The Icefire Trilogy

by Patty Jansen

  He grabbed Jono’s arms and tried to push him over. Jono stumbled backwards into the crowd, and fell. Carro was on top of him, and then Jono was on top of Carro, thumping his face.

  Everyone was shouting and cheering.

  Isandor grabbed the back of Jono’s shirt, but he didn’t have enough strength to lift Jono off. He was afraid his leg would slip away under him.

  “Stop fighting, you two!” These stupid oafs would get them all into trouble. “Stop it, Carro, stop!” But they weren’t listening, and any moment some older Knights would come and haul Carro off to the eyrie. He needed Carro in the race tomorrow. He—

  Golden threads burst from his fingers. They crackled over Carro, as if he’d been caught in a living net of icefire. Carro and Jono froze. And then the threads snapped into diamond-specks of light which scattered through the air and vanished.

  Jono stumbled back as if stung.

  Isandor’s heart thudded in his chest so loudly that he thought the people around him must hear it. Had anyone seen that?

  “That’s right,” Carro said while scrambling to his feet.

  Isandor knew his friend couldn’t see the golden glow, but his eyes had gone hollow and distant again, as they did when Carro scared him most.

  Carro wiped blood from his brow. “I’m wasting my time here. I have better things to do than concern myself with the lot of you.”

  He pushed into the circle of onlookers and was gone in a few heartbeats.

  “Carro!” Isandor shouted, but he had lost sight of his friend.

  Isandor wrestled against the stream of revellers coming in through the meltery’s doors. Young men pushed aside to let him through and young girls glanced at him with drunken longing. The bolder ones clapped him one the shoulder and told him good luck. He was their Isandor, from the Outer City, riding in the Champion Race tomorrow. Except he wouldn’t be if Carro got into trouble.

  Outside in the street, people lined up to get in. Some had their own drinks and were sharing flasks of wine around. An older Knight was kissing a girl in the light of a street lamp, his hands fumbling under her cloak.

  Isandor stopped, both revolted and fascinated. Knights were supposed to hold up respectability. Much leering and inappropriate behaviour of course went on in the eyrie. Family visit passes being traded for the sake of going to the whorehouse. Money being used to bribe superiors to turn a blind eye. But it always went on inside the eyrie walls, never openly in the street.

  Isandor stifled thoughts of Korinne’s hips against his. He could have had her, snuck away somewhere in a warehouse. That was what normal boys did. Normal boys didn’t run after their friends if they behaved like stupid oafs. Normal boys fought.

  “Carro,” he called into the emptiness of the street.

  There was no reply.

  He walked away from the meltery, breathing the cold and fresh air. The streets became deserted. A single man leant against a wall, his eyes closed. Isandor stopped, intending to ask if he was all right and needed help, but realised that the man was so drunk that standing up was probably the most he could do. The front of his trousers was wet and had been frozen over. His mother would love injuries like that. She’d talk about it in gory detail for days. You know frostbite leaves blisters on your . . . He jammed his hands into the pockets of his cloak. Well, if this was Newlight, it wasn’t much fun.

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  ISANDOR WALKED ON in the grey-blue light of eternal dusk. Above the roofs of houses, the skylights danced and shimmered in pretty displays of orange, pink and green. Far away, the sound of partying continued, the crowd cheering the jugglers in the markets, and the drummers at the festival grounds.

  He had no idea where Carro had gone, but he didn’t feel like going back into the meltery.

  He might as well go back to the eyrie.

  And then . . . golden strands snaked from the sky. Very briefly, they touched roofs and chimneys; they shimmered over the sloping sides of the limpets and crackled along the ground. A thread touched his hand and burst into a spray of diamonds. The display lasted a heartbeat before it winked out.

  Icefire.

  He stopped to look over his shoulder, his heart thudding. Icefire had never been this strong. Sometimes, when he stood looking over the city from the eyrie tower, the golden threads crackled over the city. They would bend to his hands, but they had never touched him, like they just had in the meltery. Icefire never ventured indoors.

  “You felt that, didn’t you, young Knight?” a soft male voice said in the darkness. The man had a lilting accent.

  Isandor gasped. He’d thought he was alone. “Uhm—good evening.”

  The man was tall and lanky, with piercing eyes and a sharp face lined with age. There were golden curls tattooed on his prominent cheekbones. A city noble? With a foreign accent? Talking about icefire?

  “Who are you?”

  But he knew who this was: that man who had been staring at him in the meltery.

  In answer, the man pushed back his sleeve and pulled off a leather glove. The white-skinned arm underneath shimmered and dissolved. The skylight gleamed on two golden rods extending from the man’s elbow. At the end, they joined in a “wrist” of black stone, where he had a pair of crab-like pinchers.

  Isandor stammered, “You are . . .” He reached for his wooden leg in an automatic gesture. In all his life, he had never come across another Imperfect person. When he had been little, his mother liked to remind him that children born Imperfect were left on the ice floes for the wild beasts to eat. Not even the Knights’ riding eagles would dine on such contaminated fare.

  “My name is Tandor, and I’m a Traveller. Come.” He held out his good hand. A tiny crackle of icefire played along the skin.

  “Why?” Isandor stepped back. Everything about this man radiated danger.

  “We need to talk.”

  Need to? “I need to look after my eagle.”

  A flicker of distaste went over the man’s face.

  “You felt the icefire,” he said again. “When you reach for it, the light bends to your will.” It was a statement, not a question. “Do you know what that means?”

  Isandor kept his silence. During the time of the old king, there were people who could use icefire, and who had done so to bring terror to the people of the City of Glass, by enslaving them as servitors.

  “You’re Imperfect,” the man continued. “You helped your friend win the fight. I saw the icefire.”

  “There was nothing I could do about it!”

  “No, there wasn’t. I agree.”

  “Then why are you bothering me?”

  “Others might have seen the threads, too. Maybe one day others will see the illusion you weave about your leg. Or they will notice how every person in the Knighthood you meet looks anywhere except at your leg. Or maybe—”

  “Stop it! What are you trying to do? Who are you, trying to destroy me?”

  “To the contrary. I’m trying to help you.”

  “Some help.”

  “If you are aware that icefire weaves an illusion around your leg, you can make sure it never falters. That way, no one will ever notice, not even if you take off your trousers.”

  That last bit he added with a sarcastic tone.

  “Just go away, will you?”

  “You don’t want to learn how to hide your imperfections?”

  Isandor wanted to shout that he had no interest, but that wasn’t true. Being found out was his greatest worry. The Knights had never said anything about it, and every day, he feared that the subject would come up. “You can’t hide it. You can make it look like there is a complete arm or leg, but they’ll find out as soon as they touch it.�
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  “Not if you learned how to control it.”

  “Control it? Isn’t the same as using it? Turning people into ghosts? Isn’t that why, after the king was killed, all his people were sentenced to death?”

  Tandor shook his head, an expression of pity on his face. “I see you’re upset and confused. We should sit down somewhere and talk.”

  Every fibre of Isandor’s being protested. This man was danger.

  “Come,” Tandor said again. “I’m buying. What I have to say is important. It will change your life.”

  His eyes met Isandor’s in the light of a street lamp.

  Isandor followed the stranger through the twisted streets of a quiet part of the Outer City. It looked like most people had gone to bed already or were hiding from the crowds inside the warmth of their limpets.

  In an alley, away from the main streets, was an eating house, recognisable only by a small sign on the door of a limpet larger and with less steep sides than the surrounding ones. Tandor went in first.

  Inside the circular room, most tables surrounding the stove were occupied by a selection of the best middle class citizens from the Outer City. Men and women in middle age, dressed well and wearing jewellery, a far cry from the rowdy melteries. The cook was stirring a large pot and a kitchen hand was kneading dough.

  Tandor went to one of the few empty tables. Isandor sat opposite him. Already, the warmth made him drowsy. It was even hotter than in the meltery. Couldn’t they open a vent?

  A waiter came to them.

  “Bring some soup and bread for two,” Tandor said.

  “I’m not hungry,” Isandor said. The bloodwine sat heavy in his stomach.

  “I am,” Tandor said. “And you should be, too. Adolescent boys are always hungry.”

  Isandor shrugged. Not when they’re drunk. But he wasn’t sure if he was still drunk.

  The waiter left and they sat among the quiet murmur of the customers. Snatches of conversation drifted past, mostly about the Newlight festival and its various circus shows. Firelight gleamed in Tandor’s tattoos. At this angle, he looked older than he had appeared at first. Isandor guessed him to be about fifty. His hair was glossy and black, his eyes . . . he couldn’t look away from them.

  They had that elusive hue citizens of the City of Glass called royal blue. He knew only one person with eyes like that; he looked at him from the mirror above the sink in the dormitory bathroom every morning.

  “Are you my father?”

  Tandor lunged across the table. The pincher-claw grabbed the collar of Isandor’s shirt so tight that he could barely breathe. Isandor uttered a strangled, “Hey!”

  Up close, the gold tattoos on Tandor’s face looked frightening. Come to think of it, why did he have that sign of nobility? Certainly, nobles wouldn’t pay for Imperfect children?

  Tandor let a tense silence lapse, in which all Isandor heard was the roaring of blood in his ears. Diners on surrounding tables had stopped talking and stared at him.

  “Let me go if you don’t like the people to notice us,” he whispered in a croaky voice.

  Tandor blew out a breath. He relaxed and let go of Isandor’s collar, his gaze still boring into Isandor’s.

  Isandor inhaled; the smoke-tinged air stroked his lungs. What, just what, was he getting himself involved in?

  “All right, since you don’t know me, I will tell you, once, and once only. Moreover, you will never speak of this.”

  Isandor nodded, nervously, tucking his tunic back into his waistband, too conscious of the glances at him. He was still in his uniform, by the skylights, and he should do something. This man could not attack a Knight without repercussion.

  Tandor leaned on his elbows on the table. “My mother had the courage of a bear pup. When I was born Imperfect, rather than give me up, she ran away to the northern lands where she had heard people do not mind Imperfects. In time, she found a family, and married a travelling merchant and lived in comfort. The merchant collected old books, and as a boy, I became interested in them. I read that Imperfects are special people who have the power to shape icefire, and that they need to be in the vicinity of the City of Glass to use it. So I wanted to use that ability, didn’t I? I was young, I was curious and I didn’t get along with my stepfather, so I came to the white lands of the south.”

  He gave a hollow laugh. “Sounds simple, huh? What did I know about the southern laws and the Eagle Knights? I was a boy, just like you are now. I came to the City of Glass at the height of the tension over the raids on Chevakian border regions. I was both of southern stock and living in Chevakia and a prime suspect for being a spy. I was captured by the Queen’s guards. They saw I was Imperfect, and judged me to be a king’s supporter and too old to be abandoned on the ice floes—I might find my way back and come to haunt them—so the Queen ordered that I be changed so I could never father an Imperfect child.”

  It took Isandor a heartbeat to figure what Tandor meant, but then he realised. Ouch. He winced. “I’m sorry.”

  “If you don’t want to attract my wrath, don’t be. But no, I cannot be your father.”

  Isandor repressed the urge to shove his hand down his pants to check on his private parts, which felt larger-than-life and throbbing.

  “And . . . are you? A king’s supporter? A Thillei?” He had heard of such things whispered in the melteries, of people who said that the king should return. It was said that the Brotherhood of the Light organised meetings for these people.

  A serving girl turned up with a tray containing two bowls of soup and a basket of fresh bread. Isandor found that Tandor had been right: he was enormously hungry.

  He attacked the bread, dunking pieces in the bowl. The bread came away dripping with fat, which ran down his fingers as he stuffed the pieces in his mouth. Taste exploded on his tongue. Just like his mother used to make it.

  Tandor put his spoon down and broke a piece off his bread. “There is one thing you need to understand. The Thillei are a clan much bigger than only the royal family. You cannot become one. You are one at birth. And you, boy . . . enough Thillei blood runs through your veins to make your eyes turn blue. There are few of us left. You, me and a handful of others. If it wasn’t for me, there would have been none.”

  Isandor had suspected this, but hearing it spoken out loud made his skin crawl. He ripped a piece off a roll and mopped his bowl with it, disguising unease. Then another thought came to him.

  “Then . . . when I was born . . . you paid for my mother to look after me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, if you’re not my father?”

  Tandor gave him an intense look. “Don’t you want to know who your real mother is?”

  “Why should I? She wanted to kill me.”

  “How can you be so sure of that? Couldn’t it be that someone else wanted to kill you, and she had no power to protect you, and gave you to me to bring to safety?”

  Isandor scratched his head. He was beginning to feel sleepy from the bloodwine, and Tandor’s stories were so confusing. Why should he care? Children in the City of Glass never grew up with the women who had given birth to them. They were breeders, like his mother.

  “What do you want from me?”

  Tandor shook his head, his expression sad.

  “It is not about what I want or what anyone else wants. This is much bigger than the wants of individual people. It is about making the City of Glass great again, and about stopping the slaughter of children.”

  He hesitated. “I know this may not sound important to you, but I see in you myself when I was your age. I didn’t know what to do with my gift. I was scared. I have found out how to deal with icefire the hard way. There is no need for you to do the same.”

  “Y
ou want me to be a sorcerer’s apprentice?”

  Tandor breathed out heavily through his nose. “Sorcery? I wouldn’t use that despicable word, but that’s obviously what the Knights have told you to think. Tell me this, though: do you think there is a good reason you should be punished if you were discovered?”

  “I . . . can use icefire. I’m Imperfect. There are laws that forbid—”

  “Is there anything that punishment could stop you doing, if you wanted?”

  Isandor shrugged. “It’s not as if I could help being Imperfect.”

  “Exactly. You can’t help being what you are, but they will punish you anyway. Is that the way you want to live? I want to see you out of this slum. I want to see you soaring in the sky. You, and all other Imperfects. We need to save them, and I’m going to need your help for that. As . . . Knight, you would be perfectly placed to do that. Give me the word and I will teach you about icefire.”

  And then Isandor saw what Tandor wanted: to single-handedly change the Knights’ view on Imperfects, to become a spy, or an agent. Did Tandor really think he was as stupid as all that? He respected the Knights, most of them at least. They were harsh but fair. He was determined not to let his wooden leg be a problem. No one needed to know. But on the other hand . . . if they found out, he would have to leave the Knights.

  Damn this man. He was caught now. He couldn’t refuse Tandor’s offer or tell the Knights about him, or Tandor would tell the Knights.

  He licked his lips. “What would you want me to do?”

  A smile ghosted over Tandor’s face. “A few days ago, the Knights discovered my safe sanctuary where I had hidden the Imperfects I rescued from the ice floes as babies. Children who are now young people your age. The Knights broke into the sanctuary, flushed out all the Imperfects and took them away. As far as I know, they were taken to the palace bunkers, and we need to free them, if they’re still alive.”

  “And you want me to do that. By myself.” Isandor chuckled. “Do you know how many Knights there are at the eyrie? Do you know how many guards there are on the entrance to the prisons, if that’s where those children are? How do you even think I could get into the prisons? I’m only an Apprentice—”