The infection has as its vector a substance that she referred to, in one of her more lucid moments, as Witmoths. It is a sublimate of the Roil spores almost, though potent and, unlike the spores, directly acting upon the human consciousness. Had I not been as swift, pulling away from a burst of the creatures sprung from my wife’s lips I would have known its effects far too intimately.
I have her in quarantine, I dare not return with her to Tate, though she has begged it of me… because she has begged it of me. She calls in the dark for Margaret. The familial ties are strong in this contagion, the desire to extend it to the immediate family. She pants our names, demanding that I honour my love. Really, to honour it would be to fire a bullet into her skull.
Oh, my wife. Oh, my daughter. The temperature of the cabin is an agony to her, but one I would not reduce. It is, I believe, our only insurance against the contagion that she contains. At times she is lucid, but then desperate rages grip her. She is possessed with a violence I have never seen before, and it terrifies me.
Calvin tried to launch a drone today, but its message pod was filled with Witmoths it infected him, through his mouth and nose and he was lost to us. He tried to free her, tried to contaminate the rest of us.
His cold body lies in carriage number eight.
We had no choice but to kill him – that’s what I keep telling myself. I can kill Calvin, while my own wife sits bound in the refrigerated research cabin, cursing all of us.
I cannot think clearly. They look to my lead, and I cannot think.
Where is truck number three?
Day Seven
They came today, and all I can remember is the terror of it.
The raid was methodical and swift. They knew our routines, but that should have come as no surprise, I discovered at last where truck three disappeared. Better if it had been destroyed. Everyone is lost to me, luck if you could call it that led to my escape.
I will not forget the howls of my colleagues: their sudden transformation from ally to enemy. I was near enough to car number four. No Witmoths found me out, but it does not matter. There is only one of me.
They freed her, and the city will fall. The things I have seen. Things that were once men and women, and some of them are old, made, years ago. Here lies the answer to the Walkers. Here is why they walked.
Will drive back to Tate, but I do not expect to make it.
Day Nine Ten
My darling, Margaret. I saw you today, but you did not see me. I have learnt of your passage north, and hope that these notes reach you. The city, as you no doubt suspect, is lost utterly.
We were betrayed, my child. But it is my hope to end that betrayal here. The I-Bombs I have gathered should clear away this section of the Roil and, hopefully, the contagion. But in truth I cannot say how far it has spread. Be careful, my dear. Keep your cold suit charged.
There is no time left. The drone is set to follow the road, may it find you.
I love you, my dear. Your mother loved you, too. If I could do but one thing, it would be to ensure that you were not alone. If only I could aid you on your way. But that is just a dream. My only comfort is that we never completed our Iron Wings. Imagine those things at the Roil’s command.
Be careful, and swift. They’ll be coming for you. She’ll be wanting you. Trust no one. There is no one left to trust.
Margaret closed the book and wept. What had her mother become? And her father, was he likewise bonded to the Roil?
She thought of her father, of him being all by himself, deserted by his daughter; the Roil alone knowing what had become of his wife.
Poor father. She hated herself for it, but she wished him dead. And her mother, too.
The engine had cooled. She cautiously engaged the ignition and the Melody Amiss rumbled back into life, its engine once again running smoothly. Margaret released her breath.
She had many miles to go and she did not expect to stop before she saw daylight. Slowly, slowly she followed the highway, up and over the mountain range,
Death, welcome as it may have been, was no longer in her heart. Unless it were the death that she might bring. The Roil had taken her city and destroyed her family. She would have vengeance, she must.
Chapter 30
Exile can be good. Exile can focus the mind. We were in exile, but we were also free. Sometimes I wish Buchan had understood that better than he did.
To David, their stay in Uhlton had taken on the reality of a dream. Since they had arrived he had bathed, been given fresh clothes and now dinner in a hall crowded with what Mr Buchan had described as his executive staff. To David’s way of thinking they didn’t look at all like executive staff. Many wore guns, several bore lumpy old scars and eye patches. Even Mr Buchan was missing an ear.
Mr Buchan was one of the largest men, David had ever seen, David had been expecting that, but it was one thing to hear about something another to see it. But for all his size he did not seem ill or slovenly, in fact, he moved and spoke with an energy that David found exhausting. He roared and bellowed and punctuated exclamations with a huge roast leg of lamb that he shook in the air as though it were a mere chicken bone.
The hall in which they ate was cavernous and lit by hundreds of candles – so that the high ceiling was dim with dull smoke – and the table along which they all sat ran almost the entire length of it. The table had been piled high with food, most of which had gone into either Cadell’s or Mr Buchan’s stomach, both men truly had prodigious appetites, and David was reminded of his dream at the Lode: Cadell filling his mouth with the frozen corpses of birds.
Mr Whig sat to David’s right, and Cadell was across the table from him as quiet as he had ever seen him. Mr Buchan had been incredibly polite to David, and everyone kept saying how pleased they were to meet him at last and how sorry they were to have heard about his father.
But now, bathed and fed, it was all taking on the qualities of a dream. David struggled to keep his eyes open: a battle he was fast losing.
Unfortunately he suspected that sleep was still a long way off.
‘What is all this?’ he had asked at one stage, never expecting anyone to listen, but Mr Buchan waved for silence.
“David, dear Mr Milde,” he said throatily. “Think of us as the last bastion of the Confluence Party, outside of Hardacre. And certainly the last with any hope of affecting the destruction of the Roil.” He raised his glass. “To the Engine.”
The whole table took up the toast. “To the Engine.”
David glanced over at Cadell. He didn’t look very happy, in fact quite the opposite. Cadell glowered at Buchan, and the big man winked and blew him a kiss.
At last Mr Buchan reached into his elegant vest, patterned like a peacock’s tail, and pulled out a big pocket watch dwarfed by his massive hands so that it looked like some miniaturists’ fancy.
“Gentlemen, it is late and there is still much to do. Not to mention our exodus in two days. I bid you all good night.” His eyes flicked to Cadell. “Dare you brave my parlour, Mr Fly.”
Cadell’s expression was unreadable. “If we must,” he said quietly.
Mr Buchan nodded it was so and rose from the table like some huge beast breaking the surface of a primordial lake. In one movement, he pulled the napkin from around his throat – a napkin that for all his eating and food punctuating was spotless – folded it neatly and slipped it back into a silver napkin ring.
At that signal the hall quickly emptied. Half a dozen people nodding at David and wishing him the best and how pleased they were to finally meet such an upstanding young gentleman.
