The Ice House

by Tim Clare

  ‘Thank you,’ said Delphine, a little taken aback. ‘I’m remembering why you and I stopped playing cribbage.’

  Butler studied the sketch from various angles. ‘Incredible. Look.’ He tapped with a taloned toe at a long passage in the bottom left. ‘Here we are. And we want to get . . .’ He scraped a line east, then north. ‘Here. That’ll get us up into the old prayer caves. Excellent. Follow me.’

  Perhaps half an hour later they reached a round opening in the wall with a sculpted stone gutter leading out of it, covered by an iron grille.

  ‘Patience,’ he said.

  Patience let her angel-arm flow in through the grille’s rusted bars and, with a crunch, tore it from the wall. Butler led the way. The tunnel behind was barely four feet high, so everyone except Martha and Patience had to drop to a crouch. Delphine felt the gradient in her calves. Grit crunched beneath their boots.

  Martha’s eyes lit their surroundings with a faint rose blush. A passage of smoothly hewn rock extended upwards.

  The air was cold and musty. Dirt stung cuts on Delphine’s hands. Eventually, the passage swung sharply left, then climbed steeply over crunchy, silty ground. Butler stopped. He turned, pressed an index finger to his mouth. He trimmed the oil lamp wick till it was barely alight. Delphine switched off her Maglite. Alice switched off her torch. Slowly, slowly, they ascended.

  The tunnel came to a dead end.

  Delphine’s heart sank. Had Martha got it wrong?

  Butler stopped and peered up. She shuffled alongside him, shaking with tiredness and nerves. She could not go on. God, she just wanted to sleep.

  Above, she glimpsed the faintest hint of light. She was gazing at the bars of a drain cover, three horizontal and two vertical, over a hole the width of a person.

  She felt a late surge of energy. Were they here? Had they made it?

  She nudged Butler, jabbed two fingers at her eyes then pointed upwards. He nodded. Gingerly, she clambered to her feet. She straightened her legs until her face was pressed against the drain. She was peering into some sort of passageway. She could make out a rocky ceiling eight feet or so above her, curving down into cavern walls with doorways cut into them, covered by iron bars. Were these cells?

  A meagre glow suggested a lamp farther down the passage. That had to mean regular occupants. She listened. She heard breathing, realised it was Butler. If there was anything to hear, he would hear it, wouldn’t he? She curled her fingers round one of the drain’s thick bars and shoved. It was securely mortared into the rock. A harka’s face appeared inches from hers. They clamped a hand over hers and jammed a pistol through the bars, the muzzle pointing directly at her head. They squeezed the trigger.

  CHAPTER 20

  DEATH NEEDS TIME FOR WHAT

  IT KILLS TO GROW IN

  Kenner’s dagger shone with a liquid polish in the candlelight. Extending from beneath the rosette knuckle guard, the blade was curved like a horn, thinning to a narrow steel spike. The tip reminded Hagar of her old surgical instruments, and for a moment she saw them, laid out upon their bloodstained white cloth, a little garden of hooks and blades.

  She took a step back. Morgellon did not attempt to stop her. His influence hung in slack coils around her mind, waiting to squeeze. He was well aware she had killed Tonti and his staff singlehandedly. When he chose to exercise his control over her, the charade would be over. Perhaps he wanted to see what his new servant was made of.

  Or perhaps, as always, he merely longed for the distraction of a spectacle.

  She slipped her wrists from their bonds. The surprise on Kenner’s face was gratifying, but brief. She patted her jacket for her pistol. Gone. She reached for her boot. Her misericord was not there. She had expected that too. Without weapons, then. She spread her palms and flowed into the first pose of the theodic kata: the eternal question.

  ‘Why?’ she said.

  Kenner dipped his head and charged.

  He was startlingly fast. Hagar sidestepped and pivoted. Not enough – he was huge. She hurled herself backwards to dodge his sinistral horn, dropping into a defensive stance: the penitent.

  Kenner turned to face her. He held his dagger out between them, its point curving upwards, a beckoning finger. He slid his left arm behind his back, as if they were on the Bataille court.

  ‘Order,’ he said.

  A confident reply.

  He advanced. His hooves moved with a familiar, limber poetry. Perhaps he had once been a player. She backed away, forced to take three steps for each one of his. His dagger swayed with sickening ease. She sensed the quickness under his poise, something keener and more decisive than cold finesse. Ah, that was it: emotion.

  He feinted right – a short, testing jab. She resisted the bait, throwing her left shoulder back to narrow her profile. He thrust again, opening his guard, inviting her in. He was too smart to keep swinging for her like a brute. He was trying to provoke a mistake.

  Hagar knew time was against her. Sooner or later, Morgellon would grow bored.

  ‘He’ll kill you too,’ she said. She was backing up towards the river of candles – a faint warmth ghosted the nape of her neck. ‘Not today. Years from now. He hates how much he needs us.’

  Kenner tilted his head sideways till the joints cracked. The huge hump of muscle behind his shoulders tensed.

  The strike came, dizzyingly quick. He punched the dagger at her jaw. She whipped her head aside; the blade swished over her shoulder, lopping the head off a candle.

  She stepped back; her heel clipped a fallen candleholder. She had nowhere left to go.

  He let the dagger drop to his hip. He approached with his guard down. If it was a bluff it was an exceptionally convincing one. Yet he did not strike her as overconfident, foolhardy.

  She felt the initiative slipping away; her mind filled with memories of sobering defeats on the abbey bridge. He made another testing feint and even as she recognised the deceit she swatted at it, desperate to pressure him. She did not spot the hoof until it connected with her jaw.

  The impact lifted her off her feet. Her skull bounced off the pool wall. Flames tumbled around her. She landed on her back, iron candleholders clattering on top of her. She caught one by the shaft. Kenner switched to a reverse grip and stabbed downwards.

  She parried with the candleholder, turning his blade aside. It struck the tiles above her head with a crack. She kicked a burning candle at his face. It struck him square between the eyes and dropped to the floor. He snorted, raised the knife. She scrambled to her feet. He launched another kick square at her chest. Still dazed, she barely dodged, his hoof clipping a button from her jacket. She lashed out wildly with the candleholder, trying to force him back. He caught it by its curving base, and with a flick of his wrist, snapped the shaft. She was left grasping a metal strut.

  The dagger came for her in big, cleaving arcs. She dodged left and left again. He was not tiring – on the contrary, he was warming to his task, each stroke invigorating him, feeding his power and speed. He knew time was on his side.

  He was driving her back towards the sarcophagus. She tried breaking right; he aimed a couple of rapid kicks at her knees and she lost her footing trying to avoid them, stumbled. She was concussed from that blow to the head. Morgellon stood just out of sight, which kept distracting her.

  She could hold off no longer. She was weary, losing her rhythm. One mistake could end her. She rocked onto the balls of her feet and took a few rapid steps backwards, raising her arms as she flowed into an outer circle kata: the apostate.

  ‘If you kill me, I’ll just be reborn,’ she said. He sliced at her throat. She stepped into the blow then twist-dropped at the last instant, the blade rushing over her head. ‘While there’s delusion and clinging, while there are bodies to be reborn into, death is not enough.’

  Kenner stamped. ‘Till the next life, then.’

  ‘May it bring you peace.’

  As the words left her lips, she felt Morgellon grip her mind. She froze.
/>   ‘I’m holding her.’ His voice was utterly without emotion. ‘She can’t escape. Kill her.’

  She could feel Morgellon’s will enclosing hers, forbidding her to move.

  Kenner rolled his shoulders, glowering. Clearly he had thought the fight was in hand and would have preferred to finish her off without help. Morgellon probably knew that – he no doubt thought it wise to deny Kenner that satisfaction, to make this new servant hungry for chances to prove himself.

  Kenner recovered quickly. His gaze settled on her throat. He lifted his dagger. The blade caught the light and glinted. She wondered if he would offer some parting remark.

  He brought the knife down, hard.

  She did not move.

  Then.

  She moved like a gust, like a snatched cloth. The blade flashed through the space where she had stood. She pivoted on the ball of her foot, whirling away. Kenner was deft enough to keep his balance, but shocked enough that she got behind him before he turned. She flipped the snapped iron shaft to a reverse grip.

  Someone with less anatomical knowledge might have driven it deep into the meat of his back, into that vast inviting hump of muscle, but Hagar’s years of mortuary experience spoke to her now, even here, in this sepulchral gloom at the end of all things, whispering where the flesh was thick and where it was just a frail membrane of hide. Her chances of punching through all that muscle and splitting the spinal column were slight, so she came in low, lunging under his right arm as he swung at her. She drove the thin, splintered shaft into the soft fat covering his kidney. She felt his padded shirt resist and twisted her wrist to ease the tip through.

  Kenner’s moan was strained, almost sensual. He clutched at the shank. Before he could get a grip, she yanked it out, hot blood jetting over her wrists. A rose bloomed on his white tunic. He looked down, then back at her. His expression twisted into baffled reproach.

  He lunged, a clumsy diagonal swing. She ducked inside his guard and drove the edge of an open palm into his wounded kidney. Blood splashed out. He grunted. His knee buckled.

  Morgellon was yelling curses, unable to understand why she would not yield.

  Kenner went for a grapple. She danced out of range with exultant ease. His other knee gave way, and he made a choked, expulsive sound, halfway between a cough and a sob. Black droplets splattered his chin. She could feel Morgellon squeezing at her mind, trying to restrain her.

  She met Kenner’s gaze. Steaming blood dribbled onto the pale mosaic beneath him. He looked down and moaned to see what he was made of. Too late, the boy was learning.

  ‘Bichette!’ Morgellon was shaking with fury.

  Hagar cradled the underside of her left wrist, checking the lump through the sleeve of her jacket. The bracelet tick pumped softly, drinking her master’s rage. She was not sure how long its protection would hold out. It had worked against Noroc’s samples, but Morgellon’s powers were without equal.

  ‘Uncle,’ she said.

  He drew his shortsword. ‘I’ll kill you myself.’

  No. It was still too early. Even if her protection held out, she could not fight him. She backed away, and he advanced, lusty with rage.

  He shook his head. ‘You must know you can’t escape.’

  ‘Neither can you.’

  He stopped dead, flipped the blade around, and pressed it to his stomach. He pushed it into his belly.

  The pain was excruciating – the most terrible burning blossomed around a hot sharp sting as the tip broke skin and punctured the wall of his stomach. She doubled over – she could not help it, clutching at her midriff even as she knew, rationally, she was not wounded. Not mine. Not mine.

  She searched for sensations in her own body, the moisture between her toes as she lowered her foot, the tightening of skin across the arch, the subtle pressure of the ball of her foot sinking into her boot’s lambskin insole. This was real. Hers.

  She began to rise. He twisted the blade.

  Hagar dropped to one knee. Morgellon pulled the sword out, blood slopping down his front.

  ‘Look at you,’ he said, closing in. ‘Ugly, broken thing.’

  She felt him hurling himself against her mental defences, slamming into the walls round her mind over and over. Her vision blurred. Rage made him even stronger. He was breaking through. The tick on her wrist pumped, gorging itself, feeding off his power.

  A whispering roar built in her brain. She had hoped his addiction would blunt his powers. Her left eye winced shut and refused to open.

  Behind her, the heavy doors of the pavilion creaked open.

  ‘Qui vive?’ bellowed Morgellon. His challenge rang off stone.

  Hagar’s chest tightened. She flexed her fingers, fighting back the pain.

  Footsteps. She risked a glance over her shoulder.

  Out of the darkness came a detachment of eight green-sashed garde du corps soldiers, all harka, their lacquered horns etched with palace insignia and sharpened to wicked points. They carried no lamp. At their centre were two figures. The first was an old woman in a simple grey dress, walking with a hint of a stoop, a dark green hooded cape fastened about her shoulders with laces of brown leather. Her hair was white and straight and came down to her chin. The second was a naked man, lean and pale with messy grey hair and large, twitching hands. His eyes were glazed and steam rose from his shoulders and hair.

  Morgellon’s expression softened from alarm to irritation. ‘All guards not on patrol were ordered to guard the esplanade entrance. What do you want?’

  Fluxing velvet candlelight picked out long hair-like threads hanging from fissures in the guards’ scalps. Their gazes had an unusual steadiness, almost a deadness.

  ‘Bodies,’ said the closest.

  The old woman swept back her hair. One of her eyes was milky and blind. She looked at Hagar.

  ‘Hullo. Sorry we’re late.’

  CHAPTER 21

  THE PROUD HAVE HID

  A SNARE FOR ME

  Delphine stared into the pistol muzzle. She could see the rifling inside the barrel.

  The harka squeezed the trigger.

  A noise from behind. Patience lunged over her shoulder with the angel-arm – a tide of raw formless flesh whirlpooled into the barrel. Strands flowed through the trigger guard, cushioning the trigger. More enveloped the exposed hammer.

  The harka yelled, dropping his lantern. He tried to wrench his arm away. Stretchy tendrils of gut wrapped round his horns. Pink fluid oozed down his face, setting into translucent membranes that sealed his mouth, his eyes. He pulled his head back; the rubbery caul clung and sucked, conforming to the contours of his cheekbones, collapsing into his nostrils.

  Patience yanked. He headbutted the drain. With each muffled scream the skin bag round his head inflated, then sucked tighter. He clawed at it. Ropes of tendon snared his wrists. Filigrees of nerves spread over his hands like lace gloves, plumping up into shiny puce keloid, healing his palms to his face.

  His hooves scraped against the bare rock floor. The skin bag was filling with blood, bellying out. His shrieks turned to gurgles.

  ‘Don’t kill him!’ said Delphine.

  Patience blew a lock of hair up from her brow.

  The sac split. Blood splattered through the drain. The harka gasped, fell forwards. Patience shot a tendril into his mouth. He gagged. White, living fat swelled behind his teeth, spilling out.

  She looked up at him through the grate.

  ‘Hello.’

  His irises were chestnut, the whites around them mapped with burst capillaries. He breathed through his nostrils in shudders. His gaze twitched from Patience, to Delphine, to Patience. Blood slicked his black fur into peaks.

  ‘Do you want to die?’ said Patience. ‘Blink once for yes, twice for no.’

  The harka blinked once, twice, pinching out little dark tears.

  ‘Good. Then I want you to answer my questions immediately and truthfully, otherwise the flesh inside your mouth will expand and burst your head. Do you understand?’


  A single, emphatic blink.

  ‘Good. Thank you. Are you the only guard?’

  Two blinks.

  ‘Thank you. How many are there, other than you? Blink the number.’

  The guard’s pupils twitched up and to the left. He breathed in. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

  ‘Was that eight?’

  Blink.

  ‘Thank you. Are they nearby?’

  Blink.

  ‘Thank you.’ She glanced round at the others. ‘Anything I’ve left out?’

  ‘We’re wasting time.’ Butler shoved his way to the underside of the drain. ‘Come on – we need to go.’ He looked to Patience. ‘Get us in.’

  Patience turned out her bottom lip. ‘All right. No need to be tart.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Delphine. She looked at the guard. ‘Are any of the guards vesperi?’

  Blink.

  ‘So they’ve probably heard us coming.’

  Butler unholstered his pistol. ‘Fine. We’ll fight our way in, then.’

  Patience looked at the drain cover, her face tightening with concentration. Where her tendrils threaded through the iron bars, pale cysts fruited. They expanded to fill the gaps, bulging, tumescent with pus.

  ‘Stand back,’ she said. Delphine backed down the tunnel. Alice placed a hand on her shoulder. A crunch. Bars clanked down at Patience’s feet.

  A surge of vertigo. They were going in. Alice kissed Delphine’s temple. Delphine flinched, then felt remorseful. Concentrate. She closed her hand around her shotgun’s pistol grip and it steadied her.

  Patience extruded a spray of tendrils and hoisted herself up through the gap. From above came a scrape, a thud. Butler followed. Martha unhinged her wingcases and flew up.

  Delphine paused before she went through. What if she died, and her last interaction with Alice had been to pull away? She turned back.

  ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

  Alice prodded her with the side of the machine pistol and nodded up at the hole. Delphine could not tell if she was annoyed.

  Delphine hesitated. She wanted to say something more. She knew it was the wrong time, which made her flustered. Her cheeks went hot; she cringed, flakes of dried shit cracking across her face.