China Mieville - Iron Council

Iron Council

China Miville

To Jemima, my sister

Erect portable moving monuments on the platforms of trains.

VELIMIR KHLEBNIKOV, Proposals

For alltheir help with this book, I owe my deepest gratitude to EmmaBircham, Mark Bould, Andrew Butler, Mic Cheetham, Deanna Hoak, SimonKavanagh, Peter Lavery, Claudia Lightfoot, Farah Mendelsohn, JemimaMiville, Gillian Redfearn, Max Schaefer, Chris Schluep, andJesse Soodalter. Huge thanks also to Nick Mamatas and MehitobelWilson, and to everyone at Macmillan and Del Rey for all their work.

Thoughas always I am indebted to countless writers, for this book I mustespecially thank William Durbin, John Ehle, Jane Gaskell, Zane Grey,Sembne Ousmane, Tim Powers, T. F. Powys, and Frank Spearman.

Inyears gone, women and men are cutting a line across the dirtland anddragging history with them. They are still, with fight-shouts settingtheir mouths. They are in rough and trenches of rock, in forests, inscrub, brick shadows. They are always coming.

And in years long gonesomeone stands on a knuckle of granite, a clenched-up mountain fist.Trees cover the peak as if a spume of forest has settled. He is abovea green world while feathered and tough-skinned fauna speck the airbelow him and pay no mind.

Up past pillars ofbatholith is the path he has made, and abutting it tarpaulinbivouacs. There are men and fire, little neutered cousin to theconflagrations that fertilize woodlands.

The man apart is inwind that frosts this old moment in place forever while breathcold-congeals on his beard. He consults mercury sluggish in itsglass, a barometer and inch-marked cord. He locates himself and themen with him above the belly of the world and in a mountain autumn.

They have ascended.Columns of men have faltered against gravity, tight-knotted danglingin the lee of silicate walls and corners. Servants of theirequipment, they have carried the brass, wood and glass oddments likedumb nabobs across the world.

The man apart breathesin the moment long gone, listens to the coughs of mountain animals,the beat of jostling trees. Where ravines are he has plumbed lines tobring them to order and know them, has marked them and annotated hisdrawings, and learning the parameters of the peneplain or open-sidedcorries, the tributary canyons, creeks, rivers and fern-scruffedpampas, he has made them beautiful. Where pines or ash are tetheredand he notes the radius of a curve, the land humbles him.

Cold takes six of hismen and leaves them white and hard in make-do graves. Githwings rinsethe party with blood, and bears and tenebrae leave them depleted andmen broken and crying unfound in darkness and mules fall andexcavations fail and there are drownings and indigens who trustlesslymurder but those are all other moments. In this long-gone time thereis only a man above the trees. West, mountains block his way, but inthis moment they are miles yet.

Only wind speaks tohim, but he knows his name is raised in abuse and respect. His wakeis disputation. In the built hilltops of his city his endeavourssplit families. Some say they speak for gods and that he is proud. Heis an insult on the worlds face and his plans and route are anabomination.

The man watches nightcolonise. ( It is a long time since this moment. ) Hewatches the spits of shadows, and before he hears the tin clatter ofhis men at supper or smells the cooked rock vermin he will eat withthem, there is only he and the mountain and the night and his bookswith renderings of everything he has seen and measurements of thesedisinterested heights and his want.

He smiles not cunningnor sated nor secure, but in joy because he knows his plans are holy.

A man runs. Pushes throughthin bark-and-leaf walls, through the purposeless rooms of Rudewood.The trees crowd him.

This far in the forestthere are aboriginal noises. The canopy rocks. The man isheavy-burdened, and sweated by the unseen sun. He is trying to followa trail.

Just before dark he foundhis place. Dim hotchi paths led him to a basin ringed by roots andstone-packed soil. Trees gave out. The earth was tramped down andstained with scorching and blood. The man spread out his pack andblanket, a few books and clothes. He laid down something well-wrappedand heavy among loam and centipedes.

Rudewood was cold. The manbuilt a fire, and with it so close the darkness shut him quite out,but he stared into it as if he might see something emergent. Thingscame close. There were constant bits of sound like the bronchial callof a nightbird or the breath and shucking of some unseen predator.The man was wary. He had pistol and rifle, and one at least wasalways in his hand.

By flamelight he saw hourspass. Sleep took him and led him away again in little gusts. Eachtime he woke he breathed as if coming out of water. He was stricken.Sadness and anger went across his face.

"Ill come findyou," he said.

He did not notice themoment of dawn, only that time skidded again and he could see theedges of the clearing. He moved like he was made of twigs, as if hehad stored up the nights damp cold. Chewing on dry meat, helistened to the forests shuffling and paced the dirtdepression.

When finally he heardvoices he flattened against the bank and looked out between thetrunks. Three people approached on the paths of leaf-mould and forestdebris. The man watched them, his rifle steadied. When they trudgedinto thicker shanks of light, he saw them clearly and let his riflefall.

"Here," heshouted. They dropped foolishly and looked for him. He raised hishand above the earth rise.

They were a woman and twomen, dressed in clothes more ill-suited to Rudewood than his own.They stood before him in the arena and smiled. "Cutter."They gripped arms and slapped his back.

"I heard you foryards. What if you was followed? Who else is coming?"

They did not know. "Wegot your message," the smaller man said. He spoke fast andlooked about him. "I went and seen. We were arguing. The otherswere saying, you know, we should stay. You know what they said."

"Yeah, Drey. Said Immad."

"Not you. "

They did not look at him.The woman sat, her skirt filling with air. She was breathing fastwith anxiety. She bit her nails.

"Thank you. Forcoming." They nodded or shook Cutters gratitude off: itsounded strange to him, and he was sure to them too. He tried not tomake it sound like his sardonic norm. "It means a lot."

They waited in the sunkenground, scratched motifs in the earth or carved figures from deadwood. There was too much to say.

"So they told you notto come?"

The woman, Elsie, told himno, not so much, not in those words, but the Caucus had beendismissive of Cutters call. She looked up at him and downquickly as she spoke. He nodded, and did not criticise.

"Are you sure aboutthis?" he said, and would not accept their desultory nods."Godsdammit are you sure? Turn your back on the Caucus? Youready to do that? For him? Its a long way weve got togo."

"We already comemiles in Rudewood," said Pomeroy.

"Thereshundreds more. Hundreds. Itll be bastard hard. A longtime. I cant swear well come back."

I cant swearwell come back.

Pomeroy said, "Onlytell me again your message was true. Tell me again hes gone,and where hes gone and what for. Tell me thats true."The big man glowered and waited, and at Cutters brief nod andclosed eyes, he said, "Well then."

Others arrived then. Firstanother woman, Ihona; and then as they welcomed her they heardstick-litter being destroyed in heavy leaps, and a vodyanoi camethrough the brush. He squatted in the froggish way of his race andraised webbed hands. When he jumped from the bank, his bodyheadand trunk all one fat sacrippled with impact. Fejhechrillenwas besmirched and tired, his motion ill-suited to woodland.