Trent Jamieson - Night's engines

Mother Graine led them down long cold hallways, lit by lights that sputtered and smoked, past shut doors behind which echoed the throbs of what David suspected must be engines. Once she demanded that they stop, her head tilted towards the ceiling, and above them boomed out what could only be titanic footfalls; the ground shook, the walls around them seemed to flex and contract. David covered his face with his hands, and whatever it was passed above and beyond them. Two hallways and three flights of stairs later, she hissed for silence and a bright light, buzzing softly, passed by. Mother Graine explained neither, only made sure they continued to descend. Several other times she stopped as though she was lost, but the pauses were brief.

Finally, at the end of a short hallway they reached a heavy iron door. Mother Graine nodded. In there. David reached out, touched it and He blinked, on his backside. Margaret and Kara were shouting at Mother Graine, all he could hear was the heavy thudding of his heart.

“I’m all right,” he said.

Every eye turned to him. He shook his head. “I’m all right.”

“I should have warned you,” Mother Graine said. “The door’s charged.”

“Yes, you should.” David tried to stand, fell back. “How much of a charge?”

“Enough to kill most people.”

“Wouldn’t that have been convenient?”

“Honestly, yes.” She smiled. “Quite frankly, I still can’t believe that you touched it and survived.” She gestured at the panel beside it. “It will only open to my touch, I am afraid.”

“Do what you have to,” Kara said.

The door opened to a room chilled to almost freezing. The room felt at once vast and small, it extended beyond sight in all directions from the wall, and there was something wrong about all that space. David could feel forces at work that warped reality.

Within a dozen yards of them was a cage made of cast iron. Inside, barely moving, seven women stood, their clothes torn and bloody. Despite the cold, David could sense it. Just as he had sensed it in Hardacre, only here it was stronger, almost choking in its potency.

A taste at once familiar and wrong. Here? he thought.

Kara let out a cry. “What have you done, old woman?” She spat, “What have you done?”

She moved towards the cage. David's hand swung out, and he caught her by the wrist. Kara tried to yank her hand free, and he could feel the strength of her: the rough consequence of years of working the ropes, suspended above the air, of climbing and scrubbing, of being everything that a pilot must be; but now, right now — earned or not — he was stronger.

David said, “Stop, look at their mouths.”

Darkness gathered and fluttered there, moving slowly, circling the heat of their breaths.

“Witmoths,” Mother Graine said. “Kara, I did nothing. The moths arrived with some of the Aerokin from Hardacre. It’s a tougher breed, capable of resisting the cold, but not this cold. I had to bring them here, lost two more sisters to it on that screaming mad descent into stone. Men and women died to bring them to these depths. Cadell, we never had the resistance to them that you do. Our blood burns hot like Cuttlefolk, not cold.” She touched David’s wrist. “I am the only one left.”

“And you cage them,” David said. “How dare you cage them? Death is the only honour left to them.”

Mother Graine straightened, her eyes hardened, and her lips thinned. “You know nothing of cages,” Mother Graine said. “Not yet, and when you do, you will rethink the horror of this.”

“I know enough to-”

One of the mothers opened its eyes and stared at Margaret. “There you are,” it breathed. “There you are.” It spun its head towards David, joints cracking in its neck, and hissed. “Saaaa! And there you are, too. We’re coming for you.”

“Of course you are,” David said.

The Roiling blinked. Witmoths crawled from its eyes, fluttered towards David. He lifted a hand, killed them with a touch, though it had him sweating, a briny cold prickle of sweat. The room weakened him, separated him from the great Engine in the north. Every second that passed accentuated that.

“I'm not meant to be here.” He turned to Mother Graine and the others. “We have to go, now.”

They fled that great hall then. The door shutting behind them, and with it closed, David felt his strength return.

“So now you know,” Mother Graine said quietly.

Kara grabbed Mother Graine by her collar and yanked her close. “You kept this hidden. You’ve left them like that.”

“What else was I supposed to do, child?”

“I’m no more your child than any of us. You did not trust your people to this, how can we trust you?”

Mother Graine sighed. “And tell my people what? That they are doomed? That there is no hope? There’s honesty and then there is madness.”

Kara’s face did not soften. She looked like she was going to be sick. She pushed the Mother of the Sky away. “Get us to the Dawn. We have to leave this madhouse. I can’t take another moment of it.”

“Those who have helped you will be punished.”

“You threaten me? Even now you threaten me? None of us do this lightly,” Kara said. “We know what we stand to lose.”

“Kara, my Kara, I don't believe you know what you are giving up. These two, they’ve lost everything already, but you-”

“Shut your mouth,” Kara snapped. “Shut your mouth now. I’ve lost it all, my city is rotten at its heart. Now take me to my Dawn.”

“When she dies, you will curse your friends’ names for making it happen. You will go mad, worse than anything that the Witmoths could produce, a madness of grief and blood — that’s all these two can-” Mother Graine gasped. Margaret removed her elbow from her stomach.

“That’s enough now,” Kara said, quietly. “Take me to my Dawn.”

Mother Graine nodded, her eyes hard. “This way,” she said, opening another door.

They followed her through.

The door shut behind them. Darkness. There was a soft sound, like wind given bones and whispering papery flesh. Kara’s torch clicked on.

The beam of the flashlight cut through the dark, revealing cockroaches in their thousands. David flinched.

“Why do secret passages always seem to be crowded with cockroaches?” David asked. “I don’t even know how they managed to get here.”

“That's what these things are?” Margaret said, boots crunching down on those creatures not quite quick enough to get out of the way. “I was wondering, but wasn't quite sure. It had always been too cold for cockroaches in Tate. The cockroach and the flea died out when the Roil came.”

“They're a lot of fun, until one flies in your face,” David said.

“They fly?” Margaret asked.

“Toughen up, you two. We go forward, we get to the Dawn and we get out of here.”

David could feel them moving all around. Even as he watched, one flew into Kara’s hair. She clawed the insect free and flung it to the ground.

Mother Graine sighed. “Not far to go,” she said.

David couldn't disagree more.

THE CITY OF HARDACRE 955 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL

Without David and Margaret, the Habitual Fool felt empty, for all that it was full of newcomers. Those two had dominated the place, without ever realising it, perhaps wanting to do precisely the opposite. Three days since they had chosen to, escape… no, not escape, it wasn’t as if they’d been held prisoner. Whatever it was, they’d already caused ripples. Buchan and Whig had heard from spies of their flight from Drift.