The Court of the Air

‘Which of us does not, with age?’ answered Slowcogs. ‘No. He is a joining – a creature formed from steamman cadavers at the hands of one of your human mechomancers. His pattern has been violated, the architecture laid down by King Steam tampered with. Three souls of our fallen lay trapped within the corpses that make up his body by Onestack’s selfish refusal to deactivate. It is a great dishonour for him.’

Molly remembered her dream of the night before. ‘Poor Silver Onestack.’

‘So he hides himself away down here in the undercity. But he is still steamman. Word has been sent by the controller – if he is alive I hope he will meet us outside the town.’

‘Word?’ said Molly. ‘Surely there is no crystalgrid network down here?’

Slowcogs pointed towards the ceiling mist, where black dots rode the cavern thermals. ‘There are older ways to send a message, young softbody. Trained bird bats with leg clips do as well in the deeps.’

They travelled at a steady pace for the rest of the day, uneventfully except for when one of the mushroom trees rained spores down on them as they passed. Molly’s eyes swelled up like the crimson ball from a game of four-poles and she sneezed uncontrollably for another two miles. Apart from the odd spike of earthflow-fed lightning, the bright red light from the crystals high above them never varied or dimmed. It was always day in the Duitzilopochtli Deeps.

By the late afternoon the cavern floor started to slope upwards and the fungal forest began to grow less densely. The presence of fields of stumps in the dirt suggested heavy felling by the inhabitants of the undercity. Before the brow of a hill they came across a field of a different kind, the stone markers and headstones of a graveyard stretching back to the fungal forest.

‘This is where Silver Onestack will meet us, if he is still activate,’ said Slowcogs. The steamman rolled along a path towards a shrine at the corner of the graveyard. The temple looked as abandoned as the Chimecan structure Molly had slept in the night before, but with none of the half-human, half-insect effigies. She guessed the outlaw city, rather than the ancient fallen empire, had constructed the shrine. Peering inside its gloom, Molly saw a figure squatting on the floor. A steamman, as silent as one of the Guardian’s statues in Parliament Square.

‘Have you no greeting for us, Silver Onestack?’ asked Slowcogs.

Raising itself on a tripod of three pincer-like legs, the large spherical body of the creature rotated, a silver-domed head emerging from an iris on the globe. ‘I had hoped no greetings would be necessary, Slowcogs. Did the controller not receive my message?’

‘We did not wait for your reply,’ said Slowcogs. ‘The Geargi-ju wheels have been thrown.’

‘Then he has read badly, Slowcogs. Grimhope is not the place it once was. Whatever threat this softbody faces in Middlesteel, it is only a fraction of the disorder that now rules down here.’

Slowcogs rolled back. ‘I do not understand.’

‘Then let me show you,’ said Silver Onestack, his three legs scissoring him out of the temple. They reached the top of the hill and stared down into the valley.

Old Chimecan ziggurats lay dotted around the cavern floor overwhelmed by the towers of a human city, smoke rising from workshops and manufactories. It looked like the Jangles in Middlesteel viewed from the top of the hill at Rottonbow.

‘Where is the tree town?’ asked Slowcogs. ‘Where is the palisade and Lake Chalchiuhtlicue?’

‘Cut down. Built over. Drained,’ said Silver Onestack. ‘The Anarchy Council fell three years ago. What is left of its members rests behind you in those plots.’

‘You have not reported this,’ said Slowcogs, accusingly.

‘Rather, I have, but you have not received my messages. The new regime brought flying things with them, all teeth and claws. I lost my whole loft of bird bats within a week. You were lucky the controller’s communication got through to me at all. It is the first word from the people of the metal I have received for years.’

‘It is strange this has been kept from us,’ said Slowcogs. He was clearly not used to the knowledge of something on such a scale having escaped the attention of the steammen’s all-knowing network.

‘Stranger still that the new regime were instantly able to identify all of the political police’s informers down here,’ said Silver Onestack. ‘Those informers that still live now tell the Guardians on the surface whatever the new regime wish them to hear.’

Molly stared down at Grimhope, deeply disappointed. She had expected freedom to look different, not like a miniature replica of Middlesteel. But however bad it was, her murderous family would not be able to track her down here.

Silver Onestack passed Molly a green cloak with a large hood. ‘Wear this, Molly softbody. And if anyone speaks to you before we get to my lodgings, do not forget to address your reply with compatriot, not sir or damson.’

‘They are communityists?’ Molly asked.

‘Not any more,’ said Silver Onestack, looking back at the bone-white gravestones of the Anarchy Council. ‘No. Not any more.’

Chapter Seven (#u22f8491e-6dae-51e5-80ea-2e737e87817c)

If Harry Stave was a typical criminal, then Oliver couldn’t understand how the constabulary had not captured him years ago. Since fleeing from the police station at Hundred Locks, all they had done was enter the woods to the south of the town, go into the middle of a clearing, and peg out a strange yellow flag with a black circle in the centre.

‘Now what?’ Oliver asked, watching the drizzle falling from the sky soak the odd-looking flag.

‘We wait,’ said Harry Stave.

‘For what?’

‘For three hours, old stick.’ said Harry.

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘I know.’

Oliver couldn’t goad any more out of him. So he shut up and waited. Someone must have discovered the bodies in the police station by now. The corpses at Seventy Star Hall on the other hand could take weeks to be found. Damson Griggs brought everything to the house; she would be noticed missing first by one of the nosy neighbours she was always complaining about. Or perhaps one of Uncle Titus’s businesses would send a runner to see what had happened to their reclusive owner.

Shortly after three hours had passed, a figure appeared on the other side of the clearing, shrouded by the curtain of rain – heavier now.

‘Who’s that?’ Oliver whispered.

‘If we’re lucky, our ticket out of here,’ said Harry.

‘Harry!’ the figure called.

Harry Stave stayed where he was, sheltered by the tree from the rain. ‘Monks! You’re not meant to be here. Where’s Landless?’

‘Reassigned,’ said Monks. ‘Who’s the boy?’

‘The whistler’s nephew. We need to extract, Monks. We’ve been rolled up here.’

Oliver was about to ask why his uncle was called the whistler, but Harry signalled him back.

‘Did you get to meet the walk-in, Harry?’

‘The walk-in didn’t show. That’s why I put up a signal. A rival crew arrived and nearly did for us. We’ve been bleeding rolled up, we need to get out now.’

‘That’s why I’m here, Harry. Come on.’

Stave shut his eyes, not moving. A shadow seemed to separate itself from the criminal, a spectral outline moving forward into the rain and across the clearing. To Oliver’s astonishment a similar figure misted out of his own skin, drifting after the Harry-ghost.

<Quiet.> Harry cautioned the boy. <We’re masked now under the tree. He can’t see us here.>

In the centre of the clearing two thunder cracks exploded, a lick of flame splashing through the apparitions and off into the trees on the left.

‘Damn,’ said Harry. ‘A marksman. I do hate to be proved right.’

They were running back into the forest, the man Monks shouting something after them.