The Kingdom Beyond the Waves. Stephen Hunt

next berth the maritime wing of Middlesteel Museum.’

      Commodore Black pointed to a spherical bulb forward of the two conning towers. ‘What in Lord Tridentscale’s name is that carbuncle?’

      ‘A bathysphere. We added it along with a new docking ring.’ Quest looked over at Amelia. ‘You haven’t told him what we need the u-boat for?’

      ‘I just told Jared about the expedition into Liongeli,’ said Amelia. ‘It seemed a little superfluous to mention the underwater archaeology at the end of the journey.’

      ‘Mortal me,’ wheezed Black. ‘Amelia, you are not taking my beauty up that river of hell? Say it is not true. Has the Sprite not already gone through enough? Boiled under the waters of the Fire Sea, fired upon by the rogues of Porto Principe, hunted by the warships of the Holy Kikkosico Empire. You cannot take her into such peril again.’

      ‘I am afraid we can, commodore,’ said Amelia. ‘That’s why I need you to skipper her for the expedition.’

      ‘You can go with the sprite of the lake as her master; her owner after you return safely from Lake Ataa Naa Nyongmo,’ said Quest. ‘Or I can get one of my own seadrinker skippers to take her up the Shedarkshe.’

      ‘Oh, you rogues,’ cried the commodore. ‘Oh, you pair of pirates. Is that to be my choice? Damned to lose my own boat, or damned to pilot her into the mouth of hell itself?’

      ‘You’ll understand when you see what we are trying to find,’ said Amelia. ‘The difference it could make to the people of Jackals.’

      ‘Jackals be damned, lass. What has Jackals done for me? Except to line up her greedy Greenhall bureaucrats with their claim on the treasure of the Peacock Herne and their hands grasping for every honest coin my intrepid ventures ever gained.’

      Quest walked up to the nose of the Sprite of the Lake and tapped the dark hull under the shadow of her bowsprit, a female warrior thrusting a lance forward towards the cavern wall. ‘I think Fulton did an exceptional job, all things considered.’

      Black seemed to crumple in front of them. ‘Damn your wicked cunning eyes, Quest. I’ll do it. But on one condition: I will pick my own crew.’

      ‘I would expect nothing less,’ said Quest. ‘Just as Amelia has free choice for her members of the expedition. There will be a complement of marines on board too, well-armed to fend off any difficulties you may encounter.’

      Black nodded in acquiescence, turning his gaze to the beautiful craft. His craft. The wily mill owner did not have to say that the marines would also be there to ensure he did not just turn the Sprite around and head for the ocean.

      Heads turned in the jinn house as the well-dressed lady walked in. She did not look like any of the usual drinkers in the Bernal’s Bacon, where ‘drunk for a ha’penny, dead drunk for two’ was the usual maxim.

      She adjusted her bonnet and set a path towards the bar through the rowdy crowd of navvies that had been renovating the capital’s canal navigations. She looked down with distaste at the sawdust streaking her fashionable leather thigh-boots, then met the neutral gaze of the jinn-house owner.

      ‘Small, medium or large?’ He pulled out three sizes of glass from under the counter.

      The unlikely-looking customer sniffed and opened her palm, placing a small purple flower on the counter. It was a purpletwist, the rare plant whose pollen was favoured by sorcerers. Snuff to enhance the power of the worldsong that burned through their bodies.

      ‘Oh, ho, I see.’ The man opened his bar counter and led her through a back room stacked with jinn barrels. He unlocked a door and indicated she should step through. ‘This way, damson.’

      ‘There’s nothing here, fellow,’ she protested. ‘This is your back courtyard?’

      ‘I don’t need to know what occurs out here, damson,’ said the jinn keeper. ‘You just wait a minute now.’

      He shut the door and the woman looked around in disapproval. The clatter of a mill doing night work drifted over the yard’s tall walls, the shadows of the shambling towers of the Middlesteel rookeries hiding the broken bottles and rubbish strewn over the mud.

      A fluttering noise made her turn. There was a lashlite standing on the wall like a statue, the lizard creature’s wings folded in. Behind her stood Furnace-breath Nick, his devilish mask staring accusingly at her.

      ‘You have been asking a lot of questions,’ he said, ‘among the refugees. Trying to find me.’

      She noticed the mask was changing his voice, making it sound inhuman. ‘Many of those refugees owe their life to you. You saved them from the revolution, you brought them to Jackals from Quatérshift.’

      ‘There are two types of people that come to stand in this yard,’ said Furnace-breath Nick. ‘There are the Quatérshift agents with gas guns in their pockets and daggers in their boots. And then there are those who need my help.’

      ‘I don’t have a dagger,’ sobbed the woman. ‘You are my only remaining hope. I have spent my every last coin trying to get my father out of Quatérshift, but my resources have been stolen by traitors and squandered by tricksters.’

      ‘Tell me of your family.’

      ‘My father is Jules Robur, he was a member of the Sun King’s court.’

      ‘I have heard the name. He is a mechomancer?’

      ‘An artificer,’ said the woman. ‘The greatest in Quatérshift, perhaps the greatest in the world. When the Sun King inspected the royal guard he rode a mechanical horse – a silver steed of my father’s devising. When our armies clashed with the knights steammen on the border of the Free State it was always my father the king turned to first, to devise ways of fighting the people of the metal.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Furnace-breath Nick, ‘I recall now. Robur made automen of such complexity that it was said King Steam himself was curious to see his methods of manufacture.’

      ‘His finest creations had only one flaw,’ said the woman. ‘They were so life-like that when they realized they were created to be slaves, they went mad or shut themselves down. He had to create in the second-rate, below his talents, if he wanted his automen to last. You sound as if you are well acquainted with my land, sir?’

      Furnace-breath Nick’s cloak caught in the cold wind blowing across the yard, shifting as if it were part of his body. ‘I have travelled there, damson. I have seen what has been done to it in the name of progress and the revolution.’

      ‘Then you know,’ cried the woman. ‘You know they have my father in an organized community. In a camp. You know what happens in those places.’

      ‘I know.’ Furnace-breath Nick’s altered voice hissed as if he was in pain. ‘The First Committee has thrown every aristo crat they have yet to push into a Gideon’s Collar into such places. But of all the thousands who now labour and die in the camps, why should I single out your father for rescue?’

      The woman seemed surprised by the question. ‘Because he is a good man. Because I’m begging you. Because the First Committee have him there working on plans for revenge weapons to use against Jackals, and they will never release him, however many years he survives. His escape will hurt the revolution deeply.’

      Furnace-breath Nick danced from foot to foot, his body twitching. The woman looked uneasily at the mad figure. How in the name of everything that was holy could she trust this creature with the task of saving the precious life of Jules Robur? He looked like one of the inmates in an asylum. Yet it was this madman who seemed able to cross the cursewall that sealed off Quatérshift from Jackals. This lunatic who moved across the revolution-wracked land like a will-o’-the-wisp, murdering Carlists and committeemen with impunity.

      She opened her purse and proffered a white card, elegant copperplate script embossed on a stiff square of paper. ‘This is my residence in Westcheap.