The Frozen Menace

by Ursula Vernon

  “Try to get your feet against the wall,” said Christiana. “You can walk up it as I walk back. Ready?”

  “Ready!” called the iguana.

  Slowly, one step at a time, Christiana walked backward. Danny hurried to take up the slack. The rope slid over the boulder and he tried not to think about fraying or breaking or any of the calamities that could happen to rather questionable ropes in the middle of the Farthest North.

  The rope stopped sliding and began to jerk back and forth. Danny poked his head around the edge of the boulder.

  “I’m alive,” said Wendell, and burst into tears.

  The iguana’s breakdown only lasted for a moment. Danny pretended he was very busy with the rope, while Christiana slapped Wendell on the back. “You did fine,” she said. “We’re all okay.”

  “I will never be okay again,” said Wendell, wiping his eyes.

  “You weren’t okay to begin with,” said Danny cheerfully.

  Wendell glared at him. “It’s a good thing you just saved my life,” he grumbled.

  “Or what?” asked Danny.

  “Or this!” said Wendell, and threw a snowball into his face.

  “Thought so,” said Christiana. She looped the rope over her shoulder while Danny and Wendell brushed snow out of their eyes. Wendell dumped hand sanitizer over himself, presumably to guard against tainted snowballs.

  Danny took another sip of the fireweed tea. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

  They set out across the snowfield.

  Another sign appeared in the distance.

  “What do you think this one says?” asked Wendell.

  “Probably no loitering,” said Danny, who had been told to stop loitering outside the comic shop just last week. (He had tried to explain that he wasn’t loitering, he was just standing there doing nothing, but they had been very grumpy about the whole thing.)

  “We’re not loitering,” said Christiana. “We’re walking very quickly, given how snowy it is.”

  They reached the sign.

  “Iceworm?” said Danny. “What’s an iceworm? Are they like earthworms?”

  “You’d think a worm would have a really hard time in frozen ground,” said Christiana. “I mean, they dig through dirt . . .”

  “Actually, there’s a type of worm that lives on glaciers,” said Wendell. “Mesenchytraeus solifugus.”

  “It’s not so much that you knew that as that you knew how to pronounce it,” said Danny.

  Wendell looked smug.

  “Are they carnivores?” asked Christiana.

  “Nah,” said Wendell, stepping confidently out into the iceworm preserve. “They’re teeny. Less than an inch long. They eat algae.”

  • • •

  The ground grew more uneven as they walked, covered in humps and hummocks of snow that might be hiding rocks or boulders or houses or full-size city buses.

  Danny got to the top of a small rise and let out a whoop.

  “Look!” he cried, pointing. “Look! It’s the phoenix!”

  Wendell and Christiana looked up.

  The phoenix shot overhead like a comet, trailing flames. It was blindingly white, but white with colors around the edges—blues and greens, like the hottest part of a flame.

  It was eerily silent as it passed. Danny could hear a very faint whistling, but that might have been the wind.

  The aurora flared up behind it, pulsing green and brilliant. “Northern lights!” said Wendell, delighted.

  “They’re just solar radiation interacting with the atmosphere,” said Christiana. “Aurora borealis. It’s the phoenix that gets me! It looks like a bird . . .”

  “A really big bird,” said Wendell. “Do you think it’s dangerous?”

  “Well, mythologically, they set fire to themselves and then rise again from the ashes, right?” said Danny. “So I guess they could probably give you a pretty good burn.”

  “That doesn’t seem like a very good way of maintaining a viable population,” said Christiana. “I mean, what if it has an accident?”

  “I guess that’s why they lay eggs,” said Wendell. “So that there’s another one around in case it has an accident and can’t turn to ashes.”

  The phoenix, unconcerned by accidents, flew downward, into a set of boulders. Light shattered off the snow around it, then settled.

  “Thataway!” cried Danny, pointing.

  He started to run.

  At the same moment, Wendell started to scream.

  Danny heard the iguana shriek and slowed. Had he fallen into another pit? (Really, you couldn’t take Wendell anywhere. If it wasn’t falling into chasms, it was something else . . .)

  The dragon turned.

  Underneath Wendell’s feet, the snow was moving.

  “Help!” cried Wendell. “Help! Earthquake! Snowquake! Help!”

  Christiana was floundering toward him, but snow was rolling down the slope onto her and she slid back as quickly as she climbed.

  “What is that?” said Danny. He turned his back on the phoenix and ran back toward the iguana.

  The ground rose and rose until it was taller than Danny, taller than the surrounding boulders, taller than a two-story building. Wendell flung himself flat.

  “Crud!” said Christiana. “I think it’s an iceworm!”

  “I thought they were teeny!” said Danny.

  “I don’t think it knows that!”

  The iceworm was enormous. It looked like a massive white earthworm, with a greenish head. Danny couldn’t see eyes or anything like them, only a lipless mouth and thick rings.

  The iceworm shook itself. Snow flew. So did Wendell.

  The iguana sailed through the air and landed in a snowdrift. Danny and Christiana ran toward him.

  “Do you think it can see us?” asked Danny.

  “I don’t want to find out!”

  The monster bent its segmented head down toward Wendell.

  He kicked out wildly and booted the iceworm on the snout.

  It recoiled. Danny dashed to Wendell’s side and pulled him upright. “I think you hurt it!” he said.

  The iceworm opened its mouth and roared.

  The sound was strange and guttural, like a lion roaring through a very long drainpipe.

  “I think I made it mad . . .” said Wendell.

  “Them,” said Christiana.

  “What?”

  She pointed. “Them. You made them mad.”

  All across the snowfield, the giant hummocks of snow were coming to life.

  They ran. Around them, iceworms erupted from under the snow. It was like being surrounded by vengeful mile-long spaghetti.

  “Iceworm preserve,” gasped Wendell. “Who’s going to preserve us from the iceworms?”

  “Get to the rocks!” said Danny. “If we can get up on the rocks, we won’t be stepping on them!”

  This was easier said than done. It was impossible to tell what was rock and what was an iceworm. They were halfway up a hillside when it began to shudder under them. Christiana and Danny had to grab Wendell under the arms to keep him from sliding back down.

  “Jump!” shouted Danny, and did.

  “Are they following us?” panted Christiana as the great green heads of the iceworms turned toward them. Another one roared and then another. The air filled with the hollow sounds of raging worms.

  “Iceworms are blind!” said Wendell. “They can’t see us!”

  “Earthworms are very sensitive to vibrations, though,” said Christiana. “These can probably hear our footsteps.”

  “So how do we stop that?” asked Danny, not slowing down. As he watched, another iceworm turned toward them and began to undulate in their direction.

  “Walk without rhythm,” said Wendell miserably.

  Danny tr
ied hopping on one foot and then zigzagging. This slowed him down, but the iceworms kept coming.

  “I don’t think it’s working!”

  The blunt head of an iceworm slammed down beside them. Christiana flung herself sideways, narrowly missing getting flattened.

  “Are you sure they eat algae?!” she snapped.

  “Maybe they have giant scary algae here!”

  The iceworm lifted its head and doubled back on itself, sniffing along its own length as if expecting to find Christiana squished there.

  “I don’t think they’re very smart!” called Danny.

  Another iceworm crashed down over the top of the first. The first one roared in outrage.

  “Maybe if we stood absolutely still—” Christiana began.

  Danny launched himself at her and knocked her out of the way as a third iceworm popped up from the snow practically at their feet.

  “Or we could just run,” said Danny.

  “Let’s do that.”

  The rocks looked tantalizingly close. They ran toward them. Danny’s neck ached from trying to look in all directions at once. He could hear the sluff-sluff-sluff sound of the snow dragging against the bodies of the worms.

  Wendell started to fall behind and Danny grabbed his arm.

  “Just a little farther . . .” he panted.

  “I don’t know if I can go a little farther,” gasped Wendell.

  And then the ground under their feet moved as the biggest iceworm of all breached from underneath the snow.

  It was bigger than a bus, bigger than a semi-trailer, bigger than anything had any right to be. The only thing Danny could think of that had been the same size was the giant squid he had encountered years ago, far down in the ocean depths.

  The three kids were at one edge of the worm’s back and rolled right off. Danny stayed more or less upright, surfing down the falling snow—Wendell didn’t even try. They landed in a heap together, with the iceworm’s back like a wall of white flesh beside them.

  The worm turned. Its blunt, eyeless head hung suspended in the air over them.

  “Don’t . . . move . . .” whispered Christiana.

  The wall of flesh flexed beside them. It was disgusting on a massive scale.

  The head dipped lower. Danny wondered if it could feel them breathing. He held his breath.

  Slowly, slowly, it swung toward him. If it had eyes, he’d be staring into them.

  It wouldn’t have to eat him. All it would have to do is push down and Danny would be squished into the snow like a . . .

  Well, like an earthworm.

  Wendell whimpered and Christiana shushed him.

  The worm’s mouth opened over his head.

  Danny found himself staring at the inside of the worm. It looked a great deal like the outside of the iceworm—cold and fleshy and made of rings.

  It’s going to eat me, Danny thought. That’s not going to be good. I don’t think it can chew, but I don’t want to find out.

  If I could breathe fire, I could torch it right now.

  If I could breathe fire, I wouldn’t be here in the first place!

  The iceworm plunged downward, taking an enormous bite of snow, dirt, and Danny. Everything went dark. Danny felt himself lifted into the air.

  It probably didn’t matter if he made any vibrations now, so—“Put me down!” Danny yelled into the dark as the worm swallowed him.

  Then his nose filled with the scent of burning and the worm screamed.

  Danny rolled through the snow, tried to get to his feet, and staggered. For a moment he wasn’t sure which way was up and tried to stand sideways.

  When he got his head and his tail sorted out, he looked up and saw the phoenix flying low over the snowfield.

  As he watched, it dove at the iceworm. It was significantly smaller than the worm was, but the fire pouring off its wings scorched the worm’s back. The worm roared.

  “The phoenix burned the worm and it spit me out . . .” said Danny, half to himself.

  He made for the rocks. His head was ringing from his landing in the snow, and the coldness in his chest was back and worse than ever.

  Ahead, he could see Christiana and Wendell. They had made it to the shelter of the stones and were waving frantically to him.

  The phoenix blazed past him. The fire felt wonderfully warm. He needed another drink of fireweed tea, but he didn’t dare stop.

  He looked toward the rocks again. Wendell and Christiana weren’t waving anymore, they were . . . pointing? And shouting?

  He turned his head.

  The iceworm that had come up beside him was smaller than the giant one—only the size of a couple of cars stuck together. Perhaps it was smarter than the other ones, because instead of slamming down and trying to hit him, it was sweeping its head in enormous arcs just above the snow.

  It’s going to hit me, Danny thought. He could not muster any real enthusiasm about this. He was too cold. He was vaguely aware that being hit by the iceworm would be bad, but couldn’t seem to remember why that was.

  A snowball flew past him and hit the side of the worm’s head.

  Whooping and shouting, Wendell and Christiana charged out of the rocks. Snowballs flew.

  “Take that for trying to squish my friends!” cried Wendell.

  Christiana flung snowballs with deadly precision, one in each hand.

  The worm shook its head, apparently confused. Danny covered the last few yards to the rocks.

  “Come on!” said Wendell, abandoning the snowballs. “There’s a nest in here, and it’s warm!”

  “Oh good,” said Danny weakly. “I’m very cold.”

  “Take that!” he heard Christiana say behind him. “Take that for not eating algae like a proper iceworm!”

  Wendell led him to the edge of the nest. It was a shallow bowl made of rock, larger than Danny’s bedroom. In the center lay a single gigantic egg.

  “That’s nice,” said Danny, and fainted dead away.

  He came to a minute later, with Wendell pouring tea down his throat.

  “You’re not dead until you’re warm and dead,” muttered the iguana. “Come on, Danny . . .”

  Danny sputtered and sat up. “I’ll be warm and drowned if you’re not careful!”

  Wendell let out a long sigh of relief and handed over the thermos.

  Danny gulped down the fireweed tea. Heat spread through his body, and the coldness in his chest eased again.

  “I was afraid you were a goner,” said Wendell. “You turned blue that time.”

  “Neat!” said Danny. “Like a chameleon!”

  Danny looked over at the egg. “Are there any eggshells?”

  Wendell shook his head. “Only the egg.

  “I guess we could break the egg,” said Wendell slowly, “but I don’t think that’d be good for the baby phoenix.”

  Danny sighed. He wanted to breathe fire again, preferably before he froze to death, but there was no way he was going to hurt a baby phoenix to get the eggshell. Particularly not after the adult phoenix had saved his life.

  Christiana came up to the edge of the nest, put her feet over, and slid down the rock. “The iceworms are really worked up,” she said. “I don’t think they can tunnel through rock, but they’re whacking themselves against the stones around this spot.”

  As she spoke, a loud thud emphasized her words, followed by the pained roaring of the worms.

  “Why do you think they’re so mad?” asked Wendell. “Or are they just hungry?”

  “Maybe they were asleep,” said Danny. “I get pretty grumpy when somebody wakes me up in the middle of the night.” (Thud . . . thud . . . thud . . . roar . . .)

  “Well, it is night,” said Christiana. “Like . . . Arctic night. Which lasts for months.”

  “I wonder if there’s
a relationship,” said Wendell. “The longer the night, the grumpier you are when you wake up in the middle of it. So if night lasts for six months—”

  “I bet we could write an equation,” said Wendell. (Thud . . . roar . . . thud . . .) “If X equals grumpiness and Y is the length of the night—”

  Danny was saved from the horrors of algebra by a loud crackling noise.

  “That didn’t sound like a worm!”

  “I think it’s the egg!” said Danny.

  All three of them spun to look at it.

  It was rocking back and forth. As they watched, it gave another loud crack, and a zigzag ran down the side.

  “Yes!” said Danny, pumping his fist in the air. “It’s gonna hatch!”

  This was a great relief. He’d been afraid that they’d be sitting around waiting for the egg to hatch for hours. Or days.

  His dad would undoubtedly notice if he was gone for days.

  There was another crack, and another—and a great whumph! noise and suddenly they were covered in snow.

  “Ack!” cried Wendell.

  “What was that?” shouted Danny.

  The snow melted as soon as it touched the warm rock. A few chunks landed on the egg itself and hissed away into steam.

  “It’s not snowing,” said Christiana, wiping snow off her face.

  Another pile of snow rolled over the top of the rocks.

  The trio made their way to the opening in the rocks and looked out.

  “What’s it doing?” asked Danny.

  The iceworm was rolling around in the snow, like a dog with an itchy spot on its back. It wiggled from side to side, throwing chunks high in the air.

  “I think it’s trying to cool off,” said Christiana. “It got burned, so it was rolling around in snow, and threw some of it over the rocks.”

  Danny had a hard time feeling sorry for a creature that had tried to eat him, but it was a relief to know that the worm wasn’t trying to get at them.