A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Volume 2

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I know you have frozen his heart,” the girl replied courageously, her cheeks bright red now, and her eyes wide and frightened-looking despite the determination in them. Poor thing, she was terrified. But that was the point of all of this. If this was to work, she would have to be the one keeping Kay’s feet on the ground. She would have to stand up to him in a temper, when he didn’t want to be bothered. She had to be made of very stern stuff. It would be just as frightening to have to stand up to the one she loved as it was to stand up to the evil Snow Queen. There would be times when she would have to remind herself of that. “I know he is not himself. Free him! Let him make his own choices!”

  Aleksia laughed at her, putting a world of scorn and withering contempt into her voice—just as Kay would probably do in a temper. In fact, everything that she was doing now was to test her to see if her own self-worth was strong enough to stand up to the worst the one she loved could deliver. It is so much harder to take a hint of scorn from the beloved than a verbal battering from an enemy.… Kay would always be more intelligent, more clever than Gerda was. She had to know, deep inside her, that what she offered was just as important and just as valuable as wit and intelligence. “Very well, child, if you want him so badly, see if you can take him!”

  She sat back in the seat of her sleigh with an air of haughty and confident amusement. Gerda did not need a second invitation; she grabbed Kay by the collar of his fur cloak and hauled him out of the sleigh bodily.

  No matter how many times she did this, Aleksia always found the moment when the girl tried to hold to her boy fascinating. Not that the boy ever varied his performance; he couldn’t, since he was, for the first time since she had taken him away to her Palace, actually spellbound. No, it was how the girls reacted that was fascinating. This was where she showed what she was truly made of, and how she was going to face living with her young man in the future.

  Kay seemed to wake from a trance, and his face went from stony to as haughty as Aleksia’s. “Let go of me, peasant!” he spat, trying to brush off her clinging arms, then actually fighting to get her to loosen her hold. “Stupid, ignorant filth! Unhand me! Who do you think I am? I am Kay, chosen consort of the Snow Queen! You are—who? I never saw you before! You are nothing! You know nothing and do not care that you know nothing! What are you, compared to her? You are a sparrow in the presence of a Swan, a mouse in the shadow of an eagle! You can scarcely manage to raise your eyes above the mud at your feet, and she soars among the stars! I am meant to be with her, you stupid, silly little girl! Let me go!”

  At this point, barraged with insults, some girls wept, some girls begged the boy to recognize them and one had just given up. That last one had infuriated Aleksia so much that she had very nearly given up on the two herself and stripped both of their incipient power. Only the fact that the boy had come to the same point as Kay kept her from doing just that.

  Instead, she had put the boy into an enchanted sleep, then whirled the girl away in a snowstorm. After a truly terrifying “appearance” and a “curse,” she had sent the girl on a full year of questing to find her boy again, until her clothing was in rags and the pair of iron shoes she had been given was worn thin. She had felt rather sorry for the boy actually—he had certainly managed to come up to the mark on his end—and had kept him asleep for that year before consigning him to the obliging trolls who had finished out the story for her.

  Gerda was made of very stern stuff, thank goodness; she hung on for dear life, grimly, cheeks flushed, saying nothing.

  Good for her. Time for the next test. She can handle him in a senseless rage. Let’s see how she handles this.

  Aleksia made an unobtrusive sign, and Kay went from raging to weeping, moaning, crying out in pain. “Gerda! Gerda, it hurts, it burns, let me go! Please, please let me go. This is killing me. If you love me, you will let me go! Please! I cannot bear this! I cannot. The pain, the pain is terrible, and if you love me, you must release me, I beg you!” His cries and moans were heartrending and sounded very genuine. They weren’t, of course, but Gerda couldn’t know that. Which was, after all, the whole point. There might well be a time in the future, perhaps when he was ill or hurt, or utterly despondent, when he might beg for her to leave him. And again, she would have to trust in herself to know that she must not.

  Gerda hung on, still saying nothing, though tears streaked her own cheeks. Aleksia allowed this to go on a few moments more, and then set the next phase in motion. Now things were going to get interesting, for this would test what Gerda could face down in the way of physical trials. In a sense, Kay himself would no longer be “important” here; he would no longer be recognizable as himself.

  Aleksia wrapped The Traditional power around both of them, power that grew with every moment that Gerda held fast. Now it was so strong that she could do things with it that utterly transcended the usual magics she could manage, and went from magic to the realm of the almost miraculous. With a shriek, Kay burst into flame.

  He screamed at the top of his lungs, and so did Gerda. It looked exactly as though he had been doused in oil and set ablaze. Nothing of him was really recognizable in the fire, not even his voice. The flames weren’t hurting him, though they were burning Gerda—or at least, she thought they were. The pain and the burns were illusory, but very convincing.

  Aleksia smiled a little, with pardonable pride, and then concentrated on controlling the fire, which was a very tricky proposition. Veroushka had never managed that part of it, although the Godmother before her had, and advised this as being integral to the test. The fire had to be real; in fact, the snow all around the two of them was melting, and anyone near either of them would feel the heat. The reindeer moved uneasily away a pace or two. The fire had to hurt Gerda enough to make her feel she was burning, and yet, the pain had to be entirely in her own mind. And, of course, the fire could not touch Kay at all. It was a very tricky bit of magic to manipulate, in spite of all the power that was at her disposal. Aleksia didn’t let this go on for very long, however. That would have been altogether too cruel. With a final shriek, the fires went out.

  Before Gerda could even take a breath and realize that she was unhurt, Kay writhed bonelessly in her arms, shivered and then—

  —he became a giant serpent, and it was Gerda’s turn to be seized as he flung his coils around her. She went white, as she looked up at the flat, hideous head with its slitted yellow eyes, when she saw the huge fangs as long as her hand as the pale mouth opened and the noisome breath washed over her. She looked as if she was about to faint as Kay reared his head above hers, poised to strike.

  She screamed in terror—and hung on.

  At this point, if a girl fainted, Aleksia never considered it a flaw. There was such a thing as going beyond what a girl could bear, and as long as, when the girl woke up again, she tried to hold to her lover, the trial was still on.

  But Gerda didn’t faint. The serpent gave another angry hiss, feinted a strike and writhed in her arms again. Once again, Gerda found herself holding on to something that was changing even as she clung to it.

  In a way, that might be the most terrifying part of the trial, really. The in-between forms, so strange and horrible, things that matched nothing, things that could become anything. And not knowing what you were going to be hanging on to when the monster that had been your lover settled into a form.

  This time, she found herself holding on to a double handful of coarse mane. He became a stallion, kicking and fighting—though Aleksia was very careful to make sure that none of those kicks or bites actually connected, and that as long as Gerda maintained her grip, Kay would not actually break free.

  Gerda hung on, teeth gritted, muscles straining, eyes blank as she concentrated.

  Again Kay writhed, became amorphous, changed.

  And now he was a hideous Troll in her arms, stinking to high heaven of rotting meat and foul breath, a thing that slobbered over her, laughed greedily and tried to kiss her. This thing wasn’t trying to es
cape—oh, no. Now her fight was with herself, to keep from letting go of the awful thing. She averted her face and hung on.

  Kay writhed again in her arms.

  She found herself clinging to the ankles of an enormous eagle, that beat at her with his wings as its cruel talons opened and closed, and its shriek fit to split the eardrums as it tried to get away from her. She hung on.

  No matter what form he took, no matter how he tried to escape, she hung on, battered, beaten, burned, frozen, threatened; it did not matter.

  Until, at last, Kay lay in her arms again, exhausted, but himself. And Aleksia released the spell on him. He would have no memory of all of this; this was her trial, and not his. It was just as well, really.

  Some Snow Queens of the past had not been as skilled in magic as others, and had elected to use mere illusions instead of transformations. Those were never quite as convincing, Aleksia had found. There was always some self-doubt in the girl’s mind afterwards.

  He blinked; saw who was holding him for the first time. So far as he knew, a moment before, he had been telling Aleksia that he was sure he had lost her forever. How not? For all he knew, he really was the Snow Queen’s prisoner, and he would never see his childhood sweetheart again. He had no idea that Gerda had been looking for him all this time—all he had known was that he saw her charming a giant Bear somewhere. And there were stories about that, too…the Bear could easily have been a Prince in disguise or under a curse. He could have been on the verge of losing her forever. But now—here she was.

  With him.

  “Gerda?” He faltered. “Is it really you?” He reached up to touch her face as if he still couldn’t believe she wasn’t an illusion herself.

  She looked up into his face, tears still on her cheeks, but her expression had been transformed by love. “It’s me! Oh, Kay, do you know me at last? I have been searching so long for you!”

  “Know you? Oh, my love—” He took her face in both his hands and covered it with kisses. “Why did I ever leave? Why couldn’t I see what was right in front or me? My love, my only love!”

  Aleksia chuckled with satisfaction and let her haughty expression drop. The Bear ambled forward at that point, making whuffling sounds of contentment. He truly enjoyed seeing the happy endings of tales, and she would never deny him that pleasure when she had a chance.

  Silly cubs, he said affectionately. Wouldn’t you think, with all of the stories they are told, that they would manage to keep themselves out of trouble?

  “They can’t help it, as often as not,” she replied quietly. “When The Tradition decides for them, the best we can do is to make sure nothing horrible happens.”

  Hmm, true enough. He whuffled again. I am glad I am not a human.

  She chuckled.

  She motioned to the Bear, who nodded to her and took his cue, as she called up a halo of bright light around them both. Now it was time for her to change from the mantle of the Snow Queen to that of the Fairy Godmother—and time for the Bear to become the Mystical Helper. He waited for the two lovers to pause for breath and made a coughing sound. They both looked up, startled, eyes widening at the sight of the smiling woman radiating light, and her ursine companion who was doing the same. The Brownies attending the sleigh were grinning broadly, and even the deer were watching with approval.

  “You have passed all the trials I have set you,” Aleksia said, another touch of magic giving her voice a ringing quality. “And your prize is that you have won each other and found yourselves.” The Brownie driver handed her down from the sleigh, and she took off her own fur cloak and put it around Gerda’s shoulders.

  I lose more fur cloaks this way… She made a mental note to have another half-dozen sewn up for her.

  She held out her hand, and the Brownie serving as postilion put a gold filigree casket the size of an apple and shaped like a heart into her hand. This, she handed to Gerda. Gerda opened it, and gasped at the fortune in sparkling gems that lay within; this would be more than enough to set the pair up with a fine home and workshop, where Kay could invent clever things to his heart’s content. It would also ensure that he would not find himself seeking work only to discover that his cleverness was being used to fabricate terrible weapons. “For your steadfast heart, I bequeath to you the means to make your way in the world without sacrificing your integrity and ideals. Seek peace, help each other and never forget to aid those who are less fortunate than you, or your prosperity will melt like snow in the Summer.”

  Again she held out her hand, and this time the casket that the Brownie put into it was steel. “And for you, Kay, who has learned that there is nothing of value that surpasses the love another has for you, something very special. For as long as you remember this, and remember to love Gerda in return, this box will hold whatever it is you need most and cannot find on your own, be it silver and gold or a bit of clockwork, or the book that gives you the clue to solve a problem. But the moment you forget this, the moment you break her heart—” her face darkened “—this casket will fail you, and all you attempt will come to naught.”

  Kay took the box with a sober expression. “I will make no eternal vows, Godmother,” he said with genuine humility, then grinned sheepishly. “I can be a single-minded and selfish bastard, as we both know. I only promise that I will try, I will try as hard as I ever have to solve some tangled problem.”

  “And I will remind him, no matter if he pushes me away,” Gerda said, raising her chin and looking at Aleksia with determination.

  She smiled. They would be fine. It was the ones who swore stupid things like “I will never fail her!” who ended up starting another tale. The Tradition seized on things like that the moment that the words left the lips.

  And then they are my problem all over again.

  “Then keep each other strong and sure,” she told them firmly. “Remember that it can be vital to fix mistakes as soon as you know you have made them. And remember to be very, very careful of what you wish for, because sometimes the worst thing that can happen to you is to get it. My sleigh will take you home. You will find every provision you need on the way.”

  She stepped back; Kay handed Gerda in, then climbed up after her. The driver slapped the reins over the reindeers’ backs, and the sleigh moved off, going faster and faster, until at last it lifted right up off the ground and into the air, where it soared off and became lost in the blue.

  I do hope they send it back, the Bear chuckled.

  She slapped his massive shoulder. “Silly goose. Come on, then, you know what happens now.”

  The Bear sighed with content. I take you home, and then you feed me. I hope you have honey-and-oat cakes with berries in them.

  She laughed, and hoisted herself up onto his back. “If we don’t, we soon will—as soon as my cook hears that you want them.” He was as broad across the shoulder as a bed and she had no trouble settling herself down. As warm as he was, with a little magic to help, she did not even need her cloak. She patted his massive neck. “Right you are, my friend. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Annukka hooked her rope around the ankles of yet another dead bandit, and patted the shoulder of her nervous reindeer. He moved off in the direction of the untidy line of corpses that Annukka had laid out where predators and scavengers could easily find and feast on them. This would virtually ensure that their spirits would wander about for a good long time before finding an entrance to Tuonela, and she hoped that every single moment would be sheer misery for them.

  The encounter with the bandits had, curiously enough, left Annukka and Kaari better off than they had been. Aside from destroying her charms, they had done nothing to despoil what the two women had brought with them. So not only did they have their reindeer and the provisions that they had gotten from Annukka’s stores, they were now in possession of things they had not been able to obtain before fleeing the village.

  Weapons, chiefly, but also other items.

  Annukka had insisted on Kaari going through the camp
site, while she disposed of the bodies. There were three or four hide tents, all in poor repair, that with some work, Annukka would be able to piece into one tolerably good tent. That was probably the best find of all. But they also had weapons now, a bow apiece and plenty of arrows, a pair of long daggers and a hand-ax, which would be useful for chopping wood as well as being a weapon.

  Kaari had been very thorough about picking out everything that could be used, although both of them had drawn the line at scavenging clothing. For one thing, it was all dirty and reeked of sweat and things best not contemplated. For another, most of it was so patched together that it was not worth the time to repair it.

  But it looked as if most of the bandits’ victims had been individual travelers and hunters, who had carried things more useful to the women than to the bandits. They had rope and cord, spare hide, a stout pry-bar, extra strapping and brass bits and tools to mend harness, proper packs instead of the sacks they had tied on the backs of their deer, and any number of small things that were likely to prove useful. Individually, the robbers had been a scurvy, ragtag lot, but being able to pick through all of their belongings had been fruitful. It was ironic to think that if they had been willing to share, they all could have been living much more comfortably than they were by hoarding their spoils.

  Annukka had frankly expected to have to do most of the work of hauling the bodies off to a pile in the woods and picking through the camp, but to her surprise—and gratitude—after an uneasy night’s sleep, and after all the useful things had been picked out, Kaari had mustered up enough spine and guts to help.

  But now a difficult moment was coming. Annuka had been the one to rifle the body of the chief, and then had left him for last. When she returned with the deer, she found Kaari standing over the corpse, staring at it. Annukka watched her carefully, expecting an explosion of some sort—

  And as Annukka had expected, after a moment, Kaari unleashed a barrage of vicious kicks on it, then seized a stout branch and beat the corpse’s head until it was unrecognizable, then burst into tears.