The Ice Maze

by Isobelle Carmody

  It was impossible, Zluty told himself sternly. The Monster could barely stand and would scarcely have been able to drag itself from the wagon. There would be no reason for it to do so, unless Bily had been in trouble and had cried out.

  Heart thumping, Zluty climbed up onto the side of the wagon where the awning had been torn away, and looked North. There was no sign of the Monster or Bily. Worse, the snow was pristine – there was not a single footprint or paw print.

  Utterly bewildered, Zluty looked East, but there was nothing at all but coldwhites and grey sky for as far as he could see. He walked around the rim of the wagon to look South and saw only Semmel and Flugal still making their way along the furrow towards him.

  Zluty turned to the black flank of the nearest mountain looming over the wagon. He leaned back until he could just make out its white cap of coldwhites, but there was no sign of movement.

  ‘Bily!’ he cried, and saw several powdery showers of coldwhites fall, but there was no response.

  He turned and leapt down into the wagon, and began frantically searching for a clue as to what had happened to his brother and the ailing Monster. The bedding, normally smoothed out, was all humped up as if it had been picked up and then dropped. He studied the torn awning, and now saw that it had been ripped cleanly from top to bottom.

  ‘As if a knife was used,’ Zluty muttered as Flugal said his name softly. He turned to look at the he digger with a sudden wild hope that Flugal would know what had happened. But the little digger was gazing around with bewildered dismay.

  He said, ‘Zchloo-tee, there is being a smell of strangeness.’

  ‘A smell?’ Zluty echoed, heart pounding. He sniffed but the cold had all but made his nose useless.

  Flugal went to sniff at the Monster’s bedding and then he climbed up to sniff the awning. ‘It is the smell of a beast.’

  Zluty went to the side of the wagon and looked up into the digger’s earnest little face. ‘A beast, Flugal? A Monk?’

  Flugal shook his head. ‘Something I have not smelled before,’ he said, and this time Zluty took in the meaning of the words.

  ‘What sort of beast could carry Bily and the Monster off without leaving any tracks?’ he asked. Then he thought of the huge bones in the metal egg in the Northern Forest, and of the Monster saying beasts went there in Winter.

  ‘Zchloo-tee! Flugal!’ Semmel called from outside.

  The cry had come from the North and they both went to the edge of the wagon and looked out. Semmel was some distance away, beckoning for them to come to her. It was not until they were pushing through the coldwhites to join her that Zluty saw she was standing on the edge of a wide dip that had not been visible because of the radiant whiteness.

  And it was not until he reached her that he saw the dip was an enormous paw print.

  For the first time in his life, Zluty fainted out of sheer horror.

  Bily’s hands were beginning to slip. He gritted his teeth and tried to grip the tufts of fur in his fingers more tightly, willing the Monster to wake. Its limbs hung so limp that he was afraid of what the Nightbeast had done when it closed its jaws on the Monster’s neck.

  The first they had seen of the dreadful beast were its terrible claws cutting through the awning as if it was made of paper. Then it pushed its black head in through the gap. It had been so big and dark that it seemed to Bily as if the night itself looked in. Its fierce green eyes had fastened on the Monster lying helpless on its bedding. Then the Nightbeast had opened its mouth to reveal a red throat and tongue, and teeth like white daggers, as it stretched out its head towards the Monster.

  Bily had thrown himself forward, determined to fend off those terrible teeth, but the Monster’s tail lashed out, swatting him out of danger. Lying half stunned, Bily had thought the beast would bite off the Monster’s head with one fearsome snap, but instead it had closed its teeth in the flesh at the back of the Monster’s neck and lifted it as if it weighed no more than a digger youngling. The Monster had not yowled or fought or resisted in any way, but had hung limp as the Nightbeast withdrew.

  There had been no thought at all in Bily’s mind when he scrambled to his feet and threw himself across the wagon to catch hold of the Monster’s dangling back paw, grasping hold of its silky fur. Half blinded by a swirl of cold fluffs, he had a fleeting glimpse of the Nightbeast looming overhead, black and impossibly huge. Then it bunched its muscles and sprang away from the wagon, twisting lithely so that it landed close to the foot of the mountain. The jolt of landing almost dislodged Bily, but he clung grimly. Then the Nightbeast sprang at the sheer black mountainside.

  Bily remembered the mindless terror he had felt, but the Nightbeast landed with all fours, its sharp claws finding a hold in the sheer slope. Somehow, impossibly, it bunched its muscles and leapt up again and then again. Bily had feared it meant to run straight up the side of the mountain, but with one more spring it reached a narrow ledge that ran just below the place where the mountains split into sharp white-capped peaks.

  The Nightbeast had been moving Northward along the ledge ever since, in a swift, gliding, low-bellied crawl, occasionally leaping where the ledge had broken away, or where a mound of cold fluffs blocked the way. Bily knew when it would leap because it would pause to gather itself before bunching its powerful muscles to spring. Each time it paused, he held on as tight as he could to the Monster’s leg.

  But at each leap his grip slipped a little more.

  He feared it would only take one more leap, and he would plummet straight down the mountain to his death. He dared not imagine how high they had come. He had looked out only once, not long after the Nightbeast reached the ledge, and he had seen the white plain far below him running as far as he could see in all directions. Then the ledge had begun to angle upward slightly, so that they had been climbing, until they came to a place where mist rolled down from the mountain-top. Now, Bily could see nothing but cloud.

  He had no idea where the Nightbeast was taking the Monster, but his only hope of rescuing it depended upon the enormous creature stopping to rest, or to eat or drink. He had thought at first that the Monster must be its intended supper, but why not eat it at once? To carry it so far across this terrain was a feat even for a beast of such incredible size and strength.

  That had led Bily to wonder if the beast had taken the Monster to feed its younglings. This was a horrid thought and he hoped its brood were very far away.

  If only it would stop for a drink. Bily had managed to lick up some cold fluffs from his fur, but he was still dreadfully thirsty. And the Nightbeast could not even do that with the Monster in its mouth. Bily had decided that it must have a stopping place in mind. The danger would come when it did stop.

  He was sure it had not noticed him, and he must take care to remain hidden, but he was worried about the Monster, for it had not moved the whole time they had been travelling. If only he could find a cave just big enough for him and the Monster to hide. But how to get the Monster into a cave if it could not help him? And even if he succeeded, and the Nightbeast went away, how could he get the Monster back down the mountain along the narrow ledge and down that impossible sheer drop where the Nightbeast had leapt straight up.

  Nor could he hope that Zluty and the diggers would come to save them. He knew how frightened his brother would have been to find them vanished. Zluty would want to track the Nightbeast, but once he saw where its tracks led, he would realise it was impossible. He would have no choice but to turn back and use the Monk’s ascending machine to get into the mountains, or go around the end of the mountains and come up from the other side of the range. He thought Zluty would choose to go on, and he prayed that once they got out of the clouds he would see the wagon continuing North, even if it was only a bright red speck in the distance.

  Zluty was sitting on a rock, thinking about Bily.

  They had searched for more tracks in widening circles about the wagon, looking for clues to what had happened to Bily. It was not until the digger
s climbed up the stony flank of the nearest mountain that they found more tracks, and understood that was where the beast had gone. Zluty had not been able to climb far because the slope was too steep, but the diggers were smaller and there were many tiny juts and ledges they could cling to. It was they who had found claw marks in the stone that matched the giant paw print they had found in the coldwhites. They had followed the scratches high enough to see a ledge that they believed the enormous beast had been making for. They had been unable to get to the ledge because the mountain became too sheer even for them, but it ran North.

  It seemed clear the beast had taken the Monster, but Zluty had not been sure of what had happened to Bily until he found another giant paw print in the coldwhites on the rim of the wagon, and beside it, the trace of a small footprint.

  It had not been difficult to guess what had transpired, then. The great beast had leapt onto the wagon and had clawed through the awning to reach in and lift the Monster out. Bily had jumped after it and caught hold of the Monster’s tail or paw. It was exactly the sort of thing Bily would do, driven by love and loyalty.

  Which meant Bily was with the Monster and the great beast. If it was taking the Monster back to its lair to eat it, Bily would try to defend it. And Bily would be eaten.

  Zluty buried his head in his hands and wept.

  Semmel came to him. She took his face in her little paws to make him look at her. Staring into her kindly eyes, the storm of grief in his mind quietened enough for him to hear her when she spoke.

  ‘Whatever happened to Bee-lee and the Listener, Zchloo-tee dearling, they will not come back here, and each moment we stay stopped, they will go further away. We must go after them.’

  ‘How?’ Zluty cried, gesturing to the mountain.

  ‘The beast that took them will not go up and up,’ Semmel said. ‘The ice blizzards are too dangerful. It will stay on the mountain’s side to be safely.’

  ‘If it takes them to its lair . . .’

  Semmel twitched her ears. ‘We think it takes Monster to the Velvet City.’

  Zluty stared at her. ‘To the Velvet City? But why?’

  ‘A beast so bigly cannot have come here without being sent through sky crack,’ Flugal said, coming to stand with his mate. ‘That means it is part of the Makers plan. Monster is a Listener, so maybe Listeners wanting him back. And asking Makers for helping.’

  ‘You think the Makers sent it to help the Listeners,’ Zluty said slowly.

  ‘Maybe sending for that reason,’ Semmel said, cautiously.

  ‘What other reason?’ Zluty asked.

  The diggers exchanged a look, then Semmel said, ‘The smell of the beast is in the memory scents. The knowing of that came when I smelled it in the wagon.’

  ‘But . . . what does that mean?’ Zluty asked, then he realised. ‘If the smell of the beast is in the memory scents of your ancestors, then it could not just have been sent here by the Makers to find the Monster!’

  ‘Our ancestors made the memory scents in the North. We do not know the why of that, because they did not keep their memories in their heads, but the knowing of the beast is in them,’ Semmel said. ‘That means it was in the North long ago. Maybe it was sent by the Makers to find our ancestors.’

  ‘But if it has been looking for your ancestors all this time, why did it take the Monster?’ Zluty protested.

  ‘Maybe it was lured by our smell in the wagon,’ Flugal said.

  ‘In the North we will learn the why of the beast and that will tell us where it took Bee-lee,’ Semmel said.

  Zluty stood up decisively. ‘Then let us go North. I have stupidly spent a whole day sitting and thinking. We must go while there is still some daylight.’

  ‘Never stupidness to think before acting,’ said Semmel firmly as they made their way together back to the wagon.

  The air had got so icy that Bily’s ear tips ached and he could not even feel the end of his tail. If only he could pull the hood of the cloak up over his head, but his grip was so precarious that he dared not let go of either hand. The next time the Nightbeast bunched its muscles to jump, he resolved to lock his legs tight around the Monster’s paw and reach up to get a better handful of its fur.

  If he had been sensible, he would have let go of the Monster at the end of its first leap. He would have done no more than tumble into thick snow. But hours later, as the Nightbeast carried them ever higher up into the mountains, he knew he could not have done it any differently. Because to let go would have been to desert the Monster.

  He suddenly remembered how it seemed to sense something before the Nightbeast appeared. And how it had known its deep rumbling roar was a hunting call.

  ‘It hunts me,’ the Monster had said in its soft dark voice.

  But how had it known that? Bily remembered the Monster telling Zluty that its people had stories about immense and dangerous beasts that sought refuge in the Northern Forest in Winter. It had said it did not know the Northern Forest truly existed until it learned that Zluty had been there. Perhaps the Monster had not believed the beasts were real either, until it heard the hunting cry.

  If only Bily knew the stories they told about the Nightbeast, he might have a better idea of what to expect. At first he had thought it meant to carry them up to the top of the mountain, but then he remembered the ice blizzards that would be scouring the heights. ‘It would not want to face those,’ he thought, and then realised with fright that he had spoken his thought aloud.

  He waited, heart thumping, but the Nightbeast’s gliding progress did not falter. Then a gust of wind blew, and Bily forgot everything else. For the wind parted the thick ruff of fur about the neck of the Nightbeast and he saw the glint of Makers metal.

  That meant the Nightbeast must serve the Makers plan. Most likely it had been sent by the Monster’s people to bring it back to the Velvet City.

  Except the Monster had told him that it was not very important. So why would its people send the Nightbeast to bring it back?

  Unless it was the Makers who had sent it.

  Bily fought back the storm of fear that assailed him at the thought of being taken to the Makers. After all, he had heard of many kinds of creatures being sent through the sky crack, but never anything about creatures being sent back through it to the Makers world. If the Makers had sent the Nightbeast after the Monster, it was most likely they would have ordered it to be returned to the Velvet City, where its own people might be instructed to punish it.

  Bily trembled at the thought, but he told himself sternly that he must be brave, for the sake of the Monster. If the Nightbeast was taking them to the Velvet City, it would have to go around the end of the mountains because of the ice blizzards. That would explain why it was running North. He could not hope they would come down at the end of the mountains and run into Zluty and the diggers, but it was not a bad thing to be taken to the Velvet City. Hadn’t they been trying to get the Monster there, after all? And maybe the Listeners would not punish the Monster when they learned it had been ill and injured.

  Another possibility occurred to Bily.

  The Monster had said that some of its people were Seers who could see the future even as the bees did. What if they had foreseen that the Monster had been injured and so had sent the Nightbeast to rescue it! Perhaps he could reveal himself to it and explain that he and Zluty had been trying to bring the Monster to the Velvet City.

  Bily wavered, uncertain, thinking of the Nightbeast’s glowing eyes and sharp teeth. Better to stay hidden, he decided. If he could slip away just before the Monster was taken into the Velvet City, he could head North to meet up with Zluty and the diggers, and together they could make a plan to free the Monster.

  He strove again to reach the Monster’s mind, but it was as limp and lifeless as its limbs. In desperation, very carefully, he tried to reach the mind of the Nightbeast, but there was no open place.

  For all he knew its mind had been emptied out and filled up with obedience so that there was no room for l
istening or thinking, like the poor captured diggers Zluty had described in Stonehouse. He could just imagine the Makers would want to be very sure the Nightbeast could not resist their will, after what had happened with the Cloud Monster.

  A chilling thought came to him.

  Maybe the Makers did not care that the Monster had been unable to return because of injury. Maybe they cared only that it had defied their bidding, and wished to empty the Monster’s mind?

  Cold fluffs began to fall. Bily could not see them, but he could feel them slapping coldly and lightly against his skin. He looked up and then down, but the only thing he could see was the narrow ledge and a white mist billowing thickly all around.

  He shifted slightly and felt something bump his leg softly. For a moment he was frightened, then he remembered that he had slipped his forage bag over his head when Zluty and the diggers left! It was one bright thing in a dark day, for in it was a little pouch of herbs he could use to sooth the Monster’s metal. He thought there might even be a little bag of nuts and seeds in it that they could eat. If only the Nightbeast would stop, he could look. But it glided on and on.

  Misty day gave way to dark night and cold fluffs fell so lightly and constantly that Bily felt his fur growing heavy with them, especially his tail.

  Bily fought a growing weariness. He knew he must not sleep, but the gliding movement of the Nightbeast and the soft patting of cold fluffs against his cheeks made his eyelids feel so heavy. Each time he blinked it was harder to open his eyes again.

  If only there was something to look at, but it was so dark now that there was no more to see than when his eyes were closed.

  Bily blinked again. A long, slow blink.

  He thought how nice to would be to just let his eyes stay closed. He would open his fingers and fall like the cold fluffs fell, softly and quietly all the way down to the bottom of the mountain.

  Only he would not land like a cold fluff.