His vision swam, and he found darkness again.
Time passed slowly in the dark. He slept, if such a painful broken thing could be called sleep. Sometimes he was torn from the black and cloying dark with a scream on his lips: Agatha and her soldiers looking on, faces burst asunder by gunshot, a constant horrible accusation.
Medicine had lost many allies in his life, and always he had managed to continue. But now, it seemed, he was paying the cost: dreams as intense as they were terrible, a weariness that seemed to crush him. Then would come the fever, he shivered and boiled. He mumbled at the dark.
“When you die, you can stand here too,” Agatha said.
“When you die, you can stand here too,” David said, and Cadell, and Warwick, and the boy named Lassiter, who he had sent to his death to save David.
Two whole days he didn’t rise from his bed, just lay there assailed with visions. Horrible blood-curdling things, great waves of darkness washed over him, punctuated by laughter, shrill and deafening in his ears.
Someone came to him, spoke him to in a gentle soothing voice, laid cold cloths against his brow. But when he woke — alone, weak — in the room hardly ventilated, stinking of his fever, his sickness, he wondered if that hadn’t been part of the fever, too.
When he finally left his room, it was as a man transformed. What weight had sat upon his bones had bled from him. His flesh was lean and hard, he felt weak, and yet, somehow, a deeper purpose possessed him.
But first he had to eat.
Medicine walked to the common room, guided as much by the smell of food as memory. Everything seemed different — changed as he had changed. He followed long corridors cut into the stone, the ground beneath him shuddering with the vibration of grand works. The mountain was always moving, tiny, almost imperceptible movements that cumulatively were hard to ignore. He’d ridden those vibrations like waves when he had been sick, they’d carried him in and out of madness.
In the common room he stood shocked by the sight of all these living people, he wanted to reach out and touch them, make sure that they weren’t a dream. He’d bathed, found some clean clothes in his room, but he knew that he must still stink, as he was left alone. He served himself a little food, meat of some sort, a few limp vegetables, some mashed potatoes. Not much of anything — his stomach must be the size of a pea.
The food was dry and stale, and the most wonderful thing he had ever eaten in his life.
He was just finishing when a boy approached him. The boy could scarcely meet his gaze, kept looking down at his hands. Medicine smiled. Tried not to think of David.
“It’s all right,” Medicine said. “I don’t bite.”
“I’ve a message for you,” the boy said. “Grappel would speak with you.”
Medicine wiped his plate clean with a slice of bread, chewed it thoughtfully. “Tell him I will be on my way once I’ve eaten.”
The boy hovered there.
“Yes?” Medicine said.
“I’m to take you to him.”
Medicine finished the bread. “Grappel the sort to punish you if you don’t?”
The boy shrugged, and looked away.
“Very well.” Medicine stood up, leaving the plate behind him. “Lead the way.”
“You have recovered, then,” Grappel said.
“I didn’t realise that I was sick. The stress, I’ve never taken ill that way. It-”
“No, it is to be expected. Almost all of us have suffered from it. It happens to those that come up north. Some weirdness, a contagion. The flesh melts away, and if it doesn’t kill you, you find yourself stronger.”
“I’m a doctor, I’ve not heard of it.”
“When did you last run a practice?” Grappel said, handing him a glass of Drift rum. “When did you last keep up to date with the journals?”
Medicine took a sip of the strong stuff, winced. “It’s been a while since I have actively chased the journals. But, surely-”
“It’s something that’s little spoken of here. A rite of passage. Why share it? No one would come this way.” Grappel cleared his throat, looked at his own rum, but didn’t drink. “Did the dead visit you?”
Medicine looked away.
“Of course they did,” Grappel said. “They always come. All that is death is in that fever, and you so close to it, you can’t even tell the difference. Some people lose themselves to it. Quite frankly, I thought you would be one of them.”
“So you called me, to see that I was hale and hearty, and that was all?”
Grappel shook his head. “I have bad news, I’m afraid,” Grappel said.
“Why am I not surprised?” Medicine said.
Grappel sighed.
“Well, out with it! I’ve people that need me in the infirmary. I doubt that my own fever has seen an end to illness in this place.”
“Cadell is dead,” Grappel said.
Medicine felt his heart constrict. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, and more than that, the Old Men have been released. They say they hunt the Milde boy.”
“David?” Medicine wanted to say that the young man had visited him in his dreams, but he kept quiet.
“Yes, the boy’s alive. Cadell, they say, saw him from Chapman to Hardacre. He is with Buchan and Whig. Our spies say that he has changed.”
“That’s the Carnival, surely.”
“No, this isn’t the transformation of an addict. There is no sleeping sickness, no madness. He seems more assured, more certain of himself. They still seek to travel north, with the support of Buchan and Whig. To Tearwin Meet.”
“Is that a good idea?” Medicine said. “With Cadell gone, what chance do they have?”
“From all reports they seem confident that they could achieve their objectives; the boy is wearing Cadell’s Orbis.”
Medicine found himself instinctively reaching for the place where his ring finger should be, where he had once worn his own copy of the Engineer’s ring, before Stade chopped ring and finger free.
“It doesn’t matter, none of it does,” Grappel said. “We have them in Hardacre, and they will not move.”
“Will you be bringing them here?”
Grappel seemed surprised. “A ship, the Collard Green, has been sent for that purpose,” Grappel said. “Now, the question is, what do we do with you?”
“If you’d wanted me dead, I’m sure you’d have killed me by now. What service can I be?”
“Politically, you’re a problem,” Grappel said. “Your links to Stade, no matter how transitory, have tarnished you. But there are other things that you can do.”
“I’m a doctor,” Medicine said. “And I am already doing that. I see to the sick.”
“Mr Paul, there are more than human sicknesses to attend to. There’s a darkness in the heart of the Project, and I would have you find it.”
Medicine looked at the man who had ordered the execution of Agatha and her troops, and was almost certain that he was staring at that very darkness. “Where do I begin?” Medicine said.
“I’ve heard rumours of something called the Contest. I want you to find it out.”
Medicine nodded. “I’ve one question,” he said.
“Yes, what is it?”
“Who did you see when the fever struck you?”
Grappel lifted the rum, considered it in the candlelight, gold, the ice cubes gleaming. “All of them,” he said. “Every single one. Oh, and don’t believe it stops. Every night they find me, and every night there is more of them.”
He finished his drink. “The blood on these hands, Mr Paul. The blood on these hands, you would think me a monster.”
Medicine nodded his head, but he didn't say a thing.
CHAPTER 16
“Run,” Mollison said.
Travis shook his head. “I run from no one.”
Mollison smiled. “Not from, to!” He pointed at the Aerokin leaving the Valley of the Dolls. “We don't get aboard that Aerokin, we're dead men.”
Travi
s was already running. “That, of course, is a different thing altogether.”
Night Council 19: The City in the Valley of the Dolls, Dickson Mcunne
THE CITY OF HARDACRE 964 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL EDGE
The window jammed. Margaret sighed, and kicked at the frame, it opened with a crack, wood splitting. The door behind them rattled. David looked at Margaret.
He said, “I may have left the note in a too obvious place.”
“Too obvious?”
“David? Margaret?” Buchan shouted; the door shook again. “You did lock it, didn’t you, David?”
He looked back at her. “Of course.”
The door boomed. “Don’t make me do this!” Buchan said.
“Out,” Margaret said. “Hurry.”
He slid through the window, not the first time he’d had to. And just as he had that time, he slipped, felt himself go — Oh well, it wasn’t going to kill him, just break a few bones, or would it, would he lose the part that was him, and just become the hunger, and maybe that would be easier.
Margaret’s hands gripped him by the belt. She yanked him back against the wall, and he found his balance: his bag hanging from one shoulder.
“All moot now, anyway,” David said.
Margaret peered down at him. “What?”
“Quite a first step,” he said.
Margaret grunted. “Just climb.”
Everything was slippery, but there were handholds, and Margaret knew how to find them. David followed her lead, and where he went the water froze. I’ve become a tipping point, he thought. From water to ice, life to death.
It was still raining. David wondered about Mirrlees, if it was still raining down there, if people still looked up at that low dark sky.
The door in the room beneath gave way just as they clambered onto the roof. David looked down, and into Buchan’s face. There was no way the big man was following them, he couldn’t have fit through the window.
“David,” he said, and there was a pleading tone to his voice that stung. Poor Buchan, always calling on Cadell, and now him. “We can talk this out. You don't need to-”
“We can't talk,” Margaret said. “We do this now, or we're prisoners.” David shook his head once. “We really are sorry,” he said.
David felt like Travis the Grave. After all, he was always running over rooftops, though Travis was never pursued by his allies. Travis wasn’t the sort of man to betray his friends, stalwart and true — nothing had ever muddied his outlook. Fictional characters could choose to be like that, life was never as complicated in books. Goals always clear, or revealed to be in the end. This, all of this, was far murkier, and it had been from the start.
“I’m coming out,” Whig called.
Now there was a man who could fit through windows.
Margaret had her rifle free.
“No need for that,” David said. “Surely no need for that.”
“Where is it?” Margaret said.
“You’re heading into the jaws of Death, boy. This is absolute folly, Margaret. Patience, both of you, patience,” Whig said, his head peering over the gutter.
“Down, tall man, or you lose your eyes.”
“You wouldn’t-”
Margaret fired. Whig ducked away.
This was getting too serious, and fast.
“What on earth are you doing?” Buchan’s cries stabbed David more fiercely than he expected. He thought, Don’t you see, I’m sparing you so much.
“I can’t see it,” Margaret said. “This could all end in embarrassment.”
“ Pinch is here,” David said.
“Where?”
The Aerokin’s tendrils dropped from the sky, curling around her and David. They were surprisingly warm to the touch, and while firm, their grip was gentle. Margaret had to trust that they wouldn’t just let her go, once they were high enough. Not the sort of thing that came easy to her. She took a deep breath, and pushed such thoughts as far from her mind as possible (not very far at all). In a moment they were lifted up, Margaret’s weapons clattering in their bag. The gondola opened wide, like a gummy mouth — and they were slid into it, embraced by the wet-dog-mixed-with-malt odour of Aerokin.
Pinch wobbled in the air, hit by a gust of wind.
Her nacelles shifted and up they went, at speed.
“There really isn’t a lot of room in here,” David said, as the Aerokin’s tendrils slid and shuddered back out the opening with the surety of snakes. “Larger than the Melody Amiss.” Margaret’s voice was low. “And I spent days in her.”
Whig had reached the roof and shook his fists after them. Even from this height, David could see the fear that battled with the anger.
“I feel sorry for them,” David said.
“You should,” Margaret said. “We owe them a lot.”
“And this is coming from the woman who was going to shoot out his eyes.” “David!” Margaret said. “You know me better than that.”
“Do you really think it’s a trap?” David said.
Margaret snorted. “I think this whole damn world is a trap. Drift or Tearwin Meet, we’re rushing towards its jaws, away from those of the Roil. It’s what we’ve always been doing. Things are closing in, they always have been, since before either of us were born.”
David whistled. “You really are miserable, aren’t you?”
“Death's waiting for us, David. Here or at Drift or in Tearwin Meet. It no longer follows us, but has run ahead.”
She pushed past David to the rear of the gondola where it widened, to stow away her bag. The great belly of the Aerokin rumbled and churned above them, generating the various gases for flotation and propulsion. Two bodies and her weaponry made the job considerably harder. But Pinch could compensate.
Changing her shape, making herself more aerodynamic. Through gas, form and thrust, the Aerokin was capable of quite a lot of lift.
The gondola could accommodate three people at a stretch, just as Kara said. David could see two mattresses at the back. A larder that housed rows of canned goods — beef mainly, a few vegetables, some stewed fruit — beyond it was a small room that contained a toilet, really just a hole that opened onto the sky. And nothing that even resembled a control panel.
Pinch lifted higher over Hardacre, catching the wind of the storm, her nacelles riding with it, driving them west and north. There were rooftops far below. The city was luminous, though it was a softer glow than either Mirrlees or Chapman, all that gas. A northern suburb burned, and David wondered if there hadn’t been another riot.
He tapped the membrane, and tried to zoom in, but the rain fell too heavily now or the membrane had yet to fully develop; all he got was magnified blur.
Down below were the hard old fields that fed the city. Rocky ground, and thin hard earth, and yet the city had sprung from them, these fields ploughed and nurtured with an efficiency and skill that softened and sweetened the cruel landscape. Hardacre had become so good at it that they even supplied a large percentage of Mirrlees’ food, or had.
David considered that grim grey land; he knew that daylight would shine on fields ready for harrowing, and that four months ago Hardacre had a bumper crop.
Things, perhaps, were never as awful as they seemed. He knew that they were heading into trouble, but he owed Kara Jade this at the very least, whatever the nature of her trouble was. Without her they would never have gotten as far as they had. He liked to think he was a better man than someone who would leave a friend in trouble — even if it meant deserting other allies.
And, finally, they were moving again, crossing a new landscape, putting another city to their backs. David was tired of hunting — it hadn’t taken long for that weariness to settle in — and of being in the one place. He wondered if you could ever get so used to running that it became comfortable.
He closed his eyes. Up here, away from the noise of the city, he could feel them much more easily.
Flashes of woodland came to him, trees leaning against eac
h other, gnarled and weary. Screams came near and distant. Mumbled conversation, because the Old Men never stopped talking. Cadell had managed to rein all that in, but David knew how much it had cost him. David could taste death in his mouth, they had killed recently, they were always killing. He felt some sympathy with their hunger, with their rage, even if it was directed at him. After all, whether they liked it or not, whether he liked it or not, they were linked now. And would be until either they died or he did.
Margaret was wrong — Death didn't wait for them, it accompanied them.
The Old Men were some distance to the south-west, but not nearly far enough away. At least now they couldn’t catch him for a while. David sensed that even if he made it to the Tearwin Meet, and activated the Engine, they would still come after him, that they wouldn't stop.
His stomach rumbled.
“You better eat something,” Margaret said, lobbing a can at him. He snatched it out of the air easily, reflexes so much better attuned to food, even when it was wrapped in metal. The tin opener followed. He caught that too.
Beef, he could sense it even through the can.
“Thank you,” he said. “What about you?”
“I’m not hungry.”
David envied her.
He ate alone, watching the city fall behind the horizon, his back turned to her because he was ashamed how he looked when he ate. The meat was cold, and salty, there was no blood to it, it was unsatisfying. When he was done, he wiped his face, walked past her and checked the larder, certainly a lot of food.
He opened another can and ate it too.
And by the time he was done, Hardacre was little more than a soft and fading glow, the dark around it possessed of a great and terrible authority.
He hoped that Whig paid good attention to the note David had left him. David worried that he was leaving them buried to the neck in trouble, hadn’t he been doing that all along? Since the moment he’d run from his assassinated father — the body still twitching — he’d been leaving behind one darkness after another, and more bodies than he wished to dwell upon.
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