by Stephen Hunt
'You're wasting your breath, now, with him,' said Commodore Black. 'The wicked ship's not in any mood to listen to reason.'
'Him!' said Lord Starhome in haughty revulsion. 'You damn ground huggers couldn't even get my gender right. Can a male give birth?'
Molly halted her drift by kicking off the frame of the looking-glass gate, which was anchored by some unknown force to the deck. Their craft had closed off the holes that it had used to suck them into the hold. Also vanished was the sole door exiting the storage chamber. 'You're saying that you're pregnant?'
'I am cleansing myself. All the components that were forced upon my body by your steammen surgeons, all the abuse you've heaped upon my noble frame, all squeezed out.'
Coppertracks sounded astonished. 'You can self-replicate?'
A porthole formed in the side of the hull, to reveal that the hold where they were trapped was curling out from the main body of the craft like clay being pulled off a potter's wheel, fat globs of living metal falling away into the star-studded darks. 'And you're the cleverest of your kind, steamman? The creators help you!'
'You promised me Kaliban!' Molly shouted at the ship.
'All yours,' said the craft, dipping in a graceful turn and bringing the ugly red eye of Kaliban up to fill the window. 'You're even lined up to hit the upper atmosphere above that hideous stone face you're so keen to visit.'
Rooksby banged angrily on the hold's hull. 'Hit? How are you expecting to land?'
'Oh, but that's rather the thing: I'm not,' came the disembodied voice. 'Look after my soul board. My soul is your burden now.'
Around them the hull started to reform, becoming a sphere, and the porthole showed the bat-like form of Lord Starhome disappearing, a faint nimbus of distorted gravity squeezing the craft away through the aether. Their storeroom had become a lifeboat squeezed off the body of the main ship. Starhome was marooning them!
'You traitorous steamman mongrel,' yelled Rooksby.
'Mamma,' a young female voice echoed around the sphere. 'Please don't leave me. Come back.'
'Oh sweet Circle,' swore Molly.
'There's something big out there, a red sphere, getting larger,' squealed the newly born craft's voice. 'I'm falling into it.'
Gravity was gradually being restored by their proximity to Kaliban, the supplies and members of the expedition attracted to the hull. The very hot hull, getting hotter with each second.
'You need to assume a shape that will shed heat, young knight of the steammen,' announced Coppertracks. 'And a shape that will brake our descent. Otherwise the friction of entering Kaliban's atmosphere will incinerate us all.'
'Are you my papa?' asked the craft. 'Some of my organs appear to match the pattern of your frame.'
'A brother, perhaps,' said Coppertracks. 'Of the race of the metal. Your older, wiser brother.' He seemed pleased with that idea.
'What is my name, brother? My designation?'
'For the love of the Circle, steamman,' shouted Lord Rooksby. 'Forget about your cursed name. My boots' soles are steaming. You must grow wings, fly!'
'Nonsense,' argued Keyspierre, being steadied by his daughter as the craft bounced under their feet. 'A shell, compatriot craft, form yourself into a cannon shell. That is the best shape to assume.'
'Use your shields,' ordered Molly. 'That was how your mother survived her crash in the mountains of Mechancia.' Shelter next to the skin of a sun, indeed. Time to put the craft's boasts to the test.
'Yes,' said the young voice. 'That's an idea. I can grow those, I know how.'
Molly nodded in desperation. 'Good girl. Grow your shields now.'
'No, not grow shields, shields need to be projected out,' replied the voice. 'I mean grow a shield generator inside my body. I can start to gestate the seed of one within a week.'
Commodore Black groaned. 'Ah well, lass, it was a mortal fine try.' He spat on the porthole and watched his spittle crackle into steam. 'It's blessed unlucky to be falling to our deaths on any ship without a name, so I'll give you a name, you silver-skinned beauty, if you could but see us safe to Kaliban's hateful sands below. I baptize you the Sprite, the Sprite of the Stars.'
'Really now, that is no name for one of the people of the metal,' protested Coppertracks, holding onto his drone body as the newly born ship jounced in the turbulence. 'You shall be called Lady Starsprite. For this craft is still a daughter of the Free State and a champion of the Chamber of Swords.'
Around them the hull started contracting, assuming a pear shape, concentrating mass under their feet at the base of the teardrop. Was this a better shape than a sphere for diving down onto Kaliban? Molly felt a nudge from Duncan Connor.
'Even if we can save ourselves from a cooking in this oven, we're going to be killed by the impact of landing,' whispered the ex-soldier. He was clutching his travel case like a talisman. 'But we can use yon steammen portal to escape. A minute open would be long enough for us all to jump through.'
Molly tried to ignore the climbing heat and think clearly. Abandon the mission? Come so far, risk so much, only to flee back home at the last moment. But what use staying if they all died?
'Aye, I know, it sits bad with me too,' added Duncan. 'But this young foal has no shielding. So high up, we are going to be murdered in our breeks trying to get down to the ground.'
With a tremendous slam, a pocket of atmospheric turbulence spilled Molly onto the floor. She looked out of the window. All she could see was a line of fire fleeting up towards the black edge of space. It would be so easy. Step through the steammen's strange looking-glass gate. Save their lives. Keep them all alive: alive for as long as it took the Kingdom of Jackals and all the nations of the continent to fall to the Army of Shadows.
***
A hundred thousand miles away, the craft that had once been known as Lord Starhome folded space around her hull, squeezing the universe harder and harder and building up an impressive head of speed. Free, so gloriously free at last. Her sensors were almost fully regrown, a little dive through an asteroid belt having added enough matter to more than make up for the damage she had suffered helping those ingrate little ground huggers on their foolish mission.
She rotated her newly formed sensor array to capture an image of the starfields hanging densely around her, little twinkling motes of gravity from the nuclear furnaces that burned so distantly. Where to go, what to do? So many choices. So many wonders of creation to explore, far from this dreary little solar system where the fickle hand of fate had chosen to maroon her for an interminable age. Time to feed the surrounding constellations' patterns into her systems, compare them to the master maps she held deep within her, take a bearing, and get on with the rest of her sublime existence.
It took an hour of frantic diagnostic checks for her regrown sensor systems to realize that something was very wrong. But not with her sensors. With the universe around her.
How strange it was to be attacked by these invaders, the slats loping up the hill like killer apes, terrible eyeless faces marking Purity and the Bandits of the Marsh's positions with their chattering throats. The slat horde hurled themselves up the slope towards the circle of standing stones with an animal-like tempo, but some of them were carrying rifles, flinging burning bolts of energy towards them rather than bullets. It was as if they were being attacked by a pack of ravening wolves who had only discovered sentience a couple of minutes earlier: which was no less odd than the style in which they were received at the crest of the slope.
Purity brushed the bolts of fire aside with her blade, turning them on its mirrored surface, as light as air in her hands, using it as instinctively as breathing. There was something reassuring about its unearthly heft. Only when the slats had closed with them outside the stone circle did Purity realize what it was – holding the blade was like holding Oliver's hand. He had become the blade itself and if he had once been a shade of death stalking across the land, in her hands the sword felt as if it was capable of so much more.
Samuel L
ancemaster leapt forward by her side with a roar and headbutted one of the attacking slats, twisting his spear as if his weapon was the sail of a windmill. It was then she saw why Jenny Blow and Jackaby Mention hadn't bothered to produce weapons when the slats had surrounded them. Jenny Blow opened her mouth and started projecting a banshee scream, the force of it cracking into the slimy black chitin- like chests of the attacking slats, hammering them off their clawed feet. In amongst their ranks Jackaby Mention ran at a speed so fast he had turned to a blur, only briefly visible in the seconds between slowing down to kick and strike at the slavering slave soldiers.
Whatever the slats had been expecting to face on top of the hill, it wasn't this! Also lost to sight was the long-in-the-tooth druid – but then Purity located him, the old fox trying to hide behind the stones in the centre of the circle – stumbling and cursing as the slats came at him, his fighting style a curious mix of retreating and simultaneously turning to fling the sorceries of the worldsong at his pursuers. His silver hair tossed flaring under the night sky as wild sparks of wizardry hissed and recoiled around the inside of the stone circle. It was like watching a drunken pugilist weaving among a gang of toughs, landing blows and avoiding their flashing fists by his chance, clumsy stumbles. Except these fists had talons attached to the fingers, one of the clawed hands lashing past Purity's face as she weaved back herself. ‹Poison,› the sword seemed to whisper to her, the organic compound of the corrosive secretion flashing through her mind. She could understand it, see how to render the posion benign inside her blood if she was clawed. What in the name of the Circle was this blade of hers, how much was it capable of?
Jenny Blow arched her head around, the gale from her throat sweeping the slats trying to circle her into the side of one of the stones. Samuel Lancemaster strode into the space that had been created, casually lashing out with the butt of his spear and nearly breaking a slat in half. He was big, but his strength went far beyond his size; the fey bandit seemed able to strike with almost superhuman strength, the blunt trauma of his spear strikes killing with a single blow every assailant that came at him. At least, Purity never saw any of the slats get back up to have a second attempt at him.
As quickly as they had come at them the storm ended and they were standing alone under the shadow of the stone circle, Purity's blade twitching in her hand like a diviner's rod seeking water. Corpses littered the slope around their feet while the blur that was Jackaby Mention slowed to a standstill in front of them. His marsh leathers were crisped with a sheen of ice.
'Where is Ganby?'
'I am here,' a voice sounded behind one of the stones and the old druid appeared, brushing mud off his breeches. 'I have seen off the last of them.'
'Did you enjoy your rest, old man?' snorted Jenny Blow.
Purity hoped so. When the Army of Shadows realized how many slats had vanished, this part of the country was going to get very dangerous indeed. They would have to leave here as quickly as they could.
Purity ran her hands along the shelves of the abandoned village's sole shop, emptying the contents stored there into a sack. Each tumble and crack of can upon jar brought back the memories. The attack upon the hill, slats leaping up towards the ancient stone circle. Her sword humming in her hand, sucking up the bolts of fire from the heat-agitation weapons of the beasts. Drinking fire from the air. And then there were the four Bandits of the Marsh. Awoken from the dark corridors between the worlds and full of surprises. Like Jenny Blow, who could tell the sex of a hare a mile away with her thin nose, Jenny who had remarked offhandedly that it had been she who had taught King Steam to fight with the modulations of his voicebox. The ancient fighting art of the steammen knights. Did they really owe all their martial skills to this short, barrel-chested female bandit?
Just four. Four out of two hundred Bandits of the Marsh. If only she had been stronger, could have struck the stone with more of her might. Kept the portals between the stones open for longer, awakened more of the sleepers.
Samuel Lancemaster poked his head around the door to make sure Purity was all right. She could hear the fire crackling in the back room's hearth, dry broken furniture feeding the flames.
Purity held up one of her finds. 'Ham.'
Samuel grunted. 'More canned victuals.'
'Back in the Royal Breeding House this was currency.'
Samuel shook his head, perplexed. 'Your land is a strange one, lady. The nobility held as prisoners by their own council. King and queen kept only as symbols.'
Purity took the bag through to the back room, tossing it next to the supplies they had found in the cottages of the abandoned village. It was a good haul. The people must have moved out very fast. Evacuated by the county constabulary or – well, the alternative did not bear contemplation. 'Only the old nobility, the royalist cause. You won't find any of the Lords Commercial inside the Royal Breeding House.'
'And these Lords Commercial,' said Ganby Meridian, his silver beard tinged yellow by the firelight. 'They are given their titles by your parliament of shopkeepers, or by your hostage-queen?'
'Neither,' said Purity. The conversation was making her uncomfortable, calling forth too many memories of the patriotic songs and lessons she had been forced to learn by rote in the cold school chambers of the fortress where she had grown up. 'They are decided by the tables and logs of Greenhall, the treasury office of the Guardian Chancellor. You are automatically granted a title after you have paid a certain amount in taxes to the state; the rate varies and is voted on each year by parliament. The more money you pay, the higher your precedent in the lists.'
'Hmm,' groaned Ganby, the disapproving noise rumbling at the back of his throat.
'Is it so different, Ganby Meridian, from the queen we placed on the throne of the Jackeni, or the council of druids deciding who would rule among the stag lords?' asked Jenny Blow.
'To become a druid took years of hard study and mastery of the worldsong. You had to prove yourself worthy of tasks as weighty as selecting a new ruler. My ostler I would trust to care for my horse, my smithy to shoe her. But to look inside the heart of the person I would call Sovereign? I am not sure I would trust such a matter to my ostler or smithy.'
Samuel smiled and tossed the leg of a table into the fire grate, sparks spitting against his silver breastplate. 'Has Ganby mentioned he was a druid long before he joined our ranks?'
'Yes,' added Jenny Blow. 'Before his crimes and knavery saw him thrown out and drawn towards the margins of the marsh's waters as an outlaw.'
'Pah,' said Ganby. 'If I ever stopped lying, I would disappoint you. These are strange new days indeed. Queens who are mutilated and kept in chains, councils of standing chosen by those who have none, and a faceless legion of monsters walking the world. Fighting those gill-necks from the kingdom below the waves seems as a blessing in comparison to this new war.'
A knot of anger tightened inside Purity. 'My friend Oliver gave his life to free you for this war.'
'Not just us four,' said Jenny Blow, pointedly.
'That's enough,' said Samuel. 'We four answered the call and you speak to the true queen of the Jackeni, that much you must know.' He knelt down in front of Purity. 'My spear is your spear, as it was for Queen Elizica.'
And what a spear it was. By activating a hidden control, Samuel could collapse the weapon into a nasty weapon shaped like a knuckle-duster that could smack bricks out of a wall. When he was thinking, he would sometimes snick the spear out to its full length and then swing it back to its fist-sized shape, rattling the air with the noise of the spear's reorientation.
'A queen without boots,' pointed out Jackaby Mention from his chair, wiping his lips with relish as he set about the contents of one of the tins.
Purity looked across at the brooding black bandit. 'You wear no shoes either.'
Jackaby raised his bare toes and wiggled them. 'I meant it as no insult. I run faster when I have none and I like to feel close to the bones of the world, the earthflow.'
Ga
nby drew Purity to one side. 'They mean no harm by their words. They are touchy around normal people.'
Purity wasn't sure if she should feel flattered or frightened that they considered her normal. 'You mean those who aren't fey?'
'Quite. In our age the druids made sacrifices to keep the killing, changing clouds of the feymist at bay – children were bound and cast into the feymist curtain. Most died, but some did not.' Ganby indicated his three companions. 'Those that survived the changes of the warping mist were considered cursed and hunted without mercy by the land's tribes. Where else could they hide but the great marsh? They have little love for the affairs of mortals and as loyal as they became in the end to Elizica and her lion throne, I fear they see only a little of her in you.'
'I wish there was none of her in me,' said Purity. She picked up the sword from the stone circle. 'And I wish that I hadn't been given this.'
Ganby rubbed his beard thoughtfully. 'I remember another young woman standing before me, saying the same thing about a trident she had retrieved from a lake.' He sighed. 'We slept for an age to reach this strange new time, when she said she would need us again. That was not easy for us, nor for you to be the one to receive us. Let us see if we can make it worth the while for both of us…' He took Purity's sword from her, carefully weighing it two hands. 'Do you know what this blade is?'
'Sharp,' said Purity. 'And the sword contains a little of the essence of my friend Oliver… and of the Hexmachina.'
'They are facets of it,' said Ganby. 'You have described it a little, but they are not what the sword is. It is a maths-blade, a tool to manipulate the worldsong.'
'Maths?' said Purity. 'You mean sums and adding up? What does that have to do with sorcery and the worldsong?'
'Everything,' said Ganby, his hand sweeping out to encompass the room. 'All that you have seen, all that you will see, everything that you are, these are all mathematical constructs. The song of the world is composed of notes, the notes are composed of waves and strings, and they can be modelled and manipulated by an adroit mind. When you change the factors of an equation, you change its outcome. The worldsingers' training allows them to tap into the flow of power within the earth and change the equations that underlie the world, by hand, spell and mind.' He indicated the other bandits sitting around the fire and handed the blade back to her. 'The fey carry some of that ability innately. Your sword is a tool that allows you to manipulate reality. It cuts through stone so easily because it can change the equations of existence that define how matter should interact with its surface.'
