My breath fogged the early morning air, and its chill bit into my lungs as
I gazed out over the Terror Mountain range. I shuddered along with the mountains
as they trembled from the Snowager's burrowing underneath them. He was headed
north, and was about to collapse the tunnel into Tyrannia if my estimations
meant anything. Looking down at the huge arc of charges that I had planted,
I realised they'd better mean something.
The cold caused my wings to tuck themselves tightly against my golden fur
as I bent down and set fire to the fuse. I braced myself on all four hooves
while I watched the small sparks of fire zip towards the charges I had planted
a few minutes before. The magical aura of the whole icefield was shuddering
and I could almost see the progress of the Snowager towards my barricade line.
A set of small pops signaled the detonation of my devices, and my nostrils
flared in pain as the magical energy screamed into the ice below me. Shaking
my head to clear it, I almost began to pity the Snowager beneath, who had just
received the full blast of that ice-enhanced barrage of noise. The rumbling
below stopped for a couple of seconds, and then the blue-white flicker that
I'd come to know as the Snowager's new aura pulled itself together and suddenly
shot south. My mouth dropped open as I watched the traces that showed the Snowager
heading south down its cleared tunnel. It was going so fast that there was no
way it could stop in its cavern.
It didn't. The whole area shook as the Snowager hit the south side of its
original cavern and continued burrowing south at a frantic rate. I watched a
couple of small avalanches tumble off of the slopes above before fading out
and then ran south myself. My new speed rating paid off, quickly leaving the
Snowager far behind and getting down to the ferry for Neopia.
I tried to slow my breathing, but I still gasped enough cold air to cause
that painful cutting sensation in my chest. Ice swords, I thought in a rather
bleak attempt at humour. I was just thankful I was at a lower level here, closer
to the sea's relative warmth and away from the frigid uplands.
The sound of quiet talking in the milling throng around the ferry dock suddenly
alerted me that something was wrong. Frowning, I looked towards the ferry and
realised it was making no preparations to leave. Everyone seemed to be staring
back towards where I came from.
Looking behind me, I saw the distant puffs of snow from small avalanches,
but the physical quakes weren't reaching here. I looked back towards the ferry
in bewilderment. Then I realised that the magical tension in the air was so
thick now that even the normal mass of Neopets could sense it. They didn't know
what was going on, and I doubt any of them could have told you why, but for
some reason they felt nervous. I bit my lip in frustration, trying to decide
what to do about this. I wasn't going anywhere until that ferry left, and I
didn't want to lose this race with the Snowager.
It was no problem to shove through the crowd and up to the ferry itself. The
captain, a blue flotsam, was simply standing there with flippers crossed, frowning
rather sourly.
"Hey, what's holding us up?"
He glared at me. "Darkness cursed if I know! I was getting ready to leave when
everyone down there suddenly starts acting like a Gelert on a hot scent."
"So tell the crew to go down there and start forcing them on board."
The captain's anger turned to uneasiness as he subconsciously began to feel
the environment himself. "I don't know... I hate to do that, and there's no
telling if something really is going on, is there."
"About all that could be going on around here is an earthquake... or icequake,
up here I guess you'd call it." I laughed nervously, but my lame joke didn't
ease tensions any.
"Earthquake??" The captain's frown deepened.
"Look at it this way," I continued. "If we have a tsunami, the best place you
can be is at sea."
"By Fyora, you're right! You! Down there! Yes you! Get those passengers
in here or I'll have your guts for garters!" As his crew began scurrying
around, the captain looked at me with a slightly embarrassed air. "Pardon the
language, sir, I've been making the run to Krawk Island for too long."
"Quite all right, quite all right," I replied in a generous tone. I looked
down at the incoming crowd benevolently. They were still reluctant to move,
but it was reluctance to do anything, which meant most of them weren't in a
mood to resist someone that seemed to know what was going on. One older Techo,
though, was strenuously arguing with a couple of the crew. I decided to do some
shouting myself. "Hey there Techo! Don't tell me you actually want to stay
here??" My carefully calculated pose of incredulous disbelief struck home. The
fear that had been building up in the crowd suddenly turned into a desire to
escape, and the ferry was their best hope. The crew, which was mostly flotsam
and jetsam, had their flippers full hanging onto the rails as pets streamed
past them. I heard the captain hollering to his engine handlers to start up.
As the ferry began to pull away from the dock, I went to the back of the upper
deck and looked down to see the water churning into froth as the propellers
spun below the waterline. It looked like the captain had two engines, which
was wise of him. It was always nice to have a backup on that sort of thing,
even if it wasn't likely to be needed. Engines were one of the most reliable
and simply made magical devices that I knew. The heart of them consisted of
carefully made and nearly unbreakable crystals. All you had to do was use the
lever to move the crystals in a certain way and they transferred energy from
Neopia's lines into the rotor, causing it to turn at just about any speed (in
either direction) that you'd care to use. Some pets might sneer at magic, but
they tended to take the things it made possible for granted.
I looked up and began to relax as I scanned the receding shoreline. No sign
of the Snowager yet, although it was just a matter of time, I was sure. I turned
to look back up front, but as I did so a flicker caught my eye. I looked off
to the side and my first thought was that an iceberg had broken off and was
heading our way. But it couldn't be when it was moving that fast. A chill shot
through me as I realised it was the Snowager's head, and he was passing far
closer to the ferry than was comfortable.
The captain saw the oncoming menace as well. He hollered down to stop the engines-
a move wiser than he knew, since the Snowager's magic field would have certainly
disrupted their function. I was pushed aside as he crowded close to me and we
both stared at the huge icy form that was bearing down on us. He muttered awe-stricken
curses under his breath, but I was saving mine for when they'd do more good.
I'd cast the die and now all I could do was watch as the ship rocked from the
waves that were being stirred up.
I actually caught a glimpse of the Snowager's eye as it swam past, then the
ship bucked as the huge body--several times larger than it- began to pass by.
It seemed like forever as the gargantuan body and tail flowed by so close below
us that my nerves were screaming from the tension. And speaking of screaming...
I looked back to realise the whole crowd of pets was panicking and a lot of
them were trying to scream their lungs out as well. I certainly didn't blame
them, but it didn't help my own composure any. It seemed forever that we wallowed
mere feet above instant icy destruction, but it couldn't have been more than
a minute or so.
A coughing fit seized me as I began to relax, and the sound of my hacking seemed
to be the signal for everyone to start breathing again. The captain turned away,
his blue skin looking more like powder puff baby blue than it's usual deep shade.
He called down orders to get under way in a subdued tone. I saw several passengers
were repeating my feat from the night before by being noisily sick over the
side of the boat. Most of them, though, were huddling together for comfort.
If the ship had overturned, I think the whole mass of them would have gone over
the side in one piece, like a bag of marshmallows that's been melted together.
The captain didn't speak to me again for the rest of the trip. It was just
as well, since I didn't want him connecting me with the Snowager in any way.
And, too, I was still shaken by the whole thing. Not that the Snowager was big
or that we'd been almost sunk. It had been the glimpse I'd gotten of the Snowager's
eye. We'd been nearly wiped out not by an angry or malevolent beast, but by
one that could scarcely be worried about our existence. That sort of knowledge
puts a damper on your ego, not to mention scaring the fur off your backside.
After leaving the ferry, I raced to the top of the nearest hill and quickly
pulled out a few wands. As I'd gotten into more advanced magic, I'd begun to
use wands more than paints and such- they were easier to carry around and less
explosive (in all the wrong ways) if you were careless. It didn't take more
than a couple of minutes to get a track on the Snowager's whereabouts. Sparks
sizzled and shot in a stream towards the west. I quickly set my spell in one
rod, stowed the rest in my pack, and ran for it.
When the shuddering first started, it was almost as if I was back on the ferry,
with the land being sea under me. The Snowager's burrowing was shaking the entire
area for some miles. There wasn't any snow here to avalanche, but I was still
afraid of a rock and dirt avalanche if this kept up too long. I came to the
crest of a hill and clung there, desperately hoping I wasn't about to be thrown
off and down into the churning chaos of the valley below. The whole place was
a seething mass of dirt, almost hidden to my magical sight by the sun-bright
streamers of magical energy given off by the Snowager, even through the too
thin layer of earth between it and the surface. He didn't seem to be making
much progress now, and I took that for a hopeful sign. He could shake this area
all he wanted, since it was deserted forest. But if he got into metropolitan
Neopia, things would be far worse than the danger I'd averted already.
I just laid there and watched as things calmed down. The pile settled, and
the aura faded. I collapsed limply with relief. It was over. A bit of magic
with a couple of wands confirmed it. There was no trace of any life down below
that could be the Snowager My task was over, and Neopia was safe. The heat and
stress of the journey must have weakened it, and digging through rock and dirt
had done the rest.
I headed back home, wishing I felt more like a returning hero. But that sort
of ending is never fun, regardless of the brags from some pets. And though it
hadn't surfaced in my mind at the time, there was a nagging sense of something
still wrong...
To be continued... | 
