City of Ice

by Laurence Yep

  “Taqqiq.” Lord Resak signed to an old brindle-colored wolf with huge muscular shoulders and scars on one jowl and barked some commands to him. Spinning about, the wolf loped on all fours in a kind of half-walking, half-skating gait, his nails clicking along the hard surface through a door on the left. Then Lord Resak listened intently to the walrus, whose jowls and whiskers twitched as he made his report in a whuffing voice.

  “Hey, easy on the merchandise,” Koko complained as he dangled upside down by one hind leg. Bayang had used her tail to lift him out of the water.

  “Quit wriggling, you idiot, or you’ll make me lose my grip.” Bayang harrumphed. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be swimming around searching for the stairs.”

  “Well, for future reference,” Koko said, and pointed at his head, “this end always goes on top.”

  Kles had poked his head out of Scirye’s coat. “I think you ought to throw him back until he grows more.”

  “I’m tempted,” Bayang said, but she lowered the badger down gently on the dock before she let go.

  Koko barely had time to hop upright on his hind paws when the walrus and seal waddled past him to the edge of the dock and plunged in.

  “The narwhals said that they spotted a Tizheruk, so I’m sending them out and expanding the patrols,” Lord Resak explained.

  “Tizheruks are giant snakelike amphibians that can come out of the water,” Roxanna whispered to the friends. “They don’t move very fast on land, so they try to snatch some careless person on a beach, but they’re deadly in the water.”

  At that moment, one of the doors on the right opened and out came a group of Arctic foxes using the same gait that Taqqiq had used as they walked upright on their hind legs. The foxes’ winter fur was a shining white, and around their necks were crude gold chains that suggested they were officials rather than servants. In their paws was an old wooden staff as thick as Scirye’s wrist. Others carried a cape of pure white fur. There didn’t seem to be anything special about the staff, which looked like a plain old wooden pole, but the cape gleamed like newly fallen snow. A tortoise with a long neck had been sewn upon it with gold thread.

  The foxes waited respectfully until the walrus had finished his report and waddled backward.

  “Give Lord Resak room,” one of the foxes intoned in a shrill but solemn voice, and Scirye and the others imitated the walrus’s example.

  Looking about to make sure he had enough space, Lord Resak held his head up high and started a different dance, stamping first his right hind paw and then his left, turning slowly as he did so.

  Stomp, stomp, stomp, his feet went in a slow, steady rhythm.

  Closing his eyes, he began to murmur a chant, picking up the beat so that he was whirling around rapidly like a toy top.

  Stomp, stomp, stomp. The bear was spinning now faster and faster until the drumming of his paws was as quick as Scirye’s heartbeats and he himself was a blur

  It seemed to the girl that his silhouette was changing, but he was so quick that she couldn’t be sure.

  And then he was slowing down so that Scirye could see he was no longer a bear but a man in a white fur coat and trousers with furry mittens over his hands. A silvery white beard covered his jaw and a thick, bushy eyebrow formed a thick, solid line across his forehead. Clothes and hair contrasted to his dark skin, which was almost black. Her mother would have called him ruggedly handsome.

  He was now about six feet tall but thick and wide as a boulder and gave off the impression that he was just as solid and permanent as one.

  Scirye glanced at the humans and bears and wondered if they had the same power.

  The foxes moved forward then, raising the cape respectfully to Lord Resak. As Lord Resak took the cape and tied it about his shoulders, the foxes reverently lifted up the staff. Taking it, he turned to Scirye and her friends and thumped his staff against the ice. “Welcome,” he boomed, “to my palace”—his voice dropped ominously—“and your prison until I can send a messenger to Prince Tarkhun and learn the truth about your identities.”

  33

  Scirye

  “Hey, I’m a shape-shifter too,” Koko said, thrusting out a paw as he strolled forward. “That makes us sort of cousins, so you don’t need to suspect me. Want me to show you the secret paw shake?”

  The guards growled and burbled ominously. Lord Resak, though, stilled them with a gesture and then scolded them sternly. Turning back to Koko, he said, “I told my children that you are a fool and until we hear from Prince Tarkhun we will tolerate you.”

  Koko gave a nervous laugh as he rubbed his head. “Heh, heh, that’s me all right: just one big happy idiot.”

  Curling her tail, Bayang poked Koko with the tip as if he were a billiard ball. “Right now you’re being an exceptional jerk.”

  However, Leech was more direct. “Ut-shay up-quay,” he warned, and dragged Koko backward.

  “We are careful whom we claim as kin.” Lord Resak inclined his staff toward the still-snarling guards. “They have proved over and over that I can depend on them. Wolves, foxes, walruses, seals, otters, and narwhals, they are all my children.”

  “So that’s how the narwhals and otters could stay up here during the winter,” Roxanna explained to the others. “He makes sure they have everything they need.”

  “Yes,” Lord Resak said. “Now give that rifle to my child here.” He indicated a wolf. “You’ll get it back if you truly are Prince Tarkhun’s daughter.”

  Reluctantly, the Sogdian girl unstrapped her rifle and held it out so the wolf could clamp his jaws around it.

  “Do you want these, Lord?” Scirye asked, taking out her stiletto and axe.

  Lord Resak waved a paw. “No, against my warriors, those toy fangs and claws won’t give you any unfair disadvantage in a fight.”

  Kles had crept back out of Scirye’s coat and onto her shoulder, where he had just finished grooming himself. “You have a remarkable clan then, Lord. In many other places, they would be natural enemies.”

  “After the First Dawn, it’s true that their ancestors hunted and killed one another,” Lord Resak agreed. “However, when humans came to this land, some of the creatures of the North came to me and asked for my protection. I said I would, but only if they agreed there was more to kinship than blood: That worth is measured not by how many legs or fins you have, but by the size of your heart.”

  His guards growled their assent.

  Koko gazed at their surroundings. “So you all live in this big ice cube?”

  They heard his chugging laugh again.

  “In a way,” Lord Resak said. “Originally, the clan just carved out barrows and dens within the glacier. But over the generations, it’s grown into our palace.”

  Kles gave a polite bow. “And may I compliment you on its magnificence, Lord Resak. So innovative. So unique…”

  As she listened to her friend sing the palace’s praises, there were times when Scirye regretted that her friend had learned the art of flattery at the imperial court.

  “The glacier will melt before you’re done talking.” Lord Resak frowned and Kles snapped his beak shut with a clack.

  “If you don’t live in the Wastes, Lord Resak, why were you there?” Bayang asked.

  “It’s our hunting and training preserve,” Lord Resak said, “where the young ones learn the old ways and we old ones keep up our skills. Lately, a large band of vermin had come to the Wastes, so I went to see for myself.”

  “And got ambushed,” Leech said.

  “Inconvenienced,” Lord Resak corrected the boy.

  “And the phantoms?” Roxanna asked.

  Lord Resak seemed to be weighing how much to tell them, but, Scirye guessed, he figured that since they would never leave unless he decided they were telling the truth about themselves, it would do no harm to give them more information.

  “Yes,” he said. “No one sees the foxes when they don’t want to be seen. And the otters and seals dig all sorts of tunnels and h
iding holes in the ice so they can pop out and play their tricks when they want. They excel at it. Harmless travelers were guided out of the Wastes. And hunters…” He shrugged. “Well, we did to them what they would have done to us.”

  “Couldn’t you have just made those people do what you want?” Scirye asked.

  “My magic is the magic of Nature,” Lord Resak said. “I can’t make humans go against their own wills, because that would be unnatural.”

  “But you…” Scirye paused. It seemed impolite to say the word “kill,” though it was the truth.

  “Killed some of them? Yes. Dying is as much a part of Nature as living,” Lord Resak explained gently. “But I neither enjoyed nor regretted their deaths—no more than the blizzard that slays a mother reindeer and leaves the calf bawling. It is simply something that I do.”

  Bayang had once warned Scirye that powerful beings like Pele had a different perspective than humans. If Lord Resak’s perspectives were just as inhuman, what about Nanaia?

  Roxanna bit her lip as she looked around. “Wait. I just realized something. There’s no glacier in the Wastes.” She paused as she thought a moment. “But the Kristiana Glacier is twenty miles to the north of Nova Hafnia.”

  “Is it?” Lord Resak said.

  “Very sly misdirection,” Bayang said. “If someone suspected that the phantoms were real, they would think their homes were in the Wastes rather than here.”

  “Especially the treasure hunters.” Lord Resak chuckled.

  At that moment, Taqqiq trotted back into view with a half-dozen more wolves. Behind them were large trays piled high with salted fish, which seemed to float over the ice. Then Scirye noticed all the tiny furry bodies carrying them.

  “Ah, time to repay my debt,” Lord Resak said.

  Scirye could see about a dozen shadowy shapes circling about in the water below. At Lord Resak’s call, a familiar ivory horn broke the surface and a pale narwhal twisted its upper torso backward so its eyes could look up at the bear-man.

  In clicks, whistles, and squeals Lord Resak seemed to be thanking their rescuers, and then he bent and picked up the nearest tray, revealing a platoon of lemmings who had been supporting it. With a quick toss, he sent the fish sailing overhead to splash into the water. The narwhals swam about furiously as they found and ate their reward.

  Tray after tray followed until the same white narwhal rose halfway out of the water and bowed. Then he dove again and disappeared.

  Scirye called out, “Good-bye. Thank you.” But whether they heard her before they disappeared back through the gate she couldn’t say.

  “The least I can do as your host—or warden—is show you your new quarters,” Lord Resak said. “We have no need of jail cells here, but we’ll house you in a secure part of the palace.”

  He began to move easily across the slippery floor with the same walk that Taqqiq and the foxes had used. A fox accompanied him. He slowed down when he saw that Scirye and the others were picking their way gingerly across the ice, taking small quick shuffling steps like a penguin’s waddle.

  They left the dock area through a large doorway into a hallway. The icy floor had been worn smooth by countless paws and flippers, and the walls, though a little rougher, glowed with the same faint glow as the dock—though now that they were close they could see that it was thousands of tiny stripes gradually moving along like tiny neon signs so that the light seemed to scintillate.

  Intrigued, Leech ran a hand over the bumps of one wall. “Lord Resak, where do the lights come from? Is it some sort of spell?”

  The bear-man seemed to be relaxing now that he was at home. “Yes,” he explained, “it’s magic in the way that all Nature is enchanted. There’s a type of ice worm that gives off light. We’ve even bred them for special colors. They feed off tiny creatures—I think your word is ‘bacteria’—in the ice itself.”

  A group of bears and otters was busy by one wall. Fire imps on stone hearths kept buckets of water from freezing. A team of otters brought one of the buckets of warm water over to the wall, where a bear poured it down the surface. It froze as it ran downward forming rippling layers. Then another bear with a blowtorch carefully smoothed it.

  “The ice needs to be repaired constantly and the ice worms renewed,” Lord Resak said with a wave of his paw. “We take great pride in maintaining our home.”

  “You mentioned that my father had done you some favors,” Roxanna ventured, “and yet this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  “A secret is more likely to stay a secret if fewer people know about it,” Lord Resak commented.

  “No wonder he was trying to keep us from going into the Wastes,” Bayang mused.

  “Yes, he’s been very helpful perpetuating tales of the horrors that wait in the Wastes,” Lord Resak said. “But here, see how else he’s aided us.” They were passing by an open doorway showing a chamber as huge as a warehouse. It was filled with crates, gear and food and medical supplies.

  Roxanna pointed at the twin palms stamped on a stack of boxes. “Those are my clan’s markings.”

  Lord Resak nodded. “Your father has protected our secret ever since he settled here and we made contact with him. We take our human forms and go about the city as yet another group come to trade.” He added proudly, “With your people’s help, we have a hospital and even our own library now.”

  “You can’t fight your enemies if you don’t understand them, is that it?” Bayang asked.

  “That’s part of it,” Lord Resak said, “but there’s also much about the world we would simply like to know.”

  Scirye read the label on another crate. “These are tins of corned beef.” She glanced at another stack. “And those are peaches. Don’t you hunt for your own food?” she asked, somehow feeling a little disappointed that they shopped for groceries like anyone else.

  Bayang shook her head. “If I may make a guess, my Lord, I would say that you cannot have this many wolves and bears together in the same area without exhausting the local game or calling attention to yourselves. That’s why you use the Wastes for your hunting preserve.”

  “Just so. We like to keep up the Old Ways.” Lord Resak nodded to Scirye. “Life is hard up here, but we have our little amusements.”

  With a sudden kick, he glided along the slippery floor, holding up his arms for balance, his bulky frame moving as if it weighed no more than a feather. Twisting his head, he looked over his shoulder at Scirye. “If you’re brave enough to insult me, surely you’re brave enough to try this.”

  Scirye was not about to lose the challenge and, digging in the toes of one boot, she kicked herself forward.

  “Wait!” Kles cautioned as the walls slid by. “You’ll break a leg, my Lady.”

  “I’ve skated before without getting hurt,” Scirye announced, and grinned at Leech and Roxanna. “Race you.” As she started to glide after Lord Resak, her griffin fled to the air.

  “You were only on skates once,” he squawked in protest.

  The walls whizzed by as she sped along the ice with her arms spread out for balance.

  “This is a little like flying,” Leech said. He’d already caught up with her.

  “Turtles!” Roxanna cried as she raced past them.

  Scirye went down at about the same time as Leech, both of them skidding along the floor. Fortunately, Lord Resak had been keeping an eye on them, so he halted to form a backstop and they bumped into his stumplike legs.

  Kles settled down now on Scirye’s stomach, looking—or so Scirye thought—more smug than anybody had a right to be. However, like a true courtier, he also knew enough not to remind her that he had warned her. Instead, he asked her as he tidied up her clothes, “Is my Lady all right?” He almost fell off as Scirye rose up on her elbows.

  “I guess I’m just a little out of practice,” she admitted.

  “Well, that was fun while it lasted,” Leech said enthusiastically as he also sat up. “Let’s try it again.” When he tried to rise, he plopped back d
own again.

  “But will you knock our palace down in the process?” Lord Resak chuckled, and he barked a command to the fox, who immediately trotted away.

  When Lord Resak closed his large hands around their small ones and helped them to their feet, and as long as he had a grip on them, she was sure she would not fall down again.

  As her boot soles made shushing sounds, Roxanna skated back to them. “It looks like this corridor goes on forever.”

  “If you keep going, you’ll find the communal kitchen as well as dining rooms.” Lord Resak jerked his head in that direction. “And beyond those are lockers for fish and game—refrigeration isn’t a problem here—as well as nurseries where we breed the ice worms. We also have a sewage treatment room that converts waste into food for them.”

  “So you use magic to recycle everything in a closed loop,” Bayang said, her claws clicking on ice as she and Koko caught up with them.

  “It’s natural magic again,” Lord Resak said. “We use different little creatures, the bacteria, to transform the waste.”

  Scirye wondered just how much of the vast glacier Lord Resak and his clan occupied. “This isn’t a palace,” she whispered to Kles. “It’s a city.”

  At that moment, the fox returned, dragging along a large hide bag in his fangs.

  Dipping his hand into it, Lord Resak took out some frizzy green balls. “This moss will help you walk,” he explained. He stretched a ball flat so that it was like a slipper and the sticky moss clung to the soles of Scirye’s boots. Then he carefully fitted the others with gear for their feet and paws. Only Bayang declined, because her talons bit into the ice enough for her to keep her footing.

  Putting a mitten against the wall for support, Scirye eased back onto her feet and took a tentative step, expecting her foot to fly out from underneath her again. Next to her head, she felt the flapping of Kles’s wings and the tug of his claws on her collar as he tried to help her stay upright. To her relief, she found herself walking. It was a bit like trying to move through molasses, but at least she wasn’t going to take a tumble again. Though she wouldn’t admit it to Kles, the fall had left her with a few bruises.