The Court of the Air

The woman looked over at a tree, as if she had noticed something that confused her, and the little spheres of light revolving around her seeming to spin faster. Her attention returned to Oliver. ‘Only in so much as I can choose to gently correct any imbalances caused by the presence of external forces, the ones who have no place here such as the Wildcaotyl and their masters. Of course, how I choose to paper over the cracks is left to my discretion, Oliver. But we are fast moving beyond the point where a little extra wattle and daub around the edges is going to keep the roof from leaking. It is going to get fundamental very quickly. When that happens, what I want or do not want is going to matter very little indeed. I will be removed, Oliver. No more nails. No more damage limitation. You will be assigned something very dangerous with a very short fuse instead.’

‘Are you alright?’ asked Oliver. ‘You look shaky.’

‘I — need to — go, Oliver. Too much resolution. I am not used to operating at this level of detail, constrained in this silly body. I am a big-picture girl — at — heart. The fractal beauty of the branches, splitting into — leaf upon leaf — simplicity from complexity — complexity from simplicity.’ She was fading, the thrumming noise of her lights growing more intense.

‘Before you go, I know why the feymist curtain is here,’ said Oliver. ‘Why it appeared a thousand years ago in Jackals, infecting children at random, killing most of the adults it touches.’

‘Clever boy.’ Tears were running down the woman’s face.

‘The land beyond the mist, the feyfolk: they won’t be destroyed, will they? They’re not part of this, not part of our universe. That’s why the mist infects some of us — to allow a few of us to survive outside of our world, to escape extinction, for the race of man to continue to exist beyond the curtain. It’s an escape tunnel your kind punched directly into the heart of Jackals.’

‘Should it come to it, Oliver,’ said the Observer, ‘you will know when to cut and run. Only the fey can survive beyond the veil. Breeding pairs, Oliver, lead mainly breeding pairs into the mist.’

She was gone and the lash of the dawn wind seemed colder.

Oliver was left with the memory of a scared five-yearold boy, standing alone outside one of the upland villages that clung precariously close to the feymist curtain. Trying to talk to a crowd of villagers who were curious and terrified in equal measure by this child from beyond. He showed them the pendant that the Observer had given him as a talisman, the one with the miniature painting of his birth mother inside.

Not for the first time his old life had ended.

‘Order, order,’ shouted the speaker, banging her gavel. She had never seen the chamber so full. Guardians who normally only showed up in Middlesteel for lunch at their club once a year were thronging the hall. Opposite her, the doors to the cramped press gallery had been shut and the hyenas of Dock Street were being turned away.

Yesterday’s events had even roused Tinfold from his deathbed, the ancient steamman and leader of the Levellers still representing Workbarrows as Guardian despite the failing state of his body.

A brief hush fell over the chamber as Hoggstone took his seat on the front benches, followed by the minister from the Department of War, looking pale at the prospect of what was to come.

‘This House calls the minister for the Board of the Royal Aerostatical Navy to read his prepared statement,’ announced the speaker.

‘Guardians elect,’ began the minister. ‘I have received the preliminary details from the Admirals of the Blue in the matter of the RAN Resolute’s unauthorized bombardment of Middlesteel. These details serve as a preface to the official crown enquiry. Contrary to the sensational speculations of the Dock Street news sheets, at no point was any order issued through the chain of command for the RAN Resolute to assault the capital. Its actions in this matter were entirely unrelated to the disgraceful civil disturbances taking place in many sections of the city at this time. A detail underlined by the fact that the list of casualties in the airship’s unlawful bombardment include many prominent officers of the Middlesteel constabulary, militia, magistrates, order of worldsingers and fencible regiments attempting to restore order to the capital.’

‘Resign!’ shouted one of the Guardians on the Heartlander seats, the call taken up in a hiss by many of the parliamentarians.

Flustered, the minister continued. ‘The RAN Resolute deviated from the Admiralty’s written orders to patrol the Medfolk and Shapshire county boundary. The master of the Resolute lied to his own officers, falsely claiming that the vessel had received orders to put down an armed Carlist uprising in the capital.’

On the opposition benches Tinfold waved a small yellow flag. The speaker recognized the point of order and the steamman rose to make his argument. ‘Perhaps the honourable gentleman of the War Office would care to explain why one of the navy’s most experienced airmasters, a veteran of some forty years’ service, would bombard one of our cities?’

‘Well,’ said the minister. ‘That is to say, we believe the commander went insane. Briefly.’

There were guffaws from around the chamber. Some of the Guardians on the government bench started to whistle, mimicking the air that frequently escaped from the steamman’s malfunctioning boiler. Tinfold ignored their jibes. ‘Yes, that is the fragment of this tale I find most troubling. We have rather a lot of warships and rather a lot of airmasters on the payroll. I find myself a little discomfited to realize that any one of them at any time could suddenly take it into their head to overfly one of our cities and firebomb it.’

‘Actions have been taken.’

The minister was shouted down.

‘How convenient that Captain Dorian Kemp took his own life, saving us the cost of his court martial,’ said Tinfold.

‘My point exactly,’ said the minister. ‘The taking of one’s own life is hardly the act of a sane man.’

‘Sanity seems to be a relative term when applied to those who serve in the navy,’ retorted Tinfold, producing a copy of The Middlesteel Sentinel. ‘Although their antics do seem to produce a steady stream of fodder for the cartoonists of Dock Street.’

A large monochrome illustration on the cover of the steamman’s paper showed the wide-eyed airmaster of the Resolute reading a government act on the command deck of his airship. The bill read: The Slum Clearance Act of1596.

Both sides of the chamber erupted in a tirade of name-calling and hooting. On the chamber floor the footmen of the Master Whip stood ready with their Sleeping Henrys in case any of the benches tried to rush their political rivals. Ex-political police with at least twenty years’ service, these lictors were notoriously ready to dispense violence if the Guardians resorted to fisticuffs. Limited editions of old cartoons showing the more notorious riots on the floor of parliament were always in demand among collectors.

One of the shadow ministers from the Middle Circleans finally lost his temper as an empty mug of caffeel tossed his way shattered by his feet. Rising with a roar he kicked past a footman, sending him toppling over. Beatrice Swoop, the current Master Whip, flicked her cat-o’-nine-tails around the shadow’s left leg, upending the politician with a deft jerk upwards. Her footmen jumped on him like hyenas, two of them holding him down while a third laid into him with his Sleeping Henry, coshing him around the face.

The rest of the lictors held the party line, brandishing their bludgeons as the Guardians forgot their shouting match and briefly united to throw papers and heavy parliament bills at the Master Whip’s forces.

‘Order, ORDER!’ screamed the speaker. As the din subsided she waved her red flag of censure. ‘The honourable shadow from the Middle Circleans is banned from the House for a period of one week. Will the lictors please remove him to the parliamentary surgeon’s office.’

There was a moment’s respectful silence as the unconscious politician was dragged away by his feet from the debating chamber. ‘The First Guardian has the floor,’ ordered the speaker.

Hoggstone stood up behind the leader’s table on his side of the chamber. ‘Like my honourable friend from the opposition.’ He paused to give a little whistle. ‘I find myself more than a little disconcerted that a rogue RAN officer can take it into his head to falsify Admiralty orders in front of his crew and attack the heart of our fair land. Of course, unlike my honourable friend and his Leveller colleagues, the Guardians of the Purist party currently hold the majority in parliament and so we are obliged to do more than just stand around letting off steam on the matter.’

Loud calls of approbation rose up from the government benches.

‘We have consulted with the Admiralty and Greenhall, and with the assistance of the order of worldsingers, the cabinet has arrived at a plan of action to ensure this terrible tragedy does not reoccur.’