The City of Ice Read online

  “What of the chief?” said Heffi. “She spoke our tongue. How do you know it?”

  The Unshe laughed. “Now we come to the liver of the matter. The blubber has been cut away, let others chew on that. You and I shall gorge on the richness of secrets untold.”

  The Unshe pulled a skin-wrapped bundle from behind her with slender hands. She unwrapped it slowly, glancing at Heffi from under the feathered skin of her cowl to gauge his reaction.

  The last thong came undone, and she laid the skin flat, smoothing it out. At the centre was the head of a man.

  The smell of smoked meat came off the head strongly. The skin was the non-specific yellow brown of preserved flesh, tinged black where the cold had got at it. The head could have come from a man of any one of fifty kingdoms, but the gold in its nose and ears and the lock of hair still attached to its scalp identified it as an Ishmalan.

  “See, one who came here twenty winters ago. He taught Chichiweh the phrase you heard. Quell your offence, sailor. Chichiweh does not understand it, not like I.”

  “Who was he?” said Heffi.

  “A ship of wood went far to the south. They attempted what you attempt.”

  “Rassanaminul Haik’s final expedition?” said Heffi. “A disaster. There was only one survivor. I knew him, he was a friend of my father’s.”

  The Unshe shook her head knowingly. “There was not one, but several. There was dissent in their group. They abandoned three on the ice. By the time the peoples of water and ice found them, one remained. This man. You shall learn.”

  She took a brown stick from a hollow in the floatstone wall.

  “Come, come, you must come closer.” She beckoned.

  Heffi and Trassan shared a glance before edging around the fire. She motioned impatiently for them to sit by her, one either side. They knelt. The shrivelled eyes of the dead Ishmalan stared blindly up at them.

  The Unshe paused. “I sense the blood of Will in you, Trassan Kressind.”

  “My brother is a Guider, a true take from the Dead God’s quarter, by which I mean he has a fair measure of mage blood. He is reckoned strong by his peers,” he said. Trassan was no stranger to horror, but the head with its shrunken eyes and worm-like lips was the most profoundly disturbing thing he had ever seen. The heat of the fire beat at his back and his head like a forge hammer. His vision shifted. A drugged powerlessness descended upon him.

  “And there is one who is more than that!” she rebuked. “If one in the family has the blood, all do. Remember this, and be afraid. This one will know much of you; your being casts many shadows in the realm of Will. You will not like what you hear.”

  Trassan turned to look at her. His head was a stone effigy grinding around on ill fashioned bearings. It was an effort to tear his gaze away from the yellow grin of the mummified sailor.

  The Unshe peered right inside him. “Frightened?”

  “No,” he whispered his lie.

  The Unshe thrust the stick into the fire. It sizzled. Oily musk smoked from it as she withdrew it from the flames. Trassan felt dizzier. She sucked in a lungful of smoke from the incense stick and breathed it into the face of the head.

  “The ways of the dead are open. I open the gate.” She sucked in another breath of the stinking incense and blew it onto the head. “I open the gate to the dead. Come back to the realm of being, leave behind the domain of the dead, the formless spaces.” She breathed again. “Speak,” she said.

  The smoke gathering around the head glowed green, and coalesced itself about the shrunken features into a phantasmal image of the face that was. The fire died down.

  “Speak!” commanded the Unshe.

  Heffi flinched as the head’s mouth opened with the click of dry bone, and a rattling moan issued from between its yellow teeth. The hands suspended over the fire jiggled, grasping at nothing.

  “Heffira-nereaz-Hellishul vovo Balisatervo Chai Tse-ban!” it moaned. The eyes of smoke rolled. Behind them, dried eyelids of flesh twitched.

  Heffi and Trassan stared at it in horror.

  “Answer it!” hissed the Unshe. “Or it will depart!”

  “I am he!” said Heffi.

  “A lover of comfortable life and adventure both, to your heart’s everlasting dissatisfaction,” said the head. “You are known in these realms. Irony entertains the dead.”

  “Aye,” said Heffi. “I am.”

  “I was Morazov-kenteaz-Varashul of the Sect of Light.”

  “You are not at one with His eminence?”

  “I died away from land where His will holds sway. Now I am lost. Do not become as I. You seek the city of the Morfaan. The City of Ice.”

  “Yes,” said Heffi.

  “I warn you as one follower of the One to another, you must turn back. Death and worse awaits you. I have trodden the ways of the city. I know what horror lurks there.”

  “How can that be?” said Heffi. “My friend was father to Verenetz, the cargomaster of Haik’s mission. Only he returned to the North, found aboard a ship’s boat with four dead Oczerks. He told that the city was glimpsed from afar.”

  “The dead cannot lie,” said the Unshe.

  “I do not lie! Laws greater than those that bind the telling of truth between Ishamalani hold me. Do not speak of Verenetz,” said Morazov. “He fled while others died. It was he that had no respect of the One’s law; it was he that lied.”

  “Why?” said Heffi. “He was known to me, you are not.”

  “He was no honest man!” wailed the head. “He sought to keep the discovery for himself. Or perhaps he sought to save fools like you from what is there.”

  “It is our understanding that the city was unknown until Verenetz saw it, adrift and alone,” said Trassan.

  “Lies. You are not the first to seek it. Haik had a map, found in a wreck on the northern shores of Oczerkiya. We searched for the City of Ice, and we found it.”

  Heffi and Trassan looked at each other again.

  “How did you come to it?”

  “With difficulty. Great mountains front the water. Ice blocks the shore for a thousand leagues.”

  “There was no report of it during the last survey,” said Trassan.

  “It comes, it goes. It is there now. Mages do not see everything.”

  “Antoninan plans for us to head for the Sea Drays Bay,” said Trassan. “Do you know it?”

  “Everything can be known by the dead. The shore is inaccessible there. Ice higher than a mountain walls it from the ocean. The bay is shut.”

  “Tell us how you came there,” said Heffi. “You will aid us.”

  “I came to warn, not to aid! Turn back, turn back!”

  “You must be swift,” said the Unshe. “It cannot lie to you. Ask and it will speak the truth.”

  “Do not make me! Return to the North. Do not come here again. War comes.”

  “War?” said Trassan. “What war?”

  The face of green smoke flickered.

  “Tell us of the way inside! I demand it!” shouted Heffi.

  The ghost cried out. “There is a dock. Between two mountains whose peaks are close but forever apart. It cannot be seen, but it can be reached.”

  “What is the position?”

  “Do not go!” cried the ghost. “Return home!”

  “Give me the position, damn you!” roared Heffi.

  The ghost spat out a stream of numbers that Trassan recognised as a designator of latitude used across Ruthnia. It spoke again, cryptic unrelated words. Heffi nodded; this was the secret longitudinal code of the Ishmalani. The measuring of longitude was a skill known only to them.

  “If it cannot be seen, how do we go within?” he said.

  The fire roared up behind them and died down.

  “The ice will stop you! Go back!” said the ghost. “Please, no more. I beg you! You cannot go. Success beckons, but the love of gold will destroy you yet, my brother in the One!” The ghost wavered, the green light dimmed.

  “What do you mean?” said Heffi.
“Tell me how—”

  The Unshe’s hand shot out and gripped him with iron strength. “It returns to the realms of the dead. Ask no more of it, or it may drag your soul back with it.”

  “Be wary,” said the fading face. “Go no further. The Iron Lords knock upon the door. Best never to hear the heralding. Go back to the North, to your comfortable homes. Torment will find you there. Do not die here, Heffira-nereaz-Hellishul vovo Balisatervo Chai Tse-ban or you will be marooned as I am, far from the light of the One!” It began to scream, and Trassan clapped his hands over his ears against it, but the noise passed through his hands as if they were not there. He and Heffi screamed along with it.

  The scream faded. The green smoke melted away and the incense scent faded. The fire blazed high again.

  Trassan took his shaking hands away from his ears. The head sat inert on its leather covering. The Unshe got to her feet and swiftly bundled it up, muttering spells against the ghost’s return.

  “It said it came to warn us, but you called it,” said Trassan.

  “Both are true. Did I not say that there are many truths?” The Unshe tied the head up with hide thongs and set it back into its alcove. “I called you here because I was meant to. I called it because it called you. All fits together, there is only one way for the world to be, and there is always a reason. Heed its warning. Go home.”

  “Is it right?” said Trassan.

  The Unshe shrugged and sat before them, her dirty arms resting on calloused knees. “Yes. No.”

  Heffi narrowed his eyes. “How does he come to be here? Why is he not with the One?”

  “The Southern Gods took him to be with them,” said the Unshe. “All who die on the ice are theirs. Your people have no bargain with them as you do with the King of the Drowned. I could not summon him if it were not so. Those who go to your god are beyond contact.”

  “There are no gods,” said Trassan. “They are gone.”

  The Unshe laughed. “Tell that to the ocean, tell that to the sky, the snow, the ice and the fire! These are the gods of the sea-peoples. I see them all around me. The great warlock drove out your gods, not ours. This is not the Hundred Kingdoms. Remember that, or the ghost’s prophecy will out.”

  The Unshe lit a second grainy stick of incense, this one with a sweet and sticky scent. She fanned it at her guests, and Trassan fell woozy again.

  “Heed the spirit! Return. Your magic is at odds with this place, it is the magic of iron, line and angle. The one who travels with you, the Red Rabbit, his presence has the spirits of the underworld in uproar. The gods of the south are angry with him, for the hurt his ancestor did to their divine cousins. Suffering awaits you.”

  Black spots whirled in front of Trassan’s eyes. The Unshe peered at him through them.

  “Go home!” She flicked him on the forehead with a dirty finger, and he passed out.

  TRASSAN AWOKE ON a bed of snow harried by a freezing wind. He pushed himself up groggily, almost pitching into the black sea. He was on the narrow shelf of ice near the Unshe’s cave. The night was at its darkest. Sheets of multicoloured light rippled on the horizon, reflecting green and red upon the still ocean. They crackled mightily as they danced.

  “Andrade’s Cloak,” said Trassan.

  “The spirits are angry,” said Heffi, pushing himself from the wall. His tone was wry, but his face troubled. He reached a hand down and hauled Trassan to his feet.

  Trassan’s legs were feeble under him, and he had to steady himself against the wall. He was sure they were outside the cave entrance, but their tracks ended at his feet and there was no opening there, only a wall of weathered floatstone. He rested his hands on it wonderingly.

  “I do not like this wild magic,” said Trassan.

  “It is not to be trusted,” said Heffi, staring at the lights.

  “Was I out long?” said Trassan.

  “A half hour longer than I,” said Heffi. “Hard to tell how long we have been here in total. The days are so long.”

  “Thanks for waiting.”

  “You are too heavy to carry, and I could not let you topple into the ocean. I am very cold.”

  “My apologies, and again my thanks.” Trassan paused. “What should we do?”

  Heffi held up his hands and shrugged.

  “I wish Aarin were still with us,” said Trassan. “He understands the dead.”

  Heffi sighed. “He is not. Even if he was and told you to go back, would you?”

  Trassan shook his head. He shivered, missing the heat of the fire. “No.”

  “Well then,” said Heffi. “Onward we go.” He guided Trassan back the way they came with a hand in the small of his back. “The meeting was worrying, but propitious.”

  “Yes,” said Trassan. “We know something that Vardeuche Persin never will. How to get into the City of Ice.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Grand Ball

  GARTEN WAS BACK in the fog. He looked out through a crack in the curtains at its blank whiteness. Only one hundred yards away from the Palace of Nations on the Place di Regime, late evening sunshine lit up the skyline of half of Perus, the rest endured an early twilight in the shadow of the Godhome. By the palace the Morfaan’s mist was so thick it blotted out all detail on the massive Grand House of the Assembly. The building was identical to the palace and not far distant on the other side of the square, but its dome, the twin of the palace’s and jointly the largest in the world, was an indistinct mass, and the statues lining its pediments shady silhouettes. Sun shining into the island of fog filled it with a fierce light that made the back of one’s eyes throb. It was for this reason, rather than secrecy, that the curtains were drawn.

  Garten let the cloth drop. “This light is awful.”

  Abing hoomed and hawed, rolling his glass of Girarsan whisky around in his hand. The man could not sit still. He reminded Garten of Trassan in that regard.

  “It will be dark soon,” said Abing. “Just count yourself lucky that the Morfaan stay here. Imagine if they were staying on the Avenue of Peace.”

  “I would rather not. I have had my fill of the mist.” He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece of the oversized fireplace. “How do we know Juliense will keep to his word?”

  “He will,” said Abing. In the ballroom downstairs, the ball’s prelude played. Swelling music filtered in through the closed door.

  “It will be time for the first dance soon, he cannot miss that.”

  “And he will not,” said Abing. “I thought you calmer than this, Garten,” he admonished. “Do sit down. Have a drink.”

  Garten left the window and dragged a chair out from the long table that took up most of the room. The room was technically Karsan territory, theirs to hold meetings in during balls such as this. Every nation had one. “Very well.”

  “Can I have a drink too?” said Tyn Issy.

  “Yes, yes, I am sorry my dear.” Abing got up, went to where Issy’s box was hidden behind the glass dome of another large clock. She held out a tiny silver cup though the bars. He dripped whisky into it.

  “I said I wanted a drink, not drowning,” said Issy. She licked her hand noisily, like a cat.

  “My apologies, goodlady,” said Abing. “That’s a very small cup. Now you be sure you stay quiet through all this, agreed?”

  “Hmph,” said Issy.

  Abing poured Garten a drink and sat back down.

  “Fine whiskey,” said Garten.

  “Yes,” agreed Abing. They sipped in silence.

  Someone knocked at the door. Abing nodded his head at it, indicating that Garten should open it.

  Juliense was one of the most powerful men in Maceriya, some said the most powerful, and therefore among the greatest lords in all of Ruthnia, and he was on the other side of the door, coming to talk to them. For a giddy second Garten felt out of his depth. There are those moments in an official’s life that prove definitive. This was one. He calmed himself, smoothed his admiralty uniform, and opened the door. The m
usic loudened greatly. One of the Guard Comtose greeted Garten, his war panoply gleaming, a short, tasselled halberd in his right hand. Men and women in evening dress walked behind him along the balconied landing. Beyond them, chandeliers gleamed with hundreds of candles in the vast open space of the palace dome.

  “Juliense, Comte of High Perus,” the guard announced, and stepped smoothly back.

  Juliense came in. Abing stood and offered a short bow. Garten closed the door behind him.

  “I am sorry goodfellows, to keep you,” said the Comte of High Perus.

  “This is an important event, we understand,” said Abing.

  “The most important,” said Juliense.

  Abing handed Juliense a drink. The Maceriyan’s costume was outlandish: cream satin, silver thread and mirror-bright buttons. His face was completely white, his hair hidden under a wig that must have been two feet tall. But for all his ludicrous garb, Juliense radiated a dangerous cunning. He had shrewd eyes in a hard face.

  “We have minutes at most, goodfellows. So let me be plain. Karsa must back the Maceriyan candidate. I need to have your pledge in writing, this evening.”

  “And why should we do that, my lord?” said Abing.

  “Because, your grace,” said Juliense, “of the Church. You witnessed their little display at the arrival yesterday.”

  “You handled it artfully, if I may say,” said Abing.

  “Perhaps,” said Juliense. “But I have angered them. Their display of ignorance might have the broadsheets hooting with laughter, but the common people rush to defend them. There will be unrest here in Perus, and in most of the other cities of the Maceriyan block. The commoners demand a share of the wealth being collected by industrialists. If it were not for them, tearing up the old order with their money and their machines, we may not be in such danger.” He looked at Garten a moment. “Maybe we should follow your example, and come to an accommodation.”

  “Prince Alfra’s father thought it pragmatic to ennoble the wealthy,” said Abing. “Money has ever been the deciding factor in nobility.”