Shallows of Night, page 3
“No,” he gasped. “No. That would be too easy.” His hand came away empty and, turning, he lurched out the door.
Ronin stood in the center of the Hall of Combat, hearing the susurration of his harsh breathing like the pounding of wild surf upon a desolate shore, his head and torso aflame with throbbing pain he only dimly felt, and thought, Now we are both shamed.
“What now?” Borros called to him.
They twisted in the air. Some twenty meters below them beckoned the lower slopes of the cliff. But they were, literally, at the end of their ropes.
“We are short,” said the Magic Man. He kicked at the rock face to stop his twisting; it only made it worse.
“Quit that,” Ronin said. “Relax your body.”
“I have no strength left,” Borros called pitifully, “I am exhausted.”
“Then save your breath,” Ronin said reasonably. He peered down again. In the uncertain light, as dense clouds rode across the moon’s pale face, he could just make out the blanket of new snow covering the upper slope. But how deep was it? he asked himself. He took the small hammer off his wrist and let it go. It hit the snow and disappeared. He unhooked the bag of spikes and dropped that too. It hit the snow near the spot where the hammer went in and disappeared. Only one thing left to do, he thought. And let go the rope.
He heard a scream and it confused him momentarily and then he was into it, under it, its weight upon him, and he could not breathe and the blackness was a suffocating mass around him, above him but he pushed up, straining and clawing, and broke the surface, inhaling the chilled air in great lungfuls. He felt ice and rock beneath his feet.
The scream came again and he knew that it was Borros.
“All right, Borros,” he shouted, cupping his hands by his mouth. “I am in the snow below you. Can you hear me?”
The sobbing of the wind.
“Yes.”
“Let yourself drop. The snow will cushion your fall.”
“I am afraid.”
“Close your eyes and let go the rope.”
“Ronin—”
“Chill take you! Do it!”
He heard the crunch against the crisp top layer of snow and was already moving, using sound as well as sight, as fast as he could to the spot. But the deep snow pulled at him and he panted, thinking of the Magic Man’s exhaustion, knowing that he would have to pull him free very quickly or he would suffocate.
The undulating expanse of snow was albescent in the moonlight. He waded through it, tired himself, and stumbled, face in the snow, and instinctively pushed up with his hands, sinking deeper into it. Then his brain began to function again and he pushed this time with his feet and knees against the ice and then he was up. He located the darkness of the hole, went to it and dug down hard, shoveling desperately with his fingers, feeling at last the body like a dead weight, and hauled upward now with all his strength, hauling at a weight that seemed inordinately heavy, feeling time slip away beneath him, willing his fingers not to slip.
Borros came up slowly, like an ancient galleon buried beneath a sea reluctant to part with its prize, and as soon as his head came into the open Ronin slapped it. The Magic Man coughed and sputtered and half-melted ice drooled from his slowly working lips. Ronin picked him up.
“All right,” Borros whispered, so softly that it could have been the moaning of the wind. “I am”—he choked, caught himself, then inhaled his first deep breath—“quite all right.”
Ronin shoveled snow with his arms, making a shallow depression along the lee of the slope just below the sheer face of the cliff, an implacable wall lifting black shadows, it seemed, into the reaches of the tremulous sky. Deep enough for them to huddle, taking respite from the constant bite of wind and frost while they rested. Borros attempted to rake out several small packets from within his suit but his hands were shaking badly and Ronin had to lift them out, feed Borros as he fed himself.
Across the trackless slope they went dazedly, down, ever down, the wind blowing the drifting snow into their faces mingled with sharp-edged ice crystals as the temperature plummeted. Their lips were frosted and their eyebrows and lashes rimed with ice. Beneath their hoods, their cheeks were already numb. Still they moved painfully onward and when Borros fell Ronin bent and lifted him, the weight as nothing now. He half dragged him, stumbling, along the downward slope, through the drag of the heavy snow, deaf from the wind and then blind in the night, animal instinct alone lifting one foot after another onward, onward…
His first thought was the warmth and he recalled a fire leaping and logs crackling and the cheery orange glow. He tried to move closer to the warmth and could not budge. Through a thick haze he understood that something was wrong. One side of his face was warm and— With a start he realized where he was, that he was face down in the snow. With infinite slowness he lifted himself centimeter by centimeter until he was sitting up. He touched the side of his face eventually and discovered that it was numb.
Even then, when it occurred to him within the context of reality that they might die, he would not give in to it. He went to his hands and knees, saw Borros lying beside him. He was facing the way they had come, away in the distance the solid rock of the awesome, towering cliff down which they had made their descent.
He tried to stand and slipped, sliding downward along his belly. It took him several moments to realize. Then he looked down, oblivious suddenly to the freezing cold and the harsh bite of the wind. He reached out with his hands, felt the ground.
Smooth.
“Borros,” he called in a cracked and dry voice.
Smooth and flat and hard.
“Borros!”
And he turned his face, then his body, until he was facing southward and he beheld the enormous glowing expanse of the ice sea.
“We are here!”
Heat fled up his arms from his finger tips into his shoulders. The image of the flame, dancing lazily from behind the small grating, was hypnotic. The gentle bumping, the soft creaking, a soporific. Across from him, Borros was already asleep, his utter fatigue taking him. Ronin felt the swift motion under him, knew sleep was almost here. Almost.
They had lurched, insensate, down the final series of low slopes, to the very edge of the ice sea, without knowing it. There at its banks they had collapsed.
At first Ronin had believed Borros delirious when he had revived him and the Magic Man had told him at last the secret of survival upon the ice sea. Impossible. But already Ronin was learning to ignore that word, for he had been through so many seemingly impossible situations, seen so many startling sights, been forced to readjust to many of the concepts he had originally been taught, this was but a momentary reaction. And too it was their only hope of survival upon the world’s forbidding surface; he lost no time in useless queries, he began the search.
It was easier than he could have imagined. Barely a thousand meters from where they had fallen, he found the small headland that Borros had assured him would be there. Mounded in snow many times higher than any area near it, it jutted out into the ice sea. And feverishly now he began to dig.
Moonlight, pale and glittery against the smooth surface of the platinum ice, revealed to him what Borros had told him he would unearth.
Even so it came as a shock, a current like lightning racing through his body momentarily thawing the chill. He began to dig harder now that the outlines had been uncovered and at last he was through and he turned and brought the Magic Man, a muscular arm across his back for support, so that they could both see it together.
The mist had risen, diffusing the monochrome light, but above the moon was riding free, its intermittent cloud cover racing westward. Of this fact they were oblivious as they stood, captivated by the image which loomed before them.
It was sleek. Long and curving, raised on slender runners.
“A felucca,” Borros breathed almost reverently. “They did not lie.” There were tears standing in the corners of his eyes. “For years I read and dreamed and, when I was sure, I promised myself that one day—” He shook his head and the tears flipped to the piled snow of the promontory. “But now I see that I was not so sure after all, a doubt remained. Until this moment. Oh, Ronin, look at it!”
It was a ship. An ice ship.
Slowly they went on board, explored the high prow and the sweep of its beam all the way to the low stern; they strode along the smooth deck, ran frozen fingers across the top of the low cabin aft rising just above the gunwale.
They went below, finding narrow berths with blankets along the hull, and a black metal oblong in the center of the cabin. Ronin took tinder and flint and, on Borros’ instructions, opened the small hinged grate in the front and sparked a flame. The fire came instantly to the interior and Ronin, closing the grate, was too grateful for the warmth to inquire about the fuel source.
He put Borros on a bunk, listened to him talk for a short time, then went on deck. He took the mast from its storage rack along the port sheer-strake and set it in its place just astern of midships. He set the yard, low down on the mast. Then he went over the side and hacked at the metal chocks holding the runners in place. When they were freed, he went aboard and unfurled the high sweeping lateen sail.
Coming down the low slopes, the wind had been off the sea, into their faces. At some point it had turned and, picking up velocity, was now whipping almost due south. Ronin, setting the last of the rigging, thought, Now there is nothing more to do. Borros assures me that we need not stand lookout this night, that there is clear sailing. Does he really know, I wonder?
At that moment there came a powerful lurch and, as the sail caught the wind, the vessel, now standing clear on its runway of ice, was launched upon the ice sea.
Ronin, fatigued and unprepared, fell to the deck. Moving cautiously to the stern, he hauled hard on the wheel and lashed it tight as Borros had instructed him. They flew along the ice due south, the stiff wind billowing the sail, pushing them. He stared ahead for a moment, but the moon had disappeared behind racing clouds and new mist was settling in. Nothing more to do. With a final glance at the fastness of the rigging, he went below.
Sleep.
“Tomorrow night.”
A small squat lamp hanging from a beam in the cabin’s low ceiling had been lit. It swung with the ship’s motion, shadows fleeing across the bulkheads.
“What?” he said thickly.
Through round crystal portals set in either bulkhead he saw that it was still dark out. It was warm and comfortable here and he closed his eyes, sighing.
“We slept through the night,” said Borros from his berth across the cabin, “and all of the day.” He smiled wearily. “I got up once and it was near sunset, that is how I know. I went on deck and found that the wind had changed slightly. We were running more to the west than I wanted, as close as I could tell—the sun sets only roughly in the west—so I reset the wheel.” He stood up carefully. He looked thin and gaunt. “Hungry?” Ronin opened his eyes.
They ate voraciously from the stores on ship; concentrates with unsatisfying flavors, but they filled the belly. Abruptly he remembered the frostbite of his face but, lifting a hand, he could feel no burn or discomfort.
“The ancients anticipated that possibility also,” said the Magic Man. “You will find a packet of the unguent in one of the pockets of your suit. When I woke yesterday, I fixed us both up at the same time.” He smiled almost apologetically. “I did not see the need to wake you.” He lay back on his bunk, as if the talk had weakened him.
“Are you all right?” Ronin asked.
The Magic Man lifted a slender hand. “Only—it will take me somewhat more time than you to recover.” His lips turned up again in a watery smile. “The disadvantages of age, you understand.”
Ronin turned away. “I have a surprise for you,” he said.
“Ah, good. But first you must tell me of your journey to the City of Ten Thousand Paths.” Ronin looked back at him in time to see the sorrow and regret in his eyes. He shook his head ruefully. “I am so sorry, Ronin. I sent you on a madman’s quest, an impossible—”
“But—”
“They told me about G’fand—”
“Ah.” His heart felt as cold as ice. “Did they?”
“Yes.” He grimaced. “It was part of my treatment. Freidal had already subjected me to such prolonged physical torture”—unconsciously his thin fingers sought his forehead, where before Ronin had seen the terrifying marks of the Dehn spots—“in trying to pry out of me all that I knew of the Surface, that he felt it was time to change tactics. I knew all along that I had sent you down to the City of Ten Thousand Paths and he could have stopped you at any time—”
“He wanted to see what I would return with, since he could not break you.”
But Borros was not listening; he was remembering. “He was so clever, Chill take him! He came in and told them to stop; gave me water and let me rest. Told me that I had been through it all and had not given in; that it was useless for him to try any more. He—he said that he admired me”—his voice turned to a tremulous fluting—“that as soon as I had recovered, I was free to go.” He passed a frail hand across his eyes as if the gesture would blot out the nightmare that played in his mind and which, compulsively now, spewed from his mouth.
“‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, as if it were the last thing on his mind, ‘we have taken Ronin into custody. He has just returned to the Freehold after making an unauthorized exit. We have asked him quite politely where he went; after all it is a Security matter. The safety of the Freehold is at stake; if he can egress, others may gain entrance. So you understand that we must find out where he went and why. It is a matter of utmost importance.’ Freidal sighed. ‘But so far he has been most reluctant to accommodate us. He refuses, Borros, to do his duty to the Freehold. You understand what must be done now.’ I did indeed; he meant to use the Dehn on you. ‘His disrespectful actions leave me no choice. Oh yes,’ he said then, ‘I almost forgot. The young man who accompanied him—a scholar, I believe—G’fand—was killed. Unfortunate, but scholars are hardly essential to the stability of the Freehold.’”
Borros shifted uncomfortably on his berth but found no surcease. His eyes were still turned inward. “Freidal was furious that I did not crumble then, as he had hoped, so he”—the Magic Man’s thin frame shuddered—“he had Stahlig brought in. He had his daggam drag Stahlig in front of me. Someone held my head so that I could not turn away; they hit me when I tried to shut my eyes.” He lifted his head, the narrow skull shining like ancient bone, his eyes lusterless. “When Stahlig looked at me—I have never seen such terror written upon the face of a human being.” He let go a suspiration then, and it all came out. “Freidal said to him: ‘What is it that you fear most, Stahlig? The loss of your feet? Would you care to crawl through the Freehold on your knees? Perhaps your eyes. Do you fear blindness? No? I could break your back then; leave you alive, alive and immobile.’ And seeing the look in Stahlig’s eyes, he continued: ‘That would be most fitting, would it not? Your friend Ronin left my man Marcsh with a broken back. But you know that; you treated Marcsh. You will be totally helpless; to be fed and wiped like a baby.’”
The wind, muffled somewhat by the cabin’s bulkheads, moaned mournfully, momentarily drowning out the soft scraping sounds of the runners gliding swiftly over the ice, as if it too was witness to the horror that the Magic Man had conjured.
Borros put his head in his hands. “In the end,” he whispered so softly that it was like a ghost’s breath, “Stahlig died of fright.”
There was silence for a time save for the moaning and occasional creak of the fittings abovedecks. Ronin lay back on his berth and tried to think of nothing, but his brain was on fire and he got up and went silently up the short vertical companionway.
The small ship shot through the mists of night ever southward. Ronin, on deck, could see nought but the blurred shadows of the ribboning ice as it sped by beneath the vessel. It was a quarter wind which now propelled them and he busied himself learning the fundamentals of tacking into it, working hard at the rigging to keep them on course.
He went aft and freed the wheel, steering manually for a time, letting the vibrations flow from his hands into his body borne away on an imaginary tide. The endless gentle soughing of the runners peeling a thin film of ice below stood by him like a spectral companion.
The wind strained the sail. Already the weather was changing, the air wetter, denser than before and, because of it, the cold seemed fiercer, creeping beneath the skin into flesh and bone. At length Ronin lashed the wheel to and, taking a last deep breath, went below.
Borros lay on his berth staring blankly upward.
“The surprise, Borros,” Ronin said gently. “I have not told you what it is.”
“Uhm.”
“Do you remember why you sent me to the City of Ten Thousand Paths?”
“Of course, but—” He sat up so suddenly that he barely missed hitting his head on a beam. Color had returned to his yellow face. “You cannot mean—” At last there was a light kindling his eyes. “But Freidal had you and—”
“And the Salamander also; his men took me from Security.” A wintry smile broke out on Ronin’s face.
The Magic Man’s mouth opened soundlessly.
“And?”
Ronin laughed then, for the first time in many cycles. “And? And? Freidal found nothing, though he was justifiably curious about this”—he lifted his strange gauntlet—“and the Salamander lacked the time to find anything—”
“Are you telling me that you actually found the scroll? Ronin, you have it?” Borros came excitedly across to him.
Ronin withdrew his sword, grasped the hilt, and twisted it three times. It came away in his hand. From within its hollowed-out recesses Ronin gently pulled forth the scroll of dor-Sefrith. He handed it to the Magic Man, who delicately opened it and stared, breathing, “You have found it. Oh, Ronin—!”
He gave Borros several moments before he said, “Now you must tell me what it says and why it is so important.”
