Relic

XXIV: Aprilus 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 Year 242, A.H.

As I head back to my igloo for the night, I promise myself that I will solve the riddle of Eamon’s words when I return home to the Aerie. I kneel before my diptych and pray to the Gods for relief from my doubts and for sleep, but neither comes.

I keep imagining myself wearing the circular wreath of the Laurels—just like Eamon wrote—and I wonder what Eamon would really think if he saw me now. I took on the mantle of the Testing because I believed it was his dream. But isn’t this exactly what he didn’t want? Me, out here?

I write all my secret thoughts down in this journal. I can’t fall asleep. Images of Tristan and Anders haunt me. I picture their eager, hopeful faces as they mounted their sleds at the Passage and plowed through the snow drifts. And memories of Eamon replay in my mind. All casualties of the Testing.

Finally I doze, and even though I wake up anything but refreshed the next morning, I am determined. I will pursue this Johansen Site strategy. I will not be lost to these rituals. At the first horn, I will race to my Claim and do everything possible to unearth a Relic from the ice. I will give purpose to the sacrifices of Tristan and Anders in addition to Eamon. Even if I’m right that he did question the Testing—or more.

I KEEP MY VOW, but my artifacts are not so keen to be extricated from their icy grave. Bit by painful bit, I dig into the ice to erect more scaffolding, melt down a thin layer of ice, and siphon the runoff down a tube to the crevasse below so that it won’t refreeze in the night. Just like Johansen did. Then I do it all over again.

By the first horn of evening, all I’ve accomplished is creating a small hollow in the side of the crevasse.

And so I spend the better part of six siniks burrowing into the ice wall in this maddening manner. Yet the artifact refuses to reveal itself. Every time I think I’m getting closer—and that the elusive grey shadow is taking form—I find myself up against another layer of ice. Each evening, I return to my igloo empty-handed. Only to face another sleep-deprived night, filled with visions of Eamon and Tristan and Anders.

By midday on the sixth sinik—exhausted but at least well-fed—I begin to doubt my strategy. The frozen stale air around me is loud with other Testors calling out for Boundary Climbers to witness their Relics. Lex protocol demands a Climber witness the actual removal of an artifact from the Claim in order for the item to be considered a Relic for the Testing.

The crevasse’s ice wall has begun to crawl with Testors and Boundary Climbers and new ropes and pulleys to carry the Relics to the surface. I catch snatches of whispered conversations between Testors and Climbers. Funny how the structure of the crevasse allows me to hear discussions on the far side of the ice wall, yet discussions taking place right above me remain inaudible. Not funny at all, actually. This strange phenomenon means that I can’t figure out what Jasper found even though he’s dangling directly overheard, yet I can hear quite clearly the conversation among Aleksandr, Neils, and a Climber about their shared discovery of a large cache of weapons—the Tech called “guns”—that the pre-Healing people used for their destructive wars. Gun Relics are always hugely popular finds, as they are almost always of a different breed, and they often lead to an Archon victory. Learning this doesn’t exactly help my mood.

With every overheard whisper, with every gobbled-down meal over the communal fire, with every Testor’s race back to his igloo to study his Relic under the gaze of a Scout serving as Reliquon, I get more and more upset. The Scout-Reliquons are the Relic keepers. I imagine the carrier pigeons landing in the Aerie town square, carrying initial reports of the Relics in the tiny packs around their necks and then the actual Chronicles, and the people’s reactions at the daily Gathering. And I can envision the disappointed expressions on my parents’ faces when, day after day, no report from Eva arrives. But news about Aleksandr and Neils’ Relics does.

By late afternoon of the sixth sinik, the ice wall becomes sapphire, and I gaze up at the sliver of sky I can see from my perch. I have maybe a bell before the first horn of evening sounds, and the Sun makes Her descent. I hold my naneq close to my hollow for the millionth time. It seems that the grey shadow is nearing the surface, but I’ve thought that many, many times over the past few siniks.

Shaking my head to clear it, I examine the ice again. It truly looks darker, as if that damned elusive shadow is finally surfacing from the ice.

I grab my pick and scrape at the emerging shape. After a few ticks, my pick meets with a resistance different than ice or snow. I hitch my naneq to a Claim stake and use my trowel along with the pick. My heart pounds. I can see it! The object is oblong and about the size of my pack. But I can’t get a clear fix on it just yet. A stubborn layer of ice clings to the artifact like winter frost, and I strip it away as hastily as I dare.

This … thing materializes in the low light of my naneq. It glows like a rare jewel in the white-blue of the crevasse wall. The color is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. In the Aerie, the closest shade would be found in the Ark—in the radishes that grow underground in the autumn, or the rare raspberries that burst forth from their delicate bushes in the summer. Or sometimes, you might see something like it in the long sunsets.

What is the name of that color again? I think Lukas used it once for me.

Oh, yeah: pink.