The Search for Magic Part 15

He cut and slashed at Mixun and Raegel, who promptly leaped apart, dodging each other and the pirate's savage swings. Rain and wind tore at them, making the ice impossible to stand on. Down went Artagor, heavily. Mixun would have leaped on the fallen foe, but he fell too. Raegel managed a strange pirouette and collapsed onto the crowd of gnomes.

The Chief Designer was shouting orders. Mixun heard something like "engage the propulsion units," but the wind made hearing difficult. He got up on his knees just as Artagor did. The pirate thrust at him. Mixun felt the rake of cold iron, and a cut three inches long opened on his left cheek. He threw himself at Artagor's swordhand and both men spun away, sluicing down the ice hill toward the water's edge.

All the pirates had fled except Artagor's boat crew, who stood by their gig anxiously waiting for their master. When he appeared, sliding down the ice on his back, grappling with the short, muscular Mixun, they broke ranks and ran to help. Not one made it two steps before falling. Several went right into the tossing sea.

Mixun was strong, but Artagor outweighed him by sixty pounds. He threw the smaller man off and rose warily. Mixun floundered helplessly at his feet. Grinning through his beard, Artagor raised his cutla.s.s high.

There was a thump, a loud tw.a.n.g, and something struck the pirate chief in the face. He yelled and flung his arms wide, losing his sword. When he came down again, he was in the sea. Artagor surfaced once, spouting water and terrifying curses. It was obvious he couldn't swim in his heavy breastplate and boots, and he went down again.

From his knees, Mixun saw the tall, gaunt figure of Raegel and the tiny beardless Slipper standing a few paces away. Raegel held some kind of fork-shaped device in his hand. With great effort, Mixun climbed the slippery slope on hands and knees until he reached his friends. Raegel was grinning widely.

"What happened?" asked Mixun.

"Friend Slipper loaned me his hand catapult," said Raegel. With great ceremony, Raegel returned the device to the gnome, who shoved it in one of the many pockets on the back of his coveralls.

The pirates were gone. Artagor's gig, rowed by just four sailors, was pulling for his s.h.i.+p. Of the pirate chief there was no sign. The rest of the fleet had scattered before the tempest and were trying to beat their way back to Enstar.

"We must take shelter!" Slipper piped. Most of his comrades had already done so. With the wind and rain pelting their backs, both men and the gnome slowly climbed the hill to camp.

What paddle machines there were still working rapidly collapsed in the storm. Their mountings in the ice had melted loose, and the fierce wind smashed them down. Powerless, the great iceberg turned in the wind, plowing sideways through the heaving sea. Raegel got seasick again.

In the storehouse, the gnomes were furiously working-sewing hides together, painting hot pitch on wicker baskets, and other nonsensical doings. Mixun and Raegel shut the driftwood door and slid to the floor, their backs against the flimsy, quivering panel.

"It's a cyclone all right," Raegel said, wiping his face. "We'll soon be aground at this rate."

"I estimate we will reach Enstar in ninety-two minutes," said the gnome who calculated the Splitting so accurately. Despite his earlier success, he instantly had fifty other gnomes disputing his estimate. Mixun ground his teeth.

"Time waits for gnome one," Raegel said, leaning his head back.

"Shut up! Are we in danger?" asked Mixun.

"Danger enough, even if this floe isn't a s.h.i.+p. It may be ice, but it's solid. We'll go aground and that'll be that."

The gnomes were not about to see their great project end so ignominiously. They sewed their store of hides into a gigantic sail, which they announced they would spread between the peaks atop the iceberg. Using the wind, they would sail the floe away from Enstar.

"And what," Mixun asked, "are the baskets for?"

The explanation was lengthy, but the crux of the matter was that they were gnomish lifeboats, for use in case the iceberg broke apart.

Tied together by an endless rope, the gnomes ventured forth in the storm. Small as they were, they were carried hither and thither by the tempest, hopelessly snarling the makes.h.i.+ft sail. Driven to help by sheer exasperation, Mixun and Raegel climbed the ridge, dragging the heavy sail behind them. At the top, Mixun threw one leg over and surveyed the scene. His heart climbed into his mouth.

The coast of Enstar seemed close enough to touch. Above a white sand beach, a dark headland loomed. Trees tossed in the scouring wind. Under him, Mixun felt the huge floe roll and pitch as it drove relentlessly toward land. Raegel arrived a few seconds later, still dragging the gnomes' useless sail.

"Forget it!" Mixun shouted. "Look!"

The deep underbelly of the berg struck sand, and the island heeled sharply, throwing the men over the ridge. They skittered down the melting face of the ridge, jolting to a stop in a ravine full of rain and melt-water. Soaked, Mixun tossed the wet hair out of his eyes. They were still a good fifty paces from dry land.

With amazing delicacy, the ponderous floe pivoted on its natural keel. The 'bow' of the island was pushed ash.o.r.e by the thundering wind. A monstrous grinding filled the air. The ice quivered.

"Here we go!" Raegel shouted.

With a crack as loud as the Splitting, the fore-end of the iceberg, fully half a mile long, broke off. Fragments of ice the size of houses crashed into the raging ocean. Out of balance, the broken segment heeled over on its end and piled ash.o.r.e amid heavy waves. Now the rear of the iceberg was unsupported, and the floe swung in the other direction, grinding hard onto the sand. The vast crystalline mountain of ice, formerly clear as diamond, seamed with a million cracks.

Mixun got up and ran, ice disintegrating under his feet. Raegel overtook him, long legs pumping. Both men would have bet anything it was impossible to run on a slanting sheet of ice, but panic put spurs on their heels. Pa.s.sing Mixun, Raegel was a dozen steps from the edge of the berg when the whole section s.h.i.+vered and fell apart. His startled cry was lost in the wind and the grinding of the ice.

Mixun went down on all fours and scrambled to the new edge of the berg. He looked down and saw the surf was dotted with ice-small chunks, large slabs- and Raegel's head as he tried to keep afloat. The floe was still pus.h.i.+ng against the sh.o.r.e, forced by the roaring storm. Mixun's shouts to his friend could not be heard. When Raegel went under and did not immediately surface, Mixun slid feet first into the foaming water.

He was promptly brained by a piece of floating ice the size of a horse. Driven underwater, he shook off the blow and opened his eyes. He saw Raegel, stuck beneath a large slab of ice, arms and legs swinging back and forth limply with the tide. Mixun sank down until his toes found sand, then sprang forward and upward, catching Raegel around the waist. He pushed the ice aside and broke the surface, gasping.

With a noise like the end of the world, the center of the iceberg, two miles long and still almost a mile wide, heaved ash.o.r.e. The ridge that ran down the center of the floe exploded into fragments, peppering the water as Mixun dragged his unconscious friend onto drier land. He hauled Raegel up the beach above the high tide line and fell breathless on the sand.

The great floe disintegrated before his eyes. To his right, the bow segment rolled ash.o.r.e upside down, waves breaking over it. To Mixun's left, the stern section was still at sea, caught in an eddy. It spun madly, half a mile of ice whirling like a soap bubble in a wash basin. Between these two spectacles, the main portion of the iceberg was breaking up. Each fresh wave helped pound the floe against the unyielding island, and the cyclonic wind threatened to roll the monstrous mountain of ice onto land. Mixun tried to stand and pull Raegel to safety, but he was too drained. He turned Raegel over on his stomach to protect him from flying shards of ice and threw his arm over his face to await what would be.

He heard voices-many voices, high-pitched like children. Peeking out from under his arm, he saw the surf was full of gnomes. Some were bobbing in watertight baskets, other were dog-paddling around with inflated pigskins tied to their waists. They seemed not the least concerned by the tempest or the crumbling iceberg. Indeed, upon sitting up, Mixun realized the gnomes were shouting theories and calculations at each other even as the catastrophe thundered about them.

Mixun began to laugh. Waterlogged, beset by pirates, storm, and mountains of ice, he laughed and laughed.

Shaking Raegel's shoulder until he revived, Mixun laughed in his comrade's half-drowned face.

"We're alive!" he said between guffaws. "Rejoice, son of Rafe! We are alive!"

By the time the storm was done, there wasn't a piece of ice in sight bigger than a gnomish house. The coastline of Enstar was covered with melting blocks of ice for miles, and all the flotsam of Nevermind South came ash.o.r.e, too. Not one gnome was lost in the wreck of the iceberg, but there were many broken bones and bruises.

The Chief Designer got his people organized. (Disorganized is more like it, Mixun thought privately.) Teams of gnomes combed the sand for lost equipment. Mixun and Raegel scrounged as well-Mixun for valuables and Raegel for food. They found little of either.

At dawn the following day the gnomes gathered to hear long-winded reports on their situation from a series of designated committees. Mixun let them wrangle a while, then asked, "Now what? How will we all get home?"

"I'll appoint a committee to study the problem," said the Chief Designer.

"I'm sure you will. What about the ice?"

The gnome wrung seawater from his long beard and shrugged. "The Excellent Continental Ice Project will have to be repeated," he said.

Before noon, the first islanders came down from the cliffs above to investigate the strange castaways. They were tough looking folk, darkly tanned and chapped from the wind. They weren't pirates, but they had dealt with Artagor and his kind before and probably weren't above wrecking and looting if the opportunity presented itself. The Enstarians looked over the gnomes' wreckage and scratched their heads. Where was the s.h.i.+p? Where was the cargo?

Raegel watched the hard-eyed men and women poking among the melting ice. He had an idea-a surprising idea. He whispered part of it to Mixun, who grinned when he got the gist of it.

"I'll ask," he said, hurrying away.

"Wait, Mix, there's more to it-"

Mixun did not wait for the full explanation, but sought out the Chief Designer, the calculator, Wheeler, and other important gnomes. With expressive gestures, he pointed to the growing crowd of islanders picking over the remains of the gnomes' experiment. The gnomes all regarded him blankly.

"Just say yes," Mixun said tersely.

"What you say is not scientific, so it does not concern us," said the Chief Designer. "Do as you will."

Mixun clapped his hands together and waved to Raegel. Together they approached a likely mark-a lean, hungry-looking Enstarian who wore the rod and chains of a moneychanger on his belt.

"Hail, friend!" Raegel said. "Fine morning, is it not?"

" 'Tis always fair after a great storm," the man replied warily. "You're in good spirits for a s.h.i.+pwrecked man."

"Oh, we're not s.h.i.+pwrecked, friend! We were blown off course by the storm, but we meant to land here all along."

The moneychanger narrowed his already close eyes. "What brings you to Enstar?"

Mixun gestured broadly. "Ice!"

"Ice?"

"Ice. Tons of ice, made from the sweet, pure snows of Icewall and brought to you by the enterprise of my colleague and I, and by the skill of our gnome friends," said Mixun. He introduced himself as Mixundantalus and Raegel as a count again. In glowing terms, he described their expedition to Icewall to retrieve an iceberg and sail it to Enstar.

"Why here?" said the woman on the moneychanger's left. "Why bring your ice to us?"

"As a test, dear lady," Raegel said. "Being close to Icewall, yet surrounded by temperate seas, we wanted to see if we could bring our ice to you without losing too much to meltage. I think we did all right. Don't you, friend Mixundantalus?"

"We did, Count Raegel."

"You mean to sell that ice?" said another islander.

"We do," Raegel said. "One steel piece per hundredweight."

The moneychanger laughed harshly. "One steel piece! What's to stop us from picking up your ice from the beach?"

"Why, nothing but the loss of future fortunes to come," said the bogus count.

"What's your meaning, stranger?"

Mixun picked up two fist-sized chunks and banged them together. He pa.s.sed out the resulting slivers to the growing crowd of islanders. They put them in their mouths, chewed on them, or held them in their hands until they melted to pure water.

"You hold the finest fresh water in the world, and the coldest," Raegel said grandly. "Our company intends to sell Icewall ice in every port between here and Sanction-for drinking water, chilling beverages on hot days, preserving meats, and many other uses! We need a friendly port where we can store the ice before we s.h.i.+p it off to its ultimate destination. Enstar could be that place."

"Are you selling this ice for one steel per hundredweight to others?" asked the moneychanger. He sucked noisily on a sliver of ice while Raegel answered.

"Not at all!" he said. "As a luxury item, we plan to sell ice in port cities for one steel per pound."

The islanders murmured to each other, trying to calculate the wealth in sight if the ice could be sold at that price.

"It's good ice," said one man. "I have a plot of land on Kraken Bay. You could build your warehouse there."

"Not so fast, Jericas!" the woman interjected. "I saw the strangers first!"

"I spoke to them first," the moneychanger shouted.

"Friends, friends!" Raegel said. "There's ice and profit enough for all. Since our stock is currently melting on the beach, why don't those of you interested in our proposition leave us your names and a small deposit? Once our fortunes are restored, we'll mount another expedition to Icewall for more ice."

Like gnomes arguing over an obscure point of mathematics, the Enstarians crowded around the two men, thrusting handfuls of coins at them while shouting their names. Mixun made a great show of writing down everyone's name and the amount of their payment. He then urged them to help themselves to all the ice they could carry. Whooping like children, the hard-bitten islanders swooped down on the rapidly melting ice and hauled it away in buckets, jackets, even women's skirts.

Away from the mob of islanders, Raegel and Mixun counted their money. "There must be two hundred steel pieces here," Mixun chortled. "Who'd have thought? We can sell anything to anyone!"

"We must share the money with the gnomes," Raegel said.

"What! Why?"

Raegel looked at Mixun, but said nothing.

"All right," Mixun said. "They did save our lives back on Icewall. We'll give them something." He mused. "Twenty percent?"

"Fifty percent. They'll need it."

"For what?" said Mixun, raising his voice.

"To equip our next trip to Icewall."

Mixun jerked his comrade farther away from scavenging islanders and the gnomes. "Are you crazy?" he hissed. "We're not going back to Icewall! That was a song for the marks, that stuff about selling ice in every port-"

"I'm going to do it," Raegel said simply.

Mixun stared. "You're not serious, are you?"

"I am. The figures I gave the island people weren't lies. We can get a steel piece per pound in any port, mark my words. And how many pounds do you think was in that ice floe? A million? Two million? Twenty? That's serious coinage, Mix, my friend."

Twenty million steel pieces? All the scams for the rest of his life wouldn't net Mixun so much money. Was this scheme of Raegel's the real thing? On far less than twenty million he could redeem his inheritance and fulfill his destiny in his homeland.

He studied Raegel's face. The former farm boy from Throt was lost in a waking dream-no doubt surveying some distant vista of ice. If they could sell it, they could turn an island of ice into an island of money. In that moment, Mixun caught the dream too.

"Hey, Slipper!" he called. The little gnome, seated on a broken barrelhead, turned to face him. "How much ice was in that berg, anyway?"

The calculations took only minutes, but the resulting argument lasted the rest of the day.

The Great Gully Dwarf Clmacteric Of 40 S.C.

JEFF CROOK.

At the corner of Globe and Market Streets, in the City of Seven Circles, Palanthas the Ancient, two kender skidded around the corner of the Military and Medical Guild of the Gnomes of Mount Nevermind-Local 458, Palanthian Division, the MMGGMN (mmggmn for short). Farther up Globe Street, from whence an angry mob surged, stood the ancient and revered Cartographer's Guild, and it was no surprise that many in the mob brandished an a.s.sortment of compa.s.ses (the pointy kind), long metal rules, and T-squares. Even a few surveyor's sticks bobbed in their midst, like pikemen in a ragtag army.