Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga)

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Can’t the mages do more?” Corrender pressed.

  “I have given them permission to do whatever they can, to the extent of their ability, gods help us,” Merrill replied quietly. It seemed to Connor that the king had aged years in a few days. More gray peppered his brown hair, and fine lines had appeared around his eyes. From all Connor had heard Garnoc tell of the king, it weighed heavily on Merrill’s conscience that his health kept him from the front lines. Even with the scryings that the king’s seers could do, it was impossible to know just what was happening at the battlefront. Yet on Merrill’s decisions, a kingdom would rise or fall.

  Later, when Connor tried to put words to the memory, he would say it felt as if the air had suddenly gone out of the room. Blinding pain struck his temples, as if an iron pick had been shoved through his eye, and he fell to his knees, clutching his head. Dimly, he was aware of groans and cries, and of thudding noises that suggested at least some of the men at the Council table had fallen to the floor.

  Connor struggled for breath. His heart pounded, its beat deafening. The air had become thick as nectar, making it difficult for his chest to rise and fall. It felt as if everything around him shifted. He curled into a ball, shielding himself with his arms, prepared for tremors that would send glass and statuary crashing from the shelves around the room, but there was only silence. Nothing fell. After a moment, the pain receded, and Connor warily stretched out, climbing to his feet.

  “My lords, are you injured?” Connor, much younger than the others at the Council table, ran toward where the men slumped in their chairs. Radenou had been thrown to the floor, as had Merrill. They were surrounded by their stewards, who helped them to their seats.

  “What in the realms of the gods was that?” Radenou’s voice was angry, but beneath the rage, Connor heard fear.

  “The magic,” Merrill said, and his voice was not quite steady. “For a moment, it disappeared.”

  It was the first Connor had heard that Donderath’s king possessed any magic, and by the look on the Council’s faces, the others were not aware of that fact, either.

  “I possess very little magic. Truth-sensing, mainly. Comes in handy, which is why I don’t say anything about it, and I’ll trust you not to, either.” Merrill paused. “But for a moment, it just… winked out. Gone. As if someone had blown out a candle. Then it was back again, and for the life of me, I don’t know what to make of it.” He looked at the startled faces around the Council table. “What did you feel?”

  “I have no magic at all, m’lord,” Garnoc said. “I felt a headache like an assassin’s knife that nearly put me out of my senses.”

  Corrender nodded. “So did I—and like Lord Garnoc, I have no magic. Yet I, too, had a headache as if someone had dashed out my brains with a rock. It came on suddenly, and left quickly enough that I could scarcely breathe.”

  They looked at Radenou, who had regained his seat and was adjusting his cravat and doublet. He flushed as they stared at him. “I have a bit of magic—useful only for improving my luck at cards. It’s as the king said. For a heartbeat, the magic was gone, and then it rushed back like a wave that nearly drowned me. For a moment, it was like magic filled me and threatened to consume me from the inside, and then the wave was gone.”

  “We won’t know how much of the kingdom felt the shift until runners can arrive,” Garnoc mused. “Nor whether the effects at the front were harsher—and intended to be so. Perhaps we were merely caught in some kind of backlash.”

  “Perhaps,” Merrill said, but he did not sound convinced. He rubbed his temples with his fingers. “Go back to your rooms and rest. We’ve already had a long day of it. If more news comes from the front, I’ll call for you.”

  The group filed from the room in somber silence. Garnoc said nothing until he and Connor had reached their suite of rooms, and he saw that Radenou and Corrender had entered their own quarters.

  It was the first time since his return from Penhallow’s manor that Connor had been alone with Garnoc for more than a few minutes. After waking once more in a ditch by the side of the road, Connor had resolved to tell his master of the blackout and accept the consequences. Before the meeting, there had only been time to share Penhallow’s news. Now Connor drew a deep breath, gathering his courage.

  “M’lord, there’s something—”

  “Not now, Connor. I have a job for you,” Garnoc said, waving Connor into the room.

  “But, m’lord—”

  Garnoc shook his head, silencing Connor. “I need you to run an errand for me, to an old friend.”

  “Penhallow again?”

  Garnoc shook his head. “No. Alsibeth will be holding court at the Rooster and Pig. She has far more magic than many believe, and she’s been happy to let them underestimate her.”

  As Garnoc spoke, Connor was already shouldering into his cloak. “Two gold coins should be enough for the information we seek,” Garnoc continued, pressing the coins into Connor’s hand. He met Connor’s gaze. “Without bringing the king’s name into it, tell her what happened when the magic disappeared. She’s sure to have felt it, too. Ask her what she makes of it, and how widespread she thinks it was. Most of all, ask her if she knows what could cause such a thing.”

  “Do you think someone like Alsibeth would have more insight than what King Merrill is likely to get from his court mages?”

  Garnoc made a dismissive gesture. “Piffle. If Merrill’s court mages had been half the sorcerers they think they are, the king would have had them assisting with the war effort. Their ‘magic’ has more to do with ingratiating themselves to the court ladies than with real power. Alsibeth is a true mage—and she’ll tell you the truth, or what she knows of it.” He patted Connor on his shoulder. “Now, off with you. Don’t dawdle—no telling when the king will get another runner from the front, and I don’t want to have to make up a reason to cover your absence.”

  “Want me to bring back a bucket of ale while I’m there?” Connor asked with a sly smile.

  Garnoc chuckled. “Now, that’s more like it. I do have a fondness for the bitterbeer that the Rooster brews. Yes, bless you, lad. Bring me back some nice dark ale, and some for yourself as well,” he said, dropping a few more coins into Connor’s hand. “Now, get going.”

  Once again, Connor slipped down the back stair without attracting attention. This time, the guard at the back gate frowned as he headed out of the castle compound.

  “Sure you want to do that, laddie? There’s an ill wind blowin’.”

  Connor inclined his head quizzically. “How so?”

  “There’s trouble in the city. Not sure about what, but the last few men who came from that direction said there’d been a disturbance of some sort. Mind your step and watch your back if that’s the way you’re going.”

  Connor thanked the guard and walked on, following the cobblestone streets toward the city of Castle Reach.

  Donderath’s palace city spilled down the slopes of the hillside on which Quillarth Castle stood. The cobblestone road was broadest closest to the castle, and the largest, wealthiest homes were high on the hillside, just outside the castle walls. Next came the smaller homes of the guild masters and the minor nobles, as well as the villas of wealthy merchants. Homes and businesses became smaller and shabbier the closer one got to the rivers that ran along the hillside’s base. Connor squared his shoulders and glanced around. The last blackout on the way back from Penhallow’s manor had unsettled him badly. He felt jumpy as a pickpocket, frightened by a simple errand. If this keeps up, I’ll be afraid to leave the castle, he thought.

  Not far beyond the castle gates he felt a warning prickle at the back of his neck. He paused, looking around him, listening intently. The night was silent and the street seemed darker than usual. On a pleasant night such as this, the families who lived in these beautiful homes could often be heard in their courtyards. Women sang, children squealed and laughed, and men gathered by the gates to gossip or do business. Servants should have been abro
ad in the streets, bringing back water from the common well or trudging up the hill with a cart full of firewood. Yet tonight the street was empty, and the courtyards appeared to be deserted. Even the lights in the windows seemed furtive, and Connor realized that the houses had closed their shutters, odd on an evening that was still quite warm.

  He walked on, growing more wary in the eerie silence. His boot steps echoed from the stone of the high walls surrounding the villas, making him feel exposed. The road began to narrow as he passed through another series of walls and gates. The night was still quiet, yet as he continued on his way toward the heart of Castle Reach, he became aware of a different energy in the air. Where the avenues of the wealthy had responded to the flicker of magic with silence, the streets where the merchants and artisans lived were unusually full of people. Clusters of women and groups of men talked in hushed tones, pausing to look over their shoulders. They fell silent as Connor moved among them, watching as he passed by, then going back to their hushed whispers.

  “Knocked me off my chair, it did,” one man attested.

  “Thought I’d gone both blind and deaf for a moment,” another reported with a worried tone.

  “Didn’t know what to make of it. Right as rain one minute and couldn’t lift my head off the table the next,” a woman’s voice carried above the whispers and muted conversations.

  Connor kept his head down and went on walking. He knew that the fear and apprehension these people felt would be even greater if they suspected that their king had no more insight into the situation than they did.

  The road narrowed once again. It had been a broad boulevard when it left the castle and a wide thoroughfare through the merchants’ homes. Now the street was not much wider than the wagons and carts that made their way up and down the hillside bearing goods from the seaport and the produce of farmers from beyond the city, bound for the markets.

  The streets of the lower town were crowded. Castle Reach’s marketplace, always a busy spot, seemed near to bursting with people. Everywhere Connor looked, people talked in groups of two or three. The throngs were large enough that it might have been a festival night, except that the crowds had a furtive air about them. Connor jumped as someone bumped into him, and he realized that the crowd’s tension was affecting him.

  “Medals and amulets—better safe than sorry!” A street cart vendor hawked his wares as Connor walked by, holding out a variety of necklaces with a bit of metal stamped with runes to petition Esthrane and the Life Gods for protection. Connor shook his head to discourage the vendor, but the man persisted.

  “There’s magic afoot. If the enemy can strike at the heart of the palace city, who knows what will come next?”

  Connor paused and pretended to consider the amulet, far more interested in the vendor’s gossip than his wares. “Will this protect me if… what happened… happens again?”

  The pudgy man’s head bobbed up and down on his thick neck. “I swear by the gods, you’ll be protected.”

  “You felt it, too?”

  Again, the corpulent vendor nodded so briskly that Connor thought he might give himself whiplash. “Aye. Practically knocked me on my ass. I wasn’t wearing an amulet. I won’t make that mistake again,” he boasted, pulling aside the throat of his stained homespun shirt to show five or six crystals and metal disks nestled against the dark hair of his chest.

  “Did everyone feel it?” Connor fingered the crystals and turned the amulets over. The metal was thin and greasy, cheaply made. The “crystals” were mere glass, not semiprecious gems. He had spent enough time around Penhallow to gain an eye for both magical items and fine craftsmanship. He doubted these trinkets provided any more protection than one could obtain by whistling in the dark.

  “Some more than others,” the fat trader replied. “My wife scared the wits out of me, she did. Toppled over as if she’d been struck by the gods. When she came back to herself, told me that—just for a moment—she felt the magic rush out and then swell back, like the tides.” He shook his head, eyes wide. “Never saw the like of it. You can believe she’s wearing my amulets now, too. Won’t take them off for anything.”

  “Is that what’s got everyone talking?” Connor asked.

  The trader looked at him as if he were daft. “Aye, it’s got them talking all right—and by this time tomorrow, I warrant that anyone who’s able will be on the road south, as far away from Quillarth Castle as they can get.”

  Connor frowned. He looked around at the crowded streets and realized that more than a few handcarts and small wagons were loaded with people’s personal possessions, hastily packed and tied down under threadbare blankets. “Why? Why leave the city?”

  “It’s not just the way the magic flickered. Bad omens lately. Fishing boat sank off the wharves, not a scratch on her. The old crone who reads cards in the square says that every run of cards she lays warns of danger and fire. Old Phearson’s cows quit giving milk yesterday. The man who brings eggs to market says the hens have been off their nests.” He shook his head, and Connor had the impression that this part of the discussion was not contrived to sell the trader’s wares.

  The man looked genuinely frightened. “It’s bad enough that the big ships aren’t sailing. We should have realized something bad was coming. There’s talk among the captains about a blockade, but that’s not the reason.” The man leaned closer, conspiratorially. “King Merrill stopped sending the ships because we don’t have enough to feed the soldiers and keep the war going, let alone feeding those criminals at the end of the world. Let ’em starve, I say.”

  “What of the convicts? Where do they go?”

  The trader’s smile was mirthless. “The worst of the lot go to the end of a rope, that’s where they go. Hangings happen nearly every day since the ships stopped sailing. The rest are conscripted for the war effort. Able-bodied men to the front. Women and those too young to fight go to the cook wagons, or sew uniforms or help the healers with the wounded.”

  “What about you? Will you stay, or are you packing up, too?”

  The trader sighed. “My wife’s not well. She won’t leave, and I won’t leave her. But if I was free to go, I’d already be gone.”

  Connor gave the man a copper for one of the amulets and went on his way. The tide of people trying to leave the city grew greater the farther down the hill he went. Many were headed for the Forest Road, the main thoroughfare out of the city. Others headed down the hill with their tattered bundles of possessions, and Connor realized why as he reached the wharves.

  Throngs of people jostled for position, shouting to be heard. Captains of vessels of all sizes and states of seaworthiness bargained the cost of passage with those who could pay. By the look of it, many of the ships might not make it out of the harbor. Some were trawlers and fishing boats, unsuitable for carrying passengers. Connor’s gaze rose to the masts of the larger ships that sat with their sails furled on the big docks. Those made the ocean voyage to the Far Shores, trading for the exotic luxuries for which the nobles were willing to pay dearly. Other ships he recognized as being supply and convict ships. Guards were posted around the decks and gangplanks of all the larger vessels.

  He shouldered through the crowd, buffeted by people who were carrying heavy bundles and dragging screaming children. The Rooster and Pig was a brisk walk from the wharves, near the storehouses where the merchants kept their goods, and the Foley Yards, Donderath’s largest shipyards.

  Half-built ships rose against the night sky like skeletal gods. From the materials and wood shavings littered about, war had not slowed construction on the newest ships. If anything, the yards had an unusual level of disarray, as if the builders had been working more quickly than usual. There were only two likely reasons for that, neither of them good. Either the shipbuilders had been urged to supply new vessels quickly for the war or to breech the impending blockade, or the owners, succumbing to the crowd’s fearfulness, had urged their builders to step up their schedules.

  The Rooster and Pig�
��s red roof stuck out among the drab warehouses. One of its bright-blue shutters was loose, banging in the wind, like the winking of a whore’s painted eye. Yet the tavern served some of the best fresh fish in Castle Reach, along with its signature bitterbeer and cheese bread that brought the most wayward sailor back for more.

  Connor was glad for the dagger beneath his cloak and the shiv in his boot. The Rooster and Pig had a better reputation than most of the port-side bars. Fights were few and usually limited to punches thrown over a claim to one of the tavern’s trollops. Travelers could spend the night with reasonable certainty that they would not be relieved of their clothing or wallets. Still, with the tension in the air this night, Connor was unsure whether old ways were likely to remain true.

  The heavy door opened with a firm push. Every table and chair was occupied and many patrons stood along the walls nursing their drinks. Men played at dice or cards, and brightly dressed trollops circulated through the crowd, urging high rollers to bet more or conveying luck with a kiss. Connor made his way to the bar, looking for the proprietor.

  “Busy day?” Connor greeted the tavern master.

  “Busy enough that we never closed from yesterday,” the man replied without looking up as he used a pitcher to slosh ale into three tankards in a row.

  “I’ll have one of your best bitterbeers, and two buckets to take with me when I go,” Connor said. That was enough to get the tavern master’s attention, and he looked up, then grinned broadly.

  “Connor! It’s been a while. Doesn’t your master let you out?”

  Connor chuckled. “Who do you think one of the buckets is for? It’s mighty thirsty up the hill these days.”

  Engraham, the tavern master, was a lanky man, thirty seasons old, with wavy brown hair and light-blue eyes. It was obvious to anyone from court who made their way down to the pub and took one look at the man that Engraham was also the bastard son of Lord Forden. Forden had made no attempt to deny paternity, and it was rumored that Forden had staked Engraham the money to build the Rooster and Pig. Despite the tavern’s questionable location, it boasted a well-appointed private back room for gambling that was ofttimes occupied by the wastrel sons of the nobility, and an equally popular set of comfortable rooms upstairs for wenching. If the citizens of Castle Reach sought to drink away their worries, Engraham stood to make a small fortune.