Following the steamman inside the craft, Lord Rooksby and Molly manhandled the commodore's unconscious form into the protection of the ship's cabin. They laid him down next to the corpses of the slats that had died defending the craft. He had taken quite a bang on the back of his head when that stray shot had severed the ties holding the supply crates. But Commodore Jared Black was a tough old bird. If any of them survived, surely it would be him.
'The bomb,' Molly shouted, indicating the masters' explosive, a large black egg resting on the two iron rails the slats had used to carry it inside the ship. 'Can it be defused?'
The chattering of the slats' sound-sight was growing loud in the hangar outside ran towards the battle. Lord Rooksby said something to Molly but she couldn't understand his mangled words.
Then the first quake hit, all the shell-like craft inside the hangar toppling over with an immense crash as the iron moon bounced in its orbit. A long, violent oscillation followed as the shockwave passed down the beanstalk connecting them to the world below. It only took seconds for the impact to pass through to the ground station and be reflected back up at them, followed by exploding machinery and a second quake.
'Purity must have made it to the core of the moon,' shouted Molly. 'She's striking at the great sage's dead star and bringing down the house.'
But the steamman had other things on his mind, his metal fingers flickering with urgency across the Army of Shadows' weapon. 'This bomb can't be defused in the little time we have, Molly softbody,' said Coppertracks, inspecting the weapon's panel. 'Its timer indicates a three-minute countdown. They must have armed it just as we attacked.'
'Activate the looking-glass,' ordered Molly. 'You told me that the gate only has enough power to stay open for a few seconds; we can be through and let the iron moon take the bomb's explosion when it goes off.' She dragged Commodore Black's unconscious body close to the mirrored surface. 'Enter the code to unlock the gate, old steamer.'
'Wait,' said the steamman. He was rooting through the components scattered about the floor. 'Starsprite's soul board, it must be here.'
'Coppertracks!'
There was another quake, even worse than the previous two. The moon was tearing itself apart around their murdered ship. Slat weapon-fire hailed against Starsprite's outer hull.
'I have it!' Coppertracks scooped up a black board in his iron fingers, setting his tracks to full reverse. The oily mirrored surface lit up and then faded into transparency as he tapped his activation key into the gate. The hazy outlines of a room were now visible on the other side, centaur-like steammen knights running towards the membrane. From the looks of it, the portal led directly to the steammen's mountain stronghold, King Steam's palace.
Molly and Lord Rooksby passed Commodore Black's body through to the steammen knights, the u-boat man moaning as he began to recover his senses. Coppertracks went next, great iron arms belonging to his kin appearing through the quivering membrane to help lift the venerable scientist through.
Molly turned to Lord Rooksby, tugging at him, a handful of moulting feathers from his wing-like arm coming away in her hand. 'Come on!'
The birdman tapped the black sphere of the bomb. 'Protect.'
'There are womb mages back in Jackals, worldsingers, they might be able to help you-'
Shaking his head, Lord Rooksby opened his man-beak again. 'Protect.'
As Molly launched herself through the looking glass, she experienced a vertigous feeling, like falling. Her last sight before passing through the membrane was of Lord Rooksby going to the door of the craft and screeching defiance at the attacking slats. It wasn't the cry of a bird. It was the roar of a lion. Molly hit a cold stone floor, scattering the feathers from Rooksby's wing. The mirror cracked, fizzing sparks above her, its oily surfacing growing dark and hard. Their gate had sealed them off, sealed them in the mountain fastness of the steammen.
Commodore Black was on his feet, banging at the mirror, trying to get back to the other side, but it was too late. 'Purity!'
'It's no good, Jared softbody,' said Coppertracks. 'There's a large-yield neutron bomb about to be detonated on the iron moon.'
'About to be detonated?' called one of the steammen guarding the looking-glass gate. 'Have you not seen the moon, brother slipthinker?' He pointed to a door opening out onto a mountain terrace. The baleful iron moon was growing smaller, the white tentacle of the dislodged beanstalk whipping behind it like the flagellum of a bacterium, explosions flowering out from underneath the rusted surface.
'My girl, oh my lovely brave girl!'
'The star field,' said Coppertracks. 'By my ancestors' cogs, look at the heavens. The stars are returning to normal. The time field projected by the iron moon is diminishing. The moon is being sucked into the collapsing field, back towards Kaliban, back along its own original timeline.'
'I told her, Aliquot Coppertracks, I told my beautiful little lass who she was, just like you said I should have done all along.'
'She saved us all,' said Molly, shocked. The sight of the crumbling moon was mesmerizing. 'Purity, she told me that she would.'
A halo of fierce purple light suddenly surrounded the iron moon as the weapon that would have destroyed King Steam's realm briefly lit the heavens. Then the terrible eye winked out, the last of the stars returning to their true positions. The iron moon was gone forever.
'I don't care,' whispered the commodore. He fell to his knees and began to cry.
EPILOGUE
Five million years ago The four Kal bearers carrying Fayris Fastmind's stretcher-style chair placed him carefully down on the cliff. Not so close to the edge that he might fall off, but near enough that the great sage could see the siege works raised around the last city.
'You should be more careful,' advised the sage's chief bearer, opening a sunshade for his ancient mentor. The thump of slat rifles, dimmed by distance, and the cries of lashlites floated in the furnace-like air above the giant face of Kaliban. All the faint clatter of their siege. 'We could move back a little.' He pointed towards the tent that the others in the nomad caravan had set up behind them, its memory silk already a crimson rock-like haze as it matched the pattern of the mountain.
'We are far enough away from the siege works, I think,' said the great sage.
His people were nervous. The nomads didn't want to lose even one among the few that still understood the old science. Every tribe held fiercely tight to its sages, although they were little more than court sorcerers now.
The great sage's chief bearer pointed down the cliff face they were perched above. One of the giant weather machines the Kals had tampered with was shuffling across the plains on its nest of steel tentacles, coming towards the cliff face, ready to rip out more rocks to hurl towards the masters' domes. 'The machines sometimes cause landslides when they pull rocks out of the mountain.'
'I will take the risk. I'm as old as these mountains,' said the great sage. 'And I like the view.'
Yes, the view. Fayris Fastmind lifted up his set of binoculars and focused on the plain below. He could see trains of lizards pulling canal barges across the dunes towards catapults, the barges converted into fused bombs after their self-destruct sensors had been disabled and the craft pulled out of the canal's sludge. But that wasn't what he was looking for. There! There was the man, riding up and down the trenches, shouting encouragement towards the Kals below and the lashlites above.
Connor of Cassarabia, still mounted on the thorax saddle of his tamed queen ant, a god of war thundering up and down the lines, the proud insect steed rearing and flashing its mandibles.
Who would have thought such things possible? That a queen ant could be broken. Or that a lion could lead a flock of sheep to inherit the world?
A baby's cry came from the direction of the tent, the young female swaddled in white robes and being wet-
