A Sword from Red Ice

TWENTY-SIX The Outlanders

"Where does Thomas Argola live?" Raif asked.

Stillborn did not much like this question. They were standing on the shell-shaped ledge in front of the Maimed Man's cave, shoveling snow. A storm had hit in the night and spring had rolled back into winter. When Raif looked south to the clanholds he saw a world turned white.

"Don't get close to him," Stillborn said, his breath making icy clouds from the words. He was dressed in his normal garb of a sleeveless tunic and a kilt over pants. His concession to the cold was a glossy black sheepskin draped over his shoulders and tied in place with string. Reaching the area where his firestack was buried, he stopped shoveling and began to scrape. He wasn't about to waste good wood. "The outlander's not one of us."

That meant he wasn't clan. Raif chucked snow into the Rift. None of them were clan. "I'll find him for myself."

Stillborn harumped. Straightening his back, he said, "Come here."

Raif crossed to his side and looked up. Above him the buckled and uneven layers of cliff rock, caves and ledges rose for over two hundred feet.

"See that small gray door, near the same color as the cliff?" Raif nodded. "That's where he lives. Only man in the Rift to have an actual, hinged, godforsaken door." Stillborn scowled at it "And a lock."

Raif broke away from him and went back to shoveling. Stillborn was disappointed that no plans had yet been made to seize control of the Maimed Men from Traggis Mole. He did not know what Raif knew. Raif wasn't even sure what he knew himself. The Robber Chief had been badly wounded by one of the Unmade, and for more reason than one Raif needed to find out what that meant.

He could feel it as he put his back into digging out the snow; the liquid tingle in his left shoulder where the Shatan Meier's claw had punctured him. Abruptly, he set the shovel against the cliff wall. "I'll be back later," he said.

Stillborn showed his teeth. "Be sure to knock." Snow had stopped falling from the clouds but it was still moving in the air around the Rift. Ice crystals sparkled on the updrafts and blew off ledges in plumes. Raif stayed close to the cliffwall and took short steps. Men and women where out shoveling snow, building fires, visiting one another and taking fresh air. A group of children on the rimrock were building a ghoul out of snow. People were in high spirits, glad that the storm had passed by quickly and the temperature was rising.

The rope ladders were slick and dangerous and Raif was glad of the rough pads on his boarskin gloves. Rock grit had been sprinkled over some of the more dangerous spots—narrow ledges, wooden gangplanks and landings around ladders-sand for the first time Raif realized that the Maimed Men were capable of working together. He even found he was less disliked: no one glared at him or threw stones. Despite what Traggis Mole had predicted, Addie and Stillborn had shared credit for the meat brought back from the overnight hunt, and all who ate that night knew that Raif Twelve Kill was owed part of their thanks. The snagcat pelt was different. Set apart. To bring down a cat was a feat demanding praise and Stillborn had claimed all laudings for himself.

Raif lost sight of the gray, unfinished wood door as he worked his way up through the city, but he had a sense of its general location and headed east on one of the long ledges. As he neared a rope hoist he slowed down and considered whether to take it. The hoist bypassed an inset ledge and headed up to the next broad plateau of rimrock.

"No need to go any further, my dear boy." Yustaffa stepped out from the shadows of a cave mouth. "As you can see I'm already here." He looked like a fat snow bear who had rolled in jewels. "You like?" he said, glancing down at his outfit. "Should I spin?" "No," Raif told him. The jewel things were dazzling. They seemed to be suspended in invisible netting over the white winter pelts he was wearing. The feather-light fur of ice hares formed a tunic that looked made of fluff.

"Twelve Kill Joy I should call you," he said, and then went ahead and spun anyway. "Yustaffa must haffa spin. Care to talk?" "No."

The expression on Yustaffa's smooth plump face hardened. "Wouldn't hurt the future king to play nice."

Raif stared at him, blinking and dazzled, as he spun again and walked away. Were there no secrets here?

The pleasure he had taken in the day gone, Raif stepped into the hoist basket and pulled on the thick rope. Snow had not affected the pulleys motion and he ascended quickly, placing fist over fist. The basket had been woven from tough wicker and it creaked and sawed but held firm.

Alighting on the rimrock, he looked for the gray door. Almost certain it was on the inset ledge just below him, he searched for a place to make the jump down. Once he'd found a suitable cut in the rimrock, he squatted to inspect it, then made the leap. On landing he felt a jolt of pain in his still-tender ankle and had to stand a moment to relieve it. As he pivoted his foot left and then right to test it, he became aware that someone was watching him. Turning his head he saw a young woman standing by a cave mouth holding a handful of snow.

She was wearing a moss green dress of felted wool with a black bodice laced snug against her waist. Her skin was deeply, almost greenly, golden and her dark hair, which was taught logsely in an amber band at her neck, fell in waves to the small of her back. Seeing Raif look at her she rotated her wrist and let the snow fall from her hand.

Raif looked away, put his weight on his throbbing ankle, and then looked back. She was still watching at him. He could not decipher her expression, nor could he think of anything to say. Here was the last place on earth he would have thought to find beauty.

Knowing he would have to walk past her to search for the gray door, he became acutely aware of his movements. He cursed his ankle, for even as he took his first step he knew it would make him limp. Glancing ahead, he spied two other cave mouths, one closed off with a bamboo screen and one that stood unguarded. He continued walking. To attempt to swing back up to the rimrock while the woman watched seemed an action loaded with potential for embarrassment. As he neared her he couldn't decide where to look, and his gaze jumped from her face to the way ahead and then, inexplicably, to her feet. She was standing in a half-moon of roughly cleared snow.

He missed the fact that she was also standing in front of an open door. The door opened inward and had swung into the shadows of the timber-framed cave mouth. Only when he passed the woman and stole a quick glance back did he see it. Faced with a choice between stopping, turning and speaking to her, or continuing to walk along the ledge, he was uncertain. The fact that the ledge came to an end just beyond the unguarded cave helped clear his mind. He had to go back. She watched him as he came toward her a second time. The cuff of her green dress was wet where she had held the snow.

"Does Thomas Argola live here?" he asked, satisfied that his voice sounded normal.

"He does." She looked at him with eyes that were darkly, greenly, brown.

Raif waited, but she offered no more. "Is he here? Can I see him?" "He is here. I will ask if he will see you." She did not immediately move like others would. Instead she created a deliberate pause and did nothing to fill it.

Just when Raif thought he should speak again, she whirled around and headed for the door. As he waited he searched for, and found, the pile of snow she had dropped. The imprint of her fingers were still upon it.

"Raif." The slight and loose form of Thomas Argola appeared in the doorway. "Come."

Raif followed him into the cave. Two copper lamps set on recesses in the wall were glowing with smokeless light. The cave was small and nearly round. Its ceiling was strikingly uneven, the rock dipping low in concertina-like folds and then muscling into high vaults. A natural flue had formed at the apex of the tallest vault and Raif could feel its draw. At least two other chambers led from the cave where the rock wall bored down into the cliff. Their entrances were screened with lengths of faded gold and green brocade. One of them was moving. The girl was gone.

"Sit." Thomas Argola spread a long-fingered, olive-skinned hand toward the cushions and rugs arranged around a small brass brazier set at knee height.

Raif resisted the direction, preferring to move about the space, looking at glazed boxes, straw baskets, frayed silk rugs and tarnished metal bowls piled with rolled parchments, hollow eggs, cards of silk thread and dried yarrow heads that lay on the cave floor. He was too keyed up to sit.

Realizing that Thomas Argola was was waiting for him to speak, Raif searched for a way to start a conversation. The girl had thrown him off center. "We're lucky the storm didn't stay longer."

Thomas Argola executed a movement that looked like a controlled drop, collapsing his body onto one of the silk cushions. "Our luck is someone else's misfortune." He spoke the words with a pointed lightness that Raif suspected was intended to convey meaning. He waited, and the outlander spoke again. "The storm was disturbed, its course deflected south."

Raif halted by the brocade screen that had been moving when he entered. A design of dragons and pear trees was woven into the cloth. "How is that possible?"

"It very nearly isn't." Thomas Argola bit each word as he said it.

Feeling his skin cool, Raif turned to face the outlander. Argola's expression was flat and challenging. A speck of blood was caught between his cornea and the white of his eye. Seeing it Raif abandoned the hope they were talking about natural forces.

"We live in dangerous times," Argola said in confirmation. "Sit and I will pour us some broth."

Raif sat. It was hard to comprehend what he had just heard, and he took the small bone cup offered by the outlander without acknowledgment. A storm could be made to alter its course? Surely not.

"To our health," Argola said, raising his own cup, "and sanity."

They seemed good things to toast just then. Cups struck, Raif and the outlander drank deeply. The broth was well made, salty and rich with marrow and thyme. The outlander seemed pleased to pour Raif a second cup.

"Mallia makes it, though she must do without the ginger from our homeland. Thyme serves as its substitute."

Raif drank and did not speak. He told himself he wasn't waiting, but he didn't think he fooled Argola.

"My sister,"the outlander revealed eventually.

Now he had said it, Raif saw the resemblance; the coloring, the hair. But not the eyes. They were different. Needing to change the subject, he asked, "What do you know of Traggis Mole's… health?"

Argola set down the cup by his foot and watched as the liquid it contained steamed. Seconds passed, and then he said, "He has shown you the wound?" "No."

"Be glad of it," Argola retorted quickly. "I have treated it and continue to dress it, and it is not a sight I would wish on anyone."

Shuddering, Raif felt a twinge of pain in his shoulder. A little icy jab. "How bad is it?" "Answer that and I give you the keys to this city."

Raif worked his way through the outlander's words, caught off-guard by their slyness. Remember the mist, he told himself. The man sitting before him had pulled fog from a lake on a still dry night at Black Hole. While everyone else in the raid party was fighting to gain entry to the mine, Thomas Argola had been packing Bear's saddlebags with enough supplies to carry Raif into the Want. It's a hard journey north, he had said, knowing that for every hundred who went there only two or three ever returned.

And here he was now, breaking the confidence of his chief and arming his rival with information. Raif stopped himself and forced a correction. The outlander was not clan and Traggis Mole was no clan chief; the expectation of loyalty did not exist.

The cushion Raif sat on had tassels on its corners and he caught one in his fist. So Traggis Mole was in a bad way. "What happened?"

Argola made a movement with his hand. "The thing that got onto the rimrock that night was never human. Even when it lived in flesh it had been some kind of monstrosity. More dog than man. It barely knew how to wield a blade, but it was strong—and fast. No one could get near it. Eventually the Dancer caught its blade in his sword-breaker, and as Linden Moodie came in to attack its unarmed flank, Traggis Mole took the side bearing the sword. Something happened. The creature's blade slid free of the breaker and it whipped around and tore through the Mole's side. Moodie cut off its arm. But it was too late. The damage had been done."

Raif nodded softly to himself as he compared Addie's account of the attack to Argola s. "The Mole kept the severity of his injuries hidden." "Wouldn't you?"

The flatness in Argola's voice irritated Raif He stood. "What happens when someone is injured by the Unmade?" As he spoke he heard the false note in his voice—the forced casualness of the question—and he imagined Argola would hear it too. The outlander looked at him carefully. "It depends on the extent of the injury. The Mole took a hit to the chest with voided steel. The blade missed his heart but passed through some of his lung. It didn't kill him….but it will. Not from infection, not as you and I know it. The wound is clean, if you can call it that. It's what the voided steel left behind … some of itself. It's a blackness eating away at him, incinerating his flesh like acid. I can only suture the wound so far. It needs to" He hesitated, "vent."

Raif closed his eyes and took a breath. It was the same as the Forsworn knight in the redoubt; the dark, silky substance leaking from his wounds. Half liquid, half smoke.

"Traggis Mole is being taken. The wound is too deep. He is strong and fights it, but his flesh is cankered with a substance beyond evil and to cut it out would kill him."

The outlander rose from the pile of cushions. "You'd better show me what you've got."

Raif stepped back. His heel struck one of the metal bowls, producing a note that vibrated through the cave.

Argola regarded him with some impatience. "It's why you came here, is it not? Something in the Want injured you?"

Again, Raif felt himself irritated by the outlander's assumptions. The fact that they were correct only made it worse. He had nothing to lose now—certainly not privacy as this meeting so far had been a demonstration in how little Thomas Argola valued discretion. With a snap, Raif unhooked the Orrl cloak. Yanking his undershirt and sealskin up around his neck he showed his back to the outlander. "It's low on the left shoulder."

Argola approached him. He looked and said nothing.

The pull from the flue lifted hairs on Raif s skin. After a while he could stand the silence no logger. "What is there?"

"Three puncture wounds. All are scarred over and dry. The middle one looks to be the worst of them. May I touch it?"

No. Out loud, Raif said, "Go ahead."

Two things happened then. First he felt a bite of pain where Argola's finger touched him, and second he saw that the cloth screen with the dragons and pears had been pulled partway back and Argola's sister was standing behind it, watching him.

Raif tugged down his shirt. He could feel his color rising and wanted nothing that moment except to be gone. The outlander shooed his sister with a flick of his wrist. He did not seem much concerned.

"They were not made with voided steel," he said to Raif, a question in his voice.

Glancing at the screen, Raif saw that Mallia Argola had disappeared He wondered if she was just beyond the screen. Listening. Coming here had been a mistake. He started toward the door.

Argola moved with him. "Stop," he said, his voice flat yet somehow compelling. "If you will not speak hear me out."

Raif halted by the door; the farthest point from the dragon-and-pear screen. Argola understood him and edged close, and for the first time it occurred to Raif that the outlander appeared whole. No obvious abnormalities or cuttings marked his flesh. What was his place here? Maimed Men would not tolerate an undamaged man or woman in their realm. The outlander did not hunt and was not well liked. Raif supposed he had his uses. He had tricks; the revealing of the suspension bridge across the Rift, the raising of mist during a raid.

The speck of blood in Thomas Argola's eyes floated toward his iris as he said quietly, "Underlying the middle wound there is some discoloring and a small pocket of inflammation. I thought it would be soft, but when I touched it I found it hard. I'm assuming something raked you with its claws—it's what it looks like—and I'm also assum-ing that the creature who did it was unmade." A pause while Raif nodded. "I believe you were lucky and unlucky. Lucky that it was maer dan, shadowflesh, not voided steel that punctured you. Unlucky in that a small piece of claw broke off in your flesh."

"Cut it out," Raif said.

Thomas Aigola was already shaking his head. "It's embedded in the muscle. Cut it out and you will loose function in your arm and shoulder. It must be drawn, not cut"

Raif did not understand why the outlander was playing games with him. "Then draw it out"

"That skill is beyond me."

More games. "You tend Traggis Mole."

"And I can do nothing for him. He dies."

Raif punched the meat of his hand against the door. Left shoulder. Left arm. Two hundred pounds of pull in a fully drawn longbow and the left shoulder and arm must brace against it. "Why do you manipulate me?"

"You know why."

Raifs gaze met the outlander's. At least he did not bother to lie. "Who are you?"

"Thomas Bireon Argola, from a city you've never heard of called Hanatta. I lay small claim to the old skills and have some experience as a healer. I came north three years ago with my sister, for reasons that are not yours to know. And I do not lie about the drawing of the maer dan. It is an art practiced by races older than mine and the Sull." "Are you whole?

"Do not make me show you all the ways that I am not." Raifs anger collapsed. Suddenly he felt tired and out of his depth. His shoulder seemed to ache more now than it did before Argola's pronouncement, and he remembered that he had hurt his ankle. And now it hurt.

Argola looked tired too, the corners of his mouth were turned down, the lips pale. Raif wondered if his thoughts were similar to his own: It would be good to have some peace.

"Can I live with the maer dan inside me?"

"You do," Argola said, almost gently. Then, in a stronger voice, "It is situated in the muscle above the back of your heart. If it moves inward there is no bone to stop it." Oh gods.

"The closest Sull settlement is due east of here, in the great taiga where the Deadwoods meet the Sway."

Here it was, the manipulation. Raif felt it in the hollow center of his bones. It was a funny thing, manipulation; even when you knew someone was doing it and they admitted to doing it, it could still work. It is a hard journey north, he had said last time. Now east. "Have you heard of the Lake of Red Ice?" "I have."

"Do you know where it is?" "All I know I have said."

Raif looked at the blood in Argola's right eye and imagined how it had got there. "Look for me," he commanded.

The outlander's face registered surprise, and then—Raif would remember for the rest of his life—satisfaction.

"If you are to watch you must be prepared when they come." Raif thought about all these words revealed. Argola knew about the sword. Knew also about the name he had taken for his own. Mor Drakka. Watcher of the Dead. How did he learn these things? What did he know that Raif did not?

Thomas Argola's small, sharp-featured face gave nothing away. His plain brown robes reminded Raif of what the monks in the Mountain Cities wore to demonstrate they had no interest in worldly things.

"Did they tell you the name of the sword?"

It was as if the outlander had a stick and kept poking him harder and harder to see what he might do. Raif s back was against the door; he could not be driven any farther. "No they did not."

Argola received the warning, seemed pleased by it Again there was that lip stretch of satisfaction. "The sword that lies beneath the Red Ice is named Loss."

Loss.

"There are some things in the Blind that will not fall by any other blade."

It was too much. Raif punched back the door bolt and let himself out. He did not look back or close the door.

Sunlight streamed against his face and he could barely make sense of it. Bouncing off the snow on the ground, it came at him from every direction. Bright, razoring light. It should have dispelled the dark seizures in his brain, yet it just seemed to feed them.

Loss.

He headed toward the upper ledge. A knotted rope hung from the ledge he had jumped and he yanked himself up it He had left behind his gloves and cloak in the outlander's cave, and the cold and the rope burns added to strange energy of pain and twitching thoughts he had become.

I will not slit your throat I will defend the Rift Brothers. I will become lord of the Rift. Every time he spoke these days he seemed to take on another oath.

He had given none to Argola, though. Yet he had allowed the man to push him. Releasing his hands from the rope, Raif landed on the rimrock. Snow crunched as he flattened it. Had he allowed Stillborn to push him too?

Deciding no good would come of knowing, he switched his mind away from all of it. Argola's motives. The puncture wound. The sword. It was just past midday and the sun was at its highest point above the clanholds. Raif walked to the edge of the broad table of rock and sucked in the sight of his homeland. Seven hundred paces, that was the distance that separated the clan-holds from the Rift in this place. A man could cross it in a matter of minutes—east of here there was a hidden bridge. Yet there might as well be a wall as tall as the sky. Raif Sevrance could never go back.

He stood and let the sun warm him and the snow cool him. And when he was ready he looked down into the Rift.

For the first time ever, Raif was aware of beating hearts deep within its depths.