A Sword From Red Ice (92 page)

Ash slid from her horse. She felt as if she were
standing in a crater. Sounds echoed across the hollowed-out fort. As
she lifted the saddle from the gelding, Lan cleared an area of snow.
He seemed distracted and did not unpack his saddlebags in his normal
sequence. Nor did he set about building a fire. It was early for
camp, she realized. Still an hour or so of daylight left. There was
little need to rush the preparations. The stallion had found
something to its liking growing on one of the stone heaps and was
busy munching on yellow stalks. Once it was free of its saddle, the
gelding trotted over to investigate.

"Does anyone ever come here?" Ash asked
Lan, thinking of the footstep on the stair.

"No," he replied. "This is Glor
Yatanga. The Saturated Lands." She waited, listening to his
words bounce off the walls and break up into pieces, but he said
nothing more. She considered mentioning the footprint, but decided
against it. A small hum of wariness was sounding in her gut.

"Come," Lan said, standing upright. "I
will show you the Thirteen Wells."

She followed him through the second gate to the
inner ward. The roof had caved in here but some interior walls were
still standing. Lan led her along a narrow corridor and down a short
flight of stone steps.

"The fortress was built around the wells,"
he explained to her as they entered a dim cavernous space, lit by sky
holes. "Their water has not run dry in five thousand years."

The chamber was damp and smelled of bats and their
droppings. Odd pieces of glazed tile still clung to the upper
portions of the wall, and the sky holes were glazed with thick lenses
of rock crystal. Wisps of mist rising from the wells scudded across
the natural rock floor. The wells were laid out in a honeycomb
pattern, with only thin strips of rock between them. Some steamed
more than others, and their colors varied from milky blue and green,
to rusty yellow and pink, to crystal-clear sapphire and inky black.

"No two share the same temperature or taste,"
Lan said, pulling two horn cups from the pack around his waist. "It
is custom to sample twelve of the thirteen."

He had thought ahead, she realized, for the cups
were normally in one of his saddlebags. Realizing he was making an
effort to be amiable, she took one of the cups from his hand. "You
go first."

He crossed to one of the wells at the back of the
chamber, easily balancing on the narrow stone gangways. "This
Sull will try the water that looks the worst."

Ash laughed, surprised by his humor. Following his
path along the lips of the wells, she went to join him. Crouching,
Lan scooped up a cup of gray water and drank. She watched him swallow
and then did the same. The water smelled of sulfur and bubbled in her
mouth. It was lukewarm.

"You must choose the next one," he told
her.

She picked the largest well. Steam peeled off the
surface, and its water was hot and clear and salty. Lan chose one of
the rust-colored wells next and Ash was impressed by its coldness.
They moved between the wells in silence, crouching, sniffing,
tasting. Lan kept count, and when they had sampled eleven of the
thirteen wells he said, "It is custom to bathe in the twelfth
well."

She looked at him carefully. His sharply angled
face was still. Mist had coated his skin in a fine film.

"We have been lucky in our choices. The two
wells that remain are both warm." He shrugged off his buckskin
cloak. "Make a choice."

Ash followed the motion of his hand. One of the
wells was clear and black and barely steamed. The other lay at the
center of the honeycomb and was milky green with a circle of cloud
above it. "That one," she said. "As long as it is not
too hot."

Lan undressed and left his clothes and gear in a
neat pile on the rock floor. Naked, he stepped into the pool. His
body was lean and muscular, covered by a fine down of golden hair
that darkened around his pubis. Ash looked at him and found she had
no desire. Outside the sun was setting and the sky holes let in rings
of amber light. The mist and dimness were making her drowsy and she
yawned as she pulled off her clothes. Once she'd removed her boots
she carried her clothes to Lan's pile and dumped them on top. The
boots knocked against his bow arrowcase, making the arrows slide out.
A few of them came out all the way, revealing their steel heads with
the holes drilled through them. The heads were socketed into the
wooden shafts and bound with wire. One of the three was bound with
something else.

"Come," Lain called. "This Sull
does not wish to boil alone."

Ash turned quickly and went to join him, tiptoeing
around the wells, she thought about the arrow. It did not seem such a
bad thing. With a high squeal she jumped into the pool.

Water splashed up, soaking Lan and sloshing into
the other pools. It was shockingly hot and Ash's skin reddened
immediately. Dipping her head under, she wetted her hair and face.
Lan was leaning against the bowl of the well, his arms stretched
wide. The lead clasps that bound his braids had reacted to something
in the water and turned silver black. Ash floated away from him,
coming to rest on the opposite side of the bowl. A ledge cut below
the surface provided a place to rest and Ash sat and luxuriated in
the steaming water.

"Drink," Lan said after a while.

Of course, this was the twelfth well and she
hadn't sampled its water yet. Leaning forward she opened her mouth
and let it fill with sweet-tasting liquid. Lan watched as she
swallowed.

Ash closed her eye. "It's getting dark,"
she said. "We may have to wait for the moon to rise to get
back."

"It is the dark of moon tonight."

The Far Rider's voice rippled toward her across
the delicious warmth of the water. She tilted her head and let her
arms and legs float to the surface. Heat enveloped her, wrapping
around her belly and thighs, and cupping her neck. She drifted free,
slowly turning in the water. Sleep came as gentle relaxing of thought
and at first the nightmares did not come. She floated in darkness,
insulated. Something hissed softly. Laughter tinkled then faded away.
Mistressss.

The word roused her and she swung away from it.
Far in the distance water lapped against rock.

A massive and unknowable presence turned in the
darkness, watchful, cunning, waiting. It had bided in the shadows
for hundreds of years, and its time was drawing close.

Wake.

Ash inhaled deeply, opened her eyes. All was dark
and still memories slid into place and she realized she was in water.
The sun had set and the sky holes let in no light. "Lan?"
she called, not expecting an answer. Kicking, she propelled herself
to the edge of the bowl. The stone felt cool against her palm. Cool
and good. She waited a moment, gathering her strength, and then
pulled herself out of the pool.

Water streamed down her body. Her legs felt like
wet sticks, barely able to take her weight. Tentatively, she took a
step across the stone in the direction of the entrance, seeking a
flat surface with the pad of her toe. She knew the direction of the
stairs, but she and Lan had been bathing in one of the middle wells
and that meant that other wells stood between her and a way out.
Crouching, she felt her way along the rim. The pressure on her knees
made them shake in spasms, and she doubted if she could hold her
weight this way for long. The hot water had robbed her strength.

Slowly, she edged between the pools. Mist purled
under her chin. Water bubbled. The blackness was absolute, but she
found she wasn't afraid of it. She just wanted to be gone from the
wells. An enchantment had been practiced here. Twelve of the
thirteen wells: Lan had tricked her with a spell to make her sleep.

Finally her toes and fingers detected a broad
shelf of rock. Collapsing onto her butt she just sat for a while to
think. She decided she had been very stupid. After seeing what was
wrapped around the tang of Lan's arrowhead she should not have
entered the water. She should have been afraid, not flattered.

The thick lock of hair she had given to the Far
Rider had been divided in two, and half of it had been bound to the
arrow. And she thought she knew what had happened to the other half.

It had made a creature of the Blind explode. There
had been no heart-kill. Lan's second and third arrows had penetrated
shoulder flesh. She had made the mistake of assuming that his first
shot, the one she had not seen, had hit the creature's heart. She had
been dead wrong. Lan Fallstar was no Raif Sevrance.

He had been experimenting that night in the woods,
testing to see if the girl he had stumbled upon on the south bank of
the Flow could really be what he suspected: the Reach. He had never
been interested in her safe passage to the Heart Fires. The only
thing he cared about was whether or not she was useful. And he had
wanted to keep her isolated until he knew for sure.

Now what?

Ash rose to standing. Her body was cooling and she
felt some of her physical strength returning. She would not think
about their love-making, the betrayal of her flesh. I initiated it,
she reminded herself sharply. The fault was mine.

Casting around in the darkness, she attempted to
locate her clothes and weapons. Nothing was there. Not even her boots
or dress. This had been carefully planned, she realized. Right down
to the dark of moon. He might have been planning it from that very
first night, when he had paid a terrible toll in burned flesh. Ark
Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer had never put red-hot knives to their
arms—and they'd had many costly tolls to pay.

The burned flesh was the price of killing a Reach.
The hair on her head alone had to be worth five hundred Unmade
deaths.

Do not come here in the flesh. The creatures
themselves had warned her. She was rakhar dan, Reachflesh, and they
loved and feared her above all things. Ark Veinsplitter had predicted
that Sull would come after her. Now she understood why. Her flesh
destroyed maer dan. It was the other side of the double-edged sword.
She brought them into the world by creating a breach in the
Blindwall. She could send them back.

They had never attacked her directly. Not the
unmade wolves on the bridge, nor the carrion feeder in the woods. Why
had she not realized that until now? Perhaps their swords of voided
steel could harm her, but she no longer believed their flesh could.

Was she worth more dead than alive? How many
Unmade could her blood, teeth, hair, and nails destroy? She did not
know the answer. Ark Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer could have slain
her, yet they had chosen to protect her instead. Daughter, Ark had
called her. It was not the word of a man who wanted her dead.

Ash crossed toward the stairs. Hands and feet
probing the darkness, she searched for edges, walls, the risers of
steps. A leathery shuffling sound came from above; the bats were
taking flight. They did not touch her as they flew up the stairs,
though she felt the air they displaced riffle against her naked
body. Their silent calls pricked the membranes in her ears.

As she reached the top step, she became aware of a
slight increase in light. She was on the ground floor of the fortress
now and her eyes could make out the dim and blocky forms of walls. No
moon may have risen but the stars provided a thin blue veil of light.
When she looked up she could see streaks of cloud and constellations,
and the strange, leaflike forms of the bats.

Her nipples hardened in the raw air and every hair
on her body rose upright. The snow beneath her feet did not seem cold
and she walked easily upon it, barely making a sound. She was moving
along a corridor framed by tall walls. When the side of her foot hit
a fallen stone, she crouched and pried the square piece of rock out
of the snow. Her thoughts were oddly calm and disconnected. He will
try to slay me. He is probably watching as I walk along this
corridor. All the advantages are his.

Yet she was a Reach and she was just beginning to
understand that was something to be feared. She, Ash March, was
something to be feared.

Could she call them forth, the creatures of the
Blind? What could she do that would make the Sull fear her?

Weighing the rock in her fist, she stepped into
the open space of Fort Defeat's inner ward. Nothing moved in the
blue-black darkness. No wind penetrated the double walls. No mist
snaked across the ground. The snow glowed dully as it froze. Ash cut
toward the gate that led to the outer ward. Nothing within her wanted
to stand still.

The gate was a black hole in the wall. As she
passed through it her gaze searched for the place where Lan had made
camp. He had cleared the snow earlier and the patch of dark ground
caught her eye. The horses were gone. The packs were gone. Lan
Fallstar was nowhere to be seen.

Her body was growing cold now. Water in her hair
was stiffening to ice, and she could feel the gooseflesh tightening
her skin. Slowly she walked toward the circle of cleared ground.
Something was happening in her stomach; muscles were contracting and
relaxing in strange ways. Her left arm began to feel light, as if it
were still in water. The right one was weighed down by the rock. Two
men stepped from the shadows to meet her. Metal slithered against
leather as they drew longswords. They were silhouettes in the
darkness. She could not see their faces or details of their weapons
and dress. Two men. Two swords. This was a ceremonial slaying.

Neither warrior was Lan Fallstar; she knew it for
a certainty. He had summoned others to do what he would not do
himself. Had he invoked them that first night? Or the other morning
when he returned to camp with the coon?

No matter, Ash said to herself, feeling her left
hand begin to float from her body. I will destroy them all.