David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

They neared an intersection; not a simple Y this time but a joining of five tunnels. The plaza in the middle had high, flat walls, one for each tunnel. Chalcus held up his left hand.

"We take the second one to the right," Ilna said.

"And so we shall, dearest," Chalcus replied, his dagger now out as well as the sword. "But first I-"

Chalcus swung into the intersection, his sword and the dagger slashing in opposite directions. He landed flat-footed in the center of the space, his head twitching to either side while his body poised to react to a threat from any direction.

He relaxed, not that anybody but Ilna would've recognized the difference. "Only us, dearest," Chalcus said, his eyes continuing to search the four tunnels besides the one she was in. "We can go on, I'm thinking… and I'm thinking that the less time we spend in one place, the better off we are."

"Yes," said Ilna. She grimaced. "Chalcus, let me go ahead."

"I-" he said, protest in his voice but without turning to face her.

"There's as much risk from behind as there is ahead," she said sharply. "I… I'm remembering things that I've never seen, Master Chalcus. I'm afraid that if I'm in the rear, I'll get lost in what never happened. And I'll miss what's creeping up on us."

She paused. I can tell him the truth, she thought; and, with a fierce anger blurted, "Chalcus, I hate this! I'm going mad, and I can't trust my own mind!"

He gestured her ahead of him with his empty left hand. "I much misdoubt that you're going mad, dear one," he said with a grin that only a fool would think amusing. "I think instead that there's someone very clever in this place who is not our friend; and the quicker we've slit that someone's throat, the better. Not so?"

"So," agreed Ilna striding across the intersection and proceeding up a corridor glowing the same deep red as a demon's eyes. In her memory the roots of a Tree grew through the ice, sucking nourishment out of the world itself. The root that formed this tunnel still filled it, though not in a fashion that the eyes of her body could see.

She strode on. The Tree's bark was as smooth as human skin, and its branches waved like serpents, writhed like the tentacles of the great ammonites, the Old Ones of the Deep. There was no evil in the cosmos that a tendril of the Tree's roots did not touch…

Ilna came to another intersection and stepped through it without pausing. She no longer feared things that might wait in ambush. Nothing could surprise her in her present state. She smiled; the curve of her lips was as hard and cold as the ice itself.

She'd known the Tree in Hell-a year ago or a lifetime, depending on how you counted time. In exchange for Ilna's soul, the Tree had taught her to weave as only Gods and demons could, and she'd used her new skill to the Tree's ends.

There'd been no more effective minion of evil than Ilna os-Kenset-till Garric had freed her. Neither Garric nor anything else could free Ilna from the memory of what she had done in those months when she fed the Tree's tendrils.

Ilna reached another intersection. She was barely conscious of it. The floor here bore footprints crossing left to right. They looked human, but whatever had made them was so heavy that its feet had sunk into the ice, stressing it white in blotches around each print.

Ilna walked on. A figure ahead sauntered toward them.

"Chalcus," she said, "there's an enemy coming, a girl."

"I see her," Chalcus said appraisingly. "I couldn't have told her for a girl, though, at this distance."

"Her name is Monine," said Ilna. It no longer bothered her that she remembered what she hadn't seen. "She's a wizard and very dangerous."

"Danger?" said Chalcus. He laughed. "In this place, what else would we find?"

His sword cut a tight figure-8, making the cold air whistle.

"I'll lead, shall I, dear one?" he said, stepping past Ilna with the sword slanted out to his side. Its point quivered like the nose of a hound straining as it waits for its leash to be slipped.

"Chalcus, be careful," Ilna said. "She's not what she seems."

"Ah," Chalcus said, his low voice as eager as his blade. "But Iam what I seem, dear heart."

They neared the sexless figure walking down the center of the tunnel. Monine's lips curved in a bloodless smile. Her knife echoed the curve, and there was blood enough for any number of smiles on its blade.

"So, Mistress Monine," Chalcus called. "Have you business with us? If not, then my friend and I are willing to pass by and forget we've met."

"I have the business of killing you," said Monine. She laughed, a high, glittering sound like jade wind chimes. "But I've always found killing more pleasure than business, and it will be a particular pleasure this time."

"Chalcus, the cloth of her tabard!" Ilna said. No eye but hers could've traced the pattern woven in brilliant colors, but even Ilna was helpless against it. The fabric was a net, catching eyes -even Ilna's-and snatching them away from their intent as surely as a fisherman draws his catch from the sea. "You won't be able to see her! She won't-"

Chalcus slashed, a blow as quick and smooth as the play of light on a dew drop. His sword touched nothing. Monine's knife came up arrow-swift; swifter yet, Chalcus' dagger blocked the stroke with the ring of steel on steel.

He hopped back, his mouth open and his breath a cloud before him in the still, cold air. He lunged, his sword a curved extension of his right arm. His steel punctured emptiness, and again Monine stabbed for his heart. Her blade sang on the slim dagger, locking it guard to guard. Sparks showered and Chalcus jumped back again.

Ilna held her cords ready but she didn't knot a pattern because it'd be useless-the tabard would trap her art as surely as it trapped her eyes and the eyes of as good a swordsman as had ever been born. Instead she backed, giving Chalcus space to retreat-as he did again when his sword flicked and missed, and the bloody knife sought him.

Chalcus had shown himself able to anticipate the knife even if his eyes couldn't find the wielder; perhaps he and Ilna could back all the way to where they entered this maze. But if they were going to retreat to where they entered, then they might as well have stayed with the Rua or better still in their own world. In this place, there was more than a likelihood of something coming from the other direction to find them if they didn't move ahead quickly.

Chalcus struck-low this time, aiming at the sexless wizard's feet but glancing along the stone-hard ice. Stab/clashas sacrificial knife met dagger, but this time the edge stopped close enough to mark Chalcus' tunic with a line of blood from some other victim's lungs. He jumped back flat-footed, so Monine's second stroke cut the air instead of severing his ribs at mid-chest.

The slender wizard seemed tireless. Her smile never faltered, her steps and slashes were as steady as the beat of a millstone driven by the stream's relentless force. If Chalcus laughed and closed his eyes. He stepped forward, his curved sword singing in a short arc.

Monine screamed and collapsed. Ilna thought the sound continued to echo long after the wizard's severed head had spun and danced to a halt far down the tunnel of ice. Blood spouted, then dribbled from the neck stump. As it soaked into Monine's rumpled tabard, her corpse took on clearer lines against the floor.

Chalcus toed the knife out of the wizard's hand. "I've seen sickles that'd be less clumsy in a knife fight," he mused aloud, "and the blade's heavy enough for a trireme's ram. But for all that it nearly did for me, did it not?"

"There's nearly," said Ilna in a terse voice, "and there's what she is. Dead. Nearly will do."

Chalcus jerked a sleeve off Monine's tunic and wiped his blade clean of her blood. "She could fool my eyes," he said in the soft lilt that he'd have used to describe Ilna's hair or the curve of her neck. "But not my hand, I thought; and I was right."