Alan Foster - The Icerigger Trilogy

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?

Leaving the throne, the Landgrave of Moulokin came to exchange breath-greetings with them each in turn. Mirmib performed the individual introductions. The Landgrave did not hesitate or shy away when she came to the two humans.

The Landgrave (Landgravess? Ethan wondered) was named K’ferr Shri-Vehm. She had the typical broadness of all Tran, though was slimmer than the other females present, Elfa and Teeliam. Perhaps the Moulokinese ran to unusual thinness. They did if their Landgrave and guardian of the gate were any indication. Her slimness by Tran standards made her appear almost human, save for her height. She was nearly as tall as Hunnar or Skua September. September might find her attractive, in a bizarrely alien fashion, but to Ethan she was merely intimidating. Her sequinned dan could envelop him completely.

Her smile when she greeted each of them seemed genuine. Despite her beauty and presence, reflected in the admiring gazes of Hunnar, Ta-hoding and Balavere, nether Teeliam nor Elfa appeared apprehensive. Possibly it was due to K’ferr’s aura of authority. She seemed neither male nor female so much as Landgrave. This despite being the youngest Tran in the chamber, excepting Teeliam.

For reasons he never quite understood, it fell on Ethan to tell the tale of their accidental arrival and crash-landing on Tran-ky-ky, of the presence of a humanx outpost at Arsudun, their various adventures in reaching this point and their joint interracial decision that the best way for all Tran to improve their status was to form a Trannish government including many city-states which could then petition for admittance to the Humanx Commonwealth.

K’ferr absorbed this barrage of new ideas and concepts quietly, listening with both pointed ears cocked intently at Ethan. Occasionally she would make a small gesture of agreement or disagreement, or mutter something softly to Mirmib, who stood close on her right. She said nothing to anyone else until Ethan came to the part of their story where they were greeted and then betrayed and imprisoned by Rakossa of Poyolavomaar, who acted in collusion with the Landgrave of Arsudun, Calonnin Ro-Vijar. Before Ethan could finish, K’ferr rose and began pacing the open area between her throne and the assembled visitors. Her chiv clacked on the wooden floor, making her sound like a nervous tapdancer. Ethan studied the inlaid wood, wondering if the chiv marks were polished out after each audience or if the chamber was simply little-used.