Cold Fire Read online

  Standing inside the door, she eyed her surroundings. This was no single-mage operation, or even the average carpenter’s workshop: this was a major business, employing dozens of men and women. They smoothed wood with planes, made and repaired barrels, wagons, sleds, sledges, and even small boats for the canals in summer. From the nearby stairwell Daja heard the sounds of hammers and saws: more carpentry was done on the upper stories.

  She was gathering her courage to ask one of the busy workers where she might find the master when someone called, “You! Mage!”

  She looked toward the source of the voice. A tall, raw-boned white man with curly hair turning from red to gray advanced on her. His bushy eyebrows formed caves in which pale-blue eyes fixed on her. He wore a full-sleeved shirt under his leather apron, and baggy trousers covered with wood dust and shavings.

  “Nobody’s ever come through this door so grained with magic as you,” he informed Daja in a rough voice. He stopped in front of her and leaned down to squint at the medallion on her coat front. “Well, that makes sense, at least. Forgive me, but —” He touched Daja’s medallion with a finger tipped in the silvery light that was magic in the working.

  Daja, also used to this, closed her eyes just in time as her medallion flared hot white. All around her she heard the exclamations of the others in the shop. Master Camoc had used his own power to make sure Daja’s medallion was genuine, with the usual results.

  “It’s real,” the mage said gruffly. “You’re very young for it, you know.”

  Daja opened her eyes and looked up into his. “I do know,” she said quietly. Was he going to be one of the mages who resented her because she had achieved a status most student mages gained only in their twenties?

  He was not. He extended his bony hand. “Camoc Oakborn, wood- and carpentry-mage.”

  Daja gave the answer courtesy demanded as she shook hands. “Daja Kisubo, smith-mage. Might I have a moment, Viynain Oakborn? I promise I won’t keep you from your work long.”

  “Over here,” he said, and led her to a quiet corner of the shop. Seeing that the other people in the room were staring, he barked, “Isn’t there work to be done?”

  Everyone immediately turned back to their tasks.

  Camoc leaned against the wall in the corner. “How may I be of service, Daja Kisubo?”

  Daja took a breath. “At the present time my teacher, Dedicate Frostpine of Winding Circle temple, and I are guests in Bancanor House. I recently discovered that Kolborn and Matazi Bancanor’s twin daughters have ambient magic. Niamara’s is with carpentry. I am talking to the best wood-mages in the city, to see if they are taking on students. If they are agreeable, I would bring Nia another day to choose who she would study with.”

  Camoc rubbed his chin. “Well, you can see I’ve students and apprentices both, mage and non-mage. Another won’t disrupt things. Will the chit work?”

  Daja frowned, not sure what he meant. “Nia’s loved wood all her life, as I understand it. She wants to learn.”

  Camoc sighed. “She wants to learn now,” he said. “If an older mage might give you some advice …?”

  “Of course, sir,” Daja replied, confused.

  “Kolborn Bancanor’s oldest daughter, one of them. Lived in luxury all her life, has tutors that come and go with the fashions — young Daja, I’ve seen dozens of these children of the rich. They putter and learn just enough to amuse themselves, but they haven’t the taste for real work, not like you and I know it.” He nodded at her staff. “Now, if she were Trader get, I wouldn’t even question it, not that Traders let their mage-children study with outsiders. But Traders understand the value of time and teaching. I’ll take her on if she likes, but I guarantee she’ll learn a trick or two and then weary of it.”

  Daja stiffened. “I don’t believe that of either of the girls,” she told Camoc.

  He smiled at her in that understanding, patronizing way some adults had, a smile that said the younger person was entitled to her ideas, however silly. “Well, I’ll be honest with you — if she did study here, chances are she’d study at first under one of my journeymen. This is a big shop — I’ve people working on the second and third floors as well as this one. We do everything from miniature work to what you see down here. All of my journeymen who are mages know the basics, and most of them have taught. So she wouldn’t be learning from me, though I’d keep an eye on things. That’s how the bigger shops do it.”

  Daja nodded. The smith who was teaching her the fine points of cast and wrought iron, though he was no mage, worked in much the same way, placing new apprentices with journeymen for their basic instruction. “The final decision would be Nia’s, in any case,” she replied.

  “Bring her around, if you like,” he said, pushing himself away from the wall. “If she’s so inclined, I’ll take her on. You can find me here any day but Watersday, unless I’m called out by someone who can afford my time. Do you attend any of the Mages’ Society gatherings?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” Daja replied. “Frostpine’s mentioned it once or twice.”

  “We only meet in the winter — too much to do the rest of the year. You and your teacher should stop by sometime. We’re always interested in the work that’s being done in the south.” He offered Daja his hand in farewell, and returned her grip with his own firm one. “May I see your list of possible teachers?” he asked.

  Daja drew it out of her coat pocket and handed it to him.

  He read it over, humming softly. “Forget Ashstaff,” he counseled Daja. “Since that third heart attack she’s barely working magic enough to whittle with. She won’t be taking any more students on in this life. And I’d advise against Beechbranch. He’s a little too liberal with the switch when he’s been drinking, and lately he drinks constantly.” He passed the list back to Daja.

  She took it, confused. First he talked down to her and spoke ill of a girl he didn’t know, then he was helpful. Or maybe he was just a gruff person, one with a good heart who didn’t know when his words stung. “Thank you, Master Camoc. I appreciate knowing that.”

  “First student?” he asked, walking her to the door.

  Daja nodded.

  “And you feel like you’re in over your head.”

  Daja smiled up at him as he opened the door for her. “Yes, actually, I do.”

  Camoc gave her a wintery smile of his own. “We all do. Believe me or not, you grow accustomed. Good day.”

  Daja thanked him again and walked out into the icy air. Serg, chatting with a girl who carried a tray of hot buns, immediately came to help Daja into the sleigh. She settled back, still a little dazed by Camoc’s brisk but, in the end, kind treatment. The question was, of course, would he be as kind to Nia, given his prejudice against the rich?

  Well, Nia might not even like the man as a teacher.

  “Viymese Daja?” asked Serg from the driver’s seat. “Where shall we go next?”

  Daja checked the list and called out their destination. Each meeting followed the pattern of this first one, more or less, in shops that sported ten and twenty students, mages and non-mages, and in houses and shops where mages had one or two students, or in a few cases, none. Some were willing to take on new students; others weren’t. All tested Daja’s medallion before they would believe she was a mage.

  Unlike Daja, Serg knew the city well. Not only was he expert at dodging horses and other sleighs, but he also knew small side streets that cut weary minutes from their travels over Kadasep, Airgi, Bazniuz, Odaga, and First Fortress Island. He also seemed to know most of the young women who worked in the houses and shops along the way.

  The sky was turning indigo as they turned back toward Bancanor House on Kadasp Island. Nights came early this far north, so late in the year, and Daja had to be there in time for the girls’ first meditation lesson. The city’s lamplighters were already out, going from lamp to lamp along the main streets and bridges. In another week, Serg told Daja as they drove across Bazniuz Island, the city would hold the ce
remony when the great-lights, giant oil lamps backed by polished metal reflectors, were set aflame for the first time that winter. They would be needed as the city entered a night that would last until the month of Carp Moon.

  “Is that one of them?” Daja asked Serg, pointing to an orange bloom up ahead. They were driving west on Velvet Street, on their way to the bridge over Prospect Canal.

  Serg muttered what Daja suspected was a curse. “It’s a fire, Viymese Daja. This is Shopgirl District — boardinghouses for girls and women mostly. We’ll pass it.”

  He was right about the fire, though not their ability to pass. The fire was just off Velvet Street, which was blocked with sleighs and those on foot who’d come to watch. Serg halted the sleigh. Daja, concerned, got out and walked through the crowd, using shoulders and elbows to make room. When she came into the open, she found herself just to one side of a line of well-trained firefighters who passed buckets of water to the fire and back from the nearest well.

  Ahead she saw Ben Ladradun emerge from the house, a sodden blanket over his head and around the woman he carried in his arms. He handed her to waiting friends, then turned to direct the bucket brigade to douse a flaming chunk of shingles that had dropped into the street. As he stripped off his blanket, he bellowed orders for those assigned to keep watch over the crowd, directing them to back up and force the crowd farther back from the building. People came to him for orders and left him at a brisk trot, no sign of fear in their faces, only determination and tension.

  They get that feeling from him, Daja realized, awed by Ben’s command of the situation. He’s not frightened, so they aren’t.

  One woman near Daja, her hair falling into her eyes, nearly dropped a water bucket. Serg, who had followed Daja, took her place in the line as Daja helped the woman to pin her coils of hair out of her face.

  “All our things,” the woman told Daja, trying not to weep. “I hope everyone got out. If I hadn’t been sick I would still be at the shop —”

  A shriek split the air, yanking all eyes to the third floor of the narrow building. A girl, framed in an open window, waved frantic hands. Daja saw the problem instantly — most of the first floor was on fire. Ben had escaped just before the blaze covered the front door. He and his fire brigade would know the house was finished. Now they spent all their efforts to protect the nearby buildings. A handful of women and possessions on the icy street testified that the firefighters had carried a great deal out of this place before they’d given up.

  “Yorgiry save us, that’s Gruzha!” cried Daja’s companion, clinging to her arm. “She’s blind — she can’t get out alone!”

  Daja looked at Ben. He stared up at the third floor of the house, his lips moving — in prayer or in calculation, Daja wasn’t sure. He’s going to try it, Daja realized. He’s going to go in there after her. She stripped off her coat with trembling hands, removed her medallion, and stuffed it into one of her pockets before she folded the coat and handed it to the woman beside her.

  “Would you hold this, please?” she asked. The woman took it without looking away from the girl in the open window. Her own lips moved as she prayed.

  Ben waved some firefighters up. They ran in with a canvas sheet, trying to get as close to the house as they could, under that window, so they might catch the girl if she jumped. Daja knew they would never get near enough. Ben would go if she didn’t hurry.

  She yanked off her boots, stockings, and belt, putting them on top of her coat in the woman’s arms. That was enough: the clothes she still wore were made by Sandry to resist flames. Knowing what she was about to do, Daja swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She had passed through fire once, four years ago. It had not been fun. Combined with powerful magic, it had stripped her naked, burned her old Trader staff, left her with strange metal on one hand, and filled her with a kind of pain so wonderful she hoped never to feel that way again. Pain should be one thing, she knew, exhilaration another. At least, she thought they were supposed to be different, most of the time.

  She strode up to Ben and grabbed his arm. He looked at her, about to pull out of her grip, then frowned. “Daja?”

  Speaking to this man as she would speak to one of her Winding Circle teachers, Daja said, “I think I can get her.”

  His reaction made her heart pound. He grabbed a bucket of water from one person, a blanket from another, and soaked the blanket thoroughly. Briskly he rolled it into a small bundle. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  Daja nodded, mute with admiration. No going on about her youth, no refusal: he accepted her on her own terms. How many adults did that?

  Ben thrust the rolled-up blanket into her hands and led her through the lines of firefighters. He stopped five yards from the blazing door and looked down at her. “I imagine you can be killed like anyone else if the roof or floors collapse.” Daja nodded; he continued briskly. “Don’t be a fool. If your hear beams groan, get out of there. Understand?”

  Daja nodded and ran through the front door, which hung off its hinges. The firefighters had hacked it to pieces to get inside.

  A quick look around told her that the hall floors and the stairs were still intact, a minor miracle. Instead the fire busily gobbled the contents of the rooms on either side and reached for those side rooms on the upper floors. Someone, or several someones, had spelled the halls and stairs with charms against fire, so people could still escape when the house burned. Those charms shone pale silver in Daja’s magical vision as they fought to hold their ground against the eager flames. Soon the fire would get so big that it would overwhelm these spells as avalanches did snowballs.

  The fire puzzled Daja as she ran to the stairs and began to climb. Why hadn’t the blaze consumed this entire ground floor, not just the rooms on either side? The spells were no match for it. Had it come up from the cellar? If so, it should have worked its way forward or back from its starting point, sweeping along to burn everything in its path. Upstairs, she saw the rooms on either side were burning, but again the hall floor was barely touched. It was as if the fire had begun on each side of the house, which made it no accident.

  When she reached the third story, she heard the girl called Gruzha coughing in the front room. Daja ran through her open door. “Gruzha, come on! We’re getting out of here!”

  The blind girl whirled away from the window, hands before her, questing. “Who is it? Who are you?” She coughed helplessly.

  “Not important,” Daja said, and hacked a puff of smoke from her own throat. As a by-product of fire, smoke wasn’t as dangerous to her as it was to others, but it was an annoyance that would clog her lungs until she got rid of it. “Cover as much of you as you can with this.” She handed the girl the wet blanket.

  “My birds!” Gruzha cried.

  Daja saw the cage in the corner. “Leave them!” she snapped.

  The girl opened her mouth, then shut it, and swallowed hard. Tears ran down her sooty cheeks, leaving pale tracks.

  If she had argued, Daja might have abandoned the birds. Instead Gruzha’s mute acceptance twisted Daja’s heart. As Gruzha draped the wet wool over her head, Daja seized the cage by its wire handle and laid her hand flat on top. Her power coursed through thin wire bars, wrapping cage and terrified occupants in her magic, holding air inside, fire outside. Gripping the cage in one hand, Daja took Gruzha’s blanket in the other. “Can you stay right behind me?” Daja shouted at the area where the girl’s ear must be.

  The sodden wool cocoon nodded. Gruzha stuck a hand out; Daja pulled Gruzha’s free arm around her own waist.

  Carefully she led the way down the hall. The blaze had reached this floor; it mumbled cheerfully in the rooms around the stairwell. Daja thrust it back first, then the flames that began to test the stair itself. In a tunnel of fire they descended to the ground floor.

  Daja stretched her power through the kitchen and beyond, seeking a better escape route. There was none: the fire had reached the storeroom at the back of the house. She felt it feed on exploding jars of oi
l. The rear half of the building was in flames. It was the front door or nothing.

  She wrapped Gruzha’s hands around her waist, feeling the sodden blanket soak the back of her shirt and trousers. Daja set the birds’ cage at her feet, then beckoned to streamers of rippling flame. The fire came eagerly, curling around her arms, sniffing at her clothes. Daja gripped its strands firmly before it found the less-protected girl at her back.

  The ceiling above them groaned.

  Swiftly Daja wove fiery strands, shaping the blaze as a tube made of flame net. When she thrust the tube wide and high between her and the door, it pushed away the flames in walls and ceiling to open a path. Only a handful of fiery tendrils reached through holes in the net to threaten the two girls. Daja picked up the cage in her left hand and walked forward. She used her right hand to weave escaping bits of flame into the net over her head, to make it stronger and tighter.

  The ceiling collapsed. The roof of her tunnel sagged. Clumps of plaster dropped through two wide spaces in her net, but the rest of it held the weight of the upper floor.

  The front door was still an opening filled with a sheet of fire. That part fought her, strengthened by the wind outside, but Daja was in no mood to be nice. She was willing to let this fire continue because someone had invited it here, but it could not be allowed to delay her.

  She gripped cords of fire in the door and began to weave again, pulling flame-threads tight, yanking them ruthlessly into a fiery square. Once done, she thrust it ahead of her like a shield. It bulged out through the doorway, bubblelike.

  Daja felt the blaze surge. Under her, the floor sagged.

  She turned, bent, then thrust up from her knees, draping Gruzha over her shoulder. With the other girl’s head and feet just inches from the flames, Daja strode outside with her and the birdcage. As they crossed the threshold, the floor where they had stood dropped into the cellar with a roar.