She obliged. The hinge of divinity turned as she wedged open the door of life. The billion unmanifestations beguiling her brain burst from her chest and galloped into frigid mortality. Every rictus grin cackling as it finally became. It blasted forth like a congealed blizzard of sunbeam snowflakes. Electric white emblazoning its brief run at life in the immortal sky. Cascade after screeching cascade pummeled through the rigid queen. Her body no longer hers.
She collapsed and hit the roof.
The flood dried. Vertigo spittle flecked the top of her brain, pulling her balance just slightly upward. She wrestled to bring her breathing under control. But other than that, she felt remarkably fine. Orluvoq opened her eyes in time to see the last of the light leaking into Qilaknakka.
Into Sulluliaq.
“It worked,” she said with a half-smile. Open again. The distant roar of Arsarneq slotting back into place rained down.
“So it did.” Qummukarpoq, for his part, didn’t have a hair out of place. “But its collapse raises some concerns.”
The passion of the moment started to dissipate, and the worries started to reassimilate. It was coming. Another bolt flying from afar to take over her body, only this time it wouldn’t leave.
“You will have to postpone your trip to your parents for a very long time.”
There it was. The hope of escaping Qummukarpoq. Of finding a better path for herself; for her daughter. Vised into obscurity. The other hope—of reaping more beauty, of continuing the crawl—wriggled forward again. She poured her acid on it. Buffeted it with fists. Gnawed its ugly face. And still it stood, fast as stone. The price was too high, and the joy was always tainted. But—and there was always a “but” lurking blindsides the objections—it was more joy than anything else brought her.
“What are you suggesting?” she asked from the floor.
“You will need to be around for any future incidents, and incidents there will be.” His regard only cared for the glowing ring of Sulluliaq. “The older one grows, the quicker one falls apart. The more it takes to put oneself back together.”
“That’s why you go north every month?” How much youth had he taken from the Nuktipik people?
“That is why you will stay here, and we will implement a beauty tariff on all travelers. In addition,” he motioned to the castle below, “we will seek an exchange with Ariki Haka’atu. His son, Mahiahia, will come live with us, and our daughter with them.”
A gap opened in Orluvoq’s chest, and she didn’t know that it could be filled. “Qaffa?”
“It is common enough with the islanders. Attempts at peace. Our position will be fortified should another, longer collapse happen. My heir will learn of the islanders’ ways and tongue. It is wisdom.”
She lay there unmoving. Love. Love was always followed by pain. She had escaped loving her husband, but she couldn’t flee the love for her daughter. So, pain had found her. Perhaps it was for the best. She desired a new path for Qaffa, did she not? How much farther from the blue flame could one go than the ocean above? Qaffa could go flourish in her haven, and Orluvoq could crawl in her hell.
And crawl she would. The king had declared it.
The glimmer of a new path, perhaps at the end of the world, winked out. Orluvoq, it was decided, would be beautiful, and Qaffa would be safe.
She slid her eyes shut. “My husband. I see the wisdom.”
Part III
Sulluliaq
38 YEARS OLD
19
Qaffanngilaq
9 Years Before
“An age and an age ago warred the two zealous kings Kautoki and Nana’ia. Their moai were great, their rivalry greater. Ariki Kautoki’s islands were flush with the hauhau tree, most adept of all the trees at becoming boat keels and pleasant incense. Ariki Nana’ia’s islands grew forests full of the sweetest fruits man can taste.
“It seemed hardly a week could pass before they once again lined catamarans with their mightiest matatoa and sailed to battle. But they were not couchant kings; no volcano huggers were they. They built themselves monstrous vessels and cruised forth with their kingly moai as freight.
“What other king would dare such folly? It would take no more than faulty timbers or a savage storm to send their moai to the depths and all their rule be lost. Yet so bitter was their feud, they cared not that they might lose all so long as they had the chance to take all from their rival.
“While they warred, their people suffered. Oh, the matatoa had chances aplenty to prove themselves in battle, but how many battles does it take until there’s nothing left to prove? Slowly, their islands’ populations began to diminish. Other kings observed their wrangle and clash, but what could they do that wouldn’t involve more death?
“One day, Ariki Poriko, the king poor in islands but rich in wits, invited the two rival kings to feast with him. Same island, same day, different harbors. Of course, they brought their moai, but out of respect they left them in their boats. Poriko swore an oath on his moai to each of them that he would not kill them. Satisfied—and considering their host to be of the lesser kings—they each marched with their modest retinues into Poriko’s palace.
“They feasted in separate halls, not knowing that the other did the same a mere room away. Once hours and courses had passed and they got up to stretch their stomachs, Poriko brought them into the same room then told them to remove their feast masks. Curses jumped into mouths, spears jumped into hands, and warriors almost jumped into battle. Almost, except Ariki Poriko’s moai lay just beneath the floor. They were in his power.
“Kautoki and Nana’ia reached for their moai’s power, but they were weak from the food. Poriko put them all to sleep. When next they awoke, the rival kings found themselves alone on a boat with no islands in sight. They couldn’t move, for they were tied fast to their moai, and great cords wrapped the moai together. No matter, they thought, breaking bonds was one of the simpler things a king could do with his moai.
“But the ropes held fast. Poriko the clever king had enchanted their moai so each rock thought the cords around its king were part of itself, and who can break moai with moai? But the moai had no intuition about the other king’s ropes. Parting the rival’s ropes would have been easy as keel parting smooth sea. The zealous kings would have none of it. Ariki Kautoki tried to push the ship to his islands while Ariki Nana’ia tried to push it toward his islands. The boat would have none of it.
“A week passed, and a ship approached carrying a giant moai. A fellow king, then, but which one? Whose ally would they find peering over the side? Of course, it was none other than Poriko the clever king.
“‘I see you are not done fighting,’ he said to them. ‘Otherwise, I would not find both of you here.’
“‘Send Nana’ia to the deep and I will give you two islands!’ called Ariki Kautoki.
“‘Send Kautoki to the deep and I will give you five islands!’ said Ariki Nana’ia in response.
“‘I am afraid that neither of you deserves any of your islands,’ said Ariki Poriko. ‘I will watch over them for you. On the day you come to me as friends, I will give them all back. But if one of you comes alone, I will strike him down and keep all.’
“With that, Poriko waved his hand and their ship split right down the middle. Kautoki and Nana’ia both sank to the deep. Ariki Poriko lived until time had worn him to almost nothing, and never did he see the zealous kings again. On this day, at this very time, the rival kings sit on the ocean floor, each waiting for the other to free him.”
“How are they still alive if Poriko died?” asked Qaffanngilaq, eyes wide at the foreign tale. She moved her gaze from the moai around a matatoa’s neck to the floor, beneath which lay the king’s gargantuan rock statue.
“Maybe the air dries us out quickly!” Ariki Haka’atu gestured wide. “That’s why it’s good to swim often, daughter of the ice. Or maybe Poriko was old before the story began. I know I was.”
The answers were good enough for her eight-year-old mind, which
was more occupied with convincing herself she could sense the power emanating through the floor. “So, they never got to go to Ragaka’i?”
A grin sprouted on the king’s face behind his storyteller’s mask of painted wood. “Ha! You almost make me regret telling you about that. Two years you’ve been here, and I don’t know if we’ve managed to go a single conversation without you bringing up Ragaka’i.”
“Well, I want to go there and see the big giants walking around.”
“You know you can’t unless you’re a dead king or in a dead king’s honor guard.”
She poked him in the knee. “Then you need to die quicker.”
He guffawed and slapped the mat, thick claps sounding through the feast hall. “Or maybe you just need to go find some islands and become queen—” he leaned in and whispered “—then die.” The king rocked back, roaring at his own wit. “Then our moai can be planted next to each other on Ragaka’i, and we can jump up and dance together as we please.”
“No! Going when you’re dead is no fun.”
“How would you know? You’ve never tried.” Before Qaffanngilaq could reply, he peeled off his storyteller’s mask and spoke again. “I think it’s time for you to go do your lessons. The meal, lamentably, is over, and I must once again take up the mantle of kingly duty.”
Qaffa hadn’t been living topside long enough to understand every word he said, but the essence didn’t escape her. She groaned at the dismissal and made her way outside, squinting against the lancing light. Whether the sun was brighter up here than ice-side she couldn’t say, but it was certainly hotter. She adjusted her woven skirt and plodded along to the knoll where she met with her tutor.
Her fingers slipped over velveteen blossoms and waxy fronds as she climbed the scrawling path through the volcano foothills. She hadn’t reached a point in her topside tenure where she enjoyed it better than her homeland, but she had achieved normalcy. The fruits and meats they had for fare. The dark roughness of the soil. The amount of skin everyone displayed at all times. The lack of aurora. A thousand other details that insinuated themselves into her life. Almost she could call this place home.
The path leveled out for a stretch and off to the side rose the knoll of knowledge. She climbed it and found her tutor wasn’t there yet. But she wasn’t alone.
A man in a pure white parka with a tuuaaq crown stood down the slope to the sea below. He turned around as she summited the hill, revealing the blue-glinting candle in his grip.
“Qaffa.”
She smiled and ran toward him, arms wrapping around his legs. “Daddy! You’re here.”
They stood a moment in embrace. Qummukarpoq pulled away and looked down at her. “Doubtless they’re feeding you well. You’ve had no shortage of growth since our last visit.”
The Nuktipik felt good on her ears and tongue. “Ariki Haka’atu says I need to grow fat like a real woman.”
“The man has a way with words.”
“That’s why he’s king. Is Nehenehe coming?” She glanced down the hill searching for a scrap of movement.
“Today, I am your tutor.” He took out a tuuaaq candle and passed it to her. Qaffa ran her hands over it with glee. “The last time we tried this gave me hope that you might become an angakkuq like your mother and myself. If you still lived with us, you would have begun your training in earnest. As it stands, I will give you what training I can today, then leave a candle with you.”
Qaffanngilaq liked that idea very much. Qummukarpoq helped her get a flame going, and she set about becoming an angakkuq. Over and over her father cut himself and constrained her to seal the wounds until she’d long since wearied of the task. It was, he said, the cardinal competence in candle control. When caverns crumbled, when ice storms carved flesh, when bears rampaged, you could heal, or you could die.
That was well enough, but she wanted to conduct the aerial feats she’d spent her wee years watching her parents perform. Her spirit danced within the aurora, and her body yearned to join. Her father, however, would have none of it.
Diplomacy, apparently, was yet in its infancy, and the daughter of a foreign state soaring the skies on foreign magic might stir up untoward feelings in the Rapai’ian populace. Her father was very good at finding ways to say no.
“Notwithstanding,” said Qummukarpoq as the day stooped toward sleep, “there is a talent you must develop before you can skywalk.”
Qaffa was ears all over.
“I will allow you this, but only if you covenant with me to never tell your mother until you reach adulthood.”
“Oh, no problem. I can keep a secret a thousand years.” Anything for new magic. How hard could it be? She only saw Orluvoq a few times a year.
“You realize that you can only keep a secret to yourself? Tell one other and the world will hear. You mustn’t tell your patron the king, nor your tutor, nor any of your island friends. They will talk without thinking, and your mother will hear. She hears all the news that comes through Sulluliaq. Can you keep a secret thus?”
She was longer in the thinking this time around. Eventually she gave a nod. “Yes. I can keep a secret.” Right?
“Do you recall, before you ever left the castle, hearing the first rule of being an angakkuq?”
“Don’t eat the tuuaaq.”
“Precisely. And did anyone ever tell you the first rule of being a tirigusuusik?”
“Uh…” No. Not a soul had breathed a word.
“The first rule of being a tirigusuusik is always eat the tuuaaq.” He broke off a crumb from a baton of tusk he held and offered it to her. “I am tirigusuusik. Your mother is tirigusuusik. And you will be tirigusuusik. The queen would have you never touch the blue flame. But you and I both know you are destined for things greater than orange can provide.”
Qaffa held the speck of narwhal tusk on her palm and watched it as if it might blow her arm off. Orluvoq had gone to great pains to instill a fear of the tusk within her. It needled her hand, riled for her to drop it. She didn’t. That might crack the island right in half.
“There is nothing to fear. You’ve been working with tuuaaq for hours. It’s the same substance you now hold. It hasn’t changed and neither have you.”
“But…” Her hand quavered.
Suddenly the king seemed tall as two men. The meager light bent around him, swaddling his form in a cloak of carrion hues. Hoar encroached white over the balmy hilltop. His voice threatened from every angle. “Qaffanngilaq, daughter of my blood, tirigusuusik expectant, heiress of the ice and all that lies below. Your king commands. You will partake. You will ascend.”
Her face ran wet with tears as she quailed before the floating man. Slowly, with no further provocation, she raised the crumb toward her mouth and tipped it inside. A long while she held it on her tongue. A glance at the king’s face ended the long while, and she gulped it down, clutching at the ground for support.
Qummukarpoq’s feet touched down, and his voice came from somewhere above her. “So it begins.
20
Orluvoq
Plague had never dwelt with the Nuktipik people. Not in body, not in speech. A fever came, sometimes it stole, but always it left. Twenty years ago, when the first Rapai’ians visited the ice, they brought with them fever. It descended, it worked its schemes of rapine and death, and it didn’t depart till evicted by angakkuq and quarantine. For the first time, the Nuktipik people knew plague.
“Will I carry the burden of ice above me or of loves lost beneath me?” was the byword of the heart. Clans spurned merchant ships as if they ferried demon hordes. Timeless feuds liquified to senseless slop in fever’s crucible. Igloos traded warm and laughing bodies for cold and moaning winds. A child’s last cough echoed for leagues unheard.
Yet theirs was a hardy stock. An irrepressible breed hardened through untold generations in a furnace of shadow and ice. When winter’s hand smothered them, its calluses of privation grinding them into the crust, they held their breath until the tyrant tired of its sport
and left. Then onto frostbitten feet they pushed their aching bodies and again took up the long walk. When two decades ago the new scourge plague at last lifted its hand, they found they could not stand, yet forward they faced and began to drag. The long walk became the long crawl.
As she assessed the girl before her, Orluvoq reflected on the benefits and blemishes of the decades since the first opening of Sulluliaq, the tunnel to the sky. The Rapai’ian girl could have been sixteen. Nothing striking about her appearance. A bit on the pudgy side. The girl shivered as her body took its first tastes of the world below the sea.
Orluvoq clucked and shifted her eyes to the man beside the girl, presumably her father. “How many did you say are in your party?”
“Eleven, Highness,” he said in passable Nuktipik. Though how much of an achievement was it to string together two intelligible words?
Orluvoq crossed her right leg over the left under her pure white parka. Even if she could ward off the chill with a candle, the ice throne was quick to brutalize her backside. “You’ll have to send two back.”
The girl bit both her lips to dam her tears. The Rapai’ian merchant’s mouth compacted into a line as he tried to school his emotions. “Highness. Surely after coming all this way it would be—”
“Sir,” Orluvoq cut him off. “I do not command because I dislike you or your people. I command because there is only one way to keep Sulluliaq from collapsing. If I let a hundred pass for the price of one face, it would only be a matter of months before none could pass. Am I understood?” Even with her tightening the passage exchange rates, it might not be much longer than months.
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