Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Song

Then the tram was dipping, descending. It touched down with a shudder, and Trista became aware of a new set of sounds. A steady, metallic scraping which rose in pitch each time they cornered, and a ker-thud ker-thud like a heartbeat. It was the sort of noise heard on a train, the muffled jumping of the sleepers.

Seeing a level-crossing sign pass on one side, Trista realized that the tram must be running along the unfinished railway track that led to the new station. The view outside was replaced by scaffolding, raised boards, rickety fences. Trista felt the tram slow and stop.

‘You really do not enjoy travel, do you, Miss Crescent?’ The Architect reached over and patted the back of her hand. ‘Do not worry – that was your last journey.’ He took hold of her wrist, so tightly that Trista could see her fingers turning pink. She did not resist as he pulled her to her feet and led her to the saloon door. As they stepped off the tram, she kept her gaze on the Architect’s wrist through the curtain of her hair. Under his crisp shirt cuff was a bulge of the right size to be a service watch.

The station loomed before her, its snow-covered slopes dimly luminous in the darkness. Its shape was blunted, the point missing from the top. It looked too mighty for its surrounding scaffolding. Staring up at it, Trista could not imagine why nobody had realized that a vast spectral tomb was being built in the middle of Ellchester.

The other Besiders were pouring out of the trailer cars, and dropping from the sky, striking powder clouds of snow from the ground. They wasted no time, but seethed towards the station. Ignoring all the obvious arches and entrances, they scrabbled, leaped and soared their way up the sloping sides of the pyramid.

The Architect led Trista to the base of the pyramid at a stately stride, and as they reached it a swarm of grey bird-things frothed in ahead of them and clustered to form a few rough, flickering steps made of shifting, living forms. With utter unconcern the Architect began to climb these, forcing Trista to do the same. She could feel the bird-steps squirming and squealing under her weight. As each step was left behind it dissolved with a flutter, the bird-things flitting up to provide the next step for the Architect’s ready foot.

And so they climbed the pyramid on bird-back steps, right up to the square, gaping hole at the top. There was a pause, and then the Architect toppled forward into the darkness, pulling Trista with him. There was a plummeting sensation, and a moment where the world pulled itself inside out. When Trista’s head cleared, the two of them were still standing, but they were inside an enclosed room where the angles seemed to be glaring at each other like affronted cats.

The torrent of other Besiders surged past them, disappearing through a torchlit archway into what looked like a cross between a banqueting hall and a jazz club. Candles glinted in chrome, wild whinnies tangled with saxophone trills.

‘Oh, that place is not for you , my dear,’ murmured the Architect with quiet savagery. ‘All that light, all that sound! Think of your headaches. No, you need quiet and dark.’

He reached out and opened another door she had not noticed, then dragged Trista into a narrow stone-walled corridor. Brackets in the walls oozed silver flame that moved sluggishly and barely revealed the room, like a sad memory of fire rather than fire itself.

The corridor forked again and again. The Architect chose this turn, that turn with dizzying speed as he weaved through the labyrinth.

‘Faster! Exercise is good for young limbs.’ The Architect’s stride accelerated to a long-legged lope, then a run, almost dragging Trista off her feet as he pulled her through antechambers, past walls carved with a hundred eyes, up and down twisting steps.

At last he burst into a large, domed room, whose floor sloped down to a round shaft in the centre. With a forward sweep of his arm, he flung his prisoner to the ground, so that the breath was knocked out of her and her hat fell from her head.

‘Welcome to your new home.’ There was nothing smooth or debonair about the Architect now. He was seven foot of trembling malice, silver eyes brighter than the false torches. ‘ Your father made it for you, and come the dawn he will seal you into it. By all means try to find your way out – you will fail. If you wish, you may sob here until you starve or stifle. If you wish for a quicker death, throw yourself in that pit. The fall never ends, but you will. It will pull the screams out of you until you unravel, leaving nothing but the screams.’

‘No!’ His captive flung herself at his feet, desperately clutching at his hand and arm. ‘Don’t leave me here! Please!’

For a few moments the Architect was content to let the girl sob and cling, but then he gave a noise of distaste and pushed her roughly away.

‘What a pitiable object you are,’ he muttered. Then his eyes fell to his hand, sticky with grey strands instead of tears, and his wrist, which was now bare of all but shirt cuff.

With astonishment and rage, his silver gaze flicked to his captive, and the scratched service watch gripped fiercely in her small, slim hands. The girl raised her head, and the Architect looked into a smile full of thorns.

‘Hello, Daddy,’ said the Cuckoo.

The Architect’s shriek of rage was the fluting at the heart of a hurricane. The domed room shivered, cracks running across its paint-spiralled ceiling. He lunged at her, but she leaped out of the way, landing on all fours with her thorn claws extended.

‘Where is she?’ he demanded.

‘Long gone,’ hissed the changeling. ‘Can you even guess how long? Can you guess how long I have been by your side, laughing at you?’

The Architect threw back his head and gave another terrible, infantile shriek, and the whole room tipped and swung like a bell, trying to hurl Trista towards the dark and gaping hole at its heart. He came after her as she fought to keep her balance, as the slabs shifted and bucked under her bare hands and feet. He seemed larger than the room, darker than the twisted stem of a tornado. And yet he was still man-shaped, with pale eyes that scorched and hands that snatched for her.

The room flung her this way and that, so that she was battered painfully against wall and floor. She felt her sides rip like cloth seams. She tumbled and sprawled, coughing up brooches and thimbles. But always she found her feet again, just in time to dodge the Architect’s next grab. The watch never slipped from her grip.

This was one of the Architect’s places, where he had more control than in the wider world. And yet again and again his fingers raked empty air, for in this moment of rage the Architect was not in control of himself.

But I’m weakening. Every leap was taking more effort. I’m getting slower. I’m running out of time…

One painful sprawl too many. She was too slow to rise. She felt strong fingers grasp a handful of her hair. She clawed at the Architect’s hand in vain as he dragged her relentlessly along the ground towards the shaft…

…and then his grip loosened as the fistful of hair became a fistful of leaves. Trista sprang to her feet, unexpectedly finding herself directly behind her towering attacker. She hurled herself against his back with all her might, and as the room lurched, the pair of them pitched forward. Trista landed on her belly, digging the claws of her fingers and toes into the floor cracks to stop her sliding.

The Architect, however, tumbled on to his side and rolled, vanishing over the edge into the dark, abysmal shaft. His scream made her curl up and clutch her ears. It went on and on, thinning and fading until there was nothing left but a tingle in the ear.