I parted from my companions for the afternoon and met Heishiro at the Flower of the Mountain to share a drink in the hours between the contest of poetry and that of magecraft, and passed the time there, trying to learn of the secrets of the eastern smiths. Heishiro was no craftsman himself, though he was an accomplished wielder of the weapons they made, and he could only give me a broad description of how steel was made. The tall stalks of grass that grew in his homeland and reached many times the height of a man were burned, and the charcoal left behind forged with iron to make a metal that was stronger and harder than any of the weapons and tools of my people. I asked him if I could replicate this process using what hardy plants and evergreen trees grew in the lands of my birth, and he told me he did not know.
I returned at sunset to find Khalim praying again, his bare feet slowly digging furrows into the sand under the first row of the stands as he paced. Darkness fell, and torches went up around the arena.
I was no stranger to magic. There were those among my people who communed with the gods and the realm of the spirits, and from these sources drew power, but nothing I had experienced prepared me for what I witnessed at the contest. The mages had prepared their long rituals before that evening, but there was still much to be done as each one entered the arena. They drew complex diagrams of interlocking circles in the sand using long wands, and filled them with powdered minerals in a myriad of colors. Their chants resonated in languages I did not know, filling the arena with echoing sound. When they finished, their marvels came into being. Plumes of fire and sculptures of ice went up around the arena. The mage from the merchants’ guild transformed herself into an enormous moth, wings as far across as the height of two men, and flew around the stands. The pair from the Divine Champions summoned three beings made of fire, and they performed a dance as elegant as flowing water, disappearing into a puff of smoke as the performance ended.
When it was Khalim’s turn, he got up and took two steps before freezing where he stood, staring out at the waiting crowds with a panicked look.
“I can’t do this,” he said, his voice strained.
I stood and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll do fine,” I said, and pushed him out into the arena.
He stumbled, but he recovered his footing. The glance he shot back over his shoulder at me was one of betrayal, and I felt a little guilty. Under the eyes of the whole city, he had no choice but to take his place at the center of the arena, and in the empty space, he looked very small. Silence stretched out for a long moment before he spoke.
“My name is Khalim of Nagara,” he said, and the enchantment carried his voice to the stands. “I am a healer. If any of you suffer from injuries or ailments, I ask you to come to me.”
A murmur went up from the crowd. This was unusual, quite unlike the other displays that had been done. He had drawn no circles, spoken no invocations, and they did not know what to make of it. Finally, an old man went down into the arena, leaning on the arm of a young woman. Khalim went to meet them as they stepped out onto the sands.
“I have been blind in my left eye for ten years,” the man said, “and my right for two.”
Khalim nodded, and placed his hands on the man’s face. A soft warm light emanated from where they touched, and the stands fell silent again. They watched, but there was little to see. I began to think that Khalim might have been right, that this was a poor choice for the games, and he would not make his name known as Reva had hoped he would.
That changed in an instant. “I can—I can see!” the man cried. He turned around and shouted again at the waiting audience. “I can see!”
A noise of astonishment went up around the arena. The townsfolk stood and stared, unsure whether to believe it. A miracle had been performed before their eyes: the restoration of an old man’s sight, without any ritual to call down the power of the gods. Only the Ascended had ever been able to do such a thing. The people moved toward him, wanting to witness for themselves if he had truly done the work of a god.
Khalim climbed into the lowest row, and the crowd pressed in around him until I could no longer see him. I stood again and searched the stands. Reva had claimed that no one would harm him during the tournament, and it was forbidden to attack a competitor, but I had a sudden stroke of fear that some terrible fate would befall him if I let him out of my sight.
I found him again by the same sunlight glow. He had climbed two rows higher and could go no farther for the people pressed around him, reaching to touch his hands. His back was turned to the arena, and I could not see his face.
By the time the guards arrived to disperse the crowd and end Khalim’s performance, the crowd was chanting his name. They kept the townsfolk away and led him back to where we were waiting, and he collapsed onto the bench. There were flowers clinging to his clothes and nestled in his hair—tokens given to him by the enraptured spectators.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He took a full breath and nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. It’s strange, though—it was more draining than it usually is.”
The points were tallied. By the demand of the common folk, Khalim had taken first place in the magic contest, and we maintained our lead. He seemed not to notice as he absently removed the flowers from his hair and collected them on the bench beside him.
“Well done, my boy,” Garvesh said.
“Thank you,” Khalim said, “but I’m not a child.”
Garvesh was taken aback. “Oh—of course. What were you saying before? About the magic being more draining?”
“I’m not sure. It was almost as though something was drawing power from me. I’ve never felt like that before.”
“That is odd.” Garvesh stroked his beard thoughtfully with one hand. “Now that you mention it, I did notice that the elementals summoned by the Divine Champions did not return to their circles. They vanished into the air.”
I did not know what to make of this. I looked around the colosseum, where a brief hush had fallen as the enchantment to enhance the acoustics was lifted. The hollow space left behind soon filled with laughter, the notes of horns and pipes, and the beating of a resonant drum. If anyone else had noticed that something was amiss, I could not see any indication.
“I should find you something to eat,” I said to Khalim.
He nodded, and I left the arena to where the cooks had set out their wares. The sweet notes of a dulcimer and the scent of incense followed me out the gate. The evening was to be one of ceremony, with offerings to the gods, and it made me uneasy. I had seen magic far beyond my ken, both Khalim’s and the other competitors’, and I was not sure I trusted it.
When some color had returned to Khalim’s face and he was well enough to walk around, I offered to take him back to the safe house, and Aysulu and Garvesh promised to catch up with us later. There was much to be seen, and I did regret not staying to see the ritual at midnight, but I was not going to risk any further danger.
My mistrust was well-placed. As Khalim and I walked through the market on our way back to the house in the industrial district, we caught sight of Rhea from the merchants’ guild, whose irreverent song had earned her the silent disapproval of the Ascended. I was about to call out to her, to introduce myself as a fellow competitor, when someone pulled her roughly by the elbow into an alley and out of sight.
I ran, rounding the corner in time to see the figure of a man dressed in gray standing behind Rhea like a shadow. He pulled out a knife that glistened with an oily shimmer and plunged it into the woman’s side.
Khalim, just behind me, called for the guards. I did not have my axe, and I glanced about for some kind of weapon. My eyes fell on a clay jug of wine, and I picked it up and hurled it at the man.
He dropped Rhea and ducked, and the jug shattered against the wall behind him with a crash, leaving a bloody red splatter.
It was forbidden to attack a competitor. Reva had assured us that we would be safe, and yet here was someone attempting to murder a member of the Golden Road. Rage and fear burned within me. I had no weapon but my fists, but I was a warrior of the Bear Clan and a champion of the arena. I approached the shadowy man as he sheathed his wicked dagger and drew a pair of swords.
Khalim was quicker than I was. He ran to Rhea’s side and pulled her out of the way behind a cart. She was unmoving, and I did not know if she lived.
I swung one fist at the man, and just missed his masked face. He was swift and agile, trained not for face-to-face combat but for skulking in shadows and ambushing the unaware. One sword darted out and I caught the blade on my hardened bracer, twisting it out of his grasp. I picked it up before he could strike again, but he again proved too evasive and my swing collided with the stone wall. The blade snapped neatly in two, a hands-breadth from the hilt.
A broken blade was better than nothing. I readied the weapon again.
With his free hand, the man reached into a pouch at his belt and and pulled out something I could not see. He threw it upon the ground, and a cloud of noxious smoke and dust went up between us.
Coughing, I swung wildly with the broken blade, cutting an arc through the swirling smoke but striking nothing. When the air cleared, the man was gone.
I turned about, looking for Khalim and the injured woman. The crowd leaving the arena had fled, and the street was empty. Where were the guards? This close to the arena, there were men posted at every corner, but they too were gone.
I found Khalim behind the cart laden with fruit. He had knocked some of them loose pulling Rhea to safety, and they had burst open upon the cobbles, filling the air with a sticky, sweet scent. He sat with his back against the cart, eyes aglow and unblinking, and Rhea lay motionless in his lap. Her clothing was soaked with blood.
“Is she…?” I began.
Khalim’s sunlit gaze was fixed on the heavens, and he did not turn his head to me when I approached. I kept a few feet of distance between us; having spent the last day in his company, I felt that I had started to know him well, but that fell away. He had become a stranger.
When he spoke, I was glad to hear that his voice was familiar and unchanged. “Poison,” he said.
Another moment stretched out. Footsteps sounded around the corner—finally, the city guards had arrived. They brandished their spears at me.
“What has happened here?” the first man demanded. “Have you harmed this woman?”
The light receded from Khalim’s eyes, and he helped Rhea to her feet. She was pale, and she swayed dizzily as she stood, but she was alive.
“The assailant has fled,” I told the guard.
They raised their spear points only a little. “Is this true?” they asked Rhea.
She looked around, eyes wide, and nodded. “Someone attacked me in that alley,” she said, pointing to where the man in the mask had disappeared. Her voice was shaky.
“I recovered this weapon from him,” I said, showing them the broken sword. It was forged of good iron, the single edge honed to a wicked sharpness. The handle was crafted in the image of a serpent coiled in a spiral, the end of its tail tucked around the pommel and its head lying against the flat of the blade.
The first watchman took the weapon from me and examined it in the fading light. “Hmm,” he said. “We will look into this. Are you well, Lady? We will escort you to your lodgings.”
Rhea took a couple of unsteady steps. “I…I think I will be all right.” To myself and Khalim, she said, “Thank you. You’ve saved my life.”
“Be careful,” Khalim said.
The guards formed a block around her, and took her away toward the Flower of the Mountain at the other side of the market. The day had faded completely, and the first stars emerged from the darkness above.
“She’s a competitor,” Khalim said quietly. “Who would attack her during the festival?”
“I do not know,” I confessed. “He wore a mask to cover his face. Are you well? You spent a lot of your power in the competition.”
He nodded. “I’ll be fine. There wasn’t a drain, like there was in the arena. I just need to rest. We should return to the house.”
“She was lucky you were here,” I said as we made our way to the industrial district. “She might have succumbed to the poison otherwise.”
We passed below a lantern hung from an archway that stretched over the street, and I saw him smile. “Without your quick thinking, I would not have gotten to her in time.”
“It’s lucky we have met,” I said. “We make a good team.” I returned his grin, but mine was short-lived. I thought of Fearghus, my truest companion, fighting by my side—and I thought of him at the rudder as the lind-worm swamped our ship.
We returned to the safe house, where Aysulu and Garvesh’s doors were shut, reassuring me that they had arrived safely as well. Despite my relief that none of us were harmed, and we had succeeded in rescuing Rhea, I slept fitfully that night, and dreamed fearful dreams of the frost-cold sea in the North.
Programming Note: New chapters of Beyond the Frost Cold-Sea will post every Wednesday from now until the week of January 13. New chapters of The Well Below the Valley are on hold until then, and old chapters have been hidden, to avoid spoilers for the games I’m running at Midwinter Gaming Convention. You can click here for more information.
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