Cold Fire

  Combustion died. The creature sagged on a final stuttering tock tunk tick.

  My heart lurched as if under a pounding of fierce hail, and my gaze hazed as a pulse not my own roared in my ears: “Catherine! ”

  I was hallucinating Andevai’s voice. I sheathed my sword, grabbed both bags, and ran blindly after the others. My head was reeling and I am sure I could not have told anyone my name or indeed anything except that I was not giving up the bags, not even to death.

  “Cat! This way!”

  I followed Bee’s voice past a series of curtains whose fabric slithered like woven metal. As the last one slipped down my back, my leading boot stubbed a step.

  “Now we owe you a debt for saving us,” said a goblin, hidden behind the last baffle. “Your price is paid.” I could not tell if it was grateful or disappointed.

  “I’ll take them up from here,” said the headmaster’s assistant. “You’d best scatter before your lords come looking for the trouble we’ve caused.”

  I heard the rustle of the baffles as the goblins slipped back into their underworld so quickly I didn’t have a chance to thank them or ask them a question or even to think. Startled by the sound of footfalls, I set down the bags and drew my sword. A young man with a long black braid dangling over his shoulder like a rope took the bags from beside me. After a moment, I realized it was Rory, and there was light enough for me to see. They were already climbing. I followed.

  Up! The steps went on forever. My air came in bursts. Did I hear ticking? What if there were other creatures stalking after us? What was that thing?

  The headmaster’s assistant glanced back.

  “Your sword is glowing,” he said in a low voice.

  The light came from my blade. Its harsh glow revealed him clearly. He hadn’t the creamy-white complexion of the northern Celts, although he was very pale. He had broad Avar cheekbones and the epicanthic fold at the eyes commonly seen among people who lived in the vast lands east of the Pale. It was his white hair that was most startling. It had been cut in an awkward approximation of the short local Celtic style, swept back over his ears. His fashionable indigo dash jacket was too strong a hue for him. The backs of his bare hands bore tattoos, like faded blue ink, of a curling design that might have been vines, or serpents. It reminded me of the old Roman saying: Beware the serpent in the east.

  “Bee does stink of dragons,” said Rory, pausing on the steps, “and so does he. It wasn’t a good idea to come with him.”

  “I do not stink,” said Bee, “and you will apologize at once to Maester Napata. It’s very rude to tell people they stink.”

  “Even if they do?”

  “He’s sorry for being rude, and I’m sorry he was rude to you,” she said as she halted two steps below the headmaster’s assistant. He had the expression of a man used to hearing people whispering about his looks, and not in the way Andevai was likely accustomed to admiring sidelong glances directed his way.

  “If you are sorry, that is enough.” Having made this bold statement, he hastened up the stairs as if his own courage were about to bite him.

  “Really, this isn’t the time for you two to fight so childishly,” I said as I climbed past them. Rory looked offended and Bee surprisingly chastened. “Maester Napata, what was that thing? What kind of agreement do you have with these goblins? How do you know about these tunnels?”

  “I am not the one who can answer your questions,” he said. “The men in the clockmaker’s shop will not have much trouble tracing us if they wish to alert the militia. Hurry.”

  We climbed with