LYNX
Now and then, I hear twigs cracking on the trail behind me. When I step into a cluster of head-high black boulders, the dark place echoes with my tortured breathing. I try to see through the snowfall to pick out the shapes.
My own impotence is strangling me. I must protect Quancee, but I can’t fight a hundred Rust warriors, and I will not doom Sealion People by asking my brother for help. They’d all be slaughtered in a heartbeat.
From just a few paces behind me, Jorgensen calls, “They’ll be coming for you, you know. It’s only a matter of days.”
Scrutinizing the shadows, I think I see his dark silhouette among the weave of branches.
“Lynx, why don’t you simply step aside? By all rights, I should have been its caretaker anyway. It was created by my people, not yours.”
I stare for a moment at the snowy trail before I decide to get this over with and walk back down the trail to face him.
Jorgensen has his hood flipped up. His white temples shine. “Why are you aging so quickly? I asked Quancee and she won’t tell—”
“It won’t tell you because it doesn’t want you to know how petty it is.”
I prop my hands on my hips, and my cape sways across the blanket of snow. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s very vindictive, Lynx. The device has assumed the role of my executioner.”
“Explain.”
He runs a hand over his cape shoulders, brushing away the snow. “It’s a long story. I’m not sure you’d understand, anyway.”
“That’s always your excuse. You never explain because Sealion People, Rust People, and Dog Soldiers are too small-brained to understand. How convenient.”
Jorgensen walks closer to me and gives me an unpleasant smile. “All right. Here’s the story. I’ll try to make it simple: When Quancee shut down during the last battle, our forces overwhelmed the stronghold and captured Premier Elektra. But we were still greatly outnumbered. We had to make a deal to end the war.”
My thoughts are jumping through images. “What does that have to do with the fact that you’re aging—”
“You already know most of the answer to that question.” He tilts his head to peer at me, and his eyes give off that inhuman shine. “We agreed to keep Elektra alive in stasis if they agreed to establish a consortium of scientists from both sides who would work tirelessly to find a way to warm the planet again. We agreed that once that was accomplished, we would wake Elektra and restore her to her position as Premier. Isn’t that what your oldest Sealion stories say?”
“No. We don’t have that story.”
“Well, then,” he says in a bored tone. “Enlighten me.”
“Our sacred stories tell us that one thousand summers ago most of the Jemen sailed to the campfires of the dead in ships made of meteorites. We still see them at night traveling along the Road of Light that leads to the afterlife. We call them the Sky Jemen. A handful of heroes, the Earthbound Jemen, remained behind to carve out a great hollow in the heart of the glaciers, a place where they hid cages of animals and plants, and vowed to continue their search to find a way to kill the Ice Giants. One day, when they’ve won the war with the Giants, they will release the animals and plants into a warm and beautiful world.” Taking a breath, I continue, “While I know she was kept in stasis, guarded by you, we have no story that specifically names Premier Elektra.”
He walks one step closer to me. “I suppose that makes sense. No one has the whole story, except me, and I know it because I lived through it. But the Rust People apparently have more coherent fragments than your people. At any rate, I was ordered to guard Elektra until the consortium found a solution, and Arakie volunteered to become Quancee’s caretaker. Though she would obey no battle commands, Quancee was still functioning at a reliable level for other tasks.”
“Why are you—”
“Don’t you understand, Lynx?” He sounds angry. “They left me and Arakie, and a few groups of wildlife biologists, behind. All we could do was watch the glaciers advance around the world, and pray the consortium would return with a solution to the problem caused by the introduction of the zyme to the ocean. We were condemned men, kept alive by Quancee to wait for a day that never came. It’s been the worst prison sentence any man could imagine.”
I clench my fists at my sides. “Is that why you killed Elektra?”
“I did not kill her. I could not kill her. Quancee was programmed to kill me or to kill Arakie if either of us tried to break the treaty by ending her life. When Sticks stabbed Elektra, I was as shocked as you were.”
Down in the village, the council is breaking up. Elders rise from around the fire and walk across the snowy plaza toward their silver lodges.
“Listen to me.” Jorgensen lifts one finger, as though about to make a critical point. “I obeyed my orders until I knew for certain Admiral Arakie was dying, then I had to take action.” He spreads his arms wide in a pleading gesture. “Who could blame me for recruiting other hands to do what I could not do?”
His voice sounds so reasonable. He expects me to give him absolution for recruiting Sticks and Trogon to kill Premier Elektra.
“And that’s why you are aging?”
“No.” He runs a hand over his white temples. “This is punishment from Quancee. I did not technically break the treaty, so it can’t kill me outright, but it’s stopped extending my life.” He hesitates, before adding, “And it has taken away my other ‘gifts’ as well.”
“Then your legendary powers are now nonexistent, just as Thanissara said?”
Jorgensen smiles. “All you have to do is step aside, and I’ll tell the Rust People to let you go home to Sky Ice Village. Do you understand? They’ll set you free.”
“And you will kill Quancee and create a new device that will continue extending your life or . . . or even give you back your godlike powers?”
His face is expressionless. “You don’t want to die, do you? Right now, you are a marked man. Forsaken and completely alone.”
Standing there with my heart pounding, I suddenly hear Quancee calling and calling to me. I hang my head and listen. Her words drift like cloud shadows from the profound silence of the wasteland.
We are all alone and forsaken.
“That’s not true. I will never forsake you.”
Jorgensen’s eyes narrow. My answer doesn’t make sense, of course. “Are you talking to me, or . . .”
I walk away through the falling snow, heading back to be at her side when the end comes.
“What did she say? Was it about me?” he asks.
I leave the questions to die on the wind and march up the slope, shoving branches out of my way, trying to get to the mammoth trail that cuts across the mountain ahead.
“Lynx, stop! This conversation isn’t over.”
“Yes, it is.”