Chapter twelve

The morning came, damp and cold.

“Elie… I came to tell you…” Rikter, a guy who could climb any cliff without missing a beat, tripped over the threshold as he said that.

“What happened, Rik?” Elie jumped out of the bench she slept on. Half-dressed, her hair unbraided, she looked like a helpless baby bird. She shook Rikter by the shoulder, demanding: “Tell me, now!”

“Aimek… he is dead…”

The sea had washed the body ashore. Calm and quiet after the storm, it touched the motionless man gently with its dark waves.

The iceman’s skin was as white as snow, drained of life completely. Beside him, hungry birds bobbed on the waves, preening their feathers and bickering, but for some reason not daring to approach the food yet.

Elie wept inconsolably, her face hidden in Aimek’s wet hair; Rikter stood nearby, silent. Remorse, late and bitter, was tearing his heart apart.

“Elie, listen,” he said in a whisper, his voice caught in his throat. “It’s not right that he is there, in the water… and you are cold, too… Let me move him away from the sea”.

Elie fell silent. She no longer cried, just sobbed quietly, tears rolling down her cheeks. She stood up and made a few steps towards the dry sand.

Hauling a lifeless body was no easy task for a scrawny guy like Rikter. Sometimes waves helped, sometimes they tried to pull his burden back to the sea. The birds watched, their beady eyes unblinking. Ruffled figures appeared on the cliff: Aimek’s tribe came to mourn him.

One by one people descended to the beach. Even old Kalare came: one of her grandsons carried her down the cliff on his back. Out of her cave, in the sun, she looked even older than she was, as bleak as last year’s grass, as crooked as a dry branch. Kalare walked slowly, carefully putting one foot in front of the other, leaning on a cane to keep balance. She approached Elie. Old woman’s blind eyes gilded by the young sun met the girl’s.

“The birds sound so restless!” she said, listening. “They are hungry, but no bird will touch living flesh… How come the birds are more observant than you?”

“He’s alive?!” Elie beamed; Rikter sighed.

A gentle smile touched Kalare’s lips.

“Patience, my girl… Had he eaten more purple dust, he’d sleep for years. But since he hadn’t, he should wake up soon”.

Chapter thirteen

“Aimek, wake up…”

It feels so good to wake up in the arms of your beloved. Even if these arms are white and cold because of the sea wind and you lie on the wet sand covered in crushed ice.

Aimek had a fever and was shaking badly. As soon as his blood began to circulate properly again, numerous purple bruises appeared on his body where sea hit him against the rocks. Nevertheless, he smiled…

Having recovered his strength enough, the iceman slowly got up on his feet, with Rikter’s help. Aimek’s tribe couldn’t believe their eyes and rejoiced at the miracle, Elie cried at her beloved’s chest. People asked questions, loudly and incessantly, their voices akin to cliff birds’: “What happened? How did you survive, Aimek?”

“What happened yesterday?” Elie asked raising her teary eyes at him, eyes as blue as the ancient sea…

Aimek looked at her, then at Rikter… At his friend and apprentice he looked intently, for a long time… There was neither hate nor usual sternness in the young man’s eyes now, only pain.

“I don’t remember,” Aimek said to everyone, as loud as he could. “I must've hit my head on some rock when I fell. I have no idea how all this happened”.

Rikter’s heart sank when he realized: Aimek does remember. And he forgives him.

It hurt, badly, for days and days. It burned in Rikter’s chest like a glowing ember or a little island of purple moss would. Some things you can never forget, but you can learn from them, and Rikter was very good at learning.

He let Elie and Aimek go on their journey with a blessing. He taught his people to build ships. He was happy, in a way.

But the far, unknown horizon called to him every time the wandering ice died and cleared it to the view. Then Rikter used to sit on the lonely cold cliff for hours thinking of the fate of Aimek and Elie. What did they see? What secrets did they find? Where are they now and why didn’t they return?

And always - why does the wandering ice come...

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Once upon a time I was a teenager and wrote a short story about a cold postapocalyptic world where wandering ice bring ancient things to the shores where the last humans live. The story had an open ending and only four characters.

Later, when I was 29 and tried to get into drawing, I decided to make a comic based on this story. It was supposed to be a short project, something to motivate me to draw more than I usually did but, you know, sometimes stories have lives of their own…

“Ice gift”, a short 6-pages story where almost nothing happens, became “Gifts of wandering ice”, an epic story with dozens of characters and a ton of events.

Just in case you haven’t heard of it yet, it lives here: GIFTSCOMIC.COM