by Jason Fry
Stax forced himself to look away, hoping Fouge wouldn’t spot her. But Fouge had seen the black cat, just as he’d seen Lapis and Emerald, who were huddled behind Coal, all of them wild-eyed with fright. He gestured to the raiders.
“No!” Stax cried out. “Do what you want to me, do what you want to the house, but don’t hurt my cats! They’ve done nothing to you!”
“Well, neither have you,” Fouge said.
One of the raiders crouched down and reached out to the cats, a wide smile on his face, and made psst-psst noises of enticement. Stax opened his mouth to yell a warning, only to have Fouge clamp a hand over it.
“Stax!” he said mildly, wagging a finger. “That’s cheating!”
Stax stared in horror as the cats shrank back from the raider’s outstretched hand. Silently, he begged them not to fall for the trick. They hesitated, uncertain, and then Coal hissed and spat. A moment later all three cats had shot up the cracked diorite stairs and vanished into the shadows of the garden.
Stax closed his eyes in relief, but Fouge just shrugged.
“Our work is almost done, anyway,” he said. “In fact, it’s time for the finale, Stax.”
They dragged Stax out into the yard, now marred by pits and littered with broken birch limbs. He watched as the raiders bashed down the diorite-and-granite walls and tore up the stairs. The animals had fled or been carried away, the fountain was shattered and befouled, and the fences had been toppled.
“That ought to do it,” Fouge said. “Set the rest on fire.”
A raider poured lava from a bucket into the center of the living room, then hurried out as the remains of the carpet caught fire. Fouge nodded and marched away, down the sandstone steps. The planks of the dock were floating in the water and the little trim boathouse was a burning, roofless shell. The boats sat low in the water, overloaded with goods pillaged from the Stonecutter estate. At Fouge’s orders, Stax was forced into one of the boats and made to sit by a big, black-bearded ruffian at the oars. The man was wearing Stax’s third-favorite shirt, the yellow one with red dragons on it.
“Comfy, Stax?” Fouge asked. “I hope so. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
Stax looked at Fouge and found his face outlined by the burning boathouse, a red halo of fire. It was twilight and bright cinders were drifting through the air like little stars.
“Why?” he managed to ask.
“You know, everyone always wants to know that,” Fouge said. And then he shrugged. “It’s funny.”
Stax stared at Fouge, waiting, and it wasn’t until the bandit leader had climbed into his own boat that he realized that there wouldn’t be more. Fouge had given him the only answer he was going to get.
An inhabitant of the ice * A journey through rough seas * Fouge discusses the world * A night around the campfire
It was quiet on the water, with no sound except the shoosh of oars in the water and an occasional grunt from the raiders at their work. Night fell, and soon the stars were spilled out over Stax’s head, shimmering constellations slowly wheeling above him.
The raiders’ path took them between giant spikes of ice that rose from the ocean around the Stonecutter estate. Stax shivered; it was a warm night, but occasionally drafts of cold air swept down from the ice floes and over the water. Looming above them, the ice seemed to glow with its own light, which was a gentle, pale blue. Stax could hear faint creaks and groans in the night around him. At first he thought it was the raiders, tired after their grim work, but then he realized it was the ice shifting and settling, the equivalent of a sleeper turning over in an effort to find a comfortable position.
It’s beautiful out here, Stax thought to himself. And I never knew it.
If you’re thinking that’s a strange thought for someone who’d just been kidnapped and seen his home reduced to ruins, a moment later Stax had the same reaction. He wondered why he wasn’t screaming, or trying to fight the black-bearded raider, or doing something. But everything still felt slightly unreal, like he was dreaming.
And the pillars of ice really were beautiful.
A moment later, though, something growled in the darkness—a low warning sound that Stax could somehow tell was made by something large and powerful. He peered into the gloom, trying to spot its source, but was confused by the echoes bouncing around in the labyrinth of ice slabs.
Next to the boat carrying Stax and the black-bearded ruffian was another one, rowed by a smaller, sour-faced man.
“That’d be one of them white bears,” the black-bearded raider grunted to his colleague. “Give it space. That noise means it’s got young with it. They’re vicious things—tear yer head clean off.”
“That’s exactly what you all deserve,” grumbled Stax, which earned him a smack across the face.
“You dare—” Stax spluttered.
“Oh, I dare,” the black-bearded raider said. “Gimme a reason, fancy boy, and I’ll end yer adventure right here.”
Stax shrank away from the raider, who went back to his rowing with a last warning glower.
“Can’t see a thing out here,” the sour-faced rower complained. “We could be right on top of that beast and not even know it. Foolish choice, travelin’ by night.”
“Yeh don’t like it, take it up with the boss. Orders are that we keep movin’.”
The boat slowed. Stax could see the pale shapes of the other boats, but they were hard to tell apart from the drifting ice—or the mysterious white bears.
Part of him hoped he’d be able to see the attack, if it came; he would take a grim satisfaction in watching a furious bear sink the boats and tear into the outlaws that had destroyed his home. In fact, he realized he could raise a ruckus in hope of drawing the bear’s attention. But then he thought of himself bobbing helplessly in the icy water, surrounded by bodies and wreckage and having to choose between freezing to death and walking into a predator’s teeth and claws.
No, Stax decided, he would wait. He would wait and hope for a chance to get away, or get revenge, or do something other than sit there as a helpless prisoner. His house—whatever was left of it—was behind him, just on the other side of the ice field. He would be able to find his way back, and comfort the cats, and find shelter. And then he’d figure out how to track down Fouge and his raiders and make them pay.
But he wouldn’t be able to do any of that frozen in the water or in a bear’s stomach. So he told himself to be patient and then leaned forward and scanned the gloom of the ice field, trying to find the bear.
When he did, he drew back in shock and surprise. He couldn’t see the bear itself—just a suggestion of a great white mass—but a torch held by a raider in another boat was reflected in its eyes, which shone in the darkness ahead of them, like two great lanterns.
“There!” Stax said, his voice urgent, his finger outstretched.
“Quiet, yeh miserable stupid—” the black-bearded raider began, but then he saw where Stax was pointing and stopped. Hasty, hushed conversation was made, and the raiders cut to their right, seeking another path through the blocks of ice. Stax kept his eyes fixed on the bear, and the great eyes remained fixed on him, with the huge beast growling continuously until the boats were past it.
The boats made slow progress through the labyrinth, and eventually Stax felt his eyelids drooping. His chin began to sag onto his chest, and finally he fell into a fitful, uncomfortable doze. The night passed that way, interrupted by brief glimpses of dark water around them, and the ceaseless stars above them.
Stax woke up completely when the boat scraped across sand and gravel, grinding to a halt. Someone was shaking him roughly. It was the black-bearded raider, and he looked weary and mean after a night’s work at the oars.
“Out, yeh,” the man snarled. “No time for freeloaders.”
Blinking, Stax found himself on a bleak gray shore beneath a bluff of e
xposed dirt. Above the dirt were gray mountains rising into clouds tinged pink by the dawn. He looked back across the water, hoping to spot the ice field, but saw nothing but the sea, dotted with the raiders’ other boats.
“Where are we?” he asked dully. His neck hurt abominably from being slumped in the boat all night, salt had left his eyes stinging and his clothes stiff, and his wrists were raw and chafed from being bound.
The raiders just ignored him, barking out orders. A few clambered up the bluff, axes in hand, to chop down trees. They let Stax walk in a small circle on the beach, trying to work the stiffness out of his legs.
“Well, good morning, Stax!” called a cheerful voice.
Stax looked over and saw Fouge grinning from his own boat, beneath a black banner.
“Dangerous seas ahead,” Fouge said. “You don’t get seasick, do you?”
Stax felt his anger rise up, but before he could yell or make a rush at Fouge’s boat, helplessness seemed to overcome him and suddenly his arms and legs felt impossibly heavy.
“That’s right, you don’t know if you get seasick,” Fouge said. “Because you’ve never been anywhere. I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
“Question, boss?” grumbled the black-bearded raider.
“What is it, Miggs?”
“Can we camp here?” Miggs asked, wiping his dirty hands on what was no longer Stax’s shirt. “My rowers are tired and could use a rest.”
“No,” Fouge said immediately. “These waters are crawling with drowned, and where those things are lurking, worse things aren’t far behind. If we make good time, we can camp tonight.”
“But, boss—” Miggs began.
“I said no,” Fouge said sharply. “Presumably you understand what ‘no’ means.”
Fouge signaled to his own rower. They began to pull and soon his boat had dwindled to a pale dot against the gray sea.
“Yeh heard the boss. Hurry it up!” Miggs yelled, and the raiders came back down the hill, carrying chunks of timber.
He turned his baleful gaze on Stax. “As for yeh, back in the boat. I’m tired of rowin’ yeh around while yeh sit there and do nothin’.”
He gave Stax a shove in the back, hard enough that he almost fell.
“So just leave me here, then,” Stax said. The little spit of land looked grim and uninviting, but anything was better than whatever Fouge and his raiders had in mind for him. “I’ve nothing else you can steal, and I’m just slowing you down.”
“Wish I could,” Miggs growled. “But the boss says otherwise. He’s got plans for yeh, fancy boy.”
The other raiders began to laugh, a sound that Stax didn’t like at all.
Miggs’s boat joined a line of craft rowing across the dark gray sea beneath a low sky with clouds like old iron. The sun shone wanly through them, and Stax shivered. Dark clouds hid the sun and it began to rain.
“Don’t yeh dare lose sight of the next line of boats!” Miggs yelled across the water to the sallow-faced man, his muscles straining at the oars. “We’ll be lost out here forever!”
The boat lurched sideways and Stax slipped off the bench. He huddled in the bottom of the boat, immediately soaking his legs and rear end. Within minutes he was violently sick, heaving and spitting.
The sallow-faced man laughed, and Miggs glowered at him. “Stick to yer rowing, Kivak,” he growled. He gave Stax a look of disgust, but was too busy to do anything else. When Stax’s stomach was finally empty, he just groaned and clung to the bench, only half-conscious. After an hour or so he was able to drag himself back up to a sitting position. He remained there, wet and miserable, as the boats spent hours crawling through the water.
The sun shone dully near the horizon to the right of the boat. Stax supposed that meant they were going south, and tried to remember where the sun had been at various times during the journey. But it was hopeless—a jumble of impressions and brief glances. He had no idea where they were, or the path they’d taken from the estate. They could have been anywhere.
They were heading for an island, he saw now—a spit of beach in the middle of the emptiness. He could see torches moving back and forth across it, and boats on the shore. Miggs’s boat ground to a stop and he and Kivak dragged Stax out by the back of his shirt, leaving him on his knees in grit and muck. Stax forced himself to stand up, but the land seemed to be heaving up and down, like he was still on a boat. Disoriented, he staggered a couple of blocks up the beach and half-sat, half-collapsed on the sand.
The camp was buzzing with activity, with raiders setting torches out in a ring, building a fire, and crafting beds. Fouge stood in the center, the setting sun throwing his elongated shadow across the beach.
“Stax!” he said, with that same fake cheer that made Stax want to scream. “You must be tired. We can’t treat an honored guest so poorly, now can we?”
And before Stax quite knew what was happening, he’d been dragged to his feet, the ropes around his wrists had been cut and he was sitting in front of the campfire on a log. Someone pressed a slice of meat into his hands, burnt and blackened from the fire. He sniffed at it: pork. Other raiders were tearing into mutton, chicken legs, and beefsteaks, the juice running down their chins. They were laughing now, the stress of the long ocean passage temporarily forgotten.
Suddenly it occurred to Stax where the food must have come from and he thought about flinging his meal into the fire. But his belly rumbled and he stopped himself. He was starving, and there was no point doing the raiders’ cruel work for them. He forced himself to eat, chewing mechanically and staring into the fire, while trying to ignore the crude boasts and insults that passed for conversation among the raiders.
Stax wondered where they’d all come from. They were human, but very different in terms of skin color, size, and dress. There was a mix of men and women, and they ranged from short and wiry to intimidatingly large and muscular. Some had long black beards, while others were bald, their heads covered with tattoos. All of them carried weapons, from bows slung over shoulders to swords and axes. Some were missing eyes, fingers, and even arms.
“Quite a merry band, don’t you think?” asked Fouge, settling down on the log next to Stax.
Stax thought about once again asking the raider boss why he’d done what he’d done, but doubted he’d get an answer this time either. And then he thought about ignoring Fouge, but found he couldn’t do it.
“What…what are you going to do with me?” he finally asked, wondering if the raider would answer.
“You know, I haven’t decided,” Fouge said, then got to his feet. “Mr. Stonecutter wants to know what we’re going to do with him. Any ideas?”
The raiders laughed.
“Drown him in the surf,” said Miggs. “I’m tired of him.”
“Stake him out for the creepers,” suggested a tattooed woman with an eye patch. “And in the morning—KABLAMMO! We’ll see how many pieces he’s in.”
“Leave him here,” said Kivak. “Lovely place. Garden spot of the entire Southern Sea.”
It went on like that for a while, with each suggestion more barbaric, while Fouge smiled and nodded.
“Any of those ideas appeal to you?” Fouge asked Stax, when the raiders finally ran out of suggestions.
“No,” Stax said. “Well, yes, actually. Leave me here.”
“Here?” Fouge looked around the island. “There isn’t a tree or even any grass. I don’t think you’d last very long, Stax.”
“What do you care if I die?”
Fouge smiled that predatory smile of his. “Stax, Stax. If I wanted you dead, it would have been a minute’s work back at the house. But no. I don’t know why I feel this way, but something tells me you have some purpose, some role left to play in our little drama.”
“Purpose? Role? Haven’t you done enough to me?”
Fouge pursed his
lips, considering. “No, I don’t think I have. But hey, what a start, right? A couple of days ago you were sitting in your house doing nothing, and here you are having a great adventure. You’ve done more in the last day or so than in your entire life, wouldn’t you say?”
“Great adventure?” Stax sputtered. “You destroyed my house, stole my things, and kidnapped me. That’s not an adventure.”
“Well, it is for us,” Fouge said. “We go where we want and do what we want. You should have tried it, all those years you sat there in your house on the hill.”
“You’re robbers and killers,” Stax said. “If everyone did what you’ve done, no one would live in peace. The world would be an awful place. Is that the kind of world you want?”
Fouge just laughed.
“But Stax, that’s the world we live in already,” he said. “If I had my followers douse the fire and those torches, do you know how long we’d survive? Within an hour, terrible things would come out of the sea and drag us beneath the waves, or creep out of some hole and put their hands around our throats and squeeze the life out of us. And our story would be over, just like that.”
He leaned back and gestured to the sky, where a few stars glimmered through the veil of clouds.
“Look up there, Stax,” Fouge said. “Do you think the stars care about you and your house? About me and what I’ve done, or what I will do? Will the waves break any differently on this miserable bit of sand? Will the sun rise at a different time, by way of protest? Will the rain come down harder? The world doesn’t care about any of us, Stax. The mightiest person is but a momentary nuisance compared with what you see up there. So yes, Stax: Do what you want. It’s the only way we’ll ever matter.”
Stax just shook his head. “You’re a monster.”
“We’re all monsters. The difference is some of us admit it. Now get some sleep, dear boy. We’ll be setting off at dawn, so you’ll need your rest.”