Brian Murphy - The Search For Magic

“Watching.”

“No. I mean, what are you doing there, with that tower?”

“This is the Splitting,” said the gnome beside Slipper. He had a fantastic snowsuit on, all covered with small, mirrored glass panels. Mixun asked what the Splitting was.

“The next phase of the Excellent Continental Ice Project,” said Slipper. Mixun had to wait until the wedge dropped again, then with strained patience he asked what the Excellent Continental Ice Project really was.

“We are separating a quantity of ice from the glacier, to take back home to Sancrist,” said the mirror-clad gnome.

“What for?” asked the amused human.

“Fresh water,” said Slipper.

“No, for our Low Temperature Laboratory!” said Mirror Suit.

A tubby gnome seated behind these two thrust his head between theirs and boomed, “Yer both wrong! The ice will be used to fight the red dragon, Pyrothraxus, who occupies our ancestral home, Mt. Nevermind! We’ll freeze ‘im in his lair!’”

Bong.

This time the blow sounded different. A prolonged cracking sound rose, like cloth being torn asunder. Every gnome in the theater rose on stubby legs and gazed rapturously at the tower.

“Slipper?” The little gnome did not answer Mixun until he tugged on the gnome’s down-stuffed sleeve. “How much ice are you taking?”

“One point six-eight cubic miles.”

“Miles?”

“Hurrah!” cried the gnomes. “Now the Splitting! Next the Splash!”

The ground heaved beneath Mixun’s feet. Before he could question or exclaim, the tower over the ravine snapped apart with a loud crack. Rope and timbers whipped into the deep gap, and the gnomes began spilling off their icy seats with commendable rapidity. Mixun found himself being borne along with the flow of white-haired folk. The glacier canted, first a little, then more and more. Gnomes went down like leaves in a fall wind, skidding into hummocks of snow or into Mixun’s legs. As little men piled up around him, Mixun lost his balance and fell too.

“Eight degrees! Fifteen degrees! Twenty-one degrees!” shouted a gnome gripping a surveyor’s quadrant. Mixun had the horrifying thought that “the Splash” would come when he and all the gnomes were dumped into the frigid sea.

The glacier shivered like a living thing, wracked from end to end by powerful forces. What was left of the derrick vanished into the widening ravine. Mixun rolled over, clawing at the snow for support. To his amazement, green seawater gushed skyward from the gap the gnomes had cut in the ice. So it was true. The little men had carved off a massive piece of the Icewall glacier!

For a fleeting, thrilling moment, Mixun felt himself falling. The ice dropped away from him and, in the next heartbeat, slammed into the yielding sea. Mixun flattened on the ice, spun around, and found himself buried under a squirming mass of frantic, excited gnomes.

By the time he extricated himself, Mixun felt a very slight rolling motion in the ice. He stood easily and surveyed the scene. Where once had been an expanse of ice all the way to the horizon, there was now a widening channel of swirling green water. Mixun dashed to the edge and looked left and right. There was nothing but ocean between them and shore. Cold wind was driving them out to sea at a notable pace.

The gnomes had sorted themselves out and were busily scribbling notes on any surface available-thick pads of paper, scraps of parchment, even their sleeves and the backs of their colleagues.

“What have you done?” Mixun asked, incredulous.

“Splash successfully survived,” noted Slipper on his foolscap. “The Splitting was more extreme than calculated.”

“Not so,” said another gnome. “My figures, posted three days ago on the wall of the Efficient Eatery, clearly indicate a maximum angle of twenty-six degrees before the Splash.”

“How many degrees was it?”

The quadrant-bearing gnome had marked his instrument at the most extreme angle. “Twenty-six degrees, two minutes, forty-four seconds!”

Slipper and the other gnomes bowed to the successful predictor. “Excellent calculations, my dear chap! Simply excellent!”

Mixun scratched his sprouting beard and said, “Excuse me, but what happens now?”

“Now we return to Sancrist Isle,” said the calculator.

“But how? Won’t we just drift with the wind?”

The assembled gnomes laughed in explosive chirps and soprano guffaws. “Not this iceberg!” Slipper declared. “We have propulsion!”

Mixun picked up a handful of snow. It melted quickly in the warm palm of his hand.

“Sancrist is a long way from here. Will the ice last, or will it all melt before we get there?”

This time the gnomes didn’t laugh. They deferred to the successful calculator, who made a rapid computation on his neighbor’s pants leg. When he was done, he smiled broadly.

“We can lose sixty percent of our total ice and still stay afloat,” he said. “The maximum amount we can expect to melt between here and Sancrist is no more than thirty-two percent.”

Mixun didn’t understand the percentages, but he was soothed by the gnome’s bland confidence. He had no reason to complain. Raegel had wanted to get office-wall, and now they were-in a way.

Raegel! He was still in the storehouse! Without a word, Mixun leaped over the gnomes, scrambling over the ridge toward Nevermind South. As he skidded down the slick hill to the camp (now teeming with gnomes again), he saw the great wheel machines being partially dismantled. One wheel was already being pegged into place at the edge of the iceberg so that the heavy plow blades dipped into the sea. Once in motion, the machines would act like giant waterwheels, paddling the floating island of ice to its ultimate destination.

Mixun burst into the storehouse, expecting to find a frantic Raegel stricken with fear. He did not.

“Raegel?” he called gently. The only reply was a soft and steady snoring.

Once he was wakened, Raegel didn’t believe Mixun’s story. The gnomes had sawn off a giant raft of ice, three miles long and a mile wide? It was ridiculous, and damned impossible!

“Come see for yourself,” Mixun said, rising from the iceblock table in the Efficient Eatery.

From the snow village, the only view was out to sea anyway, so Mixun and Raegel climbed the ridge above the town to see water all around them. Raegel opened his mouth a few times, but no words came out. He sat down on the mound of ice and gazed at the endless ocean.

Mixun held a ringer to the wind, then squinted at the sun. “North by west,” he said sagely. “Dead on for Sancrist Isle.” He sat down by his bemused companion. “It’s too much to believe. If these little folk can do something this grand, why don’t they command the world?”

“Don’t let the size of the deed fool you,” Raegel said. “Gnomes are smart, but they’re also more than a little loony. It took a thousand of them to carve out this island of ice, but in another time and place the same thousand might devote themselves to something totally useless, like…” He struggled for an example. “Counting the ants in an anthill or trying to catch clouds in a jar.”

“There’s gotta be something in this for us!” Mixun said, rising suddenly. “Some way to turn this to our advantage!”

“I’ll think on it. All this ice must be worth something. After all, it’s a chill wind that blows us no good.”

Mixun frowned and slapped Raegel on the back of the head.

The ridge above Nevermind South was the highest point on the floe. From there they could see for miles to all points of the compass. On their second day at sea, Mixun spotted the white sails of a ship bearing down on them from the northeast. It was running before the wind, while the ponderous ice island was paddling steadily against the prevailing zephyr. He interrupted Raegel’s plotting and pointed to the oncoming vessel.