‘But it’s like a mirror?’ Corisand’s eyes, dull and vague from the cold, suddenly brightened. ‘I told you about my mirror, didn’t I? The one I used to go mind-travelling? Maybe if we combine my mirror with your shield—’
‘It might work,’ Iriana said excitedly. ‘Maybe if we link minds very closely, then you spin your mirror and I’ll build a shield. If we push them at one another, maybe we can get them to fuse.’
A glimmer of hope dawned in Corisand’s eyes. ‘Let’s do it now - before it’s too late.’
Iriana had practised working spells in concert with other Wizards, but to do it in conjunction with a completely alien magic - that felt very strange. In the three-way link with Basileus, it had been the Moldan’s power that had held the entire construct together, but now they had to manage on their own. The Windeye’s magic felt like a stream of silver running through her mind: cool, bright, shining and somehow much more fluid than her own powers.
Corisand, her eyes glowing with her Othersight, gathered in the howling wind to spin her mirror, and cast it in a reflective dome over the adamantine shield into which Iriana was throwing all her power. The two magics met and fused in a flash of dazzling radiance with a satisfying sound like the click of a key turning in a lock. Windeye and Wizard were linked with a bond that neither of their races had known before, and their conjoined abilities blossomed and grew to something puissant and unique.
And it was working. Their shield held firm against the onslaught, and both of them rocked with the punch of power that exploded through their minds and bodies as their attacker was hit by his own reflected malice, magnified many times over.
Once more, the winds ceased abruptly.
The flying snow dropped with a hissing spatter, all at once, and fell no more.
The light grew bright again as visibility returned, the savage cold lost its bite and warmth began to creep back into their frozen limbs.
The two companions leant against one another, getting their breath back; each taking care to keep her mind focused on her own part of the shield. ‘We’re a lot closer to the mountain,’ Corisand said at last.
Iriana looked out across the gleaming ice. ‘Maybe that was part of Ghabal’s defensive spell, like the cold and the storm,’ she said. ‘The illusion that the peak was much further away than it is in truth. It had me discouraged, I’ll admit.’
The Windeye opened her mouth to answer, but the words were lost. A deafening snap like the cracking of a giant’s whip split the air, and a long fissure appeared in the ice a stone’s throw in front of them. Corisand spat out a curse she had learned from the Wizard. ‘It’s breaking up. Now that we’ve broken the cold spell, the ice is melting.’
‘Move!’ Iriana roared. Grabbing her companion’s hand, she ran forward and leapt the widening gap, with Corisand a breath behind. All around them the ice was breaking up into smaller sheets of different sizes, from a table top to a courtyard, which had one thing in common: every one of them was shrinking, the strips of dark ocean between them growing wider by the minute. The frozen surface split asunder with a fusillade of cracks and booms as Iriana and Corisand dodged and leapt from one disintegrating floe to the next, fighting for balance as the floating ice tilted and rocked beneath them, scrambling and slithering in the deepening slush beneath their feet.
It was a terrifying, exhausting, desperate scramble. Corisand put her foot on a patch of bad ice and was suddenly thigh-deep in icy water. With Iriana’s help she extricated herself, but not before her leg was wrenched, her boots were waterlogged and she was thoroughly soaked. Luckily, her clothing had been spun from shadows and air. It would be easy to make more - but right now, she did not dare stop moving.
Iriana was faring even worse. She had led a much less physical life than Corisand, and consequently, even in the Elsewhere, she found herself tiring far more easily. In addition, the Windeye had spent her life running and jumping. Her balance, strength and coordination were all excellent, even though she was now on two legs instead of four. It was not so for the Wizard. She was exhausting herself in her constant fight for balance and finding it far more difficult, both physically and mentally, to leap the widening gaps where the depths of the dark, cold ocean lay in wait. Yet not once, even for an instant, did she think of giving up. Gritting her teeth she floundered on, taking one ghastly leap, one slithering, splashing landing at a time; no longer thinking of the peak that was her goal, of the Moldan, of the Fialan. Those things could wait. Now her priority was pure and simple: just keep going.
It became a desperate race - though Ghabal’s fastness was drawing closer with every step, the surface underneath their feet was shrinking all the time. The currents felt stronger the closer they came to the ice peak, and the stretches of water between the Windeye, the Wizard and their goal were growing wider. Ghabal might be insane, but he was old and cunning. He had already learned not to attack these interlopers directly while they had their mirror shield in place, but there were other ways . . .
With an ear-splitting crack, the ice fractured between Iriana and her friend, and the Wizard found herself teetering on a small, slushy, rapidly vanishing raft that was being swept quickly out to sea. Already the distance was too far to jump. Iriana looked at the dwindling figure of Corisand and knew no help could come from her.
The Windeye thought differently. ‘Just hang on,’ she yelled. ‘I’m making a bridge—’
‘No - no!’ shrieked Iriana. ‘Corisand, don’t. The shield will fail - it’s what he wants.’ But she knew, just knew in her guts, that her friend would try it anyway. Well, she wouldn’t get the chance. Without hesitation, Iriana leapt into the water.
The cold was a shocking agony that cramped her limbs and stopped her heart. Her involuntary gasp sent water flooding into her lungs, and she was sinking, choking, drowning . . . Then her lungs adapted, her heartbeat kicked and she was breathing once more, though the medium was icy water that burned her lungs. Iriana felt like weeping with relief. It was one thing to be taught that Wizards couldn’t drown, but another entirely to actually trust her life to it. Besides, she was far from out of trouble yet. Her waterlogged clothing was pulling her down and the frigid water was already causing a deadly drain on her energy. She had to get out - and fast.
There was no point wasting time and energy trying to get to the surface. Fuelled by desperation, she struck out towards her goaclass="underline" the sheer, submerged face of Ghabal’s ice mountain.
Iriana’s powers had never been so stretched, even when the camp was attacked and she was trying to save Avithan’s life. But she had learned a thing or two since then. She was finding that the more she used her magic, the more powerful it became. Despite her predicament, she still managed to spare enough energy to keep the shield intact around Corisand, and her next thought was to use her Fire magic to warm her own blood, so that her body would keep functioning until she reached land. She knew that she was feeding on her own energy. It was like using healing magic on herself - there was the very real danger of consuming too much of her own power and burning out. Even with care she would pay - oh, how she would pay - in exhaustion when she finally got back to land.
There was far more ice beneath the surface than above. The Wizard threaded her way through the maze of bergs in a blue-green world: had circumstances been less desperate, she would have been enthralled by their fantastically sculpted shapes. But she had no time to marvel at their otherworldly beauty. The goal, and only the goal, mattered now. Weariness was dragging at her limbs by the time she reached the peak of ice, but she had made it in the face of all the odds, and was another step closer to the Fialan.