by Clark Bolton
“You weak!” As-Cheen then whispered definitively at the both of them.
With a clever smile, he then cast a levitate spell upon himself, then baby-stepped his way along the roughhewn side of the passageway. He made sure to look at her from time to time, to see if she was impressed. She was, he assured himself.
Tass, eventually, was talked into crossing the same way, after which they found themselves amongst melting ice. It was a first for the two of them, and when they found a tiny stream trickling across the passageway, they stopped to drink, but only after As-Cheen assured them it was safe.
“I should go no further,” Ich-Mek announced suddenly with a look of concern. “The Cold-Mother might know when I’ve left.”
The halls and chambers had clearly given way to more natural tunnels and caves. If the Cold-Mother had powers and resources akin to the Regent of Key-Tar-Om, then Ich-Mek suspected she would sense he had left her domain.
“I don’t think she will notice you, Tass,” he told the man.
“More!” As-Cheen then said. “Soon.”
Ich-Mek nodded his head in understanding, then, after thinking carefully, decided it was worth the risk to continue. She then led them into a cavern which contained shelves along one side. These were made of stone, and most had been toppled. Scattered about was pages and pages of rice-paper, most of which looked rotted and foully stained.
Something in the past had piled up the pages in places, perhaps to lie on them, Ich-Mek suspected. There was ice here again, which, he guessed, had kept the papers from rotting away completely.
“Cursed!” Tass informed him, and then refused to approach any closer.
The pages were too faded to read, Ich-Mek could see after squatting down to look at some. Still he felt it worth doing a spell or two to quickly search for spell-scrolls. With a reveal spell he was confident the remaining magic in any such scrolls would cause them to glow.
It was difficult for him to recall the spell from memory, as he hadn’t had his spell-book for two moons now. Normally it was considered foolish not to refresh one’s memory daily. He didn’t bother to tell them of the risk to himself before he started to cast.
Chapter 18
Three copies of a language spell were his prize possessions now. He had found over three dozen spell-scrolls, but this single spell was worth more than the rest combined, he felt. It allowed him to talk to As-Cheen, and that had made the both of them insufferably happy in Tass’s eyes.
She told him of her worries, and hopes; he told her of his ambitions. She clearly didn’t know what it took to become a dragon-mage, but she tried hard, he could see. It seemed possible to the both of them now that he would find a way out of the Cold-Mother’s prison. She would help in any way possible, she promised.
“It must have been a library,” Ich-Mek had said to Tass while working to clean the scrolls they had found. “That’s why so many language scrolls, I think.”
“Spirit talk,” Tass had replied. “You will never free yourself of her.”
He then had argued with Tass about not caring if he couldn’t get rid of her. It wasn’t an obstacle, he was sure, and in fact she would be a plus if she chose to travel with them. This Tass refused to believe.
“You forget the blue snow,” Tass asserted. “You would have it follow us!”
“That wasn’t her!” Ich-Mek responded angrily. “Shu-Whet cast that spell on us.”
“Snow-master’s apprentice,” Tass retorted.
“Yes…and I’m a dragon-mage’s apprentice!” he shouted. “Accept it, or I shall leave you behind!”
Tass didn’t respond for a time, then eventually reminded him of his oath. “My village needs your dragon-ring.”
Ich-Mek almost laughed at Tass before catching himself. His ring suddenly glowed warm; too warm to be a coincidence. “I…will go…as I promised.”
“Without the spirit-girl.”
“She is an elf! Why can’t you say that?”
“Spirits lie.”
“You know…you’re a peasant! A filthy peasant, and if I didn’t need you to show me the way, I’d treat you more like one!”
“You are a dragon-mage,” Tass replied.
“Gods!” Ich-Mek screamed in frustration. “Then do what you’re told, you stinking Pus-Don!” He then stormed out of the chamber in search of As-Cheen.
He eventually found her, and though he had calmed himself down some by then, he began to brag about the spells he now had, and of the horrible destruction he could wreak with them. She didn’t seem impressed, and now he felt fortunate he hadn’t actually said he would use them on Tass.
“Will you go with me?” he pleaded. “The three of us could make it…I’m sure.”
“Where would I go but here, Ich-Mek?” she asked with a sad smile. “My people need me to stay.”
“I could take you to the Valley of Steam! They would protect you from the Mother, wouldn’t they?”
“They gave me to the Mother, Ich-Mek.”
“How? You said you came here to learn.”
“I did, but it was not my choice. The Mother calls one of us to replace those who live no more.”
Ich-Mek shook his head in confusion. “She is evil!” he protested. “Doesn’t your family know this?”
“She is not evil!” As-Cheen snapped with fire in her eyes. “She protects us,” she then said in a calmer voice, “from the Emperor.”
“No! The Emperor doesn’t even know you elves exist.”
“He does, Ich-Mek. You’ve seen the halls for the Owesek! The Emperor sends them…like he sent you.”
“He didn’t send me, As-Cheen! Please understand this,” he pleaded. “Don’t be like Tass! I’m a dragon-mage, that’s all. The Emperor long ago forgot about this place, and he doesn’t even know I exist.”
She looked like she wanted to believe him, but then shook her head in disagreement. “My family had to send me. It is a debt owed that I must pay now. Another will have to come if I leave.”
“No! No! It doesn’t work that way…trust me, I know! All of my life I’ve trained to be a dragon-mage, and all of my life I’ve been told how it is my duty. Well, my duty’s done…the Regent made sure of that. Come with me!”
“My duty is here, Ich-Mek.”
“No…I refuse to believe that. Your duty is where your heart tells you it is!”
“It is here, Ich-Mek,” she said as she began to sob. “Please accept that it is here.”
“No, I never will, As-Cheen! Not even if Tass tells me to leave you…I won’t!”
“You must take your brother and go,” she pleaded.
Ich-Mek took a step away from her, and declared loudly, “He is not my brother. I have no brother. I will take you from here, and if Tass stays…then I don’t care!”
“He would freeze without you.”
“Yes!”
They were both quiet for a while, then she told him to expect a summons from the Mother soon. Another moon had passed, and so the Mother would ask again when the Emperor would send a true dragon-mage.
“I’ll be ready this time,” Ich-Mek promised, which drew more tears from As-Cheen.
__________________________
“What kind of magic can she do?” Ich-Mek asked urgently.
As-Cheen had come to warn him that Shu-Whet was on the way. He didn’t intend to stand up to the Mother, but he did intend to be ready if need be.
“The wind and the snow…all things on the mountain obey the Mother,” she warned.
“Well, I don’t,” he assured her.
He could see tears in her eyes now, and so he promised he would not upset the Cold-Mother. Questions would be asked, and then he would be sent back, just like before, he explained. She smiled through her tears at him, then hugged him briefly before dashing off.
She was maybe prettier then Yi-La, he decided as he watched her bare legs carry her off. “I wish all girls would dress like that,” he muttered to himself before deciding he best prepare as best he
could.
As-Cheen soon returned though, and this time was following Shu-Whet, and several other of the Mother’s guards. Shu-Whet glared at him until Ich-Mek got the message and meekly started moving down the white corridor. In his mind, Ich-Mek ran through the spells he had now memorized, including some new ones.
At the door leading out of the white corridors, the other guards were dismissed by Shu-Whet, who led Ich-Mek and As-Cheen on alone. The walk to the audience hall was done in silence, just as before. The Cold-Mother hardly seemed to notice Ich-Mek as he approached.
Forced to his knees by Shu-Whet, he then waited for the Mother to address him. “The palace sends no dragon-mage,” the Mother said in her dry, irritating voice.
After a few moments of silence, Ich-Mek felt compelled to speak. “I don’t know, Mother.”
“You are only an apprentice.”
The tone was dismissive, Ich-Mek worried, and when he tried to reply, Shu-Whet confirmed this by cruelly poking him with the butt of a spear to silence him. When the elf started to drag him across the icy floor, Ich-Mek suddenly became angry at being treated in such a way. Pulling away, he dared to approach the Mother.
“I wear the ring, Mother!” he protested. “I can’t speak—”
Suddenly he could hardly see or move. A fog had come to his eyes, and he was starting to feel like he was freezing. He was able to move his head just enough to look at his hands, which were now coated in a thin layer of ice. The Cold-Mother had done this with but a glare, he realized.
Kunk!
Unable to move, he fell to his side, and then he started moving mysteriously. It was Shu-Whet sliding him across the floor now, like some lifeless block of ice. If it wasn’t for As-Cheen’s quick thinking, he would have been slammed into a wall. She dared to slow his body, before quickly stepping away again.
Shu-Whet then launched Ich-Mek, with a kick, down the entranceway to the hall, then launched him repeatedly around corners and down passageways, until he had spun around so many times he didn’t know where he was. A slap of the spear along Ich-Mek’s body shattered the ice, leaving him dazed and disoriented.
After a few moments he was able to stagger to his feet, and it was then that he saw he was at the entrance to the white corridors again. The door then opened, and out came four other elves. They wore their masks and headdresses, and at first looked like they might attack him as well. But they didn’t do more than force him through the doorway.
Alone now, Ich-Mek slid and slipped his way back to the hole in the wall, expecting to find Tass there. Instead he found the hole had been sealed. Through the clear ice he could just make out a figure, which he thought might be Tass.
“Tass!” he yelled at the ice, but got no reply.
He began banging on the ice until his hand hurt, then tried kicking it with the heel of his boot. Nothing even made a crack. Looking around, he began to long for As-Cheen, as she had easily broken through this ice before. Still Tass didn’t move, and he began to think it was something else he was seeing.
With nothing with which to chip at the ice, he tried one of his new spells: flaming-hands, it was called, and as he settled his mind after casting it, he pressed his hands to the ice. Hot flames spread from his fingers, and soon water began to flow down the wall in little driblets.
It took him many minutes to form a small hole, and by then As-Cheen had showed up. She watched silently until he decided to step back and let her try. For the second time she kicked a hole large enough for them to enter.
Ich-Mek saw that both bodies had been moved. The one that had been sitting on the bench was now sat there again, while the other lay now in front. A third figure now sat beside the first. With trepidation, Ich-Mek reached out to touch Tass, and found his arm stiff and unyielding.
__________________________
“I need my spell-book,” Ich-Mek said to As-Cheen in a tone that told of his anger and his sorrow.
They had moved Tass’s body into the smaller chamber, where they normally slept. Ich-Mek had felt the need to do it, if for no other reason than to separate it from the two dead strangers.
“Shu-Whet has it?” he asked sternly.
As-Cheen nodded her head as she knelt beside the body. He suspected he knew the answer to the next question he was going to ask.
“The Mother is done with me?”
As-Cheen nodded her head again, before finally coming to her feet. Gently he escorted her from the chamber, then turned her so he could see her eyes.
“I’m going to go get it. Will you show me?” he asked as he glared at her to make sure she understood he was absolutely serious.
“Shu-Whet will come here to you,” she replied. “He desires you teach him.”
“He wants my ring?”
“No, he knows he cannot use it. But a dragon-mage knows many things, he believes.”
Ich-Mek took a step back to think. “You don’t know when, do you?”
“No, it could be another moon.”
“I’m not waiting…I wouldn’t be able to sleep,” he said as he glanced toward the other chamber. “If I go now he may not expect me.”
Her face turned to fear as she pleaded, “You must only take the spell-book! He will kill you, Ich-Mek, if he sees you outside the white corridors.”
He nodded his head in understanding, then tried to reassure her. “If we can steal back the spell-book then that is enough.”
She looked sadly at him before stating, “I will go now.”
“No!” he snapped. “He sees what you do for me, As-Cheen. He may keep you from me…or worse!”
He failed to convince her they should go together, but she didn’t try to stop him when he crawled through the hole in the wall and headed for the door leading out. It would be locked, he told himself as he shuffled down the icy corridor, and he didn’t have a spell to open it.
When she came to stand beside him at the large metal door, he asked her, “Can you go around and open it?”
She hesitated to say anything, and so he cast his flaming-hands spell again, and was about to try and melt the latch off the door when she told him she would open it. As minutes passed he began to fear she had gone on alone. He knew she had some secret way of exiting the white corridors, and thought about somehow tracking her to it, but then the door opened.
The two of them then walked cautiously down corridor after corridor, until they saw someone up ahead. It turned out to be one of the guards. He hadn’t seen As-Cheen before she quickly pushed Ich-Mek back out of sight.
These elves, they never seemed to talk to one another, Ich-Mek concluded once again, as As-Cheen led him another way. It was the ice for blood they had, he suspected, apparently it made them care little for even their own. As-Cheen was an exception, he told himself.
They found Shu-Whet alone, and Ich-Mek wasn’t certain whether this was where the elf lived or not. The open chamber had walls cluttered with weapons and macabre trophies, some of which Ich-Mek suspected were men.
As-Cheen’s face then reminded him to be wary. She was staring at Shu-Whet, who still hadn’t noticed her standing in the doorway. It was a look of hatred on her face, Ich-Mek was sure. He tried to gently pull her back out of sight, but she resisted.
“He knows,” she said softly.
Ich-Mek’s heart began to race faster as he watched Shu-Whet casually turn toward them. The elf’s confidence was apparent as he signaled with a long finger for them to approach.
“Little sister…you love too easily,” Shu-Whet told As-Cheen as he gave her an almost sad look. “A dragon-mage he can never be…and you would become hot in lust for a master.”
“I do not…care for your words…old brother. You murdered his friend.”
Shu-Whet shook his head. “Our Mother requires…executions…little sister. I do not murder.”
“The Mother doesn’t care!” As-Cheen replied loudly. “He could have walked into the snow.”
“No, the Mother would have asked you in a different winter, wh
at had become of him.” Shu-Whet told her in a soothing voice. “You would have lied, I think. Then the Valley of Steam would need to send another.”
Shu-Whet’s words were forming doubts in As-Cheen’s mind, Ich-Mek could see as he watched her look down for a moment. He had two spells in his mind now; either of these could lead his attack should Shu-Whet not back down.
“Please give me the spell-book, old brother,” As-Cheen then said firmly as she lifted her chin. “Let the Mother not worry about this one as well.”
“I’ll worry, little sister!” Shu-Whet replied as he stepped closer. “An apprentice can do harm when not bridled by a master.”
“Come no closer!” Ich-Mek warned as he raised his hands slightly.
Both males were surprised, then, when As-Cheen rushed for the far side of the room. Ich-Mek was sure she was seeking to grab his spell-book, though he couldn’t see where it was hidden. But she never got that far. With a sharp jab of his finger toward her, Shu-Whet sent a cold beam of light to strike her down.
“Ahhh!” Ich-Mek screamed a he watched As-Cheen’s body go cold and rigid.
She fell to the ground, then, just like what had happened to Ich-Mek, she slid hard into the far wall. Only she wasn’t covered in a thin layer of ice, as he had been; she appeared frozen solid.
When he realized she was likely dead, Ich-Mek turned to Shu-Whet and cast the quick dark spell he had decided on earlier. A bolt of arcane-energy shot toward the elf and struck him on the right side of the face.
“Arrrrghhhh!” Shu-Whet screamed before staggering through a doorway.
Ich-Mek brought flames to his hands and ran to follow Shu-Whet, but then stopped to be sure As-Cheen couldn’t be helped. With burning hands, he knelt down quickly beside her, and called her name several times. He feared to touch her with the spell active, and then realized he didn’t have to when her body started to tremble.
“Ohhhhh…ohhhhh.” As-Cheen began to moan loudly as she started to move.
When the color in her cheeks began to come back, Ich-Mek stood and rushed to the doorway where Shu-Whet had disappeared. He saw no one, but then a distant horn sounded.