Snow Queen fhk-4

by Mercedes Lackey

  Once safely inside, she went to the great window that looked out into the garden, rendering the outside reflective so that not even the keen eye of an elemental could see her there. She watched the Raven feasting, making the same motions as a mortal bird would, as if it was tearing out bits of carrion, tossing its head back and gulping the morsel down. Eventually, it finished its invisible meal, shook itself hard and took a good, contented look around. It lumbered clumsily into the sky. Then she watched it fly away, slowly, heading upwards into the ice-clouds. By that time she had noted at least two of the Brownies appear, look at her thoughtfully, then slip away again. As the Raven vanished into the hazy blue of the sky, one returned.

  As the Brownie put a fire-warmed shawl about her shoulders she watched the North Wind slowly come to himself, look about as if surprised to find himself here, then shrug. In the blink of an eye he was gone, whirling away into the ice-clouds, going North and east. Whether or not he was going to report to the Witch Loviatar was irrelevant for now. The Wise Woman Annukka and the Maiden Kaari could not get within her purview for some time yet. By then, Aleksia would have more of a plan in place and some idea of what she needed to do to keep them safe as well as deal with this Loviatar.

  Even if the Witch found that scrap of memory, the only thing that linked Aleksia to the North Wind, the fragment of him awakening to find himself at the Palace of Ever-Winter, by the time he reached the Witch, the Wind would have constructed a perfectly good reason why he was there for himself. That was the way that memory worked. If you did not have a way to make something make sense, you would construct it for yourself. Memory was odd that way. That was why it was so unreliable.

  With a shiver, she turned away from the window. Time to think, to plan. And definitely time to call Godmother Elena.

  7

  Good news keeps company with the turtle, bad news with the hare.

  That was the old saying, and before the day was out, Annukka had cause to think that it had never been more true. She and Kaari had gone into her house, thinking to do no more than to put up the kantele safely and go to find some help. And by the time they came out again, scant moments after entering, the carrion crows were already gathering.

  Somehow, everyone they met seemed to know immediately that Veikko and his teacher were in terrible danger. Someone must have been watching us, was all that she could think. She should have known better, really. Given what Kaari was, it was inevitable that there was someone watching her, hoping to get her attention, most of the time.

  Now that Annukka thought about it, she could have slapped herself for being so precipitate. Kaari had come to her in tears, which meant that she had run out of her own house in tears. Kaari in tears was bound to attract attention, the way that meat attracted Ravens. Someone had to have followed her, hoping to help, seen she was going to Annukka and —

  Well, everyone would want to know why Kaari ran to Annukka, now wouldn't they?

  So watchers stayed, and the moment Annukka began working magic, something she did so rarely that hardly anyone in the village could say they had seen her do so, you could not have dragged a watcher away with a cart horse.

  Bah.

  And, of course, what the Road, the Sun, the Moon and the North Wind had to say was audible to just about anyone. The watcher must have torn away with wings on her feet, with news that juicy.

  But more discouraging, there was not one of their friends and neighbors, not one, who seemed to be of the opinion that Veikko was anything other than doomed.

  By the time the third woman came up to commiserate to Annukka and Kaari on the death of son and sweetheart and offer a shoulder and a lot of unwanted advice, even Kaari's sweet temper was stretched to the breaking point. And when they reached the center of the village to find everyone assembled there, waiting for them silently, they were both very near to the boil.

  Silence descended over the crowd as they both stopped and stared, Kaari with growing anger, Annukka with growing impatience. Awkwardly, Alto Vaara, the headman of the village, cleared his throat, clasping his hands together as if that would help him muster his thoughts better.

  “Annukka,” he said, sweat starting to stand out on his red face. “Kaari — we are very sorry — that is — ”

  “Veikko has been taken by this creature we have been hearing rumors of,” Annukka said briskly. “I intend to find and free him. While I appreciate your sympathy I had rather not declare him buried just yet, and I would much more appreciate some help with finding and bringing him back.”

  There was even more awkward shuffling. Finally Alto coughed. “Annukka, you are asking a very great deal of us, you know, and, this is harvest season. Winter will be here soon, and really, you must be sensible — ”

  “I am being sensible!” she snapped. “If I were not being sensible, I would not have come in search of help from my neighbors, I would have saddled a reindeer and ridden off alone! Now — ” she looked around “ — who is coming with me? I don't know one end of a sword from another, and we will certainly need some help from a hunter or a herdsman, someone who knows how to travel in the Winter.”

  It was the turn of the younger unmarried men to look away and shuffle their feet. While every single one of them had rushed forward to comfort Kaari on her presumed loss and to offer himself in the place of Veikko, there clearly wasn't one of them willing to help bring him back.

  She raised a scornful eyebrow, and layered her voice with enough contempt to cut with an ax. “What, no one? No one at all? No one is willing to come with two mere women into this danger? Was my son the only man in this village?”

  That stung. More than one of them looked indignant, and yet — and yet — not one of them was prepared to step forward even after that insult. Finally Janne found his voice.

  “Veikko was the only one with the Warrior rune!” he protested, looking shamefaced and angry at the same time. She heard the resentment in his voice that she should ask this of the men of her own village. Resentment that she would dare to compare them to her son, as if they were now somewhat lesser because they did not share his runes. “If he couldn't fight his way out of this, how are we to — ”

  “Oh? Well, then I will have to learn one end of a sword from the other!” Kaari burst out. “For I am surely going! And if you will not, it would be well for all of you if you do not seek maidens from other villages after this, for I will surely let it be known that the young men of this place were such cowards that they allowed two women to undertake this journey without so much as lifting a finger to help!”

  “Kaari, be sensible,” pleaded Janne, who had been one of her foremost suitors before she was betrothed to Veikko. “You should mourn Veikko, that's only right and proper. But go after him to die with him? That's madness. You mourn him over Winter, and in the Spring, you'll see, you'll want — ”

  “Even if Veikko is dead, which is by no means certain, and even if I chose to take another man someday, I'll want no coward,” Kaari retorted coldly. She raked the crowd with a scorn-filled glance and Annukka noted how many of them flinched and avoided her eyes. Most of them, in fact.

  And those that didn't looked — well, oddly pleased with themselves and angry and annoyed, all at the same time. It was a mix of people with that expression, too — several of the girls Kaari's age, several of the young men and a couple of the older ones.

  Now under any other circumstances, she would have gone to work, cajoling, wheedling, browbeating if she had to, in order to get more people to come with them. But something inside her hesitated, and she paused to listen to it.

  They are frightened.

  Well, who wouldn't be?

  The useless sort of frightened.

  Ah.

  That inner voice was right, absolutely right. Even if she convinced one or more of them to come with her, they would be more hindrance than help. At the first sign of trouble they would freeze, or run or — Or if this Snow Queen is powerful enough, they might go over to her side. Why not? By go
ing over to her side, they can bargain to be rid of Veikko and to get Kaari at the same time. And, oh, she hated to think that of her own people, but…people were people and temptation was temptation, and it was not wise to put people under the burden of a temptation that they simply could not resist.

  She clamped her lips shut at that point, grasped Kaari by the elbow, and pulled her away, back up the path to her home. No one followed. Not even Kaari's own mother.

  The two of them kept silent until they were back inside Annukka's house. Then it was Kaari who had an outburst — not of words, but of angry, frustrated tears.

  “Not one of them!” she sobbed, her anger so hot Annukka could have toasted cheese on it. “Not one! Why? When have we ever done anything other than do them all favors, over and over and over?”

  Now, Annukka could have shared her thoughts with the girl, but… That would accomplish nothing other than to make her angrier. She might then rush out with accusations, and that would only make things worse.

  She tightened her lips, grimly.

  “This is what we are going to do,” she said, finally. “First, you are going to get my reindeer from the herdsman. While you do that, I will pack. You and I are the same size. You can share my clothing, and I have plenty. I never got rid of the things I wore before I was married and they will suit you well enough.” She sighed. “I had always hoped to have a daughter, you see….” Kaari blinked and stared at her, but she went ruthlessly on. “By not going home and packing up yourself, we will make people think that we are not planning to leave until later, and they will not think to try and stop us tonight.”

  Kaari's eyes widened. “They would dare?” She gasped.

  “Oh, certainly,” Annukka replied. “Especially now that they know for certain that I can work greater magic and am a Wise Woman. You are the treasure of the village, and I am the one that can keep them safe against the dark, and do you think they would let us go without a struggle? Hardly.” She shook her head. “They are frightened now. Something that was only rumor and legend has come to life and taken one of us, and they are very, very eager to make sure it doesn't coming knocking on their doors.”

  “But — ”

  “People are people, and often enough they act like frightened sheep, child.” Annukka set her jaw. “So, you get the deer, I will pack. I wish there was snow, now — we could have carried more on a sledge. Perhaps we can barter for one when we get farther North. Get all four deer, mind. Now go.”

  The truth was, she had no further idea than that, yet — but in order to be free to act on any ideas she might have, she and Kaari would have to be out of the village. She had no doubt at all that eventually the others would work themselves up to doing whatever they thought needful to keep the two of them from leaving.

  And…she smiled grimly…she was going to have just a little revenge. After she had packed up everything that she and Kaari could carry, she would work a little spell on her house and outbuildings. Nothing would be able to break into them once she was gone. Even if the Winter was long and hard, and people were growing hungry, she would see to it that they got not one bit of good out of the things she had stored there….

  Well, one exception. She was not going to punish the children for the faults of their parents. She would make a small addition to the spell. A starving child would be allowed to pass her guardian, go in and eat its fill. But it would not be permitted to take anything out.

  Be sensible, indeed. Well you can tell the Spirit Bear I shall leave to be sensible, and we will see how far that gets you.

  They left by moonlight. They waited until the knocking at the door had stopped, until the village had settled. Annukka, taking advantage of the need to wait, had put some very careful crafting into her house-guardian. It wouldn't exactly hurt anyone, but it couldn't be hurt, either. And it almost certainly would frighten anyone that encountered it out of his or her wits.

  Kaari did not go home after fetching Annukka's reindeer, despite her mother asking her to. She simply refused to see her own mother, hiding in Annukka's bedroom until her mother went away.

  After that, Annukka closed the door of her house, pulled in the latchstring and refused to answer knocks herself. Eventually people stopped trying to make them come out and “be sensible.”

  Perhaps they thought they were clever, lurking outside silently for some time, waiting. They forgot that she was a Wise Woman. The irony of the situation was not lost on Annukka; they didn't want her to leave because she was a Wise Woman, but when it came to practical things, like being able to tell when there were people lying in wait outside her house, it never occurred to them that she would not be caught that way.

  On the other hand, that just wasn't something she'd ever done before. It seemed her lifelong habit of being circumspect in the use of magic was reaping unexpected benefits. She considered setting a spell to keep the villagers sleeping while she and Kaari slipped away, but decided against it. It was a dreadful waste of magic, for one thing, and for another, what if something happened to the village while they were all spellbound? It was easier to muffle the reindeer's hooves in sacks of bran, lead them out of the village silently and only mount up after they were well away. The moon was rising late anyway and was nearly at the full. They would get the benefit of its light right up until the dawn.

  Not many people rode reindeer; they were amenable to pulling sleighs and sledges, but not many of them cared to be ridden. Now, as a Wise Woman, Annukka had only ever been able to coax a few of her beasts into allowing a saddle on their backs. Strangely enough, they objected less to a pack than to a rider. Some of the villagers had thought it odd that through all these years she had persisted in trying to find deer that would allow themselves to be ridden. She had never done so with an eye to slipping away one dark night; mostly, she supposed, it had been a matter of seeing if it could be done at all.

  Now, of course, she was very glad that she had.

  Reindeer, deer in general, were easier to move at night than horses. With the moon up, the only thing they objected to was the bags on their feet, and she couldn't blame them for that. And once she and Kaari felt safe enough to stop and take the bags off, they moved out at an easy amble that would cover a surprising amount of ground without the danger of stumbling and breaking a leg.

  There was some awkwardness with Kaari getting herself up into the saddle; riding anything was fairly unusual for the Sammi. Annukka knew that before the night was out, they would both be in pain from this. Reindeer were not comfortable animals to ride; their gaits were all jolting, and their spines prominent. And riding in general used entirely different muscles than walking. Still, better a bit of discomfort than the alternative of being a virtual prisoner in her own home.

  She thought she might catch Kaari looking back, and having second thoughts about this. Instead, Kaari seemed impatient to put as many leagues between herself and the village as possible.

  “No regrets?” she finally asked, as the deer followed the main road, the same one that Veikko had taken, under the silvery moonlight.

  They were riding side-by-side here, for the road was just wide enough to do so. Kaari did not turn her head to look at Annukka, but her voice was steady. “Yes,” she replied. “But I would have more if we did not do this.”

  That was enough for Annukka.

  Aleksia bit her lip in vexation. Like the villagers, she had assumed that Annukka and Kaari would wait at least a few days, if not longer, in order to try and persuade at least one of the stalwart young men to come along with them. Now she looked for them in the glass, only to discover that her viewpoint was from a bit of harness-brass on a moving reindeer, ambling through the night.

  This was unfortunate. She needed more time — time to try to find out what Loviatar had done with Ilmari, Lemminkal and Veikko; time to discover where the Witch Loviatar had her stronghold; and possibly to discover what the Icehart was. If Godmothers were manipulators by nature, she was going to have to be a master manipulator now, and
that wouldn't be possible if the two women rushed into things and upset them.

  And there was still one piece of unfinished business on her plate.

  While she decided what to do about Annukka and Kaari, she checked her glass for Gerda.

  Instead of an image, she heard the Bear's voice in her mind.

  We are sleeping in a cave, Godmother, very near your Palace. I trust you are ready for us.

  She had to chuckle at the amused tone of his mental voice. If her lad pines any more for her, he is going to wither away into a shadow. That is assuming he doesn’t starve to death first. My cook is outraged.

  Since they were in an ice-cave, there were plenty of reflective surfaces to carry her magic, but the image, of course, was of blackness.

  We must salvage the temper of your cook, by all means. Tomorrow, then?

  He was a good friend, was the Bear. I am not quite sure…