A Cavern of Black Ice (68 page)

The door opened silently, gliding on
well-oiled hinges. Momentarily dazzled by the sour light of a
goose-fat lantern, Raif took a step back, his hand dropping
automatically to Tern's sword. A moment later he made out the slight,
bow-shouldered form of a very old woman. Robed in dark blue wool with
a cap of coarse netting pinned against her scalp, she reminded Raif
of the clan dowagers who always dressed plainly when washing the
dead. Her cataract-stained gaze traveled from Raif's face to the hilt
of his sword. Immediately feeling foolish, Raif snapped his hand
away.

"Cloistress Gannet." Angus
pushed past Raif and nodded curtly to the old woman. Ash was pressed
close against his chest.

"It's been forty years since I
last rendered souls in a cloister, Angus Lok. I have no claim to any
title you give me." The old woman's voice was dry and hard. The
hand that held the lamp did not shake. "Come, enter. I see you
have brought a sick birdie for the master."

The cloistress led them along a dark
corridor toward the back of the house, then showed them into a room
where a fire burned with tired red flames. Angus laid Ash on a rug
near the fire. Raif knelt by the hearth and warmed his hands before
he touched her. He did not hear the cloistress leave.

"What is this? What is this?"
A twisted creature with misshapen legs and too many bones in his
chest walked into the room with the aid of two sticks.
Click,
click, click
. Sharp green eyes assessed Raif in less then an
instant, then moved swiftly to Angus and Ash. A bone grown high in
the man's shoulder twitched. "I am not in the business of
receiving visitors after dark. Warm yourselves, then begone. You
shall get no more fire out of me."

"Heritas, this is my nephew Raif
Sevrance." Angus spoke in a voice Raif had never heard before,
stilted and full of emphasis.

Levering his body around, Heritas Cant
adjusted the curve of his neck and fixed Raif with a hard stare.
Uncomfortable, Raif looked away. His gaze rested on Heritas Cant's
pale, bone-filled hand. The knuckles were out of alignment. Two had
twisted around completely and now faced downward along with his palm.

As he straightened up, Raif caught the
end of a look passed between Angus and Heritas Cant, a message-filled
look, where the crippled man looked grim and Angus appealed to him
like a puppy who had dug up some piece of nastiness from the garden
and brought it into the house.

"I suppose you'll be wanting
supper?" Cant said, each word a little stab with a knife. "And
this late, too. You won't get anything hot, mind. I won't have the
oven fired for a ranger, a clansman, and a sick bit of a girl. You'll
have to make do with cold mutton, thinly sliced, and such crusts as I
could not eat myself. Woman!"

The cloistress appeared in the doorway.

"Supper for these people. Light no
extra tallow and serve them only with the third best bowls."

The cloistress said nothing, merely
inclined her head.

"And watch your own trips as you
go, woman. Come here but once to bring the food, then not again. I
will not have the carpet worn by undue steppings." Heritas Cant
turned to Raif. "Nor will I have the heat from the fire hogged
by just one man."

Raif pressed his lips to a line and
moved a few paces from the fire. He didn't like this petty little
man.

Cant clicked his sticks on the plank
floor as soon as the cloistress was gone. "So you've brought me
something sick to look at, Angus Lok. I trust she is not fevered, for
I'll have no catching sickness in my house." As he spoke, he
labored across the room, making his way toward Ash. His movements
reminded Raif of an aging black bear that Drey had shot at distance
one summer in the Oldwood. Drey's arrow had found the bear's lower
spine, and the creature had lurched into the undergrowth before
either he or Drey had chance to kill it.

To cover up the awkwardness of Heritas
bending to tend to Ash, Angus spoke. "Heritas is treasurer of
all monies levered from the Old Sull Gate."

Heritas blasted air through his
nostrils. "And they give me nothing but a copper on the
crow-weight for my troubles. More gold rubs off in the gatekeepers'
pockets in a single afternoon than I see in a whole month of counting
coin." Heritas Cant's good hand traveled along Ash's body as he
spoke, pressing the base of her throat, the hollows beneath her eyes,
her stomach, and the muscles in her shoulders and sides.

Raif feigned interest in the topic of
conversation, though in truth all he was concerned with was watching
Heritas Cant's hands on Ash. "Why is it called the Old Sull
Gate?"

"Because that's what it's always
been known as." Heritas Cant slipped something between Ash's
lips, something dark and brittle like a dried leaf. "Master
Threavish Cutler would have it otherwise; he's tried calling it
King's Gate, Lake Gate, and even Heron Gate, after his damn fool of a
brother who died in waist-deep snow battling a dozen Crosermen on
disputed ground. Cutler's aim, besides appeasing his own
undeniable grief, was to make everyone forget that this city once
belonged to the Sull."

"But I thought—"

"You thought what?" Heritas
Cant sent Raif a withering look and then answered his own question.
"That Ille Glaive has always counted itself one of the Mountain
Cities? That the Sull have always lived in their forests in the east
and never built anything more ambitious than a stone redoubt and a
ring of cairns? No. The Sull were the first to cross the Ranges and
settle the Northern Territories. Before the clans and the driven
ranks marched north, the Sull came here, to the shores of the Black
Spill, and built a fine city around the springs. That city still
stands today if one cares to look. It exists at the base of old
buildings, beneath thickly worked plaster and hastily laid tiles.
Aboveground there is nothing—the towers, statues, and earthwork
have all gone, systematically wrecked by a long line of Threavish
Cutler's ilk—but belowground, at the heart of Ille Glaive, lie
Sull foundations, Sull tunnels, and Sull stone."

Raif didn't care for Heritas Cant's
tone of voice. If the man hadn't been a cripple, he would have dearly
liked to hit him. For Ash's sake, he made an effort. "So the
lords of Ille Glaive forced the Sull from the city?

Heritas Cant took his left hand from
Ash's stomach and massaged the misshapen hump of bones that was his
right wrist. "Yes and no. A siege took place, many battles were
fought, but in the end the thanelords of Ille Glaive earned their
tears' worth of Sull blood cheaply. The Sull have demons that are not
of man's making. They fought for this city and would have held it if
they hadn't had older, more pressing battles to win. They as good as
gave this city to the thanelords and their leader, Dunness Fey…
and it wasn't the first time such a gain has been made at the Sull's
expense. Yet we should all pray that it be the last."

Raif felt his face burn as Heritas
spoke. He was angry, but there was something more here. Almost
against his will, Raif's hand moved to touch his raven lore. Heritas
Cant's sharp green eyes caught the action even as Raif stopped
himself short.

"What is your lore?"

It was a rude question, and Heritas
Cant knew it. When a clansman met someone from another clan, he would
never ask him out right about his lore. That sort of knowledge always
came secondhand. Raif considered not answering. Heritas Cant was
something unknown; just because Angus trusted him didn't mean that
he
should. Yet something else struck him about the small, broken man: He
had known Raif was a clansman. Angus had not introduced him as such,
and Raif knew his clothes and ornaments no longer proclaimed him as
clan—the Dhoonesmen's indifference on the Glaive Road had told
him that. So, did Heritas Cant know him as clan because he'd seized
upon something subtle like his accent or his manner, or had Angus
discussed his sister's family in this house once before? Either way
Raif found little reassurance. He glanced at Cant. The man's shrewd,
pain-sculpted face glowed like polished wood in the firelight.

"I am raven born," Raif said.

"Watcher of the Dead." Cant
clicked his sticks. " Tis a hard lore. It will drive you fierce
and use your flesh and leave you little but loss in payment."

Raif did not move; he neither blinked
nor breathed nor trembled. The words felt like a sentence, and it
seemed all he could do was stand and accept them. The same nameless
fear he'd felt moments earlier when Cant spoke about the Sull filled
his chest.

Angus shifted his weight, causing a
board to creak beneath him. "Come now, Heritas. You need not be
so bleak. Ravens are clever beasties. They're the only birds who can
live out a full winter in the Want. Strong, they are, with wings like
knives and voices to match. True, they're not the prettiest
creatures, but if the clan guide gave out lores on looks alone, we'd
all be kittens and doe-eyed…
does
."

Heritas Cant had stretched his dead
hand upon Ash's forehead as Angus spoke. Now he arranged the twisted
fingers with his good hand, spreading them wide, into her hair, over
the bridge of her nose, and across her eyebrows. "True enough,"
he said as he worked. "The raven is a clever bird. It favors
shadows and waits upon death."

With those words Cant changed, becoming
for a moment something else, as if a heavy substance, like molten
rock, had been poured into his body and then flash-hardened in an
instant. The dead hand that could only be moved with another's help
gripped
Ash's flesh. Cant's mouth opened, and he uttered
something that was not speech. Ash's entire body moved toward him.
Her head rose from the floor. Her mouth gasped open, revealing the
dead leaf on her tongue. Raif saw the tendons on her neck and
wrists working,
straining
. The stench of smelted metal was
suddenly there in the room, so strong it could be tasted as well as
smelled. Pinpoints of spittle frothed from Heritas Cant's lips. His
sticks clattered to the floor. All was still for the briefest moment,
then Cant swayed and nearly fell and Ash slumped back onto the rug.

Angus rushed to Cant's side, supporting
him, helping him rise, leading him to a chair.

Raif paid them no heed. He crossed to
where Ash lay and knelt in the warm space Cant had just vacated. Even
as he reached out to touch her, her eyes opened.

Relief flooded over him, leaving him
feeling drunk and breathless and so stupidly pleased, he could have
laid down Tern's sword and danced above the blade. All talk of ravens
and death was forgotten. Swiftly he gave thanks to the Stone Gods;
they were jealous and demanding and might take something back if not
appeased. Ash was
awake
. Her large gray eyes, first shown to
him weeks ago by the guide-stone, looked and saw and recognized.

"You're safe," Raif said.
"We're in a friend's house." He hesitated, knowing their
peculiar relationship demanded that he always tell her how long she
had been asleep. He didn't want to upset her with the truth, yet he
would not lie to her, either. "You've been asleep for four
days."

Ash's eyes looked into his. Her lips
trembled.

What had she been through? He found he
did not like the thought of her suffering. Slowly, deliberately, he
bent down and gathered her up, pulling her fast against his chest.
She was so cold it frightened him.

"Easy, Raif." Angus put a
hand on his shoulder. "Let her be."

Raif shook his head. "I will not
let them take her again."

Crouching, Angus brought his face close
to Raif's. He studied whatever was showing there for a long moment
and then said in a weary voice, "And so it begins."

A quarter passed before Raif could
finally be persuaded to let her go.

Named Beasts

I have put what wardings I can between
Ash and that which calls her. Later, I shall do more. Yet know this:
The Bound Men and Beasts of the Blind will not be held off
indefinitely. They know what Ash is, and they will not let her rest
until she gives them what they crave."

Heritas Cant's wheel-broken body rested
in a chair of hard black wood. An hour had passed since Ash had
awakened. A light supper of watered beer, bread, and roasted mutton
had been eaten by all, during which Cant had complained heatedly
about the number of guests, the amount of food eaten, the crumbs
wasted, the gristle spat, the strain on the dying fire, and the wear
on his rugs, chairs, wooden bowls, and spoons. After supper he had
called the cloistress to him and informed her that he was taking his
guests "to the warren" to show them his collection of
foreign coins. The cloistress had bobbed her head sharply, like a
sparrow plucking insects from air, yet even as her face and chin
pointed downward her milky gaze had followed them from the room.

The warren was located at the far edge
of the plot of land that lay at the rear of Heritas Cant's house.
Constructed entirely underground, it reminded Raif of the rendering
pits in the badlands, dug so that thirty head of elk could be sweated
at one time. Its mud walls were braced with crossing timbers as big
as a full-grown man, and its ceiling was formed from whole basswood
logs mounted on brackets. Things grew in the spaces between the logs:
silvery weeds that moved with every breath Raif took. The floor was
good firm stone, blue slate, and much worn. The air above it smelled
of wet soil and old age.

Heritas said it had been built half a
century earlier by the last owner of the house, an eccentric man who
had been convinced that one day headless demons would walk the earth
and only those living beneath it would be saved. Raif had laughed.
Angus had suggested that the man's real motive may well have been to
get some peace from his wife. Heritas Cant had greeted both reactions
with ill humor.