Cold Magic

12

Beneath the comfort of warm covers, one's drowsy dawn thoughts wandered pleasantly. Our upcoming birthday celebration was sure to be memorable. Because the family could afford only one birthday feast, I had agreed to wait until solstice to share it with Bee. She had asked for and we had been promised an actual balloon ride. Imagine how it would feel to rise above the rough slumber of Adurnam at dawn! We might hope to see the wide marshy flats of thr Sieve spreading beyond the city's skins, the distant rise of the Downs, and, if we were fortunate, even maybe so far as the mouth of the Rhenus River to the southwest where it spilled into the Bay of Brittany…

"Maestra?"

The truth poured over me like ice water. I sat bolt upright as a girl with tightly curled, short black hair stepped into the room with my clothing draped over an arm.

She startled back. "I'm sorry, maestra. I didn't realize you were still abed. If I may say so, what lovely hair you have, maestra."

Her cheerful smile coaxed an answering smile from me as I brushed black strands out of my face. "That is very kind of you," I said as I climbed out from under the covers. "Is it so very late already? The bed is quite comfortable. It smells of herbs."

"So it does," she agreed cheerfully. "I myself sewed sachets and bound them with amulets to keep out bedbugs and other such irritations."

Not all irritations, though.

My husband strode in as though it were his chamber, but pulled up short like a dog yanked back on its leash. The heat from the glowing coals in the braziers was sucked away in a sharp inhalation. He stared at me as though speech had been ripped from his throat.

I grabbed for my sword, lying on the bed, but all I found in my hand was the cane.

He flinched back as from a blow and rapped his own cane on the floor. "Are you not ready?"

The serving girl goggled at him. He wore an exceptionally fine dash jacket that, fitted through the torso, fell from the hips in loose folds to his knees. This one was paneled in a gold fabric set against a green of such elegance that even I took in a startled breath, because the fabric was so impressive, not because the buttery shine of the beaded gold collar caught high up against his neck looked so very well against the rich brown of his complexion.

I drew my cane across my nightdress like a shield. "Are we in a hurry?"

He blinked. "Ah. We are. Yes. Also, there is a chance the prince's wardens may pursue anyone they believe tied to the incident____________________

It may not have been so very wise for me to go to the

academy to find out what properties of the airship I could best exploit, although I admit I found out exactly what I needed."

"Wouldn't a cold mage deflate any balloon sack just by standing alongside it?" I asked, then bit my tongue.

"That's part of it," he said enthusiastically, then stopped and glanced at the young woman, who quickly bowed her head. "It's best to assume we might be followed."

I remembered the mob, the smoke stinging in my nostrils, the beat of flames against the sky. The howls of anger. Maybe my color changed.

He nodded, as if I had spoken. "Just so. The carriage is waiting." He went out.

The girl smiled in a sisterly way. "He's not a kinsman of yours, is he?"

"No! Not at all. Not in a kinsman blood relation kind of way. We met for the first time two days ago."

She did not take offense at my tone. Evidently, like Bee, she could interpret my mood and draw her own conclusions. "He has beautiful clothes, if you don't mind my saying so."

"The Houses are rich; everyone knows that." I had not meant the words to come out with such sarcasm.

She chuckled. "Surely we do know that, who serve them. But forgive me, maestra. He said the carriage is waiting urgent, and I'm blabbering on. What help can I offer? I'll brush your hair, if you wish."

I smiled. "I'd like that. Just a few strokes, for I must finish quickly."

She was a good companion on an anxious morning, because her words flowed in a soothing spill. "My brother, he's an apprentice at a tailor shop in Adurnam, where you must have come from. When he visits at festival, he brings us the tailoring books and the fashion books to look over. I know what he would say about that one. If you don't mind my saying so."

Leaning closer, I murmured, "What would your brother say:

"Privately, I'm sure," she said in the voice of a person thrilled to be offered a venue for speaking her mind instead of remaining mute before arrogant cold mages. "Privately, he would say that the finest of clothes must be worn with a coolness that does not draw attention. A man who draws attention is trying too hard."

A brutal hammering rose from downstairs, like someone pounding on a door. Startled, I jerked away from the brush.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, twisting the hair neatly up and pinning it into place. "I hope no one heard me. I meant no offense."

"None was taken in this chamber, I am sure." I was sorry to lose her lively presence, but I knew what I would need to get through another day. "Is it possible for you to go downstairs to the kitchens and pack a basket of bread and cheese and apples, or anything? I would be most grateful to you and to those in the kitchens."

She favored me with a look heavy with sudden pity. "Blessings on you." She looked around the chamber, which in the light of day resembled nothing as much as a luxurious prison house with its barred windows and iron-bound door. "I suppose you'll need them."

It proved an exceedingly long, jokingly uncomfortable, and tediously silent day. After the incident with the shattered cup, I was unwilling to attempt conversation lest I inadvertently anger him, and despite that brief discussion of airships in my chamber, he now displayed no interest in me whatsoever. He even declined my offer to share with him the contents of the basket: an apple, walnuts, two loaves of fresh bread, a wedge of pungent cheese, and two halves of a chicken neatly wrapped in waxed paper. Mostly, I thought about my family. Why this had fallen on me I did not know, but I would do my duty because I loved my family and they loved me. I would do my duty to honor the memory of my father and mother.

We rolled at twilight out of the Great North Wood and past willow hurdles fencing off gardens and then alongside clusters of round cottages grouped in compounds and beyond them substantial rectangular houses set back individually from the road. We had arrived in Southbridge, that part of the old Roman town of Londun south of the ancient bridge.

The carriage slowed as we mined onto the high road. The

road widened to form a square around an old Roman temple. The high road plunged north toward the bridge, unseen in the gloom except for the distant glitter of watch-lights, while we took the rightward passage. We passed an inn whose gateway was lit by twin lanterns, a row of shops closed and shuttered, and a wide, paved court that sheltered a smithy still glowing within, gates flung open to let heat roil out. A burly man covered in a smith's apron strolled into view and lounged at the gate, thick arms crossed as he stared at our carriage. From within the smithy, the syncopated beat of a hammer rang, crossed and elaborated with the lighter rhythms of other pounding: the chatter of a higher-pitched hammer, the sassy countervoice of women pounding grain in a neighboring courtyard. The blacksmith simply watched, turning with our passage as if the force of his gaze were driving us out beyond the fiery furnace that was his purview.

Beyond the smithy, the road forked again, a dirt lane ribboning off into fields while the paved turnpike shot east toward Cantiacorum and eventually to Havery, some days' travel away. We passed more whitewashed houses and then a fenced-in area that in summer was certainly a grand garden. Beyond wall and garden lay a burned and blackened ruin, a once-noble structure with a courtyard and more buildings in back, all scorched, roofs fallen in, black soot everywhere. We pulled up in front of the smashed gate.

The eru opened the carriage door and pulled down the step, and my husband climbed out. I hurried after him as he strode past the gateway into the courtyard and halted at the ruined threshold of the main building. He pulled a spark of light out of the air and let it swell into a ball; this he sent spinning over the ruins, like a dog let run on a long leash. By the look of scorched and broken furniture tumbled in heaps or smashed under fallen beams, the place had gone down fast, and recently. In places,

the floor had collapsed to reveal the shattered remains of a network of ceramic pipes by which the Houses warmed their domiciles. It was an adaptation of the Roman hypocaust, providing a constant flow of heated air beneath the floorboards. Andevai scraped at the char with the tip of his cane-? pulling an object closer. He crouched to fish it off the ground and, rising, dangled a cord from one finger, strung with the fragments of cowrie shells and the crumbling spars of burned vegetal matter.

"Arson," he said.

He crushed the remains of the amulet in his hand, then shook its dust to the ground with murmured words I did not recognize. He carried a small silver snuffbox in his sleeve, but it contained salt, not snuff, and he pinched a few crystals between thumb and middle finger and scattered this over the threshold.

A cold wind rose out of the north. A light rain, spiced with fingers of stinging sleet, misted down out of the sky.

"Follow us after you have scouted the perimeter," he said to the coachman.

I walked beside him back into town. Every house that we passed had shutters closed against the lowering night. The hilt of the ghost sword came alive in my hand, but apparently he still could not see it.

We reached the edge of the square and walked to the other inn. The smith waited in his doorway, arms still crossed, speaking no word of welcome. My husband did not acknowledge him, nor did he stray too close to the smithy, a place of power opposed to his own cold magic, even if no person who stirred the embers of fire magic could raise an equivalent level of power without being physically consumed by an uncontrollable blast of elemental fire.

No footman or liveried servant waited at the inn's entrance to greet distinguished customers. As we approached the open gates, the lanterns sputtered and went out. I could barely distinguish

the griffin talisman painted on the inn's sign. We walked into a courtyard surrounded by the inn buildings and their double tier of balconies. At the door to the common house, he was stymied because no servant waited to open the heavy door, but I was not too proud to fix a hand around the door handle and drag it open.

"Catherine!" He made a gesture of protest.

I ignored him and crossed the threshold into a large, warm, and smoky room fitted with long tables and benches. It was at this hour empty except for the tempting smell of chicken broth and baking squash. Through a second door, which was propped open by a brick, I could see into an adjoining supper room where people were dining and chattering. With a frown, Andevai entered. The blazing fire in the hearth sank like a shy child hiding his face from strangers.

A man carrying a tray piled with dishes emerged from the supper room and slopped stock-still to stare at us, like an actor pretending shock in a Roman comedy. He cleared his throat uneasy. "How can I help yon, maester? Maestra?"

"What happened to the House inn?" Andevai demanded. "When 1 last passed through here ten days ago, I stayed there."

"It burned, maester."

"I can see that it burned. It was destroyed by arson."

"I wouldn't know about that, maester."

"I don't suppose you would. No one ever does. When did it happen?"

"Nine days ago, maester. A rare conflagration."

The fire flickered, struggling to stay alive. "So it seems. It is now too late for us to travel farther upon the turnpike and seek the next House accommodation."

The innkeeper's gaze flashed to the fire, and his breathing quickened. "I ask pardon for not recognizing you, Magister. We never see magisters such as yourself in my inn, begging your pardon. Indeed, Griffin Inn is no place you'll be accustomed to,

Magister. We've no specially heated rooms for cold mages like yourself, like the House inns are fitted with." The man gestured with the tray toward the fire. "We heat with hearths and braziers. Anyway, we've only one room remaining for tonight, an attic room with several cots. Not even a proper bed."

"You can clear a chamber for our use."

The man took in an angry breath. "That I can't, Magister. I can't turn out those guests who've already made their arrangements and paid in advance. I'm not able to collect tithes from my neighbors as the House inn did, with the threat of House retribution backing up "their demands should any not pay the tax. Anyway, Magister, even besides the attic room, we've only four sleeping rooms, none of them to your liking, I am sure."

"You are deliberately insulting me."

"I am telling you the cold truth, Magister. Maybe you choose to take it as an insult, if you're not accustomed to hearing the truth spoken to you." The man's knuckles were clenched to a pallor around the tray. It took a courageous man to speak so frankly to a cold mage.

The fire sighed to embers. The hilt of the ghost sword grew cold against my palm.

"We'll take the attic room," I said, too loudly, because I did not intend to see the innkeeper's pewter cups shattered in a fit of rage. "We'll need extra blankets, as many as you have, if you don't mind, maester. But the principles of convection suggest that hot air rises, so up in the attic we should be warm enough even with no brazier to heat the room."

The man had expressive eyebrows; one quirked now, cocking up as he examined me. He looked again at Andevai to identify what possible relation we might have, and nodded. "Supper is served in the supper room, maestra. Or must I also address you as Magister?"

"No. Thank you."

His eyebrows lifted again before he recovered his composure. "I'll send my niece to show you up when we're done serving supper, but you'll have to have your own people carry up your cases or what have you, as we're shorthanded tonight what with the wedding of my wife's cousin's nephew in Londun. I would have shut up the inn and gone over the river myself for the wedding feast if not for-"

A trill of laughter-humanlike but not human-lilted out of the supper room.

The man nodded at me, pointedly not looking at Andevai. "Business is business, maestra. We serve any who pay with hard currency and comport themselves like decent folk. If you're wanting a wash, there's a trough out by the stable where you can fill a pitcher. There'll be a basin up in the room to pour in and wash 0U1 of."

"We will recieve a tray of food in our private chamber," said Andevai abruply.

The man's lips thinned. "As I said, Magister, tonight we haven't the means for private service no matter what I might wish one way or another, for besides the lad out in the stables, it's just me and my brother's daughter. She's tending the kitchen, and I'm running food into the supper room, and soon enough I'll have customers here in the common room as well to pull drinks for, the usual locals with their music and talk."

"Even if I were to eat in a public room, you can scarcely wish me to eat in your supper room, since I will extinguish your fire and then all your other customers will be cold."

"Even if you sit at the very farthest table from the hearth, Magister? I just want to make clear I've nothing to be ashamed of in my inn. We're a respectable establishment well known for our savory suppers, our excellent brew, and clean beds. Yet I'll tell you truly, we've never had a cold mage set foot in this establishment, not a Housed mage, not once, just hedge mages and bards and jellies and such."

"This corruption is absurd," Andevai said with a glance at me, contempt trembling like unspoken words on his lips. Yet he would go on speaking. "Jelly is a substance congealed or, in its manner, frozen. A djeli"-he pronounced it more like "jay-lee"-"possesses the ability to channel, to weave, the essence that binds and underlies the universe. Like bards, they are the guardians of the ancient speech. I wish you people would use the word correctly to show proper respect."

A throaty, somewhat monotone voice called from the supper room with a request for more wine.

The innkeeper's mouth had pinched tight. "I'll tell you this," he began in a low, passionate voice, "you in the Houses may stand high, and you may look down on us who crawl beneath you, but there rises a tide of sentiment-"

I saw my supper and my hope for a night's sleep sliding away. "Maester," I cut in, "what if I fetch a tray myself from the kitchens and take it up to the attic?"

Checked, the innkeeper stiffened, maybe not sure whether I was being respectful or derisory.

Andevai broke in. "Catherine, you are not a servant to fetch and carry what others are obligated to bring."

"I want to eat. I'm very hungry. If I fetch the tray, then I know we'll eat."

"Furthermore," my husband went on inexorably, "the Houses are the bringers of plenty, not of want. People should be grateful to us, who have spared them from the tyranny of princes many times over, who have saved them from the wars of monsters like Camjiata who meant to crush all beneath his boot."

"Get out of my house," said the innkeeper so quietly that Andevai did not react, and after a moment I began to think he

had not heard because there was no sound at all; even the conversation in the supper room dropped into a lull.

For a moment.

Then the sword hilt burned against my palm like ice.

The fire whoofed out with a billow of ash like a cough. I felt as if a glacier loomed, ready to calve and bury me.

"Catherine," Andevai said in a low voice, "go outside. Now."

My skin was chapped from the cold, and my stomach was grumbling, and the soup smelled so good, and it was sleeting outside, and in only three days the end of the year would arrive and with it, on that cusp between the dying of the old year and the birth of the new, would rise my own natal day, my birthday, when I would welcome a full round of twenty years and therefore become an adult. Only now I was severed by magic from my beloved family and standing here cold and exhausted and hungry and far from the home I could never return to and meanwhile about to be kicked out into the night. And the worst of it was, Andevai was probably going to do something stupid and awful, because he was the arrogant child of a powerful House unused to being spoken to by a common innkeeper far below him in birth and wealth and without any cold magic to protect himself, and all I could think of was snuggling into a warm bed and sipping hot soup, because I was the most selfish, miserable person alive.

To my horror, I began to cry hot, silent tears.

"Excuse me, maester," said the throaty voice. A personage loomed behind the innkeeper at the door of the supper room, its blight crest startling in the drab surroundings.

Andevai looked over, no doubt surprised to hear himself again improperly addressed by a stranger, and then doubly surprised to see a troll who was, after all, not speaking to him but to the innkeeper. 1 sucked back my tears as the prickling anticipation of destruction abruptly eased: He was too startled to be angry.

"You are quite run off your feet, maester-we can see that- but we have run out of wine, I am sorry to say, which comes about only because you offered us such an excellent vintage." From a distance, trolls' smooth, small feathers were easy to mistake for strangely textured skin, but this close, the drab brown feathers of this troll's face stood in contrast to a crested mane of yellow feathers flaring over its head and down its neck. "If we might get more when you are able to fetch it. Our thanks."

"I'll bring it at once." The innkeeper bolted across the common room to an opening hung with a curtain.

"And plates for the new guests," called the troll as the curtain slashed down behind the innkeeper. The creature turned an eye toward me. It wrinkled its muzzle to expose teeth, a gesture perhaps meant to be a grin recognizable by humans as a friendly smile, but overall the effect was of a big, sleek, feathered lizard displaying its incisors as a threat. "We'd be honored to guest you. If you wish to sit with us, of course. My companions are good company, so they assure me. Witty, well read, and willing to put up with me, so that may be a point in their favor. Or it may not be. You will have to determine that for yourselves. I'm Chartji. I won't trouble you with my full name, which you would not understand in any case. I'm a solicitor currently employed by the firm of Godwik and Clutch, which has offices in Havery and Camlun, although I'm originally from Expedition. I've been employed in Havery for the past four years, but we're setting up new offices in Adurnam."

It thrust out a hand, if one could call it a hand, what with its shiny claws curving from the ends of what might be fingers or talons, offering to shake in the style of the radicals and laboring classes. Andevai actually took a step back, and the troll's head tilted, marking the movement.

"So it's true what they say about trolls," he said.

Fiery Shemesh! Could he never stop offending people?

"It is," said the troll as its toothy grin sharpened, "but only we females."

I stuck out my hand a little too jerkily. "Well met, Chartji. I'm called Catherine Hassi Barahal." The name fell easily from my tongue; too late I recalled I was someone else now, although I did not know who.

The featherless skin of its-her!-palms was a little grainy, like touching a sun-warmed rock. For an instant I felt the scent of summer in my nostrils, a whisper like falling water, the breath of cut grass and the juice of crushed berries. Then she let go.

"Interesting," she said as she looked me up and down, as if she saw something surprising in my height, my hair, my eyes, or my features. "Can it be you are a child of the Hassi Barahal house, originally established in Gadir? The old histories call your people 'the messengers,' known to bring messages across long distances in a short time. There's a branch residing in Hav-ery, founded by Anatta Hassi Barahal. The left-handed Bara-hals, they call them. I see you hold your… ah"-she seemed about to say one word but changed her mind-"your cane in your left hand."

"Why, yes!" I laughed out of sheer surprise. Even in the cold common room, bereft of fire, the air felt abruptly balmier. "Almost no one knows the ancient origin of our House. I'm from Adurnam. The Havery Barahals are cousins. My aunt's great-grandmother's descendants, in fact."

"They are acquaintances of ours. Come sit, come join our clutch."

I followed her into the supper room, eager to stay within the orbit of one who linked me, however tenuously, to my family. She was tall, as trolls were, a hand taller than Andevai, graceful on her feet, although her gait hitched strangely. She seemed unaware of the glances fired her way from the other two tables of diners, well-to-do merchants or artisans by the look ol their

fashionable clothing, gold and silver necklaces and bracelets, and tiny leather charm cases sewn to their sleeves. Respectable people not happy to be sharing a supper room with a pair of trolls, even if the trolls were dining with people.

"I hope he did not insult you," I murmured, feeling a flush creep up my cheeks.

"It's a common observation made by humans who are born with this property you rats call cold magic. Now, here are my companions. Catherine Hassi Barahal of the Adurnam Hassi Barahals is joining us for supper. And…" She did not turn her torso to look back toward the door but swiveled her head so far around to get a look behind that I gasped. The toothy grin flickered. "My apologies," she said, turning to face forward again as the two human companions hid smiles. "I forget how that startles your kind."

I did not need to turn to know that Andevai had not entered the room, because the fires warming the supper room and the candelabra lighting continued to burn merrily.

"Here is Maester Godwik. Rats, pay attention."

The two humans at the table rose to offer hands to shake in the same radical manner.

"I am Kehinde Nayo Kuti," said the woman in a very pure, mannered accent that betrayed her origins from one of the Mediterranean cities. She was small framed and black skinned, with her hair done in multiple braids and a pair of thick spectacles riding on the bridge of her nose. She wore robes sewn of strips of patterned fabric dyed in deep oranges and yellows and browns quite unknown in these northern climates but ones that made her glow in contrast.

The man was considerably taller, one of the pale Celts with blond hair cut short and a luxuriant mustache in the old style, a local by his easy manner and casual working man's dress of belted tunics and trousers. "Just call me Brennan Toure Du."

"Du? Thar means 'black-haired.'"

"It's a long story, to be punctuated by a great deal of whiskey and several fistfights," said Brennan with a charming smile, by which I understood I wasn't going to hear it.

Kehinde chuckled, and the two trolls chuffed, almost like wheezing.

"My apologies for not standing." Maester Godwik looked slighter and shorter than Chartji, but instead of drab brown, he was feathered in vivid blue with a handsomely contrasting pattern of black and green along his elaborate crest. He raised a cane as in salute. "Injury, I am sorry to say. Clumsiness comes with age. As the sages say, 'wisdom achieved at long last, but now too damned frail to climb Triumph Spire where the young bucks preen.' I am Godwik. A solicitor with the firm of Godwik and Clutch, with offices in Havery and Camlun and soon in Adurnam. Although if you are generous-hearted, you will not despise me on account of my having taken to the solicitor's trade. Is your companion not coming in?"

"Sit, if you please," said Chartji to me, kindly meant.

I found abruptly that my knees were weak and my chest empty of air, because Andevai had been going to wield his magic to punish the innkeeper for his disrespect, but then after all, he had not done it. I sagged into a chair at the end of the table, with Kehinde and Brennan to my right and Godwik facing me. Chartji kindly brought a pitcher and basin so I could wash. After setting these items beside me, the troll hoisted a bottle, poured the remainder of dark liquid into an empty cup, and shoved it over to me.

"You're trembling," she said. "This should fortify you."

I downed the contents of the half-full cup in one gulp. A sherry burned straight down my throat, so strong the rush blew through my head as Brennan laughed, the trolls grinned, and Kehinde handed me the last hank of bread. It was good bread wiih a crisp crust and moist insides, still warm.

The innkeeper bustled in with a tray so laden with bottles, cups, plates, and covered dishes I was amazed the entire edifice did not crash to the ground. He deftly unloaded a tureen of soup, a pair of bowls and cups and spoons, and two bottles of wine at our table before hurrying on to the demands of the other tables of diners, now staring askance at us as I set to on the soup rather like, I suppose, an infestation of locusts embodied in a single flesh.

"That reminds me," said Godwik, "of the time when I was a fledgling, and my bucks and I"-he nodded at Kehinde-"my age group, you know, any cohort of young cousins and neighbors hatched near the same time form an association for various enterprises-"

"My people have similar associations," she replied, nodding.

"-decided to paddle the length of Lake Long-Water, as I'll call it in this language, although we call it something rather more complicated in our own. We planned to battle north into the very teeth of the katabatic wind. Our hope and intention was to reach the vast cliff face of the ice, which we, in our part of the world, call what could be simplistically translated to 'the Great Ice Shelf That Weights the North.'"

"Have some more soup," said Chartji, ladling out of the tureen in the most casual way imaginable, very neat-handed despite her claws, "because this will take awhile."

"Did I get off track?" asked Godwik, crest rising as his feathers flared.

"Just a bit, Uncle," said Brennan with a grin that made you want to trust him.

"An expedition to measure the extent of the ice would be most valuable," said Kehinde. "If we could confirm that the ice shelf runs unbroken across the pole and could survey the southern face of the ice on the northern continents, we could calculate the surface extent of the ice. By comparing that to such

evidence as is available from ancient records, we might thereby speculate whether the ice face is stable or if it is shrinking or growing and by how much."

"A venture is being assembled now, on the shores of Lake Long-Water, by a corporation of clutches," said Godwik, and although it was hard to read emotion in his somewhat monotone and slightly slurry voice, there came about him a change, for I was pretty sure the addled tale-teller concealed a wickedly sharp mind beneath the prattle.

Kehinde leaned forward eagerly. "You trolls may have better luck, then. The lords and princes of Europa have no interest in such an expedition, not since Camjiata's defeat. They do nothing but wrestle for precedence, useless parasites as they are. And, of course, the mage Houses continually place obstacles in the path of scholars. They sue our associations and academies to rob us of binding, and pressure their assemblies and local courts to agree to laws forbidding importation or manufacture of such new apparatuses as would make such ventures feasible. I'm so thrilled we'll be able to see an airship in Adurnam. There's a ship that can cross the ice!"

Heat flushed my face. I worked on at the soup, pretending more interest in my supper than in the conversation, and the soup was indeed very good, flavored with leeks, parsnips, salt, and a smattering of precious pepper.

"No one can cross the ice," said Brennan with a brooding look. "My grandfather was slaughtered by the Wild Hunt. He had been hired to assist a group of scholars attempting a reconnaissance of the Hibernian Ice Sheet in the northwest."

"The Hibernian Ice Expedition was set upon by dire wolves," said Kehinde. "So say the accounts of the men who found the remains of the expeditioners."

"In the village I come from, north of Ebora, where on clear winter days we can see the face of the ice, we know better."

Kehinde was shaking her head. "That there are forces in the world we do not understand is evident to all, but that does not mean that with proper investigation and measurement it cannot be explained by rational means."

"The Hassi Barahals are known as a family who collects information," said Chartji to me. "What have they to say about all this?"

"It's true my father traveled as part of the family business and recorded both his observations and accounts told to him by the people he met," I said, eager to move the subject away from airships. "For instance, many villages, especially in the north, tell tales of the Wild Hunt. Sometimes the Hunt is merely the agent of natural death, marking the souls of those who will die in the coming year. But other tales say that the Wild Hunt hunts down and kills or carries off people who have drawn the notice or the anger of the day court and the night court, which are the unseen courts said to rule in the spirit world."

"Their power is so vast it lies invisible to us," said Brennan. He wore on his left hand a massive and rather ugly bronze ring, which he touched now as if it were an amulet to protect him against the gaze of the unseen courts.

Kehinde crossed her arms, giving him a skeptical look. "What is invisible to us is nothing more than that which we do not comprehend. The tides and threads of magic that can be harnessed and manipulated by mages and bards and others like them do not thereby prove the existence of 'courts,' which no human or troll has ever laid eyes on."

"What of eru?" I said cautiously. "In tales, they're often called the servants of the courts. Although it's usually said they appear as human to our eyes."

Godwik gave me a sudden, knowing look, although how I could read such emotion on his snout of a face I was not sure. Then he winked at me, as if we shared a joke.

"Rats and trolls love to tell stories about rats and trolls," said Chartji, "and tend to see rats and trolls wherever they can. Meanwhile there are dragons in the mountains of Cathay and along the rim of the Pacific Ocean. In the Levant, goblins drowse under the rule of the Turanians. When the salt sickness was unleashed from the deeps of the salt mines of the Saharan Desert, a plague of ghouls overran western Africa."

"It wasn't a 'tale' that forced my people and so many others to flee our homeland," agreed Kehinde. "Greedy men who should have known better forced enslaved miners to dig where anyone could have told them they ought not to dig. When the first hive of ghouls was released, there was nothing anyone could do to stop more from hatching."

"That is my point." Chartji gestured, as in a court of law. "The existence of creatures who are not human or troll does not thereby prove the existence of the courts."

"I saw a sleigh of eru once, each one wearing spirit wings like i ihttJUCJ iboUl their body." Godwik hoisted his cup and flashed a toothy grin at me as Brennan and Kehinde looked in amazement at his quiet statement. I choked on a spoonful of soup. I wanted to ask if they had all possessed three eyes, but dared not. He took a swig of wine before setting down the cup with a flourish that drew looks from the other tables. "Indeed, it was on that very expedition paddling the length of Lake Long-Water that I was telling you about. My bucks and I, six to a boat and six boats in all, the age group of seven villages-I must call them villages, although they are not precisely villages as you rats build and organize such things. We set out laden with dried fruit and nuts to supplement the fish we expected to catch as we journeyed. You may wonder how it all started! What had transpired in the villages to make us eager to leave."

"I want to hear what observations you made of the ice," said Kehinde, "for I am sure there was a purpose to your investigation, not just the adventurous escapade of thirty-six overly energetic young males."

"I am all ears," said Brennan. "Rat that I am." He winked at Chartji, whose grin sharpened.

Godwik took in a significant breath, as one does before commencing a lecture or a song.

Voices rose in the common room as men entered the inn.

Godwik fixed me in that odd way the trolls had, his head tilted to one side as if he were looking at me with only one eye. "Perhaps, before I begin, the Barahal will wish to check on her companion? I sensed a'spot of trouble beforehand, did I not?"

He was an elder. I recognized that now in the lack of glossy sheen to his otherwise brightly colored feathers. Old, and wise, and clever. How in the name of Tanit had he felt the cold tide of Andevai's anger an entire chamber away beyond a closed door? Was Andevai that strong, or did Godwik have senses the rest of us lacked?

"He's being very quiet in there," added Godwik, with one of those toothy grins that somehow translated into the gleam of his intelligent eyes.

I suddenly, overwhelmingly, and inexplicably felt a surge of liking for the old troll.

"Thank you," I said, rising. "If I may. Don't tell the story without me, I beg you. For I am eager to see if you ever actually reach the ice or just keep paddling down tributaries."

He chuffed. Brennan laughed. Kehinde made a gesture, like a compatriot on the sidelines signaling to a fellow swordsman that it was a good thrust in a practice bout. Chartji's crest raised, a reaction I could not interpret.

I opened the door letting into the common room in time to see an old fiddler raise his instrument to his chin and pluck the strings, testing its tuning. Another old man set his kora on a pillow, used one hand on a bench and the other on his cane to

brace himself as he lowered into a cross-legged position on the pillow, and took the kora into his lap. Two younger old men- not quite so white-haired and creaky of limb-tapped curved hands over the skins of drums, heads bent to listen to the timbre. Around them, another dozen men, mostly old enough to need canes, settled onto benches as the innkeeper pulled ale and carried mugs four to a hand to the tables. They had the typical look of folk in this region: milk-white, freckled, tawny, brown, black, and every variety of mixed blood in between: One man had tightly curled reddish hair and freckles on a dusky face, another had coarse black hair braided, while others kept their thinning hair cut short and swept up in lime-washed spikes. A few had complexions blued with tattoos; some wore mustaches in the traditional style. There were even a few suspiciously

Roman noses among them.

At the hearth a man wearing the gold earrings of a djeli rekindled the firet as djeliw could do even in the presence of a cold mage. Andevai stood hallway between the door and the

nearest table.

"Here, now, Magister, sit beside me." The eldest of the men, a farmer by the look of his simple clothing and weathered hands, spoke directly to Andevai.

Astoundingly, Andevai obeyed. Stiff and silent and proud he might be, but he sat meekly enough beside the white-haired old man and accepted a common mug of ale, and when the old men scattered a few drops of ale at the room's little altar, he did likewise, and when they all drank, he drank. Then he glanced up and saw me standing in the doorway.

The old man followed Andevai's dark gaze with his own. "Eh, maestra. This is no fitting room for a woman. Get you back to the supper room, now. We've men's songs to sing."

I skittered back, chased by their hearty laughter and Andevai's glower, although what it portended I could not guess. Was he

angry at me? Irritated at them? Frustrated at being stuck in a common inn for the night? Or was that annoyed arrogance just a quality inherent in his nature?

Hard to say, and, anyway, I was not about to ignore the words of an elder. As the fiddler's bow pulled a tune from the strings and the drums answered in a counter-rhythm, I kicked the brick away and pulled the door to the supper room shut. At the table, I ladled more soup into my bowl.

"So, Maester Godwik," I demanded as a song broke into full flower beyond the closed door. "What transpired in the villages to make you young bucks eager to leave?"