Frost

by Mark A. Garland

  One down, Frost thought. But even his Subartans were only human, and could only keep this effort up another few moments before they began to falter or were overwhelmed. Imadis and his men would then come for him once Sharryl and Rosivok had fallen, intent on taking the prize that had driven them to risk their lives in the first place.

  No! Frost vowed. He was not about to lose those two, they had been through too many years and battles together, and had become too well suited for each other—to Frost. Think of something . . . He still heard Imadis' thoughts faintly, more emotion than words, but the sorcerer was clearly growing excited in response to Frost's own desperate thoughts. Frost needed a completely new plan, one Imadis hadn't already thought of.

  Both Subartans turned abruptly and lunged down the rock toward the hollow between the two rises. Four soldiers remained with Imadis, leaving eight of them still able to make pursuit. Frost watched the larger group. They were being so careful as they edged down the steep rocks, minding each step so as not to fall, looking almost comical, but when they reached the bottom any trace of humor was lost. The battle raged again, this time head to head, shoulder to shoulder. Despite their feebleness, though, the attackers' numbers and their damnable habit of healing after every good blow kept the outcome grim.

  Frost . . .

  Imadis was calling to him, but why?

  The reason came fiercely clear as the sickness struck at Frost from within and began to overwhelm him. His body broke into a cold, soaking sweat as his insides churned, as his body began to ache. He felt the urge to heave up what little bread and cheese he had eaten for breakfast; then he swayed, dizzy as the fever continued to rise rapidly, high enough to cook what few wits he had left. Imadis had prepared this spell carefully and at length, had fashioned it to follow the name directly into Frost's mind and body once Imadis had spoken it properly, and Frost had taken it to heart.

  Frost's own warding spells were useless against it, since he had given his best preparation to Imadis only moments ago. That was certainly the most admirable part of Imadis' considerable plan, or the luckiest. He had used his familiarity with Frost's ways and methods to good result.

  Frost felt himself swaying as if blown by a wind, though the air was quite still. A fresh surge of nausea churned his belly. He had nearly been destroyed in the encounter with the demon prince, Tyrr, a disaster that had left him beaten and empty, unwilling and unable to attempt even the smallest sorceries, and lacking the smallest hope of ever finding confidence again. But this was only a man, a sorcerer such as himself. Until the battle with Tyrr at Kamrit, Frost had never lost before, and he intended never to lose again.

  With that thought his right knee buckled, and he found himself kneeling on the rocks trying to catch his breath, so dizzy and weak that he could barely move.

  The Blade, Imadis was saying, thinking, dreaming—as a starving man dreams of feasts—The Demon Blade.

  Frost heard Sharryl and Rosivok shout out from below, the howls of warriors about to be overwhelmed yet roaring back at the imminence of that fate, raging at their own ends with a courage they would never abandon.

  There were no spells, nothing Frost could think of now, nothing he could do that would turn the battle. There were other warding spells, some different enough, perhaps, to break Imadis' hold on him for a time. Long enough to save myself, Frost guessed, though even those seemed too difficult just now—and then what? Sharryl and Rosivok would not be helped and his demise would still be inevitable.

  Frost's mind reeled from fever and frustration, from the certain knowledge that whatever he did, he had only the time and stamina and presence of mind to make perhaps one effort. Only one. Then, either way . . .

  Frost let his cloak drop from his shoulders. The world spun around as he moved his head. Sweat from his forehead ran and burned his eyes. He gasped at the heaviness of the breath in his lungs and the sweat-soaked clothing that clung to him. He wanted to slump back onto his haunches but he fought that urge. He needed to kneel at least, to do what he knew he should not do, what he had promised himself on the battlefield in Ariman he would never do again.

  If it is the Demon Blade you want, then you shall have it! Frost thought. He reached up to his shoulder and pulled the strap down, around, then groped at the linens that kept the Blade itself hidden from the world. Next he took the hilt, first in one hand, then the other, and pulled the sword from its sheath.

  Now what? he thought, reeling still. His successes with the Blade involved the most complicated, unlikely and unpalatable confluence of sorceries ever imagined. Spells that drew energy, but turned inside out, spells like those he was using to sense Imadis' thoughts, but turned on their side, deflection and warding spells turned completely around, a chant that aided in focussing, another that helped repel. The knowledge of a lifetime scavenged, bastardized, adapted to a purpose even Frost could barely understand. It had worked once—worked too well—and he had nearly died in the attempt. It would take half a lifetime of working with the Blade to learn how to control it without destroying himself, or others. But for now, he had only a moment, and hardly any wits at all.

  Frost focussed on the far hill where Imadis stood feeding the spells that kept his soldiers alive, and kept him in such agony. As he had done before he raised the Blade and braced himself, remembering as best he could, whispering the words, the sounds barely leaving his lips. The first time he had tried this feat the Blade had used nearly all the energy he could give; it had drained much of the life out of those who stood near at the time. Sharryl, Rosivok and Madia had nearly died. Then he had tried again—reduced to a bag of bones, he'd tried again—gambling with the only thing he had left, his life, he'd tried. As I must do now.

  "Sharryl, Rosivok, to me!"

  They heard and without hesitation they turned and headed up the hill, Imadis' aged but determined troops trailing after them. The moment the two Subartans reached the top Frost had them get well behind him, then he concentrated on both Imadis and the soldiers just below, now no more than fifty paces away. Darkness took him briefly as he finished the last phrases of the spell, and added his binding phrase. He blinked, and saw a brilliant flash of blue-white fire explode from the Blade and cross across the distance between the two sorcerers. It turned slightly green, then red, strengthening, blindingly radiant now—so great a concentration of unearthly power that Frost could not truly comprehend it, even though he knew something of what to expect. A second blaze ignited, arching off, down and left, to the climbing soldiers just below.

  Frost paid desperate attention, first to the accuracy of his aim, something he could only get a sense of, and then to his mind's ear as Imadis screamed out in horror as Frost's aim proved true. He watched even more closely for the moment when the blaze would turn suddenly white once more—the instant when it ceased to draw energy from Imadis and the soldiers below, and went after a new source of energy. The nearest source.

  Beneath him the earth began to shake. He hadn't noticed that before, in the valley that had been the battlefield in Ariman. Hadn't noticed it here until just now. He wasn't even sure whether it was the earth or his own body that shook, or whether the brutal coldness he felt seeping into his knees and back was real or an imagined part of the panic and confusion his body was being subjected to.

  The heat was real. The flesh of his hands and face burned from the fierce radiance of the Blade's energy streams; and the inevitable pain within was real as well, like countless thousands of tiny hot embers touching every fiber of nerve, muscle, bone. Unbearable, but if he was not careful, it would get worse as quickly as . . .

  Imadis screamed out as if his very soul was being torn from him. Then Frost felt the sword grow heavier, felt that the strain of his efforts to force the fusion of so many makeshift spells had suddenly become unbearable.

  He felt the hunger next, terrifying, bottomless, a cold beyond thought or touch. The torrent of flame was turning white once more and he understood in that instant what would happen, what he mu
st do, and that it might already be too late.

  His gut turned hard as the pain exploded inside him—even as he tried to let go of everything, the spells, the world, the Demon Blade itself—but as he did the pain found its center in his chest and the weight of twenty horses came to rest on his ribs. Reality seemed to slow nearly to a stop, as if the pain had weighted it down. He couldn't get away, couldn't put two thoughts in a row, couldn't stop.

  His ears were ringing, but the sound seemed to come from beyond himself, from beyond the air around him and the earth on which he stood, a sound like the tearing of a fabric never seen or touched by mortal minds. The notion was abstract, yet intensely terrifying, and sent him groping back through twisting layers of pain, magic and substance in search of the release that should have come—should have come ages ago.

  Let go. . . .

  The darkness gripped him, then blinding light that touched off a final explosion of pain inside him, and severed his last ties with self, with flesh . . . with the world. He collapsed on the rocks, but the rocks ran away from underneath him, and he felt himself begin to tumble over the edge. He couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't move any part of his body as it fell.

  His mind seemed suddenly taken with observing everything from a detached point of view. Nothing seemed real but the pain. Then reality found him, and touched him with a hammer as big as the mountain itself.

  He felt hands clutching at his clothing, pulling him backward. Or perhaps he only imagined he did. He tried to open his eyes, he thought he had, but only darkness filled his mind. Then even his most errant thoughts began to fade again, until he lost them in the growing void—a place where, he was certain, he would never find them again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  He was not alone, and that was the trouble. Demons chased him: ax-wielding peasants, empty-eyed children, howling wolves and banshees and armies of dead men. They stalked him, railed at him, struck at him wherever he went. They outwitted him, but only by knowing his own thoughts even as he came to them. They could hear inside his mind—or his thoughts were leaking out of his head, spilling over in the darkness like a storm that comes in the night, pushing streams over their banks. Only with the dawn would the devastation truly be known.

  But he could find no dawn, no respite. Tied tightly across his back, the Demon Blade weighed a hundred times more than it should have, and it had begun to glow with a cold, unnatural light that radiated through his robes, acting like a beacon, shouting out to all and sundry where the Demon Blade was—where he was—luring them closer. He pulled at the bindings until his fingers were bloody but they would not loosen or break.

  Then a moment of relative calm, the demons busy elsewhere, perhaps. But now he heard a familiar voice call to him. Imadis . . . ? He saw the other as he turned toward the sound but it was only Imadis' head after all, sailing along in the darkness like a bird adrift on the winds. He listened more closely and decided the voice did not sound like Imadis after all, not really.

  He watched the head sail closer and noticed it wasn't even the entire head, only two thirds at most. The rest—well, the rest had been destroyed.

  "Frost," the voice said again, chasing away shapes in the darkness and replacing them with pain, with light.

  "Frost."

  Frost opened his eyes and daylight stabbed into them. He winced at the brightness, tried to focus on the shapes of shadow, and finally decided Rosivok was hovering over him. He blinked, tried again, and saw that this was not the Rosivok he recollected. This one was gaunt, pale, shaking. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes surrounded by black circles. Sharryl stood just beside him, her own face like a skull covered with only the thinnest veneer of flesh. Much of their hair had fallen out. Like living dead, he thought, less than pleased.

  Now Cantor came into view looking only slightly better than the two Subartans, holding one arm and bleeding from his hairline. The blood had left a trail down his left cheek, then soaked into his richly textured tunics. A different man, Frost saw. The vaunting aplomb, the wry smile familiar enough to make Frost self-conscious of his own, all of it was gone, replaced by the look of a man suddenly cut off from everything he had ever held dear. He stared fix-eyed and slack-jawed at Frost, body trembling. Silent. Well, Frost thought, there is that at least.

  He lay still for a long moment and decided he must look much the same as the others, perhaps worse. Which was indeed a pity. He had been this way before, and hadn't liked it. Not to mention the weeks it had taken to recover, the pain and effort of restoration and recuperation, the monumental inconvenience, the vulnerability. He closed his eyes and thought about what must come next with the expectations of a man who has just upset a hornet's nest. Then he took a deep breath, and tried to move.

  The Greater Gods took a hammer to his body, sucked the wind from his lungs and set off a chorus of thunders in his head. His chest still hurt the most, though barely. Frost relaxed the effort and struggled to draw breath again.

  "How bad?" he heard Sharryl ask him, speaking each word separately, faintly.

  "I . . . live," Frost said, hearing his words come out in a hoarse, barely audible whisper. He saw Rosivok and Sharryl nod.

  "Is that what you call it?" Cantor asked.

  Frost managed a nod. For now, he thought, that will have to do. He sipped water from a pouch with the help of both Subartans, then he lay back and closed his eyes, and didn't try to get up again for a very long time.

  * * *

  Hours resting, he guessed, dozing now and again, though he did not dream through any of this. Which suited him well enough. When he finally tried once more to move it hurt precisely as much as he'd expected. Nearly as much as before. Nothing to be done about it. This time, he raised his head high enough to look about. Two emaciated Subartans moved toward him, got their arms under his and helped him to a sitting position; where he remained, resting, breathing slowly, waiting for some of the pain to subside while he carefully scrutinized his surroundings. Cantor was nowhere in sight, but there were larger problems.

  He was at the bottom of the ravine, but it had changed. The rocks that had comprised the top of the ridge where he'd stood during the battle lay broken all around and underneath him. Many appeared misshapen, their edges and faces smeared as if volcanic heat had begun to melt them. Still others had been splintered like crystals, exploded from within like steam-shattered rocks left too near a fire. Off to the right lay the remains of Imadis' soldiers—pallid, dried, twisted husks that barely resembled human forms, their flesh withered until it had torn, their bones crumbled to dust, no meat or blood at all.

  He raised his eyes to the next ridge. Nothing substantial enough to identify remained of Imadis, or even the ridge itself. But unlike the side where Frost had stood, nearly the entire far summit had melted, then apparently solidified once again where the rocks had run and gathered in streams and pools that shined in places like so much colored glass. Directly ahead a massive crevasse has opened in the mountain's face, wide enough at the top to pass two wagons side by side. Many more cracks, cut deep and jagged, ran down the remaining face of sloping, twisted rocks and vanished into the earth—though as he turned again, Frost noted that those same cracks raced through what remained of the rise behind him as well.

  He took comfort in a part of this; after all, the desired result had been achieved. But the rest was disturbing, and would require a great deal of reflection. The Blade had become the focus of Frost's concocted vampire spells, just as it had once before, but far more had happened here. On the battlefield in Ariman the almost instantaneous result had been the deaths of thousands of soldiers, and the second had been the removal from this world of the demon prince Tyrr, but that had been his precise goal, so he had accepted the magnitude of the devastation in kind. Here, against so few ordinary men and one surely mortal sorcerer, even an exceptionally talented and clever one, he had intended nothing so . . . extensive.

  He looked at himself as he tried to move his shoulders and arms. The Blade its
elf was still in his right hand, the hilt clutched tightly in his stiff fingers. In fact, he could not let go.

  "For a time, we thought you had died," Sharryl said as she and Rosivok knelt beside him in the rubble, helping him stay upright while they leaned on him at the same time. They were quite as weak as he was. He'd nearly killed them, while nearly killing himself and destroying half the mountain on which they stood.

  "For a time I thought the same," Frost answered.

  "What . . . what happened?" Cantor asked, appearing once more.

  Cantor clearly sensed how tender the question was, Frost gathered, as they considered each other. The merchant likely knew the answer well enough. Frost considered his response—something he expected to be doing for a very long time to come—and said, "Far too much. It is one thing to call forth a terrible storm, but another to control it."

  "We were not prepared," Sharryl said.

  "We thought—" Rosivok began, but he did not finish.

  "I was not prepared, not truly, or I did not listen to my own doubts," Frost said. His particular prowess with aging spells had been the final key to creating the difficult and concocted means to exploit the Blade, and he had used the Blade as he believed its creators intended. But here, all his talents and experience as well as the knowledge he had gained from using the Blade against the demon Tyrr proved not nearly enough.

  "What you seek will take time," Sharryl said by way of support.

  "I am not so sure," Frost said wearily. "I am a blind man who attempts to understand a mountain by touching a single stone."

  "Ah, yes, or a sailor who has learned to make use of the oceans but has no defense against their fury," Cantor said, sounding rather proud of himself. "It got away from you."

  "Something like that," Frost replied.

  "We will be rid of the Blade, one day," Rosivok said, resolute, and clearly as much for Frost's comfort as his own.

  "One day," Sharryl echoed.