Jack Cloudie j-5

by Stephen Hunt

  ‘He joined the service he always wanted to,’ said the first lieutenant, protectively. ‘It wasn’t his fault that fate made him into something else. He needs to drink from the red flask now. They’ve overdosed him from the green bottle — the mutineers must have beaten the surgeon into telling them why he needs his drinks, then slipped the green’s contents into his rations.’

  Maya Westwick seemed curiously sympathetic towards their captain of marines, as if something in the brute of a soldier had found a vein of softness in the deadly, dangerous woman that Jack would have been hard-pressed to locate otherwise. Jack went to the cell door to see how close the two flasks were and was startled by the sight of Coss slipping into the brig’s guardroom. The steamman raised an iron digit in front of his voicebox to indicate that Jack wasn’t to make a noise, then gently shut the door behind him. He slipped over to the room’s speaking trumpet, lifted it off a copper plate on the wall and began a brief whispered conversation with someone at the other end. A second after the trumpet was set back on the wall, there was a strange whirring noise followed by a series of thuds as the bolts in the cell’s door withdrew into the floor and ceiling. Jack tentatively pressed the door, and finding it unlocked, pushed it open. Outside, the drum on the lock set against the cell was rotating so fast there was smoke spearing up from the oil on the drum’s gimbals.

  ‘You’ve not come to hang us, then, Mister Shaftcrank?’ asked the commodore, pushing his way out behind Jack. ‘Not come to carry out whatever sentence the navy’s scheming vice-admiral has cooked up?’

  ‘No, master cardsharp,’ said Coss, making way for the first lieutenant to scoop up the two flasks before re-entering the cell.

  ‘Then it’s a grand old counter-mutiny you’re running?’ asked the commodore. ‘How many men do we have loyal to the captain?’

  ‘Just myself, sir, that I know of,’ said the steamman, before correcting himself. ‘Well, the ship and myself. Rot my regulators, but the crew knows the vice-admiral’s reputation for ruining the reputations of those who cross him — there aren’t many on board willing to take the captain’s side now he’s been relieved by a senior admiralty officer.’

  The ship! Jack looked at the slowing drum on the transaction-engine lock and it suddenly dawned on him who the steamman had been whispering to using the speaking trumpet.

  ‘The ship, she’s like you!’ said Jack.

  ‘It takes time to come to full consciousness,’ said Coss. ‘The ship was never broken, it’s just taken time for her intelligence inside the transaction engines to develop to full self-awareness. The ship had to take the final steps on the journey herself, after her creator disappeared halfway through her construction.’

  ‘She’s alive …’ said the commodore.

  ‘Yes,’ said Coss to Jack and the commodore. ‘Her systems went up to full throttle when the two of you were imprisoned and weren’t around anymore to help me shut her down, and that was when she began communicating with me. She is like I was when I was taking my first steps in my nursery body. The proving flights, all that has gone before, the ship can only remember them as a dream.’

  A dream. That was what the steamman god had been trying to tell Jack. And when the Iron Partridge’s gunnery systems worked in perfect simulation offline during their engagement against the two Cassarabian airships, they hadn’t been becoming dangerously erratic — they were functioning as they were meant to for the first time! Lemba of the Empty Thrusters had heard the ship’s song in the sky, the song of her burgeoning intelligence, and had chosen to answer it.

  ‘If the ship’s on our side, old steamer, can we use her to turn our trumped-up charges of mutiny into real ones against the vice-admiral?’

  Coss shook his metal skull unit. ‘The Iron Partridge wasn’t built for that. The majority of her systems are external facing — the engine cars and rudders and gunnery. She needs a crew — not one as large as ours, and certainly not with manual overrides crippling her — but she still needs a crew inside her nevertheless.’

  ‘The mission,’ said the first lieutenant appearing in the doorway with the captain of marines limping by her side, semi-restored by the dosage from the red canteen.

  ‘The ship’s mission is why I am here,’ said Coss. ‘Just as failure is an orphan, success has many fathers. You must succeed in carrying out the ship’s original orders if a board of enquiry is to find in your favour and against the vice-admiral. I have discovered a way to get to the boat bay without any of Pasco’s men observing you.’

  The commodore looked askance at the prospect of abandoning the safety of the vessel.

  ‘You always knew we’d have to go in on the ground in the end,’ said the first lieutenant. ‘It’s why the State Protection Board put you here.’

  ‘Boots on the ground, lass,’ said the commodore. ‘I just wished they weren’t mine.’

  ‘The skipper,’ said the brute of a marine from Westwick’s side. ‘I’m not leaving him behind on any ship filled with perishing mutineers.’

  ‘His cabin will be too well guarded,’ said the first lieutenant. ‘And even if we break him out without killing half the crew, by coming with us, Jericho would be siding with escaped mutineers. If he can even make the charges stick, the worst the vice-admiral can do for the destruction of a prize vessel is have Jericho cashiered. If Jericho comes with us and we don’t succeed, they’ll hang him for sure. You don’t want to see Captain Jericho led to the scaffold by the vice-admiral, do you?’

  She might be telling the truth of it, but Jack caught the whiff of dissembling in her argument. She doesn’t want Jericho along with us in case he becomes struck down again by one of his dark humours. A genius in the air would be no use to the pitiless woman on the ground.

  ‘You won’t be able to come with us either, I fear, Mister Shaftcrank,’ said the commodore. ‘There aren’t any blessed steammen in Cassarabia, not even as slaves.’

  Jack thought he saw the steamman’s vision plate pulse with relief. As the only creature within hundreds of miles with any idea of the process the nascent intelligence of the ship was going through, the ship was in his charge now, and he surely wouldn’t want to abandon her.

  ‘Don’t concern yourself with my fate, master cardsharp,’ said Coss. ‘I doubt if Pasco’s men will suspect me of helping you. They see me a simple soul, a loyal machine for them to command like one of their tools — and as far as they’re concerned, I haven’t left the transaction-engine chamber.’

  And when Coss led them outside, Jack saw why. The door to the ship’s magazine was open, exposing the automatic loading station. Coss had ridden the shell-loading mechanism all the way down from the upper deck, unseen by any of Pasco’s mutineers, and they could travel up to the boat bay the same way. Jack knew who they would blame for the cell break, even without the tools of his old trade to hand — the thief who had nearly broken into the vaults of Lords Bank. Master Engineer Pasco would be only too glad to be proved right in his opinion of Jack.

  Even woozy on his feet, the captain of marine made short work of the two sailors on duty in the boat bay with his pile driver fists. As they lay unconscious Jack held open the heavy hatch so the first lieutenant could access the bay’s cargo hold. She climbed down into the ship’s guts and re-emerged a minute later with a nondescript-looking crate. This case, the commodore informed him, contained the supplies the State Protection Board’s quartermaster had made available for covert infiltration into Cassarabia. Next, Coss helped Jack and the commodore winch open the bay’s doors as the first lieutenant and Henry Tempest prepared the vice-admiral’s pocket airship — still assembled with her envelope gassed — for launch. Jack watched his friends raid the other boats’ provisions for enough expansion-engine fuel for a long-range expedition. This was one flight where they couldn’t expect to be resupplied by the navy.

  Coss pointed out of the hangar towards the peaks of the Benzaral Mountains passing below. ‘I have asked the ship to arrange a distraction inside both the crows�
� nest and the h-dome when you launch. You’ll have enough time to conceal your aerostat behind one of the peaks until we have flown out of sight. I doubt if the vice-admiral will waste much time trying to search for you. He is eager to present his account of the loss of the Fleet of the South before any possible survivors beat him to it.’

  ‘Thank you, old steamer,’ said Jack. ‘The last people I thought were my friends saw me tossed to the hangman back in the Kingdom to save their own necks, and here you are risking yours to rescue me from the noose.’

  ‘Vault my valves, but it would be an unlucky executioner who tries to hang a steamman,’ said Coss. ‘Besides, we are serving members of the Royal Aerostatical Navy, you and I, and that is what shipmates do — they watch out for each other.’

  ‘Only the good ones, Mister Shaftcrank,’ said the commodore. ‘Look after your metal skin and see to the ship and her skipper as best you mortal can.’

  Jack shook Coss’s cold iron hand. Here was a steamman who dreamt of flying and an airship that dreamt of being a steamman. As dangerous as continuing into the enemy heart-land to prosecute the ship’s mission with just the four of them might prove, it was the lesser of two evils. Coss was right; success in the mission was the only way for Jack to escape a mutineer’s fate. A handful of Jack Cloudies against the oldest, most powerful empire on the continent. What hope will we have out there, just the four of us?

  ‘I will pray to Lemba of the Empty Thrusters for our Loas to watch over you,’ said Coss.

  ‘Let’s be on our way, Mister Keats,’ said the commodore. ‘They can’t hang us if we’re killed in action, and you have your promise to me to keep.’

  Jack boarded the airship and a moment later it was flung into the uncaring sky.

  The priest Salwa bent on one knee before Immed Zahharl, who was raging at the courtiers scattering before the cushion-lined pool where the great man had been lounging up until a couple of minutes ago.

  Their fear of his temper was all the greater because the pool was located beside the caliph’s torture garden, where the bodies of his enemy’s had been twisted into tree-like shapes twenty feet tall; their mouths sealed or removed by the mages, so their agonies could offer no disturbance to those who were invited to walk the gardens.

  Some of the twisted forms were older than the oldest tree — life-prolonging drugs were mixed with the water the gardeners used to keep their victims alive. After all, there was no memory of betrayal longer than that of the Caliph Eternal. The grand vizier, it was known, liked to do his thinking here — among the contorted bodies of those who had fallen from grace and favour. Perhaps to look into the eyes of those he had manoeuvred into the garden; perhaps as a reminder to himself of the price of failure. Many of the empire’s great and good were summoned to meander through the grounds and witness the punishment meted out to those who rebelled against the empire, those who lost wars against Cassarabia, those who were found in the palace kitchen trying to add poison to the Caliph Eternal’s meals. Visitors could usually be counted on to draw the obvious lesson, with many cases of treasonous thoughts that never then progressed into action.

  The grand vizier flourished the results of the blood-code test that had established the intruder’s identity beyond doubt — skin cells scraped from the broken-nosed face of one of the womb mages who had tried to stop the intruder. ‘And how was this wretch Omar Barir allowed simply to roam around the library’s lowest levels as if he was a senior womb mage? Are we to hold picnics down there outside our breeding vats and invite along every slave in the palace?’

  There was no answer from the chagrined staff as the grand vizier pointed down at Salwa. ‘If the last son of Barir knew enough to follow you down there, if he knew enough to attempt to rescue his precious Shadisa, then the chances are he also knows the Caliph Eternal is bound to the Sect of Razat.’

  ‘I am sorry, master,’ said Salwa. ‘This is my fault.’

  The grand vizier waved the keeper’s apology away angrily. ‘Barir, always a Barir. His father was a thorn in my side; continually agitating for trade rather than war, and his mongrel idiot of a bastard son is no different. Well, as Ben Issman once turned the wastelands of the world to gardens, I shall turn the guardsman’s interference into victory.’ He waved the cowering priest up from the floor. ‘I trust some of Shadisa’s blood and flesh is left?’

  ‘A little, master,’ said Salwa.

  ‘Remove a corpse from the library’s mortuary that matches Shadisa’s height, weight and age. I will change the body to be an exact match of the slave girl. After the corpse’s face is smashed in, we will leave enough trace of Omar Barir’s flesh on the body to ensure that he is identified as her murderer. We will let the guardsmen themselves jump to the obvious conclusion when they investigate.’

  ‘The flesh from his drak breeding …’ said Salwa.

  ‘Yes,’ said the grand vizier. ‘And how fitting that his drak will be the last one we need to grow for any guardsmen. Those meddling sons of the landed gentry, always bleating about tradition while holding back the empire from its greater destiny. It is time for those dogs to join the secret police among the ranks of the traitors to the empire, and Barir’s crimes have provided me with the provocation I need to act. In fact, a delicious idea has just occurred to me. The last son of Barir’s blood will come in useful for far more than just Shadisa’s murder.’

  Salwa knew better than to press the grand vizier on the nature of his notion; the ambitious monster was never more dangerous than when being pressed. ‘We will need to find guardsmen who will confess to their order’s corruption, master.’

  The grand vizier pointed to a figure the size of a cedar tree on the other side of the pool, a torso grown as hard as stone while the victim’s arms splayed out in a fan of thousands of bones, eyes staring wildly above a sealed mouth. ‘They always confess to something, Salwa. Just unsew the mouth of the head of the secret police, if you do not believe me.’

  Omar looked as if he was having to resist grabbing Boulous and pushing him aside. ‘I must see the grand marshal of the order.’

  ‘Wait until Master Uddin returns,’ said Boulous. ‘We need his counsel on what to do next.’

  ‘He disappears for days and weeks at a time,’ said Omar. ‘Do you even know how long he will be gone this time, or where he is?’

  ‘On the guardsmen’s business,’ said Boulous.

  ‘This is the guardsmen’s business!’ shouted Omar, pushing the empty vial towards Boulous. ‘The Caliph Eternal has been made a slave with whatever drug was inside here. Our oath is to him, we are his justice.’

  ‘You are letting your anger over the girl’s death cloud your decisions,’ said Boulous. ‘The guardsmen’s position is precarious and this tale of yours will carry far more weight if it comes from the lips of Master Uddin. He is senior in the order, he might even be in the running to become the next grand marshal.’

  Omar pushed past Boulous and opened the door to depart Uddin’s cell in the fortress. ‘I am going to face the present grand marshal and he will listen to my words. They are the truth and he will believe me. Are you with me?’

  Boulous hurried out after Omar. ‘Hasty,’ he whispered. ‘Too hasty.’

  Boulous had never seen Omar so angry. Normally he was as languid as a lizard lying on the sand, content to be still and drink up the sun. Now he was the force of a sandstorm that would send lizards scurrying away to their burrows, scouring the whitewash off the capital’s minarets below. No good would come of this, Boulous was certain. He hadn’t even needed the note of warning that old Nudar had sent up to him from the palace below to know that. This was a time for subtlety and nuance, the cold calculations that the grand vizier specialized in, not blundering about like a shell-blinded drak in battle.

  Unfortunately, the last son of the House of Barir didn’t seem to practice subtlety, despite all of Boulous’s attempts to open his eyes to the machinations within the Jahan.

  Getting to see the grand marshal was every bi
t as difficult as Boulous had anticipated. The jahani who administered the commander of the guardsmen’s diary ran his fingers over the pages, rubbing at a small pair of spectacles as he inspected the evening’s business, tutting as he read.

  ‘Not tonight,’ said the diary keeper, glancing up from the desk to look down the corridor that led to the stairs up to the grand marshal’s offices.

  ‘Please,’ said Boulous, ‘just ten minutes with the old man. You know me, Jizan, and you know the favours I have done you in the past.’

  ‘Indeed I do,’ said the diary keeper. ‘And my memory is not so short that I have forgotten their existence over the last hour.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Boulous.

  ‘I mean I already have officials of the guardsmen furious at me for allowing you two an unscheduled appointment earlier this evening; that was his last slot of the night. You can go away now.’

  Boulous felt a sinking feeling in his gut. ‘We did not see the grand marshal earlier.’

  The diary keeper shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is time for final prayers. It is time for food, and there is a campaign that must be planned from scratch. You have heard that there is to be all-out war, haven’t you? Come back tomorrow Boulous Ibn Uddin and stop wasting my time.’

  But Omar had already pushed past the two sentries on either side of the corridor and was sprinting towards the spiral stairs at the other end. The diary keeper shouted for reinforcements from the guardroom down the corridor. Boulous threw caution to the wind and ran after the sprinting sentries, their ceremonial knives jingling on their belts as they pursued Omar.

  Boulous gasped as he crossed the threshold. The grand marshal’s frail body had been stabbed through the chest with his own scimitar, pinned vertically against a bloodstained tapestry between two firing slits in the wall. He looked like an insect stolen by a collector, pinned to the fabric for display. Omar had stumbled over two dead guards sprawled across the floor, their throats cut, and the two pursuing sentries had seized the young guardsman from behind even as he took in the horror of the slaughter.