21
Bundled in heavy white furs, I sit on one of the Tularesk magic carpets, side by side with Vawn according to the fashion in which the Tularesk people prefer to ride.
The prince is wearing sleek black furs—the pelt of a moharganth, according to the captain who outfitted us for northern travel.
The lower tusks of the great beast have been worked into the design of the coat, and they hang over Vawn’s shoulders.
I have never liked the slaughter of creatures for human benefit.
Even my consumption of meat is not entirely guiltless, and I feel strange wearing the luxurious furs of animals that once roamed the harsh landscape of Tularesk.
But it would be rude—and foolish—to refuse the garments.
It’s bitterly cold here—dangerously so. Before we embarked on our carpet flight to the Celestial Seat of the Twin Lieges, the Tularesk soldiers warned us not to expose any part of our skin to the air for more than a handful of minutes at a time.
At the moment, only my eyes are showing. The area surrounding them is smeared with a special kind of black paint to help with the glare of the sun and to protect against the cold. Vawn wears the same paint, and it makes him look like a degenerate snow-pirate, which I thoroughly appreciate.
My side hurts. The medic at the gate outpost stitched me back up before we left, but he did a rather hurried job of it. I hope the new stitches hold until we reach the Celestial Seat. I don’t want blood to soak through my bandages and ruin the furs I’m wearing.
Our carpet has been rolled up and placed in an enameled case, which lies across my lap. Severin wore himself down to the very dregs of his energy, and he will need hours to recover. I find myself tracing the beautiful mosaic design of the carpet case with the fingertips of my fur gloves as we ride.
Since our carpet was spent, the commander of the gate outpost assigned us a military one.
Tularesk carpets are threaded with very few unicorn hairs, so they fly at a level no higher than my shoulder.
Their patterns are also different from the carpets of Belavrin, featuring snowy white, cloudy gray, and various shades of blue.
Since the Tularesk carpets have very little consciousness, they each have a braided tether so the rider can guide them, much like the reins of a horse.
They also have special reinforced pockets sewn to their surface where travelers can tuck a covered pan of hot coals, to provide warmth throughout the journey.
The carpet we were assigned is broad and steady, and we were able to take turns sleeping during the darkest hours of the flight. Vawn sat up while I slept with my head in his lap, and then we switched places.
During the first part of the night, we sailed past gray forests delicately frosted in white, like intricate layers of lace.
I noticed several spots where the road seemed to have collapsed or washed away, as well as areas in the forest where it looked as if the trees had crumpled together and crashed into a hole.
It was odd, but I had no one to ask about it.
I didn’t want to call out to our escorts, the ten soldiers gliding alongside us on their own carpets, because my inquiries might wake Vawn.
Now that morning has come and we’re both awake, I can’t hold in my curiosity any longer, so I start with the first question on my mental list.
“Why aren’t the soldiers riding glacier bison or moon elk?” I murmur to Vawn. “In my world kingdoms class, we learned that those were the most common forms of transportation in the Tularesk military. Cheaper than carpets, too. I was hoping to see some.”
When Vawn doesn’t answer, I glance over at him. He senses my gaze and makes a rueful face, like he’s carrying information he’s reluctant to share. “I’ve mentioned that the Twin Lieges were seeking a closer alliance with Belavrin, but I haven’t told you why.”
“I assumed it was for the usual reasons—security, resources, trade.”
“We have trade agreements, and there is peace between us. But Tularesk wanted much more. And in return for their demands, they were offering the formula for a new kind of glyph paint invented by the researchers at their royal university. It’s invisible.”
“Invisible glyph paint?” I gape at him. “And it actually works?”
“Yes. They’ve been testing it in secret.”
“Vawn… if people could possess invisible glyphs, that would have so many ramifications for our entire society. The security risks alone—”
“I’m aware, and so was my father.”
“Still, it’s a huge advancement in glyph tech. I can see why your father might have wanted to claim it for Belavrin. What did the Twin Lieges want in return?”
“Land. A lot of it.”
“Why? Their country is huge.”
“On a map, it may look that way, but a large portion of it is uninhabitable because of the extreme cold. Tularesk already has to import most of its produce from Belavrin or Xarsi. The Tularesk people are experts at ice-fishing, and in the past they would get their meat from the herds of elk, bison, and moharganth that roam the land. But all that has changed. Their kingdom is starving, and it is very literally falling apart.”
“What do you mean?”
“How much do you know about tundra voles?”
“Practically nothing,” I admit.
“They’re ugly little things, but effective at burrowing through frozen dirt. In the past, they created small, shallow tunnels and rarely came above ground, mostly subsisting on ice beetles or the hardy fungi of this land. They consume some of the soil, too, for the minerals.”
“They sound harmless.”
“You’d think so. But in recent years, naturalists realized that the tundra voles have started eating the veins of blue clay which extend throughout the subsoil of Tularesk.
They think this change in behavior was caused by overpopulation and a resulting food shortage.
The tundra voles’ natural predator, the saber-tusked moharganth, has been hunted to extinction by the Tularesk nobility.
Having a moharganth head—or several—mounted on the walls of one’s lodge is considered a sign of prosperity and good fortune. ”
I touch the wide red tusks draped over the shoulders of Vawn’s furs. “These tusks—they’re designed to help the moharganth dig up voles, aren’t they?”
“Yes, along with its front claws. For generations, naturalists have been warning the Tularesk crown to stop the hunting of moharganth, and they’ve done nothing.
Now the moharganth are entirely gone. Without that predator to keep the tundra voles in check, they’ve become much larger, some growing as big as a cottage.
They’ve burrowed throughout the entire surface of Tularesk, breeding constantly, gobbling the blue clay, creating larger and larger tunnels beneath every town and forest in this kingdom. ”
“I’ve never heard about any of this,” I say.
“You wouldn’t,” Vawn replies. “It’s a national embarrassment that the Tularesk royals don’t like to speak of, although it’s becoming rather public now.
More and more sinkholes have opened up throughout Tularesk over the past two years, and it has only gotten worse in the last few months.
Their entire country is destabilized. It’s quite literally collapsing, and they’re desperate to find somewhere to relocate their people. ”
“And they want to move into Belavrin? Where would they even go?”
“My father offered them the only uninhabited land we have.”
“The Red Mountains,” I murmur. “That’s a death sentence, almost as bad as the one they’re currently facing.”
“That’s what they thought as well. In addition to their new glyph paint formula, they were offering my father a selection of glacier diamonds, the largest ever cut.
He offered them the Red Mountains and… one or two other incentives.
” Vawn clears his throat. “But the site wasn’t acceptable to them, since they would have to fight for every bit of land they reclaimed from the forest and work constantly to keep spidermaws and wimmets at bay. So the talks failed.”
“And now…”
“Now I need their army to take back Belavrin from the Redemptive Authority. Perhaps the Twins are desperate enough by now to accept the Red Mountains as the new home of their people. We must go back to the bargaining table and see.”
The new information makes a huge difference in the way I perceive Tularesk throughout the rest of our journey.
This far north, there are no more forests, only fields of scrubby bushes that can survive the year-round chill.
I spot several earthen buildings, or “barrow-gardens,” as Vawn calls them, where Tularesk farmers manage to grow limited crops within the insulated confines of the structures.
Unfortunately, three of the barrow-gardens we pass have partly collapsed into sinkholes.
We pause in a village, and a few of the Tularesk soldiers dismount from their carpets to fetch warm buns and steaming tea from a bakehouse.
Vawn and I stretch our legs and make a trip to a nearby outhouse.
My heart pounds the whole time I’m relieving myself, because just a few dozen paces from where I sit lies the edge of an enormous sinkhole.
Enemies, I can handle, but if the ground decides to give way, there won’t be much I can do about it.
When I leave the outhouse, I spot Vawn standing much too close to the sinkhole’s edge for my own personal comfort.
“Your Highness!” I pull down the high collar of my fur coat so he can hear me better. “Back away!”
When he doesn’t retreat from the brink, I approach him, trying to ignore the tremors in my limbs as I realize how deep the hole actually is.
Ever since I woke up in that crevasse near Weaver’s Canyon, my fear of heights has worsened. Riding the carpet doesn’t bother me, because if I fell, Severin would catch me—but this ground is not to be trusted.
“Look.” Vawn points to the far side of the sinkhole. “You can see the vole tunnels going into the ground there.”
“Vawn. Please.”