Eventually they came to a hill with a fast-flowing river wrapped around one side of it. Flicker led Alice to the top, and from there she was able to see quite a long way. The river flowed toward a stone wall about fifteen feet high, and passed underneath it through a low archway. Behind it, several towers rose even higher, turreted tops black against the stars. Lights glowed behind the windows, giving off a blue-green radiance that had looked more like the devilfish’s glow than a proper fire.

In the center of the wall was an iron-barred gate. Standing beside it was an enormous woman, easily nine or ten feet tall, with skin the blue-white of old ice and frost-white hair. She wore a conical helmet and carried a long-handled ax whose blade glittered in the light as though it too were made of ice.

“I take it your memories don’t include anything like that?” Alice said.

Flicker shook his head. “I told you someone would be using the gate.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Flicker said. “Pyros might. It’s been a long time since we had contact with any other peoples. Does it matter? I don’t imagine they pose any more threat to you than we do.”

“I’m not going to force my way through,” Alice said. She was slightly chagrined to find she’d automatically been thinking about how she would fight the ice woman. “I don’t just attack people for no reason.”

“What are we going to do, then?”

“Talk to them, for a start.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

ERDRODR OF NO NAME

THE ICE WOMAN hefted her ax a little, testing the balance.

“Ho, there!” she said, voice deep but surprisingly melodious. “Travelers, are you?”

Alice nodded. “I’m Alice,” she said. “And this is Flicker.”

“I am Byrvorda the Keen-Eyes. It has been long since we have seen a human, and longer still since a fire-kin has visited our lands. What do you seek in the domain of Helga the Ice Flower?”

“There is a wild portal in your fortress, I think,” Alice said politely. “We would like to go through it, and come back this way later.”

Byrvorda frowned. “The curtain is within, aye. What business have you in the land beyond?”

“I’m going to visit the Palace of Glass,” Alice said.

“The Palace?” The ice giant made a curious gesture with one hand, then spat in the ash at her feet. Her spittle made a tinkling sound as it shattered into frozen droplets. “You won’t be coming back, then, more fool you. But it matters not. Helga the Ice Flower has decreed that the castle is closed to all outsiders until her return.”

“When will she be back?” Alice said.

Byrvorda shrugged. “Who can say? Helga hunts in the land beyond the portal, and she will travel as far as her whim takes her. When she returns, we will feast.”