Her hands were at her mouth, and she realized she was alone. No Altan, no Mylikki, not even the Dragon. It was just her and the blue tiger god of Lamal, standing silently regarding one another in the snow.
Its tail flicked and it gazed at her with deep, knowing golden eyes. Then it turned and bounded off in the same direction Jareth had gone, but left no mark in the snow.
Kevla awoke with a gasp. Sweat dotted her forehead, made her rhia cling to her in dark, wet patches. She could see light outside, but Altan and Mylikki were asleep. They had begun the night sleeping apart, but had ended up huddled in one another’s arms. Briefly Kevla wondered if it was by accident or design. But she had no time to waste pondering the relationship between the two. She hurried over to Altan and shook him.
Sleepily he rolled over and peered at her with tired eyes. “What is it, Kevla? Is something wrong?” Beside him, Mylikki blinked drowsily.
“Do you know why Jareth left your village?”
“No, I told you, he left without a word to anyone.”
“I had a dream,” Kevla said. “I think I know why he left.”
His hand shot out and closed on her wrist. “Tell me.”
“You said, everyone, including Jareth, thought his ability to bring spring was a gift from the gods—the blue tigers,” Kevla said. “Then suddenly the gift went away. I think Jareth has gone to find the gods, to bring back spring to the land.”
Olar knew his mother was torn. On the one hand, she expressed pleasure that her daughter displayed both wit and compassion by pretending to be a huskaa and telling the people from Galak-by-the-Lake to go to Arrun Woods. On the other hand, Olar was aware that even the few people who had made the trip to his village made a difference in the amount of food stockpiled. The Dragon’s hunting had helped, but could not stave off the inevitable. Gelsan could not find it in her heart to turn anyone away. Still, the food would not last for weeks, as they had anticipated, but now merely days.
It was time to go hunting, and Olar was excited.
“I’m old enough now,” he wheedled. “Any other winter I’d be with the hunting party already.”
His mother regarded him. “Any other winter,” she said harshly, “and you would have your father with you to teach you.”
Olar bit his lower lip, uncertain how to reply. His father, Veslar, had been among the first to disappear in a violent snowstorm back when everyone thought this a normal season. He missed his father still, and knew that his mother did too. With Mylikki gone, Olar knew he was all Gelsan had.
“I want to help, Mother.” Gelsan’s shoulders sagged and she sighed. She finished putting on her boots and opened the door. She peered at the sky.
“It seems clear,” she said. She turned and looked at him almost hungrily. Olar stood up a little straighter, accepting her scrutiny, praying to the gods that she would not find him wanting. “Very well. But you stay with me. You do not go farther than my eyes can see you. And if a storm descends, we turn around and come back home immediately. I don’t care if a kirvi is prancing right in front of you, do you understand?”
Olar fought to keep the delight from his face, but he couldn’t suppress a smile. “Yes, Mother,” he said. He hurried to dress properly, finding his snow walkers and strapping them on. The group assembled in the center of the small village. There were eight of them. Most were women, who were the only ones of the right age and physically fit enough to spend the day trudging in the wilds, but there were two old men from Galak-by-the-Lake as well as Olar. He regarded them with compassionate, slightly contemptuous eyes. They wanted to help, but they were too old. They would need to turn around soon. He only hoped it wouldn’t ruin the party’s chances of finding fresh meat.
Increasingly, Arrun Woods and, he supposed, other villages like it, had had to rely on other means of obtaining food—fishing through holes in the ice, constructing traps of various sorts. It helped, but only a little. For the bigger prey, one had to go to them. He was thrilled that finally he was permitted to embark on his first true hunt.
Much later, chilled to the bone and so exhausted his legs were trembling, Olar wished he was home by the smoky fire. They had seen nothing; had not even come across tracks in the snow. Once or twice Olar had thought he had seen a small hare, but it was just his eyes playing tricks on him. Worse, the sky was starting to cloud over. He was grateful when Gelsan called a halt and sank down on a fallen tree. He scooped some snow into his mouth, thankful for the moisture, and listened with half an ear as his mother and the others discussed their options.
One of the old men sat next to him and offered him a piece of dried meat. Olar gnawed on it gratefully. The old man, most of his teeth gone, sucked on his.
“There is still plenty of time before the storm comes,” one woman from Galak-by-the-Lake was saying. “We could at least check all the traps before turning back.”
Cold as he was, heat filled Olar’s cheeks as his mother glanced over her shoulder at him. She was turning back because of him! As if he was a child still. He wanted to tell her that he was fine, that they should keep going if the others wanted to, she should do anything but return home empty-handed because of him….
He looked up at the sky. It was almost completely gray now. When had that happened? They came so swiftly, the storms. Some said the Ice Maiden sent them, to weaken the hunting parties. It did seem as though a party would leave on a cloudless morning to stumble back in the afternoon in an unexpected storm…often missing a few of its number.
There was a soft noise behind him. Idly, Olar turned—and gazed right into the large, soft eyes of a kirvi doe. They stared at one another for a moment, predator and prey, and then the doe turned and bounded into the shadows of the forest.
Wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him again, Olar glanced over at his companion. The old man had seen it too, and his eyes gleamed with excitement. Unspoken words passed between them as the snow began to drift lazily down.
The old man, skinny and white-haired and nearly toothless, had been told time and again that he was past his prime. Olar knew this to be true, although he had never witnessed such words being exchanged; he could see it in how the man held himself. He was thought largely worthless, but now, he and Olar had a chance to prove something to the others.
The snow began to fall more heavily, and the wind picked up. Olar didn’t care. They would be in the forest in a few heartbeats, he and the old man whose name he didn’t even know; killing and bringing home a kirvi while the women and the other old man stood and quarreled about whether they should turn around now or detour to check yesterday’s traps.
No one noticed them slip silently into the shadows of the forest. The scent of the trees wafted to their nostrils as they moved carefully over a carpet of leaves and needles and moss, the ancient trees providing a canopy that caught the snow. Olar knelt, and pointed silently to a fresh hoof print. The old man nodded excitedly, and they continued.
At one point, Olar did feel a pang of worry at how long they had been gone. He glanced behind him, reassuring himself that he could easily find their way back; back with food for two hungry villages.
He turned around, stepping over a curious streak of ice, and cried out.
The old man had already fallen to his knees, trembling arms lifted as if in supplication. Olar felt awe and wonder sweep over him and he too dropped heavily to his knees in front of the vision that had somehow appeared before him.
She was tall and slender and clad in white. She seemed to glow, and in the light that emanated from her it seemed to Olar that her skin was as white as the snow. Golden tresses tumbled down her back, and lips that were red as wine pulled back from teeth that were as white, as perfect, as the rest of her.
Perilous fair she was indeed, but it was already too late. Olar forgot about his mother and sister; forgot about his father, lost in these same woods months ago; forgot about his friends and his village and everything he had never known in this life except for the exquisite beauty who
stood smiling before him. Even as he knew her smile was cruel, he yearned to kiss those lips; even as she laughed with triumph and hatred, he thought it the most beautiful sound in the world.
“Now, you will serve me,” said the Ice Maiden in a voice that sounded as clean and as musical as the snow-songs of a kyndela. “Now, you are mine.”
And they were.
18
“That sounds exactly like the sort of thing Jareth would do,” Altan admitted, frowning and shaking his head. “I knew I was right to worry about him. The fool will likely die trying to find the gods, and if he actually does manage to do so…I fear they will kill him for his impudence.”
Kevla closed her eyes and summoned the image of the Stone Dancer in her head. Every time she had seen him with the beast…the tiger, she amended…they had seemed to be comfortable with one another. One thing seemed certain to her—if Jareth did find the tigers, they would not harm him.
“Where do they live? Your gods?” Kevla asked.
“Go north as far as one can go,” Altan said. “Where the world ends, there live the gods. They dwell close to the sky so that they can leap off the mountains into the stars. That’s why we can see them playing sometimes.”
Light flooded in as the Dragon sat up, removing the “roof” from their shelter. Kevla looked up at her friend. “I have never been to the end of the world,” the Dragon said, “but I will take you as far as my wings can bear you.”
“Jareth is the Stone Dancer, but he is also only human,” said Kevla. “Wherever he can go, we can go. At least we have a direction now. And I don’t think you need to worry, Altan. In my dream, while Jareth was trying to find the tiger…it was also trying to find him.”
Altan gave her a wry look. “That does not altogether comfort me, Kevla. Our gods are not always beneficent.”
Altan needed a little help to climb atop the Dragon, as he was not yet up to full strength. He seemed pleased to have an excuse to hold on to Mylikki as they flew that day, though, continuing to puzzle Kevla. She couldn’t figure out what Altan’s feelings toward Mylikki really were. And judging by the cautious, surprised pleasure on Mylikki’s face, the girl wasn’t sure either.
That evening, Kevla again attempted to scry into the fire, but she had no success. Jareth had been alerted to her presence, and if her assumption was correct, was not overeager to be found.
She tried to open herself to his presence. The next day, she kept getting little tugs: Bear left here. Go right there. Keep heading north; to the end of the world, where the gods play on their mountains and leap into the skies.
Her eyes closed, she silently implored, Where are you, Jareth? We need you. This world needs you.
Two nights later, the Dragon landed in a clearing. They slid off his back, stretching tight muscles.
“I wish I could say that we were about to find him,” Kevla said. “I do sense that we’re closer.”
“Closer than what?” said Mylikki, grimacing as she arched her back. “What do we do if we don’t find him?”
“Don’t talk like that, Mylikki!” Altan chided. Kevla glanced at him sharply, wondering if this was another one of his cutting remarks to Mylikki that seemed to come out of nowhere. But he only seemed to want to hearten the girl.
“We’ll find him. We’ve got to. I have faith in Kevla and the Dragon.” He gifted Kevla with one of his openhearted smiles, and Kevla felt her spirits sink. She felt more like Mylikki. This was a big land, and a man was a small thing compared to the vastness of the wastelands and forests. But she did know they were on the right track. If only she could talk to him through the fire! Or even find his fire; she could then step into the flames and appear at his camp.
While Altan and Mylikki set up the camp for the night and the Dragon left to find them something to eat, Kevla went to the edge of the forest to gather firewood. She did not want to admit it to the others, but she was as weary as they. The constant traveling was taking its toll, and she had been forced to start rationing their food.
She frowned, scuffing the snow with her feet and searching for fallen branches. There did not seem to be much to be had, and she did not want to break limbs off of living trees. For living they still were, Altan and Mylikki had assured her, though to Kevla they seemed fragile and dead.
Her dislike of the forests, the dark, enclosed, shadowy spaces, rose in her again. Fiercely, she told herself to stop being foolish. “They’re just trees, Kevla,” she said aloud. “There’s nothing to be worried about.”
She stepped past where the snow lapped up against the trees’ roots and into the shaded forest. She stepped gently here, and the deeper she went, the more tinder she found. At last, her arms full, she turned and headed back.
The arm went around her waist so hard her breath was forced from her lungs. She dropped the branches in shock. The cold edge of a knife blade pressed to her throat.
Kevla had been in this position before; at the mercy of a man who was larger and stronger than she, with a knife at her throat. She knew what to do.
Heat, she thought, knowing the knife would in an instant become unbearably hot to the touch. The man would have to drop it and then she could—
“Stop that,” the man behind her hissed, “or I’ll cut your throat.”
She could smell burning cloth, and smoke began to float from her throat into her field of vision. How could he continue to hold the knife? Sheer will? Insanity? Something had happened to the men of these small villages. Something that turned hardworking farmers, fathers and sons and husbands, into madmen to be feared as much as the winter itself. Kevla’s stomach clenched as she realized she must have stumbled upon one of them. At least she hoped it was only one….
He pressed the knife closer and she closed her eyes as a quick, startling pain told her the blade had broken the skin. At once, she ceased her attack.
Dragon!
“That’s better.” He moved the knife slightly away from her soft flesh, but did not drop it. His arm around her waist remained strong, holding her like an iron band. He pressed her into his body, the better to control any movement she might make. She had yet to see his face, but already she knew he was tall, powerfully made and shockingly strong. He was breathing quickly, from exertion or excitement, she could not tell.
“Who are you?” he demanded. He spoke without whispering this time, and his voice was both cold and rough.
“My friends and I are merely passing through. We have no quarrel with—with the men of the forests.”
“Men of the forests?” He sounded startled. In his surprise, his voice went from hard and angry to almost pleasant sounding. “You think I—”
Two things happened simultaneously. A clear, youthful voice cried out a single word, and next to Kevla, half a dozen trees were ripped from the ground. The man’s grip disappeared and Kevla, abruptly unsupported, fell forward. It took her an instant to make sense of what had happened.
The Dragon had come, tearing up the trees to find her, and Altan had cried out the name of—
“Jareth!”
“And now, all the players have appeared on the stage,” the Emperor said gleefully to his advisor, the Mage and the creature who crouched at his feet. “The Dancers, their allies, their enemies, the one who will ultimately betray them. I had thought to take them out of play one by one, but if I can eliminate two Dancers by the same treacherous hand, then I shall be well content.”
The advisor drew back pale lips from white teeth in a rictus that only the Emperor would interpret as a smile. He knew this was but one game of many the Emperor was playing, and he also knew that he was being fed bits and pieces of information as the Emperor deemed fit.
In front of them, the bloodred, tapered Tenacru hovered.
He thought of the north, and a never-ending winter, and suddenly shivered.
19
Kneeling in the snow where she had fallen, Kevla looked back to see the man who had held the knife to her throat running as fast as he could for the safety of
the forest, fleeing from the huge shape of the Dragon which must seem like the embodiment of a nightmare to him.
But he would not make his escape so easily. The Dragon slammed a forepaw down in front of him. The earth trembled and the man fell backward. But instead of cowering or crying out for mercy, he bared his teeth like an animal and bellowed wordlessly, brandishing his knife against a creature ten times his size. His other hand fumbled for and hurled a rock, which bounced harmlessly off the Dragon’s scales.
Shocked almost beyond comprehension, Kevla stared at the bloodshot, wild blue eyes darting about for escape, the scraggly beard, the dirt that seemed permanently embedded in hard wrinkles around his eyes. Another rock sang through the air and the Dragon actually rolled his eyes.
This was the Stone Dancer?
“Jareth?” she said in a quavering voice, hoping desperately that Altan had confused his friend with one of the crazy men lurking in the forest’s shadows.
The man’s fair head whipped around for an instant to stare at her, then he turned back to the Dragon. The Dragon sat back on his haunches, trees cracking beneath his bulk. Cautiously, Jareth got to his feet, staggering like a drunken man. When the Dragon did not move to attack again, he turned to Kevla.
“I saw your face in the fire,” he accused.
Kevla’s heart contracted with despair. This was indeed the man she had seen in her vision. This was the man who had seemed to her so proud and strong and capable, the man to whom she had hoped to surrender all her burdens. Instead, he was running wild in the woods, bedraggled and looking both lost and angry. How could he possibly help to save their world?
Jareth’s eyes narrowed as he regarded her. He opened his mouth and was about to speak again when Altan flung himself at him.
In Stone's Clasp Page 17