Book 5 - Page 41 (1/2)

‘No,’ said Nijel.

He was trembling with rage, or possibly with cold, and was nearly as pale as the glaciers that rumbled past below them.

Conina sighed. ‘Well, just how do you think-’ she began.

‘Take me down somewhere a few minutes ahead of them,’ said Nijel.

‘I really don’t see how that would help.’

‘I wasn’t asking your opinion,’ said Nijel, quietly. ‘Just do it. Put me down a little way ahead of them so I’ve got a while to get sorted out.’

‘Get what sorted out?’

Nijel didn’t answer.

‘I said,’ said Conina, ‘get what-’

‘Shut up!’

‘I don’t see why-’

‘Look,’ said Nijel, with the patience that lies just short of axe-murdering. ‘The ice is going to cover the whole world, right? Everyone’s going to die, okay? Except for us for a little while, I suppose, until these horses want their, their, their oats or the lavatory or whatever, which isn’t much use to us except maybe Creosote will just about have time to write a sonnet or something about how cold it is all of a sudden, and the whole of human history is about to be sc.r.a.ped up and in these circ.u.mstances I would like very much to make it completely clear that I am not about to be argued with, is that absolutely understood?’

He paused for breath, trembling like a harpstring.

Conina hesitated. Her mouth opened and shut a few times, as though she was considering arguing, and then she thought better of it.

They found a small clearing in a pine forest a mile or two ahead of the herd, although the sound of it was clearly audible and there was a line of steam above the trees and the ground was dancing like a drumtop.

Nijel strolled to the middle of the clearing and made a few practice swings with his sword. The others watched him thoughtfully.

‘If you don’t mind,’ whispered Creosote to Conina, ‘I’ll be off. It’s at times like this that sobriety loses its attractions and I’m sure the end of the world will look a lot better through the bottom of a gla.s.s, if it’s all the same to you. Do you believe in Paradise, o peachcheeked blossom?’

‘Not as such, no.’

‘Oh,’ said Creosote. ‘Well, in that case we probably won’t be seeing each other again.’ He sighed. ‘What a waste. All this was just because of a geas. Um. Of course, if by some unthinkable chance-’

‘Goodbye,’ said Conina.

Creosote nodded miserably, wheeled the horse and disappeared over the treetops.

Snow was shaking down from the branches around the clearing. The thunder of the approaching glaciers filled the air.

Nijel started when she tapped him on the shoulder, and dropped his sword.

‘What are you doing here?’ he snapped, fumbling desperately in the snow.

‘Look, I’m not prying or anything,’ said Conina meekly, ‘but what exactly do you have in mind?’

She could see a rolling heap of bulldozed snow and soil bearing down on them through the forest, the mind-numbing sound of the leading glaciers now overlaid with the rhythmic snapping of tree trunks. And, advancing implacably above the treeline, so high that the eye mistook them at first for sky, the blue-green prows.

‘Nothing,’ said Nijel, ‘nothing at all. We’ve just got to resist them, that’s all there is to it. That’s what we’re here for.’

‘But it won’t make any difference,’ she said.

‘It will to me. If we’re going to die anyway, Iii rather die like this. Heroically.’

‘Is it heroic to die like this?’ said Conina.

‘I think it is,’ he said, ‘and when it comes to dying, there’s only one opinion that matters.’

‘Oh.’

A couple of deer blundered into the clearing, ignored the humans in their blind panic, and rocketed away.

‘You don’t have to stay,’ said Nijel. ‘I’ve got this geas, you see.’

Conina looked at the backs of her hands.

‘I think I should,’ she said, and added, ‘You know, I thought maybe, you know, if we could just get to know one another better-’

‘Mr and Mrs Harebut, was that what you had in mind?’ he said bluntly.

Her eyes widened. ‘Well-’ she began.

‘Which one did you intend to be?’ he said.

The leading glacier smashed into the clearing just behind its bow wave, its top lost in a cloud of its own creation.

At exactly the same time the trees opposite it bent low as a hot wind blew from the Rim. It was loaded with voices - petulant, bickering voices - and tore into the clouds like a hot iron into water.

Conina and Nijel threw themselves down into snow which turned to warm slush under them. Something like a thunderstorm crashed overhead, filled with shouting and what they at first thought were screams although, thinking about them later, they seemed more like angry arguments. It went on for a long time, and then began to fade in the direction of the Hub.

Warm water flooded down the front of Nijel’s vest. He lifted himself cautiously, and then nudged Conina.

Together they scrambled through the slush and mud to the top of the slope, climbed through a logjam of smashed timber and boulders, and stared at the scene.

The glaciers were retreating, under a cloud stuffed with lightning. Behind them the landscape was a network of lakes and pools.

‘Did we do that?’ said Conina.

‘It would be nice to think so, wouldn’t it?’ said Nijel.

‘Yes, but did-’ she began.

‘Probably not. Who knows? Let’s just find a horse,’ he said.