over Tate.
“An I-Bomb. If we possessed an I-Bomb, we could halt this here and clear away the madness with a single detonation.”
“But we do not.” Cadell snapped. “Nor do we have your parents’ laboratories.” He pointed down. “Though it appears our enemy has something similar. Miss Jade, heave too. Now!”
On the Roilscape beneath them, what could only be described as a cannon turned towards them, though most cannon did not look as though they had been grown, nor did they have chambers that bubbled and spat liquid fire.
“Now!”
Kara Jade already had the job in hand, her face a mask of horror and determination. “Strap yourselves in,” she said.
Kara muttered over her controls, the Roslyn Dawn jerked sharply to the left and rose about a hundred yards in what seemed little more than a heartbeat. However, it wasn’t quite enough.
There was a flash of detonation, and the airship lifted on a wave of fire.
Chapter 42
The history of this world cannot be understood without a complete knowledge of the three forces that govern it. The Roil, the Engine and, of course, the Breaching Spire. We know of a Mechanical Winter, we have heard whisperings of the punishment meted out for that by whatever brute intellect rules Tearwin Meet. We know that the Roil is ancient that it has come before.
So what is it that we know?
Nothing.
Our history is but one of events, scattered and continuing, but never in the context that such knowledge would bring.
We stare into the great dark, little more than idiots playing out roles that we do not understand.
WITHIN THE ROIL
David scrambled to his feet, his nose bleeding, spots dancing before his eyes. Glad I have such a thick skull.
At least no one seemed to have noticed his tumble.
“Told you to strap in, idiot!” Kara Jade said, swinging from her controls to glare at him. David dropped into a seat, pulled the belts tight around him.
“Did we take a direct hit?” Cadell demanded. The Old Man hadn’t strapped himself in. He stood by Kara now, peering over her controls. David wondered if they made any sense to him at all.
“No, we’ve everything functioning. A direct hit and you’d hear it, a direct hit and I think we’d be hitting the ground not long after. But I’m getting us out of here, now. Thank the Mothers of the Sky for all this heat. There are thermals enough to lift us to the moons. The Dawn ’s straining for the sky. Strap yourselves in. David, I’m talking to you.”
“Already have,” he said.
The nacelles coughed and shuddered, and the Roslyn Dawn raced into the air. David’s ears popped and he clutched at the armrests. Kara Jade worked furiously at the controls, venting gas and releasing ballast, pushing the Roslyn Dawn as far as she dared.
“If you don’t get it right, the lack of air pressure can burst the gas bladders,” she said to no one in particular. “And that is not a good thing. Kill an Aerokin quick smart. Foolish man, entering the Roil like it’s his right.”
There was another flash, however, this time, they were much further from it. David watched the great ball of fire hurtle past then plummet back down into the Roil. Something else caught his eye, a distant glint in the sky to the south that shot from east to west.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing south west with a shaking hand.
It rushed past again (or at least he thought it rushed past) and was gone.
“Your imagination,” Kara Jade said. “Now quiet all of you. I need to concentrate.”
“What did you see?” Margaret asked, her voice uneasy.
David looked at her suspiciously. Just what did she know?
“I’m not sure what it was, but it’s gone now.”
Still, David stared south, eyes straining to see through all that murk. But nothing passed that way again.
The shift from Roil to sunlight was abrupt.
David’s eyes watered as he looked out beyond the shuddering edge of the Obsidian Curtain. Rain fell on the hills a hundred miles north of Chapman. A little to the west of those low hills Lake Uhl gleamed. A normal day, an unthreatened day, until he turned his head and the Roil was there behind him.
Even when he did not turn, it remained. Sunshine failed to scour from him what he had seen, the darkness had poisoned his world.
A ball of fire burst from the Roil, sailing past the Roslyn Dawn , it described a steep arc that ended in the deserted suburbs where it struck a building setting it alight, then another and another followed until a whole block blazed.
“Those heat sinks, how did they build them so fast?” Margaret asked. “They weren’t there a few days ago.”
Cadell grinned darkly. “Disturbing, isn’t it? I have my suspicions, Margaret, but none of them are good. Nor are they helpful at this time.” He turned to Kara. “Land this as quickly as you can.”
Kara grunted in response.
“What does he mean?” David asked Margaret. “What does he mean that could make this more disturbing than it already is?”
“Vastkind,” Margaret said. “I think that’s where his thoughts lead him.”
“Vastkind?” Here was something David had never heard of, and Margaret seemed surprised. “Beneath the crust, where all is heat and even the stone melts and becomes a kind of liquid fire – the burning yolk of the world. There the old, old books say, dwells the Vastkind, a proto-roilbeast. An Ur-beast for it is from the fire that the Roil was sprung, whether through the dark designs of the Master Engineers or nature, the books do not know. But they’re big, terribly big.”
David nodded his head and shivered. “I don’t like the sound of that at all. At least, up here, we’re relatively safe.”
“We’re not safe yet, relative or otherwise,” Kara Jade said. “The bastards on the wall have started firing at us.”
She pointed behind her where flags hung from the wall. “Quick, the red and the grey flag and the green one two. Wave them out the port window.”
David grabbed the flags and did as he was told.
The firing stopped, but not before a shell glanced off the starboard nacelle. The Roslyn Dawn moaned.
Kara Jade cursed at that. “Whores of Argent Lane, if they’ve hurt my darling Dawn, the Council of Chapman will pay in blood.”
CHAPMAN FIELD OF FLIGHT ,TWO MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
The Dawn landed gently in the Field of Flight followed by two military Aerokin, their big guns trained upon her as people below hosed cold water on her carapace. It was the longest part of their brief journey. Ships and Aerokin were still arriving for tomorrow’s launch and they had to wait their turn. When at last the Dawn had touched down, the Aerokin gave a great shuddering of relief.
“I know, I know, my darling,” Kara Jade said.
