The Court of the Air

Chapter Fifteen

Oliver was at the bottom of a sea. Sometimes he would rise towards the surface and the press of the depths would ease. He would be close enough to the light to hear the voices. A strident tone, someone complaining. ‘I’m an architect — not a vet.’

Then it was gone. At other times he would hear singing. Strange melodies, inhuman but perfect. Not words though. Some sort of code. Then he would sink again into a hall of perfect blackness. It was peaceful, timeless, until a white dot appeared at the end of the hall. It grew bigger, taking form — unpleasant form.

The Whisperer.

‘Oliver,’ it hissed. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘This isn’t a dream,’ said Oliver. ‘I’m not dreaming.’

‘Focus on me, Oliver. Stay with me, you’re in a coma. Your body has nearly died twice in the last week.’

‘I feel so light, Nathaniel, like I might float away.’

‘You’ll float away forever, boy. You’ve been poisoned. Thetwo slave hunters from Cassarabia had some kind of toxin gland in their teeth — the architects think it originates fom a poisonous eel.’

‘Architects?’

‘You’re in the Steammen Free State, the mountains of Mechancia. King Steam’s own surgeons are trying to save you.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Oliver. ‘Whisperer, you look sick yourself, thinner — those wounds on your side…?’

‘My food’s been off the last few days,’ coughed the Whisperer. ‘And I walked into a door; but you should see the door.’

Oliver lay down on the hall’s infinite floor. ‘Let’s sleep then. Always better after sleep.’

‘Don’t sleep,’ shouted the Whisperer. ‘Oliver, stay with me. You sleep and you’re not going to wake up. Your body isn’t fighting off the infection well enough — the poison isn’t fey, it isn’t worldsinger magic, so your body doesn’t care, the part of you that’s from beyond the feymist curtain doesn’t give a damn about a mundane infection.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Oliver. ‘It’s time for a rest.’

‘Don’t care was made to care,’ said the Whisperer, grabbing Oliver’s arm. ‘Well jigger it, you’re going to die anyway.’

Something leapt out of the Whisperer’s body and into Oliver’s arm, as if his limb was being dipped in acid. Screaming, Oliver tried to roll away.

‘Does that get the old fey juices flowing, Oliver? Still want to sleep?’

Darkness everywhere, nowhere to run. Oliver tried to struggle free of the Whisperer’s grasp, but the creature seized his ankle and another bolt of agony flared like a sun in his leg, muscles bursting and burning.

‘This isn’t biological, Oliver, just you and me, a little fey horse-play. The kind of japes that got me buried alive in Hawklam Asylum all those years ago.’

Scrambling for freedom, Oliver’s body started convulsing, daggers of pain thrusting in at him from all directions. ‘Please! For the love of the Circle … the pain, you’re killing me.’

‘You and me both, Oliver,’ the Whisperer laughed. ‘In for a ha’penny in for a guinea. Let’s see just how much excitement that perfectly formed man-suit you hide in can take, shall we?’

Sinews erupted, flesh smoking, the black hall breaking up as cracks of red pain ran up its ebony walls. Crimson silhouettes poured from Oliver’s mouth, angry red traceries of demon-shapes vomiting out from his throat. They swarmed like hornets, twisting around and diving towards his fey assailant. The Whisperer swayed, falling back; part of his arm had vanished, boiling away into steam. ‘Took long enough to bloody arrive, didn’t you?’

Driving up like magma from a volcano, Oliver rode the pain, higher and higher, his hall of peace falling away as he was propelled into a room of white stone, his back arching, soaked in sweat.

Oliver lay panting on a slab-like table. White. In fact, everything seemed white, pure clean light pouring into the room from a glass ceiling. Snow-frosted mountains outside were the only sign he had not been expelled from hell and gobbed out into heaven. Coughing, Oliver clawed at the mask on his face — a yellow mist-like substance smoked out of it and it tasted like Damson Griggs’s carrot broth.

His leg seemed heavy; glancing down, he found what looked like a massive spider sitting on his ankles — the unexpected sight of which made the half-delirious Oliver scream.

‘Calm yourself,’ said a voice. ‘It’s only a mu-body.’

A steamman came into view, light gleaming off his polished shell like a dozen star glints. ‘You are in the hall of the architects, young softbody — I am what passes for an expert in comparative medicine.’

‘This is Mechancia, then?’

‘Indeed it is. Your friend carried you in,’ said the steamman. ‘Lucky to be activate, you are. Your body was infected by the bite of a creature warped by biomancy, your system juices poisoned at a very basic level; similar to crystal blight in my own people. I was in the process of developing a filter to clean your juices when your biology eventually rejected the poison on its own. This is not a capability I was aware your race possessed. Your traders bring me copies of the journals of your Royal Institute — but I have never read of such an advanced case of self-healing.’

Oliver remembered the Whisperer burning his body. He wiped away the sweat that was pouring down into his eyes. ‘I had some help.’

The steamman tapped the drone sitting on his leg. ‘Indeed you did. There is a test filter inserted in your ankle. I can leave it in — it will dissolve harmlessly in time — or this healer can remove it if you prefer to wait a day.’

‘Leave it in,’ said Oliver. ‘I want to see Harry.’

‘Your friend is meeting with the court,’ said the architect. ‘You must rest.’

Oliver tried to swing himself off the table, but he collapsed back, as weak as a newborn.

‘We are at quite an altitude here. Apart from your system-juice poisoning, your softbody biology will require time to adapt to the thinness of air in the city.’

‘Please, Architect …’

‘Architect Goldhead,’ said the steamman. ‘My skills as a fastblood healer may have previously been limited to journal reading, but even I can see that you need recovery time and nourishment, young softbody. Please to lie down, or with a heavy boiler I will command my drones to bind you to the table.’

Oliver’s stomach had set to rumbling at the mention of food. ‘Nourishment would be very welcome, Architect Goldhead.’

‘I have already alerted our embassy staff,’ said the architect. ‘They have much experience with preparing your food organics in the ways prescribed by fastbloods.’

Meals cooked by a race that could not taste? Well, judging by the sounds coming from his stomach he was not going to complain.

Oliver spent two more days in the surgery of the steamman architect. Not allowed visitors, the only company he kept was that of the voiceless spider-like medical mu-bodies and their master. Oliver would watch the architect’s gleaming over-sized gold skull nodding silently in thought as he busied about the room.

He had plenty of time to contemplate the mountain vastness of Mechancia from the large clear windows in the surgery. The city’s mist-shrouded buildings rose from the mountains like pearl coral, railing-protected paths twisting around the slopes, wide stairs carved out of stone. At night he could hear high winds rustling a thousand prayer flags, colourful streamers stroked by the wind as chimes made of steammen bones pealed and tinkled to the wind’s rhythms.

During the day, Oliver would watch steammen children in their borrowed nursery bodies climb the stairs to open-walled platforms on the peaks opposite the hall of architects. There they would sit in ordered rows and sing in their bizarre machine code, ancient hymns to the Steamo Loas and their ancestors: Steelbhalah-Waldo, Sogbo-Pipes, Legba of the Valves.

Sitting in his bed in the hall Oliver saw things he had only dreamed of while a prisoner of his registration order at Hundred Locks: processions of steammen mystics dancing and whirling at dusk, the fearsome gun-boxes — house-sized steammen carefully climbing the stair paths on two legs, massive cannons ready to repel any invaders foolish enough to assault this mountain fastness.

On the third day he was judged well enough by the king’s surgeon to see Harry. Architect Goldhead led Oliver through the halls and onto a bodiless walking platform waiting outside — its stacks well adapted to the high altitude, leaving a thin ladder of smoke trailing in the cold air as it trotted Oliver and his minder through the steep streets of Mechancia. None of the mountain paths seemed crowded and the walking platform rarely had to sound its whistle, steammen stepping easily out of its way when they saw the transport coming. Mechancian society did not appear as mixed as that of a Jackelian city to Oliver’s eyes, but they still passed the occasional craynarbian or Jackelian trader; coal men mostly, wrapped in warm fur coats with trains of mules spilling black coke dust from their heavy panniers. Their jogging transport had to squeeze through many of the narrow streets, whitewashed buildings on either side rising as high as the walls of a canyon — red pagoda-style roofs elevated into the drifting ribbons of fog. Steammen at some of the windows waved as they passed.

‘Is Harry close?’ Oliver asked the architect.

‘He is still at the palace,’ replied the steamman.

It was freezing in the exposed walking platform and Oliver dug his hands into his fur coat’s pockets. No wonder so much of the Steammen Free State’s territory consisted of these mountains on the roof of the world — there were few other races in Jackals that would willingly abide in these craggy heights.

Their path broadened away from building-flanked streets, taking them out to a weighty suspension bridge crossing the air to Mechancia’s royal citadel. An ivory river of fog flowed underneath the iron bridge. On the other side two shield-stone doors on rollers stood open, protected by a gun-box, its nose a stub-cannon dipped down to smell out threats. A row of steammen knights stood to attention in its shadow, metal centaurs with heads like barb-beaked hunting birds. They might as well have been statues, so still did they stand duty — only the flags on poles clipped to their backs crackling and moving in the breeze. Its passage already approved, the walking platform jounced through the opening and into the citadel.

Oliver stared at the large open halls they passed, full of kneeling steammen singing the same machine noise hymns he had heard while he drifted in and out of his fever-wracked consciousness.

‘They sing in praise of our ancestors,’ announced Architect Goldhead, following the direction of Oliver’s gaze. ‘It pleases the spirits to hear their achievements and lives honoured by the people. Are not all of our achievements built upon the shoulders of those who have preceded us in the world?’

Oliver remembered the corpses of steammen knights rising out of the mud in Jackals. ‘I believe I might owe them a vote of thanks myself.’

‘Yes indeed, Oliver softbody. The capital has been abuzz with word of what happened to you and your companion on the border. The last time the Loas intervened in the affairs of fastbloods so directly was … well, a very long time ago. I fear it augurs difficult times ahead.’

The words of the Lady of the Lights drifted back to Oliver. We are fast moving beyond the point where a little extrawattle and daub around the edges is going to keep the rooffrom leaking. Oliver said nothing. Did a warm room in Seventy Star Hall and his quiet lonely life of reading books really seem so bad now? Surely boredom was better than having the weight of the world dropped down on his shoulders?

Their walking platform came to a halt by a pair of tall red columns and the architect stepped off the steamman transport — beckoning Oliver to follow him. Beyond the columns was a chilly open hall, its floor a soft golden wood — surely precious material in these harsh rocky climes.

‘Your companion and Master Saw are to give a demonstration,’ whispered Architect Goldhead, his voicebox at its lowest volume. ‘A display of the fighting arts.’

In the middle of the hall stood the disreputable Stave, facing a three-legged steamman with dozens of skeletal arms, many tipped with blades, maces and bludgeons — wrapped in cloth for the sparring match. Young steammen in nursery bodies sat silently at the other end of the hall, curiously waiting to see how this soft-looking animal would match up to one of their own race.

‘Master Saw is the Knight Marshal of the Orders Militant,’ said the architect. ‘To spar with him is a great thing — your friend must have impressed Master Saw at his meetings with the court.’

‘Or annoyed him,’ said Oliver. ‘He probably stole King Steam’s crown.’

Architect Goldhead seemed shocked by the suggestion. ‘Surely not. It has been whispered that your friend is a worldsinger, that he can fight in witch-time.’

‘Watch and see,’ said Oliver.

Master Saw tipped his needle-nosed head towards Harry and the wolftaker gave a small bow back. What followed was almost too fast to watch — both man and steamman speeding into a single blur of spinning fury, blows striking out, blocked and returned in a dance fought at a tempo at the edge of human comprehension. The metal soldier fought in a frenetic windmill style, his weapon limbs arcs of destruction. Harry seemed to be using his animal suppleness to bob, kick and punch, giving ground when the steamman advanced — yet hardly seeming to retreat an inch — circling and flowing around the soldier.

After a minute of watching the bout it seemed hardly to be a combat at all — the two contestants so synchronised in their forms it was more like a piece of choreographed dance; more art than violence. Mesmerised by the display, when the peal of a bell sounded, Oliver jolted upright. It was the end of the bout. The young man would have been hard pressed to say afterwards if it had lasted two minutes or thirty. Harry was sweating so much he looked like he had been swimming when he bowed to the steamman, while steam was rising off Master Saw’s overworked boiler which glowed red with the additional energy he had been consuming.

Master Saw dipped his helmet-like head. ‘The form of water; a good choice when fighting metal.’

‘So I was taught, knight marshal. Although fire beats water.’

Master Saw raised his bandaged weapon limbs. ‘Even the knights steammen do not use flame weapons in a sparring match.’

Harry Stave spotted Oliver and walked over to where he was standing. ‘Lad! You had us bleeding worried for a while. They only let me see you the once and you were in a right old state.’

‘It seems your lack of faith in our ability to heal your friend was unfounded,’ said Architect Goldhead.

Harry glared at the metal creature and led Oliver to the side of the hall where they could not be overheard. ‘I found a human doctor who works on the traders hurt on the mountain paths, landslides and falls, but he was a leaafer — struck off back home without a doubt. I figured you would have a better chance with shiny skull and his friends, once I convinced them you didn’t want metal limbs.’

‘I’m okay now, Harry.’

‘Good lad. I’d rather not have to face your father when I move forward on the Circle and explain to him why I let his son die on the lam with old Harry.’

‘Why are we here, Harry? What does King Steam want?’

Oliver glanced around the hall. So, the king could be any of the steammen; maybe even a couple of them at the same time, watching from different viewpoints.

‘Something has got this lot spooked,’ said Harry. ‘They’re hiding it, but not well enough for it to escape notice. I don’t doubt their merry monarch knows what’s going on. I’ve seen various officials of the court like old master knife-arms over there, but not King Steam. He’s a slipthinker, Oliver. He can move between bodies, control hundreds of them at the same time if he has a care to. I think he’s been playing games with me. Steammen keep on coming over to me and striking up conversations — cooks and soldiers and the like. But it’s as if they are continuing the same chat. I reckon some of them have been His Majesty.’

‘I don’t think they mean us harm. Not right away at least,’ added Harry. ‘Otherwise they could have left us back at the border to the mercy of the redcoats and the slave hunters.’

‘Can we trust them, Harry?’

‘They are Jackals’ oldest ally. I don’t pretend to understand how their minds work, but until they give us reason to suspect otherwise, I reckon it’s safe to give them the benefit of the doubt.’

A courtier approached the pair, rolling forward on a single drum-like wheel. ‘Your presence is required by King Steam.’

‘About time,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve been kicking my heels in your palace for a week.’

‘Not you, Harry softbody,’ said the courtier. ‘It is the other mammal whose presence is required.’

‘You are bleeding having a laugh, aren’t you?’ Harry protested.

‘I have my orders and they are quite explicit. I am sure no snub is intended.’

‘And I am sure none is taken,’ spat Harry. ‘Go lad, but watch yourself. King Steam was sitting on his throne when Isambard Kirkhill was pushing our monarch off his; the old steamer is as sly as a box of monkeys.’

Oliver followed the courtier deeper into the royal citadel. The steamman moved at a slow, stately pace, perhaps hoping those they passed would notice his position in the direct service of the monarch. Together they reached their destination. Oliver felt the chill as he entered the new hall; looking up he saw there was no roof. They were standing on a flat bluff carved into the side of the mountain. In the middle of the floor sat a small figure. Shorter than a grasper, it might have been an iron toy, unremarkable except for a more noticeable likeness to humanity than most of the steammen Oliver had seen. Was this King Steam, or was the guiding mind of the metal race trying the same kind of mind games that the wolftaker thought were being played against him?

‘King Steam?’ said Oliver. ‘That is to say, Your Majesty?’

The golden cross-legged figure gave the barest nod of its head. ‘Sit, Oliver softbody.’

With no chairs, Oliver followed King Steam’s lead and sat opposite him, like a child waiting for school assembly to start — although the steamman did not look like he was about to read a fable from the Circlist book.

‘You are not too cold out here, I trust?’ asked King Steam. His lips actually moved when he spoke — no voicebox.

‘I am fine at the moment — Your Highness.’

‘I like to sit and watch the na-hawks wheel over the mountains,’ said King Steam. ‘Do you think there is any truth to be revealed in their flight?’

‘The truth that comes with a clear mind, perhaps, Your Highness.’

The King nodded. ‘Spoken as one, I think, who has done much sitting and staring — as an outsider.’

‘It was something of a hobby of mine up until a few months ago,’ said Oliver. Had so little time really passed since his old life ended and this new one began?

‘You seemed surprised to see me in this body when you entered the hall.’

‘I had imagined you — I don’t know, as a mountain of machinery, colossal, billowing smoke with thousands of mu-bodies attending your components — all of them you,’ said Oliver.

‘I have worn many bodies,’ said King Steam, ‘and been both less and more than you currently see. But I have never, I think, been a mountain. What you have in mind would certainly be impressive to those not of my people. Perhaps we might pile up some old junk to resemble such a thing, and I could hide behind a curtain with a voice amplifier. I would enjoy frightening your ambassador, next time she visits. I fear my own people might laugh, though. For us, less is often more. We prefer great power to come in inconspicuous packages.’ He looked meaningfully at Oliver.

‘I am not sure I have any great powers, Your Majesty.’

‘Please, no modesty,’ said King Steam. ‘You know the reason I am fond of this body? It was one of my first. It is from an older age, ancient enough to shock your university historians if they had the means to date it. I have seen ages of ice, I have seen ages of fire. I have seen the continents change and change again. I have seen the very laws of physics evolve through phase-transformations — and outside of a few satin-swaddled leaaf users in Cassarabia, I am probably the only creature in the world to see an Observer walking the soil of Jackals and think, oh no, here we go again.’

Oliver looked away.

‘Curious isn’t the word. I wish it wasn’t me,’ said Oliver.

‘Yes, Oliver softbody. I know about the Lady of the Lights. And a few things besides. Steelbhalah-Waldo races through the night like a frightened rabbit, the spirits of Gear-gi-ju tremble and only dare to walk the halls of our ancestors in pairs. And into all this comes a young softbody, with a gentle shove from the universe mother. Curious, do you not think?’

‘A perfectly natural reaction,’ said King Steam. ‘But it is you. To exist, every equal must have an opposite. A smile is nothing without a tear, a pleasure is nothing without a pain. Where there is life there is anti-life. We are threatened Oliver softbody, and you are what we have — well, half of what we have, perhaps.’

‘Half?’ said Oliver.

‘Light and shadow, Oliver softbody. Male and female. Take it from me; it is always best to have some redundancy in the system. You are the scheme of defence — the scheme of offence is somewhere else in Jackals. The Observers are normally subtle … but predictable.’

Oliver breathed an uncertain sigh of relief. ‘I’m not alone then?’

‘Never that, Oliver,’ said King Steam. ‘Although given your previous life of internal exile inside Jackals I can see why you would feel that way. I am with you, not least because in this matter, we sink or swim together. I just wish I knew what you are. I would feel more comfortable …’

‘I am not sure. You should talk to my friend Harry. He may have more of an idea than he is letting on.’

‘You may be right,’ said King Steam, his lips moving into an approximation of a smile. ‘But I do not trust your friend. Nothing personal, but my country is perhaps unique in being the only state on the continent that does not have a secret police. His colleagues floating in the sky, counting our gun-boxes and planning their perfect society, they make me nervous. They style themselves as shepherds, protecting the flock and slaying wolves. But the life-system needs wolves too, Oliver softbody. Wolves are agents of change, agents of evolution. Change is the only constant we can count on.’

‘As one of the sheep he has been protecting, I think I might disagree with you,’ said Oliver.

‘Well now. Your friend has been — what is the term they use? Disavowed. So is he a wolf, or is he a wolftaker? We have been giving him the benefit of the doubt. And I won’t say it has not been amusing tweaking his nose while he has been in the capital.’

‘I trust him,’ said Oliver.

‘Trust,’ said King Steam. ‘The trust of youth. Well, it is only young blood that can survive being changed by the feymist. I am sure the Observer knows what she is doing.’

‘Can your people survive?’ asked Oliver. ‘Beyond the feymist curtain?’

‘Not in any form recognizable as that which presently makes us what we are,’ said King Steam. ‘Much the same as for your kind, Oliver softbody. But we have other … avenues of flight open to us, if it comes to it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Oliver.

‘Not on my account,’ said King Steam. ‘I have lived too long and seen too much. But you must not let it end. It is a heavy burden to carry, young fastblood, and I only wish I could help you shoulder it — but wishing will not make it so. The darkness of the Wildcaotyl is about to fall. Darkness so perfect and complete it will sweep away everything that supports your people and mine. At any cost, at any price, we must fight it.’

‘You said I was the scheme of defence,’ said Oliver. ‘The scheme of offence …?’

‘There is an ancient piece of battlefield lore,’ said King Steam. ‘Sometimes the best defence is a good offence. Your counterpart fares badly. Your presence on the board is still a secret, which is a benefit that is not afforded to the scheme of offence. I could buy Jackals with the price on her head; in fact, I fear that is rather what the servants of the Wildcaotyl intend.’

‘Can’t you help her?’

‘I am afraid I have only just become aware of your counterpart’s existence,’ said King Steam. ‘And frankly, things are not looking good for her. Which reminds, me, it is time.’

On the other side of the hall a door slid open and a large tracked steamman emerged — a glowing crystal crown topping its compound-eyed skull. The small child-like body went silent and Oliver realized that King Steam’s focus had shifted to this new body. Two spheres on the steamman’s neck vibrated as it boomed: ‘More appropriate to the dignity of my role, Oliver softbody?’

‘Indeed, Your Majesty.’

A spear of steam hissed into the chilly air from the king’s stacks. ‘Jump on the front then, young fastblood. I have a function to attend and a council to call.’

‘Are you sure Your Majesty?’ asked Oliver. ‘You wish to have me riding you like the children used to ride old Rustpivot back home?’

‘Rustpivot is still working at Hundred Locks? Ha, the old steamer. Oliver softbody, I am quite certain my courtiers will be scandalized. Which is precisely the point.’

Oliver climbed on King Steam’s prow and the monarch’s tracks rumbled forward, out of the hall and down a spiral ramp hewn out of stone. At the bottom of the ramp two centaur-like steammen knights flanked the monarch and they all thundered through the passages of the mountain, the din of metal hooves resounding down the palace walls. They slowed briefly to cross a busy corridor and a couple of steammen — each with single telescope-like eyes — jumped on the rear of the king’s body. For a moment Oliver thought they might be being disrespectful — bumming a lift from the monarch. But then he realized they were attendants, part of the ruler’s own slipthinker intelligence.

At the end of the corridor they burst into the throne room and a steamman retainer banged a crystal staff on the polished marble floor. ‘His Highness King Steam, protector of the Free State, monarch of the true people, guardian of …’

‘Enough!’ boomed King Steam. ‘We are here to honour the fallen, not list the latest titles my courtiers have dreamt up this week. Let the soulkeepers advance.’

The assembly of steammen in the throne room parted — near the front of the crowd Oliver saw Harry standing next to his opponent from the training bout, Master Saw. Out of the cleared passage came a line of skeletal steammen on tripod legs, bearing a sheet littered with the body components of one of the metal creatures. The only recognizable part was a steamman skull, corded cables dangling like dreadlocks from its scalp. The head of the skeletal funeral bearers advanced in front of King Steam.

‘Do you bear one of the people?’ asked the King.

‘We do.’

‘Can you commend his name to the people?’

‘The controller gave his life for the people,’ intoned the steamman soulkeeper. ‘We praise Redrust’s true name to Steelbhalah-Waldo.’

The funeral bearers sang in their strange machine voices, a binary hymn that echoed around the throne room. This was the only time the steamman’s true name could be revealed to anyone other than the king. During his death rites.

As the metallic chanting died away King Steam swivelled to face the courtiers and citadel officials. ‘What are left of our brother’s memories have been shared, what are left of his precious components have been dispatched to the chamber of birth. His place of falling is unknown to us, so let his deactivate shell stay not buried, but pass into the furnace of Mount Pistonfuda. Who keeps his soul boards?’

One of the funeral bearers stepped forward holding two crystal panels aloft on a purple cushion. ‘I hold his soul.’

‘Hold it well,’ boomed King Steam, ‘when you carry it though the halls of the dead.’

At the end of the throne room a wall began to rise into the ceiling, revealing an open cavern, millions of rows of crystal boards plugged into slots in the cavern face — mile upon mile of steammen dead lit by flickering red arc lights.

‘Perhaps there was a little truth to your imaginings of my mountainous form after all,’ one of King Steam’s mu-bodies whispered to Oliver.

In front of them the steamman funeral bearer began to convulse, his tripod legs shaking and trembling; then the creature stopped, his bearing changing. He seemed to swell and become more erect than the design of his form allowed.

‘Which Loa rides this body?’ the king demanded.

‘Krabinay-Pipes,’ cackled the funeral bearer, and seizing the contents of the cushion he took the soul boards and disappeared scampering into the half-light of the steammen hall of the dead.

‘Krabinay-Pipes is a crafty fellow,’ said King Steam to Oliver. ‘But he will find the controller his resting circuit in the hall. Now, where is the voice of Gear-gi-ju?’

A copper-plated steamman emerged from behind a pillar, dipping his skull in a bow. ‘Your Majesty.’

‘What say you on the matter of our two softbody visitors?’

‘We have been casting the cogs for days, Your Majesty. Hundred of seers until we grow faint from lack of oil and the Loas grow irritated from our questioning.’

‘As diligent as ever,’ said King Steam. ‘But in the matter of the old foe, how have the cogs landed?’

‘We cannot protect either of the two softbodies after they leave Mechancia,’ said the mystic. ‘They are safe as long as they remain in the capital. Once they leave, we may take no further part in their immediate affairs. Salvation rests in the young fastblood’s power alone, not ours.’

A sinking feeling hit Oliver. No help from Jackals’ oldest ally?

‘There is more though,’ said King Steam. ‘Something else. I can sense it behind your words.’

‘One of the people may offer assistance to these two soft-bodies. One alone.’

‘Name him,’ ordered the king.

‘By your command, Majesty. His name is Steamswipe.’

A gasp of disbelief swept the press of steammen in the throne room. Master Saw stepped forward from the ranks of centaur-like fighters. ‘This cannot be, the council of seers is surely mistaken?’

‘There is no mistake,’ said the mystic. ‘Much as we would otherwise, try as we might to find an alternative answer, the cogs only reply with a single name.’

‘He is deactivate, he is disgraced,’ said Master Saw. ‘If it is to be just one, let me go — or one of my knights.’

‘It is to be Steamswipe,’ said the Gear-gi-ju reader. ‘The cogs have spoken.’

The King waved his hand and Master Saw stepped back.

‘He would not have been my first choice for a champion,’ said one of the King’s mu-bodies. Oliver started. The King’s ability to inhabit multiple bodies and engage in simultaneous conversation was disconcerting. ‘Or even have featured at the bottom of the list.’

Oliver frowned. ‘But that steamman said he was deactivate. How can he be dead and help us?’

‘The word has many connotations for the people of the metal. Steamswipe’s soul boards have not been returned to the ancestors. He sleeps, his higher mental functions held in suspension, as punishment for his crimes.’

Oliver’s frown deepened. What kind of defective creature was the King trying to foist on them?

‘It was a crime of honour,’ said the King’s drone, noting Oliver’s expression. ‘He violated the code steamo of our knights. Cowardice. Steamswipe was one of seven knights we dispatched into the jungles of Liongeli on a vital undertaking for the people. His nerve broke and he abandoned his brothers to die there, choosing to save his own oil at the expense of his duty, his mission and the lives of his fellow warriors.’

‘Just the steamman I want watching my own back when things get difficult,’ said Oliver.

‘The Loas move in their own way,’ said King Steam. ‘But they know what is at stake — for all of us.’

Oliver shrugged. Well, why not. He already had most of Jackals’ constabulary, army and order of worldsingers waiting to push him off the gallows, not to mention the Court of the Air hunting Harry down while the Lady of the Lights’ mysterious foe was scouring the land to assassinate him. Why not add an unreliable steamman likely to bolt at the first sight of trouble to their fate-cursed party? It could hardly make things any worse.

High in the ceiling a hatch parted and a claw lowered a limp body to the throne room’s polished floor. There were mutterings of discontent from the courtiers and palace officials as architects moved around the warrior, adjusting his machinery, returning him to life. Steamswipe’s eyes started to glow, dimly at first, then fiercely — until finally a transparent lid slid down from his brow, protecting his vision. The creature’s four arms vibrated as sensation returned to them, two skeletal hands and two fighting arms, one a murderous-looking double-headed hammer.

His head inclined, taking in the King and the surroundings of the royal chamber. ‘How long have I been in suspension?’

‘A little over two hundred years,’ said King Steam.

‘Not long enough to atone,’ said Steamswipe.

‘The winds could grind the mountains of Mechancia to fine sand and still not enough time would have passed for you to atone, Steamswipe,’ said the King. ‘Nevertheless the cogs have called you. How will you answer?’

‘Is there a sword that will accept me?’ asked the warrior.

‘That remains to be seen,’ said King Steam. ‘More to the point, will you follow the call of the Steamo Loas? Will you wear the colours of the Free State and follow the code with whatever minor vestige of honour you still possess?’

‘If the Loas ride me,’ said Steamswipe, ‘I shall not refuse the call.’

‘Then that is answer enough,’ said the King. ‘We shall adjourn to the Chamber of Swords and see whether there are also arms that will bend to the will of the Steamo Loas.’

Oliver gripped onto the King’s marque of office as the steamman monarch, escort, Steamswipe and — seemingly — half the court, departed the throne room for a stately procession through the mountain stronghold. Some of the sights he saw left Oliver baffled — vast halls with row upon row of steammen seated behind machines, as still as statues and staring into space; forests of glass spheres with arcs of energy leaping and chasing each other across the globes; chasms of grinding clockwork crunching and turning, rolling like an old man’s tongue circling a boiled sweet.

Now deep inside the palace, the King led the party into a round room, small enough that most of the courtiers and hangers-on had to remain in the corridor jostling for a better view. There was an opening to another round room beyond, connected to the first in a figure of eight pattern.

‘Move forward, knight,’ commanded King Steam. Oliver watched the warrior advance into the centre of the next room, the clank of his four legs echoing off the walls.

‘There’s nothing here,’ whispered Oliver.

‘Wait and see, young softbody,’ cautioned one of the King’s mu-bodies. ‘The arms choose the champion, just as the times select the steamman.’

In the second room hatches popped open and the white walls slowly began to rotate. Instruments of destruction extended from the open spaces: swords, rifles, maces, things Oliver did not even recognize, all curves and blades — retracting and extending in an oddly delicate dance.

Oliver noticed Master Saw muttering and shaking his head next to the disreputable Stave. The knight commander clearly did not approve of the spirits’ choice in this matter, that a convicted coward should defile the chamber of arms with his presence.

‘Holy weapons,’ said the royal drone. ‘Look, Oliver soft-body. The Ace of Clubs, once wielded by Trinder Half-track in the war with Kikkosico near seven hundred years ago. And there, Grindbiter — the long gun — capable of tearing the pips off a Quatershiftian marshal’s uniform at close to a mile’s range.’

Oliver bit his lip. Steamswipe was pacing nervously in the centre of the room. None of the weapons were stopping. Would the knight be allowed to accompany Oliver if he failed this rite? Or would the master of the orders militant have his way and the centaur-shaped fighter be returned to millennia of suspension?

Steamswipe extended one of his manipulator arms beseechingly towards a curved blade but the weapon was drawn back inside the darkness of the moving wall.

‘Stokeslicer,’ moaned the warrior. ‘By the beard of Zaka of the Cylinders, will no weapon support my claim as a knight?’

‘Your voicebox disgraces the chamber with its sound,’ said Master Saw. ‘Even weapons which you have mastered would sooner stay deactivate rather than feel the iron of your fingers corrupt their grip.’

Whether in response to the knight’s plea, the commander’s scorn, or the slow procession of its own path, the wall stopped rotating and a single hatch remained open, revealing a snub black package trembling on a metallic stalk.

‘Armoury master,’ said the King. ‘Do you recognize the weapon which offers itself?’

‘I do,’ replied a steamman. ‘It is Lord Wireburn — the Keeper of the Eternal Flame.’ Gasps of amazement sounded from the courtiers. The armoury master addressed the crowd. ‘The last time this weapon selected a knight is almost beyond the recorded history of the true people, it was-’

‘I remember,’ said King Steam. ‘It was, as you say, a long time ago. Well, it seems we have a champion and the champion has his arms.’

‘Your Majesty,’ said Steamswipe, giving a small bow before the King. ‘What is to be my penance? Am I to return to the jungle to try and recover what was lost forever?’

‘No, Steamswipe,’ said the King, pointing to Oliver and Harry. ‘You are to accompany these two friends of the people and give aid to them in their journey. Protect their lives as if they were your own.’

Steamswipe turned his vision strip towards Harry and the young man sitting by the King’s tracks, the glass of his visor burning red. ‘These two — two — hairless monkeys? Your Majesty, say this is not true. By all that is sacred, say that you jest.’

‘We have not made you activate to play parlour pranks on you, knight,’ rumbled King Steam. ‘Your duty is to see that our two softbody friends do not come to harm.’

Steamswipe gazed with contempt at the two visitors. ‘Fastbloods — I would sooner trust Adjasou-Rust not to bite my hand than trust another Jackelian to watch over my back.’

‘What does he mean, another?’ Oliver whispered to the king’s drone.

The mu-body shook its head with sadness. ‘There were two softbody guides on his last venture deep into the darks of Liongeli.’

‘So what did they do to Steamswipe?’

‘It’s not so much what the guides did to him, young soft-body,’ said King Steam. ‘It is what he did to them. Steamswipe staved in the skull of one of the guides with his war hammer, the other he impaled on a spear.’

King Julius’s chambers were a shadow of what they had been — only the grand dimensions gave any clue that they once housed the absolute monarch of Jackals, master of an entire nation. Like the man himself they had fallen into a state of disrepair. Julius’s hacking cough echoed off the bare walls, a rasping, rattling thing, sounding more alive than its owner now seemed.

Captain Flare stared down at the skeletal form stretched underneath the blanket, the rough wool all that warded off the damp of the chambers. It was summer so no fire burned in the hearth. Parliament had voted on that many years ago: fuel to be expended on the royal person only from the month of Frost-touch onwards — a petty economy that must have given the guardians who voted for it more warmth than it deprived King Julius of. He was barely lucid now, gripped by another bout of waterman’s sickness. Each fever reduced him slightly more than the last.

‘What’s he saying, captain?’ asked Prince Alpheus. ‘It sounded like something about lice.’

‘Not lice,’ said the Commander of the Special Guard. ‘Alice. Your mother.’

‘Mother. Yes. I wish I had met her.’

‘The House of Guardians probably wouldn’t have allowed it,’ said Flare. ‘Even if she hadn’t been returned to the royal breeding pool, even if she hadn’t…’

‘… died of the crinkleskin?’ said Alpheus. ‘I am always surprised by the number of royals who die of plagues and fevers at the breeding house. I am surprised they are still able to scrape together the blood of a squire’s daughter, let alone a duchess, to pair me off with.’

‘It’s fair to say that medical care has not been a priority over there.’

‘It has not been a priority here either,’ said Alpheus.

Flare shrugged. ‘Waterman’s sickness is the perfect illness for our democratic state — it strikes guardians and undermaids with equal ferocity, and once you get it, all the money in Sun Gate can’t help you.’

‘They say the heat and dryness of Cassarabia helps the afflicted.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Flare. ‘But I don’t think parliament trusts the caliphs any more than they do your father,’

‘It’s odd that I never get sick,’ said Alpheus. ‘Not even a cold in winter. I obviously don’t get that from either my father or mother.’

‘Your mother was tough,’ said Flare. ‘It took the conditions in the royal breeding house to wear her down.’

Alpheus stared down at his father. ‘He still remembers her.’

‘She was a hard woman to forget, Your Highness.’

A line of Special Guardsmen stood sentry at the far end of the bedchamber, by the light patches on the wall where rich tapestries would have once hung, their silent faces watching the slow death of the King. Flare waved them away and they turned smartly, filing out in a disciplined line. All except Bonefire.

‘You can go too,’ said Flare.

‘I was hoping the pup would lose his nerve — leave the job to a man.’

‘Surely not concern for me, Bonefire?’ said the prince. ‘You just wanted to do the thing yourself.’

‘Novelty value,’ replied the Special Guardsman. ‘It’s been a while since anyone let me have my head and I do miss the old days.’

‘You could let him do it,’ said Captain Flare. ‘There’s a lot at stake now. There is no going back after this — for any of us. It doesn’t have to be you.’

‘Yes it does, captain. Anyway, what do I have to go back to?’ said Alpheus, picking up a pillow. ‘A life where I end up like him, tossing fevered in a bed, with no arms to beg for help, no dignity, no freedom, no hope.’

King Julius rasped as the pillow was pushed down on his sweating face by his son, legs shaking at first, then thrashing with a last burst of whatever life, whatever will to live, still subsisted in him. His limbs convulsed and bucked as the contents of his bladder soaked across the plain bed cover. Then the monarch trembled into stillness.

Alpheus removed the pillow. The old man’s eyes were wide in shock, his sallow grey skin shining like he had just risen from a bath. ‘Be kind to Mother when you see her, Papa.’

Captain Flare put his hand on the prince’s shoulder. ‘Apart from anything else, Alpheus, the way he was suffering it was a mercy for him to move along the Circle.’

Alpheus swayed, dazed by the enormity of what he had just done. ‘If this goes wrong, captain, I ask just one thing. Don’t let them make me into him. Kill me first, kill me with your bare hands rather than let them put my arms on display outside the House of Guardians.’

Flare looked grim and said nothing.

‘The King is dead,’ laughed Bonefire. ‘Long live the pup.’