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It’s evening when we finally sight the city. It appears suddenly, as we sail out of a snow flurry. One second I’m catching snowflakes on my tongue and wondering why I don’t feel colder. The next the snow stops and we’re at the edge of the city.
It’s not much of a metropolis. No high-rises. Most of the buildings are single storeys, with a smattering of two-storey structures, and the occasional three-storey bulge. The majority are round and made of the same dark stone as the first houses that I saw, though some are wooden, and others carved out of ice.
I’m sitting next to Cal, who nods at the igloos and says, “All the buildings in Niffelheim were like that once. Nobody knows where the fascination with ice and snow began, but they started chilling the zones thousands of years ago, and you have to search hard to find places in the realm free of it now.”
We pass more buildings. People are standing on the banks in front of them, or leaning out of windows. A few are even on the roofs. Some cheer, but most gaze at us frostily. That surprises me, until I remember that we’re the opposition here.
The river of blood is still bordered on both sides by natural rivers, though they’re much narrower now. As we round a bend, a handful of children wade into the water and try to keep up with us. We’re not going fast, but they don’t manage to track us for long. They laugh as they clamber out and high-five one another. They’re only dressed in swimming trunks but aren’t shivering, even though they’re not as thickly scaled as the villagers we met upstream. That reminds me of my earlier thoughts about the temperature.
“It’s not as chilly as it should be,” I say to Cal.
“Niffelheim was devised to have a temperate climate,” Cal says. “Most zones in Topaz are harsh, wintry places, but they didn’t want the capital to be too off-putting for visitors, so they warmed the zone.”
“Then why doesn’t the ice melt? Or the snow?” I point at some of the roofs, which are covered in a metre or so of the white stuff.
“This is the Merge,” Cal reminds me. “Devisers make the rules. It’s easy for them to create snow that doesn’t melt at a mild temperature.”
“That’s weird,” I huff.
“Most Topazers would agree with you,” Cal says. “Niffelheimers are mocked by their neighbours, and not just because of the warmth. For instance, mushrooms in Topaz are small, hard, sour things. Niffelheimers have normal mushrooms delivered from foreign realms, along with clothes, tools and lots of other stuff.”
We continue on into the city. The buildings don’t get any taller, but there are more of them, and more people too. Some jeer at us and throw snowballs at the boats, but they don’t mean any harm, and shout out an apology when the occasional one strikes its target.
“I bet they’ll give the SubMerged team a proper pelting,” I chuckle.
Cal blinks. “Why would they?”
“The SubMerged are hated everywhere, aren’t they?” I ask.
“No,” he grunts. “Topaz has often been aligned with the SubMerged, and the Rubes will enjoy a lot of support when the teams from other realms play them.”
“Rubes?” I echo.
“The people from Ruby call themselves Rubicons,” he grins, “but we call them Rubes when we want to annoy them. They hate that term.”
“Rubes,” I say, and I grin too. “I like it.”
Cal laughs. “But save it for when we’re playing them. If we call it out to Rubicons in the streets, it might lead to fighting, and Pitina asked us not to do that.”
“You’re worried about what she thinks, even though she’s SubMerged?” I ask.
“Of course,” Cal says. “I’m a Sapphirite now, and she’s my queen.”
The Merged and their royals... I don’t think it will ever make sense to me.
After a while the rivers to either side of us burrow into the ground. We carry on past them for a few hundred metres, then the lead boat turns left, following the river of blood as it cuts through a high bank of ice. There are excited murmurings and the people on my craft push forward for a better view.
“What’s going on?” I ask Cal.
“We’ve come to the Lair,” he says.
“That sounds dangerous. Should I be worried?”
He shakes his head. “It’s just the name for the place where the teams gather. Get ready, Archibald.”
“For what?” I ask.
“Adulation and abuse,” he answers cryptically.
The second boat swerves out of sight, then the third, and then it’s our turn. We enter a low, tight tunnel, only just enough room for the boat to manoeuvre. Someone shouts and we listen to the echoes bounce off the icy walls and ceiling. It feels truly cold in here, but we’re not in the tunnel for long, and when we emerge I quickly forget about the chill.
The river loops around a hexagonal island. There are six raised sections at the vertices. They look like large turrets, and there are lots of people on four of them, but they’re far outnumbered by the thousands of people gathered on the banks around the river of blood.
The people are sitting or standing in their masses. There are cheers and boos – more of the latter than the former – as our boat emerges. I wonder why I didn’t hear the noise before, and figure the last stretch of the river must be soundproofed.
The crowds applaud as we progress around the island. Even those who are jeering clap as we pass. The others on my boat wave to them, so I wave too, but faintly. Cal notices my half-hearted waving, picks me up and plonks me on his shoulders, saying, “Give it some welly, Archibald!”
The boos increase when the onlookers see me perched on the shoulders of the huge man, and some stop clapping in order to lob mushrooms at me. A few even take off their shoes and chuck those. But they’re too far away and the items fall into the river of blood and dissolve, or land on the heads of people in front of the throwers.
I laugh, put the thumb of my right hand to my nose and wriggle my fingers, and there are happy, outraged howls.
“That’s it, Archibald,” Cal hoots. “Let them know you’re not bothered by their catcalls, that we’re here to compete and win.”
“Sapphire! Sapphire!” I chant, and the others on the boat join in. Our cries are soon drowned out by shrieks from the crowd, but we don’t stop.
Cal eventually puts me down and I find myself standing next to a bemused Pol. “There’s no point shouting at them,” he says. “What will that achieve?”
“It makes me feel good,” I smile. “Besides, what else can we do?”
“Rob them blind,” Pol says with a wicked twinkle in his eyes.
“Sounds like you might need a bigger rucksack,” I murmur.
Pol chuckles. “I’m running out of space, that’s for sure, though my swag bag isn’t as full as it should be.”
“I wonder why?” I laugh.
“If anyone else had stolen from me, I’d have slit their throat,” Pol says, “but you’re a mouse in my opinion, so I let it slide.”
“On behalf of my throat, I thank you.”
“But don’t do it again,” Pol warns me. “Now that it’s been spoken of, I wouldn’t be able to turn a blind eye next time.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “I don’t care if you steal from Topazers, just not from my friends on these boats.”
“They’re all the same to me,” Pol sniffs, “but I won’t pinch any more stuff from your friends.” His eyes twinkle again. “I don’t need to. I did one last round while you were busy waving. You wouldn’t believe how much I added to my stash.”
“Pol,” I groan, reaching out to grab him. Before I can, he darts to the edge of the boat, picks up his bulging rucksack, then dives overboard, only just clearing the deadly river, startling the people that he crashes into. Then he hops to his feet and quickly disappears.
“That’s probably the last I’ll ever see of you,” I mutter, smiling sadly, already missing our little game now that it’s over, and silently wishing him well with the Topaz rats in the future.