A Sword from Red Ice

Argola moved with him. "Stop," he said, his voice flat yet somehow compelling. "If you will not speak hear me out."

Raif halted by the door; the farthest point from the dragon-and-pear screen. Argola understood him and edged close, and for the first time it occurred to Raif that the outlander appeared whole. No obvious abnormalities or cuttings marked his flesh. What was his place here? Maimed Men would not tolerate an undamaged man or woman in their realm. The outlander did not hunt and was not well liked. Raif supposed he had his uses. He had tricks; the revealing of the suspension bridge across the Rift, the raising of mist during a raid.

The speck of blood in Thomas Argola's eyes floated toward his iris as he said quietly, "Underlying the middle wound there is some discoloring and a small pocket of inflammation. I thought it would be soft, but when I touched it I found it hard. I'm assuming something raked you with its claws—it's what it looks like—and I'm also assum-ing that the creature who did it was unmade." A pause while Raif nodded. "I believe you were lucky and unlucky. Lucky that it was maer dan, shadowflesh, not voided steel that punctured you. Unlucky in that a small piece of claw broke off in your flesh."

"Cut it out," Raif said.

Thomas Aigola was already shaking his head. "It's embedded in the muscle. Cut it out and you will loose function in your arm and shoulder. It must be drawn, not cut"

Raif did not understand why the outlander was playing games with him. "Then draw it out"

"That skill is beyond me."

More games. "You tend Traggis Mole."

"And I can do nothing for him. He dies."

Raif punched the meat of his hand against the door. Left shoulder. Left arm. Two hundred pounds of pull in a fully drawn longbow and the left shoulder and arm must brace against it. "Why do you manipulate me?"

"You know why."

Raifs gaze met the outlander's. At least he did not bother to lie. "Who are you?"

"Thomas Bireon Argola, from a city you've never heard of called Hanatta. I lay small claim to the old skills and have some experience as a healer. I came north three years ago with my sister, for reasons that are not yours to know. And I do not lie about the drawing of the maer dan. It is an art practiced by races older than mine and the Sull." "Are you whole?

"Do not make me show you all the ways that I am not." Raifs anger collapsed. Suddenly he felt tired and out of his depth. His shoulder seemed to ache more now than it did before Argola's pronouncement, and he remembered that he had hurt his ankle. And now it hurt.

Argola looked tired too, the corners of his mouth were turned down, the lips pale. Raif wondered if his thoughts were similar to his own: It would be good to have some peace.

"Can I live with the maer dan inside me?"

"You do," Argola said, almost gently. Then, in a stronger voice, "It is situated in the muscle above the back of your heart. If it moves inward there is no bone to stop it." Oh gods.

"The closest Sull settlement is due east of here, in the great taiga where the Deadwoods meet the Sway."

Here it was, the manipulation. Raif felt it in the hollow center of his bones. It was a funny thing, manipulation; even when you knew someone was doing it and they admitted to doing it, it could still work. It is a hard journey north, he had said last time. Now east. "Have you heard of the Lake of Red Ice?" "I have."

"Do you know where it is?" "All I know I have said."

Raif looked at the blood in Argola's right eye and imagined how it had got there. "Look for me," he commanded.

The outlander's face registered surprise, and then—Raif would remember for the rest of his life—satisfaction.

"If you are to watch you must be prepared when they come." Raif thought about all these words revealed. Argola knew about the sword. Knew also about the name he had taken for his own. Mor Drakka. Watcher of the Dead. How did he learn these things? What did he know that Raif did not?

Thomas Argola's small, sharp-featured face gave nothing away. His plain brown robes reminded Raif of what the monks in the Mountain Cities wore to demonstrate they had no interest in worldly things.

"Did they tell you the name of the sword?"

It was as if the outlander had a stick and kept poking him harder and harder to see what he might do. Raif s back was against the door; he could not be driven any farther. "No they did not."

Argola received the warning, seemed pleased by it Again there was that lip stretch of satisfaction. "The sword that lies beneath the Red Ice is named Loss."

Loss.

"There are some things in the Blind that will not fall by any other blade."

It was too much. Raif punched back the door bolt and let himself out. He did not look back or close the door.

Sunlight streamed against his face and he could barely make sense of it. Bouncing off the snow on the ground, it came at him from every direction. Bright, razoring light. It should have dispelled the dark seizures in his brain, yet it just seemed to feed them.

Loss.