City of Ice

by Laurence Yep

  “Thank you,” Leech said to the Dancers, “but can you help us find our other friend?”

  Together, he, Scirye, and Kles tried to ask about the badger. When words failed, the griffin resorted to pantomime, doing a credible job that would have had Leech laughing if he had not been so worried.

  Even when Dancers started to serpentine away in all directions, the companions couldn’t be certain their rescuers had understood. To distract themselves, the children helped Bayang fold up the wing. If she was right and the storm was localized, they could carry the wing to the border and try to launch it somehow.

  The storm itself seemed to be lessening, as if the Dancers were winning the wrestling match with the winds.

  Finally, a Dancer came to them. Leech could not be sure if it was his earlier savior. “Did you find him?”

  The Dancer flared with a light so glaring that Leech had to squint. Then the Dancer repeated it at a rapid, staccato rate that was irritating to the nerves as well as the eyes.

  “Whatever they found, it seems to be annoying them,” Bayang observed.

  “Well,” Leech conceded, well aware of his friend’s shortcomings, “that certainly sounds like Koko.”

  They found the badger rolling around in the snow with a Dancer wrapped around him like a glowing mummy.

  Leech hurriedly high-stepped through the drifts and helped free his friend. Immediately, the Dancer zipped skyward, flashing and wriggling indignantly as it flew.

  “Koko, what happened?” Leech asked as he helped the badger sit up.

  “I was just trying to hitch a ride.” Koko patted one side of his head as if trying to clear snow out of his ear. “And we sort of got tangled up. Where were you guys?”

  “Maybe we ought to leave him here until he learns some manners,” Kles said.

  “He’ll starve first.” Leech laughed in relief and helped the badger stand up.

  46

  Bayang

  Shielded by the Dancers, the friends slogged through snow covering the frozen ocean. It was as if the raging winds and whirling snowflakes were held in a giant glass cylinder, because beyond that was calm and still.

  Bayang was trampling down a path for the others. Despite the growing numbness in her limbs, she was determined to save the hatchlings. Though she had known that they had become close to her, she was still surprised at the pain she had felt when she believed that she had lost them.

  And she was not the only one who had changed. Leech had matured in the short time she had known him. But, she admitted ruefully, meeting your would-be killer might make anyone grow older. It certainly was altering her, the would-be killer.

  She was so lost in thought that she barely heard Kles call out, “Shouldn’t we have reached the storm’s edge by now?”

  She looked ahead of them to see tracks already half-filled by the snow. “You’re right. I think we’ve been circling back into the storm and not away from it.”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t feel right,” Leech agreed.

  But when Bayang tried to turn, the Dancers would not yield. She and Leech tried arguing with their guardians both in speech and in pantomime, but it was useless.

  “We’re safe as long as we’re with the Dancers, so let’s go where they want,” Kles reasoned. “Eventually, either we’ll get out or they’ll listen to us.”

  “But we’re wasting time,” Scirye said.

  “It can’t be helped if they won’t let us,” the griffin said.

  The others reluctantly had to admit there was no easy solution.

  During the course of their trek, one or another of them would become convinced the Dancers were taking them in the wrong direction. However, the creatures of light either didn’t understand or were too stubborn to give in. So the group, growing increasingly frustrated, was forced to continue on.

  After an hour, Bayang stopped so suddenly that Leech bumped into her. “I can see clear air ahead,” she said.

  The children and badger squeezed past her to stare. There, at the mouth of the Dancers’ living tunnel, was the lumpy plain, and not a single snowflake spinning about.

  Leech scratched his head. “I was so sure that this wasn’t the way.”

  “Roland must have added a confusion spell to the storm to make sure we never got out,” Bayang said. “Somehow it didn’t affect the Dancers.” She had been feeling weary and paw sore just a moment ago, but her anger washed the fatigue away.

  Scirye started to tramp forward. “He’s got a lot to answer for.”

  47

  Leech

  They were all in need of a rest after the battering they had taken, but there was no time. With grim purpose, they unfolded the straw wing again as the Dancers circled curiously. After they had gotten on it, through pantomime the children and Kles politely requested aid in launching it.

  The Dancers seemed to understand, because they raised the edges, more and more of them sliding underneath the exposed wing’s belly and lifting it so even more Dancers could slip in and join the effort.

  Leech grasped some straw loops as the wing rose jerkily, higher and higher. The Dancers seemed to think it was great sport, flocking in from all sides to add their strength until there were a hundred of them dangling from beneath the wing. All of them fluttering their tails excitedly.

  Higher and higher the Dancers took them until they were looking down at the surface of the storm. It roiled like a pot of boiling milk, snowflakes slopping over the edges and cascading downward.

  “I think this is high enough,” Bayang said. “They can let go now.”

  Leech passed the message on to the Dancer rising beside them with both words and pantomime. However, when the wing still kept going up Scirye gave it a try and then Kles.

  “How far are they going to carry us?” Scirye asked, glancing over the side.

  “I’m not sure I want to find out,” Kles said.

  Koko drummed his heels on the straw mat. “Why can’t anything ever go right?”

  “Maybe if we rock from side to side, we can break their grip,” Bayang suggested. She started to shift on her haunches. The others copied her, but though the wing tilted from left to right and back again, the Dancers’ hold was unshakable.

  Suddenly the clouds overhead began to shred as if puppies were tearing the stuffing out of a cushion, and the air turned choppy. The edges of the wings began to flap.

  “Not another one of Roland’s traps,” Koko groaned.

  “I am Naue, swiftest of winds, never tiring, always laughing,” boomed Naue. He pounced on them with a roar like a locomotive thundering down the tracks.

  “Oh, great Naue, kindest of winds,” Bayang said, “we’re very glad to see you.”

  “Brother Naue,” said a wind in a voice like the bass pipes of an organ, “how do these lumplings know your name?”

  “Ho, brothers and sisters, these little lumplings are my friends,” Naue shouted. “We had so much fun on the way up here, for is not Naue the jolliest of winds?”

  As the other winds joined Naue in circling around them, the sky became so turbulent that the wing swayed crazily and the Dancers not holding on to the wing were tumbled helplessly one way and then the other.

  “This is w-worse than Roland’s storm,” Leech said, fighting desperately to hold on to the straps.

  “Hey, you big blowhard, paws—I mean hands—Look, just back off,” Koko hollered.

  “And that lumpling is the noisy one,” Naue added.

  “I’ve heard noisier,” another wind said in a loud but reedy voice.

  “Listen to this, though,” Naue said.

  “Oof,” the badger gasped as an invisible tentacle coiled around his waist and jerked him up from the wing. Kicking his hind paws, the badger desperately clung to the straw loops. “Let me go,” he screamed.

  “You can do better than that, Noisy Lumpling.” Naue sounded disappointed. Koko’s belly sagged inward as Naue squeezed the badger like a squeaky toy. “Come on; come on.”

  “Let’s
see who can make him squeal the loudest!” a third wind screeched, whose voice was like fingernails on a chalk-board. The badger began to jerk back and forth in mid-air as the third wind tried to pull him from Naue and Naue refused to let Koko go.

  Afraid for his friend’s life, Leech spoke up quickly: “Excuse me, great Naue and Naue’s wonderful brothers and sisters, we need your help. We asked the Dancers to take us up into the sky and now they won’t let go. We have to get to Nova Hafnia right away.”

  “Is that what you call them? Well, it’s as good a name as any,” Naue observed merrily. “I know them of old. Once they grab an idea, they don’t always let go. Why didn’t you ask Naue, kindest of winds?”

  “You didn’t tell us how to contact you,” Bayang said.

  “That is just like you, Naue, ‘most forgetful of winds.’” A fourth wind laughed in a rumble like a kettledrum.

  “True, true,” Naue said proudly. As long as an insult was a superlative, the words didn’t seem to hold any sting. He plopped Koko back on the wing. “But I am here now. And there is no thief craftier. Shall I steal you from the Dancers?”

  “Let’s make it a game,” the second wind suggested. “Everyone must obey the one who can free your friends.”

  “Me first, me first,” the second wind said, and tried to yank the wing away from the Dancers’ grasp. To Leech’s alarm, a foot-wide chunk of woven straw ripped off and whirled upward.

  “No, no, no, not that way,” the third wind objected. She tore the wing away from the second and began to twist the wing round and round as if it were the top of a screw.

  The fourth shook the wing up and down so that Leech and the others bounced up and down like popcorn in a red-hot kettle.

  “My silly brothers and sisters, the contest isn’t about being the strongest,” Naue mocked, “but the cleverest.” Instead of attacking the Dancers gripping the wing, he began to swirl around, gathering up the loose Dancers like cards and packing the surprised creatures together into a dense gleaming ball. Then he hurled them away through the torn clouds.

  Immediately, the other Dancers let go of the wing and swarmed up to attack Naue.

  “I have won the bet, so you must pay the forfeit. And this is my command: The losers must keep the Dancers from bothering me,” Naue ordered, and swept around the wing, lifting it in an upward diagonal.

  Leech turned to see the Dancers flashing angrily as Naue’s kin flung them back and forth to one another like a team of jugglers.

  “Naue,” Leech called guiltily to the wind, “will the Dancers be all right?”

  “You can’t kill them,” Naue said. “They’re just going to be held long enough to let us get away.”

  “Sorry about this,” Leech shouted to the Dancers, “but we have to get going. Thank you for all your rescuing.”

  Koko was lying flat on his back on the wing, looking very sick. “Oog. I am swearing off roller coasters for good.”

  48

  Scirye

  Scirye felt crushed, her eyes tearing up in frustration. “We came all this way to catch Roland and he still got the treasure and then got away.”

  Koko threw up his paws. “Yeah, we might as well have saved ourselves the trip.”

  “The chase still isn’t over,” Leech said to them. “According to the goddess, he must be heading to the City of Death.”

  “What a lousy name,” Koko said. “Why didn’t the chamber of commerce change it?”

  “Because it’s a sacred site where a great battle took place,” Kles snapped.

  “Ah,” Naue said, “you talk much about the Roland lumpling and his half lumpling of a dragon. Do we race them?”

  “Yes,” Leech said eagerly. “Let’s go.”

  Within Scirye’s coat, Kles murmured to her, “I wonder how much of the buffoon is just a pose?”

  Scirye was beginning to wonder herself. “I’m not so sure myself,” she whispered. “Naue does like to play games.”

  Bayang shook her head. “I’m sorry, Leech. I want to catch Roland as much as you, but we need to get help for Upach first and let Prince Tarkhun and Lady Miunai know where she and their daughter are. So it’s Nova Hafnia first.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Leech said, “but I hate to see them get such a head start on us.”

  “Even with a lead, wondrous Naue can chase down any nasty, foul-smelling machine lumplings make,” Naue said.

  “And let’s pick up some eats too,” Koko said. “I can’t eat just air like some windbags I know.”

  On Naue’s back, they flew swiftly toward Nova Hafnia. The frozen harbor resembled a crescent moon as the ice gleamed in the moonlight. Scirye was glad to see that the Mounties on their owls were elsewhere.

  “Oh, great and generous Naue, we have to leave for a short while,” Bayang addressed the wind respectfully. “Will you wait here and pick us up when we come back?”

  Naue swung in a lazy circle. “No one should expect a mighty wind such as Naue to make or keep promises,” he guffawed. “Naue stays until he gets bored, and then he leaves.”

  “How do we ask you to get us?” Leech wanted to know.

  “Ooh, send Naue stars,” Naue shrilled. “Naue so loves them when they blossom.”

  “Do you mean some kind of flower?” Leech asked. “I could bring it up to you, but I don’t think anything’s growing in Nova Hafnia right now.”

  Naue spun the straw wing playfully about in a slow circle. “No, no, they twinkle; they sparkle. They’re born, but then they die too soon. Humans are always throwing great heaps of them up into Naue’s sky.”

  Scirye glanced at Kles, who was peeking out of her coat, but he shook his head. He was just as perplexed as she was. Then she twisted her head around and raised an eyebrow at Leech and Koko. Leech shook his head, but the badger seemed thoughtful.

  “Do you mean fireworks?” Koko ventured.

  “Yes, I think that’s what lumplings call them.” Naue made puffing sounds. “Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.”

  “The caravanserai probably has them,” Leech said to the others. “They seem to have everything.”

  “The question,” Bayang said, “is whether they’ll give them to us.”

  “Or even if they’ll let us leave,” Koko pointed out gloomily.

  “We’ll just make another daring escape,” Leech said confidently. “We always have so far.”

  “There’s a first time for a flop,” Koko groaned. “And I’d rather not be part of it.”

  Despite the badger’s misgivings, Bayang steered the wing away from the wind’s embrace and spiraled down gently until they glided to a smooth landing on the harbor where the snow acted as a cushion.

  A lone gnome mechanic was standing on a small ladder as he toiled beneath an airplane cowling. Near him a pair of humans in coveralls were bobbing up and down as they used a hand pump to re-fuel a different airplane from barrels on a sled. They both resembled Roxanna’s Sogdians. Next to them several imps circled lazily inside a large glass jar, casting light and heat in the immediate area.

  Suddenly one of the Sogdians noticed the companions. “It’s Lady Roxanna’s kidnappers! Tell Lady Miunai quick.”

  At his shout, the gnome hit his head against the cowling, but the humans’ reaction was more hostile. The second Sogdian jumped down from the sled and, slipping and sliding over the ice, headed toward the city to sound the alarm.

  “If we’d stolen her, do you think we’d come back so conspicuously?” Scirye snapped. “It was her own idea to help us find Roland. She’s safe with friends. We’ll tell Lady Miunai and Prince Tarkhun all about it.”

  The first Sogdian had picked up a wrench and was holding it, ready to throw it if they tried to escape. “Prince Tarkhun’s out hunting for you in an airplane. And half the clan is out there too in sleds, and the Mounties as well. So there’s no use trying to escape.”

  “We’re not trying to run away,” Scirye said, irritated. “We’re trying to explain.”

  As they got off the wing, th
e human mechanic raised his wrench menacingly. “Stay where you are.”

  Bayang grew larger so she could carry everyone on her back again. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I wouldn’t feel that thing any more than I would a twig. And if you hit one of the hatchlings by mistake…” She paused, letting the mechanic’s own imagination fill in the gap.

  Scirye tried to play the peacemaker. “Besides, we’re going to the caravanserai by our own choice. Whether we’re friends or foes, that would be what Lady Miunai would want. You’re welcome to come along and make sure we deliver ourselves into your mistress’s hands.”

  The mechanic gulped as he gazed up at the dragon. “No, thanks,” he said, lowering the wrench. “I got too much work here. So I’ll take your word for it.”

  “I’m glad to see that you’re smarter than you look,” Bayang said as she folded up the wing.

  Bayang set off at a slow, steady trot, her paws sometimes skidding on the slippery surface, leaving the Sogdian behind scratching his head with the wrench.

  After a few minutes, they overtook the other Sogdian who had left to warn Lady Miunai. He was plodding along and there was snow all over him as if he’d slipped and fallen several times.

  “Can we give you a lift to the caravanserai?” Bayang asked.

  The puffing mechanic shook his head. “My mother made me swear to avoid two things: strong liquor and dragons.”

  “Suit yourself,” Bayang said, and moved away, leaving him to plod after them.

  They couldn’t miss the caravanserai, which dominated the wharf area. It peered over the roofs of the other buildings as if waiting vigilantly for them.

  There were steps leading down from the dock into the ocean for rowboats when the thaw had come. Bayang did not bother with them but arched her long body so it could climb up onto the planks. She skidded at first on an icy patch but managed to pull herself up.

  Some attempt had been made to shovel the streets and dockside, and the dragon made better time as she wound her way past all the boats hauled up out of the water.