The Frostfire Sage

by Steven Kelliher

  “Who are you using, Valour?” the queen spat. She pointed at the blue creature, who dipped a bow.

  “I am Myriel.” She indicated her sickly companion. “This is Martyr.”

  “Names to trust,” Misha quipped. She leaned toward Linn. “Are we on the Witch’s side, or the embodiment of the worst evil our people have ever known? The one who would have taken every Ember child and lined them at his door, if only to delay the coming of the night?”

  The Eastern Dark’s eyes locked on the Third Keeper of Hearth. “Those days are distant, now. Plans I set when I could not bring my fellows to heel. When I could not get them to come together—”

  Elanil laughed a wicked, maniacal laugh. “Lie, Valour. Lie, lie, as you have always done. You were going to use the Embers, as you have always used your tools. To save yourself. To keep you going. To endure the darkness you called in the first place.”

  “I made them strong,” he said. “In that Valley of theirs. I made them bright and bold and terrible to behold to the denizens of the realm you would call to bring back a fallen lov—”

  “That you did,” Misha said, stepping forward, spear held out horizontally before her. “We’ve grown up on stories of you. Wicked stories. Things to make us scared in the nights even when the Dark Kind weren’t enough. I’ve thought of killing you a thousand times. I’ve thought of burning you away, watching your ashes drift on the winds.”

  “You are on the wrong side, bright one,” the one known as Myriel said, her voice a warning. “In this, you are wrong.”

  The Eastern Dark eyed her, unmoving.

  “Bright and bold are busy elsewhere.” Misha ignited her spear. It crackled red from haft to tip. “Call me ‘Terrible.’”

  There was a pregnant pause as the split companies eyed the Ember, judging her intent and her resolve. Linn had no doubt of both. She inched backward and raised her bow in front of her chest, trying to keep Baas and his shield’s bulk in front of her, more as a ward from their probing eyes than for the protection it afforded.

  Tundra stepped in front of Queen Elanil, the air around his golden greaves shimmering as he formed today’s weapons of choice: twin discs with shining sharpened edges. Tundra gripped them on natural handles his fingers made in their backs. His face took on a sheen that stung to look upon as he coated his form with that near-impregnable armor. It seemed he was the only one who could change the ice to his will. Perhaps their lost captain could have, but she was gone.

  As Linn hoped, Misha set her spear into a slow spin. The flames shifted and danced as the speed picked up, and then they began to whip and gutter as Linn closed her eyes and focused on the air around them, calling more of the icy wind.

  “So be it.”

  Linn opened her eyes as she heard the words escape the Eastern Dark’s mouth.

  There was a crash that rattled their jaws and made their knees shake as the ground shifted beneath them. Linn thought it might have been Baas, until she remembered that there was no earth below their feet. It could have been the Frostfire Sage, but Elanil had not moved, nor raised a hand in threat. All nine pairs of eyes shifted to the east, and there, Linn saw a plume of white smoke with orange motes rising from another trench farther along. There was another crash, this one lighter, its source farther away, and the smoke from the blast came up farther still, so that the others had to squint against the day’s glare to see it.

  Kole and Jenk had found the allies of the Eastern Dark, then. Linn’s heart quickened, and then caught.

  “Back!” Baas screamed, and Linn frowned in confusion as Misha raised her spinning spear above her head. Linn followed the direction of the Riverman’s gaze, and the shield he raised like a ward against the sky itself.

  Linn saw the one known as Myriel too late. She had leapt skyward, impossibly high. Higher than an Ember. Near as high as Linn could soar. She came down like a lightning strike, pounding the ice, and the impact of her landing caused an explosion that turned all of the elements Linn and Misha had gathered into a chaotic and deadly torrent. Myriel glowed blue as she struck, forming a crater whose impact blasted Misha’s fire back toward Linn. Linn panicked and tossed her bow aside, smashed her palms together before her and unleashed the wind that was under her command. The blast hit Misha’s flames and stoked them higher, blowing them white-hot as they climbed up and fanned out.

  After the flames died around her—some still clinging bitterly to debris mortal fire would not have been able to ignite—Linn found Myriel staring at her from her crouch in the shallow pit. She bared her fangs, her red eyes turned white. Her skin, which had been blue, now glowed and sparked like lightning, bolts jumping from the tips of her splayed fingers and dancing across the loose shards in her jagged bowl.

  Misha slid to the right, away from the crater the stranger had made. She came dangerously close to the edge of the gap, but managed to keep hold of her spear as she tottered on the edge. Linn saw loose ice spill like dislodged gravel into the chasm and wondered how far it went. Embers were strong and Rockbled doubly so, but the fall might be deadly for either of them if it went far enough.

  Baas raised his shield just in time to escape the bulk of the blast, but even he went tumbling back. He rolled head over heels and landed with his feet under him, one hand flat on the salt. Myriel chose him.

  “Baas! Up!”

  Linn raised her right arm over her head, palm up, and flexed her core, feeling the wind rebel as she tried to call it too quickly. By the time she had summoned a roiling ball of icy air and salted shards above her head, Myriel was already moving. Linn shot her hand down and blasted the place where she’d been, but she was fast, streaking away like the light she commanded.

  Misha shot past her in pursuit, the flames along the length of her spear guttering as she passed through the trailing vapors Linn’s torrent left in its wake. Linn winced at the coming collision as Baas set his feet and brought his shield in front of his chest, bracing for the impact. Misha was fast, but there was no catching the blue streak that was Myriel.

  As the fierce, glowing warrior neared the Riverman, she slid to a halt just before him and leapt. Baas was quicker, though. He spun as she flipped in the air, head down, and came down on the other side on one foot and one knee. When she lanced her sparking fist forward, Baas had his shield around. The meeting produced a concussive blast that made pops in the air, as if the very atmosphere had been stung by invisible wasps. Baas was ready this time, yet still he slid back, off balance.

  Myriel was not done. Instead, she launched a series of punches and kicks, each one cracking against that great, weighty shield, no doubt scoring it, as Linn could see bits of gray stone breaking off and flying through the air. A kick landed on the Riverman’s midsection. He grunted and fell to one knee and Linn sprinted and snatched up her bow. She ensnared the wind that passed her by, whipping her hair back and stinging her eyes, and forced it to trail her like a cloak.

  Misha got there first. The Ember leapt up over the unbalanced Baas and came down with a slash that split the ice where Myriel was. The red-eyed beast slid to the side, narrowly dodging a cone of flame that scorched a melted trail that raced halfway back toward the crystal palace before it died against the underside of a mountainous frozen wave.

  The Ember recovered with impressive speed, her flaming spear arcing across her body to cover her center, where Myriel had been closing in. As the blue demon—and it was a demon, no creature of the world they knew—slid once more, Baas’s shield nearly flattened her in place. She dodged that, too, and on it went, Misha’s crescents of orange flame corralling while Baas’s shield defended them both.

  Linn sank to one knee, bow angled before her. She breathed in, scenting the ash and smoke from the clash. She had nearly forgotten the others before she heard a scream. She looked toward the Sages and found them standing in much the same positions they had been, with Elanil and Ray Valour standing on opposite sid
es of the breach, eyes locked and dispositions difficult to read.

  Behind the queen, Tundra stood, chest heaving, blue-white discs held out to his sides. The green-skinned and bone-covered one known as Martyr stood before him. Linn saw red blood running down his legs. The knobs of bone that had jutted from the caps of his knees had been ripped away. The ice was covered in red, but he seemed unbothered. And then she saw the bone-handled blades he clutched. The handles were white—the missing pieces he had pulled from his own body—while the blades were short and black and sticky.

  Behind Tundra, Gwenithil struggled to stand. She was on her back, one conjured shard at her side. As she rose to a sitting position, she brought a hand up in front of her eyes. Linn saw blood on the back of it, but the cut on her arm seemed small.

  “Up, Gwen,” Tundra rumbled as Martyr began to pace in front of him. “Together.”

  Gwenithil tried. She gained her feet and fell again, and Martyr’s face broke into a toothy lion’s grin.

  “Poison,” Linn whispered.

  Martyr charged in and Tundra met him with all the ferocity Linn would have expected. His lead shield cracked the surface of the ice as his follow-through nearly took the demon’s head from his shoulders. Martyr slid on his knees, passing under the blow and spun as he did. He brought one black knife around and slammed it in against the side of Tundra’s knee, but his wrist twisted, hand turning as the armor Tundra called turned the weapon aside.

  Linn saw the film flash and shimmer as Martyr’s blade struck, and Tundra roared as if in pain, twisting around and swiping. He looked like a bull trying to flatten a mouse. He was strong and durable, and his armor was true, but Linn got the impression that it was Tundra who was being hunted as Martyr came up and set to circling once more.

  “Gah!”

  The sound brought Linn’s attention back to her friends. Misha was staggering back, her spear going wide as she clutched her armored chest with one hand. Linn could see blue sparks dancing down between the open ridges, and the Ember’s teeth were gritted against the pain. Myriel angled in for another blow, but Baas shouldered into her from behind, sending her down in a spill.

  Linn thought she might regret the choice, but the others seemed to be in direr straits. She pushed a blast of wind down, allowing it to sweep the dusted salt around her. She stopped it from running too far and set it to spin, breathing out and making herself lighter. She thought of being weightless, like a leaf drifting on the wind, and began to rise. She pushed harder and flew, twisted in the air and angled herself so she was looking down at the fight between Tundra and Martyr. She saw the green demon dodging the Blue Knight’s discs with ease. Saw Tundra’s armor flashing and fading with each blow he received between the chinks of his golden, jeweled armor.

  She angled her bow to the east, exhaled hard and shot the better part of her buoying wind toward the other side of the gap where the Eastern Dark stood. He didn’t so much as look in her direction, just raised a hand and called up a dark flame, black and red that mixed like oil. As the comet of frost and salt struck the sprouting nugget of shadowfire, the shelf exploded, the area where the Sage had stood reduced to a crumbling wall of ice.

  Linn began to fall faster and called up more wind from above, sending it down below her to ease her fall. She landed on the ice and slid a short distance, watching the billowing smoke. Queen Elanil stared as well, unmoving. She did not raise a victory cheer, nor did she lament.

  When the smoke cleared, the Eastern Dark was standing just a few feet back from where he had been. Linn had inconvenienced him, but she was already forgotten to him. His focus was back on his true enemy. His true prey.

  Tundra and Martyr struck and parried to her left, while Gwenithil crawled toward her just ahead. Linn went to her.

  “Can you fight?”

  Gwenithil opened her mouth to speak, but nothing but thick blood came out. She rolled onto her back as Linn cradled her head, looking toward Tundra. Another blow struck, Martyr’s knife making a thin crack on the back of the Blue Knight’s arm.

  “He needs me,” Linn said. “He won’t survive long.” She looked down at Gwenithil, who was pointing skyward.

  Linn’s heart quickened as she looked up, half expecting to see a shadow in the shape of Myriel hurtling down toward her. Instead, she saw nothing, just a sky that had grown slightly dimmer than before as the sun raced to rid them of its warmth and grace.

  “What is it?”

  Gwenithil’s golden eyes flashed with an inner light, and Linn heard a cracking sound in the ice around them. She twisted around, seeing Baas and Misha facing off with the sparking blue beast that had them whirling in a furious attempt to keep her at bay.

  Still the cracking continued, and a shape flew up in front of Linn’s face. She winced and then looked up. It was an icy shard, sharp on both sides, spinning in a slow circle above them. She looked down at Gwenithil and saw that she had pressed the backs of her hands to the ice. All around them, javelins of varying shapes and sizes—all of them sharp and glinting—pried themselves free of the ice or else grew like water in the Blue Knight’s open palms. They froze as they elongated, and then those, too, flew up and hovered.

  After a short while, there were a hundred or more shafts and shards twirling above them, casting shadows like crows.

  Gwenithil shifted her eyes to Linn and tried to choke something out, but nothing came. She turned her head toward the fight between Tundra and Martyr, and Linn thought she understood.

  She stood, stepped back until she had a full view of the shaking, hovering shafts. Martyr had yet to notice. He was too busy toying with the brute that was Tundra, dodging his futile strikes and weakening his armor with each successive blow.

  Linn breathed in, filling her breast with the refreshing cold. She dropped her bow and reached up with both hands, feeling the wind slide through her fingers. She pulled it, watching the icy shards of Nevermelt shiver as the current passed through them and gathered around them. She concentrated on the pockets between the shards, forming roiling currents. She couldn’t see them but for the faint trails of dusted salt and frost they carried, but she could feel them, like tendrils, like a dozen arms reaching out from her consciousness.

  Each time she reached into the sky in an attempt to try something new, it worked. The White Crest had given her a mighty gift. Command of the skies. Command of the storms that split them apart. Her heart hammered in her chest. She was holding the currents too long.

  Gwenithil was shaking, the effort of keeping her blades aloft seeming to tax her more than Linn could know.

  Linn saw Martyr dancing out of range, wiping a red sash of blood from his brow as the heaving, exhausted Tundra managed to land a blow. The Blue Knight’s skin shimmered like fresh melt … and then went dry.

  Martyr smiled, and Linn might have as well.

  She felt a wash of heat on her back as Misha let out a roar and sent another blaze at Myriel, and Linn brought her arms down in a slash. There was a moment’s delay, the spinning shards seeming to hesitate. Then the pockets of spinning wind between the shafts gathered them up and sent them screaming down toward the dark-eyed demon.

  He was nimble, his eyes widening as he danced between them. His smile turned to a fierce grin, but Linn could see the fear in his eyes. One shard nearly split him in two. He didn’t scream as he dodged the bulk of it, but his arm hung bloody. He dove and rolled to miss the rest. Gwenithil’s shafts were all spent. They littered the field like glittering pillars, and Linn’s wind howled between them like chimes.

  When Martyr came up clutching his bloody shoulder, one blade still clenched in his dark fist, his look of victory quickly changed to horror as a shadow fell over him.

  Tundra did not hesitate. He reached out, deceptively fast, his great, bunching blue muscles shifting over the solid bones beneath. He slammed his palm into Martyr’s throat so hard the demon lost his knife. He kicked
and gurgled as Tundra lifted him, brought him close to his sweating face, grinned a savage grin of his own, and set to squeezing.

  Linn grimaced as the soft crack echoed over the shelf. Martyr died, his arms going limp, blood already drying into a paste as the northern wind rushed in to cool it. The Blue Knight dropped his lifeless form, turned without offering so much as a backward glance at Linn or Gwenithil, and stalked toward the Sages’ private and silent exchange. Plumes of steam issued from Tundra’s open maw. Linn saw a thin trickle of blood on the back of his arm. Martyr had scored a hit after all, but Tundra did not drop. His eyes changed, going from golden to black, and the Eastern Dark broke his stare from the queen and took in his approach.

  He shook his head. “You have imbued your champions,” he said.

  “Just the one,” she said. “Tundra is most loyal.”

  “You’re even more foolish than I thought,” Valour said. “The power of the World Apart cannot be contained forever. It cannot be controlled. It most certainly cannot be mixed with the blood of our own. Not even the Landkist.”

  “What of your Shadow?”

  Linn watched for Valour’s reaction. She hadn’t thought of the Shadow creature they had first seen in the White Crest’s citadel, and had later fought amidst the golden, dusklit pools of Center. She looked out over the cracked shelves to the east, eyes scanning for unwanted visitors, reinforcements. Or for the welcome sight of Kole, Jenk and Shifa come back to them having driven them off.

  Perhaps there had been more than they thought. As it was, Linn thought things were going rather well here. As well as could be expected.

  The Eastern Dark swallowed. “We all make our mistakes.”

  “Tundra,” Linn said. The brute did not look at her. “Tundra! Gwenithil is hurt. Your companion needs help.”

  Still nothing.