A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Volume 2

by Mercedes Lackey

  She could not have engineered a better outcome here if she had personally directed The Tradition into this path.

  Actually, I wonder if I have…. or rather, if all the Godmothers have. Is it becoming part of The Traditional Path for us to intervene?

  She shook off the thought. If it was, well…the work would be going easier. And aside from the occasional moment like this one, it wasn’t.

  Pity.

  Because if things would just go a little easier…she might be able to leave them for a bit. Go somewhere. Somewhere without ice and snow.

  She made a face and put down the empty bowl with a sigh. Outside, the sun was westering. She wasn’t sure how far Valeri was going to take Gerda, but there was not a chance that Valeri would be coming with her. She hadn’t packed up her own things, after all. No, Valeri would take her out of immediate reach of the bandits and then leave her to find her own way. That should be just about now.

  CHAPTER 6

  ALEKSIA RETURNED TO THE THRONE ROOM FEELING ALL THE better for the meal and the chance to warm herself. She settled down to her mirror in a much better frame of mind than when she had left it.

  The great mirror clouded for a bit as she reminded it of what it had last been reflecting, then the cloudiness resolved into the image she had expected, a look backward across the loping reindeer’s back, the grin of Valeri as the sledge flew over the snow, and behind her, Gerda’s white, strained face. Interestingly enough, they were out of the trees and tearing along a long, flattish slope. From the look of things—yes, Gerda was within striking distance of the Palace of Ever-Winter. With help.

  Just as Aleksia recognized that fact, Valeri brought the sledge to a halt.

  “And here is where I leave you!” she said cheerfully. She waved her hand in the general—and correct—direction of Aleksia’s Palace. “What you want is over that way. Not sure how far, but it’s there all right.”

  “You aren’t coming with me?” Gerda faltered, getting carefully up from the sledge. From the way she winced, it hadn’t been an easy ride.

  “Of course not! I’ve got the band to help look after! And when I do leave—” Valeri’s face took on a look of speculation. “When I do, it’ll be t’see the world. No offense, but not t’go rescue some little girl’s boy. So! Best of luck and off you go!”

  And Valeri did not even pause to see Gerda sling the pack over her back. With a yell and a slap of the reins, she was off again, turning the sledge back along the track they had made, the reindeer’s head high as he loped along. And Valeri did not look back.

  Poor Gerda…standing there all alone in a vast expanse of white, she looked very small, and very lost.

  And there was no way, no way at all, she was going to get across the mountains on her own two feet. No matter how brave she had been so far, no matter how earnest she was, she was still a town girl. She simply did not know how to survive out there.

  She was going to need help.

  And now was the time for her Godmother to arrange for some overt aid.

  Aleksia redirected the mirror for a moment, into the depths of an ice-cave. And there, as she expected, was what she was looking for. It did not at all surprise her to see Urho, the Great White Bear, looking back at her.

  My scrying told me you might be needing me, said the slow, heavy voice in her mind.

  Urho was one of the Wise Beasts, the sort that could speak and reason like humans. He was a frequent visitor to the Palace, and although she could not exactly call him good company, his stories were interesting, and he actually enjoyed breaking up the monotony of Winter with the occasional task for her. His usual tasks—for he was something of a Mage himself—were to see to it that the more inimical of creatures were reported, and if possible, kept far from her door, and to come to the aid of travelers wise enough to see him for what he was or innocent enough to trust him.

  “I have a peasant cook now,” she said, and with amusement saw his eyes light up. “Oh, yes, Urho. All your favorites, I do think. And down below your cave, where the snowline meets the treeline, just above the cairn of thirty stones beside the trout stream, there is a young lady. She is all alone, rather ill-equipped and marching with great determination to rescue her lover from wicked me.”

  What, another one? Urho rumbled with laughter. So, so, so. I should hurry, if I am to intercept her before nightfall.

  “Thank you, old friend. I will see you in a few days.”

  Look in on us between now and then. I will find shiny places.

  “I will,” she promised, and the mirror clouded over.

  She took a long, deep breath. Well, that was sorted. Kay was in love with Gerda after all, with emotions all the more potent for having been suppressed all this time. Gerda had grown a spine, not sitting down in the snow and weeping until someone found her and took pity on her, but marching over inhospitable territory with every intention of getting there by herself. The difficult part of all of this was over.

  Of course, she was not going to count this over until the lovers were reunited and on their way home together. Many a Godmother had been tripped up by being too confident of the happy ending.

  She rubbed her hands together to warm them. No matter how hard she tried, she was never quite able to keep herself completely warm here. She was about to get up when the glass clouded again.

  She blinked to see her mirror-servant appear in the depths of it. He hardly ever used this mirror. He hated it, actually. Despite appearing as nothing but a disembodied head, he swore the mirror made shivers run down his spine.

  “Jalmari,” she said, looking at the blue-shadowed apparition, closely. “Have you…done something to your hair?”

  The head somehow removed its hood, though there were no visible hands. What was revealed was a bizarre—at least to Aleksia’s eyes—mound of white hair with tight rolls over each ear and some sort of tail with a black ribbon tying it back.

  “What in the name of all that is holy is that?” she asked, astonished.

  Jalmari stared back at her. “It is the highest of fashion in the Frankish Court.”

  “It looks like something died on your head,” she replied, too astonished by the sight to be anything except blunt.

  Jalmari sniffed. “Well, since you need me so seldom, I have been taking the opportunity to educate myself in the ways of some of the other Kingdoms. No one would take me seriously in Frankovia if I didn’t wear my hair this way.”

  “No one will take you seriously here if you do,” she muttered, amused. “So to what do I owe the favor of an appearance?”

  Jalmari became intensely focused, so much so that his absurd hair vanished, leaving him with his normal curly black locks. “You wished to find information about your imitator, Godmother Aleksia,” he replied. “Well—this is what I have found—”

  * * *

  Look for magical trouble among the Sammi, centered on ice and snow. Hardly useful, since it was what she already knew, except that Jalmari had at least given her a small area to search in. My own searches lead me here, and no farther. This probably means that the players in this Traditional path have not moved yet. So look for powerful magic, Godmother. This has clouds of great danger about it.

  Outside of being able, like Aleksia herself, to see and hear anything in a place with a mirror in it, Jalmari’s one powerful ability was to see directly the magic that The Tradition gathered about its instruments and pawns. Something about this particular river valley and village was aswirl with that magic. So Aleksia was looking through every reflective surface she could find in order to—

  “—but Mother Annuka,” said a tearful voice, as the vague shapes in her mirror coalesced into two women of the Sammi, standing outside the doorway of one of their log houses. It must be harvest season by the look of things. The leaves of the trees above their heads were gold, and the sky was a crisp and chilly blue. One of the women was a stunningly beautiful girl, a maiden by the fact that she wore her hair uncovered and loose, with a studded headba
nd of ribbon confining it, while the other wore a square felt hat with bands of card-woven decoration, or perhaps embroidery, around the hem. Both were dressed the same: in a woolen, high-necked dress with more fanciful bands decorating it at the neck, along the arms and at the hem, and aprons also decorated with embellished bands. The dresses were so short that, in many lands, they would be considered scandalous, which only made sense for someone who spent all Winter traipsing about in the snow. A dress that ended below the ankle would only end up soaked and sodden, heavy and ruined besides. In towns where roads were trodden down and paths swiftly cut, you could wear a long dress. Out here, where a “village” might consist of three huts, you adapted. So beneath the dresses, both wore woolen breeches, finished at the bottoms with yet more colorful bands, tucked into felt boots. In the deepest Winter, those boots might be sheepskin or reindeer hide rather than felt. The older woman’s costume was black, the younger, a golden brown, and the style marked them as the Sammi, people who herded reindeer in the most northern regions of Karelia.

  So…why was the mirror showing her these two? There had to be a reason. When she was seeking like this, the mirror never showed her anything without a good reason.

  “—Mother Annukka,” the girl repeated, only a step from tears, her face a virtual mask of fear, “this is scarcely the time for music!”

  The older woman was holding a lovely wooden kantele, a harp used mostly by the Sammi, and she gave the girl a sharp glance. Her eyes were a very piercing blue, and Aleksia found herself wishing that she actually knew this woman. Her face had a look of strength, bravery and wisdom about it. “Have you ever seen any true sorcery, Kaari?”

  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!”

  * * *

&nbs
p; 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.