The Ice Queen
Page 28
The swords of the gods’ statues gleamed silver in the moonlight, the shade of the trees upon their faces while their eyes peered into the night.
The enemy drew near; the Dark War began anew.
A wind of unrest blew over Ull as the night drew on. Yidrith stood on the battlements near Hama, where once his grandfather Raed stood, the cruel wind whipping his hair.
Yidrith watched the growing storm over the western mountains; movement caught his vision. He whirled as a grey-cloaked figure approached. Beneath the mantle shone silver light, illuminating the face of Mab, Queen of the Fairies.
“The night grows bitter,” Mab said. “Belial moves with fury into our lands.”
Belial must face Caer. Belial bears the soul of the void, her soul a shadow boiling and writhing with her hatred for mortals and men. She will watch as the mortal kingdoms fall, as the Kings and peasants alike bleed and die beneath her feet.
Yidrith shook his head, as though his mind felt foggy after sleeping. He glanced towards the distant mountains, beyond which the towers of Eliudnir raged no longer. Now their fire and gloom covered Sul.
Mab listened to the cries and screams of men, women, and children emanating from the eastern villages, which the mortal ear could not perceive. They pounded in her head for salvation from the evil coming upon them again.
“What did you say--,” Yidrith began and turned to see what she watched in the west. The angry clouds hanging over the demon’s place seemed to grow. Yidrith glanced sidelong at the fairy, who nodded.
“We must sound the alarm. The demon approaches.” Yidrith urged.
“The ancients made the council for such things,” Mab replied. “You sat on the council. Now you will sit on it again, for the Dark Wars will now end, for the good or for the ill.”
Mab saw into Caer’s mind as she slept with Headred. Caer dreamed of the coming of Belial, and Mab understood Caer’s future pain. Fear and doubt lingered in Caer’s mind, a promise made to the people she could not fulfill. And in her mind Mab wept for Caer.
Clouds shrouded Ull, and Yidrith felt Mab grab his arm to steady him. He found the flint and candle. For a moment he believed a cloud passed over the moon, until he saw the sky.
Moments before he watched the clouds over the demon’s keep, as they seemed to grow larger in the distance, but now those very clouds, blacker than the night, boiled and raged above Sul.
“The war begins,” Mab said. “There will be no dawn, no moonlight or starlight until this ends.”
Yidrith breathed and tried to calm himself.
“I will call the council. We have much to discuss, much must now happen to change the world forever.”
He handed the candle to Hama and descended the stairs with Mab, following her pale silver glow. The storms rode into Sul, toward the destiny of all.
Not long after, Yidrith sat in wonder in the great hall of Idalir with Eadwine and Gavial. Nearby Cahros, Gehrdon, and Sestina milled with restless anticipation, while Elric and Girth conversed in hushed tones with Mab. Whista sat with Altha and tended to Widsith in his silver bowl. Upon the dais Caer stood with Headred and Beoreth, above them all. He wondered if they would live to see the dawn.
“Messengers have come from my keep at Beaverlake,” Gavial said, “with news of the demon and her movements. She crossed the Niðafjöll Mountains with her army. Soon she will come to the land of my people, and there the war will begin.”
“You mistake her attacks for war,” Mab said. “The war began long ago. This will merely be our last battle.”
“But now it will end,” Headred said.
Caer sat deep in thought, knowing in her heart the war would end. But to what end she did not know.
“They will come to Ull,” Mab predicted. “The demon made machines of war you cannot comprehend. With them she will tear down the walls and slaughter all who remain here.”
“She will not,” Yidrith said in defiance. “This city stood for many ages; it cannot end now. Its people are strong, and its walls are stronger.”
“Much will now change,” Mab replied. “The war will bring great destruction to this place. I have foreseen it.”
Caer’s eyes met the deep silver eyes of the fairy. She saw the fairy sidhes within those eyes, the silver palaces in golden glades Mab longed for, and she watched as they passed forever into Elphame in the victory of Belial.
In her mind she heard Mab speak. For the shadow’s power to be broken, hope must endure …
The councilors fought amongst themselves about the war, the city, the outcome of what would be, as the Fairy Queen advised her. Mab gazed at them from where she sat; she moved around and spoke while they argued. For a moment the Fairy Queen reminded Caer of her mother as she walked and wept, her tears falling.
You must follow your destiny, to heal the pain of the world…
“The horn of war must be sounded!” Yidrith shouted over everyone. “We must gather the people here, in the castle, so the warriors can defend it!”
“There are not enough warriors in these walls to battle an army!” Gavial yelled back.
Some nodded while others dissented.
Mab sat between Elric and Girth, whose eyes pleaded to Caer. Mab spoke to Caer, the one she counseled. As the daughter of the Queen, Caer alone could end this and bring harmony again to the races.
Caer wondered why, when Belial waged war on them, those meant to rule the people could not rule their anger, why they fought amongst themselves instead of fighting their enemy. And she knew when Belial arrived at Glasheim, ahead of her army, and waited for Caer.
“Sound the call of war,” Caer told them. The councilors sat and became still as statues. “The war comes to us now.”
*****
Beren paced among the standing stones of the gods. She saw this place before, in waking and in dreams from the beginning of her days. Here her mother conceived her. The people considered it the most sacred of all the places of the old ways.
She walked away from the ruins. Her sister rode from Eliudnir to this sacred place. Now Caer returned, and they would face the final battle.
Despair overcame Beren, her thoughts muddled. She felt the doom of this land. Whatever might happen, the world would be changed.
Belial rode to the stone circle at Glasheim, an image of death incarnate, hair as black as night, skin as white as clouds, eyes glistening and black, searching for her quarry.
Belial saw Beren walking among the stones outside of the circle, lost in her thoughts. She felt her sister’s doubt, her fear of what would come, and the sorrow for the part she played.
Their eyes met, and they stared at each other, the Dark Lord meeting the Witch Queen she long endured. Belial gave a blood-curdling shriek, riding fast to the circle upon her phantom steed, her drawn sword glimmering with evil power.
The tree spirits who slept seemed to awaken and watch Beren, who faced her demonic sister.
Belial reached the circle with the power of the wind. Clouds gathered above.
“So now the time comes, my sister, to end all your hope,” Belial spat, coming up to Beren in the twilight.
“The end nears,” Belial laughed as she taunted Beren. “I can feel it in my heart. I can see it in the minds of the people in this land. Even the earth beneath our feet can feel the footsteps of my army and grows troubled.”
“I do not despair, my sister, demon of the wasteland,” Beren said, bravery in her voice. “The end will come when the gods ordain it. None can foretell from whence the end will arise, and so I do not let my heart be troubled.
“‘Tis not our way to determine the fate of what must be. What must be will come to pass. Hope will always endure, as the races have always done, and help those in need.”
“I have seen the way it must be,” Belial replied. “These lands are my prize, and when I have taken your throne from your daughter, I will be Queen. I will hold Miðgarðir and have the power to defeat all of my enemies, as I have shown your daughter.”
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br /> Beren sighed. “Look at her of whom you speak. I have seen her as well, and you speak with the arrogance of your father. What remains of him in you will destroy you if you let him.”
Belial felt the coldness she always knew rise in her body as snow began to fall. “In the eyes of Caer I see not thirst for power or beauty, but love for you. Power others may have and wield, and through power I will conquer the world, for I spread my will upon these lands. But I desire now for you to fade into nothing, sister, and watch as your child’s blood spills onto the earth, and mingles with your frozen tears.” Belial’s gaze never unlocked from Beren’s.
“I always knew,” Beren said, the ancient battle of hope and despair waging in their eyes. “Your heart is evil and desolate, and so always it will remain.
“For you, Belial, might have chosen what no other among gods and men could give to you. To turn back the nature of Moloch and embrace the heritage of the witches, to choose what good lay within you rather than the evil you conjure. Yet I see the choice did not matter, for your natural destiny won, when Moloch made you and forged your fate.”
Belial shrieked, her echoing through the woodlands. The clouds roared with thunder, and lightning poured from the sky.
Beren cried in the midst of the storm, as Belial waited for Caer, and fearing in her heart this would not be the end.
*****
In Glasheim, in the circle of stones, Belial awaited Caer. The Fairy Queen could see the Dark Lord, her gaze reaching further than the mortal eyes around her. Mab looked where the fires of Belial’s armies burned, as they wreaked devastation on Sul and made their way to this city.
She knew battle would come to them inside the thick walls of Ull.
Always now evil clawed at Caer, forcing her under. The kingdom of Sul faded to nothing, the dusts of time shifting, erasing it all.
In such evil times, Mab longed for the peace of Elphame, the golden glades and the silver palaces of the fairy sidhes. There she saw what would come in this Dark War, and what would happen to the earth after.
The wheel of time would turn, and the memory of men would fade.
An age would pass before the memories of mortals would forget; centuries of magic would thrive, passed from mother to daughter among the witches, and from father to son among the prophets. But for the fairy, it would be as a day, and afterward the night would come.
As immortals they would remain, she and her people, in the golden glades in silver palaces beneath the fairy sidhes. Men would forget the legends; forget Belial, like her father Moloch before her, overshadowed the world.
Even after Belial, evil would follow men. Evil, Mab knew, could never be destroyed. For just as Belial made the choice of fate, so every man, woman, and even child among the mortals would also choose between their dual nature, and while most would choose nobility and peace, some would choose deceit and destruction. And evil would endure until the utter waste of Miðgarðir.
It would thrive in the hearts of men; it would move through their veins like a disease. Their minds would turn to its ways, their thoughts to its thoughts. And good would survive to destroy the evil in the hearts of men.
The world would change, and time would move on.
Mab stood atop the gate tower, the breeze whipping her hooded cloak and fair hair, as she looked into the storm, toward the demon and Glasheim.
She felt the winds of change came upon the land. Snow fell as Mab pulled her thin grey fairy cloak around her. Even after Yidrith and the others went inside to escape the storm she stood there, for the winds and the cold now became the anger and the fury of the demon, and if she endured, the elements would bend to her whim.
If Belial did not survive, there would be no more suffering at her hands and the cold of her spirit.
In the west, the storm came over the mortal villages, rolling and boiling above. Mab peered around her and perceived the end approached; her vision carried her across the lands, to where the demon and the Ice Queen fought the battle of their wills.
Her vision broke when she turned, hearing the creak of the stairs. Caer greeted her as she stepped onto the platform.
“My Lady of the Fairies,” Caer bowed her head. “I fear the shadow comes now. I do not know what to do to face my fate, or whither my heart will choose.”
“Little time remains now. Lord Belial comes forth, and you must be ready to drive her from this place once and for all.”
Caer frowned. She heard again the words of her mother, words of doubt and betrayal planted their hideous seeds in her mind.
Something glittered at Mab’s side. Caer glimpsed a sword, forged in the sidhes by fairy magic, made in the fashion of the immortal’s crafts, but not so old, with writing upon the hilt. Caer realized Mab expected the battle to come to Ull.
“Very well.” Caer walked towards the stairs. The words and actions of Beren disturbed her, though not as much as the possibility she would face the demon and fail. She feared what Belial would do in her victory. “Hope, Mab of the fairies, fled my heart already.”
“Those are the words of the demon,” Mab soothed.
The young woman glanced back and saw the Lady, no longer as a fair being, but as a kind mother looking upon a child.
“You tell me to follow the will of my fate. But my spirit does not know its own will or strength.”
“Have peace, Caer. You will find your strength within you, as you have before. Take care not to give into the will of the shadow haunting you, for would will find it the greatest, deepest desire of her cold spirit for you to fail.”
Caer nodded and descended from the fortification, heading toward the inner wall in the snowfall, leaving the Fairy Queen upon the tower.
A look of steely determination overcame Caer’s face. Whether or not she would be their savior, she would face Belial.
Mab waited upon the tower, facing west. Out there the Dark Army approached. Soon they would come upon the city and the battle would begin. The people of the ancient city knew few hours remained before they must face this doom.
In the distance she witnessed what looked like a low hanging cloud, thicker than those swirling above, moving towards the city. She smiled at the eagles and hawks of the mountains as they approached.
The birds came upon the city, swirling around the gate tower until it seemed to disappear in their mass. The men of the tower, enclosed in the guardroom, shrank back in fear as the raptors surrounded the Fairy Queen.
“So,” Mab said to no one in particular as she perceived what they saw. “The demon comes forth, to avenge Moloch. Unto Glasheim she comes, and here she thinks she will receive what she needs. But no longer will her power be allowed here, and the Dark Army she unleashes upon these lands will not live through the night.
“Go now, my faithful friends, unto your homes. You are released from my service and the service of all magicks. No longer shall you serve others. Fly free in all lands.”
The birds departed, and the frightened warriors saw Mab once more, atop the gate tower, the wind in her hair and the storm swirling upon her.
A new resolve formed in Mab’s heart. When the eagles and hawks disappeared into the mountains, she turned her eyes to the south once more, where Belial waited.
“Let them come,” she said, turning to the southwest where the Dark Army forged its path across Sul, and thought of Glasheim, where Caer would face the wrath of the demon.
*****
Caer saw the evil Belial would send into the world. Houses burned under skies of shadow. Even now the fires of her army passed through the forests toward Ull.
As it must be, she thought of the death and pain to come, for hope to endure.
Snow fell around her, on the hood of her midnight blue cloak, with an ancient knotted pattern embroidered in gold thread by the fairies.
The circlet of gold rested on her head. She felt the warmth of the fairies in the silken white gown, the clothes of a Queen and a witch, the clothes she would wear to the place where her destiny woul
d be decided.
As she passed through the door to the west quarter, she walked among cold and dark houses. Those who for years remained here retreated to other parts of the city. The women and children huddled in fear in their parent’s homes, the men, also fearful, girded themselves for the battle at the gates.
Now, she thought, the future would be made.
A lantern glowed at the west gate. A grizzled, ancient gatekeeper sat on a stool, and watched the figure move through his empty world.
“Who goes there?” he asked, pushing himself to his feet.
Her face came into view, illuminated under the dark blue veil by his lantern. “Caer, daughter of Beren, the Queen of this city.”
He sank back to the stool. “And what business do you bring here, milady?”
“Open the gates so I may leave--”
His glare on her never faded.
“--and lock it behind me.”
“Do you leave us now?” he asked in a whisper. “The demon comes here!”
“No, I must face her alone.”
He stared at her and did not move. Caer stared back at him. She reached into his mind and felt it become pliable beneath her will. Mesmerized he stood and unlocked the gate, revealing a small cave, beyond which Caer saw a wide land of snow and forests, covered by Belial’s shadow.
“Lock it when I leave. Forget I have left.”
He nodded, and when she felt satisfied he would obey, she entered the cavern.
Caer stopped and listened to the howl of the wind as it whipped her cloak. Almost lost in the wind’s howl, she heard the gatekeeper lock the gate.
Without another thought she trudged into the conjured winter, toward the stones at Glasheim where Belial waited.
*****
Mab stood still and listened as someone climbed stairs behind her in the midnight hours, the red glow of fiery torches lighting the city. The west lit with the flames of the demon and her servants, glowing in the evil night.
“Where did Caer go?” Headred demanded. He searched everywhere in the city, but she disappeared. And he saw visions of what would come, of the facing of the demon, and the death of his love.
“I’ve waited for you to come.” Mab ignored his furious glare.
“Where did she go?” he shouted as the growing wind began to howl.