Mortal Engines

“Shut up, Twix!” barked Magnus Crome, staring at his instruments, but the others all turned to look as one of the Stalkers lurched up on to the dais and dumped its burden at the Lord Mayor’s feet.

It was Hester Shaw, her hands tied in front of her, helpless and sullen and still wondering why the Stalkers had not killed her straight away. At the sight of her ruined face the men on the dais froze, as if her gaze had turned them all to stone.

Oh, great Clio! whispered Katherine, seeing for the first time what Father’s sword had done. And then she looked from Hester’s face to his, and what she saw there shocked her even more. The expression had drained from his features, leaving a grey mask, less human and more horrible than the girl’s. This was how he must have looked when he killed Pandora Shaw and turned round to find Hester watching him. She knew what would happen next, even before his sword came singing from its sheath.

“No!” she screamed, seeing what he meant to do, but her mouth was dry, her voice a whisper. Suddenly she understood why the goddess had brought her here, and knew what she must do to make amends for Father’s crime. She dropped the useless satchel and ran up the steps. Hester was stumbling backwards, lifting her bound hands to ward off Father’s blow, and Katherine flung herself between them so that suddenly it was she who was in his path, and his sword slid easily through her and she felt the hilt jar hard against her ribs.

The Engineers gasped. Dr Twix gave a frightened little squeak. Even Crome looked alarmed.

“Input clearance code Omega,” snapped MEDUSA, as if nothing at all had happened.

Valentine was saying “No!”, shaking his head as if he couldn’t understand how she came to be here with his sword through her. “Kate, no!” He stepped back, pulling the blade free.

Katherine watched it slither out of her. It looked ridiculous, like a practical joke. There was no pain at all, but bright blood was throbbing out of a hole in her tunic and splashing on the floor. She felt giddy. Hester Shaw clutched at her but Katherine shook her off. “Father, don’t hurt her,” she said, and took two faltering steps forward and fell against Dr Splay’s keyboard. Meaningless green letters spattered the little Goggle-screen as her head hit the keys, and as Father lifted her and laid her gently down she heard the voice of MEDUSA boom, “Incorrect code entered.”

New sequences of numbers spilled across the screens. Something exploded with a sharp crack among the looping webs of cable.

“What’s happening?” whimpered Dr Chubb. “What’s it doing?”

“It has rejected our target coordinates,” gasped Dr Chandra. “But the power is still building…”

Engineers rushed back to their posts, stumbling over Katherine where she lay on the floor, her head on Father’s lap. She ignored them, staring at Hester’s face. It was like looking at her own reflection in a shattered mirror, and she smiled, pleased that she had met her half-sister at last, and wondering if they were going to be friends. She started to hiccup, and with each hiccup blood came up her throat into her mouth. A numb chill was spreading through her body, and she could feel herself beginning to drift away, the sounds of the cathedral growing fainter and fainter. Am I going to die? she thought. I can’t, not yet, I’m not ready!

“Help me!” Valentine bellowed at the Engineers—but they were only interested in MEDUSA. It was the girl who came to his side and lifted Katherine while he ripped a strip from his robe and tried to staunch the bleeding. He looked up into her one grey eye and whispered, “Hester … thank you!”

Hester stared back at him. She had come all this way to kill him, through all these years, and now that he was at her mercy she felt nothing at all. His sword lay on the ground where he had dropped it. No one was watching her. Even with her wrists bound she could have snatched it up and stuck it through his heart. But it didn’t seem to matter now. Dazed, she watched his tears fall, plopping into the astounding lake of blood that was spreading out from his daughter’s body. Confused thoughts chased each other through her head. He loves her! She saved my life! I can’t let her die’.

She reached out and touched him, and said, “She needs a doctor, Valentine.”

He looked at the Engineers, clustering around their machine in a frantic scrum. There would be no help from them. Outside the cathedral doors curtains of golden fire swung across Paternoster Square. He looked up, and saw something red catch the firelight beyond the high windows of the starboard transept.

“It’s the Jenny Haniver!” shouted Hester, scrambling to her feet. “Oh, it’s Tom! And there’s a medical bay aboard…” But she knew the Jenny couldn’t land amidst the flames of Top Tier. “Valentine, can we get on to the roof somehow?”

Valentine picked up his sword and cut the cords on her wrists. Then, flinging it aside, he lifted Katherine and started to carry her between the spitting coils to where the metal stairway zig-zagged up into the dome. Stalkers reached out for Hester as she scurried after him, but Valentine ordered them back. To a startled Beefeater he shouted, “Captain! That airship is not to be fired upon!”

Magnus Crome came running to clutch at his sleeve. “The machine has gone mad!” he wailed. “Quirke alone knows what commands your daughter fed it! We can’t fire it and we can’t stop the energy build-up! Do something, Valentine! You discovered the damned thing! Make it stop!”

Valentine shoved him aside and started up the steps, through the rising veils of light, the crackling static, through air that smelted like burning tin.

“I only wanted to help London!” the old man sobbed. “I only wanted to make London strong!”

36. THE SHADOW OF BONES

Hester took the lead, climbing up through the open top of the dome into smoky firelight and the shadow of the great weapon. Off to her right, the charred skeleton of the 13th Floor Elevator lay draped over the ruins of the Engineerium like a derelict rollercoaster. The fire had spread to the Guildhall, and the Planning Department and the Hall of Records were blazing, hurling out firefly-swarms of sparks and millions of pink and white official forms. St Paul’s was an island in a sea of fire, with the Jenny Haniver swinging above it like a low-budget moon, scorched and listing, veering drunkenly in the updraughts from the burning buildings.

She climbed higher, out on to the cobra-hood of MEDUSA. Valentine came after her; she could hear him whispering to Katherine, his eyes fixed on the struggling airship.

“What idiot is flying that thing?” he shouted, working his way across the cowl to join her.

“It’s Tom!” Hester called back, and stood up, waving both arms and shouting, “Tom! Tom!”

* * *

It was the shawl that Tom saw first, the one he had bought for her in Peripatetiapolis. Knotted round her neck now, streaming on the wind, it made a sudden flash of red, and he saw it from the corner of his eye and looked down and saw her there, waving. Then a black wing of smoke came down over her and he wondered if he had only imagined that tiny figure inching out on to the cobra’s hood, because it seemed impossible that anyone could survive in this huge fire that he had caused. He made the Jenny Haniver swoop closer. The smoke lifted, and there she was, flapping her arms, with her long black coat and her long-legged stride and her ugly, wonderful face.

* * *

Katherine opened her eyes. The cold inside her was growing, spreading from the place where the sword had gone in. She was still hiccuping, and she thought how stupid it would be to die with hiccups, how undignified. She wished Dog was with her. “Tom! Tom!” somebody kept shouting. She turned her head and saw an airship coming down out of the smoke, closer and closer until the side of the gondola scraped against MEDUSA’s cowl and she felt the down-draught from its battered engine pods. Father was carrying her towards it, and she could see Tom peering out at her through the broken windscreen, Tom who had been there when it all began, whom she had