Honor among thieves

Chapter Ninety-Nine

Malden wrapped a loaf of bread in a silken cloth-the loaf a more precious commodity now than the silk-and headed down to the Isle of Horses, intending to thank Coruth. She had saved the city, or at least given it one more day of freedom, and he meant to honor what she’d done.

When he arrived at Eastpool, however, it was to find the water frozen over and all the boats hung upside down and covered in sailcloth for the winter. The only person he could find at the stairs was an old woman who sat by a hole cut through the ice, a fishing pole in her hand.

“No way to get across now, Lord Mayor,” she said, cackling. “Unless you choose to walk.”

Malden stared out across the expanse of ice separating him from Coruth’s island home. It thrummed and sang in the sunlight, while dark water bubbled up from underneath. It looked like it might crack open at any moment.

He steeled himself. “I’m quite light on my feet,” he said.

When he took his first step onto the slick ice, though, he wondered if even he was nimble enough to get across. With each step the frozen pool shifted underneath him and icy water surged up around his leather shoes. He took it slowly, spreading his legs as much as possible to distribute his weight, but before long he heard the ice start to crack. Ahead of him a dark spot appeared as water flooded up from beneath to splash against the thinnest layer of rime, and then that thin ice collapsed into greasy shards.

“Blast,” he said, and turned around to head back. He would have to wait for a colder day. He took a step back toward shore.

And under his foot the ice cracked open, a jagged fissure opening that spread across the surface with a noise like paper being torn.

Malden danced sideways, onto what appeared to be firmer ice-and felt it tilt beneath him, the near end submerging into cold water, the far end lifting up to glint in the sun. He started to slide down into the freezing pool and just managed to jump away before he fell, landing on a more solid floe.

It was a temporary reprieve at best. The islet of ice he’d found refuge on was surrounded by black water on every side. The sun burned down from a pitilessly clear sky and made new jagged cracks appear all around him.

The floe he stood on was not broad enough to hold his weight. A fraction of an inch at a time, it started to sink.

Malden knew how to swim, had in fact learned how in this very water. But he was certain that if he fell in now he would freeze long before he could swim to shore. The water would soak through his heavy cloak and the thick tunic underneath and bog him down. The cold would eat into his bones, make his muscles lock up Had he survived so many perils, lived through a barbarian invasion and a deadly siege, only to perish from sheer folly like this? He started cursing his fate.

He stopped, however, when he saw Cythera come out of Coruth’s shack and walk through the snow down to the rocky shore of the Isle of Horses. She waved at him-no, she was simply raising her hands in the air. Her head tilted back and her eyes fluttered closed.

All around him the ice crackled and popped. Malden felt the floe he stood on tilt wildly as new ice pushed up all around it. The surface of Eastpool brightened as long crystals of ice snaked over its ripples, then joined together to form a path of solid ice from where Malden stood directly to the island. He did not waste time wondering at the miracle. Instead he dashed along the path, feet sliding crazily, until he could leap up onto the rocks near where Cythera stood.

She opened her eyes. Instantly the ice behind Malden fell to pieces. She gasped, and looked like she might swoon. Malden got an arm around her waist to hold her up, and Cythera sagged against his chest. She was burning up as if with fever, though he knew it was only the etheric energies she’d conjured, still flowing through her blood and bone. He helped her stagger back toward the shack.

Inside, he handed her the wrapped loaf he’d brought. She stared at it numbly, as if she couldn’t imagine ever eating again. “This is too much,” she said. “People are starving all over Ness, and you bring us a full loaf?” She turned her stare on him. “This must be worth its weight in gold right now. When was the last time you ate anything?”

“I had a handful of oats this morning,” Malden said. “I’m fine. Anyway, your mother deserves a far greater reward than this.”

“Mother…” Cythera pressed a hand against her cheek as if she felt faint. “Malden-you should come see her. Tell her that yourself.”

“Gladly,” he said, though there was something in her tone that worried him. She led him into a room at the back of the shack, a room thick with heady smoke from braziers full of burning herbs. The medicinal smells covered up something more sickly, something foul that Malden didn’t want to identify.

A massive canopy bed filled most of the room. Lying on its mattress was Coruth. Or what was left of her.

She looked tiny in the middle of all those blankets. It was strange. Malden had always thought of Coruth as enormous, a towering, looming figure who was always bigger than anyone she spoke to. Thinking back, though, he realized he had always been considerably taller than the witch and much broader through the shoulders. When he tried to understand why he’d always thought her so big, he could only think of his own mother. She’d been a slender woman, and not overly tall, but when he was an infant she seemed a giant. Coruth must have had a similar effect on him.

Now sickness had wasted her body until she was a bare scrap of a thing. Her iron-colored hair was strewn across a pillow and her haughty face was slack with sleep. As he watched, horrified, he saw her turn over on her side and bring one hand up from beneath the sheets. The fingers of that hand had turned to twigs-actual wooden twigs, one of which sprouted a tiny shriveled leaf. Her arm looked more like the branch of a tree than like human flesh.

“Is she…?” Malden asked, unwilling to say the word “dying” in her presence.

“Perhaps,” Cythera told him. “It’s also possible she’ll just transform for a while. When my father imprisoned her, she turned herself into a rowan tree, do you remember?”

Malden nodded. It was how Coruth appeared when he first met her.

“There is something about that form that allows her to heal.” Cythera shook her head. “I’m starting to grasp the concept, but the details are still lost to me. The process of transformation is a simple matter of altering the weave of one’s constituent atomies,” she said, “but how that allows the body to accelerate its natural processes, well…”

Malden bit his lip. Cythera was a witch now, just like her mother. Such mysteries were open to her, if she went looking for the answers. To him they would always be obscure.

“This,” he said, gesturing at the woman in the bed, “this is because she overextended herself, am I right?”

Cythera nodded.

“She made an illusion, made it appear we had far more archers than we actually did,” he said, thinking back to what he’d seen the previous night, up on the wall. “That wouldn’t have consumed her so. But then she made the illusory arrows real. Real enough to kill.”

Cythera looked away from him quickly. Malden frowned, wondering why she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He had only been stating a matter of fact. “Did you… aid her in casting that spell?” he asked.

“It was a powerful operation,” Cythera confirmed. “A conjuration even a sorcerer would find daunting. It would have destroyed me to even assist her. No-she had to do it herself. She nearly perished.”

“She saved us all,” Malden said. He sat down on the edge of the bed and placed a hand on Coruth’s forehead. Her skin felt waxy and stiff. “The city thanks you. I thank you.”

He nearly jumped off the bed when one of Coruth’s eyes fluttered open. It stared right into him and he felt transfixed, as if her very gaze could pierce him like steel. She tried to whisper something, but he couldn’t make out the words. Leaning close, his ear almost touching her mouth, he heard only a little.

“… never too late. Through the heart. Her father…”

There were no more words. Coruth’s eye closed again. When Malden sat up, he was shocked to see a tiny brown leaf attached to one greasy lock of iron-colored hair. The effort of speaking must have cost the old witch dearly. Clearly she had been desperate to get some message across.

Sadly, he could make no sense of it at all. Yet another mystery, one he had no time to decipher. He got up to leave. No point in disturbing her rest now. “Can you help me get back to shore?” he asked of Cythera.

The new witch nodded and led him back to the door of the shack. “Malden,” she said when they arrived at the ice. “She knew this would happen. She knew it would take more than she had to aid you. She understood the necessity. I hope you do as well.”

Malden bowed his head. She was explaining why she couldn’t be with him any longer. “I understand that fate plays dice with us all, and rarely do any of us get a natural throw.” He shook his head. “I understand what your mother did, and what it cost her. Her sacrifice moves me in ways I cannot find words to express,” he told her.

“That was her way,” Cythera said. “The witch’s way. We go places other people do not dare, and take risks others cannot countenance, for the good of all. It’s a noble calling, and one I’m proud to have accepted. She saw this would happen, and she made sure I was initiated before she exhausted herself-so that you would still have a witch on your side afterward. I see that now.”

Malden reached for her hand, but she thrust it under her shapeless cloak.

“You need to understand, though,” she went on. “My witchcraft is still slight. I can effect some minor workings. I can harness a few natural energies better than others, but-I couldn’t even begin to do what she did last night. I couldn’t even have created the illusion. Don’t count on me, Malden. Don’t make plans that require powerful magics for success. I’ll help you when and where I can, but it may not be enough.”

“I’d rather have your love than all the sorcery in the books of Redweir. Maybe it’s not too late,” he said. “Maybe… maybe you can still give it up. Give up your witchcraft and come be just a woman with me.”

“Oh, if it were so simple,” she said, very quietly. “But could you just be a man, with me?”

“When I’m with you,” Malden said, “that’s all I ever am. Your man.”

She made no reply.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but she had already lifted her hands and tilted her head back. The ice began to firm up just off shore. Malden knew she couldn’t hold it very long. Hardening his heart, he raced for the far side, for the Ditchside Stair and solid ground.