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.”
It raced from the basement, Stade watched after it. Only when it was gone did he allow himself to shake. He coughed, dropped to his knees and tears spilled down his face.
Unmanned. I am unmanned, what a mess I’ve made of it all.
He’d let them all go – the heart and mind of the city. It was only right that they should devour Mirrlees, he stared a while at the eight empty rooms and listened to the silence.
David, he thought. When they find you, if you’re not drugged out of your mind, you’ll wish you’d never run from my Vergers. You’ll curse Cadell and your father’s name with your dying breath. Please forgive me.
And, feeling old and cruel and deadly, because he was all those things, he returned to his office and worked at the one thing he knew. The logistics involved in saving the population of a city. It had to be worth the cost.
When the knock came for him to board his airship, he wasn’t ready. It, like everything else these days, had arrived far sooner than anticipated. He gathered what few notebooks remained and walked with his Vergers to the rooftop dock.
Captain Jones waited for him by the ramp to the gondola. He was obviously unable to hide his irritation, his face red, his hands shoved deep in his pockets, perhaps so he couldn’t strike Stade in the mouth. The Mayor liked him at once.
“Everything’s aboard, sir,” the captain said.
“Everything except me.” He grinned darkly. “You’re Drift-born aren’t you, Captain Jones?”
“Drift-born and raised, sir.” He couldn’t hide the scowl.
“Good.”
“If you’re ready, I’d like to take her up.” The captain gestured to the south, clenching his teeth. “Bad wind’s blowing, gales and the like, and storms too. It doesn’t do to be tethered to what’s coming.”
We’re all tethered to what is coming, Stade thought. He smiled and walked aboard his ship.
Chapter 53
No one knows of the exact human cost of that sudden retreat from Mirrlees, nor of those “persuaded” to stay behind. But it was high.
Still the city had been lost since the day the rain began to fall. A dead thing lumbering with no realization that its heart no longer beat, that it was instead tumbling towards the burial ground.
MIRRLEES-ON-WEEP 173 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
He rapped his gnarled knuckles on the wooden door.
Once, and again.
Bells tolled in the distance. Another levee had fallen, crashing down a few miles away, and people were dying. Death crowded the air and wherever he sensed death there were usually folk like him. He saw what they saw, and the Roil made sense of it for him, placed it in context. Mirrlees drowned, the streets transformed with every downpour becoming labyrinth and quagmire combined.
Finding his home had been a torturous affair, everything all muddied up the way it was. His thoughts too, had become labyrinthine, and far too crowded, it was hard to focus on the smaller things – the personal.
It was hard, but not impossible.
It just took time.
“Where are they?” He whispered to himself. “Where’s my wife? My children?”
He was reaching to knock on the door again when it opened, bright light pouring out, stinging his eyes, forcing him back a step. He had been a long time in the dark.
“What do you want?” A harsh voice demanded and then his wife cried out, dropping the iron poker she had gripped so tightly, recognising him at last. “Theodore! Come in, my darling. Out of the rain,” she said, and made to throw her arms around him.
“Not yet,” he said. “Not until we’re inside.”
He peered up and down the street.
Not far away, a cat batted at a dead thing floating in a puddle. A Verger whistled in the distance and a carriage clattered by, smoke from the driver’s pipe staining the wet air for a moment like a passing dream.
“I thought you lost,” she said leading him inside. All he could see was her mouth; he did so wish to kiss her again.
“I was, yes I was… for a little while. But I found you.” He frowned. “I found you at last.”
“And the Council? I heard rumours…”
He grinned at her, and it must have been something of his old grin, for she returned it, her shoulders relaxing. He smelt liquor on her lips and that disturbed him.
“Do not worry about the Council. They’re not worth worrying about anymore.” He looked beyond her down the hall. “Where are the children?”
“In bed,” she said. “It’s late.”
“Wake them,” he said. “I want to see and speak with you all.”
His wife looked at him oddly, her fingers lifted to her mouth as though to stall a question. She hurried off to do as he asked.
It was cold in here; he clapped his hands to bring a little heat to them. When that failed, he ran them over a nearby lamp. His skin crackled, but it did the trick.
Outside, the cursed rain fell heavier, but it would not fall forever. That was something of which he was certain, it had already stopped twice that day for longer than an hour at a time. He could wait. He had grown to be
