Dream of a Vast Blue Cavern

Interlude 1: Maia

 Khell, seventeen summers prior

Maia crouched in her mother’s egla. The dwelling was dome-shaped, constructed out of thick blocks of ice, and the view through the smoke hole at the top flickered from the dark underbelly of giant birds to bare blue sky in a regular pattern. Black, blue, black, blue. It was pretty, like watching the clouds roll in off the Stormbirth Waters and scatter over the ice plains toward the mountains. Grandmother held her close beside the cold fire pit, pressing a warm, wrinkled hand against Maia's mouth. “Don't make a sound,” Grandmother whispered, her voice so faint it sounded like falling snow. 

Maia stood frozen beneath her grandmother's furs. Mother and Father were outside, talking to the Dhuciri who rode the birds, giving them what they wanted so they would go away and not come back for a long time. Eight winters old, a big girl Mother said, she knew better than to make a noise. The egla protected them only if the Dhuciri did not know they hid inside. Grandmother's hand pressed so hard that Maia’s teeth hurt.

A shout rang out, from somewhere in camp, followed by sharp cries from the birds and the loud rustle of flapping wings.

“No.” The word was barely audible on Grandmother's lips. Maia felt her face released, her small body pushed forward so that she stumbled over the charred seaweed in the fire pit. Grandmother held her at arm's length and looked into her face. “They have discovered the people in the egla. They will be here soon.”

Maia said nothing. There was nothing to say. But Grandmother kept talking, as if by doing so she could reverse the will of fate. She pulled a small leather pouch from her belt, snapping the sinew ties that held it there, thrust it at the girl's chest. “Take this,” she said. “There will be two missing. But yours will rest there, someday.”

Maia stared at the pouch, astounded. She knew what Grandmother offered her. She took it with fingers numb from the dropping temperature in the egla.

“Now go,” Grandmother breathed. “Run as far and fast as your little legs will carry you.”

The egla began to disintegrate; its ice walls turned to powdery snow and fell on them, drifting down from the ceiling, blowing in from the sides. In a moment the egla was gone, and through the whirlwind of snow Maia could see patches of sky and tall, dark figures approaching with hungry eyes.

“Run,” Grandmother commanded, and Maia ran, her flight obscured by the drifting snow and covered by Grandmother's angry chants at the Dhuciri.

She did not stop or look back until she crested the ridge that stood between the summer village of her people, at the shore of the Stormbirth Waters, and the vast plain of ice stretching across the whole continent of Khell. The egla were all gone, the belongings of the tribe scattered, and a black dust finer and darker than snow blew across the ice. The smell of death and decay that always followed Dhuciri traveled on the wind. A line of chained people marched to the cliffs where huge, dark birds waited.

Maia turned and ran down the back of the ridge, out onto the endless icy plain.