Steelflower in Snow

by Lilith Saintcrow

  That one could be troublesome. Often the quiet ones are stupid, but sometimes they are simply thoughtful, and woe to the sellsword who doesn’t grasp the difference.

  “The merriment here has an edge,” D’ri said, softly.

  I nodded. There was a strangeness about the laughter, fey and unwholesome. As far as I could tell, the food held no poison, but I did not trust the ale. There were women huddled near the great fireplaces attending the meat, fear in their quick glances but defiance in the set of their pale, uncooked-dough shoulders. Many of the men grew more nervous as the feast progressed. A few drank to sotting and slid off their benches, landing with shattering thumps on the flags scattered with sweetstraw and rushes.

  They are expecting something dreadful. I glanced at Redfist, still engrossed with the golden-headed head giantess. Instinct itched along my back and upper arms, reaching such a pitch I stood, scraping my heavy wooden chair back with a squeal, as a door at the other end of the hall slid silently open.

  The new arrival wore dark clothing, the long cloth serving as both skirt and sash holding no colorful linear patterns like every other man’s. His blousy shirt was dark too, and his belt was broad oiled leather.

  My s’tarei’s hand closed, warm and hard, around my wrist.

  Once, early in our travels together, he had grasped my ankle, and his intent was the same now—to fill me with Power, should there be need. Just as any s’tarei would, with his adai. Perhaps it looked to others as if he held me back from loosing steel. A cold, scaled creeping of something loathsome flicked over my skin, rasping against the borders of mind and body Janaire and the taih’adai had taught me to erect. The new arrival had some measure of Power, a clumsy childish use of what the G’mai call the Moon’s gifts.

  The Skaialan, no doubt, could sense it too.

  It was not the man’s hair, a dim shade between blond and brown. After so many bearded faces, it was somewhat of a shock to see pale, scraped cheeks. He wore no blush from the cold, either.

  No, it was the film over his eyes, a pale spiderwebbing over deep darkness that was not how eyes should look. They were like a deepwyrm’s clouded orbs, but those beasts bear such a gaze naturally, for night-fighting in their caverns. They rarely surface, and then, only at night for mating. This man had a deepwyrm’s eyes, and the set of his broad meaty shoulders was wrong as well. The angle was strange, as if something fluid had run into his bones and twisted them a bare fraction.

  His appearance was cold barqa-slops thrown upon a fire to kill its glow. A chill breeze mouthed the hall, Power stirring, spreading like dark oil.

  He showed his filed-sharp teeth, this newcomer, and a cringing went through the proud Northerners. On the grass sea of the Danhai plains, some do such things to their mouths. It gives their opponents pause there, as well.

  The women at the fire drew closer together, the children scattered to find shelter against adults. The fighting men blanched, and the only sound was Redfist’s booming, brassy voice, ricocheting from every carven edge. “And what’s this, now? A blind man?”

  In Hain, the pause in a crowd’s babble is attributed to one of their many gods or almost-gods passing feather-light through the room. Those whose voices break it by chance are held to be of special interest to the god in question, and must visit a temple to divine which they may have offended or honored. The long quiet here held a similar quality; there was a scramble of motion—all the serving-folk retreating with shushing, hurried steps for the door to the kitchens. This left only those trapped at the dais, one serving-girl passing me with a sharp inhaled breath, as if she wished to hide behind my chair.

  The newcomer tilted his head. “Who speaks?” he said, quietly, and a shocking warm tenor came slowly from that serrated, too-loose mouth.

  A ponderous scraping was Redfist’s chair, its high-pointed back quivering slightly, pushed back along the floor of the stone dais. My hand dropped to a knifehilt—not my largest knife, and not my smallest, but the one near the middle on the light side.

  The one best for throwing.

  “Rainak,” I said quietly, in tradetongue though my mouth longed for G’mai, “this one has some witchery upon him.”

  “Give me your name, blind man.” Redfist’s voice swallowed the last of my sentence, pitched to carry and cover my warning. “And I shall give you mine.”

  A hideous scraping chuckle misused the newcomer’s soft tenor. I felt the witchery-creature prepare to move in my own knees, ankles, elbows, every string of muscle I possessed.

  My wrist tore free of Darik’s grip as I hopped back and up, fish-lunging, bootsoles catching my chair’s thin horsehair cushion. I would have leapt from there to the table, had not Darik surged to his feet and thrown his arm about my waist, knocking me sideways. We landed on Emrath Needleslay, her chair’s arm striking my knee with a sound like wet wood chopped in half, and a faint floral scent mixed with the musk of a large woman who did not soak in hot water when she could swallowed me. The giantess slid from her chair with a strangled yelp that might have been amusing had it not been cracked halfway by my skull hitting her shoulder, and we went down in a tangle. Stunned, I sprawled atop her, both of us under the table in a chaos of arms and legs.

  A whistling, a thump, a high drilling noise through my skull that chose not to pour through my ears first. A heatless scent I knew well—battle, and blood drawn. D’ri, having shoved me atop the Needleslay and gained his feet with unthinking, battle-mad grace, launched himself, his boot-toe grabbing a slice of tabletop and the entire great wooden thing rocking as he soared. He hit the wyrm-eyed man in midair, a collision strangely free of noise, and I only knew afterward because the Skaialan spoke of it in hushed whispers.

  Like one of the great drakes he flew, that one. They know of wingwyrms in the cold North, as well.

  Redfist bellowed, a sound I knew well from many a battlefield, and my hands sank into Emrath Needleslay’s capacious bosom as I thrashed to free myself and be of some use against whatever witch-thing this was.

  When I gained my feet, all I saw was the thing on the floor twitching, foulness sliding from beneath its dark skirts as it hissed its dying throes. Redfist stared at it, his mouth drawn tight, and Darik made a sharp economical movement, wrenching one of his dotanii free of muscle suction. “Al’adai ma’adaiina reshai,” he murmured, and I found my own lips moving as he said it.

  Mother Moon, in defense of my twin. One of the traditional prayers, uttered by a s’tarei who had just killed to protect his adai.

  I let out a soft, shuddering sigh. Redfist, his meaty fists up, stood prepared to defend himself. The body kept twitching, and the stink that rose from it was not the honest stench of loosed bowels.

  “He killed a Black Brother,” someone said, low and clearly, in Skaialan. It was the black-bearded, quiet man. He gazed at my s’tarei as if seeing a Festival puppet perform something new and wondrous.

  There was a general motion for the doors, and the feast, it seemed, was over.

  Other Than I Was

  In a small circular room high in one of Kalburn Keep’s towers a tapestry loom gathered dust, the strands upon it faded and damp. A good fire had been laid and a flagon of strong mead brought, but I only took advantage of the former.

  “Witchery indeed,” Redfist said grimly, resting his chin on his broad hand. The fire snapped as it consumed its blackrock fuel with filthy smoke, and I kept my arms folded tight lest a shiver running through my hands betray me. The warming breath would not come; I was too busy holding my entire body still, so the shaking could not be seen.

  “They are now his black brothers.” Emrath Needleslay outright hugged herself, elbows cupped in her soft white palms. “It used to be simply his Guard were named thus as a mark of honor, but now…Some go to him to be sworn, and they return like that. Hollowed out.” She cast a nervous glance at me, no doubt because she thought I had thrown myself upon her to guard her life.

  I did not bother to disabuse her of the notion. Nor did I take
my s’tarei to task for tossing me into a giantess’s bosom. Darik paced quietly to the door, made a half-turn, and paced to the hole in the wall masquerading as a window. It was thickly glassed, and it had iced over completely upon its outside.

  “Hollowed out?” I repeated in tradetongue, wanting to make very sure I had translated the Skaialan correctly.

  “Do you know of such things?” Redfist’s gaze was turned fully on me now, for perhaps the first time since we had arrived at Kalburn. “Your people…well, J’na…”

  Janaire would probably be of more use. And yet, how quickly our barbarian turned to me once more, after all but ignoring me as his countrymen did their own women. “There are tales of such things,” I admitted. “To frighten children.”

  “Kaia.” Darik did not stop pacing, but he spoke rapidly in G’mai, his inflection precise and sharp as a warmaster laying out tactics for a student. “A black use of Power indeed; is he accusing you of such things?”

  “Not me, s’tarei’mi.” I freed a hand, pinched the bridge of my nose as if it would give me an answer to this riddle. “And we shall speak of you tossing me into that woman’s tits before long.” Deliberately crude, the inflection that of a student addressing another on equal terms.

  His even pace faltered for a half-moment, then carried on.

  “What does he say?” Redfist wanted to know.

  “One moment, my large friend.” The Skaialan fit awkwardly in my mouth after G’mai’s liquid cadence. I inhaled deeply, the warming breath igniting low in my belly. Let the air out softly, drew it in to fuel that glow.

  “Do the elvish know of such things?” Needleslay addressed herself to Redfist, and my dislike of her sharpened, if that were possible. Mother Moon, I hate that word. They use it to mean different, and strange, and it is only a hairsbreadth after using it they decide that what is strange is dangerous.

  And must be killed.

  “D’ri, have you heard of this?” I pinched my nose a little harder, as if the pressure could untangle what I had just seen and force it into sense. The half-done tapestry sagging upon the loom bothered me, too. “I left G’maihallan so young, all I can remember are some bits of the greater Lay of Belariaa. They speak of the dark that came, but…I do not know.” I was never one to stay with the Yada’Adais, preferring the practice ground despite all her gentle urging. A child’s misunderstanding of her attempt to show me the Power stirring around other girl-children, and it had led me through years and battles to precisely here.

  It was enough to make even a sellsword wonder at the ways of gods, and…fate? Was that the word? The Hain hold that none can alter theirs, written in a great book and held by one of their many gods.

  My s’tarei kept pacing, his strides the even drops of a water-clock. “Sharauq’belios,” he said, shortly.

  Of all the words in my native tongue, he had to choose one I did not know, and with a short, crisp inflection that gave me no clue. It meant foul glove, if one took it child-literally, but the root sharauq’ar is a filth that will not wash away, a stain that cannot be erased. “Darikaan.” I may have even said it sharply, with the extra twist at the end that made him into a balky mount. “An explanation would be much appreciated by your adai.”

  That brought him round upon his heel, his boot grinding into the floor—timber for this room, not stone, and I was glad of it. Too much rock will bruise the feet, even through the best boots, and this cold, dirty place full of mannerless giants did not make it softer.

  He almost glared at me, his eyes dark coals. “We should leave this place at once, adai’mi. I have little hope that you will see reason.”

  “Difficult to set forth, in this weather.” I dropped my hand, since pinching the bridge of my nose did not make my looming headache recede. Shook my arms out, as the warming breath cycled through me again. It was impossible to deny the steadying effect of his mere presence, a luxury I had missed all my life. “Tell me of the foul glove.”

  “What is he saying?” Redfist smacked the arm of his chair with a clenched fist, a dull, thudding sound. He was not troubled by the tapestry upon the loom or by Emrath Needleslay’s trembling. “If you know what that thing was—”

  That brought my gaze to rest upon him, and Darik’s as well. I spoke for us both, and sharply, too. “He is in the process of explaining, my barbarian friend.” Their word for foreigner is suspiciously full of sibilants; I might almost suspect it kin to the Shainakh term for a money-grubbing swine. “Try not to interrupt.”

  “Rainak.” Needleslay stiffened, her pale eyes round and a splatter of roast-grease upon the cuff of her fine satin sleeve. “That elvish bint speaks to ye thus?”

  My right hand ached for my dotani’s hilt, an almost physical pain. But Redfist shook his head, settling back into the chair. I began to think perhaps his legs were not as steady as he liked to pretend, and such a thing should not have cheered me.

  Yet it did.

  “Yes, Emrath.” Redfist spread his hand, no longer a hard fist but loose fingers, surprisingly delicate for their size. “K’ai the Steelflower speaks as she pleases, to me.”

  With that settled, I waited for Darik. Still glaring, still every fingerwidth the Dragaemir princeling, though his travel-gear was more worn than I liked and the fur jerkin after the Northern pattern made him seem leaner than he was. Or perhaps it appeared so because the cold of the Pass will melt flesh from even a s’tarei trained by the finest warmasters of my people, and the country’s inhabitants with their ill-humor and terrible food do not help.

  Darik looked as if he were weighing two uncomfortable truths, and seeking to find a balance between them. Lita arauq’idin, we call it, the hesitation between rocks and whirlpool. “There are…scrolls. In the Palace, meant for a s’tarei’s education.” He stood, tense-shouldered, braced for battle. “Of the many illnesses Power may wreak among the lesser of the world. Such things are necessary to know of, so one may guard against.”

  I nodded. “And the foul glove?” The tapestry is Emrath’s, I realized, with a sudden deep certainty. No doubt she had been called away from her work years ago, and had not returned.

  “It takes much Power, Kaia. To pour something filthy-black-whole into a man, so something else sees through his eyes. The victim is left without a will of his own, an empty vessel, and lives only to serve its master. They are…bloodthirsty.” Darik used the word for animals with the water-sickness, foaming and suffering, not caring what or whom they bite. He had paled under his even coppery coloring, for to speak of such a misuse of Power is a dreadful obscenity. The Moon would turn Her face from one who practiced it in my faraway homeland, and a deep unsteadiness gripped my stomach. “There are ways to do so. No adai would ever…and yet, Power itself carries the tale of what is possible, so we know.”

  “An empty vessel,” I repeated slowly, in tradetongue. The nausea did not subside. The idea of stealing away another’s self…even the best and most hardened of thieves might well shudder at the prospect. You could take a target’s jewels, their standing, their freedom, even their life, but to take what should always remain inviolable, the most secret inner hollows within their chest, their eyes, their head-meat? No. Such a thing was foul indeed. “A man witched away from his own will, another seeing through his eyes.”

  “So ye do know of such things.” Redfist let out a long sigh. “Dunkast, my brother…What did he find, in the North? He changed after the battle with the blue tribes, but it was never this…”

  He plainly did not expect an answer, but one arrived nonetheless.

  “A great greenmetal chain, with a black gem.” Emrath surprised us all. “He wears it openly now, about his shoulders like a steward of some great office.” She had paled alarmingly even for her kind, blue vein-maps standing out under her skin.

  Redfist did not look at her, but his tone sharpened. “Did you see that on the wedding night?”

  “He hasnae touched me, Redfist Rainak. I did not let him.” Haughty, her chin rose, her pale braids movi
ng against her dress. “The marriage is only convenience. A talanach.”

  I did not know the word; I did not bother to ask its meaning. Redfist did not look in the mood to give me a lesson in its use.

  “A gem?” Darik’s accent turned the word sideways in tradetongue; he had not taken to Skaialan as I had. “Upon a chain?”

  “They say the metal is turning to stone.” Emrath Needleslay’s shudder rippled all the way through her skirt, and Redfist finally rose.

  “Come now.” Gentle, as he would with a maddened or shivering mount. “Sit, corra-luagnh.”

  “I had to.” She gazed up at him, those pale eyes brimful with salt water. “He did not want me, Rainak. He only wanted Kalburn, and I gave him what I could to keep my people safe.” She sank into the chair with a sigh, and it did not creak as it accepted her. Her skirts fell in long, flowing drapes, masking her legs and inhibiting both flight and fighting.

  No doubt if I were a proper G’mai woman I would be wearing something similar, and I would allow my s’tarei to take me from this hideous place. If I were a proper G’mai woman I would never have left my home, believing I was the only of my kind to walk alone. I would never have made my living as a sellsword traveling the Rim, and never have picked a giant’s pocket in a Hain tavern.

  But I had done all those things, and they had led me step by step to the white wastes and this block of stone housing treachery, black sorcery, and giant boar. Were I more religious, I might well think I had angered a god or two—or amused one.

  “I like this talk of a gem even less.” Darik regarded me, evenly. Perhaps he could tell the direction my thoughts were tending. “I do not wish to risk you here, Kaia. The things they speak of, the thing in the hall—they may consume an adai.”