A Web of Air (22 page)

“Fever… I came to tell you that supper’s almost ready. Oh, I see you’ve found the angels’ atlas.”

“Is that what it is?”

“That’s what my grandfather called it. He used to bring me up here when I was little. He reckoned that it showed their fishing grounds, their roosts, even the currents of the upper air. You see those swirling scratches? ‘The bird roads’, he called those. Maybe we’ll ride them too, one day.”

“And this coastline…?” said Fever, touching the wriggly scar of it.

“You can’t be sure it
is
a coastline, you know. Birds drew these maps, and they may not have shared our concepts of east and west, distance and direction. Just because they drew Mayda here and then that shore over there doesn’t mean anything. That could be a map of somewhere further down the coast, or in northern Africa, or some made-up country, some birdy heaven.”

“Or it could be America,” said Fever.

“Well, yes. That’s what Grandfather believed. Angels have been known to travel for thousands of miles. He thought that they could easily have reached the Dead Continent.”

“But if the angels reached it, it can’t be dead,” said Fever. “Other birds must go there. They’d take seeds with them, plants would grow. Insects and spiders would blow there on the wind. And there are fish in the seas, look…” She pointed to the fish-shapes which angels had carved in the nooks and inlets of that unknown shore.

Arlo laughed. “Perhaps we’ll fly there ourselves one day, when the machine is ready, and find out. What do you think?”

Fever thought that she was being made fun of. It had happened often enough in the past, and she was starting to recognize the signs. She smiled to show that she did not mind, then got up and followed him back down the stairs of the tower, still contemplating lost America. “Perhaps it’s just a taboo that stops people going there and exploring for themselves,” she said, squinting into the red sunlight, wishing she could see over the curve of the earth. “All those old stories about America being destroyed by the gods; a wasteland; a continent of death. We’ve all grown up on those stories so we half believe them, even the rational ones among us.”

“Old myths are very powerful,” agreed Arlo. “Look at the Zagwans, burning people like you and me alive because they think technology offends their god. Or my own people. We were still sacrificing children to appease the Sea Goddess until a few hundred years ago. And as for you Londoners? Isn’t this obsession with making London move just another crazy cult? And it’s spreading as fast as any religion; I gather that half the towns of the near north are thinking about adding wheels and engines…”

“It won’t catch on,” said Fever firmly. “Not when people hear about your flying machine.”

“Ah yes… The machine…” He looked at her and there was an odd light in his eyes; a banked-down excitement so boyish that he looked for an instant no older than Ruan. “Fever, she’s ready. There’s no reason to delay any longer. If the wind stays in the west and not too strong I mean to test her…”

“When?”

“First thing tomorrow.”

They went home together along a path which Fever had always avoided before. It was more direct than the winding heather-mazes she usually walked up on the island’s crown, but it skirted close to the cliff’s edge, and the views of the white waves breaking all that way below made her stomach feel strange, however often she told herself she was being irrational and there was really no danger of falling. She walked carefully, keeping her eyes fixed on Arlo’s back and the lights the sunset lit in his hair. She feared for him, and she dared not say so in case that made him fearful too. She knew that the machine should fly; she had checked and checked his figures. But the cliffs were so high, and his body so fragile.

“I should be the one,” she said, as they drew near the tower. “I should pilot it. It is only rational. I am lighter than you. ‘Light as a bird’, that’s what you called me. And if I crash and am killed, you would be able to build another machine.”

“No!” he said, rounding on her almost angrily. “It must be me! I want to fly, Fever.” Then, more kindly, “Besides, if something does go wrong, like it did for poor Edgar…” He reached out and quickly brushed her cheek with his rough carpenter’s fingers. “I’d rather be dead than have that on my conscience.”

“Yes, of course,” said Fever, taken off guard by that touch. She felt giddy, sensing the edge of the cliff behind her, the long drop into the surf. But Arlo only smiled at her, and turned, and walked along the path away from her. Angels hung above him in the evening air on their big wings, almost motionless, and it was easy to imagine him up there, soaring among them, as if the sky was where he had always belonged.

or the first few days Jonathan Hazell thought that matters had improved. Something had taken the wind out of Dr Teal’s sails, wiped the smile off his face, and generally made him far easier to live with. He was still treating the house on Rua Penhasco like a hotel, letting himself in and out at all hours, but he was no longer quite so
boisterous
about it. He no longer sat himself down at the parpsichord to tootle out Aberdonian marches at 3 a.m., or rearranged the statues on the household shrine into amusing dioramas. He didn’t shout, “Morning, Hazell!” every day in that big, booming voice of his when Jonathan Hazell came creeping downstairs after another rough night in the guest-room bed. Didn’t scatter his drawings of the wretched funiculars all over the house, and get ink in the rugs. Indeed, he seemed to be out most of the time, and when he was at home he scarcely spoke.

But after the first few days, his guest’s gloom started to oppress Jonathan Hazell almost as much as his cheerfulness had. What was troubling the fellow? he wondered. He sensed that, as London’s envoy at the World’s End, it was his duty to find out. He would not want Teal sending a bad report about him back to this new mayor, Quercus.

The Engineer looked at him darkly when he asked what was wrong, over breakfast one morning. Looked at him darkly and then shook his head. “It’s a bad business, Master Hazell.”

“Well, may I be of any assistance?”

“I doubt it.” Teal poked half-heartedly at a kipper, then glanced up again. “You remember I had you send a courier to London the morning after my arrival?”

Jonathan Hazell remembered it well. It had cost him a small fortune, and Dr Teal showed no sign of paying him back.

“The message he was carrying concerned that girl Fever Crumb,” Dr Teal continued. “She is very important to some
very
important people in London. Important enough that I felt sure it would do me no end of good if I could only persuade her to return home with me when I go. But she has vanished.”

“Vanished? I thought that theatre of hers had cleared off to Meriam or somewhere…”

“Do you think I don’t know that, Hazell? She remained behind, and she has vanished. The hotel where she was staying has no knowledge of her. When I went to the home of … of a man I thought she might have called on I found it empty, no sign of either of them. She has fled, or been kidnapped. I will have to confess to these important Londoners that having found Miss Crumb, I have lost her again, perhaps for good.”

“Dr Teal!” said Jonathan Hazell, pushing away his own kipper half-eaten. “This is terrible!”

The Engineer nodded grimly. “Indeed it is. My career may never recover from this blow.”

Jonathan Hazell frowned. He remembered Fever Crumb standing in sunlight on his doorstep. He was afraid that he had been rather rude to her. She had struck him as a sensible young person. Sensible and very charming. Who cared a fig for Dr Teal’s career when the poor girl was missing?

“We must find her!” he said, thumping the table so hard that he startled himself and made all the cutlery jiggle.

“Eh?” Teal looked up at him, surprised. “Well, what do you think I’ve been trying to do, these past days? I’ve been walking around and around this unreasonable city of yours like a fly in a toilet-bowl, looking for her high and low.”

“But you haven’t found her…” Jonathan Hazell was starting to feel strangely excited. He had thought for a long time that he needed a new hobby. He had been considering building a model of Mayda out of matchsticks, but might not a spot of investigation be just as diverting? He had always enjoyed a good puzzle.

He said, “You should have told me as soon as Miss Crumb went missing. I am London’s envoy, remember, and I have a great deal of local knowledge at my, ah, fingertips. I have contacts, and things. If anyone has heard of Miss Crumb’s whereabouts, I shall learn of it. I shall start at once, this morning, at the exchange. Where was she last seen, Dr Teal? What was the name of this gentleman you think she may have called on?”

Dr Teal looked doubtfully at him. He was used to working alone. He could think of no more unlikely partner than this meek little mole-like man. And yet the situation was desperate, and Hazell’s suggestion was not irrational.

“His name is Arlo Thursday.”

“Thursday! But there was some sort of disturbance at his funicular a few nights ago! I heard it said at the exchange that the Oktopous Cartel was involved! If
they
have kidnapped poor Miss Crumb…!”

Dr Teal just looked glumly at him.

Jonathan Hazell finished his cup of tea and set it down on the saucer. He stood up. “I shall look into this, Dr Teal! I shall look into this at once!”

And look into it he had. The trail led him from the rumour-mills of the exchange, through harbourside coffee-shops and low-end chandleries, up into the slums of Muro d’Oeste where the refugees from Zagwa lived. It was as he had guessed. People who had been wary of talking to a bumptious stranger like Teal were quite prepared to share what they knew with Jonathan Hazell, a familiar merchant who was known for his honesty and tact. None of them had actually
seen
Fever Crumb, it was true, but he learned much that was interesting. He started to enjoy himself. Who would have thought that he would make such a good detective?

On the same evening that Fever found the angels’ map, he met with Dr Teal in a funicular bar on the Rua Cĩrculo to report his findings.

“Honestly, Hazell,” grumbled the Engineer, as Jonathan Hazell sidled up to him in a shadowy corner, “why can’t we discuss this at home? We are not spies.”

Jonathan Hazell looked quickly over his shoulder to make sure that no one was listening. What he was about to say could have been said just as easily at home, it was true. But he didn’t get much chance to arrange clandestine meetings in bars as a general rule, and he wasn’t about to let this one slip through his fingers.

“I have made progress, Dr Teal!”

“What’s that? Speak up!”

“In my investigation. Firstly, the chandlers tell me that young Arlo Thursday has been placing orders for certain materials in recent months. Wood, tools, glue and great quantities of paper have been delivered to his funicular.”

“And what do you deduce from this?” asked Dr Teal wearily.

“Why, Dr Teal, I deduce that Thursday has been building something. He is Daniel Thursday’s grandson after all. Perhaps he has finally given up on the kites and toy birds which won him such a strange reputation, and started making something of more practical use. A new kind of ship, perhaps. It may be that your Miss Crumb, with her background as an Engineer, was helping him. And it may be that the Oktopous Cartel got wind of this and tried to steal it from him.”

He paused. He was pleased to see that Dr Teal was attentive now, leaning forward slightly, his eyes watchful and oddly lightless. “Most convincing, Hazell. Do go on…”

“Well,” said Jonathan Hazell carefully, trying not to get ahead of himself, “at first, what with those two thugs who were found at Thursday’s funicular, I was afraid the Oktopous might have succeeded. If they had captured Thursday and his new ship who knows what might have become of Miss Crumb? She could have been murdered, or sold as a slave to some cruel Zagwan princeling! But I do not now believe that is the case.”

“Why not?” asked Teal.

“Because when I started asking after her I was frequently told that other men had been asking the same questions a few days previously. It did not matter whether I asked at the exchange or at some grubby chandlery, the story was the same; someone had been there before me. And when I dug a little deeper, I found that these other men were employees of Fat Jago. And when I dug deeper still, I was told that it is Fat Jago who handles all the Oktopous’s business here!”

“And who is Fat Jago?”

“Ssshh!” Jonathan Hazell looked about again. A man like Fat Jago could have spies anywhere. “Fat Jago Belkin!” he whispered. “Only the most important businessman in Mayda! Only the richest man west of Thelona! He has a huge villa on the southern coast, and a charming wife. It is a great shock!”

Dr Teal refused to be shocked. “And what makes you think that Fever isn’t locked up in this charming villa, a prisoner of Belkin and his huge wife?”