Icerigger - Mission To Moulokin Part 16

"Never mind the theology, Hunnar. Do you think it can be done?"

" 'Tis not for me to judge, friend September. Best to put the question to the Captain-"

"If Ethan and September and Williams believe this thing is workable, who are we to disagree?

Besides, I think it a most excellent idea," said EerMeesach.

Tahoding made a gesture of concurrence to the Tran wizard, then set about giving the necessary or-ders.

Pikapina cables were wrapped tight around the lowest boulder in the ridge opposite. Meanwhile several intricate maneuvers had turned the great icerigger sternfirst to the ice barrier. Cables were tied aboard, back of the helmdeck, made fast to the members of the raft's hull.

Ethan and September stood with the cable party on the ice nearby, watched as spars and sheets were ad-justed to catch maximum wind. The _Slanderscree_ strained, groaning and creaking like an old man.

Cables hummed in the wind, dug at a single chunk of ice that weighed a good fifteen tons.

"Think they'll hold?" Ethan spoke without turning, watching the ship.

"The cables?" September snorted. "From what I've seen of pikapina properties, it ain't the cables I'm worried about. The cables'll hold, but the ship's only wood."

Timbers moaned within the ship as the icerigger remained motionless. Her runners might have been welded to the ice for all the progress she was making.

It made the gla.s.s goblet splintering sound of the ice block all the more startling when it suddenly loosened from the ridge. Towing a ma.s.s the size of a shuttlecraft, the _Slanderscree_ began to move ponderously northward.

Those sailors not immediately occupied let out a cheer. Sails held. So did the cables and the deck to which they were bound.

The icerigger started to slow. Tahoding bellowed a command. Spars were shifted. Now the ship swung ten, fifteen degrees northeastward from its initial heading, putting pressure on the ice block from a different angle.

With a crackling that sounded like a headstone be-ing uprooted, the block came free of the ridge, follow-ing in the wake of the icerigger. It was several minutes before Tahoding could order sails furled and spars reset to cut the _Slanderscree's_ mounting speed.

Humans and Tran skated and chivaned to examine the enormous frozen ma.s.s. White and irregular, it rose as high as the underside of the raft.

Williams was gazing at the extensive gap in the pressure ridge. Ethan was reminded of a tooth knocked from its socket.

"Better than we could have hoped for," the teacher was saying. "In pulling free this block from the bottom we dislodged a not inconsiderable quant.i.ty of ice above."

Indeed, several other ma.s.sive white monoliths had fallen onto the flat ocean surface. They could be towed aside far more easily than the first block.

The Tran worked cheerfully at looping and secur-ing the cables around the next chunk, now at least half certain that the ridge was not the road traveled by Jhojoog Kahspen, Daemon Lord of the open ocean, as some particularly imaginative members of the crew had first tremblingly suggested.

XI.

Several days later a path wide enough for the _Slanderscree_ had been nearly completed through the ridge. A few last blocks of intervening ice were all that kept them from the open ocean beyond.

Tahoding worried some about his ship and the strain the constant break and tow was placing on her superstructure, but he'd gained confidence as block after multi-ton block was torn free and pulled clear without any visible damage to the raft's stern.

Three or four more tows of comparatively modest-sized chunks and they would be through. Cables were being readied for securing to one of those last blocks when work was interrupted by a frantic cry from the mainmast lookout.

"_Rifs_! North northwest!"

Working with the cable-setting crew, Ethan heard that threatening word too. Like his nonhuman companions, he stopped working as if stabbed, whirled and glanced in the direction from which the danger approached.

They'd encountered a rifs only once before, one time too often. A rifs was a meteorological anomaly peculiar to Tran-ky-ky, the manifestation of extreme weather forming over an ocean that was cold and solid instead of liquidly warm. September had described it as a linear hurricane, packing winds of over two hundred kph force.

Moving awkwardly on his skates, September fol-lowed the rest of the cable crew back down the path through the ridge. By the time he emerged, a black line made innocuous by distance was visible off to the northwest. As he watched, it grew larger, overwhelm-ing the horizon.

That black line was the aerial equivalent of a tidal bore, a sooty sky-swelling wall of wind compressed like an atmospheric sponge. It could scour the ice clear of life save for tightly rooted vegetation such as the pikapedan or ma.s.sive life-forms such as the stavanzers.

Neither well-rooted nor ma.s.sive, the _Slanderscree_ had to do what all other life-forms did before a rifs- run.

" 'Twill never be cleared in time," complained one of the anxious Tran standing by the stern port runner of the ship.

Ethan slipped free of his skates, mounted the near-est boarding ladder. He found Tahoding, Elfa and Hunnar in animated discussion on the helmdeck. Williams and September were nowhere around.

"We must loose the cables and run 'til the rifs blows itself out," Elfa was saying.

"A rifs can blow for many days. We waste time," Hunnar argued.

She sneered at him. "Better to waste days than the ship."

"Perhaps," put in Tahoding, desirous of serving as peacemaker while keeping one eye on the rapidly nearing storm, "But I think Sir Hunnar has another suggestion."

"I do." The knight gestured back aft. "We must move off, gather our speed, and try to break through."

" 'Twill be the ship that breaks, not the ice." She noticed Ethan watching nearby, changed her tone completely. "What do you say, Sir Ethan?"

Abruptly he was aware of many eyes on him, sailors and captain, squires and knights. They did not cease their frenzied work, but they listened for his reply nonetheless.

Good. They'd all hear. "I think we should do," he said loudly enough for everyone to understand clearly, "whatever Sir Hunnar decides. The rifs is a foe to be fought, and in matters of battle his judgment is always best."

Hunnar stared at him for a long moment, mumbled almost as an afterthought, "We have no choice.

We must try to break through."

" 'Tis settled, then!" Tahoding looked relieved, set about giving the appropriate orders. The crowd which had edged its way to the helmdeck scattered to sta-tions. Hunnar and Ethan continued to eye each other for several minutes, until Hunnar half-smiled and broke for his own favored position.

Was he grateful-or angry at some suspected condescension? Ethan had no time to reflect on the knight's state of mind. There were cables to stow, lines to straighten, sailors to rea.s.sure.

Commands reverberated around the deck. The icerigger commenced making a wide circle. Their course would take them in a curve eastward, then north, into the front wave of the storm. With its wind at their backs, they would hurtle back toward the nearly completed gap in the ridge and smash through the remain-ing ice blocks.

There were other scenarios, other possibilities, which Ethan preferred not to consider.

As raftsmanship, the plan made excellent sense. Emotionally, it did not, for the storm seemed to reach out for them as they neared the halfway point of the circle.

So close to the bore front the sky was a vast sheet of black cast iron looming ominously on their left, ready to tumble down and smash soft wood and softer creatures to multicolored smears against the ocean. If they had miscalculated and the rifs struck the ship broadside, it would surely capsize her, splintering masts, cabins, deck and crew.

Like gold thread in a velvet cape, lightning found its way downward through the boiling darkness.

Rum-bles and crashes, the war cries of inimical weather reached the crew and impelled them to faster work, stronger efforts to bring the ship around.

The first touch of the rifs fumbled for the ship. Not violent yet, but not like the steady, friendly everyday winds of Tran-ky-ky. No longer did they blow steadily to the west. Disturbed zephyrs slid in confusion around Ethan. Idle gusts scudded dismally past him, twisting and darting in and upon themselves like frightened rabbits hunting for a hidey-hole.

"We're going to cut it mighty close, feller-me-lad," said September in as grim a voice as Ethan had ever heard him use. The giant had both arms wrapped tightly around a pair of mainstays. Ethan chose the more solid wooden railing, locking a leg around one supportive post, arms around the railing top.

As the _Slanderscree_ came full around onto a south-erly heading, the rifs, in a desperate grab for its prey, jumped onto them.

The sky turned from blue to black. Thunder bat-tered ears curved and pointed. Great shafts of electric death hunted for the fleeing raft. They reminded Ethan of nothing so much as the pulpy, luminous cyclopscreature they'd fought below the surface when escaping from the dungeon of Poyolavomaar.

Glowing eye, gigantic black mouth filled with jagged teeth. Only now the teeth were kilometers high and yellow-gold instead of transparent.

Ethan's gaze turned with difficulty from the nearing ice ridge to the helmdeck. Looking more like a chunk of gray granite than their fat captain, Tahoding stood braced against the center of the huge wheel, strug-gling to aid his two helmsmen. They were already rac-ing along at close to a hundred twenty kph, he guessed. Another blast of the full body of the rifs struck the ship, punching the sails still further outward and accelerating the craft's motion.

If they missed the gap at this speed, they wouldn't have to worry about the rifs any longer. The icerigger would smash itself against the ridge. There wouldn't even be smears left of her crew. Even if they struck the gap but angled too far to one side or the other, jagged ice boulders could tear away stays, bring down the masts on top of them, or even shatter the sides of the hull.

There was black overhead and white rushing to-ward them. Windborne particles of ice and snow whizzed like projectiles from a million tiny guns across his mask, making vision difficult. By then the roar of the storm seemed to originate somewhere between his ears, numbing his senses, playing tricks with percep-tion. Hadn't they reached the ridge yet?

A chalcedony tunnel obliterated much of the blackness as the _Slanderscree_ entered the gap. He braced himself for the ultimate impact as did everyone else on board. There was a horrible crunching noise. Whether the ship had struck the jagged walls speeding past on either side or had been struck by lightning, he couldn't tell. The icerigger rocked crazily for a second.

Then they were through, the white ramparts gone, clear ice vanishing beneath the ship's runners.

Fight-ing the wind, he looked astern and saw the pressure ridge from its southern side, receding behind them. His gaze went forward, toward what he knew he would see. Somewhere, the fates had determined the _Slanderscree_ should not travel with a bowsprit. Other-wise the icerigger seemed to have handled the impact well. Masts had not fallen, no creva.s.se had appeared in the deck.

Something irritated his mouth. He parted his lips, sucked in salty fluid. With his face shielded from the wind, he nudged open the mask. Icy-gloved fingers probed at bare skin, felt the flow of blood from his nose. It did not feel broken. It felt worse, and the blood was making a mess inside his suit.

Looking around he saw other members of the crew picking themselves off the deck where they'd fallen or been thrown by the impact of smashing through the remaining ice blocks. How those aloft had kept from being thrown from the rigging was a miracle he chose not to question.

Sails straining to hold to the spars, spars to masts, masts creaking in their deck sockets, deck groaning on its five runners, and crew straining in prayer to whatever personal G.o.ds they worshipped that the whole should not return to the parts of its sum, the _Slanderscree_ flew southward at a hundred sixty kilometers per hour.

A Tran knelt in the gap in the pressure ridge. Furry fingers collected several nonwhite, non-ice fragments. They were mostly slim and irregular. One p.r.i.c.ked his finger and he cursed. He had enough anyway. Raising his arms parallel to the ice, he tacked his way back to the group of Tran waiting impatiently at the far end of the pa.s.sage.

There he dropped his arms, closed his dan, and slid to a neat stop. It would not do to stumble or fall be-fore so many important ones.

"These were a few of what I found, sirs. There are many other such fragments at the far end of this pa.s.sageway."

Tonx Ghin Rakossa, Landgrave of Poyolavomaar, accepted the several bits of shattered wood. He stud-ied them, avoiding the one which had pierced the scout's finger.

"Many such fragments? Enough to comprise part of a large ship?"

"No, sire. I saw no such large amounts of debris."

Rakossa threw the splinters angrily to the ice. "They have escaped the rifs, then." He gently fingered the bandage over his left eye. "Though not undam-aged."

"The five grooves of their runners continue south-ward outside this pa.s.sage, sire," the scout added help-fully, currying favor.

Rakossa ignored him. "Would that we knew the extent of their damage. Yet it took them time to make their way through this ridge." The ma.s.ses of ice nearby showed how the icerigger had made that pas-sage, and Rakossa marveled greedily at the power of a ship that could move such weight.

"They are delayed." He knelt, brushed at the pow-dery ice lining the runner grooves. "This has not blown away completely, even with the force of the rifs. They are very near, and yet will now widen the distance between us once more."

"Nevertheless, we will catch them, your highness," said Calonnin RoVijar.

"Yes. We will catch them, and the mocking strum-pet as well."

Rakossa turned to gaze at the ships waiting behind them. They were a rea.s.suring sight, with sails half-furled and pennants flying. They pursued with a small forest of masts-those that hadn't been torn away by the storm. And they had caught only the fringe of the rifs.

"But we will catch them with thirty ships instead of thirty-five. Three are so badly damaged their captains inform me they will never sail again. Two are nearly as bad off, but they can limp home with the crews of the abandoned three. Five ships lost already, RoVijar."

"All the reason more to seek revenge upon those responsible, my friend," responded the Landgrave of Arsudun, trying to turn calamity to mental advantage. It was Rakossa's emotional state that was critical, not the condition of his ships.

"Perhaps." Rakossa spoke thoughtfully. "We waste time here." One foot descended, three chiv sectioned a fragment of wood the scout had recovered and marked the ice beneath.

Two weeks after leaving the pressure ridge, the _Slanderscree_ came upon the plateau. A hundred me-ters of sheer cliff, it stretched off to east and west in unbroken basaltic glory. It was a barren-looking place, devoid of rim-clinging trees such as decorated the cliffs of Arsudun.

Teeliam was brought on deck, shown the impene-trable ramparts reaching across the ice ocean.

"There lies Moulokin," she said with evident satisfaction.

"Moulokin? Where?" Hunnar didn't try to hide his sarcasm. "I see naught but ice, rock and sky. In that order, without exception."

"Nevertheless, this is the region of Moulokin."

"And where is the fabled city?"

"Could it be atop the plateau somewhere, Teeliam?" asked Ethan softly.

"No, that is absurd." The former royal consort of Poyolavomaar took little notice of Ethan's courtesy, as opposed to Hunnar's skepticism. "How could a state famed for the ships it builds be located many kijat above the ocean?"

"The thought had occurred to me," said Ethan dryly. "I was just pointing out that I see no sign of any city."

"Moulokin is here somewhere." Teeliam's con-viction was unfazed. She faced the stone barrier.

"Somewhere within this land."

Ethan and Hunnar exchanged glances. Then Ethan asked, "Which way? We must be off in our calculations."

Teeliam considered stories and rumors and legends. " Tis told the sun sets late in Moulokin," she mut-tered to herself. Then she pointed westward. "I would suppose that way."

"As you will." Hunnar executed a Tran shrug. " 'Tis this way or that, as well one as the other." He relayed instructions to a mate, who conveyed them to another, who shouted them to the helmdeck.

The icerigger turned laboriously to the west, com-menced making difficult progress into the wind.

Despite Tahoding's best efforts, their progress was slow. Cliffs grew near, then receded as the _Slanderscree_ tacked away from them, though never so far that land was out of sight. It wouldn't do to slip past then-destination while making distance into the wind.