CHAPTER FOURKaelem woke up feeling sick and dizzy with an oncoming headache. It was dark, aharsh wind wrapped itself around him, making the boy convulse into uncontrollableshivers. He lay down to ease the nausea and closed his eyes. The longer he stayedlike this the more wet his hair and back felt, and so, unable to do much else dueto the sickness enveloping him, Kaelem rolled over. When his eyes focused on whathe saw a dull bolt ran through him: it was snow. But his illness overshadowed thefull emotion of revelation, and instead of wondering what was happening he movedhis hand, picking a bit of it up, feeling the melting snow trickle between hisfingers. He sniffed and held his hand to his head, vaguely acknowledging that hewas wearing glasses, and let the freeze of the snow take his mind off the constantthrobbing. He gave up and buried his face in the snow, not caring anymore aboutthe cold, only of easing the pain and letting the sickness pass. He lay in thesame position for a long time: eyes closed, breathing deeply, his hands pressedagainst his forehead, drifting in and out of reality as the aching subsided andcame back again in the same motion. Finally he descended into a peaceful sleep anddidn’t wake for a long time.***The cold roused Kaelem from his slumber: It became too unbearable for him tosleep through. The first thing he noticed was that there was no more pain. Hesmiled. Kaelem pushed himself up with his arms, and knelt in the snow. Snow? Helooked up at the sky and witnessed an unusual blue sun emitting rays of light thatfelt cold upon his skin. He got a shock when his gaze reached the landscape: Themagnificent snow combined with the sun to make a white so brilliant that he had toshield his eyes from the glare. He swallowed, something seemed to be stuck in histhroat, and when he swallowed again he coughed painfully. Where was he? What hadhappened to him? In a tremendous shiver his body told him that the first thing heshould worry about was primal survival: find shelter from the biting cold, thenfigure out what this all meant. With any luck, or perhaps misfortune, he would beable to do both at the same time.He stood up slowly, eyes lowered, unsteady from shattered nerves and sinkingfeet; he watched as snow enveloped them. He looked up, his eyes attempting toadjust, and witnessed a place he never thought he would see first hand. His eyesfound it hard to take it all in. Standing there, open mouthed, he saw a landcovered in deep, sparkling, transcendent snow. He’d never seen it so pure, soinfinite. Layer upon layer, never ending into the horizon, and beyond. Kaelemturned round until he spotted something in the distance which broke up thelandscape. He screwed up his eyes and thought he saw the top of a building, lightshining from it to merge into the sun’s rays. Blue rays. He stood there, mouthagape, unsure what he should do, how he should react, knowing only the freezingcold around him. With a wind whipping at his clothes he began to make for thebuilding, wrapping his arms around himself, hoping to find warmth, or at leastshelter. The thought only now occurred to him that people must occupy this land,how else could a structure be here? Unless, of course, it had been deserted whenthe cold had suddenly come. No one could live in these weather conditions withoutat least some form of heat.He wasn’t watching where he was going as he ran towards the building, breathless,trying to heat up against the stinging pain of cold. Suddenly he found his feetfree of the snow, and had to spread his arms out to keep his balance. Kaelemlooked down and saw that he was standing on a river that had been frozen over.Below the icy surface he could see motion. As he leaned down for a closer look hesaw fish the like of which he had never seen before, swimming happily in clearwater. They had huge gills, and were the colour of the snow. Four blue stripesrunning horizontally across their backs patterned their scales. They had barbellsaround their mouth, like Catfish, but these were also blue, gradually turning
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