Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  Tabitha arched her eyebrow in disdain. Beside her, Koren crouched and picked up the key, which meant that she had not been raised properly either. Without a word she dropped it into Tabitha’s upturned hand.

  The key made her skin itch, like all the thaumat’argent charms she had touched before. On the flat turnplate, she saw a bead of polished silver mounted beside a cabochon stone. It looked like an amethyst, but the light was shading everything purple, so it was probably actually a sapphire. Silver was one of Thendalia’s Circle colors, and the other was deep blue. Almost Betaul blue.

  Yes, it was her key. She would have to find the lock and the door.

  “Well, my lady?” Ferogin asked mockingly. “What do you command?”

  Die. She wanted to say it, but it was not nearly as witty as the other barbs she had loosed at Ferogin in the first cave, and it was probably much too direct. “Keep looking, of course,” she said calmly, with a drip of disdain. She turned her head to sweep her gaze meaningfully over the lengths of the walls. “There must be more clues here.”

  Ferogin snorted, while Arundel said, “That makes sense to me,” and Ilene nodded.

  Graegor started moving toward the wall behind Tabitha. He gave her a quick glance as he passed her, and although everyone’s eyes were tinted purple by the shimmering light, his arrested her. They were so striking, even beautiful. Even after he had moved beyond her, she stared after him, and she only remembered the others around them when Arundel passed her and gave her a knowing grin.

  Tabitha immediately looked down at the key in her hand again, pretending to study it, her cheeks hot. What was wrong with her, revealing herself so openly, over and over? Nan had taught her better than this, much better. It was this stupid cave, this ridiculous situation. There was no etiquette for it, no manners that suited it.

  But that did not matter. She was a Betaul and a sorceress, and she had to be in control. Always.

  Gliding along the cave floor as if it was as smooth as a ballroom’s, Tabitha joined Graegor and Koren next to one of the walls, stepping between them as they each inspected part of the rock. Arundel, Ferogin, and Borjhul were all spread further out from the light at their own sections of the wall, and she saw Daxod at the corner where the bats had flown. Ilene had gone back to talk to Rossin, who was still standing against the lip of the shaft they had climbed.

  They found nothing. No marks on the walls, floor, or ceiling gave any hint of being deliberately placed. Tabitha’s frustration grew, but she did not show it. The same could not be said for Ferogin, who started making sarcastic remarks, or Daxod, who started kicking and banging on the rock under the pretense of triggering something hidden.

  “Let’s rethink this,” Arundel said eventually. As Tabitha and the others turned toward him, he leaned back against the wall. The shimmering star reflected in his big eyes and turned his dark skin a deep purple.

  “Yes, let’s,” Ferogin agreed. He peered across Ilene at Tabitha. “Ideas, my lady?”

  She smiled sweetly. “You have none?”

  “I have many.”

  “Let’s hear them,” Graegor suggested, a sharp edge of irritation in his voice. Tabitha wondered if keeping the star alight was tiring him, or if he simply could not manage to speak to Ferogin any other way.

  “They don’t involve any metaphors, I’m afraid, so are you quite sure—”

  “Do they involve more magic you can’t actually do?”

  Tabitha kept her smile small, but did not hide it. She had never heard Graegor interrupt anyone, let alone insult anyone, so hearing him do both to Ferogin today was quite amusing.

  Arundel spoke into the silence before Ferogin could. “My thought is that to get us past this cave, Tabitha needs to do something that only she can do, just as we got past the first cave by virtue of Graegor’s particular talents.”

  Ilene turned to look down at Tabitha. She was so tall. Tabitha herself was half a handspan taller than most northern women, but Ilene made her feel like a child. “Is there any magic that only Thendals can do?”

  “No,” Ferogin said firmly. “The only talent isolated to one race is that.” He twirled his finger at the shimmering purple star, the light that should not be.

  “Why?” Ilene asked.

  Ferogin tilted his head at her with not quite a sneer. “Why is the self-sustaining light isolated to Telgards, or why is it the only talent isolated to one race?”

  “Both. My lady’s never mentioned either thing.”

  “Do we really have time to dig into the theories? It’s not a simple answer.”

  Ilene grimaced and made a cutting gesture. “In that case, no. I thought you could boil it down like my lady can. Just forget I asked.”

  Ferogin blinked, as surprised as Tabitha was at Ilene’s sudden flare of annoyance. A smirk crossed Arundel’s face, but it was gone by the time he looked over at Tabitha. “We need to think of something that only you can do,” he said, “and I don’t think it needs to be magic. What are some of your talents?”

  “I can sing,” she said, which was her usual answer when someone asked this kind of question.

  “By any chance do you have perfect pitch?”

  That was harder to answer. Her singing masters had disagreed with each other on this point. “Within a certain range, yes, I believe I do.”

  “What does …” Ferogin stopped. The look he gave Arundel was almost respectful. “I see where you’re headed. But can a congruent spell be triggered by a sound?”

  “I don’t know,” Arundel admitted. “I’d never heard of congruent spells before today.”

  Ferogin was staring at the ground and muttering to himself. His dark hair spilled over his eyes as he looked up again, at Tabitha. “Has Natayl heard you sing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you remember every song you have sung in his presence, and how you sang each one?”

  Tabitha raised her eyebrows.

  “What, is that hard? Do you sing for him every night?”

  “No.” What a horrible thought. “Why, exactly, do I need to remember every song he might have heard me sing?”

  He huffed in frustration. “I believe that Natayl was holding that key, or maybe another object, and he set the spell while you were singing.”

  “I thought only Lord Pascin could set congruent spells.”

  Ferogin huffed again. “I never said that. Pascin’s the best at it. Anyway, if you have perfect pitch, and you sing exactly as you did when Natayl set the spell, it may trigger the door.”

  “Your voice is the lock,” Arundel said, smiling at her again.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Ferogin cautioned. “The lock may be a thaumat’argent block like Graegor’s lock was. We may need to put the key in the lock before she sings.”

  “We’ll look again for a lock,” Arundel said. “While everyone is doing that, Tabitha, you can try it the other way, just by holding the key and singing. If your voice is the lock, you’ll trigger the door, wherever it is.”

  “Remember,” Ferogin said, pointing at her, “perfect pitch. If I’m right, purity of tone is necessary.” When Tabitha looked down at his pointing finger with disdain, he snorted and started to walk beside the wall, running his fingers over the rock. One by one the others also dispersed, looking again for any sign that the elder sorcerers had been here.

  Graegor hung back, a question in his eyes. Tabitha wanted him to keep the light nearby, but he was so close in her mind. It was becoming difficult to keep that warm cloak of his power at a proper distance. Bowing her head over the key again, she ignored him until she saw the pool of light on the floor of the cave move slowly away.

  In the dimness, Tabitha set her back against the wall so that no one could startle her. She closed her eyes and cleared her throat, not liking the idea of singing in front of so many foreigners. Thendal ladies sang to praise Lord Abban above, or for the entertainment of their families and close friends, not for strangers.

  She thought she knew when Natayl had set
the spell. At the formal supper at the manor house that her family had had to attend with the Pravelles and the Jasinthes, Natayl had told her to sing for the company. She had tried to respectfully decline, but he had not let her, and in fact had been so angry at her “insolence” that his mouth had twitched as he had shouted at her telepathically. After the first song, the king had asked for another, and Tabitha had not even tried to refuse a second time.

  So it should be one of those two. Tabitha opened her eyes and stood up straighter, keeping the stone wall at her back and the key in her fist. She cleared her throat once more and started with Corinnia’s Lament.

  No doors suddenly opened as she sang. She thought that she may have rushed through the beginning, so she sang it again, but still nothing happened. She then sang The Wilder Song, twice. When she had finished and was standing there in frustration, Ilene looked up from the base of the wall nearby, where she was crouched to check the floor. “They sound beautiful,” she said. “But sad, also. Are they stories?”

  Tabitha had not even thought about the fact that she had been singing in Thendalian. It was likely that no one in this cave knew what any of the lyrics meant. “Yes, old stories. The Wilder Song is about Sorceress Iseult.”

  “Thendals love sad stories,” Ferogin remarked as he crossed the cave toward them. “Their favorite themes are cold and dark and pain. It’s disturbing, actually.”

  “What’s disturbing is what happened to Iseult, not the song about it.”

  “She only had herself to blame.”

  Tabitha could not quite believe she had heard Ferogin correctly. “She was to blame when her Circle beat her unconscious?”

  “She could have prevented it. She could have joined the Circle willingly. Or, when it was obvious that they were not going to let her set herself up as a queen in Thendalia, she could have surrendered.”

  Tabitha stared at Ferogin without words. He stared back with an innocent expression. Unable and unwilling to dignify his outrageous argument with a response, she turned back to look at Ilene. “Adelards celebrate Plague Day,” she said. “That’s disturbing.”

  “We don’t celebrate the plague,” Ferogin corrected her. “We celebrate the cure.”

  “By dressing up in funeral wraps and putting red dye around your eyes?”

  “It’s called macabre humor. I don’t expect you to understand, considering how dreary Thendal celebrations are.”

  “I think the word you want is ‘dignified’.”

  “No, ‘dreary’ is definitely the word I want.”

  “At least we dance.” She looked back at Ilene. “So few of the parties here on Maze Island include dancing.”

  Ilene tilted her head in thought, but Ferogin interrupted. “Why aren’t you singing?”

  Tabitha blinked at him. He was so rude. “Natayl has only heard me sing two songs.”

  “Are you sure you sang them right?”

  “You are the one who said there may be a lock we have to find first.”

  “Until we find it, you should keep singing.”

  Tabitha crossed her arms and raised her eyebrow. “If I wear out my voice, I will not be able to achieve the pure tone on which you insist.”

  “You can’t wear out your voice. You’re a sorceress.”

  She had no idea how to answer this. Did he mean she should be able to heal her overworked vocal cords? Like she had healed her torn maidenhead?

  Don’t think about that!

  “You don’t believe me,” Ferogin said to her silence.

  “I need water, at least, to soothe my throat,” she said finally. “Do you have any?”

  “I brought some,” Ilene said, “but my lady said that I had to leave it in my saddlebag.”

  No water. Probably no food either. Tabitha hoped that meant the older sorcerers did not intend for them to stay in here for longer than a day. But she could not count on it.

  “Keep singing, Tabitha,” Ferogin said condescendingly, just as a shout rose from the other side of the room.

  It was Daxod. He was standing at the lip of the shaft, just where it met the wall of the cave. Rossin still stood there, but Daxod ignored him as he turned to shout again. “Over here! There’s something here!”

  A lady did not run, but Tabitha walked quickly after the others. She stood back from the crowd around Daxod, who was stretching his arm and hand over the lip and flat against the wall. “Here. Circle silver, inside the rock.”

  “Send the light over,” Ferogin called over his shoulder.

  Graegor did so, and the purple star shimmered just above his mussed hair. It seemed to be always mussed. Tabitha heard muttering at the front of the group before Arundel turned around and gestured to her. “Tabitha, we think we’ve found the keyhole.”

  She held out the key, but Arundel gestured again. “It’s your key,” he explained in his smiling way, “so you should do it. If everyone will make room?”

  Tabitha waited until all the boys had moved away from the lip of the shaft. When she reached the place where Daxod had stood, she looked at the spot on the wall lit by the shimmering star. She saw no thaumat’argent at all, but she thought she saw a dimple in the rock that could be the right size for her key.

  “You might have to stretch a little,” Arundel said encouragingly.

  Of course, Natayl could not have placed the keyhole a few handspans closer to the lip. That would have made it too easy for her, apparently. Tabitha stood on the toes of her boots and laid her arm against the wall. She tried to judge where the dimple in the rock was, but it was not easy to see from this angle. “I can’t reach it,” she said, pulling back.

  “You almost had it,” Arundel said. “Try one more time.”

  “You should do it,” she told him. It was obvious that he could reach it. In fact, everyone could probably reach it, other than Koren, Ferogin, and Tabitha herself.

  Arundel shook his head. “I think it’s important that you do it. It may be that it won’t activate otherwise.”

  Keenly aware of the indignity of the pose, Tabitha pressed her stomach to the lip of the shaft and her arm along the wall, the key between her index and middle fingers. She managed to tap the end of the key against the dimple in the rock.

  Then the key slipped from her fingers, scraped the rock, and vanished down the shaft. A tiny sound reached them when it hit the bottom.

  Several noises of despair and disgust rose from the boys behind her. Tabitha’s face flamed, and her neck and back started itching. “I told you I could not reach it,” she snapped, without turning around. She hated Natayl, she hated Arundel, she hated them all.

  “I’ll get it,” Graegor said.

  But Borjhul was already bracing on the lip and pulling himself on top of it. “Send the light down,” he said, his accent mangling the words.

  The purple star moved to the wall opposite him, but he shook his head irritably. “To the bottom,” he clarified.

  Tabitha felt something from Graegor. The soft warmth of his power that was never far from her thoughts seemed to turn, somehow. It was like fur that was stroked the wrong way. He said nothing, but he came to stand beside her at the lip of the shaft, and when he leaned over it to look down, the purple star dropped like a ball.

  Borjhul jumped. Tabitha could not hold back a gasp as he fell straight down the shaft, which suddenly seemed very narrow. He passed the light and kept going, which made Tabitha gasp again, and the thump of his landing echoed through the cave.

  Arundel and Ferogin joined Graegor at the lip, leaning over it to try to see. Borjhul shouted something, and Graegor shouted back, “If I push it further, it’ll go out. I’ll climb down part of the way.”

  As Graegor boosted himself up to the lip, Tabitha stepped away from the shaft. Her cheeks were still flushed and her power still itched, and she had to regain her composure. Natayl was now forcing her to face her fear of looking like a complete fool. At least no one had suggested that she climb down and get the key.

  “I’m sorry.�
�� Arundel had turned back to her and had an apologetic smile on his face. “I’ll try it when we get the key back up here, and maybe the spell will still work.”

  “I doubt it,” Ferogin said with a snort.

  “Thank you,” Tabitha said stiffly to Arundel.

  They waited. Tabitha folded her arms across her chest and listened as Graegor climbed part of the way down, using the handholds, to lower the light all the way to the ground. Borjhul found the key and started climbing back up the shaft. Graegor waited for him to draw close, and the two of them eventually reached the top again.

  Graegor looked at Tabitha with concern, and she avoided his gaze, but that meant looking up at Borjhul as he came toward her, holding her key. She held up her palm, but he did not let go, forcing her to reach up and take it from him. She was careful to avoid touching his hand, wishing again that she had worn Attarine’s gloves. Had Natayl simply told her that all the other sorcerers would be here, she would have worn the gloves, no matter what was fashionable.

  I am a Betaul. I am a swan. She would not be flustered. She looked past Borjhul’s hulking shoulder to Arundel. “My lord, if you would?”

  “Certainly, my lady,” Arundel smiled, and Borjhul moved aside as Arundel came toward them to take the key from Tabitha with a bow.

  “It won’t work,” Ferogin announced in an irritated singsong.

  “Why not?” Arundel said this over his shoulder. He stretched over the lip and easily inserted the key into the dimple in the rock that they had decided was the keyhole.

  When Graegor had joined his key to his lock in the first cave, Tabitha had felt a kind of squeeze in her mind, enough to make her itch with reaction. This time nothing happened. Arundel nudged the key back and forth a few times, but it was useless.

  “If I’m right,” Ferogin said, his tone denying any other possibility, “Tabitha needs to hold the key in the lock while she sings. Otherwise there’s no challenge here that’s specific to her.” He looked at her. “Unless you have other talents besides singing.”