It got dark quickly, though there was a ghostly half-light from the light from the two moons reflecting off the snow. Inside the stone building, the sleigh-riders had refilled the glass oil reservoirs of lanterns hung all round off hooks on the walls from a barrel on a shelf of stone in one corner, and had lit them with lucifers. There was no indoor privy. There had been one outside, and Magritta had urged them all to use it while they could, because the main door to the outside world would not be opened again until morning.
“What if we have to go, in the middle of the night?” asked Bryon, the sergeant, in a jokey tone.
“You have to use those,” said Magritta, pointing to several porcelain chamber pots set on a shelf against the wall. “And you have to empty them yourself in the morning.”
Bryon pulled a face. “At least when we camp in the bush we can go outside. In private,” he muttered. Everyone ignored him. Complaining wouldn’t help. Steppan was beginning to wonder whether he shouldn’t be insisted that they return back to Dorno.
“Who maintains these huts?” he asked Magritta, to distract himself from his worries.
“There is a team of people paid by the clan-mother, my grandmother. This is not a road often taken in winter, you understand. In summer, it is free from snow, except of course on the Great Ice itself, and the days are long. The dangers of the wild beasts who live here are much reduced. We can stay outdoors at night, if we have a bonfire, and we don’t need to bring as much provender and clothing with us. The maintenance teams come up here in summer, repair the huts, add to the wood stacks, and clean up. But summer is short, and autumn comes quickly here in the south, in the highlands.”
“Yes, but why is this route maintained? Who wants to travel up to the Great Ice to see it?”
“Theclan-mother thinks it is necessary.”
Which Steppan didn’t think was an answer. Why were they really making this trek into these desolate mountains? What was so important?
The sleigh-riders prepared a fire in the fireplace. They piled some kindling from the store next to the chimney and then started the fire with lucifers. When it was burning well and there were some small red embers, they placed three “firebricks” on the embers. These were black bricks, the size of a clay brick, but black and oily. They started to burn immediately, with smoky flames and a pungent smell. In 10 minutes, they were glowing red at their edges and between each brick, and Steppan could feel the heat on his face.
“Those are extraordinary,” he observed to Magritta. “How do you make them?”
“They are very useful, because they are light to carry, but burn fiercely, for most of the night. They are mined to the west, about thirty thana away. There is black rock and it is mixed with pitch and tar and then pressed into blocks.”
“That is something else you could export to Cappor.”
“It’s not cold enough there!” she answered dismissively.
“Yes it is, in winter. And anyway, remember how effete and weak we are! We need to overheat our houses to keep us warm! Poor feeble Capporeans.”
She glared at him.
“I’m serious. What you have there is very useful. You could sell it to us, and make your fortunes. We don’t have anything like it.”
He left her to think about what he had said, and went off to join Tilthon, who had appropriated two of the bunk beds in the far corner of the hut, and had spread their sleep-sacks on them. There were no mattresses, just hard wooden boards. He was lying on his own sleep-sack, still fully dressed.
“I wonder if we get supper,” he murmured. As he spoke, the sleigh-drivers took two of the pots they had filled with snow, and set them on metal grids over the flames. “Ah,” he said, “perhaps we’ll get tea. That’ll be nice.” Smaller pots were brought out of the bags piled on the sleighs, and the drivers started preparing food as well. It wasn’t long before the hut was filled with the smells of cooking, which mingled with the pungent odours of firebricks and ice-deer.
“We would not survive in this wilderness without the aid of these men,” Tilthon added, softly. “What would do if they deserted? If they stole all our things and headed back to Dorno without us? We have been too trusting, perhaps.”
Steppan nodded. “I think we should take turns to keep watch, tonight,” he whispered. Tilthon nodded. “I’ll watch until midnight. You can take over then.”
Nick Thiwerspoon 