Suddenly, I feel defensive of the Aerie. “We help the Boundary lands, too. We give you Ark food and clothes.”
“We take your handouts. But we really don’t need them. My people have lived on this or land just like it for millennia. We know how to survive without the Ark or the Clothes Keeps, believe me.”
“Then why don’t you live in the Aerie? With us?”
“Why would we want to? You’re not free in there. You live by The Lex, with all those crazy rules.” He pauses before we reach the village square and touches my hand for a tick. “I know this is hard for you to understand.”
I have so many questions. “If you don’t want any part of the Aerie, then why do your people compete for the honor of serving as Boundary Companions and Attendants?”
He laughs. “Is that what they tell you? That we think it’s an honor? It’s a duty and an obligation that someone from each Boundary family must fulfill. We do it only to keep the peace, not because we want to serve. We might have weapons, but the Aerie people are the only ones with guns. Although I often wonder whether they’d really stand a chance against our bolas and spears and bows.”
“Guns? Like the Relics Aleksandr and Neils found?”
“Real guns, Eva. Not Relics. The Ring-Guards have working guns.” He pauses, as if he’s weighing how much more to tell me. How much more I can take. “Eva, we think of the Ring as a prison that locks the Aerie people inside. Not the other way around.”
I am stunned into silence. The Boundary lands and people are nothing like I’d been told. Nor is the Aerie. At the same time I know exactly what he means. He used the same word that dominated my thoughts since I saw him last: prison.
A few dark-haired, dark-eyed men with bolas and blades slung over their shoulders pass us in the opposite direction—obviously out for a hunt. I brace myself for stares or some sort of unusual reaction; it’s not every day that and Aerie Maiden walks through the Boundary lands. But they only nod respectfully.
Lukas he raises an eyebrow at me. “Told you.” He points to a small thatched roof house. With a plume of smoke rising from a stone chimney, it makes me feel cold. I wonder what it would be like to be inside at its hearth. “That’s my house. What do you think?”
“It’s nice,” I answer honestly.
“You sound surprised.”
“It’s not exactly as the Teachers described, is it?”
“No,” he says, “it wouldn’t be.”
Lukas pushes open a bright blue door, the color of the crevasse wall. Where did they get the paint to decorate the door so vividly? He calls out: “Aanak! We are here.”
A shriveled old woman hobbles out of the solar to greet us. Her hair is almost entirely white, and she’s wrapped it into a complicated fishtail knot on the top of her head—not unlike the style I wore during the Testing—and fastened it with an elaborately carved whalebone comb. I’ve never seen someone with such an abundance of wrinkles before; the Aerie people tend not to live long enough to get so many. But when she smiles at me, her whole face lights up, and she is suddenly beautiful. She reminds me of my Nurse Aga. I wonder if Aga is here, too, in this attractive little Boundary town. I’d love to see her again.
“Eva, I am so glad to meet you. I am Lukas’s grandmother, his father’s mother,” she says.
“Oh.” Where are my Maiden manners? I curtsy and say, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine. Your family took good care of Lukas when he served as your brother’s Companion, and that means the world to me. You see, I’ve raised Lukas since he was a little boy when he lost his parents in a hunting accident.”
I nod, swallowing. I didn’t know that his parents were dead, although I don’t think I ever asked about his family before. I guess it’s only one of many things I didn’t know.
Lukas’s aanak reaches for my hands and wraps her gnarled fingers around mine. She seems to sense that I’m overwhelmed, and tries to change the course of the conversation. “I have heard many lovely things about you from Lukas. And of course, I am honored to welcome the Angakkuq into our family home.”
“The Angakkuq?”
“Yes, the Angakkuq. You know, the shaman.” She says, as way of explanation. As if I know.
Yet, the word “shaman” means as little to me as the word Angakkuq, and my face must show it. Lukas’s aanak leans forward and says slowly and clearly, “The Angakkuq is the mediator between this world and the spirit world. The seeker of truth. And we’ve been waiting for a new one for a whole generation.”
Lukas’s aanak must be confused; I’ve heard that happens to people when they age.
I smile indulgently, and say, “The Angakkuq? Oh no, you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I’m just here to find out more about the pre-Healing person whose Relics I found during the Testing. I’m the new Archon.”
She smiles back at me, as if she expected me to demur. “I know you’re the new Archon, Eva. I was in the town square. I didn’t mistake you for some Maiden climbing the Ring in search of her Boundary Suitor.” She laughs at the surprise that must be registering on my face. “You didn’t know that occasionally an Aerie Maiden leaves her home for a Boundary future?”
When I shake my head no, she says, “I’m not surprised. Such departures are usually kept quiet in the Aerie. My mother was just such an Aerie Maiden before she left and became the Angakkuq.”
So Lukas is part Founder? I reclaim my composure, and say, “Well, I’m just an Archon, not the Angakkuq.”
“So it might seem. But often, we don’t realize our true anirniq—our spirit—until our calling is upon us. Learning the truth about Elizabet Laine and her life as part of your work as Archon is just the first step in uncovering the truth about many other mysteries in your work as Angakkuq.”
She smiles enigmatically. What in the Gods is she talking about? I glance over at Lukas, but he shrugs his shoulders. Maybe I’m right. Maybe old age has taken her wits. It’s what my parents told me happened to my Nurse Aga when she disappeared one day.
“I will leave you two alone to learn more about Elizabet Laine,” she says as she leaves the room.
XLII: Maius 20 Year 242, A.H.
The fire has warmed my body. My muscles sing from the long run, but I am not tired. As if in a dream, I follow Lukas to a corner of the solar where my Apple Relic sits on a table. Bluish light emanates from the Apple symbol, and very thin, seamless skeins of black rope connect the Relic to another silver box.
What are those for? They don’t look like the sealskin ropes to which I’m accustomed. “I’ve been able to get it to work,” he explains.
“Thank the Gods,” I say. “I’m glad you didn’t hurt it.”
Lukas glances over at me with an odd expression, but remains silent. He then pulls over the solar’s two chairs to the table, and we sit before the glowing surface. He taps a few of the squares on one side of it, and the face comes alive again. “I found one more post from Elizabet, and a bunch of books that she kept on the computer. I thought you’d like to see everything.”
I nod. My throat feels very dry. “Do we have time?”
“I think we can cram in the most important stuff before you have to go back.”
My heart leaps at the sight of Elizabet, almost as if she’s a friend just back from a trip beyond the Ring. A friend in desperate need of help. She looks more haggard than when I saw her last, even though she’s in the same clothes and in the same room.