Jack Cloudie j-5

by Stephen Hunt

  ‘This is it, lass,’ the commodore said to First Lieutenant Westwick. ‘We’ve followed the trail of locks, and the cipher on our door here is as tough as any I’ve seen inside this dark place.’

  Henry Tempest returned down the corridor, having just dragged away the bodies of the womb mages who had the misfortune to challenge the three of them. ‘I stuffed the little perishers in a supply room.’

  Westwick nodded. ‘Take a sip more from the red canteen, Henry.’

  ‘It’s a mortal clever little thing,’ said the commodore, patting the small device. ‘I could have made mischief with this in the old days, I could. When old Blacky was in his prime and the locks of so many vaults and prison doors needed opening. It’s a hard thing to see your mortal genius replaced by a little box of tricks strung together by some engineman in the pay of the board.’

  ‘Your box still needs people on the ground to take it where the state requires its use,’ said Westwick.

  ‘That it does, Maya. A poor, creaking old fellow like Jared Black who should be resting in well-earned retirement back in Middlesteel, not sneaking through the empire’s terrible shadows wearing an ill-cut RAN uniform under some stinking robes.’

  ‘You’re still good for the great game, old man,’ said Westwick.

  There was a clack as multiple bolts in the door withdrew. Pushing it open revealed a long dark corridor. Feeling along the wall, the commodore found a switch to activate the lanterns in the ceiling, and as they flared bright, the wall on the right was revealed as a length of smoked glass, and their corridor a viewing gallery for the chamber below. In the middle of the chamber lay a figure covered by a white gown and hooded by a large metal helmet. Coiled around the length of the body was a knot of tubes that seemed to be extracting blood while feeding in liquids and chemicals from dozens of archaic-looking machines that surrounded the figure.

  ‘Poor devil,’ said the commodore. ‘Like a fly caught up in a cobweb of the womb mages’ dark arts. But one man isn’t acting as the factory for the entire stock of the Imperial Aerial Squadron’s celgas.’

  ‘It is the Caliph Eternal,’ hissed Westwick. ‘The real caliph. They’re extracting what they need from him to inject into the grand vizier’s pet.’

  ‘It could be anyone under that helmet, Maya,’ said the commodore. ‘Some poor wretch the grand vizier has taken it into his mind to punish.’

  ‘It’s the true caliph,’ insisted Westwick, pointing to a door in the glass wall that led to a set of stairs down into the chamber. ‘Crack that lock and get him out of there.’

  ‘This isn’t our mission,’ said the commodore. ‘We’re here for the source of the empire’s blessed celgas, not the devil that sits on their throne. Are we to expect gratitude from him if we set him free? The gratitude of kings is a poor, beggarly thing, lass. Take it from one who has served a few.’

  ‘The Caliph Eternal could end the war …’

  ‘Or he could continue the whole wicked affair,’ said the commodore. ‘Once we break him out we have to get him back to the airship — we’ll have the whole empire after us and no more chance of a quiet infiltration in search of their celgas.’

  Their argument was interrupted by the clamour of distant bells.

  ‘For us?’ asked Henry Tempest.

  Commodore Black shook his head. ‘No, big lad. I think our allies have been discovered. But if the grand vizier knows there are rats creeping about his citadel, he’ll surely be sending sentries down here to check in on his prize guest all the same.’

  ‘Just crack the damn door,’ commanded Westwick. ‘Now! That’s an order.’

  Commodore Black began to patch their cracksman’s box of tricks into the door that led down into the chamber, but he had hardly started the work when the floor started to shake. He looked up to find the end of the corridor, filled with huge beyrogs, accompanied by charging, human-sized cousins squeezed into replicas of the guardsmen’s uniforms.

  ‘Slake your thirst, Henry,’ shouted Westwick, drawing her pistol with one hand and her sword with the other. ‘Drain the red flask. Keep at the lock, Jared!’

  She knelt and shot one of the charging beyrogs through the skull as Tempest charged past her. With no time to reload she shoved the pistol back in her belt and drew a knife with her free hand. Somewhere behind the enemy column, a voice was commanding the beasts on.

  The commodore urged his box of tricks to its work, cursing it for a charlatan’s lock pick. Focus on the job at hand. Not the thud of Henry Tempest’s fists as they made a drum of the nearest beyrog’s chest, or the wet snick of Westwick’s dancing blades. Not the screams of the dying beasts in guardsmen’s uniforms. Not the captain of marine’s rising rage, his temper tracing the chemical arc of the filthy medical soup he had just downed in a single swig. No time to look at the wild bulging eyes and muscles twisting like snakes under his skin, or listen to the hot-tempered abuse he was hurling at the beasts as they beat at him, trying to overwhelm this wolverine in human form that had unexpectedly flung himself into their ranks.

  Finally, the commodore’s desperate work was rewarded by the clunk of the cell door’s locks retracting into the walls. ‘Maya, Henry!’

  ‘Fall back!’ ordered Westwick.

  Their captain of marines had his hand around one beyrog’s throat, smashing it into the corridor’s narrow walls while his boot lashed out at another, the giant beast already doubled up in agony from a previous blow. ‘I’ll hold ’em here, first lieutenant. The little granite-faced goblins will be all over us like bleeding flies if we all fall back at the same time.’

  ‘That wasn’t a suggestion, captain of marines!’

  ‘He’s right, lass,’ called the commodore. ‘Circle help us, but he’s right. Run for it and we’ll see how they value their impostor’s milk cow with a knife held to his throat.’

  Westwick came running back towards the cell door, while the captain of marines single-handedly fought the beasts’ advance to a halt behind her. Westwick and the commodore had just gained the inside of the caliph’s cell when the front ranks of the advancing beyrogs parted to reveal more of their number bearing the only projectile weapons that would fit their ungainly fists — crossbows the size of brace supports torn out of an airship. They began to loose bolts into Henry Tempest, the first three missiles catching him in the chest and sending him stumbling back, yelling in pain and anger.

  ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ roared the captain of marines. He pulled two of the projectiles out and charged the front of their ranks, impaling the bolts into a beyrog, even as the next line opened up on him with their crossbows. ‘Who taught you dirty sand-footed abortions to shoot? Your bloody aunt?’ He grabbed a monstrous hand coming at him with an oversized scimitar, twisted it round, and stuck the sharp end into another beyrog as six more bolts thwacked into him. ‘You eat a man’s round of roast beef and drink a quart of beer, then you’ll fight like proper soldiers.’

  The first line of crossbow-wielding brutes had reloaded and they put a third volley into the captain of marines, enough of them in the fight now to keep up an almost constant barrage of independent fire.

  Commodore Black and Westwick were halfway down the steps of the caliph’s cell when the door slammed behind them, their view of the uneven stand-off restricted to their angle of sight through the viewing gallery window. Little flecks of blood struck the glass in between each roar of Jackelian defiance from outside.

  There was a thump against the glass as a dying beyrog was shoved up against it, another thump as the beast’s twin appeared on the right, and then in the middle, Henry Tempest appeared, a human pin cushion, juddering and twitching with each fresh bolt finding its mark in his spine. ‘Perishing — little — sand — monkeys.’

  All three bodies slumped off the glass leaving trails of blood. They could hear the feral roars of the enemy’s victory through the locked cell door.

  ‘We only have as long as it takes them to key open that wicked door,’ said the commodore, moving to
pull the cables out of the prone figure’s body.

  ‘Poor Henry. You died as you were designed to, as you were fated to by your creators.’ Westwick struggled with the visorless helmet, lifting it off the prisoner’s head to reveal the ageless features that could be seen stamped on the face of any Cassarabian coin. The Caliph Eternal. The rudimentary machines around him whined in protest as their charge was freed.

  ‘Aye now, let’s see what their precious ruler of rulers is good for.’

  The caliph was still lying down, eyes blinking against the light and groggy from being pulled from whatever sustenance they had been pumping into him to keep him unconscious.

  ‘Up with you, lad,’ urged the commodore. ‘You’ve two guardian angels to thank for your wake-up call.’

  ‘Two Jackelians?’ coughed the ruler. ‘The almighty of almighty’s sense of humour has not improved for the better, then.’

  There was a banging at the top of the gallery as the door was unlocked and opened.

  ‘And neither has the sight of the grand vizier and my surplus flesh brother.’

  They turned to see the caliph’s twin in the doorway, with a thin-faced man the commodore took to be the emperor’s chief of ministers. Commodore Black had his pistol out and pointed to the back of the caliph’s head. ‘How long can your impostor survive without the blood of the Caliph Eternal, and still pull off his royal act?’

  ‘Quite long enough for Akil Jaber Issman to abdicate in my favour,’ said the grand vizier. ‘After it is miraculously discovered that my veins also flow with the blood of Ben Issman.’

  ‘A miracle indeed,’ said the true caliph. ‘The kind the order of womb mages specializes in.’

  ‘You have slept through the start of a glorious war,’ said the grand vizier. ‘The sort of war your recently departed flesh father would have loved to have masterminded, little enculi. Plunder and land enough to make sure the only question the empire’s generals and admirals and sultans ask is, “How much of what we take is mine?” Their loyalty has been well purchased.’

  ‘Put your gun down,’ Westwick ordered the commodore. ‘They know you’re bluffing.’

  ‘I’m not bluffing, lass.’

  Westwick raised her own pistol, pointing it at the commodore’s head. ‘I gave you an order, Jared Black.’

  ‘Ah, well here’s the thing,’ said the commodore. ‘I’m not quite ready to take my mortal orders from a Pasdaran double agent. Why do you think the State Protection Board really sent me along with you, lass? They’ve had their doubts about the Cassarabian section for a long time. I didn’t even need the proof of us ending up here to save the caliph rather than inside their wicked celgas rooms where we were meant to be — the board knew that the Sect of Jabal was the recognition word being used by the Pasdaran cell inside the Kingdom. The same word you traded with my old friend back in the safe house at Sharmata Sarl to let her know you were one of them.’

  The grand vizier laughed from the top of the stairs, his beasts in guardsmen leathers snarling in front of him. ‘Ah, the Pasdaran. They are like the knotweed that strangles a garden. So hard to pull out, although heaven knows I have tried. I find it strangely reassuring that the Kingdom has much the same problem with them.’

  ‘Unless your parliament has ordered my assassination,’ said the true caliph, ‘I would rather everyone put their guns down.’

  ‘This is war, your excellency,’ said the commodore. ‘That makes this medals, not murder.’

  ‘Not my war, Jackelian.’

  ‘Put your weapons down,’ barked the grand vizier. ‘Who knows, perhaps I will let you live a while longer.’

  The commodore sighed and slowly lowered his gun. ‘Well, there it is then, curse my unlucky stars. I suspect I will come to regret this.’

  The grand vizier’s beasts in guardsmen’s uniforms swept down the steps towards the caliph and his two would-be rescuers. ‘Bind their hands and gag the caliph’s mouth. We don’t want the beyrogs getting confused by contradictory orders. So, the Jackelian State Protection Board has taken an interest in the methods for floating my airships? I shall have to involve you all in the process, then.’ His cruel laugh cut across the chamber. ‘I shall involve you very directly. Since you have come such a long way, it is the least I can do.’

  There was a lurch as the Iron Partridge pulled violently up, the deck slanting and the pilot on the elevator station fighting his rapidly rotating wheel as the upper and lower lifting chambers near-instantly doubled the amount of gas in their cells. Jack could hear the drone of the engine cars, a nasal complaining whine from the rotors as they struggled to match the viciously strong pull of their transmission belts. Alarms were sounding throughout the airship; anything not tied down was rolling and breaking now, from the pots and pans that belonged to the ship’s slushy, to the far more dangerous shells that hadn’t been tied down by the gunners.

  ‘Vent ballast water tanks, rear only,’ barked Jericho. ‘I want level yaw for m’broadside when we cut their centre.’

  Jack clutched onto the side of the pipes station as the Iron Partridge began to level out. Hold, he begged the gas cells. Just hold on a bit longer without bursting. Circle, but we’re rising fast. The pit of his stomach was falling towards his feet.

  ‘Hold us regular — hold us regular,’ urged Jericho, his eyes fixed on the view outside the bridge. ‘Quarter gunners, ready cannon hoods for movement.’

  There was a brief moment of silence, the sense that they were suspended in time as well as the dark night sky, then Jericho yelled, ‘Fire!’ and the airship shook with fury. Even with their cannons rail-mounted on turntables, pneumatic shock absorbers cushioning the recoil, Jack could feel every inch of the anger of the Iron Partridge’s guns through the shaking decks.

  From a porthole Jack caught a fleeting glimpse of two of the enemy pathfinder vessels which had been caught unawares by the massive ironclad’s sudden turn of speed and lift. The enemy’s gun decks had been left completely mangled, un discharged ordnance detonating, their crew in air masks just visible in the light of the fires desperately trying to seal rubber hoods that had been torn to shreds. Such carnage. Men pulling off the remains of their cannons from the remains of their friends. Fires and death and burning. Sailors no different from us trying to cope with it. When will it be our turn?

  Jack marked the wheeling draks and their guardsmen riders, like vultures rather than hawks, closing in to finish off the carcasses this giant iron beast had left in her wake. He only had a second to stare in astonishment at the devastation of their cannonade.

  ‘Pipes!’ roared Jericho. ‘All chambers, all stations. Brace! Brace! Brace!’

  They were heading for the last vessel and about to tear the top off the tricorn hat.

  Omar struggled against his bonds, but he was tied to the chair too tightly. Not that he could have achieved much against the line of claw-guards formed up behind the prisoners’ chairs. Farris Uddin, Commodore Black and First Lieutenant Westwick were all tied to their chairs, not to mention what looked like the true Caliph Eternal. The bound and gagged ruler of rulers seemed to hold a strange fascination for the grand vizier’s pet, who kept peering around Salwa for a better look at his flesh twin. Despite his obvious curiosity, he held back from touching the true Caliph Eternal, as if to do so might negate his own existence in a sudden flash of sorcery. I can sense the difference between them now I’m so close, much good may it do me. He had to work hard not to sob at the thought.

  They were inside a dim, dark chamber, facing a mirrored wall. The grand vizier motioned to Salwa to open a large womb mage’s chest and he — she? — withdrew a set of blood-filled vials, making the case ready for the grand vizier. Now Omar knew the truth of what had happened to Shadisa, he could hardly stand to look at the creature of sorcery that had subsumed her body. How could she do this to herself? How could she do this to me? She had swapped her beauty and her soul and her honour for this? Power, the chance to follow the grand vizier around like a lapdog.r />
  ‘It is always good to know who you are dealing with,’ said the grand vizier, pacing the room. ‘I believe it was the fourth book of Ben Issman that said that no one should rise to heaven with a lie in their heart or a falsehood on their tongue.’

  ‘You dare to treat the Caliph Eternal like this,’ spat Omar, ‘the blood of Ben Issman himself, and then talk of the truth.’

  ‘The blood of Ben Issman?’ laughed the grand vizier. ‘How naive, how hopelessly romantic.’ He pointed to the gagged form of the Caliph Eternal. ‘Meet the much-diluted, much-copied, twentieth-generation enculi of a very distant cousin who managed to wrest power centuries ago from an equally distant enculi of some inbred fool who was briefly ruthless enough to seize the throne. It was said that Ben Issman took five hundred wives. There’s probably more of his blood in your veins, guardsman, than in this pathetic pair. There’s certainly enough of some others …’ He pointed at Farris Uddin. ‘Does the last son of Barir know, officer of the Pasdaran? He’s what, your great-great-great grandson?’

  Farris Uddin said nothing as Omar stared at him in shock. Is it true? Was that the real reason why Farris Uddin had rescued the House of Barir’s last half-blood bastard of a son from a bandit’s blade?

  ‘Special shackles for you, my aged Pasdaran friend. I have extracted most of your abilities from your blood code. You have been gifted with a shape-switcher’s face and the ability to sweat acid and see in the dark. Enhanced strength, speed and senses. How old are you? The amount of trace drugs in your blood suggests you must have been taking pure lifelast for a very long time. You would have served my little enculi’s flesh father for most of his reign. How fitting for you to be here at the founding of a new dynasty.’

  At last, Farris Uddin spoke, jerking his head towards Salwa. ‘An abomination as the power behind the throne? You are, I presume, the same as this thing?’