Kate Elliott - Cold Fire

Water split beneath my back. My head went under, and then solid earth slammed me to a halt. Choking, drowning, I came up gulping and spitting beside her. We sat chest deep in the slimy muck at the bottom of the well. My sword gleamed faintly; no brown muck adhered to its length. A withered bundle of herbs floated on the surface half wrapped in a satin ribbon: someone’s recent offering. Far above, the opening narrowed to a round eye as if the day stared down on us. The ragged splinters of the glass roof shuddered in a wind we could not feel down here.

A crow peered over, its eyes like twin eddies of black night swallowing all that is light and ease and hope. Satisfied, it took wing, flapping away.

My hand groped for purchase in the sludge. My fingers slid across coins and fixed on a sloped, smooth object. Feeling along its length, I realized it was a bone. With a curse, I let go and tried to slither away, but I could not get my feet under me. Foul matter smeared my clothes and matted in my hair. The odor was like chewing on a hank of moldering cloth.

“Cat,” said Bee in an oddly faint voice, “I feel strange, like the well…is swallowing me.”

Dread cut like knives. I grasped her wrist and pulled, but she was receding as in the current of a river in flood.

Panic ripped through me. I was going to lose her, as I had lost my parents when they had drowned in the Rhenus River. She would be torn out of my grasp and I would never see her again. I fixed my other hand around hers and dragged for all I was worth.

“Help!” I cried, to no one. To anyone. “Help us!”

“Beatrice! Catherine Barahal!” Faces appeared at the mouth of the well, so far above they might as well have been in Rome. With the daylight behind them, it was difficult to make out their features, but I recognized the voices of Lord Marius and Legate Amadou Barry.

The legate shouted. “Is anyone down there? Call if you’re there!”

“We’re here! We’re here!” But they couldn’t hear me.

“You don’t suppose they’ve drowned?” said Lord Marius. “What a stink! I can’t see or hear a cursed thing down there. It might as well be tar.”

“Get the magister. He’ll be able to see if they’re down there.”

“We can’t trust him. His own master told me so. He’ll try to help the girls escape. He’s got the power to do it. You felt the force of that storm. Bold Taranis! If I had a regiment of such mages, I’d never lose a battle.”

“God of Lightning, Marius! Listen to yourself. If the girls die it won’t matter either way, will it? Isn’t there rope? We’ll lower down one of the soldiers to look for them.”

“Cat!” Bee’s voice came as from the other side of a river, calling across a turbulent channel.

Her hand, trembling in mine, turned to sand.

My fingers closed on grains dribbling away.

She was gone.

Gone.

I had lost her.

My thoughts shattered. I could not see or hear or think.

Then I heard Andevai’s voice, shaken and hoarse. “It’s worse than I thought. I feel the wind of the spirit world. This is a crossing place, and it is open. Why haven’t you gone down already? Get me rope! Hurry! Catherine, speak to me.”

“I lost Bee.” My voice was scarcely more than a whimper. It was all the breath I had.

“I hear you, Catherine. I’m coming. Hold on.” His voice changed timbre as he turned his head away. “Cat’s down there, but she’s fading.”

Lord Marius’s voice was sharp. “Is she dying?”

“No. She’s fading into the spirit world. It shouldn’t be possible for humans to pass from this world into the spirit world except at the cross-quarter days.”

“Are these the cold mages’ secrets? That they can move at will between this world and the abode of the ancestors? The ancient poets spoke of spiritwalkers. I never thought it was true.”

“I’m tied in. Lower me down. Catherine, hold on!”

His body appeared as a shadow, covering half the lit circle. I felt, as on my own body, skin parting beneath a slicing edge of glass as he cut himself. Blood’s hot stinging scent drenched me as in a waterfall. Did a cold mage’s blood have more power than that of an ordinary person? On the threshold between this world and the other side, the force of his blood swelled and surged like the ocean tide, for it was the essence of life in the undiluted form of salt and iron. I suddenly understood why I had not crossed. My blood had opened the path, but the stinking spew of muck we’d fallen into had coated my skin, sealing away my blood.

A rope’s end spun down before my face. It bobbed, bounced, swayed. Clumps of dirt peppered the muck around me like grapeshot, loosened from the slime-dried stone shaft.

“Catherine! I’m almost down. Hang on.”

“I have to follow Bee. I can’t lose her, too.”

I scoured away the mud above my eye. Pain burned where my fingers gouged out the clogged wound. Liquid pushed, trickled, and then streamed down my face.

His voice rang closer now, almost on me. Astonished. “You’re all light!”

A rich fat drop of my blood struck the slime in which I floundered.

“I’m here! Grab my hand, Catherine.”

His fingers brushed my hair, but his touch was as insubstantial as mist.

His next words came as from the far side of the world. “The gate’s closing. I can’t grasp you. And I can’t cross. Catherine, I will find a way. I promise you, I’ll find you-”

I fell through.

Into a river whose rushing waters tumbled me over and dragged me under. Skirts tangling in my legs, I pulled upward but my hands could not break the flashing surface. I sank into my past.

I am six years old and the water closes over my nose and mouth as my mother’s strong hand slips from mine. The furious current wrenches her away.

My lungs were empty. I was drowning. The current dragged me toward a shadow that resolved into a vast maw rimmed with razor teeth. The spirit world was going to devour me.

Fingers with a grip like death fastened around my wrist. I thrashed.

“Cat! Don’t fight me!”

Bee’s voice! I went limp as she pulled. Then my mouth was above the water. I retched as air hit my lungs. The current tried to drag me back down. In panic I lunged upward through the shallows, shoving aside the body that was in my way and scrambling until solid ground met me. I collapsed, face pressed against a hot skin of stones.

“There’s thanks for you!” Bee sprawled on the rocky shore, water purling around her.

I heaved up a spew of sour-salty water. My whole body spasmed. “I thought…I was going to…lose you…just like my papa and mama…” I coughed out frantic sobs.

“There, now, Cat. There, now.” The warmth of her hand on my back soothed me.

Heat baked down on my hatless head. Wind murmured in leaves. Insects buzzed. A tremulous peace calmed my galloping heart. I hadn’t lost her. I hadn’t lost her. I hadn’t lost her.

I rose. We had floundered to shore on a rocky island trimmed with a sandbar. The sleepy horizon smelled of the sea. A wide, estuarine river flowed past, alive with a flashing presence. A feminine face with skin the blue-green of turquoise breached the surface. Eyes like stones tracked us. A slick shoulder streaked with long hair the color of twilight rolled away beneath the water.

Across the river stood tall trees leafed in summer glory. Far away, a winged creature perched on the blasted tip of a fire-scorched pine. On the far bank sat four wolves looking death in our direction. I was absolutely sure that they looked hungry and we looked delicious.

Bee tugged on my elbow. “Do you think they can swim across?”

“I wouldn’t like to stay and find out.”

The brushy sandbar on which we stood was separated from the other bank by a stagnant, muddy channel. Downstream, where the back channel met the river, the water was covered with algae. A foul substance stirred beneath that green surface in the same way heating water shrugs just before it boils.