Roil (31 page)

David coughed, his breath wasn’t coming, an awful weight pressed on his chest. His head throbbed. Cadell was dead. Only he wasn’t, Cadell was in his blood like a sliver of ice or the slow ripple of a sustained shiver through his flesh.

What have you done, Mr Cadell
, he thought.
What have you gone and done?

Then the weight was gone, and he could move.

David’s limbs shook, his teeth chattered so fiercely that his jaw ached. Where Cadell had bitten him the wound had darkened but David knew it would soon start to heal.

With those memories came a different sort of knowledge. Cadell again, so much more of it was Cadell than him. If he wasn’t careful, it would push him out altogether.

David sat up. He could do with a nice shot of Carnival, just to clear his head. Kara and Margaret huddled over the control pod in argument or conversation, he couldn’t tell, though Margaret gripped a rifle in one hand.

They weren’t watching him. If only he had some Carnival.

The memory struck him and for the first time in a long time he forgot about Carnival altogether.

“They’re coming,” he said, almost shouting.

Margaret turned to him, startled. “You’re awake.” She put down her rifle and was beside his bunk in a couple of steps. She pushed him down easily. “You need to rest.”

“You don’t understand. They’re coming,” he snarled, far more savagely than he’d meant. Margaret took a step back from him. “Iron ships like the last one, only there’s three of them this time. We need to land.”

“What’s he talking about?” Kara Jade said. She didn’t look any better than he felt. Blood tracked her jaw line and her eyes shone too brightly. What had been going on since Cadell’s bite?

David rattled off co-ordinates. They just slipped from his lips, Kara Jade’s jaw dropped. “Bring us down there or we will die. All of us. Do you want the
Roslyn Dawn
to die?”

“What do you think?” Kara was already running to the controls.

“You’re just in shock,” Margaret said. “I’ve seen it before.” She didn’t sound certain.

You haven
’
t seen
this
before
, David thought.

David sat up, this time Margaret let him. “I wish that was all it was.”

The
Roslyn Dawn
descended. He slid out of the cot and slipped into his clothes. His entire body was one big bruise. He looked over at the still form of Cadell.

“He did something to me,” David said.

“What?” Margaret demanded.

“Something he had to. Something horrible but I understand why, and it will save us.”

“You need to rest,” Margaret said.

David shook his head. “Yes I know, but I can’t, not now.”

“We’re down,” Kara Jade said a few moments later.

David was out the doorifice at once, dropping to the ground. Margaret followed. “Back in the
Dawn
,” he said. Margaret hesitated. “Trust me. Please.”

Margaret didn’t look happy, but she did what he asked, and David was thankful for that.

“As soon as you see those ships, you get out of here,” David shouted at Kara, she was peering at him through the doorifice.

“What about you?” Kara Jade demanded.

“Come back for me. If this succeeds, you’ll know.”

The moons were out. The
Roslyn Dawn
rose above him, a single flagellum brushed his face though he couldn’t tell whether it was in farewell or dismissal.

He looked about him. There was the hill, there was the slender river, almost identical to the one Cadell had used.

Now he could hear the iron ships: flying in tight formation, thundering through the air on their fingers of flame. And he could see them every time he closed his eyes. They would be here soon. He ran to the river, crashed through its shallows.

When he was up to his thighs in icy water, he waited, not sure what he was doing.

He blinked, the ships’ lights burned. They were almost here.

Now he felt it, the lode and beyond that a distant consciousness, weary, wintry and strangely familiar that almost at once became anything but distant.

The Engine of the World sighed.

No
, it said.
No.

Then we are all dead.

Some doors you shouldn
’
t open.

You
’
re right,
David said.
But I don
’
t have any choice. And neither do you.

Another sigh.
This time, perhaps.

Something clicked, some space in his mind or his blood, or both. The Orbis tightened around his finger and he screamed with the agony of it.

The river froze.

Great rough pillars of ice swung into the sky, striking the ships as they came over the hill.

Their iron hulls darkened, then crumbled, and the ships corkscrewed, spewing smoke. The three ships became three fireballs. Shards of shrapnel flew towards him, and the river lifted like a great hand, and slapped them down as though they were nothing more irritating than flies.

David was struck, across the forearm, a deep gash.

He watched his blood spill. How much blood could he lose? The wound began to close and he marvelled at that.

You must be so proud.
The Engine said, and David wasn’t sure who he was talking to.

I
’
m alive, Margaret and Kara are alive, that is all.

Disapproval, ponderous and deep crashed down upon him.
And the door is opened. You
’
ve lessons to learn, the sort that drown you. The sort that snatch you from yourself. I do not think you will like it.

The Engine pulled away from David. The water warmed, marginally, and the ice melted, releasing him. David staggered to the shore, water steaming from his body. He dropped to the icy ground, grass shattering with the impact.
What am I? What am I?

He drew his knees to his chest, teeth chattering, body shaking, and wept.

“What was that? What was that?” Kara Jade demanded.

Margaret wanted to slap her. “We need to get to David.”

“I know, and we will. Give me time. Give the
Dawn
time.”

The
Roslyn Dawn
descended, arcing back towards the hill. The three ships (her mother’s ships) little more than craters now, blazed beneath her, and near the fires and the river lay David.

Margaret still wasn’t sure what she had seen, but she knew what it meant.

Cadell had passed his power onto David. Without him, she had no way of entering Tearwin Meet. David must go to the Engine, whether he wanted to or not. She looked down at him, curled in a ball, body convulsing, and felt a moment of such pity that she almost lifted her rifle and shot him in the head.

The moment passed, of course.

“Sorry, David,” she whispered. She raised her voice. “Hurry, Kara, he’s freezing down there.”

MIRRLEES-ON-WEEP

298 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL EDGE

Stade opened the door, holding his key before him, wary despite its protection. The thing within the room lifted its head and regarded him with eyes full of hunger. “He’s given his curse to a boy,” it said. “A boy holds the world in his drug-addled palm.”

“I know,” Stade said, and he did. But two hours before the Old Men had begun screaming, demanding release. He had not denied them that. After all, the city was being evacuated. The end of days was upon them all. Not even the Old Men and their curse could add to that chaos.

“You’re the last. The rest are out in the city, reinvigorating themselves.”

The Old Man snarled. “Do not be so delicate. They are feeding. It’s come to this. Cadell’s betrayed us, his freedom was enough bitterness to us, but this, this is well beyond his purview.”

“You know what must be done.”

The Old Man nodded. “We will have our carnage, and there will be blood. We have held our hungers, held the curse of the Engine, in check for an age.” Ropes of saliva spilled from its lips. Stade could see the Old Man’s heart racing in the raw cage of its chest. He clenched his hand so tightly around the key that it cut him: he hardly felt it.

“Just kill the boy.”

The Old Man raised an eyebrow. “Do not think to instruct me. The boy will be put down, because he is an aberration. We cannot let one such as him live.” Then it stood, its face inches from his own, and Stade hadn’t even seen it move from the room to him. Stade’s spine spasmed painfully, he nearly soiled himself, but he did not turn aside from its gaze. “Be thankful you possess the key, Mr Stade. Or I would devour you now.”

It raced from the basement, Stade watched after it. Only when it was gone did he allow himself to shake. He coughed, dropped to his knees and tears spilled down his face.

Unmanned. I am unmanned, what a mess I
’
ve made of it all.

He’d let them all go – the heart and mind of the city. It was only right that they should devour Mirrlees, he stared a while at the eight empty rooms and listened to the silence.

David
, he thought.
When they find you, if you
’
re not drugged out of your mind, you
’
ll wish you
’
d never run from my Vergers. You
’
ll curse Cadell and your father
’
s name with your dying breath. Please forgive me.

And, feeling old and cruel and deadly, because he was all those things, he returned to his office and worked at the one thing he knew. The logistics involved in saving the population of a city. It had to be worth the cost.

When the knock came for him to board his airship, he wasn’t ready. It, like everything else these days, had arrived far sooner than anticipated. He gathered what few notebooks remained and walked with his Vergers to the rooftop dock.

Captain Jones waited for him by the ramp to the gondola. He was obviously unable to hide his irritation, his face red, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, perhaps so he couldn’t strike Stade in the mouth. The Mayor liked him at once.

“Everything’s aboard, sir,” the captain said.

“Everything except me.” He grinned darkly. “You’re Drift-born aren’t you, Captain Jones?”

“Drift-born and raised, sir.” He couldn’t hide the scowl.

“Good.”

“If you’re ready, I’d like to take her up.” The captain gestured to the south, clenching his teeth. “Bad wind’s blowing, gales and the like, and storms too. It doesn’t do to be tethered to what’s coming.”

We
’
re all tethered to what is coming
, Stade thought. He smiled and walked aboard his ship.

No one knows of the exact human cost of that sudden retreat from Mirrlees, nor of those
“
persuaded
”
to stay behind. But it was high.

Still the city had been lost since the day the rain began to fall. A dead thing lumbering with no realization that its heart no longer beat, that it was instead tumbling towards the burial ground.

MIRRLEES-ON-WEEP

173 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL

He rapped his gnarled knuckles on the wooden door.

Once, and again.

Bells tolled in the distance. Another levee had fallen, crashing down a few miles away, and people were dying. Death crowded the air and wherever he sensed death there were usually folk like him. He saw what they saw, and the Roil made sense of it for him, placed it in context. Mirrlees drowned, the streets transformed with every downpour becoming labyrinth and quagmire combined.

Finding his home had been a torturous affair, everything all muddied up the way it was. His thoughts too, had become labyrinthine, and far too crowded, it was hard to focus on the smaller things – the personal.

It was hard, but not impossible.

It just took time.

“Where are they?” He whispered to himself. “Where’s my wife? My children?”

He was reaching to knock on the door again when it opened, bright light pouring out, stinging his eyes, forcing him back a step. He had been a long time in the dark.

“What do you want?” A harsh voice demanded and then his wife cried out, dropping the iron poker she had gripped so tightly, recognising him at last. “Theodore! Come in, my darling. Out of the rain,” she said, and made to throw her arms around him.

“Not yet,” he said. “Not until we’re inside.”

He peered up and down the street.

Not far away, a cat batted at a dead thing floating in a puddle. A Verger whistled in the distance and a carriage clattered by, smoke from the driver’s pipe staining the wet air for a moment like a passing dream.

“I thought you lost,” she said leading him inside. All he could see was her mouth; he did so wish to kiss her again.

“I was, yes I was... for a little while. But I found you.” He frowned. “I found you at last.”

“And the Council? I heard rumours...”

He grinned at her, and it must have been something of his old grin, for she returned it, her shoulders relaxing. He smelt liquor on her lips and that disturbed him.

“Do not worry about the Council. They’re not worth worrying about anymore.” He looked beyond her down the hall. “Where are the children?”

“In bed,” she said. “It’s late.”

“Wake them,” he said. “I want to see and speak with you all.”

His wife looked at him oddly, her fingers lifted to her mouth as though to stall a question. She hurried off to do as he asked.

It was cold in here; he clapped his hands to bring a little heat to them. When that failed, he ran them over a nearby lamp. His skin crackled, but it did the trick.

Outside, the cursed rain fell heavier, but it would not fall forever. That was something of which he was certain, it had already stopped twice that day for longer than an hour at a time. He could wait. He had grown to be quite a patient man.

“Father. Father.” His children cried, running around him, circling his legs and laughing. Times had been hard since he was last here. The world had grown rough around the edges; spoiled when it should be fine.

“Come closer, my children, my lovely wife,” he said. “I’ve something to give you.”

Closer they came, hesitation in their eyes, but they did not stop. Nor did he, and there was no uncertainty on his part. The corruption of doubt had long ago burnt away.

He held them to him. Held his wife and children tight, as his body released its dark cargo. None of them could pull away: the urgency of his gift too complete.

“There, there,” the stationmaster crooned above their screams. “There, there. We’re a family again.”