Orluvoq Chapter 1

The Watcher sat at the end of the earth; he sat at the start of the sky. Today he watched errant flakes of snow drift over the edge in apathetic gusts of suicide. It was one of the few dances his eyes would never tire of, their ambling drift shimmering before a backdrop of inexhaustible darkness. If his luck held, that would be all he watched today.

As idly as the snow fell, he pondered over what happened to the spirits of those forsaken flakes. Did they, through some mystic means, return to earth, or were they consumed entirely by the void? A younger Watcher—and indeed not yet then a Watcher—would have contested against the cruelty of the nihility at the end of the earth. But such were the customs of naivety. 

Today’s Watcher knew frailty. He knew nullity. He knew reality. The knowledge lodged in his skin much as humans lodged in the earth’s hide. The snowflakes were gone.

Gone…

The thought guttered out as the candle beside him tugged at his innards. He gathered up the glim in his gloved hand and focused on the swaying flame, the other dance his eyes never tired of. The distinctive odor of burning alicorn wafted into his nostrils and his eyes slid shut. An indistinct gravity flittered behind his spirit. He damped his breathing and released himself from the world.

The gravity consolidated. There she was, a mile east, the thrum of her quavering within him like the lowing of calving glaciers. He tracked the pull of her paltry procession toward Nunapisu, the end of the earth. Today he would watch more than snowflakes.

The Watcher’s eyes cracked open and he groaned to his feet, stretching his back once he arrived. He took a brace of exploratory steps to check that his snowshoes needed no adjusting, then embarked.

Twenty minutes later, and silent as a dead fox, he trailed mere paces behind on her approach to the edge. Her feet carried her to the brink then scuffled to a halt. They always stopped at the edge.

He slid in beside her and resumed his observation of the dying snow. “What do you see?”

She sucked in an acute breath, jumped back, and turned to appraise the newcomer. A portion of her hackles settled as she decided who he must be. “I don’t need your words, Watcher.”

He stared into the neverending, arms crossed over his chest. Few may want my words, sister, but all need them. “What do you see?” he repeated, nodding to the dark.

A frozen moment passed before she shook her head. “Nothing. I see nothing.”

Nothing. That was true enough. But two decades had taught the Watcher that much could be wrung from the inky abyss. “Nothing? If that’s so, then I don’t think this is the place for you.” He pushed some of the warmth from his candle onto her.

Her breath flickered in preparation for weeping. “Everything, Watcher. I see everything.” A gulp. “I see everything behind me and realize that everything is nothing now. I see nothing before me and realize that nothing is everything now. I am nothing. And so, nothing must become my everything.”

He waited, turning over half a dozen replies in his mind. “Who do you run from?”

“Who do I… It’s not that simple. I…” She sniffled. “My mother has disowned me.” A sob tremored her body.

The Watcher turned to behold her for the first time. Matted hair clung haphazard about her face. Dull eyes weary of being squeezed for tears regarded him. She was somewhere around his age, mid-forties and holding, and from the state of things, it appeared the age of her spirit might be near his as well.

“Loss is not friends with ease, I know,” he said. “Even more so when the one you’re deprived of chose to become lost.” He let the words hang in the air, then continued when she made no reply. “And what of your husband? Your children? Do none of them claim you any longer?”

She wiped at the fresh tears on her contorted face. “My husband is a quiet man who fears talking against anyone. He would never dream of confronting Mother. My children are… Well, Inneq has always hated me. He was glad for the change. And Silaanoq—she’s too young to sway things either way, but she’s always been more like her father. It wouldn’t matter if she were older.”

He nodded at the revelation. Some took longer than others, but all wanted to spill their story at least once more. “And so, everything has become nothing, and nothing has become everything.” Both of their eyes were drawn to the glinting flame in his hand as silence set in. After a minute, he broke the quiet. “Here you’ve come, unable to resist the draw of Nunapisu. That queer hope offered by this gulf of eternal nothing. You resisted many miles of hungry ice for the chance to cast yourself beneath the sky.”

Her gloved hand pawed at more tears. “What does it matter to you? You don’t know me. What if I deserved to be forsaken?”

“There is always somebody who cares about you. Today that person is me.” He lessened the amount of heat he was drawing from the candle so he could funnel more to her.

She scowled at his pronouncement and took a step to peer over the edge. A shiver gripped her body, and the Watcher discerned other telltales of a fever.

“Infinity gets smaller with each moment that you stare at it,” he said.

“What does that mean?” she eventually replied.

His gaze disappeared into the expanse. “When you look into the stars and imagine how far away it all is, it makes you feel a tiny piece in the midst of greatness. Not so for the void. The longer you stare, the more you realize that there’s nothing. You could fall for a thousand years and never see a difference. And when all is the same, it doesn’t matter how much there is. It begins to shrink around you until you’re pressing your arms and legs against it, and then the nothing swallows you.”

The woman picked at a fraying seam in her caribou coat. “Then I must jump.”

His candle burned lower than he would have liked. He thought about scaling back the heat he was channeling, but her preservation was worth more than some narwhal tallow and horn. “When I came, I thought the same. I reasoned I was bred from oblivion’s stock and was through with my sojourn in existence. Time is the only thing that can heal these wounds.”

“No. This wound will fester with time. Better to cut it off and save myself the pain.” She shuffled closer to the edge.

“I’m not here to tell you what to do with your life; it’s in your hands.” He underscored his statement by grabbing her hand. Sometimes, they hadn’t known the touch of another in so long, mere contact could pry them from the edge. It had kept him back often enough. “I’m here to beg you to give your body to the ice. Let it be preserved forever instead of disappearing, and your spirit along with it. Give me your name, and I will remember it. Give your spirit a chance. You may be filled with sorrow now, but you’ll have all eternity to find joy.”

“Which is the same as saying that I’ll have all eternity to be miserable.” Her fevered face reflected her belief in the words.

“Unbound by present cares, you will find misery tiring.” He pontificated from his own musings and the words of elders from his youth.

Her breathing increased to an angry rate as she snatched her hands from him. “Do you know what I see? I see a fool at the end of the earth who doesn’t understand why people come here.”

Her words spoken in a tangle of emotion twanged hollowly against his heart. “You’re right, of course. A score of years on this lurch sweep has shown me nothing.”

The woman’s face distorted with grief again. “How could someone I love so much cast me aside so easily?” An unintelligible moan racked her body. “Where did I love you wrong, Mama?”

His heart quickened at her sudden change in humor. “It’s not always—”

A rustle of movement and a wail of despair cut him off.

The Watcher stood at the end of the earth; he stood at the start of the sky. Today he watched an anguished woman throw herself over the edge in an irrevocable thrust of suicide. It was one of the few dances his eyes would never watch while dry, her miniscule form sprawled before a backdrop of inexhaustible darkness.

His luck hadn’t held. She was gone.

Gone.

Gone…

Gone.