The Iron Wyrm Affair

by Lilith Saintcrow

  To be so helpless was enough to drive a Prime to the edge of sanity. Or past. And Emma wondered if she had been quite sane since the experience.

  Perhaps Mikal chose to misunderstand her question. “It was a choice between service to another Prime or death.” Calm, matter-of-fact, his expression set and unyielding. “You said it yourself, Prima. They would kill me if I were not in service to a sorcerer who could protect me, and you are the only one willing to do so.”

  At least that you have found. What was the danger of continuing thus? She braced herself, and took the next logical step. “You may, if you choose, leave my service and stay in my house as a sanctuary. The Collegia will censure me, but at least you will still be alive.” And I will not have to wonder when you will find me lacking and squeeze the life out of me.

  “No.”

  Well, at least she had made him express a preference. “Very well. You may decide otherwise at any—”

  “No.” His eyes flamed. She wondered, not for the first time, how much of what she suspected of his bloodline was true. “Do not ask again, Prima.”

  Very well. I shall simply be on guard. As I have been. And look how satisfactorily that has proceeded. Still, he had not turned on her yet. “You will need to be fully armed tonight.”

  The crimson light made him an ochre statue, except for the gleams of his eyes. “I am.”

  “Already?” She sounded mocking, she supposed.

  “I do not take it lightly when my Prima is stabbed in the lung.”

  Your Prima. Did you feel so proprietary of your Prime, lo that scant month ago? “I returned, did I not?”

  “Barely, Emma. Shall we continue this conversation, or would you like to bring me to my knees again and save time?”

  I apologised, Mikal. “You say that as if you do not enjoy it.” Sharp, a prick for his temper, no less regrettable than her own.

  He chose not to give battle, for once. “No more or less than you do, Prima. Shall I ask where we are bound tonight? Tideturn is close. No more than a quarter-hour.”

  I am aware of that. She glanced at the softly ticking grandfather clock, its face showing the different hours of the day in jewelled simulacra of the Ages of Man. Sorcery bubbled in its depths, its wheels and cogs and springs measuring each second of eternity. Given proper care, the works would continue even when the thick oak casing, sheathed in chasing metal, turned to dust. The dealer had sworn it was from an alchemyst’s laboratory, hinting that so august a personage as von Tachel had owned it at one time. Exceedingly unlikely… but still, Emma liked it, and the jewelled simulacra were a reminder.

  Especially the dirty labourer at noon, lifting his mug of foaming beer to blackened lips, and the drab pleading with the gentleman at eleven.

  The massive dragon’s head carved above the face, its eyes glowing with soft sorcery, held its jaws in a constant, silent roar. Time, it said, is a gaping maw like mine. You have escaped the worst.

  And she had, even before Miles Crawford had so neatly trapped her. But for an accident of fate, she could have ended as a drab herself, in the very slums she had been hunting through this afternoon.

  “Southwark,” she heard herself say. “We are visiting Mehitabel.”

  She had the satisfaction of seeing her Shield pale before she swept past him and through her study doors.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Wark and the Werks

  Clare offered his hand, but the sorceress put no weight on it as she climbed into the hansom, her petticoats oddly soundless.

  “All the same, my good man, one shouldn’t have to throw oneself into the street to attract a driver’s attention.” Clare looked back at the house – it appeared dark, closed up for the night, the gates to the front walk locked by invisible hands.

  “I stops for my fares, I does.” The driver’s gin-blossomed nose and cheeks all but glowed in the ruddiness of dusk. The sun was sinking quickly, and the fog was rising. A regular Londinium pea-souper, creeping up the Themis. “You won’t find no one else willin t’take you half-crost that bridge, no sir. Not Southwark, this close to Turn. Right lucky you are.”

  “Very lucky indeed, especially since we’re paying double fare.” The man was no use for deductive purposes; he was a cockerel Cockney with a war wound to his left leg, reeking of gin and married to a Stepney woman who tied the traditional ribbon in his buttonhole.

  “Mr Clare.” The sorceress leaned forward. Her swelling and bruising had gone down remarkably, and a crease of annoyance lingered on her forehead. “Cease arguing with the man and get into the carriage.”

  He complied, the door banged shut, and the heaving brass flanks of the clockhorse crackled under the whip. Altered horse and Altered flashboy, his brain whispered. There is no connection, do be reasonable.

  He was uneasy. It was the gryphons at the table, of course. Irrationality bothered him as it would bother any mentath. That was all.

  No, it is not. You haven’t enough information. Simply be patient. It was hard to be patient, he acknowledged, when Miss Bannon so assiduously avoided the subject of the mutilations of unregistered mentaths.

  That hit a trifle close to home, so to speak.

  Mikal had disappeared, though Clare suspected further trouble would bring his reappearance. The Shield no longer looked grey and drawn, though grim enough, and the sorceress was still pale, wincing slightly when she had to move in certain ways. The wound could very easily have proved deadly.

  I did not kill him, she had hurriedly said, as if he would suspect such a thing. The mental drawer bearing Miss Bannon’s name had turned into a large bureau with several nooks and crannies. She was doing far more to keep his faculties exercised than the conspiracy.

  Which was beginning to take on some troubling characteristics in its own right, to be sure.

  The hansom jolted, Miss Bannon swayed into him, and Clare murmured an apology. “Close quarters.”

  “Indeed.” She was rather alarmingly white, her curls swinging. “Mr Clare, I have not been entirely open with you.”

  “Of course. You are not entirely open with anyone, Miss Bannon. You have learned not to be.”

  “Another deduction.”

  “Have you read my monograph, madam? Deduction is my life. Any mentath’s, really, but mine especially.” He permitted himself a sardonic raise of the eyebrows, glanced at her, and was gratified to find a slight smile. “I deduce you are more irritated with your own ill luck than with me or your Shield. I deduce you were an orphan, and your early life taught you the value of luxury. I further deduce this ‘conspiracy’ is actually a disagreement over a certain item mentaths have been engaged in—”

  “Wait.” She cocked her head, lifting one gloved hand, and shivered. Clare consulted his pocket watch.

  Tideturn.

  Charter symbols, glowing gold, crawled over her skin. Her jewellery boiled with sparks, the cameo becoming a miniature lamp, filling the cab’s interior with soft light. Clare watched, fascinated, as the charter symbols dove into her flesh, stray sorcery dust puffing from the folds of her dress and winking out of existence in mid-air. Fresh charter-charm marks appeared, a river of runic writing coating her.

  Miss Bannon exhaled, sharply, and the lights faded. She shook her fingers, and sparks popped. One of the clockhorses neighed, and the cab jolted. “Much better,” she muttered, and turned her dark eyes on Clare. There was no trace of the horrific bruising on her face and throat, and she did not flinch at another jolt. “You were saying. A certain item?”

  “A certain item mentaths have been engaged in building, but in parts, so none of them knows the whole.” He tucked his watch away, carefully. Fresh linens of exceeding quality had magically appeared for him, and a permanent measuring charm had been applied to him and his clothes. The valet was, at least, dexterous and did not seek to engage him in superfluous conversation.

  Miss Bannon’s hospitality was proving itself legendary in stature.

  “Hm.” Neither affirming nor denying
.

  “An item Lord Grayson was deliberately kept somewhat unaware of.” Or you hope he is unaware. “Which means you have been involved with these mentaths for longer than they have been dying, and your orders come from another quarter indeed.”

  “And who do you suppose could order me about, sir?” The cab lurched; she lifted her chin, but relaxed immediately. Clare’s stomach somersaulted, perhaps expecting a repeat of last night’s games.

  “I have noted the royal seal on several items in your excellent library, which I availed myself of just before we left, and the statue of Britannia in your entry hall is of solid silver, as well as stamped with the royal imprimatur. No doubt you offered some great service and were given a token – but even if you had not been, you would have continued to serve. Your utterance of God and Her Majesty is sincere. And, one suspects, heartfelt.”

  Her lips pursed. Her hands clasped together, lying decorously well bred in her lap. Despite the likely chill of the evening, she wore no shawl. She was hatless as well, despite his guess to the contrary. She perhaps expected an unpleasant event during which a bonnet would be a hindrance.

  He did not find this a soothing observation.

  Silence stretched between them, broken only by the clopping of metal-reinforced hooves and the driver’s half-muffled cheerful catcalls as they turned south. Other hackney drivers responded, and the crowded streets around them were a low mumbling surf-roar. Just after Tideturn the city was a freshly yeasted, bubbling mass, especially near the Themis.

  “Let us suppose you are to be trusted.” Miss Bannon peered through the window, watching the crowd whirl past. “What then?”

  “Why then, Miss Bannon, we discover who has been killing sorcerers and mentaths, uncover the missing pieces of this item, learn who among Her Majesty’s subjects is treacherous enough to wish to steal this item and presumably use it against Britannia’s current incarnation, and—”

  “Be home in time for tea?”

  It took him by surprise, and his wheezing laugh did as well. He sobered almost instantly as the hansom slowed, swimming against the tide at the northern edge of the Iron Bridge. “One hopes.”

  “Indeed. Then let us proceed with this understanding, Mr Clare: I am responsible for your safety, and I do not forgive disobedience or incompetence. You are relatively competent; may I trust you not to question?”

  An exceedingly managing female. “Until further notice, Miss Bannon, you may. Provided your requests fall within the compass of my ability.”

  “Fair enough. We are at the Bridge; no doubt our driver will be stopping soon. You are a gentleman, but pray do not precede me from the carriage. You are far more vulnerable than I.”

  A sharp bite of irritation flashed through him. He shelved it with difficulty. “Very well.”

  “Thank you.” Primly, she gathered herself, and as if in response, the hansom halted.

  Queen’s Bridge – otherwise known as the Southwark or the Iron, to balance the Stone Bridge as one of Londinium’s arteries – loomed in twilight, fog shrouding both of its massive ends. Black iron gleamed wetly, the Themis rippling with gold under its arches as Tideturn spilled and eddied back to sea. It was perhaps the ugliest bridge in Londinium, and the charter symbols cast into its long span crawled with touches of vermilion. Some said the Bridges kept the Themis under control, binding the ancient, hungry demigod sleeping in the river’s depths.

  Most illogical. Still, the cold iron was superstitiously comforting.

  At the Bridge’s southern end, the Wark sent up columns of dense smoke underlit with crimson, the unsleeping foundries audible even at this distance. Cinders fell like Twelfthnight snow there, and the bridge thrummed unpleasantly underfoot.

  “’Tis as far as I go, worships.” The driver was pale under his gin-touched cheeks. “The Black Wark’s unsteady tonight. Feel it in the Bridge, you can.”

  Mikal had appeared at Miss Bannon’s elbow, yellow eyes taking a last gleam from the Themis. He murmured to the sorceress, who nodded once, sharply, her earrings swinging. “Give him a further half-crown, Shield. He’s done well. Mr Clare, come with me.”

  “Thank you. Good man.” Clare dusted his hat. The Wark’s cinders would perhaps ruin it. “Off you go, then. Mind you,” he remarked to the sorceress, “I am still no closer to discovering why a hansom can be so bloody difficult to find.”

  Mikal tossed a coin, the flick of his fingers invisible in the uncertain light. The cabbie, however, plucked the half-crown from the air, and the coin vanished. He tipped his hat at the sorceress and winked before lifting the reins.

  “Conspiracy.” Miss Bannon watched as the hansom negotiated a tight turn, the clockhorse’s Altered hooves clipping the bridge’s surface. Stray sparks of sorcery winked out in its wake. The whip cracked, and their driver made good his escape.

  “That could be so.” Clare’s dinner was not sitting so excellently at the moment. He put his shoulders back, seeking to ease the discomfort.

  The middle of the Bridge was deserted. On either end, Londinium teemed; Queen Street’s terminus on to Upper Themis was crowded with warehouses and sloping tenements. Lights winked among them, gasflame and the pallid gleams of the occasional witchglobe. On the other end, Southwark’s bloody glow made a low, unhappy noise.

  Miss Bannon did not relax until the hansom was out of sight, vanished on to Upper Themis Road. Even then, the tension in her only abated; it did not cease. “Safe enough,” she murmured. “Come, Mr Clare. Listen closely while we walk.”

  He offered his arm. Stray cinders fluttered, a grey curtain.

  “We are about to enter Southwark.” She did not lean on him, though she rested a gloved hand delicately and correctly in the crook of his elbow. Mikal stepped away, turning smartly, and trailed on Miss Bannon’s other side.

  “Obviously.”

  “Do not interrupt. Once we step off the Bridge, no matter how important, do not speak without express permission from me. The… lady we are visiting is eccentric, and much of the Black Wark is full of her ears. She is also exceedingly dangerous.”

  “If she is dangerous enough to cause you this concern, Miss Bannon, rest assured I shall follow your instructions precisely. Who is she?”

  “Her name is Mehitabel.” Miss Bannon’s jaw was set, and she looked pale. “Mehitabel the Black.”

  “What a curious name. Tell me, Miss Bannon, should one fear her?”

  Her childlike face with its aristocratic nose was solemn, and she gave him one very small, tight-mouthed smile. “You are sane, Mr Clare. That means yes.”

  The heart of Southwark was the Black Wark, grey and red. Grey from the piled cinders the shuffling ashwalkers pushed along with their long flat brooms, the wagons loaded with the stuff taken to the soap factories grumbling along on traditional wooden wheels. Red from the glow of the foundries, red for the beating heart under the Wark’s crazyquilt of streets and jumbled alleys. The gaslamps here corroded swiftly from the cinderfall; yellow fog sent thin tendrils questing along the cobbles. The low red glow made the fog flinch, hugging corners and pooling in darker spots.

  Between Blackfriar and Londinium Bridges, the Iron Bridge stood and the Themis was dark, great fingers combing its silk as the foundries drank and sent their products forth. Metalwork, mechanisterum used for Alteration, the huge warehouses for the making of clockhorses on the near side of High Borough, close to the Leather Market. Blackfriar, Londinium Bridge, Great Dover-Borough High-Wellengton and Great Surrey to the west and east, Greenwitch at the south; these were the confines of the Black Wark. Some said those streets had powerful enchantments buried underneath, wedded to rails of pure silver, keeping the Wark contained. Whispers told of workshops in the Wark where workers so Altered as to be merely metal skeletons grinned and leapt, or streets faced in dark metallic clockwork that changed when the fog grew thick and the cinderfall was particularly intense.

  The Wark’s natives were Altered young. Immigrants, mostly Eirean, poured in to work at the foundr
ies and warehouses, living twenty or more to a stinking room while gleaming delicate clockworks and massive metalwork were shipped out clean and sparkling on each tide.

  If a gentleman went into the Wark, he hired Altered guides, native flashboys working in groups of a half-dozen or more who mostly took it as a point of rough pride to guard their employers. The Wark’s flashboys were feared even in the Eastron End’s worst slums, and rumour had it they were often contracted for shady work even a Thugee from darkest Indus would flinch at.

  At the end of the Iron Bridge, Mikal stepped forward, and the veil of cinderfall parted.

  “Passage a pence apiece!” a rough voice croaked. “Threepee for your worships!”

  A bridgekeeper appeared in a circle of gaslamp glow, cinders shaking from the brim of his hat. Round and wrapped in odds and ends; metal gleamed as his Alterations came into view – a lobster claw instead of a left hand, soot-crusted metal gleaming in odd scraped-bare spots, and a glass eye lit with venomous yellow, like the fog. He moved oddly, lurching, and Clare’s interest sharpened.

  He has been Altered even more thoroughly than that. Look, there. Wheels. He has wheels instead of feet. They were not quality Alterations, either. Rough edges and clicking cogs caked with grease and cinders, no smoothly gleaming surfaces.

  Clare held his tongue with difficulty.

  “Mikal.” The sorceress did not break stride, drawing him on.

  “Ye’ll be wanting guides, worships, specially after Tideturn.” The bridgekeeper chuckled. “And wit a laddle too!”

  Movement in the shadows. Clare stiffened, but Miss Bannon simply tilted her head. “I require no guide, Carthamus, and you should polish that eye of yours. Give your dogs the signal to withdraw, or you’ll lose a goodly portion of them to my temper.”