The Heart of Forever
© 2012, ANDREW WARWICK
1 – Beyond the Frozen North
The small Navodian fishing village had about it an almost ramshackle look, being composed of rough wooden shacks and huts that had been built haphazardly and scattered without aforethought around the bay that looked out across the cold, northern seas. No planning could be determined from its layout, nor any streets that went their way between the weathered buildings perceived. Drifts of snow lingered in some parts of the village, banked up against the walls of buildings. Grey was the earth leading down to the water, and grey the boulders and rocks that grew all around the village and beyond, bar for patches of lichens and moss upon them that added about the only sources of colour to the view, being of whites and blacks, rusty oranges and viridian greens. Around the bay and the village, sheltering it from the worse vagaries of the weather, climbed stark grey hills, their slopes barren and windswept, the snows of the winter approaching piled in growing drifts across them.
Overhead, a sullen sky pressed in, not a breath of wind disturbing the mass of grey clouds that heaped up together, a brooding threat waiting to unleash its ferocity, to send the winds howling and waters churning, to lash at the village with rain and snow and storm, and to drive the inhabitants indoors. Beneath, the waters of the sea were of the same colouration. A number of small fishing boats sat upon the shores, or gently bobbed out on the water of the bay. Racks around the village held the bounty of the seas, fish of a variety of shapes and sizes and hues left out to dry. Fishermen worked at boats and nets, making minor repairs and preparing them for the next journey, all the while casting anxious glances to the skies, judging as to how much longer they would have before the storm arrived, and if the fishing season itself had almost run its full course.
The village had an air of transiency about it, a place not so much lived in as visited, and well did it have that feel, for come the dark and cold of winter, when the ice closed in and the waters froze while daylight hours came not at all, then the village for the most part was abandoned. The boats were stowed away, far from the water’s edge, to winter away out of the harshness of the weather until once more the wan warmth of spring returned, and with it the fishermen from their southern sojourns.
Standing at the water’s edge, where it gently lapped at a beach that arced around the bay between the headlands formed by the hills, the sands as pallid a grey as the earth, into which were mixed the shards of broken shells, were three people, two men and a woman. One, a man of stocky build, with long dark blond hair, had a face much battered from the elements and a life spent at sea, abraded and gnarled. Wrapped around him were heavy, oiled hides to protect him from the weather while out on the boats. He looked across the waters to where a number of small islands could be seen, for the most part little more than rocky outcrops that thrust up out of the sea and upon which birds rested. One in particular, out on the horizon beyond the bay, drew the eye, as a hilly peak dominated it, the summit of which was lost in dark clouds that flowed down its slopes.
“Yonder be the place ye seek,” the fisherman said to the other two, extending a hand to point out to the large island, a hand that had been calloused from working lines and nets. “I do not recommend approaching it though. The Icemen, who for the most speak with great politeness and seek but to trade, hold the place in reverential fear and suffer none to venture near it, for they guard it most jealously.”
“Hraega’s Beard,” the woman snarled, shaking her head, an action which sent her loose hanging auburn hair flying. “We did not travel so far, and undertake so much, to in the end be denied by petty jealousies.”
The woman, Fianna by name, which in the tongue of her native Aedring of the far eastern hills meant Peregrine, stared out intently at the island, her amber eyes sharp, never resting still as they sought to take in every detail. At her side she bore a broadsword sheathed in a battered leather scabbard, while she wore a light hide jacket, lined with fur, and a skirt of leather, reinforced with hardened plates, leaving her tanned legs bare despite the cool. Born to a fierce and fell people much inured to the cold, it did not touch her as it did the men of the far south, of the steaming jungles and the hot grasslands and desert lands. Nor did she succumb to fear easily, and then only to causes supernatural, beyond the ken of common man.
The companion at her side, a tall man, lithe of form, who hailed from the warm plainslands dominated by the great city-states, did feel the bite of winter’s weather. Rugged up in a long coat of black fur finely crafted and formed of rare Akuvian river mink furs, he also wore a flat white fur cap upon his head, covering much of his dark hair. Over his coat was slung a black leather baldric, worked with gilt thread, supporting a slender rapier. He gave a languid sigh, his long face locked in a somnolent expression, eyes half lidded shut, almost as if partially asleep. In his fur lined gloved hands he held an aged, yellowed bone. While in the shape of a leg bone, it came not from a man, being both too long and slender for that, and nor did it come from a creature identifiable, its origins lost and only to be wondered at. Along the length of the bone had been engraved carvings, by a hand most delicate and skilled, for they depicted scenes of rolling waves and creatures at play in them, creatures both known and unknown, and of islands that emerged from amongst the waves. To either end of the bone were words carved in a foreign script, ones that had only been translated by dint of much effort, and the applications of the Mysteries, the magical arts.
“My dear Peregrine,” he said in a soft voice that had the lilting tones reminiscent of a skald, “Hard as this may be for you to fathom, at times there does exist the need for restraint and aforethought before making a headlong assault upon the unknown.”
“That may be true for you, Blade, but we do not have much in the way of time remaining to us to just sit and contemplate matters.”
Carse of the Red Blade, known to most simply as Blade, responded with a faint, brief smile. “If I have interpreted what is said correct, then we still have open to us a short while before the door is closed, upwards of two weeks.”
“Maybe,” Peregrine replied, not entirely convinced, for, though she trusted Blade in such matters, there remained lingering doubts. “It could still be two days, and not two weeks. Not even Albadaoud of Sha’al could say for sure which it was.”
“I remain certain of it,” Blade responded, turning the bone around slowly in his hands. “Even if I am wrong, it will not take near so long to reach. We are almost there.”
“You wish to journey to the island?” the fisherman asked, and in him a deep concern rose forth. “I would not recommend that.”
“Why is that?” Peregrine asked, turning to set her amber eyed gaze upon him, one that struck as no fierce storms ever could, for her eyes held a fell determination that blazed unquenchable.
“The Icemen who dwell in the seas call it Ipik-ki-oonook,” the fishermen replied, licking his dry lips with a nervous energy.
“And what does that signify?” Blade inquired, his mask of languidness pierced for a time by the thirst for things new and knowledge unknown.
“It is called the Place the Earth Sleeps. None know for sure where the Icemen live, for cert not upon the island, nor even their true appearance, yet they hold to the island a great significance. For the most they remain content to stay beyond the lands of men, bar when they come to trade for the green stone that they value so high, yet should a boat dare to come near to Ipik-ki-oonook, they appear upon their walruses to ward them off. They make it clear that to set foot upon it would be a mistake most grave.”
Peregrine fingered the hilt of the sword at her side and gave a grunt, unconvinced, returning to look out upon the island. “They can live in palaces of ice and diamonds for all it matters. I mean to land upon the island.”
“What is it about this island that draws you so?” the fisherman asked, allowing his curiosity to get the better of his judgement. Peregrine once more turned her gaze his way, one as hard as the frozen land and thrice as cold, a look that spoke much in the way of warning. “Forget I asked,” the fisherman added with haste, averting his eyes from that stare.
“Now, now, Peregrine, where are our manners?” Blade chided gently. He held up the bone that he carried so the fisherman could see it. “We came upon this, clutched in the frozen death grip of an unknown man, in distant hills where the snow never departs. Where it came from remains beyond our ken, for such knowledge appears lost now in the mists of antiquity, mayhap never to rise again. Through dint of much effort and perseverance were we able to unlock the secrets that were carved upon it and in doing so we discovered reference to what it called Igliq-Nuuaki, The Heart of Forever. Longer still it took us to divine the locale, the island you named Ipik-ki-oonook.”
“I have not heard tell of such a thing. What, pray tell, is it?”
“We do not know, for cert,” Peregrine replied cheerfully, for to her it was as much about the journey and the discovery than any wealth that may be uncovered, and that seldom lasted long as she spent it freely, with no aforethought as to days to follow. The greed that shrivelled the souls of the men of the cities was a thing foreign to her. “It lies out there though, and we mean to discover what exactly it is. Now, are you willing to take us out there, or no?”
The fisherman’s eyes widened at the suggestion and he made a hasty warding sign against danger, as if a sudden storm was bearing down upon his boat while far out to sea. “To the island? Such a thing would be madness.”
“I thought you would say that,” Peregrine replied, and she laughed. She produced a pouch and proceeded to throw it across to the fisherman. The man caught a hold of it, looking at it curiously. Opening the drawstrings that bound it closed, he tipped the contents of his gnarled hand.
No sun shone through the clouds, and yet the red crystal that sat in his hand, all glittering sharp edges, shimmered with an inner luminance, a radiance that no clouds could dampen. More so, not only did it give off light but heat as well, a seeping warmth that stole into his flesh and bones, driving forth the lingering chill of the air.
“It is warm to the touch,” he marvelled, poking at the crystal with a finger.
“Aye, it is a Xuanian Fire Crystal,” Peregrine told him, “Plunder from far off lands, taken from the tomb of a scholar who no longer had a need for it. It will prove useful up here where the days are thin. Now then, does such a bauble change your mind on taking us to the island?”
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