Relic (The Books of Eva I) (10 page)

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.

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.

On the morning of the final
sinik
in the Tundra, I awake freezing but alive. Thanking the Gods as I bundle up and leave my tent, I learn from the howls that my team hasn’t been so blessed. At night, the dogs curl themselves tightly and let themselves be covered by snow for insulation, but this morning, one dog doesn’t uncurl. It is Sigurd, my lone female husky.

As I look down on her poor frozen body, I feel like crying. Sigurd was tougher than the rest of the dogs, but had a certain kindness to her as well. And she was the only female out here with me. I will miss her. So will her howling brothers.

I cover her body with snow and place a circular symbol of the Gods on top of the mound. Just as we do in the Aerie
cemetery. As I tether the team to their lines, I feel like howling along with them.

At the first horn of morning, I have no choice but to forget grief and take off. I pass a rare patch of birch trees amidst the white, white sameness. I think how the Ark Gardeners would love to study this hearty growth, to figure out how they thrive in such adversity. Otherwise, the landscape lulls me. Dangerous, I know, but I can’t help it.

By late afternoon, the ice changes color, becoming a slightly bluish shade. Only as my dogs draw closer and the blue grows more and more intense, do I realize that I have reached the Frozen Shores.

I stop the team from racing forward, and stare out at the endless icy sea.

I am hungry and exhausted. My muscles ache. My eyes and ears throb. I thought I’d be elated at the sight of the startlingly blue waters with icebergs bobbing, but instead, a curious emotion floods over me. Sadness.

Just as the Chief Basilikon said it would. Every year, on the annual commemoration of the Healing, he reads from The Lex:

In the eyes of the Gods, our world was corrupt and full of lawlessness. When the Gods saw how corrupt man had become, the Gods said, “We will wipe out from the Earth mankind whom we have created, and not only mankind, but also the beasts and the creeping things and the birds of the air.” At the last tick, Mother Sun intervened and convinced Father Earth to save a chosen few. To those, the Gods said, “Make yourselves arks. Go into the arks and sail North. Take with you seeds and birds and beasts to stay alive. When the waters recede, you alone will survive to lead a new life following The Lex in our chosen land.” The Gods then
unleashed the final waters for forty days and forty nights, submerging the wicked and lifting the arks of the chosen to New North where they would serve as its Founders. This, the Gods called the Healing
.

After he reads this Lex passage, the Chief Basilikon says that, if we should ever survive a journey to the Frozen Shores, the Gods will send us a symbolic gift. They will send tears to remind us of the Healing waters that deluged Father Earth in a rightful cleansing. This weeping, he claims, is the Gods way of telling us we are the chosen ones, and that they approve of our new Lex life in New North.

Icy tears pour down my face. But I don’t feel like I’m crying for the reasons described by the Basilikon. I weep because I am staring at the end of the world. Billions of people and living creatures—many of them innocent bystanders to the evil that destroyed them—lie frozen beneath the seas covering the Earth. We of New North are all that’s left.

My sense of sadness is quickly overwhelmed by my sense of pride and duty. We of the Aerie—the descendants of the Founders—
are
the chosen. The Gods have given us this one last chance to lead a righteous life. For me, this means that I must endure the hardship of the coming days—and win.

The tears crystallize on my cheeks. As I wipe them away, I notice a spot of red off to the west. What could possibly be red in this monochromatic expanse of white? Then it hits me; the color red can only mean the Testing flag. The final stop in our journey from the Aerie.