Doomsday Warrior 09 - America’s Zero Hour (17 page)

“Won’t Archer starve? Won’t he need water?” asked Rockson, a bit in awe at this surprising sign of advanced technology.

Tinglim replied, “No. The crystal accumulator will provide all sustenance. We must leave now. The doctors will turn up the power to maximum, and it is dangerous to be around when it is at full power.”

Not knowing what else to do, the Doomsday Warrior left the fallen Freefighter in the charge of the good doctors, and with Tinglim joined the rest of his men at the Ice Palace gate.

The beautiful Crystal infirmary was to the Potala what a dimestore gem is to a thirty-five carat diamond. The palace, though twenty stories high, had the appearance of lightness and the delicacy of a confection. It actually glowed. Its hundreds of delicately constructed Gothic spires were a pale pastel rainbow of color. The windows were filled with ice “stained glass” and the walls were so translucent that one could see figures moving about inside the hundreds of rooms.

“Shall we go in?” asked Tinglim. “The king knows we are here, and it is best not to let him wait too long.”

Rock motioned the others to follow them up the sixteen ice steps and through the open doorway. White robed men led them through the main hallway. The cathedral-like ceiling above was filled with gargoyles and demons carved from frozen ice. The floor beneath them was inlaid with marbled ice tiles. Delicate snowflake tapestries adorned the walls. Only the chairs and tables were not made of ice. Nearly everything in this Ice City world had been chipped into existence.

Rockson noticed it immediately when he came into the vast—and cold—audience room of the Ice King:
The gloom.
There were no smiles on the faces of the dozen or so court officials who lined up near the entrance to greet the strangers. The officials politely bowed and Rockson nodded his greetings to each of them, taking in the elaborate rainbow-dyed furs they wore with some amazement.

The head official, wearing a particularly long expression, parlayed with Tinglim, who translated: “The king is unhappy because his son is missing. He went out alone—far out to the east of the city to hunt the white fox. It is a Vision Quest all young men must do as they come of age. He is days late in returning. So far, search parties have failed to locate him. He is just sixteen years of age. An only son, the heir to the throne . . . And he is feared to be dead.”

“I see,” said Rockson. “That explains all this glumness.”

A hush came over the great hall as the Ice King entered and strode down the royal ermine carpet to his carved ice throne. He was Eskimo featured, but tall and lean, perhaps forty years of age. He was dressed in red velvet and wore a crown of quartz crystals—or diamonds, Rock couldn’t tell which. The gems caught and refracted the light like prisms scattering tiny spectra of light as he walked. In his footsteps walked a page, perhaps nine or ten years of age, carrying a white fox fur. As they approached the steps to the throne, the boy scurried ahead of the king, ran up the steps, and after placing the fur on the throne took his place behind it. The king turned and sat on his throne. His grim expression belied the sparkle of his jewels.

Bidden by the king, Rock and Tinglim walked up to the throne. “It is customary to kneel,” Tinglim whispered just before he knelt down on one knee. Rockson bowed his head in acknowledgment of the king, but did not kneel. He had never knelt for anyone and he wasn’t going to start now. The king didn’t seem to mind, for he nodded his head abruptly and motioned them to come closer. Tinglim and Rock did as the king had ordered.

Rock started to say how glad he was to meet the king and how honored he was, but the king dismissed this with a wave of his hand. He was clearly in no mood for formalities. Rockson tried the direct approach. “We need supplies—more sleds, food, and an experienced guide or two that know the land to the north of here. We are on the trail of a killer, a beast who is intent on destroying the world. His name is Killov. He has killed many of Tinglim’s people and uncounted thousands of my people. And now he has a weapon that has the capability of annihilating any chance for freedom in the world. Will you help us?”

Tinglim translated. The grim set of the king’s jaw did not change. He stared stonily into the distance as he answered. Tinglim translated. “Rockson, the Ice King refuses to help you. Nothing will be done, no work of any kind. No entertainment, no show of cheer, is to be allowed in this city until his son’s safe return.”

Rockson was aghast.
If the son dies?
he thought. “Tinglim, you
must
impress upon the king the urgency of our task!”

Tinglim said another string of words to the king, punctuating his words by urgent gestures in the air. The king appeared unmoved and said the one word that Rockson didn’t have to have translated. “No.”

The king dismissed them with a wave of his hand. Two heavyset guards in royal purple robes escorted the petitioners away. The audience with the king was over.

The whole weary hungry party were led to a side hall which had been prepared in advance for dinner. Twenty nobles and their ladies were already seated at the hundred-foot-long table awaiting the team members’ arrival. The ladies all looked like Muglig, Rockson’s bed-friend, and wore white fur robes over their slim brown bodies. They wore their shiny jet-black hair in elaborate bejeweled braids. And their nails were long and painted white. The noblemen wore red-dyed sealskin frocks with gathered silk—or what appeared to be silk—collars. Impressed by their finery, Rockson realized for the first time how scruffy his band must look. None of them had had a chance to bathe since they started out on the trek. They looked and smelled like hell.

The team members joined the assemblage at the long table and with a minimum of pleasantry launched into the dinner. They shoveled away at the candied lichen and vegetable roots. They tunneled through succulent mounds of roast yak. They consumed oceans of wine served by older women attendants, who didn’t speak, and broke off huge hunks of doughy bread to mop up the gravy. The lords and ladies were delighted by their enthusiasm and ate heartily themselves. Only Rockson maintained a semblance of decorum, eating his food with less than his usual gusto.

“You must eat more food to keep up your strength,” prodded Tinglim. “The lords and ladies are concerned that you don’t like their food.” But Rockson was lost in thought. How was he to go on without supplies? Suddenly a male attendant rushed in. Word had come that the ruler’s son had been found. They all adjourned at once to the throne room.

In the audience room, the messenger fell to his knees, nearly chipping the ice with his impact. The sorrowful messenger breathlessly described firsthand the scene the search party had found.

“Far to the east, we found your son, hanging upside down inside a cave. His body had been badly burned. He had been . . .” The messenger paused to get a hold of himself before he went on, “—mutilated. We cut him down and brought his body home to be buried. We found
these
near the body, Sire.” Rock edged to the front of the crowd to get a closer look. The messenger held crushed cigarette butts in his left hand. In his right was a broken handle from one of the instruments of torture. It had writing on it. Rock recognized the Cyrillic writing—it was unmistakably Russian.

Killov!
he thought. So now Killov has graduated to butchering children. But what for? Killov had no interest in sex of any kind, perverted or not. Ah—but Killov loved to
watch
his victims as he inflicted pain; or as someone did it for him.

Rockson quickly informed Tinglim of his suspicions, who in turn informed the king. The Eskimo ruler turned to Rockson, his eyes ablaze. “This Killov is the man you spoke of earlier?” Rockson nodded. “This is the man you suspect of mutilating my son?” Rock answered affirmatively. The king’s body grew rigid with anger.
“I . . . want
. . .
revenge!”
he boomed as he slammed his fist down on the throne’s arm like a jackhammer. The king, regaining his control, stared hard at Rockson, as if seeing him for the first time. “I pledge my support for your expedition—under one condition . . .” He paused, waiting for Tinglim to translate.

“What is that?” asked Rockson.

“That you do your utmost to do away with this
Killov,”
he said, uttering Killov’s name with obvious distaste. “Rid me of this monster that stalks my land.”

“I pledge to do so,” Rockson said firmly.

“In addition . . . I want you to bring me evidence of his death,” the king went on.

“What kind of evidence?” Rock asked.

“I want you to bring me this child-defiler’s head!”

Rockson was astounded. The thought of carrying Killov’s head back to the Ice King was absurd. “We don’t do things like that,” he protested. “No matter how justified it may seem, if we commit mutilation, then we are no better than Killov.”

The king stood bolt upright and towered over Rockson.
“I . . . want . . . his . . . head!”

Rock stood there for a moment and then turned and looked at Pedersen, the anthropologist, who nodded slightly. “Very well,” said Rockson, appearing to give in, though he knew in his heart he could never fulfill his promise.

The king relaxed. “Good! I will resupply you well, and send my most knowledgeable scouts with you . . .”

The funeral procession—the likes of which none of the Rock team had ever envisioned in their wildest dreams, occurred the next morning. The boy-child of the king in a nearly transparent ice coffin was borne on the shoulders of the palace guard and carried down the main street. Drum rolls filled the air. Candles were lit in the halls of every building and shone through the walls in the eternal northern twilight in a most eerie manner.

The king’s sleigh followed directly behind the Ice Prince’s bier, pulled by immense wapiti—large elk—their frosty breath filling the air. Behind the sleigh came the ladies and gentlemen of mourning, dressed entirely in black. Rockson and his men, their heads bowed like the others, moved in procession behind the funeral cortege four abreast down the main street.

Just as the solemn candlelit procession reached the ice crypt in a nearby slope, a man stepped out from behind some boulders of colored ice. At first Rockson thought it was makeup, but as the procession closed on the crypt, Rockson realized the man had some sort of icelike skin of the palest blue. His eyes seemed sculpted out of ice—like the sea-lion fountains.

“Who’s that?” Rockson whispered to Tinglim.

“The most holy Ice Shaman. He officiates at all funerals.”

The pallbearers laid the coffin at the shaman’s feet. The king stepped down from his sleigh and stood next to the shaman. The rest of the assemblage grouped around the coffin. Rockson watched as the man of ice threw some black and red particles on the coffin and chanted a dirge filled with infinite sadness. Then he turned and went back behind the ice boulders. The king could hardly contain his grief as the coffin carriers lowered the coffin into the crypt and slid the ice cover over it. Then the funeral horns stopped blowing. The candles and torches of the parade were extinguished save one, which was to be carried back to the palace. One candle in every building was to be kept burning for the official five days of mourning.

The funeral procession broke up and started back to the Ice City. Rockson noticed dozens, hundreds, of ice crypts scattered about the slope. He couldn’t help thinking what would happen if a spring thaw ever came to these parts. But that wasn’t his problem—time was.

In the near darkness, as he walked with the king back toward his palace, Rockson, whose keen senses should have detected any pursuer, felt an unexpected icy hand on his shoulder. He steeled himself for battle and turned. But it was the Ice Priest. The man’s blue face was close enough to feel his frosty breath.

The fingers like icicles withdrew. The Ice Shaman’s garments, though made of ice, seemed to bend and flow like a regular robe. In a low grating voice he said, “I must speak to you, stranger.”

“I don’t have the time,” Rockson said.

After Tinglim had translated, the king urgently whispered something to Tinglim. Tinglim translated, “You
must
speak to the holy shaman. The king begs you not to refuse him his right to interrogate strangers.” Rockson realized he might be jeopardizing the entire mission if he refused. The king himself seemed to be in awe of the Ice Shaman.

“Very well,” the Freefighter said with a sigh, letting himself be led back behind the monstrous blue ice boulder from whence the man had come. Behind the boulder was a narrow entrance, and Rockson had to stoop to follow the short Ice Shaman into a large dimly lit room carved from ice. It was much like the king’s own throne room. There the Ice Shaman took a seat and bid Rockson sit facing him in the Ice City equivalent of a Morris wing chair. Tinglim sat on a stool between them and translated.

“What do you want of me?” asked Rockson. “I have much to do . . .” By the light of twelve candles, Rock explained his mission.

When he had finished, the Ice Shaman remained silent for a long time, and then said,
“So what
if Killov destroys the world? This would not be the first time such a thing has happened, Rockson. Many civilizations have existed on this earth. The last one to destroy itself with atomic weapons was Atlantis, over nine thousand years ago. They managed to sink their entire continent with the force of their nuclear bombs.”

“You say there really was an Atlantis?” Rockson asked. “We only know of the ancient Egyptian civilization. Everything that existed before that appears to have vanished, leaving no trace.”

“Not so, Rockson. You see, the survivors of the Atlantean civilization found their way into the hollow part of the earth—you can sometimes reach it through a tunnel that periodically opens at the exact location of the north pole. There, gravity bends and one can actually walk sideways quite a distance into the earth. The survivors of Atlantis, in order to flee radioactivity, which was much greater by far than that caused by World War Three, entered the underworld. There they stayed, living like cave bats for thousands of years, carefully maintaining much of their old knowledge. They emerged from the underworld to reclaim their planet, only to find that the devolved mutations of their war ruled the land they had once claimed as their own. These devolved beings are the Sasquatch.