Winter of Ice and Iron

by Rachel Neumeier

  It was a terrible ability. Just how similar it might be to what the King of Sierè had done . . . he really did not know. But it was certainly just the kind of thing an ambitious king might do.

  He had tried not to disturb the Eilin Immanent. He hoped Raëhemaiëth had not disturbed it. But he knew possibly the disaster in Sierè had begun very much this way.

  This was why no one was supposed to experiment with establishing different kinds of bonds between one Immanent and another. Nor with creating new Immanences in empty lands where none had yet formed naturally. Because no one knew exactly when ambition and audacity might lead to calamity. The ordinary bonds between a Great Power and a lesser . . . yes, that kind of bond could become Unfortunate. But everyone knew the limits of that kind of bond, either way.

  Tiro did not know where the limits of this new kind of bond between Raëh and Eilin might lie. Far less what would come of this new notion of his, based on what he’d done at Eilin, but . . . different. No one knew.

  So he would try this mad stratagem with Raëhemaiëth. It was mad. But Tiro was, amazingly enough and in defiance of all good sense, King of Harivir. He hadn’t wanted the ruling tie. He didn’t want it, but he held it and he was going to do what he had to, anything he had to, to make sure that whoever got the tie after him, it wasn’t any mad foreign king. Or, worse, any mad foreign Immanent Power that was right on the edge of tearing itself free of the earth and becoming a God.

  That was why Tiro had left Harivir proper, crossed the Imhar, and come to Talisè.

  He hadn’t wanted to try this with Talisè specifically. But he hadn’t been inclined to try anything so risky in a Harivin town, not the first time at least, and Enmon Corvallis had been all in favor of beginning with an Emmeran town. Corvallis had suggested Talisè. It seemed a fitting town for this experiment, this Emmeran town that lay directly across the Imhar from Cemerè, where everything had started.

  That wasn’t quite true, of course. But for Tiro and Kehera and their father, it had all seemed to start in Cemerè. The destruction of Cemerè’s Immanent had led to their first clear knowledge that something beyond ordinary mortal ambition threatened Harivir, and to Kehera being forced to leave Harivir, and then from there to . . . everything else.

  So, Talisè. For most of the year, the winds here must blow from the north and the west, Tiro knew. The winds would sweep across the wide flat lands of Emmer, through small stands of neatly tended woods and through harvest stubble left in the fields, carrying the fragrance of warm earth and growing things. But as midwinter approached, the winds shifted and came from the south and the east. These were cold, unfriendly winds that hissed now up and over the pale-yellow walls and whipped the banners strung on the towers out to their full lengths and brought tiny whirlwinds of dust and leaf litter to brief life in odd corners. Not the black winds of the Iron Hinge. Not yet. But that was coming too.

  He supposed they should all be grateful they still had seven days till the actual Iron Hinge began. It had taken practically forever to coordinate everything, but it was impossible to imagine taking this kind of risk during those dark days between the ending of the old year and the beginning of the new. Though he would have done even that rather than gambling everything on waiting for the new year to dawn. Certainly Corvallis wouldn’t have waited; he was perhaps the most ambitious man Tiro had personally ever met.

  A step behind him made him turn. It was Gereth Murrel, of course. A man who belonged neither to Harivir nor to Emmer and so had found himself the one person who could speak to anyone equally without ever giving offense. Of course, part of that was the man’s natural talent.

  Tiro gave him a nod. “Everyone is here?”

  “All that I think we’ll have, Your Majesty.” Gereth never sounded ironic when he called Tiro by that title, which was helping Tiro become accustomed to it. “The Talisaiän heir, Lady Maené. Lord Liyè, of course, has come across the river from Cemerè. Lady Taraä of Leiör, whom I understand has brought you your . . . ax.”

  Tiro couldn’t help but laugh. She had, though she’d added wryly that with the situation so dire, she doubted he’d need to intimidate anyone into cooperation.

  Gereth was going on, not needing to consult any sort of notes. “Lady Senen of Daè and Duke Miya of Nuò have come from Emmer. I’m sure they’re both impatient to see what will happen here. If you do manage to restore an Immanent to Talisè, even one to which you hold a new kind of ruling tie that can compel its submission to Raëhemaiëth, then I’m sure you can expect an instant uproar as every ruler of an empty land will wish theirs to be next.”

  Tiro sighed. In all known history, relatively few lands had ever been hollowed out once they developed an Immanent Power. But those tales did tend to stick in the memory, as vivid warnings against the venality of men or the enmity of the Unfortunate Gods. Empty lands suffered terribly during the midwinter storms, generally serving as object lessons for generations before—hopefully—eventually giving rise to young new Immanents and recovering. He was certain anyone who loved a land would agree to almost anything in order to recover the protection and resilience an Immanent Power provided.

  He said, “Corvallis will undoubtedly try to insist that Suriytè come next. I don’t know whether he expects he’ll find a way to hold any Immanent of Suriytè on his own and not through me or Raëhemaiëth, or whether he’ll plan to break with us after . . . afterward, through sheer force of will.”

  “Ah. Yes, the latter, I expect.”

  There was a dry note to Gereth’s voice that made Tiro look at him sharply. “You’re thinking I won’t permit him any such thing? You’re right. I’ll do my best to prevent any Immanent of Suriytè from gaining independence from Raëh. If this works, Cemerè will be next, and then Leiör. Then Daè and Nuò. Suriytè at the very end, when my position is as strong as possible.”

  “But you will permit Enmon Corvallis to take Suriytè, if he can.”

  “I have to. I need him. But I don’t plan to let him take much more than that one province, if I can stop him. And I’ll be sure the new Immanent of Suriytè remains subordinate to Raëh, if I can. I think we’ll all be more comfortable with Corvallis as King of Emmer if Emmer’s influence is substantially reduced.” He hesitated. “Anyway, we—I can’t be sure any of this will work. It could still just go horribly wrong.”

  “It will work. It won’t go wrong.”

  Gereth couldn’t know that. But he offered this reassurance with cheering certainty and without a trace of condescension, so that Tiro immediately felt more confident. Gereth did have a gift. He must have been a very good seneschal.

  Tiro took a breath, let it out, and nodded to the older man to lead the way.

  The others, those Emmeran and Harivin lords who had lost their Immanences and had come here in the hope that Tirovay Elin Raëhema had found a way to give them back what they had lost, were gathered in the courtyard of the lord’s four-cornered house, where the high walls blocked the cold wind yet they could stand upon earth that belonged to Talisè. Lords and ladies of Harivir and Emmer, Enmon Corvallis and a couple of his men, Tiro and a couple of his men, and Gereth Murrel of Eäneté. It was a most peculiar gathering under any circumstances, possibly the strangest this house had ever hosted. Corvallis was at the center; the man possessed such natural authority that this was probably inevitable. He was the oldest, too, except for Duke Miya; and Miya Nuòseir was not nearly so . . . forceful.

  The rest stood in a loose, uneven circle, with a good deal of space left between the three from Emmer and the two from Harivir. Everyone turned toward Tiro when he came in, variously anticipatory and nervous and skeptical. He took care to nod to them all equally, not favoring his own folk. But it was Lady Taraä who stepped aside to make room for him beside her. She was fairly forceful, too, even if she were a woman and not much older than Tiro. She had brought her ax. His ax. The ax that figured in stories of both their families. She had planted the ax-head against the earth and was leaning comfortably on the
haft. She was a big enough woman that it was quite possible to imagine her doing more with that ax than just leaning on it. Everyone else in the circle was leaving her plenty of room. When she caught Tiro’s eye, her lips twitched, and even under the circumstances, he was hard put not to grin back.

  Tiro stepped into the circle beside Taraä and paused, studying Enmon Corvallis. Everyone else followed his gaze, which did not seem to make Corvallis at all uncomfortable. The man looked like nothing had ever made him uncomfortable in his life. Tiro knew he must be at least a little nervous, no matter how calm he seemed. Probably serving the Mad King had taught him that impenetrable composure.

  Lady Maené was much easier to read. Of them all, she had reason to be the most anxious—after Tiro, perhaps—because she was the heir of Talisè. Her uncle the Lord of Talisè had killed himself when he’d lost his Immanent. Tiro had been quietly appalled when he’d learned that. He was not entirely happy about binding a new Immanent to the heir of a line capable of such a failure of nerve, such an abdication of responsibility. But she was the heir, and that might matter. It might make all the difference.

  She might regain . . . not exactly what she had lost, but something. If this worked. So might they all. If this worked, she would hold Talisè. Truly hold it, with no need to wait for years or generations for the slow, natural emergence of a new Immanent; the lady would leap all at once from holding no tie at all to taking a ruling tie to a strong Immanent.

  If this didn’t work . . . Tiro had no idea. He supposed no matter what happened, they would all do their best to withstand Hallieth Theraön and Methmeir Heriduïn, or the terrible Power that had mastered both kings.

  “You have the Eänetén stone?” he asked Gereth, who had come quietly, as he was always quiet, to stand near at hand but outside the circle. “May I hold it?” Then he looked around at the small gathering. They all knew what Tiro meant to do. And they had all seen the fragment of stone before, with its tiny involution containing an infinitesimal thread of the Eänetén Power.

  “All right,” Tiro said, trying not to sound nervous. “In none of the old tales does anyone succeed at this, exactly. Or not without dire consequences. But I trust Raëhemaiëth—and if we do nothing, we’ll almost certainly face dire consequences anyway. Even so, I can’t deny that trying new things with a Great Power carries a certain hazard.”

  “Of course we all understand that,” snapped Duke Miya.

  “We just have to hope it will go well,” added Lady Maené, gripping her hands together.

  Lady Taraä said firmly, “It’s not a matter of luck or hoping. You’ll make it work, Your Majesty.” She swung the ax lightly in her hand and set it back against the earth. “Your great-great-great-grandfather would have made it work, and so will you.”

  Tiro didn’t think it would be right to smile openly, but he nodded to her.

  Enmon Corvallis said in a calm, level voice, “I honestly believe that even if this doesn’t work, it won’t go all the way wrong.”

  Tiro nodded again. That was the important point; trust Corvallis to go straight to the heart of the risk they were taking. The Emmeran general didn’t have to say anything else. Everyone here knew what all the way wrong entailed. Everyone knew about Immanent Powers and Gods and the risk of apotheosis. They all knew what Tiro was going to try to do. He should stop explaining and just go on. Nervousness always made Tiro want to explain things. He knew it was time to just move forward.

  So he met Enmon Corvallis’s eyes one more time and then turned to Lady Maené. And when the lady nodded, Tiro knelt on the cold ground and laid his hand on the earth of Talisè, the empty earth which the Immanent Power that had risen out of this land should have filled.

  And he called up Raëhemaiëth.

  The Immanent of Raëh came immediately, as though it had been waiting for his call. It swelled up within Tiro and around him, warm and heavy as summer despite the bite in the air above and the frozen earth below. Raëhemaiëth came, and Tiro anchored it into the land of Talisè, as an ambitious king would do to dominate a smaller land and expand his kingdom. . . . It wasn’t quite as simple as Tiro had imagined. There was no lesser Power here, and now he saw that a lesser Immanent would have given Raëhemaiëth a . . . pattern, a line, a web . . . none of those were right . . . a living soul and presence already shaped to Talisè, to the land and the people, the beasts and the dormant growing things. Without that, Raëhemaiëth had nothing to follow, nothing to guide it as it tried to settle into the earth and the creatures of Talisè. It settled itself into and around Tiro instead, recognizing him, and spread out into the land only very slowly.

  For the first time, Tiro thought he might understand why the ruthlessly ambitious Irekaïn Power had not set itself into all the provinces it had hollowed out, why it needed a man to carry its tie into a foreign land before it could act. He wanted to think about that. It felt important. It felt like a revelation he should try to remember, but Raëhemaiëth was so . . . enormous . . . it swelled and swelled and flowed through Tiro into the land, until he lost awareness of everything else. He couldn’t tell whether it understood what he meant to do. Immanences weren’t like people. They didn’t exactly understand things. He didn’t know how to explain what he meant to do. Or try to do. He didn’t know how to ask if it would approve.

  If it didn’t . . . if it fought him . . . Tiro could guess what might happen. He had mastered Raëhemaiëth once, when his father had died. But then Raëhemaiëth had wanted him to master it. If it fought him now . . . he might do worse than fail. He might lose the tie.

  Which might go to Kehera, held in the south by the ambition of the Wolf Duke. That would be all right. Tiro wouldn’t mind that, or he thought he wouldn’t mind it. Or not much. Or he would hate it; if he lost Raëhemaiëth now, he would hate that. But if Taraä and Liyè and everyone could stand losing their ties, he could, if he had to.

  If Raëhemaiëth rejected the Elin line entirely, that would be worse. He would be very sorry for it, but it could set its deep tie elsewhere and, again, Raëh would be all right. Harivir would be all right. He trusted Raëh not to choose anyone unsuitable.

  But it might tear itself free from Tiro and from all its other bonds. He didn’t think that would happen. But it might. And then Raëhemaiëth would become a God, and that would be far worse than just Tiro losing its tie. Worse for Harivir, and far worse for Raëh, and probably pretty bad for Talisè, too. They had all talked about that possibility and decided to take the risk. Because if the worst happened, everyone trusted Raëhemaiëth to become a Fortunate God, and then, if it remembered its people at all, if it were sorry at all for destroying Raëh and probably Talisè, at least in the violence of its apotheosis, it might do something about the Irekaïn Power. Then at least the rest of the Four Kingdoms would be safe.

  It seemed to take a long, long time for Raëhemaiëth to anchor itself firmly into Talisè, to shape itself to the pale-yellow sandstone and the ceaseless winds, the folk of the city and the surrounding lands, the creatures of the broad fields and narrow strips of woods, the earth and the air and the nearby Imhar River. But once it had made itself part of Talisè, Tiro closed that part of Raëhemaiëth away from the part that was still solidly grounded in Raëh. He made all of Talisè a single great involution containing that part of Raëhemaiëth and . . . gave it up, closed it off, shut it away. He didn’t know what he did, exactly.

  It hurt. It didn’t exactly hurt, but . . . it hurt. It was like pouring the strength of Raëh into a lesser Immanent, except . . . different. Raëhemaiëth did not exactly fight it, but . . . it fought. Cutting the involution free would weaken Raëhemaiëth, and it didn’t understand things the way a person did, but it understood weakness and strength, and it fought what Tiro was trying to do to it, what he was trying to make it do to itself.

  In another way, it didn’t actually fight at all. If Raëhemaiëth had truly refused, he could never have made it do anything. Certainly not pour a part of itself into Talisè, create an involut
ion, and cut that part free to shape itself to a land that was not Raëh, that had never been part of Raëh.

  Raëhemaiëth did not quite refuse, and the new Immanent that had been poured into Talisè and shaped itself to the new land, to sandstone and wind, plains and river, border and border people . . . that part accepted the separate involution Tiro offered.

  Losing it weakened Raëhemaiëth. But the new Immanent was bound to Raëhemaiëth, and its strength poured through the bond . . . strength poured both ways, through a bond that was neither Fortunate nor Unfortunate. Or in a way it was both at once. Tiro had hoped for that . . . or for something like that, he couldn’t remember any longer what he had hoped for; he was too lost in what was actually happening to remember what he had guessed might happen.

  The new Immanent was anchored to the earth; it was anchored to Talisè. It spun itself into all the people of Talisè, all the creatures; it settled into them, became a part of them. Raëhemaiëth knew how to do that. It couldn’t have done that itself. But it knew how, and the part of itself that was now part of Talisè bound itself to the land and the people alike.

  But it was not held by a deep tie. It was not held by any single person. It had not been mastered. If no one held a deep tie to the new Immanent, it could cradle Talisè and protect it against storms and ill luck and dragons, but it could not work with people. Not properly. Not as it would need to when the terrible cold Immanent of Irekay came down against it. It knew that. It knew it because Raëhemaiëth knew it. It wanted to be bound, as Raëhemaiëth wanted to be bound. It couldn’t take an ordinary deep tie to Tiro, though in a way it was already bound to him; that would have made it back into merely a part of Raëhemaiëth.