Trent Jamieson - Roil

The driver nodded at the door to the carriage. “Get in,” he said quietly.

David and Cadell clambered inside. The cabin was musty, though the seats were clean. David could not understand what had just gone on, he looked to Cadell for explanation and Cadell stared back at him stonily. “Our greeting here may be less than civil, but then it is my fault.” His voice softened as though to reduce the blow of the words that followed. “People have invested rather a lot in me, and I have yet to deliver.”

David could understand that bitterness. He possessed a fair share of it towards Cadell, himself. However, perhaps he shouldn’t have nodded so readily in agreement.

Cadell glared at him, but it lacked even the pretence of self-righteousness. “David, there are some things over which I have little control. Certain liberties wrested from me in ages past. Makes me grumpy. Makes me dangerous. I am not one whom most people would be comfortable knowing, and I don’t blame them. I gather hatred like a coat gathers dust.”

The carriage bounced into the town, David always watching with an addict’s hunger, seeking out places he might score Carnival. The pub, a back street. He cast his gaze about the people at work, dismantling the town in most cases it seemed, looking for the tell-tale signatures of Carnival addicts. The slightly jerky walk, the dull smile.

In catching its suggestion (here, a man wandering aimlessly down Main Street. There a fellow pausing languidly between swings of an axe) he felt at once excited and disgusted with himself. He knew that Cadell had been deliberately lowering the amount given. A week or two at that rate, and he might not need any of the drug at all. The thought terrified him.

The carriage stopped at the front door of what David took to be the town hall. He’d seen his fair share, dragged to this outlying township or that with his father.

Cadell got out, doffed his hat at the driver and walked over to the door. David followed.

Cadell raised a fist to knock but before he struck wood, the door swung open. Framed in the doorway was a man seven feet tall at least. He reached down and shook Cadell’s hand, enclosing it completely in his grip as he did so.

“Cadell!” He cried. “It is so good to see you. It has been far too long.”

Cadell nodded. “Far too long indeed,” he said absently. “Is he in?”

“We were wondering if you might come a calling after what happened with the Dolorous Grey. Trouble does follow you, sir.” He turned to David and shook his hand warmly. “And you must be Mr Penn, it’s an honour, sir. I’ve heard so much about you, your father was so proud. Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I am Mr Eregin Whig.”

“ The Mr Whig?”

Mr Whig blushed, a truly remarkable glow because his face was so pale. “If by that you mean, once deputy Mayor of Chapman, yes. Now I am just an exile.”

Cadell coughed. “Enough of this, how about we get out of the rain.”

Mr Whig nodded and let David in. “You’re quite lucky to have caught us. We are leaving Uhlton, to areas even more remote. The day after tomorrow we’re heading to Hardacre. The call has been put out, and we are going. Yes, Mr Buchan will be most anxious to see you.”

David wasn’t surprised to hear that name. It was only logical that the exiled Mayor of Chapman would have been here too.

Cadell seemed almost nervous, he rubbed his fingers together before bringing them up to his face as though he was trying to hide behind their span.

“No doubt he is,” Cadell said and followed, looking more anxious than David had ever seen him.

What did an Old Man have to fear?

The light came on a couple of hours after she had reached the other side of the gorge and started the ascent into the low dark mountains, a red light in the centre of the console, and fear touched her for the first time since the bridge. Fear and an awful resignation. The journey had taken its toll on the carriage, the Melody Amiss was running too hot. These vehicles were not meant to be driven over such a long distance. Its engines, designed both to drive the carriage and cool it, were susceptible to overheating.

If she did not shut the carriage down soon and for a decent interval of time, the heat from the engines could set the coolants aflame, turning the carriage from vehicle to bomb.

She double-checked her vehicle’s readings and realized that the Melody’s starter motor was running on a very low charge. If she stopped now she might never start again.

Margaret slowed the carriage down, hoping that would prove enough, but the light stayed red and the Melody’s engine lost its smooth rhythm, bonnets juddered within their casings.

Beyond these low mountains was a long plain at the end of which should be Chapman. She had maybe a hundred miles to go. A few hours driving, if the carriage could make it. There was no chance of that happening if the engine overheated. Margaret could no more imagine walking that distance than she could hitching a ride with an Endym. If the Melody failed she would die out here in the dark.

She brought the car to a halt, and carefully ran the engine down.

The light stayed on. Margaret switched off the cooling units and charged up her suit, just in case.

Something flew overhead, and Margaret trained her guns on it. An Endym, it saw the carriage and circled above her three times, before turning back the way it had come.

That message played through her mind again.

They’ll be coming for you. She’ll be wanting you. Trust no one.

Staying here was a bad idea, but she had no other choice. Margaret could hardly get out and walk to Chapman.

She considered trying to sleep, but her mind kept returning to that pale face, the fingers scratching against the glass. And her body ached.

Margaret was beginning to develop sores from the constant pressure of the suit against her flesh. These things were not designed for more than a few hours use. No one expected someone to survive that long within the Roil.

She’d kept the charge fed from the Melody and kept her body cold. She’d thought herself impervious to the chill and found she was anything but.

A few more days and the wounds would grow gangrenous. She would sicken and die. Killed by the thing designed to save her.

She couldn’t think on it. Nor could she bring herself to look at the sores.

So she picked up her father’s journal and opened it. His familiar, almost too neat, handwriting comforted and stung her at the same time. Here was her father, frozen in the past, describing thoughts and moments drifting further away from her with every heartbeat.

It was all history now. No living city, just dead words, but it was all she had.

The bulk of the notebook was filled with his usual musings. Statistical data concerning the city, and heat to ice ratios, but towards the back, starting a few days before they had driven off to test the I-Bomb, it took on more of the form of a diary.