Glass Winter | Chapter XVI

Within those feverish dreams Mal lived for a thousand nights, only to awaken mere hours after he had fallen asleep. Revelation phased in and out, clear as ice but forgotten in moments. He tried to grab hold of its essence, just strong enough to hold on. Any weaker and it would float away, any stronger and it would dissolve in his hands. In his dream he never saw his hands.

The green drop is key.

He suspected this much at least. It shot itself into his mind whenever he tapped into the essence, feeling the surface of a band of clarity, smooth as his woman’s skin.

She’s gone. For a while now. Spirits were responsible, not you. Focus.

That magic word. Focus. It sharpened his vision into an impossible point and punctured right through the blackness, resolute and unhindered. With his invisible hands he could tear right on and be born anew. How many times had the blaand simulated his rebirth, he couldn’t say. For every sunder of light there were ten rushes through darkness. Bursts and waves overwhelmed his senses, and Malcolm felt both elated and terrible, right and sombre.

There was no great hall to run through, no clatter of spears, no smiling creature to evade. Only the flight through revelations.

If I could only understand what I’m seeing.

He had avoided the blaand for as long as was necessary, but time was not on their side, and the movements in the dark grew restless. He knew this. He couldn’t say how, but he did.

Furthermore, drinking too much would doom him to a deep slumber, and poison his virtue in the eyes of the one up above. Drinking was not a sin. Indulgence past that which is good, or which was necessary, was what Malcolm feared. By the third attempt he had learned how to access the secrets of fermentation, feeling a latch unlock somewhere deep in the brain after every imbibement. It poured rainbow honey into his eyes and ears, and ballooned his head far past its capacity. He found clarity in the storm.

Sudden green clarity…

Why did Sevt drop years after most people here had dropped? Nobody answered, but the rainbow suggested with whispers.

Why did the Lord spare none but Aurora from the horrific affliction that befell the old commune? Nobody answered, but the honey in his ears turned noise into words.

Why, after all the designs in this place, did their people reach a barren waste that killed those promised to cross it? Nobody answered, but the light grew dimmer and faded.

“No…”

Malcolm’s unseen hands grabbed and came up empty. He wasn’t falling, yet he no longer felt the ground beneath his feet.

“Bring it back.”

His rush through the darkness resumed.

“Bring it back, so help us all. Has my faith and repentance not been enough?”

I was once green, just as Sevt is today.

The prayer hill rushed up to meet Mal and he tumbled down its steps, landing on the trampled snows of the commune. His heart beat against the ground beneath his chest, his fingers and toes were stiff from the cold, and people’s voices echoed around the wall and the shelters. The flame from a nearby brazier crackled, then shuddered from a gust of wind; that section of the commune twenty paces from here was still being expanded, he realised.

“Guards…”

He struggled to speak, to no one in particular.

“Get m… get me m… my guards.”

Somebody was responding, running over to Malcolm, asking what happened.

“Get me…,” he continued, “my guards. Whoever… whoever knows Sevt best. Do it now.”

The person acknowledged Malcolm and ran off. The former chief, meanwhile, struggled towards the hill, clambering up the stairs with futility as his iron grip sunk straight through the packed snow.

“Get me my… get me my guards.”

“We’re here, Mal.”

It was Velour’s voice. Somebody else, much sturdier, was helping lift Malcolm, seating him with his back against the incline of the hill. Oleg had come as well.

“Who’s… who’s guarding the second entrance?”

“The other two split, now one of each guards an entrance.” Said Oleg.

He was studying Malcolm’s face.

“Your eyes are sunken, chief. And you’re pale as bone.”

“He’s lost weight,” Vel observed, “When was the last time you ate, sir?”

“I’ve been fasting and dreaming. I haven’t had the time to sustain myself.”

“You’ve drained yourself haggard.” Oleg rose to his feet, “I’ll bring him a broth. Something light for the stomach.”

As he departed Malcolm grabbed Vel by his furs and pulled him close.

“Have you come to know Sevt?”

“Have I? I suppose.”

“This is very important. Very… very…”

“With all due respect, sir, whatever it is that you’ve seen—”

“Do you believe in God, man?”

Malcolm saw that the question troubled the lad, who couldn’t come to an answer.

“It’s not my place to say.”

“That’s nonsense. And you know it. After what I have seen there can be no doubt in the truth.”

“I don’t place enough stock in feverish dreams, I’m afraid. With all due respect.”

“Neither would I, unless they revealed what I already knew but hadn’t been capable of understanding.”

Vel was unlikely to be convinced, that much was obvious from him.

Why would he be? I never delivered on the claim that I could summon a vision. A claim that even I once believed in.

There was no padding the truth, no treading of water. It just needed to be said.

“Do you still wonder why Sevt is as green as he is?”

“Why he was dropped much later than most? Of course I do. But in this place…”

“In this place what?”

“It’s broader than what we could ever traverse in a lifetime. It doesn’t abide by the rules of our old life. There’s just as good a chance that he landed in the wrong area, far from another commune like ours, before stumbling on us. That there’s no pattern to when a person drops.”

“I once suspected that too. Until I remembered that in His grand plan, nothing happens without reason.”

“It’s a comforting thought. But only if He exists.”

The lad believes in the rules of this place, but he doesn’t believe in God?

Malcolm thought he understood the young generation, considering all his years of wisdom. Sooner or later his assurance would be disproven. Perhaps, if he still had his memories, he would understand them better. Or perhaps, in their naivete, not even they knew why they leaned on their own understanding.

It made no difference now, Malcolm realised.

“Does it matter?” He asked the sentry.

~~~~~

“I’ll say it now because I might not have the chance to say it again; it’s not fair. None of this is.” Claimed Reyansh.

Nobody talked as much as this man they last time we were under these mountains.

No one else in their party spoke now as they ascended the cavern, finding a hold on anything not brittle enough to snap. At least up here, far from the winter outside, their feet couldn’t slip, here where no man had trodden before.

“It’s fairer than it should be.” Replied Gar Darron, “Sowne abstains as much as he forbids us from.”

“And he isn’t down here with us.”

The ground was rugged and at a sharp incline, grey, layered in primordial erosion marks when water once accumulated in pockets, before bursting to create the sea below.

“He has duties to perform on the surface, and our successes down here will decide his plans moving forward.” Said Gar Darron, before tugging on the rope, “Renoir! Why have we stopped?”

The lad still led the line, hammering anchors into the steep rock for insurance.

“It’s always the quiet ones,” Dhruv had come up, leaning against a stalagnate, “When you think that you finally understand them, they still surprise you. And often not in the best way.”

“Climb up and talk to him, then. Clearly, he’s having trouble.”

Dhruv silently obeyed as Renoir asked for more light, which Gar Darron obliged by adjusting the lantern strapped to his back.

“He speaks!” The dusky man declared as he ascended.

“How much can we really hope to find down here,” continued Reyansh, “in the bowels of the Earth? There’s a good chance Renoir’s discovered a dead end, or a passage too narrow to pass through.”

“Nobody down here has the luxury of choosing what they want over what’s needed for the commune.”

“That’s Sowne talking.”

“Very well. What would you have us do?”

If the man can’t recognise my authority how will he fare with his own?

“If it weren’t for Sowne”, said Reyansh, “we’d be trekking across the ice right now, not spelunking. But we aren’t. Makes one wonder how much of a say we really have. How much of a say you have.”

“Not any more than you.”

If not for Sowne, who would have been brave enough to suggest the ice trek in the first place?

“I just happen to still have a head on my shoulders.”

“No, you don’t.” Reyansh shook his head, “Your drive – your agency – depends on what a man above you permits. You call it duty; I call it subservience. It’s mindless.”

“I call it prudent.”

“A soldier’s only good for one thing. But his head isn’t his own. When the true head is lopped off, what happens then?”

Was that a threat? A threat towards Sowne?

Gar Darron studied the scout’s expression, while considering the label of ‘soldier’. He didn’t want to lead this expedition, but he rose to the occasion. He himself was in no position to question the wisdom of smarter men than him. Why did Reyansh have to challenge Gar Darron’s authority, considering him nothing more than a pawn?

“Even now you’re thinking on what to do, grasping here and there.” Replied the dusky man, scratching his beard. “Don’t worry, that silver twat won’t be meeting my axe, or any axe for that matter. He’s simply beneath me. And that’s enough for a downfall.”

As if a voice like yours would be listened to.

“You’re an unhappy man,” said Jerard from below, “Clearly. Unhappy men find faults in everything. But I wouldn’t despair. I’m sure that it’s by no fault of your own—”

“Stand down. The both of you.” Said Gar Darron, “We’re down here for as long as it takes. It’s the best lead we have and nobody else is going to take the job. If I should explain it again to the next man who asks, that man is losing his tongue.”

A silence fell. It was broken only by the whispers between Renoir and Dhruv above.

“What would you have us do, Reyansh? Disobey Sowne’s orders like Eron? What punishments awaits him should he ever return is not as merciful as the hell we’re moving through.”

And when in hell, you don’t stop. You keep moving.

“Gar!” Dhruv yelled, “The passage narrows ahead. Renoir thinks he can push through to see what’s on the other side, if it’s promising we can pick at the rock so that the rest of us can pass. Honestly, even his slender build isn’t making it through that.”

Reyansh, smug and all-knowing, awaited an answer from the party leader. Gar Darron didn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Listen up, down there. The passage ahead doesn’t suit. We go back down and try another. I’ll hear no wise talk about it; from now on, speak only when necessary. Conserve your breath and your water.”

Reyansh didn’t protest, sliding down the rope to the previous anchor while Renoir went about removing the one above.

It really is arduous. And slow.

They would make the best of the time that they had, however long they could. When Dhruv had descended and Renoir removed the upper piton, carefully shifting back down over the rugged floor, Gar Darron adjusted the lantern on his back and went on with his men.

~~~~~

“I should have ignored Sowne’s warnings and visited Quin while he was still alive,” said Palina, “I should have stayed longer at the ceremony too. I can’t…”

She looked away and was about to join the other anglers on the fishing grounds before Bair held her arm. Aurora struggled to hold all of their equipment.

She can’t bear to be in the same space as Sevt, she wanted to say.

“None of that matters now.” Assured Bair, “If you start to blame yourself for every missed opportunity and unspoken word, your own life will pass you by and you’ll regret that instead.”

A thin argument, considering how much time Palina had. There was proof of that in her weaker demeanour which, even if it was only because of her grief. Aurora hadn’t been told what happened to those of the sloughflesh when their time was upon them. One man with the condition had collapsed shortly after the funeral before being dragged away. Probably to be burned, just as Quin was. A pillar of dark grey smoked on the other end of the commune, taken up and dispersed by the storm once it reached over the wall.

“It’s so easy for you to say, isn’t it Bair?” Palina judged him with an iron look.

“What else would you have me say but the truth?”

“I’ve been tossed about from being a fighter to a passive survivor…”

“I haven’t tossed you about. I’ve only ever advised you—”

“Then I haven’t been a very wise, have I? When I had every chance of doing something I chose to do nothing. I’ve only accepted my circumstances, waiting to die, as Quin has.”

Palina took some of the equipment off Aurora and held her hand.

“I don’t want to blame you Bair. I just … hate what life has become.”

And they proceeded towards the fishing grounds regardless with the crackling ice under their feet. Palina wouldn’t look back, so Aurora did for her, but Bair was already gone.

If this is it, and it’s so terrible, then why are we still fishing?

They only caught two that day. They used to catch five at least. And all the while Aurora’s mind was back at the funeral, back in the fight against Little Malcolm and his friends.

Aurora had never fought before, not that she achieved much now. She had stopped Wilbur from kicking Sevt by pushing him away, and when he pushed back she had held her ground. He might have hit her, as he had wanted to before, if Bair hadn’t intervened. She almost wished that the fight could have gone on.

But I’m not a fighter. Even if Wilbur didn’t have his friends to protect him, he could still beat me.

Having the thought in the first place frightened her more than the thought itself. She wasn’t like this.

But Wilbur is.

How did Little Malcolm, or anyone else, turn him this way? Perhaps, if it wasn’t a person, circumstances themselves had affected his morals. The commune still brooded over the events on the ringwoodite sea, and Aurora had witnessed firsthand what evil lurked down there.

You were a protector once, like an older brother. Why, why, why have you changed into a stranger?

She couldn’t return to the quinzhee with Palina. Aurora found herself wandering the commune, navigating the tracks and paths she was yet to see. Most didn’t notice her, some avoided the ‘cursed girl’ with wary expressions and hushed murmurs. It was only until she felt the gusts of a build site that Aurora realised what she was searching for. Ahead of her, Little Malcolm and Wilbur, along with some other boys and adults, worked on expanding a part of the wall.

The commune had gradually shifted north from the cave entrance as they tried to progress, however blindly, through the night, following the frozen shoreline where Aurora now worked as an angler. Those with quinzhees, like Palina or Malcolm, suffered the most from this, eventually having to reshape or relocate their subterranean shelters when the southern wall inched too close. But at least they had a warmer place to sleep.

Wilbur sawed the snow beneath him and handed it off to a man who would brave the winds, stacking the block somewhere outside with the others. Before long, Wilbur would be venturing out while another replaced him with the saw, without a second thought. Slow and sure, the commune would shift north.

Would he even notice her if she approached to talk? Aurora hadn’t the time to consider before Little Malcolm showed himself, moving around the wall and proceeding to cut the ground. She felt her heart boiling with unrest, so much that she had to sink down behind an igloo, resting her head against it. Aurora no longer wanted to speak to them. She wanted to hurt them.

Until Little Malcolm was gone, his shift ended. Wilbur still worked, for a time, before he left as well.

I’ll come back tomorrow.

Aurora slept without dreams that night, and the morning’s grilled cod and roasted green lichen weren’t as happy a breakfast as they had been before. But her nerves were calmer and her mind was clearer. She needed to speak with Wilbur.

Aurora was meant to accompany Palina to the fishing grounds again, until Aurora asked if she could instead assist the other afflicted in completing the seal furs. The pale woman was sceptical at first until her tiredness decided for her. She wanted Aurora to be happy, so long as she kept to populated areas of the commune. Quin’s death might have been suicide but murder had yet to be ruled out, and if he was a target then Sevt and Aurora could be next, even if she had more in common with those of the sloughflesh than someone branded by the enemy.

But rather than finding the sewists Aurora headed straight for the build site, camping by the same igloo that she had rested against. She could even see Malcom’s prayer hill from where she was, though her focus was on the builders where Wilbur was yet to show up.

Aurora paid regular visits to a nearby brazier before returning to her igloo. She couldn’t say how long she waited, what felt like forever seemed like nothing for Mal who continued to meditate undisturbed not far off. Soon enough, Wilbur arrived, and so did Little Malcolm. Again, rage burned her reason to ashes.

What’s to say he didn’t influence Wilbur?

Words with enough truth could turn anyone, and everyone feared the demons enough to hate them. Little Malcolm just took his loathing too far, and encouraged those around him to do the same.

Desecrating holy ground, attacking the crippled, attacking the innocent, defying their elders, cursing and swearing. Aurora was ready to fight again, but couldn’t commit. If she was even to try something so foolish as standing up to someone taller and stronger than her, she would require a plan.

With none coming to mind, she soon retreated to the sewists and took up the needle and thread. That night no dreams would visit her.

The next day she had grown more confident in her lies, conjuring up a story on how well she had spent time with that other girl while fixing the last furs of the seal together. The next part was true, however, when she told Palina that today the women would be mending the spare furs that the builders had, given the damage the winds would often cause, and even teach Aurora and the girl new methods of stitching. The pale woman seemed more than pleased, stroking Aurora’s hair with a smile that, for once, wasn’t sad, and letting the girl go off on her own again.

She had had enough time to plan. Aurora knew that she could never win in a fight against Little Malcolm, who would have the other builders rush to his defence regardless. All she could do was hurt him enough, frighten him enough, to prove that he wasn’t the strongest. It wouldn’t even be too difficult.

Once more, Aurora waited by the igloo with a view of the build site. Malcolm was nowhere to be seen, and some different boys were helping the masons.

Please don’t let there be a switch today. I don’t want to go searching the commune again.

While there was still a chance of Palina finding out that Aurora was not with the sewists, there was a higher chance of discovery if the girl wandered through an area too close to the fishing grounds. Though it seemed, this time, luck was on her side, as she saw Wilbur and Little Malcolm arrive and begin to saw the snow.

When he puts it down to pick up a block, I move.

It didn’t take long, but when the chance came Aurora hesitated. There were too many people around that would prevent her from making her point. She didn’t really have to hurt Little Malcolm, just threaten to, maybe just make his skin bleed. None of it mattered if Wilbur or somebody else stopped her before she had even picked up the saw or said her piece.

While she was thinking a builder, his face concealed by a hood and a scarf, came around the wall. Instead of just changing shifts he placed something into Little Malcolm’s hand, amiably tapped his arm, then proceeded away from the site. The boy inspected the prize with scrutiny, which was too small for Aurora to see from where she stood, while his friends gathered round, excited. They ceased their celebration when another builder threatened to strike them with the back his hand unless they got back to work, to which they returned with haste.

Most builders worked in long shifts, and most of the commune slept at the same time. Unless this mason was leaving early, or came here to work while the rest of the denizens were still waking up, he was out of place. And Little Malcolm continued to study his gift whenever he had a moment to spare.

Aurora pursued the mystery builder before she lost sight of him. She didn’t want to believe the thoughts that came to mind, but there could be few other explanations.

She followed him to Sowne’s shelter, of all places, whose broad entrance was always unguarded. Rather than risk being seen Aurora found the thinnest section of the house’s wall, right by the way in, and gradually punched a hole in the snow.

She saw a sword made of fine steel in the corner. One of the few from the old commune. Most had been forged from the excavated iron and coal found in the Mountain Wall, at least they believed them to be iron and coal. The steel wouldn’t sing when smelted or struck by a hammer, it would scream. The coal had always a pungent odour that Aurora could never forget until the next morning, after a restful sleep. The final product seemed like a sword, but for the sinister glints and reflections under candlelight, with a surface that seemed at times to ripple with red. There had only been the one normal sword in their hamlet that Lowell had dropped with, though he claimed to have never known how to use it. It had been ceremonial in appearance with its gilded crossbar and pommel, and the flowery embellishments running down the length of its blade.

This sword was sheathed but had a plain hilt. No gold. Sowne had brought it with him, he may have even used it when the battle at the hamlet ensued. And his hand curled around the handle in response to the stranger’s arrival.

“Who is it?”

“Don’t be rash,” the builder replied with a gravelly voice, removing his hood and unwrapping his scarf, “You may not know what I did, nor why I did it. But there were reasons for my leave.”

That grim and weathered scout who had always frightened Aurora was standing in Sowne’s shelter, whose name she couldn’t…

“Eron.” Said Sowne, “Where the hell have you been?”