Ethan joined several others in following Hunnar and Mirmib up to the wheel. While Ta-hoding received instructions and conferred with Mirmib, Hunnar drew Ethan aside.
“See, the cables barring the gates fore and aft have been taken in. We could break the gate behind us and escape.”
Ethan eyed his massive, hirsute friend. “Is that what you wish to do?”
“I do not. You accuse with your questioning, friend Ethan.” It was Hunnar’s turn to walk away for a different reason.
Ta-hoding had the necessary sails reset. Slowly the icerigger moved toward the second gate, swinging delicately through the tight bend in the canyon. As they squeaked through the gate, the soldiers on the walls studied the ship and its occupants intently. Unlike the Slanderscree’s passage through the first gate, however, the watching warriors jostled one another and chattered freely among themselves. Their weapons hung easily from paws or lay forgotten against walls and rocks. A few even exchanged hesitant questions with members of the icerigger’s crew.
The canyon grew no shallower as they followed Mirmib’s raft up the ice. Sheer basalt walls towered steadily higher above them. Before long the canyon wound around to the east and started inland again. The walls hemming them in seemed to lower slightly, and breaks where a man might climb upward began to appear in the hitherto vertical cliffs.
Now that they were facing the interior of the plateau once more, Ethan could see over the bow the dense clouds they’d found so intriguing from out on the ice ocean. They continued to hover persistently in one place, succumbing to the dispersing effect of the wind only with reluctance. Their initial familiarity now came home to him.
Similar clouds clung possessively to the plutonic highlands of Sofold, Hunnar and Elfa’s home island. That puissant grayness was a great upwelling of steam, not smoke. Issuing forcefully from volcanic fissures and vents, it would renew itself as fast as it could be blown away. That explained the illusion of the “hovering” clouds.
Volcanic heat provided the base for Sofold’s foundry and much of its wealth. So in addition to a reputation for fine shipbuilding and an impregnable canyon locale, Moulokin also enjoyed this additional important resource.
He moved to stand next to the diplomat Mirmib. “’Tis true there are foundries up there,” the emaciated Tran admitted, “but they are neither owned nor operated by us.” In response to Ethan’s look of surprise and consternation, he explained, “We have an agreement with the people who operate the foundries.”
“They’re not Moulokinese?”
“No.” And he formed a peculiar expression Ethan could not interpret.
He intended to pursue the question, except the Slanderscree abruptly turned hard to starboard. They were proceeding up a side canyon. Sailors fought with spars and sails, but for a new reason. Now that the icerigger was traveling southward and no longer heading inland, the wind from the plateau all but vanished as soon as the ship had fully entered the branch can yon.
The wind faded to a gentle, almost earthlike breeze. Tentatively Ethan cracked the mask of his survival suit, hastily shut it again. There was no paradise ahead. The wind might have died, but if it was warmer than minus fifteen outside his protective clothing, the outraged cells on his face had lied to him. Moulokin would be no Trannish Shangri-la.
The canyon took several twists and turns. Ten minutes later it opened into a vast natural amphitheater. The dark cliffs arced out to east and west before curving smoothly southward again. They were moving across a cliff-walled bowl at least a dozen times wider than the mouth of the canyon.
Ahead lay Moulokin, looking very real.
At the southern end of the canyon the cliffs had crumbled and eroded away, mounting upward in uncertain stages, forming levels. Much of the city was constructed on these levels, giving Moulokin a terraced look.
Several thousand roofs shone in the sun. Ice-paths were filled with black specks like splinters of chocolate which darted up and down the white streets. Far back from the harbor’s edge, built into the topmost level with a thirty-meter-high wall of sheer rock behind it, was a substantial-looking fortress.
There was ample room now for the Slanderscree to maneuver. The magnificent ice harbor could easily have contained as many ships as that of Wannome. To the west, docks marched like brown worms out onto the ice. Ice canals and strange buildings dominated the far western edge of the harbor, running up to the cliffs themselves.
“Our shipyards,” Mirmib explained with a touch of pride in his voice.
“I’m beginnin’ to understand why this place’s never been taken,” September rumbled. “A few could hold those two walls we passed against an army. No way up the plateau from outside to outflank ’em. And the way that wind blows down the canyon, any attacking rafts would have the devil of a time trying to tack up-canyon against them while carryin’ on a runnin’ fight.”
As the icerigger edged toward a long, deserted dock under the joint direction of Mirmib and Ta-hoding, Ethan’s attention traveled to the southeast. Between the city and the western canyon wall, the cliffs gave way to a gradually rising sub-canyon filled with the densest growth of coniferous-type trees they’d yet encountered on this world. No doubt they matured to such heights here because of the protection the canyon provided from the steady eroding winds that scoured the rest of Tran-ky-ky. Seedlings here could add height and breadth without being torn loose by hurricane-force winds, and seeds might find accumulated soil in which to take root, while larger trees would not have the earth ripped away from their surface roots. In that immensely valuable stand of mature timber lay Moulokin’s greatest source of wealth.
As they maneuvered into the dock, Ethan saw Mirmib temporarily free and asked him again about the operators of the distant, steam-shrouded foundries.
The diplomat appeared uncomfortable, tried to divert Ethan’s attention to the neat storehouses and homes cut into the cliffs forming the harbor.
“Is there some reason why you can’t tell me?”
“None written. They guard their privacy and…” Mirmib stopped, his expression changing to one of reverence. You are friends: there is no reason I can think why you should not know of the Saia.”
“The Saia?”
“People of the Golden Saia, offspring of the fires they tend. They know of things ordinary people do not. Ordinary people they are not.”
“You worship them, consider them gods?” Ethan pressed. If he’d hoped to get a revealing reaction from Mirmib, he failed.
“I did not say either of those things. No, they are not gods. They are simply different. To know them is to respect them. This is a tradition as old as Moulokin. We pride ourselves on our independence.” For the briefest instant, Ethan detected a hint of the rabid tribalism of which all Tran seemed to be guilty.
“But we keep the bargains they set.”
“Out of fear? Why not just take the foundries from them? Or at least strike your own bargains.”
“It is not a question of fear, my friend. You know naught of the Golden Saia. We fear them not, but we respect them mightily. And we would gain nothing even could we wrest the foundries from them, for we could not run the mines and smelters as well as they do, nor fashion such intricate metal parts for our homes and rafts.
“Where they live and play, it would be death for one of us to work. ’Tis difficult enough but to go briefly to trade with them.”
“It’s warmer where they live, then?”
“It is not to be believed,” said Mirmib solemnly. Of course, what was unbearably hot to a Tran might be wonderfully comfortable for a human or thranx.