Iron Angel

can enjoy the descent in comfort.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jones exclaimed. “This is too good a sight to watch through any porthole windows.”

The ship lurched violently and then halted. Her funnels gave a massive groan as they strained against the body of the ship. Harper stumbled, but the old reservist grabbed her.

“Our gigantic friend needs to learn gentleness,” Jones remarked. “Another movement like that could break this vessel in two.”

She caught her breath. “I hope that didn’t shatter some of the more fragile glass inside.”

“I’m sure the staff have wrapped up everything breakable.”

“Not the slaves.”

“Oh.” Jones’s face fell. “I see what you mean.”

Ersimmin had caught hold of Edith Bainbridge, who was now beating the pianist with her fan. “Get off me, you lout. It’s going to drop us! I must find a life preserver.”

For a few moments the ship remained motionless in the arconite’s grip. Harper leaned out over the balustrade and peered back along the hull. Beyond the vessel’s stern, the wet brown cliffs of the Moine Massif sank a sheer four hundred feet down to the calm waters. A blizzard of gulls skirled around the ship. The arconite’s skull turned slowly, then moved closer until its yellow grin filled the sky above them. Harper’s Locator gave out a sudden shrill tone.

“What is it?” Jones asked.

She stared hard at the device with a growing sense of dread. Its fluctuating needle darted back and forth, between both ends of the scale. Crystals pulsed fiercely inside.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “The Locator doesn’t know. It’s panicking again.”

The reservist kept one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Another uninvited guest?”

She shook her head. “It might just be the proximity of the-”

But just at that moment another massive jolt unbalanced the passengers. Still gripped in the automaton’s skeletal hand, the ship began a sudden rapid descent.

“Cruel heavens!” Jones cried. The old man’s white hair lashed about his face as the ship dropped closer to Larnaig’s waters. “Do we need to descend quite so briskly?”

“I expect that need has little to do with it,” Ersimmin replied. The pianist had extricated himself from Edith. Now like his reservist colleague, he appeared to be quite relaxed-an observation which could not be extended to encompass the other guests. “From the expression on our host’s face,” Ersimmin went on, inclining his head towards Chief Carrick, “it seems that we are currently experiencing yet another of his teething problems.”

Carrick was clutching the deck rail with both fists, his face a curdled, off-white colour. Most of the passengers had found something to hang on to now. The gentlemen had grabbed the saloon bulkheads or deck balustrades; the ladies clung to the gentlemen.

The steamship shuddered again, and then tilted sharply towards the bow. Several passengers stumbled. Plates toppled and smashed within the saloon.

Ersimmin’s voice radiated calmness. “I’m beginning to understand why the Mesmerists hired our railroad company to support the War Effort,” he said to Jones. “They make terrifying soldiers, but they haven’t quite got the hang of transportation matters.”

The jolt had sent two Northmen crashing into each other, shattering their glass-scaled skins. Mina’s feet slipped out from under her on the slick floor, and she struggled to push herself back up onto her hands and knees. Her hands were now wet and red. Oil lanterns stuttered in the deep gloom of the ship’s hold, throwing lances of light through the transparent carriages.

“Wasn’t this what you wanted?” Hasp cried. “A quick return to Hell.”

“I asked you to kill me,” she replied. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“An unusually biased form of suicide. Still, there’s a glut of fresh souls here. Time for some thaumaturgy, if I’m not mistaken?”

“How did you know?”

“I’ve known from the start.”

She wrinkled her nose.

The slave pen lurched again and another of Rys’s former soldiers crashed against the wall. His glass scales cracked at the wrists, elbows, and head; his life poured out of him.

Mina muttered a prayer: an appeal to her guardian, Basilis, the Hound Master of Ayen. She made sigils in the bloody floor:

One red soul for the Forest of Eyes,

A second for the Forest of Teeth,

The third to rot in the Forest of War,

If you’ll aid your servant now.

Hasp grunted. “It’s been a while since I’ve witnessed blood thaumaturgy and longer since I’ve seen that bastard Basilis. This’ll be fun.”

The stink from the Forest of War greeted Mina’s nostrils as something moved within the red pool on the floor, then reached out roots and branches, growing until it filled the space before her. This was Basilis’s heart tree, a manifestation of Ayen’s Hound Master himself.

Those Northmen who were still alive to witness this apparition now scuttled away to the far corner of the chamber, their eyes wide with fear and horror.

A deep voice rolled out from the tree: “These are weak souls, thaumaturge.” Basilis’s arboreal manifestation dripped and shuddered. “As thin as memories.”

“They’re still souls,” she retorted. “And I didn’t have to kill them myself. I need your help, Basilis. We need to do something about Dill.”

The Hound Master laughed. “You always underestimate yourself, Mina,” he said. “You summoned a guardian from the Forest of War without my help. You killed one of your fellow captives without my help. And didn’t you place a piece of your soul inside the arconite without my help? All you have to do now is reach out to it.”

“I can’t!” she protested. “The Mesmerists changed me. My soul is all muddled up and… sore.” She almost stomped her foot down, but thought better of it. “Besides, I’d feel more comfortable if you were there with me.”

Another laugh issued from the tree.

Hasp said, “This is a new form for you, Basilis. Didn’t you used to be a dog?”

“Hasp…” The tree sighed. “Why are you not in Hell?”

The god grunted. “The Mesmerists caught us both. They assumed she was my woman.”

“Your woman?” Basilis growled.

“Relax,” Hasp said. “She’s not my type.”

Mina felt suddenly cross. It wasn’t that she liked the god-not in that way. But for him to have a type that didn’t include her seemed desperately unfair. The floor lurched again and she slid a yard to the left. She reached out to grab the heart tree’s roots, but Basilis withdrew them. A low snarl came from the demonic tree.

Oh, no.

“Hasp and I both happened to be looking for Dill,” she said quickly. “That’s all. I’m sorry I left you alone in Cinderbark Wood, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sneak into Hell undetected. Deepgate’s Portal was already teeming with Mesmerist shades. You know I’ll come back for you just as soon as I can.”

The steamship plummeted. In the iron gloom of her belly, The Pride of Eleanor Damask heaved and groaned against the chains binding her wheels and axles to the hold’s deck. Steel links stretched and warped. The glass carriages ground against one another, straining to be free of their shackles.

Basilis’s voice sounded like thunder. “I am no longer in that poisonous forest,” he rumbled. “And I am no longer alone. A Spine woman and her companion found my physical form in Cinderbark Wood. They brought me to Cospinol, who has delivered us by skyship to Coreollis. While you were in Hell, Mina, I have traveled across the world. Now I am in Rys’s own palace, not two leagues away from you. From here we can watch the arconite’s