Icefall (46 page)

Fiercely I rubbed my eyes. ~
Rory
, I said.

He looked round at me, happiness lighting his eyes. ‘Finn. Oh, Finn. They're so beautiful. My brother and sister. Oh, Finn.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Of course they're beautiful. All babies are beautiful. He was beautiful. QED.'

Rory blinked, puzzled. To fill the awkward silence he laid down one baby and lifted its twin. ‘You must be very proud,' he said softly, but he didn't look at me this time.

‘Proud?' I shrugged.

‘My father would be proud.'

‘Yes. He would.'

Rory looked at me again, then down at the baby in his arms. ‘What are you going to call him?'

‘I don't know. That's the male one, is it? S-Se-uh—your father said they needed names of their own.' I swallowed hard. ‘Otherwise I'd have called him Conal. Why don't you think of something?'

‘Because
Seth
would want you to choose,' said Rory, a hard edge to his voice. ‘That's why not.'

Well, bully for him. He might be able to say the name, but I couldn't. He wasn't bloody judging me on it. ‘Well, then. I'll think of something.'

Rory laid the infant down beside its twin, then stood up abruptly. ‘You're a Sithe, Finn. You have two kids. Makes you kind of lucky, doesn't it?'

I didn't deign to reply.

‘Finn.' He was speaking over tears in his throat. ‘You're not the only one who's lost someone. He was my father. Jed was my brother.'

So making me feel worse was his way of helping, was it? I curled into a ball and closed my eyes, and after a moment he walked out and shut the door quietly.

I don't know how long I lay there weeping soundlessly, hating myself even more than I hated those wretched babies. When they began to cry again someone came in and took them both away. Good: better that way. Someone competent could feed them. I wanted to concentrate on the down pillow beneath my face. I breathed in the smell of him, not wanting to exhale, suffocating myself in it. I was terrified and intent because it was months now, and the smell of him was fading; it would fade to nothing and I didn't know what I was going to do when it was gone.

I didn't hear anyone else come into the room, was only aware someone had when a weight sat down beside me and light fingers rubbed my shoulder. I'd long run out of tears by then and I'd failed to smother myself, so I could only stare dry-eyed at the wall.

‘Must be awful,' murmured a voice. ‘Everybody expecting you to love those infants.'

Oh, bloody hell.
Orach.
The woman who'd loved him through four hundred years of his solitary existence, the friend who'd seen him through crises I could only guess at, the occasional lover who'd only finally dumped him when she saw me coming. They'd loved each other very much, in their own way. I hoped she wasn't going to gloat, because I liked her and I didn't want to have to kill her.

‘Sh. It's okay.' She stroked my hair. ‘And I'm not going to nag you, I promise. I think I'd hate those little buggers too. Knowing he'll never see them, when he'd have loved them so much. And he wasn't even there to hold your hand when it hurt. And it's supposed to be the two of you. And it isn't.'

‘Orach,' I whispered. ‘I—'

‘Did he say you had to go on living? Did he tell you you had to love them? Yeah, that'd be like him.' Orach squeezed my shoulder. ‘What did he know, Finn? You're the one who got left behind. Not him. You.'

I began to cry again. ‘That's just a bit of it. That's not—'

‘Not all, no. I bet you lie awake and wonder. We're only supposed to get old because we don't breed, aren't we? That's what Eili used to say. Do you worry he spent some of his life fathering them?'

Aching sobs tore out of my throat. Orach wriggled down beside me and put her arms around me.

‘Sh. Sh. It isn't true. Okay? Wait till you're thinking straight. Before long you'll know it isn't true. Listen to me. Seth didn't die because he fathered those babies, and in a month or two your brain will be straight again and you'll know it. Seth died because he took too much punishment. He died of Eili, and Kilrevin, and Laszlo's crossbow. He died of his own clann and his own guilt. Most of all he died of the curse he threw at Kate and her people, and
he always knew he would.
He knew that, even as he spoke it. You can't fling such deadly hate and not get caught in the blast yourself. He did it because he had to, they'd have killed him otherwise.'

I remembered him telling me.
They couldn't believe I'd bring such anathema on myself.

‘He didn't do it to save himself, Finn. If he'd died that day, they'd have come after Rory with no-one to stop them. Then you'd have died too, and Jed and Sionnach and Eili. And they'd have had Rory, and then we'd all have died. Seth had no choice. Oh, Finn. Seth died because he was a fighter, not because he was a father.'

I curled into her arms, weeping till I thought I'd never stop. I don't know when I stopped crying, because long before I did, I was asleep. I slept a blank and dreamless sleep for a night and a day, and I know for a fact that Orach didn't leave my side.

 

 

~
I hope you're grateful.

~
Grateful?
I told the thing in the dark. ~
I couldn't keep him. After all that, I couldn't keep him. You call that a promise?

~
I never promised you anything of the sort, child of mine.

I prowled the cavern, running the flat of my palm across smooth black rock. It was vast, but I knew it now, I knew every cranny and every outcrop and every pool that never saw the daylight. I'd visited it often enough. I circled the vast space without the need or desire for light, my bare feet finding familiar dips and ridges, and I trod softly back to the glowing alcove: the place where the child's corpse sat, deaf and blind and mute; and heard and saw everything, and spoke.

~
Do you know what Kate NicNiven once said to me?
Low gurgling laughter echoed from nowhere and everywhere. ~
She said: What strong witch wants another to have power over them?

~
Yes,
I told it dryly. ~
That sounds like her.

~
And yet here you are.
I felt something enfold me, something cold like a shroud, yet it fitted me snugly. ~
She was fire. You are ice and stone; you're the deepest heart of the glacier.

~
You're full of shit.

We laughed together.

~
You're as much part of me as I am part of you, Icefall. You make me proud.

~
All right, Soul-Eater
, I said. ~
Reward me.

~
I rewarded you with life. I rewarded you with power. You reached out for me in the darkness and I was there.

~
Because,
I told the Darkfall with a smile, ~
you are everywhere in the darkness. Especially that one.

The light flickered in the child's cupped hands. Water dripped, slow and steady, somewhere deep in the tunnels that threaded the rock like the paths of monstrous devouring termites. No human had ever walked those tunnels. No human ever would. But I'd dare. I'd dare. If the Darkfall wouldn't give me what I wanted.

~
Presumptuous. Like the other one.
There was a hint of anger in its voice.

~
I'm not a bit like the other one,
I said, smiling. ~
I'm better.

The breath of the rock whispered across my bare feet, raised gooseflesh on my arms. I didn't rub them.

~
Perhaps you are,
it said. ~
We could make a bargain, you and I.

~
If our interests coincide.
I closed my eyes and lifted my face to feel its breath. ~
As with all bargains.

I thought perhaps it laughed again.

~
Your lover ended the monarchy, but no god guaranteed him the last word. You can be queen. You can rule and be loved.

~
Yes, let's get that offer out of the way, shall we? You know it isn't what I want.

~
Very well.
Its coldness enfolded me. ~
It was worth a try. Ah, Icefall, you're very predictable in your own way, aren't you?

~
So are you.
I stepped forward to the corpse of the child, crouched to gaze into its eyeless sockets. I reached out a hand and lowered my palm to the flame, and held it there. So cold. I smiled. ~
Now let's talk about what I truly want.

The Darkfall was silent for a long, long time. But I could wait. I had all day and all night. I had forever, if I chose to ask for it.

At last its breath sighed around me, stirring my hair.

~
You know you can have him back. You know this.

~
I know this
, I said. I rose to my feet. ~
But I won't hand over my soul. Don't ask me to make Kate NicNiven's deal.

~
I wouldn't dream of it. Not that I dream.
It chuckled. It had a wicked sense of humour, the Darkfall.

~
Give me my lover,
I said. ~
Give him back to me, and I'll give you the Black Veil.

~
You want that kind of love, yet you won't hand over your soul? You're arrogant, child.

~
I have cause to be.
I smiled for the Darkfall. I knew it was proud of me.

~
You won't make the NicNiven's deal,
it said thoughtfully. ~
Yet the agent must be the same.

~
I know that too.
I opened my eyes to blackness. ~
But will that agent want to do as I ask? I doubt it. I doubt he'll follow me with his eyes wide open.

Something sighed, long and contented, and the last spark in the child's cupped hands guttered and died.

~
Take the boy by the hand, then. Close his eyes. Lead him.

 

Hannah

‘Where did you go last night?'

I eyed Finn, but she only focused the blowtorch flame, and leaned into the workbench, and said nothing.

‘You know what Grian calls that hour? Devil's Hour.'

‘Does he now?'

‘Yes,' I told her. ‘He says it's when people tend to die.'

She smiled, then gasped in anger, threw down the blowtorch and sucked her scorched finger.

It had taken me long enough to pluck up the courage to ask her where she'd been. I'd used up my nerve and I didn't dare sympathise about the burnt finger. Nobody dared sympathise with Finn, about anything: not even Rory, and he was her Captain. She lived these days on the very edge of cold fury, and a word from either of us now would get our heads bitten off. She got to her feet and stood over the workbench. Under her glare, stones and settings and rejected bits of silver flew scattering onto the floor.

‘Sorry,' she muttered after a moment. As she bent to clear up the mess—using her hands this time—I saw tears glint in her eyes.

Rory nibbled his lip. ‘Finn, you only just started to do this…'

‘No,' she snapped. ‘I'm no silversmith, I never could do it. Faramach used to sit there beside Leonie and laugh his stupid head off at me. Forget it. I'm going down to the hall to see Sionnach. Rory, I need to die.'

So abrupt, so out of nowhere, it still took my breath away. Every time she said it.

She scared me. She scared us all. But at least I was finally seeing the point of the anthill thing. I wasn't pure-blooded Sithe, thank God, so it wasn't the same for me, but I'd watched them long enough. They didn't love fiercely but ferociously
.
They lived so terribly long and they weren't faithful, but their link with their bound lovers was for life and for death. They had their teeth and their claws and their hearts in so deep they couldn't let go.

I had to talk to Rory. Tell him to quit nagging Finn. After all, I liked to think I could let go of Rory's ghost, but maybe, if it ever came to that, I'd be just the same. That was the point of the anthills, wasn't it? So the children still had a family when one parent followed the other into oblivion.

‘Rory,' said Finn, glancing at me. ‘If anything happened to me—'

‘Nothing's going to happen, Finn.'

‘Yes, but let's suppose it does. You and Hannah. You'd look after them, right? The twins. You'd be better parents than me anyway.'

‘Stop it!' barked Rory. ‘Stop that! If Dad could hear you!' He sucked in a breath. ‘Gods, what if he
can
? Stop it!'

She iced over, I saw it happen, like she'd psyched herself up to demand something and he'd given her the chance she needed. ‘You want me to stop, Rory? Do you really?' Her eyes were dead and her smile was chilly. ‘Open the Veil for me.'

He looked bewildered. ‘You want to go to the otherworld?'

‘Gods forbid. No. The other Veil.'

‘What?'

‘You heard.'

He took a step back from her, shaking his head. ‘You're out of your mind. Well, of course you are, we all know that,' he spat. ‘But I won't do that.'

‘I only want to see. I want to see him. One more time.'

‘Finn, you're insane. It's too much. How would you know where he'll be?'

‘I know where he'll be. He'll be at the Stones. Waiting.'

‘No, Finn. No, no, no. He won't be waiting anywhere because he
asked you to live.
He is
not waiting for you
.'

‘He is,' said Finn coolly. ‘He'll be there because I've asked him to.'

Rory went pale. ‘Don't speak to the dead, Finn. Don't.'

‘The
dead
? He is your father! He is my lover!'