The hamlet at the foot of the towering cliff was slumbering in deep winter.
Képulu and Séji were outside stuffing snow into a bucket to be boiled into water. From time to time they stopped to take in the winter landscape around them. The branches of the towering trees at the edge of the clearing were laden with snow and sagged slightly. They could see almost no signs of the fire that had devastated the land a dozen years ago.
Nature healed fast.
The sound of beating wings drew their attention. As they looked up, a great winged beast burst from the clouds—serpentine neck, leathery wings, antlered head, and cold, pupilless eyes—and headed for the cliff behind the hamlet. To their amazement, they saw tiny figures—people—riding on the back of the strange creature.
The beast swept over their heads and disappeared over the top of the cliff. The two women looked at each other and ran through the snow to report what they had seen to Elder Comi, the bucket forgotten in the snow behind them.
Taking off daily from the deck of a city-ship that hugged the northern coast of Crescent Island, the Lyucu expedition had been scouring the island for tolyusa for weeks. The riders and their mount were both growing impatient due to the lack of success. Usually they limited their flights to dawn or dusk, but with the spring hunting season just around the corner, they took risks to search for the tolyusa during broad daylight. They needed to find what they came for before the minor nobles of Dara arrived on the island in search of boar tusk trophies and interpreted their incursions into Crescent Island as an act of war.
The garinafin jerked and dove suddenly. The pilot tapped the neck of the garinafin to ask it to slow down, but the garinafin responded only by diving even faster. The riders and the pilot had no choice but to hang on tight to their harnesses as they descended at a dizzying speed.
The garinafin landed in a clearing in the woods on top of the cliff and bellowed triumphantly.
The Lyucu riders looked around them, dazed.
The garinafin was standing in the middle of what appeared to be a fresh lava flow that cut through the pure white, snow-covered clearing. The strong smell of fire and smoke only added to the impression. But a closer examination revealed that the “lava” was made from a carpet of plants whose leaves, stems, and flowers were all bright red. The tolyusa was a hardy plant that flowered in winter, and berries would come in the spring.
The Lyucu warriors climbed down from the garinafin, fell down to their knees, and wept tears of joy. In the heart of winter, they had found the hope for renewal.
“The All-Father protects us!”
“Praise be to the gods of this new land!”
Years ago, when Pékyu Tenryo had sent his exploratory expeditions to Dara, one of his ships had tried to pass through the Wall of Storms. The ship had been wrecked, but the supply of tolyusa they carried as a way to speak to the gods on the long journey had survived, washed ashore, passed through the guts of birds and animals until the seeds took root here, in the most inhospitable volcanic rock of the Islands of Dara.
A fleet of small boats from the Itanti Peninsula closed in on the dome-headed whale to the east of Nokida.
This was the Year of the Whale, and winter was the season for whale hunting.
The whales, fat with blubber, migrated to the southern oceans to breed. Along the way, pods of whales passed by Wolf’s Paw, the southeastern corner of the Big Island, and the Tunoa Isles. Fishermen who were brave enough to take up the harpoon and join one of the hunting fleets could look forward to a share of the rich profits to be made from blubber, meat, and whalebone, all of which fetched good prices in Dara.
The rowers on the small, slender boats, each about twenty feet long, strained in synchrony and propelled the boat to glide over the choppy sea as fast as a flying dyran. A young man stood at the prow of the boat, holding up a harpoon like a vision of Tazu.
The boat was closing in on the bobbing black figure of the whale glimpsed through the waves.
“I got it!” the young man cried, and with a grunt, heaved the harpoon. The weapon plunged into the back of the whale and the line trailing from it began to unspool at a rapid pace.
“A strike! A strike!” the crew of the whaleboat called out to the other boats. While the line continued to unspool, they reversed themselves in the boat and began to row the other way as the other boats closed in.
The largest and most desired whale to hunt was the dome-headed whale, so named for its large, bulbous forehead, which contained a large melon of wax that had been prized since ancient times as a lubricant and the base ingredient in many cosmetics. It was said that the whale was able to melt and freeze the wax in the melon as a way to adjust its buoyancy in water—a kind of watery equivalent to the gas sacs of the garinafin, perhaps.
The specimen the fleet was chasing today was a male of average size, about fifty feet in length.
When the other boats were close enough, the crews tossed over cables with hooks, which the harpoon boat’s crew used to secure the boats together. Soon, the five boats in the hunting pack were strung together like a line of fish, and the cable attached to the harpoon was about to run out.
“Get ready!” the young man shouted, and sat down inside the boat to brace himself as the line ran out and the force of the whale jerked the entire line of boats almost out of the water. “Brace!” he shouted again.
The rowers in all five boats dipped their oars into the water and held on, letting the blades of the oars act as brakes. This was a contest of strength. The rowers had to place as much strain as possible on the whale while preventing it from diving and escaping.
Their goal was to tire the whale, not to kill it.
This was because the most precious material in a dome-headed whale was not the head wax, but the living amber—a soft, waxy material secreted by the whale’s gut. The amber had a sweet smell that was unearthly, and it was highly prized as an ingredient in perfume, incense, medicine, and industry.
Living amber was best harvested by having the whale vomit it up. Since the living amber was far more valuable than the rest of the whale put together, the best whalers learned to tire the whales out with a long chase until they vomited up the precious material before letting them go so that they could grow more living amber for the next season. The whalers were like farmers who picked up after the goose laying the jeweled egg rather than killing it, thereby cutting off future profit.
The dome-headed whale was heading straight for the coast of the Big Island. This was rather unusual—whales typically headed for the deep sea when struck by a harpoon—but not unheard of.
But it was very unusual to have the whale continue to swim with such vigor half an hour after being struck. The crews on the whaleboats were rather pleased. The closer the whale came to land before vomiting from exhaustion, the less distance the crews had to row to get back to land. It was like getting a free ride.
As the whale approached the shore, it didn’t even slow down.
“Is it going to beach itself?” asked one of the men.
“Just our luck to get a whale that doesn’t want to live,” said another, regret in his voice. The whalers who hunted the dome-headed whale tended to bond with the majestic creatures over time. Since their task was not slaughter but the extraction of a valuable resource from creatures they intended to keep alive, a suicidal whale was a cause for sorrow.