Brian Murphy - The Search For Magic

“The cut that will make the Excellent Continental Ice Project,” said the gnome.

“You’re cutting out blocks of ice?” said Raegel.

“No, just one block.” The full-bearded gnome, clad in the cut-down pelt of a polar bear, slipped out of the puzzled Mixun’s grasp and hurried on.

“These little men are mad,” he declared.

“That’s been said before,” Raegel agreed. “Still, they do have lots of energy.”

Just then a shrill metallic whistle screamed, causing the two friends to leap, ready to run from whatever danger had just been announced. Instead of an attack, the gnomes poured out of their huts and houses and formed themselves into a disorganized mass, all facing northwest.

Even then, they couldn’t stop talking. A quartet of senior gnomes (recognizable by their knee-length beards) climbed atop a platform of ice bricks and waited for the mob to calm. It never did, so one of the elders put a large, elaborate-looking horn in his mouth and blew. The same piercing shriek emerged, overpowering all conversation.

“Comrades! Fellow inventors! Lend me your aural and ocular attention!” cried the longest-bearded gnome on the platform.

“Lend him what?” asked Raegel.

“I don’t know, but I’m not giving them any money,” Mixun warned.

“Shh!” said six gnomes in front of them. “The Chief Designer speaks!”

“Fellow technocrats! As of three o’ clock and ten minutes past this afternoon, the cut has reached eighty percent of our goal. At this rate it will take just two more days to reach the next phase of the Excellent Continental Ice Project!”

The gnomes on either side of the Chief Designer did some rapid calculating with nubs of chalk on slates.

“Uh, Chief, it will take two days and eight and half hours,” said one.

“Ha! You forgot to carry the one! It’s three days, two hours-”

“You forgot to allow for wind resistance!”

“Colleagues, colleagues! What about the Wingerish Fever?”

“Enough!” bellowed the Chief Designer. “Culmination is nigh, whatever the exact hour! At the Splitting minus one day, the hammer towers will begin operation. At Splitting minus six hours, all colleagues will secure their work and await the Splash.”

“Do you have any notion what he’s talking about?” Mixun asked.

“Not a whit,” Raegel said. “Seems to me they’re digging trenches in the ice with those wheel-machines- maybe to roof ‘em over and make tunnels out of them. That way they can get around no matter how much it snows.”

Mixun was impressed by his friend’s analytical powers. He had only one objection. “What could the gnomes be getting around to? There’s nothing here but snow, ice, and rocks.”

In answer, Raegel only shrugged.

The men passed the night and all the following day in idleness, eating, sleeping, or wandering around the camp and observing inexplicable gnome behavior. The snowy scene was littered with their odd machines, often highly complicated devices to do the simplest jobs-like the pendulum powered potato masher in the Efficient Eatery, or the snow whisk operated by the increasing weight of seagull droppings collecting on a teetering platform overlooking the sea.

Their second night at Nevermind South, Mixun and Raegel bedded down in the storeroom of the main ice-building. They were alive and well, which was a great improvement over their prospects since leaving Port o’ Call, but Mixun was already restless.

“We’ve got to find a way off this snowpile,” he whispered in the dark. “I’ll go mad if I have to stay here too long! How’re we going to get back to the real world?”

“If we had a boat, we could sail across Ice Mountain Bay to the Plains of Dust,” Raegel said.

Mixun said, “That won’t do.”

“What’s wrong with that? The gnomes must have gotten here by boat. We could borrow one of theirs, I’m certain.”

“I’m not against taking a boat. I just can’t go to the desert country.”

“Eh? Why’s that?”

“Because I can’t, that’s why. Why don’t you want to return to Throt?”

Raegel cleared his throat. “I get your meaning. Hmm. Ergoth is a possibility.”

“Are we still wanted in Silvamori?” Mixun said.

“Um, dead or alive. I told you we shouldn’t have gulled Lady Riva’s factotum out of all that steel.”

Mixun snorted. “Fool. He deserved what he got.”

“Tdarnk still rules in Daltigoth,” Raegel said. “Plenty of opportunity there for men of wit and daring.”

Yes, opportunity to get drawn and quartered, Mixun thought. Raegel went on, listing cities and lands of the west, weighing the possible pickings they might find. Mixun stopped listening in the midst of his companion’s dissection of Zhea Harbor and lapsed into a deep, untroubled sleep.

Somewhere far away, a great bell tolled. The pealing was dirge-like and vastly deep. Mixun, who could sleep through most disturbances, opened his eyes. He and Raegel had rigged a hide tarp over their pallets to keep water from dripping on them as they slept. With each toll of the bell, a cascade of chill droplets ran off each corner of the tarp.

“Raegel? You awake?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What’s that sound?”

“Gnomes.” Raegel turned over, away from his friend. “Just gnomes.”

That wasn’t good enough for Mixun. He threw back his fur blanket and made his way out of the storehouse. It was an oddly warm morning for Icewall- still below freezing, but just barely. Heavy, low clouds reached down from the sky, gripping the stark landscape.

Bong.

The note was held a very long time. It seemed to come from all directions at once. Mixun would have asked the nearest gnome what was going on, but there were none in sight. Nevermind South was empty.

Bong.

The wind was still for the first time since their arrival at Icewall, and the sound carried with great clarity. It seemed to be coming from both east and west. Mixun drew his cloak tight and made his way through the snowdrifts toward a ridge of ice that ringed the landward side of Nevermind South. As he topped the rise, he heard the ringing sound again, followed by high, cheering voices. The gnomes were excited about something.

Mixun walked toward the cheering, and gradually he saw a tall tower in the clouds. It was a spindly construction of logs, with long ropes attached to it. As Mixun watched, a huge, wedge-shaped object rose inside the tower, drawn up by ropes. The gleam of metal meant it was sheathed in steel, and the iron box above it was filled with loose gravel. When the wedge reached the top of the tower, the tackle released, and it fell heavily to the ground.

Bong.

“So that’s it,” Mixun mused aloud. The gray sky echoed the massed cheers of the gnomes.

On closer inspection, he found the little people had carved out an amphitheater in the ice facing the tower, and they sat raptly watching as the great weighted blade rose and fell. The tower straddled a deep trench that ran as far as the eye could see east and west. From the piles of frozen slush on either side of the pit, Mixun guessed this was the cut plowed into the ice by the gnomes’ digging machines. The trench was so deep he couldn’t see the bottom, just glassy blue ice as far down as the eye could see.

He spotted Slipper in the crowd and hailed him. The tiny gnome waved back, never taking his eyes off the rising weight.

“Slipper-”

“Shh!” hissed two hundred gnomes at once. Mixun snapped his jaw shut, quelled by their unanimity. With a screech, the shackle opened, and the wedge plunged into the ravine. The gnomes cheered wildly.

“Slipper,” he said again, once the noise died down.

“What is it?”

“What are you doing?”