B00DW1DUQA EBOK (30 page)

‘Of course. Word gets around. The wreckers hear about everything and everyone, sooner or later. There have been whispers about you, from outside as well as in here. The Valve Hall. The Drop Tower.’

‘And what have they heard?’

‘That you might be on their side. And you might not be.’

‘But Lud will hear about all this, too,’ said Finn, indicating the books, the pools of water. ‘Then he’ll know which said I’m on. Why do you say he won’t hide me?’

‘Because it doesn’t suit the wreckers’ purpose. You’re too dangerous. You can’t follow orders. You can’t be trusted.’

‘And how do you know Lud thinks that?’

‘Haven’t you worked it out, Finn? I thought you were supposed to be clever.’

Realisation thumped through Finn. ‘You mean...’

‘That’s correct. You understand now. I am Lud.’

‘You can’t be.’

‘I am. The current one, at least. Lud is just a name. A figurehead. There have been many before me.’

‘But I don’t understand. Why won’t you help me? Why did you tell me to stop? Why didn’t you even talk to me before? We’ve worked at that table for weeks and weeks and you’ve barely spoken.’

Maeve stopped pacing to study him. ‘I wasn’t sure about you. You wouldn’t be the first puppet of the masters trying to infiltrate us.’

‘Well now you know the truth. Now you know I’m on your side. And look, we could still do this, don’t you see? We could disable the foam and try again. Destroy the blueprints properly. You and I.’

Maeve shook her head. ‘No. I told you. This isn’t the way. There are other plans.’

‘What plans?’ asked Finn.

‘I can’t tell you. We have to bide our time, await the right moment.’

Finn felt suddenly furious. Sick of the lies. Sick of fighting. Maeve should have helped him. Should have been on his side. Should have done
something
. He’d imagined meeting Lud a hundred times. Imagined being embraced by the wreckers, heard them cheering as he joined their ranks. Saw them marching together on some vital piece of the machinery. But now here was Maeve - Lud - refusing to help him. Refusing to do anything.

‘And how long have you been waiting?’ he said, shouting now. ‘How many years? How many decades? Because Engn still looks functional to me. I don’t see much of it wrecked.’ His words tailed off into a spluttering cough. The taste of oily smoke filled his mouth from the smoke. His head was already beginning to throb.

‘You don’t understand,’ said Maeve. ‘Breaking the wheels, wrecking the machines. What does it actually achieve?’

‘The destruction of Engn,’ said Finn. ‘That’s why you’re here. That’s what the wreckers are for.’

‘Of course, of course. And it’s a noble aim, one we hold dear. But it’s impossible to achieve in the short term. And little acts of sabotage like yours will only ruin everything.’

‘Good! Because that’s exactly what we need to do. We need to ruin everything. We need to destroy Engn.’

‘But it won’t work, don’t you see? And it’s far too dangerous. Far better to concentrate on giving people hope, a cause to believe in. That’s something we
can
do.’

‘No.’

‘I’m afraid so. And one day, the time will be right.’

‘But the fires. The acts of sabotage. That wasn’t you?’

‘People acting alone. I do my best to protect them. Stop them harming themselves. And others.’

Finn couldn’t reply for a moment, trying to take in Maeve’s words.

‘Then you’re no better than the masters,’ he said at last. ‘In fact you’re worse. At least people know the masters are against them. You make me sick.’

Maeve shook her head, looked genuinely sad. ‘You just don’t understand.’

‘I understand perfectly,’ said Finn. ‘Tell me, when did you stop believing, working away here at your safe little job? When did you betray everything you ever stood for?’

‘I haven’t stopped believing, Finn. I came here the same as you. Determined to destroy it all. Refusing to be beaten down. And one day we
will
win. Perhaps not in my lifetime, but one day. Led by some other Lud.’

‘Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?’ said Finn. ‘It’s a fantasy, Maeve. You have to
do
something, not just sit around waiting. You’re not fit to be called a wrecker. You’re not fit to be called Lud. You disgust me.’

Maeve didn’t reply, just shook her head again. At that moment, footsteps clattered down the hall. A group of people approaching at speed.

‘Who is that?’ said Finn. ‘Who did you call?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Maeve. ‘I had no choice. We have to protect ourselves.’

‘What have you done?’ said Finn.

Connor strode into the light, then, hood back, a grim look on his face. Behind him came a phalanx of Ironclads. Only they weren’t Ironclads. Their armour wasn’t the familiar grey and black metal. These shined like mirrors; their armour polished to a sheen decorated with swirling etched lines around the joints. In the flickering light from the remaining naphtha lamps they looked like dazzling creatures of silver and glass.

‘Here he is, Master,’ said Maeve. ‘He tried to burn the blueprints.’

Complex expressions played across Connor’s face. Anger. Doubt. Sadness. He didn’t speak. Deciding on a course of action, no doubt. A plan. Finn stood there. He had no idea what to do. Could they claim it was all an accident; that Finn had discovered the fire and was trying to put it out? Would the other masters believe that?

‘Connor?’ said Finn.

Connor motioned the guards forwards. They surrounded Finn in a moment. There was no possible escape.

‘Take him to the cells,’ said Connor. ‘The Inner Wheel will meet in the morning to pass judgement on him.’

The guards grasped hold of Finn and pulled him forward. Finn screamed. Maeve stepped aside, staring down at the ground to avoid Finn’s eye.

Finn wanted to shout at Connor, ask him what it meant, what he was supposed to do. But Connor was gone.

They took him from his cell in the morning. Finn had passed the night huddled in the corner of the small, stone room, its walls running with rivulets of water that fanned out into triangles of green slime. The only light came from a high, barred aperture in the ceiling that he would never be able to reach and would never be able to squeeze through even if he could. He lay there alone, curled up on his side, eyes open. He shivered, from the cold, from fear. He felt hollowed out. His cell reeked of the naphtha soaked into his clothes. His head swam from the fumes but he had no strength to move.

Now, another of the silver Ironclads stood in the doorway, impossibly tall, beautiful to look at. ‘Stand up. The Inner Wheel awaits.’

‘Are you an Ironclad?’ Finn asked, his voice a croak.

‘A Silverclad. The private guard of the Inner Wheel. Now come with me.’

Finn worked his way up to stiff legs and followed, struggling to keep up with the figure. They walked up the stone corridor he’d been led along the previous night, the line of metal doors all the same, all locked. His head thudded with pain at each step.

They climbed back up to ground-level from the underground cells. Outside, Finn blinked in the painful light. They were far from the Vault. He’d been escorted by the Silverclads across Engn, marched for an hour or more to the tall metal tower, perfectly cylindrical, that he now stood outside. The building shone like the Silverclads: utterly impregnable, utterly beautiful. He wanted to stroke its shining surface but instead the Silverclad pushed him forward. ‘Start walking.’

‘I don’t know the way,’ said Finn. ‘I don’t know where we’re going.’

The Silverclad pushed him again. ‘Just walk.’

They worked their way through a forest of the vertical cylinders. They were all, he saw, functioning mechanisms. A part of the machine. Some were connected by pistons pumping to-and-fro. Some appeared to be working on their own, disconnected apart from the cables and ducts strung between them. Blue electricity sparked and crackled from others, making the hairs on Finn’s arms stand on end.

The Silverclad steered Finn with an occasional prod to one of his shoulders. Finn soon felt weary, drained of all energy, his mouth parched to sandpaper. He hadn’t had food or water for many hours. He didn’t dare say anything.

‘Stop here,’ said the Silverclad.

They stood in front of a spherical building, its surface also gleaming. He could see his reflection in it: distorted, bloated. Rails ran along the ground out of the spherical building and off into the distance. A machine shot along them, billowing steam. It looked something like the moving engine that had carried him to Engn but bigger and much, much faster. It roared towards them. Finn was sure it was going to crash into the round, silver building where the rails ended. Instead, venting off angry clouds of steam, it slowed to a halt and crept inside.

‘Onto the shuttle,’ said the Silverclad. Finn did as he was told. It would be pointless to run, even if he could manage it. Two or three times on their way here they had met Ironclads and these had stepped aside to let them pass, even bowing their heads.

The shuttle pulled an open carriage with seats inside it, slatted wooden benches that were speckled with spots of soot from the engine. Finn stepped in and sat, the Silverclad behind him. The Ironclad operating the engine began to turn valve wheels. The shuttle jolted forwards, making the wooden bench dig painfully into the bones of Finn’s spine. They picked up speed. Finn was soon travelling faster than he had ever gone in his life. His eyes watered and the cold morning air streaming past his ears made them ring with sharp pain. For some reason, despite the wind rushing at his face, he could barely breathe and had to turn his head to one side to gulp in air. A blur of water-wheels and engine-mountings flashed past, each too quick for him to focus on. The effort of it made his head thud more and more. In the end he settled for closing his eyes against the onslaught of air and waiting until they stopped.

After ten or twenty minutes, the shuttle decelerated sharply, throwing Finn forwards against the wooden seat in front. They approached another silvery, dome-shaped building, the rails leading into it like a long tongue into its mouth. Again he thought they would crash but the Ironclad controlling the engine timed it perfectly and they kissed into the springs at the end of the rail with the gentlest of jolts.

‘Out,’ said the Silverclad.

A wide, circular space lay beyond the shuttle station. It was the biggest open expanse Finn had seen anywhere in Engn, far larger than the Octagon. Masters, Silverclads and Ironclads strolled to-and-fro across the stone flags of the floor, many of them deep in conversation, carrying papers or studying small mechanical devices of some description. Most walked to or from the building erected at the very centre of the great circle: a tall spike of a tower, with windows winding up it in a spiral. It, too, shone like polished glass. It could only be where the Inner Wheel, the Masters of Engn, met. Ciara had said the Hub had once been at the heart of Engn, but this must be the centre now. The place everything was controlled from.

They set off towards the tower. Some of the masters glanced at Finn as he walked by, their eyes narrowed. Most paid them no attention. He saw no-one he recognized. He wondered where Connor was.

It was cool and dark inside the tower. He stood for a moment while his eyes adjusted. A spiral staircase wound around the walls, following the line of windows. Square beams of sunlight radiated down like the spokes of a wheel, illuminating the stone floor at the entrance to the building. More masters and soldiers strode across the open space, each footstep reverberating with a solid
clack
.

Finn’s Silverclad pushed him toward a doorway that led into the inner keep that filled the centre of the tower. An Ironclad guard on the door stood aside to let them through. Inside, Finn found himself in another small, square room, with a metal door in front of him.

The Silverclad didn’t followed him inside. The Ironclad guard shut and locked the outer door, leaving Finn alone again.

He stood and listened. He could hear the murmur of voices through the inner door, but couldn’t make out any words. His heart pumped at the thought of the Inner Wheel of Engn waiting for him in there. He felt sick now, his stomach fizzing and lurching. He retched once as if he was going to be sick, but his stomach was dry and empty and nothing came up. His stomach muscles cramped with a sharp pain. He wondered whether Connor was inside, explaining what had happened, defending Finn.

He was just about to slump to the floor to wait when the inner door was pulled open. A Silverclad - impossible to say whether it was the same one - beckoned him inside.

The court of the Inner Wheel of Engn was perfectly circular. He’d expected more of the gleaming metal, more bright light, but the room was dimly lit, the glow from many white candles making solid details shift and flicker. The masters sat in a ring of carved stone chairs set into the walls, as if the entire room, walls and chairs, had been carved from a single, vast rock. He could smell the age and dust of the place.

Twelve masters sat around the ring, each settled back into the shadows of their great thrones so that only their knees were visible. Above each chair, a series of stone faces had been carved, larger than life-size, one on top of the other. The faces at the bottom were smooth, worn away almost back to flat stone. Higher up, the faces’ features became sharper and sharper. Finn peered up at one of the columns, counting more than thirty effigies before they were lost in the shadows. Former masters of the Inner Wheel. He wondered how far the column went. The carved faces could be alive in the shifting light. He could feel the crushing weight of their gaze upon him, pressing him down to the ground.

Connor stood in his master’s robes in the centre of the circle, not moving. One of the seated masters raised a hand at that moment, a flash of grey flesh briefly visible. He waved his hand as if flicking Connor away. Connor turned and strode towards the door Finn had entered by. What had he told them? What story had he given? Sickening alarm thudded through Finn. He had no way of knowing what Connor had said to the masters. What story he should give. He watched Connor’s face as he strode by, hoping for some clue, some sign as to what he should do. Connor’s gaze flicked sideways, briefly, at Finn. A weak smile flashed across his face. Something else too: fear or regret. Then he was gone. The metal door boomed shut, leaving Finn alone with the masters.