The city changed, as all metropolises change, be it Chinoy, the Channon or Mirrlees. But none so quickly, the Roil ever a catalyst had accelerated. Even as Chapman’s population slept, even as they armed and reinforced the city’s walls, Chapman itself wasn’t Chapman any more, but a dreaming city nascent. Soon it would sleep, and drag those who lived there down with it.
Have I set the scene enough?
Of course not, you who were not there and could never understand.
CHAPMAN
Margaret’s limbs shook. When had she last slept? She could not remember the last time she had slept. Her brain kept circling this, though the question held no real relevance. She wanted to ask David if he knew.
Of course he didn’t. He didn’t look like he could possibly know anything. All those capable friends and allies she had lost. And now this addict, barely a man, he was as lost as her.
Every time she looked up and saw the sun or the blue sky, no matter how smoke and spoor shrouded, reality sloughed away and her head spun. This sky had been all she had ever dreamed of as a child. Now she would happily trade it back if everything could be the way it once was. A few weeks ago, all she had known was darkness and the cruel comforts of her city. Now she was alone, stalled by the light, and with no one to help her. She didn’t even have her Melody.
She did not know where to turn.
Maybe David, after all he had been looking for the safe house and that suggested links with Anderson’s allies.
Who was this idiotic window-shopping addict, with his dark and innocent eyes? She wondered if her eyes had ever been so innocent, her worries ever so simple.
She wanted to clip him under the ear and alert him to his foolishness.
But, then again, it was all relative.
Not too many days ago she had made her empty vigil at the walls of her city, wondering when her parents were coming home. Back then she had rarely needed to make decisions, her parents had always been there to guide her (even if she had not really noticed) and to ensure that she was safe.
And now she was alone.
How does one go about saving the world?
She didn’t even know how to go about talking with this stupid drug addled boy.
“This weaponry, this cold suit, they were built in Tate,” she said. “My home.”
David’s eyes widened. “But Tate fell years ago, decades ago.”
Margaret shook her head. “Tate stood and fought and survived. No thanks to you Northerners. I grew up there, it was my home for twenty years. But it’s gone now.”
“How many made it out?” David asked.
“Just me,” Margaret said, the words meaningless and all too heavy; she was surprised she didn’t choke on them, that she could relate the facts so calmly. “The city was destroyed and everyone there. If they were lucky.”
“I think I know what you mean,” David said. “The Witmoths.”
“Yes,” Margaret said. “The Roil grew a mind and it took everything away.”
Cadell was weary, and angry.
Two tunnels beneath the city had collapsed, the third had involved a slog through dusty crevices then half- flooded sewers. His clothes were soiled by the time he climbed out into the street, and then the hunger took him. He’d heard voices in the sewers, so he descended again: gripped in a madness that did not pass until his clothes were drenched in other, ruddier, fluids.
Cadell woke from the killing to guilt and rage. His hunger was growing strong again. The stress of the journey was taking its toll.
Lucid and remorseful, he went to a bathhouse, one in a shadier district of Chapman where few questions were asked. As he washed away the blood, he had heard all manner of rumours, every bit of it disturbing. The least of which were explosions in the Deserted Suburbs.
Perhaps something had gone wrong with Stade’s Project.
By the time he had bathed and changed from soiled clothes to marginally fresher ones, it was late, and he hurried to the meeting place.
David wasn’t there, but he could just sense his scent.
Cadell rushed to the safe house and found it a blackened husk, the boy nowhere to be seen. He cursed David as he searched the shell of a house. He found evidence of recent habitation and, curiously, a fuel cell for an ice rifle of a make he was unfamiliar with.
He picked it up and regarded the stamp at its base. Now that was peculiar. It was stamped with Tate’s symbol. He slipped the cell into his pocket.
He sniffed at the air, eyes closed. There was Roil Spore everywhere and the deeper musk of Quarg Hound, and faintly, just faintly, David. The young man had been here. And, a Quarg Hound had started hunting him, and something else. He was missing something here, and he wasn’t at all sure what.
He cursed David again, and returned to the scent trail.
It didn’t go far.
He found the boy talking to a young woman, pale as the moons, and nearly as tall as him. Another one, another damn stray, punishment for his sins: he checked his nails for blood. Nothing, but he knew it was there.
Cadell cleared his throat and was suddenly staring down the barrel of a gun. Maybe he deserved such an ending. He raised his hands slowly, studying the woman’s rifle as he did so. The weapon was sophisticated, better than any he had seen in Mirrlees. The sort of thing a man could approve of being killed by.
“Cadell!” David said, sounding for once as though he was pleased to see him.
“David,” Cadell said calmly. “Could you please tell your friend to put down that gun?”
“Her name’s Margaret, she’s a Penn,” David said. “Margaret, this is Cadell.”
The woman lowered the rifle and Cadell relaxed. The Old Man pulled the endothermic charge out of his pocket. “Well, that explains this. A Penn, eh, I’ve heard of your family. Didn’t expect to come face to face with one. I believe you have quite a tale to tell. Tate remains, eh, when all had thought it fallen decades past.”
Margaret shook her head. “No, it’s gone. Taken by the Roil,” Margaret said. “My parents designed ice moats and endothermic cannon. But even those could not hold forever. Tate has fallen, as you said, but less than a week has passed since she fell.”
Cadell passed her the spent charge. “I can refuel this for you, my dear.” He smiled. “Oh, this would be such a foreign world to you, but we can help.” Already he was seeing ways he could use the girl, her aid would be useful in the journey north. A little luck had come his way. A useful stray at last, he thought. “There is so much you need to know.”
“I have learnt my share.”
Cadell snorted. “Slinking around these suburbs I am sure you have.”
On the wall Tope had thought he’d caught wind of David Milde’s scent, then whatever smell or presence was gone again as a gust blew in from the south. The damn Roil Spores drowned out his senses, no matter how much Chill he devoured.
It was the blasted cuttle-blood that made the Roil such a rush, burning in his veins, the blood and the looming Obsidian Curtain. That was why the Vergers of Chapman were not blooded, just men, who had not suffered a childhood of transfusions, and training to control the rages. He envied them their weaknesses sometimes. And they, for their part, feared him.
He sniffed the air again. No, there was no hint of David at all, just the Roil, just its mad promise.
He slipped another lozenge in his mouth and bit down hard.
