Stephen Hunt - The Kingdom Beyond the Waves

‘If he were alive, I suppose you would also hire him for your expedition.’

‘Yes, I suppose I would,’ said Quest.

‘Still, for all her cleverness, her inspiration , you did not show the professor the images from the second crystal-book of the pair you purchased.’

‘The contents of the second crystal-book would disturb her,’ said Quest. ‘I prefer to keep Amelia’s faith pure, unwavering.’

‘Yes, I imagine the images would disturb her,’ said Veryann. ‘Your ideals have too high a risk attached to them. Paradise is not to be made on Earth.’

‘It was made here once.’ Quest stood in front of one of the large portholes, listening to the gurgle of water moving through his pneumatic tower. He pointed towards the sky. ‘And the secret to unlocking it all again is hidden up there.’

Smike did not know what to make of the old fellow. It was not often a blind man would venture into the rookeries of Rottonbow. What would someone wearing heavy grey robes in the manner of a Circlist monk be doing wandering one of Middlesteel’s most dangerous districts this late at night? Smike listened to the patter of the gnarled old cane, tapping along the cobbles of the lane between the ancient, tumbledown towers.

For a moment Smike considered letting the old twit keep on wandering deeper into Rottonbow, but even with his limited conscience, he could not do that. Smike skipped to catch up. The sightless visitor looked like an old man, but he was spry for his years.

‘Grandfather,’ called Smike, ‘wait. Do you know where you’re going?’

‘Why yes, I do,’ said the blind man, his face concealed by his hood and the night. ‘I am heading for Furnival’s Wark.’

Smike sucked on his mumbleweed pipe. ‘Old fellow, there’s nothing down there but the paupers’ graveyard.’

‘Yes, I believe an old friend of mine is resting there.’

‘Hang on, grandfather, do you know what hour it is?’

‘For me it is always night,’ chortled the man in the robes.

‘It’ll be the long night for you, grandfather.’ Smike tugged at the visitor’s robes. ‘You’ll get yourself in the soup so you will, tap-tapping with your cane along these avenues. There’s some right old bludgers lurking around Rottonbow. They’d think nothing of sinking a blade in your ribs and emptying your pockets.’

‘But I have so little to steal,’ said the visitor, ‘now that you have taken my money.’ The visitor’s cane darted out and spun his lifted purse back out of the folds of Smike’s tattered jacket. Like the tongue of a toad, a gnarled cold hand snaked out, catching the leather bag and concealing it under his robes again.

Smike stepped back, coughing on his mumbleweed pipe in shock. ‘You can’t blame a lad for trying, now, can you? Are you really blind, governor?’

‘Oh yes,’ the robed figure chortled. ‘The eyes are the first thing to go. The treatment preserves everything else, but not the eyes.’

Smike glanced around nervously. He had thought this blind old fool was prey. But he was mad, or something very close to it.

‘Down in the paupers’ graveyard, have they held the funeral for Sixrivets yet?’

‘The steamman?’ said Smike. ‘There’s not much of his body left in the graveyard, grandfather. After Sixrivets died, the state coroner sent his soul-board back to King Steam’s mountains like the law requires. The rest of the old steamer was so old, the king didn’t even want Sixrivets’ iron bones back to recycle.’

‘But the funeral, it has been held?’

‘Yesterday. His friends from Steamside came over and sung in their strange voices — the machine tongue. Even though Sixrivets wanted to be buried down here, rather than over in Steamside, they still came.’

‘They would come,’ said the old man. ‘Steammen never forget their own. Now, be off with you.’

Smike darted into an alley, then stopped. A thought had occurred to him. The strange old goat’s interest in Sixrivets’ corpse. He was a grave robber! Middlesteel’s mechomancers often raided the graves and corpses of the race of steammen, prying the secrets of their architecture from their rusting crystals and decaying cogs. Sixrivets had been so ancient and obsolete that the denizens of Dwerrihouse Street had thought it safe to honour the steamman’s last wish and inter him with the rest of their people down the road. But this sightless old man must be desperate, on his downers. No wonder he was wandering around at night in one of the least salubrious parts of the capital. He was about his filthy trade.

Smike stuck his head around the corner and watched the figure shuffling towards the graveyard. Smog was drifting across the cobbled streets — the miasma of industry, the currents of the capital’s factories, workshops and manufactories. The blind devil had a bleeding cheek, so he did. Sixrivets was one of their own. They said the steamman had been old enough to see the clatter of steel and puff of gun smoke as the royalist guardsmen and the new pattern army clashed on the streets of Middlesteel during the civil war, six hundred years back. Generations of Dwerrihouse Street’s children had come and gone while Sixrivets pottered about Rottonbow’s lanes. Who was this sightless goat to come and dig him out of their dirt and strip pieces off his body for souvenirs? Smike considered shouting for some of the others, but the canny old prowler might hear him and be off into the night, to return when no one was abroad. Best to watch and wait, catch him in the act, then raise the alarm.

Smike crept past the shadows of the old rookeries, his bare feet numb against the chill of the smog-cold cobbles. At the iron gates of the graveyard — two Circlist eels cast as wheels consuming their own tails — Smike heard voices whispering. He rubbed his eyes and searched for the corner plot where Sixrivets had been buried. Two shadows were there, digging. Neither of them were the old man, though. They were too big for a start. Their voices sounded familiar, too.

Smike slipped into the graveyard and used the cover of the tombs to get closer to the men. He heard the crunch of hard dirt being tossed back and a low cursing growl.

‘Can you see the body yet?’

‘It’s in here somewhere.’

‘I can see the head. The rest of it is coming. Keep at it, carefully now, don’t break anything.’

‘Break anything? Just me back, mate, just me back. This ain’t clay we’re digging through here, you know?’

Smike’s eyes widened. No wonder the voices sounded familiar. It was two of the Catgibbon’s bludgers — thugs that worked for the flash mob, and not just any gang either. The Catgibbon was the queen of the underworld in Middlesteel. They said she held the guardians and half the police of the capital in one pocket, while she kept a good share of the magistrates, doomsmen and other court functionaries in the other. Smike did not know this pair’s names, but they were a familiar sight in the daytime, knocking up pennies with not-so-subtle insinuations of what happened to shop owners who didn’t pay their ‘fire and accident’ money.

Smike was wondering where the sightless old prowler had got to, when a figure emerged from the mist behind the bludgers.

‘Good evening, gentlemen. A cold night for it.’

Startled, they whirled around, one holding his spade ready like an axe, the other dropping his sack and pulling a pistol out from his coat pocket.

‘He’s not the police.’

‘Course he isn’t a crusher; he can’t even see. Look at his cane.’

‘Away with you, blind eyes,’ said the one pointing the pistol. ‘This body is ours.’

‘That body belongs to Sixrivets, surely,’ said the old prowler. ‘And what use do you have for one of the people of the metal, now his ancient soul has passed into the great pattern?’