Trent Jamieson - Roil

“We need your help.” There was an edge to Stade’s voice that Medicine had never heard before. Medicine’s ears pricked up. “You’re a popular man, Mr Paul. A leader, and we need to start moving the populace north.”

“So you’ve given up on subterfuge, then? And murder?”

Councillor Stade cleared his throat. “We have given up on nothing. I am far too practical to discard any useful tool. Medicine, these are desperate times and I can brook no dissent. You I can deal with. Our opponent, the one true enemy of our time will not parley, and believe me, I have tried. I will do what is necessary to save this world, to give humanity a future.”

“One built on lies, built on coercive government and all its sweetened cruelties. What kind of future is that?” Medicine demanded.

“Damn you,” Stade shouted, closing in on Medicine, a finger stabbing at the air directly in front of Medicine’s face. “There is no room for ideologies any more. This is about survival.” He dropped his hand, taking Medicine’s fingers from his sight, as though suddenly realising the childishness of his display. “Does it matter what the future holds as long as there is one? You have a choice, Mr Paul. And it is simple. You can die, here and in this room. Or you can live, and help this city live too.”

Medicine took a deep breath. Pivotal transitions come swiftly, and truths tumble and crash, and make themselves anew. How cruel it was that desperate times seemed not to expand character, but diminish it. Narrowing choices: death or dishonour. Why was that so? He realised that this time at least it was not. Other choices might open up before him, if he was ready for them. He need only be patient. He was a politician after all.

Stade leered down at Medicine, and that alone nearly drove him to reject his offer then and there.

Gloat all you want, Medicine thought. Your time will come.

“Shall we get those handcuffs off then?” The councillor said.

Perhaps Stade was right. There was no room for ideologies any more, the Roil had changed everything, and it would change this too, if Medicine let it. What am I to do? He wondered and realised there was no clear answer, for all that his choices were simple and few. He could find no pleasure in either of them. Pragmatism can be a virtue and a curse.

“Yes,” Medicine said, at last, and even then he was not sure until the words had left his mouth. “I accept your offer.”

He did not want to die just yet, that was too easy, and too final.

Stade’s grin became huge and smug and he nodded to the Verger to unlock the handcuffs.

Medicine rubbed his wrists, straightened his blood-spattered cravat. “What needs to be done? How can I help this city?”

“Not the city,” Stade said. “But humanity. Those bastards in Hardacre may have no wish to be involved, but they are. When they declared themselves a free state, they declared themselves enemies of this one. Stuck between the Roil and a free state. There will be no help from them.”

Well it was your decision that barred the refugees of the Grand Defeat from entering this city. It was your rule that swelled Hardacre’s population, Medicine thought, but kept quiet.

Stade plucked a cigar out of a box and chucked it at the Confluent, who deftly caught it in one ruined hand.

“Your first job for me,” Stade said, and the words stung Medicine more than he thought possible, he worked for the Mayor now, and nothing he could say or do that would take the sting out of that truth, “will be to take new workers up to the Underground, my grand project. There is a train line, but we have lost both our Engines. The Grendel and the Yawn.”

“How does one lose a train, particularly when they are so big?” Medicine asked.

“They didn’t reach the Underground, nor did they return here. Something happened to them, either in the Margin or on the Gathering Plain. The Gathering Plain remains Cuttlefolk territory, negotiations are a trifle difficult these days. Since the Grand Defeat we’ve little clout to back up our threats. Vergers are effective at keeping a city under control, but a standing army was the only way of dealing with the Cuttlefolk.”

Stade went over to the map, and let his fingers trace a line between Mirrlees and the Narung Mountains. A lot of land, his path took in the Regress Swamp, just north of the city, then the forest of the Margin, beyond which stretched the Gathering Plains.

“We’ve even sent an Aerokin out there. Drift pilot, one of the best. He didn’t return. It’s a mystery worthy of the Shadow Council don’t you think? Should we send young Travis the Grave to look into it?” Stade laughed at his own joke.

“The North sounds real safe,” Medicine said.

“For a small group it isn’t. But you will be, safety in numbers, plus enough guards to keep you out of trouble. Medicine, the last thing we can afford is a war on two fronts. The Cuttlefolk have been quiet for years. We’d thought them a spent force, yet even with their increased activity even if they have destroyed the trains your numbers will be such that they will be little threat to you.”

“Fifty years ago the Roil was just a legend to all but those privileged few that had had dealings with the Old Men. We live in an age of wonders and expectations overturned wouldn’t you say?” Medicine said, lighting up one of Stade’s cigars. “What am I going into up there?”

“That I can’t tell you. Not because I don’t trust you, Medicine, we just don’t know.”

The Melody’s brakes barely saved her.

The Perl Bridge was a long series of arches and braces and counter braces, the surface smooth and favourable to speed. So she didn’t see the gaping hole in the middle of the road until she was almost upon it.

She engaged every braking mechanism at once, swung back the gears and still the Melody almost toppled over the edge, stopping at the lip of the fall. Margaret sat behind the wheel panting. She had to get out and check the stability of the road. Her back ached as she got out of the vehicle and walked to the ragged edges of the hole.

Down she stared, rime blades clutched in either hand. Far below beasts flew around the metal limbs of the bridge, Endyms by the look of them and Floataotons in spiralling drifts thousands strong. Huge supports hundreds of yards long plunged into the bottom of the chasm and built around these, on road level, beneath bands of cable – a single strand of which was thicker than Margaret’s arm – were shops and living quarters.

She’d thought that none lived there until she caught sight of furtive movement at the windows, dark figures peering out or ducking down and hiding.

She gave them little notice; it did not pay to. Spend too long worrying about every ghostly apparition or possible threat and she would go mad. Instead she made herself focus on the bridge, it looked safe enough, and turning back wasn’t an option anyway. She got back in her vehicle, and drove it gingerly around the collapse, trusting to old ingenuity.

The structure had taken more than three decades to build. Just forty years later the Roil had washed over it, mocking such industry with its implacable shadow.

If the creators of an architectural wonder as imposing as this could fall, what chance did she have?

And what of the builders of the Engines of the World? How had they fallen? All of this, every city, every construction, even the marvellous city of Drift, was nothing compared to their metropolises.