Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

‘Search within yourself, young compatriot. You know it is true. And once we have purged the RAN of its patrician leeches we will unleash our eager jack cloudies on the rest of the continent. The complacent mechomancers of the city-states, that fat godhead in Kikkosico, King Steam’s cold intelligence, all will be overthrown by our new army of light. We will sweep away the antiquated kingdoms of this land and replace them with our perfect new union.’

Molly kicked the chest of money, rattling the bags of coins inside. ‘Why have you been hunting me, Tzlayloc? I haven’t got a place in your sullied new land.’

‘That’s the beauty of it, compatriot,’ said Tzlayloc. ‘Everyone has an equal place in it — but you, my dear compatriot, you have been marked for a special place in our new order. No false modesty now. We found the ruins of a blood analyser in your new lodgings and I know all about your little visit to raid the memory of the Greenhall engine rooms. I think you understand well enough what you are now.’

Behind Molly the count’s retainer was filling an old army pack with the bags of Jackelian guineas.

‘Compatriot Vauxtion,’ said Tzlayloc. ‘Before you depart, I took the liberty of cancelling your steamer berth for Concorzia. Your services are going to prove exceptionally useful for me in the coming months. There are going to be many people that need hunting down — Guardians, the lords commercial and Circlist council members. The colonies could not begin to appreciate a killer with your unique talents.’

Vauxtion did not look happy, thought Molly. But if he had any doubts the tight-lipped assassin was wise enough not to express them in front of Tzlayloc.

‘There’s an illness inside you, Tzlayloc,’ said Molly. ‘I don’t need the blood of some ancient fighter running through my veins to see it either. You’re one sick scurf.’

‘Such valuable blood it is too,’ said Tzlayloc. He pressed a stone sphere in his throne’s arm and part of the floor began to crunch back, folding as a dais rose up into the artificial crystal light of the cavern. On top of the dais sat a slab-like black cross, a stone surface veined with a network of silver channels. The head of the cross expanded bulb-like into a hollow gem bigger than any jewel Molly had seen before — its crystal walls filled with bubbling blood. Blood that seemed alive, tentacles of it lashing against the walls, struggling to rise up before splashing back down formless into the crimson sea.

Fear held Molly in place, a terror so complete she was paralysed. This gem was all that remained of her distant kinsmen and women; the victims of the Pitt Hill Slayer, their souls and blood intermingled in a tortured scarlet sea of despair.

‘I have a throne for you,’ said Tzlayloc. ‘By my side you will become the sainted mother of our cause, Compatriot Templar.’

‘Leave her be, you jigging abominations,’ shouted the commodore. ‘Lass, lass your poor unlucky blood.’

Tzlayloc laughed. ‘Take this fat idiot of an aristocrat and his war criminal friend back to their cell. Have them both measured for the blessing of equalization. I see no reason why a duke should not toil alongside our brothers and sisters in the armament mills. But do not fret for my young sister’s blood, compatriot duke. She is the last of her kind. Unlike her kith and kin I do not require her carcass to be drained.’

‘What do you require?’ asked Molly, her throat drying up.

‘Your agony, young compatriot. I need your pain to be milked for as long as I can make you last. Your pain will set us all free.’

Oliver’s head cleared to a familiar buzzing, the hum of darting spheres of radiance, miniature stars of intelligence circling her orbit. The Lady of the Lights. He glanced around. His surroundings had frozen — Steamswipe lying nearby shattered on the dirt floor, two men he did not recognize sitting forlornly on their side of the iron bars keeping Oliver and Steamswipe prisoner. Time had stopped, insects frozen in mid-flight around one of the men’s wounds.

‘Oliver,’ said the Observer. ‘Oh my Oliver, what are you doing here? This is not the path you were to follow. Who will lead your people to safety now? You must survive the end of all this, we need you. Your way has become critically fused with the failure of the yin, the way of offence.’

‘I never liked being the fall-back plan,’ growled Oliver. ‘It looks like your favourite knight is exercising that much vaunted free will you claim to value so much.’

‘What is the matter with you, Oliver? There is something else inside you. I can feel it. Your pattern has become corrupted.’

‘Life is full of surprises, isn’t it, mother ,’ said Oliver. ‘If you want to stock a breeding zoo to assuage your guilt over writing us off, find someone else to do it. I’ll die fighting here before I set a foot through the feymist curtain again. I belong to the race of man and this realm is my home. I have had enough of running and hiding to last me a lifetime. No more!’

‘So, you’ve worked it out then?’ sighed the Observer.

‘Yes. Your “deal” with my father,’ said Oliver.

‘I needed to experience your existence from your people’s perspective,’ said the Observer. ‘So I left what you might call a shadow of myself here — an echo of that which I am. A mortal shadow. A little too mortal, as it transpired, carrying the urges and passions of your flesh. Things did not end well for her, did they?’

‘You’ve seemed to make the most of your mistakes, mother,’ said Oliver, bitterly.

Oliver knew he should be feeling something for this goddess, some connection; but, oddly, he felt only a void inside his soul. Was it the pistols anaesthetizing him? No. Even if they had never found him, he knew he would feel exactly the same. It was like discovering you had been sired by the gusts of the north wind. You could feel love for a person. But for a concept? What could you ever hope to feel towards a concept?

‘Oliver,’ pleaded the Observer, the desperation evident even on her ethereal face. ‘You’re dooming your kind. You are their last hope for survival. I need your kind to survive, I need you to survive.’

‘Then you should have left a sacred young boy in the realm of the fast-time people,’ said Oliver, ‘and never have taken me to Jackals.’

‘It’s not too late, child. You’re in the hands of the enemy’s servants now and this position is doomed. Soon the last barriers of containment will fall and the enemy will arrive. The Wildcaotyl will want to invite in far worse things. They will want to recommence their terrible scheme to subvert this realm. When that happens the forces that stand behind me will commence the erasure of everything that supports your existence. You can still lead any fey that will follow you to safety.’

‘You do what you feel you have to. Just know that when you try, it won’t only be the darkness beyond the walls of the world you’ll be facing,’ said Oliver.

‘This isn’t you,’ said the Observer. Her body was starting to vibrate, shaking in and out of focus. This was not the smooth fading of recall Oliver had witnessed before. She was changing, her spheres of light pulsing in alarm. She reached out to her lights imploringly. ‘Stop them — I still have time — I must-’

Her form grew larger, changing, a chrysalis becoming a butterfly. Even her lights were mutating, shifting from bright spheres to malevolent clusters of spikes that rotated around their new master in rapid loops. It was like the shadow of a bear given life. No features, just a black mass of biped-shaped darkness. A single red eye like a line slashed across its head turned to look at Oliver and take in the cell, its senses flowing over Oliver and stretching out across thousands of miles in the shavings of a second.