The Icefire Trilogy

by Patty Jansen

  “Anything you have,” a woman shouted. “We’ll pay. I have two young children to feed.”

  “We need blankets!” another woman shouted.

  “My father broke his leg. Do you have a medic in town?”

  Dara just stood there, while people at the back of the crowd were jostling each other for space.

  “Oh, the blighting freeloaders,” Ontane muttered. He shut the shed’s side door, produced a key from under his clothes and locked it. “Come, mistress.” He ploughed through knee-deep snow towards the crowd. “You lot, stop harassing my wife!”

  Everyone in that crowd turned to Ontane and started shouting at him.

  Ontane yelled over their voices, “Dara, get inside and shut the door. You lot, it’d be the end of winter and we have no food to share. Go out there in the forest and hunt your own. There be rabbits and moose—”

  There was a shout across the street, at a neighbour’s house. A woman had come outside with a crate of bread.

  As one, all the refugees ran across the street, pushing to get through Ontane’s gate. Young men vaulted the fence. At least a hundred people crammed into the neighbour’s yard, and soon fights broke out.

  Loriane followed Ontane to his house, through the trampled snow.

  She was angry. “You could have shared some of your food. Those people are hungry and desperate.”

  “Precisely. They’re desperate and we don’t have enough to feed all of them, not even the ones who have money—” He stopped in the doorway and stared. “Quick, inside. There be a lot more coming.”

  He shut the door and shoved two bolts shut. They stood there, staring at each other.

  “What are going to do?” Dara said. Her plain face was wide-eyed. “They’ll swamp the town. They’ll ruin everything, like the Knights did.”

  “We gotta go,” Ontane said. “Let’s hide at Zany Peak.”

  “But they’ll wreck the house if we’re not here.”

  “We’ll lock it up. In any case, it’d be better than let the mob kill us.” He looked at Loriane. “Sorcerer awake yet?”

  “Not when I last looked.”

  “How is he?”

  “Not so good, I’m afraid. He’s alive, but barely conscious.”

  “Let’s go see him.” He started up the stairs.

  In the upstairs bedroom, Tandor was still asleep. Loriane folded back the blood-stained cover. The low light showed up the burned blisters like ugly sores. Weeping skin glistened. A muscle in his neck twitched.

  Ontane’s throat worked. “He be fine to ride?”

  “Like this? He can’t even sit up. And I don’t think I could take any more fleeing.”

  “Ye have to, mistress. See that?” He flicked aside the curtain.

  Loriane looked.

  By the feeble blue light, she saw hundreds of black specks on the snow plain, thousands even. “Are they all. . . ?”

  “They all be refugees wanting to eat. By midday, there be hunnreds of them outside, and some of them talk . . . I dunno. A wall of steam—y’know—coming after them. I don’ like the sounds of this, mistress. Ne’er liked the Queen’s magic much, and him over there . . .” he nodded at Tandor “. . . he knows more about this magic than he let on, doesn’t he? He went out there looking for the magic and it looks like magic found him instead, dinnit?”

  Loriane had nothing to say to that. She was out of ideas, and too sore and tired to care.

  “If we . . . go, how long will that be for?” She shivered at the thought of having to give birth somewhere in the snow, or some cramped hut, with Ontane watching.

  “Not long. The wife will be with us, and we have food. You be comfortable, mistress.”

  Loriane shrugged. She was far from convinced, but it seemed like they didn’t have a choice. She took Tandor’s hand and stroked the feverish skin. Tears blurred her vision. She was so tired.

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  SADY SPREAD THE MAP out over the camp table.

  The automated barygraphs hadn’t lied. He had half-hoped that the devices, such as the one that stood at the base of the telegraph pole in the forest clearing, had malfunctioned, and that the massive dip in air pressure some instruments had recorded yesterday was the result of a mere error. But the protective glass was intact, and so was the tiny bellows that contracted and expanded with the air pressure, and the thin needle, precision-mounted on a rod of crystal, which didn’t expand much with heat. The bellows pushed or pulled one end of the needle, the crystal acted like a see-saw and the other, longer, end of the needle went up or down, touching thin copper wires set at intervals. Each time the needle passed such a wire, it would send a signal down the line. Most of the barygraphs Sady had visited in these few days had the needle stuck well below the lowest pressure reading. With all the will in the world, he couldn’t call this an error.

  If nothing else, the sky confirmed the low pressure reading, with scudding clouds which looked, for all he could think, like it was going to snow any minute.

  Mercy, snow in summer. There was a massive low-pressure cell building up over the southern plateau. Thankfully, sonorics had remained stable. Too high, but still stable.

  “Senator, are you ready to go?” a soldier behind him said.

  Sady turned around, both annoyed and appreciative of the men who had offered to help him in Ensar, after he’d come back from his private and useless trip to see Milleus and found the train delayed. Typical, the local official said, and he’d gone into a diatribe about how the doga needed to give the district more money for trains.

  Money, money, everything was about the lack of money.

  “The balloon’s almost ready,” the soldier said. “Waiting for your directions.”

  He was holding these men up, and they had better things to do than hang around waiting for him. “Have you been able to contact the Tiverius office?”

  “Yes, briefly, although the line has a lot of static.”

  “Any important news?”

  Sady had wanted news from Milleus; that he had changed his mind, but so far, the old bear had been completely silent.

  “Vikius han Marossi sent a couple of missives for you. He says they’re urgent.”

  Sady took the paper from the soldier. In irregular block letters, the man had written out Viki’s message, Sernator Sadorius han Chevonian, please confirm meteorology handbook rule 23 and confirm that I can apply it.

  Sady shook his head. Had Viki truly never sent a telegraph and didn’t he know that every character added cost?

  Rule 23 regarded the collection of rooftop rainwater for human consumption. The quota system that allowed residents to keep a certain amount for their gardens wasn’t easy to explain in a few words. If more water had been collected than necessary in a citizen’s tank, than that house could use the excess water for ornamental gardens.

  The next sheet said, Senator Timmonian won’t give me access to the city’s water storage.

  Oh, mercy, what had happened in Tiverius while he was away?

  Sady groaned. Viki, Viki, what have you done?

  He had hoped to hang around here a few days so that he could still pick up Milleus if he changed his mind at the last moment, as Milleus was wont to do.

  But now . . .

  No, he couldn’t stay. His duty lay in Tiverius. Viki’s clumsiness was causing an avalanche of disasters. Milleus could find his own way there, although by now, Sady felt it would be unlikely he would. What then? Nominate himself to stand against Destran? Was there another option?

  He let his gaze roam over the campsite. The soldiers had packed their tents into the balloon’s basket and spent most of the past hour inflating the massive air bubble which now
towered over the trees. Squally winds tugged at the gas bag. The balloon was weighed down with bags of pebbles, each bearing a stencilled image of the two crossed guns over a gear blade, the sign of the Chevakian army. Little boys would scour the woods looking for these ballast bags and return them to the nearest authorities for a small payment.

  Sady sighed and rolled up the maps. He wished he had more time to take measurements, but his current understanding of the situation would have to do.

  The soldiers folded the camp table as soon as Sady had removed the maps.

  Sady clambered into the gondola and sat down at his usual spot at the back, out of the way of the crew, who were now throwing off ropes, rolling them up and stowing them.

  “Where to next, Senator?”

  “We head straight back to Tiverius.”

  * * *

  Sady considered on the whole that balloons were pretty handy and, given the grim situation, he felt almost guilty for enjoying his balloon ride.

  One day, when all this trouble blew over, he would have to wrest designs from the army and start a civilian balloon transport service. Much nicer than the smelly train he’d taken out here.

  Thanks to the soldiers who had taken pity on him, poorly dressed as he was in an unexpected snap of cold, and waylaid by a train malfunction, he was now back in Tiverius two days early, and had been able to take sonorics measurements at height as a bonus.

  Now, though, as the buildings of the city tracked under him, and the soldiers who manned the burners were letting air out to make the balloon sink to the ground, his feet itched to get back to the doga and deal with all the disasters he would find there. And the inevitable confrontation with Destran.

  And before that, his impending admission of failure to his supporters. He could not tell the fifty senators who had signed intent to vote that his mission to bring back Milleus had been unsuccessful. If he did, he was a failure and they would never trust him again. Yet he did not want to stand for Proctor. He did not, he did not. He was not the right kind of person, not flamboyant enough. They would compare him with his brother; they would sneer about the fact that he had never married, that his brother’s poor ways with women had rubbed off on him. They would say that he was his brother’s mouthpiece. No Chief Meteorologist had ever challenged. He didn’t even represent a district. It was a recipe for disaster. But was there an alternative?

  A northern candidate would never get enough votes. There were no suitable southern candidates. Destran’s cronies were out of the question.

  His thoughts were going around and around in circles.

  Sady caught the train from the army barracks. The city, which would normally be basking under a blue sky at this time of the year, was shrouded in heavy cloud. The citizens on the train were talking about it, and one man shared Sady’s feeling that those looked like snow clouds.

  He alighted from the train at Tiverius’ central station and from there, walked across the city’s central square, perfectly paved, with planted trees at equal intervals. The columned, marble doga building basked in a flash of brilliant sunlight that peeped between the clouds. A gust of wind tore through the young leaves, sending a flurry of flower petals over the pavement.

  Sady held both sides of his cloak together with one hand, and ran up the steps. He felt lonely, abandoned and insignificant.

  The wind was not as strong in the courtyard, but here his footsteps echoed eerily. Where was everyone? Sady went into the tall columned main entrance of the building and up the steps to the second floor corridor where his office was.

  He was about halfway up the steps when he heard the agitated voices. A man was shouting. Someone else replied.

  He turned the corner and found himself at the back of a crowd in the corridor.

  Oh, mercy, they weren’t standing in front of his office, were they?

  “You can’t do this!” a man shouted. “We need to be notified of any change in cropping schedule in advance.”

  Heart beating fast, Sady shooed people aside. “Excuse me, excuse me, can I get through?”

  Some people in the crowd turned.

  “Senator Sadorius!” someone shouted. More people turned.

  “Senator, what’s this about the change in cropping schedules?” someone else asked.

  “Do you authorise the change?”

  Someone else yelled, “He says we can’t use water collected from our roofs anymore. So what are we supposed to do?”

  Someone at the back of the crowd added, “Yeah, whose stupid idea is this?”

  Change in cropping schedules? “Wait, wait, wait!” Sady advanced into the group. “Can someone tell me please what is going on?”

  “He did it!” a man shouted, and pointed at the door of Sady’s office, where Viki stood, red-faced, clutching a bundle of notes.

  To his credit, Viki straightened and answered with a clear voice, “I did nothing unauthorised. I’m following the doga’s protocol and the meteorology handbook.”

  “It’s irrational!” a man shouted and others agreed.

  Sady raised his voice. “Quiet, calm down!”

  They did, glancing at each other from the corners of their eyes.

  Sady looked around the group. There were men he recognised as regional representatives, and even merchants. Mercy, he’d hoped Viki wouldn’t create some sort of disaster in his absence, and it looked like the young man had done just that. On top of everything else that had happened.

  “Viki, would you care to explain?”

  “Well, I—” He glanced nervously at all the people demanding his attention.

  Sady jerked his head at the office door. “Inside.”

  When the onlookers grumbled, Sady added. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  Viki disappeared into the room, and Sady followed, shutting the door behind him.

  He took a step towards his desk, and stopped.

  Every flat surface in the office had been covered with curling snakes of data read-outs, maps and papers. Some had spilled onto the floor.

  “What in the heavens has happened here?” Sady grabbed one, glancing at the data, but needed time to fully make sense of it.

  “I haven’t done anything,” Viki said. “I was just following—”

  “Please start at the beginning.”

  By now, Sady had an ominous feeling about where this was going. The unseasonal cold wind was not as innocent as it seemed. The massive low pressure spikes he had measured had made it even to the capital.

  Viki swallowed. “Well, after levelling off, sonorics levels suddenly went up after you left, and they crossed the twenty motes level in the border regions. First in the Fairlight district, so I used the doga’s protocol to stop exports from there—”

  “Viki, you can’t just do that one-sided . . .”

  Viki turned around and handed Sady a readout. “I can’t? Look at this. I followed protocol, from the handbook!” His voice spilled over with emotion and his eyes glittered.

  Sady looked at the graph Viki held up. The plotting machine had skipped up to a larger scale so that the red line hadn’t risen off the page. Twenty motes, twenty-seven, thirty-six. Fifty-nine. And still, the direction of the plotted graph was up. Mercy. Blood rose to his cheeks and ears while he looked at the graph. He licked his lips. “This is a verified measurement?” The readings were nothing short of horrific.

  “Look at the others. They’re all close. One measurement I could discount as a transmission error, but all the measurements are like this.”

  Mercy. Out went his prepared words for scolding Viki. It seemed the young student had acted every bit as Sady himself would have, perhaps with more authority, but still. While he’d been away, the Fairlight district had been
bombarded with sonorics. “Have you heard if the barrier is still holding with this strain?”

  “It is, according to the latest news.”

  Sady’s heart was thudding against his ribs. The town of Fairlight was very close to the border. There were thousands of people in the district, a fertile agricultural area. “Do we still have a telegraph line to Fairlight?”

  “Fairlight is hard to get on the line at the moment. Too much static. But the line hasn’t gone completely. We can try. Any message you want me to send?”

  “Yes.” Then he hesitated, knowing that what he did wish to say, get your backsides out of there, would cause a flood of panic and outrage. “I’ll deal with it in person.”

  * * *

  But by the time Sady had dealt with the chaos outside his office, and he had made his way to the telegraph offices, the link had been severed.

  Worry rising in him, he went to the Scriptorium to ask Alius about that new medicine, because he had a feeling it would be needed soon. However, Alius wasn’t in, and he had to contend with leaving a note. He made the text as urgent as he could, but figured there was a good chance he’d have to chase it up, given Alius’ recent record of replying to his messages. Damn, if only he could understand why the man had decided to hate him so much.

  After a brief bite to eat in the building’s canteen, where he was besieged by senators wondering where Milleus was and other senators still smarting over Viki’s dealing with the situation, he prepared for that afternoon’s doga session. A quick glance at the agenda had him shaking his head with frustration. Funding for bridges and a new Scriptorium in regional towns was all very well, but there was no mention of the crisis, except in the section Questions raised by members, and he noted, with a sense of satisfaction, that it had been Viki who had entered the question How will we deal with rising sonorics levels at our borders?

  Mercy, maybe the young student had more courage than he had given him credit for.

  He gulped his food and too-hot tea while outside the window, over the administrative wing of the building, snow clouds gathered.