‘What is happening?’ he called out to Semmel, but she did not hear him, and her attention was fixed on Flugal, who was gesturing urgently to Zluty.
‘The wagon came unanchored in the night,’ the Monster’s dark soft voice spoke into his mind.
Dismayed, Bily turned to look into its yellow eyes. It was sitting upright for the first time in ages, the wind making little trails in its dense short fur and catching the silky tufts on its ear tips, bending them like stalks of sweetgrass.
‘We were blown South?’ Bily asked.
‘North,’ the Monster answered. ‘Very far North. The wind changed in the night. Probably that is what dislodged us.’
Zluty came to Bily, his expression anguished. ‘I did not push enough snow in front of the wagon because the wind was blowing from the North. I didn’t think of it turning and coming from the South!’
‘It does not matter,’ Semmel said, patting his arm. ‘The wagon only got its nose stuck in a pile of coldwhites.’
‘It was not damaged?’ Bily asked Zluty incredulously.
‘The diggers don’t think so, and I am sure they are right. If it had crashed into anything we would have been woken, but I want to go and see if there is any damage.’
‘I will come too,’ Bily said, but Zluty shook his head.
‘The diggers are coming with me. You had better stay with the Monster,’ Zluty said. He glanced over at it and added quietly, ‘It was very restless in the night.’
Bily heaved a sigh and wrung his hands. ‘The soothing potion is wearing off. I have the recipe and all the ingredients I need to make more, only I can’t make it while we are travelling.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Zluty said. ‘We have been lucky. The wind might easily have driven us headlong into the mountain. The wagon could have been destroyed or we might have been hurt. Instead, we have been blown closer to the end of the mountains.’
Bily nodded doubtfully. ‘What about the Raincage?’
Zluty shrugged. ‘We have probably passed it. Semmel thinks she will be able to work out how far we have come when she can see the mountains and touch them. That is why she is coming with Flugal and me.’
‘Shut the awning to keep the warm in. We will come back soonly,’ Flugal signalled as they left, slamming the door behind them. Bily got up to fasten the awning after them, though there was not much warmth left to keep in.
He tried to look outside as he fastened the awning, but cold fluffs were blowing too thick and fast to see anything. It was not day, but he fancied that it was very close to dawn. He noticed a little fur of cold fluffs had formed along the bits of the metal frame that had been exposed to the blizzard wind, and along the tiny strands of the spider’s web, as if the world was growing a pelt of ice.
By the time he got the awning shut, he was shuddering with cold. He wished he could light a fire, but it would be too dangerous with the wind rocking the wagon. Besides, their supply of firenuts and food was diminishing badly.
He put on his cloak and went back to the Monster. It was still sitting upright, its yellow eyes narrowed as if listening to something.
It seemed not to notice him and he was suddenly shy of interrupting its thoughts. He climbed back into his bedding and tried to think how to ask if it was feeling poorly. He could not tell if it was hotter than usual because the air was so cold, but he was glad of the warmth of its body, and snuggled closer. Semmel had said that it would grow colder each day they travelled North, yet it was impossible to believe it could get any colder than it was. Oh, how he longed for hot sunshine and bright colour.
Bily’s eyes began to droop and, in spite of everything, he fell into a doze. He dreamed of a voice, bidding him urgently to find the lock that his key would fit. The urgency of the voice was so strong that he felt alarmed.
‘I don’t know what you mean? What lock? What door?’ he cried.
‘Bily,’ said the Monster, in his mind.
I am dreaming, Bily thought, drowsily.
‘Yes, but wake now,’ said the Monster, with the hint of a growl.
Bily opened his eyes and found the Monster looking down at him. ‘There is something outside,’ it said.
Bily felt his bones turn to ice. ‘Is it Monks?’ he whispered. Then, with a dry mouth, ‘Is it Makers?’
‘The Makers cannot come through the sky crack until it is widened enough,’ the Monster said, but its voice was distracted. It was staring up at the awning, its eyes burning.
Bily thought with a great lurch of fright of the dark shadow he had seen moving across the face of the mountain. Then he remembered Zluty and the diggers were outside. Almost crying with dismay, he scrambled to his feet. Going to the side of the wagon, he unlaced the awning and looked out. Cold fluffs were still blowing, but less thickly. He could see that it was day, though he could not tell how late it was, nor could he see any sign of the others.
‘I can’t have slept long for the others were just going out to look at the wagon,’ he muttered. Then a truly dreadful thought occurred to him. He turned to the Monster. ‘What if Zluty and the diggers have been found by whatever you can smell outside?’
The Monster said nothing, but its ears were twitching so that the long silken tufts wavered this way and that. They both froze at the sound of a long, low rumbling noise, like the noise of thunder, rolling across the plain.
‘Is it rocks falling down the mountain?’ Bily whispered, remembering the one that had fallen when Zluty had been getting water.
‘It is not rocks falling. It is a hunting cry,’ the Monster said in its velvety voice.
‘Something is hunting us?’ Bily whispered fearfully.
‘It is hunting me,’ the Monster said, very softly.
‘How much further?’ Zluty yelled back to Flugal, beginning to worry about Bily. Flugal had told him they would be back soon, but they had been walking for at least twenty minutes.
Flugal and Semmel had started out walking ahead of him, guided by the pouch of memory scents that had alerted them to the nearness of the Raincage. But the snow had got so deep that they had trouble and Zluty had taken the lead. Now they seemed not to hear him, marching along behind him, arms linked for support as they pushed into the wind and coldwhites.
He was about to shout his question again, when Flugal signalled that they were close. Zluty sighed in frustration and turned South again, pushing through the coldwhites and bending his head to keep the icy wind from burning his cheeks.
They were backtracking because the scent memories had told Semmel this was the way to the Raincage. They had been inspecting the wagon hull for damage when Semmel came running up.
She had left them to go and put her paw on the mountain so as to learn how far North they had come. She had been so agitated that Zluty had been unable to understand her, and it was Flugal who explained.
‘The Raincage is very nearful, Semmel says. We must go, for bringing the scent memories to it will release more needful knowings.’
Zluty had gone to let Bily know, but found him sleeping, so he told the Monster about the Raincage. The Monster had been sitting up, alert, but had made no response. Now, Zluty worried it had not heard him and that Bily would wake and be frightened that they had not returned.
Zluty tried to take bigger strides, knowing it would be silly to turn back and waste precious daylight. After all, the Monster was with Bily, even if it did not remember Zluty saying they were going to see the Raincage. And unlocking the scent memories was vital to their survival. Besides all else, he had to admit he was very curious about what a Raincage could be.
Slowing to dig through a thick drift of coldwhites, he thought of the wagon and hoped the hull was not damaged underneath. He and Flugal had examined it, but they would not be able to see clearly until they had got it free of the drift of coldwhites. It was lucky that was where the wind had blown it, and he shuddered to think of all the dreadful things that might have come of their accidental journey through the night. If they had crashed, it would have been
his fault because he didn’t put enough coldwhites around the wheels.
‘Nothing bad happened,’ Zluty told himself sternly. ‘Stop making a fuss and be more careful.’
Surprised the diggers had not caught up, he glanced back and saw they had stopped. They were not looking at him. Their heads were tilted, their ears twitching. They were listening to something, he realised, and as he straightened, he became aware of another noise under the sound of the wind moaning across the plain. It was the sound of water falling.
Semmel looked at him, black eyes shining. ‘The Raincage is very near, Zchloo-tee.’ She pointed to the mountain.
He turned to look in puzzlement at the mountain rising almost straight up beside them, its dark flank too sheer and steep for any coldwhites to cling to. But when he looked back at the diggers to ask what they meant, he saw they were running directly at the mountain. Seeing them vanish into it, he set off after them with a cry of alarm, only to find there was a narrow crevice that had been all but invisible.
He had to turn sideways to get into it, but to his relief it widened almost immediately into a tunnel. He made haste to catch up to the diggers, who were moving fast now there were no coldwhites underfoot. Semmel was leading the way and Flugal lifted his paw to signal to Zluty that the scent memories had told Semmel the passage would bring them to the cave, where they would find the Raincage.
The deeper they went into the mountain, the more muffled the sound of rushing water was. Zluty glanced back and could just see a strip of grey sky through the dark, narrow opening. When he turned back, the diggers had vanished around a bend. He sped up until he could see them, standing transfixed at the end of the passage.
Moving towards them, Zluty was startled to find that the walls reflected the dull radiance of the skystones on his staff. He touched the nearest wall and found it was slicked with a hard coat of ice.
He reached the diggers and crouched down tosee past them. The opening at the end of the tunnel looked into a narrow cavern. Daylight was flowing down into it from somewhere high up. The light reflected off the dark walls and he realised they too were encased in a skin of ice, which explained why it was so cold.
The diggers climbed down into the cavern, which widened as it ran round out of sight to the right. Zluty crawled out and stood up to follow the diggers, who were leaping lightly down the sloping, uneven floor. He picked his way carefully after them, using his staff to steady himself, for the ground was icy, too. He had not gone far when he realised that the cavern was actually an immense tunnel and that he could hear the sound of rushing water again, muffled and far away.
The air grew wetter and wetter. Soon his exposed fur was beaded with water droplets and his teeth were chattering. He would not have been surprised to see the drops turn to ice.
‘How much further?’ he asked, or tried to ask, for his numb lips would not obey him. His head felt thick and he wondered if the cold was making him a bit stupid. He was about to ask again, when he realised the diggers had stopped at another bend, and were looking at something out of his vision.
Panting, he reached Semmel’s side in time to hear her say reverently, ‘It is the Raincage.’
Dim grey daylight poured down the centre of the cavern from an opening high above, into a milky-green pool of water. The water threw the light onto the iced walls and lit the fine mist floating in the air. There were immense shards of green ice sticking up out of the water and lying around the edges of the pool. The ground was covered in a fine cold black sand.
An enormous glistening fall of water hung frozen above the pool. Drops slipped down the many long sharp icicles and into the pool, sounding like rain. Each drop must add a slick of glistening ice to the long daggers of frozen water, lengthening and sharpening them before falling away, thought Zluty in wonderment. That was how the icefall had formed.
‘It is a great loveliness,’ Flugal murmured, and Semmel gave a little chitter of agreement.
Zluty could still hear the distant roar of water, and he asked the diggers if they knew what it was.
Semmel looked at the icefall and then said in a dreamy voice, ‘A great spring breaks the head of the mountain to get free, and flows fast and strong and wild until it spills from the mountains and runs across the land to the Edgeless Sea.’ She pointed to the Raincage, and said in her normal voice, ‘This comes from that stream. Some of its water falls through holes in the mountain. The way down is longful and the water turns mistful. The mist makes the air and walls wet and sends drips down to the meltwater pool that freeze. That is the telling of the Raincage, Zchloo-tee.’
‘Do the memory scents say how your people found this place?’ Zluty asked her.
‘Running and hiding,’ Flugal said. ‘Must be.’
Bee-lee will want to see,’ Semmel said, and Zluty realised with surprise that, like him, it pleased her to please Bily. She was right, of course, for no telling could conjure the wonder of the Raincage. And yet it would devour much of the remaining day to go back to the wagon and fetch him back. Maybe Semmel could bring Bily here while he and Flugal dug out the wagon and made it ready to go on.
‘We should go back,’ he said loudly, suddenly worried about Bily. They had been whispering until now, for no particular reason. But Flugal quickly shushed him, looking alarmed.
‘Scent memories saying that sometimes noise causes bits of Raincage to shatter,’ Flugal whispered. ‘Very dangerful.’ He pointed to the jagged bits of ice in the pool and around it.
Zluty swallowed, imagining the icefall shattering and sending sharp spikes in all directions. All three of them turned to look again at the glittering fall of frozen water suspended above the meltwater pool. Zluty thought that it was the most dangerously beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Coming out of the long crevice into the daylight and the icy wind, Zluty realised that the coldwhites had ceased falling and the wind, though still blowing strongly, was now coming from the South-east. That would help them when they set off.
They hurried along the furrow they had made earlier, the diggers taking the lead.
‘It is a good thing the wind is behind us, for we must move as fast as we can now,’ Zluty said. ‘If the Raincage is only halfway, we have a long way to go to the end of the mountains.’
Semmel looked back at him and smiled. ‘It will not take us longly to make that journey, Zchloo-tee.’
Before he could think what to say to this, Flugal was pointing ahead, saying he could see the wagon. Zluty looked North and was very relieved to see that the wagon was visible.
‘The Raincage was a wondrous thing, but if I looked too long it would steal the knowing out of me,’ Flugal said.
Semmel gave him a quick, sharp look. ‘The memory scents warn of its power to do that. They tell that the diggers used its power to lock the memory scents from the North so there could be no knowing of them until they were brought North again. They will not tell why until we come to the place where the memory scents were made.’
‘But we need them to tell us about finding food in the North,’ Zluty said, alarmed.
Flugal gave him a slightly reproachful look and Semmel said, ‘There are many layers to the memory scents, Zchloo-tee. Those that are needful will come as we go further Northly.’
Zluty suppressed a worried sigh. They definitely did not have enough food to last them to the end of the mountain range. And if they could not round the mountains before the season of ice blizzards came, they would die of cold, if not of hunger, without the help of the memory scents. If they were sensible, they would turn back to the digger settlement at once. But Bily would never agree to that, for the digger potion-maker had made it clear that the Monster must be returned to the Velvet City by the first days of Spring, or die.
‘Do not be fearful, Zchloo-tee. Soonly, we can use special device gifted to you to make journey go very swifty,’ Flugal said, a flicker of excitement in his bright eyes.
Zluty was thrilled that he would soon discover the purpose of the dev
ice lashed to the side of the wagon. But why had they not already made use of it if it could make them go faster? He knew better than to ask. Probably the diggers had feared missing the Raincage.
Zluty felt a rush of relief as they drew closer to the wagon, its nose pushed into the drift of coldwhites at the foot of the great frowning bulk of the mountain.
‘Something is wrongful,’ Flugal said, stopping.
Zluty looked at the digger, startled by his tone. Flugal’s eyes were fixed on the wagon. Zluty squinted. Then he saw it. There was something odd about the shape of the awning at one end. It looked as if it had collapsed. He had a sudden sick thought that a boulder had come plummeting down from the mountain and landed on the wagon.
‘The wind probably just changed and tore the awning off its frame,’ he muttered, pushing the horrid thought away. But if that was so, where was Bily? Dry-mouthed with fear, Zluty threw down his staff and ran past the diggers, calling out to Bily. He heard Flugal call his name, but he did not look back. By the time he got close enough to the wagon to call out, Zluty was stumbling and gasping.
‘Bily!’ he cried out in a rasping croak.
There was no response. He saw that part of the awning had been torn right away and the back of the wagon was completely exposed. The door was half buried in a new drift of coldwhites, and he had to force his way in.
‘Bily!’ he whispered, seeing his brother was not inside the wagon.
Then Zluty gave a huff of relief. Bily had probably just gone looking for them when the coldwhites began falling hard, and then the awning had blown off. He would never leave the injured Monster alone and exposed to the weather.
At that thought a hole seemed to open up in Zluty’s stomach. He turned to look at the place where the Monster slept.
The Monster was gone, too.
The Ice Maze Page 7