Cold Fire (13 page)

Before she went to bed, Daja wrote a note and left it for a servant to carry to Ladradun House in the morning. The next day she was to work iron with the smith Teraud. If she finished early enough, she wanted to start fitting Ben for those gloves.

The First Dedicate of the Fire temple, the temple of justice, law, and combat, was a weathered, lean white man with short red hair that stuck out at all angles, and a short red beard. He had a way of talking that sounded like a shower of nails being poured into a metal bucket. Once a general, he’d taken the name Skyfire when he dedicated himself to the temple. That night Daja dreamed about Skyfire’s form of meditation. In her dream she was back in the practice yard used by the Fire temple’s warriors. The day was summery, the yard so dry that dust rose like smoke from the ground and from the practice clothes of everyone present.

Daja panted as she circled Dedicate Skyfire, her staff in her hands. He was old, but he was quicker than eels. She hurt all over from the quick punishing raps he gave her when he thought her attention had strayed. “Stop waiting for me to strike here or there,” he barked. His dark blue eyes blazed through the coat of dust on his face. Sweat tracks marked it like a tribal mask, even in his short red beard. “Stop trying to think. Don’t expect anything-expect everything. Be open to its approach! Empty your head, or I’ll crack it so the thoughts run out. You aren’t a girl, with a staff, on two legs, any more than I am a creaky old man who shouldn’t be able to touch you. I can’t touch movement. Be movement. Be air. Be nothing.”

He lunged. Daja blinked, half-hypnotized by his words, half in the quiet place she found when meditating. She blocked him and waited for his next try. He moved. She stayed as she was and waited to hear what came next. After five minutes of hard work when he scored few touches, he called a halt.

“But this is meditating, only we’re moving,” she panted, bracing her hands on her knees. She felt wonderful.

“That’s all it should be. I never could sit on my behind and count myself silly,” Skyfire replied breathlessly. “I meditate this way.”

The dream was with her when she opened her eyes. She was smiling. Her classes with Skyfire after that day had been very different. She thought Jory would like the tough old man.

Daja rolled stiffly out of bed-she would have to find another time to skate if they were to meditate at this hour-cleaned up, and dressed. She had seen wooden poles in a room off the passage between the stables and the pantry. Taking the back stairs, she bypassed the kitchen-she hated to see a kitchen dark and fireless. A little exploration brought her to the room where old chairs, tables, and other things were stored in case of need.

The poles were stacked in a corner. They were smooth stakes about five feet long, probably used to replace handles in mops and brooms when the old ones wore out. All were smoothed down, so she didn’t have to worry about splinters; all were made of sound wood, so she didn’t have to worry about them breaking in mid-strike. They were absurdly light after her own staff, but her own comfort was not the point.

Daja had chosen three when she heard a woman scream. She dropped her poles and headed toward the screams at a dead run, imagining fire, assassins, rats…

She burst into the kitchen. Anyussa the cook and Varesha the housekeeper, half-dressed, arrived from the servants’ quarters as she did. A maid cowered against one of the long tables, still screaming. As Varesha and Anyussa converged on her, she pointed at the great fireplace, burst into tears, and hid her face in her hands.

Daja had been wrong to expect a cold and lifeless kitchen. The sheer size of the fire that roared in the hearth told her it had burned long enough to make the room deliciously warm. At the heart of the blaze sat Frostpine, his back to the room, legs crossed, hands palm-up on his knees, eyes closed. He was so deep in meditation that he hadn’t even heard the maid’s screams. His masses of hair and beard fluttered in the flames’ caress. His clothes for the day were neatly folded on a stool placed beside the hearth.

Daja’s mouth twitched.

Noise made her turn. More people had reached the kitchen, most still wearing night clothes. Anyussa and the housekeeper, standing with the hysterical maid between them, drew close to stare. Jory and Nia must have galloped down from the third floor. They peered around the maids, eyes wide. Footmen arrived in nightshirts, demanding to know what the fuss was about.

Daja’s mouth twitched again. She sternly forbade herself to smile and walked over to the hearth. She wasn’t sure if her shirt was one of Sandry’s. To be safe-she thought one naked mage was all this household could stand-she put her hands palm to palm, and pulled them apart. The flames between her and Frostpine split neatly. Leaning in, she laid her palm on his shoulder. Through their common magic she said, Come back.

Frostpine twisted to glare at her. “What?” he demanded. “Can’t a man meditate?”

“I thought you did that in your room,” she said. “Frostpine, you’re naked.”

“Naked and warm,’” he said with a scowl. He hitched himself around until he faced Daja, doing it so expertly that he hardly disturbed the wood stacked around him. “I can’t get a decent fire going up there, the hearth’s too small. I thought I’d do everyone a favor and start the fire here.”

“Did you tell anyone?” Daja inquired.

“I meant to be gone by the time-” Frostpine looked past Daja to see his wide-eyed audience. “Hakkoi and Shurri,” he grumbled. “I just wanted to get warm.”

“Why didn’t you put up a folding screen? Or let someone know?” Daja asked. “Then maybe the whole house would still be asleep right now.”

“You’d think they never saw a naked man before,” Frostpine grumbled. He crouched, then stepped carefully out of the blaze without scattering wood or ashes. He then used a poker to shove the burning wood in until it covered the place where he’d sat. Once done, he set the poker aside and began to dress.

The maid was still sobbing. Other servants were backing out of the kitchen. This wasn’t the magecraft they knew, a matter of potions, signs, and charms. They were unnerved. Only Anyussa was unshaken. She looked Frostpine over, hands on hips, a crooked smile on her lips. “My cousin says mages are eunuchs. I wish he were here right now. Do you want breakfast?” she asked Frostpine as he put on his habit.

He grinned. “I’m ravenous,” he admitted. “And for the first time since I came here I feel warm.”

Daja shook her head and went back to collect her poles.

In spite of the morning’s disturbance and their reluctance the night before, Jory and Nia were in the schoolroom when Daja arrived. No fires were lit in the hearth: wool dresses and stockings or no, the twins’ breaths steamed on the chilly air.

“I can’t sit like this,” Jory informed Daja. The twins were shivering. “We’ll freeze.”

“You’re not sitting,” Daja said. She tossed a pole to Nia, who caught it easily, and another to Jory, who nearly dropped hers. She placed her own pole against the wall.

“I thought you said we wouldn’t have staffs,” Nia said, running her hands over her pole.

“You won’t need a staff as a mage,” Daja replied. “You-“

“Does he always sit in fires naked?” asked Jory. “Are we going to learn how to do that? And why’d he pick the name Frostpine if he hates being cold?”

Daja had asked him the same thing, as they huddled in a mountain travelers’ hostel during a late summer blizzard. To Jory she repeated his answer: “He said he hadn’t thought cold got so very cold, and he thought frostpines must be pretty trees. Neither of you will be sitting naked in any fires.”

Nia shuddered. “Oh, please!” she whispered. “I have nightmares about fire!”

Daja patted her shoulder. “Once your magic’s under control, you’ll feel less like you’re actually made of wood,” she said gently. “You’ll be able to seal yourself off from your magic. The dreams will stop then. Now,” she said before they could interrupt again, “we’ll start with some easy first moves with the staff.”

“But how-“Jory began.

“Just do as I say,” Daja told the girl sternly. Jory nodded, mute.

She didn’t mean to make fighters out of them, but if she was going to do this, she ought to do it properly. Otherwise her next dream of Skyfire might end as he trounced her for slipshod teaching. She taught the girls how to properly grip the staff and how to stand to keep their balance. Then she showed them the high strike and its defense, the high block, the body strike and its defense the body block, and the low strike and block. Next she gave them a sequence, high, middle, low. Jory struck first as Nia blocked; after they had done five sets, Daja switched them so Nia struck Jory’s blocks. They didn’t hit hard. It was more important at this point to hit and block correctly. They repeated the sequences over and over until both girls showed beads of sweat at the temples. As they got more confident, they picked up speed.

Jory began to hit too hard. Nia shrank a little at each blow. When it was her turn to strike, she tapped Jory just as she had at first. When Jory became striker again, she was impatient. She brought her high strike down with all her strength behind it. Nia cringed. As Jory launched her middle strike, Daja thrust her own pole in and knocked Jory’s staff aside. Nia backed up.

“Keep control of your feelings,” Daja told Jory. “You can’t get excited. You have to pull that in. And you can’t shrink away,” she told Nia. “Keep the rhythm going. Don’t worry about anything but doing the same moves over and over.”

“But I hate to hit, and I hate being hit,” protested Nia. “Why can’t we meditate like before?”

“I hated that,” Jory told her. To Daja she said, “I’ll be good. Just do the things, and hit nicely, and not get excited.”

“Pay attention to the pattern and to the way your body works,” Daja said. “That’s all. Nobody’s going to hurt you, Nia. This is just a pattern, like the breathing, only with all of your body. All right, you strike, Jory blocks, high, middle, low, then switch. Begin.”

They obeyed, striking and blocking slowly, as they had at first. Little by little they relaxed. Daja watched carefully, noting when they began to speed up. Jory started to grin. Faster they went. Jory hit harder; Nia began to flinch. Then, as Nia struck high, Jory blocked and swung a middle strike at her sister’s ribcage. Daja, expecting it, slid her own pole in, hooked Jory’s, and sent it flying. After another lecture to Jory about emotions, Daja started the twins a third time. It was no good; after a minute she saw that Nia didn’t believe her sister’s promise to control herself. She flinched every time Jory struck her, even though she blocked Jory.

When the breakfast bell rang, the twins looked at Daja. She held out her hand for their poles. Nia thrust hers at Daja and fled. Jory gave her pole up reluctantly. “I’d get better,” she told Daja. “Only I suppose you’ll want to go back to the boring way now.” She ran out of the schoolroom.

Daja chose not to eat with the family. A burned scent in the air told her that breakfast cooked by a half-terrified staff was something she could give up. Instead she dressed for the outdoors, picked up her real staff and the satchel that held her tracings of Ben’s hands, and set out for Teraud’s smithy. Halfway down Tenniy Street an old woman made almost perfectly round by skirts and shawls sold dumplings from a cart. Daja bought herself breakfast there and strolled on, turning her problem over in her mind.

Nia liked to sit and meditate. Jory concentrated best when she was moving. No matter how many times Daja put those facts into the forge to heat, they always came out in the same shape.

That’s magic for you, she thought gloomily. One part glory, one part fun, and one part polishing the brightwork till your back and your knees and your hands all ache.

Then she chuckled. Sometimes her old seafaring life broke into her thoughts at the oddest moments. She also took the lesson. Brightwork got ruined by rust without plenty of scrubbing. The twins would never get the best out of their power if Daja was a lazy teacher. Work was work: it had to be done right.

If Teraud Voskajo was not the ugliest white man Daja had ever met, she had mercifully forgotten the uglier man’s appearance. Stringy brown hair barely covered his blocky head. Dark eyes peered out from under a shelf of brow. His nose was mashed; a slab of chin jutted out beneath a thin mouth. His arms were mallets of muscle and bone. He was six-and-a-half feet tall.

Every child in the neighborhood knew the man who looked like a monster would do anything, from rescue kites to give coins for sweets. Girls told him their love troubles, young men asked his advice on dealing with their fathers. He was a leader of the smith’s guild in Namorn and knew more of working iron than even Frostpine. He was not a mage.

He had been delighted to give Daja forge-time in exchange for her assistance with some of his projects. With him she studied fine ironwork, shaping metal into lacelike forms: between the Syth and the Pebbled Sea, Teraud was the best at it. As a successful master smith Teraud supervised nearly twenty apprentices and journeymen in his massive Hammer Street forge.

Before she entered Teraud’s, Daja took a moment to look at the canvas-covered sleigh in the courtyard. The sleigh belonged to Kugisko’s governor. It was a glory of brasswork, enamel paint, and gilt moldings. All it required was runners; those were nearly finished. Today she and Teraud would harden the long metal pieces that would be shaped to create two silvery, elegant lengths of metal that would cut through ice and snow. If all went well, they could temper the steel the next day, and fit the runners the day after.

Once inside, she laid her Trader’s staff against the wall of the coatroom, then hung her satchel and outer coat over it to hide the telltale brass head from view. While none of Teraud’s people had spoken against Traders, it was silly to flaunt her people’s best-known symbol. She stuffed her scarf, gloves, and knit hat into her coat and worked off her fur-lined boots, replacing those with leather shoes.

“You ready to work?” Teraud stood in the doorway, tying on his leather apron. His family had been miners in the hard lands north of the Syth; he had still not shed the accent after thirty years on its southern shore. “Teaching didn’t wear you out?”