A Sword From Red Ice (48 page)

And no eyes could find you there. Here was the
strange bit—oh she knew the other stuff was odd, but this was
odd on a different level—Effie thought something without good
intentions was trying to seek her out. What that might be, she would
be hard-pressed to come up with. She'd once overheard Orwin Shank
talking to Jebb Onnacre about Mace Blackhail's mean-spirited dogs,
"They're a malevolence, Jebb. They'll watch and wait, and then
they'll bite you right on the knuckle so you drop the lock and they
can escape."

That was how the searching thing seemed to Effie:
a waiting malevolence. For as long as she could remember, right the
way back to being a toddie when Drey and Raif would toss her,
squealing and happy, from one to the other, she had believed that
something was trying to find her. No one knew this—though Raif
might have guessed something, for he was always extra protective
whenever he took her outside.

What this thing might be, what it wanted, if it
really existed or was just a thought that had got stuck in her mind,
like a splinter, she did not know. All she knew for certain was that
the feeling was strongest when she stood on open ground. Hollows,
glades, even river channels that were lined with trees were
preferable to high places and open places where Effie Sevrance might
be exposed.

Things had got a lot better since she'd left the
roundhouse. Poor Raina, she had thought to send Effie to a better
life at Dregg. It hadn't worked out that way at all, but strangely
enough it had still worked out. Effie knew that when Raina looked at
her she'd seen a child who was too quiet and solitary, too interested
in the Hailstone and the guidehouse and the dark, damp spaces beneath
the roundhouse. After the trouble with the Shankshound being burned
and Effie being accused of being a witch, Raina had feared that Effie
would never be able to live a normal life at Blackhail and had sent
her off to live with relatives at Dregg. Raina had hoped that Dregg
would turn Effie around; Effie knew this for a certainty because
Raina had come right out and told her. "You'll be able to dance
there and make friends. Learn to cook and sew and fight with swords
if it pleases you. They have lovely gardens, Effie, with waterfalls
and box hedges and roses. You need to dig in them, get some sun on
the back of your neck and dirt between your fingers. Run out to the
plunge pond and grab fish, roll on the grass, laugh, suck hay, play."

Effie felt bad when she thought of Raina's words,
as if somehow by being here she had let Raina down. Sometimes she
thought it would be a good thing to send Raina a note. Caught fish,
rolled in the grass, made a friend. Still waiting to learn how to
sew. That was the funny thing, you see, by getting waylaid, first by
Clewis Reed and Druss Ganlow and then by Waker Stone and his father,
she was changing in the very sort of ways that Raina had hoped to
bring about. Effie Sevrance in a boat, camping, cooking, laughing
with Chedd, wading into the river to look for mussels and skimmers:
those things would make Raina glad.

Thinking about Raina made Effie's heart feel
heavy. There was no way to let her know that things were all right .
. . and no way to be certain that those words would hold true. As
the first spits of rain landed on Effie's dress, Chedd did a victory
wave from the top of the cliff. He was shouting and holding something
up, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. Standing, she waved
back. On the shore, Waker had finished cleaning the trout and was
wrapping the fillets in dock leaves to keep them fresh until tonight.
Waker's father had risen and was flipping the boat. Off soon then,
Effie concluded. Another day on the river heading east.

What surprised her about river travel—at
least river travel upstream—was how slow it was. A man could
trot faster than two men could pole. The times Waker and his father
got tip to their best speed was when they were in a deep, slow-moving
channel, using their paddles. Yet for some reason they usually stayed
off the main river, choosing streams and tributaries that were cither
shallow, frothing, narrow or twisty. And that meant using poles, not
paddles.

Effie often wondered how far they'd come. She'd
been with Waker and his father for many days now and had fallen into
an easy routine. Up at dawn or some time before it, breakfast, load
the boat and float upstream until dark. The sparsest of camps would
be raised, with neither tents, a proper campfire or latrines. A cold
supper might be occasionally supplemented with lukewarm fish, and
then to sleep, and the whole thing would start up again in the
morning.

Effie had to give it to Waker and his father, they
ran a tight ship. Waker wasn't even especially mean to her and Chedd.
Mostly he treated them like cargo. As long as they did what he told
them, sat still in the boat and stayed within sight of the camp, he
did not raise his voice or touch them. Waker's father was something
different. Effie thought of him as an evil little marsh man who
delighted in other people's discomfort. She had noticed that when she
was near him her stone lore felt muffled, as if it had been wrapped
in thick blankets or plunged into water. It was alive and present
just unable to get enough air.

"Boy. Hurry now." Waker Stone called out
to Chedd. "We set off within the quarter." The riverman's
otterskin pants were wet to the knee and the water bought out their
blue-green iridescence, light bands around the tops of his mooseskin
boob prevented the riverwater from pouring inside them as he and his
father floated the boat. "Girl. Cover the fire. Stow the pots
and blankets."

Effie jumped to do his bidding. Waker wasn't to be
ignored when he was preparing the boat. Camp was a wooded and reedy
inlet north of the Wolf. Chedd reckoned they weren't far from Croser
now. Thinking about that Dhoone-sworn clan with its roundhouse of
giant riverstones gave Effie a little thrill. She was a long way from
home, heading into territory hostile to Blackhail. If they continued
east they'd pass the Dhoone-protected lands altogether and enter
territory defended by Bludd. It was a long way from home, and the
river, headlands, trees and rocks were all changing, becoming wilder.
According to Inigar Stoop, the east was a barbarian place that the
Stone Gods claimed but never wholly possessed.

"Look out." Chedd Limehouse came running
toward Effie with his right hand at his shoulder as if he were about
to launch a shot put. "Catch!" he cried, propelling his
hand forward with force.

Effie made a little cry and ducked.

Chedd began laughing heartily, rocking back and
forth at the waist as if what he had done was so funny it had caused
his lungs to seize. "Got you!" he gurgled, actually
becoming a little red in the face. "Never threw it."
Holding up his hand he revealed the stone he had brought down from
the top of the cliff.

Effie was denied the pleasure of giving Chedd a
piece of her mind by Waker barking, "Here with you both. Now."

Chedd helped her carry the bedrolls and pots to
the boat. Once he'd handed them off to Waker he tried to give Effie
the rock—a dog tooth of yellow halite—but she wasn't
having it. A sharp look from Waker was enough to make Chedd drop the
rock in the water.

As they pushed off rain began to fall heavily.
Effie wished she had thought to save a blanket from the bedrolls, for
her boiled-wool cloak was quickly soaked. If she turned around she
could see the bedrolls—they were stowed beneath Waker's
father's seat—but some kind of pride stopped her from asking
for them. As they headed into the main river channel, Waker handed
back a tin cup and told Effie to bail once the water covered her
toes.

The water soon covered her toes. Thunder rolled
from the south and the first of the big gusts hit the boat side-on.
The long and narrow craft tipped wildly. Waker's father plunged his
paddle deep into the water and turned in to the wind. Effie bailed,
glad of something to do. The surface of the water was like a
pincushion stuck with a million pins. The trees along the southern
bank of the Wolf whipped back and forth as clusters of pine needles
spun free. Directly ahead of Effie, Chedd Limehouse paddled with real
force. Rain ran down Effie's face and into the neck hole of her dress
as she fell into the urgent rhythm of bailing.

The river was wide here, a league across without a
single island to block the view. Wooded hills formed the southern
shore, and to the north lay impenetrable tangles of hardwoods, pines
and winter dead vines.

Waker's father had set them on a course that was a
fraction short of due south and she thought his intent might be to
sit out the storm on the southern shore. That seemed like a good
idea. With the bow of the boat facing the wind the going was
steadier, yet every once in a while a rogue gust would get under the
curve of the hull and for an instant the boat would rise, vertical,
from the water. Waker would immediately stand, swinging his weight
forward and stamp down the hull.

Neither he nor his father seemed much perturbed.
They were both working hard and concentrating, yet Effie could tell
that paddling through high winds did not stretch them. Effie envied
them their waterproof clothing. Even Chedd was faring better than she
was, as his cloak was lined with fine doeskin.

Rain was making it difficult to see. The southern
shore became a murky grayness of darkly moving trees. The river
itself appeared to be widening, for even as they headed south the
shore did not look to be getting much closer. More river just kept
spooling out. Effie tried to remember the maps of the clanholds that
Dagro Blackhail kept, rolled and cased, in his chief's chamber. As
best she could recall the Wolf split into three separate rivers above
Croser—or rather three separate rivers merged to form the Wolf.
Effie was unsure of the correct phrasing, also unsure of the command
names of the higher streams. Gray was south of here. She knew that.

"Chedd," she hissed, leaning forward.
"Where are we going?"

Turning his head to look at her he said, "Don't
know." His voice sounded a little weird. "I'm feeling a bit
sick."

"Look at the water," Effie told him
firmly. "Eyes ahead."

Chedd did just that. He had stopped paddling, she
realized, and was bracing himself with a hand on each gunwale. His
face was green.

Waker's father skipped a paddle stroke, allowing
Waker's right stroke to steer the boat. The craft tuned a few degrees
east, and Effie saw they were no longer heading ashore. Only river
lay ahead.

Almost immediately the boat began pitching. The
wind was hitting at an angle, yet also the river itself seemed to be
pulling in a new way. Waker and his father settled into a rhythm of
quick shallow strokes, not holding their paddles too long or too deep
in the water. Brown foam rushed across the surface, and the wind sent
it slapping against their faces. Effie reached for her lore. The
stone felt sluggish and unsteady, half asleep. Dissatisfied, she let
it drop against her chest.

Another wind gust got under the boat and the bow
went up. Lightning forked on the south shore. Thunder exploded right
on top of them. The boat rolled and pitched, suddenly unstable on
both planes. Waker called out something to his father, and Waker's
father set his paddle in the water and turned the boat due south.

Effie felt a moment of relief. Rain was coming
down with force and no matter how much she bailed the water kept
rising. The wind was head-on again; she could feel it flattening her
cheeks. From the seat in front of her Chedd made a small noise. And
then two things happened at once. A powerful gust got under the boat
and Effie was knocked backward. As the bow came up so did Chedd,
flinging his head and shoulders over the side. Oh no, he's throwing
up, she thought with disgust as the boat tipped slowly toward Chedd.
Waker sent his weight snapping in the opposite direction but it was
too late. Effie's bottom slid along the polished wood seat, and she
hung for the briefest instant, parallel to the water, before plunging
in.

The river seized her chest. It was shockingly cold
and dark. A paddle whacked her chin. As she gasped in pain her lungs
took in water. Where was the surface? Was she underneath the boat?
Panicking, she began thrashing her arms. When she tried to move her
legs her body jerked with such force it was as if the floor had been
snatched from beneath her. The leg irons snapped with the jolt of a
returning bowstring. Stilled by the concussion she began to sink.
Now that she looked up she saw that yes, she had been under the boat.
Its peapod shape was a receding darkness against the light.

She fell deeper, and began to understand that
strange currents were at work. Three rivers met here. She could feel
them spinning her body as they emptied her brain of thoughts.

Swoopy movements, she thought inanely, that's what
you're supposed to do with your arms to swim.

One of the bedrolls she'd packed that morning
floated past her face. Breathing, she took in more water. The boat
had become a thin line and she could no longer remember why it was
important. It grew dark, or perhaps she closed her eyes: the
difference hardly seemed important.

It was all easy-peasey now.

Down she went into the Wolf's maw, deep into the
cold brown water. There was only one little niggle that surprised
her. Who would have thought that the very thing she had avoided all
her life would be down here? The seeking malevolence was moving
through the water to intercept her. It was forming itself into a
pike; elongating, solidifying, glittering as it conjured scales. The
malevolence swam with great assuredness and growing strength. It
didn't just prowl the open spaces, it knew the dark depths as well.

It was a revelation. Inside, outside: it didn't
matter where she was, it would find her wherever she was weak.