Through the Ice (25 page)

"Suppose there were a lot of them in one place?"

"Then I suppose they could immobilize larger prey, and could collectively go after—" Rame broke off, looking uncomfortable.

"Suppose Nefarious had a spider farm or something," Seth continued relentlessly, "and bred thousands or millions of such spiders, and dumped them into the northern reaches just above his stronghold?"

Vidav overheard that. "No wonder he doesn't fear an approach from the north!" he exclaimed. "The spiders will freeze any living thing that passes through!"

"That was my thought," Seth said. "And I think we just blundered into it. I know I've got them down my back."

"How can we get rid of them?" Tirsa asked, her teeth chattering.

"Heat," Rame said. "They can't endure heat. So if we make it hotter than they can stand, they'll retreat."

"But our bodies aren't hot enough!" Tirsa said. "Not in this snow, with so many of them. I can feel them numbing my skin all over!"

"Fire!" Seth exclaimed.
"That
will be hot enough!"

"I can't conjure fire," Rame said. "Or wood to burn; I didn't think to whistle any into storage. Our food won't burn well; it's too moist."

"That pocket knife I gave you will strike fire," Seth reminded him. "But the wood is a problem." Seth looked desperately around. There were no trees here, only snow. "The moss!" he cried. "We can fetch moss! It should be pretty dry, under the snow."

"You mean what the animals eat?" Rame asked. "Where do we find it?"

"Where the caribou are;
they
know where it is."

They turned and headed for the herd. The animals spooked at their approach and bounded away, but the marks of their prior grazing remained. Seth and the others poked through the snow there, and came up with handfuls of spongy frozen moss.

"Clear a place!" Seth said. "Once we start it burning—"

They swept a place clear of snow, baring the frozen ground below. Rame brought out the knife, with its flint and magnesium rod, and a few scraps of paper, and struck some sparks. Soon a scrap caught, and he used it to heat a piece of moss. The moss was porous, and the flame licked through it and started it burning. This became the base for a larger fire, as they carefully heaped more moss around it.

"But there's not enough for a big fire!" Tirsa protested, shivering so violently she was almost dancing.

"Rame!" Seth said. "Conjure some moss into your whistle—then conjure it out again."

The faun nodded. He played his whistle over a mound of moss, and the moss disappeared. Then he played again, and it reappeared—and as he continued playing, another mound appeared, and another. Soon it was piling up high. Then he conjured that larger pile into the whistle—and brought it out again. Now he could pipe it out by the peck. Their problem of fuel had been solved.

The fire blazed high. They crowded around it, but still they were cold. "The ice spiders are inside our suits!" Tirsa said. "The suits protect them from the fire!"

"We'll have to get them out," Seth said grimly. "Take off your outfit, Tirsa."

Without hesitation she stripped. He skin was blue with cold, but it was now warmer outside her suit than inside it. She stood naked by the fire, slowly turning to warm each side. "Ah, that feels so good!" she said.

They took the items of her clothing and held them close to the fire, turning them inside out. The little spiders danced out and scrambled away. As each piece was clear, she donned it again: panties, bra, socks, shirt, furred trousers, jacket, hood and boots. They worked hardest over the outer pieces, because they had many more nooks for spiders to hide in; nothing could be skimped.

Then Seth stripped similarly, and they toasted his clothing at the fire. Then Rame, whose natural fur was now buttressed by unnatural furs, and finally Vidav, who had been able to hold out longest against the cold. They were all clean, and warm.

"But how are we going to travel?" Tirsa asked, her cheeks now rosy instead of blue. "The moment we leave our fire, they'll be back!"

That problem had occurred to Seth. "We'll just have to take the fire with us," he decided. "We can put some dirt on the sled, to protect it, and put the fire on that."

"But this isn't sledding country," Rame pointed out "We're using skis."

"We can still haul the sled behind," he said. "It may slow us, but it's necessary. This may even be an advantage, because Nefarious will never expect us to get through in time."

"Will we?"
Tirsa asked pointedly.

"We've got to!"

She didn't argue.

But it wasn't easy. Whoever left the immediate vicinity of the fire got quickly infested and had to return, strip, and get deloused. That meant they had to spend more time stalled than moving. They couldn't do it while traveling; the sled bumped over the rough snow, and it was impossible to run along beside and hold out items of clothing without getting them reinfested as fast as they were cleared. When they came to a downhill slope they all piled on the sled, around the fire, and rode down—but then there was the uphill haul. It was soon evident that they were not going to make it in time, this way.

"Oh for some firefish!" Tirsa said with irony.

"You know, that might work," Seth said. But of course Rame hadn't conjured any firefish into his whistle.

Rame looked at his map. "We are not far from the castle," he said. "In fact, it should be right beyond that mountain range." He pointed to a towering range ahead of them. "If we could just move at top speed, we could pass it in a day and be there in time."

But they couldn't move at top speed, or even at moderate speed, because of the spiders. If they tried, they would all be dead of the cold in short order. Nefarious's last ploy seemed to be his best; they could not get through in time.

"There's got to be a way!" Seth exclaimed angrily.

Rame pored over the map. "There may be. There's a river that supplies water for the castle, and to irrigate the surrounding farmsteads. It draws from the glaciers of the north, but magic keeps it liquid. It tunnels under the mountain range and comes out right at the castle reservoir."

"We could sail down that river!" Tirsa exclaimed. "Fire and all!"

"No. I said it tunnels. It's an underground river."

Seth felt a chill not of the weather—the same one he had felt when he learned of this arctic route, only worse. Cold, dark water, under the ice....

"Well, we have a water-breathing spell Rightwos gave us," she said. "We could swim—" Then she realized how this was affecting Seth. "Oh."

He tried to say something brave, but could not. The very notion of entering such a river appalled him! It had killed him once; how could he risk it again?

"Seth," she said earnestly. "This is the only way. But you don't have to do it directly; Rame can pipe you into his whistle—"

"No," he said with difficulty. "I've done some scuba diving. This is similar. I've got to do it. In fact, I should do it while you and Vidav ride in the whistle."

"I think we shall do it ourselves, or not at all," she said. Then, in a private thought
Seth, we know this is dangerous, and that we may not survive it. Perhaps it is time for you and I to
—

What?
he thought, alarmed.

To clarify our understanding,
she continued.
I so much regret that I cannot commit to you completely, but want you to know that if there were any way for me to be free of that other passion, I would gladly eradicate it. I think you're a fine young man, fully worthy of any woman, and it is my hope that in some manner it will become possible for
—

Here I am, being cowardly, and you are telling me how wonderful I am!

You are not being cowardly, you are facing your legitimate fear. You helped each of the rest of us to get through our fears, lending your strength to us, and now we shall lend ours to you. But what I mean is that in case I don't have opportunity later, I must tell you now that it is my hope to find a way to abolish my fault and commit to you completely. To be able to tell you I love you.

Seth stood as if rocked in a storm. This wasn't at all the way he had imagined romance to be, but of course he had never before had a relationship with a mature telepathic woman. Tirsa said or thought exactly what was on her mind, lucidly, sensibly, honestly. There was no evasion, no softening, just the truth. When she had had no romantic interest in him, she had said so directly; now she said the opposite, and he could believe it. But she had not used the term "love" before, when speaking of herself. Even if this wasn't a complete commitment, it was an impressive one.

Well,
he thought,
I don't have to wait to tell you I
—

No, she thought.
You must not, until I can.

But—

For now, this.
And she sent him a mental kiss of such encompassing passion that it was as if the world imploded, turning him pleasantly inside out.

After a moment he recovered his equilibrium. He was standing in the snow, amazed that it hadn't melted around him. Rame and Vidav were poring over the map; either they had not been aware of his mental dialogue with Tirsa, or they were politely ignoring it.

"I can do it," he said. For now his vision of dark icy water was overlaid by the feeling Tirsa had put there: her wish to love him. He had fear, yes, but he also had love, and his horror of dying under the ice was balanced by his delight in living with what she offered. Perhaps she had done this deliberately, in the manner he had kissed her in the cave, timing it appropriately. It was a nice thing, and nice tuning.

"Here," Rame said, touching the map. "It has to be here, in this basin."

"I agree," Vidav said. "We must go there and dig, and we shall find it."

Seth looked at the map. The spot they marked was only a few miles from where they were now camped. It was certainly feasible.

They trekked to it. For this hop, they tried a new ploy: Vidav hauled the sled, stripped, while the other three rode by its fire and held blazing torches on long poles. These they held near Vidav, passing them up and down his body to drive away the ice spiders. It worked tolerably well, but was not comfortable for him. They knew this, because they were linked to his mind; his sensations of cold guided their torches. But the ride was jerky, and inevitably they came too close and burned him, and there were also places their long-range torches couldn't effectively reach. Only his great strength carried him through.

Tirsa extended her mental awareness, tuning in on the water below the snow. "It is here," she said. "Rivulets percolating down through the porous earth and rock, forming pools and slow-moving streams below. But I can't fix on it precisely." Rame brought out his whistle. "Maybe I can help." He played, and the melody was pretty but faint: the water was good but not copious. But as they moved, the whistle became louder. Finally it became almost deafening: they had found the main river.

By the time they reached this spot, Vidav was almost dead on his feet. He collapsed in the snow, and they hauled him onto the sled and carefully burned away all the spiders, and then put salve on his burns, and dressed him in decontaminated clothing.

Tirsa watched Vidav, while Seth and Rame started digging. They soon cleared a round region of snow, and were faced with the frozen ground below. How were they going to get through that? Vidav might have the strength to break up the rocklike ground, but he had done his part and had to recover.

"The fire!" Seth said. "We don't need to move it any more. It should melt the ground, or at least soften it enough so that we can dig it."

They moved the fire to the ground, and added more moss, so that it blazed high. Its heat radiated out, melting the snow and turning the ground to mud. They had to scrape the mud away so it wouldn't drown the fire. Gradually the fire sank, forming a pit. Then, suddenly, it dropped into a wet hole and sizzled out.

"Oh, no!" Seth exclaimed. "We've lost our digging tool!"

Vidav sat up. "That's because you've found the river!" he pointed out.

Seth felt foolish. Of course! The fire had melted through, and fallen into the underground water. They no longer needed it.

Rame played his reed whistle again. The notes were true. This was what they wanted.

Seth gazed into the dark pool, and shivered. Then he thought of Tirsa's love, and felt warm again. It might be death, a second time, but he was going to do it.

Rame whistled, and a package appeared. This was another of Rightwos's gifts: fish pills. They would be good for only one use, for the wizard lacked the power to make replenishable fish magic. But that should be enough. Once they were out of the water, they would be on their own.

What would they do then? Seth had little notion. He did not like the idea of killing a man, but he saw no other way to stop so powerful and unscrupulous a sorcerer. Probably they would simply sneak into Nefarious's home and strike him down any way they could. What about the sorcerer's guards? Well, Rightwos had provided a sleep potion that might help.

The whole thing seemed uncomfortably uncertain, now. But if the river carried them through as it should, they would arrive at night, when the defensive guard should be down, and at least a day before expected—if Nefarious thought they would make it at all. So they had a chance.

"We have a chance," Tirsa agreed.

They took the pills, while Tirsa kept them mentally linked. They hoped that they would be able to retain that linkage throughout, because they had no idea exactly how long or rough their trip down the river would be. How would one know where another landed? Suppose there were dangers; they wanted to be able to warn each other.

Seth found himself breathing rapidly. His neck itched. He felt dizzy. What was the matter?

We're growing gills!
Rame thought, more accustomed to the ways of magic than the others were.
Get in the water!

That made sense! Seth scrambled out of his clothing and jumped in, discovering that his fear of icy water was gone. In fact, the water felt good. He ducked his head under and exhaled, blowing out all the air. Then he took in water through his mouth, and it passed on out through his gills, and he was breathing again. He discovered that he no longer had to breathe in and out; he just had to keep the water flowing into his mouth. That was easier to do if he moved, so he started swimming—and discovered that his hands were webbed.