World Without Magic - Part the First
Quinn freezes in his tracks the instant the ground beneath his foot goes crunch.
Here it is cold, the early weeks of March in the north of England. Here the greenhouse gases ceased to spill from human works into the atmosphere years and years ago. This is the beginning of spring as it used to be, when the almanac's date for the last frost meant the difference between life and death for the early crops.
This is home.
Quinn flattens himself against the first wall that he sees. The scene is one of old fire, old death. There were several buildings here once, a cluster of towers alongside a road that led over the Northumberland terrain up to Alnwick and then to the A1 motorway. All they are now is charred and broken concrete, and even the charring is years old, washed away by fire and snow. There is a great stone arch that marks the transition between the outside world and the buildings' shared courtyard; it is this which marked the transition from the green woods outside Milliways to the places of stone under the windy sky. Quinn shivers at the wind, looking over his shoulder with wide, horrified eyes. "I didn't mean to come here now," he says. "We're home..."
Here it is cold, the early weeks of March in the north of England. Here the greenhouse gases ceased to spill from human works into the atmosphere years and years ago. This is the beginning of spring as it used to be, when the almanac's date for the last frost meant the difference between life and death for the early crops.
This is home.
Quinn flattens himself against the first wall that he sees. The scene is one of old fire, old death. There were several buildings here once, a cluster of towers alongside a road that led over the Northumberland terrain up to Alnwick and then to the A1 motorway. All they are now is charred and broken concrete, and even the charring is years old, washed away by fire and snow. There is a great stone arch that marks the transition between the outside world and the buildings' shared courtyard; it is this which marked the transition from the green woods outside Milliways to the places of stone under the windy sky. Quinn shivers at the wind, looking over his shoulder with wide, horrified eyes. "I didn't mean to come here now," he says. "We're home..."