Roil nl-1

by Trent Jamieson

  Medicine reached out and squeezed her hand. “The hard part’s over isn’t it? We made it here.”

  Grappel gestured to Medicine to follow him. “The hard part’s only beginning, I’m afraid,” he said.

  Grappel took him to a small room, built into the mountain near the tracks. He passed Medicine a flask. “You might want a bit of this.” Medicine noticed the administrator’s hands were shaking. He waved the flask away.

  “Not now,” Medicine said.

  Gunshots cracked, men howled, and more guns fired.

  “What are you doing?” He demanded, but he already knew the answer.

  Grappel raised his hands, his face pale. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was an order.”

  Medicine pushed his way past him, and back to the courtyard. The Council troops lay dead, Agatha with them. Medicine watched as they dragged the corpses away: the blood trailing them an accusation.

  He dropped to his knees. “What have you done? You said you needed workers, everybody you could get.”

  “Mr Paul, you of all people must understand,” Grappel said, as though speaking to a child. “We are at war. There is no time for negotiation. And having enemy soldiers in our midst is… surely you must understand that. We will treat them with respect. They will all be given military burials.

  “Things are moving very swiftly now. Faster than you might realise.” Grappel’s face hardened. “Please consider how lucky you were that it wasn’t you with them. Though, I have bullets enough to spare one more, if your solidarity with the enemy extends that far.”

  Medicine lowered his eyes.

  “Good, I didn’t think so. Now, come, we have work to do. And I am sure you would like to say a few words at their funeral.”

  Chapter 52

  In one day the Roil ignored all known limits to its expansion. To think that it could do so knowingly and swiftly gave an edge of hysteria to all actions that followed it.

  The Roil was coming and it had grown cunning.

  • Deighton – Dark Days.

  THE AIR ABOVE SHALE

  The inconsolable heavens wept and lightning split the darkness, revealing a Quarg Hound, hunched down on the corner of the street, its broad back twisted with muscle. Saliva streamed, black and thick, from a mouth that was too wide, and a malicious gleam lit its huge eyes. More disconcerting was the intelligence David perceived within them, something lacking in any of the hounds David had encountered before. The beast was bigger too, twice the size of the ones on the Dolorous Grey.

  Quarg Hound? Quarg bear more likely.

  “Rather nasty,” someone said beside him and David ducked and turned, hands clenched.

  Margaret frowned at him, her pistols out. “You want to fight me, or it?” She looked from hound to David and back again.

  “I could do with some help.”

  “These aren’t much use against such a big creature,” she said, shrugging her shoulders, and holstering her pistols. She picked at her nails with her rime blade. “I think you’d better run. That’s something I can tell you all about: running.” She seemed to give the idea some consideration. “That is unless you’d prefer me to slice your throat instead; put you out of your misery as it were.”

  David ran.

  “Good for you,” Margaret shouted after him. “Though you might want to run a little faster… make that a lot.”

  The beast followed, howling and snorting.

  David sprinted down Main Street. The hound’s claws clattered on the cobblestones so loudly that they echoed above the hiss of the rain.

  What a malevolent steam-engine-sound it was, bunching up as though ready to pass. Only, David knew it would not pass, had no intention of passing, that it was aimed right at the centre of his back and the soft and chewy insides his back contained.

  David shrieked, tearing like a madman towards his home. He made it, then realised that the door was locked. Where were his keys? He dug in his pockets, and found them, hazarding a glance behind him.

  He wished he had not.

  A gigantic black shape loomed, red eyes the size of dinner plates flared at him. Teeth, large as David’s fingers, glistened with blood and spit.

  It grinned at him, a huge messy grin, and a hand dropped out of its mouth.

  David yelped, and slammed the key into the lock, turned it, and dove through the door.

  Only it was not home but a room into which he was crammed with Cadell, Mr Whig, Mr Buchan and his father.

  The room was quite large but most of the space was consumed with the business of being a huge map.

  Cadell smiled at him warmly, he clapped his hands together. “Ah, David. You’ve arrived!”

  “Very late,” Warwick Milde said, he laughed. “But not as late as me. Believe it or not I was worried, you know.”

  “I’m sorry,” David said. “A lot has happened.”

  “Still…”

  Cadell frowned, and lifted a hand to silence him. “That isn’t the issue, nor are those memories useful. You’re here now, David.” Cadell jabbed a pointer down – not that David had noticed him holding a pointer until then and he focused on the map properly for the first time. He recognised it at once – a map of Shale – though unlike anything he had ever seen.

  “It’s what we used to call a Panoptic Map,” Cadell said.

  “It’s bloody brilliant,” David said.

  The map was three dimensional and truly alive, better than anything map powder could bring about. To the south and east, above the dark mass of the sea, floated the air-city of Drift. David was tempted to reach down and pick it up until Cadell wrapped his knuckles with the pointer. “There’ll be none of that tomfoolery here, I’m afraid.”

  “Of course,” David murmured. “Of course.”

  “He’s a good boy, does what he’s told,” his father said. “Works hard, and he’s extremely bright. After all he is my son.”

  “Shh!” Cadell hissed. “I’ve no time for your subconscious yearnings, David. Look, boy. Really, look.”

  The map was hypnotic in its hyper reality. You could drown in it, and David did.

  A little to his left lay Mirrlees, wound up in its tangle of the River Weep, tiny lights burning, so well crafted he could almost make out his house and the Halloween lights strung down the street. Then it all clicked, gained absolute and awful clarity, and David had an inkling of how a god might feel.

  Omniscience, that was the word, David saw so much that it hurt, not just his eyes but all the way into his brain and his bowels. Omniscience was a migraine of knowledge, and yet he could not stop.

  “Ah, he’s got it. Everybody does eventually,” Cadell said.

  Outside, a Quarg Hound prowled and David fought the desire to squash it beneath his fingers like a bug.

  David’s focus slipped south to where Chapman had once been.

  Now there was just the Roil.

  It seethed and bubbled, a living density of smoke. He took in its immensity. At its heart rose the Breaching Spire a silver strand that lifted off the map and reached above his head. How had he missed that before now? At the Roil’s edges, fingers of darkness reached out then sank back, as though it was dragging itself along by them. David was glad the Roslyn Dawn was well away from Chapman.

  “There are things you need know, David. Things I need tell you. The Orbis and my blood give me time, and this dream gives me space. Tearwin Meet is where you must go, to the Engine of the World.” He pointed north on the map to the Old City. The ring on David’s finger crackled with ice, grew luminous and cold. “But that will take time, more than I would like. Still, it cannot be rushed – rushing would be unwise. Tearwin waits, but both you and it must be patient.”

  David’s eyes followed the pointer. Something moved there, a shape he couldn’t quite focus on, huge in its awareness. David squinted at it.

  Cadell slapped him again with the pointer, harder this time. “Don’t do that! You’ll alert it to our presence.”

  He tapped the mile high w
alls of Tearwin Meet with the pointer. “Buchan’s failed expedition was only the latest. Many have foolishly tried to find an entrance to the city and paid the price with their lives. Tearwin Meet is guarded, in ways beyond the skills of those still living. But none of them possess what I’ve given you. The ring is the key and the map, and it will guide you there if you let it. But once there…” His face softened, David couldn’t read the meaning of his expression, beyond a gentle sadness. “Be careful with the Engine, and all your dealings with it. Caution. Caution. In the ages since it was last engaged it has grown a little mad.”

  “How does an engine grow mad?” David demanded. “It’s a machine.”

  “First you make it smarter than anything living, then you let it destroy a world,” Cadell said. “Why I was driven mad enough and it knows more guilt than I ever did. It blames itself with the sort of precision that only a mechanism can possess.”

  “And how do we deal with it?” David said.

  “Ah, that’s the rub isn’t it. The most important thing.” Cadell shuddered, dark blood trickled from his ear, he touched it with a finger and brought it to his lips. “Oh dear, I really am quite a mess. Pity, there is so very much that you do not know. Truths and lies, but you will walk that thorny path alone. Just remember, the most important thing is… Ah, but I suspect you already know.”

  David shook his head furiously.

  “Take care, boy. I think you better wake now.” Cadell pointed to the map. He whispered into David’s ear.

  “You’ll find the solution there. Oh, and my body, you will need to do something with it. Burning it would be best or… well… it could become… problematic. Now, to the problem at hand.”

  He stabbed the pointer at the panoptic map. Three iron ships tracked towards the Roslyn Dawn.

  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.”