by J. V. Jones
“Here.”
Raif looked up. Mal Naysayer held something out for him to take: a broad leaf, deep green in color and covered with rough hairs. Recognizing it for what it was and what it did, Raif thanked the Naysayer and took it from him. Bracing himself, he laid the leaf flat in his palm and then pressed it against the cut vein. Comfrey or, as some called it, wound heal: Clans used it like the Sull to stop the bleeding of small wounds.
As the Naysayer walked a small distance to retrieve the pack he had left on the bank, Ash turned to Raif. “You knew they wouldn’t come under the ice with us.” It was not a question.
“I thought they wouldn’t, but I wasn’t sure until I saw their faces when we first reached here this morning.” Raif adjusted his grip on the comfrey leaf; a thin trail of blood was still leaking from the wound. “They know this place, Ash. I think—” He stopped himself before the words they even fear it left his lips.
“You think what?”
He shrugged. “It means something to them, that’s all.”
Ash gave him a look that made him feel like a liar. She was so pale and thin, he wondered how she stood against the wind. After a moment she nodded toward his wrist and said, “He cut you pretty deeply, didn’t he?”
Raif couldn’t deny it. “It’ll heal,” was all he said.
As if by unspoken agreement, the two Sull warriors picked that moment to converge upon the hole in the ice. Both held packs in their hand, and Ark Veinsplitter held a length of stout rope woven from flax that Raif had seen him use to raise the tent. The dark-eyed warrior handed his pack to the Naysayer. No words passed between the two men, yet Raif knew and understood what was happening. It shamed him.
The Naysayer held out both packs toward Ash. “Here, Ash March, Foundling, I offer you these gifts for the journey. There is a stone lamp and what oil we can spare, food and blankets and herbs to ward off sickness, and other such things as one who travels beneath ice might need.”
Ash’s eyes filled with tears as the great bear-size warrior spoke. With a small movement she tugged down her hood so he could see her face wholly. When she spoke her words were as formal as his, and the wind dried her tears before they fell. “I thank you, Mal Naysayer, Son of the Sull and chosen Far Rider, for these gifts that you have given. Without them I would have neither light nor warmth along the way. You have saved my life, yet claimed no debt, and for that I owe you, and give you, a piece of my heart. May all the moons you travel beneath be full ones.”
The Naysayer stood still, his ice eyes unblinking, his back straight as a black spruce, his lynx hood shedding snow, and studied Ash without speaking. His face looked carved from stone. After a moment he laid both packages in the snow, then bowed so low to Ash that the crown of his hood touched river ice. He bowed again to Raif and then walked away, and Raif knew he would not come back.
Ark Veinsplitter knelt on the river surface and hammered an iron stake into shore-fast ice three feet from the hole. Raif watched his bent back, feeling nothing but shame. The Sull warrior had not wanted his gifts refused a second time, so he had passed them to his hass, who had given them to Ash.
“There. It is done.” Ark secured the rope to the fixed stake and then tested its strength by tugging on it. “It will hold well enough.”
Raif pushed his mitt over his hand, covering the bloody bandage and the letting wound, and stepped forward. Ark Veinsplitter’s eyes met his. Raif knew it wasn’t his place to thank the Sull warrior for the gifts he had given to another, so he said only, “Thank you for heeding my call in the darkness.”
Ark Veinsplitter nodded slowly, the flat plains of muscle on his face suddenly looking worn. “It was Mal who gave the word to aid you.”
“That may be so, but I’ve only known Mal Naysayer to give one answer to any question he is asked.” Raif held his gaze firm, and both men stood in silence, feet apart, the wind blowing their clothes separate ways. After a moment Raif held out his hand. “I thank you, Ark Veinsplitter, for asking the right question.”
The Sull warrior clasped Raif’s arm, his face grave. “Do not thank me for something we both may come to regret later, Raif Sevrance of No Clan. Thank me instead for the use of my horse, and my tent, and my rope.” He smiled roughly. “Perhaps we can both live with that.”
Raif nodded. He found he could not speak.
Together he and Ark Veinsplitter secured the rope around his chest. The Sull warrior rechecked all knots and took care to thread the rope in such a way that it removed all possible strain from Raif’s hands during the drop. Fifteen feet was not a great drop, but a bad landing on hard rock could break bones. Raif had walked on dry riverbeds before, but he had no idea what he would find beneath Kith Masso’s frozen crust.
Ark Veinsplitter pinned Raif’s arms flat against the ice as Raif eased his legs and lower body into the hole. Muscles bunched beneath the Sull warrior’s lynx coat as he transferred Raif’s weight to the rope. Raif thought he was ready for the pain as his gloved hands closed around the flax, but he wasn’t. Streaks of white fire shot up his arms to his heart. The letting wound on his wrist suddenly seemed deep enough to sever his hand, and as his fingers sprang from the rope in fear, his body dropped.
The world he entered was as cool and still as a guidehouse. The blue glow of icelight closed around his body, like water around a sinking stone. All was quiet. Raif heard his own heart beating. The sharp tang of air trapped beneath ice stole into his nose and mouth. Above him, Ark Veinsplitter lowered the rope. The flax ticked with strain, the free swinging of Raif’s body making it saw against the ice edge. Wincing, Raif forced both hands around the rope and guided his body down.
His feet hit bottom with a jolt. Quickly he worked himself free of the makeshift hoist and called for Ark to pull it back. As the rope disappeared above his head, Raif pressed his mitted hands against his jaw. He hated being weak. Hearing the soft catch of Ash’s voice above him, he turned his attention to the icy blue tunnel that surrounded him. He did not want to hear what words passed between her and Ark Veinsplitter.
To his left, the granite bank glittered with lenses of ice. Flecks of iron ore shone darkly within the wall like pieces of ossified bone. Beneath his feet the riverbed was a rough valley of rock, frozen pools, and desiccated litter of fish carcasses and caribou antlers, pine needles and algae. A white scum of frosted minerals lay over everything; salts and rock silt condensed as the river drained. Above it all stretched the ice ceiling. It was like nothing Raif had ever seen before: warped, folded, jagged and then smooth like a wall of transparent rock. Light and color poured from it, creating a waterfall of sea greens and silver grays and dark midnight blues. Raif felt as if he were standing in the underbelly of a glacier, in the place where ice and shadow met.
Dry matter crunched beneath his boots as he stepped aside to make way for Ash’s descent. To either side of him darkness pooled beyond the light.
Ash came down smoothly, both hands feeding rope. Raif caught her before she hit the riverbed and pulled her free of the hoist. She was shivering. The blue light reflecting off her face looked like moonlight. When he pulled his hand free of her waist, she made a small movement as if to hold it there. As they waited for Ark Veinsplitter to lower the two packs, Raif watched Ash closely. Since the night of the wolves she had not lapsed into unconsciousness, but he didn’t know if she was still fighting the voices. By unspoken agreement, neither had mentioned them in front of the Sull.
By the time the packs were lowered, Raif could already perceive a darkening above the ice. This day was the shortest winter had shown him so far. He wondered what Drey and Effie would be doing now, then closed the thought off from his mind.
“You will need to remember this place,” Ark Veinsplitter called as he let the rope drop for the final time. “This may be your only way out, save for picking a new hole in the ice.”
Raif nodded; he had already thought of that.
“From here you head upriver until you come upon the tributary that branches
west. That may be frozen, too.” Ark’s ice-tanned face finally appeared above them. “You must take due care, Raif Sevrance of No Clan and Ash March, Foundling. The Naysayer says the riding moon will bring no thaw, but that which is cold and brittle may collapse.”
“Then we will dance ice,” Ash said, looking up at him, “as all your horses do.”
Raif thought perhaps the Sull warrior would smile, but his lips barely stretched against his teeth. “The Naysayer and I head north. We will leave such a trail as can be followed by a clansman, if you choose to take our path.” He left them then, with no word of farewell save the sound of his footsteps beating a cold rhythm upon the ice.
“Come,” Raif said when all was still. “We need to use the last hour of daylight as best we can.” He picked up both packs from the floor and slung them over his back. One was a lot heavier than the other, and metal items jingled dully within.
Ash did not move or speak. She stood in the circle of diminishing daylight directly below the hole in the ice. Raif did not like the quick manner in which she was breathing. He touched her lightly on the arm. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice as gentle as he could make it. “We’ve come too far to stop now.”
Slowly her gaze turned upon him. Her eyes were made brilliant by reflections of ice, and he almost didn’t see the fear that shone through them like light from a second, weaker source. “They know I’m here,” she said. “They know . . . and terror grows within them.”
Raif found himself watching the ice ceiling as they walked. The mass of frozen and suspended water weighed upon his thoughts. It was a slice of the river, frozen from the surface down; smooth above, where he could no longer see; and roughly coved below, like the roof of a cave. The ice was thickest nearest the bank, where frozen white piles rested against granite and cantilevered the great weight of ice. Raif had already decided that he and Ash were safer close to the bank, yet as darkness fell and the air around them cooled, the ice supports began to creak and rumble like a roundhouse in a storm.
Ash carried the soapstone lamp the Naysayer had given her, cupping it in both hands for warmth. Raif wasn’t sure what kind of oil fueled it, for it burned with a silver flame and trailed the sweet, musky, not-quite-human odor of whale yeast in its smoke. The single flame produced was housed in a protective guard of mica, but it was more than enough to light the way.
“Do you think Mal and Ark know what I am?”
Raif was surprised to hear Ash speak. She had been silent since she had lit the lamp. Switching his gaze from the blue glass of the ice ceiling to her face, he said, “Perhaps. Tem once told me that the Sull know more than any other race. He said they pass knowledge from generation to generation and some even inherit memories, like clansfolk inherit the will to fight.”
Ash hugged the lamp closer. Above the cuff of her mitt, Raif could see the white stick of bone and flesh that was her wrist. “I think Mal gave me something that first night to make the voices go away.”
“A warding, like the one Heritas Cant set?”
“No. Something different . . . I can’t explain.” She shrugged. “It’s gone now.”
Raif glanced into the tunnel of shadows ahead. Even in the far distance light from the lamp created a corona of blue light around the ice. “Perhaps we should stop here for the night. Build a camp. Sleep.”
Ash shook her head even before he had finished speaking. “No. They’d have me the moment I shut my eyes. They’re desperate now. And so close . . .” She swallowed. “So close I can smell them.”
A spark of anger flared within Raif as she spoke. Suddenly he hated everyone who had helped her come this far: Ark Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer, Heritas Cant, even Angus. None of them were clan. No clansman would have forced a sick girl to travel north in full winter. Tem Sevrance would have kept her warm by the stove and taken his hammer to any shadows or dark beasts who approached her.
Abruptly Raif stopped. Emptying the contents of both packs onto the riverbed, he searched for something to use as a weapon. Amid the pouches of lamp oil, cured salmon, and wax, he found a slender spike of steel the length of his forearm. An ice pick. He weighed it in his hand, forced his fingers around the squared-off butt. It would do. It would have to do.
Ash frowned at him. “You can’t fight what isn’t here.”
Raif thought of a reply but didn’t say it. Instead he began scooping the spilled contents back into the packs. Bits of river litter stuck to his mitts like frost, and deep beneath the fur he felt blood trickle along his wrist as the scab that had formed over the letting wound stretched to breaking. When he was done, he slid the pick through his belt. “We’ll travel through the night.”
Hours passed in silence. No wind disturbed the air in the tunnel, and the only sound was the shifting of the ice and their own booted feet grinding dried and frozen pine needles to dust. The riverbed rose steadily as they moved upriver, and the ice ceiling grew closer with every step. Raif was constantly aware of the fragile mass above him. Tons upon tons of frozen water, suspended above his head. After a time it became impossible to walk near the bank, and Raif set a course close to the river’s middle, where the ice crust was at its thinnest.
From time to time the dark, gaping holes of tributaries breached the granite wall of the bank. Most channels were choked with clumps of gray ice that spilled out onto the riverbed in rubble heaps several feet high. Pools of frozen water lying flat beneath the rubble told of late-season thaws and water running after the channel had hard-froze. Raif dismissed each channel as he came upon it; the one he was looking for had to run from the west and be clear enough to let a man and woman pass.
The passage of time was difficult to gauge. Raif felt his body growing colder and his mind moving slowly from thought to thought. He forced Ash to eat some strips of cured salmon, but he had no stomach for food himself. The air in the drained riverbed was becoming thicker and more condensed. The river itself was shrinking, and soon Raif found himself walking with his back and neck partially bent. The ice crust was so close he could reach up and touch the hard glassy surface, see the flaw lines and pressure whorls within. Tiny bubbles of trapped air shone like pearls.
On and on they walked, following the bends and bow curves of Kith Masso as it skirted the mountain’s base. Raif watched Ash constantly, finding a dozen excuses to touch her in small unassuming ways. Her face was gray and tightly drawn. Too often her eyes were focused in a place he tried to but could not see. At some point she had stripped off her mitts, and her bare hands were now closed around the lamp so tightly it looked as if she were trying to crush it. Her knuckles showed white and jagged like teeth.
He spoke to her little, and received few responses, yet he feared to do much more. She was fighting the voices, and even Tem’s hammer would have proven useless against those.
Eventually they entered a stretch of the river where the granite walls were jagged and twisted as if something had been wrenched from them at force. Stone ledges broke through the ice crust. Great piers of black iron rock jutted from the walls, and troughs gouged deep into the riverbed were filled with dark ice. Raif turned his head sharply as a cry that came from nothing human ripped through the tunnel like a blast of cold air. The flame within the soapstone lamp wavered. Ash inhaled sharply. Her eyes met Raif’s and she nodded, once. “They draw nearer,” she said. “Their world touches ours in this place.”
Raif closed his eyes. He had used up a lifetime’s worth of prayers the night the ice wolves had attacked him, and he knew better than to ask the Stone Gods for more.
In silence they continued walking. Ash could no longer stand fully upright, and Raif wondered how long it would be before they’d have to get down on their hands and knees and crawl. Time passed. Progress was slow over the warped and concertinaed granite that formed the river’s floor. Fear grew in Raif slowly, filling the hollow places in his chest. A second cry came: high and terrible, almost beyond hearing. Listening to it, Raif wished he were back on the snow plains, facing wolves.
Other sounds followed: hisses and broken whispers and the wet snarls of things with snouts. As he rounded a bend in the river’s course, Raif breathed in the faint odor of charred meat and singed hair. When he breathed again it was gone.
Noooooooooo.
The hairs on Raif’s neck pricked up all at once. Something other had spoken, yet it reminded him of another time and place. When he realized what it was it made him sick. The Bluddroad. The Bludd women and children. The sound of desperation was the same in both worlds.
With his back bent almost double and his stomach heaving, he almost missed the gash in the far bank. He thought at first it was just shadows, as there was no telltale gleam of ice on the surrounding riverbed, but the darkness ran too deeply, and the surrounding rocks were too flat to cast shadows of any depth.
“Ash. Bring the lamp.” He waited until she reached his side before crossing the riverbed. The river was barely the length of three horses now, and the ice ceiling dipped to chest height in parts. Light in the tunnel dimmed noticeably as Ash crouched to set down the lamp.
The gash in the rock was bell shaped, tall as Ash’s shoulders, and completely clean of ice. Raif stepped through to check the way. Here the air was different: colder, drier, shot with the smell of iron ore. No ice ceiling stretched overhead, just a barrel curve of rock. The tunnel led west into the mountain, disappearing into darkness so complete, it gave Raif a chill to see it.
“Raif. Here.”
Raif backed out of the gash. Ash was crouching by the lamp, her right arm extending outward, her hand flat upon the riverwall.