by Paton, Chris
“But difficult for a machine to climb, Bhàtair,” Seffi looked at me. “Can you do it, Karl? Can you get the emissary up the mountain?”
I paused, the grass in front of me flickering as I exhaled. I turned to look at the mountain. “It's a steep slope. But the emissary is fully-fuelled. If you can attach its foot?”
“I can,” Seffi nodded.
“Then I can march it up the mountain.”
“Good lad,” Bhàtair slapped me on the shoulder. “I will light your way with fire cairns. There's no point trying to hide. Macfarlane will be able to see you, so why make it difficult? I don't want you to get lost, so I will guide you. Besides,” he pointed a stubby finger at Seffi, “if I am right, then the old fox and his lads will be no too fast in following you, once you and the young lass are finished with them.”
Looking from Bhàtair to Seffi, I caught a quick exchange of looks before Seffi tightened the laces of her boots and checked the charge in Archie's flintlock pistol. Stuffing the pistol into her belt she crouched on the grass beside me. Bhàtair smiled at both us before standing up and slipping away in the direction of the mountain.
“If you can't communicate with the emissary from this distance,” Seffi paused, “you will have to get closer, Karl.”
“I know.”
“But you can't get caught.”
“I know that, too.”
Seffi paused. She waited until Bhàtair disappeared over a small rise. “We have come this far together, but I need to know that whatever happens to me, no matter what happens to the emissary, you will follow the fire cairns and get away on Whistlefish's airship.”
“Seffi?”
“No, Karl. No discussions. You must leave if things do not go as planned. Herr Bremen made it very clear that Macfarlane is to tidy up and erase all trace of us and the emissary if we fail to evade him.”
“It doesn't make any sense.”
“It does to him, and his department in the ministry.” She pressed a fist into the grass. “Wallendorf is just a cog in a larger machine, Karl. The German Confederation has big plans for the emissary. It will cover up all trace of the project, at each and every step along the way.”
“But,” I frowned at a sudden horrid thought. “What about everyone who has seen the emissary?” I turned my head in the direction of the estate. “Whistlefish and Beatrice and...”
“Hence the airship,” Seffi grinned. “Whistlefish is no fool, Karl. He knows the extent of his usefulness, and the consequences for when he has outlived the same. All Bremen has to do is label him as a traitor and the English will do more than just banish him to a distant corner of Scotland. No,” she picked at a blade of grass, “he has been preparing for a long time. I imagine he doubled his efforts the moment Schleiermacher contacted him.”
“His hands...”
“Dirty as a maker's,” Seffi grinned.
“Still,” I looked Seffi in the eye, “I won't leave you behind.”
“Yes, you will, Karl.” She stood up. “End of discussion.” With a nod towards Suilven, Seffi straightened her jacket and tapped her knapsack with her foot. “If you have to run, save the telescope, Karl. Don't worry about the tea.” Seffi's eyes widened, catching the summer moon as it pierced a brief break in the clouds. “Good luck, Karl. I actually think more of you than you think I do.” With a wave, she started down the mountain.
I waited until Seffi had reached the tip of the spur before turning my attention to the emissary. I set the control box in the grass in front of me, crossed my legs and reached down to open the lid. Even without the enhanced telescope I could see the emissary and the activity surrounding it. It was time to really test my theory of the magnetic waves travelling along the iron in the earth and atmosphere. I judged the distance between the emissary and my position up on the mountainside to be roughly one and a half miles. Seffi would no doubt move quickly down the mountain, tracking to the right to get to the bothy. Then, after dispatching Macfarlane's man and the few dogs at the bothy, she would retrieve the foot, and be ready to get the emissary back on both feet, provided I had taken care of Macfarlane and the man building the travois. I had better get started.
“Well, my friend.” I gripped the control levers between the tips of my fingers and thumbs. “Let's see if you are listening.” Straining my eyes and focusing hard on the emissary's head, I twitched the levers. The emissary looked up. I even thought I heard the soft whine of the motors and gears in its neck. With a gentle pull of the lever up and a gentle push down the emissary nodded once in my direction. “Yes,” I breathed. But my success was short-lived as I noticed Macfarlane react to the emissary's movement. The stalker turned his gaze in the direction the emissary was looking and it was then I realised he was looking at me.
Macfarlane took a single step forwards. With an irritated wave of his hand, he urged his gillie to continue lashing the wood together. He walked back to the boulder against which the emissary was leaning. Reaching behind it, he picked up a rifle and slung it over his shoulder.
The stalker didn't try to conceal his movements. Placing one foot in front of the other he strode towards me. I fiddled with the levers and trusted to my theory that, no matter how complex the series of movements, the commands would flow along the iron in the earth. I let go of the levers for a moment to wipe my brow. Macfarlane's stride shortened as he began to climb the slope leading to the spur where I sat. I would be within range of his rifle within ten minutes at the rate he was climbing.
“Stupid, Karl,” I gripped the levers. “Let's see if you can get me out of this situation, friend.” I frowned for a moment as the emissary nodded in response. “I am sure I didn't do that.” What I did do was tug the emissary into a standing position, using the boulder as a crutch. Macfarlane stopped at a shout from the gillie. I balanced the emissary on its foot and swung the stump at the end of its other leg in a roundhouse kick at the gillie. The stump caught the man in the centre of his chest, knocking him backwards. I bit back the smile clawing at my cheeks as I watched the gillie crash onto the half-finished travois. He didn't get up.
The crack of Macfarlane's rifle echoed up the mountainside. Trapped beneath the dense cloud base, the report of the gunpowder blast and the pling of the bullet striking the emissary's bronze-plated chest hung in the air as Macfarlane fired twice more.
I tweaked the levers inside the control box, commanding the emissary to stand erect, at the very height and reach of its dimensions. Extending the emissary's right arm, I raised its hand, palm outwards, in what I considered to be a universal signal to stop.
Macfarlane stopped. Lowering the rifle, he turned to look at me. I held my breath as he lifted the rifle to his shoulder, the iron-sight centred on my position, and fired.
The rifle belched a modest gout of flame. Macfarlane was engulfed in a brief brimstone cloud, hidden from view as the bullet hurtled towards me only to lose momentum at the limit of its range, burying itself in the grass far below me at the tip of the spur.
I exhaled, closed the control box and clipped it to the chest harness. It was time to move.
Ignoring the emissary, Macfarlane slung the rifle over his shoulder and whistled. A flicker of movement caught my eye. Bounding across the grass, a little to the south of Macfarlane's position, the scarred bitch closed in on her master. With a flick of his wrist he sent her on ahead. I stared for a moment as the hound's tongue lolled between sharp incisors flashing white against a course background of mountain grass and sedge.
I reached down to pull my knapsack onto my back, grabbing Seffi's and slinging it over my shoulder. With a last look at the emissary, I saw Seffi slip around the boulder. Crouching low, she moved the foot into position beneath the emissary's stump, opened the compartment in its thigh and set about reattaching its cloven appendage.
The huffing of the hound spurred me into action and I started jogging along the spur in the direction Bhàtair had taken. The crack of Macfarlane's rifle forced me to the ground. He was still too far away, bu
t every time he fired he tricked me into cover, slowing me down.
“Damn it, Karl,” I pushed myself off the ground. “He can't hit you from all the way down there. Ignore him. Keep moving.”
I forced myself into a run, the leather knapsacks bouncing on my back and my shoulder. I flinched at a the third crack of Macfarlane's rifle, forcing myself to thrust one foot in front of the other. The hound stopped to bay, and I paused to turn around and locate it.
I saw Macfarlane’s prize bitch as it circled a large boulder just below my position. Looking beyond the boulder I saw Macfarlane reload his rifle. All three of us paused at the tiny crack of gunpowder from below us on the track. Stepping through a powder cloud, Seffi walked towards Macfarlane, tamping a lead ball into the barrel of Archie's flintlock pistol, and filling the pan from the horn of gunpowder. Gripping the horn in one hand, Seffi lifted the pistol, pulling back the hammer with her thumb as she walked. She fired at Macfarlane, the crack of the shot louder now as she climbed the mountainside.
Macfarlane's hound flicked its head from me to her master and back again, worrying the ground in frantic circles as she waited for instruction. Macfarlane finished reloading his rifle. He pulled it to his shoulder. We stared at one another for a moment before he broke eye contact, turned on the spot and aimed downhill at Seffi. They fired at the same time, the combined crack of gunpowder rolling up the mountain towards me. Macfarlane's hound leaped into action, racing downhill to her master.
Shrugging off the packs, I knelt in the grass and opened the lid of the control box. Seffi crouched in the grass, ducking to the left as Macfarlane fired again. Moving too fast to reload, she skirted to the south as the stalker paced her from higher up the mountain. I gripped the levers and flexed the emissary's foot. With a tentative stretch, I forced the emissary into a long stride, and then another, pushing it forwards, onwards and directly up the mountain towards me.
“Yes,” I yelled. The sound of my voice stalling everyone on the mountain. Everyone but the emissary as it pounded its way uphill, flattening the grass and crushing stones and small boulders into the earth.
I didn't see Macfarlane turn his rifle on me. Nor did I hear Seffi's warning. I dropped to the ground as a ball of lead whipped me off my feet. Blood thumped through my body, escaping through the ragged exit wound in my shoulder as the emissary pounded towards me. The world went black for a time and I drew the darkness to me like a blanket.
Chapter 9
Seffi would later swear she had nothing to do with it, that she was nowhere near me when the emissary scooped me up in its arms and carried me up the mountain, along the track, between the twin summits of Suilven. The jarring of the emissary's steps and the whining of gears and cogs as it adjusted for the gradient of the steep track drew back the dark blanket and I opened my eyes. Fire cairns flickered orange in the cloudlight, showing the way. Moving my arms took my breath away, the pain from the bullet spreading through tissue and muscle as I opened the control box attached to my chest and fiddled with the levers. I turned the emissary in the direction of the cairns, following the flames to the base of the flatter of the two summits.
The emissary stopped at the foot of a narrow track leading upwards. I lowered its arms and stepped onto the rock. The emissary would need its hands to climb the track to avoid toppling onto its back. I cast a glance over my shoulder, looking for Seffi. The sporadic flash of gunpowder revealed her position and Macfarlane's.
Popping up from behind a boulder, her back to me, Seffi fired at a position one hundred feet further down the mountain. The gunfight twisted and snaked between the larger boulders of the scree slope, as the combatants fired, moved, reloaded and fired again. I didn't know how many bullets or how much gunpowder Seffi had left, but I realised this was the moment when she expected me to leave her.
I thought of her eyes, the way they narrowed when she was annoyed with me, sparkled when she was excited. I thought of the raw energy and power in her fists and body, that untamed wildness that frightened me when I was on the receiving end, and left me in awe when she used it, like now, in defence of me. Bhàtair, I recalled, was equally impressed. He knew something about Seffi, something about her wilding ways that I had yet to hear fully explained, something I failed to understand. It was more than tuning in to the land, it was spiritual somehow, and that spirit had kept her alive against all odds. But the odds were changing.
I looked up at a voice above me. Bhàtair waved from the top of the track, beckoning for me to continue, his hair pestering his eyes in the face of the summit wind.
“Come on, lad,” Bhàtair's voice thinned as he shouted down to me, teased apart by the wind. “We have to leave now. The wind,” he pointed at the sky.
“Yes,” I nodded. The wound in my shoulder hurt too much for me to shout. I looked down at Seffi and beyond to where I thought Macfarlane was reloading. Beyond him, approaching the base of the scree slope, two of Macfarlane's men, including the man the emissary had kicked, picked their way between the boulders either side of the stalker. The gillies carried a rifle each and would outflank Seffi in less time than it would take for the emissary to climb up the track.
Seffi's pain at Schleiermacher's betrayal, the look on her face, flashed across my mind as Macfarlane's men took aim and fired, pinning her behind the rocks. I watched as she turned her back to the boulder she hid behind, cast the pistol aside, and drew the knives from the belt at her back. She looked up the mountain and our eyes met.
“Go,” Seffi shouted.
“No,” I shook my head.
The wind whipped Seffi's response away from my ears. I looked up at Bhàtair as he started to climb down the track. Looking at the emissary I turned its head to look down at me.
“What do you think, friend?”
The emissary stared at me, the lodestone glowing a feint green behind the cross-hatched face plate. Its head twitched towards Seffi. I looked down at my fingers where they gripped the sides of the control box.
“It seems there is a little more to you than I imagined,” I frowned up at the emissary. I had once heard a maker talk of Şteamƙin, a kind of gremlin, the size of a smoke particle, that infected steam engines, living in the pipes, bathing in the steam and meddling with the controls. It was folklore, best suited for noisy taverns at the end of a long working week. I didn't know what to believe, nor had I been part of the designing or building of the emissary, but I was responsible for its so-called brain. If that brain had been infected by Şteamƙin... indeed, if it was even now developing a will of its own, then the least I could do was listen to it. The patter of rocks above revealed Bhàtair's position, closer than I thought. I stared into the emissary's face and nodded. “All right,” I pinched the controls. “Let's go get her.”
The emissary clanked past me as I guided it down the track we had climbed only minutes before. The great machine bounded from one side to the other, cleaving rocks in half, pressing its cloven feet into the ground, leaving tracks one might mistake for the devil's own. Devilish it was and must have appeared to Macfarlane and his men as they opened up with their rifles, loosing shot after shot in rapid succession. The emissary bounded over Seffi and she scurried low over the rocks and up the track in the cover of its shadow.
“Lad?” Bhàtair leaped down from the last boulder to stand beside me. “We have to go.”
“We will,” I twitched and twisted at the controls, weaving the emissary onto Macfarlane's position. The stalker leaped up, discharging his rifle directly into the emissary's faceplate. Lost in the powder cloud and confusion, I could not see if the emissary had fallen. A single human cry of pain suggested it had.
The cloud of gunpowder cleared as Macfarlane's bitch whimpered and bayed at her master's side where he lay broken beneath the bronze belly of the emissary. The gillies slowed as they approached the stalker, keeping a respectful distance as the hound gripped Macfarlane's hand between its teeth and pulled.
“Can you stand it up, lad?” Bhàtair whispered. Moving to o
ne side he made space for Seffi as she reached the top of the track.
“You didn't listen, Karl.” Fists clenched, Seffi brushed past Bhàtair.
“Don't hit me, Seffi. I am shot.” I bit my lip, focusing on the emissary crumpled into the rocks below us.
“You're shot?”
“Yes,” I nodded at my left shoulder. “Just give me a minute. I think the lodestone might be damaged. The emissary isn't responding.”
Bhàtair pointed up towards the summit. “I think Master Whistlefish might have a plan. Look.”
Curved bow timbers and a brass gargoyle cast in the likeness of a fish holding a whistle between its lips, breached the cloud cover and descended to hover above the emissary. The long shadow of its passing drew a cold breath of mountain air over us and I shivered, collapsing onto my rear.
“Karl?” Seffi reached down to detach the control box from my chest. She handed it to Bhàtair before inspecting my shoulder. “You are shot.”
“I tried to tell you,” my words spilled into the wind.
“It's not too bad. You’ll live.”
“It hurts.”
“I am sure it does. I'll bind it.” Seffi removed the knapsack from my back, rummaging inside it before withdrawing a small tin of bandages. She packed the wound in my shoulder with a bandage on each side, wrapping them tight, tying them in place with a knot. She knelt down in front of me. “I am still angry at you. You didn't listen.”
“No I didn't.” I leaned around Seffi as Whistlefish ordered the men and women aboard the airship to cast great nets over the sides. “Is that Archie?”
“Aye,” Bhàtair crouched by the side of Seffi and I. “Master Whistlefish has the whole household aboard that ship. He is leaving nothing to chance and no one behind. The Inverkirkaig Estate is emptied.”
“What will he do?” I watched as Macfarlane's men helped Archie secure the emissary in the nets, removing the stalker's body once the airship had lifted the emissary clear.
