The Wonder - Blood Red

Prologue. Chinsey, Capital of The Gramarye region Grand Quillia June 1856 Geraldine Bunce did not like lifts. She had no idea when it had been decided that walking up stairs was too arduous, but that was not the main reason for her feelings. She definitely didn’t trust them. The magic needed to build a bridge across a deep chasm, now you know somebody had paid proper attention to that. The slideways that enabled ice yachts to skate around the Empire, ditto. But a small room required to move up four or five floors of a building? Why apply yourself? Why expend any Wonder to alleviate the need to walk upstairs? Why help the lazy? Corporal Bunce had exercised before she’d joined the army – she’d had to. She’d been left to fend for herself at a young age in a rough part of the Empire. But it wasn’t her disdain for the slovenly that caused her to hate lifts. Or heights. In her main role in the squad, she was required to climb great heights, to find the higher ground, the highest tree and pick off all those she surveyed. Snipers did not need lifts. No. The main reason Corporal Geraldine Bunce did not like lifts was because if there was a problem and it were to plummet from a great height, she did not want her crushed body to be ground into mince together with the other people in the lift with her. Especially this lift. Take Aaron Tork. He smells of wet dog, he looks like a mean walrus with a moustache and he can only speak in a growl or a whimper. Bunce has eaten mutton curry with more style, panache and intelligence. Spicer, their commanding officer, a foot shorter than the bear-like Tork next to him, may have once had some charm, some modicum of manners, but all that had been burned away at around the same time his face was burnt off, leaving stubs for ears and nose. If the lift were to fall, if its magic were to fail, Spicer would be the crunchy burnt bits in the meatloaf they’d find at the bottom of the lift shaft. And then the Squad’s own hyperphysicist, an ex-army dabbler, Conway. God knows where he studied magic – some grubby college in some failing military centre in the Empire’s back alleys. This was probably the first lift Conway had ever been in. Bunce felt another shiver of trepidation. Imagine if some reprobate hyperphys like Conway had designed the lift, his bony digits poking out of the fingerless gloves, melding the magic into whatever Wonder this lift needed to drag people up the inside of the building, his rodent eyes squinting into the workings as he pulled the required enchantments into being. Magic spooked Bunce. She didn’t understand it – she could see why people called it the Wonder. It was a wonder what some people had managed to do with it, even Conway occasionally. She also completely sympathised with those that called it the dabble. Mankind had found something buried deep in the earth. Some people said it came from the bones of long dead dragons, others that it was pitch from the roof of Hell itself. Whatever it was, it was useful. Useful for weapons, useful for energy, useful for speeding up everything, shrinking the whole wide world. Useful for transporting people who don’t like to take the stairs. But mankind was dabbling. It didn’t really know what this new-found power could do. It didn’t know how long it would last. It didn’t know what long-lasting effect it had on those around it. It was the great unknown. Some people said that other civilisations had used the Wonder before and it had ruined them, changed them until they were no longer human, sucked them into the ground from whence the magic came. There were the remains of these people all over the world. Archaeologists were digging them up all the time, even in the capital of the Great Quillian Empire, but most had been found nearby, in the remote colony of The Gramarye. Super powers clung to this lost knowledge as much as they battled to unearth important artefacts and their power source, the Wonder. The People of the Ditch apparently threatened Great Quillia at every turn, always hoping to steal some new piece of the Wonder that might make their lifts ascend that little bit faster than the Empire’s. The only thing separating the Ditch from the Empire were the Attar Mountains, and if the Ditch ever dared cross the natural barrier the first place they would hit would be The Gramarye. Although there had been no incursions in living memory, nobody who had ever entered the Attar Mountains had ever returned, and rumours of Ditch spies insinuating themselves into the Empire were rife. Bunce couldn’t complain. All this paranoia meant there was a lot of work for freelancers – for privateers. Privateers such as herself and Tork and Spice and Conway. They had been employed by the Trade, a commercial entity that ran much of the Great Quillian Empire’s remote interests, to scour The Gramarye for a specific ancient magical device that could lead to a new source of Wonder. Another piece of dabble. None of them knew why the Trade wanted it so badly, and none of them, including Bunce, really cared. They’d acquired it and brought it back to Chinsey, the Trade’s capital in The Gramarye. And so here they were, in a lift in the Trade’s regional headquarters, with a priceless chunk of ancient Wonder in a hessian sack slung over Tork’s shoulder. “I don’t like lifts,” said Bunce, to nobody in particular. As soon as the lift ground to a halt, Sergeant Major Pendle hauled open the iron grate doors, his slender frame and pristine uniform hiding considerable brute force. “You must be the Reclaimers,” he said, taking in the four privateers. He could feel the eyes of the clerks in the office behind him as the tip-tapping on their typewriters and clunking of their adding devices slowed. Pendle would have to reprimand them once this rabble had left. Pendle looked the visitors up and down. They looked like the usual privateer scum found in this part of the Empire. Rough, ready, lacking in manners, etiquette, lacking in anything that would allow them to live respectable lives back in the heartland. If the regular populace of Great Quillia knew the sort of people their fortune was built on, they would shudder with shame. But then regular people probably hadn’t heard of The Gramarye, except as a primitive, far off place that some of the Wonder came from, that same Wonder that made the slideways that transported them to work every morning, that powered the mills that spun the cotton they wore. The Wonder that forged the guns that built an Empire. “I’m Lieutenant Spicer,” said the man with the horrific face, pronouncing it the Imperial way – ‘Leftenant’. Pendle regarded him with interest. His uniform was filthy, with some buttons missing and a torn epaulette; enough to put any of Pendle’s clerks on punishment detail for two months. His weapons, however, were well oiled, some with sights and other attachments not of regular issue. Spicer’s Twirler pistol crackled as the Wonder pulsed through its six barrels, its safety catch removed. Pendle found himself missing the old days of the battlefield, sabre in one hand, Twirler in the other, sending the natives packing. However, the mess of Spicer’s face was enough to remind the sergeant major why Mrs Pendle had insisted he take a desk job. Spicer wore his hair long – it touched the bottom of his collar; like many of the privateers who were keen to show they were a band apart from the regular army. But Pendle suspected this was a wig, albeit a good one, with real hair, probably from the Imperial capital. The lieutenant obviously wore it to cover as much of his scarred head as possible, for it resembled a walnut with a mouth and thick-lidded eyes. Even for a veteran like Sergeant Major Pendle, it was quite a battle to look Spicer in the eye, and he could hear the sharp intakes of breath from the clerks as Spicer stepped into the light. He was followed by Conway, a grubby, wiry man who seemed to exude grease, a man obviously more comfortable surrounded by the devices of dabble and sources of Wonder. As with most hyperphysicists, he was not in uniform, preferring a long leather coat, cut like the hyperphysicist’s lab coat, a leather hat that covered his ears, cracked goggles and grotty fingerless gloves. The woman, Bunce, was wrapped in ammo belts and bandoliers, her uniform almost entirely obscured by ammunition for the long slender rifle that hung from her back. Her hair was short, her eyes dark, although she looked more like a swarthy boy than a lady, despite the curves she tried to hide. She did, however, smell marginally better than the men, especially the last out of the lift. Private Aaron Tork was enormous, his body built for bullying, his scarred hands always fists, his jaw always grinding. He was the sort of pack animal Empire was built on, Pendle caught himself thinking, not just the Great Quillian Empire, but all of them. Tork’s uniform was modified to terrify; the sleeves removed to reveal arms like skinless hare carcasses, and covered in primitive tattoos, some faded with age, some throbbingly fresh. He wore bearskin over his shoulders, and sheepskin chaps, anything to make him appear as a beast from the woods. Tork smirked as he looked at Pendle’s glistening buttons, ironed tunic and shiny boots. Pendle was more interested in the hessian sack over Tork’s shoulder. “Do you have the device?” Pendle asked. “Would we be here if we didn’t?” Tork replied, watching Pendle as he checked out the sack. Pendle was unfazed. He’d dealt with privateer insolence many times before. “Major Franks has asked that I confirm the device is in your possession before I show you in.” “Anyone would think this Major Franks wasn’t keen to see us,” Tork sneered. Spicer nodded acquiescence and Tork opened the sack in Pendle’s direction. Pendle could make out the eerie blue glow of Wonder, and a dark ebony casing, resembling the underside of a fat cockroach. It certainly looked like the illustrations from the briefing, so he indicated for the squad to advance past the rows of clerk’s desks to the door marked, “Mjr. R. Franks – Regional Enchantment Auditor”. Tork didn’t like offices, he didn’t like people who have offices, he didn’t like being in offices and he didn’t like meeting the people in them. He looked down on office workers because he was tall and they were stupid. If they weren’t stupid, they were probably weak. Spicer wasn’t weak and he wasn’t stupid, unlike most of Tork’s previous commanding officers. Spicer got him. He understood. Spicer didn’t fit in either. People looked at Spicer the same way they looked at Tork. With horror. With disdain. Never with respect. Until they saw them fight. Tork had never met someone like Spicer. He knew what everyone on his side should do in a fight, and he knew what everyone on the other side would do. It was like he had a sixth sense. Tork was not the same in this respect. Point Tork in one direction, just tell him where to get to, no need to tell him why, and Tork would get there. Never mind what was in the way, he would get through it and get to where he was told to get. He was no good with a Twirler pistol. He thought it resembled some effeminate pepper grinder, not a real man’s weapon. So he was no quick draw, but he could fire a sawn-off blat gun and he could punch, hack and club all night long if need be. Bunce could pop off the individuals, Conway could send up some dabbled fog or whatever, but leave it to Tork and Spicer to take care of the real thing, the fighting. The killing. There was only one downside to being good at this stuff and that was meeting the pathetic squits too scared to do it themselves. Tork nodded thanks at the sergeant major as he held the door open into the major’s office, ducking his head to avoid the doorframe and squeezing himself into the tiny space with the others. The office had one shelf holding a few books. Your majors and suchlike always have a few books hanging around to show grunts like Tork that they’re busy while he’s out doing all the work. Above the shelf was a small window showing the dusky sky as the sunset filtered through the red industrial smoke from Chinsey’s few factories. Tork supposed some people would think it pretty. Others would be impressed that somewhere so provincial actually had a factory.