The Iron Wyrm Affair

Chapter Fifteen

Steelstruck Teeth

The jackals gathered the instant they stepped off the Bridge, and Emma didn’t bother hailing one of the footcabs. Mikal was tense, his footsteps following hers and the scent of his readiness gunpowder-sharp, a different crimson than the low foundry glow. To Sight, the Wark was full of sharp-edged runic shapes trembling on the edge of the visible, an alien charter language wearing at the warp and weft of Londinium’s ancient sorcery. The cinders whispered in toothless, burning voices, and she wished she had brought a veil. Sparks lifted lazily into the fog, the Wark still resonating from Tideturn like a giant bell shivering long after its vibration voice has dropped below the audible.

The taste of sorcery here was metallic, and there was so much interference it was almost a relief to feel Clare’s arm solid and real under her hand. Mikal could not anchor her – he would be far more occupied if any of the jackal flashboys took it into their heads to make trouble for the trespassers.

What a time to wish for more Shields. The thought was there and gone in a flash; she had other matters to attend to.

The cinderfall changed direction, flakes of ash spinning though there was no wind. Londinium’s fog kept creeping, sliding its fingers into the cracks, and was forced back by the intelligence in the Wark’s red glow.

A sharp right, staying well away from the dark, toothless-gaping alleys; she set their course and decided to approach the Blackwerks from the north. It made sense, and the less time she spent in the Wark with a mentath at her sleeve, the better.

He was already looking decidedly green. She supposed she should have mentioned that the sorcery within the Wark’s confines, not only illogical but alien, might discommode him.

Scuttling things moved in the shadows, clinking sharp edges dragged over cobbles and through filth. Whispers, gleams of eyes from the towering roofs. A small foundry opened on their right; glowing metal poured from one giant cauldron to another, sparks flying as the workers inside became cutpaper shadows. Tiny, paired gleams peering through grates and clustering in the alleys told her the rats were out in force, their sleek sides heaving and their naked tails leaving opalescent slug-sheens behind.

She had to prod Clare. He was slowing down, craning his head to take everything in. He would be straining to make sense of the cinderfall’s eddies and flows, the light not behaving as it should, the little slithering scrapes in the darkness.

“Merely observe,” she whispered, as if he was a Shield trainee and she was responsible for teaching him to Glove. “Do not analyse.”

He gave her a wide-eyed look that qualified as shocked.

It would likely not fool the Black Lady. They turned with Park Street’s sharp bend, and it was not her imagination – the gaslamps were dimming. The cinderfall was a curtain, sweeping closer. The tiny paired gleams slid free of the alleymouths, drawing closer as the cinders smoothed over their wet-gleaming flanks.

Oh, for Heaven’s sake. She breathed a most impolite term, glanced at Mikal, and snapped her free hand out, fingers twisting as a half-measure of chant pulled its way free of her lips, sliding bloody and whole into the thick darkness.

Clear silver light flamed. A sorcerous circle smoked into being around them, familiar charter symbols flashing and twisting through the cinderfall, and the rats scattered. They were Altered too, clockworks spinning in their hindquarters, grease splashing from the gears and their little diamond claws skritching against the cobbles.

“Enough!” she snapped, and the gaslamps flared back into guttering light. Londinium’s fog writhed, its tendrils thickening. “I am not to be trifled with, Mehitabel!”

All motion ceased for a moment, the cinders arrested in their slow whirling motion and sparkling in mid-air. The light faded, a witchball popping into being and hovering behind Emma, dimming slightly as her attention turned from it. And as she expected, when the world hitched forward and time began again, there was a flashboy just at the edge of her sphere of normalcy, his top hat cocked and his moth-eaten purple velvet jacket carefully brushed. His right hand was a marvel of Alteration, black metal that looked almost exactly like the appendage he had been born with, and the metallic patterns etched on his ageless-young face were familiar.

He was high in Mehitabel’s favour, and would probably continue to be so for a long while yet. At least while his reflexes were good and his cruelty pleased her.

“Ladyname.” He grinned, his teeth steel chips. That right hand flexed with a dry, oily sound, and Mikal stepped forward. Just one step, but it was enough. The flashboy gave him a brief glance, then addressed Emma again. “Ye use Ladyname. Billybong o’ye, laddle.”

“She knows my name as well,” Emma replied crisply. “I am on business, Dodgerboy. Bound for the Blackwerks, and I do not appreciate this nonsense.”

“Guide ye, and for no fiddle e’en.” The flashboy turned, the nails pounded into his boot heels striking a single crimson spark from a garbage-slick cobble. “Ladyname be specting.”

She permitted herself a single, unamused chuckle. “Well, I would hardly dare call upon her otherwise. Lead on, Dodgerboy, and mind yourself. I suspect the Lady would hate to lose you.”

“Oh, aye. ’M flash-quick. Pop yer farthings a’ three paces, leave cammie rag for the wisps.” He waved his un-Altered hand, a flash of grimy pale skin.

Emma squeezed Clare’s arm again. The witchball brightened. “He means he could pick your pockets clean at three paces and leave your handkerchief for lesser thieves. It is most likely no boast, so Mikal will cut off his fingers – all of them – should he approach us. Let us be along, I have other business to transact tonight.”

The flashboy glanced once at Clare. “Deefer, that ’un?”

She tapped her foot, the gesture losing something under her skirts but still, she hoped, expressing her displeasure. “He is not deaf, or dumb, not that it is your business. Do we move along, or do I set your hair on fire and visit your mistress while in a bad mood?”

He gave no reply, just showed his steel-struck teeth again. For a moment Emma imagined those teeth meeting in flesh, blood squirting free and griming the bright metal, and quelled a shudder.

She had seen Mehitabel’s flashboys feeding, once.

But Dodgerboy set off, and once Mikal nodded, his jaw set in a grim line, she propelled Clare along with the simple expedient of pulling on his arm, and they walked further into the Wark, followed by a bobbing silver globe of witchlight.

Two steps later, she noticed Mikal had disappeared.

Good.

Chapter Sixteen Not You, Too

The Blackwerks rose, spines of black metal corkscrewed with heat and stress. Clare’s skull felt tight, confining. There was simply too much illogic here. The cinders, for one thing – there was no way the fires of the Wark could produce this much matter. Yet it had to come from somewhere. And the rats – something so small should not be Altered. Their eyes glowed viciously, and they scuttled with quick, oily movements.

The young Altered boy walked ahead of them, whistling, hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Every once in a while he performed a curious little hop-skip, but to no rhythm Clare could discern. Miss Bannon’s tension communicated itself through her grip on his arm. If this was a promenade, it was one through a Hellish underworld where every angle was subtly skewed.

As soon as the thought arrived, the squeezing of his skull ceased. He began seeking to catalogue the precise measurement in degrees of every angle, calculating the inconsistencies and attempting to apply a theory to them. It was difficult mental work, and he was faintly aware of sweat springing up on his brow, but the relief of having a task was immense.