Once all the Testors emerge from the crevasse, we follow the Boundary Climbers and the Scouts back to camp. I can only see a few hands-breadth in front of me. When we reach the clearing, other Boundary workers have lit a communal fire. Snowflakes melt in midair. I can see the fish roasting over the flames. The Lex provides that, once the Testors have proven their mettle in the wild through the first three Advantages, they need only focus on the archaeological excavation and the Chronicles at the Site. Having had my food prepared for me all my life, I didn’t know just how much I’d appreciate it once I reached the Site. It feels almost decadent having someone else find food and prepare it for me. I’ll never take the Attendants at home for granted again, if I get the chance to be indulged by them once more.
At the elder Scout’s signal, we Testors head toward sealskin mats laid around the crackling blaze. I look around for Jasper. My gaze sweeps over the other Testors, all of whom look exhausted and thin. They didn’t have the benefit of the musk ox during their journey. Then, I see Jasper behind them, moving toward a sealskin mat. In comparison, he doesn’t look quite as gaunt.
When the Boundary workers serve the fish over a grain-root vegetable mix, we all devour it. When we finish this silent meal, the elder Scout stands and motions for us to rise, too. I assume that he’s going to release us back to our respective igloos. Instead, he raises his hands to the sky in supplication.
“We offer a prayer to the Gods for our brothers Tristan and Anders. When Testors Tristan and Anders did not make camp last evening as expected, Scouts went out in search for them. Her light of morning revealed that our brother Tristan surrendered to the icy grip of the Tundra—caught in a barren area at the final horn of evening. Her morning Sunlight also made plain that our brother Anders met a similar fate, though the Tundra’s wild creatures trapped him in their grips before the cold did. While we lament the loss of our brothers, we know that the Gods will welcome Tristan and Anders into their realm. For they lost their lives in the sacred trial of the Testing, which the Gods themselves sanctified in The Lex for the good of mankind after the Healing. We raise our hands in prayer for Tristan and Anders.”
Tristan and Anders. Gone. I feel sick. Their deaths bring back the terrible moment when the Ring-Guards brought Eamon’s broken body to our home. I don’t remember much about the bells that followed on that awful day, but I do recall falling to my knees and letting out an instinctive, keening cry. And I remember my parents’ crumpling to the floor, too. Sobbing over Eamon’s lifeless face. How will Tristan and Anders’ poor parents react when the Scouts deliver their sons’ maimed bodies to their doorsteps? Will they remain brave and stoic at that moment—and the funeral in the Aerie’s cemetery—because their sons “lost their lives in a sacred trial” like the elder Scout said? Or will they fume like I did, before I shut it all down to come out here?
I raise my hands as the Scout instructs. But instead of gazing up at the sky as The Lex demands, I sneak another look at the remaining Testors. I really take them in—not just as a Maiden in the Aerie would look at a Gallant, or as one Testor would size up another—but as fellow human beings.
Most everyone looks sad and scared. The hard reality of the Testing has just hit them. Knud is crying as he stares up at the heavens. Tristan was one of his closest friends; I never recall seeing one without the other. In fact, they were so inseparable at School that we nicknamed them “the Flaxen twins.” I didn’t know Anders that well; he kept to himself. Still, I have a very clear memory of his face shining with pride when he answered one of Teacher’s most challenging Healing-history questions. Maybe it was this interest in Healing scholarship that possessed him to brave the Testing.
In the firelight, tears glisten on other cheeks—those of Jacques, Benedict, William, Thurstan, and Jasper. But I don’t see tears on Aleksandr or Neils. Aleksandr actually looks stony. And I can’t cry, either. Why? At first I think it’s because I wasn’t particularly close to either one, but then I realize that I’ve already suffered the most unimaginable loss. Why in the Gods did Eamon have to take on the foolish challenge of the Ring summit, and abandon me to all this?
Instead of tears, rage kindles inside me. These young men are some of the very last people left on this Earth, and they are risking their lives for the Testing. Humankind clings so precariously to the surface of the world; why would the leaders of New North subject its brightest and best to a competition that kills without fail, every year? Why must the Archon Laurels be so dearly won? I know The Lex tells us that in order to win the Archon honor we must risk our lives, as our Founding ancestors did, so that the memory of the Healing never dies. We are humankind’s last hope for survival, after all. Still, it seems that our lives—all lives, in fact—should be cherished and protected.
Is that what my brother meant when he asked: Must we truly risk our lives in the Testing in order to be worthy of the Archon Laurels? Our lives are so precious and so few … Will they still love me when I do what I must?
Do what he must? Did he mean to change the Testing?
XXIV: Aprilus 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 Year 242, A.H.
As I head back to my igloo for the night, I promise myself that I will solve the riddle of Eamon’s words when I return home to the Aerie. I kneel before my diptych and pray to the Gods for relief from my doubts and for sleep, but neither comes.
I keep imagining myself wearing the circular wreath of the Laurels—just like Eamon wrote—and I wonder what Eamon would really think if he saw me now. I took on the mantle of the Testing because I believed it was his dream. But isn’t this exactly what he didn’t want? Me, out here?
I write all my secret thoughts down in this journal. I can’t fall asleep. Images of Tristan and Anders haunt me. I picture their eager, hopeful faces as they mounted their sleds at the Passage and plowed through the snow drifts. And memories of Eamon replay in my mind. All casualties of the Testing.
Finally I doze, and even though I wake up anything but refreshed the next morning, I am determined. I will pursue this Johansen Site strategy. I will not be lost to these rituals. At the first horn, I will race to my Claim and do everything possible to unearth a Relic from the ice. I will give purpose to the sacrifices of Tristan and Anders in addition to Eamon. Even if I’m right that he did question the Testing—or more.
I KEEP MY VOW, but my artifacts are not so keen to be extricated from their icy grave. Bit by painful bit, I dig into the ice to erect more scaffolding, melt down a thin layer of ice, and siphon the runoff down a tube to the crevasse below so that it won’t refreeze in the night. Just like Johansen did. Then I do it all over again.
By the first horn of evening, all I’ve accomplished is creating a small hollow in the side of the crevasse.
And so I spend the better part of six siniks burrowing into the ice wall in this maddening manner. Yet the artifact refuses to reveal itself. Every time I think I’m getting closer—and that the elusive grey shadow is taking form—I find myself up against another layer of ice. Each evening, I return to my igloo empty-handed. Only to face another sleep-deprived night, filled with visions of Eamon and Tristan and Anders.
By midday on the sixth sinik—exhausted but at least well-fed—I begin to doubt my strategy. The frozen stale air around me is loud with other Testors calling out for Boundary Climbers to witness their Relics. Lex protocol demands a Climber witness the actual removal of an artifact from the Claim in order for the item to be considered a Relic for the Testing.