by Laurence Yep
They high-stepped after Roxanna with Scirye and Kles straggling behind. The snow crunched beneath Roxanna’s boots, but the short walk loosened up her muscles.
Using the shovel, Roxanna traced a wide circle on the surface. “We need to dig a shallow pit here, say about a yard down.”
Leech had taken the shovel and he began to empty the snow from the drawn circle. In one spot, they all heard a grating sound. “Hey, there’s a rock here.”
“I told you it was an island,” Roxanna said.
Leech had lifted out five more shovelfuls before his shovel clinked against something. “That sounds like metal, not rock.”
They all stood around as he cleared the snow away from a fuel can. Scirye lifted out the frozen container. It was so light it had to be empty. “What’s this doing here?”
Kles poked his head and sniffed with his sensitive nostrils. “I smell airplane fuel.” They all could. The stink of petrol was unmistakable.
Leech stabbed his shovel experimentally into the snow until they heard another metallic clink. “Here’s another one.” He went on checking until they had found six in all.
Koko scratched his head. “I bet if we went on digging, we’d find even more.”
Roxanna brushed snow away near one of the cans. “There’s a hole in the rock.” It was about an inch in diameter, and with a pencil she probed into it. “And about eight inches long. Like a tent peg.”
Scirye glanced at the resting Bayang, but she had her eyes closed. “Maybe we found Roland’s fuel depot.”
Roxanna nodded. “The island would provide a good landmark for a pilot.”
“I wonder how far ahead Roland is?” Leech asked excitedly.
Scirye felt adrenaline surge through her as well. The chase was still on! She turned to the dragon. “Bayang, we found where Roland re-fueled.”
Bayang opened an eye. “At least we know we’re on the right track.”
They moved a few yards away until they found an area where there were no cans.
Leech began digging, and when he had emptied an area deep enough for Roxanna she used one of the knives to cut the first block from the side of the pit. When she was done, she had a block about a yard long and fifteen inches high and eight inches deep. The hole continued to widen and deepen as she removed more blocks.
The other children’s first tries crumbled for one reason or another and they would never have had enough building material without Roxanna’s dogged efforts. “Don’t worry,” she encouraged them. “When my Inuit friends were showing me how to do this, I kept making mistakes too.”
Then the Sogdian girl laid out the first blocks in a wide ring, tilting them inward slightly and then shaping them with the knife so they pressed together snugly.
Slowly the rings of snow blocks grew around the pit created by taking out the blocks. With more practice, the children got better at making them, so the construction went faster. Soon Roxanna was setting the last blocks in place over the dome and carving them into a smooth curve.
Roxanna nodded to the inert Bayang. “She has to be small enough to fit through the door.” Roxanna waved her gloved hand at the entrance.
Scirye started toward the resting dragon, but Koko said, “Let me.”
His short legs wouldn’t let him high-step through the snow like the others. Rather, the badger threw his large stomach forward like an icebreaker’s prow, waddled forward on his stumpy legs so that he caught up with his belly, and then repeated the process until he was leaning right next to one of the dragon’s ears.
“You know,” the badger shouted, “I bet I could make a million purses out of this alligator’s hide.”
Bayang’s head shot up so fast that her skull flipped Koko hindquarters over forequarters. He tumbled across the snow several times before he flopped onto his back.
“You just try that,” the dragon growled, “and I’ll turn your mangy fur into a diaper bag.”
“The igloo’s ready,” Scirye called. “We need you to shrink to about my height.”
“Is my tail still there?” the dragon asked, and twisted her head around on her long neck to make sure. “I couldn’t feel it for a moment.”
Too tired to get up, the dragon shrank herself right where she lay, giving off a shimmering glow, leaving the harness with its cargo lying on the surface about her like a net.
Bayang tried to rise but only managed a half crouch. Scirye moved across the snow to her friend. Leech followed a moment later. With them pulling and her crawling, the dragon managed to reach the igloo.
Bayang’s jaws cracked in a huge yawn. “It must be my reptile blood. We get torpid in extreme cold.” Closing her eyes, she slumped back down.
“Ahem,” Koko called. They saw his paw rise above the surface of the snow and wave. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just sleep out here. Is that the plan?”
“I’ll get him.” Leech grinned.
Roxanna, Scirye, and Upach followed him, and it wound up taking their combined effort to get the grumbling badger back on his hind paws.
“I’m going to sue that dragon for all she’s worth,” Koko complained. “I’m all one big bruise.”
“You look fine to me,” Leech said.
“The fur covers it up,” Koko said, beginning to limp toward the igloo. “Oh, the pain. The pain.”
Leech caught him by the tail. “Save it for acting class. We’ve got all that stuff to move.” He jerked a thumb at Bayang’s load.
“But—,” Koko began to protest.
Scirye gave him a playful shove. “But nothing. If you don’t help, we really will leave you out here to turn into a badger-cicle.”
“You shouldn’t pal around with that dragon,” Koko said, floundering over to the boxes and baskets. “You’re getting a real nasty streak.”
As the children, Upach, and Koko retrieved their parcels, the sun disappeared and they all looked at the darkening clouds that were beginning to cover it up.
“I’m sorry, Roxanna,” Scirye said. “You were right. We finished the igloo just in time. It’s just like you said, one mistake out here could have cost us our lives—and I was the one who wouldn’t have made it if it hadn’t been for you.”
Roxanna beamed at the praise. “Thank you, Lady. I’m trying my best.”
With a greater sense of urgency, they carried the containers over to the igloo, piling them up near the entrance. They repeated this several times while from a set of marked boxes Upach took furs and covered the snow inside for ground cover.
This time Koko let Scirye rouse Bayang, though truthfully the dragon only half woke up and crept on her belly inside, where she promptly fell asleep again.
The others had to step around her as they shifted their gear inside, stacking it against the walls. Then Upach hung a leather hide over the entrance to keep out the worst of the wind.
From one of the baskets Roxanna produced a tiny fire imp in a lantern. It gave off only a dim light, but they were grateful for it.
Kles had been quiet since they had landed, but Roxanna had assumed he was napping. However, when she opened her coat to let him out he barely stirred. “Hey, time to get up,” she said, prodding him with a finger.
He mumbled something about fish eggs and rolled over. “Kles?” she asked, now worried.
Raising the griffin in both hands, she pressed him against her cheek. “Kles, you have to wake up. Kles, Kles?” After a minute of calling, her friend’s eyes finally fluttered open—to everyone’s immense relief.
“This should help warm him,” Upach said. She’d already taken out the portable stove and filled a kettle of snow. She soon had wheedled the stove’s imp into flame, and the sweet scent of tea was filling the interior.
Holding the cup next to Kles’s beak, she urged, “Come on, Kles. This is good for you.” The feathery head turned drowsily, but he began to sip from her cup. As the hot fluid drove away the cold from his body, she was glad to see him sit up.
“Goodness gracious,” he said. “What happe
ned?”
“The cold gets to some creatures faster than others,” Roxanna said, rummaging around in another basket until she found a tin of broth cubes and more of the little cakes that were frozen by now.
With Kles snuggling on her lap and with Leech holding up Bayang’s head, Scirye then poured hot tea down the dragon’s throat.
After that, Upach thawed out tasty little cakes made from berries and honey and made a pot of soup from reindeer jerky. By that time, both the dragon and griffin were sitting up alertly. And by the end of their meal, the igloo had begun to warm from the heat of their bodies as well as the stove and lantern.
Koko looked wistfully at the boxes. “That was good for a snack, but what’s the main course?”
“That’s it,” Roxanna said. “Since we don’t know how long we’ll be out here, we have to make our supplies last.”
Koko plopped his plump haunches into the snow onto a bed of furs. “A badger’s belly is his pride.” His paw pantomimed a swelling as large as a watermelon. “Pretty soon folks are going to mistake me for a lamppost.”
“At least you’ll finally be good for something.” Kles sniffed.
Scirye had a soft spot for the conniving badger. “Don’t worry,” she said, patting him comfortingly on the paw. “When we get home, we’ll feed you so well that every other badger will be jealous of your shape.”
“And you’ll weigh half a ton,” Leech teased. “You’ll never be able to fly on Bayang again.”
“Great,” the badger and dragon both said with equal fervor.
19
Scirye
They decided that one of them should keep watch while the others rested, and Scirye volunteered for the first shift. She was weary to her very bones, and she was afraid that once she went to sleep it would be nearly impossible to rouse her.
The others were rolled up in sleeping furs and on her lap Kles was making the loud humming sound that was his snore. The noise blended with the howling winds into an odd sort of tune.
As she sat there, the tune began to curl about sensuously within her mind like a ribbon of incense smoke, coiling about her thoughts and twisting them into meaningless shapes.
Before she knew it, Scirye had drifted off into sleep.
Scirye had the pleasantest dream. Her father had flown in from Bactra to San Francisco. He tried to join them wherever her mother was posted—though lately he’d been so busy that he hadn’t been able to.
Her mother, her sister Nishke, and she were showing him the sights on a cable car. Far away on a hilltop were the three stone columns that were their destination. They would have a wonderful view from there.
It was a warm, sunny day in the city and her father was laughing as he stood on the outside step. And Scirye was laughing with him. It was rare when the family was together, and she felt safe and happy for the first time she could remember.
Ahead at the next corner, several people had crowded into the street, waiting to board the cable car. Something glinted on the head of a waiting woman. It was a lion’s head, shining as intensely as the sun.
Frightened, Scirye called to the uniformed conductor and the brakeman, “Don’t stop! Go faster!”
Without arguing, they released the cable so that the cable car sped along, clacking over the rails, bell ringing. The prospective passengers in the street whizzed past in a blur.
When the cable car slowed again, it was rattling through Honolulu. Scirye knew they had to get off the cable car and hide among the gaudily clad tourists swarming the city.
Scirye herded her sister and parents off the car onto the sidewalk, where they slipped through the mob and found themselves by a small fence with pickets made from bamboo. Opening the gate, they stepped into a luxurious garden of plants with leaves broad as emerald sails and strange-shaped flowers of every color. The air was thick with scents and sniffing them made Scirye feel almost dizzy.
The huge leaves closed overhead like a canopy so that they walked the path in green shadow. Just when Scirye began to hope they were safe, the ground itself began to rise, became the palms of brown hands and the trees the fingers. Shining down upon them was a huge moon that filled half the sky, and etched with diamond sharpness upon the moon was the face of Nanaia.
“Akshe!” her sister, Nishke, said in the Old Tongue. “Wake up!”
Scirye ran across one hand and leapt…into snow. It clung to her ankles and swirled all about her—as if the whole world had dissolved into a million billion bits of white snowflakes.
And yet through the snow she saw a figure trudging past her in short, gliding steps that made it look as if she were shuffling on roller skates. Unlike Scirye, the figure moved across the surface.
The traveler was in shaggy fur trousers that went whuff-whuff as the legs rubbed against one another. It wore a jacket of the same fur with a hood that hid the person’s face. Over one shoulder and hanging limply down the person’s back was a brown leather sack.
Around the traveler’s waist hung a belt woven from leather strings, and dangling from the belt on thongs were all sorts of beads, charms, pebbles, carvings, shells, and feathers. They bounced against the person’s legs as the traveler walked, making a click-clack-click in counterpoint to the noise made by the trouser legs rubbing together.
The figure stopped and turned slowly, snorting sounds coming from within the hood as it tested the scents in the air.
“Shh. Don’t talk,” Nishke warned. “Or the hag will hear you.”
Scirye was standing right out in the open, and even with the swirling snow, the hag could not miss her. She wanted to run, to scream, but she could not move.
Her heart skipped as the hag seemed to look directly at her. In the shadows deep within the hood, two eyes glared at her. At least, they were where eyes should be on a face, but they were really more like holes behind which a bilious green fire burned—a fire so malevolent that Scirye found herself shuddering.
But then the hag faced forward, away from the girl, and began her peculiar sliding walk.
Whuff-whuff. Click-clack-click. Whuff-whuff.
The strange, ominous noises dwindled as the hag disappeared into the storm.
“Remember,” Nishke whispered, “the otter will show you the way.”
Her hand felt hot as if she were holding a boiling cup of tea. Scirye became aware that she was lying on her back inside the igloo. Outside the winds tore at the snow blocks with airy claws and howled in fury when they would not budge.
Scirye tried to open her eyes, but the lids felt as heavy as iron. Kles’s familiar weight was still in her arms.
Whuff-whuff. Click-clack-click.
When she heard the noises, she was so terrified that she almost didn’t want to raise her eyelids. But she knew she had to.
It was a great struggle, but she finally managed to squeeze one eye slightly open. The “3” on her hand was glowing as if that was causing the sensation of heat.
There was barely any light at all from the fire imp asleep in the lantern. But she managed to make out the hag standing in the middle of the igloo and shoving something into her leather bag. It was starting to swell outward like a giant brown toad squatting on the floor.
When Scirye glimpsed the pear-shaped body disappearing into the bag, she realized it was Koko up to his shoulders inside the sack.
As the impatient hag shoved more of the badger inside, the bag expanded. In horror, Scirye watched the sides of the bag ripple like the muscles of a jaw chewing a meal.
The hag’s right hand became stuck inside it. Her shoulders shook back and forth as she tried to tug free, but the bag drew her in steadily until she was in up to her elbow.
Then she darted her left hand to her waist and gripped one of the objects hanging from her belt. Suddenly she was straightening up, easily drawing her right arm out free as if it had been greased.
That’s it! Scirye thought to herself. It wouldn’t do the hag any good just to be able to put her hand in and out if she lost her prey insid
e. There had to be some magical object on the belt that let her elude the bag’s grasp.
From the corner of her eye, Scirye saw the others lying asleep, oblivious to the badger’s abduction.
Scirye tried to cry out a warning, but her vocal cords were as paralyzed as her body and no sound came out.
Even so, the hag whirled around so that she was facing Scirye.
20
Scirye
The hag’s head jerked up when she saw that one of her victims was awake and she began to sway back and forth and hiss like a teakettle about to explode.
Setting one foot on Koko’s body, the hag put one hand on the object on her belt. Stooping, she grabbed the bottom of the bag with the other hand and jerked it upward so that the unconscious badger plopped out onto the igloo’s floor.
Then the hag began to shuffle a little quicker toward Scirye, pulling the bag behind her.
Whuff-whuff. Click-clack-clack.
Scirye fought to move her arms, her legs, her vocal cords, but they felt like stone. All she could do was lie there helplessly as the hag shuffled right next to her, looming over her like a greasy, furry shadow. The hag stunk of sweat and rancid fat and…blood. Scirye was all too familiar with that smell by now.
When the hag set the bag down, it tilted its mouth expectantly toward the girl. Looking into the sack was like gazing into a huge, dark cavern, and Scirye even thought she heard faint cries for help echoing from within.
The hag bent, her eyes glowing evilly as she reached down—not for Scirye but for Kles.
Fear for her friend gave Scirye extra strength. Finally, she found her voice. “Kles, wake up!” she screamed.
The little griffin did not stir. Only his buzzing snore told her that he was still alive.
Within the hood, the hag’s eyes glowed brighter and angrier.
She hates me, the girl thought.