Singer in the Snow Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Glossary

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty -One

  Twenty- Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty -Four

  Twenty -Five

  Twenty -Six

  Twenty -Seven

  Twenty -Eight

  Twenty -Nine

  Epilogue

  BOOKS BY LOUISE MARLEY

  The Singers of Nevya:

  Sing the Light

  Sing the Warmth

  Receive the Gift

  Singer in the Snow

  The Terrorists of Irustan

  The Glass Harmonica

  The Maquisarde

  The Child Goddess

  VIKING

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada),90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in 2005 by Viking, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  Copyright © Louise Marley, 2005

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Marley, Louise, date-

  Singer in the snow / Louise Marley.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In a land where the sun shines only once every five years, two gifted

  young Singers are sent to a remote outpost where they struggle to refine their abilities

  to create heat and light using their psi energy.

  eISBN : 978-1-440-69594-0

  [1. Psychic ability—Fiction. 2. Self-realization—Fiction.

  3. Coming of age—Fiction. 4. Science fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M3444Sin 2005

  [Fic]—dc22

  2005005575

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication

  may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or

  by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior

  written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For the real Emily

  A Note on Music

  THE NEVYAN CLEF symbol is a C clef, indicating the one pitch all Singers must be able to remember and reproduce accurately. Both the filla and the filhata are tuned to C. The filhata ’s central, deepest string is the bass C; from top to bottom, the filhata is tuned thusly: E-B-F-C-G-D-A. The filla is tuned with no stops on C.

  The modes are natural scales of whole and half-steps; alterations, or accidentals, are considered variations and are used as embellishments, and can be half- or quarter-tones. Even those Singers without absolute pitch are required to memorize the pitch C early in their training.

  The modes are employed customarily in the following ways:

  First mode, Iridu : quiru, inducing sleep

  Second mode, Aiodu : quiru, healing

  Third mode, Doryu : warming water, treating infections

  Fourth mode, Lidya : entertainment, relaxation

  Fifth mode, Mu-Lidya : entertainment, relaxation

  Glossary

  caeru: A fur-bearing animal; a source of meat and hides

  Cantoris: The room in which a Singer does her or his work, and where the members of the House come to listen

  Cantrix (f)/Cantor (m): A highly trained Singer who maintains the environment for one of the great Houses of Nevya

  carwhal : A sea animal that lives mostly in the water

  ferrel : A large predatory bird

  filhata : A stringed instrument similar to a lute, used exclusively by Cantors and Cantrixes

  filla : A small, flutelike instrument used by Singers

  House: An ancient stone building that can be home to as many as three hundred people, with apartments, large kitchens, nursery gardens, and manufactories

  hruss: A large, shaggy animal used for riding and carrying, or pulling the pukuru

  keftet : A traditional dish of meat and grain

  kikyu : Small fishing boat(s)

  Maestro (m)/Maestra (f): Instructors at Conservatory; a term of respect

  Magister (m)/Magistrix (f): Hereditary or appointed House rulers

  obis knife: A knife made of slender long metal pieces, used in conjunction with psi to carve stone and ironwood

  psi: Mental power that can move tiny particles of air or sometimes larger objects

  pukuru : A sled, which can be various sizes, with bone runners

  quiru : An area of heat and light created by the psi of Gifted Singers

  quirunha : The ceremony that creates a quiru large enough to heat and light an entire House

  Singer : One who uses music to focus energy to create warmth and light

  tkir: A large predatory cat with great fangs

  ubanyor (m)/ubanyix (f): A sunken communal bath (for men/ women)

  urbear : A very large silvery-gray coastal animal

  wezel : A thin, rodentlike animal, native to Nevya

  Prologue

  EMLE’S MELODY FLOWED easily from her filla. Her slender tone rang against the ancient stones of Conservatory, the low notes warm and resonant, the high ones delicate and true. She felt the sure pressure of her breath against her lips, the precision of her fingertips on the little instrument’s carved stops. She played in the second mode, Aiodu, perfect for creating quiru. The tune was going well, her tempo steady, her intonation perfect.

  She closed her eyes, hoping. Always hoping. She stretched out her psi, the slender stream of her mind’s energy, to stir the air to life.

  She felt the strength of her psi as surely as if it were her own slender arm that reached out into the atmosphere of the practice room. She knew what needed to be done, and she knew how to do it.

  But it was no different this time than it had been the last five times, ten times, the last hundred times she had tried. She came almost to the point of success, where she knew she could touch the tiniest parts of the air, excite them to light and warmth, create the quiru she longed for . . . and, at the crucial moment, the fibril of her psi collapsed.

  As her cadence died away, a faint sigh escaped Maestra Magret. Reluctantly, Emle lifted her eyelids.

  The practice room was bright, of course, and warm, because all of Conservatory was br
ight and warm. Though austere in its decoration, and spare in its furnishings, Conservatory never lacked for Singers’ energy. Its daily quirunha was the most powerful on the Continent, performed by the best Cantors and Cantrixes of Nevya, the teachers of Conservatory. Their psi, borne on the wings of music, excited the invisible particles of air to create quiru, havens of warmth and light. Their Gift was all that stood between Nevyans and the deep cold.

  But Emle’s Gift failed to make quiru. The practice room was no brighter, no warmer than when she had begun.

  Emle hung her head. I am sorry, Maestra, she sent. Her eyes stung, and she pressed the back of her hand to her eyelids. I am trying, truly I am.

  Maestra Magret, a Singer and Cantrix whose silver hair spoke of her years of service, sent, I know, Emle.

  I have practiced so hard. The back of Emle’s hand shone with tears. She dried it on the hem of her tunic, and looked up into her teacher’s faded eyes.

  Your music is lovely. Magret stood slowly, leaning on her staff of ironwood. She had grown increasingly stiff over the last year. Someone should try to heal the swelling of her knees and ankles, the pain that made her rely more and more on the carved staff. Emle supposed that Magret did not wish to ask anyone to take time from their teaching to ease her pain, but someone should, just the same. Someone should help Maestra Magret, but it would not be Emle. Emle’s healing, like her quiru, was ineffective.

  More tears welled, and escaped to roll down her cheeks. Her nose began to run, and she groped in her pocket.

  “Here, now.” Magret spoke aloud, no doubt not wanting to intrude on Emle’s misery. Or perhaps, Emle thought, not wanting to share in it. The Maestra handed her a clean white handkerchief. Pragmatically, as if Emle’s whole life were not riding on this one great failure, she said, “It is time we speak to the Magistrix.”

  Emle’s heart felt as heavy as the very stones of the House. She had lived in terror of this moment, had dreaded it for months, felt its imminence for weeks. Her anxiety had not helped her Gift, either. It seemed the harder she tried, the more it eluded her.

  All of Conservatory’s student Singers, except perhaps one, feared the Magistrix. They quailed before her fierce, dark gaze, dared not risk her infrequent reprimands. They yearned for her even more infrequent praise.

  Emle’s failure required the Magistrix’s attention, and she knew it. She rose from her stool, dried her eyes, blew her nose. She spent all her courage saying, “Very well, Maestra.” Her voice shook, but it didn’t break. She tucked the handkerchief away to take to the linen ambry later. “I understand.”

  Very good, Emle. The touch of Magret’s sending was gentle in Emle’s mind. Remember that the Magistrix has only your best interests at heart.

  Emle shielded her mind to hide her doubts. Magistrix Sira possessed a fabled Gift. How could such a person understand—or forgive—Emle’s faulty one?

  The Magistrix of Conservatory carried the very survival of Nevya on her shoulders. It was to her the people looked to relieve the shortage of Gifted children. It was of her the Magistral Committee demanded answers and explanations. Sira held the very future of Nevya in her hands. She could not be expected to tolerate the blundering efforts of one young Singer.

  Emle felt her heart’s desire slipping through her fingers. Her father would be furious, her mother disappointed, her brothers scornful.

  She replaced the stool in its corner with exaggerated care while she composed herself. She made a silent vow. If she was to be sent away, she would go with a brave face. She would behave with grace and courage.

  She turned back to Maestra Magret with her spine straight and her head high. She was, after all, a Singer. Her Gift was flawed, her future uncertain, but she was a Singer. She would carry herself like one.

  One

  AN ENORMOUS ICEBERG, calved from the Great Glacier, had floated for days off the southern coast of the Continent. When it crashed against the cliffs, its impact shook the very stones of the House of Tarus.

  Luke lifted his head, distracted by the noise. He was on his knees in a loose box, soothing the labor pangs of one of the hruss in his charge. The old mare had borne one too many foals already, and for a whole day and night she had struggled to deliver this one. Luke’s heart ached for her. He patted her rigid flank, and waited for her pain to recede for a moment before he stood. He slipped out of the stall and went to lean his long torso over the open half-door of the stables, drawing deep breaths of fresh cold air.

  The stables were built at the back of Tarus. From the door Luke could see the whole bay, circled by icy cliffs that glittered in the morning sun. A low stone wall ran to the east and west along the broad cliff path, protecting people and hruss from falling to the rocks below. Luke squinted against the brightness to see the iceberg. The day before, it had been an enormous peaked mass, a dull, dirty gray above the frigid blue water. Now it had split, all at once, into three jagged floes, their raw edges clean and white. Fragments called brash ice choked the choppy water, shining like bits of broken limeglass. As he watched, another chunk fell from the original berg with a noisy splash. Behind him, the hruss shifted their great feet and whickered uneasily.

  He called to them, keeping his voice low and even. “Whoa, there. Be easy, you big babies. Just ice falling into the sea.” On his way back to the laboring mare, he patted a few broad, shaggy heads, tugged one or two floppy ears. Beyond the House lay the deep cold, but here, in the stables, the air was warm, ripe with the smell of hruss flesh and the peppery fragrance of freshly laid straw. Even now, as Luke knelt again beside the mare, the air brightened, and the heat intensified. In the Cantoris, the Singers were performing the quirunha, driving back the cold for another day, protecting the House through another long, frigid night.

  Luke stroked the mare’s tight flank, murmuring sympathy. He had tried, before the breeding season, to tell Axl that the mare was too frail to foal again, but his effort had won him only his stepfather’s mockery.

  Luke had worked in the stables for just three years, but he had been riding hruss since he was a tiny boy, first up behind his father, then on his own mount by the time he had two summers. They had lived at the House of Filus, far to the north, Luke and his parents and his little sister, until Luke’s father’s death in a hunting accident. When his mother had accepted Axl v’Tarus as her new mate, Axl brought them through the Southern Timberlands to the big House here on the shore of the Frozen Sea.

  Luke’s mother, Erlys, went to work in the linen ambry, with his little sister Gwin clinging to her trouser legs as she washed and dried and folded. Luke became Axl’s apprentice, a job which filled the long Nevyan days with cleaning stables, spreading fresh straw, and repairing tack. The arrival of travelers from other Houses meant more beasts to feed, to curry, to stable.

  He had grown too fast during the past cold seasons. He hardly knew where to put his big feet, where to fit his long legs. He kept to the stables whenever he could, in the company of dumb beasts, where heads didn’t turn when he stumbled, as they did in the great room. For days on end, he spoke to no one but his mother and sister and Axl. His speech grew clumsy as well, as if from disuse. He fell into a habit of silence, walking through the House with his eyes down, his shoulders slumped. When he tried to speak to Housemembers, his tongue felt thick and his lips dry. Even to his own ears, Luke sounded like a half-wit, and so he spoke even less.

  In Axl’s presence, it was worse. His stepfather laughed at him. Even if Luke managed to speak his mind, Axl ignored him. In the matter of this old mare, for instance, he had dismissed Luke’s concern as ignorance. And now, as the hours of labor dragged on, the master of hruss was nowhere to be seen. Luke had been alone in the stables since the previous afternoon.

  “Luke?”

  He scrambled up at the sound of his mother’s voice, and went to open the gate of the box. “Here.”

  She stepped into the stables from the corridor, her eyes searching the corners, the door to the tack room, the other stalls.
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  “I’m alone.” Luke moved into the passageway so his mother could see him.

  Erlys, a petite and delicate woman who looked much younger than her eight summers, smiled up at her tall son. “I brought your breakfast,” she said, holding out a wooden bowl covered in a napkin. Her voice was girlish, too, almost as light and high as her daughter’s. “You weren’t in your bed last night.”

  “The mare’s still laboring,” Luke said.

  “Axl should be back soon.”

  Luke took the bowl from Erlys’s hands and went into the tack room. He sat on the bench that circled the walls, stretching out his legs. The keftet was rich with fresh fish, grain, and vegetables from the nursery garden. The bread, soft and hot, steamed with the fragrance of the softwood used in the big ovens. He devoured the bread in three bites, and took a huge spoonful of keftet. “Been gone awhile,” he said.

  “It’s been eight days.” Erlys sat beside him and put her hand on Luke’s arm. He looked down at it, startled by how small it appeared. In the season just past, it seemed he had grown up all at once. He was now a head taller than Axl, though his shoulders were still narrow.

  He took another bite and swallowed. “Where’s Gwin?”

  “In the Cantoris. She went to listen to the quirunha,” Erlys said.