“Is that why that obstinate mutt is sliding around in the passage?” Magiere asked. “Because Brot’an didn’t tell you enough? What were you two thinking?”
Leesil was almost too sick to fight back. “What do you expect? That we’d just sit on our hands ... paws ... until Brot’an blackmails more out of you than he’ll give?”
“He’s not going to give up anything while Chap’s in plain sight.”
“We know that!” Leesil shot back. “But what else can we try while we’re stuck on this bucket, waiting for it to sink?”
“Oh, stop it,” Magiere told him, and another bang of the cabin door against the wall pulled her attention. “At least Chap’s watching someone beside me this time.”
“That you know of,” Leesil grumbled, “and only because you don’t have the orb to ...”
Leesil bit his lip as Magiere whirled on him. They’d barely regained part of the distance between them since leaving the Wastes. He had no wish to endanger that by treading on dangerous ground.
The ship rocked sharply.
Just before the door slammed completely shut, they both heard scrambling of claws on wood. Magiere suddenly toppled to the bunk’s end as the whole cabin tilted. A loud thump carried from out in the passage and was instantly followed by a sharp yelp and a snarl. Leesil moaned, digging his fingers into the mattress to keep from falling into Magiere.
“Go get him,” he told her, “before he ends up knocked out cold ... or slides all the way into the cargo hold!”
The cabin leveled but then began tilting the other way. Magiere grabbed the bunk’s end and made her way up to snatch the cabin door’s handle and pull it. The door swung sharply inward, and she grabbed the door’s outer handle as well and half dangled there for a moment.
Another thump echoed loudly out in the passage and was followed by another irritated snarl.
“Chap, damn you, get in here ... now!” Magiere shouted, clawing her way up the door.
On the next tilt of the cabin, Leesil flopped onto the mattress and clung to it. He lay there in misery, unable to stop the memories, all from that one bitter slip he’d almost made with Magiere.
And only because you don’t have the orb to ...
His thoughts slipped back to the Wastes....
Leesil ran beside the sled for days until he was numb inside as well as out. He and Chap had given up trying to keep Magiere from slipping her thôrhk’s knobs into the orb spike’s grooves every few nights. It was her way to readjust their direction.
To Leesil’s best awareness—and he was certain Chap kept vigil at night—she did this only in their presence and never tried to pull the spike by even half an inch. She didn’t need to, or so she claimed, but the look on her face, and her occasional tears, made every muscle in Leesil’s body tighten until she took her thôrhk off that cursed orb.
And in the mornings she redirected Ti’kwäg if necessary.
Magiere never said anything about where they were going. Either she didn’t know or she wasn’t sure or she wasn’t telling them.
Leesil was sick inside at the thought of what this could mean. How could the orb be directing her—and why? He kept thinking back to the voice that had whispered in her dreams ... directing her to the orb’s original hiding place. She swore this time was different.
He didn’t believe her.
At this journey’s start, he’d believed they suffered these hardships, so very far from their home and their tavern, to hide the orb someplace where Most Aged Father or the Enemy’s minions would never find it. Now Magiere had succumbed to some other unnatural drive.
Between Leesil and Chap, they watched her day and night as they pressed onward, farther north and east. Even Chap knew they had no choice. They had to keep going until they found a safe place to hide the orb. They seemed to agree that they’d know the right place when they saw it, and in that they let Magiere have her way for now. But the farther north they went, the more barren and bleak the land became, until calling it “land” wasn’t even funny as a joke.
Endless white around them hurt their eyes. More than half of their supplies were gone. Foraging was pointless, and the temperature was below freezing at all times.
Ti’kwäg began rationing the oil burned in the bone lamp. Its tiny flame barely kept their shelter a hair above the freezing temperature outside. In spite of the strange nature of this journey, their guide never questioned Magiere about where she was leading them. He kept to his duties, though at times it was clear he had concerns about their dwindling oil and rations.
Leesil began wondering how they could make it back to the coast, even if they succeeded in their task. One day when they’d pushed beyond the time they would usually stop, Ti’kwäg pointed ahead.
The guide had the lower half of his face covered with a rabbit fur that he always tied around the back of his head before fastening his hood. Leesil couldn’t see the man’s expression, but Ti’kwäg’s gaze was steadily fixed on something ahead.
Leesil squinted, trying to make out what it was. At first all he noticed was wind-driven snow strangely piled as if built up on something left on the frigid plain. Then he saw a smoke trail above a dome.
“What is it?” Magiere called from where she jogged behind the sled.
“A settlement,” Ti’kwäg called back. “A good thing for us.”
It wasn’t long before the sled slipped between a number of ice domes caked in snow. Leesil staggered to a halt and bent to brace his hands on his knees. Looking down, he saw that he’d almost stepped into a hole in the ice, and he shuffled back from it.
“For fishing,” Ti’kwäg called as he began checking his dog team.
Chap was looking all ways with obvious worry. The flap of the fur that Leesil had prepped and tied around the dog kept getting into Chap’s face.
Ti’kwäg was a careful sort who always appeared to know what he was doing. He’d not likely have led them somewhere dangerous. Before Leesil could ask about this place, small people covered in furs came crawling out of hide-curtained holes in the domes. Ti’kwäg pulled down his rabbit fur and smiled as he began babbling in a language Leesil had never heard.
Brown skinned, all bulked up in their fur clothing, the people smiled back, all of them chattering at the same time as they closed around the guide and his sled. A young woman broke from the pack and came toward Leesil. She held a small bowl that steamed heavily in the cold. When she neared, he saw the bowl was nearly filled with a rich brown fluid.
Shiny black hair escaped from under the top of her furred hood and down her round forehead. Her skin was darker than his. She peered at him and blinked her thin eyes, each barely a slit in her face, until an expression of wonder took over.
Leesil started to get a little uncomfortable, and then she broke into a great grin and shoved the steaming bowl toward his hands.
“Apkalawok!” she chattered at him.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the bowl and not knowing what else to do. She lifted her hands, cupped together, and pantomimed a motion of drinking.
Whatever was in the bowl smelled something like a broth. He tasted it carefully and found it wasn’t quite as hot as it looked. He gulped half of it down, though it left a greasy film in his mouth. Then he pointed to Chap, who was off behind the sled and watching a couple of bulky-bundled children eyeing the dog in turn.
“Some for him?” he asked, pointing to Chap and then the bowl. But when he looked down, he was startled. Now three young women instead of one stared at him.
One of the new girls giggled and touched a fur-covered hand to her cheek, just below her right eye. The other new girl squeaked something back that began with, “Ooooooooh.”