“You’re the very picture of mercy,” David said.
“And how many men have you killed this day? Men as ancient as the stony moons. And you snuffed out their slow lithic lives just so you could breathe a few days more.”
He sat in a lower branch, a coat about his shoulders, as if he could ever grow cold. The Orbis on David’s finger glowed and the one on the Old Man’s responded with a reflected light. A flickering luminescent dialogue occurred between the rings that David was only partly aware of. Like having a conversation smacked into the side of your head with a flashlight. The sensation passed quickly and the Old Man looked down at him with an expression that was almost avuncular.
“Ah, you’ve led us a merry chase,” the Old Man said, and all at once, David recognised the voice. And it unleashed so much. He stood unsteadily, buffeted by all that memory.
“Milton,” David said.
Andrew Milton nodded his head. “Nice to be remembered.”
“I remember you all.”
Milton pulled up his coat, blood had darkened and stiffened the sleeves — none of it his own. But he didn’t come down from the tree. David could smell Milton from the ground, and despite himself, he felt a little hungry.
Ignore it, a voice whispered.
“Where are the others?” David demanded.
“Not far away,” the Old Man said. “The fear was that you might be using explosives, or that a friend of yours might sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Sacrifice is something you never understood. I don’t need them to kill you.”
“Rupert couldn’t. Nor could Michael or Carver.”
“But now, you are alone. Be honest, you have hardly acquitted yourself well. The Old Man's there, but you've stripped away his teeth with that fancy drug of yours.” Milton dropped from the tree, landed on his feet easily.
Milton was a good head taller than David, a foot broader across the chest.
David took a couple of steps back. The Old Man matched them, lighter on his feet. He rolled his broad shoulders loosely, bits of dried blood dropped from the coat, onto the ground. David could feel his hunger, feel how it echoed his own. It made his mouth water, his tongue felt thick and heavy, and it stuck to his teeth.
“Weeks we have hunted and devoured, weeks to build our strength to match our hungers. I am ready to tear you apart, it is all that we have wanted for months.”
Weeks: had it really been that long since David had left Chapman? There had been slowly passing days, for sure, but hardly that many. He could still remember the great hand rising over the battlements. The Hideous Garment Flutes rushing down out of the dark, and devouring a swirling screaming cloud of birds.
“Do we really need to do this, Andrew?” David said.
Milton blinked. “You never called me that.”
“I am different now. Things have changed.”
“Which is precisely why you must die.”
“What if I agreed not to do it?” the Old Man asked.
“You would not. And, even if you did, your presence alone is enough of a danger. You are an Old Man, old no longer. You are not yourself, but nor are you Cadell.”
“Then what am I?”
“Everything that we once were given a new fierce life. Even if you do not realise it, David, you are the destruction of a world.”
“But I want to save it.”
“So did we. But what is left to save? Perhaps you would like a little of our history,” the Old Man said. “After all, you are part of that now. Whether we like it or not.”
The Old Man was playing for time. Maybe Milton wasn't as confident as he appeared.
“Can’t I just kill you?” David said.
“If you’re fast enough, yes. But aren’t you curious as to what you are? After all, we have had aeons to come to an understanding. You, on the other hand, have had a few weeks. Don’t you want to know why you must die?”
David shrugged. Milton smiled.
He said, “When we did what you have done. When we released the Engine of the World, and sent the Roil back into the darkness, we thought we understood the cost. However, Cad… Mr Milde, we got it wrong. There was death, more death than you or I can comprehend. The Engine itself railed at the terror of its purpose. You may have changed, you may not have been the man you once were, but the Engine can never change enough. And it was as rigorous in what it did to us, as what it had done to the world.
“It captured us. Contained us, and transformed us. Cursed us with hungers, cursed us with life endless (or near enough). And still we thought we could live as normal men. Those days there were twenty of our kind remaining — I am sure you remember them.” And David did, he could see their proud faces, hear their voices.
Milton said, “But as the ice receded, as the world revealed itself to us, what we had undone and what we had made set a madness in our bones.
“Some it affected more than others. Drove them to kill and kill, but we seven, we Old Men, destroyed those who would devour the world that they had saved; and banished ourselves and our hunger to the deep places beneath Mirrlees. We locked ourselves there so that we could not again do what we had done.
“And there was not a day that I didn’t regret that decision, even as I knew it to be the wise one. Cadell, though, he was different. He knew that a time would come when the Engine would be required to work again.”
“And so it has,” David said. “That time has come.”
“Yes, but you need to understand. Time or not, it is the wrong path. We have no right.”
“We have no right to save our world?”
“No right to destroy this one.” The Old Man sighed. “To save it does not save a thing, merely forestalls.”
“Isn’t that what everything is?” David said. “Merely a stalling action.”
Milton smiled. His head dipped a little. “Then we’ve no more talking to do.”
The Old Man crossed the space between them in an eye blink, jaw snapping closed on air. David was already out of reach. Milton's feet dug into the earth, he turned on his heel. David threw a punch, and the Old Man caught his fist and squeezed.
David wrenched his hand free, but not without the Old Man raking his nails across the flesh. David closed the wounds at once. They circled each other.
David’s cheeks burned, his limbs felt slow and heavy, despite his speed. The ground was hard beneath his feet. His breath did not plume as Margaret's did. He looked over at her, on the cold earth, forehead bloody and pale. She might as well have been dead. But there, in the cold and the dark, she looked at peace. He felt again the pangs of his addiction, a stabbing ache, at once sharp and hollow, as though it had already torn the flesh from him.
“Caution will not save you,” Milton said.
David knew he was right.
What would it be like to let go, to lose himself completely?
It doesn't hurt. Not any more than sadness, Cadell said. Not any more than that. It won't even sting.
Milton moved lightly on his feet; his ruddy lips shone.
“Goodbye, Margaret,” David said, and he took a deep breath, left himself to Cadell.
David opened his eyes. Every bit of him was bruised, felt bitterly cold. He sat up.
Margaret was saying something. They were on the top of the ridge, now. “What? What?” he said.
“I-” her teeth chattered.
“I'm sorry,” David said. “I went away.”
He looked back, and there below them lay the scattered remains of Milton.
David coughed, tasted his own blood; when he breathed, it bubbled thick and dark from his nose.
“Two more,” he said. “What happened?”
“You killed him. You tore him apart. And then you laughed. David, David, it was the most horrible sound I have ever heard.”
“There's still more to come. I should have…”
“You said they didn't matter. You passed me a syringe of Carnival. I don't know where you had gotten it from,
