Previously: As chaos and disaster seemingly follow him up the secret ways of Empire Street, Steven Chance has been saved from Tong of the Black Sun by the intervention of a military taskforce. But with the copper ring he was carrying – and his finger! – gruesomely taken by Tong, he appears to have failed in his mission…
Part Six
The River of Death
As promised, they got him cleaned and dressed. And, mercifully, something for the pain. A powerful opiate, from the speed with which it went away and the sensation of floating that it left him with.
The clothes were a silk shirt and a linen suit. Clearly they didn't have any qualms about raiding the Tong's wardrobes and neither did Steven; it was better than army fatigues.
The sounds of fighting continued, but gradually retreating. The Tong were putting up a fierce defence but they were no match for the army. Whoever this army really were. They seemed mostly Chinese, but through his haze Steven saw some more English like the captain and Gilbert the medic, and other faces some Indian some even Arab. And their weaponry… he'd not even seen the like at the Vanity Fair. The Tong didn't stand much of a chance.
Once Gilbert had seen Steven restored to something approximating human, he'd hurried off to deal with other casualties with a hasty instruction not to wander off. Steven assured him he had no intention of wandering off. He might, on the other hand, wander about. Though he didn't mention this to the corporal.
He made his way to the interior once more, the inner walls of the fortress, where they pressed against the glass of the skyscraper. He imagined he could almost smell his way, the scentless tang of the recycled air-conditioned atmosphere hanging in the thin, cold air of the fortress like a trail. He soon found where the Tong had cut a large oval doorway into one of the windows. There were signs that the fighting had passed this way, but no one was watching the door now, so Steven just slipped through it.
It wasn't as though he really had a plan. More of a general desire to be away from this place, and to put some distance between himself and all these soldiers. But somewhere, deep down in his brain, the notion took hold of carrying on his journey. It meant going in the right direction. And it wasn't as though he had anywhere better to be.
The oval portal took him into a rather dull open plan office, all glass tables and darkened monitor screens. There was another door, a proper set of double doors these, on the far side, so he crossed the space and went through.
The space beyond took his breath away: the entire interior of the tower, a space as huge as the trading floor of the market or the harbour in the depths, was empty. The double doors let him out onto a narrow gallery that ran about the circumference.
A light mist, not quite a rain, was falling slowly into the empty abyss.
Looking out into the chasm, looking down, he could see, maybe five maybe ten stories below, the roofs of blocks and modules that made up the luxurious apartments of the Hill of Lucre. To Steven's somewhat addled mind, it looked, ludicrously, like an incomplete game of Tetris. A winding path of stairs and galleries could be traced up the inner wall of the giant building reaching eventually to where he stood now.
Looking up, he could see… he could see… he wondered if he was still unwell. Or perhaps it was the drugs. The stairs and galleries continued another couple of stories and then… then… water… inverted, impossible, hanging, rippling, surface-down above the long empty drop.
A bridge, ever so narrow, out into the middle of that lake above the gaping void and there, emerging like an island from the upside-down surface, hanging from the uppermost ceiling like a stalactite, like a vast Sword of Damocles, was a tower within the tower. The Down Gate. The end of Empire Street and the gateway to the Vault of Heaven.
Steven swallowed. His mouth was dry. He felt dizzy. He swallowed again.
"Ah, what the hell," he said and stumbled along the gallery towards a stair leading up.
Each gallery spanned almost the full breadth of the building, but at each corner there was a stair leading either up or down. Sometimes both stairs led down to a gallery on a floor below and it was necessary to traverse three galleried walls to ascend making for a winding and switchback path. But climb the path did.
Two stories further up and the surface of water was just out of arm's reach above his head. The further stair was another one that led back down, and frustratedly he dragged himself along one more gallery before climbing again. The stairs must have been of different lengths, the galleries on different levels, because this time the water level was about the level of his hairline, and he would have to duck down to proceed.
The gallery ended at a railing. No stair. Nowhere else to go.
He stared up into the water. It looked deep. Fathomless. He tried splashing his good hand in it. The water broke and sparkled at his touch, cold on his fingers. He rolled up his sleeve and tried again. His arm went in up to the elbow. Slowly, the conviction took hold that he must go into the water, that that was the only way to continue this journey.
He thought about taking off his clothes. He didn't particularly want to ruin another set so soon. But then he didn't particularly fancy parting with them either. He settled for removing the jacket.
Cautiously, very cautiously, he stood upright. The crown of his head broke the surface. It felt very weird. The upside-down water lapped at his temples.
Should he try jumping? His eyes fastened wearily on the rail at the end of the gallery. If he climbed up on there… There was a moment as he felt something like his stomach dropping away, the moment where his body realised what his brain was about to ask it to do. If he got this wrong… even if he got this right, there was a good chance of toppling off and then a nice long time to think about what to do before he hit one of those expensive roofs all the way down below.
He kicked off his shoes. He could balance on a beam. Even with a dislocated shoulder and a missing finger he could do it. He was giggling. Something about morphia? But he was going to give himself the best advantage he could.
And then, without giving himself any more time to overthink what he was going to do… he did it. Hopped up onto the railing and stood smartly upright plunging waist deep into the clear bottomless (topless?) lake.
He should have taken a breath! Too late now! The water closed around him, enfolding him. His feet were still on the rail, wobbling. Could he move his arms? Could he swim?
And then, without moving, his head broke the surface. It was as though the water just fell, down to about waist height. It was like there was no more than an inch of water in a thin barrier and he was standing through it. He could still feel the thin rail under his feet.
"Extraordinary, isn't it, sir?"
Steven hadn't been expecting a voice and he almost fell. For a second it flashed through his mind to wonder if he would fall back through the water surface and into the long drop of the empty tower below.
A steadying hand caught his arm.
He turned to look and the hand, and presumably the voice, belonged to one the Constables, a reassuring figure with a greying moustache and a weathered look to him.
"It only lets through them as it wants to."
"Really? So I've passed some kind of purity test?"
The Constable laughed. "Not that, sir. Or like as not most of us wouldn't get through, would we? Here, let's be giving you a hand up."
The Constable tightened his grip on Steven's arm and hauled him out of the water onto a pontoon at the lakeside. After a moment he recognised it as another gallery, very similar to the one he'd just stepped off.
Leaning against the window-wall was a stainless-steel ladder, like something from a swimming pool. Steven eyed it suspiciously.
"Ah, yes," muttered the Constable, a little defensively. "Well, ah, what with the trouble and all. We weren't expecting anyone on their way up, like."
The water seemed to have washed Steven's drug-fuelled hysteria from him and he just felt tired, so he only sighed.
"No worries, man. Next time, I'll just shout."
"That's very decent of you, sir."
"Fine, fine. So where's this Down Gate then?"
The Vault of Heaven
The sun was setting, casting the city into deep red shadows. On the roof of the skyscraper, a structure of silks and canvas, halfway between tent and balloon, was waiting for him, but he took a moment to look out at the Victoria Harbour in twilight. Tonight, the lights of the city, the headlights, streetlights and every form of neon, were supplemented by sporadic fires; and the sound of the city was a long scream of rage that nightfall would not cool.
The one-eyed man was waiting for him under the awnings.
"Wu Wei," Steven greeted him. "Obviously."
"Perspicacious of you, Mr Chance."
"I didn't bring what you wanted."
"Did you not? I disagree. Between us we have carried the spark of revolution from one end of Empire to the other. And not, I think you have seen, without results."
"Not me. I didn't do nothing."
"Nor yet did I. But we did the right sort of nothing."
"Really? This is what you wanted? Riots? Fighting? Murder?"
"Change comes. Often painfully, with violence. But it comes. Time defeats all dictators. There are no forevers."
"Fine. Whatever. So you got what you wanted after all. Does that mean we're quits now?"
Wu Wei regarded him.
"I think, not quite."
"So now what?"
"You were promised, I believe, three wishes. Two you have had."
"You what?"
"In the harbour. Leviathan sent a beast to save you from drowning."
"Jeez, there was something in there—"
"In the valley. Legion sent his birds to save you from falling."
"And again, jeez—"
"This, I think, will count as a third."
Fast as a striking snake, his left arm shot out and caught Steven's wounded hand in a painful grip. With his other hand he roughly pulled off the bandaging and instantly the pain was doubled, tripled. Reaching into his shirt, he drew out a small lapis case, the size of a box of cigarettes. Inside was a human finger, Steven's missing finger, still with the copper ring attached. Before this thought had even had time to penetrate Steven's mind, the one-eyed man snatched up the finger and pressed it to the bloodied stump on Steven's hand. And then let go, dropped the hand and walked away, turning his back on Steven.
For a moment, Steven didn't understand. It took him that moment to realise that the pain was suddenly and instantly gone. It was like he continued to feel it as you might continue to hear echoes of some huge and terrible sound even after it has stopped. Only after he realised that the pain was gone did he notice that his hand was whole again.
He stared. For a long moment he just stared. He slipped off the ring – it came off smoothly and easily – and looked again. The skin was smooth, unbroken. On the closest inspection, a thin white line was discernible.
"That's… just…" he stopped.
"I am grateful you did not say 'impossible'," said Wu Wei without turning. "You should learn to expect the impossible. This dirigible needs a pilot. Do you think you could fly her?"
"I can fly anything."
"I imagine you can."
"What's in it for me?"
Now the one-eyed man did turn. He was smiling.
"Shall we say 'three wishes'?"
Steven Chance looked back at the burning city. And then put the ring back on.
