Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

‘I should keep the knife in my boot.’

‘That’s what I would do,’ said the preacher.

Downstairs, the hex Harry had traced in the air was fading away. So, it had not been a waste of time listening in on the old goat. What was the reverend playing at? He was up to some mischief, of that much the wolftaker was certain. Up to now the churchman had kept his end of the bargain, staying in retirement and out of the way in the mining city. As the keeper of so many secrets himself, he hated for the old fool to have something over him. That was not the way he intended the great game to be played — if there was skulduggery to be had in Jackals, far better that it be the hand of the disreputable Stave to be found on the tiller.

Without the breezes of the day to carry away the engine smoke, Shadowclock was subject to the same foul-smelling pea soupers as Middlesteel. Thick engine fogs rose up with the night, reducing the full moon to a smudge of silver behind their haze.

Oliver looked down at the cobbles of the steep streets, his boots moving invisibly below the soup, the damp of the cloud making his socks itch. They could hear patrols along the high walls calling out to each other, see the occasional flicker of a bull’s-eye lantern. They were keeping an eye open for night constables or the combination’s bullyboys, but the ruffians were saving their vigilance for the city battlements. For all his large bulk, Steamswipe could move near silently, his helmet-like head swivelling, the grill of his voicebox vibrating as he emitted bursts of sound pitched beyond the human ear. The steamman swore he could navigate the fog that way, pick out the combination enforcers and the governor’s men. He obviously possessed the talent, as he managed to lead them across the maze of tall deserted streets without coming across anyone else, in twisting turns which always led them up the hill, towards the governor’s own aerostat field.

What Oliver did not say to his friends was that he could feel the presence of the enforcers too — could see how well the steamman knight was leading them around the armed patrols. He could feel them all, little candles of wickedness burning in the night. Not just the patrols either — the drunken gang master four streets away beating his wife as she tried to shield their children from his rage; the roof angler who had forced open a skylight and was rummaging around in a darkened room for a key to the locked cabinet, a knife in his belt in case he was disturbed; the governor in his mansion clapping in drunken amusement as his soldiers beat to death one of the miners who had tried to escape the press gang. Each ember of malice smouldering in the darkness.

‘Oliver!’ Harry helped the boy off his knees. ‘Are you ill?’

‘I can feel it, Harry.’

‘Feel what?’

‘The evil. I can feel the evil in them.’

‘You’re sweating like you’ve got the pox,’ said Harry. ‘And talking like you’re trying to scare up a crowd for a seance.’

‘Less noise. We must go on,’ said Steamswipe. ‘This night may be the last aerostat run from Shadowclock with miners.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Oliver. ‘The sweat will pass.’

A row of small lights lit up along the side of Lord Wireburn, holstered on the back of the steamman knight. ‘It is as if the Loas ride you, Oliver softbody. But I detect no presence here, just the press of great events. Curious.’

‘I am here, Keeper of the Eternal Flame,’ said Oliver. ‘Just me. And Steamswipe is right; this is our last chance to hitch a free ride courtesy of the governor. We go now.’

The aerostat field was at the top of the hill, behind the walls of the governor’s mansion. An airship was sitting on the retraction rails in front of a hangar. She was a ship of the merchant marine, no gun ports or fin-bomb hatches to pock her hull. No doubt Thaddius or one of the other boys back at Hundred Locks could reel off her class just from looking at her silhouette. To Oliver she looked just like any of the aerostats that had slid past them in the sky on their journey to Shadowclock. The vessel had been winched in close to the ground, boarding stairs pushed up to her belly gondola.

‘It is too open,’ said Steamswipe pointing to the box lanterns lined up along the hill. ‘Too little cover and too many crew around the hangar.’

Harry rested his spine against the wall. ‘I can fix that. We head for the big expansion engine, port at the nose; I can get us in there. If anyone spots us, you use your voice on them.’

‘My voice?’ said Steamswipe.

‘Don’t play the innocent with me, old steamer. I saw Master Saw ring a bell from the other side of a practice hall using just his voicebox. You can set a wicked old vibration ringing through our blood, I warrant.’

Harry took the knight’s silence for agreement and sat cross-legged, mumbling in the tongue of the worldsingers. As he mumbled the mist swirled around their feet, climbing up the hill and settling over the field. A weather calling. Oliver could feel the tendrils of the worldsong beckoning the fog higher, thicker, the hill thrumming with the power of the land. The fog was so thick already; the currents of earthflow so strong underneath Shadowclock, that the pea souper needed little encouragement to settle higher.

The fey energy inside Oliver bristled at the feel of the world-song. He could see within himself now, as if a veil had been lifted and the complex springs of his own mist-given powers lay visibly unwinding. It was like watching worms burrow through the corpse of someone he had once loved. Too painful to observe, but too gruesome for him to tear his gaze away. They were a part of him, but an alien part — a part that by rights should not be able to occupy this fleshy sack of meat and water and bones, should not be able to walk in this realm of solid geometries and limited dimensions. They churned within him and Oliver could not believe he had not seen them before. Could not believe that he had actually sat opposite worldsinger fey-finders and inquisitors and had the cheek to protest his humanity.

The fog seemed to be thickening about Oliver’s heels faster than the adjacent ground, corkscrewing around his legs — even Harry looked surprised at how quickly the summoning was becoming localized.

‘It’s alright,’ said Oliver. ‘I like the fog.’

‘We have our cover,’ said Steamswipe.

Oliver looked across to the mist-wrapped leviathan of the air. The steamman had not needed to say they also had the element of surprise. Most of the able-bodied workers in Shadowclock were in hiding to avoid being transported on this aerostat. The guards were bargaining on any sane minds avoiding the governor’s mansion and their press gangs. As usual, their path was plunging them headfirst into peril.

Steamswipe took five steps back then ran at the wall, vaulting it with ease. Harry cupped his hand, boosting Oliver up. Once on the top of the wall, Oliver lowered a hand for the disreputable Stave, then the three of them were in the mist. The fog distorted the sounds of the ground crew and their conversations on the other side of the field carried across to the three adventurers as if they stood mere feet away.

‘-ballast is loaded.’

‘-never seen a smog come down like that.’

‘-so he said, talk to the first mate. First mate, says I, it’s him who bleeding needs to talk to me.’

Oliver nearly walked into the propeller. Wrought metal blades and an expansion engine assembly as large as a house, its curved lines had been cast by the airship foundry in the image of a giant lion’s head, cold steel eyes locked forward, teeth snarling. Harry ducked under the propeller and pulled himself inside the metal housing’s mouth, feeding himself to the metal cat.

‘There’s a maintenance hatch in here,’ he whispered.