A Darkling Plain me-4 Read online

“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?” as
ked Wren.

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

  Wolf laughed. “Of course you will go!” he said. “I can see it in your eyes. You want more than anything to know what is going on in London. And I will come with you, because this peace bores me and I long to see what lies in the debris fields. Don’t worry; I will make all the arrangements, and I will pay you well for your trouble. Shall we say five thousand in gold, transferred into an Airhaven bank account?”

  “Five thousand?” cried Tom.

  “I come from a very wealthy family,” said Wolf. “I’d rather see the fortunes of the von Kobolds spent on an expedition like this than frittered away on garden parties. Of course, for that sort of sum I shall have to insist that Wren accompany us as copilot. She is a young woman of great courage, and we will need her help to fly all that way.” (He smiled at Wren, who felt herself start to blush.)

  “I’m still not sure,” said Tom, but he was. How could he refuse? He had never had much money, and had never wanted much, but he had Wren’s future to consider. The sum this boy was offering would make her a rich woman, and if Wren were to set up as an air trader when he was gone, it would do her no harm to be known on the bird roads as the aviatrix who had been inside London.

  The truth was, he longed to return to his city and find out what was left of it; to see for himself if anything (or anyone) had survived. He longed to take Wren with him too, so that she could see for herself the place where her father’s adventures had all begun. And so it was easy for him to find ways to justify going, and taking her, and to belittle all the dangers they would face. After all (he told himself), he and Hester had flown the Jenny Haniver to far worse places, in their young days…

  “It is decided, then,” said Wolf. “Move your ship into the Murnau air harbor. We shall meet in a day or two to discuss arrangements. But please don’t mention to anyone where we are going; not to anyone at all. The Storm and the other cities have spies everywhere.”

  They shook hands before going back down together to the garden, to the laughter and the music and the lengthening shadows. Pennyroyal had arrived, surrounded by bright young women and waving cheerfully at Tom and Wren as they passed. Wolf excused himself and went to speak to his father. He looked awkward and slightly nervous standing beside the old kriegsmarschall, and Wren found herself liking him more; she had had parent problems of her own. It was Wolf’s experiences in the war that made him seem hard sometimes, she thought; underneath, he was probably shy and kind, just like Theo.

  Wondering what it would be like to travel east with him, she squeezed her own father’s hand. “If you go,” she said, “I’m coming too. Like Wolf Kobold said. Don’t think you can make me stay here. So there’s no point even trying to argue about it. I can look after myself.”

  Tom laughed, for it was such a Hesterish thing to say. He looked at Wren and saw her mother’s strength and stubbornness in her. “All right,” he said. “We’ll see.”

  Between Wolf Kobold and his father the conversation did not flow so easily. Somehow, somewhere in the years, they had lost the easy friendship that they had had when Wolf was little. They thought in different ways now, the kriegsmarschall and his son. Still, the old man seemed to think that he should take advantage of Wolf’s rare visit to try to talk seriously to him. He led him away between the dead trees, through dry brown beds of withered shrubs that, before the war, had been one of the glories of Murnau. They crossed a footbridge over a boating lake (the lake drained, of course, its dry floor scabbed with rust) and climbed some steps to a little pillared gazebo where a statue of a goddess in antique dress gazed out over the tier’s brim.

  “This was one of your favorite spots when you were a lad,” said the kriegsmarschall, stroking his mustaches, as he always did when he felt nervous. “You used to be fascinated by this little lady on her pedestal.”

  “I don’t remember,” said Wolf.

  “Oh yes…” The statue’s face was streaked with damp, as if she had been weeping green tears. The kriegsmarschall pulled out his pocket handkerchief and started trying to clean her up. “You always wanted to know who she was, and I would tell you how she represented Murnau. Strong but gentle. Nobility. That’s it.” Working away at the mossy statue meant that he did not have to meet his son’s gaze. He said, “You should come back, Wolf. Your mother misses you.”

  “My mother will go skulking off to Paris again as soon as this truce breaks down. Anyway, what do you care? Everyone knows your marriage has been a sham for years.”

  “Well, I miss you.”

  “I’m sure that is not true.”

  “When I suggested you take charge of that harvester suburb, I meant it to be for a month or two. I did not intend for you to live there permanently! You belong here, Wolfram! Damn it, you should be preparing to take over from me. I’m just an old soldier. Now that peace is returning, Murnau needs younger men to guide it. Men of vision.”

  “The peace will not last,” said Wolf.

  “How can you be so sure? I think Naga means well. I have fought against him, remember. He held out against Murnau for six weeks on the Bashkir Gradient. His people fought like tigers, but he made them spare all the prisoners on the towns they captured. He never used Tumblers unless he had to. And when he heard I’d been wounded by one of his snipers, he sent me a get-well present, a vest of Old Tech body armor, with a note that said, ‘Sorry we missed you.’ He may be my enemy, but I like him more than most of my friends.”

  “Very touching,” yawned Wolf, who had heard that story many times before. “But the Mossies must still be exterminated.”

  “Nonsense!” said his father crossly. “The Traktionstadtsgesellchaft was not founded to exterminate anyone, only to defend honest cities from the Storm. Let Naga and his Anti-Tractionists live up in their horrible mountains in peace, as long as they promise not to trouble us.”

  Wolf rounded on his father angrily but did not say anything. Instead he walked to the edge of the gazebo and looked out between the dead trees, east across the rough, torn landscape that the war had made to the plains beyond, imagining London out there somewhere, waiting.

  After a while, Kriegsmarschall von Kobold said, “Manchester is coming east. I had a communique from the mayor, Mr. Browne…”

  “Ah! Our paymaster.”

  “It is true that Manchester has helped to finance our struggle… He plans to hold a conference aboard his city as soon as it reaches the line. The mayors of all the Traktionstadts are to meet and decide how to proceed. I plan to make the case for a lasting peace with the Storm. I would like you to be there, Wolfram. There at my side, so that everyone can see you are my heir…”

  “I shall be going home to Harrowbarrow tomorrow or the day after,” said his son. “I have business to attend to.”

  “With your sky-tramp aviator friends?”

  Wolf shrugged.

  The kriegsmarschall turned away, hesitated, then shook his head and marched briskly down the steps and across the bridge. He had fought countless battles against the Storm, met Stalkers in hand-to-hand combat on the steps of his own home in the red winter of ’14, but his own son always defeated him.

  Wolf stood alone and watched him go. After a while he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched too. He turned, and there was the statue of the goddess gazing at him with her calm, blind eyes. Despite what he had told his father, Wolf could remember how, as a little boy, he had liked to sit in the statue’s lap and look up at her while his father told him stories of Murnau’s glorious past. He drew his saber and hacked through the slender neck with three furious blows, sparks flaring as the blade sliced stone. Then he kicked the severed head down the stairs into the empty lake and strode quickly away through the gardens to start preparing for his journey.

  Chapter 12

  The Sand Ships

  It seemed to Theo to be raining. He could not feel the rain, for he was indoors
, in bed. He could not see the rain, for it was dark. But he could hear it, the gentle hiss of steady falling rain, and even the sound was refreshing after those parched days on Cutler’s Gulp. It rushed and sighed and soothed and shushed, and wove together his disjointed dreams.

  And sometimes, briefly, he came fully awake, and knew that the hissing rain sound was just the noise of the sand singing beneath the wheels of the black sand ship.

  “Don’t be afraid,” someone told him.

  “Wren?” he asked.

  “Was she with you when you were taken by Grandma Gravy’s boys? Were Wren and Tom with you?”

  “No, no,” said Theo, shaking his head. “They’re far away.

  They’re in the north, on the bird roads. Wren sent me a card at Christmas… I hoped I might find her when we reached the north…” Remembering the wreck of the Nzimu, he struggled to rise. “Lady Naga… What about Lady Naga?”

  A hand touched his face, gentle and shy. A mouth brushed his forehead. “Don’t be afraid, Theo. Sleep.”

  He slept, and woke again, and saw that the woman who sat beside him was Wren’s mother. Above her head an argon globe in a squeaky gimbal swung to and fro, sloshing black washes of shadow up the cabin walls. When the shadows hid Hester’s face, Theo could imagine that it was Wren sitting there beside his bunk, but when she saw that he was watching her, she said harshly, “Awake, are you? You’d better pull yourself together. There’s no room for slackers on my sand ship.” It was as if she hoped that he would not remember the gentle things she had said to him earlier.

  Theo tried to speak, but his mouth was drier than Bitumen Bay. Hester reached out roughly and raised his head and pushed a tin cup against his lips. “Don’t drink too much,” she said. “I can’t spare it. I was only in Cutler’s Gulp for food and water, and thanks to you I had to leave before I found either. That lout I shot was Grandma Gravy’s golden boy. She’s not best pleased.”

  The sand went on singing against the hull of the speeding ship. Theo slept again. Hester stood up and climbed the ladder to the open cockpit, where Grike stood at the tiller, his green eyes glowing. The ship was west of the sand sea, running across plains of roasted shale. Away in the east a band of pale light showed on the horizon. The wind thrummed in the rigging. “He keeps going on about someone called Lady Naga,” Hester said. “I think she must have been with him when the scavs found him. Ever heard of Lady Naga?”