Chill

Chapter 8

"Would you like to stay?" Lick Sorrell said, looking up at the great figure towering over him. "We've no guests at the moment of course and some of the servants have already opted to leave, not liking how isolated we are up here, so we've plenty of room. We could use someone with your skills, but I couldn't pay much."

Parthan Fallow toyed with the drink in his hand, the tumbler looking no bigger than a thimble between his giant fingers, as he pondered the offer. Everyone else had gone to bed early so the two men were alone in the drinking hall. The crackling fire and howling wind accompanied his thoughts. He nodded, pursing his lips.

"Looks like the herding business has been truly knocked on its head for the time being," he observed, his dark eyes appraising the amber liquid. He swallowed the final gulp, stretched massively, and took the innkeep's hand.

"I'll get my things in the morning after taking the Madrullian girl home," he said. "Sumira will stay with her father until the wedding," he added.

"Of course."

Upstairs, on the landing that partly overlooked the hall, Tam silently observed the exchange. He had been restless after all the drama involving his uncles and the lost sheep and the deep tones of Fallow's words carried upstairs to his room. Hearing voices Tam's curiosity had drawn him to the balcony where he often liked to eavesdrop on conversations in the hall as a child, listening to tales of offworld adventure. This night it appeared but a simple matter of a business transaction but he exulted in the idea of Parthan Fallow being around more often for the man was something of a hero in Tam's eyes, a fitting subject for any number of Adventure Channel biopics. He was about to withdraw when the sound of scuffling feet from the far end of the corridor caught his attention. Maena loomed up at him out of the shadows.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" she said, her eyes strangely luminous in the distant firelight.

"Shouldn't you?"

Although a thousand flirty rejoinders crowded on Maena's tongue at that moment, she felt the time was not right to throw herself at this boy whom she had loved for so long in silence. Nor did she feel romantic, dressed in borrowed slouch wear, a shapeless one piece garment that was warm but as unflattering as could be.

"What future can this place have if all this doesn't end soon?" she said in a whisper instead, matching the words to her hopeless mood. She too it appeared had been restless, trying to sleep in a strange bed and come to terms with the sadness of the previous day.

"None," came the curt reply. "Did you hear what my dad just said? Some of the servants have already quit. They got families in warmer climes on Troy so they're going back to them until this all blows over."

"No chance for me then," Maena said. "I'm stuck here. I got no family anywhere," she continued sadly.

"Me neither," came the unexpected confession.

"Really?"

"Yep. Mum, dad and my uncles. The Sorrell clan all told. Whatever offworld connections we had have long been severed." He felt the painful truth of this, knowing the decision to go to Troy had been an isolated choice by one lone colonist decades ago. The family tree stemmed from a certain Petan Sorrell who arrived alone with a hundred units to his name, the Directorate Bounty for all newcomers. He married locally after a year toiling at odd jobs in various settlements, had one child who married locally and so on. They always seemed to be a one child family and they always seemed to marry some wandering loner, never part of an established colony family. Tam's mother had been a strolling singer, of all things. Her songs warmed his father's heart among the High Peaks and the usual Sorrell love match was made. Lick's twin brothers looked like altering all that but they could never stop falling in love with the same girl inevitably so remained unmarried into middle age. They had settled on a childless bachelorhood and Tam remained the only child of his generation. The curse of the Sorrells had appeared to strike him too for he chose as his mate among the girls of Maeven someone who would never marry him, never bear his children. Sara Manderby very much viewed love from a different perspective.

Tam silently compared himself with Fallow. The latter had no connections here either but he was marrying into a family where there were three sisters, the two elder ones already mothers with babies. Sumira was the youngest of the flock. Fallow would be an uncle, brother and son instantly, with Sumoe cousins and in-laws in abundance, and perhaps in the near future a father too. Tam caught Maena gazing at him with big glittering eyes as he pondered these things and he coloured slightly.

"Goodnight," he said and gave her a very brief peck on the cheek before retreating into the shadowy confines of his room.

"Goodnight," Maena said softly to the empty space where Tam had been seconds before, gently caressing the spot his moist lips had touched, feeling a little tingle on her skin like a melting snowflake. She then departed to her own temporary room to listen to the wind and feel the whole fabric of the building shake, being very much used to the more robust stonework of the Madrullian mansion. Her dreams of kisses were spoilt by images of the Wayfarer Inn coming loose from its foundations and sliding downward into the marshes near Lower Maeven.

Fallow was good as his word the next morning, a morning that began dark and stormy and cold. He wrapped Maena in his great bearskin cape and escorted the girl home where Falma cried and hugged her and expressed eternal gratefulness.

"There appears no obvious reason for this great chill," the professor said before letting Fallow depart again. "The forecasts did not hint at it and the phenomenon is clearly local. Nowhere else on Troy is there signs of adverse weather conditions, although in the long term there must be as the mass of cold air spreads through the atmosphere." He seemed increasingly excited by the matter, as if taking a very personal interest in its origin and consequences.

Professor Madrullian had access to weather satellite data by way of equipment installed at the mansion and this gave him special insight into global conditions. The chill had become another piece of work to study along with his seeming multifarious projects that absorbed his time in the isolated community where they lived, even more isolated now. He reassured his granddaughter they had an independent electricity supply to both keep warm and access the various news streams and devices for his somewhat mysterious and secretive work, a secretiveness Maena resented not a little. They had no need to worry about any fuel shortages like other households.

"Lucky the inn got their firewood stores in," Maena observed dryly, trying to be optimistic but acknowledging how oppressive things were. She mentioned the disgruntled pupils at school. "We bought a lot of rice," she said.

"Which will be distributed as needed by those suffering shortages," the professor added. His policy had been simple, stockpile for the community's needs lest the supply gets stolen or damaged. He knew the ways of society under pressure and planned accordingly. "To use an old nautical term, though appropriate for where we are, it is time to batten down the hatches. I think at the very least there is going to be several more weeks of this," and he indicated the hollow moans from outside.

"So, I'm stuck indoors for the time being," Maena pouted.

"I'm sure you will be able to chat with your young friends from the safety of a snug bedroom," the professor reassured the girl.

"So long as we got electricity," and with that Maena scampered upstairs to see if the whisper cube held any clues regarding the chill. Thus she did not see the pleasant smile on her grandfather's bearded face fade for he was fully aware if their own power source gave out they would be in serious trouble indeed.

Fallow returned to the inn and immediately organised a building project made from grit bags, wood being too valuable as a building material at present. He was in survival mode, a trait Frozen Peak natives naturally fell into when conditions were harsh. The project planned was to protect the entrance to the drinking hall. This was not so that they could carouse in peace and let the storm have its will but the great space with its blazing fire and accommodation for many had become a vital meeting place for the community as a whole, what was left of it, and easy access to it was essential.

The Pamistoe brothers were quick to install themselves in a warm corner and helped build the embankment outside the main entrance. Its purpose was to deflect the freezing wind that thundered down the mountain slope and prevent drifts from choking the passage. Once the men had completed the necessary job it was natural to pause and rest, to drink and talk.

Dorstal Pamistoe, the older of the two erstwhile sheep farmers, was a quick tempered, garrulous individual. Unmarried and at odds with others more often than not, he was quick too in his suggestions and accusations.

"Lost twenty sheep yesterday," he gruffly said, staring at the wooden table. He was on his third mug of Vivid, chased by spirits, no ice. "That's a lot of fleeces, a lot of money and someone needs to cough up the coinage to compensate us farmers in all this."

"We're insured," Malten, the younger yet more practical minded brother said. "Troy Totalis will cough up."

"When though?" Dorstal growled. "You know it's a percent thing, we lose a tithe of the value based on a low market price. Could work out as much as half only repaid."

Malten studied the amber fluid in his drink, swirling it around thoughtfully. He had no immediate answer to Dorstal's angry refutation. The chill had hit them hard. They would suffer, one way or the other.

"Thinking of quitting?"

"No way." The dark eyes of his elder brother blazed defiantly. "That's not my point. We deserve compensation for this disaster, from those to blame for bringing it on us!" and he banged a fist on the wooden plank that served for a table. Others in the hall, mainly men, murmured approval at this oath.

"And who might that be?" Fallow quietly asked in the ensuing silence. He stretched his long legs towards the fire, head buried in the fur lining to his jacket, face half covered in long dark strands of wavy hair. Like a lot of northerners he preferred to let his hair grow long so that he often had the air of a savage among the seeming more civilised Maeven folk. The chill was changing all that and around him he could see unshaven faces, bearded men with straggly hair and desperate eyes. Even boys were sporting stubble. Winter destroyed sheep farmers, but forged hardy men from the survivors.

"Lumos."

The answer did not emanate from the Pamistoe table. Instead a bundle of rags huddled close by the fire whispered the word. A movement from within the rags revealed a stern, steely-eyed visage everyone knew well. The hermit, used to roaming the Wilds of Maeven in all weathers, shifted his staff from one shoulder to the other as all eyes fell upon him.

"It was they that started all this, and they should finish it."

"The old man speaks true," Dorstal took up the theme. "The Crystal Lumos seeded this world eighty years ago, then cut scars in it as if marking it as their own. They nearly destroyed the place right in the beginning. Now they toy with the Spark, a great ball of frozen death in the sky. Who's to say Cimmeron ain't fighting back and giving us a taste of its icy claws? Thanks to the tampering greed of the Crystal Lumos."

"Scientific plausibility might say otherwise," Lick Sorrell suggested as he did the rounds of the table. It was early evening still and the men would show no sign of leaving till later. He paused at the Pamistoe table and refilled Dorstal's mug. The foaming liquor spilled over the lip of the mug and bubbled onto the table, for the man's hand was unsteady with anger fuelled by alcohol. Lick knew his brother or Fallow would keep the firebrand in check if necessary. Usually the man fell asleep in his cups and was carried home in the evening.

"You're a well read man, Lick Sorrell," Dorstal said, raising his dripping mug in tribute, "but you don't know everything. Who's to say that Madrullian stranger ain't involved. Experimenting with all his offworld gadgets. He's a Lumos man. I've seen him with them. I'm thinking we should look no farther than him for compensation. He's rich, that I know, and thick with the Lumos."

"You suggest we ask the professor for money?" Malten said, giving his brother a sidelong glance.

"Ask nothing. We take, and chase the gentleman all the way to Ithak and through the Gate to wherever it's pointed." Murmurs of approval met this aggressive speech. Again Malten held his tongue. Instead it was the young voice of Eastel who intervened.

"Aw uncle, he's just a harmless old guy," the boy said. He sat at the table with the others, drinking juice and flicking water occasionally at Tam, who as usual helped waiting on tables. The latter was close by as this threat to the Madrullian mansion was suggested and Tam's eyes blazed.

"The Crystal Lumos hate Professor Madrullian," he said firmly. "I know this."

"How so boy?" Dorstal turned on the youngster.

"For what they did to that girl, all those years ago. The Madrullian Mission, remember?"

It was common knowledge, the basics of the incident taught in schools of course, but the personal tragedy did not appear within the pages of history.

"The same Madrullians?" the man slurred his speech as he pondered the facts. "Why come here, then, to wallow in it?"

"I think," Tam said, aware everyone was listening to him and feeling uncomfortable at the attention, "the professor is looking for answers as to what really happened to Maena's..." He paused, suddenly realising he was about to reveal private information he had no right to share. Fallow came to his rescue.

"They're family," he said. "If the bones of the Madrullians lie on the wastes of Cimmeron, there is no way they are a part of the Lumos set up."

"Lumos still here, though," the hermit intervened, bringing the anger back squarely on the organisation that fathered the colony. "Get rid of them and their greedy plans and this world will heal and be a nursing mother to us, not a grieving mother."

"I'll drink to that," a man said. A roar of approval filled the hall. Repeated cheers were halted when music began from the gallery and to Tam's complete surprise his mother appeared on the wide stairway dressed in festive garments, her long dark hair trailing down her back.

"A song!" someone shouted and the woman duly obliged. Lick Sorrell had arranged for the impromptu performance as a way of deflecting dissatisfaction from the state of things. Many dark and stormy nights were ahead of them and anything to keep good cheer to the forefront would be welcome, he realised. Lick was an experienced host.

The chill was upon them all in earnest. Suddenly the villagers of Upper Maeven found themselves under siege by the elements without any immediate likelihood of help from the outside world, or even from those nearest to home.

The families in Lower Maeven were split as to what to do. Those who had lost livelihoods to the incessant snow had to decide on their next best course. Some chose to leave immediately, selling their stock to others or even in several cases just abandoning the poor creatures to their fate. The Wilds of Maeven had simply become all of a sudden just too wild even for these frontier colonists. Lower Maeven took in young families without income and the hardier menfolk tried to make something of the remaining meadows on the outskirts of the settlement sheltered from the worst of the cold.

News of losses were frequent and the whole tenor of life in both parts of Maeven changed completely. Some shops shut while others thrived.

The Sorrell Wayfarer Inn had more than one income of course. The demise of the home flock was not a complete disaster and thankfully Forsten recovered somewhat from his ordeal. He was a shadow of his former jovial self though and his twin brother fretted over him like a mother hen. Everything about them suggested if the one were to die the other would not last a day beyond such a mortal separation.

The Inn carried on as usual, understaffed and with fewer customers willing to trek up the icy slopes for a warming draught of Vivid and gossip about flocks missing and farmsteads abandoned. Yet life went on and the chief innsman resolved to continue in good earnest. He had plans. He had ways to adapt to the new conditions, determined to see this through to the bitter end if need be.

As the days passed however, in spite of his best efforts to keep the community together, fewer and fewer people appeared at the Wayfarer Inn, some only to announce they were leaving. Snow lay thick across the High Peaks and even Lower Maeven toiled through slush and flooding. Shops were shut, supplies dried up and families moved away, all in the space of three weeks. Brief periods of lull in the snowfall were the usual time for various announcements.

Professor Madrullian was a surprise visitor at the inn on one occasion, ostensibly to hear Damsin Sorrell sing he said, but also to advise that the civil authorities at Ithak had confirmed emergency supplies were on their way to those willing to stay, but the main burden of the message was everyone should leave.

"No way!" Dorstal Pamistoe declared. "I'm no quitter. We got to make sure the Lumos don't take our homes alongside our livelihoods," he said. "I stay put."

"Me too!" said another determined sheep farmer who had also lost his flock to the arctic conditions. Thus a hardy few families stayed on, hoping against hope the chill would end, spring would return and summer burn off the nightmare memory of a frozen past. One family tried their very best to stay but were eventually beaten by the cold.

Sara Manderby turned up at the inn dressed in multiple layers of woollen garments. Her parents were with her and they went around shaking people's hands in the crowded hall during one of the brief lulls in snowfall. Tam was serving drinks and noticed the commotion. Sara went over to him and without a word gave the boy a fierce hug.

"I'm sorry," she said softly in his ear. "I've come to say goodbye. I'd like to say goodbye properly," and she smiled, her eyes bright with unshed tears, sparkling in the fire light, "but I don't think our parents would give us the chance. Still friends?"

"Always," Tam responded, trembling a little in her arms. "What about Evie?"

Sara looked down, her pretty face a picture of sadness.

"I've already said goodbye to her," she said. "She cried a lot and wanted me to take her with us, but of course we can't. Her own people are staying, being less affected in Lower Maeven." The Darkwater cottage was one of those on higher ground not subject to flooding. They were well off and owned rice fields as well as sheep.

Tam nodded and hugged the girl again. He noticed her father leaning forward so he shook hands vigorously.

"I know you're good friends and all," he said gruffly, "but I got to get my only girl out of this place. We're going over the Ridge. If all goes well, we'll be back for the summer."

"'Bye, mister Manderby," Tam said and after a few final farewells to acquaintances, Tam caught one parting glance from those soft chocolate eyes he had dreamt of so often before the great door closed on another departing family, and he wondered truly if he would ever see the luscious Sara Manderby again.

At times Tam wondered if he would ever even see Maena Madrullian again for the snowfalls came thick and fast day and night and he spent much of his waking hours shovelling snow or going on expeditions to outlying farmsteads to rescue families snowed under. The instanet still worked, although intermittently, so it was possible to communicate with isolated settlements and identify those most at risk. Fatalities started being reported around this time, usually of elderly folk too stubborn or frail to move and too isolated to find in the great drifting masses that so changed the once familiar landscape. An avalanche destroyed one farmstead on a spur of the High Peaks but it had already been abandoned so there were no casualties. It did give food for thought though as Fallow pointed out the escarpment which loomed over the Sorrell Wayfarer Inn might harbour a hidden danger once matters improved and a thaw set in.

"We'll need to explode some drifts higher up," he advised as a precautionary measure, "and keep an eye on lakes dammed by snow to prevent catastrophic flooding."

"Good man," Lick said, admiring the foresight of this Frozen Peaks veteran, although only twenty two. Thus patrols were set up to monitor conditions on the High Peaks and to train the men on arctic survival, for clearly neither the Crystal Lumos nor Troy Totalis were showing signs of helping at a local level. Food supplies for the Lower Maeven were their main priority as those foolish enough to remain in the danger area higher up could look out for themselves. The colony had more important matters to concentrate their resources upon than stubborn mountain folk.

However those same stubborn mountain folk decided to take matters into their own hands. All that talk against the Crystal Lumos was more than mere talk in the hearts and minds of some of the hardy souls who determined to stay on. The words compensation and revenge blurred together and the result was an extraordinary red glow down below where Tam knew Proctor Bridge would be found if the hazy mist would ever lift.

He watched the glow for some time, speculating on what it might mean, before sending a message to Maena.

"Grandfather thinks it's the Crystal Lumos garrison," she responded promptly as if waiting for a communication from him.

"It's burning?" Tam typed back.

"I suppose..." Maena's reaction suggested she was less than interested in the strange goings on at Proctor Bridge. Another matter was distracting her.

"What is it?" Tam prompted.

"Evie. She's gone. There was a note."

Maena explained her mother had gone to the girl's room earlier that evening and found it empty. Clothes were missing and it became quickly evident she had run away.

"She's gone after Sara," Tam suggested.

"Or worse," Maena shot back. "Tracks were spotted leading to the sheep droving pass. That's no short cut to Pashak or even the Cut. She's gone completely the wrong way."

"What does your grandfather say?" Tam responded, his heart squeezing tightly in his chest at this sad news. Evie Darkwater, so young and full of mischief, distraught at her closest friend moving away, unable to face life without her. Was this what true love was like?

"He's..." Maena began to type but Tam never read the complete message the girl had started as a soft tap on his bedroom door made him turn. His father was in the doorway with a look of sadness on his face. He feared the worst as the man stood uncertainly upon the threshold of Tam's bedroom.

"My dad's here," he sent a last message to Maena and signed off.

"Has Maena told you?" Lick said, hovering in the gloomy entrance.

"Only that Evie's missing. Has she been found?"

"That's why I'm here. She's out there somewhere in the snow and we're arranging search parties. We need as many able-bodied folk as possible in groups no smaller than three and we're desperately short of numbers at the moment. I'm going with the Dimsoe brothers, and there are other organised groups being scraped together too. Fallow and Fursten are waiting for you downstairs. Be quick, there's no time to lose."

Forsten Sorrell, since the loss of the flock was still in a state of what became known as snow blur and was in no fit state to be out in the blizzards again. His twin brother Fursten however was all eagerness to help find the missing Darkwater girl.

"She's dressed in pink," he said as Tam threw on layers of protective clothing in preparation for the search. Fallow stood a towering figure nearby, already wrapped in his thick cape and with his formidably carved staff gripped in a bare hand. He could never be persuaded to wear gloves.

"So she's protected," Tam observed, pulling on thick boots as he recalled the warm garment the girl had appeared in with Sara during that all too brief spell when the uncharacteristic weather was still nothing more than a three day's wonder. "There's a chance she's still alive." Fursten's round moon face looked hopeful but nothing more.

As soon as the search party left the hall, skirting the gritbag rampart that protected the mountain-facing wall, Tam was hit by a blast of freezing air that burnt his lungs with searing pain. He turned away a moment and cried out in pain.

"You okay boy?" Fallow shouted through the roar.

"Y-yes," Tam managed to respond. "Just caught by surprise."

"Let's have no more surprises," Fallow responded harshly. "This is serious work. Watch your feet, your hands and your eyes. You will need them all this evening if we're going to bring that girl back alive." The stern demeanour of Parthan Fallow was strangely comforting and Tam followed his lead in everything for he had total trust in the northerner, now in his element.

They crawled up the snow covered slope around the escarpment, following in the tracks of others who had gone before in search of Evie Darkwater and Tam wondered if all these tracks would hide her true direction. He need not have worried, for Fallow was a huntsman born and bred, equipped with search devices such as motion sensors and infrared goggles. The former were unreliable due to magnetic anomalies but the latter were ideal in these conditions. He had even brought his flash rifle with him, a long, menacing looking thing. A ruby light glowed near the trigger mechanism, the power source which generated the plasma bullets needed to bring down game, or an enemy if need be.

They crossed two shallow valleys deep in snow, following faint marks in the twilight for by this time the other groups had peeled off in other directions. Oddly it was the infrared goggles the man was wearing that enabled him to spot something significant in this apparent white out.

"You see?" he said, pausing on a slope where there were faint disturbances on freshly fallen snow which could easily have been caused by an isolated blast of wind. A bare hand scraped at the recent dusting to reveal pits and compacted lumps. "It's a fraction warmer across this slope, as if something or someone had recently tracked along here before the snow hid the marks and re-froze everything." Tam could see and he nodded encouragingly to Fursten. They resumed their pursuit at greater pace.

There was a lull in the wind as a great rocky outcrop loomed up in front of them, barring farther progress but sheltering them from the gale from above. Tam was exhausted by the effort needed to plough through thick clinging snow and his limbs were beginning to tremble. He sat a moment but Fallow turned on him angrily.

"Get up boy, else you die where you sit," he growled. Tam stood, affrighted lest he get left behind. However they had halted in the exhausting trek with the towering barrier of rock right in front of them. Tam could see nothing but black rock and the blinding whiteness of pure snow.

They were stuck, it seemed. A dead end. Fallow was scanning the apparent featureless sweep of snow that led right up to the black granite. Then he leapt forward, as if electrified by something, his great staff sweeping an arc through the fallen snow and without warning he disappeared from view. Tam called out and he and Fursten approached carefully to where they had last seen the man. They peered over a rise in the snow and found Fallow crouched down in a collapsed pit. His staff was discarded and he was not wearing his cape either. Was the man mad?

No. The cape was bundled around something small and fragile, the distinct figure of a girl. Tam caught glimpses of pink among the dark fur. He had found her.

"Get my staff, Tam," Fallow said as he made his way up the crumbling slope caused by the collapse. A pocket of air had formed where snow tumbled over from the rocks above and apparently Evie had fallen into it in her delirious wanderings.

"She's so cold," Fursten said, touching a tiny gloved hand.

"But alive."

Tam heard this as he returned with Fallow's heavy wooden staff in his hand and walked alongside the towering man, now devoid of his protective cape but seeming to feel nothing of the cold. There were tears in Tam's eyes but they froze before they could fall. No matter. The warmth he felt inside was relief enough. Evie Darkwater was alive.

In spite of this the great northerner seemed to have other thoughts on his mind while in the process of saving a life, as if the matter was just another part of every day business for him.

"Did you see?" Fallow said as they continued their journey back to the inn.

"What?" Tam choked out, wrapped up in his own thoughts regarding Evie. There was nothing else, surely?

"Elk sign, over by the rocks." The man smiled, hugging the precious young life to him with another kind of delight. "They've come at last. We can hunt them, eat them and live off them. We don't need anyone else now. We can go it alone."

To be continued...