The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction JulyAugust 2013 (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Book 124) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spilogale, Inc.
Published: 2013-06-30T22:00:00+00:00

VII.

"DRINKS ALL AROUND!"

"God DAMN these snows!"

The man who called himself a Frenchman pitched his book into the mirror, showering glass slivers onto the stone floor.

It had been three days—three days of this interminable blizzard!—and only today had the gales lessened enough that he could see half a block down the main street of Shan-tu Pan Pu Dung. There was no way out. The trains had stopped. Villagers with their deliveries had slowed so that only a few wastrels stayed at the inn, for fear of heading home and freezing mere steps from the inn's snow-frosted door. How much longer must I wait here? he thought, scowling. How much—

He heard something outside the thick windows of his room, a low thrum smothered by the silent insistence of the blanketing snows. Presently he discerned the hubbub of voices a floor below in the tavern, and he took the stairs into the firelit warmth of Khaben Fi-var to hear the villagers abuzz with news of a visitor, just arrived by locomotive—

A train? But HOW? —

He raced downstairs to the bar, where the innkeeper stood, a bottle in each hand. Evol spied him and immediately poured him an expensive whiskey. "A private train has come, M'sieur Frenchman! It carves through the Ghutranhi ice to Shan-tu Pan Pu Dung! Even now village elders conferring they are with envoy newly come—we hear business deal is—"

He downed the whiskey, just as the outer door burst open with a flurry of snowflakes and frigid wind. Hearty laughter rang through the inn as a small, grinning Ghutranhi and a powerfully built European closed the door and stomped the frost off their boots.

Once they pulled back their fur-lined hoods, the Ghutranhi elder bowed to the room and said, "Mister German Man wishes something to say!" He bowed again, and the European clapped the small native's back, then shouted to the room, "Drinks all around!"

The German, his jowls rosy and plump, his furs luxurious and rich, was the vision of modern European industrialism. As the villagers rushed the bar, he brushed his fingers through his long, nearly white hair and pronounced, "Drink up, my frozen friends! Together we will spread the glorious bounty of your fermented harvest to the rest of the world! Dhagfleth! " 2

" Dhagfleth! " they toasted, holding their mugs in the air.

The Frenchman stared at his fellow European. This is my chance! A rich German, a train—he must have an icebreaker or a snow plow attached to the tank engine. This may be the only way to get back to civilization!

He stepped up to the German, his hand held out. "Sir, thank you for your generosity," he said in perfect German.

The German raised a curious eyebrow and appraised him. He smiled knowingly. "My pleasure," he said, in equally perfect French. "I am surprised to see a man of culture here at the icy edge of nowhere."

The Frenchman smiled and squeezed the German's hand. "Guy DeGroot."

"Otfried Fruehauf. Imports and exotic investments."

"Furs," DeGroot admitted. "Yak is quite profitable…if you call it chinchilla in America.

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