by the struggle going on inside my intestine as it processed the new material.
But you did not stir; your body had accepted it without question. I kept to fish from then on.
We rode for two more days. On the second we woke early in a frost and I quickly made a fire to warm you up. I made tea, or some version of it, from a variety of herbs which I boiled in a stone flask of water. This we accompanied with some meat from the previous evening’s salmon—caught at a fast-flowing weir after waiting patiently for a bear to finish its own attempt—and we left our camp before the dawn had fully shaken night from the day.
Still I did not tell you.
You wearied. I sensed the tightness in your chest by the way you clung to me, and said little as Boron carried us on.
As the sun breached the summits towards which we were heading, you fell asleep. We came across a bush-lined glade in which two bovine animals stood, stone still. I pulled Boron to a halt and watched them, flanks steaming in the slow warmth. We did not move, those beasts and I. Not even our eyes. We stood that way for almost an hour.
They were like the three horses in that poem I had read, and I realised now what the poem was about. It was not merely about remembering three horses; it was about time passing, things changing and not changing at the same time.
So much had changed. But soon, perhaps nothing would. Would transcendence be like this, a single moment stretched out for eternity?
Eternity. I shuddered at the word, and one of the animals snorted and bowed its head as if in agreement. An eternity without you would stretch out and disappear.
The breaths of your sleep continued to draw out behind me.
Still I did not tell you.
— FORTY-EIGHT —
YOU WOKE UP as the land flattened, and we talked. We spoke nothing of home, Jorne and your friends, only about the country through which we were moving. You had no questions, just remarks about the wildlife, and the way they moved, sounded, and smelled. And, sometimes, tasted.
Then, as we met the hills once again and Boron led us up steeper and more treacherous paths, your questions returned.
‘Where are we going? Why is it so steep? It’s getting colder. Are we there yet?’
The questions repeated, again and again, until finally I pulled on Boron’s reins.
‘Are we—’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We are here.’
We were on a precipice that fell away into a steep slope. Having dismounted Boron, I tied him to the trunk of a squat tree sprouting from the mountain.
‘Stay here,’ I said. ‘Do not move from this spot. Do not go near the edge. Do you understand? Look after Boron and stay next to him for warmth.’
You nodded uncertainly.
‘Where are you going?’
I looked up at the wall above the precipice, in which there was an opening.
‘I have to visit somebody,’ I said.
Through the opening was a set of steep stone steps. I knew they would be there for I had walked them before, a long time ago.
IT IS COLD and I am afraid; the very first and last time I will remember feeling such things for five hundred years. Lights flicker as we are led, my siblings and I, along the corridors Dr Nyström has built into the mountain. I glance at the others as we hurry in silence behind David the laboratory technician, furiously studying his clipboard, flanked by our parents.
Faces flit by in the blue fluorescent light, and I catch Haralia’s eye. She seems calm, composed, her hands folded before her. She smiles with excitement.
I turn to my mother, who walks briskly to my left.
‘Mother, why am I shivering?’
Her glance is puzzled, but she forces a smile.
‘It will pass,’ she says. Her tone is uncertain. ‘Keep walking, child.’
I do so, but it does not pass. Not immediately; first it gets worse. I hold up a hand in the stuttering light and focus all my will upon keeping it still, but the more I try the more it shakes. Perspiration streams from my fingers, and I close them, hiding both hands beneath my robe and looking anxiously ahead and behind. None of my siblings is experiencing this. They each walk with a confident stride, certain of their direction, certain of their purpose.
My insides heave; even my organs are shaking, and my mind…my mind is awash, churning with questions like weed in a riptide. Gone is