The Court of the Air

When she woke up the ceiling was moving, a sea of black rock sliding down and away from her. A stretcher- like affair of old mining stays and canvas lashed together by cable supported her stiff back. Things looked wrong. She was only seeing out of one eye. Her hand touched her face, feeling the swollen cheek blocking her right eye’s sight — and shouted in agony.

‘Molly,’ said a voice, ‘Are you conscious?’ The roof’s motion halted, plunging her stomach into nausea.

Molly’s good eye managed to catch sight of what had been dragging her: some kind of steamman — but it looked badly formed, hull plates were missing and exposed machinery twisted and turned through open spaces, an unholy rattling coming from the thing’s belly.

‘Is this the undercity? Where are my friends?’

‘They are dead, we think, Molly softbody,’ said the steamman. ‘There was an explosion, very large, most of the mine came down. But the enemy was protecting the atmospheric — we survived in the maintenance tube.’

‘We?’ Molly looked around. None of her companions were with her. Dead? Nickleby and the commodore, the warrior from Mechancia and his strange fey friend, even her deadly nemesis from Quatershift. No. No. But her last memory came back to her. The steamman knight throwing himself on top of the crystal grenade that had been tossed towards them — the explosion — the ground opening up beneath her feet, falling as an avalanche of rock pelted her sides. Then nothing. Her friends really were murdered. She was alone again, everyone who tried to protect her cut down. No wonder her mother had abandoned her on the steps of Sun Gate; she had obviously had a premonition of what her fate would be if she tried to look after her cursed child.

She might have been crying for hours before she felt one of the pincers of the steamman adjusting the torn fabric that had been pulled over her.

‘Molly,’ said the steamman. ‘Molly softbody, do you not recognize us?’

Her tears burnt like fire on her bruised cheek. ‘Have we met?’

‘We never thought we would see you again, Molly soft-body. After Grimhope, the repair room.’

‘Repair-’ she looked at the steamman, the shape of the hull pieces and the timbre of the voicebox. Some of the parts so familiar. But how?

‘It was straightforward, Molly softbody. The Hexmachina came to us and showed us how to join our bodies. Silver Onestack did not care, as he was already a desecration. But Slowcogs did not want to live that way, until the girl from the paintings opened his vision plate. Showed him the routes that would be travelled by the world if we did not combine. What would happen to you, Molly softbody.’

‘Dear sweet Circle,’ said Molly, reaching out to feel the warm metal of the steamman. ‘Slowcogs, Silver Onestack, you repaired yourself.’

‘We are joined, young softbody, fused by the will of the Hexmachina. We have violated the law of the Steamo Loas, cannibalized our own flesh, but she is of a higher order and we would do it again. Do it again to save you, Molly.’

‘I would not have asked you to do this,’ said Molly.

‘We know.’ The ruined steamman began to pull at the stretcher again. ‘And that is why we must.’

Molly felt a wave of gratitude towards the brave ramshackle steammen who had suffered so much on her account. ‘Circle’s turn, thank you…’

‘…Silver Slowstack. Both of us have been stripped of our true names now, but this is our chosen common designation.’

‘Slowstack, where can we go? Jackals is being invaded, the undercity has fallen to the same evil. There’s nowhere safe for us to run to. When they sense I am still alive they will come after me again.’

‘She is approaching, Molly softbody. Warmed by the oceans of lava no longer, she climbs towards us and we must venture down to convene with her. The Hexmachina, Molly. She needs an operator. She needs you!’

Outside the palace the sounds of fighting had grown sporadic. There were still fires burning across the city, but most of them were the result of the surprise attack the previous night — crystalgrid stations taken offline, grenades tossed through the windows of police stations, the barracks of the Sixth Foot and the Guardian Horse Guards stormed.

It was a novel experience for Prince Alpheus to stand on the balcony and watch the city without having to endure a shower of rotten fruit and stones from the street. In the square below rows of people knelt facing the palace, a strange keening sound humming in their throats. It had started snowing last night and flurries of white flakes were still falling on the people in the square. Middlesteel was used to fogs from the mills and the dirty miasma of industry, but snow in the heart of summer?

Bonefire came out onto the balcony and looked over Captain Flare’s shoulder at the crowds. ‘What’s a man to do to get some sleep around here? Who the hell are they — that’s a Circlist mantra, isn’t it?’

‘They’ve been chanting for nearly an hour,’ said Prince Alpheus. ‘The first ones arrived from the morning congregations before the shifties started shutting down the churches. They were crying for help, begging at the gates for the Special Guard to come out of their barracks.’

Bonefire pointed to the cart of purple-robed bodies piled by the gate. It was amazing that there were still worldsingers in Jackals who thought that the suicide torcs on the guards’ necks actually worked. ‘Let them go to the order and beg for help. See if their hamblin magicians can beat off the shifties without the guards’ assistance.’

‘They’re not chanting for you,’ said the prince to Bonefire. ‘They’re chanting for me.’

‘You!’ Bonefire laughed.

‘The old legend,’ said Captain Flare. ‘The sleeping kings. When Jackals is threatened the first kings will waken from underneath the hills of Elmorgan.’

Bonefire started laughing so hard tears rolled down his face. ‘The pup? The pup is going to save them? Oh that’s good.’ He stretched his arm out and fired a volley of blue pain-fire towards the chanting crowd. ‘Chant louder, you filthy hamblin jiggers. I can’t hear you.’

Flare slapped his arm down. ‘That’s enough, Bonefire.’

‘What do you care? Let them dance a little before we leave this bloody prison.’

At one end of the square a line of equalized soldiers appeared, metal shoulders covered in snow. Marching forward they surrounded the chanting Jackelians in a corner of the square, beating to death with a flurry of iron fists any that tried to flee past their lines. Carts loaded with large wooden boxes were pulled into the centre of the square, blue-uniformed Commonshare troops unloading them into the space that had been cleared.

A shiftie officer stood on one of the wagons, a Commonshare worldsinger by his side, amplifying his voice as it filled the square. ‘By order of the First Committee of the Commonshare of Jackals, any gathering of three individuals or more not licensed by prior arrangement with the First Committee shall be classified as counter- revolutionary activity. Secondly, by order of the First Committee of the Commonshare of Jackals, the Circlist philosophy has been classified as an uncommunityist activity and is henceforth banned. The punishment for violation of either of these two rulings of the people is excommunication from the commonality and fellowship of the state.’

People trapped behind the line of equalized troops cried out in fear and anger until the more vocal complainants were beaten down with sabres and rifle butts. Most of them had read enough in the Middlesteel penny sheets about the early days of the revolution across the border in Quatershift to recognize the euphemism used by the Carlists when they shoved members of the old regime through a Gideon’s Collar. Excommunication from the commonality and fellowship of the state.

Bonefire watched the erection of the massive meat-processing machine in the centre of the square in fascination. ‘They’ll let us go down and watch, you think?’

‘Those are Jackelians,’ said Prince Alpheus. ‘They are our people.’

‘We are your people now, pup. They are hamblins. I can go down and get them to throw a few jinn bottles up at you if you need reminding.’

‘Come on, Alpheus,’ said Flare. ‘We need to check the stores for when we travel south.’

‘Let the pup stay,’ called the Special Guardsman as they left. ‘I used to watch them give jiggers the rope outside Bonegate when I was a lad. It never did me any harm.’

Outside, the Commonshare’s military engineers raised the frame of the Gideon’s Collar with the ease that comes only from practice.

Damson Davenport peered out of the door’s peephole at the Quatershiftian soldiers. They banged harder. She opened the door and they cuffed it aside before she could take it off its chain, breaking the lock and seizing her