Mother of Snow (1)
Gangama Mountains.
The mountain range they reached by dog sled was treacherous from the very first step.
According to Pete, there was no place in the north that could compare to it for sheer harshness.
“Thank you for the ride.”
“Wish you luck, star traveler.”
The hunters turned back toward the village.
Pete handed Lawrence the baggage he’d brought along on the sled.
“This is your share.”
“It’s lighter than I expected.”
“Anything too heavy is just a nuisance. Don’t worry. You saw how we store meat, didn’t you?”
The frozen land was a natural freezer wherever you went.
Lawrence had seen the villagers bury reindeer and seal meat halfway into the ground to keep it. The mountains, it seemed, were no different.
“I heard it takes about a month to reach the wall.”
“That’s when our Sherpas go alone. Since I’m going with a lad who doesn’t know the mountains, it’ll take at least two months.”
Two months.
There was no way to call that a short time, not even as a joke.
Lawrence started up the mountain behind Pete.
“Keep this in mind. It’s bad enough that the cold gets worse the higher we climb, but the truly dangerous part is when Lord Skarma gets into your head. If Lord Skarma doesn’t leave in time, you can die right where you stand, so be careful.”
“What do you mean by that? Lord Skarma gets into your head?”
He had no idea what that meant.
After staying in Reindeer Village and learning more about Skarma, he had come to understand that they used a different word for the same thing.
Whether you call it Lord Skarma or a spirit, the label isn’t important. Lord Skarma is Lord Skarma. Its essence doesn’t change.
But what did it mean for a spirit to enter your head?
“You won’t know until you see it for yourself, or experience it yourself. Once Lord Skarma gets into your head, even the finest Sherpa just goes blank like a man who’s lost his soul and dies. They don’t do a thing. They just sit there, helpless, waiting for death. That’s why Lord Skarma is frightening.”
“That sounds like an illness.”
“An illness, huh.... I wish it were. Well, you’re a star traveler blessed by Lord Skarma, so even if something like that did happen, it wouldn’t happen to you. If Lord Skarma ever takes hold of me, then you can haul me back by force, even if you have to smack me in the face hard.”
Wahaha, Pete laughed.
But Lawrence could see that his eyes weren’t laughing at all.
He wasn’t joking.
Though the Warm spell hadn’t worn off, a foul chill still crawled down Lawrence’s back.
“Do you know why there are no women among the Sherpas?”
Lawrence shook his head.
“Because of Lord Skarma. He’s so jealous that he won’t allow women to climb the snowy peaks. That’s why women can’t become Sherpas. Most of them die when they climb the mountain, after Lord Skarma takes possession of their heads.”
He wasn’t sure whether Skarma literally entered their heads or not, but one thing was clear: something beyond his understanding happened on this mountain.
“Sometimes you can even find the corpses of Watchers who died after being possessed by Lord Skarma. In other times, we’d take a Watcher’s body back to the wall, but this time, since you’re with me, I’ll just leave a marker.”
“You mean the Watchers of Winter. I heard rumors they don’t get along well with the people living up north.”
“That we don’t get along with the Watchers?”
“Yes. That’s what I heard. I also heard they sometimes do things that are hard to even repeat....”
“Ahaha!”
Before he could finish, Pete burst into laughter.
This time, it was no fake laugh.
“What nonsense. If it weren’t for the Watchers, we’d never be able to move around these parts so freely. Especially not in the Gangama Mountains. The reason monsters are so rare here, if you think about it, is because the Watchers keep hunting them down.”
“Is that true? I’d heard they were oppressing the north because there wasn’t enough food to go around.”
“Nonsense. There may have been clashes in the past, sure, but all that bad blood’s been cleared up by now. If it hadn’t, there’d be no reason to have couriers scattered all over the north.”
He said it with confidence.
“If you ask me, it sounds like malicious rumors spread by people from the center who look down on us as uncivilized. That’s how it always is with those prim-and-proper types—they can’t live unless they’re sneering at someone else. Not enough food? Look around. The meat we’ve stockpiled here and there would be enough to live for years without hunting. One narwhal a few years, and you can live without worry.”
Now a little heated, Pete went on in a faster voice.
“And what makes the Watchers so different? They protect us from monsters, and we share with them how to survive in the north. We help each other. At least right now, there’s no reason at all to fight them.”
“Then rumors really can’t be trusted. I haven’t heard much at all about the north from down below.”
Cedric had apparently been mistaken.
Or perhaps, during the time Cedric had been there, the Watchers and the north had truly been at odds. But now it seemed a decent relationship had been built.
“I understand. Even in our village, it had been a very long time since an outsider came by. Especially someone from the center and not from the north—I’d say you’re the first.”
“I’m not from the center. I came from Mistra.”
The center Pete meant was the Royal Capital Corintos.
“That, or the center. If you’re from down below, doesn’t it all amount to the same thing?”
“Maybe it does.”
Like Pete, whose lips curved into a grin, Lawrence smiled too.
* * *
As they climbed higher, the cold grew sharper.
If not for Warm magic, Lawrence would have wanted to cut his own feet off long ago.
Every time he woke in the night, he had to shiver through the cold seeping into his bones.
The Gangama Mountains were not a place you could simply climb whenever you pleased.
On days when snowstorms howled, they had to set up a base camp and wait for the blizzard to pass.
Each time, Pete would build a house out of a peculiar sword.
“If you’ve got Urum, making an ice house is easy.”
A house made of snow.
The ice house didn’t budge even when the blizzard raged.
And that wasn’t all.
Despite being made of snow, the inside was warm enough to be surprising.
Camping outdoors had its own limits.
Still, being able to get out of the wind made it remarkably convenient.
The downside was that, with two people living inside, there wasn’t much room to spare.
“Still, magic really is amazing.”
“It’s more than just amazing. If I hadn’t learned this magic, I wouldn’t have even thought of coming this far.”
He lit the inside of the ice house with Shadow Light.
With Warm magic, he kept the cold from settling into his body.
Thanks to that, however uncomfortable it might be, he didn’t have to experience the misery of the cold itself.
Even here, Scha proved its worth.
Tea brewed and drunk in that cramped space melted the chill from his frozen body.
“I’ve never seen magic that warms the body like this. If you’re willing, I’d even want to keep climbing with you from now on.”
“Hmm.... I’ll have to think about that. I hate the cold.”
Snowstorms could last only a few hours, or drag on for days.
Waiting in a cramped ice house for the blizzard to pass was, quite honestly, miserable.
The one blessing was Lawrence’s ability to concentrate.
Whether he heard the storm outside or any other noise, simply reading a spellbook made time pass quickly.
The problem was Pete.
Even after spending half a day sharpening his tools, he eventually ran out of things to do and spoke to Lawrence.
“Can I ask you now? Why you’re heading for the wall, I mean.”
“It won’t be a very interesting story.”
“Then it’s your job to tell it in an interesting way.”
“I’m afraid I’m not that good with words.”
Lawrence closed the spellbook.
The one he had been examining was Water.
He had been looking through it while remembering what Francois had told him before they headed north.
If possible, it would have been even better to examine Fire the way she had suggested, but among the spellbooks he currently had, Water was the closest in level.
It allowed the caster to control magic without harming others, depending on the mage’s will.
He had been decoding the book, searching for a clue that might help him grasp that principle.
But so far, he had gained nothing of substance.
“I’m looking for a building.”
“A building? If it’s a building on the wall, there’s only the fortress.”
“I’m not looking for the Fortress of Night. I heard there’s a palace somewhere in the north, built by the northern people.”
“The northern people wouldn’t mean us, would they? Or do you mean those things beyond the other side?”
“Yes.”
Lawrence nodded.
“But are you sure it’s on the wall?”
“Until I reached the village, I had no clue. Honestly, I was planning to ask the Sherpas once I got there.”
“Hmm.... This is the first I’m hearing of it. A palace somewhere in the north? If an avalanche came through, it’d be buried under the snow without a trace, wouldn’t it? I wonder whether it even exists in one piece, let alone whether someone could find it.”
That’s true, Pete seemed to say with a shrug.
“If the Sherpas don’t know, then only the Watchers could. And the vessel shown to me by the Seer played a decisive role.”
“You mean you saw that?”
The water inside the vessel.
The scene he had seen was the only clue he currently possessed.
“I saw the wall. I don’t know whether the northern people’s palace is really on the wall, but I think at least there’s a lead.”
“...I see. Then I’m not sure what I could even say. You’re a star traveler, after all. Your arrival in our village was all by the stars’ guidance. And the two of us heading toward the wall now—it may all be Lord Skarma’s arrangement. Fate is a mysterious thing.”
“It’s not fate, Mr. Pete.”
At that, Lawrence shook his head.
“Maybe there is the stars’ guidance. Maybe Lord Skarma has a will of its own. But that isn’t everything. You and I—we’re standing here by our own choice, aren’t we? I don’t want that reduced to something as simple as fate.”
What mattered most was human will.
No matter how great some higher intention might be, if Lawrence himself hadn’t wanted it, he would never have come to stand here.
Pete was the same.
If he hadn’t stepped forward as the guide, another Sherpa might have stood in this place instead.
He didn’t want that fact dismissed as fate.
“Isn’t that the same thing either way?”
“It’s decidedly different. You decided to come here, Mr. Pete. Not Lord Skarma. And so did I. I came here with my own two feet to find the northern people’s palace, not because of Lord Skarma or because someone else willed it.”
Perhaps it was the force in Lawrence’s voice.
Pete looked as though he didn’t fully understand, but he still nodded.
“I see. Come to think of it, I’m here because I wanted to be, too. I’m not sure what the difference is, but I can tell from your face that it matters.”
“Yes. It’s always people who decide what happens to people.”
That much would never change.
At least, that was what Lawrence believed.
* * *
A week after climbing the Gangama Mountains, Lawrence and Pete came upon a herd of cattle.
“A herd of musk oxen.”
They were massive beasts.
So thickly furred that their eyes were barely visible.
Their bodies, a mix of black and brown, stood out clearly against the white snow.
“They usually move in herds of thirty at the least, seventy at the most. Let’s see... this one looks like about fifty.”
Musk oxen moving in a herd reminded him of the cattle driven by Ulbaniero.
“That many? I’d say thirty at most.”
“That’s just from the outside. You’ve got to remember there are calves inside.”
Pete was right.
The musk oxen moved in a ring, as if shielding their young.
Inside that ring, still-growing calves paddled along on short legs after their mothers.
“Northern wolves are the ones that usually hunt them. So to protect the calves from those natural enemies, the musk oxen turn their horns outward and move in a defensive circle.”
“Are there wolves around here?”
“No. Not now. It’s because we’re here. They’re protecting the calves from people.”
The musk oxen kept their eyes fixed on the two of them.
Even as their short legs sank repeatedly into the snow,
the herd slowly drifted away from them.
“What do musk oxen eat?”
“The grass buried under the snow. See those short legs? They use them to dig through the snow and eat the grass frozen underneath.”
That reminded Lawrence of something.
“I heard fire moth larvae also grow by eating the plants under the snow that way.”
“If you know about fire moths, it’s easier to understand. Musk oxen do the same thing—dig through the snow and feed on what’s underneath.”
There were many different ways to survive even in the north.
Just like people, animals had adapted to life in this frozen land.
Not long after, the two of them came face-to-face with wolves hunting the departing herd.