We never developed an adequate defence against the iron ships. Fortunately their production must have required certain rare elements, for no more than fourteen seem to have been produced. But even that was an adequate number to conquer a world; there wasn't much of it left.
THE OUTER WALL OF TEARWIN MEET 2100 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
Buchan and Whig waited at the base of the tower. Their airship, the Collard Green, bobbed hard against her lines, though she was in no danger of striking herself against the jagged wall. Watson was too good a pilot for that.
Whig was dressed in so many layers that he almost looked as big as Buchan. He slapped David on the back, hands thick with several pairs of gloves.
“You did it,” Whig said. “You got us here.”
“With a little help from the pilots, thank you,” Kara said. Watson — who stood by the Collard, checking the lines to see that they were secure — grunted. David couldn't help but smile.
“What?” Kara said. “It's bloody true.”
She was shivering.
David realised they were all shivering, except him.
“You lot,” Buchan said, “time to get under cover. We'll die out here.”
Near the base of the wall was a sort of overhang. Their men had set up a perimeter facing the landscape of ice and stone. The stones were frangible and layered. They crumbled underfoot. David knew that this was why the single continent was called Shale. It had been the first thing those first people had seen, fields of rough stone in every direction, shale as unwelcoming as the dark between the stars.
There was little wind though, this low down. The sea could be heard clearly here. David could all too easily imagine all that bristled stone toppling over. He tried not to think about it too much, there was nowhere else for them to go, except over those walls. David considered the final minutes of his father's life, the time when David had to choose to run or to die. He'd chosen flight then, but had never expected it to lead to here.
“What's done is done,” he said.
Margaret smiled darkly at him. “I know what you mean,” she said.
Of course you don't, David thought, but he smiled back. They were here, he could reach out and touch the wall of Tearwin Meet — if he wanted it to tear open the flesh of his palm.
“I'm sorry,” David said. “We'll leave before morning. But I'm still not quite ready.”
“When will you ever be ready?” Margaret said.
“When I do this,” David said. “I don't know if there will be much of me left. When we cross that wall, and descend into the city, I don't know if it will be me that does it, or if it will be me that will come back.”
“The Engine transforms everything, but so does the Roil,” Margaret said. “We've made our choice, we've settled on a side.”
David wasn't sure he had, but he nodded his head.
The air was salt-sharp and stinging, and it felt like just breathing could cut.
He felt Cadell's memories, too — of a childhood here, staring out at all that grey stone.
Shale’s beginning had been difficult, and cold. And so had Cadell's, but he had grown strong, and ageless, and the city had spawned twelve metropolises.
It seemed appropriate that whatever rebirth the world would have would begin here.
David glanced over at Margaret, as they walked beneath the overhang. “We will do this soon. Before the dawn,” he said. “I promise you.”
She nodded, but David could see the anger there. After all, she had been the one that had yearned for this moment. David had only been driven to it.
“So, what must be done?” Buchan asked. The big man wiped map powder from his nose; they'd been considering the one map of Tearwin Meet they possessed. David had refused the powder, the map itself was so folded and old that the creases had become shadow roads and buildings: it was too easy to get lost in them.
Besides, the map powder only made him crave Carnival more. “You've never told us what we can do once we were here.”
David shook his head. “I never told you because I wasn't sure. I still don't know. It may be as simple as turning a switch, but I doubt it. The one thing that I am certain of is that the rest I need to do alone — well, with Margaret's company. I don't think she would ever let me enter Tearwin Meet without her,” David said.
“You can’t expect us to,” Buchan blustered. “We have come all this way.”
“What I expect you to do is let me finish this. Margaret will be coming with me, she is all I’ll need.”
“I could send my crew with you. Whig and I, we could-”
“And they would die, and you would die. I couldn’t protect them, and in there they would need protecting.”
Buchan wiped at his nose, David thought the big man might be about to cry. “After all that chasing, all that rushing to your aid, and we are no use.”
David tried not to smile. “You saved us from the Old Men, you escorted us here. You've done all you need. All that can be expected of you. And I did not come here just so that you should die, or worse, get in the way, and kill us too.”
“So we sit here and wait?”
“No,” David said. “Not exactly.” He pointed to the overhang. “You wait beneath that.”
“It’s dark in there,” Buchan said.
“Yes, but it’s warm. When the Engine is engaged, there will be no safer place, you should survive here.”
“Should?” Buchan asked.
“Might, should, won't — I don’t know,” David snapped. “There are no guarantees any more. We are here. We have made it, and that is all. And that is all we have to understand.” David realised that he was shouting.
Buchan took a step back. “Then you can tell the damn pilot.”
“Of course,” David said, and he got to his feet.
Watson Rhig sat beneath the shade of his gondola. He smoked a pipe, offered some to David, who declined.
“Not my poison,” he said.
Rhig laughed. “No, I would imagine that it isn't.”
“You flew well,” David said.
“I'm a good pilot,” Rhig answered. “Not such a good compatriot. You know I was meant to take you back to the Underground.”
“Why didn't you?”
“I guess the question is: how could I? Let me tell you, David, that your aunt is safe, and Medicine Paul; well, they were when I left them. That should be some comfort to you.” Rhig gave his pipe a good hard knock, stuffed it with some new tobacco, tamped it down, and took his time as pilots do. “I saw what you and the girl did to those Old Men. Knew that I had no choice but to throw in with you lot. If anyone is capable of surviving Tearwin Meet, I’d imagine it's you.”
“You think we can do this?”
The pilot lit his pipe with a match, and puffed a moment. “I know you can, Mr Milde. And if you can't, then it wasn't possible in the first place.” He smiled. “And yes, I’ll move the Collard Green under that damn overhang.”