Mark Newton - The Broken Isles

There was a warehouse at the end with a large double door, on which the number 54 was painted crudely in white. The building was vast and reminded Brynd of some of the industrial fishing units near Port Nostalgia — just like the one in which he and some of the Night Guard had nearly died. It had a gently sloped pyramid-style roof, with ornamentation at the top.

This must be the place, then , Brynd thought as he approached.

He banged three times with the ball of his hand and waited, peering around into the gloom. Then he waited a little longer, watching a dog trot from one side of the street to the other before it disappeared into the darkness.

Eventually, after a clang of bolts, Brynd found himself facing a slender young man in his late teens or early twenties, with short blond hair and a wide smile. He stood a little shorter than Brynd, and was wearing what looked like overalls. His face was smeared with grease.

I’ve come all the way out here for this youth?

‘Hey, it’s the Night Guard commander,’ the lad beamed. ‘Can tell by your eyes. Glad you could join us, man. You got our message, right?’

There was no salute, no signal of respect. ‘Would I be here otherwise?’

‘True, true. Hey, come in, it’s freezing outside.’ He backed away and let Brynd walk in. The door closed with a thud behind, and the young man bolted the door.

‘What’s your name?’ Brynd asked, his voice echoing.

‘Diggsy,’ he replied.

‘Funny-sounding name,’ Brynd said.

‘That’s just what the lads call me. Real name’s Thongar Diggrsen.’

‘I can see why they call you Diggsy.’

‘Hey, you’ve got a sense of humour. Was beginning to think you were all po-faced.’

You would be, if you’d seen what I’d seen, boy.

‘Lead on, Diggsy,’ Brynd gestured. ‘I’m keen to see what all the fuss is about and hope that I haven’t wasted my time traipsing across the city for no good reason.’

‘Right you are.’ Diggsy turned and walked down a dark corridor. Though Brynd could cope with the poor lighting, how Diggsy was finding his way in front of him was a mystery, but the lad seemed to move as if the passage was committed to his memory.

Something didn’t make sense: why was someone so young occupying a factory? Was it his home? The building smelled like a blacksmith’s workshop, of charred materials and molten metal. There was also the tang of cultists down here, too, that weird, unmistakable chemical odour from messing with things people shouldn’t.

‘How long have you been working here?’ Brynd enquired.

‘Now that’s a question,’ Diggsy replied. ‘Way before the war, if that’s what you mean. Pilli’s father was one of those ore-owning types, and she knew this building of his — like quite a few others — wasn’t being used at all. Anyhow, Pilli’s good stock — not like her father — and so this has become our headquarters for the most part.’

‘Headquarters? So are you part of an official order?’

‘Ha, no. Hell no. We don’t like to get involved with other cultists. They can be shitting well poncey if you ask me. All about structures and etiquette and whatever. That’s not our kind of thing — we prefer to live by our own rules, in our gang.’

‘How many are in your. . gang , then?’ Brynd felt the situation was growing increasingly absurd. The way this Diggsy talked, his mannerisms and nonchalance, his references to his social circle, suggested this was all going to be a complete waste of time.

‘Depends on when it is. We lost one in the war. Got the odd seasonal, but that dried up a year back. Oh, watch the corner here — it’s a sharp one.’

‘I see it. You didn’t want to join in the war effort yourself?’ Brynd asked. ‘We had people far younger than you.’ They turned to the left, along a narrow corridor, the sound of their feet occasionally scuffing along the smooth stone.

‘We were too busy, to be honest. Sounds lame, doesn’t it? But seriously, once you see what we’ve got, I think you’ll understand.’

Diggsy’s voice suddenly gave off a lot of reverb. They had entered a large chamber, lighter with a lot of energetic conversation and laughter at the far end. Brynd could smell arum weed mixed with cooking meat. There were four, maybe five people there, and they turned to face Diggsy when he hollered out to them.

Diggsy turned back to Brynd, gestured with wide arms, and smiled. ‘Welcome to Factory 54. I think you’ll like it.’

Brynd looked around to take in the scene. All around the walls and hanging from the rafters were bipedal structures, things made from junk that looked like immense hanged men. They were metallic and flesh and perhaps even something else, with leathery attire and what looked like massive trays on the floor. ‘By Bohr. .’

‘Aw, this is nothing,’ came a girl’s voice, a young redhead with a slender frame and freckled face. ‘This is the shit that doesn’t work. We’ve been trying forever to get things to work, but life isn’t that easy to manufacture. Isn’t that right, Diggsy?’

Brynd eyed her and Diggsy. Judging by her look towards the lad, there was a history between them, that much was certain.

Brynd stepped closer to the large trays, which contained weird-looking brown fluids. ‘Could someone bring me a flame over? I’d like to see this as clearly as possible.’

Some of the others laughed.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, chief,’ Diggsy said. ‘Get a flame in that stuff and we’ll all be eating breakfast in another world.’

Brynd soaked up the scene. This building was immense, which meant all these hanging creatures were larger than he originally thought. He stepped back to take in their expressionless faces, if they could be called faces . They were so creased, stitched and folded they seemed as if they were old sacks. Some of them wore open fissures, which had dried to black. They were bizarre specimens. The fact that they were a parody of a human or rumel kept him from believing that this was in any way unethical.

‘Where did you get these from?’ Brynd asked.

‘We made them, of course,’ the red-haired girl said, wandering over. ‘Or resurrected them in many instances.’

Brynd asked for her name.

‘Jeza,’ she replied nonchalantly.

‘Your name was on the letter,’ he said.

She nodded coyly.

‘Presumably you all know me — Commander Brynd Lathraea, leader of the Night Guard? Leader of the military that has applied martial law across the city.’

‘Yeah, we got you,’ someone replied.

He hoped to lend a little gravitas to his presence, but they showed little sign of acknowledging that. ‘Let me get this right in my head: you’re similar to cultists, then? You use the old science in new ways?’

‘More or less, in layman’s terms, though we don’t really like cultists,’ Jeza said. ‘We deal with them, but they’re way too cliquey, and they speak in all these prophetic riddles, it’s ridiculous.’

‘So you use their technology,’ Brynd observed. ‘That is to say, I’m guessing here, this was all done with the assistance of relics.’

‘It was and it wasn’t,’ Jeza said. ‘There’s a whole mix of things — relics mainly, but we use some tribal refinements too, not to mention with palaeomancy you’re dealing with the creations of the natural world itself.’

‘I don’t think the commander needs to know all the details,’ Diggsy interrupted.

‘Sure he does,’ Jeza snapped. ‘Think about it.’

‘What’s wrong with you tonight, Jeza?’ Diggsy said softly.

‘We need him to trust us,’ she replied, then turned to Brynd. He noticed that her face revealed underlying conflicts within her. ‘Isn’t that right, commander?’