Frostfire

by Jamie Smith

  A few more footfalls told her that there was no way for the rope to go back to vertical—it was going to stay taut between the two opposite points. She knew it was dangerous, but she could do nothing except hope that the rope held out until she reached the bottom, wherever that might be.

  Then a tiny sound echoed down from above.

  Uh-oh.

  It was the sound of a trapped rope fraying and snapping. A slight vibration in the line was the last warning she got before the firm, comforting hold of the rappelling line went totally slack.

  Sabira fell into darkness.

  THE ICE WATER hit Sabira more than she it, the impact like being punched across half her body at once. Thoughts burst from her head from the force of it and she went limp. Only several seconds later did her senses return.

  She was underwater. Freezing. Drowning. Not knowing which way was up, Sabira floundered, her furs heavy with water.

  The frostsliver chimed in alarm in Sabira’s head. Her heart was beating like it was going to explode, trying to pump even a flicker of warmth around her veins.

  She couldn’t swim, really—for her, liquid usually came in nothing larger than a barrel. Sabira beat at the water, but the stuff was clawing. It wanted to take her to its depths and never let go. All she could do was fight. Pushing and pulling and kicking, somehow she battled her way to the shimmering, unreal surface.

  Lungs burning, she ripped free of the water just long enough to swallow a tiny breath. Air had never seemed so precious or so hard to claim. In that moment, Sabira caught a glimpse of dark stone and water, lit by the glacier. And there, the rim where water met rock. Sanctuary.

  She struggled and flailed her way across the pool, pushing aside chunks of ice and pulling herself through slush. She quickly lost all feeling in her limbs, and her splashing grew even less coordinated. Fighting to stay on the surface felt impossible with her boots, clothes, and pack doing everything they could to drag her down. She wanted to throw it all off, but without her supplies, she was dead anyway.

  Finally, her arm touched the edge. The stone was slick and slippery, and she couldn’t get purchase on it.

  “Help!” Sabira gasped.

  The frostsliver surged out through her glove, forming into giant predatory fingers, its claws long and sharp. She slammed it down, the nails cutting into the rock. Using its grip and power, she hauled herself free to flop onto the rock. It was cold here too, but like a cooking stove in comparison to the evil chill of the water.

  There was almost no more strength in her arms, but still she dragged herself away from the edge of the pool, as if the water might rise and pull her back in. Seconds passed.

  It was only now that Sabira began to feel how cold she was. Shivers racked her body, and her heart wouldn’t stop hammering. Her breath was coming in rapid wheezes, and her vision was blurry. She had escaped the water, but the cold might claim her life, even so.

  THIS SHOULD HELP.

  She felt the frostsliver flatten and spread across her skin, forming a thin barrier between her and the sodden clothing, as it had done when she’d been stranded in the snowstorm. It was a relief, like stepping into a warm bath, but Sabira was still chilled through. She stripped away her top layer of furs, squeezed out her dark hair, and huddled by a rock wall to shiver until feeling and thought came back.

  Sabira reached for the ash-cat in her pocket and held it. After a while, she found it easy to drift away, dozing a little, wonderfully free of dreams of any kind.

  * * *

  Sabira woke in the dark. She didn’t know how much time had passed; in the cave there was no way to know. She was just happy not to have been found by any Ignatian soldiers or yeti while she was asleep.

  She opened her pack and found that her supplies had mostly survived. Aderasti bags were made for harsh weather and would keep out snow, sleet, and rain. Going swimming with one was a different story, however, and the oiled lining had not kept all the water out.

  She surveyed the damage. The food would dry out, though its taste would have suffered. Her firewood and firelighters might still be useful, but not anytime soon. Her blankets, like her clothes, were damp but would also dry. The water skeins were intact. The pool had not killed her.

  “Nothing to do except go on,” she said, and the frostsliver tinged in agreement. Easier said than done. Every step in this place was one more toward Ignatians, or maybe a yeti. Sabira wasn’t sure which was worse. Could the yeti she had seen have something to do with the Ignatian invasion? Was the mountain angry?

  Sabira gazed at the glacier as it flowed upward. She had no idea why it did that, and it felt strange to be so ignorant when a part of the thing was joined to her.

  “I guess this is where you were … born, I suppose,” she found herself saying. “Along with every other frostsliver. How does that even work? Why does every slice of the glacier become a frostsliver?”

  After a thoughtful silence, the frostsliver said, I AM MANY OF MANY. I AM A LEGION WITH ONE VOICE.

  “What does that mean?”

  I DON’T KNOW. THINGS I ONCE KNEW ARE CUT OFF FROM ME. ONCE I WAS A PIECE OF A GREATER MIND. I AM STILL, BUT NOW THERE IS A WALL BETWEEN ME AND THE REST OF ME. ONE DAY I MAY BE ONE WITH THE REST AGAIN, THOUGH I CAN’T BE SURE. THAT FRIGHTENS ME. WHAT IF I NEVER RETURN—OR WHAT IF I DO AND LOSE EVERYTHING THAT TSERAH HELPED ME GAIN?

  Sabira had no answer to that. Maybe no one did.

  “Do you ever wish that Tserah had left you where you were?” she felt compelled to ask.

  There was a short silence, then, I WOULD NOT BE WITHOUT HER.

  “But … you miss your … family?” Sabira guessed.

  I CAN HEAR THE VOICES OF THE OTHERS IN THE GLACIER. OR JUST AN ECHO OF THEM. LIKE SOMEONE IS TALKING QUIETLY A FEW ROOMS OVER. I KNOW THAT I ONCE KNEW THEM, AND NOW … I HAVE FORGOTTEN SO MUCH.

  Sabira tried to imagine being locked away from her parents forever, knowing that they were out there somewhere. It didn’t exactly fit.

  YOUR BROTHER. IT IS AS BAD AS YOUR NOT KNOWING HIS FATE.

  Sabira froze. No other reminder could have chilled her so deeply. As with every time Kyran’s memory came to her, guilt came rushing back. She gripped the ash-cat toy. She would never be able to say goodbye, or welcome him home again.

  “I think we should get going,” she said abruptly. The memories were too much to talk about, even with one who shared her head.

  ALL RIGHT.

  * * *

  After finding her way out of the cavern, Sabira spent hours following the stream of ice down into the mountain as best she could. In the stories about the First Bonded and the Deep Explorers, all had tracked the glacier to its source and found a way out to Adranna from the deeps—Sabira had to trust that, somehow, she would do the same.

  It was difficult, though, when the glacier was prone to plunging through holes in the rock no wider than itself. Each time Sabira was forced to choose another route and hope to meet the Tears of Aderast farther down in the silent dark. Every corner was a worry, but Sabira saw no sign of Ignatians, and after a while some of the tension left her. Some.

  ALLOW ME TO LIGHT THE WAY.

  Perhaps to raise her spirits, the frostsliver rippled to her hand, forming a kind of wide cylindrical lantern, suspended from her palm by strands of ice. It cast frostfire all around, helping her avoid tripping over her feet.

  Soon it began encouraging her, tinkling hints and feelings as to which passageway to take. Sometimes it took animal form to point a wing or paw, resembling a puppet on strings while it did so, and seemingly unworried about getting lost. It was all very well for it, sensing the presence of the glacier without sight.

  I CAN SENSE THE GLACIER’S STRENGTH. I KNOW WHERE IT IS AND HOW DEEP WE ARE.

  That was slightly comforting, though only slightly.

  The claustrophobic tunnels made Sabira yearn for some space to stretch, to walk freely, to run even, although she didn’t have much energy for it. Instead, she mechanically crawled or slid
or squeezed through cramped corridors and shafts into the next section and down to the next, finding it hard to believe that there was any way out.

  Memories and fears ran through her head. Uncle Mihnir, dying in that desolate cave. A burning forest. A red-hot lash. Her mother’s beaten face. The Ignatians were here to cause her people harm, Sabira knew it. But how?

  “What’s that?” Sabira said suddenly, spotting something on the floor of the gently sloped pit she was climbing down. A minute or so later when she had scrambled the rest of the distance, she saw that the glint belonged to a brass button. A button with a snarling ash-cat carved into its surface.

  She was following in Ignatian footsteps.

  * * *

  Sabira rested. Ate. Slept fitfully. Continued. Over the following hours she encountered more evidence of life having been in the tunnels. A bone here and there. The remains of cookfires. Each find made her more fearful.

  As she emerged into a larger cavern, she heard noises. Not the gentle, comforting cracks of the glacier, but something more animal, echoing down the tunnels. It might have been whispers, or howls far away. The underground space made it impossible to be sure.

  TAKE CARE.

  Sabira chose to assume the worst, dropping to the floor and lying flat, only allowing enough of her head to poke above the lip of her ledge in order to see.

  As she did so, the frostsliver disappeared inside her clothes, leaving Sabira in almost complete darkness. Without its glow, she could see a light below coming from another tunnel across, and it was getting stronger. Not the bluish light of the glacier or the yeti but orange and flickering. Sabira moved no muscle, save for her pumping heart.

  The dancing light lent long and confused shadows to the things that came out of it. Sabira made out four limbs and dark, leathery skin in the darkness. When one of the half-dozen figures turned slightly, she caught a glimpse of beady, black, glassy eyes looking out of a face overgrown by fur.

  The smell of the burning oil wafted to Sabira’s nostrils and with it something else. That oily stench wasn’t only coming from the lantern they held, but from the walkers themselves.

  Of course. Those weren’t eyes at all, they were crystal goggles. The strange fur and skin belonged to a long coat. Ignatians. Monsters of a different kind.

  THEY INFEST ADERAST. DEFILE IT.

  They were obviously at least a little prepared for the mountain, for they wore makeshift furs—but the clothes looked like they were designed by someone with only the vaguest idea of what proper cold-weather garments should be. It explained the shivering—they must be half-frozen.

  The six Ignatians stopped in the middle of the cavern and laid down their burdens. Some had packs, all had muskets on their backs, and two at the rear carried a small barrel between them. Sabira did her best to breathe as quietly as possible as she watched, and hoped that her heart wasn’t the snare drum it sounded like in her ears.

  “By the lash, I’ll be glad to get out of these creepy tunnels and back to the rest of the regiment. How much farther are we from the camp?” the large Ignatian at the front of the group asked. So there was a whole camp of them. Soldiers. Maybe even an army housed in these dark caverns. What were they doing?

  LOOK CLOSER.

  Sabira did, her eyes settling on the barrel to which the frostsliver was drawing her attention. It had a red symbol painted on it that evoked danger and things exploding.

  Blasting powder.

  Hatred for the stuff flowed through Sabira’s veins, both her own feelings and the frostsliver’s too. Their combined anger made her want to leap the gap and attack, damn the consequences.

  Except that would be suicide. Sabira stopped, checked herself, and fixed the Ignatians with all of her attention. She couldn’t fight them. She could listen, though, and plot.

  “How much farther?” the thickset leader demanded again. A thin, wiry figure, holding something that could be a piece of paper or leather, walked over, raising it up to the light.

  “By my calculations,” he said, “we’ve got another couple of days before we reach Adranna.”

  Sabira narrowed her eyes. That voice was younger, and familiar somehow.

  “You’d best not get it wrong. I don’t want to be wandering these tunnels for the rest of my life.”

  The larger man—who Sabira realized also seemed familiar—squinted at the calculations but didn’t seem to be making much of them.

  “Wouldn’t worry too much about not finding our way,” the wiry man helpfully supplied. “We’ll hear the blast when they break out of the mountain behind Adranna. Worst comes to worst we can follow that. Would have been better if we’d never had to split from the regiment in the first place, of course.”

  The blast when they break out of the mountain … Sabira’s throat felt dry, her heart a fluttering thing in her chest. They were heading to Adranna too—and they intended to take it.

  “We had to stay behind, conscript,” snapped the large man. “Someone had to babysit you while you set the charges. Sealing the monastery was important. Don’t want anyone following us in—or any cowardly deserters getting out.”

  “That probably set off an avalanche, you know,” the wiry man said. Strangely, he did not sound happy about it. Where had she heard his voice before?

  “Added benefit. They’ll be busy dealing with it when we attack. Even less resistance—not that there would have been much anyway.”

  “What if we need to retreat?” another of the men interjected. He was older, his hair starting to gray.

  “With a thousand muskets on our side? By the lash, those Aderasti barely manage to make bows, and they won’t be expecting us. If there are any casualties at all, I’ll be surprised.”

  “Besides the ones that died already, you mean,” said the thin one, without humor.

  “They were weak,” the leader snapped, as callous as Sabira had come to expect from Ignatians.

  “Oh, I’m sure that those monsters that took Henlo would have backed off if he’d been just a little tougher,” the thin man said sullenly. Apparently, this was a step too far for his leader, as he stalked up to the soldier with aggression clear even in the low light.

  “Do you want to taste the branding lash again?” he demanded, and Sabira stifled a squeak of fear, both at the comment and at the glint of silver on the man’s shoulder. She recognized him now—and the burnt rip in his mouth. A tremble started in her hands, and she could do nothing to stop it. The young soldier seemed to see a little of the danger, but by his defiant tone, not nearly enough of it.

  “I’d rather not ever see it again, if you don’t mind,” he said.

  “That’s ‘If you don’t mind, Sergeant Major Lifan’ to you, and if you want that, you’d best keep in line.”

  It sounded like good advice to Sabira, but the smaller man did not seem to agree.

  “Well, Sergeant Major Lifan,” the younger man said, seemingly without the sense to know when to be quiet, “can I pretty please not see it again?”

  The sergeant major’s fist caught him in the stomach the moment the last word passed his lips. It seemed that punishment was swift in the Ignatian army. As the soldier crumpled to the floor, Lifan called, “We’re resting here for a bit. Break out the rations.”

  Sabira held as still as she could while the Ignatians found places to sit and began taking rations from their packs. Fortunately, none of them looked up—or if they did glance in her direction, the shadows of the cave hid her from sight.

  Most of the men chose positions in the center of the room, but the younger man, helped by the graying one, made his way to a spot under Sabira’s ledge. Maybe they wanted to be away from Lifan, but she wished they had picked somewhere else.

  The two of them ate their meals, and it was a minute or two before either said anything. Sabira was starting to think that they wouldn’t, when the older one broke the silence.

  “You need to learn when to shut that trap of yours, Danlin,” he said, then added, “you know, if
you commit to this life, you can make something out of it.”

  “In between dropping avalanches on civilians and burning a bunch of old books no one was ever going to read, just because of Lifan’s spite.”

  The older man sighed.

  “Don’t you have any national pride? Ignata is going to be covered in glory for years after this.”

  “So I heard when the recruiters came knocking,” said the young man. “See the world, they said. Meet new people and kill them, they said. No, I said, and they hit me with a cudgel. Woke up on my way to this ice hole.”

  “Look at it this way, it could be worse.”

  “How?” the younger soldier said.

  “At least we get to be patriotic, claiming back the lands of our ancestors and all that.”

  The younger one grunted derisively and said, “You think I care? The officers are all fanatics—they think they’re on some grand mission to avenge past wrongs. The Aderasti can keep their pretty magic trinkets.”

  TRINKETS?

  The frostsliver seethed. Sabira frowned. Maybe they weren’t all bloodthirsty zealots, then. The thought should have made Sabira feel better, but it didn’t. The older man sighed at his companion and began to explain slowly, like adults did when they thought you didn’t know what you were talking about.

  “Look, you’re a colonies boy, right? You don’t know what it’s like in Ignata proper. The ash geysers are worse every year now. Harvest is barely surviving.”

  “I thought the ash fertilized good crops?” the young man said.

  “Maybe a few generations ago! The ash fall’s heavier these days, and too much of a good thing can be deadly. There won’t be enough food to go around when our sons and daughters are grown. There are a lot of farmers scratching around in the ash who look up at the mountains with envy. Clear air, fertile ground on the lower slopes, security from raiders in the towns and cities, and magic at the peak.”