David reached the ground and the road, and he ran, not stopping until he had put a few streets between himself and the wall.
Then he realised where he was, the map returning to him as a sort of flashback.
This was an inner deserted suburb, just a few streets from the Chadwick safe house. The thought of being alone here made him uneasy, but he reasoned all he needed to do was follow the road and it would lead him to the safe house, which by definition must be safe.
He closed his eyes and picked the most direct route. It took him through the dour and forsaken retail district that ran alongside the Southern Wall. Here businesses had failed months ago; he stared through broken windows at bookstores empty of everything but shelves, and curling posters for the latest histories. Some shops seemed half-stocked as though, one day, their owners had just locked the doors and never come back. No one had even bothered to loot them.
He looked around sadly, stared morosely through curtains of peeling newspapers and dust-choked webs, as though even the spiders had left this part of town.
A few more minutes of walking and he was there: standing before the burnt out husk.
David wasn’t sure what he had expected, but not this. Though he didn’t know why he was surprised. He stood there for a while, not knowing what to do. At last, he reasoned, his best chance was back in the city proper.
Once he’d had another shot of Carnival.
He scarcely noticed the woman until she was directly behind him, her face a ghostly reflection in the glass window front of a deserted millinery.
A Verger! He spun on her, his ice pistol out, and then faltered. She was like no Verger he had ever seen. She loomed over him, her eyes wild, her white hair a mass of knots and curls, pistols gripped in both hands, rifles and swords holstered all around her waist. He recognised the weaponry; it was similar to the ice pistols Chapman’s sentries brandished, but there was something about it; a precision, matched in the way she moved. Scars streaked her pale face, not all of them were old. What was she? Some sort of bandit?
She glanced at his pistol dismissively, and David had a sense that she could knock it from him before he could even pull the trigger.
“Step away from the glass, addict,” she said.
She’d seen him, she’d seen him take the Carnival. Despite the drug, he felt his face burn with shame. David raised his hands, but he did not let go of the gun.
“If that’s what you want,” he said.
“Down,” she said and aimed her pistols at his chest. “Get down!”
David dropped, as the window shattered behind him. He rolled onto his back, and found himself inches from a Quarg Hound’s flexing teeth – and in that moment of desperate clarity, David marvelled that the beast’s teeth really did flex and shiver and shift.
Keep moving. Keep moving. He shuffled back on his arse.
There were two loud shots. The Quarg Hound shrieked, its teeth gnashing as the force of the shots drove it to the ground.
Its legs shuddered, then the shuddering stopped. All at once the air stank of ammonia and cinnamon.
“You’re safe now,” the woman said.
“Thank you,” David said, feeling particularly less than safe because the woman had not lowered her weapons.
“Don’t thank me. I’ve been tracking that hound for hours. And when it came here, to a place I’d been told might be safe…” She looked back at the wall. “Don’t know how it got here, the walls are high and well guarded, but there’ll be more. There always are.”
The woman regarded him curiously. “My name is Margaret.” She took a step towards him.
“David.”
“One thing’s for certain, David, you’re not from around here are you?”
“How do you know?” David asked, blinking.
“Well you’re the first person I’ve seen in this part of the city all day, and you seemed awfully disappointed that the safe house was burnt. Only an idiot or a tourist would wander around these streets, or someone desperate. The Roil is less than two miles south of the city and, as you probably haven’t noticed, half these buildings are booby-trapped.” David wanted to argue that point, but in truth he really hadn’t noticed. “Chapman’s leaders have already given these parts over to the Roil, but it’s going to pay when it arrives. Unless, of course, some idiot or tourist sets them off. So, what are you, idiot or tourist?”
“I’m neither,” David blustered. “I wanted to think. And let me say, you are most obviously not from around here. What I mean to say is I have never seen anyone with such pale skin. And if only an idiot would be hanging around here, what does that make you?”
Margaret pointed one of her pistols at his head. “Let me remind you, it isn’t that wise to shout at the person with the most guns.”
David blushed, and bowed his head. “I’m sorry. It’s just the things I’ve seen. Such terrible things.”
Margaret nodded, lowering, then holstering her guns. “We live in terrible times,” she said.
The second Quarg Hound came out of nowhere, leaping at Margaret’s back.
David had no time to utter even a warning. He fired his pistol. The bullet struck the beast squarely in the head, but the pistol was a small one, not capable of a fatal shot. The Quarg Hound fell to the ground, pawed at its skull then scrambled to its feet. Its body bunched up, the muscles across its back rippling, as though it was ready to leap again.
Margaret swung around with her rifle and finished the job, as though it were the easiest thing in the world. David couldn’t believe how fast she moved, even Cadell might have trouble matching her.
“You’re full of surprises,” she said.
David blinked and looked at her. His fingers burned from the chemical residue of the pistol shot, his ears were ringing.
“I guess I am,” he said, and it may have just been the Carnival, but all of a sudden he was very pleased with himself indeed.
Chapter 39
The city changed, as all metropolises change, be it Chinoy, the Channon or Mirrlees. But none so quickly, the Roil ever a catalyst had accelerated. Even as Chapman’s population slept, even as they armed and reinforced the city’s walls, Chapman itself wasn’t Chapman any more, but a dreaming city nascent. Soon it would sleep, and drag those who lived there down with it.
Have I set the scene enough?
Of course not, you who were not there and could never understand.
CHAPMAN
Margaret’s limbs shook. When had she last slept? She could not remember the last time she had slept. Her brain kept circling this, though the question held no real relevance. She wanted to ask David if he knew.
Of course he didn’t. He didn’t look like he could possibly know anything. All those capable friends and allies she had lost. And now this addict, barely a man, he was as lost as her.
Every time she looked up and saw the sun or the blue sky, no matter how smoke and spoor shrouded, reality sloughed away and her head spun. This sky had been all she had ever dreamed of as a child. Now she would happily trade it back if everything could be the way it once was. A few weeks ago, all she had known was darkness and the cruel comforts of her city. Now she was alone, stalled by the light, and with no one to help her. She didn’t even have her Melody.
She did not know where to turn.
Maybe David, after all he had been looking for the safe house and that suggested links with Anderson’s allies.
Who was this idiotic window-shopping addict, with his dark and innocent eyes? She wondered if her eyes had ever been so innocent, her worries ever so simple.
She wanted to clip him under the ear and alert him to his foolishness.
But, then again, it was all relative.