The Girl and the Stars

“What else did he say?”

“Most of it was screaming. Some begging.”

Yaz ground her teeth together, regretting her oath. Hetta’s death might be a price worth paying if it destroyed the monstrosity speaking with her mouth. “About the regulator. What else did he say about the regulator or his message?”

“Nothing.”

“Go.” Yaz pointed. “Take her away before we forget our vows.”

Hetta got slowly to her feet, joints cracking, more blood sheeting down the side of her neck. She stayed hunched, growling as some awareness returned to her eyes, then lumbered off, moving as if nursing some great pain.

“We should leave too.” Yaz glanced around her. The others were all staring at her, making no move to go. “What?”

Quina stepped in close, quicker than quick, her face too near Yaz’s, staring.

“You jumped?”

10

   POME INTERCEPTED THE group before Petrick could take them to Eular.

“Here comes the light-bearer to save us,” Thurin muttered.

“Does he carry that star everywhere?” Yaz eyed the approaching glow.

“It’s his way of reminding us all that he can tolerate having one so close to him,” Petrick said. “He thinks it makes him special. But they don’t shine any brighter for him than for the rest of us.” He shot Yaz a narrow glance.

Pome strode up to them, flanked by two warriors carrying spears. Behind him loomed Bexen, the gerant who had stood with him when he challenged Tarko’s authority the previous day. The gerant scowled at them all, one eye milky as if the frost had got into it somehow. He was nearly as large as Hetta, his face brutal. Most of the gerants had that look, as if their bones were too eager to grow, broadening their brows, making their jaws jut forward.

“Where’s Hetta?” Pome demanded, scanning their ranks for losses.

“Don’t know,” Petrick answered. “We ran for it. Just not as fast as you. Or as far.”

Pome moved his star to light Petrick’s face, eyes narrow, searching for any hint of mockery. The boy flinched away and Pome sneered. “Bexen, patrol the ridge caverns. If you find Hetta bring me her corpse.”

The gerant grunted his assent and led the two spearmen away. Pome raised his star. “Come on then. Eular’s waiting!”

Pome made sure to walk beside Yaz, holding his star out ahead of him as if concerned for her comfort. “You’re very new here, Yaz. This must all seem very strange. I remember it took me a while to adjust after my drop.”

Behind them Thurin suppressed a snort.

“You’re getting a view of things down here through Arka’s eyes. Be sure to use your own too though. She’ll draw you a picture that misses out the bad. The matters I’m planning to change. But you’ll see them, and if you’re wise you’ll know who to line up behind when things come to a head.” The more Pome spoke the more reasonable he seemed. His words scratched at Yaz’s mind, trying to burrow their way in.

With an effort Yaz clenched her brain and held it tight, imagining it as two fists held together. She listened to Pome but tried not to allow him in. And in time he fell silent, as if somehow sensing his efforts were being wasted. “Kao, isn’t it?” He turned to the gerant.

 

* * *

POME LED THEM through a series of steadily darker, smaller, and colder caverns. The constant dripping slowed, then stopped. The ground underfoot began to crunch as puddles became iced over. The ceiling grew lower.

“Why do we have to come out here?” Yaz whispered to Thurin as they walked. “Doesn’t he live in the settlement with the rest of you?”

“Us. The rest of ‘us.’ It’s just us now.” Thurin gave a tight grin. “And no. He spends a lot of time meditating in the margins. They say it clears his thoughts. Often we don’t see him for weeks. It seems longer than that since I last saw him now I think of it.”

Yaz had more questions but ahead of them Pome had stopped. They’d reached their destination.

“You with me.” He singled Yaz out. “The rest wait here. Petrick, see they don’t stray.”

Pome took Yaz along what might have been a worm tunnel, now ancient and distorted by the glacial flow. They emerged into a cavern so low that a gerant would have to stoop. Even Yaz might graze her head. Curtains of icicles ran here and there, catching the blue light of Pome’s star and returning it in ghostly echoes.

“Watch your tongue here, girl.” Pome moved his star to light her face as he had with Petrick. As it came close it began to blaze, lighting the cavern from wall to wall, unchaining its beauty. Yaz heard the star’s whisper swell to a song and smiled even as she closed her eyes against its brightness. Something in her answered the song, calling on the star to sing louder and burn brighter still. Pome, caught off guard by the sudden change, shrank back from the blazing star. His hand began to shake and with a sharp oath he dropped both rod and star. The impact with the rock broke the star free and it rolled away from them across the floor, dimming to its original level.

“Thank you, Pome.” A kindly voice, cracked with age, the speaker hidden on the far side of the cavern. “I will talk with the young lady. She will return with your star-stone when we are finished.”

Pome seemed unwilling to leave. “But—”

“Thank you, Pome.” A little firmer this time.

Pome looked at Yaz with murder in his eyes, scowled, then stalked back along the inky tunnel.

Eular waited until Pome had retreated into the distance. “Join me.”

Yaz moved forward, weaving around the icicles, her breath billowing in clouds before her. The star’s light revealed an old man, white-haired and bony, facing away from her, kneeling on a roll of skins just before a perfectly round pool. Yaz was surprised to see the water unfrozen. Eular turned to face her. The star’s stark illumination, slanting upwards, threw his face into a confusion of shadow and light, so much so that it took Yaz a few moments to understand that where his eyes should be Eular had only scarred pits.

“Hello.” Eular smiled.

Yaz found herself shocked once again, just as she had been by Kaylal’s lack of legs. Physical deformity was so rare among the Ictha that just seeing it made her uncomfortable, a twisting in her stomach, followed by guilt and shame, knowing in her bones that such a reaction lessened her.

“It’s alright to stare,” Eular said. “I have been told that I’m quite a sight. Pome should have warned you.”

“You were thrown into the pit as a baby?”