Or so far they would never reach it in a million years.
Lightning lit up the sky to the east as Raif Sevrance looked down upon the Red Ice. Hills rose steeply from the lake, denying it shoreline on all sides. It was roughly circular and perhaps a league across, and he could not tell exactly where it ended in the north and the wall of mist began. Its surface was covered in a fine crystalline powder of snow, but you could still see the true color of the ice. It was as the lamb brothers had said: a lake of frozen blood.
Seeing it Raif understood Addie Gunn's impulse to name the old gods. The cragsman had broken no oath and perhaps he had a claim to that comfort. Raif knew he had no such claim himself.
Pushing aside his face mask, he set off down the slope. The woods were not as dense on this side of the talley and it was easy to make a path. The groundsnow was lighter, crisper. If you looked directly overhead you could view the night's first stars. They seemed familiar, but Raif was on guard against the Want and no longer wholly believed what he saw. Flawless had told him that Bluddsmen rode right past this valley and did not see it. He had been doubtful of that claim. Now he was not.
The nearer he drew to the ice the deeper its color became. Light was foiling strangely, staying close to the ground as it drained. Around him he was aware of the storm waging a war upon the north, but here in its eye all was calm.
"Night falls and the shadows gather, and to watch you must grow accustomed to the dark. Bide where I stand, Raif Twelve Kill—alone and armed in the darkness—and ask yourself is this a prize worth winning, or a hole without end that will suck away your life?"
Traggis Mole's words seemed to steal out of the mist, snaking toward him like the Want. They contained truth without hope. The sword's name promised more of the same. Loss.
Raif steeled himself against the bleakness of his thoughts. He had come this far. Ahead, somewhere in that dark expanse of Red Ice, lay the chance to fulfill his oath to Traggis Mole. And arm himself against the Endlords.
Grow wide shoulders, Clansman. You'll need them for all of your burdens.
About a hundred feet above the ice he stopped and pulled off his pack. Addie was closing distance through the cedars and Raif waited for him. The air was well below freezing here and his breath crackled into clouds. How long had this lake been frozen? How many thousands of years?
When the cragsman reached him, he said, "You have been a good friend to me, Addie Gunn."
Addie knew all that this meant. As he went to stand by Raif's pack there was sadness in his eyes, but no surprise. "Think I'll try some of that tea. Good luck to you, lad."
Their gazes locked. You seconded my oath, Raif wanted to tell him. Like Drey. He remained silent though, and left the cragsman alone on the hill as he headed down to the Red Ice.
All trees stopped thirty feet above the lake and nothing grew on the bare rock, Raif was careful as he descended. Things were happening to his body. Old wounds and new wounds were stretching his skin tight like nails hammered into a canvas. His fingertips were tingling.
He realized the ice was groaning when he neared the shore. When he had first heard the sound he had mistaken it for thunder. Now he could tell it was the low moan of a substance under pressure. Cautiously he slid down the rocks toward it.
The instant he slid his toe upon the Red Ice, the leech dropped from his back. Its slimy, rubbery body landed with a squelch on the surface of the lake. It was the same color as the ice.
Oh gods. Raif moved past it and took his first steps upon the lake. Ice whitened in starbursts where it took his weight. He looked down and could see nothing beyond the iron-dark surface. Stilling himself, he waited for lightning to strike close by. When three bolts hit in quick succession over the eastern hills, he used the flashes of brightness to search the lake's depths. The ice was opaque, blacky red and partly frosted. Nothing could be seen beneath the surface. Raif let his gaze circle the lake. He reckoned it would take him a quarter hour to cross from one side to the other.
And there was no telling how deep the ice ran. He would never find the sword unless he knew exactly where it lay.
Although he didn't much want to, he forced himself to consider the vast dam of mist. If he walked toward it at what point would the Want grab him and not let go? He had entered the Want before and the one thing he knew for certain was that you were never aware when you passed the point of no return. It was like death that way. That same short but untrackable distance.
Feeling the soft give of pain in his shoulder, Raif set out cross the Red Ice. He scanned west and then east and wondered if it might be as simple as locating the lake's exact center. Four worlds meeting in the middle. It wasn't a bad idea, but instinct told him it wasn't right. The Want was in play here. Even if half the lake lay in Bludd territory and the other half in Sull lands there would still be something else.
What was he missing? What was the fourth world?
The moon rose in the clearing above the valley, a lean sickle of silver surrounded by a blue corona. It had grown too dark to make out the details of the clouds, and it was strange to see the stars restricted to the space above his head. Lightning and the distant rumble of thunder were his only indications that the storm was still playing itself out across the northern forests.
Raif went over everything anyone had ever told him about the sword named Loss and the Red Ice. There wasn't much. Sadaluk of the Ice Trappers had been the first one to mention Loss, though not by name. Did you really think this will be the sword that makes you? Those had been his words as he'd handed Raif the Forsworn blade. He had not mentioned where this better, second sword might be found. Tallal of the lamb brothers had known about the sword also. The Red Ice was sacred to them: a flooded battlefield where thousands of their dead lay frozen.
Raif shivered. Squatting, he placed his gloved hands upon the ice and scrubbed away at the surface. He thought perhaps that if he generated enough friction it might melt the top layer of ice and help to clear it The lake was too cold though and as he scratched its surface it refroze in pale streaks. What had kept it frozen for so long? Even this far north there were summers. Maygi hide it, that was what Flawless had claimed. Perhaps he was right and some ancient sorcery held it in place.
Or perhaps it had something to do with the Want. For there it was, curling out its mist limbs toward him, beckoning him back.
Step too far and I am lost Step back and I will never fulfill my oath.
Maybe he could just stay here, squatting on the ice.
Lighting bolted across the sky in a thick, muscular fork. Raif stood. As his legs took his weight he experienced a brief instant of disorientation. Not dizziness, he told himself quickly. Just the normal thing that happens when you rise quickly to your feet.
He could no longer feel the fingers on his left hand.
Ignoring them, he forced his mind elsewhere. What held the Want in place, he wondered. Why didn't the wall of mist just come tumbling across the lake? One thing he had always assumed about the shifting uncertainty that topped the continent was that it was unbounded, able to stretch and shrink at will. Yet it only stretched partway across the Red Ice. Why?
The tone of his footsteps changed as he neared the center of the lake. There was a hollowness to them now. They rang. On impulse he drove the heel of his boot deep into the ice. It was like kicking a wall.
"To break it you must stand in all four worlds at once." Argola s words sounded like a taunt Clanholds. Sull. Want. What else? Raif Sevrance's heart failed a beat. He perceived it as a moment of prolonged suction, a hardness, followed by softness, followed by the release of another beat. He carried on walking… because there was nothing else to do.
Shadow homes to shadow.
Four worlds.