Cold Magic

Were the spirit wolves still following us? The mansa would not give up the hunt so easily. He wanted Bee, and a man like that did not just relinquish the things he wanted.



Andevai was not sitting here to command me not to open the other shutter. Now that I had escaped from the house and the wall of magic that enclosed their estate, I felt a surge of satisfaction in realizing that I need not listen to Andevai’s arrogant, condescending words ever again. That was a triumph worth celebrating!



I laughed once, and then I wiped away tears. After that, I closed the shutter and, with sword raised protectively, cracked the shutter of the window that looked out onto the spirit world, bracing for a blast of wintry wind. The breath of wind that brushed my face seemed balmy by comparison to what had come before. I peeled back the shutter.



We drove through an autumnal countryside. Amid the dark spruce, especially in lower sinks, rose downy birch, alder, rowan, and a few doughty ash trees, their leaves burnished gold. Wind spun falling leaves. Deep in the trees, a herd of hairy beasts ambled on their way, hard to discern in the shadows. Had we traveled this way a month ago, this is the landscape I would have expected to see. A herd of red deer grazing in a clearing opening out beside the track lifted their heads. At first I thought they were looking at the carriage, but their interest was caught by something behind us. First one and then four and then the rest bolted away. I leaned out to see the pack of wolves loping in the distance. It seemed they were slowing down, veering off.



A beast stalked out from the trees, a huge saber-toothed cat, its coat the gray-black of the underside of a storm cloud. A second and third emerged behind it, colored in the manner of tundra cats that must blend with snow and rock. Rippling with power, they bounded out of my sight. I sat back hard, barely breathing. My heart galloped out of rhythm to the steady drumbeats of the horses’ hooves.



“Where will we go? Can we outpace wolves and cats?” I shouted out the window, into the spirit world. “Who are you? Who am I?”



I heard only the eru’s laughter in answer.



Yet it seemed not mocking laughter but the laughter of those sympathetic to you, who see amusement in the prospect of you working out on your own that which has bewildered you. No doubt I had laughed that way myself, waiting for Bee to make a connection that appeared entirely obvious to me. So she often laughed at me, a laugh full of kinship, not scorn.



I sat for a while, watching the spirit world, with its gray-white sky and absent sun, everything so sharply drawn that my eyes stung to look on it. I shut them for a time. Maybe I dozed as the urgency of the chase drained away.



Then I started awake, recalling everything that had happened. When I leaned out the window to look behind, I saw no sign of wolves or cats. The terrible fear and tension eased. I sheathed the sword and sat back against the upholstered seat with a sigh.



The sound rose out of the earth like mist and filtered down from the sky like rain. A horn’s call, one might call it, if one had no other word to use, as much a long chuckling laugh as the tarantata of a trumpet’s rallying shrill, as much the eerie moan of a conch shell as a drawn-out cry of despair. I had never heard anything remotely similar, not in all my too-brief life.



The call licked the air like fire and breathed all the way down into my bones. I knew I had to run. Run. Run.



The carriage slowed, scraped, and jolted to a halt. The eru leaped down, face creased in a solemn frown. Her third eye did not frighten me, for she only looked at me with two eyes. The third looked elsewhere, sidelong, as at a sight I could never see and would not wish to glimpse.



“My apologies, Cousin. We cannot convey you as far as we would wish.”



“Is that the mansa’s command, calling you home?”



The eru’s laugh made me shudder. “Is that what you think it is?”



I tried again. “You are a servant of Four Moons House, being called home.”



“We are not servants of Four Moons House. Although you will find a pair of us in each of the mage Houses. They believe or choose to believe we are their servants, but we are not their servants. Rather we are watchers in the service of a greater power that at all times keeps a tiny whisper of its attention for those among the human lineage who may become too powerful.”



The horn call blared a second time, gaining strength.



I clutched the lip of the window until my knuckles whitened. “You’ll abandon me here!”



“Alas, our masters call. We must obey the summons.” Her expression was difficult for me to read, composed with some portion of humanly compassion and yet a greater measure of something like disdain that was perhaps merely a degree of aloofness to the petty travails of a mortal creature like myself. Or else she was angry. Impossible to say. “As for you, you must depart into the mortal world, for it is not safe for you in the spirit world without a guide. Especially not this night, when the hunt rides. You must find the cunning and the strength to make your way on your own in the world you know. One thing: The cold mages cannot pursue you on Hallows Night and Hallows Day. They dare not walk abroad when the hunt rides. Yet this night of all nights is an ill time for every mortal creature. Find shelter when the sun goes down, and depart at dawn to gain what head start you can.”