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shield his skin.
They were traveling almost due east. That meant the untiring westwind was directly behind them. Yet
they were making little progress. The icerigger rocked slightly, and he saw that Ta-hoding was tacking.
That was crazy: nobody tacks away from the wind!
"Strong gale blowin' down out of the canyon," observed September with interest. A glance upward
showed the sails flapping uncertainly against the spars. Occasionally the wind off the plateau was strong
enough to shove pika-pina sail material back against the masts. At such moments the ship shuddered as if
reluctant to continue. But under Ta-hoding's careful and expert guidance, they kept making steady
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Alan Dean Foster - Mission to Moulokin
progress forward. Very soon they entered the mouth of the canyon.
Walls over a hundred meters high towered on both sides of the ice ship. As they progressed up the chasm,
the sheer stone ramparts rose steadily higher, though the canyon showed no sign of narrowing.
At a hundred seventy meters high the cliffs leveled off, only then the canyon walls began to press inward
slightly. There was less room to maneuver. Ta-hoding and his crew worked hard to keep the zig-zagging
ship from smashing into unyielding canyon sides. He was making shorter and shorter tacks, threatening
terribly if a sail crew was seconds too slow in shifting a spar.
Once, the sailors manipulating the foremast tops misinterpreted a mate's order and swung their spars
starboard instead of port. With a lurch, the Slander-scree continued on course to starboard instead of
swing-ing around to cross the expanse of ice in the channel. Ethan stared, frozen, as they lumbered
steadily toward the nearing gray cliff.
Sailors fought frantically to correct the error, com-pensate for the mistake. There was a dull, patient
grind-ing noise. Fortunately the icerigger was now traveling so slowly into the headwind that the impact
did no more than crack the railing and splinter a couple of deck planks.
The ease with which the planking splintered turned
Ethan's attention to the treeless rims high overhead. How stable were they? In the event of a slide there
was no room to escape in the narrow confines of the canyon.
He was worrying needlessly again. The crash of ship into stone hadn't loosened as much as a pebble from
the clifftop.
Strong comments were relayed from helmdeck to foremast crew via the midship's mate. They were
in-tended to relax the atmosphere on board while chast-tising the foremast sailors. Instead, the invective
only added to the general tension, did not produce the laughter it would have in less threatening
surround-ings.
The mystery of the mythic city-state, the narrow-ing canyon walls that shut out the clean sky, the skate-
scarred ice they were traversing, in conjunction with their unfortunate experiences at Poyolavomaar, con-
bined to test the mental stability of the crew. Ethan knew it would be better if they encountered something
 hostile, friendly or even inexplicable before many more minutes passed.
It occured to him to wonder what they would do if Moulokin proved as unreal as it had proven elusive
and the canyon simply continued to narrow, perhaps to a lonely rock-face dead-end. The many ship tracks
might signify nothing more than a convocation of reli-gious worshippers at a favorite shrine, or indicate a
well-used refuge from storms.
Such visitors would have no trouble turning their ships around and racing back down the ice-filled
can-yon with the inland wind at their backs. But the can-yon was as narrow as the Slanderscree was long.
She could not possibly be turned 'round in so slim a space. They might have to backsail, traveling stern-
first and steering in a fashion unthought of.
September had theorized a bend in the canyon. All at once it turned sharply southward. The crew had to
struggle with lines and spars to swing the icerigger safely around the twisting walls.
The wind continued to buffet them from off the pla-teau, but it was gentler now. The ice raft could pre-
ceed up canyon on a softer tack.
Except that the canyon was blocked.
At first he thought it a landslide, tumbled down from those cliffs so stable in appearance. As they drew
nearer it was clear that the obstacle was Tran-made, its great stones and blocks neatly piled with
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Alan Dean Foster - Mission to Moulokin
mortarless masonry to form a wall stretching across the ice strait like a granite web.
It was perhaps thirty meters high, deeper than he could casually guess without a higher view. As was the
custom on Tran-ky-ky, the colossal double gate was constructed of wood. It rose nearly as high as the
stone walls themselves and was flanked on either side by a triangular tower.
The structure puzzled him. Impressive as they were, these could not be the gates to fabled Moulokin.
Behind the barrier the cliffs rose high and close together as ever. There was no room for a city behind the
wall. And if any such did exist there, he reminded himself, surely it could be seen from the lookout cage
on the mainmast.
The wall itself was a typically solid piece of native engineering. It looked well-nigh impregnable. But
something lay behind that gate. The quilt of grooves in the ice now ran straight toward the double gate.
They were very close when the sound of a horn reached them. It brayed three times and then was silent.
Ethan ran for the bow, discovered Elfa, Teeliam, Hunnar, September and many others already there,
staring forward.
A voice from one of the towers hailed them. Its tone, so crucial to the precise meaning of many Trannish
phrases and words, was neither hostile nor openly in-viting. "Who are you, in the great ship? From
whence do you come and what do you wish of the peaceful folk of Moulokin?"
This development produced an excited muttering as word spread through the crew, made its way up the
masts and into the cabins. Moulokin existed; Mou-lokin was real! At least, an unseen presence on an
impressive wall had laid claim to the reality of a rumor.
Hunnar replied. "We come from a far state, Wannome, to the northeast of you. We desire to par-lay with
your Landgrave and council on a matter of great importance to all Tran. And we have three im-portant
visitors with us."
"Step forward, lad. Time to show ourselves." Sep-tember slid back his mask so those hidden in the wall
would have an unobstructed view of his furless visage. Williams and Ethan duplicated his movement.
"They are from a world other than Tran-ky-ky." Hunnar pointed skyward. "A world from the ocean of
black ice."
All at once there was movement on the ramparts. Ethan could see Tran soldiers emerge from
conceal-ment, gesturing at the icerigger while talking among themselves with apparent excitement.
So the appearance of the three humans was a surprise to them. Now he could relax some. Calonnin Ro-
Vijar had not conjured up a skimmer or other modern vehicle to carry him here in advance of their arrival, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]