Relic

XXVII: Aprilus 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23 Year 242, A.H.

All I want to do is stay in the igloo, making sense of Elizabet Laine’s belongings and of her strange pre-Healing life. Her Chronicle is starting to form in my mind, and I’m eager to begin it. Especially since I think this discovery might actually give me a chance at the Archon Laurels. It is so unlike anything I’d imagined finding.

But I can’t begin. Not yet anyway. The spring thaw hasn’t started, so all us Testors must continue with our Claim digs until the Site is closed down as unsafe. The Triad—and all the people waiting back in the Aerie—want us to find more and more. I’ll do my duty. But what could I possibly unlock from the ice that would be more compelling than Elizabet Laine’s pack?

My fellow Testors seem eager to descend into the crevasse each of those six mornings. Even Aleksandr and Neils. When that horn sounds out, they race to the Site ready to begin, as if it is the first day of the dig. Why? Aleksandr and Neils have already found key Relics. From overheard whispers in the crevasse, I know that the other Testors have all uncovered Relics of educational value. Jacques found a box of remedies—including Tylenols—which will cause an even greater furor in the Aerie town square than Prozacs. Benedict, Petr, and Thurstan all found cartons containing silver-foiled packets of foodstuffs that look nothing like food. William discovered the metallic nets of a fishing boat, and Jasper unearthed the machine designed to make that boat travel quickly through the seas. The pre-Healing people hated fish and water. I couldn’t hear what Knud located—maybe he hasn’t found anything, he seems so lackluster since the news about Tristan.

Any of these Relics would garner a Testor a solid chance at winning the Archon Laurels. Only an artifact that served in direct tribute to the false god Apple would beat them out. And such a treasure hasn’t been found for nearly one hundred and fifty years. Not since Madeline.

Yet, even though they all scamper back to their igloos at night, not a single one of the Testors has begun to send Chronicles back to the Aerie by carrier pigeon. Surely their Relics bear cautionary tales worthy of a Chronicle, and the first to send in a Chronicle always seems to gain an edge. Oddly, they all seem determined to find something else, something rarer and more interesting.

Are they trying to top my discovery?

There’s no way they could have learned about my find. Only the pink pack was registered in the Testing book; I have not instructed the Scout-Reliquon to enter the pack’s contents yet. I want to make better sense of the items first. And there’s no way the other Testors could have access to my Relics during the day; all the Relics are under the Scout-Reliquons’ guard. Unless Scout Okpik is conspiring with my assigned Scout-Reliquon and others against me? But I can’t give into my suspicions.

I don’t want the other Testors sniffing around my Claim, and I still don’t trust Aleksandr and Neils even though they haven’t done anything untoward. Yet. So I pretend I’m still looking for a worthy Relic. I arrive at the lineup for the first horn of morning as if I’d rested the night before instead of furiously studying Elizabet’s belongings during the short time allotted me by the Scout-Reliquon. I belay down the crevasse wall as if I am desperate to locate a teaching artifact. I dig into the wall and siphon off rivers of water as if I must make my Claim yield. And I give Jasper pitiable half-smiles when he looks down to see how I’m faring. I need him to believe in the paucity of my findings too, although I feel a little guilty about deceiving him.

As I go through the motions of the excavation, I dream of Elizabet’s belongings and what I’ve learned about them during the past six evenings. I think about the first pouch, with the Prada and the multi-colored rectangles that fit within its little slots. I believe that they are some form of currency—like Euros—which the pre-Healing people had to earn and use to pay for life’s necessities; I’m pretty sure that’s true of the MasterCard anyway. Incredibly, pre-Healing leaders didn’t think it was their job to dispense food or provide a safe home for their people. The leaders assigned false values to this currency and forced their people to barter for survival with worthless MasterCards. The Keeper of the Ark wouldn’t dream of denying anyone the fruits of the harvest. Pari passu, the Keeper always says at Harvest time, quoting The Lex, of course. And all the Triad members echo that view, in words and actions

I think about Elizabet using the patterned bag within the second clear sack. It turns out that the colorful vials and bottles are Maybellines and Chanels—kinds of face paint—a sad statement about the pre-Healing values and the sin of Vanity. The three brown bottles—including the Prozac—are remedies for mysterious pre-Healing diseases called pain and depression. I know what pain is, of course. And I know that depression is a kind of pain of the mind. But I think it is odd that they suffered so much, considering that they didn’t know the Healing was coming, that their deaths were near. Maybe they somehow knew that their lives were empty and false? And anyway, the Founders told us that these conditions had no magical cure.

THE NIGHT OF THE sixth sinik, I discover what I must do.

It stems from the moment I touch a small button on the mysterious oblong black object I found in the third sack. A bright, bluish light shoots out from it. A light that reminds me of the one that shone on my tent the night Scout Okpik visited me. It’s hard to imagine a world where light came at the mere touch of a finger, instead of arduous ticks with flint and steel over hard-won wood. The pre-Healing people lived in a world of luxury and indulgence, and had no appreciation for it. As for the knife, lodestone, and water sack, well, I still can’t figure out why a girl living in a bustling pre-Healing city would have need for them. They are items used for hunting. All I can figure is that they were sentimental trinkets of a past time before the world became so full and crazy.

Before it vanishes, the light strikes the “Kirov Ballet” book I’ve discovered in the last clear pouch, which contains countless lifelike renderings of dancers in practically no clothing, in all sorts of lewd poses. They have the same precise, realistic appearance as the image on the card with the word nimi. And the dancer who appears in most of the pictures is Elizabet Laine.

Yet the images that move me most are the sketches in a greyish ink along the page borders, the ones that bear a more homemade look. Pictures that seem as though Elizabet had drawn them herself, especially since they bear her initials. Here, a lone dancer is shown on stage in series of uncomfortable contortions before a sea of leering faces. Again, the barely clothed dancer closely resembles Elizabet.

Elizabet looks so exposed. And so very, very cold.

Poor, poor Elizabet. I wish I could cover up her shame. From the humiliation of exposing her body nightly and her spirit daily, with none of the Maidenly protections that the Aerie affords young women. She had none of the Lex-sanctified rules that I benefit from every day, even if I bristle at them from time to time. Maybe my mother has some justification for all her Lex adherence after all.

Because of this, I almost don’t want to share my Relics with anyone, even though there is no precedent for this discovery. Eamon’s meticulous research into past Testings has shown me that. Not even the stuff of rumors. My discovery could be unusual—even legendary. Like my father’s mirror.

But I believe that it’s much more.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s Eamon’s death. Maybe it’s Lukas’s map. Maybe it’s the conspiracy against me that I detect in whispers and glances. But I feel like this is a Gods-given sign. Elizabet Laine sent me this gift from the days before the Healing. With this offering comes a Gods-entrusted duty to Elizabet and to the people of New North—to the past and to the present. I must write a new sort of Chronicle, not simply a cautionary tale of how an object led to the world’s downfall and necessitated the cleansing waters of the Healing.

How will I do this? I have never heard—or read—a Chronicle that wasn’t simply a story of a Relic and the horrific damage it inflicted.

Then it comes to me. My Chronicle will not be just the story of Elizabet’s pink pack and its contents, but the story of Elizabet. I will tell the story of a life lost in the end … lost even before the Healing. And I will tell Elizabet’s story as if I was seeing those final days through Elizabet’s eyes. As if I was her, one of the many sinners who brought about the Healing.

My heart races at the thought of writing this unusual Chronicle. My mother and father will approve; Lukas will approve; Jasper will approve … Eamon would have approved. And this is how I will win. This is how a Maiden can become an Archon.

The Chronicle of Elizabet Laine, Part I

I am lost. Horribly lost. I thought I’d made the proper turn when I left the doctor’s office, but the St. Petersburg streets are a dense warren of dead ends and intersecting roadways. The buildings are starting to look familiar, and I’m pretty sure I’ve made a circle.

The panic starts to build inside me. I’m going to be late. Very late. What will the Keeper of the Ballet do to me?

It doesn’t help my fear that the streets are melting as I go further and further into the warren. The sky-touching buildings grow less and less ornate; instead, they look more like decaying stone towers about to topple onto the garbage heaps lining the streets. I can’t believe people actually live in these teetering steeples stacked one upon another like a deck of cards, but the fresh piles of discarded Cokes and Hersheys on the balconies speak to their habitation. These are the homes of the Penny class. They aren’t even afforded the decoration of the metal trees that line the central St. Petersburg streets where the Euro class lives. It’s beyond bleak in here.

Although it’s still afternoon, the skies are growing dark from the black clouds emitting from the factories. No Electrics light the backstreets, save for the Neons of the adverts for Cokes and Maybellines and, of course, the God Apple. In this darkness, I’m finding it increasingly hard to sidestep the rubbish … and the people.

In some ways, the people are familiar enough. Like most in St. Petersburg, the males wear tight-fitting Levis and tops with stripes and bright patterns, and the females wear Minis and Manolos—just like me. As with many in St. Petersburg, the males leer at the females, and the females competitively scan each other’s costumes. And just like those on the Euro streets, they hold close to their faces the little worship tablets to the God Apple, so they can whisper prayers, something I find myself doing more and more these days. Although these people are probably praying for more Pennies. I pray for help of a different kind.

But these people do look different than those in the Euro parts of St. Petersburg that I normally frequent. Different than me. They are coughing, and they bear the pasty, pale skin of sickness. At any tick, one of their bodies—weakened by the food and the remedies—could spread a Plague, and I want to avoid brushing against them at all costs.

But it isn’t easy to remain untouched amidst the garbage and the throngs of people, and my shoe stick catches on a Coke. I tumble to the cracking, stone ground—no grass exists in St. Petersburg to break my fall—and find myself face-to-face with one of the Homeless. His face is caked with grime from the air and streets. The Homeless is Penniless and can’t afford food, and he’s so thin that his bones nearly poke through the skin. I see this through the holes in the garbage bag he wears for clothes. For a tick, I am mesmerized by the awfulness of his situation and can’t move my eyes or body away from him.

The Homeless mistakes my momentary paralysis for injury. Despite his own bodily weakness, the Homeless tries to rise and help me up. I flinch away from his touch—the Homeless are known to spread all sorts of Plagues—and push myself to standing. I check to make sure my pink pack is still on my back. Then I run.

As I dart in and out of people and trash and Fords, I start to cry. The Homeless was only trying to help—even though no one had ever tried to help him. But what choice did I have? Would I have acted any differently in my Finnish homeland, where the odd tree still grows? Where you can still find a patch of green grass? Probably not. Every man for himself, my father always says. That’s what God Apple wants. My father quotes the preachers on the Panasonic.

I see a canal bridge in the distance, and I aim for it. Recalling that I crossed one on my way to the doctor’s office, I figure it’s my best bet out of the awful Penny backstreets. As I near the bridge, the streets look appreciably cleaner, and the buildings looks less like lean-tos. I mouth a silent plea to Apple that I’m getting close to the Teatralnaya ploshchad.

Apple answers my prayer. Only two streets away, I spy the high white dome and pale green walls of the Mariinsky Theater, home to the Kirov Ballet, the building that dominates the Teatralnaya ploshchad. My calling here is a blessing for my family—Euros to send home to Finland for them—but a curse for me. No matter how I really feel about it in the private chambers of my Spirit, because Apple can see even there.

I break into a sprint. It’s nearly a bell to curtain time, and the Keeper of the Ballet will be raging at my absence and screaming at the other Dancers about the whereabouts of his Principal. Soon, the theater will fill with the lavishly dressed men and women of the Euro class, and the Ballet cannot begin without me. Elizabet Laine, Prima Ballerina.

Throwing back the golden gates of the theater entrance, I race past the box office and the crystal lobby to the changing area. I dart into my dressing room, where the Dressers await me. Their faces are full of fear; the Keeper has flown through here on wings of fury, I see. The best thing I can do for the Dressers—for all of them, really—is to ready myself for the Ballet quickly.

I stretch out my arms, and the Dressers strip me of my clothes. In a mere tick, I stand before them completely naked. A few months ago, this would have embarrassed me to the core of my Spirit. But no more. It is what my career requires. It is what Apple demands. My body no longer belongs to me.

The Dressers affix to my body flimsy, sheer pieces of fabric. They lace onto my feet silken shoes with hard, wooden toes. They wrap my white-blonde hair into a complicated knot on the top of my head, and weave glistening jewels through it. But they leave my face to me.

I draw close to the mirror. I open my pink pack and pull from it a bag of yellow and pink stripes. As I do, my hand brushes against the packet of gear I used in Finland when I entered the rare smatterings of wilderness still left. Even though it serves no purpose here in Russia, I keep the gear in my pack to remind me of the time before my calling came—when I was still free to breathe forest air.

But I can’t allow myself to think about that now. Pulling out my Maybellines and Chanels from the bag, I spread them onto the counter. I begin to paint the face of another person upon my own. After I draw the last stripe of black across my lids and the final swoosh of red on my lips, I look in the mirror. The Elizabet I used to be—the girl romping through the vestiges of the Finnish forest, with wild hair and emerging freckles—is gone. I am replaced by the mask of a Kirov Prima Ballerina.

The dread at my calling begins to pound through me. The endless pivots and turns and bodily contortions that will be expected of me tonight course through my mind. The staring eyes and ogling looks and wild claps from the audience creep into my thoughts. The nightly exposure of self and sacrifice of Spirit—done for the audience’s pleasure at Apple’s bidding—washes over me.

But then I remember. The remedies.

I reach into my pink pack. Glancing around to make sure no one is watching, I place two remedy pills on my tongue. One for the pain that the Dance inflicts upon my body. And a Prozac for the dark depression that Dance inflicts upon my Spirit.

The Keeper yells for me. Before I answer his call, I take a tick to whisper into my worship tablet. Staring into its blank surface, I beg Apple to send the relief that the doctor promised. Then I step out into the hallway.

The Keeper looks me over, adjusting a feather draping over my right breast and tugging the sheer bodice of my costume down just a little farther. The audience likes this, I know. They like to see my flesh. He nods his approval and spins me in the direction of the stage.

The other Dancers part to let me through to the red curtain. I take my place near the opening in its enormous folds. I peek out at the gleaming gold walls and sparkling lights and filled blue chairs, expecting the nightly terror to settle in. But it doesn’t. The remedies begin to work.

The darkness of my Spirit and body lifts, and I become someone else inside and out. I feel no shame, no humiliation. I am not me. I am someone capable of sacrificing herself for Apple.