Goddess of the Ice Realm

by David Drake

  “Blood for Beard to drink!” the axe cried. “Blood for Beard!”

  At the Sheep Fairs there was often a peddler from Shengy with a cinnamon-colored bear. When it stood upright to shuffle in a slow dance, it was as tall as a man.

  The rangy animal now padding out of the mill was that tall at the shoulder; it must have weighed more than a large ox. It saw Sharina, whuffed, and launched itself at her with no more hesitation than a stooping hawk.

  “Blood for—” the axe called.

  There wasn’t time to think. Five feet short of its victim, the bear lifted its right forepaw for a crushing blow. Sharina stepped within the bear’s reach and brought the axe down in an overhand blow. The blade crunched through bone, burying itself to the helve in the bear’s broad, flat forehead.

  The bear reared onto its hind legs, lifting Sharina until her hands slipped from the shaft and she cartwheeled sideways. Will it dance now? she thought hysterically. She was screaming with laughter when she slammed onto the hard ground. Her shoulder went numb, and the world around her had a fuzzy haze as though gray mold grew on everything.

  The bear voided its bowels in a gush of liquescent feces. The stench was choking. It toppled slowly forward, then hit like a building collapsing. The ground shook. Except for the initial grunt when the bear saw what it thought was prey, it hadn’t made a sound.

  The man was still calling from the mill; he didn’t realize he was free now.

  Sharina could also hear Beard’s gurgling joy, muffled by the skull it had split.

  ***

  The castle was both older and more substantial than Ilna had expected to find in a village on the fringes of the kingdom. Though the two- and three-story buildings that housed Lusius’ troops and their families were new, the core of the complex was lichen-covered gray stone that must have been as old as the mill where Ilna lived in Barca’s Hamlet.

  “An Old Kingdom watchtower,” Chalcus said, noticing Ilna’s surprise. “Used as a fisherman’s hut most of the time since then, I shouldn’t wonder, but it seems our Lusius has put it back in shape. A dozen men could hold off an army, as long as they had food.”

  He grinned at her. “The right dozen men, mind,” he added. “But that’s true of any fight, isn’t it?”

  “It’s true of more than fights,” Ilna said. “Unless to you all life is a fight, and I don’t know that I’d argue with that notion.”

  Chalcus laughed merrily, but the touch of his hand on hers was more than mere whim. “Not everything’s a fight, dear heart,” he said. “I must learn to save my strength for the times it’s needed.”

  He meant she must learn. Well, both of them should; Ilna didn’t doubt the truth of that. It seemed very unlikely that she’d ever succeed, however.

  The pair of trumpeters stood on the tower battlements, high enough that four levels of arrow slits pierced the stone below them. Their fanfare was slightly out of tune and time with one another. Ilna didn’t take a great deal of pleasure in music, but she had no difficulty in telling good from bad. Most was bad, of course, just as with every other form of human activity. These trumpeters fit in quite well with her expectations.

  The soldiers who’d met the Bird of the Tide on the quay were now drawn up in a double line framing the walk to one of the new buildings rather than the stone tower. When their officer snarled a command, they thumped the butts of their spears into the ground and shouted, “Hail, Captain Chalcus! Hail, Ilna os-Kenset!”

  Ilna’s face set. She disliked pomp at any time. Here it was obvious besides that their host was toying with them, pretending deference to the high rank he knew they held.

  The humor struck her. She chuckled, drawing a glance and a raised eyebrow from Chalcus.

  “You said Lusius wasn’t a fool,” she explained under her breath. “You were wrong: only a fool would mock us if he knew who we were, you and I.”

  Chalcus laughed again. “True enough, dear heart,” he said. “But there’s knowing and knowing, you see.”

  They walked side by side through the double rank of soldiers—the Sea Guards, Hutena said they were called. Wealthy drovers and merchants attending the Sheep Fair generally had bodyguards, so even before Ilna left Barca’s Hamlet she’d seen a variety of men who made their living by arms. These Guards were a sorry lot despite being turned out with plumes on their helmets for the occasion. Most of them were out of condition; they were dirty, and some of them were already drunk.

  The tall doors were open. The building was a single large hall, set now for a banquet. The walls were hung with tapestries which’d been chosen for gaudiness rather than quality. They were of very high quality nonetheless, but Ilna found them an odd mixture. There were hangings from Sandrakkan, Ornifal, red silk from Seres, and a large panel from Pare where they wove goat hair into geometric designs.

  Lusius and his aides, a few more than a handful, stood on both sides of a table at the short end opposite the entrance; the two places opposite Lusius remained open. The benches down either long side were for the soldiers; they tramped in after the guests. Servants waited with drink pitchers and hand-barrows loaded with food.

  “Come in, my honored guests!” Lusius cried. “I greet you not only in my own name but in that of Prince Garric of Haft, whose loyal servant I am!”

  Ilna thought of how easily she could kill this smirking man; kill him or better yet knot a pattern that would show him his own soul—thereby causing him to kill himself in horror and despair. She smiled, cheerful and assured.

  Chalcus gave his sash a little hitch that settled the sword and dagger held in its folds. For the occasion he wore a short woolen outer tunic of Ilna’s own workmanship. From a distance it looked plain, but there was a subtle pattern to the threads that distracted an eye trying to focus on it. It wouldn’t protect Chalcus from a chance arrow or a thrust in darkness, but it was the best gift Ilna knew to give to a man like her man.

  His inner tunic was orange silk, cut a little longer and higher than the wool one; it matched his sash and the twist of silk about his temples perfectly. His sandals were gilded leather cutwork, a trifle larger than a perfect fit. Ilna knew that if there was trouble Chalcus would kick off his footgear and fight in his bare feet just as he worked on shipboard, but they looked festive.

  Ilna’s only concession to the occasion was to wear an outer tunic over the woolen undergarment which would suffice alone on shipboard or in a rural village. The unadorned garments were clean and of the finest craftsmanship—her own. In place of a belt or sash she wore a loosely-gathered silken rope which doubled as a noose when she needed one. Because of the cobblestone streets she wore shoes, though she’d have preferred to be barefoot in this warm weather.

  Chalcus offered Ilna his elbow for her hand; together they walked to the seats prepared for them—her primly, Chalcus with a swagger. “I’m honored indeed to be the guest of great men like yourself and Prince Garric,” he said. “But do you deal in so open-handed a fashion with all your visitors, Commander?”

  Lusius snorted. He gave a little wave of his hand; his courtiers and troops seated themselves with a scuffling of chairs and—for the common soldiers—benches, as Lusius sat down himself. The only people still standing were his guests and the red-robed figure to his right where Ilna had expected to see the Commander’s consort.

  Her eyes narrowed as she and Chalcus sat as well. She was the only female in the hall, though there’d been women and children in the usual numbers in the dirt plaza in front of the soldiers’ quarters. The women were slatterns and their offspring screaming brats; fit companions for men of the quality of the Sea Guards, she supposed.

  The figure in red threw back the cowl of his robes. “I am Gaur, the Red Wizard!” he said, making the words sound like a prayer. He wore silk brocade woven in a flame pattern by someone with a great deal of skill. The garments had been embroidered much less ably with gold and silver thread; Ilna supposed the symbols had meaning—very likely were words of power—but they seemed an aft
erthought.

  Gaur was taller than Garric who’d been the tallest man in Barca’s Hamlet once he got his growth. He had wiry black hair and black eyebrows which nearly met on his beetling forehead. He looked rangy and powerful, but the whole ensemble was so clearly intended to impress the ignorant that looking at him made Ilna’s lips curl in a sneer.

  “And I’m Chalcus, the captain of the Bird of the Tide, sir,” Chalcus said cheerfully. Leaning back in his chair he went on to Lusius, “So, Commander—you provide entertainment with your banquets, eh?”

  Ilna took cords from her left sleeve and had started plaiting them before anyone else understood just how calculated had been the insult Chalcus delivered in his pleasant voice. Lusius had been drinking from his embossed gold cup, watching Chalcus over the rim. His eyes opened. He snorted, spraying wine from his nostrils, and doubled over in a coughing fit.

  Gaur’s hands moved as though he was holding a globe in front of him. “One day, captain,” he said to Chalcus in a grating voice, not loud, “you and I will entertain each other. We will see who laughs the louder then. Eh?”

  Ilna saw Gaur’s tongue move, but she wasn’t sure he was speaking further. Images formed in the air between his hands. Chalcus ran naked across a barren plain. Things came out of the darkness at him, never quite to be glimpsed even when they struck. Each tore away a strip of flesh. Chalcus continued to run, but he was stumbling....

  Chalcus laughed. “A good one!” he said. “A touch on me indeed, Master Wizard. Now, Commander—may I hope that your hospitality to your guests extends to the wine I see on your side of the table?”

  Gaur sat heavily. Ilna eyed him for a further moment, then put her cords away. The exchange was over—for now. Servants were filling her goblet and Chalcus’ with an expensive perfumed wine from Cordin. Ilna didn’t like the vintage, but it showed that Lusius wasn’t stinting his guests with second-rate drinks.

  Gaur was a braggart, a type of person that Ilna found offensive even when she had no better reason to dislike someone; in Gaur’s case she was fairly certain that she’d have no trouble in finding better reason. What he had done, however—without preparation or tools—was a remarkable piece of wizardry. Whatever else the Red Wizard might be, he was a wizard.

  “You ask about visitors here, Captain,” Lusius said as servants set fish soup in front of the diners. “We have very few, as the ships in the Carcosa trade are too large to enter Terness harbor. It’s a good shelter for those of us who struggle against the flying demons, though. Have you heard of the Rua?”

  The man to Ilna’s left seized his bowl and drank the contents down. Under other circumstances Ilna might have done the same, but out of pride she ate her soup with the spoon of silver and alabaster which she’d been offered. It was scarcely a point of pride to show that she was more refined than this lot, she thought with a grim smile.

  “Indeed we have, Commander,” Chalcus said. He’d sopped a torn chunk of rye bread in his bowl and was eating it that way. “Saw them as well, on the horizon as we came up on Terness. Odd creatures, to be sure, but I wonder...?”

  He paused, chewing his mouthful as his laughing eyes held Lusius.

  “Though they’re big for anything flying, these Rua,” Chalcus continued, “I wonder that they’d prey on ships so large and well-manned as those that’ve been their victims. The pirates of the Southern Seas are terrible indeed, they tell me; but they’d never attempt ships the size of those the Rua take. Eh?”

  “They’re wizards,” said Gaur in his grating voice. He’d recovered enough to sit upright, though he wasn’t eating. Before him on the table was an agate tureen, silver mounted and covered with a lid polished from the same block of stone. “I struggle, but I am one and the Rua are many hundreds.”

  The Rua might very well be wizards; they’d arrived here by some means and wizardry was as likely a cause as any other. Ilna doubted the story about them looting the ships, or at any rate doubted that was the whole truth, simply because Gaur had said it. Liars sometimes tell the truth, just as occasionally a stage magician tricked out in red robes could show himself to be a powerful wizard, but she had a bias against believing it.

  The food kept coming: a fruit compote; mutton roast; a dish of rice with raisins and ginger. Ilna began to peck at dishes instead of cleaning them, then began to wave courses off untouched. The offerings generally tasted good though unfamiliar—even the fish soup had been remarkably spicy—but there was far too much for a sensible person to eat.

  And drink. There were various vintages, some of them doubtless stronger than others, but the total would fill a cauldron big enough to wash the garments of everyone in the hall. Ilna sniffed: if the castle had a washing cauldron, it was cobwebbed from disuse.

  Ilna asked a servant for beer; he went off—even the servants were male—and returned not long after with a quite passable lager. She nursed her goblet, but even so they were long at the table. The last thing she needed to do was to drink enough that she lost control of her behavior.

  Chalcus was drinking his share. In the middle of a story about a storm blowing him south so far that he saw icebergs like those that split from the glaciers of the far north, he began to sing, “The cuckoo, she’s a happy bird, she sings as she flies....”

  He was probably putting on a show for their hosts, but again—quite a lot of wine had gone down his gullet. Well, Chalcus knew how to take care of himself, drunk or sober, and he had the scars to prove it.

  “So, Captain Chalcus...,” Lusius said. He drank, belched heavily, and banged down his empty goblet. “Have you space in your holds for additional cargo, do you think? We here in the Calves do a fine business in the shell fisheries these last few years.”

  “She brings us glad tidings, and she tells us no lies,” Chalcus sang, completing the stanza and raising his cup to drink. He blinked in apparent surprise to find it empty.

  Setting it down he said, “Oh, we’ve no cargo to speak of, but no need for more than we’ve got. One chest is all, folderol for one of the lords who’s the prince’s bosom companion, Tadai his name is. He didn’t tell me what was in it, just said it was to go to Chancellor Royhas in Valles. I’m be well paid for the voyage, so I asked no questions.”

  A servant filled his cup with wine. As the fellow took the pitcher away, Chalcus drank deeply again.

  “Now, I shouldn’t ’ve have said that, I know,” he went on through a giggle. “I shouldn’t be here at all, but our mast is sprung. I need to step a new one before I try the Inner Sea all the way to Ornifal, for all that the worst of the weather should be past by this season. You can’t trust the weather, you know.”

  He tapped the side of his nose with an index finger. “No farther than you can trust men!”

  “You’re not afraid of the Rua, then?” Lusius said, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

  “Poof!” said Chalcus. “What do I care about some funny-shaped bats? We’ve bows on the Bird of the Tide and men who know how to use them. If these Rua of yours come too close, they’ll find they’re sprouting goosefeathers!”

  “Indeed,” Lusius said, “indeed. I’m sure that’s just what will happen, captain—but if you have a day or two, would you care to come out with me to the reefs where we fish for shell? I’ll be there in my vessel, the Defender, because the fishermen daren’t to go without my protection. And even so it can be a tricky business, as you’ll see.”

  “I’ll be honored to join you, Commander!” Chalcus said. “I and Mistress Ilna, if you don’t mind. Sometimes her eyes catch things that mine have not.”

  “She’s welcome, of course,” Lusius said. “The Defender’s no royal barge, but then, I don’t suppose your Bird is that either.”

  Ilna had listened to the exchange with a frown she didn’t attempt to conceal. If Chalcus was blabbering for a purpose, her concern was in character; and if he wasn’t, if it was the wine talking—then all the better reason to frown.

  Gaur had remained silent for most of the
meal, glowering at a corner of the vaulted ceiling as though in deep meditation. Now, seeming to awake, he gestured imperiously to a servant and snapped his fingers. The servant brought a canister of gold filigree from a sideboard and set it before the wizard, next to the covered bowl which had been there throughout the dinner.

  All eyes were on the Red Wizard, as he no doubt had intended. Ilna heard the man seated next to her curse under his breath and gulp down the rest of his wine.

  “Our visitors will have noticed that I myself did not eat,” Gaur said, his voice again that of a priest declaiming to an audience of laymen. He lifted the cover from the agate tureen; it was filled to midway with an amber fluid. “I never eat in the presence of others, but in the name of fellowship I like to feed, shall we say? Would you care to watch?”

  “I’m always ready to be entertained, Master Wizard,” Chalcus said in a light tone. He touched his fingertips to the table before him, then lowered his hands to his sash.

  Gaur glared at him. His eyes were a black that looked deep red in the lamplight. He twisted off the lid of the filigree container and reached in with thumb and forefinger. “These are flies,” he said. “I’ve pulled off one wing already.”

  “Ah, every man should have a hobby,” Chalcus said brightly. “I knew a fellow once who collected butterflies, so he did.”

  Gaur’s rage couldn’t have been fiercer if his eyes had filled with molten lava. He held a fly above the agate bowl. Other flies were beginning to crawl out of the open container, though of course they couldn’t go far.

  “Watch!” Gaur thundered, dropping the mutilated insect. It twisted on one buzzing wing as it fell into the bowl. The fluid rose to catch it, snatching down the victim while it was still a finger’s breadth above the original surface. The fly disintegrated as it sank, leaving a blood-red blotch in the amber. After a few moments the color dissipated.