A Cavern of Black Ice (9 page)

Ash inched forward, resting her hand on
Torny Fyfe's smoothly chiseled rear.

The door swung back as Penthero Iss
pushed against the metal plating. Stale air breathed into the
corridor like fine mist. Ash smelled the dry, itchy odor of old stone
and withered things. It was the same smell—part of it—that
clung to Iss sometimes when he visited her chambers in the middle of
the night. Ash trembled, not sure if she was excited or afraid. The
lock had turned with barely a sound! The door hinges glided as
smoothly as a pat of butter running down a roast. Everything had been
oiled. Recently. There was no rust, no rot.

Iss slid into the darkness on the far
side of the door. All previous vows about returning to her room
forgotten, Ash
willed
her foster father not to lock the door
behind him. He was in a hurry, she knew that. Would he pause to lock
the door?

The iron door closed as easily as
something a quarter of its size. Switching air caused one of the iron
plates to jiggle in its frame. Ash listened for the sound of Iss
inserting his key. She heard something, a click or tap, and then
everything was quiet.

Ash waited. Her heart was pumping fast
and hard, and she was ready to run for the door. She forced herself
to count seconds. Her foster father had gone to the Splinter. The
Splinter
.

Minutes passed. Beneath Ash's hand,
Torny Fyfe's backside warmed to a toasty glow. Ash patted the marble.
She was growing rather fond of the old Quarterlord.

This time she slipped smoothly from the
recess, tucking her hair beneath her nightdress and lifting her
ankles high to avoid sharp edges. Working the stiffness from her legs
and back, she crossed to the door. Seen up close, the metal plates
were scored and then case hardened to form a rigid skin of steel. The
mark of the Killhound standing high atop the Iron Spire was stamped
upon each one.

Unsettled, Ash pushed against the door.
The cool metal gave, sweeping back beneath her palm. Shadows and old
air stole across Ash's fingers and up along her arm. Iss had not
locked the door. It seemed mad, impossible. Doubt spiked in her
stomach like a violent cramp. Still she kept pushing, forcing the
door back into the corridor beyond. Secrets lay ahead, she was sure
of it. And she had to know if those secrets involved her.

Stepping into the shadows, she let the
door fall shut behind her. A different kind of coldness from that
present in the rotunda gripped at her chest: dry, bitter, and
weighted, as if the air were thick with particles of freezing dust.
Ash stilled herself for a moment, giving her eyes time to adjust to
the darkness.

The east gallery was a long arcade of
limestone arches roofed with slate—she knew that because the
structure formed the massive east wall of the quadrangle—yet
the shadows surrounding her gave little of that away. Dark gashes of
open space, pale glimmering edges, and hoods of matted stone were all
she could see. Soft warbling sounds came from somewhere high above,
and Ash guessed that pigeons had found their way in to roost.

Hoping they were the only living things
she would encounter, she began to walk in the direction she imagined
was forward. Stone dust crunched beneath her slippers with each step.
Icy fingers of frost tugged at her arms and ankles. The odor of dry
decay sharpened. Suddenly nervous, she picked up her pace, striding
into the tunneling darkness. ,'
can turn back at any time
,
she told herself, trying to sound strong.

The gallery stretched on and on, and
except for occasional chinks in boarded-up windows where single beams
of moonlight shone through, there was no increase in light. Ash
glanced into the shadows pooled to either side of the walkway. What
could a man see in such darkness? She slowed. What could he
do
?

Ash halted and peered into the
distance. A curving endwall, black yet planed smooth enough to
reflect some measure of light, blocked the way ahead. Just visible
against the dark stonework was the outline of a heavily carved door.
Ash recognized it instantly. Another identical door, locked, barred,
and boarded, stood outside against the fortress wall. The wood had
been worked in such a way to fool the eyes into thinking that the
door was already open and Robb Claw, great-grandson of the Bastard
Lord Glamis Claw, was on his way through.

The second entrance to the Splinter.

Even as Ash tensed muscles to step
toward it, the ground beneath her feet shuddered. Overhead beams
creaked. Dust sifted to the floor like fine rain. Tiny hairs along
her arms lifted. Everything stilled, yet something within the air and
shadows continued to change. Ahead the endwall seemed to grow darker,
blacker, deeper, siphoning substance from the night. The air
temperature dropped so quickly it felt like liquid against Ash's
skin. Shadows bled. Bearings shifted. Everything became somehow
less
than it was.

And then Ash felt it.

Something evil and wanting and broken.
Something trapped in the darkness, drying slowly to a scaly husk.
Something nameless and full of hate, driven by loneliness and terror
and savage, blinding, unspeakable pain. Malice filled it, fear
consumed it, need pumped like blood through its dark, voided heart.
It wanted,
wanted
. It hardly knew what, but it wanted. And
hated. And was utterly alone.

Dread stole over Ash like deep cold.
All the breath rushed from her body, leaving her lungs hanging dead
in her chest. An instant floated in the air like dust too fine to
settle. Ash felt as if she were sinking in ice cold water. She
couldn't breathe, move, think.

Slowly, slowly, and at terrible cost,
the nameless wanting thing turned its mind toward Ash March. Ash felt
the great millwheel of its awareness pass over her, and in those
seconds she came to know the full burden of its existence. It made
her mouth go dry.

The creature reached.

It wasn't there, wasn't beside, above,
or beneath her. But it reached.

Ash shrank back. She sucked in breath,
turned on her heel and ran.

Fists beating air, hair streaming
loose, moleskin slippers smacking against stone, Ash raced along the
east gallery, back toward the iron door. Walls, arches, and openings
blurred into a single streak. Ash's heart beat in her throat. When
she came upon the iron-plated door, she blasted through it like a
bear through sheet ice. The rotunda corridor was warm and full of
light. The torch she had extinguished had been relit and burned with
a crackling yellow flame. Part of her wanted to rip it from the wall
and throw it into the darkness beyond the door and burn whatever
lived there.

The desire to flee was greater. Not
stopping to watch the door swing shut behind her, or check if anyone
was coming, Ash dashed along the rotunda toward the stairs. Limestone
walls that earlier had felt as cold as gravestones now seemed as warm
as sun-baked clay.

Ash shook her head as she took the
stairs two and three at a time. She had been a fool. A fool. Everyone
knew there was no such thing as good secrets. She should have kept
away, not looked, not dared. Even if she had gone to her foster
father's private chambers instead of heading for the Splinter, the
story would have been the same. She wasn't really going to find some
magical slip of paper that told of how she was more than just a
foundling, how Penthero Iss had robbed and tricked her real parents
into giving her up. There
were
no good secrets. And she was
a fool for believing otherwise.

Ash let out a hysterical sob.

She was Ash March, Foundling, left
outside Vaingate to die.

Tears stung her eyes as she climbed the
last stairs to her chamber. She didn't want to think about the
nameless creature in the Splinter, didn't want to know what it was.

'What have we here?"

Ash rounded the final turn in the
staircase and came face-to-face with Marafice Eye. The Knife moved
directly into her path, preventing her from taking another step. The
bow curve of his chest forced her to edge back. Marafice Eye had
small eyes and a small mouth and hands as big as dogs. Ash was scared
of his hands. She had seen him break iron chains with them.

'Where have you been? Sick of pissing
in a pot? Thought you might get up and use the jacks instead?"

Ash made no reply. Marafice Eye liked
to use obscenities around women. He took pleasure in it.

Holding her gaze down, refusing to meet
his eyes, Ash stepped to the side, meaning to pass the Knife. She
didn't want him to know she was upset.

Marafice Eye stepped with her, barring
her way once more. The block of purple flesh that formed the Knife's
left fist swung up to Ash's chin. The fist barely touched flesh,
grazing the underside of her jaw with a knuckle the size of a bird's
skull, yet it was enough to make Ash look up.

The Knife's lips twisted into a smile.
"What's upset our little girly, then? Did she see something she
wasn't supposed to, or did the frost just bite?"

'Leave me alone!" Ash exploded
forward, pushing against Marafice Eye's chest with all that was in
her. The Knife barely swayed. His oxblood leather tunic creaked as he
leaned forward to absorb the blow. Ash fell back on her heels, jolted
and off balance as if she had walked straight into a door.

Smile twisting to its narrow limits,
the Knife resettled his fist under Ash's jawline, pushing his
knuckles into the soft hollow where her neck and jaw met. "I've
killed women for less," he said, small eyes glinting. "What
makes you so sure I wouldn't kill you?"

Ash's legs felt like straw sticks. She
could feel the nameless creature's presence like greasy residue
against her skin. Her chest was shaking with exhaustion, and despite
running through the fortress at full speed, she felt as cold as if
she had been standing still.

Raising her head clear of Marafice
Eye's fist, she took a deep breath and said, "Iss set you to
watch
, not touch me. Now step aside and leave me be, and
perhaps, just perhaps, come tomorrow I won't tell him how easy it was
to slip through your guard."

The Knife's eyes narrowed to two dark
slits. The slabs of flesh on his face stiffened. He looked at Ash,
breathed on Ash, and then, in his own good time, stood aside and let
her pass.

Ash felt malice on her back for the
second time that night as she climbed the last three steps and took
the short walk back to her chamber. Marafice Eye watched her all the
way. As her hand reached for the chamber door, he spoke. "Push
me again, Asarhia March, and you
will
end up dead."

Ash closed her eyes, shutting out the
words. Her knees buckled and she had to lean into the door to stop
herself from falling. Although she didn't look around, she knew
Marafice Eye had seen her collapse. She hated him for it.

With all the strength she could muster,
she pushed against the door. It opened and she half staggered, half
fell, into her chamber. Even though she could barely stand, the first
thing she did was pull the chair from her dresser and jam it against
the door. It wasn't enough. [
Missing
] She moved slowly,
methodically, dazed with exhaustion, piling things high against the
fossilwood door.

Homecoming

Sleet fell in gray sheets as they
entered the clanhold.[
missing
] or standing beside the
guidestone and singing to the Stone Gods. Yet words wouldn't come.
Raif tried, but they wouldn't.

After a moment Drey moved ahead,
shoulders stiffening beneath his oilskins, gloved hands running along
his elkhide pack to brush off sleet. Raif knew he was disappointed.
"Drey."

"What?"

Raif took a breath. It suddenly seemed
important to say something,
now
, before they reached the
roundhouse. Only he wasn't sure what, or why. "The raid."

'What of it?" Drey didn't look up.
Thick tufts of grass hid ankle-breaking boulders, bog holes, and
snags of long-gone trees, and Drey suddenly seemed engrossed in
choosing his steps.

'We can't say who attacked the camp."
Raif struggled for the right words. "We just need to be…
careful, that's all. You and me. Careful." The wind picked up as
he spoke, howling through the trees on the slope, thrashing grass
flat against the earth and driving sleet into their faces. Raif
shivered. He glanced at Drey.

His brother's hood now pointed ahead.
After a moment Drey pushed it back, exposing his face. He stopped in
his tracks. "There's Corbie Meese. Up on the rise, by the old
black oak."

A muscle in Raif's stomach pulled with
a soft, sickening twist. Hadn't Drey heard what he said? Raif opened
his mouth to speak again, but Drey's arm came up and he began
shouting.

'Corbie! Corbie! Over here!"

Raif pushed back his own hood and ran
his hand through his hair. He watched as the gray figure on the slope
raised a hand in acknowledgment, then slipped back a few paces and
trotted his horse into view. It was Corbie Meese all right. Even from
this distance his stocky hammerman's body with its disproportionately
muscular arms and neck was clearly identifiable. Even the slight
flattening on the left side of his head above his ear, where a
training hammer had clipped his skull when he was just a boy, showed
up against the light gray sky. Corbie's hammer was strapped to his
back, as always. Raif noticed that its iron head reflected no light
as Corbie swung up to mount his horse. Which meant the normally
smooth metal had been laid upon an anvil and chisel scored.

'He's riding back," Drey said.
After a moment he spoke again, his voice soft. "He must be
meaning to gather the clan."

Raif sucked in breath. A hammerman
scored his hammer only in times of war. Smooth metal reflected light
and could give away a position, plus a glancing blow with smooth
metal was just that—a glancing blow but with metal raised in
jagged ridges a glancing blow could tear the skin from a man's face.