The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,24

“The Tainted have him,” Arka said.

Even though she had guessed the answer a cold fist still clenched around Yaz’s heart. “Then I need to find him before they eat him.”

“They won’t eat him.” Arka shook her head. “They are vile but none are quite as crazed as Hetta. They’ll taint him along with the rest of those they caught from today’s drop.” Arka stood to go. “You don’t have to worry about finding your brother, Yaz. You have to worry about him finding you.”

Yaz got hurriedly to her feet and caught Arka’s shoulder. “There must be a way to save him.”

The woman turned, the scars on her face very white against heat-reddened skin. “Oh, there’s a way. It’s just very hard, is all. It’s a lot easier to taint someone than to untaint them. I’ve been here twenty years and only seen it work once.”

“Then I need to meet that person,” Yaz said. “The one who was saved.”

Arka pulled free and started toward the door. “You already have,” she said. “He’s called Thurin.”

6

ARKA LED THEM from the ravine back into the ice caverns. Their footsteps echoed through the endless twilight, each breath steaming up before them. To her amazement Yaz saw that what she had first thought to be fallen lumps of ice scattering the floor of these long halls were in fact something very different. Roundish objects, in shades from white through grey and brown, lay here and there, varying in size from an eyeball to a head, all of them smooth skinned, some beaded with water drops.

“What are they?” she asked as they drew closer to a place where scores of them clustered.

“Are they dangerous?” asked Maya, moving closer to Yaz.

“Rocks,” Kao declared.

Quina reserved her judgment.

“Fungi. They grow where the stones . . . the stars . . . give enough warmth.” Arka bent to pick up a small one from the shadow of a larger one. It made a faint tearing sound as if it were attached to the rock.

“It’s an animal?” Yaz wondered why it didn’t run away.

“A plant. You can eat them.” Arka took a bite from it and winced. “These sort taste better cooked.”

“Plant?” Maya asked. Yaz thanked her silently, not wanting to always be the one showing her ignorance.

“Plants . . .” Arka waved her hands at the things helplessly. “They don’t move and they don’t bleed but they live . . .”

“Like a tree,” Quina said quietly, rolling something small between her fingers.

Arka frowned. “I don’t know about those. But Eular says plants grow anywhere that there is warmth and water and light. He says everything living depends on them for food.”

“I bloody don’t,” Kao growled. “I eat meat like everyone else.”

“Yes, but the fish you take from the sea eat plants or eat other fish that eat plants and—”

“There are plants in the sea now?” Yaz asked.

“Yes and—”

“But there’s no light under the sea,” Quina said.

“Well . . .” Arka grew flustered. “There must be . . . Eular knows these things. Ask him!” She thrust the rest of the fungus ball into Quina’s hand and strode away. “Come on!” As she walked she offered more advice on the mysterious world of plants. “The brown ones aren’t bad raw. Brown ones with reddish spots will have you vomiting blood for a week. Purple ones will kill you. We weed out the bad ones from the groves but out in the more distant caves you’ll find them, sometimes mixed in with the good ones.”

* * *

THE SETTLEMENT SAT in an enormous cavern whose entire roof glowed faintly with innumerable stars. Instead of tents, angled to resist the wind, the Broken lived within strange, blocky dwellings fashioned from a variety of materials each more foreign than the next. Glass was the only building material Yaz recognised, gleaming in ill-advised openings in walls. Many of the walls were made from what might be rock but was lighter in colour than that underfoot and shaped into blocks much like those the Eskin clan made from snow to construct shelters.