Through the Ice (10 page)

The Fur-Gnomes, Chief Cotan explained, were sometime allies of the fauns. That was why Rame had sought them: he understood their ways. They had no use for Nefarious, but also not much use for the Teuton Empire; they preferred to be left alone. "Both of them want to tell us what to do, and take our folk to be their servants," the chief explained. "But we die if we go too far from our native haunts."

If we eliminate Nefarious, do we make it easy for the Teuton Empire to exploit these folk?
Seth thought.

We must take care in what we do,
Vidav thought in his gruff manner.

Yes,
Rame agreed.
There are many free folk who are best off without the meddling of human empires.

When the feast and dance concluded, the Fur-Gnomes retired to their homes. That was fine with Seth, who was tired. Rame drew the miniature tent out of Vidav's pack, chose a suitable spot beside the lake, and invoked it. The tent expanded until it was full size, complete with sleeping bags and stove-pipe.

At this Seth realized that they would have to share the residence. It had always been a four-person tent, of course, and he had known it, but during their training at the castle this hadn't quite registered. Each of them had had separate rooms for the night. Of course the three males would be all right, but what of Tirsa?

What of her?
Tirsa's thought came.
Am I not to share our residence?

Seth's thoughts went into a jumble of confusion. Of course she was entitled to share—yet if she wanted to change or wash up, what then?

Enough of this foolishness,
Vidav thought.
I shall swim before I sleep.

Good idea,
Tirsa thought.
I will join you.

We all will,
Rame thought.

Vidav began stripping his clothing, tossing it down beside the lake. It was dark, of course, but the telepathic linkage make it clear that he was naked. Tirsa was doing likewise. Rame did not have to strip, as his fur was his clothing.

Seth held back. To swim naked with a woman—how could he do that?

The same way you share thoughts with her,
Tirsa's thought came.
Secrets lie in the mind, not the body.

Suddenly he realized that she was right. All his foolish notions about romance, which she had chopped down so methodically, were a far greater embarrassment than such a swim would be. After the first couple of nights he had found that he no longer embarrassed himself with untoward thoughts, because there was no ambiguity in their relationship. He had heard it was the same at nudist camps: when no one wore clothing, its absence wasn't sexy, it was routine, and there were no titillating mysteries of the body. Minds open to each other brought greater understanding and trust—and a far more accurate appreciation of the acceptable limits of behavior. Just as he wasn't afraid of falling when in an airplane, because he trusted its mechanism, he wasn't afraid of embarrassment in the mind linkage, now that he understood and trusted it. He had passed over the hump days ago; now such things as changing, swimming and sharing a tent hardly mattered.

He scrambled out of his clothes and splashed into the lake to join the others. It was wonderful in the chill water, after the nervousness and effort of the day's travel. Except for one thing: he remembered the ice. The ice that had almost killed him.

He found himself struggling desperately.
No!
Tirsa's thought came.
This is not ice! You are not alone! I will kelp you.
Suddenly she was there, putting her arms around him in the water, helping to hold him up.
I am sorry; I did not realize that this was the way you died. I misunderstood your hesitation.

"You didn't misunderstand!" he gasped verbally. "But thank you. I can make it now."

She let go, and he resumed normal swimming. However, he decided he had had enough, and soon returned to shore. What an ugly surprise he had had!

It is better not to speak in response to a mental communication,
Vidav thought.
Someone might be listening.

He was right; Seth should have kept his mouth shut
I'm sorry; I panicked. It won't happen again.

You were thrust into a situation similar to that of your death,
Tirsa thought.
This can cause a reaction.
She emerged from the water, her body glistening in the moonlight
I will sleep beside you, in case you need comfort.

Seth started to protest that there was no need, but stifled it. He
had
been severely shaken, and her power of telepathy was strongest when she was closest. Her help would be welcome, if he needed it.

She shook herself dry and went to the tent. The sleeping bags were laid out two by two. They took the two farther from the entrance, so that the others would not have to scramble over them when they came in from swimming.

Only after he was lying down, about to sleep, did he realize that he had never thought of romance or sex after entering the water, despite getting quite close to a beautiful and naked woman. He was making progress; a month ago it would have been a completely different story!

Yes, you are learning,
she agreed.
Just as you learned about the plain girl.

He stood near the lake, soaked. Behind him the icy water churned, the broken plates of ice grinding against each other as if the lake were gnashing its teeth in anger at losing its prey. He was shivering, but he was alive!

It was dark; he could hardly see a thing. He staggered away from the lake. His foot turned on a stone, and he lost his balance. His arms windmilled, and his outflung hand touched/

/the dank stone of the tunnel. It was too close; how could she get through? She wanted to scream, but knew that would be both unladylike and futile. There was no one to help her; she had to make it on her own.

But the rock closed in yet closer. Her hips wedged, scraping skin, but would not pass. Yet there was no salvation in retreat; this was the only way out. She
had
to make it through!

She struggled, but knew she was only getting caught worse. The air was running out; she was panting for breath, though it did no good. She was losing control, mental as well as physical. She tried to scream, while condemning herself for this foolishly primitive and pointless exercise.

A hand squeezed hers.
It's only a dream! Snap out of it! It's all right, Tirsa!

Who?
she thought, unable to make sense of this.

Seth. I am holding your hand. Come
—
I will draw you out of it.

Seth! Then she remembered. She clung to his hand, and he drew her out of that dark tunnel and into the better darkness of the tent
Oh, Seth! I sought to comfort you, but you comforted me instead!

You helped me too. When your hand caught mine, it snapped me out of my bad dream and into yours.

Dreams! This must be a siege!

What?

We must rescue the others! Quickly
—
you go for Rame and I'll go for Vidav!
She scrambled out of her bag, toward the other end of the tent.

Seth didn't argue. If the two of them had had bad dreams, the other two might too. He didn't understand why, but evidently she knew something. She had mentioned a "siege." Was that some enemy plot?

He reached Rame. The faun was moaning and clinging to his sleeping bag as if afraid something was hauling him out of it. What was he dreaming?

Seth found Rame's hand and clasped it with his own. "Wake up, Rame!" he said. "It's not real! It's only/

/The storm caught him like the blast of water from a fire hydrant. It picked him up and whirled him around. It was a tornado!

He saw trees, upside down, and realized that he was being spun in the cone, sucked up into the maw of the terrible storm. He reached out, trying to catch at a branch, anything, though he knew that a tornado could rip whole trees out of the ground and strew their parts across the landscape. It seemed like a futile gesture, yet anything was better than being hauled into the sky!

He missed the branch. The ring of inverted trees seemed to rise—which meant that
he
was rising, being carried above the level of the forest. He felt the vertigo, and his stomach roiled. He seemed to have no hope of escape.

No! This wasn't his dream, it was Rame's! He had come to help his friend, and instead had allowed himself to be sucked into it. What kind of a rescuer was he? Ashamed and angry, he struck back in more effective fashion.
Link with me, Rame! This is a mental attack! Hold my hand, come out with me! It is a dream, and we can leave it!

Now he felt Rame's hand. There were two of them whirling upside down in the storm.
A dream!
Seth repeated emphatically. The storm continued, but with less force. The winds still howled around them, but had less effect. They were becoming transparent, untouched by the storm.

Then the dream faded, and they were in the tent, clasping hands. "Just a dream," Seth repeated. "But you don't have to face it alone, with mind linkage."

"Thank you, friend!" Rame gasped. "But the others—"

"They're here. Tirsa is seeing to Vidav. We all dreamed, I think."

"A sending by Nefarious!" Rame exclaimed. "But are the others safe? You drew me out, but—"

"Well, let's see," Seth said, realizing that there was neither physical nor mental contact with the other two. "All we need to do is take their hands."

They reached across and scrambled for hands. Seth found Vidav's/

/The flames reared up in front, forcing him back. He turned, only to find more flames behind. He was in a burning building, and there seemed to be no way out. His skin was blistering, and he was choking from the smoke.

It's a dream!
he thought.
It's not real! I have your hand, follow me out!

Then, slowly, the flames faded. The four of them were sprawled in the tent, hands linked.

Thank you, Seth,
Tirsa thought.
I could not pull him out! The flames were overcoming us both.

Rame helped,
he replied.
With two of us helping, it wasn't hard to end the dream. But what did you mean by a siege?

We can return to our own bags now,
she thought.
I shall maintain the linkage, and will explain.

Seth crawled back to his sleeping bag and got in. In a moment Tirsa's thought came again:

I believe that this is a sending by Nefarious. He is not telepathic, but he can project crude emotion, such as fear. He knows we are coming for him, and when his spies were unable to keep track of us, because of our unpredictability and Rame's clever dodging, he tried to scare us away by broadcasting fear. I have encountered this type of thing on my plane, though never as powerfully. He sent the elements
—
water, earth, air and fire
—
and each of us reacted according to the one we related to. My greatest fear is of being trapped in the deep earth, of being suffocated and crushed, because that is the way I was dying when I was transported here. Seth's is of water
—
dark, icy water, drowning him. Vidav's is of fire; he was on the verge of burning to death when we came here. Rame's
—She paused, reading the faun's thought.
Is of air, a violent storm. He suffered it in life, I think, at the same time as the others of us suffered our traumas. We all verged on dying, and so when the sending came we all relived it.

That makes sense! Seth
agreed.
It would be too much of a coincidence that we all had bad dreams simultaneously. You must be right: Nefarious doesn't know where we are, so he sent out a scare-broadcast, a siege as you call it, and we feel it because we are scared of what almost killed us.

I did not realize that my encounter with the storm was connected,
Rame thought.
It came up so quickly I was caught before I could flee it, and I thought I was about to die. But then it passed as suddenly as it came, and dropped me unharmed to the forest floor. Malape soothed me and healed me. I put it out of my mind as a fluke
—
but I see now that the fear of it remained.

It is natural to fear what almost kills one,
Vidav thought.
Yet this fear must be resisted.

With that they all agreed.
But if Nefarious could do this to us this time, by a blind sending, can't he do it again?
Seth asked.

Surely he can,
Tirsa replied.
But probably with diminishing effect, because we have overcome it this time. If we remained linked, we can withstand it. Then we will be proof against both his spies and his mental siege.

Can we remain linked while we sleep?
Vidav asked.

Yes, as long as I focus on it. I could not do it continuously, but for a night or two I can.

With that they slept, linked.

And regretted it. Seth found himself standing where his prior dream had left him, beside the icy lake. This time the ice wasn't threatening him directly, it was threatening the town. He saw a monstrous glacier approaching, grinding toward him at horrendous velocity, for ice. It seemed to tower miles high, and to cast its shadow far ahead.

I don't like this dream!
he thought, trying to break out of it. But he could not; he seemed to be trapped. The mental linkage, instead of freeing him, locked him in to the horror.

He ran, not to save himself, but to warn the town, which seemed oblivious to the threat. "Beware the ice! Beware the ice!" he called, but no one woke.

He ran to his own house. "Get out of there," he cried. "The ice is coming!" But no one emerged, while the glacier ground closer. In minutes it would be too late.

He yanked open the door and rushed in. The house was silent. He took the stairs two at a time and burst into his sister's room. There was Ferne, ten years old, asleep on her bed, her friend and confidante teddy bear beside her. "Ferne! Wake up! The ice is coming!"

She did not stir. Her pretty face was perfectly composed, framed by her brown hair, with no flicker of animation. She remained so still that it alarmed him. He touched her shoulder. "Ferne!"