Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

Her pain drowned out the rest of his words.

Count Vauxtion sat as he had done for the last hour, in his chair with the chest of money in front of him. A bag of Jackelian guineas had been lined up in neat piles across the shine of his varnished tabletop and the count reduced one column of coins, building up another and then repeating the exercise … a game of chess without end.

‘I believe you have the means to retire now, sir,’ said Ka’oard.

‘Yes,’ said the count. ‘Although I suspect we will find a paucity of berths available in the direction of Concorzia if we should try the stats or the paddle steamers.’

‘Perhaps one of the old tall ship skippers, sir. Or a tramp submarine boat. And they do not yet control Jackals. There are the ferries to the city-states and the Holy Empire. If it came to it, my clan connections could no doubt secure us safe passage through the worst of Liongeli. If we got to one of the Saltless Sea ports along Crayorocco we might sail out to Thar. I have always wondered what it might be like to travel to the east, sir. And I doubt if they will be watching the jinn road south.’

‘Cassarabia?’ the count started laughing. ‘An old man sitting on an adobe roof in the shade of a palm tree, chewing leaaf and trying to remember what it was like to drink wine without the taste of sand in it. This is not about Tzlayloc’s continued patronage, old shell. This is about the application of power. But his people are only watching me. You can still go to the colonies, there’s no point both of us rotting here while this place falls apart.’

‘I do not believe I would care for that, sir,’ said the craynarbian. ‘I have grown rather fond of this silly bumbling nation. They have the power to overrun the whole continent, but they would rather potter about their gardens cutting their hedges into fanciful shapes, slap each other with debating sticks and stop every hour to brew a pot of caffeel. Jackals deserves better than what happened to the old place, don’t you think? Besides, sir, without you things would appear rather dull.’

‘Well then,’ said the count. ‘I am a good hunter but I fear I will make for rather poor prey. So what is to be done?’

The craynarbian retainer proffered a tray. ‘I don’t think this is a matter of power at all, sir.’

Count Vauxtion stopped building his tower of coins. ‘Then what — ah, I see, you kept it after all.’ He picked up a polished thin blade from the tray. Ka’oard watched his master’s eyes sparkle as he handled the fencing sabre. The command to throw the blade away thirty years ago was the only order on a battlefield the old retainer had ever disobeyed.

‘I believe, sir,’ said the craynarbian, ‘that this is a matter of honour.’

On top of the ziggurat the rulers of Grimhope trembled and wished they were any place except here. They had never seen Tzlayloc in such a murderous fury.

‘Why?’ he screamed at them, pointing at the limp sweat-covered figure secured to the Chimecan torture slab. ‘Why does the Hexmachina not come? She has been on the slab for two days. Her agony has been exquisite — but I see no Hexmachina!’

There was a nervous shuffling among the locust priests. They had embraced the old religion with gusto, their minds filled with the power of the ancient texts that Tzlayloc had brought back from his strange odyssey to the underworld. But now some of them were wishing for the relative anonymity of an equalized shell that their compatriots had enjoyed.

‘Compatriot Templar is not the last operator,’ said one of them. ‘It is the only explanation.’

‘We always knew there was a danger of this,’ piped up one of the priests at the front.

Tzlayloc stabbed a finger at the red-robed figure that had spoken. ‘You are the guardians of the new order, the shepherds of equality — and this is the best counsel you can offer!’

‘It is a matter of probabilities,’ said one who had been an engine man at Greenhall. ‘A new descendant of Vindex with the talent to control the Hexmachina has emerged, or they might have been here all the time with their blood code unrecorded. Some of the distant parishes are tardy with their registrations.’

‘But the operators always come here,’ shrieked Tzlayloc. ‘Always! Drawn by the last of those infernal machines. Wake your transaction engine pet up; set it on the Greenhall records again. If there is a new operator you will find them. I need their blood and I need their pain.’

‘What of this one?’ said the locust priest, pointing at Molly. ‘We can drain her blood for the vat.’

Tzlayloc hit the locust priest in the face, knocking him to the ground. ‘Fool of a shepherd. Look at her; she is perfect — abandoned by the tyranny, a ward of the poorhouse, brave and beautiful. She has more fight in her than a dozen brilliant men. If there is another operator they will most likely be of the same ilk as the other catches of the Pitt Hill teams — burghers, councillors, silks and the indolent brood of the oppressors. Would you have us raise statues to some young martyred quality worth ten thousand guineas a year?’ He caressed Molly’s soaking red locks. ‘No, she is perfect. Throw her back in the cells, give her food and let her recover. We shall decide which operator feeds the vat and which gets the cross after we uncover the identity of the new talent.’

The locust priest Tzlayloc had admonished grovelled at the leader’s feet. ‘Let me lead a force into the tunnels to track down the Hexmachina, Compatriot Tzlayloc. Let me find the filthy device and destroy it for the cause.’

‘No,’ said the rebel king. ‘Perhaps I have been too hard on you, compatriot shepherd. You have read from the texts I recovered, but you have no idea of the cunning of the Hexmachina, how deep it swims now, whispering murmurs of affection to the molten dirt. It scampers through tunnels so deep the crystals that controlled the earthflow have long since melted there. You have no conception of the heat down below and there are other dangers besides lava surges. Just hearing the echoes of the Hexmachina muttering to itself would drive you mad. No mug-hunter, topper or soldier of the cause could hunt the ferocious thing.’

He placed a kindly hand on the kneeling priest’s head. ‘No. We shall have to bait our trap again. I cannot afford to waste the lives of those loyal to the cause.’ Tzlayloc drew out an obsidian dagger and sliced the priest’s throat. ‘Not when the guarantors of the revolution hunger for the souls of those too foolish to lead the people to freedom.’

With almost indecent eagerness the other locust priests fell upon their brother, holding him down while Tzlayloc carved the heart out of his chest. ‘Xam-ku, Toxicatl,’ he called. ‘Cruatolatl and Bruaxochima.’

As the crystals in the ceiling flared, black outlines of man-insects appeared fleetingly, the locust priests echoing the shouts of Tzlayloc in the excitement of the offering. The King of Grimhope pointed to the coals. ‘Fry the heart quickly. It loses its taste if it is left in the air too long.’

Two soldiers dragged the carcass of the lifeless locust priest down the steps of the ziggurat and along the wide subterranean boulevard. In the shadows of one of the buildings something watched and hissed to itself in two voices.

‘Another body. The old ones are stronger now.’

‘We can help, she said-’

‘-not yet time.’

‘We must time it right.’

‘So we must. Shhhh.’

It slunk back into the shadows, whispering to itself.

Molly woke up in the cell. It seemed inappropriate that after enduring so much pain for so long her body could now seem fresh, alive and unmarked. The commodore came over to her. ‘Ah, lass, I feared they might have driven you insane with their unholy tortures.’