A Cavern of Black Ice (113 page)

Raif breathed deeply and then jammed
his knuckles into the wound. The pain in both his hands was blinding,
and it made him wonder if he'd lost his mind. What had he been
thinking, letting Ark Veinsplitter spill his blood? He counted
seconds as he continued to press against the cut vein. Truth was, he
knew
what he had been thinking; it just didn't make much
sense, that was all. He didn't want the Sull paying for his journey.
Not this part, the last part, after he and Ash had come this far.

"Here."

Raif looked up. Mai Naysayer held
something out for him to take: a broad leaf, deep green in color and
covered with rough hairs. Recognizing it for what it was and what it
did, Raif thanked the Naysayer and took it from him. Bracing himself,
he laid the leaf flat in his palm and then pressed it against the cut
vein. Comfrey or, as some called it, wound heal: Clans used it like
the Sull to stop the bleeding of small wounds.

As the Naysayer walked a small distance
to retrieve the pack he had left on the bank, Ash turned to Raif.
"You knew they wouldn't come under the ice with us." It was
not a question.

"I thought they wouldn't, but I
wasn't sure until I saw their faces when we first reached here this
morning." Raif adjusted his grip on the comfrey leaf; a thin
trail of blood was still leaking from the wound. "They know this
place, Ash. I think—" He stopped himself before the words
they even fear it
left his lips.

"You think what?"

He shrugged. "It means something
to them, that's all."

Ash gave him a look that made him feel
like a liar. She was so pale and thin, he wondered how she stood
against the wind. After a moment she nodded toward his wrist and
said, "He cut you pretty deeply, didn't he?"

Raif couldn't deny it. "It'll
heal," was all he said.

As if by unspoken agreement, the two
Sull warriors picked that moment to converge upon the hole in the
ice. Both held packs in their hand, and Ark Veinsplitter held a
length of stout rope woven from flax that Raif had seen him use to
raise the tent. The dark-eyed warrior handed his pack to the
Naysayer. No words passed between the two men, yet Raif knew and
understood what was happening. It shamed him.

The Naysayer held out both packs toward
Ash. "Here, Ash March, Foundling, I offer you these gifts for
the journey. There is a stone lamp and what oil we can spare, food
and blankets and herbs to ward off sickness, and other such things as
one .who travels beneath ice might need."

Ash's eyes filled with tears as the
great bear-size warrior spoke. With a small movement she tugged
down her hood so he could see her face wholly. When she spoke her
words were as formal as his, and the wind dried her tears before they
fell. "I thank you, Mai Naysayer, Son of the Sull and chosen Far
Rider, for these gifts that you have given. Without them I would have
neither light nor warmth along the way. You have saved my life, yet
claimed no debt, and for that I owe you, and give you, a piece of my
heart. May all the moons you travel beneath be full ones.

The Naysayer stood still, his ice eyes
unblinking, his back straight as a black spruce, his lynx hood
shedding snow, and studied Ash without speaking. His face looked
carved from stone. After a moment he laid both packages in the snow,
then bowed so low to Ash that the crown of his hood touched river
ice. He bowed again to Raif and then walked away, and Raif knew he
would not come back.

Ark Veinsplitter knelt on the river
surface and hammered an iron stake into shore-fast ice three feet
from the hole. Raif watched his bent back, feeling nothing but shame.
The Sull warrior had not wanted his gifts refused a second time, so
he had passed them to his
hass
, who had given them to Ash.

"There. It is done." Ark
secured the rope to the fixed stake and then tested its strength by
tugging on it. "It will hold well enough."

Raif pushed his mitt over his hand,
covering the bloody bandage and the letting wound, and stepped
forward. Ark Veinsplitter's eyes met his. Raif knew it wasn't his
place to thank the Sull warrior for the gifts he had given to
another, so he said only, "Thank you for heeding my call in the
darkness."

Ark Veinsplitter nodded slowly, the
flat plains of muscle on his face suddenly looking worn. "It was
Mai who gave the word to aid you."

'That may be so, but I've only known
Mai Naysayer to give one answer to any question he is asked."
Raif held his gaze firm, and both men stood in silence, feet apart,
the wind blowing their clothes separate ways. After a moment Raif
held out his hand. "I thank you, Ark Veinsplitter, for asking
the right question."

The Sull warrior clasped Raif's arm,
his face grave. "Do not thank me for something we both may come
to regret later, Raif Sevrance of No Clan. Thank me instead for the
use of my horse, and my tent, and my rope." He smiled roughly.
"Perhaps we can both live with that."

Raif nodded. He found he could not
speak.

Together he and Ark Veinsplitter
secured the rope around his chest. The Sull warrior rechecked all
knots and took care to thread the rope in such a way that it removed
all possible strain from Raif's hands during the drop. Fifteen feet
was not a great drop, but a bad landing on hard rock could break
bones. Raif had walked on dry riverbeds before, but he had no idea
what he would find beneath
Kith Masso's
frozen crust.

Ark Veinsplitter pinned Raif's arms
flat against the ice as Raif eased his legs and lower body into the
hole. Muscles bunched beneath the Sull warrior's lynx coat as he
transferred Raif's weight to the rope. Raif thought he was ready for
the pain as his gloved hands closed around the flax, but he wasn't.
Streaks of white fire shot up his arms to his heart. The letting
wound on his wrist suddenly seemed deep enough to sever his hand, and
as his fingers sprang from the rope in fear, his body dropped.

The world he entered was as cool and
still as a guidehouse. The blue glow of icelight closed around his
body, like water around a sinking stone. All was quiet. Raif heard
his own heart beating. The sharp tang of air trapped beneath ice
stole into his nose and mouth. Above him, Ark Veinsplitter lowered
the rope. The flax ticked with strain, the free swinging of Raif's
body making it saw against the ice edge. Wincing, Raif forced both
hands around the rope and guided his body down.

His feet hit bottom with a jolt.
Quickly he worked himself free of the makeshift hoist and called for
Ark to pull it back. As the rope disappeared above his head, Raif
pressed his mitted hands against his jaw. He hated being weak.
Hearing the soft catch of Ash's voice above him, he turned his
attention to the icy blue tunnel that surrounded him. He did not want
to hear what words passed between her and Ark Veinsplitter.

To his left, the granite bank glittered
with lenses of ice. Flecks of iron ore shone darkly within the wall
like pieces of ossified bone. Beneath his feet the riverbed was a
rough valley of rock, frozen pools, and desiccated litter of fish
carcasses and caribou antlers, pine needles and algae.
A
white scum of frosted minerals lay over everything; salts and rock
sill condensed as the river drained. Above it all stretched the ice
ceiling. It was like nothing Raif had ever seen before: warped,
folded, jagged and then smooth like a wall of transparent rock. Light
and color
poured
from it, creating a waterfall of sea greens
and silver grays and dark midnight blues. Raif felt as if he were
standing in the underbelly of a glacier, in the place where ice and
shadow met.

Dry matter crunched beneath his boots
as he stepped aside to make way for Ash's descent. To either side of
him darkness pooled beyond the light.

Ash came down smoothly, both hands
feeding rope. Raif caught her before she hit the riverbed and pulled
her free of the hoist. She was shivering. The blue light reflecting
off her face looked like moonlight. When he pulled his hand free of
her waist, she made a small movement as if to hold it there. As they
waited for Ark Veinsplitter to lower the two packs, Raif watched Ash
closely. Since the night of the wolves she had not lapsed into
unconsciousness, but he didn't know if she was still fighting the
voices. By unspoken agreement, neither had mentioned them in front of
the Sull.

By the time the packs were lowered,
Raif could already perceive a darkening above the ice. This day was
the shortest winter had shown him so far. He wondered what Drey and
Effie would be doing now, then closed the thought off from his mind.

"You will need to remember this
place," Ark Veinsplitter called as he let the rope drop for the
final time. "This may be your only way out, save for picking a
new hole in the ice."

Raif nodded; he had already thought of
that.

"From here you head upriver until
you come upon the tributary that branches west. That may be frozen,
too." Ark's ice-tanned face finally appeared above them. "You
must take due care, Raif Sevrance of No Clan and Ash March,
Foundling. The Naysayer says the riding moon will bring no thaw, but
that which is cold and brittle may collapse."

"Then we will dance ice," Ash
said, looking up at him, "as all your horses do."

Raif thought perhaps the Sull warrior
would smile, but his lips barely stretched against his teeth. "The
Naysayer and I head north. We will leave such a trail as can be
followed by a clansman, if you choose to take our path." He left
them then, with no word of farewell save the sound of his footsteps
beating a cold rhythm upon the ice.

"Come," Raif said when all
was still. "We need to use the last hour of daylight as best we
can." He picked up both packs from the floor and slung them over
his back. One was a lot heavier than the other, and metal items
jingled dully within.

Ash did not move or speak. She stood in
the circle of diminishing daylight directly below the hole in the
ice. Raif did not like the quick manner in which she was breathing.
He touched her lightly on the arm. "Let's go," he said, his
voice as gentle as he could make it. "We've come too far to stop
now."

Slowly her gaze turned upon him. Her
eyes were made brilliant by reflections of ice, and he almost didn't
see the fear that shone through them like light from a second, weaker
source. "They know I'm here," she said. "They know…
and terror grows within them."

Raif found himself watching the ice
ceiling as they walked. The mass of frozen and suspended water
weighed upon his thoughts. It was a slice of the river, frozen from
the surface down; smooth above, where he could no longer see; and
roughly coved below, like the roof of a cave. The ice was thickest
nearest the bank, where frozen white piles rested against granite and
cantilevered the great weight of ice. Raif had already decided that
he and Ash were safer close to the bank, yet as darkness fell and the
air around them cooled, the ice supports began to creak and rumble
like a roundhouse in a storm.

Ash carried the soapstone lamp the
Naysayer had given her, cupping it in both hands for warmth. Raif
wasn't sure what kind of oil fueled it, for it burned with a silver
flame and trailed the sweet, musky, not-quite-human odor of whale
yeast in its smoke. The single flame produced was housed in a
protective guard of mica, but it was more than enough to light the
way.

"Do you think Mai and Ark know
what I am?"

Raif was surprised to hear Ash speak.
She had been silent since she had lit the lamp. Switching his gaze
from the blue glass of the ice ceiling to her face, he said,
"Perhaps. Tem once told me that the Sull know more than any
other race. He said they pass knowledge from generation to generation
and some even inherit memories, like clans-folk inherit the will to
fight."

Ash hugged the lamp closer. Above the
cuff of her mitt, Raif could see the white stick of bone and flesh
that was her wrist. "I think Mai gave me something that first
night to make the voices go away."

"A warding, like the one Heritas
Cant set?"

"No. Something different… I
can't explain." She shrugged. "It's gone now."

Raif glanced into the tunnel of shadows
ahead. Even in the far distance light from the lamp created a corona
of blue light around the ice. "Perhaps we should stop here for
the night. Build a camp. Sleep."

Ash shook her head even before he had
finished speaking. "No. They'd have me the moment I shut my
eyes. They're desperate now. And so close…" She
swallowed. "So close I can smell them."

A spark of anger flared within Raif as
she spoke. Suddenly he hated everyone who had helped her come this
far: Ark Veinsplitter and Mai Naysayer, Heritas Cant, even Angus.
None of them were clan. No clansman would have forced a sick girl to
travel north in full winter. Tern Sevrance would have kept her warm
by the stove and taken his hammer to any shadows or dark beasts who
approached her.

Abruptly Raif stopped. Emptying the
contents of both packs onto the riverbed, he searched for something
to use as a weapon. Amid the pouches of lamp oil, cured salmon, and
wax, he found a slender spike of steel the length of his forearm. An
ice pick. He weighed it in his hand, forced his fingers around the
squared-off butt. It would do. It would have to do.

Ash frowned at him. "You can't
fight what isn't here."

Raif thought of a reply but didn't say
it. Instead he began scooping the spilled contents back into the
packs. Bits of river litter stuck to his mitts like frost, and deep
beneath the fur he felt blood trickle along his wrist as the scab
that had formed over the letting wound stretched to breaking. When he
was done, he slid the pick through his belt. "We'll travel
through the night."