Iced On Aran (2 page)
Authors: Brian Lumley
“What brings you here?” he finally asked the pair, his voice almost a chime. “Why do you climb Aran?”
“Because it's here!” growled Eldin at once. And: “Do we need a reason?”
The old man held up placating hands. “I wasn't prying,” he said. “I've no authority one way or the other. Just making conversation, that's all.”
Hero spoke up. “No motive to our being here,” he said, “except we thought we'd climb Aran, that's all. But what's in it for you? You'll pardon my saying so, but it seems to me you're a bit long in the tooth for shinning up mountains.”
The old man gave them a gummy grin. “A man's as old as he feels,” he said. “And who's to say who feels the younger, you or I? Looks to me like you two are feeling as old as the hills themselves right nowâif you'll forgive
me
saying so. As to why I'm here: why, I cut the ice for the fishmongers and butchers and vintners in Celephais! The ice of Aran provides my living, you see, as it did for my grandfather and father before me. Cutting it, and carving it, tooâthough the latter's more properly a hobby, a small self-indulgence, with nothing of profit in it. Obviously I can't take my carvings into town, for they'd quickly melt. Up here, howeverâwhy, they last forever!”
me
saying so. As to why I'm here: why, I cut the ice for the fishmongers and butchers and vintners in Celephais! The ice of Aran provides my living, you see, as it did for my grandfather and father before me. Cutting it, and carving it, tooâthough the latter's more properly a hobby, a small self-indulgence, with nothing of profit in it. Obviously I can't take my carvings into town, for they'd quickly melt. Up here, howeverâwhy, they last forever!”
“Carvings?” Eldin looked all about. “I see no carvings ⦔ Perhaps the old lad was an idiot.
The icemonger grinned again. “Only brush the snow away where you stand,” he said.
The ice-slope had been simplicity itself in the climbing,. for here and there it went up in uniform ripples, almost
like steps, with only a thin, crisp covering of snow to round off their sharp angular shapes. Eldin scuffed at some of these flat, regular surfaces with his boots; saw that in fact they
were
steps, cut with infinite care into the ice of Aran. And, narrowing his eyes toward the peak, the Wanderer saw that indeed the steps would seem to go all the way to the top.
like steps, with only a thin, crisp covering of snow to round off their sharp angular shapes. Eldin scuffed at some of these flat, regular surfaces with his boots; saw that in fact they
were
steps, cut with infinite care into the ice of Aran. And, narrowing his eyes toward the peak, the Wanderer saw that indeed the steps would seem to go all the way to the top.
“Steps!” said Hero, following Eldin's gaze, and at once felt foolish. Of course they were steps.
The old man nodded. “To make the climbing of Aran easier, aye.”
“But who'd want to make the climbing of a forbidden mountain easy?” Eldin was puzzled.
The old man laughed. “An icemonger, of course! My grandfather first cut steps on Aran's frozen slopes, and after him my father, and now I cut them. You see, the mountain is not forbidden to me. But ice-steps are not the carvings I was talking about, Wanderer. You brushed snow from the wrong place.”
The questers looked again.
Flanking the rippling stairway they had ascended, large expanses of the slope showed columnar, lumpy, or nodal structures beneath a thin snow sheath. Eldin got down on his knees to one edge of the steps and brushed away snow with his hands. Hero likewise on the opposite side of the steps. And now an amazing thing, for beneath the snowâ
“Wonderful!” said Hero, his voice full of admiration.
A figure reclined there, laid bare by the quester's hands: the figure of a man carved in ice. He sat (or seemed to) on the slope, his back against an ice boulder, hands in his lap, and gazed out through ice eyes far across all the lands of dream. He was middling old, yet looked ages-weary, and his downward sloping shoulders seemed to bear all the weight of entire worlds. His ice-robes
were those of a king, which the ice-crown upon his head confirmed beyond a doubt. But even without the royal robes and ice-jewelled headgear, still the figure was unmistakable.
were those of a king, which the ice-crown upon his head confirmed beyond a doubt. But even without the royal robes and ice-jewelled headgear, still the figure was unmistakable.
“Kuranes!” Hero whispered, seeing in the ice an image almost of life itself, yet at the same time a Kuranes utterly unknown to him.
“The Lord of Ooth-Nargai, aye,” the old ice carver whispered. “My father sculpted this in a time when Kuranes dwelled in the rose-crystal Palace of the Seventy Delights, before he dreamed himself his manor-house and built his Cornish village on the coast. As you can see, the king was weary in those days, and jaded on the dreamlands; see how clearly it shows in his mien? But once he'd builded a little bit of Cornwall here”âhe shruggedâ“his weariness fell off him. My father had thought he might visit this place, come up and see himself shaped in ice, but he never came. Still, time yet ⦔
Hero was astounded. “The king didn't sit for this?”
The old man gave a curious, brittle little laugh. “No, it was done from memory. My father's skill was great!”
Hero scuffed at a flat, snow-layered area next to the ice-carved king. It was empty, just a flat space cut out of Aran's ice. “Well, if Kuranes ever does come up here,” he said, “and if he sits here, why, then he'll be beside himself!” He grinned.
“That was a joke,” Eldin drily explained, but the old ice cutter only narrowed his eyes. The Wanderer had meanwhile cleared away snow from half a dozen ice-carvings. In doing so, he'd brought a curious thing to light. While Kuranes figure was carved only once, the restâand the slope, as far as the eye could see, was literally covered with snow-humped shapesâappeared all to be duplicated. They sat, kneeled or reclined, or occasionally
stood there on the slopes of Aran, in perfect pairs like glassy twins cut from the mountain. Two of each, almost exactly identical, strange twinned stalagmites of ice in human form.
stood there on the slopes of Aran, in perfect pairs like glassy twins cut from the mountain. Two of each, almost exactly identical, strange twinned stalagmites of ice in human form.
Eldin uncovered more figures, Hero too. “I recognize a few of them,” the Wanderer mused. “Here's old Cuff the fisherman. He never married, stayed alone all his days. Most people keep young in Celephais, but Cuff grew old. Toward the end he didn't even speak to people, stopped fishing, just sat around on the wharves staring out to sea. People said he was tired of life.”
The cold was starting to get into Hero's bones. “I don't know how you can work up here,” he told the old man. “It's so cold here even Zura's zombies would last forever!” Snow was beginning to fall: light flakes like confetti cut from finest white gossamer drifting down near-vertically out of the sky. “As for your work,” Hero went on, “I can't fault it. But don't your fingers freeze up? These things must take days in the carving! And there are thousands of them ⦔
The old man smiled his thin, cold smile. “I wrap up warm,” he said, “as you can see. Also, I'm used to the cold. What's more I work very quickly and accurately. It's in my blood, come down from my grandfather, through my father to me. And sometimes I have advanced knowledge. I get to know that someone else desires to be carved in ice. Come over here and I'll show you something.” He led the way nimbly across the snow-slope, knowing every step intimately. Hero and Eldin followed.
As they went, Hero asked the Wanderer: “So what happened to old Cuff the fisherman? Did he die?”
Eldin shrugged. “Drowned, they say. After a storm they found his boat wrecked on Kuranes' Cornish rocks. They didn't find Cuff, though, and he was never
washed up. The sea keeps its secrets. Actually, I'd forgotten all about him till I saw himâboth of himâup here.”
washed up. The sea keeps its secrets. Actually, I'd forgotten all about him till I saw himâboth of himâup here.”
“How about that?” Hero asked the old ice-cutter. “Why do you carve two likenesses of your subjects? And why, pray, only one of Kuranes?”
“Here we are,” the old man might not have heard him. “Thereâwhat do you think of that?”
“Why, I ⦠I'm floored!” Hero gasped.
“Or, maybe, âflowed'?” said Eldin. “You know: ice-flowed?”
Hero groaned and rolled his eyes, but the old man said, “Flawed, yes! Kuranes, I mean. You asked why only one of him. Because the ice was flawed. When my father set to work on the second image, it shattered. And so there's only an empty space beside him.”
The questers said nothing, merely gazed in astonishment at ice-sculpturesâof themselves! The carvings were far from complete; indeed, they were the crudest of representations, the merest gouges and slashes in blocks of ice; but just as a great artist captures the essence of his subject with the first strokes of his brush, so were the essences of Hero and Eldin here caught. Perhaps in more ways than one â¦
Hero's gape turned to a frown, then an expression of some puzzlement. “Two things,” he said. “Yet again you've only represented us once apiece. But weirder far, why are we here at all? We didn't ask to be sculpted in Aran's ice; and as for your being forewarned about our coming, why, you couldn't have been! We only decided that last night, and even then we weren't sure.”
By way of answer, the old man asked questions of his own. “I'd like to be certain on that point,” he said. “About your coming up here, I mean. You told me you climbed Aran âbecause it was here.' By that do you
mean that you automatically do things you should not? Which in this case is to say, because the climbing of Aran is forbidden? Or was it simply that you were bored, tired of mundane dreaming?”
mean that you automatically do things you should not? Which in this case is to say, because the climbing of Aran is forbidden? Or was it simply that you were bored, tired of mundane dreaming?”
Hero looked at him a little askance. “Mundane dreamers? Us? Hardly!”
Eldin's ice-statue sat, elbow on knee, chin in palm, gazing frostily on Celephais. The Wanderer got down beside it, put his real elbow on the empty knee, adopted the same pose more or less, and stared into the statue's roughly-angled face. “You keep asking us our reason for climbing Aran,” he said. “Because we shouldn't, you ask, or because we were bored? Well, actuallyâif it's that important to youâit was a bit of both. See, we've been a little out of sorts, Hero and I.”
“No, no!” cried the sculptor at once. “Don't sit there, but here, right alongside. That's right. Good! Good!” Similarly, he positioned Hero beside his carving, which sat straight-armed, hands on knees, staring bleakly ahead. Then he took out tools from his pockets, began to chip away. First at Eldin's unfinished sculpture, then at Hero's, and so on, back and forth.
“You didn't answer my questions,” said Hero, watching him out of the corner of his eye. “How come you've already started work on us? And why only one piece apiece?”
“My friends,” said the old man, “you see the work of long, lonely years here. Here are represented years before I was born, and years before my father was born. There are a number of celebrities carved hereâlike Lord Kuranes himselfâbut mainly the works are of ordinary men. Now, the carving of ordinary men is all very well, but it is unrewarding. I mean, in another century or so, who will know or remember them, eh? But
men such as you two, destined to become legends in the dreamlands ⦔
men such as you two, destined to become legends in the dreamlands ⦔
“You carved us because we're famous!” cried Eldin, beaming.
“Or infamous!” Hero's frown persisted.
“What better reason?” Again the old man smiled his thin, cold smile.
“Something here,” said Hero, hearing warning bells in the back of his head (or maybe the tinkling of warning ice-crystals), “isn't quite right. I can't put my finger on it, but it's wrong.” And talking of fingers, the old man had just put the finishing touch to Hero's right handâwhich even now promptly fell asleep upon his knee, as dead as if hard-bitten by frost. Hero made to rise, stir himself up, butâ
“No, no,
no
!” the old man chided. “Now that you are here, at least do me the courtesy of sitting still. Fifteen or twenty minutes at most, and the job's done. And while I work, so I'll tell you my story.”
no
!” the old man chided. “Now that you are here, at least do me the courtesy of sitting still. Fifteen or twenty minutes at most, and the job's done. And while I work, so I'll tell you my story.”
“Story?” Eldin repeated him, watching how he carefully molded his boot from iceâand feeling his real foot go suddenly cold inside the real boot, with a numbness that gradually climbed into his calf. “Is there a story, then?”
“Ooth-Nargai”âthe sculptor appeared to ignore him, his fingers and tools alive with activityâ“is said to be timeless. For most people it is, but for some it isn't. If all a man wants is a place that never changes, then Celephais in Ooth-Nargai's the spot. But there are those who want more than that, who
must
have change; restless souls whose hearts forever reach beyond the horizons we know. Alas, not all are fortunate enough to be far-traveled questers such as you two.”
must
have change; restless souls whose hearts forever reach beyond the horizons we know. Alas, not all are fortunate enough to be far-traveled questers such as you two.”
“Don't get to believing that all quests are fun and
games, old man,” Hero cautioned. “Me, sometimes I get heartily sick of them!”
games, old man,” Hero cautioned. “Me, sometimes I get heartily sick of them!”
“And me!” said Eldin. “Sometimes I think: wouldn't it be grand just to sit absolutely still for a thousand years?”
“Exactly!” said the iceman. “And if such as you can become bored, jaded, dissatisfied, how then the little fishermanâ”
“Like Cuff?” said Hero.
“âand the potter and the quarrier, who've never seen beyond a patch of ocean or the hot walls of a kiln or the steep sides of a hole in the ground? And so, in the far dim olden times, every now and then a man would climb Aran.” He fell silent, concentrated on his work, shaped Eldin's elbow where it joined his knee.
“Eh?” said the Wanderer at length. “I don't think I follow.” He felt an unaccustomed stiffness in his arm, the one that propped up his chin, and grunted his discomfort. But other than that he kept still.
“Maybe,” the sculptor continued, “in the beginning, they came to broaden their horizons, to gaze across the dreamlands on lands afar, which they'd never see except from up here. Anyway, that's how it started â¦
“Now, my grandfather was no ordinary ice-cutter. He was a passionate man with a passionate skill. And yet he was compassionate, too. And he knew his talent was magical. He could not bear the loneliness, the boredom, the utter ennui of certain of his fellow men, men who grew old and withered despite the timelessness of Ooth-Nargai. Aye, and he could spot such men at once, for sooner or later they'd invariably enquire of him: âWhat's it like, up on Aran?'”
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