Fire & Ice

by Patty Jansen

  The crowd was yelling his name, and clapping and whistling and cheering. His eagle held its meat under a claw, but was hissing at the crowd, its wings spread. Isandor rubbed its head, burrowing his fingers in the feathers down to the hot skin. It was said that the animals were created through icefire and could feel its presence, and attached closely to those riders who could wield it. That’s what he was: a dangerous freak.

  “Apprentice Isandor?”

  A Senior Knight was standing behind him.

  “Sir.” Isandor bowed, his heart thudding. This was it.

  “Come with me,” the man said.

  Isandor followed him through the cheering crowd. He wished the people would shut up. There was nothing to cheer about. Hands were touching his arms, clapping his shoulder. Snatches of conversation drifted on the air.

  “. . . Did you see that?”

  “What about the other one?”

  “. . . Queen is going to make him the Champion.”

  Oh yes, one of the boys would be the Queen’s Champion, probably Jono, since he had the right family heritage. But first, his punishment, and the citizens of the Outer City loved that as much as they loved their blood sports.

  They stopped at the base of the stand. The guards moved aside, giving Isandor a view of the Queen’s legs, wrapped in thick bear furs. He bowed, unable to face pity in her eyes. “Your Highness.”

  The furs moved aside. The feet in dainty boots descended the steps. Soft boots and a cloak of fur white as snow. He bowed more deeply.

  “Do not be shy,” the Queen said. “Look me in the eye, Champion.”

  Champion? His heart missed a beat. He blurted out, “That can’t be right.”

  Her laugh sounded like the tinkling of crystal. “Oh, you Knights are priceless. Don’t be so humble. You won fairly. I have the honour of choosing the Queen’s Champion, and I have chosen.”

  Next to her, the reedy man Isandor recognised as Supreme Rider Cornatan sniffed, his lips pressed together in a thin line. Oh no, he didn’t think Isandor deserved to be Queen’s Champion.

  “I don’t deserve the honour.” I cheated. He let his head droop again.

  A soft glove entered his vision and pushed his chin up. A strand of golden light seeped over her arm and into his face. He exploded in warmth.

  Isandor looked into those dark blue eyes, and found himself drowning in her gaze. Her face was pale, her lips full and marked with just a touch of red paint. Long eyelashes were dusted with silver. She blinked.

  Isandor had to look away. His gaze slid down her soft, white-skinned neck to the elaborately-worked fastening of her cloak. She wore a crude strip of leather around her neck. The shaft of a gull’s tail feather poked just above the neckline of the cloak.

  Somewhere at the edge of his hearing, over the roaring of blood in his ears, she said, “You do deserve it, Isandor. I wish to declare you my champion. It is my title, and I choose whom I see fit.”

  The barbs in that remark weren’t intended for him.

  Again he heard Tandor’s words. How much power do you think a fifteen-year-old girl has over an age-old institute of men?

  At this very moment, she had all the power in the world over him.

  A junior Knight approached him with a box that contained the medal and Isandor was forced to step back from the stand to make room for the man. The Queen’s hand fell back from his cheek, severing the warmth between them. The Knight hung the medal around Isandor’s neck, but Isandor only had eyes for the Queen and how she kept her right hand in her pocket. He knew the signs. She didn’t give him the medal herself, because she couldn’t. She had only one hand.

  Supreme Rider Cornatan came to stand next to her. “Your Highness, there are some jugglers who would be honoured if you could watch their act.”

  “Certainly,” she said, still looking at Isandor.

  She took Rider Cornatan’s proffered arm and let him lead her away, but even while she disappeared amongst the Knight guards, she kept looking at Isandor. Her eyes were intense, and pleading.

  Isandor stood there, numbed, barely aware that the Junior Knight was speaking to him. “As winner of the race you will also get the honour of making the first kill of the hunting season. That ceremony will be held this afternoon in this arena. Be here on time so we can instruct you.”

  Isandor swallowed away that embarrassing, glowing feeling and met the man’s eyes, registering what he had said. “Don’t worry. I used to work in a butchery. I know how to kill a Legless Lion.”

  “Be there on time,” the Knight repeated.

  He turned away, leaving Isandor alone amongst the Senior Knights, some of whom congratulated him with stiff nods.

  Someone said behind him, “Well, I guess you don’t need to have a drink with me anymore, now you have all these new admirers.”

  It was Carro, with more bitterness on his face than Isandor had ever seen.

  * * *

  Should I warn him, should I not warn him, should I warn him?

  Carro glared at Isandor who was receiving yet more congratulations from random patrons in the meltery. The man, someone Isandor must know from the butchery, clapped a meaty hand on his shoulder.

  They had advanced barely a few steps into the main room. The door was still open, as more patrons followed, couldn’t get in and then wondered what the hold-up was.

  Carro jammed his hands in his pockets. He was tired.

  Wan light slanted into the dimness, lighting up misty sections of heavy and smoke-tinged air.

  The beefy man now left, towards the exit.

  “Come on,” Carro urged, pulling at Isandor’s cloak. “You said we’d have a drink.”

  He dragged back a chair.

  Seriously, if one more person was going to congratulate Isandor, he was going to scream. What about him? Had he not won the race together with Isandor?

  But if it had been up to me, we’d have been disqualified.

  Carro slumped into the chair, clenching his jaws.

  Isandor paid for two glasses of bloodwine from a passing waitress and sank down opposite him, plonking the glasses down. He leaned both his elbows on the table and sighed. His medal dangled from his chest, glittering in the smoky light.

  “Oh, yeah, life as a champion is so hard,” Carro said and knew he sounded petulant.

  Isandor looked up, meeting his eyes squarely. It wasn’t anger Carro saw in that blue gaze, but something else Carro couldn’t place. It chilled him.

  “Carro, I didn’t ask for any of this. You can have this medal if it makes you feel any better.”

  A moment of regret passed between them. Carro knew he was acting like a jealous toddler, but he could not, he just could not . . .

  “Carro, we are friends, right?” Isandor said.

  “Yes.”

  Friends, as long as Carro didn’t tell Rider Cornatan what Isandor was, as long as no one found out. Friends, as long as it was appropriate for a Learner Knight to associate with an Apprentice, and an Imperfect one at that. Yet Carro had taken off his new badge, because he didn’t want any talk in the dormitory about being favoured by the Senior Knights. He wanted to have earned his promotion.

  “You are my friend. You can tell me what worries you,” Isandor said.

  “Nothing worries me.”

  Only that he had awoken late this morning, sweating and with his bedding tangled around his legs, plagued by a nightmare: Korinne and her father, Rider Cornatan’s advisor, at his father’s doorstep.

  We need to talk business with you.

  As the maid let them in, Korinne gave him a sly look from under her curled eyelashes, and placed her hand on her swollen stomach.

  Payment. They wanted payment for his few moments of stupidity, and he wasn’t rich, and his father wasn’t rich, neither of them wanted a child, and as soon as Korinne and her father were out the door, his father was going to kill him.

  What were you thinking, stupid oaf of a son of mine!

  Carro wiped sweat from his up
per lip. What was he thinking, indeed? It had been a setup from the beginning. She hadn’t enjoyed it. He had, but he had known, even in his drunken stupor, that someone had ordered her to submit to him. Who was playing games with him?

  And Isandor sat there looking at him with genuine worry in his eyes. Isandor, who had everything he wanted. His natural ability to fly well, his ability to make people listen, his innocence, and true innocent love. Oh no, Carro hadn’t missed the look that passed between his friend and Jevaithi.

  And that, he knew, was the root of it all.

  You’re jealous, Carro, simple as that.

  Isandor slammed his glass down. He seemed to have taken to the drink just as badly as Carro had.

  “You know,” Carro said, swallowing discomfort. “You know I wish it was still last year?”

  “Why?” Isandor asked, and then his face cleared. “Did she refuse you again?”

  The truth was on Carro’s tongue. Get out before I can no longer hide you. It’s the only way I can protect you. He licked his lips.

  The meltery door opened, letting in flash of wan light. People scrambled aside. Rider Cornatan had come in. The Supreme Rider looked around, spotted Carro and gestured.

  Panic rising in him, Carro met his friend’s eyes.

  Rider Cornatan is after Imperfects. I don’t know what he wants, but it scares me.

  Someone is trying to buy me, and I don’t know how long I can resist.

  Treasure your virginity for as long as you can. Sex hurts and corrupts.

  But he said none of those words. “Sorry, have to go.”

  “Me, too.” Isandor rose from the table. His face looked drawn.

  He faced Carro wordlessly, nodded stiffly as if greeting another Knight and left. By the skylights, was that what their friendship had become?

  Carro drank the last of the hot liquid and set his empty cup on the table, clinging onto its lingering warmth. As he rose and crossed the meltery’s room, his knees turned weak with fear. It occurred to him that, instead of his father, he now bowed to Rider Cornatan, who treated him far better, on the surface at least. But why? What did Rider Cornatan expect in return?

  Carro met his leader in the middle of the meltery room.

  “Good, boy.” Rider Cornatan put his hand on Carro’s shoulder and squeezed it briefly.

  Together, they walked to the far end of the meltery’s room, where there were private alcoves against the perimeter wall.

  As they settled in an alcove, Carro hardly dared meet the Supreme Rider’s eyes.

  People on the main floor of the meltery pretended to ignore them, but Carro didn’t miss the furtive looks out of corners of eyes. Jono had been sitting at a table somewhere, raising his eyebrows as Carro walked past in the company of Rider Cornatan resplendent in his full uniform and riding harness.

  “The young boy you brought yesterday woke up this morning,” Rider Cornatan said.

  “Oh?” Carro didn’t know what else to say, but obviously there would be something of great meaning following this statement, otherwise Rider Cornatan wouldn’t have insisted on seeing him here in this very public meltery.

  “He said that when you came out of the Brotherhood building a blue man attacked you and the other Knights.”

  “I can’t tell. I didn’t see anyone. I used the staff as you said I should, but I saw nothing. I just grabbed the boy as soon as I could.”

  “Yes, you did well. But, according to you, the two Knights were killed by something that snapped their necks. Something you didn’t—or couldn’t—see.”

  The voice quivered with meaning. Intense blue eyes met his.

  “You mean a servitor?” His voice was barely more than a whisper.

  A chill crept over his back. He should have realised it earlier.

  “That’s what I mean, indeed,” Rider Cornatan said. “The Brothers have confirmed that they have the Knights’ bodies, but they’re hesitant to cooperate with our investigation. I think they know more than they’re willing to say.”

  “But how can servitors exist?” His books had spoken of the slave-servants of the old king. They had no will, and did everything their master wanted. They could not be killed except when their master died.

  “There is only one way: there has to be a Thilleian in the Outer City. One who is strong and has the capability to make servitors.”

  Isandor. Carro’s heart jumped.

  * * *

  Isandor runs through the street, holding out a box. “For you, Carro. It’s your birthday.”

  Carro stares. He doesn’t have birthdays. His father made him work this morning. In the warehouse. No heating. No one said anything about a birthday at breakfast.

  He takes the box. Opens it up and finds a book inside, a fat volume with a leather cover and thick, yellow pages. Doesn’t know what to say. He’s turning eleven today. “You shouldn’t do that, Isandor.”

  “Why not? You’re my friend.”

  Embarrassed, by someone who has so much less than he.

  * * *

  “But anyone . . .” Carro swallowed, hoping Rider Cornatan wouldn’t notice his lapses in attention. “. . . any sorcerer who can make a servitor is very powerful.” He didn’t think Isandor could do that, but what did he know? Maybe he could.

  “We must find this person.” Rider Cornatan’s eyes fixed his with uncomfortable intensity.

  Carro looked down at his empty cup, bloodwine churning in his stomach. Once it came out that he had been friends with Isandor, what would that mean for him? Back to his father’s warehouse? Death by accountancy?

  Not that. Never that. He’d kill himself first.

  “Did you enjoy last night?” Rider Cornatan’s voice sounded far off.

  Heat crept into Carro’s cheeks. “Yes, I did.”

  “There were some elite young Knights invited, a special team of mine. Did you have a chance to have a word with Farey?”

  The olive-skinned Knight who had been staring at him in a most embarrassing way.

  “I did. We didn’t say much—”

  “Farey never says much. I’ve asked him to keep an eye on you. He leads a group of elite hunters. They scout out rogues that flee the city and spies to our lands. I was thinking that with your flying skills, you could possibly join them.”

  “Hunters?” They were special units of highly trained men. Jobs that attracted whispers and rumours.

  Rider Cornatan drank. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “I think you could make a valuable contribution to our search teams. I wouldn’t rule out rapid promotions. You, boy, are destined to do well.”

  Carro didn’t think so.

  “No, don’t look like that. I think it’s time you showed leadership. It’s one thing to tag along with a group of others, but you need to learn how to give commands.”

  He? Give commands?

  “I notice you’re not wearing your Learner’s badge.”

  “I . . .” Carro stammered. “Some of the Apprentices will tease me. They’re already saying that I have no right to be here.”

  “Ha—and you let them say that to your face?”

  Carro shrugged. What else could he do? “Apprentices are not allowed to fight. I’ve already been punished too much for that. Fighting will just make the mocking worse.”

  Rider Cornatan put a hand under his chin and forced him to look up. “Boy, take it from me: men never mock those they fear. I am giving you the means to hold power over your peers. You are a Learner. You outrank them. They should fear you.”

  “But . . .”

  “If they don’t fear you, punish them for their insolence, and punish them hard. I can assure you: if you do it well, you only need to do so once.”

  “I’m not sure I—”

  “Yes, you could do it. Tell me, you don’t think you deserve being bullied by these cowardly boys?”

  Bullied? How about raped? “No, but—”

  “There you go. You don’t deserve it. Those boys are insulting you. You are worth more than
ten of them. You know that, Carro. Promise me you will do the worst you can imagine to anyone who defies your orders.”

  Carro nodded, his cheeks glowing.

  The man was the opposite of his father, giving him compliments where he deserved none.

  “You’re very quiet today, boy.”

  “I’m . . . a bit tired.”