Only a bell and a half remain until the first horn of mornings, so I busy myself. Even though I am trying hard to concentrate on the tasks necessary for the sinik ahead—on anything but the Scout, really—I’m acutely aware of noises coming from the other side of the iceberg. Noises that mimic the ones I’m making. The crackle of a fire, the whoosh of a tent pulled down, the growl of the dogs as they compete over their food, the thud of the sled being loaded.
Bags packed, dogs ready, I mount my own sled. The orange-red sun begins to show on the horizon, and I tighten my goggles to brace myself for the blinding rays, magnified as they reflect off the snow. I whistle for the dogs to get into place; movement of the sled is permitted before the horn for this purpose alone.
As we skirt the iceberg, I pass Jasper. Even though I’m trying hard not to make eye contact—the Scout could be watching—I notice he’s limping only a bit as he crosses the ice toward his sled. I’m relieved my ministrations last night helped. But my biggest worry doesn’t concern his wound. I’m worried that he might have missed the Scout’s message. If Jasper plans on staying close to me, he will be caught in the Scouts’ web, too.
XIII
Aprilus 2
Year 242, A.H.
The horn sounds, and I no longer have time to think. The dogs, trained to race at the very tick they hear it, take off. The sinik is bright and clear, and the snow is mingullaut, the perfect mix of ice and powder. The terrain proves flat and even, for now. My team is in their element; I simply let them loose.
Lukas’s map shows that the quickest route to the Taiga is a direct northeastern one. The same route Jasper seems to be following. I suppose that either Jasper or I could veer off to maintain a distance, but that would require we speak. And there’s no way I’m going to initiate a conversation with Scouts lurking everywhere. So we ride to the Taiga close together, as is natural.
Ostensibly, we ignore one another. We never speak, never glance at the other. We simply drive our teams as hard as possible to the Taiga border, and, to my surprise, we are evenly matched in skill and speed. If a Scout was watching, he would have nothing untoward to report. Nothing in The Lex prohibits Testors sledding in close proximity. Sometimes the topography makes it absolutely necessary. But I feel Jasper’s presence. And oddly enough, even though I can’t speak to him or rely on him in any way, he comforts me.
The Sun continues Her progress across the sky, and well before She nears the horizon, we reach the Taiga. I cannot believe how quickly we’ve reached the borders of the famed boreal forest. The first horn of evening will not sound for at least two bells. It seems a surplus of time.
What starts as an occasional dry shrub thickens into a line of trees flagged by the winds, and then into a tangle of birches and evergreens. Intuitively, Jasper and I part as we near the Taiga border, taking slightly different paths into the increasingly dense forest. I stare in amazement at all the plant life; I have never encountered such verdancy anywhere but the Ark. I have entered a green world utterly different from the one I know, the white world of ice and snow.
When I dismount, I know I should ready my camp, as Lukas instructed. But the carpet of caribou moss glows such an enticing emerald that I simply must touch it. The apprentice Gardener in me—the one who spent years growing to love botany and agriculture in the hopes of serving in the Ark—cannot be denied.
Tying my team to a sturdy birch tree, I signal for them to wait. I wander a bit, collecting specimens of evergreen needles and birch leaves for Ark botanists and gardeners back home, as well as some samples of caribou moss and edible greens for myself. From my study, I know that the caribou moss will help preserve the artifacts I find, and that the edible greens could stave off scurvy and other nutritionally based diseases. I marvel at nine-foot-tall shrubs, willow trees, and broad-leaved grasses. A hare leaps through the moss, startled by my tentative footsteps. The thick moss cover makes it hard to walk, especially in kamiks more accustomed to ice. But I feel oddly at home for the first time since leaving the Aerie.
I wonder if this is what His Earthen lands looked like before they were submerged in the Healing. Or if they looked more like the Ark, where the humid air seems to breathe and every corner of Earth is alive with growth. But, unlike the Ark, this place is Gods-made.
I hear a crack of sticks and immediately regret my little stroll. What am I doing in the Taiga acting as if I’m on some Ark-mission instead of the Testing?
It’s Jasper. He’s walking some distance ahead of me, also without his sled and team. His stride is firm and sure-footed; his wound has healed with astonishing quickness. Gently touching the pine-needles and birch leaves along the way, he appears as awestruck as I am.
As if he senses me staring at him, he turns around. He smiles, a beautiful slow smile. It’s like those looks of delight one sees from the youngest children in the School. For a brief tick, my breath catches, and I forget why we are here in this magical place. I smile back.
But then, when his mouth opens as if to call to me, I shake my head. The smile quickly disappears from my lips. Before he can actually speak aloud, I raise my hand to stop him. I mouth the words, “We can’t talk. The Scouts are watching me.”
“I know,” he mouths back. His smile grows sad. He’d allowed himself a few ticks of forgetfulness, too. We permit ourselves a tiny farewell wave.
And then we hear other voices.
XIV
Aprilus 2
Year 242, A.H.
“What should we do about her?”
“I think we should—”
Without waiting to hear the full response, and without even a final glance at Jasper, I hurry back to my sled. I pad across the growth, praying that I don’t crack a twig and betray my presence. I’m initially so worried about getting caught in the forest close to Jasper that I don’t think about the source of the voices. Only a few ticks later, once I’ve started the business of making camp, does it occur to me that no highly trained Scout would be so careless and unprofessional as to be overheard by a Testor.
Which of the Testors would be talking in the Taiga? About me, the only “her” out here? And why would they take such Lex risks? Were they conspiring? Alliances are banned—whether formed before or during the Testing—but they are not unheard of. In one particularly rampant Aerie rumor, a highly regarded Testor ensured a friend’s equally respected quest for the Archon spot in exchange for a promise; supposedly, the two now serve as the Aerie’s Chief Archon and Chief Lexor. Yes, my father and Jasper’s uncle Ian. We laugh about those rumors at home, but other alliances have been proven and incurred swift punishment.
As I prepare my camp—digging a hole for my dogs, starting the fire, readying the water for the dogs, pitching my tent—I watch the forest. The Testors have to emerge from the evergreen thicket at some point. But no one materializes.
The first horn of the evening will sound soon, and I can’t delay any longer. I have to reenter the Taiga to hunt. My dogs are fighting among themselves as their hunger mounts, and I can’t afford an injured husky. Weaving through trees and underbrush, I return to the area where I spotted the hare. Where one hare lives, others must, too, I figure.
Knives, bola, spear, and atlatl, my spear, in hand, I squat behind the wide trunk of a birch tree. As I wait, I try to imagine which Testors would dare conspire. Eamon’s journal entries contain assessments of my competition. He thought well of Jasper, Jacques, Benedict, Thurstan, and William—but only in terms of physical skills. He didn’t think much of their ability to synthesize the past with the artifacts, a critical talent for the final, and most important, three Advantages. In fact, Eamon described them as “able but addled,” even though they generally did well at School. He outright dismissed Knud, Tristan, Anders, and Petr as serious competitors, believing their parents put them up to the Tests; he believed they lacked the strength of spirit to win. The Commitment by Neils confused Eamon, who perceived Ne
ils as a bookish type, and Eamon understood that Aleksander entered the Testing to prove something to his Ring-Guard father.
Nothing in Eamon’s evaluations makes me think that any particular Testor is capable of forming alliances, other than Jacques and Benedict, whose ambitious fathers serve together.
Movement in the brush interrupts my musings.
I ready my bola, hoping to get at least a couple of hare. But it isn’t a hare that appears from the woodland. It’s a musk ox.
The creature is legendary for its ability to skewer a man with a single swipe of its enormous curved horns, so I fight against every instinct to flee. This one animal could feed me and my dogs for days. Its qiviut, highly prized for its warmth, could help me survive the long nights on the way to the Frozen Shores. If I can only figure out how to kill him. He could easily swat away my bola with a shake of his huge, shaggy head, so that‘s not an option. I don’t dare get close enough to use one of my knives; not anticipating that I’d run into a rare musk ox, Lukas hadn’t schooled me in the best way to slay one by hand. Even though the animal has a thick, hairy hide, my only option is my atlatl.
The creature stops to nibble on some caribou moss, and I look at it closely. I decide to aim at an indentation behind its horns. I pray to the Gods for their blessings, because if I miss, the musk ox will charge and gore me. Something he might have done even if I hadn’t decided to take aim, I console myself.
Pointing my atlatl to the ground, I place my spear into the hooked end of the bone stick. Then I lift the spear and atlatl off the ground and align them with that spot on the musk ox’s head. Then I release. I’ve practiced the atltal throw hundreds of times with Lukas—he thought the weapon would provide me with an advantage because it’d give me greater leverage and better aim despite my lesser strength—but I’m shocked at how far the spear goes and how powerfully it launches.
The musk ox falls to the ground with a deafening thud. I race to its side, breathless. My eyes are wide. I am shocked that I actually killed the famed creature. I want to laugh aloud, thinking of the absurdity of a Maiden from the Aerie slaying one of the mammoth musk oxen. But the thought of my mother dispels the smile.
As I examine the spear protruding from the musk ox’s dense hair, still incredulous that the spear is mine, I realize something critical. Something that I forgot to consider in my haste to kill the musk ox. There’s no way I can haul this thousand-pound animal back to camp by myself. None of the Testors could do the job alone. I need to harness my dogs back to the sled to carry the musk ox, and I need to do it fast. Soon, too soon, the first horn of the evening will sound.
Ducking and weaving through the darkening forest, I race back to the edge of the Taiga, where I set up camp. My dogs smell the musk ox on me, and it makes them frantic. They fight my efforts to re-harness them; they want to be let loose to find it. After a few stern cracks of my whip and a tick alone with Indica to set him straight, the team reluctantly forms its pairs and lines. How I’m going to control them and lead them through the forest without ruining my sled, I cannot imagine.
I soon discover that I don’t have to guide my team through the Taiga. With Indica in the lead, the dogs guide me. They follow the scent of the fallen musk ox, and instinctively pull us through. I think of Lukas again: this is something else I didn’t expect to learn.
The first horn of the evening sounds. Sensing my panic at the shortening time, the team quiets as I roll the huge creature onto my sled. I crack the whip as hard as I’ve ever done and we careen back toward camp. That’s when I see them, making their own dash through the Taiga before the final horn. The two Testors who’d been talking in the forest: Aleksander and Neils.
XV
Aprilus 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7
Year 242, A.H.
What should I do with my suspicions? The Lex mandates that I report any offenses to the Scouts, but at least one Scout is biased against me. Maybe more. If the Scouts don’t believe my report—or even if they do—they could make my disclosure known and choose not to pursue the offenders. Sharing my suspicions about The Lex-breaking conversation, or an alliance, would then backfire, leaving me a target for the Testors I’ve named. And perhaps others.
Anyway, what did I witness? Was it really an offense as defined by The Lex? I heard—not saw—two people talking in the Taiga. Then later, I saw two Testors near the Taiga border. The assumption that they were talking to one another—about me—is open to challenge. And I feel certain the Scouts are looking for a reason to challenge me. Or worse.
The question plagues me as I ready the musk ox. From my time spent in the kitchens—watching the Attendants prepare food and listening to their gossip and stories, always with my Nurse Aga close at hand—I learned how to prepare the meat of almost any animal so that it wouldn’t spoil. Even still, readying the qiviut and the meat is a job that takes me most of the night. I have way too much time to think about the Scouts and the Testors. I wish I could talk it through with Jasper. Or Lukas. Or Eamon, most of all. I miss him so much out here. Even more than I missed him at home.
By dawn’s light, I have repacked my sled, fed myself and my team, prepared enough meat for several days, and made a decision. It’s what my brother would have done, and certainly what the guarded Lukas would advise me to do. I will keep my theories to myself. I will no longer communicate with Jasper under any circumstances. But I’ll keep a close eye on Aleksandr and Neils.
Other Testors—Jasper, Aleksandr, Neils, and Benedict among them—must have camped nearby, because we line up when the first horn of morning sounds. In unison, we immediately cross into the Taiga; we must pass through the forest to get to the Tundra, the final stage in our journey to the Frozen Shores, the third of the first three Advantages. When the dense tree-life of the Taiga requires my undivided concentration—I must stave off the splintering of my sled or the fracturing of my team—it is almost a relief. I don’t want to think about anyone else for a while.
By the first horn of the evening, I have entered the Tundra—so white after the greenery of the Taiga. It is curiously beautiful with its frost-sculpted landscape, a treeless plain of ice and glaciers. In the distance I can see snowy peaks. And I can already feel the Tundra’s extreme cold. Dread spreads through me—many, many Testors have died out here—but I push it down back into the dark recesses where the Maiden still exists, imprisoned. Instead, I force a steely determination. Lukas never treated me like a Maiden during training, and I will not act like one out here. I haven’t so far, as Jasper can attest to. I will prevail over this. I have come too far to not succeed.
Rather than riding out onto the frigid desert to gain a small distance advantage, I cling to the shelter of the Taiga border. If Lukas is right, it will take me nearly five sinik to cross the Tundra, and I will need every tick of protection I can find to get me through it. For this night, I will allow myself and my team the refuge of the relatively warm Taiga. From the hum of camps being erected around me, other Testors seem to be making the same decision.
By the first horn of morning, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Or so I think. Once I actually enter, it’s clear I’ll have to fight to stay alive every tick. From a distance the Tundra appears fairly flat, but really it’s a mass of unexpected glacial outcroppings that threaten the stability of my sled. Frozen mounds lie hidden beneath the ice; even my experienced huskies break stride. I also notice that I am really hungry. And that my dogs are snarling and nipping at one another, the way they do when it’s close to feeding time. Lukas had warned me that we would need to eat more out here, so periodically, I halt the team and toss pieces of the musk ox to each dog. I thank the Gods that I came across that enormous creature. Supposedly, according to Lukas’s map, meals can be found in the Tundra, as well—foxes, bears, wolves, caribou, and snow geese—but I haven’t seen anything other than a few straggly geese in the air. I can’t imagine how the other Testors I spy in the near distance—Jasper, Aleksandr,
Neils, and Benedict—will survive without the musk ox stores.
The worst part, though, is the wind. Growing up in the Aerie, I thought I had reached friendly terms with frozen air. That was the naiveté of a Maiden; I had no true understanding of cold. During the day of my siniks in the Tundra, when I must constantly focus on the dogs, the sled, the terrain, and the food, the cold seeps into my bones but doesn’t imperil me.
At night, it’s a different story.
Stillness in the Tundra means death, Lukas had cautioned. And I feel it the moment I stop moving and lay down in my tent. Even though I’m dead-tired, I’m scared to doze and let the icy fingers of the Tundra freeze me into a permanent slumber. I keep my mind busy to ward off sleep. I write in this journal. I tabulate the number of points the Triad might award me for the first two Advantages, if the Scouts return with truthful reports, that is. I kneel before my diptych, offering more prayers to the Gods. I lie back down and try to tease out the meaning in Eamon’s cryptic, last journal entries: Must we truly risk our lives in the Testing in order to be worthy of the Archon Laurels? Our lives are so precious and so few . . . Will they still love me when I do what I must?
What did he mean? Will we still love him when he does what he must during the Testing? It’s got to be something else. I even think on Jasper’s words about a future together. Only then, under the extra layer of warmth that the Gods-sent musk ox qiviut provides, does rest come.
Chronicle: Before The Books of Eva Page 8
