Stephen Hunt - The rise of the Iron Moon

Duncan Connor swung out of the craft followed by the two shifties and Lord Rooksby, the latter strangely reluctant to examine the landscape for all of his protestations of the right to command their expedition.

'How does this compare to the deserts of Cassarabia?' Molly asked Duncan.

'The scale of things was a wee bit more humble in the caliphate,' noted the uplander. He was standing with his back to the canyon and staring towards the carving. The great face of Kaliban rose out of the dunes, as high as a mountain that had been levelled straight by the hand of gods.

Interesting, thought Molly. You could only see the features of the face from above, but the angular rise of a thousand flat terraces, some as tall as Middlesteel's pneumatic towers, demonstrated that the carving was no freak of geology.

'An idol, sir, of the natives' gods,' said Lord Rooksby, dismissively.

Molly shook her head. 'Those terraces used to be hanging gardens, I think, and this desert a great forest. There hasn't been water to run through its sluices and waterfalls for many hundreds of years.'

So strange. Seeing all this for the first time, but not for the first time. Everything carried with it the strangest sense of deja vu and it wasn't even hers.

'Pah, it shows very little sophistication,' said Lord Rooksby. 'Compared to the noble proportions of Jackelian architecture such a barbarous carbuncle only demonstrates the superiority of the race of man.'

'I disagree with your conclusions,' said Keyspierre. The Quatershiftian handed his daughter a folding telescope that he had secured from the supply crates. 'It was clearly a high civilization, and that we stand here in the ruins of their world certainly does not bode well for our mission to uncover our invaders' supposed weaknesses.'

'The people must persevere,' said Jeanne, clasping her fist to her chest. No doubt one of the many sayings parroted by the children of the revolution.

'There is no other course,' agreed Keyspierre.

Molly indicated the carving's lee side, to the west. 'That's where the last great city of Kaliban lies. Half a day's walk from here.'

'Does it have a name?' asked Duncan.

Molly's head was throbbing more than ever with the weight of memories. 'Iskalajinn. Not that the locals speak it with their lips, only up here.' She tapped the side of her head. 'It is the Kal word for the end of all dreams.'

'Ah, lass,' said the commodore. 'I have no trouble speaking my mind, but I've never talked with my mind before. I'll happily paint my face blue, but the first time I talk with my thirsty lips I'll give the game away.'

'Blue face or no, you'd only ever pass for a Kal in the dark of night,' said Molly. 'You're far too tall and broad. You too, Duncan. There are no Kals with muscles like yours. You'll have to keep watch on the city from outside.'

'And I presume I would be correct in thinking there are no steammen on Kaliban, Molly softbody?' asked Coppertracks.

Molly shook her head, sadly. 'I don't think the Army of Shadows' masters trust the life metal. They prefer their slaves organic and pliable. You should stay here with the ship.'

Duncan shook his head. 'I'm the only one who knows how to survive in a desert, lassie, and there's a good reason why Cassarabians travel in caravans across the sands. It's how you stay alive. We go together. Me, the old steamer and the commodore will hole up outside the city. Close enough to come and get you if you're discovered.'

And that left the three people she least wanted to infiltrate the last stronghold of the Army of Shadows on Kaliban with. Rooksby and the two shifties, none of whom showed any inclination to trust the instincts she had inherited from Kyorin. She barely trusted them herself, thanks to the unforeseen canyon they had nearly tumbled into. But right now, the runaway slave's decaying ghost was all they had to keep the expedition alive in the heart of the enemy's fastness.

Of all of the expedition members, Molly quickly realized that Duncan Connor demonstrated the most proficiency at moving through the fine soft sands in the white robes that Molly had dredged from Kyorin's memories and had made up in Middlesteel. There seemed to be a knack to travelling across the sands in a steady way without letting your boots be sucked down – without making each step a struggle to withdraw the sole. But then, Connor of Cassarabia had surely gained enough practice during the years when he had earnt that moniker. He had told them the Cassarabian name for the fine, sapping dunes they were wading over; melah. One of at least fifty names the warring, fractious tribes he had held the southern frontier against possessed for sand. And Duncan's knowledge stretched to more practical purposes, too. Tying up the belts and laces of the undulating white robes was second nature to him, leaving mere strips of blue-dyed skin visible under their headscarves.

Only Coppertracks moved without the protection of the Kal sand-traveller's garb. But then there was no disguising his iron body, and his two wide caterpillar tracks seemed far better suited to skimming across the sands than the long legs of the race of man. Each hour of travelling brought the colossal carving closer, rising higher and higher above them until the sun rotating through the purple sky dropped the face's shadow across them. The last inhabited city of Kaliban had been positioned so that its streets would be sheltered in the carving's shade at the full height of the midday sun. Now they were given the same protection from the rays of the furnace heat.

'Perhaps I should have stayed with the ship,' said Coppertracks. 'My hull is too burnished. I glint in the daylight for any scout of the Army of Shadows to see.'

And Starsprite's pleas had been so intense and plaintive, begging for company – so soon after her abandonment by her mother. But the young craft was as hidden as she could be and a great deal safer than any of the rest of them. They would be back, if they survived. Unless they convinced the Army of Shadows to build another cannon for them, the looking-glass gate stored inside Starsprite's hull was their sole way home.

As the expedition members moved towards the last city of the Kals, from time to time they would stumble over something partially hidden by the sands. An ancient reminder that Kaliban had been a very different place before its occupation by the Army of Shadows. It was in such a find that Molly left Coppertracks, Duncan and the commodore: a cracked-open dome, empty and half swamped by sand. But it would serve as shelter from the dust devils that whipped across the surface of the land, as well as the hunts of the slat patrols.

'Molly,' called Commodore Black. 'How long are we to leave you before we come looking for you?'

'We'll be back in two or three days at most,' said Molly. 'Stay here and mount a sentry. The slats prefer to patrol at night and Kyorin has memories of other things in the desert, experiments of the Army of Shadows' womb mages that have been released to exterminate the free Kal.'

Both Rooksby and the two shifties bridled at leaving behind their pistols from the supply crates, but Molly insisted. Kals did not own such things, nor would they have used them if they did. Nothing would give them away more quickly than if they were found carrying weapons.

The remaining four members of the expedition approached Iskalajinn at twilight, the sun setting behind the carving, revealing a glass-slag sprawl nestling against the rise of the face of Kaliban, low buildings spilling across the sea of dunes and then rising high on terraces set against the carving. The light of the furnace sky was slowly replaced by a green shimmer from the emerald geodesic domes of the Army of Shadows that rose on the far side of their slave city of tenements, thousands of hexagonal panels shining like insect eyes ripped from the skull of a mantis. Molly had a sense that the Kals were almost never allowed inside the comfort of the domes – and if they were, they were even more rarely ever seen again. But the thoughts bubbling out of Kyorin's memories suggested that he believed that there were gardens inside, running waters and a climate far more agreeable than the dire oven that their slaves laboured in. The Kals' whitewashed habitations were built of a quartz-like material, extracted by chemically processing the sand and moulded in blocks of narrow streets to protect against the sun, each dwelling topped by a long curved wind tower designed to funnel the slightest of winds down to the rooms inside and cool them.