Brian Murphy - The Search For Magic

The noise was deafening. Vision blurred by the heavy pounding, Mixun could see his friend’s mouth move, but he could not hear what was being said. Then the gnomes launched the great wheel forward.

Raegel and Mixun tumbled over each other as the cabin turned a full revolution with each rotation of the wheel. During his wild flight, Mixun saw Wheeler standing upright and unconcerned in his rattan cage, his wheeled board canceling out the motion of the manic machine under him. The other gnomes twisted and tumbled in their rope bags, allowed to turn head over heels, but held in place.

The two men were thrown together like dry peas in a cup. Raegel’s suede boots, no doubt toasty warm on his feet now but smelling like all the sewers of Sanction, kept colliding with Mixun’s nose. His own noxious footwear were curled beneath him, but he managed to straighten them out so he could return the favor to Raegel.

“Try… to… get a… grip!” Mixun cried as they whirled.

“On what?” Raegel retorted.

Mixun braced his feet and hands against the axle ribbing, and that stopped his dizzy tumbling-or it did until Raegel fell on top of him and broke his hold. They rattled around a few more revolutions, then Raegel managed to loop his arms around a wooden bracket. He ran in place as the great wheel turned, then planted his feet against the ribs as Mixun had done. Soon they were both stable, though rotating with the axle. Raegel found himself staring at Mixun’s kneecaps, and Mixun’s view of the world was framed by his friend’s long, bony legs.

The gnomes thundered along in this fashion for some time, the massive wheel chewing through layer upon layer of packed snow and ice. The machine bore right and picked up speed. Suddenly there was an extra hard jolt, and the wheel bounced into the air. For a second the noise and shaking stopped. There followed a resounding splash as the wheel struck the water.

“See! See!” Wheeler was crowing. “Thus it is proven! The ISPIE works as well in the water as it does on land!”

“Nonsense! Preposterous!” his fellow gnomes responded. “The efficiency of the plows as paddles cannot exceed thirty percent!”

“Fifty!” Wheeler shouted back.

“Thirty!”

“One hundred twenty-six over forty-nine,” announced the gnome with the Wmgerish Fever.

“Shut up!” the gnomes chorused.

“Excuse me,” Mixun said in the brief moment of silence that followed. “Not that my friend and I aren’t grateful, but where are we going?”

“Nevermind South,” said Slipper, turning in his rope bag to see their guests. “Our base of operations for the Excellent Continental Ice Project.”

“And what, pray, is the Excellent Continental Ice Project?” asked Raegel.

“Our purpose here,” Wheeler said. “We’ve come to harvest the abundant natural concretion of solidified sub-freezing water.”

“The what?”

“The ice,” said all five gnomes in unison.

The giant wheel, which the gnomes informed Mixun and Raegel was named Snow Biter , paddled down the coastline, making good time in the choppy gray sea. When the wind dropped, the vanes outside slowed and Snow Biter lost speed. When the wind kicked up again, the strange contrivance churned ahead. The axle, as tightly caulked against wind and water as a well-made ship, kept everyone inside dry and warm.

Well past midday, Wheeler announced they were going inland again. Everyone braced themselves. Angling ashore, Snow Biter climbed the beach and tore at the crusty, rock filled snow. Amid a barrage of nonsensical orders, the giant wheel turned sharply to the left and halted. The sudden cessation of motion and noise was startling. Raegel neglected to lower his voice and kept shouting everything he said, while Mixun seemed to want to keep on turning of his own accord. Men and gnomes tumbled outside, weaving and spinning like dandelion seeds caught in a zephyr.

Gradually the world stopped turning, and Mixun was able to survey their surroundings. The gnomes had created a fantastic miniature town. It lined the shore of a shallow bay like a toy village wrought in snow by children. Everything was gnome-sized, and hundreds of the little people were about, coated in all manner of strange garb. The men saw gnomes dressed in waxed cotton coveralls smeared with grease, leather capes with seagull feathers glued all over, and furs of every shade. A pair of busy-looking fellows rolled past, sealed inside globes of glass four feet in diameter. Oddest of all were the gnomes who wore only a breech-cloth and stockings, yet stood about in the frigid air as calm and comfortable as they pleased. Raegel was about to inquire about their state of warmth when the wind changed.

“Awk!” he said, gasping. “That smell!”

“Slipper’s foot-warming lotion,” Mixun said, nodding. “They must use it all over.”

He and Raegel were freezing, so they loudly demanded some protection from the cold for themselves. Wheeler was in a hurry to report to his colleagues, and he dashed off, leaving little Slipper to assist the humans.

“I’m doubtful there’s any clothing in camp that will fit you,” he said, stroking his beardless chin.

“Anything you have-blankets will do. Anything!”

“Very well. Follow me.”

They followed Slipper to a low structure made of driftwood and blocks of ice, cut and fitted with all the care of traditional masonry. Both men had to duck to enter the icehouse. It was surprisingly warm inside, which accounted for the walls running rivulets of water and the ceiling yielding a constant supply of shockingly cold drops.

The building was a warren of corridors and rooms, all sized to gnomish standards. Slipper led them a merry route through the bustling halls, and more than once Mixun lost sight of their guide as he passed through a crowd of fellow gnomes.

“Little mites all look alike!” he declared under his breath. Raegel chided him for his ignorance.

“They’re as different as you and me,” he said. “See? There’s Slipper, over there.”

“All right, hawkeye, you lead!”

Graciously, Raegel did just that. Before long, Slipper led them to a supply room. Furs and yard goods lay in heaps everywhere. “Help yourselves,” said the gnome. He turned to leave.

“Wait!” said Mixun. “These aren’t clothes. They’re just piles of cloth!”

“Can’t you make your own clothes? I can show you how to make your own, using the Improved Squirm-Proof Full Body Stitcher. You lie down on a table, see, with cloth beneath you and on top, and the machine sews around you, creating perfectly fitting clothes-”

“Never mind, friend Slipper,” Raegel said. “We’ll manage.” He found a brown woolen blanket and cut it into strips with Tamaro’s dagger, winding the strips around his legs as puttees. Mixun draped a gray linsey-woolsey blanket around his shoulders like a mantle.

Slipper sniffed. “If you want to be crude about it!” He tried to leave again.

“Wait,” Mixun said. “What about food? Where can we get something to eat?”

“Follow your nose. It will lead you to the Nevermind South Efficient Eatery and Experimental Food Shop.”

Raegel tied his leggings in place. “Now that sounds like fine dining to me.”

More warmly dressed and their hunger assuaged by a visit to the Efficient Eatery (“Just our luck-it’s experimental food day,” Raegel said when he saw the strange victuals offered), the men wandered around the gnome camp, trying to figure out what the little men were doing.

Former farmer Raegel, who developed an eye for counting free-roaming chickens as a child, estimated there were a thousand gnomes in Nevermind South. Other giant wheels, like Snow Biter , came and went via the sea. Since gnomes were always shouting their business for all to hear, Mixun heard every returning wheel master declare things like “The cut is sixty-nine percent complete,” or “the cut is seventy-seven percent complete.” At one point he snagged a busy gnome and asked, “What is this ‘cut’ I keep hearing about?”