Trent Jamieson - Roil

“Over that rise and past that ramshackle bunch of buildings is Chapman. About half an hour’s walk. We’re going to need to split up. We can meet in the city.” Cadell named a place. “Wait for me there.”

“What if you don’t come?”

“I’ll come, but if I don’t, there’s a safe house on Chadwick Street.” He pressed something into David’s hands. “It’s an ice pistol, state of the art Mirrlees design, still has all its darts.” Cadell grinned. “Took it from a Verger.” He showed David how to work it. “Just in case you come across anything on your way into the city,” he said. “David, I’m not going to desert you.”

David believed him. But then no one had deserted him. They’d all been taken away.

The door opened and the light came on. Margaret’s hands were already gripping her pistols, their barrels pointed at Winslow’s head. Winslow’s eyelids fluttered with fear.

“I’m already awake,” Margaret said, she’d hardly slept at all.

“I can see that,” he said, slowly raising his hands. “Keep the guns, you’ll need them, but we have to get you out of here.”

Margaret nodded, she’d changed back into her cold suit an hour ago. Not feeling safe here, wondering if she would ever feel safe again.

“They’re coming aren’t they? Don’t look so surprised. I’ve been hunted since I left Tate. Why would I expect it to stop? So, where are you taking me? To them?”

Winslow shook his head, raising his hands palm out. “We’re not taking you anywhere near them,” he said, his voice low and calm. “Just put away the pistols. I’d even be happy if you just stopped aiming them at my head.”

“Enough,” Anderson growled and pushed past Winslow. “If there is anyone you should shoot it’s me.”

Margaret lowered her guns, though she did not put them away.

“Smart girl,” Anderson said. “If I was in your situation I’d do the same.”

He sat on the end of the bed. “There is so much that you need to catch up on, and I doubt we have time to tell you anything beyond the merest details.” Margaret was struck by how lined his face was, the dark bags under his eyes. He ran a hand through thinning hair, then looked at his fingers. “I have but the slightest inkling of the world in which you lived. But here there have been terrible defeats even in regions that are yet feel even the barest touch of the Roil. They’ve known loss of life and liberty to fear and a paucity of foresight – or at least a narrowness of it. We have sought to deal with the enemy, once we realised that we could not beat it but the Roil, while it plays at such things, does not parley. It grows because that is what it does, as a storm grows or a wave moves drawn on by the force of the tide.

“But you already understand that. Your existence has been so much more intimately involved with the Roil. What this boils down to is this: the Council demanded that you be given over to the Roil. You see, my employers are desperate for more time. However, they have failed to understand that the Roil would not ask for you if you were not considered important in some way. Extremely important.”

Anderson gazed into her eyes, his own filled with a deep and urgent sadness and resignation. In Anderson, Margaret saw a man always on the verge of self-mockery -uncertain of why he was where he was, except that the reason was as important as it was ridiculous.

“What is it that you know, Margaret? What is it that you haven’t told me?”

Margaret opened her mouth to speak, to deny that she knew anything, when a soldier came to door. His eyes flicked from her pistols to Anderson and back again. Anderson turned and smiled at him, a distressingly calm smile.

“It’s all right, Daniels,” Anderson said. “What is it?”

“They’re here.”

Anderson considered this. “Then we have to get her out of the Interface now. Winslow, you and my guards will escort her to Chapman.”

Winslow did a double take that at any other time would have been comical. “And what of you?”

“I’ll stay here and see if I can distract them. They’ve been awfully good at distracting us. The time for negotiations is done. Winslow, report to Stade. Let him know how things have changed. Let him know that the Interface is finished. We’re closing it down. Time for us all to find new employment.”

“Surely you won’t be too far behind. There are still treaties intact.”

Something passed across Anderson’s face, a shadow of sadness or fear or just that bleak turn of humour that he seemed to possess. “Of course, Winslow, but do as I say, please.”

Winslow looked about to say something and Anderson silenced him with a glance. A bell rang, pitched high. Anderson’s eyes narrowed. Shots were fired in the distance. Margaret could taste the bitter exhalations of endothermic chemicals.

“Get out of here, now!”

“What about my carriage?” Margaret demanded feeling at once petty and childish for asking.

“You’ll have to leave it, I’m afraid.” He shook his head. “We’ve all had to leave things.” Anderson pulled her aside. “Once you are free of the Interface, do not linger and whatever you do, do not go to the Council. I cannot speak for your city, but the Council of Chapman and Mirrlees are corrupt. Believe me when I say they would have given you back to the Roil. Get out of here, get away from Winslow, he’s a good man but a Council man. Try and get in touch with a man named Medicine Paul, but do not do it openly. He has agents in the city, not as many as he once did, but so does the Council, it can be difficult to tell them apart.” Anderson whispered. “132 Chadwick, Street, there you might find help. Do you understand?”

Margaret nodded, then strapped on her ice pistols. “Good luck,” she said.

Anderson laughed. “Don’t speak to me of luck. I used that up long ago.” Then he gave her a wry look. “I’m sorry, maybe I haven’t used it all. Why, I met a Penn today.” He slipped a handful of dark lozenges into his mouth, and shuddered, dropping to one knee. He blinked, looking about him.

“That’s far too many of those, sir,” Winslow said.

Anderson glared at Winslow, though not without affection. “Are you still here. Didn’t I tell you to go?”

“You did, and we are.”

“Good,” Anderson said, snatching pistols from the belt at his waist. “I’ve a crew to command. You make sure she gets to Chapman.”

As they left the sleeping quarters, Anderson heading deeper into the complex without looking back, Winslow passed around a handful of the same lozenges that Margaret had seen Anderson swallow. He gave Margaret several of them.

“Put one beneath your tongue,” he said. “It’s called Chill. It’ll cool your blood. We’ve catalogued a whole range of Witmoth apotropaics, but this works best. Saliva activates it.”

Margaret slid one of the lozenges into her mouth. They tasted foul, but the effect was almost instantaneous.

She grimaced as her body cooled.

Winslow grinned at her. “Pretty impressive isn’t it? One of my projects.”

He opened a door. “And this is the way out.” He gestured at a long, narrow corridor that extended out of sight.

Winslow and the two guards led her down the narrow spine of the complex. They walked for nearly ten minutes until they reached a point where the light globe above them shone red.