The City of Ice

by K. M. McKinley

  “There is the history, the—”

  “Not now, Garten,” said Abing firmly.

  “Of course, your grace,” said Garten. He returned his attention to the caverna, resolved upon a visit nevertheless.

  The fissure closed suddenly, and the road was captured again between towering apartment blocks.

  By this shortcut, the coach managed to clear a space between itself and the crowds surging toward the Basilica, but there were many other vehicles on the streets, and Perus’s hellish traffic was thickened by the cavalcade.

  No sooner had the coach picked up speed, it was forced to slow again. Floating orbs in the fog were glimmer lamps marking an intersection. All four roads leading into it were jammed with vehicles.

  The coachman forced his way through a tangle of drays and wagons. At the edge of the mess two drivers rebuked each other loudly. Shelluse joined in with gusto. The dogs snarled at other teams as he forced his way through.

  “Good grief!” said the duke.

  “The traffic here is appalling, your grace,” said Mandofar drily.

  They pushed past, only to stop again. A great procession of hooded men walked by, each carrying a tall candle. They sang sadly as they walked. Many of the people on the pavements made signs of devotion, others shouted curses. The hooded men paid attention to neither.

  “Ah, the Church. I said they would be out in force. I was not wrong!” said Mandofar, pleased with himself.

  Abing opened the door and thrust his generous body out into the fog, setting the carriage rocking. “Kressind”” said the duke. “Look at that! Thousands of them.” The procession trudged past slowly. Bells rang frantically still everywhere, but around the church members a silence settled, deeper than the fogs. Not reverence, but an anticipation, an imminence.

  Garten craned his neck, barely able to see past the duke’s ample backside. There were men and women in the procession. Armed men with hard faces flanked them, hoods down, shoving at those who hurled curses. Intimidation was the cause of the silence, not religious feeling.

  The last of the faithful filed past, their column of candles and lamps swallowed up by the fog. Ordinary citizens came behind in a disorganised and knotty mob. Shelluse took his chance, a crack of the whip sent the dogs barking through the stream of people. Shocked faces flashed past the window, and they were through.

  Another warren of tenements approached. More and more people were about. A babble suffused everything, a voice as indistinct and all pervasive as a brook at night. Garten was entranced by the crowd. Men and women of all stations and all nations moved together with common purpose.

  “Come on, come one!” growled Abing. “If we are not there to greet the Morfaan we shall lose a great deal of face.”

  “Does it really matter, good Tomas?” asked the countess. She too was fascinated by the surging mass of humanity outside the coach, smiling with genuine pleasure at the things that caught her eye.

  “To the Morfaan, our presence is irrelevant, to them it is the crowd that counts, not who is in it,” said Abing. “But being late or absent will give our rivals ammunition I would rather they did not have!” Abing banged the ceiling with his cane. “On driver!”

  “He is doing his best,” said the ambassador.

  No sooner had he said this than a horn wailed over the Maceriyan capital, coming up from the direction the group was headed in. Voices went up from unseen towers. More horns joined in, rocking the sky with their sorrowful blaring.

  “Place di Azamund!” the town speakers wailed, their voices pitched deliberately high to cut through the unnatural night. “Place di Azamund! The Morfaan will come to Azamund!”

  “Damn it!” shouted the duke. “The place of manifestation has altered!”

  “It is not abnormal,” said Mandofar. “I was undersecretary to the secretary when the last visitation came. On that day it changed seven times before they finally pierced the skin of the world and came through. He said they were cautious, personally I suspect they are paranoid.”

  “And this fog, was that the same?” asked the countess.

  “Always, countess,” said Mandofar, who in spite of himself was warming to Lucinia. She was plain and not ugly, Garten decided, and open, engaging, and sharp. “It is said they can no longer abide the light of our sun.”

  “So it remains foggy for their entire stay?”

  “Around them, yes. But only for the space of a few hundred yards. Once they have made the crossing from their domain, the weather returns to normal. We are in their murk when attending upon them or at the business of the parliament, but we have respite when the day’s business is concluded. At least, so it once was. I must give advisement that like our own dear Karsa City, Perus is prone to choking on the exhalations of its industry. There is always a taste of sulphur on the air, I’m afraid, and they lack the good strong coastal winds we have at home to blow it all away.”

  “He’s not turning. Damn him! You said this man knew his business! Driver!” Abing banged on the ceiling hard, scuffing the velvet upholstery with his cane. “To the Place di Azamund! Azamund man!”

  The coach wheeled around sharply again. The duke flung out his arm to steady himself, pinning the older Mandofar against his seat, discomposing him. The countess slid into Garten’s thigh. She glanced down, squeezed his leg and gave him a saucy look.

  Pedestrians hollered angrily after them. Theirs was not the only carriage turning around. People milled about as the news filtered through the crowd. Furious shouts were everywhere.

  Twice more the location changed.

  “Marmore district, the Place of Heroism!”

  “The Foirree, Adomas Bridge!”

  It was by now late. The last of the summer evening slipped away into grey obscurity unnoticed by mankind. The omnipresent light of lanterns, candles, glimmer lamps and torches carried by the crowds supplanted the sun completely. All the world was aglow. It reminded Garten of his father’s foundries.

  The crowds became frenzied with anticipation and exhaustion, every new announcement was greeted with groans and shouts. Men and women who should have known better ran along streets like beggars in pursuit of an over-generous passerby. The Maceriyans were an unruly lot to Karsan eyes—sexually licentious, often drunk, haughty and prone to riot at the slightest provocation, and what shreds of decorum the Maceriyans did possess took leave of Perus that night. Matters became tense. High born men brawled with factory workers over perceived slights. Well bred women drank and caroused with the lower orders, singing bawdy songs to welcome in the Morfaan. For the well-mannered Garten, it was all a little too much, and his fascination turned to disgust.

  Mandofar noted Garten’s change of heart with satisfaction. “I am sure your sister would approve,” he said.

  And then another location was called, “Royal Park, Royal Park, at the Meadow!”

  By the time the Royal Park was announced as the destination, it was well past midnight. The carriage had jogged from one side of the city centre to the other, up and down and back up Perus’s nine hills. Garten’s curiosity was blunted by tiredness and he had become oddly nervous. Abing was irascible. They had spent days travelling and no opportunity to rest. Mandofar, insulated from high expectation by local knowledge and a certain amount of affected disinterest, drew pleasure from their discomfort.

  Again the coach pulled ahead of the crowds. Again they accelerated, their driver racing against others to be the first to the Meadow. Coaches thundered on the cobbled streets. The mist thickened and became darker as they left the crowd. Behind them the city appeared to be aflame.

  A wide road brought them to the bounds of the Royal Park. The famously high walls rose over them, no nonsense constructions of deeply rusticated stone topped with silver-chased iron. “Against Wild Tyn?” asked Garten.

  “Allegedly so, although I have never seen one,” said Mandofar. “And nor has any man I have spoken to.”

  “Nonsense,” said a small voice.

  Mandofar look
ed around himself. “Did someone say something?”

  “It must have come from outside,” said Garten.

  “Really Kressind, you are the most unconvincing liar,” shouted Abing. “Come clean. Tell him what’s in that blasted box.”

  Garten grinned placatingly. “A trifle, nothing more, a—”

  “Get on with it!”

  Garten undid the box door, displaying Tyn Issy clutching at her bars with two dainty hands.

  “I’m not a trifle,” she said. “I’m a menace.” She showed her teeth to the ambassador.

  “Driven gods!” he gasped. “You new money people are beyond belief! A Tyn as a pet?”

  “Not a pet, a geas, I’m afraid,” said Garten. “I assure you it is not my choice to accompany her.”

  “Even worse!” choked Mandofar, his face reddening. “My father warned the old prince that elevating a bunch of factory men and farmers to the ranks of the peerage would end in disaster, that they’d drag up all their uncouth fancies and abnormal practices with them. He was bloody right!”

  “I am a princess of my kind,” said Issy loftily. “High magics bind me to humanity’s path, and I am exceptionally expensive. I come from a family far finer and high than even yours, so do not cast aspersions upon the breeding of the Goodfellow Kressind.”

  “By all the gods, it speaks, it speaks!”

  “Of course I can speak! You manage it, and you are a fool. Why should not I?”

  “What did you say?”

  “You heard me before, you buffoon.” She grinned again.

  “Mandofar, calm down, there’s a good fellow,” said Abing. “Anyone would think you have never seen a Tyn before.”

  “Calm down? I will not calm down! I will not! This is most irregular! Do you know how the Maceriyans will react to this? This is not Karsa City! They do not take kindly to creatures of... that sort,” he flapped a hand at the Tyn, “in their midst. Why do you think they go to all the bother of the park wall over half-believed folktales?”

  “They shall never see her,” said Abing.

  “I make a very fine spy,” said Issy.

  Garten glanced at her box questioningly.

  “My great uncle died because of a Tyn’s curse,” said Mandofar. “I will not have it in the embassy.”

  “What did he do to offend?” said Issy. “I shall guess! Pomposity. Being pompous is not enough to draw our ire.”

  “Nothing! He was struck down for nothing. Tyn are untrustworthy, dangerous, deadly.”

  “All of that, and in your carriage,” said Issy.

  “Do you threaten me? How dare you!” shrieked Mandofar.

  “That’s it! All of you, quiet!” bellowed Abing. “You must swallow it, Mandofar, no matter how it sticks. The Tyn stays. Now be quiet. A man can barely hear himself think!” He tapped the head of his cane against his chin. “Best keep her under wraps, eh Garten?”

  “Your grace.” He made to close the box.

  “No, no, don’t shut the poor thing away. Let her see the arrival. Be sporting, eh?”

  The countess smiled at Abing. Tyn Issy curtsied. Garten obliged.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Church of the Return

  THE MOTION OF the carriage set the wall into rolling animation. Fine coping stones took the place of iron spikes, and it rose and fell in stone waves to meet thick pillars, upon which were mounted massive stone spheres carved all over with angular designs. When the walls bent inward toward the Meadow Gate, they seemed to leap backward like acrobats. Scores of coaches were rushing into the park, spraying orange stone chippings onto the dark grass. The Karsan carriage smoothly joined the line, and the dogs bayed for the joy of running with their own kind. Tall trees sped by. The industrial burned grease and old wool reek of the fog was supplanted by the scent of damp greenery. The road headed downwards through open woodland, before splitting to run all the way around a broad area of landscaped grassland. There the coaches drew up, depositing their passengers into a chattering crowd of Perus’s well-to-do. Their excitement dispelled the gloom of the weather.

  The crunching rattle of carriage wheels on gravel abruptly ceased as the Karsans’ coach went onto the grass and stopped. The driver and coachman jumped down and opened the doors.

  “The Meadow!” said Mandofar. “A good place for the arrival.”

  “Everyone out!” boomed Abing, and left the coach rocking as he sprang out.

  Garten had the presence of mind to shut Issy’s door before she was seen, and stepped out into the Royal Park. Moisture from the grass soaked his shoes and stockings. Fog drifted in murky swags through the forest surrounding the meadow. It was unseasonably cold and dreary and altogether sinister.

  Languages from all over the Hundred drifted over the gathering as a stream of wealthy men and women walked out onto the Meadow following the bobbing will o’ the wisps of lantern bearers. The Karsans’ driver remained to water the dogs but the coachman joined Garten, the countess and the rest, carrying a lantern in one hand and a stout stave in the other. Abing took the lead. Walking side by side with the coachman, he pushed on to the front of the swelling crowd as if he, and not Mandofar, were the old hand in Perus. Bursts of music filtered through the damp air. Food vendors proclaimed their wares. The hawkers seemed to anticipate every move of the crowds, and the rest of Perus was coming. Toward the gates gathering torchlight lit up the eaves of the park woods.

  “It looks like this will be it. The mob will be here soon,” said Abing, waving his cane at the pursuing glow. “We shall to the Meadow Mound. Come!”

  The crowd of well-to-do Perusians were headed to a small hillock fronted by a crag that looked out over the flat of the Meadow. Abing’s muscular walk pulled him ahead once more. Mandofar tried his damnedest not to pant as he kept up. Garten took his time, threading past knots of laughing women and men of serious countenance in exotic costumes. The countess stuck by him, a private grin on her face.

  “Do you find all this amusing?” asked Garten.

  “That’s a loaded question, Kressind,” she said, gently mocking Abing’s manner. “I am trying not to laugh. Not from devilment, but from delight. Such a gathering! I am a connoisseur of parties, goodfellow, but this is quite extraordinary.”

  “And crowded. Where has Abing got to?” said Garten. They had reached the crag. A line of the well-to-do were winding round the side towards the back.

  “Does it matter? You can protect me, can’t you? I hear you are quite the swordsman,” she said with a wink. “We shall stand there. Let the rest jockey for position on the summit.” She pointed out a shelf of rock jutting out from the base of the crag that would afford them a good view over the heads of the crowd. For the time being, it was vacant.

  “Look how carefully this has been prepared,” she said, knocking a knuckle against the rock. What Garten had taken to be natural had in fact been carved to resemble weathered stone.

  “None of it appears to be real,” he said. “The boulders have been mortared in place.”

  “The irony of the Maceriyans! A rock crafted by the elements is not wild enough for them. Such aesthetes,” said the countess. “They say nothing is as it seems in Perus, apparently they are right. Whoever they are!” She laughed, and bounded up the stone in a most unladylike manner, turned and reached out a hand to Garten. He shook his head, and she withdrew it. He wished he’d taken it, the rock was slippery.

  “Ah,” she said as he struggled up beside her. “A man of action who requires no help. So much better than these popinjays and dilettantes. I look at this display and I see falsehood as rank as this stone.” The people around them glanced up disapprovingly. The countess set her hands on her hips, bold as a young blade, and enjoyed their opprobrium. “Let them goggle, we can see right over their empty heads,” she said. She spied a trio of young women whispering about her behind their hands. She waved, and they waved back, smiling.

  “You are famous, goodlady,” said Garten.

  “I think I am,” she said. �
��How fucking marvellous!”

  Garten cringed to hear a woman speak so. She grinned widely at him. Issy tittered.

  Besides the richer denizens of the city, many other diplomats had gathered around the stone. There were no constables keeping the crowds away from the crag. Convention alone made a sufficient barrier to the lower orders entering the park and spreading out across the field. The poor kept away.

  So many finely dressed men, and a few women, so much power in one place. The emissaries of dozens of the Hundred’s kingdoms, standing in the soaking grass.

  “There is something bizarre about this gathering,” said Garten. “It is as if they are all ensorcelled.”

  The countess laughed.

  The flood of people filled the Meadow side to side. Though the crowd thickened uncomfortably, no one ventured into the woods. The Meadow was well tended, with lit pavilions, drinking fountains, a large bandstand, elaborately planted centrepieces and smooth gravelled paths. Garten looked about for the city’s famed duelling grounds, but he could not see their entrance, to his disappointment.

  “I cannot credit the stories I have heard about this place,” the countess said. “It seems so peaceful, so pleasant.”

  “Do not believe that it is so, countess,” said Issy very quietly. “There is a great deal of danger here, not only from my kin. This city is old, older than the Maceriyans, older than the Morfaan. The present you dwell in is as thick as the skin on warm milk.”

  The countess peered into the box. “What is it with you and your family and Tyn?” she said.

  “My brother Guis?”

  She nodded dismissively. Again, Garten caught that flicker of annoyance at his eldest brother’s name. What had he done to her?

  “My brother’s is a medical necessity. This one was... I should say gifted to my brother Trassan, but she was more of an imposition on the part of his master Arkadian Vand. He in turn passed her to me. Now I find myself, well, rather stuck with her. Apparently something horrible will happen if I put her aside.”