“Do we have to sleep in one of these?” Maya’s voice echoed Yaz’s own mistrust of those hard flat roofs and sharp angles.
“Is there nothing you’re not afraid of, girl?” Kao snorted. “No wonder Clan Axit wanted to drop you down the pit!”
Maya put her head down and said nothing. The Axit were the largest of all the clans and many said they all thought themselves kings of the ice. Although life in the wastes left no room for war the Axit had a reputation for fierceness. Blood and more blood had been spilled in the long ago and some said they trained in secret for a war still to come. Yaz gave Kao a hard look until he coloured and turned away.
Yaz couldn’t tell how large the settlement was, only that it seemed to cover a bigger area than the Ictha used when pitching their tents. Perhaps there were more of the Broken than she had first thought. Or maybe there had been more of them in the past.
As they drew closer to the buildings Yaz sniffed at the familiar smell of humanity, stronger here than in camp where the wind scoured the ice between the tents. She saw figures moving in the gloom, making their way along the clear pathways between the various structures. Closer still and she heard the drip drip drip of water on rooftops. Every surface close to horizontal glimmered with a light so subtle that the eye almost missed it, stardust falling with the meltwater.
Arka directed them to a low building, one of the first they reached. “You’ll all be sleeping in this barracks tonight. And I will be in that hut over there.” She pointed to a smaller structure whose door faced the barracks door. “To keep an eye on you.”
Arka followed them into the barracks. Unlike some of the other buildings this one had none of those glass-covered openings, a fact for which Yaz was grateful. A single small star-stone hung from the roof support in a wire cage, providing a weak light. A dozen bedrolls had been laid out on pallets of the same stuff the walls were made of. The rolls themselves were patchworks of worn skins, sewn and resewn to the point that Yaz wondered if she would wake to find hers in a hundred pieces. She didn’t recognise the fur, not hoola or harp whale.
Maya yawned and Yaz found herself suddenly exhausted. She had no idea how long had passed in the first ice chamber she’d dropped into. Would the gathering far above be in full swing or breaking up as the sun rose? For a moment the weight of all that ice seemed to crush her. She bore it though, along with the weight of sorrow for her mother and her father and Quell and maybe for some of the others she would never see again. Would they be grieving amid the celebrations, even though they were not supposed to? The music and the ferment were meant to help in the forgetting but she hoped they would each at least shed one tear for the girl they had lost.
“You stay here until I come for you.” Arka opened the door, pointing. “That hut way over there by the entrance to that side chamber. That’s where you go in the night. Nothing freezes down here so we don’t take care of our business near where we sleep. And nothing is wasted. What we have no use for helps grow the plants we eat.”
“The fungus eats dung?” Kao pushed up the blond mop of his hair in disgust. “And you eat the fungus?”
Arka shrugged. “You will too if you don’t want to starve. It’s the circle of life. The dead go into the pits too. It’s how life is. Eular says that on the ice that circle is broken because Abeth is dying. What you take from the sea does not return. But down here the cycle still turns life into death and death into life, and will do so as long as the stars shine.” With that she left them. Yaz sat, watching Arka walk away and wondering who this Eular was who seemed to know everything.
* * *
“WELL, I’M NOT eating that . . . muck.” Kao slammed the door behind Arka.