Ember and Ash

by Pamela Freeman

Begone! Elva commanded them.

  It was as though a wind had picked them up and sent them reeling back outside the door. He slammed it shut behind them and dragged the table over to hold it closed.

  They’ll be back, Atos sent to her.

  Aye, Elva said. It’s time to attack.

  The braid had to become a wall which moved farther and farther north. That was the plan. Sealmother had showed her some of it, but She had protected a much smaller area. On the other hand, She had had fewer people powering her spell, if spell it was.

  It was enchantment, sure enough, but spell was a small word for what they were making between them.

  Elva opened her mind to her mother as she had opened it to the gods, time and again, sharing the image of the many-colored braid. Martine caught her breath.

  Beautiful, she thought. Strong.

  Now we make it a wall.

  Together, they began to take the strands from each place and strengthen them further, the image changing in Elva’s mind from a braid—essentially decorative—to a woven wall. Martine helped. Arvid’s father had owned a shield made in the Wind Cities; a shield of woven steel laid over a withy base. It was a beautiful thing, and had saved his father’s life more than once in battles with the Ice King. That would be their model, now. Still singing, Martine went to Arvid’s workroom and took the shield down from the wall, bringing it back to the glass table and holding it high.

  The assembled people understood immediately. The soldiers punched the air, the women nodded, the children clapped. Martine placed it on the table in front of Elva and she stood, putting her hands flat on its surface.

  Arvid stood up, too, and said clearly, “Now we will make a shield so strong that nothing will penetrate it!” The singing grew louder in response, and Arvid was loudest of all.

  Elva and Martine, because it was easiest, felt for Poppy and Saffron first, and shared the image with them. The four together began the reshaping of the braid into a shield, gradually bringing Thyme in, and Atos, and all the others, one by one. Elva was concentrating so hard that she wasn’t aware of anything else except that image in her mind, the shield growing, lengthening, curving up and over the fort and moving north, getting bigger as it went.

  “It’s getting warmer!” a woman exclaimed. A few people broke off singing to happily agree, and Elva felt the shield weaken. She punched Arvid on the shoulder and he shouted out, “It won’t get warmer unless you sing!”

  Those who had broken off resumed singing, shamed. Elva could feel the shame through the braided shield, but she also felt the joy the warmth was bringing, and she fed that in, too, because it had a warmth of its own which would work against ice.

  As the shield moved further north, though, she began to feel something. Someone, it might be. Heavy, inimical, a brooding presence envious of and hating everything the braid contained: life, love, warmth, fellowship. Difference. She had never known one of the Great Powers, but this was unmistakable, and she understood what it was He wanted, could feel His desire for the unchanged, unchangeable permanence of Ice. For ice which never melted, for form which stayed, immutable. For an eternity of sameness, safe and solid and forever.

  She knew that feeling. Every mother knew the feeling of wanting time to stop, wanting the child to stay a baby, wanting the youth to stay a child, wanting the moment when the little arms came around your neck to last forever. Every human knew that feeling, of wanting tomorrow to be the same as today, so that you could just go on being who you were, without the pains that age brought.

  But as a mother, as a human, she knew the stupidity of that. Knew that the child could give more joy than the baby, as well as more grief; knew that age had its compensations; knew that growth always hurt.

  Well, this shield was going to grow and it was going to hurt.

  Just before she began to push it north in earnest, she wondered where Ash was, and why he hadn’t joined in the singing. We could use a voice like his, she thought vaguely, then slid in a strand as strong as steel from a tiny village called Acorn, where a nut-brown aged woman stood over the corpse of an ice wraith as it melted on the floor, a flint knife in her hand.

  “No one kills me or mine,” the woman said, and Elva fed her exultation and determination into the shield.

  Then the Ice King struck back.

  He struck from the north, where if you dug a foot down, the earth itself was ice all year round. From there he sent the ice down every channel of water he could find. Lakes and rivers froze every year, and there was no one hurt by that—but now, in an instant the groundwater froze and swelled, sending the earth above it into rolling hills and breaking chasms, undoing the foundations of house after house, hall after hall.

  Panic broke out as the freeze hit each village. In Oakmere the singing faltered as the great columns which held up the Moot Hall roof tilted and began to sink on one side. The slate floor buckled and parents snatched their children up and began to run before the roof fell in. Elva heard the screams as the walls themselves shifted.

  As the humming failed, He grew stronger, and Elva despaired. Ice would sweep down, the houses would be destroyed, forcing everyone out into the unforgiving cold. They would all die and lie, forever frozen, unrotting, in the eternal ice.

  But then she felt a hand on her shoulder and felt a warm strength flow into her. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before, a mixture of male and female, fuelled by both love and anger.

  “He is using water to destroy us,” the Prowman said, “and that is not allowed. She can fight Him, now, as She always does, each spring. Give Her your trust.”

  Beyond the warm humanness, the extraordinary strength of Ash’s mind, underneath the music of flute and drum which sounded a war beat in his thoughts, there She was: cool but not cold, a Power but so intricately bound with humans that Elva slid easily into communion with Her. She was angry.

  I will take my streams back, She said. Be you ready to remount your shield.

  “Aye, my lady,” Elva said aloud. Ash’s hand tightened on her shoulder in encouragement, and strength slid into her from that contact as easily as from her mother’s mind. She felt her mother smile, and sent reassurance to everyone still in contact. All is well, she said. Water fights with us.

  Elva felt the wave of power that went out from Her: the order to every drop of water in the domain to flow, flow, be free.

  South and north the groundwater was melting, flowing, seeping back and flowing further.

  Houses were still tilted, but they settled, uneasily, creaking. Ice fought it, but She was strong, unbelievably strong. And then, far north, She reached the limit of Her power, where the ground was frozen all year, where Ice held permanent sway. And from there, He was gathering His strength to attack again.

  Elva called the gods in.

  Now, she said, if you are going to help us, it must be now.

  They came reluctantly, but they came. It is not for us to defy the Powers, they said, much as a commoner might have said, It is not for me to defy the warlord. But Elva had an answer for that, now. Not the Powers, only Ice. Water fights with us.

  She sensed that it was only that which had brought them this far.

  Very well, they said. Use the altars to anchor your shield, and we will hold it fast.

  It was what they had needed. The shield was fragmented, fraying, failing. Painstakingly, as quickly as they could, Elva and Martine and Poppy and Saffron and Thyme and Atos rewove it, each village mind sending its strand first to their altar and then on to Elva, the lacemaker with her pillow laid out before her, each altar a pin to secure a single thread of power. This shield was far stronger, far, far stronger than the first. With triumph, Elva began to push it back, from the fort to the nearby villages, from those villages to towns, north and south and east and west, bringing all the domain under its protection. She could feel the hall warming around them as it worked, as Ice was pushed farther back.

  The people were still singing, still feeding her power, and so was Mar
tine and Ash and everyone else in the lace.

  She heard, vaguely, a voice shrieking nearby, but she didn’t pay any attention to it.

  “You are making spells!” the voice screamed, its pitch interrupting the smooth humming of her people. “This is the spell which stops my son returning to me! Stop! I command you to stop!”

  And she turned sideways to see Sigurd, wild-eyed, being held back by Merroc, while the Prowman moved toward her to help him. Back, she thought to the shield, bringing Salt under its protection with a sigh of relief that Poppy was safe. And then Sigurd launched herself forward, dragging out of Merroc’s grip, ducking under Ash’s elbow. He grabbed her from behind, but she snatched up the big pottery pitcher from the table and threw it straight at Elva. Her mind in Salt, her attention on the humming, Water, Ice, she reacted far too slowly.

  The pitcher hit her head and all thought stopped.

  Palisade Fort, the Last Domain

  Arvid sprang forward as Elva fell onto the tabletop. Martine cried out and shoved Sigurd aside to get to her. She was unconscious, bleeding from one temple, pale and waxy.

  Martine grabbed a napkin and tried to staunch the bleeding, but head wounds always bled like stuck pigs and it soon turned red. He offered his own kerchiefs and Martine took them without a word. A couple of other women came forward to help and he saw Martine take a deep, deep breath and move back to let them come to Elva. He didn’t understand why she would do that—and then, as she closed her eyes and began to hum, he felt the cold hit.

  One of the women dropped the soaked napkin onto the table. Elva’s blood froze as it fell and the napkin stood like a tent on the tabletop, in stark folds.

  “He’s coming!” Martine said, and sang again.

  “Sing!” Ash called, and lent his own voice to the choir—not his singing voice, that lovely smooth tenor, but the voice of power that Arvid had only heard him use once before, a voice like the screech of the rock being rolled across the burial cavemouth.

  The people sang, but it was not enough. Martine was struggling, pale and trembling. He went to support her, but he couldn’t give her the kind of strength she needed. The Prowman joined hands with her and she took a breath of relief, but Arvid could tell she was having far more difficulty than Elva had. Martine, he remembered, had never been able to hear the gods directly. Only through the stones.

  He could feel his fingers turning blue and stuck his hands under his armpits; the skin on his face was tightening, drying out with cold; his lips where he had licked them a few moments before were ice; his eyelids were beginning to stick together.

  The cold was so intense that he could not feel anything, anything at all.

  He held onto Martine but could not feel the touch. He leaned his head against her sleek black hair, but there was nothing except a sense of pressure.

  They were all going to die, unless the Prowman could save them.

  “Water?” he croaked, hoping She could do something, anything.

  But every drop of water in the room had been frozen. The Prowman’s eyes were unfocused, staring at something, someone, far distant. He couldn’t hear. Didn’t speak. Martine leaned heavily against him, humming still, but even he could tell there wasn’t as much power as Elva had summoned. Not summoned—organized.

  From every wall, from every shutter, a clicking, flicking noise started. Scratching, scraping… a small part of his brain thought of summer beetles, but then the shrieking began, and the hungry screaming, and he knew the ice wraiths had reached them. They were scrabbling at the doors and windows, trying to get in. To kill them. To eat them, as wind wraiths did? He didn’t even know. Perhaps merely to pierce them to the heart with their cold talons.

  He should defend the hall, but he was so tired. Arvid had heard it was like this, being frozen to death. That you got tired, so tired, and then just fell asleep and never woke up. It had sounded peaceful, but it wasn’t. It was simply terrifying.

  His eyelids were closing, but he couldn’t lie down, no, he couldn’t, mustn’t lie down, because Martine needed him, everyone needed him. He drew his sword and staggered toward the windows, struggling to stay awake. All around, the others were sliding down into sleep, even Sigurd. The singing slowed, became softer as voice after voice dropped out. He must not sleep, or there would be no one to protect Martine when the wraiths broke in.

  Martine swayed and he staggered as her weight came on him, but he managed to stay upright. The Prowman was talking, “No, I can’t leave them,” and he agreed with that, Ash shouldn’t leave, but it was more important that he not fall asleep.

  He was so tired. Perhaps it really was time to at least have a little nap. Just a few minutes…

  And then, it paused. He could feel the advance pause. Outside, the scraping and shrieking was suspended, the silence terrifying. What was He planning to do next?

  With a sense of something being sucked away, the cold withdrew all at once, the wraiths’ screaming began again but faded quickly into the far distance. The cold remained, but it was a natural cold, emanating from the ice, which still decorated every surface, every face.

  It was deathly quiet. Most people were still asleep. Then he heard a small, small sound: a drop of water hitting the floor. Arvid looked up. The edging of ice which ran along each roof beam was melting, dripping. All around the room, ice was turning to water, and the drops hit and splashed faces, hands, backs, waking them all one by one.

  They roused, and sat and looked up, and a woman started to cry with thankfulness. Arvid opened the doors and felt summer heat flood in, and distantly heard his people begin to cheer. The cold retreated sullenly, but it slid back and back, and out the door. The blood-soaked napkin melted.

  Martine was still tending to Elva—it was as though she hadn’t noticed anything; but then Arvid saw that tears were streaming down her cheeks. The Prowman gathered Elva up and carried her upstairs, Martine following.

  Outside, the sun came up, dazzling the world with brilliant reflected rainbows. Every surface was a mirror, fracturing and repeating the light, so that the ice which had almost killed them was for a moment, just a moment, a celebration of beauty instead of evil.

  Ember, he thought. Somehow he was sure this was her doing, that the Ice King had turned away from them because of her. He wished he didn’t have the image of a snake, turning to better prey.

  On the Ice

  They moved along, through, over the ice in laborious stops and starts. Cedar spelled Ash as leader, testing the footing. The glacier curved around, following the valley, and they found themselves climbing higher, toward a broader river of ice which flowed straight toward Fire Mountain.

  There was a ledge between the two streams of ice. Cedar went up first, using spikes and pole to make a path the other two could follow. Ember followed, breathing hard, wishing she’d done more walking, at least, in the lead-up to the wedding. She had concentrated all winter on sewing and packing, and had let her daily walks slide away. Now this was harder than it should be.

  Cedar put a hand down to pull her up over the edge. Below, Ash waited until she was safe before he started the climb. She moved back from the edge, staring at the mountain, glad of the breather. She couldn’t look down at him; there was a raw edge in her heart where she was aware of her love for him as one is aware of a wound. Heart’s desire, she thought. Now I really know what I’ll never have.

  He pulled himself up with Cedar’s help. Even not looking at him, Ember was aware of him glancing at her. It was as though his gaze was a touch, lighting her like tinder.

  As Ash set foot on the higher level, the ice creaked. They hardly dared breathe, standing motionless. Nothing.

  “Move away from the edge,” Cedar said.

  Ash took a step toward the mountain. Ember followed him.

  The ice groaned.

  “That’s wrong,” Cedar said, worried. He unwound his scarf from his face and examined the ground. “This ice is as deep as a house. It shouldn’t be—”

  “Get
away from the edge,” Ash said to her urgently, taking hold of her arm and pulling her.

  They moved fast, leaving their spikes still in the ice, and felt a shudder underneath their feet. A shriek buffeted them, the ice bucked and they fell full length. Behind them, the whole edge where they had climbed had fallen away, dragged downward into a crevasse that had not existed a moment before.

  Cedar was waxy pale, eyes clouded by Sight.

  “They know we are here,” he said. “Run! Run to the center!”

  Ember scrambled up and ran, heading straight for the mountain, straight for the middle of the ice, aware of Cedar on her left and Ash on her right.

  In front of them, the light snow which lay across the ice rose like a dust devil, spinning in cones that grew, spread, became shapes.

  Wraiths.

  Ember jolted to a stop, aware that the ice was groaning again below her, the wraiths—ice wraiths? She had never even heard of ice wraiths, but they were unmistakable—the long claws like wind wraiths, a body made of flying ice and snow, of splinters and daggers of ice, with eyes that burned blue, teeth sharp as arrowheads, cold, cold, drifting toward them slower than she expected, but still too fast, their long clawed hands stretched out in anticipation.

  Slivers of ice flicked from the claws, hitting like needles, piercing, cutting. Each needle brought not only pain, but cold, spearing deep inside. Blood sprang out along Ember’s cheek; pain blossomed as the blood froze on her skin. Ash swore and tried to move in front of her, to protect her. The onslaught increased but she couldn’t bear to turn her back, to let them come up behind her unseen. She wrapped her arms around her head but the ice spears cut through her jacket.

  Cedar gulped down a curse and began to breathe hard, trying to make a noise, trying to—to whistle?

  “There’s a spell,” he shouted, through the sound of ice. “To control wind wraiths. It might work.”

  He tried to whistle again. Five notes. But Cedar, gods help them all, had the worst of whistles and almost never hit a true note. Still, she recognized it. Of course, he was right.