Engn II

XX

XXWhelm called a halt late that evening. The horse had gone as far as she could for one day. They'd seen no sign of pursuit. Finn stood outside the moving engine, testing his left knee to see if he could put any weight on it. Whelm oiled the bearings of one of the cart's iron wheels. Diane came to stand beside Finn, gazing up at the walls and the ruin beyond.

She slipped her fingers through his. “I don't see anyone in there. No defenders or anything.”

“I guess it's the same as out here. People fighting over the scraps.”

“You know,” she said, “it's possible we won't find any answers now. We must be prepared for that. Perhaps we're simply too late. And, I think, sometimes there are questions that have no answers. Terrible things happen for no reason. And then people kill themselves trying to find an explanation. Drive themselves mad doing it. I'm just saying that might be how it is.”

Perhaps she was right. Perhaps it was a mistake to try and find answers in the wreckage, just as it had been futile amid all the complexity of the working machine. And yet, he knew there was something there. Knew it without being able to say why. There was something he was supposed to do. Was that a delusion? He'd met plenty of people who believed the craziest things. Perhaps he was crazy too. He didn't feel crazy. But perhaps you didn't.

He kneeled and put his hand flat to the muddy grass of the floor. The ground had been churned up by many wheels, as if people had been circling and circling the ruins, looking for a way in.

“Feel,” he said. “There's still machinery running. Somewhere inside.” The deep thrumming in the ground was unmistakable.

Diane knelt and put her hand to the earth. She looked up at him. “I can feel it. The machine. It's weak and broken, but it's still alive.”

“Some of it at least. We have to go in there and find out what. And why. And we have to destroy it for good, as we said we would.”

Whelm walked over to them, wiping oozing black oil from his hand with a stained rag. “Every time I come it's louder,” he said. “Another piece of the machine brought back to life. The wrecked mechanisms combined to create new devices, new contraptions.”

“By who?” asked Finn. “Who is doing this?”

Whelm shrugged. “People trying to rebuild the machine. People who think they can make the wheels turn again. Crazy people. They won't be able to do it in a thousand lifetimes, but that doesn't stop them. It's like Engn was the reason for their existence, and now they have to piece it all back together, cog by cog. And they don't know what they're doing. They have no design, no blueprints. They think they can rebuild Engn by simply connecting random parts back together.”

“Perhaps they do know what they're doing, and you just don't see it,” said Finn.

Whelm shrugged. “Maybe. If you ask me, they just can't accept what's happened. The world has changed, and they can't move on. They want to go back to a time when the world at least seemed to make sense.”

“I thought you wanted answers, too?”

“Oh, sure. Always good to have answers. But about what it was for when it was working. Not about now. Now it's smoking ruins and mangled metal. Mile upon mile upon mile of it.”

“How do you normally get inside?”

“You've seen the breaks in the wall. Elsewhere it's little more than rubble. People take stones for souvenirs, or to build new buildings. On some sections, you can pick your spot and go in wherever you like.”

“So, if we wanted to go to, say, the Directory, we could?” asked Finn.

“There is no Directory anymore. There's no anything anymore. Broken fragments here and there, achieving nothing. That's all there is.”

“What do we do?” asked Diane. “Where do we go?”

“We have to see everything on the spindle,” said Finn, “and there might be a fully working reader in the ruins of the Directory.”

Whelm shook his head. “You can look, but everything's been picked over a thousand times. A few years ago, you could still turn up items of value in the ruins. Now they're rare. Mostly it's scraps of rust and broken bones. And besides, I told you, we've been incredibly lucky to see fragments of the images on that stick. It was clearly put together by someone who didn't know what they were doing, but you need the key to see any more. The rest looks completely encrypted to me.”

Finn said, “I've tried and tried to think what they key might be. But Connor just never told me.”

“Then you'll never know what's on the stick,” Whelm replied. “It's as simple as that.”

“This ironclad who wanted you to fetch us,” said Diane. “How were you supposed to get back in touch?”

“There was a place I had to take you.”

“That's where we should start then,” said Diane. “Perhaps that will lead us to some answers.”

Finn nodded his assent to the plan. Although a part of him couldn't help wondering if they were doing precisely what Whelm wanted them to do.

He put the thought out of his mind. Whelm had risked a lot to save the two of them. They had more pressing matters to worry about.

The sky was darkening now, the walls of Engn blotting out the fading western sky. It would be cold soon. There were no stars. More heavy lead-coloured clouds had filled the sky as they came south, following them it seemed, threatening more rain. The three of them were tired and hungry and thirsty.

“We need to light a fire,” said Diane. “Find somewhere to shelter, either out here or inside the walls.”

In the distance lay two of the settlements scattered around Engn, ramshackle collections of sagging huts. In the twilight, the first fires were being lit among them, the first coils of smoke rising into the air. Were there still messages in those plumes? Or had all that been lost, too?

Finn turned to Whelm. “What would you do? Stay out here or venture into the ruins?”

Whelm ran his hand through his lank hair. “I'd probably sleep out here by the wall, well away from everyone. I probably wouldn't light a fire. Then I'd go inside in the morning. We could…”

The blaring call of the horn cut him off.

They looked round in alarm, trying to place the sound. It came again from somewhere in the gloom, the mournful call echoing back at them off the walls, making it hard to place.

An answering horn came then: a lower, more raucous note, nearer by.

“They've found us,” said Diane. “They've been tracking us all this time.”

“That decides it,” said Whelm. “We have to get inside. We can lose them in the ruins. Out here we're too vulnerable.” He reached into the moving engine for his muskets, handing one to Finn and Diane. The horse complained as Whelm led her forwards once more, but she relented and began, dejectedly, to walk. The cart lurched into life.

Diane jogged along beside the cart, wary of attack from the gloom at any moment. Finn, unable to keep up, climbed on top of the engine and sat scanning the plain, musket held ready. The ground was hummocky around there, long dips cut into it. They'd used them once to conceal themselves, they day they fled from Engn. For all he knew, their pursuers were using them now to surround the cart.

“Whelm?”

“Yes?”

“Which musket is the one that doesn't work?”

“Mine. Your two are loaded. If you must use them, make sure you hit. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

There were cries from the darkness, then. Whistles, as if groups of people were communicating. The sounds came from all sides. Finn had the uncomfortable sensation of being herded.

“To the wall!” he shouted. “We have to get inside.” In the shadows, it was hard to see whether there were gaps they could climb through or not. They had to take the chance.

Whelm goaded the exhausted horse onwards. They lurched over the rutted ground, the cart complaining with creaks and squeals as it was thrown around. More cries and horn blasts blared out of the darkness to find them.

The walls, when they reached them, were smooth and hard and unbroken, with no sign of a way in.

“Perhaps we can climb them,” said Finn. “Throw up ropes.”

“I'm not leaving the horse and cart,” said Whelm. “We have to stand and fight.”

“How much musket shot is left?” said Diane. She stood with her back to the wall, peering into the gloom.

“None,” said Whelm. “I've had to use more of the stock. Bolts, screws, washers. I'll give you everything I've got left.”

“Not the reader,” said Finn.

“What does it matter?” called Whelm, his voice muffled, head inside the moving engine. He turned to pass them handfuls of metal fragments. “If we can't fight them off, we're going to be killed here tonight. You do know how to fire muskets, don't you?”

Finn nodded, then wished he hadn't as the throbbing in his head flared up.

“If we can kill enough of them quickly the rest might run away,” said Diane.

“Maybe,” said Whelm. “Or they might just decide they really, really don't like us.”

The three of them climbed on top of the moving engine, backs to the wall, waiting. The horse, unimpressed by any of the excitement, chewed what scraps of grass she could find with a loud munching sound.

Finn heard rustling and clanking noises. The sound of people approaching. Many people, from all around. He still couldn't see anyone.

A boom from inside Engn rattled the wall against his back. Finn looked up to see a fireball rolling into the sky. A ball of seething red in the dark. He could feel the heat from it on his face as it rose over the scene.

In the light from the fireball, illuminated for those few moments, their attackers became clear. A line of figures closing around them, their faces livid and distorted. The red of the fireball glinted off metal helms and the tips of swords. Some of the attackers had steel limbs, too: lengths of old girder or pipe replacing lost arms and legs. Many more had joined the hunt, a hundred stark faces twisted in rage or anticipation at what was about to happen.

“Get ready to fire,” said Diane. She sounded weirdly calm. “They won't know how much shot we've got. Perhaps we can frighten them off.”

One of the figures worked forwards from the line. For a moment, Finn thought it would be Graves. But, of course, it couldn't be. This was a rougher, older voice, not someone he knew. He looked to be wearing one of the top hats and black cloaks about a bulky, powerful body. He spun a chain in his hand, a chain with a spiked weight on its end. Then the light in the sky faded, and their enemies became rough, misshapen silhouettes once more.

“Time's up, runaways!” the figure called to them. “Time to receive your punishment for daring to oppose the masters.”

“You're no masters,” Whelm called, managing to make his voice mocking. “Look at you. You're ridiculous. If Engn was still running, you'd all be in the mines where you belong.”

The words held them for a moment. Diane took the opportunity and fired, her musket roaring, a smudge of red flame in the darkness. The sound of metal pinging and zinging off metal filled the air. There was a cry from somewhere. Then, as if the gunshot had released them, the throng of masters roared and surged forwards.

Another ball of flame boomed into the sky. To Finn's surprise, the leader who had spoken still stood. He held aside his clock to reveal the rough metal armour he'd plated himself with. Scraps and corners of iron held together with leather straps. His hat, too, was iron, hammered out from sheets to form the rough shape. He roared with laughter. “Fire again, my friends! Send me more iron. A little more won't harm me!”

Finn fired. The leader's face was unprotected; perhaps if they could stop him the others would pause. The leader staggered back as he was struck, then stood upright again. He turned to show the throng he was unharmed. The masters roared with delight and surged past him.

“Take them!” The voice roared from the darkness as the light from the second fireball faded.

“Stand up as long as you can,” said Whelm. “Kick them down when they climb onto the engine.”

There was no time to reload the muskets. Beside him, Diane drew one of the knives she carried. She handed it to Finn. “Take this. I've got others.”

Finn took the blade. The three of them stood side by side as the screaming r****e of patchwork ironclads and masters converged upon them.