A Cavern of Black Ice (4 page)

Ash shivered. Swinging her hand down
onto the bed, she beat the images back by pummeling the mattress as
hard as she could. She wouldn't think about the dream. Didn't want to
know what those cold eyes wanted.

Thht. Thht. Thht
. Three knocks
rang lightly against the fossilwood door.

Something deep inside Ash's chest, a
band of muscle connecting her lungs to her heart, stiffened. Although
breathless from beating the pillow, she didn't take a breath or even
blink. Silent as settling dust, she told herself as her eyes focused
on the door.

Finely grained and hard as nails, the
door's perfect gray surface was marred by three black thumb-size
pits: bolt holes. Six months earlier Ash had paid her maidservant,
Katia, four halfsilvers to go down to the metalworkers' market near
Almsgate and purchase a bolt and socket for the chamber door. Katia
had done her bidding, returning with an iron bar big enough to secure
a fort. Ash had fixed the metal plate and socket in place herself.
She had blackened a fingernail in the process and broken the backs of
two silver brushes, but the bolt pins had gone in and the fastening
mechanism had worked smoothly, and for a week Ash had slept more
soundly than she could ever remember sleeping.

Until…

Thht Thht. Thht.

Ash stared at the empty bolt holes. She
made no motion to answer the second round of knocking.

'Asarhia." A pause.
"Almost-daughter, I will have no games played with me."

Tilting her body minutely, Ash slid
down amid the covers. One hand stole beneath her head to turn the
sweat-stained pillow facedown upon mattress, while her other hand
smoothed her hair. Just as she closed her eyes, the door creaked
open.

Penthero Iss had brought his own lamp,
and the fierce blue glow of burning kerosene put Ash's own resin lamp
in the shade. Iss stood in the doorway and looked at Ash. Even with
her eyes closed she knew what he was about.

He made her wait before he spoke.
"Almost-daughter, don't you think I know when I'm being
deceived?"

Ash kept her eyelids closed, but not
tightly—he had caught her on that in the past. In no way did
she respond to his words, simply concentrated on keeping her
breathing low and metered.

"Asarhia!"

It was hard not to flinch. Mimicking a
kind of dazed surprise, she opened her eyes and rubbed them
vigorously. "Oh," she said. "It's you.

Ignoring her show of bafflement,
Penthero Iss walked into the room proper, set his lamp on the
rootwood prayer ledge next to the offering bowls of dried fruits and
pieces of myrrh, brought his long-fingered hands together, and shook
his head. "The cushions, almost-daughter." The index finger
on his left hand circled, indicating the foot of the bed. "A
sound night's sleep seldom includes kicking cushions so hard that the
impression of one's foot stays upon them till dawn."

Ash cursed all the cushions in Mask
Fortress. She cursed Katia for piling the silly, fluffy, useless bags
of goosedown high on her bed each night.

Penthero Iss crossed over to Ash's bed.
Fine gold chains woven into the fabric of his heavy silk coat chinked
softly as he moved. Although not muscular, he carried something hard
within him, as if his skeleton were made out of stone. His face had
the shape and smoothness of a skinned hare. Holding out a long,
carefully manicured, completely hairless hand, he asked, "How
much do I love you, almost-daughter?" Untaken, the hand moved
away to carve a circle in the air. "Look at all I give you:
dresses, silver brushes, perfumed oils—

'You are my father who loves me more
than any real father ever could." Ash spoke Iss' own words back
to him. She had lost count of how many times he had said them to her
over the past sixteen years.

Penthero Iss, Surlord of Spire Vanis,
Lord Commander of the Rive Watch, Keeper of Mask Fortress, and Master
of the Four Gates, shook his head with disappointment. "You
would mock me, almost-daughter?"

Feeling a bite of guilt, Ash slid her
hand over his. She owed love and respect to the man who was her
foster father and surlord.

Sixteen years ago, before he took the
title of surlord for his own, Penthero Iss had found her outside
Vaingate. She was a newborn, a foundling abandoned within ten paces
of the city gate. All such foundlings were considered Protector's
Trove. Iss had been Protector General at the time, in charge of city
security and defenses. He had patrolled the Four Gates, led his
red-bladed brothers-in-the-watch, and commanded the forces that
manned the walls.

Ever since Thomas Mar had forged the
first Rive Sword with the steel and rendered blood of the men who had
betrayed him at Hove Hill, no protector general had ever been paid
for his work. For centuries protector generals lived off income from
their grangeholds, inheritances, and land grants. Today there was no
land left to grant, and more and more baseborn men were joining the
Watch, and protector generals now gained income by other, less noble
means. Contraband goods; swords of illegal length or blade curvature,
arrows with barbed tips; prohibited substances such as sulfur,
resins, and saltpeter that could be used in making siege powders;
unlawfully produced liquor, poisons, sleeping drafts and pain
dullers; ill-gotten gains; anything found in the possession of known
criminals; and all goods abandoned within the city—whether they
be crates of rotting cabbages, fat pigs broken loose from their
tethers, or newborns left to die in the snow—were the protector
general's to do with as he saw fit.

Protector's Trove had made Penthero Iss
a rich man.

As if guessing her thoughts, Iss
brought his lips close to Ash's ear. "Never forget,
almost-daughter, that during my commission I came upon dozens of
foundling babies, yet you were the only one I chose to raise as my
own."

Ash tried, but she couldn't quite
stifle the shiver that worked its way down her spine. He had sold the
other babies to the dark-skinned priests in the Bone Temple.

'You are cold, almost-daughter."
Penthero Iss' hand, with its hairless knuckles that never cracked,
glided up Ash's arm and along her shoulder. His fingers prodded the
flesh of Ash's neck, testing for warmth, blood pulse, and swollen
glands.

The urge to shrink away from his touch
was overwhelming, but Ash fought it. She didn't want to provoke Iss
in any way. If she needed any proof of that, all she had to do was
look at the three blind bolt holes in the fossilwood door.

'Your blood is racing, Asarhia."
Iss' hand moved lower. "And your heart…"

Unable to stand it any longer, Ash
jerked back. Iss grabbed hold of her nightgown and twisted the fabric
in his fist. "You've been having the dream again, haven't you?"
She didn't answer. Threads of muslin in her nightgown were laddering
under the pressure of his grip. "I said
haven't you
?"

Still Ash made no reply, but she knew,
she just
knew
, that her face gave her away. Her skin flushed
with every lie.

'What did you see? Was it the gray
land? The cavern? Where were you? Think.
Think
."

Shaking her head, Ash cried, "I
don't know. I don't know. There was a cavern lined with ice…
it could be anywhere."

'Did you see what lay beyond?" The
words left Iss' mouth like frost smoke, sparkling blue and utterly
cold. They hung in the air, cooling the space between Ash and her
foster father, making it difficult for Ash to breathe. Ash saw Iss'
lower jaw come to rest. She heard saliva smack inside his mouth.

'Father, I don't understand what you
mean. The dream was over so quickly; I hardly remember what I saw."

Penthero Iss blinked at Ash's use of
the word
Father
. Sadness flitted across his face so quickly,
she doubted she'd seen it at all. Slowly, intentionally, he showed
his gray-cast teeth. "So it has come to this? Lies from the
foundling I raised as my own."

Rare were the times when Iss showed his
teeth. They were small and positioned well above his lip line. Rumor
had it that a sorcerous healing practiced upon him when he was just a
boy had burned the enamel from them. Whatever the cause, Iss made it
his habit to speak, smile, eat, and drink without ever drawing back
his lips.

With one quick movement Iss found and
pressed the curve of Ash's left breast. He weighed the small globe of
flesh and then pinched it. "You can't stay a child forever,
Asarhia. The old blood will show soon enough."

Ash felt her cheeks burn. She didn't
understand what he meant.

Iss regarded Ash for a long moment, his
green silk robe switching colors in the fierce light of burning
kerosene, before releasing his hold on her nightgown and standing.
"Tidy yourself up, child. Do not force me to lay hands on you
again."

Ash kept her breath steady and tried
not to let her fear show. Questions piled on her tongue, but she knew
better than to ask them. Iss had a way with answers. He gave them,
they sounded perfectly logical, but then later when you were alone
and had time to think, you realized he had told you nothing at all.

As Iss moved away, Ash got a whiff of
the smell that sometimes clung to her foster father. The smell of
old, old things locked away so tightly that they dried to brittle
husks. Something shifted at the edge of Ash's vision. All the hairs
on her body bristled, and against her will she was drawn back to her
dream…

Reaching, she was reaching in the
darkness.

'Asarhia?"

Ash snapped back. Penthero Iss was
looking at her, his long, skinned-man's face showing the faintest
sheen of excitement. Light from his lamp sent his shadow flickering
across the watered-silk panels on the walls. Ash could still remember
the soft marten and sable furs that had once hung in their stead. Iss
had sent a brother-in-the-watch to tear them down and replace them
with smooth, bloodless silk. Furs and animal hides were distasteful
to him; he called them barbaric and would have none hung in any
chamber he might chance to enter in the massive, sprawling,
four-towered fortress that formed the heart of Spire Vanis.

Ash missed the furs. Her chamber seemed
cold and bare without them.

'You are not well, almost-daughter."
As Iss spoke, his hands came together in a smooth knot of knuckle and
flesh that was peculiar to him alone. "I will sit with you
through the last hour of night."

'Please. I need to rest." Ash
rubbed her forehead, struggling to keep her mind in the now. What was
wrong with her? Raising her voice, she said, "Go. Just go. I
have to use the chamber pot. I drank too much wine at dinner."

Iss remained calm. "Yes, wine…
and to think Katia informed me that you refused both the pewter
containing the red and the silver she brought later with the white."
A dull metal tap sounded: Iss kicking the empty chamber pot that lay
at the foot of Ash's bed in the center of a hill of cushions. "And
somehow you managed to wait until now to relieve yourself."

Katia. Always Katia. Ash scowled. Her
head ached, and her body felt as tired and shaky as if she'd spent
the night running uphill rather than sleeping in her bed. She
desperately wanted to be alone.

I Surprisingly, Iss crossed over to the
door. Fingers slipping into the vacant bolt holes, he turned to face
Ash and said, "I will have my Knife stay outside your door
tonight. You are not well, almost-daughter. I worry."

The idea of having the Knife camped
outside her chamber frightened Ash nearly as much as her dream.
Marafice Eye scared her—he scared at lot of people in Mask
Fortress. That was, she supposed, the main reason her foster father
kept him around. "Can't we call Katia instead?"

Iss began shaking his head before Ash
finished speaking. "I think our little Katia might not be a
wholly reliable guardian. Take tonight: You said you drank wine, yet
she swore you didn't, and of course I must take my daughter's word
over that of a common servant. So I have no choice but to conclude
the girl reported wrongly and might easily do so again." A cold
smile. "You are not well, Asarhia. Ill dreams trouble you,
headaches plague you. What sort of a father could I call myself if I
did not watch my daughter closely?"

Ash bent her head. She wanted to sleep,
close her eyes, and not have to dream. Her foster father was too
clever for her. Lies, even small ones, were as silken rope in his
hands. He could pull and distort them, use them to tie their speaker
up in knots. She had gotten herself into enough trouble tonight. The
best thing to do would be to say nothing more, nod her head meekly,
and let her foster father bid her good night. He was already making
his way toward the door; another minute and he would be gone.

Yet…

She was Ash March, Foundling, left
outside Vaingate to die. She had been abandoned in two feet of snow,
wrapped in a blanket stiff with womb blood, beneath a sky as dark as
night in the twelfth storm of winter. She had been forsaken, yet
somehow she had lived. She had been weak, yet some tiny spark of life
within her had proven strong. Straightening her spine, she looked her
foster father straight in the eyes and said, "I want to know
what's happening to me."

Holding her gaze, Iss reached for the
kerosene lamp. The iron base was stamped with the Surlord's seal: the
Killhound rampant, the great smoke gray bird of prey sinking claws
the size of meat hooks into the tip of the Iron Spire. Ash remembered
her foster father telling her that although killhounds fed on spring
lambs, bear cubs, and elk calves, they were known for killing hunting
dogs that ranged too close to their aeries. "They never feed
upon the hounds they kill," Iss had said, a gleam of fascination
firing his normally cold eyes. "Though they do make sport with
the carcasses."