A Cavern of Black Ice (73 page)

"Are you well enough to ride?"

"Do I have a choice?"

Raif made no answer. He looked at her
with dark eyes then turned away.

They were sitting in the room Heritas
Cant had first greeted them in last night. Judging from the bands of
gray light that shone beneath the shutters, it was sometime after
midday. Ash had slept on a padded bench close to the fire. She had no
memory of being brought here, didn't even know if she had walked on
her own two feet or been carried inside. The last thing she
remembered before waking and finding herself snug and well wrapped by
the fire was the sound of Heritas Cant's blood dripping into a bowl.
Ash shivered. She could still taste the fear in her mouth.

"I'll leave you for now,"
Raif said. "Eat your breakfast." He frowned. Angus and I
went to the market this morning. We bought you some new clothes.
They're in the basket by the table." He opened the door. And
there's a pony outside, too."

Ash raised herself up from the bench.
"A pony?"

"Yes. She's mountain bred. Gray as
a storm cloud."

"You picked her?" Raif
nodded. Their eyes met.

A moment passed. Then Ash said, "I
won't hold you to any promise you made last night. It was all so…"
She shook her head. "I had no right to ask for your help."

An expression that Ash didn't
understand glowed with cold light in Raif's eyes. For a moment he
looked older, harder, like someone she might cross the street to
avoid. "I'll take back no promise, spoken or unspoken. I owe
loyalty to my uncle and will say no word against him that is not to
his face. Nor will I speak ill of Heritas Cant, for I respect his
strength of mind and am grateful for all he has done. Yet know this.
My reasons for helping you are not the same as theirs. I have no
interest in the Reach."

"I know. That's why I turned to
you last night. That's why I told you the truth by the Spill."

Raif looked at her and did not speak.
After a moment he turned to leave.

"I'm sorry," she said,
halting him.

"For what?"

Ash found herself struggling for words.
He was giving her so much… quietly and with no fuss. "For
letting you touch me that day by Vaingate."

Raif's hand rose to his throat, where
it probed until it found the black bit of horn he called his lore.
Surprisingly he smiled, and it was such a beautiful thing to see that
Ash caught her breath. "You are worthy of respect, Asarhia
March."

Before Ash could decide what sort of
answer he had given her, the door clicked closed and he was gone.
Stupidly she stared at the space he had left behind.

She took her time getting ready after
that, pausing to eat slices of cold fried bread and sour winter
apples. Someone, probably Cloistress Gannet, had seen to it that she
had everything she needed to take a bath. It seemed a long time since
she'd last had the luxury of soap and water, and she stripped off her
clothes and stood naked in the copper tub and let the hot steam soak
her skin. After a time she scrubbed the grime from her body and
worked her hair into a frothy lather that smelled of oats and winter
mint. The water beneath her soon turned gray, and for the briefest
moment she considered calling to Katia to bring more.

Ash stepped out of the tub. The water
seemed suddenly cold, and she could not dry herself quickly enough.
Katia was dead. Gone. Hung on the gallows for crows to pick at and
all the world to see.

And Penthero Iss had put her there. Ash
dropped the wool towel into the tub and watched as it soaked up the
dirty water. She understood more about her foster father now. Last
night while Heritas Cant spoke of Reaches and the Blind and the
creatures who lived there, Ash had thought of Iss. Everything he had
ever done and said to her—every kindness he had shown, every
kiss he had given, every little attention he had paid her—was a
lie. She was a Reach, and he had known it. It was why he had come to
her late at night, asking slyly worded questions about her dreams. It
was why he had set Katia to watch her chamber, the Knife to guard her
door, and Caydis Zerbina to steal away her things.

Penthero Iss had wanted his own Reach.

Ash stood in the center of the room and
let that fact sink in. Goose-flesh pricked along her arms and chest,
and after a while she began to shake uncontrollably. Her foster
father had planned to lock her away in the Splinter and keep her for
himself. Already he had something, someone, imprisoned there, and she
was the next piece he meant to add to his collection.

How long had he known what she was?
Always? Had it been the only reason he had saved her?

Ash didn't know how long she stood
there, shaking, didn't even know if she shook from anger, shock, or
cold. Heritas Cant's words had remade her life. Her memories were now
as dirty as the water in the tub.

The hard clack of wood hitting wood
jolted her from her thoughts. Yes?" she called, falling back
into her old ways of command as easily as if she had never left Mask
Fortress.

"It is Heritas Cant. I must speak
with you before you leave." Wait a moment while I dress."
Ash's voice was as cold as her body, she crossed to the table where
the basket of new clothes lay and began sorting through them. Two men
buying clothes for a girl! Ash smiled a crazy tear-filled smile as
she looked on what they had bought. They meant to spoil her. They had
thought of everything and nothing, buying red silk skirts and pretty
embroidered blouses and the finest, softest woolen cloak she had ever
felt or seen. Everything was dyed in bright and lovely colors: a
waistcoat of peacock blue, ribbons as green as emeralds, and suede
boots the color of rust.

Ash found herself laughing and crying
as she held up a needlepoint bodice as fine as anything she had ever
seen on a grangelord's wife in Mask Fortress. There were slippers and
wraps and fine woolly mittens, lace collars, bone buttons, and shoes:
everything two men thought a girl needed. Everything they thought
she'd love.

She did love them. She loved them so
fiercely, she hugged them to her chest like living things. The
thought of Angus and Raif walking around a market, choosing colors,
feeling textures, guessing sizes, and talking trim made her giggle
like a child. On the other side of the door, she heard Heritas Cant
wheezing. One of his sticks tapped impatiently against the floor.

Time she was dressed. Only she could
find neither wool stockings nor small linens in the basket. Ash
shrugged. Men couldn't be relied on to think of
those
. She'd
have to make do with the ones she had.

Having picked out the plainest wool
skirt,
a
white blouse embroidered with tiny forget-me-nots,
and the peacock blue waistcoat, Ash began folding the other clothes
away. As she picked up the red silk skirt, a small muslin bag fell
from its folds. She scooped it up and untied the string. Underthings.
The bag contained pretty ladies' under-things, all scented and
fastened with bows. Angus, she thought immediately.
Angus
remembered to buy these
.

Five minutes later, dressed and ready,
she opened the door to Heritas Cant.

He did not look well. The twin sticks
he used to walk with shook with the force of his weight. Immediately
feeling guilty about making him wait, Ash came forward to help him.
He shook her away, and they both spent an awkward few minutes as he
made his way toward the fire and then settled himself on a
high-seated, high-backed chair that Ash guessed had been specially
built for his use.

His first words to her were, "Money
wasted." And it took her a moment to realize he was talking
about her new clothes.

She said nothing.

"Are you well?" Cant's green
eyes seemed to extract the answer from her before she spoke, and the
nod she gave had the quality of an afterthought. "Good. Good.
The bloodwards I have set are in place, then. Can you feel them?"

"I think so. My insides feel
tight, almost as if they've been battened down."

"In some ways they are." Cant
struggled to adjust his right leg, which rested in an odd way beneath
him. "Wardings do two things. First, they conceal you, making it
difficult for magic users and the creatures of the Blind to track you
down. Now this doesn't mean they won't or can't find you, for if you
draw upon your Reach power, you might as well light a beacon on the
highest hill, put a horn to your lips, and blow. No. The wardings are
just a trick to fool those who don't look too close."

Ash made herself nod.

"Second, wardings protect you. The
restraint you feel is part of the barrier I have erected. Your body
is bound by cords of sorcery. They wrap around your heart, your
liver, your brain, and your womb, shielding them from harm or
interference. They are strong now, yet time will wear them. I pray
they will last until you make it to the Cavern of Black Ice, but in
truth I cannot be certain. You can help by making yourself strong.
Eat well and often, sleep for as long as you can, do not drive
yourself hard, and never put yourself in a position where fear might
lead you to draw sorcery."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"As a Reach you were born for one
thing: to make a rift in the Blindwall. The power is here"—he
poked a finger at his chest—"inside you. And nothing of
flesh and blood can stand against it when you draw it forth and
reach." Cant's eyes were suddenly hard, green jewels in a face
so pale it could have belonged to a corpse. "You think I mean to
scare you, Asarhia March. Well, perhaps I do. Perhaps I myself am
scared. This is an old land we live in, and old myths and old powers
sustain it. Before the clans and the city men came here, before even
the Sull settled in their cities of icewood and stone, there were
others, not men, not as we would name them, yet they had eyes and
mouths like men, and built great halls of earth and timber in the
heart of the Want. I cannot tell you how many centuries they lived
for, but I do know they died out within a hundred years,
slaughtered or taken by the creatures in the Blind. The Sull call it
Ben Horo
, the Time Before. They hold the knowledge of these
others close, pass it down from generation to generation, even though
they share neither blood nor kinship with them. This they do to honor
the memories of the Old Ones as they named them, and to keep fear of
the Endlords alive."

"Why tell me this now?"

"Because you must know what is at
stake. Any magic user who is untrained is dangerous. Anger, terror,
fear: Any strong emotion can concentrate power. You must guard
yourself against such things. Lash out in anger, and sorcery may be
released with the blow. You cannot afford to lose control of your
emotions. More than your own life depends on it."

Ash decided she would say nothing…
and not be afraid. "If there were more time, I could show you
what the Sull call
Saer Rahl
, the Way of the Flame, which
teaches men and women how to master their emotions and never act out
of anger or fear." Cant smiled thinly. "I never took to it
myself, but then I was born on the slopes of the Shattered Mountains,
and no flames I knew burned cold."

Cant clicked his sticks against the
floor. "So I must send you north with nothing but bloodwards to
protect you. And perhaps we should both pray that next time we meet
your Reach power will be gone and you'll have no need of lessons in
self-control from an old man such as me. Just know this: Any kind of
sorcery you draw before you reach the cavern will blast through my
constraints." Spittle shot from Cant's lips. "Is that
clear?"

"Yes."

"The wardings will not withstand
Reach power." A pause followed, and then he murmured, "Little
can."

Ash held herself tall. She would show
no reaction to this man.

Cant watched her for a moment, then
shrugged. "Well, that's all I mean to say." He began the
long process of rising to his feet, and Ash turned away to give him
privacy to position his legs and sticks. His breaths sounded like
discharged arrows at her back.

When finally he had moved himself close
to the door, she turned and said, "How did my foster father know
I was a Reach?"

"Do you really mean
how
or
when
?"

Surprised by his cleverness, Ash
confessed the truth. "Yes, when?"

An expression looking much like
sympathy charged the slack muscles of Cant's face. "Prophecies
that foretell the coming of the next Reach have been passed from
mouth to mouth ever since the last Reach died ten centuries ago. I
have read or heard many of them myself. Some are obvious fakes,
written by the sort of men and women who take pleasure in hoaxes and
tricks. Others are food for scholars, filled with so many archaic
references and metaphors that no two people can agree on their
meaning. Others still are written in dead languages that once
translated lose their subtlety and sense. A few, just a few, have the
ring of truth about them. One such prophecy is a child's verse. It
has been known and spoken in the North for many years." Cant
hesitated.

"Say it."

Cant nodded. He adjusted his sticks to
better bear his weight and then spoke in the soft voice of secrets
and confessions.

First to breathe upon a mountain
First to gaze upon a barren gate First to Reach in the hands of her
captors Last to learn her fate.

Silence filled the room like cold
water. Ash breathed and thought and did not move. Cant waited. The
air surrounding them was thick and dark, filled with the scent of old
things. Ash met Cant's gaze and held it until he looked away. She had
no desire to discuss the verse with him. Its meaning was clear. She
had been left on the north face of Mount Slain, five paces away from
Vaingate, the
barren
gate, and Penthero Iss, Angus Lok, and
this man standing before her had all known who she was before she had
known herself.