It was a fantastic plan, barring her aversion to the heat. Powerful though Qummukarpoq might be, he couldn’t outdo a whole unit of matatoa plus an islander king. “Before I decide anything, one more important question,” Orluvoq bent down, grabbed her still lit candle, then looked to Qaffa in the half light, “why?”
Qaffa hesitated. “Why what?”
“Why save me? Why not just take my beauty and move on? It seems like you’d have been happy to do that a week ago.”
The girl with ice blood and island skin bit her lip then spoke. “I realized that I had been thinking of you all wrong. You’re like the man who cheated his way into heaven, then when he got there, everyone could see heaven but him. You’ve taken all this beauty, you’ve worked great magics, you’ve changed the world for two different peoples, and yet you see none of it. You live in the belly of it, and all you see is darkness.”
Again, Orluvoq couldn’t repress how impressed she was at the excess keenness her daughter possessed. “Well. I’m glad you looked deeper. I don’t think we should stay here much longer.”
“Should we, uh…” Qaffa pointed at the king. He looked so relaxed compared to his usual posture. “What should we do with him?”
Orluvoq swung her head to her daughter. “Were you going to say, ‘kill him’?”
“Um…” Qaffa swallowed. “Well, that’s how the matatoa like to do it.”
“No.” Orluvoq sputtered air between her lips. “No, no. I may not hold any love for him, but he hasn’t done anything that deserves death. At least in the past twenty years, to my knowledge. He’s just very difficult to be alive around.”
A tension evaporated from Qaffa. “Okay. Good. What about the rest?”
The queen rushed over to her attendants and laid consoling words in their ears.
“And this village girl?”
Orluvoq looked to Kukkujuits, who had transformed into a sobbing wreck, and she knew her daughter was speaking of taking her memories. “What’s done is done. If what’s done is known, so be it. Kukkujuits, boats will come. The soonest one should be tomorrow. Tell them the queen commands you sail north with them.”
“Do you need anything else?” Qaffa asked her mother.
The queen went to stand by her daughter. “No.”
“Let’s go then.”
Dread sunk into Orluvoq’s stomach. The very air weighed heavier around her.
“Mother? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t go to Rapai’i yet.”
Confusion marked Qaffa’s forehead. “What? Why?”
“Your grandfather. If I leave and Sulluliaq closes, I leave him to die alone. He deserves so much better.” Worthless was she if her final salute was but a gust of pain in exchange for his life of love.
“We can’t go stay out there! Anywhere on the ice and father can find us, and I don’t think I’ll be able to pull another move like that on him.”
“No, we’ll go get Paarsisoq and take him through the sky wall,” said Orluvoq. “I will carry him on my back from the world’s end to its beginning and beyond.”
It was a stipulation most foolish. She knew how poorly things could go. But she had found a new path, and she would pay the new price, no matter the pain. Besides, Qummukarpoq needed at least one of them. His worst would come in the form of emotions bent to the tusk and beauty force feeding.
Qaffangilaq, just a finger shorter, stared at her mother a long while with pursed lips. At last, she nodded. “Let’s go get Grandpa.”
A light that had been so long darkened awakened inside Orluvoq. The light, she reckoned, outshone the foolishness. She smiled and wrapped her daughter in a sweet embrace. “Oh, Qaffanngilaq. Welcome home.”
The going had been slow until night fell, or at least as slow as windwalking goes. Once Arsarneq slithered into the heavens, mother and daughter climbed the heights and traversed its gleam. Sometime in the wee hours, they espied the breach where white became black forever, and they descended to the ice.
“I hate to wake him, but you can’t choose when emergency calls.” Orluvoq walked into the igloo she had called home for a decade. A draft of sinuous homesickness found the breaches in her spirit, and she had to clutch her stomach as she approached the bundle of blankets against the far wall.
“Dad?”
She shook the lump.
“Dad?”
Qaffa pushed through the door, and a frigid gust showed its teeth.
Orluvoq shook the blankets again. This time they stirred.
“What? Who is it? Who?” Paarsisoq rolled onto his back and blinked against the candlelight.
“Hi, Dad.”
He stared beneath brows dropped low. The longer he stared, the more Orluvoq wondered if he had gone into his dotage. Then the brows flew up and moisture pooled in his eyes. “Orluvoq! You’ve come back! You’ve come back.”
He struggled out of his furs, sat upright, and took her in his arms. The queen at the start of the world couldn’t keep her eyes from overflowing.
“I’m back,” she whispered.
They held onto each other almost as long as they needed, then she drew back. “Dad. This might sound ridiculous. I haven’t come to stay. I’ve come to get you. We’ve come to get you.”
“We?” He looked past her for the first time.
“Hi, Grandpa.”
“Qaffanngilaq!”
Orluvoq moved and watched the show of hugs be repeated. After a dehydrating number of tears had been shed, she spoke again.
“I apologise for showing up in the middle of the night, but we really do need to go. We’ll explain on the way.”
“Go? This is my home. I will die here, likely within a year or two. It’s of little use for me to transplant myself somewhere new now.”
“Dad.” Orluvoq took his hand. “Qaffa and I have to go live on the islands, and we’re not coming back. Sulluliaq will close soon. You’re the only family we have. Please come. We couldn’t bear to leave you here to die alone.”
The Watcher at the end of the world furrowed his ancient brow and sank into ruminations. As he thought, Orluvoq realized the self-centered nature of this maneuver. Who was she to yank an ailing old man into an entirely different world just to make her less sad? To think she could undo years of neglect by tearing him from his work and home and forcing him into an unbelievably hot clime?
Paarsisoq dipped his head in a nod. “I love you, my daughter. I will come.”
Her heart broke.
He was far more than she deserved. “I love you too.”
“Uh, Mama?”
Orluvoq turned to her daughter’s voice, surprised to hear a name other than ‘mother’. “What?”
“Use your candle and feel toward the aurora.”
Orluvoq’s blood slurred gelid in her veins. She quested out into the air and felt his tug.
The king of the Nuktipik and all the world in the sky above. Qaffa’s spell hadn’t held.
He was coming.
He was here.
31
Qummukarpoq
Like shadow aflame, like maelstrom electric, coursing cruelly came the king. Shod in fury, right foot chopping. Shod in rancor, left foot slashing. Corridor of light primeval bearing spoors he coarsely carved. He a livid, albine arrow loosed to gore the world on vengeance. Loosed from its eternal start to its eternal end to end.
There beneath him prowled the black, the space where earth ought have a jaw. And on the ice before the blackness, sensed he him his wife and daughter. Vile ingrates, bloodborne blight, flyblown minds all puckered with valor. Never in the breadth of time had there been known repugnance so utter. Never in the depth of time would there be known chastisement so final. They would quake and they would fall, for Qummukarpoq had come to call.
Incandescent arced he earthward, broke his truck with Arsarneq. Blazoned white and searing flume betwixt the ice and the aurora. As his feet engaged with snowpack, flakes gushed out in convolutions, crackling o’er the lonesome igloo, scattering down th
e final forever. With three steps he reined his motion, then called toward the lowly abode.
“Hateful wife and spiteful daughter, walled in ice to screen your shame. Scurry forth and bare your faces, beautiful, inimical. Hark and hasten lest I conjure dismal spans of fiery scourges. Lest I flail into the igloo, boil you from the earth’s white surface.”
Tinseled green with heaven’s light, he breathed thickly waiting, waiting. No more waiting, he contorted power from the candle blue. Coiled and twisted might enough to rend the very atmosphere.
Running came the women from the igloo’s mouth like hares affrighted, clutching at their azure flames as though they two could break his ire. He released the power in his angakkuqly hold, yea, the king let it evaporate and pierced them with his gaze alone.
“You have courted cowardice, consorted with the craven’s course. Duty lies a path untrodden in your fickle, icy hearts. You have sought this unlit pit to bury all your disrepute. There will be no word of it, for I have come to take your youth.”
Orluvoq scowled deeply from the darkness of her hood. “You have been a beastly husband from our union’s earliest inklings. Mirthless void behind your ribs, which you tend with zealous care. Wherefore should I listen to you sternly lecture over duty, when you’ve spat upon your duty toward your wife and only daughter? You are but a charlatan, your cloak of white hides black within. And though you take from me my life, your Sulluliaq will yet die; die within your grasping fingers, die with moai yet unborn.”
Qummukarpoq would hear no further, so he tapped the tusk again, drew him out a length of power, struck toward the women twain. More than flesh he met in answer, angakkuq reprisal flared. Mother, daughter, heaving outward, met the onslaught blow for blow. Bristling with majesty they turned aside his every thrust, held at bay the wizard lethal, crowed into the gelid air. Almost then they heroes were, fated to be framed in lores.
But the king was no mean shaman, no frail top-snow thawed by dawnlight. Years a hundred he had moiled, bottling thunder in his bosom; peddling to both mind and body provender of bitter blue. Inchmeal peeled he back their breastwork, darkled he their feeble luster. Terror spoiled their manful war cries, pitching toward a rancid shriek. Fingerwalking came his magic, youth and vital spirit ware.
As his essence slapped aside theirs, nighed to feasting on their skin, from the black of Nunapisu billowed up a cloud of flakes. O’er the verge a man came dashing, bearing down upon the king. Qummukarpoq broke from his bout and leapt to heights, his feet a blur. On his heels the man came nipping, buoyed into the sky by azure. When the threat of three had minished quickly down to one, the king unbarred his mouth and shouted harshly to his tracer.
“Who are you to give me chase, me the king of all the world? You are but a sordid knave who hides in pits, a worthless cur. Hie back to your native abysm, lest your spirit I deprive you. Lest I take your empty body, place it neath me as a footstool.”
“I am Nalorsitsaarut,” the man exclaimed above the wind. “You stole from me my father’s name. Stole his name from all with ears. Turned him into ghostless bones; blacked his spirit into soot. You should have found another son. One whose mind forgets to echo. You marked me, an echoes' steward. You are now mine for the venging.”
Hot waxed wrath in the king’s cold chest, in the king’s old flesh burned a new unrest. He would not grow flighty when a brash pretender posed in challenge, pressed the trump of ultimatum glibly to his lips and sounded.
“I remember well your luckless father and his nameless corpse. Well do I recall your haste in showing me your back and running. Not a breath you breathed in yore times could have much as grazed my coat, and years a hundred notwithstanding, you are yet a blundering urchin. Bid your body dear farewell. You are now mine for the taking.”
Sharply turned the king about, ate another cleft of tuuaaq, turned the chaser to a rout, harried him with cords of power. Cloudless night air gnashed them sharply in its cold and crystal teeth. With aplomb this so-called Nalor cuffed aside his every inquest. Noble wonder gripped the king, gawping at the low-born’s craft. He would brook no vulgar shaman besting him in matters blue. From his coat he took a taper, lit it off the shrinking stub, hurled his fury toward this Nalor, hurled his body in the wake. Far below the ice fields halted, yielded for th’eternal chasm.
“Visions you have sought in thousands, sought to plumb the future’s depths. Fainly you are future’s voyeur, yet each viewing brings you woe. Not a one has shown you conquering, casting me to sightless hell. I, the angakkuq superior, need no visions for to know. Merely coming, you have fallen, made abyss your soulless bed. You are mine, o son of the voided. To your father I return you.”
Qummukarpoq unleashed a torrent, seeking purchase under skin. Filaments of tuuaaq power pierced defenses, found their mark. Foolish Nalor flagged in earnest, dropping through the sky like sheet hail. Smile curling onto lips, the king careened in hungry chase. Down from heaven and its river. Past the earth plain and its snow. Nether into rank perdition. Falling into black infinity.
To the wall of Nunapisu Nalor stumbled through the air, goaded on by glee-strung driver, prize-drunk river, prime of shamans brought to bear. Scrape and crack of feet on wall the void behind them swiftly swallowed. Sightless, atavistic gazes stared unblinking at their steps, while spirits in their legions doubtless crowded closely watching on. King and coward, feet a tumult, ran the dead toward oblivion.
“Now you see,” the king declared, “your witless vengelust has undone you. Past the dead you speed your course, for your place is not among them. No interment is your lot; yours is of the silent pit. Whilst I break you e’er so finely, I will chase you into it.”
Qummukarpoq kept lashing, lashing. Nalor, though, had found new strength. Not the strength to curb the onslaught, but to dodge beyond its reach. Oaths and witchwords spat the king as fervor lent he to his pace. If the man should not here perish, never could the king know sleep. Aggravation found his tongue, loosed his jaw and bounded forth.
“Wherefore do you naught but run? Came you not to measure candles? Have you trowed that once you saw that vicrt’ry wasn’t sure, you could turn about and sue for peace and have it for your glutting? I am finished with your weak, invertebrate display. And now we see, twixt you and me, how kings contrive to play.”
And while he walked with wind and sky, with corpses and abyss, he whisked a strand of power high and linked it into Arsarneq. That verdant foe with violet frills which reigned amidst the sky, he had treated with its taming times enough to bend it at his beck. From the vacant bowels of shadow roused the king great machinations. Arsarneq waned from its realmway, slumped into the frigid pit. Corpses in their limpid barrows cracked their eyes as light blazed past; light illuming horrid secrets tucked beyond the frozen bodies.
Nalor saw the falling brilliance, saw his doom in fleet descent. Frenzy fed his every gallop, reason left alone to fend. Qummukarpoq let sound a cackle as refulgence cut toward them. What mere man might him oppose when all creation’s river bowed? Cataclysm was his scepter poised to strike with subjugation. This pretender ought to number his remaining sovereign breaths.
Then the light was swathe around them, soundless green cacophony. Larm of wind and footfall patter smothered by auroral strait. Thick with power pulsing round him struck the king out once again, sent his threads a-seeking Nalor, lancing for the—
Choke.
Motion faltered—was arrested—and the king made not a quiver. Reached he for his threads of power, could not squeeze more than a trickle. Something waggled in his gut, a baleful eel of ice and fire. In the black beyond the world, fear engorged his belly taut.
Nalor swiveled on the wall, walked toward him, steps uncaring, with a gesture sent the candle tumbling from the old king’s hand. How malefic then he seemed, his visage flush with fiery emerald. How portentous then his gait, striding forth with wrath and menace.
“I am Nalorsitsaarut. I have come to venge my dead. All the ice will soon forget the names you’ve b
orne and deeds you’ve bred. First from you I take your name,” and the king felt something shift. Particles of memory eviscerated from his mind.
“Then I take from you your candles.”
Tuuaaq tapers tore from pockets, flew to Nalor’s open hand.
“How?” the king begged in his wonder. “Whence is your supremacy?”
Nalor gave no voice to answer, looked instead into the wall. Qummukarpoq gazed quickly after, gaped and stammered at the sight. There where ought be smooth and glassy had been torn an aberration. Height of man, a hollow lay where elsewise should have stood a corpse. But he marveled not at thoughts of bodies breaking free, for behind the hole there stretched a stone, a towering face with eyes to see. Here abreast the blackness cased in clear, undying ice, yes, here there was a moai standing watchman o’er the void.
“What?” The king looked back to Nalor. “How has come this stone so yonder? Do you taunt me with my moai here before the ever-drop?”
“If this stone were yours to bind, why would I then hold you tightly? Next, I take from you your moai.” Nalor cast a wilting gaze. “Never shall you see your rock nor feel its power touch your bones. Never shall you conquer kingdoms. Never shall you capture thrones.
“Last, o king of all the world, I take from you your precious life. And as your body falls forever, it will dwindle down to atoms. When the form of you is not a whit more than a scattered wraith, then your spirit and your name will join with you in dissolution. Hie you hence, o wicked man, and take with you your plague. This I vow, you won’t be missed. Now I commit you to your grave.”
Gravity reclaimed the king, and he reclaimed his limbs. Madly lashed he every way with eyes lurch-lurching like a beast’s. Auroral light he left behind along with all the world above. Wind beat sharply in his ears, inside his hood, against his bones. With no candle giving heat, all was coldness, all was madness. Not a place to rest his eyes save on the green and glowing ribbon.
Orluvoq Page 33