by HM Waugh
Praseep tests the water with his hand, and his firelight winks out. He calls to his sister. ‘Your Highness, the bath is ready.’
I’m all prepared to be called forward, but instead Princess Rishala inclines her head and moves into the small room herself, pulling a curtain across for privacy. Seriously? She doesn’t need a bath anytime in the next moon. No wonder they’re all so clean. No wonder they see us as lesser beings, as Dirt-People.
And maybe if they were more welcoming I’d stop thinking of them as Ice-People.
When Princess Rishala comes out again, no joke, she looks exactly the same as when she went in. She hands some clothing to a guard who begins to wash it in another bowl, so I guess she’s changed her old white and pale blue clothes for some extra-fresh new white and pale blue clothes. She smells like night-flowers.
I smell like yakan dung and frozen latrines.
Praseep goes in next, coming out later with wet hair and another pile of clothing.
No one else moves. Vilpur looks at Danam, and then at the Princess.
‘Oh,’ she says, standing up. ‘Yes. Perhaps you go next, Vilpur. We can make an exception.’
It’s the most hesitant I’ve seen the Princess. I snort and slump back against the rock wall. It seems there’s a pattern to who bathes when here, just as there is at home. And I guess Danam, as the Princess’ future Cloud Dragon, should have outranked Vilpur and the guards. But then what would be the state of the bath water?
I guess I’ll find out, because if there’s one person at the bottom of the rankings here, it’s going to be me.
I’m right, of course. Praseep and Princess Rishala are already eating a wonderful-smelling meal of fried bread and a stew made from dried meats when Danam gets his chance in the bath. And when he exits, clothed now in the pale colours of the Ice-People and cheeks scrubbed so hard they shine, it’s finally my turn.
Grumpy gestures me towards the bathing room. I stand and peel off my heavy cloak. His face blanches. Grumpy stares at me like he’s going to re-enact Danam’s tea-hurl. I do my best to sweep past him, though the ground is strewn with packs and supplies, so it’s more like I pick my way carefully.
I’m not saying the cave was as noisy as a midsummer Dragon party before I stood up, but there was a hum of chatter. By the time I’m at the entrance to the bathing area everyone – and I mean absolutely everyone – is silent. You could hear a snowball sigh outside.
I duck into the little room and pull the curtain shut. Outside the silence is broken.
‘Your Highness,’ says Vilpur. ‘Did you see her tunic?’
I scowl. A bit of colour never hurt anyone. These Ice-People need to loosen up. I eye the murky bathwater doubtfully. It’s not like I haven’t bathed in communal water before, but I’m used to doing it a tad earlier in my household. Father first, then First Brother, his wife, then me. After me come First Brother’s children, of which Danam is the third of four. Then we water the vegies with the icky leftovers.
I’ve got to look on the bright side here. Although seven people have bathed in this water before me, six of them were practically already clean. So really, if I think about it, I only have Danam’s filth to deal with. I quickly strip off my clothes, toe the water and grimace. It’s lukewarm, no longer anywhere even close to steaming. I wish I could do what Praseep and Aji did.
I bite my lip.
Who says I can’t?
I think about what I saw, what I felt, when the water was heated. On the fourth attempt, shivering naked, I manage to make a small fireball. I douse it into the water like I saw Praseep do, and before long the water is steaming. I step in eagerly, almost scalding myself with the heat I’ve made in the centre. I barely care about the grime factor now. I’m grinning. I want to cheer. I can’t imagine why Danam didn’t do this when he was in here. Think how Mera will laugh when we make baths for her all through the winter!
Part of me wants to not wash well, just to spite the Ice-People. But the sensible part of me – yes I have one – knows I don’t like smelling myself right now either. There’s a bar of soap to the side of the bath, but no cloth. I grab sand off the base and scrub myself hard, all over, hair and skin and hair again. This soap doesn’t smell like night-flowers, but nor does it smell of dung and latrine.
A vast improvement.
The scent of dinner is everywhere, and it makes me quick. I could eat an entire yakan. When I’ve scrubbed all over a few times, I hop out and grab a small towel from a niche carved into the stone wall. Next to it a few more niches are neatly arranged with piles of whites and pale pastels, boredom and conformity. I sort through and find a fresh pair of pants (the washed grey of shadow on snow) and a woollen undershirt (palest purple like the rising dawn). The wool of the underclothes is soft against my tingling skin. Then I unfold a tunic, soft and white. It looks like it would fit me.
It would be so easy to just put it on.
But my hands work swiftly. I fold it up, shove it back on top of the pile and pull back on my own tunic. It’s pretty fresh, and anyway it reminds me of Mera. I run my fingers through my hair to release the worst of the knots, and square my shoulders.
When I walk out, I’m greeted by a pale scene. Everyone in clear whites, pastel blues, soft tans, like the seasons of a mountainside. My tunic is everything these people are not. I hide a smile.
The Princess and Praseep are nursing mugs of tea, Vilpur and Danam are eating, and Aji and Princess Rishala’s guard are off to the side, playing some sort of game with small brass figurines.
Vilpur looks up when I enter, and almost chokes on his meal. Princess Rishala slops her tea over Praseep and he doesn’t even notice, he’s staring at me so hard.
‘Could you not find a tunic to fit you?’ asks the Princess’ guard.
I make myself smile. ‘This one reminds me of home.’
Grumpy definitely looks like he’s reciting a chant under his breath, and Vilpur’s hermit features are anything but calm. These people …
Princess Rishala finally nods her head. ‘It’s just a tunic.’
Vilpur stares at her, before seeming to remember his station and dropping his eyes. I hover, uncertain.
Finally Aji stands, and her hawk-face broadens into a smile that cuts through the tension. ‘Well, you do clean up nicely. Did you let out the water?’
‘Um, no. Should I have?’
‘Please do.’
My stomach grumbles, but I turn back around and go into the bathing area. Despite steaming invitingly, the water looks foul. I’m glad no one else gets to see what I bathed in, what I helped create. I roll up my sleeve, squat by the side, and reach down to grab the leather plug at the bottom. The water gurgles away, scum and dirt draining down to who knows where.
Aji meets me as I come out of the little doorway. I blink, trying to block the view of the draining bath and its revolting contents. What does she want?
She peers easily over my shoulder with her keen hawk-eyes. ‘Oh.’
What has she seen? I look around hesitantly. At the bath, at the last of the greasy water vanishing down the hole. How embarrassing.
‘It drained without freezing,’ Aji says, giving Danam a knowing look and nodding, lips pursed in thought. Danam’s too busy inhaling his stew to notice.
‘What is it?’ asks Praseep.
‘The water was hot enough to drain completely, Your Highness.’
‘Oh,’ he echoes. He also looks at Danam, and when he speaks again his voice is level and sounds like the dead winds of old tunnels. ‘Well, that was well done.’ It looks like he’s dredging deep within himself to find the smile he gives to the Princess. ‘Everything’s going to work out.’
The Princess smiles at him and at Danam, sunshine on a snowy mountain. Vilpur bows his head serenely towards him. It looks like my tunic has been overshadowed by a draining bath …
I’m too hungry to care right now. I edge towards the bare remnants of the meal. I collect some stew into a bowl and top it with a (now cold) fried
bread, fill another mug with butter tea, then hover for a moment before deciding I’d better stick with my friends.
I move back next to the gotals, and pick up a hunk of stew with my bread.
Chapter 8
The cave is darkening. They’ve let their magic lights dwindle. Praseep’s set aside his book and is talking to Danam, both of them close. Danam looks intent, his shoulders tight, while Praseep looks like someone broke his favourite yakan figurine and threw all the shattered pieces off the edge of a cliff.
What are they talking about? I strain my ears to hear, but Vilpur’s playing a shrill little tune on a stringed harp barely larger than his hand and I can’t hear anything over it. He begins to chant softly as he plays, and again I’m reminded of the hermits of Dragon Mountain. I used to love to listen to them chant, losing myself in the heady thrum.
I shake my head, I don’t want to lose myself here. I want to hear what Praseep’s saying to Danam. But my ears aren’t up to the task. I’d need super-hearing to manage over the noise in this cave.
I freeze. Super-hearing? I can hear the snow sing on the mountain above us, I can sense the beat in Danam’s chest. Why can’t I also ‘hear’ what he hears?
I lick my lips and close my eyes. For a second, I let myself focus only on my breath, slow and deep, in and out. Then I extend my mind towards Danam. I sense the grit on the cave floor, still seeping the faint memory of a night of celebration last winter where the walls of the cave danced in time to the people. I hear the strong echo of our arrival. And then I’m there, between Danam and Praseep.
I hear Praseep’s voice. I’m so excited the connection wavers and I have to focus again. ‘You will not have long to study, but the Princess believes in you,’ Praseep is saying. ‘I do too. You are proving yourself on this trek.’
‘I am?’ Danam sounds hesitant.
‘Trust yourself. By the Stone, I know it is hard when the powers wake in you, but understand you have a gift, and that is a precious thing. I can help you, for what it is worth.’
‘Are you a … Protector too?’
Praseep is silent for a moment. ‘Not like you will become. I wished it, but wishing only goes so far.’ He pauses, then continues quickly. ‘To be Protector to Princess Rishala is the highest honour one like us can aim for. A Cloud Dragon. Many have tried, but none have passed the Tests. When the Seers told us to travel to the edges of the Dirt to find her Cloud Dragon, we couldn’t believe it. But now look. By the Stone, I think we have found you just in time.’
Danam clears his throat. ‘What is this “Stone” you talk of?’
‘You don’t know?’ Praseep sounds like he’d be frowning, but I dare not open my eyes to check. My connection’s tenuous and I’m tiring already. ‘The Stone was a sapphire amulet that brought the Old People the power of a peaceful mind. But it was stolen.’
‘Who stole it?’
‘You did. Well, your ancestors.’ Praseep stops, and when he speaks again his voice is harder. ‘That’s what caused the Great Split.’
‘What’s the Great Split?’
‘You don’t know that either? What do they teach you down there?’
Danam murmurs something about gotal health, but Praseep ignores him. ‘Once long ago we were one people, the Old People, and we were happy. Then there were two sons, twins, born to a Queen. The eldest was destined to be King, but the other was apprenticed to the farm. Jealousy grew between them, until the summer the first was to be crowned. The Stone had been brought to the Midsummer Altar to recharge – you will see the Altar when we get to SkyCity – but the Stone went missing. The Seers were consulted, and they said it had gone to the lands where the second brother lived. The Dirtlands. When the new King accused the brother of stealing it, the brother accused the King of hiding it. They argued and they fought and it was a bitter time, but the second brother would not return the Stone. The Old People split, the borders were declared. And the Stone was never seen again.’
‘That hardly seems a good reason,’ Danam says.
‘You don’t know of the Stone, so how can you say? Your King must hold it.’
‘We don’t have a King.’
‘Then who rules you?’
‘Each village rules itself. My grandfather is an Elder in our village, but he has never mentioned any stone. I think the old King did hide it.’
‘Why would he? With the loss of the Stone, we lost our peace of mind, our …’ He stops and sighs. ‘No, the Dirt-Brother stole it.’
‘Are you accusing my people of theft?’
‘As you accuse mine of deceit?’
At that point the Princess intervenes to stop what appears to be working up to yet another argument over a stone neither boy has ever seen. Vilpur’s music twangs discordantly, and I open my eyes.
The connection breaks immediately, leaving me reeling with fatigue and understanding. No wonder the Ice-People look so similar to us. We’d been one people once, until the loss of the Stone. So, where is this Stone Praseep speaks of?
It takes until the stars sing in the deep of night before I can sleep.
Chapter 9
The next day is more walking, more snow. When they call a rest I thump straight onto the cold ground with a sigh. The thaw is further off up here, the snow content. I’ve never seen these mountains so close, but many of them I know, for they’ve looked over me all my life. Dragon Mountain looms behind us, and beyond that lies my home. I close my eyes and listen to the snow.
‘Dirt-Girl!’
I jerk awake. How long have they been calling me? Long enough that Praseep’s hauled himself over to where I am, and he doesn’t look happy.
‘We need to leave now.’
‘What’s happened? Your Highness.’ I barely remember the honorific.
‘Who said anything has happened?’
‘Your face.’
He looks away, lips twitching. I’d think he was trying to hide a smile, except he’s Prince of the Ice-People, and I don’t think he smiles at Dirt like me. ‘We cannot go the normal route to the city, there is an avalanche risk that way. We must take a longer route through a crevasse field.’
I nod. With a sigh I pull myself to a sitting position. A hand materialises in front of me. Praseep’s hand. Reaching out. To help me up. His strange turquoise necklace dangling as he leans forward. I school my expression and take his hand, and he hauls me to my feet.
‘Thank you,’ I say. I cover my fluster by looking around at the mountains like they’re the most fascinating thing ever.
When I look back he has walked away, returning to the front of the group.
Our route takes us up a side valley filled by the frozen roils of a glacier. The light is pearling when we reach the very end of the valley and the crevasse field that climbs to the pass above. The clouds already wisp around us.
Crevasses and me haven’t ever had much to do with each other. I look ahead doubtfully. They’re massive. Giant bricks of ice separated by chasms of smooth blue. And the noise. For once, it’s not just a song inside my head. I hear the groaning and creaking with my ears.
Nothing about this place feels secure. As if to agree with me, far up the slope one of the ice towers collapses and the left of the valley is enveloped in a cloud of displaced snow. Aji and Praseep are up the front, frowning, obviously discussing which route to take up the ever-changing maze of ice.
I rub my hands together to keep the feeling in my cold fingers. Finally, Aji moves back towards the middle of the group and Praseep begins to pick a path up the slope. When it is finally our turn to go the gotals look at me like I’ve lost my mind. But they follow me into this strange new world of ice.
Halfway up, I’m getting the hang of it. I just have to ignore my eyes and ears – which are screaming at me to get out of this place – and trust what my head feels. Everyone else, except Grumpy and the gotals, is ahead of me in a loose line balanced on the top of one of the massive ice blocks. Either side of us the ice slopes down into crevasses so deep I can’
t even feel the bottom with my searching mind.
Suddenly I feel a change in the ice, a tension that skitters over the whole block we’re on. Our long line of people and gotals is too much for it.
Behind me, the gotals stop, begin to mill about uneasily. They feel what I feel. The danger isn’t near the front, where Praseep leads. It isn’t at the back, where I’ve now halted, it’s near the middle. Where Danam walks behind the Princess.
My blood stills with my feet. I gasp and Aji turns to me. Her hawk-features tighten.
‘Halt!’ she calls, so loud I jump. She swings back around to face those ahead, and I realise she wasn’t talking to me. Praseep turns, and his face transforms into horror. There is an audible crack and the ice judders, settling further down. Praseep’s eyes are white and his hand grips his necklace so hard his knuckles are white too, and I feel something like his presence entering the ice between us. Steadying it.
‘Princess,’ calls Aji, ‘please, come back to me, slowly.’
Princess Rishala nods, turns, begins to glide back towards us. The guard behind her stays as still as a mouse under the gaze of an eagle, even though she must hear Praseep call Vilpur forward. Even though she must realise she’s near the heart of the danger.
Danam’s looking at me, wild-eyed. ‘What do I do?’ he says.
Aji flashes a sharp look at me, then at Danam. She gestures him to retrace his steps. ‘Slowly now, come back here where it’s safer, before the Princess nears where you are.’
I nod in agreement. The weight of two bodies together would be more than the ice could handle now it’s broken, even with Praseep doing whatever magic he’s doing. Danam creeps back towards us, skin tight around his eyes. Princess Rishala comes behind him, steadily closer. Vilpur is safely with Praseep now, but the guard in the middle is obviously torn, not sure whether to follow her Princess or move toward Praseep. She decides on the first option.
It is the wrong decision, but I don’t have time to say the words. The ice cracks again, the sound echoing up and down each crevasse on either side of us. The section we’re on slumps again, and I struggle to stay upright. The block has split and shattered between the Princess and her guard. Princess Rishala staggers as the ice she’s on wobbles. She tears at her necklace, putting it safely in her pocket like that’s the most important thing right now, and closes her eyes. The energy of Praseep is all around her, so strong now it even feels different. His face is tight as he keeps his pure white eyes on her. The guard stands as if frozen, as if she realises her mistake, knows one wrong step could see three people consumed by the yawning chasms.