Frostfire

by Jamie Smith

  YOU SHOULD NOT FEEL SO GUILTY.

  Sabira almost tripped over her own boots at the mental voice. She had only been going a few minutes, all of them lost in doubt. It certainly didn’t feel right.

  “I just abandoned him,” Sabira retorted. “He’s probably going to die in there.” Her voice choked at the thought.

  BETTER THAN US DYING TOO. AND HE WANTED US TO GO, EVEN THOUGH HE DOESN’T AGREE WITH YOUR “PLAN” ABOUT GOING THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN.

  “You’re not just telling me what I want to hear?”

  She hated when adults did that.

  DO YOU LIKE WHAT I’M SAYING THAT MUCH? NO?

  It paused to let that sink in.

  I WOULD NOT LIE TO YOU. WE COULD NOT STAY WITH HIM AND SURVIVE.

  * * *

  On. On. On she traveled across the white incline, steps accompanied by the cracking glacier beside her. There was some kind of voice in that, Sabira felt sure, though the actual words fled from her.

  “I wonder,” said Sabira as a thought occurred to her, “if my frostsliver—the one I lost, I mean—is in there still.”

  IT IS POSSIBLE. THE FROSTSLIVER YOU CUT COULD BE MELTWATER BY NOW, OR BACK IN THE HEART OF THE MOUNTAIN.

  Sabira was glad of one thing: Her knee felt a lot better. The frostsliver had told her the truth—that brace was a blessing.

  She needed it too, as her hike stretched on, the gently sloping valley giving way to steeper ground where the glacier plunged down small ridges and cliffs. To begin with, ascending them wasn’t so bad. It was even a nice change of pace to have to clamber up instead of continually trudging.

  Then the small cliffs got larger, until they were taller than Sabira’s head. It got to the point where a fall from one could easily have killed her. She continued nevertheless—what else could she do? She had faced death already, after all.

  Sabira’s mind kept returning to painful questions. How was Mihnir doing? Was he still alive? Should she enter the mountain, with so little hope? Did she have the supplies to last the trip? How was she going to find the way through Aderast? Was it even possible to save Mihnir?

  ENOUGH! TSERAH NEVER USED TO BOMBARD ME WITH WORRIES LIKE THIS.

  “I … I’m sorry I’m not her.” Sabira pulled herself up a steep ledge to another snowy platform.

  No reply, but she sensed a flash of mingled pain and guilt through the bond.

  Sabira trudged on. “I know you didn’t want this, but you did ask me to save you.”

  A FACT ONE MIGHT COME TO REGRET.

  Suddenly, the snow in front of her erupted in a thin plume, and from within something narrow and whip-fast shot at her head so quickly that Sabira had no time to dodge. The frostsliver was quicker, flashing up her body and out to her hand, where it took the shape of a falcon, its hooked beak biting down on her attacker and deflecting it.

  Without the brace, pain lanced through Sabira and her leg buckled, sending her to one knee and wrenching the frostsliver to one side. The thing in its grasp ripped free, and the white, leathery tendril whipped around for another attack, striking at Sabira with more speed than seemed possible. She sprawled forward under the slash, but immediately it began winding its single deadly limb back into its lair for another attempt.

  One nick of that stinger, that was all it would take. She’d be paralyzed and defenseless as the snow-spine sucked her dry. She wanted to flee—but she’d be running in the wrong direction, the way up still blocked by the snow-spine.

  Instead, Sabira pushed herself up and on before the creature could attack again, fighting through the pain. Scrambling past the hole that held the snow-spine’s tuberous mass, Sabira sprinted for the tall ledge up ahead. The steep terrain made the distance too far to cover, and over her beating heart, Sabira heard the swishing sound of another strike behind her.

  She spun, knowing that she had to fight. Sabira just hoped that the frostsliver was fast enough. She started her slashing motion with an empty hand, aiming for the air below the stabbing stinger.

  The blade of an icy hunting dagger formed in her hand the moment the snow-spine was about to connect, its edge glowing and keen. It severed the stinger cleanly in a spray of pinkish liquid, and Sabira dodged frantically out of the way as the tendril-tip fell, separated from its owner.

  Then her foot slipped, and she was tumbling back down, bouncing and scraping everything as she blurred past the snow-spine and on. Something painfully sharp got to her face through her hood, but Sabira was too disoriented to care.

  Finally, she slid to a halt on the snow, but was given only a second of safety before the stinger came bouncing after her, forcing her to roll aside with a squeak of fear.

  The thing squished down, flopped and writhed impotently beside her for a moment, and then lay still. For long moments Sabira couldn’t move, lying back and breathing out her relief.

  As she began to recover from the rush of her near-death experience, Mihnir’s joking warnings came back to her, and Sabira had to laugh. When was the last time someone had reported a snow-spine? Years? They’d been dying off ever since Aderast’s Nightmare had birthed them into the world—though apparently not quickly enough. Mihnir had probably thought she would never even see one.

  The blood pumping in her ears quieted enough for her to hear the frostsliver exclaim, MOUNTAIN’S BLOOD AND SPIT, THAT WAS CLOSE!

  “Didn’t know you used such language,” Sabira said, stifling a giggle. She heard a ding in her head that could have been an embarrassed cough.

  WE ARE LUCKY. NOTHING IS BROKEN.

  Sabira felt bruised enough to think the frostsliver must be wrong. The words prompted her to pick herself up, though, before peering back up at where she had fallen from. Only when she saw the snow-spine’s pus-oozing tendril lying motionless next to its hole did she begin to calm. Dead. It had to be. One encounter was enough for a lifetime.

  Her breathing slowed and her mind drifted back to their conversation before the snow-spine. “Do you really regret bonding with me?” she asked quietly.

  NO—I SHOULD NOT HAVE SPOKEN LIKE THAT.

  Time to move on—but there was something she should do first. Gingerly, Sabira picked up the amputated stinger and examined it. The disgusting thing had come away cleanly, and its deadly poison sac was still attached, a bulbous pale growth below the point of the sting.

  The venom would be a prize for any healer, and Sabira paused to wrap the organ in cloth and stow it in the medicine bag. Her father would be doubly pleased to see her if she returned with that. Everyone would be surprised to find that any were left—and pleased to see one less deadly snow-spine on the mountain. They were the last trace of Aderast’s bad dream—the catastrophic weather it had made disappeared long before Sabira’s parents were born.

  YOU ARE CUT.

  Sabira panicked for a moment that the snow-spine had gotten her after all, before she realized to her relief that it must have been the impact during the tumble.

  When she touched her cheek, Sabira’s glove came away bloody and caused a spark of pain in her cold-numbed flesh. It felt like more than a scratch, and her concern was proved right when the frostsliver’s voice echoed in her woozy head, IT NEEDS STITCHES.

  Wonderful, Sabira thought, though she didn’t protest. She had seen too many wounds not taken care of properly. With no one else to do the job, she retrieved needle and thread from her pack, and a tiny bottle of disinfecting alcohol. She was going to have to sew herself up.

  With a wince, she dabbed her cut with the alcohol before preparing her needle with the same stuff. Her gloves were too clumsy for the work, so she pulled them off, exposing her fingers to the cold. Carefully, she touched the still-bleeding cut, gauging its position and depth. She moved the needle in, tensing in expectation of pain.

  A LITTLE FARTHER UP.

  Sabira almost stabbed herself. Instead she sighed, moved her hand as indicated, and through gritted teeth said, “Thank you.”

  Before the frostsliver could interrupt her again, she got
to work. Pinning the curved needle through her skin hurt less than she had expected but more than enough to make her hand shake. She took a moment to steady and then pulled the thread through after the needle until the tiny knot at the end lodged.

  CAREFUL NOW. YOU ONLY HAVE SO MUCH BLOOD TO LOSE—AND IT’S AS MUCH MINE AS YOURS.

  She did not respond, just gently continued pulling the flesh of her cheek together, feeling her eyes water and trying not to twitch at the pain. She tightened the stitch completely, before taking a heartbeat or two to breathe and wait for the pain to lessen.

  Just two or three more to go.

  Eventually, she finished, packed away her tools, and allowed herself a brief rest. As Sabira calmed, she realized that her fingers still had blood on them, as did her gloves. She did her best to clean them in the snow, staining it red.

  “Here, another offering for you—as if you haven’t had enough already,” she said, returning part of herself to Aderast. Some said that such things placated the mountain, and Sabira would take any mercy she could get. She looked up to where the monastery had to be.

  “We’re going to get there. We’re going to make it,” Sabira said.

  NOT IF WE HAVE MORE ENCOUNTERS LIKE THAT.

  She sighed, sick of the blunt voice in her head—though it did have a point.

  “Is there a way we can talk more face to … whatever?” she asked, desperate for a more normal conversation. “This is still all a bit weird to me.”

  Before she had finished, the frostsliver’s shiver formed into a miniature ash-cat on her palm, rendered in ice that poked through her glove’s seams and much like the toy she had once owned.

  “Did you get that from me?” she asked, not sure if she was comfortable with her past being an open book for the frostsliver to read.

  MOSTLY.

  The thing’s tiny ice-mouth clinked the word out. Sabira stared at it, emotions pushing in different directions. It wasn’t trying to upset her, she decided. Just to make her feel comfortable. She bit back some of the more hostile things she had been thinking of saying.

  “Look,” she began, “this isn’t working.”

  YOU AND I MAY BE STRUGGLING TO WORK TOGETHER, BUT …

  “The brace! The knee brace isn’t working. It’s keeping me from getting permanently injured, but if you need to be something else in a hurry, it’s going to get us killed! I need to be able to walk normally!”

  THERE ARE RISKS INVOLVED, BUT I COULD SIMPLY NUMB YOU.

  Instantly the pain in her knee vanished, a bone-deep chill replacing it. Sabira flexed the joint. It didn’t bend quite as easily as it should, but it didn’t hurt.

  “This could work.”

  I AM NOT SURE THAT THIS IS WISE. REMEMBER, I AM SUPPRESSING THE PAIN AND STIFFENING THE JOINT, BUT YOU ARE NOT HEALED. THIS WILL NOT PREVENT FURTHER DAMAGE.

  She thought of Kyran and everything that had happened to him. How could she not? The memory hardened her resolve, and she nodded in acceptance.

  Better injured than dead.

  * * *

  A few hours later, Sabira reached the base of a cliff many times larger than those she had scaled so far. She looked up at its dizzying height and gulped.

  It was a sheer wall of rock, pitted, rough, and not far off vertical. This was not an obstacle to be overcome in minutes but a challenge even for a seasoned climber, and it would take an hour or more to ascend.

  There was something else to be seen atop the cliff, barely visible but clear enough to send Sabira’s emotions spinning. It was the wall of a building, weathered and old, but unmistakably created by human hands.

  “Part of the monastery?” Sabira wondered aloud. It had to be. A single crystalline ding rang in the back of her mind, like a fine glass bell being lightly struck. Apparently, the frostsliver agreed.

  A kindling of hope caught within Sabira. There had been someone up there last night, she was certain: It was just possible that rescue might be near.

  Still, this was going to need more than just careful climbing. The frostsliver sent an answer skittering into Sabira’s mind.

  Smiling, she held out an open hand and felt the frostsliver slither toward it, forming a spike of ice similar to a climbing piton.

  The shining spike stabbed easily into the rock, nothing like any normal knife. Sabira set her weight on it and heaved upward. She wouldn’t have called it easy or safe, but it worked.

  All she had to do was find a single handhold for her other hand, lodge her feet as best she could, pull, and stab. She did it again, taking herself fully off the ground.

  Only a thousand repeats to go.

  Over and over she plunged the ice spike into the rock and heaved her body upward. Soon it became so monotonous and so tiring that she felt a fall would almost be worth the relief.

  Daylight was on the verge of dying. Sabira tried very hard not to look down, but when she did she felt her stomach quake. Her muscles were on fire, and a drop would be deadly. How much longer could she hold on? That was the thing about climbing: The most dangerous part was always when you were nearly done. Sabira pushed on through the last stabs of frostsliver into rock, and just as her arms were starting to fail, her hand met the cliff edge.

  Relief flooded her and she hauled her lead-heavy limbs over the lip of the cliff. Sabira felt the frostsliver liquefy back into her clothing, settling on her necklace as if it too were resting.

  Sabira looked up and found nothing she wanted to see. All this way, through falls and cuts and nearly becoming prey, and here was her reward.

  Everywhere she looked there was ruin, stark and frosted, or part buried in snow. If there ever had been fire up here, it was gone, snuffed out by the cold, the mountain, and time.

  SABIRA STOOD ON the ledge for a long time, staring at the ruins. The slow in and out of her chest was her only motion as she took in the silent, desolate landscape. No one was here.

  She had half a mind to turn and leap from the cliff, but eventually she settled her breathing and stepped away from the edge.

  She started walking around the huge site, which was strewn with rubble and the tumbledown walls of the many small buildings that had formed much of the monastery. It was hard to imagine this had ever been a bustling place of worship. She waited for the frostsliver to say something to convince her that this was just a setback. It remained silent. Sabira didn’t want to hear it anyway. Her horror had burned away into a kind of hollow ache.

  Heading through the silent, snow-covered ruins, Sabira tried to stay practical.

  “What happened to this place?” she asked the frostsliver. “Do you know?”

  TIME?

  It sounded almost sad.

  Sabira was inclined to agree. The buildings’ destruction seemed to have been wrought by neglect. Ornate conical roofs had collapsed sideways; wooden pillars had decayed and brought down everything they supported.

  “Mihnir did say that Aderast’s Nightmare forced this place to be abandoned,” said Sabira.

  IT SEEMS THAT NO ONE HAS TAKEN CARE OF IT SINCE.

  Though the plateau had been spared the avalanche, snowdrifts clutched at the remains of the monastery’s outbuildings. Where they emerged from the snow, the ruins looked less like human constructions and more like the bones of some long-dead giant beast.

  But as Sabira tramped through one large building, its high-domed roof long gone, she found something else between the ancient rubble: the remains of campfires, and footprints. She crouched, peering at the marks. They looked human, but how could so many people have been up here? The footprints were fresh too—preserved in the patchy snow and earth by the day’s calm, clear weather. Beside the remains of the campfire were animal bones picked clean after cooking. Whoever it was must’ve been here recently. But why? Sabira stood up and continued looking, keeping a keen eye out for more details as she walked in and out of the shells of what once was.

  Soon she came to where the glacier spilt from the mountain wall. It looked as if the main part of the monas
tery had been built around the glacier into the very rock of Aderast, but it was blasted to rubble now. Could there still be a way into the caverns through that? It was too dark to see.

  Nearby, she found an open area that left her even more confused. At its center lay a huge blackened pile. Someone had indeed set a pyre, a big one, and let it burn down. Sabira prodded at the ashes, finding a few unscathed objects among the mess: pieces of furniture, and a large number of books, though they were too badly damaged to read.

  WHAT A WASTE.

  Sabira had to agree. She searched everywhere in the half-light but found nothing besides the remains of the large campsite. Whoever had been here last night, they had left all their litter behind to mark their passing. That wasn’t like Aderasti, who believed the sacred mountain should be kept pristine, save for the bodies of the dead. Something about that niggled at her. Things didn’t add up. Vanishing people on the mountain, in a dead monastery. An avalanche where there should never have been one. She was starting to wonder if her troubles might not solely be the work of the mountain after all. It almost made sense, but she was so tired. She felt like it should be obvious, but things just wouldn’t slot together in her head.

  The last of the daylight was fading, and Sabira was exhausted.

  BETTER CAMP HERE FOR THE NIGHT. SAVE YOUR STRENGTH FOR THE MORNING.

  As she headed toward the less-ruined outhouses, Sabira began gathering what she could scavenge. It wasn’t much, but she couldn’t afford to be choosy. The meat scraps clinging to bones seemed unspoiled, though Sabira still wasn’t sure what any of it was. Risking eating it didn’t seem like the best idea, but she stored the stuff nevertheless. The day might come when it was all she had.

  She even found a half-empty little metal flask, with some dark liquid that smelled like something her parents would never have let her drink. After one swig, she could see why—the strong spirit tasted awful. She kept the flask anyway.

  URRGH.

  Sabira ignored the frostsliver’s disapproval. When she had explored as far as she could make herself, Sabira picked an old storage building with four walls and part of a roof for her camp. As she entered, she knocked something skittering across the stone floor with her foot.