Mortal Engines (20 page)

"Shrike!" howled Tom, hurling himself up and forward with the sword held out stiffly in front of him, feeling the green light spill across his face as Shrike spun hissing to meet him. An iron arm lashed out, hurling him backwards. He felt a searing pain in his chest and for a moment he was sure that he had been torn in two, but it was the Stalker's forearm that struck him, not the bladed hand, and he landed in one piece and rolled over, gasping at the pain, expecting to see Shrike lunge at him and then nothing, ever again.

But Shrike was on the ground, and Hester was bending over him, and as Tom watched the Stalker's eye flickered and something exploded inside him with a flash and a crack and a coil of smoke leaking upwards. The hilt of the sword jutted from one of the gashes in his chest, crackling with blue sparks.

"Oh, Shrike!" whispered Hester

Shrike carefully sheathed his claws so that she could take his hand. Unexpected memories fluttered through his disintegrating mind, and he suddenly knew who he had been before they dragged him on to the Resurrection Slab to make a Stalker of him. He wanted to tell Hester, and he lifted his great iron head towards her, but before he could force the words out his death was upon him, and it was no easier this time than the last.

The great iron carcass settled into stillness, and smoke blew away on the wind. Down in the valley, horns were blowing, and Tom could see a party of riders starting up the hill from the caravanserai, alerted by the sound of gunfire. They carried spears and flaming torches, and he didn't think they would be friendly. He tried to push himself upright, but the pain in his chest almost made him faint.

Hester heard him groan and swung towards him. "What did you do that for?" she shouted.

Tom could not have been more surprised if she had slapped him. "He was going to kill you!" he protested.

"He was going to make me like
him!"
screamed Hester, hugging Shrike. "Didn't you hear what he said? He was going to make me everything I ever wanted; no memories, no feelings. Imagine Valentine's face when I came for him! Oh,
why
do you keep
interfering!"

"He would have turned you into a monster!" Tom heard his own voice rising to a shout as all his pain and fear flared into anger.

"I'm already a monster!" she shrieked.

"No, you're not!" Tom managed to heave himself to his knees. "You're my friend!" he shouted.

"I hate you! I hate you!" Hester was yelling

"Well, I care about you, whether you like it or not!" Tom screamed. "Do you think you're the only person who's lost their mum and dad? I feel just as angry and lonely as you, but you don't see me going around want ing to kill people and trying to get myself turned into a Stalker! You're just a rude, self-pitying -"

But the rest of what he had been planning to tell her died away in an astonished sob, because suddenly he could see the town below him and Airhaven and the approaching riders as clearly as if it were the middle of the day. He saw the stars fade; he saw Hester's face freeze in mid-shout with spittle trailing from the corners of her mouth; he saw his own wavering shadow dancing on the blood-soaked grass.

Above the crags, the night sky was filling with an unearthly light, as if a new sun had risen from the Out-Country, somewhere far away towards the north.

Katherine watched, transfixed, as the dome of St Paul's split along black seams and the sections folded outwards like petals. Inside, something was rising slowly up a central tower and opening as it rose, an orchid of cold, white metal. The grumble of vast hydraulics echoed across the square and shivered through the fabric of the Engineerium.

"MEDUSA!" whispered Bevis Pod, standing behind her in the open doorway. "They haven't really been repairing the cathedral at all! They've built MEDUSA inside St Paul's!"

"Guildspersons?"

They turned. An Engineer was standing behind them. "What are you doing?" he snapped. "This gantry is off-limits to everyone but L Division -"

He stopped, staring at Katherine, and she saw that Bevis was staring too, his dark eyes wide and horrified. For a moment she couldn't imagine what was wrong with him. Then she understood. The rain! She had forgotten about the Guild-mark he had painted so carefully between her eyebrows, and now it was trickling down her face in thin red rills.

"What in Quirke's name?" the Engineer gasped.

"Kate, run!" shouted Bevis, pushing the Engineer aside, and Katherine ran, and heard the man's angry shout behind her as he fell. Then Bevis was with her, grabbing her by the hand, darting left and right down empty corridors until a stairway opened ahead. Down one flight and then another, and behind them they heard more shouts and the sudden jarring peal of an alarm bell. Then they were at the bottom, in a small lobby, somewhere at the rear of the Engineerium. There were big glass doors opening on to Top Tier, and two Guildsmen standing guard.

"There's an intruder!" panted Bevis, pointing back the way they had come. "On the third floor! I think he's armed!"

The Guildsmen were already startled by the sudden ringing of the alarm bell. They exchanged shocked glances, then one started up the stairs, dragging a gas-pistol from his belt.

Bevis and Katherine seized their chance and hurried on. "My colleague's been hurt," explained Bevis, pointing at Katherine's red-streaked face. "I'm taking her round to the infirmary!" The door swung open and spilled them out into the welcome dark.

They ran as fast as they could into the shadow of St Paul's, then stopped and listened. Katherine could hear the heavy throbbing of machinery, and a closer, louder throb that was the beat of her own heart. A man's voice was shouting orders somewhere, and there was a crash of armoured feet, coming closer. "Beefeaters!" she whimpered. "They'll want to see our papers! They'll take off my hood! Oh, Bevis, I should never have asked you to get me in there! Run! Leave me!"

Bevis looked at her and shook his head. He had defied his Guild and risked everything to help her, and he wasn't about to abandon her now.

"Oh, Clio help us!" breathed Katherine, and something made her glance towards Paternoster Square. There was old Chudleigh Pomeroy standing on the Guildhall steps with his arms full of envelopes and folders, staring upward. She had never been so happy to see anyone in her whole life, and she ran to him, dragging Bevis Pod along with her and calling softly, "Mr Pomeroy!"

He looked blankly at them, then gasped in surprise as Katherine pulled the stupid hood off and he saw her face and her sweat-draggled hair. "Miss Valentine! What in Quirke's name is happening? Look what those damned interfering Engineers have done to St Paul's!"

She looked up. The metal orchid was open to its full extent now, casting a deep shadow on the square below. Only it was not an orchid. It was a cowled, flaring thing like the hood of some enormous cobra, and it was swinging round to point at Panzerstadt-Bayreuth.

"MEDUSA!" she said.

"Who?" asked Chudleigh Pomeroy.

A bug siren wailed. "Oh, please!" she cried, turning to the plump Historian, "They're after us! If they catch Bevis, I don't know what will happen to him..."

Bless him - he did not say "Why?" or "What have you done wrong?", just took Katherine by one arm and Bevis Pod by the other and hurried them towards the Guildhall garage where his bug was waiting. As the chauffeur helped them into it a squad of Beefeaters came clattering past, but they paid no attention to Pomeroy and his companions. He hid Katherine's coat and hood behind his seat, and made Bevis Pod crouch down on the floor of the bug. Then he squeezed himself in beside Katherine on the back seat and said, "Let me do the talking," as the bug went purring out into Paternoster Square.

There was a throng of people outside the elevator station, gazing up in amazement at the thing which had sprouted from St Paul's. Beefeaters stopped the bug while a young Engineer peered in. Pomeroy opened a vent in the glastic lid and asked, "Is there a problem, Guildsman?"

"A break-in at the Engineerium. Anti-Tractionist terrorists. .."

"Well, don't look at us," laughed Pomeroy. "I've been working in my office at the Guildhall all evening, and Miss Valentine has been kindly helping me to sort out some papers..."

"All the same, sir, I'll have to search your bug."

"Oh, really!" cried Pomeroy. "Do we look like terrorists? Haven't you got better things to do, on the last night of London, with a dirty great conurbation bearing down on us? I shall complain to the Council in the strongest possible terms! It's outrageous!"

The man looked uncertain, then nodded and stepped aside to let Pomeroy's chauffeur steer the bug into a waiting freight elevator. As the doors closed behind it Pomeroy let out a sigh of relief. "Those damned Engineers. No offence, Apprentice Pod..."

"None taken," said Bevis's muffled voice from somewhere below.

"Thank you!" whispered Katherine. "Oh, thank you for helping us!"

"Don't mention it," chuckled Pomeroy. "I'm always happy to do anything that upsets Crome and his lackeys. Thousands of years old, that cathedral, and they go and turn it into a... into whatever they've turned it into, without so much as a by-your-leave..." He looked nervously at Katherine and saw that she wasn't really listening. Gently he asked, "But whatever have you done to stir them up, Miss Valentine? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but if you and your friend are in trouble, and if there's anything an old coot like me can do..."

Katherine felt helpless tears prickling her eyes. "Please," she whispered, "could you just take us home?"

"Of course."

They sat in awkward silence as the bug drove through the streets of Tier One into the park. The darkness was full of people running and shouting, pointing up towards the cathedral. But there were other runners too: Engineer security men leading squads of Beefeaters. When the bug stopped outside Clio House, Pomeroy climbed out to walk Katherine to the door. She whispered a heartfelt goodbye to Bevis and followed him. "Could you take Apprentice Pod to an elevator station?' she asked. "He needs to get back to the Gut."

Pomeroy looked worried. "I don't know, Miss Valentine," he sighed. "You've seen how het-up the Engineers are. If I know them they'll have all their factories and dormitory blocks locked down tight by now, and security checks in progress. They may already have worked out that he's missing, along with two coats and hoods..."

"You mean, he can't go back?" Katherine felt dizzy at the thought of what she had done to poor Pod. "Not ever?"

Pomeroy nodded.

"Then I'll keep him with me at Clio House!" Katherine decided.

"He's not a stray cat, my dear."

"But when Father gets home he'll be able to sort everything out, won't he? Explain to the Lord Mayor that it was nothing to do with Bevis..."

"It's possible," agreed Pomeroy. "Your father is very close to the Guild of Engineers. A damned sight too close, some people say. But I don't think Clio House is the place to keep your friend. I'll take him down to the Museum. There's plenty of room for him there, and the Engineers won't be able to search for him without giving us warning first."

"Would you really do that?" asked Katherine, afraid that she was dragging yet another innocent person into the trouble she had created. But after all, it would only be for a few days, until Father came home. Then everything would be all right. "Oh, thank you!" she said happily, standing on tiptoe to kiss Pomeroy's cheek. "Thank you!"

Pomeroy blushed and beamed at her, and started to say something else - but although his mouth moved she could not hear the words. Her head was filled with a strange sound, a whining roar that grew louder and louder until she realized that it wasn't inside her at all, but pounding down from somewhere overhead.

"Look!" shouted the Historian, pointing upwards.

Her fear had made her forget St Paul's. Now, looking up at Top Tier, she saw the cobra-hood of MEDUSA start to crackle with violet lightning. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck prickled, and when she reached for Pomeroy's hand pale sparks jumped between the tips of her fingers and his robes. "Mr Pomeroy!" she shouted. "What's happening?"

"Great Quirke!" the Historian cried. "What have those fools awoken now?"

Ghostly spheres of light detatched themselves from the glowing machine and drifted down over Circle Park like fire-balloons. Lightning danced around the spires of the Guildhall. The rushing, whining roar grew louder and louder, higher and higher, until even with her hands clapped over her ears Katherine felt she could not bear a moment more of it. Then, quite suddenly, a stream of incandescent energy burst from the cobra's hood and stretched northwards, a snarling, spitting cat-o'-ninetails lashing out to lick at the upperworks of Panzerstadt-Bayreuth. The night split apart and went rushing away to hide in the corners of the sky. For a second Katherine saw the tiers of the distant conurbation limned in fire, and then it was gone. A pulse of brightness lifted from the earth, blinding white, then red, a pillar of fire rushing up in silence into the sky, and across the flame-lit snow the sound-wave came rolling, a low, long-drawn-out boom as if a great door had slammed shut somewhere in the depths of the earth.

The beam snapped off, plunging Circle Park into sudden darkness, and in the silence she heard Dog howling madly inside the house.

"Great Quirke!" Pomeroy whispered. "All those poor people...!"

"No!" Katherine heard herself say. "Oh, no, no, no!" She started to run across the garden, staring towards the lightning-flecked cloud which wreathed the wreckage of the conurbation. From Circle Park and all the observation platforms came the sound of wordless voices, and she thought at first that they were crying out in horror, the way she wanted to - but no; they were cheering, cheering, cheering.