Scrivener's Moon

by Philip Reeve

  She broke off; her voice was hoarse from shouting above the racket of the battle. A scant mile away, the new city butted towards her, shoving a bow-wave of torn earth before it. Around her men were shouting, relaying what she’d said to other men. Her father’s landship Fury was swinging round, gunning its engines, black puff-balls of smoke popping from its smokestack like a string of pompoms tugged from a conjurer’s hat. She saw Carn Morvish standing on its open gun-deck, his sword in his hand, his face turned to her. Mammoths bellowed, struggling against the riders who struggled to turn their heads towards that oncoming terror.

  “You crazy witch!” screamed Tharp, grabbing at her from behind with his thin hands. “What are you doing?”

  “We can’t outrun it,” said Cluny. “We must fight it.”

  “You’re mad!” the technomancer shouted. He raised his staff to strike at her, but the Stalker Shrike reached coolly forward, lifted him by the collar of his robes and flung him out of the howdah. Cluny saw his indignant face gawp at her; heard his shriek, going down. She peeked over the howdah’s edge and saw him scrambling away through mud and mammoth-dung, and that was the last sight she ever had of him. Then she climbed out of the howdah herself, ripped the skirts from the stupid dress he’d made her wear, and clambered bare-legged to where the frightened rider sat.

  “Get off,” she said. “Run home, if you want to.”

  The man looked at her dumbly. She shoved him sideways and he went half-tumbling and half-scrambling down the mammoth’s side while she settled herself in his place, reaching forward to brush the arch of a hairy ear with her hand, making soothing noises as the creature stamped and fretted.

  London was a half-mile away. Its gunners had lost interest in the heart-fort and the Arkhangelsk lurking in its lee; they were training their weapons on the fleeing forts and landships further north.

  She drew the rider’s musket from its scabbard on the mammoth’s neck. She looked back. Shrike had come to the front of the howdah, gripping the handles of the swivel gun that was mounted there. Cluny raised the musket in one hand and took a firm grip of the mammoth’s topknot with the other. She felt she should shout some war cry. What would Doran-her-brother have shouted when he led his men against the Movement’s Stalkers at Hill 60? It didn’t matter. Nobody would have heard her anyway, and before she had even lowered her hand they were all surging forward. A few dozen mammoths, a handful of landships, a campavan or two, a lone monowheel, skeins of men on foot with tattered banners; all that remained of the grand alliance of the north hurled in a last, desperate rage against the city of the future.

  They had halved the distance between themselves and London before anyone aboard the city even noticed them. They had halved it again before the gunners up there could bring their guns to bear. The warriors howled; the guns of the landships boomed and stuttered; from the forward turret of the Fury a Tesla gun played its icy lightning across London’s tracks in the hope that something which destroyed Stalkers would work on mobile cities, too. Clinging to her mammoth’s neck, ducking under the shots which the Stalker behind her kept pumping at the rolling tracks ahead, Cluny thought wildly, We will win! We’re too small for them to even see! That’s why my dream came, so that I could stop this thing. . .

  Then the shells from London’s guns were falling all around her; sudden trees with twisting fiery trunks and spreading canopies of chalky smoke. Bodies cartwheeled; debris tumbled; mammoths screamed, reared, fell, ran riderless. She saw the Fury hit, the stern-part where her father stood blown into pieces, the severed bows slewing round helpless in the path of London. Then some shard of shell or wreckage went through her mammoth’s skull and splashed its brains over her and it was falling, down on its knees and forward into the grass with its tusks snapping and Cluny somersaulting off its head. The Tesla gun aboard the Fury was still firing wildly, scattering its lightning everywhere, and she turned to the Stalker as he rose from the mammoth’s wreck and shouted, “Master Shrike, watch out!”, and then the lightning touched her and her mind filled with cold white fire.

  It was Shrike who saved her. He had been ordered to keep her safe, and so he did. He strode through the last sputterings of the lightning to where she grovelled blindly in the grass, and lifted her, and carried her out of London’s path. There, amid dead men and shattered landships, he laid her down, and looked at her. As far as he could tell, she was asleep. She reminded him of something, but he could not say what; the dying Tesla gun had brushed him too; his consciousness faded in and out. For an instant he half-remembered who he was, and a murderous red rage rose up in him because of what had been done to him. He bared his claws and killed a band of northerners as they came fleeing past. His anger at the living was so fierce that he turned on Cluny and would have killed her too, but he stopped himself; he stopped himself, and took a banner from one of the men he’d murdered and spread it over her, tucking her in as if she were a sleeping child. Then, before the rage could come on him again, he left her there, and walked away; away through the smoke; away through the wreckage and the vast traffic jam of fleeing forts and landships tangled in their own supply train; away into silence and the legends of the defeated north.

  32

  HUNGRY CITY

  t sundown Quercus walked out on to an observation balcony high above the doors of the Great Under Tier. The city’s guns were silent by then except for the faint, steady tick as their barrels cooled. The routed nomads had finally passed out of their range into the low grey haze to the north. The Lord Mayor leaned on the balcony rail, looking down at the heaps of carcasses and wrecked machines which marked the place where that last northern charge had collapsed in front of London like a spent wave.

  Dr Crumb joined him there. The smoke of wrecked landships twirled up past them; the bitter scent of the burnt hair of mammoths. Dr Crumb had meant to tell the Lord Mayor that Fever had returned, but now that he had the chance he found that he did not know how to start. Having her back was as great a shock as losing her. That witch-doctor’s amulet around her neck. . . He feared that during her adventures she had let go of reason and sought comfort in prayers and magic. He hoped that rest and safety would restore her, so that she could work at his side again, quietly and calmly, as she had when she was younger. If not, there could be no place for her in London. London needed only useful people; there could be no exceptions. . .

  “We have captured her,” said Quercus suddenly, startling him. “The Arkhangelsk witch; the maid who sparked this madness. Cluny Morvish. Some of our men found her on the field.”

  “What will become of her?” asked Dr Crumb.

  “She must die, of course. And let’s hope her death will be an end of it.” Quercus was always glum after a battle. He had struggled long and hard to build this unstoppable city. Now that he had seen what it could achieve, he was not entirely sure that it had been the right thing to do. “They were brave,” he said, “Raven and his allies.”

  “They were irrational,” said Dr Crumb. “It was inevitable that London would defeat them.”

  “It was a waste,” said Quercus.

  He was thinking of the waste of lives, but Dr Crumb, who had been eyeing the landships and the smoking ruins of the northern forts, misunderstood.

  “Nothing need be wasted, Lord Mayor,” he said. “Look: there on the battlefield are all the raw materials we need to strengthen the city and complete the building of the upper tiers. I shall organize work-gangs to go out and begin breaking up those vehicles and salvaging their fuel. London is very low on fuel, and there must be tonnes of coal in their bunkers; gallons of oil. Iron and timber, too. We have room for it all in the Great Under Tier.”

  He smiled, pleased with the neatness of his idea. “Do you know, when Dr Stayling first told me of your plan to motorize London, I thought it was absurd. I remember telling him that if London moved then other cities would follow suit, and only the fastest would survive. ‘A sort of municipal Darwinism’, I remember calling it. I had not realized till now how
right I was.

  “This new London is like a mighty predator, introduced into a world where previously walled cities and these nomad castles were the pinnacle of evolution. But we are stronger and more intelligent than them, and so, just as in nature, we shall prey on them, and we shall eat them; their fuel will go into our holds, their fabric will become part of London. Even their people, if they have useful skills, could be brought aboard. We will absorb their strength, and it will strengthen us.”

  “But what if someone else builds something faster and stronger?” asked Quercus, thinking of the latest rumours from Paris.

  “We must out-evolve them, Lord Mayor,” said Dr Crumb. “We must grow more quickly than they do. It should not be hard. We have a head start.”

  He gripped the handrail and leaned forward, looking out across the battlefield, imagining the uses to which all that iron and timber and even mammoth-bone could be put.

  He said, “I have sometimes reprimanded people, in the past, for referring to the under-tier as the ‘Gut’. Yet, in a sense, they are correct to do so. The Great Under Tier is London’s gut, through which nutrients will be absorbed into our city. Those doors at the front are London’s mouthparts. Open them, Quercus. Let the city eat.”

  Fever waited in the small room which Charley Shallow had shown her to. She bathed at the washstand, and dressed in the clothes he’d found for her: black trousers, a crisp, grey shirt, a new white coat. She tied her hair back, but she could not bring herself to take off Cluny’s talisman. The feeling that she had had all through the battle, that numb certainty that she might die at any second, refused to leave her, even though reason told her she was safe.

  I’m home, she thought, but it meant nothing. She could feel the city shuddering and shifting, and hear the girders groan. The guns had fallen silent hours ago, but there were other noises; deep trembling booms, long creaks and clashes. Also, someone was knocking at her door. She stood up, trying to tidy herself, hoping it would be her father, but when she called “Come in,” it was Charley Shallow who opened the door. She tried to pretend that she was pleased to see him. He had been kind to her. Kinder than Dr Crumb.

  “What is happening?” she asked. “These noises. . . Are we still moving?”

  “Oh no, Miss Crumb,” said Charley. “We are stopped for the night. London is eating. It’s your dad’s idea. They’ve heaved the Gut doors wide open, and some wreckage from the battle is being dragged inside. Raw materials, you see. So that the building work can go on.”

  Fever stared at him. It will devour us all, Cluny had said. She had understood the future far better than Fever. The city trembled, and she trembled with it.

  “My father?” she asked. “Can I see him?”

  “He’s very busy, Miss Crumb,” said Charley sorrowfully. “Not to be disturbed.” Secretly, he was pleased to see tears shining in her eyes again. The more tears the better, as far as he was concerned. The more irrational she seemed, the less Dr Crumb would want to do with her, and the more he would rely on Charley Shallow.

  “You was asking about that Cluny Morvish girl?” he said. “Well, it turns out she’s all right. . .”

  “Oh, I’m so. . .” Fever started to say, and then saw how glum and owlish Charley looked.

  “She’s a prisoner. Picked up off the battlefield.”

  “Is she wounded?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What will happen to her?”

  “Execution,” said Charley. “That’s what I’ve heard. Tomorrow, before London gets moving again.”

  He saw what that did to Fever. The way her hand went up to clutch that nomad charm she still wore. So she had a heart after all, and it looked like it was breaking. Relishing the pain it caused her, he went on, “Raven’s dead, and all them northish Carns, so your Miss Morvish is the last leader of the alliance left. Quercus means to make an example of her, and get rid of her in case the Arkies who got away rally to her again.”

  “But she wouldn’t want them to!” said Fever. “I can vouch for her. She won’t! I’ll promise!”

  Charley shook his head. “Quercus won’t listen,” he said. “He’s a nomad himself, remember? They see it as weakness, men like him, to let their enemies live. He’ll have his people cut her throat in the morning; splash her blood on London’s tracks to keep his old gods happy.”

  Some huge hammer seemed to be pounding, down in the city’s depths, but it was only Fever’s heart. “He can’t,” she said. “He can’t!”

  “Try telling him that,” said Charley. He turned towards the door. Then, glancing back at her as if the idea had just occurred to him, he said, “At least . . . I suppose he might listen to your father. Quercus has a lot of respect for your father. . .”

  The sudden opening of the office door blasted Dr Crumb’s papers everywhere. Startled from his calculations, he snatched at the sheets as they whirled around his head. His ink-pot went over, drenching the efficiency reports from the larboard engines. Before he could reach for a cloth to mop them with, Fever was shoving the whole mess aside, leaning across his desk to scream at him.

  “You must not let him do it! It’s barbaric! It’s irrational! We have to stop him! It isn’t her fault! She thought she was having visions! It is one of Godshawk’s machines, just like the one he put in me. . .”

  “What?” gasped Dr Crumb, picking up lists and diagrams, trying desperately to put them back in order. “Fever, control your feelings! Remember the exercises I taught you to control your feelings! I have found them most useful these past weeks. . .”

  But Fever was shouting at him again: more gabble; more emotion. Dr Crumb felt emotions of his own rise in response: pity; horror; disgust. That filthy technomancer’s trash was still around her neck, and her thoughts seemed disordered; he could not grasp what it was she was trying to tell him.

  Charley Shallow, entering the office behind her, explained. “It is this Cluny Morvish person, Dr Crumb. Miss Fever seems to be attached to her. She was most upset to learn that Quercus means to execute her.”

  “It is irrational!” shouted Fever.

  “It is certainly most unpleasant,” Dr Crumb agreed, mastering himself and speaking calmly in the hope of calming her. “But it is not irrational. Alive, the Morvish girl would always be a threat to London. Our city seems strong, but it is vulnerable at present. She cannot be allowed to live. She is only one individual, Fever. Individuals do not matter. Have I not always taught you so? They are expendable. The greater good. . .”

  “What about me?” asked Fever, cutting across him, her voice all scratchy with emotion. “Do I matter? Am I expendable?”

  And what was he to say? He could not lie to her. “We are all expendable, Fever. . .”

  She made the strangest noise then; a harsh screeching cry, like the call of a bird. She was gone; the door swinging shut behind her, then wrenched open again as Charley Shallow hurried after her.

  “You matter to me, Fever,” said Dr Crumb, hopelessly, and much too late. But there was nobody to hear him.

  She ran down the stairways of the Engineerium, through the lobby, out into the street that wasn’t really a street, just a wide corridor, full of engine-stink and passers-by who glanced curiously at her tear-streaked face and went on, filled with worries of their own. What would Wavey have done, she thought, if someone she loved had been imprisoned, awaiting execution? What would Godshawk have done? His memories stirred in the lees of her mind; her body tensed; her hands made fists, remembering how he had gripped swords, knives, how he had struck men down in battles with the Parisians and cutting-out expeditions against pirates in the Western Archipelago. He would not have left Cluny Morvish in a cell; he would have done something, no matter how reckless and irrational; he would have rescued Cluny from the Londoners just as Cluny had rescued her brother from the nightwights’ lair.

  But how could Fever hope to mount a rescue, alone against the whole of London?

  A touch on her shoulder. Charley Shallow had followed her o
ut of the Engineerium. He was pressing something into her hand and she looked down and saw that it was his Engineer’s badge; the little red enamel cogwheel he had taken from his coat lapel. She looked up into his face, not understanding.

  “Engineer’s badge gets you into most places in this city, Miss Crumb,” he said gently. “They’re keeping your friend in one of the landship hangars off the Gut if you want to talk to her.”

  “Why?” asked Fever. “There’s a prison, isn’t there?”

  Charley shrugged. “We’re overcrowded, and we left all our criminals behind. The prison’s been reassigned as workers’ housing. And there’s plenty of empty hangars now, what with all our landships smashed. They’re holding your friend in number 14.”

  Fever watched him speak. She wondered what was going on behind those dark, clever eyes. She had a feeling that he knew just what was going on behind hers; her feelings for Cluny, all of it.

  “Why are you telling me?” she asked.

  “You want to help her get away, don’t you?” said Charley. “And I want to help you. You helped me once. Remember? That day me and Bagman came after you in the Brick Marsh. You helped me out of that sinkhole when you could just have run and left me there to drown. You didn’t have to do that. I’m indebted. Indebted to you, Miss Crumb. And I always pay my debts.”

  He took her arm, steering her along the street, away from the Engineerium, leaning his head close to hers and speaking quickly and softly. “There are guards on that hangar, but not many, and they’ll not stop you going in, what with you being an Engineer, and a Crumb to boot. It’s getting out again with your friend that will be the difficulty. There’s only the one door; no windows or anything you can slip her out through. But I reckon I can fool the guards into leaving. I’ll give it a minute or two after you go in and then run up to them with a story of trouble on the other side of the Gut.”