The Court of the Air

Davenport looked down at the fuel being fed into the furnace by the equalized workers. ‘These are books, Compatriot Coordinator.’

‘Supplies of coal have run low, Compatriot Davenport,’ said the company leader, indicating the snow. ‘Your concern does you credit — but the books are an adequate fuel source and you will not find any copies of Community and the Commons among them.’

Of course, there was only one book for the land now. She took a shovel from the company leader and joined the others digging out piles of books and tossing them into the flames of the furnace. She did not feel the heat from the furnace, but then she did not feel the cold either; she knew what the temperature was, her body could tell her that. She just did not feel it. Piercing screams from the figure on the cross nearly made her spill a blade full of tomes onto the snow. ‘Who is that?’

One of her co-workers turned his voicebox in her direction. ‘The King.’

‘The King? But he is dead, isn’t he?’

‘The new King.’

‘Oh dear.’ She looked at the distant figure writhing on the cross. She must have missed the coronation festival. Everyone back home had so been looking forward to that — she had been building up a little store of rotten fruit for weeks in her room, just so she could throw it on coronation day. Bitterly disappointed, she went back to feeding the fires of the Gideon’s Collar.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Glass grenades hurled by the riders blew apart the barricade on the bridge, horses arrowing through the cordon to join those who had already leapt the line of bayonets. Oliver slashed down with his blade, the hex-heavy knife forming itself into the perfect simulacrum of a curved sabre. In front of him the gypsy witch twirled a whip of fire across the nearest Third Brigade trooper. Oliver ducked the rifle bullet coming towards his skull, pulling a belt pistol out and killing the marksman. To his left he deflected a bayonet with the flat of his sabre, and then turned a boot to kick the soldier down to the ground.

It was strange fighting on horseback, the weight of the sixer striking fear into the hearts of the soldiers on the ground, the height making it easy for him to slice down, but raising him into the line of fire at the same time. With a cry of vengeance the gypsy witch launched herself off the mount and fell into the melee like a flaming comet. The Commonshare had driven her off her lands in Quatershift and the invaders would pay a blood price for trying to repeat their purges in Jackals.

Oliver looked over the bridge rail and saw the commodore’s tub floating down the watery green surf of the Gambleflowers unmolested by the troops on the bridge. He did not hesitate but pulled himself forward on the horse and took control, kicking its flanks forward and surging out of the scrum. Oliver galloped past a knot of wounded Third Brigade men being pulled back by their compatriots, abandoning the fight behind him for the city. Soon he was into the heart of Middlesteel, windows iced over and dark, the few people out scrabbling for food disappearing as he charged past.

Oliver whispered to the horse using gypsy words that came to him — and the mare increased her speed. He smelled Hawklam Asylum before he saw it, the bonfire smell of the cursewall on the hill, the air shimmering as flecks of snow drifted into its shield. There was a normal wall first, to protect the citizens of Middlesteel from blundering through the worldsinger’s barrier. Not entirely necessary. Anyone who was not put off by the evil whine it made was probably past caring. Oliver let his perception extend through the asylum gatehouse, his senses spreading and diffusing across Hawklam Hill; but lacking control he started being pulled part, diffusing himself too wide. With a wrench of concentration he pulled himself back together again, reassembling the jigsaw of his consciousness. He had touched the worldsingers inside and he had tasted their minds, noted the subtle differences. The Jackelian order had been reinforced with Quatershiftian sorcerers. Their mastery of the worldsong had created more in common between them than any differences of nation, politics and race. All over Middlesteel the Jackelians were fighting for their freedom, but up here it was business as usual. The wild fey had to be contained, that was something both sides agreed on.

In his anger Oliver had not noticed that he had climbed the boundary fence and wandered through the cursewall, leaving a hole in the shimmering barrier. He felt the thrum of the leylines in the bones of the earth, six great currents of power crossing at the top of Hawklam Hill. The mound had been a place of power and superstition for as long as Jackelians had lived in these lands. Ancient religions had raised standing stones here, spilt blood here, tracked the dance of the stars and buried war chiefs here. So much earthflow, so much power.

The front door of the asylum was a steel barrier as thick as the hull on a submarine war craft; they had sealed Hawklam when the invasion started. No fey to escape during the fighting.

Oliver rapped on the door with the hilt of his witch-blade and a viewing slot opened, the grooves of a man- sized portal visible within the larger black barrier.

‘How did you get up the hill?’ a voice demanded. ‘The gate-house has not admitted anyone.’

‘Who do you serve?’ asked Oliver.

‘What?’ The voice on the other side sounded confused.

‘I would like to know,’ said Oliver. ‘The order of world singers served the old kings, then it served the House of Guardians. In Quatershift it served the monarchy then the Commonshare. So I would like to know, is there anyone you jiggers won’t whore yourselves out to, to protect your privileges and station?’

A jailer pushed the worldsinger on door duty away and looked through the sally port. ‘Clear off you young idiot. If you make me open this door I’ll beat you to within an inch of your life and toss you back in the street.’

‘I will give you one chance,’ said Oliver. ‘Bring the feybreed Nathaniel Harwood to me. Bring him to me now or I will take him from you.’

‘You’ll take the back of my hand from me, boy.’ The jailer shouted back to his colleagues, calling for reinforcements. ‘You think we’re bloody Bonegate? We don’t have a visiting day — we don’t let gawpers in to see the prisoners dance in their cages for a penny a poke.’

‘I haven’t come to see him dance,’ said Oliver, cutting out a circle in the barrier with his witch-blade, the black steel hissing. The metal fell back before the kick of his boot with a clang like a cathedral bell. ‘I have come to see you dance.’

He dipped through and into a firestorm of spells, chants and curses, a fury of energy tossed at him by a semi-circle of worldsingers. Oliver let them throw their sorceries at him, the leylines throbbing as the power of the land was manipulated and twisted against his body. The energies grew thinner as their assault expended its force, the anger and confidence the sorcerers felt slipping away to be replaced by surprise, changing to fear as he filled the entrance hall of the asylum with his laughter. Their attack faltered and stopped.

‘Oliver Brooks!’

Oliver saw the figure at the other end of the hall. ‘Inspector Pullinger. Here I was visiting one old friend and instead I find two.’

‘I was right,’ spat Edwin Pullinger. ‘I was right all the time about you.’

‘I took your advice, Inspector. I came to Middlesteel to join the Special Guard. But they seem to be collaborating with the shifties, as do you. Does that make me the last honest guardsman?’

Jailers in hex-covered armour were running up behind Pullinger, tugging out toxin clubs from their belts. ‘I always knew you were a dirty little fey boy,’ said the worldsinger. ‘One of the ones who would never let themselves be controlled.’

‘My father was a wolftaker, my mother was a demigod and my fate is my own. For you I am the hand of justice.’

‘You are too dangerous to have a torc burned around your neck,’ said the sorcerer. He pulled out a snuffbox and inhaled a pinch of purpletwist. ‘And now Jackals is operating under the laws of a Commonshare we no longer have to adhere to the tedious restrictions of the charter the House of Guardians forced on us.’

‘The law of the mailed fist,’ said Oliver in disgust. ‘The rule of do as you will. Then we are both free of the laws that used to bind us. Your worldsong can’t touch me. That is my power, inspector. I am not touched by the feymist. I am the feymist.’

‘And for that you will die.’