The Winter Riddle

by Sam Hooker

  She might have mistaken it for a dream, but for a certain acute stillness that was far too thick to have been born from a dream. They’d slipped beyond the veil, if only by inches, like a child hiding behind the curtains. With a crow on her shoulder.

  The sky was a cloudless hush, and everything in it was different. The heavens were lousy with stars, and none of them were right. The moon was brighter than it should be; larger, too. The snow danced around them in serene little cyclones, propelled without wind or sound.

  Volgha heard only the sound of her breathing. Then Redcrow gave a disapproving groan.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  There you go, cawed Redcrow with an encouraging lilt. You’re not shouting! Well done, you.

  “Thanks,” said Volgha, “but you made a noise. What was it for?”

  Oh, you’ll see.

  The little cyclones seemed curious. They gyred lazily about, bending as though staring up at Volgha. They were standing in a little clump of trees, and she kept catching movement in the branches out of the corners of her eyes.

  “Who’s there?” she asked aloud. The question repeated onto itself, like an echo whose reverberations each took up different voices. Echoes aren’t supposed to do that.

  Some of the voices mispronounced the words. Echoes aren’t supposed to do that either.

  I hope this doesn’t take too long, cawed Redcrow. I won’t sleep right for ages if they keep us here all evening.

  “If who keeps us here? If what takes too long?”

  “Volgha! How did the summoning go?” Osgrey was standing there as he had before, all smoky and ethereal.

  “Osgrey!” said Volgha, her voice doing the strange echoing thing again.

  Osgrey? Oh, so this is the interloper!

  “Not now,” said Volgha. “Wait, you’re here. You’re not in my head. Or are you? Where are we?”

  “We’re in the Winter Court,” said Osgrey. “I must admit, I didn’t think you’d find it so soon. Your mind has never seemed quiet enough to notice the path.”

  Told you, cawed Redcrow.

  “Know-it-all,” said Volgha.

  Know-more-than-you, anyway.

  “Ha! Very witty, your friend,” said Osgrey.

  “You can hear him?”

  “Of course,” said Osgrey. “It’s our spirits that enter the Winter Court, not our bodies. I’m still in your head, so to speak, or rather I will be again, when you move back across the veil from here.”

  Volgha nodded. “What’s the Winter Court, then?”

  “It’s where the true governance of the land is done,” explained Osgrey. “It’s where the Warden engages with the spirits of winter.”

  Wait, cawed Redcrow, I thought I recognized you! I thought you were still the Warden, but you’re now a tree who goes jumping into the minds of sleepwalking witches! Where is the new Warden? I’ve got to tell him about this!

  “There’s no new Warden yet,” said Osgrey. “That’s the business we’re here to sort out, now that you’ve been summoned.”

  “Business?” asked Volgha.

  “I had hoped to have more time to prepare you,” said Osgrey, “but we’ll muddle through. Are you ready?”

  “How could I be? I’d no idea I was supposed to prepare for anything!”

  Redcrow cawed a swear word. You were doing so well! I know you’re flustered, but please stop shouting!

  Volgha was about to give Redcrow a stern lecture when Osgrey held up a hand. He appeared to be listening to the little cyclones, which Volgha could not hear. After a moment, he nodded solemnly and turned back to her.

  “As my last act as Warden, I’m to charge you with a sacred quest.”

  “Oh right,” said Volgha, throwing up her hands. “Because I don’t already have enough to do!”

  “The spirits bid you return balance to the North,” said Osgrey. “Restore the peace between the land and the people, and my mantle shall pass to you.”

  Warden? You? I mean us! Wow, I didn’t see that coming.

  “But I don’t want to be the Warden!”

  What? You’re joking!

  “You must,” said Osgrey. “It has been decided. There can be no other way.”

  Why wouldn’t you want to be the Warden? Don’t you know the power that comes along with it?

  “I don’t care,” said Volgha. “All I want is to be left alone, to do witchery in peace. If I’d wanted to be in charge of anything, I’d have fought my sister for the crown of Aurora!”

  “I know,” said Osgrey. “I wanted the same thing before the duty passed to me. It’s not fair, but very little in life is. It’s your destiny, I’m afraid. The land needs you, needs your strength. The fate of the entire North is coming to rest upon your shoulders.”

  I knew I was destined for greatness, cawed Redcrow. The Warden’s familiar! I’ll see some proper respect now, that’s for sure!

  “I have to think about this,” said Volgha. “What’s this balance, anyway? How would I restore it?”

  “Sort out this warm air for one,” replied Osgrey. “Then the spirits need to be given assurance that the people intend to have peace with the land. That assurance is maintained by the Warden. It’s the bulk of the job, really.”

  “What peace? How can the spirits be assured?”

  “Right,” said Osgrey. “How shall I explain it? It’s complex, but not exactly complicated, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do,” said Volgha, who didn’t.

  “Think of the seasons as the land’s parents. They only want what’s best for their little tyke, so they’re constantly looking it over for things that are worrisome. Scrapes and cuts that need bandaging, that sort of thing.”

  Volgha nodded.

  “People are unpredictable,” Osgrey continued, “especially given that the seasons don’t really perceive the passage of time. In their eyes—they don’t actually have eyes, mind you—people are inventing fire one minute and burning castles with it the next. Not that people invented fire, so much as discovered how to make it.

  “The Warden is like the family doctor. Whenever something happens to the land that worries the seasons, they look to doctors for explanations. They’ll want to know if his tides are coming in as expected for a boy his age, or if they should be concerned that his mammals aren’t evolving as expected. That sort of thing.”

  “And I’m supposed to tell them that the tides are normal? Based on what, my vast experience in evaluating tides of other lands?”

  “Oh no,” said Osgrey. “The Warden is like a special doctor that deals with the land’s people. A very trusted specialist. When the people are just milling about, tending sheep and gossiping in taverns, the seasons don’t take much notice. However, when they do something that gives the seasons cause for concern, they look to the Warden to tell them whether it’s something serious.”

  “So I tell them whether the people are doing something that will harm the land?”

  “That’s the long and short of it,” said Osgrey. “Most of the time, they’re worried over nothing.”

  “And the other times?”

  “They get rid of the problem.”

  “Oh,” said Volgha.

  “It’s best to talk to them often,” said Osgrey. “If they aren’t reassured about something they think might be wrong, they may just take action to be on the safe side.”

  “That’s frightening,” Volgha remarked. “Who’s been talking to them since you left?”

  “I have,” answered Osgrey. “Lately, I’ve been telling them not to worry about this warm air business, but they’re less inclined to listen to me now that I’m a tree. They really need to hear it from a person.”

  “I’m not sure it isn’t something to be worried about.”

  “Then find out,” said Osgrey, “and reverse it, if you can.”

  “And what then?”

  “And then you’ll be the Warden,” said Osgrey.

  Excellent, cawed Redcrow, a bit too eagerly for
Volgha’s taste.

  “I’ll sort out the warm air,” said Volgha, “but I don’t want to be the Warden.”

  Yes, she does! Don’t ruin this for us!

  “It’s your destiny,” said Osgrey. “Sleep now, things will conclude as they must.”

  And sleep they did. Volgha wasn’t sure for how long, but she didn’t have an opportunity to mull it over because she was violently awoken by a ball of green flame erupting at the foot of the bed.

  “Hey! I think it’s working!”

  Redcrow flapped and cawed. No words that Volgha could tell, more like some instinctual part of him that was just swearing in crow.

  Had her sister been a part of the dream? Volgha could have sworn that it had just been her and Redcrow, but in her bleary state, she could hear Alexia’s voice so clearly.

  Unfortunately, as the seconds passed, she found herself careening toward a dreadful realization: the green ball of flame was her sister.

  “What? How the— What the—”

  “Surprise!” The White Queen’s face, approximately five feet tall and wreathed in green flames, beamed at her with wide-mouthed glee. Her unblinking eyes were roughly the size of dinner plates, so cruelly portioned with lunacy as to coax Volgha’s flesh to crawling.

  Does this happen often? cawed Redcrow. If so, you’ll need to build a wing onto the hovel for me, and don’t even think about making a pun of that.

  Somewhere between bleary-eyed and awash with dread, Volgha stood on her bed in an impromptu defensive posture, hair tangled in a reflection of her horror, attempting to grasp the sheer insanity that was unfolding before her. Had her time in the Winter Court left her with hallucinations?

  No, said Osgrey, who was inside her head once again. I can see it, too.

  “How did you … what? Why?” None of the swear words that she knew seemed adequate for the madness that was unfolding, so she just cringed there, dumbstruck.

  “Oh, it’s just a little something I had Ghasterly cook up,” said the White Queen. “I’m tired of sending letters to you, it takes forever for you to respond.”

  “That cretin made you into a ball of fire? In my house?”

  Our house, cawed Redcrow. You really need to run this sort of thing past me, if I’m expected to live here.

  “In a manner of speaking,” replied the queen, her boundless glee unwavering. “I’ve had him open up a portal in one of the spare rooms of the castle, so I can come in here and talk to you whenever I want! Isn’t it sensational?”

  “You mean to say that you can appear in front of me like this anytime you want?”

  “No, silly.” She rolled her eyes dismissively. “You’ll only be able to see it when you’re standing next to yours.”

  “Mine,” she said, not quite understanding. Then it hit her. “This thing is permanent?”

  “Yes!”

  What?

  “A huge ball of green flame, permanently installed in the middle of my house!”

  “Yes!”

  No!

  “How in the world am I supposed to get any sleep?” She was shouting now, but Redcrow said nothing. Even he must have felt it justifiable, given the circumstances.

  “Just go to one of the other rooms of your house,” said the queen, the dinner plate-sized eyes rolling emphatically.

  “I live in a cottage! It’s one room!”

  “Well, perhaps this is the motivation you need to spruce it up. Honestly, do you think I built this lovely castle by staying in a one-room shack?”

  “It’s not a shack! And you didn’t build your castle, it’s a thousand years old!”

  “Sticks and stones,” said Her Majesty. “That sort of talk isn’t making your shack any bigger, you know. By the way, you haven’t seen Loki, have you?”

  “What? No, I haven’t seen that idiot!”

  The queen smirked an “oh well” sort of face. “No one has, just thought I’d check. Well, I must be off!” Her face disappeared before Volgha had a chance to unleash a torrent of slander, but the great ball of green flame remained.

  It was entirely insubstantial. She could pass her hand right through it, and it generated no heat. At the moment, Volgha lacked the optimism to see the good in it not burning the cottage down.

  Oh, come on, cawed Redcrow. You’re a witch, can’t you do anything about this?

  “This is wand magic,” Volgha answered. “Wizarding stuff. If it can overpower the wards I have on this place, it’s too powerful for me.”

  “You’re learning,” said a greasy baritone from the portal. Ghasterly’s seething visage came into the fiery wreath, snarling with delight at Volgha’s frustration.

  Ghasterly! Osgrey exclaimed.

  “You!” shouted Volgha, her lips curled, baring her teeth in a fury.

  “Me,” said Ghasterly. “Foolish girl, let this be a further lesson to you. I’ll be watching.” He started laughing. It was guttural and cruel, the sort of thing that necromancers probably spend countless hours practicing in front of a mirror to achieve. He stepped away from the portal then, his face and that awful laugh fading away, but staying with her just the same.

  That’s the old geezer from the tower, cawed Redcrow. He’s bad news. I don’t need a glowing portal to know that much.

  Right you are, said Osgrey. We’ll need to deal with him.

  Tired though she was, there was no way she could bear to stay in the cottage for another minute. She wrapped herself in her cloak, grabbed her hat, broom, and basket, and strode out into the snow.

  Her plans of experimenting with a late-season garden evaporated in a wisp of sworn revenge. Her sister, raging carnival of annoyance that she’d always been, had really gone a circus too far. Whether she or Ghasterly had been the ringmaster behind this little plot didn’t matter. They were both going to pay.

  Volgha visited the castle as often as she could stomach, but nothing was ever enough for Her Majesty, the White Queen. She wouldn’t be satisfied until Volgha had abandoned the Witching Way altogether, painted her face like a clown of the court, and dedicated the rest of her life to gaudy baubles and vapid dinner conversation.

  This could not stand. She wouldn’t let it. You didn’t vex a witch and skip the consequences. That’s just not the way it worked.

  Now you’re talking, cawed Redcrow. This is the sort of revenge I’d heard witches had in their hearts! What’s it going to be, then?

  “I don’t know yet,” said Volgha. “I just want to sleep, I can’t think straight!”

  Had her sister said that no one has seen Loki? That was a problem, especially if her guess was right and he had something to do with all of the warming. Midgard was as good a place as any to look for him. He was one of the Vikings’ gods, after all.

  She used her blankets to cover the shutters, in order to block any of the light from that ghoulish monstrosity escaping through the cracks and disturbing the spirits of winter any further.

  Then, with nothing else to be done but run, she threw her leg over her broom and paused.

  It wasn’t like Alexia had respected Volgha’s privacy in the past, but she’d always been able to get away from her here. But now Her Majesty, the White Queen, had invaded her sanctuary in such a vile and thoughtless manner that leniency was simply out of the question.

  Yeah, she’ll feel our wrath all right! And what about the necromancer?

  “He’ll never see another sunrise.” Volgha normally felt that that sort of dramatic response was over the top, but her blood was boiling. Redcrow was right—she did have revenge in her heart.

  But heart full of revenge or no, she was still dead tired. Luckily, Midgard wasn’t far, especially if one was able to travel by broom. She’d go there, get some sleep, sort this whole Loki thing out, and then have her revenge on Ghasterly and the White Queen.

  14

  Even in the darkness of the late autumn twilight, Midgard was easy to find from a very long way off. Yggdrasil, the Great World Tree, radiated a pale green energy. It positively thr
ummed on all of the spiritual wavelengths. The Vikings believed that the tree was the world itself, no concern being paid that they could walk away from it and still be on the world. Very conceptual thinkers, the Vikings.

  She’d heard before that Vikings were fond of witches, but she wasn’t about to test that theory by flying down and landing right next to Yggdrasil while she was too tired for quick getaways. She opted instead to land on the outskirts of the town at the base of the tree and walk into it to find an inn. More effort, but less conspicuous.

  All of the buildings were very sturdy, made of stone and thick, rough-hewn lumber. The roofs were covered with permafrost, like just about everything else in the North Pole. She walked past men in great horned helmets carrying massive axes and swords. The older ones had big beards in a variety of colors: red, blonde, brown, black, and the oldest ones were grey or white. The white-bearded ones reminded her of Santa, including the long braided bits.

  Poor Santa. Nothing could have prepared him for his harrowing tryst with the queen. He was upset with Volgha over that, and she could certainly see why. Just one more flaming disaster that had somehow become her fire to fight.

  Some of the streets were cobbled, others just icy earth. Bonfires burned in great stone rings, many surrounded by Vikings telling stories, laughing, and drinking from horns. It seemed a pleasant and happy life. Volgha would have traded it for being born royalty.

  Don’t cling to thoughts like that, said Osgrey. Had you been born a Viking, where would you be now?

  Volgha didn’t answer. She was too tired to stop errant thoughts from popping into her head, much less defend them.

  She had heard that Viking women were warriors like the men, and she was pleased to see that this was true. Many women, with swords on their hips and shields on their backs, drank and joked with the men, patrolled the streets with the watch, or slept in pools of their own sick near the fires, having overestimated their limits as well as any man.