Dawn of the Ice Bear

by Jeff Mariotte

  “How much time do you think we lost?” Alanya asked, blinking in the sun’s glare.

  “Too much,” Kral replied. “We had a good lead on Gorian and we have lost time. Even if the sandstorm hit them, they were staying still today, so it would not have affected their progress.”

  “Do you think it was a natural storm?” Donial asked, sounding a bit concerned. “Or was it that Stygian mage’s doing?”

  “I would say natural,” Mikelo answered. “I told you that Stygia was a hellish place. I have heard of such storms lasting a day and a night and another day.”

  “Even if this Shehkmi al Nasir knows that his Aquilonian rival has sent soldiers for the Teeth,” Kral said, “he would have no way to know of our approach.”

  “But who knows what magicians know, or how?” Donial queried. “They have ways beyond the ken of mere humans.”

  “Aye,” Mikelo agreed. “So I have heard, as well.”

  “The shamans of my people have their secrets,” Kral said. “And inexplicable knowledge is often among them. Still, we are only four, traveling lightly. The mercenaries are twice our number. I would consider them the greater threat”—here he paused, and smiled, aware of his imminent immodesty—“if I did not know us.”

  The others laughed. Kral had never been one to overstate his own abilities and accomplishments. Some in his clan had done that, and usually they were shown as liars or fools before too long. Kral had learned well from their mistakes and was careful not to make claims for himself that he could not back up with action.

  But at the same time, these last weeks he had found that he was capable of much more than he ever expected. With that new self-knowledge came new confidence. He was strong, he was skilled, and he was possessed of an inordinate amount of courage. Perhaps most important, he had whatever quality makes a person a leader instead of a follower—someone other people would gladly put their trust in and risk their lives for. His army was tiny, it was true, but they were loyal and steadfast and would do anything for him.

  And he for them. That, he supposed, was the true test of leadership. Making sure one’s followers knew that there was a good reason they looked to the leader for direction and example.

  Now, he thought, he needed to lead again. Kuthmet, Shehkmi al Nasir, and the Teeth of the Ice Bear waited.

  AS THEY NEARED the city, Kral could smell water in the air. He had almost begun to give up hope that he would ever smell that again—the slightly fetid, fishy aroma of a river. The desert was almost odorless, in a way. Nothing but dry air and dirt. One had to be right on top of the few scraggly bushes to smell anything at all from them.

  The sun was high overhead when they reached the city’s outskirts. The buildings here were low to the ground, the same color as the sand surrounding them, with narrow passageways between. There were no walls around the city of Kuthmet. The city’s authorities, Kral supposed, relied on the harsh desert to provide protection from marauders—that, and the Styx forming its northern barrier. And, Kral guessed with a shiver, quite possibly the magic of Shehkmi al Nasir and those like him.

  Other smells mingled with the river’s odor now. Kral could smell fires burning, food cooking. The scent of people and animals, masses of them living close together. Sweat and sewage. Oils and soaps. Underneath it all, another, odd smell. Something he could not identify.

  Mikelo saw him wrinkling his nose, trying to figure it out. “Do you smell that?” Kral asked him.

  Mikelo looked worried. “Snakes,” he said. “That is the smell of snakes. And the sun is still up. At night, it gets much worse.”

  “Worse in what way?” Donial asked.

  “More of them,” Mikelo explained. “A lot more.”

  Kral had little experience with snakes. They were blessedly rare in the Pictish wilderness. But from what he had heard, he did not expect to enjoy their company. “Then maybe we can conclude our business during the day.”

  He started down one of the narrow alleyways between the squared-off, low structures. Before he had gone far, Alanya spoke up. “How do you propose we find this magician?” she asked.

  Kral had given this a lot of thought on the long hike over, and he had come up with an idea. He had discussed it briefly with Mikelo, who after all had been to Stygia once before, but hadn’t brought it up with the others yet. “What Mikelo and I were thinking,” he said, “is that almost everyone in town probably knows who Shehkmi al Nasir is and where he can be found. Many of the people we might meet would think it in their best interests to report our presence to him, rather than tell us where to look. Perhaps most of them. But there might be a group of people who would care not if something were to happen to al Nasir and would have very little interest in protecting him.”

  “Who would that be?” Donial wondered.

  “Mikelo says that Stygian sorcerers often use slave labor,” Kral replied. “And that if al Nasir is like most he’s heard about, he is probably a cruel master. If we can find where his slaves dwell, perhaps we can get some help from them.”

  “That seems like a good idea,” Alanya said. “If we can find them.”

  “If we went about asking for Shehkmi al Nasir, people would likely take notice of us,” Mikelo offered. “But if we ask for his slaves, they will barely recognize our existence.”

  “Except for one thing,” Donial brought up. “Or maybe two. A Pict in Stygia is likely a very odd sight. And the same for a blond girl. I think we need to disguise both of you before we are seen by anyone.”

  Kral nodded toward one of the nearby buildings. “We could break into a house,” he suggested. “Find some clothing more suited to Stygia. We might also find trouble, if someone is inside.”

  “What about my hair?” Alanya asked.

  Kral shrugged. “Maybe we can find something with a hood. Were we in the forest, I would know how to make a black dye, but there is a definite scarcity of trees around here.”

  “We can look anyway,” Alanya said. “There might be something.”

  Kral was a little hesitant about entering some unknown house here. The neighborhood was quiet—so far, they had not seen a single person. But that didn’t mean everyone wasn’t inside. He would hate to start their visit to Kuthmet by having to kill a family of locals. Once they were in, however, they were committed—they could not leave witnesses alive to sound an alarm.

  His own experience with solid houses was still somewhat limited, so he let the others decide which building to try. The one they picked was, like the rest of its neighbors, square, flat-roofed, with only narrow window slits. A rough wooden door bolted from the outside indicated that whoever lived within had gone out. Kral pressed an ear to the door, listening. He heard nothing from the inside.

  “Best get at it,” he said softly. “Before someone comes around.”

  The others murmured assent. He slid back the bolt, pushed the door open. Inside, the house was plain, its raw plank floor partly covered by a woven, patterned rug, a few pieces of wooden furniture standing about. Pots and pans hung on a hearth, and dark ash filled the fireplace. Smells of cooking with rich spices lingered in the air.

  “A bedroom,” Alanya whispered. “That is where the clothing would be, most likely.”

  An interior doorway led to another room. Kral passed through and saw a sleeping area with two straw mats on the floor next to a wooden chest. Opening the chest, he found that it was full of folded Stygian clothing—dark robes, and a few others, some almost white, some a reddish brown with darker patterns. He pawed through them until he found one big enough to fit him, then passed smaller ones to the others.

  Alanya, meanwhile, was examining another chest, with clay bottles ranged on top of it. She pulled the stoppers from some of them, sniffing their contents. A couple of times she poured a few drops on her hand and looked at it.

  “What are you doing?” Donial asked her.

  “I think this is henna dye,” she said.

  “Can you use it on your hair?”

  “I t
hink so. It will make it reddish, not black like a Stygian woman’s. But darker than it is.”

  “Can you add some of the ash from the fireplace?” Kral wondered. “Would that make it darker?”

  “It will stink,” Alanya said. “But I suppose it might.”

  She poured some of the stuff into her hand, then went back into the other room. When she returned, rubbing her hands together to mix the ash and dye, Kral, Donial and Mikelo had all donned their stolen robes. Kral’s had a hood that covered his head. Alanya tossed him a wan smile. “I am not sure what this will look like,” she warned. With that, she worked the mixture into her hair. Almost instantly, it was darker, matted with the pasty substance.

  He gave her a robe to put on over her shift. When she had fixed it about herself, she looked at him again, her luxurious hair thick and drooping. Nothing could be done about her blue eyes, but Kral guessed that if anyone came close enough to see those, he could take care of it. “Am I beautiful?” she asked teasingly.

  “Always,” he said.

  Not teasing a bit.

  6

  AS HER HAIR dried, Alanya kept pulling a lock in front of her eyes to check on it. It had indeed turned several shades darker, if not quite the rich, jet-black common to Stygians. She hoped it would hold after she rinsed it out in clean water—if she had the chance to do so—because the combination of henna dye and wood ash stank like . . . well, like nothing she had ever put on her head, that was for sure.

  They walked through Kuthmet, toward the center of town. Here, there were plenty of people, busily going about their business or simply sitting in teahouses, smoking pipes and sipping tea from small ceramic cups. A few of them glanced at the quartet, strangers in their town, but for the most part no one paid them any real attention. Alanya credited their disguises. Somehow, she felt like the dark hair made her a different person: mysterious, exotic, a young lady with no history, no past. She liked the feeling.

  Once in a while they stopped so Mikelo could ask someone, as discreetly as possible, where the slave classes might be found. A Stygian woman directed them to a neighborhood on the city’s eastern fringe. The four passed through the center of town, not talking much lest their voices and language give them away, keeping their eyes on the ground. When they saw acolytes of Set, recognizable because of their flowing black robes and shaved heads, they stepped to the side of the road or went to a different street altogether. Others did the same, and Alanya had a definite sense that people lived in a perpetual state of fear in this city.

  They had been inside the city for a couple of hours when they made it to the slave area. Here the buildings were smaller, more run-down, the streets closer together and more crowded. The smells of cooking were more pronounced and pungent than they had been in the rest of Kuthmet. Skins tended to be darker, as well, as most of the slaves here were from the south, Kush or Darfar or the Black Kingdoms. Most, though by no means all—Alanya also saw people who looked to her like Khaurans and Zamorans, Vendhyans, even a few who might have been Aquilonian. She even saw a couple of blondes, and touched her own hair, remembering how it used to look. And smell.

  Here, most people were not as fearful or shy. She and her friends were met with direct looks, even stares, and some they encountered even greeted them. One of these, Mikelo replied to, and then after a brief and friendly exchange, he asked a question in Stygian. The response he got seemed animated and affirmative. After, he turned to the others. “We are in luck,” he said. “This fellow says he can take us to the home of some of al Nasir’s slaves.”

  “I should have thought they would live with al Nasir,” Donial said.

  “Often an important Stygian will let his slaves live outside his own premises,” Mikelo explained. “Knowing that they will show up as needed. Where are they going to run—off into the desert?”

  The dark-skinned man smiled amiably and led the four through a warren of cramped, narrow streets. Alanya began to feel a bit nervous. She had no way to know how bad Mikelo’s Stygian was, or what he had really asked their guide. For all she knew, he truly was mad at her and the others and was leading them into some kind of trap. She didn’t think that was the case, but the more the streets twisted and turned, so she didn’t know if she would ever be able to find her way out, the more she worried. She thought that now she understood how Kral might have felt upon first arriving in Tarantia.

  But a few minutes later, the black man pointed them to a particular house. The door was painted a bright flame red and set into a thick mud wall. The man said something Alanya could not understand, then he backed away from them, still smiling and chuckling happily.

  “He says this is the home of Tarawa,” Mikelo said. “One of al Nasir’s most beloved slaves.”

  “Shouldn’t we find one a bit less beloved?” Donial wondered.

  “Just because this Tarawa is beloved of al Nasir,” Kral countered, “doesn’t mean the feeling is returned.”

  “That was the impression he gave me,” Mikelo said.

  “My Stygian is not the best, I admit. But it didn’t sound like Tarawa wasted any love on al Nasir.”

  “Then let us waste no more time,” Kral said. He glanced at the sky, which was already growing grayish blue with the approach of dusk. He went to the door, found a pull-cord beside it, and tugged. From inside they could hear the clang of a bell. A few moments passed, then the door opened.

  If this was Tarawa, Alanya could see at a glance why she was a favorite of the sorcerer. The woman at the door was slender and well formed, with a lush, feminine figure. Her skin was nut brown and looked smooth as silk. Thick dark hair fell to the middle of her back. She looked about Alanya’s age. Maybe a couple of years older, but no more.

  Mikelo said something to her. Alanya caught the name “Tarawa.”

  The girl smiled. “Yes,” she said in good Aquilonian. “I am Tarawa. I imagine you are more comfortable with Aquilonian than Stygian.”

  “We are,” Alanya said. “My name is Alanya. This is my brother Donial, and our friends Kral and Mikelo.”

  “Welcome,” Tarawa said. A quizzical look crossed her face. “You are a long way from home. How is it you happen to be at my door?”

  “We were directed here by one we met in the street,” Kral replied. “He said that you belong to a magician called Shehkmi al Nasir. I am sorry to be so direct, but I fear time is of the essence.” “You are not Aquilonian,” Tarawa observed. “My father spent several months in Numalia, and he never described one like you.”

  “He is a Pict,” Alanya explained. “But we have come far, for a very important purpose. Is it true that you serve Shehkmi al Nasir?”

  Tarawa laughed. Alanya found herself smiling along with the woman’s infectious laughter. “He likes to believe so,” Tarawa said. “I was sold to him, at any rate, after being captured by slavers in my native Kush.”

  “May we come inside?” Alanya asked, still wary of being seen by someone who might mention their presence to the sorcerer.

  “Of course.” Tarawa stepped out of the doorway to let them pass. Her home was small, a single room with a fireplace and a large pot, a sleeping area, a few wooden chairs, and a table on which rested brightly painted ceramic bowls and dishware.

  “Do you live here alone?” Alanya asked her.

  “With a few other slaves,” Tarawa replied. “Shehkmi al Nasir owns the house. The others are at al Nasir’s even now.”

  “Is he a kind man?”

  Tarawa laughed again, but this time without humor. “He is as vicious as a snake,” she said. “Without heart or pity or love for anything or anyone. He exists solely for power, for what he can do to become ever stronger. I doubt that the idea of being kind has ever occurred to him. Certainly he was not kind when he slew my mother, or my brother. I am all that remains of the family.”

  Once again, Kral let his impatience dictate his next statement. “He has something that belongs to my people. Something very precious to us. I know not what it might mean to him,
but it belongs to the Picts. I mean to have it back. Will you help me?”

  A look of surprise crossed Tarawa’s beautiful face. “My, but you are bold. You think to take something from Shehkmi al Nasir? He is—as he is so fond of reminding everyone—second only to Thoth Amon himself in his sorcerous abilities. Or at least, so he claims—I know not if he speaks the truth. And you—the four of you—believe you can cross him and survive?”

  Kral simply shrugged and stared at her. Alanya had seen that look in his eyes before. It said, “Since I have not tried and failed, I have no doubt that I can succeed.” It was an attitude she admired a great deal even though she knew at some point he would have to be proven wrong.

  But she could not shake a nagging feeling that this was all happening too easily. “How do you suppose it is that the first person we asked brought us right to you, Tarawa?”

  Tarawa flashed that beautiful smile at her. “If you asked in the slave district,” she said, “it would have been more unusual for you not to have been brought to this house. You do not look like people who have come in order to pay tribute to Shehkmi al Nasir. He is much feared in this quarter, and there is no devotion to him except that achieved through whip and blade. Everyone knows that my family and I all serve him, and that I am one of his favorites—though, as I have indicated, the feeling is not returned. So you would naturally have been brought to me, and gladly, by any of the slaves you asked.”

  The explanation eased Alanya’s worries a little. Still, her father had occasionally said, “If something comes to you too easily, it will just be harder later on.”

  As if reading her mind, Donial asked, “So you will help us?”

  “Do you mean to do him any harm?”

  “Would it matter if we did?” Kral asked.

  Tarawa hesitated, rubbing a prominent cheekbone with her right index finger. “Not necessarily,” she answered. “I just want to know what I’m agreeing to before I do.”