The truth about the Deep North was this. There was always something waiting to stop you. Tearwin Meet might be reached, but always at a cost. No one had survived beyond its high walls, and few lived to reach them and return. All we had were a few rough pictures, including, remarkably, one of the earliest examples of Immediacism — the artist didn't have long to dwell upon those high walls. Even the decision to travel north was a dangerous one.
THE FREE AEROKIN ROSLYN DAWN 1500 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
By the end of the first day, even David could tell the Dawn was struggling. Kara stood cursing at the control panel, mumbling beneath her breath between louder exclamations. She'd gotten drunk and sobered to a terrible hangover, so bad that she’d downed handfuls of the healing salve at the heart of the Aerokin — and even some coffee, which she went to great pains to explain was more valuable than anything else on the Dawn, which was why she couldn't possibly share any — but apparently her headache was of world-ending proportions.
“What’s happening?” David asked.
“Those headwinds,” Kara said. “Headaches, headwinds, we're damned and doomed.” She swallowed more of the Dawn 's gel, washing it down with coffee. She winced. “I'd heard that the winds had picked up, but these are incredible. We’re going to have to approach Tearwin Meet, low and slow, and when the winds are at their weakest.”
David frowned.
“What does that mean?” Margaret asked.
“Exactly what I said. Higher up the winds are blowing south, we’re going to need to follow the earth closer than I would like. The winds down there near the mud aren't much better, but they are better. Up here we'd be faster walking.”
“I am being hunted, you know?” David said.
“Yes,” Kara said. “Have the Old Men grown wings?”
David smiled. “Of course not.”
“The other thing, as much as I hate it, we are going to need to stop for the evening.”
“What?”
“The Dawn 's filters will need cleaning. A dead Aerokin won't get you to Tearwin Meet, and the winds are blowing fiercer with the evening, but they're dropping out a few hours before dawn. We will reach Tearwin Meet in three days. Surely that's fast enough.”
“A day ago I thought I was going to die,” David said. “Three days is better than I could hope for.”
“Yes, three days to death rather than yesterday,” Kara said. “You must be very pleased.”
As promised, Kara brought the Dawn down just before sunset, the Aerokin fixing herself to the earth with her landing spurs. A ridge rose up before them, offering cover from the wind, but still it roared down from the north. There was a creek nearby, and Kara carried the Roslyn Dawn 's filters — black with Roil spores — there.
The wind picked up even more, howling through the trees that lined the ridge. Old growth cracked, dust and wood was sent racing along the plains.
“I don’t like this,” Margaret said.
“It’s a defence mechanism,” David said. “The city in the north is cloaking itself in cold.”
“And what good will that do against iron ships?”
“There are other defences,” David said. “I'm a bit hazy on them, but they exist.”
Kara came back an hour later with the filters cleaned, and her fingers cracked. She let the strips dry out in front of the fire. “The damned wind is blasting the spores into my Dawn.”
“Three days,” David said. “And then we can end this.”
“And what does that mean?”
“The Roil destroyed. The world turned cold and white,” Margaret said.
“Sounds bloody awful,” Kara said.
“It won’t last. The Mechanical Winter's brief, the spring that follows is long,” David said. “At least that's how it's meant to be.”
“And if you're wrong?”
“Everything dies,” Margaret said.
When the filters had dried, Kara went back into the Dawn. “You two,” she shouted. “We will be leaving before first light.”
“I’ll take first watch,” Margaret said.
David shook his head. “No, I don’t want to sleep tonight. I can rest tomorrow, when we’re in the air.”
Margaret frowned at him.
“I need you to be ready,” he said. “I need you to be awake.” He didn't say for what, but she nodded her head, and clambered back into the Dawn.
Five minutes after he was sure she was asleep, he slid the Carnival into his veins. At once he felt Cadell sliding away. He smiled to himself and the fire.
He reached out to the flame and could hardly feel a thing. Cadell’s Orbis reflected the light, seemed to gather it in. He could see tiny clusters of flame within its heart; perhaps it really did contain a universe. Despite feeling the Old Man’s disapproval, he took a little more Carnival, and the ring’s light dulled. Keeping the Old Man at bay for another few hours.
The Old Men were drawing closer, he couldn't work out how, but they were. Still they'd be in Tearwin Meet long before the Old Men could reach them. After all, they'd not grown wings! They were still far enough away that he need not worry, for all that he had suggested otherwise to Margaret.
A little deception, there was no harm in it, surely.
The Dawn was back in the sky in the near dark of early morning, great lights burning fore and aft, the world grey and old and cold around them. Bit by bit, moment by moment, the darkness succumbed to day, and David felt a deep affinity with that failing and flailing darkness. He felt himself running down, the Carnival he had taken last night was perhaps the last he could allow himself. He needed Cadell as they neared Tearwin Meet. David needed his knowledge, his memories, and he couldn’t keep pushing Cadell away. He couldn't give himself the privilege of comfort any more. He did his best to forget the Carnival in his boot, and watched instead the thinning of night, and the land passing by below, a sad and desolate landscape.
The wind from the north built quickly as the sun made its way over the horizon. The flying contraption came up from beneath them. Not an iron ship, but something else, something fast and frail. Something that contained an Old Man.
The Dawn 's cannon fired and missed; the winged thing lifted, swinging up, then looping around and shooting straight towards them.
“It’s going to hit us,” Kara said, even as the Dawn dropped. “It’s-”
The vehicle struck the Dawn hard, the Aerokin screamed and the whole gondola lurched to one side. Kara ran towards the doorifice, poked her head out.
“No, no, no! David, Margaret, I'm going to need your help. Rope up!” She sounded calmer than her body language suggested. “The whole flank's-”
A hand yanked her through the doorifice, flung her away. David caught the look of horror on her face, her hands flailing desperately for a grip, and then she was gone.
Part Three
Old Men
Their words had forked no lightning, but there was always time, and there was always rage. You could feel it wherever they passed. Cold as frost, dark as night. Everywhere the Old Men walked the world bled a little, died a little, too.
Old Men Walking, Damien Thomas