Relic

XXV: Aprilus 16 Year 242, A.H.

“Relic!” I call out. My breathless voice echoes loudly throughout the crevasse—too loudly, really—but I don’t care. It’s finally my turn.

The Climber takes tick after tick to reach me, and the wait feels unendurable, particularly in the fading sunlight. My pick and trowel are at the ready, and I’m dying to pry that pink treasure out of its ice grave. Just when I think I cannot wait another tick, the Climber scuttles down the ice wall. It’s the Climber from my first sinik in the crevasse, the one with the shock of white hair. I feel uncomfortable under his steady gaze as we start the ritualistic exchange.

“Are you ready to remove the Relic from the ice, Testor?” he asks.

I feel like screaming “yes.” Instead, I answer calmly in the sacred response, “Yes. It nears the surface, but hasn’t hit the air.”

“I have the Relic bag ready. You may begin, Testor.”

I start chipping out the artifact. I’m so eager to remove the stubborn last layer of ice that I wield my pick a little too roughly. “With care, Eva. With care,” the Climber whispers.

His gentle advice and his use of my name startle me, and I turn away from my Claim to look at him. The Climber meets my eyes. His unflinching gaze makes me feel embarrassed by my reaction. Why do his words surprise me? Is it the advice, or is it that he called me Eva? Both would be frowned upon by the Triad, no doubt. As a Climber, he would be briefed on all the Testors—their names, their family backgrounds, their skills—so, of course, he would know my Water-name. Is it that he’s a Boundary person? A Boundary person wouldn’t ordinarily address a Maiden of the Aerie so familiarly, although I never minded when Lukas called me Eva. Then again, I had to beg him. I don’t know why I feel so funny around this Climber.

I return to my Claim and work a little slower. Soon the Relic reveals itself. The pink material covering the object doesn’t feel like any animal skin or weave spun in the Aerie that I’ve ever seen. It has a consistent pattern and texture that is somehow smooth yet bumpy, all at once. What animal could have yielded this skin? No, it’s not animal hide. The pre-Healing people made fabrics out of all sorts of unnatural materials and by unnatural means.

I chisel around its oblong perimeter. Locked in place for the past two hundred and fifty years, the object releases with a whoosh that sends me flying. I swing back and forth over the crevasse with the Relic gripped in my hands. I know I should reach out to stop myself from getting lanced by one of the jagged ice formations jutting from the opposing wall, but I won’t risk dropping my Relic.

Without a word, the Climber pulls me back to my Claim. My heart thumps again. This is forbidden. Why has he helped me once again? Did Jasper put him up to it? Did my parents? I cannot imagine any one of them breaking The Lex so egregiously to protect me in the Testing, no matter how much they care about me.

I nod my thanks to this Boundary person, who of course does not respond. As if nothing unusual had happened between us, he motions for me to slide my Relic into the special bag he hands me. We are suddenly performing the rituals again as proscribed in The Lex. I place the Relic carefully into the bag. Then I take the bag back from the Climber and put it into my pack.

I say a special thanks to the Gods and start my ascent. With the Climber at my back, subtly pushing me along, I make it to the top with a couple of ticks to spare. I’m desperate to tear open the Relic bag and discover just what I’ve found, but I have to comply with the rituals or lose my Claim. As soon as we reach terra firma, the Climber leaves me to report my Relic discovery to the Scouts, who, in turn, are supposed record it into the Testing book.

I don’t trust that Scout Okpik will allow the recording to transpire without some kind of protest. So I wait, watching the ritual in its entirety. Okpik listens intently as the Climber describes my Relic.

“Pink?” I hear him say loudly across the Testing Site.

Okpik scoffs and glances over at me with a little smirk, and then enters my find into the book without a fight. I guess he thinks my find is worthless—especially after Aleksandr and Neils’s discovery.

I don’t care. I have a chance. Maybe not at winning the Archon Laurels, but at surviving—which is the key out here. I have my Relic. I clutch the bag to me, tight as I dare. I must wait until I return to my igloo to examine it—and even then, under the watchful eyes of a Scout-Reliquon—so I look around the Testing Site. The other Testors are clambering to the surface.

The final horn of the evening sounds. I look around to see if anyone notices the Relic in my hands. No one glances my way except Jasper, who gives me a little grin. I know he’s watched how the days without a discovery have weighed upon me; I’ve caught him staring at me. The more I’ve observed him in return, the less I suspect him of hidden motives. I believe that he really was looking out for me in the crevasse on that first sinik, simply as a Gallant. I think that he might have even finagled access to a secret map, maybe that of his grandfather Magnus, so he would be sure to stay ahead of me in the Testing. To keep an eye on me. Not to win. Or maybe to do both. Which, in a way, I love.

I sneak a smile back at him.

The communal meal over the fire passes by in a blur of hurried eating and rushed prayers to the Gods. I just want to get to the solitude of my igloo. But then the moment arrives. When it’s just me and my Relic and a hefty Scout-Reliquon—one I don’t know—invading the tiny space of my igloo, I feel scared. What if I handle the object improperly? Some Relics are so delicate they can fall apart once their icy coffin melts around them. Every year, after coming so far, at least one Testor loses for that reason. I did not want to be that Testor this year. Mentally, I review Eamon’s notes on the safe thawing of artifacts.

No matter how eager, always act slowly; the Relic is fragile and could disintegrate at an overly hasty touch. Light your work space, but be certain to keep the warmth of the flame at a distance. Warm the air steadily, and remember that it might take more than one evening to thaw the Relic safely. Only if you must—if the Relic is refusing to emerge—use the smallest of picks to gently scrape and loosen the ice around the Relic and then return to the process of warming the air around the Relic with patience.

On the sealskin mat work area I’ve set up in my igloo, I set up two lighted naneqs. Mindful of the Scout-Reliquon’s stare, I retrieve the supply of caribou moss that I collected in the Taiga. The Scout-Reliquon smiles, I think. Perhaps he knows what I’ve learned about the prevention of decay from my time in the Ark. I wonder what else he knows. I slide the pink object out of the bag. Its vivid color looks startling—even kind of riotous—here in the center of the black mat in the all-white igloo. I close my eyes for a brief tick, trying to imagine a world where such bright, unnatural colors were commonplace. A world where everything wasn’t the Lex-sanctified white or grey or black. Or Gods-given ice-blue or blood-red or animal-brown. This is New North. I simply cannot picture anything else.

The exterior of the Relic has thawed. It is roughly the size of my pack, and a bit lighter. Turning it over, I see that the object—which is unadorned on the front—has two wide pieces of identical cloth attached to its back in an arc. I cannot think of a possible purpose for these odd strips of material. I haven’t seen anything like it in any of Eamon’s carefully transcribed histories of the Testings.

Careful not to put too much pressure on the material, I turn the Relic this way and that. The more I examine it, the more I think the pieces of cloth look like the straps of my pack. I don’t want to stretch the material to the point of tearing, so I align it with my back to see if the straps would fit. They do.

So it is a pack of some sort. Does that mean the Relic holds something else inside? Something even more important than the pink object itself?

My heart starts up again. If it’s true that the Relic is a case or pack, how in the Gods do I open it? I don’t see an opening on any side. One edge of the Relic is lined with a metallic edge that, upon closer examination, looks a little bit like clenched teeth. I assume it’s decorative—as so many things were in the days before the Healing—but then I play with the metal tab at the end of the edging.

I stop breathing. The Relic opens with a strange “z” sort of sound.

Four objects spill out onto the sealskin mat. Each item is encased by a clear coating I assume is a thin layer of ice. What else would so tightly cover an object and yet be so transparent? Yet, when I look at each item—careful not to touch and unduly warm the delicate artifacts—I realize I am wrong. The objects are enclosed by translucent pouches.

Incredible. What are these strange transparent sacs made of? And, more importantly, how can I get the objects out of them? There’s nothing in Eamon’s journal addressing such things, and I’ve never heard past Testors mention them. But I have read that pre-Healing materials sometimes melt when they got too close to flame or warmth. I’d hate to destroy this cache so carelessly. Eyes wide, I examine the items without touching them or bringing my naneq too close. I notice the Scout-Reliquon holds his breath, too.

Getting as near as I dare, I study one pouch that contains a rectangular black object, decorated by a triangle with the word Prada. What is a “Prada”? I’ve never heard that word in English, Latin, Boundary, or the odd smattering of French, Finnish, Swedish, and Russian—the pre-Healing languages that work their way into everyday talk in the Aerie. Prada doesn’t sound like any of the false charms and talismans associated with Apple or his demons. It isn’t one of the names that come up in The Lex or in one of the prayers we recite in the Basilika. And, just by looking at the black triangle, I can’t figure out what a Prada is supposed to be.

My pulse quickens. This is a true discovery. Unprecedented. My curiosity gets to me, and against the better judgment of probably every Archon and Testor in New North, I seize the pouch. The Scout-Reliquon gasps, but I’m so fixated on this Prada that I barely hear him. I expect the object to be hard, but its translucent material is flexible, like the woven cloth we use to make our gowns in the Aerie. In fact, it’s so unexpectedly wiggly that I drop it.

The pouch hits the sealskin mat and splits open. Many small rectangles spill out of the Prada into the clear sack. The rectangles have colorful stripes and patterns on them, and I kneel close. All are emblazoned with strange words: Visa, American Express, Nordea Bank Finland, and Kirov Ballet. But only one is instantly recognizable: MasterCard, the wicked currency promoted by Apple and his demons. I shudder involuntarily at being so close to an evil thing. The mirror has been in my home since I was born; I’ve always known it. But this is different. Being so close to an evil thing that hasn’t been sanctified by ritual scares me. And perhaps these other rectangles are MasterCard’s minions.

A simple white rectangle pokes out from the pile. In all this color and design, its plainness draws me in. I take a closer look. A minuscule image of a girl is somehow grafted onto its surface. The likeness is so startlingly real that I jump back, bumping into the Scout-Reliquon. Chiding myself for being ridiculous, I mutter an apology and bend back toward the image. I smooth out a ripple in the translucent pouch to get a better look at the girl’s face. With her fair hair and bright blue eyes, the girl in the picture is beautiful. If you ignore all the paint on her face, of course. And she appears to be about my age.

How did the pre-Healing people make such a lifelike picture? I’ve never seen anything like it in the Aerie. Pigments are so rare. Even those sacred tapestries woven out of dyed thread for the Basilica or for diptychs look rudimentary compared with this. Only then do I notice tiny writing underneath the picture. The word nimi is there; I recognize the Finnish word for name from the Finnish-origin Founding families who occasionally still use the word. Beneath nimi are two words: Elizabet Laine. And then I know. The girl in the picture—the girl to whom the Prada and all of these artifacts belonged—was called Elizabet Laine.