A Dream of Ice

PROLOGUE

Exile.

The word stuck in Azha’s memory like an angry barb. The only thing that stung more was the name and face of the traitor, that serene lunatic who had assumed rights and powers no Galderkhaani should ever possess.

We trusted each other with everything, she thought angrily, but now I alone pay for his sins.

Wisps of wet cloud and red hair whipped across Azha’s face as her airship glided east, hundreds of feet above the white, icy surface. Balanced on the rigging with several dogbane-fiber ropes looped over her forearms in case she lost her footing, the former Cirrus Farm commander sidled along while completing her scan of the enormous inflated hortatur skin above her. She did not like what she saw.

Cursing it all—but at this moment, mostly the ship—she climbed down to the gondola as carelessly as she dared, her movements as natural and familiar to her as breathing. She dropped the last few feet. The seventy-foot-long, wicker-ribbed basin was empty but for two other people: Dovit, her man with black dreadlocks to his waist and touches of gray at his temples, and Azha’s younger sister, Enzo, her short-cropped hair black as coal.

As Azha leaped the last few feet into the gondola, she cursed again in frustration.

“I couldn’t see any leaks so there must be one higher up,” she groaned. “Naturally, the bastards gave me the oldest ship in the fleet.”

“Exile was not designed for comfort,” the man remarked.

“And these ships were not designed for this much travel over land,” Enzo added cautiously. “It dries the fabric. The ocean’s thermal updrafts are what really keep them aloft—”

“Enough!” Azha slammed her hand down hard on the console. “What I need are solutions, not a discourse in cloud farming.” She glared at Dovit and then her sister. “I don’t even know why you came! You had your own life, your own—people.”

“Because I couldn’t let you face this alone!” Enzo said.

“Neither of us could,” Dovit said, putting a hand on Azha’s arm. “And my ‘people,’ as you call them, supported me in my love for you.”

“Love,” she said, pushing his fingers off. “Is that all?”

“What more?” Dovit asked.

“Nothing,” Azha said, glaring at her sister again, her red hair rising and twisting in the wind like slender serpents. “This is my doing, my choice, but it’s a sign of how perverse our society has become. I’m banished for trying to stop someone from committing genocide.”

“You were banished for trying to enter the Technologist Inner Quarter with a spear, two knives, and a grapnel,” Dovit said, correcting her. “There are far more legal and far less dramatic ways to express dissent.”

“Dissent,” Azha muttered, glancing up at the swaying balloon. “It wasn’t about ‘dissent,’ Dovit. It was—an impulse. I learned the facts and had to do something.”

“A legitimate reaction,” Dovit agreed. “But, as I said, there are legitimate forms of redress.”

“None that would have worked in time,” Azha said.

“So say you,” the man replied.

“Dovit, you were on the Technologist Council. You heard that someone was going to initiate the Source before the council decided it was ready.”

“We all heard those rumors, mostly from Priests.”

“You know how I hate to side with those people, with any of your mad allies,” Azha said, “but they weren’t rumors.”

Dovit shrugged. “That is irrelevant. Most did not accept the rumors as true. They still don’t. Action requires belief.”

“It was true, it is true,” Azha said, turning to face him. “And it will kill them all.”

“We went through all of this at your hearing,” Dovit replied patiently. “You offered no proof.”

Azha’s gaze fell. “I couldn’t.”

“Why?” Enzo pleaded, bracing herself against the rocking gondola. “There is no harm in telling us now—we’re not going back.”

Azha looked at her sister and then at the man who meant so much to her, especially now. She didn’t wish to reward his sacrifice with hurt.

“Azha?” Dovit asked, reading her mood—as always. “Please tell me. What is it?”

“You really want to know?”

“That is why I asked,” he said with a wary smile.

Azha sighed, casting her eyes past the proud, formidable quarry master toward the distant spires. “Dovit, before you and I were lovers I was joined as a lover with the man who planned this treacherous scheme.”

Dovit looked at her with surprise—and understanding. “And you still are.”

“Yes.”

“And yet,” Dovit said, “you were armed for murder.”

“Yes.”

Dovit and Enzo shared a look. He hurt for Azha more than he hurt for himself.

“There was no other choice,” Azha said. “He refused to hear arguments against it and is surrounded by too many influential people who will cover for any misdeeds,” Azha said. “Of course, I threatened to take his plan to the others, to his people, but we both knew the truth: they would have descended on me like buzzing punita on the remains of the dead. That is why I had to try to stop this act the old-fashioned way.”

Dovit looked at her with a blend of sadness and regret. “I wish you had trusted me. I and my lovers also have powerful friends.”

“In the wrong places,” Azha said. “Agriculture, tile masonry, seafaring, the stars…”

Dovit moved cautiously in the swaying basket to Azha’s side, fresh urgency in his voice. He glanced back to the high stone tower from which they had departed a short sun-arc ago. “Listen to me. If you are telling the truth, and the Source isn’t ready, then yes—it could take a great many lives! There are things, many things outsiders do not know about.”

Azha gave him a look. “What things, Dovit?”

“The reach vents for instance, and the conduits have been expanded—extensive work that was done underground.”

“Underground?” Azha shot back. “How was that accomplished?”

“In great secrecy and in remote regions,” the Technologist replied. “We must go back.”

Azha regarded the man with pity. “Now you reveal this.”

“There are people I would protect too,” he said.

Azha shook her head. “This frail vessel will not make it. Even if it could, very soon it will be too late.” She paused, took a deep breath and looked at the open sky. “Breaking exile means incarceration. I would rather die up here.”

“Airships fall,” Dovit said, indicating the ground far beneath his feet. “You will die down there.”

“A figure of speech,” Azha replied.

“Sister, many will die if we do not try!” implored Enzo.

“They brought it on themselves,” Azha said coldly. “They wouldn’t listen and there is nothing more to be said.”

Silence fell upon them as the truth of her words and the fate of countless Galderkhaani settled on them like a heavy mist.

Azha pushed past her companions to the side of the gondola. Leaning far over and looking up, she surveyed the charcoal-gray surface of the balloon again. A huge ripple crossed the side of it.

Moving toward her, Enzo pleaded, “Please, Azha, let’s turn back.”

“To save lives, or so you can go back to your crazed mentor, to Rensat?”

“She is an enlightened soul,” Enzo said defensively.

“She is a fanatic with a Candescent obsession.”

“She is a fanatic?” Enzo laughed. “We have long believed that you are the fanatic.”

“Isn’t every expeditionary commander?” Azha shot back. “Do you think it is easy pushing the boundaries of our farming efforts farther and farther from the city where the winds and cold are—”

“That isn’t what your sister means,” Dovit interrupted. “Your well-known defiance of—”

“The Candescent Doctrine?” Azha cut him off, adding hand gestures to her words, small but emphatic arcs and angles.

“Farmers complained that you preached it on every voyage you ever took, while they were aloft in the ropes where they could not escape hearing,” Dovit said. “ ‘Seed the clouds with jasmine, don’t search the tiles for bones. Embrace the breath of life, not the stones of death.’”

“Mine was a voice of moderation”—Azha poked her own chest—“something to balance the street-corner oratory of all your mindless followers. You and your kind are ripping us apart!”

“You talk of rigid pragmatism as if it were the only way,” Enzo said accusatorily.

“It is my way,” Azha said. “I accepted exile not only for my deed but because I’ve had enough! The Technologist Source may work, someday, and perhaps so will the cazh of the Priests, someday.” She gestured angrily to the sky. “But the Candescents? There is no proof that they are up there. There is no evidence that they are listening for you, or for you, Dovit. You simply believe, based on legends, that they are waiting to absorb you. And while you seek them, you miss life itself.”

“The word of a naysayer is not evidence,” Enzo said.

“How about the fact that they’re gone?” Azha muttered. “Is that not evidence? If they ever lived at all.”

“They lived,” Enzo said. “And what is ‘gone’?” Enzo asked temperately, before answering her own question. “Only their bodies. Only that.”

“ ‘Only their bodies,’” Azha sneered. “That’s all? You’re ridiculous.”

“Azha,” Dovit said gently. “That is not appropriate, or fair. And you know, I have always listened to both sides. I have advocated the Source and I have advocated the cazh.”

Azha could feel her anger rising and she began making larger gestures to communicate that. She turned, shook her head slowly. “And that is why I love you, Dovit. You are a moderate voice.”

The wicker basin shuddered. The trio looked up, out, and then back at each other.

“A deadly antique,” Azha sighed.

Dovit smiled. “It is so old it smells of the jasmine fleet it used to lead.”

Azha moved to the ropes, tugging in frustration, and cast her eyes with conviction and longing to the east, away from the city, toward a darkening horizon. “We must set down before long. It’s strange but I have long wanted to explore the vast ice-locked eastern lands. The great birds of air and land survive somewhere out there, outside our great oasis.”

“We will find it and learn to live as they do,” Dovit said confidently. “Eating fish, creating water from ice and sun, making clothes from the dead of the sea.”

The balloon shuddered again and this time, it did not fully reinflate.

Dovit stepped behind Azha and embraced her. “Hope,” he said, “has an enemy in unfavorable wind currents.”

Azha looked at him, trying to smile at his soft candor. “Thank you, Dovit, for being here. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

Enzo regarded them. “Sister,” she said. “Now that we are away from the state—tell me, who wishes to activate the Source?”

Azha turned to look at her. “Why? Why does that still matter to you?”

“Like Dovit, I chose to join you in exile,” Enzo said. “I have given up everything. I want to know why… for whom.”

Azha shook her head. “I will not say. I do not want this to color our lives in any way.”

“It is a Priest?” Enzo said.

Azha regarded her suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”

Enzo looked back at the glimmering towers of Galderkhaan, the setting sun darting through the sharp spires. “Please tell me!”

Dovit and Azha both regarded the young woman.

“I will not!” Azha said. “Enzo, what is wrong?”

“What Dovit said about the subterranean tunnels,” she said. “It will be a catastrophe. The Priests must stop this.” Enzo’s eyes were wide, helpless. “Please! Tell me the name!”

A shudder ran through Azha; it was not caused by the failing airship but by a sudden realization.

“Enzo, you came to spy on me? But—how would you have gotten the information back to Galderkhaan? You could not survive the journey on foot or make it in time!”

“I would not need to,” Enzo replied. The woman smiled sadly as she regarded her sister. “Azha, I love you, even beyond death.”

Azha heard the strange finality in Enzo’s voice, the distant look in her eyes… a look that fastened on the fading, distant towers of their home.

Just then a loud flapping sound drew their attention up. Above, they saw yet another ripple in the skin of the dirigible, larger than before. Once again, the tube-shaped balloon failed to pop back into its correct structure. There was a lurch, and the airship began to drop, slowly at first. But they all realized it would pick up speed as it fell.

As Azha grasped the side of the gondola for support, she failed to see Enzo reach into her pocket and pull out a small, clear vessel filled with a yellow liquid.

“Fera-cazh…,” Enzo began.

Azha spun toward her sister with alarm. “What are you doing!?” she screamed. “Enzo, no!” Azha lunged at her sister, reaching for the vial and Enzo’s throat at the same time. “Glogharasor!” she shrieked. “You doom us all! I’ll throw you over before you set fire to my ship!”

But the ship heaved as huge repeating ripples made the balloon look like it was full of water. The three grabbed handholds as the gondola tilted and the shuddering, tipping airship fell faster from the sky. In no time at all they were seeing the sharp details of the rapidly approaching ice field below.

Enzo opened her vial and emptied the oil over herself. “Tell me the name of the one who betrays our people!” she shouted at her sister.

“Don’t do this!” Azha implored.

Enzo dropped the bottle and regarded her sister. “Please—tell me!”

“Why? We’re not—we cannot—turn back!”

“There is no need! I will remember it after—”

“After you die?” Azha raged. “You are too far from the stones—you won’t be able to tell anyone!”

“Azha,” yelled Dovit, “take my hands.”

“No!”

“For once, trust!” Dovit pleaded. “Repeat the cazh with me! Believe that even if you believe in nothing else!”

Azha realized it was too late to save the airship or themselves and reluctantly called out the name. Despite the wind screeching all around them, Enzo heard it and began to chant.

Aytah fera-cazh grymat ny-haydonai pantar, pantar ida… Aytah fera-cazh grymat ny-haydonai pantar, pantar ida.

Dovit did likewise, firmly holding both of Azha’s hands. Reluctantly, she joined him.

The ship lurched again and jolted until it was nose-down, plunging like a comet toward a gigantic crevasse.

And then the ice field seemed to suck the great airship into itself, bashing the gondola against the walls of the crevasse, shredding the deflated balloon. Screaming and barely holding on, Azha sought Dovit’s eyes.

Enzo, bellowing her chant, exploded in flame.

And then they hit water, salt water, and plummeted down and down into its abyss. Enzo continued to burn within the sea. Azha refused to let go of Dovit and tried to kick herself up but the descending ship created a vortex she could not overpower. She fought with all her strength but soon she had to take a breath where there was no breath to take.

She was the last to drown but not the last to die.

Electrical engineer Jina Park drove her shovel down hard on the ice covering the miniature windmill that was supposed to help power this remote GPS station. She paused and looked up to see Fergal MacIan, who, having uncovered the solar panel that did the other half of the work, had tired of waiting for her to finish. He had mounted his snowmobile and was driving in circles around the vast white landscape like a teenager. Jina laughed and shook her head at the familiar sight. Three weeks into their posting, she had become the rational “sibling” of the duo and remained so throughout the Antarctic winter.

She lowered her head to the task at hand and felt a tiny pop in her nose. Tucking a gloved finger beneath her balaclava, she knew what to expect. The hyper-dry air had done it again: blood.

Then she smelled something. Not blood; burning plastic? Or sulfur? She looked down to see a bright yellow flame jump from the ice and engulf the left leg of her supposedly fireproof salopette. The other leg caught fire a second later.

“Fergal, help! Help me!”

Jina threw herself to the snow and rolled but the flames would not smother; in an instant she was consumed. She screamed and wailed as the pain tore through her, her clothes melting into her flesh as it bubbled and flaked.

Fergal, caught up in his manic figure eights, heard nothing over the roar of his engine until something caught the corner of his eye. Over his shoulder he saw a black and gold tower that seemed to dance in the polar wind, then topple over. He jerked the snowmobile around for a better view and, misjudging the arc, flipped the vehicle hard. With the full weight of it pinning him to the ice, he skidded for what must have been a hundred feet. Finally, with the engine humming helplessly, he and the mangled machine came to a full stop. With the last ounce of strength he could muster before losing consciousness, Fergal turned his eyes toward the diminishing flames and screamed, “Jina!”

But Jina was beyond hearing. She was beyond pain. She was deep within herself, observing her body as it burned away. In the distance she saw Fergal turn his head toward her. She imagined stretching a blazing hand toward him, touching his broken body, but he did not move.

Then Jina heard a voice…

“Varrem,” it whispered.

She turned her attention skyward and knew that something was looming above her. It was vast, unfamiliar, and overpowering. As it bore down she screamed from the depths of her soul. The Antarctic wind picked up, skipping with her ashes across the surface of the snow as everything grew very dark, very still, and very, very quiet.