A Sword from Red Ice

FIFTEEN The Mist Rivers of the Want

No man or woman can ever hope to navigate Mhaja Xaal, the Land of Unsettled Sands. Once he or she has accepted that as truth it is possible to find a way through. Sun and stars must be ignored. Instinct set aside. That which is considered by most to be wrong and foolish must be embraced. A man or woman wishing for passage must be like the kit fox, scarab beetle, and rattlesnake: they must travel solely at night.

"Only in darkness can we find our way through. What the light shows cannot be trusted and is therefore without value. We must learn to honor that which we touch, not see. Know that, and you have the secret of leaving Mhaja Xaal.

"On the darkest nights when there is no moon to light the way the mist rivers flow. The mist rises in the darkness, filling arroyos and canyons. To leave Mhaja Xaal you must find an arroyo large enough to stand in and walk against the current. All the mist rivers in the Land of Unsettled Sands flow inward toward its heart. Why this is so, the lamb brothers do not know. What lies at the heart of Mhaja Xaal is not a mystery we cultivate. We do know that it is not enough to judge the course of the mist rivers from their banks. What you see will deceive you. The surface currents may run contrary to that which lies beneath. To leave you must stand in the current and feel the pressure of the mist against your skin. Touch alone will lead you out."

Tallal's words ran through Raif's head as he walked. The lamb brother had spoken them earlier that day in his tent. It was evening now, crisply cold with a red sky fading to black. Raif had taken his leave of the lamb brothers an hour earlier and by now he could no longer look back and see the lights of their tents. This was it then. He was once more adrift in the Want.

He could not say that he liked it. It wasn't easy not to think about Bear. The hill pony had died, and if he had been a better, wiser person it would not have happened. He should never have taken her with him, that was his first and greatest mistake. When you go to the Want you go alone. It didn't matter to Raif that the lamb brothers came here in numbers. Let them do what they choose to do. He, Raif Sevrance, would never bring another living thing into this place.

Strange, but it was beautiful tonight. The remains of the sunset glowed on the horizon and the great open flatland spread wide in all directions. The pumice dunes had been replaced by baked rock and it looked to Raif as if he were walking on a dry inland sea. On impulse he bent down and scraped the pale, scaled rock with his thumb. When he brought it to his lips he tasted salt.

As he stood he noticed his shadow was fading. A band of hot white stars had emerged in the sky opposite the sunset, and Raif spun a full circle as he scanned for the moon. No moon. Not yet.

"Where is the nearest place to join the mist river?" Raid had asked Tallal, half a day ago at the camp. The lamb brother had begun shaking his head even before all the words were out.

"My memory is good and if you walk with me to the fire I can point out the direction from which the lamb brothers came. Your memory, however, is bad."

Raif had grinned wryly. Only five minutes earlier Tallal had told him directions could not be trusted. "I'm still learning."

"My people have a saying: There are two ways to learn. Listening is the easiest." Tallal smiled. "Come, let us find you some supplies."

They had been generous, and Raif had found himself touched. The fine, soft blanket he had slept with since the first night had been wait-ing for him, neatly folded, by the fire. Fresh sheep's curd, butter, honey, dried dates, almonds, unleavened panbread, preserved apricots, lentils and a packet of herbs for tea had also been set close to the fire. Raif had never asked how long the lamb brothers had been away from home—it had seemed an indelicate question—but he had imagined it was well over a year. By now supplies brought from their homeland must be sparse, yet they had given their food freely. With grace. For some reason Raif found himself thinking about the Hailsman Shor Gormalin. Shor had been the best longswordsman. in the clan, a scholar of clan history, and a friend to Tern and Dagro. Shor had taught Raif about grace. Looking at the neatly laid pile of supplies, given without fuss or show, Raif imagined that Shor Gormalin would approve. "Grace is a powerful force," Shor had saiqpme morning on the practice court as they were wrist-to-wrist on deadlocked hilts. "It lifts men."

That was how Raif felt receiving the gifts of the lamb brothers: lifted. During the brief time he had stayed with them he had forgotten one important thing. These men had saved his life. Gods knew how they had found him. Passed out on a ridge in the middle of the Want, lips black, tongue swollen, sword bloodied to the hilt, Bear slain beside him: it could not have been an appealing sight. Yet four men had judged him worth saving.

"Farli." Raif spoke the slain lamb brother's name out loud. The sound was small in such a big place, instantly sucked away by space and darkness. The question was there in the back of his mind, waiting to be asked. Could I have saved him? Raif knew he had been slow in his responses, slow in finding his target and letting the arrow fly. If he had ran across the dune with Farli and fought with him side by side would it have been different? Probably, yes.

Grow wide shoulders, Clansman. You'll need them for all of your burdens. Sadaluk's words blew through Raif's head as the weight of that «yes» settled on his shoulders.

For no good reason, he changed his course. He'd been heading into the sunset and veered off at a tangent, picking a distant boulder as his destination. The light was nearly gone now and the temperature was dropping fast. The big double-chambered waterskin given to him by the lamb brothers bounced against his back. Its heaviness was reassuring. There was no guarantee he would find the mist river tonight or any other night, and even if he did there was still the question of how long it would take to leave the Want once the river had been found. "It will take as long as it must," Tallal had said before they parted. And where it leads is something that cannot be known. Out, that must be enough."

Raif glanced at the sky; still no moon, but the stars were teeming. The seabed was lit by a dome of silver light, and he could clearly see the salt scale that covered every rock and piece of debris underfoot. It stopped hoarfrost from forming.

As he neared the boulder his perception of its shape changed; one side was rounded yet he saw now that the opposite side was curiously straight. Closer still he realized that the front of the boulder was projecting forward, the curve and straight line meeting at a point. It was a boat, he understood quite suddenly, fallen on its side and sunk partially into the seabed. A small fishing boat or rowboat with a simple hull that had once consisted of steamed planks. It was quartz now, petrified by ash and mud into flaky iron-colored plates. Raif knelt and ran his hand across the crumbling ridge that had once been its keel. Chips of quartz broke off and fell to the seabed without a sound. Inside, the seats and most of the gunwales had collapsed and lay like blocks of cut stone in the bottom of the boat.

Abruptly, Raif stood. It would be spring in the Hailhold now. The oaks would be budding in the Oldwood, the sword ferns uncurling above the snow, the first bluebells would be peeping up around the basswoods, and the air would be vibrating with the sound of bird calls: geese, ducks, pheasants, ptarmigan, chickadees, cardinals, horned owls. Life—not stony, desiccated deadness—and he wanted some of it for himself.

He walked for several hours, holding the setting that he'd picked with the aid of the boat. The seabed rolled out before him, flat and unchanging, a landscape of dry ghosts. As the night grew darker his vision was reduced to the shadowy pendulums of his feet. If the moon rose it did so behind the thick tide of clouds that had washed across the far edge of the sky. Raif scanned for ravines as he walked, but as long as he remained on the seabed he wasn't hopeful. Few cracks split the earth here. The entire seabed was one vast depression, easily deeper than most canyons. When he stopped to drink he knew that he wouldn't find the mist river that night. An almost imperceptible lightening of the sky in the left quarter told of the inevitability of dawn.

Deciding he would walk until morning he continued on course. As the light grew his spirits fell: every increase in brightness revealed more seabed. Nothing else. When the sun finally pushed free of the horizon, it was tempting to carry on walking—put in some distance while he could. For a while he sprinted, aware as he did so that he was making a lot of noise. Each footfall echoed like the chunk of a chopped log.

Finally out of breath, he halted. Hot-faced and sweating, he put a hand on each knee as he waited for the hammering in his heart to subside. Peering through the gap between his legs he saw the path he had taken outlined with clouds of salt dust: one for each step. The sky was a piercing blue and the sun rode pale and low, like the moon. Looking ahead he realized that the long run had got him nowhere. All he could see was the flat chalk-colored plain of the seabed. Not even a boulder in sight.

"Only in darkness can we find a way through." Recalling Tallal's words, Raif sat. No point looking for cover or a suitable place to camp. Although he didn't much feel like it, he pulled out his bedroll and set about making preparations for sleep. He had no fuel for a fire and wondered if that was good or bad. Clan had no rules to govern sleeping by day. Deciding he probably wouldn't sleep anyway, he lay down and covered himself with the lamb brothers' blanket.

Aware of his vulnerability, he rolled and circled, straining his neck to keep watch in all directions. Hours passed. The sun shone. Nothing moved. Of all the empty places in the Want this seemed the emptiest. Nothing even pretended to grow here. There were no mountains on the horizon, no ice lenses to refract the light, nothing except shimmering air and seabed. Raif stared at the shimmers. He was sure that he would not sleep.

When he woke it was dusk and the final slice of sun was sinking beneath the horizon. Feeing vaguely stupid, he checked the seabed for changes. If the landscape had changed it was in subtle ways he could not discern. Kneeling, he stowed his supplies and ate a light meal of dried fruit, bread and nuts. The water tasted of the lamb brothers' spices and charred wood. After he'd taken his fill he cupped some in his hand and let it trickle over his face. Hoping it-was a luxury he would not come to regret, he broke camp and headed out.

This night would be different, he could tell that straightaway.

Warmer and darker, insulated by clouds swiftly moving across the sky from Want-north. Within an hour it was full dark and he could barely see his feet— Raif walked cautiously at first, gradually moving faster as the ground beneath him remained unchanged. Soon he was jogging in short steps, his waterskin, daypack and longbow thumping against his back. He had to get off the seabed. It was a good night for mist, but this was not a good place to find it. The salt would suck it right back. He ran faster. Hours passed and he covered leagues. Twice he stopped to drink and catch his breath. Both times he studied the sky. Clouds were consolidating into a mass in the Want-north and it was getting difficult to spot even the brightest stars. He hurried on. The visual world was shrinking. He couldn't even see his fists as he ran.

When the ground dropped beneath him, he felt a moment of indignant surprise—there was no place to land his foot—and then went plunging into the black.

He lost time. Pain roused him and he opened his eyes, blinked, and then opened them again. The difference between eyes open and eyes closed was nonexistent. The blackness on both sides was absolute. He was lying on his back, with his left leg twisted at the ankle beneath him. Something jagged and stony lay beneath his thighs and buttocks. Beneath his back the waterskin was slowly deflating; he could feel its water soaking his cloak and sealskins. It had probably saved his spine.

A breeze was blowing gently against his face, and he wondered how long he had been unconscious. If he'd had to guess he would have said less than a minute, yet his perceptions couldn't be right for even in the Want the weather didn't change that quickly. The air had been still and now it was moving.

Rolling onto his side, he removed the pressure from his bent ankle. Pain made him woozy. Gods, may it not be broken. Grasping his booted shin with both hands he straightened his knee and foot. Once both legs were laid flat he sat for a moment and thought, unwilling to test the ankle just yet. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his own breath. If the sky was still overhead he could no longer see it. He had no visual way of telling how far he'd fallen, but the fact that he was alive and could move his back and hips had to be a sign that the drop couldn't have been more than ten feet.

He checked his weapons next. The longbow had been loosely cross-strung against his back and had ridden up during the fall. The string was now around his neck and the bow was on top of the ledge created by daypack and waterskin. It was sound. He exhaled, relieved.

The Forsworn sword had been suspended from his gearbelt by a G-shaped brainhook and had landed beneath his right leg. Inadequately holstered in uncured sealskin, the sword hadn't fared as well as the bow. His weight must have come down hard on the flat, for the blade was bent at the midsection. As he ran a hand along the badly warped steel, the old clan joke shot through his mind. What do you call a man without a sword?

Bait.

Raif stood. Splinters of pain exploded in his ankle as his foot accepted weight. Inhaling sharply, he bit back a cry. Tears welled in his eyes as he pushed his left foot into the correct position beneath his hipbone. He'd heard somewhere that if you could wiggle your toes then your foot wasn't broken. Concentrating hard, he forced messages along his nerves. He'd be damned if they weren't going to wiggle.

It was hard to tell, but he thought his toes were moving. Something down there was responding—he couldn't see what—but he thought it might be the toebox of his boot. To test the foot, he applied more pressure. At about seventy pounds the ankle gave, bucking like a horse refusing a jump. It was probably the ankle then, not the foot. That was good.

That was very good. What next?

For a few second after that he blanked. He was awake and conscious, aware that he should marshal his thoughts but temporarily incapable of doing so. Think, he ordered himself, pushing a hand through his hair. Think.

The hand came away damp. Inanely, he turned his palm toward his face and looked. Pure darkness stared back. Frowning, anxious about the sword, he tried to formulate a plan. He was in a hole. Did he need to get out or was he better staying put? He could probably walk as long as he didn't put too much weight on his ankle, whereas climbing one-footed in the dark was a skill he'd never mastered. That was settled then: he had no choice but to stay here until daylight. If it was a ravine he could navigate it using his bow as a stick, and there was always a chance it could lead to something deeper where the mist river flowed.

Raif shivered. The cold down here was different, more penetrating. The breeze kept forcing it against his skin. Reaching behind his shoulder, he unhooked the Sull bow. The familiar glassiness of the lacquered horn calmed him as he untied the string and let the bent stick rest in his hand. Shifting his weight onto his good right ankle, he sent his left foot sliding across the ground. Stones and uneven rock pushed against the side of his boot. It was rough, but seemed walkable.

Come to us.

Raif's head shot round, tracking the noise. Every hair on his skin swayed as if his body were floating in water. He listened, but could hear nothing except silence buzzing in his ears. "Who's there?" he challenged. Detecting a break in his voice he didn't like, he tried again. Harder. "Who goes there?"

Nothing. Seconds turned to minutes as he stood, motionless, in the dark. The breeze, which earlier had seemed cool and reviving, crawled against his skin like silverfish. His teeth started chattering and the noise they made echoed weirdly, batting back and forth against the rock. Quite suddenly he remembered the leaking waterskin and shucked it off his back. It came away dripping, close to two-thirds of its contents drained. Running his hand along the bottom, he probed for leaks. Only part of his mind was on the job, the other part was listening. Afraid.

Unable to detect the leak, he settled for upending the skin so that the remaining water settled against the spout. His hands shook as he strapped the wet skin awkwardly against his back. Perhaps he was still reeling from the fall. Perhaps he'd just imagined the voice.

His left ankle bunt into pain with its first step, but Raif gritted his teeth and forced it to take the weight. Swinging the longbow before him, he moved forward. Tap. Tap. Tap. The ear of the bow knocked against rocks, stones, hard earth? He couldn't say. It revealed a path forward and that was enough. Some critical, logical part of his brain knew that he was no safer on the move than he was staying in one place, but he'd been brought up at Tern's hearth as a clansman,. and a clansman always met his enemies head-on. The breeze was blowing at his back now and he could feel it chilling the bare skin of his neck. Oddly enough he seemed to make good time. The ground was flat here and there was a little push to the breeze that kept him moving.

Come, Twelve Kill. We await you.

Raif froze. Instantly the silverfish were back, scuttling over his face and eyeballs. "Who's there? he roared.

His words echoed in the darkness, breaking up and growing weaker and weaker until all was left was the word there. It came back sounding like a direction.

There.

Crazily Raif swung around. Forgetting his damaged ankle, be put all his weight on his left foot. Pain made him see light as the ankle buckled and he dropped to his knees.

The echo returned and this time it sounded like an admonishment.

There.

Raif breathed deeply as he searched for the will to stand upright. The breeze was stronger here, a persistent light wind dampening his skin. He wondered what was left of the night. It seemed more than ten hours since the sun had set. Surely the darkness couldn't go on much longer? Smiling grimly, he reminded himself that this was the Want The darkness could continue for as long as it liked. How had the voice known his name? That was what he wanted to know. Twelve Kill was his Rift name, the one given to him by Yustaffa the Dancer. Who else would know that beside the Maimed Men? Suspecting he was better off not thinking too long about the answer, Raif hauled himself to his feet. His left foot felt so loosely connected to his ankle that he wondered if it might fall off. Something perverse in him made him force his weight back onto it and stand, teeth bared, as the pain subsided.

After that there was nothing to do but continue walking. The darkness rode on, black and oily, providing no traction for his vision. Underfoot, the rockbed grew smooth and he had an overall sense that he was descending. Slowly, the path's course began to curve. Raif became aware of a second breeze blowing against his back. It hit at a different angle than the first, and it smelled of frozen kills set by the stove to thaw. Raif knew the smell well, all hunters did: fresh blood, black blood and ice. He turned his head, tracking the scent. Two breezes now and they met here, where he stood.

Aaaaagggghhhh.

Raif jumped at the sound of a faraway scream. It had come from directly ahead, where the two breezes commingled and became one. As he waited, listening, something brushed against his right arm.

"No," he cried, spinning around, his heart thumping. "Who's there?"

Raif unsheathed the Forsworn sword, tugging hard to force the bent blade from the scabbard. Water from the split waterskin trickled down his back.

Come.

The word was spoken in the softest whisper and it slid right past his ear.

Raif swung the sword in a circle. "Keep away," he warned.

That was when he felt the fingers trailing across his face.

Raif hissed. Shrinking back, he dropped all his weight onto his left foot. Immediately the ankle buckled and his leg gave way beneath him. Releasing his grip on the Sull bow, he used his left hand to break the fall.

There.

Raif sat on the rockbed and drew the sword to his chest. His heart was beating so rapidly it felt like it might seize and stop. Cautiously he brought his free hand to his face. A line of ice was rafting down his cheek. Not gently, he scrubbed it away.

At ground level the breezes were firmer, muscling against his back and side. He was wet all over he realized; his hair, sleeves, pant legs.

Oh Gods, he thought, understanding slowly dawning. This is it, the mist river. And I've been heading downstream.

Less than two days ago Tallal had warned him the only sense he could rely on was touch. Raif had listened but not heard. He had imagined the mist river purely in visual terms—a sort of moving channel of clouds—yet he hadn't once paused to consider what it would feel like to be in it. Foolishly, he had disregarded the full meaning of Tallal's words. "Touch alone will lead you out."

Ha, ha, ha.

Soft laughter echoed along the ravine. Raif imagined he deserved it. How long had he been traveling with the current, toward the heart of the Want? Too long, that was the answer. Every step downstream was a mistake. Raif shivered. He had been deeply, recklessly stupid, The Want was an unsprung trap with invisible tripwires humming in all directions. He'd been caught in one of them and it nearly killed him, and here he was less than twenty days later walking straight over another wire.

Anger at himself made him hard on his body and he hauled himself up, not much caring about the pain he inflicted on his twisted ankle. When he remembered he'd dropped the bow, he scrambled for it in the jet black darkness. Relief flooded over him when the tip of his sword touched horn, and he wondered at what point his peace of mind had come to depend solely on possessing weapons. Sword and bow. They had become his armor, his comfort, his fate.

Yet there were things upstream that were immune to them. The voices did not fear him … or at least did not fear his weapons. He thought about that as he oriented himself against the flow.

Deciding he would not take the second, stronger channel but retrace his steps upstream, Raif turned to face the oncoming mist. Its icy wetness slid between his teeth and down his throat. He sniffed deeply, making sure that he was heading into the fresher-smelling of the two streams, and then took his first steps into the black.

Noooooooooooo…

The howl cracked through the ravine like lightning, but this time Raif did not pause. He felt the mist pushing against him, felt ragged foggy shackles condense around his ankles and wrists. Strong steps broke them. They re-formed again and he broke them again, and the wet sucking noise they made as they snapped accompanied his every step. An hour passed and then another and still there was no increase in light. Holding his bow out before him like a blindman with a cane, Raif walked the mist rivers of the Want.

Occasionally there would be forks in the stream and he would have to pick a course using nothing more than instinct. Other currents might be colder or swifter, wider or narrower, they might smell of glaciers, ozone, raw iron and burned rock, and each time he bypassed one he wondered if he had made a mistake. He had a vision of himself as a rat in a water maze, paddling furiously to stay afloat while trying to find the cheese. Those above could look down and see everything, see the grand scheme of tunnels and turns, know instantly the best route, and then laugh amongst themselves as the rat missed one opportunity after another, propelling himself deeper into the maze.

"Out," Tallal had said, "that has to be enough."

Raif walked against the current and hoped that the lamb brother was right. When he grew thirsty, he drank without halting, holding the waterskin high above his head. He never grew hungry and never stopped to relieve himself. He had a fear of standing still. He did not want to feel those ghost fingers on his face—or anywhere else—ever again.

The night spooled out, growing impssibly long. Either that or he had lost the capacity to judge time. Sometimes the voices spoke to him, but he had a sense that they were farther away now, separated from him by great lengths of mist. As he worked his way around what seemed to be a U-shaped meander, he became aware of a change in the current. It was weakening, and for an instant he thought he smelled damp earth. He picked up his pace, desperately sniffing the air, but could detect nothing beyond the hailstone odor of the mist. When the path finally straightened he heard a noise. Scratching, followed by a short, high-pitched squeak.

Rats. Raif allowed himelf to hope. Rats did not live in the Want. He was moving quickly now, shambling forward, favoring his right foot over his left. The summer he was eight years old he and Drey had spent hours belly-down in the underlevels of the roundhouse searching for rats. It had been an unusually warm spring and the rats had bred like … rats and the entire Hailhouse had been overrun. Longhead had set traps and poison and even hired a verminist from Ille Glaive. A month later, with numbers unabated, the head keep had come up with the bright idea of drafting the clan youth into the cause He set a bounty: for every five whole rats brought to him, dead or alive, he would pay out a copper coin. This was unheard-of wealth—coin was rarely used in the clanholds-and Raif and Drey had set about trying to capture enough rats to make themselves rich. Other boys wasted days showily trying to spear rats with swords and shoot them with arrows, but he and Drey had decided on a different approach. "Stealth," Drey had intoned, his voice deadly serious. "We must live with them and smell like them and once we've earned their trust we spring our trap." The trap was a big square of fisherman's netting given to them by their uncle Angus Lok.

Raif grinned as he remembered the three days he and Drey had lived in the underlevels, sleeping on the damp, muddy floor, eating trail meat like proper hunters and strategizing endlessly about rats. It had been a good time. Raif couldn't recall earning the rats' trust, but he did remember deploying the net. Constantly. In the end they caught eight whole rats and an angry raccoon. When they brought their bounty to the head keep, Longhead had scratched his head. "I didn't say anything about coons." Seeing their feces fall he added, "But now I come to think of it one coon is more of a nuisance than two rats. A rat can't lift the lids and get into the grain bins. Coon can. A copper for both of you—and this stays between you and me."

A whole coin each. Raif couldn't remember what he did with his, maybe swapped it for some rusty piece of weaponry from Bev Shank. Drey had given his to Da. He had always been the better man.

Raif let the memory fall away from him, forcing himself back into the present. Straightaway he realized something was wrong. The air was still. No mist washed against his face, no breeze lifted his hair. Without a current to walk against he had no guide. Halting, he tried to pin down his mistake. When he'd first heard the rats he was pretty sure the current was still pushing against him. What had he done then? Thinking about Drey had distracted him. Had he veered off course? He turned his head, knowing as he did so that to look behind was useless but unable to break the habit of a lifetime.

Then he realized something strange. He could see the barest outline, a black-on-black edge about ten feet above him. Blinking, he waited. One grain of light at a time, the world came into view. Raif's eyes protested the growing brightness, sending out weird blooms of color and floating dots. Sky emerged above the edge, gray and pearly, swamped with clouds. The ravine appeared below it. Blue sandstone walls rose on two sides, their surfaces riven with cracks, their ledges collecting grounds for deadwood and loose scree. Underfoot, the porous stone was venting skeins of mist that quickly dissipated in the dry air. Ahead, where the ravine wall met the bedrock, a bony bristle-cone pine lay twisted and on its side, its needles a pale ashy green.

Raif glanced down the length of the ravine. It was still dark back there. Turning, he walked toward the bristlecone pine. It was alive, he could smell it. As he knelt, rubbing the fragrant needles between his fingertips, the light increased and the way ahead became clear. Sourwood bushes, rock oak and hornbeam choked the foot of the ravine where it dovetailed into a large dry riverbed. No, Raif corrected himself, the river wasn't dry. A line of green water glinted in its center.

It was canyon country, west of the Rift. He had been here twice before. He knew the lay of the land, its faults and undercuts, its shrunken willows and yellow sedge. It was probably less than two days' walk to the city on the edge of the abyss.

As Raif stepped from the ravine and into the dry riverbed, a final cry echoed from the dark place behind him.

Keep away from the Red Ice.

He did not look back.