But then she spoke, with a nod to the dark sliver of land on the horizon. ‘And there you would have stayed, if I’d had my way.’ She glanced to Dow. ‘My name, New Islander, is Ignella of the Cave.’
Unnerved, Dow could only answer, ‘Yes.’
‘And do you know what I am?’
‘You’re the scapegoat of this ship.’
‘Aye.’ She smiled coldly. ‘It falls to me to safeguard this vessel from the perils of bad fortune. And it seems to me, Dow Amber, that you are bad fortune indeed. On some ships, my word as scapegoat would’ve been enough to have seen you left behind. But the Chloe is not such a ship, and Captain Vincente is not such a captain. He hears me out, but seldom listens to what I say.’
Ignella, thought Dow numbly. Not Nell, but Ignella.
‘Indeed,’ she continued, ‘the truth is the humblest sailor on this vessel has more of the captain’s ear than I, for all that he pretends to consult me. He trusts only fellow mariners, and only men can be mariners, and I am not a man.’ Her pale eyes widened to white, and for an alarming instant Dow was reminded of Mother Gale. ‘And now it seems that even a common New Island boy can win his approval, with no more than a few moments of foolhardy sailing in sight of the shore! How fortunate for you. Of course, in your land also, only men can sail.’
Dow merely stared, not understanding.
She faced him full on finally. With a clinical detachment – as one expert in the matter of scars – she reached up and touched the lumped wound on his forehead. Dow felt her fingers tug gently at the stitching, sending a strange spasm of pain and pleasure trilling down the back of his neck.
‘Lucky fool,’ she said wistfully. ‘If only I’d had something heavier to throw at you, instead of my glass.’ She shrugged, and glanced off westward. ‘Look, New Islander. Your home is gone.’
And with that she whirled and walked off.
Dow was left with mouth agape, dumbfounded. She had thrown the goblet? But then the import of her last words struck him even more profoundly. He spun back and gazed to the west. The sliver of land had disappeared. New Island and everything he had ever known had vanished below the horizon.
Loneliness pierced him, so raw and empty did that horizon look. But at the same time his chest swelled with an overpowering burst of excitement and relief and sadness, all mixed together and yet somehow not confusing anymore – rather, Dow felt all his doubts and cares finally dissolving into nothing.
He rounded again to face the bow, and the world seemed to expand to infinity. Behind was the fiery glow of sunset, to either side grey-green waves rolled away beyond sight, and ahead, in the east, was a misty darkness that promised only the unknown. The wind was gusting harder at his back and the Chloe reared into a rising swell, lofting up fine sheets of spray. Officers cried to the men in the rigging, their voices echoing the gulls that circled still about the masts. Dow tasted salt water on his lips, and smelt salt rich upon the air.
He took a deep, hungry, starved breath, then let it out.
At last, he was away.
ANDREW MCGAHAN is one of Australia’s finest writers of fiction. His first novel, Praise, won the Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1992. In 2004, The White Earth won the Miles Franklin Literary Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize South East Asia and South Pacific Region, the Age Book of the Year, and the Courier Mail Book of the Year Award. In 2009, Andrew was shortlisted for the Manning Clark House National Cultural Awards for his contribution to Australian Literature. The Coming of the Whirlpool is his first novel for young adults.
Andrew lives in Melbourne.
Now the white film was rising above the tip of the block, a delicate latticework of new ice, like a frost. Only by fractions of an inch maybe, but undoubtedly the block of ice was growing.
‘Here in the warmth of the cabin,’ said Fidel, ‘the process will not continue long. The piece of ice is itself already melting. But in the far north, where the water is at freezing point, and where the air is even colder, the process can continue indefinitely. Hence, when ice forms at sea, it forms not as a sheet as it would on a freshwater pond. No, because of the nicre, the ice climbs and climbs upon itself. In time, immense spires rise. But watch now . . .’
In the jar, the scaffolding of new ice was perhaps half an inch tall, and growing thicker. Then suddenly the entire block overbalanced and rolled in the water, and the little tower of frost was plunged beneath the surface. A new face of the block was exposed – and immediately the faint crackling resumed, and a film of fresh ice, white and fragile, began to rise.
‘Do you see now, Dow, why we call it the Unquiet Ice? The far north is a wilderness of great bergs that grow and grow – to hundreds of feet in height – until they become top heavy and roll in cataclysmic collapses, only to begin growing all over again. And that sound you can barely hear, that crackling? In the ice regions it is a constant thunder and groan.
‘But there is worse yet. In the far, far north there is no space left for the bergs even to topple, and so they pile up against each other, and grow to the very limit of the nicre’s reach, forming a great and jagged rampart that rears a mile high and encircles the pole entirely, blocking all further progress north. The Ice Wall. No ship has ever passed beyond it, or beheld the pole. But it is there that we now must search after the lost fleet.’
Table of Contents
Cover
Half title
Title
Imprint
Chapter 01 Fair Warning
Chapter 02 The Headland
Chapter 03 The Winter Council
Chapter 04 Down the Claw
Chapter 05 Nathaniel
Chapter 06 A Tale by the Fire
Chapter 07 The Catching of Fish
Chapter 08 The Chloe
Chapter 09 At the Binnacle
Chapter 10 The Lash
Chapter 11 The Rising of the Claw
Chapter 12 The Maelstrom
Chapter 13 At the Governors Pleasure
Chapter 14 The Burning of New Island
Chapter 15 The Offing
About the author
An extract from The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice
The Coming of the Whirlpool Page 24