Godess of the Ice Realm loti-5

by David Drake

  "For that they'll be honored as they deserve when we have the leisure to do so," said Garric, glancing about the confusion with a smile that reminded her of the brother she'd grown up with. "Which at present we certainly do not. But-"

  "Your highness!" said Lord Lerdain, pushing back through the crowd. "The centipede's dead or dead enough that we can get by! Lord Escot and Master Ortron are advancing!"

  Lerdain had gotten a bang on the side of his face; the present puffiness would become a bad bruise in a few hours. He no longer seemed the pudgy fifteen-year-old he'd been a few months before when he became Prince Garric's aide.

  "Right!" said Garric, turning toward one of the corridors branching off this great junction. "Tell them I'm coming."

  Looking past him Sharina saw the chitinous, pincered leg of an insect large enough that its legs could scrape the high ceiling when it lay on its back. The sight gave her stomach a sudden jolt. But we killed that already! her mind told her; but they hadn't, not this particular creature nor even one exactly like it. And what else was waiting before they reached Her?

  "Sharina," Cashel said, "I've to go with Garric. I'll be back when, well, you know."

  Garric and his pair of soldiers were already pushing forward; Attaper followed with a set expression and his hand on the ivory hilt of his sword. The bodyguard commander obviously had his own opinion of what was reasonable behavior for his prince, and as obviously he knew to hold his tongue at this juncture.

  Sharina hesitated, caught between concern for her ragged followers and her desire to stay with Garric and Cashel now that she'd finally been reunited with them. Though she didn't suppose she had any business fighting now, since there were soldiers with the training and equipment to "Mistress, you must take me to the front!" Beard cried. "Has Beard not been a good servant to you? Will you starve Beard of the blood he deserves?"

  "But-" Sharina said. Cashel and Garric were already out of sight beyond the currents of milling soldiers. She couldn't let her whim and an axe's bloodlust take her where a girl without armor would only be in the way of men in a hard battle!

  "Do you think they can fight what waits for them, mistress?" Beard said, his voice rising in peevish anger. "They can't, you know. They'll only die when they face an Elemental! But Beard and his mistress, they can drink even that life. Please, mistress!"

  "An Elemental…?" Sharina repeated softly.

  "Oh, She's a great wizard, the greatest of wizards," the axe crooned. "No one could bind an Elemental! But She bound one and drew it here, and it will swallow all the souls it finds unless Beard drinks its soul instead."

  Sharina shuddered as she remembered diving into the fjord to bring up the Key of Reyazel. Her mind had been numb then, so focused on the brutal strain of the dive that the horror of the things guarding the key had slid off her like filth from a wall of ice. Thinking back on the event forced her to understand exactly how foul the things had been-and how unutterably awful it would have been to be engulfed by one of them.

  "Neal," Sharina said sharply. "Take charge till I return. Hold the men here. Stay together and don't get in the way of the, the soldiers with better equipment."

  "But mistress!" Layson begged.

  "Stay here!" she snarled. "Franca, you and Scoggin too!"

  "You didn't dive into the fjord with her," said Beard in a piercing, sneering tone. "If you come now you'll die the same way, the very same way, and your souls will die forever!"

  Sharina's eyes met Liane's; Liane nodded. Sharina turned sharply. "Neal," she said, "obey Lady Liane here as though she were me. She'll take care of you!"

  She turned again and slipped off through the crowd, holding the axe over her head. Behind her, her former companions stood like scarecrows with gaping mouths. They eyed Liane and clutched their weapons like shipwrecked sailors holding spars.

  "Make way for Princess Sharina!" Beard cried; his ringing voice cut through the clamor, jerking startled men about and opening gaps that a slim, determined woman could stride through. "Make way for Beard's mistress!"

  I'm not abandoning Franca and the rest. I'm giving them a chance to live, which they wouldn't have had if they came with me now. The fact that Sharina knew her litany was objectively true didn't keep her from feeling sick to her stomach at having left behind frightened men who depended on her.

  Beard gave a metallic titter. "My mistress doesn't fear anything, of course," the axe said. "She knows that Beard'll drink himself fat on blood before she dies. Oh, fortunate mistress to have such a servant as Beard!"

  Which was also objectively true, and Sharina's laughter atthat thought washed away her empty queasiness at the way she'd treated her companions. Anyway, she didn't have any choice but to go. She knew her brother and Cashel would fight the Elemental if she wasn't there, and she didn't doubt Beard's claim that it would devour them.

  "We will kill it as we killed its sibling in the deeps," Beard caroled in response. "As we drank the soul of something that'd swallowed a thousand souls. Oh, mistress, Beard will chant your praise till the sun dies!"

  The Old Kingdom poet Celondre had claimed his work was more lasting than bronze. Beard was going to outlast Celondre, at least in this place, so Sharina supposed she'd achieved immortality of a sort…

  She laughed, wondering if she was becoming hysterical. The axe laughed with her.

  She reached the archway where the corridor joined the great rotunda. Here the troops were packed so tightly that even she couldn't squeeze through. "Make way for Princess Sharina!" Beard cried shrilly.

  That didn't change anything directly, but a Blood Eagle in the crowd ahead of her looked over his shoulder. Sharina found his face vaguely familiar; he'd probably been in her guard detachment at some point.

  "Say, thatis the princess!" he said. "Say! Don't crowd her highness, you dogs! Have you lost all honor?"

  Between shouting and prying with the butt of his spear, the Blood Eagle opened a space for her to join him. "Let the princess through!" he bellowed as he started pushing forward through the ruck. "Pass the word up there that Princess Sharina's coming through!"

  The Blood Eagle cocked his head toward her again. He was an older man whose nose had been broken at least twice.

  "File Closer Gondor, your highness," he said in a respectful voice. "I don't suppose you remember, but-"

  "I do indeed, Gondor," Sharina said. That was half a lie, but this wasn't a time for pleasantries. "Carry on."

  Which Gondor did, using the side of his shield like a plowshare to carve a furrow through the crowd. Sharina's name alone hadn't been enough to make a path, but her nameand brute force succeeded.

  "Brute force, oh yes," said Beard. "Brute force, but especially Beard's fine edge to drink their blood!"

  The corridor was half blocked-more than half-by the twisted body of the segmented, many-legged monster. The gigantic corpse still twitched. Its movements and the sulfurous, stomach-roiling stench of the blood leaking from the creature's wounds made even veteran soldiers pause as they reached it, delaying the advance more than the constriction itself did.

  "Oh, go on past, File Closer!" Beard said. "The worst that can happen if one of those legs kicks is it'll kill you. Much worse will happen if the Elemental sucks you down, as it surely will if Beard and his mistress don't stop it!"

  Gondor lurched forward, clambering over a limb the size of a fallen hickory. The bristles sprouting from its joints were as long as Sharina's arm and as stiff as blackberry canes.

  Sharina hadn't seen Gondor hesitate, but she supposed thoughts along those lines must have been going through the soldier's mind. They'd certainly been going through hers; but the axe was right. Shehad to get ahead of Cashel and Garric.

  The waving legs cast shadows against the lighted ceiling, a foul echo of the way breeze-blown limbs dapple the sunlight falling on the floor of a forest. Soldiers picked their way through with dogged courage, trying not to look in any direction as they squeezed past obstacles of quivering saffron chitin. They s
hifted aside to let Gondor and Sharina go by: the Blood Eagle driven by the presence of the girl behind him, while she pressed on out of blind determination.

  Sharina'd decided she had to reach the front of the column. Now she was driving onward without allowing herself to think further. She knew there wasn't anything new to consider, nor any thoughts that she wanted to dwell on.

  The great centipede's final segments were curled against the ceiling. One of the legs stroked like a metronome, the jaws of its pincers scraping parallel channels. Shavings drifted over Sharina, chilling her more than ice alone should have done. She shook herself, concentrating on what was ahead.

  Troops who'd gotten past the centipede moved quickly along the corridor, widening the gap between them and the bulk of the army. The men who'd crossed the obstacle immediately preceding Gondor and Sharina were double-timing to catch up with their fellows.

  "Can you keep up if we run, mistress?" Gondor asked.

  "Let's see, shall we?" Sharina said distantly. He was being solicitous; he reallydidn't know she'd regularly outrun any of the men in Barca's Hamlet, so it wasn't fair for her to react as if somebody'd just branded her for stealing.

  She shrugged off her bearskin-she doubted that she'd be in this place long enough to freeze to death, one way or the other-and broke into a long-legged stride. Her hair streamed back, though smoke-stained and greasy it was more of a clump than the gossamer blond fabric that'd been her pride when she was a girl.

  Sharina hadn't been a girl in longer than days or years could express.

  The hundred or so troops ahead marched down the corridor in a tight mass, though they weren't so much in formation as a mixture of two formations. Part of the force was regular heavy infantry from several regiments, but half or more were members of the phalanx. Many of the latter'd lost their long pikes. Sharina had already seen the broken shafts, the butt ends littering the ice beneath the dead centipede and the slender points black with ichor dripping from the wounds they'd punched in the creature's armor.

  Cashel's quarterstaff showed above the ranks of soldiers, moving to the front like a standard. Garric and the rest of his entourage must be close to him, though Sharina suspected Cashel was leading.

  She smiled faintly. Cashel was a very gentle man, but when he pushed, others made way. Her Cashel.

  "Princess Sharina to join her brother!" Beard cried as she reached the formation. A man swore, but because Garric and his followers had already disarrayed the ranks Sharina had less difficulty getting through than she'd expected. Gondor was somewhere behind her. Had hereally thought he in his armor could outrun Sharina os-Reise? And yes, he probably had; but he wouldn't think that again.

  She worked her way up to Cashel; Garric and the others were to the side, forming a partial rank just behind the front of the formation. "Garric, Cashel!" Sharina said. "You've got to let me through. The thing that's coming won't be harmed by your weapons!"

  Garric looked back awkwardly past the cheek flare of his helmet; Cashel turned also, his smile of greeting turning quickly to a troubled frown. "Sharina," Garric said, "this isn't a business for you. I-"

  "It's a business for Beard and for no others!" said the axe, causing Garric's eyes to widen. "Any of you can face the Elemental-but you'll die and spend eternity in torment! Beard and his mistress will drink its life instead."

  "Look, if the axe is necessary," Lord Attaper said, "I'll take it and-"

  "No," said Sharina.

  "Out of her cold dead hands!" said Beard. "If you think you can, which you will not-for Beard will eat your brains if you try."

  Sharina didn't know why she was so furiously determined that she alone would handle Beard. She and the axe had survived horrors together; perhaps it was that. But beyond that, she'd faced Elementals before. Attaper hadn't, none of the others had.

  "Your highness?" called Master Ortron, now marching on the left side of the front rank. A helmetless nobleman was on the right; Sharina could imagine the confusion that would cause if Garric hadn't been present. "There's something funny about the passage ahead. I don't see the light we're following."

  Sharina cocked her head toward Garric to see between the shoulders of two men in the front rank. Fifty feet away the deep blue undertone of the present corridor became a murky yellow-gray like nothing she'd seen in these caves. She could still make out the walls and ceiling-or thought she could-but the thread of wizardlight blurred and vanished like a fishline plunging into the sea. The line of troops continued forward at a measured pace.

  "The Elemental's waiting," said the axe. "It's waiting to swallow every soul that comes to it, but it isn't waiting for Beard."

  "Sir, we're not afraid!" the nobleman cried. "Come on, men!"

  "Stop him!" Sharina shouted. The fool could draw the whole force with him unless "Charge!" the noble cried, waving his sword as he broke into a run.

  "Knock him down, Herther!" Master Ortron roared. There were three pikemen in the front rank. Two of them-one was presumably named Herther-swung their long shafts sideways, one cracking the nobleman across the temple and the other sweeping his ankles out from under him. He crashed into the wall and flopped to the floor on his back.

  "Let me by," Sharina said in a desperate murmur. She didn't raise her voice for fear she'd scream with fear and frustration.

  "Sharina…," Garric said with a troubled frown. The troops continued to march toward certain death; the front ranks divided enough to keep from trampling the fallen officer, but the men behind probably couldn't see the poor fellow until they were on top of him. They were nearing the change in light.

  "Garric, let her go," said Cashel. "I don't like it, but I trust her. Whatever she says, I trust her."

  Garric nodded, his face still furrowed with worry. "Regiment…," he said in a voice that thundered over the clash of boots and jingling equipment. "Halt!"

  The boots crashed down one more time. The echoes continued to roll; from farther back in the corridor came the sound of men running to join the main body.

  "Sister, I wish it were me," Garric said with a lopsided grin. He turned. "Make room for Princess Sharina!"

  "Oh, mistress, Beard will eat again!" the axe trilled as Sharina slipped between soldiers, her shoulder brushing the man on her right. "Oh, mistress, you've brought Beard to such feasting. No one else in this world will hold Beard until you're gone!"

  Nice that somebody's happy, Sharina thought. And not for the first time; but she was here not only by her choice but by her insistence. Of course if Beard wasn't just exaggerating as a compliment, there was no other choice that gave anybody a chance at survival.

  The change in light was just ahead. Some of the pikes reached into it; their shafts seemed to kink slightly as though they'd been thrust into water. As though they were reaching into the water covering the Key of Reyazel…

  She hadn't come herenot to act. Sharina stepped through the insubstantial barrier.

  She didn't look over her shoulder, but she knew the world behind her had vanished. She was in the fjord again, and the enfolding chill penetrated her soul. Planes of light jutted up, intersecting and interpenetrating one another. They had no color, but their textures differed as surely as walls of sandstone and granite and shale.

  Sharina drifted onward, downward, instinctively holding her breath. If she took this place into her body, she would never return.

  She couldn't see the thing that was waiting for her. It was like walking through a nighted forest, watched from the darkness but unable to see anything herself. Beard tugged like a leashed hound. She couldn't hear him in this wilderness of planes and soul-numbing cold, but the helve trembled in her hand as the steel mouth laughed.

  Someday Sharina would die. Perhaps this was the day she would die forever, her soul devoured by a force that was alien to all life. She felt the chill and she felt the presence of hidden doom; and she continued onward because that was what she'd come to do.

  She'd lost track of direction. There were no more walls
and floor than there'd been when she sank through the waters of the fjord.

  Her lungs began to ache. She knew that they'd shortly be ablaze with white fire but shecouldn't breathe, didn't dare to breathe.

  The axe twisted in her hand. Sharina looked upward and it was there, rippling down onto her like a mass of silk in the summer when the young spiders balloon off on the breeze. She struck or Beard struck in her hand. The Elemental divided to either side of the blow, untouched by the steel. It came on undeterred, spreading around her to right and left the way the tide rises on a narrow isthmus.

  Sharina backhanded her weapon. The spike parted the Elemental's tenuous form like smoke, its substance leaking like honey oozing from a comb dropped on hot stone.

  Beard screamed in triumph. The planes of non-light, non-color fell into shards that crumbled in turn to specks too small for sight, then evaporated.

  Sharina slumped forward. She heard Cashel cry, "Shar-" but the remainder of her name was lost as a sea of darkness surged over her mind. She knew she'd hit the floor, but she didn't feel the impact.

  Chapter 23

  Ilna walked through the tunnels at a deliberate pace. She didn't run because she wasn't good at running; and besides, there was no need: she'd get where she was going soon enough, and possibly sooner than that.

  Behind her Chalcus sang in an undertone, "I've seen the fruits of rambling, I know its hardships well…" Ilna was aware of his presence, but he was part of a world that had ended when she entered these frozen halls.

  "'I've crossed the Southern Ocean, rode down the streets of Hell…'"

  Ilna's personal memories were fading. In their place she remembered how She had built this palace beneath the ice to channel the powers on which the cosmos turned. As Ilna walked, she saw the necessity of each angle, of every knob or divot in the walls.

  It was a work of the greatest craftsmanship; but craftsmanship alone wouldn't have made the place the focus that it was. That had required materials and the willingness to use them.