Something rattled in the distance, and she turned her head towards the sound.
“What's that?” she said.
David got to his feet, and felt for a knife. A branch or a twig snapped, someone swore loudly.
Kara came clanking out of the shadows, a pack strapped to her back. A dozen guns flicked in her direction. She threw up her hands up in the air, palms out.
“Friend! Friend! Lower those bloody guns,” she cried, sounding breathless as though she had run miles, and perhaps she had.
David shouted at them to hold their fire. Buchan roared out with delight. Even Margaret managed something that approximated a smile.
“You did it,” Kara said, the swelling had gone down around her eye, though a bruise covered her jaw line.
“Yes, we did,” Margaret replied.
“I brought some rum,” Kara said, pulling a bottle from her backpack. “Half the reason I'm buggered. Too damn heavy, five bottles. Now, who wants some?”
“I might just,” Margaret said. And she wasn't the only one.
David declined, all he could think of was the Carnival hidden in his heel.
“The Dawn?” he asked.
“She will be fine in a day or two. She had no flight in her, I’m sorry. And I’m sure she’s mad at me for leaving her, but I had to come and do what I could, even if it meant just burying my friends.” Kara smiled, and David thought she was joking, until he saw the shovel jutting from her pack.
She looked over at Buchan and Whig, both hesitating a few yards away. “And I see you had help.”
“Yes, we’re all back together again,” David said. “The happiest of families.”
THE MARGIN
FRAGMENT OF THE ROIL
It was a fog of darkness. That first looked like dust, if a dust storm could grow so black. Tornadoes of darkness danced around it, fed by the heat, and its contact with the cold.
And within it great machines walked upon metal legs, each step loud as thunder. Heating mechanisms sat upon their metal heads, round which the Roil spores clung. This was a hardier darkness, but still it required these great things, so far from the Roil. Always this outlier was aware of the darkness from which it sprang: felt its commands flashed along a chain of machines. Such communications were tenuous and fragile, but really all that was necessary. Who was there to disrupt it now?
It split into two great strands of darkness, ready to pinch out the last strongholds of humanity, shift them so that they would become something else, two more dreaming cities.
Those caught in their path were subsumed as a matter of course. Enemies changed to allies with a soft beat of wings, a transformation of neurons, and a new awareness of different imperatives.
To be one with the Roil. To be one with the glorious ending of the world.
CHAPTER 36
The Engines of War moved quickly, racing to finish what had been begun those many years ago. Great battles were fought, many lives lost. And out in the north, a small group travelled upon whom everything hinged – as though they were some door to disaster or salvation.
You would be surprised how often it has happened before.
Simple Stories for Girls and Boys, Deighton
THE NORTHERN WILDERNESS
1519 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
The Collard Green carried them away from the pyre and to the Roslyn Dawn. The Aerokin raised a flagellum sluggishly in greeting. Margaret could tell it was an effort.
“Still healing,” Kara said. “She’ll be all right in a day or so, it takes a lot of energy to recover from such a wound, even one that isn’t fatal.”
Since no one was going anywhere fast, they'd made camp.
They’d lit fires, enough for the Collard Green and her crew. Someone had gotten out musical instruments, and songs of the Confluents and victory had been sung, some to tunes that Margaret had recognised, if not the lyrics. Political activism had taken on a less combative form in Tate. But the singing and the drinking wasn't just that, they mourned their dead, and mocked the flight ahead of them.
They ate. And ate – Buchan almost matching David in the food he put away. And drank – Whig almost matching Kara.
Margaret worked slowly through her meal, still sore, and now, with some urgency fled, found her mind wandering again to darker things.
To the north, beyond the river, the plain extended, treeless, vast. And it would carry on and on, until Tearwin Meet itself, and the weird tall mountains that she had read about in Deighton's histories. There weren't too many more meals to be had.
When she had finished her plate and passed it to a man to be washed, Buchan came over to her.
“Together again,” Buchan said.
“So you finally got out of Hardacre,” Margaret said.
Buchan laughed. “It was far harder than we ever expected. I’m sorry that we were so slow.”
“And I’m sorry that we left you,” Margaret said.
“You did what you thought was right,” Buchan said. “I’ve had plenty of time to consider it.”
“So how did you find us?”
“We’ve been chasing the Old Men since they left Hardacre; they’ve always kept just ahead of us.” He stared into the fire. “Margaret, we saw some terrible things, helped when we could, which wasn't often. We knew – well, hoped really– that if we didn’t lose them, we would find you.”
“And so you did,” Margaret said.
Buchan looked over at David; he was talking to Kara and Whig, the boy's face gleaming with the same healing gel that Margaret had had slathered under her ribcage. Kara’s leering application of that had been one of Margaret’s more unpleasant moments – but now Margaret was feeling better, more clear-headed. She’d thought she’d not live out the night, and yet here she was.
“Can we trust him?” Buchan said.
“You saw what he did to the Old Man, or what was left of that act. He did that to save me, he could have run, but he didn't. He scares you?”
“He’s scared me since the day you brought him to Hardacre, Margaret,” Buchan said. “He was little more than a boy when I met him just a couple of months ago, and now he's something altogether different. His flesh barely contains him. I don't know what he is. Man or Old Man, I don't think he knows either. If the flesh is uncertain, what of the mind?”
“What? You’re frightened he won’t see this through?”
“Frightened that he won’t. Frightened that he will.” Buchan looked down at his massive hands. “These are terrifying times. The world is drowning. And we’re what are left, of those who might be able to stop it. Do you think that what we’re doing is right?”
“Of course. The Roil must be stopped at all costs.”
Buchan smiled. “To be so young, to possess such perfect clarity.”
“The Roil took everything I was, subverted it and threw it back at me,” Margaret said. “It didn’t just destroy my world, it transformed it, utterly and horribly.”
“Stade snatched my city from me,” Buchan said. “Turned Whig and I into exiles, and made it so Chapman never stood a chance. I hate the man. I despise him. But I do not want him dead. I honestly believe he thought he was saving us all.”
“Stade is just one man. He is nothing in the context of the Roil, all of us are nothing,” Margaret said, gesturing at David. “Except him. He can destroy it. He can drive it out, he can engage the Engine of the World, and I will make sure that he does. We survived tonight, I doubt anything is capable of stopping us now.”
Buchan smiled grimly. “There, you see; once again, it's the confidence of the young. When all I would be doing is licking my wounds, you’re ready to go out and tear the world down.”
“When the world deserves such a fate, why shouldn't it be torn down?” Margaret said.
Buchan didn't answer her.
The celebrations, such as they were, had ended hours ago. Kara was out somewhere vomiting into the dark and David sat facing a fire that did nothing to comfort him. In fact, his mere pres
ence seemed to bend the flames away from him. He wondered if anything was capable of comforting him now. Food helped, but barely, he was running a race with his hunger, always chasing some level of satiation that he could never quite reach. Some days, the whole world would have not been enough. He’d seen Cadell, and the Old Men, and found some of that deeper hunger reflected within him. He feared what he was capable of.
Around him people snored. He couldn't sleep. He feared what he would find waiting for him. There was still blood under his nails, despite his furious scrubbing.
He didn’t want Cadell there in that dream space, least of all tonight, didn’t want to be reminded of what he had done, didn’t want it explained to him just how he had managed to tear Milton apart. Just another memory he didn't want.
Oddly enough, he missed Mother Graine. Her absence at that moment felt more painful than any other loss he had experienced. And she had kicked him in the head.
Sometimes he found it hard to believe that his father was actually dead. His mother, well, he had had years to grow used to that, but not his father. The great grey grumbling presence of him, and the smell of his tobacco. His tendency to launch into long-winded lectures on the correct behaviour of a son of a Councillor, the disappointed tone of his voice; all this coming from a man who had marched away from his friend and joined the opposition, and not only that, but broken into the belly of the Ruele Tower and freed an Old Man.
Maybe he didn’t miss him because there really hadn’t been all that much to miss. But, no, his father had cared for him. Had loved him in his way. And they’d shared a love of the Night Council novels.
Travis the Grave wouldn’t have sat here now, moping, the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’d have been out there, probably at Tearwin Meet itself. The Roil already dealt with, and a nice ale waiting to be drunk. But Travis had a mechanical hand, and the advantage of being fictional.
So he sat despondent and missed the woman who had tried to kill him – for being the thing she loved.
Margaret cleared her throat behind him.
“I was wondering when you might let me know you were there,” David said.
“You were brave today,” Margaret said, and David couldn’t tell whether she was surprised or just stating a fact. David hadn’t felt brave. He'd been more frightened than he had in a long time. He stared into the fire, and pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, not that it seemed to do a lot of good.
“You have always been so brave,” David said.
Margaret snorted. “I fled my family, my city. I deserted them.”
“No, that is not how it happened. It might be how it felt, but it wasn’t how it happened,” David said. “There was purpose in your action. People knew how driven you are, knew that you would make it here. And you have. I fled my father’s death, but only because I was terrified.
“I have been an addict for so long. There was no higher purpose to my escape, merely a desire to keep breathing, to get more Carnival in me so that life wasn’t so unbearable.”
“And you’ve succeeded,” Margaret said. “Here you are, still alive. And you have saved our lives more than once.”
David couldn’t help laughing. “No, I’ve only ever run towards death, and not the comfortable death that Carnival could have afforded me: a quiet warm death, away from suffering. No, that would be too easy. Your motives have always been the purer, Margaret. Mine were compromised from the beginning. It’s cold here,” David touched his chest. “And it’s getting colder.” He lowered his head to his chest and looked into the fire. “You’re the one that’s alive. You're the one that’s pure of purpose.”
Somewhere in the distance, Kara sang to herself, some jaunty thing from Drift that David partially recognised. It should have made him smile, but it just made him feel sadder.
When he looked up, Margaret was gone. She’d left as quietly as she had arrived, and David couldn’t help wondering if, perhaps, he hadn’t actually imagined her presence by the fire altogether.
He stood up at last, and strode over to Kara. “The Dawn, how is she?”
“She's getting better, from now on the sky will heal her far more effectively than the earth. She hungers for flight.”
David looked out into the dark, past the gleam of the fire reflected in the river. “So do I. I just want this to end.”
“Really?” Kara said. “You want the cold and the death, and the being hunted to end? How remarkable. Who would have thought?”
David sighed. “You don’t understand,” he said.
“I do, and I will get you to Tearwin Meet as fast as possible.” She picked up her pack. “I’m sorry that I had to desert you.”
“No,” David said. “The Roslyn Dawn must come first. Without her, we can’t finish the journey.”
“You’ve got Buchan and Whig now, I think you could manage it.”
“Their airship might be capable of many things, but the Collard Green is a poor second to the Dawn.”
Kara smiled at that. “Truer words have not been said.”
“I’ll let Buchan and Whig know that we are leaving now,” David said. “It’s time we made for Tearwin Meet. It’s time we knew what sort of Engine we are facing.”
CHAPTER 37
Of all the cities to face the Roil, only one managed to stand unbowed, cloaked in ice and darkness. It wasn't victory or defeat, but something that many would argue was far worse than either. A violent kind of half-life, a contest where the prize had passed them by
Speculations Approaching a Complete History, Landymore
THE CITY OF TATE, SOME WEEKS AGO
WITHIN THE ROIL BUT NOT OF THE ROIL
Margaret Penn readied herself for the next wave of the Contest. Her rime blade hummed with its charge, the vibration running up her arm and into her chest, setting up a counterpoint to her pounding heart. She touched the blade with the tip of a gloved finger and could feel its burning chill.
Margaret glanced up at her parents, sitting with the rest of the crowd in the arena above, both in their sixties now, and looking it. Such a thought brought her a momentary pause. She did not like to consider her parents growing older, did not like to consider the certainty of their mortality. We're all going to die, she thought. Just not her parents. Not when she was starting to untangle the mass of contradictory thoughts she had about them, and see them with adult eyes.
Engines whined and the nearest portcullis lifted; the ice sheathing its steel bars gleamed in the light. A Quarg Hound entered the arena through the opening. It was an old beast, big and scarred. Its jaws opened and opened, such a mouth could swallow her whole. It regarded her with intelligent eyes the size of saucers, perfect for the darkness of the Roil, which was why the lights in the arena were suddenly extinguished. Margaret let her mind still, found the calm place between her breaths. There was danger in this. But there had to be, life in the city of Tate was precarious.
The Quarg Hound bounded towards her, its massive limbs a blur. It veered to the right at the last minute before rounding back in towards her. Margaret swung, missed. The Quarg Hound snapped at her, but Margaret had already rolled to the left. She crouched there, blade at the ready. The Quarg Hound charged, and Margaret was dancing away, swinging the rime blade down as it passed her. The blade sank deep into the beast's back. The Quarg Hound yowled, and wrenched its spine so savagely that Margaret nearly lost her sword. She yanked the blade free; there was a rush of claws. Margaret swung her head to the left. Not fast enough.
Margaret's face burned, but she was already swinging, releasing a second rime blade from her belt, and burying it in its chest, the blade on its highest setting. The Quarg Hound stopped, eyes wide, jaw working the air. It fell dead, two swords jutting from its body. Margaret pulled them free.
The crowd cheered, but already another portcullis had lifted, and another Quarg Hound was on its way. Fourteen in one hour. Maybe she was getting a little slow, or the Hounds were getting faster. If the latter was the case, then Engine h
elp them. The Roil had all the advantages as it was.
The Four Cannon fired and the floor of the Penn household shook. Somewhere, beyond Tate's outer walls, in the dark of the Roil, the cannon's endothermic shells shattered, releasing frigid shockwaves that kept the worst of the Roil at bay.
“Sixteen in all, hardly a personal best, dear.” Her mother's tone was playful, but it didn't stop her biting.
“They're getting faster.”
“We know,” Arabella Penn said. “We've noted it on the Gathering Plains, too. Something is stirring; we're having to vary the pattern of our cannonade more frequently. The Roil is reacting.”
Margaret winced. Her mother was less than gentle in her stitching.
Arabella pursed her lips. “Oh, did I hurt you? Poor baby.”
Margaret ground her teeth.
They'd stopped the Contest at sixteen kills, because the blood from the cuts on Margaret's brow was blinding her, and she'd already passed her nearest opponent by five. She could have gone on, the rime blades had held their charge nicely – her father had improved their fuel cells' efficiency, half the reason behind the Contest was to test new weaponry – but this wasn't the real battle.
The real battle had been lost twenty years before. Almost to the day, and its ramifications echoed through the dark.
The suicide rate was up again, more Walkers than ever – suicides heading out into the Roil. Margaret had only to look outside to know why. She had never seen sunlight, but she didn't need to be told what a loss that was. The city of Tate was wondrous, an ice-bound engine of war and light, strung with its wireways, and guarded by the Four Cannon. But people cannot live in a state of perpetual war;, people cannot stay trapped the way they had remained trapped.
“Do you think it knows about the I-bomb?” Margaret asked.
Arabella shook her head. “Their Roilings have not breached these walls in over a decade. It's bad timing, nothing more.”
“So you and Father are going ahead with the tests?”
Night's Engines Page 19
