City of Ice

by Laurence Yep

  “What did I ever do to you?” Scirye demanded.

  When the eyes narrowed to slits, the fire behind them blazed hotter and fiercer.

  I think she hates me just for being alive, Scirye decided. She hates everyone. It was that hatred that fed the fire behind the eyes. A hatred so deep and mindless that it had consumed everything inside her, only leaving those sickly green flames.

  Her friends gone or dead, isolated in a hostile land and facing a horrible monster by herself, the girl had never felt more alone in her whole life. What chance did she have? She was as small and insignificant and helpless as a bug on a glacier.

  Then she heard Nishke again: “Yashe! Yashe!” Honor! Honor!

  Scirye’s sister and mother had shouted that as they had fought Badik the dragon. It was the battle cry that thousands of Pippalanta had yelled through the centuries.

  It was as if Scirye’s mind had been cloaked by darkness and now someone had thrown open a window so that the light could stream inside again.

  The voice was compelling, forceful, like a hand shoving her forward, but instead of her body, it was her soul.

  The hag must have cast some spell of despair over her.

  So, yes, it was true that Scirye was now all alone. But this was no time to wallow in self-pity or use it as an excuse to do nothing. She was the last defender. It was up to her.

  Scirye surged from the ground, anger fueling her to move with extra speed. Her hand reached for her knife, but it was gone from her belt. From the corner of her eye, she saw it on top of the pile of weapons that the hag had taken from them while they were unconscious.

  The girl’s mind raced desperately through the lessons that her sister, Nishke, had taught her about hand-to-hand combat, but they’d only had time to cover some basics of self-defense.

  “Did you ever have anyone fight back?” Scirye demanded, and raised her fist. The hag whirled around, seizing the mouth of the bag in both hands and lifting it to her chest. The bag’s mouth wriggled like a starving beast’s lips waiting to be served its supper. All the hag needed to do was trap Scirye’s hand inside and she’d have the rest of the girl soon after that.

  Scirye slipped to the left, hoping to land a punch on the side of the hag’s head, but the hag pivoted, holding the open bag between them like a dark shield.

  Scirye feinted again and the hag thrust the bag out to capture her fist. Over the years, Scirye had developed agile hands to play her pranks—so agile in fact that she was adept at picking pockets—so she had no trouble pulling her arms out of the way as she darted back.

  They shifted in an odd sort of dance about the igloo, Scirye trying to find an opening and the hag to trap her with the bag. As they wove their way around, Scirye realized that they were both the same height, for their heads were just brushing the ceiling.

  Scirye had been so intent on watching the hag that she had not kept an eye on her friends on the floor. Suddenly, she stumbled over Koko. To her horror, she fell backward.

  As the girl lay momentarily stunned, the hag shrieked in triumph and started toward her.

  Desperate, Scirye rolled on her side, pivoting on her hip as she swung her leg in a wide kick. But she had misjudged the distance and made her move too soon. Rather than knocking the hag down, Scirye kicked the bottom of the bag. Since it contained her friends, Scirye had assumed that it was heavy, so she was surprised when the bag was as light as a feather pillow.

  The bag flew from the hag’s startled grasp, but instead of falling, it somersaulted in the air like a bird celebrating its freedom. And then it spiraled slowly through the air like a bird of prey selecting its next victim—which was the upright hag.

  As the bag swooped toward her, the hag panicked and instinctively thrust both arms up to fend it off, but the bag stretched its mouth so wide that Scirye thought it would tear. The next instant, the sack had swallowed both the hag’s hands.

  Scirye seized her chance as she sprang from the floor. Her quick hands shot out now to snag the hag’s belt. When Scirye yanked, there was a twang like a dozen guitar strings snapping. The leather thongs finally broke and Scirye fell on her back, the belt in her hands.

  The hag screeched in fury and terror. Twitching and jerking, she tried to pull a hand free, but the bag had her ensnared. The edges of its mouth fluttering, the bag nibbled relentlessly along her wrists, her elbows, and beyond.

  Desperately, the hag twisted her head this way and that to elude the bag, but it managed to stretch over that part of the hag anyway. Sides rippling, the bag swallowed the hag up to her shoulders.

  The hag stumbled about madly, knocking over crates and baskets and even trying to brush the bag off by rubbing against the sides of the igloo. Every frantic effort was in vain, though. Finally, she tripped over some furs and as soon as she had fallen the monstrous bag engulfed her to her hips.

  The hag fought the bag hard, but the result was inevitable. Inch by inch, the sack choked down its prey until the tips of the hag’s boots slipped inside and she was gone.

  Scirye almost felt guilty when she heard the faint wail echo from inside the bag. But then through the opening she saw a pair of eyes, blazing with hate.

  The hag would show no mercy and neither could Scirye.

  The bag’s drawstrings wriggled along like worms, and the bag shut itself up tight.

  Scirye sat exhausted as the bag rolled about as if the hag was tearing at its sides trying to break free. But gradually the movements subsided until the sack was still. And then, as if it were alive, the bag rose on its own so it was resting on its base now.

  “Wha—What happened?” Kles mumbled, his beak opening and then snapping shut in an immense yawn. “I had the most awful nightmare about this horrible thing trying to catch me.”

  “It wasn’t a nightmare,” Scirye said, nodding wearily toward the bag. “And it was all my fault.”

  21

  Scirye

  Face flushed with shame, Scirye told how she had fallen asleep and the strange dream she had that had saved them.

  “Perhaps Nanaia sent you that dream,” Kles suggested.

  Scirye squirmed, rubbing her hand where the “3” was. It wasn’t glowing now, but it still felt a little warm. “She always expects something in return for a favor. Do you think this will add to the cost?”

  “What choice do we have?” Kles shrugged with both his shoulders and his wings. “She’ll present the bill when She’s ready. For now, I just want to know what happened when you woke up.”

  When Scirye was finished telling Kles about the battle, he crept onto her lap and wrapped his paws around her. “And you fought her alone. I’m sorry that I slept through it all.”

  The girl hugged the griffin back. “You weren’t supposed to stay awake. I was.”

  Kles patted her. “Don’t blame yourself. It wouldn’t surprise me if the…hag?”

  “That’s what the voice called her,” the girl said, hugging the griffin in return. Even with her eyes shut, she still saw the two malevolent eyes glaring at her.

  “Then that’s as good a name as any,” Kles said. “I’m sure the hag casts a sleeping spell on all her victims. You couldn’t hear her with that storm raging.”

  Outside the winds still howled and tore at the igloo, but Roxanna had made it well.

  Scirye took comfort in the griffin’s words, hoping they were true as she went to wake the others up.

  The others were still a little groggy from the hag’s spell, but the devoted Upach had already filled the kettle with snow so she could make tea.

  “Who was that old biddy anyway?” Koko asked with a shudder. “Her grip was worse than any bill collector who ever chased me.”

  Roxanna lay where she had fallen, too exhausted to move. “The Inuit call her Amagjat. She ambushed”—she corrected herself—“or, rather, used to ambush stray travelers and take them back to her lair to eat them.”

  “Well, Bayang would have given her indigestion for sure,” Koko said, careful to roll bey
ond the reach of the dragon’s tail. “So I guess that would’ve been some consolation.”

  “I don’t think it’s any accident that Amagjat found us,” Leech said. “Roland could have hired her as a kind of guard to take care of snoopers.”

  Roxanna gave a snuffle and wiped her nose. “This is Amagjat’s hunting territory. I should have told you, but I didn’t.”

  “No, Lady Roxanna,” Scirye said, trying to comfort the Sogdian girl. “The fault’s mine. I’m the one who fell asleep and let Amagjat invade the igloo. I should have been outside instead keeping watch.”

  “Hey,” Leech said, “don’t be so hard on yourself either. What could you see in a storm at night? You might as well have been inside. And the storm was so loud I could barely hear myself snore. You couldn’t have heard her sneaking up on us.”

  “Yes,” Roxanna said. “Amagjat has all sorts of spells to make her victims helpless. When she picks out her prey, she’s relentless. Few escape her.”

  Scirye refused to accept that as an excuse. “I failed in Tumarg. Sentries have been hung for falling asleep.”

  Roxanna stared disconsolately at the ceiling. “And I failed in common sense. I warned you that one error would get you killed, and it turns out that I’m the one who made the mistake.”

  Koko’s nostrils twitched. “Then it might have been nice if you’d warned us about her.”

  Scirye sprang to Roxanna’s defense. “If Roxanna tried to tell us about everything, we’d still be back in the caravanserai.”

  The Sogdian girl was subdued, though. “No, Lady Scirye. The badger-badger-badger is right. Once the storm forced us to stay put, Amagjat became a real danger. She’s clever enough to counteract guns.” Roxanna seemed on the point of tears. “Lord Leech is a hero, and you are the chosen of the goddess. Here I was trying to show all of you that I’m worthy to be in your company, and I failed so, so miserably.”

  Was that why she’d been acting like so much of a know-it-all? Scirye wondered. Out loud she insisted, “Please don’t say that. I’m just like you.” She was so upset that her voice trembled. Kles, who was sitting upon her lap, tried to comfort her by rubbing his head against her stomach and chirruping reassuringly.

  Roxanna was too intent on confessing her own flaws to notice how she was disturbing Scirye. “Nana does not perform miracles for me,” she said humbly. “Nor could I beat Amagjat. You just keep adding to your legend, Lady.”

  The last thing that Scirye wanted was to have Roxanna place her upon an even higher pedestal. “I just happened to get lucky,” she insisted as she tightened her arms around Kles. “After all, if I really was as special as you claim, how come I nearly got us buried by that storm? You were the one who told us we had to stop. You knew there was a blizzard coming though there wasn’t any hint of it yet. Now that’s special.”

  Kles tapped a paw against Scirye’s hand as a sign to be released. When she eased her grip, he shifted to face the Sogdian girl. He had been taught that the first rule of diplomacy was always to look presentable, so he smoothed his tousled fur before he spoke. “Upach, wouldn’t you agree that a lady’s entourage knows her the best?”

  “Certainly,” Upach said. “Our chicks would be lost without us.”

  Kles went on. “And wouldn’t you also agree that what makes them special is their talents? My lady happens to be very clever and resourceful. Nor does she know when she’s beaten.”

  “Maybe that’s because I’m too dumb to realize that,” Scirye admitted.

  Kles regarded the Sogdian girl. “Lady Roxanna, you’re leading this expedition admirably.”

  “Yeah,” Leech agreed. “You read the land and sky as if they were both pages in a book.”

  “Sure, without your savvy, we’d have been icicles now,” Koko contributed.

  “And you’ve always guided us to a good landing spot,” Bayang added.

  Roxanna refused to be consoled, though. “They’re such little things, though. And there are many people up here who could have done the same.”

  The ifrit sidled in close to her. Upach’s hand groped through the air until she found Roxanna’s arm and could pat it. “Not as well as you, chick.”

  “Lady Roxanna, I think you try to be too perfect,” Kles observed. “That’s why you’re so hard on yourself.”

  Upach punched her palm with her other fist. “The birdie’s right. You’re your own worst enemy.”

  Roxanna turned her back on them and then lay on her side, curling up into a ball. “And I was nearly everyone else’s.”

  22

  Bayang

  Bayang liked the Sogdian hatchling, so she hated to see Roxanna wallowing in self-pity and doubt. The Sogdian hatchling was insecure and brash, but she shouldn’t be punishing herself the way she was. However, Bayang also had a more selfish reason to see Roxanna cheer up: If Roxanna did not act more like her old self, they might never survive. Indecisiveness would kill them as surely as a storm would.

  Bayang wracked her brains to come up with something that would comfort Roxanna, but unfortunately she drew a blank.

  It was Upach who knew how to take her mistress’s mind off her faults. “What happened, Lady Scirye?”

  Bayang was glad to see that Roxanna listened as attentively as the others while the Kushan girl told them about her battle with the hag.

  Bayang shook her head admiringly. The more time she spent with the human hatchlings, the more she had to admire their courage. They didn’t seem to know when they were defeated. “You not only beat her, but you captured her as well.”

  Roxanna regarded Scirye with awe. “Many brave people have tried to defeat Amagjat over the centuries, but you’re the one who did it. Now I see why Nana chose you.”

  “And she did it all on her own. It’s worthy of an epic,” Kles almost crowed as he sat on his mistress’s lap.

  Scirye hugged her griffin to her. “It’s nothing like that. I was scared the whole time.”

  Bayang curled into a tight ball for warmth so that she resembled a coil of scaly rope. “If you could take any epic hero and ask him or her, they would tell you they were terrified too.”

  Scirye shifted uneasily. “And I was lucky.”

  “Here, let some of that good fortune rub off on me,” Koko teased as he leaned forward and brushed his paw against the sole of Scirye’s boot. “I could sure use it.”

  “You’re hiding something,” Leech challenged.

  Still on Scirye’s lap, Kles looked up at her. “They need to hear the rest.”

  Scirye shifted uncomfortably, glancing at her hand where Nanaia’s mark was. “I think She sent my sister to warn me while I was asleep.” And she told them about the dream.

  “To wake from a dream and find yourself facing Amagjat.” Roxanna gave a shudder. “I would have been shaking in my boots.”

  Scirye tried to deflect the Sogdian girl’s admiration: “Well, maybe you can help us figure out what Amagjat was using on this belt. When her hand got stuck in the bag, she touched something on this and pulled free.”

  Setting down Kles, Scirye fetched the belt and laid it among them.

  Leech looked at all the beads, charms, pebbles, carvings, shells, and feathers tied to it. “But which one? There must fifty of these things.”

  Hair, scales, and feathers touched as the friends bent over to examine it together. Some of the carvings were from bone, others from ivory, ranging in style from elaborate to simple.

  Bayang tapped a claw against her muzzle as she studied the belt. “Some of these might be trophies rather than real magical charms.”

  “But how can we tell?” Scirye wondered.

  Kles glanced at her. “Did Nanaia say anything about them?”

  Scirye drew her eyebrows together, screwing up her face in concentration as she tried to bring up every detail from the dream. Searching through her memories was like trying to catch hold of smoke…when suddenly she found something.

  “It’s hard to recall everything in the dream,” she
admitted. “But there was something about an otter.”

  They carefully inspected the belt again, but though there were plenty of bears, foxes, and seals, they didn’t see an otter.

  “You know how dreams are,” Bayang said charitably. “It’s impossible to remember everything accurately.”

  Scirye’s shoulders slumped. The moment she had said it, she had been so sure it was the otter.

  “All right,” Bayang said. “What area of the belt did the hag try to touch when she was reaching into the bag?”

  Now that the belt was lying flat on the rug instead of around the hag, it took Scirye a moment to orient herself. Biting her lip, she tapped a patch on the right side. “There, I think.”

  “Hmm,” Kles said. “Let’s assume that the hag has had the bag a long time; then she would have had the charm too.”

  Leech nodded. “Otherwise, the bag would have been worthless to her because it would be too deadly.”

  “And let’s assume there’s some wear on the charm she uses all the time.” Bayang indicated the more-or-less realistic carvings. “So, for instance, these seem too new.”

  Scirye ran her eyes along the charms and then back again, squinting at a small oblong quartz. She had taken it for just another bit of stone, but when she examined it by imp light she could see faint markings on the sides. Even when it was new, she might not have recognized it as an otter…and yet the more she looked at it, the more it suggested the sleek body of an otter in motion.

  “What about this?” she asked, pointing. Her fingertip brushed it and briefly she was swimming through the sea, the water breaking around her head and fanning out behind her in a V like a sketch of wings. Nothing could hold her, not the waves, not the seaweed, not the sharks. Untouchable. Absolutely free. “It’s this one,” she said with more confidence.

  The griffin touched it gingerly and snatched his claw back. “Yes, I think you’re right.”

  “It’s animal magic. Sometimes otters have to hunt in dark waters,” Bayang declared. She used a paw to pantomime a creature sliding along. “A bear charm might give you the strength of a bear. So maybe an otter charm gives you some of its elusiveness. Spells can’t hold you and at the same time you have some of an otter’s ability to hunt in the dark.” The dragon stroked her muzzle. “Hmm, I wonder if some of the other belt charms let you cast spells too,” she mused. “Like the one that let her put us to sleep?”