by BJ Hanlon
“Everyone sir?” An older man said.
“I do not want anyone to be unarmed and if the demons overtake us, we may have to save ourselves from torment.” He glanced up at Edin. “And parents should be told what to do if the time came.”
After the meeting, Edin followed Nover through the castle to a storeroom and he gathered up supplies. Nover gave him some herb that was supposedly good to ward off the flu, a bedroll, food, and a waterskin.
“Do you have any extra bottles of that liquor?” Edin asked.
Nover smiled. “Just don’t get caught hungover again.”
“I’ll try not to.”
He pulled out a thick piece of parchment and handed it to Edin. He opened it and saw a small map of the fjords. The city of Coldwater was in the furthest southwest corner. “I got a copy of the map for you and will secure you a dogsled team,” Nover said. “They’re fast and strong and you can carry more supplies.” Nover turned toward the north and sighed. “It’s dangerous out there… but you can handle it I think.” His voice lowered. “I hope…”
11
The Frozen Tundra
Edin was near the docks and packing the sled a couple of hours later. In the distance, he could barely see the tip of a long rock or iceberg rising from the still water. His hand drifted toward his neck and the long lost crillio fang necklace.
He’d eaten until he was nearly stuffed, then secured his belongings.
Someone clapped his back taking his mind from the far away point.
Edin turned to see his companions from the isle and the three Foci.
“Suuli wishes to offer a ceremony for the ones we’ve lost,” Aniama said. “Ones we all have lost.” There was a sadness to his voice and Edin thought of his son in the swamp.
Yechill handed out small bundles of dried green, nearly brown, leaves then he passed a small torch. Suuli started to chant as Yechill lit the ends of each.
The overpowering smell of sage with something else, rose on the air in soft wisps.
He felt sick at first, the odor was awful. Then something happened. A smile grew on his face and he felt emotion. Joyousness and sorrow rising and falling in his soul. Edin saw the good memories and the bad, he saw Arianne fall, he cried out. He saw her smiling at him, kissing him, cuddling him, and he cooed.
The smoke whirled and smelled like Arianne. He felt weak in the knees, but they would not buckle. He felt powerless and strong; brilliant and stupid; angry and forgiving. There was nothing he couldn’t do and he couldn’t do anything.
A veil had floated upon him, a shroud of darkness and light.
Slowly, it dissipated and he found himself awake, confused and somehow standing before the fallen southern gate.
Edin blinked and stared out through the makeshift barricade that blocked the broken walls. Soldiers and people were standing around him. They gawked like in his nightmares of running nude through the Yaultan town square.
Edin swallowed, his mouth felt dry and his head heavy. He blinked a few more times to get the stinging smoke from his eyes and looked around. He’d seen a few of these people before, some of the men that had attacked at the inn, though they stayed far from him and all held nervous looks.
He cleared his throat. “What happened?” Edin whispered.
Twenty minutes later, he was back at the sled. Only Yechill was still there and he was strapping things to it. Pouches, bags, and waterskins.
He smiled at Edin. “We go.”
Edin took a moment, he knew what he was saying but his words barely worked. After clearing his throat for the tenth time since he woke at the gate he said. “You need to go with your people. They need you.”
“You need me. You no go alone.”
Edin nodded. He really did need him. He needed help.
A large grizzled man with a gut like a great ball under his shirt and a red beard of two feet appeared wrapped in a thick black fur cloak with a line of dogs. He gave Edin a quick tutorial on how to steer them, stop them, and make them go faster. He positioned it in front of the remains of the northern gate. It was getting dark out and much colder, but Edin didn’t want to wait until the next day. His urgency from the morning still held and the town would be moving out tomorrow. That would be chaotic.
“We leave now,” Edin said and Yechill climbed in the sled atop the gear. Edin wrapped a scarf around his mouth and pulled the cloak up.
Edin looked back, Dorset’s fissure glowed red and orange as guards dumped barrels of oil inside. Flames latched on to the corpses of every dematian.
Edin turned northward. “Mush.”
Two days out and they were snow blind. A thick blizzard blew in from the sea that Edin hoped was still somewhere off to the right. Yechill dug a hole in the snow large enough for them to scoot into and it was surprisingly warm. The dogs, who were used to this burrowed themselves like gophers.
Edin stared at the map with his ethereal light wondering how far north they’d come. The first night, they were like the wind, a bitter and whipping wind. The snow was packed well as they nearly flew over the landscape and through a forest of bare oaks and snow-covered aspens.
There was a dogsled trail that led north around a broken bluff before veering northwest toward the mountains and a seasonal ore mining village. According to the royal dog master, a land of pure white lay east of the mountains. A land with no life.
They’d begun ascending a long and low rise at the end of the second day but continued in the near blinding conditions.
A fear and anxiety grew with each passing hour. Edin wouldn’t have stopped if the dogs didn’t force him. Later, as he looked at the map he wondered if at one point, the climate was warm enough to build.
The long dark icy inlets, rivers that crisscrossed the white tundra had no names or elevations but Nover had said, “some are so large and deep you’d never get out even if you had wings.”
They had to go much slower on the second full day as they rose to hundreds of feet above the sea with the crashing waves and the great cliffs to their side.
As they crested a huge ice glacier, the snow began to pick up. After about an hour, it was blinding and Edin couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him. The dogs slowed and then stopped on their own. They howled and yapped until Edin freed them from their harnesses and they dug into the snow.
Yechill, who seemed glum, possibly from not doing much the first two days, dug out a shelter while Edin took frozen meat to the dogs.
After staring at the map for a while, Edin fell asleep and for the third time, he dreamed of Arianne but forgot it upon waking.
In the morning, the egregiously bright sun sparkled on the snowy landscape. There was a foot-deep powder when he exited the cave. He found some of the dogs were out shaking off snow while others were relieving themselves.
A pair of randy dogs were enjoying each other’s company. “Hey, no grunge grunge…” Edin shouted.
To the south the snow-covered land was vast and he couldn’t see the town anymore.
Yechill appeared and laughed, he cheered on the animals as Edin raised an eyebrow. He’d been a quiet companion so far as they barely spoke the same language.
But still not being alone in this desolate place was a real boon for Edin.
They snacked on preserves and cheese before they began to head out with Yechill at the reins. The dogs had a lot of energy as they’d been burrowed beneath the snow for at least eighteen hours. They turned a bit further east and when they were mushed, they sprang into action as if a rabbit was ahead of them and they wouldn’t let it escape.
For hours, the wind whipped past them muting all other sounds. The large and heavy sled flew across the snow as if it weighed nothing. Edin was rubbing snow from his eyes, a result of the dogs kicking it up in front of him when he felt a sudden jerk to the right.
He heard a cry and then a moment later, the sled began to tilt. His heartbeat ceased and he looked at the snow rushing toward him. Edin covered his head with his hands and felt
the powder explode in his face. Something landed on his hip with an uncomfortable thud. Then it was yanked off.
He heard the yaps of the dogs and slowly lifted himself from beneath a curtain of snow.
Edin stood and looked around. About twenty yards northeast, the dogs were slowing and then stopped. The sled was tilted over with much of their gear scattered about the divot and surrounding snow. Edin glanced back and saw Yechill high stepping through the snow toward the animals.
“What was that?” Edin yelled out.
Yechill reached the animals and tilted the sled back to its skis. Slowly, they began reloading their gear. It took nearly an hour to find it, pick it up and secure it.
Edin checked the map and guessed they were at least another four days by dogsled to the thick knuckle-like peninsula. They fed the dogs and sat quietly for a few minutes.
Yechill made a motion that the dogs were going straight east and then suddenly, the lead dog veered off without a warning. He was animated with his words, though Edin couldn’t understand them.
Edin took the back of the sled, his hip was sore but he wanted to mush. He continuously tried to get the dogs to turn back east, but every attempt was met by resistance.
Edin remembered the grizzled dog instructor saying, “The crevasses could be underneath you at any point once you hit the glaciers, the dogs usually can sense them so be sure to follow their instincts.”
Then he let them lead for a while without attempting a turn. The sun began to go down, though it still seemed early. Edin attempted to turn east and the dogs did.
Edin glanced south and wondered what the dogs were so adamant about getting away from. Instead of rushing over the snow, the dogs pawed much slower and in jerky movements until there was no light left and then stopped.
It wasn’t snowing but it was still cold. Yechill started to build a shelter but Edin felt the water in the air and decided to make his own. He felt the energy flowing through him. Edin raised a hand and saw a mound appearing in his mind. He pulled out the center and turned it into a dome with a hole large enough to crawl into.
When Edin opened his eyes, he saw a tall dome.
Yechill was smiling. “Good.” Yechill nodded and gave him a thumbs up. Soon the dogs appeared at the entrance and made themselves comfortable inside.
The room turned warm and very cozy quickly. Furry pillows offered heat and Edin fell asleep.
The land was dark except for a glowing moon far above him. But it was an oblong moon and there were no stars. Skirting between what looked like long abandoned stone buildings, a figure ran.
Darting through, feet slapping a stone floor, the sound echoed. It took a moment to see it was a cavern. A humongous one. And there were buildings… it was a city that seemed to have been hollowed out from the earth.
Edin moved toward the figure and saw the doors seemed shorter and squatter than any he’d seen. The odor was that of sulfur.
How’d he get here? Edin wondered. He didn’t know.
The humanoid shape ducked into a door of a stone building that rose from the floor directly into the ceiling hundreds of feet up. Edin thought he saw the glimpse of a golden hewn bow and golden hair.
He woke to soft barks, yaps really very close to his ear. Edin looked over and saw one of the dog’s paws were flapping in the air but the eyes were closed. The dog was dreaming of running.
Edin rolled over and closed his eyes.
They travelled slower for the next three days. Snow and wind threatened to stop their progress by either blinding them or tilting the sled but the dogs didn’t care. They seemed to know which way they were going. The leader altered course multiple times heading either further north or further south.
Eventually, he saw why. Edin was at the back of the sled as the dogs tried turning rather rapidly. He shifted his weight, something he’d been getting pretty good at to the near side of the turn so it wouldn’t flip. To the left, the snow just disappeared and there was a large crevasse in the ground. It looked like a stab wound from a giant double-sided sword.
Yechill yelped but the dogs kept trotting along.
Edin figured they hadn’t made the progress he’d been hoping for but he couldn’t help it. They were moving toward what he hoped was the next Ballast Stone.
One he’d never be able to give to Arianne.
They switched positions and Edin relaxed. For hours they went and from his seated position, he began to see great gorges and fissures. The white land slipping out of sight and reappearing some ways later. In the gaps he caught glimpses of stony walls delving into the brackish water below.
The land began to hold an eerie white mist. Cold, but they still had decent visibility.
After they stopped the sled, Edin got up and stretched out his cold and frigid muscles and walked toward the precipice. The land began to fall away to the left. The steep slopes were covered with a dusting of snow and ice as they merged with the cold and dark water far below. To the south, he couldn’t even see the ocean beyond the rising land that crisscrossed each other as if a drunken god had carved it.
It was a beautiful sight, peaceful and serene. The water was nearly placid. A cool breeze floated up with the hint of saltwater on it.
After a short time, they began again. The land turned right coming in making nearly an entire circle around what may have been an island.
They followed the coast as carefully as they could. The dogs were more skittish and Edin couldn’t tell where he was by the map. He wouldn’t know using the stars, even if he had the right equipment.
After the loop around the island, the glacier sloped down and at least a bit south. After a few hours, the snow that’d been fluffy turned to a small layer of ice above a rocky landscape.
Small stones covered in the sheen of frozen water began penetrating the surface making for a bumpier ride. They continued for a few hours into the night. It was warm enough that they didn’t actually need a shelter, not that there was much snow to make one with anyways.
As he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, colors began to appear past his eyelids. Both deep and light greens danced across his vision. He wasn’t asleep, at least as far as he knew. But the lights, they moved beyond his eyelids, they were so real, so vivid. He thought maybe he saw a blue or purple.
From somewhere to his right, Yechill began chanting.
Edin opened his eyes and his jaw dropped.
Above and all around were rivers of green hues parading like an army across the sky. Blue and purple lines that reminded him of a skeletal finger flickered in.
It was so beautiful but then something clicked. It was the color.
Green like poison and it was moving around them... A weird thought came to him, why does green mean poison.
Edin swallowed. Was this poison air, are those fingers the hand of the gods, Yio Volor maybe.
Edin was cursed. Yio was coming after him, the god of the underworld and the dematians would kill them. His heart raced as he stared. He was paralyzed, he couldn’t think. These lights were evil yet godly. All Edin knew, was that you do not negotiate with Yio Volor.
Edin shook himself out of his stupor and pulled himself from the bedroll. He turned around and saw Yechill dancing on a rock mound ten yards away. His feet were clapping the stone and he was chanting. His voice grew louder and Yechill spread his arms as if to embrace it.
“Yechill!” Edin screamed at him, they needed to hide, to get undercover maybe leap into the water of the fjords to save themselves. It’d be cold but that poison would smother them.
Yechill didn’t seem to hear, he kept chanting, humming and dancing like he was in some sort of cocobo induced trance.
Edin sprinted toward Yechill and glimpsed the sled dogs were sleeping. All of them except one. The randy one was looking at him with an expression of amusement like a parent at a confused child. Edin reached up and snagged Yechill’s flailing arm, his heart pounding.
Yechill was sweaty and Edin’s hand slipped off. For some reason
, the tribesman had his tunic and his cloak off and wore nothing but a small loin cloth.
Then Yechill snapped his head toward Edin. The green lights danced in his eyes. He furrowed his brow.
Edin pointed. “Poison.” He shot his finger up at the sky. His body was sweating now, his teeth on the verge of chattering.
Yechill shrugged, pulled his hand away and started his chant again.
Edin grabbed again. How did he tell Yechill that this would kill him? These nimbus clouds had to be sent from Yio. The curse for Edin killing his creations and not believing in the gods.
There was no other way around it. What was the symbol for poison? Skull and crossbones. Did the Foci use the same? Probably not… how could he get Yechill to understand.
Choking. That was it. He gripped Yechill’s hand and yanked it again.
Edin pointed and clasped his hands around his own neck and made it look like he was choking to death. Slowly, he lowered himself to the hard ground.
Yechill furrowed his brow again then spoke. “Antulete’s… gift.” He swept his hand across the sky in a great arc. There was no fear in his voice, only awe and wonder.
Then he glanced at the dogs but they seemed fine… Edin thought they’d usually be the first to head for cover.
Slowly, his heartbeat slowed and he stared up. The colors in the sky were something unknown and unseen in Yaultan. It was something beautiful.
What other wonders are of these desolate lands? There was such amazing clarity in the air and despite the deserted tundra, the landscape was vast and empty but for the ocean and that was something grand to behold. Something he wished Arianne could have seen.
Edin held back his sorrow that night and stared as the lights danced across the sky. Strands were pushing and pulling like fingers plucking chords on a lute. Winds blew by and small whirlwinds of dust dotted his vision. But the lights held his attention.