The Snow Song

by Heath Pfaff

  There were gasps of shock and fear from those gathered around, but none stepped forward. I tossed the chuck of useless wing aside, and placed my now bloody left hand against Ethaniel's neck, keeping him pinned. The arm felt strange. It was mine, but it felt new, and untried. I'd been without the use of that limb for so long, that the sensation of touch in those fingers seemed alien. I removed my right hand from the old Knight's hair and grabbed a hold of the other wing. The white fur of the new limb contrasted with the black of the old, making it seem like it wasn't even my own hands doing the bloody work before me.

  "Lowin, no. You can't do this to me I'm . . ." Ethaniel spoke quickly, but I ignored his words. My muscles flexed and flesh and tendons tore with a ripping sound quite unlike anything that can be described. If one has never heard a living creature being physically torn to pieces, then there is no parallel of description possible. Ethaniel's scream shook the air with the power of "the voice." I barely noticed that he was using that particular skill. I heard sobbing, and the sounds of footfalls running away. Malice probably. It was good that she was alive, and well enough to be upset. I should have been horrified at what I was doing, and I was on some level, but my heart was numb. I tossed the other wing aside. Blood flowed down Ethaniel's back, soaking into the fabric of my tattered pants, and into my shirt. The fur of my arms was sticky with it, my white arm was red.

  "Tell me the truth." I demanded, my voice sounded far away. "Tell me what is going on, and what your part has been in all of it." There was no reply. I looked down and saw that Ethaniel's eyes were closed. All four eyes were shut and sweat beaded on his forehead. He had passed out. I could still feel the pulse of his heart through my hand on his neck. The rage fled, leaving me empty and frightened.

  I stood up and looked at those around me. Tower, Silver, Telistera. I saw Snow laying a few feet away, her eyes closed. She was still, but my eyes detected the slight movement of her chest as it rose and fell. She was sleeping, deeply. Probably injured at the same time that I was. Telistera was gashed and beaten. That held true of Silver and Tower as well. The faces watching me were scraped and tired, and frozen in shock.

  "Did you know he had a binding crystal?" I asked the three facing me. They shook their heads negatively as a group.

  "He said he was going to watch over you while Malice got some sleep, and then a few minutes later you got up. We had no idea. . ." It was Silver who spoke up. She had a long gash that had already begun to heal along one side of her face. Her clothes were bloody and torn. Her hair, that peculiar strip down the center of her head, was disheveled, hanging in every which direction. She looked scared.

  I nodded. "Alright, I want someone to keep an eye on him. When he wakes up, I want him watched. He's not to go anywhere. I'm not done speaking to him yet." I looked to Tower. "How is Snow?" At my question, the look of fear fled from the tall Knight's eyes. It was replaced by concern.

  "She's injured badly. She hasn't regained consciousness since we made it to shore." He spoke calmly, if not quietly, but it was obvious that he was worried about the white-furred Knight.

  "See to her. I'm sure she will recover. She is strong, and too stubborn to die on a beach in her sleep." I told the other Knight. I wasn't just putting on a strong face for Tower. I believed that Snow would recover so long as she was still breathing. She was a strong woman, and a fast healer.

  I scanned the area around me. "Which way did Malice go?" I asked, when I could not find clear sign of her passing. I needed to go to her.

  "She went off into the trees." Telistera pointed. "If you're going to go after her, you should at least clean the blood off of your hands first." The silver haired and eyed woman did not look happy. Her eyes were awash with an accusing disappointment. My loss of control had injured her faith in me. She did not look well, either. Her hair seemed to have lost some of its sheen, and her wounds did not look like they were healing as fast as the others. Worry crept into the hollow left by my anger. My friends, no, my travel companions, were suffering for me. I would have liked to call them friends, but my actions would not allow that. One did not treat their friends as I treated those around me.

  I looked down at my blood caked hands, and then walked to the shore line to rinse off in the ocean. The water was cold, but it did the job. The blood stains in my clothes did not come out. I spent a few minutes working on getting the worst of the mess off of me, but eventually I had to give up the task as hopeless. I stood up and walked into the forest to follow after Malice. Telistera, Silver and Tower watched me leave, their eyes as troubled as my heart.

  The forest I entered was familiar and yet not. I recognized some of the plants and trees, but many others were of varieties I had never encountered before, or were only similar. Even the insect sounds of the woods were different, and the scent subtly so as well. I felt as though I were walking through some terrible dream. I looked down at my hands. One was white, one was black. The white fur was still pink tinged from my assault on Ethaniel. I flexed my left hand. White. It was as though the limb were a ghost of the arm it had replaced. I closed my left fist. A life was being spent for that flesh.

  It took me some time to find Malice. When I did come across her, she was leaning against a tree at the side of swiftly running creek. Her eyes were looking outward and away. There were no tears in them. There was no smile on her face, only a hard, humorless expression. She turned her head as I approached, and then pushed herself away from the tree until she was standing before me. I drew closer. There was a tension in the air that I did not like. She looked less injured than the others on shore. I was thankful for that.

  I saw her motion coming the moment she initiated it, but I was so stunned that I did not even think to react. Her fist struck hard on my left cheek, and I fell backwards, landing with a heavy thud on my back some few feet behind where I had been standing. I felt my jaw crack and realign itself, the healing happening almost at the instant of damage.

  "That was terrible. What you did to Ethaniel was wrong. What he did was an evil thing, and he should have been punished, but not like that. You went too far, Lowin." Malice's words were strained.

  I pushed myself back to my feet. "I know." I whispered, as I dusted myself off. There was little else I could say. I had been wrong in the way I handled the situation. I let myself be ruled by my anger, driven by the beast inside of me, and justice had not been properly served. I was playing the part of the monster again, a role I only too easily took.

  "I love you, Lowin, but you scare me sometimes." She turned her back to me.

  "I scare myself, Laouna." I replied. "I don't understand how to control the anger inside of me. When it wants to break free, it overwhelms me. I feel as though I'm watching as my body does whatever it wants. Ethaniel has bound me again, and I'm growing stronger. I don't know what that will do to my control. I don't think anyone knows. No one has ever been bound twice."

  "You're a good person, Lowin. I know you can control whatever is making you do these things. I wouldn't feel this way about you if I believed you were really a monster." Malice's voice was tinged with sadness, most the anger having gone. The red haired warrior turned back to me.

  "I have another life on my conscience. Another Uliona woman is dying now. Ethaniel forced the binding, but it is I who will swallow up her life." I felt crushed inside as I said the words. "I don't want to live through this again."

  "You'll live on for Kaylien, and for me." Malice said, her expression softening. She moved closer to me, her eyes going over my face. She reached up a hand and I flinched for a second, but she only passed her fingers gently over my skin. "Your scars are gone." Her gaze went distant. "How will we remember Wisp now. . ." A tear fell from the corner of Malice's right eye, and traced a single line down her smooth, pale skin.

  I reached up and touched my own face, looking for the familiar scar lines that I had worn for years, since Wisp had cut them into my face when we'd fought while I was still in training at Fell Rock. The scars were entirely gone. A
profound sadness filled me. Though those scars had been given in anger, every time I had looked in a mirror, I had always seen them and thought of the good times I'd spent with Wisp and my daughter. Wisp had been too good for the fate that had befallen her. Another realization struck me.

  "You remember Wisp?" I asked, incredulous. Malice had not mentioned her since her coma.

  Malice nodded once. "I think of her face, and I get sad. I don't recall much, but sometimes I would picture her when I saw your scars."

  "I'm glad you remember her." I smiled as I spoke those words. "She always thought of you like a big sister. I'm glad I'm not the only one who carries her still. She was a good woman." Silence descended.

  "You won't do anything like that again, will you?" Malice asked, after we'd stood quietly, a breath's width apart. I knew then that I was forgiven, and I wondered if finding her forgiveness should have been so easy. Malice loved me, and perhaps that was her greatest flaw. She would forgive me anything.

  I shook my head, hoping that it was true. "No, I will not do anything like that again."

  She put her arms around me, and I returned the gesture. For the first time in years I held Malice in two arms. If only that second arm had not come at such a terrible price. Would I think of that life trickling away, eventually to be lost entirely, every time I held Malice with my new white arm?

  Ethaniel was awake when I returned to the beach with Malice in tow. I hadn't been certain he would recover so quickly, but it was a relief to see that he was at least awake and coherent. He was sitting up. A fire had been built, and he was resting near it, Telistera not far behind him. Snow was still laying quietly, Tower at her side, a vigilant sentinel. I wondered if he'd had time to rest at all since reaching shore. Silver was at the water's edge, staring out over the sea from which we'd come. All attention turned to me as I drew near the fire and Ethaniel.

  His gaze locked on mine. There was no anger in his black eyes, but the gray eyes were, as always, alight with their own inner malice. Those gray smoking orbs were the key to everything. They had changed Ethaniel from the brave, stalwart leader of the Knights of Ethan, into whatever it was that he had become. I wanted to know exactly what that was. I wanted to know why that woman aboard the ship with the Hungering, had the same eyes as he did. I intended to have my answers. I sat down, keeping the light of the fire between us.

  "What are you?" I asked, across the roar of the flames.

  "You know, it took me years to track down the monster I bonded to take those wings, and that says nothing of the effort I put into fighting and killing the beast. That battle was the closest I'd come to defeat since becoming a Knight . . . until today. I knew you would be powerful, but I had no idea the extent of that power. You impress me." Ethaniel said, his voice as collected as ever.

  "What are those gray eyes, Ethaniel?" I asked again, doing my best to keep my anger restrained. He was playing his usual games, avoiding my questions.

  "The eyes were painful, but having those wings torn away was something else entirely. A cut wouldn't have hurt as much, but that terrible pressure, and then the exploding agony as you tore the flesh away from me . . . that was something I won't soon forget." He smiled as he finished speaking, a strange expression that sat unnaturally upon his face. Was it madness that lay beneath the surface of his calm black eyes? There was something trapped in there, but I could not tell what it was.

  "Why did that woman on the ship have the same eyes as you?" I asked another question, ignoring his teasing. The others around the camp had been watching closely, but as I asked that question, I could feel their attention becoming more pointed. Until that moment, they hadn't known what I'd seen. "Why did that woman in charge of the Hungering have the same eyes that you have, Ethaniel? I've never seen another creature like the one you took those cursed things from. What is the shadowlyn? What is your connection to it, to her, and to the Hungering? What have you become?"

  Ethaniel's smile fell from his face instantly, not passing to shock, but merely melting like the illusion that it had been. His gray eyes smoldered. There was hostility there, anger, but there was a clever cunning as well. I did not fear the anger, but I feared that cruel intelligence.

  "I have been nothing if not loyal to a fault. I have stood at your side, fought at your side, through every situation. I have gone with you when others abandoned you, and stood between you and death on many occasions. You repay me by accusing me of betraying you, and tearing the wings from my back. In doing so, you not only take the flesh, but you take the freedom of flight from me, and that is something that I will miss dearly for the rest of my time. I owe you nothing, Lowin Fenly. I owe you nothing, King Noble. Yet still I remain, because I will fight at your side until the bitter end. That is the course of action I have chosen to take. I will help you find your daughter, no matter what you inflict upon me. I will see you to your goal." Ethaniel's words felt like a dagger struck into my heart. I did not doubt that they had been aimed to have just such an effect. He was playing on my sense of loyalty.

  "You're not answering my questions." I said, my anger cooled by my own shame. His words rang with just enough truth that they cut away at my facade of calm, and etched away at my righteous anger.

  "I'm not going to answer your questions. What will you do, Lowin? Perhaps you will rip my arms away next? My legs?" He reached up and grabbed one of the long horns that protruded from his head. "These? They were hard won, and harder still to join with. I suppose having them torn away would be a relief, though. Doorways would no longer pose such a difficulty. So, Lowin, what will you take away from me next?" He stood, spreading his arms out wide. "Don't be shy. Show the others what a powerful man you have become." He was playing to the audience around him.

  "Say what you will, Ethaniel. We both know that you are hiding a dangerous truth. You say you serve me, but I know you serve something else. I was wrong to take your wings as I did. I regret doing it. However, you are a danger to all of us, and you have betrayed me more deeply than any other I have ever known." I held up my white furred arm and clenched the fist.

  "You cursed someone to death so that I might have this arm back. I don't believe for a minute you did it because you were worried about me. You bound me to another life, that I will have no choice but to slowly eat away. I will grow stronger, while the woman you've tied me to will grow weaker. Every day that I feel more powerful, she will die a little more. I don't even know her face. I can't even thank her for what she has given me. She will die alone and unremembered because of your actions.

  "You are a disease dressed in a Knight's armor. I don't know what you intend for us, but I swear if I find that you've hurt anyone here, I will cut you down so swiftly that you won't have time to realize you are doomed." The words all flowed from me in a rush, a torrent of things that I needed to say.

  Ethaniel did not speak again, and uneasy silence settled over our camp. I'd had the last words, but he'd defeated me. I would get no information from him, no matter how hard I pressed. Further violence would only serve to alienate the others, and he knew it. The answers were slipping away from me again. I was forced to act without all the information I needed to make a sound judgment. I turned to Telistera. She still did not look well, but I was counting on her.

  "You know how to find the Hungering?" I asked, though I already knew the answer to that question.

  She nodded. "I know where they came from. I can take you there, more, I can tell you how to get there." Her face was grim. "I may not make it all the way, so it will be important for you to know how to finish the journey without me."

  I nodded. I knew what she meant. It was not something I wanted to think about, but Telistera was nearing the end of her life. That was why she looked so run down, and wasn't healing as quickly as normal. Those of the silver eye, her people's chosen warriors, only lived for twenty years at best, and she was near the end of those years.

  "What do you mean you may not make it?" Malice's voice was wrought with concern. It sent a
rush of pain through my chest. "You've healed from worse injuries before. I'm sure you'll be fine. You just need some time."

  Telistera shook her head. "For one of my kind, I have lived a long time. I wanted to come back here, to my home, before my life had run its course. I've done that now. I will stay with you as long as I can, but my end is soon upon me. I can feel it rushing towards me. My powers are waning."

  ". . . but, I don't want you to die." Malice said, and for the first time in a while, she sounded more like Laouna than Malice. I could hear the innocent inflection in her voice, and that innocence was suffering.

  "It's alright, Laouna. We all die eventually, and I have lived a good life. I am not sad about it, and you shouldn't be either." The silver-eyed woman insisted. I clenched my teeth and forced my own emotions under control. She had been an invaluable ally for a long time. I did not want her to die either. I knew, however, that the time was coming. I would remain strong. Perhaps that would give strength to the others. To lose a companion in combat was hard, but to lose one to the ides of time, somehow that was harder still.

  Malice did not speak again, but she drew her cloak about her, and pulled the hood low over her face. I moved to her side, and put an arm around her, looking out over the beaten remainder of the thousands that had come with me from Kreo. Only six were left. I wondered what had happened to all the others from the ship. Had they made it to shore yet? Would they ever? The black cloaks, and their young, what had become of them?

  Snow lay still upon the ground, Tower sitting at her side like a loyal dog. I hoped that she would wake soon. The longer she slept, the greater were my concerns for her. Tower held her hand in his own, his eyes falling back onto the white-furred warrior's face as the camp settled and became quiet. What if she died? I forced that thought out of mind. It was far too bleak a consideration to hold onto.