The ice boat was… successful. For a given value of success, at any rate. It floated and, despite appearances, it wasn't actually that cold to the touch, and it didn't make your skin adhere to it on contact like some really cold ice did. It did become extremely slippery, almost frictionless, when wet, hence why it needed a layer of something to let people maintain their footing.

They didn't keep it as a block of ice, of course. Some things had to be added. Struts of bone protruding down to act as stabilizers so it went straight. A mount for a tiller, one bigger and more robust than the one Lori's Boat had that could be lifted out of the water. A plank had been inserted into the ice to have something to properly secure the tiller to, and more had been put along the top and sides to protect the ice from damage and to give people something to step on for traction.

They tested the second boat, which Rian had facetiously named 'Lori's Ice Boat', several times, using both weights—blocks of stone—and volunteers and then going up and down the river with it a few times, testing the balance and stability. The added weight to the keel seemed to help with the latter, though by observation, the weight needed to be greater and located lower to truly be effective. Still, it allowed them to carry over twenty people at a time, not counting Rian, who operated the tiller. That already made it useful for cutting the number of trips down to River's Fork in half.

And Lori did test to see how Iridescence affected the ice boat. Or at least, how Iridescence affected the primary material of the ice boat. She left a block of ice—all dissolved air and as many impurities as she could manipulate removed from it—with a binding to keep it solid for an extended period of time outside at the border of her demesne. Since she wasn't doing anything beyond leaving it there, she had left a corner of the block partially inside so she could keep imbuing it as needed. There was a piece of rock, bone, and an offcut of wood sticking out of the sides as well to use as points of comparison, and because those were the most likely materials they would be using in boat building.

Days later, she was examining that block. While the wood, bone and rock had grown a very unnerving layer of Iridescence, glittering in poisonous colors, the ice was… mostly clear. The top part had a light dusting of iridescence growth, but that looked to be bits that had fallen from trees and was just continuing to crystalize on its own, or possibly around dust particles. It wasn't growing on the ice so much as on top of it. There also wasn't any of the sense of thickness that needed to be imbued out on the waterwisps on her binding, confirming there was no penetrative growth.

Lori carefully picked up the sides and winced as her hand slipped on the smooth surface, bringing her fingers up to brush on the Iridescence crystals growing on the non-ice parts. She drew her hand back instantly, but the damage was done: small, fine bits of color were now sticking on her skin, and while she couldn't feel the sensation of the Iridescence slowly trapping her body's wisps, she could recall it fairly clearly from long days when they'd only been allowed to try and wash themselves off twice a day. Fortunately, she only had to step back into the demesne to clear that feeling away.

"The ice seems normal," she said for Rian to record. "And intact. No Iridescence penetration. Only the non-water solids seem to have been iridiated."

"Really makes you wonder why humans and animals get iridiated," Rian mused as he wrote. "After all, isn't meat technically 'mostly dirty water'? Even dead meat seems to ooze a lot."

"That sort of experimentation was deemed unethical, cruel, dangerous, unsafe and pointless a long time ago," Lori as she once more carefully examined the chunk of ice and material. "Mostly because no matter how Deadspoken the animals and people were to include increasing amounts of water in their bodies, they were still iridiated, and the research was considered a dead end."

"…of course it is," Rian sighed. "So no one ever found out 'why'?"

"Focus on our own results, Rian," she said. "Ice seems to be viable for long-term use outside of the demesne. Stone and bone, the same." Lori tapped her lips thoughtfully. "Wood might be problematic."

"Only if it's exposed to air," Rian said. "If it's in the ice and the ice isn't melting, it's not going to absorb water, and shouldn't rot because there's no air."

"An excellent point," Lori agreed.

"So will you authorize building the ice boat now? Even if we finish it in a week, which I doubt, we don't know how long we'll need to travel to get to Covehold and back, and I'd rather not travel in winter."

"Yes, yes, I suppose," Lori said. With a touch, the block of ice melted into water, washing out the Iridescence on the samples that had been embedded into it. Lori collected the bone. It was a resource, after all. "Do you have design drafts for one ready?"

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"I have drawings, but I'll need them to be looked at by people who actually know how to build things to be sure," Rian said. "And, uh, you'll need to be there too, since you're the only one who can make ice."

"Give me a final design, one we can build," Lori said. "Now come on, I still have more work to do."

––––––––––––––––––

Lori's Ice Boat did, indeed, manage to get all the miners to River's Fork and back in only one trip, though unlike Lori's Boat, they couldn't beach it because it was deemed too potentially dangerous to the structure, even with planks of wood added the outside as protection and more added inside the ice as reinforcement. Between that and more stone in the keel, it rode lower in the water, but was much more stable. However, its large size and relatively larger displacement meant that the water jet attached to it couldn't accelerate it to go as fast, since its greater mass meant it would be more difficult to stop.

But it worked.

"It's getting people really excited," Rian reported over dinner the night of the miner shift change. "There's talk we'll be building the boat soon, and people are already talking about what they want brought back from Covehold."

Lori snorted as Umu made her move. "We don't even have a boat yet."

Rian shrugged. "They're excited. Besides, having them think about what the demesne needs is good for us. It means we don't need to compile the list ourselves, and this way, we have more people doing the thinking, so they're more likely to think of something that we might overlook."

"One wonders how they expect us to have the beads for such things," Lori said. While she didn't intend to buy anything, since the first trip would be for dropping off the exiles and researching market prices and what sold well, she did want Rian to look into the price of raw glass.

"Let them dream," Rian said. "It's good to have goals. It'll encourage people to find and produce trade goods to sell."

"Ten percent tax if sold," Lori said immediately.

"I'll let them know," was the dry reply. "We'll need to keep meticulous records anyway… but that's for later, after we come back, possibly not until after winter. By the way, when you're done eating, I have that design draft you wanted. Want to look it over before I set up a meeting with everyone we'll need to help build it tomorrow?"

Lori held out her hand for it. Rian slid the plank in front of him around the end of the sunk board, and she examined it. Good, he'd used paces this time…

It was a long vessel, more than twice as long as Lori's Ice Boat by the scale, at about twelve paces long and almost half that high. The draft was a bit rough, but Rian had included what parts had to be ice, what parts were wood reinforcement and cladding, and what needed to be primarily wood internal structures. Lori frowned down at something along the bottom of the boat. Were those… pipes?

"We don't know how deep the river is, so it needs to be as shallow as possible while still being able to carry some cargo," Rian explained as she continued to look over the design while putting her recent knowledge of ice buoyancy to use to imagine what he meant. "As well as being able to carry at least eight people."

Lori blinked at that number. "Why eight people?" she asked.

"Three for our agreement with River's Fork, four to be able to overpower them, and at least one person to handle the tiller," Rian counted off. He frowned. "Maybe ten would be better, four doesn't sound like enough. That many people will need food, so that adds to the weight. We'll need to over-prepare with food, since we don't know how many days the trip will take, but once we know we can adjust the amount. Still, those eight-to-ten people will need sleeping quarters, a place to wash off Iridescence, a place to heat food, space to pack away things like changes of clothes, and cargo space for everything. That last is important, because it means everything will be a little cramped since space will be valuable. Even with things like beds that fold out of the walls at night so that people can put them away in the morning, we'll need even more careful planning and placement. And that kind of carpentry will likely be more time consuming."

Huh. Put that way, that did seem like a lot.

"I'm sure you and the carpenters can arrange this together," Lori said. "It seems a logical design, but I'm hardly familiar with ship-making beyond my recent experience with your idea. Though I see you designed this with outriggers."

"Best not to take chances," Rian said. "We know outriggers work and have good stability. They're also much easier to make than a weighted keel, and don't actively reduce buoyancy. It'll make boat wider, but from the look of it that's not a problem with the river so far, and according to people I've talked to, it doesn't narrow enough downstream to present an issue. "

"I see you've also decided not to make everything out of ice," Lori observed.

"The most important use of the ice is as a material that's both waterproof and buoyant," Rian said. "The reason we couldn't properly make a boat on this scale was a lack of materials to waterproof it. Ice solves that problem, but in retrospect, there's no reason to skimp out on at least having a well-constructed wooden frame to act as both impact protection and to anchor all the internal structures. Besides, we can always add more ice on the outside for buoyancy, where it's less likely to be dead weight than internal structural ice."

"Then set up the meeting, let's see what the carpenters think." Lori pushed the plank back towards him. "This is your project, after all. Have you considered who will go on the boat once it's finished?"

"We'll… have to talk about that as well," Rian said, looking aside evasively.

Lori gave him a level look. "Fine," she said. "Inform the carpenters, smiths, and whoever else you think we'll need. And prepare as you did the last time." she tapped the plank significantly.

Rian chuckled at that. "Yes, your Bindership."

––––––––––––––––––

When Lori woke up next, it was by snapping violently awake knowing a dragon was coming.

"Oh, rainbows."