The stars, the glorious stars. Pinter, Swallow, the Burnished Kings and the Queens of Wondrous Storm, the constellation of Committee B. All of it she had known only in stellar maps, only in abstract.
Now here it was, spread out above her.
Winslow crashed into her back.
“Um,” he said, “I think we should hurry.”
Margaret blinked, behind her, beyond the doorway, a half-mile wide finger of darkness was bearing down, reaching out impossibly from the shivering wall of the Roil. Hot dusty air rushed at her, banging on the shutters of nearby residences. Dead trees sighed and creaked and Margaret could hear the first rumblings of transformation in them – soon they would be Roilthings.
“These are the Deserted Suburbs, though they were a lively place when we first started,” Winslow said. “Not far to go now.”
One of the guards fired into the darkness.
“Don’t be stupid,” Winslow snapped. “You’re wasting ice.”
Then he and Margaret saw what the guard was firing at.
Quarg Hounds, hundreds of them.
“Well that’s it then,” Winslow said quietly. He turned to Margaret. “There’s a secret entrance to Chapman, beneath the grey tower, two streets north of here, left and left again, past the stone arches. If you can make it there you will be safe.” He whispered a code at her, and started firing, methodically striking each hound in the skull. “When you reach the end of the hall, beneath an escutcheon embossed with the symbol of the Council, there are two buttons. A red one and a green one, push first the red then the green five times, and five times only. Then run. Don’t hang around once you have finished, run, and don’t stop until you are well within the city’s walls.”
He gripped her shoulders as his gun recharged. “Remember the order of the buttons, red then green. It’s imperative that you push them five times, and in that sequence.”
“Will it send help?”
Winslow nodded. “Now run, or all of this has been a waste. All of it.”
Margaret couldn’t do it. She had left enough people behind in the past few days. She fired off a round into the darkness, taking down a Quarg Hound, then another.
“Go. Now!” Winslow said, and there was such a bitter, awful resolution in Winslow’s eyes that run she did, towards the dim grey bulk of Chapman’s outer walls, down empty streets, broken windows and the stars her only audience.
She reached the hidden door just as the screaming began.
That was almost enough to call her back. Behind her a Quarg Hound snarled. Margaret turned smoothly, precisely, and shot it in the head, moving backwards as she fired.
She slammed into the door, her rifle aimed out at the darkness. Another Quarg Hound leapt towards her and she fired again. The beast dropped to the ground at her feet.
Margaret turned and entered in the code, she felt the Quarg Hound move behind her, and drove her rime blade, under her coat and into its skull. The wall opened, loud and sluggish. She yanked her blade free of the hound and spilled through into another long hall. The door shut behind her and she ran.
She reached the end of the hall, lifted the escutcheon by a metal door. The red and green buttons glowed dimly. She followed Winslow’s directions and a light in the wall beside her blinked on. The metal door opened.
She stumbled through the doorway and onto a narrow street, the door locked shut behind her. She ran from the door and the wall that it was inset in.
A few moments later, the ground shook, and the door shot past her head. She fell to her chest and rolled onto her back. Dust billowed towards her, the hallway was destroyed, and the wall itself dipping down. There was no help coming for Winslow and his soldiers.
There had never been any help.
Margaret could still hear weapons firing in the distance. The gunshots all too quickly gave way to silence. The Interface was gone, her wondrous Melody Amiss with it, and she was in Chapman alone with no money or friends and the Roil was on its way, and it wanted her, and it would not stop.
Sirens rang out in the distance. They had rung endlessly in the hours since Margaret had destroyed the secret tunnel. Dark military Aerokin, a sight that still held her in awe, rolled overhead, they filled the air with their oily exhalations, and shone searchlights gripped by sinuous flagella into the deserted suburbs. Ice Cannon fired. Soldiers came and crowded along the wall. Then Engineers arrived.
Margaret did not like the look of them, nor those they made obeisance to. Tall sombre-faced men, all of them, chewing and chewing, on what Margaret guessed must be Chill. Anderson’s warning returned to her. They had to be Vergers.
They’d driven that particular cult of violence out of Tate well before Margaret’s birth, but she was familiar with them. As a rather ghoulish child she had read twice, from cover to cover Simmon’s Torture and Torment or the Road Cruel Travelled: Confessions of a Man and his Knife.
There was no way that she would give herself up to a Verger.
Instead, tired at last of that ceaseless, useless industry and wary of staying too long and being caught, she followed Anderson’s directions to the house of Medicine Paul’s allies. But there was no happiness there. It was a smouldering ruin. Someone had painted a red V on the footpath before it.
She left the burnt old house and found another place nearby, deserted and smelling of dust and urine and things, like hope, gone rotten. There she lay down and, fighting it all the way, fell asleep.
Chapter 35
There’s a certain attraction to the end of the world. To see the curtain close, what a privilege. Who wouldn’t want to take that final bow?
“I hate queues,” the man in front of David said, brushing dust from the top of his hat.
Mr Whig’s warnings had proven true. There were guards at all the gates; big, frightened looking men gazing down at the crowds lined up to get in – order on the knife edge of chaos. All of the sentries were armed with odd-looking weapons. The man in front of him caught his gaze.
“Ice pistols of some sort,” he said then pointed to the walls. “And up there are ice cannon. Not that they’ll do them any good, shooting cold pellets into the storm, might as well throw a handful of ice cubes. You’d need to surround the city in ice. Moats and cannon twice the size of that, and even then it would only work for so long, there are many different ways to storm a fortress.”
Guards stared at them suspiciously, David tugged at the fellow’s arm.
“I don’t think it’s that wise to look too interested in the city’s defences,” he said.
“Oh,” the man said, sounding quite surprised by the thought. He laughed, and brought his gaze back to his hat. “I suppose you’re right.” He popped his hat back on his head.
“Rob,” he said and put out his hand. David shook it, not particularly enjoying the sensation of the man’s sweaty palm against his own.
“David,” he replied, and wiped his palm on his pants.
They stood at the back of the queue, moving slowly down towards the city’s gates.
“What’s happening?” David asked.
“What isn’t happening?” Rob said and started counting down with his fingers. “Quarg Hounds, of course, and Roilings now, you heard about the Dolorous Grey?” David nodded his head. “And all when the city is filled with strangers for the Festival of Float. They’ve started testing the visitors for, you know, infection. This will be the last Festival, I’ll wager.”
Rob pointed south, and David stared across the plain. The horizon was much thicker than it ought, as though it had smudged; only it was a smudge that moved. Even as David stared at it, it seemed to swell.
“The Roil is getting closer. Why, it crossed a cemetery last week and the dead rose up. Roilings, their minds filled with grubs and dust, started shambling towards the city, so I heard. Gets people’s nerves on edge. We all knew it was happening, just couldn’t believe it.” Rob’s lips split with a grin. “But credulity or not, let me tell you, boy, it’s going to be one hell of a party this year.”