A Cavern of Black Ice (93 page)

"Why?"

Effie thought of lying, but the guide's
black eyes were upon her and she saw her own face reflected there.
She found she could not lie to herself. "It's not always easy to
wear it, not since Da died… and Raif left."

Inigar Stoop's shoulders stiffened at
the mention of Raif's name. "Our lores drive us hard in times of
war. Why should you stand before me and claim yours drives you harder
than most?"

Effie shook her head. That was not what
she had meant to say.

"Does it show you things, Effie
Sevrance? Does it pour the unripened juice of the future in your
ear?" Inigar's bony fingers gripped her arm. "Tell me the
truth, daughter of the clan. When you lie in bed at night with the
lore upon your chest, are your dreams of things that will one day
come to be?"

Effie yanked her arm free. Her breath
was coming hard and fast, and she felt fingers of smoke clutching the
insides of her lungs. "No. It's not like that. It doesn't show
me anything. It never enters my dreams. It pushes me. Here—"
She hit her chest. "And when I take it in my hand I know things.
Small things, like… like…"

"Like what?"

Muscles in Effie's face fell slack. Her
own words had trapped her. Her lore told her no small things. She had
to think a moment before answering. "When Mace Blackhail came
back from the badlands and he was riding his foster father's horse,
and he said that no one but him had survived the raid, I knew it
wasn't so. I knew Drey and Raif would come back."

The guide's eyes glinted like two
pieces of coal. "What else?"

She searched for something to say. She
would not speak of what had happened in the Oldwood the day she and
Raina went to check on Raina's traps. Nor would she tell him of the
night her lore had awakened her and told her to run away. Those
things were bad secrets, and she had learned her lesson about telling
those. Raising her chin, she said, "I knew Raif would leave the
clan. I knew it the day that he took his oath."

"That too." The guide's face
did not soften one fraction, but when he spoke again there was less
anger in his voice. "It was right that your brother left us,
child. There is no place for a raven in this clan."

"Will he come back?"

"Not as you know him."

Effie swallowed. She didn't understand
Inigar's words, yet they made her insides ache. In all the months
that Raif had been gone, she had not spoken about him to anyone. His
name was no longer said in the clan. "I see him sometimes, when
I hold my lore. I see ice and storms and wolves and dead men…
and I want to warn him and tell him to be careful, but he's not
here." Tears prickled in her eyes. "He's not here."

"Is that why you're not wearing
your lore, child? Because it shows you things you do not want to
see?"

Effie nodded. "It pushes me all
the time… and I get frightened. I don't want to see bad things
happen to Raif and Drey."

"Yet it is your lore, given to you
by the man who was guide before me. No clanswoman can ever turn her
back on her lore."

"I know. I only took it off for a
bit. It's worst when Drey's away. Every time it pushes… I…
I think—

"Hush, child. I know you love your
brother very much."

Brothers
, Effie amended to
herself.

'You must wear your lore, Effie
Sevrance. Our clan is at war, and if the Stone Gods choose to send
messages to you, what right do you have to turn away? Our warriors
fight with fear in their bellies: How much less is their burden than
yours?"

Effie had no answer for that. What
Inigar said was right and true. She only had to think of Drey to know
that her fears were foolish compared with his. He had to ride from
clan to clan in ice and darkness, never sure when the next battle
would come or what it would bring. Clansmen he had taken his
yearman's oath with were dead.

"Put your lore back in its place,"
said the guide. "You need fear no more questions from me. You
are a daughter of this clan, and you have the rock as your lore, and
that means you are steadfast and silent. I trust you will speak to no
others about this. There are many in the clan who would not
understand the knowledge your lore brings, call it by a name which it
does not deserve."

Effie nodded. She understood what
Inigar meant. Mad Binny in her crannog over the lake was called bad
names. Anwyn Bird said that at one time Mad Binny was the most
beautiful maid in the clan. Her name had been Birna Lorn, and Will
Hawk and Orwin Shank had once fought on the graze for her hand. Orwin
had won, but once the banns had been spoken and the wedding day set,
rumors began to spread about Birna being a witch woman. She always
knew which cows would die from grass fever and which ewes would cast
their lambs before time. Clanswomen began to fear her, for all she
had to do was look at a pregnant woman to tell whether or not she
would give birth to a healthy child. A month before her wedding to
Orwin Shank, Birna met Dagro Blackhail's first wife, Norala, in the
kaleyard. According to Anwyn, Norala's belly was newly quickened with
child, but not even Norala knew it. The moment Birna Lorn saw her,
she said, "That bairn you're carrying will die in your womb."
Three weeks later when
a
bloody sack was cast from Norala's
belly, Birna Lorn was driven from the guidehouse by an armed and
angry mob. Norala blamed her for the miscarriage of the chief's first
child.

"Effie Sevrance…" The
guide's cold, irritable voice broke through her thoughts. "See
to your lore."

She shook herself. "I don't know
where it is. I took it off and put it in my fleece bag with all my
other stones. Only now I can't remember what I did with it
afterwards."

"Your fleece bag is beneath my
work bench. Fetch it now and do not leave it here again."

Too embarrassed to feel relief, Effie
shuffled past Inigar Stoop and made her way to the far corner of the
guidehouse, where the business of chiseling and grinding was done.
She was such a fool! Of course she had come here last night! It was
too cold to venture outside to the little dog cote, and she had so
wanted to be somewhere quiet and alone. And safe.

As she plucked the fleece bag from the
floor, Inigar said, "Do you think me a hard man, child?"
She turned and shook her head, but he did not seem to notice. His
eyes were focused deep within the smoke.

"Mace Blackhail is the chief, and
he does what a chief must in times of war, yet his eyes only see so
far ahead. He thinks in terms of his own lifetime; what he can gain
for himself, his family, and his clan. I do not fault him for this.
It is the way of all chiefs. It's not his place to think of those to
come. The dark times are coming and shadows are massing in the Want.
Soon the sky will burn red, and the City of Ghosts will rise from the
ice, and a sword will be drawn from frozen blood. If I told this to
Mace Blackhail, it would mean nothing to him.
Clan battle men,
not shadows
, he would say. Yet he would be wrong. The Stone Gods
will not turn their backs on this fight."

Careful not to make a sound, Effie tied
the fleece bag to her belt. She didn't understand what Inigar's words
had to do with her.

"It is I who must guide the clan
through the long night ahead. My lore is the hawk, and I see farther
than most, and that is why when your brother came to me seeking
guidance, I spoke words to unbind him from this clan. My duty is to
Blackhail and the gods who live in stone."

Effie breathed quietly as she listened
to the guide speak. Inigar was old and wise, but she knew words alone
had not sent Raif away. "Hawks do not see in the darkness,"
she said quietly. "Owls do."

Inigar Stoop's small, paint-smudged
face turned toward her, and his gaze sought her out through the
smoke. "You have the right of it, child, yet there is no owl
lore amongst us. I would like to think that if you had been born two
years later, after the old guide had died and his duties fell to me,
I would have chosen the owl for you."

It was the nearest thing to kindness
she had ever received from Inigar Stoop. Tears for herself and Raif
collected in her eyes. "But guides do not choose the lores of
new babies. They dream them."

"For you and Raif I would have
dreamt again."

A tear slid down Effie's cheek.

"Go, child. Be sure to wear your
lore day and night."

Effie moved past the guide, careful to
touch neither him nor the guidestone. Only when she reached the door
did she remember Anwyn's message. "Orwin Shank called a meeting
in the Great Hearth. He asks for your presence there."

Inigar Stoop nodded. "Tell him I
will come once I have seen to the smoke fires." His thin brown
fingers caressed the burned matter at his cuffs. "And Effie,
keep yourself safe."

The look he gave her almost made her
speak. It would be such a relief to tell someone about the time
Nellie Moss' son came for her in the middle of the night. She could
not tell Drey, for his honor would leave him no choice but to go
straight to Mace Blackhail and confront him. Effie's stomach twisted
sharply at that thought. Drey must never know. Abruptly she dropped
her hand to the fleece bag at her waist. She had her lore back now;
that would warn her if Cutty Moss came again… if he ever did.
In all the days that had passed since she'd overheard Nellie Moss
speaking with Mace Blackhail outside the dog cotes, her lore hadn't
once told her to flee. Perhaps she was safe. Perhaps she'd made more
of the thing than it was worth. Already the details of what had been
said had grown fuzzy in her mind.

"Are you all right, child?"
Inigar's voice was almost gentle.

But in the end it wasn't enough. Effie
tapped her fleece bag. "I'm just glad to have my lore back."
Before any more questions could be asked, she slipped through the
door and into the cool, damp corridor beyond. The fresher air pleased
her, and with a little skip she broke into a run. She had a message
to deliver to Orwin Shank, but first she would do what the guide had
commanded and return her lore to its proper place. This was a thing
that couldn't be done anywhere, for she was governed by her own
secret rules in this matter. She needed somewhere quiet, just to hold
it for a bit first, make up for time lost.

The space under the stairs in the
entrance hall was a good place to sit for a while and not be noticed.
It was good and dark, and there were all sorts of interesting dead
spiders to look at. Once she'd tucked herself into the deepest part,
where the ceiling was lowest and the stone floor was furry with dust
missed by Anwyn's broom, she slipped her hand into her bag. Smooth,
lifeless pebbles and chunks of rocks met her fingers. Frowning, she
reached deeper and spread her hand wide, yet still could not feel her
lore. Quickly she pulled the bag free from her waist and emptied the
contents onto the floor.

Effie felt her face go cold as she
watched the dust settle. Her lore wasn't there.

The Iron Chamber

The secret to blood sorcery, thought
Penthero Iss as he hooked the baleen lamp to a nail hammered deep
into the wall, was to remove the caul fly whole. Any fool could take
a scalpel to the host's skin, make an incision above the fidgeting
almond-size mass of the parasite, swiftly grip the body sac with a
pair of tongs, and tug it out. Trouble was, with that method the caul
fly nearly always failed to cooperate. As soon as the scalpel edge
came down upon the skin, the parasite would throw itself into
paroxysms. Its double-jointed legs would begin to flay. Its wings,
folded over its thorax in a protective carapace until the creature
was ready to leave its host, would spread and break. Its horned
mouthpiece would sink into muscle flesh and its massive, articulate
jaws lock in place.

It was messy, very messy. Bits of caul
fly always broke off, and no matter how hard one tried to remove all
the detritus, some tiny bit of matter was often overlooked. And
overlooked pieces of caul fly had a nasty habit of festering and
causing gangrene in the host.

Frowning, Iss turned and contemplated
the iron chamber and the Bound One chained to its walls. Light seemed
to shine differently here, in the very apex of the Inverted Spire,
and the air was heavier and harder to breathe. The Bound One wheezed
as he drew breath, the skin at his throat pulling so tight that Iss
could count the veins. Iss took a step toward him. In his hand he
held a pair of fine tweezers, their tips black with carbon from a
whole hour spent above a flame, and a jeweler's wedge-shaped knife
just in case.

A muscle as thin as trap wire
contracted in the Bound One's forearm as he attempted to raise his
hand toward his master. One of his eyes was as pale as milk and quite
dead. The other was cloudy, the iris stained white in places, yet he
could see. Iss had long decided he could see.

Iss knelt upon the iron lip of the apex
and pushed apart the loose folds of the Bound One's tunic. A small
bandage, the size and shape of an eyepatch, was fixed in place on the
uppermost section of the Bound One's back. One had to asphyxiate a
caul fly if one wanted to remove it whole: block its airhole with a
bead of fish glue, fasten a cap of bladderskin over the boil, then
seal the cap edges with more glue. Eight hours was usually enough to
send the caul fly to sleep.

With his fire-darkened tweezers, Iss
picked at the bladderskin cap. The Bound One's skin was yellow and
loose, attached to his body in very few places, and Iss had to be
careful not to tear it as he worked.

When the cap was off and the glue
scraped away, Iss pressed his thumb and forefinger into the flesh to
either side of the boil. As he felt the hard scaly form of the caul
fly rise against his fingertips, a small thrill heated his face. This
one was fully formed. It had pupated in the flesh; another few days
and it would have eaten its way out. It was heavy, too, gorged on
blood. A perfect parasite, every organ, cilia, and membrane created
by the host.