Dagna Boulderback's Arc

Chapter 1 of 17

Water dripped where water should never drip. Dagna Boulderback pressed her wrinkled hand to the vault wall and felt it weep. Her whole life's work lay inside this frozen room, carved deep into the mountain stone: the lineage marks of her people, cut into ice by hands long dead. She was the last who could read them. She was old, her back bent, her fingers slow. And now a warm wind had crept down from the peaks, and the vault was melting. She lifted her lantern. The great ice slab that held the oldest carvings had split. A crack ran from floor to ceiling, wide as her arm. Meltwater slid down the grooves, blurring the marks. Each symbol was a name, a technique, a secret of ice-shaping she meant to pass on before her heart gave out. If they smeared away, they were gone forever. No one would ever cut them again. Her raven landed on her shoulder, dark wings tipped with white. The bird cried once, sharp, and pecked at her braid. "I know," Dagna said. "I know. I cannot lift it alone." The door scraped. A young man ducked in, furs frosted white, breath steaming. Mikhael Thornwood. He had come three days ago asking to learn her craft, and she had not yet decided if he was worthy. Now she had no choice. He saw the crack and dropped his pack. "It's going," he said. "What do we do?" "We copy them." Dagna shoved a stack of tanned hides into his arms. "Charcoal. Fast. Every mark you can reach." They worked. Mikhael rubbed charcoal over the hides, pressing them to the ice, lifting the shapes before they ran. Dagna guided his hand to the oldest slab, the one splitting worst. Water ran over her knuckles, so cold it burned. Her fingers cramped and would not straighten. "Higher," she said. "The top row. Those are the shaping songs. Reach them." He climbed the wet stone and pressed the last hide flat. The crack widened with a groan. A sheet of ice tore free and shattered on the floor between them. Mikhael peeled the hide away. The marks had come through, black and clean. The slab collapsed. Ice slid into meltwater and lost its shape. But the hides lay stacked on dry stone, dozens of them, every symbol saved. Dagna sank onto a bench, breathing hard. The raven settled beside the hides and guarded them. She looked at the young man, soaked and shaking, holding the last rubbing to his chest. "The carvings are gone," she said. "But the marks live. On skin now, not ice." Then she understood the new trouble. The hides held the symbols. Only she knew what they meant. And the meaning had never been written down anywhere. If she died before she taught him to read them, the rubbings were just black smears on old leather.