Minglings - Book 3 chapter 28: Frozen transport

So far for hoping that it would leave, Jake thought as he gazed into the deep waters below the massive iceberg.

The shadowy shape of the massive Hydra had circled back around, and as he looked down, it slowed. Twelve glowing yellow eyes gazed back at him, and he felt a bit of pressure.

"Yeah… fantastic," Jake muttered as he turned and climbed back up the iceberg.

As he reached the small hole he had made in the top, the others looked up hopefully. He noticed that the Kobolds were huddled beside Bluespot. Neither Jake nor he had any issue with the cold, but the Kobolds were shivering. Calips said it was because there wasn't any water for them to draw energy from.

"Still there," Eagin said with a weary sigh.

"Still there," Jake agreed as he sat down beside

There was a round of weary groans and curses, which Jake ignored as he sat down beside Calips, who immediately leaned against his side. The Kobold was cold, and Jake wondered why he hadn't stood beside Bluespot.

I really should find out its name, he thought before shoving the idea away. What did it matter?

"It's only been half a day," he said. "It will probably leave soon enough."

"I think we should fly away," Eagin said. "If we can't go into the water, we can't stay here very long. I'd expected to investigate this thing from the bottom up, not sit up here in the cold!"

Jake didn't reply. He had an idea, but before he'd tell the others, he wanted to continue exploring on his own. So far, he hadn't found anything, but he'd only looked for a few hours, and the iceberg was massive. Besides, he had seen shadowy holes when they had closed in on it, and he wanted to know what was in those.

If the others left now, it wouldn't be too much of an issue. He was where he wanted to go, and he could still sense the pull of Laruna so he'd be able to find his way back easily enough. So, he held quiet, waiting to see what Eagin would decide.

The Kobold leader began talking with the others, and it quickly became clear that most didn't have any desire to stay either.

"Alright, it's settled," Eagin said. "We will remain until the next morning, and if it's still here, we will leave."

Jake held back a sigh when he saw the Kobold look at him with what he thought was a -that goes for you to- look.

"I'll be staying here for a while," he said, knowing he'd been right when Eagin's face darkened.

"We need your help to get back," Eagin said. "Without you, we can't bring Calips."

"That- that's fine," Calips said, continuing with a cracking voice. "I don't want to leave yet! There's too much to discover and see here! I'll - I'll go w-ith Jake!'

Eagin glared at him, then turned to Jake.

"Are you sure about this? We flew over the iceberg, and there's no sign of ice flowers or veins that led to the surface. With that thing down there, we can't check from below."

"I'm sure, Eagin. Don't worry about us," Jake said.

Eagin snorted but, in the end, didn't try and convince him anymore. They remained in the cave, Jake deciding he'd start looking around after Eagin and Bluespot left.

The kobolds became colder as the night passed, and when it was finally the day, only Eagin and Calips were able to move around without shaking or clacking their teeth.

Bluespot left for a few moments to return with a grimace.

"It's still there."

"That settles it," Eagin snapped through clenched teeth. "Are you sure?"

Jake nodded back. "I'll remain for a day or three before returning."

"Better keep Calips alive then," Eagin said before taking a deep breath and seeming to calm himself. "Listen. I know we don't see eye-to-eye, but try and get back alive?"

"I'll make sure we do," Jake said, managing a genuine smile.

Eagin looked at him for a few more moments, and Jake almost wondered if he was going to ask something. He was pretty sure that the explorer's guild captain had an idea of what he was capable of. Then Eagin sighed and climbed atop Bluespot.

"Safe travels," Jake said, getting a grunt before Bluespot leaped into the air and flew away.

He and Calips stared after it until it vanished into the distance. As soon as Bluespot vanished, Calips spun to Jake.

"Okay, they are gone! Come on, change some of this bloody ice to water so I don't have to freeze!"

Jake blinked, then barked out a laugh. He'd wondered if Calips had fingered it out, and now that he heard the other say it out loud, he wondered how much Eagin had known.

Well, whatever. Too late now, he thought as he focused on a large chunk of ice that jutted out of the iceberg beside Calips. His mind turned crystal clear, and then he began pulling the energy out of the ice. Within moments a glistening layer of moisture sat on the chunk, and half a minute later, Calips sat on his knees in what had to be a puddle of nearly freezing water. Still, within moments his shivering stopped as he grinned up.

"So interesting! So, do you turn it warm somehow, or do you pull the energy out, or-"

He continued rambling for a few minutes, seeming nearly fully recovered in the short time he'd been in the water.

So weird… Ice is just frozen water! How come they can't take the energy from it? Jake wondered.

"I pull the energy out of it," he finally said, ending Calips's constantly growing elaborate ideas.

"Oh! That seems logical," Calips said as he rose and looked around. "Is this why the ice isn't melting as it should?"

Jake nodded, not surprised that his magic tutor had made that connection.

"Yes," he said as he examined the ice below his feet. He'd noticed it as soon as he'd arrived on the massive iceberg. Unlike the ice he'd created, which had long since begun rapidly melting, the iceberg had seemed unimpressed by the sun or warmer seawater. The dense ice energy sufficed in it definitely had something to do with that.

"Something seems to be binding the ice and its energy together, and unless I pull it away, it looks to be in some sort of balance," he said.

"That's great! It means there has to be some sort of vein in its core," Calips shouted. "I wonder how long we have to wait here for the Hydra to leave."

"Well, I don't think we have to wait for that to start exploring," Jake said with a grin. "He focused on the ice wall beside them and mentally grabbed a large section of the ice. With a grunt of effort, he forced the ice outward. An explosive snapping and cracking sound echoed out across the pale white iceberg as splinters of ice shot outward.

Jake quickly jumped between Calips and a deluge of icy shrapnel, which ticked harmlessly against his scales. A few moments later, an over forty-foot-long tube of ice was yanked free out of a circular hole.

"You could have warned me," Calips muttered before moving to the hole and looking inside.

"Sorry," Jake said as he followed the other. He didn't need to look to know that the tunnel sloped down toward a large air pocket inside the ice.

"So! What's inside? Can you sense everything inside the iceberg? How far does that go? Can you-"

Calips seemed to have held back the questions he'd accumulated over the last day and began spewing them at a rapid pace without giving Jake any time to answer. As he spoke, Calips moved inside and fearlessly began moving down with Jake close behind.

"- you imagine how useful that would be for- … That's not possible!"

Jake grinned as he moved around Calips to see what the other was talking about. Four dark spheres with a scale-like pattern lay to the side.

Eggs? What are those things doing here? he thought as he moved closer.

"What are these?" he asked, examining one of the eggs. It was roughly the size of his head and seemed inert. A sheen of ice made them look frozen solid. When there was no response, he turned to see Calips stare at the eggs with a mixture of shock, awe, and disbelief.

Don't tell me they are-

"Dragon eggs…" Calips whispered. "I've only ever heard about them."

"Wait… aren't those impossible?" Jake asked as he turned his attention back to the eggs.

Calips linked and looked in equal surprise. "What? Why?"

"Dragons- we- are infertile, right?" Jake asked, wondering if he had missed something.

"Of course… but sometimes female dragons still lay eggs! Not many, and always invertible, but it happens. But these aren't like that. These must have been here for thousands of years!"

Jake frowned as he leaned closer. The eggs didn't look that old, but he did sense an immense amount of ice mana-lits circulating around them.

Calips got out his notebook and began jotting down things at a rapid pace as he moved around the eggs. He muttered to himself as he worked.

Jake waited quietly, expecting him to finish soon, but time continued, and eventually, he had had enough.

"Should we do something with them?"

"What? We need to bring them back!" Calips said as he put away his notebook. Then he seemed to realize something as he turned around, then back at Jake, and finally began muttering curses.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know how we can bring them along!" Calips cried.

Jake thought for a few moments, then looked at the eggs, then at the ice, and he shrugged.

"It's fine. I'll just wrap them in a block of ice and bring them along. But let's do some more investigating now!"

"Of course, how could I forget about that option," Calips shouted before looking around. "So, do you see any more eggs? Wait, can you see through the ice or-"

Jake began laughing as Calips rattled off again and instead focused on the nearest other pocket of air. It was much further down and to the side, and he knew he couldn't create a path the way he had before. After some thinking, he just went for the easiest way and changed a massive slope of ice to water.

"Let's go down," he said as he moved to the entrance, causing Calips to start in his ramble about how Jake should be able to sense snow as it fell.

"-scouting, and- What? Yes, let's go!"

I wonder what Mason would think of this guy, Jake thought as he swam down in what should be freezing water, but it felt perfect to him.

It took a bit to reach the next air pocket, though by now, it was almost partially flooded. There wasn't anything as interesting as eggs inside besides something that reminded him of a large leg bone.

Probably from a dragon, he thought as he mentally compared it to the size of Laruna. It was perhaps somewhat larger, but he wasn't sure.

"Incredible!" Calips shouted as he swam toward the bone. He looked at his pouch and seemed incredibly annoyed that he couldn't remove his notebook.

Jake just searched for the next air pocket, ignoring Calips agitated muttering.

The day continued in the same trend, and when they finally stopped, they had only gone through a part of the massive iceberg. They had gotten to the submerged part, and Calips was showing no more issues with either the cold or the activity.

"We should continue tomorrow and begin gathering all the bones and those flowers to the eggs so we can bring them all back," he continued before rambling off on a tangent again.

Jake barely noticed as he examined the area beyond the iceberg. He could vaguely sense things beyond and was trying to see if he could make out the movements of a large being.

Eventually, he gave up and noticed that Calips had stopped talking and curled up near his tail. Grinning, he pulled the sleeping Kobold closer, and checked to be sure he had closed the area they were in properly before hardening the insides by another few feet of ice. Then he closed his eyes.

–

Three days of constant searching later, Jake and Calips had finally uncovered everything that was inside the air pockets. There was a large chance that things remained, but with the sheer scope of the ice mountain, Jake knew it was too unlikely for them to actually find it except for sheer dumb luck.

The Hydra seemed to have left over a day earlier, although Jake didn't rule out it was just hiding out somewhere below. Still, he hadn't been able to find a way to scan for it.

Shoving a vague worry away, he inspected the nearly a dozen different things they had found, half of which he wondered what the use of bringing them was. A half-rotten piece of wood? Seriously?

"Alright, let's remain for the rest of the day, have a final poke around, and then we leave," he said.

"I wish we could stay for weeks or months," Calips said as he looked longingly at the ice below his feet. "Imagine the things we could still uncover!"

"After we return to Azurill, we can get some more help and return," Jake said, knowing that might be a stretch. Still, he had decided he wanted to head back for now. He hadn't sensed any indication of an ice version of the pull he felt to Laruna, so either there wasn't any, or he would have to go far further north.

"No, no. We won't be allowed out again," Calips said, sounding sad.

Jake shook his head and let the Kobold continue muttering.

They continued on for a while, digging random holes but finding nothing of interest until they finally created another safe area deep inside the ice to rest for the night.

–

Jake woke to an odd sense of pressure. Trying to clear the clog from his mind, he quickly pulled in some ice mana-lits, and within a moment, the sleepiness vanished to be replaced by a clearheadedness.

What woke me?

He scanned around when the same pressure came again. It was accompanied by a dull shiver that ran through the entire iceberg. A moment later, he could feel the entire iceberg begin to float sideways.

What the hell is big enough to cause this thing to move? He thought as he scanned through the ice, trying to find something. It took him a minute to detect a large destroyed section of ice on one side of the iceberg, and although he couldn't detect what had happened, the shape of the section resembled a long sharp object. It took only a few moments to realize that the iceberg seemed to be moving in the direction of the oddity.

"Wake up," Jake hissed as he prodded Calips with the tip of his tail.

"We- what? Is it morning already? Why is it dark?" Calips muttered.

"Something is going on. The iceberg is moving, and it's almost as if something is pulling it," Jake said.

"That's impossible…" Calips muttered before scratching his chin with a frown. "Well… not impossible, but highly unlikely!"

You don't say, Jake thought as he began creating a path to the side. He made it large enough for him and the pack of ice that held all the things they had found.

"Are we leaving now?" Calips whispered.

"Yes. I have no idea what is going on, but whatever it is, it's probably best to leave before we arrive wherever we are going," Jake said.

Calips didn't respond, but Jake saw he was looking in the general direction of where they were going before swallowing and nodding. The Kobold's hands were shaking slightly, and Jake wondered why he seemed so afraid. Even when they were being chased, he'd seemed reasonably calm. He was about to ask Calips if he knew something more, when Calips sighed.

"I hope I'm wrong, but… there have been rumors about odd things happening around the outskirts of the surface of the kingdom. Ships are said to attack the sea behemoths and ships from Tooth and Nail. They say the ships sail under the flag of Hounda."

Jake continued swimming toward the edge of the iceberg, trying to remember if he'd heard that name before realizing he had no idea.

"Who are they?" he asked.

"They are one of the powerful forces around us. A kingdom made up of Fiends. Most of what we know is that they are always infighting and at war with each other… so it makes no sense."

Fiends, Jake thought as he gritted his teeth. He hadn't paid much attention to books dealing with the surrounding empires, and now he wished he had.

As they reached the edge of the ice, he slowed down. If the Hydra was still down there or hiding out, that meant if he went down, he might swim right in its clutches.

There's no way to be sure, he thought as he looked around. He'd prefer going up and flying away, but who knew if whatever was pulling the iceberg was-

Wait, could that Hydra be pulling it? No, that's crazy. It's way too small for that…

After thinking it over for a few moments, an idea began growing, and he turned to a worried-looking Calips.

"There is a small chance that the Hydra is still here," he said. "If it is, I'm going to swim up to whatever is pulling this iceberg."

"Shouldn't we look at what that is first?" Calips asked with a shiver.

Jake quickly realized that the Kobold was right, and he nodded. There was one tiny problem, though.

"I could, but we would have to leave the stuff here. I can carry you fine, but-"

"Leave it," Calips said with a sad look. Then he hesitated. "Can you encase the eggs in a small bit of ice so I can carry them?"

"Sure," Jake said as he focused on the ice. He began creating a cube, then blinked and pulled in more ice as he had a better idea. A few moments later, he created an icy harness with the eggs stuck to the sides like odd bulbs. Calips sat in the middle, now in an icy saddle.

Jake looked at the rest of their finds, hesitating if he should bring more, then deciding it wasn't worth the potential risk. So, he grouped it all together and moved it deep into the ice.

"Alright, if there's no other choice, I'll fly off," he said before swimming up and toward the spot he sensed the oddity.

They stayed near the edge of the iceberg, and it took almost twenty minutes to get close to the oddity in the ice. By then, he could see vague outlines floating on the water. He had to get within a few hundred feet of the spot to be sure, but he finally knew it was a massive -probably metal- spike that had been drilled into the ice. Cables ran from it to a trio of ships.

"This should not be possible," he whispered. "There's no way three ships can just move this much ice."

"They have to be using some type of magic," Calips replied. "I've heard that some Fiends are very capable of using certain types of gaseous mana-lits."

Why doesn't that surprise me, Jake thought as he imagined them using some form of toxic gas.

"So, what do we do?" Calips whispered. "Go back down?"

"No," Jake said. "I'm going to head to the opposite side of the iceberg and fly away from there. They shouldn't be able to see us if we stay low to the water."

"That means leaving behind the other things," Calips said with a sad sigh.

Jake didn't respond, instead turning and heading back to the other side. Although he was fast at creating water from ice, it still took them a long time to reach the other side, and by then, the iceberg had sped up significantly.

Reaching the side, Jake looked around for anything in the air above or perched on the iceberg but saw nothing.

"Here we go," he whispered before opening a hole in the side, which caused a short waterfall to fall down. He quickly slid out, and as he sensed gravity take hold, he opened his wings and glided across the water.

There was no screaming or shouting, and he kept his eyes on the water below but saw nothing move down there.

After a good while, he flapped up and began gaining altitude. Only when they were a hundred feet or more above the water did he feel slightly more safe.

Turning around, he looked down at the distant ships. The dark sky was slowly turning ruddy far away, and he could make out more details now. As he did, he hissed. A dozen dark shapes were flying up from the ships, heading straight toward them.

"What are those things?" he asked.

"Not dragons," Calips said.

"Definitely not," Jake said as he tried to place them. Something about them was familiar, their large triangular wings somehow… he couldn't put his finger on it, but he didn't care.

"Let's get out of-"

A wave of something slammed into his mind. It felt slightly like when he'd met Laruna but then less powerful, angry, and malicious. He heard a startled cry from Calips while he felt the influence worm its way into his mind. Angry and frightened thoughts began growing rapidly, and he felt the desire to go down and fight whatever it was that was flying up.

Jake instinctively drew ice energy from the ice he was holding on his back, and his mind snapped back to normal.

"What the-"

A dull growling came from his back, and he turned to see Calips snarl as he tried to climb towards him.

Nope.

He controlled the ice, creating clamps that held onto Calips legs, locking him in place before flying away from whatever was heading his way.

–

Three massive bats hung in the air, staring at the fleeing silvery dragon.

"It did something…" a multifaceted voice crooned. "Severed our attack! How did it do that?"

"We should return and warn the others," a second, equally multifaceted voice replied.

"I'll follow it for a while," a third grunted before shooting off after the rapidly diminishing dot.