The Empire of Ice Cream Read online

  DUNE RAT

  The dunes lie due north of While Away, a range of tall hills sparsely covered with a sharp, forbidding grass I use to tie up my tools. I have been to them on expeditions to cut blades of the stuff, but never ventured into their recesses, as they are vast and their winding paths like a maze. From out of this wilderness came a shaggy behemoth with needle teeth and a tail like an eel. I heard it squeal as it tried to clear the outer wall. Grabbing my spear I ran to the front gate and out along the bridge that crosses the moat. There I was able to take the shell staircase to the top of the wall. I knew that if the rat breached the wall the castle would be destroyed. As it tried to climb over, though, its hind feet displaced the sand the battlement was made of and it kept slipping back. I charged headlong and drove the tip of my spear into its right eye. It screeched in agony and retreated, my weapon jutting from the oozing wound. There was no question that it was after me, a morsel of Twilmish meat, or that others would eventually come.

  THE RED ORB HAS DROWNED

  The red orb has sunk into the ocean, leaving only pink and orange streaks behind in its wake. Its drowning has been gradual and it has struggled valiantly, but now darkness reigns upon the beach. Way above there are points of light that hypnotize me when I stare too long at them and reveal themselves in patterns of—a sea gull, a wave, a crab. I must be sure to gather more driftwood in order to keep the fires going, for the temperature has also slowly dropped. Some little time ago, a huge swath of pink material washed ashore. On it was a symbol belonging, I am sure, to the giant, laughing architects: a round yellow circle made into a face with eyes and a strange, unnerving smile. From this I will cut pieces and make warmer garments. Phargo sleeps more often now, but when he is awake he still bounds about senselessly and makes me laugh often enough. We swim like fish through the dark.

  IN MY BED

  I lie in my bed writing. From beyond the walls of my castle I hear the waves coming and going in their steady, assuring rhythm, and the sound is lulling me toward sleep. I have been wondering what the name assigned to my home by the architects means. While Away—if only I could understand their symbols, I might understand more the point of my life. Yes, the point of life is to fish and work and make things and explore, but there are times, especially now since the red orb has been swallowed, that I suspect there is some secret reason for my being here. There are moments when I wish I knew, and others when I couldn’t care less. Oh, to be like Phargo, for whom a drop of fish blood and a hopping run along the beach is all the secret necessary. Perhaps I think too much. There is the squeal of a bat, the call of a plover, the sound of the wind, and they mix with the salt air to bring me closer to sleep. When I wake, I will ……..

  WHAT’S THIS?

  Something is rising out of the ocean in the east, being born into the sky. I think it is going to be round like the red orb, but it is creamy white. Whatever it is, I welcome it, for it seems to cast light, not bright enough to banish the darkness, but an enchanted light that reflects off the water and gracefully illuminates the beach where the shadows are not too harsh. We rode atop a giant, brown armored crab with a sharp spine of a tail as it dragged itself up the beach. We dined on bass. Discovered a strange fellow on the shore of the lake; a kind of statue but not made of stone. He bobbed on the surface, composed of a slick and somewhat pliable substance. He is green from head to toe. He carries in his hands what appears to be a weapon and wears a helmet, both also green. I have dragged him back to the castle and set him up on the tall turret to act as a sentinel. Hauling him up the winding staircase put my back out. I’m not as young as I used to be. With faerie magic I will give him the power of sight and speech, so that although he does not move, he can be vigilant and call out. I wish I had the power to cast a spell that would bring him fully to life, but alas, I’m only Twilmish. I have positioned him facing the north in order to watch for rats. I call him Greenly, just to give him a name.

  200 STEPS

  I now record the number of steps it is at this point in time from the outer wall of the castle to where the breakers flood the beach. I was spied upon in my work, for the huge white disk on the horizon has just recently shown two eyes over the brim of the ocean. Its light is dreamlike, and it makes me wonder if I have really taken form or if I am still a spirit, dreaming I am not.

  A MOMENTOUS DISCOVERY

  Phargo and I discovered a corked bottle upon the beach. As has become my practice, I took out my hatchet and smashed a hole in its side near the neck. Often, I have found that these vessels are filled with an intoxicating liquor that in small doses warms the innards when the wind blows, and in large doses makes me sing and dance upon the turret. Before I could venture inside, I heard a voice call out, “Help us!” I was frozen in my tracks, thinking I had opened a ship of ghosts. Then, from out of the dark back of the bottle came a figure. Imagine my relief when I saw it was a female faerie. I am not exactly sure which branch of the folk she is from, but she is my height, dressed in a short gown woven from spider thread, and has alluring long, orange hair. She staggered forward and collapsed in my arms. Hiding behind her was a small faerie child, a boy, I think. He was frightened and sickly looking, and said nothing but followed me when I put the woman over my shoulder and carried her home. They now rest peacefully down the hall in a makeshift bed I put together from a common clamshell and a few folds of that pink material. I am filled with questions.

  THE MOON

  Meiwa told me the name of the white circle in the sky, which has now revealed itself completely. She said it was called the Moon, the bright specks are Stars, and the red orb was the Sun. I live in a time of darkness called the Night, and amazingly, there exists a time of brightness when the sun rules a blue sky and one can see a mile or more. All these things I think I knew at one time before I was born into this life. She knows many things including some secrets of the giant architects. The two of them, she and her son, are Willnits, seafaring people apparently who live aboard the ships of the giants. They had fallen asleep in an empty rum bottle, thinking it was safe, but when they awoke, they found the top stopped with a cork and their haven adrift upon the ocean. Sadly enough, her husband had been killed by one of the giants, called Humans, who mistook him for an insect and crushed him. I can vouch that she is expert with a fishing spear and was quite fierce in helping turn back an infestation of burrowing sand crabs in the dungeon. The boy, Magtel, is quiet but polite and seems a little worse for wear from their harrowing adventures. Only Phargo can bring a smile to him. I made him his own axe, to lift his spirits.

  A SMALL NIGHT BIRD

  Meiwa has enchanted a small night bird by attracting it with crumbs of a special bread she bakes from thin air and sea foam, and then using her lovely singing voice to train it. When she mounted the back of the delicate creature and called me to join her, I will admit I was skeptical. Once upon the bird, my arms around her waist, she made a kissing noise with her lips and we took off into the sky. My head swam as we went higher and higher and then swept along the shoreline in the light of the moon. She laughed wildly at my fear, and when we did not fall, I laughed too. She took me to a place where the giants live, in giant houses. Through a glass pane, we saw a giant girl drawing a colorful picture of a bird sitting upon a one-eyed woman’s shoulder. Then we were off, traveling miles, soaring and diving, and eventually coming to rest on the bridge moat of While Away. The bird is not the only creature who has been enchanted by Meiwa.

  150 STEPS

  Magtel regularly accompanies me on the search for food now. When we came upon a blue claw in the throes of death, he stepped up next to me and put his hand in mine. We waited until the creature stopped moving, and then took our axes to the shell. Quite a harvest. It is now only 150 steps from the wall to the water.

  GREENLY SPEAKS

  I did not hear him at first as I was sleeping so soundly, but Meiwa, lying next to me, did and pinched my nose to wake me. We ran to the top of the turret, where Greenly was still sounding the alarm,
and looked north. There three shadows moved ever closer across the sand. I went and fetched my bow and arrows, my latest weapon, devised from something Meiwa had said she’d seen the humans use. I was waiting to fire until they drew closer. Meiwa had a plan, though. She called for her night bird, and we mounted its back. We attacked from the air, and the monsters never got within 50 steps of the castle. My arrows could not kill them but effectively turned them away. I would have perished without her.

  WHILE MEIWA SLEPT

  While Meiwa slept, Magtel and I took torches, slings for carrying large objects upon the back, and our axes, and quietly left the castle. Phargo trailed after us, of course. There was a far place I had been to only one other time before. Heading west, I set a brisk pace and the boy kept up, sometimes running to stay next to me. Suddenly he started talking, telling me about a creature he had seen while living aboard the ship. “A whale,” he called it. “Bigger than a hundred humans, with a mouth like a cavern.” I laughed and asked him if he was certain of this. “I swear to you,” he said. “It blows water from a hole on its back, a fountain that reaches to the sky.” He told me the humans hunted them with spears from small boats, and made from their insides lamp oil and perfume. What an imagination the child has, for it did not end with the whale, but he continued to relate to me so many unbelievable wonders as we walked along I lost track of where we were and, though I watched for danger and the path through the sand ahead, it was really inward that my vision was trained, picturing his fantastic ideas. Before this he had not said but a few words to me. After turning north at the shark skeleton, we traveled awhile more and then entered the forest. Our torches pushed back the gloom, but it was mightily dark in there among the brambles and stickers. A short way in I spotted what we had come for: giant berries, like clusters of beads, indigo in color and sweating their sweetness. I hacked one off its vine and showed Magtel how to chop one down. We loaded them into our slings and then started back. There were a few tense moments before leaving the forest, for a long, yellow snake slithered by as we stood stiller than Greenly, holding our breath. I had to keep one foot lightly on Phargo’s neck to keep him from barking or hopping and giving us away. On the way home, the boy asked if I had ever been married, and then a few minutes later if I had any children. We presented the berries to Meiwa upon her waking. I will never forget the taste of them.

  THE BOY HAS A PLAN

  Magtel joined Meiwa and me as we sat on the tall turret enjoying a sip of liquor from a bottle I had recently discovered on the beach. He said he knew how to protect the castle against the rats. This was his plan: Gather as much dried seaweed that has blown into clumps upon the beach, encircle the outer wall of the castle with it. When Greenly sounds the alarm, we will shoot flaming arrows into it, north, south, east, and west, creating a ring of fire around us that the rats cannot pass through. I thought it ingenious. Meiwa kissed him and clapped her hands. We will forthwith begin collecting the necessary seaweed. It will be a big job. My boy is gifted.

  100 STEPS

  I don’t know why I checked how far the ocean’s flood could reach. 100 is a lot of steps.

  WE ARE READY

  After a long span of hard work, we have completed the seaweed defense of the castle. The rats are nowhere in sight. I found a large round contrivance, one side metal, one glass, buried in the sand. It had a heartbeat that sounded like a tiny hammer tapping glass. With each beat, an arrow inside the glass moved ever so slightly in a course describing a circle. Meiwa told me it was called a Watch, and the humans use them to mark the passage of Time. Later, I returned to it and struck it with my axe until its heart stopped beating. The longer of the metal arrows I have put in my quiver.

  THE TRUTH, LIKE A WAVE

  Magtel has fallen ill. He is too tired to get out of bed. Meiwa told me the truth. They must leave soon and find another ship, for they cannot exist for too long away from one. She told me that she had used a spell to keep them alive for the duration they have been with me, but now the spell is weakening. I asked her why she had never told me. “Because we wanted to stay with you at While Away forever,” she said. There were no more words. We held each other for a very long time, and I realized that my heart was a castle made of sand.

  THEY ARE GONE

  In order to get Magtel well enough to endure the flight out to sea on the night bird, I built a bed for him in the shape of a ship, and this simple ruse worked to get him back upon his feet. We made preparations for their departure, packing food and making warm blankets to wrap around them as they flew out across the ocean. “We will need some luck to find a ship,” Meiwa told me. “The night bird is not the strongest of fliers and she will be carrying two. We may have to journey far before we can set down.” “I will worry about your safety until the day I die,” I told her. “No,” she said, “when we find a home on the sea, I will have the bird return to you, and you will know we have survived the journey. Then write a note to me and tie it to the bird’s leg and it will bring us word of you.” This idea lightened my heart a little. Then it was time to say goodbye. Magtel, shark’s tooth axe in hand, put his arms around my neck. “Keep me in your imagination,” I told him, and he said he always would. Meiwa and I kissed for the last time. They mounted the night bird. Then with that sound she made, Meiwa called the wonderful creature to action and it lit into the sky. I ran up the steps to the top of the tall turret in time to see them circle once and call back to me. I reached for them, but they were gone, out above the ocean, crossing in front of the watchful moon.

  50 STEPS

  It has been so long, I can’t remember the last time I sat down to record things. I guess I knew this book contained memories I have worked so hard to overcome. It is just Phargo and me now, fishing, gathering food, combing the shore. The moon has climbed high to its tallest turret and looks down now with a distant stare as if in judgment upon me. 50 steps remain between the outer wall and the tide. I record this number without trepidation or relief. I have grown somewhat slower, a little dimmer, I think. In my dreams, when I sleep, I am forever heading out across the ocean upon the night bird.

  GREENLY SPEAKS

  I was just about to go fishing when I heard Greenly pipe up and call, “Intruders.” I did not even go up to the turret to look first, but fetched my bow and arrows and an armful of driftwood sticks with which to build a fire. When I reached my lookout, I turned north, and sure enough, in the pale moonlight I saw the beach crawling with rats, more than a dozen.

  I lit a fire right on the floor of the turret, armed my bow, and dipped the end of the arrow into the flames until it caught. One, two, three, four, I launched my flaming missiles at the ring of dry seaweed. The fire grew into a perfect circle, and some of the rats were caught in it. I could hear them scream from where I stood. Most of the rest turned back, but to the west, where one had fallen into the fire, it smothered the flame, and I saw another climb upon its carcass and keep coming for the castle. I left the taller turret and ran to the smaller one to get a better shot at the attacker. Once atop it, I fired arrow after arrow at the monster, which had cleared the retaining wall and was within the grounds of While Away. With shafts sticking out of it, blood dripping, it came ever forward, intent upon devouring me. Upon reaching the turret on which I stood, it reared back on its haunches and scrabbled at the side of the structure, which started to crumble. In one last attempt to fell it, I reached for the metal arrow I had taken from the watch and loaded my bow. I was sweating profusely, out of breath, but I felt more alive in that moment than I had in a long while. My aim was true; the shaft entered its bared chest, and dug into its heart. The rat toppled forward, smashed the side of the turret, and then the whole structure began to fall. My last thought was, “If the fall does not kill me, I will be buried alive.” That is when I lost my footing and dropped into thin air. But I did not fall, for something caught me, like a soft hand, and eased me down to safety upon the ground. It was a miracle I suppose, or maybe a bit of Meiwa’s magic, but the night bird
had returned. The smaller turret was completely destroyed, part of it having fallen into the courtyard. I dug that out, but the entire structure of the place was weakened by the attack and since then pieces of wall crumble off every so often and the bridge is tenuous. It took me forever to get rid of the rat carcass. I cut it up and dragged the pieces outside what remained of the retaining wall and burned them.

  A LETTER

  The night bird stayed with me while I repaired, as best I could, the damage to the castle, but as soon as I had the chance, I sat down and wrote a note to Meiwa and Magtel, trying desperately and, in the end, ultimately failing, to tell them how much I missed them. Standing on the turret with Phargo by my side, watching the bird take off again brought back all the old feelings even stronger, and I felt lost.