“There is time enough, surely. Chapman is two hundred miles south.” Medicine spat more blood upon the floor.
Stade laughed. “If only it were that easy. The Roil has been slow to approach Chapman. Winter held it in check for a while, and other forces, ancient machineries of which we have limited – to say the least – understanding and even more limited control. Though Cadell could have enlightened us on the matter, if he hadn’t been so intent on killing my Vergers. However, we have evidence to suggest its growth is about to increase dramatically. When Chapman goes, Mirrlees will not be far behind. A few months, maybe six.”
Medicine crossed his arms. His cravat crusted with his own blood, some of it stuck to his neck, pulled painfully at his skin. “And you’re telling me this because?”
“We need your help.” There was an edge to Stade’s voice that Medicine had never heard before. Medicine’s ears pricked up. “You’re a popular man, Mr Paul. A leader, and we need to start moving the populace north.”
“So you’ve given up on subterfuge, then? And murder?”
Councillor Stade cleared his throat. “We have given up on nothing. I am far too practical to discard any useful tool. Medicine, these are desperate times and I can brook no dissent. You I can deal with. Our opponent, the one true enemy of our time will not parley, and believe me, I have tried. I will do what is necessary to save this world, to give humanity a future.”
“One built on lies, built on coercive government and all its sweetened cruelties. What kind of future is that?” Medicine demanded.
“Damn you,” Stade shouted, closing in on Medicine, a finger stabbing at the air directly in front of Medicine’s face. “There is no room for ideologies any more. This is about survival.” He dropped his hand, taking Medicine’s fingers from his sight, as though suddenly realising the childishness of his display. “Does it matter what the future holds as long as there is one? You have a choice, Mr Paul. And it is simple. You can die, here and in this room. Or you can live, and help this city live too.”
Medicine took a deep breath. Pivotal transitions come swiftly, and truths tumble and crash, and make themselves anew. How cruel it was that desperate times seemed not to expand character, but diminish it. Narrowing choices: death or dishonour. Why was that so? He realised that this time at least it was not. Other choices might open up before him, if he was ready for them. He need only be patient. He was a politician after all.
Stade leered down at Medicine, and that alone nearly drove him to reject his offer then and there.
Gloat all you want, Medicine thought. Your time will come.
“Shall we get those handcuffs off then?” The councillor said.
Perhaps Stade was right. There was no room for ideologies any more, the Roil had changed everything, and it would change this too, if Medicine let it. What am I to do? He wondered and realised there was no clear answer, for all that his choices were simple and few. He could find no pleasure in either of them. Pragmatism can be a virtue and a curse.
“Yes,” Medicine said, at last, and even then he was not sure until the words had left his mouth. “I accept your offer.”
He did not want to die just yet, that was too easy, and too final.
Stade’s grin became huge and smug and he nodded to the Verger to unlock the handcuffs.
Medicine rubbed his wrists, straightened his blood-spattered cravat. “What needs to be done? How can I help this city?”
“Not the city,” Stade said. “But humanity. Those bastards in Hardacre may have no wish to be involved, but they are. When they declared themselves a free state, they declared themselves enemies of this one. Stuck between the Roil and a free state. There will be no help from them.”
Well it was your decision that barred the refugees of the Grand Defeat from entering this city. It was your rule that swelled Hardacre’s population, Medicine thought, but kept quiet.
Stade plucked a cigar out of a box and chucked it at the Confluent, who deftly caught it in one ruined hand.
“Your first job for me,” Stade said, and the words stung Medicine more than he thought possible, he worked for the Mayor now, and nothing he could say or do that would take the sting out of that truth, “will be to take new workers up to the Underground, my grand project. There is a train line, but we have lost both our Engines. The Grendel and the Yawn.”
“How does one lose a train, particularly when they are so big?” Medicine asked.
“They didn’t reach the Underground, nor did they return here. Something happened to them, either in the Margin or on the Gathering Plain. The Gathering Plain remains Cuttlefolk territory, negotiations are a trifle difficult these days. Since the Grand Defeat we’ve little clout to back up our threats. Vergers are effective at keeping a city under control, but a standing army was the only way of dealing with the Cuttlefolk.”
Stade went over to the map, and let his fingers trace a line between Mirrlees and the Narung Mountains. A lot of land, his path took in the Regress Swamp, just north of the city, then the forest of the Margin, beyond which stretched the Gathering Plains.
“We’ve even sent an Aerokin out there. Drift pilot, one of the best. He didn’t return. It’s a mystery worthy of the Shadow Council don’t you think? Should we send young Travis the Grave to look into it?” Stade laughed at his own joke.
“The North sounds real safe,” Medicine said.
“For a small group it isn’t. But you will be, safety in numbers, plus enough guards to keep you out of trouble. Medicine, the last thing we can afford is a war on two fronts. The Cuttlefolk have been quiet for years. We’d thought them a spent force, yet even with their increased activity even if they have destroyed the trains your numbers will be such that they will be little threat to you.”
“Fifty years ago the Roil was just a legend to all but those privileged few that had had dealings with the Old Men. We live in an age of wonders and expectations overturned wouldn’t you say?” Medicine said, lighting up one of Stade’s cigars. “What am I going into up there?”
“That I can’t tell you. Not because I don’t trust you, Medicine, we just don’t know.”
Chapter 24
The Bridges of Mcmahon are surely one of the wonders of the modern age. Forget the Levees of Mirrlees. These Bridges are vast and elegant at once. Here in their beauty we find all that is great in the Engineer. Utility and form bound in the sublime.
Mcmahon Tourism Association – Bridges of Mcmahon
The Melody’s brakes barely saved her.
The Perl Bridge was a long series of arches and braces and counter braces, the surface smooth and favourable to speed. So she didn’t see the gaping hole in the middle of the road until she was almost upon it.
She engaged every braking mechanism at once, swung back the gears and still the Melody almost toppled over the edge, stopping at the lip of the fall. Margaret sat behind the wheel panting. She had to get out and check the stability of the road. Her back ached as she got out of the vehicle and walked to the ragged edges of the hole.
Down she stared, rime blades clutched in either hand. Far below beasts flew around the metal limbs of the bridge, Endyms by the look of them and Floataotons in spiralling drifts thousands strong. Huge supports hundreds of yards long plunged into the bottom of the chasm and built around these, on road level, beneath bands of cable – a single strand of which was thicker than Margaret’s arm – were shops and living quarters.
She’d thought that none lived there until she caught sight of furtive movement at the windows, dark figures peering out or ducking down and hiding.
She gave them little notice; it did not pay to. Spend too long worrying about every ghostly apparition or possible threat and she would go mad. Instead she made herself focus on the bridge, it looked safe enough, and turning back wasn’t an option anyway. She got back in her vehicle, and drove it gingerly around the collapse, trusting to old ingenuity.
The structure had taken more than three decades to build. Just forty years l
ater the Roil had washed over it, mocking such industry with its implacable shadow.
If the creators of an architectural wonder as imposing as this could fall, what chance did she have?
And what of the builders of the Engines of the World? How had they fallen? All of this, every city, every construction, even the marvellous city of Drift, was nothing compared to their metropolises.
Nearly a century ago, Tearwin Meet, the Dead Metropolis in the North had been discovered, or more correctly rediscovered, though that which guarded it had driven back any attempts at uncovering its secrets. After over a dozen fatalities, and numerous failed expeditions, people had stopped trying.
All who had been there had failed, but Tearwin Meet alone held what she needed. If the Engine of the World existed it would be there at Tearwin Meet’s heart.
Getting there was going to be the hard enough. She could deal with the rest when she reached its ice-caked boundary.
Her carriage only had enough fuel to reach Chapman, maybe a little further north. Once she ran out, she would have to find her own way with no money or friends – not that she had ever had either, and both of which, if she were truly honest, she only had an abstract understanding of.
A frightening thought played at the back of her mind, it seeped and grew into her thoughts like the darkness itself. What if the Roil had already overtaken Chapman? In truth she had no way of knowing if there was anything beyond the borders of the Roil. The whole world could have been swallowed by now.
In time, she thought. It will come to me in time. Either that or I will be dead.
She rubbed her head where she had bumped it, what felt like an age ago, and in some ways was even longer, in Tate. The spot throbbed. Margaret’s whole body ached, she was unaccustomed to so much driving. Her parents may have taken convoys out for days, but she had never driven more than a couple of hours from the city, and, most often, that had been as a passenger.
She had now been on the road for a day and a half. Every time she blinked it was an effort to open her eyes again.
Margaret found herself veering towards the edge of the bridge, found her head dipping towards her chin. She snapped awake, and slammed on the brakes, and still it was a near thing. The Melody struck the rail that ran alongside the road, merely a glancing blow, but the rail had tumbled away into the abyss.
She had to stop, rest, even if it were just a few minutes. Death by Roil or death by driving the Melody Amiss off the bridge was still death.
She needed sleep. She brought the Melody to a halt, as far from the bridge edge as possible, locked down the engines and took a few sips from one of the water jars in the car.
Margaret picked up her father’s book, opened a page and tried to read it. Her mind could not focus on the words, all she could see was the bridge rail falling.
She took a few deep breaths, put the book down and closed her eyes.
I will just rest. How can I sleep? I’ll just rest.
Another jolting image of the bridge rail sliding away, only this time she and the Melody followed it. Her eyes snapped open and she grabbed her rifle, setting it down in her lap. There was no way she could sleep, not now, but there was no way she could go on either.
Exhaustion decided it for her.
Chapter 25
All Roads lead to Ruin.
Edriss Whitebread – Sayings Unpopular but Persistent
There is a saying, “All roads lead to ruin.” There is also a saying, “All side streets lead to Main”.
Starting a little further west than Matheson’s Famous Book Shop and Powder Emporium, and ending on the Southern Palestral Quarter of the city by the machine works and the busy docks – for even swollen, the River Weep continued to be the lifeblood of the city – Main followed the river, ran with it through Mirrlees-on-Weep touching almost every part of the city. About halfway along the street, at the heart of the city, rose the Ruele Tower.
At the top of the spire in a sparsely yet expensively furnished room, Mr Stade sat alone and stared down at the city.
The Mayor had been telling people what they wanted to hear about the Roil for over a decade. He gazed a while longer at that rain drenched city, then back at certain classified charts showing the projected growth of the Roil, and shook his head. Sometimes he even believed what he said. At least while he was saying it.
But looking at even the most optimistic of the charts, he could not believe a word of nearly a decade of his oratory. Whatever the rhetoric about the Roil halting, about the city being safe, the truth was marked upon this map, and it mocked and terrified him. The Roil continued to grow and, every day, that growth seemed faster.
That he had managed to spin such a convincing web of lies was in part that the truth was just too horrifying to bear. In some truth, there was indeed only terror. Should his plans fail, everything was lost. That was reality as Stade saw it. The Project could not fail. He was quite prepared to kill to ensure its success.
The Dissolution had been necessary. The denizen of Tearwin Meet was too dangerous, even as a last resort. Mechanical Winter, how he dreaded it, and the others would have too, if desperation hadn’t blinded them.
Soon his last true opponent would be gone from the city. Medicine’s aid had given his leadership a legitimacy that he was willing to admit may have been somewhat lacking after the bloodletting of a few days before
And legitimacy was what he needed, or everything would come undone.
Mirrlees had six months, if that, left to her. Then last bows would be made and the Obsidian Curtain would close.
He rubbed at his temples, his whole body knotted with tension. It was all too much responsibility and he was not the man to bear that burden, but there was no one else left. He had gotten rid of any effective councillors in his party years ago. Slack jaws and toadies were all that remained now. They were loyal to the core, yes, but if there was an original thought between the lot of them he would have been exceedingly surprised.
He flicked open a folder – its edges dark with age. Photos of men in frockcoats and hats, thirty years out of date, looking at the Arganon Slick. The first hint of the Roil, the slick had darkened a hundred mile wide patch of land, changing the landscape, warping first the flora and then the fauna so that they became something else. The Slick had been worrying, evidence of some sort of pollution, but there was no such hint of concern in their faces. No one could have suspected what would happen just days after this photo was taken.
Stade shook his head. All these men had died, long ago, most had never made it back from that expedition. Little had changed, the Roil still possessed that tendency. Just when everyone thought they had a handle on it, it went and did something totally unexpected.
He looked at his watch.
Where was Tope? A minute perhaps was acceptable, though irritating, but Stade had waited now for ten.
Something buzzed at his desk and he grimaced.
The blasted intercom, the latest in long distance communication, though the distance involved here was no further than a few yards to his secretary Robert’s office. Cutting edge or not, it was already starting to drive him mad.
The door opened, and there was Tope, his arm bandaged, a little blood seeping through, his Cuttlefolk genes would see to that soon, blessed as they were with swift healing.
“You’re late,” Stade said, pouring Tope a cup of tea, from the pot Robert had hastily brought in.
“I had some bad news,” Tope said.
“And what news is that?” Stade asked softly.
“The Dolorous Grey is no more.”
Stade nearly dropped his cup.
“Chapman has fallen? God’s don’t tell me that, I’ve only one city to save, I cannot save two,” he said, quietly, and Tope raised his hands
“No, No. Not yet. But it is only a matter of time. The Roil has new tricks, Witmoths. They build an army of changed men.”
“I know about the Witmoths,” Stade said.
Mr Tope raised an eyebrow.
“Then did you know this?” He threw a wallet on the table. “We found it along the tracks, around a hundred miles from here. It belonged to Cadell, it stinks of him.”
The Penn boy, and Cadell.
“Well he can’t have survived that. We lost two Vergers to Witmoths.” He was almost apologetic. “They were lacking in caution.”
“This is bad news, indeed. But the Bureau of Information can deal with that.” He leant forward. “And the Project?”
“It goes ahead apace. Though the Interface may not last too much longer.”
“Really,” Stade said, his face betraying no emotion, his eyes as hard as stone. “I’ve read the reports, everything seems to be working smoothly down there.”
“Seems to be, yes, but there are secrets and lies in that place; too many to unpick. And I do not trust my mole. In the Roil everything is changed they say, including loyalties.”
Stade frowned at that, he had grown unused to plots and secrets that were not his own. It would be worthwhile having the Interface more closely scrutinised.
“Mr Tope. You are to go to Chapman, and the Interface. I want you to talk to Anderson. I want you to see what is going on down there and report back to me.”
Tope nodded, his face grim. “The Project’s time is done, don’t you think? It was, for a while at least, a successful experiment, enough that stage two’s implementation should not meet with too many problems.”
“That is if Medicine and his three thousand work as sufficient bait.”
“They will, of that I am certain.” Even to a hardened Verger like Tope, Stade’s grin was a terrible sight.
“Good,” He said. “For should the second stage fail we are all dead, and the whole human race with us.”
Mr Tope’s arm was stinging, and that pain put him in a black mood, all it did was remind him how he had failed.
Stade had punished him with this mission, and that angered him. After all without his aid the Dissolution would have never been affected. Stade’s plans possessed substance, and chance at fruition only because of Tope’s Vergers. The man was too quick to forget that.
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