Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “Let’s assume that I am supposed to sing,” she said, barely able to disguise how much she hated him. “You think I need to lean over this edge and hold the key in the lock while I do it?”

  “It seems logical.”

  “It does not. How can I sing with my diaphragm constricted?”

  Ferogin shrugged. “All right, then, you can try it without holding onto the key.”

  “But you don’t think that will work,” Arundel said.

  “You’re right, I don’t.”

  “I’m sure I’ll regret asking this in a moment, but can you explain why?”

  Ferogin’s eyes glittered. “Save time,” the Adelard sorcerer said. “Regret it now.”

  Tabitha heard both Graegor and Daxod sigh irritably as Arundel rolled his eyes. His patience was impressive, but it had its limits. “Ferogin. We want to save time, and we don’t want Tabitha to dry out her voice on something that won’t work. And if we don’t really need to figure out how she can reach the key and sing at the same time, we shouldn’t waste time with that either. So, convince us.”

  Ferogin smirked. “Are you sure you don’t want to try to figure it out all by yourself?”

  Tabitha turned back to the shaft, took a breath, and started singing Corinnia’s Lament. There was no reason to stand here and argue with Ferogin when she could simply try to prove him wrong. Everyone stood silently behind her as she sang of the long-ago magi girl’s matchless beauty, loveless marriage, devastated kingdom, and all-consuming pride. She knew she sang as well as she ever had, that every note rang true, but none of it did any good. Nothing happened.

  After she finished, no one spoke for a few moments. Then Ferogin said, “Are you going to sing the other one?”

  “I don’t think I need to,” she said. “If Natayl set the spell when I think he did, he would have done it during this one, the first one I sang that night. He would not have waited.”

  Ferogin nodded. “Using your brain, for once. I like it.”

  Tabitha only raised her eyebrow disdainfully, but she heard Graegor growl as Arundel said, “Please, enough.”

  “What? I said I liked it. Do you want to hear my theory now?”

  “Do tell us.”

  Ferogin gave a sarcastic little bow. “All right, then. The key and the lock cause the failure of the spell, and that’s what triggers the door. I looked at the door hinge down in the other cave. It looks like it dropped from a clamp, just a finger’s width, just enough to allow the door to open.” He demonstrated with his hands, but not very helpfully. “If triggering a failure of the spell is what Pascin, or Contare, intended, then they would not want it to happen before all the right conditions were met. The right key, the right lock, the right sorcerer.”

  “Is that what congruent spells do?” Ilene spoke up. She stood nearly outside the pool of light, with Rossin nearly invisible behind her. “Make spells fail? I’ve never heard of that.”

  “Of course you haven’t,” Ferogin said. “You’d never heard of congruent spells before I mentioned them, had you?”

  Ilene ignored his tone. She never seemed to realize when she was being insulted. “I meant I never heard of something making a spell fail. Spells just fail over time.”

  “Well, my theory is that they can be forced to fail. Remember what happened down there. We all felt the spell trigger the first time Graegor put the key in the lock. He did it a few more times, but it only triggered once. That’s because once it failed, it would have to be set again before it could fail again.”

  “Why didn’t it fail, then?” Graegor gestured toward the rock wall and the hidden thaumat’argent lock. “She touched the key to the lock, but nothing happened.”

  “Well, the key probably needs to go all the way into the lock, don’t you think?” Ferogin pointed out. “But there’s also the challenge. You certainly had your share in your cave. Are you telling me that all she has to do is lean over a ledge? Her singing is unique to her, just like the light is unique to you. It makes a whole lot of sense that she needs to sing to trigger the door.”

  “If a congruent spell can include sound,” Arundel reminded him. “Why should Tabitha’s lock need a fourth component? The right key, the right lock, the right sorcerer, and a sound?”

  “Why shouldn’t it need a fourth component?”

  “Because Graegor’s didn’t.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Ferogin gestured at the purple star again. “Maybe without that light falling across the lock and key, his wouldn’t have triggered either.”

  “But why is her lock all the way over there?” Graegor protested, pointing. “She needs to stand straight, or at least sit straight, when she sings. She can’t do that and reach the lock at the same time.”

  “It does seem unnecessarily complicated,” Arundel agreed.

  “Unnecessary?” Ferogin layered scorn on the word. “It’s supposed to challenge her. To challenge us. To show us spells beyond what we’d ever imagined. To show us what’s possible with our magic. Don’t you think all that might be necessary?”

  Natayl only put it over there so that I would look foolish. He meant to challenge her, but he also meant to humiliate her. “I will need assistance, my lords,” Tabitha said, calmly and regally. Somehow she would accomplish this without losing her dignity.

  All the arguing boys reacted instantly, perhaps unconsciously, to her tone. Ferogin, Arundel, and Graegor started to inspect the lip of the shaft and the opposite wall, making and retracting suggestions, and soon Ilene and Daxod joined them. Borjhul did not contribute to the discussion, but he stared at the lock in the wall as if he could see the thaumat’argent embedded there. Rossin still stood in the darkness beyond Graegor’s star, as if their shared predicament was none of his concern.

  Tabitha realized that Koren was standing next to her. She was so small and quiet, she was easy to overlook, but she had found the keyhole in the first cave. Now her eyes were intent, following each person who spoke. Once she even opened her mouth, but then bit back whatever she was going to say.

  Then Borjhul stepped closer to the rest of them to murmur something to Arundel. Koren leaned slowly away and took a casual step toward Graegor and the light, and Tabitha suddenly wondered if Borjhul had tried to force Koren to bond with him just as he had tried to force her. Had he tried it with everyone? Or only with the sorceresses? Ilene did not seem to care about Borjhul one way or the other, but Koren’s reaction to him reminded Tabitha of her own.

  He is a predator. The thought came suddenly, and it sent a wave of icy needles down Tabitha’s spine.

  “Did anyone bring rope?” Ferogin called over his shoulder.

  No one had, and Arundel said, “Belts will work.”

  “Is there a plan?” Tabitha asked, just as calmly and regally as before.

  “Yes, but you won’t like it,” Ferogin grinned.

  “We’re going to make a loop for you to stand on,” Arundel explained. “That will go over the ledge, and we’ll anchor you from this side while you hold on to the ledge with one hand and the key with the other. You’ll be standing straight, and Borjhul says he can keep you from wobbling too much by pressing the loop against the wall. Do you think you’ll be able to sing that way?”

  “A loop?” How could she stand on a loop?

  “Like a stirrup,” Graegor said. He tried to say it confidently, but she could sense that he was worried, and that sent another wave of icy needles down her spine.

  “Is this dangerous?” she asked before she could think better of it.

  Ferogin laughed. “Yes, in general. No, because if you fall, you won’t die.”

  “That’s very comforting,” she said, covering her fear with sarcasm.

  “You won’t fall,” Graegor assured her. “We’ll anchor you.”

  “And you will use your belts for this?”

  “They can buckle together,” Arundel said, and started to unbuckle his.

  Graegor and Borjhul both did so as well, and Ferogin watched
the three of them for a moment. Then he looked around at everyone else. “Isn’t anyone going to make the obvious joke?” When no one replied, he repeated, “Anyone?”

  The specifics of the joke were not obvious to Tabitha, but she was certain it had something to do with men undressing in front of her, and she felt her cheeks flush at the sudden memory of Nicolas in her bedchamber. She said nothing, of course, and Arundel, Graegor, and Borjhul also ignored Ferogin completely. When Borjhul handed his belt to Arundel, Arundel fed its end through the buckle and pulled it until it made a circle only two handspans wide, and did something to it to keep it from contracting further. He fastened the other two belts to the first and tugged at them.

  “Good leather,” he said. “That will hold. My lady?”

  Ferogin had his arms crossed over his chest and was smiling at them as if anticipating a comedy at the theater. Tabitha did not like that at all. She did not like any of this at all. “What do I need to do?”

  “I think it would be easier if you sat up here,” Arundel said, tapping the lip of the shaft. “We can put your feet in the loop, and then you can swing your legs over the side together, and we’ll lower you down.”

  This is awful. This is ridiculous. The icy needles would not stop, and her skin was itching now too as her power reacted to her tension. As she took the few steps to the ledge, she realized that she would not be able to push herself up to sit on top of it, even if she braced herself and jumped. She needed help, but she did not want anyone to touch her. She was so tense she felt like her skin would repel anyone’s hands, just like her magic would repel anyone’s telekinesis.

  “Ilene?” If someone had to touch her, it would be the giant girl, not any of these boys.

  Ilene smiled. “Of course.” She came up to Tabitha and towered over her. Her dark hair was in a tangle over her shoulders, and she pushed it back before she held out her hands. “Why don’t you take hold of my upper arms, and I’ll take hold of your waist and give you a boost. Ready?”

  Tabitha thought about how much she hated Natayl as she took a breath. “Ready.”

  It took two tries. Sitting up on the lip of the shaft was worse than sitting on a horse, and Tabitha dug her fingers into Ilene’s arms until the Medean girl winced. She felt something at her foot, and she suppressed the urge to kick Arundel away as he set both of her boots into the narrow loop.

  “All right,” Arundel said, in a voice meant to soothe. “You’re going to twist to your left and bring your legs up over the edge, then back down. You’ll be sitting just like you are now, but on the other side.”

  Tabitha could not move. She could not move. But Ilene managed to turn her and lift her feet. Her skirts and even her braid kept getting in the way as she twisted to face the wall on the opposite side of the shaft.

  This was insane. This was insane.

  “Can you reach the key?” Arundel asked. “If you can reach it, then maybe you can sing from right there.”

  “No.” She could, if she folded herself in half to lean forward, but if she did that, she could not sing.

  “All right,” Arundel said. “That’s fine. I need you to stand up on the loop, the stirrup. Put all your weight on it. Try to keep your power down.”

  Tabitha could not hear anyone laughing. But they were laughing. All of them. She slid forward on her rear end and tried to stand on the loop like she had stood on the footholds when she had climbed this horrible shaft. The loop swung sideways and her feet almost slipped out, and she could not hold back a gasp or keep the icy needles from erupting down her back.

  “Borjhul,” Arundel snapped, and Tabitha felt the Kroldon sorcerer’s magic press like crushed glass against her mind, but she could also feel it down near her feet. She fought to keep her power from rising and pushing him away, though she really, really wanted to push him away. The loop tapped twice against the rock, but then stayed there, suddenly feeling a little more stable.

  “We’re going to lower you now,” Arundel said in his soothing tone. “A little at a time. Tell us when you can reach the key and you want us to stop.”

  Tabitha wanted everything here to stop. She forced herself to nod.

  She went down a finger’s width, then another. The wall in front of her was too smooth for her to get any handhold at all. The loop at her feet was steady, but it felt far too small, as if she balanced on the very top of a mountain.

  I am never telling any of my friends about this. I am never telling anyone about this. What would they think if they saw her now, all those magi who had pledged to her?

  The loop descended even more. She heard Arundel murmur, “Not on her, just on the belts.” Then her left hand found the key in the lock, where Arundel had left it. Nothing happened when she touched it. She pressed her fingers to either side of it and darted a look to her right, to the ledge, where Ilene was smiling encouragingly as she rubbed her upper arm. She seemed just as tall as before. Had there been a floor under Tabitha, it would have been level with the floor on the other side. But there was no floor under her.

  All this so I can stand straight. All this so I can sing.

  How could she sing if she could hardly breathe? Her heart was pounding. Her skin itched so much, a cold, deep itch that made her want to scream.

  Graegor’s star floated to her. It hovered near the wall, above her face, its shimmering light soft and warm.

  Then she dropped down suddenly, and she squeezed her fingers on the key and her hand on the ledge and shouted, “Stop!”

  She heard a soft grunt from the other side of the ledge, then silence. After a few seconds, Ferogin said, “Tabitha? This is where you start singing, if you don’t mind.”

  “Yes,” she tried to say, but it came out a gasp. The light of the star shimmered against her tightly shut eyes. She could feel it. She focused on it. She breathed.

  She heard Ferogin start to say something, then a muffled thump. She balanced on the loop, clung to the rock, and pulled in her breath. She opened her eyes to the purple star and sang to it.

  Her voice trembled at first, and she could not sustain any of the notes. Her throat, mouth, and lips were all dry. She was not surprised that nothing happened with the key and the lock before she reached the end.

  That was practice, she told herself. She launched into the song again from the beginning, and this time it was steadier, but nowhere close to the best she could do.

  When she finished and nothing had happened, Arundel said, “Tabitha, Ferogin says that it’s not likely to be more than a few notes that trigger the door. Can you think of which notes in that song are most likely? The ones most in your range, or the most meaningful lyrics? Something on which Lord Natayl would focus?”

  “Yes,” she agreed. After a moment of thought, she sang the refrain, twice. It was well suited to her range, and she thought she achieved pure tone, but still nothing happened.

  It would be specific lyrics, she decided. Specific words. That was more Natayl’s style. Something insulting.

  “She wore a thousand jewels.”

  That was it. That had to be it. Tabitha was the Jewel of Betaul, and Natayl had never stopped mocking that title.

  Tabitha adjusted her hand on the thaumat’argent key, breathed, and sang. One of the notes came out sour, and she shook her head irritably at herself.

  “Perfect pitch,” Ferogin reminded her unnecessarily. “Congruent spells are delicate. Only perfect pitch will make everything fit.”

  Tabitha did not bother to answer. She held onto the stone, balanced on the loop, breathed, and sang. Every note was true, but nothing happened. She sang the line again with different emphasis, and again with yet another variation, but still, nothing.

  “This is not working,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Try a different lyric,” Arundel suggested.

  “No, it has to be that lyric, if any of this is right at all,” Tabitha insisted. “How certain are you about the spell?”

  “How certain are you about the lyric?” F
erogin asked.

  Tabitha stared at the fingers of her left hand, where the key was squeezed between them. Calm and still. Calm and still. Breathe.

  She suddenly wondered if she had been pronouncing jewels correctly. Its rhyme with the prior lyric was oblique unless voiced with a White Sea accent. Had she sung it that way at the manor house?

  Breathe. Sing.

  She sang, and the last note hurt, like a punch in her chest. Then a deafening noise consumed the cave, and she fell.

  The sudden jerking stop came a moment later and was almost worse than the fall. Her left foot slipped out of the loop, and the loop swung back toward the rock, and her hands burned with pain as she clung to the leather belt. She kept her eyes tightly shut to keep from seeing and her mouth tightly shut to keep from screaming. Freezing cold and burning itch fought each other from her head to her heels.

  Her shoulder bumped against something. Her sleeve dragged against rough stone. Her left boot touched nothing. Her hands slipped on the leather belt as it jerked up.

  Someone was talking in a monotone. Further away there were shouts. When a hand clasped her upper arm, she finally opened her eyes. It was Graegor. He and Ilene were grabbing hold of her and hauling her over the lip of the shaft, bruising her ribs and hips and knees. She was shaking so much she could not stand, and Graegor lowered her to sit on the ground, just as he had when they had first climbed up to this horrible place.

  “It’s all right,” he said softly as he crouched beside her. “It’s all right.” The star cast its purple light over both of them.

  Tabitha looked at her trembling hands. Shallow scrapes stung the skin of her palms, but not enough to bleed. Her heart pounded against her sore ribs without mercy. “What happened?” she whispered.

  “You triggered the door,” he said carefully, as if afraid to frighten her, or offend her. “It was a rock in the ceiling, right over the spot where your key was.”

  “It was part of the ceiling,” Daxod said. He was standing behind Graegor and looking toward the center of the cave, holding the connected belts. “It fell and smashed to pieces.”