Icerigger

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Nothing is found of the other Unmentionables, sir,” he gasped out. “'Tis feared they have eluded pursuit and left the castle.”

  “Keep at it,” replied Hunnar angrily. “They may be hidden in a box somewhere, or in the kitchens. Search every corner, even the catacombs. Find them!” He turned back to Ethan.

  “Did you see their faces?”

  “Sorry. I'm afraid I didn't see much of anything after sticking this one.” The thought of what he'd just done suddenly hit him. “I ... sorry, Hunnar, I feel a little sick.”

  “I did ... see one,” said Colette. Ethan turned surprised eyes on her.

  “I thought you didn't understand the language.”

  She looked at him pityingly. “Did you think I'd waste my time studying patterns in my quilts? I've been studying the language with our servants. So has father. His mind ... wanders, sometimes. But when its all present, it's a shockingly competent one. He has a photographic memory, I might add ... I think I understand what this Hunnar said. He wanted to know if you could identify those who got away, didn't he?”

  “Yes. And you think you could?”

  She nodded.

  “What does the She say?” asked Hunnar interestedly.

  “She believes she can recognize your two assassins if she sees them again.”

  “That would be excellent!” The knight's eyes sparkled. He showed his teeth. “'Tis something, at least.”

  “Look, why not pick up the prefect for questioning? It's certainly the best lead you've got.”

  “Lead? Oh, I see. Arrest the prefect?” Hunnar looked shocked. “On only personal supposition? It cannot be done! ... No, not even the Landgrave would consent to it, though no love is lost between him and Brownoak.”

  “Don't you have protective custody?” Ethan asked.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Well, that sticks it, then,” he said disgustedly.

  “I am sorry, friend Ethan. I do not understand.”

  “Forget it, Hunnar.” He patted the knight on one massive, hairy arm. “I hope you find your assassins. Would-be assassins.” On Terra, he mused, he'd be a prime suspect.

  His reason for paying a nocturnal visit to the Landgrave was completely forgotten. Anyhow, this wasn't the proper time to discuss it.

  He looked around at a sound from the doorway. September was standing there, swaying slightly and looking a little bemused. Ethan didn't find the big man's drunkenness a bit funny just now.

  “Now, what's all the racket here?”

  “The du Kanes were kidnapped by a bunch of local nasties. They intended to kill the Landgrave and frame the du Kanes for it.” He eyed September intently. “I broke it up.”

  “Bravo, young feller-me-lad, bravo!” He belched loudly. “Wonder what they do for hangovers here. This damned racket's given me a devil of a one — practically shook me out of bed.”

  “Then why don't you go back to it?” Ethan spun away in disgust.

  September stared at him sharply for a moment, then sagged. “Yerse, young feller, I believe that's exactly what I'm going to do.” He turned and stumbled of down the hall.

  It was much, much too soon when the servant woke Ethan politely and brought in his breakfast. A carton of their own emergency rations, thank Rama! Not that the local food last night hadn't been edible. Even tasty in spots, but it was good to smell real terran food again even if fast frozen.

  He searched through the case and came up with a can of self-cooking bacon and eggs, a smaller cylinder of coffee, and a flat, two-sided slab that when keyed down the middle broke into two hot slices of buttered toast.

  He wolfed it all down, rearranging the more persistent itches within the parka. Preparing to don his shoes, he found a pair of fur-lined boots next to them. They were a little large, but then the royal tailor no doubt had a hell of a time with their foot shapes. Not to mention the odd task, as the tran didn't wear footgear.

  Probably September had slipped him instructions and a rough sketch or two. So they were ill-fitting and awkwardly stitched, but they were warm and that was all that counted. The soles were even studded with tiny metal shards, to give them some grip on the slick ice.

  Unfortunately, he was still stuck with the too-large survival suit. He might do better with a native coat like September's.

  The castle that morning was a carnival of conversation and gossip. It centered around the attempted assassination and the role played by the visitors from the sky. September went off somewhere with Balavere and Hunnar to inspect the city and harbor defenses and make pertinent suggestions. Ethan wondered about the big man's profession for the nth time and finally gave it up. An admitted criminal...

  No, he cautioned himself. Being wanted on several worlds did not automatically convict him. Church and Commonwealth notwithstanding, the legal tenets of planets varied hugely from system to system. They had to. Monolithic law would make the gigantic humanx Commonwealth unworkable.

  So the same act that might condemn a man to death on one world could make him hero on another.

  A servant told Ethan that on awakening Williams had been visited by no less a personage than the great wizard himself. So those two were off again somewhere trading anecdotes and information.

  The du Kanes were keeping to their room. As for Walther, he was allowed out under guard for exercise only.

  That left him alone to explore the town and the castle.

  Several days of comparative freedom from official dinners and such gave him time to examine Wannome in more depth. In many ways it resembled a host of small ancient terran walled towns. Especially those few that had been preserved as historical monuments. Ethan knew a little of them from school and the traveldees.

  Personally, he'd never been able to afford a trip to the home world. Nor had the company found it fit or necessary to send him. Someday, perhaps...

  But there were endless differences.

  For example, there were none of the fountains that decorated so many human and thranx towns. Naturally not. Not when it would require constant heating to keep the water flowing.

  Alternatively, many of the houses sported fantastic roof decorations carved in ice, often by very young cubs. The inhabitants were gruff, but friendly. By the second day they'd gotten over their fear or uncertainty and had grown positively effusive. Clearly the word had been passed that the humans were not only guests but special favorites of the Landgrave. And he who favors one favored by the Landgrave favors himself — a universal tenet, if differently expressed, he reflected.

  The cubs were a total and unexpected delight, rolling, bouncing, chivaning balls of fur that surrounded him wherever he went and threatened to get all tangled up in his clumsy legs. The blatantly displayed fact that he possessed neither chiv nor dan both astounded and delighted them. No doubt they looked on him as a new variety of friendly freak, a silly goblin called up just to please and delight them.

  He visualized them lying in the street, running blood, impaled on pikes, and decided that if he'd been in Hunnar's place he would have fought for this chance to resist as soon as he'd grown old enough to articulate his position.

  Or would you, my good salesman? Sure you wouldn't have found it more expedient to buy another two or three years of safety, of good business? Eh? So certain of your conscience?

  The thought bothered him and he shook it off without resolving it. Of course it was tough to get out of the habit of buying peace. But it could grow too comforting, too degrading. A dedicated pacifist, he found himself shocked at what a few days on this backward world had done to his comfortable picture of the universe. Weren't the commercial practices of some of the great companies just as bloodthirsty and ruthless, if more discreet? Didn't Sagyanak have his counterparts in polished boardrooms and his spirit back of major stock manipulations?

  By the end of the first week he'd already grown a little bored with Wannome. Even the harbor, with its ever-shifting panorama of rafts and cargoes, was growing stale. Heart and soul he was a b
ig-city boy. While he could trade, and trade well, on the most primitive worlds, it was the thought of mechanized comfort and sybarytic civilization awaiting his return that pushed him along. His was most definitely not the soul of an outdoorsman.

  None of the captains he talked with, nor any of their crewmembers, had ever heard of Arsudun Island or Brass Monkey. Nor had they visited The-Place-Where-The-Earth's-Blood-Burns.

  It was a fine, sunny day — meaning that the temperature was within cozy distance of freezing and some tran were going without coats. And you didn't have to lean into the wind to stay in one place. He met Colette in the hall. When she finally confessed to boredom exceeding his, he proposed that they explore some more of the island.

  Hunnar took a few minutes away from his frantic preparations to provide them with instructions on how to get around. Certain sections of the island would be easier for them to see than for a tran, while others would be just the reverse.

  A set of rations from their store of food, and they were off.

  It was steep climbing to the saddle between the mountain tops. But from there the view, as Colette described it in one of the few complimentary adjectives Ethan had heard her use, was “magnificent.”

  From here one could look up to the sharp crags on either side that formed the high points of Sofold Island. To the east you could look down across the tightly packed, steep-gabled roofs of the city, then out over the busy harbor, with its ever-moving commerce and dozens of flashing painted sails, to the great harbor walls and the endless ice beyond.

  This they'd anticipated. What surprised and pleased them was the view in the other direction.

  Coming eternally from the west, the wind hit them hard when they topped the last rise. Below them, a long, broad plain spread out, dotted here and there with farms and clusters of little stone buildings. Herds of vol and monkey-like hoppers were visible in distant fields. Squares of crimson larval, the local substitute for wheat, were patches of billowing flame in the bright sunlight.

  Beyond, he could make out a field of green extending as far as he could see in a great fan shape toward the horizon like the tail of some monstrous bird-of-paradise. Off to the left, kilometers across the ice, he thought he could detect another patch.

  Their guide, a sprightly adolescent named Kierlo, explained what it was. “There, noble sir and madame, grows the great pika-pedan, in a field greater than several Sofolds. There the thunder-eater comes to browse.”

  “I've heard so much about this thunder-eater,” said Ethan as they strolled along the broad path that ran along the crest, “that I'd like very much to see one close up.”

  The youngster laughed. “No one goes to look at the thunder-eater close up, noble sir.”

  “It's vicious, then?”

  “No sir. Not vicious. But it can be very irritable, like some k'nith.”

  Ethan knew the k'nith. A small animal like a hairy rat. He found it repulsive, but it was apparently a favored pet among the cubs of Wannome. They seemed affectionate, despite their fearsome appearance, and tended to explode into frenzied squalling at the tiniest upset. The cubs found such outbursts amusing.

  Clearly they were more tolerant of their pets than a human child, who would have grown disgusted with a k'nith in a day or two. The climate even made for hardier pets, he mused.

  “I'd like to see the foundry,” he said suddenly. It dawned on him that they must be quite close to this major source of Wannome's wealth and power.

  “Yes, lord.” The youth turned down a narrow path that Ethan would have walked right past. Once around a bend in the rock, he could see smoke from the mountaintops once again.

  The foundry itself occupied a little valley. It was small to the eye, even tiny, at first. But once they drew nearer, he could see that much of it was cut into the naked rock and built into caverns to take advantage of the heat rising from deep within the planet's crust.

  From this area of the crest he could see that several of the crags were old volcanic cones. Most were dead or dormant, but a few puffed black smoke skyward. All of the craters sloped to the west and had been invisible from the city side.

  Wannomian smelting and metal-working turned out to be an odd mixture of primitive technology and some surprisingly advanced techniques. The drawing and tempering of sword blades, for example, and of spear points.

  The foundry head was in Wannome conferring with the military councilors. They were met by Jaes Mulvakken, the assistant chief.

  “We are most honored, noble sir and lady, that you have found time to inspect our poor—”

  “Skip the flattery and formal self-deprecation,” smiled Ethan. He'd almost perfected the technique of smiling without revealing his teeth. “We just want to have a casual look around.”

  Mulvakken was all business when it carne to explaining the operation of the foundry. He even managed to get Colette interested. Ethan was impressed by the tran's efficiency and knowledge. He'd make a fine district supervisor for a major mine, and while he preferred talking about finished products, he had to admit the foundry was fascinating.

  In order to get close to the heat vents and geysers within the mountain, tran workers were first doused with ice water. Moving their arms and legs to keep the joints free, they soon wore jackets of transparent armor on torsos, arms, and legs. It gave Ethan the shivers just to watch it.

  It was strange to see someone donning special outfits to retain the cold. Everything backwards.

  “Where are your mines?” he asked Mulvakken.

  “At the west end of the island, sir. Some of our shafts and tunnelings extend out even under the ice.”

  “Don't you have trouble digging into this super-permafrost?”

  “Oh no, sir. The deeper we go, the softer it gets. And the miners are out of the wind. But the pika-pina is rooted in that end of the island. Cutting through the roots is worse than trying to cut through rock. Usually we just remove the dirt and work around the roots themselves. The ice is easily melted and the water removed... Sometimes we can cut through an old or weakened root here, a dying linkage there. But it is so entwined and grown upon itself that 'tis near impossible to separate one bit from another.

  “Nor would we want to kill it. The pika-pina gives us food, while the metal gives us wealth.”

  “An attack on that end of the island by an enemy would capture the mines, then,” said Ethan unnecessarily.

  “Oh yes! But a lump of iron ore is a poor weapon, noble sir. Even were an enemy so inclined, and knowledgeable enough to work the mines, he could not with us continually harassing him. We're well protected here in the mountains, sir, even better than the city folk.”

  “Oh, I don't know. This western slope doesn't look so bad.

  “Perhaps not for you, sir. But I have heard you are built differently from us and that climbing uphill without wind aid does not give you as much difficulty.”

  That was probably true, Ethan reflected.

  He was examining the huge windmills that powered lathes and grindstones and brought air to the forges when he felt Colette's hand on his arm.

  “Oh look. There's professor Williams,” She'd taken to calling him “professor” Williams now, though they didn't know exactly what level of upper school he taught. He'd not volunteered the information. Sometime Ethan would have to ask.

  The schoolmaster was seated at a table along with the ever attending Eer-Meesach. Both were so engrossed in a pile of diagrams that they didn't notice the arrivals until Ethan and Colette had stood behind them for several minutes.

  “I'll leave you, noble sir and lady, to the company of the wizards. I have much work to do. 'Tis sure no one knows how to put a decent edge on a sword these days.” Mulvakken gave them a bloodthirsty grin and bowed politely.

  In other words, Ethan reflected wryly, I've wasted enough time showing you alien V.I.P.s around and it's time I got back to some serious work. He waddled off in the direction of smoke, heat, and ringing noises.

  “Well, Milliken. Eer-Mee
sach.”

  “Greetings, sir and madame,” the wizard said with sprightly enthusiasm. His eyes were shining. “Your friend has been showing me many things. Great things. I haven't been so excited since l was a famulus!”

  “What have you been up to, Milliken?”

  “Malmeevyn has been helping me with mechanical equivalents and local terminology. I'm not much of a fighter and thought I might be able to help some other way.”

  “Nor am I,” said Ethan sincerely.

  “Oh, but we all saw the way you handled Sir Hunnar that night.” He couldn't keep the admiration out of his voice. “Even Mr. du Kane is a better fighter than I... But I did think I might be able to aid in other ways. I've read quite extensively, you know. I've been trying to help out the Wannomian armorers with an idea or two gleaned from terran and centaurian history. My first idea involved catapults, but both sides already understand and utilize the principle. Very powerful devices they have, too.”

  “They'd have to be,” Ethan commented, “to do much in this wind.”

  “Yes. Also swords, pikes, axes, lances, halberds — all kinds of things for cutting and stabbing. Spears and bows for throwing. But I've been working closely with Malmeevym and the metal workers and I believe we've managed to come up with a couple of beneficial developments.”

  He reached under the table and brought out an object the like of which Ethan had never seen.

  It had a long, straight body of wood, with a short bow set on one end. There was also an obvious trigger and some sort of pulley and crank mechanism at the other end.

  “Very interesting,” said Ethan, conscious of his historical cretinism. “What is it?”

  “An ancient terran weapon. It's called an arbalest, or crossbow.”

  “A marvelous invention!” shouted the wizard, unable to contain himself. “I showed it to Leuva Sukonin's son, a knight of archers. When I outdistanced his best bowman he fell on the icepath and nearly slid all the way into town!” The wizard chuckled at the memory.

  “It can throw twenty to forty zuvits further than the furthest archer,” Williams said, “and it's more accurate and powerful besides. It cannot be loaded as fast, it's true. But it will penetrate the thickest of leather-bronze shields at close range. I made the bows extremely tough. I think this version is more powerful than anything ever used on old Terra. These tran have truly awesome arm and shoulder muscles ... from holding their dan against the wind, I suspect.”