Snowlands Read online

  Snowlands

  by

  H. O. Charles

  Snowlands copyright 2012 H.O. Charles

  Copyright Page

  Snowlands. Copyright 2012 by H.O. Charles. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Also by the same author:

  The Fireblade Array

  City of Blaze

  Nation of Blaze

  Anomaly of Blaze

  Blazed Union

  Cityofblaze.blogspot.com

  http://www.facebook.com/Hadleigh.O.Charles

  “I’ve a grand memory for forgetting.”

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Snowlands

  The light was low and the curtains drawn. All was muted browns and creams and sweeping curves. It was a room designed to keep panicked people calm. The patient pushed off the sheets that weighed heavily upon her chest, and found that the only arm to comply was surprisingly weak. The other arm remained utterly immobile, splinted. She sat up, but her movement was met by the most searing agony that tore through her abdomen. It forced her to flop onto her back once more. Her breathing quickened; fear set in. This was not right. How had this happened? She gritted her teeth, forced herself to roll onto her left side and threw her legs out of the bed. When she tried to stand, her legs gave way and she hit the wooden floor with a crack. Cada’shan!

  The world was a whirl. Something other than the pain made her want to weep, but all attempts to explore the thought brought blackness and walls of grey. It was something bad that she had seen or done, something horrific. Her face was sweating now, and she could hear the sound of footsteps approaching from the hallway beyond. Someone was coming for her. A sudden wave of nausea ripped through her gut, and she vomited on the floor. So dizzy; so much pain; there would be no escape today. The door opened slowly, revealing two large and brown-booted feet.

  “Snows of blood, girl! What do you think you’re doing?” The booted feet scampered towards her, and two rough hands hauled at her feeble arms until she was manoeuvred back into bed. The boots’ owner appeared to be a man in his late-middle years, with waning hair and a rugged beard. He fluffed the pillows behind her, and once content with her position, seated himself on the edge of the mattress. “No sense in opening that wound up,” he said. “Have a drink first. You must be thirsty.”

  The vessel he handed her looked clean and smelled innocent enough, though she was too dehydrated to refuse it in any case, and imbibed the entirety in two gulps.

  “Very ladylike,” he pronounced, taking the empty glass from her. “My name is Colobrin, Doctor Colobrin, if you will. What is yours?”

  She searched her mind for a name. There was one there, she was sure. But what in Pangaea was it? She tried to force some words out, but only succeeded in mumbling.

  “Can you speak at all?”

  More grunts escaped from her throat.

  “Aphasic. That’s no good to me. Can you write?” He handed her a pen and paper.

  She wrote: “I don’t know my name.”

  His sun-darkened brow creased with frown lines. “Do you remember what happened before now – how you got yourself into this state?”

  Her mind was blank, a world of blackness. She wrote again: “No. Nothing.”

  “Nothing at all? Your childhood?”

  She shook her head. How did she even know what a childhood was? And was it that? How was it that she could identify the bed she lay in and the colour of the walls that surrounded them, and yet not know the events that had passed in her own life? Pangaea... what was Pangaea?

  Doctor Colobrin nodded slowly. “You have been through a terrible trauma, I think. You will need a name for now. What would suit you?”

  A response popped into her head almost immediately, though it was only a series of vowels after a consonant. “Raia?” she scrawled.

  “Aye, Raia we shall call you. You know, you have the look of The Šona about you. I would say you are almost certainly from their lot – though, if you are, you are a long way from home.”

  “Šona?” The word conjured images of burning and the acrid scent of... something. And what had they been talking about? Who was this man? Did he have a name?

  “A group of people who practise peace and eschew the modern wonders we have here. They are well known for having hair like yours. The women are also known for their... singular physiology.”

  Raia looked down at the sprays of hair that clawed at her chest. They were orange, red and gold: a sort of burnt gold. It reminded her of nothing. More blankness filled her head. Wait, he had given her a name. Colob-something. She wrote again. “Did you know me before I arrived here? How did I arrive?”

  “I found you.” The doctor shrugged. “There was a big battle over in Hornfin and I went to attend to the inevitable pile of wounded. But everything was burned to the ground when I arrived, bodies too. And then I found this trail of blood leading up the side of the mountain. Three miles along it was the body of a man and two miles beyond that was you.”

  “Dead?” she scribbled.

  “Aye. Punctured lung and lacerations to his liver. He bled to death, but he still managed to carry you all that way.”

  This dead man had clearly gone to great lengths to help her, and yet she could not remember him. Guilt started to settle on her bones. Raia attempted to speak this time. The words came out slowly, clumsily. “W- why – what-” She took a breath, “What did he loo-ok like?”

  The doctor shrugged. “Fighter. Older than you. I have his body in the cold store; you can say your goodbyes to him when you’re more mobile.”

  That thought made her shiver. Better to put it to one side. “I was in a ba-battle? I thought you said Šona were pea- peaceful.”

  “Indeed. Quite the puzzle, aren’t you?”

  “What wa- was the battle ab- about?”

  The doctor harrumphed. “Damned empire and its rebels. The emperor wants everything and the people in these parts don’t want him. Copper mines, you see. Very valuable. His army raged into the valley a week ago, trounced upon everything in its path, and then left once they’d killed enough rebels. That’s the way it usually goes.”

  “And which side do you think I was f-figh-fighting for?”

  He chuckled. “I never said you were a warrior. Caught in the crossfire, I’d guess. You didn’t have any weapons on you. Then again, you’ve clearly got yourself into messes before. You have more scars on you than an ice cutter!”

  She felt mildly offended at that, though she could not have said why. Her stomach had certainly sustained some sort of injury though. It continued to send reminders of its state to her as she thought. “Why would anyone harm an unarmed woman?”

  Colobrin’s eyes narrowed a touch, and he looked away before answering. “I don’t know.”

  “It hurts.”

  “Aye, and it should. You received a very deep slash to the abdomen. Getting up and walking about is most definitely out of the question. You must let it heal – I’ve stitched it up all I can, but this sort of thing takes weeks to get better. I have some wonderful painkillers, though. Would you prefer the knock-out sort, the tripping sort or the lucid sort?”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “Unfortunately you have no choice but to trust me. Plenty of reasons to trust me, though. I’ll get the lucid ones for you.” He winked, but his accompanying grin quickly faded. “Do you feel hot?”
<
br />   In truth, she felt rather cold. “No.”

  Doctor Colobrin placed a hand against her forehead. “You’re fevering, which means you have an infection. The treatment for it will make you drowsy, but it is necessary.” He stood from the bed and made for the door.

  “Wait.”

  His eyebrows rose in synchrony with his turn.

  “The clothes you found me in – are they here? Did I have any belongings with me?”

  “I’m afraid my wife burned the outfit you wore. It was rather... bloody. There was one thing.” He stepped towards a metal dresser by the door, and picked a small object up from its surface before striding back to hand it to her. “You were clutching this in one hand, for which there is still some evidence.” He turned then, and left the room.

  Raia turned the object over between her fingers. It looked very much like a tooth, though not from any animal she would like to meet. It was half as long as her thumb, triangular and almost translucent at the biting tip. It was also very sharp. She opened her palms to examine them and, as the doctor had said, found three small cuts on her left hand that matched the corners of the tooth perfectly. And that was the sum of her life: a tooth, numerous injuries and a supposed link to a faraway people. “Who am I?”

  The next two weeks were spent in a transitional state of consciousness. From time to time the doctor would come to check upon her wound or administer some new concoction of drugs. And sometimes his wife would come to attend their patient, changing her bandages or bringing her food. Raia did not have much of an appetite for it when she was awake, but ate what she could out of politeness. Strange dreams came to her during that time, featuring faces she could not identify and scenes she was unable to recognise. But there was one phrase that came to her again and again; the same set of words that seemed burned into her mind.

  Don’t mention the colour.

  She was sure that she had not said these words, rather that they had been an instruction to her. But why? And the colour of what? Grapes? A snow bike? A cat? It seemed such a peculiar request for anyone to make.

  On the sixteenth day of her recovery she was able to sit up by herself and remain awake for more than an hour. On the seventeenth day she stood for a few seconds, and on the eighteenth day she was able to walk. A plain dress had been left for her by the bed, and Raia bathed only briefly before putting it on. Doctor Colobrin had stressed again and again how important it was that she kept her wound dry; so much so that she was tempted to soak herself out of spite. She halted midway through placing her broken arm in one sleeve, seeing something move on the opposite wall. It was a reflection. Raia went to stand before it, and examined the woman who looked back at her. She appeared much younger than she had expected; half as old as the doctor and his wife, though she felt an age older in her mind. She was rather pale, with pronounced dark circles around darker eyes. Reddish-gold hair spilled down one shoulder. Though she did not recognise this woman whose face she wore, she knew that she did not look well. Raia turned away from the strange, ill woman to complete her preparations.

  Opening the door of her place of confinement produced a view through the surrounding building that she had not expected. It was larger and more elaborate than her room might have otherwise indicated, with brass switches and low-hanging gas lamps. She traced her finger along the wall as she walked the blue-carpeted corridor. Clearly Doctor Colobrin had achieved some wealth through his occupation, or perhaps had inherited it through some other means. She found some stairs, and moved slowly down them to avoid jarring her various sources of pain. These broad steps led to a further, high-ceilinged hallway and finally to a stone-floored room with double doors. Raia stumbled through them.

  “Good morning,” came a melodious welcome from the doctor. He lowered his newspaper and pressed a switch on the giant contraption embedded in the centre of the table. “Good to see you finally up and about.” The machine whirred, and cogs could be observed turning at the top. “Will you have some toast?”

  “Ah – pardon?”

  “Toast. You remember what that is, don’t you?”

  She did. She thought she liked it. “Yes, please.” As the words left her mouth, a single slice leapt from the centre of the now-grunting machine, and was caught by a plate that flew from some indeterminate launch point. The pair of airborne items landed with a surprisingly gentle clink on the wooden surface of the table.

  “Anti-grav cushioning,” the doctor said with a grin. He reprised his newspaper, leaving Raia to sit before her oddly-prepared breakfast.

  The toast had been well-buttered, and tasted far better than she had anticipated. As she gobbled down a second slice, she noted that Mrs Brin – the doctor’s wife – was staring at her. She thought quickly. “I think I owe the two of you some considerable thanks.”

  Colobrin lowered his paper for a second time.

  “Clearly I would have been very dead without your interventions. I would like to repay you in whatever way you see fit, though I’m afraid I don’t yet know what skills I have to do it.”

  Mrs Brin smiled broadly enough to split her tanned and wrinkled face in two, but the doctor only coughed with embarrassment. “Good, very good,” he said in clipped tones. “I am sure we can find something for you to occupy yourself with until you reclaim your identity. No movement on that front, I presume?”

  Raia shook her head.

  “Well, that is a shame. Now, have you heard the good news?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Hmm.” Colobrin leaned back in his chair, so that it teetered on its posterior legs, and reached towards a brass panel implanted in the wall behind him. He twiddled a knob in its corner, and the sound of speaking barked from a grille:

  “...known for his uncompromising attitude towards rebellion and insurrection, the emperor held his seat of power for forty-three years. Proclamations of grief and sorrow have been pouring in from the officers of each of Pangaea’s hundred-and-sixty-eight provinces, and this morning a statement was issued by The Admiral of the Four Galaxies: ‘The emperor was a man without equal, a visionary with singular insight into the matters of disparate peoples. We shall miss his counsel and his genius. The Galaxies mourn him on this black day as they would mourn the loss of a brother.’ The news of the emperor’s death will come as a disappointment to the admiral, who had formerly bargained with Sighter Turoth for a marriage between the two houses. Turoth’s son, already elected as the new emperor, has yet to make any formal announcement on his position with The Four Galaxies, but it is expected that he shall make his first address tomorrow morning. Commentators are wary of Sighter Valyar’s intentions as, in the past, he ha-”

  Colobrin switched the receiver off. “Emperor’s dead. Long live the emperor.”

  Raia was fairly sure that she had little interest in politics, even if they had made a rather direct contribution to the battle which had caused her to lose her memories. “You did not like him?”

  Mrs Brin chuckled. “Even his own men did not like him. Good riddance, I say.” She waved a hand through her light brown hair and whirled her eyes around with elation.

  The doctor’s features formed their expression with greater caution. “Angered many, he did; abused more. The son ran away, a newspaper proclaimed him dead but now the boy’s back. From what I hear, Valyar is just as gruff as his father, but is friends with the rebels and more thoughtful about his workers – and I have enough diggers to fix as it is. Don’t need any more battle injuries like yours to deal with.”

  “Well, that’s nice.” Raia looked at her empty plate, scattered with the detritus of her greedily bolted breakfast. She probably shouldn’t have eaten it. “I would like to see the body of the man you have, if I may.”

  Colobrin’s face was grim, but he nodded. “Follow me.”

  Below the house were a connected set of cellars, each one colder and emptier than the last. Pale blue paint peeled form the walls of the chambers, creating curls of shadow that grew outwards as the doctor moved p
ast with his candle. The final room was cold enough to make Raia’s teeth chatter, and was vastly different from the others. A polished metal wall full of square doors lined one side, and gas lamps dangled precariously from the cob-webbed ceiling. The doctor strode to one of the corner doors and hauled it open, before drawing out a still, dark form on a tray. “This is him. As I said, a fighter. This is the rebel’s uniform of choice: lots of grey. Do you recognise him?”

  Raia took one step toward him, followed by another… and a third. He was not going to spring to life, surely? The body did not stir, and she soon found herself gazing at its grey features; the colour of his skin matched his clothes rather well. He was a clean-shaven man, probably in his early forties… or possibly older. A few, small lines were marked about his mouth, and an ancient scar trailed down his neck. Flecks of silver touched his temples amidst dark brown hair. It was an angular, tough sort of face he had, and Raia wondered if she would have considered him handsome in life. It was a possibility. She traced her eyes down his body, still covered from chest to foot in dried blood. There was no doubt that he had the muscle of a warrior, certainly fit enough to run with her over his shoulder for some distance. A long sword lay at his side, and several daggers were still strapped to his legs. Two knife holsters clung emptily to his boots.

  “Anything coming to you?”

  She shook her head. “I do not remember this man at all.” She looked back at his sword. It too was covered in old blood. “Are you sure this man carried me, and was not the one who fought me?”

  The doctor folded his arms. “Well, the blood on his sword is not yours, nor were there any other blades left along the trail that he could have used. But your blood is in his clothing, and a man’s - most likely his - shirt was tied around your stomach to stem the bleeding. No way you could have tied a knot like that with a broken arm. Someone hurt you in the compound at the foot of the mountain, burned the place down and this man here dragged you out of it. He must have thought a great deal of you.”