The Whisperer hissed in laughter. ‘Worry about you? Dear Circle, and they thought I was a menace to the realm. Goodbye Oliver. Don’t sell your life too cheaply.’
Oliver watched the Whisperer head through the trees, his shuffling footsteps through the brambles disappearing, followed only by the hoot of an owl. ‘Goodbye Whisperer. Goodbye, old friend.’
As the Whisperer left, the Lady of the Lights materialized into view by Oliver’s side. ‘I can remove the stain on your soul, Oliver, if you wish it to be so.’
‘No more fuse, mother?’
‘His time has gone. I am afraid he rather over-reached himself.’
‘My fault no doubt, I did rather goad him. As for my soul, I am who I am. Part of you was briefly human once — human enough to take a lover from the race of man — you must remember change, evolution.’
The Lady of the Lights drew a circle in the air, sparkling motes that faded beside the miniature stars that revolved around her orbit. ‘The system exists to accommodate change. Change, even at the end of all things, is the only real constant.’
‘I hope I did not disappoint you.’
‘No Oliver.’ She smiled. ‘Quite the opposite. You
‘Will I see you again?’
She was fading away, the trees and moonlight visible through her white robes. ‘In another thousand years, perhaps. Your people are always running into trouble, always choosing to believe in the wrong things.’
Oliver sighed. He would not be around in a thousand years. But Jackals would, and the guns would, and they, they would remember.
Master Saw walked with the leader of the council of seers, their conversation echoing down the corridors of Mechancia. They were almost at the chambers of education; the playful sound of the young steammen’s nursery bodies a cheerful counterpoint to the endless stream of business which being regent brought.
‘There is no margin for error in this decision,’ said Master Saw.
‘Nor would the Loas allow it,’ said the council leader. ‘The cogs of Gear-gi-ju have fallen the same way for weeks — I myself have been ridden by Zaka of the Cylinders and Adjasou-Rust, and they both concur. It has been obvious for a while which body King Steam has settled in. You must see it, Master Saw, even a venerable old fighter like yourself.’
‘Yes,’ said Master Saw. ‘The ancients in the hall of the dead whisper his name; the slipthinkers find it scattered in the great pattern when they grow ill from information sickness. It is a wonder his name does not spontaneously slip into the hymns of the people.’
He nodded to the educator who greeted them at the doors to the level. Two children in nursery bodies raced past them, their tracks skidding along the marble floor, oblivious to the presence of the three adults.
‘Delay long enough and I am sure that too will happen,’ said the council leader. ‘Ah, there he is. Such a serious child.’
The seer, the educator and Master Saw stopped. The young steamman was at a table, paper spread out in front of him, concentrating so hard he had not noticed the adults or the other nursery bodies at play.
Master Saw had his suspicions. The cracked soul board that had been passed to him by the softbody girl four years ago on the bloody battlefield of Rivermarsh, the soul board that had belonged to the desecration, the one that would have been scrubbed and recycled by the birthing chamber. By the beard of Zaka of the Cylinders, he would dearly love to know where that particular soul board had ended up.
‘What is that thing he is doing called?’ asked Master Saw.
‘It is a form of visual representation,’ said the educator. ‘Like writing or the plans schema of an architect. You need to stare at it for quite a while, but if you look long enough it starts to make sense. You can see a picture among the strokes and marks. He has been teaching the other children how to do it, too.’
Well, King Steam had always been different, eccentric in many little ways.
‘The softbodies do this, do they not?’
‘Yes, master,’ said the educator, passing the steamman knight one of the sheets of paper. ‘They call it painting.’
Master Saw looked at the paper, trying to resolve the mass of colours and detail into an image. There was something there, something elusive. He tried to think of the script of writing, of the steamman iconography that might bring meaning to the representation. It was hard work indeed.
‘The slipthinkers are very impressed,’ said the educator proudly. ‘Especially our people in Jackals who have more familiarity with such things. We have noticed similar representations on some of the walls and floors of the palace; we may have had such an art in the past ourselves but lost it during the coldtime.’
The child looked up at the adults, noticing them for the first time. ‘My pictures are in colour.’
Master Saw patted the child’s head. ‘That much I can see, young person.’
Master Saw took the sheet of paper away with him. He would look at it a little each day. The steamman knight would follow the advice he so often dispensed on the floor of the dojo — with enough time and practice you could master any challenge, any puzzle. Things would become clear in time.
Fladdock stepped over the body of the old man to gaze out of the barred window at the passing boots of the citizens of New Albans. The recently installed Leveller government in Jackals had not made much of a dent in the flow of convicts sentenced to the boat, or for that matter to his own fate — a month on a rotting prison hulk bobbing in the waters of the Gambleflowers, followed by the long transportation to Concorzia in the stinking holds of a merchant steamship.
Most of the convicts were half Fladdock’s age, street children who had only stolen to stay alive. Far easier prey for Middlesteel’s crushers than the slicker professional criminals that ran with the flash mob. With the exception of the crooked old corn-chandler sleeping at his feet, Fladdock was now the oldest transportee in the cell awaiting the appearance of a colonist farmer to purchase his papers. Fladdock had certainly had his eyes opened since being sentenced for his admittedly incompetent attempt to dip that swell’s wallet on Haggswood Field. Eight years’ labour and transportation for touching the smooth leather of some quality’s wallet — hardly a fair exchange.
‘Tell us a story again?’ asked Gallon, hopefully.
Fladdock nodded kindly to the young boy. Who would have thought the mere ability to read would see him appointed as the official librarian of the motley group of convicts? He picked up the torn penny sheet which one of the passing settlers — probably an ex-convict — had passed through the bars, and brushed down its front cover.
Fladdock would have preferred one of the more relevant local news sheets, but beggars could not be choosers — and transportees had to be even less selective, it seemed.
‘Which story would you like me to read, Gallon?’
‘Something from the pages with dancing and rich people!’ piped up Louisa the Dipper. ‘Like the one about the ball at Sun Gate.’
‘Boring,’ said Gallon. ‘Give it a rest, girl. The crime and punishment pages. They’re the best!’
‘There’s a real story in here at the back,’ said Fladdock. ‘Not just news, but a piece of fiction. It’s called a serial. Just like the kind of tale you would find inside a penny dreadful.’
‘I know what a chuffing serial is,’ said Louisa the Dipper. ‘But that’s no bleeding good, is it? We’ll have missed the start of the tale and none of us will ever know how the story ends up either; we’ll be stuck on a farm on the plains sweating in some nob’s field.’
‘That’s a pity,’ said Fladdock. ‘I read it myself yesterday and it’s rather good, something completely new in fact. People are calling it celestial fiction. It’s all about a group of aeronauts who travel by airship to one of our moons and find very different creatures living up there. It’s all the go back in Jackals; it’s written by a woman too.’
‘A woman?’ said Louisa the Dipper. ‘Can I see a picture of her?’
‘There’s no line illustration of the author,’ explained Fladdock, showing the girl the pages. ‘But the name reads M.W. Templar. When you find a story where the writer is using initials instead of a first name, the chances are the author is a female … you see the stories often sell better if the readership don’t know the novelist is a woman.’
Fladdock failed to mention the fact that he knew the author personally. And she was definitely a
