongst the normally placid fields of their pastoral refuge. The victims on this occasion were the entire Shrivemill family, numbering three adults and six children, together with several employees at the family estate located in the heart of the Wold. Loyal readers will know this to be the fourth such outrage in this holding in as many weeks, bringing the total number of victims to thirty-six, at least half being of the managerial class.

The terrible events at Shrivemill Manor closely follow the same pattern of previous massacres; the main residence and lesser buildings reduced to cinders whilst those who had escaped the fires are found strewn about the grounds in various states of evisceration. Most of the injuries suffered by these unfortunates are too gruesome to detail at length but one witness to the aftermath of the Shrivemill atrocity described to an Intelligencer correspondent “a tree, made up of bodies, all smashed up and twisted together . . .” At this point the witness became so distressed by their recollections they were obliged to disgorge their breakfast.

The nature of these crimes has inevitably led to assertions that they are the work of a rogue Blood-blessed, a figure quickly grown to the status of dark legend in the vicinity, having earned the grim pseudonym of the “Blessed Demon.” The suspicion that these atrocities may be the work of a Blessed hand is given further credence by the fact that all the high-status households so far targeted for destruction were known to keep private stocks of product on their premises—a fairly common habit amongst the managerial class since refined product does not spoil and can be counted on to retain its value regardless of the vicissitudes of the market. Could it be that this foul agent of death is as intent on thievery as they are slaughter? The Protectorate Constabulary have been quick to play down such suspicions with several officers—who did not wish to be named—voicing allusions to foreign-born brigands or members of the labouring class banding together under cover of darkness to pursue a bloody vendetta against those of managerial status. So far, however, no suspects have been arrested and such theories continue to arouse scorn from the Protectorate’s critics.

Miss Lewella Tythencroft, recently elected Chair of the radical Voters Rights Alliance, has dismissed the notion of low-born agitators as “utter tripe of the worst kind.” In a letter to the editor of this periodical Miss Tythencroft stated: “The Protectorate Constabulary is attempting to avoid the consequences of its own incompetence whilst fostering fear and discord between the social orders. It should be plain to even the most addle-brained buffoon that the people of the Marsh-Wold have become targets for at least one insane Blood-blessed, most probably some poor wretched soul driven to delusion by service in one of the Ironship Syndicate’s ceaseless wars, the recent Arradsian disaster being the most likely.” Miss Tythencroft goes on to demand the appointment of experienced detectives from one of the constabulary’s urban precincts and the deployment of specially contracted Blood-blessed to capture the elusive “Demon.”

In the interest of balance, it is this correspondent’s duty to point out that Miss Tythencroft’s views may be influenced by the tragic news that her fiancé, Lieutenant Corrick Hilemore, an officer in the Maritime Protectorate and decorated hero of the Dalcian Emergency, is currently listed as missing, presumed dead following the recent unfortunate events in the southern hemisphere. It should also be noted that the constabulary has doubled the number of officers in the Marsh-Wold and instituted regular mounted patrols. Their task is not an easy one, the Wold being a difficult terrain to police with its myriad water-ways and culverts. Added to these obstacles is the fact that witness reports have provided scant clues as to the true culprit’s identity.

As ever, it is the nature of cases such as this to generate a plethora of false reports and unlikely tales from the erratic or drunken mind. This correspondent has been gravely assured that the atrocities are the work of a wild drake somehow transported from Arradsia and set loose upon the Wold by Corvantine agents. A more spectral suspect arises in the form of “Billy the Burner,” a famed arsonist hanged for his crimes some two centuries ago and now apparently risen from his grave to wreak vengeance. Added to this are various fables regarding resurrected gods from the Shadow Age and the curious figure of “Scarecrow Annie,” a more recent addition to the canon of local ghosts said to take the form of a skeletal woman in a burnt dress many swear to have seen wandering the marshes at night whilst spouting a continual diatribe of gibberish.

Whatever the truth of these fables, it is clear that the danger posed to the people of the Marsh-Wold is very real and, given the holding’s proximity to Sanorah itself, the prospect of even worse carnage cannot be discounted. The Intelligencer urges all its readers to remain vigilant and report any relevant suspicions to the constabulary forthwith.

Lead article in the Sanorah Intelligencer—13th Rosellum 1600 (Company Year 211)—by Sigmend Talwick, Senior Correspondent.

CHAPTER 17

Sirus

The Islander screamed out a war-cry as he swung his axe. Like most who made their homes among the Barrier Isles he was tall and fair of complexion, long blond hair trailing as he sprinted into battle, blood streaming from the many cuts to his muscular torso. Sirus’s first impulse was to shoot him, as he had shot three other Island warriors this morning, but he could sense the White’s growing dissatisfaction with the death toll. Dead enemies were of no use if it was to build its army.

So, as the axe came round in a blurring arc towards his head, Sirus ducked under the blade and brought the butt of his rifle up to slam into the Islander’s chin. His new Spoiled-born strength was enough to lift the attacker off his feet, sending him to the sand, limbs limp and face slack in unconsciousness. Sirus crouched, touching a hand to the man’s chest to ensure he still breathed before binding his arms and legs with a length of cord. His first live capture of the day and his tenth of the week.

He straightened as Morradin’s thought-command reached him, as terse and grating as any spoken word: They’re massing at the village. Circle round to the north.

Sirus relayed the orders to his company, a three-hundred-strong contingent drawn mostly from the Morsvale survivors. Majack and Katrya had taken on the role of senior lieutenants, though the strictures of military hierarchy were often irrelevant in an army where all soldiers could hear every order instantly. Even so, the chaos of battle often made centralised control impossible and Morradin found it easier to communicate with select individuals once the fighting began in earnest.

Sirus took a moment to ensure the beach had been secured, ordering the badly wounded Islanders littering the sand to be finished off. He left a dozen Spoiled to stand guard over the survivors and the barges, then led the remainder into the jungle at a steady run. As they moved Morradin’s mind conveyed a stream of images showing the island from above. A large group of warriors had organised a barricade around their village and were doing an impressive job of keeping Morradin’s main force at bay. The Islanders’ weapons were a mix of fire-arms, cross-bows and axes, and they were all raised as warriors from birth. A lifetime of ingrained martial skill made them fearsome enemies, but also valued recruits. Consequently, Morradin’s assault force refrained from firing their rifles as they attacked, keen to preserve as many warriors as possible. If the battle wore on for too long, though, Sirus knew the White would convey enough impatience for such restraint to be abandoned and the struggle would quickly descend into a massacre.

On reaching the northern edge of the village, Sirus organised his company into a tight formation and led them in a charge against the point where the Islanders were most thinly concentrated. The defenders they met were all women, mothers guarding their clutches of infants against the onslaught of deformed monsters. The Island women fought with scant regard for their own safety, cutting down a dozen of Sirus’s Spoiled before they were overcome. Most displayed such maternal savagery that capturing them proved impossible and Sirus allowed them to be shot down, leaving the children to fight on alone. They had learned quickly that Island children could be as formidable as their parents, especially if they had sufficient numbers to swarm over their assailants in a biting, scratching mass, as was the case here. Sirus lost another five Spoiled before the last child fell. There was no need for restraint in dealing with the children, the White having no use for them.

Watching his Spoiled bayonet the small twitching bodies, Sirus wondered at his lack of revulsion. He knew on a conscious level that he was now more of a monster than he could have ever imagined being, that whatever soul he might possess was forever stained and beyond hope of redemption. And yet he stood and regarded the massacre of innocents without the faintest stirring of nausea. He knew, or rather hoped, that this was the White’s doing, that somehow the conversion process had eroded his capacity for trauma. Or it could simply be his mind adapting to new conditions. He was, and would remain, a prisoner in his own body, so what use compassion or guilt now?

We’ve broken through, Morradin told him. Runners coming your way.

They caught most of the runners. They numbered only about thirty and were easily overwhelmed and clubbed down. Inevitably, a handful slipped through to escape into the jungle. They would be left for the Reds and Greens to hunt down over the coming days whilst Morradin reorganised his forces for the next assault. Three islands taken in less than five days, but the next would not be so easy. It was time to face the Shaman King of the Northern Isles.

Why do you think about them so much? Katrya’s thoughts were coloured by a faint annoyance as she rifled through the images crowding his head; the piled bodies of the Islanders, old people, warriors they hadn’t managed to capture, and the children. So many children. They had been dumped on the beach in two large mounds, one for the Reds circling above and one for the Greens baying loudly in the barges bringing them to shore. The White was ever keen to reward his drake kin, even when the victory rightly belonged to his Spoiled army.

We were them once, he replied. Or they were us.

Not any more. She snuggled closer to him, rubbing her spines against his, something that always seemed to give her pleasure though Sirus found the sensation somewhat dull. They lay together in one of the village huts, spent in the aftermath of a frenzied coupling. She was like this after a battle, as if the slaughter stirred her lust to greater heights.

We’ll make one of our own one day, she told him, her thoughts betraying a sleepy contentment. I can feel that he wants us to. Not quite yet though. We have so much to do . . .

He felt her mind subside into sleep, a sleep he knew would be free of any nightmares born of what they had done today. His own sleep, however, would not be so untroubled. She would be there, her doll’s face drenched in blood and her eyes bright with scorn. Sometimes she laughed at him. Sometimes she simply stared and ignored his pathetic pleas for forgiveness. But never would she speak to him.

Unwilling to surrender to another night’s torment, Sirus disentangled himself from Katrya and rose from their stolen bed. He dressed in the stevedore’s overalls he had found at the Morsvale docks. The White’s Spoiled soldiers had little use for uniformity and wore whatever scavenged clothing took their fancy. Katrya went about in the uniform of a cavalry colonel; she thought the gold tassels were pretty.

He left the hut and wandered the darkened village for a time, trying to shut out the sounds drifting in from the beach where the Reds and Greens gorged and squabbled over their glut of meat. He often found it strange that, despite his remade body, the drakes aroused just as much fear and repulsion in him now as when he had been fully human. The thoughts seeping from his fellow Spoiled made it clear that such feelings were widely shared. For their part, the drakes regarded the Spoiled with either indifference or wary aggression. The vile Katarias was something of an exception, appearing to delight in feasting on those Spoiled too badly injured to be of further use.

“Shiveh ka.” Sirus turned at the sound of the voice, finding that his wanderings had brought him close to the prisoner pens. There were about sixty of the Islanders lying bound within the confines of a makeshift stockade, awaiting the morning when Sirus knew the White would unveil his crystals and add yet more recruits to his horde.

“Shiveh ka,” the voice came again, Sirus finding the source quickly. The Islander lay on his side close to the fence, staring up at Sirus through a gap in the planking. He was older than the other prisoners, his long blond hair turned silver at the temples and his face bore the scars of old battles. He was also taller and more muscular than his fellow Islanders. A chief perhaps? Sirus wondered as the man repeated the same words, more urgently this time, his eyes shining with desperate entreaty. “Shiveh ka!” Sirus was surprised to find he couldn’t translate the meaning. He had absorbed the language of the other Islanders following their conversion, but they were finding the various tribes to be rich in unfamiliar dialects.

He wants you to kill him.

Sirus glanced up to see Morradin standing near by. The Grand Marshal had an Islander’s drinking-horn in one hand and what appeared to be a cigarillo in the other, though the aroma spoke of something more potent than Dalcian leaf. Still has an effect, Morradin told him before taking a hefty gulp from the drinking-horn followed by a deep draw on the cigarillo. A trifle dulled though. Sirus could sense a certain fuzziness in the marshal’s thoughts, although his usual desire to guard his memories had diminished somewhat. The recent battles loomed large, the scenes of slaughter all coloured by a note of reluctant triumph. It appeared that Morradin was beginning to enjoy his work.

Must be the shame of defeat, Morradin said, moving closer to peer down at the pleading Islander. Very strict honour code amongst these savages, you know.

He’ll feel differently tomorrow, Sirus returned.

Perhaps. Or perhaps our drake god will toss him to his brood. Though it would be interesting to see what he knows about the Shaman King. Morradin crouched, leaning closer to the fence and speaking aloud, his modified throat making the words guttural and rasping, like a snake attempting human speech. “Ullema Kahlan,” he said, a name that seemed to hold the same meaning on every island they took.

The Islander’s face hardened at Morradin’s words, the desperation abruptly replaced by defiance. He muttered something in his own language then lowered his gaze and squirmed away from the fence, rolling over and lying in hunched defeat. See? Morradin asked, straightening. Loyal to the death. These tribes feud and fight for generations but forget it all when the Shaman King calls for unity. He’ll have word of us by now, boy. It’s an even bet he’ll be gathering his warriors. A cheery note crept into Morradin’s thoughts as he took another puff on his cigarillo. I suspect we might actually have us a real battle next time.

And you relish the prospect?

Morradin shrugged. Easy victory is boring. Carvenport. He bared pointed teeth in a nostalgic grin. Now, that was quite something. I’d’ve taken it in three days if it wasn’t for those confounded mechanical guns, and their Blood-blessed. He pushed a memory into Sirus’s head, the images vague and out of focus until Sirus realised he was viewing a fierce struggle of some kind through a spy-glass. Figures leapt to unnatural heights, pistols blazing as they shot and lashed out at one another whilst the air around them shimmered with blasts of heat.

Blood-blessed in battle, Sirus realised, a sight he had never seen before. It was a grim spectacle, but a spectacle nonetheless.

Yes. Morradin’s memory was rich in warm satisfaction. The day I sent in the Blood Cadre to punch a hole in the Protectorate defences. Didn’t work, of course. They threw in their own Blood-blessed, as you can see. Only a half-dozen Cadre agents made it back. But it was a fine old show, and I had the satisfaction of watching so many of Kalasin’s beloved children die. The city would have been mine the next day . . . His thoughts darkened, crowding with scenes of slaughter, the horde of drakes exploding from the jungle to tear his army to pieces.

Morradin drained his drinking-horn in a few gulps, the memories becoming more indistinct under the weight of alcohol. Emperor’s balls, that stuff is rank, he observed, tossing the horn aside and turning to walk away on unsteady legs.

They say he’s a Blood-blessed too, Sirus thought. The Shaman King. The only one born to the Isles in six generations. Perhaps that’s why they revere him so.

Then I hope he’s drunk his fill of product, Morradin replied, continuing to stagger away. Because I’m hoping for another fine old show.

CHAPTER 18

Lizanne

Makario’s fingers danced over the keys as he favoured Lizanne with a grin, eyes twinkling behind the long dark hair that hung over his slender face. “Well?” he asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow and removing his hands from the pianola allowing the last few notes to fade.

“The prelude to Huberson’s Second Symphony,” Lizanne replied promptly. “A little pedestrian for my tastes, though I noticed you added a flourish or two.”

His gaze narrowed slightly. “I, my dear, am an artist, not an automaton.” He returned his attention to the keyboard, face set in a determined frown. “This one is bound to flummox you.”

This tune was far more dramatic, a series of low, prolonged notes followed by a sudden, almost jarring lurch to the other end of the scale. Makario’s hands usually floated across the keys but now they darted, fingers splayed and spider-like. The tune was complex and unfamiliar, conveying a sense of melancholy counterpointed with an angry urgency. It was also undeniably one of the most affecting pieces of music Lizanne had ever heard and she winced in annoyance as a loud rhythmic pounding sounded from above.

“Give it a rest, for fuck’s sake!” came the Electress’s muffled cry through the ceiling. “My head’s splitting!”

“It seems our little game must be postponed,” Makario said, closing the pianola’s lid. “Did you get it?”

Lizanne smiled and shook her head. “At first the arrangement reminded me of Illemont, but the melody is . . . strange.”

“As ever, you prove to have an excellent ear, dearest Krista. It was indeed composed by the great man himself. The pianola solo from his unfinished symphony, the composition of which is said to have driven him to suicide.”

“The ‘Ode to Despair,’” Lizanne recalled. “I thought the whole thing was lost. He burned all his papers before drinking poison, or so the story goes.”

“And the story is true. But Illemont had a student with a keen ear and a penchant for listening at keyholes. In time he made his way to the empire and, keen to impress a handsome youth in his charge, taught him this lost masterpiece, or rather a fragment of it. I’ve been trying to fill in the blanks ever since, but then, I’m no Illemont.”

Lizanne turned at the sound of Melina’s strident step. The tall woman dumped a bag of chits on a card-table and began to count them out. “Time to cough up your tips,” she told Lizanne. “And don’t hold out, she’ll know.”

Lizanne went to her room to retrieve the bag containing the unimpressive haul of gratuities she had collected over the previous week. “Is this all?” Melina asked, fixing Lizanne with a sceptical frown.

“They tend to save their favours for the upstairs ladies,” Lizanne explained. “And not all gamblers take kindly to a dealer who can tell they’re going to cheat before they even try.”

“Wouldn’t hurt you to smile more,” Melina muttered, counting out half the spoils and handing the rest back to her, along with a full-length copper chit. “Bonus,” she explained. “Your table brought in a third again as much as the others. Don’t expect the rest of the dealers to appreciate it though.”

The reason for the relative profitability of her table was simple: she never stole, unlike her colleagues. Lizanne was sure the Electress knew of the petty graft indulged in by the other croupiers, but appeared to tolerate it. A discreet enquiry to Makario regarding this curiously forgiving attitude had revealed a simple answer. “Sooner or later she’ll need an excuse to get rid of them,” the musician said with a shrug. “It happens every couple of months. In all honesty, dear, you’re the only dealer whose name I’ve bothered to learn for years.”

“Will I be needed today?” Lizanne asked Melina.

“No, she wants you in the shadows as much as possible. You standing close by on your first Ore Day will draw too many eyes. Make your own way there with the girls, but be sure to go armed.”

“Are you expecting trouble?”

“It’s Scorazin, we’re always expecting trouble. But the Scuttlers have been a bit antsy lately, so keep a keen eye out.”

The Scuttlers, Lizanne knew, were the gang with the strongest hold on Scorazin’s three deep-shaft coal-mines and holders of third place in the hierarchy of near-tribal groupings that ruled this city. She was learning that the internal politics of Scorazin were a fascinating if brutal microcosm of the power games played out beyond its walls. The various gangs existed in a perpetual state of flux, feuds and alliances came and went as the balance of power shifted. Currently, it seemed ascendancy lay with the Verdigris, the oldest gang in Scorazin, who ruled over the only copper mine, their position stemming largely from the fact that their ore commanded the highest price. The Furies, under the Electress’s astute but ruthless leadership, were currently ranked second in terms of wealth and membership, a position achieved through complete control over the two sulphur mines. The fourth tier was occupied by the Wise Fools, by far the least well-organised, but most violent gang, who had recently managed to seize governance of the three open-cast pyrite pits after an ugly massed free-for-all known as the Battle of Pitch-Blende Square.

“Am I looking for anyone in particular?” Lizanne asked.

“Oh, all the luminaries will be there,” Makario put in. “Failing to promenade on Ore Day is a terrible social mis-step.” He rose from his stool and came over to loop his arm through Lizanne’s. “Don’t worry, dear, I’ll guide you through the cast of rogues. Probably best if you don’t mix too closely with the ladies, anyway.” He leaned closer to add in a whisper, “They’re jealous enough to claw your eyes out as it is.”

The Ore Day Promenade began on a patch of muddy ground known, without apparent irony, as Apple Blossom Park. Makario led her to a row of chicken-coops abutting the park to witness the drab spectacle of Scorazin’s population gathering together for the weekly ritual. The principal gangs all seemed to arrive at exactly the same moment. Lizanne had yet to catch sight of a timepiece in this place but all the inmates seemed to share an ingrained knowledge of the routines that underpinned their existence. The four groups moved in dense masses, clustered around the hand-carts which bore their precious ore. The largest gangs moved to occupy four corners of the field, each leaving a considerable gap between the other and allowing Lizanne to gain an appreciation for their numbers.

“Which are the Scuttlers?” she asked Makario. They were crouched in the gap between two coops, ignoring the annoyed clucks of the scrawny, mange-ridden hens on either side.

“Off to the right,” he said, pointing. “The ones with the black patch on their shoulders. It’s supposed to be a coal scuttle, not that you’d know. Embroidery is a rare skill in here.”

Lizanne estimated the Scuttlers’ number at perhaps three hundred, though the musician assured her their true number was closer to twice that. “Have to leave some behind to guard the mines, lest someone takes advantage of the truce,” he explained. “Their friends will collect their share. See the dumpy fellow at the front?” Lizanne followed his pointed finger, picking out a ruddy-faced man who appeared to be little over five feet tall but with an impressively broad stature. “Devies Kevozan,” Makario said. “Current Coal King. Got the job when he strangled the last one. It was a fair challenge, so no one minded too much. He’s short on brains as well as height, but his untrusting nature means he’s not an easy fellow to plot against, and he’s far too ambitious for the Electress’s liking.”

Lizanne’s gaze rested on the Coal King for a moment before being drawn to a taller figure standing to his left. He was younger than Kevozan by several years, pale of complexion for most Corvantines and possessed of unscarred and undeniably handsome features. However, it wasn’t his face that piqued Lizanne’s interest, more the way he maintained an unmoving posture whilst his eyes roamed the crowd in unceasing scrutiny. “And him?” Lizanne asked. “The tall man?”

“Ah.” Makario’s grin returned. “Quite the peach isn’t he? Sadly, his only lust appears to be of the bloody variety. He calls himself Julesin. You might say he’s the means by which King Coal services both his suspicions and ambitions.”

Ex-Cadre perhaps? Lizanne wondered, her gaze lingering on the pale-faced man and deciding the suppressed violence in his posture was a little too obvious for one of Countess Sefka’s servants. Yet, Cadre or not, she had little doubt she was looking upon the most dangerous individual she had yet encountered in Scorazin.

“Oh, she does like to bait him so,” Makario sighed. Lizanne followed his gaze to see Electress Atalina lowering her bulky frame in a parody of a curtsy as she matched stares with the Scuttlers’ leader. Her features had an uncanny ability to convey both contempt and solicitation in the same expression. Lizanne saw the redness of King Coal’s face take on a deeper shade as he glowered in response. “I’m not sure that’s altogether wise,” Makario added.

An angry player is prone to revealing his hand, Lizanne thought, watching Kevozan turn and mutter a few terse words to his pale-faced subordinate. Something every croupier learns on their first day.

After the four principal gangs had taken their places the smaller factions arrived, standing in the no man’s land between the larger groups in tight, wary clusters. Makario named a few, the Red Blisters, the Forgotten Sons and so on, but it was the last group to arrive that interested Lizanne the most. There were about thirty of them, and they stood out due to the dozen women in their ranks, the other gangs all being overwhelmingly male. Although their clothing was as ragged as the other inmates’ they held themselves with a bearing that was almost regal, regarding the surrounding multitude with a stern defiance. “The Learned Damned,” Makario named them.

“Learned?” Lizanne enquired.

“Comparatively speaking. Whereas most of us find ourselves confined here for our unfortunate mercenary or violent inclinations, the Learned Damned owe their incarceration to more lofty pursuits.”

“Revolutionaries,” Lizanne realised.

“Yes.” There was a palpable disdain in Makario’s voice as he regarded the cluster of political inmates. “Republicists, Co-respondents, Neo-Egalitarians, all the varied shades of malcontent. For all their pretensions, they’re as dangerous as any of the others and not lightly crossed. Revolution tends to breed dangerous people, which is why they’re generally left alone.”

He fell silent as a fight broke out among the ranks of the Wise Fools. They were a mostly bare-chested bunch with shaven heads, heavily tattooed skin and, apparently, scant sense of discipline. They quickly formed a circle around the two combatants, both crouched in readiness with knives in their hands and fresh scars on their arms.

“Isn’t that against the rules?” Lizanne asked.

“The Wise Fools fight amongst themselves all the time,” Makario replied. “As long as it doesn’t spill over into anyone else’s garden, why care? However,” he went on as the ranks of the Wise Fools parted to make way for a very large figure, “it is frowned upon.”

The two combatants straightened at the sight of the huge man striding towards them, both dropping their knives. He was even taller than Anatol, his shirtless chest covered in a collage of multi-coloured abstract ink and honed to the kind of muscular perfection usually found only in classical statuary. The image of masculine perfection was somewhat spoilt by the man’s face, most particularly the shiny metal nose, which was secured in place by a leather strap.

“Meet Varkash,” Makario said. “Famed Varestian pirate. Rumour has it his nose was bitten off by a Blue drake, though you’d be wise not to mention it if you happen to find yourself in his company. He’s apparently under the sincere impression that no one’s noticed he’s wearing a nose fashioned from solid pyrite.”

Lizanne watched the huge Varestian as the two men babbled excuses at him. He nodded, rubbing his chin in apparent consideration then, moving faster than it seemed possible for a man of his size, his trunk-like arms lashed out left and right, delivering a full-force punch to the heads of both men that left them lying senseless in the mud.

“He doesn’t like to be shown up,” Makario explained. “Varestians were ever a prideful lot.”

The honour of leading the promenade went to the Verdigris, the largest and most amply attired group present. They signified their allegiance by wearing copper bands around their necks. According to Makario they never took the bands off, making the source of their name obvious in the dull green stains that marked every neck. The leader of the Verdigris was a rotund man of average height and a cheery, apple-cheeked visage. He wore a long frock-coat and a tall, narrow-brimmed hat that were both at least a decade out of fashion but nevertheless made him the best-dressed figure Lizanne had yet seen in the city. He doffed his hat at Electress Atalina as he led his people from the park, Lizanne noting that this time there was no open mockery on her face as she nodded back.

“Chuckling Sim seems affable enough, doesn’t he?” Makario said. “To look at him you’d never know he ran the Corvus gambling dens for the better part of a decade and, I’m reliably informed, always did his own killing and he wasn’t quick about it. The more he chuckled, the longer it took.”

They waited until the park had emptied out and the grand procession filled much of Sluiceman’s Way as the inmates progressed towards the main gate. It rose to approximately half the height of the city walls and, according to Makario, no convict could remember it ever being opened. The gate lay behind a secondary inner wall curving out from the great stone enclosure in a semicircle to form what Makario called the Citadel. It was from this stronghold that the constables made occasional forays into the city or launched heavily armed incursions whenever levels of disorder began to affect productivity. However, its main purpose was policing the division of supplies on Ore Day.

Lizanne and Makario fell in with the few hundred non-affiliated stragglers at the rear of the procession. They were a ragged and desperate lot, mud-slingers from the river-banks, shit-pickers from the refuse piles, some so thin and haggard it was scarcely creditable they could still walk. All clutched small bags containing whatever scraps of ore they had managed to scavenge or trade for over the preceding week, plodding towards the gate with a uniformly slow gait, eyes fixed on the Citadel and the promise of sustenance it held. Lizanne and Makario carried no sacks, having surrendered a portion of their chits to Melina, who would exchange them for the requisite amount of ore and allot the received supplies accordingly.

One of the mud-slingers fell out of the procession halfway along Sluiceman’s Way, a stoop-backed man of middling years with long tendrils of grey-black hair hanging over his face. He seemed slightly sturdier than the others to Lizanne, but his despair seemed to have overcome him. “Fuck it all,” she heard him sigh as he sank down next to a stack of empty ale barrels outside the Miner’s Repose, his mostly empty sack between his knees. Lizanne had time to note the old burn marks on his arms and the fact that he had two fingers missing from his right hand before Makario hustled her along.

“No point in stopping, dearest,” he said, taking her by the elbow. “There’s no help to be given and none to be had, not in here.”

Were you always so callous? Lizanne wondered. The musician was the only inmate she had met so far to display even a basic level of compassion or civility. She assumed he owed his continued survival largely to his skills, the Electress appreciated the value he could bring to a clientele mostly devoid of music. But she also knew his presence here indicated a dark past, for there were no petty criminals in Scorazin. She had resisted the temptation to simply ask what crimes had seen him confined within these walls, such things were ever a touchy subject for a convict.

Makario guided her to a roof-top where they could watch the unfolding ritual. He scaled the listing wall of a hollowed-out shack with a skilful alacrity that reminded Lizanne of Clay and made her wonder if the musician’s path to Scorazin might have lain in burglary. The distribution of supplies proved to be an orderly if protracted affair. The ore was placed in a dozen large iron buckets waiting at the base of the citadel walls, each one attached by chains to a crane jutting out from the parapet above. Teams of constables hauled the ore aloft then filled the buckets with a commensurate amount of supplies. According to Melina, a number of smaller additional sacks would be included amongst the overall haul and swiftly pocketed by the constables in return for adding a few luxuries to the pile: soap, tobacco and narcotics being the most common. Lizanne had surrendered her full copper chit for a bar of scented soap and a comb.

It took the better part of an hour for the Verdigris to complete their exchange whereupon Chuckling Sim raised his antique hat to the constables and led his people away, hand-carts piled high with bounty. The Furies were next and Lizanne soon formed the impression that Electress Atalina was deliberately prolonging the affair, scrupulously inspecting each consignment before it was hauled up and making sure Melina made a careful note of every item received in turn.

“She’s really bringing him to the boil this time,” Makario observed, nodding at King Coal, whose complexion now resembled an unripe beet-root. He stared at the Electress with fists bunched as the Wise Fools grew more fractious, grumbles turning to shouts as time wore on.

“She does this every time?” Lizanne enquired.

“Only since Kevozan ascended to kingship. Her way of testing his mettle, and he’s failing.”

It took another quarter hour before the dumpy king finally boiled over, face stoked to a scarlet hue as he burst out, “GET A FUCKING MOVE ON YOU POXED-UP OLD SOW!”

Silence reigned in the aftermath, Kevozan standing in quivering rage whilst the assembled Furies fanned out behind the Electress, hands disappearing into the meagre clothing to clutch knives and cudgels. The Scuttlers bridled in turn, massing behind their king in readiness. The Electress, however, betrayed scant sign of alarm, merely glancing over at Kevozan in bland acknowledgment before returning her attention to Melina’s ledger.

An angry growl rose from the Scuttlers as Kevozan took a step forward, then stopped as a rifle bullet shattered the muddy cobbles a yard to his front. Both King and Scuttlers froze, all eyes snapping to the Citadel as a loud voice swept down from above. “Remember what day it is!”

Lizanne soon recognised the source of the voice: Constable Darkanis, standing atop the parapet with a bull-horn raised to his mouth. On either side of him a platoon of constables had lined up, rifles at their shoulders and trained on the crowd below. “Keep it civil!” Darkanis continued before aiming the bull-horn at the Electress. “You’ve had long enough, Eighty-Six! You’ve got ten minutes to get the rest of your ore up here or you don’t get another bean!”

The Electress responded with a graceful bow and soon the exchange was proceeding at an accelerated rate. When it was done she led the Furies back along Sluiceman’s Way, walking past a still-glowering King Coal without a glance as she chatted with Melina. There were some catcalls and insults exchanged between the two gangs but, with the rifle-bearing constables still watching, the simmering violence failed to erupt.

“Not much more to see now,” Makario said, getting to his feet and offering Lizanne a hand. “We’d best get back. She’ll expect us to lend a hand unloading the ale.”

Lizanne took his hand and rose, pausing as her gaze swept over the Miner’s Repose and well-honed instincts sounded a warning bell in her head. “He’s gone,” she murmured, eyes lingering on the stacked ale casks.

“Who?” Makario asked.

Lizanne tore her hand away and started across the roof-top at a run. “The man with the missing fingers.”

She sprinted to the edge of the roof and leapt. With Green in her veins it would have been an effortless jump, but in her current state she barely made it to the next roof, her midriff connecting hard with the edge and legs dangling as she clung on. She grunted and hauled herself up, running across patchy tiles towards the next building. She could see the Electress up ahead, less than thirty feet from the piled casks. Lizanne forced more speed into her legs and leapt again. Fortunately this gap was shorter and she landed on her feet, rolling to absorb the shock. She was only a short distance behind the Electress now, the casks barely twenty feet away. The next roof-top was too steeply sloped to run across so this time she landed painfully on her rump before sliding down the tiles to the street below, landing squarely atop the Electress’s shoulders. The big woman staggered but proved too substantial a person to collapse under the additional weight.

“Get down!” Lizanne shouted before performing a back-flip and sweeping the Electress’s legs away with a round-house kick.

“You two-faced little cunt!” the Electress roared, glaring up at Lizanne with baleful promise. Lizanne threw herself across the large woman’s head and shoulders, covering her own head with her arms, eyes closed tight and mouth open to spare her ears.

The explosion was larger than Lizanne expected, accompanied by a blast of sound that seemed to cut through her from head to toe. A wave of heat swept over them a split-second later, accompanied by a swarm of splinters from the shattered casks. Lizanne rolled clear of the Electress as the heat faded, swatting at a flame on her sleeve and scooping water from a puddle to smooth through her smoking hair. All around her people lay on the ground, most pierced with splinters or blackened with flame, some still, others writhing. Fortunately the ringing in Lizanne’s ears spared her the screams.

Anatol came lurching towards her out of the lingering smoke, face pale but for the blood streaming from a cut to his brow. He held a large cosh in one hand and a curve-bladed knife in the other. The grim purpose in his gaze made Lizanne crouch in readiness, her hand going to the sheathed knife at the small of her back. Anatol’s advance halted as the Electress rose between them. Lizanne couldn’t hear the order she gave but it was enough for the body-guard to return his weapons to the folds of his coat. The Electress turned to regard Lizanne, face expressionless. She had a large splinter embedded in one meaty shoulder but exhibited no sign of pain as she considered her saviour. Lizanne could almost hear the gears churning in her head. How did she know? Was it a ploy to gain favour? Should I kill her and have done?

Finally the Electress grunted and turned towards the Miner’s Repose. She paused for a moment to take in the sight of the shattered windows and blackened timbers before striding towards the entrance on steady legs, waving for Lizanne and Anatol to follow.

“The Scuttlers,” Melina said. She used scissors to snip off the thread trailing from the final stitch in Anatol’s forehead, then traced an affectionate hand over his mis-shapen face before turning to the Electress, face and voice hardening. “It has to be. We should kill every one of those fuckers.”

The Electress sat behind her desk, a large blood-stained bandage on her shoulder and a cigarillo poised before her lips. There were a dozen extinguished cigarillos in the ash-tray on her desk and she barely seemed to hear Melina’s words, heavy brows drawn in thought as she smoked.

“It was too clever,” Anatol rumbled, sinking back into his chair and smiling thanks as Melina passed him a cup of brandy. “King Coal hasn’t the wit for something like this.”

“Julesin might,” Melina replied.

“Julesin’s a killer to the core, true enough,” the body-guard agreed. “But not a bomber. A bomb requires a whole other set of skills.” His gaze flicked to Lizanne. “Skills an insurgent might possess.”

“She was with me the whole time,” Makario spoke up. He sat in the corner fiddling with an old viola, occasionally plucking a discordant note from the strings. “Besides,” he added, nodding at the Electress, “I think she demonstrated her loyalty well enough.”

“There are other revolutionaries in this city,” Melina pointed out. “Wouldn’t put it past the Learned Damned to hire themselves out for the right price.” She looked at the Electress expectantly, suppressing an annoyed grimace when she received no response. “I’ll take a dozen lads round to that manor of theirs,” she prompted. “See what they know.”

Electress Atalina’s eyes flicked to her, narrowing in dismissal, holding the stare until Melina took a step back from the desk. The Electress stubbed her cigarillo into the ash-tray before fixing her gaze on Lizanne. She had been instructed to sit on a small couch resting against the wall, too far away from the window or the door to offer a swift escape. “How’s your ears?” the Electress asked.

“Not so bad I can’t hear,” Lizanne replied.

The Electress stared at her for a long moment, gears still grinding behind her eyes. “So,” she said finally. “What do you know?”

“There seems to be a dearth of timepieces in this city,” Lizanne said. She said nothing else and the puzzled silence lasted several seconds.

“So?” Melina demanded.

“It was timed,” the Electress said.

“Yes,” Lizanne said. “I imagine the constituent ingredients for an explosive compound aren’t hard to accumulate within these walls. Sulphur and charcoal would be easy to come by. Saltpetre would be more difficult but there are alternatives, dried bird shit for example makes for an excellent oxidiser. However, the scale of the blast indicates a bomb-maker with extensive experience and expertise. As does the use of a timing device.”

“Which would require a clock,” the Electress said.

“Or the skills to make one from scratch.”

Lizanne watched the Electress exchange glances with Anatol and Melina.

“He wouldn’t,” Melina said, Lizanne noting the defensive note in her voice. “He’d never hurt a fly, you know that. More likely, someone slipped the constables an off-the-books sack in return for a pocket-watch.”

“Which would attract attention,” the Electress said. “After all, who’d spend so much just to tell time in this pit?” She switched her gaze back to Lizanne. “Still haven’t told us how you knew.”

“Burns on his face and fingers missing from his left hand,” Lizanne replied. “Hazards of the bomb-making profession. My guess is he designed the device and mixed the powder, but he would need help to adapt a timepiece and connect it to the detonator.”

Melina stiffened a little, stepping closer to the desk. “Electress . . .”

“I’m not rushing to any judgements, Mel,” Electress Atalina told her. “But, at the very least, I think you should have a little chat with the young fellow.” She returned her gaze to Lizanne. “Take our new employee, see what she makes of the Tinkerer.”

CHAPTER 19

Clay

“So you really saw it?” Scrimshine asked, one of many questions he had voiced over the preceding hours. The revelation of their purpose here had left the old smuggler’s weathered features drawn in fascination, as well as engendering a bothersome curiosity.

“Yeah, I really saw it,” Clay muttered in response, eyes fixed on the seam between the ice and the spire. He had wandered this section of the base a dozen times now, pick in hand, finding no sign of anything that might be called an entrance.

“And drank its blood?” Scrimshine persisted.

“That too.”

Clay crouched and chipped away at the ice with the pick, chiselling out a small depression in the surface. Hilemore had already organised his sailors to hack out a deeper hole on the spire’s south-facing side, getting down to five feet before he called a halt. So far, all their efforts had revealed no way into the spire and no clue as to its origin. Steelfine had tested the surface of the structure with a few hammer-blows, leaving no impression except on the hammer. Attempts to chip out small pieces for close inspection proved equally fruitless. Whatever material had been used to construct the spire was far beyond their knowledge or experience.

“How’d you manage that?” Scrimshine asked.

“I shot it.” Clay gave a small grunt of frustration and got to his feet. “It didn’t die.”

He sighed out a foggy breath and raised his gaze to the top of the spire, seeing the stars twinkling in the darkening sky beyond its pointed summit. What are you? he asked it, once again churning over the alien images in his head. During the journey here he had assumed the fulfilment of his vision would uncover a plethora of answers, a trove of enlightenment to banish his perpetual confusion. Instead, there was only this vast monument, which he increasingly felt was somehow taunting him with its indifference.

He lowered his gaze and trudged back to the camp. Steelfine stood at the stewpot, overseeing the evening meal whilst the rest of them huddled around their fires. The cold had worsened since they got here and Scrimshine was of the opinion that they had perhaps one more week before the chill became severe enough to force a return journey. Although their respective professions made them a hardy bunch, it was clear the party was beginning to succumb to the depredations of the climate. Eyes were bright with a weariness that bordered on exhaustion and their movements exhibited an increasingly sluggish lethargy. Loriabeth was by far the worst off having been reduced to a near-immobile state, swaddled in thick layers of clothing and rarely venturing far from the fire. Judging by the persistent shudders that wracked her and the increasing gauntness of her face Clay was unwilling to wait another day, never mind a week.

“We have two barrels of powder,” Hilemore said as Clay slumped down next to the fire. “Blasting our way in seems the only viable option.”

“Powder won’t even dent that thing,” Clay replied, accepting a bowl of stew from Steelfine. He gulped down a few mouthfuls before meeting Hilemore’s gaze. “We got only one real option now, Captain. I think you know that.”

“How much can you tolerate at one time?”

Clay took the flask of Red from Hilemore and removed the stopper. They had five flasks altogether, enough to power the Superior’s engine for a full week at maximum speed. “Don’t rightly know,” he said, raising the flask to his lips and taking a large gulp, quickly followed by another. He staggered a little as the product slid into his belly then immediately began to spread throughout his veins. Miss Lethridge possessed plenty of knowledge about how drake blood affected the body but he hadn’t felt any particular need to ask her to share it, something he now had occasion to regret. “Guess we’ll find out.”

He forced down another gulp, then focused his gaze on the semicircular depression Hilemore’s sailors had hacked at the base of the spire. He unleashed the Red slowly at first, the air misting with steam that billowed high before being caught by the wind. The cloud drifted off to the left for a few yards then turned to snow, piling up into a sizable drift as Clay continued to melt the ice. By the time he had exhausted all the Red in his body, the depression had deepened by at least ten feet and widened to twice its former width.

“Still nothing,” Hilemore said, peering down at the revealed surface of the spire. Clay saw that ice had already begun to form on the rising pool of melt-water at the base of the depression and once again raised the flask to his lips, draining it completely. “Best get a chain of buckets going, Captain,” he told Hilemore. “I’m guessing this is gonna be a long day.”

They worked in relays for the next hour, Clay melting the ice then pausing to let the sailors bail out the melt-water. After three flasks he began to feel decidedly woozy and found his focus slipping, Scrimshine scuttling away amidst a babble of profanity when Clay’s heat-stream strayed from its target to singe the toe of his boot.

“Alright,” Hilemore said, reaching out to steady Clay as he staggered. “That’s enough for now.”

Clay shook off his hand and moved to the edge of the depression. It had grown into a smooth-sided bowl some fifteen feet wide and at least twice that deep. “Still got a few drops left.” He slid down to the bottom of the bowl then crouched to peer at the spire beneath the ice. It was less opaque now, rendered glass-like by the heat, and he could discern the way the spire broadened the deeper it went. Also, another dozen feet deeper from where he crouched, he could see a dark circular shape in the spire’s surface.

“We got something,” he called over his shoulder. “Bring me another flask.”

Clay was ready to drop by the time night began to fall. Using up so much Red so quickly drained his energy at a faster rate than the cold, but he refused all entreaties to stop. It took another two flasks to burn his way down to the upper edge of the circle he had glimpsed through the ice. It proved to be a deeply recessed and, judging by the curve, perfectly circular interruption in the otherwise featureless surface of the spire. Clay could poke a hand through the gap between the ice and the edge of the circle, but the interior proved too gloomy to make out any detail.

“One more should do it,” he said, extending a hand to Hilemore.

“We only have one left,” the captain replied with an emphatic shake of his head. “And who’s to say when we’ll need it.”

“We came too far to quit now,” Clay said, fighting a wave of fatigue.

Hilemore crouched, eyes tracking over the ice and the revealed aperture in critical appraisal. “We know the powder won’t hurt the spire,” he said. “But it should shatter enough ice to allow access, if there’s any to be had.”

Braddon rigged the fuses with Steelfine’s assistance. They hacked a hole into the bottom of the small cavern that Clay had crafted, placing both barrels side by side and inserting the fuse-wire before climbing out and retreating to a safe distance.

“W-won’t it shatter the ice b-beneath us?” Loriabeth chattered, breath misting from the narrow hood that mostly covered her face.

“Take more than a few barrels for that, missy,” Scrimshine told her, baring his few teeth in an attempt at a reassuring grin. “Ice goes down a long ways here.”

“Everybody hunker low as you can and cover your ears,” Braddon said, striking a match and touching it to the fuse-wire. Clay watched the ball of sparks dance across the ice before disappearing into the cavern, then lowered his head and clamped his gloved hands to his ears. The blast came two seconds later, the force of it enough to lift him clear of the ice for a second and cover them all with a fine dusting of displaced snow. Before the boom faded, Clay rose and hurried towards the cavern, sliding down its walls to the bottom where a three-foot-deep fissure had been blasted into the ice. The floor of the cavern was also cracked all over. He called to Hilemore for a flask of Black and used it to clear away the icy boulders and prise up the shattered chunks, casting them away into the darkening sky as he dug deeper. He had always found Black far less taxing than Red and he made rapid progress, adding another five feet to the cavern’s depth by the time he was done.

The others slid down to join him as he stood staring at what he had uncovered.

“What in the Travail is that?” Skaggerhill asked. They could only see the upper half of what appeared to be a giant cog sitting within a circular recess. With the light failing, Hilemore ordered lamps lit before they moved in for a closer inspection.

“Part of some engine, maybe?” Braddon wondered, running a hand over the thing’s surface. It seemed to be made from the same material as the spire, but of a darker hue.

Clay checked the seam between the cog’s teeth and the surrounding wall, straightening in surprise at what he found. “It’s buckled,” he realised, lifting a lamp to illuminate a large indentation in the cog. It looked as if it had been punched inward by some impossibly huge fist.

“What could be capable of that?” Skaggerhill asked, eyes wide and round beneath his bushy brows.

“The ice,” Hilemore said. “The pressure of it. But it must have taken centuries to have such an effect.”

“There’s a gap,” Clay said, his lamplight revealing a space between the cog and the wall. It was a few feet above his head so they would need ropes to reach it, but it was wide enough for a grown man to gain entry. “Looks like we got us a way in.”

Hilemore insisted they wait for morning before venturing inside. The decision grated on Clay’s burning desire to know what lay behind the great cog, but his undeniable fatigue prevented him from voicing an objection. He fidgeted and groaned his way through a fitful sleep, waking with head pounding and his body wracked all over in protest at the previous day’s exertions. It took a hearty swig of Green to banish his various aches and another before he became fully mobile.

“Lieutenant Sigoral,” Hilemore said, having once again forbidden Clay from being first into potential danger. “When you’re ready.”

The Corvantine shouldered his carbine before taking a firm hold on the rope. He reached the gap in a few heaves of his athletic frame then paused to haul up an oil-lantern. He played the light over the gap for a short moment then carefully lowered the lantern inside.

“I can’t see much,” Sigoral reported to Hilemore. “Some sort of passage-way, but it goes on too far to see the end.”

“Stay put when you get inside,” Hilemore instructed. “We’ll join you shortly.”

Sigoral nodded and unfurled another rope from his back, fixing the grapnel in place and casting the line into the gloom below the gap. The opening was an easy fit for a man of his proportions and he levered himself through in short order. After a short delay they heard his echoing shout of assurance.

“I’ll go next,” Hilemore said. “Then you Mr. Torcreek.”

“What about the rest of us?” Braddon asked.

“We have no notion of what awaits us in there,” Hilemore replied, drawing his revolver. He turned the cylinder a few times to ensure it hadn’t seized in the cold, then holstered it. “I won’t risk more lives than necessary. At least, not until we have a sound estimation of the dangers.” He turned to Steelfine. “Lieutenant, you have command in my absence. Wait until tomorrow morning. If we fail to return, do not follow.” He held the Islander’s gaze for a moment until he received a terse nod.

“I c-can’t stay out h-here,” Loriabeth stated. She huddled between Braddon and Skaggerhill, both standing close to provide more warmth.

Hilemore seemed about to dismiss her with a reassuring platitude but stopped at the sight of her hollow and shivering face. It was plain to all present that another night on the ice might well kill her. “Can you climb?” he asked instead.

“To g-get out of this c-chill . . . I’d climb a S-seer-damn mountain.”

“Very well. You follow me.” He turned and started up the rope, reaching the top to clamber halfway in then waited for Loriabeth to follow. He was obliged to grab her arm and haul her the last few inches as her hands began to slip. After they had disappeared inside Clay took hold of the rope, then paused to address his uncle.

“The captain’s right,” he said. “Don’t linger too long and don’t follow.” He glanced at Steelfine. “Regardless of what he does.”

Braddon said nothing and Clay knew he had just wasted his breath. Neither his uncle, Skaggerhill nor Preacher would simply walk away if they failed to come back. He was also fully aware that Steelfine had no intention of following his captain’s orders.

“Well, anyways,” Clay said, starting to climb and grunting with the effort. “Here’s hoping this damn thing ain’t empty.”

He dropped to Hilemore’s side a few minutes later. Both the captain and Sigoral had lanterns in hand and were casting their light at the huge tube-like passage ahead. Loriabeth sat against the cog, deep breaths echoing along the passage-way. “You alright, cuz?” Clay asked.

“It’s . . .” she began, then forced a smile, “. . . like a green-house in here.”

In fact, the interior of the spire was only marginally less cold than the air outside, but even a small upturn in temperature brought welcome relief. “I’m guessing it’ll feel a sight warmer the farther in we go,” Clay said, helping her to her feet. “Where’s your iron?” he enquired, putting a judgemental tone into his voice. “You still a gunhand or not?”

“Eat shit, cuz,” she muttered, reaching into her coverings to extract one of her revolvers.

“If you’re quite ready,” Hilemore said.

“Lead on, Captain.” Clay drew his own pistol and moved to Hilemore’s side.

“I’ll take the lead,” the captain said. “Lieutenant, Mr. Torcreek, guard the flanks. Miss Torcreek, rear-guard, if you please.” He hefted his lantern, the beam swallowed by the gloom barely twenty feet ahead. “Let’s be about it.”

Hilemore set a slow pace, continually playing the beam of his lantern from left to right. There were indentations in the walls every few yards and Clay soon understood that the passage had been fashioned from a series of huge rings placed end to end. Apart from the indentations, the walls remained as featureless as the exterior until Sigoral’s lantern alighted on something that broke the monotony.

“Is that writing?” he said, pausing to let the light linger on a symbol carved into the passage wall. It was large, a good ten yards wide and twice as high. Clay saw no meaning in it but the way the form curved and entwined stirred immediate memories of the script he had seen in the city beneath the spike.

“Mr. Torcreek?” Hilemore prompted as Clay continued to stare at the symbol. “Do you have any notion of what this means?”

“It means we’re in the right place,” Clay said. “Beyond that, I got no clue.”

They moved on, taking only a few minutes to traverse the passage before coming to an abrupt halt.

“No way the ice did that,” Loriabeth said, eyeing the pile of rubble ahead. It seemed to Clay that one of the rings had collapsed, filling the tube from floor to ceiling.

“A blast of some kind, perhaps?” Sigoral said, crouching to scoop up a handful of dust from the floor. He let it fall through the beam of his lantern in a glittering cascade.

“Whatever it was,” Clay said, “it was enough to turn this stuff to powder.”

“Whilst we haven’t been able to scratch it,” Hilemore added.

Clay lifted his own lantern, playing the beam on the top of the piled rubble. “Can’t see a gap.”

“I’ll find it,” Loriabeth said, shrugging off her outer layer of coverings, “if there is one.” She started to clamber up before they could protest, moving with a sure-footed energy that belied her former weakness. Clay found that his guess had been right; the air was definitely warmer now.

“Jammed,” Loriabeth called down after a brief inspection of the rubble. “But I can feel air rushing from somewhere beyond this thing. Some of these boulders don’t seem too heavy either.”

“Guess I got some more work to do,” Clay said, holding his hand out to Hilemore.

“Just enough to get us through,” Hilemore said, handing over a flask of Black. “I’d rather the whole thing didn’t collapse on us.”

Clay told Loriabeth to come down and then had them concentrate their lanterns on one spot at a time. He used just enough Black to dislodge the topmost pieces, lifting several chunks clear and placing them carefully at the base of the pile until they had a decent-sized gap.

“Still blocked,” Loriabeth said, having climbed up once more. “Think a decent push will see us through, though.”

Clay clambered to her side, seeing the way ahead blocked by a large slab. He took a sip of Black and concentrated on the slab, finding it stuck fast. Another few sips and the barrier began to give, grinding against the enclosing rubble until finally tumbling free.

“Me first,” Clay said, scrambling into the opening and pretending not to hear Hilemore’s stern command to stop. He crawled through in short order, pushing his lantern ahead of him and emerging to be confronted by a black void. His lantern beam roved the darkness finding nothing for several seconds until it caught the edge of a narrow surface below. “Got a walkway here,” he called over his shoulder before clambering down.

He moved to where the walkway met the edge of the rubble, tapping an experimental foot to its surface. “Seems solid enough,” he said as the others climbed down to join him. Clay watched Hilemore’s narrow gaze survey the walkway and assumed he was debating whether to bring the rest of the party inside before continuing.

“It’s gotta lead somewhere,” Clay said, fighting the impulse to simply stride off on his own.

Hilemore hesitated a moment longer then nodded. “Single file. Miss Torcreek . . .”

“Rear-guard.” She sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

The walkway didn’t take long to traverse, though the echo birthed by their footfalls told of a very deep drop on either side and made for a nervous few moments. After thirty yards it broadened out into a round platform about twenty feet across. The only feature was a lone plinth about four feet high positioned where the walkway met the platform.

“We must be in a shaft,” Hilemore said, his lantern revealing the platform to be the top of a cylindrical column that descended far into the void below.

“It’s different,” Sigoral said, stamping a boot to the surface of the platform and raising a dull echo. Clay lowered his gaze and saw the Corvantine’s meaning. This platform had been fashioned from familiar stone, some form of granite by his estimation, rather than the impermeable material that formed the spire. The surface was formed of interlocking curved slabs, giving it a maze-like appearance that bespoke a remarkable precision in its construction. Ain’t seen nothing like it, he thought, not since the city beneath the mountain.

He moved to the plinth, finding it also constructed from the same granite as the platform. There was an elegance to its form, almost as if it had grown from the stone even though closer inspection revealed it to have also been fashioned from interlocking bricks.

“What is that?” Loriabeth asked, stepping to his side and playing her lantern over the upper part of the plinth where it broadened out into a near-flat surface, in the centre of which sat a crystal about the size of a fist. Once again Clay’s memories of the city stirred, recalling the statues and the floating crystals in the White’s lair.

“Diamond maybe,” Loriabeth went on, leaning closer to tap a finger to the crystal.

Both Clay and Loriabeth gave an involuntary yelp as a bright yellow glow appeared on the crystal, accompanied by a low, almost musical note that thrummed the surrounding air. The four of them stood stock still as the sound and the glowing point in the crystal faded away, all clutching their weapons and waiting. Clay saw the sweat shining on his cousin’s skin and took some small comfort from the fact that at least they wouldn’t freeze in here.

“It would be best if you didn’t do that again, miss,” Hilemore told Loriabeth, receiving an apologetic smile in response.

Lieutenant Sigoral moved to the edge of the platform and fished a small coin from his pocket. “A full crown,” he said, tossing it into the void. “I trust you’ll reimburse me in due course, Captain.”

Clay counted off twenty full seconds before detecting the very faint note of the coin connecting with whatever lay below.

“That’s quite a drop,” Sigoral observed.

“Very well,” Hilemore said, holstering his revolver and striding back towards the walkway. “I’ll order the rest of the party to join us. We’ll establish a camp in the passage-way and prepare for further exploration tomorrow.”

“It’ll take all the rope we have to reach the bottom,” Sigoral pointed out.

“Then we’d best tie some strong knots.” Hilemore strode onto the walkway and paused, turning to Clay with an impatient frown. “I’ll have no argument from you on this, Mr. Torcreek.”

Clay cast a final glance around the platform, his gaze lingering on the now-lifeless crystal gleaming dully in the plinth’s surface. “You give the orders, Captain,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow and flicking it away before starting after Hilemore.

They froze as the crystal sprang to life once more, the glass flaring bright and a series of notes filling the air. The light was of such intensity Clay found himself momentarily blinded. He blinked to clear his vision, finding that the crystal was shimmering now, flickering with a rapidity that brought an ache to his head. He moved closer, squinting through streaming eyes and making out the few dark droplets of moisture on the crystal’s blazing facets. My sweat, he realised. It felt my sweat . . .

All semblance of rational thought vanished as the platform shuddered beneath his feet, and a vast echoing boom ascended from below. A near-deafening grinding cacophony filled the shaft, putting him in mind of the Superior’s engine room if its mechanicals were fashioned from stone rather than metal.

He reached for Loriabeth’s hand, intending to drag her to the walkway, but the platform began to descend before he could take a step, plummeting down at such a rate it was a wonder it hadn’t left them flailing in thin air. He managed to lock eyes with Hilemore for a second, standing on the edge of the walkway and staring down at them in impotent shock. But soon the captain’s face was a dim pale speck, vanishing completely as the lights blinked out and darkness swallowed them completely.

CHAPTER 20

Lizanne

It was impossible to see the whole mine through the drifting clouds of smoke and steam, but Lizanne estimated the huge bow-shaped pit to cover a quarter-mile square. One side was formed from soil layered in steps where teams of Furies shovelled away at yellow patches of earth. The opposite side was solid rock, the surface shot through by dozens of shafts and encrusted in a web of scaffolding so haphazard in its construction that Lizanne half expected it to come tumbling down at any second. The floor of the pit was a brownish-yellow teardrop a hundred yards long where steam rose in constant billows from a small pool.

“Is that a hot spring?” Lizanne asked Melina as they paused at the top of the scaffolding.

“That it is,” the tall woman replied. “It’s where the sulphur comes from. I wouldn’t be tempted to take a bath though. Water’s hot enough to boil the flesh from your bones, if the stink doesn’t kill you first. Here.” She handed Lizanne a leather face-mask. “Best put this on till we get inside the shaft.”

Lizanne examined the mask before donning it. It was a surprisingly ingenious design, large enough to cover the mouth and nose with slits on the outside and a thick gauze on the inside. “Tight-weave cotton soaked in old piss,” Melina explained, pulling on her own mask, which muffled her voice somewhat but not enough to make it unintelligible. “Not pleasant but it’s better than a lungful of powdered sulphur.”

She moved to a ladder and started down without delay. They descended successive tiers of scaffolding, Lizanne finding she had to hurry to keep up thanks to her companion’s long-legged stride. Melina exchanged nods and a few muffled greetings with the miners they met on the way. Most seemed keen to maintain a respectful distance although at one point she was obliged to pause and deliver a warning back-hand cuff to a bleary-eyed fellow who displayed an overly tactile interest in Lizanne. The man staggered backwards, blood staining the thin kerchief he wore as a mask, and would have tottered over the edge if one of his fellow miners hadn’t reached out to steady him.

“Don’t take it personal,” Melina said through her mask as they continued to descend. “It’s the mercury, plays havoc with a man’s mind.”

“Mercury?” Lizanne asked.

“That side is all sulphur,” Melina replied, pointing to the stepped earthen banks opposite. “Dig out plenty on this side too but also cinnabar, which is mercury and sulphur mixed up in the same rock. They use it to make vermilion dye so it fetches a high price, but hacking it out is a nasty business. If a Fury misbehaves the Electress will set him to work on the cinnabar seams. Most don’t last more than a year or two.”

They proceeded down through successive tiers of walkway and ladder until Melina paused at a narrow shaft close to the base of the pit. The steam was thick here and, even through her mask, Lizanne could taste an acrid tint to the air. The shaft was unusual in being the only one Lizanne had seen with a grate over the entrance. The iron barrier was secured in place with a sturdy lock which, she noted in surprise, was only accessible from the inside.

“He doesn’t like visitors,” Melina said, reaching through the bars to pull the rope on a bell suspended from the shaft’s ceiling. “Choosy about who he lets in.”

“But he’ll let you in?” Lizanne asked.

Melina said nothing for a few seconds, finally issuing a muttered response barely audible through her mask. “We’re friends.” She raised her gaze as a dim light glimmered within the dark confines of the shaft. “He’s got an unusual manner,” Melina said. “Can be aggravating if you’re not used to it. No point getting angry with him though. He doesn’t understand such things.”

A young man about Lizanne’s age appeared behind the grate, oil-lamp in hand. He was of average height, his slender frame clad in a set of standard prison overalls, heavily stained with grease and flecked with small burns of the kind Lizanne recognised as resulting from spilled chemicals. Unlike his clothing, his face was scrubbed to a level of cleanliness she hadn’t yet seen in this place, and possessed of such aesthetically pleasing symmetry she was instantly reminded of Tekela’s doll-like visage. But, whereas Tekela always had difficulty in preventing her features from betraying her emotions, this man exhibited none at all, regarding them both in placid and expressionless silence.

“Tinkerer,” Melina said. “Need to have some words.” She opened the sack in her hand and extracted a book, holding it up for inspection. “Imperial Railways Locomotive Maintenance Guide, Volume Three.”

Tinkerer shifted his blank gaze to Lizanne, still saying nothing.

“This is Krista,” Melina said. “New arrival. She’s like you, knows things. I thought you might get along.”

Tinkerer stared at Lizanne for a long moment then set his lamp aside and began to fiddle with the lock on the grate. Lizanne saw that it had no keyhole and was secured in place via a series of cogs set into a cylinder. She had seen combination locks before, but they were an expensive rarity. Most relied on a six-cog cylinder, whilst this one had twelve, meaning even a Blood-blessed would find it practically impossible to pick. Tinkerer’s fingers moved with an automatic speed, too fast for Lizanne to even approximate a guess at the sequence. He lifted the lock clear of the grate and pulled it open before retrieving his lamp and disappearing back into the shaft.

“Stay right behind me,” Melina said, stepping into the shaft. “Step where I step. He’s got contraptions rigged to discourage unwanted visitors, and you really don’t want to find any.”

“I thought he wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Lizanne replied, following her into the gloom.

“He wouldn’t, lest any try to hurt him, then it’s a different story. You don’t live your whole life in Scorazin without learning a thing or two.”

“His whole life? You mean he was born here?”

“So they say. The only inmate to have been born within the city walls to make it to adulthood. Newborns generally don’t last long in here with the air the way it is.”

After a hundred paces the shaft opened out into a circular chamber. Lizanne assumed it must have been a junction of some kind at one point, noting the three other passages that split off into different directions. The space was filled with dismembered machinery, cogs, wheels and chains all arranged in neat stacks alongside racks of tools. Tinkerer had taken a seat at a work-bench and begun working on some kind of device, his eyes narrowed in concentration as his nimble fingers made fractional adjustments to the workings with a screwdriver.

“What do you want, Melina?” he asked, not looking from his work. His voice was a curious amalgam of different Corvantine accents, the varying inflections no doubt picked up from the inmates over the years. But there was also a precision to it, as if each word was crafted with the same care he afforded his devices.

Melina took off her mask, nodding at Lizanne to do the same. She found the air inside the shaft musty but still a considerable improvement on the stench outside.

“Someone set off a bomb outside the Miner’s Repose,” Melina said, placing the book on the work-bench. “Bomb with a timer. Wondered if you had some thoughts on the matter.”

“I do not make bombs,” Tinkerer replied. “And have refused numerous lucrative offers to do so.”

Lizanne’s gaze roamed the chamber, eyes alive for anything familiar, any scrap of paper that might bear some resemblance to the work of the Artisan. At first glance it appeared simply a much more well-ordered version of Jermayah’s workshop, but without a single document of any kind. Not one doodle, she thought, scanning the bare walls and finding the absence of blueprints or diagrams a stark contrast to her father’s. Graysen Lethridge had an aggravating tendency to pin his designs to the wall of his workshop for any pair of thieving eyes to see.

“What are you looking for?”

Lizanne’s eyes snapped to Tinkerer, finding him subjecting her to an intense scrutiny. She might have taken offence at the way he tracked her from head to toe, but for the lack of lust in his eyes. Careful, she cautioned herself. This one sees everything you do.

“A lever escapement modified to trigger a mercury-based detonator,” Lizanne replied.

Tinkerer’s mouth twitched in what Lizanne took to be a potential sign of irritation. “You imagine I would craft anything so inelegant?” he asked.

“Function is more important than elegance,” she said, quoting her father.

“Not to me.” His gaze flicked to Melina. “She is very dangerous. You should be careful.”

“Always am, you know that.”

“Not always.” He turned back to his bench, picking up his screwdriver and device once again. “Otherwise you would still have both eyes.”

Melina’s face betrayed a grimace of accustomed annoyance before she forced a conciliatory smile. “You know we have to look around. If we don’t the Electress’ll send people who won’t be so polite.”

Tinkerer’s lips twitched again but he voiced no objection, merely waving his screwdriver in irritated dismissal before returning to his task.

“Don’t break anything,” Melina warned Lizanne, moving towards one of the side passages.

The other chambers proved to be as spartan and well-ordered as his workshop, one contained a neatly arranged cot complete with precisely folded blankets, another held two buckets, one for ablutions and another for bodily functions, the contents sprinkled with lye to mask the smell. The third chamber was different and her initial sight of it provoked an excited quickening in Lizanne’s pulse. Books. They filled the space from floor to ceiling, each arranged in stacks of equal height. Moving closer, Lizanne saw they were mostly technical manuals like the one Melina had brought. She angled her head to scan the spine of a book sitting atop one of the stacks: A Treatise of the Correct Operation of Steam Condensers in Maritime Propulsion Systems.

“Don’t,” Melina warned as she reached out a hand to pluck the book from the stack. “He gets awful agitated if he finds anything even a fraction out of order.”

Lizanne shrugged and let her hand fall, continuing her survey and finding only the kind of reading that would have delighted Jermayah and her father but left her mostly cold. She might have inherited some of the famed Lethridge understanding of engineering matters, but none of the passion. Her studies of such things had always been driven mainly by need and rarely coloured by genuine interest.

“Where did he get all of these?” she wondered aloud.

“This is the sum of his wealth,” Melina said. “He fixes things, pumps and winding-gear mostly, and trades the ore he earns for books supplied by the constables. Weird thing is, he only ever reads them once.”

Although, I suspect he could recite every word without fault, Lizanne added inwardly, eyes tracking over each volume. She had hoped to find something related to the Artisan, but instead saw just more references to efficient drive-shaft alignments and differential gears. History, it seemed, was not amongst Tinkerer’s interests.

“Waste of time,” Melina said, drawing her gaze away from the library. “If there’s anything to be found, it’ll be here.”

Melina stood with her arms crossed as she regarded a broad rectangular patch of the chamber wall. The surface differed from the others in being mostly smooth, Lizanne judging it to have been chiselled and sanded down over months or years to provide a usable writing surface. It was covered in a matrix of white chalk: lines, curves and numbers combined into an abstract and indecipherable jumble.

“What is that?” she asked, moving to Melina’s side.

“The product of Tinkerer’s mind,” she replied with a slight shake of her head. “Keeps most of it in his head but even he has to let it spill out sometimes. See anything here that might be taken for your escapement thing-a-bob?”

Lizanne peered closer, eyes flicking from one calculation or grid pattern to another. Some of the lines were faded with time, whilst in other places the chalk was fresh and bright. It appeared Tinkerer felt no need to erase his prior work, simply overlaying it with new insights to produce this oddly fascinating but meaningless tapestry. She studied it closely for several minutes, eyes alive for anything familiar, or bomb related, but finding nothing. She was about to turn away when she glimpsed a very small diagram at the edge of the rectangle. Three overlapping circles of different sizes arranged so as to sound a chime in her head, a chime she hadn’t heard since Jermayah’s workshop in Carvenport. Three circles . . . three moons. The Alignment.

“Found something?” Melina asked with pointed impatience.

“Just a fragment of calculus I learned in school,” Lizanne said, stepping back. “I suppose he must have picked it up from one of his books.”

“More likely he came up with it himself. He does that a lot.”

“You have been here long enough to establish my non-involvement in this matter.” They turned to find Tinkerer standing in the chamber entrance, his gaze fixed on Lizanne once more with the same fierce scrutiny. “I want you to leave now.”

His tone was as flat as before, but Lizanne noted the way Melina stiffened in anticipation of danger, though Tinkerer held no weapon. “Alright,” she said, moving closer. “We’ll be on our way.” Lizanne saw her raise a hand to touch Tinkerer’s arm, hesitate then lower it again. “It’s . . . always good to see you.”

Tinkerer kept his gaze on Lizanne. “I want you to leave now,” he repeated, each word spoken in exactly the same tone as before.

The grate gave a loud clang as it slammed shut behind them, followed by the snick of Tinkerer reattaching the lock.

“Well that was a singular waste of time,” Lizanne said, glancing back at the empty shaft before pulling on her mask. “What do we tell the Electress?”

“The truth,” Melina replied, her one eye suddenly angry above her mask. “Trust me, love, that’s the only thing you’ll ever want to tell her.”

Anatol’s fist made a wet crunching sound as it slammed into the Scuttler’s face. The force of the blow spun him around, the rope securing his wrists to the basement ceiling straining as he sprayed shattered teeth in a wide arc. The Scuttler sagged, all vestige of his former resolve now vanished from his swollen mask of a face. Blood dripped from his gashed lips as he moaned and bobbed his head in defeat.

“Three punches,” the Electress commented through a cloud of cigarillo smoke. “I’m impressed. Most start babbling at two.”

Lizanne had never found torture a particularly effective means of extracting reliable information. The threat of imminent death had a tendency to loosen tongues at a decisive moment but even then the results were often unpredictable. When Exceptional Initiatives needed detailed intelligence they favoured the more subtle approach of abduction and prolonged interrogation, usually augmented by judicious use of sleep deprivation and resistance-sapping drugs. Electress Atalina, however, proved to be an exponent of the more direct approach.

“Now then, Azarin,” she said, rising from her chair to loom over the unfortunate Scuttler. She lowered her gaze to peer into his bleary, bloodshot eyes. “Let’s start with Kevozan. Who’s the Coal King been meeting with recently?”

Azarin exhaled a red vapour as he struggled to reply, the words a barely distinct sputter. “Never . . . meetsh anyone . . . outshide the Scuttlersh . . .”

“Yes, so I heard,” the Electress said. “Leaves all the outside dealings to lickspittles like you. But I find it hard to credit he’d plan a move against me without a face-to-face with the assassin.”

The captive spasmed as he tried to shake his head, succeeding only in dislodging a few more drops of blood from his face. “Washn’t . . . ush . . .”

“Oh dear.” The Electress moved back a little, drew deeply on her cigarillo then stubbed out the glowing tip on Azarin’s eye. Lizanne was surprised at the strength evident in the scream he produced. “And I thought we’d reached an understanding. Anatol, let’s try another three punches. To the body this time, if you please.”

Three rib-cracking blows and some further questioning later it was apparent that if the Coal King had orchestrated the bombing, this particular lackey had no knowledge of it.

“Still a few breaths left in him,” Anatol said, placing a hand on Azarin’s barely moving chest. “You want me to take him to the pit?”

“No. Wait for nightfall then dump him outside that hovel Kevozan calls a palace. We need to maintain a clear line of communication.” The Electress moved to the basement steps, gesturing for Lizanne to follow.

“I’m guessing this isn’t your first dance,” the Electress observed, casting a glance at Lizanne’s unruffled features as they climbed to the inn’s top floor. “Even Melina puked up the first time I had her stand witness to one of my little chats. But then, I didn’t have Anatol in those days so it was more of a surgical exercise.”

“I saw worse in Imperial custody,” Lizanne said. “Though the Cadre’s methods are a little more . . . artful.”

“Really?” They came to the Electress’s office and she sank into the chair behind her desk before reaching for an inevitable cigarillo. “And did they practice their arts on you?”

Lizanne allowed a short interval of grim-faced silence before replying, “Of course they did.”

The large woman shook a match and smiled around a mouthful of smoke. “Then let’s hope you learned a thing or two. Tomorrow you can take yourself off to the house of the Learned Damned. Make out like you’re disgruntled, looking for a new home. Shouldn’t be too difficult to win them over with your prior experience.”

“If they’ve undergone anything like my prior experience they’ll kill me the second I open my mouth.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. A fetching little morsel like you spouting all the right dogma will be hard to resist. They’re all still idealists at heart, y’see. Delusion never really fades for the true believer, even in here. I trust you remember it all? Bidrosin’s Credo and all that shit.”

Lizanne made a show of smothering a sigh. “Yes. I remember it all.”

“Good. Best get some rest for the morrow then, eh?”

Lizanne nodded and moved to the door, pausing as the Electress added, “The Tinkerer. You’re sure he had no part in this?”

“As I said, I saw no evidence. And Melina vouched for him.”

“Melina’s overly sentimental when it comes to him. Saved her life, y’know, when she first got pushed through the gates. She was just a skinny slip of a thing then, didn’t know better than to fight when they swarmed at her, did pretty well too but still ended up short one eye with no friends. She’d’ve starved if Tinkerer hadn’t taken her in, though he was scarcely more than a boy in those days. Y’could say they grew up together, till she got tired of life on the margins and decided to make a real life for herself within these walls.”

“She said he was born here.”

“So they say. I’ve done fifteen years and he was here before me. Not many of us left from that time, I can tell you. The constables weren’t so nice back then.”

“His parents?”

The Electress shrugged. “Never knew ’em. Most likely he got squirted out by some poor cow pushed through the gates with a swollen belly. I expect she hated herself for not smothering the poor little fucker the moment he popped out.”

The Electress winced and raised a meaty leg to the desk-top before tugging off her shoe to reveal a swollen and reddened foot. “Bloody corns. Send Makario in, will you? Time he put those fine fingers to some real use.”

Lizanne spent the next few hours sketching in her room. She had traded a quarter of her soap with one of the second-floor ladies for a pencil stub and parchment. The pencil was too thick for this kind of work and the parchment rough, but she had little alternative. Scorazin was not well-supplied with stationery and she didn’t want to arouse the Electress’s attention by seeking out better tools. One of the traits she had inherited from her father was a facility for drawing, a skill honed by Exceptional Initiatives, who set great value in the ability to render detail from memory. Even so, she knew her sketch lacked the precision or the artistry of the original and had to trust it retained enough detail to serve as a recognisable facsimile. Once satisfied she rolled the parchment into a tight scroll and concealed it within a pocket she had sewn into the armpit of her overalls.

Nightfall in Scorazin brought a depth of darkness rarely seen in other cities. The lack of street-lights and the constant, moon-obscuring pall of smoke made for a depth of shadow she would normally have welcomed, had she any Green to enhance her vision. So it was with a considerable degree of care that she crawled from her window and out onto the roof-top, body flattened to the tiles and ears straining for unseen hazards. She lay still for a long time, hearing only the rumble of snoring whores and the faint regular grunts of Anatol and Melina’s shared intimacy. Satisfied, she crept to the edge of the roof above the inn’s north-facing wall and began her descent. She had chosen this wall for its sparsity of plaster, the bare brickwork affording a wealth of handholds, though finding them in the dark was a protracted business.

On reaching the street below she crouched and waited once more. The night-time streets of Scorazin had a legendary reputation for danger and even the most capable and well-armed folk tended to stay indoors. At night the streets belonged to the Creepers, the lowest rung on the prison city’s ladder. These were the mad or deformed souls the Emperor had seen fit to send here, those denied a place in the gangs due to their appearance or erratic behaviour. Melina said even the mud-slingers and midden-pickers shunned them. There’s many a place to hide in here, she said. Those that don’t starve find ways of getting by, come out at night to scavenge what they can, and they aren’t picky about where their meat comes from.

Lizanne made her way towards the sulphur pit, keeping to the darkest shadows and moving in a low crouch. She had her knife strapped to her ankle in case of emergencies but found it a scant comfort. Tonight she felt the absence of product more keenly than ever. In the event she only saw one Creeper during the journey. She had been about to vault a low wall at the corner of Breakers’ Avenue when a soft, scraping sound made her freeze. She sank as low as she could as the sound grew louder, one hand resting on the hilt of her knife as she concentrated on keeping her breathing as shallow as possible. Instinct in times of danger was to hold one’s breath but that had been trained out of her long ago. Lack of air caused the heart to race and sapped muscles of strength that might be needed in the event of discovery.

The scraping sound stopped on the other side of the wall, replaced by a series of harsh inhalations as someone sniffed the air. Lizanne was grateful she had resisted the temptation to indulge in a thorough wash with her precious scented soap for the sniffing soon faded and the scraping sound resumed. A few seconds later she saw a tall, stooped shadow emerge from the corner of the wall, moving away along Cable Lane. The silhouette was rendered indistinct by a cloak or other covering, but Lizanne could tell it was dragging something behind it. She waited a full minute after the shadow had merged with the surrounding gloom before vaulting the wall and continuing her progress to the pit.

The gloom faded as she neared the pit. The hot spring gave off a luminescence that added a yellow tinge to the billowing steam, the light reflected back onto the pit by the smoke banks above. There were some Furies about, cudgel-bearing guards set to ward off any intrusion or seizure by a rival gang. Lizanne was grateful to find them a lazy and amateurish lot, wandering the edge of the pit in groups of three or four with large gaps in their patrol pattern. It took less than an hour for Lizanne to establish their routine and slipping through the cordon proved almost laughably easy. Navigating the scaffolding with all its creaking infirmity was more precarious, she was obliged to hang from the edge of a platform when the squeal of a protesting joint drew a curious shout from one of the shafts. Luckily, the disturbed miner was either too tired or addled by mercury dust to investigate further and the rest of her journey to Tinkerer’s refuge was free of interruptions.

He appeared as she crouched before the grate, knowing the combination lock was beyond her and pondering the best way to attract his attention. He stared down at her through the bars in silence for several seconds before asking in a faint, uninflected whisper, “Are you here to kill me?”

She shook her head, finding her professional curiosity too piqued to resist a question of her own. “Did you hear me?”

“I sleep only two hours per night and have very keen hearing. I believe it to be a necessary survival trait in this environment.”

Lizanne nodded and rose from her crouch, raising and opening both hands before slowly reaching into her overalls and extracting the scroll. “I believe this will be familiar to you.”

Tinkerer took the sketch and unfurled it, his gaze taking in the bulbous, propeller-driven contraption in a single, expressionless glance. He replied without hesitation, but for the first time Lizanne detected some colour to the tone, a slight quaver that told her the skills of this very special man did not extend to lying. “You are wrong. I have never seen this before.”

Lizanne moved closer to the grate, managing to keep the smile of satisfaction from her lips. “Do you want to get out of here?”

He met her gaze, face blank but eyes suddenly very bright. “I have explored all possibilities. There is no means of escaping this city.”

“Oh but there is, for me and any I choose to take with me. And I’ll happily find a place for you”—she reached through the bars and tapped a finger to the sketch—“and him.”

CHAPTER 21

Clay

He was never fully aware of how long it took for the platform to descend. It could have been an hour or a few minutes, such was the pitch of his initial terror. When the first flush of panic began to abate his underlying terror actually rose in pitch. Despite all he had seen he knew that whatever awaited them below was far beyond his knowledge. For all its maddening confusion, the vision born of the White’s blood had at least engendered a sense of certainty, an unwavering determination to bring himself to the intersection between past and future. Now he was just one of three very small souls snared in the innards of a vast mystery.

The terror finally subsided when the platform began to slow and it occurred to Clay that they weren’t in fact about to die. Loriabeth’s distress took longer to fade. She kept clutching to him, jaw clamped tight to prevent a cry escaping her lips. Clay could only hold her and cast the beam of his lantern about. The light revealed a series of symbols carved into the wall of the shaft, at first sliding past at too great a speed to make out but becoming discernible as their descent continued to slow. Clay detected a pattern in the symbols, their curving lines becoming less complex the deeper they went. Numbers, he realised. Counting down. His mind kept flicking back to the sight of the plinth and the beads of his sweat on the crystal. Loriabeth touched it and it just glowed, he recalled. One touch of my sweat and it took us down.

Lieutenant Sigoral had the stock of his repeating carbine jammed firmly into his shoulder, fingers twitching on the trigger-guard. From the wild cast to the man’s eyes Clay judged his panic had been only marginally more controlled than his own.

“Can’t see anything to shoot at,” Clay said. “Can you?”

The Corvantine’s gaze jerked towards him and he flushed in momentary anger before straightening and lowering the carbine. “Did you do this?” he asked.

“Not on purpose.”

The vast grinding of huge gears reverberated through the shaft once again and the platform gave a brief shudder before coming to a halt. For ten full seconds no one said anything as they stared in turn at the plinth, the carved symbol on the wall and the dimly illuminated shaft above. Clay fancied he could hear a faint voice calling somewhere and pictured Hilemore standing at the edge of the empty shaft shouting desperately into the gloom.

“We’re alive, Captain!” he bellowed, tilting his head back to project his voice as high as he could. He had no notion if Hilemore heard him for the only answer was silence.

“We should touch it,” Sigoral told Clay, pointing to the plinth. “Perhaps it’ll take us back up.”

“Or farther down,” Loriabeth said.

“No.” Clay pointed at the symbol on the wall. It was the simplest marking he had seen yet, a single unembellished form resembling a stretched tear-drop. “I think we’re at the bottom.”

“All the more reason to try,” Sigoral said, moving to press a gloved hand to the crystal then stepping back. They waited. The platform didn’t move and the crystal continued to cast out its glow without a flicker.

“You try,” Sigoral said, gesturing to Clay with the butt of his carbine. From the hard insistence in his tone Clay decided this wasn’t a time to argue the point. In any case, if it responded to his sweat it stood to reason the crystal might well do so again at the touch of his skin. He moved to it and tapped his forefinger to the stone. This time it gave off a pulse of more intense light and the low musical note sounded again. But still the platform failed to move.

Loriabeth tried next, producing no reaction at all. “Guess we should just wait it out,” she said, peering upwards. “The captain’s sure to be fetching rope . . .”

They whirled at a new sound to the left. It was the grinding gears again, but on a smaller scale, hidden mechanicals locking and unlocking as a section of the passage wall slid aside to reveal a rectangle of greenish-blue light. Sigoral raised his carbine once more and Loriabeth drew both pistols in readiness, however, nothing appeared in the opening.

“I think we’re being invited in,” Clay said, moving forward.

“Stop!” Sigoral barked.

Clay turned to find the Corvantine regarding him with implacable resolve. He also saw that the barrel of Sigoral’s carbine was pointed at the centre of his chest. “I’ve no wish to cause you harm, Mr. Torcreek,” he stated. “But you are not stepping through that door. We will stay here and await rescue . . .”

He trailed off at the sound of Loriabeth drawing back the hammers on both revolvers. She stood with them levelled at her sides, both pointing at the Corvantine and ready to unleash a salvo that would probably cut him in half at such close range. “I’ll thank you to stop aiming a weapon at my cousin, sailor boy,” she said, all trace of her previous distress vanished now.

“It’s all right, cuz,” Clay said, moving between them, staring hard at her until she lowered her guns. He cast a hungry glance at the opening then shook his head. “He’s right. Once the captain fixes the ropes, we can get the others down here. I’ll feel a lot better about venturing inside with more guns.”

He turned to Sigoral, holding the man’s gaze until he lowered his carbine. “I’m a marine,” Sigoral told Loriabeth. “Not a sailor . . .”

His words died as a tremor shook the platform beneath their feet. Clay initially thought it was about to ascend, a conclusion dashed as the tremor continued, growing in violence with every passing second.

“Maybe we broke something,” Loriabeth said, arms spread as she sought to maintain her balance.

A loud booming crash echoed down from the shaft and Clay looked up to see a very large, jagged shape descending towards them, too fast to allow for the slightest hesitation. He turned and sprinted for the opening, pushing Loriabeth ahead of him. They stumbled into the light, Clay barely having time to take in the new surroundings, a broad rough stone floor surrounded by tall columns, before Sigoral barrelled into him, sending them both sprawling.

The opening slid closed behind them just as whatever had fallen from above slammed into the platform. The sound of the impact died as the opening closed, but the tremor continued for at least another minute, Clay casting a wary eye at the surrounding columns in the fearful expectation they might topple over onto them at any moment.

Finally, the tremor faded, leaving them gasping in relief.

“And now we’re trapped,” Sigoral said, getting to his feet. “Wonderful.”

“Ain’t sure trapped is the right word,” Clay said, getting to his feet and taking a good look at their surroundings for the first time.

They stood at the start of what appeared to be a concourse of some kind, the columns on either side forming an avenue that disappeared into a thick mass of trees some twenty feet away. Seeing the collage of light and shade that dappled the surface of the concourse, Clay looked up to see an interlocking canopy of tree-branches above. Through the gaps in the canopy he could see the pale blue of what he could only assume was sky. There was a faintly floral tinge to the atmosphere that put him in mind of the jungle, though the scent was decidedly more pleasant.

“What in the Travail is this, Clay?” Loriabeth demanded, her face riven with a mixture of wonder and fear.

“Not exactly certain what I was expecting to find down here, cuz,” he replied. “But it surely wasn’t this.”

“It looks like the Imperial Swath,” Sigoral said, eyes roaming the trees with deep suspicion.

“The what?” Loriabeth asked.

“The Emperor’s private forest north of Corvus,” the marine replied. “Three thousand square miles where only those of divine blood are allowed to hunt. I had the honour of escorting the Emperor’s cousin on a boar-hunt once.” He paused, peering through at the deep arboreal maze. “He was a very poor shot, truth be told.”

They stood staring at the view for some time, Clay once again suffering the sensation of being dwarfed by discovery. He moved to one of the columns, finding it overgrown with a thick web of creeping foliage. Pushing the leaves aside, he saw the stone beneath to be rich in carved script, the symbols all reminiscent of those in the shaft and the city beneath the mountain. There was also a faint visual echo of the hieroglyphs he had seen in the ruins on the shore of Krystaline Lake. Miss Ethelynne could read them, he remembered, fingers playing over the swirling script. Wonder if she could’ve read this too.

“Look,” Sigoral said, drawing Clay’s gaze from the column. The Corvantine was pointing at something in the forest canopy above the now-closed doorway. Peering closer, Clay saw that the door was housed in the base of a very substantial structure. It possessed familiar architecture he had last seen bathed in the red glow of molten rock, all hard angles and interlocking blocks of stone that contrasted with the chaotic web of foliage that surrounded it.

“Military logic,” Sigoral said, “dictates one should seek a vantage point when confronted with unfamiliar terrain . . .”

He trailed off as a high-pitched cry echoed through the forest. It lasted only a second, and was some ways off by Clay’s reckoning, but both he and Loriabeth had no difficulty in identifying the source.

“What was that?” Sigoral asked, seeing them exchange tense glances before drawing their weapons.

“Green,” Loriabeth said, eyes bright as she scanned the trees. They waited, peering into the myriad shadows of the forest, which seemed to have grown suddenly deeper. After several long minutes in which the Green cry failed to come again, Loriabeth holstered her guns and moved to the vine-covered stone fringing the door. “Sailor boy’s right,” she said, taking hold of a vine and starting to climb. “We need a good look-see at this place.”

Clay hurried to follow as she nimbly ascended into the canopy. He struggled to keep her in sight as he clambered up the web of vines and into the trees. The branches were thick and became more twisted and difficult to navigate the closer they were to the structure. Clay could see numerous cracks in the stone where invading vegetation had gained purchase over what must have been many years’ growth. It was hard to discern the true shape of the structure, but he gained a sense of sloping walls. Also, he could see no sign of any windows or other points of access.

He saw that Loriabeth had paused in her climb, having ascended above the canopy to perch on a narrow branch as she gazed all around.

“What you got, cuz?” Clay called to her.

Loriabeth left a long pause before replying, her voice rich in both amazement and despair, “You’d best see for yourself.”

Clay clambered to her side and stopped, frozen by the scale and impossibility of what he saw. It took some time to fully comprehend it, and even then the sight was as baffling as it was spectacular. The forest stretched away on either side for several miles and to their front it continued on for about ten miles or so before giving way to what looked like a bare plain. Beyond that the landscape was too misted to make out any clear detail but he was sure he could make out the faint shimmer of water through the haze.

Looking left and right, he saw that the forest took on a gradual but definite curve where it met a vast featureless wall. It was dark, like the surface of the spire and Clay assumed it must be made of the same material. Turning completely around he found himself blinking in mystification at what appeared to be a great monolith rising from the trees. After further investigation he saw that it rose from the top of a tree-covered structure. The shaft that brought us here, he realised. As his gaze tracked upwards he expected to see the shaft meet a ceiling of some kind but the huge monolith faded from sight, occluded by a blue haze that grew thicker with altitude.

“Look,” Loriabeth said, face raised. “Three suns.”

Clay followed her gaze, blinking at the sight of a trio of blazing stars. The light they cast was sufficient to illuminate the entire landscape even though most of it was still obscured by the haze. He shielded his eyes, blinking in the glare as he tried to estimate the height and size of the three suns but it proved impossible. He also could see no structure that might be holding them in place. His memory returned once more to the White’s lair and the crystals he had seen there, crystals that cast forth light and floated in mid air.

“They ain’t suns,” he muttered softly.

“Then what are they?”

Clay looked down to see that Sigoral had climbed up to join them, face flushed with exertion and a depth of unease that seemed even greater than Loriabeth’s.

“Mechanicals,” Clay told the Corvantine, deciding a full explanation would stretch the man’s credulity a touch too far. “Of a sort. Set to keep this forest alive. Plants need light to live after all.”

“Mechanicals need engineers,” Sigoral said. “Meaning someone else must be down here.”

“If so, they ain’t seen fit to greet us.” Clay took a final glance around and crouched to lever himself off the branch. “And we’d best move on if we’re aiming to find them.”

“Which way?” Loriabeth asked.

Clay paused to jerk his head at the plain beyond the forest. “Nothing behind ’cept a wall and we can’t go up. Seems going farther in is the only option.”

They spent a short while surveying the structure without identifying any way in. Here and there the stone was decorated with more carved script that provided no information or solution to their predicament. After an hour or so Clay called a halt and they started into the forest.

He took the lead with Loriabeth on rear-guard and Sigoral in the middle. The forest floor proved a tricky surface to navigate, featuring too many roots and constricted avenues to allow for a decent pace. Birds chattered in the trees above as they moved, a continual medley of different calls, the volume of which stayed constant despite a human presence. When they stopped for a brief rest a small red-breasted bird landed on the ground at Clay’s feet, blinking the black beads of its eyes up at him in evident curiosity. Clay crouched and extended a hand to it. The bird hopped back a few inches but failed to fly away.

“No fear of man,” Sigoral surmised as the bird darted closer to Clay’s hand and jabbed its beak into his palm. It hurt more than he expected and left him sucking a trickle of blood from his punctured skin.

“So I see,” he muttered.

“Why wouldn’t it fear us?” Loriabeth wondered.

“I’d hazard that it’s never seen our kind before,” Sigoral said. “Nor have any of its kin for many generations.”

“Sounds a little like Scribes, don’t he?” Clay commented to Loriabeth, drawing a curious frown from the Corvantine.

“Who?”

“A friend lost along the trail,” Loriabeth said in a tone that didn’t invite further inquiry. She straightened and scanned the surrounding trees with a critical eye. “If he’s right, it ain’t good, cuz.”

“Yeah.” Clay flicked a drop of blood at the red-breasted bird, which finally took sufficient alarm to fly away. “Probably best if we try to move a mite quicker.”

“Why?” Sigoral asked.

“We know there’s Greens in here,” Loriabeth replied. “Stands to reason they also got no fear of us. Not that the others we’ve met had much either.”

They covered another four miles before Clay noted that the light had begun to dim. He found a gap in the canopy and saw that the glare of the three suns had faded. “Think night’s about to fall,” he told the others. “Time we made camp.”

Sigoral chose a resting spot, a huge tree with a matrix of roots thick enough to create a raised platform. It offered only a marginally improved view of their surroundings but was the sole near by spot with any vestige of defensibility. They sat close to the trunk and shared what food they had, amounting to a few strips of salted beef and some jaw-achingly-hard ship’s biscuits Sigoral had kept with him since disembarking the Superior.

“Not like that,” he said as Clay came close to cracking a tooth on a corner of biscuit. “Soften it with water first.”

He demonstrated, tipping a few drops from his canteen onto the biscuit. Clay tried a bite and found it chewable if hardly appetising. “I’m thinking we’re gonna have to do some hunting before long,” he said, swallowing a mouthful with some difficulty. “Plenty of birds about, and they won’t be tricky to catch.”

“Means we’d have to light a fire to cook ’em,” Loriabeth said. “Greens can smell smoke from miles away. There’s a chance they’ve already caught our scent anyways, but I’d still rather not send out an invite.”

“We should sleep in the trees,” Sigoral said. “Tie ourselves to the branches.” He frowned as Clay and Loriabeth exchanged an amused glance.

“Greens climb better than people,” Clay explained. “Tie yourself to a tree and you’ll just be offering up an easy kill.”

“Then what do we do if they come for us?” Sigoral asked.

“Shoot ’em,” Loriabeth said, patting the butt of one of her revolvers. “Right in the head, sailor boy. Anything else is a waste of ammo.”

“I told you, I’m a marine.”

“What’s the difference?”

Sigoral glared at her, face reddening. “Quite a lot, actually.”

“We’ll take turns on watch,” Clay said, seeing his cousin bristle and hoping to forestall an argument. “Two sleeping, one watching. I’ll go first.” He glanced up at the dimming sky through the web of branches. Pity they didn’t craft moons to go with the suns, he thought.

Sigoral woke him after a fitful doze that couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of hours, but even so the shadows had lengthened and the air grown decidedly cooler. “I heard more cries,” Sigoral reported as Clay shook Loriabeth awake. “They sounded a long way off, though.”

“Let’s hope they stay there,” Clay said. He gulped water from his canteen, noting that it was now only a quarter full. “Gotta find a stream or something, soon,” he said. “Has to be water here, else how does everything grow?”

The answer came a short while later. The rain arrived with no warning patter of droplets or change to the air, a heavy deluge falling unheralded from the sky with sufficient force to strip leaves from the trees. The ground turned to mud in an instant, forcing a halt as the three of them took shelter under the branches of a particularly broad tree Sigoral named as a yew.

“They live for hundreds of years,” he commented, features bunched as rain-water streamed over his face. “From the size of it I’d estimate this one’s at least two centuries old.”

“No clouds,” Loriabeth said, blinking as she peered up through the deluge. “So where’s this coming from?”

Clay could fathom no explanation and the deluge stopped soon after, dwindling to nothing as quickly as it had arrived. They pressed on, slogging through mud and stumbling over slippery roots until the ground finally began to harden. He had hoped to be clear of the forest by the time the three suns faded but it was clear they would have to endure another night beneath the trees. Long, dark shadows had begun to merge and the atmosphere grew more chill with every passing second.

“Nothing else for it,” he said, shrugging free of his pack. “Can’t get through this in the dark.”

“Do Greens hunt at night?” Sigoral asked.

“Depends on the pack,” Loriabeth said. “Some are day hunters, some aren’t. But any Green sees a damn sight better in the dark than we do.”

They found another thickly rooted tree to huddle around, this one with a thinner trunk that enabled them to stay in sight of each other. The dark descended with an unnatural swiftness, reminding Clay that this wasn’t actually night, at least not as he had always understood it. The light of the false suns didn’t fade completely, retaining a slight glow that left glimmering pin-points of moisture on the leaves that seemed to shine like stars in the gloom.

“Don’t s’pose you got any product about your person?” Loriabeth asked Clay in a chilled whisper.

“There’s about a quarter of Black left in the flask the captain gave me,” he replied. “And the Blue heart-blood. But I ain’t touching either lest we got no other option.”

“Are you sure about not lighting a fire?” Sigoral asked Loriabeth.

“Light one if you want,” she replied. “But do it far away from me.”

Sigoral grunted in frustration but stayed where he was. Clay could see a bead of moisture on the foresight of the Corvantine’s carbine barrel, shimmering a little as it trembled in his grasp.

“I’m guessing you hail from warmer climes, huh, Lieutenant?” Clay asked him.

“Takmarin’s Land,” Sigoral said. “A large island bordering Varestian waters. And yes, it does get very warm there in summer months, though it’s many years since I’ve seen it.”

“No family waiting back there? Wife and young ’uns, maybe?”

“I enlisted as an Ensign of Marines at fourteen. It’s Takmarin custom to give third sons over to Imperial Service. My father wanted me to join the army but had a prideful insistence I be an officer. However, commissions fetch a high price and his miserliness outweighed his pride. The marines are the only branch of the service to appoint officers due to merit rather than purchase of commissions, so that was that.”

“Coulda told him to stuff it,” Loriabeth commented. “Followed your own path.”

“Respect for parental authority is a cornerstone of Corvantine society,” Sigoral replied, though his stiff tone sounded a little forced. “A lesson you Corporatists would do well to learn.”

“We’re independents,” Loriabeth returned. “Anything we get is earned, and my folks never tried to push me down a path I didn’t choose.”

“No, you all spend your lives grubbing for personal gain whilst unfortunates are left to perish in the gutter. I’ve sailed to enough corporate ports to know.”

“Oh, fu . . .”

Her riposte was cut off by a piercing and familiar shriek, louder and closer than the one they heard before. It was quickly followed by another, this one farther off to the right, then another to the left.

“She’s gathering the pack,” Loriabeth whispered. Clay heard her shift into a crouch then the sound of iron sliding over leather as she drew her pistols.

“And fixing our gaze,” he whispered in reply, drawing his own revolver and turning so that he and Loriabeth were back-to-back.

“What do you mean?” Sigoral demanded, shuffling closer.

“The noise is a diversion,” Loriabeth said. “For every one you hear there’s another you don’t. Reckon it’s time for you to light that fire.”

“Won’t it draw them to us?”

“They already know where we are, and we can’t shoot ’em if we can’t see ’em.”

She kept watch as Sigoral and Clay moved about, gathering what fuel they could find on the forest floor. It amounted to a few bundles of twigs and fallen branches, which were swiftly snapped into smaller lengths and stacked close by.

“Hurry up,” Loriabeth said as another trio of cries cut through the gloom, closer now.

Sigoral produced a flint from his pocket and struck sparks onto the stacked wood, which failed to catch. “Need kindling,” he said. “Paper, something to catch the flame.”

Loriabeth uttered a soft obscenity which was followed by the sound of a knife being drawn. “Here,” she said, tossing a thick length of hair at them. Sigoral tried again, the cascade of sparks catching the bunched hair immediately. He and Clay piled on more wood as the flames rose, bathing the surrounding trees in an orange glow.

“They’d best turn up soon,” Clay said, drawing his revolver once more and taking up position at Loriabeth’s back. “This ain’t gonna last more than a few minutes.”

“What’s your ammo like?” Loriabeth asked.

“Thirty rounds,” Clay said.

“Lieutenant?”

“Six in the carbine, another forty-four in my bandolier.”

“Me and Clay will fire first, you keep them off us when we reload. Remember what I said, gotta get ’em in the head.”

They waited, eyes on the trees and the blackness beyond as the fire’s glow dwindled by the second.

Clay had begun to debate the wisdom of retrieving more fuel for the fire when he caught a flicker of moving shadow. His gun hand snapped towards it instantly, arm straight and level as honed instinct kept the tremble from his grip. It’ll charge now, he knew. Once it knows it’s been seen.

He exhaled, finger tensing on the trigger in expectation of the beast’s imminent rush. Instead the shadow he had seen paused for a second then shuffled closer. It was smaller than expected and for a moment he assumed he was seeing only the silhouette of the drake’s head, but then it came fully into the light, yellow eyes blinking in the fire’s glow. It was undeniably a Green, but unlike any he had seen before.

“I thought they were bigger,” Sigoral said, training his carbine on the beast.

“They are,” Clay replied, still staring at an animal that stood all of twelve inches at the shoulder and couldn’t have been more than a yard in length.

The Green angled its head as it regarded him, a long pink tongue dangling from its open jaws as it hopped closer, issuing a short chirping cry.

“Is it an infant?” Sigoral wondered.

Clay’s gaze tracked the Green from head to tail, finding numerous scars and wrinkles to its scaly hide. This was clearly an animal with many years behind it, and yet he had seen new-born Greens of far greater size. “I don’t think so,” he said.

The Green chirped again, bouncing on its stumpy legs and swishing its tail from side to side in puppyish animation.

“Looks like he wants to play,” Sigoral observed.

“She,” Loriabeth corrected. “And tiddler or not, it’s still a Green.”

“It probably doesn’t even know what we are.”

“Knew enough to hunt us.” Loriabeth turned to her front, bringing both pistols level with her shoulders. “Just shoot it, Clay. Sooner we start this party, sooner it’s over.”

Clay trained his revolver on the beast’s head, then hesitated as it continued to stare up at him in wide-eyed fascination. “Not so sure about that, cuz,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her. “Could be, we leave them alone, they’ll . . .”

His words ended in a scream as the diminutive Green leapt forward in a blur and clamped its jaws on his leg, crunching through flesh and bone as it bit deep.

CHAPTER 22

Lizanne

“Take ten steps into the tunnel, then stop,” Tinkerer said, pushing the grate open and moving aside. “Do not turn around.”

Lizanne followed his instructions, counting off the required steps and coming to a halt. She resisted the impulse to turn on hearing the rattle of a reattached lock followed by the rapid clicks that told of a scrambled combination. “If you kill me,” he said, moving past her, “you will be trapped here and Melina will kill you when she comes to check on me.”

“Duly noted,” Lizanne said. She followed him to the main chamber where he made his workshop. He paused to light a small oil-lamp of ingenious design, featuring a convex lens to magnify its glow. He moved wordlessly to the passage that led to his sleeping chamber and knelt next to the cot. Lizanne watched as he slid aside a panel on the plain wooden box that formed the cot’s base, then reached inside. There was a loud clunk as he turned a hidden lever. Tinkerer stood back as the cot raised itself up to a thirty-degree angle, Lizanne hearing the rattle of chains somewhere in the walls.

“Very clever,” she complimented him as he shined the beam of his lantern into the revealed hole, illuminating a steep flight of rough-hewn stone steps. “I must confess I detected no sign of this.”

Tinkerer merely glanced at her, his pale, finely made features registering neither gratitude nor scorn for her praise. “You first,” he said, keeping the beam of his lantern on the steps.

She hesitated. Slight as Tinkerer was, she recalled Melina’s trepidation and found the prospect of turning her back on him for a second time decidedly unappealing. “You were right,” she said, moving closer and meeting his gaze. “About how dangerous I am.”

“If I wished harm to you it would already have happened,” he replied and she took some comfort from the fact that his voice was free of the discordant note of dishonesty she had detected a few moments before.

“Very well,” she said, inclining her head and proceeding down the steps. It proved a short climb, her feet finding a level surface after a dozen steps, Tinkerer’s lamp revealing a broad tunnel as he followed her down. He passed her and moved on in silence, Lizanne following for several long moments until they came to a wide circular chamber. She drew up sharply as the lamplight flickered over the unmistakable sight of a corpse. She had only a brief glimpse before the beam moved away, but it was long enough to make out the bare bones and rags of a soul long dead.

“What is this place?” she demanded, stopping at the chamber entrance, one hand clasping the knife at the small of her back.

“The Artisan’s Refuge,” he replied. “Or so it was named to me eighteen years ago.”

He stood in the centre of the chamber, turning slowly so the beam of the lantern tracked over the walls. Lizanne’s unease deepened as the light illuminated more bodies, each one more desiccated than its neighbour. She counted fourteen before Tinkerer’s light stopped on one particular corpse. It appeared older than the others, the clothing rotted away and the bones dark with age. Lizanne moved closer, still clutching the knife, and saw a rusted iron manacle on the skeleton’s ankle. A length of thick chain traced from the manacle to a heavy bracket set into the wall.

“You came here to rescue a man who died one hundred and forty years ago,” Tinkerer informed her, the beam flicking away from the corpse to illuminate her face. “What led you to the conclusion he could still be alive?”

“Take the light away from my eyes or I’ll kill you,” Lizanne commanded, gaze narrowed through the lamp’s glare.

He lowered the beam and stood in silent expectation as she looked again at the now-shadowed corpse. “I am to believe that this is the Artisan?” she enquired.

“Your beliefs are a matter for you,” he replied. “I state only facts.”

She stepped past him and crouched next to the skeleton, eyes roaming the bones and the skull. The teeth were certainly those of an old man, many having decayed to stumps in his lifetime, the front incisors featuring the dark stains that told of an over-fondness for coffee. So this was your fate? she asked it, peering into the black holes of the skull’s vacant eye sockets. Decades spent in adventure and invention only to die chained to a mine wall in the worst place in the empire.

“What proof do you have that this is truly him?” she asked.

“Memory,” Tinkerer replied.

“Of what?”

“Of his days in Arradsia. Of his many discoveries and the devices he crafted with the knowledge. Of the women he loved and the men he hated. Of what he saw beneath the mountain. Of the voice that called to him for most of his days and drove him to madness. Of the day he chained himself to this wall lest he succumb to the voice. The memories stop then.”

Lizanne rose slowly, her gaze fixed on Tinkerer’s placid mask of a face. “How?”

“Via the Blue-trance,” he answered.

“You are a Blood-blessed?”

“As are you.”

She ignored the statement and nodded at the corpse. “He died long before you were born. How could you have tranced with him?”

“I didn’t.” He trained the lamp’s beam on the least desiccated corpse, the one she had glimpsed on first entering the chamber. “I tranced with him. He”—the beam moved on to the next corpse—“tranced with her. She”—the beam moved on again—“tranced with . . .”

“I comprehend your meaning,” she broke in. “However, I have difficulty believing it.”

“There is no other credible explanation. Failure to accept a conclusion supported by evidence is a fundamentally irrational position and indicative of mental instability.”

“Has anyone, perchance, ever punched you very hard in the face?”

He blinked. “Only Melina. The day she left to join the Furies.”

“I trust it hurt a great deal.”

She moved back from him, wandering the chamber and searching for some clue that would either disprove or confirm his assertions. The idea that the Artisan might still be alive seemed outlandish to the point of embarrassment now. However, the notion that his memories could have been passed down through generations of Blood-blessed, all of whom had somehow fetched up in Scorazin, seemed scarcely more credible.

“You said you shared the memory of his inventions,” she said after a long moment of consideration. “He once designed a solargraph. Describe it.”

“A refinement of the sonic trigger he developed several years earlier, itself based on a design etched into a stone tablet he unearthed in a cave dwelling on the west Arradsian coast. The primary mechanism consisted of three cogs arranged so as to mirror the orbits of the three moons . . .”

“And the sketch I showed you?” Lizanne interrupted.

“A navigable aerostat. It was mostly his own invention but inspired by calculations he found in a tomb on the shore of the Upper Torquil Sea, which related to the lifting properties of hydrogen gas.”

“Did he pen that sketch?”

“No.” Tinkerer pointed to the most recently deceased occupant once more. “He did, among many others. He had developed an addiction to alcohol and would trade his drawings to the guards for wine. His memories are unpleasant to experience. I believe the sensation is referred to as bitterness.”

“And it was he who passed the memories to you?”

“Yes.”

“Meaning he must have had a supply of Blue.”

“He did, and expended it in his final trance with me. Subsequently, he embarked upon a prolonged period of indulgence that I believe to have been the principal cause of his death.”

Lizanne began to voice another question but it was Tinkerer’s turn to interrupt. “You stated you could effect an escape from this place,” he said. “How?”

“I need to know you’re worth the trouble first,” she replied. “And this”—she gestured at the surrounding bodies—“raises far too many questions for my liking. How did so many Blood-blessed come to be here?”

“Information loses its value once shared.” Tinkerer’s voice was as flat as ever, but Lizanne detected a glimmer of hard resolve in his gaze. “I deduce that you are an agent sent by a corporate entity to retrieve the figure known to history as the Mad Artisan. He, as you can see, is dead and all that remains of his mind now resides in me. If you want it, you will extricate me from this city.”

“Keen to see the outside world, are you?”

“I believe there will be much of interest there. Also, the environment is likely to be more conducive to longevity.”

“Then you may find it a disappointment,” Lizanne muttered as images of Carvenport’s fall flicked through her head. “There is a war,” she added, “only just begun, but, I believe will grow to terrible proportions before long.” She nodded at the Artisan’s skeleton. “If you hold his memories, then you must know of the White Drake.”

For the first time Tinkerer betrayed some true discomfort, a faint shudder running through his body, though his features remained impassive.

“I see that you do,” Lizanne said, stepping closer. “Then you might be interested to know that it’s awake, and very hungry.”

Tinkerer stared at her in silence for some time, a slight frown on his brow and eyes taking on an unfocused cast. Lizanne thought he might be about to fall into some kind of seizure before understanding dawned. He’s calculating.

“You came here in search of knowledge that might aid in its defeat,” Tinkerer said finally. “I believe I have such knowledge. You already know the price.”

She briefly considered trying to coerce more information from him, but knew it would be counter-productive, if not dangerous. Besides, anything he shared now would be of little use if she couldn’t get them both out of the city.

“Very well,” she said, turning and gesturing at the exit. “If you’d care to show me out, I’ll begin preparations.”

“And what is the nature of these preparations?”

“I shall need to make use of your skills, for a start.”

“In what manner?”

Lizanne voiced a humourless laugh. Vile as this place was, she had a suspicion that the fate she was about to orchestrate for Scorazin might weigh on her conscience for some time to come. “Suffice to say, I intend to rekindle the flame of revolution.”

“What is the true definition of money?” the man on her left demanded.

Lizanne supplied the required quote with only a slight pause for recollection, it being one of Bidrosin’s better known pieces of naïvety. “‘Money is best thought of as a shared delusion. An unspoken fraudulent compact between the rich and the poor ascribing value to worthless tokens in return for the illusion of societal security.’”

“Who commanded your cell in Corvus?” the woman on the right asked.

Lizanne sat on a chair facing a blank cellar wall, both her interrogators standing just outside her field of vision. They alternated, the man quizzing her on revolutionary dogma whilst the woman barked out more specific questions regarding Lizanne’s fictional career as an insurgent. It was a subtler technique than that employed by Electress Atalina, however Lizanne suspected the Learned Damned weren’t above resorting to more direct methods should she prove unconvincing.

She had eschewed a more contrived approach for simply walking up to the house they occupied. It stood at the western fringe of Apple Blossom Park, a three-storey mansion which, according to Makario, had been the residence of the city’s richest mine-owner in the days before the Emperor chose Scorazin as his principal prison. Two young men moved to confront her before she could ascend the steps to the front door. A brief enquiry regarding the presence of any fellow members of the Correspondent Brotherhood had been enough to see her swiftly, and none-too-gently, conveyed to this cellar.

“I only knew him as Severil, he knew me as Valina,” Lizanne replied, two names she had plucked from Hyran’s head during their only trance, along with a wealth of intelligence on the Brotherhood the young Blood-blessed probably didn’t know he had retained. “He’s dead now,” she added. “The Cadre paraded him in front of me before blowing his brains out. It happened in a cellar much like this one, actually.”

“Just answer the question,” the woman snapped. “Don’t elaborate.”

“What differentiates the peasant from the manufactory worker?” the man asked.

A trick question, and easily spotted. “‘Only one’s prejudice towards the other. In all other respects peasant and worker are essentially the same, only distinguished from one another by the methods utilised in their exploitation and enslavement.’”

There was a short pause before the woman asked her next question and Lizanne detected a partially suppressed reluctance in her tone. “What secrets did you betray in return for your life?”

She saw the trap in this question too. The impulse would be to proclaim her unwavering loyalty to the cause and eternal hatred of all traitors and informants. But they would know it a lie instantly, for no revolutionary could survive the Cadre’s ministrations without talking, even if the only reward was to live out one’s years in this miserable pit.

“Much the same as you, I imagine,” she replied. “I gave them the names of my surviving cell members, and told them of the unlicensed printing-press in my father’s basement. They killed him in front of me too.”

The answer heralded a long silence, presumably as they reflected on their own betrayals. “Why are you here?” the man asked, a resentful edge to his tone. No one liked to be reminded of their weakness, after all.

“Electress Atalina sent me to spy on you,” Lizanne said. “She suspects you may have aided in the recent attempt on her life.”

She could sense the glance they exchanged and found she had to conceal a grin. Unexpected truth was often an effective tactic. “As for myself,” she went on, “I couldn’t care less if you cut the old cow’s head off with a rusty saw. I am here on different business.”

Lizanne felt the chill kiss of steel on her neck as the woman leaned close to whisper in her ear, “It would be wise for us to simply kill you now.”

“Then you would be denying yourselves an opportunity such wretched souls as us are rarely afforded.”

The knife pressed deeper then stopped as the man spoke again, “What opportunity?”

This time Lizanne allowed herself a smile. “Redemption, citizen. I believe the destruction of the Emperor’s greatest prison would be a potent symbol. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The woman’s name was Helina, the man’s Demisol. She was short, the top of her head barely cresting five feet, whilst he was tall and rake thin. They would have made for a comical pairing in other circumstances. However, at this juncture they appeared to be what they were, two jaded but undeniably dangerous people, made lean and hollow-eyed by a restricted diet. Lizanne took solace from the faint glimmer of lingering idealism she saw in their gaze. They would be of little use had their revolutionary fervour not survived the rigours of life within these walls.

“You’re insane,” Helina said after Lizanne had laid out her plan.

She sat opposite them on the other side of a broad mahogany dining-table that she assumed had been a prized possession of this house’s original owner. The surface, which would once have gleamed with layers of polish, was now scarred from end to end by radical invective, quotes from Bidrosin and other ideologues etched deep into the wood as if in mockery of the servants who had once laboured to make it shine.

“Your little group seems to have a passion for defacement,” Lizanne observed, running a hand over the table’s coarsened surface.

“Thousands died in this place even before the Emperor made it a prison,” Demisol said. “Toiling in the pits for a pittance and sucking poison into their lungs whilst their employer gorged himself at this table for years on end.” He leaned forward to plant a finger on the table, running it over a list of scratched names. “Here, the names of the dozen workers he bribed the constabulary to hang when they tried to organise a union. Here”—his finger moved to another list—“the leaders of the uprising that killed the pig. They quartered his body and threw it in the sulphur pit.”

“A fitting end,” Lizanne said. “But, if my history is correct, the uprising ended in utter defeat, as well as provoking the Emperor into throwing a wall around the city and using it as a cesspit for the empire’s worst scum.”

“The Scorazin Uprising inspired the First Revolution,” Demisol replied, flattening his hand to the table. “We do what we can to honour that memory, small gesture though it is.”

More than just a glimmer, Lizanne thought, hearing the quiver of conviction in the man’s voice. All to the good.

“I do not mock, citizen,” she told him, stripping all traces of humour from her voice to lean forward, hands clasped together and meeting his gaze with grave intent. “My plan offers only a small prospect of escape, but will almost certainly result in the death of any who take part, and many who don’t. But, if done correctly, perhaps we can once again light a fire that will spread throughout the empire. I was in Corvus not long before they brought me here. Riots were raging. The Emperor’s failed war against the Corporatists has stoked the people’s anger. The lives of so many sons spent on a madman’s reckless gamble. Grief and rage will be the fuel for our fire.”

Demisol closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deep, and Lizanne knew his lifelong passion for rebellion was at war with his reason. Finally, he turned to Helina, speaking softly, “Long have we sought such an opportunity.”

“For escape,” the woman replied, gaze dark as she stared at Lizanne. “Not suicide.”

“By remaining here you are already committing suicide,” Lizanne replied. “Just very slowly. I, for one, am not prepared to spend what years I have left stewing in this mire. We all have our ledgers to balance, do we not?”

Helina blinked and bit down on a retort as the words struck home. Her earlier reluctance in voicing the question of betrayal had revealed much about the depth of her own guilt.

“Your scheme has many variables,” she said. “Much that could go wrong.”

“Complexity will work to our advantage,” Lizanne returned. “If one facet should be revealed it would take a mind of genius to work out the rest.”

“The Coal King and the Electress are far from stupid,” Demisol pointed out. “And Chuckling Sim is cleverer than both.”

“Fortunate then that they are preoccupied with other matters. The attempt on the Electress’s life, in particular.” Lizanne leaned back, regarding them both in steady expectation.

“We will talk with our fellow citizens,” Demisol said after another prolonged exchange of glances with Helina. “A vote must be taken. I expect the discussion will be . . . lengthy. Although most of us were Co-respondents, our group includes four Republicists, two Neo-Egalitarians and a Holy Leveller, amongst others, all of whom would happily have killed each other in the days following the collapse of the revolution. Old rivalries are normally set aside amongst the Learned Damned, but not forgotten. This scheme will be sure to reawaken previous grievances.”

“And the risk of betrayal,” Helina added. “Any fervent dissenters will have to be dealt with.”

“And assurances provided,” Demisol said, turning back to Lizanne. “Proof confirming the truthfulness of your intent. Remember, we do not know you. For all we know the Cadre sent you here.”

“For what?” Lizanne enquired, a question which heralded another silence. “I’d best leave you to your discussions,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll return tomorrow with the proof you require. In the meantime, I shall inform the Electress that I have gained your trust and, whilst I could discern nothing that would confirm your involvement in the attempt on her life, I suspect there may be more to find. It would help if I had some small morsel of intelligence to share. It doesn’t have to be true. As I say, I don’t care if you tried to kill her or not.”

“We didn’t,” Demisol replied. He paused then inclined his head at Helina. “Tell her.”

“We were approached,” the woman said, tone sullen with guarded reluctance. “Four months ago. A discreet and carefully oblique enquiry regarding any bomb-making expertise we might possess. The inquirer was sent on his way with a very clear warning not to return. This group has a strict policy of non-involvement with the various power struggles within these walls.”

“The Coal King or one of his creatures, presumably,” Lizanne said.

The woman responded with the first smile Lizanne had seen on her face, a smug little twist of the lips stirred by the pleasure of possessing superior knowledge. “Actually, no. It was the pianola-playing fop from that whore-house you call home.”

CHAPTER 23

Sirus

Majack died first, a bullet buzzing by Sirus’s head to shatter the former soldier’s remade features just as he jumped from the barge. He sagged into the water like a stringless marionette, his blood staining the surf red. Within seconds another volley of rifle fire came from the dark mass of trees beyond the beach. Sirus flinched as the bullets raised geysers from the surrounding water, felling three more of his company. He sent out a harsh thought-command to stem the sudden upsurge of confusion amongst his fellow Spoiled. Although their transformation made them resistant to panic, even the White’s influence couldn’t banish an instinctive fear of death. Their reaction was heightened by the shock of such unexpectedly fierce opposition. Their victories to date had often been hard-fought, but truly never in doubt, aided in no small part by the fact that so few Islanders possessed fire-arms. The tribe inhabiting this island, however, were clearly different. It was the largest and most populous island they had yet attacked. Its name translated from the local dialect as the Cradle of Fire, presumably due to the huge volcano that rose from the centre of the tree-covered land-mass. Thanks to their recent recruits, Sirus also knew it had earned another name in recent years: Kahlanah Dassan, the King’s Cradle.

Keep moving! he ordered his company, raising his rifle and loosing a shot at the trees. Fire back!

They responded immediately, falling in on either side as he continued to wade towards the beach, firing and reloading with each step. Around them more barges were beaching on the sand-bar, disgorging their troops to add further weight to the advance. The Islanders in the trees, however, seemed uncowed by the sight of such an onslaught. They kept up an accurate and deadly fire throughout the three long minutes it took for Sirus to struggle clear of the surf, by which time he had lost fully half his company and the waves had turned a pale shade of crimson.

Lie down, Morradin ordered. Harassing fire.

Sirus duly had his company lie prone on the beach and fire at the muzzle flashes in the trees. His refashioned eyes made it easier to pick out the vague shapes of the island’s defenders, counting at least a hundred directly to their front with more on either side. The fire of his company, all expert shots, took a steady toll as the rest of the assault force made a costly but inexorable progress to the beach. Some three thousand of them waded clear of the sea, leaving dozens of bodies bobbing in the swell around the barges. In accordance with Morradin’s command they lined out on either side of Sirus’s company, lying down to send a withering hail of bullets into the trees. For a few moments the air was filled with the cacophony of massed small arms, Sirus seeing numerous Islanders fall before Morradin gave another order.

Fix bayonets. Advance at the charge.

The entire line of Spoiled rose as one, steel glittering as they slotted their bayonets into place. There were no bugles or shouted exhortations to accompany their charge, just the sibilant rumble of many boots on sand and the now-intermittent crackle of the defenders’ fire. Sirus could sense Morradin’s excitement, glancing to see the large shadow of the Red drake that bore him as he swept low to witness the spectacle. Hoping for another fine old show.

They had closed to within thirty yards of the trees when the first cannon fired, the air around Sirus instantly filled with what sounded like a thousand angry hornets. He knew what it was thanks to the shared memory of a former soldier who had time to name the new threat before his torso was torn to shreds. Canister.

The five Spoiled charging on Sirus’s left were transformed into a cloud of red mist and flensed flesh, whilst those to his right fared little better. He threw himself flat, this time needing no command from Morradin. He found himself face-to-face with Katrya. Like him, she appeared to be unscathed but the spines on her forehead were bunched in angry consternation. Where did they get those?

They ducked as another salvo of cannon fire blasted out from the tree-line, cutting down those Spoiled who had resisted the instinctive urge to duck. Sirus could see that the whole line had stalled, their ranks broken by several large, red-smeared gaps. The defenders’ rifles started firing with a new intensity, finding easy targets at such shortened range. Sirus could feel his fellow Spoiled dying around him. It was a curiously painless experience; like watching a hundred candles being snuffed by the wind one after the other.

Clever bastard, Morradin enthused from above. Waited for the charge before revealing his guns. I’m liking this Shaman King more and more.

Sirus watched the Red carrying Morradin angle its wings, aligning itself parallel to the tree-line. Another dozen Reds glided out of the sky to fall in behind as the beast flew lower, mouth gaping to breathe out a stream of fire that swept the trees. The following drakes followed suit, bathing the forest in flame along the whole length of the beach. Sirus looked at the inferno raging to his front, hearing the screams of the defenders above the roar.

Left you a gap, Morradin informed him, communicating an image of an untouched avenue through the forest a hundred yards or so to the left. Renew the advance. There’s some kind of fortification a mile inland. Surround it and wait for orders.

The remnants of the assault force formed up behind Sirus as he led them into the trees. There were just over fifteen hundred left, some with wounds both minor and severe. It wasn’t unusual for the White’s Spoiled servants to keep fighting despite mortal injury. The Spoiled to his right, a petite young woman who would have probably been described as of delicate appearance in her human days, trotted along with one hand clamped over the wound in her stomach. Sirus could see a pink bulge between her fingers and a steady trickle of blood seeped from her mouth as she ran, her face betraying not the slightest twinge of pain.

They met further opposition upon leaving the beach, warriors charging out of the roiling smoke alone or in small groups, crying out their war cries as they hacked and stabbed. Sirus could pick out the words “Ullema Kahlan” amongst the furious babble as the Islanders were shot down or bayoneted. These suicidal attacks were costly but barely slowed the Spoiled advance, Sirus ordering a halt at the sight of Morradin’s Red circling a large stockade.

Resistance continued as they surrounded the stockade, the Islanders eschewing their mad charges in favour of sniping from tree-tops. Sirus felt the rush of a passing bullet, which splintered the trunk of a tree a few inches from his head. His Spoiled-born eyes and reflexes reacted with automatic swiftness, picking out the dim shadow of the marksman perched atop a tall palm-tree, Sirus’s bullet taking him between the eyes a half-second later. He ran to the body, retrieving the man’s rifle for inspection. The words Silworth Independent Arms Company Mark VI .422 were engraved in Mandinorian on the brass plate fixed to the stock, an image he instantly conveyed to Morradin.

Standard Protectorate issue, the marshal mused. It appears Ironship have been making new friends. Explains where they got those cannon from.

Sirus turned his gaze on the stockade, which was in fact a substantial fortress of thick wooden walls standing twenty feet high. Meaning they’ll have more in there, he thought.

Of course they will. Sirus could feel Morradin’s keen anticipation. But that means they’ll also have a great deal of powder. Continue to mop up the perimeter. See if you can actually capture a few. I sense our drake god isn’t altogether happy with today’s butcher’s bill.

The battery of cannon fired at once, muzzle flashes bright in the gloom as they cast their shells at the fortress. Sirus saw the projectiles strike home, each aimed with expert precision to impact on the same point. Over the past few hours repeated salvos had torn a large splintered rent in the fortress’s south-facing wall, but as yet had failed to craft a breach. Morradin had initially intended to launch a massed assault, ordering the army to cut down trees and fashion scaling ladders, but then the White arrived.

Sirus could feel the great beast’s simmering discontent as it soared high over the trees before finding a perch on the flanks of the volcano. Whilst the White would occasionally form thoughts into coherent words, for the most part its intent was divined through the emotions it conveyed. They consisted mostly of different shades of anger with the occasional pulse of satisfaction. So far the only joy the White exhibited came when it looked upon its clutch of infants and even then it was a dark, near-alien sensation; more like a swelling of sympathetic hunger as he watched the juveniles feast on yet another unfortunate captive. But now its feelings were far from joyous. The entire Spoiled horde stiffened as the White shared the sight of the many bodies littering the shore, colouring the images with a sharp note of dissatisfaction, most of it directed at Morradin.

So they set their ladders aside and brought up their small train of artillery to begin the long process of blasting a breach through the fortress’s thick wooden walls. Morradin, unable to keep the stain of frustrated blood-lust from his thoughts but nevertheless keen to placate the White, ordered Sirus to take a third of the army and commence a hunt for captives. Most of the live Islanders they found were suffering from incapacitating wounds or severe burns. The unscathed or lightly injured proved a difficult quarry, fleet of foot and familiar with the many hiding-places offered by the island’s dense forest and rocky coast-line. When cornered the fugitives were often suicidally unwilling to succumb to capture, several sinking a knife into their own throats as their pursuers closed in. By nightfall they had barely three hundred Islanders bound and awaiting conversion, less than a fifth of the casualties suffered in the initial assault and subsequent fighting.

The general lack of success resulting from this attack made Sirus consider the true level of the White’s intelligence. It had been clever enough to spare Morradin and put his generalship to use, but was apparently unable to discern the particular characteristics that had once caused the marshal to be dubbed “The Butcher” by his own troops.

It is limited, Sirus realised, careful to accompany the thought with as many images of the day’s slaughter as he could. He had learned that the more visual stimulus crowded his thoughts the less his fellow Spoiled were able to discern his reasoning. It doesn’t really understand us, any more than we understand it.

Do you have to? Katrya asked, drawing back with a painful wince.

Sorry. Sirus muted his thoughts and she settled against him once more. They had found a resting-place near the cannon, a hollow created by the roots of a large tree that would offer welcome shade from the sun come morning.

He killed his wife, you know, Katrya mused as the cannon blasted out another salvo.

Who? Sirus asked.

Majack. Strangled her a few years ago when he was drunk. Thought she’d been tupping his sergeant. He wrapped the body in an old carpet and dumped it in the jungle for the Greens, told everyone she’d run off with a sailor. It’d been bothering him ever since. I think he wanted to die.

Then he got his wish. This particular memory of Majack’s had escaped him as he had never felt the need to exchange more than the most basic thoughts with the former soldier. He shared that with you? he asked.

He dreamt it. Kept it buried deep down when awake, but you can’t bury your dreams.

Sirus summoned another collage of imagery as her thoughts birthed an inevitable conclusion. But this time his memory shield wasn’t enough.

Yes, she told him, entwining a scaly hand in his, I see yours too, my darling. I see who you dream of every night. But I also see that, in your dreams at least, you see her as she really was. Not how you wanted her to be.

Another full day’s pounding with the cannon and the breach was finally opened. It seemed far too narrow for a successful assault to Sirus, just wide enough for two men at a time, but Morradin’s commands left no room for discussion. In common with previous assaults Sirus’s company had been chosen to make the first attack. As he formed his troops into a narrow column Sirus allowed himself the suspicion that Morradin, driven by their mutual detestation, might well be attempting to orchestrate his death.

Not my choice, boy, the marshal informed him, reading his mind with ease. It seems you hold the favour of our White god. The perils of having such a disciplined mind, I suppose. The rest of these morons don’t respond half as quick as you.

They crouched in the long grass that dominated the ground between the trees and the fortress, waiting for nightfall. The Spoiled had little difficulty seeing in the dark which gave them an advantage over the Islanders, although Sirus doubted it would count for much in the confines of the breach. Morradin’s command came as the first stars began to twinkle in the sky. NOW!

Sirus rose and led his Spoiled forward at a run, covering the distance to the breach in less than a minute. He expected an immediate hail of rifle fire from the defenders on the walls but the charge was completely unopposed, the whole affair proceeding in an eerie silence broken only by the rasp of the grass as they ran. Saving their ammunition, Morradin mused as Sirus reached the breach. It’ll be any second now, boy. Best brace yourself.

Sirus increased his speed, sprinting through the jagged fissure as fast as his monstrous body would allow, expecting a volley to come crashing down from above at any second. Instead, he cleared the breach in a few seconds and found himself standing amidst a scene of slaughter. The Islanders lay everywhere, at least three hundred strewn about a broad inner courtyard, each one with their neck laid open.

Knew what they were in for, Morradin judged. Didn’t want to add to our numbers. It seems they’re learning.

Sirus crouched next to the body of a woman. She was young and tall, with the supple muscles and scars typical of Island warriors. Dark congealed blood covered her throat and the blade of the knife lying in her limp hand.

This happened hours ago, Morradin decided. Search the place. Find him.

They scoured the stronghold from top to bottom, finding only more bodies. Any of the men could be him, Sirus pointed out to Morradin. None of the other Islanders in our ranks ever saw his face.

No. Morradin was emphatic. He’s not here. Maybe he never was. Slipped away and left us to waste time and ammunition on this fortress of corpses.

Eventually one of the Spoiled reported finding something in the bowels of the fortress. Sirus made his way down a series of wooden steps to a large, cellar-like chamber where one of his troops stood next to a narrow hole in the dirt floor. A tunnel, Sirus reported, crouching to inspect the find. Recently dug.

Follow it, Morradin commanded and Sirus leapt into the opening, finding he had to crawl on all fours to make his way along the passage. The tunnel’s hasty construction was evident in the loose dirt that fell on him continually as he struggled along, expecting the roof to collapse at any second. It took the better part of an hour’s crawling before he came to the tunnel’s end. Sirus halted, eyeing the dim moonlight streaming down from a roughly hewn hole in the roof, drawing an impatient query from Morradin. What’s the delay, boy?

They didn’t collapse the exit, Sirus replied.

Perhaps they didn’t have time. Or perhaps there’s an entire war-party waiting above to hack your head off the instant you pop up. We won’t know until you do, will we?

Butcher indeed, Sirus muttered inwardly, squirming to take a firmer hold of his rifle and wiping the soil from the breech. A dozen Spoiled had followed him into the tunnel and he ordered them to clean their own weapons before crawling forward and rising to a crouch. The opening was four feet or so above his head, a leap beyond his former body, but well within the capabilities of this one.

He leapt as high as he could, clearing the hole and landing on his feet, rifle ready and eyes tracking the surrounding trees for enemies. Nothing. Spread out, he told his troops as they leapt to join him.

Sirus waited a moment to gauge his surroundings, seeing a mostly unremarkable patch of jungle, then his ears detected the sound of rushing water some way off to the left. He led his Spoiled towards the sound at a steady run, spurred on by Morradin’s mounting impatience. After a hundred paces the trees thinned to reveal a large pool. The pool’s surface lapped gently against the encroaching rocks, fed by a curtain of water that glittered in the moonlight as it fell from the edge of a high cliff. There were several large rocks rising from the water, each one featuring an ornamental stone of some kind. The few converted Islanders in their ranks had provided some insight into their spiritual beliefs, and Sirus knew these were shrines to the ancient spirits who were said to have first inhabited the Barrier Isles before the coming of man. His gaze soon went to the largest rock, a flat boulder upon which a small man sat, surrounded by bodies, all Island warriors of typically impressive stature. Like their brethren back at the fortress, they had all clearly died by their own hand, throats slashed open and their mingled blood seeping over the rock and into the pool in a billowing red cloud.

The Shaman King, if I’m not mistaken, Morradin mused as Sirus shared the image of the small man and his dead guards. I thought he’d be taller, didn’t you?

The small man barely glanced over his shoulder at Sirus before returning his gaze to the shrine, head bowed and lips moving in some unheard prayer or invocation. He was certainly a contrast to the other Islanders, his limbs spindly and his back bent, though he possessed their usual fair colouring.

A new thought pushed its way into Sirus’s head, far stronger and more implacable than Morradin’s: Not needed. The White added a hard jab of urgency to his command that made Sirus shudder as he raised his rifle. He trained the sight on the centre of the small man’s back where the bullet would be sure to shatter his spine before going on to pierce his heart. An easy shot at this range.

He had begun to squeeze the trigger when the entire surface of the pool exploded upwards. The water rose into a solid wall of white and red before blasting outward with sufficient force to send Sirus and the other Spoiled sprawling. He scrambled to his feet quickly, finding himself within a swirling maelstrom of raised water. Near by, he saw one of his Spoiled lifted off his feet and dragged into the enveloping wall of vapour. Through the confusion Sirus could see the vague shape of the body being dashed against one of the rocks in the pool before being cast away into the storm. Something hard slammed into Sirus from behind, throwing him flat once again. He looked up to see two more of his troops being borne high then slammed together, once, then twice, then once more before being flung aside. The bodies landed close to Sirus and he saw the force of the last impact had been enough to enmesh their part-shattered rib-cages, two pairs of lifeless slitted eyes staring at him in blank astonishment.

It appears the stories were true, Morradin observed dryly. He is a Blood-blessed after all.

Sirus could feel the other Spoiled dying around him as the Shaman King’s invisible hand crushed them one by one. Their last agonies were a curious sensation, absent of fear but full of pain and confusion. He was also surprised to discover a small kernel of fear rising in his own breast, finding a perverse delight in the knowledge that at least he would die with some vestige of humanity remaining.

Oh no, boy. Morradin’s implacable command brought him to his feet. We have orders, don’t forget.

Sirus brought the rifle to his shoulder, aiming at the dim shape of the rock where the Shaman King sat, and fired. The maelstrom died immediately, the raised water transformed into a brief but heavy deluge, the weight of water enough to force Sirus to his knees. He shook the moisture from his face and looked up, finding the Shaman King on his feet now, staring at Sirus with a strangely sympathetic smile on his lips. Blood leaked from a bloody hole in his shoulder, though he gave no sign of pain.

Sirus worked the bolt on his rifle then reached into his ammunition pouch for another round. The rifle flew from his grip with a hard jerk then spun around, the butt striking Sirus on the side of the head. He fell, stunned and blinded by pain, scrabbling on the ground until his vision returned, and when it did it was to regard the sight of a large boulder lifting from the pool. Water trailed from its sides as it drifted closer, coming to a halt directly above where Sirus lay. The wonderful fear lurched anew, growing with every second he stared up at the hovering stone. He decided later that it was the fear that saved him, overcoming his pain and confusion to birth a final instinctive lurch to the side as the boulder fell.

He rolled upright as the rock slammed into the earth, whirling to see the Shaman King regarding him with what could only be described as amused respect. The small man sighed and crouched to retrieve a drinking-horn from the surface of the rock, pausing to utter something in his own language before drinking deep. He staggered as he finished, letting the horn fall from his grip, then straightened, his former humour vanished as he fixed Sirus with a dark, purposeful glare and the air around him began to shimmer with heat.

Red, Sirus realised, casting around for another weapon, hoping one of his unfortunate comrades had dropped a rifle near by, but there was nothing. His reborn fear compelled him to flee into the trees but he knew he would be burned to cinders before he made it. So he stood, watching the Shaman King summon the heat that would kill him, gratitude warring with fear in his heart.

A piercing cry sounded from above and a crimson streak descended onto the Shaman King in a blur of folding wings and flashing talons. The small man had no time to redirect his fire, barely managing to glance up before Katarias bore him down, claws pinning him to the rock. The huge Red gave a brief, triumphal screech and lowered its head to feed.

Sirus, finding he had no desire to witness this, turned away and walked off into the trees. The fear still thrummed in his chest, though it was lessened now. He clung to it, nurtured it with visions of recent horrors, for it was a precious thing he might have need of later.

CHAPTER 24

Clay

Clay screamed again as the dwarf Green worried at his leg, feeling teeth grind on his shin-bone. His finger closed convulsively on his revolver’s trigger, blasting a hole in the earth a foot wide of the attacking drake. He tried to draw back the hammer for another shot, then spasmed as the Green clamped its jaws tighter still and a wave of the purest agony ripped through him from head to toe.

Sigoral’s carbine gave a loud crack and blood exploded from a large hole in the Green’s back. It jerked in response, tail thrashing and thick blood spurting from its wound, but still its jaws held tight.

“The head!” Loriabeth yelled, her words part drowned by a sudden cacophony of Greens crying out in challenge as they rushed from the surrounding trees. Clay heard her revolvers blast out a rapid salvo followed by a chorus of screams.

Sigoral crouched and jammed the muzzle of his carbine barrel into the corner of the drake’s mouth, drawing another scream from Clay as the metal slid over his raw flesh. The carbine gave a muffled crack and the back of the Green’s head dissolved in a blossom of gore and shattered bone. Clay gaped at the red ruin of his leg, fascinated by the sight of his exposed bone and the blood leaking in rivulets from severed veins.

Loriabeth’s guns fell silent and Sigoral whirled away from him, bringing the carbine to his shoulder to loose off a rapid volley. Clay’s gaze swung towards the Corvantine, blinking away a flood of sweat to watch him blast a Green’s head apart in mid air as it leapt towards him. The sound of the shot was oddly dull, like a distant echo, and Clay’s vision suddenly seemed to be bleached of colour, as if he were watching a moving photostat.

His head lolled as a great weariness descended, the world dimming further into a vague mélange of shifting grey. He would have passed out if a fresh flare of agony hadn’t exploded in his leg, returning him to consciousness in time to catch sight of another dwarf Green clambering nimbly through the branches directly above. His reaction was purely instinctive and he later doubted he could have made the shot if he had tried. His gun hand came up in a smooth unhurried arc as his finger closed on the trigger, sending the bullet clean through the drake’s head as it crouched to launch itself down at Loriabeth.

“Up . . .” he croaked, head swivelling towards his companions, who were now preoccupied with feverishly reloading their guns. “Look up!” Clay shouted, loosing another shot into the forest canopy.

Loriabeth was the first to react, her wide-eyed gaze turning to murderous fury as she raised it to take in the sight of a dozen or more Greens swarming through the branches overhead. She started firing as another wave of exhaustion swept through Clay, this time too overwhelming for any amount of pain to resist. His last glimpse before his vision slipped into utter blackness was of Loriabeth and Sigoral standing above him, guns blazing as they fired into the trees and Green after Green fell around them like over-ripe fruit.

A deep, persistent throb dragged him from the void, leaving him floating close to the surface of consciousness. He drifted in a fog of pain and confusion, wincing at the sound of distant thunder that he slowly realised were voices.

“Aren’t we supposed to dilute it first?”

“He once drank the raw blood of a White and lived. I think he can handle this.”

A burn on his lips, then his tongue, the taste familiar but also far more intense and acrid than he was used to. It invaded his mouth then burned its way down his throat as he gave a reflexive gulp. The pain lessened immediately, the throb subsiding into a slow, muted pulse that felt rather like being punched through a thick blanket.

“Cuz?” a faint voice asked from the far end of a long tunnel. “You hear me?”

Clay tried to open his eyes but still full awareness escaped him. He groaned instead.

“Gonna have to do something about your leg,” Loriabeth’s voice echoed to him and he could hear the note of grim determination it held. “Got no other option, Clay.” A pause. “Soak it good. Alright, give it here. You’d best hold him down, he’s apt to kick something awful.”

Clay had begun to voice a query, which emerged as just another groan, when the void turned into a blinding white sky as a thousand hornets stung his leg as one. The pain was far worse than the Green’s bite. A shimmering blade of fire sliced from his leg to his brain, birthing enough agony to wrench him back to consciousness.

He came to screaming obscenities into Sigoral’s face, the Corvantine averting his gaze as spittle showered him. Clay tried to clamp his hands on the marine’s neck, fully intending to choke him to death, but found they were confined, strapped to his sides by a thick leather belt. He thrashed instead, the foulest insults streaming from his gaping mouth as a shudder arched his back.

“It’s alright, cuz!” Loriabeth’s face swam into view. “It’s us! Gotta do this to save your leg!”

“Fu-fuck you . . . !” Clay choked and screamed again. “Vicious . . . little bitch!”

“I’m sorry . . .”

He thrashed for a full minute, Sigoral’s hands like vises on his shoulders, keeping him pinned until exhaustion finally claimed him once more. He drifted away to the sight of Loriabeth staring down at him, tears streaming from her eyes as she whispered pleas for forgiveness.

“You’ve looked better.” She stood a few feet away, speaking aloud as she had in their only shared trance. She clasped the shaft of her spear with both hands, resting her weight upon it as she regarded him, the tattoos on her forehead bunching in amused appraisal.

“You’re dead,” Clay mumbled, then winced as a burning throb shuddered through his leg. “Go away.”

Silverpin gave a pout of mock annoyance. “Of course I’m dead. You shot me, remember?”

“It was an accident,” he muttered, casting his gaze around and finding himself in familiar surroundings. The cave in the Badlands where they found the infant White’s nest. Also, the first time they made love. Clay decided he really didn’t want to be here and made a determined effort to wake up. Nothing happened.

“This isn’t a dream, Clay,” Silverpin said.

Clay realised he was standing upright, his injured leg as straight and whole as before, though the pain it held was everything he expected. He turned around, taking in the surrounding environment, seeing none of the subtle or bizarre alterations a sleeping mind might make to a place plucked at random from the recesses of his brain.

“You shared the image with Miss Lethridge,” Silverpin said. “So it remains fixed. Just like me.”

“A talking memory?” Clay asked. “That’s what you are?”

“We shared a very special form of trance, a deeper and more powerful connection than has been established between two Blood-blessed for centuries. There were bound to be consequences. What are people, anyway, if not just a collection of memories? I suppose you could say you made me.” Her decorated brows bunched again in consternation. “Which kind’ve makes you my . . . father. Not sure I like that analogy.”

Clay stared at her for a long moment, finding no flaw in her bearing or expression. She was as he remembered her, too real and vital to be just a collage of images moulded by his slumbering mind. “So,” he said, “you’re a ghost.”

Her face grew sombre and she shrugged. “A murdered soul with unfinished business. A reasonable description, I suppose.”

“How come I haven’t seen you before?”

“It could be this portion of your mind was closed before now. Trauma can have a transformative effect on the brain. Or perhaps because you just didn’t want to.”

“Trust me”—he met her gaze, speaking in slow, unwavering tones—“I did not want to see you again.”

Her blue eyes twinkled a little as she smiled. “There’s no point lying in here. Can’t lie to yourself after all.” She glanced around at the gloomy interior, frowning. “This is boring. Let’s go somewhere else.”

There was no swirl of images like in his trances with Lizanne, just an abrupt shift from one location to another. This time they stood on the fore-deck of the Firejack, steaming sedately down a stretch of the Bluechurn he recognised as lying south of Stockade. The hard report of a gun-shot drew Clay’s gaze to the starboard rail where a red-haired woman was educating a young man in the finer points of marksmanship. “Damn, kiddo. Woulda thought a Blinds boy would know how to shoot . . .”

Clay turned away, fixing his gaze on the river ahead. “I miss her too, on occasion,” Silverpin said. “In fact, I miss all of them. However, thanks to you I at least get to see how they’re doing. You do know your little quest is going to get them all killed, I assume?”

“No,” he replied. “And neither do you.”

“Remember what I said about lying?”

“We had no choice. If you’ve seen what I have, then you know that. That thing you woke intends to eat the whole world.”

“No, only a large proportion of the people. And there truly is nothing you can do to stop it.”

He gripped the rail at the prow of the boat, knuckles paling with the force of it. “We’ll see. There had to be a reason for the vision.”

“Did there? What makes you think that? You caught a fractional glimpse of the future and immediately concluded it amounted to a providential message. From whom, might I enquire? A Corvantine god perhaps?”

He shook his head, refusing to look at her. “It has to mean something.”

“Everything means something. Water falling from the sky means it’s raining, and that’s all it means, whether you see it in the past or the future.” She moved closer and rested her head on his shoulder before pressing a kiss to his neck. “Face it, Clay, you led a lot of people into certain death for no good reason. Though it wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d had a choice.”

He turned to find her offering him a sympathetic grimace. “Meaning what?” he demanded, then shuddered as the pain in his leg lurched once more into full agony. The surrounding mindscape took on an immediate misty appearance, water and jungle shimmering into a formless fog. Silverpin, however, remained complete and all too real.

“Clay,” she said, shaking her head as the background faded into blackness. “Didn’t you ever wonder why they were so willing to follow you on such an insane course . . . ?”

He came awake with a shout, or would have if Sigoral’s hand hadn’t been clamped so tightly over his mouth. “Quiet!” the Corvantine hissed into his ear.

Clay relaxed, as much as he could with the pain still raging in his leg. Sigoral removed his hand before turning away, the butt of his carbine tight against his shoulder and barrel raised high to point at a much-denuded forest canopy. The three suns were visible through the sparse branches, the heat they cast down more intense than before, drawing fresh beads of sweat from his already moist brow.

“Greens?” he asked in a murmur.

“No.” He looked down to see Loriabeth crouched at his leg, gently pulling aside a heavily stained bandage to inspect the wound. She had positioned herself so as to block his view, but from the way she stiffened he concluded the news wasn’t good.

“Festered, huh?” he asked.

She shook her head and turned, forcing a smile. “No, the Green we soaked it in seems to have warded off any infecting humours. You’ll be up and walking in no time.”

“Then let me see.”

“You need to rest some more . . .”

“Let me see, cuz!”

She lowered her gaze and shifted out of his eye-line, affording him a clear view of the wound and why she hadn’t wanted him to see it. A sizable chunk of the muscle on his lower right leg was gone or denuded, leaving bone and sinew exposed. It was the kind of injury he would have expected to see only on a corpse. His gaze shifted to his bare foot and he tried to wiggle his toes, an effort that provoked another upsurge of pain but left his toes unmoved. He stared at the wound for as long as he could, forcing himself to accept the reality of it, before a rising nausea compelled him to avert his gaze.

“Might’ve been best to just take it off,” he said as Loriabeth knelt to replace the bandage with one from her pack. He tried for a jovial tone but it came out as a strained, tremulous gasp.

“I ain’t no surgeon,” she replied. “’Sides, I seen folk come back from worse. Remember that tail-strike laid me low at Stockade? And I’m still spry as ever.”

She secured the bandage in place, Clay gritting his teeth against the pain and turning to Sigoral for a distraction. “If it ain’t Greens,” he said. “What’re you on guard against there, Lieutenant?”

“Look at the lights,” Sigoral said, maintaining his vigil.

Clay raised a hand to shield his eyes and squinted at the trio of crystal suns. At first he saw nothing then noticed the one in the centre dim a little as something passed in front of it, something with wings and long tail. “I’m guessing that ain’t a bird,” he said.

“Reds,” Loriabeth said. “They’re small, like those Greens, but they’re Reds alright. And there’s at least a dozen circling above. Ain’t seen fit to come for us as yet.”

“I think they’re waiting for us to venture out there,” Sigoral said, jerking his head to the left.

Clay turned, finding that the forest was mostly gone now, leaving a short stretch of widely spaced trees before giving way to the broad plain he had glimpsed from atop the overgrown structure. It was flat and mostly barren save for a few bushes. “How long you been carrying me?” he asked Loriabeth.

“Dragging more like,” she said. “Three or four miles from where those Greens came for us. Night came and went. The lieutenant did some counting and reckons this place gets about ten hours of light and the same of darkness a day, if you can really call it a day.”

“Why so short?” Clay wondered aloud, then grunted as Loriabeth tied off the bandage.

“Here,” she said, reaching for two branches lying near by. “We cut crutches in case you woke up. No offence, cuz, but I ain’t got the strength to drag you one more mile.”

She made him eat before they set off. It transpired they had adopted his suggestion whilst he slept, catching several birds for roasting. They made for tasty fare, reminding him of the pigeons he had resorted to trapping during his early days in the Blinds.

“Been lighting fires without any trouble,” Loriabeth said, turning a spitted bird over a healthy flame. “Greens’ve been content to leave us be.”

“We killed many,” Sigoral said. “Perhaps all of them.”

“Or they just learn faster than these birds,” Clay said, biting into a small drumstick as he cast a wary eye at the Reds circling above. “Have to hope this lot learns the same lesson if they try their luck.”

Loriabeth had filled a whole canteen with product harvested from the pile of dead Greens they left in the forest. Clay tasted a little before they set off across the plain. The blood was heavily diluted with water but the effects made him conclude that, tiddlers or not, the blood of the drakes in this place remained just as potent as their larger cousins’.

Progress was inevitably slowed by Clay’s infirmity. He soon managed to get the hang of the plant-and-swing motion needed to propel himself forward on his crutches, but his leg ached continually and the depredations of his injury forced him to halt every few hundred yards. Sigoral and Loriabeth displayed some muted frustration with his slowness but neither voiced a rebuke and, to his eyes, remained remarkably free of desperation or panic despite their circumstances.

Miles beneath the ice trapped in a giant cavern with wild drakes, he thought, watching Sigoral pause and raise his gaze to the Reds circling above. And yet they never thought of leaving me.

The notion stirred unwelcome thoughts of Silverpin’s ghost. Didn’t you ever wonder why they were so willing to follow you? He didn’t want to think about the question overmuch, though it nagged at him as they inched their way across the treeless plain. He had convinced all the surviving Longrifles, half the crew of a Protectorate ship and a handful of Corvantine captives to follow him to the worst place on earth. All on the promise of something he saw in a vision, a vision only he and Miss Lethridge had seen. I ain’t never been that persuasive, he knew, pausing to wipe a slick of sweat from his brow. And yet they followed me here.

The barrenness of the surrounding landscape drew his mind back to the Red Sands and that day they found the crater, the near-feverish need to find the White he had seen in his uncle’s eyes, a need placed there by Silverpin. Images of the Longrifles’ journey through the Arradsian Interior played out in his head as he stood, swaying a little on his crutches. She birthed a hunger in them. His gaze shifted to Loriabeth and Sigoral, both now halted and regarding him with deep concern. What did I birth?

“Clay?” Loriabeth asked.

He wanted to ask her if she had ever truly pondered their reasons for coming here, if the blind acceptance of so much danger ever gave her pause. And, if so, did those doubts disappear whenever she was in his company? Have I doomed you, cuz? he wondered, groaning as he looked away. He was pondering the wisdom of voicing his suspicions when his gaze caught something several miles ahead. The heat cast by the three suns produced a low hazy shimmer on the plain and he had to squint to fully make it out: a thin vertical line ascending from the tunnel floor into the black sky.

“You seeing this?” he asked, pointing. “Or did I pass out again?”

It grew clearer with every mile covered. A thin dark thread descending from the blackness above, slowly resolving into another shaft just like the one that had conveyed them to this place. Clay increased his pace as much as he could, but the effort soon left him gasping.

“We’re stopping,” Loriabeth decided as Clay came to an unsteady halt, head sagging and shoulders slumping between his crutches. She unhitched her fire-wood-laden pack and dumped it on the dusty ground. The lights had drawn ahead of them again and the trailing shadow lay only a short distance behind.

“Just a few more miles,” Clay insisted, swinging himself forward and promptly falling over. He issued a profuse and enthusiastic torrent of profanity as his leg punished him with a fierce burst of pain. “Sonovabitching fucking thing!”

“You finished?” Loriabeth asked, bending to help him sit up.

“You should go on,” he said, gritting his teeth as she settled a pack under his leg. “It’s only a coupla hours away.”

“Shut up, cuz,” she muttered and went about building the fire.

“I mean it,” he said. “Leave me here. Go see what’s what . . .”

“I said shut up!” She glared at him, Clay suffering a fresh upsurge of guilt in the face of her implacable resolve.

“It’s my fault,” he groaned, head lolling as the guilt gave way to fatigue. “You followed me . . .”

“Made my own choice,” she said, piling kindling cut from the stunted bushes found on the plain. “We all did.”

“No . . .” he breathed, the world fading away once more. “You didn’t . . .”

This time Silverpin failed to disturb his slumber, for which he was grateful. He blinked awake to find a large bug standing a few inches from his face. It was about three inches tall with six legs, fore-pincers and a tail tipped with a wicked-looking spike. The dim light gleamed on its black carapace as it maintained a frozen vigil for a few seconds before turning and scuttling off in a haze of dust. More than just drakes to worry about in here, Clay decided.

“. . . under the ship?” he heard Loriabeth enquire, speaking in low tones so as not to wake him.

“And up the other side,” Sigoral replied. “It’s called keelhauling and is usually only reserved for the worst crimes. The barnacles on the keel will tear a man’s flesh quite terribly, even worse so than flogging. I’d only ever seen it done once before I joined the Superior, and the miscreant in that case had been a drunkard who knifed a fellow sailor over a game of Pastazch. Captain Jenilkin, however, was much less discerning, keelhauling three men in as many months for petty infractions, one of whom perished. That was in addition to the numerous floggings he ordered. ‘Peasants are beasts of burden, Mr. Sigoral,’ he was fond of saying. ‘And what beast doesn’t respond well to the whip?’ I swear, if that Corporatist shell hadn’t taken his head off, the crew would have sooner or later.”

“That how you got to be in charge?”

“No, that came later. The captain died in the Battle of the Strait. Our First Officer was killed when the Blues rose off Carvenport. He was inspecting the forward guns when one of the monsters stuck its head over the side and snapped him clean in two. We had no warning. In seconds it seemed as if the whole sea was on fire. When it was over I found myself the only officer still alive with a crew numbering a dozen men.”

Sigoral fell quiet for a moment. When he spoke again his voice had taken on a note of forced briskness. “Still, doesn’t do to dwell. Although, how we remained afloat long enough to sail to Lossermark is still something of a mystery.”

“Only for us to come steal your ship out from under you.” Loriabeth gave a soft chuckle. “Must’ve been a real pisser.”

There was a pause before Sigoral replied, his voice coloured by a reluctant humour. “It was not one of my better days.”

“How come you speak Mandinorian so well?”

“Takmarin is the principal centre for trade in the southern empire. I grew up hearing a whole host of languages, Mandinorian most of all since it’s the language of commerce in all ports, regardless of what flag flies over the Customs House.”

“Hardly heard anything but Mandinorian my whole life. Pa had a Dalcian in our crew for a while, bladehand before Silverpin. He taught me a few battle poems.” She paused then recited a few lines of Dalcian. Clay heard Sigoral snort as he restrained an outburst of laughter.

“What?” Loriabeth demanded.

“Battle poems?” the Corvantine asked, still struggling to contain his mirth.

“Yeah. So?”

Sigoral took a deep inhalation and forced a neutral tone as he replied, “Nothing. Truly.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m afraid politeness forbids . . .”

“Just tell me, you Corvie prick!”

Sigoral took another deep breath before providing a carefully phrased response. “In Dalcian ports ladies of a . . . certain profession will stand in their windows chanting to attract . . . customers.”

A long silence. “That bastard,” Loriabeth breathed, provoking Sigoral into a restrained guffaw. “I was barely fourteen when he taught me that. Seer-damn pervert. Glad that Green pack roasted him now.”

Sigoral’s laughter increased in pitch then abruptly faded as a gust of wind swept over the camp, raising dust and causing Clay to reach for his revolver.

“You see it?” Loriabeth asked. Clay turned his head to find them both on their feet, weapons aimed upwards.

“Not even a flicker,” Sigoral replied.

“He must’ve been lower this time.” Loriabeth moved in a slow circle, arms held wide to cover as much of the sky as possible. “Twenty feet, less maybe.”

“This time?” Clay groaned, shuffling into a sitting position.

“Happened twice before,” she said. “Didn’t wanna wake you. Skaggs told me about this. It’s what they do when they’re tracking a pack of Cerath across the plains. Trying to spook them into scattering so they can . . .” She cast a tense glance at him and trailed off, though it wasn’t difficult to discern her meaning. So they can pick off the weakest.

Clay turned his gaze towards the direction of the shaft, now a thick straight vertical line edged by the burgeoning glow of the three suns. “Reckon there’s another hour until the light returns in full,” he said, stifling a pained grunt as he shifted his weight to reach for his crutches. “We’d best move on now.”

“It might be better if we go back to dragging you,” Sigoral suggested, watching Clay climb unsteadily to his one good foot, crutches splayed so he didn’t topple over right away. “We can rig another litter . . .”

“I don’t need dragging,” Clay broke in. He replanted his crutches and swung himself forward, moving with all the semblance of healthy resolve he could muster. “Leave the fire burning,” he said, swinging himself onward. “Might serve as a distraction.”

“Well that’s sure shit on our breakfast.”

Loriabeth kicked some sand loose from the gently sloping shore-line, birthing ripples from the placid water beyond. It stretched out before them like a vast mirror, black around the edges and bright in the centre where the three suns illuminated an island. It was small, no more than a hundred feet from end to end by Clay’s reckoning. Sitting in the centre of the island was a structure some thirty feet high with sloping walls of intricate construction. Clay assumed it to be much the same as the structure in the forest, except it was completely free of any encroaching vegetation. The shaft rose from the structure’s roof, disappearing into the haze of the three suns several hundred feet above.

“A forest, a desert, now a sea,” Sigoral mused. “It’s as if someone built a miniature world in here.”

“More of a lake than a sea,” Loriabeth said. “But it’s still too damn broad for my liking.”

Clay blinked sweat as he peered at the island. “Maybe three hundred yards. Not an impossible swim.”

“For us,” Loriabeth said. “Not you. Anyways.” She kicked more sand into the water. “Who’s to say what’s already swimming about in there?”

“If we had enough wood we could built a raft,” Sigoral pointed out.

“Meaning a long walk back to the forest.” Loriabeth looked at the Reds circling above. Their altitude had definitely reduced over the past hour, coming low enough for Clay to gain a full appreciation of their size. Although considerably smaller than an Arradsian Red, they were still of sobering proportions; seven feet from nose to tail with a wing-span even broader. Plus there were twelve of them, enough to overwhelm their guns if they came in a rush.

“We follow the shore,” Clay said, nodding to left and right. “See what we can find.” He chose the right on a whim and started off, glad for the swallow of Green he had taken earlier. He had been strict in rationing his intake, not knowing how much longer this journey would take, and didn’t like to think about the inevitable moment when it ran out.

It was Sigoral who found it, his eyes being attuned to picking out objects of note in a body of water. It rose from the lake’s surface some ten yards off shore, the faux-sunlight gleaming on the crystal it held. Another plinth, just like the one from the platform.

“Well,” Clay said, swinging himself towards the water. “We know it won’t work for either of you.”

He saw Loriabeth swallow a protest before moving to his side, Sigoral falling in behind. As they waded into the water the circling Reds broke their silence for the first time, piercing shrieks cutting through the air as they swung lower still.

“I think we’re making them angry,” Sigoral observed, tracking a Red with his carbine.

“Hungry, more like,” Loriabeth replied, pointing a pistol at the shore-line. “See how they won’t venture over the lake’s edge.”

Clay glanced back, seeing she was right. The Reds, now barely twenty feet off the ground, were wheeling around at heightened speed but veering away every time they came close to the shore-line. Something’s keeping them at bay. He immediately turned his gaze to the water, peering through the surface for any sign of danger but seeing only clouds of silt disturbed by his lumbering passage.

A sudden flare of agony in his leg brought him to a halt as the water seeped through his bandage and into his wound. He cried out, the crutches slipping from his armpits as he shuddered and would have fallen if Sigoral hadn’t caught him about the waist.

“Green,” Clay gasped, his body throbbing and sending white flashes across his vision that told of an imminent faint. It seemed to take several seconds of eternity for Sigoral to fumble the cap from Clay’s canteen and hold it to his mouth. He drank deep, the undiluted product burning its way down his throat and squashing the pain into a small, pulsing ball at the core of his being.

“We gotta go!” Loriabeth said, her words accompanied by the snick of a cocked revolver.

Clay swung his gaze back to the shore, seeing the Reds had all now come to rest on the sand. They shrieked a continual chorus of frustrated hunger, jaws snapping as they fanned their wings, tails coiling like angry snakes. With every shriek they inched closer to the water as predatory yearning vied with fear. He turned back to the plinth and forced himself on, shouting with the effort. By the time he reached it the water was over his belt, and the drakes’ cries had risen to fever pitch. He slumped onto the plinth, slapping his hand to the crystal. Nothing happened.

“Think you can get any from here?” Loriabeth asked Sigoral. They were following in Clay’s wake, backing away from the shore in slow careful steps.

“One for certain,” the Corvantine said, aiming his carbine. “Should I shoot?”

“Not yet. Might stir them up even more.”

Clay grunted in frustration and slapped his hand to the crystal once more then swore as it failed to produce the hoped-for glow. “Seer’s balls! Do something!”

The crystal blazed into life, the sudden flare of light enough to blind him for a second. He blinked tears, hearing a rush of displaced water. When his vision cleared he saw the surface of the lake rising in a huge elongated swell that stirred memories of Last Look Jack. A Blue, he thought wearily. Of course.

But it wasn’t a Blue. The water fell away to reveal a long, narrow structure of algae-covered granite, extending from the shore to the island. A bridge, Clay realised with a laugh that died at an upsurge of squawking from the Reds. The appearance of the bridge seemed to infuriate them, overthrowing their last vestige of fear.

They rose in a cloud of dust, wings drawing thunder from the air. Three came straight at them, skimming low over the water, whilst the others split into two groups and swung out to left and right. Sigoral’s carbine cracked and one of the onrushing Reds tumbled into the lake. Loriabeth’s revolvers blazed, cutting down the other two. Their speed was too great to allow for head-shots, so they failed to die immediately, thrashing wings and tails churning the water white and crimson, distressed shrieks loud enough to pain the ears.

Clay whirled to the right, revolver raised to aim at a Red banking towards him. He fired as it levelled out. His reduced faculties made for a poor shot, raising a waterspout a good foot wide of the target. The Red shrieked in triumph, mouth gaping as it closed. Clay drew the hammer back for another shot, arm trembling as he attempted to aim down the beast’s throat.

The water beneath the Red erupted into a white froth as something shot from beneath the surface, something with a long snake-like body and blue scales that glittered in the cascading water. The Blue’s jaws clamped onto the Red’s neck, plucking it from the air with a crack of breaking vertebrae. The Blue coiled in mid air, seeming to hang there for a second and affording Clay an opportunity to gauge its size. Nine feet long, he thought with an oddly amused detachment. Just a tiddler. Then the Blue was gone, scattering water and blood as it dived back beneath the surface with its prize.

“Come on, cuz!” Loriabeth and Sigoral appeared at his side, each taking an arm and dragging him towards the bridge. The remaining Reds seemed to have fled, leaving the sky empty, but Clay’s attention was now fixed on the water. The appearance of the bridge had raised a great deal of silt from the lake-bed, leaving the water dark and pregnant with unseen menace.

They reached the bridge after a few seconds’ struggle through the water, Clay expecting another Blue to come surging up from the depths at any minute. Sigoral climbed onto the bridge and took hold of Clay’s arms, dragging him up and clear of the water whilst Loriabeth pushed from below.

Once successfully hauled clear, Clay lay at the edge of the bridge. The pain was now so acute his leg seemed to be on fire, sapping his strength so much that he could only lie there and watch Loriabeth offer her raised arms to Sigoral. Instead of reaching down to her, however, the Corvantine straightened, unslung his carbine and levered a round into the chamber. Clay raised a trembling hand as Sigoral lowered the barrel, croaking out an impotent “No!” as flame blossomed from the carbine’s muzzle. He turned, expecting to see Loriabeth slumping lifeless into the water, but instead finding her staring at the bloody, thrashing body of a Blue barely a yard away.

“If you wouldn’t mind, Miss,” Sigoral said, crouching to offer her his hand.

CHAPTER 25

Lizanne

“Seems too small,” Demisol said, peering at the spherical device she had placed on the defaced table. It was a little larger than an average-sized apple, constructed from a mix of iron and copper components. A small key lay alongside it, ready to be inserted into the slot on the top of the device.

“I’m assured it’s more than adequate for the task,” Lizanne said.

“So you didn’t make this?” Helina asked, her perennial suspicion as yet undimmed by Lizanne’s reappearance with the promised proof of her intent.

“I was fortunate enough to secure the services of someone sympathetic to our enterprise,” she replied.

“The wider this plan is known the greater the risk.” The diminutive radical stared down at the device for a long while before adding, “I know of only one inmate with the skills to construct something of this complexity.”

“The Tinkerer?” Demisol asked Lizanne, who shrugged.

“What does it matter?” she said. “The device will work and he is in the process of producing more.”

“We’ve had a few dealings with him in the past,” Demisol said. “Enough to know he cares nothing for our cause.”

“I promised him escape. He’s not particularly skilled in detecting lies.”

“But you are skilled in speaking them,” Helina observed.

“What revolutionary isn’t?” Lizanne nodded at the device. “Citizens, I require your decision. Once this is primed and placed there can be no turning back.”

Demisol gave no immediate reply, instead moving to the head of the table and sinking into a chair where the owner of this house once sat and entertained guests. “What have you told the Electress?” he enquired.

“That you’re reluctant to trust a new-comer,” Lizanne replied. “However, whilst I have not yet discerned any evidence of your involvement in the attempt on her life, certain passing remarks lead me to conclude there is more to learn here. Also, you have intimated a desire to have me spy on her, as she would expect.”

“So,” Helina said, “you haven’t given up the fop yet.”

Lizanne gave a thin smile. “Play a high card at the wrong moment and you risk losing the pot.”

“How does it work?” Demisol asked, nodding at the iron-and-copper apple on the table.

“Insert the key and turn it fully to the right. The delay is fifteen minutes. I will have a dozen more ready by next Ore Day, and a much larger device I’m assured will achieve our principal aim.”

“And then,” Demisol said softly, “Scorazin goes to war.”

“Yes.” Lizanne looked up, eyes tracking from one to the other. “Your decision, citizens?”

“We were obliged to . . . disenfranchise one of our number after putting your scheme to the group,” Helina said. “The Holy Leveller, ironically. Despite a lifetime lost in religious delusion, he proclaimed the plan a murderous and insane folly. But the vote went against him.”

“Unanimously,” Demisol added, rising and coming around the table to retrieve one of the timepieces. “We’re with you, citizen. It’s time to wipe the blot of this city from the soul of humanity.”

Earless Jozk was by far the worst gambler Lizanne had ever known. He would sit at her Pastazch table whenever he had money to spend, one hand twitching on his diminishing pile of chits as he peered at the hand she dealt, the value of which could be easily read in the various tics of his unwashed face. Tonight, the unalloyed glimmer of joy in his gaze told Lizanne he had drawn at least two cards of the Imperial Suit on the first throw of the die, a fact also plain to the four other players at the table who promptly folded.

“Cowards,” the stocky Fury muttered, reaching for the meagre pot. Despite the poor haul, this was in fact the most Lizanne had seen him win in a single night. Usually he would sit playing out hand after hand until his chits were exhausted, whereupon he would disappear from the Miner’s Repose until labour in the sulphur pit earned enough to buy a chair at the table, and the entire fruitless exercise would be repeated.

“It’s still a decent haul, Mr. Jozk,” she told him as she gathered up the cards and shuffled the deck. “Enough for a full cup of the good stuff and an hour upstairs, if you’d like.”

“I’m far from done,” he growled in response. “Just work those dainty hands, m’dear. I’ll decide how best to spend my wealth once I’ve cleaned the pockets of these craven dogs.”

The other players gave voice to some restrained laughter, but no open mockery. Jozk had earned his name not from losing an ear, but from his habit of biting them off those foolish enough to rouse his temper past breaking point. To his credit, however, he never became violent at the table or fell victim to any unwise notions regarding Lizanne’s person.

“Chits on the table or fold, please, gents,” she said, dealing one card to each player. “Mr. Semper, first throw to you when you’re ready.”

Semper, a member of the Verdigris, was another regular at her table, drawn by a quickly acquired reputation for honest dealing. She could tell from his style of play that Pastazch had been his principal occupation before being consigned to Scorazin. He judged the odds with practised swiftness, never allowed emotion to colour his judgement and tended to leave the table richer than when he sat down. Unlike Earless Jozk, he had no aversion to spending his winnings on the ladies upstairs or on the establishment’s most potent drink. Lizanne suspected such indulgence was due to a wasting illness that made his visage more cadaverous with every game and would surely see him cast onto the midden before the year was out.

Semper tossed his chit into the pot, glanced at the card she had dealt him then reached for the die with a bony hand. Some players liked to blow on the die before the throw, or offer it to Lizanne to do the same. “For luck,” they said. Semper had no truck with such superstition and always threw without preamble, on this occasion turning up a four.

“Four cards to Mr. Semper.” Lizanne dealt the cards and turned to the man on his left. “Your throw, sir.”

The three other players all folded after their throws, leaving Semper and Jozk to battle over the pot. The Fury’s throw earned him only two more cards, making this game a somewhat hopeless prospect, and yet his eyes betrayed the same excited gleam as before.

“Second throw,” Lizanne said. Semper’s next toss of the die earned him three more cards meaning Lizanne could only deal two in order to bring his hand up to the maximum of seven. Jozk’s throw earned him one card, at which point his brow began to shine with sweat.

“Bet or fold, gents,” Lizanne said.

The two men matched stares as the murmured voices from surrounding tables mingled with the lilting notes of Makario’s pianola.

“You don’t have it,” Semper told Jozk, weary certainty colouring his rasp of a voice. Lizanne knew his meaning. There was only one hand in Pastazch in which four cards would be sure to triumph over seven; the rarely seen Imperial Quad.

“You don’t know what I got,” Jozk returned and pushed all of his chits into the pot.

“You had two Imperials on the last deal,” Semper said, brows raised in an oddly sympathetic gesture. “The odds of having four in this one are . . .” He laughed and shook his head. “It’s a poor time to choose for a bluff, Jozk. Take your money back and fold. I’ve no desire to make you an enemy.”

“You won’t.”

Semper’s gaze narrowed a little, Lizanne detecting a small flicker of uncertainty. He doesn’t have any Imperials, she realised. Meaning there’s still a chance this is no bluff, however small.

“As you wish,” Semper sighed, pushing his impressive stack of chits to the centre of the table.

“Mr. Semper bets his entire stake,” Lizanne said, reaching forward to count the value of the pot. “Mr. Jozk, you require . . .”

“Waiver,” Semper cut in, offering Jozk a humourless smile. “Let’s play it out. If this comes off it’ll be one for my memoirs.”

“Mr. Semper waives the matching bet,” Lizanne said. “Gentlemen, show your cards.”

A small crowd had gathered by now, a dozen or so patrons sidling closer to watch the outcome. Semper’s slender fingers tapped his cards briefly before flipping them over, the onlookers voicing a collective gasp at the revealed hand.

“Seven-card flush,” Lizanne said, raising an eyebrow. “Roses, no straight. Double points value makes for a total of one hundred and two. Mr. Jozk, you require one hundred and three points to take the pot.”

Earless Jozk for once maintained an unreadable visage as he rested a hand on his cards, remaining still and silent as the moment stretched. Lizanne couldn’t decide if he was enjoying the moment of triumph or contemplating his worst humiliation to date. She allowed him the time and let the tension draw yet more eyes to the table. A game like this had a tendency to stir the patrons up, making them more inclined to part with their chits, something the Electress always appreciated.

Finally a ghost of a smile flickered across the chapped lips of Earless Jozk’s besmirched and prematurely aged face as he gave a wry shake of his head and began to turn over his cards.

Glass shattered off to Lizanne’s right and something small and fast buzzed the air an inch in front of her nose. Her eyes instinctively followed its course, drawing up short at the sight of Jozk with a metallic dart embedded in his forehead. He met her gaze for a second, wet lips fumbling over final words no one would ever hear, then slumped face-first onto the table, leaking copious blood over the faded green baize. More shattered glass and the air was filled with a swarm of buzzing darts and the shouts of patrons.

Lizanne slipped from her chair and crawled under the table, watching men fall around her amidst a cacophony of panicked voices and stampeding feet. One of her regulars collapsed near by, clutching at a dart in his shoulder. She watched as his hands spasmed and bloody foam began to seep from his mouth before he slumped onto his back, still twitching. Poison on the darts, she reasoned. Clever.

She realised Makario’s music had fallen silent and looked up to see him still sitting at the pianola, gazing about at the unfolding massacre in wide-eyed bafflement. Lizanne rose to a crouch and scurried to the musician, feeling a dart flick through her hair. She grabbed Makario’s arm and dragged him from the stool just as a dart embedded itself in the pianola, birthing a discordant howl of breaking strings.

“No,” Makario breathed, rising and reaching out to the ruined instrument, face riven with grief.

“Don’t!” Lizanne wrapped her arms around him and held him down as darts continued to streak through the shattered window above their head. Patrons littered the floor, dead or dying, whilst a thrashing knot of survivors jammed the stairwell in an effort to flee. Lizanne’s attention was soon captured by the sight of Semper, standing upright as the darts thrummed around him. She could see one embedded in his arm and knew he wouldn’t be long in joining the dead. He paid no mind to the injury, however, his gaze fully occupied by the four cards he held in his hand. Another dart slammed into his chest, making him stagger, but he stayed on his feet, his gaze slipping from the cards to find Lizanne.

“Emperor’s balls!” he called to her in cheerful amazement, holding up the cards; the Chamberlain, the Landgrave, the Elector and the Emperor, all four cards of the Imperial Quad. “He actually had it!”

“What is it?” the Electress asked, looking over the device Anatol had placed on her desk. It consisted of two main components, a wooden stock joined at one end to a strip of sprung steel. The steel strip was curved thanks to the length of thick twine attached to both ends. The stock featured an ingenious modification that couldn’t help but stir Lizanne’s professional admiration.

“A cross-bow,” she said. “But not a design I’ve seen before.” She tapped a finger to the mechanical fixed to the stock. “A geared-lever arrangement and box magazine for the darts. The lever enables the user to draw back the string and reload in one movement, allowing for rapid fire. It would require a strong pair of arms to work, though.”

“The Scuttler we found it on was strong enough,” Anatol said. “Took three knife blows to bring him down.”

“You get any more?” the Electress asked.

Anatol shook his head. “They were already running when we got there. Counted about a dozen, less the one who had this.”

“Eight dead customers, and the loss of a night’s takings, for one Scuttler.” The Electress sank into her chair, match flaring as she lit the inevitable cigarillo. “That’s a poor rate of exchange, I’d say.” She looked at Melina and inclined her head at the cross-bow. “Tinkerer’s work, would you say?”

“It’s certainly clever enough for him,” the tall woman replied with reluctant honesty. “But I’d say not. His mechanicals tend to have a more refined appearance. Besides, he never makes weapons. Not for anyone else, at least.”

“King Coal must have gotten them from somewhere,” Anatol said.

“Most probably from the same hands that crafted that bomb,” Lizanne suggested. “I’m starting to think he managed to find himself a talented new-comer.”

“Him and me both,” the Electress replied, without much conviction.

“I’ll gather the lads.” Anatol started towards the door. “Time we finished this.”

“I’d best go too,” Lizanne said, moving to follow.

“You’ll both do what the fuck I tell you to do!” the Electress snapped, smoke blossoming in an angry cloud. “When I tell you to do it.” Her face took on a stony aspect as she calmed herself before turning to Melina. “What do you know?”

“A bomb went off in the Pit Number Three winding tower about three hours ago. Wrecked the gear and left two Scuttlers dead. Any coal they get from that seam will have to be hand-carted up from now on.”

“Meaning most’ll starve before long,” Anatol said with a satisfied grimace. “The constables won’t give two turds about their problems. No coal, no food. Saves us a good deal of killing.”

A thin sigh escaped the Electress’s lips as she closed her eyes and rubbed stubby, yellow-stained fingers into her temples. “Starving men are desperate men,” she said. “And desperate men have no fear when it comes to a fight. Two Verdigris died here tonight, which means Chuckling Sim will feel obliged to respond, which means the Wise Fools will start itching to take advantage. When the whole city gets to fighting it’s a safe bet the constables will have more than two turds to give.”

She sat back, clasping her meaty hands together, brow furrowed in contemplation. “Send word to the pits,” she muttered. “Triple guard tonight. Make sure everyone’s armed up. No one sleeps. Now piss off downstairs and let me think.”

Makario sat at the pianola, shoulders slumped as his finger tapped a dull thunk from one of the keys. The bodies had been cleared away, after a thorough looting, and efforts made to mop up the blood, though the worst stains still lingered on the boards. “I’m sure it’s fixable,” Lizanne said, moving to the musician’s side. “Just strings and wood, after all.”

His eyes flashed at her in momentary resentment, his normally fine features twisting into something she hadn’t seen before. “What do you know about music?” he demanded in a harsh whisper. “You can name tunes, but what does your killer’s heart really know?”

Some measure of surprise must have shown on her face for he sighed, closing his eyes and turning away. “I’m sorry,” he said, splaying his delicate fingers over the keys. “It’s just . . . She was a wreck when I found her, the last surviving pianola in the whole of Scorazin. It took months of work to nurse her back to health, make her sing again. The Electress’s little project to bring music to the Miner’s Repose. It kept me alive. Now . . .” He played a short melody, still recognisable despite the dull thud of keys on ruined strings. “What am I without her, Krista?”

Dead, Lizanne thought. Like everyone else in here. But then, you always were.

She was tempted to lean closer and whisper her knowledge into his ear; I know what you did. His reaction would be bound to reveal something useful, but she resisted. Not out of sentiment, she told herself, only partially feeling it to be a lie. A card to be played when the pot’s swollen to its fullest.

She had been calculating the likely effect the bombing and subsequent massacre would have on her plan and knew the Learned Damned would be making their own calculations. It was possible, of course, that they had taken the bomb she gave them and put it to this unexpected use. However, she could see no reason why they would. Wrong time, and the wrong kind of chaos. A gang-war avails us nothing since the constables will simply let us starve until it quiets down. She considered slipping away to confer with Demisol and Helina, but knew it could well prove a fatal gamble. A dozen more Furies had been drafted in from the mines as additional security. They were a contrast to the slothful guards she had evaded to contact Tinkerer, experienced and keen-eyed veterans of gang-wars within and without these walls likely to notice her absence. So the Learned Damned would have to wait as she suffered the unwelcome sensation of being unable to influence events.

She let her hand fall to the keys, tapping out a tune and humming the accompanying melody, one she had last heard drifting out across shell-blasted trenches half a world away. “The Leaves of Autumn,” Makario said, his lips forming a faint smile of recognition. “My old grandmamma’s favourite.”

“Do you know who composed it?” Lizanne asked, recalling that day in Jermayah’s workshop when Tekela’s ear for music led to the first fractional understanding of the solargraph.

“It’s from the Third Imperium as I recall,” he said, returning his fingers to the keys and tapping out a far-more-accomplished version of the tune, wincing all the while at the discordant clatter arising from the pianola. “The composer is believed to have been a member of the Empress Tarmina’s Cloister, a group of young women hand-picked for their artistic gifts, many of comparatively mean station. The Third Imperium was a time of great change, often referred to as the Flourishing by historians, when the old feudal ways were being overridden by advances in the sciences, and the arts. The Cloister was destined to be a short-lived institution, being quickly disbanded by Tarmina’s son when he ascended to the throne determined to cultivate a manly image free from feminine frippery. But for the best part of two decades they produced literature, paintings, sculpture and music. As is the way with art, most of the Cloister’s works could be best described as mediocre, a good portion decidedly awful, and some . . .” His smile broadened as he closed his eyes and played on, his mind no doubt replacing the pianola’s cacophony with something far more harmonious. “. . . quite beautiful.”

“Do you know her name?” Lizanne asked as Makario’s hands fell silent. “The composer.”

“Not off-hand. It’s probably buried in a book somewhere. I do know that she supposedly composed the piece whilst in the throes of a broken heart, a eulogy for a lover who abandoned her in order to seek adventure across the sea. He’s a colourful fellow in his own right, actually, some mad genius said to have spent years wandering the Arradsian Interior before getting gobbled up by a drake, or some such. If so, it’s a great pity he never heard the music he inspired.”

No, he heard it, Lizanne thought, picturing Tekela tapping the probe to the solargraph’s chimes. And trapped it in a box before coming here to chain himself to a wall.

A rhythmic thumping sounded through the ceiling, soon accompanied by the Electress’s voice. “Melina! Time to call a parley!”

CHAPTER 26

Clay

Clay didn’t remember crossing the bridge to the island, lost as he was in a mist of pain and exhaustion. Once again Loriabeth and Sigoral were obliged to drag him, clasping his arms across their shoulders to pull him along. His cousin had rigged a sling around his neck and under his thigh so his injured leg didn’t trail on the ground, although his lack of comprehension was such he doubted he would have felt it in any case.

“Look,” he heard Loriabeth say, her voice muffled as if spoken from behind a heavy curtain. “Door’s open.”

Clay felt the air change from warm to cool as they hauled him inside the structure they had seen from the shore. “Awful dark in here,” Loriabeth observed.

“No platform that I can see,” Sigoral added. “Must be farther in.”

Clay felt hard surfaces press against his back and rump as they propped him against a wall. “Cuz,” Loriabeth’s voice, close to his ear. “You hear me?”

He tried to nod but could only manage a small jerk of his head.

“More Green?” Sigoral suggested.

“He’s had a lot already. Not sure the raw stuff is that good for him after all. Besides, I’m thinking we’d best preserve what we got left. No telling how long we’ll be in here.”

“I’ll take a look around. We need to find a way into the shaft.”

“Not sure it’s wise to split up.”

“We can’t drag him everywhere. And somebody needs to stay . . .”

Sigoral’s voice subsided into a distant murmur then faded completely as Clay felt the void drag him down.

“She must have loved this place.” Silverpin rested her hands on the balustrade and gazed out across the jungle at the distant blue shimmer of Krystaline Lake. “Such a wonderful view.”

Clay surveyed the ruins below then confirmed his suspicion with a glance back at the shadowed room visible through the arch behind. Miss Ethelynne’s tower in the hidden city. He was momentarily puzzled to find Silverpin here, she had never seen it after all. But then he had, and it appeared she enjoyed the freedom to roam his memory at will.

He sighed and closed his eyes, raising his face to let the warmth of the sun bathe his skin. A single sun shining down from a blue sky, he thought, enjoying the familiarity of it after so many hours beneath the false light of the three crystal suns. “Too much to hope you were gone for good, I guess,” he said.

“That’s . . . not very nice.”

He blinked, turning to see what appeared to be genuine hurt on her face. Although, reading her expression through the mask of tattoos had never been easy. “You’re the one who wanted to help a monster eat the world,” he reminded her. “Lotta bodies weighing on your side of the scales.”

“That was always going to happen.” She turned back to the view, her voice taking on a reflective tone. “At least with me there would have been some . . .” She paused, mulling over the right word. “. . . not restraint, exactly. More pragmatism. The one he’s calling to now.” She gave a rueful laugh. “Let’s just say, she is anything but pragmatic.”

The one he’s calling to now . . . Clay stared at her, silenced by the import of her words.

“Oh yes,” she went on, angling her gaze as she enjoyed his shock. “You didn’t think I was the only one, did you?”

“It needed you for something,” Clay recalled, mind racing through his memories of the confrontation with the White, the rage it had exhibited when his bullet left Silverpin bleeding her life out onto the glass floor.

Silverpin didn’t answer right away, instead turning from the view to enter the room where Ethelynne had spent so many years in study. Clay followed, resisting the urge to demand answers. There seemed to be no threats he could make, and he didn’t know if any violence he might do here would have any effect.

“Year after year spent in feverish scribbling,” Silverpin murmured, tracing a hand over Ethelynne’s stacks of journals. “Page after page, and she never came close to even the most basic understanding. A wasted life really.”

“Not to me,” Clay stated. “And I’d hazard she knew a damn sight more than you did, on the whole.”

“About the Interior, I’ve little doubt.” She paused to pluck a book from one of the stacks, laughing a little as she opened it to reveal only blank pages. He had never read the journals so their contents were lost, something he now had bitter cause to regret.

“Never mind,” Silverpin said, tossing the journal aside. “It’s probably all still sitting here. Someone’s sure to find it one day. Although, it’ll most likely be a Spoiled in search of kindling for his fire.”

“What did it need you for?” he asked, hating the desperation that coloured his tone.

“The same thing it needs her for.” For a moment she held his gaze, a mocking smile on her lips as she revelled in his impotence.

“I used to feel bad about killing you,” Clay said. “I think I’m over it.”

Silverpin raised a tattooed eyebrow as her smile faded, her gaze moving to the bed, where it lingered. “Looks sturdy enough. What do you say? How about indulging in a little nostalgia?” She began to undress, pulling her shirt over her head and unbuckling her belt.

“I guess this really is more a nightmare than a dream,” Clay said, making her pause, the hurt once again bunching her tattoos.

“You didn’t use to be cruel,” she said. “Selfish, at times. Overly prideful at others. But never cruel.”

“Betrayal will do that to a man.”

She moved closer, reaching for his hand, then closer still when he snatched it away. “Be nice to me,” she said, backing him up against the wall. “Be nice to me and I’ll tell you . . .”

He flinched as she pressed a kiss to his neck, hands moving to his belt. “I get so bored, Clay. Stuck in here. You’d think with so many memories to explore it’d be fascinating. But I can’t change anything. It’s like being trapped in a photostat forever . . .”

“If this is a trance,” he said, a certain uncomfortable but tempting notion stirring in his mind, “then I have as much control over it as you do.”

She stopped, drawing back, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “So?”

He pushed her away and concentrated, summoning every lesson Lizanne had taught him, re-forming the mindscape into a scene of his own choosing. Ethelynne’s tower turned to mist around them, swirling into something much more impressive.

The White’s roar filled the dome, blood leaking from its side as it whirled, scattering crimson droplets across the glass floor where a young woman lay. She shuddered as the blood spread out from the large hole in her belly, trying to stem the flow with hands that fluttered like pale birds.

“Stop it,” Silverpin said. The memory blurred as she tried to take control, then snapped back into reality as Clay asserted his will. Shared trance or not, this was still his mind.

He saw that the dying woman’s lips were moving, forming soundless words she could never speak outside of the trance. He crouched, peering closely at the shapes made by her lips, feeling her last breaths on his face. It wasn’t hard to discern the word she spoke, just one, over and over until the light faded from her eyes. “Mother . . . Mother . . . Moth . . .”

“Stop it,” Silverpin said again, the words emerging as a dry choking rasp.

“Why call for her at the end?” Clay asked, rising from the body. The White roared again and he froze the memory, killing the sound.

She stood with her head lowered, hugging herself tight. “Please, Clay . . .”

“Why call for a woman you enslaved and murdered?” he persisted. “I watched you kill her, remember? You laughed . . .”

“I WANTED HER TO FORGIVE ME!” Silverpin lunged at him, cat-swift and strong, bearing him to the floor, screaming into his face. “I wanted her to know it wasn’t me! It made me! It made me do all of it!”

She fell silent, staring into his eyes as tears flowed from her own. “Except you,” she said, her rage slipping away. She raised a hand to cup his face, smoothing her palm over his skin. “You were mine. The only indulgence it ever allowed me.”

“Do you still feel it?” he asked. “Does it still command you?”

Her head moved in a fractional shake. “But I hear it, like distant thunder from a storm that never ends. I hear it . . . calling to her.”

“Who is she?”

“The new me. The replacement. I have no notion of her name, but I see glimpses of her. Short visions of the world seen through her eyes, conveyed by the White, and they always show the same thing. Different victims, different places. But every vision is a vision of death and each one brings her closer to the White. And when she joins with it . . .”

“What?” he pressed as her words faded, grasping her shoulders hard. “What does it need from her?”

“More of what it got from me.” She pressed herself against him, lips finding his, overcoming his resistance with desperate need. “Understanding . . .”

The chill woke him, leeching the warmth from his skin to leave him shivering in a clammy blanket of sweat. It took a moment to clear the lingering images of the trance, the feverish coupling with Silverpin at the scene of her death. Wrong, he berated himself, guilty repugnance mingling with desire. Very, very wrong.

He was huddled against the wall they had propped him against, the left side of his face compressed by the cold stone floor. The pain in his leg had lessened enough to be bearable, but still provoked a clenched shout as he levered himself upright, gazing around and blinking film from his eyes. The light of the suns had evidently faded on whilst he slept, leaving the structure in almost pitch-darkness save for a glimmer on the rectangular, inscribed pillars that supported the ceiling. It took him longer than it should have to register the most salient fact; he was alone.

“Cuz?” he said, speaking softly though it felt like a shout in the dark and silent confines of the structure. He saw Loriabeth’s pack lying near by and reached for it, finding the remaining supplies intact, including the lantern she had carried from the shaft. A few moments fumbling for matches and he had it lit. The beam revealed a bare and dusty interior, but no sign of his cousin or Sigoral. He thought for a moment then called out, “Lori!”

The only response was the echo of his own voice.

Clay set the lantern down and reached for his canteen, steeling himself against the increasingly unappealing burn of raw Green. The blood had begun to coagulate and he had to force down three gulps of what felt like cold slime on his tongue. He waited for the product to drown the pain in his leg before attempting to rise. Fortunately, Loriabeth had retrieved his crutches from the lake-shore and seen fit to leave them close by. He was obliged to clamp the lantern’s handle between his teeth as he rose precariously into his now-customary three-legged stance, swivelling his head about to illuminate as yet unseen corners. Starting forward, he saw the lake through the open doorway, the surface glittering in the distant glow of the three lights, a surface unbroken by any bridge. Whatever had raised it from the depths had subsequently seen fit to lower it.

“No way back, huh?” he mumbled around the lantern’s handle, turning himself about to regard the deeper recesses of the structure. The lantern’s beam played over a succession of pillars but failed to penetrate the gloom beyond. Lowering his head, he grunted in relief as the light revealed a line of footsteps in the dust. He didn’t have his uncle’s tracking skills but knew enough to discern two distinct sets of prints, one larger than the other. Sigoral, he decided, tracing the beam along the course of the tracks as they curved around the base of one of the pillars where they were swallowed by the shadows. Decided to have a good look-see, but didn’t come back. Loriabeth followed later. He knew she wouldn’t willingly have left his side except in dire need, and certainly not without waking him. She must’ve tried and couldn’t, he realised with a reproachful sigh. Too busy in the trance.

Clay swung himself forward on his crutches, following the tracks and wincing at the echo birthed by the thud of wood on stone as the trail led him into the absolute dark of the building’s innards. He soon came to a wall, the circle of the lantern’s beam playing over a dense mass of script carved into the interlocking blocks of granite. Looking down, he saw that the footprints overlapped at this point, indicating both Sigoral and Loriabeth had halted here, just like him, before following the line of the wall to the left.

He moved on, keeping close to the wall until he came to a gap. It was broad, clearly an entrance of some kind, and carved into the stone on either side of it was a pair of identical symbols. Clay swayed on his crutches, gaze swivelling from one symbol to the other as a rush of recognition set his pulse racing. This one he knew; a circle between two vertical curved lines.

The upturned eye, he thought, recalling the symbol that had adorned the building where he had found the sleeping White. He hesitated, swinging the lantern to illuminate the gap, revealing a long corridor, the end of which was beyond the reach of the light. Is it the White’s sign? he wondered, eyes tracking back to the symbol. A warning, maybe? Stay out or get eaten. It occurred to him that Silverpin might have the answer, but the thought of returning to the trance at this juncture was absurd. He couldn’t slip back into unconsciousness and commune with a ghost whilst Loriabeth remained unfound.

Clay clamped his teeth tighter on the lantern’s handle and swung himself forward. He counted his swings as he progressed along the corridor, reckoning each one to cover about a yard. After counting to thirty he stopped as a soft glimmer appeared in the darkness ahead.

Straightening, he fumbled his revolver into his hand, checking the loads and the action of the cylinder before returning it to the holster. He would have preferred to keep it drawn but needed both hands to grip the crutches. He moved with all the stealth he could muster, trying to place the crutches more softly on the floor and biting down on his grunts as he swung himself forward. Still, he doubted anyone with ears to hear would miss his intrusion.

The corridor came to an abrupt end after another twenty yards, the walls falling away to reveal a wide circular chamber. There were more pillars here, six of them arranged in a circle around a raised dais. Above the dais hung a slowly revolving crystal, floating without any visible means of support. A beam of soft white light issued from the base of the crystal to illuminate the dais where a curious object sat. It appeared to be fashioned from the darker material that had formed the spire and resembled a giant egg about twelve feet tall. Moving closer, he saw that it was split into three segments, revealing a hollow interior that gleamed with moisture. His gaze went to where a thin stream of liquid dribbled from the edge of one of the segments. Just hatched, he decided, eyes darting from one shadow to another. Wonder what it held. That’s no drake egg.

Shifting closer he drew up short as two slumped, unmoving bodies came into view. Loriabeth and Sigoral lay on their backs near the segmented egg, still and apparently unconscious.

“Lori!” The lantern fell from his mouth as he called her name, its light snuffed out as it shattered on the stones. He started forward, stumbling in his urgency and coming close to falling. He cursed and forced himself on, though a sudden upsurge of exhaustion and a flare of pain in his leg forced him to collapse against one of the pillars. He sagged, dragging air into his lungs, eyes fixed on Loriabeth’s immobile form. “LORI!” he called out, as loud as he could, but if she had heard him she gave no sign.

The panicked thought that she might be dead flicked through his head until he peered closer and saw the gentle swell of her chest. A glance at Sigoral confirmed he was also still alive, though he remained every bit as unconscious as she did. Clay could see no obvious sign of injury on either of them, although it did little to quell his rising anxiety. Someone had brought them here and it was a safe bet they weren’t far away.

He levered himself from the pillar, gripping the crutches with trembling hands as he swung himself to the edge of the dais. He was wary of letting the crystal’s light touch his skin, so could only crouch to peer closer at Loriabeth for any sign of injury. She slept on, seemingly quite peacefully, and remained deaf to his entreaties to “Wake up, cuz, Seer-dammit!”

Clay straightened, his gaze drawn inevitably to the crystal floating above. His mind was filled with all he had witnessed in the city beneath the mountain, all the Briteshore Minerals folk standing and staring at the Blue crystal in the dome, every one of them somehow transformed into Spoiled. This crystal, however, wasn’t Blue. In fact, as he squinted at its facets he saw that it seemed to hold myriad different colours within itself. “Whatever you’re doing,” he said, raising his revolver and aiming at the centre of the crystal, “chances are it ain’t good.”

He had begun to squeeze the trigger when he heard a soft thud at his back.

He whirled, losing his balance and staying upright only by virtue of colliding with the edge of the dais. A dim figure stood in the shadow cast by one of the pillars, a slender figure half-edged in white by the crystal’s light. The figure stepped closer, the light catching its face, a female face, the eyes narrowed in shrewd appraisal. Her skin was a shade darker than his own, but so completely absent of flaws that he couldn’t discount the thought that she was something conjured by his pain-addled mind. The sense of unreality was heightened by the fact that she was also completely naked but for a shiny silver belt about her waist.

Shoot her you Seer-damn fool! instinct screamed as his eyes alighted on something in the woman’s hand, something metallic with a short stubby barrel. He had time to half raise the revolver before she shot him in the chest.

CHAPTER 27

Lizanne

The parley took place in a large ruined theatre occupying one side of Pitch-Blende Square. The building featured an ornate and mostly untouched frontispiece that mixed granite and marble to accomplished if overly elaborate effect. The words Constellation Theatrical Emporium were carved in classical Eutherian on a large marble lintel above the doors. According to Makario it was Scorazin tradition for negotiations to be held here, partly because the interior space was large enough to accommodate each party along with their escorts, but also due to the rats. “The place is riven with them,” the musician explained. “It’s why no one’s ever claimed it.”

Lizanne soon realised he hadn’t been exaggerating. A large black rat sat on the front steps as she followed the Electress into the theatre, Anatol and Melina on either side with ten hand-picked Furies following. The rat continued to sit as they drew closer, regarding them with baleful disdain until Anatol stamped a massive boot at it. Even then it seemed to saunter away rather than scurry.

“Too much corpse meat in the diet,” the Electress commented to Lizanne as they ascended the steps. “Makes ’em less afraid of us than they should be. Probably time we had another grand hunt. Have to every few years or they get too large in number, and too bold.”

They proceeded through the doorless entrance into a foyer where a pair of once-opulent staircases ascended on either side, ready to convey an audience to upper floors that no longer existed. Beyond lay the auditorium with its long rows of seats, once plush with velvet and now grey with ancient mould. The stage and its massive curtain had subsided decades ago into a pile of decayed wood and fabric where a dozen or so rats moved about, apparently uncaring of the intruders. A thin drizzle fell from the occluded sky visible through the criss-crossed beams above, all that remained of the roof.

Lizanne saw that the Electress had timed her arrival well, as the other three delegations were already in attendance. Chuckling Sim and a retinue of Verdigris occupied a position parallel to centre stage. King Coal had placed himself off to the left and stood flanked by Julesin, his tall pale-faced lieutenant, with a dozen Scuttlers at his back. The leader of the Wise Fools stood to the right. Lizanne was surprised to find that Varkash had come alone, standing cross-armed with beads of rain shining on his thick muscled arms and the pyrite nose he wore.

“Fashionably late, my dear Electress,” Sim said, offering a fair imitation of a courtly bow. He wore a well-tailored suit of dark cotton, his greying hair slicked back by oil and his face rendered white by a fine dusting of powder. Lizanne knew that powdered skin and oiled hair were both affectations of the Corvantine nobility that had fallen into disuse over twenty years ago. Had the leader of the Verdigris found himself in noble company his appearance would have made him a laughing-stock. Here, however, he was anything but.

Electress Atalina came to a halt halfway down the auditorium’s aisle and replied with a polite nod of her head. “I’m sure you’ll excuse a lady for exercising a time-honoured prerogative, Jak.”

“Always, my dear.” Chuckling Sim straightened from his bow, maintaining a welcoming grin as he surveyed the Electress’s party, his gaze soon coming to rest on Lizanne. “And who is your delightful companion?”

“Krista,” the Electress replied. “She kills people a lot, so best not to develop too much of an interest.”

“Oh, at least let an old fool indulge a dream or two.” The leader of the Verdigris came closer, Lizanne sensing her companions’ sudden upturn in tension as he halted before her, bowing lower than he had for the Electress and extending his hand. “Jakisil Ven Estimont, at your service, my dear,” he said, slipping into Eutherian that was a little too coarse to be the product of a noble upbringing.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir,” Lizanne replied, placing her hand in his so he could press a brief kiss to it. She noticed a slight twitch in his composure as he released her, possibly due to the fact that her Eutherian was decidedly more refined than his.

“So accomplished a young lady,” he said, his smile becoming sad. “Consigned to a place such as this. The capricious nature of the world never ceases to amaze, don’t you find?”

“We are but leaves cast afar by the gales of life,” she replied. It was an old Corvantine adage from the pre–Imperial Era, one clearly beyond Chuckling Sim’s knowledge judging by the flush of annoyance he failed to keep from his gaze.

“Quite so,” he said, reasserting his smile as he turned and strode back to his retinue. “We are called to parley by Electress Atalina, recognised leader of the Furies,” he said, slipping back into Varsil and raising his voice to strident formality. “The rules of parley were in place long before any of us came through the gate, yet remain unbroken to this day, a tradition all present are expected to observe. Failure to do so will result in the other parties allying against them. Before proceeding we must agree on a moderator. As two of my brothers lie dead due to the agency of one party here present, I cannot claim impartiality in this matter.” He turned and bowed to the leader of the Wise Fools. “Therefore, I nominate you, Brother Varkash.”

“Seconded,” Electress Atalina stated promptly.

All eyes turned expectantly to the leader of the Scuttlers, who stood frowning in silence for several seconds before shrugging. “What the fuck do I care?”

“Eloquent as ever, my liege,” Chuckling Sim said, switching to Eutherian once again and casting a wink at Lizanne.

“And enough of that noble-pig talk,” King Coal growled, hands shoved into a leather overcoat, presumably to conceal bunching fists. Seeing him at such proximity for the first time, Lizanne noted how the flesh of his face seemed possessed of a continual quiver, betraying a constant inner rage that threatened to erupt at the smallest provocation.

“Eloquent or not, he makes a fair point, Brudder Sim,” Varkash said. He spoke in a low yet commanding voice that would have been much more impressive but for the nasal squeak that accompanied every hard consonant. Lizanne found it noteworthy that no one present felt inclined to utter the slightest sign of amusement as the Varestian spoke on. “Every word spoken must be clearly understood by all parties. Rules of parley.”

“Of course, brother. I crave forgiveness.” Chuckling Sim offered a florid bow to all present before moving to stand with his retinue.

“First order of business,” Varkash said, striding to occupy the centre ground and turning to the Fury delegation. “Electress Atalina. You called dis parley. State your grievance.”

“Unwarranted murder,” the Electress replied, gaze steady on the Scuttlers’ leader. “Done in my place of business without formal challenge.”

“Challenge?” King Coal took a purposeful step forward, face flushed to a dark shade of crimson. He stopped when Julesin moved to his side, stooping to speak softly into his ear. Whatever counsel the pale man offered seemed to be enough for Kevozan to master himself, albeit after a few seconds’ effort. “Where,” he grated, addressing his words to Varkash, “was the challenge when this bitch bombed my winding house?”

“Our brother makes false accusation,” the Electress stated with calm authority. “Show me evidence of a Fury’s hand in the bombing and I’ll happily cut it off and present it to you.”

“Bombs don’t leave evidence,” King Coal replied. “Just useless mechanicals and blasted bodies.”

“Much like the one that exploded outside the Miner’s Repose not long ago,” the Electress mused. “It seems we share common experience, brother.”

“I’m not your fucking brother . . .”

“Accusation and counter-accusation,” Varkash broke in as Kevozan’s face began to flush once more. “Dis avails us nudding. We are not a court. Duh purpose of parley is to reach accommodation in order to prevent further bloodshed.” He turned to Chuckling Sim. “You also indicated a grievance, brudder.”

“Indeed.” For the first time Sim’s smile faded, not entirely but with an instant loss of humour and hardening of the eyes that told Lizanne much about his true nature. “Two dead,” he continued, staring at the Coal King. “Well-liked men of industrious and loyal demeanour. Such men are hard to replace, and their loss stirs anger amongst their comrades.”

“I also lost two men,” Kevozan replied, a defiant glint in his eye which told of an unwillingness, or more likely, an inability to be cowed by the Verdigris leader. “And another last week,” he added, turning his gaze on the Electress. “Left outside my place with his skull mashed in.”

“If a beaten body lying in a Scorazin gutter is cause for war,” the Electress said, “we would never have peace.”

This provoked some laughter among all present, apart from King Coal, who silenced the chuckles of his own men with a glare. “I’ve got war aplenty,” he said, eyes fixing on the Electress. “If you want it. You want formal challenge, you can have it here and now.”

“Calm yourself, brother,” Chuckling Sim said, his smile returning to its former fullness, though Lizanne detected an edge of warning in his voice. “We all remember the last unfortunate round of hostilities. The constables left us to starve for a full month as punishment, as you recall. I for one have no great desire to taste rat meat again. Besides which, since my grievance remains unresolved, a challenge spoken in the forum would apply as much to the Verdigris as to the Furies.”

He fell silent, letting his gaze and his smile linger on the Coal King. Lizanne saw the quiver of Kevozan’s features deepen into a shudder, his body tensed from head to toe with poorly contained anger. Once again it was Julesin who calmed him, his words too soft to catch but evidently carrying enough wisdom to stem his leader’s rage. “I’m not making any settlement,” he said, “until my winding-gear is fixed. Brother Sim worries about going hungry, so do my men.”

“So fix it,” the Electress said with a shrug.

“The only two fuckers who knew how are lying in pieces on the midden,” King Coal returned. “I want the Tinkerer.”

“Then perhaps you should hire him,” Chuckling Sim suggested.

“Already tried, he said no.” Kevozan’s gaze roamed the Furies until it came to rest on Melina. “She can persuade him, though. Everyone knows he’s sweet on her.”

The Electress turned to Melina with a questioning glance. “If he’s paid well enough,” the tall woman said. “It’ll take a lot of books, though.”

“I’ll contribute to the fee,” Sim said. “Though it’ll pain me to denude my library. Brother Varkash?”

“I don’t have any books,” Varkash said, before continuing with evident reluctance, “but I do have maps of duh south seas. Cost me six sacks each.”

“Surrendering one to the cause of continued harmony would seem a reasonable exchange,” Chuckling Sim said.

The pirate stood silent for a long moment, tapping a finger to his false nose in sullen consideration. “Very well,” he said finally. “Duh fee for Tinkerer’s services will be met equally by parties present. Speak now to voice disagreement.”

Silence reigned for half a minute or so, broken only by a faint groaning Lizanne realised was the sound of Kevozan grinding his teeth.

“Agreement is reached,” Varkash said. “Leaving duh madder of redress.”

The haggling continued for another hour and by the end of it the Verdigris were richer to the tune of ten sacks of coal, five for each of their lost men. The Electress agreed to part with one tenth of the Furies’ next food allotment to compensate the Scuttlers for their denuded income. In return she would receive a dozen sacks of coal as compensation for the attack on the Miner’s Repose. Varkash was also provided with one sack each from the other parties in recognition for his wise moderation of the proceedings.

“Dis parley is concluded,” the Varestian said in pinched but formal tones. “All parties will now give solemn oath affirming observance of duh truce agreed here today. By rules of parley, any who breaks their oath will be marked for death togedder wid any who stand in their defence.”

“So affirmed,” the Electress stated.

“Affirmed,” Chuckling Sim said, adding in Eutherian as he favoured Lizanne with an arched eyebrow, “or may the gods rend my house asunder.”

King Coal took longer to answer, his glowering gaze fixed on Atalina as a sheen of drizzle glittered on his still-quivering face. Lizanne wouldn’t have been overly surprised to see steam rising from his shaven head as he gave a terse, guttural, “Affirmed,” before turning and stomping from the theatre, his escort close behind. Julesin followed at a slight remove, his gaze sweeping across all the Furies as he passed by. He hid it well, but Lizanne saw the way his eyes lingered on her for the briefest second with a concentrated, detail-hungry focus unique to those of a particular profession.

“Could have been worse,” Melina commented as they made their way back to the Miner’s Repose. “One-tenth of the food will sting a bit, but it’s hardly going to break us.”

“You stupid bitch,” the Electress muttered, the drizzle beading broad features set in a preoccupied frown. “That farce didn’t change anything. At least now I know who’s twitching that fuckwit Kevozan’s strings.” She stopped, turning and fixing Lizanne with a steady gaze. “Time you earned your keep, my dear. I want that pasty-faced bastard dead by Ore Day.”

“It wasn’t us,” Demisol said as soon as the mansion-house door closed behind Lizanne.

“I know,” she said. “It appears we have a competitor.” She lifted the heavy sack from her shoulder and strode through the hall and into the dining-room.

“Competitor?” Helina asked, lowering her voice and closing the dining-room door.

“Someone intent on sowing discord,” Lizanne replied. “Rather than destruction.”

“Who?”

“As yet unclear, but I believe the Coal King’s chief lieutenant may be at the heart of it.”

“Julesin?” Demisol asked. “He’s barely been here six months.”

“And yet somehow managed to rise high in the interim. What do you know of him?”

“Well, he’s a killer to be sure. Cut down three men his first day through the gate. All fair fights, and none were members of the main gangs.”

“So he established his credentials early, and was careful about his targets.” Lizanne concealed a faint grin of recognition. An agent to be sure. But whose? She recalled what the Blood Imperial had told her in Empress Azireh’s crypt: Sent my two best. The first one lasted three days, the second managed four . . . She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now the prospect of two presumably experienced and capable agents failing to survive more than a few days in Scorazin seemed unlikely. Dreadful place though it was, she had come to understand that the greatest threats came from hunger or disease rather than other inmates. Unless they were spotted by someone even more capable. Also, they were both comparatively recent inmates whilst Julesin had arrived months before. If he isn’t Blood Cadre, then who is he? She decided it was not a matter she could afford to spend too much time considering. In a complex mission the straightest course is usually the best one. Another lesson from her training days, one she had often found useful. Cadre or not, he’s an obstacle, and the Electress will be expecting swift results.

“Do we delay?” Demisol asked.

Lizanne shook her head. “Delay invites discovery and adds to the risk of betrayal. Not to impugn the commitment of your fellow citizens, but the more time they have to dwell on the likelihood of their demise, the more their thoughts will slip towards survival.”

“We’ve been emphasising the prospect of escape,” Helina said. “Though our comrades aren’t idiot criminals to be easily gulled.”

“We have three days until Ore Day,” Lizanne said. “Do everything you can to shore up their resolve before then.”

“The main device?” Demisol asked.

“It’ll be ready,” she said, choosing not to share the news about the interruption to Tinkerer’s work. She had visited him the night after the parley to collect the contents of the sack, finding him almost completely absorbed in his labour.

“Repairing the winding-gear will take only half a day,” he had said, apparently incapable of raising his gaze from the large iron-and-copper egg on his work-bench. “Subject to provision of suitable materials.” Such industriousness scarcely seemed possible to her but then Tinkerer, as Aunt Pendilla would have said, was cut from cloth of a different weave.

“And that?” Lizanne asked, nodding to the egg.

“Nearing completion.” He reached for a cylindrical component and carefully slotted it into the egg’s exposed innards, his slender fingers moving with an almost loving grace. “Mixing the compound will take longer, however.”

“How many did you bring?” Demisol asked, nodding at the sack at Lizanne’s feet. She hefted it onto the defaced dining-table and revealed the contents.

“Twelve in total,” she said, as the two revolutionaries inspected the sack’s contents. “Two with fifteen-minute fuses, the rest only three seconds so make sure your people know to throw them the moment they’re primed. What other weapons have you gathered?”

“Knives and clubs, mostly. Though we have two citizens skilled with bow and arrow.”

“Tell them to kill any gunners that survive. Just one blast of canister and our whole enterprise will be lost.”

“We seem to be putting great faith in our fellow inmates,” Demisol commented. “How do we know they’ll respond as we hope?”

“We don’t,” Lizanne admitted. “But would you hesitate to risk your life for the smallest chance of escaping this place?”

She jammed a chair under the door-handle and sat on her bed, mouth wide as she inserted the pliers Tinkerer had grudgingly parted with. They left a metallic sting on her tongue before clamping onto the ceramic tooth. She had lost the original in a confrontation with a rival corporate agent some years before and Director Bloskin, never one to forsake an opportunity, had introduced Lizanne to the appointed dentist for Exceptional Initiatives. The procedure required hours in his chair and copious doses of Green but by the end of it she had a new tooth. It was fixed to the root of the original with a gold screw, meaning it could be removed and replaced. The ceramicist the Brotherhood found for her in Corvus had been exceptionally skilled, producing a near-perfect facsimile of an upper-right molar with a hollow cavity large enough for a small amount of product. The screw loosened after several seconds of uncomfortable effort as Lizanne tried not to damage her surrounding teeth. Blue flooded her mouth as it came free, burning as she swallowed, finding a certain joy in the sensation of recovered power. Life as an un-Blessed, she was finding, was not much to her liking.

Hyran’s mindscape closed in immediately, in surprisingly accomplished and lurid detail. At least he’s been practising, she thought, watching the pale youth in mid-cavort with a swirling cloud of naked female flesh. Glimpses into the carnal imaginings of fellow Blood-blessed were a frequent feature of the trance, usually tactfully ignored by unspoken understanding. However, she had yet to trance with someone who appeared to have crafted his entire mindscape from the stuff of adolescent lust.

Sorry if I’m interrupting. Lizanne put enough force into the thought to banish the swirl of phantom nymphs, but not before catching sight of their faces. All the same and all familiar. It’s heartening to learn you have such an acute visual memory, she went on as the boy’s image gaped at her, a frozen lanky thing in the suddenly confused mist. In which case, she added with a pointed downward glance, I’m sure you can remember what clothes look like.

The surrounding clouds flushed a deep shade of crimson, roiling thick enough to obscure Hyran’s image. When they cleared he stood fully clothed and eyes averted, the shade of his mortification lingering in the clouds.

I . . . His thoughts stuttered, sending bolts of lightning through the clouds and for a moment it seemed as if his loss of concentration would shatter the trance.

Calm. She coloured the thought with a soothing memory, the day Aunt Pendilla pressed a damp cloth to her grazed knee and banished infant tears with chicken soup. Focus. I don’t have long.

Sorry. The clouds were still pulsing red, though now shot through with the dark grey of his regret. Been trancing every day . . . Tried building a castle or something, like you said. But . . . I got bored waiting.

I’m here now. Are you in contact with Citizens Korian and Arberus?

Yes. We’re only a few miles from Scorazin. Been gathering strength, like you wanted.

Show me.

He summoned the memory with surprising alacrity. It seemed his self-indulgence had paid off in tutoring him in efficient command of the trance. A dense patch of cloud swirled into the image of a campsite. Arberus sat close to a fire in the foreground, cleaning his revolver, prolonged tension clear in the depth of his furrowed brow. Beyond him Korian could be seen in animated disagreement with a cluster of young men and women. Fortunately, Hyran hadn’t thought to summon the sound so she was spared the gabble of revolutionary dogma.

How many in total? she asked.

Two hundred and fifty-six, he replied promptly, causing her to assume Arberus had made him memorise the details of the small army. All mounted and armed with repeating carbines. Two small cannon, also.

Will any more be coming?

Korian expects another thirty by the end of the week. This is pretty much all that remains of the Brotherhood in this region.

It was hardly a force capable of storming the walls of Scorazin, but if her plan worked it wouldn’t have to. Tell them to move into a position where they can assault the guard-house at Scorazin. They need to be ready to attack in three days. She felt the trance shudder around her as the Blue began to ebb. I have to go. The signal will come an hour after midday. If it doesn’t . . . tell Citizen Arberus this mission has failed and I believe he would be better employed in Feros than here.

What will it be? The signal.

If this works, an earthquake strong enough to shake an empire.

“Melina said you weren’t working tonight.” Makario stood in her doorway, holding a bottle of wine in one hand and what appeared to be some form of musical instrument in the other. “Me neither. Seems I’m surplus to requirements without music.”

“What is that?” she asked, peering at the curious thing he held, presumably the product of considerable effort over the three days since the parley. It appeared to be the result of an uncomfortable mating between a mandolin and a viola.

“My newest creation.” He handed her the wine-bottle and took hold of the instrument, fingers stroking an unfamiliar but nevertheless pleasant note from the six strings strung along its narrow neck. “The bastard child born of my fevered mind, and the scraps of every instrument I could trade for within these walls.” His fingers moved again, conjuring a jaunty tune she recognised as a Varestian sea shanty. “I doubt I could do justice to Illemont with it,” he said, finishing with a flourish, “but I think it’ll keep a roof over my head until we can repair my true love. I do need some practice, however. Perhaps you’d like to help.”

She had adduced at their first meeting that Makario was unlikely to have much interest in her womanly charms, but now saw an entreaty in his gaze that went deeper than a desire for drunken companionship. “I have a prior appointment,” she said, handing back the wine.

“Put it off,” he insisted, summoning a poorly rendered smile to his lips. “Staying indoors is by far the safest course in such troubled times.”

“Would that I could. But I also have to keep a roof over my head.”

“I’m sure whatever errand our dear leader has you running can wait. At least for tonight.”

“Why? What happens tomorrow?”

She held his gaze as the smile slipped from his face. Best to subdue him now, the professional part of her mind advised. Extract what information you can. Break his neck and leave him at the bottom of the stairs for Melina to find in the morning, victim of a drunken stumble. And without the pianola what use was he anyway?

Instead she just stood and watched as he retreated a few steps, face alternating between fear and charm. “I . . . really wish you’d stay,” he managed finally, adding in a desperate whisper, “please!”

“It doesn’t matter, Makario,” she told him. “Whatever it is. Whatever you did. I’m sure you had your reasons and I really don’t care. If you’re in league with Julesin I assume you’ve warned him I’m coming, and that doesn’t matter either.”

Makario became very still, the neck of his hybrid instrument creaking under the strain of a suddenly white-knuckled grip. “I am not in league with him,” he stated in a soft voice, each word spoken very precisely.

Lizanne sighed around a smile. “Best stay off the roof-tops tomorrow,” she said, and closed the door.

She had spent the previous two nights reconnoitring the semicircular row of terraced houses on Prop Lane where the Scuttlers made their headquarters. The row curved around a patch of dirt that had once been a small park in the centre of which stood a large marble plinth, home to a long-vanished statue to some forgotten Scorazin luminary. A narrow alley opposite the park made for a useful vantage point. It was rarely visited by the Coal King’s minions thanks to its proximity to a part-collapsed sewer drain. The stench was just short of unbearable but Lizanne’s nostrils had an habituated resistance to the more repellent miasmas of life.

Her first journey here had brought another near encounter with the tall, cloaked creeper she had seen the night she made her way to Tinkerer’s abode. She found a convenient corner to hide behind as the stooped figure passed by, once again dragging something. Given the legendary degeneracy of the night creepers she assumed it would be a body and was surprised to see it was in fact a sack, filled with something heavy that scraped filth from the cobbles as the figure disappeared into Keg Road. Bones? she wondered, but doubted it. More likely stolen ore. In either case it was a mystery she had no time or inclination to solve.

Julesin proved to be a fellow of unwisely regular habits. He would arrive from the coal pits at the same time, under heavy escort, whereupon he would enter the centremost house in the row. The windows in this house glowed brighter than the others, and the smoke rose more thickly from its chimney, making it easily identifiable as the Coal King’s domicile. Whilst the king himself was never seen out of doors in the hours of darkness, Julesin would eventually re-emerge to make a tour of the guards. There were only two other Scuttlers with him as he made his way around the perimeter. He seemed to command great respect amongst the guards, or more likely fear since he was not shy in administering punishment. Lizanne saw him send one droopy-eyed unfortunate to the ground with a vicious back-hand cuff then stand by as his two escorts kicked the man unconscious. Consequently, she had little chance of evading detection here as she did regularly at the sulphur pits. There was only one point in Julesin’s nightly routine that offered a workable opportunity. Having completed his tour he would linger on a bench alongside the plinth. The two escorts would retire a short distance whilst Julesin sat smoking a cigarillo, the tip glowing red in the gloom.

A decent aiming point for a ranged weapon, Lizanne decided on the second night. It was far less subtle than she would have liked, entailing a swift ground-level escape as the surrounding guards reacted. Still, she had no other options besides making use of one of Tinkerer’s timed grenades and they were needed for Ore Day. Also, she would have had to explain to the Electress where it came from. Fortunately, King Coal himself had seen fit to provide the means by which she could assassinate his lieutenant.

She had been obliged to practise in the basement of the Miner’s Repose, Scorazin being somewhat lacking in open spaces where one could loose a cross-bow without being noticed. At her request, Melina harvested the darts from the bodies left in the wake of the Scuttlers’ attack, each wrapped with cloth to avoid contact with the poison that still lingered on the barbed steel-heads. The ingenious loading and drawing mechanism would have been easily operated with a drop of Green in her veins. Without it she found herself capable of loosing off only two darts before the strain on her limbs forced a pause. Realistically, this meant only one shot at Julesin. Gauging the effective range of the weapon had been a simple matter of arithmetic. The basement was fifteen yards long at its widest point and repeated practice shots at a wooden board revealed the darts would lose one inch of altitude for every six point eight yards travelled. Working out the correct angle of elevation for a kill-shot was therefore a relatively straightforward exercise.

She watched Julesin complete his nightly inspection then take his place on the bench, smoke blossoming as he lit his cigarillo. The gurgle arising from the exposed sewer provided enough noise to cover the sound as she primed the cross-bow, the string sliding back and dart slotting into place with a pleasing mechanical elegance. Whoever had crafted the weapon had seen fit to equip it with both front and rear sights, crudely fashioned from hammered tin but still accurate. She centred the front sight on the glowing tip of Julesin’s cigarillo, meaning the dart would bury itself squarely in the centre of his chest. She took a shallow breath and squeezed the trigger as she exhaled. The cross-bow jerked in her grip as the string snapped forward, the dart streaking away. It covered the distance to Julesin’s chest in a fraction of a second, whereupon it froze in mid air, an inch or two short of its target.

Julesin’s cigarillo glowed brighter as he got to his feet, eyes fixed on where Lizanne lay prone in the filthy alley. It was obvious he could see her, and had most likely done so for the previous two nights. Green and Black, she realised, mind racing as she calculated her options. Julesin, however, didn’t allow her the time to formulate an escape plan.

An invisible hand jerked the cross-bow from her grip, sending it spinning into the dark. She tried to roll away but the Black closed on her with suffocating force, lifting and dragging her from the alley. Julesin seemed to be in no particular hurry, standing still and continuing to smoke as he slowly drew her to him. He was evidently highly skilled in the use of Black, as he kept the dart she had loosed at him suspended in mid air. He halted her a few feet away, lifting her body so that she faced him. The dart flipped over and rose to hover parallel with her left eye.

Julesin stood regarding her in silence, head tilted in appraisal as the dart inched closer. Lizanne found she couldn’t close the lid of her eye as the tip of the dart came within a hair’s width of her pupil, where it lingered for a very long moment.

“Just joking,” Julesin said, the dart making a loud ping on the cobbles as he allowed it to fall. There was an odd note of sympathy in his voice as he stepped closer, offering an apologetic grimace. “And, as one professional to another, I’m sorry about all this.”

The Black closed in with increased force, clamping onto her throat, making her lungs burn and vision turn first red then black as the void claimed her.

CHAPTER 28

Clay

Clay came awake to a warm sensation in his leg, as if it were being caressed by a summer breeze. His eyelids fluttered over gritted orbs, harsh light birthing an instant ache in his head. He tried to move but found his entire body constrained somehow. More rapid blinking revealed him to be sitting on the stone floor of the chamber, his back pressed against something hard and unyielding. Looking down he saw ropes tightly bound across his chest and realised he had been tied to one of the pillars. He strained against the ropes, grunting with the effort, then stopped as an important fact rose to the forefront of his awareness: his leg didn’t hurt anymore.

Lowering his gaze, he found himself gaping in frozen disbelief. The bandage was gone and so was his wound. Not scabbed or scarred over, but gone. His denuded and ravaged flesh had been remade, leaving a hairless but otherwise whole segment of skin and muscle. The warm sensation he had awoken to was revealed as the result of a beam of light descending from above to bathe his leg in a soft, greenish luminescence. His gaze instinctively tracked along the beam to where it connected with the crystal floating above. It still cast a more intense beam down on the segmented egg but for some reason had seen fit to cast out another. The mystery and novelty of it provoked a laugh as his toes flexed and the movement failed to produce the expected blast of pain, a laugh that died as a voice spoke to him.

His head jerked up to find a slender figure standing a few feet away. Clay had no difficulty in recognising the woman who had shot him. She was now clothed in what he recognised as the spare trousers and shirt presumably taken from Loriabeth’s pack, with the silver belt still fastened about her waist. It seemed to be formed of some kind of metallic material from the way it caught the light, and was bulky with several large pouches and an empty holster, presumably for the gun she had used to shoot him.

Memories of the gun caused him to look down at his chest, searching for any sign of injury and finding nothing. He couldn’t even see a tear in his shirt, but there was a faint ache from a spot just above his sternum, not truly painful but present enough to signify a livid bruise. Whatever she had shot him with, it hadn’t been a bullet.

He saw that she still held the gun, though now it was lowered to her side and he took some comfort from the fact that her finger wasn’t on the trigger. Seeing it clearly, Clay wasn’t sure “gun” was the right term. It seemed to be made of a combination of brass and steel, with a pistol-like grip that confirmed it as some kind of weapon. But it lacked a cylinder, and the barrel was too short and narrow for anything but the puniest projectile. There was a finery to the weapon’s construction that was beyond Clay’s experience, so many different components formed into a single device. He knew he was looking at something beyond the skill or knowledge of any gunsmith or artificer in the world above.

He tore his gaze from the weapon, heart leaping with relief when he saw Loriabeth and Sigoral still lying on the dais. Unlike him, his cousin and the marine remained unconscious. Also, his captor hadn’t felt the need to tie either of them to a pillar.

He jerked as the woman spoke again, eyes snapping to meet hers. She had lowered herself into a crouch and regarded him with a level of scrutiny that bordered on the openly hostile. Their packs lay open near by, the contents disordered due to a thorough rummaging. Glancing at his bonds once more, Clay realised he was bound with the length of rope he had carried across the ice, and couldn’t help voicing a rueful groan.

The woman spoke again, more insistently this time. Clay found the words meaningless, the cadence and prolonged vowels were all completely unfamiliar.

“Sorry, lady,” he said, shaking his head. “Just Mandinorian, though I can just about get by bargaining in Dalcian.”

The woman stared at him for a moment in obvious incomprehension then gave a deep sigh of frustration as she lowered her gaze and smoothed a trembling hand over her forehead. After a moment she calmed herself with a visible effort, breathing deeply and draining any emotion from her features. Clay estimated her to be scarcely older than he, though the flawlessness of her skin may have made her appear younger. Her hair was cut short, only a half inch or so from the scalp, and he saw no jewellery or other accoutrements on her person.

She turned to the packs and extracted Clay’s canteen, the one half-full of diluted Green. She lifted the canteen, touching the cap to her lips as she mimed taking a drink, raising her eyebrows in an unmistakable question. You drink this. Yes?

Clay’s gaze lingered on the canteen before tracking back to the woman, her expression now one of expectant surety. “Guess you know that ain’t just water,” he said.

The woman frowned and shook the canteen at him, making the contents slosh about as she asked a question in her unfathomable tongue. Clay stared back, saying nothing, unwilling to reveal so much to so strange a captor. He maintained his silence and they matched stares, her frown deepening into outright anger. She spoke again, voice raised as she moved towards the dais, stepping into the crystal’s glow with pause. She halted at Loriabeth’s side, raising the brass-and-steel gun to point it at his cousin’s chest before turning back to Clay, a question and a threat evident in her gaze.

Clay strained against the straps, unable to contain his shout. “Leave her alone!” His anger provoked a small flinch in the woman’s bearing but she didn’t move, instead carefully placing her finger on the gun’s trigger.

“Alright!” he shouted, nodding rapidly and hoping she understood the gesture. “I can drink the damn stuff.”

The woman betrayed a small shudder of relief as she lowered the gun and returned to crouch at his side, reaching into his pack and extracting Scriberson’s note-book. She leafed through it briefly, stopping at a particular page then crouching at Clay’s side once more, holding it open. He recognised the page as an annotated sketch of Brionar, the ringed planet the astronomer had shown him through the telescope at the base of the falls. The woman tapped the sketch then made a scribbling gesture before pointing at Clay. Did you do this?

He shook his head. “No. That’s the work of a dead man.”

She grimaced in consternation, leafing through more pages until she showed him a table of some kind, rows of numbers set out in Scriberson’s messy script below a much more neatly drawn diagram. It looked like one of the constellations to Clay, but his knowledge of Scriberson’s work was meagre at best. The woman’s finger moved over the page, tapping in certain places. It seemed she was particularly interested in the diagram and one set of numbers at the bottom of the table.

“Sorry, lady, I ain’t never been no scholar,” Clay said, shrugging as much as the ropes would allow him.

She seemed about to question him further but stopped when the chamber shuddered. A faint rumbling filled the space and the light cast by the crystal flickered as the shaking continued. Clay saw the woman tense as a thin stream of dust cascaded down from the shadowed ceiling. The tremor continued for about thirty seconds, after which the woman turned back to Clay, her face now set in a frown of hard determination.

He managed not to flinch as she leaned closer and stared into his eyes. He fought down an instinctive impulse to struggle against his bonds as her gaze lingered, unnerving in its intensity but also commanding, capturing his attention so completely he felt his fear fading away. Eventually she blinked and broke the stare, Clay’s heart giving an involuntary leap as she hefted the brass-and-steel gun.

Her thumb depressed a small lever on the side of the chamber which duly sprang open with a kind of neat, mechanical efficiency that would have made any gunsmith envious. Clay let out a faint groan of self-reproach at seeing the chamber was empty. She was never gonna shoot Lori, he realised as the woman’s free hand moved to the belt on her waist, opening one of the pockets to retrieve a small glass vial.

She held it up before his eyes, turning it so it caught the light. Clay was sufficiently familiar with the various shades of product by now to recognise the viscous liquid it contained. “Blue?” he said.

The woman slotted the vial into the gun and closed the chamber, muttering something before pressing the barrel to her forearm and pulling the trigger. There was a low hiss of escaping air, then she removed the gun from her arm, leaving behind a faint red welt.

“Oh,” Clay said as she pressed the gun’s barrel to his arm and pulled the trigger. “You too, huh?”

The trance closed in immediately, Clay finding himself on Nelphia’s surface with the woman a few feet away. There was no sign of her own mindscape, which meant she either didn’t have one or was skilled enough to keep it completely suppressed. She stood staring all around in patent awe, as if not quite capable of grasping what she saw.

Where’s yours? Clay asked, causing her to turn, dust rising as she staggered a little in surprise. He raised his arms, gesturing at their surroundings. I showed you mine, he went on.

The woman stared at him for a moment then did something completely unexpected. She laughed. It was a genuine laugh, full of delight, continuing on as she went into a pirouette, raising more dust as she whirled. She moved with a fluid, practised grace that reminded him of Joya in the ball-room that time. He watched her dance, leaping and jumping before spiralling to her knees where she reached both hands into the moon-dust, laughing again as she cast it into the sky. It hung there, glittering like stars in the void.

You’re making a mess, Clay told her, asserting his will over the mindscape and sending the frozen dust cascading to the ground.

The woman’s laugh faded into a smile as she got to her feet, asking something in her own language. The words were meaningless, but in the trance language wasn’t the barrier it was in the waking world. You made this?

The question baffled him. What kind of Blood-blessed would be so impressed by a mindscape? Sure, he replied. It’s still a little rough around the edges, though. Been awhile since I had a chance to work on it.

The woman gazed all around, her wonder unabated. So much detail. You can craft others?

Not as fine as this one, but if I think hard enough, yeah.

She turned back and moved towards him, an unnerving amount of joyous anticipation on her face. He realised his estimation of her age may have been off by several years. She seemed almost childlike now, a near-desperate glint in her eye as she stopped and reached a tentative hand to his. Show me, she pleaded.

Clay took a step back, crossing his arms. We gotta lot to talk about before I start sharing any memories. He tapped a finger to his chest. You shooting me, fr’instance.

The joy slowly faded from her face and she took a backward step of her own, eyes downcast. A necessary precaution. The trance communicated her most prominent emotions with ease: bafflement and delight shot through with fear, but above it all a sense of grief, far deeper and more painful than even her displays of despair had indicated. Blood-blessed she might be, but she had no facility for concealing her thoughts. Clay suspected that if she had shared minds with Lizanne every secret would have been stripped from her in seconds. Such things were not within his skills, however, so he was obliged to wait for her to share.

The note-book, she said finally, thoughts leaking both reluctance and a sense of grim certainty. The diagram in the note-book. Is it accurate?

Couldn’t say. But the fella who drew it was awful clever and exacting in his trade. Not the type to make a mistake when looking at the stars.

Is he here? Another member of your party?

Clay shook his head. It’s just the three of us. The man who wrote that book is dead. I carry it as . . . a souvenir, I guess. We were friends, for a short time.

Are you . . . She paused, Clay sensing her thoughts churning as she sought to formulate the right question. Part of a group? A large group?

An army you mean?

Feeling the pulse of incomprehension in her thoughts Clay conjured an image from a shared trance with Lizanne, the Corvantine forces massing outside Carvenport. He cast it into the sky, letting it play out as the woman stared at it. He felt her emotions shift at the sight of the memory, her despair returning along with a distinct note of disgust.

This happened recently? she asked, watching as the first cannon shot landed amidst the trenches.

Few months ago, he said. Corvantine Imperial forces about to meet an ugly end, and I can’t say I’m sorry.

Who are they fighting?

The Ironship Protectorate, along with a whole lotta conscripts and Independent Contractors. That’s what I am, by the way. An Independent.

Independent, she repeated, her puzzlement abating only slightly. And what do the terms Corvantine and Ironship denote exactly?

Clay frowned. How long you been down here?

She stared at him for a moment then broke into another laugh, shrill and only a note or two shy of hysteria. Eventually the laughter subsided and she turned her gaze to the battle in the sky. I hoped the diagram was wrong. Her thoughts were faint murmurs beneath a resurgent swell of despair. Clay found himself impressed by the way she mastered her emotions in the space of a few seconds, disciplining her thoughts with a kind of stern precision the equal of anything he had seen in Lizanne’s mind. What is your name? she asked once the torrent of feelings had subsided into a tightly controlled ball.

Claydon Torcreek, ma’am, he replied. Blood-blessed to the Longrifles Independent Contractor Company. You can call me Clay.

Clay . . . She inclined her head in a gesture of greeting, though her eyes remained on the stars. And you can call me Kriz. Her shoulders shuddered as the ball of emotion threatened to burst, though she was quick to reassert control. And, to answer your question, by my estimation I have been down here for just over ten thousand years.

The trance vanished as quickly as it arrived, leaving him gaping up at her, still strapped to the pillar. “What?” he said.

She ignored the question and moved out of view. After a few seconds the rope fell away. Clay’s hands immediately went to his leg, still bathing in the light from the crystal, fingers exploring the smooth, remade flesh. “You did this, I guess?” he asked as Kriz reappeared. She ignored the question and pointed to his pack then in the direction of the chamber entrance. The expression of pointed impatience on her face conveying clear instruction. We have to go.

Her meaning was given added impetus by the arrival of another tremor, more powerful this time and the flicker of the crystal’s light more violent. Kriz motioned for him to get up as the tremor subsided, moving towards the dais.

“Thank you,” Clay said, levering himself upright and marvelling at the absence of pain as he tested his weight on the leg. “I mean it,” he persisted. “Really thought I was gonna lose it.”

Kriz paused, thumbing the lever to open the gun’s chamber once more, then glanced over her shoulder with a strained smile of acknowledgment. She gestured at the packs again and slotted another vial into the gun. Clay checked his pack, finding his pistol nestled amongst the contents. He checked the cylinder and found it fully loaded.

“Putting a lotta trust in someone you shot not long ago,” he told Kriz, strapping his gun-belt around his waist. She gave no reply, instead pressing the gun’s barrel into the flesh of Loriabeth’s forearm and pulling the trigger. Loriabeth came awake after a few seconds of spasmodic fidgeting. Clay rushed over to catch hold of his cousin’s flailing arms as her wide, bleary gaze swung about before fixing on him.

“How you doing, cuz?” he asked.

She blinked up at him in incomprehension for several seconds, then jerked in fright as Kriz injected the same waking agent into Sigoral. “What in the Travail . . . ?”

“It’s alright,” Clay told her. “She’s . . . friendly. Far as I can tell.”

“Who is she?”

“Calls herself Kriz. She’s a Blood-blessed. Seems she’s been living down here for . . . a good long while. Beyond that, I can’t say. Kind’ve a language problem.”

Sigoral’s awakening was considerably more violent than Loriabeth’s, the Corvantine surfacing from his slumber with a flurry of kicks and punches. He continued to flail about on the floor, only abating when Clay pinned him down, though not before earning a hefty blow to the stomach.

“Hey!” Clay delivered a hard slap to the marine’s face. “It’s me, relax.”

The sound of a handclap drew his gaze back to Kriz. She stood between two pillars, gesturing at the chamber door, her movements even more urgent than before.

“Who in the name of all the emperors is she?” Sigoral demanded.

Before Clay could answer the chamber shook again, sending a fresh cascade of dust down around them as a large rumbling crack sounded from above. Abruptly the crystal’s light faded into a dim glow, leaving most of the chamber in darkness.

“That ain’t good,” Loriabeth said, scrambling to her feet.

“Get your gear,” Clay said, rising from Sigoral and moving to the packs.

“Your leg . . .” Loriabeth said, staring at his uninjured limb.

“No time, cuz,” Clay told her, casting a worried glance at the ceiling as ever more dust began to fall. He pulled on his own pack and lifted the others, turning to see Kriz disappearing through the chamber door, clearly unwilling to linger another second. “Come on!” he called to Sigoral and Loriabeth, starting after Kriz in a steady run. After a few steps he was gratified to hear the sound of them following.

He tracked Kriz through the corridor back to the shadowed interior of the building. Dust billowed down in ever-thicker cascades, the sibilant hiss of it punctuated by the thud of falling stone. Realising he had lost sight of Kriz, he came to a halt, Sigoral barrelling into him from behind.

“This place doesn’t have much longer,” the Corvantine observed, wincing as something large and heavy slammed into the floor close by.

“Got that right,” Clay said, handing the marine his pack and tossing the other to Loriabeth.

“Where’d she go?” Loriabeth asked, eyes bright in the gloom.

A shout came from the left, Clay picking out the flicker of a shadow and starting towards it at a run. “Stay close,” he told the others.

It took only a moment to find Kriz, standing in a faint patch of light cast down from above, apparently the result of a large slab of stone that had dislodged itself from the ceiling. Seeing them, she turned and started off again, sprinting now. Clay increased his own pace, yelling at the others to do the same. After a few seconds he saw Kriz’s slender form outlined in the doorway. The three of them exited the structure just as a thunderous cacophony filled the space at their backs. Clay came to a halt and turned to receive a blast of gritty dust in the face. He blinked away tears and when he looked again he saw a jagged matrix of cracks appearing in the structure’s outer surface. It seemed to sag in on itself as the cracks grew, issuing a terrible grinding roar as slabs of granite scraped against each other.

He felt a hard tug on his arm and found Kriz pulling him towards the right-hand side of the island. He lost no time in following, finding the prospect of remaining in this spot as the structure collapsed around them distinctly unappealing. Kriz kept close to the lake-shore, moving in a wide arc around the building to where a plinth rose at the edge of the water. She went to it immediately, slapping her hand to the crystal it held then turning an expectant gaze towards the water.

For a long moment nothing happened and Clay found himself casting increasingly nervous glances at the structure. The upper half of it had half fallen inward, the stone walls taking on a concave fragmented appearance whilst cracks continued to sunder the granite lower down. As concerning as its imminent collapse was, he was more afraid of what might happen to the monolithic shaft that rose from the building’s roof. If that comes down we’re all done for, he knew.

A rush of displaced water drew his gaze back to the lake, provoking a surge of relief at the sight of another bridge emerging from the depths. It was far longer than the one that had brought them to the island, disappearing into the mist a mile or so off shore. Kriz sprinted onto the bridge without preamble, pausing after a few yards to stare back at them as they failed to follow.

“Where’s she taking us?” Sigoral said. He had his carbine in hand and seemed to view the prospect of following Kriz onto the bridge with only slightly less trepidation than remaining on the island.

“Wherever it is, it’s gotta be better than here,” Clay said, casting a final glance up at the shaft before starting towards Kriz at a dead run. Loriabeth followed without demur, Clay looking over his shoulder to see Sigoral following suit, his caution perhaps overcome by a fresh tremor that shook the island.

Kriz maintained a swift and punishing pace along the bridge that Clay soon found hard to match. His leg might have been healed but it seemed to possess some residual weakness from the drake’s bite. He stumbled several times, coming close to pitching over the side of the bridge. Fortunately Loriabeth was there to steady him and he managed to keep going.

Kriz eventually slowed to a steady run, allowing them to catch up, then coming to a complete halt when they had covered perhaps three hundred paces. They all turned to regard the island, chests heaving. The tremors seemed to have stopped but the damage done to the structure was plainly irreversible. The upper half gave way completely, subsiding down to shatter the base, raising a thick cloud of dust that spread across the lake surface in a grey-brown fog. When it cleared Clay could see that the huge shaft had lost its base. It still hung there, impossibly huge as it seemed to float without any anchor to the earth. He turned to Kriz, finding her staring at the ruins with tears streaming down her cheeks. A sob rose in her breast and she turned away, lowering herself to her haunches and hugging herself tight. The despair had returned in full and she seemed resolved to surrender to it, at least for now.

He watched her sob for a time, motioning the others to silence when they couldn’t contain their questions. Kriz exhausted herself after several long minutes and he reached out a hand to hers, touching it briefly. She opened her eyes to regard him with a gaze of utter desolation, as grieving a soul as he had ever seen.

He jerked his head at the shaft dangling above the vanished island. “Guess that was your home for an awful long time, right?”

She blinked wet eyes at him and rose from her huddle, breathing deeply before starting along the bridge with a determined stride.

“Where are we going?” Clay called after her. She paused, turning back to speak a single word in her own tongue. He knew from Lizanne that a shared trance did not bring immediate understanding of a previously unknown language. Such proficiency required repeated trances, but even a brief mental connection could engender a small amount of comprehension. So when she spoke the word he found he knew its literal translation, though its meaning remained as baffling as everything else in this hidden world.

“Father,” she said before turning and striding off into the mist.

CHAPTER 29

Lizanne

“Spare me the performance, please,” Julesin said, wood scraping as he dragged something across the room. “I know you’re awake.”

Lizanne pondered the wisdom of ignoring him, keeping her head slumped forward and torso limp within the mesh of ropes securing her to the chair. In fact she had woken only a few moments before, having managed a brief, blurred glance at her surroundings before hearing his footfalls on the steps. Feigning senselessness was a crude but occasionally effective technique in resisting interrogation. Any kind of response counted as engagement, the cardinal sin of the captured agent. However, the urgency of her predicament left little option but to abandon standard doctrine.

She raised her head, opening her eyes to see him perched on a chair placed at a sensible remove, giving him ample time to react should she contrive to get loose. Taking no chances, she decided, the thought bringing an uncomfortable realisation. He’s done this before.

“I’ll just keep calling you Krista, if you don’t mind,” Julesin said. “Not a lot of point in extracting your real name at this juncture. I wish I could say the same for the other information you hold.”

Lizanne said nothing, eyes flicking around the room. It appeared to be an attic, possibly in one of the houses on Prop Lane, though something made her doubt it. There was no sound from downstairs and she felt sure the Coal King would have wanted to be present for her interrogation. Her cross-bow, knife and penknife were set out neatly on a table beside Julesin’s chair. The sole window had been boarded up but she could see a dim glimmer of light through the cracks. She had no way of knowing how long she had been unconscious, but given the general lack of noise bleeding in from outside, she knew the Ore Day Promenade hadn’t yet started. However, the most noteworthy feature of the room lay below the window, a huddled, slumped form she had initially taken for a bundle of rags but now saw, and smelled, it to be a corpse. The face was obscured by the rags that covered the body but she found herself annoyed by the worry that it might well be Makario.

“Three Cadre agents sent into this mire in such a short space of time,” Julesin mused. “I’m afraid your colleagues were somewhat amateurish compared to you, but what they lacked in ability they made up for in dedication. One forced me to kill him and the other swallowed poison before we could have a chat.” He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and extracted a small white object. “This is fine work,” he said, holding her false tooth between finger and thumb. “I was somewhat surprised to find it empty. Or perhaps”—he leaned forward, eyes intent on her face—“it held something other than poison? Something you already used?”

Lizanne met his gaze, finding herself reminded of another man of professional demeanour she had met aboard ship not so long ago. But then the circumstances had been reversed. “If I am what you think I am,” she said, “don’t you think the wisest course would be to let me go? If you have any interest in a long life, that is.”

His brows rose in surprise as he leaned back in his chair. “Speaking so soon,” he murmured. “I expected to have to at least pluck out an eye before we got to this stage. Why abandon protocol so quickly, I wonder?”

Lizanne cast a pointed glance around the attic. “I take it the Coal King is otherwise occupied? Or, does he perhaps have no idea that I’m here?”

“Angry men are rarely truly dangerous,” Julesin replied with a shrug. “So easy to manipulate. I expect he’s probably off beating one of the younger Scuttlers into a bloody pulp for a minor offence. He always likes that. And no, he has no notion that I have you, nor will he up until the moment I twist his ugly head from his shoulders.”

Lizanne sighed, sagging a little in her ropes and using the gesture to conceal the act of testing the knots. In addition to the ropes binding her torso, her hands were bound together at the base of the chair-back and her ankles had been secured to the legs. Sadly, each knot felt too well tied to break without the assistance of product.

“You want information,” she said. “Very well. Here is the most important intelligence I can impart to you at this juncture. You don’t matter. Whatever you’re doing here doesn’t matter. Let me go and you might live. That’s the only promise I’ll make.”

He kept his face neutral, but she saw the faint twitch in his eye that told of an unexpected reaction. “People in your predicament usually have much more grandiose, not to say lucrative, promises to make.”

“Really?” She inclined her head, smiling a little. “I recently heard about a treasure to be found at the bottom of a lake in the Arradsian Interior. I’ll draw you a map if you like.”

The bland neutrality on his face darkened considerably. “It’s really not in your interests to mock me,” he said, rising and moving to the corpse lying below the window. “Take this fellow for instance.” Julesin dragged the corpse across the floor towards her, heaving it upright and pulling away the rags to reveal the face. Lizanne managed to conceal a wince at the sight of it, her alarm only slightly alleviated by the realisation that this wasn’t Makario. The face was missing both eyes, two dark empty sockets staring at her above a gaping and mostly toothless mouth. The lank grey hair and deep lines in the face told of a man in his fifties, but she had no notion who the unfortunate might be until her gaze slipped to his hands. The left was whole but the right was missing two fingers, and it was an old injury.

“The bomb-maker, I take it,” she said.

“Very good,” Julesin conceded. “I never knew his true name either, so I called him Mr. Stubby on account of his fingers. I don’t think he liked it. A fellow of many mechanical gifts, particularly when applied to the design of cross-bows and bombs. Sadly, such largesse of talent made him over-estimate his importance and attempt a renegotiation of the terms of his employment, little realising that his contract had already been fulfilled. I consider it poor practice to leave an aggrieved bomb-maker alive.”

“Finding him in here couldn’t have been easy,” Lizanne commented.

“Ah.” Julesin grinned as he shoved Mr. Stubby’s corpse aside. “The point where you play for time by attempting to elicit information. Even though we both know how I found him.” He stamped a foot on the floor, calling out, “Time for you to say hello!”

There was a short pause then the sound of ascending footsteps, Lizanne’s experienced ears discerning the overlapping thuds which indicated two climbers. A creak of rusty hinges drew Lizanne’s gaze to a trap-door in the centre of the room, finding little surprise in the face that appeared as it rose. Makario studiously avoided looking at her as he ascended into the attic, keeping his gaze lowered as he shuffled to one side. The second figure to emerge was truly unexpected. A tall man in a long ragged cape, features hidden by the hood. No sack this time, Lizanne noted as the creeper slammed the trap-door shut and paused to regard her before turning to Julesin.

“We haven’t gotten to it yet,” Julesin said. “She’s Blood-blessed, right enough, but I’d wager she’s not Cadre. Meaning she’s either employed by private interests within the empire or . . . something far worse. A true appreciation of her circumstances might loosen her tongue.”

The hooded creeper stood in silence for a long moment then went to the table, a surprisingly strong and far from skeletal hand emerging from the cape to rest on her penknife. “I was sure you’d use this on yourself before you even made it through the grate,” Constable Darkanis said, drawing back his hood to reveal familiar, broad features. “Must be losing my touch,” he added with a humourless smile.

Lizanne replied with an equally bland smile of her own. “This, I gather, is your retirement plan?”

Darkanis shrugged. “Twenty years labour in the arsehole of the empire deserves more reward than a pittance of a pension.” He paused for a moment, his hand moving from the penknife to take hold of her other knife, the one she had taken from Dralky. Darkanis stepped closer, all semblance of the affable professional she had met at the gate vanished now. She could see a deep well of fear in his eyes, the kind of fear that tended to override restraint or pretension to morality.

“Something worse, you said.” Darkanis kept his eyes on Lizanne as he addressed Julesin. “What kind of something?”

“Ironship something,” the Blood-blessed replied, Lizanne hearing the uneasy sigh he tried to hide. “One of their Exceptional Initiatives agents. The kind of trouble you’re not paying me enough to deal with.”

“Seems to me you dealt with it well enough,” Darkanis observed.

Julesin moved into Lizanne’s eye-line, looking down at her with an air of grim contemplation. “Exceptional Initiatives doesn’t forget, or forgive. You can run for ten years, twenty even, and you’ll still one day find yourself staring into the eyes of a Blood-blessed they sent to kill you, and they won’t be quick about it.”

“All true,” Lizanne assured Darkanis.

“So you are Ironship,” the constable said, leaning down so his face was level with hers. “Why did they send you here? Was it for this?” His hand disappeared into the folds of his cape and came out with a small fragment of rock. “Do they know about this?” He held the rock up before her eyes, turning it so the light caught something in its surface, a thin vein of white metal.

Not white, Lizanne realised. Silver.

“So, that’s it,” she said. “You found silver in the mines. Or rather, one of your informants found it and you failed to report it to your superiors. That alone would earn you the firing squad, but you didn’t stop there, did you? Hiring Julesin here to run operations within the walls whilst you creep back and forth every night with your sack full of ore. Very clever. It does make me wonder why you’d go to the bother of trying to foment discord amongst the gangs. Getting Makario to find you a bomb-maker and so on. He’s been working for you since he arrived, I assume? Another scared new-comer you steered towards the Miner’s Repose.”

“And very useful he’s been.” Darkanis glanced over his shoulder at Makario, still standing with his head lowered. “I wouldn’t feel too bad,” Darkanis told him. “This bitch would happily rip your balls off if her masters told her there was a profit in it.” He turned back to Lizanne, looming closer. “It’s time for a new dawn in Scorazin. Time to sweep away the gangs, institute some real order, profitable order. To do that, this place has to burn for a time.”

“Leaving Julesin at the top of the heap when the fires die down.” Lizanne inclined her head in reluctant admiration. “And free to mine the silver without interference from the gangs or the constables.”

“Yes.” Darkanis stepped closer still, Lizanne wrinkling her nose at the stench arising from his filthy cape. “They know, don’t they?” he said. “Ironship. They know about the seams. That’s why you’re here.”

“My employer neither knows nor cares about your petty corruption. We have larger concerns at the moment.”

“You’re lying!” He clamped a meaty hand on her throat and began to squeeze. Lizanne clenched her jaw to keep her neck muscles tensed against the pressure, but he was a very strong man. “This city sits atop the richest seams of silver anywhere in the world.” Spittle flew from Darkanis’s lips as he snarled into her face. “And you claim they don’t care. I haven’t spilled so much blood and risked everything to see it stolen from me now!”

Lizanne dragged air in through her nostrils as the constable lifted her up, chair and all, squeezing harder. He raised his knife in his other hand, poised and ready to slash at her eyes.

“What do they know!”

Grey mist began to creep into the edge of Lizanne’s vision as Darkanis shook her, a rushing sound in her ears telling of an imminent loss of consciousness.

“You’re wasting your time,” came Julesin’s drawl, faint and barely audible through the haze. “They’re trained to resist such crude methods.”

Another final squeeze and Darkanis let her go, the chair thudding to the boards and coming close to tipping over. Lizanne allowed herself a few convulsive gasps before reasserting control, forcing her hammering heart into a steady rhythm with a breathing sequence learned in her student days.

“See?” Julesin said to Darkanis. “You could take that knife to her nethers and she still wouldn’t talk. I’m afraid a more invasive approach will be necessary. If you’re determined to extract what she knows.”

“You can do that?” the constable asked. “Get into her head?”

“Sadly no.” Lizanne blinked water from her streaming eyes, seeing the Blood-blessed once again resuming his seat. “A trance would be possible, certainly. But her inner defences will be far too formidable, even for me.” He offered Lizanne an apologetic smile as he reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a vial. “I’m afraid we’ve reached that point in the interrogation, Krista,” he said, raising the vial to his lips. “Ever closed a blood vessel with Black?” He leaned forward to focus his gaze on her forehead. “There’s a particular vein in the frontal lobe that, if pinched with the correct amount of pressure, produces a level of pain said to be truly unbearable. So unbearable in fact, the subject will do anything to ensure they never experience it again.”

For a second Lizanne felt panic threaten to overwhelm her as the Black closed in, fixing her head in place. Julesin’s control was impressive, allowing not the slightest movement in her skull, though her eyes were free to flick about as she tried to master her fear. Her gaze slid over Julesin’s face, set in a frown of concentration, Constable Darkanis’s bulky, filthy caped form and the spot where Makario had been standing only seconds before. Except now he was missing, and so, she noticed as her gaze flicked to the table, was her penknife.

Makario moved with a lithe economy of movement that made Lizanne conclude that he had also been tutored in dance as well as music. He leapt high, descending on Julesin and bringing the penknife’s small blade down in a blur, sinking it deep into the join between the Blood-blessed’s neck and shoulder. The grip of Julesin’s Black vanished, leaving Lizanne sagging in her bonds, gasping for air as she tried to clear the throb from her head. The sounds of a struggle forced her gaze up, finding Darkanis slashing at Makario with her other knife. The musician danced back, evading the blade, then whirled to deliver a cut to the constable’s hand, the resulting spasm of pain forcing him to drop the weapon. The bigger man roared and charged, head lowered and moving with bull-like ferocity. Makario tried to dance clear once more but the constable was too fast, his shoulder taking the slender musician in the chest and bearing him to the floor.

“I told you,” Darkanis grated, grabbing Makario’s hair in a meaty fist and slamming his head onto the floorboards. “Don’t ever try to fuck me over!” He repeated the process, punctuating every word with another jarring slam. “Don’t! Ever! Try! To! Fuck! Me! Over!”

Lizanne tore her gaze away, fixing it on Julesin who lay less than two feet away, gazing up at her with rapidly dimming eyes as blood pumped in rhythmic gouts from his wound. Makario might not have been the greatest of fighters, but clearly knew how to find the right vein.

Another slam as Darkanis vented his rage on a near-senseless Makario. Lizanne heaved herself back then forward, the chair legs squeaking on the boards as she built momentum. Three more heaves and it tottered so far that she feared it would send her onto her back. It hung there for a very long second then swung forward once more, Lizanne hurling her weight against the ropes to force it over. She toppled onto Julesin’s body, squirming to manoeuvre her head closer to his wound. The severed vein was still pumping but with less energy now, blood coming in small, thick squirts, blood still rich in the Black he had drunk.

Lizanne struggled close enough to cover the wound with her mouth, fighting nausea as she sucked the blood down her throat, feeling Julesin die beneath her. The hot, iron-tinged flow slowed then stopped as the Blood-blessed gave a final twitch. Lizanne suppressed the reflexive need to vomit and raised her gaze to see Darkanis now standing over Makario. The musician flailed on the floor, arms moving in a spastic parody of combat. The constable had retrieved the knife and paused to laugh before he knelt, pressing the blade to Makario’s throat, his mantra coming in a soft whisper now. “Don’t ever try to fuck me over.”

Seeing little point in prolonging matters, Lizanne summoned the Black, finding she had imbibed more than enough to crush the constable’s head.

She used the last of the Black to free herself, finding she lacked the concentration to unravel the knots and settling for dismantling the chair. With the Black expended, she lay on the floor for a time, recovering strength enough to search Julesin’s person. He had all four vials, presumably smuggled in thanks to Constable Darkanis, each about three-quarters full. Lizanne sniffed each in turn until she found the Green, managing to restrain the urge to gulp half the contents and instead rationing herself to only two sips, just enough to get her on her feet.

Makario and Darkanis lay side by side, the musician liberally spattered with the gory debris left by the constable’s demise. Makario still moved his arms about, though with less energy, throwing feeble punches at nothing, an absent cast to his half-closed eyes. Lizanne knelt and lifted his head into her lap, checking to make sure Darkanis hadn’t managed to crack his skull. She smoothed a hand over the musician’s brow until some semblance of awareness returned to his gaze.

“Told you not to go out,” he murmured, a small smile playing over his lips.

“What did Darkanis promise you?” she asked.

Makario swallowed and licked his lips, shoulders moving in a shrug. “Release, what else? New name, new life, far away from here. Once Julesin was in charge and the silver started flowing. Also gave me the components I needed, for the pianola. Music always was the quickest way to my heart.”

They both winced in unison as a massive boom sounded from outside. It was perhaps the loudest explosion Lizanne had ever heard, louder even than the massed artillery at Carvenport. It must have been quite a sight, she thought, leaning over Makario as the building trembled, displacing a cloud of plaster and dust from the ceiling.

“What was that?” he asked.

Lizanne took the vial of Green and pressed it to his lips. “A chance at what you were promised,” she said. “But I can’t guarantee you’ll live to see it.”

CHAPTER 30

Hilemore

He stood on the walkway, frozen in the dark. The lights had disappeared only seconds after the platform began its plummet, leaving him alone in a pitch-black void, still staring down into the shaft even though there was nothing to see. Sigoral and the two younger Torcreeks gone in an instant. Hilemore clamped down on the rising swell of guilt and self-reproach. You will always lose people, his grandfather had told him once, sombre face veiled by pipe-smoke as he reclined behind his desk. No matter how skilled a sailor or competent an officer you become, lad. Whatever you do, you will always lose people.

They didn’t fall, Hilemore reminded himself. They may still be alive down there. Living souls can be rescued.

Very carefully, he crouched and unslung his pack from his shoulders, undoing the straps by feel. It took a few moments fumbling to find the lantern and several more to light it, his impatience sending a succession of matches into the void before he finally touched a flame to the wick. He cast the glow about, crouching to illuminate as much of the shaft as possible, though of course the bottom remained far out of reach. Hilemore began to call out, hearing only the echo of his own voice, when the walkway shuddered beneath him. The tremor possessed sufficient violence to send him sprawling, his torso hanging over the edge of the void before he managed to lever himself to safety.

The shaking seemed to increase as he regained his feet, arms held out wide to maintain balance. The perilousness of his position was underlined by a sudden and very loud crack from above, accompanied by a cascade of falling dust. Hilemore didn’t hesitate, keenly honed instincts acquired over the course of years at sea left little doubt in his mind that it was time to run.

He sprinted along the walkway, managing not to stumble as the tremor continued. As he reached the passage there came the thudding boom of something very large and very heavy impacting on the walkway. Hilemore paused for a second to turn, catching a glimpse of a huge slab tottering on the edge of the walkway for a second before tumbling into the shaft. Living souls can be rescued, he thought, teeth clenched in impotent fury.

Another violent shudder convinced him that this wasn’t the time to indulge his guilt. He turned and raced along the passage, scrambling up the piled rubble and spending several frantic seconds navigating the gap Clay had created before tumbling out the other side. He fell repeatedly as he ran, the surface beneath his feet shifting with increasing energy. Finally he came to the great cog-like door, finding the rope still dangling from the narrow aperture they had used to gain entry. He cast the lantern aside and gripped the rope, hauling himself up as fast as the shaking would allow. Reaching the aperture and beginning to clamber out, managing to poke his head into the freezing air before another violent heave loosened his grip and he found himself slipping back inside.

“Captain!” Steelfine’s meaty hand clamped onto Hilemore’s forearm with a near-crushing force. The Islander heaved him through the opening, shouting with the effort, and Hilemore found himself lying winded at the bottom of the bowl-shaped crevasse they had blasted into the ice.

“Sir?” Steelfine crouched at his side as Hilemore dragged air into his lungs, momentarily unable to speak. The ice was shuddering too, he noticed, the energy released in the spire communicated to the surrounding sheet. He started at a sharp crack near by, gaze jerking towards the sight of a fissure opening in the ice a few feet from where he lay, white powder exploding upwards as the fissure snaked away. More cracks sounded all around, powdered ice rising in curtains to catch a rainbow from the sunlight.

“We . . .” Hilemore choked, forced more air into his lungs and got to his feet. “We have to get clear!”

They scrambled free of the crevasse and ran for the camp, Hilemore waving at the fur-covered figures rushing to meet him. “Back! Get back!”

“Where’s my daughter!” Braddon Torcreek demanded as Hilemore made the camp. He ignored the Contractor, ordering the men to pile supplies on the sleds. His instinct was to order them to run, get away from this place as fast as possible. But without supplies they wouldn’t last a day on the ice, regardless of what happened here. “Get your harnesses on! Quickly! “

“My daughter!” Braddon repeated, grabbing hold of Hilemore’s arm and jerking him around. “My nephew. Where are they?”

Hilemore stared into the man’s eyes, seeing fevered desperation and a burden of guilt that perhaps outweighed his own. “I believe them to be lost,” he told the Contractor simply, tone as gentle as urgency allowed. “I’m sorry.”

He tore his arm free and began to buckle on one of the harnesses. “We’re heading north with all speed!” he called out to the men scrambling to follow suit. “No stopping until—”

His words were drowned by another series of cracks, louder and more numerous than before. For a second all was rendered white by the upsurge of powder and when it cleared Hilemore saw that the ice-sheet had fragmented. A complex matrix of cracks expanded out from the spire in all directions, as far as he could see. Tall geysers of vapour ascended from the widest cracks, one close enough to engulf one of his crew, a rifleman who had stood beside him at the Battle of the Strait. Hilemore watched in wretched fascination as the man was swallowed by the geyser, his screams brief but still terrible to hear. When the vapour cleared Hilemore could see the crewman’s scalded red features amidst the swaddle of his furs before he fell into the crevasse left in the geyser’s wake. Steam, Hilemore realised. It’s not being shattered, it’s being melted.

The ice beneath them pitched like the deck of a ship in heavy seas, sending the entire party from their feet. Hilemore watched as another man, one of the cook’s assistants, slid across the angled surface, mitten-clad hands scrabbling and failing to find purchase on the ice before he slipped over the edge. Hilemore and the rest of the party might well have joined him had the ice not righted itself, heaving back and forth before settling into a more sedate rhythm.

Hilemore got unsteadily to his feet, gazing around at their refashioned surroundings. The sheet was now a dense collection of flat-topped icebergs, drifting in apparent haphazard fashion dictated by the currents of the churned and steaming sea below. He watched as the berg they stood on began to shrink, chunks of ice falling away as the heated ocean gnawed at its edges. All the surviving members of the party clustered together in the centre of the berg, piling supplies and warily eyeing their quickly diminishing platform.

Braddon was the one exception. The Longrifles’ captain stood close to the berg’s edge, staring down at the roiling waters below in indifferent stillness. Skaggerhill and Preacher rushed forward to drag him back seconds before the patch of ice he stood on sublimed into the sea. Braddon shook off their restraining hands and slumped down amidst the mess of upturned sleds and disordered supplies, his face a picture in abject grief.

“Skipper,” Hilemore heard Scrimshine say in a tremulous whisper. He turned, following the smuggler’s pointed finger to find that the spire had begun to break apart. The great monolith’s pointed summit came loose amidst an explosion of dust as cracks appeared all over the spire’s surface. It fell to pieces all at once, great jagged slabs of material shattering yet more ice as they toppled into the sea, producing a series of tall waves that threatened to capsize their refuge. Then it was gone, vanished within the space of a few seconds, leaving them alone and adrift in a shattered world.

Eventually the steam faded, by which time their new island home had shrunk to a platform twenty feet across at its widest point. Not quite the smallest vessel I’ve yet commanded, Hilemore reflected without much humour. Yet still too small for even an eight-man crew.

“Perhaps twelve days, sir,” Steelfine reported in a quiet murmur, Hilemore having asked him to undertake a realistic appraisal of how long their remaining supplies might last. “Could stretch to fifteen, given we’re not expending so much energy now.”

“Thank you, Mr. Steelfine.” Hilemore adjusted the pointers on his sextant and raised the instrument to the sky. One advantage the southern extremes offered the sailor was the clarity of the sky at night. He couldn’t see even the slightest wisp of cloud from one end of the horizon to the other, making it fairly easy to gauge their heading from the stars.

“Two miles south of where we started,” Scrimshine called to Hilemore with a strangely cheerful grin. “Am I right, Skipper?”

“Two point eight,” Hilemore replied.

“I’m guessing all currents lead south at this latitude.” The smuggler drew his hood back to cast his gaze about, shaking his head a little in wonder. “Will you look at all this. Could be the ice is melted all the way to the pole.”

“It’s certainly a possibility.”

The gaps between the drifting bergs had increased considerably since the sea had stopped roiling, the nearest berg was at least fifty yards off and the distance showed no sign of lessening. Earlier he had risked dipping a hand into the sea, finding the water chilly but not numbing. He could only conclude that whatever processes had brought about this change were still continuing far below the surface. The kind of energies capable of returning so much of the ice-cap to the ocean in so short a space of time were far beyond both his comprehension and, he suspected, the comprehension of the finest scientific minds. The sight of the spire itself had been humbling enough but now he had an inkling of the vastness of the mystery they had come to investigate. We were children, he thought, his mind repeating the image of the platform taking Clay and the others into the depths of the shaft. Rousing a monster we could never understand.

“Reaching the pole would be something,” Scrimshine went on. “Never been done as far as I know. One for the history books, if we ever get to tell anyone, o’course.”

The man’s cheeriness was both aggravating and puzzling. Hilemore, in common with the rest of the party, viewed their current predicament with grim comprehension, but this former convict seemed to find it a cause for levity.

“Didn’t think I’d live to see anything else,” Scrimshine said, perhaps in response to Hilemore’s sour glance. “Besides the walls of my cell. Instead”—he spread his arms, baring his meagre teeth in a smile—“I got to see wonders. Can’t say it’s been an unfair shake of the rope.”

“A creditable attitude, Mr. Scrimshine.” Hilemore glanced over to where Braddon sat close to the edge of the berg, hunched and apparently indifferent to the bleakly concerned face of the stocky harvester who stood near by. “Even so,” Hilemore said, turning back to Scrimshine. “I doubt anyone would take it amiss if you saw fit to once again beseech your ancestors on our behalf.”

The smuggler pondered the notion for a moment before shrugging. “I think old Last Look may well have used up all my credit on that account, Skipper. But it can’t hurt to ask.”

Hilemore saw Skaggerhill hug himself tight and retreat from his captain. “Much appreciated, Mr. Scrimshine.”

Braddon didn’t turn as Hilemore approached, continuing to sit with his hood drawn back from his weathered features, staring out at the current-churned waters. Hilemore sank down next to him, drawing back his own hood. He didn’t say anything. Commiserations would be redundant, as would apologies. However, if the fellow wanted to vent his anger at a man who fully deserved it, Hilemore wasn’t about to stand in his way.

When the words came from Braddon’s mouth, however, there was no anger in them, only faint curiosity. “Do you have a family, Mr. Hilemore?”

“I have a mother and two brothers,” Hilemore replied.

“No. I meant a wife, children.”

“No, sir. I was engaged until recently but fate decided the marriage wasn’t to be.”

“Fate, huh? In my experience it ain’t fate that breaks a couple apart.”

Hilemore gave a tight smile, acknowledging the point. “Very true. My fiancée is . . . was a lady of profound convictions and heart-felt principles. She considered my continued employment with the Protectorate to be incompatible with these beliefs.”

“Gave you a choice, did she? Her or the Protectorate.”

“Actually no. I don’t imagine you know a great deal about the Dalcian Emergency, since Ironship’s friends in the press were skilled in obscuring the details. Suffice to say that the reality of war rarely matches the image portrayed in the news-sheets. Lewella, however, has her own sources of information. I’ll not pretend to have emerged from the Emergency with completely clean hands, but I was at least at ease with my own conscience. Lewella was not.”

“Think she’ll ever know about all this? You coming such a long way to die for no good reason.”

“We had a good reason, Captain Torcreek. Perhaps Lewella would never have known my fate. Perhaps she would have found another man more suited to her outlook and forgotten me in time. I would be content to be forgotten if it meant she remained alive long enough to do so.”

“My Freda would never forget. And she’s lost more than just a husband. Turns out I’m a coward, Mr. Hilemore. Y’see, ain’t nothing scares me more than the prospect of looking into my wife’s eyes when I tell her I lost our daughter.”

Hilemore didn’t bother to institute rationing. The farther south they drifted it became clear that the cold would most likely claim their lives before starvation set in. So the crew occupied themselves with eating their way through the remaining supplies in between stomping about their limited environs in an effort to stave off the cold. Although the sea had warmed, the air was as chilled as ever. It had become an all-consuming presence now, adding a painful edge to every breath and a razor-like caress to exposed skin. Hilemore could see the beginnings of frost-bite on the men’s faces, reddish patches appearing on noses and cheeks that grew more inflamed as the days passed.

Braddon Torcreek remained a mostly still and silent figure, eating only when Skaggerhill pressed him to it and then partaking of a scant few mouthfuls at a time. Hilemore couldn’t help but be reminded of the man they had found frozen to death in the tunnels at Kraghurst Station. Tends to happen when a fella loses all hope of deliverance, Scrimshine had said. Braddon, Hilemore knew, could find no deliverance from his guilt.

They drifted for three full days, Hilemore diligently plotting their course with the sextant and estimating they had covered a distance of twenty-three miles from the spire. “Only another hundred or so to the pole then,” Scrimshine observed. “We got a flag to plant?”

“Sadly, I was remiss in not bringing one,” Hilemore replied, finding he truly did regret the oversight. It would have been good to leave some monument to the most southerly journey human beings had ever undertaken, albeit inadvertently.

“We could make one,” Scrimshine suggested. “Break up the sleds to fashion a flag-pole, sew some tarps together for the pennant. Something to do at least, Skipper.”

Hilemore saw wisdom in his reasoning. After their initial enthusiasm the party’s exercise regimen had slackened off considerably, most sitting lethargic and preoccupied by their impending fate. He was about to start rousing them to the task when an unexpected someone called his name. Preacher hadn’t said a word since they climbed Mount Reygnar, and precious little before then, so it took a second to recognise his voice. The tall cleric stood on the south-facing edge of the berg, pointing at something in the maze of bergs covering the horizon.

“See something?” Hilemore asked, moving to Preacher’s side.

“A ship,” the marksman said, still pointing.

“Can’t be,” Scrimshine said. “Probably just a trick of the light. No offence,” he added quickly when Preacher turned his impassive gaze on him.

Hilemore saw the smuggler’s point; no vessel could have sailed this far south through so many bergs, not in the few days since the sheet broke up. However, recalling that it was thanks to Preacher’s eyes that they found the spire, Hilemore retrieved his spy-glass from the folds of his furs and raised it to his eye. It took some seconds of focusing the lens before he found it, a low dark shape just visible through a gap between two bergs, and rising from it the unmistakable sight of three masts.

“It seems,” Hilemore said, lowering the glass, “the ice has one more wonder to show us, Mr. Scrimshine.”

It transpired that they had to break up the sleds after all, but to build a boat rather than a flag-pole. Although the drift of their berg had brought them to within a few hundred yards of the mysterious ship, it had become clear that its course was unlikely to bring them any closer. Steelfine did most of the work, putting Island-born skills to use. Within the space of two hours he had crafted a bowl-shaped frame from the pliable struts, which was duly covered by a skin of hastily-sewn-together tarps. Hilemore forbade the Islander from taking charge of the craft, knowing this duty fell to him.

“I can’t guarantee she’ll make it all the way, sir,” Steelfine cautioned. They had lowered the boat over the edge where it bobbed in the current, a small pool of water already sloshing in the bottom.

“I have every confidence in your skills, Lieutenant.” Hilemore nodded towards the ship and the hump of an upturned life-boat visible on its upper deck. “She only has to last a few minutes.”

He was obliged to use a rifle as an oar and it proved a clumsy implement, barely capable of ploughing a course through the swirling currents. Several times the tiny craft was spun about by an eddy before Hilemore managed to reassert control. They had fixed a line to the edge of the boat’s hull, insurance against the life-boat on the ship proving to be unsailable. The men played out the line as Hilemore made his often-wayward progress towards the ship. It took an hour of arduous labour before he drew close enough to get a clear view of her hull. He was pleased to find it intact, the lower planks clad in iron and lacking any obvious damage or even overt signs of age, though this vessel was undoubtedly of antique construction. She lacked any stacks or paddles, the three masts telling of a ship built in the pre–Blood Age.

Hilemore was obliged to navigate a gap between two towering bergs, finding the current even more violent and difficult to traverse. By the time he made it through and the ship’s hull towered above him, the once-shallow pool of water in the bottom of his makeshift boat had swollen to ankle depth. Hilemore unslung a rope from around his chest, taking hold of the grapple and preparing to throw, then pausing as his eyes caught sight of the ship’s name-plate. The word had lost its paint long ago. Now he was close enough to read it clearly, he could make out a name set in Mandinorian letters rich in archaic flourishes: Dreadfire.

CHAPTER 31

Clay

The lake turned out to be more of a sea and the bridge more of a road. The crystals faded twice before they caught sight of another land-mass, an island even smaller than the one now home to the ruins of Kriz’s home. So far their erstwhile captor and subsequent saviour hadn’t provided any further information on her origins or explanation for the island’s destruction.

She kept on striding along the algae-covered road, resting for short intervals and only stopping completely when the light of the three suns faded. She ate several of the sea-biscuits Clay offered her, but bunched her face in disdain when he proffered a strip of dried beef. After that she sat in silence, offering only vague shakes of her head to his repeated questions as she maintained a careful vigil over the surrounding waters. The reason for her caution soon became clear. Almost as soon as the darkness closed in the surface of the water was broken by a series of bright splashes. One flared only a few yards shy of the road’s edge, Clay catching sight of gleaming scales and a long snake-like form before another splash erupted and it was gone.

“Stands to reason there had to be more Blues,” he told an alarmed Loriabeth, now crouched to one knee, cocked pistol fanning back and forth across the water. “Seem to be just as titchy as the ones back at the shore.”

He turned to Kriz, who seemed much less alarmed by the Blue’s appearance than he might have expected. “Guess they just grow smaller here, huh?” he asked, elaborating by making a shrinking gesture with his hands. Kriz merely gave him a blank look before returning her gaze to the waters, the small brass-and-steel weapon clutched tight in her hand.

Their brief sharing of minds had increased the understanding between them so he found it increasingly easy to discern meaning in some of her infrequent words. He also suspected that she comprehended more of his conversations with Loriabeth and Sigoral than she let on. However, when he suggested, via some inexpert miming, that they trance again, she refused with a firm shake of her head.

Doesn’t fully trust us yet, he decided. Worried how we’ll react to what she’ll tell us, maybe. He also suspected there might be another reason for her reluctance. Could be she’s more scared of what she might learn from me than what I might learn from her.

“There’s gotta be fish in here,” Loriabeth commented a few hours into their second artificial day on the road. She paused to peer at the water below. “Like Krystaline Lake. The drakes there preyed on dolphins and such, Scriberson said.” She turned to Kriz, making a flapping motion with her hand before pointing at the water. “Fish in here? Yes?”

Kriz returned her gaze for a moment, possibly contemplating if there was any danger in providing a response, then nodded. “Fishhh,” she said carefully. “Yes.”

“It would be nice to catch a few,” Sigoral put in, chewing unenthusiastically on some dried beef.

“I’m all out of rods and nets, Lieutenant,” Clay told him.

“You could go for a swim, sailor boy,” Loriabeth suggested with a sweet smile. “See what you can catch.”

Sigoral replied with a bland smile of his own and strode on.

A mile or so later they came to a fork in the road, a second walkway branching off to the right to disappear into the haze a hundred paces off. Kriz strode past the junction without pause, barely glancing at the alternative route and ignoring Clay’s question about where it might lead.

“It seems she has a definite destination in mind,” Sigoral observed.

“As long as it leads to a way out of here,” Loriabeth replied. “Never thought I’d say it, but I’m sorely missing the sight of the ice.”

They passed several more junctions before the light faded again, Kriz again ignoring each one. As the darkness descended and they made their customary halt for the night, Clay noticed a definite increase in the number of Blues disturbing the water on either side of the road.

“Gotta be double the number there were last night,” Loriabeth surmised, squinting into the gloom.

“They hungry or just curious?” Clay asked Kriz.

He saw her fingers twitch on the brass-and-steel gun, a grim decisiveness colouring her gaze as she watched the Blues churn the water. “Hungry,” she said, getting to her feet. “Yes.”

She went to Loriabeth’s pack, pointing at the lantern fastened to the straps. “Want me to light that?” Loriabeth asked, receiving a nod in response. Loriabeth struck a flint to light the lantern’s oil-covered wick, Sigoral quickly following suit with his own heavier sailor’s lamp.

“Look,” Kriz said, gesturing for the two light-bearers to cast their beams out over the water on either side of the road. “Move . . . fast,” she added, starting off at a rapid pace.

They marched through the darkness, Loriabeth and Sigoral constantly playing their lights over the surrounding waters. Clay noticed that the Blues seemed shy of the lights, diving down whenever one of the beams caught them on the surface. But whatever threat they sensed wasn’t enough to force a retreat and the night air was constantly riven by the sound of multiple splashes.

An hour’s rapid marching brought them to another junction and this time Kriz took the alternate route, branching off to the left. She moved with greater urgency as the journey wore on. Clay noted that the Blues were becoming bolder, rising close enough to the road to cast an increasing amount of lake-water over the party.

“Getting right feisty, ain’t they?” Loriabeth commented. She moved with a pistol in one hand, the barrel aligned with the lantern’s beam.

“I guess a meal like us don’t turn up too often,” Clay said, grunting a little with the effort of matching Kriz’s pace.

Finally she slowed as a bulky shape resolved out of the darkness ahead; another island. It was much smaller than the last one, formed of a slab of rock rising to a height of perhaps fifteen feet from the water, lacking buildings or vegetation. They followed Kriz to where the road met the island, giving way to a series of steps carved into the stone. She started up the steps immediately, whilst Clay and the others lingered at the bottom. The water on either side of the road seemed to be roiling now.

“Gotta be fifty or more,” Loriabeth said, her beam tracking from one shimmering form to another. “Reckon I could get a couple. Even from here.” She drew back the hammer on her revolver, aiming carefully. “How’s about it, Lieutenant?” she asked Sigoral, who duly raised his carbine in readiness.

“We got maybe thirty rounds between us,” Clay reminded them. He turned as Kriz called to them from the top of the steps, voicing a phrase in her own tongue that sounded far from complimentary. “Come on, looks like we’re wanted. I doubt she’d’ve brought us here without good reason.”

They followed the steps to the bare flat crest of the island, finding Kriz standing beside another plinth. As she touched the crystal set into the plinth, Clay and the others started in surprise at a sudden thrum of grinding rock beneath their feet. A near perfectly square cloud of dust rose a few feet away as a section of the island’s surface descended then slid aside. Clay felt a rush of wind on his skin and saw the displaced dust being sucked into the revealed opening.

“That’s weird,” Loriabeth said, levelling her revolver at the opening.

“Air filling a vacuum,” Sigoral said, stepping closer to peer into the gloomy depths below the hole. “A hermetically sealed chamber of some kind.”

Kriz motioned for Loriabeth to hand over the lantern then moved to the opening, playing the beam around until it alighted on a series of iron rungs set into the wall. She handed the lantern back and began to descend, soon disappearing from view as the three of them continued to stand immobile. After a pause they heard her call out an impatient summons.

“If she meant us harm,” Clay said, watching Loriabeth and Sigoral exchange a suspicious glance, “we’d already be dead ten times over.”

Moving to the opening, he lowered himself onto the ladder and started down. The shaft proved to be about a dozen feet deep, Clay stepping off the ladder to find Kriz waiting at the bottom, surrounded by darkness. He called to Loriabeth to toss down her lantern, catching it and casting the light around to illuminate a long tunnel-like chamber. The walls were lined with racks containing what appeared to be mechanicals of some kind. Some were long, others short and stubby and most featured handgrips set behind what were unmistakably trigger mechanisms.

Guns, he realised, noting how each device bore a similarity in construction to Kriz’s stubby weapon. Steel and brass merged together in an intricate harmony that no manufactory he knew of could match.

“Looks like she’s brung us to an armoury,” Clay told Loriabeth as she climbed down.

“Don’t look like no iron I ever saw.”

His cousin stepped closer to one of the objects, a shiny black device about two feet long. It had a grip and trigger like the others, and a narrow cylinder fixed to its upper side. Loriabeth touched a tentative hand to the object before taking a firmer hold and lifting it clear of the rack. “Got a barrel, right enough,” she said, turning the object over in her hands. “Small bore, though. And it don’t weigh much for a weapon.” She raised the device to her shoulder, a smile coming to her lips as her eye came level with the cylinder. “A spy-glass,” she said, a certain anticipatory delight colouring her voice. “Could shoot out a pigeon’s eyes with this.”

“Not a speck of rust,” Clay saw, running a hand over an identical weapon.

“Preserved by the vacuum,” Sigoral said from the base of the ladder. “These could have been stored down here for a very long time.”

Kriz moved deeper into the chamber and returned carrying a much larger device. It was longer than the one in Loriabeth’s hands and had a barrel with a bore larger than any shotgun Clay had seen. Kriz paused to retrieve a drum-shaped object from a near by rack and slotted it into the weapon’s underside with a loud clack. That done, she returned to the ladder and began to climb up.

“At least show us how this works,” Loriabeth called after her, patting the weapon she held. Kriz failed to respond and Clay quickly followed her up the ladder, Sigoral and Loriabeth close behind.

He found Kriz standing close to the edge of the island’s crest, the weapon raised with its stock at her shoulder. On either side of the road the lake continued to roil as the massed Blues thrashed their long bodies, making their positions easy to mark despite the gloom.

Kriz began firing almost immediately, the weapon making a percussive popping sound with every shot, six in all loosed off in quick succession. Clay saw six bright waterspouts rise up amongst the Blues. There was a one-second delay then the water beneath the surface blossomed into a bright shade of white before erupting upwards in a series of explosions. Clay could see flashes of red amid the rising water, and the sight of one Blue cut in half by the force of the blasts. The beast’s two constituent parts trailed blood as they cart-wheeled amidst the spume before plummeting down to land on the road with a wet crunch.

As the lake becalmed into dark unbroken placidity Kriz lowered the weapon and favoured Clay with one of the few smiles he had seen on her face. “Not . . . hungry now,” she said.

The weapon’s stock gave a faint pulse against Clay’s shoulder as he pulled the trigger, a ten-foot-high geyser of water erupting in the centre of the black circle visible through the spy-glass.

“Over four hundred yards,” Sigoral said, eyebrows raised as he looked at the weapon in his own hands. “Barely any recoil, or smoke.”

Clay saw that he was right, lowering the weapon to see a thin tendril of greyish vapour escaping the barrel. They had remained on the island until the lights came again, catching a few hours’ fitful sleep. Come the dawn Kriz began to educate them in the weapons from the armoury. Loriabeth, as might be expected, took to the task immediately, quickly learning how to load one of the carbine-like guns with a surprisingly small box that slotted into its underside. Clay watched her fire off fifty rounds before the box emptied. The weapon was apparently capable of reloading its chamber without the need for cocking or levers. Also, unlike any other repeating fire-arm he had seen, it ejected no cartridges. When removed the box was empty.

“Ever see the like?” he asked Sigoral.

“There were persistent rumours of a self-loading rifle being developed in the Emperor’s workshops,” the marine replied. “But I doubt it could compare to this.” He smoothed a hand along the weapon’s stock. “This . . . is a thing beyond our time, Mr. Torcreek.”

A cacophonous burst of gunfire came from the right where Kriz was acquainting Loriabeth with a different device. It was much larger than the carbine-like weapons, bearing a vague resemblance to a longrifle in the dimensions of its barrel and stock. The similarity ended there, however, for it quickly became apparent this weapon could outrange a longrifle by a considerable margin, and fire a great many more bullets. It also produced more smoke than the carbines and the calibre of its barrel was at least twice the size. It was loaded via a drum that contained at least two hundred rounds. But its most salient feature was the fact that it would fire continuously at one pull of the trigger, emptying its copious magazine in a concentrated stream lasting all of ten seconds.

“Well, how about that,” Loriabeth said, a broad grin on her face as she lowered the weapon, smoke leaking from the barrel. “Could take me a whole pack of Greens with this.”

In addition to the weapons the armoury also yielded an additional pack of ingenious design, resembling a rolled blanket in the way it curved across Kriz’s back. It appeared to have been fashioned from the same material as her belt, as were the set of clothes it contained which Kriz had been quick to swap for her borrowed garb. The clothing consisted of a loose-fitting, all-in-one garment that covered her from shoulders to knees. A deep fold at the neck could be formed into a cowl to cover her head. The pack also contained a pair of shoes which at first appeared little more than flimsy slippers, but subsequently proved impervious to rigours of the road.

“Clean?” Kriz asked after a long day’s march, brows furrowed in response to Loriabeth’s query.

“Yeah, how do I clean it?” She hefted the large weapon Kriz had given her, miming running a cloth over it. “All guns need cleaning or they’ll foul up.”

This seemed only to baffle Kriz more and she replied with a shrug.

“Perhaps it requires no cleaning,” Sigoral said. Although clearly impressed by the weapons, the Corvantine’s unease was obvious. The cause wasn’t hard to divine, for Clay shared much the same sentiment. Beyond our time . . . They were like the Spoiled now, primitives struggling to understand seemingly magical novelties. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

“We need to trance again,” he told Kriz, miming the motion of injecting Blue into his arm. She drew back a little at the hard insistence in his voice, but once again replied with a shake of her head.

“It appears she has secrets to keep,” Sigoral observed, eyeing Kriz carefully. “What exactly she’s doing down here, for instance. And where exactly we’re going.”

“She’s in the same fix we are,” Loriabeth said. “She needs to get out. Right, hon?” She turned to Kriz, raising her voice and pointing a finger at the featureless sky above. “You got a way out, right?”

Kriz’s hesitation was slight, fractional enough to be easily missed, but Clay saw it and knew her next words to be a lie. “Out,” Kriz said, smiling and nodding. “Yes.”

They moved on, tracking back along the road that had brought them to the island then resuming the same route as before. No more Blues appeared to trail them and the unbroken, waveless water took on a tedious monotony. Clay began to wonder if this place would consist of yet more sea all the way to the end, if it actually had an end. The tedium was finally broken when Sigoral trained the spy-glass of his carbine on the road ahead and reported the sight of land.

“Blessed be the Seer,” Loriabeth said, moving to Sigoral’s side. “How’s it look?”

“Steep.”

The cliff came into view a short while later, a dark grey wall rising from the surface of this strange sea to over two hundred feet in height. Clay trained his own carbine on the top of the cliff, finding a dense mass of tree-tops and beyond them, the unmistakable sight of a mountain slope.

The road ended at the base of the cliff where it met a series of stone steps carved into the rock. They ascended in a zigzag series of flights to a height of about twenty feet whereupon they disappeared. It seemed a section of the cliff-face had become dislodged at some point in the past, taking the upper two-thirds of the staircase with it. Although Kriz’s command of Mandinorian was still limited, she had developed a fondness for certain words. “Shit,” she sighed before raising her gaze to the cliff-top.

“We’re climbing, huh?” Clay asked. This drew an exasperated glower from Kriz and he understood that, for the first time, she had no notion of what to do next.

“Shouldn’t take more than a few hours,” Sigoral said, surveying the cliff with a critical eye. “I can see three relatively easy routes from here.”

“You’re joshing us, right?” Loriabeth said.

“Certainly not, miss,” the marine replied, stiffening a little. “I used to climb the bluffs on Takmarin all the time. It’s a common pastime for children. Market traders would give you a quarter-crown for every dozen puffin eggs you brought back.”

“No puffins here,” Clay said, playing the spy-glass of his carbine over the cliff-face. “No drakes either, for which we should be grateful.”

Sigoral led them to what appeared to Clay to be an unremarkable stretch of cliff. The marine divested himself of his pack and weapons before looping their one length of rope across his chest. “It should be long enough to reach,” he said, hands exploring the rock for a moment before finding a hold. “I’ll fix it up top and you’ll use it to follow.”

“What about the gear?” Loriabeth asked.

“We’ll haul it up after us. Someone will have to wait here and tie them to the rope, though.”

Clay opted to be the last up the rope, waiting as he tracked the others’ progress with the spy-glass on his carbine. Sigoral’s expertise was evident in the way he navigated the cliff, hands and feet moving with steady surety as he made an unhurried ascent, reaching the top in less than an hour whereupon he cast the rope down for them to follow. Loriabeth went next, her progress considerably less fluid and subject to repeated pauses, but still reaching the top after a lengthy effort. Kriz’s climb was faster, the woman displaying a natural athleticism in the way she hauled herself up the rope and Clay found his spy-glass lingering on her slender form as she climbed.

Not a good idea, he reproached himself, head suddenly filled with visions of Silverpin. Something his uncle had once said came to mind as he lowered the carbine: No room in my company for a man who needs to learn the same lesson twice.

Once Kriz had crested the cliff-edge he slung his carbine across his back, tightening the strap over his chest before taking hold of the rope and beginning to climb. His years in the Blinds had provided ample opportunities to educate himself in the finer points of scaling a wall, but a cliff proved more of a challenge. The uneven surface and the length of the climb soon birthed an ache in his limbs. Although his miraculously healed leg stood up to the strain, it became apparent after the first fifty feet or so that he had yet to fully recover from the trauma suffered in the forest.

He forced himself up another dozen feet of rope before stopping to rest, sweat bathing his face as he slumped against the rock and tried to figure the best way of manoeuvring his canteen to his lips. It was then that he felt a hard tug on the rope followed by the deep, guttural rattle of an angry drake.

Clay splayed his hands against the rock and slowly eased his body away from the cliff-face, raising his gaze to find it met by a pair of slitted yellow eyes. The Black was perched on a ledge about eight feet above, its long neck curving a little as it moved its head from side to side, the angry rattle still issuing from its throat as it opened its mouth to display an impressive set of teeth. Although its body was hidden by the ledge, Clay judged from the size of the Black’s head that it was considerably larger than the other breeds they had seen so far, as large as an adolescent Red in the world above.

A torrent of thoughts ran through his mind, principally concerning the prospects of getting a grip on either his carbine or the product in his wallet. He discounted the product almost immediately, as the beast would be upon him long before he could get a vial to his lips. However, he calculated the odds of bringing his carbine to bear in time as scarcely any better. Instead, he opted to remain completely still and continue to stare into the Black’s eyes.

“I ain’t your enemy, big fella,” he told the drake in a whisper, searching its gaze in the faint hope of finding some measure of understanding. “Even made friends with one of your cousins up top.”

The Black’s eyes narrowed as if in consideration and they continued to stare at each other, Clay feeling a tremble creep into his limbs as the strain of clinging to the rope started to tell. The moment stretched and he began to suspect he would fall to his death long before the beast decided whether to eat him. In the event, his cousin chose that moment to resolve the issue.

“Seer-dammit, Clay!” she yelled. “Get clear of my sights!”

The Black jerked in response to the shout, head snapping to the top of the cliff. Clay seized the chance, bracing his legs against the rock and pushing clear of the cliff at an angle so that he swung out, body spinning. The Black gave an angry screech, fixing its gaze on him once again and flaring a pair of very broad wings, crouching as it prepared to launch itself clear of the ledge. Its mouth gaped wide, a dreadfully familiar haze appearing as it summoned the requisite gases from its gut. The flames blossomed at the same instant as Loriabeth let loose with a burst of fire from her repeating rifle. Clay had time to watch the Black’s head dissolve into a thick mist of shredded flesh and bone before the fire it had breathed caught the rope a few inches above his hands.

He could only continue to hold on and stare at the flames licking over the tightly braided cord. He watched it blacken and turn to ash, glowing strands unravelling and fragmenting in a strangely captivating sight that put him in mind of fire-flies rising from a field at twilight. As the rope snapped and he began to fall, he considered that for a last thought, it really wasn’t all that bad.

CHAPTER 32

Lizanne

The house Julesin had taken her to sat in the middle of Chandler’s Row, a promenade of decrepit terraced houses a few streets west from Sluiceman’s Way. Lizanne emerged to find a thick column of smoke rising above the roof-tops in the vicinity of the citadel. She could also hear a faint but constant crackle of rifle fire. A few confused inmates loitered near by in various states of indecision, mostly non-affiliated midden-pickers who must have fled the Ore Day parade when Tinkerer’s bomb went off.

“The citadel will fall within the hour!” Lizanne called to the dazed unfortunates. “If you want out of here you’ll need to fight for it. Spread the word.”

She turned as Makario stumbled from the doorway behind her, blinking rapidly as he gazed up at the pillar of smoke ascending into the grey sky. The Green had banished much of the pain left by Darkanis’s beating, but he was yet to regain his full senses. “Did you do that?” he asked in an oddly calm tone, one eyebrow raised to a quizzical angle.

“Yes,” she replied. “And I’m about to do a great deal more. Come on.” She took hold of his arm, hurrying towards Sluiceman’s Way and pulling him along.

They found the broad thoroughfare wreathed in a thick pall of acrid smoke and littered with both corpses and rubble. People ran past in panic, some deeper into the city, some towards the cacophony up ahead where rifle fire mingled with the sound of many voices raised in anger or fear. Lizanne saw a bright yellow flash in the smoke ahead, followed a split-second later by the boom of a cannon. She threw herself behind a part-demolished wall and dragged Makario down beside her, flinching at the multiple high-pitched whistles of canister-shot rending the surrounding air.

“So they didn’t manage to kill the gun-crews,” she muttered, poking her head above the wall. Somewhere a voice was screaming in the fog, the diminishing pitch of their distress telling of a mutilated soul fast approaching death.

“Such wonders you have wrought, my dear,” Makario said, Lizanne hearing the unrestrained reproach in his voice.

“I suspect we’ll both have a great deal to atone for when this is done,” she replied, tugging him upright. “Stay close. We need to move quickly.”

They ran from corner to corner and doorway to doorway, crouching low as bullets and canister tore at the drifting clouds of smoke, threading their way through rubble and knots of panicked inmates, all babbling rumours and confusion.

“They’ve started killing us all . . .”

“The Furies are trying to break out . . .”

“The Emperor’s ordered the Constables to execute everyone . . .”

“Might I enquire,” Makario said as they huddled behind yet another part-demolished building to avoid a volley of bullets. “Where exactly are we going?”

“I have to meet someone,” she said, moving on quickly and obliging him to follow.

“And then what?” the musician persisted. “Forgive me, but I doubt an easy stroll through the gates is on the cards just now.”

She said nothing and ran on, resisting the impulse to shorten the journey with a gulp or two of Green. Makario wouldn’t have been able to keep up. Besides, she would probably have need of every drop of Julesin’s supply before long.

She gave a small sigh of relief at finding Tinkerer exactly where she had told him to be: the exposed basement at the eastern end of Pick Street. He stood alone, regarding her with typical impassivity as she jumped down to join him. She expected some nervousness at the sight of Makario but Tinkerer merely glanced at the musician before turning to her. “You’re late,” he said.

“Unforeseen difficulties.” She jerked her head towards the river, away from the citadel and the continuing chorus of gun-fire. “Come along then.”

She led them to the muddy fringes of the river-bank then towards the grate beside the outlet pipe where she had first made her entry to Scorazin. “You have your other devices ready?” she asked Tinkerer. He stepped wordlessly to the grate, reaching into a sack to extract what appeared to be a rough-hewn lump of fist-sized clay with a short length of wire protruding from the top. He fixed the lump to the barrier’s heavy lock, working the still-soft clay around the contours.

“It’s advisable not to look,” he added before striking a match and touching it to the fuse, immediately stepping back and shielding his eyes.

Lizanne managed to turn away before the device ignited. Makario wasn’t so lucky.

“Owww!” he squealed. Lizanne opened her eyes to see him clutching at his own, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Thank you very fucking much, sir!” he fumed at Tinkerer, rapidly blinking his reddened orbs. “As if this day hadn’t been a sufficient trial already. What is that stuff?”

“A combustible copper-and-magnesium core with a dense silicate coating for insulation,” Tinkerer replied, seemingly unruffled by the musician’s ire. Lizanne looked at the grate, seeing a last guttering of sparks fall from the lock, which had been transformed into a steaming tear-drop of molten iron. She pulled at the grate, finding she had to give several hard tugs before it came free.

“Stay close and move fast,” she told them, stepping into the gloom.

She took one of Julesin’s vials from her pocket and sipped some Green to boost her vision before starting down the tunnel. Memorising the route to this entry point had been well within her expertise and following it out was a simple matter. They soon came to the second grate where Darkanis had left her that first day. Lizanne stood back, averting her gaze as Tinkerer affixed a second device to the lock. It was then that she noticed Makario was missing.

She hissed his name, enhanced eyes piercing the gloomy confines of the tunnels but catching no sign of him. Then her ears, also bolstered by the effects of Green, detected a faint scrabbling sound. What is he doing?

“Keep at it,” she told Tinkerer. “Don’t proceed without me.”

She moved away, making for the source of the scraping sound in a crouching run. Makario came into view around the next bend. The musician was on his knees, clawing barehanded at some loose brickwork in the tunnel wall with an energy that put her in mind of a giant rat. He glanced up as she approached, blinking his still-bleary eyes at her, an eager grin on his lips.

“He couldn’t risk taking it out through the guard-house,” he said, turning back to pull another brick from the wall. “Not all at once. Only the tiniest bit at a time.”

Lizanne crouched at his side, peering into the hole he had created. Despite the Green it was hard to make out the contents of this hiding-place, then she saw a dim patch of light catch the coarse weave of sackcloth. “Darkanis’s silver ore,” she realised.

“Yes.” Makario grunted as he levered another brick from the wall. “Considerate of him to pile it all up in one place for us, wasn’t it?”

Lizanne reached out and grasped his hand. “We don’t have time.”

She could see Makario’s stricken, desperate face in the gloom. “Krista, there’s enough for both of us. Enough to bribe every magistrate in Corvus. I can have a new name, a new life . . .”

His voice trailed off into a whine as she dragged him to his feet, keeping hold of his arm and making her way back to the grate. “Please . . .”

“Shut up or I’ll leave you here,” she ordered, suddenly infuriated by his greed.

They found Tinkerer standing beside the opened grate, a foul odour rising from the ruined lock. “I don’t know how many constables will be waiting,” she said, moving through the portal, still dragging Makario along. “Most will have been drawn to the fighting, but there will be others who’ll have contrived to stay behind. Leave them to me . . .”

She fell silent and came to a halt as a new sound reached her ears. A deep, rushing sound that made the tunnel tremble from floor to ceiling.

“Run!” She turned and began shoving them both back along the passage. “They’ve flooded the tunnels! RUN!”

It took at most thirty frantic seconds to get clear of the tunnel, Lizanne exhausting her Green as she conveyed her two companions none-too-gently back through the first grate and onto the muddy river-bank. The water came rushing out a heart-beat later, a roaring torrent that sent the three of them sprawling into the mud. For a moment Lizanne entertained the grim notion that they might drown but then the torrent began to abate. She checked to ensure the others were still alive then began to pry herself loose from the mud, grunting with the effort.

“Don’t!”

Lizanne’s gaze snapped up to find Anatol standing atop the outflow pipe, eyes as hard as his voice. He held one of the cross-bows captured from the Scuttlers, the dull gleam of the bolt unwavering as he aimed it at her chest. Still imprisoned by the mud Lizanne could only lie still and watch as a bulky silhouette appeared on the bank behind Anatol.

“To think I was actually starting to like you,” Electress Atalina said.

An expertly placed punch slammed into the centre of Lizanne’s back, sending her face-first onto the hard floor of the basement. Air rushed from her lungs as something large and heavy pressed against her spine, pinning her in place. Lizanne bit down on a shout as the pressure increased, nostrils filling with a thick gust of cigarillo smoke as someone leaned low to whisper into her ear.

“Don’t mistake me,” the Electress said, speaking as if there had been no interval between their capture at the river and the short but punishing journey to the basement of the Miner’s Repose. The inn itself had been ruined by a cannon shell, but the basement apparently remained open for business. “I always knew I’d have to kill you, just not so soon, and long before you contrived to bring the whole city down around us. Still, that’s what sentiment gets you.”

“I—” Lizanne’s breath scattered grit across the floor as she fought to add her voice to the last vestiges of breath the Electress forced from her body, the words emerging in a garbled torrent, “I’m a Blood-blessed Ironship operative I can get you out . . .”

The pressure paused, then relaxed a little. “Ironship? You expect me to swallow that shit, dear?”

“It’s true,” Lizanne heard Makario say. “I watched her kill Darkanis.”

“Your word isn’t worth a rat’s turd to me just now,” the Electress told him. A brief pause for consideration then the pressure disappeared from Lizanne’s back, leaving her gasping on the floor.

“Get up,” the Electress commanded. “So much as twitch and Anatol will put a bolt through your skull.”

Lizanne rose to her feet, keeping her hands out from her sides, fingers splayed. The Electress stood a few feet away in a state of bloody dishevelment. Never particularly elegant she now appeared almost monstrous, her face covered in dust save for the patch of congealed blood stretching from hair to jaw-line. She held a large oak-wood cudgel in one meaty fist. Lizanne saw fragments of bone sticking to the gore covering its gnarled head.

“Constable skulls crack just like any other,” the Electress explained.

The basement roof had acquired a large hole and Lizanne could see Furies peering down at them, most bearing the minor scars and bleached features of those who have survived recent battle. She counted perhaps thirty in total, with one notable absence.

“Where’s Melina?” she asked.

“Lying in front of the Citadel with half her head blown off,” the Electress said. “Where the fuck d’you think?”

I’m sorry. Fearing Anatol’s reaction Lizanne left the words unsaid, even though she was surprised to find her regret genuine. She also saw it mirrored in the slight stiffening of Tinkerer’s posture; she had been the only friend he could claim in this place after all.

“The Learned Damned?” Lizanne asked, returning her gaze to the Electress.

“Holed up on the far end of Sifter’s Corner, what’s left of them. That bomb you had them hide in the ore made a right mess of the Citadel but left two of the cannon intact. They must’ve cut down a hundred or more trying to rush the breach. Then the whole garrison sallied out, shooting down everyone still standing. Your genius scheme has wrought a great deal of havoc, my dear. But I suppose that was the point. A nice big diversion to draw every constable in the gatehouse to the Citadel whilst you and Tinkerer sneak out through the tunnels.” Her gaze shifted to the slender artificer, narrowing in consideration. “What’s so special about him anyway?”

“He’s worth a lot to my employer,” Lizanne said. “Anyone assisting me in securing his safe passage from Scorazin will be handsomely compensated.”

“Which means I may have need of him.” The Electress’s fingers flexed on her cudgel, her wide mouth forming a smile. “But not you.”

“You need me to get you out.”

Atalina surprised her with a laugh before replying in a precise, almost sympathetic tone. It reminded Lizanne of those card-players who enjoyed enumerating the mistakes of less expert opponents. “You silly, ignorant bitch. Didn’t it occur to you that the Emperor’s architects might have anticipated this? All the constables have to do is raise one sluice gate and the river will flood the tunnels. You were never getting out of here, and now half my people are dead.” The Electress stepped closer, the smile fading from her lips as her eyes grew bright in anticipation. “So, as I was saying, I don’t need you. And any day I get to kill a Blood-blessed is a good one. It’s thanks to fuckers like you I’m in here.”

“I can silence the cannon,” Lizanne said, raising her voice so the onlooking Furies above could hear. “With the cannon gone the breach will be open, everyone will have a chance to escape.”

She saw the onlookers stir at this, gazes previously filled with grim enjoyment of her imminent demise now lighting with fresh hope.

“The nearest Imperial garrison is less than two days’ march from Scorazin,” Lizanne went on, voice raised even louder. “And you can bet that a messenger will already be galloping towards them with a call for reinforcements. You know what will happen when they get here. Open rebellion cannot be tolerated. Our lives mean nothing, the Emperor can always find more slaves for his mines. We either escape or we die.”

She met the Electress’s gaze, seeing a lust for retribution vie with the career criminal’s ingrained instinct for survival. “You’ve done impressive things in here,” Lizanne told her, lowering her voice. “Think what you could do out there.”

It took over two hours to gather what remained of the gangs and other survivors persuaded or coerced into taking part in this desperate gamble. Chuckling Sim and Varkash had both survived the initial massacre, along with about two-thirds of their affiliated members. King Coal, however, hadn’t been so lucky. By all accounts the Scuttlers’ leader had met his end in surprisingly heroic, if typically enraged, fashion, hurling himself into the advancing line of constables armed only with a half brick. It seemed Kevozan had managed to crush the skulls of no less than three constables before a volley of rifle fire ripped him apart from groin to chest. Lacking an obvious successor, the Scuttlers had fragmented into several loosely organised subgroups. Luckily, they hadn’t required much persuasion before agreeing to lend their strength to the Electress’s proposal. Neither had the Verdigris nor the Wise Fools for that matter, Chuckling Sim and Varkash both displaying a fatalistic awareness of their current predicament.

“We were all on borrowed time from the moment we came through the gate,” Sim said with a shrug before favouring Lizanne with one of his overly florid bows. “I should thank this gracious lady for at least offering a chance to breathe clean air once more, however slender.”

Varkash’s response had been less eloquent, voiced in his nasal twang that now seemed markedly less comical. “A short death is bedder dan a long one.”

The pragmatism of the criminal element, however, was not shared by those of a more political mind-set.

“Corporate whore!” Helina’s left arm was constrained by a sling, but her right was both unharmed and possessed of an impressive strength and swiftness. She flew at Lizanne with knife in hand, obliging her to dodge aside but not before the blade had sliced open the sleeve of her overalls, leaving an inch-long cut on the flesh beneath. The diminutive woman’s fury was such that it took several moments for Demisol and the two other surviving radicals to subdue her.

“Better get a leash on her,” the Electress advised as Helina continued to thrash in her comrades’ grip, spitting expletive-laden invective at Lizanne all the while.

“Lying, profiteering cunt!”

“You must admit she has a point,” Atalina said to Lizanne before stepping forward and driving a meaty fist into Helina’s midriff, which left her retching on the floor.

“Rest assured I share your sentiments,” the Electress said, stepping back to address the radicals as one. “But we have little option but to trust this one.” She nodded at Lizanne with a humourless smile. “Lying cunt though she is.”

Demisol crouched at Helina’s side, gathering her small form into a protective embrace. He shot a hate-filled glare at Lizanne before turning to the Electress. “What do you need from us?”

“A distraction,” Lizanne said. “Do you have any explosives left?”

The Citadel resembled a cake which had been attacked by a greedy giant. Tinkerer’s bomb had carved out a twelve-foot-wide breach in the wall as well as demolishing much of the inner structure all the way to the main gate. Lizanne could just make out the huge barrier through the gloomy crevice, less than three hundred yards away. With the guns still in place it might as well have been a thousand. After their first sally the constables had retreated into a tight perimeter around the base of the citadel, crouching behind rubble piled into a barricade and firing at any inmates who dared show themselves in the streets. The intervening ground was liberally dotted with corpses, victims of the constables’ homicidal frenzy as they beat back the first disorganised rush of would-be escapees.

“Stay close to the Electress,” Lizanne told Tinkerer. “If anyone is likely to make it through the gate alive, it’s her.”

They crouched together in the remains of a house opposite the breach. The building had taken the brunt of the constables’ cannon fire, providing some useful piles of shattered brick for cover. It was late evening now and the shadows were growing long. Torches fluttered atop the barricade and the raised walls flanking the breach. Lizanne watched Tinkerer complete the modifications to the only bomb remaining from the supply she had provided to the Learned Damned. She kept hoping to hear the tumult of confusion heralding the Brotherhood’s assault on the outer keep, but so far there had been no sign of their arrival. She could only conclude the assault had already been launched and the Brotherhood defeated or, for reasons unknown, they hadn’t yet arrived. In either case, it was obvious she couldn’t rely on that particular diversion now.

“To clarify your meaning,” Tinkerer replied, not looking up as his deft hands did their work, “you have calculated your own odds of survival as minimal.”

Lizanne ignored his observation, taking Julesin’s wallet from her pocket and extracting all three vials. “There may be friends of mine waiting on the other side,” she said. “Members of The Co-respondent Brotherhood. Make yourself known to a man of military bearing named Arberus. He’ll be the tallest one among them. He will convey you to my employers.”

“Your tone indicates a suspicion this man may no longer be alive. In which case what course am I to follow?”

“Make your way to an Ironship holding by whatever means necessary. When you do, report to the company offices and tell them you have information for Director Bloskin. Mentioning my name will probably expedite matters.”

“I do not know your name.”

“Lizanne Lethridge.” She concentrated her gaze on the barricade, judging the best angle of attack. “Pleased to meet you.”

“A name shared by the inventor of the thermoplasmic engine,” Tinkerer said. She detected a rare animation to his voice, a slight upturn in tone that could indicate he was actually impressed. “A relative of yours, perhaps?”

“My father, though he let my grandfather take the credit. It’s a long and tedious story, best saved for another time.” She turned to him, seeing the paleness of his complexion beneath the pall of dust. He’s terrified. She almost laughed at the realisation, having thought such base emotion beyond him. “Do you have a name?” she asked. “A real one.”

“‘Boy’ when I was small. ‘Tinkerer’ when I grew.”

“I’m afraid that simply won’t do in civilised company. We’ll need to think of something else when time allows.” She turned back towards the Citadel, removing the stoppers from the vials. “When you’re ready,” she said, putting all three vials to her lips.

Tinkerer tightened a screw on the bomb’s carapace and held it out it to her. “Three-second fuse.”

She swallowed about half the vials’ contents in a single gulp, fighting down the resultant wave of nausea at the acrid taste and the instant ache the substandard dilutions birthed in her skull. Despite the product’s lack of refinement, its potency couldn’t be denied, her body seeming to thrum as the Green flooded through muscle and sinew, bringing a much-missed focus to her eyes. She took the bomb from Tinkerer’s outstretched hand, primed the fuse and hurled it at the barricade, the Green providing sufficient range to ensure it fell just beyond the barrier.

She heard a few shouts of alarm from the constables as the bomb landed in their midst, accompanied by some panicked firing in expectation of an imminent assault. The firing intensified when the bomb detonated, not with a blinding explosion but a dull boom. The smoke blossomed immediately, the result of a chemical concoction Tinkerer had derived from a mix of sulphur, salt and steamed milk. The yellow cloud soon covered about half the barricade’s length, proving sufficiently dense to obscure the barrier from view, though Lizanne knew it would last only a few seconds.

“Remember, stay close to the Electress,” she repeated before drawing her knife and vaulting over the ruined wall. She covered the distance to the barricade in the space of a few heart-beats. The smoke would have blinded her but for the Green in her veins, and the constables were not so fortunate. Some were coughing and stumbling about in confusion, others firing wildly into the haze. She leapt the barricade, killed the nearest constable with a single slash of her knife, the force of the blow sending him spinning like a top, blood spraying from the gaping rent in his neck. A rifle-bullet snapped the air an inch from Lizanne’s ear and she whirled, lashing out with a round-house kick that sent the rifleman reeling.

She paused to finish him with the knife then took up his rifle, holding it by the barrel as she moved through the swirling yellow mist, clubbing down four more constables in quick succession until the weapon broke in two and she tossed it aside. The smoke had begun to thin now, revealing the breach and the walls on either side. The gun-crews were busily readying their pieces, Lizanne recognising the cylindrical shells being double-loaded into the barrels.

She chose the gun on the right and sprinted for the wall, leaping high and latching onto the brickwork before scaling the remaining distance in a rapid scramble that denuded much of her Green. A gunner appeared at the top of the wall just as she reached it, eyes wide with terror as he levelled a revolver at her chest. He was just out of arm’s reach so she resorted to Black, plucking the revolver from his grip before unleashing a pulse that sent him flying backwards into the rest of the crew. She opened her hand to receive the stolen revolver and exhausted her remaining Green in eliminating the gun-crew, enhanced reflexes and vision combining to put a bullet in each gunner’s forehead in less than four seconds.

She ducked at the sound of a barked command to her rear, bullets whining over her head to smack into the walls and the bodies of the fallen constables. Lizanne turned to see four gunners on the other side of the breach reloading their rifles. Beyond them a sergeant and two others were desperately manoeuvring their gun towards her. Lizanne turned her gaze to the gun standing a few feet to her right, an aged but serviceable six-pounder freshly loaded with two canister shells and a fuse already pressed into the firing port. She used her Black to push it around, raising the trail of the carriage to depress the barrel before unleashing a thin stream of Red to light the fuse.

The recoil sent the gun careening backwards with sufficient force to buckle its carriage and leave it lying on its side, but not before it had fired its payload directly at the other gun-crew. Lizanne got to her feet as the smoke cleared, finding that the other gun was intact, whilst what remained of its crew had been decorated onto the surrounding brickwork.

A great roar drew her gaze to the city in time to see what appeared to be its entire population rushing from the ruins. The Electress was in the lead with Anatol at her side and the surviving Furies at their backs. They were flanked by the Verdigris and the Wise Fools, clubs and makeshift spears waving and every throat voicing a cry so rich in blood-lust Lizanne found it pained her ears. Behind the three main gangs came the Scuttlers, their ranks swollen by the minor gangs plus those midden-pickers and mud-slingers who retained sufficient vitality to run.

The horde swept across the open ground like a dark tide, apparently immune to the bullets cast at it by the surviving constables, overwhelming the barricade in an unstoppable frenzy of rage and desperation. Those constables not killed instantly tried to run but were soon swallowed by the mob and torn to pieces. Within a few moments the barricade had disappeared, Lizanne seeing the impaled heads of several constables held aloft in jubilation as the river of unwashed criminality flowed through the breach and on towards the gate.

Lizanne paused to retrieve the revolver’s holster and ammunition from the body of its owner before drinking a large dose of Green. After clambering down into the now-densely-packed throng below she was obliged to force her way through to the gate, shoving numerous inmates aside and being none-too-gentle about it. Her way became easier when constables appeared in the exposed walkways above and began to assail the crowd with rifle fire. Screams of pain and outrage rose as a dozen or more inmates fell to the first volley. In response many streamed into the corridors and doorways laid open by the Tinkerer’s bomb, an animalistic cacophony echoing through the hallways as they hunted down the riflemen and exacted bestial revenge. Several uniformed bodies landed in Lizanne’s path as she continued her journey to the gate.

She paused for a second at the sight of one constable’s body, lying in a twisted tangle atop another corpse clad in unusually dapper clothing. She hauled the constable’s body aside, revealing Chuckling Sim’s bleached and frozen features. A bullet had removed much of his upper skull but somehow his lips had contrived to retain some vestige of a grin even in death. The resultant flare of guilt was a surprise; the man had been scum after all. Like Melina, and the Learned Damned and every other wretch deservedly consigned to this place. But still the guilt lingered as she pressed on. Scum or not, they would have lived if she hadn’t come here.

A dense knot of inmates assailed the gate, the tree-sized cross-bar and huge iron hinges groaning under the pressure, but as yet showing no signs of giving. She found the Electress alongside Anatol and Varkash at the fore of the throng and was gratified to see Tinkerer had followed her orders and stayed at the Electress’s side. His face remained as blank as ever, though there was a brightness to his eyes that told of unabated terror.

“Heave you fuckers!” Atalina yelled, pressing her own bulk against the door, the others all following suit. The huge barrier bowed under the weight of so many bodies, but once again failed to break.

“Move back!” Lizanne shouted, shouldering her way through the crowd. “I need room.”

“Hoped you were dead by now,” the Electress said, stepping back from the gate. Lizanne noted she had one hand firmly clamped onto Tinkerer’s arm. A prize not to be given up lightly. She also noted that Anatol still had his cross-bow. “She played her part,” he said, moving to the side and unslinging the cross-bow, blocky features hard with grief and a deep desire for retribution.

Seeing little point in discussion, Lizanne used Black to force the weapon up so that the bolt jabbed into the underside of Anatol’s chin. His slab-like features twitched as he glowered at her, a thin trickle of blood staining the steel tip of the cross-bow bolt. “I’m sorry about Melina,” Lizanne told him, hoping he could hear the sincerity in her voice. “But we have no time for this.”

From outside came a tumult of gun-shots and raised voices, indicating that the Brotherhood had finally arrived to launch their assault. Judging by the intensity of the cacophony, it appeared they were facing much stiffer resistance than expected.

We’re running out of time, she thought, releasing Anatol and retreating a few steps. Too big to shatter or burn, she decided, raising her gaze to the giant cross-bar above then reaching once more for Julesin’s vials. She drank all but a small drop of the remaining Black, gritting her teeth against the queasy growl it birthed in her gut, then focused her gaze on the cross-bar. The first controlled release of power raised the bar barely a foot before it slammed back into place. Lizanne focused on one end of the bar and unleashed all the Black at once, the huge slab of timber tilting to the left then slowly sliding through the massive iron brackets before falling away, inmates scurrying clear as it tumbled to earth, scattering dust and rubble.

For a moment no one moved, all staring at Lizanne or the unbarred gate as if unable to comprehend the simple and obvious fact of their liberation.

Lizanne drew her revolver and strode forward, pressing her shoulder to the gate. “Best if you tell your people to gather all the rifles they can,” she told the Electress. “There’ll be more fighting to do outside.”

CHAPTER 33

Sirus

“Dinish-kahr,” Sirus repeated the name aloud, enjoying the novelty of hearing his own voice after such a long period of silence. “And the literal meaning?”

The Spoiled warrior regarded him with a flat gaze, not exactly hostile, but hardly welcoming either. Even within this army of joined minds differences persisted, social and cultural loyalties lingering among the transformed, and none more so than the tribal contingent. Sirus could share their memories at will, as they could share his, save for those he had learned to hide deep within himself. Despite this connection the indigenous Arradsians remained largely an enigma. Without context or a more fundamental understanding of their language and customs, the memories he took from them were often little more than a mish-mash of image and sensation containing no clue as to their significance.

“I know you understand me,” Sirus reminded the warrior when he failed to respond verbally, instead conveying another enigmatic image from his memory, dark, capering figures silhouetted against a roaring fire. “Speak.” Sirus underlined the command with a mental reminder of his authority. It was only a brief image of the White in flight but it tended to have a dramatic effect on the tribals.

The warrior spoke Varsal in slow deliberate tones, as if worried he might mispronounce the words, even though they were near perfect, albeit coloured by a lower-class Morsvale accent.

“Flame-dancer.”

“This is your name?”

The warrior’s thoughts betrayed fearful confusion, indicating the question was beyond his understanding. “Sirus is my name.” Sirus patted his chest then pointed to the tribal. “Your name is Dinish-kahr? You are Flame-dancer?”

“Dinish-kahr.” A glimmer of understanding rose in the warrior’s mind as he mimicked Sirus’s gesture then pointed at a group of fellow tribals standing near by. They all wore similar clothing, garishly decorated armour of hardened leather Sirus knew to be typical of the plains tribes, another example of cultural distinctiveness that continued to resist the unifying effects of their transformation. “Dinish-kahr,” the warrior repeated as he pointed. “They are Flame-dancer.” He stopped pointing then patted his chest again. “I am Flame-dancer.”

Sirus glanced at the other tribals who all stood with heads tilted as they viewed the conversation, spined brows creasing in puzzlement. “You are all Flame-dancer,” he realised. “You do not have individual names.”

He sensed a new understanding take hold in the warrior’s mind at that moment, the fellow issuing a grunt and stepping back, his slitted eyes narrowing. You didn’t know there was such a thing as an individual name? Sirus enquired, slipping into non-verbal communication. Did you?

The warrior grunted again, his hand tightening on his war-club. His fellow tribals stirred in concert, hostility flaring in their minds.

The gift of knowledge is not always welcome, boy.

Sirus turned as Morradin strolled clear of the trees, a rifle slung over his shoulder as he dragged the corpse of a small deer behind him. Best leave the savages alone, lest you attract the ire of our White god. I think he prefers them as they are, don’t you?

Sirus withdrew his thoughts from the warrior with a pulse of gratitude. The tribal failed to reciprocate, Sirus feeling him striving to close his mind as he returned to his companions. The group of tribals cast uneasy glances at Sirus as they retreated into the jungle. Like most of the indigenous contingent they preferred to live in their own groups at a remove from the main camps.

Might be the last one of these buggers left on this rock, Morradin commented, dumping the deer carcass next to his camp-fire. It had been a familiar story with every island they took, an abundance of game quickly denuded by so many hungry mouths. Since the fall of the King’s Cradle they had begun a westward expansion of the White’s dominions, taking six large islands in quick succession. The loss of their Blood-blessed king seemed to have had a demoralising and divisive effect on the Islanders. Individual settlements still resisted fiercely, many with modern arms provided by the Ironship Protectorate. But the disciplined and well-organised opposition they had faced at the Cradle was gone. Without appropriate training and tactics to make the best use of their weapons they could only delay the inevitable. Consequently, the White’s army had soon made good its losses and begun to swell its ranks, despite the efforts of the Maritime Protectorate.

“Another bombardment this morning,” he told Morradin, speaking in Varsal as a deliberate jab at the marshal’s undiminished snobbery. “A sortie by three frigates against the encampments on the northern shore, all blood-burners. We lost nearly a hundred Spoiled until the Blues chased them off.”

“I’m aware,” Morradin replied in pointed Eutherian. “Nuisance raids only. If they were smart they’d cram every soldier in the Protectorate onto their fleet and send them to crush us. Instead they seek to moderate their expenses in the vain hope the Islanders will do the job for them. Typical corporate thinking.”

Sirus detected an undercurrent of unease in the marshal’s thoughts. Since his conversion Morradin had developed an ability to shield his mind from all but the most persistent intrusion, employing the mental discipline and rigidly organised mind of a career soldier to impressive effect. But even he couldn’t suppress every emotion, especially his fears which Sirus found to be surprisingly potent for such a celebrated hero of the empire. Latching onto the unease, Sirus tried to probe further, stripping away the surface feelings of undimmed hatred of his continued enslavement to catch a glimpse of the deeper sensations beneath. He managed to capture only one image before Morradin clamped down on his thoughts with a snarl of rage.

“Who do you imagine you are, boy?” he grated, Sirus finding himself staring into the barrel of a revolver. Morradin’s voice quivered with anger but his arm, and the pistol, remained steady. The marshal’s emotions were raging now, ego-stoked fires of indignation burning so bright Sirus almost expected smoke to start pouring from his flared nostrils. “I have flogged men to death with my own hand for the merest flicker of insolence,” Morradin continued in a strangled whisper. “And yet you paw at me with your filthy, vulgarian mind and expect no punishment . . .”

That’s enough now, Mr. Marshal.

Sirus followed Morradin’s gaze as it flicked to the right, finding Katrya standing with a rifle at her shoulder, the barrel levelled at the marshal’s head. Sirus’s entire company of two hundred Spoiled were falling in on either side of her, all raising their rifles to aim at the same target. Sirus felt a murmur ripple through the camp as the sudden discord spread from mind to mind. For a moment there was a swirl of uncertainty as each individual calculated their allegiance. Some former soldiers retained an ingrained sense of loyalty towards their one-time commander, but it was a grudging, resentful attachment to servile custom many were quick to discount. Amongst the Morsvale townspeople there was no such sentiment, long-held grievances and detestation of the Imperial yoke bubbling to the fore with rising heat. The Islanders, of course, had no sympathy of any kind for the marshal whilst the tribals regarded the whole episode with a confused indifference. Despite the joining of thousands of minds, it took less than a second for the decision to be reached and the decision was unambiguous. The army had chosen a new general.

Morradin staggered as the collective will bore down, groaning in pain as he slumped to his knees, the pistol slipping from his grip.

Kill him, darling, Katrya told Sirus, her mind shining with pride and exultation. She came to his side, proffering her rifle. What use is he now, anyway?

A shadow fell on them then, large enough to blot the sun as great wings beat the air to raise dust into a dense fog. As one the army subsided to its knees, forced into subservience by a will far greater than their own, bodies and minds seized by a vise of all-consuming fear. To his surprise Sirus found he had been spared and so stood staring up at the hovering form of the White, rendered black against the midday sun. Although the White had somehow contrived to exclude him from the wave of terror that laid his comrades low, Sirus was not immune to fear. The intoxicating rush of alarm that had seized him during his confrontation with the Shaman King returned now to birth a tremble in his limbs, though he managed to keep his eyes raised, unwilling to succumb to any craven inclination in what he fully expected to be his last moments.

He could feel the White’s displeasure, poised like an executioner’s blade, but coloured once again by the familiar sense of frustration. The small creatures under its sway were once again proving troublesome and it didn’t understand why. Sirus grunted in disgust as the beast’s mind touched his own, rummaging through memory and sensation with clumsy violence, soon fixating on his various interactions with Morradin, each one soured by mutual antagonism. The White issued a faint hiss that might have been a sigh, or another expression of annoyance, before withdrawing its intrusion from Sirus’s mind. It paused for a moment and Sirus experienced a wave of confusion as it forced its thoughts into a comprehensible query, its attention now firmly fixed on Morradin’s cowering form.

Still . . . useful?

The temptation to provide a negative reply was strong. Morradin was not a man who improved upon prolonged acquaintance and if this situation had been in any way normal Sirus would have felt scant regret at the man’s death. But then, for all his faults, he and Morradin shared the same ignominy, and slaves could not revolt if they succumbed to disunity. He buried the rebellious notion by summoning a fresh wave of fear. Of all the various tricks he used to shield his mind, the Shaman’s final gift was proving the most effective.

Useful, he confirmed to the White. His mind is . . . unique. Feeling the White’s anger rise as it failed to grasp the unfamiliar concept Sirus went on quickly. He has strategies, knowledge that will bring victory.

The White hung in the air a moment longer, its wings maintaining a steady, majestic rhythm as its eyes glowed bright in the blank silhouette of its form. Victory, its voice repeated in Sirus’s mind, accompanying the word with an image, the same image Sirus had plucked from Morradin’s mind only moments before: an archipelago, the islands small clusters of green amid a vast blue sea, as if viewed from a great distance and considerable height. Sirus had never visited these islands but they were familiar to anyone who had ever viewed a map of the world. The Tyrell Islands, where the entire might of the Ironship Maritime Protectorate has gathered to oppose us.

Victory, the White repeated a final time before twisting its huge body about and flying away.

“Trying to break through the Protectorate fleet will be suicide.” Since his loss of status Morradin insisted on communicating verbally, and then only in Eutherian. He kept his thoughts under tight control, allowing only rare bursts of outright hatred to escape his shields, much of it directed at Sirus. “Those confounded repeating guns of theirs will cut us to pieces,” he went on. “And you can bet they’ve been busily manufacturing as many as possible since they lost their Arradsian holdings.”

In the days since his elevation to army commander Sirus had formed the host’s most astute minds into an ad hoc General Staff. His deduction that individuality was not overthrown by conversion had been proved correct. An unprejudiced search through the network of conjoined minds revealed some that shone like stars in a clouded sky. Consequently his staff was a surprisingly disparate group. A junior engineering professor from Morsvale Imperial College sat alongside an artillery sergeant who took evident satisfaction from his former general’s diminished circumstances. The flogging the man had received as a boy soldier was often at the forefront of his thoughts. Next to him sat a robust woman of middling years who had run a dock-side tavern for the previous two decades, amassing a considerable fortune in smuggling revenue in the process. At her side sat a scrawny Islander girl a little over fourteen years in age who had somehow nurtured a remarkable gift for mathematics despite an upbringing devoid of formal education. The final member of this group was the most surprising, a veteran tribal warrior of impressive stature who stood apart from the others with his gaze averted. His sparse garb revealed him to be a member of one of the jungle tribes, all sharing a name which Sirus approximated as meaning Forest Spear. Unlike his indigenous brethren this man exhibited a growing understanding of his new comrades, his thoughts displaying a remarkable facility for language and a keen-eyed perception. However, the fellow’s lifelong attachment to his tribal culture lingered like a dark cloud in his mind and each new insight was accompanied by a flare of guilt, as if enlightenment equated to blasphemy.

“The Blues can keep them bottled up in the harbour,” Sirus said, speaking in Eutherian as a sop to Morradin’s continued pique. It had been tempting to heap yet more humiliation on him, but he suspected it would prove counter-productive. He would need to succour all allies, however vile, if they were ever to escape this curious and terrible bondage. For now, however, the White’s desire for victory was a constant ache, dispelling all other considerations.

And the Reds can attack from the air, the artillery sergeant added, summoning a map of the islands from memory. Whilst our fleet lands the army on the beaches to the west.

“Our mighty fleet,” Morradin rasped, allowing his scorn to colour his thoughts, “is a rag-bag collection of merchant ships and barges. The Protectorate will be bound to have at least one flotilla patrolling the approaches to the islands. The Blues and Reds could see them off, to be sure, but the cost will be high and our White god is jealous of the lives of his fellow drakes. Even assuming we can break through their cordon, by the time it’s done the full weight of the Protectorate High Seas Fleet will be bearing down on us, all bristling with repeating cannon.”

A new thought crept into their collective, a faint image slipping from the mind of Forest Spear with reluctant insistence: a trio of Green drakes creeping through tall grass towards a solitary Green feasting on the carcass of some unfortunate animal. Sirus watched as the trio moved closer to the Green whereupon they stood up as one, the scaly hides falling away to reveal tribal warriors holding bows. They loosed their arrows in unison, the shafts sinking into the head of the Green, which flailed about for a time, casting flames which set the long grass ablaze.

Forest Spear let the image fade before sharing a final thought: To kill a thing, become that thing.

Sirus replayed the tribal’s memory several times before turning to Morradin once more. “Where would you expect the Protectorate to launch their next raid?”