The Search for Magic Part 12

The gnomes took turns strapping each other into bags of rope netting hanging from rings on the axle wall. When one gnome was fully laced into his bag, his neighbor would climb into his own hammock and wait for the secure gnome to wriggle out and lace him. Mixun thought this would go on forever, as one gnome would always be left free by such an absurd process, but after several go-rounds, the last free gnome was tied in place by Wheeler, who left his rattan cage just long enough to finish the job. He climbed back onto his wheeled plank, threw a big lever, and the giant wheel began to shake.

All at once Mixun realized he and Raegel weren't tied down at all. "Ho!" he called. "What about us?"

"No time for tea or hotcakes now," said Wheeler, setting a pair of leather-framed goggles over his eyes.

Mixun was about to protest when the gnomes threw several levers at once. The windmill vanes outside caught the wind, and their motion was transferred by crown gears to a huge stone flywheel inside the rim of the great wheel itself. As the ponderous disk of granite gained speed, ropes wound tight, sandbag counterweights rose and fell, and the entire device s.h.i.+vered with building power. The tip of the axle lying on the ice rose a bit, then fell back with a b.u.mp. Mixun braced his arms against the hull and looked on wildly.

His feet warmed and stinking, Raegel came to. Rubbing the melted frost from his eyes, he saw his friend facing him, gulped, and said, "Hullo, Mix. What's happening?"

"Gnomes!" That said it all.

The axle rose again, higher this time, wobbled in a circle and dropped back once more. Both men were thrown in the air and settled back in their former places with a heavy thump.

Wheeler picked up a mallet and used it to whack a large, red-painted peg outside his cage. With a shriek of tortured tackle and straining leather straps, the full force of the flywheel was applied to the outer wheel structure. The axle leaped into the air, shaking violently. Pounding blows rattled Mixun's teeth and made Raegel's head bang painfully against the wooden axle wall. Mixun knew what was causing the bone-jarring vibration-the sharp iron plows were chewing up the ice again.

The noise was deafening. Vision blurred by the heavy pounding, Mixun could see his friend's mouth move, but he could not hear what was being said. Then the gnomes launched the great wheel forward.

Raegel and Mixun tumbled over each other as the cabin turned a full revolution with each rotation of the wheel. During his wild flight, Mixun saw Wheeler standing upright and unconcerned in his rattan cage, his wheeled board canceling out the motion of the manic machine under him. The other gnomes twisted and tumbled in their rope bags, allowed to turn head over heels, but held in place.

The two men were thrown together like dry peas in a cup. Raegel's suede boots, no doubt toasty warm on his feet now but smelling like all the sewers of Sanction, kept colliding with Mixun's nose. His own noxious footwear were curled beneath him, but he managed to straighten them out so he could return the favor to Raegel.

"Try . . . to . . . get a . . . grip!" Mixun cried as they whirled.

"On what?" Raegel retorted.

Mixun braced his feet and hands against the axle ribbing, and that stopped his dizzy tumbling-or it did until Raegel fell on top of him and broke his hold. They rattled around a few more revolutions, then Raegel managed to loop his arms around a wooden bracket. He ran in place as the great wheel turned, then planted his feet against the ribs as Mixun had done. Soon they were both stable, though rotating with the axle. Raegel found himself staring at Mixun's kneecaps, and Mixun's view of the world was framed by his friend's long, bony legs.

The gnomes thundered along in this fas.h.i.+on for some time, the ma.s.sive wheel chewing through layer upon layer of packed snow and ice. The machine bore right and picked up speed. Suddenly there was an extra hard jolt, and the wheel bounced into the air. For a second the noise and shaking stopped. There followed a resounding splash as the wheel struck the water.

"See! See!" Wheeler was crowing. "Thus it is proven! The ISPIE works as well in the water as it does on land!"

"Nonsense! Preposterous!" his fellow gnomes responded. "The efficiency of the plows as paddles cannot exceed thirty percent!"

"Fifty!" Wheeler shouted back.

"Thirty!"

"One hundred twenty-six over forty-nine," announced the gnome with the Wmgerish Fever.

"Shut up!" the gnomes chorused.

"Excuse me," Mixun said in the brief moment of silence that followed. "Not that my friend and I aren't grateful, but where are we going?"

"Nevermind South," said Slipper, turning in his rope bag to see their guests. "Our base of operations for the Excellent Continental Ice Project."

"And what, pray, is the Excellent Continental Ice Project?" asked Raegel.

"Our purpose here," Wheeler said. "We've come to harvest the abundant natural concretion of solidified sub-freezing water."

"The what?"

"The ice," said all five gnomes in unison.

The giant wheel, which the gnomes informed Mixun and Raegel was named Snow Biter Snow Biter, paddled down the coastline, making good time in the choppy gray sea. When the wind dropped, the vanes outside slowed and Snow Biter Snow Biter lost speed. When the wind kicked up again, the strange contrivance churned ahead. The axle, as tightly caulked against wind and water as a well-made s.h.i.+p, kept everyone inside dry and warm. lost speed. When the wind kicked up again, the strange contrivance churned ahead. The axle, as tightly caulked against wind and water as a well-made s.h.i.+p, kept everyone inside dry and warm.

Well past midday, Wheeler announced they were going inland again. Everyone braced themselves. Angling ash.o.r.e, Snow Biter Snow Biter climbed the beach and tore at the crusty, rock filled snow. Amid a barrage of nonsensical orders, the giant wheel turned sharply to the left and halted. The sudden cessation of motion and noise was startling. Raegel neglected to lower his voice and kept shouting everything he said, while Mixun seemed to want to keep on turning of his own accord. Men and gnomes tumbled outside, weaving and spinning like dandelion seeds caught in a zephyr. climbed the beach and tore at the crusty, rock filled snow. Amid a barrage of nonsensical orders, the giant wheel turned sharply to the left and halted. The sudden cessation of motion and noise was startling. Raegel neglected to lower his voice and kept shouting everything he said, while Mixun seemed to want to keep on turning of his own accord. Men and gnomes tumbled outside, weaving and spinning like dandelion seeds caught in a zephyr.

Gradually the world stopped turning, and Mixun was able to survey their surroundings. The gnomes had created a fantastic miniature town. It lined the sh.o.r.e of a shallow bay like a toy village wrought in snow by children. Everything was gnome-sized, and hundreds of the little people were about, coated in all manner of strange garb. The men saw gnomes dressed in waxed cotton coveralls smeared with grease, leather capes with seagull feathers glued all over, and furs of every shade. A pair of busy-looking fellows rolled past, sealed inside globes of gla.s.s four feet in diameter. Oddest of all were the gnomes who wore only a breech-cloth and stockings, yet stood about in the frigid air as calm and comfortable as they pleased. Raegel was about to inquire about their state of warmth when the wind changed.

"Awk!" he said, gasping. "That smell!"

"Slipper's foot-warming lotion," Mixun said, nodding. "They must use it all over."

He and Raegel were freezing, so they loudly demanded some protection from the cold for themselves. Wheeler was in a hurry to report to his colleagues, and he dashed off, leaving little Slipper to a.s.sist the humans.

"I'm doubtful there's any clothing in camp that will fit you," he said, stroking his beardless chin.

"Anything you have-blankets will do. Anything!"

"Very well. Follow me."

They followed Slipper to a low structure made of driftwood and blocks of ice, cut and fitted with all the care of traditional masonry. Both men had to duck to enter the icehouse. It was surprisingly warm inside, which accounted for the walls running rivulets of water and the ceiling yielding a constant supply of shockingly cold drops.

The building was a warren of corridors and rooms, all sized to gnomish standards. Slipper led them a merry route through the bustling halls, and more than once Mixun lost sight of their guide as he pa.s.sed through a crowd of fellow gnomes.

"Little mites all look alike!" he declared under his breath. Raegel chided him for his ignorance.

"They're as different as you and me," he said. "See? There's Slipper, over there."

"All right, hawkeye, you lead!"

Graciously, Raegel did just that. Before long, Slipper led them to a supply room. Furs and yard goods lay in heaps everywhere. "Help yourselves," said the gnome. He turned to leave.

"Wait!" said Mixun. "These aren't clothes. They're just piles of cloth!"

"Can't you make your own clothes? I can show you how to make your own, using the Improved Squirm-Proof Full Body St.i.tcher. You lie down on a table, see, with cloth beneath you and on top, and the machine sews around you, creating perfectly fitting clothes-"

"Never mind, friend Slipper," Raegel said. "We'll manage." He found a brown woolen blanket and cut it into strips with Tamaro's dagger, winding the strips around his legs as puttees. Mixun draped a gray linsey-woolsey blanket around his shoulders like a mantle.

Slipper sniffed. "If you want to be crude about it!" He tried to leave again.

"Wait," Mixun said. "What about food? Where can we get something to eat?"

"Follow your nose. It will lead you to the Nevermind South Efficient Eatery and Experimental Food Shop."

Raegel tied his leggings in place. "Now that sounds like fine dining to me."

More warmly dressed and their hunger a.s.suaged by a visit to the Efficient Eatery ("Just our luck-it's experimental food day," Raegel said when he saw the strange victuals offered), the men wandered around the gnome camp, trying to figure out what the little men were doing.

Former farmer Raegel, who developed an eye for counting free-roaming chickens as a child, estimated there were a thousand gnomes in Nevermind South. Other giant wheels, like Snow Biter Snow Biter, came and went via the sea. Since gnomes were always shouting their business for all to hear, Mixun heard every returning wheel master declare things like "The cut is sixty-nine percent complete," or "the cut is seventy-seven percent complete." At one point he snagged a busy gnome and asked, "What is this 'cut' I keep hearing about?"

"The cut that will make the Excellent Continental Ice Project," said the gnome.

"You're cutting out blocks of ice?" said Raegel.

"No, just one block." The full-bearded gnome, clad in the cut-down pelt of a polar bear, slipped out of the puzzled Mixun's grasp and hurried on.

"These little men are mad," he declared.

"That's been said before," Raegel agreed. "Still, they do have lots of energy."

Just then a shrill metallic whistle screamed, causing the two friends to leap, ready to run from whatever danger had just been announced. Instead of an attack, the gnomes poured out of their huts and houses and formed themselves into a disorganized ma.s.s, all facing northwest.

Even then, they couldn't stop talking. A quartet of senior gnomes (recognizable by their knee-length beards) climbed atop a platform of ice bricks and waited for the mob to calm. It never did, so one of the elders put a large, elaborate-looking horn in his mouth and blew. The same piercing shriek emerged, overpowering all conversation.

"Comrades! Fellow inventors! Lend me your aural and ocular attention!" cried the longest-bearded gnome on the platform.

"Lend him what?" asked Raegel.

"I don't know, but I'm not giving them any money," Mixun warned.

"Shh!" said six gnomes in front of them. "The Chief Designer speaks!"

"Fellow technocrats! As of three o' clock and ten minutes past this afternoon, the cut has reached eighty percent of our goal. At this rate it will take just two more days to reach the next phase of the Excellent Continental Ice Project!"

The gnomes on either side of the Chief Designer did some rapid calculating with nubs of chalk on slates.

"Uh, Chief, it will take two days and eight and half hours," said one.

"Ha! You forgot to carry the one! It's three days, two hours-"

"You forgot to allow for wind resistance!"

"Colleagues, colleagues! What about the Wingerish Fever?"

"Enough!" bellowed the Chief Designer. "Culmination is nigh, whatever the exact hour! At the Splitting minus one day, the hammer towers will begin operation. At Splitting minus six hours, all colleagues will secure their work and await the Splash."

"Do you have any notion what he's talking about?" Mixun asked.

"Not a whit," Raegel said. "Seems to me they're digging trenches in the ice with those wheel-machines- maybe to roof 'em over and make tunnels out of them. That way they can get around no matter how much it snows."

Mixun was impressed by his friend's a.n.a.lytical powers. He had only one objection. "What could the gnomes be getting around to? There's nothing here but snow, ice, and rocks."

In answer, Raegel only shrugged.

The men pa.s.sed the night and all the following day in idleness, eating, sleeping, or wandering around the camp and observing inexplicable gnome behavior. The snowy scene was littered with their odd machines, often highly complicated devices to do the simplest jobs-like the pendulum powered potato masher in the Efficient Eatery, or the snow whisk operated by the increasing weight of seagull droppings collecting on a teetering platform overlooking the sea.

Their second night at Nevermind South, Mixun and Raegel bedded down in the storeroom of the main ice-building. They were alive and well, which was a great improvement over their prospects since leaving Port o' Call, but Mixun was already restless.

"We've got to find a way off this snowpile," he whispered in the dark. "I'll go mad if I have to stay here too long! How're we going to get back to the real world?"

"If we had a boat, we could sail across Ice Mountain Bay to the Plains of Dust," Raegel said.

Mixun said, "That won't do."

"What's wrong with that? The gnomes must have gotten here by boat. We could borrow one of theirs, I'm certain."

"I'm not against taking a boat. I just can't go to the desert country."

"Eh? Why's that?"

"Because I can't, that's why. Why don't you want to return to Throt?"

Raegel cleared his throat. "I get your meaning. Hmm. Ergoth is a possibility."

"Are we still wanted in Silvamori?" Mixun said.

"Um, dead or alive. I told you we shouldn't have gulled Lady Riva's factotum out of all that steel."

Mixun snorted. "Fool. He deserved what he got."

"Tdarnk still rules in Daltigoth," Raegel said. "Plenty of opportunity there for men of wit and daring."

Yes, opportunity to get drawn and quartered, Mixun thought. Raegel went on, listing cities and lands of the west, weighing the possible pickings they might find. Mixun stopped listening in the midst of his companion's dissection of Zhea Harbor and lapsed into a deep, untroubled sleep.

Somewhere far away, a great bell tolled. The pealing was dirge-like and vastly deep. Mixun, who could sleep through most disturbances, opened his eyes. He and Raegel had rigged a hide tarp over their pallets to keep water from dripping on them as they slept. With each toll of the bell, a cascade of chill droplets ran off each corner of the tarp.

"Raegel? You awake?"

"Uh-huh."

"What's that sound?"

"Gnomes." Raegel turned over, away from his friend. "Just gnomes."

That wasn't good enough for Mixun. He threw back his fur blanket and made his way out of the storehouse. It was an oddly warm morning for Icewall- still below freezing, but just barely. Heavy, low clouds reached down from the sky, gripping the stark landscape.

Bong.

The note was held a very long time. It seemed to come from all directions at once. Mixun would have asked the nearest gnome what was going on, but there were none in sight. Nevermind South was empty.

Bong.

The wind was still for the first time since their arrival at Icewall, and the sound carried with great clarity. It seemed to be coming from both east and west. Mixun drew his cloak tight and made his way through the snowdrifts toward a ridge of ice that ringed the landward side of Nevermind South. As he topped the rise, he heard the ringing sound again, followed by high, cheering voices. The gnomes were excited about something.

Mixun walked toward the cheering, and gradually he saw a tall tower in the clouds. It was a spindly construction of logs, with long ropes attached to it. As Mixun watched, a huge, wedge-shaped object rose inside the tower, drawn up by ropes. The gleam of metal meant it was sheathed in steel, and the iron box above it was filled with loose gravel. When the wedge reached the top of the tower, the tackle released, and it fell heavily to the ground.