The City of Ice

by K. M. McKinley

  “Kyreen Asteria,” stated Shrane. The quality of her voice ordinarily provoked a response. There was an imperative to it whether she drew on the power of her gods or not. The duellist was strong willed, and did not look up.

  “Who wants to know?” said Asteria.

  Weak. None who genuinely craved anonymity would ever use those words. It was the response of a tease who had grown bored with teasing.

  Shrane sat. Now Asteria did look up as the chair scraped back.

  “Who said I wanted company?” she said.

  “You will want mine,” said Shrane, resting her staff against wine-red wallpaper.

  “How so?” said Asteria. She tilted the bottle off balance and let it go. It rocked musically, faster and faster, until the base settled with a hollow clonk.

  “My name is Adamanka Shrane, I—”

  “Ah yes,” said Asteria. She knocked the bottle off the table with the back of her hand, snatching it just before it hit the floor and poured herself a generous measure. “The woman who has written to me so many times these last months. I replied once, didn’t I? I believe I did. I try to reply to all who write to me. If I’m not mistaken I said that I did not wish to meet. I have no interest in dallying with admirers, no matter how much money they are offering. Playing companion was entertaining for a while, and gainful after that. Now that I have plenty of money, it is merely tedious, and it makes me feel like a whore. Like her.” She nodded indiscreetly at an older woman sitting with a circle of bought friends, cackling loudly. Her make-up gathered in the wrinkles of her skin, her teeth were black from a surfeit of sugar. “She was a beauty once, her toadies behave as if she still is. She bore the attentions of the Infernal Duke for five years, and it made her rich. They are long separated—the duke prefers to bruise the youthful—but she still uses her association with the god to secure more money for herself. I am not that kind of woman.”

  “I am an admirer. Not of the kind you think.”

  “Oh, how lovely,” said Asteria. “I have the other kind too, the ones that say they are special, who deserve my time, who respect me and wish to love me and lift me to the heights of physical ecstasy. I’m not interested in them either. If I want a lover I’ll choose my own. Before you say that I am dismissing goods without inspection, I’m not particularly interested in women.” She drained her goblet and slammed it onto the table. “To be frank, I don’t care what you want. I’m leaving. Looks like I’ll have to find myself another place to get some peace. Thanks for spoiling it for me. You know what? It was getting boring anyway.” She raised a hand to summon the waiter. Her other she put on the table. Her strong, calloused fingers cradled thick gloves made for fighting.

  Shrane leaned forward and grabbed her forearm.

  “What are you doing?” said Asteria. “You best be glad I do not have my sword to hand.” Asteria yanked back hard, meaning to free herself, but Shrane’s grip was as hard as the iron that tainted her spirit.

  “You will listen to me,” Shrane said. Her voice took on a commanding growl. The air between them stirred with magic. “I do not have time to pursue you across the city. You will hear my request.”

  The magic did not hold. Asteria’s brow creased, then smoothed out with delight. “Are you a magister?” Shrane did not respond. Asteria’s eyes widened further and she grabbed something at her chest under her clothes. “Are you a mage?” She reached into her shirt and pulled out an ugly silver medallion. It vibrated in her hand, and she dropped it outside her jacket. “Hot! It works, and I thought the seller a charlatan. Genuine magecraft. Well, well, well.”

  Hauvame hurried over with a companion, a tall, squash-nosed man jammed into a ludicrous uniform a size too small for him.

  “Medame Asteria, is there a problem? I am so sorry, this woman, she... There’s no excuse, she told me she was a friend. I should never have brought her to your table. Say the word and I will have her ejected immediately.”

  “Hauvame,” said Asteria. “I doubt you could.”

  “Medame?’ He looked uncertainly at Shrane, his eyes straying to the hand gripping Asteria’s forearm. “Shall I call the footmen?”

  “Magic?” Asteria said to Shrane. “Is that how you got in?”

  “Medame?” said Hauvame. The other man moved in closer.

  “Never mind. I don’t need you now, Hauvame.”

  Hauvame nodded, and shooed the larger man away, following him back into the restaurant.

  Asteria glanced at Shrane’s hand. She withdrew it. Asteria rubbed at her wrist. “Quite the grip you have there for one so frail. Hauvame!”

  The hall master leaned back, his feet following his shoulders around as he changed direction again.

  “Yes, Medame?”

  “Fetch me another bottle of wine, and another glass. Medame...”

  “Shrane,” said Shrane.

  “Medame Mage Shrane looks like she could use a drink.”

  Shrane waited while Asteria examined her face, taking in the microscopic changes to her expression as Asteria took in her high, feline eyes, the faint ridge running from the top of her nose up her forehead, the metallic glint to her pupils.

  “You’re a strange looking one. Is that the magic too?”

  “I am not here to waste my time or yours, Medame Asteria. I have been watching you for a while.”

  Asteria’s face dropped. “Ah, here we are. You are an admirer. How disappointing.”

  “You are bored,” Shrane said, riding over the other woman’s disinterest. “There is not a man or a woman alive who can hope to best you with a sword.”

  “True,” said Asteria with a shrug. “I am feted for it. Since my duel with Zoltraras, this place and any other welcome me in with open arms for the custom I bring. I am pestered by the rich and the poor. I prefer the rich, naturally. They pay for my time, and smell less. It’s good to be the best. Or it was, until I got bored. I liked it here. Here they keep people away from my table. Usually. You have spoiled my peace.”

  “You lie.”

  “Do I now?”

  “Yes. I have been watching you for several weeks. You are restless, eager for action that will not come. You want to start a fight. You could start a fight, but you would finish it in seconds. I see you at your dinners and at your appointments, you no longer take care to hide your contempt.”

  “My, you have been watching me.” Asteria grinned. “Yes, yes. I am lying. You are right, I am exceptionally, bone-achingly bored.” She tapped at a deep pouch attached to her belt. “No one decent to fight since old Zoltraras. That was two years ago. I should never have killed him.” She leaned in. “I need a challenge, you know? Something to test myself against.”

  “I do know. And that is what I bring you. A challenge.”

  Asteria pushed her wine glass back and forth. “That sounds ominous. I enjoy fighting, I enjoy the kill at the end, though lost gods know that it took me a time to come to terms with that,” she said ruefully. “I thought I might be a monster, then I realised I was, and then I realised I didn’t care.”

  Hauvame returned, he presented a bottle with a flourish.

  “Just pour the damn thing,” said Asteria.

  Hauvame, piqued that the proper protocol had been interrupted, decanted the contents and left without a word.

  “But I am not an assassin,” said Asteria. “Any fight I have has to be straight. I’ll not be involved in anything unseemly. It’s hard enough being a woman in this game as it is. I have to be twice as good as the men, in every respect.”

  “I am not asking for an assassin. I came seeking the greatest duellist in the Hundred. What do I find, is it a sot or a swordswoman?”

  “Oh, oh. Very good.” Asteria gulped her wine. Shrane left hers untouched. “I could drink a crate of this and still beat anyone you care to name. You know, we are in the middle of a restaurant. Aren’t you being a little candid? This is the heart of the Hundred! They say there are more spies in this city than in any other—a spy for every man, one for his serv
ants, and a spy to spy on the spy.”

  “No one will remember me that does not need to remember me.” Shrane lifted her chin. Her head grew heavy. She did not have long to conclude her business before the magic exhausted her. She must rest soon.

  “More magic?”

  Asteria’s lips quirked when Shrane declined to answer. “Like that is it? Well. Saying I was interested, hypothetically, who is this man you wish me to duel? Hypothetically.”

  “I said nothing of a man.”

  “A woman? Little sport there,” said Asteria scornfully.

  “Nor a woman,” said Shrane.

  Asteria’s eyebrow cocked. “Who then? A Fethrian either-or? Aren’t they all pacifists? They have no tradition of swordcraft. Now I’m intrigued,” she said sarcastically.

  Shrane shook her head and smiled despite her weariness. “I do not propose you fight a human, Medame Asteria. I want you to fight a Morfaan, the Lord Josanad.”

  Asteria laughed loudly, startling nearby patrons from their social displays.

  “I am deadly serious,” said Shrane.

  “Why?”

  “I enjoy swordplay. I wish to witness the finest match in the world. As you see, I am old. My life runs out. I desire one last spectacle.”

  Asteria slapped her gloves on the table. “Now you lie,” she said, but she was unsure. Shrane’s odd face gave nothing away. “But do I care if you do lie?” She paused, looked away. When she looked back she was still suspicious, but interest was paramount. “A Morfaan—can it truly be arranged?”

  “They will come soon, to preside over the selection of the new High Legate. The male is prideful and boastful. He has duelled men of the kingdoms before.”

  “Not for centuries. Not since before the driving of the gods.”

  “Nevertheless, it can be arranged.”

  “No one has ever beaten him,” she said excitedly. “I have read the old accounts. They say he moves faster than the wind. Hyperbole, naturally, but maybe not by much.”

  “You might beat him.”

  Holding the table edge lightly, Asteria leaned back and beamed. “A Morfaan! Why, I might even die. There’s no thrill, you see, without the possibility of defeat. Some might have it otherwise, taking pleasure in triumph over the weak, but not I. There is no joy in an easy victory.”

  “Then you will do it?”

  “Fight a Morfaan?” Asteria lifted her glass high in salute and winked. “You know, I think I will.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Iron Ship

  THE PRINCE ALFRA laboured through a grey sea mounded up as high as hills. Paddles and screw chewed into the faces of watery slopes. Funnels belched luminous clouds of steam into the ominous skies.

  The ship slowed at the top of a wave, paused upon the brink, then slid down the far side trailing a bright ‘V’ of foam. Away from the ship the wake widened, describing an arrowhead a mile across.

  A shallow trough awaited the ship at the bottom, a moment of smoother sailing before the next wave. The engines growled, whistles blew, shrill and plaintive in the desert of salt water. The wave slouched at the prow, shocking a column of spume upward, and the ship began a fresh ascent.

  Although the seas were high the tempers of the crew in the wheelhouse were even. Captain Heffira-nereaz-Hellishul vovo Balisatervo Chai Tse-ban stood at his station, watching his helmsman, Tolpoleznaen, guide the vessel onward. To a non-Ishamalani, Tolpol seemed statue still, doing nothing but holding the great spoked wheel steady. Heffi saw him twitch the wheel, making minute course adjustments that brought the vessel to the best possible position to climb each wave.

  “This is a very fine ship that you have built, Goodfellow Kressind. A very fine ship indeed,” said Heffi. “A floatstone vessel would never make any headway against this. Perhaps a well-built wooden ship, with the right wind, could last this sea out a while, but the Prince Alfra presses through it, swift and sharp and knife.” He rubbed the brass railing around his station affectionately. It framed a sloping, three-faced desk full of gauges and dials; all the devices of the vessel, laid out for his perusal. “A shocking fine vessel.”

  Trassan Kressind had only half an ear for what the captain said. He stood at the bridge’s windows and peered through the reinforced glass down the vessel’s length to the forward funnel where a gang of men, roped securely to the ship, cleaned icicles from the rigging. They were unrecognisable, bundled up against the weather. Trassan had a piece of paper pressed against the sloping sill, and he consulted it, tutting and muttering to himself as he jotted down calculations, finished them, crossed them out, and started again.

  “Damn it Heffi, the forward whistle is not sounding properly.” He took out a watch from a pocket in his engineer’s coat and checked it, winding it needlessly. “Four and a half hours ago it was clear, now look at it. It’s the damn governors, the excess steam they vent onto the metal. Their exhaust should be hot enough to clear the ship without icing. Why doesn’t it?”

  Heffi’s mood soured. Trassan’s anxious need for perfection and the sometimes underhand way he went about achieving it taxed his patience. “You could not foresee every eventuality, goodfellow.”

  “Did you not hear?” said Tolpoleznaen, his attention fixed on the next wall of grey seawater. “Captain Heffira-nereaz-Hellishul called our ship a fine vessel. Rarely do Ishamalani give idle compliment.” He did not look at Trassan. Very few of the Ishamalani ever spoke to him so directly.

  “No, no,” said Trassan. “I got it wrong. I miscalculated. This problem seems rather obvious, and it will get worse. How cold is it outside?”

  First Mate Volozeranetz consulted the thermometer built into the wall, the quicksilver bulb exposed to the full force of the weather outside.

  “Twelve degrees below frosting,” said Volozeranetz.

  “We can add three more for the temperature of the iron—the wind chills it.” Trassan tapped his teeth with his pencil. “But that is colder than I expected, and we are not even into the Sotherwinter proper yet. The cold is the chief problem, compounded by unforeseen vortices around the structure.” He glanced at his calculations again. “What else have I missed?”

  Heffi looked around at his mate and his bridge crew. The oiled, long top-knots they wore all differed, proclaiming their allegiance to the various sects of the One God, but they were all Ishamalani regardless.

  “My fellows are not so easily upset by statements of that kind, Trassan,” said Heffi quietly. “These men were born to the sea and will not panic, but only these men. I cannot speak for the non-Ishmalani. Have a care what you say. This is a difficult voyage, and we are doing well. This is unknown territory.”

  Trassan bit his bottom lip.

  “Trust me,” said Heffi. “Discretion is among a leader’s many desirable qualities.”

  Trassan threw up his hand. “You’re right, you’re right. I worry, but with good reason. Persin is behind us...”

  “If he made it past the Drowned King.”

  “Let’s assume he has. I prefer to plan for the worst case scenario,” said Trassan, more peevishly than he intended. He gathered himself before continuing. “Every moment we lose is a moment he gains. If the whistle ices now, what will happen when we are closer to our goal? The whole release assembly could get frozen, and then where would we be?”

  Heffi adjusted his nose piercings with a heavily ringed hand, a habit of his when irked. “His engines are good, but not as good as yours. His ships are of stone. No floatstone can go as fast as this, not one! This ship, goodfellow, it is... it is a marvel! Take heart in that. It will not freeze.”

  “I will, I will,” said Trassan distractedly. His eyes remained forward.

  Heffi sighed. Trassan was paying no attention. He would not be satisfied until he had worked out his little problem. One day, his perfectionism might see them all dead.

  “Sound the whistle Heffi, just the forward one,” said Trassan.

  “Sound the whistle,” ordered Heffi. He tried to keep the
weary tone from his voice, he really did.

  Suqab, the Second Mate, pulled one of three chains by the chartdesk, where a large, mostly blank, map of the Sotherwinter was pasted down. Above it was a copy of the famous Morfaan map, discovered by Vand at the Three Sisters. More schematic than chart to human eyes, its use was limited for navigation.

  The forward whistle blew a warbling note.

  “See! That doesn’t sound right,” said Trassan. “Does that sound right to you?”

  “No,” admitted Heffi. “No, I suppose it does not.”

  “So then,” said Trassan, enthused. He went to the door and took his oilskins down from their peg, donned them so hurriedly he tangled one arm up with the strap of his tool satchel. “I’m not going to stand around here when something requires my attention. Heffi, I’ve got an idea.”

  Heffi raised an eyebrow.

  “Disengage the screw, bring number two boiler up to ninety hundredths full pressure.” Trassan fished out a signal flag from a tall bucket. “When I wave this, blow the whistle until I stop waving. Do you have it?” Trassan had his hand on the handle. Heffi coughed into his fist meaningfully.

  “Trassan?” said Heffi.

  “Yes?”

  “That flag is to signal that we have the yellow sickness aboard,” said Heffi.

  “No one can see to misunderstand. Does it matter?” said Trassan.

  Heffi gave a strained smile. “Yes. Everything out here matters. There are rules. We obey them. It keeps us alive. Choose one less ill-starred.”

  “Right.” Trassan slid the flag back and pointed at another.

  “Anguillon breeding knot ahead,” said Heffi. “Take the red, for the sake of the One.”

  “What’s the red for?” asked Trassan.

  “Depends how you wave it, but none of it is bad,” Heffi said. “It is a standard semaphore pennant.”

  “That shall do,” said Trassan. “Get ready.”

  The door flew backward and banged hard against the ship’s modest superstructure. Trassan lunged out onto the deck, rope and clip in hand. Overbalanced by his heavy tool satchel, he had one chance to make the safety line. This was the moment of reckoning, a wrong move could send him skidding down the deck and overboard. He grinned in relief as the clip snapped closed. He grabbed the railing. Beneath him the sea heaved as if cheated.