The Court of the Air

of ale. Not one of you people here today could match me.’

The crowd murmured darkly at his incorrect boasting.

‘So I have had my left leg equalized. Look.’ He raised the limb from the ground. ‘The bones have been fixed with steel pins. I am equal in my speed to you. I am the Commonshare — and you are me. Now when we run, we shall run together, not against each other!’

The crowd went into an apoplexy of delight at Compatriot Solomon’s sacrifice.

‘Compatriot, you have shown the way,’ said Tzlayloc. ‘But he is not alone. Step forward, Sister Peggotty.’

A short woman came though the crimson-hooded honour guard, holding the hand of a boy — no older than nine or ten years in Molly’s estimation.

‘There are many of you here, who might have once frequented the gambling pits on Stalside,’ she began. Laughter sounded from the crowd.

‘Those that did would have seen my son play the boards there … two jump-stones, chess, round circle’s move. In the old days, the pit owners used my son like a magnet to empty the pockets of the desperate and the addicted. They called him a prodigy — able to beat any of you at a game of skill or chance. Exploited him like an angler’s lure. But look at him now …’

The boy stared uncomprehendingly out at the rally, drool running down the left side of his chin.

‘Compatriots, now he has been cured. Equalized. Now he is one of us. By the grace of our own renegade worldsingers his mind has been adjusted. Why, any of you could play him at a game of your choice and beat him as oft as not.’

The mob roared their approval.

‘Which of you here will show your devotion?’ exclaimed the mother. ‘Which of you will show your love for your compatriots?’

A young girl pushed her way past Molly. ‘I will! Tzlayloc, take me. I am beautiful and it is nothing but a curse to me. Scar my face with acid from the workshops.’

‘No.’ A giant of a man rose out of the crowd. ‘Tzlayloc, look how strong I am. Make me equal, cut off one of my ugly beef-hooks of an arm.’

‘Compatriots.’ Tzlayloc waved the supplicants back down. ‘Your willingness to join our Commonshare is a credit to you all. But not everyone shares our beliefs. While we live free down here our brothers and sisters still toil under the yoke of Middlesteel’s barons of commerce and the false idolatry of a sham ballot every four years. Bring forward the corrupt ones, compatriots.’

The red-cloaked soldiers — the brilliant men — moved forward with two struggling figures in white togas.

‘These evil leeches …’ Tzlayloc’s voice echoed off the square’s walls. ‘These two evil leeches come to visit us from as far away as the city-states of the Catosian League. Why? To benefit from us! To profit.’

There was a collective rush of breath from the crowd.

‘Please,’ one of the Catosian traders begged. ‘Last year you needed high-tension boilers from us for your mills, parts and plans for automatics. We brought them to you. For mercy’s sake, let me live. I have a family who need me, three girls and a baby boy.’

‘Listen to these philosophers,’ Tzlayloc mocked. ‘To feed their families they would suck our blood. Is that not the excuse of the vampires on the surface? Just a little trade, just a little blood — work for me, not for each other. Work for me, not for the commons. Make me fat. Make me rich. Let me show you a new philosophy, men of Catosia.’

Tzlayloc drew an obsidian-handled knife — the blade sharpened stone. His crimson-hooded retinue dragged the two traders to an altar where they were arched back and strapped thrashing and sobbing to the stone. Tzlayloc thrust aloft the knife.

‘In life, you leeched blood from the people you should have cared for. Now, in death, your sacrifice will strengthen the people’s sinews and advance their cause. Xam-ku, Father Spider, hear my prayer — let the sacrifice of these two rats caught with their snouts buried in our grain bins swell your power and speed your return. Too long have we laboured under the yoke of slave master and merchant and market without the light of Wildcaotyl to guide us.’

‘Look away, Molly softbody,’ advised Onestack.

Molly did, but she couldn’t shut out the screams echoing from the walls of the square as Tzlayloc carved the traders’ beating hearts out of their still living bodies. Tzlayloc held the still pulsing organs above the crowd. ‘Xam- ku, feel the nourishment of their souls.’

The crystals in the cavern ceiling came alive with lightning, crimson fire arcing between the stones above them. Down in the square the crowd chanted their saviour’s name.

‘The old gods of Wildcaotyl have not fed in a long time,’ said Slowcogs.

‘I can feel their hunger,’ said Molly. ‘Welling up beneath the ground. The souls spilled are like the taste of meat for a slipsharp that hasn’t fed in a thousand years.’

Blood from the two limp bodies was coursing down channels in the stone. ‘In death,’ Tzlayloc bellowed, ‘these two corrupt vampires have made the sacrifice to their companions they were never willing to make in life. Behold, I have found their centre, and it nourishes the commons.’

Molly tried to turn away from the scene, but the press of the chanting mob was too fierce.

‘Our compatriots in Quatershift feed such as they into the Gideon’s Collar, but in their admirable drive for efficiency, they have forgotten the wisdom of our ancestors. Wasting good souls which could be dedicated to Xam- ku,’ said Tzlayloc. ‘Yet in Middlesteel above, the streets still throng with the oppressors of the people, the enemy inside our walls, withholding paradise from the hands of the starving, the propertyless and desperate. Shall we make a land of equals? Shall we free the people?’

‘Yes!’ the crowd roared.

‘Shall we pull the selfish bloodsuckers down into the gutter and thrash them until the streets of Middlesteel run red with their blood?’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ the crowd howled.

‘Now you see,’ whispered Silver Onestack. ‘Now you see why you were wrong to come here. Grimhope has died. This rotting carcass of a city is all that is left of the legend.’

Slowcogs bowed his head. ‘Forgive me, Silver Onestack. I did not know.’

‘No,’ said Molly. ‘This is not your fault, Slowcogs. I was meant to come here. I have seen this madness before, or something like it.’

Slowcogs’ head sunk in shame. ‘There is a song in your blood, Molly softbody, and the memory of your cells points the way you must travel.’

But where have I seen this before? Molly asked herself as they drifted away from the square. Where?

Molly and the two steammen had only just arrived back at Onestack’s lodgings when the political organizer who had dragged them to the rally appeared at the door. She banged on the front of the workshop. ‘Token day, compatriot metal, token day.’

Silver Onestack opened the door. ‘Enter, compatriot soft-body.’

‘Such a gathering, compatriot metal. Such a show of equality. The day is coming when the dogs on the surface will whine under the weight of our boots, surely it is.’

‘Surely,’ Silver Onestack mouthed.

‘Your ledger, compatriot.’

Onestack led the way into the room at the back of the workshop, picked up a dusty book of accounts and handed it to the woman, saying nothing as she leafed through the last few pages. ‘Excellent, compatriot metal. The communal share is now set at ninety per cent. The state will receive its share now.’

‘So much?’ said Onestack. ‘I have two assistants now. The girl must eat. We need boiler-grade coke.’

‘Careful what you say, compatriot metal,’ warned the woman. ‘Those words smack of shirking and defeatism. Your talent with matters mechanical has kept your position on the reserved list, but the mills are hungry for labour too.’

‘My apologies, compatriot softbody,’ said Onestack. ‘Perhaps you could put a word in for us with the