by Maggie Furey
Silence.
Blessed, blessed stillness.
‘You did it, oh, you did it.’ The Windeye hugged her, but Iriana shook her head. ‘Not for long,’ she said grimly. ‘The Moldan’s power is terrifying. It’s taking all my strength to keep the storm at bay, and I’ve made no impression on the cold. He won’t leave his mountain, that much seems clear, but with spells like this, he doesn’t need to. I can’t maintain my shield for much longer, and when it fails we’ll be right back where we started.’
All they could do was make the most of the small respite they had gained, and push on as far as they could while the going was easier. As they trudged and stumbled on stiffening legs across the ice-field, their vision obscured by puffs of their own frozen breath, the strain began to tell on Iriana. It was like trying to hold up a falling tree single-handed. She gritted her teeth and tried to keep going as long as she could, but her mind kept losing focus, drifting to the nature of magic and the manifold forms it could take. She remembered lectures at the Academy, and the more practical information she had gleaned from Esmon, about using magic not just as a shield, but as a weapon too.
It struck her all at once.
As her concentration slackened, the blizzard sprang on them like a ravening beast, but Iriana ignored it. ‘Corisand!’ She pulled her companion to a halt. ‘It’s not real cold at all. The Moldan is fighting us with magic - just a different sort, which must be why it’s so difficult for me to shield. But if the cold is just another sort of spell, then surely it must be possible to form some sort of defence against it.’
Corisand frowned at her, and the Wizard could see that she was trying her hardest to focus. ‘Defence?’ Her voice could barely be heard above the keening of the wind. ‘Tell me how. Shadow-cloaks and mirrors are all I know.’
‘You know bridges and boats too,’ the Wizard shouted at her, ‘and you spun your own clothes out of air when we came here, remember?’
‘I wish I’d made them warmer, then.’
‘Could you?’ Iriana asked hopefully.
The Windeye simply shook her head. ‘I’m a horse, remember? Don’t know anything.’
Iriana, worried now, tried desperately to rouse her friend from this hopeless mood brought on by the cold. It might have taken her that way too, had she not realised in time what Ghabal was about. She pulled the Windeye close to her so that they could huddle together and share body heat. ‘Just because you missed the years of studying and training at the Academy, it doesn’t make you useless. You’re just discovering your powers, and you’ve only scratched the surface of what you can achieve. Between us we can deal with this spell, I know it.’
But if we can’t find an answer soon, we won’t live long enough.
Firmly, she pushed the insidious notion out of her mind and concentrated hard, turning her thoughts back to a particular talk that Esmon had given on shielding. Hearing in her head the kind, strong voice that had been lost from the world for ever, she repeated his words to Corisand.
‘There are three types of shield,’ she shouted. ‘One for concealment - that’s like your shadow-cloak - one for defence, like the shield I’m using now, and one for offence. The latter works like a mirror. It reflects the assailant’s magic back upon himself. A really good offensive shield can even magnify the damage.’ She swore. ‘There’s only one problem. Cyran was against the use of offensive magic, and he wouldn’t let the students at the Academy learn it. The only way to study it was to join the Luen of Warriors.’
‘But it’s like a mirror?’ Corisand’s eyes, dull and vague from the cold, suddenly brightened. ‘I told you about my mirror, didn’t I? The one I used to go mind-travelling? Maybe if we combine my mirror with your shield—’
‘It might work,’ Iriana said excitedly. ‘Maybe if we link minds very closely, then you spin your mirror and I’ll build a shield. If we push them at one another, maybe we can get them to fuse.’
A glimmer of hope dawned in Corisand’s eyes. ‘Let’s do it now - before it’s too late.’
Iriana had practised working spells in concert with other Wizards, but to do it in conjunction with a completely alien magic - that felt very strange. In the three-way link with Basileus, it had been the Moldan’s power that had held the entire construct together, but now they had to manage on their own. The Windeye’s magic felt like a stream of silver running through her mind: cool, bright, shining and somehow much more fluid than her own powers.
Corisand, her eyes glowing with her Othersight, gathered in the howling wind to spin her mirror, and cast it in a reflective dome over the adamantine shield into which Iriana was throwing all her power. The two magics met and fused in a flash of dazzling radiance with a satisfying sound like the click of a key turning in a lock. Windeye and Wizard were linked with a bond that neither of their races had known before, and their conjoined abilities blossomed and grew to something puissant and unique.
And it was working. Their shield held firm against the onslaught, and both of them rocked with the punch of power that exploded through their minds and bodies as their attacker was hit by his own reflected malice, magnified many times over.
Once more, the winds ceased abruptly.
The flying snow dropped with a hissing spatter, all at once, and fell no more.
The light grew bright again as visibility returned, the savage cold lost its bite and warmth began to creep back into their frozen limbs.
The two companions leant against one another, getting their breath back; each taking care to keep her mind focused on her own part of the shield. ‘We’re a lot closer to the mountain,’ Corisand said at last.
Iriana looked out across the gleaming ice. ‘Maybe that was part of Ghabal’s defensive spell, like the cold and the storm,’ she said. ‘The illusion that the peak was much further away than it is in truth. It had me discouraged, I’ll admit.’
The Windeye opened her mouth to answer, but the words were lost. A deafening snap like the cracking of a giant’s whip split the air, and a long fissure appeared in the ice a stone’s throw in front of them. Corisand spat out a curse she had learned from the Wizard. ‘It’s breaking up. Now that we’ve broken the cold spell, the ice is melting.’
‘Move!’ Iriana roared. Grabbing her companion’s hand, she ran forward and leapt the widening gap, with Corisand a breath behind. All around them the ice was breaking up into smaller sheets of different sizes, from a table top to a courtyard, which had one thing in common: every one of them was shrinking, the strips of dark ocean between them growing wider by the minute. The frozen surface split asunder with a fusillade of cracks and booms as Iriana and Corisand dodged and leapt from one disintegrating floe to the next, fighting for balance as the floating ice tilted and rocked beneath them, scrambling and slithering in the deepening slush beneath their feet.
It was a terrifying, exhausting, desperate scramble. Corisand put her foot on a patch of bad ice and was suddenly thigh-deep in icy water. With Iriana’s help she extricated herself, but not before her leg was wrenched, her boots were waterlogged and she was thoroughly soaked. Luckily, her clothing had been spun from shadows and air. It would be easy to make more - but right now, she did not dare stop moving.
Iriana was faring even worse. She had led a much less physical life than Corisand, and consequently, even in the Elsewhere, she found herself tiring far more easily. In addition, the Windeye had spent her life running and jumping. Her balance, strength and coordination were all excellent, even though she was now on two legs instead of four. It was not so for the Wizard. She was exhausting herself in her constant fight for balance and finding it far more difficult, both physically and mentally, to leap the widening gaps where the depths of the dark, cold ocean lay in wait. Yet not once, even for an instant, did she think of giving up. Gritting her teeth she floundered on, taking one ghastly leap, one slithering, splashing landing at a time; no longer thinking of the peak that was her goal, of the Moldan, of the Fialan. Those things could wait. Now her priority was pure and simple: just
keep going.
It became a desperate race - though Ghabal’s fastness was drawing closer with every step, the surface underneath their feet was shrinking all the time. The currents felt stronger the closer they came to the ice peak, and the stretches of water between the Windeye, the Wizard and their goal were growing wider. Ghabal might be insane, but he was old and cunning. He had already learned not to attack these interlopers directly while they had their mirror shield in place, but there were other ways . . .
With an ear-splitting crack, the ice fractured between Iriana and her friend, and the Wizard found herself teetering on a small, slushy, rapidly vanishing raft that was being swept quickly out to sea. Already the distance was too far to jump. Iriana looked at the dwindling figure of Corisand and knew no help could come from her.
The Windeye thought differently. ‘Just hang on,’ she yelled. ‘I’m making a bridge—’
‘No - no!’ shrieked Iriana. ‘Corisand, don’t. The shield will fail - it’s what he wants.’ But she knew, just knew in her guts, that her friend would try it anyway. Well, she wouldn’t get the chance. Without hesitation, Iriana leapt into the water.
The cold was a shocking agony that cramped her limbs and stopped her heart. Her involuntary gasp sent water flooding into her lungs, and she was sinking, choking, drowning . . . Then her lungs adapted, her heartbeat kicked and she was breathing once more, though the medium was icy water that burned her lungs. Iriana felt like weeping with relief. It was one thing to be taught that Wizards couldn’t drown, but another entirely to actually trust her life to it. Besides, she was far from out of trouble yet. Her waterlogged clothing was pulling her down and the frigid water was already causing a deadly drain on her energy. She had to get out - and fast.
There was no point wasting time and energy trying to get to the surface. Fuelled by desperation, she struck out towards her goal: the sheer, submerged face of Ghabal’s ice mountain.
Iriana’s powers had never been so stretched, even when the camp was attacked and she was trying to save Avithan’s life. But she had learned a thing or two since then. She was finding that the more she used her magic, the more powerful it became. Despite her predicament, she still managed to spare enough energy to keep the shield intact around Corisand, and her next thought was to use her Fire magic to warm her own blood, so that her body would keep functioning until she reached land. She knew that she was feeding on her own energy. It was like using healing magic on herself - there was the very real danger of consuming too much of her own power and burning out. Even with care she would pay - oh, how she would pay - in exhaustion when she finally got back to land.
There was far more ice beneath the surface than above. The Wizard threaded her way through the maze of bergs in a blue-green world: had circumstances been less desperate, she would have been enthralled by their fantastically sculpted shapes. But she had no time to marvel at their otherworldly beauty. The goal, and only the goal, mattered now. Weariness was dragging at her limbs by the time she reached the peak of ice, but she had made it in the face of all the odds, and was another step closer to the Fialan.
Suddenly, she realised that she might be even closer than she’d thought. As she approached the cliff, what she’d believed, from a distance, to be a shadowy illusion of the ice formation revealed itself to be a cave.
In her excitement she forgot that her reserves of energy were dwindling. The cave lengthened into a tunnel that sloped upwards into the mountain, and she followed it until she found herself crawling out of a pool into a vast cavern. Looking around, she discovered that another tunnel left it on the opposite side. Iriana lay there for a few moments, gasping and spluttering, until her lungs adjusted back to breathing air.
Though the mountain still appeared to have been carved out of ice, the smooth floor of the cavern was a comfortable temperature beneath her. Why, it’s not ice at all, she realised. She let her sense sink a little way beneath the surface as she had been taught, searching the underlying structure, and: ‘By the light!’ she gasped. ‘It’s diamond.’
Ghabal had made himself an impregnable fortress. Not even another Moldan could destroy diamond.
The floor was almost warm, and Iriana felt like weeping with relief. She was so tired of fighting the merciless, inexorable cold. She lay limply for a while, feeling comfortable and drowsy. I’ll move in a minute, she thought. Just need to get a little strength back . . .
Iriana shot up with a guilty start, horrified that she had let herself doze. She felt better for the rest, though she didn’t think she’d slept for long, but she was horrified that she had left herself unguarded in the enemy’s lair. Ghabal, however, appeared to have no inkling of her presence. Probably thinks I’m dead, she thought. Probably concentrating on Corisand now.
Corisand!
What was happening to the Windeye? And what about the shield? While she slept, she had stopped maintaining their defence. Had her friend been captured? Killed? She was afraid to call out in mindspeech lest the Moldan should somehow hear.
The frantic Wizard dived back into the freezing pool and, as soon as her lungs adjusted, swam as hard as she could back down the tunnel to the open sea, surfacing as close to the cliff as she dared. If the Moldan noticed her now she was done. She was surprised at how little remained of the ice field she had crossed, though the fastness itself was undiminished - and now she knew why.
Further along the cliff was a deep bay with a flat beach of sorts, and she swam towards it, anxious to get out of the cold water. So far, there was no sign of Corisand. She swam into the inlet and tried to scramble up onto the level beach, but once again the cold had drained her, and try as she might, she kept losing her grip on the smooth surface and falling back into the sea.
Out of nowhere a hand appeared and seized her wrist in an iron grip. ‘Quick,’ said a familiar voice. ‘Let me get you under my shadow-cloak. Then I’m going to kill you for giving me such a fright.’
With Corisand’s help, the Wizard scrambled out of the water and rolled onto her back, an enormous grin on her face. Now that she was under the shadow-cloak herself she could see the Windeye. She staggered upright and hugged her hard.
‘Oh, but I’m glad to see you.’ Corisand’s voice was unsteady and choked. ‘When your shield failed, I thought—’
She broke off, pulling back from Iriana and rubbing at her face, then staring in astonishment at the moisture on her fingers. ‘What in the world—’
‘They’re tears,’ Iriana explained. ‘We get them at times of extreme emotion - either sorrow or joy. I suppose that as a horse you never wept.’
‘What an extraordinary thing,’ Corisand said - then changed her tone abruptly. ‘But we don’t have time for such nonsense now.’ Impatiently she wiped them away. ‘Where have you been? What happened to you? How did you survive? What are we going to do now?’
‘First, let’s get our shield back up,’ Iriana said. ‘Then I’ll tell you everything.’
‘No. Never. Absolutely, positively, categorically not. Not under any circumstances. ’ Corisand looked down into the water and shivered. ‘There is no way in this world or the other that you’re going to get me to jump in there.’
‘I wasn’t asking you to jump,’ Iriana said calmly. ‘If you jump you’ll gasp automatically from the cold, and your lungs will fill with water. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me, I’m the only one who can breathe underwater. You need to lower yourself in gradually, and—’
‘And go diving into caves.’ Corisand glared at her. ‘Have you completely lost your mind?’
‘Can you think of another way to get into the fastness? This was always going to be the difficult part.’
‘But he’s bound to know that tunnel’s there,’ the Windeye argued. ‘What if he’s waiting at the far end of it to pounce on us like a cat on a mouse?’
‘That is the weak point of my plan, I must admit. I thought that maybe you could think of something.’
‘Me? Why me?’
> The Wizard shrugged. ‘Because so far nothing has occurred to me. I’m convinced this is our only chance, Corisand. This whole damned peak is solid diamond. He built it from the most impervious substance possible.’
The Windeye turned away from the sea and stared up at the peak. ‘And it’s only a matter of time before he finds out where we are. When your part of the shield disappeared I spun the best shadow-cloak of my life to conceal myself, and that was when he lost me, but I can’t hide both of us so well. The bigger the cloak, the more difficult it is to maintain. Sooner or later my concentration will slip, and the Moldan will be out of this mountain like a—’ She broke off as an extraordinary idea exploded into her brain. ‘Iriana, listen. I think I’ve found a way . . .’
It took a while for them to refine their plan and straighten out the details, but at last they felt they had covered all eventualities - at least, as best they could. Windeye and Wizard looked at one another. Corisand thought that Iriana looked pale but determined, and suspected that her friend was seeing a similar expression on her own face. She swallowed hard. ‘Are you ready?’