Aur Child
Chapter 40

Sann-Na could replace no way to explain the knot in her belly. After two days, it still had not gone away. Ever since she had pulled away from the mysterious vessel, her mind had been cast into the darkness of doubt. Now, as she walked the streets of Dragon’s Snout, checking off her list of preparations for the journey north, the tightness only increased. How could she know if she was doing the right thing with so many complicating factors? Alai seemed to her a guileless foreigner too inept to survive the forest and too overwhelmed with his own problems to guess her true intentions. If he were only this, she could easily manage to be his guide and, when the opportunity came, leverage the man’s Aur boule to replace out what had happened to her sister.

But it wasn’t that simple. His motives were no less ambiguous than her own ruse. Standing outside the chemist in the mushy street snow and the biting coastal cold, counting the packets of granules she had just purchased, she shook her head on these ruminations. She didn’t believe he cared about the Aur boule. It didn’t add up. Moreover, the outlander was immersed, and inexplicably so, in a most fearful context. He had strange, invisible friends, used strange tools, and traveled on a strange ship, all the trappings of a specious monster in the guise of a hapless tourist.

As she tightly rolled sheets of reindeer jerky and stuffed them into her pack, she turned her head from a passing village elder. Nothing good came from strange things. Her entire life was one of intimacy with a familiar nature and the constant confidence in things she well understood. Sure, she innovated her equipment, but modifications to skis were not the same as a floating fortress that talks.

There was also a modicum of dishonesty in her intentions that caused its own cramp. She didn’t care at all about Alai’s objectives, and she was willing to spoil his plan to achieve hers. For any other reason, she would reject this inclination. But to replace her sister, to replace out about her, even just to learn that she was safe, she was willing to do it. She clenched her fists when she recalled the failure of her previous efforts. She had explored the caves where Rik-Na had found Tieri-Na’s basket and bow but found nothing except the traces of previous visitors. There was absolutely nothing to indicate the existence of giants – or anything else – in those mountains. Leveraging Alai’s Aur boule was a desperate scheme, but it was something different. More importantly, it was all she had.

When she arrived at the outfitters, she thought on the knife. How could it be that the man carried Tieri-Na’s puukko? No one willingly gave up her puukko, especially not Tieri. She pressed her lips together in anger; she should have demanded more after his stupid excuse about an invisible shipmate giving it to him, but she shivered when she recalled the implied violence of shining that blade in his face. She recalled the words taught to her by the elders as a little girl: “Violence solves nothing.” Her aggression had coaxed her into retreat.

There was yet still one more concern. Who was Digambar? “I had you confused with someone else,” Alai had said, but there was nothing more to connect that to the puukko except the mysteriousness of it all.

Sann-Na again considered these things while she sat in a dark corner of Kärssäsammut, the inn known in merchant tongue as Snout and Snuffer. Watching the flickers of a fire raging behind the glass door of an enormous, cylindrical stove in the center of the room, she carefully reviewed the gear and provisions she had collected over the past two days.

A puukko, an axe, a firestarter, and proper clothing. These were the essential tools for survival in the boreal forests. Alai didn’t understand their purpose and uses. He would need Sann-Na’s guidance with these just as much as navigating to the mountains. He barely knows how to dress himself, she thought.

She sipped on a warm mug of spiced glogg and imagined the execution of these preparations over the route she had in mind, the conditions they would face, the obstacles they would encounter, the meals they would eat. It was not easy getting all these things organized. She had blundered through awkward encounters with shopkeepers and acquaintances. She had bought double her typical dry rations because, in her estimation, leaving Alai alone so that she could hunt down a reindeer or sneak up on a hare was too risky.

“Why would you carry new boots into the forest?” the cobbler had asked her.

“For spares, only. Just in case,” she had said in a dismissive tone, but even to her it sounded hollow.

The outfitter was more suspicious when Sann-Na bought a cape and a pair of trousers that wouldn’t keep her entirely covered.

“The coins you’d spend on a larger size are heavier than the weight you save taking these garments that don’t fit,” he had said with a shaking head. “It’s unlike you to take an entire second set of ski equipment.” He mumbled while she rummaged through the used equipment. “They won’t carry you over the deep drifts, Sann-Na. What are all these odd precautions?”

She hadn’t answered him. It was difficult to be deceitful, to tell so many lies. It was easier to stay quiet. These were her people. She was misleading all of them for the sake of an outlander. But if they knew what she was attempting, they would object to every aspect of her intentions. Surely, the elders would catch wind. And if Kjell-Tors found out, she thought, well, he’d just make a big mess out of it, wouldn’t he? If successful, she would be redeemed. If she failed, she could brush away this brief period of odd behavior.

The gathering darkness yanked Sann-Na from her thoughts. She had agreed to rendezvous with Alai shortly after sundown beyond the greenhouses that glowed cheerfully in the evening dusk. Her instructions were explicit: keep clear of the village. She drew on her outer garments and walked up to the bar.

“Any new dispatches before I return north?” she asked the innkeeper.

“None,” he replied, characteristically terse. “Kjell-Tors took those for Tors village back on your behalf.”

She kept her face expressionless and placed a few coins on the bar to cover her bill.

“Seen anything of that southlands character from the other evening?”

Sann-Na looked down at the coins being swept into his hands to avoid eye contact.

“Nope. I saw him off to the east of town, but he circled back and left to the west. Curious, that. But I haven’t seen him since that evening.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Torsten,” she said, looking to change the subject, “Keep your ears open about Tieri-Na. If you hear anything about her, please send a message to me and Rik-Na. I am desperate to track her down.”

“Of course, I will,” the innkeeper replied, but Sann-Na noticed the slight shake of his head. As others had expressed, most thought the effort a lost cause.

That final insinuation dulled the warmth she had built up in those final hours at the inn. She shivered at that thought as she stepped out onto the snow-packed street, the motions to arrange her clothing helping to keep her warm. In the pine tar light, she clipped the tightly loaded pulk sled to her waist harness and stepped into her skis. She pushed away from the village’s center square and picked up speed quickly.

Once underway, she carried the weighed-down pulk without effort. The first quarter moon had already been up since midday and would reach its peak in just a few hours. But with the mix of clouds, there was only intermittent light shed over the trail from above. That was good. The dark trail that led from the village to the forest was hers alone. The fewer people that saw her, the better.