The Frostfire Sage

by Steven Kelliher

  “You will come to my chambers tonight,” Rain said. She did not ask. “I would tell you to come now, but I have other matters to attend. Contracts to see to. Meaningless promises to collect. Besides, I know your direction even if you don’t. It’ll be good for you to see it again. Memory can be dangerous for some, Talmir, but for you, it’s something you leave alone far too long.”

  She left him wanting, as was her way, and even as his heart ached and his blood yearned for her touch, he stayed rooted and thought on her words as the sun sank a bit lower in the evening sky.

  Talmir adjusted his belt and felt the weight of his sword in its scabbard slap against his outer thigh. He turned and strode toward the quiet eastern streets with purpose. He turned down a shadowed way that was bisected with pillars of orange dusklight that shrank even as he walked along, feeling the warmth of each gap between houses as it brushed against the skin of his face, neck and hand.

  He turned left at a wider intersection and saw the cobbles more worn in that direction. Candles burned in the windows of the buildings framing either side of the road, but straight ahead, there was a dark brown timber gate whose latch had long since rusted away. He walked toward it, remembering the stones when they had still been new, when the tops of them had been swept clean by he and the other boys and girls, the mossy gaps between them clean as new, though the tops were smooth enough to appear polished. He stood before the gate and reached for the rusted latch, which was emblazoned in the shape of an Ember’s brazier, its knocker a hunk of bronze with fiery ridges.

  A scraping sound behind, like leaves blowing across the cobbles, and Talmir whirled from the spot, hand going to his black and silver hilt, though it was likely a stray cat.

  There was no cat in the roadway, Talmir saw. He squinted in the glare of a sun that still fought on, stubbornly clinging to its stretch of sky, though it was weaker than it had been before as the trees of the western woods attempted to choke and smother it.

  “You may as well come out,” Talmir said, straightening.

  He expected the mousy-haired youth who stepped into the middle of the road, looking embarrassed and defiant all at once. He did not expect to hear the bark of laughter, like a bear having been told the grandest of riddles, as Garos Balsheer followed him. The brute wore his street clothes in the place of his usual armor—a red shirt that made his trimmed beard and recently-chopped hair stand out starkly, almost as stark as Tu’Ren Kadeh. The muscles of his dark, barrel chest stood out between the stretching threads as he heaved in another breath to continue his assault of mirth, and his tree trunk legs bent as he threatened to topple over.

  “Quiet, for a lumbering oaf,” Talmir said, only slightly more amused than he let on.

  If Garos could turn red, he might’ve matched the hue of his shirt. As it was, Jakub did his best to make up for the First Keeper.

  “Come, then,” Talmir said. He turned and bent to his previous task with fresh gusto, snatching the screeching handle and pulling the gate open with a sharp tug. The sounds of splintering preceded the protesting of unoiled hinges, and Talmir stepped through the gap onto a flat expanse of ground with patches of dusty grass interspersed throughout.

  He walked forward and breathed in a deep, steadying breath as he took it all in. The roughly circular patch of ground was built like a small arena, bordered on all sides by a sheer stone wall the Rivermen had helped them put up shortly after the Valley Wars had ended. There were vines and creepers spilling down over the gray face of the rock on all sides, and thickets directly east, where the darker, more twisted trees of the Faey realm came up against the shortest section of Hearth’s walls. No enemy would come from this direction—could come from this direction in any number—unless it was the Faey themselves.

  Below the top of the wall and above the patchy ground, standing at about twice the height of a man, were wooden benches set into rows of three. They had once been painted a bloody red that stood out strikingly clear in the afternoon sun, and now looked like poison or flaking bark in the quitting light of dusk.

  Talmir saw his profile outlined, sword and all, in the rectangular beam of light that came in from the open gate, and as he watched, two more shadows joined him.

  “Our old training grounds, lad,” Garos said, and Talmir saw one shadow pat the other on the back hard enough to send him stumbling. “The place where I embarrassed Captain Caru more times than I can count.”

  “And I did the same to you only once,” Talmir said, smiling wistfully. Garos barked one of his throaty laughs, but there was a hint of sorrow in it.

  “Aye,” the Ember said. “Aye. That you did.”

  Jakub cleared his throat and Talmir turned around, examining the boy as he stood on the edge of the yard. Garos put his hands on his hips and gave Talmir a look before turning his attention back on Jakub.

  “Well, then,” Garos said. “What is it, boy?”

  “Nothing,” Jakub said too quickly. Both men stared hard and he broke quick enough. “It’s just, I think I must have heard wrong.”

  Talmir raised his eyebrows and Garos smiled broadly.

  “On what account?” Garos asked. “Spit it out.”

  “I am to believe Captain Talmir bested you in combat?” Jakub said, staring wildly at Garos while he jabbed a finger at Talmir. “A regular swordsman against the First Keeper of Hearth?”

  “I wasn’t First Keeper at the time, lad,” Garos said. “That honor belonged to Vennil Cross.” Both Garos and Talmir held a hand over their hearts and dipped a bow to her memory, much as they had hated her in life. Much as Talmir did. “And besides, it wasn’t combat, per se, but sparring. This is the sparring yard, after all.”

  “Wasn’t too far away from combat,” Talmir said. “Tensions being what they were. I seem to recall a bit of your fire making it into the duel.”

  Garos smirked and shrugged it off. “You’ve your swordsman’s tricks,” he said. “I’ve my fire. What’s a poor Ember to do?”

  “What indeed,” Talmir said. His eyes traced from Garos to the space of stone wall the open gate now blocked. Garos followed his gaze and his expression dropped some of its mirth.

  “Boy,” the First Keeper barked. “Drag that gate away from the wall.”

  Jakub didn’t need to be told twice. Perhaps Talmir had been too soft with him, or perhaps a regular swordsman—as Jakub had called him—could never inspire the same sort of quick loyalty as one of the Landkist.

  The boy gripped the timber of the gate, set his feet and put his back into the two-armed pull. The gate lurched back toward the center of the yard, and the hinges complained less this time. The sliver of dusklight shrank to a narrow beam that separated Talmir from Garos. Jakub straightened and examined the section of wall the door had been blocking from view. The training armory was even smaller and more threadbare than Talmir had remembered. Wooden blades—sharp enough to cut but dull enough to make killing a difficult thing—were set into rusted caches or leaned against narrow staffs and double-sided axes with flattened edges. The wood had been dyed black to recall Everwood, though it could never be mistaken for the same, and though the whole of the depression was covered with cobwebs and dust, it did nothing to slow the flood of memories that assailed Talmir with such a wave of emotion his legs shook.

  Though he was older than Talmir by a few years, the effect seemed to be the same for Garos. The Ember stepped around Jakub and patted the boy on the shoulder. He went to the shelves and tested a few of the wooden weapons, laughing to himself privately as he tested their weight. He settled on a staff, one that was too tall to be set into the caches and instead rested against the wall.

  “That one yours?” Talmir asked, watching him.

  “Can’t see how it could belong to any other.” Garos was not a particularly tall man, standing about the same height as Talmir, but he was strong as an ox and his Ember blood made him fast as a wolf. He needed weight
in his weapons—even in youth—that Talmir could never wield.

  “Jakub,” Talmir said, nodding at the boy. “Fetch me a blade.”

  “Which one?” Jakub asked, his eyes wide and wild, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He sprang toward the threadbare armory as if Talmir had bestowed upon him a sacred task, his hands roving over the carved pommels of the wooden swords, axes and scythes.

  “Your choice.” Talmir smirked at Garos, who had already moved away from the wall. The keeper practiced easy swings as he floated toward the center of the yard, and as the light came closer to leaving them, Talmir saw his eyes beginning to smolder with a bit of the sunset they were drenched in.

  Talmir felt wood in his hand as Jakub set a sword into it. He undid the clip and buckle and pulled his sword belt off, handing it to the boy, who clutched it to his chest and stepped backward as if in a dream.

  “You will decide the winner,” Talmir said without turning to him.

  “How will I know?” Jakub asked, nervous and excited.

  “Oh,” Garos said, “I think you’ll know.”

  They circled one another like a black tiger of Center and a silver lion of the Untamed Hills, the narrowing band of amber light in the center of the yard the only illusion of separation between them. Talmir often heard other warriors talk about the thrill as something that started at their temples or their chest. For him, it was always the fingers. A tingling sensation, like the electricity that preceded a humid summer storm. His legs felt weighty. They always did before a fight, but he knew enough of himself now to know that they would lighten soon enough. His arms felt weak, but he knew their strength, just as he knew that of the man standing before him.

  Or thought he did.

  The sun began its final descent, and the narrow strip of dusk cleaving the yard in two shrank to a spear tip. When it slid lower, racing toward the west and retreating into the gap left by the open gate, Garos launched himself forward with an exhale that worked as a battle cry.

  Talmir shifted with the momentum of Garos’s charge and turned his back foot. He raised his wooden sword in an uphand block, but something in the way Garos’s eyes bulged and the veins stood out on his forearms made Talmir flinch. At the last instant, he twirled away from the almost-clash, angling his sword down to redirect Garos’s overhand swing as he circled out. The blow might have been glancing, but it nearly jarred the blade loose from Talmir’s hand.

  And then there was that speed.

  Talmir was fast. Perhaps the fastest sword in the south, but though Garos would not bring his flames to bear in a spar, there was no stopping that which was in his blood, that which boiled from his heart and poured into every cord and sinew in that barrel torso and those engorged limbs. He turned his staff into a sidehand swipe and Talmir turned that away too, along with the next salvo the Ember launched at him.

  Fighting was all in the feet. That’s what First Keeper Vennil Cross had always said, and so her two brightest students had taken it to heart—the one who had earned her attention before a single deed had been done and the one who had earned it slow, over years and through trials beyond count, until, when he finally had it, he found that he did not care for it any longer. Garos’s great black boots rose and fell, shuffled and shifted, but they did not carry the weight one might expect. Talmir stepped back, angled, redirected. If Jakub were paying attention to the right things, he would be looking at the way their feet moved about each other, judging the momentum of the duel by who occupied whose space and when, how often the one advanced and the other backed away, but more so, which pair of boots moved first and which second.

  It was always said that Talmir Caru had the best feet beneath the best sword in the Valley. Talmir was a humble man at heart, but he was also an honest one, and what they said was true. He moved so sudden and swift that Garos was caught off-balance early on. Only a quick flare of that Ember blood and an unnaturally quick parry with that weighty staff turned Talmir’s training sword aside. Still, when it came to movement, to action and reaction, Larren Holspahr had been the best Talmir had ever seen. He had always regretted not being able to meet that one on the field or in the training yard. He supposed he wouldn’t have stood much of a chance.

  Still. By all rights, he shouldn’t be matching the First Keeper of Hearth blow-for-blow as he was.

  “Gah!” Garos grunted. If Talmir had done the same, they’d have known the Ember’s victory was close at hand. Talmir was a silent fighter. Silent as a scorpion, Vennil had always said. Garos was not. When he got going and when his blood was up, Balsheer was throaty and booming, at turns joyous and full of rage.

  In a word, they were both, each in his own way, exultant.

  Talmir caught a glimpse of Jakub’s dark eyes as he stepped to his right, circling with his back to the eastern wall. Garos stopped circling and stood to face him, his whole form outlined in the final mix of purple and amber that marked the day’s inevitable loss to the coming night. The glance nearly cost Talmir his consciousness, as Garos used the last glare of the sun to disguise his positioning. He slid his feet forward as Talmir looked away and then lunged without swiping or carving or swinging. Instead, he jabbed with a blunt stab and Talmir sucked in his gut and spread his arms out wide as if balancing on a beam as he dodged backward.

  Garos smiled, white-toothed and raw as he followed his strike in. He pulled the staff back and Talmir followed its path as the Ember spun in. Instead of another jab, which Talmir was prepared to counter, Garos disguised his true intent and led with the shoulder, catching Talmir on his chest and shoulder and turning him aside like a blown leaf in the wind.

  Talmir let out a wheeze as he turned, but used the momentum to switch his blade from right hand to left. He pivoted on his left foot and launched into a spin of his own, twirling like a dancer as he caught Garos on the flat of his back with the flat of his blade with enough force to send him stumbling.

  He darted in after him, and Garos’s eyes revealed more white than amber-brown as he turned aside a stab with expert precision, bending his right leg as he took his staff fully into his left hand and went for an uppercut with the empty right. But Talmir knew the technique and used his blade’s miss to bring him in close. He turned his hands over and stepped behind Garos, whipping his left elbow forward and up and catching the Ember on the chin. Garos grunted and spat pink spittle and Talmir winced, wondering if he had cracked a tooth, but when the two finished the exchange and spun to face one another once more, he saw that Garos was grinning broadly.

  The yard was drenched in cool blue shadows, with only the palest yellow light illuminating the clouds over the western wood like a lantern or a pale flower at dawn. Garos was sweating, and as his chest heaved, Talmir noted his shirt clinging to his back and chest. He felt the Bronze Star thrumming with that strange, latent energy and saw Garos’s eyes flicker down toward it, his grin freezing for a moment as he frowned in confusion.

  “Don’t ask me,” Talmir said before leaping in again.

  The sounds of wood clashing against wood increased in tempo and in effect. The circular expanse of the training yard magnified the sounds, sending them out so that all those without the Red Bowl must hear. They parried and struck, heaved and pulled, stabbed and ducked and swiped, turning what had seemed an expansive and daunting domain in youth to a private arena that took Talmir back.

  He remembered that fateful day beneath a high summer sun. Remembered the way the storm clouds had rolled in, patching the yard in shadows when it was still more green than muddy brown. He remembered the way the rain sounded like an egg in a frying pan when it fell down and coated Garos’s bare chest, shoulders and back, and how the Ember had soon appeared to wear a cloak made out of mist. He could not grow a beard at that time, and his hair was long and blacker than river stones, tied back in a tail behind him.

  Talmir had never been one to show fear, and he didn’t that day, standing before t
he Ember who was the great hope of the Emberfolk of the Valley. The one who would rise up and put the Rivermen in their place. The one who would lead them into the Eastern Wood to find the singers and charlatans crouching beneath the trees, working their spells and fell magics, and who would burn them out. Talmir had not shown fear that day, nor in any of the days that followed when greater men and women than him had feared and feared plain for all to see, but he had felt it.

  Now, he felt only a thrill as more and more of Garos’s heat rose to replace the lost presence of the sun. It felt as if he were teasing it out, little by little, kernel by glowing coal, like a hunter smoking out a hare.

  Talmir leapt up and then landed and delayed his strike, causing Garos to misjudge his footing. He cut when Garos thought he might stab, and tore a gash through the Ember’s shirt. He earned a bruising bash on the shoulder but took it well, and his next overhand chop cause a splintering sound as it bit into the dusty wood of Garos’s staff. The Ember tried to pull the sword away, but Talmir pushed down sharply on the hilt, freeing it from its hold. He sank back into a low stance, sword pointed overhead, lead hand out like a spear toward his opponent, and Garos began to pace.

  The Ember’s path was short, and though he turned as he walked back and forth, Talmir knew better than to attack him. It was bait, carefully laid and cleverly disguised, and he would not take it.

  A shock of white at the edges of Garos’s eyes to match his beard and Talmir swung his sword down and across to meet the spinning staff. His sword shattered into a hail of splinters, one of which sliced his forearm. Another stuck into his collar as he rolled away. He came up on one knee, weaponless, and jutted a hand out toward the gate where Jakub stood as Garos recovered his lost momentum and turned back in.

  “Jakub!” Talmir shouted as if they were in the heat of battle, life and death, and not a simple evening spar.

  Just as all the best did. Just as all the worst.

  He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and spared a half glance as Jakub pried another training sword loose from its catch and sent it end over end toward Talmir. He caught it, rotated on his heels and stayed low as he turned Garos’s next strike aside. He squatted, stomping forward like a cat as he rapped both sides of Garos’s lead knee, earning grunts of pain that sounded like the sweetest music to his trained ears.