by Stephen Hunt
‘What foolishness is this?’ protested Cornelius. ‘I have money. You must have the wrong man.’
A vice-like grip laid itself on his shoulder. ‘I am sure the floor master will be glad to discuss that with you, sir. Right away.’
They led him to a door padded with rich red leather. ‘This way, sir.’
He found himself in a small lifting room, little more than a dumb waiter for the cooks and floor staff. Yellow gas started spraying up out of a grille on the floor as they closed the door on him, vapours warm to the skin and cloyingly choking to the lungs. Cornelius stumbled back, smashing into a wall of mirrored glass. The lifting room was neither sinking nor rising. He tried to lever open the door, but the foul cloud swilling around the chamber was sapping his strength. If this was their way of reclaiming money out of their clients’ pockets, the flash mob might find debtors’ prison a more effective approach. Whatever happened to breaking a couple of fingers first?
Fresh air poured in suddenly as the doors were drawn back, someone catching him as he lurched out. His arms were pinned behind him and a pile driver of a fist sucked the last remaining breath out of his gut. A warning, then. Traditionalists after all. Pocket manacles were clamped around his wrists and the thugs dragged him along the corridor like an empty crate of jinn bottles. The stinging gas’s residue made Cornelius’s eyes stream, a swirl of locusts swarming across his vision as one of the whipper’s boots slammed down onto his left leg.
He could barely see when they shoved him down into a chair, but he recognized the voice of the soft-spoken mechomancer he had spied scavenging inside Bunzal Coalmelter’s corpse. The mumbler sounded no louder in person than he had through the hull of the floating jinn palace.
‘Intolerable. How can I get on with the job I must do with all these distractions?’
‘Just set it up,’ growled a whipper.
Cornelius’s borrowed forehead was scraped, a sharp-pointed tiara pulled down hard over his hair. Circle’s teeth, it was a crown of thorns they were fitting him for. A circlet made up of small, imperfectly cut shards from the mother stones that allowed Jackals’ crystalgrid network to function. But these crystals did not need senders to operate them, and the only communication they could relay was limited to a single message. Pain. Raw pain. A victim in a crown could be tortured for weeks leaving no physical evidence, until their brain started to fracture into multiple selves, in a vain attempt to protect the mind. It was said that while one person would go into a room wearing a crown of thorns, a dozen would come out.
‘I’ll pay you,’ said Cornelius. ‘I have the money.’
‘You’ll pay, jigger,’ said a thug, securing Cornelius’s feet to the chair. ‘We’ll make sure of that.’
‘Get the floor master,’ said Cornelius. ‘This is pointless. I’ve already told you that I’ll pay you. How are you going to clear my debts if you put me inside an asylum with this contraption?’
A stinging slap across his face served as his initial answer. ‘You can shut your gob. We don’t want your wallet. We already have that. We want to know who you are.’
‘Who I am? You know that!’
Another slap. Far stronger this time.
Mumbling-boy was still assembling the crown of thorns, but they probably would have slapped Cornelius anyway. You couldn’t beat a little physical degradation thrown into the mix. Six months as a prisoner in a Commonshare organized community had taught him that, sharing a cell with that bloody insufferable wolftaker, Harry Stave. At least most of the people with the education to assemble a crown of thorns within Quatershift had ended up being pushed inside one of the shifties’ steam-driven killing machines at the start of the revolution.
‘Who are you really, jigger? Under that false face of yours, who are you?’
The crown started to vibrate on his scalp, tearing into his skin, close to full activation. They knew! But how? Somehow, his game had been rumbled by the flash mob.
From somewhere far away, he heard his mask laughing, dangling from Septimoth’s belt as the lashlite headed home; the telling, mocking retribution of Furnace-breath Nick. ‘Justa man. You’re just a man after all.’
Cornelius’s punishment beating had just turned into something immeasurably worse.
Each step Amelia took closer to the Sprite of the Lake seemed to increase the weight of her boots, until it seemed that she was sprinting towards the u-boat with lead weights on her feet. Out of the jungle canopy, the insult-howls of the k-max chased after the fleeing expedition members. Was it something in the thunder lizard’s screech that was slowing down her escape — a natural paralysis mechanism?
‘Noescapenoescapenoescapeforyoumetaljggermetaljiggermetaljigger.’
Each time the k-max howled, more creatures flushed out of the jungle, bursting past at speeds that only served to remind Amelia how far they still were from the safety of the Sprite. This sluggishness had to be something in her mind. She had fled equally dangerous threats in her rascal’s career — packs of hunting pecks in the capital’s undercity, the Caliph’s scent-seekers in Bladetenbul, Count Vauxtion’s well mannered but deadly attentions in the alleys of Middlesteel, the bandit army of Kal Ferdo out on the Kikkosico pampas. She had not come this close to the lost city after a professional lifetime of heartbreak, rejections and ridicule, to end up inside the gut of a six-storey lizard with a grudge against their half-insane steamman guide.
As Amelia sidestepped a panicked toad she saw something at the other end of the trail, two silhouettes against the afternoon sun, running towards them down the passage trampled through the jungle. Sweet Circle. She imagined all the disasters that could have befallen their boat while they were out in search of fresh drinking water. She knew from the size of the silhouette that it had to be Gabriel McCabe running out to meet them, yes, accompanied by one of Veryann’s Catosian soldiers.
‘Professor,’ shouted Gabriel, sprinting towards them, ‘we are betrayed.’
‘We’ve got problems of our own,’ panted Amelia. ‘A big hungry problem the size of the Bells of Brute Julius coming down in our direction. Betrayal we don’t need.’
‘The thunder lizard is the betrayal,’ said Gabriel. He held aloft a broken vial of dripping green liquid.
‘Where did you get that?’ demanded Ironflanks.
‘It was placed smashed by the entrance to the trail. One of Bull’s men found it while out collecting fruit. He knew what this filth would do …’
Amelia took the broken vial, smelling it.
‘It’s the gland milk from a kilasaurus max,’ said Ironflanks, slowing down his pace. ‘Parties out of Rapalaw Junction use it to lure the larger thunder lizards away from a safari area, so they have the hunt to themselves.’
Amelia cursed under her breath. And it looked like it worked well enough in the opposite direction too, if you were fool enough to use it. Or a traitor who wanted to bang the dinner gong for a thunder lizard.
The Catosian soldier unslung a signal rocket from her back and Gabriel motioned that she should set the small clockwork fuse turning on its mixing chamber. Veryann dashed up to them, the last of the water party’s stragglers running past.
‘You have mortars set up?’ Veryann asked the soldier.
With a crack of glass the firing head on the rocket released blow-barrel sap from both chambers and the missile swept towards the sky above them, exploding out into a magnesium star shower.
‘Yes, First.’
From the direction of the river a series of explosions answered, a sound like fresh logs popping on a fire grate. Round shells burst in the air above the retreating expedition members, streamers of smoke spiralling out before being smeared across the roof of the jungle.
Veryann nodded in satisfaction at her subordinate’s efficiency. ‘Let us see if this creature can find us as well inside a wall of smoke cover.’
‘Circle bless the Catosian military,’ said Amelia, resuming her pelt down the trail. And Circle curse the traitor in their ranks. First the sabo
tage of their u-boat’s gas scrubbers and now this. Someone badly wanted to stop them reaching their destination. But anyone who knew anything about Camlantis must know that their civilization had reached the peak of moral evolution. Who in their right mind would seek to deny the ancients’ secrets to the flawed, feuding nations that had succeeded Camlantis in the millennia since? That left ignorance as the motive. Which one of them wanted to stop the expedition finding Camlantis so badly they were prepared to murder half the crew to do it? Surely one of Bull’s crew wasn’t so afraid of ending up a slave of the Daggish that they were willing to sacrifice half their own shipmates’ lives to force the Sprite to turn about? They wouldn’t earn a pardon that way.
From the direction of the river, the mortars lined up on the u-boat continued to pour a rolling barrage of covering smoke behind them, matching the pace of their sprint with an uncanny accuracy. The howls of the k-max behind them became a confused mess of snarls lost in the acrid smoke as the welcoming sight of the long dark hull of the Sprite hove into view, sitting just ahead, fixed in the river current. Commodore Black waved from the nearest of the two conning towers. Helping the Catosians, the u-boat crew were desperately breaking down the mortars, tossing footplates and barrel piping down into their open hatches. The Sprite was close enough to the jungle that the barge they had used to reach the shore was more useful as a boarding ramp now. A roar echoed through the smoke. Uncomfortably close.
Commodore Black helped Amelia up the last few rungs of the hull ladder. ‘You were meant to be bringing drinking water back with you, professor, not that rare fierce pet of yours.’
‘You know how it is,’ said Amelia, ‘a girl sees it in a shop window along Penny Street and she has to have it.’
The commodore looked over at the shore; the remaining u-boat crew were scrambling across to the Sprite in an undisciplined rabble while Veryann’s mercenary company were falling back in formation, flower-headed bolt rifles at the ready. ‘Well, I’ll not be feeding the wicked thing for you. Veryann, board your people on the Sprite — I’ll be pushing my bishop across our board by myself if you try and lock horns with a k-max.’
Amelia turned to see Ironflanks clanking down the hull. ‘Can your friend out there wade into the water, old steamer?’
‘A kilasaurus will not cross the Shedarkshe,’ said Ironflanks, clutching his thunder-lizard gun and peering at the smoke-shrouded jungle. ‘They have no taste for swimming.’
The last of the mortars was disassembled and the Catosians on board when a head appeared through the thinning fog, a freakishly small razor-lined snout twitching to find Ironflanks, a massive green-scaled body as large as a Middlesteel tower following behind, a tongue snicking out of a second mouth in her chest. This second maw sported a circular buzz-saw rim of teeth opening and shutting in an eager gnashing. Three good eyes and one scarred hole settled on the Sprite and the thunder lizard roared her rage, a sound so raw that it made Amelia’s rib cage vibrate under its fury.
‘Down ship,’ yelled the commodore into the conning tower. ‘Take us out, full speed forward.’
So frenzied were they to put the steel hull of the ancient u-boat between themselves and the thunder lizard, the remaining members of the expedition threw themselves down any hatch left open. Queen Three-eyes saw the steamman disappearing into one of the conning towers and her snout lashed around, aiming for the hatch where Ironflanks had vanished. ‘METALJIGGERMETALJIGGERRIPANDKILLANDRIPANDKILL.’
Amelia was barely through the conning tower door, followed by the foetid heat wave of the monster’s breath, when the submarine started sinking, water bubbling up past the turret’s portholes. Reaching the pilot room, Amelia saw Commodore Black had got there first, hanging onto the periscope’s arms, twisting the scope around towards the bank. ‘Sweet mercy, Ironflanks, it’s coming into the river after us.’
‘She can’t swim,’ said Ironflanks, borrowing the periscope. ‘Her forearms are meant for hooking down prey, not paddling.’
Unfortunately for the expedition, no one had told the thunder lizard, carefully keeping her balance as she manoeuvred into the Shedarkshe’s currents.
‘Full forward. Down inclination two degrees.’ The commodore turned to his first mate. ‘Flood tube one. Put a fish in the water, Mister McCabe.’
‘You expect me to hit that thing, skipper?’
‘Timed fuse, one hundred yards detonation. Ironflanks is right about one thing; that’s no slipsharp coming after us. Unbalance the beast, give the wicked creature something to think about other than smashing the Sprite to pieces.’
Gabriel nodded. ‘Aft tube, guns. Timed fish with a hundred-yard screw, number two head to load.’
‘Aft tube, aye. Flooding now.’
Amelia watched the gunnery station sailors plotting in a firing solution and flooding the tubes as their loaders reported in. She could almost feel the shadow of the kilasaurus on the boat as their expansion engines vibrated along the hull plating, dragging them fast against the Shedarkshe’s current.
Blind Billy adjusted the controls on the side of his large silver phones. ‘The beast is wading after us.’
‘Clear tube one,’ ordered the commodore.
A clang and a hiss and a torpedo squeezed past the Sprite’s screws, trailing backwards from the submarine.
‘Fish in the water,’ said guns.
‘She’s running smooth,’ reported Billy. ‘And she’s running straight and true. The thunder lizard has seen the trail and is trying to move …’
The torpedo’s explosion was a dull echo on the Sprite’s hull. The commodore clung onto the periscope. Wading through the water after them and already up to her chest mouth, Queen Three-eyes lost her footing in the treacherous flow as the fountaining water from the blast unbalanced her, and spun her away downstream.
Her howl of fury swirled after the Sprite as the tips of the double conning towers disappeared up river. ‘Comingbackcomingbackcomingbackforyoumetaljiggermetaljigger.’
‘So you were right after all,’ said the commodore to Ironflanks. ‘The wicked thing isn’t made for the water. But let’s put a few leagues between ourselves and the beast all the same.’
‘Will it come after us?’ asked Amelia.
Ironflanks pushed the rim of his safari hat up. ‘I am uncertain. We will be in Daggish territory within a week. Normally she would not be foolish enough to trespass on their lands.’
An uneasy silence fell over the pilot room. The expedition was moving into the heart of darkness with a traitor on board, a turncoat willing to dangle their shipmates out as bait for creatures like the k-max. The Sprite had felt safe once, a refuge from the jungle outside. Now the u-boat was in a vice. A vice being tightened by an unknown hand.
The Sprite’s refectory was long and narrow. Its two huge tables were made of Jackelian oak that had been polished so much by generations of galley boys using leftover cooking oil that you could slide a plate along them, like skating pebbles across a pond.
Amelia entered the galley and glanced around. She had long since stopped being sensitive to the smell of unwashed crewmen now their water was being reserved for drinking rations and the u-boat’s overstretched cooling system. One of the Catosians who had spurned the submariners’ advice and tried bathing in the river still had a rash to show for it. There were smaller predators in the river than devilbarb fish and crocodiles, and only a craynarbian would want to take a bath in the Shedarkshe. Amelia squeezed past Bull’s off-duty sailors and sat next to T’ricola and Billy Snow.
‘You’ve heard the commodore’s running orders, now we are getting close to where Daggish seed ships patrol?’ Amelia asked.
‘Many times,’ said Billy, taking a sip of yellow liquid juiced from fruit Ironflanks had discovered during his last rainforest sortie. ‘I don’t need to be told how dangerous these waters are. I can still hear the voice of that poor devil from the comfort auction back at the trading post, parroting his lines at his wife and daughter.’
‘It’s
one way to survive in Liongeli,’ said T’ricola. ‘Join the Daggish, become part of the jungle, cooperate rather than compete.’ She rubbed at her armoured forehead in discomfort.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Amelia.
‘Headaches,’ said T’ricola, ‘I’m not sick. It’s the jungle. My body knows Liongeli is out there. I’m changing. I must have grown two inches since we started this damn journey. None of those scrotes that Bull’s assigned me for engine room duty wants to say two words to me now; they think I’ll slice them with my sword arm if they even spill oil on the decking.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Amelia.
‘Don’t worry,’ said T’ricola. ‘It’ll be a while longer before I strap a pair of antlers to my head and start worshipping thunder lizards down in the engine room.’
‘There’s nothing to worry about — your body is working with nature,’ said Billy. ‘The same as if you were carrying a child.’
‘Don’t wish that on me,’ said T’ricola. ‘Out here I’d give birth to a dozen or more young shells rather than a couple of offspring.’
Billy reached out for a refill for his mug, Amelia pushing the jug across towards his fingers. ‘Were you born blind, Billy?’
‘No,’ he smiled. ‘In my younger days I could see just fine. But I caught the waterman’s sickness off the Gambleflowers when I was a lad.’
‘I thought that was fatal?’
‘Usually it is. If you are lucky enough to survive, this is the price.’ He waved a hand in front of his blind eyes. ‘But my ears? I can hear the wind turn the pages of a book and tell you what page number it’s blown open on. There was only one trade really open to me. My family were eelers, selling river crab and water serpent to the submarines that travelled up to Middlesteel docks; they had enough seadrinker friends to make sure I got a job as the phones-man on a boat.’
At the galley hatch, old cooky banged his spoon against the pan to indicate their stew was ready. The off-shift crew mobbed the hatch while Billy Snow stood up and collected a plate of boiled potatoes and green salad leaves, manoeuvring back around the benches as easily as any of the fully sighted crew. Cooky slopped out the mutton, laughing at the sonar man’s slim fare.
