A Cavern of Black Ice (84 page)

She was not attractive, yet Iss found
himself attracted to her. She was not repulsive, yet he found himself
repulsed.

"Did you have a good journey
from…" Iss let the question trail away as he realized he
did not know where she had journeyed from. Rumor had it that she
lived within the city. But all rumors surrounding the Crouching
Maiden were invariably false.

The maiden did not blink as she said,
"Any journey, no matter how brief or prolonged, can tire one at
this time of year."

The voice was one thing she possessed
that
could
be pinned down and classified: that beautiful,
honey-poured voice. Iss smiled both in acknowledgment of an answer
well given and in satisfaction that he finally had something on her.

He had dealt with the Crouching Maiden
before, of course, but only by proxy. Caydis Zerbina—who, with
his network of liquid-eyed brothers, priests, underscribes, personal
servants, bath boys, errand boys, and musicians, knew most things
about most people who lived in or passed through Spire Vanis—had
always taken care of the details. Meeting the assassin in places of
her choosing, Caydis gave her Iss' instructions and paid her fees in
gold, always gold.

This time Iss had chosen to summon her
himself. It had not been an easy task, for the Crouching Maiden ill
liked to be summoned by any man and valued her celebrated anonymity
highly. Yet she had come. One week following the original summons,
she had come.

Why? Iss could only speculate.
Beforehand, he had assumed she had come because he was the Surlord of
Spire Vanis and one never refused a direct request from a man such as
he. Yet now, standing in the switching, blue smoke shadows of her
presence, he knew that not to be so. The Crouching Maiden came only
because she chose to.

"Would you care for some wine…
a liqueur perhaps, a cup of rosewater spiked with cloves?"

"No." The word was spoken
easily enough, yet the Crouching Maiden rippled her muscles like a
tundra cat displaying to a rival as she spoke it.

She was a woman of business, then. Iss
respected that. He found it quite delicious. "I have a problem,
Magdalena," he said, fingers closing around a piece of killhound
bone as he spoke. "There are people, a family, whom I would
like to see… removed, yet I don't know the exact location of
the village in which they live. I have, thanks to one of my
informants, a good idea of the whereabouts of the village… the
general area, should we say."

Iss paused, expecting to hear some
small murmur of encouragement from the maiden. None came, and he was
forced to continue speaking. "The family lives in a farmhouse
situated a day's ride northeast from Ille Glaive. My informant named
three villages which he thinks are most likely to contain them."
Iss gave the names. "What I need is someone to move about
through these villages and discreetly, very discreetly, discover
where the family lives, and do what is necessary to slay them."

A pause followed. Iss, who was not used
to being left hanging by anyone, began to feel the first stirrings of
anger in his chest. True, the Crouching Maiden was the greatest
assassin in the North, her name spoken in whispered awe by those who
had used, and continued to use, her services. Yet
he
was
Surlord of Spire Vanis. Just as Iss' jaw moved to rebuke her, she
spoke.

"Ille Glaive is nine days to the
north. It will cost more."

Iss felt a measure of relief but did
not show it. "Of course."

"And the family? How many are
there?"

"I'm not sure. The mother, one
daughter that I'm certain of, perhaps a few more."

"Uncertainty costs more."

Iss had expected it would. "I will
pay whatever it costs."

The Crouching Maiden made a small
movement with her mouth, flashing teeth that were dry of saliva. Iss
resisted the temptation to step back. Her presence was beginning to
wear on him. It took too much effort to look at her. It was like
staring at a landscape through a distorted piece of glass.

Most held that the maiden's success lay
in her appearance. She looked like everyone's maid. When glimpsed
sideways as she made her escape from assassinations in granges,
guildhouses, palaces, and private homes, all who saw her assumed she
was a maid, a messenger, an ash girl, an old washerwoman, a nanny, a
wet nurse, or a scullion. Unlike the handful of other female
assassins who could be hired in the Northern Territories for a
handful of golds or a ruby the size of a housefly, the Crouching
Maiden did not look like a whore. She never seduced men, never
slipped in her blade as the man slipped in his manhood, never used
guile or beauty to gain access to forbidden places or hid her knife
beneath a froth of lace-bound cleavage. She had no need of feminine
traps. Her appearance was such that people who looked at her saw what
they
expected
to see: someone who belonged in their setting.

And of course she was as subtle as a
fox.

The night Sarga Veys had sent word that
he had the location of the Lok farm pinpointed to a handful of
villages, Iss' first thought was, I
must send for the maiden
.
Sarga Veys would be no good for the job. No one would willingly pour
information down the Halfman's throat, and even if they did, he had
no belly for blood. The Knife had the belly, but not the guile. He
would break bones for information, scare the entire population of
each village he visited, and alert the very people he had come to
kill.

Iss returned the piece of killhound to
his desk. Besides, the Knife and the Halfman had other business to
tend to. They must bring Asarhia home from Ganmiddich. She must not
be lost again.

"Tell me the details," said
the Crouching Maiden in her silken ribbon of a voice.

Iss thought of Angus Lok, thought of
the Phage, of old hates and old worries that had prayed on his mind
for sixteen years. He gave the details. The meeting lasted scant
minutes after that.

Watcher of the Dead

Raif burned. His skin was hot to the
touch, wet, swollen. When he touched the broken flesh on his arms, it
was like probing a roast pulled from the fire. All of him ached, yet
he could barely make sense of the pain. Mostly his body plunged him
into sleep. Fever thrived in the darkness, shooting out purple
bloodlines along his chest and rattling his bones with shivers so
intense, he felt them even as he slept.

His dreams were no longer filled with
people and places he knew. Strangers spoke to him, calling him
Watcher of the Dead
, massive silver-pelted wolves chased him
through forests of pale trees and across frozen lakes polished so
highly they reflected the moon and stars. A pair of mated ravens flew
overhead, leading him north, always north. Sometimes he glimpsed the
broken walls and skeletal arches of a ruined city above the treetops.
Once he looked down at his feet and saw that the hard surface he
walked upon was a sea of frozen blood.

In and out of sleep, he weaved, waking
for short, dizzying moments when even the effort to lift his tongue
from the base of his mouth was too much to be endured.

No one beat him now. They came, once or
twice a day, bringing swim bladders full of freshwater and sotted
oats cooked in beer. Most spat as they made for the door, as if
tending him had left a bad taste in their mouths, one they had no
wish to carry home to their womenfolk and hearths. Some signed to the
Stone Gods if they happened to touch him. Others swore under their
breaths, calling him
the Hail Wolfs Firstborn
or other
damning curses. All desired his death; Raif saw it in the cold black
centers of their eyes.

Close and unharmed
. Even now,
after he had long forgotten their meaning, those words held power
over him. Sometimes when he was lost in the deep well of fever bliss,
his lungs hissing like war engines, the heat on his forehead raising
hard, clear blisters, he would hear himself say those words.

Always they brought him back. He'd
wake, dry mouthed and blinking, to find his hand at his throat and
his fingers glued fast to his lore.

It was enough to keep his mind intact.

When the worst night came and he lay
shivering on the stone bench, his clothes wet as a drowned man's, his
mind shifting between real dreams and hallucinations the fever sent
him, he felt himself slide closer to the world's edge. Death was a
pale presence in the cell. Raif did not have to see her to know what
she was. Like a brother parted from his sister at birth, he
recognized her in an instant.

We are alike, you and I.

The words came from nowhere, sliding
down his spine like beads of ice. Half beings, tall and distorted as
children's shadows at sunset, danced in the far quarters of his
vision. Raif licked lips as dry as paper. He thought he should be
afraid, but neither his body nor his mind could generate the physical
state of fear. He blinked, because that was one thing he could do.

Shall I take you, Watcher?

The voice sounded in the space beneath
his jaw, causing a soft, intimate pain like a lover's bite or a
sister's pinch. The shadow beings rippled and grew larger with every
word.

Raif held himself still. Something
brushed against his cheek. An exhaled breath condensed against his
teeth and retinas. The sweet, just turned odor of sour milk filled
his mouth. The scent of new death.

Close and unharmed
. He didn't
know where the words came from. They were simply
there
inside his head, tugging away like a child at his father's coattails.
Close and unharmed
. Raif strained for the memory.
Who
?

The shadow beings filled his vision,
their limbs of smoke curling around his fingers and thighs, the
vacant sockets of their eyes and mouths sucking the life heat from
him. Cold entered through pores in his skin, sinking downward
through layers of fat, muscle, membranes, and bone toward the one
thing Death wanted: his soul.

Raif gasped. Something glimpsed or half
glimpsed in the center of the cell stopped his heart. Death showed
her wares. Raif knew terror then, knew in every particle of his being
that he did not want to travel that path, did not want to visit the
hell that was waiting for him in the space between her arms.

Close and unharmed
. The words
thundered through his skull.
Close and unharmed. Close and
unharmed
. Raif thrashed against the stone bench. He had to know,
had to remember, had to find a reason to fight back.

The shadow beings began to feed.
Painless as mosquitoes drawing blood, they sank their diamond fangs
into his flesh. Strings of saliva flashed like spider's silk, each
one landing on his skin with a hiss of utter coldness.

Raif raised his hand toward his throat.
A dozen of Death's creatures fed on his arm, weighing it down,
sucking its juice, but he fought them with jaws clenched. He was Raif
Sevrance, Raven Born, Oath Breaker, and Watcher of the Dead, and
nothing would stop him from reaching his lore.

Anger was hot within him, pumping blood
to the far reaches of his body, where necrosis had already begun.
More half beings gathered, drawn to the heat that was their one stock
in trade. His arm shredded their insubstance, split their
death's-heads in two.
Close and unharmed
. Fingers stabbing
at hollow eyes, Raif reached for his lore. As his fingertip grazed
the cool black horn, Death fought him, but he was too close and too
angry to let her have her way. Wrenching his arm free, he grabbed the
raven's bill.
Close and unharmed
.

A moment stretched to breaking as Raif
pressed the lore against the meat of his palm. The creatures
continued to feed, but he did not heed them. His heart beat, just
once, as the lore spoke a name for his ears alone.

Ash.

Ash was close and unharmed. And that
was reason enough to fight Death tooth and nail.

Letting the lore drop against his
chest, Raif braced himself for war.

He had made Ash a promise, and he would
not fail her, and if he had to battle his namesake, then so be it.

As he raised his torso from the stone
bench, a murmur passed through the half beings. In an instant they
were gone. Fled.

Soft laughter tinkled through the cell.
Shadows grew within shadows, becoming darker and darker until it
seemed as if the very substance of time collapsed under their weight.
Perhaps I won't take you yet, Watcher
. You
fight in my
image and live in my shadow, and if I leave you where you are, I know
you'll provide much fresh meat for my children
. Death smiled as
she withdrew.
Kill an army for me, Raif Sevrance. Any less and I
just might call you back
.

"
No
!" Raif screamed
into the emptiness of his cell. NOOOOOOOOO…

A thin keyhole of sunlight shining down
upon his face woke him. Even before he opened his eyes he knew the
fever had broken. Lying there motionless, enjoying the sun's warmth
upon his face, he let the aches and hurts of his body occupy his
mind. Memories hovered close, and he knew he could retrieve them, but
first he had to deal with the pain.

Thirst made him probe the bench's ledge
for the water bladder. His tongue felt large in his mouth, bloated
and sore with many cuts. When he found the skin he spilled more water
than he drank, letting the cool liquid run down his chin and neck.
His throat stung as he swallowed, and he found he was quickly sated.
He didn't have the strength to return the bladder to its place, so he
let it drop into the water, where it floated for a while and then
sank.

He slept for some time after that, and
when he next woke the cell was dark. He missed the sun. He had not
intended to sleep.