The Court of the Air

enough from his limited vantage point.

Oliver crept back down to the ground floor and lifted a key from under the stairs, then quietly unlocked the door to the drawing room. Inside, the fireplace’s flue ran upwards through to the study, opening into a grill above, the only source of warmth for the study during the cold winter nights at Hundred Locks. As Oliver had discovered, where heat carries upward, the sounds of conversation echo downward. Oliver placed his ear to the opening. Outside, the first evening stars were appearing. Before midnight, all seventy stars the grey limestone house was named after would be visible. His uncle and his guest’s voices were not raised and Oliver had to strain to catch snippets of the conversation.

‘Trouble — counting on a commo plan — compromised-’ His uncle.

‘If it is — think they — hostile service — learn-’ The dis reputable Stave.

‘This time — up to — in the black-’

Oliver leant forward as much as he dared. There was a familiar tapping. His uncle clearing his mumbleweed pipe on the side of his desk.

‘Will they be coming-’ Harry Stave.

‘Our friends in the east?’ Uncle Titus.

The East? Oliver’s eyes widened. The Holy Empire of Kikkosico lay northeast. And directly east lay Quatershift — but no friends there. Not since the Two-Year War.

In defeat, the Commonshare of Quatershift had completely sealed its land border, hexing up a cursewall between the two nations; to deter any of her own compatriots who developed a yearning to leave Quatershift’s revolution-racked land, as well as putting off military incursions by the Jackelians. There was no official trade with the shifties, although smugglers still landed cargoes of brandy along the coast, where moonrakers could evade the attentions of officers from the customs house. Like all the children in Hundred Locks, Oliver had been severely warned never to stray into the hinterlands east of the town, where only the shadows of patrolling aerostats and the odd garrison of redcoats and border foot lay dotted across the wind-blighted moors.

‘A dirty game-’ Harry Stave.

‘Already — in the wind-’ Uncle Titus. There was a rasp as a chair was pulled back. ‘Two of my people dead-’

Dead! Oliver caught his breath. What foul business had Harry Stave involved his uncle in? Was their warehouse in Shipman Town concealing casks of untaxed brandy? Had officers from the customs house been murdered on some small rocky harbour in the mountains above?

A sudden realization struck Oliver. His uncle had never revealed the full extent of his business dealings to him. Oliver ran errands and gleaned what he could, learning piecemeal from the occasional tale of which factor could be trusted to deal fairly, which clipper captain might be tempted to skim a cargo. Only his uncle was at the centre — none of his staff. Even Oliver could see the interests of those in the warehouse never stretched — or were allowed to stretch — further than Shipman Town’s wharves. Was this more than a cautious nature? Or did the left hand’s ignorance of the right hand’s dealings stem from the need to keep Uncle Titus from dangling on the wrong end of a hangman’s rope outside Bonegate gaol?

There was more scraping of chairs from upstairs and Oliver silently slid the drawing room door shut, then climbed into his bed on the ground floor. Damson Griggs had the measure of Harry Stave, it seemed. But just how deep did his uncle’s involvement go? Oliver felt the sting of shame as his immediate reaction to the thought of his uncle being thrown into prison was not concern for his sole surviving relative, but worry for his own fate. His uncle had already risked exile from what passed for polite society at Hundred Locks for keeping a registered boy under his roof, but no, the unworthy Oliver Brooks was more concerned about what might happen to his own neck.

If Uncle Titus were incarcerated, he would be left with no chance of employment at Hundred Locks, no future save the cold unwelcoming gates of the local Poor Board. He shivered at the thought. The county of Lightshire’s poor and down on their luck had enough problems of their own; a registered boy being thrown into their midst might be the final straw. How much easier to arrange a small accident at night? A pillow slipped over his face and the unwelcome interloper smothered out of the poorhouse inhabitants’ lives.

His grey future, ensnared between the invisible walls of his prison-in-exile at Hundred Locks, was growing smaller and smaller as he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

Chapter Three

Surveillant Forty-six nudged the telescope a touch to the left with the foot pedal. It took a couple of seconds for the transaction engine to balance the array of mirrors, the image in the rubber face-glove losing focus before returning to sharpness with a clack — clack — clack. From the corner of his eye, Surveillant Forty-six could see the other surveillants riding the cantilevered brass tubes, cushioned red seats attached underneath the large cannon shapes of the telescopes.

The scopes followed the arc of the monitorarium, curving around the inside wall of the sphere. A gantry and rail ran behind their telescopes, monitors in grey court-issue greatcoats treading the iron plates. You could almost see the chill in the monitorarium — no heat that might interfere with the operation of the viewings.

‘Your report please.’ It was Monitor Eighty-one. She was always brusque and efficient. The wires in his earphones looped back to the gantry, to a voice trumpet where Eighty-one was bending down to speak.

The monitor was one of the new batch, fresh out of training, one of the ones who thought that relaying reports through, was the same as reporting to. He harrumphed. She lacked even the slight worldsinger craft the surveillants practised. Kicking her feet along the gantry in her fur- lined boots to prevent frostbite, unable to heat her body with her mind. Wearing one of the surveillant’s own leather skins would see her frozen to death in a telescope sling before the end of her first watch. Unable even to modify her blood after sampling one of the many potions the surveillants took to stay awake and focused, weeks at a shift.

‘This unit is still pulling slightly to the left,’ complained Surveillant Forty-six. ‘I thought a mechomancer had taken the telescope up to the maintenance level.’

‘Stop your whining,’ hissed the monitor. ‘This is a priority observation — someone could be listening. It might be for the old lady herself. You lose the plot on this job and there’ll be bloody analysts crawling all over us. Just give me your report.’

The surveillant held his tongue. Priority it may be, but not high enough to get his scope pulled out of the monitorarium and into the maintenance schedule, it seemed. ‘Target’s aerostat arrived at the Hundred Locks field as scheduled. Target was escorted to the contact’s house, as anticipated. Target has remained there for the last seven hours. Do you have any analyst predictions or instructions?’

‘There is an eighty-seven per cent chance the target will remain in the house for the next sixteen hours. Maintain surveillance.’

The surveillant sighed. ‘Preparing for night-time sighting.’ He pulled a drinking tube from the telescope, supping at the orange gloop that dribbled out. The potion warmed his skull as sparks fireworked across his eyes; the brew’s night vision would last until sunrise. As the liquid coursed through his body, he reached inside himself with one of the worldsinger magics, rendering the potion inert before it struck his liver, where the strange brew would have ruptured that organ into a broiled stew.

He gazed back into the rubber mask and centred the view on the smokeless chimney of Seventy Star Hall. True to form, the scope slid to the left. He cursed the bureaucrats of the Court. Silently.

Chapter Four

It was hard to predict when the Whisperer would come to Oliver in his dreams. Sometimes he could go for weeks without a visitation — other times the Whisperer might come four nights in a row.

Oliver was in a large palace somewhere, his uncle, Damson Griggs and others running through the corridors,