Stephen Hunt - The Kingdom Beyond the Waves

‘Much good may his words do them,’ said Cornelius. And it was true. Many of the visitors — steammen, graspers, craynarbians, the race of man — who had come to the square during the day, went away with disappointed looks on their faces. For every piece of advice Bunzal Coalmelter uttered, there were as many insults thrown at his petitioners — ‘ workit out yourself, jigger ’ — ‘ you are too fat ’ — or sometimes he turned to the obscure and the indecipherable — ‘ the finger thatpoints at the moon is not the moon .’

Whether the ossifying creature of the metal possessed real wisdom was a moot point, Cornelius knew that Coalmelter possessed cogs and crystals as old as any to be found in a steamman grave — and that should be enough to attract a different sort of seeker of knowledge this night. He was sure of it. Or rather, the part of him that was Furnace-breath Nick was sure of it, which was good enough for the hermit of Dolorous Hall.

‘Remember, we let them take the steamman when they come,’ said Cornelius. ‘It is the organ grinder we seek, not his monkeys.’

‘An apt choice of words,’ said Septimoth, ‘given that rascal hatchling Smike said the hand of the Catgibbon is involved in this.’

‘I doubt the flash mob’s interest extends much beyond the guineas they receive for the thugs they have been supplying. Robur is behind the missing steammen corpses, of that much I am certain. Let us see if Middlesteel’s gutter scum can lead us to him.’

Down below, the evening crowd had dwindled to a single group of steammen playing a game of chess on a table outside the temple of Legba of the Valves. That was when Cornelius saw it. A coal cart pulled by two giant craynarbians, a pair of vendors walking ahead of the creaking transport — a small rat-like coalman with fingerless gloves trailed by a bullet-headed colleague almost as large as the craynarbians.

‘What do you think, Septimoth?’

The lashlite’s eyes focused on the sword arms of the two craynarbians, the bony appendages swinging casually as they hauled the weight of the coal cart. ‘Chipped and worn — I doubt through honest labours. Those sword arms have been sharpened against a grinder in a muscle pit.’

‘Who will buy my high-grade boiler coke?’ called out the small coalman. ‘Smokes up as fine as mist, Pentshire mined and graded. Who will buy my lovely coke?’ Approaching the group of chess-playing steammen, the coalman dug out a pail of coke and proffered it to the table. ‘A free sample, good sirs. Once you’ve tried Pentshire fine grade, you’ll never want anything else.’

Iron hands reached out for the free samples, then clicked open furnace chutes to imbibe the fuel. As the steammen started juddering and fitting where they sat, rat-face’s bulky companion pulled out an anti-steamman grapple from under the cart and put a bolt straight through Bunzal Coalmelter’s boiler heart.

‘Quicksilver,’ said Cornelius. ‘They’ve laced the coke with magnesium.’

‘And they obviously do not require the old steamman alive,’ said Septimoth.

So stiff with age was Coalmelter, that even impaled, he did not sink to his iron knees. He remained swaying there, the grapple point showing through the back of his spine shell, crystals fizzing as black oil leaked out from ruptured pipes and onto the moss growing around his feet units. Working calmly but rapidly, the two craynarbians pulled back a false bottom on the cart, hauling the dying steamman out from the square and hiding him under the planks. Then the killers covered over the coal cart with their black produce, all four of them wheeling the corpse away. The murderous abduction was completed in a matter of seconds.

Cornelius snarled. It sat badly with him letting the flash mob do this, but it would have been difficult for the two of them to react fast enough to have saved the steamman, even forewarned, even if they had been there solely to act as Coalmelter’s guardian angels.

‘There are a hundred crimes as bad as this each night in Middlesteel,’ said Septimoth, noticing his companion’s hackles rising. ‘The weeds of your society. Thefts and petty murders. We are not mere vigilantes. We serve our people’s memories, we serve the song of the dead.’

‘All the same, some weeds demand to be cleared away,’ said Cornelius. ‘Take me up, Septimoth. We follow them.’

Outside the temple of Legba of the Valves, only the hallucinating steammen were on hand as witnesses to a lashlite launching himself into the sky with a human passenger. Septimoth carried the man as his people had carried their prey for thousands of years. Only the two of them and the lash-lite gods of the wind knew that the true prey was yet to be claimed.

‘There is the location,’ called Septimoth, the wind and rustle of the silk wings supporting Cornelius masking the man’s reply.

The towers of Middlesteel drifted beneath, layered with smog. This high up, Cornelius was reliant on his friend’s sharp eyes, which were nearly as powerful in the dark as in daylight. Septimoth dipped down, extending the harness tether, Cornelius’s kite wings gliding behind the lashlite as if the man was a pet monkey with the gift of flight. Closer to the truth in this aerial realm than Cornelius liked to admit.

Looming out of the darkness of the Gambleflowers was the largest jinn palace Cornelius had ever seen afloat on the river — a tiered illuminated wedding cake bobbing in the tidal flow. So, the Catgibbon still retained her fondness for a river view.

‘You have seen them go inside?’ Cornelius called forward.

‘They took the coal cart into a warehouse first, switched the cover of coke for a few hogsheads of jinn,’ shouted Septimoth. ‘All four of them went into the boat by its lower boarding ramp. The steamman’s corpse is still in the cart, judging by the effort it took the four of them to pull a few barrels of drink.’

‘Cut my line,’ cried Cornelius, slipping his Furnace-breath Nick mask off and tossing it up to his friend. Stealth would serve him better than force this night. ‘I’ll go aboard and see if our old friend Robur has made himself a home by the river.’

‘ Take me ,’ pleaded the mask. ‘ I can still be of use to you.You are stronger as Furnace-breath Nick than as a mere man .’

‘I am a man,’ shouted Cornelius.

‘I do realize that,’ Septimoth called back. ‘You are far too heavy to be any lamb I have scooped up from a farmer’s field. I should circle, you may yet need my assistance.’

‘With a full moon tonight? Too dangerous. Lashlites don’t frequent drinking houses and if they see you up here, they may take you for a spotter for Ham Yard, or worse, a scout for a gang of rival bludgers.’

Septimoth swished his devil’s tail in annoyance. ‘You are too reckless.’

‘I have stolen into the fastness of Darksun Fortress under the Commonshare’s very nose, old bird. I am sure I can safely penetrate a gang of Middlesteel cut purses. Go home to Dolorous Hall and tell Damson Beeton I will be returning shortly.’

Septimoth whistled his disapproval and then released the towline for Cornelius to glide down towards the roofs of the docks. Cornelius used his flight silks proficiently well for a wingless monkey.

Watching from the shadows of a tannery, Cornelius waited for a suitably sized reveller to leave the jinn house, then he slipped behind the man and gassed him before he could reach the line of waiting hansom cabs. He dragged his victim behind a warehouse and removed his cloak, jacket and cane, before binding and gagging the unconscious dupe. Cornelius’s features flowed like melting wax into a facsimile of his victim’s face as he donned the stolen clothes. Cornelius chafed at the high collar of his victim’s tunic — it was lined with a ring of metal, sewn into the cloth to protect its owner’s neck from the garrotte gangs that robbed worthies in the less salubrious parts of town. He tested the handle of the cane and sprung the sword concealed inside. Courtland Town steel — this fellow was not short of a penny or two.