Iron Angel

the others had discovered would undoubtedly have some wicked purpose. He sighed and made for the door, beckoning his servant after him. “Let’s go and see it then.”

They left the captain’s cabin and took one of the aft companionways up to the quarterdeck. From here Cospinol could look out across the Rotsward’s upper decks.

Fog wreathed the skyship on all sides. In Heaven she had been a square-rigged galleon made for salt seas- but her keel had not split waves in over three thousand years. Her mainmasts were missing: the tough oak had long since been cannibalized for vital repairs to other parts of the ship. Now her remaining tattered sails hung limply from the main starboard and larboard yards, far out beyond the ship’s sides. To reach these, the Rotsward’s crew were forced to clamber like ants among the lattice of greasy beams around the hull-a perilous task in the ever-present fog-with nothing but sky between them and the ground so far below.

Work was under way amidships. Two of the crew were resting, exhausted, against the larboard winch handles, while six others wrestled a loaded net onto the deck. This net contained a spherical and dully metallic object, like an oversized cannonball-and just as heavy, judging from the way his crew were struggling with it. Cospinol looked around for his brothers, but couldn’t see them anywhere.

The Rotsward’s crew wore the same queer assortment of clothes they had died in. They had once been sailors on the seas below, hailing from Oxos and Meria, and a dozen other human ports. Now their pallid faces evinced grim determination as they laboured to free the sphere from its net.

“What is that thing?” Cospinol mused.

A harsh laugh came from above him. “It is the key to your freedom, Cospinol!”

The sea god turned his gaze upwards to see his brother, Rys, flying down to join him on the quarterdeck, his great white wings cutting through the fog. His mirrored steel plate gleamed like freshly minted coins, while the naked scimitar and many tiny blades in his silver belt shone with the brilliance of starlight. He wore a cloak of Battlefield Roses, as red as the bloody ground from which they had sprouted-and just as poisonous. The god of flowers and knives looked every inch the champion-and Cospinol hated him for it.

Then, from out of the misty sky behind emerged the others: Mirith, Hafe, and Sabor. These three gods remained a respectful distance behind their elder brother: Hafe obese and sweating under cauldrons of copper armour; dour, grey-haired Sabor in his dark suit of mail; poor mad Mirith in the motley of tin plates, leathers, and garish velvets that Rys had given him to wear. It seemed that even their wings had grown to complement the stature of each god. If an ox could fly, its wingspan would resemble Hafe’s, while Sabor had the look of a rook, and Mirith’s wings were lopsided and stitched with tiny bells.

Rys landed lightly on the quarterdeck. “This floating gaol continues to amaze me,” he said. “How do you keep it from completely disintegrating about you?”

Cospinol noted the insult in his brother’s choice of words. Of all the five gods present, only Cospinol himself still lacked the power to leave his stronghold. This detail had forced the others to come here, and Rys would not be pleased about that inconvenience. “The Rotsward is tougher than she looks,” he said darkly.

“As are you, brother,” Rys said. “You appear so frail one wonders how you are able to remain upright without assistance, and yet somehow you stand here before us, tall enough to be mistaken for an equal.”

The whole skyship gave a sudden lurch as Hafe landed with a mighty thump beside the god of flowers and knives. Sabor set down lightly a short distance further back, before Mirith landed with a clash of tiny bells and a whoop of glee.

Rys glanced over his shoulder and said, “Don’t feel disheartened, Cospinol, for I am now surrounded by cripples.”

“I am no cripple,” Hafe protested.

“This airboat pitches and shudders with every beat of your fat heart,” Rys remarked. “Your very presence here is likely to bring this whole sorry vessel crashing down out of the sky.”

The god of dirt and poison’s face reddened. “It’s not my fault,” he grunted. “This ship is rotten. A flock of gulls could tear it to shreds.”

Mirith sniggered behind his hand, then gave a ridiculous jester’s bow. “But I am a cripple.”

“And a lunatic with it,” Rys agreed. “Yet we find ourselves in this floating wreck partly because of your uncanny foresight.”

Cospinol’s mood darkened further. He was about to respond when a commotion from amidships distracted him. Rys’s strange metal sphere had come loose from its net and rolled away, knocking a crewman to the deck and crushing his chest. The sailor wailed in agony while his companions struggled to roll the object off him.

“Be careful with that,” Rys yelled.

“Perhaps,” Cospinol suggested, “they would be more cautious if you explained exactly what that object is. It is a Mesmerist weapon, is it not?”

“Much more than that,” Rys said. “Come, brother.”

The god led the others down the quarterdeck staircase to the wide mid-deck, where the remainder of the Rotsward’s crew had freed their trapped comrade, and were now jamming blocks of wood under Rys’s sphere to keep it from rolling away again.

Cospinol now saw that the sphere was comprised of ill-fitting metal plates, triangles and trapeziums loosely bolted together so that a network of gaps ran between them like the broken earth in a dry riverbed. The metal shone dully, like old pewter, yet each panel was heavily dented and scratched, as though the globe had spent much time rolling across rough terrain. A faint geometric pattern could just be discerned behind the scrawls.

Rys approached the globe and ran a finger lightly across the surface of one of these metal plates, as though tracing the outline of some obscure esoteric design. Then he pushed the panel inwards. It clicked once, and then sprung back out like a flap on its hidden hinges.

Behind the open panel was a face.

Cospinol stepped closer. The visage appeared human at first: an old woman with creased skin, a flat nose, and blind white eyes. But then her mouth opened to reveal a snakelike black tongue and three stubby yellow glass teeth. She gave a sudden desperate wail.

“Close the sphere! The sun burns us so!”

“There is no sun here,” Rys growled. “Be silent, hag, until I give you permission to speak.”

Cospinol’s eyes widened. “You found a witchsphere?”

Rys nodded. “My soldiers discovered it after the battle in Skirl. This thing had been observing the conflict for its master.”

“Menoa’s dogcatchers will be searching hard for this.”

“Let them search,” Rys grunted. “It is far beyond their reach now.”

The hag inside the sphere cried out again. “Traitorous dogs! We curse the sons of Ayen. We inhaled your blood in Skirl and in Pandemeria, and now we will exhale it in Deepgate. You have no more men to throw against us.”

“Silence!” Rys slipped a knife from his belt and plunged it through the open panel into the interior of the sphere. The hag screamed and spat blood at him, but the handsome god only twisted his blade and pushed it in deeper, until the wailing died away.

Wincing, Cospinol turned away from the gruesome sight. “I see your talents of persuasion remain as keen as ever,” he said to his younger brother. “But what did the witchsphere mean? How can the Mesmerists hope to attack Deepgate?”

Mirith giggled manically. “All is not well on the other side of Hell.” His tin-plate armour rattled like beggars’ cups as he danced away across the Rotsward’s deck.

Rys wiped blood and spittle from his face. “Mirith is more astute than he appears,” he said to Cospinol. “His madness masks a cunning mind.” He faced the old sea god, his eyes grim, and said, “Ulcis has been slain.”

So startling was this news that Cospinol actually laughed. “Slain?” he snorted. “A god slain? Impossible.”

“It is true,” Rys insisted. “Mirith had a spy in Deepgate, a hell-walker by the name of Thomas Scatterclaw. He stole through the Maze to confirm this witch’s tidings. Ulcis’s death has left a second door to Hell unguarded. Now King Menoa’s forces are gathering behind it.”

Cospinol hissed. “But how could this have happened? How did our brother become so lax?” he asked. “How