the shepherds of equality — and this is the best counsel you can offer!’
‘It is a matter of probabilities,’ said one who had been an engine man at Greenhall. ‘A new descendant of Vindex with the talent to control the Hexmachina has emerged, or they might have been here all the time with their blood code unrecorded. Some of the distant parishes are tardy with their registrations.’
‘But the operators always come here,’ shrieked Tzlayloc. ‘Always! Drawn by the last of those infernal machines. Wake your transaction engine pet up; set it on the Greenhall records again. If there is a new operator you will find them. I need their blood and I need their pain.’
‘What of this one?’ said the locust priest, pointing at Molly. ‘We can drain her blood for the vat.’
Tzlayloc hit the locust priest in the face, knocking him to the ground. ‘Fool of a shepherd. Look at her; she is perfect — abandoned by the tyranny, a ward of the poorhouse, brave and beautiful. She has more fight in her than a dozen brilliant men. If there is another operator they will most likely be of the same ilk as the other catches of the Pitt Hill teams — burghers, councillors, silks and the indolent brood of the oppressors. Would you have us raise statues to some young martyred quality worth ten thousand guineas a year?’ He caressed Molly’s soaking red locks. ‘No, she is perfect. Throw her back in the cells, give her food and let her recover. We shall decide which operator feeds the vat and which gets the cross after we uncover the identity of the new talent.’
The locust priest Tzlayloc had admonished grovelled at the leader’s feet. ‘Let me lead a force into the tunnels to track down the Hexmachina, Compatriot Tzlayloc. Let me find the filthy device and destroy it for the cause.’
‘No,’ said the rebel king. ‘Perhaps I have been too hard on you, compatriot shepherd. You have read from the texts I recovered, but you have no idea of the cunning of the Hexmachina, how deep it swims now, whispering murmurs of affection to the molten dirt. It scampers through tunnels so deep the crystals that controlled the earthflow have long since melted there. You have no conception of the heat down below and there are other dangers besides lava surges. Just hearing the echoes of the Hexmachina muttering to itself would drive you mad. No mug-hunter, topper or soldier of the cause could hunt the ferocious thing.’
He placed a kindly hand on the kneeling priest’s head. ‘No. We shall have to bait our trap again. I cannot afford to waste the lives of those loyal to the cause.’ Tzlayloc drew out an obsidian dagger and sliced the priest’s throat. ‘Not when the guarantors of the revolution hunger for the souls of those too foolish to lead the people to freedom.’
With almost indecent eagerness the other locust priests fell upon their brother, holding him down while Tzlayloc carved the heart out of his chest. ‘Xam-ku, Toxicatl,’ he called. ‘Cruatolatl and Bruaxochima.’
As the crystals in the ceiling flared, black outlines of man-insects appeared fleetingly, the locust priests echoing the shouts of Tzlayloc in the excitement of the offering. The King of Grimhope pointed to the coals. ‘Fry the heart quickly. It loses its taste if it is left in the air too long.’
Two soldiers dragged the carcass of the lifeless locust priest down the steps of the ziggurat and along the wide subterranean boulevard. In the shadows of one of the buildings something watched and hissed to itself in two voices.
‘Another body. The old ones are stronger now.’
‘We can help, she said-’
‘-not yet time.’
‘We must time it right.’
‘So we must. Shhhh.’
It slunk back into the shadows, whispering to itself.
Molly woke up in the cell. It seemed inappropriate that after enduring so much pain for so long her body could now seem fresh, alive and unmarked. The commodore came over to her. ‘Ah, lass, I feared they might have driven you insane with their unholy tortures.’
‘Commodore; or should I call you Samson?’
‘Let that old name rest,’ said the commodore. ‘It has brought its line nothing but misery. In another world where Isambard Kirkhill never made his mischief I would have been proud to bear my noble title and partake of the luxuries that would have been mine. But in this world it’s better to be poor old Blacky, rather than an outlaw by a wicked accident of birth.’
She looked over at Nickleby who was asleep, sweating. He did not look well, clutching his bloody stump of an arm. There were two others in the cell. A large fierce-looking steamman and a boy with tattered clothing — perhaps a year older than her.
‘Who are they?’
‘Two bad turns, that’s for sure,’ said the commodore. ‘Our jailers swear he is feybreed and have posted Special Guards down the corridor to make sure he doesn’t escape. I think he’s been touched by the moonlight — but you should hear his blessed laugh. It’s like a demon cackling and he sits there and talks to himself sometimes.’ Black pointed to an open cell opposite their own; there was an ugly black gun-like thing and a rusty old knife sealed inside a crystal case, and a brace of more normal-looking pistols next door to it. The blade of the knife seemed to be writhing and twisting like a snake. ‘That dark gun is alive. Sometimes the boy and the steamman call out to it and you can just hear it answer back from under the glass. The boy’s friend is a vicious one for sure, not like our gentle old Coppertracks. Stay well clear of that hammer, lass, or he’ll split your pretty skull.’
Molly peered through the bars, trying to look down the walkway. She could not see anything. ‘Guardsmen. They should be smashing this bloody place up.’
‘They’re helping that devil of a revolutionary, Molly. No chance for us now, lass. Nickleby and me are to be measured up for metal suits in an hour. By tomorrow night we’ll both be fit for naught but mu-bodies for poor old Coppertracks. Clunking around these infernal caverns like metal ghosts, toiling like slaves for Tzlayloc and his mortal evil schemes.’
Molly hugged the submariner. ‘I’m sorry, commodore. This is my fault. You tried to help me and now you are both going to end up like Sainty and the rest of the Sun Gate workhouse.’
‘No tears for Blacky, now,’ said the commodore. ‘My stars have seen me cheating death since the day I was born on my ancient old boat. Better I perish down here than get thrown into the royal breeding house as a prize heifer expected to serve parliament’s cruel pleasure.’
Molly went over towards the four-legged steamman.
‘Leave him alone,’ said Oliver. ‘He’s in no mood to be a spectacle to a Middlesteel street urchin.’
‘Who are you?’ retorted Molly. ‘His mother? He’s in pain.’
‘Let me suffer,’ groaned Steamswipe. ‘I have failed the duty charged to me by King Steam for a second time. This fate is all I deserve.’
‘You are drawing too much power for your body-to-weight profile,’ said Molly, scooping up a handful of mud from the floor and shaping it over the rents in his stack. ‘And you are no good to King Steam lying here on the floor feeling sorry for yourself.’
Steamswipe breathed a sigh of relief, the red light behind his visor growing brighter. Molly popped a hatch in his belly armour and started to work on the steamman knight’s innards, her fingers pushing cogs back in place, adjusting boards and pulling out broken components.
‘You’re
‘Quiet,’ said Molly. ‘How can I work with you twittering on?’
Marching boots sounded down the corridor and Molly closed the hatch, hiding what she had been doing with her body.
Captain Flare appeared outside their cell, a boy by his side, the only one in the captain’s retinue not in a guardsman’s uniform. He looked familiar to Oliver, the subject of a hundred vicious caricatures by the penny sheets’ illustrators.
‘Dear Circle,’ said Molly. ‘Prince Alpheus!’
Oliver stood up. ‘Have you come to gloat? You couldn’t have taken me without half the guard at your back.’
‘Perhaps,’ said the captain. He held up a sheaf of papers. ‘I have your registration records, Oliver Brooks. The worldsingers did not know what you are and neither did Tzlayloc’s killers. You’re not a wolftaker; I have confirmation of that from the horse’s mouth. You seem to have wandered into all this by accident.’
‘When your friends murdered my family it was not an accident.’
‘It was the Court of the Air’s own people who did that. At least, the ones loyal to Tzlayloc.’
‘Why are you here, guardsman?’ said Molly. ‘You’re meant to be protecting us.’
