Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

Banking, Magister Imaniel said, wasn’t about gold and silver. It was about who knew something no one else did, about who could be trusted and who not, about seeming one thing and being another. With the questions she asked herself, she could conjure him and Cam and Besel. She could see their faces again, hear their laughter, and sink into another time and place. One where she was loved. Or no, not truly. But at least where she belonged.

Even as the night around her grew colder, the knot in her belly loosened. Her tight-curled body grew softer and more at ease. She fed larger sticks into the fire, watching the flames first dim under the weight of the wood, and then brighten as it caught. The heat touched her face and hands, and the wool wrapped around her kept the worst of the night at bay.

What would happen, she wondered, if a bank offered a greater loan to those who’d repaid an old one before the set time? The borrowers would gain more gold by the arrangement, and the bank would see its profits more quickly. And yet, Magister Imaniel said in her mind, if everyone benefits, you’ve overlooked something. There was some consequence that she was missing…

“Cithrin.”

She looked up. Sandr, half crouched, scuttled from the shadows between the carts. One of the mules lifted his head, snorted a great plume of white breath, and went back to his rest. As Sandr sat, she heard an odd clanking of metal and the telltale sloshing of wine in a skin.

“You didn’t,” she said, and Sandr grinned.

“Master Kit won’t mind. He stocked up again as soon as we reached Bellin, getting ready for the winter. Only now he’s got to haul it through the back end of the world. We’ll be doing him a favor, lightening the load.”

“You are going to get in so much trouble,” she said.

“Never happen.”

He opened the skin with a gloved hand and held it out to her. The smell of the fumes warmed her almost before the wine. Rich and strong and soft, it washed her mouth and tongue, flowed down her throat. The warmth of it lit her like she’d swallowed a candle. There was no sweetness to it, but something deeper.

“ God, ” she said.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Sandr said.

She grinned and took another long drink. Then another. The warmth spread into her belly and started pressing out toward her arms and legs. Reluctantly, she passed it back.

“That’s not all,” he said. “I’ve got something for you.”

He pulled a canvas bag out from beneath his cloak. The cloth reeked of dust and rot, and something in it shifted and clanked as he put it on the snow. His eyes sparkled in the moonlight.

“They were in the back storeroom. And a bunch of other things. Smit found them really, but I thought of you and I traded him.”

Sandr pulled out a cracked leather boot laced with string. A complication of rusted metal clung to the sole, dark and dingy except for a knifelike blade running the length that shone bright and new-sharpened.

“Ever skated?” Sandr asked.

Cithrin shook her head. Sandr pulled two pairs of boots out of the sack, the ancient leather grey in the dim light. She took another long drink of the wine.

“They’re too big,” he said, “but I put some sand inside. Sand’s good because it shifts to fit the shape of your foot. Cloth just bunches up. Here, try them.”

I don’t want to, Cithrin thought, but Sandr had her foot in his hand, stripping off her boot, and he was so pleased with himself. The skate was cold and the bent leather bit into the top of her foot, but Sandr pulled the string laces tight and started on her other foot.

“I learned how in Asterilhold,” Sandr said. “Two… no, God, three years ago. I’d just joined the troop and Master Kit had us in Kaltfel for the winter. So cold your spit froze before it hit the ground, and the nights went on forever. But there’s a lake in the middle of the city, and the whole time we were there, you could cross it anywhere. There’s a winter city they build on the ice every year. Houses and taverns and all. Like a real town.”

“Really?” she said.

“It was brilliant. There. I think that’s done it. Let me get mine on.”

She took another mouthful of the fortified wine, and it pressed its heat out toward her fingers and toes. Somehow, they’d already gone through half the skin. She felt it in her cheeks. And the fumes made her head feel muzzy and bright. Sandr struggled and grunted, the knife-shoe of the skates creaking and rattling. It seemed impossible that anything so awkward would actually work until he had the last strap in place, half walked and half wobbled to the pond, and then pressed himself out onto the ice. Between one breath and the next, he became grace made flesh. His legs scissored and shifted, the blades hissing as they scored the ice. His body shifted and swooped as he slid across the pond and then back, his arms graceful as a dancer’s.

“They’re not bad,” he called. “Come on. You try.”

Another drink of wine, and then one more for luck, and Cithrin maneuvered herself out. Cold air bit at her, but only with dull teeth. Her ankles shifted as she fought to make sense of this new way of balancing. She tried to push off the way Sandr did, and fell hard on the ice. Sandr laughed his delight.

“It’s hard the first time,” he said, hissing to her side. “Give me your hand. I’ll show you.”

Within minutes, her knees were bent, her arms widespread, and her feet chopping at the ice. But she didn’t fall.

“Don’t try to walk,” Sandr said. “Push with one foot, glide on the other.”

“Easy for you,” she said. “You know what you’re doing.”

“This time. I was worse than you when I started.”

“Flatterer.”

“Maybe you’re worth flattering. No, like that. That’s it. That’s it!”

Cithin’s body caught the trick, and she found herself gliding. Not quite as gracefully and certainly as Sandr, but closer. The ice sped under her, white and grey and black in the moonlight. The night tasted like the fortified wine and moved like a river flowing around her. Sandr whooped and took her hand, and together they raced the length of the mill pond, the grooves of their skates tracing white lines in the dim.

From the banks, one of the mules commented with a grunt and flick of his haunch. The wind of Cithin’s passage whuffled in her ears. She felt herself grinning and spinning. The knot in her belly was a memory, a dream, a thing that happened to another person. She fell twice more, but it only seemed funny. The ice was cloud and sky, and she had learned how to fly. It creaked and groaned under her weight, and Sandr clapped his hands as she made an elaborate and awkward curtsey in the center of the pond.

“Race me,” he shouted. “There and back.”

Like an arrow from a bow, Sandr sped for the far bank, and Cithrin followed him. Her legs ached, and her heart beat like a boulder rolling down a hill, her numb face made itself a mask. Sandr reached the edge of the ice, pushed off from the snow, and sped past her, going back toward her cart. Cithrin turned too, pushing faster, harder. In the middle of the pond, the ice darkened and complained, but then she was over it, almost at Sandr’s back, skating beside him, past him. Almost past him.

Her skate slammed into the snow and the dead, winter-killed reeds. The moon-blued ground rose up and hit her so hard she couldn’t breathe. Sandr lay beside her, his eyes wide, his cheeks as red as if she’d pinched them. The look of surprise and concern on his face was so comic that, when she could, Cithrin started laughing.

Sandr’s laughter twinned with hers, and he threw a handful of snow in the air, the flakes drifting down around them like dandelion fluff. And then he rolled to her, resting his weight against her side. His lips were on hers.