Heartlight (13 page)

“It’s a soft spot,” said Ariella remorsefully. “I should have warned you.”

“Yes, you should have. How did the snow get like that?”

“I don’t know. It’s been warmer than usual recently, and soft spots are more common these days. So are avalanches. Some people think they’re all tied to the Great Trouble.”

“Trouble is right!” exclaimed Kate as she rose to her feet. “I’ve got plenty. How am I ever going to find my ring if I can’t even take a step without falling in?”

Ariella’s round eyes rolled skyward. “I have an idea.” She began rubbing several arms together rapidly, until the vibration created a shrill, high-pitched whistle. The sound pierced the air like the cry of an angered osprey.

Kate put her hands over her ears. “What are you doing that for?”

The crystal didn’t reply. She continued the vibrating motion and kept her eyes focused on one area of the sky.

Kate looked up. All she could see were banks upon banks of heavy white clouds—until a slight edge of motion appeared. Then, what looked like a piece of the clouds, triangular in shape, grew more visible. It became bigger and bigger, until suddenly Kate realized that it was descending.

The Triangle, which looked like a wing made of ice, coasted to a landing on the snow next to them. Ariella’s whistling ceased and she spun to the side of the large, flat crystal.

“You called me for a good reason, I hope,” growled the flying wing. “I was in the middle of an updraft, one of the best I’ve found in ages.” His triangular eyes studied Kate suspiciously.

“Yes, Nimba,” replied Ariella. “It’s a good reason. You know I never would use the distress call otherwise.”

“Tell me your reason,” grumbled the Triangle, “and I’ll be the judge of whether it’s any good or not.”

“My friend here has lost her ring.”

“Her what?”

“Her special ornament. It’s very important to her. She needs to search for it in the high snowfields.”

The rumble of a distant avalanche echoed in the chilly air. Kate turned toward the daggerlike spires of the ridge. How far above the clouds they soared she could only guess; no mountains on Earth could match their majesty. As the roar of the avalanche reverberated among the peaks, it seemed to warn her to stay away, to forget about retrieving the ring. She had escaped once, by luck. Twice would require a miracle.

Nimba’s eyes flashed angrily. “You dragged me out of the sky for some silly little ornament? Just because this alien says it’s important?”

Kate gathered her courage and stepped forward. “It is important. And it’s not just an ornament. I need it to—to fly above the clouds. It’s my only hope of finding Grandfather. He’s somewhere out there—at least I think he is—searching for some way to help our Sun. He could be in trouble. And he’s going to run out of time very soon!”

Nimba’s pointed face twisted sharply. “That is the most unbelievable tale of woe I’ve heard in years. No, decades! Ariella, you should be ashamed of yourself. Dragging me out of the sky with the distress call . . . And for what? For some incredible story told by an alien!”

The Triangle shifted his stance in order to begin his takeoff. “That’s the last time any Triangle will heed your call, Ariella.”

“But The Darkness is out there!” cried Kate. “It might attack Grandfather!”

Nimba froze. “How do you know about The Darkness?”

“She fought with it,” declared Ariella. “She escaped, but only because she got buried by an avalanche.”

“That’s how I lost my ring,” added Kate.

Nimba studied her closely. “The Darkness is the enemy of all living creatures. How do I know you’re telling the truth? That it’s not another one of your stories?”

Kate pondered for a moment. “How would I even know The Darkness exists unless it had attacked me? It’s too horrible to make up.”

Nimba cocked his head slightly. “That much is true. But how do I know you’re not one of its spies?”

“Because I say she’s not!” exclaimed Ariella. Her round eyes flashed with anger. “Don’t you trust me, Nimba?”

The triangular head turned from Kate to Ariella and back again. “I do trust you, Ariella. But there is much reason for extra caution these days. The Darkness has been growing steadily more powerful, and Nel Sauria remains one of the last strongholds of resistance left. Not without great cost . . . As you know, some of our bravest defenders have fallen to The Darkness.”

Ariella bowed her face slightly.

“All right,” he said at last. “I’m probably just an old fool for doing this, but if you really fought with that scourge, then at least you’re on the right side.” He turned to Ariella and added: “And you, young one, should be staying closer to home. These are dangerous times. I was a friend of your father, and I am sure he would tell you the same.”

“You were more than a friend,” she answered somberly. “You were with him when he died.”

“Let’s get this over with,” said Nimba roughly, lowering an edge of his wide wing. “Climb aboard.”

Ariella spun onto Nimba’s back and positioned herself in the center. Kate did her best to follow, but the crystalline body of the Triangle was as slippery as ice. Carefully, she crawled across the surface, concentrating hard to avoid sliding off.

“I’m not sure whether this is such a great idea,” she said nervously to Ariella.

“Where in the high snowfields do you want to go?” asked Nimba.

“At the base of Ho Salafar Ridge, in the middle of the avalanche zone,” answered Ariella. “I’ll tell you when we get near.” Then she turned to Kate. “Hold my arm tightly and you won’t fall. Nimba’s the smoothest flier on Nel Sauria, so don’t worry.”

“Thanks,” said Kate. “But I’ll keep worrying anyway. It’s my nature.”

“You will live longer because of it,” declared Nimba. “In this case, though, you have nothing to fear. I will create a pressure pocket around you both, and that will hold you securely.”

With that, the Triangle began sliding forward across the snow. Immediately, they were airborne, gliding in the direction of the great glistening peaks. Below them stretched the vast snowscape of Nel Sauria.

Kate’s eyes followed the lines of white hills leading up to the main spine of the ridge, which rose like a serrated saw into the sky. “This is such a beautiful place,” she said, shouting to be heard above the wind. “Especially when you don’t need to walk on it. It’s amazing to have a whole planet covered with snow.”

“It’s not,” corrected Ariella. “Only the half facing away from Trethoniel is covered with snow. The other side is a single great ocean, what we call the Bottomless Blue. I’ve never seen it—almost nobody has—but many ancient writings tell of its beauty.”

“So Nel Sauria is divided in half?”

“Yes. One half is white, the other is blue.”

“But doesn’t the planet rotate as it revolves around Trethoniel?”

“Rotate?” Ariella’s eyes assumed a quizzical look. “What an odd idea! Does your Earth rotate?”

“Yes. That’s how both sides get lit by the Sun, and how day and night follow each other. Say, if this snowy side of the planet is always facing away from Trethoniel, then how do you get any daylight? Why isn’t it dark all the time?”

Ariella’s laughter rang out, and even the wind seemed to pause and listen. “Why, from the snow, of course! Our light radiates from the snow and lights the sky. It’s in the nature of the crust; a thin layer on the surface glows all the time. Do you mean to say that on your Earth it’s the other way around? Your sky lights the snow?”

“I guess our snow is a lot different than yours,” said Kate. “Our Sun is our only source of light. And Grandfather thinks it’s about to die!”

“Did you think our snow could help?”

“No . . . but Grandfather thinks maybe Trethoniel can. That’s why I’m sure he’s out there someplace. He says Trethoniel is the healthiest star in the galaxy, and if he can just figure out what keeps it so healthy, maybe he can use that knowledge to help the Sun.”

“Once that might have been true,” said Ariella, lowering her voice so much that Kate could barely hear her above the whistling wind. “Before the Great Trouble began.”

“What is this Great Trouble?” asked Kate.

“I don’t really know,” said Ariella. “I only know The Darkness is part of it. Other things have been happening, too.”

“Like what?”

“Like that,” the snow crystal answered, pointing one arm toward a gray patch of snow far below them.

At first, Kate thought Ariella was pointing to some sort of shadow, probably from a cloud. Then she realized her mistake. The gray color was part of the snow itself!

“What is it, Ariella?”

The deep pools of Ariella’s eyes seemed to fill with sadness. “That was once a field of snow crops—one of the most fertile around. It used to grow tall stalks of crystalmeat, the favorite food of our People.”

Examining the field more closely, Kate could see it was covered with hundreds of thousands of stiff gray stalks. They stuck out of the snow like drying bones, giving the place the feeling of an abandoned cemetery. Next to it, another snowfield was covered with pearly white stalks, but an area along its edge was also beginning to turn gray.

“What’s wrong down there?” called Kate above the winds. “Is it some kind of disease?”

Ariella studied the landscape glumly. “If it is, it’s no disease Nel Sauria has ever known before. Some people say it’s because of the warmer temperatures. Others are sure it’s something else. Nobody really knows. Not even the Sage of Sauria knows, I’m sure.”

“The Sage of Sauria?”

Ariella’s eyes refocused on Kate. “Oh, that’s just a figure of speech. The Sage of Sauria is a legendary creature who supposedly once lived near the Bottomless Blue, but no one has seen her for thousands of years. Most people agree that she never really existed, that she’s just another character out of the ancient writings.”

Kate nodded. “We have characters like that on Earth. The Greek myths are full of them, and then there’s Merlin and Gandalf and all the others . . . Sometimes they seem too real to be just stories, but then I realize I’m just imagining things. What was this Sage of Sauria like?”

“Very mysterious, and very wise,” answered Ariella, glancing at the pinnacled ridge of peaks looming ahead of them, drawing closer by the second. “The Sage was supposed to sit for decades, motionless as a stone, watching the waters of the Bottomless Blue. Only the wisest and bravest of the ancient People tried to find her secret hideaway, in order to seek her advice, and most of them wandered for years and never found anything. Of the lucky few who found the way, most of them could not understand the meaning of the Sage’s riddles, or could not remember them when they returned.” She paused thoughtfully. “You are very brave yourself, Kate, to journey all the way to Trethoniel.”

“Not really. I just worry a lot. If I hadn’t been scared by a ghost, I’d probably never be here.”

“I’ve never seen Trethoniel myself,” said the snow crystal. “I’ve read many writings about it, though. I’m sure it’s every bit as beautiful as the old legends say. I hope it has what you need to save your Sun.”

“I do, too, but mainly I hope it has Grandfather, and that he’s safe.”

“There!” cried Ariella, pointing to a small hole in the snow below them. “That’s where we start looking.”

Like a feather on a breeze, Nimba glided to a stop near the place where Kate had been buried not long ago. His two passengers slid off his back and stood on the snow, facing him.

“Thank you,” said Ariella, touching the point of his head lightly.

“We owe you a lot,” added Kate.

“Don’t mention it,” replied the Triangle. “I hope you find your ornament before another avalanche hits.” He eyed Ariella with concern. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Be very careful, young one! Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to see whether that updraft is still going strong.”

With a whoosh of air, Nimba was aloft. Soon he was completely invisible against the white clouds.

They began the search. Ariella spun in slow circles around the area, looking for anything unusual. Meanwhile, Kate stepped to the edge of the hole in the snow, examining it closely. Had she really dug such a deep tunnel?

The tortured black knot of the tentacle sat near her feet, marring the whiteness of the snow. She kicked it vengefully, and the snow sizzled with the impact. Foreboding as it felt to gaze into the place where she had almost perished, she knew that the ring could well be buried down there. She hesitated, then decided to try it.

Kate began to climb down into the tunnel, her heart pounding loudly. As she left the daylight behind, a sudden rush of panic seized her. What if the snow around her collapsed? Would she be buried again? Her hands grew very cold, and a chilly finger of fear ran down her spine.

She turned around, and the sight of the circle of light above helped to calm her. A few dim shafts of light drifted down to her, illuminating the tunnel’s frozen walls. But her heart continued to pound with the rhythm of her fear. Then she thought of Grandfather, somewhere up there, searching . . . So too was The Darkness! She swallowed hard and forced herself to keep climbing downward.

The shaft seemed deeper than she had remembered. Then, at a certain depth, it suddenly narrowed and dropped swiftly downward in a vertical descent. Kate clung to the snowy wall and peered down into the seemingly bottomless hole.

This doesn’t make sense,
she told herself.
This tunnel is far too deep—and also too steep. I’d need a ladder to go down any further.

Then she noticed a faint trace of green on the snow. The ring! She began to dig madly in the wall of the tunnel, despite how cold it made her hands, until there was a large cavity in the snow. Yet there was no further sign of the ring.

“Kate!” cried Ariella’s small voice from outside the tunnel entrance. “Are you there?”

“Yes! And I think the ring is down here, too. But the tunnel is much deeper than I thought.”

“Can you come up here?” called Ariella. “I think I’ve found something important.”

Carefully, so as not to lose her footing, Kate climbed back up to the surface. Squinting from the bright light, she looked for Ariella.

“Over here!”