given up his city so easily, and against character) in the air to the east, the scope of the drama had narrowed, but the stakes were so much higher.
THE CITY OF HARDACRE 964 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
When David finally made it to his bedroom, he sat down, pulled his knees up to his chest and wept. He didn’t allow himself too much grief though, before going to his hidden stash and driving Carnival into his veins. A few moments later he was all smiles.
He yawned, and hardly had his boots off his feet before he was asleep.
“Oh, it’s you,” David said. “Which means I'm dreaming.”
He recognised where he was at once. The panoptic map room, with a map that even the best of map powders could only hope to imitate. He'd been here in a dream, just before he had destroyed the iron ships; in fact, it was in this room that he had first seen them approaching. When did a dream mirror reality so accurately that it became something else?
“Nice of you to join me,” Cadell said, rolling a cigarette gently between his fingers. “Some habits you just can't quit, even in dreams.”
He gestured to a syringe, red with Carnival, resting on the edge of the map. David swallowed, and shook his head.
“Good,” Cadell said. “If you could extend that to the waking world, I need to be let out. You need me. If I'd realised that Carnival would be so effective in keeping me at bay, I would have chosen the girl.” Outside a Quarg Hound howled; that had been part of the dream as well. David shivered. “Still there, I’m afraid. I don’t know if it’s your subconscious or mine that has put it there, just that we might come and go from this place, but it always remains.”
“I’m sorry that I killed you,” David said, wondering if it was even appropriate to mention something like that to the man whose bones you've just burned.
Cadell slid his cigarette into a pocket. “That wasn’t me. I’m dead. What remained was nothing but an abomination. There is nothing to forgive. If the situation had been reversed, I would have killed you without hesitation. Now, no time for this, concentrate, lad. Focus.”
He gestured to the map. “Me and my brothers constructed this in our minds. Trapped in our hungers and our cage, we had all the time to make it perfect. And now it is yours, too. So use it!”
David looked down at the panoptic ap, and Shale grew ever more detailed. Here forests swayed in the wind, to the south Mirrlees burned, and on the Gathering Plains, seven gnarled men walked — closer to Hardacre than David feared. His eyes flicked north, to the mountains, and Tearwin Meet, the city with its mighty tower and peculiar intelligence. He felt it stare back, and he looked away. He said, “Why do I keep dreaming this place?”
“Dream? I guess that works. If that works for you, then yes, dream it is. Though I prefer to couch it in more heuristic terms, the map is the least dreamish part of the whole place. For some, a dream, for others an education.” Cadell tapped a finger against the northernmost extremity of the map, where the great tower rose, fringed in its mountains. “Tearwin Meet is waiting for you. The Engine is waiting to greet you in its grand hall of mirrors, beyond the steel door.”
“I’m stuck here,” David said. “Things are complicated. Buchan and Whig, they’re doing their best, but-”
“I’m sure they are. But other options approach you.” Cadell tapped the map again: a small Aerokin slid into the airspace of the city. Even from above, David could see how easily she evaded the city’s defensive airships. She hid comfortably in the clouds, found the darkest routes. “You really need to learn how to get out of your head, or you would have seen it earlier. Another avenue might be opening up for you. Drift has decided to play now.”
“And if it does…”
“Be careful, the Mothers of the Sky are not your friends. Nor will they ever be.”
“They were your friends once,” David said. “I remember that much.” And he did, flashes of a past, all gleaming metals and hope.
“Yes, before things became a bit mythical, a bit driven by the curse of a mad machine. You know they once tried to rescue us, in fact, they did. It didn’t work. But the past is a meagre ghost, you can’t count on it, it's less satisfying than chewing on bones.”
“So do I take this other avenue, or not?”
“That is up to you,” Cadell said. “I am but another one of those ghosts, haunting the long hallways of your blood.”
“So, I’ve a choice of ghosts?”
“We all do. What’s the present but the moans of ghosts past and future? All those possibilities and hope, certainties, and failures, you just have access to a larger store than most. If you let me in.” Cadell’s face grew cunning. “The sooner the better. You will need me to do what must be done.”
David’s stomach rumbled, even in his sleep it rumbled, and he looked up, embarrassed at the broad smile of Cadell. “Why am I always hungry?”
“You’re hungry because you’re growing, and the kind of growth that you are experiencing requires a considerable amount of energy. David, you’re going to have to bring that cold to bear on an entire world. You’ve not even scratched the surface of your abilities, and they are rising in you.”
“I’m tired,” David said. “I’m always so tired.”
“That’s because sleep leads you to me. You shouldn’t fight it as much. In sleep you can focus on all the things that you need to be, and you can become them.”
“I don’t know if I want to.”
Cadell sighed. “Then wake up. But remember the one possibility that is a certainty.” He pointed to the map, south again, where the seven Old Men walked. They stopped, seemed to look up, point at the sky. “They will hunt you until you die, or you kill them. Seven Old Men. Do you think you could manage such slaughter?”
David’s eyes opened.
Another tapping at the window.
Not Cadell, his point of entry was different now. David hurried to the window, his hands hesitated at the latch. His body ached. He wanted to sleep again, to find that this was nothing more than a dream. That his parents still lived, and that the Roil existed only in the pulp stories of the Shadow Council — leave all this madness to Travis the Grave.
He peered out and saw nothing, heard another quick tapping; David caught a flash of movement, tendrils whipping back into the sky. He swung the window open, and looked up. Something hovered there, above the street.
A juvenile Aerokin, far smaller than the Roslyn Dawn. She lowered a single tendril through the opening. Rough flesh, tipped with multi-jointed segments analogous to fingers, gripped an envelope. An envelope with David’s name, written with flourishes and curlicues, on it. He recognised the writing of Kara Jade. She'd written him a note apologising for her absence that had managed to be part accusatory — why in the Roil's name wouldn't he wake — and rueful — would have loved to see the north.
He pulled the envelope from the Aerokin’s grasp, the finger-things tapped his arm once and the tendril flicked back outside. The Aerokin lifted a little higher and drifted over the flat roof of the pub. David wondered if she was waiting there in the sky, or simply a messenger.
David looked down at the envelope in his hand. The paper was still warm. He opened it cautiously. His eyes flicked to the end, saw Kara’s name there, as he'd expected, then he looked back over it more carefully.
Well, I’m sure you weren’t expecting this. It seems I am in trouble. There have been some political reckonings in my city, of the sort that sees a person in prison — if they're lucky, and dead if they're not. And yes, I am lucky. A man of your particular skills may be exactly what I need. If you could see your way clear to helping me, I would be in your debt — and that's a hard thing for me to say. The Aerokin that delivered this message is waiting for you, she answers to the name Pinch. She will not wait long, an hour or two, no more. Should you decide to help out a dear friend, well, a friend at least, please go to the roof. Pinch will accommodate three people, or two if one of them possesses more weapons than is sensible. I would not have contacted you if I did not think that my life was indeed in peril. Pinch contains more information. I have allies in the city — but I guess you’d get that, because Aerokin (not even little ones) don’t just bend to my will — and they will help you get to me. I am glad you are still
