by Perry Aylen
‘And you say Ivor was working for Gabriel, and it was Gabriel behind the attack on Grim?’ Jacob quizzed Ingar.
Ingar nodded. ‘Gabriel sent them to search the Aurora for clues to Elya’s whereabouts.’
‘Perhaps they think we’re hiding her,’ said Aulf, ‘ready to spring her back out at an opportune moment. It’s the kind of tactic Gabriel would employ, after all.’
‘And they stole the charts, along with the strikers and the hands? Well, lucky I have the copies here with me.’
Ingar squeezed her hands together with eager impatience. ‘So, tell us about the joint council?’
Jacob, full of excitement about the outcome of the council meeting, needed no second asking.
‘What’s an ice fair?’ asked Ingar, when Jacob had given them his summary of the meeting.
‘A market. Like the islands already have, only out on the ice. Everyone, from all the different islands will come to buy and sell things.’
‘Why on the ice?’
‘If it was held on one particular island, the others would think it was unfair,’ Jacob said. ‘This way, everyone’s equal. But also, there’s loads of room. It could be a really huge affair. Spectacular! And it would be special. Imagine it, stalls and sideshows and places to buy food and drink, and skating parties, and sled rides. Dog sled rides!’ he added as an afterthought. ‘That would be fun! Grim and Svanah would love that idea.’ He was dying to tell them the other part of the plan, and added excitedly, ‘I said we’d build a tower. By the Dragon’s Teeth.’
Ingar looked intrigued. ‘Why do you need a tower?’
‘The council was worried about the Horde attacking while they were out on the ice. Building a tower there would mean better protection.’ Jacob saw that Ingar looked confused.
‘We’d post lookouts during the fair, and the towers would send signals if danger was spotted.’ He held up the sketches he’d been working on since the meeting. ‘What do you think?’
They were in the cabin of the Aurora. Ingar sat down beside him on the bunk, taking the proffered parchment. She studied it for a few moments, familiar now with Jacob’s designs for towers.
‘It’s made of wood.’
‘What did you expect? Stone?’
‘No. Ice.’
Jacob took back the piece of paper from Ingar’s hand and stared at it intently. Ice? Maybe the idea wasn’t ridiculous. Could he build a tower from ice? One of the challenges he had been working to solve was that, out on the exposed ice, a wooden tower would sway too much in the constant wind to send a reliable signal. A tower built of ice would be trickier, but it would be solid.
‘You’re right.’ He looked thoughtful. 'It would make much more sense to build it out of ice. Let’s head up to the wizards’ tower, and see if we can find out if anyone knows an ice mason. If there is such a thing!’
Later, at the wizards’ tower on Spinnyridge, messages started to trickle in. Eventually, the answer came from Quayven, with its vast walls of ice hemming the harbour. Two men regularly repaired those huge defensive ramparts of ice, and it was their father, Lorand, who had worked on the original walls. He was elderly now, living with his family on Wellspring Island.
‘Where’s that?’ Jacob wanted to know as they deciphered the message.
Aulf grinned. ‘Right next door to Jakir Chine. Ma’s neighbours.’
With the Spinnyridge tower complete, there was nothing to delay them, so they set out straight away for Wellspring Island, intending to drop in at Ma’s on the way. They sailed via the Dragon’s Teeth, so that Jacob could ascertain the best place for the fair and the new tower.
The Teeth loomed ahead, like the remains of a giant’s fence along the horizon, the only objects disturbing the blank monotony of the ice. It was the first time any of them had been back since that fateful day when they had sailed away from the burning funeral pyre, and as they drew closer, Jacob could clearly see the two broken posts, silent reminders of the night of his father’s death. A growing knot of dread tightened in his stomach at what he might find there.
As the Aurora slid to a halt, Ingar appeared at his side and held out his skates.
‘You go,’ she said, with an encouraging smile. ‘We’ll wait here for you.’
Grateful that someone had made the decision for him, Jacob strapped on his skates and set off over the ice. He slowed as he got close to the teeth, unable to put away his heavy sense of foreboding. But, drawing closer, apprehension turned to bafflement. The ice was smooth. There was no sign of any burnt out wreckage, nothing but frozen flatness. It was only when he looked down that he realised there was something there, visible beneath the clear surface of the ice; blurred shapes and an indistinct shadow that he guessed must be ash. Slowly, understanding dawned. The pyre had melted the ice beneath it, creating a bowl into which the debris of the fire had sunk. Over the intervening months, the ice, constantly melting during the day and refreezing at night, had gradually filled the bowl, just as it filled the tracks left by the runners of the boats every day. The shapes below the surface were the metal pieces of Gem, and perhaps even his father’s bones. The ice had encapsulated everything, removing it from view and preserving it forever. Alone on the ice, silent and still, something strange happened to Jacob. All his grief and guilt gently subsided, and he found himself more at peace than at any time since Elya had vanished.
Back on the Aurora, they sailed up and down the length of the Dragon’s Teeth, until Jacob had assured himself there was no practical difference in where they should site the tower or hold the fair.
‘We’ll build the tower right at the end, spaced like an extra tooth,’ he finally declared, after they had sailed along the line for the third time. ‘It will look impressive there, with the teeth, curving away elegantly into the distance, and the tower, tall and graceful, at the end of the line. It will look as if the teeth are marching up to it. Like they’re announcing it.’
Aulf laughed. ‘Jacob, you talk about buildings the way other people talk about sunsets or women.’
Jacob grinned. It was true. He saw beauty in stones and wood, in buildings and machines, and he could envisage his tower as though it already stood there in front of him. It had a slender, marble-like splendour that his original wooden tower lacked, but he was not yet certain he could make it a reality. He needed to talk to Lorand, the ice mason.
Lorand’s wiry frame had been shrunk by the years, and he was bent almost permanently double by a lifetime of heavy labour, but his eyes remained bright. He sat by the stove in his kitchen, while his daughter-in-law made hot drinks and carved a slab of apple cake into slices for their guests. Lorand’s face was as wrinkled as a dried apple.
Jacob described the elegant tapering structure he envisaged, tall and imposing, yet safe enough for a man to climb.
‘But I don’t know if it’s possible to build it,’ he admitted.
‘If you can build it with stone, you can build it with ice,’ said Lorand.
‘How long would it last?’ Jacob asked.
‘Out there on the open ice? Forever, if you want it to.’
‘But won’t the sun gradually melt it?’
Lorand seemed to find the suggestion amusing. His eyes crinkled as he laughed and shook his head.
Jacob looked puzzled. ‘It melts the top layer of the ice every day,’ he pointed out, frowning.
‘That’s right,’ returned Lorand, conceding the point. ‘But lie down on the ice. There’s no wind when you’re at ice level. Watch the tendrils of mist and see how gently they waft. But stand up, and the wind blows constantly in your face.’
‘So the tower walls would stay frozen because of the wind.’
Lorand nodded. ‘The harbour walls on Quayven haven’t melted yet, have they?’
Jacob finally began to realise that his vision was a practical possibility. His excitement was back. ‘So, tell me,’ he urged Lorand, leaning forward, enthusiastically, ‘how do I build with ice?’
Chapter 45
A house barge pulled up at the Dragon’s Teeth where the Aurora was already moored. Behind it came a smaller barge, piled high with building timber, firewood, and two massive timbers to replace the broken Dragon’s Teeth.
Jacob was waiting for them, eager to get the work under way. Following his precise directions, the men started digging with ice axes and shovels. It was much harder work than digging earth, but they put their backs into the task and soon had two channels dug, an arm’s width apart. With a man in each channel, on the ends of an ice saw, they sliced down to cut the blocks with which they would build the tower walls.
Jacob had set out a circle of pegs. Slush mortar was spread on the ground and the first block positioned. Jacob felt a great sense of relief to see it there. With the evidence in front of him, he began to feel confident that he could now achieve his vision.
He had planned this project meticulously, even designing an ingenious wooden platform hoist to lift the huge blocks of ice into position, which, when the building reached its full height, would become the top deck of the tower. Even so, he was nervous. Building in wood and stone was one thing, but building with ice was unfamiliar territory and he found it difficult to relax.
Yet, the building progressed well, in spite of his worries. The walls rose swiftly, tapering upwards. Tapering the tower as it grew had been Jacob’s gut instinct. The design was more stable than a uniformly narrow tower. It used half the blocks of a wide tower, but it did present technical challenges when it came to construction. He was therefore relieved as the building progressed to see that he had made the right decision. The hardest part of the labour was the block cutting, which was slow and gruelling work. Standing in the ice trenches, the men could not benefit from the warmth of the sun, and were constantly being showered with wet and freezing ice chips. It seemed to Jacob the fewer blocks they used, the better.
The ice tower would be tall, taller than any of the stone towers, which had hills beneath them to raise them up. The sheer height was breathtaking in itself, frightening even. Whenever Jacob stood on the ice and gazed upwards, his heart jumped with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. There was an awkwardness too, something to which he had not confessed. As the tower rose higher, so Jacob surveyed it only from the level of the ice. Even watching the men working way above his head on the platform hoist made his muscles feel weak and his stomach tense.
After almost a month of living and working in freezing, inhospitable conditions, carving and hoisting hundreds of frozen blocks into place, the day came when the ice tower was finished. Even to Jacob’s critical eye, it was a thing of spectacular beauty. Slender and graceful, it soared upwards into the cloudless blue sky, pale, smooth walls shining like jewelled glass in the sunlight. At its foot, the long line of the Dragon’s Teeth marched away in a sweeping line under its lofty gaze, like a line of sentries paying duty to a resplendent queen. Long ladders had been fixed up the inside of the tower, and the mirror and shutter were in position on the wooden deck, way above the ice.
Ingar was in love with the tower. She and Aulf came by the site regularly, and she had watched it grow, like a pale shining arm pointing skywards, aware that, of all the people out there on the ice, only she and Jacob understood the wizards’ code, and, secretly, she was convinced that Jacob would never climb those steep ladders to the top. As the days passed and the tower stretched ever higher, she began to feel that it was being built for her alone. On the last day of building, she was there to help lay the final block of ice, and, after the mirror and shutter were fixed into position, would not come down again, impatient for Svanah to arrive at Zanzo so she could send her first message. Clad in furs and mufflers against the fierce cold and the biting wind, every few minutes she would flash a signal, willing Svanah to respond, hardly able to contain her excitement.
Eventually, to her great joy, a series of bright flashes came back. Ingar stood back from the shutter, startled. It was not what she had been expecting. She requested a repeat in case she had misinterpreted the message, but it came back the same. Without even waiting to confirm receipt, she hauled open the trapdoor and all but slid down the ladders in her haste to reach the bottom of the tower.
Calling Jacob’s name and sprinting as only she could across the ice towards the Aurora, Ingar hurtled through the cabin door, bringing a rush of freezing air with her, and threw herself at an unsuspecting Jacob, dragging him from his seat on the bunk and spinning him round in a frenzy of excitement.
‘It’s Elya! It’s Elya!’ she squawked, dragging the layers of scarves away from her face so Jacob could understand her muffled shouts. She thrust her hastily jotted note of communication from Svanah in front of his nose. She had transcribed the message with a thickly mittened hand which made it harder to read.
WATCHING FROM THE DARK BROODING HILLS. ELYA. MSGENDS.
‘Elya!’ whispered Jacob, in disbelief. He stared at the note as though hypnotised by the message.
Ingar could barely contain her delight. ‘You know what this means?’ she squealed.
Jacob stared at her, dazed. ‘It means she’s alive, after all,’ he breathed, as though he could still hardly believe it. ‘Is this for real? It’s not some sort of joke?’
Ingar shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. It came from Zanzo via Spinnyridge. From Thorland. “Dark brooding hills” - it makes sense. That’s how I described Thorland to Elya. That’s where she is. Thorland!’
‘What on the wide ice is she doing there? And how did she send this?’ wondered Aulf. ‘There’s no tower on Thorland.’
‘There is now! There must be!’ laughed Ingar, bouncing up and down in her delight. ‘Don’t you see? That’s what this means. Elya must have built a tower on Thorland!’ She grabbed hold of Jacob’s hands and flung them up and down excitedly. ‘Now we know where to look!’
They both looked at Aulf and saw that the laughter had left his face, like a shadow had eclipsed the sun. Ingar’s face fell too. ‘I’m sorry, Aulf, I forgot.’
Aulf shook his head, and forced the smile back to his face. ‘No, you’re right. We should go and find her.’
‘It’s Thorland. It’s too dangerous,’ said Jacob as he remembered what Ingar and Ma had told him. ‘Wasn’t your father murdered there?’ he asked Aulf, hesitantly.
Aulf gave a small, half embarrassed shrug. ‘He died in a fight there, in a bar. But I don’t know what really happened, or who even started it. There aren’t many people from our part of Hexult who would be welcome on Thorland, but he was one of the few, because he took the mail. But he had a knack for getting into trouble. And he mixed with the wrong kind of people.’ Aulf drew a resigned sigh. ‘The only reason I’m so good at sailing is that I learned it from necessity when I was very young. In the mornings, my father would often still be drunk from the night before, so I had to take charge of the boat. I never found out exactly what happened the night he died, except that there was a brawl, and he was killed with his own knife.’
Ingar bit her lip. ‘I didn’t realise it had been like that. You never said.’
Aulf shrugged again, and gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘It’s not something I boast about. But that was the last time I was in Thorland, and I had to leave in a hurry as there were some very angry men claiming the Aurora belonged to them. I think my father - drunk as usual - had gambled away more than he intended. That could even have been what the fight was about. I didn’t hang around to find out.’
Jacob dropped his eyes and gave a little nod. ‘I can see why you wouldn’t want to go back.’
‘We need to think about this,’ Ingar said, with a worried frown. ‘First, I think you’re right, Jacob, we should check that this is genuine and not some terrible joke.’
Jacob agreed. ‘We really need to talk to her ourselves. Would you send a message back to Spinnyridge to find out when they first picked this up?’
Ingar nodded, and skidded away across the ice to her tower. Jacob rummaged in a locker and found a piece of parchment. He picked up a penci
l and held it poised over the paper, realising suddenly, that after months of separation from his sister, he had no idea where to start. By the time Ingar returned, bringing in another burst of cold air, he had got as far as “Dear Sis”, and had crossed that out.
‘Three days ago!’ panted Ingar.
‘Sorry?’ Jacob looked momentarily confused. His mind was still on his letter.
‘The message.’ Ingar was tugging at her copious layers of clothing, red in the face from clambering up and down the tower. ‘The first time they saw it was three days ago, and then each day since, at the same time.’
‘If only we could set up a mirror quickly!’
‘We can!’ Ingar told him almost jumping up and down in her desperation to impart her news before she exploded with excitement. ‘They’ve got spare mirrors and shutters on Spinnyridge. When the message first arrived, they took one up to the tower, and they’ve been waiting to contact you to see if it was all right to use it.’
‘Did you say yes?’
‘I nearly did. I wanted to, but then I thought I really ought to check with you first.’
‘Tell them to do it now!’
Ingar needed no second asking. She was out of the cabin and racing across the ice before Jacob had finished his sentence. He had to clamber out of the cabin and shout after her disappearing back, ‘Send her my love. Send her everyone’s love. Ask her how she is. Tell everyone to stay on their towers. We’ve got a lot to talk about!’
He could not be certain Ingar had heard. Hastily he pulled on his coat and hat and hurried after her, slithering dangerously in his haste. By the time he reached the tower, there was no sign of Ingar on the ladders. She had shinned up with her usual feline speed.
Desperate to communicate with Elya himself, Jacob put his foot on the ladder. Ingar might be quicker on the shutter, but he wanted to be there, to read the messages for himself as they arrived.