Night's engines nl-2 Page 5

  Margaret moved towards the sound, David behind her. She held the rime blade in one hand. In these close quarters what was literally cold steel seemed the simplest weapon available to her, and the one least likely to lead to manslaughter should the noise prove no threat. Besides, the thought of wasting endothermic shells sickened her. She never knew when her supply would run out, a bullet fired here was one that she could not fire in the Deep North, if they ever made it that far.

  David touched her arm, she jerked her head towards him, so savagely that he took a quick step back, and she realised that she had frightened him. Was it wrong that she took so much pleasure in his fear? “I said, get down.”

  David nodded: an irritating smile grew on his face. “Because, yes, I really need you to protect me. We’re being followed,” he said. “Have been since we passed the market square.” She wanted the scared David back.

  “And you didn’t tell me until now?” Margaret glanced casually down the street, her flinty eyes narrowed. “Cadell?”

  “No, I don’t think so. And I could be wrong but-”

  Margaret was already stalking back the way they had come.

  A woman in her eighties, Margaret guessed, stumbled out from her hiding place; she almost looked as though she were going to crash to the ground. Margaret lowered her blade, but she did not sheathe it. The woman straightened and there was slyness in the movement, her lips turned slightly upwards at Margaret’s approach. There was something wrong with her eyes, they were unfocussed. She seemed to look at Margaret and not look at her. Margaret hesitated, then lifted the rime blade higher.

  “Why are you following us?” Margaret hissed.

  “I’m not sure. The question…” The woman's voice fell away, and she looked at her hands as though the answer might lie there. Then she pulled her shawl tighter about her shoulders. Margaret felt a stab of sympathy, but she ignored it.

  “You know what I mean, you’ve been following us since we passed through the square.”

  Margaret towered over the woman, fighting the snarl that she could feel forming on her lips. Snarls came more often these days. She tried to smile. “There’s nothing to be frightened of,” Margaret said. “We do not kill old women.”

  “Just Old Men,” David said from behind her, and Margaret did her best to ignore him, and the ever-increasing smugness in his tone. Where did that come from? Why did it choose to reveal itself now?

  The woman didn’t look frightened, just confused. She straightened her clothes, took a deep breath, her gaze cleared and she looked at Margaret with eyes wide and suddenly knowing.

  And Margaret realised that the woman wasn’t confused at all. She’d known exactly what she was doing.

  “Not following him. Just you.” The woman grabbed her arm with fingers that seemed to burn with their own heat, and smiled. Darkness swarmed over her lips. Her eyes rolled in her head. “We’re coming for you, my darling,” she said.

  Margaret yanked her arm free, eyes wide, that voice — it was her mother’s voice. “Hurry up, then,” Margaret said, and thrust the rime blade through the Roiling’s chest. Her thumb flicked the activation plate, and the Roiling jolted and screamed, or tried to. What came out was dark and fluttering, already dying: Witmoths. Ice streaked her clothes, where the blade touched her; Margaret could feel the old woman’s spine grinding against the steel. Margaret grabbed a pistol from her belt and shot the Roiling in the head. The Roiling hit the ground with a wooden thump. She fired again at its chest.

  “I think it’s dead,” David said, touching her elbow.

  “She… It shouldn’t be here in the first place.” Margaret yanked her elbow free. “I said, don’t touch me.”

  “Do you have to kill everything you meet?” David said.

  Margaret yanked her blade free. Tapped it against the cobblestones, ice dark with blood and Roil spores dropped to the ground.

  “Now we’ll never know how it made its way here. Or if it left a trail of infected.”

  “They always leave a trail,” Margaret said.

  “Yes, I suppose they do. And it always seems to lead to us. Perhaps all we need do is wait.” David crouched down, he looked more curious than scared, and picked up a Witmoth. It crumbled beneath his fingers, he grimaced and wiped them clean on his pants. “The moths have become more robust,” he said. “They shouldn’t be able to hold any form here.”

  “What, they’re resistant to the cold?”

  David touched her arm (again!) with his frigid fingers. “Oh, this is hardly cold, but their presence here is disturbing.” He peered at Margaret. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Margaret hardly heard him. The Roiling's last few words had been spoken in her mother’s voice. Its face had shifted subtly, too.

  “Normally you would have knocked my hand away by now.”

  Margaret did just that. “Yes, I’m fine. What should we do with the body? We can’t leave it here.”

  “You’re right,” David said. “This street may be deserted now, but people must use it sometimes.”

  “I’ll grab the legs,” Margaret said.

  David shook his head. “No need. Please, if you would make me some room.”

  He touched the old woman’s face and closed his eyes. The air chilled, ice crackled over the woman’s cheeks, it rose crystalline and red from her lips. The corpse stiffened and crackled. David, sweating and breathing hard, took a step back. “Have to do this quick.”

  He kicked the body with his boot. The corpse shattered as though it were made of glass.

  “That was harder than I thought it would be.” He panted, and stamped down hard on the shards. “But you were right, we couldn’t have left the body here. Someone finds that, gets a moth inside them, and, well, you know what happens.”

  Margaret still couldn’t quite believe what she had seen. There was blood where the corpse had been, not blood exactly, but a sort of black and red slurry.

  “How did you do that?” she said. “Cadell couldn’t do that.”

  David shrugged. “Maybe he could, or maybe he wasn’t far enough north. We’re much closer to Tearwin Meet, and its power is in part mine.”

  She looked down at the mess. “But that… that is madness.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing really.” David took a step forward, tripped, or stumbled, or just dropped. He grabbed at her arm, slipped and almost fell on his face. Margaret pulled him up. He was shivering, and his face had grown almost as white as hers.

  “David?”

  “I’m f-f-fine.”

  “Perhaps we should get you home.”

  “You’re too kind,” he said. “Far, far too kind. It's the Lodes, well, the absence of them. I was near a Lode the last time I used my powers: it did the hard work.”

  Something moved in the street ahead, a shadow darting towards them; David pulled himself from Margaret’s grip, and took a few steps forward. She moved to get in front of him, and found herself pushed backwards.

  “Not this time,” he said. “You can’t protect me every time.”

  Margaret opened her mouth, and he shook his head. She had a rifle in hand already.

  “If things go badly,” David whispered, “run. Actually, I'd start running now. The endothermic shells won't do more than make him angry.” He puffed up his chest, stared down the street, and Margaret could see that he’d almost forgotten she was there.

  “All right then!” David shouted. “I'm right here!”

  He took a step forwards.

  Bins tumbled, hard nails scratched against stone walls, heavy boots crashed into the distance. Margaret fired towards the sound.

  David grinned. “That scared him.” Then he almost dropped again. He turned to Margaret, almost pathetically. “Hurry. Take me back to the pub, before Cadell decides that maybe now is just the time to end this and turns around. Keep your blade ready.”

  “For Cadell?”

  “Ha, no, not a chance, he’d scratch strips from us, then eat them as we died.” He patted h
er arm. “Just in case there’s more Roilings about.”

  There hadn’t been any more Roilings about, but plenty of constables and prostitutes, and enough of the latter had whistled at her salaciously on their way into the market square, by which time David was leaning on her heavily. Almost back at the pub, close enough that they could smell the beer, and whatever meat was being served up as meal of the day, David straightened.

  “Feeling better,” he said. “Have to remember not to do that again. I really should have just done the head. Yes, the head would have been enough.”

  Margaret still wasn’t sure exactly what it was that he had done in the first place. “Still would have left a body.”

  “Yes, of course. You're right. I won't be so thoughtless next time.”

  He smacked his lips. “Now, I’m hungry.” He looked at Margaret with eyes all too predatory for his face. “We’ll catch him tomorrow, Margaret. I promise. Go polish your weapons or whatever it is that you do.” She nearly punched that hungry face for being so dismissive, so damn patronising. She was a Penn! Of course, that was precisely what she had in mind.

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to eat, and once I'm done I am going to eat some more,” he said. “You’re free to join me.”

  Margaret declined.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Aerokin are mystery given flight. These great beasts of the sky, bound to their pilots by something deeper than blood or love. Lifespan, sex, intelligence — all is speculation. They are known to change names, size, shape, even pilots over the course of a life that must span decades, if not centuries.

  We know nothing of their ancestry. Were they terrestrial in origin, or like the Cuttlemen, from a different world altogether? Certainly they never revolted, though they served only one people, working for others only through the agency of Drifters and their rulers the Mothers of the Sky. History has brought up only two pilots not of Drift blood. Toni Obrey and Max Magrit: the Thieves of the Air. You will find no public record of their existence, but they are still equal parts admired and cursed in Drift today.

  Queens and Kings of the Air, Colson and Creel

  THE CITY OF DRIFT 800 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL — ALTITUDE 20,000 FEET

  There were a dozen Aerokin in the Hall of Winds, but only one of them had her attention — the rest may as well have not existed.

  “Finally!”

  Kara Jade touched the curved head of the Roslyn Dawn, just a few feet from the Aerokin’s light sensors, where the flesh was soft and warm. The contact sent a soft prickle through her fingers, and soothed her. The Dawn was being washed; Kara could feel the Dawn 's purrs running through her body and up her pilot’s arms. The Aerokin slid a flagellum over her shoulder, a movement surprisingly gentle for such a huge creature. The Dawn could crush her pilot with a single flick, though she never would. Kara and the Aerokin had grown up together, which is why the last week had been interminable.

  “I’ve missed you,” Kara said, and the Dawn patted her gently. “Am I being punished?” Kara asked and the Aerokin rumbled warmly, which, of course she would, she loved being cleaned, and not the frigid drenching of the northern storms, but a great warm spray. Soap, hot water and oils were being rubbed into her flesh. The Dawn 's wounds had all but healed. She looked better than she had in a long time. Even before they had flown down to Chapman and met the boy, the girl and the Old Man.

  She purred again.

  Traitor, Kara Jade thought.

  Though it wasn't the Dawn being called a traitor on the streets. It wasn't the Dawn being whispered about in the food halls or on the streets. That was wholly reserved for her pilot. Kara ate in her room now, away from the gaze of accusatory eyes.

  Kara's responsibilities towards the Dawn had been taken away from her, everything, even cleaning. She was a pilot without her Aerokin, and felt limbless, anchorless. Which, she knew, was how they wanted her to feel. She refused to play their game. The Mothers of the Sky, one and all, could just tumble from the sky as far as she was concerned.

  “You’ll get soft if you keep this up,” she said, sounding as casual as she could despite the lump in her throat. “We're meant to be in the sky, you and me. Not here!”

  The Dawn batted at her with her flagellum, nearly knocked her off her feet. I suppose I deserved that, she thought.

  Kara was surprised that they had even let her walk into the Hall of Winds. But where else could she go? She had a small room in the pilots’ barracks, but it was little larger than the bed that it contained, and the single shelf for her book: a Shadow Council novel that David Milde had given her. She thought of him in Hardacre, and hoped he was safe. The last thing she had heard was that he was awake, when she’d left he’d been days in bed, hardly stirring, and she’d expected him to die.

  “I did what they told me. Didn’t I?” she whispered in the Dawn 's ear, a hole no larger than her hand, usually closed over with a thin membrane. The Dawn was really all ears. The Aerokin could listen with her bones and limbs just as effectively, but there was something much more intimate in talking to her this way.

  “You should have done more than just what we told you,” a voice said from behind her.

  Startled, Kara Jade turned to see Mother Graine. The Mothers of the Sky had kept to themselves of late, hidden away, planning. She’d never expected to see one down here.

  “We expect all our agents and pilots, to not merely follow our commands, but to anticipate them as well. Difficult at times, yes. But is piloting ever an easy occupation? The clouds are fickle, the sky an endless challenge. Storms come and must be engaged.”

  Kara wondered how long the Mother had been standing there, and just how much she had heard. From the look on her face, a lot. At least Kara hadn’t given voice to her thoughts concerning the Mothers of the Sky, even as their imagined tumble grew more vivid. She couldn’t hide a smile. “I knew that they wouldn’t let me in here without a reason.”

  Mother Graine’s expression shifted, Kara couldn’t quite tell what it meant. The Mothers of the Sky were unreadable at the best of times, beyond a certain sort of stern abstraction that could be rage or disappointment, or simply not caring at all. That she had managed to detect some sort of emotional response wasn’t a good thing.

  The Mothers of the Sky were not people to displease; they were more than capable of taking the sky away, and that, for a pilot, was far worse than death. Kara knew that better than most, after all, she had been raised by one who had had her Aerokin torn from her. They hardly spoke now. Hadn’t since Kara had been given the Dawn. Kara could have found Raven out; Drift was a small city, but Raven could have found her, too. That her older sister hadn’t bothered suggested an equal antipathy.

  “You should have brought the Orbis Ingenium to us,” Mother Graine said.

  “So I am being punished?”

  Mother Graine shook her head. “Consider yourself in a process of reeducation.” She rested a hand on Kara’s shoulder, a gentle — and what was probably meant to be reassuring — gesture. Kara only found it patronising, but she did not wrench her shoulder away — she wasn’t that stupid, not even when she was that angry. “I want you to come with me.”

  Kara did just that, throwing one last look back at the Roslyn Dawn, just in case it really was her last look, and she was being taken to the Leaping Ledge to be hurled bodily off it and into the hungry sky.

  They walked from the Hall of Winds, past the great tower over the tunnelled rock known as the Caress, and through the main part of the city. Kara was silent all the way, Mother Graine was too, except to call out to the occasional passerby, most of whom who would stop to smile, then look suspiciously, or even worse, judgementally at Kara Jade.

  Why? She should be a hero. She and the Dawn had flown into the Roil, and survived the fall of Chapman. She’d not only escaped, but she'd escaped with John Cadell, Margaret Penn and David Milde. They’d fought iron ships, and survived; and while that may have had as much to do with Cadell
(who hadn’t), and the power of the Orbis (she was still confused by what she saw David do in the river by the frozen hill, no one should be able to just slap a ship out of the sky), Kara knew that none of it could have happened without her and the Dawn.

  She knew her Aerokin, she knew how to pilot her, and if she hadn’t, they would all have died. After all, it was her piloting skills that had allowed Cadell to destroy the first iron ship and without her, David would have died, naked and frozen in a river of ice.

  Mother Graine led her down stairs of iron and stone, down into the belly of Drift, down through caverns and along narrow tunnels. At last they reached a cavern that opened onto the blue sky; icy winds crashed through the space, loud enough that there could be no argument with the naming of this place. It was called the Howl with good reason.

  Here the great filters of the Aerokin were scraped clean, hosed down and washed. Mother Graine led her towards a section of the cavern from which hung thin slivers of fabric. All of them were dark, stained with a black inkiness.

  “Here,” Mother Graine said, grabbing one of the darkest strips of material; the cloth was black against her cracked brown fingers. “This is why I brought you here. What you see there is the death of our city.”

  “Filters always darken,” Kara said, though she was horrified at the extent of what she saw. “I am so sorry, if these are the Dawn 's. I did not-”

  “You don’t understand. These are inner filters. The inner filters not of the Roslyn Dawn, but of the Meredith Reneged.”

  “But the Meredith and Cam Shine patrol the north, if she flies within three hundred miles of Mirrlees, let alone Chapman, then she has been blown off course.”

  “Exactly,” Mother Graine said. “The Roil spores are everywhere. Your Dawn was much worse than this, but we managed her cleaning. She is hale and whole, and uninfected. That Aerokin is as fine as any I have ever known. The Meredith, while of good stock, is not nearly as robust. This is killing our ships. She was choking when she came back here. Dying.

  “And it wasn’t the only thing we found. I’ve… we’ve dealt with that, but you need to understand, Maiden Jade, night comes with a speed none of us could have anticipated. So fast I can barely contain the horror of it. It is winter now, though a winter of such extreme mildness that is in itself alarming, but come the summer, the Roil will spread. More of our Aerokin will weaken and sicken, their lungs clogged with Roil spores, and who knows what changes that might effect, who knows what our Aerokin may become. There may never be another winter, Maiden Jade. And you left the Orbis on the finger of a Carnival addict.”