The Icefire Trilogy

by Patty Jansen

  Their faces remained impassive.

  They started moving through the dark corridor in the direction Carro recognised as leading towards the howling staircase. At night, there was no wind to make the jagged edges howl, and they climbed its many steps in uncomfortable silence. The sky was dark blue, too light to show any but the brightest of stars. Pink and green skylights shimmered above.

  “You know where to find this Brotherhood compound?”

  Carro had grown so used to silence that the man’s voice startled him.

  “I do.” Carro explained the location on the far side of the Outer City. The men only listened. Evidently, they had been briefed on their mission.

  They reached the eyrie, where dark shapes of birds shuffled and fidgeted as they came in. One of the Knights flicked the light lever up. The bulb sprang into life with its too-bright glow. Heads lifted from under wings, baleful eyes blinked. Both men had their birds untied before Carro had even done up his harness. His fingers trembled. He was fumbling with the staff Rider Cornatan had given him, not sure how to carry it. He settled on lashing his belt around the glass head. The stick banged against his leg, a feeling that was clumsy and awkward.

  Carro untied his eagle. It hissed at him and flapped its wings, which made a few other eagles hiss and squawk.

  Clumsy, clumsy.

  At the opening, the two Knights mounted with fluid grace. Their birds stood ready, their eyes alert.

  How had Rider Cornatan ever thought he could match men like these? Normally, the Apprentices mounted their birds from a platform, but it had been taken away for the night. Carro put his foot in the harness trying to imitate the Knights. He heaved himself up and almost overbalanced. The eagle flapped with his sudden shift of weight. Carro salvaged the situation by grabbing the handholds at the top of the saddle with both hands. The reins slipped from his hands, but at least he didn’t fall.

  One of the Knights gave a quick flick with his eyebrows before he launched the eagle out. Carro clicked his tongue and the eagle followed the other bird out, hurtling into the air that cut his face with the sting of thousands of knives.

  Carro was shivering, already struggling to hold onto the saddle.

  Most of the buildings in the city were dark. Lights burned in the odd window here or there, but most decent nobles and proper folk of the City of Glass had gone to bed. Alternatively, they were partying in the Outer City, which was an island of light on the plain dark blue with eternal dusk.

  Carro kneed his eagle into catching up with the others. The bird was unwilling and made no secret of its dislike at being woken up. The two Knights fell back and let him lead the way, over the festival grounds, mostly dark, over the market square, bathed in light and full of revellers, to the part of the Outer City furthest from the City of Glass. Here, Carro landed his eagle in a rough piece of land amongst warehouses. There used to be a warehouse at this plot of land, but it had burned down some years ago. He remembered the flames, which had been visible from his street. He had Isandor had climbed up the limpet roof to see the flames roaring into the sky. Now it was just an empty piece of land with mounds of snow and stone pillars which had once been the foundations of the building.

  There was nowhere to tie up the eagles, and it would probably be unwise to leave them behind anyway, so he dismounted and led the bird by the reins into the street. Eagles were not fond of walking and the bird kept jerking its head up. Carro almost lost his grip on the reins twice before he noticed how the two Knights had the leather straps wrapped around their wrists. They also kept the reins very tight, so their birds didn’t have the slack to get any force into the upward jerk. The Tutor didn’t teach that. Interesting. It worked, too.

  In silence, they progressed to the wall that was the back of the compound.

  Carro hadn’t expected guards at the gate, and indeed there were none. But now they couldn’t take the eagles any further and there was still nowhere to tie them up. Instead, the two Knights tied their birds onto each other. Their reins were interesting as well. His tack was the standard length of leather, fastened onto the harness on one end with a metal ring and looped back onto the harness on the other end. Their reins were two separate pieces of leather, each lashed around the rider’s wrist when in flight. They now tied one of these strips to each other, threading the knot through the reins of Carro’s eagle.

  Carro wanted to ask, but what about if we need them? He envisaged a tangle of feathers and wings as all three birds tried to take off at once and found they were attached to each other. But evidently, the Knights had considered this and had some sort of solution.

  Carro felt so dumb. I’m an Outer City pup, and they’ll do their best to prove it with every step I take.

  The men took daggers from their belts. Carro untied the staff and unsheathed his dagger. He was unsure in which hand to hold which and his hands were too cold to do much with either weapon anyway.

  They walked in through the open gates. On the other side was a small courtyard surrounded on three sides by a low building with a columned façade, very unlike the regular building style in the Outer City. Carro knew from earlier visits that the door was somewhere in the darkness between those columns, although he couldn’t see it. This was the furthest he had ever gone into the compound, bringing a delivery from his father to the Brothers. Fabric for bed sheets, he seemed to remember.

  Every time he’d come here, there had been children of his own age playing in the snow, those who had been rescued from abusive families, lived in the compound and received teaching from the Brothers. They had always seemed happy and harmonious. This was not a place of shouting and punishment; it was a place of learning.

  Sometimes, in his darkest hours, Carro had considered seeking refuge here, but he had always thought it unfair to the children whose families actually beat them, the girls whose fathers came home drunk and raped them every night. Those children needed the Brothers, not him. Being ignored, ridiculed or scorned every moment he spent inside his parents’ limpet didn’t injure him or kill him.

  He walked across the snow-covered yard and took the two steps up the porch. The two Knights followed him like silent shadows. From memory, the dining room was directly opposite the entrance, and the sleeping quarters were to the right. A glow lit up behind him. One of the Knights held a pebble no bigger than a fingernail, which gave off bright light. The first few windows they checked were store rooms with lots of boxes, or classrooms with benches and tables. There was a blackboard against the far wall, on which someone had drawn diagrams of squares and triangles. Carro was unsure what it meant, but he had seen similar pictures in the books he and Isandor used to read, ones that spoke of calculations of icefire.

  The next window looked into a living room of some kind, but a thick layer of ice made it hard to see. The second Knight gestured to a window further ahead.

  Inside was a dormitory-style room with two rows of beds against the walls. In each of those beds was a child. The Knight tried the window, but it wouldn’t open.

  The other Knight gestured that there was an entry on the side of the building. They headed back into the courtyard and the Knight led through a passage between the building and the compound wall. There was an outroom at the back, and facing it, a wooden door. It was locked, but it took the Knights no longer than a few heartbeats to prise it open.

  The quiet efficiency of these men chilled Carro. They had spoken no more than a handful of words since he had met them, and now he wondered if these men ever spoke. They certainly didn’t seem the type to attend Newlight celebrations and start rowdy brawls in melteries, nor to get distracted by the presence of female flesh.

  These were real Knights in the way he was not. Real Knights didn’t party, didn’t fight in melteries, didn’t try to get into a girl’s bed. Real Knights didn’t even show off their status t
o their families and old friends. Real Knights didn’t have old friends. They only had their jobs, and their superiors.

  Into the building. A straight corridor stretched into darkness.

  The fur-soled riding boots made not the slightest sound on the floor. The Knight indicated, in here. He pushed the door open, again without sound. The air inside was impossibly warm and laced with the must-tinged smell of blankets.

  The first Knight marched into the room, while the second shut the door, holding aloft the light. Meanwhile, the first Knight was yanking blankets off the beds, uncovering sleeping children who woke up to a hand pressed over their mouths. Carro clutched his staff and felt completely useless.

  The Knight struck success with the fifth child. Carro felt a cold shiver in the staff before the Knight had pulled the blankets off the bed. He was going to say that one for the sake of being useful, but the boy already sat at the edge of his bed. The harsh light showed his missing toes. Imperfect. Two heartbeats later, the Knight had the boy wrapped in a blanket and was pushing him into the corridor. All silent.

  The other Knight gestured, Quick, let’s get out of here.

  As Carro pulled the door to the dormitory shut behind him, the staff jerked in his hand, nearly causing him to drop it. He couldn’t restrain a gasp.

  Both Knights looked at him. One had slung the blanket with the boy over his shoulder.

  “Someone’s coming,” Carro whispered. He wasn’t sure if it was someone, but something was definitely happening. The metal of the staff was going alternately warm and cold in his hands.

  The Knights had stopped. Neither spoke, but their sharp gazes roamed the corridor. Carro didn’t even know their names.

  They listened. All Carro could hear was the thudding of his own heart.

  “Your imagination.” The Knight closest to him gave him a disdainful glance and turned towards the door.

  Carro shrugged, trying to be careless. Fine; these men thought he was an idiot, everyone did. He could do nothing but follow, even though the coldness in the staff increased.

  They walked back along the path between the wall and the building, into the courtyard. Carro looked over his shoulder again. Saw nothing.

  The staff chilled in his hands.

  “There’s something . . .” He didn’t know how to continue. Speak of icefire in the presence of older Knights? Did they know what Rider Cornatan knew?

  But the Knights broke into a trot.

  Carro didn’t question their motivation.

  Quick, back to the eagles. Hurry up. The staff was jerking now. He took the lead in the courtyard, the two Knights close behind. Almost at the gate. There was a noise, a soft sigh as if someone expelled a breath.

  Carro glanced over his shoulder.

  Something moved at the dormitory window, a smudge of distorted air.

  Quick.

  Puffs of snow blew up in the courtyard, coming towards them.

  Carro ran.

  A loud crack reverberated between the wings of the building, followed by a thump. Carro skidded to a stop. One of the Knights lay face-down in the snow. The second Knight, holding the boy over his shoulder, had his dagger in his hand, slashing uselessly in thin air.

  Some artefact of icefire

  Carro gripped the staff even though its surface almost froze onto his hands. Something was in the courtyard with them, something he couldn’t see. But he could see footsteps forming in the snow as the apparition walked. He waved the staff. The second Knight glanced around, his eyes wide, his dagger ready. His comrade hadn’t stirred.

  The second Knight’s head jerked back. His face froze in a surprised expression. There was a loud crack that echoed in the courtyard.

  The man fell backwards as if in slow motion and landed on the icy ground with a dull thud, the blanket with the boy under him.

  Carro wanted to run, but fear made his legs unwilling. He stared at the man’s neck, bent at an impossible angle. The invisible thing had broken the man’s neck.

  Carro waved the staff like crazy. That thing was going to kill him next. “Begone, begone, whatever you are!”

  A sudden gust of wind picked up, howling around the building. The air crackled. Snow sizzled, and blew into Carro’s face. He stood stiff with fear. He wanted to scream, but could make no sound. It felt like his entire face was on fire.

  And then quiet returned.

  Carro stood there, holding the staff. His hands ached with cold. Snow had blown into heaps obliterating any footsteps the apparition might have left. Where was it now? All Carro could see were indistinct mounds of snow, two of whom contained the Knights’ lifeless bodies.

  “Please, help.” The voice was soft and muffled.

  The Imperfect boy was pushing himself up from under the dead Knight, shaking snow out of his hair.

  “Come to me,” Carro called, still staring at the snow, expecting to see footsteps coming towards him.

  He waved the staff. The metal was so cold it steamed. His hands hurt from holding it, but he was too scared to worry about frostbite. A deep keening filled the courtyard. Wind tore through the gate, throwing up a cloud of snow.

  The boy had pushed the Knight off him. The man’s head flopped back like it was attached to this body only by skin.

  “Come now!” Carro shouted into the howling wind.

  The boy ran, clutching his blanket.

  Carro grabbed hold of him with his free arm, while hanging onto the staff with the other. The staff, and his hand, were rimed with frost. He ran, whistled for the eagle, and then remembered the business with the tied-up reins.

  But the eagles came, all three of them, flying low through the street, with their wing tips almost touching the houses on either side. The reins dangled loose—snapped? The two Knights’ eagles kept flying, but his bird landed.

  Carro heaved the boy on the saddle and clambered on behind him. One stroke of powerful wings and they were off into the night. Carro wrestled to gain control of the reins. His leather loop had broken, too, no, it had been cut.

  The boy was shivering.

  “S-s-so glad you came,” he said. His voice was young and hadn’t broken yet. “I thought . . . that blue thing was going t’ kill me like th’others.”

  Blue thing? “What did you see?”

  Carro shifted his weight to free his arm so he could lash the dangling reins around his wrist. He now saw how the tying-up trick worked. The knot still dangled in the reins of the eagle flying to the left of him. At his whistle, the birds had simply bitten through the leather. The Knights would replace the straps once they became too short.

  “Din’ you see th’ blue man?”

  “I didn’t see anything.” His teeth chattered.

  “He were all shimmery an’ in places you could see right through ’im.”

  Just what was he talking about?

  Carro had to concentrate on flying and the boy fell into silence. He didn’t shiver so much anymore. Carro was too busy staying in the saddle to talk, and too busy worrying what Rider Cornatan would say about the death of two of his elite soldiers, men much more experienced than him.

  Riding with the loose reins would have been tricky even during daytime, and the deadweight of the boy didn’t help. The eagle laboured to stay in the air, but he made the eyrie.

  Rider Cornatan was waiting at the back of the room, silhouetted by the light. Carro slid off his bird, the weight of the boy pressing him down.

  It was only when he stood in the straw, and the boy slumped on the ground that he realised the boy had lost consciousness.

  Rider Cornatan gave a sharp command. A Knight ran forward to lift the boy’s prone body off the floor.

  “Take hi
m to the infirmary. Impress on the medicos that I want him to live.”

  Then the man was gone, and Carro faced Rider Cornatan. He couldn’t bear looking up. He’d taken out two capable Knights and had come back alone. Rider Cornatan had given him the metal staff to protect the patrol, but he had run first.

  “I can explain,” he whispered, but the horror of that snap echoed in his mind. How strong was this invisible monstrosity that it could break a grown man’s neck with such a loud crack?

  There were footsteps on the floor, Rider Cornatan coming closer. Carro cringed. He would sure be beaten, punished for his failure.

  * * *

  Carro sits at the big table in the dining room. His sister is next to him, crying.

  Why did you do that, Carro? his mother asks.

  Because she is ugly.

  That is such a horrid thing to say, I don’t know how you these things come into your head.

  But it’s true.

  His mother slaps him across the face. You need to grow up. You want to be treated like a big boy, you act like one.

  * * *

  But a warm hand touched his shoulder.

  “Look at me, Carro.”

  Carro raised his head, blinking hard to repress threatening tears. He couldn’t help it—he always did or said stupid things that got himself and, most importantly, other people, into trouble.

  Rider Cornatan’s eyes met his. It was impossible to guess what went on behind that gaze.

  “I know what it means to face the horrors of the Thillei legacy,” Rider Cornatan said in a low voice. “There are certain things we simple human beings cannot fight. That is the true reason I sent you: because you alone have a chance. Had you not been there, the boy would have been in the hands of the enemy. You did as well as you could.”