[500 Kingdoms 04] - The Snow Queen

by Mercedes Lackey

  The girl shook her head, and wiped her eyes. “No, only things like casting the runes, and the little household magics. You are the only Sorceress I know. Everything else I only know from tales.”

  “The greater Magies that I know all work through music,” the one called Annukka said, tuning the kantele with practiced fingers, one ear cocked to the sound as she plucked the strings too softly for Aleksia to hear. “Shaman use the spirit-drums, Wise Women and Wonder-smiths the kantele. So be still and learn.”

  Annukka’s fingers moved deftly over the strings, and she began singing. Her voice was low, and very strong, though not loud; pleasant, but by no means the level of a great musician or a bard. Yet there was power, great power, behind it. Even through the mirror, Aleksia could feel it. “Oh, Road that leads out from my door,” she sang, “Who led my son to seek his fate. Now I command you to tell me where his wyrd has led e’er ’tis too late.”

  Now the girl probably could not tell this—and surely thought the woman was daft for singing to a road—but the power behind the song took even Aleksia aback. This was a Wise Woman indeed! For those with the eyes to see it, power flowed around her, golden as honey, as if she was immersed in a swirling river of light.

  The dust of the road stirred, the fallen leaves moved as if twirled by an errant breeze. Leaves and dust began to fall into a pattern; Aleksia felt the hair on her neck prickle, and the girl stepped back a pace, her mouth forming into a little O of surprise. Then there was a kind of grinding noise, and a face gradually formed out of the dust, the bared earth, with the leaves settling into its hair and lips.

  The blank eyes were two stones, the ruts of the road forming a suggestion of nose, cheekbones, eyelids and eyebrows. The lips moved, and words formed, somehow, sighing into the air with the sound of rocks grinding against each other.

  Veikko took me northward, it is true. The Road groaned. He followed me into the forest. He spoke with many people who could not help him find a Master, until at last, he came to the home of the Warrior-Mage Lemminkal Heikkinen. There he was accepted as the Master’s apprentice. But they left there some time ago, and they did not go by road or track. I have not seen him. I cannot find him. Perhaps the sun has seen them, but I have not.

  There was a final groan as of the earth settling; the breeze sprang up and scattered the leaves; and then—there was no face, no face at all. There were two stones near one another, but they didn’t look like eyes anymore, and the ruts were merely ruts. Aleksia shook her head, marveling. It not only took great power to bring the inanimate to life, it also took great passion. This woman, living unnoticed in a tiny Sammi village—how was it that Aleksia had never known of her?

  And—Lemminkal Heikkinen? Surely there could not be two Mages with that name—

  And she wasn’t done yet, it seemed….

  “Now hear me, bright and golden sun,” Annuka sang, turning her face to the sky. “You who sees where pathless travelers go. Where is my son out wandering? He is in danger! I must know!”

  The sun did not form a face—but another voice, like the distant roaring of flames, did come out of the sky above them. Veikko and his Master were told of a terrible creature in the North, where only the reindeer herdsmen are. They call it the Icehart, and they say its breath can slay entire clans in a moment. They went in search of it, to test Veikko. But I have not seen this creature myself, and I have not seen them since they passed under the snow clouds. Perhaps the Moon has seen them.

  Veikko! So it was the magicians she had watched for so long! It seemed she had given up too soon. Aleksia pursed her lips. The Icehart? That was something entirely new to her….

  And it certainly sounded like something this imposter would think up.

  But Annukka was already turning to the west. The sun was only just up over the trees and the moon had not yet set. The determined set of her chin told Aleksia that the woman had not even begun to run out of magical strength. And indeed, the magic of The Tradition was so thick around her it could practically be cut with an ax.

  “Oh moon, who shines down through the dark upon the trackless snowfields white—where is my son? I cannot tell! You must have graced him with your light!”

  The pale ghost of a day-moon seemed to shiver as it touched the horizon, and a silver voice whispered out of the western sky. The Warrior-Mage and his apprentice followed on the track of the Icehart, which only travels by night. They traced it through three villages where it had slain every man, woman and child with its icy breath. But then they fell under a shadow of sorcery, and I saw them no more. Perhaps the North Wind can say where they are, but I cannot.

  Then the moon, as if hurrying to get out of sight before Annukka could ask it more questions, dropped below the horizon, leaving the sun in sole possession of the sky.

  Annukka did not even pause for breath, but swept her fingers across the strings, and cried out, “Oh, North Wind, child of ice and air, who cannot be kept out or stayed—where is my son? Oh, hear me now! He can’t be found! I am afraid!”

  For a moment there was nothing. And then—

  Leaves dropped off the trees around the two women as if their stems had been cut, and the falling leaves swiftly turned white with a rime of frost as they fell, and the air itself thickened and whitened with ice-fog. The women’s skirts were plastered to their legs, as a wind carried the leaves in a swirl around them. Although probably Annukka wasn’t paying attention, Aleksia counted nine full circuits around the two, before the ice-fog settled before them, and formed into a vague and puffy face that changed from moment to moment.

  I saw your son and his Master, the North Wind said, in a voice like the howl of a blizzard heard from leagues away. They followed the Icehart until it led them to its Mistress. She is called the Snow Queen and she lives in the Palace of Ever-Winter, on the side of the Mountain. She took them captive and into her Palace. And there they remain.

  Before the stunned women could reply, the North Wind swirled itself up and away through the cloudless sky, leaving the frost melting behind it.

  And Aleksia was jumping to her feet, fists balled at her sides, her temper flaring and overriding every bit of calm she had ever learned in her life.

  “You wretched, ill-begotten liar!” she screamed at the mirror. “Wait until I get my hands on you!”

  Aleksia was employing every technique she knew to cool her temper. She had tried counting, tried willpower and now she was out, on the slopes of the mountain called Varovaara, pushing herself to exhaustion in a trek around what passed for a garden up here—ice and snow sculpted into fanciful shapes, immaculately groomed paths and feeding stations for wild birds. Her breath puffed out in little clouds, her feet were getting numb and still she wanted very much to hurt something. She was going to summon the North Wind herself, but before she did so, she knew she had to get herself under control. Rare indeed was the magic that benefited from being performed in a rage; most of the time, control was needed. The icy air did nothing to cool her temper, a glance upwards at the sun through the thin screening of ice-clouds only made her angrier. The Road, the Sun and the Moon had all told the truth. The North Wind had lied. How had it dared? She wanted, very badly, to summon it now, to hurl something at it, to indulge in a fit of temper completely unbecoming of a Godmother. It had said she was a murderer of dozens of people! If this was the kind of rumor that had reached Godmother Elena’s ears—well, no wonder her fellow Godmother had looked at her sideways for a moment!

  And at the moment, she had no other target for her ire than the North Wind. Oh, how she would like to strangle the creature! Not that she could—you couldn’t strangle a wind—but she wanted to!

  She continued to circle the garden until at last sheer weariness, and nothing else, wore down her anger. By then her feet were sore, her hands were half-frozen and it took several moments of concentration to invoke a heat spell to thaw herself out, and that by itself was an indication of how unprepared she had been to work any magic at all. Only when she was sure
she was steady did she take a strong stance in the center of the garden, clear her mind, and summon.

  She didn’t chant her summons aloud, nor did she sing it. She didn’t have to; she was a Godmother, after all. By ice and by fire, I summon a liar! she called fiercely in her mind, concentrating on the North Wind, for she knew it as only a Great Mage or a Godmother could; knew its true name and incorporated that into her image of what she sought, knew that right now, in its own mind, it was not identified by anything it knew of itself more strongly than that word. Liar.

  The world became very still, the potentials of magic swirled all around her, then exploded outward. There was the sound of shattering ice crystals, thousands of them. A flash of blue-green light, like that seen from the inside of ice-caves. A whiff of the sharp, wet scent that comes just before snow starts to fall.

  And it was there.

  It brought with it none of the theatrical freezing of leaves and swirling of eddies of ice-fog. Not now, and not with her. It knew that it was in very, very deep trouble. And although it was one of the four named winds, it also knew that a powerful enough set of human magicians, or even a single Great Mage, could hurt it, or even imprison it. The Sammi were well known for imprisoning and releasing Winds—though only the most powerful and terrible of Sammi magicians would dare to imprison one of the named winds—so it stood to reason that a Godmother could do the same.

  After all, once, long ago, a great and evil Witch of the Sammi had imprisoned the Sun…and had kept all four of the Winds in chains.

  So the North Wind huddled on the ground in a spreading pool of ice-fog at Aleksia’s feet, looking rather like a ghost, although a good bit more fantastic. In form, it looked like a skeletally thin, long-nosed man. Its hair and its beard were spines of ice, and its “clothing” did not move at all, being basically only the North Wind’s imperfect mimicry of clothing. It had an extremely long and pointed nose, with, as the final touch, an icicle permanently clinging to the end of it. And just now, it looked utterly miserable and quite afraid.

  “Do you know who I am?” Aleksia asked, not loudly, but with great intensity and just a little magic behind the words.

  The North Wind shivered, cowered and wailed—a sound like a hundred lost souls. Ice crystals formed at the corners of its eyes and tinkled down its cheeks to fall with little ticking sounds into a pile in the snow. You are the Snow Queen, the Godmother Aleksia! It wept. Do not harm me! Do not chain me!

  Well that was a satisfactory reaction. “Perhaps I should melt you instead,” Aleksia replied threateningly, allowing one hand to glow with a heat spell.

  The North Wind wailed again. I am sorry! I am sorry! I lied to the mortal women!

  “Yes, you did. Did you think I would never find out about it?” Aleksia’s voice dropped to a dangerous purr. “You lied, and about a Godmother! You placed the deaths of dozens of mortals at my doorstep. I will be blamed for this, and mortals will come here looking for revenge. It was not enough that you lied, but you compounded the lie by bringing trouble down on my head! I am not amused!”

  She did not go further and say what she wanted to—that she had now been marked as a murderer of dozens of innocent people—because the North Wind was not mortal and did not much care what mortals lived or died. In fact, the North Wind was personally responsible for many, many deaths every year, most of them, by any standard, innocent. Murder was a way of life to it; whatever this Icehart creature was, it didn’t care how long the Icehart continued to kill. It cared only that she was angry, and it was only interested in somehow wiggling out of the situation it found itself in,

  Don’t hurt me! It cried pitifully. It shivered uncontrollably as she glared down at it.

  “Then tell me why you lied!” she snapped. The creature cried harder, more ice-crystals ticking onto the pile. Its shivering increased, and it shrank in on itself.

  I—I—I cannot!

  “You will,” she countered viciously, scowling down on it and allowing the heat spell to flare up in her right hand. There was a lot of satisfaction in this, truth to be told. It gratified her to have the thing so petrified of her. “Tell me who put those words in your mouth! You will—or you will pay! I can make your life far more of a misery than the one you are protecting can!” Of course, these were hollow threats. It wasn’t as if a Godmother was allowed to torture anyone—or anything. But the North Wind didn’t know that.

  I dare not!

  Aleksia growled, and held up her hand, glowing with heat and light.

  With a cry of despair, the North Wind hid its face in its hands. Aleksia extended her hand toward it—

  Loviatar.

  She paused. This must be a name, but it was not one that she knew. “What?” she replied. The North Wind whimpered in abject defeat. She had won her bluff, and now she had a name.

  Loviatar, it repeated, its glance flitting about now as if it expected this person to materialize at the first hint of the name. She is a Witch.

  “I gathered as much,” Aleksia said dryly, as the Wind hid its face in its hands. “More detail, if you please.”

  The North Wind peeked up at her cautiously through its fingers. She is beautiful. Very beautiful. And very angry—almost all the time. She will be furious with me when she finds out.

  “Angrier than me?” she asked, narrowing her eyes dangerously. She noted with further satisfaction that the Wind grew a bit more transparent at that.

  The North Wind shivered.

  She lives to create pain, chaos and confusion, the North Wind said, from behind gritted teeth. She especially hates men, Mages most of all. She has been destroying as many as she could, sending them to the Underworld on impossible quests, setting monsters on them. Lemminkal and his brother, Ilmari, decided that he should take the young apprentice into the wilderness to train him further, for he had gotten beyond the mere monster-slaying and fiend-binding they could do near their home. They are great Heroes, are the Heikkinen brothers, and their fame has spread far into the North. The Witch Loviatar saw a chance to slay them, and corrupt the young Hero, and she took it. She has taken the boy. I do not know what has happened to the men. I only know that she has the boy in her thrall.

  “And why compel you to lie to those women?” Aleksia asked, with perhaps more venom in her tone than she intended, for the North Wind shrunk back in fear. “And why lay the blame on me?” That was one thing that sorely puzzled her. There seemed no reason for the lie.

  Do not punish me! I had no choice! She was going to bind me in a cave forever with chains of fire, as my brothers and I were bound once before! She can do it! She has great power!

  Aleksia frowned. “I still do not see why she chose to lay all of this at my feet. It makes no sense—”

  She was more or less speaking her thoughts aloud, but the Wind answered her anyway.

  I do not know! I do not know! How can I fathom the mind of a mortal, and a woman at that?

  Well Aleksia had some ideas, now that she knew a little more of the shape of this situation. Certainly Veikko’s mother and sweetheart would tell others what had supposedly happened to the boy, and they would tell others, and soon it would be spread far and wide, as she had foreseen. Such a tale would not be kept quiet for very long; that was the nature of such things.

  And then the Heroes would come to the Palace of Ever-Winter, looking to defeat her. Such was the nature of Heroes. The Tradition itself would aid and abet them, even though Aleksia was actually the innocent victim here.

  Now it was one thing for Aleksia to take the occasional young man off and teach him much-needed lessons. They always came back. They were usually much the better for it, or at the least, sadder, but much, much wiser. Real Heroes understood instinctively that she was doing much good, even if they were not already aware that the Snow Queen was a Godmother. That was the way of The Tradition, too; that young men who deserved it got their comeuppance. There were many Elder Princes who returned, chastened, to the family fold when a Godmother, or The Tradition itself
, tempered by the hand of a Godmother, got done with them. No lesson of that sort came without some pain.

  It was quite another thing for her to imprison or slay two great Sammi Heroes and their apprentice, to kill whole villages in the night with ice-magic. The other Godmothers would call her to account; Heroes would come to destroy her. And even if they knew she was a Godmother, would assume she had gone to the bad and come to take her. And yes, she was powerful, but there was only so much she could do to defend herself without hurting those who were acting in good conscience. And, yes, it was possible that she would hurt or kill someone in trying to protect herself. Even if she did not, she would be weeks, months, perhaps even years, in proving that this was not her doing. While she was defending herself and clearing her name, she would not be doing her job. And then, how many young girls, twisted by the insistent pressure of The Tradition, unable to fit the path it wanted for the good, would themselves go to the bad? How many would wind up in the hands of evil magicians to be drained and die? How many young men would turn cruel and hard and become monsters? How many innocents would go unrescued?

  And Ilmari, Lemminkal and Veikko—if only she had not given up her watching! She felt guilt and anger and an upsurge of grief at the thought that they might be dead. And that, too, was her fault. She would be called to account for it, one way or another.

  The thought made her shiver inside. But not visibly. The last thing she wanted to do was to betray any signs of weakness to this creature. She must keep the upper hand here.

  This Witch Loviatar was not all-seeing. She had not guessed that Aleksia had already found her out. Aleksia glared at the North Wind, but behind that glare, her mind was working quickly. The Tradition preferred that evildoers be overconfident, when they were not so paranoid and self-protective that they were inclined to slay someone on mere suspicion that he might be an enemy. It appeared that this Witch was of the former sort. I must keep things in that path, was the one clear thought in her mind. And that meant dealing with the North Wind in such a way that Loviatar would not detect her, nor anticipate that she was coming, nor plan against her meddling.