“I stole her secrets. I stole her love, and I betrayed her and the people who had saved me to the ogres who once dwelt in this land. My lover and her people were all slain, and when they were dead, I took their land and their possessions. My palace stands now on the byre where I burned the bodies.
“I am this land, Highlord. I am ice. Feelings such as pity, love, compassion skate off my frozen surface. If I were to somehow find a way to touch the sun, I doubt if even its flames could thaw me.
“What do I want? Peace. Solitude. I want to live here in my palace with my winter wolves and my books for the remaining years of my life (and I come of a long-lived family, even for elves), and I do not want to be disturbed. I do not want to rule anyone. Ruling people means dealing with people. It means instituting laws and collecting tribute and fighting wars, because there is always someone who wants what you have got and will try to take it from you.
“I became Highlord because I saw this was the means to my end. I intend to remove all trace of life from this part of the world. The thanoi will destroy the Ice Folk. The kapaks will destroy the thanoi. My wolves and I will destroy the kapaks. My land will fall blessedly silent as only the land can be silent when it lies empty and still beneath the trackless snow.
“So you ask what I want, Highlord? I want silence.” Feal-Thas picked up another book and opened it.
“You can find silence in death, you know,” said Kitiara grimly.
“Try it,” he said. “With a gesture and a word, I could freeze you into a solid block of ice. Then I would place your statue in the hallway—a lasting monument to stupidity.”
He resumed his reading.
Kitiara glared at the elf, but the glare was wasted, for he never once looked up at her. She considered her options. She could go back to Ariakas and complain about Feal-Thas, but that would only make Ariakas angry with her. She could leave Icereach altogether and let the fool knight come here and get himself killed, but again, Ariakas would blame her. Or she could just deal with the problem herself.
“You have no objection, I suppose, if I kill this guardian?” Kit asked.
Feal-Thas turned a page. “Be my guest. I can always create another.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Kit caustically. “I’ll give the orb to Sleet and order her not to let you have the orb. That way, you can sleep at night. What sort of guardian is it?” She considered the wizard’s likely talents, the probable location. “A frost giant? Ice wight?”
Feal-Thas’s lips twitched, as close as he’d come to laughter in a couple of centuries.
“Nothing so trite, Highlord,” he replied. “The guardian is my own creation. Quite unique, or so I should imagine.”
Kitiara turned on her heel and banged out the door. Feal-Thas smiled and scratched the wolf behind his ears and continued his reading.
11
Death on ice. The dragon orb
Leaving Feal-Thas, Kitiara went in search of the commander of the kapak forces. She emerged from the building where the Highlord had his library and was half-blinded by the dazzling glare of the sun on the ice. She shaded her eyes and when she could finally see, she discovered that she hadn’t missed much. All that remained of the fortress was a courtyard of ice, several tumble-down outbuildings made of ice, and a stone tower jutting up out of the ice. In the center of the courtyard, a fountain carved in the shape of a phoenix sent clear water shooting upward in a sparkling jet and cascading into a pool below. Kitiara had been skeptical of the elf’s tale of magical holy water, but the fact that the fountain was not frozen solid in the bitter cold was in itself some sort of miracle.
She did not stay to marvel at the fountain. A frigid wind blowing off the glacier seemed likely to freeze her face. Seeing draconians coming and going from one of the outbuildings, Kit assumed this was their headquarters. Winding herself in the furs, she made a dash across the courtyard. She slipped and slithered on the icy pavement and envied the draconians their clawed feet.
A wooden door stood barred against the cold. Kit was unwilling to release her hold on her fur coverings in order to knock. She kicked at the door with her boot and mumbled curses through cold-stiffened lips until someone came to open it.
Warmth from two oil burners enveloped her. Several kapaks were inside; one of them was issuing orders while the others rounded up gear. Apparently, the commander and his troops were preparing to go on a hunting expedition. The kapaks wore thick fur hides over their scales, the fur turned to the inside. With fur and hide and scales, the draconians looked like some sort of freakish crossbreeds.
The kapaks glanced at her as they worked, but did not appear particularly interested in her. Kit thought about Feal-Thas’s remark that he planned to destroy the kapaks, and she wondered if she should warn the kapak commander that he could not trust his master. She decided the warning would not be necessary. Draconians never trusted anyone.
She asked the commander if she could speak to him. He sent his men on their way, then turned to her. His copper-colored scales shone in the fire light. He was quite willing to talk with her, seemed glad of the company.
Life here must be boring as the Abyss, Kit thought. They first discussed the dragon orb.
The commander knew about the orb, though he’d never seen it or had anything to do with it. “Where is it?” Kitiara asked.
“In the ice tunnels below,” the kapak answered. He gestured with his claws at the floor to indicate the level beneath their feet. “Near the dragon’s lair.”
“I hear the orb has a guardian,” said Kit. “Can you tell me what it is?”
“Damned if I know,” said the kapak.
“You’ve never seen it?”
“No reason to. The elf told me about the dragon orb and ordered me and my troops to keep away from that part of the castle. I obey orders.”
“My! What a good little draco you are,” said Kitiara, annoyed.
The kapak grinned, showing all his teeth. “Oh, I went to see for myself, just to make certain Her Dark Majesty’s interests were being looked after, of course.”
“Of course,” said Kitiara dryly. “Were they?”
“From what I saw they are,” said the commander.
“So you did see the guardian?”
“No, but I saw what it had done to those who had seen it—a group of thanoi, or what was left of them, which wasn’t much. Blood and bones, hair and blubber smeared all over the ice.”
“Were these thanoi after the orb?”
“I doubt it. Thanoi aren’t bright enough. They probably blundered into the orb’s chamber by accident on their way to the food pantry.”
“Just because you saw some bones doesn’t mean there’s a guardian,” Kitiara stated. “Feal-Thas could have killed them himself, then made it look like some horrible monster slaughtered them.”
The kapak made a hooting sound. “Have you ever seen a thanoi leg bone?”
“I’ve never seen a thanoi,” said Kit impatiently, “much less its leg bone. What are they?”
“Walrus-people, the Ice Folk call them. They’re huge, blubbery beasts that walk upright like men, and they have tusks and a hide like a walrus. They’re big and they’re strong. A thanoi could tuck me—tail and wings, armor and all—under one arm and never notice the weight. They have leg bones that are as thick as tree stumps. Maybe thicker.” The kapak’s tail twitched and thumped the floor. “Those tree stumps had been snapped into two and scattered like twigs. Feal-Thas didn’t do that. Not with those delicate hands of his.”
Kitiara was still not convinced. “Sounds like the work of the dragon,” she suggested.
“The thanoi were attacked long before Sleet arrived. What’s left of them is well preserved in the ice, and if you ask me, even the dragon’s afraid of the guardian. Sleet won’t go near the chamber where the orb’s hidden.”
Kitiara shook her head. She stomped her feet on the floor to warm them and began to pace the room, not so much out of anxiety as the need to keep from freezing.