"Not until it's killed you," Azhure muttered.
"Ah," the woman said, "but we do not know the caress of death!"
"Well," Azhure said, and grinned despite herself, "keep in mind that we do."
By Azhure's reckoning, it took them over three hours to pick their way over the jumbled edge of the icepack towards the icebergs.
The towers of ice reared almost a hundred paces above them, turning the light in their shadows a grey-blue and the air so frigid that the ice women had to walk close to either side of the other three, wrapping them in enchantments so they could continue to move.
The ice towers ground against each other, the sound a constant deep wailing and roaring that made both Azhure and Katie plug their ears with their fingers and clench their teeth.
"Do not fear too much," one of the sisters whispered in Azhure's ear, and she tried to relax, if only for Katie's sake.
But the trembling and shaking beneath her feet! They were going to have to climb down into this nightmare?
"There," said one of Urbeth's daughters. "Between the walls."
They picked their way over the uncertain ice, and then stood, staring.
Whenever Azhure had climbed down into the Underworld previously, she'd descended down a gently sloping spiral staircase.
Not down anything even faintly resembling this terrifying plunge.
This ice staircase descended straight down between the two grinding icebergs, their walls sliding up and down as they fought for space in the crowded sea.
Straight down — so far Azhure could not see its end.
Stars help them if they slipped on the ice steps! They'd tumble to their deaths.
"I do not know that we should —" she began, but one of the ice women laid a hand on her arm.
"You will manage," she said.
"Katie —"
"The girl will manage."
Azhure briefly closed her eyes, then nodded. She took Katie's hand, and tried to smile for her.
Katie looked at Azhure, looked at the descent before her, then looked back at Azhure. Normally so placid, so calm, so strong, Katie's eyes were terrified.
Azhure's hand tightened about that of the girl's, and she opened her mouth, trying to find something reassuring to say, when SpikeFeather leaned down and swept the girl into his arms.
"Put your face into my shoulder," he said, "and doze for this trip down to the waterways. I am Icarii, remember? My balance is like no other, and I fear no heights. You'll be safe with me."
Whether it was his words, his reassuring tone or his touch, Katie relaxed and, putting her arms about his neck, lay her head trustingly in the hollow of his shoulder.
The two ice women shared a glance, and a brief nod, then one turned and stepped into the stairwell.
"Come, SpikeFeather, Azhure," she said. "My sister will bring up the rear to protect us against whatever vile attack the seals have planned."
SpikeFeather laughed, and even Azhure managed a smile.
The birdman stepped onto the first step, the ice woman two or three below him and moving ever downward, then glanced over his shoulder at Azhure. "Take my wing," he said, extending one of them towards her, "and hang onto it. I can balance for all three of us."
"Thank you," Azhure said softly and, taking hold of SpikeFeather's wing — it was so warm!
— she summoned her courage and stepped down.
The climb down was worse than any nightmare Azhure had ever endured. Stars, but she thought she'd prefer to go through DragonStar and RiverStar's appalling birth all over again if it meant she could get to the bottom of these stairs the faster! To either side of the stairs the icebergs grated and ground, as if cursing and throwing insults at the other berg just an arm's span distant. Azhure wondered if it were possible that at any moment one or the other iceberg would lose its temper completely and lunge across the frigid distance between them to tear the throat out of the other.
No, she thought, that is just my fancy, and foolish at that.
And at that precise instant the iceberg on her right moved so suddenly and so precipitously that a frightful grating scream filled the stairwell, and Azhure cried out and halted, letting go of Spikefeather's wing, her hands flying to her ears.
"You are safe," said the ice woman behind her, laying both her hands on Azhure's shoulders. "Safe."
SpikeFeather had stopped, and was looking over his shoulder at Azhure; Katie, apparently, was asleep and unconcerned, her face tranquil as it lay on his shoulder.
The birdman's eyes were full of concern for Azhure, but Azhure thought that she could see just the slightest tinge of panic in their depths.
She took a very deep breath, held it as she fought for self-control, then let it out once she thought she had it.
Slowly Azhure lowered her hands away from her ears, and the ice woman's hands on her shoulders tightened briefly in encouragement.
"Soon," said the ice woman's sister from below SpikeFeather. "Very soon."
Pray to all the stars that it is the truth, Azhure thought, for I cannot stand much more of this.