Five days later, dressed in a beautifully embroidered dark green cloak, leather boots and brown and gold breeches and shirt, Jareth stood ready to perform his most well-known seasonal transformation.
Taya’s eyes roamed over him approvingly. “The years have blessed you, my husband,” she said, stepping close to him and stroking his freshly shaven cheek. She had to reach up quite a bit, for as Jareth had predicted that long-ago summer, Taya’s head barely came to the center of his chest. He pressed the little hand to his lips.
“They have indeed, by seeing to it that you have only grown more beautiful.”
“I am still swollen from childbirth,” she laughed, “from foot to face!”
Jareth bent. “I love what I see,” he whispered, and captured her lips with his. He pulled back in time to see Annu rolling her eyes and Altan grinning.
“I don’t think there’s time for that, you two,” Altan said wryly. “Your people await you, Jareth. And I am longing to perform my new song!”
Jareth turned to his daughter. Annu was taller than her mother and her head came to his chin, making it convenient for him to plant a kiss on the top of the golden hair.
“The cloak is beautiful,” he said. “My favorite color, too. You have quite a talent for one so young.”
Again, Annu rolled her eyes. “I’m twelve, Father. I’m not a child anymore.”
He sighed, tousled her hair, and then turned toward the door, reaching for the staff he had made when he was thirteen. He opened the door to see the beaming headman, and forced himself to adopt a regal pose, smiling and nodding at the upturned, expectant faces in the crowd.
The parade of onlookers followed Jareth as he strode through the center of the village. Altan had contrived a way to carry his instrument and play it at the same time by attaching it to a sturdy leather strap hung over his shoulder—a first for a kyndela player as far as Jareth knew. But that was Altan, always breaking the traditions even as he personified the best the huskaa tradition had to offer. Grumpy or charming, sarcastic or pleasant, the boy was brilliant, no question about it, and Jareth was proud to be his friend.
The day had dawned clear, but now snow was starting to fall. That was all right with Jareth; it would turn to rain soon enough. The path he had trod for the past twenty years led through the forests that embraced the village and into a small clearing. The snow continued to fall, becoming heavier. Over the bright sound of Altan’s instrument, Jareth heard some concerned mutterings.
He reached and touched his old friend the oak, which had held him so supportively through many summers as a youth and even as an adult. A frown touched his lips. Usually he could feel at least something when he touched this mighty tree, no matter what the season. He forced his apprehension down. It had been a hard winter this year, despite his efforts to gentle the harshness; perhaps the tree was simply slumbering more deeply than usual.
Leaning his staff against the oak’s trunk, Jareth stepped into the clearing. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.
“I have been blessed by the gods, and I have heard the call,” he said, his voice resonant. “I am the protector and guardian of the earth’s seasons, summoning them and continuing the cycle of what was, and is, and ever shall be.”
He knelt. The snow seeped through his breeches almost immediately, but the woolen cloak on his back blocked most of the wind that now started to pick up. His fair hair was growing wet with the falling flakes. He flexed his fingers, readied himself, and plunged them into the snow.
It was so cold it felt almost hot to him, tingling and biting his unprotected flesh. His fingertips brushed frozen sod. He took another deep breath and forced his fingers down into the earth.
Nothing happened.
The wind increased, toying with his damp locks. Again he reached, trying to sense the earth, rouse it, melt the snow, summon spring. He heard confused voices, wondering what was going on.
He dug deeper, his hands aching with the cold. Come, spring. It is time. For many months has the winter held sway over these lands, but now it is your turn.
There was no response. It was as if the earth was as dead to him now as it was to everyone else. Jareth felt sweat gather at his hairline, trickle down his face. The earth always heard him before when he tried to reach it. The stones spoke to him, the animals came when he called them, the trees bloomed and grew strong and tall….
He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Taya gazing at him with love and concern. Her eyes widened as she read the fear in her husband’s face, understanding him as if he had spoken aloud.
His worst fears had materialized. His powers were gone.
The winter had lasted for six months now.
Three months had been natural; harsh, but part of the cycle that Jareth had learned to understand and which had become as much a part of him as breathing.
Three more months had been the unnatural winter, with snow that muffled sounds, blocked trade, and was slowly killing both plant and animal.
Unless the weather was so bad that the storm threatened to sweep in should the door be opened, Jareth had slogged every day through the ever-deepening snow toward the clearing. Sometimes grim-faced, sometimes ranting, he dug down until he reached the earth and tried desperately to waken it.
It was like touching a corpse. It felt familiar, but there was no hint of life within. Where there had once been voices, even songs, now there was only this ominous silence. Stones were cold to him, the trees quiet. From time to time, he wasn’t sure why or how, he could still summon animals. This pained him; it was as if the only power he had left was to bring death, even though the death of the beasts meant life for the people of Skalka Valley.
There had been near panic right after his first attempt, but Ivo had managed to calm the crowd. And even then, the assumption was that even if the Spring-Bringer brought spring no longer, the thaw would simply come on its own time, as it had before Jareth had begun to call it. But when that did not happen, and the winter continued, there were some that called for Jareth’s exile. Many, Jareth’s boyhood friend Larr chief among them, said loudly that the gods were angry with Jareth for usurping their powers, and were punishing Lamal.
A sort of sullen, simmering truce had evolved between the villagers and Jareth Vasalen, one that tormented him more than an outright attack. That, at least, he could defend himself against.
The only one who routinely made the trek from the cluster of houses to Jareth’s, set much closer to the forests and the hills, was Altan. Jareth welcomed the youth’s arrival, not for himself but for his family. As the wife and children of the Kevat-aanta, they were as shunned as he was.
“Jareth?” Taya’s voice held a note of fear and worry, as it always did now. “You haven’t eaten all day.”
“I’m not hungry.” He didn’t move from the window where he watched the snow continue to fall. He was growing to hate the fat flakes that wafted down to form more drifts, more winter.
A touch on his arm. He jerked away, shame flooding him as he saw Annu cringe as if he might strike her. Jareth had never laid a hand on any member of his family save in a caress, but he sickly admitted to himself that his demeanor over the past few months might make them think he would lash out at any moment.
“I’m sorry, Annu,” he said, softening his voice. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She smiled bravely. “You didn’t scare me, Father,” she lied, blinking away the tears in her eyes. “Come eat. Please, come eat something.”
So he permitted her to lead him to the center of the small house. He sat on a stool and spooned thin, tasteless soup into his mouth, and forced a smile for his wife, son, and daughter. And as he had every night for the last hundred nights, ever since his connection to the land had forsaken him, he turned his back to his wife and ignored her soft pleas for lovemaking, or even simply to be held.
He couldn’t do it. It was all he could do to be civil to her during the day. At night, to hold her, run his hands o
ver her familiar, beloved hills and valleys—no. He wasn’t worthy of that, not anymore. Jareth had been the Spring-Bringer, the Kevat-aanta, who took care of his people. He had let them all down, and they were suffering badly now.
“Jareth?”
He did not answer. Perhaps if she thought him asleep…
“I know you’re awake.” Her hand reached out, ran tentatively along his shoulder and down his side. He shrank from her touch. “It’s going to be all right.”
He laughed harshly. “My powers have vanished. The gods are angry with me. Winter has lasted twice as long as it ever has before. I don’t think it’s going to be all right, not unless I can somehow stop this.”
Silence. “You know that none of us thinks any less of you—not Annu or Altan or I. We love you, and it doesn’t matter to us if you never get these powers back.”
He couldn’t take it anymore. “You didn’t fall in love with Jareth,” he spat angrily, trying and failing to keep his voice low so as not to disturb the others. “You fell in love with the Kevat-aanta. With the man who found your lost baby sister.”
He heard the rustle as she sat up. “You think I fell in love with you for what you could do?”
Jareth turned, furious. “Didn’t you? What if I hadn’t found Vikka? What if she’d died, lost in the forest?”
“Of course I was happy you found her, but—”
“And who rolled me off the blanket so I could feel the earth at my back as you rode me like a—”
He bit back the worst of the words, but it was already too late. He knew he had gone too far. She froze, then slowly sank back down on the bed. His impotent anger bled away as he turned to touch her, and this time it was Taya who refused her mate’s caress. Even in the dim light, he could see the sparkle of tears on her face.
“I loved you because you cared, Jareth,” Taya said thickly. “Not for what you did. I saw how much you wanted to find Vikka. I saw how you felt the pain of the dying flower. Don’t you realize how others would perceive this ability? Other men would set themselves up as all-powerful rulers, withholding spring or harvest to punish those who didn’t follow them. That never even entered your thoughts. You loved the earth and stones and flowers, and you felt their joy and their pain. You protected them even as you guided them through the seasons. You asked for them to yield their bounty, you never demanded it. That’s the man I fell in love with.”
She fell silent. Then: “I wonder where that man has gone.”
5
After a cloudless night in which the gods danced in the sky, their blue and white coats sending sparks of colors to paint the night in vibrant hues, the dawn that followed was cold and clear. As Jareth fastened his cloak, he stated, “I am going hunting with the men. The sky is clear, for the moment, and we must not waste this opportunity.”
His wife and daughter nodded, their eyes downcast. Jareth remembered when he used to love looking into both sets of blue eyes. One woman held love and a deep passion; the other adoration and unconditional devotion. Neither wanted to look at him now, and he supposed he couldn’t blame them.
It will be better tonight, he thought. When the men and I return with food for the tables, it will be better. At least I will have been able to provide something for my family.
He thought about speaking the words aloud, but decided against it. He would let his actions speak for him. He rose and went for the door. As he placed his hand on it, he heard Taya say softly, “Be careful.”
He nodded, his back to her, unable, unwilling to look at her, to kiss her goodbye. Annu stood beside the door, holding Parvan. She focused her attention on the baby to avoid looking at her father. The infant’s soft gurgle melted something inside Jareth, and he reached to stroke the soft curve of his son’s cheek. Parvan reached up a tiny hand and clutched Jareth’s finger, and the trusting gesture broke Jareth’s heart. Tears stung his eyes, and abruptly he tugged open the door.
It will be better tonight.
The men had gathered in the center of the village, carrying bows and arrows, large hunting knives and small axes. The blades were sharp, the arrows straight and well-fletched. During the long, dark days while the storms raged, there was nothing else to do but stay inside and hone weapons. Jareth knew the cycle. Weapons meant a kill, a kill meant food, and food meant life.
The land should have been well into late spring. The beasts of field and forests had already dropped their young. Jareth and the others had often come across small, frozen bodies that ought to have grown strong and sturdy from mother’s milk and warm sunshine. And even as he mourned the deaths that should not have been, Jareth assisted the hunters as they gathered up the corpses and brought them home. Food was food.
He wondered how the bees fared. Were they all dead in their hives by now? The trees had not blossomed; there would be no flowers for them now, no fruit for humans later. Soon the villagers’ stores would run out, careful as they all were with their dwindling supplies, and they would be forced to eat the seeds they had set aside to plant this year.
Rumors had reached them, from the occasional huskaa mad enough to wander into the valley claiming the Huskaa Law of hospitality. Rumors of men who had left their villages on rampages, taking others’ food and leaving their bodies behind. Such things had never been heard of before. Raids on other villages? Before, Jareth would have dismissed this news as a fantastic tale, but now he could read the truth in the performer’s eyes when he spoke of it.
Always in winter, someone would mention the legendary Ice Maiden. It was well and good to sing the familiar, haunting songs by a warm fire, secure in the knowledge—as they always had been before—of spring to come. But now, some were beginning to think the legends real. The seemingly eternal winter was, indeed, nothing natural. Some muttered that perhaps the Ice Maiden was behind it all.
The men were talking among themselves in quiet voices, falling silent as Jareth walked up to them. He stood tall and straight, forcing his expression to remain calm. He would not let these people know how painful their rejection was. He knew that the only reason they permitted him to accompany them was because sometimes, utterly randomly, he was able to help them. Larr gazed at him with barely disguised hatred, and Jareth wondered if he had tried to talk the others into forbidding Jareth from accompanying them entirely.
If only he knew what had happened—why he had fallen so out of favor with the gods! He had tried everything to beseech them to have mercy on his beleaguered people. He had taken to not eating his share of what little his family ate these days, secretly hoarding it to place as an offering at the foot of the oak tree that had once been his friend. Like all the villagers, weight was dropping off his powerful frame. And still, the gods’ hearts were not moved.
Every time the men went forth to hunt, the task took longer and was less fruitful. Several days ago, when they had previously had a clear day, they had stumbled upon a fox gnawing the frozen carcass of a fawn. The fox’s winter coat of white was long gone, and its orange and red fur was easy to spot on the white drifts. The fawn was all long legs, white spots on its brown coat marking its young age. The hunting party shot the fox, betrayed by his own red coat, and carried the fawn home. Both were eaten that night.
The animals were perhaps even harder hit than the humans by this extended winter, for they were creatures of instinct, totally dependant on the natural rhythms and cycles. Humans could choose to wear warm furs and heavy woolen cloaks, but the fox’s coat had changed all on its own, contributing to its death.
This time, hours passed, yet Jareth was able to sense nothing. At last, he felt a brush of something, some faint stirring of life in this frozen realm. Rabbits, holed up in their warren. Reaching further with his mind, he realized he sensed a doe with a litter of kits. To call her would be to doom her offspring, which would mean six fewer adult rabbits in a few months.
He agonized over what to do. He could call forth the mother and point the party to the warren, and the entire litter would be eaten tonight. He c
ould ignore the presence of the animals, and let them continue to deal with the brutal winter as best they could, which could mean long, slow starvation. Or he could alert his companions to the rabbits and suggest they bring back the mother and her kits and raise them to eat later.
Even as the last option crossed his mind, he knew it would never happen. There was nothing for them to eat. Every scrap of food was necessary to maintain the lives of the villagers. Eleven had already died, a large number in such a small community.
Jareth made his decision. In the end, it was perhaps the most merciful one, both for the long-eared creatures as well as the humans.
Come to me, he thought, keeping his eyes closed. We will thank you for your sacrifice. Your young will not suffer from cold, nor from terror as the teeth of a predator crunch down upon them. Come to me, and we will honor you.
Slowly he opened his eyes and pointed to the warren’s entrance, well hidden by an overhanging branch. They would never have seen it, had not Jareth known exactly where to look. The rabbit, ribs clearly visible in its mangy brown fur, emerged, trembling in the cold.
Thank you. I’m sorry.
There was the brief whine of an arrow and the rabbit spasmed. It fell over, dead at once, its scarlet lifeblood steaming on the snow.
“There are kits in the warren,” Jareth said. His voice sounded harsh and raw in his ears. “We should get them, too.”
It made Jareth both angry and sorrowful as the men leaped into action. Men who would have, in a regular spring, let the doe and her kits be. Men who had children who were now growing painfully thin with each passing day.
Larr brushed past Jareth. “At least you’re good for something,” he muttered.
The urge to strike his childhood friend was so powerful Jareth actually surged forward a step, fist raised. A hand on his arm stopped him before he leaped upon Larr and vented his own fear, frustration and helplessness upon the other man.
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