Darkness Descending

No spell came. But King Swemmel’s men didn’t break into Aspang, either. Some prices were higher than flesh and blood could bear. Just outside the edge of town, the Unkerlanters broke and fled back across the snowy fields, leaving even more dead behind. Major Spinello did not order a pursuit. Trasone nodded somber approval. The major might be raw, but he wasn’t stupid.

Fourteen

Fernao had seen the land of the Ice People in summer, when the sun shone in the sky nearly the whole day through and the weather, sometimes, got warmer than cool. The Lagoan mage had seen it in fall, which put him in mind of a hard winter in Setubal. Now he was seeing it in winter. He’d expected it would be appalling. He was finding out he hadn’t known what appalling meant.

Outside the tent he shared with a second-rank mage named Affonso, the wind howled like a live thing, a malevolent wild thing. The tent fabric was waterproofed and windproofed, but the gale sucked heat out of the tent in spite of the brazier by which the two sorcerers huddled.

“I won’t believe it,” Affonso said. “Nobody could want to live in this miserable country the whole year round.”

“It’s no accident the Ice People are hairy all over, men and women both,” Fernao answered. “And they like the austral continent fine. They think we’re the crazy ones for wanting to live anywhere else.”

“They’re mad, every cursed one of them.” Affonso picked up another chunk of dried camel dung--the most common fuel hereabouts--and put it on the brazier. Then he wiped his hands on his kilt. Under the kilt, he wore thick wooden leggings that came up far enough to meet his thick woolen drawers coming down. He might as well have had on trousers, but no kingdom of Algarvic stock took kindly to those Kaunian-style garments.

“No doubt, but they do live here, and we’re having a miserable time managing that for ourselves,” Fernao said.

The camel dung hissed and popped as it burned, and shed only a sullen red light. Across the brazier from Fernao, his colleague might have been a polished bronze statue, tall and skinny. Affonso had the long face typical of Lagoans, Sibians, and Algarvians, but a wide, flat nose told of Kuusamans somewhere down toward the roots of his family tree. In the same way, Fernao himself had narrow eyes set on a slant.

Only a minority of Lagoans thought such things worth fussing about. They were a mixed lot and knew it. Some few of his countrymen took pride in pure Algarvic blood, but Fernao thought they were fooling themselves.

Even with the brazier, Affonso’s breath smoked inside the tent. He must have seen it, too, for he said, “When I went out last night to make water, the wind had died down. It was so calm and quiet, I could hear my breath freeze around me every time I let it out.”

“I’ve never heard that, but I’ve heard of it.” Fernao didn’t know if the convulsive movement of his shoulders was shiver or shudder or something of both. “The Ice People call it ‘the whisper of stars.’ “

“They would have a name for it,” Affonso said darkly. He moved away from the brazier, but only to wrap himself in blankets and furs. “How far away from Mizpah are we?”

“A couple of days, unless we have another blizzard,” Fernao told him. “I’ve seen Mizpah, you know. If you had, too, you wouldn’t be so cursed eager to get there, believe you me you wouldn’t.”

Only a snore answered him. Affonso had a knack for falling asleep at once. That wasn’t a trick the Guild of Mages had ever investigated, or Fernao, himself a first-rank mage, would have known how to do it. He swaddled himself, too, and eventually dropped off.

He woke in darkness. The brazier had gone out. He fed it more camel dung and got the fire going with flint and steel. Most places, sorcery would have been easier. On the austral continent, sorcery imported from Derlavai or Lagoas or Kuusamo failed more often than it worked. The rules were different here, and few not born to them ever learned them.

Affonso also woke quickly and completely, something else for which Fernao envied him. “Another day’s slog,” he said.

“Aye,” Fernao agreed in a hollow voice. He got up and wrapped a heavy hooded cloak over his tunic. “If we march hard enough, I’ll almost be able to imagine I’m warm. Almost.”

“That’s a powerful imagination you have,” Affonso remarked.

“Comes with my rank,” Fernao said, and snorted to show he didn’t intend to be taken seriously. After the snort, he had to inhale. Burning camel dung wasn’t the only stink in the tent. “If I had a really powerful imagination, I could imagine myself bathing. Of course, then I’d have to imagine myself freezing to death the next instant.”

“They say the Ice People never, ever bathe,” Affonso said.