by Shannon Hale
He slipped out of the tent to search for Essix, but looked up with a gasp.
At first he thought smoke filled the sky — only the smoke was green and tinged with purple. But the colors moved like a slow-flowing river, lower than the stars. Arctica was wild, wicked, and dangerous, but he understood a bit why the Ardu stayed. He leaned back, looking up as long as his legs would allow.
Rollan smiled. And the sky danced.
THEIR FIFTH DAY IN ARCTICA DAWNED WITH A STRANGE GREEN hue. Abeke stared through the flap of the tent at the unnatural shade of sky, trying to warm herself with it, convince herself she was okay. She didn’t remember sleeping all night. It felt more like she’d been knocked over the head and thrown onto the ground and had just laid there, feeling woozy with cold.
She exhaled heavily and watched her breath crystallize in the air above her and then snow back down onto her face.
Full morning came; the sunlight turned bright gold, but the air felt no warmer. Still, Abeke told herself she was okay. At least a mountain range in the distance now gave them a destination to walk toward in the otherwise endlessly flat ice.
The imaginary-meal game continued.
“For the seventh course,” Rollan was saying, “trout in a great deal of butter and stuffed with lemons and thyme, broiled till its skin is crispy.”
Abeke was too cold to be hungry. She was shivering so hard, she tripped and fell three times in one hour.
The third time, Conor helped her back up.
“Are you okay?” he said.
Yes, she was okay. Hadn’t she been telling herself that for days? Surely the others were as cold as she was. Just because she’d grown up in the hot plains of Nilo didn’t mean she couldn’t handle a few days on ice. But she couldn’t get any of those words through her chattering jaw.
Conor frowned, removed his scarf, and started to wrap it around her neck. Abeke was surprised how much warmer she already felt. She tried to move her lips into a smile, though they felt like ice. Conor smiled back anyway. To Abeke, family had meant a father and a sister who lived in the same house, ate with her, scolded her, wished her different. Not until meeting Conor had she understood what it might be like to have a brother. Not till knowing him and the others had she begun to imagine a different kind of family.
She started to say “thank you” but surprised herself by saying instead, “I haven’t been able to feel my feet for a long time.”
“Sit down,” Tarik ordered at once.
He pulled off her boot and sock, and Abeke sucked in her breath. While her skin was naturally deep brown, her toes had turned an unnatural black.
“Frostbite,” said Tarik. He began to vigorously rub her feet, and his touch felt like hot daggers. Abeke pressed her lips together to keep from screaming.
“I know it hurts,” Tarik said, “but we have to get blood flowing again or you could lose your toes. Or even more.”
Conor sat beside Tarik, removed Abeke’s other boot and sock, and began rubbing. Now Abeke did cry out. The pain was one thing, but the humiliation was almost unbearable.
“I . . .” she began, leaning forward.
“Stop it,” Conor said, almost as if he knew what she was thinking. “On a snowy night watch, Euran shepherds can get frostbite. I’ve done this before, so stop worrying and just let me help.”
Abeke covered her face with her hands. In one way, a boy her own age was rubbing her foot and that made her want to dig a hole to crawl in and die. In another, her friend Conor was rubbing her foot, which was one of the kindest, most humble things anyone had ever done for her.
This is what family does, she thought.
Shane had said to her, so long ago now it seemed, that they must find family wherever they could.
She lowered her hands from her face.
“Thank you,” she managed to say at last.
Her feeling restored, they all hobbled on, finally reaching the mountain range that had been on the horizon for two days. It wasn’t until she stood at its base that Abeke really understood its height.
“I would never attempt to scale such a mountain if our compass did not point that way,” said Tarik. “We don’t have enough food stores to waste time looking for a way around.”
Mountain was perhaps the wrong word, because Abeke could detect no rock in it. It seemed, rather, that long ago in a great act of violence something had erupted up from below, pushing a range of ice onto the surface. Huge shafts of deep blue ice jutted together, building up and rising so high that Abeke expected to see clouds at the peak.
They all sighed.
“Up?” said Meilin.
They began to climb.
Abeke instantly wished for Uraza. With the enhanced abilities the leopard’s presence gave her, Abeke would have no trouble leaping from pinnacle to pinnacle. But it was too cold for the leopard, and there was no food for her.
They climbed for hours, and though they were so far above the tundra floor that looking down made Abeke feel dizzy, they didn’t seem to be any closer to the peak. Staying roped together saved them again and again. Climbing on ice was just a bit slippery.
By evening Abeke felt so weak her forearms shook, even when she wasn’t gripping ice. The others were flagging too.
“Camp!” Tarik called.
“What camp? How?” Rollan said. “We’re on the side of an ice mountain!”
Tarik handed him what looked like a nail used to build a house for a giant. “Take the mallet from your pack,” he said, “and hammer the tent’s corner to the ice.”
In a matter of minutes, their tent was hanging like a curtain off the side of the mountain, the six of them behind it.
“Cozy,” said Rollan.
Abeke and Conor looked at him like he was insane.
“Joking,” he muttered, as if out of energy to explain, lie, or continue the joke.
Tarik slid along the cliffside and pointed at a spot, speaking to Maya. She placed her hands on the ice, a dim glow visible between her fingertips. With a crack-bubble-hiss, ice changed to water and water to steam, forming an indentation in the ice that to Abeke looked just big enough for a loaf of bread.
“No larger,” Tarik said, and Maya made five more.
“What are these for?” Meilin asked.
“These are your beds for the night,” Tarik said, cramming his own backside into one of the divots.
“Beds?” Rollan said. “I’d be lucky to be able to sit in something that small.”
“Then, they are your chairs for the night,” Tarik said. “Get some rest as best you can.”
Abeke had just drifted asleep when a sound like tiny fists punching at the tent woke her. Peering out from under the flap, she looked up the mountainside to see thousands of chunks of ice rolling down.
“AVALAN — !” she started to yell, but Tarik reached over and grabbed her arm.
“Peace,” he said. “It is only a hailstorm. Falling ice. Frozen rain.”
Ice falling from the sky? Abeke leaned back into her hollow of ice, trying again to sleep. The side of a cliff wasn’t her idea of cozy. She could feel the cold creeping back into her boots, working again at her toes.
They all rose at dawn, exhausted but tired of trying to sleep. The short night had worn them down, like wind beats at sandstone, and every step felt like trying to roll a boulder. Abeke was just about to say she wasn’t sure she could make it, when Conor slipped.
He was roped between Maya and Rollan, but they were too groggy to catch him. The weight of three people pulled on Abeke’s rope. She couldn’t stop her slide. She scrambled for a hold, anything, her feet skimming over clear blue ice, and then came the sickening feeling of a fall.
She jerked to a stop, the rope digging into her waist with the force of her own weight. She gasped, trying to reclaim the breath yanked out of her, dangling above a cliff. She
looked up. Tarik was braced against an ice boulder, straining to keep hold of the cord that secured them all together. And he was slipping. Abeke’s unsupported weight was too much to hold on the slope of ice. Her weight was going to pull him after her, and with him, Meilin. Abeke pulled her knife from her belt sheath and cut the rope.
“No!” said Tarik.
But Abeke was already falling. She seemed to go a long way before suddenly thudding onto Rollan, who was perched on a ledge ten feet down. Her head hurt. Her knife was gone, knocked from her hand in the impact, and inches from her head, a sheer wall of ice dropped down two hundred feet. She didn’t dare to so much as twitch, afraid she’d slide again.
Meilin and Tarik stood above, eyes wide and desperate.
“Rollan, use the Slate Elephant!” said Meilin.
Now that Meilin said it, Abeke wondered how she hadn’t thought to suggest that before. The lack of food was making her thoughts sluggish, and great ideas seemed to be as far away as warmth.
“It’s in my pack,” said Rollan.
There was no hope in his words. Rollan was gripping the ice as firmly as she, inches from sliding down the cliff.
“Where’s the Granite Ram?” said Abeke.
“I have it,” said Tarik.
“Give it to Abeke!” said Rollan. “Get her to safety and hopefully Essix will cooperate and fly it back to someone else.”
Tarik carefully dropped the Granite Ram to Abeke, mindful of the cliff. Abeke didn’t take time to put the chain around her neck, slipping the talisman directly inside her coat. She winced at the cold touch of stone against her skin. Instantly she felt confidence in her limbs. Her eyes seemed to adjust, as if seeing the world not as a series of objects but spaces between perches.
Carefully she moved off Rollan. What had seemed a treacherous cliffside now felt comfortable. She offered Rollan her hand, helping him to his feet and to a slightly safer ledge.
She adjusted her feet, preparing for a jump, but the movement sent her sliding off the ledge. Facing a hundred-foot drop, Abeke slammed her foot down and leaped.
Her legs no longer shook from exhaustion. Her mind felt firm. She knew exactly what she was capable of, and she leaped up the mountainside, covering in minutes a distance that had taken them hours.
She paused briefly at the summit to see if the view revealed anything of their location and Suka’s hiding place. But all she could see was more icy tundra.
Down she jumped, from ice outcropping to thin ledge to precarious ice boulder, with a speed and balance that filled her with awe.
She landed on the flat ground and looked up, searching for Essix.
She waited. No gyrfalcon. The Granite Ram was useless if she was left alone on the safe side of the mountain.
Then, a slow, circling shape. Essix landed near her. She didn’t look at Abeke, as if pretending she was just hanging out on an ice boulder for her own amusement. But when Abeke held out the Granite Ram, Essix grabbed the cord and flew back up the mountainside.
By the time the final party member had hopped down the mountain, they began to set up camp in earnest. Real camp, with an upright tent and flat spaces to sleep. Maya made a fire to warm them, though without fuel to burn she could not keep it up forever. Still, she melted ice in their cups and they all had a hearty drink of warm water before bed.
Abeke woke on the sixth morning firmly believing today the grueling journey would end. Suka was near. The compass seemed to indicate that. A couple of hours into their walk, the compass began to twitch softly in Tarik’s hand. Two more hours after that, it was constantly vibrating.
So everyone’s eyes were on the compass when, all of a sudden, it shook so hard the cover flipped open. Inside what should have been solid metal was a hollow compartment.
Tarik sucked in his breath. Abeke leaned closer as he pulled a scrap of paper out. He unfolded it, revealing two handwritten words: I’M SORRY.
FOR SEVERAL MOMENTS, NO ONE SPOKE. C ONOR COULDN’T read the words on the note, but he guessed it couldn’t be good. The compass had broken open. They were stranded in the middle of an ice continent, and there was no sign of Suka.
“No,” Meilin whispered. “No, that can’t be right. That can’t . . .”
Maya began to weep. Abeke could not seem to move. Rollan crouched down and punched at the ice.
“Rollan . . .” Tarik began.
“I didn’t see it,” said Rollan. “I was distracted by my — by that woman Aidana, and I didn’t notice Pia enough. She must have been lying. If only I’d looked. I’m so sorry.”
Abeke kept shaking her head. Meilin was turning slowly in circles as if looking for something in that wasteland of ice.
Conor saw nothing. A mountain range. A horizon. No city, nobody, no escape. Even if they walked south again, they’d run out of food long before returning to Eura. All this time wasted, Conquerors on the move. Perhaps that rascal Shane had already found Suka while the Greencloaks were wandering aimlessly through the most miserable landscape in Erdas.
Conor sat down as if pushed by a huge weight. He’d left home, abandoned his family, with the hope that his mission was noble. To die listlessly on a sea of ice wasn’t noble. It was pathetic.
“Still longing to see Arctica, Tarik?” said Rollan. “Still eager to know Erdas in all her different forms of beauty?”
Tarik opened his mouth but then seemed to change his mind about what he would say. “Essix, perhaps, could help?” he said softly.
“Essix, can you see anything?” Rollan asked. “Please, fly high and use those sharp eyes.”
When Essix complied, Conor felt worse. Even Essix must have realized how dire the situation was to do as Rollan asked without so much as a squawk.
With no better plan, they sat and waited, eating their meager rations for the day. Conor hoped his stale biscuit and bit of jerky would digest into energy and faith, but his sore stomach just absorbed them like desert soil absorbs a cup of water, none the better for it. Maya warmed the group with brief bursts of fire and tried to renew the meal game, but the thought of food was too depressing.
Tarik examined the compass, taking it apart piece by piece. “It was a real compass once, but Pia damaged it. It was leading us to nowhere.”
“She never intended to help us,” said Rollan.
“She would lead us to our deaths to protect her own artificially extended life,” said Meilin, her voice as hard as ice.
Maya paced, and her breathing sounded strained, as if tightened against a sob.
Essix landed on Rollan’s shoulder some time later. His shoulders slumped, making clear that Essix had seen nothing of use.
“At the top of the mountain, I didn’t see signs of any city either,” said Conor.
“What city?” said Rollan. “There aren’t any cities in Arctica.”
“No, I mean the Ice City. The song says that the Great Polar Bear sleeps in the Ice City.”
“If the song is true,” said Rollan.
“Songs are always true, in their way,” said Conor.
Abeke nodded, and Conor felt encouraged to go on.
“I mean, the song is how we knew about Suka’s connection to Samis, and it was right about that. She wasn’t there, but she had been. Maybe there’s other truth in the words.”
Conor cleared his throat, gripped his crook, and began to sing. He didn’t have a strong voice, but shepherds sang, so he had lots of practice, though he wasn’t used to any audience besides a lot of disinterested sheep.
West of the sun, north of the drink
Over the backbone of ice
Deep in the rime without a blink
The polar bear sleeps in ice
In Samis home where she was known
They honor her with each breath
The bear breathes not one of her own
In the Ice City free f
rom death
Hidden from the ruinous wind
They chisel city from snow —
“Wait, do you think drink could mean ocean?” said Meilin. “Because we’re already north of the ‘drink.’ ”
“That range of mountains could be the backbone of ice,” said Abeke.
“So we’re looking for an ice city,” said Conor.
“Where?” said Rollan.
“Well, we’re already north of the ice mountains,” said Conor. “The other clue is —”
“West,” said Tarik.
“Yes, and there’s a line in the last verse about ‘the waters lap the falling sun.’ I bet Suka is nearer the western shore of Arctica.”
“At the very least, the coast should provide us better hunting,” said Tarik.
“Any hunting,” Rollan muttered.
So they struck west. And walked. And walked. The sun full in their face at sunset and pressing against their backs at sunrise.
Conor tried not to count the days. Numbers made him feel hopeless. Numbers like two, as in two biscuits left, and zero, as in zero apples in his pack.
And the morning they ate the last rations of food, someone began to cry. Maybe, Conor wondered, he was the one crying. Or maybe they all were. He didn’t have the strength to look up and see.
A screech startled him.
Essix was returning from one of her many scouting flights. But this time she was gripping something white in her talons. As she swooped down, Conor saw it was a snow fox. Hardly enough to feed six people, but the idea of even a little fresh meat made his stomach squeeze so tightly in anticipation he doubled over in pain.
But then, the fox wriggled. Essix hadn’t killed it. She was hovering before Conor, batting her wings quickly against the incoming wind to hold her position.
“Take it,” Rollan insisted. “Essix wants you to do something.”
“Oh!” Conor grabbed the fox from Essix, holding it tight. Outside Samis, Briggan had turned the pack of wolves away from the caribou herd. Perhaps Essix knew that Briggan had some influence with other canines. “Rollan, pull up my sleeve.”
