Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

The good knight took it personally every time Elfa supported one of Ethan’s decisions over one of his own. But perhaps this time the redbearded warrior was right.

Ethan found himself puzzling over Teeliam’s words as he relayed the course to Ta-hoding, found himself repeating her comments over and over again in his mind as he hunted for a flaw in his translation.

Of course there was no such thing as a bent ocean, anymore than there were devils who caused it. But he had seen a “devil” and fought it.

Suppose this other myth also had basis in fact?

Hunnar lay in the sun out on the new bowsprit, tracing lines in the wood with one claw while contemplating the ice shushing past below. Days had passed since they’d swung around to follow the girl Teeliam’s imaginary course toward its imaginary destination. The sun was not yet much above the horizon. Early morning cold chilled even a Tran.

Light turned gray, solemn ice to a more cheerful white as the sun rose. His attention lay on the sun’s ascension only vaguely. Nor was he thinking of the strange mission to which his off-world friends had converted him.

Instead, his thoughts were for the daughter of the Right Torsk Kurdagh-Vlata, Landgrave and True Protector of Wannome and Sofold. On the way the wind rippled her fur, so thick and smooth. On the noble gray down of her brow, which crested above eyes capable of more expression and emotion than most women’s lips.

Inside himself he knew well that the friend Ethan meant no harm toward his desires and surely harbored no intention toward the lady. Certainly Ethan had voiced such of himself, many times. Yet it seemed that the two of them were thrown into argument often and that the tiny but incredibly heavy (solid bones, the wizard Eer-Meesach had said, not hollow like the Tran) human won all of them when Hunnar wished most to impress his lady. And Elfa would end up congratulating and cooing approval of the hairless dwarf instead of himself.

More than all the glory of battle, riches of trade, or the accolades of the Tran he led, he craved a few words of praise from her.

The grooves in the wood grew deeper with his thoughts. What was she trying to do by favoring the alien over him? Perhaps Ethan’s disclaimers were spoken honestly, but could Elfa have some unnatural attraction to a male of another race? To a being who expressed his hatred of fighting whenever given the chance, who without his artificial chiv-skates would fall flat on the ice like a newborn cub?

He growled under his breath. No matter how he approached the situation, no matter the angle or forethought, he could not see the childishly simple explanation.

Double eyelids flicking, he found himself staring curiously at the horizon. An unusual ridging serrated the far-distant surface. They must be nearing another island. He performed some slow calculation in his head. It could not be Moulokin, if Teeliam’s estimate of two hundred satch were correct. They were still too far away by a third. Yet whatever was there grew larger as he stared. Another island, and the morning light glowed most oddly bright on its slopes.

Elfa faded from his mind, far enough anyway for him to concentrate ahead. It was as if the rocks and soil of the growing isle were polished like a mirror. Sunlight shattered crazily from it as from jewels in the Landgrave’s formal scepter. In this equatorial region snow was usually absent from surface lands. It had been so in Poyolavomaar, but did not seem to be that way here.

There was no sign of an end to the island as the icerigger raced nearer. Indeed, the ocean appeared to blend without a break into the island itself. A few minutes later his eyes widened in sudden realization of what was about to happen. With no land expected, the lookouts had grown lax. But now the one in the foremast basket saw the approaching mass and roared a warning to the ship.

“Come down speed… collision course!”

Hunnar was already chivaning back the portside icepath toward the helmdeck, yelling instructions as he went. The rigging began to quiver like a spider’s web as sailors swarmed aloft.

One sailor lay asleep across the path. Hunnar bent, kicked, and soared over the prone figure to land on the icepath beyond.

Ta-hoding was not yet awake and on deck, but a second mate named Fassbire was. He relayed instructions of his own as he coordinated with Hunnar’s information. Sails were trimmed and spars angled. The Slanderscree commenced to slow. A worried glance forward showed Hunnar that it was fast enough. Ice anchors would not be needed.

Dream-dull eyes showed as the morning crew stumbled out onto the deck. Cries of consternation came from those emerging from the fore cabin as they saw what was bearing down on them.

Ethan appeared on deck, followed closely by September. So acclimated to Tran-ky-ky had the humans become that their hoods were off and face masks down, exposing them to the chilly morning air, twenty-five below with a sixty kph tailwind. They soon had hoods and masks up, however, the danger of frostbite being too real to tempt.

Hunnar noted that Ethan was panting as he sealed his face mask, and had to remind himself for yet another time that the humans panted because they were short of wind, not to cool their bodies.

Spying Hunnar in the captain’s position, he ran toward the helmdeck. “What is it, Hunnar?”

The knight, all thoughts of ludicrous romantic competition now forgotten, pointed forward, then to starboard and port where the phenomenon extended.

“Teeliam’s myth is correct thus far, friend Ethan. ’Twas fortunate I was awake and… alert, for the lookout was sleeping or looking elsewhere, I think.”

Ethan ran to the railing, sliding across the icepath, to study the remarkable barrier ahead and the quilted reflections it shot at his eyes from wrenched and tortured ice. “The bent ocean,” he murmured in amazement. He repeated it to Hunnar after mounting the helmdeck.

“You find it pleasing, friend Ethan? Would it not unsettle you to see the ocean of your own world bent and twisted so abnormally?”

“A liquid ocean can’t be bent, Hunnar. Not in this fashion, anyway. I don’t know what it’s called, but I’ve seen fax… pictures of it on other worlds. Maybe some were taken on my own. I don’t know. It’s ice, exactly like the ice we’ve traveled so many satch across.” They continued to slow as they came close to the ridge of jagged ice blocks and spears, frozen girders and sparkling white boulders.

“But the ocean is bent ,” Hunnar insisted, with the tone of someone describing a round globe as flat.

“Not exactly bent,” explained Milliken Williams from the other side of the helmdeck, “as much as compressed. This is a pressure ridge. Ages ago, this must have been one of the last areas of open water on Tran-ky-ky. Last minute freezing by two bodies of ice moving toward each other created this wall of broken floes. Clap your paws or hands together in a bowl of water and it will shoot up between them. That’s what has happened to the ocean here, Hunnar. It was created by hydrophysics and not by devils or daemons.”

“Did I say it was created by devils?” Hunnar spoke with great dignity. “Do you take me for a superstitious fool of a common sailor?”

“I’m sorry. I meant no insult,” the teacher replied plaintively. Hunnar accepted the apology gruffly, then quickly changed the subject.

“The concern should not be what name to give it, but how to pass through.”

Ethan studied the eerily regular ridge. “It can’t be more than twenty meters high. Surely we can get across somewhere.”

Scouting parties were sent out east and west, to locate a break in the ice the Slanderscree could navigate. Reluctant knots of sailors left the ship to explore the ridge itself, but only after being presented with anti-devil amulets rapidly sculpted by Eer-Meesach.