There was desperation in those last moments. When things tipped over, and everything became mad, both sides did things that were… regrettable. Such is it at the ending of every war. How can forgiveness even be considered? Because it must be. Genocide is the only other option.
TEARWIN MEET 2100 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
They were upon Margaret almost at once.
Her vision narrowed, grew focussed only on the moment: a weakness in the enemy, a break in defence, the turning of teeth or claw. Margaret was back in Tate — in that amphitheatre where she had been wounded, but never beaten.
She struck the first Quarg Hound in the neck, once, twice, and it fell dead. its blood mingled with the snow: a bloody ash.
The second Hound lashed out — and she was ready for it, ducking beneath its great claws, driving the chilled blade into its belly, pulling away as it fell on the sword; already swinging the other blade up and down, and onto its neck. The blade caught on armour, but she found her balance at once, struck down again, and watched the Quarg Hound’s head drop to the ground.
She kicked it away, and heard footsteps behind her. She had spun around in her fighting, no longer had her back to the wall. She remedied that problem, turning on her heel and throwing a blade from her belt towards the sound.
A man there ducked. And the blade clattered off a wall.
“You,” Tope said. “Where’s the boy?”
“I know you,” Margaret said. “You’re too late. He's inside, the door is shut.”
Margaret jabbed her rime blade at the two dead Quarg Hounds. “I killed these. Do not think of me as incapable of killing you.”
“Oh, I know your capabilities. You and I, we are much the same, steeped in blood. Wouldn’t you agree?” Tope slid his knife from its belt, his other hand gripping a pistol. “The boy now, he is something altogether different… undeserving.”
“I don't care. He has made it to the Engine of the World. He has walked through the door. I've delivered the bomb, that is all I ever needed to do.”
Margaret loosened her sword arm, swung the blade once, twice. Tope shot her in the stomach and she toppled to her knees, dropping the rime blade. She reached out towards it, her fingers touched the hilt. Tope gave her an almost sympathetic smile, and dragged the sword away from her.
“Miss Penn, people walk back through doors, too,” Tope said. “And when he does, I will be here. I am a patient man.”
Margaret went for a gun at her belt, and he shot her again. She fell on her side.
“That’s the problem when you try and fight someone else’s fight. This isn’t between you and I, it never was. You think me cruel,” Tope said. “And I am cruel, that’s a Verger’s remit, to be cruel when the rest of the world cannot. But this is given with love.”
Margaret’s world had shrunk to Tope. “Would you just shut up,” she said.
Tope’s lips pursed. He shook a finger at her, then lifted his arm higher. A dark spot on his wrist bubbled and spat. Skin tore free and from the wound a single moth detached itself, shaking out bloody wings. “See, I am also a bringer of gifts.”
Margaret found some vestige of strength. She yanked her last gun from her belt, the wound in her belly tearing (though she did not scream), and fired, not at him — because he was right, this had never been between him and her — but the moth.
The shot went wide. The Witmoth, however, didn’t. Margaret flung up her arms too late. It struck her face and slid with all the certainty of a death towards her eyelid. It was fluid and razor-sharp. It burned. She dropped her pistol, clawed at her face. Tope might as well not be there, the wound in her stomach did not exist, only this blazing pain.
“ Hello, my darling. I’m bringing you home,” her mother said, and Margaret felt such joy, the absolute happiness; she had a mother again. She struggled against the thought: it was a lie. A trap for her mind.
There was no pain. Tope was smiling almost beatifically at her.
Margaret stood up, almost toppled again. Gritted her teeth. “And what if I don’t want to go?”
“You have no choice, my darling. None at all.”
She blinked; she was sitting inside the iron ship. Tope wasn’t, she knew that he would be back there waiting for David, and if he walked back through the door, David would face Tope’s knives.
She felt calm. Was this how David had experienced Carnival? She could think, she could rage, but it was all at a distance. As though she was watching someone else. David, she had to warn him!
Margaret rose from the seat.
She blinked. She was back at her chair.
She looked down: her fingers brushed her belly, dark forms held the wound closed, Witmoths more substantial than any she had seen before. They hissed at her touch. How long had she been… whatever it was that she had been?
“They will heal you.” At her feet was a bloody bullet. “The wound was cruel, but it’s nothing that I can’t repair. Margaret, my Margaret.”
She stood again, took a step, and blinked.
She was back in the seat.
This time she’d pulled buckled straps around her shoulders.
“You'll hurt yourself,” a familiar voice said. Her mother's voice, but it came from a different face altogether. Anderson, the head of the Interface, smiled at her with her mother's smile. He reached out and grabbed her arm before she could undo the straps.
“He should not have hurt you that way, but a rough instrument was what was needed. He will not be coming back with us.” Anderson looked down at her belly. “You will be healed, made whole, and of the whole. I will heal you, my daughter.”
Margaret yanked her arm free. “Let me go.”
“Hush, I have given you some autonomy, but you are mine now, and we are part of the whole. As you should have always been. I’ve missed you, my love. But now I can care for you.”
The ship shuddered, she felt it lift, and narrow windows grew out of slits in the wall, letting in light. She watched Tearwin Meet’s wall slide past, as the ship traced its path back out of the webwork that protected the city.
The space within it was primitive, nothing like her Melody Amiss or the Roslyn Dawn. In this sort of ship nothing but basic comforts were required. This ship fought and flew, as little more than a disposable barb of the Roil; not even as valuable as a limb, something to be spat out in anger, or with the cruellest of cunning. Steam swirled around her, such a contrast to the frozen world beyond the iron ship.
“Be still now,” her mother said. “Or you will hurt yourself.”
Margaret clenched her jaw. “No, I-”
Anderson tightened her belts, she could barely move. The open windows completely revealed the ship in greater detail. All around the edge of the craft sat Roilings, facing inward, and every one of them looked at her with the eyes of her mother.
“Where is Father?” Margaret asked.
She felt the answer first as a wave of bitterness and grief that crashed against her — so hard that she raised her hands to her face. “Your father is gone. When he destroyed Tate, when he used the I-bombs, he tore away his chance at life, at union, he tore himself from the both of us.”
“If only he'd managed to kill you, too,” Margaret said.
“He did,” Arabella said. “My body was destroyed, but I didn't need my body any more. The Roil doesn't require bodies, only thought, such warm and wonderful thought. It took a while to master it, but I have, my darling. And you will too.”
They reached the top of the wall, and there the Roslyn Dawn waited. Two bursts of flame. The iron ship shuddered a moment later, the ship creaking and groaning. The metal bulged inwards, but did not give, no matter how much Margaret wished it to.
The iron ship was quick to return fire.
Accurate and powerful fire, for the Dawn 's engine nacelles blew, as did a large section of the fore skull. Her flagella thrashed at the air, and the Aerokin tipped and fell into Tearwin Meet.
The iron ship’s engines fired, and they were already putting distance between them and the walls of the city. Margaret turned and watched the last flash of the Dawn ’s limbs as she tumbled into the metropolis with its razor-sharp wires, and was lost to sight. The iron ship raced south towards the Roil, towards the purest thought of her mother.