Iron Winter

77

They sat on the growstone beach. Pyxeas was given a heap of blankets, and Avatak and Nelo sat with him, Nelo sketching intently. The folk of the little village, what was left of Etxelur, gathered around them: Crimm and his wife, the other adults, and the children who stood and openly stared at the newcomers with their exotic looks, their strange clothes. It was afternoon now, and the sun, hanging in a clear sky, cast a light of a strange quality, a rich golden yellow, on the face of the Wall behind them.

A small child, it might have been either a boy or girl in its bundle of furs, walked boldly forward, sat on Pyxeas’ lap, and started to pull at his wispy beard. It struck Avatak suddenly that there were no old people in this village — none at all, save Pyxeas.

Crimm smiled at Pyxeas. ‘That’s your great-grand-nephew. He’s called Citeg. He’s evidently a philosopher, like his uncle.’

Pyxeas, cradling the child, seemed to gather what was left of his strength. ‘Indeed. What a tableau we must make — draw us, Nelo! Draw us for history. Myself the elder, who remembers the world before the coming of the longwinter. You adults who are living through this age of transition. And now this little one on my lap, one of a new generation rising already, who knows nothing of the days before the longwinter, and who will grow up thinking all this is normal — to live on a growstone beach, to trap seals to survive. Thus we humans forget the pain of the past. I sometimes think this is the little mothers’ greatest gift, for otherwise each of us, even this little one, would carry inside his head the burden of ten thousand years.

‘But we must not forget. We as a people. Ana, who founded the Wall itself, knew this long ago; we could not forget the great floods of the past, for if we had we would have been doomed to suffer them again. And we did not forget. We wrote down our memories, and organised ourselves, and remembered.

‘Now we face the greatest calamity of all — this longwinter. A flood of cold that will last many thousands of years. Yet we understand why it has come about — I, Pyxeas, a handful of scholars in Carthage, and now these brave boys who brought me home. Knowing why it happens is a long way from being able to turn it back, from warming the world! Only the mothers can do that. But if we understand, if we anticipate, then we can plan. But we can only understand if we remember.

‘I came here hoping to find scholarship surviving. Even I, Pyxeas, I admit, underestimated the damage done by the long-winter in its first few seasons. But what I have found here is you, Crimm, and your people, and your admirable determination to survive. And so I have modified my goals.

‘I have written down my conclusions. I have already sent copies to scholars around the world, from Cathay to Egypt to Carthage. There will be a New Etxelur, built on the Carthaginian shore. That too has copies. But we know the world is in flux, and who knows what will survive of that?

‘But here we are, at the Wall, at Etxelur. And I want you to help me now. I have copies of my findings, stored in my trunk, my conclusions set out. I want more copies made, more sets compiled — more trunks filled. I know you can write, Crimm, you others — you haven’t forgotten yet. And I want these copies distributed in safe places the length of the Wall, as far as you can reach.’

Crimm nodded. Though he must have known what a burden this would be for a folk already on the edge of starvation, Avatak thought, he seemed enthused. ‘We will do this, Uncle. We are Northlanders; this is Etxelur. This is what we are for. And then our children, and our children’s children, will stand guard on the Wall until the day the warmth returns to the world.’

Pyxeas sighed. ‘Brave words, Crimm. But it’s impossible, I’m afraid. I told you — the ice will see to it.’

And he spoke to them of what was to come.

‘The snow will continue to fall, and none of it will melt. It will gather deeper and deeper, the lower layers compressing to hard ice. At last, around centres to the north of Albia, in Scand, in Asia, in the Land of the Sky Wolf, huge sheets will accumulate. How do I know this? Because this is how it was before. I have seen the marks of it. And this ocean, this ancient land, even the Wall itself, will be entirely covered over, with a great thickness of ice — as thick as a day’s walk! And so you must leave here. Go south, to the edge of the ice. Find a new place to live. For this land is doomed.

‘But the Wall will survive. The growstone core is tough enough for that. Riding out the years, resisting the ice as it has already resisted the ocean for millennia. And in its growstone carcass, to be discovered anew by the children of a distant future, will be the secrets of the world. Those children will begin knowing as much as we know now. Who knows what they will go on to learn? And you will leave them your drawings too, Nelo. Let them look upon the faces of their ancestors.’

This was met by silence, save from the gurgle of a baby somewhere.

Crimm waved a hand at the growstone village, the sea. ‘You speak of generations yet unborn. We have survived. We are proud of what we have built here. Must we lose it all?’

‘It is already lost,’ Pyxeas said gently. ‘The land is only ever loaned from the ice; now the ice takes it back. But next time, next time. .’

‘Crimm! Aranx!’

The call came from the west, along the growstone shore. People stood, peered into the sun, hands over their eyes. Crimm waved. ‘I’m here! Ayto, is that you?’

‘We found an animal,’ Ayto called, his cry distant, small. ‘A big one. A bear! White, or yellow.’

Crimm was baffled. ‘A white bear?’

Avatak was already on his feet. ‘Nanok. I knew he would come.’

Crimm grinned, took a spear from a pile, threw it to Avatak. ‘After you.’

A party of hunters quickly formed up. Wielding their spears, tightening their skin jackets around their bodies, they jogged across the growstone shore towards the west, where the bear padded cautiously over a bit of sea ice, silhouetted by the lowering sun.