Trent Jamieson - Roil

There is no time left. The drone is set to follow the road, may it find you.

I love you, my dear. Your mother loved you, too. If I could do but one thing, it would be to ensure that you were not alone. If only I could aid you on your way. But that is just a dream. My only comfort is that we never completed our Iron Wings. Imagine those things at the Roil’s command.

Be careful, and swift. They’ll be coming for you. She’ll be wanting you. Trust no one. There is no one left to trust.

Margaret closed the book and wept. What had her mother become? And her father, was he likewise bonded to the Roil?

She thought of her father, of him being all by himself, deserted by his daughter; the Roil alone knowing what had become of his wife.

Poor father. She hated herself for it, but she wished him dead. And her mother, too.

The engine had cooled. She cautiously engaged the ignition and the Melody Amiss rumbled back into life, its engine once again running smoothly. Margaret released her breath.

She had many miles to go and she did not expect to stop before she saw daylight. Slowly, slowly she followed the highway, up and over the mountain range,

Death, welcome as it may have been, was no longer in her heart. Unless it were the death that she might bring. The Roil had taken her city and destroyed her family. She would have vengeance, she must.

To David, their stay in Uhlton had taken on the reality of a dream. Since they had arrived he had bathed, been given fresh clothes and now dinner in a hall crowded with what Mr Buchan had described as his executive staff. To David’s way of thinking they didn’t look at all like executive staff. Many wore guns, several bore lumpy old scars and eye patches. Even Mr Buchan was missing an ear.

Mr Buchan was one of the largest men, David had ever seen, David had been expecting that, but it was one thing to hear about something another to see it. But for all his size he did not seem ill or slovenly, in fact, he moved and spoke with an energy that David found exhausting. He roared and bellowed and punctuated exclamations with a huge roast leg of lamb that he shook in the air as though it were a mere chicken bone.

The hall in which they ate was cavernous and lit by hundreds of candles – so that the high ceiling was dim with dull smoke – and the table along which they all sat ran almost the entire length of it. The table had been piled high with food, most of which had gone into either Cadell’s or Mr Buchan’s stomach, both men truly had prodigious appetites, and David was reminded of his dream at the Lode: Cadell filling his mouth with the frozen corpses of birds.

Mr Whig sat to David’s right, and Cadell was across the table from him as quiet as he had ever seen him. Mr Buchan had been incredibly polite to David, and everyone kept saying how pleased they were to meet him at last and how sorry they were to have heard about his father.

But now, bathed and fed, it was all taking on the qualities of a dream. David struggled to keep his eyes open: a battle he was fast losing.

Unfortunately he suspected that sleep was still a long way off.

‘What is all this?’ he had asked at one stage, never expecting anyone to listen, but Mr Buchan waved for silence.

“David, dear Mr Milde,” he said throatily. “Think of us as the last bastion of the Confluence Party, outside of Hardacre. And certainly the last with any hope of affecting the destruction of the Roil.” He raised his glass. “To the Engine.”

The whole table took up the toast. “To the Engine.”

David glanced over at Cadell. He didn’t look very happy, in fact quite the opposite. Cadell glowered at Buchan, and the big man winked and blew him a kiss.

At last Mr Buchan reached into his elegant vest, patterned like a peacock’s tail, and pulled out a big pocket watch dwarfed by his massive hands so that it looked like some miniaturists’ fancy.

“Gentlemen, it is late and there is still much to do. Not to mention our exodus in two days. I bid you all good night.” His eyes flicked to Cadell. “Dare you brave my parlour, Mr Fly.”

Cadell’s expression was unreadable. “If we must,” he said quietly.

Mr Buchan nodded it was so and rose from the table like some huge beast breaking the surface of a primordial lake. In one movement, he pulled the napkin from around his throat – a napkin that for all his eating and food punctuating was spotless – folded it neatly and slipped it back into a silver napkin ring.

At that signal the hall quickly emptied. Half a dozen people nodding at David and wishing him the best and how pleased they were to finally meet such an upstanding young gentleman.

Then all but David, Cadell, Mr Buchan and Mr Whig remained.

“Gentlemen,” Buchan said, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically. “If you would follow me.”

On the rare occasions David needed to use the words “richly appointed”, he was merely trying to describe something like this. Mr Buchan’s parlour was the most “richly appointed” room David had ever seen.

Big comfortable chairs covered in plump cushions, lush wall hangings with scenes from history – famous battles and orators speaking – and, above it all, painted in glittering gold and stretching across the ceiling was a Vermatisaur, its many, many eyes rubies, its scales highlighted by diamonds.

Mr Buchan decanted a bottle of sherry and poured everyone a drink.

Mr Whig shut the door behind them and leant on a chair that faced a fireplace so clean that David suspected it had not been used in years.

There was a wooden writing desk and a broad backed wooden chair at the other end of the parlour. A tall ream of paper sat neatly on the edge of the desk, a blue glass paperweight a globe depicting Shale, the single continent prominent, rested upon it. David stared at the manuscript with interest and Mr Buchan caught his gaze.

“My Magnum Opus,” he said. “A history of the Confluents, partly apocryphal, particularly the material regarding Oscar the Fishmonger, which is appropriate for such a party such as ours don’t you think? I intend writing the last chapter once all this is done. Once I know how this turns out.”

Mr Buchan waved his glass of sherry in the direction of the desk, whilst his gaze settled upon Cadell.

“Many was the time I sat at that desk in Chapman’s Tower facing an even harder task than history. Writing letter after letter, each more hopeless than the last, and you never came. I begged you, implored and cajoled, and I do not do those things, and still you did not come and now. And now. Here you are. A little late by my reckoning, wouldn’t you agree, John?”

Cadell’s face wrinkled. “Well, I am here now.”

Buchan clenched his free hand into a fist and shook it in Cadell’s face. “How dare you? How dare you? I lost good men and women to this fight of ours. I have watched my party fail. But for mere chance leavened with paranoia, both Whig and I would have died in Stade’s attack. But we survived and with us hope, though even that has soured this last year. Our heroism, Medicine’s heroism, Warwick’s life, all of it has come to naught. I have seen my world come undone and I have not ignored it. But there is nothing that I can do.”

“And what do you think I can?”

“Do you know we even sent an expedition North, flew directly there.”

“You did what!” Cadell said. “An expedition to Tearwin Meet. That is folly. Absolute folly.”

“Desperation is a potent engine,” Mr Buchan said significantly. “It was an expedition equipped with the latest technologies, and some of the brightest people my city has ever produced, intellectuals of the calibre of the Penns. Not one of them returned, they crossed the wall and then we lost contact. Things are bad, Cadell.”