Frost Fever

by Jonathan Moeller

  I didn’t see anyone else, just Alexandra rocking back and forth on the ground.

  That wouldn’t last, though. We seemed to have landed in a wild region of the Shadowlands, far from the warded ways that permitted safe (relatively safe, anyway) travel to other worlds. Powerful lords ruled their own demesnes in the Shadowlands, and within their lands they were nearly invincible. I didn’t want to run afoul of one of them. For that matter, there were countless dangerous creatures that lurked in the Shadowlands, and any one of them would make short work of me.

  The anthrophages were from the Shadowlands, too.

  I had to get out of the Shadowlands, now. I couldn’t open a rift way right here, though. It would take me back to the Capitol, and with my luck I would pop out right in the middle of the firefight between the Rebels and the Elven nobles. So that meant opening a rift way from the Shadowlands to some other part of Earth. The trouble was, I had no way of knowing where the rift way would go. If I opened a gate in this valley, it would take me back to the Capitol. If I climbed to the top of the nearest hill and opened a rift way, it might go to Milwaukee. Or it might go to Idaho, or Moscow, or the Caliphate, or the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The Shadowlands and Earth were not always congruous.

  Unless…

  My blazer had a little pocket on the left side, and I had stuck some of Alexandra’s business cards there. They were a physical object from the Duke’s offices, which meant they would link back to that location. I could use them to both trace the way back to the Duke’s office building and find the location in the Shadowlands that would let me open a rift way to Alexandra’s office. It might only be a few miles away.

  Or it might be ten thousand miles away.

  “Oh my God,” said Alexandra. She was starting to hyperventilate. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God…” Her words blended together into a constant moan of fear. I wondered if she had ever seen violence before, if she had ever seen a man shot.

  I had. More than once.

  I cast the spell, focusing my mind and magic upon the business cards. The Shadowlands were the source of magic, so magic was easier to summon here, but the effort to control it was all the greater. I gritted my teeth, ignoring Alexandra’s sobbing, and focused my will.

  And to my surprise, the results were good. I felt the tugging of the spell against my thoughts, like a compass pointing towards a magnet. The Shadowlands would touch upon the Duke’s office building about…six miles from here, I thought. Granted, most Elven nobles had wards around their residences that prevented rift ways from opening within them, but that would just bounce my rift way to the street outside. Or maybe Duke Carothrace didn’t bother with protecting his human employees. If that was true, my rift way would open right inside Alexandra’s office.

  Then I could go back to figuring out a way to steal that damned amulet.

  One problem at a time. First I had to actually reach the location that would lead back to Annarah’s office. It was only six miles or so, but it would take an hour and a half, maybe two hours, to walk that distance. I had best start now…

  Alexandra’s moaning cut into my thoughts.

  First, I had to figure out what to do about Alexandra.

  “Alexandra,” I said. “Stand up. We have to get moving.”

  She did not seem to hear me, rocking back and forth, her eyes wide.

  “Alexandra,” I said, stepping closer to her, a cold feeling settling over me.

  She had seen me use magic. Humans were not supposed to know the spell to create rift ways. She worked for Duke Carothrace, and the Inquisition would question everyone who had witnessed the attack. If she told an Inquisitor, or even a Homeland Security officer, about my abilities, then I was dead. Russell was dead.

  She kept rocking back and forth. Even if I could get her to stand, I might not be able to get her to shut up. Dangerous predators filled the Shadowlands, and the noise she was making might draw them.

  The cold feeling sharpened.

  Maybe I ought to just kill her now. It seemed the safest course.

  I didn’t have a gun, but it wouldn’t have worked in the Shadowlands anyway. Instead, I had a spell to conjure a globe of lightning. I wasn’t very good with the spell, but I had practiced. And if I cast the globe at Alexandra’s neck, at the base of her skull, the lightning would fry her brain and brain stem, and she would be dead before she hit the ground.

  Quick and painless. I could then make my way across the Shadowlands, and my secrets would be safe.

  All I had to do was murder a woman who had been kind to me.

  I stared at her, my left hand opening and closing again and again. That kindness had been an illusion. If she had known what I really was, she wouldn’t have been kind. She would have gotten me arrested and executed. I had to remember that, and I cursed myself for my weakness. Waiting would not make this any easier, and remaining motionless in the Shadowlands was a bad idea.

  Alexandra shifted, shivering a little, and her blouse fell open. The fall must have torn the buttons on the blouse.

  I blinked in utter astonishment.

  “Why the hell,” I heard myself say, “are you wearing that ridiculous underwear?”

  Because it was ridiculous. Beneath her torn blouse and jacket she wore a lacy red push-up bra. It looked mighty uncomfortable, and straps connected it to a translucent nightie. It was the sort of thing suitable for a hotel room, not for a woman who planned to spend eighteen hours straight on her feet.

  Alexandra blinked at me and tugged her jacket closed.

  “Because,” she whispered, “because Robert was coming home on leave after the reception.”

  A sick feeling twisted at my gut.

  “He was going to be part of the Jarl’s honor guard,” Alexandra said. “So I wanted to…you know, surprise him. Welcome him home. Show him how much I had missed him.” Tears filled her eyes. “Maybe this time we would get a baby. We’ve been trying, but he’s gone so often, and…and…”

  She closed her eyes and rubbed the heels of her hands against her forehead.

  “I’m never going to see him again, am I?” whispered Alexandra.

  The sick feeling got worse.

  Cold reason told me that I ought to kill her to protect my secret. At the very least, I ought to leave her behind and keep going. I didn’t owe her anything. If she knew the truth about me, she would turn me over to Homeland Security.

  It was logical. I ought to do it. And I couldn’t do it.

  “Damn it,” I muttered. “Listen to me.”

  Alexandra said nothing, her eyes still closed.

  I reached down, pulled her hands away from her face, and tilted her head to look at me. “Listen to me.”

  She blinked, her eyes swimming with tears.

  “Listen. To. Me,” I said. “I can get you home again. I can take you back so you can see your husband again. But you have to do exactly what I say without hesitation, do you understand? And there is one other condition.”

  “Who…who are you?” said Alexandra.

  “That’s my one condition,” I said. “I can get you home again, but you can’t ask who I am, and you can never, ever tell anyone about what you’ve seen today. No one. Not the Duke, not your husband, not Homeland Security, not the Inquisition. If I get you home, you’re going to forget all about me, and you’ll never tell anyone about me for the rest of your life. Do you understand?”

  Alexandra nodded, frightened.

  “Say it,” I said.

  “I understand,” said Alexandra. “I…I promise.”

  So the die was cast, then.

  “All right,” I said. I gripped her hand and pulled Alexandra to her feet. “Let’s go.”

  “What…what are you?” said Alexandra. “You’re not a florist, I can tell that much.” She flexed her hand with a wince. “Florists don’t have a grip like that.”

  “I’m trouble,” I said.

  She blinked. “You’re…an agent of the Inquisition, aren’t you? Oh my God. Robert told me
that the Inquisition had human agents, but I never really believed it.”

  “I told you to stop asking,” I said, trying to sound stern and annoyed, but her incorrect deduction pleased me. If she thought I was a spy for the Inquisition, she would be all the more likely to obey me and keep her mouth shut if we lived through this.

  Alexandra swallowed and nodded. “Okay. Um.” She looked around. “Ah…where are we? Is this…this is the Shadowlands, isn’t it?”

  “Start walking,” I said, taking her elbow and turning her around. “We’ve got about six miles to cover, and we’ve got to do it quickly. You can ask me questions as we walk, and I will answer them if I can.” Hopefully that would help keep Alexandra’s mind off her terror. “Quietly, though. I don’t want to draw attention. And for God’s sake watch your step. If you snap an ankle in those heels, we’re finished.” I glanced back at her. “You had to stand up all day. Why are you wearing heels like that?”

  Alexandra’s face got a little redder. “My husband, well, he…likes them. They were going to be part of the surprise…”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “Please stop there. I don’t want to know. Anyway. You had questions.”

  We stared up the nearest hill, moving in the direction my spell had indicated. The pale grasses rustled and whispered in the cold wind, and wild shadows danced around the black trees, thrown by the dancing ribbons of fire. Alexandra had no trouble keeping up with me. She might have never dealt with a crisis like this before, but at least she was in good shape. When we had gone to the gym together (provided by Duke Carothrace, no doubt to keep his worker drones fighting fit), she had run three miles in twenty-one minutes, and then cooled off by running another two miles in sixteen minutes.

  “Then this is the Shadowlands?” said Alexandra, shivering a little. It was much colder here than it had been in Madison, and she held her torn blouse and jacket closed with one hand.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “How…how did we get here?” she said. She frowned. “Why are we here?”

  “I didn’t have any other choice,” I said, taking a moment to catch my balance before reaching the crest of the hill. “One of the bombs landed right at our feet. There wasn’t time to get away, so we went here instead.”

  “Then you brought us to the Shadowlands,” said Alexandra.

  “Yep,” I said. “It was that or get shredded by a pipe bomb.”

  “I thought humans weren’t allowed to learn that spell,” said Alexandra.

  “We aren’t,” I said. I wanted to shut down that line of thought. “That’s another of those questions you can’t ask me. But suffice it to say the Elven lord who taught me that spell disagreed.”

  Alexandra swallowed. “I see.”

  We reached the top of the hill, and I looked down into a broad, wide valley. If I had to guess, I would have said it was maybe ten miles across, though distances are hard to gauge in the Shadowlands, and sometimes change when you’re not looking. A river of black water flowed through the center of the valley, white mist rising from its surface. Patches of misshapen, blue-glowing trees dotted the valley, and here and there tall obelisks of gray stone rose from the ground, their faces carved with alien symbols. At the edge of the water rose a ruined structure…

  “Is that a…a castle?” said Alexandra. “Like in the European Union?”

  “Looks that way,” I said. The half-ruined castle had a grim aspect, and it looked as if it had been crumbling for thousands of years. I drew out the business card and cast the spell again. It confirmed my fear – the Shadowlands touched on Alexandra’s office within that ruined castle. “We’ll have to head for it.”

  “Why?” said Alexandra, arms wrapped tight around herself. “It looks like the sort of place where…I don’t know, some kind of ogre or something might live.”

  She was more right than she knew.

  “Because the Shadowlands overlap Earth …erratically, let’s say,” I said, trying to think of how to phrase the explanation. We started down the hillside into the valley, the ribbons of fire throwing writhing shadows from the twisted trees and the obelisks. “Like two loose threads that only cross each other at certain points. That little valley where we appeared? Apparently that touches the Capitol back in Madison. The ruined castle touches your office, or maybe Duke Carothrace’s offices.” It was possible that the ruined castle represented the office, since the Shadowlands sometimes reflected the real world, but it wasn’t important now. “So if I tried to open a rift way like, right here, I have no idea where it would go. Might go back to Madison. Might open up in the middle of the ocean.”

  Alexandra blinked, taking careful steps. I really, really wished I had thought to bring better shoes. “How do you know we can get back from that castle?”

  I waved one of her business cards. “Physical object from your office. It links back to Earth, and I can use it as a compass to find the way. We got lucky. The Shadowlands could have touched on your office a thousand miles from where we are standing, and I lost all the other physical objects I was carrying when I dropped my courier bag.”

  “Why don’t we just go back to the Capitol?” said Alexandra.

  “Because,” I said, “there are bombs going off right now. We take a rift way back to the Capitol, we might land in the middle of an explosion. Or step into the path of a bullet.”

  “What happened?” said Alexandra. “Do you know? The Homeland Security officers were firing at the nobles. It was….it was awful…”

  “Rebels,” I said as we reached the bottom of the valley. I took a quick look around, but nothing moved, the castle’s ruins silent at the edge of the water. “Russian guy named Sergei Rogomil. He’s real bad news. I think he infiltrated Homeland Security to assassinate the Jarl and make trouble between the High Queen and the frost giants.”

  “Is that why you came?” said Alexandra. “You thought this might happen and…and you didn’t warn anyone?”

  “No,” I said, thinking up a suitable lie. “No, I had no idea Rogomil was in the United States. If I had known he was going to attack the Jarl…well, I would have done some things differently.” That at least was true. “Anyway, it won’t be your problem soon. We’ll get you back to your office, and that will be that.”

  “Homeland Security is going to talk to me,” said Alexandra. “Probably the Inquisition, too. What…what should I tell them happened?”

  “Tell them you ran back to your office when the bombs started going off,” I said. “You tried to find any other employees of the Duke, but you lost them all in the rush of the mob. There were thousands of people there, and Homeland Security and the Inquisition are going to talk to all of them. You’ll probably have the same story as hundreds of other survivors.”

  “Oh, God,” said Alexandra, blinking back tears again. “There were thousands of people in the square. I wonder how many of them are dead.”

  “A lot,” I said. “Rogomil’s good at what he does. And if we don’t want to join them, we need to hurry. In some ways the Shadowlands are more dangerous than a bomb.”

  “Why?” said Alexandra. We passed one of the peculiar gray obelisks. I could not tell if it had been wrought of stone or metal, but I wasn’t about to touch it. “Robert would…say things, from time to time, but never much. He didn’t like to talk about the Shadowlands.”

  “The warded ways are safe enough,” I said, “but there are all kinds of wild creatures in the Shadowlands. Wraithwolves and bloodrats, for one.” Or anthrophages, for that matter. “Some of them are so alien we can’t understand them, and quite a few of them eat humans. Some of them have magic of their own, powerful magic. Then there are the demesne lords.”

  “Lords?” said Alexandra.

  “I don’t really understand how it works,” I said, “but sometimes a powerful wizard, whether human or Elven or something else, can claim a demesne in the Shadowlands. It’s like they…link themselves to part of the Shadowlands. They get tremendous power within their demesne, but can never leav
e it. Sort of like being a demigod in a prison cell, I guess.”

  “Why would anyone do that?” asked Alexandra. “It sounds horrible.”

  I shrugged. “Some people like power.” Morvilind had not told me very much about it. At first I thought it was because he feared I might seize a demesne in the Shadowlands for myself and use it against him. Later I understood it was because the information was of no use to me. The scale and complexity of the magic required to claim a demesne was so far beyond my skill that I might as well have tried to tear down a mountain with my bare hands. “Happens by accident sometimes, too. Like, during a big battle between wizards in the Shadowlands. I think we might be in a lord’s demesne right now.”

  Alexandra flinched. “How do you know?”

  I pointed at one of the gray obelisks. “Those things. I’ve never seen them before, but I’ve heard about them. I think we’re in Grayhold, a demesne ruled by someone who calls himself the Knight of Grayhold.”

  “I’ve…heard of him, actually,” said Alexandra. “A little bit, anyway. Sometimes the Duke talks about him to the other nobles.” She looked embarrassed to have been caught eavesdropping on her lord. “He said the High Queen must always include the Knight of Grayhold in her calculations.”

  “From what I understand,” I said, “Grayhold is a demesne in Earth’s umbra.”

  “Umbra?” said Alexandra.

  “Um,” I said. We passed two more of the gray obelisks and entered a patch of twisted trees. Their leaves gave off a pale, ghostly blue glow. I didn’t know what touching the leaves would do, and I didn’t want to find out. I would have warned Alexandra, but fortunately she had the sense to stay well away from the trees. “Every world casts its own shadow of influence into the Shadowlands. That shadow of influence is called an umbra. We’re in Earth’s umbra right now. Grayhold is a large demesne within the umbra, and the Knight has absolute power within it. I think he’s neutral towards the High Queen, but doesn’t let any invaders like the frost giants or the Archons pass his lands.”

  “Why is it called Grayhold?” said Alexandra.

  “Damned if I know,” I said. I pointed at one of the obelisks, visible through the trees. “Maybe he likes gray pointy rocks? I don’t know.”