9 – Flight Across Cold Waters

As they at least neared the exit, they could see ahead of them a pale grey light, one of natural origins.  The doors stood open for them.  They burst out into the open, free of the confines of the corridor, to see the four grey clad Icemen still there, waiting for them.  Overhead the brooding clouds had closed in, dark and menacing, swirling about at a fearsome rate.  From them the first drops of a chill rain began to fall, picking up in intensity until a deluge roared down upon them.

The Icemen turned as Peregrine and Blade emerged from the tunnel, and began to walk away, as silent as they had ever been, giving the pair no pause for rest.  Despite the tremors that touched the island, they were unhurried in their slow, measured step.

Once more Peregrine and Blade set out after the Icemen as the fierce winds lashed and rain poured forth, a heavy veil falling across the land ahead of them so that the path remained hard to see.  Down the gully the precession made its way as the water ran down the slopes to either side and the ground beneath their feet began to become thick with grey mud, grasping at them as if it sought to prevent their escape.  A heavy tremor rocked the island and it felt as if it dropped away beneath them, causing them to stumble and almost fall.

Then they were out of the gully and back onto the plains with all the green stone statues.  They could barely make out any but the closest ones through the teeming rain, and those but mere shadows.  The Icemen commenced their route out into the plains, sloshing their way through the water gathering there.  Their path wove its way back and forwards between the statues, following the route that only they knew, leading Peregrine and Blade along it.

As they passed near the first of the statues, the pair saw that its face had crumbled away, leaving behind only a blank, featureless slate.

“It would appear that whatever our hosts had trapped within the statues has gone, or fled,” Blade observed, the rain sleeting down his face.  He took a moment to try and wipe it from his eyes, with little success.  “Most intriguing.”

“You can be intrigued as much as you like when we get away,” Peregrine told him.  “It hardly matters if we can not get off the island.  The waters are rising fast.”

Blade, looking around, could see that already the plains had started to flood, with the waters now reaching up to their ankles, to the point they had to wade through it, and still it kept on rising.

“It is rising faster than the rain itself should account for,” Blade mused, pondering the strange turn of events.

“Then what is the cause of it?”

Blade sighed as a disturbing thought came to him.  “I think, perhaps, the island is subsiding beneath the waves.”

Peregrine frowned as she caught sight of the seriousness of Blade’s expression.  Seldom did concern subsume his somnolent expression, yet when it did she knew it was for good reasons.  “Sinking?”

“The lands of the Zoacana sank beneath the waves when their ancient lands went down in rack and ruin,” Blade stated.  “I can see no reason why the same would not apply here, though I can not fully explain how, except that it is somehow linked to the vanquishing of Nazaara and the events we beheld.”

Peregrine gave a grunt but she said no more.  Such mysteries were beyond her understanding, and her desire to understand.  Nor could she halt them even if she did.  If it happened, it happened, and that alone covered her sum interest in it.

If not for the path that the Icemen led them along, they would never have known where they were going, for soon they could see neither the hill behind nor the dunes ahead, all shrouded by the rain.  Only when the Icemen abandoned their meandering way and commenced walking a straight path did they know that they had reached the halfway point across the plains.  As if the precariousness of their situation had dawned upon even the Icemen, they increased their pace as they headed for the dunes.

With haste they crossed the last part of the plains as the frigid water continued to rise, reaching now well over their boots.  The touch of it stung like a thousand sharp needles driven into their flesh.  Through the water they waded, forcing their way forward until at last, emerging out of the beating rain, they saw looming the tall, grey dunes of sand that marked the end of the plains.  Upon reaching the dunes, they scrambled their way up out of the water, yet the rain still pelted down upon them, giving them little relief from the wet and cold.

As they reached the crest of the dunes, they saw that the beach beyond had already vanished from sight, inundated by the sea.  Waves rumbled as they struck the base of the dunes, climbing higher with each one.  Thick curtains of rain sleeted across the waters, obscuring all vision of the mainland to the south.

A short distance from where they stood, they spotted the Navodian fisherman, Pravodin.  His boat had been dragged up out of the water onto the dunes.  Around him stood a number of the Icemen, in white furs and carrying bone spears, while more sat upon walruses out in the water, all blocking his way.  He waved his arms with vigour to attract the attention of Peregrine and Blade, and yelled out to them, but the words were drowned out by the fury of the storm that raged.

“At least we have a way off the island,” Peregrine yelled out, starting along the tops of the dunes to join Pravodin.  They scrambled their way along, sand sliding out from beneath their feet on a number of occasions.

“You are a most welcome sight,” Pravodin called out to them as they drew near, the relief obvious from him.  “These Icemen would not let me leave, and I have no wish to remain here in this weather.”  The ground groaned away beneath them and a section of the dunes a short distance back the way that they had come subsided and collapsed into the waters, allowing a rush of water to pour on through the gap and out onto the plains beyond it.  “This is no natural storm,” he told them.  “I have been fishing these waters, man and boy, for many a year and not once have I seen its like.”  He paused and looked at the Icemen.  “Do you think that they will let us leave?” he asked with concern.  “I do not think that staying here will be the wise course of action.  This is nowhere near to blowing itself out, and will only become worse if I am not mistaken.”

“They will let us leave now,” Blade reassured him.

Pravodin let forth a large sigh of relief at the words before nodding.  Taking a grip on his boat, he carefully slid it into the waters before scrambling in after it.  As he grabbed the oars, Peregrine and Blade bundled on in.

Then for the first, and last, time they heard one of the grey clad Icemen speak.  The voice came across to them muffled, but surprisingly deep for one of such limited stature.

“Farewell.  Long have we awaited this day, for our guardianship to end and our oaths to be fulfilled.  We return now to our homes and leave these waters in your hands.”

Thus saying, the Icemen climbed aboard their walruses that sat in the water, two or three to an animal.  The walruses waded out through the waves that rolled across the submerged beach before plunging into deeper water, there to disappear from sight.

“Now there is something you do not see every day,” Pravodin grunted between strokes of the oars.  Barely had they left the island and crossed into the rough, deep waters, rolling waves lifting their boat and swirling it about, than the rains abruptly stopped.  Looking back, they could still see the storm circling the island, the rain sheeting home upon it in a highly localised downpour.  The sea around the island bubbled and frothed, churned white, with waves and eddies at cross purposes adding to the tempest.  Above all of it sounded an ear splitting roar, one that raged above even the sounds of the storm.  Then, from out of the storm, they saw a monstrous wave bearing down upon them, one that rose higher and higher as it swept across the seas until it reached far above their heads.  Pravodin let forth a frightened cry at the sight of it, his face going deathly pale and the oars falling limp in his hands.

“Pull, man, pull!” Peregrine barked at him.

“It is too late for that,” Pravodin responded despondently.

The wave, white froth streaked through it, reached them and lifted the boat up.  It tossed them about like a dog taking to a rat, first one way and then another.  Tight they gripped at the sides of the boat, totally at the mercy of the fury of nature which cared not for a moment about them.  Up they rose and then of a sudden the boat was pitching them over, spilling them out into the water.  Pravodin’s desperate screams were cut short as he plunged beneath the wave.

The sharp shock of the freezing cold of the water slammed into their bodies, numbing their thoughts as icy daggers sliced at them.  The fierce currents beneath the surface tugged them about, tumbling them over and over, trying to batter the air from their lungs.

As the wave passed and the waters stilled to some degree, Peregrine righted herself and kicked for the surface with strong strokes.  Bursting out, her auburn hair plastered to her head, she sucked in deep gasps of air, trying to regain her breath.  Treading water, she turned about to try and look for the others, and the boat.  Neither Blade nor Pravodin had yet to surface.  The boat, though, sat some way off, shattered and broken where it had lodged atop some hidden shoal, the waves tearing it apart further.  First Pravodin and then Blade emerged from beneath the water, coughing and spluttering,

“We must get out of the water,” Pravodin called out, his teeth chattering from the icy fist that crushed him.

“There is an island over there,” Peregrine pointed out, setting forth with powerful sweeps of her arms towards a small spot nearby where barren sand and rocks marked a place out of the water, though one with no form of shelter upon it.

They swam across to it and dragged themselves out, only to collapse upon the beach, exhausted, battered and frozen from their ordeal.

“I lost my pack and the bone pipe,” Blade announced after a short while of laying there.

Peregrine grunted as she sat up.  “It is not the only thing that we lost.  Do you still have the Fire Crystal?” she asked of Pravodin.

The fisherman patted around at his pockets with shaking hands before reaching into one and bringing out the gem Peregrine had paid him with.  He held it tight to him, soaking in the warmth of it.  “Yes.”

“Good.  It at least can stave off the cold until such time as we are rescued from this place.”

“If we are at all,” Pravodin added despondently, huddled around the crystal.

Peregrine laughed, reaching over to slap him upon a wet shoulder.  “If it comes to it, we can make you swim to shore for help.”

Pravodin shuddered at the prospect.  Thoughts of far southern climes where snow and ice were never seen played through his mind and he vowed that, if he survived the ordeal, that would be where he headed.

“The storm is clearing,” Blade announced as he stared back towards where it had seethed in its elemental fury.

The other two followed his gaze.  Just as fast as it had arrived, the storm fell apart, spent out in its ferocity.  As the veil of rain shimmered out of sight, they saw that where once an island had risen now spread an empty sea.

“That is not possible,” Pravodin gasped, his mouth falling open wide in incredulity.

“Hraega’s Eyes, man,” Peregrine laughed, “If you can not believe what you see before you, what can you believe?  The island is gone.  We are done with this place and I am out a Xuanian Fire Crystal, and more besides, with naught to show for our efforts.  Richer pickings await us elsewhere, beyond these cold northern seas.”

Thus saying, she turned her back upon the north, and the seas beneath which Ipik-ki-oonook had sunk, beyond reach and remembrance, and looked to the south.  And in those cold waters alone the Icemen roamed, with only the fishes for company in days to come in paying homage at the tomb of Meryti-Senefer.

The End