Glass Winter | Chapter VIII

Under torchlight Palina could see all the layered veins of blue and green beneath the thin pearly skin of her hand. She brushed snow kernels off the surface of the ground surrounding the grease cradle, one of the many burning in the commune, and collected the powder into a tusk, which she handed to a builder making his way to the edge of the camp. The others remained to pocket the rest while Palina donned a mitten and proceeded to the cold corner, far from any flame.

Here the snow was hard. The others, each with a snow saw chiselled from stone, carved out blocks from the ground and passed them in a chain of exchange to the expanding section of the commune, where an aperture had been made. A vanguard had hastily placed a protective wall a few paces north of the opening, allowing the builders to work without fatal damage from the storm. It had made its mark on those first few. Their clothes would soon need replacing, if another seal could be caught. There were no land mammals north of the massif that could survive the winds.

Despite her condition Palina made the effort to carve out a block of her own, carrying it to the opening where it was taken off her hands by Bair the Bonehold, recognisable just by his stolid gaze and the weathered skin surrounding his eyes when all the rest of him was covered. Yesterday’s wall, gently curved and seven feet tall, stood behind him, scintillating with the formless cold reflections of the workers building from its two ends from either side of the aperture. Snow bent around each end of the barrier in raging draughts, making the men rotate in shifts every minute. Simply standing at the site’s entrance had Palina digging her heels into the ground to remain upright. She felt the knives against any and all exposed skin which, in time, would break.

“You can’t be out here. Stay inside.”

Bair carried the block to the wall, fitting it in with the rest while a man she didn’t know patted the crags in between with corn snow, before slowly passing a torch over the surface. Somebody pushed past her.

“Move.”

She stepped back inside, walked over to the cutouts perforating the ground and serrated the snow with her saw.

No rest for the weak in a place like this.

Despite her best intentions nobody wanted anything to do with her, not in her condition. Despite her being one of the oldest in the original commune, when only a handful of survivors, all green from their drops, struggled for warmth.

Palina and company, either by fortune or by design, had been dropped near the forest that would later transform the commune. The first day was the worst; scrounging for twigs in the snow with deadening fingers, clearing a surface to make a fire which, after hours of striking stones, manifested and restored their hope. The rudimentary tools they fashioned helped to garner larger branches, then to fell trees. With enough time and frustration, and the occasional moose that wandered too close to their camp, they had made their foundation for all that would come after. Despite all of this, the new generation shunned her. But Palina could not blame them, not when her own flesh clung weaker to her bones every day.

She couldn’t think about it. She couldn’t. Not when sanity had become a luxury.

“Palina.”

It was Bair.

“You should tend to the girl. You’ve no place here anymore, you know that.”

Aurora.

“She’s asleep right now.”

“And you want to be useful with the build in the meantime. I know. But you have to be realistic.”

While the others from his shift trembled, hiding behind the old commune wall, he stood composed, his gaze steadfast. His was a character and a body that could still withstand this place, unlike Palina. It didn’t seem right. It was tragic to realise that, though he had, like her, been here since the beginning, he would outlive her.

“She’ll need you there when she wakes up,” he said, “You’re both in the same situation. She’ll need solace from somebody she can trust.”

He wouldn’t say it, but he didn’t need to.

“Do you trust me to finish the wall?”

Palina laughed, “Yes. Of course.”

“Then trust yourself with this. We have to each play to our strengths should we wish to make it out.”

And with that he was off, trudging back to the build. Some of the other men communicated in concerned gesticulations but he reassured them with a wave of a hand, lifting a block of ice and returning to the void while those in his shift took the time to rest.

Palina knew he was right, as much as it hurt. As much the sagging muscle on her arms, her back, and her legs were starting to hurt.

She pocketed her saw and moved back to her shelter.

Bair wouldn’t say it. Nobody wanted to say it, besides Sowne, on occasion. Feeding on the moose of the forest, or the fish in the water, the seal. Caribou. Bear. It was cruel that this would one day come at a price. But that might have been expected for a place like this. A place that assured, by now, to have cursed at least half of the commune.

~~~~~

“You’re fine. No danger befalls you.”

He had his hand raised, and Sevt, groggy from sleep but gaining awareness, recognised the voice of the man whom had prevented his death from the dark-eyed.

“Call me Mal. And I must apologise for Sowne, the man who greeted you. We haven’t seen a new soul for many a dream, you can understand our caution. But I don’t expect you to excuse the injury.”

“You didn’t hack off my leg.”

“No, but Sowne re-opened the wounds.”

Mal had a seat on a block of snow blanketed in caribou hide. He sighed. He was surveying the other.

“Everybody’s dropped here for a reason. I trust that you know this?”

“Dunno…”

“Of course. You are entitled to your mistrust.”

“With all due respect, I don’t need to hear it from you.”

“And yet I speak for everyone here in the commune.”

“You’re their new chief?”

“You can call me that, should you wish. But I don’t like the title.”

“Sink any lower under the weight of your modesty and you’ll be more of a cripple than I am.”

Mal chuckled.

“In that case I’ll be more forward. How much of your old life can you recall?”

Sevt grimaced; a sharp and unyielding pain buried deep in the stump of a leg he used to have. Mal noticed. He gestured to a man in the corner that Sevt had not registered. Soon life burned his pain away with a remedy of moss schnapps, of which two rounds he heartily imbibed. He was alive and awake.

“An ephemeral remedy for damage unsee—”

“I only have the one moment…”

His poetry in one conversation can be enough to last thirty sleeps.

“…and I remember it clearly. Everything else that surrounds it is dark. An odd word here or there that denotes a life not lived in barren snow. That’s it.”

“May I hear about it?”

You may.

Sevt knew nothing about Mal, except that he had saved his life, and was continuing to revive him. That was enough. Sevt told him of Faith, of the house by the creek and the canopied veil of the surrounding grove.

“However much of it is real I couldn’t tell you. You are aware of the ringwoodite spirits’ sentience?”

“Sentience?”

“Yeah. They talk. At least one of them did. Following that exchange I don’t know what's real anymore.”

Mal thought for a moment in what seemed like a sympathetic pause.

“They’re of the occult. I wouldn’t trust anything that they have to say. As far as you and I are concerned, every word that they speak is a lie. What does your heart tell you?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“There’s many a revelation to be had while we march towards the glass castle. There might be a reason why you remember Faith, and nothing else.”

Another gonzo.

“Look, I thank you for the hospitality. And the animosity from your ‘Sowne’. But my place has been made clear to me here. I’d rather not disturb what you’ve got going and be on my way.”

Sevt searched for his cane, found it leaning at the end of his bed, and grabbing it made to stand despite the server’s protests. Mal remained composed.

“In your condition—”

“I’m not to leave, I’m aware. But I’m not welcome here, and I’m to keep moving. I’ll prepare my things and be off.”

“The winds will get you.”

“And this cloak will prevent that.”

Mal observed the mantle in question when Sevt flared it for the two to see. The server’s eyes said everything that Mal was not willing to say.

I honestly don’t know if it will withstand the outside, but it’s worth a shot.

The clothes on Sevt’s back, which had not been exposed to the blizzard upon his party’s emergence from the cave, had remained intact. Furthermore, the cloak's back had shown no visible signs of wear. There was good reason to believe, wherever it came from, that the mantle could do more than silence sound.

“I’ll tell you of my role in the new commune,” said Mal, “After which you can leave.”

Sevt had already hopped his way into the drawing room, nodding to the server, and, seeing a flight of snow stairs past a passage off to the side, made for the exit. He stopped.

“The people they call me prophet but I’m no more a man than they are.” Mal went on.

Well, we’re all prophets here, so you’re going to have to do better than that.

“You never stopped to think why we all dream of the same place, convinced that it will lead to our salvation? It’s a peculiar phenomenon to dream collectively that I, from all that I can recall of my old life, cannot remember occurring. It’s as if by design and not by chance that we can all see the glass castle.”

Sevt could see the wavering lights on the steps from a fire on the surface above. There a sentry with spear turned his head at the other’s approach. Mal continued to speak.

“You don’t think, Sevt, that there’s a reason for our suffering?”

He scoffed.

“Yeah, well, can’t stop to ruminate. We keep pushing forward.”

“And now that we can’t, what do we do?”

“Discover God.”

It was a joke. But Mal wasn’t laughing. When Sevt looked at him he saw an expression content.

“There’s a reason why we cannot move forward.” Said Mal. “Why all we can do is wait and reflect. A revelation, we’re to have, in seeking the castle of glass. There’s a second chance at life to be had while we wait for a sign. That is what I do; I meditate for the soul of our people, and I reflect.”

How amusing.

And tragic. And disgusting.

He really believes that inaction can somehow benefit the commune?

“God does not always bestow us with signs of goodness to come,” Mal continued, “Only through trials and tribulations can we learn where to go. And there must be a reason why you and I both remember God and his teachings, and little else, from before we were dropped in this barren.”

Sevt chuckled. He chuckled again.

“So, you’ve not found a way forward, it’s all just wind and darkness? And you’re trying to find a reason for why this may be?”

“We’re making progress every day. As I remain in communion do I encourage the others to do so as well.”

“I’m not here to repent, Malcolm. I’m here to find peace.”

“Ah, and there’s another slip of the tongue that reveals the truth. You are here to find peace, that’s why you were dropped in the first place. We think we’re here for judgement, and we are right to assume so, but can redemption not be achieved while we still live?”

“I’ve been dead for a long time. Whatever test this is, it ends when I walk through the well of that castle, which I intend to do.”

“Have you taught Aurora all of this knowledge?”

Sevt had forgotten about her and Quin. And the huskies.

“Where are they?”

“They’re safe, as you are. But I cannot allow you to take them on what you know is perilous.”

“I didn’t teach Aurora or Quinart a thing. I helped them cross the massif, and protected them while I did.”

“You did. But Aurora is a special girl, a very pious girl. Would you equate that to the ignorance of a child?”

“Yes.”

“Does she deserve a second chance despite her ignorance?”

“Of course. Though not through the teachings of a ‘God’.”

“And yet you didn’t turn your company to your worldview.”

“We had a debate.”

“As we are debating now. You and I, Sevt. And like everyone in the commune, you too deserve a second chance.”

“Waiting on an answer that may never come. That’s the solution you sell me. It’s something I can’t wait for.”

There was no response.

Sevt nodded, “Thank you. For saving my life. And as someone who has learned a thing or two in the weeks I’ve been here, I’ll remind you of something that you already know; staying still can and will kill you just as soon as it can bring revelation. Faith without action would have ensured that we had never met.”

He turned, keeping his cane on the ground and placing his only leg on the first step, balancing against the snow wall.

“Your body is broken.”

“My spirit is not.” Sevt made for the second step, by which point two sentries stationed at the exit both turned to look. Neither offered a hand.

When he emerged on the surface the very air constricted Sevt’s nostrils and throat. Dry and sharp. No number of layers seemed enough, and this was without wind. He saw cradles of fire stationed in regular intervals throughout the commune, between the mounds of quinzhees and rising igloos, and there most of the denizens who were not working huddled.

So many people. Everywhere.

“Don’t stay up for too long.” Gruffly spoke one of the bearded sentries, “Neither your condition nor the people’s disfavour will help.”

“Well, you don’t have to look long at my mug. Where’s the nearest gate?”

The other laughed.

“You think we’d be warm with ‘gates’? Nobody goes out nor comes in without making a hole in the wall of the commune. You’re not leaving. The others won’t let you.”

Sevt’s grip was already failing as his body weight struggled on the cane. And he only grew colder.

“You’d better get inside before you collapse. Nobody will help you if you do.”

Sevt knew that that wasn’t true. Mal was insistent.

Even so, he was in no condition to leave. Not yet. No matter how much he wanted to.

~~~~~

Cold. Dark. Wet. But no wind. That much was a gift in the caves.

But Gar Darron never had time to think on these things. Gar Darron just kept moving. That was how he had lived. That was how he had stayed sane. Sowne did the thinking. Mal thought. They thought well. He acted.

Entering and beginning the descent was the most dangerous. The rocks were slick with snow blown in from the outside, snow which turned into sludge. Your hands would slip against a drear of condensation on every surface. You would slide down the floor, close to the walls, slowing down against outcrops and stalagnates. With no fire every man’s kamiks would grow colder each day, despite the warmth trapped by the ringwoodite sea.

‘Warmth’ was too generous. It was warmer only in comparison to the outside. Gar Darron had not returned to the sea since the commune had split and crossed its waters. He would stay here, if he could. If there was light. And food. And a fire.

They were blind the first day of that descent, save for the torches and oil they had brought with them. The fatty substance had been poured into a hastily carved jar from the stones of the hills south of the commune, and bound closed by ropes of caribou fur. The man tasked with carrying the oil, a hairless mute whose real name nobody knew, had spilled more on his sleeves than what had been used to lubricate the torches. He never complained.

On the second day they no longer needed torches. They had found their own little Hell in a distant red ember, and were diving straight for it.

The ember grew. But unlike Hell it caused no fear and no confusion. It guided their squad. A squad who had exchanged some two dozen words between each man the day before, and the same today, but who went ever deeper towards that guiding light. Deeper into the mountains that had obstructed them on one side, and now on the other. Whose water they could not drink. Whose memories were damned spirits that wished to damn the rest of the living in this frozen waste. And the light shone on. The light that Sevt, now a part of the commune, had left behind.

In the gloom the light was unbearable. And yet it was good. In time, as they would carry it back to the surface, Gar Darron knew that their eyes would accustom. But now, as their squad of five men cleared onto the shores of that mineral sea, which remained still as a mirror, and as Gar Darron grasped the staff of the light and removed it from its hold in the rocks with an echoing scrape that vanished into the vacuous space above, he saw that it was not vacuous at all.

It was indeed a hollow mountain in which this pocket of ringwoodite burst a sea into being. But the vein ran deep in the massif, as above so below. And in the strained sight of five men whom hardly spoke, but heard and felt and saw, they witnessed the caverns above alight. A network of caverns. Perhaps even leading to the tops of the mountains. Mountains which, perhaps, rose above the storm. From where the dancing lights could be seen.