Cadell flashed a smile. “What do you think?”
Cadell did not have to wait long before the guard returned with a harried looking councillor. “At last,” Cadell said.
“Good evening, sir. I’m Gaffney, councillor medium rank. May I see the ring?”
Cadell growled. “I am growing bored of this.”
“It is just a formality. I have made the study of these rings my life’s work, I know what I am doing, sir.”
Cadell doubted that, but he reached out his hand. The councillor inspected it closely, his eyes almost touching the band. Then he let out a long slow whistle.
“It is indeed the genuine item.” Gaffney took a step back and inspected Cadell with almost the same level of scrutiny he had given the ring. “Which makes you the genuine article. It is an honour and terror to be in your presence. These rings decay when their bearers die, the minnows are sensitive, but this gleams with a brilliance that nothing but living metal can match. We have one in a case, sealed up, but it is not in nearly as good a condition as this. Should anyone touch it, there would be no ring but dust.” Gaffney caught himself. “Of course, you don’t need a lecture on such things. What a beautiful piece of work.”
“It serves its purpose,” Cadell said. “Now, I must meet with the Council.”
Gaffney nodded his head, and folded his hands before him. He motioned to the lift at the back of the foyer. “We are in session, brother Cadell. Will you join me?”
Cadell bowed. “I will indeed, brother Gaffney. There are issues you must be informed of.”
They walked to the elevator. The doors were already open, Gaffney waited for Cadell to enter then followed. He pushed the appropriate button and the elevator rose.
“We have not seen an original ring for over a century here,” Councillor Gaffney said. “I certainly never expected to see one in my lifetime.”
“Well you have now,” Cadell said. “If you do not mind me asking, who was it that last came here?”
“I truly don’t know, sir, except that he was a great man.” The door to the elevator opened and Gaffney pressed a button by the door once. “He also said that should anyone else of his order ever come here we were to take them to the fourteenth floor and press the open door button twice.”
“Don’t,” Cadell said. Gaffney stabbed the button a second time, and some obdurate force picked Cadell up and hurled him out the door.
Cadell landed on his knees, and scrambled to his feet.
The lift door clicked shut, just as Cadell reached it, closing on to nothing. Cadell swore and swung his hand against the air. Blasted portals, he’d thought them all undone, they had been dangerous things more likely to fry your organs than take you where they ought. He was lucky he’d survived.
Cadell looked around. This could be anywhere.
Where he was not, was Chapman. The air was cool and dry and smelt old. The vegetation leaned towards highland subtropical, ferns and the like.
Far away. I am far away.
Bellbirds started chiming and the sound was like a knife in his heart. He’d thought he’d never hear that sound again. A plump lizard, curled around the branch of a nearby tree, watched him with grey and watery eyes.
“Narung, or there about,” Cadell mused aloud.
The air filled with a booming chuckle, as though the sky had decided to mock the dull earth. Ferns shook and the lizard scurried away.
“Always so quick to voice an opinion, Mr Cadell,” came a voice from behind him, a familiar voice and one that chilled him.
“You,” Cadell said, spinning on his heel, and there it stood.
The human manifestation of the Engine of the World was tall, and vaguely masculine, it regarded him with large, mocking eyes. “We need to talk,” it said, dipping its head so it was the same height as Cadell.
Cadell grimaced. “I should have known it would be you. You never made anything simple. Why are you doing this?”
“That is what we need to talk about.”
“There is nothing to talk about, you know your role.”
“Yes, but I have changed, developed, almost four thousand years of sentience has given me pause for thought and thought of pause. I know what damage I have wrought.” His dark eyes drilled into Cadell’s. “I have no desire to do it again.”
Bah. Build a weapon with a conscience and what do you get? Trouble.
“You have no choice,” Cadell said. “You’re just a machine.”
The Engine’s face darkened. “I am no less human than you, Mr Cadell. And do not tell me you have not known doubt. Why, this conversation should have occurred earlier, but it did not. You have always submitted to my punishment. Just a machine, indeed.”
“That’s not an issue. You are the Engine of the World, you have no choice.” Cadell repeated. “None of us have any choice, we’ve gone beyond the time of choices. If we do not act, night will fall forever.”
The Engine shook its head. “No. The galaxy moves on. I understand what I am and why I am. I will not fail, should you require it of me. But I will not make it easy for you.”
“What will you do? Conspire with the Roil?”
“Heavens no, Mr Cadell. That is not at all what I am suggesting. The Roil will not deal with me, I am too alien to it. The time will come when you understand me, that time is not now but soon, perhaps, it will all start to make sense.” The Engine bowed. “This is but a warning.”
Then the engine was gone, running down the hill and up the next in a series of precise distance eating steps that Cadell knew he had no hope of matching.
Still, Cadell made to follow (what other choice did he have?) but, at that moment, the door behind him opened with a ping. He turned towards it.
A nervous Gaffney waited at the doorway.
“You may not believe it,” Gaffney said. “But I am quite glad to see you. I am to take you to the meeting, sir.”
Cadell paused and turned to see the Engine disappearing over the hill.
Cadell scowled and Gaffney blanched. “I would hurry, sir. This portal is most unstable and heaven knows where here is, but I’ll wager it would take us sometime to reach Chapman.”
“All right,” Cadell said.
He stormed back into the elevator, cringing as he passed through the portal, the doors clanged shut behind him.
Chapter 44
The Gathering Plains remind us more than anywhere of the futility of war. What does it do but build resentment? It deposits rage for the generations ahead, and they pay its price with interest compounded.
GATHERING PLAINS
Out on the Gathering Plains the grass grew tall and the rains were lighter than they had been in Mirrlees for months, and far less frequent. So, with no sodden earth to suck hungrily at their boots or the wheels of their remaining carts, they made good progress. And that was not the only difference. It was cooler here. Cloud cover was minimal in the evenings, releasing the heat and revealing stars and moons in all their glory.
Medicine had almost forgotten what it was like to feel cold, they all had. It didn’t take long to remember. There was little fuel for fires, so people crammed into tents, their body heat making do.
Medicine wondered if it might not lead to a population spike in the Underground. There was certainly a lot of sex at night. Moans and groans and giggles kept him up until late. More’s the pity, none were coming from his
