by David Estes
They’re walking on dead leaves, the ground covered in a thick layer of them. In the dark and from a distance, I can’t make out the colors, but in my mind I picture them as red and gold and blue and yellow and every other color imaginable. Beautiful, fallen leaves, just like Teacher always described them.
As soon as they get beneath the trees, they start working. Keep’s barking orders, pushing them this way and that, shoving one guy—it’s Raja!—against a tree. He bounces off of it like it’s stronger’n stone, goes to one knee, stands back up. Then he does the strangest thing. He hoists his axe over his shoulder, and slams it into the side of the tree with enough force to knock it clean over!
’Cept it doesn’t fall over, doesn’t so much as budge one little bit. It just stands there smiling at him, like they’re having a good ol’ chat. So he chops at it again. And again. And again. I watch in fascination as he keeps it up for a good long while. He stops, moves ’round to the other side, and keeps at it. Meanwhile, all ’round him, the others are doing the same thing. Swinging axes at trees, whacking at them like they got a bone to pick with them, like each tree is their worst enemy.
I’ve gotta get a closer look at this.
Heading east, I make my way toward the border of ice country in a wide arc, staying low to the ground, watching and listening for any signs that they see me. Everyone keeps working. I see the leaves on the ground, covering every last inch. If I step on them they’ll crunch. So I slide my feet slowly along the ground, pushing through them. They make a gentle swishing sound, but it’s too soft to draw anyone’s attention.
When I reach the tree line, I look up. I’ve never felt so small in my life. The tree monster stands over me, rattling his branches and laughing. I could squish you like a bug, he says in between chortles. My thoughts, getting the better of me, as usual.
Tearing my gaze from the tip-tops of the trees, I touch a hand to the bark. It’s rough. Rougher’n chipped and chiseled stone. Not at all like the smooth wood that we use to build our tents and huts.
Although I have the sudden inexplicable urge to stay within the confines of the trees, to walk amongst them, touching them, learning them, I wade back through the leaves and step onto the hard earth, which’ll ensure my feet don’t make any unwanted noises. The cool breeze raises strange bumps on my arms and the back of my neck. I shiver again. I feel weird all over.
Shaking it off, I creep along the trees, careful not to step on any of the twisted and curled leaves that’ve blown off into fire country. Each leaf is my enemy, capable of giving my position away. Step, check for leaves, step, check, step, listen, leaves, step.
I make it within twenty feet of the workers, stop, slide my feet along the ground to avoid crunching any leaves, duck behind a big ol’ tree, clinging to the bark. Peek my head out.
That’s when the first tree dies.
Chapter Eighteen
CRASH!
The tree falls to the ground like thunder, sending tremors through the soles of my moccasins. They killed it. They killed the tree.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
The pure, cool night air is filled with a cacophony of more trees falling, brought low by the axes of the prisoners. Each tree falls perfectly into the desert, as if they prefer to die out in the open, under the gaze of the moon goddess than in the company of their brothers and sisters.
“Good work, tugs!” Keep yells. “One more round and we’re done fer ternight.”
I see Raja standing over a fallen tree, his elbows on his knees, his face aimed at the ground. He’s exhausted. Panting. Chopping down trees is hard work. The others are in similar positions. These’re the lifers. Most of them woulda been in Confinement for quite a while, so they’re skinny, underfed, in no condition for heavy labor. But they got no choice—the Keep’s waving ’round his bow and pointer again.
“Back ter work!” he roars. I really don’t like him anymore, want nothing more’n to take his bow and shove it up his—
One of the prisoner’s falls. Not Raja, but a guy near him. Just keels right on over, like he ain’t capable of staying on his feet for one second longer.
“Sear it all to scorch!” Keep growls. “We got another diver. Put ’im with ter others.”
Raja lifts his head, looks at Keep. “I really think we should—”
“Yer not ’ere to think,” Keep says. “Put ’im with ter others, or I put a pointer through yer skull.”
Raja just stares at Keep, as if he’s considering the offer, but then stumbles over to the guy on the ground. I see him whisper something to him, and the guy’s eyes flash open for a moment, but then close again. There’s defeat on his face, which is ghostly white under the moonglow. Too tired to fight on. Too tired to chop trees. Too tired to live.
Another prisoner comes over and helps Raja carry him out into the desert. I shrink back, keeping the tree between me and them, unable to tear my gaze away from the prisoner’s body. They carry him to an area littered with broken white-painted branches and round sun-bleached rocks. I hadn’t noticed them ’fore, but now that I see the strange white objects, they look so familiar, as if I’ve seen something like them ’fore. “Drop ’im!” Keep orders.
Facing away from Keep, Raja makes a face, ignores the order, lowers the body gently to the earth amongst the sticks and stones, as if it’s some sort of altar. Touches the man’s face gently. Leaves him there.
Dead under the moonglow.
~~~
The men are chopping again, distracted, and I wanna see what’s so familiar ’bout the objects littered around the now-dead prisoner. I got no desire to be near a dead body—nuh uh, no thanks—but something about the white branches and stones draw me to them.
I’m so close to the working men now that each chop, chop, chop goes straight into my head, as if they’re chopping at me and not the trees. My head starts to hurt.
Keeping my eyes on Keep, who’s walking around shouting “encouragement” to the workers—like “Hurry it up or I’s fixing ter beat the livin’ scorch outta yers!” or “Don’t make me put a pointer through yer brain, tugs!”—I reach the body. Fixing one eye on Keep, I aim my other eye at the white objects.
Some of them are strangely curved, while others are stick-straight, with knobs on the ends. The rocks are smooth, almost circular but not quite. Odd. The wind breathes a heavy gust and one of the rocks rolls toward me, clattering slightly on the hard ground. When it turns it’s looking at me. Right at me. With sunken, eaten-away eyes.
Not a stone—a skull. Not branches—bones. This ain’t no altar, no shrine. This is a graveyard.
Suddenly I’m gasping for air, shaking so hard I can’t control it, trying—desperately trying—to turn away from the image of death that stands before me, but I can’t, can’t, like I’m being sucked in by the hollowed out eyes of the skull picked clean by the vultures and Cotees and whatever other animals might live in the no-man’s-land between fire country and ice country.
Grabbing my head with my hand, I force it away from the desert, bury it into the side of a tree, still shaking—might never stop shaking—hot tears springing up and rolling down my cheeks. Silently sobbing. The lifers are sent here to work. And they’re sent here to die.
At my feet the leaves look less like dried tree blossoms’n like curled, skeletonized hands chopped off at the wrists.
I shake, shake, shake some more, my fingers like claws, pulling at my hair, wiping away my tears, rubbing moisture on my dress.
A CRASH! that's startlingly close pulls me out of the shock caused by the skeletons. The next round of trees is falling. With each one, my mind clears a little and wrests a bit of control from my emotions. What’s done is done. These people are dead. I gotta move forward, think of how to help the ones that’re still alive.
I gotta think.
I’s framed. Raja’s words. If he’s telling the truth—which I think he is—then this ain’t just a ’spiracy. This is murder, plain and simple.
And who’s behind it al
l? Raja says he was framed by a Greynote. And the Head of the Greynotes is…
…my father.
Can’t be him. Father’s mean and nasty and has a temper a mile wide, but a killer? He’s always talking ’bout how it’s my duty to Bear, how we need to obey the Laws to ensure the survival of our people, the Heaters. But how’re we gonna survive if we’re framing and murdering our own? So it’s probably some of t’other Greynotes, going behind his back, usurping his authority. Right?
I hear a new voice, unlike the others, both in tone and language. Wiping away a lingering tear, I ease around the tree to check things out.
There’s a guy, dressed in heavy white skins, all draped over him like he’s wearing blankets. Black, leather boots rise all the way to his knees. He’s got a hat on too, furry with a tail on it. Like no one I’ve ever seen ’fore. His face is shrouded under a beard so thick there could be a whole family of burrow mice living in it. I know right away what he is:
An Icer.
Come from high in the mountains, he’s talking to Keep. “Your workers are too freezin’ slow,” he says, his words clipped and precise. I ain’t never heard anyone talk like that. I scan the workers for something to clue me in as to what freezin’ mean, but don’t see anything, so I got no clue what he’s going on ’bout.
“They’s tired. Hungry,” Keep says. “We need more food fer ’em. Our people are starvin’”
“You’ll get your food. But tell Roan this: if we don’t get more production out of your men, we’ll cut off the supply of wood and meat. Mark my words.”
“I’ll tell ’im,” Keep says. “When’ll we git ter food?”
The Icer folds his arms across his broad chest. “Tomorrow. It’s a sacred day. First day of winter. We’ll not have your men working on our land on a sacred day. But they can come to collect the meat and trees.”
“We’ll be ’ere,” Keep says.
~~~
It feels like my eyes just closed when I see light on t’other side of their lids.
Morning’s come faster’n a wildfire. And with it, a roaring, scattering of thoughts in my overloaded brain, as if the windstorm from last night is inside me. Everything ’bout last night feels like a dream—but I know it ain’t. I saw what I saw. I heard what I heard. And now I want what I want. Which is answers.
I gotta talk to Raja, but he won’t be too happy if I wake him up on so little sleep. So, instead, I wait patiently for him to awake on his own, enjoying the sunrise.
It’s a good one, too, a burst of orange and red over the horizon, casting shimmery beams of light almost through the puffy yellow clouds that dot the sky. And just ’fore the outline of the sun goddess’s eye appears, there’s a burst of color. Not just the usual reds and oranges and yellows, but a flash of blue and green, too, so bright and beautiful that my heart skips a beat as I wonder at the powers that watch over us. The blue in particular reminds me of something Teacher once told us. He said the sky used to be all blue, not red like it is now. The red only came at sunrise and sunset. All us Younglings laughed behind his back after Learning, saying how Teacher’d lost his rocks, gone wooloo. None of us believed him.
But somehow, on this morning and seeing that burst of blue, I can almost picture the sky being all blue. I’d rather the sky be purple with pink polka dots, Perry comments.
“I bet you would,” I mutter, silently reminding myself how silly it is to be talking to a prickler. But, with Raja sleeping like a pre-Totter, Perry’s all I got.
Already I’m tired of waiting for Raja. I was up every bit as late as him, maybe later. I heard him come in, lie down, his breathing get heavy. He was bone-weary and slept right away. Me, I was exhausted, but took ages to doze off, what with all my rambling thoughts and ideas spinning and dancing through my mind.
Bones and skulls. I shiver, although, back in fire country I’m nothing but warm.
Enough. It’s time to talk.
“Raja!” I hiss at the sleeping lifer in the cage next to me. “Get your shanky butt up or I’ll start throwing rocks!”
“Uhhhh,” Raja groans, rolling over. He’s looking and acting like Veeva’s guy, Grunt, on the morning after one of his fire juice nights.
I don’t wanna get a reputation for making empty threats, so I pick up a small stone, find a clear bit of air where our cage bars line up, almost like the sights on a slingshot, and chuck it through.
The rock hits him in the head.
“Ahhh! What the scorch?” he cries, covering his face with his arms.
“Shhh! Keep your voice down or Keep’ll hear you.”
He mumbles into his arms. “Good. I wanna report a crime. Throwin’ rocks at a defenseless, sleep-deprived man.”
“Sorry, it’s not like I was aiming for your head. I’ve never been very good at aiming things.” I shrug, but Raja can’t see it ’cause he’s still tucked in his arm-cocoon.
He lifts an arm slowly, peering suspiciously through the bars at me, as if he thinks I’ll chuck another rock at him. “You shouldn’t be throwin’ rocks if you can’t aim,” he says. Least he’s keeping his voice down now.
“I hadta get your attention. I gotta talk to you.”
He crawls over, still eyeing me strangely. “About what?”
“Where you and all the lifers went last night,” I say firmly.
He rolls his eyes, starts to crawl away. “You must be wooloo. I already told you it’s too dangerous to talk about that stuff.”
“Wait! I was there.”
He stops. Looks back over his shoulder. “Tugblaze,” he says.
“I was. I followed you.”
“Prove it.”
My mind cycles through the memories of last night, as vivid as if I’m reliving them now. Them killing the trees, the dead lifer in the lifer boneyard, the Icer and his thick clothes and strange voice. I shiver again, as if the cold from the edge of ice country followed me all the way back to Confinement.
“We’re done here,” Raja says, taking my silence for lack of proof.
I keep my voice low, even. “You were chopping down trees, killing them. One of you died. You and another guy hadta carry him and dump him amongst the bones. There was a man. An Icer.”
Raja just stares. I swear it’s like a whole day passes, him staring, all silent and shocked. Twice I check to see if I’ve grown a second head, but it’s still just the one. “I wanna help you,” I finally say when it’s clear he ain’t gonna speak.
He shakes his head, snapping out of his stupor. “You can’t help. No one can.”
“You don’t know that. I ain’t a lifer. I’ll be heading back to the village soon enough. I can talk to my father, tell him what’s happening here.”
“Your father?” Raja scoffs. “This is all his idea in the first place.”
Now it’s my turn to stare. There’s no lie in Raja’s thin, sun-leathered face. “Explain,” I say.
“There’s a lot you don’t know, Siena.”
“Then tell me.” My voice is urgent, pleading, but I feel like I’m so close to the truth that I’ll do anything to find it.
I’m about to squirm onto my knees and start begging, when Raja says, “Fine. But you didn’t hear this from me, none of it. And don’t blame me when you start pokin’ around and get caught. They’ll kill you.”
I’m good at poking, Perry says.
Not now, I tell him.
The dead lifer pops into my head. Will that be my fate? Left for dead in a shallow grave? I blink away the thought and manage a nod.
“It’s your death ceremony,” Raja says, lowering his voice to start his story. “I been ’ere over a year, so I been able to put most of the pieces t’gether. When Shiva was struck with the Fire, your father started makin’ his plans. Shiva was still Head Greynote, mind you, but he weren’t callin’ the shots no more. It was Roan. You with me so far?”
Nothing’s surprising about any of this. “Yeah,” I say.
“First thing Roan—your father—does is goes and talks to
the Icers. Up till then the agreements with ’em were nothin’ more than basic trade agreements. You know, like we give them tugskins and tug meat and they give us some wood for our tents and fires and such. But there was something else the Icy ones wanted. Something Shiva never let ’em have.”
“What?” I say, leaning forward.
“’Ssurrances.”
“What kind of ’Ssurances?”
“See, they’s scared of us. Not of us us, but of our disease. The Fire.”
“What about the Fire?” I ask.
“Somethin’ you gotta understand, Youngling, is that the Icies are tryin’ to survive just like us. They’s doin’ better at it, too. I heard that they live ten, maybe even fifteen years longer’n us. Anythin’ to threat’n their lives scares ’em.”
The pieces just ain’t making sense. I’m getting all this new information—the answers I been asking for—but I don’t feel any better off. Maybe I’m asking the wrong questions. “So…they feel threatened by…the Fire?” I ask slowly.
“’Xactly. A while back a coupla their border guards came down with it. With the Fire. Died miserable deaths like nothin’ the Icies’d ever seen before. The guards had had brief interactions with Heaters, so they blamed it on that.”
I’m starting to see where this is going. “They wanted ’Ssurances we wouldn’t spread the Fire in ice country,” I say.
“Now yer gettin’ it,” Raja says. “Yer father agreed, in exchange fer double the wood, some meat, and help harvestin’ the wood.”
Ahh. It feels as if the sun just started shining down on my head, even though it’s been doing that for our entire conversation. “That’s why you and the other lifers hafta go up and chop wood every night.” I frown. “But hold on. What’s my father really doing for them? How do these ’Ssurances work?”
“Your father—”
