Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  What else? Telepathy had no use here, and neither did his self-sustaining light. He couldn’t use pyrokinesis, since there was nothing to burn. Maybe he could raise the surface temperature of the water and make it steam. He did have an affinity for water, but he’d only practiced with cups and pots full of water, not arenas. He’d been working on his weather-sense, but he couldn’t call up wind yet.

  How much of this could Ferogin do?

  Ferogin was unlikely to be as good at earth magic as he was, because, apparently, no one should be as good at earth magic as he was, this early. But he couldn’t use earth magic because it wasn’t here. And, obviously, no other sources of magical energy—no other people—were here either.

  So, whatever Ferogin could do, he was limited to his own raw power, which Graegor was fairly sure was not quite equal in strength to his own.

  Assume it’s equal. Assume it’s greater. He kept wading toward the center, balancing with his quarterstaff. Assume he can hurt you.

  All at once his head was made of pain and he was hitting the water hard. The cold seized him and shook him, and his chin bumped the rock as sea water rushed up his nose. His left hand still held the quarterstaff, though, and as he fought to get his feet under him again, he managed to plant it and lean on it and pull himself up. With his first breath he gathered his power and strengthened his shields, but the lash hit him even harder and drove him to his knees.

  As his chest and throat contracted into a coughing fit, the waves slapped at him and stung his eyes with salt. He knew he had to stand and turn and fight, but the first thing he had to do was breathe.

  Yet another blow dropped pain on pain and lit a hundred white stars behind his eyes. He was blacking out. He was blacking out. Surges of panic, then embarrassment, and finally rage all whirled together into a hard purple knot in the center of his mind, stronger than the crippling pain, stronger than the freezing cold. With the next beat of his heart, his magic burst outward in all directions at once.

  Weight pressed him down, pressed his quarterstaff down, and fractured the bare stone beneath him into a maze of cracks. The water was rushing away from him, waves folding onto waves and racing toward the rocks that ringed the dueling ground. He gulped down deep breaths and watched as the water smashed into the rocks, against the obelisk, opening the plateau to the dry air for a long, hanging moment before it all rushed in again. He braced himself before it reached him, but it still struck hard and rolled him over once, twice. This time he didn’t fight it, just held his breath until it ebbed, and then climbed slowly back to his feet.

  Ferogin was about fifty paces away. He crouched motionless in the water as if it could hide him, the pale skin of his face a sharp contrast to the dark wool of his cap and coat. Graegor held his quarterstaff against the ground to hold him against the sea’s motion, his magic still spinning at his core. He felt a little … slower. He could not assume that he would be able to push the water out of the arena like that again. His plan of attack—and he did need a plan of attack—had to be more precise.

  That magnokinetic lash he threw was specifically attuned to your shields. Koren’s words. When Graegor had strengthened his shields against Ferogin’s power, it hadn’t helped—it had made the next hit worse. But Ferogin might have been closer to him at that point, so was that what had made it worse?

  No, because at the party, Ferogin had only been a few feet away from him, and the wave hadn’t hurt as much. So …

  Ferogin stood, rising smoothly from his crouch as if he could not feel the wet or the cold. He glided toward Graegor, and Graegor’s magic spun faster. What to do with it, though? Could he break the rock under Ferogin’s feet, make him trip, and jump on him with fists and kicks?

  At twenty paces away, just when Graegor had decided that he shouldn’t allow Ferogin to get any closer, Ferogin stopped. After they had stared at each other for a while, Ferogin called, “I see you brought your lovey.”

  “What?”

  Ferogin gestured. “Your stick. You carry that around like a little girl with a doll or a blanket.”

  “It’s a purpleheart quarterstaff, and Tolander magi carry them all the time.”

  “Magi women.”

  “So?”

  “They don’t use them like you do. I hear you’re something of a brawler.”

  “Who told you that?”

  Ferogin shrugged. “I hear all sorts of things about you. People talk about you a lot.”

  “I don’t brawl. I defend myself.”

  “More successfully than now?”

  Why was Ferogin talking instead of fighting? Maybe he needed time to replenish his strength. Graegor wouldn’t let him rest for long, but since Ferogin always bragged when he talked, he might let slip some useful information. “What’s that thing you’re doing?”

  “The magnokinetic lash?”

  “Jeh, that.”

  “Your shields can’t ward it off. I attuned it to you.”

  “How much effort did you put into creating a weapon that only works on me?” Graegor thought that he probably could break the rock where Ferogin stood, but the jolt would need to be powerful enough to actually throw Ferogin down. He needed to be closer.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Ferogin said. “I can attune it to anyone.”

  “Except Koren. She deflected it.”

  “Because it was attuned to you, moron.”

  “Did you expect it to bounce back at you like that? That looked like it hurt.”

  A flash of pale purple lit Ferogin’s outthrust hand, and pain locked around Graegor’s head again and squeezed his eyes shut. Ferogin called, “Did that hurt?”

  Graegor breathed and opened his eyes. The pain was already fading, which could mean that Ferogin had not thrown as much into it as he had before. He was weaker. There was no way to close the distance between them without Ferogin noticing, so Graegor just started wading forward. He was rewarded with a startled look crossing Ferogin’s face, and Graegor diffused most of his magic from his shields before the lash could hit.

  It worked—he barely felt the lash at all. The pain did grow when his shields were stronger. He kept wading forward until an invisible punch slammed square against his chest with a spray of salt water and stopped him breathless. Only his quarterstaff kept him upright, and as he pulled his shields around his mind again, Ferogin sent a magnokinetic lash that hurt a lot more. Then a punch hit the top of Graegor’s quarterstaff and very nearly popped it out of his hands.

  He met Ferogin’s flat stare with his own, and they watched each other. Graegor’s hands and feet were numb with cold, his entire body was soaked to the skin, and his clothes felt as heavy as armor. But the magic spinning inside him drove all of that away as soon as Ferogin attacked.

  The Adelard sorcerer threw his power in lashes and punches, one after the other, from all directions, with no pattern and no pause. Graegor blocked those he could, ducked or withstood those he couldn’t, constantly adjusting his gen and his feet and his grip against the forces pushing him, not the least of which was the rolling water. His power followed his thought, and the immediacy of the fight was strangely exhilarating—sensing which way Ferogin’s power would show itself, anticipating the hits, pushing to disperse his gen against the lash or pulling to compact it against the punches. He didn’t always guess right, but even through the bursts of pain, he did keep his feet by leaning on his quarterstaff, and he never toppled into the water. He watched Ferogin’s face and gestures, hoping to see repetition that would tell him what would happen an instant before it did, and also hoping to see frustration that might cause carelessness. But Ferogin’s expression remained cold and set, and he countered everything Graegor threw at him, even while making constant adjustments to his own attacks. He thought fast, he moved fast—

  A sudden arching sheet of water blinded Graegor, and until his eyes cleared he kept his shields up while bracing for the pain of the magnokinetic lash. But it didn’t follow, and when he could see again, Ferogin was gon
e.

  Graegor cursed aloud and spun to scan the water nearby. Then he forced himself to turn more slowly as his gaze swept over the dueling ground. But every shape in the water turned out to be a wave. He stood still to catch his breath, but he couldn’t relax, not when he didn’t know where Ferogin was. Coming out to the middle of the arena had been a mistake. He had to watch too many directions at once.

  His quarterstaff smacked him in the leg, and as he wrenched it back under control, the lash burned his shields. He cursed again as he spun around, searching. How could Ferogin hide in such shallow water?

  By instinct, he reached for the earth magic. When he could not grip it, he shook his head in irritation and instead set his own magic to spinning. He funneled the force of it down the quarterstaff and struck its butt end into the water, onto the ground.

  Water sheeted away from him, but not nearly as strongly as before, and he felt like he was trying to lift something too heavy for his arms. The retreating water revealed the plateau beneath him, where a thousand cracks radiated across it from the first time he had struck it. Were there more than before?—But Ferogin was gone, completely. The waves broke against the rocks that ringed the dueling ground, and just as they rushed back to swamp him, a telekinetic blow against the back of his legs dropped him to his knees.

  Move! he told himself as he fought to keep a hand on his quarterstaff. Ferogin had all the advantage here. Graegor needed to put distance between them. As soon as his feet were underneath him again, he bent his knees and fed all his gen into a leap.

  He didn’t soar nearly as high or as fast as he expected, not with the water like leaden weights around his legs. He stumbled and splashed when he landed, and he sensed Ferogin’s power hitting his back. He got his feet under him again and leaped again. With the third leap he reached the outer ring of the dueling ground, and he immediately slipped between two of the boulders to try to get out of sight.

  He wasn’t running away. It was a tactical retreat. He had to nullify his enemy’s advantage.

  He had to move. He had to move fast. He needed distance.

  Knowing it would expose him, he scrambled up the shorter of the two knobbies, and when he reached its wet, slippery top, he immediately leaped up to the next one. His foot turned under him on the landing, but only slightly, and he felt the magnokinetic lash against his shields again, but it faded fast. His next leap took him to an even higher rock, and he focused his gen onto the soles of his boots and the end of his quarterstaff to plant them solidly on the sea-sprayed outcropping. Another leap, another good landing, and the thrill of soaring through the air carried him to the next rock, and the next, and the next. Wind and salt tore past his face, stinging his eyes, but he almost didn’t have to see. He knew where to land next, where to leap next—

  And suddenly, where to stop. A cluster of the knobbies stood close together, and when he landed in the middle of them, he let himself slide halfway down along the rock face, wedging the quarterstaff to stop himself. Spray burst up in front of him, but when it settled, and he settled, he was under the shadow of one rock and could see directly past the others in the cluster, right onto the broad surface of the dueling ground.

  A headache was settling into his skull like the cold settling into his limbs. He kicked up one foot, then the other, to shake some of the water from his boots, then balanced each numb foot on a smaller rock in the cluster. From where he perched, the ring of knobbies surrounding the space seemed unbroken, his altered perspective having closed the large gap he had seen in the line to the north. He began to survey the arena from this eastern vantage point, nearly halfway around the ring from the tall, obelisk-like sea-stack.

  Sudden movement sharpened Graegor’s gaze to the southwest. Ferogin was quickly, deftly climbing a series of smaller rocks at the giant sea-stack’s base, and soon, he reached a narrow, flat area where he could stand straight. He looked up at the sea-stack for a moment, and then his hand reached above his head. He ran his fingers in a slow, straight line across the basalt face.

  Graegor focused, and it was his vision that leaped ahead now. The dueling ground vanished around a single point, the dark dot that was Ferogin’s gloved hand pressed against the sea-stack. Blurs cleared into details, sharper and sharper, until the scratches in the rock above Ferogin’s hand became a word, a name: Felise.

  Had Sorceress Felise been here? Why? Contare had told him that the Sixth had been an unusually close-knit Circle, specifically because of Felise. Why would any of them duel her?

  Ferogin’s hand moved to another name: Marlon. The sixth-generation sorcerer from Thendalia. And another of that Circle, from Toland: Tetuin.

  They had been here. Something had brought them here, to this place, at least a thousand years ago. Part of his mind buckled under the weight of the history contained in those names.

  He pulled back his vision, which left him blinking hard. The whistle of the wind and the slap of the water around him seemed unnaturally loud, and his headache had evolved into a thumping as regular as his heartbeat. Fortunately, Ferogin had not disappeared during Graegor’s distraction. He remained in front of the sea-stack, moving his hand back and forth, maybe from name to name, and Graegor could imagine him muttering to himself. Was there more written there? Did it explain why the Sixth had come here?

  Did it explain how to reach the earth magic?

  No. Contare would have told him.

  Unless he doesn’t know.

  It seemed a bad idea to leave Ferogin just standing there, recovering his strength, investigating something potentially useful. Graegor braced his quarterstaff into the gap of the rock cluster and pushed himself backwards up to the top. He kept throwing glances at Ferogin as he studied the curving line of knobbies that made the northern arc, then the other line that made the southern arc, the way he had come. He already knew he could find footing on the southern arc, so he set his feet and his gen and started retracing his leaps.

  Each time he landed, he looked toward the sea-stack to make sure Ferogin was still there. Ferogin did not seem to be paying any attention as Graegor’s leaps brought him closer and closer. He passed the rock he had initially climbed, and the next after that, and now only a few more separated him from the sea-stack. Ferogin still hadn’t moved. Only once Graegor had reached the pair of knobbies closest to the sea-stack, and was staring down at Ferogin from an advantage of fifteen feet, did Ferogin lift one hand at him and say, “Truce.”

  Startled, Graegor blurted, “What?”

  “Truce! You do know what that word means, don’t you?”

  “Why?”

  “Because they were here. They were all here, and not to fight. I need to study this.”

  Graegor didn’t answer. Ferogin was behaving like he had in the labyrinth, as if he was concerned with nothing but solving a puzzle. But Graegor couldn’t trust it, not after what had happened at the party. Ferogin had been too genuinely angry with Graegor for interfering with his pursuit of Koren, too ready to declare the duel.

  Or was all that a ruse? Had he been trying to goad Graegor into a fight, just so that Natayl would be forced to tell them where the dueling ground was? Ferogin had obviously suspected the dueling ground was real; had he now found something here that he had wanted to find? Something he had heard or read about?

  If Graegor could get Ferogin talking again, he might learn more. “Who was here?” he asked, as if he hadn’t seen the names.

  “The Sixth. Casimir, Felise, Marlon, all the rest. They came here just before they died.”

  “Did they build this place?”

  “No,” Ferogin scoffed. “Sorcerers have been dueling here since the Fourth. Be quiet. I have to translate this.”

  “Do you think they did something so that we can’t use earth magic here anymore?”

  “Be quiet.”

  “Why did you want to come here?”

  This, finally, made Ferogin look up at him. “You’re not going to let me read this, are you?” His tone was that of a pare
nt talking to a toddler.

  “Did you know this was here? Is that why you kept pushing Natayl to tell us where to go?”

  “If I tell you, will you let me read it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “No, I didn’t know about all these inscriptions. I wanted to fight, and I knew Natayl would tell us where to go. Satisfied?”

  “Not yet. Why did you want to fight? Why did you deliberately start all this?”

  Ferogin’s eyebrows lifted so high they disappeared under his cap. “Why did I start all this? The question is, why did you? You and I were very courteously ignoring each other until you decided that you had to ‘rescue’ Koren.”

  Graegor’s anger spun the purple core of his power faster. “You were harassing her.”

  “It’s a game, idiot.”

  “She didn’t want to play your game.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t play.”

  Graegor shook his head in disbelief. “You can’t cause people distress for your own amusement,” he called down. “That’s one of the definitions of evil.”

  “Quoted straight from Tract Eight,” Ferogin returned, “which I’ve memorized in its entirety. I doubt you can say the same.”

  “I know it doesn’t list exceptions.”

  “I wish people would stop forgetting who she is,” Ferogin snapped. “You’re acting like she’s your innocent little sister, Josselin hovers over her like a hen over a chick, Natayl talks to her like she’s a child who should be seen but not heard, and now, even Pascin says I need to stay away from her. It’s stupid. She’s our age. She’s one of us. She can take care of herself!”

  It was uncomfortable to hear Tabitha’s complaint coming from Ferogin. “She told you to get lost, and you wouldn’t.”

  “She didn’t say anything of the sort. She kept saying ‘no thank you’, so I had to assume that she was playing the game.”

  “What do you think ‘no thank you’ means?”

  “She could have said what she ultimately did. Plain and simple. ‘I don’t like you, and you need to stay away from me.’”