by T E Olivant
Memories danced around the edge of my mind. Sometimes, at Meets when moonshine had been taken and it was getting late, people told stories of the South. Maybe a Seeker who was unusually talkative or a Hunter who had walked further than most would say a few words, then everyone would pitch in.
“I saw a giant wolf take down a bull deer with one paw,” one might say, while a Herder scoffed in the background.
“I saw a man come back from across the ice and all his fur had turned white from fear. And he dropped dead the next day.”
“I saw strange beasts with three heads, and some that swam under the ice!” This brought only laughter, and the drunk that told the story sat back down in a sulk.
“I found a family of Hunters, frozen where they sat, eating a last meal.” This no one laughed at – it might just be true.
All anyone knew for sure was that there was a great ice lake, hundreds of miles across, and that no one, not man or beast had passed over to the other side. If you were sensible, you never even went close to this barren place where nothing, not even the tiny mosses and thin scrubs of the White grew. Wolves that had been banished from their packs would patrol the snowy ground for miles in front of the lake, lonely and desperate and incredibly vicious. The stories of strange beasts with multiple heads may not have been true, but something killed in the South. Most likely just the emptiness.
So, who had left the signal? There was something unnatural about that pulsing light, steadier than a heartbeat.
I looked up at Swift and realised that he was staring at me, his expression serious. I understood then why he had brought me up here, why he had persuaded me to join the Seekers. He wanted me to go and find the signal. I had no real choice.
“Will you come?” I asked hopefully.
Swift shook his head. “I can’t go. Believe me, if I could go with you I would. But there are things happening here that could decide the future of my clan, and my duty is to them.”
“What’s going on in the clan?” I might have still felt like a Hunter not a Seeker, but there was something in Swift’s tone that worried me. The man looked afraid, and it did not look like a natural emotion for him.
“Nothing you need to worry about. Besides, it should be you that finds it. Because this is how your parents died, Kyrk. They went out to see what was hiding in the White and by the time we sent someone out after them they were already dead.”
“You let them die out there, and you’re sending me to do the same?” I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to find out what had happened to my parents, but what was the point of meeting the same fate?
“Perhaps I am, and then I will have your death on my conscience as well as your parents. But this time we will be prepared. This time I will not allow for failure.”
Strange as it seems, I trusted him. There was something in his voice, a hardness that could only come from a great inner strength. I could only hope that he repaid that trust better than he had for my mother and father.
“Why did you send two Hunters anyway? Wouldn’t a Seeker have been a better choice?”
“Yes, but I didn’t have the power to send any of my clan. We were in the middle of a leadership contest, and it was felt by the others that it would be a waste of resources. That was why your parents offered to go. I had told them about the signal, and they were intrigued. They offered to go in my stead.”
“So, the Chief was only elected last year?” I said, trying to keep up.
Swift nodded. “After she challenged the old leader.”
“Who was the old leader?” Swift looked at me with dark eyes, his expression unreadable.
“You! But, that means that your wife…”
“We were never married.” Swift said with a small smile. “Seekers are not as traditional as Hunters in that regard.”
“So why did she challenge you?” Swift looked irritated and I knew that I had gone too far.
“So many questions. Haven’t you learnt enough for one day? If I were you I’d start thinking about the journey ahead, not what is in the past. Tomorrow you will go out onto the White, and you will have to travel further than any Hunter has been before.”
“Except for two.” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.
“Except for two.”
I think if I hadn’t survived the trek across the White when I followed Swift I would have given up two days into my journey to find the signal.
The wind came from the South, cold and fierce. The pace was hard and fast. I didn’t want to pause, to think about what I was doing. I just wanted to get to the edge of the White and find what I was searching for, and what my parents had died trying to reach.
Just before I left I asked Swift exactly what had happened to my parents. When their bodies had been returned to us we hadn’t been allowed to look at them closely. The members of the clan who had made the sad delivery uncovered their faces for an instant but we didn’t see any further down. We knew they had done this for our own protection.
Swift tensed his jaw, but nodded. “I suppose now you must know all of it, even if we are not really sure ourselves. When we reached your parents they were not long dead, maybe an hour or two. They were killed by some kind of White beasts... Maybe wolves, maybe not.”
“But surely you could tell?” Even the most inexperienced Hunter could tell the wounds of the different creatures that stalked the White apart.
“It must have been wolves. But something about the wounds was strange. This is just another mystery that I hope you will find the answers for.”
Swift had looked so solemn I almost laughed from nerves. He handed me a full pack. “Plenty of medical supplies. Food, enough for a week. And this,” he held up some dry moss. “Throw it into a fire and it’ll send up enough red sparks to be seen for miles.”
“Seeker magic,” I said, smiling.
“Just so. I hope you don’t need it.”
As I walked I tried not to think about Swift’s face as I left the Peak. It was like he was attending a funeral, but the corpse hadn’t had the dignity to die yet. Still, as I lengthened my strides across the snow I felt something curious happen. My arms and legs ached, even my back throbbed with each step. But I felt better. Out here in the White with no siblings to worry about, I felt the closest to contentment that I had in a year. The very idea made me feel guilty. I had been determined never to see Jony and Mya as a burden. But the truth was that their care had weighed heavily on me. My parents had died, and I had spent the last year trying to recreate our family. I had failed.
And now I felt something like freedom. The White stretching out before me, sparkling in the midday sun. For once I could see the attraction of being a Seeker. Hunters often worked in packs. Or families, as we preferred to think of them. But the Seekers always works alone.
At night I found a hollow in the snow and covered myself with a skin from my pack to sleep. There was no need to fix a tent while the weather was good, and I wanted to save as much time as possible. I had no idea how long I would be away from the Seeker’s Peak and I needed to make my supplies last until I returned.
By the afternoon of the second day of my journey the landscape was becoming more sterile. Even the thin scrubs and lichen that provided life for the herds disappeared. This was the edge of where humanity could survive, and if something went wrong here there was no one to help you.
And then I caught a scent on the air. A heady musk that only meant one thing. A wolf pack. And one that was on the hunt.
Chapter 9: Lisanne
The White was everywhere, dazzling, obliterating. I closed my eyes against the brightness and colours danced on the inside of my eyelids. I stood there motionless, my back pressed against the metal airlock that barred me from the city. I just couldn’t force my feet to take me forward. Eventually I adjusted to the light and I started to see the landscape. We had always been told that the White was empty, featureless, but as my pained eyes scanned the world before me I saw that that too had been a lie.
The over-riding sensation was of white, but it was not flat and empty. The snow undulated like skin, forming smooth ripples and waves. In the distance there were higher points of snow – mountains, my memory supplied – and above that a clear blue with a piercing golden light in the centre.
For the first time in my life I could see the sun. That alone gave me strength to shuffle down the slope from the city and walk out into the White. At first, I barely moved as my feet got used to the slippery surface, then I allowed my legs to move faster and I felt something incredible. It was freedom. In that instant I decided that I was going to beat them all, I was going to show everyone in the city how wrong they were – I was going to survive.
Now that I had decided that I was no longer on a suicide trek my journey took on a more urgent quality. As I walked I thought about the motto instilled in us from the cradle. Food, shelter, warmth. I needed to find these, and I had to do it quickly. I set my back to the city – there was nothing for me there now – and walked forward with new purpose.
For all our histories, for all our stories of the past, any facts about the White were strangely lacking. This must be deliberate I thought, and as the realisation hit me I thought how stupid I was even to question it. Of course, they didn’t want us to know about the White. If they kept the outside as something horrifying, an instant death peopled by bogeymen then why would any of us ever want to leave. What was so painful was the fact that it had worked. If it hadn’t been for Angel Sam, I would never have wanted to leave either. I would have spent all my life underground.
Sometimes, despite the ban, people would whisper about the White. Most of the time it would be stories of fear, about the monsters who lived there, about how our fragile bodies would disintegrate in the cold. But every so often we would talk, in silence, in the dark, about what it might be like to go outside.
I looked back then for the final time at my home. Here was the great city. The only city. And all there was to see was a curve in the snow and an outline where a door might be if you knew where to look. It was hardly the brave world that I had thought myself lucky to be a part of.
I turned away, and I didn’t even feel sad anymore. It was all so messed up. The whole system was tilted to favour those at the top. And I had never cared one bit when I was one of them. No one realised that they were living on borrowed time. The supplies were already running out. One day the machines would fail. And we still would be no better placed to deal with the White than we had been when we had retreated into the City in the first place.
I had no idea where I was going. At first gravity gave me direction and I simply slid downwards from the City. I saw how inappropriate my clothing was. The shimmering suit with its strange metallic fabric kept out the cold, but the shoes with their flat soles were next to useless on the slippery surface. I suspected that the estimate of my survival period would turn out to be a gross exaggeration. I would be dead by nightfall, lying in some snow drift with a broken neck.
A feature on the landscape gave me a direction. It was a small mound of snow, but in the otherwise flat terrain it at least gave me something to focus on. It took maybe ten minutes of my slow, faltering steps to reach it. I couldn’t tell what lay under the snow. Perhaps it was an air duct or some last vestige of the City that was beneath my feet. But that was not what interested me, because there was something else there.
It was a sign. Someone had scratched something into the snow. A crude drawing of a stick man encased by a circle. The Vitruvian. I thought back to a friendly face and a mop of curls. Sam! It had to be him: he would know what this symbol meant. Maybe he was still alive. And if he was alive, then maybe I could live too. There was an arrow next to the Vitruvian: Sam was giving me directions!
I hurried forward then, so much that I half walked, half ran, the snow slipping under my feet with every step. Part of me knew that this was my last chance: I was using up the last of my energy and if I didn’t find shelter soon it would be too late anyway.
The wind grew stronger with every minute. I soon slowed to a crawl against it. My progress was almost unbearably slow. I could only pray that I was walking in the right direction and I kept looking back to check that my footsteps were making a straight line in the snow.
I had my head down when I picked up a sound above the wind. I stood up and tried to see but the sun was just too bright. Then I heard a hoarse voice call my name. I turned a little to the East and saw a man on the horizon.
I ran to the figure, even as every muscle in my legs burned from the effort. The sun was behind him but I could see that he was headed towards me.
Then the figure turned and I saw his face. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Sam. But it was a face I knew. I nearly recognised him, then I passed out.
I’m not sure if the noise woke me, or the smell. At first I couldn’t place the crackling and whispering sounds. My head ached and it felt like I was at the centre of some sort of storm. And it smelt bad. Really bad. I opened my eyes and reality came back in a rush.
I was in some sort of large tent. The walls were curved and shook and billowed in the wind, but they still somehow kept out the White. I reached out my hand to touch it and realised it was the same material as my suit. There was a fire in the centre of the tent with a kind of funnel that drew some of the smoke out of the roof. Not enough though: the air was thick with swirling grey smoke that seemed to seep into my skin.
But I was warm, and, importantly, not dead. So, it was better than I might have expected. I managed to push myself up so that I was sitting with my legs underneath me. And then I saw the other person in the tent.
The Physician looked different now. He looked like he had aged a decade, but it had only been a few months since he had Walked. His hair was wild and matted and he wore some strange hairy cloak that made him look like a beast of the White. And I was pretty sure that at least some of the stench in the tent was coming from him. He hadn’t noticed I was awake and he sat staring at the fire. I coughed from the smoke and he turned around.
“You’re awake.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything. I had no idea what this Walker, who everyone thought was dead, was doing here. Worse, I had no idea what he wanted with me.
“Come closer to the fire, you look cold.”
I looked down and saw that my hands were trembling, and although it was more from fear and shock than cold, I did as he asked. I marvelled once again at the suit that kept the chill from my skin, and I saw that the Physician still wore his under the animal fur. I wanted to find out what creature he had taken it from, but I was too wary to ask him any questions. Play nice Lisanne, I told myself, at least until you know what he wants.
“You did well to get here Lisanne, I know it wasn’t easy.”
“I followed the sign. I thought that Angel Sam had left it…”
“You mean the Vitruvian? I left that for you.”
“So, you didn’t see Sam? He was sent into exile last week.”
“No.” My heart crumbled. It was too cruel that I had just begun to believe that Sam could be alive, only to be proved wrong so soon. Although if the Physician had survived, there must be some hope. I would not give up on him yet. If anyone could work out how to survive out here, it was Sam.
“And you haven’t seen anyone recently on the White?” Maybe Sam had passed by?
“No, no one, not for months.”
“How long have you been out here?”
He waved the question away with his hand. I tried to remember when the Physician had walked, but it all seemed so long ago now: everything from before my exile felt like another lifetime. How had he survived in the White? It wasn’t possible; at least, that was what I had always been told.
“Now you must listen. I have something important to tell you and we don’t have any time to waste.” He took a deep breath. “You’re not an eighty at all,” he said.
I felt sick. My head spun. The last thing I had expected was him to challenge my grading. And to tell me I wasn’t a
n eighty? All my worst fears, worst childhood nightmares were true. I was not eighty percent human. What was I, a seventy-five? A seventy? I couldn’t be less than that, could I? My mouth felt dry, but I forced myself to speak.
“I’m a… a sixty?”
He threw his head back and laughed and the laugh went on for so long it was a little scary.
“Do you really think that could be possible? No darling child, you are a ninety. The first in three generations. Well actually the second.”
“You’re a ninety too?” I asked. I felt so confused. How could this man be a ninety? That was impossible. No one even remembered any of the nineties: if they were mentioned it was like they were gods. As for me being a ninety… well, clearly he had made a mistake. Or he was mad. He was definitely weird. I would know if I was a ninety, wouldn’t I?
“I am.” His eyes reflected back the orange light of the fire. “My father was a Physician too, and when I was born he decided to protect me. He told everyone I was an eighty-eight. A high grader, but not high enough to need watching.”
“Watching?” My head was spinning and all of a sudden I had to sit down on the ground. The Physician didn’t even notice.
“You see I knew that nineties were possible, even in your generation. I waited and watched for years. And then you came along. My first ninety. By then nobody thought to double check my results. I was the most trusted Physician of all. That was why I hacked the system: to send you to Tech. I needed you there to realise the truth. If you saw their messages then you would understand what was happening in the city right under our noses. I knew only someone of your intelligence could work out the code.”
“What do you mean?” Although I thought I might know what he meant. Realisation was starting to dawn on me exactly what this man had done to my life.