City of Ice (12 page)

“At least you'll finally be good for something.” Kles sniffed.

Scirye had a soft spot for the conniving badger. “Don't worry,” she said, patting him comfortingly on the paw. “When we get home, we'll feed you so well that every other badger will be jealous of your shape.”

“And you'll weigh half a ton,” Leech teased. “You'll never be able to fly on Bayang again.”

“Great,” the badger and dragon both said with equal fervor.

They decided that one of them should keep watch while the others rested, and Scirye volunteered for the first shift. She was weary to her very bones, and she was afraid that once she went to sleep it would be nearly impossible to rouse her.

The others were rolled up in sleeping furs and on her lap Kles was making the loud humming sound that was his snore. The noise blended with the howling winds into an odd sort of tune.

As she sat there, the tune began to curl about sensuously within her mind like a ribbon of incense smoke, coiling about her thoughts and twisting them into meaningless shapes.

Before she knew it, Scirye had drifted off into sleep.

Scirye had the pleasantest dream. Her father had flown in from Bactra to San Francisco. He tried to join them wherever her mother was posted—though lately he'd been so busy that he hadn't been able to.

Her mother, her sister Nishke, and she were showing him the sights on a cable car. Far away on a hilltop were the three stone columns that were their destination. They would have a wonderful view from there.

It was a warm, sunny day in the city and her father was laughing as he stood on the outside step. And Scirye was laughing with him. It was rare when the family was together, and she felt safe and happy for the first time she could remember.

Ahead at the next corner, several people had crowded into the street, waiting to board the cable car. Something glinted on the head of a waiting woman. It was a lion's head, shining as intensely as the sun.

Frightened, Scirye called to the uniformed conductor and the brakeman, “Don't stop! Go faster!”

Without arguing, they released the cable so that the cable car sped along, clacking over the rails, bell ringing. The prospective passengers in the street whizzed past in a blur.

When the cable car slowed again, it was rattling through Honolulu. Scirye knew they had to get off the cable car and hide among the gaudily clad tourists swarming the city.

Scirye herded her sister and parents off the car onto the sidewalk, where they slipped through the mob and found themselves by a small fence with pickets made from bamboo. Opening the gate, they stepped into a luxurious garden of plants with leaves broad as emerald sails and strange-shaped flowers of every color. The air was thick with scents and sniffing them made Scirye feel almost dizzy.

The huge leaves closed overhead like a canopy so that they walked the path in green shadow. Just when Scirye began to hope they were safe, the ground itself began to rise, became the palms of brown hands and the trees the fingers. Shining down upon them was a huge moon that filled half the sky, and etched with diamond sharpness upon the moon was the face of Nanaia.

“Akshe!” her sister, Nishke, said in the Old Tongue. “Wake up!”

Scirye ran across one hand and leapt…into snow. It clung to her ankles and swirled all about her—as if the whole world had dissolved into a million billion bits of white snowflakes.

And yet through the snow she saw a figure trudging past her in short, gliding steps that made it look as if she were shuffling on roller skates. Unlike Scirye, the figure moved across the surface.

The traveler was in shaggy fur trousers that went
whuff-whuff
as the legs rubbed against one another. It wore a jacket of the same fur with a hood that hid the person's face. Over one shoulder and hanging limply down the person's back was a brown leather sack.

Around the traveler's waist hung a belt woven from leather strings, and dangling from the belt on thongs were all sorts of beads, charms, pebbles, carvings, shells, and feathers. They bounced against the person's legs as the traveler walked, making a
click-clack-click
in counterpoint to the noise made by the trouser legs rubbing together.

The figure stopped and turned slowly, snorting sounds coming from within the hood as it tested the scents in the air.

“Shh. Don't talk,” Nishke warned. “Or the hag will hear you.”

Scirye was standing right out in the open, and even with the swirling snow, the hag could not miss her. She wanted to run, to scream, but she could not move.

Her heart skipped as the hag seemed to look directly at her. In the shadows deep within the hood, two eyes glared at her. At least, they were where eyes should be on a face, but they were really more like holes behind which a bilious green fire burned—a fire so malevolent that Scirye found herself shuddering.

But then the hag faced forward, away from the girl, and began her peculiar sliding walk.

Whuff-whuff. Click-clack-click. Whuff-whuff.

The strange, ominous noises dwindled as the hag disappeared into the storm.

“Remember,” Nishke whispered, “the otter will show you the way.”

 

Her hand felt hot as if she were holding a boiling cup of tea. Scirye became aware that she was lying on her back inside the igloo. Outside the winds tore at the snow blocks with airy claws and howled in fury when they would not budge.

Scirye tried to open her eyes, but the lids felt as heavy as iron. Kles's familiar weight was still in her arms.

Whuff-whuff. Click-clack-click.

When she heard the noises, she was so terrified that she almost didn't want to raise her eyelids. But she knew she had to.

It was a great struggle, but she finally managed to squeeze one eye slightly open. The “3” on her hand was glowing as if that was causing the sensation of heat.

There was barely any light at all from the fire imp asleep in the lantern. But she managed to make out the hag standing in the middle of the igloo and shoving something into her leather bag. It was starting to swell outward like a giant brown toad squatting on the floor.

When Scirye glimpsed the pear-shaped body disappearing into the bag, she realized it was Koko up to his shoulders inside the sack.

As the impatient hag shoved more of the badger inside, the bag expanded. In horror, Scirye watched the sides of the bag ripple like the muscles of a jaw chewing a meal.

The hag's right hand became stuck inside it. Her shoulders shook back and forth as she tried to tug free, but the bag drew her in steadily until she was in up to her elbow.

Then she darted her left hand to her waist and gripped one of the objects hanging from her belt. Suddenly she was straightening up, easily drawing her right arm out free as if it had been greased.

That's it!
Scirye thought to herself.
It wouldn't do the hag any good just to be able to put her hand in and out if she lost her prey inside. There had to be some magical object on the belt that let her elude the bag's grasp.

From the corner of her eye, Scirye saw the others lying asleep, oblivious to the badger's abduction.

Scirye tried to cry out a warning, but her vocal cords were as paralyzed as her body and no sound came out.

Even so, the hag whirled around so that she was facing Scirye.

The hag's head jerked up when she saw that one of her victims was awake and she began to sway back and forth and hiss like a teakettle about to explode.

Setting one foot on Koko's body, the hag put one hand on the object on her belt. Stooping, she grabbed the bottom of the bag with the other hand and jerked it upward so that the unconscious badger plopped out onto the igloo's floor.

Then the hag began to shuffle a little quicker toward Scirye, pulling the bag behind her.

Whuff-whuff. Click-clack-clack.

Scirye fought to move her arms, her legs, her vocal cords, but they felt like stone. All she could do was lie there helplessly as the hag shuffled right next to her, looming over her like a greasy, furry shadow. The hag stunk of sweat and rancid fat and…blood. Scirye was all too familiar with that smell by now.

When the hag set the bag down, it tilted its mouth expectantly toward the girl. Looking into the sack was like gazing into a huge, dark cavern, and Scirye even thought she heard faint cries for help echoing from within.

The hag bent, her eyes glowing evilly as she reached down—not for Scirye but for Kles.

Fear for her friend gave Scirye extra strength. Finally, she found her voice. “Kles, wake up!” she screamed.

The little griffin did not stir. Only his buzzing snore told her that he was still alive.

Within the hood, the hag's eyes glowed brighter and angrier.

She hates me,
the girl thought.

“What did I ever do to you?” Scirye demanded.

When the eyes narrowed to slits, the fire behind them blazed hotter and fiercer.

I think she hates me just for being alive,
Scirye decided.
She hates everyone.
It was that hatred that fed the fire behind the eyes. A hatred so deep and mindless that it had consumed everything inside her, only leaving those sickly green flames.

Her friends gone or dead, isolated in a hostile land and facing a horrible monster by herself, the girl had never felt more alone in her whole life. What chance did she have? She was as small and insignificant and helpless as a bug on a glacier.

Then she heard Nishke again: “Yashe! Yashe!” Honor! Honor!

Scirye's sister and mother had shouted that as they had fought Badik the dragon. It was the battle cry that thousands of Pippalanta had yelled through the centuries.

It was as if Scirye's mind had been cloaked by darkness and now someone had thrown open a window so that the light could stream inside again.

The voice was compelling, forceful, like a hand shoving her forward, but instead of her body, it was her soul.

The hag must have cast some spell of despair over her.

So, yes, it was true that Scirye was now all alone. But this was no time to wallow in self-pity or use it as an excuse to do nothing. She was the last defender. It was up to her.

Scirye surged from the ground, anger fueling her to move with extra speed. Her hand reached for her knife, but it was gone from her belt. From the corner of her eye, she saw it on top of the pile of weapons that the hag had taken from them while they were unconscious.

The girl's mind raced desperately through the lessons that her sister, Nishke, had taught her about hand-to-hand combat, but they'd only had time to cover some basics of self-defense.

“Did you ever have anyone fight back?” Scirye demanded, and raised her fist. The hag whirled around, seizing the mouth of the bag in both hands and lifting it to her chest. The bag's mouth wriggled like a starving beast's lips waiting to be served its supper. All the hag needed to do was trap Scirye's hand inside and she'd have the rest of the girl soon after that.

Scirye slipped to the left, hoping to land a punch on the side of the hag's head, but the hag pivoted, holding the open bag between them like a dark shield.

Scirye feinted again and the hag thrust the bag out to capture her fist. Over the years, Scirye had developed agile hands to play her pranks—so agile in fact that she was adept at picking pockets—so she had no trouble pulling her arms out of the way as she darted back.

They shifted in an odd sort of dance about the igloo, Scirye trying to find an opening and the hag to trap her with the bag. As they wove their way around, Scirye realized that they were both the same height, for their heads were just brushing the ceiling.

Scirye had been so intent on watching the hag that she had not kept an eye on her friends on the floor. Suddenly, she stumbled over Koko. To her horror, she fell backward.

As the girl lay momentarily stunned, the hag shrieked in triumph and started toward her.

Desperate, Scirye rolled on her side, pivoting on her hip as she swung her leg in a wide kick. But she had misjudged the distance and made her move too soon. Rather than knocking the hag down, Scirye kicked the bottom of the bag. Since it contained her friends, Scirye had assumed that it was heavy, so she was surprised when the bag was as light as a feather pillow.

The bag flew from the hag's startled grasp, but instead of falling, it somersaulted in the air like a bird celebrating its freedom. And then it spiraled slowly through the air like a bird of prey selecting its next victim—which was the upright hag.

As the bag swooped toward her, the hag panicked and instinctively thrust both arms up to fend it off, but the bag stretched its mouth so wide that Scirye thought it would tear. The next instant, the sack had swallowed both the hag's hands.

Scirye seized her chance as she sprang from the floor. Her quick hands shot out now to snag the hag's belt. When Scirye yanked, there was a twang like a dozen guitar strings snapping. The leather thongs finally broke and Scirye fell on her back, the belt in her hands.

The hag screeched in fury and terror. Twitching and jerking, she tried to pull a hand free, but the bag had her ensnared. The edges of its mouth fluttering, the bag nibbled relentlessly along her wrists, her elbows, and beyond.

Desperately, the hag twisted her head this way and that to elude the bag, but it managed to stretch over that part of the hag anyway. Sides rippling, the bag swallowed the hag up to her shoulders.

The hag stumbled about madly, knocking over crates and baskets and even trying to brush the bag off by rubbing against the sides of the igloo. Every frantic effort was in vain, though. Finally, she tripped over some furs and as soon as she had fallen the monstrous bag engulfed her to her hips.

The hag fought the bag hard, but the result was inevitable. Inch by inch, the sack choked down its prey until the tips of the hag's boots slipped inside and she was gone.

Scirye almost felt guilty when she heard the faint wail echo from inside the bag. But then through the opening she saw a pair of eyes, blazing with hate.

The hag would show no mercy and neither could Scirye.

The bag's drawstrings wriggled along like worms, and the bag shut itself up tight.

Scirye sat exhausted as the bag rolled about as if the hag was tearing at its sides trying to break free. But gradually the movements subsided until the sack was still. And then, as if it were alive, the bag rose on its own so it was resting on its base now.

“Wha—What happened?” Kles mumbled, his beak opening and then snapping shut in an immense yawn. “I had the most awful nightmare about this horrible thing trying to catch me.”

“It wasn't a nightmare,” Scirye said, nodding wearily toward the bag. “And it was all my fault.”