Jack Cloudie

mount one of those flying monstrosities you sally about on, d’you see, and if truth be known, I still suffer from air sickness after all these years.’

Omar cranked open the hatch door to the Iron Partridge while he and the other guardsman pushed down Jack and Jericho’s heads to enter, allowing them to slip their wrist knots as they entered the airship.

‘I shall keep my vow to my father’s shade, now, Jack Keats,’ pledged Omar. ‘If the grand vizier is inside the citadel, then so is that beast Salwa. And I will see them both suffer for what they have done to the woman I loved, to my people and my house.’

‘I’ll ask that god of yours to see you through to success,’ said Jack. If he’ll listen to a Jackelian heathen.

As the hatch closed, Captain Jericho called out, ‘A word of advice, guardsman, passed down from an old soldier. The trick isn’t what you do when you’re fighting; it’s more often what you do when you’re not.’ He turned back to Jack as the door clanged shut. ‘An honest hard pounding, Mister Keats, trading shots vessel to vessel. A lot better for us than all that skulking about in the shadows that the State Protection Board’s agents seem to enjoy so much, wouldn’t you say?’

‘The transaction-engine chamber will stand ready, sir.’

‘I trust that will be the case,’ said Jericho. ‘And Mister Keats …’

‘Sir?’

‘I don’t have any living descendents. When waterman’s sickness claimed m’wife, it took m’poor boy too. Before we left the Kingdom, I took the liberty of bequeathing m’navy pension to your two young brothers. The admiralty’s generosity verges on the skimpy, but it will be enough to secure them both means outside the workhouse.’

Jack felt his heart beat fast within his chest and for a second he did not know what to say to this mercurial, flame-haired officer. My captain.

‘Thank you, truly.’ It doesn’t matter if I die, now. Saul and Alan will have a future. They’re free! Whatever happens here, they’re free.

‘To your post, boy. Run. No dawdling now. Keep m’calculation drums turning and our course true, and we shall see what fashion in tactics these late additions to the party have to bring to our little soiree.’

Jack felt the deck lurch, as the connector arm to their nose lock was set free. The skipper was already down the corridor, his booming voice barking commands and banging on hatches.

However imperfectly crafted, the Iron Partridge had been manufactured for war.

Now, finally, she was to have one.

Omar, Boulous, Farris Uddin and the six elite guardsmen fighters in their party had concealed their pistols and scimitars under stolen womb mages’ robes. Along with the white facemasks they had tied over their mouths, the disguise was completed with the addition of a small paper skullcap to tie down their hair.

Omar could not contain his triumph at having discovered the womb mages’ robing room, which had also furnished disguises for their Jackelian friends who had since set off on their own mission, and come up with the suggestion of arranging their raiding party to resemble the mumbling line of sorcerers he had seen in the womb mages’ lair under the palace.

‘You are a little too eager to march down into the citadel, Cadet Barir,’ warned Farris Uddin as he adjusted the robes over his uniform. ‘Remember that we have come for the true Caliph Eternal. His freedom is our victory — nothing else. A little hatred keeps you alive, too much will make you dead.’

But it’s not a little hatred I feel towards Shadisa’s killers. I burn with it. My body is filled with it. My soul is a sea of it. ‘And which of the many men that you have been coined that saying, Master Uddin?’

‘All the uniforms I have worn across the years have been in the service of the Caliph Eternal,’ rebuked the commander. ‘As have all my faces. Although not quite as many as the hundred faces of the one true god, for that would be a blasphemy.’

‘You have my sword, Master Uddin,’ said Omar. ‘May the hundred faces of heaven smile on me when I sink it into those who deserve it.’

‘I have always had your sword,’ said Farris Uddin. He dipped his scimitar out from under the womb mage’s mantle. ‘For the true Caliph Eternal and the empire. Are we sworn to it?’

The others raised their swords and joined them in a circle of shining steel.

‘For thousands of years the bloodline of Ben Issman, his name be blessed, has ruled as Caliph Eternal on the throne of empire. Let us see what manner of man Immed Zahharl is, that he thinks he shall be the power behind the throne.’

‘Shall we seize a senior womb mage, Master Uddin?’ asked Boulous. ‘Tickle him with our sabres until the dog tells us where the Caliph Eternal is being held?’

‘There will be few within the citadel privy to the secret of his existence,’ said the commander. ‘In this matter, we shall have to follow our noses.’

Omar hesitated before speaking, ‘I think I know where he is. I saw the false caliph back in the palace. I can sense him here in the citadel — I can sense both of them, the grand vizier’s pet and the true caliph.’

‘A tracker’s ability?’ said Boulous. ‘That is a strange trait for the son of a water merchant to possesses.’

‘Do not be so quick to judge. Our people’s bloodlines have twisted and turned for hundreds of generations,’ said Farris Uddin. ‘Mixing and becoming intermingled. There is many a young emir who has suddenly found himself growing a wild nomad’s water hump as he reaches his adult years and is sent, running in tears, to the womb mages to be cleansed of a great-grandmother’s indiscretion. The question is, can your senses distinguish between the false Caliph Eternal and the true?’

Omar shut his eyes and tried, but when he opened them he shook his head sadly. ‘No, I can feel no difference.’

‘It will be subtle,’ said Farris Uddin. ‘Subtle and composed of a hidden reworking of the genes — blood engineering passed down from the Caliph Eternal to his chosen successor. For if it were not, everyone would be able to seize control of the beyrogs and the caliph’s private stables, and that would hardly do. Luckily for us, I possess a subtle nose.’ As he spoke, his nose began to grow longer, becoming muzzle-like. As if he were a wolf, Farris Uddin sniffed the air and grinned ferociously. ‘You are right; it is very hard to tell the difference. If you did not know there were a true Caliph Eternal and a false one, you would miss it completely. But I have the slight advantage of having met the real Caliph Eternal.’ He opened the door to the robing room and pointed down the citadel. ‘This way …’

‘Now,’ said First Lieutenant Westwick while she adjusted the settings on their tiny portable transaction engine, watching as the commodore fiddled with the cables hanging from a bank of the womb mages’ engines, ‘would be the ideal time for your young cardsharp friend to be in our company.’

‘This is a walk in the park compared to the calculation drums back home,’ said the commodore. ‘We stamp our art out in steel and steam, the Cassarabians write theirs in flesh and blood. But I don’t have to tell you that, eh?’

Henry Tempest gave a gentle whistle from the door leading into the womb mages’ transaction-engine chamber, indicating someone was coming down the corridor, and the pair briefly halted their noise until the officer thumbed them the all clear.

‘Keep the connection and their calculation drums turning while I get down to this,’ said Westwick.

‘Are you going to try and crack deep into their systems, lass?’

‘I would never attempt something so dangerous,’ said Westwick. ‘But you know how you can tell which chest a house’s really valuable silver is hidden in?’

‘Ah,’ said the commodore. ‘I see the board’s training is worth something after all.’

Westwick inspected the results on their portable transaction engine. ‘Here it is. The level of the citadel with the strongest data encryption.’

‘So we’ll follow the trail of locks, then,’ said the commodore. ‘Right down to their strongest, and let’s see how they stand up against the genius of old Blacky. Ah, it sounded such a slight little favour when it was asked back home. Just find out how they’re floating their airship’s envelopes, Jared. That’s all. Your old Cassarabian friends will remember you kindly, won’t they? Winkle out the secrets of their airships’ gas for us. And here we are in the