The Fog of Forgetting (27 page)

“Wha—how did you get them?” cried Knox, squatting beside the pile and quickly stowing away his knives. “I looked everywhere for these! I thought they were gone forever. Rysta took them from us in Metria.”

“Aye, Rysta does not believe young ones should be burdened with such things. She hates the thought of them being put to use. She returned them to Rothermel at the council. But it just so happens that Calla, ah, stumbled upon them, shall we say, and Mara packed them with the supplies.”

Chase picked up his sword fondly, stroking the scabbard with his hand. The weight of it felt good in his grasp, like it belonged to him. Maybe he was being given a second chance to prove himself. He drew the blade from the scabbard and brandished it above his head. Now that he knew Teddy was safe, he would gladly admit that he had never felt so alive or so prepared to face whatever lay ahead.

“What's the plan?” he asked Seaborne.

“The plan, as much as there is one,” replied Seaborne, “is to gain favor with the only person in Ayda who can give the three of you—and now me, since I've thrown my lot in with yours—a fighting chance.” Seaborne threw a nervous glance over his shoulder at the gold-tipped mountains in the distance.

“Ratha?” asked Chase.

Seaborne responded with a curt nod.

T
he temperature dropped violently the next day. By evening, a light snow had begun to fall. Evelyn snuggled deeply into her fur-lined poncho, silently saying another prayer of thanks for Seaborne's timely arrival. It was their fourth day out in the wild, and the mountains of Varuna were now before them. Scrubby, wheat-colored meadows and granite outlays had given way to tougher and more treacherous ground as they climbed, leading them up into a landscape devoid of color and definition but for the snow-tipped peaks towering over them. Depending on the time of day, the summits looked either tantalizingly close or fearfully remote.

Far below to the south and southwest, they caught a brief glimpse of the glittering waters of the Voss and the Hestredes river. They had skirted the banks of the lake the day before, but dared not stop out in the open. Seaborne was driving them hard, and as they trudged onward, everyone's hearts and footsteps grew heavier; each had to fight hard against the impulse to stop and gaze backwards, toward the warm waters and shaded groves of Metria and Melor. What lay ahead remained unknown, and, from the starkness that surrounded them, not very welcoming.

Seaborne called for a halt and busied himself with the bottom of the sleds. He planned to remove the wheels and replace them with metal runners for ice when the time came. The campsite for the evening was a wide sunken ledge at the edge of a rocky field. Evelyn was in charge of keeping their small fire burning. Knox fiddled with his throwing knives, unable to settle down. Chase had wandered off, as he had begun to do more often. Knox stooped beside Seaborne, watching him worry a wooden peg from its hole.

“How far do you think we need to go before Ratha finds us?” he asked.

Seaborne pounded the bottom of the wagon with his homemade mallet, ingeniously fashioned from a rock, twine, and a sturdy branch. “Don't know,” he grunted. “Maybe we'll find her before she finds us.”

“Rysta said she lives far up, on one of the tallest mountains.”

“I've heard that, too, but no one knows. She's a solitary sort.”

Knox smiled, thinking of Seaborne's remote cabin. “Takes one to know one, huh, Seaborne?” Seaborne didn't reply. Knox fussed impatiently with one of his knives.

“But what about her people, towns, villages, that sort of thing? Surely we'll come across somebody soon?”

“Not likely. I've never met a Varunan as long as I've lived on Ayda. They avoid contact with others. Most live on their own, hidden away in these mountains. For all we know, they may have us in their sights now,” said Seaborne.

Knox surveyed the barren landscape. Who could possibly stay hidden here? But then again, this was Ayda—anything was possible. Of all the places that he'd been on Ayda, he liked Varuna the least. It was beautiful, which he'd come to expect. The sky was so blue it looked purple, and the views from the heights were magnificent—but there was also a hostile feeling about Varuna: empty and cold and bare except for rocks and moss and scrubby trees. Knox sniffed the air. It smelled like nothing, if nothing had a scent, and it filled him with dread. He picked up Seaborne's mallet and began striking the ground impatiently. Flint and snow spray flew up and dusted Seaborne's hands.

“Hey, lad, you're out of sorts, I know, but don't take it out on the mountain”—Seaborne grabbed the mallet back—“or me. It's your daylights; we Melorians are less at home with heights. Find something to occupy your mind and you'll feel better. Here.” He passed Knox a thin metal blade and a honing stone. “Take this over there and sharpen it. Careful you don't cut your finger off.” Grateful for a job, Knox took the blade and set to work.

Evelyn came back empty-handed from trying to gather firewood. Chase bounded up to the campsite a few minutes later. His cheeks were red with cold, but his eyes glittered in excitement.

“Over that ridge there's a huge snowbowl—and a glacier!” he panted, gesticulating wildly. “I saw the ice covering the mountain—a solid sheet of blue ice with green veins running through it!”

“Aye, and that's what you could see,” said Seaborne with a worried expression. “You didn't walk near it, did you?”

Chase shook his head. “I thought I'd wait for you.”

“Wise move,” said Seaborne. “A glacier is frozen water—what you saw was just the curtain, the vertical ice. Glaciers will stretch vast distances covering the ground, only you don't know you're on ice because of the snow. It can be very perilous—I didn't think we'd meet up with one so soon.”

“Did you run all the way back?” Knox asked, his eyebrow raised in disbelief. It seemed impossible that this was once the brother who could barely walk fast without wheezing.

“Yeah, I'm fine—” he answered. “It's easier for me to breathe up here.”

“How odd,” said Evelyn, catching Knox's eye with an “I-told-you-so” expression. “It's usually harder to breathe high up in the mountains—the air is thinner.”

Chase was nonchalant. “Yeah, well, not for me, I guess.” He lifted up his arms and let out a loud whoop. The hounds leapt up, ready for action.

“May I remind you that we are trying to be discreet in our actions here?” groused Seaborne. “We don't need to alert the whole blessed valley—and whoever is lurking there to find us—nor do we need to set off an avalanche. I don't fancy a meeting with anyone but Ratha up here.”

“He can't help it,” laughed Evelyn. “It's his daylights.”

Chase shrugged. He was still hesitant about the idea of daylights, but it was hard to deny that his spirits and energy were responding to being in Varuna.

“What about you?” he asked her. “Do you feel any different?”

“No,” she replied. “Colder, I guess.” Her brow furrowed. “I guess that means I'm not Varunan. I'm definitely not Metrian—so I must either be Melorian, or Exorian, whatever that means.”

Seaborne looked up from his work at the mention of Exor.

“Nay, girl. Don't be so hasty to put yourself in a box.”

“Well, then, what am I?” she said impatiently. It was bothering her more than she cared to admit. Chase and Knox—and Teddy, for that matter—all knew more or less where they belonged. Why not her? She jabbed at the fire with a stick. “I don't feel anything.”

Seaborne blew on his hands, coming over to the fire to warm them. He squatted beside her.

“I don't know much about the daylights and how they come to be divided or balanced within a person, but I do know that sometimes—in some creatures—there is more equality between them. I mean, it's not as easy to know which of the four is dominant, which makes it harder to discover one's true nature. Take me, for instance; I always thought of myself as a seafarer, borne and bound to water. 'Twas only after an age here that I came to know what really moved me, and I built my home in Melor. But even so, I'm still drawn to the sea.”

“So, you can sometimes be both, or more than one?” asked Evelyn, trying to understand.

“Sometimes it isn't clear: All of us—even those beyond the fog—hear the call of the stones of Ayda, but for many of us, the calls are faint and confusing, even when one lives on Ayda where the stones are most powerful. These boys can consider themselves lucky to hear one that speaks louder to them than the other three, but just because you don't doesn't mean a thing. Don't go pigeonholing yourself in with Dankar—or anyone else, for that matter—and fretting. You'll only make it harder to hear the real call when it comes along.”

“And what if it doesn't?” said Evelyn, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.

Seaborne leaned in to her with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye.

“It will. It always does. Trick is getting quiet enough in your head to hear it, because for some it's just a whisper.” The wind gusted between them at that moment, blowing sparks up into the air.

Seaborne followed the glowing ash with his eyes as it rose, spiraling on a current of air, watching until it burnt out. Evelyn was quiet and pensive. He cleared his throat to continue, but before he could utter another word, an eight-legged missile of boy and dog knocked him flat: Knox and Tar roughhousing. He let out a deep grunt of surprise and grabbed Knox by the back of his shirt.

“You'll find that the
more
intelligent you are, Evelyn, the softer your daylights will speak,” he roared. “And the simpler you are in the head—well, case in point.” He shook Knox. Evelyn grinned. Seaborne released him with a gentle cuff.

“For that, Tar, you'll pull the heavier load tomorrow—and as for you”—he wagged his finger at Knox—“you'll sharpen all four sets of blades. If we must cross a glacier, it means we'll need them soon enough.” He bent down and whispered into Knox's ear, “And you might as well set that stone to your own knives. Just in case.”

On the very next day they found themselves navigating the fissures and seracs of the massive glacier. It spread before them like the cracked, snow-covered bottom of a bowl, its blue rim coating the surrounding mountainside. Up close, the glacier was frozen in blue-green serpentine cables of ice—ice that creaked and sang a ghostly chorus. Seaborne insisted they walk slowly, he and the dogs pulling the sleds, so as to better steer around any deep cracks. Chase knew very little about glaciers, but what he did know he was eager to share with the rest.

“Some of those big cracks can drop down for miles. You fall down one of those and you'll never be seen again,” he said cheerily.

Evelyn froze mid-step. “But the ground is covered in snow—you can't see where you're going most of the time—”

“That's why you'd better look sharp!” barked Seaborne. He was testy and unsure of himself, trusting Axl and Tar to lead them. He grumbled under his breath. Knox tried to catch some of what he said, but only a few, unencouraging words were intelligible, like
mad
and
dangerous
. Knox tried to distract him.

“Rysta said that Ratha has no fear of Dankar. Is that true?” Knox yelled to be heard over a particularly loud groan from the glacier. Snowflakes spun and hovered lazily in the air.

“Well, ask yourself? Who in the blazes would be crazy enough to try and pass through here but you lot?”

Knox shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe Dankar would if he thought he could get the stone of Varuna. If Ratha lives on her own, she'd be an easy target.”

Seaborne laughed. “I said she and the Varunans were a solitary sort, but they aren't unprotected. First off, they have this—” He gestured gruffly around him. “Not many Exorians would last long in these parts. Secondly, they have Ratha and her stone, both of which are not to be tangled with. Very powerful.”

Chase caught up to them, listening intently. “How so?”

Seaborne stopped and shook the snow off his hood. He repositioned the basket on his back.

“I've been told that aside from—you know—the regular things, like changing the air and the wind and influencing those who are bound to it, the stone of Varuna can plant visions in your head—flights of fancy and imaginings, that sort of thing. You think you're acting by your own lights, but you're not. They're planted by her, Ratha.” Seaborne's voice dropped. “'Tis a weapon.”

“How do you know,” Chase exhaled, watching his breath dissipate in the thin air, “whether your thoughts are yours or hers?”

Seaborne drew his lips together in a firm line. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“So what do you think? Are we here because we thought of it, or because she wants us to be here?” said Chase.

“I've been asking myself the same question, and the only way I can answer is this. It only matters if she
doesn't
want us here. If that's the case, I assume it won't be long before we know.” He looked behind him. The snow was coming down harder and Evelyn had not yet reached them. The hounds were anxious to keep moving. The constant moaning of the ice unsettled everyone. “Where's the girl, now? I told you to stay together!” Seaborne grumbled. “I keep losing you, one by one. Soon there'll be none of you left.”

Chase and Knox looked for Evelyn through the deepening veil of snow, but saw nothing. They called to her but couldn't hear a response—if there was one—over the eerie wailing of the ice.

“Wait here,” Seaborne ordered. “I mean it—don't move.”

They watched his back retreat into the snow toward the spot where they had last seen Evelyn, a dark smudge against the white flakes. When Seaborne was a couple of hundred yards away, he stopped. Chase shouted to him, but his voice was swallowed in the muffling snowfall. Seaborne took a few more cautious steps and then disappeared completely, like a magic trick. One minute he was standing there, the next he was gone. Just like Evelyn. Chase rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of what he'd just seen.

“Seaborne!” Knox shouted, sprinting carelessly back toward the place Seaborne and Evelyn had vanished. The snow fell faster.