Rebel Ice (16 page)

the rasakt as loyal to the Raktar and the rebel cause, as Pasala and Teulon had never met before now. Teulon thought Pasala might be in earnest with his vow. His men were thin and wore their weapons battle-ready. The women and children were kept completely out of sight. The camp had been erected near natural thermal vents, the heat from which disguised the camp's thermal signature and rendered it

invisible to any orbital scan. The entire camp was free of clutter, and the Pasala appeared quite ready to pack up and leave within a few minutes' notice. "I would speak to your hunters," Teulon told the headman once the formalities had been observed and

the last of the greetings exchanged.

The rasakt displayed the command he held over his people by uttering a few words, which had his hunters assembled beside him thirty seconds later. "Have you been out on the ice today?" Teulon asked the oldest of the men. "No, Raktar," the hunter answered. "We remained here to help with the repair of some shelters, as a

storm approaches."

One of the younger men among the lesser-ranked, the beast master, made a coughing sound, and the rasakt turned and gestured for him to come forward. "What have you to tell, Jaf?" "I was out on the ice today with the jlorra, at midday," the beast master said. "You saw the ensleg launch crash?" Teulon asked him. The younger man nodded. "Kuorj flew in from the east. I saw them land to lay claim to it." "Did you see anything else?" Jaf glanced at his footgear. "I may have seen something. Something that was not there." Teulon tensed. "You cannot see something unless it is," Hasal said sharply. "Tell us." The beast master shifted his weight from foot to foot. "Two came on foot, from the south, just as the

Kuorj had crossed the ice. They were there and they were not. I thought my eyes snow-dazzled." "Vral," one of the other hunters muttered. Hasal made a sound of contempt. "Vral, is it? Next you will tell me you saw winged jlorra and

gold-beaked rothawks."

"Hold." The rasakt lifted a hand. "We have heard much talk of the vral. It is said they walk the ice here now, and keep the skela idle." "Have you seen them with your own eyes?" Hasal asked. The rasakt shook his head. Teulon's second

turned to the assembled hunters. "Any of you? Say now." None of the men spoke. "It was a trick of the light," Hasal assured them, his voice gentling. "Out on the ice, a man sees things now

and then that are not there."

That night, when Teulon had finished planning the next day's maneuvers with Hasal,, he said, "Both the Terran and the Pasala spoke of vral. Who are they?"

"They are nothing." Hasal stowed away the topographic maps they had been using and went to adjust the heatarc's flue. "Vral are not real. They exist only in the old stories."

"What are these stories told about them?"

Hasal looked up. "You wish me to repeat tales told to children who fear the absence of their father?"

Teulon inclined his head.

"As you say." Hasal crouched to prepare their food and drink. "When a man is harmed, it is said that his blood opens the eyes of the gods. If he cries out like a coward in pain, they look away, and he dies. If he is silent and endures, however, the gods open their ears. Only then can they hear the cries of the man's women and children. This makes them take pity on those who will suffer the man's death, and they send the vral to find him. The vral look into the wounded one's heart. If they find him worthy, they restore him to his iiskar. That is all."

"What are the vral?" Teulon saw Hasal about to retort, and added, "What are they said to be in these stories?"

"They are spirit made flesh." Hasal made an uncertain gesture. "They walk as we do, in body form, but they have no faces."

Teulon thought of the skela, prepared to remove the face of the dead Toskald. "What happened to the vral's faces?"

"No one knows." Hasal looked uncomfortable. "Some say they are the souls of those who died during the journey from the old world to this one."

Or perhaps, Teulon thought, they were the corpses stripped of worgald, brought back by Iisleg subconscious guilt to haunt them. Part of him could accept that. There was not a conscious moment when he was not haunted by his beloved dead. "Why are they so feared?"

"If the vral find you unworthy, they feed your soul to their jlorra," Hasal said. "To look upon them is to see true death, Raktar. Vral may be sent by the gods, and grant a second life to those deserving of such miracles, but no one
wants
to see them."

Teulon considered this. Given the legend, vral might go anywhere on the surface and never be challenged. "How do we find these vral?"

"We could walk the ice until we become as snow-blind as that hunter likely was," Hasal suggested as he brought over a plate heaped with boiled grain and vegetables for Teulon, and a thick section of boiled meat for himself.

"That may be so." Teulon accepted the plate. "How do we find two Toskald spies who have disguised themselves as vral?"

When Hasal had gone for the night, Teulon dressed and slipped out of the camp. Bsak accompanied him to the place they had found during one of their treks, a tiny ice cave hardly large enough to serve as anything but temporary shelter from the cold.

Bsak spied something moving on the ice, and looked up. Teulon made the gesture of release, and the big cat stalked off. He never brought the cat inside the cave; something about the interior seemed to make Bsak uneasy.

He went in and ignited the tiny heatarc that had been left abandoned in the center of the floor. There were no other signs of occupation, except for a depression in one wall where someone had chopped a hole to look out.

Why does she come here?

Time and an ancient vent shaft had carved the small cave from very old, dense blue ice. It absorbed the light from the heatarc more than it reflected it, but kept the cold out. The interior grew warm in a very short time.

Teulon leaned back against one wall and watched the light flicker. The cave was also one of the quietest places he had ever found on the planet, and soon all he could hear was the sound of his lungs filling and emptying, and the meaningless beat of his heart. He closed his eyes and listened for the whisper of her steps in the snow.

Raktar.

The ghost drifted into the cave, formless, nearly transparent, so insubstantial that her passage barely disturbed the light and the air.

"Spirit," Teulon greeted her, as he always did. He wasn't sure how he knew she was female, only that she was. Nor did he reach out to touch her, as he had done the first time she had appeared. He knew she would vanish if he tried to do so. Instead, he watched her go through her ritual of walking the length of the cave three times, going to the depression in the ice once each time before coming to him.

You should not be here alone.

"I am not." Teulon liked the sound of her voice, and the fact that she spoke perfect Jorenian. "You are here."

I am not here.

"I know." He waited a moment. "Are you vral?"

Are you?

She drifted around the cave for a time, gliding more than walking, without purpose. Teulon watched her without speaking, for too many words would also send her back to the otherworld where she dwelled.

You are thinking of her.

"I can do little more," he said.

"You will haunt this cave." Teulon studied his hands. He had his father's large, capable hands. "I will make more ghosts."

For the first time since she had come to him in this place, she made physical contact. The mist of her came between his hands and rested lightly against his chest.
It will not bring them back
.

"I know this." He held her briefly, a slim column of something slightly more than air. He didn't understand his deep emotion for this creature, whatever she was. He simply knew she was the only thing on this world sadder than himself. "I would bring you back, if I could."

She moved away from him.
There is still time, Teulon. Time for you to use your hands to build instead of destroy
.

"Wait." Teulon opened his eyes as he reached for her.

Like everything that mattered, she was gone.

Chapter Nine

Hurgot heard the shuffling sound of a woman seeking permission to enter his shelter, and finished bandaging the gash on his patient's forearm.

"Next time, keep your braces on," he told the young hunter before pulling his sleeve into place. "Ptar claws can cut through bone." He turned his head toward the flap. "Come in."

One of the younger women who wore the robe covering of a salvage sorter stepped through the flap and to one side before she dropped into a respectful crouch. "I am Ygrelda, Kheder."

Hurgot waited until the young hunter left before he told her to rise to her feet. "What is it?" he asked, feeling impatient. No more men were waiting to be treated, but a woman who came with empty hands boded nothing good.

"I come to ask after Resa, the ensleg female." Ygrelda's voice was soft, hesitant.

"She is not here."

The woman's head bobbed in agreement. "She was taken from the gjenvin master three suns ago."

Like everyone in the iiskar, Hurgot had been aware of Resa's presence, but only in the vaguest sense, through casual comments made by the other men.

Most of what was said came from ribald curiosity, as few of the men had ever tried an ensleg woman. The rasakt had not made her available for general use, and she had not shown herself around the camp to tempt anyone.

"Resa did well among us, Kheder." The woman stared at his feet. "She was modest, worked hard, and never asked for more than was offered her. She would do the same again if returned to the salvage sheds. Her presence is missed."

So it was the usual female nonsense. This one had befriended the ensleg and now wished a boon to bring her friend back to her side. "I have no say over such things," he told the woman. "Go back to work."

"May I know of how Resa does?" Ygrelda asked, cringing a little. "There has been no word of her."

Hurgot frowned. The women in the camp usually knew everything about everyone; they had nothing better to do than to gossip. If the women didn't know what had happened to her… "Where was she taken?"

"To the jlorra caves, Kheder. She was taken by the beast master." Ygrelda gulped. "She has not returned to the iiskar since."

Hurgot bit back a violent curse. "Who gave word to send her there?"

"It is said the order came from the shelter of the rasakt," Ygrelda said.

Sogayi
. Had it been Navn to give the order, everyone would know. The headman's wife had dared much this time. "Has the beast master returned to camp since Resa was taken?"

Ygrelda nodded. "Three times."

So Resa had been left with the jlorra, who were known to attack sleeping people when hungry enough. Hurgot went and pulled her to her feet. "Listen to me carefully. You will return to the sheds, and say nothing of this to anyone. I will go out to the jlorra caves to see that she is well, and bring you word. If she is—whatever has happened to her, you will accept it, and you will not speak of this again."

Ygrelda looked into his eyes. "She is good, Kheder. She does not deserve to be harmed. She did nothing wrong."

"She was born ensleg, and she did not die on the ice. That is reason enough for some." Unable to stand the weight of her eyes, Hurgot tugged her head wrap over her face. "Go now. I will send for you when I return."

It had been too cold to leave the shelters after sunset, but it was only midday, so when Ygrelda left, Hurgot put on his heaviest outfurs and prepared to go. After some thought, he put some food and tea in his medical pack.

Leaving the camp without being noticed was not difficult, for few paid attention to Hurgot anymore. He took care to leave casually rather than with a show of stealth, so as not to make his trek too obvious. To any eyes that spotted him, it would appear as if he were going to gather, as he often did, the medicinal molds and ice plants that grew around vent shafts.

There were no naturally occurring ice caves in the immediate vicinity of the camp, so Iiskar Navn's beast master had constructed artificial caves for his jlorra, stacking hewed blocks of ice to form three elongated domes. Several consecutive snowfalls had filled in the cracks between the blocks, and wind had scoured and rounded the surface until the caves looked almost identical to those formed in nature.

Hurgot knew Egil, the beast master. He was the son of a low-ranked hunter and one of the camp's ahayag. Handling pack animals was often a duty given to the youngest men until they gained more experience in hunting. Only when Egil had made a significant contribution to the camp's stores would he be raised to the status of hunter, and another with a less-certain hand on the bow would take his place. As Egil was also one of the lazier men in camp, he had held the position for far longer than usual.

There were no jlorra in the temporary holding pen, also built of ice blocks, on the side of the caves, so Hurgot stepped into the low, wide entrance.

"Egil?" he called out. "Are you here? It is Hurgot."

No voice answered, but the sound of many claws scraping the ice came to Hurgot's ears.

She is dead. Sogayi had him kill her and feed her to the beasts
. Hurgot felt angry and resigned, for he had half expected as much as soon as Ygrelda had told him of Resa's removal from the sheds.

He had turned to go back out when Resa appeared, surrounded on all sides by the beasts. She looked directly at him and smiled before remembering to drop into the customary crouch and wait to be addressed. One of the jlorra nuzzled the side of her face as she did so.

"Stand, Resa." When she had, Hurgot inspected her.

She wore ancient outfurs, and her face was smudged with soot marks, but otherwise she looked intact. "You are well?"

"Yes, Kheder." She gestured toward the back of the cave. "Come, I make tea for you?"

More curious now than thirsty, Hurgot followed her to the back of the center cave. The jlorra followed the ensleg silently, not even glancing once at Hurgot.