“Beast,” she said, and the charger swung its great head and black mane around to regard her. He gave a snort that Iyana took as an affirmation, and she winked at Ceth. “He approves.”
Iyana kept expecting the path to open up more, but the way seemed only to become more choked with old growth the farther in they got. She tried to pierce the middle distance, but it was difficult to see far in any single direction. The trees were thin, but crowded together, and their roots formed arches, dips and pathways that made the whole of the land feel as if it were a nest and they nothing but burrowing insects among the twigs and detritus.
She did not look behind, afraid that the loss of Hearth’s quartz-white walls would drench her in a feeling of inevitability, of no turning back. More so, she did not look for long at the cloth-covered form that was draped over Beast’s muscled back. She did not examine the way the head lolled or the covering pulled taut over the nose and brow. She even thought she could see the outline of Sen’s lips beneath the fabric.
“You never asked where we’re going, or why,” Iyana said, turning her attentions to Ceth. The northern Landkist rarely took his eyes from Kenta, as if he feared the man would betray them out in the wilds of a land he did not know. She glanced at his hand without meaning to, looking for the telltale blur that would herald that strange and mighty power he could wield at a moment’s call.
“We go to seek the Faey,” Ceth said as if she were daft. “So that we can see.”
He said the second part with a strange tone that Iyana found difficult to parse.
“I go to seek the Faey,” she said, unwilling to let it drop. “I go to … see, as you put it.”
“You put it,” Ceth said with the hint of a frown. Iyana waited for him to continue. She nearly went over as her boot caught in a clutch of hardened vines and he flinched toward her. She righted herself and they both turned back to the front, passing on in silence for a time.
“You put it that way,” Ceth said. “You and the keeper. You are going to the Faey to see, you said.”
“I am,” Iyana said. She thought he wanted to say more but held himself back. She hadn’t known Ceth very long, but she felt that he was simple in some ways and complicated in others. Still, she had already learned that he would speak his mind if given space to do it … even if he wasn’t asked.
“There were Seers in the desert,” Ceth said.
“There were.” Iyana nodded.
Now she could see that they had Kenta’s full attention. As the old man turned them on a more sturdy path less covered with bark and more with soil and crushed leaves, she saw him glancing toward the Landkist. Beast was having a much easier time navigating than she would have thought. Then again, Creyath was of the Scattered Villages to the west. If his steed was from the same area, terrain such as this was nothing new to him.
“The Seers of the desert were not a good thing,” Ceth said. If he was angry, his voice didn’t show it. Still, there was a simmering beneath the surface, and something of memory. “You saw what they did.”
“I did,” Iyana said. “But just as the sword can be used for good or ill, so too can gifts of sight.”
“Gifts.” Ceth spat and Iyana stopped and whirled on him, taking herself by surprise more so than him. The Landkist paused on the narrow path and eyed her intently, waiting on her response.
“Gifts,” she said. “Yes. The Seers of the desert wielded their Sight through blood and suffering. There are some in the Valley who have used similar methods. My teacher always found the practice to be … distasteful. More so, to be useless.”
“They had a power to them,” Ceth said, his frown deepening, falling into its familiar creases. “You saw what they made of their young. The Pale Men were no more human than the Dark Kind.”
“Whether the Witches made them or not, they compelled them through a song that was the darkest thing I’ve ever heard.” Iyana shivered at the memory. “That song was not a thing of the World, Ceth. You know it as well as I. It was given to them by the very Night Lord that slew Creyath Mit’Ahn.”
“A gift of the Night Lord, one could say,” Ceth said. “Or a gift from Ray Valour. I wonder what he said to you. What knowledge did he give you that compels you to seek witches in the woods of your homeland where none would dare venture even in the Bright Days?”
Ceth scanned the low-hanging canopy, his gray eyes roving over the branches, bark and crumpling leaves as if he expected to fall into a spell at any moment. Iyana swallowed. She heard Beast pawing the ground farther up the path and knew that Kenta was close enough to hear even if he had passed out of sight.
It took her a moment to recognize the name Ceth intoned.
“I have ever known him as the Eastern Dark,” Iyana said, fighting past her own hypocrisy. “And I’d prefer to keep it that way. Our association, brief as it was, was an accident. I learned nothing from him, but I saw what he saw. I saw what’s coming, and if we’re to stop it, I need to see more.”
Iyana only noticed her knuckles were squeezed tightly when Ceth glanced down at them and took a half step back. His face underwent a chaotic transformation as he seemed to fight the urge to argue and settled on that familiar mask. She sighed and his look seemed to soften some.
“I don’t wield dark songs and I don’t make slaves of men,” Iyana said, even if they had both witnessed her power firsthand. Even if they both knew she could do something similar, could compel men against their will, could become their will in a way the charlatans of the sands never could. “I saw the World Apart, Ceth, and I saw what it harbors. They are coming, and I can find out when, and where. We have champions out on the farthest roads to the east and north even now. If I can get past the fear that keeps me from doing it, perhaps I can reach them, as well. Perhaps I can help them, or learn something that may help us.”
Ceth looked as if he wanted to ask her of those champions. Instead, he pursed his lips and gave the slightest of nods, and Iyana exhaled.
“My teacher is gone, Ceth,” she said, low enough so that Kenta would not be able to hear without straining. “She was so much more to me, just as Pevah was to you.” His face nearly broke. “She is gone, Ceth, but her teachers remain.”
She held out her hands and turned them over, nodded toward his own. “I have a power I can’t unravel. I don’t know where it begins or ends. It’s Sight mixed in with life and death and everything in between. It frightens me, as I know your power frightens you. I need help if I’m to be of any use.”
He regarded her steadily for a space of time that should have grown uncomfortable. It didn’t. Iyana left it and turned to continue on the path.
“You were of use,” Ceth said, his voice halting and—she thought—near to breaking. “In the end …” He trailed off, and she didn’t let him see the ghost of a smile that graced her face as she rounded the bend.
“If my memory serves,” Kenta said as if nothing had happened, “the way opens up ahead. It should grow lighter for a time. There are streams and mossy beds, and at night the way is lit by lichen and mushrooms that glow like magic.”
Iyana moved up beside him, giving him a smirk. “You know more of the place than you’ve let on, Kenta Griyen.”
His face was somewhat wistful, she thought. “I got lost as a youth.”
“Lost, was it?” Iyana asked, searching him. “And for how long?” He frowned as she felt her eyes brighten, and she pushed the greenfire down so as not to reach for his emotions absent invitation. Still, she could tell plenty from his face.
“Long enough to miss it,” he said, moving ahead and leaving her with Beast, who nuzzled into her shoulder affectionately. She watched Ceth pass and then guided the charger onto the path.
It did grow wider ahead, just as Kenta promised, and she let her mind drift as she wondered how long Kenta had spent in the Eastern Woods, and with whom.
The men in cloaks with armor beneath had fashioned a
trio of sleds upon which they piled the frozen bodies of their brethren and the wounded Landkist of the north. The sounds of the wood dragging through the crusted ice was more company than talk as they walked through the night. It was a grating sound, and it was pregnant with the tension both companies must have felt. Kole kept from looking too closely at the Blue Knight, whom he had burned. He did not think the wounds were grave, and already the man had struggled to rise before being forced back down by his fellows. Still, burning was never a clean thing unless it resulted in death, absolution.
What sort of gift was that? Kole wondered this as he watched Linn walk ahead of them, silver bow bobbing along with a brown tail that had grown long in the weeks since leaving their Valley home. He supposed Jenk and Misha must feel the same. Both had used their fire liberally during the brief, violent clash with their new companions—or was it captors? Still, neither seemed to linger on hot deeds as Kole did. He supposed that was a good thing, taken the right way.
Shifa, usually intent on knowing the scents of all who traveled under her charge, kept a close border around Kole and the others.
Kole had counted the cloaked soldiers—there were just under a score—and noted how the bearded leader walked closest to them while the others kept their distance. He also noted how the Blue Knights in their golden armor walked ahead, far enough to appear brazen in the company of Embers from the south. Kole saw Misha gritting her teeth as she eyed them, but eventually she gave it up.
The first light of the east illuminated a blue sky free of all but the barest wisp of white clouds. When the yellow disc first crested the distance, it took Kole’s breath. He heard the sharp inhalations of the others—even Baas—as the icy plane was lit in all its shattering brilliance. It was like a field of diamonds stretching until it came up against a sheer wall of blue that may as well have been the World’s ending. Between the long patches of white, deep blue lines broke up the plains in the distance, and Kole squinted to see if he could catch the movement of the passing streams beneath.
He moved up beside Linn and nudged her on the arm, nodding ahead. “Are those rivers, there?” he asked. She was smiling wide before she answered.
“Blue stone, I think,” she said, shaking her head slowly, as if in awe. “Like veins running through the waste.”
“Not so.” The speaker was the bearded man clad in fur and thick armor with jagged spikes beneath. He drifted close in the light and gave Kole a smile as Jenk and Misha moved up to shadow him. Baas left them to it, content to walk along the edges. “The plains out in the distance there,” the man pointed at the place they looked, “that is the Eastern Sea. There was a time when it was not so cold as it is now. When I was a boy, the Bright Days would thaw the place enough to bring those veins to life. It was like a land of white islands stretching far as the eye could see. Now, it’s frozen through.”
“How deep?” Jenk asked, sounding nervous.
“Don’t worry, Ember,” the man said. “Even with your heat, you’ll not risk falling through until we’re well beyond the palace, where the waves stand tall as small mountains.”
“Palace …” Misha said, sounding dubious.
The man shrugged. “Been there far longer than any of us. Less crowded than it was a few years back. Far less than a few centuries ago.”
Kole shook his head and saw his companions display similar looks. No matter how strange, full and twisted the lands of Center were, they were wilds, and all lands had them. But to hear talk of palaces and crystal towers, frozen seas and armored knights … it seemed as if the truth of the wider World outstripped even the most fanciful of Doh’Rah’s tales. And yet, as Kole searched from north to east and south, he saw little but for the glittering, rolling flats. Whatever majesty had ruled these lands once upon a time, it was little more than a pale shadow now.
He wondered if this queen was more of the same, or if she truly was someone worth championing as these storybook knights did; as these rough men and women clad in furs did.
What Kole at first took for a trick of the clouds and sky in the north eventually resolved into mountains like those they had left behind. They broke up the space from white to blue with slate gray, springing up from the earth like the fangs of a silver lion. They were taller and more violent in the center before tumbling farther east, where the land dropped away to a series of dips and eddies that might have been the waves their guide spoke of. And at the easternmost tip of the range was a light that shone like the brightest moon in the midst of day. Kole had to shield his eyes to look upon it, and motioned for Linn to as well. She came away wincing and looked askance at the cloaked man.
He only nodded, and the smile he wore seemed proud before Kole caught a bit of tightness beneath it.
“The jewel of the east,” he said.
“What is your name?” Kole asked, and the man inclined his head. His beard was frosted more with ice than the snow of age. He was younger than Kole had at first thought.
“Fen,” the man said. It was a soft-sounding name given the gruff exterior. Fen shrugged and looked ahead, his pale eyes shifting quickly over the armored knights, who pretended to look to the borders of the company while their eyes sought out the Landkist at their backs, or the hound behind their knees. “Short for Fennick,” he added, as if that made it better. Kole laughed and Fen joined him in the effort. “How much is in a name, truly?” he asked. “Not a name for a hero, perhaps. But maybe for the friend of one.”
“Got any of those here?” Misha asked, her tone showing what she thought of it. Fen’s face went tight, and the smile that came to it on a delay was forced. He didn’t answer.
Kole looked beyond him, trying to find the glittering palace in the north, but the land was deceptive, pitching and rolling like a ship at sea. It was temporarily lost to his sight. He would have continued to search for the place, but there was a nearer sight that came up unbidden.
“What is that?”
“The Quartz Tower,” Fen said.
The white plains dropped away into a shallow valley where the first blue veins began to break up the land, and at the bottom a single spire rose like a statement. The base seemed made of white stone that had been polished by wind and weather more than human hands. It was irregular and seemingly natural. The body was cut sheer, with sharp edges angling southeast and northeast. At the top, the spire rose to a split fork, two knife’s edges with a clutch of watchers standing in the center. Kole could see the glint of silver as an eyeglass was turned their way.
The Blue Knights did not slow as they started down into the basin, but Kole, Linn, Misha, Jenk and Baas Taldis did, and Fen and his soldiers—natives to this great land, Kole guessed—watched them as they admired the carven spear.
“They say the whole coast used to be made up of them,” Fen said, pointing beyond the tower to where the land stretched and stretched before disappearing over another rise. “The Quartz Towers of the Eastern Sea, and with the Blue Knights guarding each and every one against the soldiers of Balon Rael.”
Kole winced at the name and eyed Linn, who swallowed.
“Ah, yes,” Fennick said as his company started down, the sleds scraping as the sun had turned the hill on which they stood into a mound of melt and slush that would freeze when night fell once more. “You fought with him.” Kole nodded. “And his great brutes with their borrowed strength?” Another nod.
“Were there more of you, when you fought him?” Fennick said it without expectation, looking them over.
“We were joined by Maro of the Emerald Road,” Linn said. “And his Willows.”
The terms seemed to spark only the vaguest sort of recognition in Fennick. “Despite the demeanor of my fellows,” he nodded down at the mix of golden armor and fur-lined cloaks, “we would thank you for disposing of that one. We’ve faced down his legions only once in my time, and more in the time of my father. Long has he held a grudge against our queen,
even though our lands are empty as they’ve ever been. Most live within the mountain’s walls these days.”
“Why is that?” Jenk asked.
Fennick turned to regard him. “The cold,” the man said simply. “It isn’t a thing for life and love. It kills and displays its trophies for passers-by. Often, the bodies here are too hard-frozen for even bears to get much out of.”
He paused. “There is soil beneath this mess,” he said, pushing some of the snow aside to reveal more beneath. It was hard-packed and Kole thought it unlikely it would thaw anytime soon. “But the years have grown colder and the sea closer. It moves beneath the ice, crushing the land with each passing year and growing harder and more permanent during the Dark Months. The queen says it is a cycle, and one she has seen before—that, one day, the green you saw below the shelves to the west will return to the highlands once more, and the frozen waves will take back their motion and crash against this tower again.”
“And what do you say?”
Kole turned, surprised to see Baas staring unblinking at the man, who looked unsteady under that gray gaze. Kole looked askance at him, but the Riverman was never one to mince words. “You said your queen claimed it. What about you?”
Fennick swallowed and glanced down at the clutch of soldiers below the slope. The great, golden brute known as Tundra had removed his jewel-encrusted helm and stared up at them with unconcealed suspicion. His eyes, even from a distance, were darker than the others, without the same gold and brown specks within the amber.
“The war has been difficult on all of us,” Fennick said, choosing his words carefully. “In all lands, I’m sure.”
“The War of Sages, you mean,” Linn said and Fennick nodded. “That may be so, Commander, but for us, the true war is one we’ve been fighting since we were old enough to bear arms. Younger, even.” He frowned at her. “The war against the night, and the things it brings with it.”
“An effect of the same,” Kole said before he had given thought to speak. Linn only stared at him. He thought she gave the slightest nod, but it seemed more a dismissal than a confirmation. Fennick looked from one to the other as Shifa slid between them, losing her footing in the melt. She began to complain and dodged Kole’s attempts to reach for her.
The Frostfire Sage Page 22