The Edge of the World

by Kevin J. Anderson

  But he no longer thought about the sea. Griston preferred the solidity of the mountains to the rocking deck of a ship.

  His dog, full grown now, bounded after a rusty-furred marmot. The pudgy rodent clambered up a lump of rock, out of reach, while the barking dog circled. The marmot slipped into a crack to safety, though the dog would persist for hours, without losing hope or interest, though still remaining aware of the sheep all around the meadow.

  At the edge of the sparse forest stood two enormous talus boulders beside a cozy cottage built from fieldstone, timbered with

  wood he had cut from the patchy trees below. On sunny days like this, he left the plank door and window shutters open, so the breeze would air out the lingering smoke from his fireplace.

  Criston sat in silence, comfortable and reasonably content. These days, he asked for nothing more. He no longer expected to I be happy. The world seemed quiet and still around him, and that I was enough.

  He whistled. "Jerard! Come!" The dog let out a disappointed bark, looked back at the boulders where the marmot was hiding, then bounded across the meadow to his master.

  For the first year, Criston had called him nothing more than "Dog," but since this steadfast creature was his only friend here in the wilderness, he eventually decided the animal deserved a name. So he named it after Prester Jerard.

  Now an experienced sheepdog, Jerard came up to him, tongue lolling. Criston patted the dog's head and rubbed his muzzle, then turned him loose to circle the meadow once more, ensuring that the aimless sheep did not stray.

  In the four years since leaving his old life behind, Criston had become skilled at avoiding his thoughts. He walled off his memories and could sit for hours watching his sheep, thinking of nothing. Now he pondered only what he would have for dinner. Perhaps he could go down to the stream and catch a trout or two; he had discovered that freshwater fish had an entirely different taste, and many more bones, than ocean fish. Criston kept a vegetable garden near the cottage, and knew where to find mushrooms and wild onions nearby. The dog might even catch that marmot, which would provide gamey but satisfactory meat.

  With the nearest village a day's walk away, Criston's routine was unharried and unambitious. He had stepped off the path of life and now watched the rest of the world from the sidelines.

  Sitting on his favorite boulder, he took up his knife and

  began to whittle a chunk of wood. The sunshine was warm, and his fingers were nimble. When he first began carving his small sculptures, he had let the shape of the twisted wood determine his subjects: his dog, birds, indistinct humans. Soon he branched out into sea serpents, mermaids, fierce-looking sharks, and the exotic fish that Captain Shay had studied. He based many of his designs on sketches in the captain's battered scientific journal, which he kept close at hand to read in the long, solitary evenings.

  Eventually, Criston's creativity drifted toward the creation of small ships. He carved models of boat after boat, though he didn't know why. He did not want to think of those days, but the wood seemed to speak to him. He crafted little vessels that reminded him of fishing craft from Windcatch, or of the Cindon. Getting more ambitious, he re-created the Luminara, adding twigs for masts.

  When he finished another small carving, he realized it was already late afternoon. He whistled for the dog, which expertly rounded up the sheep. Criston had completed more than a dozen new carvings; it was time to make a trek to the village

  The following morning, with his whittled sculptures gathered into a square of cloth, he set off with Jerard trotting beside him, leaving the sheep to graze in the open meadow. They would be all right for two days until he returned.

  The high mountain village in Corag Reach was isolated and self-sufficient, located beside a deep, cold glacial lake that sparkled an uncanny shade of turquoise in the sunlight. During his first year, the villagers had regarded him with suspicion, not knowing why Criston was there or where he had come from. But he was quiet and friendly, offering no threat, and eventually they accepted him. He obtained a handcart, with which he carried wool sheared from his sheep to trade in the village. He also

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  began trading his carvings for salt, flour, and other essentials. He had enough to get by.

  Now, when he arrived in the village, people came forward to see what he had to offer. The children stared at his wood carvings with delight as he produced them from his makeshift sack and handed them out for inspection. Since the villagers had spent their entire lives far from the sea, surrounded by mountains and trees, the ships were strange, exotic objects to them.

  Griston distributed his carvings, and the boys took the boats to the lakeshore to set them afloat. The dog also splashed in the water, barking happily, chasing some of the floating craft and scaring up water birds.

  The villagers traded Criston the supplies he needed. Though only yesterday he had felt a need for human company, after a few hours Criston needed to be by himself again. And so he whistled for Jerard, took his pack with the items for which he'd traded, and set off for home once more.

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  56

  Iboria

  The northern ice fields of Iboria stretched out in front of Mateo. Fog curled from his mouth when he exhaled. The sky was an empty, crackling blue. Everything else was painfully white, in spite of the landscape's rugged lines, fissures, and hills. The only breaks in the monotony were pale blue shadows in the deep ice, the sparkle of blown dry snow.

  Somehow, he and his fellow soldier-recruits kept their bearings. Mateo still didn't know where the group was going, but they followed hearty, bearded Destrar Broeck, who seemed far

  more at home out on the frozen wasteland than back in Calavik, his stockade-surrounded town nestled in the dark pine forests.

  Broeck raised a mittened hand, and the trainees stopped their slow march. The destrar sniffed the cold air, squinted into the bright sunlight, then grinned, showing teeth nearly as white as the snow. "We are close. I can sense the ice dragon." He trudged off in fur-lined boots toward a distant line of sheer ice cliffs.

  Many trainees gasped in awe, though the destrar had made similar claims four other times. Mateo saw no difference in the landscape they had been looking at for days.

  He was seventeen now, much tougher and stronger than when he went to Alamont Reach in his first year of service. After twelve months with Destrar Shenro, he spent his second year at Farport in Soeland Reach, where he served on different islands, facing cruel storms that blew across the Oceansea, learning how to swim in cold waters, how to perform sea rescues. He had stroked his way from one island to the next as his final test. Three of his fellow trainees had drowned in the passage, but the rest had emerged more prepared for naval warfare.

  When any of the young men grumbled about the hazards of the training, Destrar Tavishel had reminded them of what the Urecari had done to the reconstruction crew in Ishalem. He remained unrepentant about how he had responded to the soldan-shah's ambassador.

  After Soeland, Mateo went to mountainous Corag, learning to scale cliffs and find his way across rugged alpine passes. Then he spent a year in the scrubby rangeland of Erietta, best for raisins cattle where he learned horsemanship, how to find water in the desert, how to survive the heat, and how to make rope from the tall, woody-stemmed species of hemp, since the demand for strong rope had increased so sharply during the hostilities between Tierra and Uraba.

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  Over the years, he sent regular letters to Anjine, telling her of his progress, expressing his admiration for Tierra's military, though he left out certain harsh parts of his experiences, such as the time he caught a severe fever and lay delirious for four days, or when he received a long gash in sword training and needed to grit his teeth while a surgeon sewed up the cut. He didn't want her to worry about him.

  During his year in Soeland he had fallen deeply in love with a fisherman's daughter--every girl in the islands was a fisherman's daughter, it seeme
d--and he had spent his days in a dreamy state, thinking about her. Uishel. Long, light brown hair that hung to her waist in thin, tight braids like fine ropes, a funny smile, bright blue eyes. He had daydreamed about her so much that his training had slipped, his fighting skills plummeted, and he broke his wrist in a stupid accident because he could not focus on his work. The training commander, recognizing the debilitating symptoms of a first love, had restricted Mateo to the military camp during the entire time it took for his wrist to heal and until he caught up on his training. Afterward, when he came out to find her, Uishel had already set her heart on someone else.

  Devastated, Mateo had written Anjine all about it, pouring out his heart. He didn't ask for her advice, but she wrote back and consoled him anyway. He had eventually gotten over Uishel and found another young woman who caught his fancy in Erietta, and again in Gorag.

  When Anjine's missives found their way to him, he devoured the words about home, imagining her voice when he read the letters. She spent more time talking about the cat Tycho than she dwelled on the politics of the kingdom. She also explained that, without him there to keep her company, she had taken it upon herself to turn a few of her handmaidens into true companions, particularly Smolla and Kemm, but that the girls had very lit

  tie curiosity for its own sake. They didn't see how learning new things would ever help them marry a young guard. He could tell that Anjine was frustrated.

  Mateo had two months left in Iboria, the northernmost reach, where much of the wilderness was covered with dense pine forests. Since Iboria was in no danger of Uraban attack, Destrar Broeck used the soldier-trainees as a ready labor force. Instead of training with his sword, Mateo wielded both ax and saw, cutting down the tall trees, which were then dragged downslope to the rivers.

  The Iborians had domesticated woolly mammoths from the open steppes to the north, and the gigantic russet-colored beasts could haul even the mightiest trees down to the frozen water; when the ice thawed in spring, the logs floated downstream to the open bay. From there, "log herders" used coastal currents to usher timber rafts down to the lumber markets in Calay.

  Now Mateo was one of a dozen young men chosen to accompany Destrar Broeck far to the north, on what the bearded leader called a "vision quest."

  "I have been on twelve of these in my life," Broeck had stated. "There's nothing like it. Out in the emptiness, you are forced to depend on your own skills and strength." He grinned at the trainees. "I have chosen you, because I think you will relish it as much as I do."

  Mateo and his companions wore thick furs and carried heavy packs; each young man grasped an ivory-tipped spear for hunting. After years of training--especially the months of hard labor in the dense Iborian forests--he had developed significant body strength.

  Broeck had provided them with the best furs, tools, and weapons before they set off from Calavik. In the settled forests of Iboria, the people rode plodding musk oxen, but after the destrar

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  took them up to the edge of the snow fields, they used large sleds pulled by dog teams, which carried them many, many miles beyond the trees. The sled drivers let them off at the edge of a crevasse, then turned and raced back home.

  Mateo had never felt so alone, but over the next few days of I plodding and shivering, he realized that he did feel exhilarated. During the few hours of darkness each day, the aurora sparkled '>: overhead, shimmering silken curtains of light that danced hypnotically as the constellations circled around their cosmic pivot point.

  Broeck taught the recruits how to find stable ice. They crossed a deep blue lake by riding on broken ice floes to the opposite shore, from which point they could see a herd of wild mammoths thundering across the distant tundra. Even Destrar Broeck seemed intimidated by the immense beasts.

  They hunted seals and ate the fresh meat, which Mateo found disgusting but nourishing. With no fuel to build a fire, they were forced to consume everything raw and cold. Water sacks inside their thick coats melted ice to provide liquid water.

  Broeck had raised his left hand to show that two of his fingers were gone. For some time, the trainees had imagined the battles or monsters that had cost him his digits, but finally, as though revealing a grand joke, Broeck admitted that he had lost his fingers to frostbite while out hunting narwhals.

  "Dangers don't have to be exciting to be dangerous," he said. "And don't underestimate the cold. The blowing snow here is hungry, and the wind can eat you alive. I lost my wife in a snowstorm that came up on a clear blue day. She went out to pick frostberries in the bogs and didn't see the blizzard coming. She never came home"

  Mateo looked at the white expanse all around him, thinking of how swiftly the weather could turn. The bleakness offered little shelter.

  I

  He knew some of his companions were miserable, but he was enjoying the adventure himself. Destrar Broeck sensed it and spent more time with him. Even so, Mateo was greatly looking forward to returning to Calay, where he would volunteer to serve a final year in the city guard. He also wanted to see Anjine again

  Now, as the group neared the line of blue-white cliffs, the destrar stepped more cautiously, holding his ivory-tipped spear in one hand. He knelt and spread his other palm flat to the ground as if he could sense vibrations.

  "Yes...yes, the ice dragon is nearby." He raised his voice to shout a challenge. "Raathgir! We have come to see your horn!"

  The young soldiers muttered. One rapped the butt of his spear on the snowy ground. "We have all been trained in fighting, Destrar. Together we can kill the ice dragon and take a fine trophy to the king!"

  Broeck turned in quick anger, his bushy eyebrows drawn together; frost lined his beard. His chapped lips showed no hint of a smile. "You want to kill the ice dragon?" He let out a loud laugh. "Nobody has ever killed an ice dragon. Don't be a fool--the ice dragon provides protection. His horn is blessed, and he shields Iboria. Do they not teach you the stories down in Calay?

  "Raathgir was once a sea serpent who came close to Aiden's ship, but Aiden reached out from the prow and touched the monster's horn, saying, 'Do not delay me in my voyage. If you leave the sea and do not harm me and my people, I will give you a new land.' So Raathgir swam away and came up here to the ice, where he swims inside the frozen glaciers rather than the oceans. And because Aiden touched his horn, it still carries his magic. Some say that Raathgir's horn could protect any ship from sea

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  monsters... but I would rather keep this protection in Iboria. We certainly aren't going to kill him!"

  "Then why have we brought these spears? Why were we trained--"

  "The spears are for you to protect yourselves, and to hunt. But the ice dragon... no, we won't be killing him. Save your bloodlust for the Urecari, when you get your chance to fight them."

  As he studied his surroundings, Mateo saw light glinting in the smooth ice of the cliff face, possibly a reflection from high scudding clouds. Mateo wasn't entirely convinced that the ice dragon existed at all, suspecting instead that it was just a story Broeck liked to tell.

  The ground beneath their feet began to vibrate, building to a larger rumble. The soldier-trainees scattered, looking to the destrar for answers or orders. Broeck had a childlike smile on his face. "I was right!"

  The shaking grew more intense, and Mateo feared the ice would split at their feet. Heavy chunks of petrified snow calved off of the frozen bulwarks, dropping in a slow roaring avalanche that sprayed snow crystals like mist to expose a clean, unblemished vertical sheet of ice like a watery window.

  Broeck stepped back and raised his mittened hand. His voice sounded small, blanketed in awe. "Behold what few men have ever seen."

  Behind the prismatic wall of ice, Mateo saw a glint of silver and white, a flash of green scales. The angled planes of the frozen cliff might have distorted the view, but he did discern an enormous slithering body behind the ice wall.

  "A tunneling
ice dragon!" Broeck cried, "and a big one at that!Ho,Raathgir!"

  None of the trainees now suggested killing the creature. The

  rumbling stopped, and the gliding serpentine form slipped away, leaving a hollow cavity in the wake of its passage. The packed ground became still, and no further ice chunks sloughed from the cliff.

  "Even I have seen that only once in my life," Broeck whispered. "Consider yourselves blessed."

  The thirteen of them remained silent for a long time; then Broeck turned abruptly, coming to a decision. "Gome. It is time to go home."

  Back at Calavik, they passed through the towering gates in the stockade wall, where villagers greeted them in their complex northern dialect, which Mateo still did not understand even after almost a year in Iboria. A domesticated mammoth stacked trimmed logs outside the fence to replace those that had been damaged by heavy snow drifts the previous winter. Barking dogs ran up and down the muddy streets. Blue-gray woodsmoke curled from the stone chimneys of the closely packed cottages inside the stockade wall.

  The destrar's main house was a structure of dark lapped wooden shingles and rough planks carved with an intricate repeating pattern of fishhooks. A rustic steepled kirk had been built beside the main building. Destrar Broeck strode toward his home, leading the select trainees on their triumphant return.

  The dark plank doors opened, and Broeck's daughter, Ilrida--a beautiful young woman, twenty-seven years old-- came out smiling. Ilrida had hair so fair and blond it looked like silvery snow. Her skin seemed translucent, her eyes the palest blue, like the glacier wall behind which the ice dragon had tunneled.

  For her own part, Ilrida could not speak standard Tierran, and Mateo didn't at first grasp the news that had made her so

  excited, but Broeck was certainly grinning. Mateo heard the others talking, picked up something about Calay and the king, and finally the destrar raised his voice so that all the soldier-trainees could hear.