Steel and Stone

Chapter 15

It was the cold of death, Kitiara was sure. Her face, breasts, and hips were pressed against snow. The front of her shirt was sodden; the back seemed stiff, as though coated and frozen. Her feet felt like logs. She was dimly aware that her right hand still clutched a shard of shale from Fever Mountain. In the far distance, waves crashed. Nearer, she heard coughing.

If this was the Abyss, it was like no Abyss she'd been warned about. She must be dead, yet Kitiara sensed the cold, tasted the snow, felt hunger. Certainly she heard what sounded like the ettin, rejoicing about something. And over it all, the moan of the wind and the boom of the sea.

Kitiara raised her head. Her hair was nearly solid with sleet. She pressed nerve-impaired hands against her face and, ignoring the wind that drove into her exposed skin like needles, picked at the ice that coated one cheek. Her eyelids were nearly frozen shut. Finally she managed to open her eyes to slits.

She found herself staring straight into a pair of fleshless jaws, incisors hanging down like icy stalactites, other teeth jutting up like stalagmites. Kitiara drew back with a shout, fumbled for her sword and her dagger, and remembered that she no longer had either. The beast into whose mouth she now gazed had been dead for generations. What it originally had been, Kitiara couldn't tell, but she could have nestled comfortably in its gaping jaws. It was the skull of some long-dead beast; the rest of the skeleton was nowhere to be seen.

The ettin leaned against the thick joint that held the jaws together. Its right head was asleep, lolling against the left, a frozen dribble of drool down one side of its chin. The left head grinned at the swordswoman. There was no sneaking away when the ettin was asleep; the creature's heads slept in shifts.

"Where are we?" she shouted over the sound of the storm. She could barely see the ettin through the clouds of blowing snow.

Res-Lacua grinned wider. "Home," it said. "Home, home, home."

"The Icereach?" she demanded. Her tone awakened the right head, and now two ettin faces grinned at her. Cursing the wind, the snow, and particularly the ettin, the swordswoman managed to pull herself to her feet, but her muscles were too numb to respond easily. She lurched like a drunkard, catching herself against one long tooth of the monster. How long had she and Lida been lying exposed in the snow?

"Kitiara! What… what is that thing?" It was Lida Tenaka, huddled in her robe, staring in horror at the jaws of the fleshless beast. Her lips were blue, but her hands were busy. When Kitiara shrugged, the mage shuddered. Lida returned to her task-tracing magical symbols in the air. She began to chant. Kitiara waited for a magical campfire to warm them, for a pair of mugs of steaming buttered rum to materialize before them, for anything that would ease the bitter cold that engulfed her.

But there was nothing-just a sputter and a tiny flame that wouldn't have lit the driest tinder. Lida's hands fluttered to her lap and her lips stopped moving. Her eyes looked stricken. "It's just like Darken Wood," she said, her words barely audible above the howl of the wind. "My magic won't work right, Kitiara. I can't reach Xanthar. It's as though I'm in the presence…"

"… of a far greater power," finished Janusz, stepping into view from behind the skull. "A power who finds it easy to stop you, Lida. I taught you and Dreena, after all." Despite his thin robe, the ancient-looking mage seemed comfortable in the bitter weather, and Kitiara noticed that the air around him shimmered as he moved.

"You've cast a spell to protect you from the elements," Lida murmured. Her shivering was nearly out of control now. Kitiara had no feeling left in her extremities; when she tried to take a few steps toward the man-intending to do what, she wasn't sure-her limbs would not respond.

Janusz laughed harshly. At his gesture, the storm lessened. "Yes, I warrant the two of you are getting a bit chilly by now, as opposed to my two-headed friend, who seems quite content without any magical help." He gestured toward Res-Lacua. The ettin was capering in the snow and sleet like a lamb in a meadow.

"The jaws," explained Janusz, "are the remnants of long-gone races of creatures whose size and strength weren't enough to save them from the Cataclysm. The Ice Folk scavenge the bones of these creatures to build fences around their pitiful villages."

Neither woman spoke. Both were unbearably cold. After surveying them with barely veiled contempt, Janusz barked an order to Res-Lacua, who scampered behind the skull and came back with two mounds of thick white fur. Within seconds, the two women were wrapped in the skins. "The Ice Folk who once owned these garments no longer need them," Janusz said with a thin smile. Lida shivered at his words, but Kitiara glowered.

"I want to know where we are," Kit snapped.

Janusz pursed his lips. "So demanding, for a captive. Yet I'm inclined to be generous. After all, I'm about to get my stolen property back." He sneered at Kitiara, who narrowed her eyes but said nothing.

"You are correct, Captain," Janusz finally said. "You are on the Icereach-at the northern edge of the glacier, actually, just south of Ice Mountain Bay. That doesn't help? It doesn't matter. Neither of you will be going anyplace-unless, of course, you choose to cooperate with us."

"How did we get here?" Lida asked quietly. Her breath froze in the air as she spoke.

"I teleported you to this spot, then teleported myself to meet you here. I thought that the uninhabitable surroundings might dissuade you from any thoughts of escape."

"I don't understand," the lady mage said. "That's not how teleporting works. I thought you needed an artifact."

"The ettin had one."

"But-"

"That's all I intend to reveal."

"But-"

"Enough!" Janusz thundered. Fearfully Lida clutched the front of her fur coat. "Ask Kitiara about the ice jewels she stole from me. She can clarify why you are here."

Lida turned toward Kitiara. "You're responsible for this? Do you know what he and the Valdane are doing, the damage they're causing? The deaths, the heartbreak among the Ice Folk?"

Kitiara snorted. "Do I care?" she shot back. "Let the Ice Folk take care of themselves."

At that moment, Kitiara heard a howl from the south. "Wolves," the swordswoman said. "But like none I've ever heard before."

"Dire wolves," Janusz said.

That information offered no solace. Moments later, snow churning under their broad feet, a dozen huge wolves drew up, attached to an empty sledge by braided leather thongs.

Kitiara had seen wolves before, of course, but these were fearsome, snarling beasts, a sea of gray, white, and black fur on scraggly bodies. One gray beast, the largest of the pack, stood motionless at the fore, eyeing Kitiara through bloodshot eyes. Plumes of steam rose from its mouth, forming ice drops on its muzzle.

They didn't seem to be primed for attack. Kitiara looked questioningly at Janusz.

"They eat only meat, dead or alive. There's not much else to eat down here, of course. They're as stupid as ice floes and always hungry, so don't turn your back on them, Captain Uth Matar."

Kitiara raised her eyebrows. At a sign from Janusz, Res-Lacua brandished a whip and hustled the women on board the wooden sledge. The ettin cracked the whip and sent the wolves driving to the left, then to the right, breaking the runners free of the ice. The lurch sent the swordswoman crashing back into the lady mage. Soon the two women were kneeling as they rode with their hands braced on the wooden sides. The ettin raced behind.

Kitiara looked around for Janusz. Janusz was levitating a few inches above the ground, off to their right, his robe fluttering in the wind as he matched their speed across the Icereach, heading inland over the snow.

All of a sudden they stopped. The ettin pushed warily ahead, placing one foot in front of the other cautiously. Janusz watched but said nothing.

"What is it?" Lida whispered to Kitiara. "I sense nothing magical-nothing new, anyway."

The swordswoman shrugged. "Looks the same as the rest of the Icereach to me. Windswept, chunks of ice strewn all over. A few hill-sized blocks, but otherwise snow, snow, and more snow. Maybe a bit of a depression up ahead, but…"

At that moment, the ettin broke through the snow and disappeared with a shout into a gaping hole. Janusz chanted and traced figures in the air, and Res-Lacua floated back up through the hole, laughing as he landed back on solid ice. Kitiara slipped out of the sledge, dashed forward, and leaned over the edge of the crevasse.

The crevasse was a hundred feet deep. Kitiara hastily backed away from the edge. "It's a crack in the ice,"

she told Lida. "And it's practically invisible until you fall into it."

"Another barrier to an invading army," Janusz commented.

Soon they resumed, cutting to the west around the crevasse and then veering south again. Nearly as quickly, however, they drew to another stop. "Now what?" Kitiara muttered. Lida pointed to a dark patch in the snow. "A lake?" Kitiara asked. "In this climate?"

The ettin didn't move forward to investigate. It merely snapped the whip, forcing the dire wolves around the dark patch. Sun glinted off the surface, revealing the ice that formed a thin skin on the water. "An ice lake," explained Janusz. "Filled with fish. Everything that lives in the Icereach feeds from these ice lakes-except us, of course. I offer far better fare at the ice warren. Unless, of course," he amended, "you like raw fish. The Ice Folk certainly do, but they're not civilized. Raw fish, untreated skins, smoky peat fires, and the infernal stink of walrus grease. They use fish for everything from cooking to greasing the runners on their iceboats."

After a short time, Res-Lacua shouted to the dire wolves, who slowed as they curved around a line of huge blocks of ice. The captives had seen isolated outcroppings of the formations, but these blocks looked as though they'd been placed there by intent and design, not chance.

Lida pointed wordlessly to the silhouette of a figure at the top of one block, but Kitiara had already noticed the bulky form, the short horns that curved forward over the creature's forehead. "Minotaur," the swordswoman said.

The sledge swung around the end of the blocks, and suddenly they were in the middle of a shouting, gesturing mass of minotaurs and ettins. Res-Lacua barreled into the crowd with a cry of joy, greeting several ettins with undeniable affection. The ettins, nearly twice the height of the minotaurs, crashed their spiked clubs together, pounded each other on the shoulders, and roared in orcish. The minotaurs overlooked the display, seeming to think it beneath them, but a third group of creatures, half-men, half-walrus, watched with stupid expressions. "Thanoi," Kitiara said. "Walrus men."

One of the thanoi, a broad creature with long tusks growing from each side of its mouth, seemed especially irritable. It was unclothed, with the arms and legs of a human and the face, build, and dark gray hide of a walrus. Thick webs of skin joined its fingers and toes. Coarse bristles hung from its upper lip, masking the thanoi's broad mouth. One hand clenched a harpoon; the other hand reached for the women. It reeked of dead fish. Lida shrank back against Kitiara; the swordswoman thrust the mage to the floor of the sledge, leaped out onto the packed snow, and assumed a combat stance, even though she had no weapon. She lunged for the thanoi's harpoon just as a cry rent the air.

"Despack!"

The ettins and thanoi drew back. The minotaurs stood their ground, but made no move toward Kitiara or Lida.

Janusz spoke again, in a language Kitiara did not know. The minotaurs listened, however, and when the mage's speech was over, one of the bull men stepped forward, glanced down at the swordswoman as though she were no more worrisome than a flea, and used the butt end of its double-edged ax to prod the swordswoman toward the mass of walrus men

and two-headed trolls. Kitiara shouted back at Janusz, "Remember, mage, if I am killed, you will never get the information you seek."

The mage only smiled; his self-assurance seemed limitless, and Kitiara, looking around her at the weapons of the hundreds of evil creatures that served him and the Valdane, thought for the first time that she might finally be up against an unbeatable foe. She marched in the direction that the minotaur had indicated. The crowd parted before her and the minotaur, and Janusz called after them. "Toj is pledged to protect you, Captain-unless, of course, he believes you are trying to spurn my hospitality. So do take care, Captain."

Kitiara didn't reply. Clearly she was outnumbered, and Lida Tenaka, her magic weakened, was only a hindrance. Toj drew up next to Kitiara. "You were a mercenary?" the minotaur said.

"Not were," Kitiara corrected. "Are."

Toj laughed. "The mage said you were a stubborn one. I see he was right."

The creature had a curiously formal way of speaking, as though he were translating from some other language into Common. Kitiara didn't even come up to his shoulders, and she was unarmed but unafraid. For the moment, at least, the minotaur wouldn't harm her, and she might learn something if he proved talkative. "You are a soldier for hire?" she asked. "Like the ettins and the thanoi?"

The minotaur faced her. His eyes flashed and his bull nostrils widened. Toj wore a steel ring through his nose, and another through his right ear-insignia of rank among some minotaurs, Kitiara knew. She saw glimpses of broad teeth. His double-edged ax swung dangerously; the muscles of his upper arm bulged and flattened as he controlled the heavy weapon. When the minotaur finally spoke, his voice was thick with anger.

"I am a mercenary," he said. "l fight for hire. There are no fighters like the minotaurs. These fish men"-he gestured contemptuously toward a tusked thanoi-"have the brains of snowflakes. They believe the Valdane will turn the Icereach over to them when the battle is won and the Ice Folk are gone. The fish-eyed fools! The ettins are slaves. Slaves. And they, too, are stupid, so stupid they don't even understand they are slaves. Do not compare a minotaur with thanoi or ettin. We do not belong in the same breath with such vermin. We are the warriors. Our duty is to conquer the world. By Sargas, we are the chosen ones!"

Toj poked Kitiara with the ax. "Resume," he ordered, and she tramped on.

Their surroundings were like military camps everywhere: noisy, dirty, smelly. But after his speech, the minotaur seemed disinclined to talk. Kitiara stole sidelong glances at the creature as she strode along.

Minotaurs generally inhabited seacoast regions. They were known throughout Ansalon for their skill as shipbuilders and sailors and for their ferocity as warriors. Kitiara remembered the warning that one mercenary had offered her years ago: Never surrender to a minotaur, for that would be viewed as a sign of weakness and rewarded with execution. Males and females alike were trained in battle, and males and females alike went to war. Toj, with curving horns nearly two feet long, was an impressive specimen of his kind. Reddish-brown fuzz covered his bull face, the fuzz thickening to short fur on the rest of his massive body. Despite the cold, he wore only a leather harness and kilt; numerous loops along the former held a whip, a flail, and several daggers.

Finally they came to a stop on a ridge overlooking a shallow valley. Toj and Kitiara were at the very end of the line of ice blocks. A short distance in front of them, dozens of women, children, and men, dressed in rags and filthy parkas, groaned as they pulled at an ice block the height of three men. Thongs of what was probably sealskin bound them to the block. The formation moved only a scant inch or so at a time.

"Ice Folk?" Kitiara asked.

The minotaur nodded. "We have captured several villages," he commented.

The captives were rugged-looking, as one would expect from dwelling in such a harsh climate. Their skin was leathery, their hair long. Kitiara had heard of these nomadic people of the snowy reaches, with their special weapons made of dense ice, their fierce pride, and their iceboats. But these captives looked as though they hadn't eaten in days.

"The survivors make good slaves-while they last," said Toj. "But they wear out quickly."

Even as the minotaur spoke, one of the men slumped silently and was borne away triumphantly by an ettin. The remaining Ice Folk pulled with a burst of energy, edging the block into position in line with the others. Then, prodded by armed ettins and thanoi, they headed back into the vast spaces of the Ice-reach.

"What is the purpose of the wall of blocks?" Kitiara asked.

The minotaur laughed. The sound had an odd, mooing quality.

"The mage said you are not only stubborn," Toj said. "You are curious. It appears to be a wall, and that is all it is. There is another wall far to the south. It is a natural formation and much larger than this one, but of no strategic use to us. The Valdane wishes a second one built upon this spot to slow the enemy, should he come." He pointed. Although his legs ended in the hocks and hooves of a bull, his hands were like a man's. "The wall will nudge the enemy toward a crevasse. They will never see the opening. The mage has cast a spell around it, and some say that the crevasse even moves, although I suspect that's a tale to discourage the thanoi from wandering about. The enemy, to be sure, will not glimpse the danger until they are hurtling through the air to their deaths!"

"And who is the enemy?" she asked quickly.

"All of Krynn," the minotaur replied just as swiftly. "Everyone who would oppose us." He cast a sly look down at her. "You would do well to join us, Captain Uth Matar. I hear you have uncommon military skill. The Valdane could use you. I would not mind such an assistant."

Kitiara snorted. "Somehow I doubt I'll have the opportunity. The mage doesn't seem to like me."

"Ah, but mage Janusz is not running this campaign. It is the Valdane you must impress. Perhaps he will be forgiving."

Indeed, Kitiara was tempted. The Valdane certainly had might on his side. But the mage would never allow her to strike a separate deal with the Valdane. She shrugged her shoulders, and Toj didn't pursue the subject.

They returned through the camp. Lida and Janusz were waiting silently when Toj escorted her up to the sledge. Hostility was apparent between the mages, and they avoided even glancing at each other. Res-Lacua galloped up, belching and smelling of fish.

Wordlessly Kitiara and Lida entered the sledge, and this time Janusz joined them. The dire wolves leaped against the traces, and they left the camp behind.

"An impressive outpost, eh, Captain?" Janusz said at last.

"Adequate," Kitiara said. "It needs an able commander to whip the troops into shape, but it has potential-in the right hands." Lida cast her an amazed glance.

The mage threw his head back and laughed. "Ah, Kitiara, you have nerve. I'll grant you that."

The ettin ran behind the wolf-drawn sledge. Kitiara saw, in the shadows at the bottom of the sledge, the shard of shale that had been teleported with her from Darken Wood. She had dropped it earlier. Now she edged toward it, covering it with her booted foot.

Snow began to fall, turning quickly to sleet.

The ettin gloried in the feel of the sleet against his nearly bare body. Lida and Kitiara pulled their coats around them against the relentless wind.

"At least he stinks less in this cold," Kitiara muttered. Lida barely smiled.

They appeared to be climbing. Kitiara soon realized they were ascending another lip of the glacier.

The wind was fiercer here. Lida pulled the hood of her robe tighter around her head. Kitiara caught snatches of the ettin's humming.

The wolves skimmed over the deepening snow. Lida seemed to lapse into a reverie. Falling asleep, she awakened with a scream when she tumbled backward off the sledge. Kitiara dove off after her and hauled the lady mage to her feet, holding off the wolves with curses. The display amused the ettin and Janusz, but more important, all the commotion distracted them. When Lida was rescued, the piece of sharp slate was safe in the pocket of Kitiara's parka, and the swords-woman was certain neither foe knew of it. It wasn't much, but it might come in handy.

The trek continued. Silence overtook them all, unbroken by anything save the wolves' panting and the squeaking of the snow as it compacted beneath the sledge. The ettin had stopped humming.

Eventually the snow and sleet slacked off, and the grayness gave way to some of the brightest sunshine Kitiara had ever seen. The sun glared painfully off the whiteness, bringing tears to her eyes. The glare didn't seem to bother the ettin. Kitiara and Lida pulled the hoods of their fur coats forward, narrowing their eyes to slits, and restricted their gaze. It was at that point that Kitiara realized the conveyance had stopped.

"Get out," Janusz ordered.

"Here?" Kitiara lifted her head. For a moment, she saw nothing but snow. Then her teary eyes adjusted, and she saw a gash of gray-blue before her. She and Lida climbed out of the sledge, stretching to ease their stiffness.

Beyond the shadows, the curve of the glacier was steeper than anything they'd seen so far.

"Castle," said the ettin.

Kitiara and Lida looked around them and then at each other in wonderment. There was no habitation in sight, and certainly no castle.

"Magic?" Kitiara whispered. "Is it invisible?"

Lida looked around, then shook her head. "I see no sign of magic."

The ettin pointed to the promontory up ahead.

"Perhaps we'll be teleported again," Kitiara suggested. Her thoughts were occupied as she moved forward. Suddenly strong hands slammed into the small of her back. She pitched into the blue grayness. Into the snow shadow.

Into… nothing.

Kitiara heard Lida shout and saw the lady mage drop into the void with her. As Kitiara spun and fell, thrashing, she knew her mistake. She'd been pushed into a snow-filled chasm in the glacier, invisible in the glare of the setting sun. She caught swirling glimpses of sky, of smooth wall, of a distant V at the bottom, rushing toward her with terrifying speed. Twisting, she saw the Valdane's mage near her, floating down like a feather. Why would he kill her before he knew where the ice jewels were? It defied logic.

The swordswoman saw the jagged ice at the chasm's bottom. There was nothing Kitiara could do. The surface had shrunk to a dot of light far overhead. She heard Lida screaming again. Kitiara laced together a string of obscenities. At least the gods would see that Kitiara Uth Matar, unlike the lady mage, would not leave life mewling like a kitten.

The thought of her unborn child broke into her oaths. Kitiara would die without bearing this infant. Not, she assured herself, that she would have chosen to give birth anyway. There were certain mages who could be paid to take care of inconveniences like that.

Still…

She forced her thoughts away.

Would the baby have had her black curls? Caven's ebony eyes? Or Tanis's pointed ears and tilted hazel stare? Would it have inherited the half-elf's irritating, judgmental, always-do-the-right-thing attitude?

Was that another chasm opening below, within the glacial chasm through which she hurtled?

Kitiara would have been braver than her mother had been in the throes of childbirth, she knew.

Believing that death was near, Kitiara comforted herself with the knowledge that she would not have whimpered during the birth pains. She would have astounded the midwife with her bravery. Not, Kit reminded herself again, that she would have had the baby. Or, she amended, if she had given birth, certainly she wouldn't have kept the baby.

She hadn't taken precautions against a pregnancy, not ever. The thought had never occurred to her. How could her woman's body have betrayed her like this?

Then Lida vanished-into a side channel.

Kitiara hurtled after her. As suddenly as if she'd passed from air to some thicker medium, her descent slowed. Below her, Lida floated, now feet first, to the bottom of a vertical tunnel. Kitiara landed next to her. She heard Janusz cough, and she whirled to see the mage standing thirty feet above in an opening along one wall. He raised a hand in a lazy parody of a welcome. Kitiara looked away.

They were in a dungeon, but it was unlike any dungeon that Kitiara had ever seen. This prison was built solely of ice, huge slabs of it. The walls extended, unbroken, hundreds of feet upward.

Around the periphery of the dungeon, hanging from the walls by no visible means, dangled a dozen corpses in various stages of decay. Kitiara heard Lida retch. The swordswoman recognized the clothing of the corpses-the white parkas of the Ice Folk. She looked back up at Janusz.

'The ice jewels originated in the Icereach," the withered mage said quietly. "I'm sure of it. As certain as I am that the Ice Folk know where to mine the stones." He gestured toward the decaying warriors. "So end the lives of those who refuse to yield the information I want. A point you might want to keep in mind. Captain."

The walls of the dungeon were slick, as though they'd been melted and refrozen, Kitiara thought. The floor, on the other hand, was covered with something that looked like thick canvas. There was no other padding, yet she and Lida had landed unhurt. Lida seemed hypnotized by the sight of the corpses. Her face was an ashy blue in the cool light that filtered from the walls.

Now the swordswoman leaned over and brushed snow from her leggings and parka. She was finally warm enough for a change, despite the ice walls that stretched upward as far as she could see. Kitiara moved toward the nearest corpse and extended a hand up toward the dead man.

"What holds them in place, do you think?" she whispered to Lida. "What-"

"Don't touch it!" Lida called out. She thrust out a hand, too late and too far away to arrest the swords-woman's movement.

Kitiara had rested her fingertips against the ice wall. It was cold, but not too…

Then she frowned and tugged.

The fingertips of her right hand were frozen fast to the wall. Behind and above her, she heard Janusz erupt into laughter.

Lida was at her side in an instant. "Don't touch the wall with your other hand," she warned as she examined Kitiara's fingers. "Does it hurt?"

Kitiara shook her head. "What is this stuff?"

"Ice," Lida replied irritably. "Didn't you ever touch your tongue against frozen metal in the winter? The same principle is at work here. Anyway, I warned you. Don't you ever listen to anyone but Kitiara Uth Matar?"

The upstart! "I'm not going to stand around and be insulted by the likes of you," Kitiara snapped.

"No?" Lida asked. "And where are you going, Captain Uth Matar?" Faint steam curled from the frozen wall.

Kitiara glared at Lida. Then the swordswoman turned back toward the wall, wrapped her left hand around her right wrist and tugged. "I need some sort of dagger. I'll cut myself free."

She felt in her pocket for the sharp piece of rock she'd palmed in the wolf sledge. The angle at which she was forced to stand was difficult, but Kitiara began to chip clumsily at the ice around her trapped fingers with her left hand. The stuff seemed invulnerable. Janusz laughed again. Then the ancient mage stopped and barked a few words to Lida in another language. It sounded like Old Kernish. Kitiara had occasionally heard the Valdane's servants speak in that tongue when they didn't want the foreign mercenaries to understand them.

Lida looked wordlessly at her former tutor, who had not yet guessed her true identity. Then she turned to Kitiara. "Let me."

There was no doubt that Lida would be able to work better with two hands than Kitiara could with one. Kitiara handed over the sliver of rock.

"Close your eyes," Lida said. Kitiara, marveling at her sudden tractability, followed the orders of the lady mage.

Lida moved closer to Kitiara, speaking softly. She seemed to be offering entreaties to someone-some god. Kitiara heard rustling and knew that Lida was fishing in a pocket of her robe. A faint puff of warm air brushed against Kitiara's left cheek, contrasting with the cold that flowed from the wall. She felt something hard tap at each finger, but she didn't open her eyes.

Kitiara pulled on her hand, and the ice beneath her fingers moved. It was as though the ice had melted and refrozen in a heartbeat. But her fingers were still fastened to the wall.

"I thought your magic was impaired," Kit whispered.

"Janusz has released me," Lida replied in her normal voice. "He says I am no threat here, even with my normal powers." She swallowed, then took a deep breath and continued. "Stay still. When you feel the ice quiver, pull back suddenly. Make sure you don't touch the ice with your other hand, or with any bare skin. I think this will work. I've never done it before."

Lida whispered fresh words of magic.

Kitiara's eyes flew open. "You think …?"

"Pull!"

Kitiara pulled. There was a brief jolt of pain. Then her hand was free. She looked at the wall. Five dimples showed in the ice. As she stared, the wetness turned again to ice. She examined her hand. Her fingertips were pale and blue but unharmed. "Nice work," Kit said grudgingly.

"Indeed," Janusz commented from above. "A minor trick suitable for a carnival sideshow. I could show you so much more, Lida."

Kitiara swung toward Lida. "That's what he asked you back at the minotaur camp, wasn't it?" Kitiara asked. "While I was gone. He asked you to join him. And you refused, didn't you?"

"I'm no traitor," Lida snapped. "I do not cooperate with the enemy."

Suddenly Janusz was shoved to one side, and a new face, distorted with anger, protruded into the open space above them.

"Kitiara Uth Matar!" the Valdane thundered. His red hair stood up from his head like a crown. Lida's face convulsed, and she took an involuntary step backward.

"What are you afraid of, mage?" Kitiara asked Lida in a piercing whisper. "At the very worst, you'll end up the consort of a powerful wizard. You're not the one in real danger." Kitiara addressed her next words at the Valdane. "Are you so weak that you must hide behind the skirts of your mage, Valdane?"

The Valdane seemed to gain resolve at her taunt. "You make it so easy to hate you, Captain. Yet I brought you here for a specific reason."

"To regain the lost ice jewels," Kitiara rejoined. "I do not have them…"

"Kill her," the Valdane snapped to Janusz.

"… but I know where they are."

Smiling, Kit locked gazes with the Valdane. Slowly, almost unwillingly, the ruler also cracked a smile. Cruelty gleamed in his stare, stubbornness in hers. "I know you well enough, Kitiara Uth Matar, to know that you will not respond to the best torture we have to offer. That's what made you such an outstanding mercenary."

"Whose error caused Dreena's death," the Valdane's mage injected hastily, but the ruler ignored him.

"Perhaps, Captain, we can negotiate a compromise," the leader said. "I can offer you almost limitless power."

"As soon as you have the ice jewels, you'll kill me," Kitiara said.

"We could torture your friend here, my daughter's former servant. Perhaps that would sway you."

Kitiara cast a cool look toward the younger mage. "We are not friends." Kitiara replied. "Do what you will with her."

The Valdane laughed. "Then how about torturing a few of your lovers? My mage tells me two of them already head south, accompanied by a black stallion and a giant owl. Is not one of the men the father of your child? Certainly that must mean something, even to you."

Lida spoke. "You were able to scry them? And the giant owl is with them?" She seemed near tears.

Janusz nodded. "Unfortunately for you, Kitiara and Caven left things of theirs when they fled from the Valdane's camp. That gave me the personal artifact I needed to scry them. I know more about your life in the past few months than you may think, Captain."

Kitiara thought fast. Clearly the mage believed she had hidden the ice jewels. That information gave her some leverage-for the time being. She needed time to scheme. And she needed reinforcements. If only she had hidden the ice jewels. As it stood now, they were either lying forgotten in the clearing in Darken Wood or Tanis and Caven were unwittingly delivering them to the Valdane's stronghold.

"My friends and I are working together. They carry valuable information about the ice jewels," she said smoothly. "You must allow them to arrive here safely if we are to strike a deal, Valdane."

The leader fastened his piercing gaze on her. "Perhaps," he said at last. "After all, if you are lying, I can always kill them later. And you, too. At the very least, a week or two in my dungeon may change your tune, Captain."

With that, he was gone. Kitiara heard two pairs of footsteps resounding down some upper corridor.