A Darkling Plain

Tom nodded, and told him about his training in the Guild of Historians and how he had happened to be out of the city when the MEDUSA device went off.

“Interesting,” said Wolf when he had finished. Then, rather cautiously, he said, “I have my own London story, you know. That is why I came to listen when I heard what old Pennyroyal was saying yesterday. Look…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small disk of metal, which he tossed to Tom. “If you are who you say you are, Herr Natsworthy, you will know what that is.”

Tom turned the disk over in his hands. It was the size of a large coin, and there was a coat of arms embossed on it. He had not seen such a thing for nearly twenty years, but he knew it at once, and gave a little gasp. Wren saw tears in his eyes when he looked up again at Kobold. “It is a rivet head from one of London’s tier supports,” he said. “From one of the lower tiers, I’d guess; it’s only iron, and the ones on the upper levels were all brass…”

Wolf grinned. “My souvenir of London,” he said.

“You’ve been there?” asked Tom.

“Briefly. About two years ago, before I was given my own suburb, I persuaded Father to let me join a kommando of the Abwehrtruppe on a raid deep into Mossie territory. We were attempting to destroy their central Stalker works. Unfortunately we never got there; we were attacked, and my own ship was forced down on the plains not far from Batmunkh Gompa. Alone, I sought shelter in the wreckage of London. I was scared, of course, for I had heard nothing but ghost stories about that dreadful old place. But the Mossies were hunting for me, and it seemed better to take my chances with the ghosts than let them catch me. So I wandered into that landscape of rust, looking for water and food and a place where I might shelter…”

He paused. Music from the party drifted through the corridors of the old building, faint and ghostly.

“It is a curious place, the debris field,” he said. “I saw only the very southeasternmost fringe of it. The wreckage is terribly twisted and flung about. Hard to believe that it was once a great city, although here and there one sees something familiar: a door, a table, a pram. Those rivet heads, for instance; they were scattered everywhere. I pocketed that one you are holding, thinking that if I ever made it home, I would want some proof to show my friends that I had been inside the wreck of London.

“Toward nightfall, as I struck north into the interior where the ruins rise high and eerie, something happened. I’m not sure what. I noticed movements in the wreckage. Too deliberate to be animals. They seemed to follow me. After a while there were noises, too, unearthly groans and wailings. I drew my revolver and loosed a couple of shots into the shadows, and the noises stopped. In the silence I became aware of another sound. It seemed like machinery, although it was far off, and never clear enough for me to be certain. I sat down amid the debris to rest and … I blacked out. Later I seemed to remember someone coming up behind me—but perhaps that was only a dream; the memory is very unclear.

“The next thing I knew, I was ten miles away, lying in the open country west of the wreck, hidden from Mossie patrols beneath the foliage in an old track mark. My wounds had been bandaged with field dressings; my canteen had been filled with water and my pack with bread and fruit.”

“By whom?” asked Tom eagerly.

Wolf looked sharply at him. “You do not believe me?”

“I didn’t say that…”

Wolf shrugged. “I have never told anyone of this before. All I know is there is somebody inside the wreck of London. They are not Mossies, or they would have killed me when they had the chance. But they have their secrets, and they guard them well.”

Wren looked at her father. She thought Wolf’s story far spookier than Pennyroyal’s. “Who could it be?” she asked.

Tom didn’t answer her.

“I have often wondered,” said Wolf. “I’ve asked around. Some of my lads aboard Harrowbarrow are ex- scavengers who’ve lived rough in some bad places, and seen some strange things there. They’ve never heard of scavs living inside London. But a couple of times I’ve heard mention of the Geistluftschiff—the phantom airship. It crosses no-man’s-land in silence, when the wind’s from the west, and flies off into Mossie territory. No markings. Not part of any known unit, ours or theirs.”

“Ghosts again,” said Wren.

“Or the Archaeopteryx” said Tom. His voice trembled slightly. He was trying not to make his feelings too obvious, but he was moved and excited by what Wolf had told him, and what he suspected it might mean. “The Archaeopteryx, flying home to London.”

Wolf leaned forward. “I believe your theory, Herr Natsworthy. I believe survivors of MEDUSA live on secretly inside the wreck.”

“But why would anyone want to?” asked Wren. “There’s nothing left there, is there?”

“There must be something,” said Wolf. “Something that makes it worth staying there, and guarding. I have done a little research of my own into Cruwys Morchard since I heard you ask about her. Our intelligence corps keeps a file on most ships that pass through these skies, and their notes on the Aerial Merchant Vessel Archaeopteryx made interesting breakfast-time reading. It seems your Ms. Morchard has been buying a lot of Old Tech in the last few years.”

“She is an Old Tech trader,” said Tom reasonably.

“Is she? It doesn’t look to me as if she ever sells many of the old machine parts she buys. So what becomes of them? Perhaps she just flies home with them to London. And what was London famous for?”

“Engineering,” admitted Tom, rather reluctantly. He was remembering the man he had seen with Clytie on the docking pan at Peripatetiapolis, a man with a gleaming, shaven head. “And Engineers,” he said.

Wolf nodded, watching him. “What if some of those Engineers of yours have survived? What if they live in the debris fields? What if they are building something there? Something so wonderful that it is worth living twenty years inside a ruin to preserve the secret of it! Something that could change the world!”

Tom shook his head. “No, no. Clytie would never work for the Guild of Engineers—”

“The Clytie you knew might not. But she may have changed her mind, in twenty years.” Wolf stood up and walked to the windows, which he flung open, letting in the sounds of the party on the lawn. “Come,” he said, beckoning them out with him onto the balcony. Below, the bright gowns and uniforms of his parents’ guests speckled the garden like petals; like butterflies. For a moment, as he gazed down at them all, the young man’s face wore a look that could almost have been hatred.

“The truce will not last long,” he said. “But while it does, we should make the most of it.”

What does he mean “we”? wondered Wren. She wasn’t sure how her father’s dream had suddenly been swallowed up by Wolf Kobold’s, and she still wasn’t entirely sure that she liked this attractive young man.

“I have often thought of returning to London,” Wolf went on. “The war has kept me too busy, though. But now I see my chance. I’ve been finding out about you, Tom Natsworthy. It seems you are a fine aviator. And that old League ship of yours could be just the vessel for a jaunt behind the enemy’s lines…”

“You mean that I should go to London?” asked Tom. “But that’s impossible! Isn’t it? We’d never get past the Green Storm’s patrols…”

“You couldn’t get across here,” agreed Wolf, looking past the garden party and the buildings at the edge of the Oberrang and out across the scumbled mires of no-man’s-land toward the Storm’s territory. “Naga’s entire ninth army is dug in out there in the mud, waiting for us to make a move. Even if they didn’t shoot you down, our own side would assume you were trading with the enemy and open fire on you. But there are places northeast of here, where the line is less well defended.”

He turned to Tom with a boyish grin. “Harrowbarrow could get you across. I often take her hunting in no- man’s-land. She’ll get you right up to the borders of Storm country, where an aviator of your skill could easily slip across the line and follow the old track marks east. That’s what Clytie Potts must have been doing all these years, after all.”

“And will you be coming with us, Mr. Kobold?” asked Wren.

Tom glanced at her. “You’re not coming, Wren. It’s far too dangerous. I don’t even think I should go myself…”