The Gold Thief

by Justin Fisher

  It seemed like half the troupe were out there, and none of them were happy.

  “You cannot let this damnable toaster stay with us! They were banned with dashed good reason!” shouted George, who never let his animal side do the talking, unless gearing up for a fight.

  What was even more alarming was who he was shouting at. No one ever raised their voice to Benissimo, not if they wanted to keep it.

  Next to George, waist height in his lab coat and multi-lensed spectacles, stood the circus’s resident boffin and head of R & D. Minutians are extremely small, gnome-small, but take great offence at being compared to their diminutive cousins, who though similar in stature have none of their aptitude for the sciences. Whatever the Tinker was, though, he was not himself and looked as though he hadn’t eaten in days.

  “George is right, boss,” the Tinker said. “The last malfunction ended in a bloody massacre and that was over a hundred years ago. It really has no place here and if you’re expecting me to keep it going, well!”

  Which was when Ned turned his head to see the root of the problem. Standing there was a vast and aged ticker, the size of a full-grown man. Ned’s own mouse was a ticker and he’d seen countless others in the hidden city of Shalazaar. Mechanical wonders in the form of eagles, monkeys, dogs, they could be incredibly useful machines … and dangerous ones. A ticker in the form of a tiger had nearly bested George on the snow-swept mountain of Annapurna.

  George, it seemed, had not forgotten. He was regarding the man-shaped ticker with an expression of fury, suspicion and disgust. Nor was he alone. A chameleon-skinned girl from the dancing section was rippling her colours uncontrollably, Alice the elephant’s feathers were all over the place and Finn’s lions, Left and Right, were whimpering behind the wax-coated tracker like a pair of wet dogs. Of everyone, no one was more terrified than Ned’s wind-up mouse. The Debussy Mark Twelve sat on his shoulder, looking as though someone had plugged his tail into an electrical socket. His minuscule mouth was now locked in an open stance, as if the mere act of seeing the ticker had somehow overloaded his tiny pistons.

  “What … what is it?” said Ned.

  George turned to him, and blinked. “Oh, good morning, dear boy,” he said. “It is a gift from Madame Oublier, if you can call it that. Her men delivered it in the night. And it is not staying. These things are dangerous.”

  Ned could well believe it. The ticker was hewn from dark iron. Its body was a mass of jagged edges and rusting weaponry. A web of pipes, gears and pistons filled its chest and it looked to Ned like some haunted junkyard come to life.

  All, that was, except for its face. It wore a mask of polished white marble. Its features were elegant, like the face of some fallen angel, and all the more disturbing because of it. Beauty and the beast, black and white, heaven and hell.

  It was terrifying and also – Ned had to admit to himself – fascinating. As an Engineer, part of him wanted to take it apart and see how it worked. It was the sort of thing he could have spent hours on with his dad.

  His dad. He blinked as the pain of his parents’ loss came rushing back in.

  “I agree with George,” said the Tinker. “The Guardian goes, or we go.”

  The Ringmaster tapped his foot impatiently, before finally erupting with a crack of his whip.

  “QUIET! Before I box the ears of the lot of you and stick you all in irons!”

  The campsite was suddenly devoid of any noise, apart from the low tick, tick, tick of the Guardian’s metallic heart.

  “Have you forgotten what the boy and his family have done for us?” continued Bene. “Are your memories really that short? Need I remind you of their plight?”

  The troupe collectively blanched.

  “Now, if Madame O says she’ll sleep better for leaving it here, then so will I. It’s been programmed to watch the boy’s back and I suggest you do the same yourselves. None of us would be here were it not for Ned and Lucy, none of us.”

  Benissimo glared at them all, his great bushy eyes like the beam of a lighthouse, his troupe the cowering night. George’s mighty shoulders dropped and his fur flattened. The argument was over.

  Ned felt himself blush and looked to Lucy, who smiled at him and nodded.

  “Now, get your heads straight – we move tonight,” ordered Benissimo, before tipping his hat to Ned and retiring to his trailer.

  The Tinker turned to Ned. He had the same unkempt bristles as ever and his lab coat and pockets were even more a forest of screwdrivers than the last time they’d met. He was also rather embarrassed.

  “Master Armstrong, sir, I am most sorry that you had to see that. You know I’d do anything to keep you safe, but Guardians are no laughing matter. No matter what Madame what’s-her-name says.”

  “Guardian?”

  “Soldier-class and supposedly banned; how she got her hands on one I’ll never know. As if there wasn’t enough going on already, with Gearnish going dark, and …”

  The little minutian suddenly looked close to tears.

  “I heard about your city,” said Ned. “I’m so sorry, Tinks.”

  “You’ve nothing to be sorry about, Master Ned. What little family I have left is still there and, well, if anyone knows how I feel, it must be you, sir.”

  For maybe the first time since he’d stepped through the mirror Ned realised that he wasn’t alone. That his old friends needed him just as much as he needed them.

  “Then we’ll just have to get them back, Tinks,” he said. “Your family and mine.”

  “That’s the spirit, sir,” offered the Tinker with a smile.

  If anyone loved gadgets as much as the Tinker, it was Ned’s dad, and Ned had over the years learnt that the best way to stop his father from worrying was to encourage a good ramble about how things worked, particularly if they were metal. The Tinker, he hoped, would be no different.

  “So, what can you tell me about this ‘Guardian’, then?”

  “In the last great war we Hidden were on our knees. The Demons were too strong, too powerful, would have swept over us all had it not been for my Iron City and the machines we invented. You see, it was Gearnish that made them. The Guardians were designed to be strong enough to take on a Demon single-handedly. They worked, and they worked well. After the enemy was driven back they were put into retirement. Well, that was the idea, anyway. There was a malfunction and the machines turned on their masters. Only the Central Intelligence managed to stop them, and the entire batch was dismantled and buried in the earth. All, it would appear, apart from this one.”

  “The Central Intelligence? What’s that?”

  “Our one and only AI, a machine capable of free will and thought. It’s been running our factories for years, communicating with the machines directly. Nobody’s actually seen the thing in decades, but it was instrumental in the development of this here Guardian.”

  Ned’s ploy had worked, and as the little minutian let himself get lost in his own tale, Ned studied the machine. It was cold and lifeless but for the constant ticking of its metal heart and, despite being there for his safety, it did anything but make him feel safe.

  “It’s a class A prototype,” said Tinks, walking around the machine, inspecting it. “Less than a dozen made and the fiercest of its kind. Five thousand horsepower, more than eighteen hundred moving parts and in many ways the grandfather of the more advanced tickers we know today.”

  Ned stopped listening. He was thinking about his parents, and whether they were OK, and how to get them back. The thief: that was the first step. They had to catch the thief at the British Museum, and hopefully that would lead them … somewhere.

  Then, when the Tinker was in the midst of a particularly dull description of the Guardian’s hydraulic system, the ticker suddenly moved.

  It turned its head to Ned, and looked at him. Ned took a step back. The machine raised its hand, which was closed into a fist, before unfurling the fingers.

  And there, in its hand, was a folded piece of paper.
<
br />   “For you,” croaked the Guardian, in a rusting snarl of aged metal gears.

  Tinks was opening and closing his mouth in shock.

  Ned took the note and read it.

  Monsieur Ned,

  I am concerned for you. I sense a growing force within you, too much for one so young. Whoever is behind our troubles, they now have your father and his ring, but it is you who hold the greatest power – a power that lies within. Be careful, child, that it does not consume you.

  In the meantime, I hope this Guardian will keep you safe. And those around you, also.

  My best to you in the troubling times that no doubt lie ahead.

  O

  “What is it?” said the Tinker.

  “A note from Madame Oublier,” said Ned.

  “What’s it say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Ned wandered absent-mindedly away from the Tinker, ignoring the expression on the little man’s face. He looked down at his hand holding the note, and along with it his ring finger and ring. What did Madame Oublier mean by power within? Had his parents told the Farseer about his power spikes, how his Amplification-Engine had flared up when he was angry or upset? But consumed? What did that mean? In all his long bouts of training, neither of his parents had ever talked about being consumed! Was that what his dad was really worried about? Was Ned’s lack of control dangerous, or even lethal? And if so … for who?

  Ned read the most troubling lines again … keep you safe. And those around you, also.

  He glanced back at the now-inanimate Guardian, black and heavy with rust.

  He realised, then, why it did so little to make him feel safe.

  Just like his dad, Madame Oublier was concerned about Ned’s power, or at least the control he had over it. So she’d left the Guardian. He cast his mind back to the meeting. She’d said it was “to watch over Ned” and it was “for protection”.

  But she hadn’t actually said it was to protect Ned, had she?

  It was for those around him, also. That was what the note said.

  Ned swallowed, anxiously rubbing the metal on his ring. Was the Guardian really there to protect him, or was it there to protect the rest of the troupe from him?

  Darklings

  ed kept wandering, his mind turning over and over with worry.

  To the rear of George’s trailer he came to the circus cages and drew in a startled breath. To a josser they would appear empty, but Ned could see through their glamours, see through the magic that kept them concealed. Every cage was full to bursting, and it was their inhabitants that had no doubt caused so many of the bruises and scrapes that the troupe now wore.

  Lucy had told him that Jonny Magik had used his powers to deal with the “bad” Darklings, though in Ned’s experience, they were all bad. Even so, he was startled by what he saw in the cages.

  He’d been expecting a bunch of lower-level creatures, but not one of them was below a level 12! Gor-balins with their yellow purposeful eyes, thin limbs and nails sharpened for cutting, filled one cage. Behind them, another held two ogres. Only George and Rocky, the circus’s resident troll, could match an ogre for sheer strength. These two looked particularly nasty. Their teeth grew out of their mouths at all angles, like the broken stumps of oak trees, and they had sets of holes for noses that spewed out a constant stream of brown slime. Their arms were as broad as sofas and their necks so thick their heads seemed to join directly to their shoulders.

  Aside from the bargeist at his home, Ned had not seen a Darkling for some eighteen months, and now he was staring at a wall of slicked oily skin, more than twenty heinous creatures raised for the sole purpose of taking lives. The worst of them, a wyvern, sat at the back of the lot. Its mouth was muzzled, and with good reason, but the small dragon-like creature was silent and still – and that’s when Ned noticed the most worrying thing.

  The Darklings were all quietly staring at him.

  There was no sign of a Darkling’s usual frustration at being caged, their need to be free. The creatures merely watched him, with a strange and steady confidence that made the hairs on his head prickle.

  Madame Oublier was concerned about his power. The Darklings were gazing at him, calm and still. There was a voice that waited for him every time he slept.

  Something was happening, and it had to do with Ned.

  And he did not like it at all.

  Clutching the note in his hand, he moved to a hay bale round the corner where he could avoid the Darklings’ watchful eyes. “Hey,” said a voice, and Ned jumped.

  “Sorry,” said Lucy, who had walked up behind him. “I’ve been looking for you all over. Are you all right? You look terrible.”

  Ned folded the note away quickly and stuffed it into his pocket. Of all the people in all the world, Lucy was the one person he could tell: about the note, the voice, everything.

  Only he couldn’t.

  What was wrong with him and what did Madame Oublier know?

  “Don’t worry, Ned,” said Lucy, reassuringly. “At least we’ve got a lead now and Madame Oublier is sure they’re alive – is that what’s worrying you?”

  Dear brave Lucy, with her bright smile and trusting eyes. Ned Armstrong, the world’s youngest Engineer, turned to Lucy Beaumont, the world’s youngest Medic, and lied.

  “Oh hi, Lucy, yeah, I was just thinking about them.”

  Even as the words left his lips, he wished he could take them back.

  “Don’t worry, Ned, we’ll find them. All of us, together. We’re a team, right? It’s what we do.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” he mumbled, though in truth he was anything but sure.

  ***

  Elsewhere, in the East End of London, sandwiched between two almost-identical supermarkets, stood an old junk shop. At least that was what its owner wanted the world to think. The Brik and Brak Emporium was a front that Carrion Slight had used for many years. It was never actually open for business and amongst its throwaway junk were hidden prizes of unimaginable value, to either side of the Veil.

  “He got away this time; it won’t happen again. At least we have Mummy and Daddy,” drawled Carrion into the telephone’s mouthpiece.

  The phone rumbled loudly in return.

  “What? You don’t need him now? Ahh, I see. And you’re sure he’ll come?”

  A bark came hurtling down the line.

  “Yes, yes, of course you know best. I am … sorry,” Carrion managed, and as the unfamiliar word left him he looked as though he might be sick.

  The barking subdued to a string of orders and Carrion regained his composure.

  “The museum? Everything is in hand.”

  With the conversation ended, Carrion put down the receiver and spoke to a bowl of meat that was sitting on the floor. At least that’s what it would have looked like to anyone watching.

  “Do you know what, Mange? I think he frightens me, actually frightens me. How very refreshing.”

  The bowl of meat did not reply.

  A Trip to the Museum

  here is no outfit of creatures great or small more suited to the act of breaking and entering than a Hidden-run circus and its troupe, apart perhaps for the thief they were trying to spy on.

  Benissimo handpicked his crew, each with the particular set of skills they would need for the task at hand. The Tortellini brothers, being half satyr and a permanent fixture on the circus’s high wire, could scale any height. Aark, the tracker’s two-headed hawk, would be their eyes on the approach to the museum, whilst George the Mighty and Monsieur Couteau, who (as he liked to put it) “painted in French steel”, would provide muscle in the event of resistance. Jonny Magik would be doing whatever it was a sin-eater actually does, and the final two would be Lucy and Ned, along with his shadowy familiar and wind-up mouse.

  Monsieur Couteau, their resident Master-at-Arms, checked over the sortie’s equipment, taking special care that everyone had a suitable weapon. Lucy was given a dagger and he presented Ned with a fine rapier that had been
carefully balanced for his height and weight. Ned felt his heart twinge. Of everyone he had ever known, nobody appreciated a well-fashioned sword as much as Olivia Armstrong. She had lovingly spent months every night after school teaching him how to form metal just so. How to taper the blades he made in his Amplifications for the task in hand. Being an Armstrong was weird, but it was the only weird he knew, and here and now he could not have missed it more.

  “It’s all right, Monsieur Couteau, really I’m fine.”

  “Monsieur Neede. It is I who decides. You need a blade.”

  The Frenchman had clearly lost none of his charm.

  “You don’t understand,” said Ned. “I can make my own.”

  He demonstrated by picking up a wooden tent peg. He closed his eyes just for a moment, felt the atoms come together in his mind and the air at his hand shimmered. Though Monsieur Couteau had not changed, Ned had, and “Seeing” the atoms reform themselves now came as naturally as tying his shoelaces. The wooden peg buckled and warped in both form and texture, till the thin wedge of a newly formed throwing-knife lay in his hand.

  “See?” smiled Ned, who was enjoying the uncommon sensation of having thrown the Frenchman off balance. It did not last long.

  “Oui, you can. But is it French?”

  “Well – erm, no, not exactly.”

  “Zen, Monsieur Neede, it is no good.”

  Which was when Ned was saved by the lumbering mountain that was George.

  “Don’t worry, my little baguette, he’s got me, hasn’t he?”

  George flexed his chest muscles to great effect and nearly poked the Frenchman’s eye out.

  “Pah!” said Couteau, and left them to it.

  They passed through the encampment’s protective shroud of trees, guided at every step by sprite light. As they crossed through the invisible barrier that was the Veil, the stars above them briefly turned to every colour imaginable and grew vastly in size whilst the cold December air blew hot. Trees magically shrank down to the size of grass stalks till the forest behind them had completely vanished and they found themselves on the josser side of the Veil, where magic and myths were for picture books and gorillas couldn’t talk. The ape’s nostrils flared happily.