The Icefire Trilogy

by Patty Jansen

  He was well into the job when a voice said, “Can I help with the goats?”

  Isandor. In the faint morning light, he looked exactly like Milleus felt: tired and weary. Had the boy slept at all? He’d noticed activity in that big tent until he had fallen asleep.

  The boy clambered over the railing. Blue eyes met his with an expression of concern. “Are you all right, Milleus?”

  “I’m just a grumpy old man. A very tired and grumpy old man with weather in his bones.”

  “I don’t like the weather either. It looks like there is bad weather coming. In the City of Glass, the sky goes like this when there is a snow storm on its way.”

  He was right. The ill-defined, low-hanging clouds were typical for snow. At least, they were in the southern highlands. It didn’t snow in Tiverius.

  Isandor picked up the bucket.

  Milleus heaved himself off the too-low milking stool and let Isandor take his usual spot. They fell into the familiar routines, milking, feeding, changing drinking water and brushing the goats, including passing milk to waiting people. All those were Chevakians who had been around the fire last night. There were not many, so they had milk left over, which Isandor poured in two cups, took one himself and handed the other to Milleus. They drank, leaning on the railing of the goat pen.

  Artan and his wife had come out of their tent and were now cooking breakfast, and a few others were starting to pack their tents. It wouldn’t be long before the Chevakians would leave. And Milleus, damn it, had promised to lead them. Yet, seeing Isandor’s young face made him doubt that the youngsters would be up to all the trouble they might face here. He had so little time left to tell them all he wanted to say. He didn’t even know where to begin.

  “The Queen, huh?” Milleus said.

  Isandor shrugged. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to lie to you, but we were running away from the Knights and she wanted it like that.”

  “Why did you run?”

  “Jevaithi is scared, for a good reason. She had nowhere to go.” Then he went on to describe a life locked up in the tallest tower in the City of Glass, kept away from the people who adored her. A life of constant put-downs and threats. A life where the young princess had seen her mother slowly wither away, both in mental and physical strength, locked up in the tower for her protection by the people who controlled every aspect of her life. And he told of the mystery surrounding Jevaithi’s father, and how the Supreme Rider Cornatan, the regent, kept telling her that he would rape her so that he could have his own blood on the throne.

  While Isandor was talking, he met Milleus’ eyes, through a curtain of ratty and greasy black hair. “Tell me, knowing all this, wouldn’t you have fled?”

  “I guess so.” Milleus couldn’t imagine a life of hardship like this. “But if she lived so protected, how did you become involved?”

  Isandor spoke of how he’d been an Eagle Knight, how he flew in a race, won and how Jevaithi had crowned him her champion. The first time they met each other’s eyes, they had felt a connection. “We’re both Imperfect.” He glanced at his wooden leg. “But soon after I won, my friend betrayed me. Imperfects can’t be Knights.”

  “Just because you have a part of your leg missing, you are considered inferior, and are not allowed to sign up?”

  Isandor nodded.

  “Mercy, in Chevakia you’d be branded a hero, an invalid having beaten more able men.”

  “Imperfect,” Isandor said.

  “Well, that’s pretty much the same as invalid, isn’t it?”

  Isandor shook his head. “Imperfect means not just that we are missing parts of our arms or legs, but also that we can feel icefire.”

  “Sonorics.”

  “Icefire. Sonorics is what Chevakians call it. Chevakians don’t understand it.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “No. When Chevakians say sonorics, they only mean the parts they can measure. The things they can’t explain are called magic. And magic is something that’s not real, no? And something people don’t believe in.”

  The intense look in his eyes gave Milleus a chill. For years, the doga had waged a public campaign to weed out the use of the word magic, because it made people fearful where they didn’t need to be. Sonorics was not magic. You could measure it, and make it harmless. Sonorics was under control, and did not need to be feared. But understand it . . . he suspected not even the Most Learned Alius fully understood it.

  Isandor continued, “Imperfects are Imperfect, because we can feel icefire in the air.”

  Milleus knew about the southern resistance to the effects of icefire, but now apparently their bodies had built-in sensors? He thought of the sonorics meters he had seen Sady carrying around, big clunky boxes that contained magnetised strips of metal that attracted the motes, which were then fed into a gel-filled tube, which then needed to be processed in the dark by rolling it over a sheet of silver-paper. It was a cumbersome process that made the bellows air-pressure meters look like child’s toys. Was he saying that these Imperfect people could do that within their bodies? “What exactly do you mean by feel?”

  “Like . . .” Isandor raised his hands and let them fall again. “Feel. It’s in the air.”

  “Here and now?”

  “Yes. Not much, but there is some. We can . . .” He held out his hand, palm up. A tiny spark lit up, like a miniature bolt of lightning. “It’s very weak.”

  Milleus stared at Isandor’s palm, now very normal and pale-skinned. “You did that?”

  “Yes. I told you.”

  “And everyone can do that?”

  “Only Imperfects. Ones with arms or legs missing.”

  That meant both the youngsters. “And what can you do with it?”

  “Not much, unless you know a lot about it, but that kind of lessons are forbidden. Normally, if an Imperfect baby is born, the Knights leave it on the ice floes for the wild animals to eat.”

  Milleus stared at Isandor’s leg, hidden under his trousers. “Yet the Knights allowed you to become one of them?”

  “Yes, I . . .” Isandor looked down. “When I think hard about the leg I don’t have, it seems that people don’t notice that it isn’t there.”

  Magic. Illusions, ghosts that were said to roam the southern slopes as far down as the barrier. Insubstantial beings that ripped apart livestock that strayed onto the southern slopes. He remembered his own struggle keeping goats safe from what he had always thought were sabre-wolves, but he had never actually seen a sabre-wolf. Magic beings, magic people. He shivered. “Surely you did something to cover up your wooden leg.” It wouldn’t be that hard, since he had his knee. A good prosthetic on a boy who was young enough to learn to run with it might be barely noticeable.

  “I have a shoe that fits the end of the wood.”

  “There you go.” But what a brave kid he was to have enlisted regardless of the threat that he’d be punished severely if found out. Milleus tried to remember his own sons at that age. Andrean insecure and shy, Kalius thought he knew it all and was popular with the girls. Compared to this young man, they’d lived such luxurious, protected lives.

  “You don’t believe me.” Isandor lifted his trouser leg. “I’ll show you.”

  The skin on Isandor’s leg was unbelievably pale, with sparse black hair. The wooden stump was tied to his leg below the bony knee, but an insubstantial white veil marked the place where Isandor’s calf would be, had his leg been complete.

  Milleus stared and blinked, as if that would make the illusion go away.

  “Feel it.”

  Milleus did. His hand went straight through the illusion, but the wispy form made his fingers ice-cold.

  “Mercy.”

  “It’s not ver
y good. It was a lot stronger yesterday.”

  Not very good? This was scary. Some form of optical projection of light. The white veil slowly faded.

  Was there another word for this other than magic? “I still don’t get it. If they were intent on killing you, why did you sign up for the Knighthood?” He cleared his throat, because his mouth seemed to have gone dry.

  Isandor shrugged. “They seemed . . . honourable, and noble. I thought, because no one said anything about my leg . . . that it didn’t matter anymore. All those persecutions of Imperfects were a long time ago. I thought people no longer cared.” He let a small pause lapse. “Also, I like animals.”

  Milleus nodded; he’d noticed that, too. “But once you were in the Knighthood you found out it wasn’t as you thought?”

  “A lot of bad things happen there. The Knights are so afraid of the supporters of the old royal family that they punish anyone who has items that used to belong to the royal family. But a lot of people have those things. After the king was killed, people went into the palace and stole everything the royal family owned. Between the Knights, at the Eyrie, superiors use beatings and rape to keep new recruits under control. Everyone is afraid of everyone else. I had a friend . . .” His eyes looked distant. “His name is Carro.”

  “The one who betrayed you?”

  He nodded. “The Tutors singled him out for punishment. I don’t know why, but he’s kind of awkward. He always says the wrong things to people, and seems to think everyone conspires against him. And then he does things like telling the superior what the Apprentices got up to last night just so that the superior will be pleased with him.”

  “Some friend.”

  “I don’t think he can help it.” Isandor blew out a breath. “He’s probably dead now.”

  Milleus felt sick. “What a barbaric world.” He had known this, of course, but it had always been a distant thing. “How did you two even get to this age?”

  “The Knights couldn’t kill the princess, because the people love the Queen and would have rebelled. About me, I never knew why I’d been saved.”

  “Surely, someone must think that this is barbaric. Isn’t there anyone who does anything for these poor invalid children?”

  “Yes, there is a group called the Brothers of the Light, who run orphanages. They save Imperfect children, sometimes. Not me.” His expression was intense.

  “So what about you, then?”

  Isandor’s face went tense. “I wanted to show you. I found this last night.” He slowly drew a couple of books from inside his cloak. “I found these in a travel chest that’s in the tent. I’m not sure whose they were.” Isandor put the top book into Milleus’ outstretched hand.

  Milleus turned it over, studied the very southern leather cover, and opened the book with its soft vellum pages. He ran his fingertips over the page full of curly southern letters. He didn’t know the language well enough to easily read it, but the recognised that certain lines were dates, which, in the south, went back to some past war. “A diary?”

  Isandor nodded.

  Milleus turned another page. The vellum was of extra-ordinary fine quality. He didn’t even know they made things like this in the south. Spread over two pages was an intricate drawing of a strange creature. Its body was vaguely wolf-like in shape, but it had no hair and its skin was grey and wrinkled. From its shoulder blades sprang two huge leathery wings, with claws on the end. The drawing showed it slashing sharp nails at a white bear. The white fur was bathed in blood. A small diagram in the corner showed the creature in flight. He froze. That was the thing he’d seen last night. Or was it?

  “What is this thing?”

  “It’s a . . . dacon. This is the symbol of the royal family.” He pointed to a stylised representation of the creature, arranged within the border of a circle that looked like a family seal. “If the Knights find this symbol on anything, they take it off you. Any old cups and plates, and books, and things that came from the old king’s household.”

  “Could I . . . could it be possible that I saw one of those creatures?”

  Isandor turned sharply to Milleus. “It would have been an eagle.”

  “I felt . . .” Milleus put his hands together. “First, the air was cold. Then I heard this beastly cry. I saw a creature fly over. It wasn’t an eagle. I’ve heard those. I’ve seen those, too. This creature was dark, and had no feathers. When it passed, the air became warm.”

  Isandor nodded. “I felt that, too. But, this creature . . . people in the City of Glass say it’s just a story. It doesn’t exist.”

  “You’re absolutely certain of that?”

  Isandor met his eyes, but said nothing. He let a silence lapse before continuing. “Anyway, I wanted to show you something else. It’s on this page.” He flipped through the pages, until he reached the two-page diagram with lines of what looked like names.

  Milleus looked at it, silently.

  “They’re all names—”

  “I can read those,” Milleus said, running his finger down the list. “Just not very well or fast.” And he was clearly meant to find Isandor’s name. Indeed, there it was. Maraithe x Tandor: Jevaithi and Isandor. Milleus looked into Isandor’s eyes and said nothing for a long time. A tear tracked over Isandor’s young face. He sniffed.

  “This changes everything,” Milleus said, slowly.

  Isandor nodded, and wiped his cheek. “This is bad—”

  “Bad?” Milleus raised his eyebrows.

  “Bad for me. They only want the queen, and they only want her to shut her mouth and do as they tell her. I have too many opinions. The Knights will kill me. The Brothers won’t know what to do about me. They already think I’m trouble. They’ll try to kill me, too, if they can. They just want Jevaithi to be their puppet queen. They don’t want anyone to interfere.” His eyes were wide.

  Milleus nodded, slowly. “Possibly, but have you considered—”

  “And Jevaithi will be angry with me.”

  Yes, he could understand that. “She couldn’t have known?”

  Isandor shook his head. “Tandor was always telling everyone how he’d lost his . . . manly bits and couldn’t be my father—”

  Milleus winced.

  “He lied to everyone.” He let a silence lapse. A tear rolled over his cheek. “I slept with my sister.”

  “But you didn’t know she is your sister.” And then he had to suppress a shudder because of the implications. In Chevakia, it would have been a punishable crime. He hoped the City of Glass didn’t have such laws. After all, if no one knew who their parents were, then it was bound to happen more often. He continued in a low voice, “You can only do one thing.”

  “And that is? I have to tell her, and then she’ll be upset and then everyone will know. And then they’ll kill me because they can imprison a Queen, but they’re afraid of another king.”

  “Yes, you have to tell her. But you also have to find a way to use it. You will be stronger together than she can be alone.”

  “But no one listens to me. I’m only an Outer City boy. No one listens to a boy. No one listens to the queen, even. They don’t even want us here. I bet they were disappointed when we came into the camp.”

  “No one listens to an old man either, but you’ll have to make them.”

  There was a clang of tent post and the squeal of children as one of the Chevakian tents came down.

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

  Milleus sighed. “We are, I’m sorry. I am hoping that the guards will let us through just to be rid of us. Then we’ll go to the doga and demand that they deal with the situation, that they let all the Ensar people through, or clear the road, and take them to a different camp. I’ll be back with help, I promise.”
r />   Isandor’s mouth twitched. “I would have loved to go to Tiverius.”

  “You can come with me.”

  Isandor pressed his lips together but then sighed and shook his head. “I have to stay here, and Jevaithi couldn’t come, even if she wanted. I have to stay with her. I think she trusts these people here far too much. Because they’re not Knights, it doesn’t mean that they won’t try to use her in the same way the Knights did.”

  Milleus nodded. He didn’t look forward to leaving the youngsters behind. “It would have been a lot easier had you told me who she was. I could have prevented most of this from happening. For one, I would never have taken the main road, so we would now be safely at my brother’s house.” He would have been able to take her into the doga, and it would have helped his standing, too. Never before had there been much of a relationship between the Proctor, or indeed anyone in the doga, and the southern royal family.

  “If I’d told you, you would have handed us over to the local army post.”

  Milleus thought back to a time that felt like it was years ago, when he did everything to avoid being public figure and taking responsibility for the district in which he lived. “Maybe.” A bit later, he added, “Probably, yes.”

  * * *

  Not much later, the Chevakians had finished packing, and the convoy was ready to go. Milleus climbed into the truck, alone, and found it horribly quiet and empty in the cabin.

  Mercy, if only the youngsters had told them who they were earlier, he would never have gone into the camp—but no one had known that the inhabitants were southerners. He would never . . .

  He sighed. He must do his best to make sure that they were safe and to make sure that no fanatics got control over the camp, and that, for once Chevakia and the people of the City of Glass spoke openly and worked together.

  The column of trucks started moving downhill.

  Milleus closed the escape valve and his truck jumped into motion. Isandor and Jevaithi waved.