Snowlands

by H. O. Charles

  “Quite the little sprinter, aren’t you?” the one-eyed man said when he arrived.

  In the distance she could hear her mother screaming.

  He knelt down and took hold of Neri’s face with his wizened hands. “Now, little girl, I want you to tell me a secret. But don’t worry, it’ll only stay between these men here.”

  Her mother was still screaming. Why wouldn’t she stop?

  “So, little… whatever your name is, why don’t you tell old Grailer here what the frequency is? And don’t lie to me. I know everyŠona child is taught about the colour when they’re five.”

  Neri shook her head. She was not afraid of this man and his stupid, hairy face.

  “No? Alright then.” He motioned for one of his soldiers to give him something. The shortest of them handed over a thin, needle-like blade. In the distance, her mother’s screaming stopped suddenly.

  “I’m not telling you!” Neri shouted at him, “I don’t care what you do!”

  “Sir…” one of the soldiers said. His voice sounded cautious, shaky.

  “She’s just a filthy desert rat: the offspring of bigger rats!” One-eye exclaimed. “Right, you little rodent, tell me what I need to know or you’ll get this in your arm.

  Neri shook her head again.

  “Fine.” He jabbed the point straight into her forearm and twisted it. Searing fire shot up from the blade, filling her head with screaming pain. “Tell me,” he urged.

  “No.” But it hurt. It hurt so much. Don’t mention the colour. Don’t mention the colour. Don’t mention the colour. Don’t mention the colour. Don’t mention the colour. Don’t mention the colour.

  “Come on, girl. You can do better than that.” He withdrew the needle dagger and placed it over her left hand. “This will hurt more.” And it did.

  Tears were pouring down her cheeks now, and she could not stop herself from sobbing.

  “I don’t have much time.” He growled. He pulled the blade out again, and this time thrust it into her shoulder, twisting and moving it about until she could feel nothing but white hot pain. “Do you know why they have the emitters, girl? You ever wondered?” His voice was calm as a river. “You see, the houses are so well-camouflaged that we cannot see them in daylight. And the desert is so warm and mixed that we cannot see them in infra-red light. And the underground burrows… impossible to locate! SoŠona have to use another light to find their friends, and it’s encrypted, hidden among noise. Tell me where the key is.” He twisted the blade again.

  “One-hundred-and-twelve gigahertz.”

  “Liar!” he shouted, and slapped her so hard she saw stars. “Tell me again, or I’ll slit your guts open, and let the contents spill out.” He placed the blade at her navel.

  It was too much. She did not want to die. Not yet. Not before she saw the snows.

  “Alright,” she sobbed, “I know it.”

  Grailer sat back.

  “Two-hundred. Two-hundred-and-sixty-four-point-five. The rest of it is in indigo.” She hated herself immediately, utterly for what she had done. Every day her parents had tested her on it, and every time they had reiterated the importance of her secret. She was a coward.

  “Put it in the scope, Larin!” He lowered his blue eye to her. “Hidden in indigo, eh? Visible! Hah!”

  There was a pause before Lorin responded. “Checks out. Key’s in the micro spectrum alright. Thousands of them, captain-major!”

  “Good girl. Tell you what: as your prize, I’ll let you go free.”

  Neri felt sick, but she held it in. The last thing she deserved was freedom.

  “Though, I daresay you won’t find much food out there in the wastes. But you’re a rat, and rats like living off rubbish. As long as your wounds don’t get infected and kill you first…” He untied her restraints. “Off you go, little rat.”

  She stumbled to her feet, lurched dizzily sideways and then thrust forward into the darkness. The rocks and tumble-stones rattled beneath her feet as she ran, but she did not stop. The edge of a gulley approached, and her balance went suddenly. As she fell, something whisked past her ear and landed with a clatter on the rocks beyond. Another dagger. She reached for it, moving to run once more, and her foot landed on something soft and warm. Neri looked down.

  It was her sister, Leno. Her flame-red hair was spread out across the black rock, and her eyes gazed emptily at the stars above. Nearby was her backpack, still full of water. Neri took it up with her good arm and began to run once more. She stopped only once to look back, but what she saw seared itself into her memories as deeply as her father’s final words. Hundreds of buildings burned in the night, and a black army swept across the plains in a cloud darker even than the smoke. The smell of the destruction was acrid, horrific, and somehow the winds had brought it to her without any sound.

  She ran northward, away to the wetlands and farther to the mountains and forests beyond. Weeks later, exhausted and hungry, she found The Snowlands: beautiful and unforgiving swathes of white that knew nothing of her past. She had launched herself face-first into the first drifts, marvelling at the way their cotton-like flakes melted upon her filthy skin and danced in the air around. There she made a promise to herself: to renounce the docility of theŠona and take up the blade.

  I will never run from my enemies again, only to them.

  Neri awoke from her memory dream cold and shivering. The sickness was still in her stomach, washing around with her growing sea of guilt. It was unbearable. She clambered out of bed, threw on a coat and stepped into the hallway. It was entirely silent, cool and softly lit. She began to run, seeing nothing but snow before her. She pushed through the drifts and the ice and the slush until her legs ached and her head hurt from the shame. And then she stopped at a smooth, red-lacquered door. Somehow she knew exactly who lay behind it. She had been here before.

  Her hand moved to the shining wood, and she knocked softly. Her other hand slid to the knife at her hip.

  The door opened much sooner than she had expected, and Valyar was there, arms against the jamb. “Neri,” he smiled.

  “Imperial filth!” She thrust her blade under his jaw and held it there, pressing firmly at the skin. “Move!” She pushed him back into his room.

  His expression had darkened, but he complied without argument. “Think fi-”

  “Shut up!” He was one of them: the last of the evil that had destroyed her family. “What happened to him?”

  The emperor’s voice was soft, relaxed. “Whom?”

  “Grailer! Where is he?” The captain was everything to her; he was her motivation. Every battle she had faced, every hour of her training had been dedicated to him. Every life she had taken was repayment for the life of aŠona innocent. Even Ihurade’s pain was a sacrifice she had made for the murderer. And now Grailer would pay for it.

  “Neri, I’m sorry.”

  She pushed the blade harder into his throat. “Where?!”

  “He’s dead. He died in battle. I’m sorry.”

  “No.” Nothing? Was that all she was permitted? No reprisal? After everything…

  Valyar took hold of her dagger hand and moved it downwards. “He cannot hurt anyone anymore. He will never hurt you again.” He unwrapped her fingers from the hilt. “Taking my life will not help.”

  “You don’t know what he did to my family… what I did to my own people. I killed them. I killed every one of them!”

  “I do know, Neri. You told me. It wasn’t your fault.” He placed his arms about her and pulled her close. “No other child could have endured what you did.” One of his hands stroked her hair gently. It felt strangely pleasant. How could he be one of them?

  In an instant her resolve was shattered. “I want to stay here.” To stay in the sun.

  Without a single word, he lifted her up and carried her to his bed. There he removed her coat and wrapped his arms around her shivering body. Nothing more happened than that; they simply lay next to each other for the duration of the night time. Occasionally N
eri’s sobs would return, and each time he would respond by holding her tighter. It was an altogether unexpected response to her threat to kill him, and suspicions soon surfaced in her mind. After some time she sank into a deep sleep, and when she opened her eyes again he was still there, watching.

  “Your hair is like gold in the sun,” he said, running his fingers through it. His chest was bare, though marked with the curious scars she could not quite interpret.

  Something was sticking into her thigh. At first she was too embarrassed to mention it, but then she realised it was one of her knives. “You left my weapons?”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t want to risk another blade to the throat for taking them off you.”

  “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “There are more people besides you who’ve forgotten the war is over, believe me.” He reached for the lurchcaw tooth at her neck. “Do you remember the significance of this yet?”

  “It’s from a snow lizard. That’s all I know.”

  He bit his lip and rolled onto his back. “You can take a day off from Mia, if you’d prefer.”

  “No, she’d be a welcome distraction. I would never…” Neri had no desire to finish the sentence.

  “I know. But she’ll only become upset if you’re upset.”

  “Please. Let me do this duty.”

  He turned his eyes back to her, studying. “Alright.”

  “Many of my memories are fuzzy, but I do know that I told no one about what I did to the Šona – that I was guilty of it. Why would I have told you?”

  He did not offer an answer beyond a slight tightening of his lips.

  “I think I must have shared a bed with you. It is the only thing that makes sense. Did Mia’s mother know about me?” And if she had slept with him, what had she hoped to gain from it? All of her bedfellows had something to offer her in terms of training. Perhaps she had seen Valyar as a route to Grailer… or maybe he had possessed tactical knowledge that no rebel had access to. She could not think of any other reason why she would want to sleep with a known womaniser who had imperial blood. Even if his embraces did feel good.

  He shifted his position. “She knew all about you, but you didn’t always get on. I don’t wish to speak of her further.” Valyar threw off the bed sheets and began inspecting her body. He checked over her arms, shoulders and chest, running his fingers over each scar or imperfection as Colobrin would have examined one of his cadavers. “I remember these ones.” He traced the line of the diagonal one over her sternum and several sideways slashes at her arms. “But which ones came from your last battle?”

  “Only one scar from that. My right arm was broken, I had a suspected skull fracture and I was bruised just about everywhere else. I got off lightly.”

  “Show me the scar.”

  She lifted her top just a little to reveal the curved, white line that wavered across her abdomen. It was a hideous thing.

  Valyar sat back on his heels the moment he saw it, and the back his hand moved to cover his mouth. He looked rather upset, or disgusted.

  “I’m sorry. It’s not good to look at.” Neri made quick work of hiding it again.

  “Does it still hurt?”

  She smiled. “No. It’s a bit numb in places… but otherwise… no.”

  He clambered off the bed and made for the bathroom in silence.

  “Valyar, can you take someone with you when you… travel?”

  “One person,” he called back. “Why? Where do you want to go?”

  “The Šona desert; quite deep into it.”

  The emperor appeared at the bathroom doorway. He was entirely naked, but apparently unembarrassed about it. “That’s too far for one jump. I’d have to do it in two, with a rest day in between, and add another day’s leeway as I don’t know the area well. I don’t have time to take you there now. It would have to be next week.” He wandered back out of sight, and she could hear sounds of him brushing his teeth.

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “I owe you more,” he said through a mouthful of foam.

  For the next few days Neri committed herself to minding the emperor’s green-eyed daughter, which very nearly became a pleasure with each hour of giggling or chasing or reading peculiar stories that passed. Each night she returned to Valyar’s room for his company and embrace, if not for much else. And each day she rediscovered new battles that she had fought alongside Dan, or cringed with embarrassment at her liaisons with the rebel leaders.

  “I did seduce Wendersan.”

  Dan coughed. “Aye, you did. Black ice and blizzards, girl, I don’t know how you did it. He may have been cognisant, but I doubt much else was working as it should have.”

  Neri tried not to think too much about the details. “He taught me some very important things about the imperial army. But his agedness was not the worst of it. Did you know he was married?”

  “You never told me that!”

  She grinned. “That woman very nearly gave me a hiding when she found me in bed with her husband. Not that he’d told me she even existed… but, yes, I was lucky to escape with my life.” Nothing but pure hate had flashed in Mrs Wendersan’s eyes, which were still some twenty years younger than her husband’s. On that day Neri had run away. But she finally remembered what her purpose had been, and the task that she and Dan had decided upon as children. They trained to become Rangers of The Snowlands: the toughest, fiercest patrollers of the borders and protectors of the ice-swept settlements. That’s what she was. Ranger.

  At last the day came when she and Valyar could depart to the deserts of the southern hemisphere. He spent a long while squeezing his daughter and making promises of his imminent return, while each of Mia’s pleas made Neri feel ever more guilty for stealing him away. What she had not expected, however, were the sobs that the child had specifically for her. “I’ll be back here before you know it. You won’t even know I’m gone,” she tried to reassure. “Dan will stay here with you. He is the best bare-fist fighter in all of Snowlands.”

  Dan shrugged with embarrassment.

  Mia’s attention was immediately diverted onto the more exciting matter. “Can you teach me?”

  He made an uncomfortable smile. “Only if you’re sensible with it. It’s a very great responsibility.”

  The child beamed, and Valyar leaned to whisper in Neri’s ear. “Now would be a good time to leave.”

  They said their final goodbyes and walked swiftly down the long hallways of red carpets and glowing sconces. A group of three soldiers approached, garbed in the blue of the New Imperial Army. They stopped before Valyar to address him. “Trouble in the city of Firende, your highness.”

  “It is serious?”

  The soldier shrugged. “Twenty or s-”

  “Twenty? This hardly concerns me! You know your own job, or are you as stupid as you look?! I have other matters to attend to.” With that he stormed away, drawing Neri with him.

  She endeavoured to keep her voice soft as they marched. “Do you always speak to your men like that?”

  “I have a reputation to keep,” he said, the anger now utterly absent from his tone. Curious.

  They stepped into a quiet room with little in the way of lighting or furnishing. “Are you ready?” He took hold of her hands, which may have been shaking a little.

  “I think so.”

  And then the darkness came. It shrouded them completely in nothingness. No sound. No smell or vibration. No heat or cold. Nothing. She gripped harder onto his hand, unable to see him or sense his intentions. The uncertainty lasted only a few seconds though, and then they were caught by such a wave of brilliant and dazzling light that she was rendered doubly blind. The sensation of ground and gravity solidified beneath her feet, and the touch of a breeze filtered through her clothing. New smells of trees and earth and fresh rain reached her, and slowly the light faded. They were in the Borran Forests.

  “Are you alright?”

  Neri opened her eyes fully. The woodlands were
just as beautiful as she remembered from the memory of her flight: green and leafy and full of the noises of life. Valyar squeezed her hand and smiled, if a little wearily. “That’s the first stage done. We’ll have to find somewhere I can rest before the second.”

  The area they found was beneath the shade of an ancient hallow tree, and its drooping branches brushed the floor such that they formed a curtain of translucent, glowing green.

  “You look tired, emperor.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he hissed, and rested his head against the trunk, eyes closed.

  Neri couldn’t prevent herself from chuckling as she curled up beside him. She still was not entirely sure what she liked about him, or why she found his hard, stubbly jaw attractive. Or his shoulders. Or the rest of him. Perhaps he had other, inexplicable skills besides his place-moving. She had met many men who seduced women simply for sport, and was wise enough to know that a Šona woman would rank highly on anyone’s table of conquests. His conquests… five-hundred? What sort of man did that? “Valyar?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why did you sleep with all of those women?”

  He opened one green eye. “I’ve already explained it to you.”

  “All you said was – oh, you mean before.”

  “That tooth ought to prompt the memory.”

  She turned it over in her fingers for the millionth time, and for the millionth time nothing came. “I’m going to need more than that. How awake are you?”

  His eyes opened only slightly.

  “Well, I suppose you only have to lie on your back. And if you can get through two women a day, every day, I’m not going to be much trouble for you.” She started unbuttoning his coat, which he seemed somewhat surprised about.

  “Neri…”

  “I know you have what I need. You’ve shown me it enough bloody times. Just be quiet and do as I instruct, imperial filth.”