The City of Ice

by K. M. McKinley

  He went to a sideboard and took out a document folder from a drawer, bound up with blue ribbons and sealed with the stamp of a prominent legal firm.

  “My terms,” he said, handing them to her.

  She cracked the seal and unwrapped the ribbons.

  “Take your time.” He went to look out at the fog.

  There were four pages of closely printed paper. The first page was innocuous enough, a general set of terms and payments. The longer she remained, the more generous the duke would be when she departed, if she were to go. She flipped the page and her breath caught in her throat. The page coldly listed, in fine print, a series of sexual practises outlawed in many kingdoms. Madelyne was no stranger to a number of them, and had enjoyed the majority she had tried, but seeing them printed there in black and white embarrassed her. There was no way to opt out of them. They were all to be accepted, or none were. She flipped the page over, revealing the next. There was a further list, she was to consent to being whipped, restrained, caged, chained, cut, branded... The list went on. Magic was mentioned. A statement at the bottom, signed by the duke, insisted all were to be performed for their mutual pleasure. It did not blunt the savageness of it.

  The final leaf held details on how she was to behave and to dress.

  “Why?” she breathed.

  “They are my terms,” said the duke, still staring at the mist. Outside a dray howled. The sound of traffic echoed in the mist. The noise so mundane, it seemed surreal. “Accept them, or do not. You knew what to expect.”

  She nodded.

  “Yet you are shaken,” he said disappointedly. “Very well, you can leave.”

  Again Madelyne almost went. But she could not. She found it hard to hate the duke. Some would call his list depravity, but she had known men and women who exercised their lusts the same way. He seemed kind, and she had not expected that. She felt almost guilty to accept. She was the one being dishonest, not he. The duke was not the only one with plans.

  “I will stay,” she said in a small voice.

  The duke’s russet face broke into a broad smile. “Excellent! This list is comprehensive, brutally so. But I will not inflict it upon you all at once.” He knelt before her. Once again his massive hand enfolded hers. A flinch betrayed her feeling of entrapment. “The ultimate aim is to open your body to all forms of pleasure,” he said. “It is not barbarity.” His excitement unnerved her.

  “But the pain...”

  “All this is a route to pleasure,” assured the duke. “Nothing more. If your body is open, your heart will open, then your mind, and finally your soul. If your soul opens itself, then you will have succeeded. If you, at any time, decide enough is enough, then you may go. But I warn you, there is only one refusal. Once the words are past your lips you shall be sent from here, and the doors will forever be locked against your return.”

  “I accept,” she said quietly.

  “So quickly?”

  “Do not question me, your grace!” she begged. “Take my acceptance.”

  “Then you must sign here.” He produced an ink pencil. Her signature was ragged.

  “I also must place my mark,” he said.

  “There is nowhere for you to sign,” she said, looking at the document.

  “Not the document. Bend your head forward.”

  She stared at him.

  “Do it now,” he said firmly.

  Hesitantly, she bowed her head.

  “Part your hair. Expose your neck.”

  Her skin bared, the duke pushed his thumb against her nape. An intense cold burned her. Just as it became unbearable he removed his thumb. Hotness flooded the mark, so intently she felt every bump of it. She reached up to explore the change in her skin. She expected a thumbprint, but there was a pattern like upon a seal. Her fingers tingled as she brushed it.

  “Your neck carries my mark. You will keep it until you decide not to. If you leave, it shall fade.”

  “It will go away?”

  “If you wish, yes.”

  “I do not wish it,” she said.

  He looked triumphant. “Then we shall begin tonight.”

  “And what am I to call you, if we are to experience intimacy?”

  “Your grace.”

  “Do you not have a name?” she asked. The mark throbbed on her neck, sending shivers down her spine that were not unpleasant. To her dismay, it triggered sympathetic responses from her sex. She became flustered.

  “I do.”

  “You will not tell me?”

  “No Madelyne, I will not,” said the duke.

  “I see,” she lowered her eyes from his smile; it had a predatory look. “If it is your pleasure to keep me at a distance and have me refer to you as your grace, then so be it.”

  The duke laughed. “It is, it is! I would tell you my name, if only to have you enjoy the exquisite discomfort of knowing me familiarly yet being forced to address me formally.”

  “Then why not tell me?” she asked.

  “Because if I did tell you my name, my child, it would kill you.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Sea People

  THE PRINCE ALFRA stood off a white island upon a flat sea crowded with plates of ice. Ice, ship and island moved together upon the Southern Gyre, a circular current that rushed around the Sotherwinter Sea and which marked the beginning of the end for Ruthnian knowledge of the south.

  The largest piece of floatstone Trassan had seen outside of Mogawn made the centre of the island, rising some hundred feet over the water. A snow cap covered its domed summit, scoured from the windward side of the higher, hanging in a rounded sheet over the leading edge of the lower. The surface of the rock below was exposed, too steep for snow to cling to, although the hollows and bubbles that gave floatstone its buoyancy were packed out, marking the beige rock with hundreds of pure white circles. A shelf of ice fringed the stone at the waterline. With its crest of sculpted drifts and brim of ice, the island had the likeness of an extravagant, misshapen hat.

  Antoninan, Heffi, Bannord and Trassan watched from the top of the superstructure. Four more days they had sailed south, and the ice had become ever worse. Icicles hung from the rails, filling the gaps between with an undulating sheet. They looked down from an iron fortress, ramparted with ice.

  Quiet reigned, of that imperturbable sort found only in the coldest, stillest places. The men had paused their work at Antoninan’s insistence. The island was inhabited. From somewhere behind the crown, a thin line of smoke drifted upward, stretching itself into lateral lines in the cold air. A score of canoes lay like basking sea beasts on the false beach of ice. Short upright dashes of black on the white were people. The iron ship was being watched.

  “That is a fortune in floatstone,” said Trassan appreciatively.

  “A Sorskian sea village,” said Heffi. “I have heard of them, never seen one. A fine adventure you have brought me on, goodfellow. These stories will buy my tavern dinners for some years to come.” He clapped Trassan upon the back.

  Trassan extended his telescope glass and scanned the island. What he took to be natural humps were in fact small domed huts of snow with windows of clear ice. The people were gathering on the ice where the white gave way to the grey sea, faces shadowed by the wells of their parka hoods. The garments were identical to the ones Antoninan had designed for the expedition. They were gathered around a canoe much larger than the others, with space upon its benches for a score of people. It was all of white, and the prow, carved in the image of a roaring monster, was taller than a man. A number of the figures were attending to this boat, attaching ropes to its sides and working around the hull.

  “They are nearly ready to meet us,” said Antoninan, careful not to point. “If we are careful, they will allow us to remain here while you proceed with the modifications. If we are careful.” For much of the voyage Antoninan had kept himself to himself, and Trassan, initially excited by the explorer’s presence, had become disappointed by his standoffishness.

>   On 17th Sunbright they had passed the eighty-sixth parallel that marked the beginning of True Sotherwinter. Isolated for much of the voyage, Antoninan had emerged from his kennels and started to exert his authority.

  More people emerged from the strange huts. They wriggling up from the ground a little way out from the walls so that they looked like they were popping out of the snow. The crowd of them became substantial. The men and women were identically dressed, and impossible to tell apart, but there were many children.

  “They live in burrows,” joked Trassan.

  Antoninan grasped the field glass and lowered it gently. He was in his forties, his brown hair shot through with white strands, his eyes were cold and piercing, his face was craggy from long exposure to the polar sun. He had spent so much time in the chill south it had entered into him. Trassan still did not know him well. They had met when Trassan had recruited him; they had discussed the expedition in depth, they had spent weeks together on the ship, but Antoninan preferred the company of his dogs to that of his fellow men. Trassan expected to be disappointed by Antoninan again, because Antoninan was turning out to be an arrogant arse.

  “They do not, goodfellow,” said Antoninan. “Be respectful of them. They can teach us much. As you see, these coats and britches we wear are of their design. I owe my life twice over to the Sorskian sea clans. If you offend them, we will gain nothing.”

  “Touchy, are they?” asked Trassan, closing his glass. He played the ignoramus to annoy Antoninan. “They look a little primitive.” Without magnification the huts became humps again, the people on the shore dark smudges on the white.

  “Comments like that is why Antoninan will be handling the negotiations, Trassan,” said Heffi. “He has spent a lot of time among these tribes.”

  “Not so much time with the people of the floating ice. I will do what I can, Captain Heffishul,” cautioned Antoninan. “The sea-peoples are distant from the land clans of the Sorskian peninsula. Their dialects vary greatly. We may refer to them as Sorskian, but most of them do not think of themselves so, and unlike those of Sorskia proper none are subjects of the Hundred Kingdoms. They are proud and free. I admire them. Anyone who can survive in this place deserves our respect.” He went quiet, eyes narrowing. “I have not encountered this band before. The sea-peoples can be dangerous. I will meet them.”

  “The boat is almost ready,” said Heffi.

  “Take a couple of Bannord’s marines,” said Trassan.

  “It’ll be a pleasure to go myself,” said Bannord.

  “Unarmed men only,” said Antoninan. “You must leave this to me. It is their way to greet strangers on the neutral ground of the ocean. We must go out first, as indication of our good intent. Then they will come out to meet us.”

  A team of six Ishamalani sailors had undone the tarpaulin from the jolly boat aft of the superstructure, and were attaching it to the short booms of the winch there, ready to swing it out over the side of the ship. Two of them stood at either end of the little boat, the other four went to the windlass that powered the crane, unwrapping it and inserting the turning beams into their sockets. The winch chains rattled, the boom was pulled upwards, and the boat swung out over the gunwale, guided by sailors at its prow and stern.

  “Does it always proceed in that way?” asked Heffi. “They are launching many boats.”

  Antoninan squinted back at the island. “Hold!” he said urgently. The sailors stopped, looking to Heffi for instruction.

  Trassan extended his telescope again; Antoninan shot him a warning look, but Trassan ignored it.

  “They’re coming,” said Trassan. “All of them.”

  The crowd onshore had become active. Without a glass they seemed small and agitated as baccillae on a magister’s microscope plate. People climbed into the canoes, four to each. They were shoved into the sea, and with quick dabs of their paddles struck out from the shore. When they were twenty yards out from the ice they rested their paddles across their boats and waited. Meanwhile ten men boarded the great canoe. More stood around the side, ready to push it into the water.

  A horn blew, reedy in the expanse. From the largest hut emerged their chief. He was clad in white fur, and when free of the ground he paused so that his fellows could put beads about his neck, a staff hung with many ivory carvings into his hand, and a headdress mounted with spreading antlers upon his head. Thus adorned, the chief was helped into the white canoe.

  Shouting rhythmically, the men at the sides heaved and ran the great canoe off the ice. The sea water parted smoothly before its prow, turning over like ploughed, silver earth. Momentum carried the great canoe several yards out from the shore, and there it stopped.

  “They have no paddles,” said Trassan.

  “Wait, and watch,” said Antoninan.

  The horn blew again, a long rising-falling wail that went on without stopping for a minute. Two men leaned out over the front of the canoe, gripping handles set into the side of the carved beast. They held lines in their other hands, and watched the water’s surface intently.

  A churning set up at the prow. Things rolled in the water. Leaning down so far their noses skimmed the sea, the men darted their hands under the surface where they looped their lines over something, and leaned back. The horn blew a third time. The lines went taut, and the canoe came skimming toward the Prince Alfra, drawn by its strange aquatic drays at such speed it knocked aside platelets of ice and sent them spinning. Once the canoe was clear of the flotilla round the island, the people in the smaller canoes dipped their paddles into the water and, letting out a shrill ululation, followed their leader.

  “What do we do now?” said Heffi nervously. “They can’t be so foolish as to attack us.”

  Antoninan watched the Sorskians carefully. “They have little metal, primitive weapons by modern standards, but their magic can be strong. Don’t underestimate them. Lieutenant, draw your men back from the rails. Have them put up their guns.”

  “Trassan?” asked Bannord.

  “Do what he says,” said Trassan.

  Bannord whistled and waved his men back to the starboard side of ship. He lowered both hands twice, and his men dipped their guns.

  The water at the bow of the great canoe rippled with the sinuous movements of its beasts. It cut a strong wake, clean as polished glass and jewelled with amber by the low southern sun—it was late evening, but the summer nights there were short.

  The white canoe was made of dracon skins stretched tightly over a frame of bone. The gunwales were carved from the same material, while the prow and stern were single pieces of sea dragon ivory, each a massive tooth.

  The boat slowed, the creatures pulling it bobbed to the surface, showing bodies insulated by sleek black feathers and short, whiskery faces ending in beaks.

  The chief handed his headdress to one of the others in the boat. Throwing back his hood, revealing that he was, in fact, a woman. A lined, snow-pale face looked across the water, broad with black eyes narrowed to slits by folds of skin. As outlandish as the chief appeared to the men of the Hundred, her gender was unmistakable.

  “A woman?” said Trassan.

  “The sea-peoples and southern Sorskians make little distinction between the station of the genders,” said Antoninan. Bannord and Trassan shared a sidelong glance; Antoninan answered every question as if its asker were an idiot.

  Antoninan called out to the woman in a clipped tongue, full of clicks and abrupt stops.

  The woman regarded them impassively.

  Antoninan tried another dialect, then another. The woman waited for him to finish, then responded. Her voice carried clearly over the glassy sea.

  “Your coming is written by the sky and the wind.”

  “Ha! She speaks good Maceriyan,” said Trassan. He smiled at the others. “That makes life easier.”

  She passed her hand over her head at the sky, then below at the water. “The ocean whispers of you. You bring war. You bring pain. You are outrider canoes of destruction.”
r />   “Ah,” said Heffi.

  “But you may stay, though I cannot welcome it!” said the chief. “It is the wish of the Unshe, and I cannot go against them.”

  Antoninan did not appear discouraged. “Greetings to you and yours under the stars and sky, woman of the waters,” he said.

  “You speak the greeting well. You are known to us,” replied the chief. “The northerner who buys dogs. You are Antoninan, the far-wanderer.”

  “I am he. How do you know of me?” he asked, very pompously, thought Trassan. Antoninan’s face was glowing at the chief’s recognition.

  “The wind, the waves. We have heard of you from our kin in the north.”

  “Your fame precedes you,” said Trassan quietly.

  “Not an advantage. The more they know, the harder they will deal. I must have their blessing, or we are at risk while we are here,” replied Antoninan under his breath. “This sort of display is normal. She will be seeking favourable trading terms.” He raised his voice again to the chief. “Do we have your blessing?”

  The woman shook her head emphatically. “No blessing can be given. The Unshe wishes your presence, not I. Tell me your purpose, and perhaps the blessing shall be given despite the portents. Speak truthfully, I have the small gift of divination.”

  “We are explorers,” said Antoninan. “We require a haven to effect repairs to our ship.”

  The chief closed her eyes a moment. When she opened them again she smiled. “You speak the truth,” said the chief with satisfaction. “That is good. One condition I can impose, you must trade.”

  “He got that right,” said Bannord to Trassan quietly.

  “Of course,” said Antoninan.

  “We don’t have much to give away,” said Trassan. Antoninan silenced him with a hand.

  “You have dogs? Your dogs are fine creatures, all upon the frozen seas know this,” said the chief.

  “Yes,” said Antoninan guardedly. “We have dogs.”

  “Then we will trade with you for them.”

  Antoninan’s face hardened. “It cannot be done.”