by David Estes
“Thank you for your counsel,” Heinrich said.
“But you won’t turn back.”
“No.”
Ousted shook his head. The rest of the men were digging furrows in the snow, trying to make space to erect their tents and escape the daggers of wind slashing in from all sides.
“Will you defy my command?” Heinrich said. “I am your captain.”
“I’m not speaking to my captain right now,” Ousted said, squinting as blustery snow pelted his face.
Heinrich frowned, not understanding.
“I’m speaking to my friend,” Ousted said, explaining. “No, Captain, I won’t defy your command, even if it means my death and yours. But I will never fail to speak my mind.” With that, he turned away, disappearing into the snowy whiteness, joining the rest of the men in setting up camp.
Heinrich was no dictator. Yes, he expected his orders to be followed, but only because anything else would incite mutiny. But he’d listened to counsel in the past, even when he wasn’t certain he agreed with it. Plus, Ousted, his closest friend and ally, had made good points. Logical points. What do I hope to discover in this frozen wasteland?
He tried to consider the situation without emotion, without his lust for discovery, his insatiable need to go where no man had ever set foot before. Tucked in the relative warmth of his tent, safe from the wind and snow, which now provided a reasonable measure of insulation, Heinrich’s head felt clearer.
South of Frozen Lake the land was inhabitable, there was no questioning that. They could set up several large colonies, including one nestled just below the lake, pumping an endless supply of fresh water from beneath the icy surface.
But here, this far north…no one could survive…could they? And even if they could, what kind of life would they live? A cold one, Heinrich mused.
But still…there must be something worth finding to the north, right? Something of value? Gold perhaps? Heinrich didn’t care for riches—he wasn’t a treasure hunter by any stretch of the imagination—but at least discovering gold or other precious metals would justify this expedition, as well as keep the king happy.
The king, he thought. Was his son right? Was it inevitable that this enormous land sever itself from Crimea’s influence? King Streit was an arrogant man who believed the entirety of the world, both land and sea, was his to be conquered, ruled by his iron fist. He wouldn’t bow to a bunch of revolutionaries, not without a fight. Not without bloodshed. Once Heinrich returned to Knight’s End, he would have to try to convince Tomas that they needed the resources and support of the Crimean crown. The last thing Heinrich wanted was a drawn out war. He was no soldier, after all. Nor visionary. Thus far, this decade-long endeavor had been largely uncontested, though scouts had returned to the west with news of strange-looking natives inhabiting both the east and south. Barbarians, they called them. Heathens. Heinrich didn’t like such labels. Just because people are different doesn’t make them the enemy. He’d learned that too many times before.
His thoughts were diverging from the matter at hand, he realized, and he steered them back to the decision he had to make. Keep going in search of the great unknown or admit defeat and turn back?
He drifted off to sleep, hoping the right answer would reveal itself in the morning.
Heinrich stretched and yawned, awakening to the sound of men laughing and talking. It was a familiar sound, and yet one that was completely unexpected. There was no howling wind. No flapping canvas.
He poked his head into a morning that was cold, but not nearly as cold as the days previous. Smoke from several cook fires curled lazily into the sky, wisps of gray against an otherwise white backdrop. The wind had abated, the storm moving on to torment another part of the land. White, powdery drifts were piled up against empty tents. Pockets of men sat around the fires, which were crackling merrily. The whole setup had a surreal feel to it, as if Heinrich was still asleep in some dream world.
This is my answer, he thought. Not because the way had suddenly gotten easier, but because this was something new, something he’d never experienced before. Something to excite him.
He scooted out of the tent and rose. Heads turned his way, watching his approach. Cut in half, his company looked small, only forty men remaining. The toughest of the tough, those he’d known the longest.
Ousted’s steely eyes met his, and his friend nodded. He thinks I’m going to announce our retreat, he thought. He cleared his throat. “The way forward is a risk, I’d be lying if I said otherwise,” he started. “And I won’t force any man to accompany me from this point onward. But I am also not broken, not defeated, not content to leave the mysteries of our world unsolved. This is what I do, explore, and if I stop now I might as well let you plant me in the ground. Who is with me?”
A moment of silence ensued, and Heinrich noticed several eyes flick to Ousted, as if looking for a cue from him. He has the ears of the men, Heinrich thought. He could mutiny if he wants to.
But then Ousted said, “I am. But I’m not trudging through anymore of this hell-frozen snow!”
Heinrich couldn’t hold back his laugh, and neither could the other men, who merrily agreed to continue north.
“Good,” Heinrich said. “Because this won’t mean the same thing without my friends by my side. And there won’t be any more trudging, if we’re going to risk our lives, we might as well do so sliding across the ice.”
Ousted nodded and handed Heinrich a tin plate loaded with charred meat and boiled potatoes. “Plan of attack?”
Any small amount of awkwardness there might have been between them vanished in an instant as they settled into their typical roles of captain and advisor. “The lightest of foot will proceed ahead of the rest of the company, testing the ice.”
“Aye,” Ousted agreed. “And we stick to the eastern edge of the lake, where the ice will have formed the earliest and the thickest.”
“Any sign of breakage and we make haste for the shore, no questions asked. Then we vote again.”
As it turned out, the precautions were hardly necessary—even at its thinnest point, the ice was as thick as the wingspan of the tallest man in the company, and there was little chance of breaking through so long as they remained spread out.
The company’s spirits rose as they made good progress across the lake, which was as vast as an ocean, stretching all the way to the horizon, where the frozen waters seemed to drop off the face of the earth.
As they traveled further north, into the Hinterlands, copses of trees began to spring up on the edges of the lake. The trees were similar to those they’d see bordering the Mournful Mountains, some form of pine, but growing closer together, almost intertwining, as if huddling beside each other for warmth. Their nettles were different, too, longer and silver rather than green, as if they’d been painted that color by centuries of never ending snowfall. Their branches were also thicker than those of a normal pine, made to withstand the weight of the snow and ice piled atop them without bending or breaking. During a rest one day, Heinrich and a few of his more curious men wandered off the ice to inspect them. “No cones,” Heinrich said, squinting up at the branches. It was true, these pines were just trunk, branches and nettles, nothing hanging from their boughs.
“I wonder how they spread their seed,” Horris said. He was the company transcriber, writing tales of all their adventures.
Heinrich enjoyed this aspect of exploring. Learning about new places, new plants, new animals—so long as they didn’t try to eat him, of course, which unfortunately happened more frequently than he’d like—but now wasn’t the time. “Once we’ve found the end of this forsaken lake we’ll have plenty of time to inspect the flora and fauna,” he said.
Grudgingly, they moved back onto the endless sheet of ice and continued their march.
At night, they camped right on the ice. Cook fires were built parallel to the camp, on the snowy shore. Several of the more enterprising men would usually move away from camp and find a spot to drill a
hole big enough to fish through. And each night they would return with dozens of large spotted fish with surprisingly white meat that flaked away when cooked.
Heinrich relished every moment as they marched for a fortnight across the ice. Then a second fortnight, with still no end in sight.
Until the ice ended.
“What do you make of it?” Ousted asked, as they stared at the reality spread out before them.
They stood on shore, having left the ice and—despite Heinrich’s previous promise—trudged along the edge of the lake until they reached the point where the ice was melting, becoming a wide swathe of slush before giving way to white-capped water once more.
“It’s odd,” Heinrich said. If anything, the air had continued to get colder the further north they’d traveled. If anything, the ice should’ve been even thicker here, not melting.
Narrowing his eyes, Heinrich carefully picked his way down the rocks to the water’s edge. He squatted, eyeing the sludgy water. Peeled off a glove and rolled his three thick layers of clothing up to his elbow. Dipped his hand in the water.
The cold was a shock to his skin, but he bit his lip and shoved his hand in further, past the melting ice, until half his arm was beneath the surface. Where it was—
Impossible.
It was warm.
“The hell?” Heinrich muttered.
“What is it, Hein?” Ousted called. “Did your hand freeze off and float away?”
“I—” There was no other way to explain it. “The water is warm.”
“Come again? Did you say the water is warm? I think you’ve gone numb in the brain, Cap’n.”
He shook his head. His brain did feel numb, but not from the cold. From this incredible discovery. “Let’s go a little further,” he called. “And then I’m going swimming.”
Heinrich didn’t want to ruin the moment for his men. Let them experience it for themselves, he thought. And then he started peeling off his clothes.
There were murmurs of confusion, and several men echoed Ousted’s opinion on how the captain’s brain must have been numbed by the cold, but Heinrich ignored them. He also ignored the bite of the cold as it nipped at his pale skin, which was so dry and chafed that it was rough and peeling. He didn’t care about any of that. All he cared about was stumbling out of his boots, bullying his way out of his trousers, his under-trousers, and his under-under-trousers, and then charging for the water’s edge, which was now completely free of ice, even the slushy kind.
With a boyish whoop! he leapt free of the shoreline, curling his arms under his bent legs until he resembled a large, fleshy ball.
Spalooosh!
The warm water rushed around him and he breathed hard out of his nose, bubbles burbling toward the surface. He kept his eyes open, and was shocked at the clarity. Looking through the warm blue water was as easy as gazing through a just-cleaned pane of glass. Brilliant green, purple, and red plants grew up from the bottom, their long tendrils almost reaching all the way to the surface. Hundreds—no, thousands—of fish moved in schools, feeding off the plants. Heinrich spotted several of the large spotted ones they’d been eating for the last fortnight.
Out of breath, Heinrich bobbed back to the surface, a smile creasing his face as he burst into the cold air. On the shore, several of his men were already ridding themselves of their clothes, while others were tentatively dipping fingers in the water while wearing expressions of wonder and delight.
One by one, they joined him in the water, laughing and splashing each other and dunking each other’s heads. Heinrich felt younger than he’d felt in decades. More alive, too. He ducked underwater again and again, watching the fish play, trying to count the different species. They would have to compare notes later and create a catalogue, complete with drawings and approximate measurements.
He popped up once more to find Ousted bobbing beside him. “I discovered the source,” he said.
“Source of what?”
“The heat. Follow me.”
Ousted dove beneath the surface, and Heinrich followed, kicking his legs like a frog. Ousted swam deeper and deeper, past flora and sea life, until they reached the bottom of the lake. An odd-shaped rock formation rose up from the lakebed, formed like a cone, but lumpy along its edges. At the top of the cone was a spout of sorts, and from the spout arose an endless stream of bubbles.
Heinrich was running out of breath, but Ousted gestured for him to place his hand above the bubbles, in a position that was still well short of the spout. He did, and was shocked to find not warm water, but hot water. Not boiling, but as he moved his hand lower, the water got even hotter. He suspected that just above the spout the water would scald him.
He pointed upward and Ousted nodded and together they kicked back to the surface. By the time Heinrich emerged, his lungs were burning and he was forced to gasp at the air for several minutes before he was able to speak.
They told the rest of the men what they had discovered: the source of the warm water.
Camped on the shore that night, the men were happy. It had been a strange, magical day, the likes of which they might never experience again.
Heinrich wiped fish juice off his chin. “We could build a colony here,” he said. “Wait for a lull in the storms and march a thousand hardy men, women and children across the ice.”
“They’ll think we’re taking them to hell,” Ousted said.
“And then we’ll surprise them with paradise!” another man, Klein, said. Roars of laughter rolled across camp. Men ate. Men joked. Men laughed.
They went to sleep happy, their bellies full, and feeling warmer than they had in days, as if the warm waters of the Not-So-Frozen Lake had melted the ice in their bones.
Heinrich awoke the next morning to shouts.
“Klein’s missing,” Ousted explained, when Heinrich joined several early-rising men in the center of camp. The sky was still murky, the sun having not yet cleared the horizon. One by one, groggy men were emerging from their tents, aroused by the commotion.
“Kleiner, you buffoon, where in frozen hell are you?” a man named Josun shouted, scanning the lapping waters of the lake. Both Josun and Klein were original members of Heinrich’s exploration company, even before the king had appointed them to his service. They were also best friends and tentmates.
“Jos,” Heinrich said. “When’s the last time you saw him?” There was no reason to panic, not yet. All of the men in the company were the curious sort—Klein might’ve just wandered off to inspect something he’d seen from afar.
“You know him,” Jos said, approaching. Though his gray eyes were focused, the concern was evident in the lines etched in his brow. “He don’t sleep much. So at the arsecrack of dawn he decides to go for a swim. I roll over and give him a kick out the door, because I don’t care what he does so long as he lets me sleep.”
“He could’ve finished his swim and gone for a walk,” Heinrich suggested.
Josun held up an armful of clothes that Heinrich hadn’t noticed. “Then he’s doing it buck naked, freezing his manhood off.”
A wave of fear rolled through Heinrich, but he swallowed it down—it was still too early to jump to conclusions. “He’s a strong swimmer. He might’ve attempted to cross the lake.”
“’Tis possible,” Ousted agreed. “He likes to be first to do such things.”
Jos said, “I’ve been watching the water for a while. Haven’t seen so much as a splash. He’d have to come up for air sometime. And if he were swimming I’d see him for sure.”
“Get something to eat,” Heinrich said. “We’ll continue the search.”
“Not hungry. I’ll search with you.”
Heinrich wouldn’t stop the man from searching for his best friend. Plus, the more eyes and ears the better. He quickly organized the men into four groups of nine, with the three remaining men assigned to hold camp and prepare breakfast in case Klein returned on his own. One group headed north along the shoreline, one south, the third inland, and the f
ourth, which was comprised of the strongest swimmers, shucked their clothes and set out across the water. There were two rules for this search: First, never go off alone; and second, return to camp before the sun reached its peak.
Heinrich, who felt as comfortable as any of his men in the water, swam out with his group of eight, moving slowly, ducking his head beneath the surface and peering through the water, looking for movement. Each time he popped up for air, he scanned the waterline all the way to the far shore, hoping to spy a splash.
The water was as warm as the day before, but Heinrich couldn’t enjoy it, not when one of his men were missing, possibly injured or worse.
Instead, he focused on the task at hand. As the sun crested the horizon and spilled light across the lake, visibility became better, and the men were able to see all the way to the bottom. Myriad fish swarmed the bright plants, nibbling their breakfast from the marine foliage.
They searched for hours, until the sun was approaching its apex, until Heinrich’s fingers and toes were wrinkled like grapes left to dry in the sun.
But still there was no sign of their lost comrade.
Treading water, Heinrich looked back to shore, which was now a fair distance away. If he traced the rocky edge north and south, he could just make out the dark outlines of the second and third companies of searchers. Based on their body language and the fact that they were slowly moving back toward camp, he was certain they hadn’t had any more luck.
He couldn’t see the fourth and final group, who’d moved inland and out of sight amongst the snowdrifts.
He sighed, beginning to lose hope.
His group of swimmers was spreading out more now, pairing up and casting a wider net.
