A Sword from Red Ice

TWENTY-FIVE Stormbringer

Wet and low, that's what they were, and Crope didn't like it one bit. Whoever had said that thing about not appreciating what you had until you lost it was wise enough to be a king.

Or a thief. Crope tried not to think bad things about Quillan Moxley, he really did. Business was bulliess and a deal had been struck and Quill had fulfilled his part of the bargain—moving Crope and his lord out of the Rat's Nest and into a second location where they were bound to be safe as long as Crope kept his big stupid self out of sight—but it seemed to Crope that the spirit of the agreement had been underserved. With his lord supplying Quill with information leading to profit you might have thought that the thief would have arranged a move up for them. Not down.

Crope frowned at the two tiny and perfectly square windows high above him. He did not like being down. Down meant mines and diamond pipes, groundwater, sludge, mold, gases, dead mice and fear of being trapped. He could tear down a wooden wall—it was dusty and a bit dangerous and it made his back ache—but when you were underground the walls were made of stone, and even if you did knock one down you wouldn't find freedom on the other side. You'd just find earth instead. It was the kind of thought that could lead a man to panic, and Crope had spent considerable mental energy attempting to set it aside.

In fairness to Quill he had provided several luxuries. Crope's lord now had a proper horsehair mattress and pillows filled with pigeon down. And the blankets the thief had brought three days back were so soft that when you slept in them it was like taking a warm bath. Stools, candles, clothing, a pine chest, tin bowls, pewter spoons, a flowery blue pitcher for water, chamber pots, an hour glass, dice, sheepskin slippers, a sheepskin rug, a wooden thing with hinges of uncertain purpose that Crope was too shy to ask about and a small pig-shaped stove had all been smuggled down to the cavernous depths beneath the Quartercourts.

"There's a world of rats down there," Quill had said that first night as they made their way southeast through the back alleys of the city, fleeing the red blades, "and the very few individuals you're likely to encounter will have more reason than yourselves to keep their distin-guishables hidden."

Pulling the handcart containing Baralis, Quill had led them toward the center of the city where the legal wranglings and public executions took place. Quill had ordered Crope to walk behind him at "a distance no less than thirty paces." That way, Crope supposed, passersby would not mistake them for a group. It had been a difficult journey, for Crope had feared losing sight of his lord. Every time Quill rounded a corner, Crope's five-chambered heart would thump against the inside of his rib cage like a reverse punch. He trusted Quill—nearly, almost, completely—but danger could strike around any bend and wipe both men out At least he'd had the dogs to calm him.

Town Dog and Big Mox had spent most of the journey quiet as lambs, content to let the slack in their leashes flop against their backs. It was only when Town Dog, with her considerably shorter legs, decided quite suddenly she was done with walking and plonked down her rump in the mud that Big Mox had started acting up. Crope didn't think Big Mox realized he was just too big to be picked up and slipped inside the space between a man's tunic and his undershirt like Town Dog. Big Mox was a fierce and oversized match bull who became grouchy when he thought he was losing out. Crope had had to spend the final quarter of the journey yanking on his leash to prevent him pissing against every hitching post and barrow leg they passed.

Crope already knew the Quartercourts by sight, for he had walked around the giant limestone edifice several times in the days before he rescued his lord. It was a place where instinct told him not to dally. A circle of gibbets lay directly across from the courts' wide and impressive steps, and whenever Crope had passed by, bodies in various states of mutilation had been hauled up like ragged flags. By day the courts teemed with red blades and finely dressed men who were so rich they had no need to hitch their horses. They were either carried there in covered chairs lined with cushions, or had servants stand outside and hold their horses' reins while the lords went inside to conduct business. A lot of men wore thick chains of office draped across their shoulders. Quill said those men were grangelords dressed for session. Crope wasn't quite sure what session was but he had a feeling it was something to do with lopping off men's heads.

It had seemed a strange choice of hideaway, but that night when they had fled Quill's townhouse Crope had been in no state to ask questions. Besides, at least they weren't heading north, the direction of all terrible things.

It had been a relief to get off the streets. The area around the Quartercourts was strangely quiet at night; the grand halls and places of learning closed up. There were no street vendors plying their trade on corners or street girls huddling around charcoal braziers for warmth. It wasn't that sort of place. Business was done by day here, and when darkness fell all the fine men in chains, and the judges, officials, armsman, ushers, scholars and grooms moved elsewhere, out of sight of the gibbets and into those parts of the city where you could sup cool ale and feast on sweetmeats and linger over life. Walking the empty and echoing streets, playing tug-o'-war with Big Mox while trying to keep his lord and Quill in his sights, Crope had felt exposed. Actual paving stones had been laid underfoot and his footsteps retorted like crossbolts. He felt only relief when Quill had executed one of his rakish turns into an arch sunk deep into the shadows of the Quartercourts' western facade and rapped lightly on a miniature door cawed from a single chunk of hickory. After a brief exchange of whispers, Quill and his motley band of misfits and dogs was allowed entry into the limestone halls of Spire Vanis' public courts.

Quillan Moxley was the sort of man who had friends in all kinds of places. Associates, he called them, men and women who owed him favors, were involved in various illegal activities with him, or were the sort of people whose silence could be bought for a price. Crope did not know which category the night warden of the Quartercourts fell into, but he did know that the man had gone to considerable lengths to ensure he had not seen Crope.

"Self-protectionl," Quill had told Crope later, after the thief had led them to the second underlevel beneath the limestone compound. "What a man doesn't know for certain he can lie about with impunity."

Crope didn't know what the word impunity meant but he figured it had something to do with being interrogated by bailiffs. They couldn't force knowledge from you that you didn't own. Crope had seen the back of the night warden's head a few times over the past days and concluded that he had clean hair.

"I used to store fruit and vegetables down here at one time," Quill had said, walking through the series of dank stone cellars that would become Crope's home. "It was a good little earner until the Lord of High Granges opened his passes to cheap produce from the south."

Crope had frowned and nodded, attempting to demonstrate to Quill his understanding of the finer points of business.

"Better off without it, really. Carts loaded with cabbages were getting difficult to smuggle past the watch." Quill shook his small head with feeling. "And God help you if you made the mistake of taking possession of perishables. They had to be up and out within a day."

More frowning and nodding was called for, though in truth Crope had got stuck on the word perishables and was no longer quite certain what the thief meant.

Quill had appeared to appreciate the sympathy regardless, "Well I'll be off for now. You have the use of all the space right up to the icehouse door. Only time anyone comes down here is to pick ice so when you hear footsteps move sharpish and lock yourselves in the big stockroom at the back. Night warden's the only one besides yourself who has the key."

The big stockroom had turned out to be the best room out of the lot of them. It was situated against the Quartercourts' exterior western wall and although it was low-ceilinged like the other cellars, two wind shafts provided light from the ground-level windows in the room over head. If you stood just underneath the shafts, which Crope was currently doing, you could look up and see the sky through iron bars. Sometimes Crope saw flashes of people's feet and legs as they hurried down the street. Once he'd looked up and seen a raven tapping against the bars.

It was good to be able to keep Town Dog here. The small room at the top of Quill's townhouse had not been big enough for master, servant and dog, so Town Dog had had to go and stay with Quill. Crope had missed the busy little creature with her offwhite coat and stubby tail. She'd followed him around a town he'd once visited far to the east of here, and when he'd had to leave in a bit of a hurry—owing to an unfortunate incident concerning the removal of a support beam from a tavern—she'd trotted through the gates, right on his heels. Town Dog had been with him ever since. She'd even been with him the night he'd gone to the pointy tower to free his lord.

She hadn't been allowed in this room at first, of course. His lord slept here, in the best, driest and airiest spot, his mattress raised off the floor by a wooden pallet and separated from the damp wall by a nailed-up sheepskin. Grope had been nervous about how his lord would react to the dog for he had no memory of Sarahs treating any animal beside his horse with kindness, Plus, Town Dog was an energetic scrap of dog-ness, disinclined to sit and with a tendency to smell. Deciding it was best to keep them apart. Crope had made a point of keeping the stockroom door shut so that Town Dog couldn't gain access to his lord. This had meant that Town Dog spent a lot of time at the door, scratching, digging and mewling suspiciously like a cat. Grope had been mortified. How would his lord ever sleep? Measures had to be taken, and Crope had begun to leash Town Dog to one of the many iron rings that lay rusting against the cellars' walls. Then a strange thing had happened.

Every night in the darkest and quietest hours before dawn, Crope slipped out of the Quartercourts to walk the streets. He knew what he risked, yet he could not stop himself. For seventeen years he had been chained inside the mines and he had a hardness in him now that would not bow to anyone in matters of his freedom. Going outside each night was his sign to himself that he was a free man and that his comings and goings were his own.

As a precaution against detection he had taken to wearing the special cloak Quill had commissioned from the tailor who created clothing for the Surlord's secret intelligencers known as darkcloaks. Gray for day. Brown for sundown. Falling all the way to his feet, it was longer than he liked in a cloak, and its wool was unaccountably itchy, but if it could help him steal across the main courtyard in Mask Fortress without raising an alarm it probably wouldn't do any harm to wear it on his outings around the Quartercourts. Crope had an inkling that it made him more … shadowy than he normally was. Not invisible or anything fancy like that, just a tiny bit more difficult to see, like a brown lizard on a brown wall.

He didn't like to put the hood up—itchy arms were one thing, itchy ears quite another—but forced himself to do so during those tricky moments leaving and returning to the Quartercourts. Ingress and egress, that's what Quill would have called it The thief knew many fine and impressive-sounding words. To leave the Quartercourts, Crope had to open the door to the ice house where big blue blocks of lake ice were stored between bales of hay and pass through to the other side. Next he had to climb the steps to the servants' level that was used by the Quartcrcourts staff in the daytime to service the finely dressed lords. This was the tricky part, for sometimes potboys and scrubbers would hide from the night warden during his rounds so they could stay in the courts overnight.

Crope aimed for stealth when crossing the servants' level. He aimed, but suspected he fell short. A woman had screamed at him once, and he'd very nearly screamed back. She'd been sleeping on the bench near the door, covered by a scrap of blanket, and had woken when he'd stepped on a creaky board. Crope had hightailed it up the stairs and out of the Quartercourts, and had then spent an anxious hour walking the streets wondering how on earth he was going to get back As it turned out, the night warden had heard the commotion, informed the woman that she was drunk and had seen a ghost and turfed her from the building. Crope knew this because Quill had scolded him about it the next day. "Warden gave me a real fishwifing, I can tell you. Next time you ignore my excellent advice make sure no one is around to see you do it."

Crope felt bad about that, but it didn't prevent him from going out. Most nights he took Town Dog and it was their great mutual pleasure to walk the streets of Spire Vanis side by side, Town Dog taking eight steps to every one of Crope's.

The night when the strange thing had happened, Town Dog wasn't feeling up to going out though. Crope thought she may have eaten a bad rat, for her tummy was swollen and she'd refused food. He left her with some water and a stem warning about being a good girl. When he returned two hours later she wasn't in her place and the length of string that bound her to an iron ring on the wall had been severed. Crope checked the strange warren of rooms that Quill had secured for them; the peat cellar that still held the moldering remains of ancient bricks of turf, the star-shaped servants' chapel with its six stone mortars for grinding amber, the cold room for hanging game that still had hoists and brain hooks suspended from its ceiling, the room with the bathing pool sunk into the floor that was filled with crusty black water, and the cavernous space with the iron racks, iron wheels, and iron tables whose purposes Crope had no wish to guess.

Town Dog was nowhere to be found. Crope worried about the bathing pool, wondered how a man would set about dredging a body of water. Deciding he'd better check on his lord first, he headed back to the stockroom.

The door was open. The door was never open. He had closed it himself on the way out. Immediately Crope felt the bad pressure behind his eyes as the giant's blood moved at force through his brain. Muscles engorged and his sublungs which normally lay dormant beneath his major lungs sprang open to suck in air.

Baralis.

Crope threw himself through the doorway. Head whipping around to take in the details of the room, he saw his lord lying quietly on the bed, his body curled in its normal position, his broken and swollen-jointed hand resting on Town Dog's neck.

"Calm yourself," came Baralis' beautiful smoky voice. "We have been here all along."

Crope had stood there, heart thudding like a hammer against an anvil, his entire body vibrating with power that needed to be discharged, and stared at his lord and his dog. Town Dog raised her head a little and stared back, but quickly losainterest. Tucking; herself against Baralis' arm, she headed off to sleep.

Baralis' darkly distorted gaze was steady, though his skin had that sheen to it that meant the poisons he was taking to kill the pain were sweating out. "I called her. She is not to blame."

She had chewed through the rope to get to him. And what of the door? Crope glanced back at it accusingly. His lord could move himself, but very slowly and at great cost, using his arms and shoulders to drag his weight. Crope did not believe he could have made it across the room.

"You did not close it," Baralis said, perfectly tracking Crope's thoughts. "It was ajar. The dog pushed through."

Crope took the door in his hand and tested its swing. Yes, it did catch a little at the last moment. Pushed without an extra spin offeree it would not close. Crope nodded, satisfied. It had always been easy to agree with his lord.

That had been about five days back, and it had now become habit for Town Dog to spend a portion of her day sleeping or lying quietly on Baralis' bed. After the first shock of it, Crope was glad. They were three now, and there were times when they were all in the stockroom together, when Crope was mending a piece of clothing or mixing up a batch of medicine or just sitting under the window shafts to get some light that he felt content. If the moments could be caught and spun out they would make an agreeable life.

Baralis had grown stronger since they had moved from Quill's house. Some of it was the superior medicine, foods and comforts now brought regularly by Quill. The most expensive medicines were those that dulled pain—blood of poppy, skullcap and devil's claw—and Crope had been sparing in their use. Now his lord could be given sufficient skullcap to insure he slept through most of the night. Better rested, his health had improved. The open wounds on his back and shoulders were slowly drying up as flesh knitted itself into puckered ridges. Bedsores had been eased by the new mattress, and now that Baralis' muscles were a little stronger he could shift his weight when they began to bother him. The damp air of the stockroom appeared to suit him better than the dryness of Quill's attic and his breaths were less labored, and there were fewer panics brought on by his failure to take in sufficient air. He had started to eat a little solid food—oatmeal with marrow butter, and raw eggs and that made him more robust. Even his sensitivity to light had improved, and he no longer called for blankets to cover the window shafts at midday. Not that it was ever bright in the stockroom—sunlight rarely found a way in.

Little improvements in his lord's health encouraged Crope. He knew his lord would never be able to walk or properly use his hands, but now he had hope that some kind of life was possible. There had been days in the attic when Crope had feared his lord would lapse into unknowing and die.

Now Crope dreamed of leaving the city, of buying a horse and cart and heading off in one of the good directions and not stopping for a very long time. Once Spire Vanis was far behind them they would find a good piece of land with well-drained meadows, a hard standing for milch cows and a field hoed for beans, and purchase it from an obliging farmer who would be so pleased at the offering price that he'd throw in his barn goat for free. Then he, Crope, would set about fixing and planting and milking, and Town Dog would be at his heels and his lord would be on the back porch, in the shade, beneath a warm blanket, looking up from his book now and then to tell them all what to do.

Crope glanced from the windows to his lord. Baralis was resting not sleeping, though his eyes were closed. Quill had brought fresh linens a few days back, and the sheets were clean except for a few sweat rings and some dog hairs. A series of small dark stains on the pillow might have been blood of the poppy or simply blood. Baralis' breathing moved the tan blankets at a steady rate, and because they were pulled high around his neck a casual observer might assume the man lying beneath them was whole. If you were to look closer, though, you would notice the old white scars on his eyelids and the burn circles around his nostrils, and the melted cartilage in each ear.

They shut down his senses, Quill had said once with a small shudder. Deprived him of sight, sound and smell to break him.

"'The thief comes," Baralis said, opening his eyes.

Disconcerted, Crope nodded; there didn't seem much else for him to do.

"Do not leave while I speak with him."

Crope repeated the words back to himself so he would not forget them. His lord was different now, harder and purer like a metal that had gone through the fire. Only words that needed to be said were spoken, and the very few items he requested were necessary for survival. Crope had the sense that he was both less and more. Less of body and less of self. More of mind.

It upset him if he thought about it too much. How could his lord ever sit on a porch and take part in a normal life?

Crope resisted the answer and busied himself with the small attentions Baralis required. Pillows and bedding had to be straightened and Baralis himself had to be gently elevated to a more upright position. Muscles in his lord's jaw tightened like wires as he was moved, yet he made no reference to the pain. Crope lightly combed his hair and drew a short wool cape across his shoulders. Satisfied that his lord had his dignity, but not sure how much that now mattered to Baralis himself, Crope stepped back and prepared to wait.

It was just past midday, and a failure in light told of an approaching storm. Belowground all was still and warm. The pig-shaped stove, set on the side of the stockroom opposite from Baralis' bed, radiated heat through its thick iron casing. Town Dog, who had been ratting in the big room, began to bark. Crope went to silence her and greet the thief.

Quill let himself through the ice-house door. A burlap sack was slung over his shoulders and the first thing he did was swing it forward and set it on the ground before his feet. "Commodibles," he said in greeting.

Crope had a feeling it was a dismissal. Take the commodibles— whatever they might be—and make yourself scarce for half an hour. Recalling his lord's words Crope picked up the sack and carried it through to. the stockroom.

Quill, realizing the way things were, wisely made no objection. "Storm's coming," he said to Baralis as he entered. "Not going to be much of one, though. Reckon it'll be up and out before sunset."

"Sit," Baralis replied. Now that he had more strength in his lungs his voice sounded richer and more resonant. He had regained his ability to send a word softly yet make it act like a command.

The thief pulled up a stool, using the time it took to send his gaze darting around the room. "You'll need more coals," he said, "for the stove."

Crope was on the verge of agreeing with him heartily, but a tiny flick of Baralis' eyes stopped him. Quill had taken the stool Crope usually sat on to feed the stove and care for Baralis, and Crope had nowhere to sit. Awkwardly he shuffled backward so he could rest against the wall, hoping all the while that once he was there they'd both forget about him.

"Tell me the news in the city," Baralis said to the thief.

"Stornoway holds the fortress. Fighting's mostly done. There's been some trouble at Almsgate but the other gates are sealed." "What trouble?"

"Lisereth Hews' hideclads stormed it. Word arrived yesterday that her son's on his way back from the clanholds, and she needs to control at least one gate so the Whitehog can enter the city."

Baralis closed his eyes for a fraction longer than a blink, and Crope knew he was dealing with a spasm of pain. "Will she succeed?"

Quill thought about this, one of his long thief's fingers circling his chin like a sundial. "All she needs do is keep fighting until her son arrives—some are saying that might be as early as tomorrow. She's managed to get hold of a battering ram and she's a tough mother of a bitch; I think she'll do it."

"And Stornoway?"

"The watch is his. As long as they're loyal to him it's going to be difficult to break the fortress. The old goat's sitting tight. He's told the watch that by supporting him they're supporting Marafice Eye—them strengthen his heart and cool his face with damp cloths. Yet he could do nothing until the thief was gone. His lord's will held him in place Quill sat motionless on the stool, yet Crope was struck with the notion that if he were to touch the thief he would feel him vibrating Energy hummed through the stillness. Quill's gaze rested at a point directly in front of Baralis' face. His pupils were enlarged with revelation.

He had been promised things, gold and treasures—access to the deceased surlord's secret stash—yet Baralis had been slow to deal them out. Hints had been dropped, a piece of information leading to the discovery of a small cache of gold had been disclosed. Crope knew how these things worked. His lord was keeping the thief on the hook. Quill hadn't known it that day in the attic, but any man who struck a deal with Baralis stood on quicksand. What Crope didn't know now was his lord's purpose. Power had been Baralis' sole motivation in the past. He had striven to control a kingdom and then a continent, and failed. Those days had gone though, and Crope felt a knife of fear slide in his neck when he thought about the new days to come.

Evil had been born in the monstrous iron chamber beneath the tower. The man who had clamped it with faucets and pulled it out was dead, but the thing he had brought into this world lived on.

Hell knows me and you cannot understand what that knowing brings. Crope knew his memory wasn't good, but even if he lived to be three hundred years old he doubted if he would forget his lord's words.

Crope wondered if the thief was thinking of them too. Certainly he was thinking of ways to profit from the information that a storm meant to pass through the city in a couple of hours would take an unexpected turn for the worse. Perhaps he was also thinking there was use in knowing that the fighting at Almsgate would be slowed. Or perhaps, like Crope himself, he was wondering if by holding the storm at unspeakable cost to himself, Baralis was serving or resisting hell.

Quill stood. "I'll see you get those coals for the fire."

Baralis nodded, accepting the complicated acquiescence of the.

Once Quill had let himself out, Crope went to tend his lord. He feared what Baralis would lose this day.