The Hanging Mountains (16 page)

The balloon came level with the dangling hooks, distracting her from that particular mystery. Two members of the Panic crew reached out the starboard side and caught one, and swung it closer to attach it to the gondola. Two on the port side did the same. Shilly’s stomach lurched as the hooks tugged the balloon upwards to where a spindly-looking gantry awaited them, sticking out of the side of the half-moon structure like an insectile tongue.

‘Stay where you are until I tell you to stand,’ said Griel. ‘Then I want you to file off one at a time and wait until we’ve all disembarked. There’s no point trying to escape —’

‘Why would we?’ said Schuet. ‘We’ve nowhere to run, and no way to fly.’

‘Exactly.’ Griel stood on strong legs and leapt to the gantry as it approached. The thought of the drop below them didn’t seem to bother him — or any of the Panic, as they tied stays and carried stolen goods out of the gondola. The balloon creaked and swayed, and Shilly hung onto Sal with a sweaty grip.

Opposite her, Tom came awake with a slight start, and looked around him with wide eyes. ‘We’ve landed,’ he said.

‘No, just stopped.’
Land
was definitely the wrong word.

Griel came back to help them off the gondola, one after the other. Shilly refused to look down, even though she knew all she would see was clouds. That was worse, in a way, than seeing clear to the ground. She felt she might fall forever.

Mist-filled glass globes dangling from bulkheads above glowed with a pale light, illuminating the scene. Curved wooden walls awaited them, decorated with dots, parallel lines, and spirals that snaked in waves around corners, across ceilings, and along passageways. They might have been navigational markers or just ornamentation. Dock workers crowded around the gondola, ensuring it was safely secured. Everywhere Shilly looked she saw inhuman faces: big ears, shadowed eyes, mouths that stretched too wide when they opened. The air was full of harsh shrieks and cries. She forced herself to breathe evenly, calmly.

The Panic carried Kemp out of the gondola and rested him on a stretcher. He looked deathly pale and didn’t seem to be breathing. Rosevear went to check on him, but was held carefully back. A dozen Panic in black-and-brown uniforms had hurried up to join them on the gantry and stood in two lines before Griel, waiting for orders.

‘Anix, see to the cargo. I want it catalogued and assessed within the hour. Erged, call the Quorum to order; we’ll be coming before them shortly.’ The soldiers Griel addressed bowed briskly and hurried off. ‘Ramal, take this one to Vehofnehu and tell him to do what he can.’ Griel indicated Kemp, then pointed at Rosevear, Tom and Shilly in turn. ‘Take these three with you. I don’t think they’ll give you any trouble, but be careful anyway. I don’t want them wandering about on their own.’

The Panic called Ramal — a burly female with bushy eyebrows set in a permanent glower and two short, metal-bound ponytails suspended from the back of her domed head — bowed crisply.

‘Wait,’ said Shilly, feeling an instinctive alarm at the thought of being separated from Sal again. ‘Where are you taking us? Why can’t we all go?’

‘Because the rest of you are needed here,’ came the simple answer.

‘Why? What is the Quorum? Who is this Vef— Vehofen—?’

‘Vehofnehu.’ Griel came to stand before her. He was only slightly taller than her, but seemed enormously broad. ‘He’s many things; a healer is just one of them. You can trust him, just like you can trust me. I give you my word: if we have no reason to fear you, then you have no reason to fear us.’

Torn, Shilly looked at Sal for support. Should she fight or give in? Did she have any real choice? He seemed as uncertain as her.

‘Go with Kemp,’ Highson said to her. ‘Look after him. He’ll want a familiar face by him when he wakes up.’

Can’t Tom do that?
she wanted to retort.
He’s known Kemp as long as I have.

All resistance left her when she realised how petty that would sound. Kemp did need her, and she and Sal had survived separation before. Griel hadn’t hurt them yet. She could only hope that he — and the Quorum, whatever they were — would see that she and her companions were innocent bystanders in the Panic’s squabble with the other foresters.

She kissed Sal’s warm lips and hugged him, then went to stand with Tom and Rosevear, the bag slung over her shoulder. Beside the two young wardens, she felt very vulnerable.

Griel nodded his satisfaction. ‘Thank you for cooperating. If only all humans were so reasonable.’

‘Not just humans,’ said Schuet.

Griel snapped his long fingers and headed off along the gantry, drawing Sal, Highson, Seneschal Schuet and Mikia — plus the two Panic bearing Mawson — in his wake.

* * * *

Sal glanced over his shoulder at Shilly looking miserable, and wished there had been some way to avoid being separated. The sad fact was that they were severely outnumbered and a long way from help. It would be best to ride out what was coming in the hope that reason or compassion would ultimately prevail.

Still, the Change crackled through him like static electricity, wanting to earth itself in Griel’s exposed back.

‘Gently does it,’
whispered Highson into his mind.
‘They know you have some talent, but they don’t know how much. That knowledge could make all the difference, later.’

Sal nodded, seeing the sense in that. Although they had yet to meet any Panic with obvious sensitivity to the Change, he didn’t doubt that they existed.
What would they be like?
he wondered.
If Schuet and the foresters used wood as reservoirs, what did the Panic use?

The question distracted him only briefly. A more pressing issue — that of negotiating the ways of the floating city — soon demanded all his attention.

He had noticed the way the Panic crew used feet as well as hands to clamber over the balloon during the early stages of its journey through the mist, before he had fallen asleep. Their toes were shorter than their fingers but much more flexible than human toes, and the shoes they wore were open at the front, allowing them full mobility. He had thought the antics on the balloon a matter of expediency, but learned how wrong that assumption was on encountering his first ladder, inside the moon-shaped dock.

Griel waved two of his troop ahead of him with arms that seemed too long to be real. The soldiers scurried up the near-vertical incline with smooth grace, as easily as though walking. Schuet and Mikia went next, with considerably less ability. The ladder consisted of a series of cylindrical wooden rungs roughly half a metre apart, polished smooth by time and regular use. When it was Sal’s turn, he concentrated on each rung as it passed, and didn’t look down.

He clambered onto level ground at the top, feeling winded. Highson was flushed and breathing heavily behind him. The two Panic carrying Mawson didn’t appear inconvenienced in the slightest.

Griel didn’t give them a chance to rest. He wound his way through the dock and beyond, leading them up and down ladders and across bridges that swayed unnervingly beneath them. They passed Panic everywhere they went, following even more dangerous-looking routes up ropes and across gaps that made Sal ill just thinking about them. Wire cables reached upward from every flat surface, some just to the structure above, but others stretching right up out of sight to anchor points under balloons much higher. Because of its haphazard nature, the city possessed few vertical or horizontal surfaces. Sal constantly felt as though he might slip and fall if he stepped wrongly.

The deeper into the city’s heart they went, the more Panic they saw. Even though it was the middle of the night, the city was alive with motion and life. He didn’t know how many people lived there, but they were crammed in tight. Every vertical surface was studded with windows, pipes, drains, exhaust vents and the like. Washing lines and mist globes hung suspended from every available anchor point. Voices called across the gaps between buildings, creating a constant backdrop that he doubted would ever ebb completely. Big-mouthed, big-eared faces stared back at him from windows, doorways, and in passing. With Panic moving in all directions around him he felt under intense scrutiny, and once again had to resist the urge to use the Change, albeit for hiding rather than fighting.

They obviously weren’t the first humans to come to the city, but it was just as clearly not an everyday occurrence. Some of the Panic exposed their teeth in frightening sneers at Schuet and Mikia, recognising from their uniforms that they were captured enemies. Highson and Sal were obviously guilty by association. Mawson drew stares of open curiosity.

Sal didn’t know how long he could stand it. The smile he maintained, trying to deflect hostility, was soon aching with strain. He tried to keep his eyes on the ladders and ramps he had to follow, in a vain attempt to move as easily as Griel.

‘Where are you taking us?’ pressed Highson. ‘Who are the Quorum? Why do we need to see them?’

Griel wouldn’t answer, and soon they had no breath left for questions.

After an hour of climbing, they slowed. At the entrance to a bell-bottomed structure hanging from three giant golden balloons, a Panic female draped in flowing green fabrics anchored at shoulders, wrists and ankles ran up to Griel. Although smaller and as slender as a rope compared to him, she stopped him in his tracks.

‘Are you insane?’ Her expression was furious. Beaded hair that hung to her waist rattled with every movement of her head. Brass rings on her fingers and toes gleamed in the misty light. ‘Do you pursue this course because you’re mad, or do you have a genuine desire to ruin us all?’

‘Jao, listen —’

‘No,
you
listen for once.’ She poked at the stitching on Griel’s massive chestplate hard enough to force him back a step. ‘While you’ve been hunting that accursed wraith of yours, Tzartak and Sensenya have been ousted, allowing Oriel to fill their seats with his goons. Still, the Heptarchs might have listened to reason from you, had you not turned up with these — these
groundlings
in tow.’ The look she cast Schuet and the others was one of pure contempt. ‘What game are you playing? Do you have any conception of what might be at stake?’

Griel’s spine was as stiff as a board, recoiling so far away from her that he was almost standing completely straight. ‘I’m trying to do what’s right.’

‘I know, fog take you.’ In complete defiance of the anger and betrayal displayed by her expression, she stepped closer to kiss Griel on the lips. ‘Good luck, you mad fool. They’re waiting for you.’

Griel ran a hand over Jao’s beaded scalp with surprising tenderness, and nodded. He brushed by her and waved for the others to follow.

Sal ignored the hot stare of the Panic female as he had ignored other Panic during his journey with Griel. Two high, arched doors opened in the side of the structure ahead. Griel led them once more with an unhurried but distance-eating lope through the doors and along a grand corridor that followed a spiralling path into the interior of the structure.

‘Who are the Heptarchs?’ asked Highson, who had taken advantage of the brief respite to get his wind back.

Griel glanced at him, and to Sal’s surprise relented: ‘The caretakers of the Panic. Our rulers.’

‘I assume that’s who we are going to meet.’

‘No. The Quorum advise the Heptarchs on certain matters.’

‘What matters?’

‘I’ll explain later. For now, know only that we must move quickly, before this opportunity is taken from us.’ Griel’s tone, more than his words, told Highson he should obey.

Sal reviewed what little they had learned in recent moments. Someone had been ousted from the Heptarchs, allowing someone else called Oriel to gain more influence over the Panic’s ruling body. Without knowing who stood for what, it was impossible to tell whether that would be a good thing for the ‘groundlings’ or not. Griel and Jao obviously thought it was a bad thing, though.

The turning of the corridor tightened. Alcoves lined the interior wall, deep niches containing odd-looking objects identified by nameplates that made no sense to Sal:
Main Logic Board
—
Atlanta. Reverse Gate
—
NL320-U.
He had seen displays like this in the Haunted City, where spaces had been set aside to exhibit unusual artefacts recovered from Ruins all over the Strand. A faint tingling of the Change radiated from the niches. He noted each one as he traversed the long corridor, his biological father close at his side.

The motley group came to another set of double doors. No guards inspected them or asked what they were doing. After a dozen breaths, the doors swung ajar. Flickering green light spilled from the room beyond, painting their faces in sickly tones. A strange smell, not unlike the sparking of a chimerical engine, made Sal wince.

Griel straightened his broad shoulders and walked forward through the doors. Sal followed, not knowing what to expect.

Beyond the doors lay an octagonal room with black walls lined with bookshelves. Each wall reached high above their heads and curved inwards to a point, forming an eight-pointed star overhead. Its rays gleamed in the green light that came from a wide font resting waist-high on three attenuated legs in the centre of the room. Thirteen dark-robed shapes stood at varying distances around the glowing pool, their faces hidden by hoods. The one closest to the font, and therefore more brightly lit, looked up as they entered.

To Sal’s surprise a human face greeted him from
beneath the hood. Not one of the Panic. A man with rounded features and glowing skin, he regarded each of them in turn, then moved to speak to his companions.

The words that emerged from his lips were unlike any Sal had heard before. Although he strained to understand them, their meaning eluded him completely.

‘Bahman acknowledges you,’ boomed a voice from behind them. Sal turned to see a female Panic also dressed in robes. Hers, however, were silver and her hood hung limply down her back. Her hair was grey and straight and her face deeply lined; with stately, measured paces she stepped out of the shadows to confront them. ‘Bahman recognises you.’