by Aaron Crash
If Gurla didn’t catch him. She wobbled a bit, weaved a bit, and then lifted a leg to fart loudly. She was a beastly thing.
She took two steps toward him, then turned and sat down, right on the stones, with her back against the tower. She continued to sip from her mug. She wasn’t passing out, and she wasn’t moving.
Ymir didn’t pause. He found his first handhold, and a toehold, and hauled himself up. He climbed silently up the side.
“Anyone there?” Gurla gruffed.
Ymir froze. He was in the moons’ shadow on the west side of the spire. The borrowed black cloak should hide him.
The Gruul janitor was looking at where he’d been not seconds before.
“Coulda swore I heard something.” Gurla went back to drinking.
The clansman took it as a good sign. Higher he went, focusing on finding cracks for his fingers and ledges for his toes. He and his battle brothers had loved finding cliffs to climb, either in the Bearspine Mountains or in the crags and cracks splitting the landscape of the tundra. Sometimes they’d find a frozen waterfall and try their luck on that precarious surface.
As for sneaking around in the darkness, they’d raided other clans at night to rescue a stolen woman or to exact revenge. Cunning and stealth were powerful weapons.
Ymir wasn’t foolish enough to look down. After five minutes of climbing, if he fell, he’d die. It didn’t matter if he was a hundred feet up or ten thousand—the stones below would be equally unyielding.
The windows at the top of the tower were about ten feet away. He could see something glowing inside, a soft blue light that made him shiver. It wasn’t natural.
He was so close to the bars covering the windows. Ymir, though, couldn’t find a good hold, either for his hands or his feet. He’d come to an impasse. Here the workmanship of the tower had improved, and the stones were smoother. His toes, on the thin lip of a stone, started to weaken. His left fingers gripped a crevice, holding him up. With his right hand, he slapped, patted, and reached to no avail. He needed to move, or he’d fall.
He glanced below. It all seemed so far away: lights from the Flow apartments and the Sea Stair Market and tiny figures milling about the avenue and alleys. Gurla sat on the ground. She might as well have been an ant. He’d exhausted himself, clinging there, and to climb down he’d need to rest.
That meant going up by any means. Well, he’d not been idle in his classes.
“Jelu jelarum.” Taking moisture from the air, he created a ledge above him, just a few inches of ice stuck to the seams of the rocks. He scrambled up and reached the window, barred of course. At least those bars gave him a solid place to cling to. Or so he thought.
His fingers froze to the iron before the whole structure came loose. He found himself on the edge of falling.
Luckily his feet were firmly on his snowy perch. His right hand also had a good solid chunk of rock to hold onto. He wheeled back, the heavy bars in his left hand. If they hadn’t been so cold, he would’ve dropped them immediately. If he did, the sound would summon every Gruul guard at Old Ironbound. Gurla herself would lead the charge.
Ymir gritted his teeth. He forced himself flat against the tower. Then, he slipped the bars inside the window. There was no glass here, which was very good for him. He had to shake the iron off, and he lost a few layers of skin, but it was worth it. The bars clanged down onto the floor. He slithered through the window.
The room was circular, about thirty feet in diameter. A massive iron bell hung from a collection of wood and steel above. At the cardinal points of the room, waist-tall basins glowed. Inscriptions, carved into stone, marked each basin. Everything was covered in a thin layer of ice, including the bell and the basins.
Perhaps that was why the bars had given way. On sunny days, the ice must’ve melted and then frozen again when night fell. The change in temperature had worn the bars until they were brittle.
It was an interesting theory, but not important. Nor was the writing on the stone tubs, he didn’t think. He didn’t have time to read a word.
He checked the basins. Water shimmered in one. Another had a slushy mixture of ice and water, and another was empty, or seemed to be. The last one was full of ice. He unsheathed his hatchet and hacked into the glowing cold. If there was one thing he knew about, it was how to carve ice—the tundra gave you plenty of opportunity to practice.
His strike was perfect. He carved out a chunk on the first strike, about three inches square of frozen water, about a half an inch thick. He touched it and whispered, “Jelu jelarum.” His spell wouldn’t be perfect, but it would keep the ice from melting immediately. He stuck it into a pouch on his belt.
He tried the door. No luck...locked. He didn’t have a key. He thought of bashing it down, though that would cause a ruckus. Crossing back to the window, he clambered back out. He crawled down the way he’d come, and when he got stuck, he created a frozen lip to ease his way.
Gurla wasn’t there when he dropped off the wall and onto the cobblestones.
He stalked to the entrance of the Librarium Citadel. Going through there would be madness. Scholars milled around, and there was Gatha the orc librarian, reading at her table, obviously annoyed at the music thrumming from the Throne Auditorium.
Toriah Welldeep, in a pretty pink dress, stood alone at the entrance to the grand hall. She tapped sandals to the beat of the music. The Morbuskor woman had passed the First Exam, yet she seemed so alone and sad. Why were there no other dwarven women at Old Ironbound? That was a question Ymir might never learn the answer to.
He wasn’t done climbing just yet. He had to scurry up the walls of the Imperial Palace, up three stories. He scrambled over the tiles and then slid down the other side, catching himself on the eastern gutter. He descended quickly and ran to the Sunfire Tower.
He jogged up the spiraling stairs to the top. The door was half open. He pushed through, and there stood Jenny and Lillee. This bell chamber was similar to the Flow Tower. Surrounding the bell were four basins with various flames burning in them: red, blue, and a black, shadowy fire that was hotter than all the rest. One basin appeared empty, but when he drew close, he felt an invisible flame there, making the air shimmer above it.
That made him ponder the empty basin he’d seen in the Flow Tower. It might not have been empty after all. Invisible ice? The idea unnerved him.
He shook away the feeling and removed the Flow Tower ice from his pouch. He tossed it to Jenny without saying a word. They didn’t have time for pleasantries.
The swamp woman hissed and juggled the chunk. “That’s some cold shit there. You put some magic on it, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Ymir agreed.
Lillee closed and locked the door. Then she hurried to hug him before leading him over to the basin where the dark fire burned. “We should use the ShadowFlame,” the elf said. “Stories say it was what dragons breathed when there were dragons here.”
Jenny set the chunk of ice on the floor. She breathed on her fingers to warm them. “I think I have the best chance at doing the delicate work. Are either of you gonna complain?”
Lillee shook her head.
“Do it,” Ymir growled.
The swamp woman bent and whispered, “Jelu jelarum.” Her magic cracked the ice into the rough estimation of a ring, about an inch in diameter, thick with jagged crystals. The effort left Jenny sweating. “Okay, that was rough. I’m not sure how much more magic I can do. My dusza feels kinda depleted.”
She picked up the ring, and then tossed it back and forth, from hand to hand. “Okay, now we have to hold it over the flame and sprinkle the gold dust over it. That should warm it enough for you to wear. Lastly, the wind over the aszeculum of the three moons will give it the last enchantment.”
Lillee shook her head. “How are we going to hold the ring over the fire? I don’t see pinchers, and we’d burn ourselves. What do we do now?”
Ymir had come prepared. He didn’t have pinchers, but he did have his skewer just f
or this task. He threw off the cloak and unbelted the strap holding his big ax to his back. He slung it around and untied the skewer from the wooden shaft. He offered the tip to Jenny.
The swamp princess reached into a pouch at her own belt next to a sheathed dagger with a sapphire gem in the hilt.
“Nice knife,” Ymir said. “Is it new?”
“Not a bit,” she returned. “My Auntie Jia stuck it into the liver of some Cujan bitch who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Sapphire Fang was her gift to me before I left. I think it was either a reminder or a warning...probably a bit of both. I don’t carry it at Old Ironbound since murder ain’t necessarily on the curriculum. Gossip? Character assassination? Scheming? Yes, yes, and yes, but I don’t need a dagger for those.”
That made Ymir smile.
Jenny took a velvet bag from the pouch. She sprinkled gold dust into her palm. “I got the gold, but I’m more of a Moons and Flow girl myself.”
“I can try the Sunfire magic,” Lillee said. “We’ll have to be quick. Ymir’s skewer will melt in the ShadowFlame.”
The clansman didn’t know how that was possible, but he trusted the elf girl.
They clustered around the basin, on the west side of the tower, the same side where the ice had been. Did that matter? It seemed like a good omen.
Ymir placed the ring, on his skewer, over the black-edged flames.
“Ignis ignarum,” Lillee whispered, hand out.
The flames turned blacker. Water from the melting ring hissed into the flame. The skewer glowed red hot—that heat crept into Ymir’s fingers, burning them, but he wouldn’t let go.
Jenny was ready with the gold dust. She reached out. The sleeve of her puffy shirt caught fire. She threw off her top and stomped on it to extinguish the flames. Standing topless, she leaned forward. Ymir had to take a moment to admire the firelight flickering off the sweat on her big breasts. He noticed the burn on her arm. It must hurt. She didn’t pause.
She let the gold dust sprinkle down onto the melting ice of the ring.
“Jelu jelarum,” Ymir cast the spell, and the result was immediate. The dust mixed with the ice to glow a bright golden color.
Jenny plucked the folded parchment out of her pouch. “Now, this last part, you have to put the ring on, Ymir, and read these words. You have to do it quick before it cools.”
The clansman pulled the metal spike out of the fire and dropped it. The skewer clanked off the stone floor. The ring tinged and rolled against the basin.
His ignored the pain of his burned hand. Grabbing the parchment away from the swamp woman, he sank to his knees. He picked up the ring, a mixture of gold and ice, and again, burned himself.
He snarled and stuck it on his left ring finger.
Shaking from the pain, he lifted the paper and read the words in archaic Homme. “The Flow in the ice, the sunlight on the snow, the cold moons in the winter night, the lightning in the heart of the blizzard. Even at the warmest hearth, there is the cold at the heart of death.”
He shivered from the chill frosting his spine. His belly crawled from saying the old words. He’d been coached by Jenny, had practiced saying them, and still the words sounded like so much meaningless poetry. Except he knew about the cold at the heart of death. The tundra clans were haunted by both cold and death.
The ring cooled on the blisters marking his finger. His many burns throbbed with pain. They’d heal. He was fine. He stood and flexed his hand, feeling the weight of the ring. The ice looked black now, encased in gold. He didn’t notice any other change, not to his dusza anyway.
Jenny and Lillee blinked at him. Both were sweating.
“Well, this is going well.” The swamp woman slipped on her shirt. Her right arm was bright red from a burn of her own. She took the parchment and stuck it in her pouch. “We’re three quarters of the way done. The boat I got is down at the hidden docks. We need to get there and out to the AngelTeeth Islands.”
A key rattled. The door was thrown open. There stood Gharam Ssornap with a curved Gruul sword in his fist. He slurped up spit around his tusks before pointing his sword at Ymir. “You, my friend, are coming with me.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
YMIR GRINNED AT THE orc professor. “Gharam, it’s good to see you. After last night, I expected you to still be in bed. You aren’t as young as you used to be.”
Gharam waved the sword. “Kick that ax over to me. And come peaceably. We can figure things out with the Princept. No need to get the Sorrow Coast Kingdom involved, though you’ll probably see some jail time in StormCry.”
Ymir matched the orc’s stare. “I’m sorry, but I’ve come too far to stop now. Just let us go.”
Jenny hurried between the two. “Wait. Just wait. It’s my fault, Professor Ssornap. Ymir wanted to see the Sunfire Tower before he left. I stole your keys out of your room.” She waved the ring in front of the Gruul’s eyes.
Gharam slurped laughter. He gestured at Jenny and Lillee. “Oh, you two aren’t the problem. I don’t expect the Princept will expel you. You’re rich enough to ride it out, Jennybelle, but Lillee here, she’ll be living underwater after this.”
“Never!” Lillee flung out a hand. “Jelu jelarum!”
That elf girl was always such a surprise. Her passions ran deep, and they came out in unexpected ways.
Frost covered Gharam’s face. He snarled and charged forward.
Ymir snatched his ax off the floor, lowered his shoulder, and shoved himself into the orc. Gharam dropped his sword and grabbed him. Ymir was hurled against the wall. He drove the butt of his ax into Gharam’s armorless abdomen. The orc was smart enough to turn to the side, protecting his belly. He grunted at the glancing blow.
The orc swung a steel-covered arm at Ymir. If that blow had connected, it might have crushed the clansman’s face.
While the two fought, Jenny and Lillee raced down the steps.
Ymir danced back, dodging blows. In the entryway, there was no real way to wield his ax, and he didn’t want to kill the Gruul professor. He liked Gharam. It was unfortunate they found themselves on opposite sides of fate.
Ymir dropped his ax, and it clanged on the stones. “We don’t have to fight, Gharam. If you let me be, you won’t see me again.”
The professor started a spell. “Ignis igna—”
Ymir danced forward and punched the orc in the face twice, disrupting the spell. “Can’t let you magic your way out of this, Gharam. I’m sorry.” He was sorry. His second punch landed on a tusk; punching that was like hitting bone.
“Boy, you’re making a mistake we won’t forgive. If you want to stay out of jail, you’ll stop this.” The orc went to grapple Ymir. He was fast, big, and green, and he nearly took up the entire doorway.
“I wish I could, my friend. But I’ve found my chains. You’ll be happy to know they aren’t that heavy.” Ymir caught Gharam’s belt in his right hand and an armor strap with his left. He heaved the orc into the Sunfire Tower. The Gruul professor went sprawling to the floor.
The clansman slammed the door and locked it. Gharam had left the key in the lock, and it was doubtful the professor had another one.
Ymir let the key fall to the floor. He slipped his battle ax back into the strap and slung it over his shoulder. Charging down the steps, he considered the fight. Yes, he’d made an enemy at Old Ironbound, but that might not matter. If he hadn’t truly been expelled before, he would be now. Retaking the First Exam would be meaningless at this point. They couldn’t let him back into the school now. He’d broken into two towers and assaulted a professor.
And if the Princept sent the Sorrow Coast Kingdom’s police after him? He’d live in the wilderness, cross over into the Farmington Collective, and keep going. Alone, it would be easy. Taking Lillee and Jenny would slow him down, but it wasn’t like he would leave them behind.
Either way, it wasn’t the work of that night.
Do the first task first. Patience is in love with cunning, or so Grandmother Rabbi
t would say.
Grandfather Bear preferred a hunting proverb. Aim, kill, clean, and then eat. Too often, a hunter anticipated the kill without aiming, and you couldn’t eat if you missed your mark.
Ymir emerged from the tower. The top of the Sunfire Tower exploded in flames as the bell pealed in a chorus of gongs and bongs. Gharam wasn’t about to sit there quietly.
Scholars poured out of the Librarium Citadel, pointing and wide-eyed.
Ymir didn’t pause. He ran through their ranks and through the Librarium. Jenny and Lillee would already be down the Sea Stair by then. They could’ve walked straight there.
“Ymir! Stop!” Gurla and Korga, along with a dozen other orc soldiers, found him in the crowds.
The clansman didn’t pause.
Gurla wasn’t sober enough to keep up, and Korga was too fat. The other guards, however, were up to the task. They chased after him as he burst out of the citadel and into the Flow courtyard.
A couple other orc soldiers were there on the Sea Stair, blocking the way.
He turned to the right and ran as fast as he could past the alley that led to Jenny’s apartment. Orcs slapped the stones after him. He could stop, fight them, and yes, his chances were good, but if he killed one, that would only make his problems worse. He needed to keep his crimes to a minimum.
Ymir came to the end of the alley. He launched himself onto the wall, clambered up, and then ran across the rooftops toward the very edge. Down below, at the hidden docks, his women would be waiting.
The orc guards followed him onto the roof. He stood, surrounded by a collection of eaves, steeples, and chimneys. Those Gruul guards were spry, muscled, and fast. But what kind of courage did they have?
Ymir sped off the rooftop and jumped. He fell through space, toward the dark water below. He and his battle brothers had jumped into the Hell Sea whenever they could, daring each other to higher and higher heights during their summers on the coast.