‘Our captors are the beasts that slaughtered the survivors of the airship crash we found,’ said Veryann. ‘Ironflanks intimated in the jungle that the masters of this territory are the architects of the gas wall the
The commodore clutched a handkerchief to his nose. ‘Ah, Coppertracks, my fine old friend, I should have listened to you back in Jackals. He said there were dark things in Liongeli that he would not speak of and fool that I am I ignored his mortal advice — left the comforts of Tock House and plunged into this green hell blinded by the inducements of the great Abraham Quest.’
‘He offered you what you wanted,’ said Veryann. ‘He offered all of you what you wanted. For you, Jared Black, a chance to get the
‘And what did he offer you?’ T’ricola asked Veryann.
‘My honour and my life,’ said Veryann. ‘For the soldiers of a free company the two are indivisible.’
‘There we are then,’ said the commodore. ‘We’ve all got what we wanted, fine and sure now. For Ironflanks his chest of silver Jackelian guineas he will never spend, for me a beautiful boat that has been stolen away by my scheming nephew, and for you, your warrior’s death at the hands of some feral steamers.’
‘I do not welcome death,’ said Veryann. ‘But I do not fear it.’
The commodore took off his jacket, his shirt covered in sweat from the heat of the pit below. ‘Noble words, lass, but it’ll break old Blacky’s heart to see your golden head dangling like a shrunken apple on the necklace of the terrible beasts that have taken us.’
There was a jolt on the cage and it began to be lifted out of the steam of the bubbling black oil, raised high on its joist. As they cleared the wall of petrol mist they saw the village of their captors stretched out below, geodesic domes in the same style as the encampments the steammen knights set up when on campaign, covered by creepers and jungle bush. It had been raining an hour before, a deluge that had left puddles in the mud, each pool broiling now with the return of the febrile heat. When the arm holding them swung across to the ground, they had a brief glimpse of a second pit next to theirs, deeper, but not filled with oil. The head of Queen Three-eyes turned towards their cage, a brief look of recognition in her eyes as she caught the scent of her fellow prisoners, followed by disappointment that her mortal enemy Ironflanks did not count among their number. She may have been free of the bubble-like substance that had trapped her, but the queen of Liongeli was as much a prisoner as the officers from the
On the ground a small party of natives waited for them, their metal bodies filed down, sharp razors visible on any hull-part not covered by animal furs and shell armour scalped from craynarbian tribesmen. All but one of their reception committee were hulking things, steel gorillas that hissed steam from outlets along their armour while they waited. The odd tribesman out was a quarter of his companions’ size. He wore a cheetah cape and a segmented metal tail swung behind him as he capered to and fro, poking at the air with a rusty iron staff topped with an eagle sculpture. Dirty water leaked across the cage floor as the box thumped down, one of the tribe inserting his hand in the door lock — interfacing with the cage and springing their door open. The commodore looked on with interest. He knew a thing or two about locks, and the primitive appearance of their captors belied the sophistication of the cage the expedition members had been held in. These tribesmen might look like feral skull hunters, but there were few properties back in Middlesteel that had such well-protected doors.
‘What have you done with our scout?’ Veryann demanded as she stepped out. ‘Why have you separated Ironflanks from our company?’
The small steamman danced in amusement. ‘Ironflanks is an old friend and now he is an uneasy rider.’
‘Uneasy rider? Are you talking about the Steamo Loas, is Ironflanks being ridden by one of your blessed spirits?’ said the commodore, shuddering. The steamman gods had always made him nervous. Ever since one of the Loas had ridden Coppertracks and his warrior mu-bodies on the Isla Needless, driving off an attack of the rock-like creatures that bided there. The steammen gods were fickle things and numerous — you could never tell which of them might come calling when invited in during the Gear-gi-ju rituals.
The commodore’s question seemed to tickle the little metal creature, steam shrieking out of his stacks. ‘Once a Loa, once a Loa, you fat hairless monkey.’
There were no more half-answers forthcoming and the exped ition officers were led into a passage deep into the jungle covered by steel netting over arched girders — the rib bones of a mechanical whale holding out the press of the forest. Billy Snow had been right, there was something animal-like about these things. They had a strutting gait quite unlike that of the calm, meticulous steammen found back in Middlesteel. Their path through the jungle led them to a rocky hillock, a crumbling temple carved into the rock face. Whoever the original architect of the construction might have been, their artifice had been chiselled over and carved out with new statues and bas-reliefs — crudely done, but obviously remade into the form of steammen.
‘I thought your people lacked an eye for art,’ muttered the commodore.
‘Not to be confusing us with the people of the metal in your monkey land,’ said the guide. ‘We follow the true path of Lord Two-Tar.’
‘And I’m sure a fine path it is too,’ said the commodore. ‘But how about you let us leave now, rather than be bothering about a miserable small band of travellers just making their honest way through Liongeli?’
‘But you are our guests,’ giggled the little creature. ‘We have a duty to entertain you. Or is it the other way around? It is so easy to be confused.’
Inside, the temple corridors were lit — barely — by jagged green crystals wired to chemical batteries in braziers, the steam and fizz of wild energy lost as the sound of drums grew louder. The officers were jabbed forward into a wide shadowed chamber under the centre of the hill, straight into the middle of a frenzied celebration — creatures of the metal ducking and turning in front of a pit filled with red molten coals. Many of the wild steammen had worked themselves into a manic frenzy and were detaching limbs — arms, legs, vision plates, voiceboxes — and fixing them on a spiked totem pole, then grabbing other pieces of assembly and pressing their new components into the burning coals before thrusting them into their empty sockets and continuing their dance. As a result of this insane limb-trading some of the tribesmen were loping on arm pincers or swinging legs from their shoulder sockets.
The expedition members found themselves in front of a pool containing the same black oil that had filled the prison pit. A steamman luxuriated on his back — almost corpulent in his design, a massive belly slick with oil, round lines broken by a brush of golden metal curls running down the side of his frog-like mask of a face.
Raising a goblet spilling with oil, the bathing steamman seemed to toast them. ‘So, these are the hairless monkeys that were on Queen Three-eyes’ supper menu? Mark me, they hardly look fit to be an appetizer for the thunder lizard.’
‘And don’t think we are not grateful to you for rescuing us,’ said the commodore. ‘You can have the thanks of old Blacky before we continue on our way in peace.’
‘Silence!’ The guards struck their prisoners with their needle-lined fists. ‘You do not address Prince Doublemetal without his permission.’
‘Well. Perhaps this fat ape might give Queen Three-eyes a few mouthfuls before he is made deactivate,’ mused the corpulent steamman. ‘Though in truth, I grow weary of what sport there is in seeing thunder lizards rip apart softbodies. It is all over so quickly. What do you think of that, fat little monkey, do you think that you might run fast enough to last more than a few seconds in the pit?’
‘I’m a great one for running,’ said the commodore. ‘I’ve something of a royal title myself and it’s made me a mite unpopular back in Jackals, although I have found the steammen back home to be a little more forgiving in that regard than the race of man.’
The chief of the wild things sat up and oil dripped off the gold curls moulded onto his chest assembly. ‘Oh ho, do not dare compare the siltempters with the people of the metal, my noble-titled monkey friend. We have advanced far beyond their meagre ambitions. We call Loas that they shun, receive wisdom that their slaves’ boiler hearts are too small to contain. We change our own bodies, swap parts as it pleases us — why, I even allow the most courageous of my siltempters to function with cogs and crystals that have once been part of my own august being!’
‘Very wise,’ agreed the commodore.
Prince Doublemetal raised an arm out of the bath and pointed it accusingly at the expedition members. ‘What do you want with the sixth?’
