Cold Fire

by Tamora Pierce

  “Beautiful,” Frostpine said once Nia had gone. “You’ve brought her along well. You have a knack for teaching.”

  Daja felt warmth in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the hearth fire. “You really think so?” she asked shyly.

  He hugged her with one arm as they went downstairs. “You’re patient and steady,” he said. “Nia feels your confidence in her. It gives her confidence in herself.”

  “And Jory?” Daja asked, uncertain. “Did you want to look in on that?”

  Frostpine shook his head, his mane and beard flopping. “Too early, too cold, and that girl is much too wide awake at that hour. Besides, old Skyfire knew what he was doing when he taught you fighting meditation.”

  They had finished supper and gone into the book room when a maid came to say Ravvot Ladradun had come to call on Viymese Daja. Once more Daja took Ben up to her room; once again Ben refused tea or anything to eat.

  “Were you working late?” Daja asked as she began to measure his upper arms, shoulders, neck, head, and waist with a cord.

  Ben nodded. “Mother wants an inventory of every fur before Longnight taxes are levied. We haven’t gotten the last shipment yet, but she still wants me to start the count.”

  Between measuring and writing measurements down, Daja sneaked looks at his face. He was pale and sweaty. “Can’t we offer you something to eat?” she asked.

  Ben shook his head. “My mother keeps supper for me. If I don’t eat everything, she says I’m wasting food.”

  Daja felt rage boil in her belly. “Does she ever have anything good to say of you?” she cried. Then she covered her mouth. Only when she was sure of her hold on her temper did she take her hand from her lips. “I’m sorry. I had no right to say that. I apologize.”

  For a long moment he was silent. Finally he murmured, “It’s a strange friendship we have, isn’t it?”

  Daja stared at him, not sure what he meant. It was an odd thing to say, when she thought their friendship was almost like the ones she had with Briar, Tris, and Sandry.

  Ben patted her shoulder. “I’d better go. Shall I come tomorrow? Or the next day. I have brigade training tomorrow morning and afternoon. She’ll make me stay till midnight to make up the work. The day after tomorrow, then.” He hesitated, then asked, “Do you know if the magistrate’s mages have anyone they suspect of the Jossaryk fire?”

  Daja shook her head. “Do you?”

  “No. They questioned me, but I’ve heard nothing. I would tell you if I had,” Ben assured her. “Well, that’s the magistrate’s people for you — all eager to get information, and entirely mysterious about what they do with it.”

  He left Daja unsettled and uneasy, though she couldn’t say why. It’s not for you to question his life, she told herself as she put away her measuring cord. You can’t ask a hero to live like an ordinary man, to rebel against a cold mother or to marry and have a family again.

  But he was her friend; he’d said as much himself, in a peculiar way. In Daja’s world friends wanted their friends to be happy, and Daja knew Ben wasn’t.

  He does so much for others, she thought, lighting a stick of incense at her small Trader shrine. Surely he’s owed something for all he’s paid out.

  Moonsday was like Starsday, except that Ben didn’t visit. Daja went to bed with the household, though it seemed as if she tossed and turned for hours before she finally slept.

  She was in partial darkness. Around her danced the ghosts of flames, pale orange against shadows. The reek of burning wood, hair, and flesh filled her nose. Something clicked and rattled in the dark, coming closer.

  Daja struggled, but she couldn’t move. The thing that rattled crawled up her body and onto her face. It was a skeleton hand, the metal ring on one finger ice-cold on her nose.

  Daja sat up with a gasp. Braids that had dropped across her face as she slept fell away. She grabbed them. Here was a gold piece that she had missed when she removed the decorations from her hair before bed. With a shaky chuckle at her foolishness, she took it off, and put it on her bedside table.

  Now she was afraid to sleep. Instead she went to a window and opened the shutters to the icy night. A full moon shone over snow-draped roofs. On the city streets the lamps were pale rivals to the moonlight. Daja hoisted herself onto the broad sill — Namornese walls were thick — and wrapped her arms around her knees. Things were clearer up here in the cold. The fire of emotions always distorted what she saw. In the freezing air she could see without the heat of affection or admiration to blur her thoughts, making them unclear.

  She thought about Ben’s collection of tokens. He brought them away from fires where he’d done good, he’d said, or that was the sense of it. Unless she was mistaken, though, his recent additions were from fires he could only stop from spreading: the boardinghouse, the confectioner’s shop, and Jossaryk House. In his shoes, she would be happy never to be reminded of those fires. Were she Ben Ladradun, the boardinghouse and Jossaryk fires would look like personal failures. The confectioner’s shop, when his raw firefighters had done so poorly, would be maddening.

  Teraud was uncomfortable with Ben’s crusade against fire. Teraud she knew as well as any piece of iron she had ever worked. He was true in every fiber, not a spot of rust on him, and Teraud didn’t like what Ben did. Surely Teraud saw that Ben was Kugisko’s best defense against what he’d called a firebug.

  What did Heluda Salt think of Ben? The magistrate’s mage had impressed Daja. How did she see Kugisko’s firefighter? What did Frostpine make of Ben? Maybe she ought to find out. Something was not right here. She didn’t know what it was, but she could feel it like a faulty weld.

  Perhaps I misunderstood, she thought as she closed the shutters. Maybe he chooses a token when he’s learned something from a fire. That has to be it. He’s a good man, a real hero. I shouldn’t let nightmares make me crazy — and perhaps I’d better leave the pirozhi with jam and fruit alone too. Rich desserts probably had more to do with the nightmare than anything else.

  On Starsday, Ben came to the house well after supper. Daja escorted him up to her room and began the rest of her measurements for his waist, hips, legs, ankles, and feet.

  “I won’t see you for a while — two weeks at least,” he said as she measured and wrote down numbers. “The last fur shipment of the year comes in through Izmolka. Mother has asked that I meet it and escort it back.”

  Daja stared at him, surprised. “You travel in winter?” she asked. “But you could be caught in a storm at any moment.”

  Ben smiled. “It’s not as bad as you think. The empire keeps wayhouses every twenty miles along the merchants’ roads — it’s never far to shelter. And we always work like this. The best time to trade furs is late autumn and early winter, when the pelts are at their finest.”

  Daja shook her head as she continued to measure. “Move your legs a bit apart?” she asked. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I need thigh measurements.”

  “Always the last moment you want your old teacher walking in,” Frostpine said. Daja jumped at the unexpected sound of his voice, and very nearly measured Ben in an area that would have shocked them both. “We never really got properly introduced at Jossaryk House,” Frostpine continued as he came over to them. “I’m Frostpine, and you are the Kugisko miracle worker.”

  “No miracle worker,” Ben said glumly as he clasped Frostpine’s hand. “Jossaryk House was a disaster from start to finish. It’s a miracle we saved any, mostly due to you and Daja.”

  “Ah, but it was your organization that saved the other houses and kept the victims from dying of exposure.” Frostpine leaned against Daja’s worktable.

  “Have the magistrates turned up any information about who set the fire?” Ben asked. “I know Heluda Salt is a friend of yours.”

  “If they have, they’re keeping it to themselves,” Frostpine answered. “They just asked what I saw. I hear you studied with Pawel Godsforge. We’ve been corresponding for years. What’s he like in person?”


  Daja continued to measure, listening to the men talk about Godsforge. She was glad that Frostpine had come to give Ben a proper adult conversation — she got the feeling Ben rarely talked to people for sheer enjoyment — but she was also concerned. Why had Frostpine come here, tonight? He could have visited Ben at the warehouse, or invited him for tea.

  While Frostpine was the most easygoing of the Winding Circle teachers, he made sure that he met any new person in Daja’s life. Once a Fire temple novice had begun to meet Daja accidentally on her way home from the forge. After a few weeks of meetings he had persuaded her to walk through private areas of the temple city, where he stole a few kisses. What might have come after that Daja didn’t know. The kisses were interesting, but she didn’t like it when the novice’s hands strayed to her body. She was still trying to decide what to do on the day that they turned down a side path and ran into Frostpine. He asked for an introduction. Then he asked other things as the three of them strolled through the gardens: what the boy studied, where his family came from, if he meant to take vows, how long had he been at Winding Circle, who his friends were.

  Daja never saw the novice again except in the training yards or the dining hall. She knew that something had passed between him and Frostpine as they talked, but she had never figured out what. She didn’t get quite the same feeling as Frostpine talked with Ben now, but she still didn’t know why he was there.

  Measuring Ben, she noticed worrisome things. He trembled slightly. It was almost invisible, but as she wrapped her measuring cord around his body she felt it. When she touched one of his hands, it was clammy. He had a faint sour odor, as if he hadn’t bathed in a couple of days. The lines around his mouth were deeper than ever. That might be the angle from which she looked at him and the flickering light. He looked like a man who was being hounded by a yerui, a hungry ghost — or more likely, a man who was being worked to death. Why did Morrachane drive him so?

  “I told Daja I’m off to Izmolka to pick up a fur shipment,” Ben explained as Daja measured his feet. “The weather-mages claim we’ll only get light snows during that time, but of course you have to treat their predictions with caution.”

  “Weather’s nearly impossible to predict for longer than a few days,” Frostpine agreed, though he and Daja knew a weather-mage whose predictions for the next month were always right. “I assume you carry storm-warning charms though.”

  “Nothing but the best for Ladradun,” Ben replied. “Good for half a day’s notice of storms. I don’t know how Mother can let them out of her sight, they were so expensive, but she always makes me carry them for the last caravan of the year.”

  Because she doesn’t want to lose her precious furs, Daja thought grumpily as she gathered her cord, slate, and chalk, and got to her feet.

  “All done?” Ben asked.

  “Just one more thing,” Daja promised. She got on a stool and measured the height and width of his eye sockets, from one temple to the other. “In case I work out how you’ll be able to see,” she explained as she stepped down. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin putty-colored. Like his hands, his face was clammy.

  “I look forward to this construction,” Frostpine admitted. “Daja, you should write a paper for the Mages’ Society when you’re done — they love details of unusual workings. Lightsbridge and Winding Circle will want copies, too.”

  Daja snorted. She didn’t need to impress mages she didn’t know.

  “You won’t help her?” asked Ben, surprised. “I assumed … As you say, the work is unusual. She ran into trouble with those gloves.”

  Daja ducked her head, wanting to protest, They came out all right in the end! She was surprised that Ben had made a typical adult mistake, thinking she couldn’t manage without an older person’s aid. She thought he knew her better.

  “Oh, she miscalculated, but that’s to be expected,” Frostpine replied. “She’s the only mage in the world who has this living metal. It means she has to invent magic for it as she goes. I can advise, but the only kind of assistant she needs is one to hold things steady while she works.”

  Daja flapped a hand at him, grateful for and embarrassed by the praise.

  “Besides,” added Frostpine, “Heluda says she’ll want my help in a few other matters for the magistrate’s court this winter. She seems to think I’ll turn magistrate’s mage at my stage of life. I just hope that between us we’ll catch the fellow who’s setting these fires.”

  “You’ll do us great service if you can,” Ben replied. He looked at Daja. “I must go. I’ll call on you when I’m back.” He kissed her, right cheek, left cheek. “I’ll see myself out.” To Frostpine he said, “It was an honor.”

  “A pleasure for me,” Frostpine replied. “I like meeting Daja’s friends. She encounters the most interesting people.”

  Once he had gone, Frostpine picked up an iron glove form, turning it over in his hands. “Your friend doesn’t look well.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Daja agreed. “Between fires, and training, and that mother of his, I don’t know when he sleeps.”

  “Kol’s heard a rumor, put about by Ladradun’s mother, that you’re looking for a rich husband, and Ben is your mark.” Daja gasped with indignation. Frostpine raised a hand to stop her protest. “I know you, don’t forget. So do Kol and Matazi. But there are men who involve themselves with young girls, girls younger than you, I’m ashamed to say. And merchant families often marry daughters to men Ben’s age and older, because they can afford a wife and family. I had wondered if Ladradun might be looking at you.”

  Daja stared at Frostpine. Then the humor of it struck her. “Me and Ben?” she asked, amused. “Never mind that he’s old —”

  “Early thirties is not old!” protested Frostpine.

  “Old, and a widower, and — really, Frostpine!” She chuckled.

  Frostpine grinned. “All right, I knew I was wrong almost right off, but I had to make sure. You’re wise for your age, but you aren’t experienced in what goes on between men and women.”

  “While you have too much experience,” Daja pointed out. “One of us has to be restrained.” He’d managed to make her feel weepy: he was looking out for her like a father or a brother.

  “I’ve heard no complaints about my conduct,” Frostpine informed her wickedly. More seriously he added, “When I find someone to share my bed, I try to ensure that no one gets hurt or lied to. It’s another kind of friendship, though not what I’d recommend to someone just beginning to find out what love is.”

  Daja grabbed a fistful of his beard and tugged gently. “Since I’m not starting that sort of thing, particularly with Ben, you can relax, oh watchful teacher.”

  Frostpine stretched, like the panther she sometimes imagined he was. “I don’t think he’s interested in your body or your heart. But …” He combed his fingers through his beard. “Daja, something’s not right there,” he said at last. There was concern in his dark eyes. “I don’t know what it is, but it worries me.”

  “I think so too, sometimes,” Daja admitted. “But he’s complicated, Frostpine, and his mother — Bookkeeper, don’t log this against me, but I think his mother is a monster. And more than half cracked, if she’s talking that way about me and him.”

  Frostpine hugged Daja to his side. “Maybe it’s just as well he’s going away for a while. Come down to the kitchen. Anyussa wants victims for some pastry experiments.”

  14

  Wearing the gloves to help him think, he arrived at something that would be not a lesson but a test, and chose Airgi Island for it. When he’d presented his plans for firefighter training, their council decided that he asked too much in funds, people to train, and training time. When his demands were more reasonable, they told Ben, they would be happy to hear him again. They sounded like his mother. Airgi Island had to learn that lessons were always far more expensive than was preparation for the future. Their council had to learn that it was folly to turn Bennat Ladradun and his hard-earned expertise fro
m their doors.

  He left home an hour and a half before sunrise and walked to Threadneedle Canal, where he donned his skates. A hard wind cut into those parts of his face not covered by scarves. To avoid it he kept to the walls of first Threadneedle, then Kunsel Canal. He held a lantern on a pole just ahead of him to light his way. A sense for pebbly ice let him skate without accident. The gloves, slung on his back in a bag, would do him no good if he fell, cracked his head, and froze to death. Airgi Island wouldn’t learn this necessary lesson.

  At least the wind kept lawkeepers and watchmen in their shelters. The crews who leveled canals and moved snow were still locked up for the night. No one saw him glide between islands.

  He’d wanted to do this on Watersday, as soon as she’d left him with the gloves. It had taken iron control to keep from rushing straight out to try them. He had to be careful. He wanted to set any fire, without planning, just to watch the sheep scramble and bleat for their lives. That would never do. The gloves meant he had to plan more carefully, not less. Cloth, hair, even skin couldn’t be tracked by mages if they burned, but magic left traces. The more powerful the magic, the better chance that a trace would remain. Any surface he touched with the gloves must be completely destroyed by the fire.

  He’d waited and planned for four, nearly five, mortal days, though he’d thought he would explode with impatience. The trip to Izmolka gave him a reason to be away. He arranged to meet his escort at the Suroth Gate the hour after dawn. If he timed what he did exactly, everyone would believe he was on the road when his newest creation unfolded. It meant he couldn’t watch, but no plan was perfect.