Magnus Frostbeard's Arc

Chapter 12 of 15

The passage climbed for three days. Magnus followed the pale needle up through hot rock, then cool rock, then rock that grew cold. The warm wind died behind them. His crew ate the last murmlets on the second day. On the third, Greta scraped her sack empty and held it upside down. Nothing fell out. Magnus stopped and drew the compass from his coat. The needle held its line, aimed up and ahead. But it told him nothing he needed most. He knew the heat lay that way. He did not know how far. "We ration for what?" Greta asked. "Two days? Ten? You're guessing, Magnus." He was. A wrong guess meant they starved a mile from warmth, or stuffed their bellies now and dropped dead a week short. He turned the compass in his hands. The luminous face glowed faint in the tunnel gloom. He watched the needle and remembered the molten pool far below. Down there the needle had swung wild and bright. Higher up, it had steadied. He tapped the glass. The needle barely trembled. "The glow," he said. "When we were close to the fire, the whole face burned. Look at it now." He held it up. The light was thin, almost gone. "It's dim because the heat's far. When we near it, the face will brighten. The compass tells distance too. We just weren't reading it." Winterchase leaned in. She pressed one palm to the cold wall, then to the compass glass. "The rock's near freezing here," she said. "Days from any heat. Your face agrees. When it flares, we're close." Magnus made the call. He split the food thin, one strip of dried murmlet each, and packed the rest deep in his broad rucksack. "We eat like this until the compass burns bright," he said. "Then we eat full and push hard the last stretch." Greta grunted but took her strip and chewed it slow. They climbed two more days on the ration. The needle held. The face stayed dim. On the third morning the tunnel mouth opened above them, a ragged hole of gray light. Magnus pulled himself out and stood. Ice. Flat white ice ran to every horizon. Wind cut his beard. They had crossed under the glacier and come up on its far side, into open waste again. No valley. No warmth. Just cold and sky. Magnus's chest tightened. Then he drew the compass. Its face blazed gold in his hand, bright as it had been at the molten pool. The needle stabbed across the ice toward a low white ridge in the distance. "There," he said. His voice shook. "It's close. Half a day, no more." He turned to his crew. "Eat," he said, and opened the rucksack wide. "All of it. We finish this today." They ate on the ice while the compass burned in Magnus's fist, pointing at the ridge.