A Cavern Of Black Ice (Book 1)

by J. V. Jones

  So cold, mistressss, share the light . . .

  Want it, give it, reach . . .

  Raif’s skin crawled. He could hear the click of fingernails against stone and smell the stench of burned things. Everything that was within him told him this was no place for a clansman to be. He had seen the moon and the night sky on the wall: This was the domain of the Sull.

  And yet. There was a raven too, and it had been guiding the way, and there had to be something in that.

  Setting his mouth in a grim line, he tightened his hold on Ash’s hand and led her through the keening of insane things to the cavern that awaited her at the end.

  There wasn’t far to go, not really. The voices had known she was close. Suddenly there were no more decorations on the walls, only symbols carved in a foreign hand. An archway cut from mountain rock marked the end of the journey. It was another Sullmade thing, dark and shaded with moonlight, with night-blooming flowers at its base and silver-winged moths suspended in the stone. A roughly carved figure leaped over the cantle of the arch, his features turned toward the rock so his face was unknowable, a sword of shadows in his hand.

  As they passed beneath the arch Raif noticed a mated pair of ravens had been carved within the deepest recesses of the rock. Their bills were open as if frozen in midcall, and their clawed feet danced a jig upon the stone. Without thought, he raised his hand to his neck and pulled out his lore. Touching it, he entered the Cavern of Black Ice.

  Clan had no words for this place. The world of the clanholds was one of daylight and hunting and white ice; it had boundaries and borders—dozens of ways to separate one clanhold from another and one clansman’s holdings from his neighbor’s. This place was thin around the edges, like a sword turned side on. Its boundaries bled into another world, and Raif doubted they were true boundaries at all. It hardly seemed to exist before his eyes, like something conjured up out of moonlight and rain, yet even as he thought that, he was aware of the weight and the sheer mass of the place.

  The ice steamed like a great black dragon emerging from a frozen lake. It glittered with every color ever seen at night. Once, many summers ago, Effie had gone trapping with Raina. She was only a baby at the time, barely able to walk on her own two feet, yet somehow she had returned home with an egg-size granite pebble in her fist. She was excited about it in her own quiet way, and to please her, Inigar Stoop had taken it to his mill-saw and broken it in two. Raif could remember watching the cooling water spill over the granite as the saw bit sliced into stone. He remembered frowning at the waste of a good skimmer. Then it had split in two, and inside was a heart of pure quartz. Dark and smoky and flashing like the brightest jewel, encased in a rime of hard rock. Raif thought about that now as he looked upon the cavern. It was like standing in the center of such a stone.

  He could not begin to guess what liquid had cooled to form the ice. Slabs of it, some so smooth he could see his own face reflected there, and some as jagged as spinal cords, lined every portion of the cave. He walked upon it as he entered, heard it tick and fracture as his weight came down upon it, felt the entire structure shudder as stresses spread around it like whispers around a room.

  The cavern soared three stories high and was as wide as any cave he’d ever seen. It was massive and utterly cold: a boundary between worlds. When he looked into the ice he saw shapes shifting and undulating in the place where the cave wall should have lain. Black fire burned within. He saw the shades of hooded things, of beasts with many heads and wolves with thrashing tails, and things that were not men, not quite. He saw nightmares and shadows and darkly craven things, yet when he looked again the ice was still.

  The voices were hysterical now. They pleaded with their mistress, begging her to turn back, to flee the cavern, to reach in another place.

  Raif felt Ash pulling her hand free of his, and he hated to let it go. She felt his resistance and turned to face him, and already he could see that she was changing. Her eyes were taking on the colors of the Sull. No longer gray, they shone silver and midnight blue. Her jaw was hard set, and her chin was raised, but her lips were red where she had chewed on them. Looking at her, he realized one thing: He could not help her in this.

  The ice pick he had jammed through his belt was no use here. Tem, Drey, Corbie Meese: No clansman could do more than stand and watch. There was nothing of flesh and blood to fight, no necks or soft stomachs that would yield to an ax. Just shadows and black ice. When Ash reached she would do so alone.

  Unbidden, the image of the women and children fleeing Hailsmen on the Bluddroad came to him. He had stood and watched then, too.

  Watcher of the Dead. A shudder began at the base of his spine, but he made himself rigid and stopped it. He would show nothing but strength to Ash.

  She looked at him for a long moment, pinning him where he stood. Slowly she stripped off her gloves and let them fall to the floor. Her coat slipped off with a single shrug, and suddenly she was standing in the cavern wearing a plain gray dress, with her silver gold hair flowing loose over her shoulders. Gently she smiled at him, and gently she spoke. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m here, and I know what I must do. It’s just dancing ice from now on.”

  He did not smile. Fear for her consumed him. She knew he could heart-kill beasts—she had seen him do so with her own two eyes—yet she did not know he was Watcher of the Dead. He should have told her sooner . . . for he could not tell her now.

  “You must let me go, Raif.”

  He did not know he had taken hold of her arm until she pulled it back. She began to turn from him, and dread rose in his belly at the thought of her standing alone. He had to protect her. He, who had watched Bludd women and children die on the Bluddroad, seen Shor Gormalin brought home over the back of his horse, and killed three Bluddsmen in the snow outside Duff’s, had to keep her from harm.

  In his frustration, he tugged at the cord that held his lore. The hard, black piece of bird ivory jabbed against his gloved hands. Raven lore. He took it and weighed it in his fist. It had warded him all along. And perhaps it warded the Sull, too. And perhaps the ravens he had passed on the archway and on the riverwall had been guarding, not showing, the way.

  Swiftly he plucked it from him. “Ash.”

  She turned her head toward him.

  “Wear this.” He held out his lore.

  “I can’t. It’s part of your clan.”

  “You are my clan. And you have no lore to protect you.” And ravens always survive to the end. “Take it.”

  Something in his voice compelled her, and she took it from him and fastened it about her neck. It looked dark and savage there, on its cord of sweat-rotted twine. Yet something deep within him eased at the sight of it lying flat against her skin. He could let her go now.

  She walked from him in silence, the hem of her skirt trailing across the ice. The cavern shuddered with every step she took and the voices hounded her like dogs.

  Hate you, mistressss, slash your pretty face.

  Pull you down with us, make you burn.

  Ash’s chin stayed high, though the threats were terrible in their violence and hatred, and the black ice was colder than a tomb. He felt the power cumulating in her, felt her pull what she needed from the air. Her belly swelled, and her breasts rose and fell, and muscles in her shoulders began to work.

  The cavern glittered like dark fire, its borders and knife edges flickering between worlds. Into its center walked the Reach. Firmly she stepped, ice winds blowing her hair and the sleeves of her dress, the corner of her lip moving as she bit down upon it. The air around her thickened and warped, and slowly, very slowly, a fine nimbus of blue light grew about her shoulders and arms. Raif felt his face burn with coldness. He had seen light like that before, on the blades of clansmen making kills in moonlight and in the cold inner hearts of flames.

  As black ice creaked and shivered around her, Ash March reached. Later Raif would remember her beauty as she stood there limned in blue light, her fingers rising firs
t, then her hands and her arms, as she reached out toward a place that he would never, ever, know firsthand. Later he would remember that . . . but for now he felt only fear.

  Up came her arms, spreading wide to encompass a world beyond his own. Her mouth fell open and a terrible dark substance poured from her tongue and blasted against the ice. The cavern shook. The mountain rumbled with a deep bass note that sounded like the Stone Gods shattering the world. Yet the black ice remained intact. The walls bent to her power, yielding like saltwater ice, yet they did not let it pass. The ice stretched and contorted, forming grotesque black bulges and pressure sores where the ice was stretched so thinly it was almost white. The cavern hummed with tension. And the voices screamed, higher and higher, wailing a song of terror and damnation that rose from a place far deeper than any hell.

  On and on the power flowed, exiting Ash’s body with the force of steam venting under pressure and bursting against the cavern walls. The black ice flashed under the bombardment, turning as transparent as polished glass. Within it, Raif saw things he wished never to see again.

  A charred landscape. A nightmare world. A slithering, jerking mass of dark souls.

  Ash stood against them all. He saw that now, clearly; he also saw that the change that had begun the moment she’d entered the cavern was still taking place within her. She was becoming what had been only a word to Raif before. A Reach. It would never be over for her, not truly, even after she left this place. Heritas Cant had said as much, yet Raif had not wanted to understand. He had wanted to believe that the Cavern of Black Ice marked the end. Now, seeing the air rippling with heat from her power and the skin of black ice straining to contain what she unleashed, he knew it was just the start.

  Ash’s eyes were focused on some far distant point beyond the ice. Briefly he glimpsed a sea of shifting gray waters . . . or was it clouds or smoke? Heritas Cant had called it the borderlands and said that Ash was the only person living who could walk there without fear.

  Sobered, Raif watched her face. He wanted it to end.

  The cavern walls ground against each other as Ash’s power continued to drain. Sweat ran in rivulets down her neck and the high curves of her breasts, and wet hair clung like chains to her face. Words had failed the voices now, and all that was left to them was the awful bleating of herd animals penned for the kill. Raif hated to hear them. He thought they would drive him insane.

  Finally the noises faded to grunts and whimpers, then died completely. The air stilled. Dust drifted to earth as the milling of the cavern walls ground to a halt. The black ice glowed silver for a moment and then faded to matt black. It was used up now. Raif imagined that one quick stab with a pickax would be enough to shatter it like glass.

  Ash was left standing in the center of the cavern, her arms held wide before her, the light surrounding her body dimming into thin air.

  Nothing moved for the longest moment. Raif felt as if he were alone in the cavern; it hardly seemed as if Ash were there at all. Her back was rigid, and her eyes were far focused, and even the bit of lip she had chewed on had paled. The only thing upon her that seemed wholly in this world was the ugly piece of raven around her neck. That was solid: dark with oils from Raif’s skin, worn thin in the places where he handled it, its ivory as cracked and flawed as an old man’s fingernail. It belonged in the earth or in the remains of a burned-out fire. It did not belong in the land beyond the ice.

  Raif waited. He wanted to smash the ice to splinters with his fists and snatch Ash away like a man kidnapping a child. Yet he did not want to hurt her. She was so thin, like Effie almost; if he handled her roughly, he could break her bones.

  Slowly, breath by breath, she returned to him.

  Her mouth closed, and after many minutes she blinked, and when her gaze refocused it came to rest on something that both of them could see. It seemed difficult for her to relax her arms, and she made awkward little movements as she drew them to her sides. After a moment she raised her hand to her throat and touched the raven lore. She looked at it with her new silver blue eyes, brought it to her lips, and kissed it. “It guided me back,” she said in a voice drained of all strength. “I was lost and it guided me back.”

  Raif closed his eyes. His heart had been so long without joy, he did not know what it was that filled him. He just knew he had to go to her and take her from this place.

  HEART OF DARKNESS

  Retaining the thought was the hardest thing of all. He could wait in silence, unmoving, barely breathing, betraying not the slightest reaction as the caul flies fed on his flesh. That was easy. Such was the measure of his life. It was the nursing of the thought that took it from him.

  When he is gone I will return to the place where I took him. And this time I go there alone.

  The Nameless One ran the words through his head, sounding each slowly, testing their meaning, afraid that at any moment he might lose the sense of one or all. Words were as water to him. He grasped and cupped, yet he still could not hold them in mind. He had waited here before, in his iron chamber, feigning senselessness or fatigue. Yet though his body served him as well as a wheel-broken body could, the words always left him in the end. Without words he had no intent. Without intent he was every bit as senseless as he feigned.

  This time would be different, though. This time I go there alone.

  The Light Bearer watched him, suspicion sharp as needles in his eyes. He had not liked being yanked back from that place. Anger and exhaustion made him shake. The Nameless One smelled urine that was not his own. The Light Bearer was weak in many ways.

  The blow when it came was hardly a surprise. “Wake, damn you! I know you can see and hear me. I know you brought me back too soon.”

  The Nameless One allowed his head to slump back against the iron wall. His rotted chains rustled like dry sticks.

  The Light Bearer watched his every breath. “You think to play games with me? You, who exist only on my say?” Silk slithered over metal as he drew closer. “Perhaps I have left you untouched for too long. Perhaps I should have Caydis warm his hooks.”

  The Nameless One did not fall into the trap of fear. Fear lost him words. Unblinking, he focused his gaze upon the Light Bearer’s left shoulder and the image of the Killhound emblazoned there.

  Time passed. The Light Bearer felt it more keenly than he, shifting his weight from foot to foot, breathing harshly, and finally pushing himself away from the iron chamber. He was not satisfied, but what more could he do? He could hardly beat the creature who was the source of all his power.

  “I will be back tomorrow,” he warned as he retrieved his stone lamp and headed up the stairs. “And next time I will pull two flies from your back.” With the last of his words the light faded and darkness came to the apex chamber, rising from the ground to the ceiling as always.

  The Nameless One did not move. When a measure of time satisfying to him had passed, he closed his eyes. This time I go there alone.

  It was easy, really. The Light Bearer had shown him the way. Power enough he had, for he had learned the ways to keep a poor man’s portion for himself. The Light Bearer suspected this, but truth was hard to extract from one who had lost all fear of pain.

  With the soft clack of bones dropped in a pot, the Nameless One forsook his flesh. Up he traveled through layers of rock and surface tiles, up through the Inverted Spire. Pushing his insubstance forward to meet the night sky, he tested his attitude to freedom. It was dark here, and cold as ice smoke, and the horizon stretched and curved, stretched and curved, as far as the eyes could see. He could not say it pleased him. He was still one man alone with a broken body and no name; a blue firmament above him made no difference. Fleeing his despair, he journeyed to the place where the Light Bearer had taken him.

  This time I go there alone.

  The gray landscape of the borderlands was still in turmoil, roiling and steaming like a sea settling down from a storm. In his excitement the Light Bearer had sucked the caul fly dry, wanting to go deeper, f
arther, see if he could find the source. The Nameless One took some small portion of pleasure in recalling how he had wrenched his master back. It had been worth the examination and the rage. And now . . . well, now he had the power to search this place himself.

  Vast continents of ether floated before his eyes, great cliffs and headlands of dust, yet he spared them little but a passing thought. The Dark River was here; he knew it, he smelled it, and within it lived his name. Deeper and deeper he traveled, skimming the cold peaks and fathomless troughs, until finally he saw it in the distance. A line of utter darkness. He sought not to allow himself hope, yet it rose in his throat like a hard bright thing, and suddenly he felt like a child.

  He could not reach the river soon enough. Cold were its waters and strong was its current, so strong that it pulled him downstream. Knowledge came to him in tantalizing glimpses; he remembered a man’s face and a night full of stars and the heat of yellow flames against his cheek. He did not remember his name. Straining, he swam deeper, giving himself wholly to the current, and when an undertow seized him with an icy hand he did not struggle against it.

  Heart of Darknessss, you have come.

  A voice spoke a name that was not his own, yet he answered to it all the same. If he had possessed a body to shiver, he would have done so upon hearing the voice’s reply.

  We have waited such a long time, Heart of Darknessss.

  Suddenly the Nameless One was no longer in the river, he was standing on a shore, and before him rose a wall that stretched to the ends of the world. He had seen this place once before when he had journeyed here with the Light Bearer, and that time, as this time, he perceived the same fault.

  Push against it, Heart of Darknessss, and in return we will give you your name.

  It was an offer he could not refuse.

  The substance of the wall burned him as he touched it, burned with a coldness so deep and so ungodly, he knew his flesh hands would pay a price. It mattered not. For when the world shuddered and the wall cracked and the cry of something not human rose from the breach, the Nameless One received a thought.