The Frozen Menace

by Ursula Vernon

  “Fireweed?” asked Danny. “That sounds cool! Is it on fire?”

  “In the mythical world it is,” said Great-Grandfather. “Burns like anything. The bees have to wear flame-retardant vests. In your world, it’s a bit more tame.”

  “I think my mom grows it in her garden,” said Wendell. “It’s pink, though, and it doesn’t burn.”

  “Well, that’s only to be expected out in the regular world,” said Great-Grandfather, refilling Danny’s teacup. “You can’t get the vests, for one thing. The honey is still pretty good, but it won’t put fire inside you the way the mythical stuff does.”

  Christiana sat on the couch, practically vibrating with the desire to yell about all of these things being completely and totally impossible, but said nothing. Danny was impressed by her restraint.

  “. . . oh.”

  Danny took another sip. The coldness in his feet receded. The strange cold knot was still there, but it seemed like there was a warm barrier around it now, keeping it in.

  “I feel like one of those candies,” he said. “It’s all cold and minty in the middle, but the tea is making kind of a chocolate shell.”

  Great-Grandfather grinned. “Well, I could give you a lot of talk about energy and chi, but that’s as good an explanation as any.”

  He began pouring tea into a thermos. “You’ll need to keep drinking it,” he said. “Until you get your fire relit.”

  Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath tapped his snout. “There you go, Wanda, always asking the good questions. The answer is that you get them from a phoenix nest. Just don’t swallow the baby phoenix with it, that’s not cool.”

  Christiana listened to this without saying anything, although she had an expression of deep disbelief.

  “I used to keep eggshell around, but it’s hard to get,” said Great-Grandfather. “Used the last of it on your great-uncle, as it happens, which is how I know it works.”

  “So where do we find a phoenix?” asked Danny.

  “In the Farthest North. Just before the End of the World. If you reach the End of the World, you’ve gone too far, turn around.”

  “You mean like the North Pole?” asked Wendell.

  “That’s up there too, probably. Anyway, you go to the Farthest North and you look up and the phoenixes will be dancing in the sky. They live up there because they’re too hot. If they come too far south, they’ll burn up.”

  Christiana’s expression of disbelief deepened.

  Danny stood up. The room didn’t whoosh sideways or anything. This was a great improvement.

  “Will it be dangerous?” asked Wendell.

  He handed around cups of the fireweed tea. “Drink that up, it’ll keep you from freezing to death. Mostly.”

  Christiana sipped her tea and grimaced. Wendell drank his down without flinching.

  “What?” he said, when she stared at him. “It’s no worse than the herbal stuff my mom makes. That has, like, brewer’s yeast and St. John’s wort and stuff.”

  “Finish your tea,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. “Then we’ll send you off to the Farthest North.”

  “I don’t believe in magic,” said Christiana, scowling.

  “Very sensible,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. “Believing in it only encourages it.” He handed Danny the thermos of tea.

  “I will admit that Danny can do some interesting things with the bus system,” said Christiana, “but I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”

  “Absolutely there is,” said the old dragon. “And the logical explanation is magic. But I still wouldn’t go believing in it. You might want to close your eyes going through the portal, though.”

  “I went through the portal once to get into Wendell’s dreams!” said Danny cheerfully. “It was SO cool!”

  “Not for me,” said Wendell. “There was a horrible giant wasp laying eggs and . . .” He shuddered.

  They walked into the kitchen and Danny’s grandfather opened the refrigerator door.

  Danny glanced at Christiana. She stared at the swirling energy inside the fridge and narrowed her eyes.

  “You don’t have to go . . .” he began.

  She snorted loudly. “No scientist, given a chance to experience something beyond her understanding, would pass up the chance. At least, no scientist I’d want to be.”

  She walked into the portal. Wendell followed.

  “You’ve got good friends, grandson,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. “I approve of them.” He patted Danny on the shoulder. “When you eat the eggshell, you might find that things get a little . . . err . . . overheated. You’ll be in the Farthest North, so there won’t be anything to burn down, but try to aim away from your buddies.”

  “I will, Great-Granddad. Thanks.” Danny hugged the old dragon, then followed his friends into the swirling lights of the portal.

  The Farthest North was black and white.

  The snow was white and the sky was black. The stars were white and the stones were black and all the shadows were as sharp as knives.

  “Whoa,” said Danny.

  The portal had spit them out on a small rise. The wall behind them was a sheet of ice.

  “Is anyone else bothered by the fact that we can’t get back?” asked Christiana.

  “It’ll reopen when we’ve got the eggshell,” said Danny confidently, not because he knew that for certain but because it seemed like the sort of thing a magical portal would do.

  “What if we don’t get the eggshell?” asked Wendell. “Will we have to stay here forever? What will we eat?”

  “Each other,” said Christiana. “All good Arctic expeditions eventually devolve into cannibalism.”

  “We’ll eat Wendell,” said Danny. “His mom feeds him health food all day. He’s gotta be, like, super-healthy.”

  “HEY!”

  Wendell gave them both a worried look and absently began washing with hand sanitizer.

  “So where’s this phoenix we’re supposed to find?” asked Christiana.

  “Dunno,” said Danny. “I guess we just wander around ’til we find one . . .”

  Christiana looked from him to the vast snowfield, back to him, and back to the snowfield. “Sure,” she said. “That sounds totally productive.”

  Far overhead, against the roof of stars, a white point of light went streaking across the sky.

  “Comet?” said Christiana. “Aurora?”

  The light zipped sideways, up and down, rolling and swooping. It seemed to come closer and, for a moment, Danny thought he saw wings.

  “That must be the phoenix!” he said. “Follow it!”

  “It could be hundreds of miles away!” said Christiana. “We don’t even know if it’s . . . oh, never mind.”

  Danny was already hurrying down the slope. He left long skidding footprints in the snow.

  The dot of light cut an elaborate figure eight in the sky, then dove down below the horizon.

  “It must be in those mountains!” said Danny. “We just have to get there!”

  Wendell rubbed the back of his neck.

  “We’ll just have to hope there’s a lot of ice crystals in the air, contributing to the atmospheric perspective,” said Christiana.

  “Yeah, that,” said Danny. “C’mon!”

  He led the way into the Farthest North.

  At the bottom of the slope, there were two poles about three feet high. A rope hung between them, and on the rope hung a sign that creaked in the wind.

  The trio stopped in front of it.

  “FARTHEST NORTH,” Wendell read aloud. “PROCEED WITH CAUTION. NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY.”

  They looked around.

  “Why would you need a lifeguard?” asked Danny. “You can’t go swimming.”

  “Maybe they’re preparing for global warming,” muttered
Christiana.

  The wind blew, the sign creaked, and that was all. Danny looked back over at the mountains to get his bearings. The phoenix had gone to earth near a set of tall stones that looked a bit like a sleeping frog.

  They started walking.

  “How are you feeling, Danny?” asked Wendell.

  “I feel okay.” Danny took another sip of tea from the thermos. The coldness in his chest seemed a bit sharper, probably in response to all the snow, but the heat from the tea drove it back. He screwed the lid on tightly. If he collapsed in the middle of all this snow, he’d be an icicle in minutes. “How are you guys?”

  “I ought to be freezing to death, but I feel okay,” said Christiana. “Which is either a miracle or that stage of hypothermia where you start to feel hot.”

  “You start to feel hot?” asked Danny.

  “Yeah, when somebody’s freezing, sometimes they feel overheated. Lots of people take off their coats and roll around in snow because they’re burning up. It’s called ‘paradoxical undressing.’”

  “Neat!” said Danny. “Then what happens?”

  “They die.”

  “It takes a super-long time, though,” said Wendell. “And if you’re freezing, sometimes they can warm you up and you don’t actually die.” The iguana struck a pose. “Doctors like to say you’re not really dead until you’re warm and dead.”

  Trust Wendell to know all about it, thought Danny. If there was any horrible medical condition you could experience, the iguana was an expert.

  Death probably counted as a medical condition, right?

  “Anyway, I’m going with ‘miracle,’” said Christiana. “And when we get back to civilization, I want to analyze that tea.”

  “If there’s any left, it’s all yours,” said Danny.

  They had been walking through the snow for only a few minutes when they saw another sign up ahead.

  “Who knew the Farthest North would have so many signs?” asked Wendell.

  This one was also hanging between two poles, and it read WARNING: BOTTOMLESS CHASM AHEAD.

  In smaller letters underneath, it said NO FISHING FROM BRIDGE.

  “If it’s really a bottomless chasm, where would the fish be?” asked Wendell.

  “I guess that’s why there’s no fishing,” said Danny.

  “So, this is bad,” said Christiana, pointing.

  They looked at the bridge.

  It was narrow and snow-covered and white. It was impossible to tell if it was solid or if it was made entirely of snow and ice.

  They looked at the bridge some more. It did not get any wider or any more sturdy looking.

  “I don’t wanna cross that,” said Wendell.

  “I think we have to,” said Danny. “C’mon, it can’t be that bad. They wouldn’t put up a sign if it was just made of snow . . .”

  “Yeah, but what if it’s snow over ice?” said Wendell. “You could take a step and your feet would go out from under you and whoosh! Right into the bottomless chasm! You’d fall forever and ever and ever.”

  Danny frowned.

  Christiana looked from him to the bridge to Wendell and said, “Hmm.”

  “Hmm?” asked Danny. “What do you mean, hmm?”

  “How much do you weigh?” asked Christiana.

  “Seventy-seven pounds,” said Danny.

  “Right,” said Christiana. “Then we’ll send you first.”

  She went to the sign and unhooked the rope from one of the poles.

  “Aren’t they going to yell at us for taking down their sign?” asked Wendell worriedly, as if this small act of vandalism would instantly summon an angry adult.

  “Not as much as your mom will yell if we let you fall into a bottomless pit,” said Danny.

  “Okay,” said Christiana. “Here’s the deal. Danny goes first ’cos he’s heaviest. Tie the rope around your waist, and if you fall, the other end is tied to the pole and you won’t fall forever and we can pull you up. When you’re on the other side, unhook the rope and we’ll pull it back. I’ll go second, and then Wendell last.”

  Danny was a little annoyed that Christiana was giving orders—this was, after all, his quest to find a phoenix to relight his fire, but he had to admit that it was a pretty good plan.

  He hooked the rope in a crude harness under his arms and began inching his way across the bridge.

  The wind came up before he had gone more than a few feet. He had to lean against the wind and set his feet very carefully. Each foot had to be flat and solid and not slide even the teensiest bit.

  He was a bit surprised when he made it across and dropped to his knees in the snow.

  Oh man, he thought, Wendell is gonna hate that.

  The far side of the chasm was rockier, with tall boulders covered in snow. Danny looked out across the snowfield and thought it seemed lumpier, but it was hard to tell. Everything was so white.

  He unhooked the rope and dropped it. Christiana began to pull it back across the gap.

  Wendell put his hands up to his mouth and called, “How bad is it?”

  Christiana tied the rope around herself and set out across the bridge. She wobbled a few times as the wind hit her, and her jacket billowed, but she made it across in short order and collapsed next to Danny.

  “Okay,” she said. “That was actually pretty awful.”

  “Don’t tell Wendell that,” Danny muttered. “I don’t want to leave him there while we go off looking for eggshells.”

  Christiana straightened up. Wendell untied the other end from the pole and looped it around himself.

  “What’s he doing?” asked Danny.

  “Oh,” said Christiana. “That’s actually a better idea than mine. This way, if he falls in, we can pull him up. Otherwise he’d be hanging off the cliff and we’d have to go back across the bridge to get to him.”

  She passed Danny the far end of the rope and wrapped the middle around herself. They both braced themselves.

  Wendell stood indecisively on the far end of the bridge. He took a step out and the wind blew and he froze.

  “You can do it, Wendell!” called Christiana. Under her breath, she said, “He’s not going to do it.”

  “He will,” said Danny. “Wendell may act like a big chicken, but he always comes through in the end.” Out loud he yelled, “C’mon, Wendell! It’s not any worse than the time we climbed that castle!”

  “I hated climbing that castle!” Wendell shouted back, but he took a few more steps out onto the bridge.

  “And it’s not nearly as bad as when you had to crawl into the giant bat cave!”

  “And remember the time we were dangled over a live volcano!”

  “I hated that volcano, but at least it was warm!”

  Christiana cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, remember that hallway full of evil clown ghosts? This is way less scary!”

  “I hated that hallway!” shouted Wendell, who was by now at the halfway point on the bridge. “And I think I’m going to get different friends who aren’t always dragging me on horrible adventures where I am in danger of being killed by ghosts or bats or clowns or falling from a great height!”

  “Shoulda done that before we went through the portal!” called Christiana. Danny rolled his eyes.

  “I want off this bridge!” cried Wendell, and then the wind blew him off his feet and into the bottomless chasm.

  Christiana yelped, and then yelped again as Wendell’s weight hit the end of the rope. She was dragged a few feet toward the cliff edge before she managed to slow down, bracing her feet in the snow.

  Unfortunately, snow skids. She tried to walk backward, but every time she planted her feet, she slipped.

  Danny hurried to take some of the weight off. He looked around and saw a boulder.

  “Hold on!” he yelled.


  It was hard going. Who would have thought that the iguana weighed so much? Every time Danny took a step, he was nearly yanked off his feet.

  Danny shot a glance over his shoulder and saw Christiana nearly at the cliff edge. If she went over, they were all going to fall. There was no way that Danny could take their combined weight all on his shoulders.

  “Hold on!” he said again.

  “I’m trying!” snapped Christiana.

  Danny grabbed for the boulder and got his hands on it. It was too large and icy to get a grip. He was going to have to walk around it with the rope. He didn’t know if he had enough rope to do that. It was pulled agonizingly tight and was cutting into his scales under his shirt.

  Christiana was practically at the edge of the chasm now.

  “I need a little more rope!” croaked Danny. He hoped that Christiana had heard him. He could hardly breathe with the rope around his chest like that.

  Christiana took a deep breath, nodded—and fell over backward.

  Danny got a precious few inches of slack and threw himself at the boulder. Christiana’s tail went over the edge.

  She teetered for a moment . . . a moment more . . .

  And nothing happened. She didn’t fall over the edge.

  Danny, crammed into a crack in the stone, breathed a long sigh of relief. The terrible pressure of the rope had eased.

  The boulder was taking most of the weight now. All he had to do was cling to it and not let go.

  “Is Wendell okay?” Danny yelled. “I can’t see him!”

  “I’ll look!” Christiana slowly climbed to her feet. “Wendell?” she called. “Wendell, are you okay down there?”

  For a long moment, there was no reply.

  Danny tensed.

  Had the rope come undone?

  Danny sagged against the stone, feeling limp with relief.