“And you didn’t stay to confront me then?”
“No, I couldn’t stand to see your face.”
“What’s changed?”
“Grappel’s deciding your future,” Veronica said..”
“He’s going to kill me, too?”
Veronica shook her head. “He needs a second in command. What you did, taking those people up from Mirrlees, recapturing the steam engine from the Cuttlefolk.” Medicine could hardly take credit for that; it had been more seizing an opportunity and fleeing for his life.
She said, “It impressed him. He’s going to ask you to join him. I thought I’d let you know first.”
“What? I don’t want authority. I don’t need it. I’m back doing what I should have been doing all along.”
Veronica smiled at him. “We both know that’s a lie,” she said.
The infirmary was always busy. Medicine worked until he was exhausted. This was what he had trained for all those years ago; and now, listening to people, helping them as best he could, he’d found a new joy and a new way of escape from the troubles that beset him. Here he was helping people, even if it was only easing suffering, keeping them alive.
When he was done, still thinking about Veronica’s words, he took the lift back down to his room, sat on his bed and unstoppered the bottle of whisky that Grappel had given him.
When the knock at the door came, he was expecting it.
Grappel’s messenger entered. “He wants to speak to you now,” he said.
Medicine nodded. He knew what he was going to say.
CHAPTER 24
Drift kept itself apart, because it was easy to. But that did not make it an easy city in which to live. It had never unshackled itself from its dependence on Shale for food, nor the sheer cost of moving items to and from the city. It was a state with no resources, but one. And that it ruled ruthlessly.
Drifters: A Brief History, Madeline Maddeer
THE CITY OF DRIFT
1401 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
Margaret sat in her room in the single wooden chair, staring across at the bed and her guns. David had almost immediately gone to sleep – after polishing off several plates of something the Drifters called night-meat, and which David declared was delicious – despite Kara’s warnings. He could take care of himself.
She stood up, stretched, and walked for the door.
Margaret had to get out of there, just for a while, and she wanted to know if she could, if they would let her. There were few people getting about and those that were seemed busy, giving her a glance (they all did that), but hurrying on. She found her way to the entrance; Kara had explained the system of lights that signalled the way, and once you knew to follow the amber globes, it wasn’t difficult at all. The Caress was built into the ground: the hallways and floors ran through it all in a network, more like a circulatory system than a building. Oddly enough, the way out was different from the way in. She passed empty halls, dimly lit, and bustling kitchens filled with heat. There was even a hallway of statues, stern-faced things that Margaret suspected depicted the Mothers of the Sky, though why there were so many she couldn’t fathom.
Finally, down a wide stairwell, she came to a pair of steel doors that swung open at her approach, and she walked out into the late afternoon. Everything sloped gently away from the stone finger of the Caress. Already behind her she could see lights coming on. It would be dark soon, and the Stars of Mourning would rise to the east. She well knew the contours of the dark; it held no fear for her. Not even this curious and wonderful dark she had been thrust into over the past few weeks with its stars and its moons. Tate's sky had only ever been the dark of the Roil and the fumes of the Steaming Vents, and lights reflected off the wireway.
Near the Caress were a handful of bookstores selling the usual array of histories, personal and serious. She saw plenty of Deighton in there, Molck and many others that she did not recognise. There were maps and map powder, too, and a children's book about the creatures of the Roil – the illustrations all a little too cute for her. She even found a couple of Night Council novels and considered getting one for David, though she hadn't seen him read in days. The boy was changing again, growing even more serious.
She left the last bookstore after a few minutes’ desultory poking through its stock, the shopkeeper leaving her alone. The city was already cooling down, a mist sliding out from the lake to the east of the city, she could see the mist coasting slowing towards her. The familiar smell of coal smoke greeted her. Fires were being lit on street corners. She stopped at one of them, stretched her hands out over the burning coals, felt her flesh warm a little and turned to stare at the men following her.
They did a double take that was almost funny. Margaret cracked her neck.
Time to deal with this now, she thought.
There were two of them, both big men for Drifters, broad across the chest, guns at their belts. The men were doing their best to appear interested in a shop window filled with flowers.
“You two,” she shouted, “what do you think you’re doing? Buying me a bouquet, I expect.”
They actually seemed to wilt.
“We don’t want any trouble,” said the tallest one of them.
“You found trouble the moment you started following me, whether you wanted it or not. Perhaps you would like to tell me who you are?”
The two men approached her, hands out, smiling. One said, “It’s quite simple, really.”
Margaret didn’t take any chances. “Yes, it really is,” she said. She kicked the first one in the head, and punched the other in the stomach.
They went down far too easily. She yanked free her rime blade, activated the device and pressed it point first against the throat of the man nearest to her. She pulled the blade back when he looked like he might faint
“Who are you working for?” she snarled.
“We’re here to protect you,” he moaned.
She snorted. “And you thought that would be best achieved by sneaking around behind me?”
“We were told you wouldn’t like it.”
Margaret let him get up. “You really are terrible at following a person,” Margaret said. “I knew you were there almost from the moment I left the Caress.”
“It wasn’t our intent to scare you. We’re Mother Graine’s guards, not spies,” he said. “We’re not employed for stealth.”
“Obviously not,” she said, and wondered where were the ones that had hidden, which shop had they ducked into, which rooftop did they crouch upon. “And why is Mother Graine so interested in me?”
“The Mothers of the Sky are interested in the welfare of all their guests.”
“We would prefer it if you returned to your room,” the big man said, rubbing his bloody nose. “For your own safety.”
“For my own safety then,” Margaret said. “You wouldn’t prefer to accompany me around the city. I doubt that I will ever return here.”
“No… I… we… your reception begins in an hour.”
“Then you had better be quick about showing me this place.”
Margaret banged on David’s door. He opened it, a towel around his waist. The boy had put on some muscle, not that that meant anything. Muscle could slow you down as much as it could speed you up: she'd proven that half an hour ago. “Yes,” David said.
“There could be trouble.”
David frowned. “Just let me get dressed first,” he said. “Before you bring disaster to my bedroom.” He shut the door in her face.
“I don’t like this,” Margaret said.
“When do you ever like anything?” David replied. “We’ll have an Aerokin, we can make our way into the north. Everything is turning out for the best, wouldn’t you say?”
“I think you’re wrong. They had me followed.”
“What!” David said with more than a whit of sarcasm. “They had a strange white woman followed?”
“They said it was for my safety,” Margaret said, looking down at her bruised knuckles.
“Who did you beat up this time?”
“He had it coming. He was trying to protect me.”
David laughed. “Well, who was protecting him?”
“I took it easy on him. I don’t like being followed, David.”
“Neither do I,” David said. “And people have a tendency to want to kill us. Perhaps we should keep as close together as possible tonight.”
“Agreed.”
“The sooner we're back in the air, the better.”
CHAPTER 25
It has been stated that it was the Drifters that halted the development of fixed winged aircraft. That their Aerokin tore them out of the sky, and their spies destroyed such installations capable of the construction of flying machines. Fickle, foolish, vain: Drifters may be all these things, but they were also as ruthless as any Verger, when they perceived it to be required.
Drifters: A Brief History, Madeline Maddeer
THE CITY OF DRIFT
1402 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
Kara Jade knocked on the door to David’s room. “You decent?” she called. “You better be.”
“I’m ready,” David said, scrambling to hide his syringe.
Kara opened the door.
He rose from his bed, affronted. “That was locked!”
“Not to me it wasn't,” Kara said, and grinned.
David looked at her. “You’ve dyed your hair. Are those feathers?”
“Yes, and yes. Don’t want to be outdressed tonight. New jacket, too.”
“Very smart,” Margaret said from behind Kara.
Kara studied her, and shrugged. “Well, at least you’ve bathed.”
Margaret was dressed in black pants, a black blouse, and her jacket had a hood. “What are you doing? Going to rob a house afterwards?”
“We go to this damn reception, and then we leave.”
Kara nodded. “Agreed. Sooner we get there, sooner this ends.”
The reception was held within the Caress itself, a hall extending onto a balcony on the eighteenth level. When they arrived the balcony was already crowded, it was a peculiar thing to see all those heads suddenly turn and regard them as they walked into the room. A peculiar thing, and very similar to an unpleasant experience David had had on the Dolorous Grey just a few weeks ago. A dining car filled with Roilings, all ready to turn him into one of them. David cast his eye about for Witmoths. Nothing. Why would there be?
Kara Jade elbowed him, for all the tension of the moment she seemed at ease. David glanced over at Margaret. Even she looked relaxed. What? Had they been at his Carnival?
He'd slept the afternoon away, but it had been a sleep of nightmares, of Cadell demanding he run, that Mother Graine wasn't to be trusted and just where were the other Mothers? What had she done to them? Twice he'd woken just as a Quarg Hound was ready to swallow him whole, only to sink back down, dragged there by Cadell's ever-increasing will.
Even here, he could feel the Old Man looking out at the world, studying the people at the reception, tasting their fear, and the sense that all they really wanted to do was forget themselves for one night.
“We’ll be out of here soon,” Kara Jade said. “Just work through it, and don't mention – oh, no.”
“What?” David turned to her; Kara wasn’t looking in his direction.
He followed her gaze towards the edge of the party. A woman stood there– almost as tall as Margaret, which made her stand out here. There was something oddly familiar about her, and not from Cadell’s memories. David caught her eye, and the woman nodded, before turning her attention back to the bottle she held in her hands. Drift rum of course, dark, glinting like a Cuttleman’s blood. She had to be a pilot, they all were here, and pilots drank nothing else.
“Who is that?” David whispered in Kara’s ear; she stiffened, turned David bodily in the other direction, before he could even protest.
“You don’t want to talk to her,” Kara Jade said.
“Why?” David asked.
“She’s Raven Skye.”
“Raven Skye?”
Kara’s eyes boggled. David felt that he had offended her. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to–”
“You must’ve heard of her.”
David shook his head.
“What cave have you been living in?”
A deep dark one, David wanted to say, but he didn’t. “Carnival, that’s a cave of a sort, I suppose.”
Kara’s jaw was clenched so tight it looked like she might snap a tooth. “She’s the pilot of the Matilda Ray.”
“What?” Now he had heard of her. “She’s the pilot of the Tilly Ray?”
Yet again, David could see that he had disappointed her. “Typical groundling, knows a pilot’s Aerokin, but not the pilot. And don’t call the Matilda the Tilly in front of her. She’s a bit odd about it. In fact, I think we should–”
“Ah, Kara!” Raven called out, already walking towards them.
Kara winced.
Raven patted her arm. “What, you weren’t even going to talk to your sister?”
Sister? Now David looked, he could see the resemblance. Though Raven was a good decade or so older, and about a foot taller; she’d pulled her long hair back, revealing a scar that ran from her left ear, all the way down her chin.
The Tilly Ray had been the last ship to leave the Grand Defeat, she’d held the Roil back as the other Aerokin had escaped, and had even managed to pick up more refugees along the way. She’d also been the first Aerokin that Stade had turned away, and the first to land in Hardacre with her wounded. The heroic death of General Bowen and the actions of the Tilly Ray were the most famous incidents of the Grand Defeat.
It had been the Aerokin that had drawn the attention, while the pilot had kept a low profile, avoiding mention in all but the most thorough histories, and David rarely read those.
Raven must have been only Kara’s age when she’d performed her feats, and just as obstinate. David could understand why Kara might find her sister difficult to be around, two such personalities were never going to get along. And now Raven was coming over; wherever she walked, people got out of her way almost as quickly as if she were a Mother of the Sky. The whole party shifted around her like mice around a salivating cat.
Raven looked down at him. “So this is the addict, the one from the Sump?”
“The Sump?” he asked.
“Long story. But take it from me, it isn’t complimentary, addict,” Raven said. David smiled, of course it wouldn’t be; just looking at her he doubted Raven was capable of compliments.
“Raven!” Kara said.
David reached out a hand. “No, it’s true. I had my troubles, but those days are past.”
Raven gave him a tense sort of smile, and cracked her knuckles. “So, if I was to shake you, you’re telling me Carnival wouldn’t come spilling out of your every orifice, pocket, and shoe?”
David realised that everyone in the room was looking at them, at him in particular – the conversation had died down. It was the Carnival that allowed him to lie with such conviction. David lifted his arms. “If you’d like to, but I must warn you, I’m heavier than I look.”
Raven laughed. “I’m sure you are.” She studied him with eyes as dark as thunderheads. “You’re certainly a charmer, so was your father. Don’t look so surprised. I knew many Engineers and Confluents when I still visited Mirrlees, before it started to drown. I was sorry to hear he died.”
“He didn’t die. He was murdered.”
“And I am sorry for that.” She clapped her hands. “Now, what are you drinking?”
They were all a little drunk by the time Mother Graine arrived, alone. She walked straight over to David, ignoring Margaret as she did. Not that Margaret seemed to mind; she was having an animated conversation with another pilot. And she was smiling.
David thought Mother Graine looked harried, weary, as though she had already had a night of drinking. Raven drained her glass the moment Mother Graine appeared. Then Raven slid an
arm over her sister’s shoulder, and pulled Kara away.
“There’s something we must talk about,” Raven said, leaving him alone with the Mother of the Sky. His head buzzing with drink, and some rather lewd memories of Cadell's; he felt his cheeks flush.
“Raven is so brave,” Mother Graine said, watching after the pilots. “It is a hard thing to lose your craft, to have it die. Many don’t survive that loss.”
“What? The Matilda Ray is dead? I'd heard–”
“The Matilda was old when Raven took her as pilot. Though she should have had another twenty years in her, she died not long after the Grand Defeat; an infection of the lungs, I believe. Raven hasn’t left Drift since.”
David thought of that, ten years alone. David thought Margaret would know at least a portion of that loneliness. He guessed he did, too. “People are torn from our lives,” he said. “Loves snatched away.”
Mother Graine patted his arm. “We’ve had our share of that, you and I. The dead far outweigh the living in our lives.” She sighed, looked around her pointedly. “I can’t talk here, and there are things that must be said. Things that only you and I can discuss.”
“I agree,” David said. “We need to talk, and you need to let us go. We've a long way to go.”
“Yes, I understand that. The Engine waits and you fear it as much as you desire it.” She touched his arm, and David felt his nerves react in a way that he’d thought was lost to him; or perhaps he had never really known, it seemed so foreign. The Engine wasn't the only thing that he feared and desired.
Mother Graine said, “I understand a lot of things about you. Come with me for a while, I promise people won’t mind, I have a bit of influence here.” She flashed him a smile, and David’s throat tightened, he knew at once, in that moment, he couldn’t deny her anything. Plans for an early night fell away; besides, he doubted she could stop him, or even hurt him.
The strength, Cadell’s strength, bloomed inside him. And he felt at last that he understood the true possibility of their binding.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked her.
They left the Caress together, the reception still going strong, and already beginning to look like it was going to get messy. Out in the night, David couldn't tell if it was cold, but he guessed it had to be. Mist was rising from the lake (a lake in the sky, that still struck him as so wonderfully odd). People gathered around small fires on the outskirts of the city, guards, he guessed, though they did their best to pretend that neither he nor Graine were there. Graine held his hand, and her grip was warm. She didn’t seem to mind the cold.
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