The path led them down a rocky ravine as steep as the one they’d left, but it showed signs of opening out. Only some seven hundred paces down, though, the path met many others, in another stand of rocks, and they took full advantage of the brief shelter these gave them, doubled up and coughing.
‘A vale, indeed!’ wheezed Asquan. ‘Where Ilmarinen’s fires leak out under the weight of the Ice, maybe. They can’t quell them, so maybe they use them. I taste other things on the air also, strange things. One thing musky, horrible; can’t place it! But the rest – I’d guess there could be people here!’
‘There are. We can start searching!’ exclaimed Alya.
‘I thought for a moment I smelt roasting meat!’ said Vansha faintly.
Their chilled and empty stomachs reacted. ‘We’ve got to find food!’ said Asquan decisively. ‘Fire, too, if we can!’
‘I’m good for bugger-all right now!’ moaned Rysha.
‘Before we start any other searching!’ insisted Vansha. Alya bit his lip angrily; but he too was famished. At least his strength seemed to be returning; but that hardly seemed to depend on what he ate. With food he would surely think more clearly.
‘All right then! But watch out – the slopes, the cliffs, the Ice! And the sky!’
So the four of them sidled warily out from among the rocks. With the odorous breeze to guide them, they made their way along a narrow path that wound beneath the shadow of the Ice-cliffs, heading, as it seemed, towards another and taller line ahead. But when they came to a great outcrop, the path turned under it and along, and they saw a flickering red light on the overhang, and mirrored on the Ice itself; and they stopped in the shadow of the rock, and, very cautiously, peered out.
To Alya alone it was no surprise; yet to see the vale through his own eyes was a shock, as if a dream took sudden solidity. There below them, still in the shadow of the Ice, though it was daylight high above, there were all the things he had seen in his flight in the swan-cloak – the glowing vents, the fires, the streets shining black with perpetual meltwater and liquid filth, and the buildings that lined them. And searching frantically through what he remembered of the mind of the cloak’s owner, he was able to put names and natures to many.
There towards the mouth of the vale were the miserable slave barracks; and beyond them, hardly less squalid, the warriors’ compounds and their cone-roofed huts. Behind them, as the valley narrowed and sloped upwards, the quarter with the ramshackle stone buildings, storehouses, workshops, more privileged dwellings for chieftains and their kin. Beyond those, the blank-walled, sinister towers, dwellings turned inward as if to hide what went on there from the outer world. It was as if the whole seething, fetid sprawl of human habitation spilled down like an avalanche of defeat from the wide rocky crag at the height of the vale. That was almost level with them, as they crouched here, riven with great cracks and crevices; yet its top had been levelled and smoothed out as if with a single sweep of a dismissive hand, to become the great open courtyard, as pale and sterile as all was smoky and dark below. Its white glazed pavement glimmered faintly with the light from the Ice-walls above; but at its heart, purer, clearer, colder, shimmering bluish even in deep shadow, gleamed the great palace of the Ice.
He had been there. He had seen her there, alive and well. So it was that she too became all the more vivid and alive to him now. It felt almost as if he could stretch his arm out across the vale and draw her to him. Or swoop down again, somehow, and bear her away like smoke on the bitter winds. Yet still he was filled with doubt, somehow; though he hated himself for it. A thought came, and he stole a glance at Vansha, leaning silent upon a rock. That handsome face was frozen into a haggard, staring mask; and he felt sure the cause was the same, the same dread. A thought he circled, unwilling to form it properly, a dark smoke-ring of half-formed horrors.
Alive, well, and here; how?
How?
How had she survived, prospered even? Had it changed her? What had been done to her? What had been made of her?
His fears were selfish, he knew that. Yet he could not suppress them. After all this time, this way, this loss, this expense of blood, could Savi still be his?
CHAPTER 10
The Masks of Ice
THE room was still now, the air warm and heavy and scented. Savi felt the sweat prickle on her skin, wonderingly idly why exactly the walls did not melt. She went on moving her hand, but slowly now, to calm rather than excite the slight shudders that still shook the body beside hers, the thigh gripped tightly between her own.
‘Was all that a more successful exploration?’ she asked softly, tasting the salt on her lips, the breath against her cheek. ‘Did that hold understanding for you?’
A sigh answered her, and a tightening of the grip about her waist. Savi bowed her head, kissed the neck and shoulder beneath, went on moving her hand. ‘And yet, since you have asked me so much – should this truly be so new to you? Did you not have another, once? Of your own kind. A – what was the Princess’s word? – a consort? That is a kind of a husband, isn’t—’
The body whirled out of her arms. Long hair whipped her face. The girl had turned her back on her. ‘Do not name him!’
‘I only … I did not mean to hurt you. Any more than you, me. But, like you, I wondered.’ She reached out, and stroked the shaking back, very gently.
The silence stretched out. At last the muffled voice spoke again. ‘You should hear, and understand. The world, nature, you would call it – that is dual. Two halves, two natures, two dimensions, two principles – the least needed to mingle their substance into a third one, new and different, and so diversify and grow. Male and female goes beyond shape, though expressed in different ways. We are paired just as you are, sometimes for better, sometimes worse. The being I was – am! – you would call female, paired with another. Yet in the pride of what I was and all I could do, I ceased to revere Taoune, great though he was. When he led the last assault of the Ice against men, and through his arrogance and folly this was thrown back, I would no longer bow to nor mingle natures with him. I and others went up against him, and stripped from him most of what was his, to my own great glory. And I forbade him the heights, to exist upon our margins, the Grey Lands, a lord of shadows only, eaten away by envy, shuffling his toys in darkness. A gatekeeper, no more, amid frost and snow. That is why this is so new to me; and why I give you no cause to be jealous, ever.’
Savi’s stroking slowed. ‘Is it so? You may tire of me, sooner. I am mortal, I will age and die. Perhaps I also am a toy in darkness.’
‘You need do none of these things. You are shrouded in decay, fair as it is; but if you wish, I can take that from you, share with you some of my being. Make you a Power, though a lesser one. That is rare, but it has been done.’
Savi swallowed. ‘I … do not know what to say! The prospect … it scares me.’
The body whirled towards her, once again. A hand caught in her hair, winding it in. ‘You loved another, once. More than I?’
‘How can I say? Perhaps. If he lived, I would love him still.’
Lips brushed hers. ‘I am glad he does not. I begin to understand the sensation, as you say; though it is confusing. I pity you who must endure this turmoil, with so little mind to cope. So many feelings, bound up in one; and fear among them, fear of loss. I am not accustomed to fear. I seek comfort.’ A hand stroked across her thigh, drawing it apart. ‘Comfort, and knowledge. Savi, you have shown me love. You are love!’
‘I do not know your name. You don’t have one!’
‘I have too many. They limit me, who would have no limits. There is a name they called me, in a far land; the Lady of the North. That I remain, in whatever guise. But if you insist, you may call me Louhi.’
The valley slope was treacherous. There was a broad downward road, leading direct to the upslope end of the town. That way the guards had come; its bed was still scuffed with their tread. That felt too open, too visible to anyone looking up. There was another road fu
rther down, leading to the jumbled spill of hovels at the town’s lower end. In that warren they might have a chance to hide. They tried less direct paths across the slope, above the road; but the ground was streaked with either hard-frozen snow, or a mass of loose stones and dead soil that constantly slipped and skipped out from underfoot in miniature avalanches, sending them sprawling and liable to draw every eye, or so it seemed.
‘At least there’re plenty of rocks to hide behind!’ panted Vansha, as they sat wheezing in the shadow of one, shivering in their damp clothes.
‘But if we go scuttling from one to another, we’ll attract attention anyhow!’ hissed Asquan impatiently. His side seemed to be paining him more, but there was a glint in his cold eyes, as if he was enjoying himself.
Alya scanned the skies and the ice-slopes. He could see no sign of watchers, but that did not mean there were none. ‘You mean we should just walk along the road? As if we’re meant to be here?’
‘Often the best way. From a distance, anyway.’
‘It won’t get us into the town. Not that place. From what I’ve gleaned of it, you’re either a warrior or a thrall there, and we couldn’t pass for either. The guards would spot us at once. The thralls are completely ground down, not allowed to act for themselves or raise their eyes, even. Those that aren’t forever fettered.’
Asquan looked sardonic. Now that’s the way to run a kingdom! Saw that as well, did you?’
‘I know it. As the … person whose mind I touched knew it. If I could only make out all she knew!’
‘Well, then.’ Asquan looked at Rysha. ‘Maybe we’d better wait till dark.’
They did not have to. When they first looked down into the town, it was high morning already. By the time they had worked their way downhill, less than three hours later, the sun had already crossed the cleft. The shadows of the western rim were creeping up the eastern flank, leaving the town below in twilit gloom. The days in this deep were short, and fires and lanterns were already being kindled.
Crouching among rocks above the road, the intruders watched the comings and goings, and saw what Alya had foretold. Some alert must have been given. There were patrols out on the road; and at the town end, though there were no outer walls, twenty or more black-armoured sentinels were already stationed, well able to cover the road and the land about it. All who passed had to account for themselves, hard-faced warriors and hunched, skulking slaves alike. They saw slaves too slow to answer beaten down with spearbutts; and even one warrior who angrily baulked at a body-search was speared through the kidneys, and stripped of his possessions while he still writhed. His comrades made no complaint at all.
‘A hospitable folk!’ smiled Asquan. ‘But there lies our way, none the less. While they’re busy, we can slip through in shadow – if Rysha will oblige!’
‘This dunghole gives me the heaves,’ she muttered. ‘Like it saps me, makes everything heavier and harder …’ She hugged herself, something like laughter in her voice. ‘Thought it’d never come to this! Thought I’d be off and leg it, first time we came in sight of anywhere worth a cuss …’
She looked up in sudden panic. ‘But there never was anywhere! Just bloody ruins, and stinking hovels, and those endless bloody canes … Nowhere to escape! Nowhere, anywhere, left! So now we’ve all come stupidly sloping up here to bloody die, ’cause there isn’t anywhere else …’
Alya caught the edge of growing hysteria in her voice, and sympathised; his own inner fires felt strangely dim, depressed, reluctant to lend him strength. ‘There may be other places! There must be! Far to the East, by the Sea – or across it! There’s still hope there. And if we can only get through this, I’ll take you there. As determinedly as I brought you here! I promise!’
He put an arm around her bony shoulders, but she shook it off, sniffing. ‘You promise me? I kill men, remember. I enjoyed it! First laugh I’d had in years, watching the brat skewer his dad, then squealing when I stuck it to him. And he wasn’t the first. You wouldn’t like me in any of those nice hopeful places.’
‘All the same,’ said Alya, ‘I’ll take you. You’ve already earned that from me. Besides, it’s on my way. Look, you can wait here, if you like. We’ll get in some other way, and come back for you.’
‘Wait? Here?’ She gave a sudden crow of laughter, hastily stifled. ‘Wanting to fill my pants every minute and nothing to do it with? Oh no, sonny boy, you don’t get rid of me that easy, like. At least there’s bloody food down there somewhere!’
‘Ah, at last!’ murmured Asquan. ‘Intellect dawns!’
Rysha crooked her little finger at his groin, then rose to her knees. Still crouching, she spread her arms wide, draping her cloak to create a pool of deeper shadow. But when she let the cloak slip back, the shadow remained like an inkstain on the ground. She muttered softly over it, and blackness flooded down from her, deepening, rolling over the stones like smoke. Alya felt something he could almost touch envelop him, like a veil or a web. He could still see Rysha, barely, her lean breast rising and falling as if with great effort, her matted hair sticking close to her cheek, her hands bunched tight between her thighs as she swayed. Slowly she rose to her feet, and the world grew dim around them. She hunched her shoulders and straightened them, and night arose from her shoulders like vast enfolding wings.
She seized Alya’s hand, then Vansha’s; with a toss of the head, she directed Asquan behind her. He bowed sardonically. Together they glided forward, shadows upon shadow, down towards the road.
They had to stay on the slope, to pass the brutal guards; but they did not dare stay there long. Keeping your footing was hard. The odd loose stone didn’t matter, among the other sounds, the ranting and the cries. But everyone skidded, and once only Asquan’s bony hand saved Alya from tumbling headlong out of the shielding shadow. Pebbles rattled down, almost in front of one of the lounging guards; but it was down the road he looked, not up the slope at all. From then on Alya trod as carefully as he could; but the slope was already getting looser and steeper, and he was a mass of sweat even in his damp clothes. Vansha was losing his footing, and signalling frantically, and Rysha was having obvious trouble. Asquan glared; they were barely twenty paces past the guards. But it had to be. They stumbled down, as carefully as they could, out on to the more solid roadbed.
None of the guards seemed to notice. They were still intent on bullying and despoiling all they could. Rysha tossed her head again, and the little band tiptoed away along the road towards the first buildings, and the welcoming blackness of the narrow alleys between. A long low wall led to the nearest, with only a barred wicket and no windows, and they sidled along in its shadow. They could not keep from looking back, afraid the sentries would spot them any moment; and that was the root of their mistake.
Around the town, if town it could truly be called, lights began to blossom. First among them were the fires which had made it look so jewelled from above, among the snow; but from below here they turned it into a vision of torment. The rows of hut roofs stood out against the scarlet earthfires, while the blank barrack walls glimmered an evil green, as if torches burned in noxious air. Blue and green and yellow flames flared on the high stone buildings, and all the shades of light mingled and danced with grotesque shadows on the surrounding snow-walls above. Along the alleys braziers kindled, picking them out in stark light and shade. Rysha fought them all, breathing hard through her clenched teeth.
‘How long can you hold out?’ hissed Vansha.
‘Long as need be, brat – with no more stupid questions! Long as we keep in real shadow!’
A voice interrupted them, a puzzled exclamation. A lantern gleamed not ten strides ahead. A black-clad warrior stood in the road, staring almost straight at them, rubbing his eyes.
Asquan cursed. Where did he spring from?’
‘That gate!’ snapped Alya. ‘But how—’ All too obvious, when he looked. Somewhere along the valley side some great vent or rift blazed open, a tongue of crimson flame. ‘We’re between him
and the fire!’
And what was he seeing? An impossible thing, a moving blot of darkness, a shapeless cloud with perhaps a hint of more substantial shapes within. No wonder he’d called out! Any moment now he’d shout again—
Asquan was ahead of him. He must have seemed some fell grey spirit taking shape out of the darkness, lunging with whiplash speed; and the Aikiya’wahsa had many ghosts to fear. The astonished warrior’s hand clapped to the dagger at his belt, his eyes widened; but he wasted a moment filling his lungs to scream, and with it his life. The scream became a strangled cry as they sprawled in the dust. It was Asquan who rose, but no longer nimbly. Alya caught him as he staggered, and pulled them all hard against the shadowed wall.
Rysha was gasping now. Footsteps rang from the road behind. Two of the sentinels came running up. They stopped at the sight of the body, still feebly kicking, came no closer but levelled their spears and stared around.
Alya and the others sidled along as fast as they dared. Then one sentinel clapped a black horn to his lips, and blew a jarring alarm call.
‘If I had my bow!’ grated Vansha. Rysha’s bony fingers clamped hard on Alya’s arm. The darkness wavered about them, blacker than the night an instant, then ghostly grey, and he thought she was going to faint.
Answering horns sounded from the road, and the streets ahead, lined with low blank doorways. ‘A moment longer!’ he hissed, shaking her, and the blackness returned.
‘Now run!’
Their feet scuffed on the stony road, and the sentries spun about towards them at once. But at this distance in the shadow of the wall, the intruders were still invisible; and the warriors looked dumbfounded. Then there was no more wall, and the nearest alley was still long strides away. The sentinels saw them again, the rushing blackness; and though they could not have known what it was, they were hard men. They shouted, and one hurled his spear. They were stabbing weapons, not made for throwing; but it struck sparks among the stones between them. Rysha gasped and stumbled, and light came cascading in on them.
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