A Sword from Red Ice

by Julia V Jones

  Raif struck a path that led him closer to the edge of the Rift. The split in the earth was perhaps four hundred feet across here, nearly half the distance it was in the city. If he looked straight down, he could see tiers of rock like giant steps below him. Rotting snow was sending needle-thin waterfalls trickling into the abyss. Watching them Raif wondered how deep the Rift really was. What happened to that water? "Look at these beauties," Addie said, coming to join him on the edge. He was carrying a nest woven from willow and pine needles. It was not much bigger than his fist. Five speckled brown eggs lay in the center. "Take one."

  Raif tilted his head up and cracked the egg into his mouth. It was creamy and thick, newly laid. When he was done he threw the shell into the abyss. "How deep is it, Addie?" he asked.

  The Cragsman had taken one of the eggs himself, and was now packing the remaining three in his chest pouch, carefully spacing them between lumps of cheese. "I canna say, lad. In its own way it's a mystery as big as the Great Want." He glanced at Raif. "At least a few of the souls who enter the Want come back." "No man's ever tried to climb down and see?" Addie snorted. "Show me a rope long enough to lower a man into hell. You fall. And keep falling. Simple as that."

  Raif thought of Traggis Mole's body and shivered. Today at noon the Maimed Men would lower it into the Rift. Stillborn would be the one who touched the fane to the rope. The Robber Chiefs body would rock, suspended above the abyss, until the flames burned through the rope fibers and it plummeted into the depths.

  I will not slit your throat, Raif had told him. Instead he had put a blade through his heart.

  Raif glanced down at his sealskin scabbard, where he now kept Traggis Moles two-footlongknife. Stillborn had attempted to lend him another sword—a pretty hand-and-a-halfer with a double guard—but Raif had declined. The Forsworn blade had failed on him, and now he would not trust another sword.

  Until…

  Raif set the thought aside. The Mole's knife was wickedly double-edged and made from dense Vorish steel. It would do.

  "Snow's coming again," Addie declared, looking east. "I can smell it." He fell silent, and Raif imagined him worrying about the lambs that would be born in the snowfall. "Best get off," he said after a while.

  "Addie." Raif stopped the cragsman from returning to the trail.

  Nodding toward the Rift, he asked, "How long before it closes?"

  The cragsman looked at him with some surprise showing in his gray eyes. "It never closes, not wholly. North of Bludd it narrows so that men can cross it, but it's always there, a black crack running through the forests between here and the Night Sea."

  Raif reached for his lore. Holding the hard piece of raven in his fist He continued east with Addie Gunn.

  THIRTY-TWO A Lock of Hair

  "Cut me a lock of your hair," Lan Fallstar said to her. " I would keep it. For luck."

  Ash knelt by the lake, cupped its cold and green water in her palms, and splashed it against her face. The shock made her shiver and she scrubbed her cheeks, nose and forehead to warm them up. Briefly, she considered stripping off her clothes and tum-bling into the water. She recalled that every winter in Mask Fortress a handful of aging grangelords would break through the ice in the Fountain of Bastard Lords and frolic—there was no other word for it-in the freezing water. She and Katia had watched them one year, giggling uncontrollably at their flabby, yet somehow slack, naked bodies. Katia had called them "insane old coots" and Ash had agreed, thinking it a fine assessment. Now she thought she understood the impulse. There was a kind of wild freedom to be had in being naked in defiance of winter. And it would certainly get some kind of reaction from the Far Rider.

  "Your hair," he said again to her, his voice light but insistent. "If you will permit, I will cut it for you."

  Ash turned to face him. The bodies of her dress and the hair around her face were damp and cleaved to her skin.The snow was deep here and her booted feet were sunk into wells. It wasn't snowing yet, but the air had that tingle to it and the sun had been missing for hours. They stood within a woodland of giant white spruce feather with club-moss, and cold cedars with corklike trunks. Swordfers and licorice ferns poked through the snow, brown and wiry after the long winter.

  Moss and silvery lichen grew on the rocks around the lake and on the north and west faces of the trees. The lake itself was small and darkly green. Much of its water was open, and Ash wondered if it was stirred by underground springs.

  She did not know what to make of Lan's request. Part of her felt flattered. It seemed the kind of thing that warriors in epic poems would beg from their secret loves before heading off into battle and getting themselves horribly and unexpectedly killed. Ash remembered reading such poems to Katia, and them both agreeing it was all a bit silly. Then they'd go ahead and re-enact them anyway. Because as well as being silly the poems were also dreamily appealing. What was never in doubt was the fact that a lady should count herself lucky to be asked for such a token. Yet it didn't quite fit. Lan Fallstar never acknowledged what happened between them in the tent at night, not by day, and he had not proclaimed his everlasting love for her. She was still not sure he even liked her. Even now, as his gaze lighted on the pink swell of her breasts revealed by the damp fabric of her dress, he looked disapproving as well as interested. She had a notion that Lan Fallstar thought Ash March was beneath him. And the only time that changed, or seemed to change, was during their lovemaking in the tent.

  Perhaps things were changing for him. Perhaps his request revealed a growing, but reluctant, regard. The Far Rider's gaze was level, his eyes inhumanly bright as they refracted light from the snow.

  Ash drew the mercy blade from her belt. Lan watched her intently as she separated a lock of hair from the damp sections surrounding her face. Drawing the blade close to her scalp she cut it off. The lock was two feet in length and about as wide as her little finger, and she wondered how many separate silver-blond hairs were within it She knotted it, not gently, and handed it to him.

  He took it with a deeply formal bow, and for a moment she was reminded of the time when Ark Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer had greeted her outside the Ice Trapper village. They had lain facedown in the snow, prostrating themselves before the Reach. Uneasy, she awaited the Far Rider's response.

  Lan Fallstar touched the knot of hair to his lips. "A toll must be paid on such a gift." The words seemed genuine, and Ash found herself relieved. Carefully he wound the hair around itself and tucked it into his weapon pouch. She was surprised when he unsheathed his letting knife; she had thought the words a gallantry.

  The knife was-plain but beautifully made, as all Sull letting knives were. Handle and blade were formed from a single bar of alloy. The blade had been case-hardened with carbon and was darker than the handle. It had a single edge, and inky green and blue rings shimmered beneath its surface. Lan used the same arm that he had burned the first night they met, making a cut an inch below the black and crusted scar. Blood welled in a short line, and the Far Rider pumped his fist until the redness rolled down his arm and dripped into the snow. This was the first time she had watched him let blood, and Ash wondered why he hadn't done the same that night by the Flow. Why burn himself so badly that even now, over ten days later, the skin still split open and wept watery blood? Did the birch way require that high a toll?

  Ash lifted her great lynx-fur cloak from the lakeshore and shook it free of snow. The temperature was dropping and her wet bits were getting cold. She could not watch Lan's bare arm anymore; the sight of it was too confusing. Just visualizing his hand between her legs made her skin flush with heat. She had never imagined that a single finger sliding against wet skin could bring such pleasure. Every night as they made camp she felt filled with reckless need. Part of her knew that it wasn't a wise thing to do, that she did not know Lan Fallstar and was not even sure that she trusted him, but her body ignored her doubts. She became intensely self-aware whenever he drew close to her to perform small tasks like help her mount or dismount
her horse, or offer a hand as she jumped over logs and streams. Her body teased, in anticipation of the slightest and most casual touch. She found herself disappointed if the imagined contact did not come, and fired up and dissatisfied if it did. Lan had to be aware of her heightened and confused state, yet he treated her coolly, and did not acknowledge in any way what they might have done the night before. Was he ashamed of their lovemaking? Should she be? It was all incredibly bewildering. And just when she thought she at least understood that he meant to keep their travels by day separate from their nights in the wolfskin tent, he went and asked her for a lock of hair. In daylight, with still an hour or two to go before sunset.

  Ash frowned with force, pushing her lips against her teeth and driving her eyebrows together. On impulse she decided to leave the Far Rider there with the horses and take a walk around the lake. As she walked she became aware of a pleasant soreness between her legs. She frowned harder.

  Raft of transparent ice floated across the lake's surface in no dis-cernible pattern. Some spun slowly, turning on their axes like wheels, while others sailed right by. One triangular-shaped raft floated blithely in the opposite direction. On the other side of the lake she could see a great blue heron holding itself very still, and somewhere deep within the woods a hawk owl was screeching. The trees surrounding the shoreline looked as if they'd been thinned, for the spruces and cedars were well spaced and animal paths and thin rills of snowmelt led between them. Ash didn't think she had ever been in a more unearthly place. The spruces were so big they looked as if they belonged in a different, larger world. Did they mean she was close to the Heart of Sull?

  They had left the birch way two days after Lan had taken her virginity. It was snowing and the forest was very quiet. The fine black stallion, who always walked unleashed beside its master, had suddenly broken into a canter and raced ahead. Lan made no move to stop or chase it and after a moment Ash felt the gelding tug at its lead reins.

  "Let him go," the Far Rider said to her. So she had.

  The gelding's tail and ears went up in excitement and it bolted through the trees after the stallion. Ash watched the horse disappear and then said, "Will you tell me what you and the horses know and I do not?" She had meant to pitch the comment lightly, but she could hear the hurt in her voice.

  Lan replied, "Horses are always first to know when the birch way ends."

  Mollified, Ash had fallen into silence. After a while she thought she heard the sound of running water. A few minutes later she picked out the shishing of evergreens moving on the breeze. Ahead she could see nothing but birches and whirling snow. Glancing at Lan Fallstar's remote and golden face, she wished he would speak to her; explain how the horses knew the forest was changing, confide that he too was relieved the birches were coming to an end, dare her to a race to see who could escape first. Something. Instead he just faced forward, gaze ahead, and kept up the same pace he had maintained all day.

  When she couldn't take it anymore she had burst into a run. She could see the hoofprints of both horses filling up with new snow and she followed them exactly, planting her heels into the holes. She thought that Lan might follow her and for a while was disappointed when she didn't hear the sound of his footfalls. The breathless and crazy joy of running soon took over, though, and it began to seem like a much better idea simply to run away. And not come back. The birches ended with such abruptness you could have snapped a chalk line on them. Stands of blue spruce faced off against the birches like an armed camp. A no-man's-land of gray weeds, perhaps fifteen feet across, separated the two colonies of trees. Despite the unsavory look of the weeds both horses were tugging them from the snow. Ash's gelding was so excited it didn't actually swallow any, just let the stalks hang from its mouth as it trotted about looking for more. Even the snooty stallion was in high spirits, coming over to head-butt Ash before galloping down the strip of no-man's-land as if it were a racecourse.

  Ash grinned, delighted. She was out of breath and so hot in her lynx cloak she thought she might faint. Shucking it off, she ran into the middle of the no-man's-land and collapsed into the snow. Her heat quickly melted the new snow and she could feel the back of her dress getting wet. She intended to get up but then the gelding wandered over and began lipping her face and the whole thing was so funny and … good … that she just lay there, kicked up her feet and laughed.

  Footsteps crunched in the snow and then Lan Fallstar appeared in her line of view. He was carrying her cloak. "Take it," he said, thrusting it toward her. "We must go."

  That had been four days ago. Traveling had been harder since then—the birch way was flat and had no hills, rocks, fallen logs or water to circumvent—but Ash had liked it a whole lot better. She loathed birches—and all trees that looked like them. She couldn't think of any offhand but birches couldn't be the only trees that grew as straight and slender as bars.

  It had been good to see the purple, blue and silver of the pines. On the first day out she'd been driven giddy by their resinous scents. If she had been with Ark Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer she doubted whether she could have stopped talking. There were so many questions to ask, so many unusual things to comment on. Why were the trees so big? What made the strange sideways tracks in the snow? Why were there halos around the sun and moon? What were those ruins in the distance?

  As they'd ridden east, the sounds of snowmelt running and dripping had chimed through the forest. Day owls growled, and sometimes Ash would hear the low moans of big snow cats. So far they had not crossed paths with any other Sull, but Ash had seen signs of them: horse tracks, blazes, clearings, blood-streaked snow. When she spotted these things she felt a tightening in her gut. Here was where Sull lived and hunted. Yesterday she had seen a line of blue smoke on the southern horizon and she thought they might head toward it, but Lan had altered their course northeast.

  Ash wished she had paid more attention to her foster father's maps. She had only the most shadowy ideas about how the Racklands were laid out. Rumor had it that no outsiders knew the location of the Heart Fires, but her foster father's maps had contained some details of coastlines, rivers and watchtowers. The deepwater gulf of the Innerway, where the Easterly Flow and the Great Shadow River emptied into the Night Sea, might not be far away, but she could not be sure. Once she and Lan had emerged from the birch way she imagined they would head south, if only for the reason that on her foster father's onionskin maps the legend Here be where Sull are most fierce was always writ across the stretch of land that bordered the Stonefields of Trance Vor. The Stonefields were a long way south of the Flow; she knew that much.

  Spying something ahead in the water, Ash worked her way closer to the shore. As she hiked along the bank, thin panes of ice underlain by gravel cracked beneath her boots. The air temperature was dropping and the lake had begun to steam. A few flakes of snow drifted in the air as she leaned over the water and looked within its depths. The ledge was deeply undercut here and some stray current had dragged piles of animalffiones into the bowl-like depression. Skulls, mandibles, rib cages, pelvic girdles, scapulas and chunks of spine formed a boneyard beneath the water. Every one of them was a bright, livid green. Ash blinked. One of the skulls looked human.

  Cutting away from the shore, she headed back to Lan Fallstar and the horses. The sense that she was no longer in territory claimed by Man created strange tensions in her chest. She had a feeling that if she were to look at anything closely here—animal tracks, snow, fallen logs—secrets would be revealed. This land was old. Its trees were old, and its lakes could turn bones green. Again she noticed the sideways tracks in the snow, odd disjointed curves that headed from the lake to the trees.

  "What are those tracks over there?" she asked Lan Fallstar with some force as she returned. It was stupid to be here and not be able to ask basic questions.

  The Far Rider had been sitting on the folded tent skins carrying out maintenance work on his arrows. He slid them into his hard-sided horn case as she approached. Although he could
not see the tracks she meant, he said, "Moonsnakes feed here. They move in ways that minimize contact with the snow"

  His reply took wind from her. She had been spoiling for a fight, she realized, yet hardly knew why. Fine snow had begun to fall and she hugged her cloak to her chest and asked in a softer voice, "How big are they?"

  "The females grow to thirty feet." The Far Rider stood. "On full moons they form covens to hunt and feed."

  She was surprised by how easily Lan answered her questions. This was not normal, but she would use it. "And the lake? Why are the bones green?"

  He shruggedjBThis Sull does not know."

  "How far are we from the Heart Fires?"

  Muscles in the Far Rider's jaw contracted and the golden skin tightened across his cheeks. With a sharp tug he pulled up the tent canvas. "We ride on. The Heart Fires will burn until we come."

  Ash looked at the flattened rectangle of snow left behind by the canvas. She did not move as Lan packed the stallion and slung his glassy longbow across his shoulder.

  "It is unsafe to travel this land alone," he said, mounting. "You will not find other defenses as passive as the birch way."

  He never used her name. Not even when he slid his man sex into her at night and accepted her tongue into his mouth. He had done her no harm and had guided her safely through the birch way, but she did not know what to make of him. He changed moods too quickly. Only an hour ago he asked for a lock of her hair. Now he was either scaring or threatening her—she couldn't tell which.

  "All Far Riders must return to the Heart Fires."

  And there it was again, another change. His voice was stiff, but she realized he had spoken to soften his earlier words. She wished it wasn't so confusing. How could he give her so much pleasure at night yet be so cold to her during the day?

  She let the falling snow swirl and sparkle between them. After a while decided she had nothing further to say to him, and went to mount her horse.