Our Lady of the Snow

by Louise Cooper

  Or—

  The stooping figure raised its head and seemed to look straight at them. A wave of rage and madness erupted from it, sweeping through the room, and with a shock that almost unhinged his mind Kodor saw that it had no face.

  “Great lord!” The words of worship came automatically and he would have knelt in awe, but Nanta’s hand clenched over his, her nails driving painfully into his flesh.

  “No!” she hissed. “Do not make obeisance to him! He is not worthy of it. He killed her!”

  Kodor’s senses reeled and he wanted to protest: No, that can’t be, he is the God, he is all-wise

  And he is a thing of hate and vengeance.

  The mental jolt froze him, crippling his limbs. As though from a vast distance he heard Nanta repeat, “He killed her,” and her voice was calm and sure.

  “Look again, Kodor. See now. Back in time.”

  The bier faded, changed, became a bed within a room. Kodor knew the room, remembered it from his childhood. The royal suite of the palace, where generations of his ancestors had fulfilled their destiny. He and Osiv had been conceived and born in that bed; his mother and father had died there. Now, beside the bed, he saw a woman praying. It was the old Imperatrix, his mother, and he heard her desperate words: “Another son…oh, dear God, grant me another son!”

  The song changed. The lilt fell away and now it was a sad dirge, wistful and heartbreakingly melancholy. Darkness flowed over the bed, over his mother’s desolate figure. Hate and vengeance…It was coming to her, moving on her. Kodor saw her face uplifted in wonder and awe, and he knew what the God would do, how the Imperatrix’s prayer would be answered.

  A second son, to rule Vyskir where the first could not. But this son would not be Arctor’s. This son would not be truly human. And in the room within the oval, a small child with vacant eyes sat watching as the tryst was made.

  “Ah, no!” Kodor started to back away. “No, please—it can’t be true. It can’t!”

  Nanta said, “It is true.”

  As she spoke, a raging, corrosive power swept over the hunting lodge, shaking it from end to end as though a hurricane had sprung from behind the north wind. “You are the God’s own child,” Nanta said softly. “And so am I. But we did not have the same mother.”

  He stared at her, unable to comprehend. “Your mother was…”

  “Not Karetta.” She was smiling, and her eyes were the color of sapphires, imbued with an inner light of their own. Then her expression changed. The oval of light dimmed and flickered, as though lightning were dancing deep within it, and Nanta stared into its heart while her eyes became dark and dire.

  “He slew her,” she said. “The God slew the Lady. She bore him a child, and he refused to believe that child was his own. He claimed she was unfaithful.” A harsh laugh that made Kodor start violently broke from her throat. “She was not untrue. He was the unfaithful one, for he had answered the prayers of Arctor’s wife and got a son on her. He was driven by his own guilt; driven to accuse his true Lady, to cover and justify his own wrongdoing. I think that perhaps he was already mad then.”

  Kodor was shaking and couldn’t make himself stop. “You…” he whispered, almost choking on the word as his throat tightened and constricted, “The child she bore him…you are that child.”

  She turned and regarded him once more. Her eyes were kinder now. “Yes. I am.”

  “But how can you know this? Not through Osiv.”

  “No. Your story is locked in Osiv’s mind; my story is in my own. My mother placed the knowledge there, to be awakened when the time was right. It was the sprites who showed me. They opened the doors into the past, for me and for Osiv, and they set us free.”

  Kodor understood. He understood what had been hidden away in Osiv’s damaged memory for so many years. He understood the dreams that had plagued him and plagued Nanta—and plagued his brother, too, though Osiv could never tell of them. Osiv knew, and had always known. When Nanta came to wed him, he, like Kodor, had recognized what she was. But unlike Kodor, Osiv had accepted without question, for he knew no other way.

  And now that the truth had awoken, so had something else. A power that was dark and vast and mad, raging, coming through the snow as the daylight declined. His father.

  “Nanta—” He was trying to warn her, trying to express the horror and the fear he felt. But Nanta shook her head.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she told him. “He is not here yet. And there is more.”

  She turned again to the oval of light. Another image was forming. Snow; a blizzard. A fine house, surrounded by trees and with lights burning in every window. A figure was gliding towards the house against the furious drive of the snow. It was cloaked and hooded, and it held something in its arms.

  Osiv’s humming changed then to a new song; a song with words. “Hide and seek, hide and seek!” He had put his head on one side and was regarding Kodor. “Hide and seek, hide and seek! Never find, never find! Hide the baby, take the baby, give her to another lady!” The frost sprites hummed a counterpoint. “No one know, no one see, gone is she and mad is he!” Suddenly Osiv’s face twisted into a wild, crazed look. He jumped on the spot, his feet thumping on the floor, and in a changed voice he yelled: “Die, die, die! Die, die, die!”

  “Enough, little one!” Nanta’s command cut through Osiv’s furious shouting, and instantly the outburst ceased.

  “The Lady feared for me,” Nanta said, “so she carried me to the mortal world. She cloaked me in the flesh of humanity, and she gave. me into the keeping of the family I have always called my own. A foundling. A boon. The answer to a prayer. The Lady hid her daughter from the God’s twisted vengeance, and because he could not find my hiding place, he killed her.”

  Osiv was watching Nanta with solemn sadness, appearing to understand every word. The image in the oval was fading, and the light was fading too, dwindling in size and brightness until just a spark no bigger than a firefly remained. Then the spark flickered once and was gone.

  The frost sprites made a sighing sound, and Osiv looked keenly at Kodor. “See, Kodi? They showed me the game. They’re my friends.” He paused. “But Kodi’s my friend, too.” A seraphic smile spread across his face. “Kodi’s my brother.”

  For several seconds Kodor remained absolutely still. He thought, that isn’t so. We’re not brothers, not truly. The same mother bore us, but she—she—Then the thoughts all collapsed in on themselves and in a violent movement he broke the circle and was across the floor, reaching out, hugging Osiv to him.

  “Osiv, Osiv.” He couldn’t say more; the confusion was roiling and nothing made sense, nothing seemed real .

  Outside in the gathering dusk, something howled.

  Osiv sprang away from Kodor, and the look on his face changed. His smooth brow creased into a frown; putting his thumb in his mouth he scurried to the far side of the room and crouched down behind a chair. There were sudden noises in the next room; movement, footsteps, an agitated voice.

  “He is coming,” Nanta said quietly. “He has found his way to me at last.”

  Kodor’s heart pounded under his ribs. “But he must have known. In the palace…”

  “Oh, yes. On the night that the Corolla Lights first appeared, he knew who I was. I couldn’t keep it from him, you see; for the Lights belong to the Lady and only she can summon them.”

  “You summoned them?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t know it. But I think… I believe… It was the night that your father died. I had never witnessed death before, and I think that it awoke something in me. Though I had no conscious knowledge of it then, another, deeper part of me remembered my mother. That part knew what had become of her, and he—our father—sensed it.” She looked up at him. “But even though he had found me, he could not touch me. Until I recognized and acknowledged who I really am, I was beyond his reach.”

  “But now you have acknowledged it … ?”

  “Then I must face him. And I think I will destroy him.�
�

  Her hand was on the door latch before Kodor came to his senses. When reason did return, it was in a single, slamming blow that rocked him to the core.

  “Nanta!” He lunged after her. “Nanta, no, stop!”

  The howling came again, vast and desolate, echoed by a cry of fear from the outer room. Nanta turned, shook her head gently, and Kodor was halted in mid-stride, locked like a statue. He heard Osiv’s delighted giggle, then Nanta was gone, the paralysis vanished and he collided violently with the door as it shut in his face.

  ****

  He was there. She felt his presence, and she saw him in the wind that bent the pines and soughed in their high branches. The snow did not hinder her as she walked smoothly to the hunting lodge gate. From the kennels a dog whimpered uneasily. The gate swung silently open; stepping through, she turned her gaze to the forest road and saw what was flowing through the dusk towards her. Her dream become reality, shapeless and nameless and cruelly familiar. She heard his voice, her father’s voice, the one booming word, malevolent, accusing:

  “YOOOUUU.”

  She said: “I,” and the forest answered in a thousand echoes. The snow fell on her. Ice cracked as she raised her hands. And far overhead, like spectral flames rising from the heart of a vast fire, the Corolla Lights appeared and the stately dance began.

  “I know what you have become,” said Nanta, “and I pity you.”

  The bloating darkness was spilling into the clearing, blotting out the trees. But it could not dim the Lights, and nor could it stop the snow from falling. The snow was her mother’s legacy, her mother’s power, and the God had no hold upon it.

  And far away in a forgotten room of the palace, Father Urss cried out, a hideous, agonized cry.

  “Come you,” said Nanta, as softly as the snow. “Come you now. You have no choice, for I am stronger.”

  He was insane, she knew; and that was why she pitied him. His power was gone, wasted in the desert of jealousy and rage and, for many years now, grief and regret at what he had done: And he was lonely. So lonely.

  “My father.” Scarves of strange colors swayed now around Nanta, as though the Corolla Lights had bowed down to earth to acknowledge and protect her. She saw the darkness shrink in on itself, saw it become something else, a figure, like a man but not a man; a black silhouette of bitter anger and shame. He stood before her—he had no face, but she knew his face, and the pity swelled again—and the great, melancholy voice whispered through the forest:

  “I…HAVE…A…SON.”

  “Yes.” Kodor was there at the lodge gate; Nanta knew. He was watching. Now, he believed.

  “And you have a daughter.” She took a pace forward, felt Kodor move behind her and sent a command: No! Stay back! This was for her alone.

  “All these years you have longed to destroy me,” she said. “My existence reminded you of her, and it reminded you, like a constant goad and pain, of what you did to her. The evil injustice you did to her.” She paused, then continued more softly: “Did you want to destroy your son, too? Did he also remind you of your wrongdoing? You sent him dreams of menace and peril and hatred. But the sprites protected him, as they protected me. They were my mother’s friends and servants, and now they are mine. We are stronger, Father. We are stronger, now, than you.”

  She stepped up to the darkness, her father, and she held out her hands. She would not destroy him. There was no need. It would not put right the old wrong, and the suffering he had brought upon himself was punishment enough. But she could not permit him to rule. Never again. His reign was ended, and a new one must begin.

  The dark made one attempt to envelop her, but the light was too strong and the struggle was over before it began. He raised his dark hands and Nanta raised her pale ones. Their palms touched, merged for just one moment…

  And the God, old and deranged and helpless, knelt before his daughter and touched his brow to her fingers.

  ****

  The scream of mortal agony pierced through the thick walls of the forgotten room and echoed the length of the empty corridor beyond. But the searchers did not hear and did not know, for Father Urss had hidden himself well. He was merely human, and no human vessel could withstand such shock and pain. Perhaps, one day, they would find what remained of him; or perhaps they would not. It did not matter. It was ended. There could be nothing more.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  From the door of the hunting lodge Kodor watched as the dogs were harnessed into their traces. The servants were moving quietly about him, preparing the last of the baggage for loading, but they took great care not to look at his face as they passed, for what showed there was too private to be intruded on.

  Inside the lodge, Osiv was trying to inveigle Marine into a last game before their departure. Marine’s voice as she answered him was still unsteady, but she was bearing up remarkably well. A strong woman, Kodor thought detachedly. And devout. She would get over this in time, and though it would change her, the change would be to the good.

  As for himself…yes; he was changed, too. More changed than anyone beyond these few witnesses would ever know. He had come into his heritage, and it was not the heritage he had ever known or dreamed to know. But it was his. And one day, like Marine, he might learn to accept.

  Tears started to his eyes and he wiped them impatiently away before they could freeze on his eyelashes. He wanted Nanta; wanted her so much that it was a physical pain within him. But Nanta was gone and would never return. He would see her again, after a fashion: for the snow would continue its yearly fall, and the Corolla Lights would continue their eternal dance. But she—her face, her voice, her sweetness—would not be here.

  “I love you,” he had said to her. And: “I know,” she had replied. “But our roads go different ways. And you are my brother. My half brother.” She had smiled then, and he would always remember that smile, as she corrected herself. “That other half of you is human. It cannot be, Kodor. It is not what I want; for I have another and greater destiny. And you have a wife.”

  A wife. Pola Imperatrix. Kodor almost, but not quite, laughed as he thought of Duke Arec and how he would react to the news that Imperator Osiv IV was alive and well. Arec would not like it at all. But then Arec had known about the plot to murder Osiv, and unless he wished that knowledge to become common, he would do well to hold his tongue and his temper. Pola had not known. Pola, indeed, was perhaps the most innocent of them all, and he had been unjustly cruel to her. He had misjudged her. And she was his wife…

  He looked through the open gate. The place where Nanta had stood, where he had had his last sight of her, was just an unremarkable patch of the clearing floor. But he would remember it. He would build a shrine here, for the sake of that remembrance.

  “I will watch over you,” she had said. Her last words to him. “I will watch over you, my brother.” And then she had gone, and the old, broken God had gone with her. Back to the place of their origins, behind the north wind. A place where he could not follow, because a part of him was human.

  “Kodi, Kodi!” Osiv came bounding from the lodge and grabbed Kodor’s arm in a ferociously excited grip. “Going to have a sleigh-ride!”

  Marine followed Osiv to the door. Her veil and wimple were in place once more, and her face was very pale; but she managed a weak smile as he looked at her.

  “The Imperator is very eager, Your Highness,” she said.

  Kodor returned her smile. “Titles, Marine, titles. Remember what I said?” There would be changes in Vyskir; great changes. He had never thought of himself as a reformer, but perhaps the talent had lain dormant in him all along. Osiv would be happy. He would see to that. And Pola was intelligent; in fact, she probably had a political prowess to match his own. With her help, he could rule wisely and well, and if she would forgive him—as he believed she would—they could learn to get along together kindly enough. It was not what he had wanted, what he had dreamed of. But perhaps he had had enough of dreams.

  A call fro
m across the compound: “We’re ready, sire!”

  Sire. Your Majesty. Your Highness. Your Grace…Kodor laughed softly. Changes. Many changes. And Nanta would watch over him. The Lady is dead; long live the Lady…

  “Come, then, little brother!” He put an arm around Osiv’s shoulders. “Time for our sleigh-ride. And then home.”

  Osiv scowled. “No medicine!”

  “No. No medicine.”

  Osiv looked at Marine. “You’ve got an ugly dress on,” he said, then: “Where’s Nandi?”

  Something caught at Kodor’s heart. He pushed it down. “She is here, Osiv. In a way. She always will be.”

  Osiv tilted his head quizzically. Then he smiled. “I know,” he said.

  They walked together to the waiting sleigh.

  Epilogue: One Year Later

  The prospect of yet another great public occasion was not what the Imperator would ideally have wanted. There had been so many such demands over the past year that he felt glutted and more than a little overladen with them. Funerals, weddings, inaugurations; and, most recent and spectacular of all, the coronation and all that it had entailed and implied.

  This latest celebration, though, was a little different to the rest, for it reflected a private achievement and, though the feeling had taken Kodor a little by surprise, a private joy. It wasn’t just the fact that he and Pola had fulfilled what might be seen as one of their prime obligations. It was what that fulfillment meant, and what it implied for the future, that gave him the greatest satisfaction.

  The news of the Imperatrix’s pregnancy had been received with enormous delight by the peoples of Vyskir and Sekol alike. Duke Arec was ecstatic, and had written of his intention to return to the Metropolis again as soon as the spring began, to “play his proper role” in the preparations for his first grandchild’s arrival. Arec knew now that his role was not and never could be as influential as he had intended it to be. But the alternative, as Kodor had privately and delicately pointed out to him some time ago, was a good deal less desirable. A month before that private interview, a servant had by sheer chance come across the remains of a human body in a rarely opened room of the palace. The body was badly decayed, and the imperial physician, choking back nausea, had declared that if he did not know such things were impossible, he would have said it had exploded from within. Kodor had made no comment to that. From the skull, clothing and teeth the corpse was identifiable beyond reasonable doubt as that of Exalted Father Urss. That was all Kodor needed to know, and it gave him a useful lever in his dealings with Arec. Arec might have played no direct part in the plot against Osiv, but he had been well aware of it and had given it his blessing. It would be a great pity if his compliance should be made known to the peoples of their countries. It would not reflect well on him. Both the prime movers were now of a certainly dead, Kodor had said; and if they were to be left to shoulder the blame alone, a little less interference in the affairs of Vyskir was surely a small price to pay. Arec was shrewd enough to know when he was outmanoeuvred, and had given way with a grace that was both a surprise and a relief to his son-in-law. He was learning to live with his disappointment, and without his meddling, or the insidious, manipulating influence of Father Urss to hamper them, Kodor and Pola were finding life a great deal easier and more pleasant.