Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “Rights they’ve never had and shouldn’t expect,” Hamid said. Tabitha saw Arundel wince. From their time in the labyrinth, Tabitha had concluded that Arundel had far too much sympathy for ordinary people to make the hard decisions that a lord must.

  Lasfe bowed his head. Josselin leaned forward and said gently, “Lasfe, we have talked to them. They don’t accept our rule. How can we negotiate with them, even if we wanted to? There’s no common ground.”

  Lasfe did not answer for a long time. Finally he murmured, “We’re supposed to be better than this.”

  “Oh, no, we’re not,” Natayl said with a sardonic chuckle. “Not at all. We never have been.”

  Very young trees covered this half-acre field near the center of the lemon orchard. Most barely reached Tabitha’s waist, but some already had small green fruits weighing down a spindly branch or two. She still marveled to see fruit growing when the calendar said it was winter. Winter on Maze Island was not at all like winter in Thendalia.

  Lemon-scented breezes swirled around her and tugged at her hood. With the sun behind the leaden clouds, some in the crowd would find the wind chilly, even with the woolen cloaks they all wore, but Tabitha was a Betaul, born in the north, and would never feel cold here. The field was bordered by other sections of the orchard where fully mature trees, some almost a hundred years old, spread long branches that sagged with their yield. As soon as the sorcerers and the magi were finished here, the workers would come out with their barrels and start picking from the trees with the sweetest fruit. In this field, though, no fruit would be picked for another year. By then, Tabitha hoped, no one would remember exactly which three of the dozens of little trees here had been specially fertilized.

  She stood several paces back from the three chosen trees now. Behind her, several hundred magi were scattered in a rough circle among the other leafy plants. Graegor was right beside her at the front, along with all the other sorcerers. He wanted to hold her hand, but she needed to play statue today. The three men kneeling in front of the trees were not blindfolded or bound, and if any of them managed to catch a glimpse of her, they should see only implacable righteousness.

  Isabelle was somewhere in the crowd, along with Clementa, Velinda, and Attarine. Graegor had told her that his close friends from the Academy were here too, and Tabitha had also seen several of Ferogin’s cronies. But few other students were among the invited magi. The Circle did not know how many of them might sympathize with the rogues, especially after being confined to their dormitories for over a week. Her friends had asked all sorts of questions about what would happen today, but Tabitha had not been able to answer very many of them. One thing she did know was that unlike other cities, Maze Island did not have a designated place for executions. It underlined the idea that the Circle seldom punished this way.

  Back at the city gate, Sorcerer Hamid had given a speech, naming the criminals, the crimes, and the punishments. Only magi and guardsmen were yet allowed to be on the streets, but Tabitha had seen many people crowded at the open windows of all the nearby buildings. They had cheered when Hamid had concluded his speech with the announcement that the lockdown would be lifted at one hour past noon, when the execution was concluded. Then the sorcerers, magi, and city watch officers had processed from the city gates in silence and had assembled here in silence.

  Silence, because the three condemned men were Telgard, and therefore L’Abbanist. Tabitha had heard that non-L’Abbanist death rituals were often accompanied by music, even vocal music, which she could not help but think was simply wrong. Music was not only unnecessary here, it was just short of profane. The three men had already been cursed, then blessed, by the Archpriest and other ranking priests, and that solemn chanting was the last kind of music any of them would hear.

  Hamid took a step forward, holding the presider’s baton. “Choice,” was all he said, deep and stern. He walked to the first kneeling man and whispered something. The man looked up, and Tabitha saw his weathered skin, his bruised lip, and the tears on his cheeks.

  She felt Graegor’s growing sympathy, but she had none herself. This man had tried to kill her. His death would be painless, and that was more than he deserved.

  Hamid reached out one finger and touched the man’s forehead. After a moment, the man’s eyes fluttered closed and his breath sighed out. Then his body gently collapsed to one side of the small lemon tree, curled up like a sleeping child.

  Tabitha sensed her friends’ awe at this quiet demonstration that a sorcerer could kill a perfectly healthy man with a single brief touch. Graegor, whose village upbringing had never prepared him to witness an execution before, was still quite distressed, but again, Tabitha could find nothing inside herself besides grim satisfaction. And curiosity. How had Hamid done that?

  He did it again, twice more. Despite extending the lockdown one more day, they had captured only three of the men who had attacked Tabitha and Graegor that night. The fourth attacker seemed to have vanished into thin air, and the maga called “Haze” had also not been found. But six more magi had been corroded, and in the course of the lockdown, over five hundred non-magi had been arrested for unrelated crimes and were now waiting to be marked and exiled. Natayl had wanted to extend the lockdown even further, and Oran had too, since the Kroldon couple who were thought to have been kidnapped had not been found either. But Lasfe had been adamant that even the single extra day constituted a violation of the conditions of his vote. When he had threatened to open the gates with his own hands, the rest of the Circle had bowed to his will.

  It was strange, Tabitha thought, how none of the elder sorcerers seemed to think Lasfe had any ulterior motives. She was certainly suspicious. She intended to ask Graegor to ask Contare about it, carefully, once everything felt like it was back to normal.

  When he was finished, Hamid stepped back to his original place, and nothing happened for a long moment. The scent of lemons gusted over the field. Then Natayl stepped forward with his walking staff, and he said to the crowd, “Motion.” At the same time, Tabitha felt the gravelly touch of his mind. “Pay close attention, girl.”

  She resented the implication that she had not been paying attention, but she kept that to herself and dutifully glued her eyes to his profile as he braced on his staff and loomed over the first dead man. He did not touch him, or even extend his hand, but within seconds, the man’s skin seemed to lose color. Tabitha did not understand what had happened until a breeze bowed the branches of the little tree, but the man’s hair remained completely still. Unnaturally still. Frozen.

  Graegor gasped softly as Natayl moved to the next man. Tabitha could not see any frost or ice on the body, just a hint of a sheen that could have been some trick of the light. Except the sky was uniform grey and the light was playing no tricks. She could not even begin to understand how Natayl had done this. What if he asked her? The fact that he had told her to pay attention meant that at some point, he would ask her.

  She watched Natayl perform the freezing magic on the other two bodies. Bodies were mostly water, she knew. Many sorcerers could freeze water instantly. Was that all it was? But what about the bones and teeth and everything else that was not water? Obviously anything could be frozen, but how could it be done so quickly and completely?

  She almost reached out to ask Graegor, but he was really upset. She would not ask Natayl. As she watched him step back to his place when he was finished, she noticed him discreetly leaning on his walking staff. Whatever he had done had tired him. Good.

  Again, silence held the crowd, and then Oran came forward. “Form,” he intoned. He, too, carried a walking stick, but it was much shorter, a cane instead of a staff. He approached the first of the three frozen men, and he carefully rested the end of the cane on the man’s head, just behind the ear. After a moment of looking at the placement from different angles and slightly adjusting his hold, Oran tapped the top of the cane with two fingers.

  A sound, something between a crackling and a hissing, rose and fe
ll as the body disintegrated into sand.

  Someone gasped aloud. Tabitha thought it was Ilene, and was glad that she had managed to keep her own breath steady. Graegor had shut his mind away, but she could feel the tension in his arm alongside hers. She saw magi in the crowd craning their necks and lifting themselves on tiptoe to try to glimpse what had happened. When Oran moved to the next body in the line, she noticed that the lump of sand seemed to be bleeding, and she heard the gasps and rustles from the magi as they saw it too. A dark red stain spread out from under the sand before the soil swallowed it.

  The blood froze, she realized. The ice crumbled into hail, hail as fine as sand. Then the blood-hail melted.

  How had he done this? How many decades or centuries had it taken to learn such control?

  Oran created two more mounds of reddening sand out of the corpses lying by the young lemon trees. When he returned to his place, it was with a limp, and he braced the cane at his right hip without bothering to pretend that he did not need it.

  The crowd was still. The wind was still.

  Serafina came forward. She stood in front of the middle tree and raised her arms, and the wide sleeves of her grey robe draped like spread wings. Tabitha heard her speak a single word: “Time.”

  A stiff breeze suddenly flattened the hem of Tabitha’s skirt against her heels. The breeze eddied around her, Graegor, and everyone, coming from all directions toward Serafina and the three small trees. Serafina did not move, but the wind rushed against the first mound of sand and smoothed it into a flat circle around the thumb-thick trunk of its tree. With precision, the wind then carved a furrow in the soil beyond the spread of the sand, and the excess dirt from the furrow swirled around the base of the tree and then settled. Tabitha could see no blood anymore, and no ice. It looked like a dusting of new soil had been raked around the tree, and that was all.

  Gone. The rogue magus was gone.

  The Medean sorceress directed her breeze to the second tree, and then the third. When she was finished, she lowered her arms, nodded once, and went back to her place beside Ilene, who had closed her eyes and was gripping Arundel’s hand.

  From the city behind them, a single heavy bell tolled one deep note. The gates were opening. Tabitha took a deep but quiet breath, and found that the lemon scent and taste in the air was so thick it was almost nauseating. Lemon had become one of Tabitha’s favorite sweeteners over the last few months, and she resented the fact that from now on, it would remind her of this.

  People began to turn away, slowly and solemnly, back toward the numerous paths through the orchard. Tabitha waited. She always waited for crowds to disperse, because if she tripped or lost her dignity in any way, the fewer who saw her the better. Graegor waited with her, but no more than half the magi and sorcerers had left before Natayl’s voice drilled into her. “Don’t linger, girl. Come. Now.”

  The soft ground sank under her boot heel as she turned to obey. Concern flashed from Graegor before she shut him out. He followed, soon falling into step beside her and offering his arm. She took it, and let him guide their way around roots and dips in the rough-trodden dirt. Natayl was already well ahead of her, but while she would not give him cause to strike her again, she was not going to hurry to catch up to him.

  Graegor sent, “Are you all right, after that?”

  It startled her. How had he known that Natayl had ordered her to follow? “Fine.”

  After a moment, he sent, “I’ve never watched an execution before.”

  She was relieved that that was what he had meant. “I have seen several,” she told him. “Criminals in the duchy were hanged in the courtyard of the keep. My friends and I would watch from a window.” She and Jenevive had, at least. Pamela had never been able to stand it, and while Beatris had felt it was somehow her moral duty to watch justice being served, she had usually ended up comforting Pamela. As for Marjorie, there had not been any executions during her stay in Betaul.

  Not even her own.

  Tabitha immediately felt a prickling shiver at the horrible thought, and Graegor felt it. “Maybe you’ve seen too many,” he suggested.

  She was relieved that he had again misunderstood. “I grew accustomed to them.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “It’s part of the world.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “You would let murderers go free?”

  “No, of course not.” He sighed aloud. “We could have just corroded them.”

  “The Circle voted for execution.” Natayl had voted with the majority. Contare had not.

  “I know.” His heart was clearly fighting with his head. “I just wish no one would ever use magic to kill.”

  “It’s a demonstration. A reminder.”

  “I can’t help feeling it’s too extreme. Like we’re showing off.”

  “We are not showing off. Kings do this all the time, and much less mercifully.”

  “I know.”

  “It discourages crime. And it shows the people, the ones who are not criminals, that we take their safety seriously.”

  “Contare doesn’t think it actually discourages crime. He thinks public executions are barbaric entertainment.”

  “Maybe in other places.” It had been disturbing to hear the bloodthirsty cheers rising from the courtyard on Betaul’s execution days. More disturbing than the executions themselves, actually. “No one here was entertained. That is why only magi were invited.”

  “They were thrilled. They saw some amazing magic.”

  “That is not why they came.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She did not know what he wanted her to say. “I came for justice. Have you forgotten that those men tried to kill us?”

  “No.”

  “They were not even repentant. They said they would do it again if given any chance.”

  “I know.”

  “They killed a man and mutilated another. What is more just than to ‘reflect their intentions and actions back to them’?”

  When he did not answer her quote, she went on, “They were given proper rites. They felt no pain when they died. They have been properly buried.”

  He did not answer right away, but eventually, grudgingly, he sent, “In a way.”

  “In the most important way. Soil covers them. They are fulfilling the will of God, that all people should give life with their deaths.”

  Tabitha sensed a hint of his annoyance that she kept reciting the holy tracts at him, but he smothered it. “You’re right. I know you’re right. It just feels wrong.”

  “Graegor, this was by far the most dignified execution I have ever witnessed. And it was made so by magic.”

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re right. No pain, but … you know what Hamid did, right? He heated up their brains. It’s just too much like burning.”

  She had not known, but she pretended she had. “It was the only way he could make it so fast and painless.”

  “I know, but burning leaves nothing. It’s as if they never lived.”

  It surprised her to hear that from him. Yes, burning the dead was the very last resort for L’Abbanists, usually reserved for after battles. But Thendal farmers, at least, claimed that ash gave richness to the soil, so even this very last resort fulfilled the will of God. Had Telgard farmers never realized this?

  “What Hamid did was different,” she sent. When Graegor did not answer, she asked, “What did Contare say about it?”

  Graegor heaved another sigh. “Same as you. That it’s different. That he doesn’t like it, but it’s still different.”

  “Then listen to us.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  It was odd that he needed so much reassurance. Since Natayl had given her no information, Graegor had been the one to tell Tabitha about the progress of the search, which he had continually helped coordinate. He had been the one to tell her what the captured men had revealed to Pascin. He had met those captured men, looked into their eyes, known that
they would never stop trying to kill him and every other sorcerer they could. How could he still doubt that this execution was justified?

  “It’s over now,” she told him firmly. “Justice has been served for your countryman who died. The other one, the one they maimed, can go home.”

  “Jeh,” Graegor agreed readily enough. “I’m sure Rond’s glad for that. But we still have to find the fourth rogue. And that maga.”

  “We will.”

  “And I guess we’ll execute them too.”

  He simply was not going to be practical about any of this. “Maybe not. Maybe they will be willing to trade their lives for information.”

  He gestured back the way they had come. “These weren’t.”

  She did not answer. They walked without further words the rest of the way through the orchards and to Zaharia’s Gate. Within the walls, the guardsmen with their white surcoats and tasseled spears stood at the front of the murmuring crowd of people ready to leave the city, mostly orchard workers. It was probably crowded at the other two land gates too, but not as crowded as at the downstream water-gate, with all the ships waiting to leave. Everyone watched the sorcerers and magi pass, and Tabitha did not think there was much resentment in their eyes. Some frustration, yes, but certainly the Circle could have imposed a few more days of lockdown without any trouble. Lasfe had overreacted.

  Graegor touched her mind again. “Are you going back to the Hall? I could walk with you.”

  She did not want to listen to him agonize about the executions any more. “I thought you were going to exercise Sable.” His horse was always a good distraction.

  “I will, later.”

  “Well, I already told Clementa and the others that Isabelle and I would join them for a walk.”

  “All right. Can I call to you later?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “All right.” He pressed his arm against hers slightly, but along with the nearly invisible gesture was a mental touch as intimate as a kiss, so soft, warm, sweet, focused. It always made Tabitha catch her breath, and she could not help smiling at him before they separated at the intersection.