There Will Be Phlogiston Page 17

  And he picked up his knife again, slid it into its holster with a swish, and glided away.

  I never did figure out why he didn’t do it. ’Twasn’t the kinda question you asked. Even though it weren’t like no bugger else’s, Milord had his code, but it weren’t the type of code that’d draw the lines at killing some poor bastard in his kip while he was wounded. Probably he’d consider it . . . an efficient use of his time or sommat. Truthfully, I reckon now what held him back was Ruben, but I didn’t know that then.

  The one what ye might call advantage of this little nocturnal adventure was it impressed upon me the necessity of getting better as a matter of some serious fucking urgency. I kept expecting Milord to come prowling in, having come up with some exciting new way to snuff me, but mainwise I just saw Ruben and the moon-touched mort I’d half-hoped was nowt but a fever dream.

  Her bedside manner weren’t exactly what you might call reassuring, and most of the time she was off her fucking head, but I reckon they kept sending her along, what with women being the nurturing sex and all that. Though I don’t reckon she had a nurturing bone in her body.

  She told me in one of her lucid whatevers that her name was Miss Grey, and she gave such a glare when I asked if Miss was what they’d said when they’d plopped her in the fount that I left it at that. I thought it mighty strange that she’d give a damn about being over familiar when she kept offering me opiates like she was my personal hedge quack.

  Truth is, I done a bit of this and that in my time, when things ain’t been so great and a shadow of happiness seemed more important than food or warmth, but there comes a point when you choose to embrace illusion or chuck it, and I opted to chuck it. I seen what too much smoke can do to a cove—sorta hollows you out on empty dreams.

  When Miss Grey weren’t getting ratted and lying cross my bed in a droop-glimmed pile of muslin, babbling about blasphemous horrors and squamous monstrosities and generally freaking me the fuck out, she’d sit for bleeding hours at the desk faffing on with all the fancy brass instruments and squiggling away on bits of paper, though half the time she weren’t even looking at what she was drawing.

  It took the best part of a week before I plucked up courage to ask what she was actually doing.

  She was such a pricklesome quim I thought she’d bite my noggin off for daring, but she put down the quill, and said, “I’m a cartographer, Master Piccadilly.” She’d been calling me that for days, though I’m master of precisely fuck all.

  “What, maps and shit?”

  “Yes. Indeed. Maps. And shit.” She had this way about her that could make a perfectly respectable cuss word sound filthy.

  I’d filched the occasional map back in the day—usually fetched some decent blunt, specially the old uns with everything in the wrong places. Queer, ain’t it, the way that works? Like you’d think that would make ’em worth less. Ol’ Louse said it’s cos folks like to remember when they was dreaming different worlds.

  “Let’s ’ave a gander then.”

  For a moment, it looked like she was going to tell me to stuff it (except in a nib way), but then she picked up what she was working on and brought it over to me.

  The paper unrolled across my knees with this kinda sensual crackling sound. ’Twas the expensive sort, the surface all fibrous like you was stroking sommat alive. But it weren’t like any map I’d ever clapped eyes on before.

  ’Twas all lines going this way and that, bit like latitudes and longitudes, I guess, except they was off in all directions and crisscrossing over each other like a crazy fishing net. And even though ’twas a flat bit of paper, sommat about the way she’d drawn ’em made it look like they was standing out somehow, as though you could put your paw right through ’em.

  Here and there was neat little pictures of stuff all labelled up far too clean for someone being stoned all the time. I couldn’t read the writing, of course, but one of ’em was a higgledy-piggledy bunch of rocks all hanging on skyhooks.

  “That Prosperity?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s the rest?”

  “It’s the aether.”

  I peered again at the nonsense lines. “How can you put on a map what ain’t there fer seeing?”

  She looked at me. The pupils had all eaten her eyes up so just a tiny rim of greyish-blue was left. “But I do see it.”

  “Oh aye?” I couldn’t help sounding a bit dubious cos ’twas clear the wench was jingle-brained. “What’s it like, then?”

  “It is measureless and anchorless, a deep sea darkness illuminated only by a seeping, sickly starlight the colour of corruption.”

  I was starting to wish I hadn’t asked. I spoke to Ruben about it later, what with him not being three gears short of an engine, cos I thought the aether was just what they called the air when you got up high. “Oh no, Dil,” quoth he. “Aether is a zero viscosity fluid permeating all of space. It interacts with real matter in a series of complex reactions as yet poorly understood by conventional science.”

  Which didn’t make no more sense than what Miss Grey had said.

  Right then, she was staring at nowt or rather she was staring at sommat I was fucking glad I couldn’t see.

  “So, uh, what’s that for, then?” I stabbed a finger at a spot near Prosperity where there was a little drawing of a ship being all sorta devoured by writhing tentacles what were covered in eyes and dripping with slime.

  She blinked herself back, looking at me like she’d forgotten who I was. Her eyes rolled round to the map. “Oh that,” she said in an empty, singsong voice. Her mouth turned up, though ’twasn’t like she was laughing. “There be dragons, Master Piccadilly. There be dragons.” And then she stood, shaking out her skirts. “Excuse me,” she went on, all ladylike. “But I need a whore. Or three.”

  “Don’t s’pose they do delivery?”

  But she’d already bogged off. ’Twas going to be a long day.

  She later told me about this uncle of hers who’d gone prancing off to some lost tomb deep in the depths of a jungle already full of a bunch of folks who reckoned the jungle was not for prancing in. He managed to get out of there with this dodgy greenish glowing idol or sommat, and rather than sticking it in a museum so swells could go ooh and ahh at it, he kept it.

  Which tells you just about everything about nib folk, really.

  Cos ’tis the first thing a filching cove learns: shift the goods.

  Anyway, he set the Thingamibob up in this special room in his house and started acting all batshit. Like painting the room black and green and drawing stars on the ceiling in silver paint except with the constellations being all wrong. And that weren’t even the maddest shit—apparently the poor ol’ bugger was shot with a shotgun for no apparent reason right there in his own kip by this whacked-out group of randoms, who nicked off with the idol.

  But his diary got sent to Miss Grey, who was busy being a governess, and, truth be told, I couldn’t make head nor tail of the story after that. Sommat about ruined cities beyond the stars, and a bunch of evil trees down in Cornwall, I dunno. Then Bedlam, which weren’t so surprising, and Byron Kae busting her out of there, which must’ve been quite some adventure, and here she was, driftwood like the rest of us.

  She claims the opium helps. But the whores are just for fun.

  With batshit shit like that being the only entertainment for a sick-and-sorry-for-himself Piccadilly, I was starting to get right restless. The bruises were fading off, though my fin was still splinted up and hurt like you wouldn’t believe if I started waving it about. I ain’t very good at staying still and quiet when there ain’t no purpose to it. And make it double for when there’s something going on, cos I could hear all manner of noises coming from the deck above.

  Ruben said they was fitting the last bits and pieces to the phlogiston grill, and then I remembered what Ephram’d said after the game, and I put two and two together and got four. Which is to say I reckoned one of them (most likely Milord) had a skyclaim.

&nb
sp; Though, again, it made me wonder what he was doing chasing clouds instead of riding Gaslight like ’twas his personal clipped copper drab. Cos it ain’t true what they say about crime not paying—I reckon that’s just something they put about to stop everybody getting in on it.

  But then I also reckon you probably don’t last very long as an arch-rogue when you’ve got a galloping case of dustlung.

  “I can’t imagine anyone using an aethership for cloud-panning,” I said to Ruben the next time he stopped by for a visit.

  He plonked himself down on the edge of the bed, smelling of clean sweat and the open sky. ’Twas so delicious, I wanted to lick it right from his skin til he tasted of nowt but him and me.

  “It wasn’t the plan,” he admitted. “We were going to charter an airship when we arrived, and continue on alone. But since you’ve been hurt, three vessels have gone down and the skies are too dangerous for anything else.”

  “Krakens?”

  He just nodded.

  “You don’t think that makes a good reason to mebbe not fucking go?”

  That made him smile a bit, white teeth flashing in sun-touched skin, making me think of shit I ain’t never seen before, like fields of gold and pure-blue country skies. “Time is, unfortunately, a factor.” He stopped a moment. “It’s Milord’s claim.”

  I wanted to ask how a cove like Ruben fell in with a cove like Milord, but I didn’t get the courage to ask. And I never did.

  I got the notion it must’ve happened in Gaslight though, back when Milord was Prince of the Stews and Ruben was newly defrocked, or whatever they do in the Church of England, and looking for sommat to believe in. I ain’t got much of a taste for making shit up, but you hear plenty of stories down in Gaslight about Milord in them days before the city took his health.

  If you didn’t know what was what, you’d probably think it strange that a bunch of hardened millers would dance to the tune of some prissy dandy ponce. Before him was Black Jack Callaghan, who was much more your regular sorta hackum. But Milord was sommat else. Cold, calculating will to power, coupled with the stomach to do what others wouldn’t, and a reputation for being ruthless and generous in pretty much equal measure. It made him good to work for and fatal to cross.

  “You mean he’s going to snuff it if you ain’t quick?” I asked, not feeling all that sympathetic to his plight.

  Ruben didn’t say nowt to that, just looked like he might be really sad, which made me even less friendly disposed towards ol’ Milord.

  “He needs to get away from England,” he went on at last. “Somewhere warm—like France or Italy. It might be good for his health.” And the corners of his lips turned up like they was trying to be cynical, but there was too much hope in him for that, so ’twas just this little half-smile, sweet like a secret. “And put him beyond reach of all those who want to kill him.”

  What a thing. What a marvel. To have Ruben Crowe at your side. Even though the world had nowt else for you except hatred.

  I squirmed about grumpishly in the bed. “Can’t imagine how anyone came to such an intention. What’s your angle, Preacher?”

  Another one of them endless silences. “I suppose we’re . . . friends? I know who he is, and what he is, and what he’s done, but I also think there’s good in him.”

  Course Ruben had to think that cos if there weren’t, where was that God of his hiding?

  “Naw, you jus’ hope there is,” quoth I.

  But we was all hoping in our different ways. Mebbe that’s why I didn’t see then how Milord had struck him deep. Or mebbe I didn’t want to, just like Ruben. In any case, I was sick of talking about his lordship all the fucking time.

  I readied the ol’ dimples. “There’s good in me, y’know. Lots and lots. I jus’ need saving from m’ life of privation and what ’ave ye.”

  He tipped up his brows. “Is that so?”

  “Aye, ’tis so. I just need showing the straight and narrow.” I fluttered my lashes at him, wriggling about under the sheets. “Well mebbe not the straight.”

  “You’re incorrigible. What am I going to do with you?” He was shaking his head, but he was grinning too.

  “I got some ideas. I could list ’em?”

  “I think I could probably figure them out.”

  “Oh, you do, eh?” If I’d been able to move properly, I’d have planted one on him right then, but I couldn’t reach so I just had to sit there, trying to look adorable. “Does it start with kissing?” I fluttered and wriggled and dimpled for all I was fucking worth, a shitty slow burn starting in my arm for my trouble, though ’twas nowt to the slow burn of Ruben dancing through my blood like fireflies.

  Fucker stood up. “I have work to do, Dil.”

  Well, way to make yournabs feel like a gutter doxy, Piccadilly.

  But I guess I must’ve looked handfuls worth of miserable cos suddenly he was leaning over me, and his lips were sliding over mine, all rough and supple velvet, and I was clutching at his clothes with my non-duff hand and sighing wild pleasure against his mouth. Cos ’twas lovely, lovely, lovely. He tasted so clean and right and perfect, like the bluest, widest sky, like air and water and everything you need to keep living. And the stubble on his jaw was scraping so sweetly against the edges of my mouth, like it wanted to make sure I wouldn’t forget nowt later.

  But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t forget til the day I fucking died. It’ll be the last thing I hold before the darkness comes. Kissing Ruben Crow.

  Sommat he’d given me, not sommat I’d taken.

  He was holding himself so carefulwise cos he didn’t want to go crushing my arm, but right then I didn’t give a damn about anything except getting more Ruben. My skin was all alight with hungers for his, and I wanted to wrap myself round and round him like ivy climbing a wall. I guessed it’d been a while since he’d done much preaching cos he was all hard muscle and strength, and I could feel beneath my fingers the thundering of his heart like a whole herd of horses running across wide-open plains.

  I weren’t exactly nuts on him pulling away, but he did, leaving me dizzy with wanting, and moaning softly for the loss of him.

  “Well, Dil,” he said with his voice gone all growly.

  I looked up at him through my lashes. “Stay a bit.”

  He swallowed. “I’m needed on deck.”

  I wanted to point out he was needed down here (most particularly down here), but I didn’t want to look any more pathetic. Though considering I was throwing myself at him like he was victuals and I was starving, mebbe that airlugger had already sailed.

  I’d been in bed for what felt like forever. ’Twas a wonder the ol’ arborvitae hadn’t dropped off with lack of use.

  “But I’m bored,” I whined. And then panicked. “I mean, I don’t just want to . . . y’know . . . cos I’m bored . . .”

  He laughed. “So you say.” He tweaked the tips of my locs, letting them twist all playful betwixt his fingers. “Poor Dil. Of course you’re bored. I’ll think of something.”

  I got all excited about that promise til he came by later with a stack of books and then buggered off again.

  Talk about the way to break a cove’s heart.

  I shifted through them, clearly his own little collection, the leather being worn though with love, not neglect. I traced the symbols with a fingertip and a sigh. ’Twas another piece of proof that the Rubens of this world weren’t for the Piccadillys.

  A warmish kinda scent was rising from the leather, dusty but sweeter, and I got to thinking mebbe that was the smell of words. I turned over a cover and the pages crackled like they was laughing at me. I’d never seen so many black squiggles all pressed up together, the ones behind bleeding into the ones in front, and the more I yorked, the more they swirled about and jumped hither and thither, swapping places like they was dancing a reel.

  I didn’t have to be fucking able to read them to know what they was saying. They was saying, “We ain’t for you, Piccadilly, and we’ll never be for you, so ha-ha-ha. In th
e gutter you was born, and in the gutter you’ll stay, cos you ain’t worth nowt to no one, and you can look up all you like, but you ain’t never getting your feet out the shit.”

  And suddenly I felt beyond wretched, and angry as well, for everything I wanted and couldn’t have. And kinda sick and sorta jealous of Ruben even though I liked him so fucking much. Cos he had so much of everything, he didn’t stop to think that mebbe other folk didn’t.

  I grabbed up one of the books and threw it, hard as I could, against the cabin wall.

  Didn’t do much good, though. Just made a softish noise so as I felt like a fucking barbarian piece-of-shit idiot.

  Then I realised I was going to have to go get it before Ruben came back, and the thought of trying to walk all that way over the tiny cabin made my arm feel like mebbe it would’ve preferred getting cut off. Though ’tis not like you walk on your forepaws so fuck knew what that was supposed to be about.

  Even my own damn arm was acting like a nidgit.

  And on top of that, I found myself thinking that I’d have to tell the truth to Ruben cos he was going to be all, How’d ye like them books, Dil? (only posh), and since I didn’t even know what they was called, I didn’t have no clue how I was going to blag my way out of trouble. And then he’d know, and he’d probably be right sweet about it, but there ain’t nowt nice about ignorance.

  And I wanted him to want me, like I wanted him. Not just have him be kind or whatever.

  I brought my knees up to my chest and pressed my face into them for a bit of a self-pity party, except then the cabin door opened and I jerked up, wide-eyed. in case ’twas Ruben coming back.

  But ’twas Byron Kae, queer as ever, with the wind stirring through their coat til it fanned out behind them like a crazy rainbow.

  “Trying to breach my boat, Piccadilly?”

  They sauntered inside, kinda graceful-not-graceful, rolling somehow with the swaying of the ship, right to where I’d tossed the book, and picked it up, glancing at the frontispiece. Up went the brows over the black eyes.