Word of Honour

'Not the best choice of words, but I see what you're thinking.'

'You're animating the city, using the tunnels, the wires, the pipes as connectors, like veins, arteries and nerves.'

'Yes, yes, like ligaments, sinews and tendons. And have you ever noticed how a metaphor can actually reduce the object of comparison? No? Very well, what will happen next?'

'The city must have reached a critical level of connectivity to facilitate this.'

'Yes, well, partly that's due to Rokeby-Taylor here. His electricity generating plants have been important in achieving this – as you put it – critical level of connectivity.' Tremaine paused. 'I like that phrase.'

'So Rokeby-Taylor's responsible for this.'

'Don't be foolish. He does what I tell him.'

'Is that right, Rokeby-Taylor? Why?'

Rokeby-Taylor glanced at Dr Tremaine, who grinned. 'Go ahead. You can answer.'

Taylor wouldn't meet Aubrey's eye. 'Dr Tremaine has offered me eternal life.'

Aubrey's eyes widened at the absurdity of the offer. Eternal life wasn't something to be handed around like a box of chocolates. Dr Tremaine's plans for eternal life for himself involved long and meticulous planning, committing a whole continent to war. 'Eternal life? I thought you wanted money.'

'I do. Bucket loads of it. But what good is money if you only have one lifetime to spend it?' He frowned, as if it should have been obvious.

Aubrey sighed. Rokeby-Taylor's betrayal was for such a petty motive. He wanted the good life, but he wanted it to go on forever. Nothing elevated there, no appeal to a philosophical ideal, just base and sordid greed.

'You see,' Dr Tremaine said,'Rokeby-Taylor here has sold himself to me, in exchange for his heart's desire. A simple transaction, with benefits to us both.'

'And disadvantages for Albion.'

'There you go again, taking a lofty view of what is essentially a personal matter.'

'Personal matter? You'll turn Trinovant into a monster and then . . .' Aubrey thought hard. Apart from ruining the financial centre of the Empire, what else would he do? 'Send it rampaging across the countryside to destroy what? Our munitions factories? Shipyards? Railways?'

Dr Tremaine waved this away. 'I'm sure I'll find some use for a city-sized creature. Once I have a city-sized monster.'

A flat, deadly voice came from Aubrey's left. 'You killed my father. And you tried to kill Lady Rose.'

'Eh? Ah, Miss Hepworth. I thought I'd cancelled that insect's work after it freed young Fitzwilliam. Never mind.'

'You killed my father,' Caroline repeated, 'and you tried to kill Lady Rose.'

'Now you're getting tedious,' Dr Tremaine said. 'I told you about your father, and how unavoidable that was. Lady Rose, though, that's another matter. I've found that those Holmlander espionage agencies need something to keep them busy, something to keep their noses out of my business. A simple assassination or two is just the sort of thing.'

'They failed,' Caroline said.

'Yes. Most of humanity is less competent than I am, but I can't do everything. Now, I need to concentrate.'

This gave Aubrey some hope. Dr Tremaine could still be stopped; he hadn't finished his work.

The magician snapped out a short spell and Aubrey felt the hated copper insects crawling over his face. Within seconds, they'd bound his mouth again. At the same time, he saw insects shuttling across Caroline's face. Despite her furious struggling, she, too, was silenced.

He strained against the wires, desperately hoping the insects had left some slack this time. The wire bit cruelly into his cheeks and lips, but he didn't give up until blood trickled from a cut on his upper lip.

In his desperation, he realised that this was a small victory. He worked his neck, one of the few tiny movements available to him. The cut opened. Blood smeared on his skin. Ignoring the pain, he continued, working away, straining a fraction of an inch this way, a fraction of an inch back.

Until he felt the wires slip, lubricated by his own blood.

Hope flared in him and he looked toward Dr Tremaine. The sorcerer was locked into his cycle of spells. His voice – vast and majestic – rolled around the chamber and the pillar of flame responded, roaring upward, swollen with power. Sparks crackled along chains and cables, turning the latticework into a shadowy fairyland. Pipes shook. Metal quivered with the force of the magic it channelled.

And the latticework was alive with sound – low whistling, a multitude of creakings and shiftings, a humming just on the edge of perception.

Aubrey shifted, flinched, then thrust a little with his chin. The bloody wires separated, freeing his mouth just enough for him to articulate a spell. A very short, very simple spell.

So I'll have to start small.

It appealed to his sense of irony. Against prodigious magic, he was forced to use a humble spell. But if it worked, it would be a step toward foiling the destruction of Trinovant. If he could find a spell to free his mouth properly, he could then cast a more substantial spell – one that could stop Dr Tremaine.

He recalled his flirtation with the violin at university. Two days of dogged practice had left his fingertips sore and tender, so his instructor had used a spell to harden them. After this, he was able to press on the strings with no problem at all, as if his fingertips were little blocks of wood. The effects didn't last long, just for a practice session, but that was all that was required. Naturally, Aubrey had been intrigued by the spell. At the time, he had sworn off magic – but he had played around with some of the elements, in a strictly theoretical manner.

This time, though, he needed something harder than wood – and it wasn't his fingertips he was hardening. It was his tongue.

He constructed a spell sequence, adjusting the hardness factor. He wanted the tip of his tongue to be as hard as steel. As hard as diamond!

In the clanking, hissing world of the pipeworks, Aubrey didn't think he could be heard, but he kept his voice low in any case, barely above a whisper. Five short terms then a clipped final signature and he was done.

Unsure if the spell had worked, he tapped his tongue against his teeth and was reassured by the solid 'clink' it made.

He went to work. The copper wire was no match for his diamond-hard tongue. He sawed the edge against them and, one by one, they parted. First on the left side, then the right, and soon his whole mouth was free. He cancelled the spell, stretched his mouth, and he was ready.

Now he could do some serious magic, but he was frozen by the sight that confronted him.

Even with a small audience, Dr Tremaine did not neglect the dramatic. As his spells grew, rising in volume and complexity, he thrust up a hand, summoning and harnessing the power of the cold flame. It quivered in response, and all the connectors vibrated with the power it was pumping out to the edges of the city.

Rokeby-Taylor had backed away until he was pressed against a huge, vertical pipe. His expression was one of avidity and excitement, a man seeing his heart's desire, but unwilling to believe it was so close. His hands trembled even though he held them together.