Macore whistled. “Tough trick if they’re close enough to melt out occasionally on their own. Let me sleep on it. But you make sure I get sprung before that last witch gets back!”
Even Joe suspected that it was the first surreptitious break-in to a major place in the world that had been performed before a live audience.
All thieves of Husaquahr had the power to see magic; those who did not generally were captured or died on their first job.
The witches of the station were more than convinced of his insanity when they watched the little man, bundled in furs, walk right out on the ice and then proceed for a good half an hour, until he was only a speck on the whiteness, right to the edge of what they called the Devastation.
They were prepared to counter him when he inevitably made his break for freedom; any sane man would. But even without his malady, Macore, once set upon a problem, became so absorbed in it that to flee simply wouldn’t have entered his head.
“What’s he doing out there?” one of the women asked, more to herself than the others.
“Well, he took a measuring stick, a sharp saw, and leather thongs from the dog sled area,” the security officer responded. “You figure it out. I didn’t like giving him the saw, which can be a weapon, but I had to admit to both personal and professional curiosity. If he can actually just walk into the Devastation and return, he will indeed be the genius the big man, here, says he is.”
“He’s been out there in almost that spot for quite a long time,” Joe noted a bit worriedly. “I hope he’s all right. I really should have gone with him, but he insisted that for this sort of thing he worked best alone.”
One witch was watching with a telescope. “He’s doing something down on the ice. First he appeared to pack snowballs and throw them into the Devastation! Now he’s working feverishly in the ice just this side of it. Now he seems to be lifting something—and now he’s just sat down on the ice!”
“He’s mad. All these are are the actions of a lunatic,” the security officer said impatiently. “Best to haul him back.”
“You go out there, right on the edge of that, and haul him back,” somebody said. “This is as near as I want to get to it.”
“He’s up again!” the woman with the telescope said. “Now he’s turned, facing the Devastation, just standing there. No, he just—he just took a step toward it! And another! He’s walking very oddly, but—he’s inside!”
Joe could use his second sight to see the massive collection of spells, but Macore was too far away and relatively too small to make out inside it.
“Can you see him?”
“No. He’s been swallowed up in the mass. You couldn’t see the Grand Altar of Stet if it were fifty feet inside. Not from this distance, anyway.”
“It seems as if he’s been in an awfully long time already,” Joe said worriedly.
And it was even longer still, as they watched and waited, perhaps a half hour or forty minutes. Finally, the security officer said, “That’s it. He’s finished. If he comes out of there at all we’ll not even recognize him as human. It can’t be done.”
“I wonder,” Joe mused. “According to your own charts, it’s about forty-two miles across to the palace at the narrowest crossing. If whatever he did worked, he’ll want to do time tests.”
“Wait! What’s that over there?” someone shouted, pointing to an area perhaps half a mile from where Macore had entered. The telescope swung, refocused.
“It’s certainly a manlike shape,” the woman said, peering through the eyepiece. “Too early to tell much more at this distance.”
But, as the figure grew closer, it clearly was Macore, and he didn’t seem to be any worse for the experience.
He got a cheering reception when he reached them, all but the security officer amazed at what the little man had done and forgetting his actual condemned prisoner status. The security officer cared not at all about the little thief, but she saw the potential if indeed someone had learned to cross the Devastation.
“Well,” Macore sighed, “it works, but I’m not sure it’ll do the job.”
Joe was surprised. “You walked in and around for quite some time.”
The thief nodded. “Sure I did—but I never went all that far in, and the kind of speed involved is very slow. I’d say two miles an hour if we’re doing okay. And that’s no rest, no sitting down on me job, for—what? Over twenty hours? That’s a pretty long time not to stop or even sit down. I’m not sure I could do it. I’m not sure anybody human could do it.”
Joe leaned close to his ear and whispered, “Consider the alternative.”
He nodded. “The sanest way, the way any good spy would do it, would be to walk around just this side of it, always prepared. When anybody came along, or any spell was sighted, they could then duck in there and continue around the problem, then re-emerge. The trouble is, walking around the stuff by that route, even at the southern end, is like a hundred and eighty miles.”
“I could make forty-two miles of relatively flat terrain, even with snow, in less than twenty hours, weather willing,” Joe told him.
“Uh-huh. With a couple of pounds of ice strapped to your boots?”
Macore’s solution, once given, was so obvious neither Joe nor the others could imagine why they hadn’t thought of it before.
“First, I saw that the spells were in fact below the ice. Not far, but below. Then I checked out how disturbed they could become by throwing ice balls into the area. Nothing happened. There’s a layer of snow on top that’s deep enough to give some traction and cushion weight. Then I cut blocks of ice out from the untouched section, strapped them to my feet with the thongs, and practiced a little walking. When I had it, I went in and walked around. No problem. It’s really very pretty in there, if a little weird. So long as nothing actually melts, you’re fine.”
“What about dragging some blocks of ice along in a sledge?” Joe suggested. “They could serve as seats and replacement blocks just in case.”
“Uh-uh. A sledge might not cause problems in and of itself, but it will cause friction,” the thief reminded him. “And friction is heat and heat melts ice. Add to that the idea that a sledge would clear away some of the snow and you have a prescription for real disaster.”
“We could travel pretty light,” Joe told him. “So the real problem is where and how to rest.”
“That’s about it. Just sitting down on the ice, even with nice furs on, might well transfer just enough heat to attract one or more of those things to you the way lightning’s attracted to the ground.”
“If you’ve solved this much, we’ll have to find a way to solve that other,” Joe said. “For now, what about—inside there? Any bumps, mounds, ridges, or crevasses?”
“No, it’s pretty smooth and level, at least on this side. No telling what it’s like much farther in or on the other side. Every once in a while you hear this little click or pop and then some really weird noises, from screams to yells to sounds like lightning makes through the air, but that’s about it.”