Winterstrike by Liz Williams

first text referred to a journey across the Silent Sea: a catalogue of islands, most of them in all probability imaginary. Interesting, but not apparently of relevance.
    The second and third were partial and made little sense: one was a list of curses and the other a list of names. But the fourth was of greater note.
    Mantis. A name that rang a bell, somewhere. She’d been one of the warrior matriarchs in the Age of Children, had vanished from a fortress under siege. There had been no clue to how
she had done it: her warriors, once the fortress had fallen, maintained that she had been taken by the spirits of the Crater Plain and stuck to their stories despite torture. Mantis the Mad, who
had held and ruled the lands around the area that was now known as the Noumenon, a remote mountain matriarchy that no one knew very much about. A closed, secret place, high in the ragged crags
beyond the western Plains.
    That was the only text that had any vague relevance, and I thought this was probably stretching things. I doubted whether Mantis, mad or not, had really disappeared into thin air: more likely
she’d bolted down a tunnel or had been done away with by one of her own troops. But one thing did engage my attention, even though I was sure it was still no more than coincidence: the
Noumenon was said to be a haunt of vulpen – not, obviously, within the bounds of the Matriarchy itself, but beyond, in the high crags and rifts. Vulpen were said to haunt ruins, and there
were a lot of those in this part of the Crater Plain – also dating from the Age of Children. The geise was tugging at me, but I didn’t know how much store to set by that: I didn’t
think it had any extra knowledge that wasn’t also possessed by me, and I directed a swift but heartfelt curse in the direction of Calmaretto for saddling me with this additional set of
unreliable instincts.
    There were no more records. I closed down the antiscribe, turned off the light, and left the bronze chamber with reluctance.
    My feet nearly took me up the stairs to the bell tower, but I made myself turn away, back down the bronze corridor. It seemed warmer, almost stifling, and I thought at first that this was
because I was so reluctant to leave. Then I reached the doors and realized. The bridge was on fire.
    It didn’t look like a normal flame. It was white and blazing, so bright that I had to shield my eyes, and that meant ire-palm. I slammed the doors shut. My hands slipped on the metal,
sweating, as I fumbled at the lock. There was no way I could face the bridge, not in those conditions: one touch and I’d go up like a torch. I ran back down the corridor, all longings for the
bell tower abandoned: I had a vision of the fortress as a tall iron oven, with myself roasting at its heart.
    I’d no inclination to be cooked. I’d never been down into the cellars, but I’d studied the plans of the building when I’d first started working there, and I knew roughly
what was there. A spiral staircase led downward, twisting until it was lost in the shadows. I followed it down, footsteps pattering on the metal struts, until I felt dizzy. Looking back up, the
ceiling seemed impossibly far away. I thought of fire and kept on descending.
    I stepped out into a long, dusty room lined with stone blocks. This looked even older than the rest of the fortress: red Martian sandstone, grooved as though water had at one time flowed along
it. Double doors at the far end of the room were heavily bolted, but at some point a more modern haunt-lock had been installed. I ran across and tugged at the bolts, which after some minutes gave
way in a shower of rust. Then I put my eye to the haunt-lock and heard the familiar whirring of the soul-scan. The doors swung open, to my mingled relief and apprehension. I didn’t know what
might be waiting on the other side of the exit.
    But they opened onto night and nothing. I came out into the expanse of the crater floor and a bitter smell.