silent blinding brightness behind her that lasted a heartbeat, and the earth shook as though one of the Vastkind had stirred then fallen again into sleep.
Outside, dust-darkened flakes of snow drifted down and shrouded everything in white.
Behind her, the Roil had thinned though not enough to reveal the stars, she was too far from the epicentre.
In Tate, she knew, the sky would be clear for the first time in decades. But there would be no one to see it, just the shattered and frozen remains of the city for moon and starlight to pick over and wonder what had been? What might have happened here?
Margaret knew.
Someone had managed to ignite an I-Bomb, perhaps several of them.
Tate was dead its suffering complete. The ice would melt, and the night would roll back in over lifeless, broken stone. Even as she drove, the snow faded like the faintest of dreams and the Roil closed over her again.
Mechanism Highway had emptied of Roilbeasts and grown crowded with ghosts.
Margaret could not escape the memory of her city aflame. She had time to think, and her thoughts plunged her lower than she had ever been. And always there were questions. Where were her parents? Who had set off the I-Bomb?
She slipped between rage and fear, cold clinical plans and theories and deep, deep sadness.
Most worrying of all was the question of the Roil’s new-sprung awareness. Its beasts had howled and battered against Tate’s walls and moats, not through any desire for conquest but because it occupied space in the Roil. Such dull-witted assaults had been relatively easy to resist. This though, this new cunning could not be stopped.
If it had gained a kind of mind then it was a creature that covered half the world with a colossal consciousness.
While she knew she could not even begin to understand its motivations, or the depth of its intelligence, growth must be one of them, growth as swift as possible. Humans were a threat to it. Out there somewhere to the north lay the Engine of the World. Did it know of this? She hoped not, but there was no way she could be certain.
A dim flickering in her mirrors focused her attention. At first, she thought it nothing more than her imagination for it was so faint, so questionable in its existence, and the miles behind her were pure darkness. However, she embraced the diversion and found her attention drawn to the soft uncertain light, until she had to force herself to focus on the road.
Over the next few hours the light increased in intensity and, finally, she recognised it for what it was – a drone. It had been set to follow the straight line of the highway. However, it had slipped a little off course. An hour or two further north and she would never have seen it.
She slowed the Melody. Not daring to stop nor turn back. Not daring to hope it might be from her parents. The drone caught up at last and threatened to pass over her.
Margaret shot the drone down.
It hit the ground in a spray of dust and metal.
Margaret charged up her cold suit, fumbling over its controls, her hands at once numb and feverish. She left the engine idling and scrambled out of her carriage, pistols at ready. Such was her haste that she almost tripped over her feet getting to the shattered drone.
Her footsteps scarred the ground, the Roil spores that coated it, sliding away from the touch of her boots, and growing pale as bone.
She kicked at the half crushed message pod’s door until it swung open. Smoke moths rushed out at her. Margaret stumbled backwards, batting at the air. The chill of her cold suit did its work and the moths fell away. Margaret stared into the pod.
A book lay within, well-thumbed, curling up at the edges. Her father’s notebook! She snatched it out and flipped to the back.
Be careful, and swift. They’ll be coming for you. She’ll be wanting you. Run and keep running.
Trust no one. There is no one left to trust.
Who wanted her, and why? Margaret desperately desired to read it now, glean whatever she could from its pages. But that note filled her with fear.
She could not stay here. It was too exposed. A Quarg Hound yowled in the distance and far above some great winged beast churned through the Roil. She sensed things drawing in, closing around her.
She had no time to dig into the wreckage. She snatched up the notebook and ran back to the Melody Amiss. The engine clicked into gear smoothly and Margaret drove away, picking up as much speed as she dared.
She’ll be wanting you. Trust no one. There is no one left to trust.
She had hoped for answers and found only more questions.
Chapter 12
To blame Cadell for what happened on the Dolorous Grey is to blame a wind for blowing, a storm for raging. Cadell is Cadell, disaster comes easily with him.
He is the hungry man, the whisperer in shadow that comes just before the flutes descend. You see him, you run.
A little down George Street a horse had fallen at harness, stone dead before the carriage, tipping the whole thing forward. The driver roared, then moaned. He jumped from his seat and beat at the beast’s scrawny rain- soaked hide with the handle of his whip.
The sight struck pity into David’s heart. He turned away.
“Horses are dying,” Cadell said. “Every day feed grows scarcer, what remains is often bad, rotten before it leaves the fields. And the best of that’s already earmarked for the Council. Not long for this city, lad.”
A long low whistle echoed down the street.
Cadell didn’t need to point, there was a curfew, post Dissolution, the streets were empty. David saw the Vergers at once.
Cadell spat on the ground.
“We are going to have to run,” he said, pulling his bag close around his shoulder. The muscles in his forearm’s flexing.
And we were so close to the bridge, he thought. “Do you think they know where we are headed?”
The Old Man flashed his teeth. “I hope not.”
Perhaps the Vergers didn’t to start off with, but there wasn’t enough time for them to try and lose their pursuit. The Dolorous Grey would be crossing the bridge and soon. As they reached the nearest abutment of the Downing Bridge, and began to climb its superstructure, Vergers were coming from all directions. David followed Cadell, throwing himself up ladders, fingers burning as they gripped the rusty rungs. David could hear both the train in the distance and the Verger just behind them, his feet clanging loudly on the metal.
Cadell looked down at him, and grunted. “That one’s Tope. High up as they go, he’s been after me a while now.”
David recognised him as the one who had slashed his father’s throat. A cold anger filled him, and a fear. Both spurred him on, as they made their way higher up the bridge.
They reached the top of the Downing and a small walkway that ran over the tracks.
David glanced down, a truly vertiginous experience, not because the bridge was so high, but because the water was so close, dark, angry, and on the verge of swallowing the city whole. The city had turned every contrivance, every levee bank and pump to taming the untameable. The river roared and engines bellowed
