The Snow Song

by Heath Pfaff

  ". . . are only needed for the first binding. Once a candidate is found who is compatible for binding, it is quite likely they could be bound again. The eyes would not need to be transferred. You already have one set of Uliona eyes, and they would facilitate the necessary channeling of power. You would only need to take the crystal and seal the binding, and your power would increase beyond our understanding." Ethaniel finished for me. I was horrified.

  "No. I will never do that. I could never take another life for myself. That is far and away the most terrible suggestion you've ever come to me with." I told Ethaniel, who stood looking at me, now with an expression of barely restrained contempt on his features.

  "What will you have us do when Lheec's men are pounding upon our gate, demanding entrance?" Ethaniel's voice was razor edged, heavy with "the voice."

  I turned my back on the other Knight and began to walk away from him, back towards the courtyard. "I will do what has to be done when, and if, that time comes. We'll not speak of this again, Ethaniel, not ever." I walked out into the chill, looking for Malice, who I knew would still be hard at work with her forms. I half expected for Ethaniel to come lunging after me, his sword raised to strike me down, such was the rage I felt emanating from him. He did not come, though, and I was thankful for that. He would have killed me.

  I found Snow and Malice together, Snow watching silently over Malice as the green-eyed girl repeated the forms of sword combat, a mix of three different styles taught to her by Snow. She moved slowly, making each motion as controlled and perfect as possible. Slowed down, and concentrating fully on the task at hand, her form seemed flawless. For a moment I could imagine that Malice was her old self once more. She paid no attention to me as I drew near. Snow, however, turned to greet me. We walked a few paces away from our concentrating friend, where we could talk privately.

  "What was that about?" Snow queried softly, nodding her head in the direction from which I'd just come. I looked and saw that Ethaniel had gone.

  "My advisor was informing me of my options in our current tense political situation." I chose my words carefully, unwilling to discuss the exact nature of our conversation. I wasn't certain whether I was ashamed of what I'd said, or if I was ashamed on Ethaniel's behalf, for what he had suggested. Either way, I did not wish to speak of it any longer.

  Snow nodded. "They say you've lost your edge, that you're not the same man who slew the black drakes during the war. I hear few kind things."

  "I know." I said, for I was well aware of the rumors and speculation that surrounded me. "A king of war was raised to the throne, and so far that king has done nothing but bring misery to the people. I'm cursed with exceptional hearing."

  "What will you do?" Snow asked.

  I thought for a moment, my mind spinning in circles. What could I do to recover a reputation that was already so sullied? Though I had done nothing wrong, I had also not taken the proper steps to put myself in the people's good graces.

  "I could marry Lheec's daughter. That would make Ethaniel happy, and make Lheec happy." I said tartly.

  "Wennia is a beautiful girl. She's also considered quite intelligent, with a bright and business capable mind." Snow offered, referring to Lheec's older daughter. "Though I believe she's engaged already."

  I shook my head. "Not that daughter. Lheec wants me to marry his other daughter, Bellena."

  Snow looked shocked. "Little Bell? She's not even a woman yet, is she?"

  "Apparently woman enough for Lheec, but not so for me. I rejected the offer." I answered stoically.

  ". . . and you would have rejected the offer if it was for Wennia as well." My intelligent sword master said, a knowing smile on her lips. We spoke in low voices so that Malice would not hear us.

  "I would have." I answered truthfully.

  "Do you really believe that she will recover?" Snow said, her eyes wandering to the girl who moved like a dancer across the stage, following in her blade's wake.

  "Yes." I needed not embellish my reply. That one word summed up all that I would say on the matter.

  Snow's gaze turned back to me. "There are others who would make you feel like a whole man again, Noble. If not Bellena, then what about me? Certainly I am not such a bad person that you could never learn to love me? I like you more than any other man I've been with. You're good on a level that others will always strive to approach. So, what of me?"

  I looked at Snow, her eyes, the hint of barest pink shinning through the black, alive and bright as she spoke, but though I saw a friend in her, I knew I felt no love. I had tried to find it there before, but in Snow it was not to be found.

  "You are among the greatest of people Snow, and to me you are a friend beyond compare. I would fight to the death for your safety, and stand beside you in any circumstance, but we are what we are. I love Malice, and I can't change that." They were difficult words to speak, because I did not wish to insult Snow.

  She nodded, a smile on her lips. She may have been sad, but I knew her well enough to believe that her smile was honest.

  "I knew you would say that. That is part of what makes me like you so much; the way you still stand beside Malice when everyone else says you should quit; the way you still fight to save your daughter, when no one else remembers her face. You are just so damn noble." She said.

  I shook my head, uncomfortable, and undeserving of her kind words. I was not a good person, and certainly not a noble one. Lucidil had given me the name Noble, and I had always believed it was a joke on his part.

  "If it would make you feel better, I'll not pay you any more visits in the night." I said, for I saw those nightly visitations as selfish. I knew we both enjoyed the physical act, but I did not know if Snow took ought else away from the encounters. For me, they quieted my inner demon for while, but was I leading Snow to feel that she might someday get something from me that I could not give her? I did not wish to hurt my friend.

  "Oh no, that certainly would not make me feel any better." She said, a light laugh in her voice. "You may pay a visit to me on any night you wish. A warm full bed is better than a cold empty one on any night, and you are such a considerate lover."

  We both turned our eyes back to Malice. I knew it was almost time to stop her. If I did not, she would keep going until she was tired, and whether she knew it or not, she had a Knight's energy to draw upon. If properly applied, she could go on swinging her sword for days.

  I stepped away from Snow, and moved towards the green-eyed girl, the woman who wasn't. Her face was set in determination, her features grim as she strove to be perfect with every swing. She looked like the old Malice, and that gave me some hope for the future.

  "Training is finished for the day." I called, making my voice loud enough to shake her from her concentration. Her sword point fell and she looked at me, for a time it seemed she wasn't sure where she was, and then she was back. Her features did not brighten, but I could see the light flicker back on inside her, as though she had just returned from someplace else.

  "Alright." She answered, her tone sad. She walked off to return her weapon. Something about the morning's training had affected her. I found myself both troubled, and encouraged. Was it possible that she was recovering something of what she'd lost?

  I turned and followed after Malice. Snow stopped me on my way by.

  "I'll see you tomorrow morning, if not earlier. . ." She let the invitation hang in the air. I smiled, but did not give her an indication either way. I continued after Malice, who was already waiting by the door that lead back into the castle proper. She was sullen and quiet. I would need to talk to her later in the day. For the time being, I had to report to court, to hear the day's cases that could not be settled by the lower courts. It was not a portion of the day I looked forward to, but it was business that must be done. I placed a hand on Malice's shoulder, and though she did not look up at me, she reached up and squeezed it in one of hers before we opened the door and returned to the relative warmth of the castle interior.


  The bed was soft beneath me, and Malice was warm at my side, her slender and shapely form pressed against me with a welcoming softness I was hard pressed to ignore. She had fallen asleep quickly, as she usually did, and I lay awake, waiting, and wondering whether or not I should move myself away from her. In the end, it was for her sake that I did not. If I left again, she would know, and I would have let her down once more. I would stay the night, and deal with the demons that plagued my mind. I closed my eyes, and forced myself to relax, forced the visions of a naked, welcoming Malice from my mind. It was difficult, but my lusts fled, and eventually sleep took me. I dreamed.

  The world grew brighter around me, and I found myself standing in an ancient wood. The trees all about me were burned off, charred and blackened, and the ground was littered with a heavy coat of ash, smothering out any life that might have existed on the forest floor. I spun around, and at my back I saw a lake, the water black from soot, the fish all floating dead upon the surface. I turned slowly, allowing myself to fully take in my surroundings. Everything was burned. Even the sky was gray, as though the smoke had filled the clouds, and clogged them with foul tears. So full were they with sadness, it began to rain.

  I held out my hands, and indeed I had two hands again. It seemed strange to see two arms stretched out before me. I closed the fingers of my left hand, and opened them again, marveling at how they responded to my call. I could feel the stretch and pull of the muscles beneath the flesh, and the way the light breeze in the air stirred the fur on arm. The rain struck my skin. It was cold, and left a black streak of soot everywhere it landed. A melody wafted through the air, sad and distant.

  I turned my head to capture the strange song, my ears focusing on the source somewhere far within the woods. I began to walk towards it, though I knew not why. I felt compelled by the bitterness of the song. There was a longing in its notes, a yearning for something lost that tugged at the very core of my being. I abandoned my slow pace and began to run, letting the skeletal remains of trees fall away behind me like a vast graveyard of the recently dead. The rain drew trails of bright light through the sky on its decent, as my vision tracked every passing drop of water, obscuring the path ahead of me. Despite the hazard of obscured vision, I did not want to slow down.

  I found myself faced with the realization that I knew exactly where I was going, for I had traveled those woods before. They had been different with every visit, but I had a sense of what waited ahead of me. My foreboding grew with every step. I crested a low hill, and waiting before me, as I had anticipated before even seeing it, was a small, rustic cabin. The cabin was little more than a burnt out husk, surprisingly intact for a building that was entirely blackened from fire damage. A figure stood outside the building, obscured partially by the streaking rain.

  I saw enough to recognize the beast. It had the upper torso of a bear, and the lower half of a human man. Its fur looked seared, its flesh badly burned. As it noticed my approach, it walked inside of the cabin. The music drew me in closer. As the cabin grew nearer, I began to realize that the music was not coming from inside of it, but from somewhere beyond it. Still, I moved towards that burned out building. My business, I knew, was within its walls. I ignored the call of the song, at least for a time.

  It was only as I moved on to the small path, well worn with use, that ran to the front steps of the cabin, that I realized that the building before me was the same one that I had built with my own two hands and the edge of my sword, deep in the woods beyond the lands of men. It was the cabin I had lived in with Malice, Kay, and Wisp. Had my dream cabin always been the same as the cabin I'd built? I rarely forgot details, but here was one that seemed obscured. However, it felt to me as though it always had been the same cabin, and that I had just never noticed it before. I drew nearer the entrance, fearing what lay within, but not wanting to avoid the confrontation I knew awaited me.

  No more was I the frightened child who wanted to run from my fears. I was afraid, but I was ready to face whatever might stand before me. I mounted the two steps and crossed the small porch before reaching the open door of the cabin. Inside waited a darkness so pure that even my magical eyes could make no sense of the void. I reached for my sword, out of habit, and found that it was not there. I cursed my dream for leaving me unprepared, but did not let my lack of weapon slow me down. I crossed the threshold.

  As I passed beneath the frame of the door to the house that had been a place of relative happiness, I was assailed by memories. I saw, in a bright flash, visions of Kay running through the rooms, chased by a gruff but smiling Malice. I saw an image of Wisp, her hair bedraggled from Kay playing with it, smiling downward. I saw myself, sitting next to Malice, as we watched Wisp carrying Kay on her back, the little girl holding on to Wisp's horns, a gleam of glee in her eyes. Those memories were gone in a second, and then I was merely wrapped in a near total darkness, emptiness taking the place left by the warm visions of better times.

  "Welcome home." A voice growled from a dark corner. I centered my eyes on the corner, but I could make out little more than a vague, hulking shape. The music still beckoned from somewhere outside, tempting me to leave the cabin and wander on.

  "This place is haunted." I told the creature in the darkness. I did not doubt it was the bear-thing, and when I least expected it, it would try to kill me. I readied myself for such an attack. The creature was moving rhythmically in the darkness, though I could not tell what it was doing. My eyes seemed unable to track the motion.

  "No, not this place. . ." It answered. "You, you are haunted."

  I nodded my answer. It was right. I carried the ghosts of the past with me. Lightning flashed outside, and for just a moment light spilled across the room, streaming through holes in the ceiling. Strangely no water fell through these openings. I caught a partial glimpse of the thing in the corner, just the top half of it. It was not the bear-man.

  A throaty, growling chuckle issued from it, though it silenced quickly and again only the sound of the rain and the strange melody filled the darkness, accompanied by the rhythmic motion of the creature in the corner. It was a Fell Beast. More, it was the Fell Beast that I had killed. I had seen the red tips of its ears, those same red caps that I now wore. I felt ill at ease.

  "It's calling to us." The creature tore at the words, as though it hated to speak the language of man. "It wants us to come and play its game. It's hungry. More hungry than you or I."

  "What is that music?" I asked the creature, for it seemed to know more than I did, and though I was loathe to talk to it, I needed answers. I always needed answers.

  "Death, but we need not fear it. Even death may die. We will find it, and we will conquer it, you and I." It replied. "We are strong together. We are unstoppable."

  "You are dangerous." I told the black beast in the corner.

  "We are dangerous. Embrace me, man, embrace my power and we would make them all cower before us. We would feast upon the flesh of our enemies, and use their bones as our hunting paths! Embrace me, and let us eat, hunt, and breed." It answered, and I could hear the lust for power and pleasure filling its voice. I could see the images it bore in its mind, visions of murder, rape, and gorging on death. Something else exuded from it, some sense of terrible satisfaction.

  "I will not give you what you want." I told the black thing, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  It barked with terrible laughter. ". . . but we want the same thing, Lowin Fenly. We want the same thing."

  A candle lit in the corner of the room opposite the dark form, and a second later another candle lit, as if by magic, followed by three more. Suddenly the room was bathed in light, and there before me I saw the Fell Beast in all its terrible glory, red banded wrists, and red tipped ears. Its massive jaws were lined with row after row of terrible teeth.

  In the new light, I was able to see the rest of the scene that had been hidden up until that point. Malice lay upon the floor, her face locked in a grimace of horror and pa
in, tears running silently down her face, as the Fell Beast loomed over her, its massive body pinning her to the ground, it's animal loins pressed between her legs, thrusting violently into her.

  "No!" I screamed. I charged the beast, and it stood up from its prey, casting Malice aside like a broken play thing to dash against the wall. The creature wore its foul lust like a trophy, a dripping and pulsating sign of its victory. Rage filled me, and I willed my claws sharper. The beast charged me, and I found myself locked, claw to claw, with the demon.

  "You want it too." The creature growled. "She is delicious, her body is supple and. . ."

  "Be quiet!" I screamed and pressed back harder, trying desperately to kill the creature, but it matched me stride for stride. I could not get an upper hand. I fought with its fury, and it fought with my technique. I couldn't tell where it stopped and I began. I was horrified.

  Suddenly, and alarmingly, the music stopped, and as one, both the Fell Beast and I froze in place, claws wrapped about one another's throat, powerful, sharp claws poised to kill and rend. I still tried to struggle, and I could see behind the creature's eyes that it too was trying to fight, but we could not move. The beast's face went slack and it looked towards the door.

  "There is someone here . . . wake up." It snapped, and then the dream melted away from me. As it faded, I saw the broken form of Malice lying upon the ground, far too still.

  I awoke in a flurry of violence. Malice screamed, awakened by my sudden thrashing, but I was still moving on instinct. I sprang from the linens and barreled into a figure in the dark, standing poised above the bed, a sword raised. I lashed out with my right claws and felt flesh, bone, and sinew part easily. Banging sounded outside my door. Five more dark figures leapt towards me, weapons at the ready. The world slowed around me as I forced myself faster and faster.