Land of Hope and Glory (29 page)

‘Sattva’s not a vapour,’ Jack said. ‘You can’t breathe it in. It’s everywhere. In everything.’

Saleem’s eyes widened as he looked at the invisible enemy all around him.

‘Anyway,’ Jack said. ‘Sattva smells sweet. Can you smell anything sweet?’

‘No,’ Saleem replied.

‘Then there’s nothing to worry about.’

Jack could smell sattva, but he knew it was too weak for his companions to make out.

Most Europeans, if they thought about it at all, believed sattva was a gas or a type of wind. But Jhala had told Jack, ‘Sattva is what you English call an element. It is a part of matter. But the purest part, the closest to the spirit realm.’

Saleem gingerly lowered his arm and breathed in the smoky air, but his eyes stayed wide and glassy.

They set off again and after a quarter of an hour they reached a point where a wide boulevard intersected the street. Jack waved Charles and Saleem into the shadows behind him and peered around the corner. Smashed trees, stripped of all their leaves and most of their branches, lined the boulevard. A battered structure, which must once have been a fountain or statue, cowered in the middle of the road. The streets were otherwise empty in all directions.

Saleem gave a short gasp. Jack shot back into the shadows and had his pistol out in a second. The lad was standing deeper in the gloom beside a broken wall, looking down at a pile of rubble.

‘What is it?’ Jack whispered.

Saleem just pointed and said nothing.

Jack and Charles walked over and soon saw the grey-white bones of three skeletons. The flesh had been completely picked clean, and rusted scimitars and muskets lay nearby. Jack couldn’t tell whether they had been Rajthanans or mutineers, as both sides carried the same weapons.

Jack and Charles crossed themselves.

Then they heard a metallic scrape from somewhere behind them. It sounded like a hollow drum being dragged across the ground.

‘What was that?’ Saleem’s breath shivered.

Jack gazed down the road, but everything was still and silent, save for the perpetual muffled rumble in the distance. He cocked the hammer of the pistol, while Charles slid the musket from his shoulder.

There was another scrape, this time longer and deeper, like a growl.

Jack spotted movement near the corner of a side street. Something large was clambering over a pile of collapsed stones. At first he thought it was an elephant, but then he saw feelers and stalks protruding from the front of the shape, and the dull reflection of red light on black iron. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

‘A demon.’ Saleem said.

‘No,’ Jack said. ‘It’s a train avatar.’

‘But there’s no train,’ Saleem said.

It was true – the beast was hauling itself along entirely independently of any carriages. Jack had never seen that before. There had to be a siddha somewhere nearby controlling the creature. He glanced up and around, trying to see whether there was anyone on the roofs above.

The avatar snorted and puffed, smoke streaming out from its sides, then it turned into the street and clawed itself towards them like some giant crustacean.

‘Follow me.’ Jack charged across the boulevard and into the shadows on the far side. His chest tensed and ached once again.

After they’d run for a few minutes, he looked back and saw that the avatar was still coming towards them, and was now increasing its speed. It jerked along at a pace almost as fast as they had been running. He frowned. He could still see no sign of any Rajthanans, but the avatar had to be receiving instructions from someone.

He scanned the surroundings, his mouth dry. There was a giant arched entrance nearby. Going in there would be risky, but at least they would be out of view and away from the avatar.

They slipped across the street and into the shadowy interior. As his eyes adjusted, Jack could see they were in a vast, empty chamber. Iron girders criss-crossed far above and the walls rose in thick stone pleats. Far away at the other end of the hall lay a further arch, out of which floated a pounding noise and the scent of coal and sattva.

Keeping to the edge of the wall, they made their way across the chamber and stole up to the second opening.

Both Charles and Saleem drew their breaths in sharply as they peered around the side. Before them was an even larger hall, dominated by a steel leviathan more than a hundred yards long. It looked something like a whale and something like a giant caterpillar, its body consisting of thousands of metal ribs, through which Jack could see the flicker of frantically knitting needles. At one end, a fanged maw chewed the air. There was a ring of metal slicing against metal and a chugging roar. On one side, like a wound, a hatch lay open, revealing a coal fire within. The red light from the flames was the only illumination in the chamber.

‘What on earth—’ Charles whispered.

‘It’s a mill avatar.’ Jack had seen one before, in Paris. ‘It makes things – cloth, steel, all kinds of things.’ He remembered seeing the raw materials fed into the creature’s mouth, with the finished substances excreted at the other end.

The Rajthanans prized these beasts above everything else. The creatures grew fat in the rich streams of sattva that crossed Europe – fatter even than the avatars back in Rajthana. The Rajthanans would do anything to protect the sattva supply that kept the things alive. Jack knew they would never give up England and its sattva.

‘I thought the mills were abandoned,’ Saleem said. ‘Why’s it still alive?’

‘Don’t know.’ Jack gripped the pistol more tightly. The Rajthanans might have fired the creature up again – and if they had, they might still be somewhere nearby.

He heard a tortured screech and a wheeze of steam. Looking back, he saw two train avatars silhouetted in the archway to the street. Their feelers swayed as they checked the air and their inner fires glowed through the joins in their carapaces. For a moment he considered running past the beasts and back to the road. But the avatars could move fast – much faster than he’d thought possible. Would they attack? He’d never considered this possibility before. In fact, he’d scoffed at those who were afraid of the creatures. But the beasts had claws and mandibles and he wasn’t sure now what they might be capable of.

‘We’re trapped,’ Saleem said.

‘We’ll fight them.’ Charles swung the musket from his shoulder.

‘No.’ Jack put his hand on Charles’s arm. ‘We’ll find another way out.’

He led Charles and Saleem around the edge of the chamber containing the giant mill avatar. He stuck to the thickest shadows and peered through the hazy dark, wondering whether there were any Rajthanans nearby. The sound of the avatar was deafening – a ceaseless shrieking and roaring – so there was no chance of him hearing the approach of any enemies.

As they drew closer, the mill avatar became restive. It writhed within its harness of chains, which hung from the distant, invisible ceiling and suspended the beast five feet or so above the floor. It emitted a deep groan, like a fog horn, and tried to turn its mouth in their direction. Stalks and feelers at the top of its head quivered. The chains shook and rattled and the avatar bucked and strained in the harness, but was unable to break free.

Saleem whimpered and Charles’s jaw was tight as he gazed at the monster.

‘Keep going,’ Jack shouted above the roar.

They went more quickly now and in less than five minutes reached the far end of the hall. There they found an arch that led into a passage lit only by a faint, silvery glow at the far end. Jack drew the pistol and led the way down the hall. The thump and bellow of the mill avatar still echoed about them, but gradually became more muffled. The air was hot and close and Jack felt sweat beading under his tunic.

At the end of the passage he paused, looked cautiously around the corner and saw a small, plain room with a pile of coal against one wall. The only other exit was an archway with angular sigils engraved across the top. The markings looked like the secret script of the siddhas. Although he couldn’t read them, he recognised the shapes from papers on Jhala’s desk.

He paused before the arch. Beyond lay a further passage, slightly better illuminated by the same silvery radiance. A strong scent of sattva hit him in the face and the hair shivered on the back of his neck. He’d never been this deep into a mill and he couldn’t help recalling the rumours he’d heard from his countrymen: that the siddhas drank human blood; that the souls of Europeans were trapped inside the avatars; even that the siddhas were the Devil’s apostles on earth. These wild claims were far from the truth – Jack knew enough about the siddhas to be sure of that – but at the same time he found himself reluctant to go further.

He heard a metal screech behind him, louder than the din of the mill. He glanced back down the hall they’d just travelled along, seeing the faint red glow of the mill avatar, but nothing else.

‘Was that one of those things?’ Saleem tugged at the ginger fluff on his chin.

Jack couldn’t see any movement at the end of the passage, but all the same, the train avatars could be close. It was too risky now to go back and find another way out.

‘Follow me.’ He strode through the archway, passing beneath the jagged sigils.

They jogged down the passage, the pale light growing stronger. The walls were made of some form of black, gleaming stone that was moist when Jack’s hand brushed against it.

The passage turned to the right and then opened up into a larger, cooler chamber. The room looked something like a workshop and something like a fishmonger’s. Dangling from hooks about the walls were what appeared to be the limp parts of smaller avatars – metal fish heads, lobster claws, backbones and fine ribs. Flayed and decapitated creatures lay on benches with their innards spilling out and bleeding oil. The whole place was lit by a sickly glow, but Jack couldn’t determine the source of the light.

‘What is this place?’ Charles hissed.

‘Don’t know,’ Jack said, although clearly this was where avatars had once been built and repaired.

He crossed to the far side of the room and parted a curtain of hanging avatar pieces, the metal scraping and tinkling like cutlery. Beyond this was another workshop, even larger than the first, dotted with openings that led in all directions to further chambers. The place was a warren and it would be easy to get lost.

‘Jack.’

Jack turned and saw Charles pointing through the screen of dangling metal. Saleem was still standing at the entrance to the first room, licking his lips and staring at the grotesques hovering around him.

‘Hurry up.’ Jack was growing concerned at Saleem’s nervousness. There was no telling what the lad might do if he got a fright.

Saleem took a step into the room. A harsh screech, like the cry of some giant bird, resounded up the passage behind him. He jumped and rushed over to Jack and Charles.

‘Stay close,’ Jack said. ‘And pull yourself together.’

Saleem glanced up, eyes wide, and nodded as he bit his bottom lip.

Jack pressed on, keeping straight and dodging the benches that blocked their way. The train avatars could still be following them and he wanted to get as far ahead of the creatures as he could. At the same time, there might be further enemies within the workshops themselves and he kept a close eye on the surroundings, watching for any quick movement that might indicate the presence of something hostile.

They went through chamber after chamber, arch after arch. By travelling in a straight line Jack hoped he wouldn’t get lost. He was increasingly surprised by the size of the place and started to wonder how long it would take to find a way out.

He heard another metal screech off to the left. He stopped and peered through the receding arches and suspended avatar parts. He saw nothing, no movement of any sort. But then there was a further screech, slow this time, like a creature in agony.

‘This way.’ He ducked through an arch to his right and ran, smashing through the jangling metal screens.

After they’d charged along for about two minutes, he paused to catch his breath. With Saleem and Charles panting beside him, he gazed back through the swaying curtains. He saw no sign of anything behind them.

Saleem gasped, tripped and fell against a bench, sending pieces of metal clattering to the floor.

Jack grasped the pistol, spun round. His heart was in his throat.

Saleem was on the floor and scrambling back to his feet. In front of him, hidden in a recess, stood a train avatar. Jack pointed the pistol and almost pulled the trigger, but then noticed that the creature was completely still, its claws and stalks drooping and the fire within it dead.

He lowered the pistol. ‘It’s all right. It’s not active.’

Saleem stood, knocking over further bits of metal, and edged back from the lifeless beast.

Jack went to turn away, then froze. One of the creature’s feelers had flicked upright. Flame roared alight in its abdomen, the glow escaping between the cracks in the carapace. It raised its claw, gave a harsh squeal and lunged at Saleem.

Saleem stumbled back, slipped, almost fell, turned and sprinted across the room. Charles wrenched the musket off his shoulder and aimed. Jack fired and the pistol flashed and kicked. The ball tinged against the beast’s iron cladding, but seemed to cause no damage.

The creature jolted to a stop. Chains held it in place, and although it struggled against them it couldn’t break free. It roared, grumbled and snapped its outstretched claws.

‘You all right?’ Jack called over to Saleem.

Saleem nodded, eyes shining.

The avatar paused for a moment, then tried to lunge again. One of the chains was wrenched from the wall and spilt across the ground, but the others held firm.

‘This way.’ Jack charged out of the room. He didn’t stop to see if Charles and Saleem were following, but he could hear their boots clacking on the stone floor.

He ran through a wide arch that was bordered by more sigils, and then came to a halt so suddenly that Charles smacked into him from behind. They were in an octagonal chamber that was far larger than the previous workshops. Blackened pipes veined the walls, twisting up towards a distant ceiling. Pallid light trailed down like cold liquid, only faintly illuminating the room. In the centre rose a monolithic statue of a man sitting cross-legged, his chest bare and his long hair tied in a topknot. His eyes were closed and there was an ambiguous trace of a smile on his lips. A beaded necklace wound about his neck, and his hands, with index fingers and thumbs pinched, rested on his bent knees.