Lilith Saintcrow: The Iron Wyrm Affair

The pressure in his skull eased all at once. Marvellous relief, sensory information behaving as it should now, and he opened his eyes to find the Neapolitan’s pox-scarred face above his. He had fallen; the assassin had caught him, and even now held him. The ground was charred, soot rising in fine dancing black flakes, the hedges blackened and crisped, peeled back in a perfect circle that had just missed them. Had Valentinelli not knocked them aside and held Sigmund down, all three of them might have been caught in the blast, instead of on its smoke-crisped margin.

The earth was quiet now, settling itself after a violation. The only hint of thunder was far in the distance, and one could not be sure it was not merely one’s nerves echoing after a sustained assault.

Calculate the stride length. The arachnid will have to pace slowly for the smaller mecha, but they will not grow tired. Sub-equations in the core will take care of that – how is it speaking to the receivers? An invisible signal, bringing it into range – pure electricity? No, and not magnetism either. Perhaps some blend of the two? How? Is it sorcery? No, the logic engine will not allow for that; the brains in the casks atop it must not be Altered then. I must have more data .

Valentinelli’s mouth was still moving. Sigmund nodded, leaned down –

– and slapped Clare. Not lightly, either, his work-hardened palm cracking against Clare’s cheek.

The shock snapped Clare’s head aside, and he thudded back into his body with a sound akin to a carriage wheel jolting through a pothole. “Thank you,” he gasped. “Dear heavens, that was uncomfortable.”

The Neapolitan relaxed slightly. He swore in Italian, more as a means of expressing his happiness than anything else. Clare blinked and found his body would obey him, gained his feet with Valentinelli’s help, and spotted his hat among some smoking shrubbery.

“ Spinne! ” Sigmund crowed. “Did you see that, Archie? Bastards built a Spinne! And what a beautiful beast. We hunt them down, ja? Hunt them and see how they made the fräulein Spinne! ”

Bending over to retrieve his hat was problematic, but Clare managed it, and turned to survey the smoking pile of rubbish that had once been a reasonably nice, if somewhat decrepit, manor house. “Indubitably.”

“ La strega do not pay enough for this,” the assassin muttered darkly. “That thing. Diavolo .” And, of all things, the assassin crossed himself in the manner of the Papists.

“Twenty guineas,” Clare reminded him, a trifle more jollily than he felt. “And you said you’d take on the Devil himself, my princely friend.”

“Twenty guinea is not enough.” The man’s accent had settled into what Clare suspected might be his true voice – clipped and cultured, but with the song of his native tongue rubbing under unmusical Queen’s Britannic. “That was not a cannonball, signor .”

“Nor was it a kiss on the cheek.” Clare jammed his hat atop his head. The reek of singed hair, singed greenery, boiled rock, and dust was immense. If Valentinelli knew he was missing his eyebrows, he gave no sign of it – and Clare wondered if he might be missing his own. “Come, gentlemen. We must find the horses, if they have not bolted. We have work to do.”

“Wait. That – that thing .” Valentinelli’s hands were tense and his clothing still steamed. His coat was sadly the worse for wear, and his dark hair was scorched as well. All in all, they were a rather sorry and raffish bunch by now. “How you plan on stopping it? What it doing , eh, signor? And what you propose we do?”

Sig stared in the direction the vast mecha had gone, his broad rough hands working on empty air as if he had the builder of such a contraption by the throat.

Clare took stock of himself, patting his pockets. His pistol had not discharged, thank goodness. His watch was still in its accustomed place, and he drew it forth, noted the time, and wound it, a soothingly habitual set of motions. “First we find the horses.” He replaced the watch and pulled his cuffs down, brushed at his frock coat. He stamped, doing what he could to rid his boots of dust and char. Miss Bannon’s money was still secure. “Then we visit the quarry three miles from here. If luck is on our side, there will be a mecha there we can steal, for the range of values will no doubt have excluded some of those built.” He paused. “If not, we shall think of something. Then we hie ourselves to Londinium and do our best to nip a rebellion in the bud.”

There were Altered guards at the quarry’s mouth, but Valentinelli left Clare and Sig in a shaded dell and disappeared around the bend in the cart track. He reappeared a few minutes later, wiping one of his dark-bladed knives on a torn rag he dropped without further ado in the dust. Clare did not overly examine the traces of crimson on it; it was enough to deduce the provenance – the shirt the Neapolitan had torn it from as soon as the owner had ceased breathing.

Mercifully, the corpses lay with their faces turned away from the entrance, their necks crooked oddly. Their Alterations were only hinted at – deformed ribs and too-thick legs insinuating changes to the human body that might sicken Clare, did he not have other things to focus on.

“Kielstone,” he murmured. It was an underground quarry. Kiel could be cut in any direction, unlike slate, and it ran in odd veins, twisting and looping underground. It also was mildly resistant to sorcery, meaning it had to be extracted by hand. Even traces of kiel would camouflage the mechas nicely, before their logic engines turned on.

The entry was a cavern of pitch black, even under the strengthening daylight. The clouds were thinning, and it might turn into a beautiful Kentish spring day before long. The mecha would glitter under the sun as they strode toward Londinium.

Were there other quarries in the districts around the ancient city just waiting to birth a stream of metal monsters? Very likely. How many?

More than will be comfortable, Clare. Concern yourself with the task at hand .

“Archie.” Sigmund had gone rather pale under his mask of soot. “In there? ”

“Come now, Sig. You’re a lion for Miss Bannon, aren’t you? See there.” Clare pointed. “We shall find lanthorns, no doubt. Or glowrock. Signor Valentinelli, if you would be so kind.”

In short order they had glowrocks caged in steel, the surfaces of the stones dark and oil-slick as they absorbed sunlight. They seemed well charged, but just to be safe Valentinelli also found a lanthorn with a trimmed wick and plenty of oil. Clare thought to ask if the man had lucifers about him, but the gleam in the Neapolitan’s dark eyes told him such a question was foolish.

They penetrated the cavern’s black mouth. Twenty paces in it was dim enough that the glowrocks began to shimmer. The floor was stone, scarred and worn smooth, implements stacked against the walls – picks and shovels, rope, kegs of various sizes, scrap lumber, a small pile of miner’s hats, candleholders. Fifty paces, and they walked in tiny spheres of silver glow, blackness pressing down all around. A hundred paces brought them to a junction. The main passageway continued down, terminating in what had to be some sort of caged hoist-lift; a much narrower passage veered sharply off to the right.

Valentinelli was a scarred caricature, glowrock light disappearing into his pupils and the pits on his soot-streaked face. “ Signor? ”

Clare swallowed drily, pointed at the smaller passage. “That one.”

“How would they …” Sig coughed. “No, of course. That is for supplies. This is for people.”