The Court of the Air

‘I haven’t started to change yet.’

‘Pah,’ spat the Whisperer. ‘Dreams are about the truth, Oliver. They are a door through which denial is rarely allowed admittance. Ask yourself this question: why does your mind, your perfect mind which can slew off worldsinger truth-hexing and mind-walking like water off a duck’s feathers, why does it still allow me entry into your dreams?’

‘I—’ Oliver had not anticipated the question.

‘Think on it, Oliver. I like it in here, Oliver – your mind is by far the best. Lovely detail. Perfect clarity. It isn’t as easy to make contact with the normals. But I have been bearing up, Oliver. I’ve been minding the shop for the both of us. The places I’ve been – even steammen minds; like wading through a stream of broken glass, riding one of the metal’s thoughtflows.’

‘And in your travels,’ said Oliver, ‘have you found anything more practical than obscure warnings about Harry Stave?’

‘Oh, I’m warming to Harry,’ said the Whisperer. ‘He’s a son of a bitch, and damned if I know if he’s our son of a bitch yet, but right now he’s the only game in town as far as young Master Brooks is concerned.’

‘How comforting.’

‘You’ve got a few surprises in store for you, Oliver. For me too. There’s someone else out there, or something. Leaving little traces behind in people’s minds. She thinks I don’t know about her, but I am powerful, Oliver. That’s why they buried me so deep beneath the earth. No special torc suit for me.’ The Whisperer’s normally sibilant voice had risen to a screech, the background reality of the tenements surrounding Bonegate wavering under the lashing fury of his temper. ‘No fun and games with the wild bunch for the poor old Whisperer. No midnight walks through Middlesteel’s wide boulevards for me. No moonlight. No cold evening air!’

‘Stop it,’ Oliver shouted. ‘My mind!’

Fading away, the dream storm died down as the Whisperer collapsed sobbing on the gallows platform. ‘I’m not predictable, Oliver. That’s why they fear me, that’s why they’ve got me surrounded by a dozen interlocking cursewalls, that’s why they use a trained hound to drag the drugged slop they feed me into my cell.’

Oliver watched rapt with a mixture of fascination, horror and pity as the Whisperer started to pull himself across the platform, his club-footed shuffle becoming a rhythm from his childhood only he could hear. ‘Do a little dance, do a little dance.’

‘What will you do, Whisperer,’ said Oliver, ‘if they catch me and the doomsman stretches my neck at the gallows?’

‘Don’t say that, Oliver,’ the Whisperer hissed. ‘The memory of last night’s roast beef is still so fresh in your skull. So clear. Ah, now I see what you’re trying to do. Distracting me the way you’d dangle string in front of a kitten.’

‘That beef sure tasted good though,’ said Oliver, sitting down on the edge of the hangman’s platform.

The Whisperer arranged himself alongside Oliver. It was difficult to tell if the feybreed had a sitting position or not. ‘I could almost bear my prison, Oliver, if it was not for the Special Guard. All the beautiful people, all the pretty-pretty boys and girls, eating the best, their fey gifts trotted out on call for the state. Like a basket of pampered, indulged pets. I used to visit their dreams, Oliver, in the early days. But now it’s just a little more than I can take.’

‘They wanted me to join the legion,’ said Oliver. ‘To put a worldsinger’s control torc around my neck.’

‘Pretty cat needs a collar,’ said the Whisperer. ‘You think my father didn’t promise that for me when he hauled me to Middlesteel on the back of his cart? I trade messages for all the prisoners trapped in Hawklam Asylum, like a one-fey crystalgrid network. There’s hardly a soul penned in here that wasn’t expecting the finest steak and long lazy days of muscle-pit oil massages. You’d be surprised how normal-looking some of the condemned are down here. But if your powers can’t be turned on and off like a tap on a jinn barrel …’

The dreamscape started to fade. Oliver was waking up.

‘I’ll mind the shop, Oliver Brooks,’ said the Whisperer, once more back in his underground cell. ‘You just mind yourself with that devious jigger, Harry Stave.’

‘You need the hat,’ said Harry. ‘Trust me.’

The Chaunting Lay was moored four miles from Turnhouse, tied up outside a tavern at the back end of crown parkland – like everything else in Jackals, in the king’s name but belonging to the people. Coaches and fours were scattered across the grass, families from the town with checkerboard picnic blankets enjoying the Circleday afternoon.

‘Why do I need it, Harry?’ said Oliver, adjusting the cap. ‘I thought you said the all-seeing eye in the sky would have its attention elsewhere.’

Harry winked at the boy. ‘A little paranoia is never unhealthy.’

Oliver looked around the busy tavern yard, canteen tables crowded with navvies from the waterway clearance board. There had not been a crown park in the Hundred Locks district – the nearest one was in Beggarsmead, far outside the distance of his registration order. That was well and truly shot to pieces now.

‘Lots of people here,’ said Oliver. ‘How are we going to find your man?’

‘Not a man, Oliver. A woman. And crowds are good, lots of movement and extraneous detail – like a good cloth cap – to keep a surveillant and their transaction engine on their toes.’

They found their lady sitting on a stool outside a covered box-wagon, the kind normally found at country fairs hawking baldness remedies of a dubious provenance. She had a bottle of jinn on her left side and balls of wool piled on the right. She was carefully knitting a child-sized sweater.

‘Mother,’ said Harry, as she looked up. ‘More grandchildren on the way?’

‘She’s your mother?’ Oliver looked in disbelief at the grizzled old woman.

The old woman jabbed a knitting needle towards Oliver. ‘If you’re looking for the mare that birthed Harry Stave, you can just look on, dearie. My children are all married off and in respectable trades.’

‘Oliver, this is Damson Loade,’ said Harry. ‘Mother to her friends.’

She chuckled and took a swig of the jinn through a largely toothless mouth. ‘On account of a lucky strike I made, mining silver in the colonies.’

Oliver made a little bow. ‘Mother Loade.’

‘You’re a little cleaner than this reprobate’s usual travelling companions,’ said Mother.

‘A fine one to talk you are,’ said Harry. ‘You forgot to mention the reason you were in Concorzia was by way of a transportation hulk.’

‘Details,’ said the old woman. ‘The doomsman may have given me the boat, but a little silver buys a lot of forgiveness in Jackals. Enough to set up in business with Mister Locke as master gunsmiths to the nobility of Middlesteel and the twenty counties.’

‘Loade and Locke,’ said Oliver. ‘I used to see your details advertised at the back of my uncle’s copies of Field and Fern.’

‘A privilege for which Dock Street charges handsomely, dearie,’ said Mother. ‘Now then, Harry. I don’t normally do house calls, not least because that chinless wonder of a partner of mine is liable to have lost the deeds to the shop at the gaming tables by the time I get back.’

‘Sorry, Mother,’ said Harry. ‘I’m in a bit of bother.’

‘When aren’t you, boy?’ said Mother. ‘She picked up a folded copy of The Middlesteel Illustrated News from behind her stool. ‘Page twelve, towards the bottom.’

Harry leafed through the newspaper. ‘Hundred Locks slayings most foul as feybreed child and escaped felon murder constables and family guardians.’

‘What!’ Oliver choked. ‘They’re saying we killed them. What about the bodies of the toppers at the hall?’

‘Strangely absent,’ said Harry, ‘from this story. But then the Court’s got as many editors on the payroll as Dock Street has.’

‘I picked up a more detailed summary from my drop,’ said Mother. ‘You’re on the disavowed list, Harry. They say you’ve gone rogue. Every whistler from here to Loch Granmorgan is on orders to turn you in.’

‘Mother, this is horse manure,’ said Harry. ‘Someone in the Court’s been turned, but it isn’t me.’

‘You’re a rascal, Harry,’ said Mother. ‘But I believe you. Not because you’re a straight die, but because I don’t see how you could possibly turn a coin out of this mess.’

‘Nice to know you have such faith in me,’ said Harry. ‘Did the drop say which wolftakers you’re to give assistance to?’

Mother nodded. ‘Wolf Seven.’

‘Jamie bleeding Wildrake. I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. Someone up there has got a sense of humour.’

‘Stay off the big crown roads, Harry,’ said Mother. ‘The crushers have got blood machines set up at some of the toll cottages, they’re testing for you. Ham Yard is like a wasp’s nest with a burning rag stuffed down it.’