Word of Honour

by Michael Pryor

  Aubrey had been in better positions. In fact, he decided that every other part of his life was rather better than where he found himself right now.

  Dr Tremaine's angry pacing took him along the walkway directly in front of Aubrey and his friends, only a few yards away. He looked deep in thought, but reserved, as if this was an ordinary magical laboratory and he a comfortable don. He occasionally paused and contemplated the magnificence of the pillar of cold flame, rubbing his chin and frowning before uttering sharp, coarse spells. After each, the pillar of flame would change – growing, twisting, writhing in an agony of growth – and Aubrey would feel magic sleeting from it in indiscriminate bursts of power. The latticework around them groaned and shook like the rigging of a ship in a storm.

  He managed to make a noise – a hurtful grunt – and Dr Tremaine glanced at him. 'Don't worry. Your time will come very, very soon.'

  With implacable efficiency, the ex-Sorcerer Royal went about his business.

  And his business chilled Aubrey to the core. With a proficiency that would have impressed Professor Mansfield, Dr Tremaine roamed across dozens of ancient languages, some of which Aubrey knew, some he had knowledge of, and others that were totally alien to him, to create a dense, interwoven series of spells.

  Each individual spell was fiendish in its length and complexity, but Tremaine seemed to be unaffected by the Principle of Cost – he didn't flag at all.

  In addition, he regularly broke a cardinal rule of spell construction – he used a number of different languages within the same spell.

  Under other circumstances, Aubrey would have been fascinated to watch a master at work. This eclectic, individual approach was a virtuoso display. He would have questioned, taken notes, and felt privileged to observe such craft.

  Instead, he was trapped with a rapidly increasing feeling of alarm as each of Dr Tremaine's refinements made the pillar of flame grow, clawing upward with greedy fingers that boiled with power.

  Dr Tremaine was attempting some sort of animating magic. It was like that which they'd encountered in the Roman shrine, but only in the same way that a kitten resembles a tiger. This was immeasurably more powerful, more complex, more wide-ranging. Apparently he'd had some success already, judging from the copper wire insects and Maggie's appalling condition.

  The tower of cold fire was at the heart of Dr Tremaine's conjuring. He stoked it with spells and it grew with baleful splendour. Its power – the power of animation – was channelled outward through the pipes, wires and cables that speared into it.

  And where does it go then? Aubrey thought, but he was already beginning to form conclusions – and none of them were joyous.

  With a cry of exasperation, the sorcerer cut short his current spell. He whirled. 'You fool! Don't you know you're endangering the whole project by interrupting me!'

  Aubrey started, even though he couldn't imagine how he'd interrupted. Flicking his gaze to either side, he could make out that Caroline and George were both still bound – but then he saw that someone was joining them.

  A figure squirmed through a small gap between a twisted bundle of rusty chains and a red-painted steam pipe, head and shoulders emerging with much grunting. He was grimy and dishevelled, smeared with grease. His clothes, once fine and expensive, were a mess, and Aubrey saw with bleak satisfaction that he was wearing a red tie with a green suit and the combination clashed horribly.

  The intruder's mouth fell open at the sight of the trapped Aubrey, Caroline and George. 'What are they doing here?'

  'What does it look like, Rokeby-Taylor? Quantity surveying? Landscape painting?'

  'You're not going to embed them?'

  'Of course I'm going to embed them. Human consciousness is vital to animating my magnificent creation.' Dr Tremaine heaved a huge, theatrical sigh, then cocked an eyebrow at his captives. 'I really must get a better quality of henchman. But there's not a lot to choose from, these days, when it comes to toadies and traitors.'

  Rokeby-Taylor heaved himself out of the latticework, but fell heavily. Picking himself up with awkward solemnity, he tried to straighten his clothes and brush off the mess but only made it worse. He shook his head and wiped his hands on his jacket. 'The tunneller has broken down again,' he said to Dr Tremaine, 'but I've finished the last connector.'

  'And placed the vivifying wires?'

  'I think so. If the infernal machine worked properly.'

  'It's good to see you've done something right,' Dr Tremaine said absently. He flexed his shoulders and considered the cold flame. 'Especially seeing as the last thing you managed without cocking it up was concealing that thunderstorm spell at Count Brandt's little meeting.'

  It was Caroline who succeeded in squeezing out a wordless cry of outrage. Aubrey simply felt despair. He'd been right in his first suspicions – Rokeby-Taylor had played a part in that atrocity. Why hadn't he listened to himself?

  'I'll have you know,' Rokeby-Taylor said to Aubrey, Caroline and George, trying to regain some dignity, 'that I don't approve of this embedding.'

  In his confining mesh, Aubrey sagged until the wire threatened to cut into his skin. He'd had his suspicions, but deep down he'd tried to convince himself it wasn't so. To see Rokeby-Taylor, the epitome of the Albion gentleman, in league with the foremost enemy of the land was a blow.

  Dr Tremaine sneered at Rokeby-Taylor. 'You don't approve? I'll show them what you approved of without an instant's hesitation.'

  He spat out a short spell. A section of the structure began to extrude itself from the meshwork, pushing out into the central vantage point. Pipes, wires, rails thrust forward, clanking and shunting, telescoping, growing while steam hissed around it. Sparks ran along its length, crackling with glee.

  It was a cube, three or four yards on a side, connected by an arm that was composed of beams and pipes intertwined with the bright copper wire Aubrey had come to loathe.

  It chuffed and ground its way toward the beckoning Dr Tremaine.

  At that moment, in this nightmare world of intersections and junctions, Aubrey himself made a connection. He saw the city as a map, but a map of many levels, extending deep beneath the surface. Dr Tremaine had learned to animate the network that connected the underworld. Pipes, wires, rails, cables, canals all crisscrossing, interlinking and interweaving throughout the substrata of the city and Dr Tremaine was uniting them under his will. The animating power of the cold fire was permeating all Trinovant.

  He began to tremble as his imagination supplied details. Dr Tremaine's reach wouldn't be confined to the realms beneath the city. Wires, pipes and drains penetrated every building in the modern city, joining them in an elaborate grid, a web with a malevolent genius at its centre.

  Aubrey's heart raced – pointlessly, for he was unable to either fight or flee. He was worried that it would take matters into its own hands, burst from his chest and try to escape.

  The cube continued to ratchet forward. The clanking made Aubrey wince; it sounded poorly constructed, metal grating on metal, but it continued its jerky movement with no sign of weakness. Finally, with the sound of clashing gears, it dropped to eye height.

  'See?' Dr Tremaine poked at the cube with his cane. 'Mr Rokeby-Taylor was quite happy for poor urchins to be embedded. His righteousness didn't extend that far.' He stroked his chin. 'It's a pity the girl got away. I have no idea how she managed to tear herself free.'

  Sickened, Aubrey gazed into the heart of the cube.

  Maggie's Crew. A dozen small bodies were implanted in a dense mesh of copper wire. It was as if they were sprouting bizarre copper hair from all over, making it hard to see where the wire ended and their body began.

  Even in the extremity of his own situation, Aubrey mourned for them. They didn't deserve what had happened to them. Life's victims, for a brief moment – with Maggie's help – it had looked as if they had hope, but they had ended up as dead as the other lost children on the streets of Albion.

  A moan came from his left and he saw that Caroli
ne had closed her eyes, trying to keep the horror away. George, on the other hand, was straining against the copper wire, a snarl coming from his tortured throat.

  Then the nearest embedded urchin opened his eyes. Aubrey would have screamed if he had been able.

  'Oh yes,' Dr Tremaine said, chuckling at Aubrey's distress. 'They're still alive. Alive and vital. It's the vitality that is useful, after all, feeding into the process. Human consciousness and great magic go hand in hand. Magic, the universe, humanity, all intertwined, all available for manipulation.' He pointed with his cane. 'And we have all sorts of other life wired as part of this beautiful creation too, to add to the piquancy of the creation. I was particularly interested in life that we found down here. Indigenous to the area, you might say.'

  'Put them away, Tremaine,' Rokeby-Taylor said. His face was drawn and haggard; his eyes darted uncertainly. He swallowed before continuing. 'Just put them away, there's a good fellow.'

  Dr Tremaine gave Rokeby-Taylor a look that very clearly said that he wasn't anyone's good fellow, but he growled out another spell. With a chuff of steam, the cube and its supports shunted away until it was an undistinguishable part of the structure again.

  'We have life aplenty embedded in the array,' Dr Tremaine went on, as if Rokeby-Taylor hadn't interrupted. 'Rats – thousands of them – pigeons, bats, a surprising number of foxes, a few badgers. And humans. Nothing like a bit of human to add vigour to a spell, I always say.'

  The ex-Sorcerer Royal crossed his arms. He contemplated the majesty of the cold fire. Its light flickered on his profile.

  'But not them, Tremaine,' Rokeby-Taylor said. 'Not the Prime Minister's son. Not the girl.'

  Aubrey immediately felt offended – and concerned – on George's behalf. And it felt grubby, having his life pleaded for by Rokeby-Taylor. He wanted to go and have a good wash.

  The cold light lingered on Tremaine's face. 'Are you still sure you want to do this, Rokeby-Taylor? Do you really want to destroy the greatest city in the world?'

  Rokeby-Taylor fumbled with his tie. 'It was your idea.'

  'Naturally it was my idea. No-one else in the world would have been capable of conceiving such a thing. Animating Trinovant? Only Mordecai Tremaine would dare. Urbomancy is not something that small minds can contemplate.'

  Urbomancy. Of course. Aubrey closed his eyes. Dr Tremaine was not a man for small plans. Trinovant in this era was different from the urban civilisations of the past. Not even the Romans, fine engineers though they were, had the extensive underground skeleton that electricity, gas, water, sewerage and transportation provided. Tremaine was using it to animate all Trinovant.

  The horror came to him with swift, punishing clarity. Railway tracks rising like giant serpents, intertwining and crushing buildings. Electrical wires lashing panicked pedestrians. Pipes wrenching themselves from the ground and flattening entire neighbourhoods, before jetting gas, steam and water to wreak havoc. The earth itself rising, held together by the web of power, shedding itself of shops, homes and palaces the same way a dog shakes off fleas.

  He felt sick.

  'It's beyond me,' Rokeby-Taylor said, but then he looked sharply at Dr Tremaine. 'Not that I have a small mind, Tremaine.'

  'Of course not.' Dr Tremaine pressed both hands together. He strolled over and brought his face close to Aubrey's. 'Now, my interfering friend. Soon you will belong to the city in a way of which you couldn't even dream.'

  Aubrey decided that Dr Tremaine had a very low opinion of his dreaming abilities.

  He was experiencing a peculiar mixture of emotions. He was scared, but that seemed natural enough in the circumstances. However, it wasn't the crippling fear of panic; it was the heart-thumping fear of consequences, the hollow pit of the stomach that came from thinking what could happen if they couldn't get out of this.

  But understanding where his fear came from had helped him control it. It was almost as if he'd managed to pack it into a box and park it in a corner. This cleared his thinking so he could train it on trying to devise a way out of their predicament. The trouble was, nothing came to mind – except an understanding of what Dr Tremaine was planning.

  For the lack of anything better, Aubrey began to struggle. Dr Tremaine threw his head back and laughed. 'At last! Someone who doesn't disappoint me!' Rokeby-Taylor looked most put out. 'What on earth do you mean, Tremaine?'

  'Young Fitzwilliam. He's worked out what I'm up to, with very few hints at all.'

  'How do you know?'

  'Look at him. He was quiet, thinking, and now he's all a-flutter. He's no idiot, Rokeby-Taylor, not like you.'

  'Steady on, Tremaine. No need to be offensive.'

  'No need, but it's a pleasure anyway.' Dr Tremaine shook his head. 'For all the money I've given you, Rokeby-Taylor, I haven't asked you for much. But you've messed up just about everything I've tasked you with.'

  'A run of bad luck, Tremaine, that was all.'

  'I could have used the Rashid Stone to help with these spells but you managed to mess up procuring that in a way that I thought impossible. Even if your minions failed to steal it, I was going to have access to it on board the Imperator, but now it's disappeared.'

  Aubrey should have known that Dr Tremaine would have had some interest in the Rashid Stone. He was glad he'd managed to put a stick in those spokes.

  'That's hardly my fault,' Rokeby-Taylor said. He didn't whine. Not quite.

  'And then there was the Electra. You managed to get yourself aboard, but because you insisted on using your cheap magicians you nearly killed Sir Darius instead of wrecking the boat in the deep water test it was due to undertake on the very next day.'He glanced at Aubrey. 'I suppose I should thank you for preventing that. Now isn't the time for your father to be removed. That will come later.'

  Any trace of fear disappeared from Aubrey. It was replaced with cold, hard anger. Tremaine's casual assumption that he could play with the lives of those Aubrey loved was a reminder of what the man was – a menace that must be defeated.

  Rokeby-Taylor made an attempt at dignity that fell short by a league or two. 'Listen here, Tremaine, I was nearly killed myself in that escapade. I risked my life for you.'

  'And what about the tunneller?' Dr Tremaine went on remorselessly. He glanced sideways as a trail of sparks fizzed along a chain and disappeared into the latticework. 'You had a few easy connectors to dig and you managed to flood the old hydraulic tunnel. Then you made your own railway line collapse. I couldn't believe it.'

  'Could have happened to anyone. Who knew that tunnel was still down there?'

  'I did. You should have.' Dr Tremaine looked at Aubrey for a moment, then he uttered a short, spiky spell.

  Copper insects scuttled over Aubrey's face. His skin crawled, but in seconds his jaw and mouth were free.

  He worked it from side to side, testing it warily.

  'What do you want?' he asked Tremaine.

  'I want to know what conclusion you've reached.'

  'Why?'

  'I'd like to be surprised. I so rarely am.'

  'You're going to turn the city into a monster.'

  'Not the best choice of words, but I see what you're thinking.'

  'You're animating the city, using the tunnels, the wires, the pipes as connectors, like veins, arteries and nerves.'

  'Yes, yes, like ligaments, sinews and tendons. And have you ever noticed how a metaphor can actually reduce the object of comparison? No? Very well, what will happen next?'

  'The city must have reached a critical level of connectivity to facilitate this.'

  'Yes, well, partly that's due to Rokeby-Taylor here. His electricity generating plants have been important in achieving this – as you put it – critical level of connectivity.' Tremaine paused. 'I like that phrase.'

  'So Rokeby-Taylor's responsible for this.'

  'Don't be foolish. He does what I tell him.'

  'Is that right, Rokeby-Taylor? Why?'

  Rokeby-Taylor glanced at Dr Tremaine, who grin
ned. 'Go ahead. You can answer.'

  Taylor wouldn't meet Aubrey's eye. 'Dr Tremaine has offered me eternal life.'

  Aubrey's eyes widened at the absurdity of the offer. Eternal life wasn't something to be handed around like a box of chocolates. Dr Tremaine's plans for eternal life for himself involved long and meticulous planning, committing a whole continent to war. 'Eternal life? I thought you wanted money.'

  'I do. Bucket loads of it. But what good is money if you only have one lifetime to spend it?' He frowned, as if it should have been obvious.

  Aubrey sighed. Rokeby-Taylor's betrayal was for such a petty motive. He wanted the good life, but he wanted it to go on forever. Nothing elevated there, no appeal to a philosophical ideal, just base and sordid greed.

  'You see,' Dr Tremaine said,'Rokeby-Taylor here has sold himself to me, in exchange for his heart's desire. A simple transaction, with benefits to us both.'

  'And disadvantages for Albion.'

  'There you go again, taking a lofty view of what is essentially a personal matter.'

  'Personal matter? You'll turn Trinovant into a monster and then . . .' Aubrey thought hard. Apart from ruining the financial centre of the Empire, what else would he do? 'Send it rampaging across the countryside to destroy what? Our munitions factories? Shipyards? Railways?'

  Dr Tremaine waved this away. 'I'm sure I'll find some use for a city-sized creature. Once I have a city-sized monster.'

  A flat, deadly voice came from Aubrey's left. 'You killed my father. And you tried to kill Lady Rose.'

  'Eh? Ah, Miss Hepworth. I thought I'd cancelled that insect's work after it freed young Fitzwilliam. Never mind.'

  'You killed my father,' Caroline repeated, 'and you tried to kill Lady Rose.'

  'Now you're getting tedious,' Dr Tremaine said. 'I told you about your father, and how unavoidable that was. Lady Rose, though, that's another matter. I've found that those Holmlander espionage agencies need something to keep them busy, something to keep their noses out of my business. A simple assassination or two is just the sort of thing.'