The City of Ice

by K. M. McKinley

  “I think so,” she said.

  Harafan looked around and whistled. The room would have been vast when the Godhome was level, its falling had turned it into a slanted corridor with an absurdly high ceiling. Light shone from patterns carved into the walls and ceilings, but very dimly, and large stretches were dark.

  “We’re in the Godhome, but where?” she asked.

  “Beats me,” said Harafan cheerfully. He toed the debris by his feet. “Look at this!” he said, plucking a dented gold jug from the mess. “It must be worth a fortune.” He hugged it to his chest, casting it aside when he spied a pile of diamonds caught in a crease of tapestry. “Oh by the gods! Diamonds?” He scrambled to them and ran them through his fingers. “Diamonds, heaped like sand!” He began filling his pockets, then stopped. “Hang on a moment now, this is a good idea.” He picked up the jug again, and filled it hurriedly with double handfuls of the stones until it brimmed. “There’s enough here, right in the this jug, to set us up as goodfellows with our own castles, for life. For longer than life!” His eyes shone in the gloom with an almost innocent, boyish avarice. “We’ve done it!”

  “Harafan,” she said.

  “We can do anything, anything!” His laughter bounced from the walls, hurrying off into the depths of the Godhome. Madelyne peered nervously into dark corners.

  “Shhhh!” she said.

  “Why? There’s nothing here! We’re rich, stupidly, massively, madly rich!”

  “Rich... ich... ich,” said his echo.

  “And how are we going to get it out?” she said levelly.

  He frowned. “You got us in, did you not find out how to get out?”

  She shook her head. “We never should have done this.”

  “Didn’t you think to ask how to get out again?”

  “For the sake of all the hells, Harafan! I expected a door, not, not, this! Poof! From outside to in.”

  “Shit,” he said. He hugged the jug to his chest. He thought a moment. An idea lit up his face. “Right. I know. We go to the centre, to the top. There are buildings there, and that broken dome right in the centre where the Yotan was. You can see it right across the city.”

  “The edge is smooth for hundreds of feet,” she said. “We can’t climb the metal, it’s impossible. It’s been tried.”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “That’s stopped people getting in, alright, and I’ll wager climbing up is impossible, but we can make a rope or something, just lower ourselves down. Easy! Look.” He kicked at the tangle of curtains, hangings and drapes on the floor. “This place must be full of rich tapestries and all sorts. None of it’s rotted, see?” He held up a section of cloth and tugged it. There wasn’t so much as a speck of dust on. “Good as the day the gods were driven away. We can knot it together. It’d make a fine rope.”

  “If we did, how do we get past the Tyn?”

  “We’ll wait for when the sun is full on the top side of the Godhome, that’ll keep the Tyn away.”

  “Says who?”

  “People. People say. People said the Tyn were really in the park, and they really were. I’m beginning to trust what people say.”

  “Why didn’t we try coming in that way then?” she said accusingly.

  Harafan looked at his treasure abashedly. “Too risky, we might have been seen. Can’t trust folk not to follow us.”

  “We could have died coming the other way! Harafan, why they hells do I do anything you say?”

  “Because I’m really clever and smart?” he grinned ingratiatingly.

  “Fantastic. Your brains,” she said. she looked around. “I’d say the Yotan is above us, not below. I suppose we better go up. It’s going to be hard. Shall we take some of this cloth?” she said doubtfully. It was shot through with gold and copper thread. “It must weigh a lot.”

  “Nah, there’ll be loads more, I’m sure. Let’s find a way out first. We can come back for this if we really need it, and I’m prepared,” he said. He fished out a coil of rope for Madelyne from his pack. About fifty yards of it, she thought. To get out, they’d need a rope half a mile long.

  He was less concerned by their predicament, and whistled as he stuffed the diamond filled jug into a sack, tied it carefully with string and put it into his backpack. “Oof!” he said. “That’s heavy! But good heavy. Shame we can’t take it all.” He looked regretfully at the broken riches. “I bet this is small change to the gods. The really good stuff will be further in, closer to the Yotan.”

  They worked their way across the room to a huge doorway that led a into corridor that looked to be a giant ring. Its tilted walls curved gently upward, and there was an identical gate on the far side of the room.

  “That makes things easier,” Harafan said. “There must be a corridor off it somewhere that cuts inwards. If we’re lucky the Godhome will have fallen so that we can just walk along it right to the middle. No more climbing!” He patted her shoulder. “That’d be grand, eh Mads?” he said. “We’ll go up, have a look around on the way. Once we’ve got your sack filled up, we won’t dawdle, I promise. Then it’s bye bye duke, bye bye poverty and the easy life for us!”

  But they did dawdle. The going was hard enough without Harafan stopping to examine every room they passed. It seemed that each new chamber contained more spectacular riches than the last. There were weapons, glass, statues, artworks, strange objects of the Morfaan steel, precious metals and stones of every sort—gold, silver, platinum, rubies, sapphires, diamonds, all attracted his attention. One room contained so many stones piled up against its canted wall that it looked like a pool of water. Madelyne had to haul Harafan back from the door before he could dive in. He emptied his bags and refilled them several times with ever more precious artefacts, a pained expression at how much he had to leave behind always on his face.

  “I never knew, I mean, who did, how much wealth there is here!” he said. Their sacks and their packs were full, and they staggered along the tilted coign of ceiling and walls, burdened by wealth, more riches ready to snag their feet. The floors of the Godhome had become cliffs that resisted climbing. Vast chambers present insurmountable obstacles. Traversing the debris taxed their legs. They fought their way across each huge hall, always taking the corridor. The curve of the walls they were walking on increased in steepness. In this remarkable variation on mountaineering they were forced to clamber up what had been the walls, using tumbled statues as staircases, and broken walls and fittings as handholds. Harafan would go up first, and haul their loot after. Madelyne followed behind.

  “We’re just going in a circle,” she said, as they perched in the gaping door of a chamber, the corridor dropping below their feet. “We’re not getting any closer to the middle.”

  “There’ll be a way, you’ll see,” said Harafan.

  He handed her a canteen of water. She sipped it gratefully. A chill permeated the Godhome, but the climbing was hot work. There wasn’t much water left in her canteen. We could easily die of thirst in here, she thought.

  Harafan’s prediction was realised. Not long after the corridor had become vertical, they came to a crossway in the corridor cut through theirs, running toward the centre of the Godhome in one direction, the rim in the other. They hauled themselves up the lip of the wall and sat with their legs dangling over the junction, grateful for the rest.

  “Told you!” he said cheerfully. Sometimes, Harafan’s relentless good humour made her want to throttle him.

  They were, however, on the wrong side. They had climbed the outer wall for it was less sheer, a decision that, in hindsight, seemed stupid.

  “How do we get across?”

  “We’ll be all right,” he said. Harafan took off his pack and dropped his heavy sacks. “You rest, I’ll be right back,” he said, and headed off down the corridor.

  She hunkered down into a crouch, her arms wrapped around her legs.

  The corridor was wider than the circular one they had clambered out of, mounded with broken statuary along the earthward side. From
the walls the same white light shone, illuminating the wreck of the place. Despite the dimness there were no shadows, no shading. All was exposed like a naked corpse on a dissector’s slab.

  There was a strange smell to the Godhome, not rot or mould or putrefaction of any sort, but an aseptic nothing that accentuated the coldness of the environs. A silence that crushed all noise reigned supreme. Harafan was rooting about behind her somewhere. He was only a hundred feet away, but sounded much further. The light was as chill as the metal and air, unfriendly and accusing. She shivered. A few minutes inactivity and the sweat chilled her skin. The duke’s collar was uncomfortably cold on her neck. To distract herself she tried to picture what Godhome had been like before Res Iapetus, imagining it full of life and warmth. But she could not. The images she conjured showed her a different reality, a cold place always, inhabited by beings uninterested in the lot of humanity, detached from themselves and their worshippers, living in stillness, surrounded by riches they neither needed nor cared for. Living beings transformed into puppets of myth, playing roles they did not want. The Godhome was not a palace, but a gaol of the soul.

  Res Iapetus had done the gods a favour.

  Harafan thumped back down beside her. She started

  “Don’t scare me like that!” she said.

  “Sorry!” he grinned. From somewhere he had procured three brass candelabras with two tiers of serpentine arms. He knotted a rope about the loop at the top of one.

  “Grappling hook, see?” he said. He hefted and threw. His first cast was good. The candelabra clanged off a statue lying atop a second, and disappeared behind. A single yank secured it. Harafan tossed over the sacks, wincing in anticipation of them bursting and scattering his plunder. But they held. He tossed over the other two candelabras, then knotted the rope about the leg of a toppled statue on their side. Half the length remained, and he tied that about his waist.

  “When you’re over, untie this knot, loop the rope round and I’ll secure it at the other side. That way, we can keep all the rope.”

  He tested it, then lowered himself onto the line, legs crossed over it and gripping with his hands.

  When Harafan had clambered across and they had tied the ropes, it was Madelyne’s turn. The shaft of the circular corridor yawned beneath her. She went quickly.

  “Easy, huh?” he said as he helped her up. He undid the rope, tugging their bridge back across the gap and pulling it back up. “Come on, we’re nearly out.”

  They leapt doorways opening into deep vaults become pits, all of them filled with untold treasures. Objects of stupendous value were scattered everywhere.

  “If I’d have been Res Iapetus,” said Harafan, “I would have cleaned this place out.”

  “It wasn’t about money,” said Madelyne.

  “The duke told you?”

  She nodded.

  “What happened, really?”

  Revealing that felt like one betrayal too many, and she did not reply.

  A cool wind blew, bringing the scents of Perus into the house of the gods; the smell of soot and shit dirtied the air. Shortly thereafter, they came to the approach to the Yotan. The corridor opened out into a long arcade with a roof of wide crystal panes to keep out the sky. At the end the gates of the great hall hung splintered from their titanic hinges. It was much brighter there, sunlight streamed through the open door. Signs of Res’s invasion became apparent. The damage was obvious and direct, affecting the very structure of the city. Such power had been unleashed that the Morfaan metal was dented and discoloured beneath shattered marble. The lights in the wall were out. All the statues were broken, but some had clearly been destroyed before the tilting of the Godhome had sent them tumbling. These were blackened and part-melted.

  To get to the gates they had to climb. Enormous statues, urns, obelisks, and other sculptural works made a scree as daunting as that on any mountain. They struggled over the rubble, pausing to marvel at objects thousands of years old, fashioned by inhuman hands before history began. They crested one last hummock of shattered art, and the way out was clear. Through the gates they saw the broken dome, most of its many frames empty of glass.

  “The Yotan,” she breathed. “The throneroom of the gods. We must be the first people to see this in two hundred years.”

  Glory had fled. The thrones were broken in their settings. Water streaked the walls. Plants had taken root in windblown soil. Brilliant green moss highlighted every crack in the marble fascia. “How sad,” she said.

  “Never mind that, see, a way out!” said Harafan. “We can climb out of the bottom there,” he pointed to where the dome met the top of the lowermost wall. “It’ll be easier than we thought. We should start gathering up cloth to make a longer rope.”

  “We’ll need a lot, it’s a quarter of a mile from the buildings on the upside to the ground over the rim. Twice as far from the centre all the way to the edge.”

  “We’ll be able to climb down the building like we climbed up the corridors. It’s just the last, smooth section we have to worry about.”

  “We’ll still need about three hundred yards of rope.”

  “Best get looking then, eh Mads?” he said, and slapped her on the shoulder. He was smiling, close to laughing, she smiled back. “See?” he said. “I told you I wouldn’t let you down.”

  They split up. Ranging along the arcade, Madelyne quickly gathered a bundle of long hangings, tapestries, flags and pennants. She found a room full of clothes of human size. A god could not have worn them, yet there were racks of fine dresses and goodfellow’s clothes of an antique style. She put her collection aside and lowered herself into the chamber to gather them up, using hanging rails fixed into the walls to slide down.

  “Harafan!” she shouted.

  There was no reply.

  “Harafan!”

  A crow cawed loudly outside the Godhome, its cries brought in by the wind. “Fine, I’ll do it myself,” she grumbled. She hunted out all the belts and cords she could, thinking to plait them into a sturdy line. After that she chose the most robust looking garments. She couldn’t toss them out of the room, the door was too far, so she bundled as many together as she could and tied it up with a loop of rope. Her intention was to shimmy up the pole with the rope between her teeth, and haul the clothes back into the arcade. On the cusp of leaving, she paused.

  Something glinted enticingly, resting in a fold of a rich gold doublet like a jewel in a presentation box. She bent to pick it up, thinking it to be a sapphire—she already had dozens, but there was always space for one more—but it turned out to be a fragment of deep blue glass. The edges were razor sharp, so she held it carefully as she examined it. It didn’t look like the crystal glass from the roof, too blue. There was something moving inside it.

  She held it to the light. A screaming woman’s face rushed toward her, sweeping a sword out. The glass’s edge bit into her finger and she dropped it. Red dripped from her hand.

  “Damn it!” she said, sucking the cut. “Harafan!”

  The glass jiggled, agitated as a wasp. She snatched her head aside as it shot off the clothes pile and past her face. Any closer, and it would have sliced into her cheek. The Godhome shook. Madelyne staggered. The clothes heaped in the room writhed with movement. More glass pieces shot up, ripping through the garments. She dodged back, but one skimmed her arm, cutting through cloth and skin. A bass rumbling shuddered through the structure. She clutched at the clothes rails, making herself as small as possible as glass sped upwards all around, sharp and deadly.

  The rumbling subsided. The glass ceased to streak upward.

  “Mads! Mads!” shouted Harafan. Out in the arcade, glass tinkled on glass.

  She began to climb the pole. “Harafan!” she shouted. “In here!” Her blood greased the metal, slowing her, her torn arm stung.

  Harafan’s head appeared through the doorway, looking down at her with wide eyes.

  “We have got to get out of here, right now,” she snapped.

&nbs
p; He reached for her, she climbed and slipped, he leaned in further. The tinkle of glass grew louder, like an avalanche of smashing bottles. Harafan grabbed her injured arm, and hauled her up. She bit back a cry at the pain as her cut opened further.

  “Come on!” he said, dragging her up a pile of masonry.

  Madelyne looked back.

  There, toward the gates of the Yotan, a figure took shape. Glass shards burrowed their way up out of the rubble, shot across the arcade in blurs, adding themselves to a tall and monstrous being that formed in shifting mosaic—a woman’s torso upon a serpent’s body, a crown on her head and a sword in each hand.

  “Andrade!” said Madelyne.

  Glass lips rasped and clicked. “Trespassers!” they said. The voice was hollow, air blown across the top of a bottle. “Trespassers!”

  Fragments still flying to join themselves to her mass, Andrade, tutelary spirit of the Earth and warrior champion of the gods, threw herself forward. Her sinuous tail propelled her at the thieves, glass pieces rattling against one another.

  Harafan and Madelyne stumbled back and fell down a pile of statue’s limbs and toppled pediments. Andrade was on them already, swinging her swords. Harafan shoved against Madelyne, and she banged into a broken-faced head. The sword slashed down between she and Harafan to explode into a thousand pieces of blue glass on the stone, but the goddess drew back her arm and the fragments flew back into place, a swarm of cruelly edged pieces remaking the weapon.

  “Trespassers!” she hissed.

  Madelyne screamed, and flung herself forward. Andrade was swift as lightning, slamming Madelyne from her feet into rocks that lacerated her ribs.

  Harafan scrambled a few yards ahead.

  “Help me!” screamed Madelyne.

  Harafan looked from her to the towering goddess of broken glass. He paused for a moment. At least he did that before he mouthed “Sorry,” and ran.

  “Harafan!” she screamed. “Harafan!”

  The clicking of glass pieces played behind her. She rolled onto her back. Andrade reared high, triumph on her broken face. Madelyne prepared to die.