Stephen Hunt - Secrets of the Fire Sea

'Spare us your cant, lad,' said the commodore. 'You're doing this for politics, not for the people here.'

'Nobody's hands are clean, dear boy,' said the ambassador. 'Especially not yours. What do you think our houses needed all those transaction engines for? Why do you think our last archduchess was willing to give a ship of the Purity Queen's reputation a trading licence?'

Hannah's heart sank. So much processing power. Enough, perhaps, to approach the power of the transaction-engine vaults of the guild, if not the sophistication of the guild's valve-based engines. 'You were modelling the flows of the Fire Sea.'

'Safe passage through the magma,' smiled Ortin urs Ortin. 'For the greatest war fleet our nation has ever raised.'

Commodore Black's eyes blazed in anger, but Hannah could only shake her head in disgust. How long had Jago's neighbour on the other side of the Fire Sea been planning this holy war of theirs? As she pondered, a figure she recognized came striding out of a gate opened in the battlements. The First Senator's pet, Stom urs Stom.

The head of the free company fighters marched up to the survivors of the expedition and her eyes widened when she saw the lead tabernacle retrieved by the ambassador. 'The Divine Quad has smiled upon you, my ambassador.'

There was a light in those eyes, Hannah realized, a light that had been well hidden before. The glare of a fanatic.

'Just so, my captain,' said the ambassador. 'I have seen such things out in the wilderness. The ruin of paradise. The words of the scripture are true, all of them. How long have our forces been camped here?'

'A day only.'

'I did not anticipate quite so much activity on the surface,' said the ambassador, looking across their camped legions.

'The tug service jammed the lifting rooms on the seabed. We weren't able to enter the harbour with the fleet. It is only a small set-back.' Stom urs Stom indicated her forces massing in front of the wall. 'We have taken the coral line; we have taken the city wall and secured all the gun emplacements protecting the capital. The Jagonese have no reply to our cannons except a few police militia pistols and rifles on the slopes of the mountain. With all the airshafts under our control on the surface we can drop down into the city vaults at any point, as we will.'

Ortin looked up at the Horn of Jago. 'You have troops enough to assault the slopes?'

'Only a few scared policemen shelter behind the stained glass windows,' said the officer triumphantly. 'Without even the counsel of their leaders now that the head of the snake has been decapitated.'

'Traitor!' shouted Hannah. 'Traitor to the oath of the free company.'

'Keep her quiet,' snapped Stom. 'Or I will cut out her tongue.'

'These are no mere free company fighters,' said Ortin urs Ortin. 'During my years in the Kingdom of Jackals I played my own small part in that ruse. Paying corrupt pensmen working on the Kingdom's newssheets to plant false stories concerning the exploits of the continent's most successful band of ursine mercenaries. The free company's activities were legendary, making them the natural choice for the First Senator to hire when he decided to engage his own private army to cling onto power.'

'You're a clever fellow,' said the commodore, 'taking by subterfuge what you could not take by force.'

'Not bad for a savage, you mean, old fruit? Not bad for a simple wet-snout? You really shouldn't have underestimated our people so, and the Guild of Valvemen shouldn't have recorded in their archives everything that they read in quite so unquestioning a manner.'

'We are the chosen,' said Stom, proudly pointing to the army's pennants. She growled another word Hannah didn't recognize. 'The bodyguards of the great houses. Shock troops. Our loyalty cannot be questioned. It was just, unfortunately for the Jagonese, never your First Senator's to command.'

'Please don't do this, Ortin,' said Hannah. 'Don't let your people do this. I know that you're not bad, but this terrible thing is not right or rational.'

'It is entirely right, dear girl,' said the ambassador. 'We have the righteousness of the scriptures as well as the weight of the large guns on our side. Your people's time here desecrating our forbidden soil is at an end, and not even your own commoners will mourn your age's end.'

Religion, always religion. Hannah shook her head. This disease was too deep for any other course to run here.

'We don't despise you,' said Stom, watching her soldiers step forward and manacle Hannah and the commodore's hands. 'We pity you. Your forefathers were burnt of their fur for their sins. It is only natural you should be attracted back, but staying here is an offence against the Divine Quad. Your presence on this bitter ground is twisting your people to ruin, soiling your symmetry, until one day you will become demonic enough to call down another Armageddon upon the world.'

'Well, that's mortal big of you to feel sorry on our account,' spat the commodore. 'After you and your traitorous diplomat friend have taken the life of a girl who was under my protection. Someone who had not an ounce of wickedness in her bones, nor any cause against your people.'

'Someone who has sailed the world should not be so naive,' said the ambassador. 'There are always innocent casualties in these affairs, dear boy.'

'I'm always ready to be disappointed, and sure enough the world's always obliged me there,' said the commodore. 'But I'll trade you your pity for your corpse. Toss me a sabre and I'll pit what I've learnt on my voyages against you and your chosen brutes here. Line them up and let's see how well your filthy scripture protects a gang of cowards.'

Stom urs Stom angrily drew her short sword and looked ready to grant the commodore his match, but the ambassador pushed the blade back into her scabbard for her. 'The great houses would much prefer to choose their wars, my dear captain, rather than have them forced upon them. Let's try not to kill any more Jackelians today. Lock these two up in the fleet's brig. After we've captured the Jackelian embassy staff, they will all be given safe passage across to their colonies.'

Hannah coughed as a wave of pungent cannon smoke drifted over them. The Pericurian formations were moving into position to attack the city; perhaps as many soldiers as there were citizens of Hermetica City. Their black leather uniforms were weighed down with ammunition belts, blades and the brass tanks to power their turret rifles. Hannah choked down her despair. And against what? Shoemakers and gondola men, storekeepers and merchants. Many of whom, it was true, would be only too glad to accept their conqueror's offer of passage away from Jago if they survived this war.

Their time here was at an end.

Part of Jethro Daunt knew where he was, shivering inside the cell of the militia fortress, his sleep disturbed by the muffled cries of agony that could be heard at night in any house of correction. And other sounds, too. Otherworldly sounds. Jethro could hear Badger-headed Joseph snuffling around outside the cell door, just as real as the wan light thrown from the single electric lantern in the ceiling.

'Such a disappointment,' snuffled the ancient god. 'Not even brave enough to put your principles to the test. Pushing a little girl out into the darkness just so you wouldn't have to suffer temptation.'

'The frustration in your voice is enough to tell me that I made the rational choice,' Jethro called to the voice behind the cell door.

'What makes you think that yours wasn't exactly the decision we wanted?' growled the ancient god. 'Your young friend hasn't had a good time out there in the wilderness, fiddle-faddle man. Do you think we had to line up behind Bel Bessant and push and prod her into creating the god-formula? No, she saw what the veneration of science over nature leads to, logic over spirit, learning without play, laws without passion.' There was a noise like a shudder of relief. 'And now your young friend's returned cleverer than you. Just like Bel Bessant. Clever enough to see things without the pipe-smoke of your pious humanist humbug. Soon, she won't be looking into the core of humanity for answers; she'll be looking to us. Joining us!'