Frostflower and Thorn

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “Nothing like he’ll be questioned when they find him with us above his blasted ovens.”

  “Dowl was also seen with us and might be recognized as ours.”

  “As yours, you mean. Don’t give me part possession of the mangy demon’s-mop!”

  The dog whined and put its head in Thorn’s lap, banging its tail against the floor. Thorn raised her dagger menacingly. The dog moved its head from her lap and lay down at her feet, still swinging its tail.

  “We are as safe here as anywhere within a night’s walk, Thorn. Safer than we would be outside.”

  “No, we’re not. We’ll be trapped up here like rotten maggots when they come looking. We’d be a Hell of a lot safer outside in the woods—but, oh, no, we can’t let the damn grub get damp and uncomfortable, can we? Or miss a chance to let him try to suck blood out of a dry tit?”

  Frostflower quietly transferred the brat to the other side. “Thorn, you have not yet forgiven yourself for threatening the farmer-priestess?”

  “Forgiven…myself? Forgiven myself? What the bloody Hell good would that do? Ask—ask…” She dared not say even the title of the God of the Seven Secret Names, great Giver of Justice. She gestured upward with her dagger. “Ask the One Who sent the lightning to forgive me. See how bloody far you get.”

  “Thorn…if you think—Aljandru, was it?—sent the lightning, can you not think he sent it to stop you before you had gone too far?”

  “What do you know about it, sorceress? ‘Aljandru’—hah! There’s no such god.” (At least, she did not think there was.) “You can’t even keep their names straight.”

  “You rarely use their names, only ‘Wheat Goddess,’ and ‘Lightning God,’ and so on. I think I never heard that they had other names until today.”

  “Unh.” Their names were for the priests to use. “And you’re going to tell me what they can and can’t do.”

  “I am sorry. I was guessing by what we believe of our God.”

  “Your God! Your stinking pile of—No, forget it. Look, let’s just forget the whole bloody mess for a while.”

  “But you would not really have harmed Inmara.”

  “I said, let’s forget it.” Would she have killed the priestess? Not in her saner moments…but the battle-rage had been on her, or she would never have made the threat—and she had never made an idle threat in her bloody life. Warriors’ God! “Damn you, sorceress, I don’t know! I think—I would have killed her!”

  Frostflower pulled the brat gently away from her tit and began spooning goat’s milk into its mouth even before retying her bodice. “But the lightning stopped you. You are not guilty of her blood, Thorn.”

  “I might as well be.”

  “You cannot believe that your gods sent it to save you from sinning?”

  “He sent it to save her Ladyship. Can’t you get it into your stupid head? I was already damned. Hell, sorceress, I—look, let’s just forget it.” Thorn slipped Stabber back into his sheath and began polishing Slicer.

  “You truly believe in such unforgiving gods?”

  Damn it to Hellbog! Did she have to put up with Frostflower’s blaspheming pity, too? Damned little bitch of a sorceress, sitting there acting compassionate and superior, as if she was going to end up lying in silk and fondling kittens forever. Damned…yes, Frostflower was damned too—all sorceri were damned, and why the Hell should Frostflower sit there acting safe and smug? “Maybe you think you’re going to have things soft and comfortable,” Thorn said cruelly, “but you’re going to end up only a couple of levels above me, sorceress, with the demons playing stretchrope with your guts.”

  The sorceress finished feeding her brat, set it down long enough to lace her bodice, then picked it up again and held it over her shoulder, patting its back. She seemed subdued, more thoughtful even than usual.

  Thorn clamped her sword flat between her thighs and dug her nails into her arm. What good did it do her to tell Frostflower where she was going to end up? Because you have to live with it hanging over your death, do you want to make her suffer the same way, warrior?

  Frostflower wrapped the grub up and laid it in an old kneading trough the baker had given them for a cradle. She knelt over it a few moments, humming softly. Then she got up and came over to sit on the bed beside the swordswoman.

  “Look,” began the warrior, “I’m sorry I said that. Go on and believe whatever you like, Frost. It’s none of my bloody business what you believe.”

  “Thorn…your Lightning God did not send that bolt.”

  Gods, it was like telling a snail to fly! Thorn rammed Slicer’s point into the floor. “You want us in Hellbog tonight? Damn it, sorceress, believe whatever you want, but don’t blaspheme the gods while I’m around to get blasted with you!”

  Frostflower waited a moment, then laid one hand on the warrior’s arm. “We have a second power.”

  Thorn gazed into the lump of polished sheen-amber on Slicer’s pommel. “Just don’t use it on me.”

  “I…already have, Thorn.”

  The swordswoman lifted her head and stared at the sorceress. “What the bloody Hell—When?”

  “Forgive me, Thorn. I…it was necessary, to save us all.”

  “What in the names of all the gods and demons are you talking about?”

  Frostflower’s fingers tapped softly and nervously on the warrior’s frayed sleeve. “We can manipulate the weather, Thorn.”

  The dog was asleep and twitching in its dreams. The candle was flickering in its wall niche in front of the statue of the Yeast Goddess, and the last of the rain was dripping off the roof outside. The floor was warm under their feet…it was just above the baker’s oven.

  “What?” said Thorn.

  “Oh, we cannot bring storms or fair weather. But when a storm comes near enough…we can catch the lightning, and aim it.”

  Yes…yes, there were stories, but—Hell, she had gotten the idea that all Frostflower ever did was go around speeding up people’s time when they asked her, growing plants, and never hurting a gnat! Silky-mouthed little bitch, acting almost too soft to chew up her vegetables! “You almost knocked my head off!”

  “I could not let you harm the priestess, Thorn.”

  “You—you—Damn you!” Thorn yanked her arm from the other’s touch and began to stamp around the room. “Damn your stinking guts to Azkor’s teeth!”

  “Thorn—it was necessary! Inmara was not trying to hurt us—”

  “Eat stones! Well, what are you going to do? Blast me again? Go ahead—finish the job. Can’t miss at this distance, can you?”

  “Thorn! I can’t.… You know I could not.…” The sorceress actually got off the bed and knelt in front of the warrior, trying to catch her hands.

  Thorn jerked back and raised Slicer.

  Frostflower cringed away. “You cannot see why I told you, Thorn? Your gods—they are only idle stories! You have no Hellbog to fear—”

  “Nothing to fear but you blasted sorceri and your stinking powers, eh? Come on, sorceress, blast me down! Shrivel me up! But by all the gods, I’ll take you with me.” Thorn was getting her rage under control now, feeling it harden into cold, disgusted purpose. She drew her dagger in her left hand, balancing the sword in her right. “Make your move, sorceress. Come on, make your blasted move, and I put Slicer through your guts and Stabber up your chin! The gods love a sorceri-killer.”

  Frostflower rose and backed away, watching her fearfully. The dog was awake again, probably woke up a long time ago, and just sat there looking from sorceress to warrior and whining. For a few moments, Thorn could almost have sworn Frostflower was whining, too.

  But when Frostflower spoke again, it was in the same old honey-edged voice, low and patient like a humble little priestess. “Our God loves no kind of killing, Thorn. I could not have harmed you. But I could not see you harm an innocent woman. I would have lost my powers.”

  “You would have…you would have… You stinking bitch, I get myself damned to Hellbog to save your
life and you blast my head off to save your bloody powers?”

  “But you are not doomed to Hellbog—”

  “What about the farmer? You’re so damned handy with your lightning, why the Hell didn’t you blast the bloody farmer?”

  “We must not harm anyone, Thorn. Not even to save ourselves.”

  “You rotten liar!”

  “No! We do not lie. We lose our powers if we lie.”

  Thorn grinned and walked towards the sorceress. Frostflower shrank back against the wall, but did not run. The warrior put the point of her knife against Frostflower’s belly. “Now…if I start pushing in, you won’t blast me?”

  Frostflower attempted a smile. “I could not strike you with lightning when there is none above us for me to snatch.”

  “And you won’t turn my heart upside-down or grow a nest of wasps inside my guts?”

  “Those are idle tales, Thorn. No sorceron can do such things. No sorceron would wish to.”

  “And you won’t wither me into a weak old crone?”

  “No.”

  “Bloody liar! I met a spearwoman in West-of-the-Marsh—gods, she was a lustier cow than I am! The townmaster caught a sorcerer someone saw robbing a chicken coop.”

  Frostflower gasped. So the story bothered her? Good. Thorn would not shorten it. “They tied him down on one of the townmaster’s beds, tore off his clothes, and sent that spearwoman in to tickle him up and milk him.”

  Frostflower closed her eyes and turned away her face. Relentlessly, Thorn continued. “There wasn’t a gray hair on her head when she went into that room, sorceress. When she came out, she might as well have been eighty years old. Now. Look at me and tell me a sorceron never hurt anybody!”

  The sorceress did not open her eyes. “If we are trapped, as…as he was, if we are to lose power and life whatever we do, and there is no hope…then we strike back once, as strongly as we can.”

  “Very pretty. Very, very pretty. Gentle and humble and kind-to-everyone, and then you just forget all about it at the end. You damn sneaking demon-turds!” Thorn raised Stabber from Frostflower’s navel and put his blade against her throat. “Well, you can start aging me any time now, and we’ll see who works fastest.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “I do not believe you will harm me, Thorn. No more than you would have harmed Inmara. But in any case, I will not harm you.”

  “Why the Hellbog not? I’ve got a bloody knife at your throat, don’t I?”

  This time Frostflower completed the smile—her usual sad, step-on-me-again smirk. “We are here alone. Burningloaf can hardly spread the tale. He must not be known to have sheltered us. The only reason a sorceron has for striking back with the last charge of power is to spread the tales.”

  “To spread the tales.”

  “You do not understand? The more we are feared, the fewer folk are willing to attack us.”

  “Then in the names of all the gods, why tell me all this? You bloody fool, you know you’ve just explained there’s no damn reason in the world I shouldn’t kill you right here?”

  “Is there not, Thorn?” Again the hangdog smile. “Even so, I cannot lie to you.”

  “You cannot lie.” The warrior took Stabber from Frostflower’s throat and slapped him back in his sheath. She stepped back, waved Slicer once or twice at the sorceress, and then returned him, also, to his sheath. The sorceress was not worth killing. “You can’t lie, but you can wither us senile—if you want to. You can’t hurt anybody—but you can scare your friends senseless when they try to help you! You damn bitch, you want us to think you wouldn’t step on a roach, and then you try to make us think you’ll blast us all to Hellbog! You throw lightning at a poor idiot who’s damning herself for you and pretend you didn’t have anything to do with it—you can’t do anything but lie! You couldn’t live the truth if you wanted to.”

  She turned, kicked the dog out of her way, and strode to the trapdoor. She yanked it open, glanced down to satisfy herself that the baker was alone in his oven room below, thrust the dog out of her way again, and dropped the rope ladder.

  “Thorn?” the sorceress said timidly. “Thorn—you will not leave us? How can I bring Starwind to safety without you?”

  Worth killing? Hellstink, she was not even worth spitting at. “Stay here and rot,” said the warrior, and climbed down.

  Burningloaf was braiding loaves for the oven. He was a shriveled old runt who must once have had a sense of humor, to choose the name he had. “Any sound of warriors in the street?” Thorn asked him.

  “If there were, do you think I would have let you go on shouting?”

  “Heard us through the floor, hey? Thought you told us it was solid.”

  “I heard you, warrior. Nobody else. Not Frostflower, not the baby, not the dog, just you.”

  “Save your sour looks, baker. I’m leaving—taking my chances in the open before I get trapped like a damn roach.”

  “If they catch you, warrior, I never saw you in my life.”

  “Don’t worry, bogbait. I never heard of you, either. I don’t go around betraying people who’ve helped me.” Thorn picked up a couple of rye buns from a pan not long out of the oven and bit into one. “You’d better watch out for the sorceress, though. She’ll tell the first bugger who asks. Sorceri never tell anything but the bloody truth, you know.”

  The baker was looking from the empty places in his pan to the limp purse at Thorn’s waist. All right, you damn pricker, she thought, I wasn’t going to cheat you. She took out her last half-copper and put it down on the edge of the table, then took another look at Burningloaf. Shifty. Probably not much better than a sorcerer himself. “Thought I’d try cutting through the marshlands to Sludgepocket or maybe West-of-Nowhere,” she said.”

  “You’ll never make it through the marshlands,” he said, as if he was proud of the pricking bogs.

  “How’d you like to go with me?” She grinned, crossed to the back door, and slipped out.

  It was a good night for escaping: just enough moon coming through the clouds to keep a warrior from breaking her neck, more than enough darkness to find a nice thick shadow at the first suspicious noise, just enough fine drizzle to keep the mud oozy and fill in her tracks. She headed southeast. Only a fool would try to hide out in unfamiliar marshlands. She was not sure how far she could trust Burningloaf. Or that Hell-bitch of a sorceress. Let the baker tell Frostflower, and she would probably blab it all over the Tanglelands. Good. Let her tell everyone that Thorn was hiding in the marsh. Let Maldron lose five or ten warriors in the bogs and quicksands before deciding she had sunk. Meanwhile, she would be making a nice, wide circle back around the southern edge of the Rockroots, slipping down to the east of Maldron’s Farm, and on south to Nedgebottom.

  That was a good, open town where the townmaster gave farmers no more respect than he had to, and people made it a habit not to recognize anybody. In Nedgebottom she could find some way to earn a few more coppers, and until she got there she could live off the forest and riverland. Maybe not so well as when she had traveled with a sorceress and had fresh grapes and squash and so on, grown in a few moments whenever they felt hungry…

  Warriors’ God! She had traveled with Frostflower a day and a half all together, not counting the day they spent resting in the weavers’ graincellar getting Thorn back to normal after the grub. Gut me and hang me up if I ever make friends with a blasted sorceron again! she thought. Well, she was sick of vegetables anyway. She wanted meat, and if she judged she could not risk a fire, she was ready to eat her kill raw.

  CHAPTER 4

  Frostflower knelt on the floor with her face in her hands, the tears wet on her cheeks and palms, and a hard pressure in her head, neck, and chest.

  A harsh, foul-mouthed warrior, cruel, loud, and evil-tempered. Then why can I hardly breathe except in sobs? And why can I not straighten my back? I had not thought she could be so cruel. I knew her temper, knew her tongue, but to hear her say…and cold—a wom
an who did not want her own child, who would not even stay to see her own child safe…and cruel! I had not thought she could be so cruel.

  But Starwind was crying. Numb and guilty, Frostflower crawled to the improvised cradle and lifted him from it. She could not trust her voice to sing or hum; she could only hold the infant close and sway back and forth on her knees in silence. Still, he quieted almost at once, gurgled, and went back to sleep.

  The ends of the rope ladder creaked again on the floor planks. Frostflower looked up eagerly. But it was not Thorn. it was Burningloaf climbing up to her.

  “What happened up here, Frostflower?”

  “She is gone?”

  “Gone and good riddance. What was the trouble?”

  What had been the trouble? Anger? Pride? Outraged superstition? Frostflower returned the infant to his cradle. What had been the trouble? She turned her palms outward in a gesture of helpless confusion.

  “Unh. Well, I’ll bring you up some fresh bread. And wine. You’ll want a few cups of wine.”

  “Thank you. You are kind. And perhaps you will bring me…no. No, nothing.”

  “Well? What else?” He spoke kindly, but shortly. Had there always been that slight, that very slight hint of suspicion in his tired voice and withered old face?

  “A little pot of earth, old friend. Only a little pot of earth.”

  “I feed you well enough, Frostflower. Whatever spices you want, I can put them in your vegetable stews.”

  Yes, he would feed her and shelter her, for the sake of her grandmother, his childhood friend. But he wanted no sorcering under his roof. Nevertheless, she must know.…“Only one small cup of earth? I will leave no traces.”

  “You need rest, Frostflower. Lie down and take a nap while I get your supper.”

  She reached up and pressed his powdery hand. He helped her to her feet. For a moment she thought she would cling to him, finding comfort in his thin old arms and stooped shoulders, hardly taller or broader than her own. “Friend,” she said, looking into his eyes. “Old friend…”

  He looked away and began easing her toward the bed. “Lie down and sleep, Frostflower. I’ll bring you some heated wine.”