by Tanya Huff
Jago tied on his hat, his violet eyes twinkling under the fur edge. “That’s why mom liked me best.”
Crystal stared up at the distant dragon, her wizard-sight caressing each strong and graceful curve. Life had left it thousands of years before and yet it still had a beauty that caused the breath to catch in her throat. She stood almost perfectly still, mesmerized, only her right hand moving, blindly weaving her hair around the fingers of the left.
“What are you thinking of, child?” Sokoji asked, coming silently up beside her.
“How it must have looked in the air with the sun turning its scales to black fire and its eyes glowing red.”
“Its eyes are closed. How do you know they were red?”
“Weren’t they?”
The giant nodded. “Yes. But how did you know?”
“Kraydak’s colors were gold and blue and so was Kraydak’s dragon. Aryalan’s colors were black and red and this was Aryalan’s dragon.”
“Not her dragon, child. That is the mistake the ancient ones made, claiming ownership of the Mother’s body.”
“I wonder,” she said dreamily, giving no indication she’d heard Sokoji’s last words, “how a dragon would look in silver and green.”
“A dangerous thought, wizard.”
At the giant’s tone, Crystal shook herself free of her fascination with the great beast and turned to face Sokoji. “But only a thought,” she said clearly. “I am not like those ancient wizards.” Under Sokoji’s continuing gaze, she drew herself up, her shoulders went back and her chin rose. Her hair spread out around her, a living silver frame, and her eyes flashed like jewels amidst the ice and snow.
Sokoji, whose memory went back almost to the world’s creation, smiled. “No,” she conceded, “you are not like the other wizards.”
“Hey!” Raulin yelled from the edge of the ice. “You two going to stand and talk all day? These packs are heavy!”
“I will never understand mortals,” Sokoji muttered as the two women walked forward. “First they spend the greater part of the morning dawdling and now they must instantly be off.”
“An unpredictable race,” Crystal agreed, conveniently forgetting for the moment her own mortal heritage.
“Unpredictable.” Sokoji turned the word over in her mouth. “Yes, I suppose that’s one word for them.”
The snow covering the lake was dry and hard packed and it squeaked under boot soles.
“How do we know the ice is thick enough to hold us?” Jago asked, when they were about twenty feet from shore.
“Well,” Raulin drawled, “if you’re not breathing water, it’s thick enough.”
“Maybe we should be checking it.” After weeks of traveling through the mountains, crossing such a large open area left him feeling exposed and vulnerable. The ice wasn’t really the problem, but it would do until something else came along. He could hear Raulin’s own nervousness in his flippant answers.
“We are checking it out; we’re sending Sokoji out ahead. Anything’ll hold her will hold us.”
“Don’t worry, Jago.” Sokoji smiled back over her shoulder at him. “During the second and third winter moons, the ice is as thick as it ever gets. We will not fall through.”
Raulin reached out and tugged on a floating strand of Crystal’s hair. “You’re very quiet.” he said. “Copper for your thoughts?”
“I was just thinking that this is really the only time of the year you could get to the tower, when the lake is frozen solid enough to walk across.” She waved a hand back at the shore where clumps of stunted trees raised twisted branches barely above the level of the snow. “In the summer you’d need a boat and you certainly couldn’t build one from those. Nor could you get one over the pass. In the spring and fall, while the mountains are saturated with water, you couldn’t get into the valley at all, the footing would be too treacherous.”
She paused and looked up at Raulin. “And if I hadn’t gotten to the demon before you, you’d be dead and I’d be . . .” The memory of Nashawryn breaking free tightened her throat around the words. “. . . I’d be . . . well, I wouldn’t be, and the map would have never been used. And if Sokoji hadn’t met with us, we’d still be heading toward the wrong valley.”
“Your point?” Raulin asked.
“Why did you decide to travel in winter? You’ve got to admit, it isn’t when people usually go north.”
“In the winter we could use the sleigh and carry a lot more gear. No bugs, few wild animals. It just seemed to make the most sense.”
“What about the weather?”
Raulin tucked his chin deeper in his scarf. “The lesser of a number of evils. You were traveling in the winter . . .”
“But seasons don’t mean anything to me.” She searched for other ways to convince him. “If I hadn’t met that brindle, I would never have used enough power for the demon to hear me and call . . .”
Maybe. Maybe not.
“Crystal . . .”
“. . . and I’m sure Sokoji has a logical reason for being in these mountains as well.”
Maybe, Maybe not.
“Crystal, what are you getting at?”
She sighed and pushed both her hands up through her hair. “I think someone, or something wants us—you, me, and Jago, possibly Sokoji too—at that tower.”
“What!”
“Well, you’ve got to admit, it’s a few too many coincidences to be plausible.”
Raulin threw one arm around her shoulders. “I’ve got to believe nothing of the kind. You’re just a little spooked is all.” He noticed the giant watching and added, “Right, Sokoji?”
“In the world of the Mother-creator,” Sokoji said solemnly, “coincidences are few and far between. Nothing happens without reason.”
“Are you telling me you believe what Crystal just said?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Don’t you start,” Crystal growled.
Sokoji looked puzzled.
“I’m sorry.” Crystal hoped she sounded sincere. She couldn’t tell over Eegri’s giggles.
Jago wondered if he should mention that he’d been mulling over the circumstances that had brought the four of them to this place at this time and had come to much the same conclusion. He opened his mouth to speak, caught sight of the expression on his brother’s face—Raulin clearly anticipated what he was going to say—and decided to keep silent.
With the remains of the gatehouse, and the island it stood on, unreliable as a guide, it was difficult to determine both how far they’d walked and how far they still had to go. Judging distance by the shore they’d left helped very little, for the farther they walked over the lake the more the shore took on the same characteristics as the island.
“Look at the bright side,” Raulin remarked as they continued, “this is some of the easiest walking we’ve done for weeks. It’s flat, it’s clear, we’re not plunging through drifts, we’re not . . .”
The ice groaned, a long drawn out sound that set teeth on edge and could be felt up through the soles of their feet.
“. . . we’re not likely to live to see the other side,” Raulin finished, white showing all around his eyes. “What, in the name of Chaos, was that?”
“Just the ice settling,” Crystal explained, moistening her lips. Knowing the cause barely lessened the sound’s chilling effect. “Something to do with thermal patterns in the lake.” The centaurs had spent a great deal of time, many years before, teaching her the ways of the world. Knowledge, they reasoned, brought respect. She wished now that she could remember more of it. “We’re perfectly safe.”
The ice groaned again.
Raulin and Jago went rigid. Even their clothing seemed to stiffen.
“Look,” she realized they believed her reassurances and she understood that belief had little to do with their reaction to the
sound, “Sokoji hasn’t stopped.”
The giant had pulled four or five body lengths ahead and continued to walk unhurriedly toward the island.
The brothers glanced at the giant, at each other, and simultaneously stepped forward. The footing remained solid.
Jago sighed deeply and banished thoughts of plummeting down into icy depths, the cold and the water racing to see which could kill first. I’ve got to do something about my imagination, he thought as he kept moving, watching Raulin shrug off even the memory of the fear. Raulin lived wholly in the present and Jago envied him the ability. He grinned as he pictured his brother, resplendent with new wealth, amid the corrupt and fearful aristocrats of the Empire who would, like so many others, take Raulin’s bluntness for stupidity. The vision so enthralled him, he didn’t notice he’d struck a patch of clear ice until it was brought forcibly to his attention.
“Oof!”
The pack and his many layers of clothing acted as a cushion, but the unexpected fall knocked the breath out of him. He glared up at Raulin and Crystal, who, seeing him unhurt, began to snicker. Even Sokoji’s mouth twitched although she, at least, made no sound.
“No need to help,” Jago hid his own laughter under an exaggerated sigh—it probably had looked pretty funny—“I can get up by myself.” He threw himself over onto his stomach, silently cursing the weight of the pack, got his knees under him, and paused a moment, gathering the strength and balance necessary to stand.
The ice, an arm’s length from his nose, was a greenish black. No, he realized with wonder, the ice—ice thick enough to support the giant’s passage—was perfectly clear. The water below it was a greenish black.
If the glassmakers could learn to do this . . . he thought admiringly.
And then his thoughts froze.
A shadow, darker than the water, solid, and large, passed below the ice.
And the ice became, in comparison, very fragile.
“Hey, Jago, you all right?”
The shadow passed again and Jago knew, beyond any doubt, it was aware of him. Aware of all of them.
A long, trailing something, as thick around as Sokoji’s thigh, brushed against the lower surface of the ice.
Panic controlling his arms and legs, Jago scrabbled back onto the nearest patch of snow and sat panting. He could no longer see it and that helped, but he still knew it was there. Knew it waited. Knew it wanted.
“Jago?” Raulin dropped to one knee and took hold of the younger man’s shoulders. “What is it?”
“Something . . .” He took a shuddering breath and tried again. “Something under the ice.”
“Are you certain?” Sokoji asked.
Jago looked up at the giant and nodded.
“Then perhaps it would be best if we kept walking.”
“Good idea,” Raulin agreed, standing. “Present a moving target.”
“And get off the ice,” added Crystal, pulling Jago to his feet.
He clung to her hands for a moment, taking comfort in the strength that had all but lifted both him and the extra weight of the pack, feeling the warm pressure of her fingers through his mitts.
“Take a wizard to breach a wizard’s tower,” he said, a plea for reassurance in his voice.
Crystal met his eyes and, for an instant, openly wore the mantle of her power. Even shattered as it was, held together by the wizard’s will alone, it blazed with a painful glory. Then it faded, replaced by the concern of a friend. “I didn’t stop an avalanche,” she told him with exaggerated pique, “in order to feed you to a fish.”
The remaining distance to the island became the longest distance Jago ever walked. With every step, he expected the ice to crack and break and let the hunger that it sheltered out to feed. He didn’t doubt Crystal’s power. He didn’t want to test it.
The others were nervous, he saw it in the way they carried themselves; movements a little jerky, heads cocked to one side and brows drawn down as if to give eyes and ears a better chance to give warning. They all avoided the clear patches of ice.
When he stepped up on land at last, relief hit with such force that if Raulin hadn’t grabbed his arm he would’ve sagged to the ground.
“I’m okay,” he protested, embarrassed at his weakness.
“Sure you are,” Raulin said noncommittally, and held on until he felt Jago could stand on his own.
As they walked away from the shore, Jago viciously buried the thought that threatened to immobilize him. To get off the island, they would have to recross the ice.
The island looked very little different from the lake; a smaller circle, about a hand’s span higher, and covered by that same hard snow. They could see the ruin of the gatehouse clearly now. Here, a wall, still vibrantly red even after centuries, stood alone and unsupported. There, the flip of a tiled roof poked out of the white. From the center of the island rose a small square building, still half buried under drifts.
“But it’s only . . .” Raulin raised his hand horizontally to about mid-chest. “We won’t be able to stand up.”
“I stood in it,” Sokoji reminded him. “It was not built level with the surface of the island. There are stairs around the corner.”
“Is that where you sprang the trap?” Crystal asked, flexing long fingers, her hair rippling on the still air. She could feel power waiting in this place and it grew stronger as they neared the center.
“One of them. The ancient wizards trusted no one, least of all their fellows. Their towers, their strongholds were built to keep out,” the giant paused and searched for the correct word, “visitors.”
“Don’t you mean intruders?”
She shook her head. “No, their paranoia was never that justified.”
Crystal considered what it would mean to trust no one and to have no one trust you. “They must’ve been very lonely,” she said softly.
Sokoji studied the last living wizard, her face thoughtful. “Yes, they must have been.”
Indicating Raulin with one hand and Jago with the other, Crystal smiled. Here was her trust. “Don’t worry, Sokoji.”
Sokoji nodded and half-smiled, understanding what Crystal was telling her, but still looking thoughtful.
“The traps . . .” Raulin prodded. They were still advancing toward the gatehouse and he wanted to know what they’d face before they arrived.
“All the traps I sprang were tied to the life forces of the Elder Races.”
“Which means?” Jago asked, although he had a nasty suspicion he knew.
“Others must exist tied to the life forces of mortals and wizards.”
“Which we’ll have to find?”
“Yes.”
“But Aryalan’s been dead for thousands of years,” Raulin protested. “How much trouble can something this old give us?”
“It almost killed me,” Sokoji told them, her voice even slower and weightier than usual. “If Aryalan were still alive and able to feed power and direction to her guardians, I could not have won.”
“Lovely.”
“Thank you.”
Raulin flushed. “No, I didn’t mean . . . oh, never mind.”
Jago, whose line of sight took in Sokoji’s face, smiled in spite of the situation. He simply hadn’t been able to convince his brother that the giant possessed a sense of humor.
In the years since Sokoji had been inside the tower, winter had refilled the stairwell leading down into the gatehouse, leaving only a dimple in the surface of the snow.
Raulin let his pack crash to the ground and straightened up with a groan. “Looks like shoveling,” he sighed.
They could see the top lintel of the door, carved with fantastic birds and beasts, but nothing more.
“At least a body length of shoveling if that door’s standard size,” Jago added, dropping his pack with a little more control but an equal amount
of relief. “And if Sokoji went through it, I’m betting we’ve her body length to clear, not ours.”
Crystal stepped into the dimple and spread her hands. The snow flashed green and disappeared. She stood at the top of a broad flight of black marble stairs. At the bottom loomed a door, also black, and large enough for the giant to enter without so much as having to incline her head.
“That may not have been wise,” Sokoji said solemnly. “Any power remaining here will now know a wizard has returned.”
“Any power remaining knew the moment I entered the valley.” Crystal pointed back to where the dragon rested. “That avalanche was no accident.”
“What’s done is done,” Raulin declared philosophically. “And what’s done beats shoveling.” He slid over the lip of snow and onto the stairs. The small flurry he brought with him melted away as it touched the steps. He shook off a mitten, bent and drew a finger along the slick surface. The luster of the marble made it look wet. It wasn’t.
“I destroyed the trap set on the stairs for my kind,” Sokoji informed him, “but there may be others set for yours. Shall I come with you, or will you descend alone?”
Raulin looked down the length of black, each step as perfect and sharp edged as the day it had been set. “Alone,” he decided. “Less distractions.”
“Careful,” Jago warned, advancing to the edge but no farther. “Check everything.”
“Don’t teach grandma to suck eggs, little brother.” A memory stirred and he heard his master sergeant screaming orders. Amazing the things you pick up amid the rape and slaughter, he thought, inspecting each step before moving onto it. He knew marble could be trapped in the same ways as wood—stairs were stairs, after all—but he suspected he was missing any number of nasty . . .
Stone snapped down on stone.
Raulin froze. Until he saw which way the danger lay, going back could be as deadly as going ahead.
A panel in the base of the door burst open.
Raulin got a vague glimpse of scales and claws and teeth. He had time to shape them into a large and ugly lizard but no time for fear before the thing was on him. He twisted, fell, and slid almost half the remaining distance to the door.
