Margaret used a few drops of the endothermic chemicals from her shells. As an accelerant it worked well, though Cadell’s flesh burned far easier then, giving off a peculiar cool heat. The smoke was thin and oily, and quick to drown in the rain.
David stuck a toe in the ashes, then dumped a bag of salt over them. Surely nothing could have come back from that anyway, but it didn’t hurt to make sure.
“One Old Man dealt with,” he said without much satisfaction. “Only seven more to go.”
“You still think they’re hunting you?”
“Yes, I can feel it in my bones. And when I sleep.” His voice lowered, though there was no one there to hear it but her, “And they're getting closer.”
CHAPTER 12
There is Drift, and then there is Stone, the levitating rock upon which Drift sits.
It is said that Stone was hurled there by a god, and commanded never to fall, and so it has remained, outliving even the god that threw it. Or that Stone was once a god. Or that it is merely a mechanism, a great engine, and a conceit. Or that its mechanism is a god asleep and should it ever wake, our world would be destroyed.
Take your pick.
THE CITY OF DRIFT 1200 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
There was a crystal glass of good Drift rum before her, untouched. Kara didn’t feel like drinking. Actually, she did (and a serious sort of drunk), but here and now it wouldn’t help. In fact, it might serve to dig her deeper into trouble. Mother Graine’s breath, though, smelt as though she had no such concerns.
One is not often summoned to an audience with a Mother of Sky, and this was Kara’s third summoning. She did not enjoy it — in all honesty it terrified her — the Mothers of the Sky were meant to command from a distance, this was too personal. Better to be pounced upon by Mother Graine than to come to her chambers anticipating it. And yet here she was again, in the chamber of Mother Graine, with two guards standing outside, both armed with almost as much weaponry as mad Margaret Penn.
There were things that Kara wanted to ask, but knew she couldn’t. Where were the other Mothers? They’d not been seen for nearly a month, and normally they would have patrolled the city’s outer walls, a stern eye cast to the air. There were rumours of a sickness, something that had passed through the Mothers, and left Mother Graine whole. But Kara could not imagine something that might sicken a creature so powerful as Mother Graine and her kin. Death was something that happened to other people.
“How can you be sure he’ll come?” Mother Graine asked, and it wasn’t the first time. Kara had to struggle not to roll her eyes, despite her fear.
“He’ll come because he’s an honourable man,” Kara Jade said, tapping a finger against another. “And he’ll come because he owes me. He’d be dead but for me and the Dawn.” And that name caught in her throat, as much as she tried for casual, it just caught. “If we hadn’t gotten him, gotten them, out of Chapman, they'd all be rotting there. David isn’t one to forget something like that.”
And, she thought, he’ll come because he’s read the double meaning in my letter. Something so obvious that even David couldn’t miss it.
“You’re saying he’s gullible?”
“I’m saying he’ll come. What happens afterwards… you didn’t see what I saw.” Now, she did pick up that glass, and take a quick gulp, it really was good stuff, it warmed rather than burnt.
“Believe me, I am aware of the kind of… power he holds. David is a new Old Man, there’s potency in that youth that will keep building for many months yet. He is dangerous, but we can contain him.”
Kara put down her glass, half empty. “He tore three of those iron ships out of the sky, and scattered their contents across the ground as if they were nothing but toys.”
Mother Graine leaned towards her. The hair on the back of Kara’s neck stood up; she couldn’t help it, she leant back a little. “Does he frighten you?”
Kara wasn't stupid. What she was really asking was: Does he frighten you as much as I do?
“No… yes… I don’t know. He’s just a boy, well, he was. I don’t know what he woke to, after that great bloody rending of the sky. Maybe he’s a monster now, but I doubt it, he's still a boy.”
Mother Graine sighed. “He is an anomaly, and an aberration, so many wrongs bound in the flesh of one man. And you must remember he was also an addict.”
“He never tried to hide that.”
Mother Grain’s brow furrowed. “Do not confuse candour with truth,” she said, almost gently. “It's an addict’s strategy. They are not to be trusted.”
Kara grimaced. “And what does that make you? Isn’t the sky your addiction?”
Mother Graine shook her head. “It is my comfort, it is the presence eternal or near enough. And it would be all for me, if I could believe in one thing. But I do not.”
“What is it that you believe?”
“We’re all heading towards a doom that only I can stop.” She gestured at the glass. “Now, finish your drink.”
And Kara Jade did. You can only say no to a Mother of the Sky so many times.
CHAPTER 13
Those of the sky and the land had grown increasingly acrimonious. But that didn’t mean that they chose to keep out of each other's affairs. After the fall of so many cities, and with Mayor Stade (who could be said to have given up his city so easily, and against character) in the air to the east, the scope of the drama had narrowed, but the stakes were so much higher.
THE CITY OF HARDACRE 964 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
When David finally made it to his bedroom, he sat down, pulled his knees up to his chest and wept. He didn’t allow himself too much grief though, before going to his hidden stash and driving Carnival into his veins. A few moments later he was all smiles.
He yawned, and hardly had his boots off his feet before he was asleep.
“Oh, it’s you,” David said. “Which means I'm dreaming.”
He recognised where he was at once. The panoptic map room, with a map that even the best of map powders could only hope to imitate. He'd been here in a dream, just before he had destroyed the iron ships; in fact, it was in this room that he had first seen them approaching. When did a dream mirror reality so accurately that it became something else?
“Nice of you to join me,” Cadell said, rolling a cigarette gently between his fingers. “Some habits you just can't quit, even in dreams.”
He gestured to a syringe, red with Carnival, resting on the edge of the map. David swallowed, and shook his head.
“Good,” Cadell said. “If you could extend that to the waking world, I need to be let out. You need me. If I'd realised that Carnival would be so effective in keeping me at bay, I would have chosen the girl.” Outside a Quarg Hound howled; that had been part of the dream as well. David shivered. “Still there, I’m afraid. I don’t know if it’s your subconscious or mine that has put it there, just that we might come and go from this place, but it always remains.”
“I’m sorry that I killed you,” David said, wondering if it was even appropriate to mention something like that to the man whose bones you've just burned.
Cadell slid his cigarette into a pocket. “That wasn’t me. I’m dead. What remained was nothing but an abomination. There is nothing to forgive. If the situation had been reversed, I would have killed you without hesitation. Now, no time for this, concentrate, lad. Focus.”
He gestured to the map. “Me and my brothers constructed this in our minds. Trapped in our hungers and our cage, we had all the time to make it perfect. And now it is yours, too. So use it!”
David looked down at the panoptic ap, and Shale grew ever more detailed. Here forests swayed in the wind, to the south Mirrlees burned, and on the Gathering Plains, seven gnarled men walked — closer to Hardacre than David feared. His eyes flicked north, to the mountains, and Tearwin Meet, the city with its mighty tower and peculiar intelligence. He felt it stare back, and he looked away. He said, “Why do I keep dreaming this place?”