by Jamie Smith
I WILL NOT BELIEVE THAT.
Sabira focused on the assembly below, hoping to see something that might prove her wrong. Instead, her eyes found the people in the crowd that scared her most. Yupin, wearing a flame-colored ribbon of a stole with white and black stones wired in, like fresh and fire-spent coals. It didn’t look part of his uniform—none of the other soldiers wore one.
He stood near the glacier with Lifan at his side, lit half in frozen blue and half in flickering orange. He looked almost like he was about to begin preaching, with Lifan there to scourge unbelievers. The sergeant major’s branding lash hung at his side, the metal a cold gray, but the sight was frightening all the same.
The two monsters were standing waiting for the one woman in the Ignatian ranks. Her clothes were different from the soldiers’ too, more ceremonial than practical.
It had to be Judge Meihu, heading straight for the colonel and his minion, her garments tattered, long gray hair a mess, face abused.
She was being dragged through the crowd by a pair of soldiers, and not gently. Meihu didn’t even look up when they forced her to her knees in front of Yupin and the sliding glacier. She seemed broken.
The judge’s glove was yanked free, exposing flesh to the cold air, and she cried out in fear. For a moment, Sabira didn’t understand what was going on, but then the guards began to manhandle the woman past their colonel, holding her naked hand toward the glowing blue ice.
NO. THEY CANNOT!
Sabira stifled a gasp. They were going to force her to bond with the glacier. That was beyond wrong, it was vile. Gripping the rock she lay on, Sabira did everything she could not to let her anger boil over. She wanted to break something. The frostsliver felt precisely the same, enraged that its larger whole was being used like this.
“Anything to say for yourself, Judge?” Yupin asked, his voice ringing out.
Meihu did, sounding defiant but scared. “This is madness. Just because the ember-priests have said you can wear their stole now doesn’t make their ideas any more true. The judiciary still rules in Ignata, not the military, and certainly not some nonsense religion, whatever privileged place it may enjoy. The law …”
Yupin was no longer listening, if he’d ever started.
“Law is your luxury. My mother died coughing up her lungs, so full they were of ash. That is what drives me. Our country needs this.”
He nodded, and his minions ended the discussion, forcing Meihu’s arm forward. Many soldiers watched attentively, either through interest or fear, as Meihu’s fingers flexed away from the cold ice. She must have known what it meant to touch it. It didn’t help. Nor did begging her captors for release. None spoke to her. Sabira thought that she saw the sergeant major smiling. Fire ran through Sabira, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. Then the woman’s skin touched the Tears of Aderast, and the judge wept with the mountain.
Frost crackled up the woman’s arm like it was lightning, accompanied by an inhuman scream. Sabira knew from experience that the judge’s mind was now lost in the infinite stream of the glacier, and as the bonding was being conducted so wrongly, all Sabira could do was watch the colonel’s latest victim be consumed by it. As the horror happened, though, understanding dawned on her like a bright summer’s day. That arm, now thickly coated with ice, sealed it.
She’s becoming a yeti, Sabira thought in unison with the frostsliver, horrified.
“End it,” the colonel demanded with cold fury.
A shot rang out, and the body of their forced volunteer fell to the floor limp, staining the rock red with blood. Sergeant Major Lifan lowered his weapon as the discharged smoke floated in the air before him. He looked more affected by the powder stink than the woman he had just killed. The colonel too had other concerns.
“We’ve tried this ten times now,” he told Lifan, gesturing vaguely at the body that had been a person seconds ago. “What do they know that we don’t? Bonding with pieces didn’t work—and as we just saw, bonding with the whole doesn’t work. Bonding with males and females, young or old, it doesn’t work. There has to be some secret to it. The frost-clerics must have some means of choosing their candidates.”
“Maybe it’s the Aderasti blood that makes it work?” the sergeant major said, to the colonel’s ire.
“Say that again, if you dare.”
“They probably did something to the glacier. Polluted it, so that it will only bond with their filth.”
This idea seemed to interest the colonel, or at least to placate him slightly.
“It would be like them to make us the monsters they pretend we are,” he mused, “but we have no way to test it—and, no, I do not intend to try it myself. If our priests’ experiments ever produce a viable embershard I will be the first in line, but until then the damned will be our subjects—until the regiment is rested and we leave for the breakthrough point anyway. It would be fitting to take Adranna with frostslivers, but I’ll make do with blasting powder.”
“Aren’t the frostslivers the reason we came?” said Lifan.
“And these trials will continue after we have taken the city,” the zealot colonel stated, branded eyes gleaming. “There will be far more subjects available then. If that doesn’t work, we will simply stamp out the bonded. If Ignata cannot have frostslivers, I see no reason to allow others the privilege. If they have sealed our fate, let the Aderasti share it. I may even send a demolitions team all the way down to the glacier source when we are resupplied. Deal with the problem right from where it wells.”
“Be happy to do that myself, Colonel. Right now, if you want.”
“We haven’t the explosives for it right now, I suspect. What we have, we need to break out of Aderast—and I doubt something with as much unnatural power as the glacier can be stopped so easily. No, were we to bury it in rock, the stuff would simply continue to ooze out from below in some new direction. Our solution must be permanent.”
“Like with Adranna,” said the sergeant major, smiling through the hole in his lip.
“Like with Adranna. Our people will take what they have, as is our right. I saw the conditions they live in, before my family’s exile. The Aderasti have their cold paradise while Ignata dies without the magic it justly deserves.”
“You, clean this up,” Lifan told a nearby conscript, pointing to the body and the blood as the colonel drew a pocket watch from his coat.
“We have to act soon. We’ll move the powder barrels into place at first light and prepare for detonation.”
Sabira froze. Yupin was coming for Adranna, and soon. Who knew when it would be first light in this underground world? These people had to be stopped somehow. She didn’t know what she would have done. Probably something stupid, if it was not for Yupin. He stretched back and clicked his neck as his eyes raked the cave roof. Sabira hurriedly scuffled back, dragging Danlin with her. Too slow.
“Sergeant Major!” Yupin yelled, following it up with more orders, and Sabira knew that bad luck had struck again. He had seen her, she thought, already up and running. Waiting to see how bad things got would only increase the danger. She ran like there were flying snow-spines on her tail.
Danlin was ahead of her, already disappearing into the first tunnel. Not surprising—if he was caught with her, Sabira doubted that he would fare any better. She ran after him, not knowing how long they had before patrols got to them. She was not sticking around to find out, not only for fear of her life but because she knew now what she had to do.
She was in possession of a terrible secret. Sabira understood what that yeti she had faced really was. What they all were.
THEY ARE US AND WE ARE THEM …
The frostsliver sounded scared. It didn’t like the revelation—but Sabira needed to embrace it. The knowledge meant that there were more yeti in the mountain than she had seen. There had to be, if what she suspected was true. There had to be, if the half-formed plan in her head was going to have any chance. They must have forgotten who they used to be. The people they
came from. The duties that they still held.
Sabira was going to remind them.
SABIRA COULD HEAR doom sounding behind her.
The caves made the sound bounce strangely and made the hundreds of voices coming from below sound like the roar of a vicious beast.
It would be awhile before they reached her and Danlin, but the army had numbers, and time. They could spill through the tunnels without worrying which way was quickest. Eventually they would find her. But if only she could get away, she had the beginnings of a plan …
“I don’t think being around you is good for my health!” Danlin said, panting, as she caught up to him. They ran side by side. The echoes in the tunnel were growing louder by the second. Danlin pulled them both into an alcove, out of sight.
“I’ll lead them away from you,” Danlin said suddenly, to Sabira’s surprise.
“You’d really do that?”
IT MIGHT JUST BE AN OPPORTUNITY TO BETRAY YOU, offered the frostsliver, and Sabira glanced at Danlin in suspicion.
“If you don’t believe me, pull the trigger,” Danlin said, nodding to the musket in Sabira’s hands.
“What?” She looked at him, confused.
“I mean it. Pull it now,” he demanded, and took a step toward her. “There isn’t time.”
She left her aim pointed at his leg. Her heart hammered as a bit of metal on the musket pulled back and sprang forward, creating only a click where Sabira had expected a deafening bang.
It wasn’t loaded.
“If I’d wanted to fight you, I’d have done it,” he said, smiling.
She felt a burst of warmth for the young soldier. She slung the musket from her shoulder and handed it back to him. “Thank you. Will you be all right?”
“If they don’t find some excuse to whip me to death,” he said, “I’ll do what I can to sow some discord in the ranks. There are others like me. As for the officers, maybe I can convince them that it was just me up on that ledge.” He glanced out of the alcove. “I’ve got to go, they’ll be catching up.”
Sabira watched as Danlin ran into the passage and turned a corner. Footsteps rushed past soon after and Sabira held her breath, pressed into the shadows.
And then everyone was gone, lost to the mountain’s silence.
* * *
Sabira hurried back the way she and Danlin had come, listening for sounds of pursuit. There was nothing. The young soldier’s plan appeared to have worked.
HE WAS MORE THAN I EXPECTED. BETTER. BUT WE CAN’T RELY ON HIM.
“Don’t count him out yet,” Sabira said, though she could only hope she was right to trust in the soldier.
She thought she knew the way—and the frostsliver helped guide her when she wasn’t certain. The moment she saw the passage marked out by the luminous blue mushrooms, she took it.
YOU’RE GOING TO GET US BOTH KILLED.
“Why can’t you trust me?” Sabira whispered, annoyed.
BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT POSSIBILITY EATS AT YOU. CHASING IT MAY KILL US BOTH.
“It might,” Sabira agreed. “But we’re going to risk it.”
She continued along the passage, the mushrooms lighting her path. If she was going to die, it would be for a reason, not just in the forlorn hope of survival. It was no longer only about that—or even saving her uncle, no matter how much she wanted to. It was more important than either of them, and Sabira felt sure that Mihnir would see it the same way.
Eventually, Sabira found a tunnel that widened into a full cavern. She stopped, her breath catching in her throat. The cavern towered over her in infinite shades of sapphire. Tunnels led into it from all heights, and Sabira had the impression she was standing at the heart of a warren—or maybe a hive. A yeti hive.
Stomp.
Stomp.
Stomp.
Sabira froze. Heavy footsteps filled the air and echoed around the cavern as yeti strode through the multitude of doorways—almost as if they’d known she was coming, had been waiting for her to arrive. She forced herself to stand still, even though her racing heart screamed at her to run.
STEADY. IF WE ARE TO DO THIS, LET US STAND TALL.
Her legs shook as the yeti moved in closer, their slow approach almost worse than if they had charged her. Sabira’s nerve nearly broke. It might have, if it wasn’t for the yeti that pushed to the front of the crowd, shouldering between its fellows to reach Sabira first.
It was the yeti with the odd stumping gait that she had faced before. Sabira could see now that one leg was twisted and deformed compared to the other, as if it had not grown correctly.
I … I RECOGNIZE THIS ONE …
Sabira believed it. She suspected that this yeti had been following her, possibly since she had bonded with the frostsliver. It had sensed her, watched over her that night in the blizzard, and stayed close, right until it had stopped at the sight of the ash-cat, her childhood toy.
The yeti opened its great fist, revealing the little carving now. It had picked it up, kept it.
Sabira’s pulse quickened. She couldn’t breathe, could barely think. She was right. The yeti’s leg was misshapen for a reason. She looked closer at the large, lumpy limb. Yes—she could see metal rods held in stasis within the translucent icy flesh.
She had known that this moment might come ever since she had realized the yeti were created by a failed bond. She had hoped for it. Feared it.
“Kyran,” she choked, blinking back tears, and reached out her hand.
THE CREATURE THAT had once been her brother loomed over Sabira. Other yeti gathered around, staring down from the upper tunnels. Sabira tried to guess how many were here—there must be hundreds, she thought as a bead of sweat formed on her brow.
I AM SORRY. I WISH HIS FATE WAS KINDER. HE DID NOT DESERVE THIS.
She tried to see something in the yeti’s face of the boy Kyran had once been, but it was impossible. Still, he was here. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
The yeti cried out, his sorrow echoing off the cavern walls—or was that rage? Sabira didn’t know, and from the frostsliver’s discomfort, she didn’t think it did either.
I FEEL THEM. THEY ARE WRONG. THEY ARE LIKE US, BUT BROKEN. I SEE THAT NOW. I FEEL THAT.
A moment passed, and Sabira worried that the frostsliver might be right. The others were pressing closer. Curious, or even hungry for this convenient prey that had wandered into their territory? They had killed before. Ignatians, true, but did they know the difference anymore?
They were abominations—an unholy melding between human and glacier. People who had tried to bond with a frostsliver when their minds were in the wrong state for it. Aderast’s gift gone wrong. This was what it meant to fail the bonding. Sabira saw it in the malformed creature that stood before her, the creature that used to be her brother. But she saw something else too: hope.
Another yeti pushed forward, a cold snarl escaping it as it attempted to get to Sabira. She stepped back in fright, but before the monster could reach her, the stump-legged yeti got in front of it, spread its limbs wide, and roared into the thing’s blank face. Slowly, it moved away. Kyran always was the strongest, bravest big brother she could have hoped to have. Sabira held very still, eyes flicking between the other surrounding creatures until eventually her brother turned his gaze to her again.
“It is really you, isn’t it?” she said. She wanted it to be true. She also wanted it to be dead wrong. It had to be true, for everyone’s sakes. It was hard to feel that it was, though, when there was so little of her brother visible in the figure before her. Salt stung Sabira’s eyes, but she couldn’t give in to that. She had to be strong. Until this was all done, she had to hold herself together.
The thing took one more step and reached a paw toward her. She still worried that it might want to do her harm. How could she not when she was faced with a monster of legend? It was almost more than she could bear.
“Please,” she begged in a whisper. “I’m Sabira. Your little sister. You have to know me.”
He had been trapped in this icy form for months. Even if he recognized her, would that mean anything to him now? He had held her ash-cat talisman through all this, the one that had provided no luck until now. Sabira couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. All she could do was hold her hand out to the broken wooden ash-cat and hope.
The yeti’s head inclined slightly. Then its icy gauntlet rose and moved toward her. It was close enough to grab Sabira, close enough to crush the life from her.
It didn’t. Her glove touched the yeti’s open palm, enveloping the figurine, and she felt the outsized fingers tense around hers, not in anger, but in comfort. Sabira melted inside. Some spark of him was still in there.
“Thank you,” Sabira said softly.
The audience of yeti shifted, as if all were connected to a single string being pulled. It was the murmur of a crowd witnessing something important.
She wanted to stop there, to let that small contact be enough. To cry. To pull the creature that had once been her brother into a hug. To curse it and the mountain that had made it. Anything but what she had to do—keep the tension wound up within her, and use it.
Sabira pressed the figurine into the yeti’s paw and stepped back. The creature folded its fist around the precious toy. She let out a noise of pain at the sight, even though she had promised herself that she would bottle it up. Only one, though.
“Adranna needs you, Kyran,” she said, getting control of herself. Then louder, to all the yeti, to every icy face, “Adranna needs every one of you!”
Would they understand? Could they? She wasn’t sure what they were anymore—were they protectors of the glacier, as legend had it, or animals with the vaguest memory of being people?
BE READY TO RUN. IF YOU ARE WRONG, THERE WILL BE LITTLE TIME.
She nodded, and the creatures pressed in closer, watching with their ice eyes. Listening?
“There are men in our mountain,” Sabira said. “You have seen them. You have even killed some of them.”
The crowd of yeti murmured, a sound like the slow groan of the glacier.
