Iron Council (53 page)

We play around them; we come to them. Some come to pray. The ground around the Iron Council is a litter of written pleas.

The militia and their scientists and their thaumaturges try to send through violence, but the time golem only is, and is unhurt by their crude attacks. We come back again, again, again.

Years might pass and we will tell the story of the Iron Council and how it was made, how it made itself and went, and how it came back, and is coming, is still coming. Women and men cut a line across the dirtland and dragged history out and back across the world. They are still with shouts setting their mouths and we usher them in. They are coming out of the trenches of rock toward the brick shadows. They are always coming.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C
HINA
M
IÉVILLE
was born in 1972. He is the author of
King Rat,
which was nominated for an International Horror Guild Award and the Bram Stoker Prize;
Perdido Street Station,
which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Fantasy Award; and
The Scar,
which won the Locus Award and was a finalist for the Hugo Award, Philip K. Dick Award, World Fantasy Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award. He lives and works in London.

Also by China Miéville

KING RAT

PERDIDO STREET STATION

THE SCAR

Iron Council
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A Del Rey® Book

Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright © 2004 by China Miéville

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random
House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark
of Random House, Inc.

www.delreydigital.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miéville, China.

Iron council / China Miéville.

p. cm.

I. Title.

PR6063.I265I76 2004

823′.914—dc22 2004049394

eISBN: 978-0-345-47854-2

v3.0