Mitchell Smith - Moonrise

Still, ceasing was a pleasure as the sun set – so that west, down the Wall's horizon, its glittering immensity gradually diminished to a distant gleaming thread… Evening shadows grew swiftly in and about spires of ice where the climbers held fast, tiny as twelve specks of dust in a world of vaulted white. The Shrikes – like furred swift far-southern spiders – began to weave a web of braided line and steel ice-hooks between sheer walls, shelves, and notches of blue ice and white ice as the wind hummed through.

Baj and the others – excepting Errol, who seemed at ease playing along their wind-swept ledge – roosted together like exhausted swallow-birds, clinging to their best holds while watching the Shrikes work.

"I was so frightened." Nancy, fur-hooded, gripped Baj's arm as if to prevent a fall. "I was frightened all day…" Her breath smoked out on freezing air.

"I, also." Richard hummed for a moment, deep as a bass banjar. "I'm too big for this. Too heavy." He was clutching an anchored leather line, his crest and fur-tufts spangled with ice. "- We came south last year from the barren grounds, Map-Ohio. Ran from Matthew-Robin's company. Never been on this… thing, since I was basketed down as a boy to train to join the Guard."

"I wasn't frightened," Baj said, keeping his breathing shallow to save his lungs from frostbite. "I was fucking terrified." A perfect use of Warm-time's fucking, so often misplaced in modern ignorance.

A weary giggle from Nancy. "We're all terrified, except Errol."

"And what," Richard said, "- at least four more days to go?" He had to raise even his voice against the evening wind, which had begun to sing several songs at once, blowing through cathedrals of ice.

"Look at that fool!" Nancy called, "Errol – stop… stop doing that!" The boy was traversing a slender braided line hand-overhand above nothing but icy air.

The Shrikes, busy working – hammering in hooks with their hatchets, swinging from here to there – seemed pleased with Errol. Called encouragement.

"Stupid Sunriser assholes…" Nancy gave the Shrikes hard looks. "Savages."

Baj saw one of the tribesmen seem to hear her over the wind. "Shhh… Sweetheart, this is absolutely not the time or place for insults."

"Absolutely not," Richard clutched his leather line to him, "- though it's likely we'll freeze in the night, anyway."

With a rattling flap of colored coat-tails in the wind, a pinch-faced Patience swung out of the sunset and into the ice just above them… scrabbled for a grip, found one – precarious, where the surface had cracked like a fallen pitcher – and hung there.

"I need…" She could barely be heard. "I need help."

Baj, shamefully reluctant, took a cold-stiffened hand from its good hold (remember to mitten, remember to mitten) began to climb to her – and was greatly relieved when a Shrike, apparently sensitive to climbing trouble, seemed to stroll across a monstrous vertical, took Patience in a hug, and with only casual managing, brought her down to the others.

"Stay," the Shrike said, and was gone back to web-making.

"My fault," Patience said, her teeth chattering. "… My fault for getting too swiftly old., I came off the Wall years ago as if it were a snowbank, and no more. Now, the earth seems a long way down… difficult to push against."

Nancy shifted to put an arm around her. "Then don't Walk-in-air, dear. Stay and climb with us."

"Soon, I'll have to – and give the Shrikes another clumsy creature to care for."

Dolphus-Shrike, looking cheerful with a round ice-frosted face, clambered down to them. "Shake a leg!" And to Baj, "- Know that one?"

"No, I don't." Baj imagined the clever chieftain with a dagger-blade in his belly… A refreshing vision.

"Oh, very ancient WT," the Shrike perched smiling, his filed teeth a polished white. "A naval term – means to start a dance, a celebration."

Baj couldn't help himself. "Sounds absolutely wrong – fragment mis-read, and wrong. If truly naval, probably had nothing to do with dancing."

Dolphus stopped smiling.

"If we freeze to death here," Patience said, "- while two fools argue what neither knows, we will make very angry ghosts."

Dolphus smiled again, said, "Princes should be ignorant; it's the only advantage of the ruled." He gestured up with his thumb. "Climb. It's bed-time."

… The "bed" had been woven for them, a long narrow hammock – sling seating – its casual wide-spaced netting, braided-rope. It hung from six lines fastened down its length, and anchored with steel hooks hard into blue ice.

"Sit," said Dolphus-Shrike when they'd climbed very cautiously to it. "Tuck your muk-books up, and wrap your blankets over your furs, or you'll freeze in the night… And if pissing or shitting must be done, then push down fur trousers and hide trousers, and do those things through a netting gap – but with care. No dirty ropes in the morning!"

He and Henry-Shrike saw them settled in a row, crowded side by side – Baj, then Nancy, then Patience, then Errol, then Richard. "Birds," Dolphus said, "- on a branch," and Paul-Shrike swung down with a rolled caribou hide, and tucked it around Patience.

"Won't need it," Patience said, but Paul-Shrike only said, "Bring feet up," and swaddled her over her coat of colors.

Baj found their perch, hanging from a rough overhang within a great shallow bay of evening-colored ice – a vaulted space perhaps three bow-shots across – found it at first, very comfortable, though two great ice-chunks had fallen whistling past, just in front of them… Henry-Shrike had run a length of the greased, braided line tight across their chests, to keep them sitting back firm in the sling. It seemed… pleasant enough, all swaying together slightly in the wind, Baj feeling Nancy close and warm beside him. Comfortable, secure enough to look out and wonder at the landscape hundreds of Warm-time feet beneath them.

From their roost, the glacier's moraine and outwash country made a rough brown-and-white wrinkled map stretching out of sight to east and west… and south, far, far to the hint of mountains. Nearer, the Wall's lap lay plated with broad lakes – red-gold as the sunset struck them – and threaded with braiding streams, the swift rivers of melt… A view from the air, and though not from greater height than many mountain peaks, still was different from even the grandest of those vistas. A view, it seemed to Baj, that transformed the earth into something to be observed, something less solid than for those who walked it. – He found he understood Patience better, her… removal, remoteness. For her, all others and their landscapes lay essentially below. To be visited only.

The sight of such immense vacancy, the limitless country beneath, seemed almost worth the long day's effort to climb the ice wall to it – as if the effort, the fear, had been coins of payment.

… They sat in their row, and passed leather water-bottles and Baj's canteen – the water still liquid from their bodies' heat. Then shared out strips of frozen seal to chew, while, higher and to the side, the Shrikes rigged individual and skimpier woven rests – a few casual loops only – hammering guyline hooks into healthy ice with ringing strokes, using the flat sides of their hatchets' heads.

Night came quite suddenly. There was light, and airy vision, and all the warm colors sunset reflected from glaze ice, frost ice, fractured ice, and the country below – then, in the time a few breaths might be taken, the heights and air and the world beneath were only grays… As the dark came down, the wind came up, and began to whine and warble past pinnacles, pillars, and massive fluted columns of ice – humming there with a vibration so great that Baj felt his teeth and bones sing to it.