The Icerigger Trilogy: Icerigger, Mission to Moulokin, and The Deluge Drivers (62 page)

Several times the marchers paused to rest. Hunnar and Balavere were convinced it was safe to do so. Even if their escape had been discovered, the Poyos were unlikely to organize pursuit, convinced that the denizens of the underworld would rid them of their former prisoners. That belief was shared by the majority of the
Slanderscree
’s crew.

Before long they began moving again. “No telling how deep we are now,” Williams muttered to himself. “Pressure appears unchanged.”

September halted abruptly, his head cocked to one side. He had his face mask open and appeared to be listening intently. The line backed up behind him.

“Hear something, feller-me-lad?” Ethan strained to pick out an unknown sound from the background noise of several hundred respirating humans and Tran.

The sound he settled on was difficult to distinguish because it sounded something like breathing itself. A faint, distant groaning and gurgling. “We can’t go back now.” He took over the lead, extending his torch ahead of him. The noise grew louder. Despite knowing better, he had to admit it sounded very much like a sleeping daemon softly snoring.

They reached a bend in the tunnel, turned it. The pathway leveled out. Ethan stopped. Anxious queries came from behind him. Turning his beamer on, he set it for the widest possible, most diffuse beam. It lit up an incredible sight.

At some unguessable time past, tremendous heat had melted out the vast cavern they gazed upon. Columns of ice did not so much support as decorate the ceiling; which was festooned with dead icicles. The roof itself was only five or six meters above their heads, but it stretched off into distances unreached by the blue glow of the beamer.

No snuffling efreet or djinn lay waiting to greet their eyes. The sound came from black water—unfrozen, liquid, free-flowing water that stretched off to merge into a black horizon with the far reaches of the ceiling. It lapped gently, echoing through the cavern, against an icy beach a few meters away. Ethan identified the subtle odor that he’d been smelling for the last several minutes: salt.

Williams’ gaze was focused on the ceiling formations. “We’ve come down through the ice sheet and emerged outside the island proper. There must be one or two hundred meters of solid ice above us.”

Terrified, childish mewings were coming from some of the crew members. A few dropped to their knees and began imploring whichever gods they believed in to take pity on them. Ethan saw resignation and the anticipation of death in several furry faces.

Even the knowledgeable, unsuperstitious Eer-Meesach was shivering with fear. It is one thing to dismiss stories and legends of fanciful places as inventions utilized by adults to frighten and compel children. It is quite another to confront them as reality.

Balavere Longax, Sofold’s greatest general, announced easily, “We shall all die.”

“Not unless we have to swim.” September’s habit of confronting danger with humor hadn’t left him. The greater the threat, the more irreverent his comments. He left the tunnel and strolled carefully across the ice to the water’s edge. “Maybe it’s hell to you, but I find the quiet and openness kind of attractive.”

To his surprise, Ethan had discovered he was also trembling. The giant’s words brought him back to normal. This was a Tran conception of Hell, not his. It was only a cold, dark place.

Holding his torch firmly he moved to join September. A glance over the frozen berm showed nothing but fluid blackness. It was as if he were staring upward at the night sky instead of down into the bowels of some primeval ocean. And like the night sky, this subterranean sea blazed with stars and nebulae of its own.

Thousands of tiny luminous creatures darted and jerked their way through the inky water. Green, hot pink, bright yellow, crimson, and cherry red—every imaginable color indentified some small blazing bit of existence. Compared to this well of magnificence, where every creature no matter how small was cloaked in gems, the atmospheric world above seemed drab and dull.

Ethan grew aware of another figure come up alongside him, but did not shift his gaze from that shimmering palette of life. “How can they live down here, Milliken, beneath the ice?”

“Perhaps there is vegetation which releases oxygen slowly, or volcanic production of gases.” The teacher shrugged. “Evidently there is enough to sustain a multitude of forms.”

“It is very beautiful.” Ethan spun. Elfa was standing behind them, peering almost shyly into the glassy blackness. She smiled hesitantly at Ethan. He couldn’t help but smile back. She was not fully recovered, but she was no longer in shock.

His gaze traveled to the glistening icicles, false stalactites, to the columns that exploded torchlight into a thousand tiny replicas of its source, none of which could match for diversity and beauty the swimming bead-shapes of the water dwellers. How lovely is Hades, he mused, when it is other than one’s own. Why, it was neither hot nor fearsome here, and there was no wind at all.

A whirlpool of luminescent life eddied ecstatically in the pale blue light of his beamer. He turned it downward, piercing the water to a depth of several meters. It was as if the beamer were a vacuum, sucking up ever more delirious dancers from the depths below.

The water erupted, sent them stumbling or falling backward.

Ethan saw a mouth. Rubies and emeralds, tormalines and topazes, ozmidines, ferrosilicate crystals mirror-bright decorated the cavern within a cavern. Stalactites and stalagmites of vitreous, transparent teeth lined the jaws. Around it was a face wide and fat like a toad’s, with a single searchlight of a mad vermilion eye above the bejeweled mouth. Black, slick flesh rippled in folds around eye and mouth, a pulpy envelope to hold organs loosely in place.

Whatever it was, it had been drawn from familiar depths by Ethan’s bright beam. Brave as they were some of the sailors fainted in place. Others forgot discipline and command in their rush to squeeze themselves back up the tunnel.

September and Williams already were firing at the apparition with beams tighter and more deadly than Ethan’s, while he strove frantically to readjust the setting on his own. Each time a blue beam touched the creature’s flesh the hallucination-made-real produced a gargantuan grunt. The humans fired as they retreated back toward the tunnel.

Mouth and eye rose roof high above the water and, hunched after them. Several more bolts struck it. The tumorous shape came down on the ice beach with a crash that echoed energetically ‘round the cavern, generating a low splintering sound. It lay still and unmoving, quartz teeth shining in the torchlight, the single round eye with its absurdly small black pupil staring blindly at them.

Screaming still sounded from up the tunnel, however, Hunnar had his sword out and was trying to force his way through the panicked mob.

“Cowards of Sofold! The daemon is dead, slain by the light knives of our friends who are half your size!” The mad rush upward slowed, ceased. Screams became anxious or uneasy murmurs. “When you are finished whimpering, you may rejoin us.” He sheathed his sword and deliberately chivaned downward at top speed, showing blatant disregard for what might await him within the cavern.

Gradually the sailors drifted after. They spread out below the tunnel mouth to gaze in delicious horror at the hellbeast resting on the ice. It was no less fearsome and not the least bit comical for having a body that was one-third head.

Displaying utter indifference to post-dying reflexes, September strode up to the creature which Eer-Meesach had already dubbed
Kalankatht
(which translates from the Tran roughly as “beast-which-is-all-teeth-and-no-tail”) and stuck his head into the gaping mouth. Frozen open, the upper jaw was still a meter above his hooded head.

Though two meters long on average, the transparent teeth were no thicker around than a man’s finger. There were hundreds in the chamber-sized maw. Short, delicate-looking fins projected from back and sides, while the blunt tail was flattened vertically for swimming and steering. It could not be very fast in pursuit of its prey, but it could bite at a lot of ocean.

Williams was examining the corpse with fine scientific detachment, though as a strong believer in the lingering independence of certain muscular functions he chose not to stray so near the jaws as had September. “Eye, mouth, and stomach. No waste space or organs.” He moved behind the nightmare, out of sight.

Ethan and Hunnar had joined September before the gaping mouth. “What more natural than that there be devils in Hell?”

Hesitantly, the knight reached out to touch the wet black skin. “Then you believe it a daemon of the underworld also?”

“Skua likes to fancify,” said Ethan. “There are similar, natural creatures living in the deeps of my own world’s seas. Some are bigger than this one, though none quite as outlandish.” As life-fluids ceased flowing within the body, the phosphorescences around mouth and sides were beginning to fade, lights and life going out together.

“This water is only part of your liquid ocean, the same kind of water that forms the ice above us, the ice that rafts chivan across, and that surrounds Sofold.” Ethan touched his torch to the floor, tasted of the water it produced. “Ice to liquid, just as you drink it aboard ship or back in Wannome.”

“Then the philosophers are right,” the knight said. “The inside of the world is fluid.”

Ethan smiled. “Oddly enough, that’s right; but the liquid is metal and not water. Williams can explain it better than I can.” He turned, called out. “Milliken?”

“This ends our exploring the sea.” September clipped his beamer back to his waist. “Next cousin of this mobile mouth we lure up is liable to be bigger still. What’re you yellin’ at, young feller-me-lad?”

“We can’t find Milliken. I thought he’d be studying this body, but …”

“Over here!” They looked to their right. The teacher was standing at the far edge of the cavern, where the ice gave way to sloping rock. As they moved toward him, he ducked back out of sight.

“Another cavern?” Ethan wondered aloud. Other Tran moved to follow them.

When they turned the bend he’d vanished behind, Milliken was still further ahead. The ice remained several meters from the gravel and stone.

“What is this?” September looked at the nearby ice wall curiously. “Another tunnel?”

“No.” Puffing, the schoolteacher had run back to rejoin them. “It seems to continue endlessly in a general northwesterly direction. In places the ice draws nearer to the island, in others it moves farther out. It may run around the entire circumference of the island.” He gestured back toward the now hidden cavern.

“At this depth, in this particular region anyway, volcanic heat from the island’s interior has spread outward instead of upward. We are probably at a level parallel to some horizontal flow of magma.”

“Then if we follow the curve of the island,” September pointed out, “we could come out under the harbor where the ship is moored.”

“Of what good is that?” asked Hunnar.

Ethan checked his beamer. “Our weapons are still three-quarters charged, Hunnar. We can cut our own tunnel upward. We couldn’t manage it through solid rock, but we’ve plenty of energy to melt ice.” He faced Williams. “Think you can judge when we’ve come near the
Slanderscree,
Milliken?”

“Dear me. I don’t know. The angle of our descent from the castle … I really don’t know.”

“Do the best you can. No matter where we come up, we’ll have a chance.”

When communicated to the rest of the crew, strung out back into the cavern, this information raised spirits considerably. Tran who had long since conceded soul and spirit to the Dark One found hope in the prospect of again confronting flesh and blood enemies.

The open corridor wound its way around the sunken shore. In one place the earth was so warm that the ice turned to black water nearby but the sailors refused to wade through it. Ethan and September had to use precious energy to cut a dry path upward through the ice, then down to the corridor again. They proceeded carefully. It wouldn’t do to lose contact with solid land and start cutting their way out into the enormous ice sheet which covered the ocean.

They rested, some of the Tran feeling confident enough to express a desire for food. Hours later, Williams said cautiously, “Here.” He raised his left hand, pointed upslope at a modest angle. “Cut here. If we melt our way upward at forty-five degrees we should come out beneath the ship.”

“How sure are you, Milliken?”

The teacher looked glumly at Ethan. “Not very.”

“An honest answer. I’ll start the cut, feller-me-lad.” September adjusted his beamer. After several tries he located the setting which best combined a fairly wide beam with enough power to melt the white ceiling overhead rapidly. Water ran beneath their feet, uncomfortable to Tran and human alike, if for different reasons.

Following immediately behind September, Ethan discovered his heart pounding harder than the climb demanded. His breathing was quick and heavy, his eyes darting around the circular tunnel. He found that shutting them relaxed his breathing and the hammering in his chest. Williams touched his booted foot and he jerked.

“Claustrophobic?” Ethan; looking back without opening his eyes, nodded vigorously. “Try not to think about it. Don’t think about anything. Think music to yourself.”

Ethan did so, dredging up a lilting popular tune from his adolescence. His heartbeat fell to near-normal and he discovered he could breathe without effort. Concentrate, he told himself. Concentrate on Merriwillya night a burning, a-burning, Merriwillya a-yearning. Not on the tons and tons and tons of ice over your head, below your hands and knees, pressing in on your sides, pressing, pressing …

He couldn’t take his turn at cutting. He didn’t freeze or faint, but the sight of solid ice in front of him while knowing there were hundreds of anxious Tran blocking any retreat was too much to handle. They showed Hunnar how to use the beamer and he took Ethan’s place, saying nothing as he crawled past the half-paralyzed salesman.

Fortunately, the tunnel lengthened as fast as they could climb. Intense energy kept the little stream flowing steadily around ankles and knees.