Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

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.