Spell of the Crystal Chair (6 page)

“Are seals good to eat?” Reb asked. “Don’t think I’ve ever eaten seal. They don’t have ’em where I come from.”

The princess said, “They’re very good.” She took her knife from its sheath and cut away the soft fur. “This would make good garments, but we do not have time to cure it.” The seal’s blubber was white and thick. She cut off a chunk and stuffed it into her mouth.

Watching her eat the raw fat, Josh felt his stomach roll over. When she offered some to him, he said, “Is there any way to
cook
it?”

Fairmina laughed. “It’s better this way. You get more strength from it. Here, you’d all better have some.”

The princess got no takers, however. “You’ll get tougher as you go on,” she said, “but I’ll cook it for you tonight.”

Seal cooked over an open fire was fishy tasting, but they were hungry. After the first bite or so, Josh grew used to it.

Abbey shuddered, but she forced a bite down. “I never thought I’d eat anything like this,” she said.

The next morning the Sleepers decided that seal blubber did indeed have great strengthening powers. They found they had energy to forge on, though the weather turned colder and the land they were traveling over became mostly ice.

Two days after Fairmina killed the seal, Reb killed a bear. He spotted it, grabbed the harpoon out of the sled, and charged across the ice. He had gotten to be fairly good on snowshoes.

But when he got to the bear, it reared up. It was a frightening looking creature with a red mouth and beady, evil eyes.

Reb leaped forward and threw the harpoon. It was good that he struck a hard blow, for the wounded bear took one swipe at him and knocked him head over heels.

Fairmina rushed in then with another harpoon. The bear fell full length and lay still.

“You were very foolish! This is only a half-grown bear, but he was big enough to kill you!”

“Are you all right, Reb?” Sarah asked anxiously.

“Well, he tore my coat a little, but I guess we’ll have bear meat tonight. Nothing like fresh bear meat.”

“You have eaten bear? You have those in your country?” Fairmina asked.

“Not white ones like this. Brown bears and black bears. Make good eating, too.”

It took the rest of the day to dress out the bear and gather firewood, but they ate roasted bear meat that night. It was tough and had a very wild flavor. However, everyone decided it was better than seal.

“I suppose you’re proud of yourself for having killed that bear,” Fairmina said to Reb as they all sat around the fire.

“Well, I wasn’t too bad, was I, Princess?” He grinned.

Fairmina studied him, and something like approval came into her eyes. “You did well,” she said, “but be glad it was not an ice wraith.”

Everyone looked at the princess as though something in her voice frightened them.

“What’s an
ice wraith
?” Josh asked.

Princess Fairmina did not immediately answer. She just shook her head. “You will see one day, and you will not like it. Ice wraiths are evil creatures.”

That night Josh dreamed of evil creatures. He never could remember his dream exactly. All he knew was that he woke up in a cold sweat, frightened to death of that thing that Princess Fairmina had called an ice wraith.

T
here is my home.”

Princess Fairmina pulled up the dog team and waited until the others caught up with her. They paused, and she swept her arm toward a group of round structures. Smoke was rising from most of them.

“Why, they’re igloos!” Josh exclaimed.

“Igloos? I do not know igloos,” Fairmina said with a puzzled frown. “Those are our houses.” She spoke to the dogs then, and they leaped forward.

The Sleepers followed as best they could. They could not make as good time as the dogs could.

As soon as they came into the village, they were surrounded by the Lowami people. Most of them had their hoods back, and Josh saw that they had fair hair. Many had blue eyes.
They don’t look like Eskimos
, he thought.
They look like people that came from the South, with hair and eyes like that
.

“My father, this is Josh—who is the chief among the Seven Sleepers. This is my father, Denhelm.”

Denhelm, Josh saw, was a tall, blond man. His skin was burned by the northern sun and weathered. Though he was not old, his face was lined.

“You are welcome to the land of the Lowami,” he said, using the common language of Nuworld that was understood almost everywhere.

“Thank you, Chief Denhelm,” Josh said quickly. “Let me introduce my companions.” He named off the Sleepers, then introduced Mat and Tam and Volka.

“You are all welcome,” Denhelm said. “This is my wife, Rimah, and later you will meet the members of my council. But now you are weary from your long journey. You will sleep tonight in the Long House.”

The Long House was the one structure in the village that was indeed long and was built of stone. The doorway was very low, and the tallest of the Sleepers had to bow as they went in. The roof was made of saplings covered with furs. The interior was illuminated by three long, slitted windows, burning oil lamps, and two fireplaces. It was relatively warm inside.

“This is where you will stay temporarily. I hope you will find it comfortable,” Chief Denhelm said courteously.

“You are very gracious, Chief,” Josh said. “Indeed, we are tired.”

“It has been a long journey for you. First you will eat, and then you will rest.”

That sounded good to Josh and probably to everyone else. Hot food was brought into the Long House—a stew of some kind, which they ate hungrily.

After they had eaten, Princess Fairmina said, “Now you will sleep. There is no need to rise until you are rested.”

“Well,” Josh said, when they were alone in the Long House, “we’re here anyway.”

Looking about him, Jake said, “I’ve seen pictures of places like this. The Indians in Canada used to have them.”

“This is a whole lot like the Arctic. Ice and snow,” Dave said. “I guess the people live on fish and seals and whales just like the old Eskimos did.”

“Maybe they are descendants from the Eskimos,” Josh said. “Except that Eskimos had dark eyes, and most of these people have blue eyes. I don’t understand that.”

They sat around talking for a while, then wrapped
themselves in the furs that served for blankets. They were all exhausted. The girls took one end of the hut, and the boys the other with a fur curtain drawn between. The fire in each section burned with a feeble flame, but after their having slept outside, the Long House seemed warm and comfortable.

“I suppose everything’s relative,” Jake muttered to Wash, who was on his right.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it must be close to freezing inside here. We’d be shaking and shivering if we hadn’t been toughened up on the trail. Why, it actually feels warm!”

“It does!” Dave said, who was on the other side of Jake. “As a matter of fact, I may have to throw the furs back.”

On the other side of the curtain, the girls were comfortably bundled up.

“It feels so good to be out of the wind and the cold!” Abbey exclaimed. “And having hot stew. That was so good. I’m grateful for this place. I’ve had enough of the open trail.”

“The people seem friendly, too,” Sarah said sleepily. The hot food and the warmth and the fire were affecting her. “I can’t stay awake any longer,” she moaned. “I may sleep for a week.”

Everyone in the Long House slept for nearly twenty hours. When they finally all got up and stepped outside, they saw the chief talking with his daughter.

“Good morning,” Chief Denhelm said. “I trust you slept well.”

“Very well, indeed!” Josh told him. “The Long House is very comfortable.”

“Today, if you feel strong enough, we will show you how to make your own houses.”

“You mean igloos?”

“Igloos. Is that what you call our houses?” the chief asked.

“That’s what people used to call them back where we came from, although we didn’t actually have any igloos ourselves.”

“We simply call them houses. After breakfast, we will begin work.”

They were fed a good, warm breakfast of some kind of porridge. Then the Sleepers, Tam, Mat, and Volka were led to a snow-covered field. Chief Denhelm gave them long knives, almost like swords. “It is not difficult to make a house of snow.” He smiled suddenly. “If you’ve done it many times, ever since you were a boy.”

The snow was heavy and hung together well when the chief carefully cut out a block. He said, “Here is the first block. Daughter, show them how to trim the edges.” Then he cut another and handed it to Jake.

Jake was highly interested. He watched closely as the princess carried the first block to a circle she had marked out on the ground.

She set it on the inside of the circle and then took Jake’s block. “You see, with these knives you must carve and angle the snow blocks so that the two meet tightly together. It must be a very good fit.”

He watched her shave off the sides of both blocks until they fit perfectly.

“I see what you mean. Each one of them is a little bit thinner at the back.”

“Exactly. Now, we make one circle all the way around.”

The Sleepers found the building of an igloo a fascinating
experience. Soon they had completed one circle of snow blocks.

“Where’s the door?” Jake wanted to know.

“It’s easier to cut it later. Now we will do the second layer. This time we not only have to cut the sides but the bottom of each one, too—so that the second row will be tilted in just a little.”

“I get it,” Jake said. “And we cut each row a little bit more off the bottom so that it tilts in more.”

“It gets very difficult toward the top. If each block of snow is not frozen to those on each side of it, it will collapse.”

All of them worked hard on the igloo, and although the Sleepers were awkward at it they soon learned to cut blocks of approximately the same size. Chief Denhelm and Fairmina did most of the shaping.

They stopped once to eat cold meat, but by afternoon the first igloo was about finished. It was difficult to finish the top, for that had to be done from the inside. But finally the last block was made, shaved on every side. A hole about a foot across was left in the top. Denhelm said, “That gives the smoke a way to get out.”

“Just like building a fireplace,” Jake said.

“Now we will make the door.”

Fairmina cut an opening only two and one-half feet high, and then blocks of ice made a short tunnel to it. “That’s to keep the wind out,” she said. “Now, this is your house, Sarah and Abbey. We will make houses for the men next.”

“Let’s see what it looks like,” Sarah cried.

The two girls and Fairmina went inside, and the small hole above admitted light.

“It’s kind of like living inside half of an egg.”

“Do we sleep on the ice?” Abbey asked.

“No,” Fairmina said, “we’ll put straw down and cover it with skins. Also we will build a small fireplace of rocks.”

“Won’t the fire melt the house?” Sarah asked with alarm.

Fairmina smiled. “No, it is so cold outside that a little fire on the inside will not melt your house.”

The next two days were pleasant for the Sleepers and their friends. They built two more snow houses so that the boys could have a place to themselves. Mat and Tam and Volka shared a third. Their door had to be bigger, and even then Volka had to enter by lying flat on his stomach and crawling.

Finally the houses were finished, the straw and fur floors were put in, the fireplaces were built, and they had a celebration lighting a fire in each one. It was a little smoky, but when the fire was bright enough, the smoke curled upward and found its way outside through the opening.

“It’s like camping out,” Josh said to Sarah. “You girls are pretty snug, aren’t you?”

“More than I thought we could be in an ice house! I never thought I’d be doing this, Josh.”

“Neither did I. We’ve done a lot of things in Nuworld that we never thought we’d do.”

One night there was a banquet, and all that could be crowded into the Long House were present. Chief Denhelm, his wife, and Fairmina sat at one end of a long line of elders. There were no tables, but the skins they sat on and the padding of straw was not uncomfortable. Women kept bringing in food.

After a while Fairmina said to Abbey, “How do you like this stew?”

“It’s very good. What is it?”

“Oh, it’s mostly of what you would call deer.” She shrugged, then and said, “And, of course, a dog or two.”

Abbey’s eyes flew open, and her hand covered her mouth. She started to jump up.

But Sarah jerked her back by her parka. “Don’t say anything!” she hissed in her ear. “Be polite!”

“But I can’t eat dogs.”

“It won’t kill you. It’s probably just a little bit of dog, anyway.” She herself was feeling a bit queasy, but she had learned in their travels to eat what was put before her.

After the meal, they were served a drink that was much like tea. When Josh asked what it was, Fairmina said, “The plant is grown far from here, and we take the leaves. We crush them and boil them in water.”

“Tastes a little bit like sassafras tea,” Reb said. “Real good, Princess.”

They drank tea, and the Sleepers and their friends listened as the elders talked on. One of them, a younger man, told of how he had killed a large bear. He acted it out, and his story sounded almost like poetry.

“I guess that’s what they have instead of books,” Josh whispered to Sarah. “It’s kind of vocal history.”

Then Chief Denhelm stood up. He called for attention, and everyone fell silent in respect for him. “We welcome the visitors that have been sent by Goél to help us in our battles. Perhaps they have some questions they would like to ask.”

Josh said, “I guess we’d like to know a little bit more about the problem, if you wouldn’t mind telling us, Chief.”

Chief Denhelm was slow to answer. Then he said, “Our enemy are called the Yanti. We were once united
as one tribe many years ago. But for some reason, war came, and the tribe divided.”

“What was the war about?” Dave asked quietly.