been touched deeply.
There was a smell about them, sweet and foul all at once, like meat that had only been half-cooked and left out in the sun. Huge eyes, all pupils, gazed upon him and hands with fingers far too long flexed. Fragments of flesh had worn from their faces, revealing not bone but a substance like ash or coal mixed with dark honey, as though they had been torrefied from the inside out. No blood moved through their veins any more, just dust. Clothed in robes made of the moths that moved and shivered in waves from head to toe and back again, a restless nest of shadows, they were something out of a nightmare.
But nightmares were what Anderson was paid to deal with. How did that happen? Just how did that happen?
“Unfortunately, Mr Anderson, we are not all of a single mind,” The Roiling said, in a voice clipped and far too normal. “Though the Roil sits in agreement on most issues there are shifts, swift passings of anarchy. It was a passing of this nature that the Dolorous Grey experienced. It will not happen again, even these last twenty-four hours have seen a deepening of control. Which is why we are here, in part. To apologise, of course, but also to make a request and offer a deal.”
“And what might that be?”
“There is something we require of you.”
Anderson and Winslow exchanged glances.
“We’re listening,” he said. “What exactly do you mean?”
Tap.
Tap.
“You better answer that,” Alice Penn said, and ran on legs far too long and too fast up the hill, away from her. “You better answer that.”
Tap.
Tap
“I know,” Margaret whispered and shivered in the cold. She couldn’t keep up. “I know. But I’ve been chasing you all day.”
Her mother paused, eyes bright with a manic intensity. “You were a good daughter,” she shouted. “Just never fast enough. All you’ve done is run and you still can’t catch me.”
She sprinted away, up and over the rise. Out of sight.
Margaret tried to run, but could not move. Out of frustration, she reached for the rifle in her lap. A Quarg Hound pup lay there instead, its jaws closing on her fingers.
It bit down, but the sound it made was odd, a soft sort of scrapping: over and over.
Margaret started awake. She blinked.
A pale face stared in through the window next to her.
The Roiling gave her a clownish grin, idiotic and terrifying, its long white fingers working on the lock of the door, their nails scratching, scratching.
“Mother!” it shrieked so loud that even Margaret could hear. “Mother!”
Margaret engaged the engine, her fingers fumbling over the controls so that she nearly stalled the carriage. “Mother!”
If only she had a sentient carriage, like an Aerokin, then none of this would be happening. The Melody’s engine turned, but didn’t catch.
The Roiling’s movements grew desperate; moths swirled around its head. A flap of bone white skin slid from its cheek, revealing a dark resinous substance beneath.
Margaret stared into the Roiling’s face, into its dead black eyes and wondered if it had ever been human. Of course it had, it wore an old morning suit, tattered and dusty, but still recognisable.
“Mother!”
The engine came to life, the carriage shot forward, accelerated.
“Mother!” The Roiling tumbled off the carriage and ran back down the bridge towards Mcmahon.
A dozen Roilings circled the Melody Amiss watching. She sprayed a short burst of ice and opened up a gap that closed even as she passed through it. The Melody ’s endothermic weaponry ammunition was almost gone, its efficacy reduced. One of the Roilings struck the carriage and its arm tore from its shoulder with a spray of smoky blood. Margaret picked up speed, and soon they were out of sight. And all she had again was the deserted highway.
She did not want to think about what would have happened if she had slept for even a few moments longer.
Chapter 28
Buchan and Whig. Two men of one mind. Stade had banished them from Chapman early September, almost two months before the Festival of Float. Two men, one swift mind. Slaughter not exile would surely have been the result, had not the pair been so quick in their flight. Not a single sitting member of their party was assassinated.
Mirrlees’ Confluent party would have done well to learn from them. But they did not, and blood stained the streets red.
Three columns of black smoke drifted on the edge of the eastern horizon, there was no wind and so they had grown much larger than they might otherwise have. The sight disturbed David, more than he would care to admit, there was something ominous about the smoke as though the Roil had detached itself and flowered where it did not yet belong.
He pointed them out to Cadell. The Old Man’s face greyed.
“Yes, I see them. In truth, I’ve been ignoring them. They are the mute ruin of peoples’ lives, rising up like a cruel ghost. I hope some people managed to escape.” He shook his head, as though he thought it unlikely, and turned his gaze once more in the direction they were headed and mumbled, half to himself. “The world just keeps getting worse. But then that has been the case for a long time now. The question is, did Chapman hold out?”
After seeing those silent columns of smoke, a taciturn gloom settled on them that nothing was able to break. David was almost happy when darkness descended obliterating the sight. Until a hot storm came with it and their clothes were again soaked to the bone.
However, as the rain came in and the night, Cadell’s mood changed. He became nervy, not exactly afraid, but close to it.
The thought of something that could rattle Cadell was enough to worry David. Quarg Hounds and Roilings had been dealt with almost without blinking and yet their approach to Uhlton was being met with such trepidation.
“We’re getting close,” Cadell said, his first words in hours, and fell into a kind of disturbed silence broken by interludes of nervy mumbling that kept David on edge.
Which was, perhaps, why David saw Uhlton first – well, the few specks of light that betrayed its existence in the rainy murk of evening. He thought of the sleepy village he had seen in maps (and with the powder), built above the river. A place far from politics and Vergers, somewhere he might manage to score some Carnival – if he could just slip away.
“I can see it,” he shouted, hoping to lift Cadell’s spirits, and because he was genuinely excited. “There, to the south west, the town of Uhlton.”
“Good,” Cadell said. “How very clever of you. We’ll be there soon”
“And where in Uhlton is there?” David asked.
“Never you mind,” Cadell mumbled. “Got to keep some mystery in your life.”
Uhlton was not as David imagined. Built on a ridge above the swollen lake, it was a cramped and crowded
