Iron Council - China Mieville [58]
The travellers had become a tough crew. Their muscles were bunched; they were expert shots. Pomeroy’s cuts had stained inside, so he wore splendid dark scars. Elsie fastened a bandana about her wild hair. The men’s beards were long, their shag tied back with leather: only Drogon defied this, shaving dry every few days. They husbanded their dwindling bullets, carried fire-hard spears. They looked, Cutter thought, like adventurers, the continent’s merce-nary freebooters.
We ain’t though. There’s a damn reason for all our travels.
“It must be nearly Sinn, ain’t it?” he said. “Or is it already? I’ve lost track.” They tried to work through the weeks on their fingers.
One night Judah made four little figures from the earth, and with muttered cantrips he had them dance while his companions clapped to give them music. When they were done he had them bow; then they fell back into earth.
He said: “I want to tell you all that I’m grateful. I want you to know that.” They drank a toast in water. “I want to tell you . . . we’ve been going so long, it’s like the journeying’s what it’s for. But that’s not so.
“I don’t even know for sure if you believe in the Iron Council.” He smiled. “I think you do. But maybe for some of you it isn’t even about that anymore. I think you’re here because of the time in the claphouse, Elsie,” he said, and she met his eyes and nodded. “I know why you’re here,” he said to Cutter.
“Even you, maybe, Drogon . . . A stravager like you . . . Myths and hopes are your currency, right? That’s what you trade in; that’s what keeps horse-tramps moving. Are you here because you think Iron Council’s like the Marzipan Palace? Are you looking for a heaven?”
“It’s not why I’m here, Judah Low,” said Pomeroy. Judah smiled. “You mean the most to me, Judah, I’d die for you, but I’d not die now. Not with what’s happening in New Crobuzon. There’s too much at stake. I’m here because of what you say’s coming for the Council. And because I think you can stop it. That’s why I’m here.”
Judah nodded, and sighed. “That’s what I want to say. This is greater than any of us. Iron Council . . .” He was silent for very long. “It’s tough, because that’s how it’s had to be. But it’s the Council. It’s Iron Council. And the governors of New Crobuzon—I don’t know how—they’ve found it. My contact, my erstwhile friend, he had every reason not to tell me but he did, thank Jabber. They’ve found it, after all this time. Long enough that plenty of citizens aren’t sure it ever existed, and thousands more think it’s long gone.
“Chaverim . . . friends . . . We’re going to save Iron Council.”
The next day Qurabin had a long conversation with the Moment. The unfindable monk cried, supplicated, made a desolate sound.
At last Cutter spoke. “Monk,” he said. “Monk, what happened? Are you there? Are you gone?”
“It’s not hidden anymore,” Qurabin said in a voice that was deadened. “I know where to find it. But it cost . . . I lost my own language.”
Qurabin had been left only with Ragamoll, the brash infant tongue of the travellers.
“I remember my mother,” Qurabin said quietly. “I remember what she whispered to me. But I don’t know what it means.” There was no horror in the voice. Only a passionless assent. “One thing is lost, another found. I know where to go.”
They went uncanny routes. The sky’s colour fluxed.
It was a Chainday when the plain fell away and they realised they had been rising a long time; the ground had angled and they walked a hackberried butte in thin air. Before them was a basin in red laterite, a canyon that widened into land too vast to be a valley, where the continent had shrugged itself apart. From behind one long stone fin, black smoke was spoiling the air.
Judah stood at the edge of the cliff and looked down at the fumes that did not come from grassfires and howled. A noise of such pure feral joy it was as if he was thrown back through history, as if no human, no sentient thing, should feel such absolute emotion. Judah bayed.
He did not slow. He descended fast and did not wait for his companions but headed off along faint