A Darkling Plain

  She thinks of her mistress, the Stalker Fang, out there in the mountains somewhere, waiting. If only she would show herself! Cynthia understands why the Stalker would want to punish the weaklings who flocked to Naga's banner, but surely she knows that she can still rely upon her faithful private agents. For a moment, as she slips back inside and strolls toward General Dzhu's quarters, she feels almost angry at her old mistress. It quickly passes. Whatever the Stalker Fang is planning will be dreadful and wonderful, and it is not Cynthia's place to judge her.

  Theo had always had a good sense of direction. He found his way quickly through the maze of trenches and was almost in sight of the dugout when an explosion went off just beyond the wire, kicking fans of earth and smoke high into the dawn sky. He crouched as the mud came spattering down. A sea of smoke filled the trench. Scared, fleeing soldiers blundered through it, throwing down their weapons as they ran, pulling

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  off packs and bandoliers. Their mouths were open as if they were shouting, but Theo couldn't hear them; he had been deafened by the blast of the shell.

  Dazed, he scrambled up onto a fire step to see what they were running from. Beyond the bramble hedge of wire outside the trench, mountainous shapes were moving. Now and again, as the gusting wind hooked swags of smoke aside, he could see Murnau, only a few miles off, munching its way through the shell-battered city-traps, while a dozen harvester suburbs probed for mines or pitfalls. A nearby fortress was firing rockets toward it, but as Theo watched, the ground began to tremble sluggishly and up from the mud at the fort's base an enormous blunt steel nose came shoving, lifting to expose giant drills and complicated mouthparts, knocking the fort to pieces and gobbling them down. WELCOME TO HARROWBARROW said a crude white slogan painted on the armored flank. Theo had plenty of time to read it as the weird suburb went grinding past him, crushing bunkers and wrecked gun emplacements beneath its tracks. Signal lamps blinked on Murnau's upper tier, as if trying to call it to heel, but the suburb ignored them; it settled itself deep into the muddy earth again and went grinding on into Green Storm territory.

  Theo jumped down from the step and stumbled on, confused by the smoke and the steep walls of earth that had been thrown across the trench by the explosions. Fresh blasts went off, spattering him with mud and muddy water, but it all happened in hissing, undersea silence, like a dream. He barely understood what was going on. How could the cities have broken through so easily? Where were the indomitable

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  air destroyers and thousand-Tumbler quick-response units that he had been told of in the Green Storm's propaganda films?

  An airship drifted overhead, burning so fiercely that he could not tell which side it had belonged to. By its light he saw the dugout entrance and ran gratefully through it. The command post had already been evacuated, but Theo's coat still hung on the back of the folding chair where he had left it. He pulled it on, feeling Wren's letter crinkle in the pocket, her photograph pressing against his heart.

  He didn't hear the scream of the snout-gun shell descending. The first he knew of it was when the hot hands of the explosion lifted him off his feet. Then everything turned into light.

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  31 The House at Erdene Tezh

  ***

  The Stalker Fang pauses at the edge of the docking pan where Popjoy's air yacht is tethered and turns her bronze face toward the west.

  "What?" asks Fishcake. "What is it?" He looks westward too, but he can see nothing; just the mountains. How sick he is of mountains! They stand guard like frost giants all around this high, green valley, and their reflections shimmer in the windswept lake below the docking pan. "Gunfire," the Stalker whispers.

  "You mean the war is on again?" Fishcake strains his grubby Once-Born ears to try and hear what she can hear. "I must work quickly. Come."

  She starts limping toward the causeway, and Fishcake follows her, carrying on his shoulder one of the cases of equipment that she made him bring from Dun Resurrectin'.

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  Overhead, the dead birds that followed her from Popjoy's place soar past, keeping watch for movements in the sky or on the steep pass at the valley's western end.

  The causeway is two hundred paces long. At its far end is a rocky island where a house stands, dark and cold as a tomb. It was a monastery once, sacred to the gods and demons of the mountains, whose faces still leer out of niches in the outer walls. Later it was Anna Fang's home, a place of light and laughter where she relaxed between missions for the Anti-Traction League. She had planned to retire here, and raise horses in the steep green pastures, before Valentine's sword unraveled all her plans.

  In the first years of the Green Storm regime there had been talk of turning Erdene Tezh into a museum, where schoolchildren could come to see relics of the Wind-Flower and tread the same floors that she had trodden. But the Stalker she had become forbade it. She had the house locked, and let it fall into ruin.

  The gate whines as the Stalker heaves it open. Fishcake crunches after her through the gateway, where patches of snow lie blue in the shadows. Safe in the loop of the thick stone wall is a garden; dead trees and dead brown grass, a fountain lacy with icicles. Fishcake trots after his Stalker up the frosty path to the house. She does not smash the door down as he has been expecting, but extends one of her finger-glaives, inserts it into the keyhole, and moves it carefully about in there until the lock clicks. As she opens the door, she looks back at Fishcake.

  "Home again!" she whispers.

  He follows her into the shadows. He can't be sure anymore

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  if she is Anna or the Stalker Fang. He thinks she may be both, as if Popjoy's tinkering blended the two personalities somehow. She has not been unkind to Fishcake, and she still shares her memories with him, but she does not play with him anymore; she no longer takes his hand, or tousles his hair, or comes to hold him at night when he wakes from a bad dream. All he has left of that Anna is the carved toy horse, which he clutches tightly when he goes to sleep.

  Whoever she is, the Stalker seems happy to be home. "Ah," she sighs, passing through a reception room where the ceiling has collapsed and bird droppings lie thick on a fine tiled floor. "Oh!" she says, crossing the atrium and peering into a long chamber whose shattered windows stare out across the mere to the white heights of the Erdene Shan. "She had such parties here! Such happy times...."

  The wind hoots through holes in the walls. Beyond the party room lies a bedroom, a canopied bed sinking like a torpedoed ship into a sea of its own moldering covers. At the far side of the bedroom is another locked door. And beyond the door...

  The room exhales stale air when she unlocks it. Fishcake, creeping in behind her, guesses that this part of the house has been sealed. It smells a bit like Grimsby. The walls and floor are covered in metal, with rubber mats to walk on. Cobwebs and plastic swathe a curious mountain of machinery: wires and tubes, screens and boxes, valves and dials and colored electrical cords, keyboards torn from typewriting machines.

  "Engineers were not the only ones who knew how to build things, back in the good old days," the Stalker whispers. "Anna was clever with machines, just like you, Fishcake. She

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  even built her own airship out of odds and ends. She was attempting to make a long-range radio transmitter here. It never worked very well, and others since have had much more success. But it's a start. With what we brought from Popjoy's workshop, and the radio set from his yacht, I am certain we can boost the signal."

  "Who are you signaling to?" asks Fishcake.

  The Stalker lets out her hissy laugh. She takes him by the arm and drags him into the ruined bedroom, points through a hole in the roof, straight up, at the deep blue in the top of the sky.

  "Up there. That's where the receiver is. We are going to send a message into heaven."

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  PART THREE

  ***

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  32 London Journal
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  ***

  19th June

  Seventeen days have passed since Wolf Kobold ran away. Everybody seems to be forgetting him. Even me, most of the time. Even Angie, now that her headache has faded and the lump is going down. Most people think that there's no way Wolf could cross all those miles of Green Storm territory and get back to Harrowbarrow again. Even if he could, he would never be able to bring Harrowbarrow back east to eat New London, at least not unless war breaks out again. But work on New London is going ahead even faster, just in case.

  When I first found out what they are building, I thought they were all a bit mad, to be honest. But when you see how hard

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  everyone works here, and how much they all believe in this crazy new city the Engineers have dreamed up, you realize what it must have been like in Anchorage when Freya Rasmussen decided to take it across the ice to America. That was a mad idea too, and I'm sure there were a lot of people who thought it would never work--my mum was so sure of it that she betrayed the whole place to Arkangel when she couldn't persuade Dad to leave. But she was wrong, because it did work, didn't it? And I don't want to be like Mum, so I've decided to believe that New London is going to work too.

  Anyway, Dad's been very keen to do his bit. At first he seemed intent on trying to help the Engineers, but the Childermass machines are so different from any technology he's seen before that I think he just got in the way. So he started helping the men lug bits of salvage up to the hangar, but I had a quiet word with Dr. Childermass and explained about his heart trouble, and she had a q. word with Chudleigh Pomeroy, who took Dad aside and said what New London really needs is a museum, so that even if it roams to the far side of the world, the people who live aboard it will never forget the old London and what became of it. And since none of us have the time, Tom," he said, "perhaps you wouldn't mind putting together a collection?" So Dad has been appointed Head Historian and spends his days scouring the rust heaps for artifacts that will say something to future generations about his London--everything from old drain covers and tier-support ties to a little statue of the goddess Clio from somebody's household shrine.

  Meanwhile, I've been out patrolling with the other young Londoners. Mr. Garamond was v. opposed to it at first, but

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  Mr. Pomeroy told him not to be such a bloody fool, and Angie and her friends are all very friendly, and most impressed when I told them I'd been in an actual battle and seen Stalkers and Tumblers and stuff. (I didn't tell them how completely terrified I was, as it might be bad for morale.) Anyway, I've been right across the main debris field several times. It's very spooky, esp. at night, but Angie and Cat and the rest are good company, and I've been given a crossbow to use if we're attacked--I'm not sure I could actually shoot anyone, but it makes me feel a bit braver.

  What I'd really like is one of the lightning guns the Engineers built to deal with Stalkers, but there aren't very many of those, and only Mr. G's most trusted fighters get to use them--Saab and Cat and people. The Green Storm's Stalker-birds have been getting very nosy these past few weeks, and the danger bell at Crouch End is forever ringing, telling everyone to get under cover because some flea-bitten old dead buzzard is circling overhead, having a good look at us. Mostly we've just taken to ignoring them, but when one gets too close to the Womb, the boys on duty in the crow's nests there shoot it down with their lightning guns; there are half a dozen hanging outside Crouch End now, all singed and charcoaly.

  There is one other way of getting rid of them; it's much more dangerous, and Angie and her friends treat it as a sort of sport. Last week, when we were out patrolling, a Stalker-bird came flying over us. We're supposed to hide when that happens, but Angie said, "Let's have a spot of mollyhawking! " and jumped right out into the open, so I followed her. We went along one of the paths that wind between the wreckage heaps, and the bird came after us. I was worried it was going to attack, but Angie

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  said they never do; they're just spies, and she meant to serve it right for snooping.

  We went on, walking quite fast, and soon I began to realize that we were heading toward the middle of the debris field, the bit they call Electric Lane. Till then I'd tended to agree with Wolf about the sprites--that they were just a fairy tale. But up there in the middle of London, where everything looks kind of scorched and melted, I suddenly wasn't so sure. I asked Angie if it was safe, and she said "safe-ish," which wasn't very reassuring, but I didn't want her to think I was a coward, so I kept going.

  After a bit we came over a rise, and there in front of us was a sort of valley stretching right across the middle of the debris field. It looked quite peaceful, with ponds and trees on its floor, but the wreckage on either side was all charred and twisty-looking. Angie says that it's the place where the core of MEDUSA fell, having melted its way right down through the seven tiers of London, and that's why MEDUSA's residue is strongest there. I don't know if it's true. Anyway, I only got a quick glimpse before Angie shoved me into a hollow of the wreckage all overhung with ivy. "Hide!" she said. The stupid old Stalker-bird didn't see us, and went soaring out over the valley. It hadn't gone fifty feet before a great snaggly fork of electricity came crackling out of the wreckage and roasted it; there was nothing left but a puff of smoke and some singed feathers that blew away on the wind!

  I got a bit shuddery afterward, thinking what would have happened to the Jenny if we'd flown into Electric Lane that first day.

  ***

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  PS. Saab Peabody asked me out. I said I'd have to think about it and he said he supposed I had a boyfriend on the bird roads somewhere and I said I supposed I did. Silly, or what?

  And now, because it's late, and tomorrow is a big day--the first test of the new city--I am going to go to bed.

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  33 The Test

  ***

  THE MORNING OF THE test dawned dull and cloudy, threatening rain. The wind came from the west in indignant squalls, scattering a confetti storm of petals from the blossom trees that had taken root amid the debris of London.

  Not wanting to impose himself on Wren, who was going up to the Womb with her new friends, Tom made the trek from Crouch End alone. He scanned the mounds of wreckage beside the track as he walked, for he had fallen into a habit of looking everywhere for fragments that might fit into the New London museum, and give the children who would one day be born upon the new city some notion of what old London had been like. When you knew where to look, the rusting ruin heaps were full of relics; street signs and door handles, hinges and tea urns. He spotted a pewter spoon with

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  the crest of the Historians' Guild on its handle and slipped it into his pocket. He had eaten with spoons like that every day of his childhood; it was like a shard of memory made solid, and he liked to think of those future Londoners looking at it and imagining his life.

  Of course, they would never know the details: how he'd felt and what his dreams had been; his adventures on the bird roads, in the Ice Wastes and America. You couldn't expect a pewter spoon to convey that sort of detail.

  Lately, watching Wren writing in her journal of an evening, Tom had wondered if he shouldn't try to write down some of the things that had happened to him, before it was too late. But he was no Thaddeus Valentine. He wasn't even a Nimrod Pennyroyal. Writing did not come easily to him. Anyway, it would have meant writing about Hester, and he didn't think he could do that. He'd not even spoken his wife's name since he came to London. If his new friends ever wondered who Wren's mother was, they kept it to themselves; perhaps they assumed that she was dead, and that Tom would find it painful to speak of her--which was not so far from the truth. How could he write about Hester for future generations when he did not understand himself why she had done the things she had, or what had made him love her?

  Drawing close to the Womb, he caught up with a crowd of his fellow Londoners, all heading in the same direction. Clytie Potts was among them, and she greeted him warm
ly, glad of his company; her husband was aboard New London with the Engineers. "Dr. Childermass is afraid her Magnetic

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  Levitation system might work too well," she explained. "She wants an aviator on hand to steer New London down again if it goes too high."

  "Really?"

  "It's a joke, Tom."

  "Oh." Tom laughed with her, although he didn't find it funny. "I'm sorry. So much has changed since we were young ... so many new inventions ... I don't really know what New London is capable of." He thought of the Mag-Lev prototypes that Dr. Childermass had shown him: platforms the size of dinner tables that maneuvered around the Womb as if by magic, hanging several feet above the ground. If the new city survived, the Engineers were planning to apply the same technology to actual tables next; floating chairs and beds as well, and hovering Mag-Lev toys, which they would trade as curios to other small cities. Tom had even heard talk of Mag-Lev vehicles, which made him feel oddly sad, because if they worked, they would surely bring an end to the age of airships, and his dear old Jenny Haniver would be obsolete.

  The thought made his heart ache--or maybe that was the result of the climb from Crouch End. He swallowed one of his green pills and went with Clytie through the entrance to the Womb.