by HM Waugh
Danam, however, has always been a hero.
It’s an aspect I normally like about him. But not here. He turns to help Princess Rishala, his boot rising from the ice. I hear myself shout out, ‘No!’. But it’s too late.
He’s taken a step.
Just one step back to where Princess Rishala stands.
And the shard of ice they’re standing on begins to slope to one side, dangerously tipping Danam and Princess Rishala towards a crevasse. The grinding of ice on ice fills my ears. Praseep drops to his knees, face a mask of concentration, and the tipping slows. On the ice, Danam slips, regains his footing, but he’s another step closer to the Princess. She’s trying to balance, legs well apart, arms out, like the effort to simply stand is taking everything out of her.
Without thinking I reach out my mind to mimic whatever Praseep’s doing.
Otherwise the Princess will slip down into the crevasse, and probably Danam with her, and that will be the last of the future Queen of the Ice-People.
I hold that ice with everything I can muster, copying what I feel Praseep doing. And Danam runs the few paces between him and her, grabs her and throws her towards us like a gotal after the summer clip. Aji kneels, arms extended, grabs Princess Rishala, and for a moment she is safe.
Safe, but slipping.
The ice she’s on lurches violently. There is no time to fear what has become of Danam. I rush forward, and loop my arms around Aji. I feel Grumpy’s arms wrap around me from behind. Together we haul Princess Rishala off the shattered ice floe until we’re all a gasping ball of wool on the snow.
‘Danam!’ I call, when I have the breath to do so.
‘I’m okay,’ he calls back. I can feel him. He’s alive! He and Princess Rishala’s guard are balanced on a bridge of crushed ice well below us now. Praseep has lowered a rope and together he and Vilpur haul the two up to safety.
I sink back into the snow with a sigh.
The Princess catches my eye and smiles. ‘Thank you. Your nephew was very brave.’
My nephew was stupid, but I guess this isn’t the moment to mention that. And she looks like she wouldn’t listen anyway. Aji and Praseep are talking across the new crevasse using vigorous hand movements and gestures.
Finally Aji bows to Princess Rishala. ‘Your Highness, we must find a different route to the pass, and meet with the Prince’s party there.’
‘So be it, Aji. I trust you to Protect us.’ She pulls her monster of a ruby necklace out and ties it around her neck again.
Aji looks at me, hawk-eyes piercing, then nods to the Princess and sets off. It’s a much more difficult route. My hands are cold and bloodied, my nerves destroyed, and the others well gone by the time we emerge below the pass. I hope I never have to climb a crevasse field ever again.
Add to that, I’m worried.
Danam never sensed the danger back there. Not like I did. This last year or so, I’ve been trying to convince myself I simply do what anyone else in the village can do – find a safe path. I convinced myself Danam felt the same things I felt when we walked the snows and sat under the gaze of the high mountains.
Now I know I was wrong.
Princess Rishala was so certain it was Danam they were looking for, she never looked twice at me. But what if Danam isn’t the one they want?
What if it’s me?
I’m so absorbed in this thought and in feeling the snow around us, I’m taken by surprise when we top the pass. A flight of steps, carved into the near-vertical rock of the other side, disappears into cloud below. And there, the others wait.
There’s no time to catch our breath. The sun has dropped below the clouds and the world is taking on a grainy grey patina. Princess Rishala and Praseep embrace, I hear him apologising for not picking up the danger, and she shushes him then embraces Danam. Thanks him for saving her. His face lights up.
And I’ve got the feeling this is all built on icicles that will crack in the warmth of the palace. I need to talk to Danam.
We set off immediately, down the slippery steps. Aji stations herself at the rear, and my nerves twang like the strings of Vilpur’s harp. The gotals clatter down ahead of me, leaving a break between us and the rest of the group. My mind burns with all the things I’m terrified Aji might ask me. The chill of the clouds surrounds us, and I can’t see anything but a few steps below me.
I can feel Aji behind me – why can I now when I felt nothing before? I concentrate, and I can feel Praseep’s soul shining far below us, taste his intensity as he tests each step. They’re different, these two. Different from the other Ice-People. The necklaces they wear are not a fashion, but a marker of some sort. Of being a Protector.
Thing is, I’ve got the feeling I’m different too.
Aji takes a breath. Here it comes. ‘What were you thinking about just before the ice broke?’
By the Dragon, I don’t know how to face this. How to say something that won’t risk myself or Danam.
‘The gotals were distressed,’ I murmur.
‘Right.’ She doesn’t sound convinced. ‘I felt you – a Protector will begin to feel anyone they’ve been physically or mentally close to – and you were afraid. It’s what alerted me to the danger. I hadn’t felt a thing from the ice before then.’
I swallow. ‘The gotals are very good at picking danger …’
‘Extremely good, I would think,’ she says slowly, enunciating each syllable clearly like it has another meaning entirely. ‘Gotals that good at reading the path could be of great use.’
And then I get saved from further questions by slipping.
I feel the drop below, the useless slide of my boots. Too fast, I can’t correct my balance.
I’m going to fall.
A Very Long Way.
Except an iron arm latches to my wrist. Aji hauls me back against her. The two of us stand there, my own heart hammering in my ears at the same time as Aji’s hammers in my brain.
My head spins. ‘Thank you,’ I manage to say.
‘You’re welcome.’ She releases me, and I’m glad of the cloaking cloud hiding the unwelcome tears that threaten to spill. So close.
I try to smile, try to joke at the drop and the death that hovers beneath the white cloud. ‘I wouldn’t want to fall here.’
She pauses. ‘You wouldn’t hurt yourself, we’re almost at the bottom.’
I jerk my head up to stare at her. Everything I feel tells me she’s wrong, the base of these steps is far below us. She grins.
‘I knew it,’ she whispers. ‘You have the gift.’
I swear softly. One of the bad words the carters use, one that Father would slap me if he heard me say. I’ve given myself away. ‘I have nothing,’ I try.
But Aji’s grin widens. ‘Of course. It’s only the gotals.’
She raises an eyebrow at me, and I’m forced to look away.
She knows.
‘But if I were you,’ she whispers, ‘I’d ask why you think it’s best to lie. Your nephew had no sense for the ice back there. I saw that. You saw that. You know nothing of the Dragon Tests he must face to become a Cloud, even I know only a bit,’ she fingers her moonstone necklace, ‘but understand this: if the Princess has picked the wrong person, you do her and your nephew no favours by hiding it.’
‘The Princess knew who she wanted from the start.’
‘Hmmm, that she did. The Seers foretold that if we walked to the edge of the Dirt, we’d uncover her Cloud Dragon. We walked there and we saw your group. We watched you come down the slope. One adult, two children. One child in pants who read the slopes expertly, and a child in skirts following, who knew nothing. The next day we found a child in pants and a child in skirts, so the choice seemed simple.’ Aji looks right at me, her eyebrow raised in silent query.
My face must give me away, because she nods. In my mind, I remember laughing at Danam, at the way he wore his bed rug around his waist, channelling Old Aunty vibes.
All along, was it me Princess Rishala was searchin
g for?
Aji puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘We need to keep going, this night runs fast to catch us. Think about what I’ve said as we walk. And remember your mouth can lie, but your eyes will give you away every time they change.’
I shiver. My eyes? Do they turn white with the magic, like Aji’s do? What sort of mess have we got ourselves into? I absolutely need to talk to Danam.
I turn without a word and begin to descend as fast as I dare until I hear again the bleating of gotals and the murmur of voices. The air around me clears and blazes as we pop out below the cloud layer. The last of the sun’s rays are bathing the plateau below us with brilliant light, illuminating a city of white that clothes a cone-shaped hill not far ahead. And at the top of the hill, sunset sparkles off the fluted golden roofs of a palace. And the palace walls shimmer green.
‘The SkyCity,’ Aji murmurs. ‘Quickly now, we must hasten.’
I nod, but my head is churning. Mera was right. The SkyCity is everything she ever described to me. The place I’ve always dreamed of.
So why am I so frightened?
Chapter 10
Our footsteps clatter over the bare earth of the plain. Hard as ice, dry as a summer rock. Cold as I’ve ever felt, but no snow, as if it never falls here.
The city looms in front of us, blazing gold and green and white. My insides are a tangle. I’ll talk to Danam as soon as we have the chance. That is if they don’t turf me out straight away.
I don’t think they will, but …
Ahead of us, massive wooden gates, carved into an eerie likeness of a dragon with arching wings, break the monotony of the white perimeter walls. In their centre, the body of the dragon is embossed with golden scales. The watchtower above is the fluted dragon head, sinuous and beautiful with eyes of glowing greenstone. The gates swing soundlessly open as we approach. Guards in grey bow deeply as the Princess passes through, and six break formation to flank each side of her and Praseep as we walk.
Two of them have circular necklaces, one with a black obsidian, and the other a white moonstone like Aji’s. Protectors.
It’s unexpectedly frightening to pass under that dragon head, suffer the gaze of those shining eyes. I’m glad when I’m through the gates.
My boots strike on stone. The streets here are paved in white marble. The buildings on either side are higher, grander, whiter, cleaner, than anything in our village. I glance behind as the heavy gates swing shut, the guardian dragon whole again. Where did they get the wood for those gates? Perhaps they have forests somewhere within their realm.
Aji catches my eye, and I look to the front again. I need to talk to Danam, confirm he doesn’t feel the snow like I do, explain why he mustn’t go ahead with these mysterious Tests.
He’ll hate me.
He walks near the front of the line now, just behind Vilpur. Only Princess Rishala and Praseep are ahead of them. Danam holds his head high, and in his white cloak he looks strong and fine.
People mass on either side of the street as we walk along, all dressed in mountain shades of white and blue and tan, and the last of the sun flashes off golden roofs as they cheer the return of their Princess. Ahead of us the greenstone walls of the central palace glow with the sunset. The air is clear of smoke, the streets look like you could eat off them. The Princess waves at her people, and calls out things like, ‘May you be blessed by the Stone,’ and they all clap and smile.
She is popular with her people, that much is clear. They aren’t feigning the happiness at seeing her. At seeing her with a stranger walking behind her.
It looks like relief. Just in time, Praseep had said to Danam. There is an urgency here that I don’t yet understand.
The SkyCity is more beautiful than I ever imagined. Richer and bigger and more awe-inspiring.
Except many of the faces that watch us are pinched with hunger.
We pass two large wagons, each piled high with snow. People are shovelling snow from one wagon into a low trough, and someone is heating it with the gift. Melting it.
Is there no other water here?
It doesn’t take long to reach a second set of dragon gates, similar yet clearly different to the first, like two dragons would be different to each other. The eyes of this gate look like diamonds sparkling white in the bright of the strange lights these people have. The wood of the wings shines, especially near the base. Like a thousand generations of hands have touched them, admired them, polished the wood to this lustre. These gates remain shut.
A pipe blasts a note. ‘Open for the Crown Princess!’
We’re being watched from atop the palace wall, and the gates open immediately. My heart is thumping so loudly I bet Aji can hear it. If she can, she sure doesn’t reach out and pat my back reassuringly or anything.
I kind of wish she would.
I make myself a promise. As soon as I can get Danam aside, I’ll tell him everything. I think Aji will help me, maybe explain what these Dragon Tests are and why Danam mustn’t attempt them if he doesn’t have the gift. Maybe she can help us get away, get back home, before all the misconceptions and mistaken identities come out into the open. I bring my fingers together, five bridges of promise.
I will talk to Danam.
Except as soon as we’re through the internal dragon gates and the lights sparkle off emerald-green walls, Praseep is there waiting for me with two guards I don’t recognise. The smaller guard has an obsidian necklace. They step in front of me, stop me in my tracks.
Praseep nods at me. ‘I need to take you to a cell for the night.’
I hold my face steady. A cell? Aji stops to collect my pack, bows her hawk-nose to Praseep, then continues at the back of the procession. Danam’s already walked away without any idea I’m not behind him anymore.
‘It is not as bad as it sounds,’ Praseep says, and I haul my attention back to him. ‘Only a formality. Tomorrow you must explain your trespassing and beg forgiveness.’
‘And if I don’t?’
He looks away, bites his lip. ‘Well, the gotals are here now, so we have no further use for you. There are several precedents for what to do with trespassers … If I were you, I would grovel.’
I think of the malnourished faces we passed on the streets, and I remind myself all is not as it seems in this greenstone city.
Praseep nods like he thinks we understand each other. ‘Come with me, then.’
It’s not a request, there’s no hint of a please. He’s a prince, he’s tired, and I’m an impediment to his sparkling bath and entitled dinner. Hatred for him boils up inside me.
He leads me, guards on either side, through a side door into a dark corridor where the light he carries is the only illumination. It glitters off greenstone walls. We turn right, then left, then left again, each turn taking us down a corridor narrower and vastly more cold than the last. Finally we descend a set of stairs to a dead-end hallway lined with doors. Mine is the fourth on the right.
It smells of cold rock and dust down here.
Inside is a room barely wide enough to stand with arms outstretched. A water gourd sits in one corner, and a rough white blanket and sleeping mat occupy the other. The grey stone floor is spotless, however a hole in the ground oozes a smell that advertises exactly what it’s for.
I spin to face Praseep, who hasn’t followed me in. Of course not. His delicate princely nose is curled, his mouth tight. ‘It will just be for the night,’ he says.
I don’t respond. Don’t know what I’d say if I opened my mouth.
He gestures to the guards to head back along the corridor. Preparing to leave already. He watches them, then nods and turns back at me. His eyes pale. A glow materialises in the corner of my cell. A heat ball.
It’s as cold as sleet on ice in here, but I force myself not to step closer to the warmth he’s produced. Keep my face as stony as these walls he’s imprisoning me within. Outside a bell rings five times, resonant and stirring.
He shifts his feet. Eager to be gone, probably. ‘Dinner h
our,’ he says. ‘I’ll ensure some decent food is delivered soon.’
I glare at him.
‘Well, goodnight then.’
Does he hear the irony in his own words? But he’s leaving. Fear grips me. ‘I need to talk to Danam, Your Highness. Before his Dragon Tests … thing. Please. It’s important.’
Praseep barely turns. ‘Danam will not begin to sit the Dragon Tests for a few days. You need not worry about him. I have seen what he can do. He will not have any troubles. We might even Test him straight into Ice, or even Cloud …’ By the last sentence he’s practically forgotten me, instead musing to himself.
I roll my eyes. Why is everything so hard? I’m glad when the door clangs shut. I lean my head against the cold white wall. And grimace. I don’t even get to stay in a greenstone cell. They don’t waste forest dreams on prisoners.
I wait until their footsteps have stopped echoing down the corridor before I let myself huddle closer to the heat ball he’s left me. I drag the blanket and mat near to it, wrap myself up and try not to cry.
I’m not normally a crier, but I’m not normally in prison either.
When my meal is shoved through a grate at the bottom of the door some time later, the urge to cry returns. Even accounting for being in a prison cell, this is a sad attempt at food. A miserly serving of broth, with fatty meat floating in it. What is it with all this meat? No carrots. No peas. No spices. I’m so disappointed. Maybe I’d half-believed Praseep would actually intervene for me and I’d receive something approaching decent.
No such luck. I roll my own eyes at myself.