The Icefire Trilogy

by Patty Jansen

  Jeito and Farey’s eagles stood at the far end, eyeing Carro’s bird. Compared to all these fresh, skittery birds, they looked sleek, but well-used, and care-worn, and rather blasé about their surroundings. Jeito and Farey needed only snap their fingers and they came strutting through the stable. Jeito hissed back at a bird that tried to peck at her eagle’s feathers. Her hiss could almost pass for an eagle’s.

  “Trouble is those birds don’t get out enough,” Nolan said.

  “Tell us something we don’t know,” Farey said.

  They led the birds outside in complete silence. Carro’s eagle took large steps and lifted its feet high, and tilted its head this way and that to look at the surroundings. Carro held tight onto the reins even as it tilted its head all the way back to inspect the sky. Rider Cornatan stood watching, his arms crossed over his chest.

  Carro met his father’s eyes and a chill went over his back. This wasn’t just a simple mission to find this army, or Rider Cornatan would have sent someone else. As for every one of Carro’s tasks, there was a message in it. If only Carro understood what those messages were.

  Carro mounted his bird and for the first time in days, rose to the air. The breeze through his hair reminded him painfully of his races with Isandor. The hunters were close behind.

  “Better make some headway before daytime,” Farey said.

  * * *

  At first daylight they had progressed deep inside Chevakia’s central district, an area of farms and little villages interspersed with bits of land too rugged or steep to farm.

  In an embarrassing way, Carro was glad to stop flying. Because they didn’t want to be seen, they had to fly very high, where it was cold and squally winds tried to unseat them from their birds. It was hard to make out where they were going because a blue-grey haze hung over the landscape, turning the landscape into a grey soup. At times, Carro though he could smell fire, but he was sure that was only his imagination playing tricks with him. He sat hidden deep within his cloak and spent a lot of time fighting visions.

  When the night had become a grey and listless dawn, they made camp in a cave in a rock wall overlooking a river. They went through the usual routines. Nolan made the fire while Farey plucked the bird that Carro had shot. He was proud of the kill—using a dart in mid-air—although he half-suspected that it had been an escaped domestic bird.

  His next job was to haul water from the river.

  He half-slid down the steep incline, holding himself on whatever trees and bushes were available. The water in the river was murky brown and churned in little eddies. The current carried sticks and leaves.

  Carro dipped the bladder into the water and held it under until it was full. When he was putting the stopper back in, a tree trunk drifted past, its surface black and charred from fire. He noticed other blackened branches, too, washed up on the banks. And his mind went back to those apparitions of fire. These burnt tree trunks proved that there was a fire out there, up on the southern slopes.

  He did not mention the burnt wood when he returned to the others. They had seen the same things he had, and would have the same worries, save that they didn’t have memories of people made of fire. And even those worries wouldn’t change the task they’d been given.

  Nolan had the fire going and Farey had plucked the bird. Jeito sat a little apart from the others. She held a map, but wasn’t looking at it. She sat staring into the hazy morning air. Carro poured water in the pot and put it on the fire to the side of the duck which was already dripping fat and starting to smell good. Farey added the bird’s wings and feet to the water. All this without anyone saying a word.

  Carro sat down with his back against the rock wall of the cave. When he’d bent to get water, the Pirosian medallion around his neck had dangled free from his clothes, and now Farey glanced at it. Carro put it back under his clothes. Increasingly, Farey and Jeito’s silence and looks made him nervous. Nolan tried to make small talk, joking about certain commanders at the farmhouse, but even he fell quiet until all that could be heard was the whistling of the wind around the cliff face and the occasional distant rolling of thunder.

  Carro felt alternately hot or cold depending on the direction of the wind. Dark visions clouded at the back of his mind. The Outer City. Limpets on fire, the staff with the sink in his hand, the feeling of frost biting into his hands as the stone absorbed icefire. He tried to push those images away, and he must have drifted while staring into the fire because suddenly Nolan exclaimed, “I don’t get it! What are you two on about?”

  “Shut. Up,” Jeito said.

  “But you’re behaving like idiots. We know we can trust him.”

  “He was the one who fucked up when we almost had them.”

  Carro was fully alert now. He met Jeito’s eyes, which burned like furious coals. No, he didn’t belong with this group, and had never truly been part of it.

  “It was an honest accident,” Nolan said.

  “Oh, shut up, pup.”

  “What? Now I’m the pup?”

  “You behave like one, so you get called pup. You have no idea what I’m talking about.”

  “Then enlighten me.”

  Nolan crossed his arms over his chest, his nostrils flaring. He was probably half a head taller than Jeito and twice the width.

  Jeito snorted. “Anyway, I don’t care if it was an accident or not, I don’t want him with us if he’s likely to fuck up again.”

  Farey said nothing, but he likely agreed. Nolan spread his hands, his eyes pleading, most likely for Carro to say something like, but it was really an accident.

  But it hadn’t been an accident, and Farey and Jeito would always know that.

  Carro rose. He felt like he was trembling all over.

  “I could leave, if you don’t really don’t want me along,” he said.

  “Leave?” Nolan said, his eyes wide.

  “Yeah, go somewhere else. I’ve thought about leaving a lot.”

  “Deserting?” Nolan squeaked. “Your old man would go mad.”

  Carro nodded. “Sure he would.” Rider Cornatan probably wouldn’t rest until he was found, and punish the hunters for letting him go. Both Jeito and Farey were looking at him with wide eyes. He had them. They listened to him.

  “Why by the skylights would you do that?” Farey asked, now no longer angry. “You got your career mapped out. You will go straight into the upper command.”

  “Only because of my father.”

  Their silence surely meant agreement.

  “Do you know the motto of the Knights?”

  They frowned at the change of subject.

  “Course we do,” Farey said.

  “Say it for me.”

  “Obedience, honour, honesty, humility and silence.” Farey’s voice had a recalcitrant tone, a tone that said, Why should I do this? Just get on and tell me what this is about.

  “The Knighthood is a proud institution,” Carro continued. “We uphold the law in the City of Glass, we guard the Queen, we protect the citizens. We are what young boys dream of becoming, what young men sign up to join.”

  He let a silence lapse. Jeito and Farey’s faces looked grim as if they knew what was coming. Nolan just looked puzzled.

  “You don’t have to answer this question, but what is honourable about killing the Queen and one of the citizens we are sworn to protect, when all she has done is to refuse to let herself be fucked by senior Knights? She is not sworn to obey any of us. She isn’t in the Knighthood and doesn’t even sit on the council.”

  If possible, the silence grew more intense. Even Nolan seemed to understand now.

  “I grew up adoring the Queen. At home, we cried when Maraithe died.” Even his merchant father had, he remembered
now. “We lined up for half a day to catch a glimpse of her bier being carried to the shore. Our hearts broke for Jevaithi, the little girl in the procession, with her hand held by some stiff-faced maid. The tears on her cheeks were real. I was only eight, but I wanted to go to her and bring her my toys so she would be happy again.”

  Jeito nodded, her hands in her lap.

  “When I joined the Knighthood, everyone spoke of serving the Queen. To us, she was the most beautiful woman in the world, if not the only woman in the world. To be a Knight was to dedicate your life to the Queen. We watched her tower room, we watched the corridors of the palace for glimpses of her. Which Knight has not dreamed of landing a job to escort her?”

  No one replied to that question; they all knew the answer. Carro sat down pretending to be calm, but he trembled all over. By the skylights, what had gotten into him? The hunters were likely to kill him for saying all these things. But they were things that had bothered him for a long time. Certainly he could not be the only one thinking them?

  In continued silence, Farey removed the cooked duck from the fire and cut it up. When he handed Carro a piece, his eerie grey eyes met Carro’s with a burning intensity.

  “You know that men have been killed for saying lesser things?”

  “Yes,” Carro said, although he did not. He was such a naïve fool and these hunters would probably be doubly keen to get rid of him now.

  He’d hoped . . . he didn’t know what he’d hoped, but all he’d received was silence. And he still didn’t know what the hunters thought.

  They ate, and tried to get some sleep. Farey and Nolan had no trouble, but Carro found it hard to sleep when it was light. He lay tossing on his mat, feeling the bumps and rough edges of the rock through the thin surface.

  He must have fallen asleep, because suddenly, it was much later, and a shadow crouched over him. In one fluid movement, he rose, grabbed his knife and slammed the person into the ground, with the “oof” of breath being forced from lungs. It was Jeito, pinned under him. He was heavier than her and in this position, she could do nothing.

  “My, I think the pup learned something,” she said, her voice low.

  “What the fuck were you doing, sneaking up on me like that?”

  In a flash movement, she pulled him down by his shirt, and rolled over so that she sat on top. Her face was so close that he could feel the heat of her breath of his skin.

  “Do you want to fuck me?”

  “No.”

  She seemed taken aback by that reply, then one corner of her mouth went up. “You prefer boys, huh?”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.” He looked into her puzzled face and added, “If, however, you think the things I said are true, I do appreciate your support. You are a good fighter, and I’d like to trust you as a friend.”

  “A friend, huh?” She gave a crooked smile. “I thought I was way too bitter to have any friends. Friends are for children.”

  “Are they?” Carro could stop a memory of Isandor, and their innocent friendship.

  Jeito crawled back to her sleeping mat, giving him strange looks.

  “You’re weird.”

  Carro nodded. He had come to accept that.

  But as Carro lay back down, he still couldn’t sleep. In a roundabout sort of way, Jeito’s odd behaviour must have meant that she approved of what he’d said, but may have been too afraid to say aloud.

  Chapter 13

  * * *

  THE MORNING in the Proctor’s office had the feeling of being at least two days long. Sady was fighting to stay awake, never mind concentrate, while reading through financial reports. The only thing that kept him from putting his head on the books and falling asleep was the sheer magnitude of the mess. Had no one ever given the budgets more than a cursory look? Not only was expenditure vastly bigger than income, columns hadn’t been added properly, or not at all, entries had been left out of the total, and large amounts of money just vanished in between being transferred to different departments.

  He didn’t understand how Destran could have let all this happen, and he couldn’t imagine how Destran would not have known about these problems. Or—and the thought brought an increasing chill—was Chevakia in such perilous financial state that Destran had no choice?

  Sady leafed through the books, found large chunks of data missing, and with every page he turned, things seemed to get worse.

  There was a knock on the door and his secretary came in. “Uhm, Proctor, General Finnisius is here for you.”

  Sady frowned. “Did I forget an appointment?”

  “No, but, uhm—” He lowered his voice. “He doesn’t look happy.”

  What now? “Send him in.”

  The secretary vanished and a moment later, the general strode in with big steps, stopped in front of Sady’s desk and gave an exaggerated bow.

  He wore his dress jacket, with its many shiny buttons and medals of decoration.

  “Good morning, Proctor,” he said, in a tone as if measuring his words out precisely.

  “Sit down,” Sady said.

  The general did so, placing each hand precisely on the corresponding knee. Catching the light that fell through the window, his hair looked more silver than grey. The general was closer to Milleus than Sady in age, and had led the army into Arania; a man of intimidating experience.

  “About the refugee camps,” the general said, and his voice sounded tense.

  “Yes, tell me how the situation is there.”

  “We’re withdrawing from the camps.”

  “You’re—what?” The army was needed to distribute food, and to transport other supplies, and . . .

  The general fixed him with an angry look. “There has been unrest amongst the refugees. Overnight, the southern fence was breached and a large number of people came into the camp—”

  “Into? Who in mercy’s name would want to—”

  “—Chevakians, from the Ensar Road. They appear to be refugees from the border region, who thought the camp was for them and had been waiting on the other side of the fence. They’d run out of food, and got so angry that they cut through the fence.”

  “But what were these people doing there? There should have been signs on the Ensar road.”

  “I don’t know. The fact is that those people were there and assumed the camp was for them.”

  “I told you to put up signs—”

  “I’m running an army, not the roads department.”

  A tense silence followed.

  The general breathed out deeply through flaring nostrils and continued, “Anyway, once they came in, we tried to turn the Chevakians around, but some refused to do so. The road behind them is so crowded that they can’t turn their vehicles and if they could, there is no way for them to get out. More worrying, the camp’s youth took the interruption as a sign to riot. There were fights overnight. They lit fires. Chevakians were injured.”

  What? “So you’ve lost control of the camp?”

  The general gave him a hard look. “We have not lost control. We have set up a perimeter around the camp, because we can contain the site from there. There have been no more fights since dawn. We have also made a temporary road to allow the refugees on the Ensar road to leave.”

  “And, there is a problem? It seems to me that you have the situation under control.”

  “We have the situation under control and we are passing the responsibility for the camp to the city guards. My men are not equipped for this. Our duty is to protect the borders.”

  What was this? “We have criminals escaping from the camp. I want that perimeter to be completely closed.”

  The general nod
ded. “Done. The city guard is looking after it.”

  “I want all Chevakians out of that camp. Use health warnings to get them out. The southerners may have been decontaminated, but Viki has just shown me evidence that sonorics levels in the camp are still high.”

  “Proctor, there are two things you have to understand. First: the primary task of the army is to defend the country. We have a balloon base to run and an army to keep on its toes in case the south tries something funny. I’m sure you are aware of the rumours of a rebellion against the Eagle Knights. Last time something like that happened in the south, it spilled over the border. It is our priority to concentrate on that, and I do not want to take any more personnel from that task than absolutely necessary.”

  “Yes, I understand.” Sady was getting irritated, and he felt irritated about being irritated, too. He should not let anyone get under his skin like this, but why did the man have to behave like such a patronising boor?

  “Further, as I mentioned, a significant number of Chevakians came into the camp by their own choice. They remain in the camp by their own choice despite our directions for them to leave. They’re demanding to be housed there, because they have nowhere else to go.”

  “They can’t stay, for their own health. They are going to have to leave and come into the city. We’ll process them here and—”

  “They will not. They have their own tents and animals. They want a place to camp. Some of those refugees are quite violent. They are already angry with the doga for having forgotten about them. They have joined forces with the southerners. There will be fights.”

  Sady spread his hands. You’re commanding an army, for mercy’s sake! “Is that a problem?”

  The general gave Sady a hard look. “Yes, and that is the second, and more serious issue. My people are soldiers, trained to fight the threat of war from outside our borders. My soldiers do not fight fellow Chevakians.”