Shurq Elalle said, ‘Highness, about my ship …’
Felash drew deeply on her mouthpiece, ‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘That. I believe I have apologized already, have I not? It is perhaps a consequence of insufficient education, but I truly was unaware that all ships carry in their bellies a certain amount of water, considered acceptable for voyaging. And that the freezing thereof would result in disaster, in the manner of split boards and so forth. Besides, was not your crew working the pumps?’
‘As you say,’ Shurq said. ‘But a hundred hands below deck could not have pumped fast enough, given the speed of that freezing. But that was not my point – as you noted, we have been through all that. Bad luck, plain and simple. No, what I wished to discuss was the matter of repairs.’
Felash regarded the pale-skinned woman, and slowly tapped the mouthpiece against her teeth. ‘In the midst of your histrionics two days ago, Captain, I had assumed that all was lost in the matter of the
Undying Gratitude
. Have you reconsidered?’
‘Yes. No. Rather, we have walked this beach. The driftwood is useless. The few logs we found were heavy as granite – Mael knows what they used that damned stuff for, but it sure doesn’t float. In fact, it appears to have neutral buoyancy—’
‘Excuse me, what?’
‘Push that wood to any depth you like, there it stays. Never before seen the like. We have a ex-joiner with us who says it’s to do with the minerals the wood has absorbed, and the soil the tree grew in. In any case, we see no forests inland – no trees at all, anywhere.’
‘Meaning you have no wood with which to effect repairs. Yes, Captain, was this not your prediction two days ago?’
‘Aye, it was, and so it has proved, Highness. And as my crew can’t survive on a frozen ship, on the surface of it we seem to indeed be stranded.’
Skorgen kicked sand with his good foot. ‘What’s worse, Highness, there’s hardly any shellfish an’ the like in the shallows. Picked clean long ago, I’d wager. We couldn’t even walk up the coast t’get where you want us to go.’
‘Most disturbing,’ Felash murmured, still eyeing Shurq Elalle. ‘Yet you have an idea, haven’t you, Captain?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Please, proceed. I am not by nature averse to adventure and experimentation.’
‘Aye, Highness.’ Still, the woman hesitated.
Felash sent a stream of smoke whirling away. ‘Come now, Captain, your first mate is turning blue.’
‘Very well. Omtose Phellack, Highness – is it a true Hold?’
‘I am not sure what you mean by that question.’
‘A Hold. A place, a world unlike this one—’
‘Where,’ added Skorgen, ‘we might find, er, trees. Or something. Unless it’s all ice and snow, of course, or worse.’
‘Ah, I see.’ She tapped some more, thinking. ‘The Hold of Ice, well, precisely. The sorcery – as we have all discovered – is certainly … cold. Forbidding, even. But if my education suffers in matters of ship building and the like, it is rather more comprehensive when it comes to the Holds.’ She smiled. ‘Naturally.’
‘Naturally,’ said Shurq Elalle, to cut off whatever Skorgen had been about to say.
‘The commonest manifestation of Omtose Phellack is precisely as we have experienced. Ice. Bitter cold, desiccating, enervating. But it must be understood, said sorcery was shaped as a defensive weapon, if you will. The Jaghut were at war with an implacable enemy, and they were losing that war. They sought to surround themselves in vast sheets of ice, to make of it an impassable barrier. And as often as not they succeeded … for a time. Of course, as my mother used to delight in pointing out, war drives invention, and as soon as one side improves its tactical position, the other quickly adapts to negate the advantage – assuming they have the time to do so. Interestingly, one could argue it was the Jaghut’s very own flaws that ensured their demise. For, had they considered ice not as a defensive measure, but as an
offensive
one – had they made it a true weapon, a force of attack and assault – why, they might well have annihilated their enemy before it could adapt. And while details regarding that enemy are murky—’
‘Forgive me, Highness,’ interrupted the captain. ‘But, as you noted earlier, my first mate is truly suffering. If I am understanding you, the ice and cold of Omtose Phellack are mere aspects, or, I suppose, applications of a force. And, as such, they are not that force’s sole characteristic.’
Felash clapped her hands. ‘Precisely, Captain! Excellent!’
‘Very well, Highness. I am so relieved. Now, as to those other aspects of the Hold, what can you tell me?’
Felash blinked up at the woman. ‘Why, nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Not a thing, Captain. The only manifestation of Omtose Phellack this world has seen has been ice-aspected.’
‘Then how do you know there’s more to it?’
‘Captain, it only stands to reason.’
‘So, this notion of there being more, it’s merely … theoretical?’
‘Dearest, that term is not pejorative, no matter the tone you have just employed.’
Teeth chattering, Skorgen Kaban said, ‘So I stood here for that? You ain’t got a Mael-spitting clue?’
‘Hardly accurate, First Mate,’ Felash said. ‘It would hardly have served any of us if I’d simply said, “I don’t know”, would it? Instead, what I have actually said is, “I don’t know, but I believe this to be a path worth pursuing.”’
‘So why didn’t you?’ he demanded.
‘But I did!’
Shurq Elalle turned to Skorgen. ‘That’s enough, Pretty. Go back to the others.’
‘An’ tell ’em what?’
‘We’re … exploring possibilities.’
Felash waved one plump hand. ‘A moment, please. I suggest that you both return to your fellows. The explorations that will occupy me on this day are best done alone, for I cannot guarantee the safety of anyone in close proximity. In fact, I suggest you move your camp perhaps twice its present distance from us.’
‘Very well, Highness,’ said Shurq Elalle. ‘We shall do that.’
As they marched off, Felash turned to her handmaid. ‘My dear,’ she murmured, ‘a journey awaits you.’
‘Yes, Highness.’
‘Gird yourself well,’ Felash advised. ‘Prepare the armour and take the throwing axes. And you will need to swim out to the ship, for a splinter of wood. But before all that, I wish a new pot of tea, and more rustleaf for this bowl.’
‘At once, Highness.’
‘Gods below,’ Shurq Elalle muttered as they neared the crew’s camp, ‘but she has spectacular tits. It ever amazes me the extraordinary variation blessing us all.’ She glanced at her first mate. ‘Or cursing us, as the case may be.’
‘I wanted to stick a damned knife in her skull, Cap’n.’
‘Belay such notions, and stow them deep and dark – if one of the mates hears you, well, I don’t want that kind of trouble.’
‘Of course, Cap’n. Was just an impulse, anyway, like a tic under the eye. Anyway, how could you see her tits at all, under all those warm furs and such?’
‘I could see just fine,’ Shurq replied. ‘It’s called imagination, Pretty.’
‘Wish I had some of that.’
‘In the meantime, we need to allay some fears, and I expect moving us farther down the strand will put us in good stead right from the start.’
‘Aye, it will.’ He scratched at the scars puckering his neck. ‘You know, Cap’n, I got me a smell that’s saying that handmaiden of hers ain’t as useless as she’s made out to look, you know?’
‘Brewing pots and lighting pipe bowls doesn’t count for anything with you, Pretty? I tell you, I’m considering finding my own handmaiden once we get home. Of course,’ she added, ‘there’s no rule says it has to be a woman, is there?’
A flush crept up the man’s misshapen face.
Shurq clapped him on the back. ‘You’re right about her, Pretty. I’m thinking she’s as mean a sorceress as the Princess herself, and probably a lot more besides. That woman hides herself well, but one glimpse of her wrists … well, unless she’s throwing bales of hay around when no one’s looking – and given the scars on her hands those bales got knives in them – well, aye, she’s more than she seems.’
‘What’s her name anyway?’
‘No idea.’ Shurq grunted. The sailors at the camp were watching them now. ‘All right, Pretty, let me do the talking.’
‘Aye, Cap’n, better you’n me.’
‘And if I mess up, you can beat on some heads.’
‘T’bring ’em round, like.’
‘Exactly.’
Cool beneath the umbrella, Felash watched her handmaid crawl up from the water. ‘You need more fat on you, dear,’ she observed. ‘I’m sure the sun will warm you up soon enough, as it has done me. In any case,’ she gestured with the mouthpiece, ‘the passage awaits you.’
Gasping, the older woman slowly worked her way well clear of the water line. In her right hand was a splinter of wood, black against her bluish knuckles. Behind her, in the shallows, the ice was fast melting as the last remnants of Omtose Phellack faded. At the bay’s outer edge, where the shelf fell away to deeper water, the
Undying Gratitude
was settling lower into her glittering, weeping nest.
Once the handmaid had recovered enough to begin moving, she dressed herself in quilted undergarments and then the heavy scaled armour retrieved from bundles of waxed canvas. Taking up the paired throwing axes, a leather-sheathed short sword, an underarm holster of four throwing knives, and her helm, she completed her attire by tucking the wood splinter into her belt. ‘Highness, I am ready.’
‘Well said. My patience was wearing ominously thin.’ Sighing, Felash
set the mouthpiece down and rose. ‘Where did you put the last of the sweets?’
‘Beside the brick of rustleaf, Highness.’
‘Ah, I see. Wonderful. See how thin I’m getting? It’s an outrage. Do you recall your own childhood, dear, when your chest was flat and all your bones jutted every which way?’
‘No, Highness, I was never boy-thin, thank the Errant’s nudge.’
‘Nor me. I have always been suspicious of grown men who seem to like that in their women. What’s wrong with little boys if they’re into pallid bony wraiths?’
‘Perhaps it appeals to their protective natures, Highness.’
‘Protecting is one thing, diddling is entirely another. Now, where was I? Oh yes, throwing you into the Hold of Ice. Best unsheathe at least a few of your weapons, dear. Who knows what you’ll land in.’
The handmaid drew her axes. ‘I am ready.’
‘… that condescending, patronizing cow doesn’t deserve tits like that, or that soft blemish-free skin and lustrous hair. And the way those hips swing, why, I’m amazed she doesn’t throw out her back with every step, and those damned luscious lips look ready made to wrap themselves round— Gods, what was that?’
The thunderclap shivered the water in the bay, set the sand to blurry trembling. Shurq Elalle turned to see an enormous white cloud billowing out and up from Felash’s camp. The sailors – well out of earshot behind her – were now on their feet, shouting in alarm.
‘Stay here, Skorgen. And calm those fools down!’ She set off at a run.
The camp was a mess, gear flung about as if a whirlwind had erupted in its midst. Princess Felash was slowly picking herself up from the blasted sand. Her hair was awry, her clothes dishevelled. Her face was red, as if she’d been repeatedly slapped.
‘Highness, are you all right?’
The girl coughed. ‘I believe the theory has proved itself, Captain. It seems there is far more to Omtose Phellack than a few chunks of ice. The passage I found, well, it’s hard to say where precisely it led—’
‘Where is your handmaiden, Highness?’
‘Well, let us hope she is exploring in wonder and delight.’
‘You sent her through?’
A flash from her stunning eyes. ‘Of course I sent her through! Did you not insist on the necessity, given our terrible plight? Can you begin to imagine my sacrifice, the appalling extremity of the service we are providing here?’
Shurq Elalle studied the plump girl. ‘What if she doesn’t come back?’
‘I shall be most displeased. At the same time, we shall have before us evidence to support certain other theories about Omtose Phellack.’
‘Excuse me, what other theories?’
‘Why, the ones about shrieking demons, clouds of madness, flesh-eating plants, treacherous voles and a hundred other nightmares in a similar vein. Now, please be so kind as to rebuild my fire here, will you?’
She reached for her last throwing knife, found the sheath empty. Cursing, she ducked beneath the scything slash and threw herself to the left, shoulder-rolling until she came up against the bulk of the first fiend she’d slain. Her hands scrabbled up its muricated hide, found the wedge of one of her axes. Grunting as she tugged it free, she rolled over the body – it quivered as six swords punched into it in the spot where she’d been a moment earlier – and regained her feet in time to send the axe flying.
It crunched into the demon’s brow, rocking its head back.
She lunged for it, tugging away one of the heavy swords gripped by the closest hand, which was twitching as the huge beast sagged on to its knees. Blade clashing as she beat away the swords flailing about at the ends of the five other arms, she chopped into its thick neck, once, twice, three times, until the head rolled free.