Fire & Ice

by Patty Jansen

  “I think we shouldn’t joke about Chevakia. One day they’ll invade us. You know, my father says . . .”

  Isandor let his mind drift off. He didn’t mind discussing politics, but not today and not with Carro’s cousin.

  Carro and Korinne came past on the dance floor. He was talking to her, his hand on her shoulder—too close to her neck—and his head bent towards her. He was too tall, and his steps too large. She held her body stiff, so she didn’t touch him, and stared past him at Isandor.

  Isandor averted his gaze. Between the dancers, his eyes met those of a much older man, a noble from the city proper, with golden swirls tattooed on his cheeks. He sat alone at a table. At more than twice the age of most patrons, he didn’t belong here.

  Isandor shivered. This was the man he’d seen after the race today, the man whose presence he’d felt.

  “Heh, I think that one fancies you,” Daman said, looking at Korinne whirling past.

  “Does she really?”

  “It’s not fair,” Daman went on, oblivious to Isandor’s sarcasm. “The best girls are always taken by you Eagle Knights.”

  Isandor took another gulp from his drink, stifling the comment that Daman could have her if he wanted, and that if it was so unfair, maybe he should sign up for the Knighthood himself instead of whinging about it.

  Before he could say anything stupid—and he was feeling rather drunk by now—Carro and Korinne came back to the table, both red-faced. Carro picked up his glass and took a large gulp from his drink.

  “Oh, Isandor, you’re not going to ask me?” Korinne said.

  “Oh, come on, be a man to her,” Daman said. “She’s throwing herself at you.”

  Carro sank into his chair, his face hard, and didn’t meet Isandor’s eyes.

  All right, so they had a disagreement. Let’s see. It would have been about Carro treading on her toes or grabbing her too tightly? Next thing she would go back to her friends and gossip about it.

  Oh, by the skylights. Isandor wanted to stay with his friend. No, he wanted to leave this stuffy place and walk with Carro back to the birds, or find some place quieter and away from pushy females, to have a drink and a good talk, but he couldn’t refuse such a blatant offer by the daughter of Rider Cornatan’s advisor. So he took the girl’s hand and led her onto the dance floor, where it was so busy that bodies pressed into him from all sides. The musicians struck up a rowdy tune.

  Soon, they were swept up in the tide of dancers, and Korinne attached herself to him, like a suffocating parasite. He had to concentrate hard to keep his gait even, to make sure that his empty boot didn’t get stuck or pulled off his peg leg. The crowd heaved and surged. And he was attached to this girl, red-cheeked and bright-eyed with bloodwine, holding him more closely than necessary.

  “You dance well,” she said.

  He just nodded. Never mind that he didn’t think so, not when dancing had become a matter of life and death.

  “I could dance with you all night,” she said into the hollow under his chin. Her breasts pressed against his chest. When he looked down he could see into the deep crevasse between them.

  Sweat rolled down his back. His hands felt like slippery fish. The scent of her perfume made it hard to breathe so he concentrated on his steps. One, two, three, four, one, two . . .

  “It’s so hot in here,” she said.

  This was the part where he should say We can always go outside. And then they’d go into the chill air, and he’d have to keep her warm with his kisses and no doubt she’d taken her ichina and was after a bit more than kisses, and that was all fine during Newlight, as long as the girl fell pregnant.

  Part of him wanted to go, badly. No doubt she could feel that part in the space between his hips and hers. But he couldn’t. It would mean taking his clothes off, and she would see his wooden leg. And although the Knights at the eyrie must have seen that he was Imperfect, no one seemed to have actually noticed it. He didn’t understand why, and knew that someone would, one day. And while he was vulnerable, literally with his pants down, about to ride a girl, was not the time for that to happen. Especially when he was so drunk that he could barely see the opposite side of the room. He wasn’t supposed to have lived. He knew no other Imperfects. According to the books, Imperfect babies were left to die on the ice floes, not to join the Knights, win races, or attempt to get any girls pregnant.

  But it was so hot in here. He concentrated on his dancing. Korinne pouted. Isandor’s heart was going like crazy. Would it hurt just to give her a kiss and see if he could do that? To see what it was like? But no, his body might betray him, like it did sometimes at night when he dreamed of the girl who came to the markets sometimes. She didn’t know him, or how beautiful he thought she was. But for some reason in this dream she would come up to his sleeping shelf—he was always at home or some other place that was a weird combination of home and the eyrie, and he was always alone—and then she would take off her clothes, but as soon as she folded back the covers to get into his bed, he’d wake up and then he would be all wet. But he hadn’t actually wet himself, since it didn’t smell like piss, and it wasn’t unpleasant at all, just embarrassing. Definitely too embarrassing to be thinking about now, since the thoughts only made his . . . problem worse. Korinne would be able to feel it now for sure.

  Carro was sitting at the table with his cousin, who gabbled away, probably about some political thing, but Carro stared at Isandor with uncomfortable intensity, as if he knew what Isandor was thinking. His eyes said, Get your hands off my girl.

  Sweat made Isandor’s shirt stick to his back. Everyone was staring at him. He could see the question in their eyes. What was he waiting for?

  Then, thankfully, the music ended. His face and ears glowing, he led Korinne back to the table, raising his eyebrows at Carro and hoping that Carro would get the hint and take her off somewhere to a dark warehouse. It might cheer him up. As for him, he felt like getting disgracefully drunk.

  “Oh, do we stop dancing already?” Korinne said.

  “I’m tired. I have to think of tomorrow’s race and feed the birds. I think Carro would like one more dance with you.”

  A painful look passed over her face.

  Carro was already getting up from the table, ready to take her hand, but she stepped back. “I promised my father I wouldn’t stay out too long.”

  A feeble excuse. No girl promised their fathers anything during Newlight except that they’d do their very best to fall pregnant.

  She extracted herself from Isandor’s grip and ran out, her lips pressed together.

  Isandor cringed. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, and didn’t know how he was meant to have rejected her without hurting her. What a mess.

  “What, Carro? M . . . my sister laughed in your face, din’ she?” The voice was haughty but the speech was slurred.

  Oh no, Jono. He stood at the table, his usual smirk on sharp-nosed face. He had taken off his Knights’ cloak, displaying the distinctive red tunic.

  “Shut your stupid mouth.” Carro took a step towards him.

  “You in . . . ssssulted my sister,” Jono said.

  “She came here begging for a dance.”

  “Heh,” Jono sneered. “Why sh . . . should my sss . . . sister ever want you?”

  “Shut up!” Carro grabbed Jono by his shoulder.

  A circle formed as other dancers stepped aside, faces keen and eyes wide.

  “Oh, Carro, come, don’t be silly,” Isandor said in his friend’s ear. “This isn’t worth a fight.”

  Worst of all, the Tutor had warned that any Apprentices caught brawling would not be allowed to go out tomorrow.

  Carro didn’t move.

  “Yeah, that’shhh right,” Jono said, his arms over his chest. “Get y . . . your friend to sss . . . sort it out for you.”

  “Shut up!” Carro said again, this time louder.

  “What? You’re jjjjealous be . . . becaush your friend gets more girls than you?”

  Carro
lunged.

  But he was drink-addled and Jono evaded him easily. Carro lost his balance and almost fell, but Jono grabbed him by his tunic. He drew Carro back to his feet. “So y . . . you want to fight? Let’sh fffight!”

  “Carro, no,” Isandor called.

  “Don’t, Jono!” Korinne said. “You’ll be in so much trouble.”

  “Shut up, all of you!” Carro shouted.

  He grabbed Jono’s arms and tried to push him over. Jono stumbled backwards into the crowd, and fell. Carro was on top of him, and then Jono was on top of Carro, thumping his face.

  Everyone was shouting and cheering.

  Isandor grabbed the back of Jono’s shirt, but he didn’t have enough strength to lift Jono off. He was afraid his leg would slip away under him.

  “Stop fighting, you two!” These stupid oafs would get them all into trouble. “Stop it, Carro, stop!” But they weren’t listening, and any moment some older Knights would come and haul Carro off to the eyrie. He needed Carro in the race tomorrow. He—

  Golden threads burst from his fingers. They crackled over Carro, as if he’d been caught in a living net of icefire. Carro and Jono froze. And then the threads snapped into diamond-specks of light which scattered through the air and vanished.

  Jono stumbled back as if stung.

  Isandor’s heart thudded in his chest so loudly that he thought the people around him must hear it. Had anyone seen that?

  “That’s right,” Carro said while scrambling to his feet.

  Isandor knew his friend couldn’t see the golden glow, but Carro’s eyes had gone hollow and distant again, as they did when he scared Isandor most.

  Carro wiped blood from his brow. “I’m wasting my time here. I have better things to do than concern myself with the lot of you.”

  He pushed into the circle of onlookers and was gone in a few heartbeats.

  “Carro!” Isandor shouted, but he had lost sight of his friend.

  Isandor wrestled against the stream of revellers coming in through the meltery’s doors. Young men pushed aside to let him through and young girls glanced at him with drunken longing. The bolder ones clapped him one the shoulder and told him good luck. He was their Isandor, from the Outer City, riding in the Champion Race tomorrow. Except he wouldn’t be if Carro got into trouble.

  Outside in the street, people lined up to get in. Some had their own drinks and were sharing flasks of wine around. An older Knight was kissing a girl in the light of a street lamp, his hands fumbling under her cloak.

  Isandor stopped, both revolted and fascinated. Knights were supposed to hold up respectability. Much leering and inappropriate behaviour of course went on in the eyrie. Family visit passes being traded for the sake of going to the whorehouse. Money being used to bribe superiors to turn a blind eye. But it always went on inside the eyrie walls, never openly in the street.

  Isandor stifled thoughts of Korinne’s hips against his. He could have had her, snuck away somewhere in a warehouse. That was what normal boys did. Normal boys didn’t run after their friends if they behaved like stupid oafs. Normal boys fought.

  “Carro,” he called into the emptiness of the street.

  There was no reply.

  He walked away from the meltery, breathing the cold fresh air. The streets became deserted. A single man leant against a wall, his eyes closed. Isandor stopped, intending to ask if he was all right and needed help, but realised that the man was so drunk that standing up was probably the most he could do. The front of his trousers was wet and had been frozen over. His mother would talk about something like that in gory detail for days. You know frostbite leaves blisters on your . . . He jammed his hands into the pockets of his cloak. Well, if this was Newlight, it wasn’t much fun.

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  ISANDOR WALKED ON in the grey-blue light of dusk. Above the roofs of houses, the skylights danced and shimmered in pretty displays of orange, pink and green. Far away, the sounds of partying continued, the crowd cheering the jugglers in the markets and the drummers at the festival grounds.

  He had no idea where Carro had gone, but he didn’t feel like going back into the meltery.

  He might as well go back to the eyrie.

  And then . . . golden strands snaked from the sky. Very briefly, they touched roofs and chimneys; they shimmered over the sloping sides of the limpets and crackled along the ground. A thread touched his hand and burst into a spray of diamonds. The display lasted a heartbeat before it winked out.

  Icefire.

  He stopped to look over his shoulder, his heart thudding. Icefire had never been this strong. Sometimes, when he stood looking over the city from the eyrie tower, the golden threads crackled over the city. They would bend to his hands, but they had never touched him, like they just had in the meltery. Icefire never ventured indoors.

  “You felt that, didn’t you, young Knight?” a soft male voice said in the darkness. The man had a lilting accent.

  Isandor gasped. He’d thought he was alone. “Um—good evening.”

  The man was tall and lanky, with piercing eyes and a sharp face lined with age. There were golden curls tattooed on his prominent cheekbones. A city noble? With a foreign accent? Talking about icefire?

  “Who are you?”

  But he knew who this was: that man who had been staring at him in the meltery.

  In answer, the man pushed back his sleeve and pulled off a leather glove. The white-skinned arm underneath shimmered and dissolved. The skylight gleamed on two golden rods extending from the man’s elbow. At the end, they joined in a “wrist” of black stone, where he had a pair of crab-like pinchers.

  Isandor stammered, “You are . . .” He reached for his wooden leg in an automatic gesture. In all his life, he had never come across another Imperfect person. When he had been little, his mother liked to remind him that children born Imperfect were left on the ice floes for the wild beasts to eat. Not even the riding eagles of the Knights would dine on such contaminated fare.

  “My name is Tandor, and I’m a traveller. Come.” He held out his good hand. A tiny crackle of icefire played along the skin.

  “Why?” Isandor stepped back. Everything about this man radiated danger.

  “We need to talk.”

  Need to? “I need to look after my eagle.”

  A flicker of distaste went over the man’s face.

  “You felt the icefire,” he said again. “When you reach for it, the light bends to your will.” It was a statement, not a question. “Do you know what that means?”

  Isandor kept his silence. During the time of the old king, there were people who could use icefire, and who had done so to bring terror to the people of the City of Glass, by enslaving them as servitors.

  “You’re Imperfect,” the man continued. “You helped your friend win the fight. I saw the icefire.”

  “There was nothing I could do about it!”

  “No, there wasn’t. I agree.”

  “Then why are you bothering me?”

  “Others might have seen the threads, too. Maybe one day others will see the illusion you weave about your leg. Or they will notice how every person in the Knighthood you meet looks anywhere except at your leg. Or maybe—”

  “Stop it! Who are you? What are you trying to do, destroy me?”

  “To the contrary. I’m trying to help you.”

  “Some help.”

  “If you are aware that icefire weaves an illusion around your leg, you can make sure it never falters. That way, no one will ever notice.” Then he added with a sarcastic tone, “Not even if you take off your trousers.”

  “Just go away, will you?”

  “You don’t want to learn how to hide your imperfections?”

  Isandor wanted to shout that he had no interest, but that wasn’t true. Being found out was his greatest worry. The Knights had never said anything about it, and every day, he feared that the subject would come up. “You can’t hide it. You can make it look like there is a
complete arm or leg, but they’ll find out as soon as they touch it.”

  “Not if you learn how to control it.”

  “Control it? Isn’t that the same as using it? Turning people into ghosts? Isn’t that why, after the king was killed, all his people were sentenced to death?”

  Tandor shook his head, an expression of pity on his face. “I see you’re upset and confused. We should sit down somewhere and talk.”

  Every fibre of Isandor’s being protested. This man was danger.

  “Come,” Tandor said again. “I’m buying. What I have to say is important. It will change your life.”