Night was approaching when they emerged from the library. Sebastian felt as though they had just escaped from the gullet of some terrible beast as the impenetrable blackness released them to a twilight of violet and orange. The clouds that had helped to paint the vistas of Isle Nanokar in shades of perpetual gray glowed. Glowing too, were the icebergs that ringed Isle Nanokar, the setting sun limning them in fiery gold and red. Selena had told him she thought the icebergs that created the bay around Nanokar resembled icy teeth, as if the isle sat in the maw of a giant monster.
No beasts. No monsters. Just rocks and ice and water. The monsters are not of the world, they walk upon it.
“I know ye be eager to get back,” Tunney said, as they loaded into the sled, “but seeing as yer departing tomorrow and not like to return, there be one thing else ye might like to see. A melancholy place, aye, but rarest of all that be rare and old. Mayhap on all of Lunos.” He wore a small smile. “When ye speaks of yer travels you can tell’em that Nanokar is more than ice an’ whales an’ strange old men living in caves.”
Sebastian glanced at Selena, huddled into her seal coat. She met his eye and shrugged as if to say, I can’t get any colder.
“Make it quick,” Sebastian said.
“Aye, t’is near. Just ‘round that bend o’ the cliff.”
A few short minutes and the dogs took them to where the path curved around the cliff. Tunney called the dogs to a halt at the lip of a great ice plain. Sebastian sucked in a breath and heard similar gasps from Niven and Selena.
The ice plain stretched across the land. Great plateaus and ridges of snow-covered ice that continued on into the northern horizon as if forever. But the ice… Sebastian had never seen such ice. It thrust up from the ground in great slabs, wearing coats of snow. There were hundreds of such slabs, and each was blue. Impossible blue. The blue of a high summer sky, of blue topaz gemstones, of blue tang fish that swam around the waters off his atoll.
Blue like Selena’s eyes…
“That color…like God’s Tears…” she murmured.
“What is it?” Niven whispered. His words were torn away by the whistling wind but Tunney heard anyway.
“Byric calls it dragon ice. He didn’t speak o’ it whilst I was snoozing? Surprising. Aye, dragon ice, from the Breaking. A remnant o’ that terrible, terrible war.”
“But why dragon ice?” Niven said. “It’s too beautiful to be named for such vile creatures.”
“It’s not named for it, but of it. Or so Byric would tell,” Tunney said. “This be a…what’s he call it? A breath weapon. Don’t know from which dragon an’ neither does he.”
Selena shivered and hugged herself. The crescent moon she’d painted on her face was dark in the falling light.
“We’ve seen enough. Time to go,” Sebastian said.
“Ye haven’t seen all,” Tunney said, “but I’ll hurry on yer account, lady. One last bit o’ history.”
He cracked the whip and turned the dogs down a small slope that curved behind a hunk of gray stone. In the bend was more dragon ice, tall slabs of bright blue that tapered up in jagged ribbons, like licks of flame. Inside the ice were people. Three men were locked in the brilliant azure, and perfectly preserved. Bundled in hides and fur caps, and they appeared to have been running when the ice trapped them. The expressions of horror on their faces were apparent.
“Breath weapon,” Tunney said, his voice low. “The plain yon be full of such. Women and children too. Ye can see’em if ye trek out in daylight hours but these here are plainest.”
There was a silence among them as the last light faded, shrouding the trapped men in darkness.
“Why don’t you melt the ice and give them a proper rest?” Niven asked finally, sounding stricken.
“Because, young sir,” Tunney said, “not the hottest sun, nor the roarin’est flame will melt that dragon ice. Not never.”
Selena struggled out of the sled.
“What are you doing?” Sebastian demanded. “Sit down and let’s get the bloody Deeps out of here.”
She ignored him and shuffled to the trapped people like an old woman. She raised one shaking hand and touched the ice. “Have any Aluren ever seen this?”
“Cain’t say any have,” Tunney said. “Not that I’ve ever heard in all my years.”
Selena took off her glove and touched her bare hand to the ice. “Luxari,” she murmured through chattering teeth. A white orb of light bloomed in her palm.
Niven gasped. Tunney muttered something under his breath. Sebastian just watched as the dragon ice began to weep. Rivulets of striking blue water flowed from under Selena’s hand, and the hard edge became concave.
The ice was thick; the people trapped within were held deep, but Selena’s light sought them quickly. Just before it could burrow to the upraised arm of one of the men, she jerked her hand away and staggered backward. She stared, wide-eyed, at melted ice and then down at her hand, as if she couldn’t believe it was her own.
“They’re dead,” she said, her voice thick and breathy. “We should go.”
She climbed back into the sled, avoiding Niven’s awestruck stare, and struggled to put her glove back on her hand that was stiffened and claw-like.
Sebastian took the glove from her and tugged it over her hand. “Why did you do that? Not cold enough?”
“She melted dragon ice,” Tunney said, awed, as he took up his post at the rear of the sled. “The sun cain’t even do that.”
Selena nodded, as if Tunney’s reply was her own, and said nothing more.
Tunney cracked his whip above their heads. “Not even the sun,” he said again, and then the only sounds were the panting dogs and the susurration of ice slipping under their sled.
It was full dark when the township reappeared on the path before them. The great ice rocks in the sea glowed silver now in the moonlight and the black sea was laced with white as it lapped upon the shore. The moon hung full in the sky, like the god’s great eye staring down at them. Ahead, the fires of the tryworks were still burning; red and orange ribbons under the great ovens, and the smoke stole the crispness from the air and filled it with the rank stench. Selena wrinkled her nose.
“I’ll never get used to that smell,” she murmured through clenched teeth.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye. Her discomfort abated a bit as the warm lamps burning along Nanokar’s main street became visible, and the sound of laughter and conversation filled the air
“It’s like music,” she said, almost to herself.