The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers (69 page)

The wind faded to a gentle, almost earthlike breeze. Tentatively Ethan cracked the mask of his survival suit, hastily shut it again. There was no paradise ahead. The wind might have died, but if it was warmer than minus fifteen outside his protective clothing, the outraged cells on his face had lied to him. Moulokin would be no Trannish Shangri-la.

The canyon took several twists and turns. Ten minutes later it opened into a vast natural amphitheater. The dark cliffs arced out to east and west before curving smoothly southward again. They were moving across a cliff-walled bowl at least a dozen times wider than the mouth of the canyon.

Ahead lay Moulokin, looking very real.

At the southern end of the canyon the cliffs had crumbled and eroded away, mounting upward in uncertain stages, forming levels. Much of the city was constructed on these levels, giving Moulokin a terraced look.

Several thousand roofs shone in the sun. Ice-paths were filled with black specks like splinters of chocolate which darted up and down the white streets. Far back from the harbor’s edge, built into the topmost level with a thirty-meter-high wall of sheer rock behind it, was a substantial-looking fortress.

There was ample room now for the
Slanderscree
to maneuver. The magnificent ice harbor could easily have contained as many ships as that of Wannome. To the west, docks marched like brown worms out onto the ice. Ice canals and strange buildings dominated the far western edge of the harbor, running up to the cliffs themselves.

“Our shipyards,” Mirmib explained with a touch of pride in his voice.

“I’m beginnin’ to understand why this place’s never been taken,” September rumbled. “A few could hold those two walls we passed against an army. No way up the plateau from outside to outflank ’em. And the way that wind blows down the canyon, any attacking rafts would have the devil of a time trying to tack up-canyon against them while carryin’ on a runnin’ fight.”

As the icerigger edged toward a long, deserted dock under the joint direction of Mirmib and Ta-hoding, Ethan’s attention traveled to the southeast. Between the city and the western canyon wall, the cliffs gave way to a gradually rising sub-canyon filled with the densest growth of coniferous-type trees they’d yet encountered on this world. No doubt they matured to such heights here because of the protection the canyon provided from the steady eroding winds that scoured the rest of Tran-ky-ky. Seedlings here could add height and breadth without being torn loose by hurricane-force winds, and seeds might find accumulated soil in which to take root, while larger trees would not have the earth ripped away from their surface roots. In that immensely valuable stand of mature timber lay Moulokin’s greatest source of wealth.

As they maneuvered into the dock, Ethan saw Mirmib temporarily free and asked him again about the operators of the distant, steam-shrouded foundries.

The diplomat appeared uncomfortable, tried to divert Ethan’s attention to the neat storehouses and homes cut into the cliffs forming the harbor.

“Is there some reason why you can’t tell me?”

“None written. They guard their privacy and …” Mirmib stopped, his expression changing to one of reverence. You are friends: there is no reason I can think why you should not know of the Saia.”

“The Saia?”

“People of the Golden Saia, offspring of the fires they tend. They know of things ordinary people do not. Ordinary people they are not.”

“You worship them, consider them gods?” Ethan pressed. If he’d hoped to get a revealing reaction from Mirmib, he failed.

“I did not say either of those things. No, they are not gods. They are simply different. To know them is to respect them. This is a tradition as old as Moulokin. We pride ourselves on our independence.” For the briefest instant, Ethan detected a hint of the rabid tribalism of which all Tran seemed to be guilty.

“But we keep the bargains they set.”

“Out of fear? Why not just take the foundries from them? Or at least strike your own bargains.”

“It is not a question of fear, my friend. You know naught of the Golden Saia. We fear them not, but we respect them mightily. And we would gain nothing even could we wrest the foundries from them, for we could not run the mines and smelters as well as they do, nor fashion such intricate metal parts for our homes and rafts.

“Where they live and play, it would be death for one of us to work. ’Tis difficult enough but to go briefly to trade with them.”

“It’s warmer where they live, then?”

“It is not to be believed,” said Mirmib solemnly. Of course, what was unbearably hot to a Tran might be wonderfully comfortable for a human or thranx.

But if that was the case, then what were the people of the Golden Saia?

“There are plants and creatures living among the Saia which would interest a curious traveler, did he not die of the heat while examining them. They grow nowhere else that we have heard.”

“What kind of plants?” Ethan and Mirmib looked to their left. Milliken Williams stood there, the diminutive teacher reluctant to interrupt but finally too intrigued to forgo a question or two.

“I will not describe them to you. I cannot describe them to you. They are pieces of dream.” Mirmib looked thoughtful. “I have been to the head of the main canyon but twice in my life, and have no desire to go again. When I finished conversing with them, though they met our party on the very outskirts of their lands and the region of fire, I was so exhausted and weakened that I lay unconscious for two days each time before my body had recovered.”

“Dehydration,” murmured Williams.

“And now, if you mind it not overmuch, I would rather talk no longer on them.” He indicated a group of staring Tran making their way toward the ship via the dock icepath. “There are matters of official greeting to be taken care of. My presence is required.”

Mirmib left them to join Ta-hoding, Hunnar, Elfa and September. While Moulokinese protocol was conducted in the universal fashion of such matters—which is to say, with teeth-clenching slowness—Williams and Ethan spent a few relaxed moments watching two cubs as they chivaned dangerously but gleefully in and out among the runners of the busy icerafts in the harbor, ignoring imprecations hurled in their direction by disapproving adults and tired sailors.

There were few such vessels to play among. As the legends had insisted, Moulokin was a center for building and manufacture, not commerce. Trade here was in intense bursts rather than a steady flow.

Williams slowly raised his face mask, letting his skin grow accustomed to the near-windless cold. In the absence of the usually omnipresent blinding ice-whiteness, he also popped out his protoid optical contacts and exchanged the high-glare configuration he normally wore for regular implants from a small black case. He had to wear the implants anyway, and they saved him the necessity of bothering with the regular goggles that the others wore beneath their suit masks.

A few lost snowflakes touched lightly on his dusky skin. “Ethan, what does this canyon remind you of?”

Carefully Ethan examined the surrounding harbor. Moulokin lay ahead, the canyon opening behind them. To either side, the locals who dwelt in the caves chivaned down icepaths cut into the lower cliff sides with breathtaking disregard for the precipitous drops lining each path. Blue sky overhead and thick wool-gray clouds toward the interior completed the scene. None provided an answer to the teacher’s question—except perhaps the terraced topography of the city itself.

“I’d guess it reminds me of some old river canyons I’ve seen, where the water level had dropped drastically.”

“Yes, a river canyon, certainly. Only parts of it don’t fit.” Williams spoke with a curious intensity. “That’s not enough, somehow.” His gaze turned to the canyon exit. He rested his elbows on the high railing, his chin in cupped hands, and did not go into what parts he was referring to.

Ethan shrugged. Williams’s obsessions differed from his own and September’s. Then as if on cue, a familiar bellow sounded from the main deck. He moved to the helmdeck edge, stared down to see the giant beckoning to him.

“Come on, young feller-me-lad. The local Landgrave deigns to chat with us. ’Pears we’re going to get our chance to enlist the second state in the union of ice.”

Leaving Williams alone at the railing, contemplating ancient geologies, Ethan joined the party assembling on the dock.

Moulokin was much like Wannome, save that it rose in steps instead of the smooth incline of Hunnar’s home. Icepath switchbacks formed the way from one level of the city to the next.

As expected, curious crowds came to stare at the newcomers. Black pupils expanded on yellow fields as the humans passed, looking more alien than ever in their brown, shiny survival suits.

“Tell me, Mirmib,” Ethan inquired of the diplomat leading them, “you and your people have done well for yourselves here. Apparently these Golden Saia have done likewise up at the canyon’s end.” He gestured hesitantly at the cliffs surrounding them.

“But what of all the land around here, behind the Saia? The forested canyon on our right looks as if it runs right up to the edge of the plateau. There are no cliffs there barring settlement of the interior. Who lives on all that land?”

Mirmib regarded him with surprise, great furry brows twisting. “Why, no one, friend Ethan. That is to say, no one to the knowledge of Moulokin. And Moulokin,” here he gestured at the city, “has been here as long as there are records to read and legends to precede them.”

“Then you can’t be sure no one lives in the interior?” He smiled at the antics of several fascinated cubs fumbling along in his footsteps and eying him as if he were a refugee from a bad dream. “Has anyone ever been in there?”

Mirmib spoke gently. “Friend Ethan, you question me thus in your search for others to join in your idea.” Ethan nodded, added a yes when he remembered that the gesture would be unfamiliar to Mirmib. “You will find none in there. Yes, we have been above the canyon’s rim. There are no natural ice paths up there, no ice ocean.” He raised one foot off the ice to show his sharpened chiv-claws.

“How would we travel and explore? We could melt ice and let it refreeze to form icepaths as we do here in the city. But to journey any significant distance inland would require more labor than ’tis worth.”

“But you said some of you had been above the rim?”

“Yes. Despite the difficulties. They tell of flat, barren lands with little vegetation and no game. There is naught to eat but a low, thin form of plant, not nearly as rich as the pika-pina we harvest outside our own upper canyon. Nor are there trees worth cutting. They are stunted and scattered. There is little enough ice to melt for drinking, let alone to spread out and form paths to travel upon.” His voice dropped and he looked away.

“Besides, there are spirits that haunt the inlands. They feast upon the minds of those who venture within, and it is told that the farther one goes from Moulokin, the faster his thoughts melt like drinking water. Enough.”

They had reached the castle. Ethan forced aside the visions of the inner continent his considerable imagination had conjured up. They had another new Landgrave to confront, and they’d best have better luck here than in Poyolavomaar.

Smoke and distance had obscured their view of the castle from the harbor. Up close, Ethan found it unexpectedly modest in dimension. It was not built on nearly so grand a scale as the stone massif in Poyolavomaar nor even as that of Elfa’s father back in distant Wannome. Its location high above the city lent it a grandeur it would otherwise not have had. Also, it was far wider in proportion than it was deep, basically a long rectangle of cut rock.

So shallow was it that the thirty-meter high cliff rising to the edge of the plateau which backed against it appeared ready to tumble and demolish it at the first strong wind.

The guards lining the entrance in expectation of their arrival looked more solid than the structure they defended. A high main gate admitted them to a narrow courtyard. From there they entered the main interior building. Only after they’d walked a substantial distance without stopping, and windows had given way long since to torches, did Ethan and his companions realize that most of the castle was hewn out of the cliff face.

They’d hardly adjusted to this surprise when Mirmib directed them into a room distinguished only by its lack of ornamentation. A few furs covered the walls, torchlight adding to their exoticism. Hunnar, Elfa and Ta-hoding looked unimpressed. When informed by Mirmib that they stood in the throne room, the visiting Tran could not believe it.

The barbaric magnificence of Elfa’s father’s throne room in Wannome, with its brilliant banners and dominating stavanzer tusks, was absent. So was the spacious ostentation of the throne chamber of Tonx Ghin Rakossa of Poyolavomaar.

The feeling here was intimate instead of overpowering. In addition to the pelts and torches, the only color was in the floor. It was a crazy-quilt pattern of pentagrams, triangles and other geometric shapes, each made from a different wood. The inlays ranged from a rich, almost space-black through the darker shades of brown to one deep-grained square that was nearly yellow.

The throne itself bore closer resemblance to the Trannish version of an easy chair than that of an impressive seat of state. Ethan, having absorbed his impressions of the room in a few seconds, now directed his attention to the figure seated in that chair. It raised both paws and slid back the hood which had been shadowing its face as it stood to greet them. Finely woven robes clung to unexpected curves.

Never intimidated by position, September murmured an appreciative comment. There was no real reason for the surprise Ethan experienced, he told himself. The power positions of women within the Commonwealth were so commonplace that they were never remarked upon. Anything else would have seemed unnatural. But it was not so in many primitive societies, particularly those of a feudal/barbaric inclination.

Yet had not the leader of the Horde which he and September and Williams had helped Hunnar’s people to defeat been female, the repelling Sagyanak the Death? And wasn’t Elfa the one who would inherit title as Landgrave of Sofold?