Iceblade

by Zenka Wistram

  "Hmmph," Goskia muttered, clearing the table. I stared at my plate, my mind reeling. Did Selas know my mother before she came to Berowalt? Even more tantalizing, did he know my father? Where did my mother come from, who was she, that she knew a Queen? I thumped my fist on my leg in frustration.

  Dera gave me a meaningful look. "It is not ladylike to make fists," she whispered.

  I laughed. "I am not very ladylike, in any case," I said, still smiling.

  She smiled back, her face sunny, the shadows of her ordeal brushed aside for a moment. "That's all right. I still love you."

  Chapter 4

  In Training

  Samar was sitting up in the bed, feeding herself a flatcake. She looked tired, but much better than the day we found her. The slashes on her poor face were healed into pink, ribbed scars, ugly but not open anymore. I reached out and took her hand, sitting near her.

  "How do you feel?" I asked inanely. She gave me a briefly sardonic look, then nodded silently. "Can you speak yet?"

  She tapped her throat with an elegantly shaped hand, then shook her head.

  "Could you speak... before?"

  Her clear blue eyes met mine with a haunted look. She shrugged and nodded, dropping her eyes. In her eyes I could easily see her former beauty; they were wide and almond shaped, fringed by thick, curling, black lashes, the irises as azure and lovely as warm summer sky. It was a shock to see those heart-stopping eyes in a face so badly damaged.

  "I've come to ask you a question, Samar. Selas is training the two brothers to fight. Do you want to be trained as well?"

  Her eyes flashed back up to mine, her face suddenly alive with emotion. A dark rage bubbled in her eyes, her once-soft mouth was tight, working wordlessly. Samar nodded, twice, sharply. I sighed, dropping my shoulders. Obviously, she did.

  "The wood-witch says you can train, in two days," I said softly. The girl beamed at me, but it wasn't a smile of innocent joy. In fact, it made me shudder.

  The days grew colder. A blizzard all but shut us in the hut. The brothers dug our way out, making a covered walkway into the latched cave. The latched cave had a rough wooden front with a Goskia-sized door, inside were many rooms. Most of the rooms were very cold, one low-ceilinged room held frozen meat and other supplies. There was a vast cavern with a river and waterfall. The running water was warmer than the air, and kept this chamber at a more comfortable temperature. This room was where Selas did a lot of training with his young students.

  Selas was in his element, barking orders and alternately attacking and drilling Wyntan, Daltorn, and Samar. Daltorn and Wyntan were industrious and determined, but Samar was voracious. She lived to train. She was up early every morning practicing on her own, long before the men, and I could tell that Selas was reluctantly pleased. Her movements were graceful, mesmerizing, sometimes so swift the eye couldn't follow. Not that I had much time to watch. About a quarter of my waking time was spent drilling with Selas and the others, the old man insisted I know how to hold a weapon. He also told me sternly that training with a weapon can give one a mental edge over one's enemies even if no weapons are ever used. "It's all in the personal discipline," he barked at me. "If you know how to use a weapon, your brain remembers it, and your enemy knows it as well, whether or not you hold your weapon in your hand." He had shoved an old, pitted mace, a weapon like a metal club, into my hand and put me to work training, though I was far outclassed by Samar and the brothers.

  Banning and I spent the rest of our time in the hut. My training there involved a lot of insisting on the part of the small snake.

  "Concentrate!"

  "Visualize!"

  "Project!"

  "Ignore the headache. Ignore the wood-witch. Ignore everything but what you can see within your own mind."

  "Rest only makes you stupid."

  In his own way, Banning was just as tyrannical as Selas.

  As the days passed, slowly, I gained more control over my Gift. It was becoming more and more off-hand to look into someone else's mind, and read the surface thoughts there. Goskia brought me objects from the remains of Narwich, and I learned to See their history in great detail, and eventually to find only the details I wanted. As a side effect of my concentration, I seemed more aware of the presence of Iceblade. For one thing, if I thought about it I could tell which direction he was in, and if he were in battle or not.

  There had been a dream about Edwald, the night the blizzard had snowed us in. I had been flying high above the ground, looking down upon a snowy trail, circling it. On the trail was an ornate carriage, hung with green and gold velvet to keep out the chill. The driver was not painted black, but black was the only color he wore. Six matched horses, liver-red, drew the carriage, four more liver-red horses pulled the wagon behind it. The wagon was simpler, but still enclosed. Following the wagon marched a line of black-clad guardsmen. Flapping wings I somehow had, I flew closer to the carriage and pushed my way into a window, past the heavy curtains, landing on a cushioned bench.

  Opposite me was Edwald, dressed in mostly black finery. Inconspicuously, he wore upon his shoulder a tiny broach, made in the shape of a pair of fangs. Beside him sat a young woman.

  She was tall and slightly built, with braided white-blonde hair hanging over her shoulder to her lap. A tiara of pearls and opals was on her brow, more gems hung from her eardrops and necklaces. A string of pearls was wound around her braid, all the way down. Her fingers were slender and white, as smooth as marble, clasped demurely in her lap. Her pale skin was flawless, her red mouth full and perfect. She held her head stiffly erect, her bearing as rigid as if she were indeed marble. I looked up into her soft brown eyes, and there was nothing there. The beautiful eyes were blank, as expressionless as an uncarved stone. I hopped onto her lap.

  I could sense her spirit, but barely. It was far enough away that she almost felt dead to my probing. The spirit was mute and weak, unaware even if its body were alive or dead. Turning to Edwald, my eyes fastened on the lock of white-blonde hair braided into his grey beard. He was watching me with open fear, flattened against the side of the carriage, and I realized I was in a form he could see. I lunged for him, meaning to pull that lock of hair out if I had to peck out his entire beard.

  He gave a gurgled little cry and grabbed for me, his fingers closing around my throat. I hissed. His voice shaking, he screamed for the driver, and I felt the carriage grind to a swift halt. My talons shredded the front of his fine tunic, my sharp beak caught at his fingers. I could taste his blood.

  The carriage door swung open and the driver looked in. Behind him I could see several guards from the back of the procession. Trembling, Edwald shouted, "Kill it!" The driver moved quickly, his dagger in his hand. I felt a sharp, gasping pain as the blade pierced my chest, and then I was free, floating back and up. Edwald held in his hands the bleeding body of a bird I had never seen the like of. It was twice the size of a chicken hawk, smooth and sleek with wicked talons and a hooked beak. Its feathers were deep, shimmering blue, and the feathers of its crest, tail, and wings were tipped with bright yellow.

  When I woke up, I reached into my sash and pulled out the feather from my corona, the single feather I found floating down from my burning house. Trembling, holding it up to the low firelight, I traced its outline from the blue body to the yellow tip.

  I showed Goskia the feather the next morning. She shrugged, uninterested, carefully cataloging her stores of herbs. Dera sat next to her at the table. learning names and shapes of the different plants. I hadn't thought a True Healer would need to learn such wood-witchery, but the old woman had explained. A True Healer needs to learn to conserve her healing energies, and herbal lore would help her by providing medicines for those who didn't require touch-healing, those who had lesser but still troubling complaints. This way, Dera's Gift would be saved for those most urgently in need.

  "Never seen any like it," Goskia said shortly of my feather. "Goddess knows."

  "Indeed," Banning interrupted. He slid a
round my left hand, I lifted him up to see the feather I was holding in my right. "The Goddess does know. It looks to me like a Savanne feather." The little snake watched me expectantly, as if this should ring a bell. When it obviously didn't, he sighed with disgust. "You humans are remarkably ill-educated. How you came to be so... rampant, I'll never understand. You breed inefficiently, you consume terrible amounts of food, use up woods that house thousands of creatures, you..."

  "What is a Savanne?" I said, bringing his tirade to a halt. He often went off on threads of thought I couldn't follow.

  "Savanne are the Goddess' own servants. They do Her bidding. They are fierce, brave, gentle when needed. They have been known to bring Galiena's love messages to the God, Dagar."

  "What?" I asked, stupid with surprise. "What love messages?"

  "Dagar is Galiena's mate," Goskia replied. "They are opposite sides of Nature. You can't have one without the other."

  "Dagar is Galiena's enemy."

  "And she is his bride," Banning confirmed gently. "Without death, there is no life. Without Chaos, there is no Order." I sat down on the bench opposite the wood-witch and Dera. Banning slid off my hand, circling the feather still clutched in my right hand. Delicately, his tongue flicked out and touched the fine vanes. He nodded in affirmation. "A Savanne came to me, only hours after my birth, and told me to come to this very place, that Galiena's Chosen would arrive and need me. This feather is to my senses much like it."

  The hair prickled up on the back of my neck. "And I am Her Chosen? What am I chosen for? To fight the Crow's Army? Surely Galiena can do better than me!"

  "Some times, being Chosen is simply a matter of being in the necessary place at the necessary moment," Banning answered quietly. "Surely the Good Queen can do better than a simple snake from Zill Mountain. Yet, here I am, and who am I to outguess the Goddess?"

  "I think a talking snake may be a thing worthy of Her attention," I said dryly. "Especially one with your knowledge. I know no human who could teach me what you have." If a snake could smile, Banning did.

  "If She has placed Her hand on your shoulder, Ada, daughter of Bevin, who are you to turn Her away?"

  "Even if you could," Goskia added. I shivered despite myself.

  I chafed with the need to go out physically after Edwald and his captive. No one knew better than I the terrible mischief they were about. Had the plan he and Iceblade hatched come to pass? Had another city fallen, another Low-Kingdom? Did the blonde mage know how she was being used? Could I get a message to the High King of his own uncle's treachery, let alone that of his unacknowledged son?

  On the other hand, I could sense a certain waiting, as if forces were watching for me. An overt move at this stage could bring their attention upon my small group, and I knew deep in my heart we were not yet ready.

  Many nights I dreamed of Iceblade, of where he was and what he was doing. Sometimes I dreamed of his past instead of what he was doing at the moment I was dreaming. In the first dream I had of him as a child, he was no more than five years old.

  Already at that young age his face was distant, the pale eyes mistrustful. He was sitting in a temple on the bench closest to the altar, the night sky showing at the arched leaded glass windows flanking the altar. The small, black-haired boy was still, not swinging his legs or fidgeting with his hands, and his stillness seemed nearly unnatural. No child I had ever known was that composed when he was still that young.

  At the altar stood a priest with a long face and dark eyes, wearing black robes and a headdress with a deer's antlers. The priest held in one hand the straight sharp athame carried by the God's Own; the ceremonial dagger carried by Galiena's priests was crescent-shaped. In his other hand, he held a struggling cat down on the altar. Cats were sacred to the Goddess, beloved by her for a service one had once provided her, she in turn blessed them with a beautiful form. Holding up the athame so it glinted in the candlelight, the priest intoned in an arcane language.

  The athame flashed, slitting the feline's throat. The cat's struggles slowed, then ended, its life's blood spilled over the altar. Releasing the cat's body, the priest turned to young Tirk.

  "Even the Goddess will give up what She holds close to her heart, to Dagar's Chosen and those who serve him," the priest told the child. "The Goddess will even give up Her Chosen, to be your bride. Tonight we offer this cat, sacred to the Goddess, to Dagar in thanks. Tonight, your bride, the child who will one day be Chosen, is in the world, little Prince." I started. Was he talking about me? Had it been known to someone that I would be Chosen, so long before the time came? I ignored the word "bride", unable to consider its implications.

  Tirk looked at the priest without interest, his eyes flicking to the dead cat. If he was disturbed by what he had seen, it did not show on his face. Moving closer, I bent down to look more closely into the child's eyes.

  In his eyes I could see fear and anger. He was afraid of the priest, afraid of the athame, and I was aware the dagger had been used on the child at some time before. His anger stemmed from being forced by his mother to come to this temple he hated, to spend time with a priest he deemed "stinky", who had harmed him with the athame. Despite his turbulent emotions, the child's face remained remote and expressionless.

  "Aren't you curious about your bride, child?" the priest asked.

  The boy looked back at him. "What is a bride?" he asked at last.

  The priest laughed. "She is meant to rule at your side over the world in flames," the priest said. "If you take her, nothing may stand before you. That is what it means to be your bride, and she was born tonight; hidden from our eyes so we could not bring her here. But the time will come when she shows herself to you in a dream."

  I will never rule at his side, I thought wrathfully at the priest. I will never submit when it means all else is lost. The priest held his head as if my own thoughts pained him. As the pain subsided, he began to laugh.

  "She answers!" he said to Tirk. "She will fight you, young Prince, but if you have her, if you take her and fill her belly with your child, the world is yours."

  Tirk watched him gravely, not understanding, but unwilling to ask for an explanation. I knew the priest's words were meant more for me than the child anyway.

  "I am done for tonight, Tephus," he said. Even so young his tone was of unbrookable authority. "I will leave now." Tephus the priest nodded, pointing to the temple's door, and the little boy bolted out of his presence.

  There were other dreams of his childhood, dreams of his mother and his family. Deirdre, tall, pale-skinned, ruby-lipped, with eyes the same pale violet as her son's, seemed to hate anything that moved upon the surface of the world, even her own children and the half-sister she was raising. She did not hesitate to demean them, to burn them or harm them with weapons. When it suited her she lavished them with attention and treats, when it suited her to do otherwise, she was just as likely to starve them. Always, Tirk was the main focus of her attentions. Tirith was once a tiny boy striving for his mother's loving attention, which he was never given. This boy was an afterthought, conceived only to serve Tirk. Their mother cared not for anything the younger brother might do, unless he angered her in some fashion. Tirith grew to hate and fear his mother's attention even as he craved it.

  My heart ached for those three children at the mercy of a beast wearing the skin of a seductive woman, though in my mind I knew those three children were long destroyed.

  Banning was now using his time to teach me how to become a weapon of my own. He had been very interested in the incident in the clearing with the dagger, and the small,narrow snake had arranged with Selas to provide me with training exercises. I learned very quickly when it came to defensive measures, I could easily stop a stone, a dagger, then even an arrow coming at me, though for the arrow we were unwilling to test my abilities unawares. The stones and daggers could be thrown anytime, but they only fired arrows when I was prepared for it. It was much harder for me to attack anything. It helped when Selas finally just w
alked up and slapped at me, I was able to forcefully push him away with only whatever strange power I held within me. Still, that was defensive. I was careful not to hurt him, but at that moment I felt in me the power to cause destruction.

  "Trust yourself, Ada," Banning whispered to me. "You will not accidentally use that power to harm someone you care for."

  "How do I know that?"

  "You won't," he promised. "You have not been given any power you cannot control. It is more of a problem getting you to use that power than to get you to restrain it. You instinctively restrain yourself."

  "But you don't know it would be like that when it counts."

  "If you hold yourself back, you won't be an effective weapon," Banning rebuked.

  "I am not a weapon!" I snapped, then sighed miserably. "Not much of one, anyway."

  "You are the enemy of Iceblade. You are his nemesis."

  I looked at the little snake sardonically.

  "Well, you will be someday," he clarified hastily. "With any luck. You'd better be, because only by your hand can he be slain."

  His enemy, I thought. Not his bride.

  In the middle of the night, Wyntan rose up to attack me in my sleep. I reacted before I was awake, and awoke to an awareness of myself in action, to see Wyntan hovering off the ground near me, immobile but grinning, his dagger in his hand.

  "What are you doing?" I gasped in horror. He laughed, and I felt Selas' hand clap me on the shoulder, startling me even further. I could sense no anger in anyone. Daltorn was awake across the room, sitting on his pallet, grinning proudly at me in the flickering light of the fireplace.