Mixun opened the door. Inside, he saw the string was attached to a bellows. When pulled, it forced air through a series of carved, flute-like tubes. Wind passing through the holes made the device speak two understandable words. Muttering, Mixun and Raegel went inside.
The Chief Designer, whose beard was longer than its owner was tall, was perched on a tall stool in the center of a round table. He was drawing furiously on a long roll of parchment, and when he finished what he was doing, he tore off that portion of the roll and handed it to a waiting assistant. This room, and the room beyond, was filled with young gnomes seated at long communal tables, busily scratching away with long quill pens.
“Ah, hmm,” Raegel said, clearing his throat.
“Yes, what is it?” said the Chief Designer, not looking up from his frantic scribbling.
Raegel stopped. He didn’t know how to address the gnome properly. While he dithered, Mixun burst out, “There’s a pirate ship following us!”
“Is there?”
The gnome’s mild response surprised both men. “Yes, I’m quite sure,” said Mixun.
“That’s interesting. Of course, we are passing within ten nautical miles of Cape Enstar. I understand the region is infested with maritime malefactors.”
“What?”
“Pirates,” said Raegel. “Cape Enstar crawls with pirates like flies on horse dung. Can we change course, steer wide of the cape?”
The Chief Designer finally looked up. “Change course? No.” He resumed drawing.
“But why? There may be danger if we stay on this heading!”
“Give me the rate figures for surface alluviation,” he commanded. Six gnomes slid off their benches and came running with sheaves of paper covered in close columns of figures. The Chief Designer ran through four sheets, tossing the unwanted pages in the air, until he came to the one he sought.
“Can’t change course,” he said. “We’ll lose too much ice if we do. Must get home with the maximum amount of ice.”
“What if the pirates attack?” asked Mixun.
The head gnome shrugged. “The ice must be defended.”
“How? Do you have weapons?”
“No, but we will invent some. I will appoint an Emergency Committee for Iceberg Defense.”
Both men were about to protest, but the Chief Designer turned his back on them and resumed work. The other gnomes ignored them too, so they left.
“Little fools,” Mixun said when they were outside. “I could take this berg with fifty good men.”
“No doubt, but what would you do with this gnome-man’s land?” Raegel said. Mixun winced and changed the subject.
By night, lights appeared to the north-colored and, in some cases, blinking. Mixun was sure the Enstar pirates were signaling the lugger on their tail. He hunted through the gnomes’ trash heap, looking for a suitable weapon. He found a staff of seasoned wood and lashed Tamaro’s dagger to it, making a workable spear. It seemed mighty inadequate for defending an island three miles long from an unknown number of pirates.
Dawn came with slate gray clouds towering in the southwest, and the low green coast of Enstar was in sight. It was warm enough now for Mixun to discard his mantle and go about in his shirt. He sat atop the slowly melting ridge, watching the sea. There were now two luggers tailing them. The wind had died when the sun rose, but the luggers had run out oars and were rowing to keep up with the iceberg.
The sun broke through the thick clouds a while later, filling the translucent ice with fiery brilliance. Glowing like a diamond, the ice began to melt more rapidly.
Streams of water ran off the upper surfaces into the sea. Mixun cupped his hands under one stream and drank the runoff. It was good water.
With the warming, the gnomes’ devices suffered. Ice-block houses collapsed, and the paddling machines began to work loose from their mountings. One by one they had to be shut down and the axles reburied in firmer ice. The berg’s forward momentum was great, but it soon slowed down. Currents around the cape started pushing the berg toward land.
While the gnomes were busy repairing their paddle machines, more ships appeared out of Enstar. Mixun counted twenty vessels, luggers, galleons, even a captured caravel or two. They all wore dark blue sails, which marked them as pirates as surely as any formal ensign.
Raegel scrambled up the slippery slope and saw the flotilla coming. “This ought to be something,” he said.
“You seem mighty calm.”
“I don’t think we’re in much danger.”
“How can you say that? Look!”
Raegel smiled. “Relax, will you, Mix? Have faith in our little hosts.”
Scowling, Mixun slid down the north slope of the ridge and hurried east, to the stern of the iceberg. The pirate fleet was massing there. The largest ship, a caravel with a gilded figurehead, took the lead. Sunlight glinted from the caravel’s tops and forecastle. The pirates were inspecting them with spyglasses.
Mixun kept low, creeping along crevices and cracks in the ice. All were full of water, which made his progress uncomfortable. A few hundred paces from the end of the floe, he settled into a niche between two streaming ice boulders and watched the pirates close cautiously. Before long they were near enough for him to hear the thump of oarlocks, and the shouted commands of individual ship’s masters.
Where were the gnomes? They were about to be invaded, and not one of them was in sight!
Mixun watched anxiously as a single lugger under oars approached the tail of the iceberg. The mighty island of ice was riding easily in the waves, bobbing far less than the small ship coming up to it. The edge of the floe stood well above the lugger’s rail, a good seven feet above the surface of the ocean. At once Mixun saw the pirates’ dilemma-how would they get on the berg?
After some deliberation, the pirates resorted to ropes and grappling hooks. Mixun crept out from his hiding place, spear ready. Crouched low, he couldn’t see the pirates, but from the grunting he reckoned some of them were climbing the ropes. He used the dagger to chip out the tines of the imbedded hooks. Both ropes whipped free, and with loud cries, the pirates tumbled into the water.
Grinning, Mixun waited to see if they tried again. Sure enough, three hooks clattered onto the ice shelf and bit into the gleaming surface. He hurried to the first one. The three hooks were widely spaced. Mixun was hard pressed to dig out all three. The first pulled free and fell, then the second. Before he could reach the third, a pirate gained the top of the iceberg. Their eyes met.
“Ai!” the fork-bearded buccaneer cried. “There’s someone here!”
Mixun whacked the man on the chin with the shaft of his spear, sending him plummeting to the deck of the lugger below. In response, archers loosed arrows at Mixun. None hit, but they flicked disturbingly close. He dodged away, arrows splintering on the ice at his heels.
“Alarm! Alarm!” he shouted. “Pirates! Pirates on the iceberg!”
He didn’t think there was anyone to hear him, but he hoped to make the brigands wary to follow him. Back in his hidden vantage point, he saw more lines thrown up. In minutes, fifteen well-armed pirates were on the ice. Since they had bows, it was foolish for Mixun to try and fight them, so he beat a retreat over the slick, melting hillocks for help.
He hadn’t gone half a mile before he ran into Raegel and a band of gnomes laden with mysterious (and probably pointless) equipment.
“Pirates!” Mixun exclaimed, grasping his friend by the arms. “They’re here!”
“Hear that, boys? Go get ‘em,” Raegel said.
The gnomes broke ranks and streamed around the stationary men.
“You’re sending them to their deaths,” Mixun protested. “They aren’t even armed!”
“What do you mean? That’s the Emergency Committee for Iceberg Defense. They’re armed enough.” Raegel’s blue-gray eyes danced with inner laughter. “Come and see.”
On a plateau above the end of the berg, the gnomes deployed their strange hardware. Mixun saw canvas hoses and bright metal tubing, windlasses and bags of salt.
Gnomes circled the flattened area, tapping the ice with small brass hammers. Now and then one would crow,
