The Ice Maze Read online

  Heart banging in his chest, he turned to look, but there was nothing. Frowning, he studied the place where he had seen the movement, but there was nothing but the bulky darkness of the mountains. He thought of the mirages of the desert, where the shimmering heat and the veils of sand had tricked their eyes into seeing things that were not real. Perhaps the cold and the wind wove mirages here, too.

  He set off away from the wagon, pushing his way through the cold fluffs. He wanted to feel himself all alone in the vast cold glowing whiteness. There was something lonely and yet thrilling about it. He walked for a little, then stopped, exalting in the cold white world, but when he turned to make his way back to the wagon, he gave a cry of delight. Almost all the awnings on the wagon were closed and lantern light shone through the cloth making it glow like a warm ember. Where he had left the awning open, a slash of warmer yellow light reached out towards him, seeming to offer a pathway back.

  Bily tried to fix a picture of it in his mind, so that one day, when they lived in their new cottage, he could create new plates and cups and colour them with images of this strange world. On just one he would paint the glowing wagon.

  It was only as he made his way back, that he noticed the cold fluffs on the other side of the wagon were a good deal higher than on the side where he had jumped down. Semmel looked out from under the awning and Bily signalled her to throw down the shovel. He carried it to the drift of cold fluffs against the other side of the wagon and began to dig into it so that he could get to the net sack of firenuts. He was determined to make porridge for breakfast, even if it did delay them. It would fill them up so they could go the whole day without stopping, as Zluty wanted.

  Zluty opened his eyes to daylight and silence, only to discover he was alone in the wagon but for the sleeping Monster.

  ‘Someone ought to have woken me,’ he muttered crossly.

  Seeing the awning open on the side opposite the wagon door, he was puzzled, but he clambered over bundles and bedding to look out. The coldwhites had stopped falling and the ground was covered in a marvellous blanket of pure white that stretched away under the clouded sky to lap up against the edge of the mountains. There were patches of snow here and there on the dark slopes, but the tops of the mountains were entirely capped in coldwhites, so that it was hard to see where their peaks ended and the sky began.

  There was no sign of the others, but Zluty could see Bily’s footprints and the pawprints of the diggers disappearing around the wagon. Wondering again why the others had not used the door, he went to unlatch it. The door would not budge.

  He returned to the other side of the wagon, climbed onto the rim and jumped down to follow the footprints around to the other side. He saw at once why they had not used the door. It was buried under a great drift of coldwhites that had built up on that side of the wagon. A hole had been dug into it, and when Zluty peered into it he saw the net of firenuts.

  That made him realise he could smell smoke. He went further round the wagon and found a flat place that had been stamped down around the heavy metal top of the firetable, which lay flat on the ground. A small crackling fire blazed on it, under the mesh bowl, and a pot of porridge sat on it, bubbling sluggishly.

  There was no sign of Bily or the diggers.

  Zluty looked around and saw a furrow in the blanket of coldwhites, running East. Following it with his eyes, he saw something sticking up from the whiteness a good way off. Flugal must have found another Makers device, he thought. That explained why Bily had not woken him. Flugal would not leave until he had dug up the device that called to him.

  Zluty took the shovel and began to dig out the wheels. By the time Bily returned, he had got two free. He was about to ask how long Flugal would be when he saw Bily’s face, suffused with wonder.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘It was singing,’ Bily said.

  Zluty stared at him. ‘What was singing?’

  ‘The machine Flugal found,’ Bily said, his eyes very wide. ‘It is the biggest one I have ever seen. Flugal says one piece inside it is very valuable. He hopes it won’t take too long to get it free, but he said you should get the wheels off the wagon.’

  ‘I have dug out two wheels,’ Zluty said, curious about the singing device, but rather than ask questions, he said, ‘I will dig out the other two and you can help me take them off.’

  It did not take long to uncover the remaining wheels, but getting all of them off was harder than he had expected, even with Bily’s help, because the fastenings were frozen. Bily had to pour hot water on to loosen them, then they had to wait until the metal cooled enough to be touched.

  Zluty was eager to see how it would be to drag the wagon over the coldwhites. He thought it would move very easily and lightly. The tiresome thing was that they would have to forge a path through the coldwhites, pulling the wagon. But with luck, they would pack down harder by the morrow.

  When the porridge was done, Bily bid him fetch the diggers. Zluty set off at a trot along the furrow, thinking they would have to start being more frugal with their use of firenuts. They would need fire to cook and even to melt water to drink, if there was no running water in the cold North, and firenuts did not grow there. Of course, the memory scents carried by the diggers might tell them where to find food and running water, but it would be better if they moved fast enough that their supplies would last the whole of their journey around the mountains.

  The Makers device was further away than he had thought, and when Zluty got closer he realised he had misjudged the distance because he had not understood how big it was.

  Approaching it he slowed, amazed at the size of it, and marvelling how, in all the years he and Bily had lived on the plain surrounded by metal devices, they had never wondered where they came from. The most he had ever done was to pick up the odd piece of metal that might prove useful. Had the devices failed to interest them because the metal in them did not call to him or Bily?

  The smooth curved bulk of the machine hid the diggers from sight, as did the coldwhites forming a great drift about its base, but when Zluty circled round, he saw that the diggers had tunnelled into the drift. Ducking his head to enter the tunnel, he found the diggers had hollowed out a little rough cave at the side of the device. There was a lantern set to one side, lighting it, and Zluty was astonished to realise that the device was buried in the earth. This meant it was even bigger than it looked.

  He was reminded of the great bowl-shaped dip in the ground in the Northern Forest. For years he had collected mushrooms in darkness, never seeing that the dip was part of an enormous broken metal object half sunk in earth and overgrown with plants, until it was lit with skystones.

  Going closer to the device, Zluty saw there was a square opening in it at ground level. He could see the tip of Flugal’s tail sticking out. The rest of the digger was hidden inside the device. Zluty heard a movement to one side, and turned to see Semmel rummaging in a bag of tools. Catching sight of him, she called to Flugal that Zluty had come.

  The he digger immediately backed out of the opening and beamed at him delightedly. ‘Ra!’ he cried cheerfully, sitting back on his haunches.

  ‘Do you know what this is for?’ Zluty asked, gesturing to the machine.

  ‘Makers making this to taste the earth this side of the sky crack,’ the he digger answered.

  Totally confused, Zluty said, ‘Bily says come and eat before the porridge is spoiled.’

  ‘Almost getting piece free,’ Flugal said, sounding rather fed up.

  ‘Can I help?’ Zluty asked, expecting to be refused.

  To his surprise, Flugal motioned for Zluty to look into the opening. He stepped aside and Zluty got down onto his hands and knees and peered inside the device. It was dark, but another lantern had been hung on a jutting bit of its innards, illuminating them.

  Flugal reached past him to point to the piece he had been trying to get free.

  It was a small, round metal shape with smoothed, curved edges, save for tw
o bits sticking out of it. There were metal wires hanging loose from the device above and below the metal piece and Zluty supposed they had been attached to it.

  ‘Nothing holds it in place now, but I cannot get it free, Zchloo-tee,’ Flugal said, explaining that his paws were too small to get a proper grip. He showed Zluty a tool he had been using, which had strong jaws that opened and closed. Unfortunately, the roundness of the object made it hard for the jaws to grip.

  Zluty lay on his belly and wriggled right up to the opening in the device. It was too small for him to fit both his head and arm through at the same time. So after looking in to fix in his mind the position of the piece Flugal wanted, he put in his hand and reached out until his fingers found its round shape. He got a good grip and twisted. It shifted unwillingly, then stopped.

  Zluty shifted his grip and twisted the piece again, as hard as he could. After a slight resistance, it came loose in his hand quite suddenly. It was a good deal heavier than he expected and he almost dropped it.

  To his astonishment, the metal piece seemed to tremble. He froze, but it lay heavy and still in his palm. He closed his fingers about it and began to ease back out of the opening.

  Sitting up, Zluty studied his prize. The metal object had markings, as did many of the Makers devices and machines, but was otherwise smooth. He noticed one of the bits that stuck out of it was sharp, and looking more closely, he realised the top of it had snapped off.

  Flugal touched the broken bit regretfully. ‘It broke when I was trying to get it free,’ he said. ‘It cannot singing now.’

  Zluty stared at him, thinking of what Bily had said. ‘Is it . . . was it alive?’

  ‘It is alive,’ Flugal said, taking it from him and turning it in his paws to examine it. ‘No use to taking bits that are not alive.’

  Zluty drew in a breath, then he said slowly, ‘When you say bits of the Makers machines are alive, you mean they work separately from the thing you took them from?’

  ‘Yes,’ Flugal said absently.

  Semmel had come close, too, and she added gravely, ‘Things have their own purposes, Zchloo-tee, before the Makers plan gobbles them up. That device could sing, but it was not why the Makers wanted it. They made it serve their plan.’

  ‘But . . .’ Zluty began, then stopped, not sure what he wanted to say. Finally he said, ‘That . . . that piece of metal shivered in my hand when I got it free.’

  Flugal gave him a strange look. ‘That is not possible, Zchloo-tee. Maybe you bumped it on an unseen something.’

  Zluty wanted to believe Flugal, yet the memory of the device trembling like a living creature in his hand was too vivid. The three of them walked together back along the furrow to the wagon, where they sat obediently on the groundsheets Bily had laid out. The fire was now no more than a few embers and as Bily served them a bowl each, he pointed out reproachfully that the porridge had got lumpy. Eating a mouthful, Zluty insisted that it was perfectly delicious and who said porridge must always be smooth anyway?

  Bily looked so startled at this that Zluty forgot his unease about the device and burst out laughing.

  By the time they set off again, the sky had lightened to a pale brightness that blended into the shining blanket of coldwhites so that it was impossible to make out the horizon line. Zluty did not fret at the lateness of their departure when he discovered how smoothly and lightly the wagon moved over the coldwhites, and despite his fears, he and Bily were able to run without much difficulty, pulling the wagon after them. Indeed, it moved so quickly that they had to shift both towropes to the sides of the wagon so they could slow it when it threatened to pull them off their feet. The diggers were unable to keep up, so Zluty suggested they ride.

  The Monster was awake again but there was no time to question it now. Yet as they had packed up the breakfast things and prepared to go on, Zluty saw that it was sitting alertly, and wondered why. Perhaps it was only that the soothing potion had worn off enough for the Monster to realise it was only a matter of time before it would sicken again, and now it understood there would be no help for it, save in the Velvet City.

  As they sped ever North, the cloud cover thinned and the day brightened so much that the coldwhites began to give off a dazzling glare. Zluty felt sure the sun would break through at last. Indeed, for the first time he could see it as a very bright patch behind the clouds, but it was not high above the horizon, and before long it began to sink without ever having pierced the clouds. The white sky dimmed to grey, and a cold wind began to blow from the North. All at once the brief day was drawing to an end.

  Coldwhites began to fall and suddenly the wind was full of them. They stopped to drop down the awning sides and fasten them, then pushed on, he and Bily leaning into the bullying wind, keeping their heads down to protect their faces. The wind pushing against the awning slowed them and made it hard to direct the wagon forward, but Zluty was determined not to stop until it was true dark. It worried him that they had not reached the Raincage that was supposed to mark the halfway point in their journey, for they had gone though more than half of their supplies.

  When he mentioned it to Flugal, who had got back into place with Semmel at the front of the wagon, the he digger admitted that the ancestral memory scents connected to the Raincage were generations old and might have weakened.

  It was still not quite full dark when they had to stop, for the wind was fairly howling and the air so thick with flying coldwhites that Zluty’s senses were muddled. They could no longer see the guiding bulk of the mountains.

  ‘A blizzard comes,’ Semmel said, wide-eyed, when they came inside the wagon.

  ‘A coldwhite blizzard,’ Flugal reassured Zluty, seeing the look on his face. ‘We must anchor the wagon.’

  Zluty got out and hastily mounded coldwhites around the wheels, stamping them down hard before he retreated gladly into the wagon. They made do with nuts and dried berries for supper because the wind was so strong that, when it shook the wagon, the cooking table might be toppled. They kept one lantern lit because its tiny flame was enclosed and it could be hung so it would not fall.

  All of them were wide awake, even the Monster, but the noise made by the wind, the creaking metal of the wagon and the flap of the awning made it quite impossible to talk. Once again Zluty had to abandon his resolution to question the Monster about the Velvet City. Wearily, he sat on his bedding, watching Bily and Semmel rearrange the interior of the wagon, communicating by gesture alone. In the swinging lantern light it looked as if they were doing some odd dance, and Zluty was reminded of the she digger’s dance the previous night, the sweet greenish smoke writhing around her as if it were alive. He wondered what she had done with the ashes, but there was no way to ask until the blizzard ended. He lay down on his bedding and closed his eyes, letting the monotonous keening of the storm lull him to sleep.

  A forceful buffet of wind woke him.

  Zluty sat up properly and looked around, feeling alarmed and groggy at the same time. The others were asleep and he could hear that the blizzard was still raging outside, coldwhites slapping against the awning. He would have to dig the wagon out of a drift again in the morning before they could go on. His cloak had been spread over him and he was glad of it, for despite the warmth of the Monster, it was very cold and his breath came out in little puffs of mist.

  He noticed the Monster was moving restlessly, its paws twitching again. It might be dreaming, or maybe it was beginning to sicken again. For Bily’s sake as much as the Monster’s he hoped he was wrong, for his soft-hearted brother would feel the Monster’s pain as if it were his own.

  Zluty closed his eyes, but his mind drifted on the edge of sleep. His thoughts flew North; not to the icy end of the mountain range that was their destination, but back in time to the great Northern Forest. The last time he had gone there he had been trapped by the stone storm and had ventured deeper than ever before with the shining skystones to light his way.

  He remembered that walk, and the burnt place at the
end of the broken stone wall, where he had discovered the bones of the huge dead creature inside its enormous metal egg. He and Bily had learned that they had come through the sky crack in an egg, which meant they had to have been sent. Yet they were not part of the Makers plan, so who had sent them?

  Zluty wondered if they could have been sent through the sky crack by a Maker before the Makers had got interested in what lay beyond it; before they had made their plan and started putting metal into things that lived. Of course, that would mean the Makers had put them through the sky crack with all of the other things they had not wanted.

  This thought made Zluty open his eyes, but he soon closed them again because he did not know how their egg had come to be on the plain, and he was unlikely ever to know. It was a mystery, just as the little metal egg that he had found was a mystery, and Redwing was a mystery.

  Zluty felt suddenly certain that all of the different mysteries were connected, like the digger burrows with their many separate huts and separate entrances that led to a connected central network of tunnels and burrows. The digger huts looked like separate dwellings, but hidden under the earth, they were linked to all of the others. Perhaps if he could solve just one mystery, the answer would lead him to understand all the others.

  The wind gave the wagon another very hard jerk but Zluty barely felt it. He was sinking into sleep again, and into a dream of soaring through the flyway.

  Semmel shook Bily hard and he opened his eyes to find her bent over him, mouth moving, paws swooping. She was trying to tell him something, but the wind was still howling outside, making it impossible to hear, and he was too muddle-headed to make his mind quiet enough to understand her thoughts. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and trying to gather his wits. The blanket fell away and the shock of the cold struck him like a slap, bringing him wide awake.

  He noticed Zluty pulling on his cloak. He was talking to Flugal, and Bily saw that the door and the awning above it were open, wind blowing cold fluffs inside. That was why it was so cold.