The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice (35 page)

I saw in you the same doomed desires as my own – chasing after what you could never have – and I didn't want to be reminded of that. And then, when you rode the maelstrom, I hated you all the more furiously, because you'd done something so wonderful, so daring, something that I could never hope to do ...

‘But then when Vincente said we were to turn back from the chasm, I thought, why
shouldn't
I do it? What was stopping me? You didn't ask permission to face the whirlpool, so why should I? This was my chance to do something
real
, on my own.' She laughed at herself. ‘But of course then I had to ask for your help anyway. I'm sorry. You deserve better than to end up marooned upon a burning rock …' She focussed on him a moment, searching. ‘Why
did
you come, Dow Amber?'

Startled, Dow did not know how to answer. He had come – well, for many reasons. One of them being,
she
had asked him to.

But he'd misunderstood her question, or perhaps she sensed the answer he might give, and so, before he could reply, she deflected him by adding, ‘I mean, why did you come aboard the
Chloe
that night? Why was it so important to you? What made you think that you, and you especially, were somehow meant for the sea?'

And Dow, faced with trying to sum up the vast emotions that had dwelt within him since his first sight of the ocean, found himself unable to do it, having just heard such a similar tale from her. Instead, thoughtlessly almost, knowing that death loomed, he revealed the great secret of his life; the secret that must never be told to the Ship Kings – to her, a Ship King. Even though it wasn't – not nearly – the answer to her question.

He said, ‘I'm the heir of Admiral Honous Tombs.'

Her eyes widened. But before she could respond, the mountain rocked tremendously beneath them. A great roar thundered from above, and small stones came cascading over the lip of their hollow. They crouched down together against the avalanche, and somehow their hands were clasped now, their faces close. The convulsion eased, but they remained huddled the same way, and Dow could see his own fear reflected back in her pale gaze.

She laughed unsteadily. ‘What a fine pair we make. Such terrible secrets we hide. And what do they matter now?'

He laughed too, despairing, and then the mountain lurched again, and more stones rained down, and suddenly nothing mattered except the grip of her hand in his. Their cheeks were together, the touch of skin hot and compelling, and their lips were meeting, dry and cracked and awful, yet searching insistently, grasping for life in one frantic, devouring instant.

They snapped apart, staring in disbelief at one another.

Then a sound came, faint and thin.

‘Ignella! Dow!'

A voice! They scrambled madly up out of the hollow – into a world of raining ash and swirling clouds and red glowing rivers to either hand. Had the call been real? Where had it come from?

‘Dow! Ignella!'

There, below, a figure was labouring up the slope towards them. Two figures. The ash swirled clearer a moment. Dow croaked a cry of elation. It was Johannes and Nicky! And beyond them, down at the waterline, waited the boat, the
Bent Wing 2,
intact after all.

Joyously, Dow and Nell went reeling down the mountainside, but the blacksmith's expression was grim. ‘Hurry,' he declared as the four came together, ‘this eruption may yet be the ruin of us all.'

‘But where have you been?' Dow demanded.

Johannes was shoving them downhill. ‘I could ask you the same question. We've been searching for you two ever since we righted the boat – we were about to give up, but then we spied you ducking into a hole just as the mountain went into these new throes. Hurry now.'

‘And the others? You have them all?'

‘Just hurry!'

Down the mountain they fled, the volcano roaring its anger at their escape. The boat waited, drawn up on the shore. Four shapes were hunched within, ready at the oars. Dow's spirits rose further. They were all alive! He knew then that everything was going to be okay, that they would cross the inner sea and make their way safely back through the chasm, and that the
Chloe
would still be there, waiting for them. There would be no price to pay for their foolishness. It might, perhaps, even be a triumph.

But then they were clambering into the boat, and Johannes was shoving off, and Dow was staring into the faces of the rowers. They were not joyous, but silent and stern, and he realised that only three were looking back. The fourth rower was bent in his seat, but merely propped there, so that his body would not block the others. His face was half hidden, his jaw slack, but one eye was visible, gazing lifelessly at the boat's floor.

It was a drowned face. A dead face.

It was the poet, Alfons.

But Dow was right, at least, about their escape.

Four hours later the
Bent Wing 2
emerged from the outer mouth of the chasm to find the
Chloe
waiting. The seven survivors, having lost most of their winter gear, were by then frozen close to the final extremity, and the corpse they carried was stiffened in its crouch, never to unbend again. The boat itself was near sunk with ice, for snow had rained down eternally in the rift, the walls shaking and shuddering from the great eruption, which was growing behind them still in the inner sea.

But no wave came, and they lived to see the open sky once more – except that it was thick with smoke and ash now, even on this far side of the chasm. Thunder roared from beyond the ice walls. The
Chloe
indeed was on the point of raising sail to flee as the
Bent Wing 2
slid the last few strokes to the ship's side. Amazed faces stared down from the rail, but the glad calls faded as the survivors were hoisted aboard, each crippled and painful, and then lastly Alfons, frozen and staring and still dead.

For Dow everything was a haze now of cold and grief. He slumped on the deck, beyond even shivering. Carers fussed around him and blankets were thrown about his shoulders, and a cup of steaming liquid was put to his lips, but nothing warmed him. The cold was in his heart. Someone nearby was issuing orders about Alfons's body; Vincente, his tones angry and taut.

Then a different voice began railing at Dow himself, and he looked up to see Diego's furious face close to his. But he couldn't understand the words, and soon the lieutenant was gone again. The next Dow saw of him, Diego had his arm around Nell and was leading her off to the stern castle. Dow willed dimly that the scapegoat should at least turn to look back at him – to acknowledge something of all that had just happened – but he caught only a glimpse of her wan, white face, her eyes red as if with weeping, then she too was gone.

‘Get him below decks,' came Fidel's voice, less angry than all the others. ‘The captain will decide his punishment later.'

Yes, thought Dow. There would be punishment. Then hands were lifting him upright, and he staggered down into the darkness.

The
Chloe
did not flee even then, although the thunder of the eruption grew ever louder, and ash rained harder, and ice fell in deadlier shards from the surrounding cliffs, splashing perilously all about the ship.

Vincente, in his fury, delayed for one final task.

A burial.

Alfons – huddled in his crouch still, for there was no time to thaw him – was wrapped and sewn into a canvas shroud, his seaman's disk, by tradition, removed from around his neck and placed upon his lips. Then he was returned to the boat that had already borne his corpse, the
Bent Wing 2,
and bound there, sitting upright at the tiller. Perhaps Vincente had decided that the orphaned craft was cursed after all, and should be left behind. In any case, he commanded it to be holed, and with the poet's shrouded figure steering in its stern, it sank slowly beneath the black waters and was seen no more.

The world groaned and shook, and from the chasm there came a great roaring of collapsing ice, and the watchers guessed that its narrow walls had finally cracked and fallen, and that the Way was shut.

It was enough. As ash fell in grey mourning, the
Chloe
raised sail at last, and made for home.

12. VINCENTE'S GIFT

I
t was no easy matter, even then, to escape the north. The
Chloe
spent a full week retreating down the gulf – beating against a strengthening wind and threatened all the while by avalanches from the ice cliffs, and tumultuous surges in the channel, all caused by the tremors and quakes of the great volcano's eruption, roaring constantly behind them. And that was only the beginning of the ordeal. Once they reached the open ocean they had to contend again with the rolling bergs of the Unquiet Ice, made all the more unstable and treacherous now by disturbed seas, and by black rains of ash and pumice that fell even there, a hundred miles and more from the pole. It seemed all the world was plunging into ruin.

But at length the
Chloe
won through to an ocean that was free of ice, and which was beyond the ash falls, and where even a hint of daylight crept again into the midday sky – only for the northern squalls to strike once more, sweeping west to east with their monstrous waves and freezing gales. The weary crew could only batten down yet again, and claw their way southwards, mile by bitter mile. Many miserable days later they at last gained through to the calmer seas beyond the storm latitudes – but even then the weather remained grey and wet and cold, as if winter was unending, and following after them.

In truth though, winter was almost gone, at least according to the calendar, for by then over four weeks had passed since they'd fled the pole, and nearly three months in all since their departure from Haven Diaz. It would be spring by the time they arrived home – now only a fortnight's sail ahead. But no sign or warmth of that spring came yet to the long suffering
Chloe
.

Until, that was, the day of the fight between Dow and Diego.

The morning of that day gave no hint of the trouble to come – indeed, it dawned gloriously blue, the sun shining brightly for the first time since anyone on board could remember. The crew blinked at its glare, then promptly threw open the hatches to release the fetid airs of below decks, and hauled up all their clothes and blankets – still damp from repeated drenching – to hang in the rigging to dry. After which they stretched themselves out upon the deck and proceeded to bathe, half naked, in the sunshine.