The Girl and the Stars

“The monster?”

“I don’t think so . . .”

The four of them waited, crouched and ready, listening to the crunch of ice, quieter and less violent than it had been before.

“Halloo-oo?” A woman’s voice from outside.

This time nobody stood in Kao’s way as he threw himself at the gap and began to wriggle out beneath the ice.

The rest of them followed, Thurin bringing up the rear. Many hands reached to help them from the mass of crushed ice mounded around the base of the wall. Yaz rose to find herself surrounded by the Broken, scores of them, hulking gerants making their neighbours look like children. Arka led her from the debris as others helped Thurin out. Quina was among them and had taken charge of Maya, brushing fragments from her long brown hair. Pome was there with his star-on-a-stick, others also bearing lights, some holding smaller stars in glass bowls on the end of long poles. Their leader, Tarko, stood among them in hurried conference with a series of his people, who took off running once they had their orders.

“This!” Pome stepped forward as Thurin stood dusting sparkling fragments from his skins. “This is what comes of toying with the taints! Theus will come for us all. His numbers are growing and we sit back and let him plan our destruction! We leave him to choose when to lead the Tainted against us.” Pome singled Thurin out, pointing in accusation. “Instead of a war to eradicate their kind and take back the drop pools, we capture one of their number and try to cleanse him. Wasting months’ worth of stones and losing a good warrior in the process.”

“That good warrior was my mother!” Thurin roared, and about him the crushed ice writhed as though some great serpent were moving just beneath its surface. “I don’t need some surface walker one drop from his fall to tell me—”

“Peace!” Tarko boomed. His voice rolled out deep as glaciers groaning. “The Tainted did not bring a hunter to our caves. Tainted do not go to the city.”

“And hunters don’t come this far into our territory!” Pome shouted, to mutters of agreement from behind him. “But still we have a hunter on our doorstep hard on the heels of Thurin’s restoration. We have challenged the order of things, against the will of many here, and now we see the price. The Tainted are lost to us and a quick death is all the mercy we can afford them.”

Tarko rubbed both hands across the back of his neck as if seeking to ease some tension. He looked tired, close to exhaustion, but when he answered it was with a measured tone. “And what would you have me do, Pome? Return Thurin to the Tainted? Leave him to the hunter? I thought you were eager to fight. Today we have driven off a hunter. When have the Broken known such a victory?”

This time the mutters were for Tarko and they were louder. He continued, “I’ve set a watch on the long slope so we will know if a hunter comes our way again. But we’ve shown that here at least we have some defence against them.” He nodded to himself and looked out across his people, waving them on. “Now, each to their task. The ice does not mine itself.”

The gathering appeared to be over. Slowly the crowd began to break up, moving off in threes and fours, some deep in their silence, others talking animatedly among themselves to the accompaniment of the drip drip drip from above and the distant groan of moving ice.

“What happened?” Thurin asked Arka, amazed. “How did you drive off a hunter?”

“Tarko worked the ice,” Arka said.

“Tarko has marjal blood, like Thurin?” Maya asked.

“Someone’s been paying attention. Tarko is the strongest ice-worker among us.” Arka gave the girl an approving look and Maya beamed up at her. “He broke a block from the ceiling bigger than Hetta and let it drop on the hunter. That got its attention. The second one seemed to hurt it. Anyway, it retreated after that.” She pointed to the far end of the cavern where more caves opened out. “Let’s go.”

Yaz ignored the woman and kept her gaze on Thurin. His mother had died in the effort to rescue him, perhaps on the same day Yaz fell. It explained the sadness in him. And he was tainted but was rescued from that too. She needed his help if she were to rescue Zeen. Guilt rose, the old Ictha guilt that always reached up to run its claws through her whenever she thought about herself rather than others. She’d been looking at Thurin as someone who might be a friend. Or even more than that. Those were the sort of dreams that saw you die on the ice, the sort that hurt the clan. Thurin was her means to recover Zeen. That was her focus. Nobody would know the Tainted better than someone who lived among them. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

Thurin frowned, uncomfortable. “Nobody lasts long down here. But I will miss her. Very much.” He paused and added, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

There seemed nothing else to say. Sometimes all your words are the wrong shape and none of them will fit into the silence left when the conversation pauses. Yaz looked away from Thurin, her stomach a cold knot. Zeen would be poisoned and insane when she found him. She would need to do whatever had been done for Thurin. The knowledge ate at her. Each new thing she learned only bound her tighter to the Broken. She needed them, and while every instinct told her to go out now and get her brother to safety, her head told her to stay, to listen, and to learn.

“How—” But already Arka was leading the others back toward the settlement. Yaz hurried to catch up with her. “How do you make someone who’s tainted better again? And what’s this city? And why can’t you just bring ice down on them there too?”

“Because in the undercity the ceiling is made of stone,” Arka said. “And the rest will have to wait until I’ve eaten. Maybe the Ictha don’t need food but I’m starving.”

“Food!” Kao said it as though remembering a lost love. “Hells yes.”

 

* * *

ARKA LED THEM to the settlement, past the barracks and further in amid a confusion of huts and larger buildings, all different both in design and orientation. They looked almost to have been made from discarded pieces of larger, more complex objects, like the child’s doll Yaz’s father had fashioned for her when she was little. The thought stung her and she wondered what her parents were doing now, what Quell was doing, and how far away they were from her now, up in the freshness of the wind.

She looked around and sniffed in distaste. The settlement lacked the order of an Ictha camp, it was dirty, and it smelled . . . it smelled delicious! Yaz sniffed again. Arka had led them to one of the largest halls and as she opened the door a wave of warmth rolled out along with the most wonderful aroma. All five of the drop-group suddenly found themselves as hungry as Kao had declared himself to be. They wasted no time installing themselves around a platform that Arka named a table on objects she named chairs, designed to allow them to sit while at the same time being raised to be on a level with the table. Yaz wondered what was wrong with the floor but she made no complaint.