Stephen Hunt - The Kingdom Beyond the Waves

A message loaded with pass phrases that would immediately have been recognized by any agent of the Court of the Air.

Amelia looked at the train of armoured vehicles drawn up outside the building, belching boiler smoke, trailing their own tanks of air to help feed their furnaces. It was more than the vehicles’ pollution of the city that offended Amelia’s sight; the single-storey building in front of her looked wrong too. It had been constructed along different lines to the rest of the city. Not open, but closed. No windows. No doors. A tomb, it reminded her of a tomb. And where normally her curiosity would cry for such as this to be levered open to disgorge its ancient secrets, her only instinct here was to run away, as far and as fast as possible.

‘What is this place?’ Amelia looked at Veryann and Quest.

‘This is your heritage,’ said Veryann.

Quest nodded. ‘The resting place of the Camlanteans’ greatest secrets.’

‘Isn’t there enough information for you in the city’s main spire?’ asked Amelia. ‘If we can find the mechanism for extracting it down to our crystal-books, the whole of Jackelian academia will be teaching nothing but ancient Camlantean for the next few centuries in their efforts to translate this place’s treasures.’

Quest tapped the walls of the tomb. ‘And this is where they stored the greatest of their learning. Mined to ensure it could never fall into the hands of the Black-oil Horde.’

‘Mined?’ Amelia looked at the brooding presence of the low-slung construct. ‘Are you mad? If the tomb is wired into their system of power and it is detonated, we could lose the entire damn city.’

Quest pressed on. ‘We’ve come so far, risked so much.’

‘You’re risking the lives of the expedition, the whole bloody city!’

‘Not with your blood,’ said Quest. ‘The dream of this place is in my soul, but it’s part of your inheritance, your very flesh. One last secret to unlock, Amelia. If you can’t succeed in getting in with the blessing of whatever sentinels the Camlanteans have left looking after the city, you have my word we won’t try to force our way in. We’ll content ourselves with the parts of the city that were left off the latch.’

Taking off her thick wool gloves, Amelia placed her palm on the wall, the tomb’s surface so cold it was almost an ache. She could feel the hidden lines of a portal, just awaiting the command to open. The building was as alive as the rest of the city, more so perhaps, deep wells of power buried within to keep this last store safe, no matter what carnage the Black-oil Horde committed. Warmth flowed out from her hand, her arms vibrating, as numb as if they had gone to sleep.

With the hiss of a murderous serpent, the security door rolled back, an outrush of warm air carried from the interior. The glow of the streets and surrounding spires disappeared, boulevard by boulevard, the tomb sucking up energy from the surrounding area, draining power into itself with a deep breath. There was a moment’s confusion as the expedition members activated their gas spikes, lighting the scene.

Amelia entered through the portal, two beams of light flickering down the length of her body, dying away as they reached her boots. ‘Keep back. I don’t think this is safe for you yet.’

Quest’s airship sailors and expedition members needed little urging.

A raised podium — a white circle — pulsed with light inside, beckoning her closer.

Quest watched from just outside the tomb. ‘Is that similar to the transportation devices you said you came across in Liongeli?’

‘No,’ said Amelia. ‘I think it is a keyhole. Unfortunately, I think I am the key.’

She made to step onto the circle, nearly there, when she doubled up in pain.

‹ Don’t do it !›

‘What is it?’ cried Quest, seeing Amelia collapse in pain.

‘My mind, he’s inside my mind.’

‹ Don’t do it .›

The cut on her arm. The last kiss. The blood bubbling up from his mouth.

‘Who’s inside your mind?’ demanded Quest.

‘Billy Snow!’

Her voice spoke, but not with her words. ‹Pairdan, Jackelian, I am Pairdan.›

‘Get out of me!’ Amelia yelled.

‹First, you leave this place.›

Amelia tried to step onto the circle in front of her, but her legs were frozen, contradictory orders raging across her body. The tomb growled in anger. It had sensed something wrong. Billy Snow was no part of its creators’ scheme. The civil war, the Circle-damned Camlantean civil war. Power was building up. Preparing to be released in a single murderous burst if this was an intrusion attempt by the enemy.

‘You’ll kill us all,’ cried Amelia.

‹Yes.›

She made one last effort, kicking and thrashing like a mad woman towards the circular platform. Her brain was burning, the headache to end all headaches. As she reached the platform the light pierced her, lifting her off her feet and rotating her around — giving her a crazy view of the other expedition members spinning outside the portal. She was washed with a sensation like water, cold water flowing across her every cell. Testing. Probing. The building made its judgment. Compatible . She fell to the floor, paralysed, whether by Billy Snow’s possession or as a result of being drained of every iota of energy by the tomb she was uncertain.

Behind her a second portal hissed open, a moving walkway down in the depths below beginning to run. Darkness was overwhelming her, the room starting to fade.

Quest knelt down beside her, talking to her, but not talking to her . ‘You realize, I trust, that it was the blood copy of you that tried to kill me last year that helped make all this possible, child of Pairdan?’

‹Damn you.› Amelia’s lips were moving, but not by her command.

‘We could hardly have combed the great engine rooms at Greenhall for a compatible blood-marker like Amelia’s unless we had a little Camlantean blood to begin with, could we?’

Then, came the blackness.

Amelia woke up, unsure of where she was, uncertain even who she was. She tried to move but her arms were manacled behind her back, the wound on her forearm burning with the restricted flow of her blood. Camlantis. She was still in Camlantis.

‘My arms — why are my arms tied?’

One of her assistants came around the corner, followed by two Catosian soldiers, their high-altitude jackets shrugged off in the warmth of the tomb. ‘My apologies, professor. Abraham Quest said you were possessed.’

Now she remembered. ‘I can’t feel anything inside me now. Untie me, kid.’

Veryann appeared behind her soldier. ‘I don’t think so. I warned you back in the museum not to touch Billy Snow. Now you have been betrayed by your Jackelian compassion.’

‘I’m fine! Take these damn manacles off me.’

Veryann shook her head. ‘Ingenious, don’t you think? Wounded. Dying. But you can still infect your enemy. Turn your enemy’s weapons against their own side using one of their bodies.’

‘Right now, I find it difficult to appreciate his cunning.’

Veryann pulled Amelia to her feet. ‘Then perhaps, instead, you can appreciate how little I presently trust your intentions.’

Amelia was shoved out into a corridor, its roof held up by glass columns. There were dark shapes swimming inside the columns, darting about a crimson liquid. Like heated wax in oil, the clouds changed shape, reaching out to touch the glass, then recoiling, the surface burning them. Their movement was slow, sinuous, almost sensual. Where had she seen such things before?

‘What are they?’

‘Prototypes,’ said Veryann.

‘For what?’

In answer the Catosian waved a hand in front of a triangle etched onto the wall and the enclosure vanished, revealing a hall filled with machines — the organic systems of the Camlanteans interspersed with the crude machinery of Jackelian engineering, leaking oil and steam across the clean surfaces. Quest’s retainers swarmed over their equipment, Robur at hand, along with someone else she recognized: Bull Kammerlan. The slaver was spitting invectives at the soldiers manhandling him. Next to him was another figure, also chained. The other prisoner’s features were hideous, melting and reforming between different faces — one of which she briefly recognized as Commodore Black’s. He was a shape switcher! What was this madhouse?