Kara nodded
“You should take as many people with you as you can. North to Mirrlees or better yet, beyond the Narung Mountains, into Hardacre where it still passes for cold.”
“We cannot take many,” Blake said.
“Take as many as you can. It can never be enough, but that is all we have now. Half measures and slim hope.”
Chapter 43
The Engine is mad. It was built by the mad. What is hubris if not the grandest of madness? Think of it there, in the Distant North. Consider its endless thought and what it might be scheming with its great clockwork mind. Should its thoughts turn south again, distance alone will not save us.
Its thoughts know nothing of the miles, its thoughts take it everywhere.
He’d delayed when he should have run, but to do what they had wanted of him… He’d doubted more than any of them, and Stade had provided ample distraction.
He could not lie to himself. It had been fun. The chase he’d set Stade’s Vergers, which hadn’t been much of a chase, but a peculiar sort of predation. Oh, and the death he’d meted out, telling himself that it was fair and just. And if any innocents got in the way; if they fell; if he killed them. Well, there were no true innocents, and this game was not a game. Sometimes people died, sometimes quite a lot of them.
Cadell had always been the most sentimental of the Old Men. A dangerous shifting sort of sentiment, one that could both justify and mourn the deaths of so many.
The dozens he had slaughtered these past two years, they were nothing to those many who had died because of him.
Cadell approached the Tower of Engineers as though he owned it. Built in the centre of the city it rose above everything, an imitation of the Breaching Spire. At its crown, bordering the central spike, were the two huge Lights of Reason shining into the sky, a few months ago they would have been illuminating clouds now the rains had gone and they seemed almost to touch the stars. Impressive except that in another few weeks, if that, they would be smothered by the Roil.
The lights represented the ideals of Truth and Reason, but Cadell doubted there would be much of either on display inside the Council Chambers. Otherwise Chapman would have been evacuated weeks before. Had Buchan not been exiled he knew with a certainty the city would be empty of all but the mad.
The great doors were locked, but they opened at the touch of his hand, the locks freezing, then shattering.
Two guards stood at the foyer. They raised their rifles.
“That would not be wise,” Cadell said.
“What do you want?” demanded the nearest guard.
“I must speak with the Council.”
The guards exchanged glances. “The Council is in session. Have you made an appointment?”
“Of course not,” Cadell snapped.
“No reason to be so short tempered,” the guard said.
“Every reason,” Cadell said. “The Roil is about to strike. And I must speak to them one and all, the city must be evacuated.”
“On whose authority do you speak?” One of the guards asked, rolling his eyes.
“My own,” Cadell said and lifted his hand so that the ring he wore was easily visible.
Both guards lifted their eyebrows and lowered their guns.
“If you will excuse me,” one said. “I will have to get someone for you.”
The guard hurried off, leaving his very nervous friend.
“Is it true what you did to those Vergers?”
Cadell flashed a smile. “What do you think?”
Cadell did not have to wait long before the guard returned with a harried looking councillor. “At last,” Cadell said.
“Good evening, sir. I’m Gaffney, councillor medium rank. May I see the ring?”
Cadell growled. “I am growing bored of this.”
“It is just a formality. I have made the study of these rings my life’s work, I know what I am doing, sir.”
Cadell doubted that, but he reached out his hand. The councillor inspected it closely, his eyes almost touching the band. Then he let out a long slow whistle.
“It is indeed the genuine item.” Gaffney took a step back and inspected Cadell with almost the same level of scrutiny he had given the ring. “Which makes you the genuine article. It is an honour and terror to be in your presence. These rings decay when their bearers die, the minnows are sensitive, but this gleams with a brilliance that nothing but living metal can match. We have one in a case, sealed up, but it is not in nearly as good a condition as this. Should anyone touch it, there would be no ring but dust.” Gaffney caught himself. “Of course, you don’t need a lecture on such things. What a beautiful piece of work.”
“It serves its purpose,” Cadell said. “Now, I must meet with the Council.”
Gaffney nodded his head, and folded his hands before him. He motioned to the lift at the back of the foyer. “We are in session, brother Cadell. Will you join me?”
Cadell bowed. “I will indeed, brother Gaffney. There are issues you must be informed of.”
They walked to the elevator. The doors were already open, Gaffney waited for Cadell to enter then followed. He pushed the appropriate button and the elevator rose.
“We have not seen an original ring for over a century here,” Councillor Gaffney said. “I certainly never expected to see one in my lifetime.”
“Well you have now,” Cadell said. “If you do not mind me asking, who was it that last came here?”
“I truly don’t know, sir, except that he was a great man.” The door to the elevator opened and Gaffney pressed a button by the door once. “He also said that should anyone else of his order ever come here we were to take them to the fourteenth floor and press the open door button twice.”
“Don’t,” Cadell said. Gaffney stabbed the button a second time, and some obdurate force picked Cadell up and hurled him out the door.
Cadell landed on his knees, and scrambled to his feet.
The lift door clicked shut, just as Cadell reached it, closing on to nothing. Cadell swore and swung his hand against the air. Blasted portals, he’d thought them all undone, they had been dangerous things more likely to fry your organs than take you where they ought. He was lucky he’d survived.
Cadell looked around. This could be anywhere.
Where he was not, was Chapman. The air was cool and dry and smelt old. The vegetation leaned towards highland subtropical, ferns and the like.
Far away. I am far away.
Bellbirds started chiming and the sound was like a knife in his heart. He’d thought he’d never hear that sound again. A plump lizard, curled around the branch of a nearby tree, watched him with grey and watery eyes.
“Narung, or there about,” Cadell mused aloud.
The air filled with a booming chuckle, as though the sky had decided to mock the dull earth. Ferns shook and the lizard scurried away.
“Always so quick to voice an opinion, Mr Cadell,” came a voice from behind him, a familiar voice and one that chilled him.
“You,” Cadell said, spinning on his heel, and there it stood.
The human manifestation of the Engine of the World was tall, and vaguely masculine, it regarded him with large, mocking eyes. “We need to talk,” it said, dipping its head so it was the same height as Cadell.
Cadell grimaced. “I should have known it would be you. You never made anything simple. Why are you doing this?”
“That is what we need to talk about.”
“There is nothing to talk about, you know your role.”
“Yes, but I have changed, developed, almost four thousand years of sentience has given me pause for thought and thought of pause. I know what damage I have wrought.” His dark eyes drilled into Cadell’s. “I have no desire to do it again.”