Sails straining to hold to the spars, spars to masts, masts creaking in their deck sockets, deck groaning on its five runners, and crew straining in prayer to whatever personal gods they worshipped that the whole should not return to the parts of its sum, the Slanderscree flew southward at a hundred sixty kilometers per hour.
A Tran knelt in the gap in the pressure ridge. Furry fingers collected several nonwhite, nonice fragments. They were mostly slim and irregular. One pricked his finger and he cursed. He had enough anyway. Raising his arms parallel to the ice, he tacked his way back to the group of Tran waiting impatiently at the far end of the passage.
There he dropped his arms, closed his dan, and slid to a neat stop. It would not do to stumble or fall before so many important ones.
“These were a few of what I found, sirs. There are many other such fragments at the far end of this passageway.”
Tonx Ghin Rakossa, Landgrave of Poyolavomaar, accepted the several bits of shattered wood. He studied them, avoiding the one which had pierced the scout’s finger.
“Many such fragments? Enough to comprise part of a large ship?”
“No, sire. I saw no such large amounts of debris.”
Rakossa threw the splinters angrily to the ice. “They have escaped the rifs, then.” He gently fingered the bandage over his left eye. “Though not undamaged.”
“The five grooves of their runners continue southward outside this passage, sire,” the scout added helpfully, currying favor.
Rakossa ignored him. “Would that we knew the extent of their damage. Yet it took them time to make their way through this ridge.” The masses of ice nearby showed how the icerigger had made that passage, and Rakossa marveled greedily at the power of a ship that could move such weight.
“They are delayed.” He knelt, brushed at the powdery ice lining the runner grooves. “This has not blown away completely, even with the force of the rifs. They are very near, and yet will now widen the distance between us once more.”
“Nevertheless, we will catch them, your highness,” said Calonnin Ro-Vijar.
“Yes. We will catch them, and the mocking strumpet as well.”
Rakossa turned to gaze at the ships waiting behind them. They were a reassuring sight, with sails half-furled and pennants flying. They pursued with a small forest of masts—those that hadn’t been torn away by the storm. And they had caught only the fringe of the rifs.
“But we will catch them with thirty ships instead of thirty-five. Three are so badly damaged their captains inform me they will never sail again. Two are nearly as bad off, but they can limp home with the crews of the abandoned three. Five ships lost already, Ro-Vijar.”
“All the reason more to seek revenge upon those responsible, my friend,” responded the Landgrave of Arsudun, trying to turn calamity to mental advantage. It was Rakossa’s emotional state that was critical, not the condition of his ships.
“Perhaps.” Rakossa spoke thoughtfully. “We waste time here.” One foot descended, three chiv sectioned a fragment of wood the scout had recovered and marked the ice beneath.
Two weeks after leaving the pressure ridge, the Slanderscree came upon the plateau. A hundred meters of sheer cliff, it stretched off to east and west in unbroken basaltic glory. It was a barren-looking place, devoid of rim-clinging trees such as decorated the cliffs of Arsudun.
Teeliam was brought on deck, shown the impenetrable ramparts reaching across the ice ocean. “There lies Moulokin,” she said with evident satisfaction.
“Moulokin? Where?” Hunnar didn’t try to hide his sarcasm. “I see naught but ice, rock and sky. In that order, without exception.”
“Nevertheless, this is the region of Moulokin.”
“And where is the fabled city?”
“Could it be atop the plateau somewhere, Teeliam?” asked Ethan softly.
“No, that is absurd.” The former royal consort of Poyolavomaar took little notice of Ethan’s courtesy, as opposed to Hunnar’s skepticism. “How could a state famed for the ships it builds be located many kijat above the ocean?”
“The thought had occured to me,” said Ethan drily. “I was just pointing out that I see no sign of any city.”
“Moulokin is here somewhere.” Teeliam’s conviction was unfazed. She faced the stone barrier. “Somewhere within this land.”
Ethan and Hunnar exchanged glances. Then Ethan asked, “Which way? We must be off in our calculations.”
Teeliam considered stories and rumors and legends. “’Tis told the sun sets late in Moulokin,” she muttered to herself. Then she pointed westward. “I would suppose that way.”
“As you will.” Hunnar executed a Tran shrug. “’Tis this way or that, as well one as the other.” He relayed instructions to a mate, who conveyed them to another, who shouted them to the helmdeck.
The icerigger turned laboriously to the west, commenced making difficult progress into the wind.
Despite Ta-hoding’s best efforts, their progress was slow. Cliffs grew near, then receded as the Slanderscree tacked away from them, though never so far that land was out of sight. It wouldn’t do to slip past their destination while making distance into the wind.
Occasionally there would be a sharp dip in the crest of the plateau where a hanging valley emerged. When the icerigger was on a starboard tack, the lookout in the mainmast basket could see into such gaps in the rock wall. Some held trees that apparently shunned the top of the plateau itself, but none showed any sign of habitation, not of the fabled ship building city of Moulokin or of a single Tran hermit.
Days became a week, the week two, without a break in the cliffs. From time to time the plateau would reach outward or ripple inward, forcing them to alter their heading slightly. But never did it vanish or vary its general east-west orientation.
By the beginning of the third week, however, the plateau began to curve gradually southward. Ethan mused on the distance they had come to the west. Nor was there any way of telling how far the cliffs extended westward.
“According to the mestapes I took long ago, back on the ship traveling here,” Ethan was telling September, “survey work had been very limited on this world. Arsudun was the largest populated island the first team found, so they put the humanx station there. But this,” and he gestured expansively at the towering ramparts, “it’s either an island-sized continent, or a continent-sized island.”
“It’s plain enough, feller-me-lad,” the giant commented, “that we’ve found no mere mountaintop stickin’ its head above the ocean.”
Hunnar joined them, braking to a halt on the starboard icepath, turning his chiv at the last moment so as not to shower them with ice. His excitement was evident from his expression and the fact that he almost forgot to lower his dan. September caught him as he stumbled forward, nearly fell. He was so preoccupied he forgot to produce an excuse for his clumsiness.
“We have found the tracks of a ship! They travel parallel to this high land also, but they approach from the east before turning south.”
“Maybe someone else’s calculations were a little off,” said an equally animated Ethan.
“Mayhap.” Hunnar regained some of his usual dignity. “This may mean only that another raft is exploring or lost.”
“Sure. But if the Moulokinese do most of their trading with peoples to the south and west away from that pressure ridge we crossed, it would explain why we’ve encountered no tracks before now, and why they’re so little known in Poyolavomaar.” Hunnar’s excitement had proven infectious. “Not to mention in far-off Arsudun.”
“All possible, all possible.” The knight’s eyes flashed in the midday light. “We shall see.”
The next day they came across two additional sets of ship tracks. Like the first, these approached from the east before turning south.
“If Moulokin does lie along this plateau,” Ethan was saying, “then any shipmaster knows he only has to encounter it before turning south or north.”
The actual discovery, when it
occurred, was anti-climactic. One moment the Slanderscree was racing southward, its speed faster now that it wasn’t running into the wind. The next, the fore lookout was yelling loudly to any who could hear.
Off-duty crew rushed to the port rail for a glimpse of a myth become real. From the day they had first encountered the cliffs of the plateau, it had taken them nearly a standard month to reach their present position. Ethan couldn’t estimate how far they’d come. But it was far enough to convince him that Tran-ky-ky could now boast at least one true continent in addition to its thousands of islands scattered spice-like across its endless ice seas.
At the same time he understood why those islands rather than this landmass of considerable but inexact extent were chose by the Tran for their towns and cities. Islands offered easy access to fields of pika-pina and pedan, access to the ice ocean on which all commerce moved. Everything they had seen of the broad plateau hinted at an interior as barren as the lowliest tundra.
Like everyone else, the cries had roused Ethan from his cabin and sent him running to the deck to learn what all the shouting was about. As he snapped his suit closed he noticed sailors up in the rigging taking in sail.
“What is it, Skua?” he shouted at the giant as he ran to the railing. Then he didn’t have to ask because he saw it for himself.
As though cleft by the axe of a god, the cliffs had been split from rim to ice just off the port bow. As they drew nearer, the extent of the chasm could be estimated. Ethan guessed it was not quite two hundred meters across. It maintained that width as far down the canyon as he could see.
There was no sign of a city, but there were numerous signs of its nearness. September leaned over the railing, pointed wordlessly down to the ice.
Despite the light dusting of ice particles and snow, Ethan could clearly make out many sets of parallel grooves running through the smooth surface. They were the tracks of ships which had passed this way. While they crossed and cut over one another, all converged on the chasm in the plateau wall.
September, had his tiny monocular out. He’d flipped up the protective mask of the survival suit and was holding the compact telescope to one eye.
“What do you see, Skua?”
“Sheer rock, feller-me-lad. Rock no different from that forming the cliffs we’ve been pacing for weeks. Not a sail, not a building, nothing. Maybe the canyon takes a tight turn and hides the town.” He slipped the monocular back into the sealocket in his suit, squinted at the plateau. “One thing’s certain… all these tracks lead somewhere popular. I wonder at the clouds inland, though. Even if the wind’s less there, you wouldn’t think they’d linger so thick in one place.”
It did seem that the interior of the plateau immediately behind the canyon was home to a dense mass of oddly whitish clouds. Blue sky around and above made the cloud-forms stand out sharply. Ethan thought briefly of volcanic smoke, such as could be seen from Sofold’s steady-burning peaks. Only this smoke was much too light to be volcanic in origin.
“If it’s such a busy port, why don’t we see any other ships?”
“That gal Teeliam did say this Moulokin’s primarily a ship-building and manufacturing center. Poyolavomaar, Arsudun, Sofold—they’re all trading ports. Maybe no one visits here unless they’ve a finished raft waitin’ for them. Or maybe the Moulokinese are superstitious and only trade certain times of the year. Be interestin’ to see what they make of us.”
Cries sounded from the helmdeck immediately behind them. Ta-hoding was gesturing busily to mates and assistants. Gracefully, sails were drawn up and tied to spars. The Slanderscree continued its cautious approach to the canyon.
Something pressed against the face mask of Ethan’s survival suit. He raised it cautiously, then shut it fast. His suit thermometer indicated it was minus twenty outside, but it wasn’t the cold that made him hastily shield his skin.
They were traveling almost due east. That meant the untiring westwind was directly behind them. Yet they were making little progress. The icerigger rocked slightly, and he saw that Ta-hoding was tacking. That was crazy: nobody tacks away from the wind!
“Strong gale blowin’ down out of the canyon,” observed September with interest. A glance upward showed the sails flapping uncertainly against the spars. Occasionally the wind off the plateau was strong enough to shove pika-pina sail material back against the masts. At such moments the ship shuddered as if reluctant to continue. But under Ta-hoding’s careful and expert guidance, they kept making steady progress forward. Very soon they entered the mouth of the canyon.
Walls over a hundred meters high towered on both sides of the ice ship. As they progressed up the chasm, the sheer stone ramparts rose steadily higher, though the canyon showed no sign of narrowing.
At a hundred seventy meters high the cliffs leveled off, only then the canyon walls began to press inward slightly. There was less room to maneuver. Ta-hoding and his crew worked hard to keep the zig-zagging ship from smashing into unyielding canyon sides. He was making shorter and shorter tacks, threatening terribly if a sail crew was seconds too slow in shifting a spar.
Once, the sailors manipulating the foremast tops misinterpreted a mate’s order and swung their spars starboard instead of port. With a lurch, the Slanderscree continued on course to starboard instead of swinging around to cross the expanse of ice in the channel. Ethan stared, frozen, as they lumbered steadily toward the nearing gray cliff.
Sailors fought frantically to correct the error, compensate for the mistake. There was a dull, patient grinding noise. Fortunately the icerigger was now traveling so slowly into the headwind that the impact did no more than crack the railing and splinter a couple of deck planks.
The ease with which the planking splintered turned Ethan’s attention to the treeless rims high overhead. How stable were they? In the event of a slide there was no room to escape in the narrow confines of the canyon.
He was worrying needlessly again. The crash of ship into stone hadn’t loosened as much as a pebble from the clifftop.
Strong comments were relayed from helmdeck to foremast crew via the midship’s mate. They were intended to relax the atmosphere on board while chastising the foremast sailors. Instead, the invective only added to the general tension, did not produce the laughter it would have in less threatening surroundings.
The mystery of the mythic city-state, the narrowing canyon walls that shut out the clean sky, the skate-scarred ice they were traversing, in conjunction with their unfortunate experiences at Poyolavomaar, combined to test the mental stability of the crew. Ethan knew it would be better if they encountered something—hostile, friendly or even inexplicable—before many more minutes passed.
It occured to him to wonder what they would do if Moulokin proved as unreal as it had proven elusive and the canyon simply continued to narrow, perhaps to a lonely rock-face dead-end. The many ship tracks might signify nothing more than a convocation of religious worshippers at a favorite shrine, or indicate a well-used refuge from storms.
Such visitors would have no trouble turning their ships around and racing back down the ice-filled canyon with the inland wind at their backs. But the canyon was as narrow as the Slanderscree was long. She could not possibly be turned ’round in so slim a space. They might have to backsail, traveling stern-first and steering in a fashion unthought of.
September had theorized a bend in the canyon. All at once it turned sharply southward. The crew had to struggle with lines and spars to swing the icerigger safely around the twisting walls.
The wind continued to buffet them from off the plateau, but it was gentler now. The ice raft could proceed up canyon on a softer tack.
Except that the canyon was blocked.
At first he thought it a landslide, tumbled down from those cliffs so stable in appearance. As they drew nearer it was clear that the obstacle was Tran-made, its great stones and blocks neatly piled with mortarless masonry to form a wall stretching across the ice strait like a granite web.
It was p
erhaps thirty meters high, deeper than he could casually guess without a higher view. As was the custom on Tran-ky-ky, the colossal double gate was constructed of wood. It rose nearly as high as the stone walls themselves and was flanked on either side by a triangular tower.
The structure puzzled him. Impressive as they were, these could not be the gates to fabled Moulokin. Behind the barrier the cliffs rose high and close together as ever. There was no room for a city behind the wall. And if any such did exist there, he reminded himself, surely it could be seen from the lookout cage on the mainmast.
The wall itself was a typically solid piece of native engineering. It looked well-nigh impregnable. But something lay behind that gate. The quilt of grooves in the ice now ran straight toward the double gate.
They were very close when the sound of a horn reached them. It brayed three times and then was silent. Ethan ran for the bow, discovered Elfa, Teeliam, Hunnar, September and many others already there, staring forward.
A voice from one of the towers hailed them. Its tone, so crucial to the precise meaning of many Trannish phrases and words, was neither hostile nor openly inviting. “Who are you, in the great ship? From whence do you come, and what do you wish of the peaceful folk of Moulokin?”
This development produced an excited muttering as word spread through the crew, made its way up the masts and into the cabins. Moulokin existed; Moulokin was real! At least, an unseen presence on an impressive wall had laid claim to the reality of a rumor.
Hunnar replied. “We come from a far state, Wannome, to the northeast of you. We desire to parlay with your Landgrave and council on a matter of great importance to all Tran. And we have three important visitors with us.”
“Step forward, lad. Time to show ourselves.” September slid back his mask so those hidden in the wall would have an unobstructed view of his furless visage. Williams and Ethan duplicated his movement.
“They are from a world other than Tran-ky-ky.” Hunnar pointed skyward. “A world from the ocean of black ice.”
The Icerigger Trilogy Page 52
