The House of the Four Winds: Book One of One Dozen Daughters

by Mercedes Lackey

  And Shamal cannot be as powerful as she wants everyone to believe, can she? She would not need a great hulking brute of a bodyguard such as Gregale if she were.

  With that hopeful thought, Clarice hurried down the ladder. If Dominick was in the first mate’s cabin, she could not reach him without being seen, for that door was in clear sight of Shamal’s, and Clarice could only assume Gregale still stood guard. But Dominick had done all he could to avoid the first mate’s cabin since Shamal had come aboard, and Clarice thought she knew where he might be instead.

  She reached the door of her own cabin and tried the latch—the door did not open—then tapped as softly as she could, praying Dominick would not simply ignore the sound.

  When he opened the door, his face went blank with surprise for a heartbeat. Then he swept her inside. “Clarence—Clarice!” He enveloped her in a fierce embrace. “Where were you? What happened? How—”

  “Gregale,” she answered, latching the door securely. The tiny space was barely warmer than the corridor outside. “When he took you away, he left the keys to my chains behind. Intentionally, I think.” Clarice moved back into Dominick’s arms, as much for warmth as for comfort.

  “But why?”

  “Perhaps he is compelled to serve her just as you are. Perhaps he, too, is fighting back in any way he can.”

  “I wish he’d break her neck,” Dominick said feelingly. He led Clarice over to the bunk and pulled its blanket around both of them. “I’ve spent the last three days sailing in circles, but I can’t stall Shamal much longer.”

  “I’m surprised you’ve been able to stall her at all.”

  “It was easy enough.” Dominick grinned at Clarice and held the necklace out to her. She reached out to touch the string of beads. They were hard and real beneath her touch. “Why should she imagine I could lie to her?”

  “I—but—” It had worked! No more absolute proof of love could be found outside of a fairy tale. But there was no time to plot a happily-ever-after yet. “Didn’t she notice? I mean, it’s magic.”

  “I don’t know. For that matter, I’ve been waiting for her to yank you up on deck with some spell ever since she found out you’d escaped. Maybe she can’t. Maybe her magic’s … gone.”

  “Or maybe she’s saving it up for what comes next,” Clarice said grimly. “You say you’ve been stalling her, but—where are we going, Dominick? What do you see?”

  “Ice,” he answered softly. “Gray sky, gray sea—and mountains of ice floating over it like a vast flotilla of ships. That is bad enough. But beyond them, there is a ring of icy pillars. I have sailed all around it. At its center there is some … structure.”

  Clarice waited, but he did not elaborate. “It is our destination?”

  “I cannot imagine we have any other,” Dominick said grimly. “And to sail between the pillars to reach it would be tricky enough—but to do it with an unwilling crew…”

  “Unwilling seems a mild word for it,” Clarice said dryly.

  Dominick laughed bitterly. “She’s given them nothing to live for. I would have sunk us a dozen times these last days but for the hope you’ve given me, mad as it is. But even if Shamal were to vanish tonight like a soap bubble, I do not know how I could save us. We are in no waters I know. That storm…”

  “Blew us here, and we must believe there is some way to sail home again. But for the other … you must speak to her, Dominick.”

  “To Shamal?” It was clearly the last thing he’d expected to hear.

  “You must tell her that if your crew has no hope, they will send Asesino onto the ice. She can say she’ll give them their lives as a reward for bringing her here.”

  “She won’t,” Dominick said simply. “She means us all to die in this frigid arctic waste.”

  “And we will, if the crew do not believe they have at least a chance of survival. If she will not—or cannot—tell them herself, get her to agree that you may say it in her name.”

  Dominick nodded reluctantly. “I’ll go to her in the morning. But … what of you? She’s going to kill you—”

  “Certainly she means to. So we must find a way to make her put it off until the very last minute. So tell her this: I have come to you hoping to save the crew. Tell her I said I would trade my … compliance … for their lives. I imagine it is what she thinks a proper princess would do.”

  “It is. Clarice … would you?”

  I would trade my life for yours, my love. In a heartbeat. “If this plan works, I won’t have to,” she answered simply.

  * * *

  When the first rays of dawn shone through the porthole, Dominick got up from the bed where he and Clarice had huddled, chaste and shivering, through the night.

  “By tonight it will be over,” Dominick said, kissing her on the forehead. “And we shall be warm. Or dead.”

  “I prefer warm.”

  Dominick smiled.

  A few minutes later he was back, and Shamal was beside him. Today she was clothed neck to toes in a heavy fur robe that gave Clarice an unworthy pang of envy. The only unchanging thing about the sorceress was the mass of beads about her throat. She always wears them, Clarice thought. I wonder …

  “So, my pretty princess, here you are,” Shamal said. “I trust you have not … despoiled … my Dominick?”

  “Ask him,” Clarice said, feigning sulkiness. “He’s the one who has to tell you the truth.”

  “Why so I did, and so he has. And you are willing to trade your life for those of a boatload of jail sweepings? How very noble of you.”

  “Will you?” Clarice asked urgently. She must convince Shamal the survival of Asesino’s crew was all she was thinking of, or Shamal would not even keep her alive for another hour. “Once you have what you want, their lives will mean nothing to you—”

  “Why, so they will not!” Shamal said gleefully. “And so their brave and noble captain will tell them they are to live—won’t you, my darling? And all will be well.”

  “Is it true?” Clarice asked. Not because she thought Shamal would tell her if it weren’t, but because it was something a woman sacrificing her life would ask.

  Shamal laughed. “I promise you, by tonight this ship will sail waters filled with treasure enough to make a thousand men rich as kings—and I desire none of it! Now, you have had the truth from my own lips. Come. You have a promise to keep.”

  * * *

  It was nearly an hour before the whole of the ship’s company were gathered on deck. Clarice was glad to see Kayin in the front rank, for the mood of the crew was, well, mutinous.

  Clarice, Shamal, and Dominick stood at the poop-deck rail, with Gregale behind them. All Clarice saw was gray mist. She shivered in the bitter air and wondered what Dominick could see.

  “Gentlemen!” Dominick said, once the crew was assembled. “I have good news! Today we reach our destination! To do so I shall need all your skill, for it will require a neat bit of sailing and some split-second timing.”

  “And why should we?” Ned Hatcliff demanded, shouldering to the front of the crowd. “So we can freeze for a few more days before we die?”

  The mutterings of the crew grew louder, and the sound was ugly.

  “No!” Dominick shouted. “To gain your lives—and fortune as well! Hear me out! The Lady Shamal will release us once she has her treasure! She has sworn it! All we must do then is sail south—to freedom!”

  For a long, tense moment there was nothing but silence, and Clarice began to fear that the lie would not work.

  “Cap’n’s saved us!” Jerrold whooped. “Three cheers for Captain Moryet!”

  The cheering was ragged. But it came.

  * * *

  Clarice clutched the railing before her with hands that had gone numb with cold. Mr. Emerson was heating the galley as if it were a blacksmith’s forge, and each time they came about, smoke from the chimney blew over the deck.

  It was like trying to guide a blind horse over a steeplechase. Again and again they tacke
d awkwardly into position, following Dominick’s shouted orders. Four times he’d ordered Asesino to veer off at the last possible moment. Each time he did, those on deck slipped and skidded helplessly, for the deck was covered with ice. Two of the riggers had fallen to their deaths. She did not need seamanship to know the crew was tiring. Willing or not, this was brutal labor.

  Shamal stood upon the bowsprit itself, a second ship’s figurehead. Clarice could not imagine how she kept her place. Magic, perhaps. Clarice glanced toward where Dominick stood, muffled in a heavy greatcoat. His hair, his eyebrows, even his lashes, were crusted with ice. He looked like a statue, not a man.

  “Kayin! Bring us about!” he cried. The orders were relayed yet again, adjustments made to follow a line only Dominick could see. Clarice saw his lips move as he whispered to himself, This must work. We can’t survive another try. He struggled from his greatcoat.

  “Dominick!” Clarice cried. “What are you doing?”

  “They can’t see!” he shouted. “I can!”

  On the main deck he stopped to kick out of his boots, then began to climb, shouting orders as his crew struggled to obey. She strained her eyes at the mist, but there was nothing to see.

  Once more Asesino leaped forward into nothingness. Suddenly there was a grinding crash and a terrible scraping sound. Clarice clung grimly to the rail as chunks of ice sprayed onto the deck along the starboard side. Lines fouled and were torn away, sails collapsed … and then …

  Light!

  Clarice blinked. The light was weak, but it was true sunlight at last. Behind her she heard Shamal give a crow of triumph as she leaped down from the bowsprit to the deck.

  The wind had died to nothing more than that created by their own motion. Clarice gazed around, hugging herself tightly. The air was so cold each breath cut like knives.

  But at last she could see what Dominick had seen all along.

  They were within the ring of ice pillars. And at its center, what must surely be their destination: an ice mountain to rival the Swanscrown. The whole surface of the eldritch structure was carved. Clarice could not decide whether it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen—or the most horrible.

  We are not supposed to be here.

  She didn’t know where the thought came from, but if it had been within her power, Clarice would have fled as fast as she could.

  “Snakes! The water is full of snakes!”

  Jerrold’s scream jarred Clarice out of her half trance. She stared up at him; he was pointing over the side of the ship and shouting.

  “Get down here!” Dominick shouted. He suited his own action to his words, scrambling to the deck and then toward the rail. “Every hand on deck! Now!”

  “Ah … but they are helpless without their king,” Shamal whispered in Clarice’s ear. “They dare not cause him harm.”

  Clarice hadn’t heard her approach and stifled a yelp and turned. “Their … king?” Clarice stammered.

  Shamal’s eyes sparkled with glee.

  “We can’t lower the boat,” Dominick said, running up the ladder to the afterdeck. “Look down.”

  Obediently, Clarice peered over the rail. At first, she saw nothing but water—then something shadowy and pale rose up through the depths, stopping perhaps a fathom below the surface. The ice-pale serpentine body was larger around than the water casks in the hold. She recoiled with a hiss of dismay.

  “There are hundreds of them out there,” Dominick said. “You can see it from the rigging. They’re swarming around the ship.”

  “We shall have to sail closer to the temple, then,” Shamal said from where she stood. “It is not far.”

  “Does this look like a horse?” Dominick said in exasperation. “You’re on a ship—and there’s no wind. Without wind, we drift.”

  It was true. Clarice glanced up. Asesino’s sails hung slack.

  “Once our momentum’s gone, we’ll be at the mercy of whatever currents there are in this place,” Dominick said.

  Clarice looked back over the side. I don’t think we’ll get the chance to find out. All around them the gelid water was roiling with the movement of sinuous bodies. Lattices of ice were spreading from the bobbing chunks of ice scattered across the water, racing across the surface with unnatural speed. In scant heartbeats Asesino would be icebound, caught in ice as if it were a fly caught in amber.

  “Kayin,” Dominick said. “Get the men—”

  The ship suddenly rocked violently. A long, thrumming groan from Asesino herself came as something large—very large—scraped along the hull.

  “Gregale! Do you think to betray me?” Shamal cried in fury.

  “What’s happening?” Clarice asked Dominick.

  “I don’t know, but I think we might have been safer out there in the fog,” he answered in a low voice. Hard upon his last words, the ship was rocked violently again. “Kayin! Everyone below! Now! Those things are big enough to capsize us if they keep that up,” he said quietly, as Kayin moved to rally the crew and chivy them below. “In that water, we’ll freeze to death in minutes.”

  Clarice took his hands. “If that’s what happens…”

  “Stop them! Stop them at once! I order it!” Shamal cried. She seemed to realize she was being observed, for she gave Clarice a venomous look. “Or perhaps they require a … sacrifice? Dominick, my darling, you have served me well. Now climb over the railing and jump into the ocean.”

  Dominick did not move.

  Shamal’s eyes narrowed. “Dominick!” Shamal cried. “Throw yourself into the sea! I command it!”

  Clarice looked up and met Gregale’s gaze. The creature was staring straight at her, his dark eyes imploring.

  “They are helpless without their king. They dare not cause him harm.”

  Every time Shamal has cast a spell, she’s used one of her necklaces.

  There is no more time.

  Clarice lunged across the icy deck, straight for Shamal. She struck her full force, skidding on the ice and clawing at Shamal as she dragged her to the deck. Shamal writhed like a maddened animal, opening her mouth to shout commands Gregale would surely be forced to obey. Clarice ducked her face to protect her eyes from Shamal’s clawing nails as she wrestled with her and concentrated on only one thing.

  The beads about Shamal’s throat.

  Clarice’s hands were stiff and clumsy with cold. The strands burned her fingers as if with fire; it was like grabbing a handful of razors. Clarice gritted her teeth and endured. Shamal bit and scratched and clawed at her, but Clarice ignored it all. The beads. That was the important thing. Get the beads.

  A few of the necklaces broke, but Clarice could not get a grip on the whole mass of them, and her hands were wet with blood from a thousand cuts. In the cold it froze even as it welled up.

  “Gregale! Gregale, I command you—!”

  Then Dominick was beside Clarice, and his hands were beside hers, ripping at the necklaces, scattering beads everywhere.

  Shamal arched her back, writhing against the icy deck. “Kill them! Kill them all!” she shrieked in a high, wild voice.

  Dominick dragged Clarice to her feet and away, backing toward the railing. It would not save them. Nothing could. Ice climbed up the hull, holding the ship so utterly still that Clarice and Dominick both staggered with the loss of the familiar motion. Clarice looked toward Gregale.

  He had not moved from where he stood. Now he smiled, holding Clarice’s eyes, and nodded, once.

  Shamal rolled to her knees and scuttled away on hands and knees. Her face and neck were daubed with blood from Clarice’s lacerated hands. Loose beads covered the deck and clung to her furs like drifts of rainbow snow. She groped at her neck, feeling for the necklaces. More beads spilled through her fingers as broken strands came free. Bright bits of magic fell to the deck, their enchantment fading like dying sparks. Her mouth worked, but no words came out.

  Gregale flung back his head and howled. The sound silenced the shouting of the crew on the deck below,
drowned out the crackle of the forming ice. He raised his fists to the heavens and shouted in triumph, a sound louder than any human throat could produce.

  “No, no, no, no, no—!” Shamal screamed, her voice raw with terror.

  Gregale’s body warped and lengthened like a piece of rubber. He burst the seams of his garments and arched backward, his spine curving impossibly.

  “No! You’ll kill us all! No! Gregale, don’t! I love you, I do, I always have—please—” Shamal babbled.

  “The ladder. Quickly. We must get below,” Dominick said. “It is our only hope.”

  They reached the main deck. Ice continued to thicken and spread with unnatural speed, pushing between the gaps in the rail and spreading across the deck. Behind them, Shamal continued to rave: threats, promises, pleas …

  Clarice dug her fingers into Dominick’s arm, heedless of the pain from her reopened wounds, and turned back. She had to see. The thing that had been Gregale was a monstrous column of glistening scaled flesh. As she watched, it fell backward over the railing. A heartbeat later ice and water sprayed everywhere as Gregale surfaced again.

  He had completed his transformation. His head was long and tapered, his body as big around as the hull of Asesino. Pinprick black eyes glinted balefully, and his body was covered in scales that were all the iridescent colors of northern ice. The terrible jaws gaped open.

  Clarice heard the hiss of his exhalation, and the cold of it burned her skin like fire, making it impossible to breathe. The air was filled with flashes of green and violet fire. Shamal was fighting back with all the sorcery left to her. It was useless.

  The ice drake—the King of the Northern Serpents—reared up. His body arched, and the head dived toward the deck. Clarice gave a blurt of horrified laughter—he looked just like a goose diving at a tasty bug.

  There was a scream, then silence. Gregale reared back again, with the body of his captor and tormentor crushed between his jaws. Blood stained his glittering scales.