The anchors of Ice Ghost raised a high screaming. She ploughed across the ice throwing a white hail of chips to either side, speed barely diminished. She had speared a huge bull; animal and boat careered by the stalled Princess. Stromberg cut his line, heavily, left the carcass with the bright harpoon-silks still blowing above it. Steered in pursuit.
Sometimes in the half hour that followed it seemed he might overrun Lipsill; but always the other boat drew ahead. The narwhal left a thick trail of blood, but its energy seemed unabated. The line twanged thunderously, snagging on the racing ice. Ahead now the terrain was split and broken; fissures yawned, sunlight sparking from their deep green sides. Princess bucked heavily, runners crashing as she swerved between the hazards. The chase veered to the east, in a great half-circle; the wind, at first abeam, reached farther and farther ahead. Close-hauled, Stromberg fell behind; a half mile separated the boats as they entered a wide, bowl-shaped valley, a mile or more across, guarded on each side by needle shaped towers of ice.
Ahead, the glittering floor veered to a rounded lip; the horizon line was sharp-cut against the sky. Ice Ghost, still towed by her catch, took the slope with barely a slackening of pace. Stromberg howled his alarm, uselessly; Lipsill, frozen it seemed to the tiller, made no attempt to cut his line. The boat crested the rise, hung a moment silhouetted against brightness; and vanished, abrupt as a conjuring trick.
Princess’s anchors threw snow plumes high as her masthead. She skated sickeningly, surged to a halt twenty yards below the lip of ice. Stromberg walked forward, carefully As he topped the ridge the sight beyond took his breath.
He stood on the edge of the biggest crevasse he had ever seen. It curved bock to right and left, horseshoe-shaped, enclosing the valley like a white tongue. A hundred yards away the opposing side glowed with sunlight; across it lay the ragged shadow of the nearer wall. He craned forward. Below him the ice-wails stretched sheer to vanish in a blue-green gloom. There was mist down there, and water-noise; he heard booming, long-drawn threads of echo, last sounds maybe of the fall of the whale. Far below, impaled on a black spike of ice, was the wreck of Lipsill’s boat; Mard, still held by his harness, sprawled across the stern, face bright with blood. He moved slightly as Stromberg stared, seeming to raise himself, lift a hand, Karl turned away sickened.
Realizing he had won.
He walked back to Snow Princess, head down, feet scraping on the ice, swung himself aboard and opened the bow locker, dumping piles of junk and provisions on the deck. There were ropes, spare downhauls and mooring lines. He selected the best and thickest, knotting methodically, tied off to the stern of the boat and walked back to the gulf. The line lowered carefully, swayed a yard from Lipsill’s head.
He returned to Princess. She was stopped at an angle, tilted sideways on the curling lip of the crevasse. There were crowbars in the locker; he pulled one clear and worked cautiously, prising at the starboard runner, inching the yacht round till her bow pointed back down the long slope. The wind, gusting and capricious, blew from the gulf. The slope would help her gather way; but would it be enough?
He brailed the sails up as far as he dared, stood back frowning and biting his lip. At each gust now the anchors groaned. threatening to tear free, send the boat skittering back down the incline. He scrabbled in the locker again, grabbing up more line. Another line, a light line that must also reach the wreck.
There was just barely enough. He tied the last knot, dropped the second coil down. Working feverishly now, he transferred the heavy line from the stern to a cleat half-way along the port gunwale and locked the tiller to starboard. The anchors were raised by pulleys set just above the deck; he carried lines from them to the little bow windlass, slipped the ratchet, turned the barrel till they were tight. The handle, fitted in its bone socket, stood upright, pointing slightly forward over the stem of the boat. He tied the light line off to the tip, tested the lashing on the improvised brake. It seemed secure; he backed toward the cliff edge, paying both ropes through his hands. Mard seemed now to understand what he was doing. He called croakingly, tried to move. The wreck groaned, slipped another foot toward the crevasse, Stromberg passed the heavy line between his thighs, round one calf, gripped it between sole and instep. Let himself down into the gulf.
The descent was eerie. As he moved the wind pressure seemed to increase, setting him swaying pendulum-fashion, banging his body at the ice. The sunlit edge above receded; he glanced below him and instantly the crevasse seemed to spin. The ice walls, sloping together, vanished in a blackish gloom; the wind called deep and baying, its icy breath chilled his cheek. He hung sweating till the dizziness passed, forced himself to move again. Minutes later his feet reached the last knot, groped below it into emptiness. He lowered himself by his arms, felt his heels touch the deck of the boat. He dropped as lightly as he could, lunging forward to catch at the tangle of rigging. A sickening time while the wreck surged and creaked; he felt sweat drop from him again as he willed the movement to stop. The deck steadied, with a final groan; he edged sideways cautiously, cutting more rope lengths, fashioning a bridle that he slipped under Lipsill’s arms. The other helped as best he could, raising his body weakly; Stromberg tested the knots, lashed the harness to the line. Another minute’s work and he too was secure. He took a shuddering breath, groping for the second rope. They were not clear yet; if Ice Ghost moved she could still take them with her, scrape them into the gulf. He gripped the line and pulled.
Nothing.
He jerked again, feeling the fresh rise of panic. If the trick failed he knew he lacked the strength ever to climb. A waiting; then a vibration, sensed through the rope. Another pause and he was being drawn smoothly up the cliff, swinging against the rock-hard ice as the pace increased. The sides of the cleft seemed to rush toward him; a last concussion, a bruising shock and he was being towed over level ice, sawing desperately at the line. He saw fibres parting; then he was lying still, blessedly motionless, Lipsill beside him bleeding into the snow. While Princess, freed of her one-sided burden, skated in a wide half-circle, came into irons, and stopped.
The crevasse of Brershill lay grey and silent in the early morning. Torches, flaring at intervals along the grassy sides, lit Level after Level with a wavering glare, gleamed on the walkways with their new powdering of snow. Stromberg trudged steadily, sometimes hauling his burden, sometimes skidding behind it as he eased the sledge down the sloping paths. A watchman called sleepily; he ignored him. On the Level above Coranda’s home he stopped, levered the great thing from the sledge and across to the edge of the path. He straightened up, wiping his face, and yelled; his voice ran thin and shaking, echoing between the half-seen walls.
‘Maitran.
A bird flew squawking from the depths. The word flung itself back at him, Ice Mother answering with a thousand voices.
‘Arand...’
Again the mocking choir, confusion of sound reflecting faint and mad from the cleft.
‘Hansan.
‘Skalter. ...’
Names of the dead, and lost; a fierce benediction, an answer to the ice.
He bent to the thing on the path. A final heave, a falling, a fleshy thud; the head of the unicorn bounced on the Level below, splashed a great star of blood across Cornada’s door. He straightened, panting, half-hearing from somewhere the echo of a scream. Stood and stared a moment longer before starting to climb.
Giving thanks to Ice Mother, who had given him back his soul.
The Wreck of the "Kissing Bitch" by Keith Roberts
Of all the cities of the great ice plain that men once called the Matto Grosso, none was as ill-found and displeasing as Djobhabn. None, certainly, whose inhabitants were more lacking in the simple virtues of kindliness and mirth. Or so, at least, decided Frey Skalter of Abersgalt.
He was bouncing at the time, rapidly and painfully down the steep ice path that led horn the threshold of the Crescent Moon inn to the sixth of the seven levels on which Djobhabn was built. After him, boundi
ng and clattering. rolled his prize harpoons. Timbo, his bearer, pattered worriedly in their wake.
Skalter’s unusual mode of exit had been dictated largely by the lack of a Djobhabian sense of fun. At the Crescent Moon, biggest and busiest of the cities taverns, the dancers, by tradition, perform unclothed. Tradition also dictates that those of the audience wishing their further acquaintanceship indicate their desire--and means--by a coin placed before them on the table top. These offerings the girls retrieve, sealing the prospective bargain with tact and delicacy. Skalter, rolling drunk from the bitter warmpond beer for which the place is also noted. had heated a golden noble to smoking point atop the nearest of the big old blubber stoves that lined the walls. The lure had been taken most satisfyingly, but the end result, he told him self, could scarcely have been foreseen.
He had time to tell himself little else. He fetched up against a boulder at the foot of the path with a thump that jarred the remaining breath from his body. He rolled over grunting, sat up feeling tenderly for damages. The rock had at least been conveniently placed. At his back, the ice chasm within which the city was built stretched down to a greenish gloom. The path was both steep and slippery, Worn by the passing of many feet; had his course not been intercepted, his fall would have been eternal.
The shock had partly sobered him. He rose carefully, steadying himself against the ice wall to his left, as Timbo arrived with the harpoons. The lad chattered empty mouthed, rolling his eyes at the abyss; and Skalter grinned. "Ice Mother guards her own," he said with his hands. "I carry the seed of a great house, Timbo; even goddesses must have a care for their dues".
He stared round him gloomily, "Now where," he mused aloud, "in this forsaken hole, can a man drink his beer and do no harm, without being mishandled by. . .ouch. .thugs who wouldn’t know a cow whale’s butt from a foundered cargo hulk?"
Timbo pointed, crooning. Some hundred yards along the ledge, at the far end of the crevasse that housed the vertical township, a sign, faded and ill-lit, proclaimed the Tavern of the Black King. Skalter shrugged. he’d marked the place already, but had felt no inclination to enter. It wore a dismal, half-deserted look; and a master harpooner, fresh from a long, successful voyage on the Southern Ice, needs life and movement round him, and a modicum of gaiety. Already he was regretting the impulse that had made him leave the whaler Bright Girl at her first port of call. Had it not been for the whim, he would be halfway home to Abersgalt tomorrow, he told himself. he would find out what ships were in the pound, and which were due to call. His body-belt was heavy; he would buy passage for Timbo and himself, travel home for once in style.
Ducking under the low entrance of the inn he collided with a short, portly figure swathed its furs that gave it the out line and dimensions of a barrel, He muttered an apology, and would have stalked on; but the other gave a shout of recognition. In an instant the two were capering in the narrow space, clapping each other on the back and roaring. Roll Skane was a Friesgaltian, a fat, cheerful man with whom Skalter had shipped some five seasons back. He had been a first mate then, with a good record of killing runs behind him; now, as was evinced by the jewellery on his fingers. the thick gold torque slung round his neck, he had come up in the world. He had grown tired of whaling, he informed Skalter in a bull-like voice, bought himself the skipper ‘s share of a bluff-bowed little tub of a merchantman. His trading had prospered; he owned two cargo boats now and was currently negotiating the purchase of a third. He aimed to leave Djobhabn at first light, but as yet the night was young. "My uncrowned king of lancers," he said, wheezing, "my prince of perforators, if ye’d stack those weapons ye carry for a while, and address y’self to a barrel of ale with me, y’d do me a service. It’s a dank enough hole, the Mother knows: but the beer’s as fine as ye’ll taste, I warrant ye that".
Skalter followed him down the narrow corridor of the place, shouldered behind him into the one low-ceilinged chamber. He stood for a moment, narrowing his eves. The tavern was little more prepossessing within than without. At one end of the room the bar, stacked with its metal beer casks, was framed by the monstrous jawbones of a land whale: behind it a thickset, sour-faced man was setting out drinking cups, topping them with the dark, bitter beer. On the far wall, dimly visible through the wreaths of smoke, a crudely conceived mural represented the death of the whale that had given the inn its name. The great creature writhed, eyes snapping fire, sides hung thick with lances: in the background a schooner, headsails aback, was dwarfed by the monstrous shape. Men swarmed across the ice, cutlasses in their hands; others drove lances deeper into the thing’s tattered sides: while above all a thick, dark fountain jetted at the sky. Men and ice alike were reddened by the horrid spray.
Skane, still roaring good-humouredly, possessed himself of a corner table. The dozen or so drinkers present had already turned away from examination of the newcomers, readdressed themselves listlessly to their beer. The ex-mate lit up a rank-smelling pipe, thrust his stumpy legs out comfortably and began the evening’s business.
"I heard," said Skane, "ye were on the Sunset Child when she got stove in over Fyorsgep way. What happened there, old friend? Did ye miss y’r aim?"
"I missed nothing." said Skalter shortly. "To the silks I sank my shaft, and a brace more to make good our hold. But that creature, Thunderer,. wasn’t born to die of a lance," He grinned reflectively. "He still roams the Middle ice." he said. "I saw him two seasons past, leading a herd out from the Abersgalt Break. Nine cows he had with him, as fat with oil as a man could wish: and more lance tips in hs hide, I warrant, then treenails in our garboard strake."
"What vessel were ye on?’’
‘‘Blonde Barb, from Fyorsgep. Ako Sundermans, Master.’’
"And did ye offer chase?"
Skalter laughed. "Not so. Ako put up his helm, as if every Fire Giant in the Underworld was warming the ice ‘twixt his runners. We didn’t slacken till we raised Fyorsgep mole.
"Barmaid," bellowed Skane. "Where in all the Hells, where in the Mother’s realm, is our beer?"
Skalter, glancing up casually at the girl who brought the drinks, stopped speaking. He frowned, as a man mortally stricken by lance or spear may frown, as if glimpsing some truth hitherto inaccessible, before his eye glazes and he falls,
Skalter in those days was by no means what he appeared. Certainly the careless opulence of his dress, the insolent, swaggering walk, the reek of blubber and lymph that hung about him, were the marks of a whaleman; but his family, as he himself had hinted, were wealthy. There had always been Skalters in Abersgalt, merchants and warehousemen: but Frey, the eldest of three brothers, had as yet shown no inclination to follow the family trade. The wide ice beckoned, and the glinting, shifting horizons; at seventeen, followed by a spatter of his father’s curses, he had shipped out on his first voyage. Ten years on the ice had toughened him; he had killed both whales and men and feared nothing that walked, ran or flew. Now it seemed he was in his turn transfixed, by a pair of black-fringed opal eyes.
Skane noticed the direction of his glance, and snorted with derision. "Mother save ‘e, Frey," He said. "Have ye taken leave of y’r senses?" He wrestled a passing serving wench into his friend’s lap: she sat giggling plumply, favouring Skalter with gusts of none-too-sweet breath. He dislodged her abstractedly, eyes still following the brown, slim girl as she moved about her affairs. He said, "Who is she. Rolf?"
The other grunted. "Landlord’s daughter, or so he reckons," he said, "Though how that slab-flanked old bull could sire such a stripling is more than I can say. T’is likely the other tale’s true; they found her as a babe on the ice. An offering. to the Mother.’’
Frey started. "How was that?"
His .companion shrugged. "Ask her y’rsell, for I don’t know the rights of it. Nor care overmuch, truth to tell. . ."
‘It’s true," mused Skalter, eyes grey and distant. His hands spoke rapidly to the dumb boy at his feet. Timbo nodded, eager as a dog, glancing from his master to the object of his con
cern. "A speywife warned me once," said Skalter slowly. "In Abersgalt it was, before I ever sailed, One day, I was to wed the Ice Eternal. I thought she meant--but it’s no matter, Roll. This is the Mother’s babe,"
Skane drained his pot in a single gurgling swallow, ‘‘Smitten ye are most certainly, and that to the quick." he said. "And there ye wallow. Frey Skalter, fountaining naught but drivel." He slammed the cup down irritably, "Away with the creature, man; thy strength would snap it in two. Say. will ye take passage with me or no?"
"I’ll be at the pound," said Skalter vaguely. "I’ll see you take your leave. . ."
Men bustled round the trader Horn of Plenty’ where she lay shackled to the ice. Dawn was in the sky, splitting the eastern gloom with flaring bands of yellow, throwing long shadows of spars and masts across the beaten grey surface of the pound. The wind riffled Skalter’s hair as he stood staring up at the broad, patched hull. "Drink for me in the Ice Queen on Abersgalt mole," he called. "Remember me to old Ley Schaldron, if he still breathes. ‘Ware trolls and were-maidens, Skane!"
A blast of profanity answered him. "Skalter," said Skane pleadingly, "ye’re a fine lance, the finest on the ice. Ship with me, on the old terms, and I’ll promise ye--"
"A slow voyage, and a worse haven-making," said Skalter. "What, this lumbering tub to grip a whale? She’d burst her seams in the chasing, and so would you. You’re old and fat, Roif, and so’s your ship; stick to the trades you know--"
"Then the Mother take thee!" Skane’s apoplectic face appeared once more over the gunwale, glaring down in fury. It bobbed back; and Skalter heard the shouts to the bow men, Mauls rang, striking the stops from chains. Sails flew and leaped; Frey jumped clear as the stern tackles were released. The Horn of Plenty began to gather way, runners groaning and squealing. Such was her skipper’s preoccupation that she all but rammed the sloping mole of iceblocks that guarded the harbour entrance. She hauled clear at the last moment, shaking out the rest of her sails with something of the ruffled dignity of a hen. Minutes later, only her mast trucks were visible; she faded fast into the deceptive whiteout of the horizon.