Trent Jamieson - Night's engines

He ordered food, quite a lot of it, had it put on Buchan’s tab, then sat and waited. It was a struggle not to pick at the half-eaten food left behind by another guest. He managed it, but only just, and that by studying the other patrons.

Not the most salubrious of people, but these were hardly the most salubrious of times.

The pub had swollen with visitors, a lot of them scared and travel-worn. Every day brought new people to the Habitual Fool, and new rumours. Cuttlemen had been sighted moving south, an airship of the spying variety had not returned from the east, and a village three hundred miles from here had been massacred, though by what was a matter of some contention. There had been death, so much of it, and not just on the plains. It was easy enough for Cadell’s murders to disappear amongst the fatalities, unless you knew what you were looking for, and David did. Indeed, he had no need to look; he could feel it. More disturbingly, he found himself increasingly empathetic with the murderer.

He was on his third plate of steak — raw as he could get it — and beans when Margaret arrived.

“You’re late,” she said. David thought she looked as tired as he felt.

David shook his head. “I’ve been here twenty minutes.” He gestured at the empty plates, took another swift mouthful of steak.

“Two hours ago I was here looking for you.”

“Yes, well, two hours ago I was asleep.” Two hours ago he’d been sliding a needle under his tongue, while the presence of Cadell tried to stop him.

“Some people should be so lucky,” she spat.

“We both know that sleep comes rare and ill to us. Don’t pretend otherwise. You take it when you can get it, and you hope for the best.” If you're me, you hope that Cadell won’t be sitting with you, he thought, demanding why he was still locked out, why you kept taking Carnival? When the answer was plain and obvious.

Margaret nodded her head. “Well, if you’re rested and fed, perhaps we can go hunting.”

David looked around the room. “Should we tell anyone?”

Neither Buchan nor his companion Whig had entered the dining hall; David knew they wouldn’t be far away.

Margaret smiled. “What, that we're off to stalk a dead man? It’s better that they don’t know.”

“One less worry, I guess.”

Margaret shrugged. “I doubt they'll even notice that we're gone.”

They left the pub, someone taking their seats as soon as they got up from them, despite the teetering pile of plates.

David took a deep breath of cool air.

It had rained in the evening and the streets were still slick with it. The air smelt of woodsmoke and rain, but not the waterlogged and rotten odours of Mirrlees. Apparently it had been a peculiarly wet year, and while there were plenty of people prepared to swear, loud and angrily, that it had nothing to do with the approaching Roil, their protestations rang far too hollowly. The general consensus seemed to be that people did not talk about the weather.

Every single weather pattern on the planet was driven by the Roil now, though David knew that the rains here would be nothing like those in Mirrlees. Hardacre was too far west of the sea, and shielded by two mountain ranges. To the south, though, the rain would be falling, and falling heavily, the hem of its skirts caught on the mountains. And, further south, where it was dry and hot, Quarg Hounds would be massing beneath shrill clouds of Hideous Garment Flutes, and metropolises would be waking from their slumber.

David shook his head. Ah, how he wished for the days when all he knew about the Roil had come from children’s books, pulp adventures, and the drunken ramblings of his father.

“Which way?” Margaret asked. Hands on her hips, suddenly looking her age.

David blinked at her. “I have a sense of something, but not a certainty. The murders occurred in Easton. I suggest we go west, towards New Wall.”

Margaret looked at him peculiarly.

“Trust me,” David said. “He’s not going to kill near his hiding place. Too dangerous.”

“And if anyone catches him on the way back from a kill?”

“Then they’re dead too. Even now, even diminished, Cadell is more than a match for a couple of constables.”

“You and I, though…”

“Think of it as a test,” David said. “If we can’t manage this, then there never really was any chance that we’d survive to Tearwin Meet.”

Margaret had little to say about that, just pulled her long coat about her. David caught a glimpse of rime blade, and rifle; Sheff’s knife was belted at her waist, too. He could understand why she had taken the guns, but the ice blade was good against little but Roilings; sure, she could hack and slash with it, but the thing they hunted would require something more than hacking and slashing with a weapon that turned the air cold.

David took the lead, guiding them down Maddle Street, and onto Devine, where the pubs gave way to shops — bookstores and coffeehouses, haberdasheries and dress shops. The crowds grew around them, jostling, always on the edge of something that wasn’t quite despair or rage. The air was filled with the threat of violence, just waiting for something to set it off. The numbers of beggars had jumped in the past few weeks, many refugees, some just people waiting to take advantage. Margaret’s presence, though, was all it took to keep them away, and the one or two desperate (or stupid) enough to get in her way were pushed to one side.

Devine broadened onto the market square, and here where produce was on display, fruits and vegetables from the gardens to the west, brought down by barge along the Chortle or Winebrook rivers, David could smell meat cooking, and even more enticing: freshly slaughtered animals. He had to close his eyes to their call — even though all that meat and fat had him salivating — and keep on walking. It wasn’t easy, but he managed it. At the far end of the market, where Goodlin Street began, the crowds thinned out, though there were even more beggars, and these seemed darker more desperate — and some of the establishments concerned themselves with other pleasures of the flesh.

If David was alone, he could have found Carnival here. Indeed, he recognised at least three vendors of the drug, though they were keeping a low profile, as several constables were walking their beat. Not that that stopped one of the dealers from tipping his hat to David (who subtly shook his head).

“Look at them,” Margaret said, hardly keeping the sneer from her voice. She jabbed a finger at the nearest pair of constables, big men with clubs, dressed in pale blue overcoats. “Like Vergers without teeth, do they make you feel safe?”

David laughed, relieved that she hadn't caught his headshake, or chosen to ignore it. “Do you think this street would be any louder without them? Not all threats require knives, for some watchfulness is almost enough.”

Something prickled in the back of his neck. He turned and looked back at the square, just in time to catch a sudden movement, by the fruit stand. He looked over at Margaret, to whom a painted lady was gesturing furiously, until Margaret gestured something back.

“We need to keep moving,” David said. “I can feel something.” He pointed away from the markets, no need to alarm Margaret just yet, not when they were in such a crowded part of the city.

They passed through the street quickly, and the buildings closed around them again, grew circumspect. Here the roofs almost touched, leaning in against each other, as though sharing deepest intimacies or salacious gossip. Goodlin Street was so much shorter than Mirrlees' Argent Lane. As they turned into Backel Lane, David began to feel it, and not from whoever or what that pursued them, but a profound, darker awareness.