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Authors: Stephen Baxter
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bad grace, insisted on accompanying Pyxeas on
the first leg of the journey, as far as an eastern city called Hantilios, where, maybe, the old man would see sense and come back home again.
So they got packed up, and there was a day of farewells. Alxa, Rina’s daughter, seemed particularly upset to see him go, as if she feared she wouldn’t see him again.
And then they were gone.
They headed south down the Etxelur Way, and the Wall slowly receded behind them. Then, by canal boat and on foot, they travelled the length of Northland, following tremendous
avenues and crossing bridges over wide canals, and Avatak tried to absorb the scale of this tremendous, orderly, sparsely populated country. It was a long, slow journey in itself, and occasionally
Rina muttered about alternative ways to cross Northland such as by steam caravan. But it seemed that the scholar wanted to see his country, to cross it on foot as his ancestors had for uncounted
generations, one more time before his so-called ‘longwinter’ closed in. After a few days, however, he did relent a little, and allowed Rina to hire for him a horse-drawn carriage,
though to use horses was thoroughly not the Northland way.
On the southern coast of Northland they came to a port on the estuary called the Cut, a great wound that ran between the southern shores of Northland and Albia and the northern beaches of Gaira,
giving ultimately to the open seas of the Western Ocean. Here they boarded a small boat, booked ahead by Rina, and as part of a small flotilla crossed the estuary and made their way eastward along
the Gairan coast to a wide river mouth. Waves broke on a nondescript beach, and marsh and wooded hills could be seen beyond. From here they would sail upriver towards the great city of Parisa.
Inland, the countryside was quite similar to southern Northland and Albia, rolling and green, though even this far south they still saw the odd white splash of remnant winter ice. Gaira was a
quilt of ancient nations, mostly Frankish, immigrants a thousand years before, but some older stock. The empires of the Middle Sea with their cities of stone had never come this far north, and so
the Gairans’ various cultures had been shaped by local influences, the Northlanders, the farmers to the south – even the other-worldly Albians of their great forest to the west. So
Avatak saw a mix of neat farms surrounded by stretches of woodland, and then a swathe of lowland worked and managed as the Northlanders did, and then a town of stone where the natives sold lumber
or minerals to merchants from the Middle Sea. But an older history survived; some of these communities were still centred on the circles of mighty stones bequeathed by distant ancestors.
At last they approached Parisa. A Frankish settlement, this was the westernmost city on the Continent, Pyxeas said, a trading conduit for Northland. Here they would board a steam caravan that
would take them onwards east in comparative comfort. They had a couple of days and nights before they were to leave. While Pyxeas locked himself away in a rented room with his books and scrolls and
calculations, and Rina organised the final details of their onward journey, Avatak wandered around Parisa.
He had never been to a city before, and he was overwhelmed by the size of it, the buildings of smartly cut stone or shabby wattle and daub crammed in side by side on both banks of a languid
river, and jammed in even more tightly on a central island. He walked through alleyways walled by shops and stalls and taverns, stepped over open drains running through the cobbles, and climbed
rickety bridges to the central island, which was dominated by sprawling temples dedicated to the gods of the peoples who traded here, from the ancient forest gods of the Albians to the enigmatic
Jesus Sharruma of the east. People rushed everywhere, or laboured in open-to-the-street manufactories, or noisily sold wares in the many marketplaces. Pyxeas said the
the first leg of the journey, as far as an eastern city called Hantilios, where, maybe, the old man would see sense and come back home again.
So they got packed up, and there was a day of farewells. Alxa, Rina’s daughter, seemed particularly upset to see him go, as if she feared she wouldn’t see him again.
And then they were gone.
They headed south down the Etxelur Way, and the Wall slowly receded behind them. Then, by canal boat and on foot, they travelled the length of Northland, following tremendous
avenues and crossing bridges over wide canals, and Avatak tried to absorb the scale of this tremendous, orderly, sparsely populated country. It was a long, slow journey in itself, and occasionally
Rina muttered about alternative ways to cross Northland such as by steam caravan. But it seemed that the scholar wanted to see his country, to cross it on foot as his ancestors had for uncounted
generations, one more time before his so-called ‘longwinter’ closed in. After a few days, however, he did relent a little, and allowed Rina to hire for him a horse-drawn carriage,
though to use horses was thoroughly not the Northland way.
On the southern coast of Northland they came to a port on the estuary called the Cut, a great wound that ran between the southern shores of Northland and Albia and the northern beaches of Gaira,
giving ultimately to the open seas of the Western Ocean. Here they boarded a small boat, booked ahead by Rina, and as part of a small flotilla crossed the estuary and made their way eastward along
the Gairan coast to a wide river mouth. Waves broke on a nondescript beach, and marsh and wooded hills could be seen beyond. From here they would sail upriver towards the great city of Parisa.
Inland, the countryside was quite similar to southern Northland and Albia, rolling and green, though even this far south they still saw the odd white splash of remnant winter ice. Gaira was a
quilt of ancient nations, mostly Frankish, immigrants a thousand years before, but some older stock. The empires of the Middle Sea with their cities of stone had never come this far north, and so
the Gairans’ various cultures had been shaped by local influences, the Northlanders, the farmers to the south – even the other-worldly Albians of their great forest to the west. So
Avatak saw a mix of neat farms surrounded by stretches of woodland, and then a swathe of lowland worked and managed as the Northlanders did, and then a town of stone where the natives sold lumber
or minerals to merchants from the Middle Sea. But an older history survived; some of these communities were still centred on the circles of mighty stones bequeathed by distant ancestors.
At last they approached Parisa. A Frankish settlement, this was the westernmost city on the Continent, Pyxeas said, a trading conduit for Northland. Here they would board a steam caravan that
would take them onwards east in comparative comfort. They had a couple of days and nights before they were to leave. While Pyxeas locked himself away in a rented room with his books and scrolls and
calculations, and Rina organised the final details of their onward journey, Avatak wandered around Parisa.
He had never been to a city before, and he was overwhelmed by the size of it, the buildings of smartly cut stone or shabby wattle and daub crammed in side by side on both banks of a languid
river, and jammed in even more tightly on a central island. He walked through alleyways walled by shops and stalls and taverns, stepped over open drains running through the cobbles, and climbed
rickety bridges to the central island, which was dominated by sprawling temples dedicated to the gods of the peoples who traded here, from the ancient forest gods of the Albians to the enigmatic
Jesus Sharruma of the east. People rushed everywhere, or laboured in open-to-the-street manufactories, or noisily sold wares in the many marketplaces. Pyxeas said the
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