by Clark Bolton
Ich-Mek wasn’t sure what that last part meant, so ignored it. “I am sorry, Mother. As-Cheen leaves you. She seeks other snow-masters.”
“Shu-Whet!” the Mother called out. “A second apprentice fails a master.”
Like a half-frozen corpse, Shu-Wet approached, and as he neared, the cloth covering his face fell away, revealing a massive scar. The elf’s eye socket was gone, and many of his teeth could be seen peeking out of his ravished cheek.
“Return her,” Shu-Whet demanded in a harsh voice, which was nearly unrecognizable to Ich-Mek.
“No!” Ich-Mek replied bravely.
He then expected retaliation from Shu-Whet, but it never came. Instead, the elf went back to standing like he was frozen again.
Ich-Mek’s first long conversation with the Cold-Mother then started. She accused him of bringing misfortune down upon her, though didn’t say exactly what. The Emperor was mentioned, but that seemed just her normal ranting for attention, Ich-Mek thought.
“Your emperor’s dog shall never free you!” The Mother declared finally before dismissing him with a wave.
Ich-Mek looked around as if expecting some hidden agent of the Emperor to be present. Then suddenly he was transfixed by terrifying and familiar eyes, which seemed to be burrowing into his mind.
The words “Teng-Ju is mine…mage!” boomed inside his head, then silence. A moment later he was standing next to Tass’s frozen body, still sitting on the bench in the room they had occupied.
“How did we get back here?” he asked, then realized his frozen friend couldn’t possibly answer.
Then he realized they were sealed in again. The hole in the wall had a clear layer of ice again, only this time he was on the inside. He began chopping at it with everything he could find, including the tin cup they had. Any small chips made vanished almost immediately.
Next he tried spells. The energy-bolt seemed to pass right through the ice without doing damage. His flaming-hands spell was unable to melt the ice faster than it healed itself.
In defeat he sat down next to Tass for a time. Then he became angry again and repeated the process until exhausted. He lost track of time, and the number of attempts he had made to break out. His only consolation in all this was that he found a huge pile of mushrooms.
He ate, then he attempted to use the bench to break out. This required he carefully lay down Tass’s body, but he managed it. The bench eventually shattered as he banged it against the ice. Sleeping for a time, he found the bench repaired and Tass sitting on it again.
“She is messing with my mind!” he shouted in anger.
A voice then boomed in his head: “Embrace the fire, Ich-Mek!”
He immediately recognized it as belonging to the mysterious Venfs that he had dreamed of once before. Turning his attention back to the ice-covered wall, he tried more spells again, but to no avail. When suddenly his hand began to burn, he looked at it and realized that not only was there a flame but a great deal of pain as well. The flaming-hands spell had never done this to him before.
In rage, he tried to quench the flames on the ice. To his shock and delight the ice melted away like snow. He crawled through the hole he made, then, remembering Tass, he turned to go back for the body. He was stunned to see Tass standing on his own.
"Aaaa!" Ich-Mek screamed as he sat up.
Both As-Cheen and Tass were staring at him, and his hand hurt badly. Looking down at it, he noticed a small fire burning beside him.
“Was my hand in the fire?” he asked as he tried to clear the cobwebs from his mind.
“We couldn’t wake you,” As-Cheen replied with an apologetic look on his face.
“What?” he said in disbelief. “I was…”
“With spirits!” Tass told him with a knowing nod of his head.
“I…was with…the Mother...” he said in confusion, as he slowly climbed to his feet. “…No, I was in the white corridors.”
He was still among the lichen boulders, he saw, but the sun looked all wrong. East seemed to be west, and vice versa, to him.
“How long was I asleep?”
“More than a day,” Tass replied. “Your ring demanded we help.”
Ich-Mek shook his head as he came to look at Tass. “You heard Venfs too?”
Tass didn’t respond so he turned to As-Cheen for an answer. “We could see the Cold-Mountain in it…” she exclaimed, “…then fire…so we burned you.”
“Burned me!” Ich-Mek shouted. “I was…breaking out.”
“No!” she assured him. “You were weak.”
Chapter 21 – Yi-La
“Why didn’t you tell me to be careful what I wished for?” Yi-La told Narween in an exhausted voice while she allowed the girl to attend to her aching feet.
They were in a cramped room, which barely had space for what passed now for Yi-La’s bed. She had wrestled possession of the room from Chancellor Pesnu-Jok after her master had dropped several hints concerning the distance between her former quarters and the Chey building where he resided. The place did make it easier for her to reach things off her writing table, she had noted, which also doubled as a nightstand.
“You know many spells now, Fu-Sa. You should not complain,” Narween told her. “The Chancellor might hear you.”
“And you don’t wish to know any of them,” Yi-La mused aloud. “Does that make you content to massage my feet?”
Narween practically growled as she rolled her eyes. “It is forbidden, and besides, I do this as a friend. And why must you tempt me, Fu-Sa?”
“I don’t,” Yi-La insisted. “I just want to understand how you could study all those years at Key-Tar-Om and not want to put it to use. I mean the sixth-path is the purest path except for the seventh, right?”
“It is,” Narween said proudly. “The Chancellor will find me a path here, Fu-Sa, do not worry.”
Yi-La had plenty of other things to worry about, she knew, like how to please her masters – one of them anyway; the others had yet to show for some time, and one of them not at all. Master Sey-Laht was in another of the Chey buildings, she knew, though no one was allowed to enter there save for a select few Seechen. The third dragon-mage she had never met, and Master Gang had not been coy about telling her she was lucky not to have.
“Have you ever seen Master Dtu-Ru?” Yi-La asked.
She looked down at her feet toward Narween when the massage suddenly stopped. A pouting Narween shook her head. Like everyone else in the mage-quarter, Narween seemed unwilling to discuss Master Dtu-Ru.
“He is mean, isn’t he?” Yi-La pressed.
“Stop!” Narween snapped before looking ashamed of her outburst. “He hears everything, Fu-Sa,” Narween whispered.
Yi-La let the subject drop, and then dozed off for a time until Seechen Bar knocked soundly on the open door. He did this at her request whenever letters arrived in the mage-quarter, which happened every few days, she came to learn. Though it wasn’t truly her task to handle the sorting of these scrolls, she had noticed Pesnu-Jok’s constant interest in them, which was enough to motivate her interest. The man sought to complicate her every request and action, by not quite interfering to the point Master Gang would get involved.
Her complex relationship with the Chancellor was one of the reasons her feet were so sore. Running ahead of his messengers had become one of the few ways she could learn things that would otherwise go unnoticed by her. In particular, she ran so she could be at her master’s side whenever Pesnu-Jok or his messengers were.
At first Pesnu-Jok found this amusing, then irritating, and now he all but ignored her lingering behind her master. But it was worth it, she knew, for only important business made it to Master Gang, else it was handled by Pesnu-Jok alone. The letters from distant provinces were just one example of this, and she still couldn’t understand fully why the dragon-mages left such sensitive correspondence to the Mage-Chancellor.
“Thank you, Bar,” she told the Seechen before dismissing him with a wave. “Come on, Na
rween.”
Rolling out of bed she noticed she still wore the robes she had soiled last night. Working with a mortar and pestle, she had pounded chips of a special wood in order to produce a very precise wood-bled ink that Master Gang required. She didn’t often know the final purpose of her master’s various works, and didn’t need to, she was told by him. Learning how to do specific tasks was what he was teaching her.
“Augh!” she growled at her condition, then asked Narween to hand her a fresh robe. “Any one will do!” she added mockingly as Narween selected the topmost folded robe from a stack of identical gray cotton robes.
Narween smirked a little as she helped her dress, then they hurried off out of the building toward the hall of letters. This standalone Chey building had the sole purpose of handling the vast volume of requests that came to the Mage-Chancellor’s office from all points of the empire. Inside was the collection chamber, where nine long tables were set up – one for each province. A separate smaller table was for Pesnu-Jok’s personal use.
When they entered the collection chamber, Yi-La headed straight for Pesnu-Jok’s small table. He wasn’t yet here, which would allow her a look at the seals on the letters. Often the letters would be from Key-Tar-Om, and so at times bore the seal of Regent Ober-Toss, which she could now easily recognize at a distance.
Her obvious interest in correspondence from Key-Tar-Om was, in part, responsible for her learning that Pesnu-Jok was Regent Ober-Toss’s designated successor. Pesnu-Jok had mentioned to her that the Mage-Chancellor always succeeded the Regent, and had done so in a rather condescending way. Yi-La wasn’t sure this fact held any significance for her, but guessed that anything involving Key-Tar-Om was possibly useful in finding out how Ich-Mek faired. Since Master Gang wouldn’t allow her to broach the subject, she had desperately sought other potential sources such as the contents of this chamber.
“Is there anything more from Key-Tar-Om?” she asked.
The Seechen here were used to this question, and so quickly informed her there was only those now on the table. She saw nothing interesting about these, so moved on to walk along several of the long tables. The table for Wa province was among the longest, and that for Yuu province the shortest of the nine. Population mostly determined the number of requests from each province, she had been told.
“Is this one?” she asked a Seechen who was bending over a scroll so as to gaze closely at it through a lens made of amber.
“Yes, a protected scroll, Fu-Sa,” the man told her.
Yi-La had been waiting to see how they opened such, and so watched carefully as the Seechen used a designated letter-opener; one for each table. Carefully breaking the seal, the man then unfurrowed the scroll enough to place two well-worn wooden blocks upon it to prevent it rolling up again. This was one of the few Chey buildings where magic was practiced daily, she realized.
“How do you know?” she asked as she picked up the amber lens to gaze for herself. The telltale signs of arcane-energy still flowed about the scroll, she could see.
“I have learned the arcane signatures, Fu-Sa,” he replied. “Scrolls that can be opened safely by this letter-opener match its signature.”
“I see,” she said as she looked through the lens at the letter-opener to confirm this. “How many mages can ward these?” she asked innocently.
The man shrugged. “Many, Fu-Sa. Perhaps a dozen or more in each province.”
“What about those the openers can’t be used on?” she asked as she looked about at the hundred or more scrolls on this table alone.
“Unusual, Fu-Sa,” the Seechen told her as he gestured toward the far end of the Wa table. “That one there awaits Chancellor Pesnu-Jok.”
“Why?” she asked as she walked over to look at the scroll through the amber lens.
“His Lordship is keeper of the phrases. Without saying the correct one, the scroll will burst violently into flame, Fu-Sa.”
She pouted for an instant before getting ahold of herself. Glancing over at Pesnu-Jok’s table to confirm he hadn’t arrived yet, she then gently picked up the scroll to have a closer look at it. The lens told her it was indeed protected, and she knew of no way to bypass the ward.
“Who is it from?”
“The office of the governor of Wa, Fu-Sa.”
She gathered up her courage to ask this very cooperative man, “Do you know the phrase?”
The Seechen looked uncomfortable when he admitted that he did. She thought perhaps his knowledge was a violation of etiquette here in the collection chamber, and so it was likely he didn’t want others to know. The question now was whether or not he would tell her the phrase. She could wait for Pesnu-Jok, of course, and then ask him, but she was sure the man would talk his way out of the request somehow.
Putting on her best smile as she took a half-step closer to him, she commanded innocently, “Do please tell me.”
All color drained from the man’s face when she held up her hand to flaunt her ring. She could see he was struggling with himself, and was now looking about at the others in the room. Except for Narween, everyone else was going about their business.
“I think the Chancellor—” he began to stammer before she cut him off.
“Now,” she said in a hushed voice that only he was sure to hear. “Master Gang requires I preview all things.”
The statement was true to a point, she knew. Any letter that was destined for Master Gang’s eyes was indeed supposed to be given directly to her first. But this had yet to happen in the few moons she had been here. The Chancellor handled all business, and she knew for a fact the dragon-mages insisted on this arrangement. Why, she still didn’t know.
“Ahhh…” the man exclaimed as he looked about to drop to his knees.
“No!” she hissed as she took ahold of his robes to keep him standing. “I won’t repeat the phrase unless I’m allowed to,” she assured him, “and I won’t let the Chancellor know.”
The man nodded his head in understanding before whispering close to her ear the phrase “Tales of tigers and birds.”
Nodding her thanks, she turned away from the rest of the room and whispered the phrase over the scroll in her hands. The seal broke instantly, allowing her to set the scroll down and block it open. With a very nervous Seechen standing next to her, she read the contents.
It was an acknowledgment and tally of this cycle’s students arriving in Wa province from Key-Tar-Om School. Names of each student, and their assigned post, were included – except for the last name on the list. This person was listed as missing, which wasn’t the only thing the letter mentioned about him. Scarm had been seen, the author of the letter suggested, on the border of Wa province and Key-Tar-Om.
“Bose-Quaa,” she whispered to herself as she pictured a young boy sitting next to her and Ich-Mek.
At the ages of eight and nine she and Ich-Mek had attended etiquette classes together, along with all the other children in their respective forms. Bose was Ich-Mek’s close friend, and the two of them were inseparable. She recalled being jealous of their rapport with one another – something she was never able to develop with Ich-Mek, at least not before her tenth year. By then girls only met their betrothed once a year during the re-coloring ceremony.
She then thought to check for the name Pleiss-Yom, Bose’s betrothed. Sure enough, she was on the list, and now had Bose’s family name preceding her own. They were married, she realized, which made his disappearance all the more difficult to accept.
Looking to Narween, who was standing some distance away, Yi-La thought to have her come over and also read the scroll. However, the deep voice of Chancellor Pesnu-Jok interrupted that idea.
“Fu-Sa, you are being too inquisitive,” Pesnu-Jok proclaimed loudly from across the room as he sat down at his personal table.
Her heart raced at the thought she may have been caught doing something her master wouldn’t approve of. Carefully laying down the scroll as if disinterested in it, she approached Pesnu-Jok in an attempt to
distract him from her previous actions.
“Is there anything from Key-Tar-Om, Lord Chancellor?” she asked innocently.
He frowned at her choice of title for she usually referred to him as simply “Chancellor”. Pesnu-Jok turned his attention to the new row of scrolls before him. “You need to let it go, Fu-Sa,” he told her. “Key-Tar-Om is not for former students, and so no concern of yours.”
She set her teeth for a moment to quell her rising anger, but failed somewhat, she realized, after she let slip: “My fiancé is there. I want to know how he is doing.”
“Have you tried writing to him?” the Chancellor said flatly without looking up at her. “There are plenty of Seechen for you to dictate to.”
His emphases on certain words were intentionally demeaning, she was sure. “No, I haven’t,” she admitted. “Master Gang…” she started to say before lowering her voice, “…has forbidden it.”
Her comment caused him to look up at her with one eyebrow raised. “And so you expect of me…” he replied in a drawn out voice.
She was being stupid, she realized. He was no doubt going to use this information against her somehow, she was sure. When he went back to ignoring her, she stood silently brooding over her next move.
“You will be Regent of Key-Tar-Om one day, won’t you?” she asked.
Pesnu-Jok took in an exceptionally deep breath in a manner that left no doubt he was signaling a loss of patience with her. “Yes, and you will be a dragon-mage one day. I’m sure our relationship then will be more cordial…Fu-Sa.”
Ignoring the insult, she pressed to learn anything he might know of Ich-Mek. “Will the Regent let Ich-Mek write to me?”
“Nooo!” he replied. “As I suggested previously, you need to let it go.”
She rolled her eyes at his downturned head. “What happens when students go missing…from the school, I mean?”
Pesnu-Jok seemed to ponder the question for a moment before slowly rising from his seat. He then motioned for her to follow him into a side chamber used to store letters. The pair alone now, he turned to glare at her.