QUILLER
Sister Sky dances spectacularly tonight. As her skirt whirls, pale green curtains of light ripple and flash across the heavens.
Mink holds the last mammoth rib in position while I use sinew to tie it to the bed of the scaffold. We’ve both been quiet as we work, occasionally glancing up at Sister Sky. I have only been into the high Ice Giant Mountains twice, but I was amazed at the different sky colors. Along the shore, the zyme light mutes the colors, but if you climb high enough, Sister Sky’s ripples are teal, turquoise, and lavender. Not only that, the Road of Light is so clear you can almost reach out and touch it. This evening, the Road is barely visible as a pale streak cutting through the campfires of the dead.
My voice is hollow when I ask, “Do you think my son is already there?”
Mink follows my gaze. “If he is, he’s no longer cold or hungry. The ancestors are holding him in their arms. He’s happy, Quiller.”
I bend down to pick up the long red and blue ribbons of painted mastodon hide, and my throat constricts. It takes me a few moments to swallow my grief before I can say, “How was RabbitEar when you accompanied him to our lodge?”
I hand half the ribbons, each as long as I am tall, to Mink.
He takes them, pulls out a red ribbon, and carefully ties it to the northwest corner of the scaffold. “After I placed Jawbone in bed, he curled his body around his son. RabbitEar was asleep in heartbeats. The women with the burial preparations sat down outside to wait.”
Tears blur my eyes. I wipe them on my hide sleeve and walk to the northeast pole to tie a blue ribbon. “Thank you.”
Mink follows me and ties a red ribbon beside it. We are both silent, lost in our own thoughts. I’m remembering the sweet high-pitched laugher of my son the first time he cast his boy’s spear and hit a target painted on a rock.
From Mink’s expression, I suspect he’s remembering other scaffolds, other deaths. There have been so many. Each loss weighs on my chest like a granite boulder, making it hard to think. When we walk to the last pole, I find my knees are shaking, and I have to grab for the scaffold to steady myself.
“Why don’t you sit down for a time?” Mink softly asks. “I’ll finish tying the ribbons.”
I place my remaining ribbons in his hand, say, “Just for a moment.”
Sitting down, I try to clear my jumbled thoughts.
The slopes of the Ice Giants are alight with Sister Sky’s dance. It’s an unearthly sight, for thousands of reflections leap and shoot through the air above the glaciers like flickers of foxfire. In the low growls that shudder the mountains, I hear Ice Giants whimpering and gnashing their teeth as though in despair.
“Did my girls follow RabbitEar into the lodge?”
Mink carefully ties another ribbon to the scaffold—a blue ribbon that whips and snaps when a gust sweeps the shore. “Yes. Loon and Chickadee went to sleep. Little Fawn sat beside her brother and stroked his hair while she whispered to him. I couldn’t hear what she was saying.”
I’m suddenly totally exhausted. “She’ll be all right. She’s a strong girl, and she knows her sisters and father need her.”
“And her mother, too, I think,” Mink adds with a sad smile.
When lions roar, I scramble to my feet and reach for my spear where it leans against the scaffold. “Sounds like the pride has come down from the high country to hunt the tundra.”
“Yes.” Mink walks a short distance away to scan the darkness. “They sound close. Do you see them out there?”
In the wavering gleam, everything appears to be moving. But there are dark shapes on the trail to the north. I point at them with my spear. “What’s that?”
As they get closer, they crystallize into trotting humans. Their silver capes shimmer with zyme glow.
“Four Rust People. Looks like they’re carrying a litter.”
“Think they’re coming here, to Sky Ice Village, or just passing by?” I ask.
“We’ll know soon enough.”
Mink walks back and retrieves his spear from where it rests on the ground.
We stand side by side with our spears held across our chests as the party winds along the rim trail. When they spy us, the lead warrior, calls, “Don’t cast! We are on a peace mission. Just bearing the body of the Blessed Teacher Lynx back to his family.”
Barely audible, I hear myself say, “. . . body?”
Mink exchanges a glance with me and we break into a run, charging for the procession. Mink calls, “I am his brother. Is he injured?”
“Of course,” the lead warrior calls.
Mink and I halt on either side of the litter, gazing down upon a man we both love. Spear wounds slice Lynx’s clothing and leak blood down onto the litter. A lot of blood.
Mink shouts, “What happened?”
The man gives him an irritated shrug. “Your brother tried to protect the evil device and War Leader Menash stopped him. Be glad he’s alive. If it had not been for Elder Thanissara, your brother’s bones would be cracking between the jaws of dogs right now.”
Lynx seems to rouse. He weakly lifts his head and blinks at me and Mink, then his gaze goes to the burial scaffold. “One of the . . . elders?” he asks.
“No.” I exhale the words. “My thirteen-summers-old son.”
Agony tenses his face. “Oh . . .”
As Lynx closes his eyes and sinks back to the litter, Mink walks forward and grasps hold of one of the litter poles. “Release the litter to us. We will carry him to our healers so they can bandage his wounds. You and your warriors may return home.”
“Gladly.”
The warriors step back and allow us to grasp the litter poles. Mink takes the top and I take the bottom. Neither of us speaks while we watch the Rust People trot away into the darkness.
I carry the litter past the burial scaffold toward the cliff trail to Sky Ice Village. As we walk, trying not to jostle Lynx, Mink looks down at his brother.
In a sympathetic voice, he asks, “Is Quancee dead?”
“She’s gone, Mink. That’s all I know.”