They passed entire tables of stone, a wall studded with a gem mosaic of Arsarneq, a hanging collection of profanely big sea monster skulls, a fleet of wooden ship miniatures. Too many wonders for Puigor to keep track of. He’d never seen so much woodwork in one place.
The one thing that never showed its face was people. The end of the world contained all the dead, and the start of the world contained none of the living? There had to be a metaphor in there somewhere.
It felt like the dream that stole into his head on occasion, the one where he walked to clan after clan and found every warren of igloos a mess of vacant halls. A choking absence that made him detest the bones in his skin. Upon him, earth’s final man, rested the onus of remembering every name. He, the final strand that connected hide to carcass. He, the end of the world who held all the dead, and no living to inhabit the beginning.
Their feet found the top of a tower and the prince heeled before a doorway that opened to the air. Puigor gaped at the plummeting height. Terns wheeled far off, needle pricks in the blue. His boat not even a fingernail held at arm’s length. A wobble weaved up his stomach and around his skull.
“You are angakkuq, yes?” asked the prince, not even out of breath.
Puigor nodded, nerves lighting up, his hit of tuuaaq all but gone.
“We will windwalk to the room. It’s just around the corner. After me.”
“Wait! I’ve never windwalked on… on a wall before.”
The prince produced a candle. “That is of little consequence. There’s one way to your father, and I will not carry you.” He turned, paused, then dashed out the door. Puigor watched him streak across the castle wall, legs a blur, then disappear in a projection farther down the wall.
He squirmed before the opening and its drop. Where was the king in all this? Was there no seneschal? Just the prince and his whims?
He rubbed an ungloved finger over tallow, the other hand reaching for heatmoss. He pulled a lump of gray lichens out of a pocket and ground them between thumb and forefinger. The reaction took and he dropped it on the tusk. Smoke wisped. Orange flashed. Flame jumped to life at the end of the wick, and the familiar pull grabbed him.
Here we go.
Spirits. Guide me. Or catch me.
His legs whirred into motion, and the floor slipped away. He lurched down. In every bet was a fool and a thief; he the fool, gravity the thief. The ground rushed toward his face while his feet refused to do anything but glide.
He pedaled his legs like an elk in burning breeches and sucked on the flame with such zeal the tusk shot sparks. Feet finally finding purchase on the face of the castle, he banked upward with the ground less than a second away.
Piss on a fish and call it a vacation, I’m not dead! Perhaps one could be both the fool and the thief.
A stretch of ports pocked the immaculate castle’s side far above. He angled for the one nearest where he’d exited, teeth a-clench, tears whisking into the wind. Please, please, please.
Darkness squeezed the corners of his eyes. Jelly fidgeted its way into his stomach. The shot was too dangerous! He’d thrash his ribs to splinters on the ceiling. He’d burst his skull to shards on the far wall.
Like slow thunder from a moiling storm, a roar poured from his throat, swelling as it ran its ire. The door soared toward him, nearly blending into a single white sheet with the rest of the wall. One final thrust up and he flew into the chamber, clipping a foot and tumbling, tumbling to crack against the back. He whimpered and clutched his shoulder.
“Extravagant, boy.”
Puigor looked to the prince, then to the man hurrying through the thin room toward him.
“My son!” said his father, helping him up. He didn’t look too haggard, but not too fit either. “What are you doing here? You need to be at home with your mother. The clan. Not chasing after a forsaken man.”
“He came to save you.” The prince stared, then looked toward Puigor. “What was it you said his name was?”
“Piukkunna.” Puigor wrapped his good arm around the man he’d journeyed so long to find.
“Piukkunna. Yes.” The prince slipped something into his mouth. His candle had been choked cold, opposed to Puigor’s burning on the floor. “I’m glad you came to Qilaknakka, Puigor. I don’t know if I could find use for you as an angakkuq after seeing your display. But I have been very curious about something, and I think this is the perfect opportunity to test it. What did you say his name was?”
Puigor frowned. “Piukkunna. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. I’ll… I’ll make your food, I’ll clean. We’ll pay more tribute. Just let me take him home.”
“Son…” said Piukkunna. “Don’t.”
“No, this is tribute enough, thank you.” The prince motioned to Piukkuna.
“No. I—I demand to speak to the king,” Puigor stammered. Why were words so hard to find?
“The king hides from the sun in the sky and his son in the castle. He cares little for this world anymore and only does anything perfunctorily, and then only because the habits are in his bones. Whatever emotion you hope to stir in my father, you won’t find it in him. It is I alone you treat with, boy.”
The candle in his hand jumped to life, and Puigor’s blood drained away, away. Anywhere, so long as it fled that frigid blue glow. Piukkunna clasped a hand around Puigor’s good arm.
“Say it again, boy. Say your father’s name.”
Puigor’s skin pricked with an ugly cold. “P-piuk-kkunna.”
The prince snicked his eyes shut, heavy breaths fuming out his nose. Somewhere within the confines of Puigor, something unlatched. The sensation made him sick.
Standing taller than the other two, the prince opened his eyes and twisted his lip into an azure-grimed grin. “Now. Tell me.”
Puigor swallowed.
“What was your father’s name?”
Puigor tried. Reached for it, the same place it had always been. The fingers of his mind came up empty, grasping snowflakes that melted with the grasping. “What have you done? It’s gone! I do not know the name of my father!”
Piukkunna snarled. “This is too far, Qummukarpoq! Imprison me, deprive me, use me, but don’t bring terror on my family.” He turned to Puigor. “My name is q̶̢̀j̀͘͟͡͠o̸͡k͘̕t̀͟͝͞͞ù̕m͞͞k̵̸̛͟j̨́̕͜i̧҉͏ó̡҉͝q͡͏͟q̶͘͜͟͞q̴͜.”
“Wha… what? Father?” The coldness seeped beneath his skin. “Father?”
“I said my name is p̴͘͜a̧̢̛͏q̡̢̀͢h̷̢͘͡t̴̶̨͟͡n̴̸̢͠r̴̴̛̕͘e̶̷͞q҉̸̛̕҉p̡̕͟g҉́͟n̵̸͜͟͡i͢͏.”
“No. No, no.” The sickness hadn’t receded. “I can’t hear it. I cannot remember your name!”
His father’s jaw hung stunned. Dread sewed the windows to the man’s spirit shut, leaving tears but no light in his eyes. “No…”
A bend from Qummukarpoq’s crooked spirit pressed against his lips, curling the corners. “This is a most promising beginning to my test.”
What was that blue flame? WHAT WAS THAT BLUE FLAME? Some instrument of demon hypnosis that scorched reality cold, brought to bear by this humanoid abomination. How could he smile?
Tears puckered in Puigor’s eyes. “What have you done! Take it back now! Or I’ll—I’ll—”
“You,” said the prince, “will return home and bring them a message: I am coming.”
Puigor had no response. Pikkunna had no response. The prince—the king?—had spoken, and thus it was. They had no weapons for war and no chits for bargaining.
Qummukarpoq motioned to the still burning candle upon the chamber’s ice floor. Numbly, Puigor knelt to pick it up, then walked to the edge. A single glance backward, then he tumbled from the verge.
He kicked his legs along the building side, though not as fervently. His chaotic descent would have earned backward praise from the prince. The man no doubt was saying something to that tune right now up above. Puigor thumped down several spans from his boat and groaned at his flaring arm. He lay there a moment, then go
t up, placed a shoulder against a gunwale, and kept windwalking.
Once far enough offshore, he vaulted into the ship and set some sail. Then he retreated to the stern, broke off a knuckle-size chunk of tuuaaq, and mashed it between his teeth.
12
Orluvoq
Orluvoq squinted through the dark at the miniscule piece of tusk in her ungloved fingers as her legs ferried her along. Two beasts prowled her innards. One demanded she bite down and claim the skies. The other hissed and spat at the monster in her hand.
She pushed the chalky crumb into her mouth.
Bliss bubbled into her head and shame sank to her navel, oil distilling from water. Nalor was right. She hated how much she loved it.
“Alright, alright,” chided the man himself. “Don’t get too hung up on it. You’ve got a job to do.” He took her by the elbow and pressed a lit candle into her hand. “Burn the tuuaaq inside you. Feed it to the flame. Maybe you’ll have more success than the last time we tried.”
She tried not to ask anything witless like, how do I get it into the candle if it’s in my body? Then she remembered. “I’ve already done it.”
“Oh? You’ve done more partying than I thought, have you?”
“When I… last visited my former clan. There was a flash of blue. I thought it was because the tuuaaq I was using had killed someone.”
Nalor shook his smiling head. “More talent in a sneeze than most angakkuit have in their whole bodies. Well, let’s see you do it again.”
“I’m trying! It’s not easy.” The tusk in her veins shoved her brain faster than her mind could keep up. Nevertheless, she honed in on the suffusive warmth and prodded at it.
Out. Out. Out? Oouuuuut!
Uh. There? There. There, there.
No. Um… Candle. Candle. Cand—
Whoa.
The glim in her hand flickered from orange to indigo to sky blue. She laughed out loud. “Nalor!”
A generously cut grin held his face. “What did I just say about your angakkuq sneezes? Let’s see if your tirigusuusik sneezes are equally impressive.”
Like a hundred windblown strings pulled taut between two hands, the tuuaaq’s tantrum leveled out. The hero’s thrum had ceased to blare, instead rolling softly through like worn-out thunder. The consonant constancy astonished more than the intoxication.
Her thoughts were hers. She was hers. And she wasn’t hiding.
The tuuaaq didn’t know everything.
A new glee inserted itself beside that of the tuuaaq. My life isn’t a shambles yet. Holding this blue flame just feels so… powerful. She quivered involuntarily. The fire gusted an air of potency right through her ribs, as if multiple spirits resided inside her. This pleased her. It pleased her deeply. This might not be so bad.
Except for what was to come—what might come. She had cast no vows. But it would be exhilarating to see the start of the world. Ruling it might not be too shoddy either. What all that might demand, she couldn’t say. But for certain it paid dividends of power that would hold helplessness in abeyance. All she needed to do to get there was…
Steal beauty. Her mind hadn’t been able to compass it yet. What ramifications held hands with the act? For her; for them? What did her beauty mean to her? It didn’t occupy the majority of her thoughts, to be sure. Then again, she hadn’t the chance to live around men as a woman. But if it really was of little import, why was she considering stealing it? Was she considering it?
She shook her head to repress the discord. “What now?”
“The magic of the blue flame is that any typical act you’d do is now some magnitude more effective, and you’ve access to previously untouchable acts.”
A frayed image of Nalor recumbent in a bone-cold cave, ringed by five abominable flames, unfurled in her mind. “Like what?”
“You already know about bluebodies from our previous adventures together. Cavorting corpses.” A fond smile lay on his lips. It quickly turned down. “Stealing memories. Manipulating emotion. Yes, you can force someone’s love to focus on you. But it recedes as soon as you let go. The healing will make you wonder why everybody doesn’t heal with blue flame at all times. With a normal flame, you can call animals to you. With a blue flame, you can possess them.
“But memories aren’t the only thing you can steal. Health. Youth. Beauty. Those attributes you can’t quite tally, but you can see, nonetheless. Is your liver failing? Steal the function from theirs.”
“That’s a little terrifying. Someone could just come along and drink you dry at any—” She stopped, a frigid realization cutting into her high. “You steal people’s youth. That’s how you look the same after years.”
Nalor spread his hands before him. “As charged. I am a product of the blue flame. But. I don’t just steal years off someone in a single bout.” He smiled. “I take it a day at a time.”
Comfort wrapped around her worries. “You mean I don’t have to steal it all at once?”
“You’re free to do as you choose. If you can choose. However, who knows how long the king will wait?”
“Can…” She watched the cold fire’s tilt. “After it’s done, could I give it back?”
“The blue flame is very good at taking. It doesn’t know nearly as much about giving.”
“Ah.” Her eyes slid shut. “But… none of these people—they don’t deserve it.”
He regarded her. “When a clan is low on food and the angakkuq can’t call any beasts, who gets the food?”
She gnawed at her lip. “The hunters.”
“To get the greatest gain, the clan must sacrifice. One step back so that they might take two steps forward. You’ve done great things at the end of the world, but think how much more you could do were you the queen at the start of the world.”
She nodded. I could do this. Just a bit at a time from a hundred different women. No more damage than a couple late nights would do.
Blue flame leapt to life in Nalor’s hand. “Alright. Let us be off, then.”
“I definitely have to try this tonight?” Her lips spake protest, but her heart wished for a moment to ply her newfound mastery over the tusk.
“You’ll be fine. You’re a natural.”
“Maybe…”
Well, she thought, how much damage can actually be done if beauty is only skin deep?
They slowed fifty paces outside the random clan and doused their candles, guided only by the aurora on high. It had been but a few minutes’ windwalk. Her first blue windwalk. A taste like over-cold ice tainted the back of her tongue.
“So how is this supposed to work?” asked Orluvoq. “We just go in there asking their hospitality, and I sneak into a room or two at night and steal some bits of beauty?”
“That’s more or less the posture of affairs, with one or two modifications.”
“Is there anything I should know?”
“Just play along,” Nalor answered. “It’s more fun that way. And remember that exceeding expectations might open the door for your parents to enter the Warren of Immortality.”
She glanced a question at him, but he kept his peace, footfalls dampened by a fresh fall of snow. Her parents? Could she see her dead parents again? Or was it limited to the yet to be deceased?
Friendly licks of light stuck out from beneath the warren’s door flap. They ducked inside. The antechamber buzzed with candlelight despite the late hour. A woman in her fifties, cheeks brushed artificial red, smiled and pushed herself heavily from floor to feet.
“My good sirs, we are so—oh, one of you’s a lady.” She giggled, fidgeting with several ivory rings. “Hey there, sweet thing. Have you come to stay the night? No, no need to look all nervous if that’s how it is. We got girls who don’t mind a minute.”
Orluvoq glanced another, harsher question at Nalor as she pushed off her hood. He swept forward and took the lady by the hand.
“Madame. I met the pleasant, young Oqupip several villages back. She told me about some… setbacks that she’s had rec
ently and is looking for a change of pace. I told her what you’re about here, and she expressed interest in working with you for a few months, perhaps, just to see what it’s like.”
Orluvoq’s main goal became avoiding cardiac failure, never mind the gaudy flush priming her cheeks. A brothel. Nalor had taken her to a brothel. Revulsion in a dozen shades spewed through her.
The lady perked up with every sentence from Nalor. “Oh. Oh-ho.” She walked over to Orluvoq and grabbed her by the shoulders. “The face isn’t terrible, a little plain, but no matter. Let’s get you out of that coat and see what’s going on.”
Orluvoq froze as the Madame began fussing with her parka’s fringe. Ribbons of shame coruscated up and down her body as she was stripped not only of her outer parka but her inner atigi and trousers.
“Oh, come now,” said the Madame, peeling Orluvoq’s arms away from her chest. “No need to be shy. It’s just old Atsa. And your gentleman friend, of course. There.”
Orluvoq tremored, and not for the cold—though her skin stood like gooseflesh. The need to sprint into the frigid night throbbed in her core. Some random woman’s eyes raked over her exposed anatomy like a clan archon appraising merchant’s wares. A man of queer morals about whom she knew nearly nothing gazed on impassively. She was being… sold? into prostitution. Even if it wasn’t happening, the motions were the same.
It rattled terror into her bones.
Only last year had Mama explained that when Orluvoq came up clanless years ago, their old captain Naalagaa had designed to sell her to Atortittartut, a den of slatterns no different than this. The selfsame whore clan that Kitornak had been fettered to. The boon of spirit strength granted Orluvoq by the blue flame froze brittle in her blood.
The Madame paced a circumference, clicking nails against her rings. “Good. Good. I like what I see, sweetie. I think you’ll fit right in. And you have a good shy, demure thing going on. Lots of men go cross-eyed for something as tender as you.”
Orluvoq Page 14
