Ironheart

by Allan Boroughs

  ‘But is he alive?’ said India. ‘I have to know if he’s alive.’

  ‘Use your gift,’ said Nentu. ‘What does it tell you?’

  India took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ve always believed he was alive somewhere but . . .’ She tailed off.

  ‘Wait. We’re going to follow the lines on a bone?’ said Clench. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’

  ‘Follow the bone map and you will find him,’ said Nentu, ‘but heed my warning: the man of blood also brings a son, a dark soul, filled with hatred.’

  ‘That must be Sid,’ said India. ‘Well, don’t worry about him, I’ll give him a wide berth.’

  ‘No!’ said Nentu sharply. ‘You cannot avoid him. Both of you go to Ironheart in search of a father’s love and your destinies are entangled. Know that you will depend on him for your life before this journey is finished.’

  India stared at Nentu. ‘Depend on him how? Sid hates me, he wants to kill me.’

  Nentu shook her head. ‘You cannot avoid what is written in dreams,’ she said, ‘and you will not find success without him.’

  India felt disturbed. She wanted to ask Nentu more but the old woman had turned away and was rummaging under the furs again. She produced a small bag and emptied it on the floor. It contained the vertebrae of a small mammal, a bird’s feather and several small pebbles bearing painted runes.

  ‘These have travelled with me,’ she said. ‘They carry a magic the Elder will recognize.’

  Clench rolled his eyes.

  ‘What should I do when I meet this Elder?’ said India. ‘Is there anything in particular I’m meant to say?’

  The shaman jabbed at India’s breastbone with her bony fingers. ‘Say only what is in here! And nothing else. Do not try to fool the Elder with lies or you will bring ruin on all of us!’

  India swallowed hard.

  ‘Now go!’ said the old woman, dismissing them with a wave.

  ‘Is that it?’ said Clench.

  ‘You have two days in which to persuade the Elder to help us,’ said Nentu. ‘After that Nibiru will come and the winter of forever will begin.’ She tapped out her pipe and returned to the mammoth throne. ‘Go now. There is no more to say.’

  Nentu closed her eyes as Clench scuttled outside and India gathered up the bone map and the pieces from the floor. But before she left, she had one more question to ask. ‘Excuse me,’ she said.

  The blue-brown eyes opened again.

  ‘But . . . I was wondering if you could tell me about my friend, Calculus. Will he be all right?’

  Nentu breathed deeply and shut her eyes again. For a moment India thought she had drifted off to sleep. ‘His soul is new and not yet complete,’ she said eventually. ‘He has a lesson to learn before he can continue on his journey.’

  ‘What lesson?’ said India.

  ‘He has to die.’

  ‘What?’ gasped India. ‘Why would you say such a thing?’

  But the old woman did not answer. She had gone back to her meditation and begun chanting to herself. Their audience was clearly over.

  India left the tent deep in thought and feeling troubled. Outside, Clench sat on a log, taking off his boot.

  ‘Did you ever hear such a load of old tripe? Spirits and soul voyagers, pah! And did you see the way she lived? Disgusting!’

  India watched him pull off his socks and pick at his yellow toenails. ‘I really don’t know if its true or not,’ she said, ‘but she knew about my dreams . . . and if there’s a chance of finding my dad then I’m going to take it.’

  ‘One good thing, though,’ he said brightly. ‘I’m going to be rich for the rest of my life. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.’

  India tried not to look at his feet. ‘What do you think she meant when she said my destiny was entangled with Sid’s?’ Now she thought about it, this worried her more than anything else.

  ‘Who cares,’ he said waving a sock at her, ‘but I’ll tell you one thing. Your destiny had better stay entangled with mine because I’ve got something you’re going to need.’ He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small pendant.

  It looked just like hers. As soon as she saw it, India’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘It’s Bella’s!’ she cried. She felt a stab of terror at the thought of how Clench might have come by it. ‘What have you done to my sister, you monster?’ She took a step towards him but he snatched the pendant away and sneered.

  ‘Don’t worry, the brat’s all right. But after you left I realized the importance of this little trinket.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said India. ‘It’s no different from mine.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, missy. See, after you’d gone, I discovered the microchip your dad hid in here. It’s the sort of trick I should’ve expected from an engineer. It’s the missing half of the message, isn’t it, the one I heard the crew talking about?’

  India bit her lip. She could have kicked herself for not realizing that her father might have hidden something in Bella’s pendant too.

  ‘So what?’ she said, trying to sound like she didn’t care. ‘You don’t know what’s in it.’

  ‘It makes no difference,’ said Clench. ‘All I know is that you need it to get into Ironheart. And that means you need me.’ He grinned again. ‘He was a clever man, your dad, I think that was the thing I hated most about him.’

  She wasn’t sure she had heard him right. ‘What? You knew my dad?’

  ‘Oh yes, didn’t I mention it? We both worked for Trans-Siberian at the same time. When I found out he was looking for Ironheart I pleaded with him to share the secret with me. He could have let me in on it easily enough but he was obsessed with using it for the good of humanity. Humanity, pah! Then, when he went missing, I realized I had a chance to take what was rightfully mine.’

  India’s jaw dropped open as realization started to crowd in on her. ‘That was why you came to London, wasn’t it? To get close to our family and see what you could find out?’

  ‘You have no idea how hard it was,’ he said in a weary voice, ‘sucking up to that sour old mare for a year. I took you under my wing, I offered you all a home. I bided my time so I could find out where John Bentley hid that information, only to watch you go waltzing off with that Verity Brown creature.’

  She felt her flesh creep. ‘You deliberately preyed on all of us. You’re disgusting – a reptile!’

  He pocketed the pendant and sat back with a satisfied smile. ‘Call me all the names you want,’ he said. ‘But I’ll tell you how it’s going to be. I don’t care what deals you’ve done with Verity Brown or that Bulldog animal, if you want to find your dad then you’d better play along and treat me with a bit more respect, otherwise you won’t be going anywhere. D’you get it?’

  India glared at him, her face burning. It seemed that there would never be a way to rid herself of Clench. She turned abruptly and marched back down the hill. Clench jumped up and tried to hobble after her.

  ‘’Ere! Hold on, let me get me boot back on, don’t leave me here! India!’

  CHAPTER 20

  ON BIRD’S FOOT MOUNTAIN

  At the bottom of the hill, the two reindeer drivers had built a fire and were boiling something in a large black pot. The man motioned India and Clench to sit down and the boy ladled them each a helping of grey meat that looked like boiled intestines. Clench pushed his around with a fork but, by now, India had learned not to be fussy and devoured the food, savouring its rich saltiness. She watched as the drivers examined Nentu’s bone map and hoped that they would be coming with them to Bird’s Foot Mountain. She felt comforted by their silent, down-to-earth presence.

  When the reindeer had been readied, India and Clench climbed on board the sledges again and they started off, passing first through the almost deserted tent village. India wondered if the villagers had left because of the creatures that Nentu had called the Valleymen. When she cast a look back towards the old woman’s tent she was surprised to
see that the dog had returned and was sitting on a high rock watching them with the same mismatched stare.

  Beyond the village she was struck at once by how little wildlife there seemed to be in the valley. In three hours of travelling she didn’t see a single creature or hear any birdsong. The air felt dead, as though every living thing had fled from some impending disaster.

  They followed the trail along the edge of the forest, occasionally switching to the bed of a frozen stream where the going was easier. As the sun reached the highest part of the sky, the driver pointed to a mountain with three distinct ridges that ran down to the valley floor. He made a claw-like sign with his hand which India took to mean that this was Bird’s Foot Mountain.

  Now that she looked at the bone map again, India could see there was a clear path up the central ridge to the top, where, she supposed, they would find Ironheart. It felt like the most remote place on Earth. She wondered what was happening on board The Beautiful Game and whether they would ever catch up with her or whether Tashar had finally persuaded Bulldog to give up and return to Angel Town.

  Her limbs protested as she unfolded herself and descended from the sledge. To her dismay, the drivers began to make immediate preparations to leave. Despite her pleas for them to stay, she was forced to wave goodbye as their sledges pulled away and disappeared from view, leaving her alone in the wilderness again, with only Thaddeus Clench for company. She looked again at the bone map and hoped that she hadn’t made a terrible mistake by coming here. ‘Come on,’ she said, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. ‘I want to be well away from these forests before nightfall.’

  The valley was laid with fresh, virgin snow that came up to India’s knees and she had to lift her feet high to take each step. After an hour her legs burned with the effort and by the time they reached the top of the ridge, they were both exhausted. The trail ended abruptly in a wall of sheer rock, too high to climb and with no apparent way forward.

  ‘Now what?’ said Clench.

  India looked anxiously at the sun dipping towards the mountains and then examined the bone map, running her fingers along its roughened surface. ‘There’s a mark on here,’ she muttered, looking up at the cliff face.

  A little way along the wall was an isolated slab of rock that seemed to have fallen from the cliffs above. When she looked behind it she saw it was hiding a gap in the cliff face, a narrow canyon wide enough for two people to pass through.

  She led the way through the gap with Clench hobbling along behind her.

  ‘Slow down, why don’t you? My feet are frozen through, I could get frostbite, you know. I might even lose all me toes.’

  ‘A good thing too, from what I’ve seen of them,’ muttered India under her breath.

  But what they saw when they reached the other side made them stop and gasp. The mountain ridge was actually part of a complete chain that formed the rim of a gigantic bowl. In the centre of the great circle, a frozen lake reflected the gold of the late afternoon sun.

  ‘It’s a hidden valley!’ said India. ‘You could walk all the way up here and never find it unless you had the bone map.’

  ‘Look,’ said Clench. ‘It’s another one of them shooting stars.’

  They both watched the flaming streak cross the sky and disappear behind the far ridge of mountains. India was sure she felt a vibration in the earth as it struck the ground. ‘First comes the iron,’ she murmured under her breath, wishing she could remember the rest of Cromerty’s rhyme. She was still looking at the point where the meteorite had disappeared when she noticed something that had previously escaped her eye. ‘There!’ she said, pointing to a flash of colour in the barren landscape.

  About a quarter of a mile away down the slope stood a green watchtower. ‘That must be it!’ she said. ‘Come on.’ She began to run down the slope, sliding in the loose scree as Clench puffed along behind.

  They arrived at a small compound that comprised a dozen concrete buildings surrounded by a rusted chain-link fence. The watchtower stood in one corner, empty and paint blistered.

  ‘Doesn’t look like much,’ grumbled Clench, rattling the gate. ‘This is just a bunch of old sheds.’

  ‘This must be it,’ said India. ‘There’s nothing else for five hundred miles in any direction.’

  They trampled down a section of the rotten fence and wandered in among the derelict buildings. They searched the compound for nearly an hour, opening sheds and storehouses, overturning empty barrels and peering into crates. But nothing looked like it might reveal an entrance to a secret underground complex of tunnels.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ griped Clench. ‘This whole damned thing has been a wild goose chase from the beginning. It wouldn’t surprise me if John Bentley just made the whole thing up.’

  At any other time India might have argued, but now the exhaustion took hold and hot tears threatened to trickle down her face. She sat down heavily on a rock and looked at the bone map in the fading light. ‘Following lines on a bone,’ she muttered to herself. ‘What an idiot.’

  Abruptly she stood up and hurled the bone map as far as she could manage. She watched it clatter across the rocks below and then topple from sight. Curious as to where it had gone, she picked her way across the icy surface.

  The map had fallen over a small ledge on to a pile of rocks heaped in front of a narrow cave. She peered into the dark space and her heart jumped when she spied something gleaming blackly in its recesses.

  ‘Thaddeus, there’s something here,’ she called. ‘Help me move these rocks out of the way.’

  When the last stone was finally rolled away they found themselves looking at a fissure in the rock about the height of a man. India scrabbled for the torch in Verity’s bag and shone it down the hole. A few feet inside the cave was a tall, featureless rectangle of iron set into the stone.

  ‘It’s a door,’ she breathed.

  ‘Stand aside,’ said Clench. ‘This is a man’s job, I think.’

  He stepped up to the door and began tapping it and feeling for cracks in the ironwork with his fingers while India watched impatiently from the cave entrance.

  ‘What are you doing, exactly?’ she asked. ‘It’s getting dark out here.’

  ‘It ain’t my fault,’ he grumbled. ‘I don’t know how this damned door’s supposed to open. There’s no handles on it. Perhaps this pendant can get us in.’

  As Clench fumbled she glanced around anxiously at the deep shadows that had encroached up the mountainside. But when she shone the torch out into the darkness her blood chilled. Just outside the circle of light, a dozen wispy shapes floated like scraps of cobweb, gathering ominously around the cave entrance.

  Clench turned to see what she was doing and caught sight of the creatures. ‘Oh my life!’ he wailed. ‘It’s them! It’s the Valleymen.’

  India’s heart began to beat like a rig piston. While Clench whined and trembled, she tried to keep the creatures at bay with the torch. The image of the white reindeer flashed momentarily before her eyes, terrified and bleating. The Valleymen’s soft, hissing breath was only feet away now.

  But then a different sound cut through the night air. A bright light bounced up the icy slope and the shadows scattered like paper as a ski machine burst through their ranks, pulling up sharply in front of the cave. The rider pointed the machine’s powerful beams at the creatures and drove them back into the shadows. Then he turned to India and pulled the scarf from his face.

  ‘Bulldog!’ she cried. She had never been so relieved to see anyone in her life. ‘How did you find us?’

  ‘No time for explanations now,’ he barked. ‘Whatever you were going to do, do it now. Those things are pouring out of the forest in their hundreds!’

  CHAPTER 21

  REUNION

  Calculus lay still while his damage assessment programs reviewed the state of his body. Some of his critical circuits had been badly burned and would take several hours to repair. Other, less vital systems had been destroy
ed completely and he would have to make do without them. Only when he had completed his checks did he activate his motor functions and turn on his vision.

  A bright light was shining in his eyes, blotting out the rest of the room. He switched to infra-red vision but that too was drowned out by the light. He was lying on his back on a steel table, arms and legs secured by heavy shackles that, to his surprise, resisted any attempt to break them.

  ‘I’m sorry, my friend. This little set-up was designed specifically to neutralize your capabilities. Here, let me help you.’ The bright light moved to one side and the face of Dr Cirenkov came into view above him. ‘Welcome on board the Prince of Darkness,’ she said, looking him up and down greedily. ‘It’s a real pleasure to meet such a fine example of old-tech. I’m looking forward to learning everything I can from you.’

  ‘I am sure there is nothing much you can learn from an old robot like me,’ said Calculus. His voice sounded distant and strangled.

  ‘Oh, but you’re so much more than that,’ breathed the doctor as she slid closer. ‘You are the last of the androids, Calculus. It’s a very different thing altogether.’ Dr Cirenkov’s lips stretched into a thin smile as she snapped on a pair of rubber gloves.

  ‘One moment, Doctor.’ Lucifer Stone appeared in Calculus’s line of vision. He sized up the android and nodded approvingly. ‘Good, almost completely undamaged. Your electrical weapons worked well, Doctor. Now sit him up so we can talk.’

  The doctor cranked a handle to raise Calculus to a seated position. He caught sight of two men standing by the door holding electric lances, and Sid, lounging in a corner, radiating menace.