Margaret must have looked confused, and Cadell shook his head. “Oh the sorts of people I gather around me, lost children, when what I need are warriors.”
Margaret scowled at that. She knew how to fight.
“There’s an Aerokin pilot,” Cadell said, “waiting at the Inn of the Devoted Switch.” Cadell looked at his watch again, and tsked. “And we are rather late.”
No time for rest then. But soon, and then she might just show Cadell who was the lost child and who the warrior.
“You’re late,” Kara Jade said. “And you said nothing about passengers.”
Cadell laughed. “If you only knew the day I’ve had.”
The day all of us have had, David thought.
Kara Jade didn’t look amused, just looked at her watch. “I was hoping we’d have done our talking by now and I’d be drunk.”
“Things don’t always turn out how one hopes,” Margaret said.
Kara turned towards her, as though she were some annoying biting insect newly discovered. “You’d better hope that that is true, then. I’ve some awful inclinations towards you, and we’ve only just met.”
“Please,” Cadell said. “Please. I did not come here to fight.”
“And I didn’t come here to be a pilot for three people. Just one. That is all.”
David had never been in a pub like this. While the Inn of the Devoted Switch seemed crowded and a little forcefully jovial, he could not be at all sure it was not typical of its ilk. In Mirrlees he had been to but a handful of drinking places with his father, being too young to legally buy drink (though those who had sold him Carnival had never set such an age restriction).
Drifters he knew, his father had had dealings with them, even counted some among his friends. But even the best of them were arrogant if not rude. He’d seen the city of Drift once, a few miles east of Mirrlees. He had been young, perhaps no more than five, sitting on his father’s shoulders.
And his father had recited this poem.
The folk of Drift look down, look down and what they see makes each one frown
The folk of Drift they rule the skies
A truth contained within their eyes
The folk of Drift are rude indeed
If the clouds were yours, wouldn’t you be?
Nice poem, but some Drift folk lived by its lines too faithfully.
The inn was crammed with Drifters, and their haughty and garrulous natures were in evidence in every over-emphatic movement, every dark and dangerous stare. The air folk were loud and famous boasters and brawlers. If you were to believe them their city was older than the Council itself, their technologies built in the eons before, they’d once ruled not only the sky but the ground as well, but had found it boring, so the “tedium of empire” (as they called it) had given way to the Council. They were, according to them, also better lovers, poets and fighters than any one of the groundlings. David did not believe a word of it. Which did not mean he would voice such doubts here. He wanted to live a little longer, if he could.
The Drifters wore their various guild colours, the yellow of elevator coxswain, the dark greens of steersmen, and the coveted red and black of Aerokin captains.
In one corner, and David had to blink twice when he realised who it was, lounged Mr Blake and to his left his partner in flight, Miss Steel. They were arguing about something, which was no surprise. Lawrence Blake and Catherine Steel were a running argument, almost as famous for their fights as their Air Show, a bit of which – the Air Show, not the fights – David had seen when he was ten. Five Standard Dirigibles at mock battle, flying low and in tight formation, and Mr Blake leaping from ship to ship carrying a big coil of rope, binding them together like they were sheep rather than ships, then clambering onto the back of his Aerokin, the Arrogant Spice.
“Blake and Steel,” he said, pointing in their direction.
Cadell blinked.
“If you say so.” Margaret said, clearly unimpressed. “Drifters, let them see how long they would have lasted in my city.”
Cadell nodded to the crowded press of people at the bar. “David, why don’t you go over there and order some drinks. The house brew for me, please.”
“Nothing for me,” Margaret said.
“Bourbon,” Kara Jade said. “Two fingers of it.”
For a moment, David remembered the incident at the dining car on the Dolorous Grey and shuddered. This was almost as dangerous; some of these pilots were armed to the teeth and full of piss already.
David pushed his way through the crowd, careful not to give any offence. Drift folk were volatile. Every glance he caught was a challenge and each push or shove the possible opening gambit in a fight. He caught snippets of conversation as he went.
“City’s not long for it, I reckon. Heard they’ve sighted Quarg Hounds in the deserted suburbs and you know what comes next. I was there in Consolation City, trade work, when it all came down. You know, the Grand Defeat. And it was sudden, the sky dark with all manner of beasts, the Roil rolling in like a storm. The standing army of three cities destroyed, barely got out with my life and that was only because-”
Another went.
“Sooner this Festival is done with the better. Sad, though, I’ve always liked coming here – such pretty men.” Fingers pinched his arse, he kept his head high, kept walking.
“Bloody folk music. What’s that all about? Another flaming mandolin player comes up to me with a glint in his eye and a bloody cap rattling with coin he’ll be playing it where the sun don’t shine.”
“Heard the Council’s locked down the city. They’re turning people away now. Went up this morning, there were hundreds of ’em, heading up to Mirrlees, heading up to the rain. Not sure what welcome old Stade’s going to give ’em, doesn’t have a history of looking kindly on refugees. I’ve heard rumblings about camps. Oi, stop you’re listening in, boy, or I’ll cuff your ears till they bleed!”
David reached the bar and ordered his drinks.
Cadell was scowling when David returned. “The Roslyn Dawn was bred for this task, Miss Jade. It is why your mothers gave her to me.”
“It’s not a ship, it’s a she, and they gave you nothing,” Kara snapped. “They sent me on this mission. I am their agent, and my powers are discretionary.” Cadell looked at her as though he knew this was not true.
David passed her the bourbon. Kara Jade sculled it, without looking, and gave him back the empty glass. “Mr Cadell was telling me just what he means to do. What do you think?”
“I’m not sure.” He looked over at Margaret, and she shook her head.
“I might have that drink after all, David,” Margaret said.
Kara Jade snorted. “Not sure? Well, you better be. David, I’ll be flying you, Mr Cadell and the lady here into the Roil.”
David blinked. That was the first he had heard about it.
“The Roil, you say?”
Cadell grimaced. “Why else did you think I pushed for you to go with Buchan and Whig. I need to get in there, I need to see it.”
“I’ve been in there,” Margaret said. “Trust me you don’t want to see it.”
“Wants and needs are a different thing, girl,” Cadell said. “And I must see it. Unless I do my argument with the Engine is incomplete.”
“Well then,” David said. “If we’re all going to die, how about another round.”
Kara laughed. “Only if you’re buying. And a better bloody quality bourbon this time, that last one was shit.”
Chapter 41
Aerokin are unpredictable as the weather. The Mothers of the Sky more so, their motives ever uncertain. Only the Roil’s intentions were clear. Against such an implacable force, motives, plans and politics are meaningless. You may as well play games with a rock.
“How long now?” Cadell asked, the translucent floor beneath them vibrating in time with the Roslyn Dawn’s nacelle exhalations, loud enough that he had to shout.