Icefighter: Stormweaver, #4

By Jay Aspen

When your lover helps you escape by betraying you to the enemy…

Alissa discovers a secret Resistance outpost in Pangaea's icy northern wastes, while trying to understand why Reith seems to have abandoned her––as well as trying to remind herself that this is so not the time to fall for Janis, the charismatic rebel leader.

As she faces a giant snow tiger she suddenly discovers that she can no longer rely on her enhanced abilities for survival in this uncertain new world.

When old friends accuse her of treason, her pledge to defend her home becomes complicated...

Icefighter is the fourth book in the Stormweaver series, the far-future fantasy epic from Jay Aspen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandfire Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jan 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201540425

Jay Aspen

Jay writes from experiences in wilderness travel and extreme sports; snow peaks in the Andes, big walls in Yosemite and Baffin Island, sailing the Irish sea to photograph puffins and dolphins. A science degree and training with Himalayan shamans led to an interest in bio-psychology. She lives in the wild Welsh Borders, sings jazz, rides horses.

Book preview

1

MAP OF PRIMAE IV FROM Arcturian satellite surveillance. Detail unavailable due to atmospheric interference.

.

THE TWISTING WHITE alleyways of Merkaan’s Oceanside seem to go on forever as I try desperately to keep up with Janis, sprinting flat out downhill to the port.

The full-length folds of blue silk dragging round my ankles really don’t help. Perfect disguise for infiltrating high-level meetings in the presidential palace but damned awkward for escaping afterwards––with who knows how many Empire enforcers on my tail.

I stop, exasperated, drop the concealing ochre sand-robe onto the ground, undo the ties of the blue dress and slip it off my shoulders. I’m busy rolling it round my forearm for ease of carrying and shield defense against knife attack when Janis turns to see why I haven’t kept up with him. His lean sun-darkened features crease in a rare smile.

I’m glad to see you’ve remembered your combat training even after all this swanning around in presidential palaces.

Hmph. I was in there for less than a day! I force my thoughts away from the reason I left so abruptly. "I don’t think my memory has been totally burned out by the ayan." I notice the fleeting shadow of anxiety on his face at the mention of ayan. He stoops and picks up the crumpled silk sand-robe.

I’ll carry it. You look different enough in that.

I glance apprehensively at the silk tunic and leggings that were under the blue dress, hoping the mark on my arm can’t be seen from a distance through the tear on my sleeve. Then I remember that my hair is still braided with bright blue beads, so short of a complete makeover-disguise, my best chance is to run.

Janis, I’m ready. Go.

Janis needs no further urging and the breathless race starts again. He is a head taller than I am, and although I’m at the peak of athletic fitness just as he is, the extra length of his stride makes a difference. The ayan still burning through my system is doing absolutely nothing to enhance my physical performance and the heightened sensitivity it imparts is telling me that if I don’t stop and rest soon I’ll suffer the same fate as my mentor.

Hannik is dead. Ayan poisoning... Don’t think about it. Run!

We reach the capital’s dockside. Janis pushes me onto the small craft waiting at the pier, its captain already at the helm. A woman is standing on the smooth abali-surfaced pavement holding the mooring rope, ready to follow us aboard. The boat starts moving instantly, the sharp bow of it cutting through the water and sending a fan of white spray hissing into the air on either side.

Janis wraps strong wiry arms around my shoulders, urging me to lie down on the cramped deck. He cradles my head on his lap.

Alissa, try to relax. Focus on slowing your breathing and heartbeat. Drink this. He holds a water bottle to my lips and I remember how thirsty I am. It tastes strange.

What is it?

Antidote. We have to get the ayan out of your system. Try to attune with the ocean. It will help. You’ll find it easier here in the open than when we’re inside the air-shuttle.

I can see the concern in his dark eyes as I try to gather the flailing fragments of my mind into a coherent stream that can focus on the cool, calm space of lieth-concentration. It comes eventually but is shallow and intermittent, fluttering like a trapped butterfly.

Looks like I’ll have to go with what I still have...

I open my awareness out into the expanse of ocean and sky and the attunement comes suddenly, the resonance of the shifting ocean currents and the teeming life-web beneath the boat so powerful now they are overwhelming my senses.

The compelling power of it draws my mind down to the creatures swimming the depths, then back up again to soar in the air with great seabirds and flying fish.

The ayan flooding through my system is still too much to deal with. I can no longer discern the separate strands, interpret them, hone my knowledge and actions to each new sensation.

Janis grips my hand. It feels firm, strong, reassuring.

Stay with it, Alissa. Just let it carry you for a while. You don’t have to use it for anything. You don’t have to run anywhere or hide from anyone.

His deep, vibrant voice is soft but powerful, giving me something to hold on to in this maelstrom of vertigo and fractured images. I relax a little, my gaze drawn to the iridescent white abali-coated spires of Merkaan shrinking in the distance as we speed across the waves. Janis notices my focus and gently turns my face away from it, until once again all I can see is sky.

"Don’t look back. The city is in the past. Focus on now."

I try to comply but something at the back of my mind is telling me that once I let go of the terrible speed and tension that is tenuously holding my sense of self in one piece, everything will melt into nothing. Focus, memory, skill, learning... it will all disappear as if it had never been.

I was a student at Kar university. I was going to apply to train with the Webdancers. I used to be one of the best at attunement, until... Pangaea was invaded and then––

Janis’ voice again. "Alissa. You must let go. It will be all right. You will forget, but we’re going to help you come back."

I make one last effort to trust him with my life. I know he has saved me before, protected me from aggressive would-be killers, but already I can’t quite remember when or how.

He must have experience of helping people through ayan poisoning...

It feels like standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down into the mist-shrouded depths below, searching for the courage to jump blindly into that terrifying space––

I close my eyes and let the rainbow-flood of shapes and sounds and sensations sweep me away into a void of overwhelming formless chaos. Somewhere in the confusion of time and space I can feel that the boat is no longer moving. I half open one eye to see that it is grounded on a stretch of smooth abali-white sand, with waves lapping softly around the sides.

I can feel the disorienting movement as Janis picks me up and carries me to the waiting air-shuttle sitting like a bubble of white on a tiny deserted beach surrounded by cliffs. An added layer of camouflage is being peeled away from it as white-clad figures pull off the woven nets of seaweed and spread the brown mats on the sand.

Janis dumps me in the co-pilot’s seat and straps me in. It vaguely reminds me of another journey...

I’m sure I have been in a tiny shuttle like this before but I can’t remember when...

I watch Janis take the controls and feel the craft lift off.

Then everything goes blurred and dark.

I DON’T KNOW HOW MANY hours I spend floating in the confusing tangle of shadows and impressions. There is nothing to compare with, no anchor to calibrate by. I wake a few times, aware that Janis is shaking me, persuading me to drink again, before I quickly relapse once more into the swirling and drifting images and sounds. Somewhere in the background I can hear occasional hushed voices.

How can anyone else be here? No room for them in a tiny reconnaissance shuttle...

How do I know it’s a reconnaissance shuttle? I can’t remember. Eventually it dawns on me that I am lying on something warm and soft and the ground below me feels solid.

We already arrived. Somewhere. And someone is brushing my arm with a quantum.

That doesn’t help the confusion because I can’t remember what a quantum is, except that it looks a bit like a healing scope and you stroke someone’s skin with it to fix them when they are injured or sick. And I can’t remember how I know that, but the tingling on my skin feels familiar.

That means I must be sick. Oh yes... I think I was dosed-up on ayan.

The burning in my veins has eased a little, and the terrifying speed of my heartbeat and my thoughts seems to have slowed. I cautiously open one eye.

I am lying on my back looking up at the ceiling of a vast blue-white dome. It isn’t like anything I’ve seen before, either on Pangaea or Eden, and it doesn’t make any sense. I close the eye again quickly. My face feels cold, but the rest of me is warm under soft coverings that brush against my face, tickling a little...

I am just gathering the confidence to open both eyes when one of the voices comes closer, distinct against the quiet murmuring in the background. I know that voice. But who is it? I can’t remember. Then a hand grips my shoulder.

Alissa? You back with us yet? That recognition again. Slowly, I open both eyes.

He is kneeling beside me, his drawn features creased in a worried frown, his deep blue penetrating eyes taking in my own confused gaze. I am struggling to remember where I have seen him before and why I found him so intimidating.

He looks to be around forty, apart from the fine lines on his narrow face, touches of grey in the cropped hair. I wonder how I know he is more than twice that. Finally, the image comes into my mind of seeing him sitting at a glass desk in the Assistant Commissioner’s office within the gleaming white abali-coated walls of Pangaea’s police headquarters in Merkaan––

Severin?

His face relaxes a little with relief. I thought we had lost you for a while there. How much can you remember?

Everything is mixed up. Disjointed images, fragments of conversations...

Somehow I remember that I had made the long journey from the continent of Eden with a message for the head of Qat, Pangaea’s security service... Severin... the Scorpion?

You wanted me to go into the palace and find someone... the president? I lapse into silence. Everything is falling apart into shredded glimpses and sounds again. Severin’s brow furrows.

Don’t try too hard, Alissa. Find your focus and see what comes. He waits for a few moments, but I can’t reconnect memories enough to answer.

He tries again, gently. Do you remember that I asked you to take the ayan so you could give Saroyan a message?

I hold the idea in my mind while I stare at him.

Yes. I think so. Then the moment comes back to me, sharp and vivid. "I heard her! Saroyan, her thoughts in my head. It was amazing, it was so clear, and it was so perfectly her––"

Shh. His hand is on my shoulder again, firm and steadying. Try to stay calm while you remember things. It didn’t go exactly to plan when you were in the palace and you went through a lot of fear and physical stress while the ayan was in your system. We’re going to help you regain your memories, heal the burnout, but you will need to keep your metabolism as low as you can while it’s happening.

I try to let the tension melt away, but now pieces of questions are surfacing and I need answers.

Is Saroyan all right? Did she escape?

She made the rendezvous you gave her. My agents collected her and I brought her here just now in the other Qat recon. Janis is taking care of her. The quantum readout suggests she will be fine once we get the drugs they were giving her out of her body.

A wave of nausea washes over me as I recall that moment of the mind-touch when I sensed Saroyan’s struggle to overcome the mind-dulling drugs the invaders were using to poison her.

Deron––

"Shh, Alissa. No. Don’t think about that traitor. Guaranteed to get anyone overheated and angry. Severin almost smiles as he squeezes my shoulder again. I have to get back to Merkaan. I just want you to know how grateful I am to you for getting that message to Saroyan. And how sorry that I had to ask you to take such a risk with the ayan. Just make sure you recover, otherwise you’re going to make one old man feel guilty for the rest of his life."

For an instant I glimpse past the professional concern of an experienced commander, to the lonely human who had tried to balance the future of his country against the life of an untrained nineteen year old student. It has left him with a burden that will never leave him. Even if I do recover.

I manage a weak smile and clasp his hand.

I did it for Hannik. Just as you did.

He stands up quickly and walks away, out of my field of vision.

2

JANIS IS HURRYING BACK to my side, his tall athletic figure distinctive against the other people moving purposefully on the far side of the dome. He kneels beside me and hands me yet another drink. He glances over his shoulder.

"What in the name of chaos did you do to Severin? I swear he was almost in tears."

I smile. Even Scorpions have hearts.

"Not that one. He’s been my commanding officer the whole time I’ve been in the service and I have never seen him like that. He looks at me appraisingly. Your eyes are clearer. Do you feel like eating something now?"

I think about it. "Yes, but I really, really want to get out of this damn seaweed disguise first. And I would quite like a signed certificate from Severin guaranteeing that I will never have to get back into one of these things ever again."

Janis fails to repress a satisfied grin. Sounds like you’re finally recovering. Enough for your pet hates to start surfacing anyhow. He raises an eyebrow. Did you know the more fashion-conscious citizens of Merkaan are now staying inside their beautiful coljen-skins for days at a time?

Ugh. I don’t even want to imagine it. They can have mine any time they want. I move my shoulder out of the covers and frown, puzzled, when I find the false-skin has already been cut free from both arms.

Janis tries to reassure. We needed to have some of your real skin exposed for the quantum to work on.

Oh. My eyes wander from the pile of elegant silk clothes folded at the side of my rather odd bed to the healed brand-scar on my arm. Janis moves quickly to distract me before any surfacing memories start my pulse racing again. I don’t argue. I sense those are dark episodes and I can do without them for a while.

He slips his arm under my shoulder.

If I support you, can you stand?

Not sure. I have vague memories of running fast through the twisting streets of Merkaan not long ago, so it feels odd that I might not even be able to stand. Until I try it and nearly fall on top of him.

Whoa! That’s worse than the student party when I––

I stop myself. Somehow I just remembered that Janis is field commander for Pangaea’s security services and if whatever comes next involves working with him, some of my sillier university escapades might be better kept under wraps for now. In fact, I’m starting to recall that I have worked with him before and my memory of it, although still vague, is that he was far more intimidating than he is right now.

Still, I like this softer version of him. There is something magnetic about the way his protectiveness overlays his instinctive military efficiency.

Where’s the bathtub? I look up at the blue-white dome above us. "More to the point, where are we? That doesn’t look like a canares dome at all. And it’s cold."

We’re not in Karesh. We’re in Bergen.

Wh––

My legs give way completely and I sit down suddenly on the pile of covers that had been keeping me warm. My hand goes out to steady myself and grips onto thick, soft... fur?

I look down. Is that a pile of furs I’ve been asleep under?

Yes. Janis keeps his tone matter of fact. There are a few details you’ll probably want to catch up with––

Not just the details! I want the whole––

He heaves me to my feet again and wraps a blanket around my shoulders against the cold.

You will have to promise that you really are ready to keep your pulse-rate down while you listen, or the ayan burnout could speed up again. So I suggest bath and dinner first?

I think about it. I can tell my heartbeat has already accelerated.

Maybe facts can wait...

Point. Promise me the bath doesn’t just mean going outside and rolling in the snow.

You’re in luck. Benefits of Qat technology. It’s still a bit basic. The place was only completed a few days ago and the crew is still working on the next dome. This way.

Janis helps me stumble across the floor––which I now see is rough-surfaced blue ice––and into a small side room lined with the same self-camouflaging carbon-fibre shell as a public air-shuttle. In this environment it has turned blue-white like everything else. And, oh bliss, there is a tub at the far end of it full of steaming water.

Severin’s team drilled down into the hot springs, explains Janis, trying to prop me up with one hand and strip off the rest of my seaweed-skin with the other. They used the hot water to hollow out the ice cave you were sleeping in. He frowns, trying to work out where to start on coljen-unwrapping. How are you supposed to get out of these things? I’ve never had to deal with one before.

Lucky you. And getting into it is even worse. I peel the fine seals away from my face and Janis helps me pull the rest of the spongy, elastic false-skin down until all I have to do is step out of the feet. He grips my wrists and lowers me into the tub.

I let out a long sigh and close my eyes, sinking blissfully into the hot water.

Guaranteed lower pulse rate if I can soak here all night.

No chance. You’ll just get overheated again in there. Three minutes max, then I’m coming back to pull you out.

I make a face at him which he pretends not to notice.

He is accurate to the last second on his promise to pull me out again, offering a small towel, my silk tunic and leggings and a set of fur clothes to go over the top. Conditions here feel less chilly once I manage to wriggle inside the fur.

Back in the main ice-cave Janis helps me sit in the far corner on another set of thick pelts and brings a steaming bowl of stew. I look across the icy space to the half-dozen fur-clad figures moving efficiently on their allotted tasks at the far side of the dome.

What’s this? Segregation?

Yes, and for a reason. He moves his fingers to my wrist. Pif is taking care of Saroyan––

"Pif is here? Do you mean Porrin’s sister