Perdido Street Station Part 62

Half-a-Prayer, the Escapee, the fReemade Boss, the Man-'tis, stepped up lightly towards the four militia.

They fumbled with their guns, jabbed out with the glinting bayonets.

Half-a-Prayer sidestepped them with balletic speed and snapped his Remade limb shut, then backed easily away. One of the officers fell, blood bursting from his lacerated neck and welling up behind his mask.

Jack Half-a-Prayer had gone again, was stalking half in, half out of sight.

Isaac's attention was diverted as an officer appeared over the brim of a window five feet below him. He fired too quickly and missed, but something snaked out above him and smacked violently against the man's helmet. The officer reeled and fell back, gathering himself from another attack. Yagharek quickly gathered up his heavy whip, ready to strike again.

"Come on, come on come on!" screamed Isaac to the sky.

The airs.h.i.+ps were fat and looming now, descending, ready to pounce. Half-a-Prayer danced rings around his attackers, leaping in to maim and then dissolving into the dark. Derkhan was crying out, a little defiant shout every time she shot. Yagharek stood poised, his whip and dagger trembling in his hands. The militia were encroaching, but slowly, cowed and fearful, waiting for relief and back-up.

The Weaver's monologue grew slowly louder, from a whispering in the back of the skull into a voice that crept forward through flesh and bone, filling the brain.

. . . IS IT IS IT THOSE NAUGHTY MAULERS THOSE TIRESOME PATTERNVAMPIRS THAT BLEED WEBSCAPE DRY IT IS THEY THEY COME THEY WHISTLE FOR THIS TORRENT THIS CORNUCOPIC SLEW OF FOOD THAT IS NOT TAKE CARE AND WHISPER WATCH IS IT IS IT THOSE NAUGHTY MAULERS THOSE TIRESOME PATTERNVAMPIRS THAT BLEED WEBSCAPE DRY IT IS THEY THEY COME THEY WHISTLE FOR THIS TORRENT THIS CORNUCOPIC SLEW OF FOOD THAT IS NOT TAKE CARE AND WHISPER WATCH . . . it said . . . . . . it said . . . RICH BREWS SIT UNEASY ON THE PALATE RICH BREWS SIT UNEASY ON THE PALATE . . . . . .

Isaac looked up with a soundless shout. He heard a fluttering, a buffet of disordered air. The raw emblazoning, the blast of invented brainwaves that made his spine tremble inside him continued unabated as a sound approached, oscillating frantically between materia and aether.

A glinting carapace dipped through thermals: weaving patterns of dark colour shot violently through the sky on two reflected pairs of shapes.h.i.+fting wings. Convoluted limbs and spiny organic jags trembled in antic.i.p.ation.

Famished and trembling, the first slake-moth came in.

The heavy segmented body came spiralling down, sliding tightly around the column of burning aether as if on a funfair ride. The moth's tongue lapped avidly around it: it was immersed in intoxicating brain-liquor.

As Isaac stared into the sky exultantly, he saw another shape flit closer, and another, black on black. One of the moths ducked in a sharp arc directly below a fat and sluggish airs.h.i.+p, careering towards the storm of mindwaves that sent ripples through the fabric of the city.

The force of militia arrayed on the roof chose that moment to renew their attack, and the sulphurous snap of Derkhan's pistols woke Isaac to the danger. He looked round to see Yagharek crouched in a feral pose, his bullwhip unrolling like some half-trained mamba towards the officer whose head had appeared over the rim of the plateau. It constricted around his neck and Yagharek pulled hard, slamming the man's forehead against the wet slates.

He snapped his whip free as the choking officer fell clattering away.

Isaac fumbled with his c.u.mbersome pistol. He leaned over and saw that two of the officers who had turned on Jack Half-a-Prayer were down and dying, blood spewing languidly from enormous rents in their flesh. A third was stumbling away, holding his gashed thigh. Half-a-Prayer and the fourth man were gone.

All over the low hill of roofs, the calls of the militia sounded, half routed, terrified and confused. Urged on by their lieutenant they drew steadily closer.

"Keep them away," shouted Isaac. "The moths are coming!"

The three slake-moths came down in a long interweaving helix, eddying below and above each other, rotating in descending order around the ma.s.sive stele of energy that yawned vastly from Andrej's helmet. On the ground below them the Weaver danced a subdued little jig, but the slake-moths did not see it. They noticed nothing except Andrej's spasming form, the source, the wellspring of the enormous sweet bounty that gushed precipitously up and into the air. They were frenzied.

Watertowers and brick turrets rose up around them like reaching hands as one by one they breached the skyline and descended into the city's gaslight nimbus.

Faint waves of anxiety gusted through them as they plunged. There was something fractionally wrong with the flavour that surrounded them-but it was so strong, so unbelievably powerful, and they were so drunk on it, unsteady on their wings and shaking with greedy delight, that they could not stop their vertiginous approach.

Isaac heard Derkhan shout a foul oath. Yagharek had leapt across the roof to her and flailed expertly with his whip, sending her attacker spinning. Isaac turned and fired at the falling figure, heard him grunt with pain as the bullet tore open the muscle of his shoulder.

The airs.h.i.+ps were almost overhead now. Derkhan was sitting back from the brink a little, blinking rapidly, her eyes fouled with clods of brickdust from where a bullet had shattered the wall beside her.

There were about five militia left on the roofs, and they were still coming, slow and stealthy.

A final insectile shadow swooped towards the roof from the south-east of the city. It looped in a long S-curve under the Spit Hearth skyrail and shot up again, riding the updrafts in the hot night, coming in towards the station.

"They're all here," whispered Isaac.

As he refilled his gun, spilling powder inexpertly about him, he looked up. His eyes widened: the first moth approached. It was a hundred feet above him and then sixty, then suddenly twenty and ten. He stared at it in awe. It seemed to move with no pace at all as time stretched out thin and very slow. Isaac saw the clutching half-simian paws and jagged tail, the enormous mouth and chattering teeth, eyesockets with their clumsy antennae stubs like fumbling maggots, a hundred extrusions of flesh that whiplashed and unfolded and pointed and snapped shut in a hundred mysterious motions . . . and the wings, those prodigious, untrustworthy, constantly altering wings, tides of weird colour drenching them and retreating like sudden squalls.

He watched the moth directly, ignoring the mirrors before his eyes. It had no time for him. It ignored him.

He was frozen for a long moment, in a terror of memories.

The slake-moth swept past him and a great backwash of air sent his hair and coat flailing.

The clutching multilimbed creature reached out, unrolled its enormous tongue, spat and chittered in obscene hunger. It landed on Andrej like some nightmare spirit, clutched him and sought desperately to drink.

As its tongue slid rapidly in and out of Andrej's orifices, coating him in that thick citric saliva, another moth careened in on a trough of air, cras.h.i.+ng into the first moth and fighting it for position on Andrej's body.

The old man was twitching as his muscles fought to make sense of the slew of absurd stimuli engulfing them. The torrent of Weaver/ Council brainwaves blasted up and out of his skull.

The engine lying on the roofs.p.a.ce rattled. It grew dangerously hot as its pistons fought to retain control of the enormous wash of crisis energy. Rain spat and evaporated as it hit it.

As the third moth came in to land, the struggle to feed at the mouth of the font, at the pseudo-mind pouring from Andrej's skull, continued. In an irritated convulsive motion, the first moth slapped the second a few feet away, where it licked eagerly at the back of Andrej's head.

The first moth plunged its tongue into Andrej's slavering mouth, then removed it with a sickening plop plop and sought another outflow. It found the little trumpet on Andrej's helmet, from which the whole bursting wash of ever-increasing output poured. The moth slid its tongue into the opening and around dimensional corners into and out of the aether, rolling the sinuous organ around the multifarious planes of the flow. and sought another outflow. It found the little trumpet on Andrej's helmet, from which the whole bursting wash of ever-increasing output poured. The moth slid its tongue into the opening and around dimensional corners into and out of the aether, rolling the sinuous organ around the multifarious planes of the flow.

It squealed in delight.

Its skull vibrated in its flesh. Gouts of the intense artificial mindwaves spurted down its throat and dripped invisibly from its mouth, a burning jet of intense, sweet thought-calories that poured and poured into the moth's belly, more powerful, more concentrated than its day-to-day feed by a vast and increasing factor, an uncontrollable torrent of energy that raged through the slake-moth's gullet and filled its stomach in seconds.

The moth could not break free. It locked in, gorged and fixated. It could sense danger, but it could not care, could not think of anything apart from the entrancing, inebriating flow of food that held it, that focused it. It was fixed with the mindless intent of a night insect battering itself against cracked gla.s.s to find a way in to a deadly flame.

The slake-moth immolated itself, immersed itself in the torrential blasts of power.

Its stomach swelled and chitin creaked. The ma.s.sive wash of mental emanations overwhelmed it. The huge and skulking creature jerked once; its belly and skull burst with wet, explosive sounds.

Instantly it snapped back, dying quickly in two sprays of ichor and ragged skin, entrails and brainstuff bursting in curves from its ma.s.sive injuries, oozing with undigested, indigestible mind-liquor.

It slumped dead across Andrej's insensible form, twitching with spastic motion, dripping and broken.

Isaac bellowed with delight, a ma.s.sive shout of astonished triumph. Andrej was briefly forgotten.

Derkhan and Yagharek turned quickly and stared at the dead moth.

"Yes!" shouted Derkhan exultantly, and Yagharek emitted the wordless ululating cry of a successful hunter. Below them, the militia paused. They could not see what had happened, and they were unnerved by the sudden shouts of triumph. shouted Derkhan exultantly, and Yagharek emitted the wordless ululating cry of a successful hunter. Below them, the militia paused. They could not see what had happened, and they were unnerved by the sudden shouts of triumph.

The second moth was scrambling over the body of its fallen sibling, licking and sucking. The crisis engine still sounded; Andrej still crawled in agony in the rain, unaware of what was happening. The slake-moth scrabbled for the continuing flow of bait.

The third moth arrived, sending rainwater spraying in the downdrafts from its ferociously beating wings. It paused for a fraction of a second, tasting the dead moth in the air, but the stench of those astonis.h.i.+ng Weaver/Council waves was irresistible. It crawled through the sticky slick of the fallen moth's bowels.

The other moth was quicker. It found the outflow pipe of the helmet and thrust its mouth into the funnel, its tongue anchoring it like some vampiric umbilical cord.

It gulped and sucked, hungry and exhilarated, drunk, burnt up with its desires.

It was captivated. It could not resist when the power of the food began to burn a hole in its stomach wall. It whined and puked, metadimensional globules of brainpattern travelling back up its gullet and meeting the torrent that it still sucked like nectar, converging in its throat and suffocating it, until the soft skin of its throat distended and split.

It began to bleed and die from the ragged tracheotomy, still drinking from the helmet and hastening its own death. The swell of energy was too much: it destroyed the moth as quickly and completely as its own unadulterated milk would a human. The slake-moth's mind burst flatly like a great blood-blister.

It fell back, its tongue retracting sluggishly like old elastic.

Isaac roared again as the third moth kicked away the twitching corpse of its sisterbrother and fed.

The militia were breaching the last rise of rooftop before the plateau. Yagharek moved in a lethal dance, suddenly murderous. His whip slashed; officers stumbled and fell away, ducked out of sight, moved warily behind the chimneys.

Derkhan fired again, into the face of a militiaman who rose before her, but the main wad of powder in the shaft of her pistol did not properly ignite. She cursed and held the gun away from her at arm's length, trying to keep it trained on the officer. He moved forward and the powder finally exploded, sending a ball over his head. He ducked and slipped to one foot on the frictionless roofs.p.a.ce.

Isaac pointed his gun and fired as the man fought to stand, sending a bullet into the back of his skull. The man jerked and his head battered against the ground. Isaac reached for his powder horn, then slid back. There was no time to reload, he realized. The last clutch of officers was vaulting towards him. They had been waiting for him to fire.

"Get back, Dee!" he yelled, and moved away from the edge.

Yagharek knocked one man down with a whipstrike at his legs, but he had to withdraw as the officers approached. Derkhan, Yagharek and Isaac moved back from the brink and looked desperately around for weapons.

Isaac stumbled on the segmented limb of a fallen moth. Behind him, the third moth was emitting little cries of greed as it drank. They fused into a single wail, an extended animal sound of delight or misery.

Isaac turned at the sound of the bleating and was caught in a moist detonation of flesh. Shredded innards slopped noisily over the roof, rendering it treacherous.

The third moth had succ.u.mbed.

Isaac stared at the dark, lolling shape, hard and variegated, as big as a bear. It was spreadeagled in a radial burst of limbs and bodyparts, dripping from its emptied-out thorax. The Weaver bent forward like a child and prodded the splayed exoskeleton with a tentative finger.

Andrej still moved, though his scissoring kicks were fitful. The moths had not drunk him, but the ma.s.sive wash of artificial thoughts that bubbled up from the helmet. His mind still worked, bewildered and fearful and locked in the terrible feedback loop of the crisis engine. He was slowing down, his body collapsing under the extraordinary strain. His mouth worked in exaggerated yawns to clear itself of the thick, rotten-smelling saliva.

Directly above him, the final moth had spiralled into the fountain of energy from his helmet. Its wings were still, angled to control its fall, as it dropped like some murderous weapon out of the sky towards the tangled carnage. It bore down on the source of the feast, a clutch of arms and hands and hooks extended in frantic predation.

The militia lieutenant rose a foot or so over the grooved guttering at the edge of the plateau. He faltered and shouted something at his men-". . . ing Weaver!"-then fired wildly at Isaac. Isaac leapt sideways, grunted in quick triumph when he realized that he was uninjured. He grabbed a spanner from the pile of tools by his foot and hurled it at the mirrored helmet.

Something rocked unsteadily in the air around Isaac. His gut tensed and fluttered. He looked around wildly.

Derkhan was moving backwards from the edge of the roof, her face creased with inarticulate horror. She was staring around her in inchoate fear. Yagharek was holding his left hand to his head, the long knife dangling uncertainly from his fingers. His right hand, his whip, was motionless.

The Weaver looked up and muttered.

There was a small round hole in Andrej's chest where the officer's bullet had caught him. Blood was welling out of it in lazy pulses, dribbling across his belly and saturating his filthy clothes. His face was white, his eyes closed.

Isaac shouted and rushed to him, held the old man's hand.

The pattern of Andrej's brainwaves faltered. The engines combining the Weaver's and the Council's exudations skittered uncertainly as their template, their reference, suddenly ebbed.

Andrej was tenacious. He was an old man whose body was collapsing under the oppressive weight of a rotting, wasting disease, whose mind was stiff with coagulated dream-emissions. But even with a bullet lodged under his heart and his lung haemorrhaging, it took him nearly ten seconds to die.

Isaac held Andrej as he breathed bloodily. The bulky helmet lolled absurdly on his head. Isaac clenched his teeth as the old man died. At the very end, in what might have been a twitch of dying nerves, Andrej tensed and clutched Isaac, hugging him back in what Isaac desperately wanted to be forgiveness.

I had to I'm sorry I'm sorry, he thought giddily. he thought giddily.

Behind Isaac the Weaver still drew patterns in the spilt juices of the slake-moths. Yagharek and Derkhan were calling to Isaac, screaming at him, as the militia came over the edge of the roof.

One of the dirigibles had lowered itself now until it hung sixty or seventy feet over the flattened roofscape below. It loomed like a bloated shark. A tangle of ropes was spilling untidily through the darkness towards the great expanse of clay.

Andrej's brain went out like a broken lamp.

A confused tangle of information weltered through the a.n.a.lytical engines.

Without Andrej's mind as referent, the combination of the Weaver's and the Construct Council's waves became suddenly random, their proportions skewing and rolling unsteadily. They no longer modelled anything: they were just an untidy slosh of oscillating particles and waves.

The crisis was gone. The thickening mixture of mindwaves was no more than the sum of its parts, and it had stopped trying to be. The paradox, the tension, disappeared. The vast field of crisis energy evaporated.

The burning gears and motors of the crisis engine stuttered to an abrupt stop.

With a crus.h.i.+ng implosive collapse, the enormous wash of mental energy was snuffed instantly out.

Isaac, Derkhan, Yagharek and the militia for thirty feet around let out cries of pain. They felt as if they had walked from bright sunlight into a darkness so sudden and total it hurt them. They ached drably behind their eyes.

Isaac let Andrej's body fall slowly to the wet ground.

In the wet heat a little way above the station, the last slake-moth eddied in confusion. It beat its wings in complex four-way patterns, sent coils of air in all directions. It hovered.