Roil (32 page)

With Mirrlees all but gone, the balance tipped, and what little remained of the world quaked with the terror of it. Everything was urgency, the radical constructions of a Mayor without a city, armies in flight, figuratively and literally, the Old Men wandering, moving North (see Mcdonald and Clader
’
s
The Path of Blood
). And always on the horizon, seen or unseen, the Roil grew, driven on by the Dreaming Cities at its heart.

And what did the cities dream? That was the question unspoken.

The answer was a threat as deep and as dark as the Roil itself.

HARDACRE

980 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL

David woke from another nightmare to limbs leaden and frigid as though he were dead. The dream was fading but his heart still pounded with the memory, and the terror that he might just fall into it again. He’d been doing that, falling from nightmare to nightmare, for a very long time.

Cadell had been there, and seven other men, chasing him, howling out hungers as bottomless as any Quarg Hound’s.

He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and realised that he was no longer on the
Roslyn Dawn
.

We survived then
, he thought.

David realised he was alone, and didn’t know how to feel about that. A petulant spark burned within him: didn’t he deserve a bedside vigil? Was he of that little consequence?

The bed in which he lay was solid and motionless, the room unfamiliar, and did not smell like wet dog.

So, unless something else had gone terribly wrong, he was in Hardacre in the pub known as the
Habitual Fool
. He breathed deep. Yes, he could detect the faintest odour of beer. And somewhere, below his room, people spoke and smoked. He pulled the sheet from him and looked at his arm. His wound had healed, though at its heart was a small, dark slither of ice. He brushed a finger against it. He yelped and yanked his hand away. Touching it had felt… well, it had felt wrong.

David slid his legs out over the bed, stood up and stretched. His muscles responded, but there was no heat in them. This cold should have had him shaking, and yet the shivers were gone from him.

Cold now, all I ever will be is cold.

A robe lay stretched across his bed and he pulled it on, but not before observing how skinny he was. Any thinner and he’d see his heart beating against his ribs.
Wasting away.
He was ravenous. He looked over at his shoes, hurried to them, and unlatched the heel. His powdered Carnival remained.

He looked down at it intently, but it had been the habit of addiction, not the addiction itself, that called him to it. He realised that he didn’t crave the Carnival, didn’t even want it, beyond the slightest nagging thought that he really
should
finish it off anyway, otherwise it would be such a waste.

He felt a deep disapproval at the back of his mind, but he ignored it. The Carnival was safe. He was safe. That was enough for now, surely.

He walked to the bedroom window. Looked down onto an unfamiliar street, looked up at an unfamiliar sky. Yes, Hardacre. Someone was stumbling out of the pub below.

David left his room. There was noise downstairs and he followed the sound to its source.

Margaret and Buchan stood, heads almost together, talking. Margaret’s rime blades were sheathed to her belt, Buchan had one hand resting on the pearl handle of a gun. Margaret didn’t look happy, but she never looked happy. Mr Whig sat away from them, by a dining table, eating a sandwich, though he seemed to be watching them very closely. There were more sandwiches on a plate on the table. Food had never looked so good.

“I’m starving,” David said.

Every head in the room turned towards him. And every eye regarded him peculiarly. Buchan didn’t move his hand from his gun. Did they know what he was?
He
didn’t know what he was.

“David? You’re awake!” Mr Whig said, and the moment of disquiet passed.

Margaret ran to him. “Lean on me,” she said. “You look like death warmed up.”

“Don’t feel warmed up,” David said. Margaret actually shivered at his touch. He pulled away from her, pretending not to notice.
What am I?

Mr Whig handed him a sandwich.

“We made it then?” David said, wolfing down first one sandwich then another, and he was still hungry. “Kara fulfilled her promise.”

Margaret nodded. “Kara had to return to Drift. The Mothers of the Sky recalled her the day after we arrived. And, let me tell you, she wasn’t happy.”

Buchan cleared his throat. “I can assure you, David, we are doing everything we can to negotiate her quick return. We need her ship.”

“It’s not a ship,” David said, and
that
almost got a smirk from Margaret. “When did she go?”

“It’s been four days,” Margaret said. “How much do you remember?”

“Not much. No, I remember the iron ships. I... not much.”

“It was chaotic after… well, after you did whatever it was you did. We landed in the ice and the snow, and even then it was melting. You started screaming. When we finally calmed you down you closed your eyes and stayed that way. I wasn’t sure if you were going to wake again.”

“And the iron ships?”

“You destroyed them all. I’ve never seen anything like it. The endothermic forces involved–”

“It was the Engine,” David said, as though that was enough of an explanation. He looked out of the lower-floor window at the tree-lined streets and the blue sky, as much to marvel at it as to avoid Margaret’s enquiring stare. He grabbed some more sandwiches, devoured them in moments. “Have you gotten in touch with my Aunt Veronica?” He could do with some money, surely she would be able to offer him some help financially.

Buchan shook his head. “Veronica’s not here, David. I’ve spoken to the councillors, but they’re being very tight lipped about it. There’s activity in the east, some sort of secret installation in the mountains. She’s part of it, but that’s all they can tell me.”

David nodded his head, how like his family to be involved. The Mildes were always at the heart of the maelstrom.

Buchan said some other things, but David hardly heard them.

His thoughts were elsewhere, he could feel them coming. Their presence came so clearly to mind. Ah,
so
many things to feel, so much strange knowledge flowering within him, but their approach was the strongest.

They were a long way away yet, but every moment bought them closer. When he closed his eyes he could see a long dark road, trees covered with moss. He could feel seven cold hungers, seven creatures intent on hunting him down and tearing him to shreds.

He didn’t know what he was going to do. He wasn’t some hero from the pulps like Travis the Grave. He’d made it to Hardacre but he knew he couldn’t stay here long. Like the Engine had said, well, like he
thought
it had said: he’d opened doors. If he wanted to close them, and stop these Old Men, he would have to go to Tearwin Meet.

The Old Men, all he had known of them until the last few weeks was as nursery rhymes and figures of mystery in Shadow Council tales. Cadell had discussed them in more detail, but it had rarely been specific, as though he was ashamed of his past. Now Cadell was dead.

Beneath his hunger, he felt the familiar pull of Carnival. It hadn’t taken long to assert itself. Who was there to control it now Cadell was gone?

David looked over at Margaret. She stared at him curiously, and there was a fierce challenge in that gaze, a silent demand that he give up every secret he possessed. Oh, he had so many of those now! But then again, so did she, starting with those iron ships. He looked away. He didn’t trust her, not really. Cadell’s blood stirred inside his veins, echoing the sentiment.

And then, a new urgency gripped him: how could he have let it slip his mind?

He had to deal with the corpse.

“Where is Cadell? Where have you put him?”

No one could look him in the eye. Buchan cleared his throat, but it was Margaret who spoke.

“Oh, David, that’s the worst of it. Cadell’s body is missing.”

Trent Jamieson is an Australian Fantasy writer, and winner of two Aurealis Awards, whose 
Death Most Definite
series is being published by Orbit and is already attracting rave notices.

Trent has been writing fiction since he can remember, and selling it since the mid-Nineties… quite a long while after he started.

He works as a teacher, a bookseller and a writer and has taught at Clarion South where he was described as “the nicest guy in Australian Spec Fic” shattering the reputation he was trying to build as the “Hard Man of the Australian Writing Community”.