The Ice Maze

by Isobelle Carmody

  ‘We must leap and creep and jump across the floes,’ Seshla said, almost playfully. But then her bright eyes grew serious. ‘It is not an easy passage, Bily, but we must go now. Once the ice blizzard reaches us, the passage will be truly perilous because the floes will shift and bump against one another, and we will not be able to carry the Listener across them.’

  As she spoke, she was removing several long thin poles that had been tucked under the metal about the Nightbeast’s neck and chest. In no time she had fitted them end to end, until she had two very long poles. She pulled the safesling from her bag and threaded it between the poles, then she drew out from her bag the soft thick rug that she had put around his shoulders, and pressed it into the safesling to make a mattress. Finally, she lashed the two ends of the poles together.

  ‘This is a travois,’ she said, and stepped back as the Nightbeast again closed her teeth on the Monster’s nape and lifted him gently into it.

  The she Monk pulled the sides of the net up so that the Monster was securely cradled, saying, ‘The rug under the Changebringer is made of the Great One’s combings, which are waterproof. It will keep the Listener dry if water splashes. Fortunately, his body is very warm so he will not get cold.’

  ‘But how can we get the travois out there?’ Bily asked, gesturing to the Hidden Place in its misty shroud.

  ‘I will drag it. The long poles will straddle the gaps between the ice floes and distribute the weight of the Listener,’ Seshla said. She looked into Bily’s face. ‘I could carry you both in it, but it will be better – safer – if you can run on your own feet. The ice floes move constantly and you must always step as close to the centre as possible, lest it tip under your weight. Once you get the trick of it, you will find it is not so hard.’ She gave him an encouraging look, but Bily could not muster a smile for her.

  She cocked her head and studied him for a moment, sniffing, then she gave a laugh and patted his head. ‘After all, I think it will be better if you ride with the Listener, Bily. You do not weigh more than a snowflake, and you must not fall into the water, for it is deadly cold. Even if you should survive the cold, the ice floe would right itself and, if it was too close to the next one, I would not be able to reach you.’

  Bily was trembling from head to toe, but then he felt a hot wind. He turned to find the Nightbeast had brought her enormous head down to his level and was warming him with a long, sweet breath. He heard her words in his mind.

  ‘Little Softling, if your brother is so brave, you must be brave, too, for does not the same blood run through you both?’

  Bily knew he was not brave like Zluty, but the Nightbeast’s words reminded him that since they had left the cottage he had done many things thathad frightened him, and he knew he could not let his fears master him now. He gulped back a sob and took a deep shuddering breath. Then he turned to Seshla.

  ‘I will not ride. I will walk beside you.’ His voice came out in a whisper, but Seshla merely nodded and turned to take up the bound end of the travois poles.

  ‘Follow and go where I go,’ she said. ‘Take your time and step as far onto each floe as you can. If you slip, throw yourself to the centre, spread your arms and legs wide and lie flat and still until it settles. Think only of the floe under you and then of the next one.’

  Bily nodded, but as Seshla turned North he could not help casting one final look back to see that the dark reaching fingers of the ice blizzard had almost closed over the sky now.

  When he turned North again, the Nightbeast had vanished, her paw prints running West along the edge of the land.

  For what seemed like days, the ice blizzard lashed the shelter stretched between the vessel and the mound of coldwhites. The awning collapsed and a great coldwhite mound slid over the opening of the ice cave. Fortunately, the ground sheet held and, after digging a small hole so that air could get in, the diggers had deepened the cave to give them more room.

  Flugal discovered the mound of coldwhites covered another Makers device, but even he knew it was not the moment to excavate it.

  They cuddled close to one another under all the blankets and cloaks, and curled around the bee urn and the soft constant warmth of the moss balls. It was impossible to speak because of the screaming of the ice blizzard, and finally, they slept.

  Zluty dreamed of the egg voice.

  ‘Perhaps I am foolish to rely upon two small beings to save a world,’ it said softly. ‘It would be better to create one strong creature, and bind it to my will. But that is the old hard way. Better to put my faith in the heart binding of these little brothers, for it will take both of them . . .’

  ‘Wake, Zluty!’

  Zluty opened his eyes, the egg voice fading in his mind. He was not confused. He knew where he was and why, but it was utterly dark inside the coldwhite cave. The lantern must have gone out.

  He sat up, head aching from the bad air, but almost at once, cold fresh air blew onto his face. He turned his mouth to it and breathed deeply.

  ‘Zluty!’ Flugal said again.

  ‘I am awake,’ Zluty said. ‘The ice blizzard . . .’

  ‘It is over,’ said Semmel. There was a little scratching noise and then the lantern flared in her paws. ‘We are luckful that it was not a bad ice blizzard, Zchloo-tee.’

  Zluty thought she must be making a joke.

  ‘We dug a little hole to make sure the ice blizzard was over,’ Flugal said. ‘You cannot see, for it is very darkful now the Longful Night has come. But we must get out of here and go on fastly, for we dare not be out in the open if a proper ice blizzard comes.’

  ‘A proper ice blizzard,’ Zluty muttered, then remembered with a jolt of excitement that he had seen the end of the mountains. He levered himself to his knees and helped the diggers to make an opening big enough for them to crawl out, and then he widened the hole and passed out everything to them, before crawling out himself.

  The lantern’s light seemed small and frail as a candle flame in the vast blackness that surrounded them.

  Zluty took it and went to see how the vessel had fared. The ice that had fallen had formed a thick, brittle crust over the coldwhites that crunched under his feet. Ice had fallen on the Coldway, too, so that it was now as white as the ground either side and he would not have known it was there at all but for its steep banks. The vessel was completely white.

  Setting the lantern down, Zluty slithered down onto the Coldway carrying the bee urns and the firemoss balls. Hauling open the door with a great crunching sound, he climbed inside the vessel and set his burdens down. He was startled to see feathers of ice had formed all along the awning frame, and every rope had its own little beard of ice. Then the diggers scrambled onto the vessel.

  Flugal uttered a cry of dismay and Zluty turned to see that he was looking at the large bit of wing cloth they had left flapping. It had been torn to tatters and the pole it was attached to had also broken.

  ‘It cannot be mended,’ Semmel said.

  ‘We can still use the other parts of the wings,’ Flugal said. ‘We will not be able to go very fastly, but it will be quicker than dragging the vessel along by the towropes.’

  It took them a good deal longer than any of them liked to scrape the worst of the ice from the inside of the vessel and from the towropes and wing cloth, and to raise the intact pole and fix it in place.

  It was bone-achingly cold and the wind was growing stronger again. Zluty shivered as he worked, despite wearing his cape with the hood up. Only when he was labouring to hack away the now solid coldwhite anchors on the Coldway, did he feel warm. He longed for a fire, but they had to get moving, for the lack of stars told him the sky was still full of cloud, and the rising wind hinted ominously at another ice blizzard.

  When they were finally ready, Semmel gave him the lantern and bade him hang it on the end of the broken pole so that it stuck out the front of the vessel.

  ‘It will give us some lightfulness so we can see if the Coldway is cracked,’ she said.

 
; Zluty did as she bid and when Flugal commanded it, Zluty kicked away the last of the coldwhite anchors and used the towropes to haul the vessel’s nose free from the bank in a great crackling of ice. Once he had got the vessel into the middle of the Coldway, the diggers raised the smaller wing cloths. The vessel lurched forward with a great crunching of ice, and Zluty made haste to get back on. He went to stand by the bee urn, and pressed his cold fingers around the moss balls, waiting for them to thaw as the diggers unfurled the largest of the remaining wing cloths.

  Even as they tied it quickly in place, it billowed out and filled with wind. The vessel gave another crunching lurch and then moved slowly forward with a great screeching that made Zluty’s fur fluff up. It was the sound the staves were making, running over the rime of ice that had formed on the Coldway.

  Watching the diggers adjust the smaller sails until the vessel was moving faster, Zluty realised he was beginning to understand how the wings worked. Given time, he would be able to work them himself.

  He noticed Flugal cast a last regretful glance back at the mound, where he had not had the chance to look at the Maker device within it, and despite everything, Zluty smiled.

  He turned to look at the mountains but it was still too dark to make them out. Fortunately they did not need them for guidance, because the Coldway ran North. And even if it had not done so, his own senses had got their bearings now that the ice blizzard was over.

  The wind gradually shifted until it was blowing from behind them and the vessel went more steadily. The Coldway ran so straight that after a time Semmel suggested they eat. Before Zluty could think what there was left, the she digger darted to her little pack and brought out a small sweet-scented pouch of what looked to be damp grains.

  ‘We can sprinkle it on porridge. It will make us strongful.’

  ‘I would love to make hot porridge but we can’t light a fire in the vessel when it is moving,’ Zluty reminded her regretfully. The mere thought of porridge made his stomach rumble, but it also gave his heart a twinge, because that was what Bily had always cooked for him the morning before he set out on his trips to the Northern Forest.

  ‘You can light a small fire,’ Semmel said, to his surprise. She pointed to the wet deck where the ice they had not been able to scrape off had turned to slush. ‘When there is so much wet iciness we will be safely even if the fire spills.’

  Zluty needed no more encouragement, and even though the porridge that finally resulted from his unsteady cooking was burnt in some parts and raw in others, it was delicious. The stuff Semmel had given him to sprinkle on it was lovely but also strangely familiar. He questioned her about it when she sat with him by the fire to eat, leaving Flugal to watch the sails. She told him the diggers got the stuff from trees growing inside a crevice in the white desert. When she described the manner of gathering it, he found it was exactly the same as when he tapped trees in the Northern Forest for sap. But instead of keeping the thick sweet liquid in stoppered urns, the diggers dried it to a crunchy sweetness so they could carry it in pouches.

  ‘Did you learn anything else from the memory scents?’ Zluty asked.

  ‘I have the knowing of a chasm made of ice where the vessel can go to be safe, Zchloo-tee,’ she said. ‘I do not yet have the knowing about food, but there is fresh water in the ice chasm and that will be important because the water of the Edgeless Sea cannot be drunk.’

  ‘Why not?’ Zluty asked.

  ‘I do not have that knowing,’ Semmel said. ‘There is something about it in the scent memories but . . .’ She gave the little tail twitch that served as a shrug.

  ‘It is a great mystery that the rebel diggers brought back scent memories about the North, yet chose to make it so they cannot be unlocked,’ Flugal said. ‘And why did they keep no memory in themselves? I am hungry for knowing the why of that.’

  ‘How did the diggers know to make sure the scent memories could not be unlocked?’ Zluty asked.

  ‘They kept some memories,’ Semmel told them. ‘They kept the knowing of the digger camp and how to return there.’

  ‘It can’t be a Makers machine that took their memories,’ Zluty said. ‘That would have taken them all.’ He was thinking of the enormous machine in Stonehouse that was to have drained him of his memories.

  ‘Then they must have chosen the forgetting,’ Flugal said.

  ‘We will have the knowing of it when we come to the ice maze at the end of the Coldway,’ said Semmel.

  Zluty had not really understood until now that the diggers meant to go right to the end of the Coldway, and his spirits fell, for surely it would be quicker and safer to go around the end of the mountains as soon as they could and head West. He had to get to the Velvet City, for he was sure that was where Bily and the Monster had been taken. Yet for all that, he was curious about what the ice maze could be.

  He asked Flugal, when the digger had taken Semmel’s place to eat.

  ‘To be mazed is to be confused,’ Semmel called from the rim, rather mysteriously.

  Flugal took the bowl of porridge he was offered, and began to eat.

  Zluty stretched his hands out to the embers of the fire. ‘What if the ice maze is what took the diggers memories away.’

  ‘It is not a Makers machine if it is made of ice,’ Flugal said.

  ‘Maybe it is in the ice,’ Zluty replied.

  When Flugal returned to the rim, Zluty went to where Semmel was sitting at the side of the vessel, looking forward alertly.

  ‘Did you learn anything more from the memory scents about the beast that took Bily and the Monster?’ he asked her.

  ‘Only that it was sent by the Makers,’ Semmel said, turning to adjust a bit of the wing.

  Her words made Zluty think of his dream.

  When the egg voice had spoken in the past, it had given calm instructions or advice or information. In dreams, it always seemed to offer warnings. This time, it had talked of him and Bily saving the world. He almost laughed at the silliness of it, and yet the voice had been so sad.

  Zluty went to count the firenuts. They only had six left. Enough to cook three hot meals, if they had enough food.

  ‘How long do you think it will take us to get to the ice maze?’ he asked Flugal, who was standing at the front of the vessel, gazing out. ‘Another day?’

  The he digger flicked his ears. ‘There will be no more days until the Longful Night ends.’ He turned and ran up the awning frame to shift a bit of wing cloth.

  Sighing, Zluty used the coldwhites he had melted and warmed in the ashes to wash the bowls and the porridge pot, thinking that Bily would have made some pancakes as well, getting two meals from one fire.

  The thought of his brother brought tears to Zluty’s eyes. His greatest fear was that the Listeners would put Bily into their machines and empty his head out, just as the Monks did to the diggers they caught. The possibility that he would find Bily in the Velvet City, only to have his brother look at him blankly, made him feel ill.

  He scowled as he dismantled the cooking table and rolled the heavy top bit into its slot, telling himself firmly that the Monster would not let that happen.

  He went to join the diggers, who were sitting together on the front of the awning frame, gazing forward. The wind was much stronger now, and they were moving swiftly. He pulled himself up onto the rim beside them and the three of them sat looking out into the darkness as the vessel carried them ever North through the Longful Night.

  The perilous journey he made across the ice maze returned often to Bily in dreams.

  He would be stepping onto an icy floe, which would tilt as he stepped from it to another slippery floe, and then there would be the sickly rocking as he stood or kneeled or lay on his belly until it steadied under him. He would hear the cold, grinding of ice against ice and the gulping gurgle of the dark water, waiting to swallow him.

  Sometimes in the dreams Bily made it safely to the circle of ice peaks that ringed the Hidden Place.

  Other times, he would
overbalance and fall backwards, landing on the edge of the floe, which would tilt up while he scrabbled desperately for a hold. Then he would slide silently into the freezing black water, and the floes would close over him, trapping him under the ice. He would see Seshla, and sometimes Zluty and the diggers dimly through the ice floe, desperately trying to lift it or gouge through it. And he would hold his breath as he had done in the flooded cellar, until he could hold it no longer and the frigid, black water of the Edgeless Sea filled him.

  Or the dream would be of Seshla slipping and dropping the Monster, who would float down until cold black shadows closed over him.

  Bily woke from the first of many such dreams, panting with fear, though he knew at once that he had been dreaming, for he was in a bed and wonderfully warm. He had never been so cold in all his life as after that terrifying crossing. He shuddered to remember the last of it.

  There had been a stretch of black water between the end of the ice maze and the mist-shrouded Hidden Place, and Seshla had pointed to a little landing that jutted out absurdly.

  ‘There is an opening there. Get onto a small floe and paddle to the landing using your hands. Go as quickly as you can,’ she had urged, as she lay the travois and the Monster down on a floe big enough to hold them, and began to paddle. Bily did as she bid him do, his heart hammering with fear.

  Oh, the dreadful burning iciness of the water when he put his hands into it! Then his hands went numb and he could not feel them at all. The numbness frightened him and he had to force himself not to stop. By the time he had paddled to the little landing where Seshla waited, his fingers were as white as his fur and he couldn’t climb up the ladder onto the landing.

  Seshla carried him up, and at the top she put his hands into her hot mouth until the feeling came rushing painfully back.

  Only then did Seshla take up the travois, bidding him follow her as she set off through a tunnel in the ice mountain, dragging the Monster behind her. Before following, Bily had turned, his fingers hurting terribly, squinting against the bitter wind, but the land was lost in the blackness of the Longful Night.