The wolf led them to the mouth of a cave. The stone around it was carved and proudly sang manmade notes. The watersong I had heard from afar now rang loud and clear from within.
The wolf entered without so much as a backwards glance to see that she was being followed. Yethyr and Jaetheiri’s eyes met.
“Are you sure this is wise?” she hissed.
He shrugged.
“Of course!” Nisari strode forward. “It is ordained.”
Jaetheiri rolled her eyes, but followed Yethyr when he entered. The others filed in behind her, and their footsteps echoed strangely in that long and narrow tunnel. Wes lit a torch when the light from the outside could no longer reach them, casting strange shadows along the smooth tunnel walls.
I grew alarmed the deeper we went. The air felt stagnant here, the windsong eerily still.
“Where do you suppose the wolf is taking us?” Mandorias asked no one in particular.
“To a dead end,” Nisari said confidently. “The wind would sound different if the tunnel led to open air.”
I agreed with that assessment, and sure enough, we soon rounded a corner and almost bumped into the wolf. She stood before a wall of ice that blocked off the rest of the tunnel.
Jaetheiri unsheathed her warfang. “It’s a trap!”
The wolf ignored the outburst, so everyone else did. Instead, she pawed and scratched the ice, yipping at it like its very presence in her way was a personal insult.
“Perhaps we are following a mad wolf,” Mandorias mused.
“Can we stop wandering after random dogs now?” Wes huffed in exasperation.
“You would wander even longer for a cat!” Yethyr accused.
“Of course I would! Cats are lords of their own palaces in Hell. I would be grateful to wander into one of them.”
“Heathen madness,” Yethyr spat.
“Is it any madder than what you do now? Do you expect this wolf to lead you to Heaven?”
“It’s more complicated than that—”
The wolf abruptly went still, listening, and soon, everyone else was listening as well. I heard it first, a distant scraping sound that rang of harsh frigid watersong. I marvelled at how different it sounded from the river. I almost doubted what I heard was watersong. It was stagnant and unchanging in a way the music of Lake Huldrai never was, utterly unlike the melodic watersong of the selkies.
Ice. It was the rigid staccato of ice. The wall that blocked the tunnel was not a natural formation. It had been made by watersingers.
Suddenly, the wall of ice split down the middle, and the strangest man I had ever seen slipped through the crack. Baffling pale yellow hair framed flushed cheeks and black eyes. His clothes were more a bundle of gray furs than a coherent outfit. Out in front of him, he held a long chiseling knife.
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The blade was not made of Datrean steel or Brinn bone, but ice. Exquisitely carved ice that glimmered in the light of Wes’ torch and sang of unyielding frozen watersong.
Jaetheiri frantically shoved Yethyr behind her. The man looked at her brandished warfang in alarm, but he did not flee back behind the frozen wall. His black eyes turned to the wolf.
“Who are they?” he asked her in a soft voice. His language wasn’t Brinn or Datrean, but somehow, I understood instinctually.
Just as I understood when the wolf yipped back. “Friend.”
The man blinked uncomprehendingly. The wolf spoke in windsong, and this was clearly a watersinger.
The wolf swished its tail happily, and the man squinted at the lot of them dubiously. “Who are you?”
“Do you know what language he’s speaking?” Yethyr asked Mandorias.
Mandorias scratched his beard. “It’s probably in the same language family as Drudu, but I can’t say I’m familiar.”
Yethyr frowned. “We are Brinn. Have you heard of Brinn?”
The watersinger stared blankly.
Yethyr switched languages. “Do you know Datrean?”
The watersinger hastily backed up. His Datrean was broken, but clear. “You? From Datrea?”
“No!” Yethyr vehemently shook his head. “Not Datrean.”
The watersinger relaxed. He considered, like he was searching for the right word. “Merchant?”
“No. We aren’t merchants.” Yethyr gestured to their group. “We are fighters.”
The man grew wary again. “Fighting us?”
“Not you,” Yethyr said gently. “We fight Datrea.”
The watersinger cocked his head at that, thoughtful. He glanced at the wolf, who bizarrely looked pleased with herself.
He stepped back into his crack in the ice wall and swung his carving knife in a wide arc. He etched fine lines in the frost, ice on ice, and the watersong of the whole tunnel shifted.
The ice wall blocking off the tunnel slid aside, revealing more darkness. The watersinger turned into that darkness. “Come,” he said in Datrean. He walked down the tunnel, and the wolf cheerfully followed him.
“Well, he doesn’t seem to be allied with Datrea,” Kettir said.
“That’s a good sign,” Jaetheiri agreed with wary optimism.
They followed the man and the wolf further down the tunnel. It went on and on, twisting and turning like a mad stonesinger had burrowed blindly into the mountain.
Perhaps that was exactly what had happened.
Old, manmade stonesong rang from the walls, a perfect compliment to the manmade watersong that was growing louder and louder with each passing moment.
They turned a corner and suddenly, their path was blocked by yet another wall of ice. This time, light filtered through, and the Brinn grew excited. They had at last reached the end of the tunnel.
The watersinger turned back to them. He groped for words in broken Datrean. “Home. No fighting. Be good.”
Yethyr almost laughed at the bluntness, but he forced himself to nod. “We will be good.“
The watersinger sighed, deeming that sufficient, and turned back. With practiced motions, he traced intricate designs in the wall. The light streaming through the ice allowed the beauty of the fine notation to be admired.
It was like the notation carved into the Flazean ships and yet not. Both spontaneous and deliberate in a way the static half-forgotten traditions of Flazea could never be.
The ice of his knife and the ice of the wall scraped together, achieved harmony, and the barricade split open, swinging aside, like it had never been a wall.
It had been a gate.
Yethyr stepped through that gate, and the entire party gasped as one.
Sprawled before them was a green valley nestled between two peaks. It appeared to be some form of garden. Yethyr barely noticed. Built into the surrounding peaks, above them, below them, everywhere they looked were ice houses.
Each home was an exquisite work of art that had been carved by watersinger hands, ice block by ice block, stacked on top of each other, cramming every available mountain side surface.
It was a marvel like nothing else. Hidden in these desolate mountains, they had reached a grand city as intricate as Datrea.
All made from ice.
Where would you rather live?
