Stephen Hunt - The rise of the Iron Moon

'I think whatever has been talking to me inside my head has been talking to him, too.'

'Well, I suppose it'd be a blessed release for us if he and Molly did come back early from the House of Guardians, for it'd mean Ben Carl had thrown them out, them and their mad plan for building a cannon to shoot Molly to the moon. I should have made an appointment an hour earlier than theirs, and used the jingle of every medal the First Guardian gave me after the battle of Rivermarsh to convince him to help keep my Molly's precious head safe on the soil of Jackals.'

'How can you say that?' asked Purity. 'You heard what Kyorin said.'

'Ah, the poor blue-skinned traveller. Torn apart and lying bleeding on the floor of Molly's bedroom. He was kind to you and no doubt a fine fellow for all the strange colour of his hide, but I've heard the dying words of a good few souls on my terrible adventures and they rarely make much sense. This wicked Army of Shadows is no doubt from one of the continents north of the polar wastes; I've seen stranger sights than your friend's eyeless monsters in the underwater cities of races such as the gill-necks, and crossed swords with far more wicked creatures in the jungles of Liongeli.'

'Either way,' sighed Purity, 'the Army of Shadows will be here soon enough. The news sheets are full of nothing but our new treaty with Quatershift and the war.'

'The sheep are lying with the wolves now, right enough. And I can think of one shiftie we'd be well rid of to start with.' The commodore pointed towards the window of their library. 'That twitchy devil Timlar Preston, insisting that nothing else but my finest brandies and wines will to do to comfort his genius and lubricate his plans for his damn fool cannon. If there was an agent left to seize the bugger, I would place a notice in the Illustrated's small ads and risk my address to the Court of the Air's rascals in the hope that Timlar Preston wouldn't be sitting in my house come the new day.'

'And in doing so you would be depriving science of one of its greatest minds,' noted Coppertracks, rolling into the courtyard with a couple of his mu-bodies in tow. 'The schematics I have been helping him draft bear as much relation to our current state of gunnery as a child's catapult does to one of your redcoats' rifles.'

'Then perhaps his mad device will be good for lobbing a shell or two towards those slippery-skinned slat creatures in Catosia without me having to get close enough to unload my deck sweeper's eight barrels into their wicked hides.'

'Our cannon's range will stretch a little further than that, dear mammal,' said Coppertracks.

The commodore looked at the box the steamman's drones were bearing. 'More messages from King Steam?'

'Not this time,' said Coppertracks. 'I spent the morning visiting our old friend at Saint Vine's college.' He waved at his drones and they pulled out a series of tomes, laying the books out on a garden bench in the shadow of Tock House's courtyard. 'The college's library is always my first source for mining the depths of historic esoterica.'

Purity was quick to move over to the bench. 'You found something to help me?'

'I promised that I would,' said Coppertracks. 'Your description of your madness, your visions, led me to a very specific period of Jackelian ancient history: the long dark ages following the fall of the Camlantean civilization. The pre-Circlean age, when the Council of Druids and the Stag Lords still ruled Jackals. The legends say that a warrior queen united the tribes and that her royal bloodline held sway until the age of ice, blood that was later to re-emerge as the lineage of the first kings. Your ancestors!'

Purity looked at the drawing inked on ancient vellum, an angular illustration of an armoured woman riding a chariot pulled by lions, her hair wild and spread by the wind. The face! The face was the same as that of the woman whose body she had shared on the ancient beach of shale.

'Elizica!'

'Elizica of the Jackeni,' said Coppertracks. 'There is not much beyond myth that we know of that period of history. What the glaciers of the coldtime didn't erase, you fastbloods did when you burned your books to keep warm, and the majority of tomes that survived the age of ice were later tossed on the fire by the Circlist church for containing too many religious references for your atheist faith's tastes. These manuscripts are copies of copies, the originals made at some personal risk by a heretic monk and buried in a cathedral meditatory.'

'The woman in my dreams really existed then,' said Purity. 'I'm not going mad!'

'Hardly,' said Coppertracks. 'The Steamo Loas are my race's ancestors and it is considered a great blessing to be ridden by the Loas, to be touched by our gods. The steammen's great pattern is not so different from the one sea of consciousness your Circleans put their faith in.'

'What do these books say about her?'

'That she was a great queen who defended Jackals from an invasion by one of the underwater races. The geographic record King Steam's scholars have compiled indicates the Fire Sea was expanding at that time, so there may well have been mass migrations by the underwater kingdoms during Elizica's age; the Kingdom of Jackals with its long coastlines would have been a tempting target for any fleeing refugees.'

Purity traced a curious finger over the raised ink of the bound volume's leather pages. It was warm to the touch, as if the monk who had illuminated the original had leaked his spirit into the illustrations. 'It's beautiful.'

'Myth always is.' Coppertracks opened one of the accompanying volumes – notes by a modern Jackelian academic. 'I dare say the reality was more prosaic. She is linked to the legends of the Bandits of the Marsh, two hundred warriors who were outlaws, fey-born and sworn enemies of the Stag Lords. This volume speculates that Elizica led the Bandits of the Marsh against the underwater invaders, and then overthrew the corrupt Stag Lords who had been making treaties with the occupiers, clearing the way for your Circlist faith to replace the druids' many gods. Monarchy and Circlism, the precursors to Jackals as we know it today – strong enough to survive even the long age of ice that was to follow.'

'A long-dead queen, now,' said Commodore Black. 'What good will she be in this fight that is coming?'

'If the Army of Shadows is composed of the slats that attacked Tock House, the help of any Loa that comes to our aid will, I suspect, be deeply welcome,' said Coppertracks. 'You were with me outside King Steam's command tent when we saw the lions running through the sky.'

'What we saw that day was a projection,' protested the commodore. 'A trick of the mind from the fey.'

'You should have more faith in the power of your land, my softbody friend,' said Coppertracks. 'Whose lions were they, running through the sky? You know the answer – when the kingdom is threatened, it is said the first kings will return from the hills where they sleep, led by a great warrior – a sword-saint. Those lions in the sky gave heart to your army when it seemed as if all was lost. The kingdom was threatened then and it is threatened now.' Coppertracks laid an iron hand on Purity's shoulder. 'And lo, our new house guest hears the whisper of an ancient queen, her life now protected by the Hood-o'the-marsh, the marsh, mind, while something terrible comes upon us from the north.'

The commodore sadly met Purity's gaze. 'That is the way of it, then, lass. I would shoulder this burden of yours if I could. You already on the run from the scoundrels and dogs of parliament. Now you have to hear the whisper of some long-dead queen, too.'

'I don't mind,' said Purity. 'I really don't. All my life I've been treated like an outcast for the fits I suffered – but they helped me escape the Royal Breeding House and now I know them for what they are. Not a madness, but a gift. It's as if I've been suffocating all my life and now I can breathe again.' Tears welled in Purity's eyes. 'I think this is what happiness feels like.'