The Coldest Sea

by Marian Perera

  One more pace. “The step of judgment. That’s exactly what’s coming to you. And this is the step of protection, which is why the Eldred’s guards stand on it.” He reached down and picked up a hooked spear that lay at an angle across the steps. “Or would be standing, if not for you. You’re a butcher who slaughtered his prize herd so they could never leave you of their own accord.”

  “If they were a prize herd, that makes you a wild animal that needs culling badly,” Greoc said. “So come down here and we’ll—”

  Vinsen took something else from his pocket and tossed it to the floor with a sharp metallic tink. It was a little toy soldier that shone blue and silver, but it vanished as the children appeared around it—boys and girls of all ages, alike only when it came to the emptiness in their eyes. Blank as shadows, they stared at Greoc, and Maggie heard a snarl as he dispelled the illusion.

  “The best part of them lives in me.” He sounded as though he was speaking through his teeth. “Enough of this.”

  He turned and traced an arch in the air. Across the hall from him, the marble of the wall disappeared in the same shape. Cold air, crisp with the scent of snow, drifted through the hall, and an ice bridge extended out from the archway, much like the galleries in the hall. She couldn’t see where it ended.

  Greoc put his hands side by side, fingers curled as if they held something unseen, and when he slid his right hand away, the shaft of a spear formed as he drew the weapon out of nothingness. “You talk too much.” He had recovered control of himself, and now he sounded amused. “Let’s see if you can fight.”

  He headed for the archway and was on the ice bridge moments later, gone from sight. Vinsen glanced at her.

  Maggie had been afraid that Greoc could deceive and manipulate him if he stood on the pedestal, but she’d been wrong. It had been the Faith instead, concentrated as if by a lens on the topmost step, and that power had reached into Vinsen’s mind to break him. Except by surviving the ordeal, he’d learned something about the Faith—a lens could be looked through from both directions, after all—and he’d been able to use discarded things to call forth illusions, just as he used bits of driftwood to make birds.

  No wonder Greoc had wanted him off the pedestal. And no matter how much Vinsen injured him, he wouldn’t die—he had absorbed too many people for that. He had their lives as well as their strength. On the ice bridge, he had every advantage.

  She shook her head, in case the spell of silence was still in effect. Don’t do it.

  Either Vinsen misinterpreted her reaction—he took it to mean don’t worry about me, I’m fine—or he was so single-mindedly intent on finishing Greoc off that it didn’t matter. Or maybe he didn’t need to stand on a step of protection to show how far he would go to defend the people who trusted him. Vinsen, don’t, she thought, fighting back tears.

  Spear in hand, he picked up a helm that lay empty on the last step. He tossed it through the archway and it bounced ringing off the surface of the ice bridge. That must have convinced him it was no illusion. He took the last few steps down the pyramid.

  “Don’t worry, Maggie,” he said. “I’ll live.”

  He headed out.

  After the smothering confines of the fortress—and the illusions it had produced to snare him—it was a relief to be out in the open. Or it would have been, if Vinsen wasn’t afraid the ice bridge would turn to mist beneath his feet.

  No. It was above the moat-lake, so even if he fell, he wasn’t likely to die. Unless Greoc instantly froze the surface of the lake.

  When Vinsen glanced over the side, the water looked like a sheet of iron, and it was perhaps fifteen or twenty feet below him. The narrow stretch of limestone crossing the moat looked like a pale shadow of the higher bridge on which he stood.

  Greoc, for his part, had retreated until he was at the halfway point of the ice bridge, and Vinsen knew it was to lure him out. Yet he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to stop the man, and he preferred that particular Bleakhavener as far as possible from Maggie. So he paced forward. His boot struck the helm, and it bounced off the side of the ice bridge with a soft bell-like sound. He thought of wearing it—he needed all the defense he could get, since he’d never fought with a spear—but he didn’t have the time to pick it up.

  Especially since Greoc had started to advance, in swift strides that ate up the distance between them. He was only twenty yards away now. Vinsen left the helm behind him, and got his spear down—more to show he wasn’t afraid than because he had any strategy in mind. The ice bridge didn’t permit many maneuvers. It was only about four feet wide, and although it didn’t feel too slippery, he was sure that could change.

  At least the walls came up to his waist. Slender flat coils of ice interwove and criss-crossed in patternless forms, glinting here and there with a shard of late-afternoon sunlight. The curved blade of his spear gleamed too.

  Greoc’s spear lowered as well. Vinsen felt even less confident. He was used to the close-quarters fighting of swords and knives, where he watched his enemy’s feet as well as blade, so he was good at seeing through feints and defending himself from parries. But that didn’t work here—partly because Greoc was eight feet away and partly because the sun was sinking through the sky over the Bleakhavener’s head, which meant the light would be in Vinsen’s eyes soon. He cursed silently. No wonder Greoc had gone out first.

  All he could do was turn his body sideways, to make a smaller target, and watch the narrow, razorline edge pointing at him.

  It darted forward. Vinsen spun away to the other side of the bridge and the point went past him. He tried to grab it with his left hand—there was no crossbar—but the bear’s claws had weakened that arm more than he’d expected. He winced, and the spear came flickering at his face.

  Vinsen bent back just in time to avoid it. Then he retreated step by step, never taking his eyes off Greoc. He tried swinging the shaft of his own spear against Greoc’s, and wood clacked against wood, but all that did was make both weapons sway slightly. He took another pace back.

  Only the soft splash from below saved him. He glanced behind and went still, because the ice bridge ended a few inches from his feet. Beyond that was a gap extending to the arched doorway cut into the wall. The helm had fallen when the bridge had silently melted; if not for that warning, he would have gone down as well.

  Eight feet away from him, Greoc smiled. Even with the sun growing brighter, Vinsen saw that. “Surrender,” Greoc called out. “Drop the spear and get on your knees and I’ll spare your life.”

  The disturbing part, Vinsen thought, was that he might actually do so, because Bleakhaveners valued the living more than they did the dead. The one thing he was certain of, though, was that he would rather die than end up like the people in the vault.

  The thought of them spurred him. Pivoting on one foot, he slid into a half-crouch. One knee extended for reach, he thrust his spear out. No tactics, no feints, nothing but a straight direct stab.

  And that seemed to be exactly what Greoc hadn’t expected. The point punched into his belly and he folded around it. Vinsen wrenched the spear back.

  Now Greoc was the one on his knees. Blood pulsed, spattering on the ice. Again, quick. Heat ran down Vinsen’s lacerated left arm, soaking his sleeve, but he set his teeth and jabbed again, aiming for the heart.

  Greoc’s free arm whipped up, fingers clutching. Vinsen jerked his spear out of reach, but the abrupt movement unbalanced him. Before he could recover, Greoc’s spear thrust like lightning. It went through Vinsen’s thigh and he reeled back. Only the knowledge of how close he was to the edge kept him standing.

  Greoc straightened up. His furs were stained dark over the belly, but if he felt pain at all, he gave no sign of it. He took the shaft of his spear in both hands, and Vinsen knew the next jab would run him through. The sun shone dazzling into his eyes now, as if it had been focused through a spyglass lens, s
o he wasn’t likely to see the strike coming.

  “I surrender.” The words were strengthless, but he dropped to one knee—partly for effect and partly because his wounded leg hurt so much. His spear clattered to the bridge’s surface beside him. “I surrender!”

  It didn’t work, and Greoc moved forward. The bridge was slippery with his own blood, though. He lurched sideways, catching himself in the next moment, but that was all the time Vinsen needed.

  Closing a hand around his spear, he yanked the weapon back, pivoted it and jammed the point through the filigree of the bridge’s side, next to him. He thudded the shaft down on his knee, the fulcrum, and slammed his forearm against the other end of the shaft as hard as he could.

  With a sharp crack, fractures raced through the ice. The side of the bridge, a flat sheet five feet wide, split away but Vinsen caught it before it could fall. Pain stabbed through his left arm as if the bear was biting him, but he clenched his teeth and held on. He staggered up and held the ice above his head at an angle.

  The sun reflected off the entire spread of it, a brilliant blinding glare, and Greoc flung an arm up instinctively before his eyes. Vinsen had never released the shaft of his spear. He brought it down and drove it forward with the last of his strength behind it.

  The point rammed into the left side of the Bleakhavener’s chest. Greoc swayed, clutching at it, and his own spear fell. He reeled sideways, struck the side of the bridge—and fell too, as he lost control of his creation and the entire bridge turned to water.

  For a split second, air rushed whistling cold past Vinsen. Then he hit the lake, which was much colder. It soaked through him instantly, and knives of ice sank down to his bones. He gasped involuntarily, then choked as the water filled his clothes and dragged him deep.

  A hand closed around his outflung arm and pulled him up. Not much, but it was enough to get his head above the surface. He couldn’t see through the water streaming down his face, but his other arm found the solidity of the limestone bridge that spanned the lake.

  And he knew it was Maggie holding him.

  Coughing up water he had swallowed, he clung to the side of the bridge. That was all he had the strength to do, but Maggie wrapped both her arms around his and pulled hard.

  “Help me, damn it!” she said. Through exhaustion and a growing numbness—he couldn’t feel anything below his arms—he thought how strange it was to hear her sound so angry, especially since he had no idea why. If there were more Bleakhaveners around, they could eat him, it didn’t matter.

  Maggie paused in her efforts just long enough to free one of her arms. Vinsen only realized why when her palm landed a stinging slap across his cheek.

  “Ow!” he said. “What the hell—”

  “Get out of there or I’ll do it again!”

  The pain had startled him back to alertness, though the effort of lifting one leg over the moat-bridge was almost too much; he sank his teeth into his tongue and did it somehow. Maggie caught his belt and hauled so hard that he thought it would be a miracle if she didn’t fall in as well. If the moat-bridge hadn’t been little more than a plank, he would have drowned.

  Not that it mattered, since he was going to die anyway. He might have endured the injuries the bear had given him and the blood he’d lost in the fight, but there were no dry clothes, no fires, no warmth at all. The water soaking his clothes would freeze first, and his body would follow slowly, dying from the outside in.

  He hadn’t failed, though, and Maggie was safe. He lay on his back along the bridge, shivering violently, though the cold was so intense that he felt nothing besides it.

  Maggie leaned over him and smoothed wet hair away from his forehead before she kissed him. “Just a few minutes more,” she whispered, wiping the water from his face.

  Vinsen thought that sounded about right. It wouldn’t take much longer, and he wondered if she would miss him.

  I don’t want to die, he thought with the last scraps of lucidity left to him. Until then, he’d been fearless simply because he’d been indifferent to the prospect of his death—and the Faith had nudged him over the knife-edge into believing he deserved just that. But no matter who else he had lost, Maggie was there, and he wanted more than just a few last moments with her.

  It was too late, though. A faint rushing sound—like a faraway sea without shores—drowned out her voice as she spoke to him. That time, when the darkness closed in, he no longer had the strength to fight it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Homecoming

  The light wasn’t intense, but it seemed to be everywhere, making the shadow of the bed pale and blur-edged. Vinsen frowned, trying to bring it into focus, and realized he was awake.

  That would have been a relief if he wasn’t back in the fortress. He supposed even that was an improvement on the afterlife, but why there? Had he been so badly injured no one could risk moving him?

  He turned his head. The room was a small one, but the bed was so soft he’d sunk halfway into it, and furs—smelling much better than the ones the Bleakhaveners had worn—were piled over him. Maybe another Denalait ship had arrived in time to save him.

  The prospect raised his spirits and he tried to move, but the dull pain in his limbs dissuaded him. His left arm seemed the worst off, where the bear’s claws had raked him. Well, he couldn’t expect miracles. He tried to sit up, only for the room to spin around him, sending him back into the bed.

  All right, proceed slowly. Although there was a window, it glowed rather than allowing him to see out of it, so he couldn’t tell something as simple as whether it was day or night. The silence was unnerving too. Surely if there were other Denalaits in the fortress, he would hear them.

  “Is anyone there?” His voice sounded hoarse, but one of the two doors in the wall was ajar, so maybe he would be heard anyway. He called out again.

  Someone approached from the outside. Vinsen had a moment to hope it was Maggie, before a young man stood in the doorway. It was a Bleakhavener he had never seen before, and a long grey coat didn’t hide a sword. Vinsen looked around for a weapon.

  The Bleakhavener’s brows arched. “No need to be afraid. My name is Jahrlin Adelcy, and I’m one of the Faithguard.”

  That did nothing to set Vinsen at ease. A second look told him the Bleakhavener could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen, but that made the supercilious manner all the more galling. Besides, he never wanted to hear about the Faith again.

  “Where’s my crew?” He propped himself up on an elbow.

  “I’ll fetch someone.” Jahrlin disappeared and Vinsen lay back, wishing he had more clothes on. Doesn’t matter. As soon as he felt a little stronger, he’d get up and return to Fallstar somehow.

  Soft footsteps outside reached the door fast, but this time it was Maggie, and she looked even better than when he’d seen her last. Perhaps because she was smiling.

  “You’re feeling better?” She sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ve asked them to fetch some supper for you—leftovers, I’m afraid.”

  “How long was I asleep?” It was a relief to see her, especially since it didn’t seem she was being held prisoner by the Bleakhaveners, but he wasn’t hungry as much as apprehensive.

  “Three days.” She slid a hand beneath the furs and covered his fingers with hers. “Those scratches got infected. But I knew when you said you’d live, you meant it.”

  “If he’d fought me with more of the Faith, I wouldn’t have.” Now that it was all over, he could acknowledge how thin an edge he’d stood on.

  “But he couldn’t defeat you with that alone,” Maggie said. “You were too stubborn to give in. So he tried to beat you down in another way.”

  Almost succeeded, too, and he guessed he owed his life to the other Bleakhaveners. He tightened his grip on her hand.

  “And who are they?” More importantly, will they let us leave? Both he
and Maggie knew entirely too many secrets about Bleakhaven.

  “They say they’re sent by the Church of Bleakhaven,” Maggie said. He could tell she didn’t trust them, but at least she didn’t seem afraid. “They were hunting Greoc Rund down, but you know the general design of their ships—they’re not fast. Once they rode up on the ice, they landed soldiers and a few dogsleds. Those reached us in time, and they were able to keep you warm. Brander did the rest.”

  Vinsen made a mental note to put in a commendation for him and Keet. “Is Brander recovering?”

  “Yes, he’s well on the mend. He and Keet left for Fallstar yesterday, and the Bleakhaveners took those people from the vault on board their ship.”

  “What about my ship?”

  Jahrlin Adelcy appeared at the door with a cloth-wrapped bundle under one arm, a bottle in the other and a decidedly less smug expression, as though he’d been meant for greater deeds than delivering food. Maggie thanked him but shut the door firmly in his face, which made Vinsen feel a little better. The smell of food awoke his appetite, although—as Maggie had said—it was all leftovers, and he couldn’t identify the meat.

  “Don’t worry, it’s seal,” she said. “And according to the Bleakhaveners, Fallstar was damaged, but nothing that can’t be repaired.”

  There was a kind of cheese he’d never tasted—perhaps made from muskox milk, but he was much less wary about cheese—and he washed it down with a rum he could tell was Denalait. “Where are my clothes?”

  “You won’t need them until tomorrow.” Maggie shrugged her coat away and pulled off her boots. “If you need a privy, there’s one through that door. But we have to stay here at least another day. One of the Eldred wanted to speak to you before we left and I think they’re all asleep now.”

  Vinsen didn’t look forward to the meeting, but when Maggie slid beneath the furs, spending another night in the fortress didn’t seem too arduous. Putting as little weight on his bandaged leg as he could, he managed to reach the next room and back, grateful that she didn’t call any attention to his injuries. He hated feeling vulnerable in the midst of strangers.