Redemption Ark

It was not an invasion in the usual sense. They were too few in number, too militarily weak, and they had no wish to convert the populace to their mode of thinking. Instead they had bought out the city a chunk at a time, rebuilding it into something glittering and new. They tore down the eighteen merged domes. In the chasm they installed a vast item of bioengineered machinery called the Lilly, which vastly increased the efficiency of chemical conversion of the chasm’s native gases. Now the city lived in a pocket of warm breathable air, sustained by the Lilly’s slow exhalations. The Conjoiners had torn down many of the warped structures, replacing them with elegant bladelike towers that reached far above the breathable pocket, turning like yacht’s sails to minimise their wind profile. More resilient forms of nanotechnology were cautiously introduced back into the environment. Conjoiner medicines allowed longevity therapies to be pursued again. Sniffing prosperity, Ultras again made Yellowstone a key stopover on their trade intineraries. Around Yellowstone, resettlement of the Rust Belt proceeded apace.

It should have been a new Golden Age.

But the Demarchists, the city’s former masters, never adjusted to the role of historical has-beens. They chafed at their reduced status. For centuries they had been the Conjoiners’ only allies, but all that was about to end. They would go to war to win back what they had lost.

‘Can you see the chasm, Mr Clavain?’ His host pointed towards a dark elliptical smear almost lost beyond a profusion of spires and towers. They say the Lilly is dying now. The Conjoiners aren’t here to keep it alive, since they were evicted. The air quality is not what it was. There is even speculation that the city will have to be re-domed. But perhaps the Conjoiners will soon be able to reoccupy what was once theirs, eh?‘

‘It would be difficult to draw another conclusion,’ Clavain said.

‘I do not care who wins, I must admit. I was able to make a living before the Conjoiners came, and I have continued to do so in their absence. I did not know the city under the Demarchists, but I don’t doubt that I would have found a way to survive.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Where are we might be a better question. Look down, Mr Clavain.’

Clavain looked down. The building he was in was high, that much was obvious from the elevated view, but he had not quite grasped how very high it really was. It was as if he stood near the summit of an immensely tall and steep mountain, looking down at subsidiary peaks and shoulders many thousands of metres below, secondary summits which themselves towered over the majority of the surrounding buildings. The highest air-traffic corridor was far below; indeed, he saw that some of the traffic flowed through the building itself, diving through immense arches and portals. Below lay other traffic layers, then a gridlike haze of elevated roadways, and below that yet more space, and then a blurred suggestion of tiered parks and lakes, so far below that they resembled faded two-dimensional markings on a map.

The building was black and monumental in its architecture. He could not guess its true shape, but he had the impression that had he viewed it from some other part of Chasm City it would have resembled something black and dead and faintly foreboding, like a solitary tree that had been struck by lightning.

‘All right,’ Clavain said. ‘It’s a very nice view. Where are we?’

‘Chateau des Corbeaux, Mr Clavain. The House of Ravens. I trust you remember the name?’

Clavain nodded. ‘Skade came here.’

The man nodded. ‘So I gather.’

‘Then you had something to do with what happened to her, is that it?’

‘No, Mr Clavain, I did not. But my predecessor, the person who last inhabited this building, most certainly did.’ The man turned around and offered Clavain his right hand. ‘My name is H, Mr Clavain. At least, that is the name under which I currently choose to do business. Shall we do business?’

Before Clavain could respond, H had taken his hand and squeezed it. Clavain withdrew his hand, taken aback. He noticed that there was a tiny spot of red on his palm, like blood.

H took Clavain downstairs, back to the marbled floor. They walked past the fountain Clavain had heard earlier — it consisted of an eyeless golden snake belching a constant stream of water — and then took another long flight of marbled steps down to the floor immediately below.

‘What do you know about Skade?’ Clavain asked. He did not trust H, but saw no harm in asking a few questions.

‘Not as much as I would like,’ H said. ‘But I will tell you what I have learned, within certain limits. Skade was sent to Chasm City on an espionage operation for the Conjoiners, one that concerned this building. That’s correct, isn’t it?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Come now, Mr Clavain. As you will discover, we have very much more in common than you might imagine. There’s no need to be defensive.’

Clavain wanted to laugh. ‘I doubt that you and I have much in common at all, H.’

‘No?’