To one side lay the icebergs, no taller than the runt which walked close to its gillot. Some icebergs clung to the sides of the vessel; some, as if possessed by a mysterious will, described slow intricate figures over the still sea, ghostly in the dim light, their reflections caught as if in tether in the water.
As the sand spit narrowed, so the ancipital group had to narrow its front. Finally, two stalluns led the rest. The ship loomed above them without movement.
Things clattered and broke beneath the feet of the stalluns. They tried to halt, but those behind pushed them forward. More breaking, more clattering. Looking down, they saw the thin white shards beneath their feet, and the whiteness stretching cracked all the wav to the ship’s hull.
“There is ice and it breaks,” they said to each other, using the continuous present tense of Native Ancipital. “Go back or we fall into the drowning world.”
“We must kill all Sons of Freyr, as it is said. Go forward.”
“That we cannot do with the drowning world protecting them.”
“Go back. Hold horns high.”
Crouching by the rail of the New Season, Luterin Shokerandit and
Toress Lahl watched their enemies shuffle back to the shore and seek for shelter by the rock.
“They may return. We have to get the ship afloat as soon as possible,” Shokerandit said. “Let’s see how many of the crew have survived.”
Toress Lahl said, “Before we leave the coast, we should kill some flambreg if they get within range. Otherwise everyone is going to starve.”
They looked uneasily at each other. The thought crossed their minds that they sailed with a cargo of the dead and the mad.
Standing with their backs to the mainmast, they set up a great shout, which rolled away across the wastes of water and land. After a pause, an answering cry came. They called again.
A man appeared from the forecastle, staggering. He had undergone the metamorphosis, and presented the typical barrel-figure of a survivor. His clothes were ill-fitting, his once boney face now broad and presenting a curiously stretched appearance. They hardly recognised him as Harbin Fashnalgid.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” Shokerandit said, going towards him.
The transformed Fashnalgid put out a warning hand and sat down heavily on the deck.
“Don’t come near me,” he said. He covered his face with his hands.
“If you are fit enough, we need help in getting the ship on course again,” Shokerandit said.
The other gave a laugh without looking up. Shokerandit saw that there was blood caked on his hands and clothes.
“Leave him to recover,” Toress Lahl said. At this Fashnalgid uttered a harsh cackle and started to shout at them, “ ‘Leave him to recover!’ How can a man recover? Why should he recover… I’ve been through the last few days eating raw arang—yes, and killing a man for the privilege of doing so … Entrails—everything… And now I find Besi’s dead. Besi, the dearest, truest girl there ever was… Why do I want to recover? I want to be dead.”
“You’ll feel better soon,” said Toress Lahl. “You scarcely knew her.”
“I’m sorry about Besi,” Shokerandit said. “But we have to get the ship on course.”
Fashnalgid glared up at him. “That’s typical of you, you skerming conformist! No matter what happens, do what you’re supposed to do. Let the ship rot, for all I care.”
“You’re drunk, Harbin!” He felt morally superior to this abject figure.
“Besi’s dead. What else matters?” He sprawled on the deck.
Toress Lahl motioned to Shokerandit. They crept away.
They took fire hatchets to break into cabins and went below.
As Shokerandit reached the bottom of the companionway, a naked man threw himself on him. Shokerandit went down on one knee and was seized by the throat. His attacker—an Odim relation— snarled, more like a maddened animal than a human being. He clawed at Shokerandit without any coherent attempt to overcome him. Shokerandit stuck two knuckles in the man’s eyes, straightened his arm, and pushed hard. As the man fell away, he kicked him in the stomach, jumped on him, and pinned him to the deck.
“Now what do we do? Throw him to the phagors?”
“We’ll tie him up and leave him in a cabin.”
“I’m not taking any chances.” He picked up the hatchet he had dropped and clouted the prone man across the temple with the handle. The man went limp.
They tackled the captain’s cabin in the stern. The lock broke under their assault, and they burst in. They found themselves in a comfortably appointed quarter galley with windows opening above the water.
They drew up short. A man with an old-fashioned bell-mouthed musket was sitting with his back to the windows, aiming the gun at them.
“Don’t shoot,” Shokerandit said. “We intend no harm.”
The man rose to his feet. He lowered the weapon.
“I would have blasted you if you were loonies.”
He was proportioned in the unaccustomed thickset way. He had passed through the Fat Death. They recognised him then as the captain. His officers lay about the cabin, their hands tied. Some were gagged.
“We’ve had a high old time here,” said the captain. “Fortunately, I was the first to recover, and we have lost only the first mate—for eating purposes, that was, excuse the expression. A few more hours and these officers will be back in action.”
“Then you can leave them and see to the rest of your ship,” said Shokerandit sharply. “We’re beached, and there’s a threat from phagors ashore.”
“How’s Master Eedap Mun Odim?” asked the captain, as he accompanied them from the cabin, his gun under his arm.
“We haven’t found Odim yet.”
They found him later. Odim had locked himself in his cabin with a supply of water, dried fish, and ship’s biscuits as he felt the first fever upon him. He had undergone the metamorphosis. He was now a few inches shorter, and of much more rounded bulk than before. His characteristic straight-backed stance had disappeared. He wore a floppy sailor’s garb, his own clothes having become too tight for him. Blinking, he emerged on deck like a hibernatory bear from its cave.
He looked round quickly frowning, as they hailed him. Shokerandit approached slowly, well aware that it was he who had passed the Fat Death to all aboard. He humbly reminded Odim of his name.
Ignoring him, Odim went to the rail and gestured over the side of the ship. When he spoke, his voice choked with rage.
“Look at this barbarism! Some wretch has thrown my best plate overboard. It’s an atrocity, fust because there’s illness on the ship, it doesn’t excuse… Who did it? I demand to know. The culprit is not going to sail with me.”
“Well…” said Toress Lahl.
“Er…” said Shokerandit. He took a grip on himself and said, “Sir, I have to confess that I did it. We were being attacked by phagors at the time.”
He pointed to where phagors could be seen by the rock.
“You shoot phagors, you do not throw precious plates at them, you imbecile,” Odim said. He reined in his temper. “You were mad—is that your excuse?”
“The ship has no weapons with which to defend itself. We saw that the phagors were going to attack— they will try again if they get desperate. I threw the plate over the side deliberately, to cover the sand spit. As I expected, the fuggies believed they were treading on thin ice, and retreated. I’m sorry about your porcelain, but it saved the ship.”
Odim said nothing. He stared down at the deck, up at the mast. Then he brought a little black notebook out of his pocket and perused it. “That service would have fetched a thousand sibs in Shivenink,” he said in low tones, darting swift glances at them.
“It has saved all the rest of the porcelain on the ship,” Toress Lahl said. “Your other crates are intact. How is the rest of your family?”