Ice Country

  The voice again. Wes. Dream Wes. Probably just as responsible and stick-in-the-mud as the real Wes. I don’t really want to see him now, because I’m too cold, too filled with heaviness after nightmare number one. Even though I know it’s not real, it hurts like it is.

  “Dazz? What the…? Mountain Heart, Dazz! There’s blood!”

  “Just a dream,” I say. “Go away.” Everything’s blurry, but not because of spots from a bright light or the white wetness what floats above me. Just real blurry.

  I close my eyes.

  “Where’s Jolie?” Wes says.

  ~~~

  The next time I awake it’s not dream number three.

  But dream number one and dream number two are still alive in my memory, which is unusual for me. I keep my eyes closed, waiting for them to fade away so I can be happy again.

  Murmurs caress the air around me. Saying something…I don’t know what. Don’t care much either, as long as the memories of the dreams are trapped in my head. “Go away,” I say, both to the murmurs and the nightmare-memories. My voice is crackly, like dry leaves.

  “Dazz?” my brother’s voice says.

  “Nay, it’s the King of the Yags,” I say. “All who stand before me shall tremble in fear.”

  “Dazz, you need to tell us what happened,” Wes says, as if what happened is real. Perhaps he’s talking about what happened at the pub. Maybe I’m just waking up from the hit I took and everything’s been a head-injury-created dream. That would make more sense than me actually working for the king.

  “Dazz.” A different voice this time. Buff. “Where’s Jolie?”

  The bad dreams scream through my head, throbbing, throbbing, pounding, chucking a massive tantrum, ripping my skull apart. Buff’s two words change everything, tell me everything I already knew.

  Not a dream. Jolie’s been taken.

  “They took her,” I whisper. I won’t open my eyes. Can’t. Not with them looking at me. Not when I failed her.

  “Who?” Wes again.

  “The light,” I say, making no sense at all.

  “There was a light?” Wes asks, understanding me like only a brother can.

  I nod. “Didn’t see them. Heard Jolie. Someone hit me.” They probably figured that much out while I was sleeping. Some help I am. Although I feel like there’s something invisible holding me to the bed, I push up with all my might, try to get to my feet, ripping at something soft that’s tight against my head, fighting the double sets of hands that push me back down, swing at them, hit one of them, but my punch is so weak I don’t think either of us feels it.

  Everything rushes past and I start to fade.

  “Jolieeeeeee…” I say.

  ~~~

  Jolie’s gone and Mother’s back on the ice. Mountain Heart only knows where she got the money. I’ve been in bed for two solid days. Not by choice. If it was up to me I’d be out there looking for Joles, but the doctor said my head’s pretty bad, and walking’s out of the question for at least a week.

  I questioned it though, even when they strapped me to the bed with ropes. I pulled them away, squirmed my way out, ran for the door, feeling like I was floating the whole time. Perfectly fine.

  But Wes and Buff cut me off before I got too far, fought me back into bed, tied the ropes even tighter. I cursed them out, said some things I should probably regret, but don’t. After all, they’re stopping me from finding her.

  A Brown District search party’s already out there looking. The District lawkeeper’s been out to Clint and Looza’s house, inspected the footprints and the bloody mess I left, and supposedly he’s confident they’ll find her.

  I’m not holding my breath.

  Clint and Looza are shaken up, but fine. They came by to talk to me. Like me, they saw nothing, were surprised by men in masks at the door who forced their way in and tied them up. After smothering the fire, the men started to wrestle Joles out the door. That’s when I showed up.

  I’ve got work tomorrow, but Buff says he talked to Abe and it’s okay, given the circumstances. I’ll still get paid just the same, as if I worked. Why would he be so generous? Not that I give a shiver about any of that right now. Silver and sickles and debts and boulders-’n-avalanches seem like meaningless things now that Jolie’s gone. I guess they always were pretty meaningless in the scheme of things.

  Wes is out looking for Jolie. He got time off from work too, but he won’t get paid anything while he’s gone. I guess the mines aren’t as generous as the king.

  Buff’s here, mostly to watch me, although I can barely move to scratch an itch, much less work my way outta the complex web of ropes they’ve strung up to keep me still. My head’s pounding something fierce, but I can’t sleep for one second longer, so I hold my eyes open.

  “We’ll find her,” Buff says, sitting nearby. Mother’s beyond him, waving her hands at the fireplace, like she’s coaxing dead spirits out of it. Wes hasn’t got a clue where she got the ice from, but it’s almost a relief that she’s back on it so we don’t have to deal with her needing time while we’re trying to find my sister.

  “I’ll find her,” I say.

  “Not until your head’s on the mend,” Buff says.

  “It’s fine now,” I retort.

  “You’re so weak I could kick your arse with one arm and a leg tied behind my back,” he says.

  “One, that’s physically impossible, and two, I’d eat yellow snow before I’d ever let you beat me in a fight,” I say, almost managing a smile.

  Buff curls half a lip. Smiles are luxuries right now. “Just give it a couple more days and then we’ll go looking for her together.”

  “Like I have a choice,” I say, straining against the ropes to show him just how helpless I am.

  “You want something to eat?” Buff says.

  “Like I want you spooning soup in my mouth. It’s bad enough when Wes does it.” Just the same, I know it’s a rare thing to have a friend like Buff.

  Buff shrugs. “I could find you a nurse. A real icy one, even icier than the White District witch.”

  “The witch wasn’t icy. And I’ll pass. I’m on a break from girls. Maybe permanently.”

  We’re both quiet for a minute, tired of the type of banter we used to both love. Questions hang in the air like drying shirts on a clothesline.

  “Why’d they take her?” I ask the air.

  “Only the Heart of the Mountain knows,” Buff says, thinking the question was for him.

  Why her? Why anyone? Who took her? Where’d they take her? Are they going to hurt her? Is she—is she—is she…………?

  The questions are dropping from the air like falling stars, bashing me from all sides—and the last question keeps hitting me, rebounding, hitting me again, never quite finishing, because to finish it will make it true.

  (Is she dead?)

  “We’re going to find her,” I say, clinging to the statement with every bit of false hope I can muster.

  Chapter Nine

  Life marches on.

  Bad shiv happens, people cry—not me, but some people—and then everyone forgets about it, keeps on keeping on as if nothing bad happened in the first place.

  Wes lost his job after three weeks of not showing up. I’ve gained more respect for him than ever before, because he put Joles before his job, before Mother, before everything. Not that it helped.

  Buff’s been great too, spending all his days off with me, scouring the town, peeking in windows, asking people itchy questions, like “Where were you on the night…” and “Have you seen a little girl…” We even romped through the Red District one night, sneaking down alleys that aren’t safe even during the day, picking fights with guys we had no business picking fights with. The two black eyes would’ve been worth it if we’d found out anything at all about where Jolie might’ve been taken, and by whom. But nobody knew an icin’ thing, or if they did, they weren’t talking, other than with their fists.

  Abe told Buff I have to go back to work tonight
or he’ll stop paying me, by order of the king, which I think is a bunch of bearshiv, because the king don’t know me from a three-legged goat. I could be dead in a cold grave and King Goff would go on nibbling on his fire country delicacies as if nothing had changed.

  But I’m going back to work anyway, not because Abe says I have to, but because I need a distraction, and our family needs a bit of that meaningless silver, so we can keep eating.

  Buff’s pretty much kept me up to date on the job, what he’s seen, what he’s done. It hasn’t been that much different than the first day. He and the others slide down the snowy part of the mountain, hike through the unsnowy bits, and then either deliver trade items—like bear meat and furs—or pick up fire country goods. Then they climb back to the top. Easy breezy.

  Just like life, Buff and I march on, too, out of the Brown District, through the Blue District, and around the White District, even though that’s the long way. I’m in no mood to see any witches today.

  As high and formidable as they are, the greystone palace walls do little to hide the grandeur of the king’s royal castle. Surrounded by the turreted wall, the heavy stone blocks of the castle rise up in five different places. Four thin towers that nearly reach the clouds can be seen from almost anywhere in ice country. And the fifth tower, in the center of the four thin ones, is the marvel of the Icers, rising higher than the others, splitting the clouds in half. It is said that from the uppermost lofts of that tower, the king can see direct sunlight, no different than in fire country.

  With the teeth-chattering cold of night already fallen, we’re stuck waiting on the outside, as winter whips the snow-filled air around us. Neither of us have the faintest clue as to why we have to do this job at night, but it doesn’t really matter because we’ll do it either way. It’s too cold to talk, so we pull our slider masks over our heads.

  It’s the clearest night we’ve had all winter, and the dim light of a few stars pokes through the intermittent cloud cover. The brighter light of the moon glows overhead, casting a surreal sheen on everything. If we have to work at night, tonight’s as good a night as any.

  When the palace gates open and Abe ambles out from inside, everything I thought about him changes in an instant. He was actually…inside? Maybe he does get his orders directly from the king. Maybe he does have as much power as he says he does.

  He seems to recognize how impressed I am. Icin’ eyes. Always giving my thoughts away for free. “Welcome back,” he says, directly to me. “I just had a chat with Goff”—he says the king’s name casually, like they’re old friends—“and we got special cargo arrivin’ in a few days, so we hafta deliver some extra goods today.” He’s speaking words I understand, but when you put them all together like he does, they make no sense. Questions pop up in my mind, but I swallow them away, because questions are against the rules.

  Nebo arrives next, looking as skittish as a pup that’s lost its mother. I try to greet him, but his eyes never leave the ground, darting around like he’s trying to locate his lost marbles.

  Brock and Hightower arrive last and together, which makes me wonder whether they’re friends, whether they talk at all. Well, not talk talk, but something like conversation, with Brock saying something and Tower grunting a response, maybe adding an extra grunt that Brock can then respond to.

  They nod a greeting, which we return, but no one says anything about my sister, for which I’m glad. I haven’t given up on her, not by a longshot, but that don’t mean I want to talk about her all day and night.

  “New guy,” Abe says, and both Buff and I look at him. He laughs, not in a nice way, but like he enjoys making us look foolish. “You,” he says, pointing at me. “Daisy.”

  Something in me snaps. Or maybe was already snapped from the night Joles was taken from me. Whatever the case, I can’t control my fists, which start swinging at Abe like I’m taking on a whole gang of Red District rowdies. The first punch is a gut shot and bends him at the waist—the second takes his head off. He spins from the impact, torqueing around in an awkward, twisting way, and then goes down in a heap.

  Brock’s on me like a beggar on a bear steak, while Hightower holds Buff away from the fray. “You didn’t just do that,” Brock says, half-laughing, like he’s been hoping I’d do something crazy. “Nice punch,” he adds, which surprises me. What’s the plan? Compliment me to death?

  I grit my teeth and wait for him to pull a knife. He doesn’t.

  Although I hit Abe with everything I had and my hand is stinging, he’s pulling himself to his feet, massaging his jaw, one eye closed and the other one all bugged out and angry as chill.

  “I’ll leave,” I say. “I’ll find another way to pay the Hole back.” Even as I say it I wish there was another way, wish I could take back those two punches thrown only out of frustration and anger and sorrow about my sister. Not because Abe called me Daisy, a stupid lowbrow insult. That was just removing the lid covering what’s been boiling up in me for days.

  Abe laughs again and it sounds slightly maniacal. Okay, a lot maniacal, which I suspect is the only way a laugh can sound when it comes right after taking a haymaker uppercut to the jaw.

  “That’s not the way things work around here,” he laughs. He cracks his jaw, sighing, like it was out of place and is now as good as new. “You’ll take your punishment and then we’ll get on with the job. Other than that, your only other option is a shallow grave.”

  I’ll pass, thanks. “Whatever,” I say, secretly thankful for whatever’s coming. Whatever it is, it’ll be better than losing the best—and only—job I’ve ever had.

  Brock moves forward, his arms out like I might bite him. “I gotta ’old you,” he explains. I don’t want crazy-eyes holding me, but I don’t have much of a choice, do I? So I relax and let him pull my arms behind my back, clamping them tight so I can’t defend myself.

  “Now wait just one minute,” Buff says, struggling against Tower’s iron grip.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I earned this one.”

  Abe saunters up, cracking his knuckles, impressing me further at how well he took my best punch. He’s not a big guy, but not small either, and clearly there’s a toughness in him that’s beyond flesh and bone.

  I lick my lips, waiting for the first blow to come.

  When it does it’s like a wooden plank to the gut, taking every last bit of breath out of me. But that’s not the end of it. Oh nay, not by a mile. While I wheeze and try to get my breath back, Abe lays into me like an avalanche, pummeling my stomach, chest, and finally my face. No stranger to a good beating, I take every punch with dignity, never crying out, but wishing that each shot will be the last. There’s blood running down my lips and I can feel things swelling all over, but still he continues the barrage.

  The only strange thing about it all: Abe seems to start taking a little bit off his punches near the end. It’s not like him—at least not like I’d expect. I’d expect him to beat on me full force from start to finish.

  When he’s finally done, I’m hanging limp from Brock’s hold, all fight sapped out of me. Through watery, puffy eyes, I can see Buff’s red face, his taut muscles, the last remnants of his fight to break free from Hightower to help me. In a weird way, I’m glad he didn’t. I got what I deserved, and now I can hold my head high again.

  I spit out a clump of blood. This morning I had black eyes; tomorrow I’ll have black eyes on black eyes on swollen lips.

  The price of a temper.

  “We’re even,” Abe says, not looking at me, as if he might be trying to convince himself. He glances at the castle guards, who are laughing and watching. “You’ll take a regular load plus the extra cargo.”

  ~~~

  With the moonlight guiding us, we make it down the mountain in record time. Or at least most of us do. Nebo’s five or six minutes back, trying not to kill himself on one of the many dark, protruding boulders that we zigzag around.

  Although Abe’s beating left me hurting every place from the waist up,
the exercise feels good, and the cold’s left me numb. I’ll pay for it tomorrow, but tonight I’m okay. Even the hefty load I’m carrying didn’t bother me too much. I’ve got three bear skins, four sizeable jugs of melted snow water that are starting to freeze, and the “extra cargo”, which basically looks like some big bags of some kind of herb. I want to ask about it, but at this point a question might get me killed.

  My muscles start locking up during the hike to the border, but I bite back my grunts and soldier on, determined to bear it like a man. I don’t know why, but I want Abe’s respect now more than ever.

  As the cloudbanks roll away overhead, the brilliant night sky looms above, full of more stars than I even knew existed. It’s like the whole sky is stars. And the moon is a pale globe, bigger than I’ve ever seen it, fuller than full. An owl hoots softly somewhere in the forest, as if asking us our names.

  We don’t offer them.

  The sound of axes tearing into wood clucks through the forest. There are jackers working this late? I wonder to myself. And this far down the mountain—all the way at the border? It doesn’t make sense. There are trees aplenny around the Districts, and more are constantly being planted. We could never harvest them all. Then who?

  Abe sticks two fingers in his mouth and whistles. The chopping stops and his whistle is returned. Clearly someone’s expecting us.

  We trod on, breaking out from the trees and stepping onto the hard-packed dirt that runs right up to the trees. Further on into the flatlands the landscape is powdery, what the Heaters call sand. I wonder what it’d feel like to walk on it, but I know now’s not the time to find out. We have a job to do.

  Out of the tangle of the forest, we walk faster, skirting the edge of our two countries. Ahead of us a group of Heaters emerge from the shadows, lugging axes and picks and shovels. The choppers. Not Icer lumberjacks after all, which makes more sense. But are the Heaters allowed to harvest ice country trees?