“It wasn’t like that at all,” Nora said, her voice rising. “I got away by pure luck, an accident. Dorneng was about to kill me—”
“Dorneng? Where is
“Dorneng is dead.” Perin spoke up matter-of-factly. “He died last night.”
The ghostly Hirizjahkinis looked at him for the first time. “Dead? How?”
“An ice demon killed him.”
“An ice demon? One of your vile northern monsters. Well, it served him right, but I am surprised. Dorneng was a good magician. He should have been able to fend it off.”
“He was too slow.” The ice demon’s piping voice came from behind Nora. She turned to see it clamber through the opening in the wall. “I took him before he could use his horrible magic. A very poor meal, though. I’m so hungry.”
“That’s how I got away, when the ice demon went for Dorneng,” Nora said. Edging closer to Perin for safety’s sake, she recounted the events of the past few days as quickly as she could. She could not tell from the apparition’s filmy countenance whether Hirizjahkinis believed her.
When she had finished, Perin added: “You must know, we would not have risked our necks climbing that cliff if we were to be guests of the Faitoren.” He spoke courteously but with nothing yielding in his tone.
“But why are you here?” Hirizjahkinis demanded. “Do you plan to take on that Faitoren garrison upstairs by yourselves?”
“No, we’re here to rescue Aruendiel,” Nora said.
“What?”
Nora could not decide whether Hirizjahkinis sounded more incredulous, affronted, or amused. “Dorneng said Aruendiel was here at Maarikok,” she said.
“He is not here.” Hirizjahkinis’s voice was definite.
“What do you mean, he’s not here?”
“I would know. I would know his magic anywhere, and he is not here. I can tell that there is only one magician in this castle right now, and that magician is much, much weaker and clumsier than Aruendiel.” Hirizjahkinis laughed, and her laughter sounded colder than usual. “I do not mean me. I am not really here.”
Dorneng lied, Nora thought. Or they moved Aruendiel somewhere else. Or—
“Well,” she said, at a loss for words.
“Lady Nora’s magic got us up that cliff,” Perin said quickly. “She might not be as expert as some, but it’s the results that matter.”
“And who are you,” Hirizjahkinis said, “who risked his neck to escort Nora up that cliff?”
“My name is Perin Pirekenies.”
“That name is familiar. You are—ah, Holy Sister, I know who you are! And you came along with Nora —”
“To help her rescue Lord Aruendiel, yes. I did not like to see a lady take on such a dangerous task alone.”
Hirizjahkinis shook her head. “Lady Moon, what Aruendiel would say! Perhaps it is as well that he—I knew your grandparents, Perin Pirekenies.” Perin gave a brief nod of acknowledgment. “Perhaps they were not very sensible, but they were brave, they did the best they could with bad luck—I respect them both. And here you are, coming to Aruendiel’s aid! Well, I am sorry that I do not have better news for you.”
“Hirizjahkinis,” said Nora, “if he is not here, where is he?”
Hirizjahkinis looked very steadily at Nora, and her image seemed to grow a shade more defined, as though she were concentrating hard. “I am sorry, little one, I was too harsh with you earlier. I did not know what to think, seeing you alive and Aruendiel gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Aruendiel was my teacher and my friend,” Hirizjahkinis said soberly. “I knew his work almost as well as I knew my own, and if I listened carefully, I could always hear the echo of his magic, even from the other side of the world. Those echoes are quiet now.”
“No,” Nora said.
“He is not here, he is not anywhere, Nora. I cannot tell you any more.” Hirizjahkinis paused, as though she were waiting for Nora to say something, and then she went on: “Perhaps he even welcomed it. He complained to me so often—he was so bitter about being alive.”
Nora looked down, scrutinizing a scrap of wood near her foot as though she would memorize every detail. She did not trust her voice. Aruendiel was bitter, yes, but there were things that he loved. Magic, his books, the forest, oatmeal and ale in the morning, his castle, his lands, even Mrs. Toristel, although he would never tell her so or why. Maybe even me, she thought numbly.
She felt as though she had been sitting in a warm house and suddenly the door was gone and cold air was hitting her face—but this was nothing, this was just the beginning, it would take time before the whole house chilled to freezing and she understood what true cold was.
“Nora, we can grieve later,” Hirizjahkinis was saying. “I must go back to this absurd battle. Imagine how annoyed Aruendiel would be if we lost.”
Nora nodded, made herself smile.
“Will you come join the fight? Perin, we could use you, I am sure.”
Perin bowed. “I will be there as soon as I can escort Lady Nora to safety.”
“Hmmf. Not too long, though. Nora is not so helpless.” The pale figure of Hirizjahkinis grew paler, and then it was gone.
There was a long silence in the room. It seemed darker than before. Nora realized that she had forgotten about the light she had conjured; the spell was running down. Dutifully she strengthened it, holding the flame away so that her face would be in shadow.
Perin cleared his throat. “Lady Nora, I honor your gri—”
“That’s enough talk,” said the ice demon. It had kept a wary distance during Hirizjahkinis’s appearance, but now it came scrabbling across the floor toward Nora. The round mouth was almost as white as the rest of its empty face. It must be very hungry. She had not fed it since early that morning. “Give me my limbs, the rest of my body, now. You promised.”
“Yes, I did,” Nora said vaguely, after a moment. She should have asked Hirizjahkinis about how to defend against ice demons. She glanced at Perin, half-apologetically. “I did promise.”
He looked at her with a question in his raised eyebrows, his sword at the ready.
“No, I have an idea,” she said. “I think it will be all right. Do you want to leave now?”
“Of course not,” Perin said, although his smile was doubtful.
“Now!” the demon said, its mouth contorting.
“All right,” Nora said. She had to pull herself together, shake off the dull heaviness that was dragging at her thoughts. Otherwise there was no chance this would work. She pulled out Dorneng’s small glass bottles from inside her cloak. They hardly seemed large enough to hold the rest of the ice demon’s body, but presumably there was some magic involved to make the liquid fit inside. Uncorking the first bottle, she poured the contents over the ice demon.
She knew it would be fast—she had seen how quickly the ice demon had reconstituted itself when it attacked Dorneng—but it was still startling to see how rapidly the ice demon’s new arm lengthened and solidified. The bottle was hardly empty before the demon was chortling and doing a sort of push-up on its newly matched limbs.
Biting her lip, Nora emptied the other bottles. The ice demon’s torso grew back, then its legs, and then— she was surprised to see—its tail. The full-sized demon was also bigger than she had expected, taller than Perin.
“Much better, much better than in those cramped bottles!” the demon said, flexing its arms.
“Good,” Nora said, stepping back. “So we’re all even. Right?”
“But I’m still so hungry,” said the demon, its tail lashing. “I’m starving. Oh, it’s terrible! I have my body back, but look how thin I am!”
“There’s a Faitoren garrison upstairs. How about eating them?” Perin suggested.
“Faitoren—faugh! They’re no good. Horrible, chewy things. No,” said the demon decisively, “give me a
