The Court of the Air

‘What in the name of the Circle are you, my friend?’

‘You can think of me as your conscience,’ hissed the Whisperer.

‘My conscience sure got mean since I last used it.’

‘No false modesty now,’ said the Whisperer, ‘your conscience gets out more than I do. All those secret payments to the widows and the children, the food for the miners with limbs as mangled as mine.’

The dream seemed more vivid than usual. The reverend looked around the church with unnatural clarity. ‘My conscience seems very well informed today, sir.’

‘I like your mind, old man. It’s as still as that graveyard you tend, and has as many secret tunnels buried away beneath it.’

‘We all have secrets,’ said the reverend, ‘and a tale to tell. Behind that flesh of yours, for instance.’

‘Ah, but my story is a mere abbreviation in comparison to yours, old man,’ said the Whisperer. ‘What’s to tell? A feymist rising and a sleeping child in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘The lives of half the Special Guard began that way.’

‘You should take a tour of Hawklam Asylum some time, old man. Poke a stick between the bars of the low- risk feybreed with all the other curious ladies and gentleman of Middlesteel. You would see how most of our stories end up.’

‘So you are connected to the boy.’

‘So I am,’ said the Whisperer. ‘I’ve been having a little trouble getting into Oliver’s dreams of late. His body’s defences seem to be reacting to me as a threat after I had to pour a little unpleasant fey medicine down his throat.’

‘Lucky him.’

‘Don’t be like that, old man. I’m only trying to steer him in the right direction.’

‘Yes, but right for who?’ said the reverend.

‘That sounds a little sanctimonious coming from you, preacher,’ hissed the Whisperer. ‘You used to redraw the line between right and wrong all the time. Or maybe you’ve forgotten? The Circlelaw by day, the mask and the black horse by night. Who was ever going to suspect you?’

‘The money went to those who needed it,’ said the reverend.

‘I believe you will find the counting houses and merchants you relieved of all that gold thought they needed it,’ said the Whisperer.

‘They were wrong.’

‘Don’t think I disapprove,’ said the Whisperer. ‘Quite the opposite in fact. You remember when you were given the box, when you found him half-dead in your old vicar’s church? Now it’s time to pass the box on.’

‘You’re talking about the boy.’

The Whisperer’s limbs twitched, but his silence spoke for him.

‘Don’t you think he’s been cursed enough? Given wild blood, chased away from his home in the company of those two killers.’

‘It’s time to pass the box on, old man. It’s time for him to ride again.’

‘I won’t do it to the boy,’ said the reverend. ‘I’ve spent the last two decades trying to forget what I was.’

‘But you can’t, can you, old man? You’re like a worldsinger trying to meditate away the urge for another sniff of petal dust. The box calls to you, doesn’t it? It sings to be opened, to make you feel alive again — to make the night your cloak and make the wicked suffer under your heel.’

‘I will not let him out again,’ said the reverend. ‘I will not bear the responsibility for it.’

‘The responsibility was never yours to give,’ said the Whisperer.

‘Even if I could, Harold Stave will not let me.’

‘Now that’s the weasel in you talking,’ said the misshapen feybreed. ‘Stave knows about you, but he never knew about the box. As far as the Court is concerned the Hood-o’the-marsh died a long time ago. Give Oliver the box. If it’s time for him to ride, he will.’

‘That’s an awful thing to wish on a man.’

‘He may not live without it,’ said the Whisperer. ‘You may choose to hide yourself away in the smog of the mines but you have noticed all the odd little things going on in the city, haven’t you? The disappearances. The beatings. Out with the old, in with the new.’

‘I’m old,’ said the reverend, ‘but I am not blind yet.’

‘Well you don’t know the jigging half of it. There’s a storm coming and that line from the Circlelaw about where there is pain, ease it, that isn’t going to count for a whole lot soon, old fellow. Two ounces of mumbleweed without gate tax isn’t going to pay for a pauper’s funeral this time. All those hungry eyes of the children you had to bury — the ones that used to visit your nightmares — you better start laying in a fresh stack of small coffins.’

‘Get out of my head,’ cried the reverend.

‘Give him the box.’

‘He’s feybreed already,’ said the reverend. ‘Hasn’t he got witch powers?’

‘They seem a little shy right now,’ said the Whisperer, ‘and a bit too defensive for my tastes. And as you pointed out, Oliver is just a man. He’s been uprooted from everything that’s familiar, had what passes for a family cut out from underneath him. He is being hunted to ground like a fox by the order and the crushers for a crime he didn’t even commit. If a lifetime of hamblin contempt hadn’t made him so antisocial and contained to start with, this would have broken him. You can feel the anger within Oliver, old man. A sea of it. It needs a release. I need him released from the box and so does Jackals.’

The reverend crumpled back in his chair, feeling every one of his years. ‘I always thought I would die as the Hood-o’themarsh.’

‘You should have burnt the box,’ said the Whisperer.

‘You don’t think I didn’t try! I flung it into the furnaces up on the hill. The next morning I found it stored back in my chest under the blankets, waiting for me like a damn dog to be fed. That’s what you’re asking me to pass on.’

‘It’ll feed now,’ hissed the Whisperer. ‘It’s time for a banquet.’

Chapter Nineteen

They’re coming,’ shouted Nickleby from the window. A volley of silenced shots crackled off the thick walls of Tock House. Molly triggered her rifle and the recoil of the butt smashed painfully against her shoulder. She did not see where her shot landed — it was dark outside and the toppers were wearing uniforms blacker than a stack cleaner’s breeches.

‘Lean hard into the rifle, lass,’ said the commodore. ‘Don’t give it any room to dance about on you now.’

He rested his monstrous cannon on the open windowsill and fired it down into the grounds, all eight barrels spreading chaos below. Coppertracks’ drones ran behind them, taking discharged rifles, breaking them and emptying the shattered crystal charges into stone buckets. One of the mu-bodies passed a reloaded rifle to Molly. Coppertracks stood obscured behind the workbench and the blood machine, lying silent now the servants of his id were helping repel the attack.

‘Aliquot,’ called the commodore. ‘Will you busy yourself over here, we’re fighting for our blessed lives.’

Coppertracks did not reply, but from outside the night was filled with screams. Sharparms was galloping through the darkness spearing toppers with his piston arms. He had waited hidden in the tree line until the assault force had gathered in strength; now he was rampaging through the grounds like the dark conscience of the slipthinker, leaving murder and trampled softbodies in his wake.

‘You beautiful, frightful thing,’ called the commodore. ‘But I’m still glad we’ve four thick walls between us and you.’

As the toppers tried to assemble to meet the threat Sharparms would crash through the wood, the ghostly chatter of his spear arms moving in and out before he vanished into the tree line, reappearing in their midst from another angle.