Boundary

by Heather Terrell

  “Hmm,” he says, glancing at it and then back at my leg. “No matter. You’ve staunched the bleeding quite well with that tourniquet; now we’ve got to sew you up. I just pray to the Gods that your muscles aren’t severed.” He reaches into a pack around his waist, pulling out a needle and a piece of thread that looks like hair, along with several rare glass jars.

  “Before I stitch it, I’m going to put some remedies on it,” he murmurs. “These will help clean the wound and speed the healing, but they might sting a little.”

  My eyes widen at the word, and for a tick I almost forget the pain. Remedies? Did he just say remedies? I glance down and see him rub some pujualuk into the wound. How in the Gods does Theo know about pujualuk?

  Almost instantly the sting subsides, replaced by numbness. I only know of this Boundary remedy, derived from a little plant that grows in damp mossy areas, because Lukas had instructed me in its healing properties before the Testing. I wonder if Theo had a Companion long ago who showed him Lex-forbidden Boundary ways as well.

  “I’m going to sew the wound up now, so it’s best if you look away.”

  I do, trying to keep my mind fixed on the fact that Theo might actually be more of an ally that I thought. What with violating The Lex in my presence, and with my acceptance, he’s managed to turn us into secret accomplices. It’s both frightening and thrilling, even more so than the stitchery he’s about to perform on my leg. But having sewn up Jasper’s wound on the Testing using these medicines and Lex-banned techniques shown to me by Lukas, I know how painful this will be.

  Suppressing a scream, I hold my breath. Theo pierces my skin and sews quickly. The numbness fades. I don’t think I’ve ever known such pain. I exhale only when he finishes and then watch as he places upon the wound a thin sheet of bearded seal blubber with the oil removed. Lukas had explained to me how this would act as a bandage.

  But how does Theo know?

  “This should do it. Let’s get you standing so we can see whether the muscle was injured.” He struggles to his feet, then pulls me up. At his prodding, I walk a little. The wound hurts, but my leg seems fine.

  “Easy,” he breathes. “Remember what I’ve tried to teach you: slow and steady wins the race.”

  “How can I thank you?” I whisper.

  “By keeping secret my use of medicines.”

  “Of course, Archon Theo. I am in your debt.”

  “I’m glad that you can be trusted.” He glances at me, a knowing smile on his lips. “We all have our secrets, don’t we?”

  XVII.

  Julius 11

  Year 242, A.H.

  The sun sets over the Frozen Seas, and still the ice does not yield the Genesis door. We have no choice but to return to the campsite for the evening. That means that forty-one Archons and Boundary will be trailing in my wake, no doubt snickering at my fruitless efforts. I try my hardest not to limp back to the campsite; I don’t want to provide further reason for ridicule.

  I am frustrated and embarrassed after all my boasts about the Gods granting me the knowledge of how to unlock the Genesis’s secrets. Not to mention weak and hurting. All I want is to burrow into my iglu for the night. But protocol requires that I attend the evening meal and nightly meeting; Laurence can even punish me if I don’t. After taking my time unloading my packs and delaying my entry to the last possible tick, I head toward the campfire. I bite my cheek as I mask my limp.

  I’m right to be wary. There at the head of the campfire waits Laurence, a rare smile bright on his face. “So pleased you’ve decided to join us, Archon Eva. Finally.”

  I grab a plate of food and sit in the open spot farthest from Laurence. But he’s not going to leave me alone. Of course not. He’s too eager to relish my failure. “The group would like to hear what you found in your section of the dig today.”

  They know that I didn’t find anything. He just wants me to say it aloud. For the humiliation. “Nothing,” I mumble.

  “Speak up. We can’t hear you.”

  “Nothing, Archon Laurence,” I say louder.

  “Nothing, you say. No door to the deck of the Genesis?”

  “No, Archon Laurence.”

  “No Relics of any kind?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  Laurence puts his own plate aside, stands, and steps closer to where I’m sitting, looming over me. “ ‘Yet,’ you say. What makes you think you will be granted a ‘yet’? What makes you think that you will be given more time?”

  “That decision is up to you, Archon Laurence.”

  “That’s correct. It will be my choice. And I’ve been thinking about how long to let your little proposal proceed before using the bonfires as I suggested earlier. Any thoughts, Archon Eva?”

  Theo gives me a glance across the fire, but doesn’t say anything. I know better than to answer.

  Laurence continues. “We will see how you progress. But never forget that the decision is mine, and you must make haste. We can’t afford to waste a single bell on any of your silly schemes. Summer is coming.”

  The men nod in agreement. How easily they are swayed. Or is it all fear of their leader? Or continued dislike of a female Archon? Does it even matter at this point?

  Since Laurence is done making his point, the conversation drifts. I try to fade into the background by keeping silent. As soon as I’m finished with my food, I leave; protocol only requires that much. I take a longer route to my out-of-the-way iglu; I don’t want to chance running into an angry Archon en route. Plus I don’t want anyone to see my lame walk. Strength is more important now than ever.

  When I finally reach the entrance to my iglu, I see that someone has already been there.

  My belongings are scattered about, some blowing away in the gusty wind. There’s no way to replace any of the scant items I brought. Wincing and hobbling, I race to gather what I can, so I don’t notice it at first. Then I freeze.

  There, pinned with an axe over the entrance, is a message. The blade tacks my spare Archon tunic to the ice, spearing it right through the center of the Triad symbol.

  My iglu was ransacked for a reason. Someone wants me gone.

  XVIII.

  Julius 12–17

  Year 242, A.H.

  Six siniks pass before we find it. Six siniks where my failure is mocked nightly by Archon Laurence. Six of the longest siniks of my life. Six siniks until my boasts bear fruit and I taste vindication.

  As the rivulets of water drain off, the other teams direct the flow on the sides of the dig to ensure the water freezes safely. While we wait, Theo asks, “How did you know?”

  “About the Site?”

  “No, Eva, of course not,” he snaps. “I watched as you mapped out the Site based on all the documents. I knew you were correct about that. I’m talking about the door. There wasn’t a single scrap of paper mentioning a door. So how did you know?”

  “The Gods,” I answer, giving him the same line I gave Laurence.

  “The Gods? Really? Please don’t patronize me.”

  “The truth?”

  “Yes.”

  I think of the possibility that would most horrify Theo, with his love of scholarship and documentation, an answer that would quiet his questioning in its offensiveness. “A hunch.”

  His jaw drops. “You can’t be serious.”

  “But I am.”

  “You brought a team of forty-two out here on a hunch? And subjected yourself to Archon Laurence’s taunting and mortification on a hunch?”

  “No, I was certain of the Genesis Site. The proposal that we look for the door instead of using the bonfires was based on a hunch. Perhaps the Gods were responsible,” I add.

  Before Theo can answer, one of the Climbers calls out to us, and we rush to his side. Crouching down next to him, I see the handle to a door. I glance up at Theo. He shakes his head at me, but a smile curls his lips.

  “Thank the Gods,” he says. “It looks like you’re right, Archon Eva. I can’t account for what Archon Laurence would
have done to you if you were wrong. Never mind your father.”

  I smile back and instruct the Climber to melt a few feet more around the door’s perimeter. Theo and I stand by and watch, but I can hardly stand it. I’m itching to get down there before anyone else. Especially before Laurence.

  The very tick that the door looks clear enough to enter, I reach again for my pick. Lex protocol requires that the most senior Archon on Site give permission to enter, but I don’t wait for Laurence to weigh in. I can’t risk his certain denial of my request; he’d want the glory for himself. Anyway, didn’t Laurence implicitly give me permission to open the door? He assigned my team this task, so he must have expected that if we were successful, we’d be the first to cross the ship’s threshold. I think I could make a Lexbased argument on that. At least, that’s what I mutter to Theo when he objects.

  I wedge my pick into the tiny gap between the door and its frame. I pry the door with all my might, and it opens with a whoosh. Before Laurence truly comprehends what’s happening, I gesture to the Boundary workers on the surface to lower us into the room. Just Theo and me: alone.

  Using my naneq to light the way, I see only a pitch-black, cavernous room. As I suspected, it’s wide open, not ice-locked at all. It seems that when the Genesis sank after Madeline’s discovery, the deck cabin door slammed tight behind her, sealing shut the cabin as the boat submerged. This means that if the Tech she described is still here, it might be intact. And I just might be able to open it later with Lukas’s expertise.

  After a few ticks, I’m able to get my bearings. The floor is so slanted beneath us that we’d slide headlong into the opposite wall if we weren’t harnessed. There are footsteps in the snow that can only be Madeline’s.

  I cannot help but gasp. On the tables and wedged on walls, I see it all. The Tech she described. The Tech I’d been hoping to find.

  Theo sees it, too.

  “Tech,” he cries out. His voice cracks. He pulls on his line like a madman, desperate to flee from the room.

  I look up at the two Boundary Climbers staring down on us. Unlike Theo, they show no fear. In fact, I imagine they have to hide their snickers. Like me, they understand the truth about Tech. They give me the tiniest of nods, and in that tick, I realize that they know who I am and what I’m here to do. We are on the same side. I feel the comfort of Lukas’s arms all the way from the Aerie. I knew he wouldn’t have abandoned me.

  I also realize that no matter his liberal view of The Lex in the matter of medicines, Theo is otherwise an innocent. He has no comprehension of the truth about Tech or anything else. He believes what all the Aerie people believe, that Tech is evil. That it holds a terrible, dark, and destructive power. He has no clue that these strange objects are just tools, devices. The evil—or the good—only derives from those who wield them.

  Would all the Archons be as terrified as Theo is now? Are they all so ignorant? I think of my father, of how he knew the mirror could help me in the Testing. But the mirror wasn’t Tech. Is the truth about New North kept to a select few in the Aerie? How much does my father really know? Perhaps most of the truth has been lost to time, preserved only in the memories of the Boundary people and in Madeline’s journal. For a moment, I wonder if I’m the only keeper of the truth.

  But if that’s the case, who stabbed my Triad symbol as a warning?

  XIX.

  Journal of Madeline

  Aprilus 24 Year 98, A.H.

  I thought I would feel that initial elation forever. For the first few days, I carried around the weight of my secret discovery like a precious talisman. I was delirious at the thought of my finding. When the unearthing began, my Relic revealed itself in satisfying stages, by tick and bell and day. But I remained silent. The calls of “Relic!” from other Testors sounded out, and still I bit my tongue. I felt invincible. I had uncovered part of the Genesis; what could possibly stop me?

  When I pried open the door from the Genesis’s deck, I found it packed with Tech. At first I shrugged it off; perhaps the Founders had commandeered an ancient vessel for their holy purpose. But as I dug into the small chamber, the ice felt soft and fell away quickly under the force of my pick. Much too quickly for a hundred-year-old freeze. Still, I held my disquiet at bay and entered with hope. This was hallowed ground, the very place where the Gods visited the first Founders and gave them The Lex. The place from which the Gods led us to the New North.

  The sacred place looked ordinary on first glance. The room was lined with simple tables anchored firmly into the metal hull of the ship. The ship’s wheel stood in the room’s center. A few toppled chairs were still frozen to the floor underfoot. No particular Relic for me to bring to the top, even though a Chronicle of the Genesis itself would be enough for my Archon Laurels.

  At that moment, I saw them. Sitting on a tabletop in the back corner were a portable Apple altar and a book bearing a clear symbol of The Lex. I drew closer. The bitten Apple rune on the altar was defaced, almost entirely scratched out.

  Was this evidence of the very beginning of mankind’s rejection of Apple? Proof of our Founders’ acceptance of the true Gods’ salvation? My heart started to beat fast, and I clasped my hands for a short prayer.

  I dared not touch the Relics, they were so delicate. I drew my lamp over them for a closer look. At that tick, I noticed something, a fact that had been hovering at the edge of my consciousness but which I had been repressing. The altar and the book were not sealed in ice and bore no signs of long ice-locking. No dissolving of The Lex pages, no rusting of the metallic cover of the altar.

  I could no longer ignore my suspicions. Someone had placed these artifacts here recently.

  It was the only possible explanation for their fresh condition, for the ease with which I removed the ice and snow from this chamber. The longer I stared at them, the more the Relics reminded me of what mankind called “fiction,” the sort long banned by The Lex and the Triad. It was as if they had been placed here by someone who wanted me to tell a particular story to the people of New North. Had Apple himself come here to trick me? At that tick, as I stood at full height in the control room on the deck of the Genesis, I was consumed with a fear I’d never known. The Testing had been aptly named. This was a Test of the gravest kind.

  What in the Gods should I do? Who would I be accusing of this awful deed? Only Archons were permitted on the Frozen Shores, and to blame them of tampering with this holy Site would be tantamount to treason. Anyway, what proof did I have, other than my gift for reading the ice and snow? If I wrote a Chronicle that shared my misgivings, I could suffer punishment under The Lex, and so could my family. Banishment to the Boundary lands would be the least of the possible sentences; I had seen people swing from nooses for less. Anyway, what purpose would this sacrifice serve? To undermine The Lex? To mock the Gods? To destroy the New North? But how could I Chronicle what I found?

  This had to be a test of my faith and loyalty. I was alone with the Gods. I wished my papa or one of my Teachers or a Basilikon were here. As I hesitated, Father Earth shifted the ground under my feet. I lurched, crashing into a corner of one of the stationary tables. Warmth trickled down my cheek, and touching my glove to it, I realized it was blood. The air filled with a deafening shriek that could only be the Genesis breaking free from her ice casing. Every warning ever issued by every Archon flashed through my mind. Suspended on my sealskin rope, which mercifully I had kept tied around my waist, I swung like a pendulum. As I pulled myself to the surface hand over hand up the rope, trying to block out the awful cracking below, I had no choice but to conclude that this event was a message from the Gods themselves. An answer to my quandary. “Think on The Lex,” the Gods seemed to say with each wrench of the ice. The Lex commands that Testors write Chronicles about the Gods’ redemption of mankind, not Chronicles that challenge everything we believe.

  As I climbed out of the chasm, I made a promise to the Gods in exchange for my life: If I survive, I will hew to Your message. I will follow Your co
mmands. I will write a Chronicle about my Relic worthy of The Lex and worthy of mankind’s second chance. No matter my misgivings. I inscribe again from memory the words of The Lex:

  Mankind is only as sinful as his darkest secrets. For it is in this darkness that the false god Apple worms his way into the hearts and spirits of mankind. Man must close off this opening to darkness. No whispering of confidences may pass, no clandestine writing of private affairs may take place, no secret thoughts may fester. If mankind rejects this admonition, he rejects the salvation of the Gods on Earth and beyond. Mankind must shine the light of the Gods into the darkness to secure this, his second—and last—chance at redemption.

  —The Lex, 214:78

  XX.

  Julius 17

  Year 242, A.H.

  I climb over to Archon Theo and try to calm him. “This is our sacred job as Archons,” I murmur. “To drive the evil of Apple from our hearts and minds and excavate this sacred Site. This is the Genesis, the blessed ship that delivered some of our Founders here to New North at the command of the Gods. This is where Apple was first defeated. We have nothing to fear here, Archon Theo.”

  He takes a labored breath. “You’re right, Archon Eva. Please forgive me. All this Tech”—he gestures around the room—“just came as such a shock.”

  I clasp his hand. Even through all our sealskin layers, I can feel him shaking. This is what Tech does to those who don’t understand its true nature. This is exactly what the Founders of New North wanted.

  “Let’s grid the room,” I say. I know that this standard task will soothe and occupy him.

  “Yes, yes. That’s exactly what we should do.”