Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

Molly felt faint — the odd disparity she had always felt in her life, the little differences between her and the other poorhouse children — rushed towards her in a swell of clarity. ‘How did they get there, Aliquot Coppertracks?’

‘For that,’ said the steamman, ‘you have to go back to lost books like this, lost history. This tome is from the age following the fall of Chimeca, the first age of freedom following the thawing of the world. Before that, all the kingdoms of the continent — including the lands that would become Jackals — were held under the sway of the Chimecan Empire. They ruled the ruins of the world from their underground holds. You must have seen the ruins of their works in your travels in the world below?’

‘Their ziggurats and crystals are still down there,’ said Molly. ‘In some of the caverns.’

‘Their empire’s reputation has been diluted by the passage of the millennia,’ said Coppertracks. ‘But my people still remember something of the ferocity of their rule. They drew power through human sacrifice, blended it with the earthflow streams that are now only tamed by the order of worldsingers. The ruined kingdoms of the surface were little more than slave farms to provide souls for their terrible rites. During the worst years of the long age of cold they ate the meat of their brothers in the Circle, the race of man, graspers, craynarbians, all were food for their table. Half-covered in ice, the broken nations of the over-grounders were helpless to resist the Chimecan legions. Many of the tunnels of the atmospheric are a legacy of their reign; part of an underground transport system that could deploy armies of dark-hearted killers to any part of the continent within days, crushing rebellions and seizing families — sometimes the populations of entire cities — for punishment sacrifices.’

‘Then these things in Molly’s blood are from their empire?’ said Nickleby.

‘Quite the opposite, dear mammal,’ said Coppertracks. ‘When the lands of the surface began to warm, when the cycle of the world turned again to an age of warmth and the ice sheets retreated north, the nations of the over-grounders grew confident again. They began to plot the overthrow of their Chimecan masters. This book tells of a slave of the empire called Vindex, a philosopher and teacher from what are now the city-states of the Catosian League. He discovered a terrible secret. The Chimecans and their dark insect gods of the Wildcaotyl were only too aware of what the rising temperatures on the surface would do to their iron rule and their supply of meat and souls. They were planning something terrible that would solidify their rule — but in the event, their horrific design failed. Vindex escaped and drew to him a band of heroes to oppose the Chimecans’ plan of last resort. Under the retreating ice sheets Vindex discovered something, a hatch leading down to an ancient underground station filled with sorcery and machines. Machines which were to change his body, bring him into the realm of metal.’

‘He had these things in his blood too?’

‘According to this tome and the prayer songs which we still sing for our ancestors, his system juices would have been teeming with the life metal. After he had changed his body, he created seven holy engines to bind the gods of Chimeca to darkness, the seven Hexmachina, and led them in war against the Chimecans and their Wildcaotyl gods.’

Something of what Coppertracks was telling her seemed to resonate with Molly — the horrible dreams she had experienced in the abandoned temple in the caverns below, the feeling of deja vu.

‘Come now, old steamer,’ said the commodore. ‘Tell me this talk of dark gods and wicked empires is for scholars and archaeologists — what does it have to do with our Molly Templar?’

‘Do you not understand? Molly softbody is a descendant of Vindex, which is why her system juices bubble with the very stuff of mechomancy. All those who have died at the hands of the Pitt Hill Slayer are his descendants.’

‘But it is only individuals who have been targeted — not families or children,’ said Nickleby. ‘If you wanted to wipe out such an ancient bloodline you would have to murder thousands of Jackelians today.’

‘Popham’s Disease is not inherited uniformly,’ said Copper tracks. ‘Its mechanism is not understood and has baffled your surgeons since its discovery. That is because they look at it as a disease, when it is not. They know that it only manifests itself shortly before or shortly after adolescence, but understand nothing about the random nature of its inheritance.’

‘Then this stuff in my blood is there by chance,’ said Molly. ‘I could have been born the same as everyone else.’

‘It is within you not by chance, but by design, Molly soft-body. Your gift allows you to communicate with the Hexmachina — to wield the holy engines like a duellist balancing a sword. Not everyone born to the bloodline of Vindex is a natural operator. The gift will only manifest in those with the talent to control the Hexmachina. In those who lack the talent the gift will stay latent, like a chameleon, mimicking the natural animalcules of your system juices so well as to be indistinguishable even under the scrutiny of advanced organic analysers such as this.’

‘That is the why of it, then,’ said the commodore. ‘Poor Molly, with the unlucky blood of some ancient sage flowing through her veins.’

‘But not the whom of it,’ said Nickleby. ‘Who is it that wants the operators of the Hexmachina dead?’

‘The answers to that are not to be found inside this tome,’ said the steamman. ‘But we already have enough information to conjecture on their motives. Potential operators of the Hexmachina are being eliminated — so the most likely conclusion to be drawn is that someone does not wish the Hexmachina to be operated.’

‘Those ancient engines still exist?’ asked Molly.

‘If our people had the answer to that, the spirit of Steelbhalah-Waldo would sleep easier in the hall of the ancients. Three of the Hexmachina were almost certainly destroyed in the war to overthrow the Chimeca. Two of the remaining four have been lost to us since that time — I have collected as many tales, rumours and legends of what happened to them as there are hours in the day to listen to them. In all probability they have been washed away by the tide of history and the events of the ages.’

‘And then there were two,’ said Nickleby.

Coppertracks passed the precious tome to one of his mu-bodies, the little drone disappearing with it back to Tock House’s library. ‘Yes, indeed. One is said to be in Liongeli, broken and near useless, a curio of a hideous race that I must regrettably admit was once distantly related to the steammen. Of them I shall not speak. The other Hexmachina is said to keep to the caverns of the undercity. Scuttling about hidden tunnels and collapsed cities so deep even the grave robbers of Grimhope will not venture there. A solitary ghost haunting the scene of its greatest moment — banishing the gods of the Wildcaotyl to the darkness beyond the walls of the world.’

‘What good will it do them to kill me?’ said Molly. ‘From what you say there will be others who will follow me. Jackals could be filled with children who will develop this disease, this gift when they grow older.’

‘A most fascinating question, Molly softbody. The last operator — at least for a day, a month, or a year — until other descendants of Vindex with your gift pass through adolescence. And possibly the last Hexmachina too. What mischief can be made in the conjunction of those two facts, I wonder?’

‘Nothing good,’ said Commodore Black. ‘Of that I am mortal sure. With the amount of money they’ve put on the poor lass’s head I am surprised we haven’t had half the flash mob in the city knocking at our gates.’