The Queen of Penesthelia and Firman The Brave 11
To the ship in the ice
They returned from the southern wastes near the pole where the ice falls on the stones, carrying the jeweled fish of wisdom in waters held in Firman’s helm, and they crossed the deathly plains where there is nothing to drink, and they sailed across the sea to Penesthelia, and they came to the throne room of Arsinoe the Queen, and Firman the Brave presented her the helm and the fish within.
And so she gave the helm with the fish swimming in it to the little man of gold to bear, and so was the fifth task accomplished by Firman and his three companions and his horse.
“Now there are two tasks left, Firman of Orestra,” she said, “before I will consent to marry you.”
“Name the next task,” he said.
“If you leave my palace in Penesthelia, and go north across the woodlands, you will come to the slopes of the Upper Plateau, and when you ascend the slopes of the Upper Plateau, you will find yourself on the dry land of long ago, and from there you may travel, if you find breath, to the ice that lies at the northernmost end of the world. Having come to the uttermost north,” she said, “you will find a ship that fell out of the stars, and in that ship, you will find a box, and in that box, there is a silver cap, and that cap and box you will bring back to me.”
“That sounds like no challenge,” said Firman the Brave,
“This only tells what you know,” the Queen of Penesthelia said, and she left his company.
So rode Firman, and the child behind him, and the squirrel on the cantle of the saddle, and the dog ran alongside, and first they went through pleasant lands, and then through harder lands only lately terraformed, and then up the high slopes where few men lived.
But they came into the riven red clifflands to vilaĝos unknown even to the Queen of Penesthelia, and there were the old plants amid the new fields. Firman spoke to the vilaĝo nomarch, saying, “Speak to me about what you know. I must go up onto the dry land of long ago and find the northern ice at the world's end. I am told there is a ship that fell out of the stars, and in that ship, I will find a box. In that box is a silver cap, and I will bring that cap and box back to the Queen of Penesthelia. And this is the sixth of the seven tasks she has set me to.”
The nomarch of the vilaĝo pulled on his beard and said, “For us, this is the uttermost north, and there is no farther, for on the Upper Plateau, you will find you cannot breathe, and the cold will make your life a burden. But if you would go to the ice in the north of the world, you would go through the cañon a long way, ever higher, ever narrower, ever colder, air ever thinner, until you come onto the lands that were dry land when all this below with us was the bottom of the sea.”
“I do not fear the Upper Plateau,” said Firman the Brave, “for the men of Ortrera go on it, and my companions and I have traveled it before. But I need air for my horse, my dog, the squirrel, the child, and myself, and I would ask for respirators.”
The ephor gave them respirators for air, and they traveled the long cañon, past where all terraformers had ever been, a long way, ever higher, ever narrower, ever colder, air ever thinner until they reached the high lands and had to breathe with the respirators. Long, long they traveled, and cold, cold it was until they reached the snow lands and the ice lands, and the lands where no stone or mountain could be seen, and the color of the sky was deep and dark, and there buried half in and half out of the ice was a ship that had fallen out of the sky, broad and graceful. It was a hundred paces long and a hundred paces wide, and it had been silver of old but now was dark with age, and every part of it was clasped with ice like diamond, and it glittered in the setting sun before the long winter of the north.
“So here we have found it,” Firman said, “cold and buried to its waist in the ice, and no doors nor windows do I see, and how shall we make our way into it?”
And there was no knowing: for like a box without hinges, key, or lid, it lay with the silver cap within it. The dog pawed and dug, the squirrel gnawed, Asil his steed kicked, the girl-child around it paced, and Firman pried at every mark with his sword of calypscine steel, yet it remained closed to them.
“Some way must be found,” Firman said. “If we stay here after the night, we will die.”
Part 11