‘Alas, Highness, that is probably the very source of their present discontent. They are sailors stranded on land. Even the captain and her first mate are showing their despondency.’
‘Well,’ Felash sniffed, ‘we must make do with what we have, mustn’t we? In any case, there’s nothing to be done for it, is there? That ship is finished. We must now trek overland, and how my feet will survive this I dare not contemplate.’
She turned in her seat to see Shurq Elalle and Skorgen Kaban approaching, the first mate cursing as he stumbled in the sand.
‘Captain! Join me in some tea. You too, Skorgen, please.’ She faced her handmaid. ‘Fetch us more cups, will you? Excellent.’
‘Beru bless us,’ Skorgen hissed. ‘Ten paces away and the heat’s melting us where we stand, but here—’
‘That will fade, I am sure,’ said Felash. ‘The sorcery of yesterday was, shall we say, rather intense. And before you complain overmuch, I shall observe that my maid and I are no less discomforted by this wretched cold. Perhaps the Jaghut were delighted to dwell within such a climate, but as you can well see, we are not Jaghut.’
Shurq Elalle said, ‘Highness, about my ship …’
Felash drew deeply on her mouthpiece, ‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘That. I believe I have apologized already, have I not? It is perhaps a consequence of insufficient education, but I truly was unaware that all ships carry in their bellies a certain amount of water, considered acceptable for voyaging. And that the freezing thereof would result in disaster, in the manner of split boards and so forth. Besides, was not your crew working the pumps?’
‘As you say,’ Shurq said. ‘But a hundred hands below deck could not have pumped fast enough, given the speed of that freezing. But that was not my point – as you noted, we have been through all that. Bad luck, plain and simple. No, what I wished to discuss was the matter of repairs.’
Felash regarded the pale-skinned woman, and slowly tapped the mouthpiece against her teeth. ‘In the midst of your histrionics two days ago, Captain, I had assumed that all was lost in the matter of the Undying Gratitude . Have you reconsidered?’
‘Yes. No. Rather, we have walked this beach. The driftwood is useless. The few logs we found were heavy as granite – Mael knows what they used that damned stuff for, but it sure doesn’t float. In fact, it appears to have neutral buoyancy—’
‘Excuse me, what?’
‘Push that wood to any depth you like, there it stays. Never before seen the like. We have a ex-joiner with us who says it’s to do with the minerals the wood has absorbed, and the soil the tree grew in. In any case, we see no forests inland – no trees at all, anywhere.’
‘Meaning you have no wood with which to effect repairs. Yes, Captain, was this not your prediction two days ago?’
‘Aye, it was, and so it has proved, Highness. And as my crew can’t survive on a frozen ship, on the surface of it we seem to indeed be stranded.’
Skorgen kicked sand with his good foot. ‘What’s worse, Highness, there’s hardly any shellfish an’ the like in the shallows. Picked clean long ago, I’d wager. We couldn’t even walk up the coast t’get where you want us to go.’
‘Most disturbing,’ Felash murmured, still eyeing Shurq Elalle. ‘Yet you have an idea, haven’t you, Captain?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Please, proceed. I am not by nature averse to adventure and experimentation.’
‘Aye, Highness.’ Still, the woman hesitated.
Felash sent a stream of smoke whirling away. ‘Come now, Captain, your first mate is turning blue.’
‘Very well. Omtose Phellack, Highness – is it a true Hold?’
‘I am not sure what you mean by that question.’
‘A Hold. A place, a world unlike this one—’
‘Where,’ added Skorgen, ‘we might find, er, trees. Or something. Unless it’s all ice and snow, of course, or worse.’
‘Ah, I see.’ She tapped some more, thinking. ‘The Hold of Ice, well, precisely. The sorcery – as we have all discovered – is certainly … cold. Forbidding, even. But if my education suffers in matters of ship building and the like, it is rather more comprehensive when it comes to the Holds.’ She smiled. ‘Naturally.’
‘Naturally,’ said Shurq Elalle, to cut off whatever Skorgen had been about to say.
‘The commonest manifestation of Omtose Phellack is precisely as we have experienced. Ice. Bitter cold, desiccating, enervating. But it must be understood, said sorcery was shaped as a defensive weapon, if you will. The Jaghut were at war with an implacable enemy, and they were losing that war. They sought to surround themselves in vast sheets of ice, to make of it an impassable barrier. And as often as not they succeeded … for a time. Of course, as my mother used to delight in pointing out, war drives invention, and as soon as one side improves its tactical position, the other quickly adapts to negate the advantage – assuming they have the time to do so. Interestingly, one could argue it was the Jaghut’s very own flaws that ensured their demise. For, had they considered ice not as a defensive measure, but as an offensive one – had they made it a true weapon, a force of attack and assault – why, they might well have annihilated their enemy before it could adapt. And while details regarding that enemy are murky—’