The Girl and the Stars
Maya yawned and Yaz found herself suddenly exhausted. She had no idea how long had passed in the first ice chamber she’d dropped into. Would the gathering far above be in full swing or breaking up as the sun rose? For a moment the weight of all that ice seemed to crush her. She bore it though, along with the weight of sorrow for her mother and her father and Quell and maybe for some of the others she would never see again. Would they be grieving amid the celebrations, even though they were not supposed to? The music and the ferment were meant to help in the forgetting but she hoped they would each at least shed one tear for the girl they had lost.
“You stay here until I come for you.” Arka opened the door, pointing. “That hut way over there by the entrance to that side chamber. That’s where you go in the night. Nothing freezes down here so we don’t take care of our business near where we sleep. And nothing is wasted. What we have no use for helps grow the plants we eat.”
“The fungus eats dung?” Kao pushed up the blond mop of his hair in disgust. “And you eat the fungus?”
Arka shrugged. “You will too if you don’t want to starve. It’s the circle of life. The dead go into the pits too. It’s how life is. Eular says that on the ice that circle is broken because Abeth is dying. What you take from the sea does not return. But down here the cycle still turns life into death and death into life, and will do so as long as the stars shine.” With that she left them. Yaz sat, watching Arka walk away and wondering who this Eular was who seemed to know everything.
* * *
“WELL, I’M NOT eating that . . . muck.” Kao slammed the door behind Arka.
A low chuckle brought their attention to the gloom at the far end of the barracks where what had seemed to be a heap of bedding now raised its head.
“So this is where you ran off to.” Kao snorted at Thurin and shook his head. On the ice nobody stormed off in a temper. The wind would cool you down quicker than you liked, and if your anger took you out of view then you might never find your way back.
Thurin shrugged. “I have things to prove before they let me back.”
“Back?” Quina went to take a sleeping place not far from Thurin’s.
Thurin said nothing, only lay down and turned away. Maya went to take a place near the door.
“Not that one,” Kao said, looming over her.
Maya moved to another, and Kao scowled at her retreat. Yaz watched, wondering that someone so large would feel the need to push a small girl around. Kao could have made an issue of Thurin laughing at him, if he wanted a fight, but there was something haunting that one’s eyes that might give a mad dog pause.
Taking a pallet a good distance from Kao’s Yaz settled herself down. “I’m going to find my brother and rescue him from the Tainted.” She said it with more confidence than she felt and looked through the gloom at the shapeless heap that should be Thurin.
“If you see him you should run,” the heap replied.
“Arka told me that the rest are not as bad as Hetta,” Yaz said. “They don’t eat people.”
“Let them catch you and you’ll wish they had eaten you.” A long silence. “Theus is worse than Hetta. Much worse.”
It was as if Thurin were daring her to ask. She held her tongue. She wasn’t sure if it was pride that kept her lips sealed. Or maybe it was just knowing that since she had to go after Zeen it was better that she didn’t hear anything that might make it harder to leave.
Thurin told her anyway. “Theus has a plan. He leads them. All of them. Even Hetta is scared of Theus. He’s looking for something in the black ice. Been looking for it a long time. A very long time.”
“Who is he? What tribe? How old is he?” The man had taken her brother. Yaz found herself needing to know, however bad it might be.
Thurin didn’t speak for a while and the barracks seemed to hold its breath, as if the others were listening too and feared to betray themselves.
“Theus is as old as the body he wears. When I first saw him he was wearing Gossix, a boy I used to know.”
“Wearing?” Yaz shuddered. She could only think of a flayed skin, just as the Ictha wore the skin of mole-fish, the hides of tuark, and seal furs traded from the Triple Seas far to the south. “None of the tribes would—”
“Theus is not of the tribes.” Thurin’s voice fell to a whisper, haunted with memory. “He comes from the ice itself.” He seemed about to say more but the door burst open and light flooded in, chasing shadows to the corners.
“On your feet, drop-group!” Pome stood, revealed in the light of his own star.
He watched, hard faced, as they stood, Thurin last of all, favouring him with a dark look.
“Inspection time.” Pome strode in between them. “Let’s see what sorry excuses we’ve been given this time.”
Maya shrank away from the star as Pome waved it past her on the end of its iron rod. Pome swung back to Kao by the doorway. “Big fellow, eh? Golin?”
Kao nodded.
“I should have been leader of this drop-group,” Pome said. “But Tarko has his politics to play. In the end, though, drop-groups aren’t here or there. You come sit with us sometime, down at the Green Shack, and I’ll tell you how things are under the ice. The Broken are listening to me these days and they like what I’m saying. Tarko has me marked for great things.”
Kao nodded and Yaz found herself starting to nod too. She stopped. There was nothing she liked about this young man, not his attitude, the things he said, or the way his gaze slid over her, and yet somehow his words had been carrying her along with them.
“Get out, Pome.” Thurin spat. “Take your pretty lies with you.”
Pome curled his lip in annoyance and strode toward Thurin, thrusting his star before him. “Was that you talking, Taint? Or did you let a demon take your tongue again?”
Thurin backed from the starlight, shielding his face as if it were a fierce heat.
“See?” Pome looked back at the rest of them. “The Tainted can’t stand the stars. The light is what keeps us safe.” He glanced at Kao. “Never go where it’s dark, boy. Not down here. They’ll have you in a moment.”
“Yessir.” Kao gulped and nodded.
Pome turned and jabbed his star at Thurin, who was pressed to the back wall now. The light made him gasp as if in pain, forcing him to slide into the corner on his rear.
“Stop that!” Yaz found herself moving forward. However convincing Pome’s words felt, she didn’t like what he was doing one bit.
“Or you’ll stop me?” Pome swung round, thrusting his star at her chest.