PART EIGHT
When Aura opens her eyes, Penguin is awake but One Ear is snoring gently. The dog wrinkles his nose.
“Food, huh?” He squeaks in perfect imitation of the rat.
During the night, the ever-falling snow had closed up the entranceway. Considering they’re surrounded by ice on all sides, the snow-cave is warmer than Aura could ever have believed imaginable; the small area is easily heated by their bodies and it’s protected from the wind and the elements. Of the three, One Ear has by far fared the best as she had managed to curl herself up inside Aura’s jacket and consequentially benefit from both the makeshift duvet and the deity’s body heat. Penguin, the largest in terms of body mass, had succeeded in keeping the other two warm by pressing as much of his body against them as possible – return heat from their bodies, his fur and reserves of fat had kept him warm.
The Great Dane pulls away from the group and starts to scrape at the blocked entranceway. As the wall is only thin, it doesn’t take him long to break open a hole and squeeze himself through; Aura marvels at how such a large animal could fit through such a small gap. Assuming that he’s gone to find food, she carefully removes her jacket so as not to disturb One Ear and sets about to work out exactly how much damage her ribs took when she crashed into the wall of the Shrine.
Even the gentlest of pressures give way to the most agonising of pains. Gritting her teeth and holding back tears, she’s able to identify which ribs she’s busted, although the degree of damage is indiscernible. Presumably, it could be worse; at least she’s able to move her arms (to an extent) and the pain clearly wasn’t bad enough to stop her from swimming from the Silver Cove to Mahogany Forest, and from there to Vista Mountain. An unfamiliar emotion stirs in the ex-divine: pride. To swim such a distance is an achievement on its own, but to do so with a broken rib and with no previous experience or knowledge of how to swim is rather incredible. Aura has a sudden strange but glowing feeling that somewhere, somehow, a phoenix is watching and smiling.
Several hours pass. More than once Aura considers going out in search of firewood, but each time she refrains; she hadn’t seen any on the way up and travelling too far from the snow-cave would be dangerous because if she got lost she would easily die of hypothermia. The only thing to do is wait. Gradually, the hole Penguin had made builds up again, and after a while One Ear wakes up and starts to chatter away cheerfully. Not really listening, Aura puts her jacket back on. Supposing the dog doesn’t come back? They would wait here for days... eventually starvation would drive them out into the cold, where they would die of exhaustion and exposure. The snow would cover them up and no one would ever find their frozen corpses. Anneliese would have died for nothing.
Just as sinking into a deep pool of despair seems inevitable, the most glorious sound in the world streams like sunlight into the snow-cave: a scrabbling noise along the thin ice wall. Seconds later, the harlequin Great Dane pokes his head through the resulting gap, his huge jaws clamped firmly around something small, white and furry – Aura prefers not to know precisely what.
The uncooked meal is vile by normal standards, but after two days without food it tastes like a royal banquet. At the very least, it provides them with the energy they need to kick down the wall to the snow cave and begin to make their way carefully down the slope of the mountain back towards the water’s edge. There, they pause. Large lumps of ice floating in the water are indicative of its temperature, and none of them are in a hurry to enter it first. Aura’s mind keeps flicking back to scenes from Titanic; Penguin is wondering if Poppy would feel his death without their telepathic link and One Ear, who always voices her thoughts aloud, says simply:
“Chilly, huh?”
Aura almost laughs. ‘Chilly’ doesn’t quite cover it. “Winter is getting worse. We can’t stay here, but swimming into a freezing ocean when we have no idea where we’re going is madness.”
“Look on the horizon,” Penguin rumbles in his deep tones. Aura squints, shielding her eyes against the sun, but she can’t make anything out. The dog must have much better eyesight than her, which is hardly surprising, given her low level. “It’s the castle,” he continues, “there are no fairies or familiars here – it stands to reason that they must be somewhere else. As the sea began to eat more and more of the land, the fairies would have been pushed closer and closer to the centre of the island – my guess is that they’ve taken refuge in the Core. King Arthur would have opened his gates to anyone and everyone seeking sanctuary.” He pauses briefly, his eyes firmly fixed on the tiny speck on the horizon. “If we take it steady and stick together, we can make it. You’re small enough to ride on my back.”
“And have you drown of exhaustion half way there? Poppy would never forgive me,” Aura smiles weakly.
The dog grins back, his tongue lolling from side to side. Without another word he bounds into the water, closely followed by One Ear, who takes up the suggestion of riding on the Dane’s back even though the offer wasn’t made to her. Penguin growls half-heartedly but allows the little rat to perch on his head. After several strokes he pauses, looking expectantly back to the shore.
No other way forward. And so we go.
With no further hesitation or thought as to the insanity of the action, Aura plunges after him and together, deity, dog and rat begin the last stretch of their intrepid journey.
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